The NRA and their Blickies

able to get your hands on anything. I mean, you know I I I used to be a lot more fearful of that sort of ship like it was a nice maybe this is just being a white guy, but leaving the Deep South for California and the West Coast, it was like, oh, suddenly I'm way less scared about

driving drugs around in my car. That's pretty true. Okay, So I'm gonna open up the woll before I before I go to this story, I want to ask you a question just off the head that I feel like, I feel like it would be a fun exercise right now off the head. Can you think of as many like nickname terms for guns? Right now? Just off the head? How many nicknames can you think of? Just rabble them? Off? Heater?

A strap, a piece. Uh, I mean nicknames and not like just like a side arm um a bang stick um boomstick um yeah, blicky Berner, chopper, you know what I'm saying, Shopper, Yeah, yeah, I just burner and heater, I feel yeah, that's those there's your cousins. Yeah yeah, burner a heater. I just think, uh, there is. I don't know there's anything besides like sex and guns that has more nicknames. Yeah. I've always been partial to strap. I don't know why, but that's the one that I

find most satisfying. I think strap helps. I think strap like in a lot of ways. I also feel like the slang you turn you use for your gun has a lot to do with like the year you graduated high school. Yes, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah, like that, you know what I'm saying. So like, yes, strap is like, yeah, you listen to nineties rap, you know what I'm saying. That's why exactly that strap. You know what I'm saying, Yeah, you know, don't make you have to grab my strap, go rat tat tat tat.

If it's chopper, it's like, well, you you've listened to Southern rap, you know, what I'm saying, like you were in the trap music, so you know anyway, and then there's blicky, which is what I name. That's why I haven't heard that one. Blicky Blacky is what the young boys use. You know, Yeah, it's blicky. You know a lot of times. What is what is the etymology because all the others heater obviously it's hot, right a strap you like strap a gun on? You know, uh, the

pieces obvious, Like what is what is a blicky? I have no idea, Robert, Okay, you have no idea where it came. Bro I just heard the little home he say it. You hope to say it because I never know with with the kids sling, I never know if they're just working with us, right, like if there is trick the old people into thinking blicky was a thing. Alright, alright, producer here, producer here, Blicky means a pistol. To blick

someone down is to gun them down. The term blicky has been used by every top forty rap artist you've ever listened to in the last five years. Oh okay, okay, to blick That makes sense because so they turned a verb into an adverb or a verb into anna it's like calling it a gap because it's like like yeah, yeah, yeah, I forgot about get Yeah. That makes so many slings. There's a lot of slag for guns. Yeah, because of the obvious love affair that all of America has for God. Boy,

we sure do love guns. God we love these things. We love guns more than maybe any other country has ever loved, like a thing that isn't bread or some sort of dipping oil. Yes, I was gonna say there anything that's not food or condiment or yeah, because the way Americans love guns is like is like the way French people love their bread, or like in Thailand they love that like chilly oil that they put in stuff, or like like it's it's like it's it's a kind

it's a comprehensive love that is normally reserved for food stuffs. Yes, that is that a food stuff that is like such a like a stand in for your national and cultural identity, you know what I'm saying, Like like kimchi is a stand in for what it means to be from this part of the world. It's feel like that. It's the

same way like hummus. Right, Like there's this massive conflict over hummus in in in Palestine with the Israelis anyway, I'm not gonna get into that, but like it's there's a there's so much identity wrapped up in food and in America it's like guns. Yeah, yeah, it's not like this is our this is our Nigerian jall off Rice is our guns. This is a glock nineteen. Yes, this is a glock nineteen. We just loved him things, um, which is just a matter of observation, not of evaluation anyway.

So sentences the politics, it must start with some sort of connection to uh inner cityhood living. I'ma tell y'all story, and then get into what we actually want to talk about. And I would imagine in Robert, in some way, shape or form, you may have a similar sort of memory. M hmm. Maybe not the same, but similar. So I grew up you people heard this many times. You've heard this many times. I grew up in east side of South Central and then over to area called the San

Gabriel Valley, predominantly Latino area. But what comes with being in a lot of ways as a person of color is we still went to church every Sunday, right, and in going to church, you know, our churches were very different than sort of white Western evangelical that was worried about like purity culture and you know, nationalism and stuff like that. They was just like, don't join a gang and don't get nobody pregnant. That was the extent of our youth ministry. That being said, we went off to

youth camp. Right, So we did summer camp like every other little white wonderbread you know church. We did youth camp like everybody else. The only difference is youth camp cost too much. But every year I know this now as an adult, every year that like summer camp place used to do a week that was a third of the price. Right, So that now all the inner city churches can go, which I didn't know that I thought I was. I thought I thought it called the same

as everybody else. I used to wonder why we would go to youth camp, and it just bed like it would just be like a bunch of just rival gangs, rival neighborhoods, because we just we were the inner city churches. I had no idea that's how it work. That's just how it works. So anyway, where youth camp, uh you know, dudes, is like stacking on each other like you're stacking is like showing gang signs whatever. Right, But either way, you know,

everyone's having different experiences. Some people are having a good time, some people aren't. Some people not involved in none of this stuff, whatever the case. Maybe this is the way

sort of youth camp went. So there was one year that there was these boys that I met that you know, went to another church like cross town whatever, who decided, most of them decided that they just ain't like me, right for whatever reason, I just happened to be their target, right, which I know you understand that did somebody just decided I don't like you don't know why they just don't. So once they decided that, uh, any anything I ever did was funny, a joke, whatever the case may be.

Right now now at my church, I mean, we got some gees, you know what I'm saying, Like, we got some brothers that are like not even paying that no attention because they know if it go down, like we will mop the floor with these dudes. So like, don't even you don't even need to acknowledge the fact that they cracking jokes about you, because if it comes down to it, I'll beat the ship out of these boys, right, So that's kind of like the attitude of my little

like sort of seventh eighth grade group of guys. Anyway, last night, of those gotten waight before I say that, of those guys, there was like one or two of them that, like I actually made friends with right that we were cracking jokes. They loved hip hop like I did, whatever, whatever, whatever the case may be, I kind of made friends with two of them. At one point at the end of the last night, I was headed to the bathroom and it's camp, right, so it's like a big old

shared bathroom sit wastion, right. So I was headed to the bathroom and I could see the group of dudes behind me kind of walking a little further behind me right now. As I was headed to the bathroom, the two that were my friends caught up to me, right, and we're just talking whatever whatever, Hey where you you know? Hey,

so you know when y'all bust leaving whatever whatever. So we're just talking about that, and then he whispers, don't go in the bathroom, and then just kept talking, you know, and I was like what and he was just like he's just like real quick, not like don't go in there. Don't go in there. So I was like, he goes, but if you are, he just whispering. If you go in, just go right back out, right. So so I was like, Oh, they're gonna jump me. They're gonna jump me in the bathroom, right.

So at first I was like, I scared of these folkso said, that's my first thought, right, But then but then I looked behind me and I was like, it's actually a lot of y'all, you know. And I wasn't with none of I wasn't with none of my boys. Like, I was just walking by myself. So I was like, by the time any of my friends get here, I

probably have had a couple of concussions. So it's like the way fights work, if you're fighting experience comes from movies, is that is that if you're one person and there's multiple people, you're going to lose the fight, right, Like it doesn't really even matter like training whatever. Every now and then you get somebody who's like a freak at that, but you're generally you're just gonna get your ass feats. Yes, they're not going to attack you one on one. They're not.

It's not in a single file that they attack like movies. No, you're gonna get piled on, You're just gonna get wailed, yes, And I'm like, it's urinals, it's toy Like, I'm like, a nasty stuff can happen? A yeah, I'm not going

in there. So that's what I did. I just went in and went out right, And I did look back until I was far enough away, and I saw Autumn dudes looking out the other door and then looking back at their homies that the guys that that gave me the clue, right, And I can't hear what they saying, but I could see them kind of being like basically like what the funk man, like you know what I'm saying, and then being like, oh, I don't know, you know,

right whatever, just then playing it cool like I don't know, like whatever, you know. All that to say, even though that they're a group of people decided that this is the way we felt about this dude, there's no way of telling that if everybody actually felt that way, because it's possible that more than just those two dudes was like why are we why do we even care about

this fool? Like what what difference does it make what he's doing or not doing you know what I'm saying, But the rules are you just can't speak up because even if you do, even if you like, I'm down for the them, down for the set, But like I just I don't. I don't. I don't know why we why we're so worried about that. Actually, I think I kind of think some of this is stupid. You know what I'm saying, But you're not gonna say nothing. You're

not allowed to say nothing it. But but what what happens is oftentimes you're not the only one that feel that way. Matter back, most of y'all feel that way. And then what the Homie Jojo with the Homie Jojo said is sometimes some of the stuff like that the set gotta do is because just because you're O g like, got his feelings hurt from some girl, and now y'all

gotta beef with this block. But it's really just because you're ology just got his feelings heard from some girl, and like, but nobody's saying nothing, you know what I'm saying, because you gotta follow whatever that person was saying to

do because they in charge. Yeah, I mean no, that like everything works that way, like to a degree, Like that's like, uh why a lot of Like you can you could get on Twitter and see like what the what the rage machine is like going after every day and half the time it's like it's shipped like that. It's like somebody somebody had a beef with somebody else, and so now everybody's angry at like a whole group of people, right, Like I mean, it's it's it's history too.

It's like it's the fucking it's World War One, right, Yeah, nobody wanted to go in, but like somebody fucked with like somebody else's friend, and so now we all got to get in, ye and now we all like it's it's snowballs. Like one dude gets fucking clapped, and like because of that, it winds up being twenty million people get fucking clapped. Like that's the way the people work, right,

It's the way that people were. The psychology isn't any different when it's like a neighborhood as opposed to you know, the Hollands allern Empire, right exactly. And also the way that the n r A has a death grip on

the right wing. There we go, there's where we're at. Yeah, I want to talk about Yeah, I want to talk about this, uh this research that from Michael's Dr Michael Siegel, Yes, Siegel from Tough University did where he surveyed the way that he's like right wing Republican and r A you know,

gun supporting people actually feel about restrictions on the Second Amendment. Yeah, and that and why ain't nobody saying that, Well, yeah, that's a that's a that's a broad topic, right because it relates um, an awful lot of I mean, this is something that that gets brought up, perhaps not enough, but like a ton of different restrictions. Like when when you talk about stuff like assault weapons bans and whatnot, um, like bands on specific weapons or even things like maccaps,

it gets a lot more controversial. But there's a bunch of stuff that like gun owners are broadly supportive of and the like, which like universal background checks, and then there's stuff that gun owners are supportive of depending on how you bring it up to them. Right, the red flag laws have been heavily politicized, um, and so if you say, like, do you support red flag laws, and a lot of gun owners heads, they'll think about whatever it is. Fox News warned them, red flag laws were were.

But if you say, like, hey, if some dude like beats the ship out of his wife and kids, should he be able to buy a gun? They'll be like, of course not right, So yeah, yeah, And I'm one of the most important things that the n r A has done over the last there I mean, it's been like forty years, but it's really escalated since since about

two thousand. Um. One of the most important things they've done is flatten any kind of discussion about gun control to confiscation of all guns versus nothing right um and if you can this is this is not the n r A pioneered this, and we talk about this in an episode of a three party on Behind the Bastards

coming up. They're not the only thing that this has done. Basically, the idea is that the right wing recognized early on and and really started moving towards us in the nineteen seventies that the best thing to do was to build single issue voters whose single issue was something they would not compromise on and that the Republican Party would make central to their um to their actives. And abortion is one of these right um. Guns is another. And the beauty of a single issue voter is you don't have

to improve their lives. You don't have to like fix anything, you don't have to be good in any aspect of governing. All you have to do is stand with them on that single issue. Are you exactly exactly? Um? And you know that is disastrous, has been disastrous for the concept of democracy. It's been disastrous for like the potential future of the human species. But it's very smart politics, Like

this is objectively good politics. Brilliant. Yeah, you've you've you've already gotten to the punch line at the show, which is great. Um. So let's let's uh, let's uh reverse engineer the point that Robert just made, which is the point of this episode, which is you create a person into a single issue voter. Either you down with us or you not down with us, right, and it works,

you know. Uh. So, like you said, there are four laws that, according to this research, uh, that would probably drop gun deaths by and they say that like sevent of gun owners would actually support this if it's presented to them correctly, like you said, the permit requirements, red flag laws, uh, universal background ground checks. But yeah, the idea of like if a person has a history of violence probably probably shouldn't. Yeah, man, if you're sucking hitting

your kids, like right, that's not a you have. You have a right. People who are program control don't like to talk about it this way, but you do. You have a human right to own a firearm. So of course, if you're talking about restricting people's human rights, which you are with gun control, you have to be careful about how you do it because among other things, that can the consequences of that can extend beyond guns, because that's

the way that like jurisprudence works. But it's pretty well established that if you do violence to people, you can lose certain rights, and broadly speaking, we all seem to be fine with that, Like that's just this is just yeah, it's like this is what what for some reason why of democrats don't know how to talk. But when they say things like common sense laws, like the fact that when it comes out of a mouth it sounds condescending, but it's what it is. It's like, no, for real,

like we do this all the time. If you violate certain social codes, you kind of don't get those rights that are expected of those who participate in society. You know, and if if I could have notes for them. Like one of the things would be, when you're trying to

talk about this, don't use terms. If you call it a red flag block right, right, then the right wing media can take that and describe define a red flag law the way they do, which is like, oh, they're going to define being conservative as like, you know, a red flag and one, and then they're going to take your guy if you if you instead say we should take guns away from people who hit their spouses and kids, right,

it's hard to argue with. Yeah, and it gets to the core of what you're trying to do, right, yes, um, yes, but what but what radicalization does is what you explain is you boil it down to a sense of what we're getting to. You boil it down to a sense

of identity. This that this thing is a stand in for who we are, right, So to abridge that is to abridge me as a person, you know, And that's uh a lot of times even in in like in a city outreach, when we tell you, you know what I'm saying, you're trying to get this kid did off his flag, and it's like you're asking me to drop who I am, you know, and then, but there's a lot of work into understanding. I understand where your brain goes with that. I understand the history of your relationship

to this thing. However, it does not have to be this way, right, Yeah, he means so, yeah, you know about your boy Harlan Carter. Yes, we're again. We're doing like a three part of our Bastard's about him. Yeah, okay, hardly about him specifically. Yeah, he is. He is one of the most important people to know about to understand how we got here. He really he's like I think he's one of those names that like, yeah, bro, like you make a movie about him where it's like his

effect on the life we live now. The fact that there isn't more constant on him is either a proves his brilliance or b is like, oh, y'all, we missed a biggie, you know, because of who he is. Now, I could do I got notes on him, but you're about to do that. Terms like seems like this is a promo for what are the ones you got coming up now? Since apparently you're doing that, Uh, and you can run I could do a quick overview. You can do a quick overview' up to you yeah, I've just

done it. Um, So yeah, let's let's let's have you hit it and um. Because I'm interested in talking about him in the context of like he he he what he did to the n r A to take it over, and it's not obviously his his part. Part of what I think is important about the story of Harlan Carter is that like he hits both the militarization of the police and the birth of American gun culture as exists, um, which is crucially important. But like the way he the way he whipped things together in the n r A

is um it was. It was some fucking hood politics, it really was. Yes, yeah, so pre nineteen seventy seven n r A was not the n r A that we know of. You know, started off at the end of was the Civil War, right the war, and in the Civil War it was like all right, you got these like hotheads that kind of don't really know how to shoot, you know what I'm saying, And like, okay, listen, man, teacher,

how to shoot. You know what I'm saying, take care of your weapon and of a fundamentally good place, which is that boy. I wish I wish our Northern inner City kids were better at shooting Confederates. Yes, yes, that was just which is a noble goal. Yes, was just like, look, man, it's how you out a gun. You feel the uh you know, it is how you as what you do is I take care of your gun. Just normal gun safety, you know, and basic marksmanship, basic marksmanship, you know what

I'm saying. And and obviously like the idea of like none of them were like what we would call Second Amendment absolutists. Like no, the Second Amendment. What no one talked about. It, no one talked about was that it was a it was there had not, there was not up until fairly recently, like within the twentieth century, the

Supreme Court like basically didn't touch the Second Um. It was it was not like a big part of this is that everyone like guns were not restricted very much in many places in the West, right because they just weren't. An individual firearm was not yet particularly threatening, right yeah, yeah,

you know. And then into the Black panthers, right right, there's a go ahead, Yeah no, no, no no, police, give your bed, and then I'll say the thing I was gonna say into the Black Panthers, which was like just like what happens with everything America does. Once black people realize it's like, oh wait, we could do that too, then everybody goes wait, hold on now, wait wait wait, wait,

hold on now. Right? So uh, an interesting example this seeing how we're in our our mid term and you know out here in Cali we just sent off our our our primary ballots. Uh. Funny thing about the end of mass slavery in the beginning of reconstruction. The weird middle between that and the Black codes was once we got the right, we had rights to vote, you know what I'm saying. Once we was finally set free, and what did we do? Well, we voted right and caused

some problems. And that was the problem because we started putting. It was like all black governments because there was more of us. And we was like, well, you're telling me I get to say as to who in charge, Well, I want my uncle in charge because he ain't gonna with me. That man never owned me. Right, So it worked right, and once it worked, just like hold on now wait this this this working too good. So they said, okay, now we can't have everybody vote. You can vote if

yo grandmama could vote. Right, it was like Okay, yeah, fother what we're doing here. It's like it's like I get it. That's like very sneaky, but yes, yes, it's like oh so okay, I see what you did. Dare you know what I'm saying? Uh so, so take that theory about like, oh crap, it actually works. Was the same, Well, the Pathers realized it's like, wait a minute, we have

to right to bear arms. Yeah, and all thanks to the First Civil Rights Act there were that's what like because initially after emancipation, there was like a whole a year or two where it was like, well they still don't there's nothing that guarantees these people rights even though they've been emancipated. And then Congress was like okay, fuck

you like yes, yeah exactly and yeah. So after that point, yeah, and this was like not it didn't start with the panthers because there's like, um, what was it that it was in nineteen nineteen when there was like that series of like mass lynchings and stuff like. Yeah, of like uh, black communities being like, we have a right to bear arms and all these people want us dead. We should probably we should get some guns. Yeah you know what I'm saying so like like, don't think we pacifist. You

feel me like, yeah, I'm a passive fists. Yeah exactly. There's if you've had like members of your family murdered in the woods by mobs, you're you can't really be a pacifist. No, you're gonna carry guns, saying so do something right. So, yeah, so you know we you had open cary laws. He was like, all right, well you say we could have them. So we've been to have them and they say, wait, wait, hold on, hold on, we want y'all to have them. Yeah, that's whoa what

made you think you guys? Wait, you had this right. We didn't think this through. So so you know, the n R change day tune wants the uh wants the panther started actually listening to what I had to say. And there was there's an article that just came out today as we would record this in Salon that was like, um, let me, I haven't pulled up here because it was a pretty incredible, pretty incredible title and an example of like, hey, guys,

maybe rethink the way you're framing something. Um, where is this? Okay? Yeah, So there's this article in Salon when Ronald Reagan's racism saved lives, armed black men ment immediate gun control. Now they deleted that tweet and I think renamed or maybe even cut the article. I haven't checked, but like, oh my, guess you could just not say that. Yeah, there's a

lot you can say about guten control that isn't that. Yeah, we don't need to make that point, hey man, Yeah, maybe not, maybe not say everything ogging you know, it's this thing that keeps like you you catch this and again not to say that obviously it's not racist to like look at children getting a massacred in the school and being like the funk we we have to be able to do something like not making that claim in

any way, but you do. There is this strain of like liberals who will repeatedly bring up like, well, you know, if we just gave every black man an a R fifteen, there'd be a gun control and it's like, guys, that's not really that's still pretty the thing to hit, you know, like pretty racist, Like I don't know if you know that need to make that point, yes, yeah, man? So yeah,

so income to panthers day change a story. There's this coup, like a literal coup in nineteen seven seven with this guy Harlan Carter, who essentially radicalized he took over the leadership Bohich, I wish I wouldn't know what that look like like practically, like how did that actually look? I

can tell you that you can. You don't go into much detail about this and the the show, but yeah, So it's the way the n r A worked is like and and it's not like specifically the n r A. The n r A is like a type of organization that there's like a legal framework for in the United States. And it's one example of that. Um, Like people will bring up a lot that, um, they didn't cancel their their membership meeting and I think it was Colorado after

the after column mine. Um. And a thing that like the n r A defenders will note and kind of like its defense is that like, well, it's legally required for us to hold a voting meeting and to give people X number of days of like warning about like where it's going to be, so we couldn't change the meeting, but like we canceled a bunch of anyway whatever. There's like a type of structure for an organization at the

n r A is. And one of the things that means is that you have this like managing council basically a board of directors, right, and you have some like elected officials who are run the n r A and as a general rule, they're in charge of of like what the n r A does and says, right, But you also have a group of lifetime members, and the lifetime members get a vote, right, And it's kind of like if you can get enough lifetime members to like agree to motions in the room during this yearly meeting,

they can pass motions and whatnot without the board of directors type organization or the elected officials wanting that or saying that. Right. It's kind of like, you know, you could like it's almost like they have kind of a republic democracy sort of set up. But there's also this you could the people, you know, the people who are lifetime members can do a um um can do like a what's the fucking term when you like just pull the electorate on something and make the make a law

based on that. UM. I don't know, it's like a plebiscite, right, So if you can, if you can whip and this had not really ever been done before, right, like it was. It was like it was kind of like a procedural thing where like, oh yeah, technically they could like all vote and just add things to like the n r A charter directly and like dismiss the board. It's possible, But like it never mattered, right, Like it mattered was who was on the board and who was like the

the elected leaders at that point and whatnot. And so it was very much like there's this kind of like gentrified aristocracy that was running the n r A, and Harlan Carter and this other fucking dude who was a popular editor for a bunch of different gun magazines got together and whipped a bunch of votes right like they would.

They spent like the entire year beforehand going around to people going around a different lifetime members, prominent folks within the n r A community, people who were like kind of celebrities within that world, and getting them to get

their friends on board. And then they like rented a bunch of hotel rooms during the event and spent days like getting all of their people in line for the big voting meeting um, and then when it happened, basically they just put enough people who agreed with them in this massive room where they were doing what was supposed to be kind of a pro forma vote thing to like decide on you know, a couple of minor is

not not even mine. It. There was like they wanted to the n r A old Guard wanted to put together like a sporting center in Colorado, which these guys didn't like because they saw it as like a move towards the n r A is just a sporting organization, is supposed to a Second AMENDNAC organization. So they got all these people together in the room and like mobbed

them and fucking it was um. You know, they basically swarmed them and had so many people there that they were able to vote out the old Guard and like vote in a bunch of things, including a statement that the n r A was a Second Amendment advocacy the organization um and like it took it over. Harlan Carter was running the n r A by the end of the meeting. He walked into the meeting having resigned from the n r A like a year ago, and he

left the meeting in charge. Crazy look and and that that is like that is a master class in how to do politics. What you just laid out. That's a master class in policy. He did the thing that the right always does, which is they like look at what the letter of the rules and then figure out a way that those haven't been used yet so that people won't expect them to like take power in that way. Yeah. Yeah, dude. So yeah, so that food did that. Um little story

about him. When he was a teenager, he shot a little Mexican boy, got away with it, Casiano. Ye, when he was seventeen. When he was seventeen, he shot a little fifteen year old. He used to lead the US, the US border patrol. He started Operation wet Back. You

heard me, he started Operation wet Back, right. So, this militarization of our borders, Yeah, it's the birth of like the idea not just of like a border patrol, but of a border patrol that's militarized and that can act anywhere near a border, So not just the southern border, but anywhere within a hundred miles of a border, which

is like two thirds of the US population. There's just a Supreme Court ruling today on Bivens, which is like a this kind of precedent case that basically the Supreme Court said, actually, we don't think the federal government can regulate what what the Border Patrol does in anyway. That was essentially their claim that like, well, yeah, border patrol like bust into your house. They don't need a reason. Um wow, yeah, Like it's it's a pretty fucked ruling.

We'll see how exactly it shakes out. I don't want to get into too much detail because I'm not a lawyer and the ruling just came out, but like he's the start like all of these fucking problems that we have with CBP, which is easily like our worst law enforcement agency. Um, start with Harlan Carter. Yeah that man, I gotta think about that. Yeah, it's pretty not great.

That's dope. But yeah, the you know, slanging tanks two cops, And obviously we have this like you know, you we have this bloated spending in our military, you know, for for like wars they're not fighting, right, and you just got all this like yeah like insurgents fighting surplus stuff that you gotta try to get your money back from and you just sell it to cops, right, So when you sell it to cops, and then what we talked about, you know who we we I know, I still get

messages to this day about the behind the police thing. But yeah, like that's a super dope like recruiting video. If it's like, dude, you want to you want to shoot, You want to shoot a desert eagle, you know what I'm saying. You want to drive a tank, but you're afraid to go overseas to fight a war. Yeah, you could die over there. These people don't shoot back, you know what I'm saying. So it's such a great, uh recruiting thing. But anyway you could trace that back to

this full Harlan Carter. Harlan Carter. I wish somebody would have slapped a ship out of him at some point. I mean, it's it's the kind of thing where like he grows up his dad is. So this is one of the things. The US Mexican border, as as it is now in like the way that it is conceived of and thought of by people, Maybe it's like a hundred ish years old, right, yes, because it used to just be like this area where people lived and technically

it was the border between two countries. But also like it took fucking if you were like in the government in Austin in Texas. It took like days or weeks to get out there. Right like that, they were not like realistic concerns about immigration for a while because it was just like not within the state's capacity to really worry about too much. This starts to change in the

early nineteen hundreds. Um. And one of the first, like one of the thing that Harlan's Carter's dad is a part of because he's one of the very first border Border Patrol agents. There's this city called the Rado, which is where he grows up and where he kills Raymond Casian. It's like a border town and it's primarily Mexican. Um. And it's so because it's primarily Mexican. It's run by Mexicans,

right because it was Mexico two decades ago. Yeah, they like and and and nobody really thought much about it, but he thought about it. The Border Patrol sends a guy in and he's like, holy fuck, all these Mexicans are in charge down here. Um. And like the Border Patrol is friendly with the local police who are Mexican. We got to change that. So they like clean house at the Border Patrol. They send in guys in the Border Patrol like does drive by shootings of the police station. Um, yeah, yeah,

it's it's fucking gay shit. Um. And they take over, like they take over the town in order to like force a white spacis kind of like system over it, right. And Harlan Carter's dad is the one doing that right at the same time that he murders a Mexican kid, um, claiming that he thought the kid had stolen his mom's car. Like this kid is out by a swimming hole by the way when this happens. So that's like Harlon Carter,

like this was not like an accident. Harlan Carter was a was a conscious soldier of white supremacy, um, going out of his way to to do it better. Um. And he was good at what he did. Um, which is not great, not great at all anyway anyway, he means so in r A and they're gonna take it

from our cold dead hands. Thanks Charleston Heston, you know, um, which you know brings us again more to the to the modern era where it became such a again an identity flash point as far as like you know, it was almost like like you said, this single person voters thing you could almost see this like mad. It's like this mad like almost like hungry, hungry hipposts. It's just like mad grab for what issue is gonna belong to?

What people? So like this identity around guns, it was just like Reagan and him was like dips, you know, I'm saying like that was ours, right, Yeah, after he started gun control in California, after he started gun control of California, which is like just the most bizarre things. So anyway, um, it brings us to why in the world, like how do you how do you get to a place where surveyed of Republican gun owners who think that there are some laws that actually makes sense, but won't

nobody say nothing? Why can't we get our elected officials to do what your people is asking you to do? And it's easy to just be like, well, it's the n r A, because it kind of is. But what what do they got? Like why y'all so scared of them? Like that's that's one of the one of the interesting questions that you know, we could ask if our politicians are you so scared of him? Like what what they got that we don't what you're Yeah, I'm mean, you know,

it's a it's a couple of things. So the n r A after he takes over, I think a UM, the modern n r A. One of the moments that people will really say is like kind of the thing that like is a useful kind of chapter point in the history of the n r A is UM. I think it was two thousand when Charlton Heston, you know, holds that fucking ancient rifle up from my whole day.

And again it's at one of those in there was justin nr A meeting, right like, it's it's one of those yearly members meetings that he does this UM that's generally picked as as kind of the moment, and part of why is that you have Hart Carter steers it towards Second Amendment like absolutism, and they start building on that. They become very effective at lobbying, but they're not immediately effective. And in one of the areas in which you can see them being like less effective than they became is

that in nineteen ninety four, the Assault Weapons Band passes, right. UM. A lot of debate over the degree to which it worked. UM. There were less mass shootings under it. Actual gun violence not really different as result of it like overall, this gets into broader questions of like what gun violence actually looks like versus what gun violence tends to get on the news, because our fifteens are not a particularly common gun used in gun violence compared to small handguns, which

is like nearly the vast majority. But anyway, that's outside of the point you saw weapen span gets pass um. It is past. A lot of other stuff is happening, including you have Waco, you have Ruby Ridge, you have the home the city bombing in this kind of period immediately before and after the a w B, so a lot of what happens with that is tight into the militia movement. A lot of the militia movement UM is kind of born in the shadow of the assault weapons

ban UM and the Republicans kind of it. It's it takes you know, it's it's law for about a decade, UM for a decade, and then it comes up basically for renewal in two thousand four. And by the time two thousand four comes around. In that decade, the n r A has kind of solidified its position as the

most effective fundraising arm of the Republican Party. UM A few years like twelve years after that, they'll give thirty million dollars to Domin campaign at the least, right, and like you know, it's hard to actually know how much they give. The bag is too big. The bag is huge. They give a lot funkload of money to George W. Bush. And so George W. Bush does two things. One he does not his administration there's no attempt to renew the

assault weapons Ban UM. And then the other thing he does, like the next year, there's a push by the n r A to put through this like law that makes it impossible, basically makes it impossible to sue gun manufacturers

for what's done with their guns. UM. And there's a couple of other things that happened in a similar time frame, including Republicans And this is in the late nineties early two thousand's strip all funding from the CDC to research gun violence, UM and to research like what happens like what what what is the health impact of guns? Rit? Large? Right, UM.

So all of this stuff is happening in this kind of decade after the passage of the assault weapons Ban, which really accelerates the growth because they have this the the a WB is seen as this is proof that they're coming for everything, right, like this was the first. Um, You'll get a lot of statements like registration means confiscation, all this kind of stuff, sometimes not helped by Democratic politicians who will literally say they want to confiscate all guns. Um.

But you get this. That decade is really and Carter is dead by this point, but he he builds the machine that makes that decade of activism. And this is really that that ten year period two thousand and four is the most effective period in the n r AS history. Um. They're influential after that, but obviously in the last couple of years they've started to fall apart as an organization.

So really Carter builds this machine and he hands it off to Wayne Lapierre and from nine to two thousand five or six, it really it lays a lot of the groundwork for making it kind of impossible to have not to have conversations about gun control that are productive or to pass laws that are productive. Because in two thousand you get Emmerson v. United States, which is the first Supreme Court case that makes it that that recognizes

the second as an individual right. UM. And it's not really clear entirely what that means until d C versus Heller in two thousand eight, and one of the things DC versus Heller says is that like you can't you can't just say people can't own a class of firearm, right, um, like a handgun, right, Like you can't just say no handguns, you know, like like what Canada is at something to do right now, Like you're not allowed to do that. And then in two thousand and ten the Second Amendment

gets incorporated. So really that like ten is kind of the most important period of actual things the n r A accomplishes. And because of rampant corruption on behalf of Lapierre, they start to fall apart after that. But the things that they've set up, both legally and and culturally, and the cultural stuff particularly started under Characas. He was a big absolutist. He was a big believer of their coming for your guns. This is like part of a communist takeover.

This is part of like people who are not white trying to take over the country and like we need these you know that. Um that is is uh, yeah, that's what that's what goes down. Yeah, man, thanks for that. Yeah that uh, drying of the concrete that like this is the discussion. This is the only way we look at it. And if you look at this any differently, you out the set is is it? It took that

decade to get there. And I'm even like tripping, like, who'se homie that just got like the homie that just got like, uh, you know, busted for corruption that was leading it. What's the homie's name? Oh fucking Wayne Lapierrea. Yeah, I was Wayne Lapierre. But they still just didn't they just read they just read still like he's there's some good.

There's a good podcast. Asked on what happened in the n r A one secon I'm gonna look this up because people should listen to it, uh, because it really goes into like how fucking corrupt and shitty he is, but he's still in charge and that I think that I think that is a credit to how effective Carter was turning the n r A into an unparalleled like

political Yeah, we've really never seen nothing like it. That like you, no matter what anyone actually thinks or feels, you got a total line and you can't you know what I'm saying. So and that and the idea of like turning an issue into your very identity is a power that I feel like, uh for this is like why her politics exist because it's like we understand that. I understand how that happens. You know. What I'm saying is that an issue becomes an identity and to break

that is very, very very difficult. And another thing that the n r A does that Democrats have never understood and I don't know if they ever will, is the political value of setting the definition. Because they're they're the worst at this, They're unbelievably And this is a thing I was a debate kid, right, when you when you're doing a competition debate, you start with your definitions, right,

And there's the logical argument to be made. If you're having an actual friendly debate over issues with like somebody that you care about and you're both willing to like learn something, it's very helpful to start with. Here is what I mean when I say the first, you know, whatever, first Amendment. Here's what I mean when I say like government, like liberty or whatever. Like, Here's what I mean when I say Here's what I mean when I say a red flag law. Right, Here's what when when I say

red flag law. This is what I'm what I mean, right, if you're having a good faith discussion, it's useful to do that because then you're not arguing against a shadow. Right, Like, I think we've all been in a situation where you're like having an argument with somebody you care about, and then you realize that you're not actually disagreeing, you just are defining different the same thing in different ways. And so like that's where the arguments coming up. That happens

between people of good will. If you're not a person of goodwill, if you want to just like fuck the discussion, then you And then again, the right does this with everything you hop in and you say, a red flag law means a law that will allow the police to take guns away from Republicans because they yeah, because they believe in this or they believe in that, like the they'll define you know, that is a a um and and this is again part of what's toxic about this

is that it it makes it impossible to have important discussions. So an important discussion about our red flag laws. Okay, we're saying we want to take guns away from people who are violent, people who make threats. Um, let's make sure this law is written in such a way that the police cannot just say, well, I think being a BLM organizer is you're mentally unstable, so let's go bust into this guy's house and take his gun and know

we got shot. That's a real fear. It's a real fear that they might say, oh, if you're trans that's a mental illness, you don't get to have guns. That is a real legitimate fear. Absolutely, and of course, to be to be entirely fair, it's not unreasonable for conservatives to be like, well, if if you're gonna make a red flag law, I want to know that you're not going to define my politics. Is making me like that

is not an unreasonable fear. But when you just say that's what this is, and when you you start fearmongering about then there cannot be a discussion about it, right because you have defined the law in such a way that like this is. And if you're if you have more competent people who were Democrats about this sort of thing, they would be pushing against them. And I think doing stuff more like saying, let we want a law to

take guns from people who hit their wives and kids. Right, we wake a law to take guns away from people who threatened mass shootings. Right, clear, that's what we want. Right. That's harder to fight than like just saying we want a red flag lag to find a like right, this is again and this is what the the n r A pioneers this and now it's everything right now, it's um the like the right is in the process of

defining support for LGBT rights. It's like support for grooming. Grooming. Yes, it's like yeah, if you say this, then that means you're that. And by the time you start arguing with them, because some chunk of people are going to get are going to like get caught up in that, and we'll start like being like, well, obviously I don't like this or I don't like that, and so like this must not be okay, and so like let's have a discussion about what stuff we should be and like then you're

on their side. Yeah, no matter what, even if you think you're being reasonable, you have yielded the floor to these files. Um. And that's that's and that's really like really that's like that to me, what you're saying is dull because that's like that's that's the type of training, Like you said, like a lot of us need to have to where it's like I'm not gonna let you

define my terms. And and it's this especially range true for black people because you're now all of a sudden and I feel like black people is not letting you have it. Like you can't define woke. I don't care what the funk you say it is. That's not what it is. You know what I'm saying. You can't want critical race theory. You're just telling each other that's what it means. Yeah, we know that's not what it means. On what the you talking about? You know that they've

done with Sorry, Yeah, but like that's incredibly important. What you've said, what they've done with critical race theory is the same ship. It's the n r A playbook, and it it makes it impossible. It makes it impossible for you to have a productive discussion, and it makes it impossible for them. Two, it makes it impossible for their voters to think about stuff like if you actually I mean, among other things, yeah, it's it's. Yeah. My biggest fight with that is most of the time is like you

don't even know what it means. So I can't even I don't even know what we're arguing over like because you don't know what it means. What you're saying is not critical race theory. What you're saying is teaching about history. You're scared of a boogeyman that isn't really. You're scared of a boogeyman that isn't really. You made that up,

and now you're going to engage with this. It's not happen, yes, Like what makes it of is not a thing, and you need to like you're just trying to justify censorship, Like that's the that's the appropriate response. But they keep getting caught up and this is it's amazing. Again. One of the things that's important about studying Carter and studying the history of the n r A is this is a very old set of strat tactics super um and

it ext it's um in a lot of ways. It's like early ship posting, right, but you there's not they're not. I amn't seeing the fucking Dems figure out a solution to this ship yet. Um. I think I know how to deal with it. Um. But it's also like it's so much is caught up, so much of like our potential to have a future is caught up. In whether or not people who are in politics figure out how to deal with this bad faith shit. Um and I

I I don't think they are. And part of it is that they have built their fundraising arm around the terms that the right has successfully defined to their people

in a specific way. Right, And so instead of having more productive discussions about some of this stuff and more productive discussions about like how to protect people, it all occurs within this kind of this kind of framework of like catch phrases that are good at getting the base grilled up and getting fun and good at putting together you. It's it's like this ship with like the governor Louisiana, right Democrat. There's this anti trans you know, um kids

in sports law that just like passed. He could have vetoed it instead he he neglect He said he was not going to veto it, but posted like a tearful video about how much he supports trans kids. Yeah, and like I'm sure he's gonna fund raise off that, right, Like it's good, it's gonna be fine, but you could do something, Yeah. I I flash to a moment years, years, years back during the a bathroom thing. You know, we

was arguing over bathrooms. I remember it was a lady at our chart twiies to go to that past us me and me and my wife. I'm like, hey, what do you guys think about the bathroom thing? We were like, it's fine, I don't care, Like you're my house is my house is a gender neutral baute? You ever been to a beach? Like those are all? Jena like what are you talking about? Like this is stupid? And I remember the way that she looked at me, like her eyes got big and she was just like, dude, I

like whispering. I totally agree. I don't understand a big deal. I don't like whispering, like like afraid to say, yeah, I think this is Yeah, I don't understand what the

hubub is about. And I was like, that's that's what I'm talking about, Like you know, even even even the stuff that's being defined to you as such, You're like, well that's stupid, you know, Like Okay, so all of a sudden, sexual sault sexual salts are gonna happen if we have gender neutral bathrooms, Like as if sexual saults don't already happen, you know what I'm saying, Like, so just this like hole in the logic that at your core.

You like, we're not even at your core, just like in the front of your mind you're like this, well that don't even it. That don't bother me the way you're telling me it's supposed to bother me. So your question is am I tripping or y'all tripping? And what I want all my listeners to say, you're to realize it's like, nah, you're not tripping. This it's bullshit. It really is. And you ain't gotta like, you ain't gotta

you ain't gotta You ain't gotta tell the line. You ain't gotta tell the line if you honestly, especially around this thing like don't be afraid to tell you know, young seventh grade prop when your gang is chasing me, Hey homie, you gotta get out the bathroom because they're gonna jump you. And I think that's stupid. Yeah, yeah, well, well, kind there's probably more that should be said about this.

I get like, you know, I I come at this from a fundamentally different perspective than a lot of Democrats, because I am something of an absolutist in the right to self defense and the right to be armed. Fundamentally, I don't think the cops should be able to own anything that I can't UM, And I'm I'm not wild about the idea of a national military, um of a

standing national military. But uh, like I and you know, obviously there's people on the left side of the program movement who are absolutely no, no compromise, no law type things. I'm not. I tend to think there ship you can do. Like, I don't know, I'm not against the idea of fucking like waiting periods. Inherently, I think there should be some option for like, if you've already got a collection or a c h L. Like, why would a waiting period apply to you? You already have guns. It's not like

it's kind of matter. But like, yeah, there's enough people who like buy a gun and kill themselves that that day, or enough people who like buy a gun that fucking guy who shot up that hospital the same day, and maybe if you could cool him down right, Like again, there's there's stuff I think that can be done and and that should be talked about, because even though I don't think the overall I don't think the fundamental solutions to the fundamental problems that we're talking about today, any

of them will be done by voting or passing laws because it's too big, you know, like fundamentally you're dealing with fucking white supremacy here and you're not kind of voted out. Um. And also, I don't think you should stop people who are poor or or like of normal income from being able to arm themselves, which is another thing Democrats keep proposing. It's like, let's put a thousand percent excise tax in an a R fifteen, so it's

five thousand dollars. Rich people should happen, right, that's the Is that what's gonna make Yeah? Yeah, yeah yeah, because the kid at fucking Uvaldi just got a credit card and bought like a three or four thousand dollar firearm and like managed it because he didn't care about paying it back. So like maybe well let's talk about some

other solutions. Um. But um yeah, So I have I come I come at this from like a different position, but I do think I think it's immoral to be like, let's just not talk about doing anything, because I don't like, like it's people are fucking like Vivaldi, Parkland, fucking Sandy Hook. Like it's fucked up to say, like, well, there's nothing that should be attempted here um or or to say let's just turn schools into fortresses. I don't like that.

That's not good for kids, that's good for anything. So I think, like I would love it if we could do something, um. But also I think it is it's it's also immoral too. It's a moral fundamentally if you are the Democratic a democratic voter, but if you are a Democrat in power, it is immorl to not be fucking better at seeing what these people are doing and

how they get away with what they're doing. Um. And the fact that if they haven't for so fucking long, and it extends everywhere, it's crt if the anti transplantic it's all the same playbook. You have to fucking understand what they're doing and and actually fight it effectively, as opposed to just use the fear of the fuccory that they're doing to drive people to like register to blue no matter who. Um. And if they were actually doing that, the right wouldn't be winning as often as they are.

Heep preaching that boy preaching, Now, you're right, man. It's like when you're just trying to put your finger on jello. You're just gonna be chasing, chasing the gloves, and that's basically what democrats doing. They just chasing these gloves, playing whack a mole. And it's funny to watch, in funny in a horrible way, in a sense that like they're

just like, yeah, nah, keep chasing us. You know, you're just you're just swinging a person around, you know, and laughing as you're doing it, you know what I'm saying. So yeah, nah nailed it. Yeah, thank you for that, Robert, thank you. This was fun. Yeah, dog like dude, I mean, everybody know who you already, and you know what I'm saying, Yeah, I gotta, I gotta, I gotta, I gotta book. It's

called After the Revolution. You can find it everywhere right now, including on on on the the Amazons if you, if you are so inclined, man, that book is very fun. Thank you. I enjoy, you know, fun in a in an entertaining still pretty sad But yeah, it was fun in an entertaining, still pretty sad way to write. Joe. Yeah, all right, and uh, Sophie right there, get off, get off there, Sophie, say what's up there? It is? Sophie is the greatest at holding her tongue when she has comments.

I've never seen him wye so good at it does? Anyway, Well, that's the show. It'll probably be. This will most likely be the second part because this is over an hour and uh, because that boy Rob got hot. You know what I'm saying. Yeah, I'm gonna have I'm gonna have a I'm gonna have Matt play some Oregon hits under there done. You know what I'm saying. Make you sound like a preacher. All right? Anyway, all right, shows over means yeah, this is here. Thing was recorded by Me

Propaganda and East Low Spoil Heights, Los Angeles, California. This smug was mixed, edited, mastered, and scored by Matt Ososki. I can totally say his name, guys, it was it was a stick. He's going by Matt now again because he got two legal situations with the name Headlights. You know, commen used to be called common sense tip t I

was tipped Sometimes it happens. Executive produced by the one and Only Sophie Lichtman for a Cool Zone Media and the theme music by the one and only Gold Tips Gold Tips d J Shawan p So y'all just remember listen every time you check in. If you understand city living, you understand politics. See how next week you Maine, Maine. When he means want you, he means