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I'm here with Garrison and Chris. How are you guys? How how are y'all doing? Just just absolutely splendid. I'm extremely excited that every time I leave twitters a new mass shooting. There's there was, Like this has been weekend. There have been quite a few mass shootings in the last forty eight hours, and there's a non zero chance there's been at least one between when we record this podcast and when you listen to it. I'm not trying
to be flippant. That's just a reality. UM. So I think we're going to talk about the two most recent ones, one of which UM was the mass shooting in Buffalo, New York by a four chan motherfucking white supremacist very much patterned after the twenty nineteen eight Chan shootings, particularly the christ Church massacre UM. And then the day after. I guess it's not technically a mass shooting because only
one person was killed, thankfully, UM. But there was a shooting that was certainly an attempt to be a mass shooting because he attempted to close the exit and stop people from leaving at a a Taiwanese church UM in southern California, UM, which was stopped by the congregation before nearly as many people could get killed. UM. It appears to be it's just come out UM, motivated by nationalist hatred of Taiwan by a Chinese man UM. That's the
broad understanding of both. Its complicated. Yeah, I'm sure we'll get into that, but we should probably deal with them chronologically. UM. The Buffalo shooting is it's one of those things I made a big chunk of my bones as a journalist in the field that I used to spend most of my time reporting and covering the eight Chan shootings, and after every one of those in twenty nineteen, I had an article within about two hours. I haven't written anything
about this one. I don't plan to because there's not much to say. It is what we've seen before. UM. I know there's some debate over how much of the man and as there should be over like how much of the manifesto you can take at face value, which is none of it, um, and as to whether or not there might be something more going on here. But it is kind of my opinion from the information we have, that this is the kind of attack we've seen before and the kind of attack we will probably see again
more than once before the years over. You know, this is someone who was radicalized primarily against uh the immigration or the existence really of people who are not white in the United States, um and believes that the best way to cleanse the country of people who are not white is to carry out mass shootings that will radicalize other people and that will lead further to the breakdown of civil society in the United States by pushing it kind of like hot button issues like gun control, um,
in order to further you know, it's an accelerationist sort of attack. UM. So yeah, that's that's what I'm seeing here. Yep. I mean it's yeah, like like we said, it's very very much riffing off of christ Church. I mean, at least over half of his manifesto was like specifically rich manifesto, which, of course that manifesto itself was was ripped from a
lot of other manifestos. It's kind of this just a series of like launching the medic language from one shooting to another, just kind of compiling into this massive conglomerate that's all based on trying to convince more people to do the same act. Um. That's really that's that's why when people are like talking about this and people try to limit the attention on the manifestos and that kind of stuff, because it's it's all crafted specifically to get
other people to do the exact same thing. Um, it's it's filled with themes, filmed with filled filled with in jokes, full of like in grip up group stuff to convince people to kind of go down a similar path, and all of it's carefully crafted that way. The one really interesting thing about this is that there's not only manifesto but also like unless seven hundred pages of diaries that he posted as well, um and dogs from from like over like like like from a long, long long time,
tracking his inner thoughts. But also like again, he posted it and he knew he was gonna do this. There's no telling how how accurate that is. It's all it's all in this package that he wants to present to people. So a lot of the navy gritty are is not even worth talking about in a lot of a lot of cases. No, and I'm not I think there's broadly speaking,
things you can learn. And I'm also to be clear, I'm not against researchers studying, and I think it should be absolutely I am against just finding a thing in there and like posting it. Like when I when I made my post, I was pretty careful to note a couple of things that seemed consistent based on other aspects of the like things that he claimed about his radicalization that seemed consistent with what we were seeing. Like he noted that he was primarily radicalized online. That seems plausible
to me because of how fucking online the manifesto is. Um. Like, and and it's one of those folks are not entirely wrongfully bringing up the fact that the great Placement white genocide sort of conspiracy theory that seems to have motivated this fellow is basically identical to Ship Tucker Carlson says, that's not not that's that's not what radicalized him though, But that's not what radicalized Yes, this is not a
dude who was watching Fox right. That's something I've been frustrated by looking at the discourse because yes, obviously Tucker shouldn't be talking about this because he's normalizing this very rhetoric that you find in these manifestos. But he did. He did not find this from Tucker. This is like it's it's it's a whole whole different ball game. Um. And when there's that conflation, I do find it to
be slightly frustrating. Yeah, And some of the problem with discussing this is the problem with discussing basically any of these attacks is that the mass media coverage of it is nearly always going to flatten it to a degree that works in the favor of the people who are using this as propaganda of the deed. Yeah, and we can talk about maybe are there ways to detern that, you know, I've definitely that's something that I've spent a
decent amount of my career kind of struggling with. It's it's a tough thing to do because, um, one of the things that's very frustrating that we've we've seen in the wake of this attack, and that we see in the wake of basically every politically motivated attack is a whole bunch of people from a whole different bunch of belief systems insides immediately trying to spin it in order to push the narrative they think is useful for the attack to have, and some of them believe legitimately what
they're saying. Like the folks, I think most of the people who are like this is you know, Tucker Carlson's doing are generally just folks who have not spent as much time in the fever swamps as we have and see oh, Tucker Carlson's talking about this, this this get carried out of shooting. They must be related, right. I don't think that's like, that's wrong, but I don't think that's malicious. And then you get folks who are malicious with it, right,
like you have the folks right. One of the one of the narratives we've seen form, particularly from what I like to call the ship head left, Um, is folks being like, well there was a san and Rod the black Sun. It's a Nazi a culty symbol. People who are more nerds about Nazis we even equipped that. But that's that's the broad strokes of what it is. Um. And it's it's a symbol that's definitely on some as off gear. It's also on a has been on a bunch of ship well before there was an since it's
all over the place. And um, the reason he did it, the reason he had a black son on some ship was not because of the azof Battalion um it. In fact, he talked about wanting to break up NATO a bunch, but it was because the san and Rad was on the chest of the plate carrier of the christ Schurt shooter. Yes, but there's all, he's a big fan of the christ
Church shooter. There's all of these people who are like, yeah, authoritarian left or whatever who are being like, oh, how can Americans condemn this attack when this guy is using as of imagery and there there's no telling how genuine they are with this, Like, there's there's no telling if if they actually know what they're doing, or if they're just or if they're just being like if they're purposely misinformed, or what's going on. It's like he doesn't mind, it
doesn't matter. But yeah, my my assumption with those folks is that they are doing it because if you are a competent, paid propagandist, you want to always be pushing the narrative in a way that furthers whatever it is
your job to push. And if your job is connecting Ukraine to every bad thing that happens, and a mass shooting that has nothing to fucking do with with Ukraine or the Ukrainian government, um, if you can connect it back to them, then you're back in your wheelhouse, right, Because maybe you're not so strong talking about the fact that you and some of the people around you have been friendly with fucking Tucker Carlson. Uh, and he pushes a similar narrative to the one this mass shooter used.
Maybe that's uncomfortable. What is comfortable is saying, no, this guy who did this bad thing is tied to these other bad people who are tied to this group, that my entire career is about attack sacking. That's a much stronger position to be in, you know, if you're you know, a propagandist. It's just like you see folks on the right who don't want to grapple with the fact that this was a right wing or who carried out a terrorist attack based on an ideology that even motherfucking Ben
Shapiro has pushed elements of. Um, you don't want to deal with that, So you call him a leftist because we saw the same thing with christ Turn He could Yeah, he made a couple of vague he's not a leftist. He repeatedly identified himself as right wing and as a fascist, as a Nazi, UM, as an ethno nationalist, UM. But he made like a couple of vague comments that they're taking out of context and being like, see, he was on the left. What she wanted to happen, that what
she wanted to happen. That's why he put it in there. Right, It's like it is like it is all part of the bit. It's all this, it's it's it's it's all of this, like like irony poisoned thing that they do on purpose to give any one a propaganda out or give anyone a propaganda it's all Yeah, if you'll remember it before, it's not it's not new, but it's frustrating. Yeah. In the christ Church Manifesto, arrant Um said that he'd been radicalized by Candice Owens, who's like a person who
says a bunch of shitty, fucked up stuff. I don't like Candace Owens, but like had nothing to do with that guy's radicalization, right, Like that's not that's not where he's fucking coming from. Um. But he did it because he wanted to, because because it's fucking it's ship posting,
you know. It's to muddy the water. It's to get people like it's too it's to reduce the ability of people trying to grapple with what has happened, to accurately see what has happened and accurately identify the problem and respond to a big, big motive for the stuff is to cause this kind of social and discourse chaos. Right. They want people, they want everyone to be confused, and they want everyone to be fighting each other and distance
agreeing on basic terms. Right. The whole, the whole point of this is to encourage gun control legislation, which we'll get the right match, to cause people be to be more willing to do mass shootings or to do a tax against government. Right. It's it's it's all part of the very basic accelerationist like talking points and tactics, and the confusion is not accidental, it's all. It's it's all.
If you, I think a good way to look at this, if you like fighter planes and helicopters in a combat zone will have a type of countermeasure they will launch if someone shooting a missile that's like a tracking missile, heat seeking or whatever at them. It's called chaff, and it basically it looks to the missile the same as a helicopter does. So you shoot a bunch of these out and the missile goes and hits something that's not the fucking helicopter, but to its sensors looks like a helicopter.
That's what they're doing. They're shooting out chaff. They're getting you to like about box with shadows rather than potentially
landing a blow against like the central problem. And the central problem is not an easy one to grapple with without all that stuff around it, right, because the the issue here is how the way in which the Internet enables radicalization, the way in which online communities are prone to radicalization, UM, the way in which uh, the conservative media and aspects of like just basic American history play into this specific people who want to do violence in
this way for this reason, um, which is why the cops don't notice them even when they're on their radar, which is why that like the warning signs don't get spotted. Um. And the ways in which, I think, more than anything, the ways in which the Internet has created a perfect incubation chamber for radical violence. And that is one of the stories here, right. Um. You know people are focusing on gun control, um, which this guy bought his gun in the state of New York, which has the most
restrictive gun laws in the country. UM. Was more relevant even if you're on that end, is this guy was deeply involved in like tactical Reddit. This guy was heavily involved in in tactical videos and training videos, in talking with other people about the best weapons, the best ways to use them, and if you watch the I don't watch the video. But he was competent, he engaged, competently, he did, he maximized his ability to do damage. He took out somebody, um with a gun who was attempting
to stop him. Um, that ship, the stuff that he did to prepare tactically worked. And the kind of tactical chunks of of of reddit of the internet which are not all right wing, but a hell of a lot of them are, and a hell of a lot of them have gone in very scary directions in the last couple of years. Um. Not only do I suspect contributed to his radicalization, but I can say certainly contributed to
his ability to effectively kill people. Yeah. I mean, he had like over five pages just on what helmet he picked out. He had pages on what socks he was wearing, which is not which is for multiple reasons. It's one to make the actual act more effective. It's two to inspire not like discourse like this, but also to to get people to replicate what he did. Right, It's crafting all of these symbols that people like. Oh he picked out these socks. I mean, I'm gonna these socks. I'm
going to get these socks. And it's it's it's all this branding thing. Um, we should take we should take a break, and then I want to come back and talk about some ME medic language stuff. You know who else can give you good advice on socks? Oh all right, here's ads Okay, Um, I want to talk about some ME medic language stuff because this was all heavily riffing and I specifically you use the term riffing um off of the christ Church shooting, which itself was riffing with
other stuff, right, but he went so far. I mean the christ Church shooting was a copycat shooting of the anders Bredvik shooting, or at least descendant of whatever term you want to use. But that's what inspired the christ Church shooting. And it's I mean, he was for for the Buffalo shooting. He was testing on different live streaming platforms. He was doing all the stuff to craft a very specific image, and like images are very very very powerful. We've talked about like me magic. But if we want
to get silly about it. Um. But he was very very much involved in crafting these things that could be replicated visually. Um. That's that's why he wanted to live stream. It's so bad. It's that he just the same way, the same way of christ Church was. And this is like really important for why we don't share this type of stuff and why we why we specifically clamped down on this, on this, on this style of propaganda, and why we really encourage people not to share it, not
to look at it, not to do that stuff. Because he he does in a few parts of the manifest that he did right, Um, he does. He didn't say like watching the christ Church video was very impactful for him, which I don't disagree with. I'm sure, I'm sure it was. He he did change, he even and he did great links to recreate um. And this is why we people who are like researchers and people who kind of hand try to handle this kind of stuff um in like in their time on Earth, Uh, are so particular about this.
Like a thing last year, like a year and a half ago, there was this film company based in New Zealand who wanted to make a christ Church film. Uh. And they want they were going to film a recreation of the shooting, but they said, like, oh, but it's too to show the horror and to show the impact hit on the victims doesn't fucking matter. It matter, It matters zero amount, because once you put that language into cinematography, you are giving them basically ammunition to help create propaganda
and will get more more people killed. This is why the same thing we see the same thing on fucking um roadblocks, we see people recreate the christ Church shooting on roadblocks. There was actually a major problem like a year ago. Specifically, it was a huge problem of people recreating the footage inside this game engine. And it's it's specifically, it's it's very it's a very powerful tool that they used to spread around. It's targeted specifically people ages twelve
to eighteen. This this guy was eighteen years old. Um, it's he was heavily involved in online gaming. He was really heavy Reddit user, specifically, um he loved discord. So it's these are the places where where it spreads even more so than now to Yeah, and I would say, we know and that called him like a four chance shooter because number one he definitely was familiar with with Pole and number was there, he announced his livestream there. I do agree with you read it was a bigger
part of his radicalization. I suspect, and in a lot of and Discord probably, and I suspect he did purposefully minimize the extent to which conversations on discord were part of his radicalization journey in particular, that would be my assumption at the moment. But for countering this type of rhetoric, in this type of propaganda, right, because they're they're trying to make themselves look cool, They're trying to make themselves look tactical. They're trying to look they're trying to make
themselves they look like they're in a video game. They make it look like they're in a movie. Right, They're trying to be cinematic. He was, he was testing on different cameras. Um he tested like a go pro. He just said, he test out his phone camera, right, trying
to get this specific look. And then we just we just talked about how he was tactically proficient in some ways, but in handling this type of thing, we have to when we're crafting counter stuff to make this, to make this thing less likely, we need to not even focus on that we need to make them look stupid, make them look juvenile, make them look like they're pathetic, make them look like they're stupid and silly, like they're Larper's.
That's one of the things that saved god knows how many lives at kind of the high point of the eight Chance shootings in nineteen was that fucker in Hall, Germany tried to carry one out and got the piss beat out of him by a dude at a mosque um and was photographed the next day in court just covered. It's like beat two ship um. That image probably saved some lives. They want to be cool, they want to be mamdic, they want to be spread around as a symbol,
and we need, like culturally, need to. Yes, this is obviously very scarce, this is a very real threat for many for many people, many people of color, many black people, many many Muslims, people of different religions, Jewish people, queer people.
But we need to when when specifically crafting rhetoric and propaganda against these things, we need to make them look pathetic, right that that that's what it needs to be framed as, because if you make them look scary and competent, that's actually gonna make these things worse because they love that, right, Like as if you film the Christ, if you do any kind of like movie about the Christ shooting, no matter how you shoot it, they're gonna love it. If
you're shooting people in pain, they they want that. They want that. It's that's that's what they're looking for. You need to specifically frame this as these people larning and these people being pathetic and people being terminally online um and having bad social skills like you need, you need. You need to frame it in this way that makes them look not desirable because their whole point is to
craft is desirable and visually stunning propaganda. Um. And I think, yeah, that's that's that's I've been thinking about this for the past because it's just been so much. But like I identify these people, isn't the problem? Right? Like this guy he is he was talked to you by by counselors last year because they were for he was gonna do a school shooting. Um, Like there was a lot of the red flags and stuff, and like he was, he was taught, he was talked to you by people before
this happened. Like he wasn't an unknown factor. He wasn't an unknown of the vector to make to make this, to make you know, to be this a person that couldn't do this, But there's there's no way. People are very People are good at finding these people before they do it, but we're bad at actually stopping them from doing it once we found Once we find them, uh, there's there's really no power to stop it. Um and
interrupting any kind of radicalization pipeline, it's really hard. So it's more about laying the groundwork to make the pipeline look pathetic so it's harder to happen again. But always counting this stuff is frustrating because if there was a
good strategy, we wouldn't be here. B be deeply I want to move on to the Yeah, it's time to California, but at the at the end of this to close out, be deeply suspicious, if not outright contemptuous, of anyone who posits a simple solution to these shootings, whether that solution is gun control, whether it's expanded police powers, whether it's fucking arming everybody so that they can shoot shooters. Anyone who proposes a simple solution this, this is a deeply
complicated problem. UM, because we let a number of horrible, horrible, obvious problems go on for way too long, and the solution to this will be painfully agonizingly difficult and will take time, and there is there is not a simple, all encompassing way to deal with this. UM. One of the things that you can do right now to better prepare yourself to potentially deal with this problem is take a stop the bleed course, carry an iPad I fact and a gunshot wound kit UM as often as possible.
And that continues to be my best immediate advice to people, UM, because that there's no downsides to doing that and it could and does save lives and other shootings. All right, let's move on in other news. In other news, the next shooting. Yeah, hooray, Yeah, Okay, this is a weird one, UM. And I think the thing we need to make clear of front is that this happened yesterday. UM A recording still don't yeah a time of recording. Details are still emerging,
and it's weird. There's a lot of potential to so so for people who don't know. UM. A Presbyterian church in California was attacked by a Chinese guy. This is this is a time when East Church, um, it's mostly senior citizens. And okay, so there there's there's a few important things up fronts that people should probably understand about.
This one is that, okay, so Taiwan. Taiwan is ruled by military digctatorship, but for like basically the better part of the post World War two period, it is ruled by military dictatorship run by the Nationalist Party of the cam T. The cam T is extraordinary in this period. It is extraordinarily violent. They they assassinate people all over
the place. They kill people on American soil, They killed they trained death squads in Latin America, and you know, they're they're they're known for the sort of humanity communism, but eventually they're sort of toppled by revolution isn't quite the right word. But as you know, the CAMPT as a party is still around today and is one of the two sort of major like so many political parties, but they're not like the sort of desk they're not exactly the sort of dest squad mafia party that they
were through most of the twentieth century. Um the sort of the sort of progressive forces that work to overthrow the dictatorship, a lot of them coalesced into a party called the d d P. And one of the things about the d DP is and there's a lot of sort of complicated town these political stuff here, but they are very very closely connect connected to the Presbyterian Church
in a lot of ways. And this I don't know the specifics about this church, but there is there is a very strong connection between and then the d d P are Okay, pro independence is putting it too strongly, but if you're a pro independent, like you want to want to be an independent country and you don't want them to sort of like either continue, Well, Okay, this is the problem with town these politics. It's enormously convoluted.
I there's a lot of stuff going on at any time, and the people are going to get mad at you
if the supplications they're making. But yeah, the short version of the story is that the sort of anti cc P pro independence e forces are and the sort of like progressive movement to sort of lumped into the d DP, and those are the people who are getting shot like because yeah, because again there's there's a very strong connection between Westbyterian Church and p UM and the KMT who again, I mean, okay, they've had an extremely complicated relationship with
the Communist Party over the last hundred years. It's incredibly baffling. But they've basically swung around towards being more favorable to China. And there are there are some fact extremist factions of it that are that support unific like just unification. Um. What seems to have happened here is okay, so this the the shooters families seems to have been like deported from China to Taiwan and he like did not like it in Taiwan. And and and and this is where
it starts to get very murky. Um. The police statement we have says that, you know, it's about sort of racial it's it's it's it's an anti Taiwanese animus. But that can mean a lot of things. And yeah, and then this this again, I keep saying it's murky, and
it's because it's it's genuinely murky. There's a chance that this is one of one of the things that's been happening since the Hong Kong protests is a solidification in mainland China sort of anti of anti Tiwanese sentiment has sort of lumped in in this sort of like nationalist
anti Hong Kong thing. There was there was a hardening of rhetoric against Taiwan, but also there's a lot of there's a lot of people in Taiwan, like like especially canti hardliners on the hard right who like really really really intensely hate like the sort of like the sort of progressive anti CCP, pro independence people. And you know, and this is something we don't we don't know what
his affiliation is. He was like it was like he was like it was like his sixties, right, yeah, well and this is this is this is this is weird because there's a lot of things that that could be true about this because of how old he is. Like again, you know, I mean she he is around when the KMT is is straight up at desk aat party, right, So it could be that it could be she's sort
of like independently radicalized. There's been some like rumors might be too weak of a word, but there there there have been some kind of sketchy reporting that like his ex was leaving for Taiwan and that that may have played a part in it. But you know, violence between the KMT and people who don't like the KMT is a thing that there wasn't a there was a very large amount of in the US for a lot of reasons.
And even though the CAMT is sort of like I mean, the their alignment that China has like flipped in the past about forty years, I I don't know. I'm really really desperately hoping that that's this isn't going to set off, because I mean, there's already been a lot of especially around Hong Kong, there's been a lot of physical violence, like people attack each other at protests about between for example, people who's prote their Hong Kong protests and Chinese like
CCP nationalists. But this is something different, very weird, very embedded in the time when these context and I don't think we fully understand what's going on here. Um. The ever thing again is like this guy he like he lived in times one, Like he was speaking Taiwanese, like when when he was initially like going into this church to infiltrate before we shot at everyone, So like he this isn't like this, This this is and I think people are reporting it like this because they don't know
what's going on. But like this. This isn't a case of like a guy who is from mainland China who like decided that he hated to time when these people like this, He he was there, he like he speaks, he speaks time when he is, he like on understands the time when he's political situation very in depth, which presumably is why he targeted the specific church. But other than that, it's it's the motives are still kind of murky.
And this is the other problem with it, which is that like the sheriff's like there's no way that the sheriffs have any idea what they're looking at, like that they're apparently reading his personal notes, and it's like I don't trust their analysis of it. Good lord, no, yeah, like these if you weren't here, we would have to find someone else who understands that conflict in order to talk about it. I don't feel comfortable like trying to figure out or analyze that guy's notes. I sure as
ship don't trust some fucking sheriffs. It's like yeah, yeah, I don't know, yeah, And I think that that's I don't know. I will say like this I think was like the worst possible scenario for what that shooting is about, because this is a kind of this is a kind of violence that it was really intense, like right after World War two and sort of like and you know, there there's been periods where like, yeah, I mean people have been like people have gotten killed here, but it
hasn't been that violent in a long time. And I don't know, I'm hoping this is just one guy who had a particular grievance who I don't know, like was
it was pushed by sort of external factors. But if this is a sign of like if this is a sign of sort of anti Tiwanese like nationally, well, okay, so there's one other thing that that we need to talk about because that's unclear because there's two kinds of potential right wing Chinese nationalism at play here, and it's unclear which one is happening because there are there are people who are right wing Chinese nationalists who are like pro CCP right, but there's also a kind of like
a kind of like it shifted, but there's also like a a like a CAMG nationalist based right in Chinese nationalism which favors sort of like reunification with China, but is is not the same thing as as the sort of mainland nationalism and has its own particular, like very local political grudges, like with with the d DP and with the sort of like progressive movements in time one and I don't know and anything beyond that is kind of like trying to figure out which one it is, like,
we just don't know unless the police, unless the police actually decided to like show us this guy's notes or like give us recordings of what he's been saying. Uh, we're not gonna know. And maybe maybe by the time this is out, like there will be more stuff. But right now it's very muddled, very bad. The fact that this guy also I think was an American citizen but was born in China has gotten every like even even the Chinese media outlets are saying extremely weird stuff because
they're confused by it. So it is a it is a muddled is a muddled mess, I mean, And everything about this last weekend's been uddled. There's been so many different mass shootings this weekend. There's been people being paring away about copycat mash shootings to know. Yesterday there was reporting that a gunman entered a church in Buffalo, um
that was not actually true. It's someone someone in the church yelled, um, like there's a gunman or something or like um or like get the gun down or something um, and it caused people to create this this the kind of rumor, but that there wasn't actually someone with a gun it was it was this someone was like reacting to the sermon that was that that was being had. Um. But yeah, everyone's been super paranoid about every stuff and all this kind of stuff, as as they should be.
So sorting through sorting through all this stuff is very complicated and uh, not a great time because it's not it's not fun um and we shouldn't have to do it, but it sucks. Do you think it's also worth noting that the police did not stop, uh, I know, specifically, they did not stop the one in the church, the past pastor, a pastor, hit the hit him with a hit him with steel chair, and then they hog tied him with an extension toward and then the police came,
which is so dope. Um. I'm sorry they were ever in that position. They should never have to be in that position. But it's turned out more and more people are having to do themselves because it's not also the first time that a mass shooter has been stopped by someone hitting them with a chair. If I'm not mistaken, that's how the Gifford shooter was stopped eventually, or part of how he was stopped to somebody fucking deck him with a chair. It's yeah, it's it's really useful to
have something beyond just your limbs. Yea. If someone is trying to shoot you with the gun, ideally you get away. But if you can't get away, trying to hit them in the face with something heavy is certainly a choice that has saved a number of people's lives. God what what an absolutely dogshit country. It's not a great time.
And when I you know, I noted earlier anyone trying to sell you like simple solutions, and I mentioned gun control on that, which is not to say that like the outrageously easy, how how ridiculously easy it is to get any kind of gun in this country. Obviously that's
a factor in these shootings. My my um hesitance to take gun control as a if you'll forgive the term magic bullet to fix any of this is number one, the sheer number of guns that are already propagated, number two, the fact that a lot of gun control measures boiled down to making it harder for poor people to get guns, and neither of these shootings seem to have been poor
people shooting up UM folks. And just also the fact that while some states are capable of passing additional gun control number one, New York's basically done everything it's constitutional to do are e restricting gun ownership UM and federally, Biden and their Dems can't protect Roevie Wade. There's sure a ship not gonna pass any federalfect people want as well, like they're specifically doing this to get this stuff started so that it increases plays. Whether or not to agree
with my fundamental claim, you don't have to. You can believe that if gun to control were to be passed, it could be the solution, but it's not gonna be. And so like as as regards those of us trying to survive, UM, we have to look in other directions because you're not going to get an assault weapons span. It's just not happening. Yeah, I mean the one good I don't I don't say good thing, but it has been nice to see pool slowly uh dropping the whole
like londe wolf terminology. That is a positive development because these are not not a lone wolf. It's it's part of a very it's part of an intentional effort to cause these things to happen. Part the groups may be decentralized, but they are not anything they are but they Yeah, they are decentralized in acephalis, but they are deeply, deeply sophisticated and connected, just not in a way you can
drone strike easily. Well yeah, and I think I would have some target suggestions anyway, get knifefack, do stop the and don't don't feed into their propaganda in the way their propaganda um organized with folks in your neighborhood. Yeah, okay, well kids, adults, boys and girls, and individuals of non binary or other gender identities. Uh. Cats who happened to be listening in um airwolf the helicopter if you're listening in everybody, every sentient creature listening. You know. I do
believe that things can get better. So part of that is not letting the crimes that these the things that these people do, Like, part of the purpose of an attack like this is to make people feel hopeless and overwhelmed. It's to blackpill you you know, to to to utilize some of their terminology. So the way to fight against it is, among other things, if you're talking about immediate things you can do, go out and do something nice
to help people. And you know, I would say like as as sort of like one brief last note, like yeah, like in Taiwan they overtoe the dictatorship and oh hey, it turns out people stop getting assassinated by the KNT American soil. So you know, over overthrow your governments and YouTube can make peace with your enemies. Yeah, overthrow your government, overthrow another government. You know, it's all good. It's all good, baby. It could Happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
Were more podcasts from cool Zone Media. Visit our website cool zone media dot com, or check us out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It could Happen Here, updated monthly at cool zone Media dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.