You're listening to comedy Central.
America, land of the free and home to an astronomical amount of mass shootings. So I went to the world's largest gun show in Tulsa, Oklahoma to investigate our unique obsession with guns. The bounty was plentiful, small guns, big guns, kamal eclipse katanas for some reason, and more naziswag than Harlan Crowe's guest Bathrow eleven acres of guns. Seems weird to use acreage as a measurement of guns, but this is America, very Why are you here today, America America?
You're here because America dot dot dot Yes guns. I feel like that's an American haiku. Little e Cummings over here. What are you looking forward to? Relaxation and being able to look.
At guns free?
That's relaxing to you. It's sort of like your bond's eye tree is. Looking at an array of guns makes you zen, it.
Might feel better.
And this guy might as well have been at a meditation retreat because they were selling guns everywhere, including the parking lot. So you're gonna hopefully sell that inside, So gene a license. Can you just kind of go into the gun show and if you've tried.
To find somebody wants to buy it, or you find what you want to.
Buy it, and then if somebody is like, I'm interested, I'll buy it, then what do you do?
First of all, you kind of like look them over?
Is that what a background check is here in Tulson?
I mean, this isn't where people are going to come to maliciously get guns.
Mostly why not? I guess if I was like I need to get a gun quick to do bad shit, this is actually exactly where I would come. How much is that going for an own? What if I came up there and was like, I don't know, I've had a little bit of a rough day. My wife just broke up with me. I'm a feeling a little on edge. How much for your gun?
Well, I ain't gonna sell it to somebody looks stupid, you know, or it looks like he's like crazy as shit.
You know what if I say the words of somebody who's crazy as shit, but I look composed like I do right now.
I'd probably sell it for you.
Well, this election of firearms was diverse. These days, there's only one real star of the gun show.
What are you hoping to say a couple AR fifteen's maybe some tactical ones. I just want to add to it, make it more tactical, and make it have some lasers or something.
Why is the AR fifteen such a good gun? It's just cool. A lot of people use them for day to day there's a lot of day to day AR fifteen use it. I have AR style, but I use that for hog hunting, pog hunting pog. I got one set up for hog hunting.
Squirrels, deer, wild hogs.
You're killing wild hogs too. We have had him threaten us, but they're been threatened by pigs my dad has. Why do you think the AR fifteen is seen as scary because it looks like a military weapon? Do you think it's scary because it kills a lot of children?
The weapon doesn't kill the children, it's the person wielding the weapon.
Why did they tend to use that weapon in particular?
Because in media it's it's portrayed that way.
Well, nobody in schools it happens that way. Was I misunderstanding this? If AR fifteens aren't the real threat in America? What is? Look up bicycle accidents, Look up trampoline accidents, coyotes, acid attacks, acid attacks. Are there mass acid attacks? I wouldn't say mass, but they do happen.
I believe there are more murders committed in this country every year with hammers, baseball bats, and other blunt ford objects than any handgun, rifle, shotgun combined.
Well, that statistics can't be correct. Automobile accidents, falls.
Poison, heavy books, two by a statue sitting on your table.
Right, it seems like, yeah, we should, we should. We should be looking at all murder weapons from the game of Clue and then get to the other lower level ones like the AR fifteen. The more I talk to these, the more I wondered if all of this tactical shit has always been a part of gun culture.
That's a new thing.
That's new.
That's a new thing.
I went to Montana to talk to Ryan Bussy, who spent twenty five years in the gun industry but now advocates for a gun safety.
I'm deeply troubled by the firearms culture that's emerged in and around guns in our country now. It mirrors much of our political radicalization on transformation as a country. The industry itself prior to about two thousand and five or two thousand and six would not allow any kind of tactical gear, hardly any AR fifteens, no bulletproof vests, no helmets, and its own trade shows. It seemed like the industry understood that propagating that kind of thing would lead to very bad shit.
You bring an AR fifteen to a gun show in two thousand and nine and you're a weirdo.
Yeah, just two thousand and eight. Two thousand and nine is when the weirdo stuff starts wearing off. But yeah, you're a weirdo. Then now it's commonplace. Now it's ubiquitous.
But they used to be weirdos.
They use to be weirdness.
Yeah, and AR. I know a lot of liberals think AR stands for assault rifle, and the wrong it stands for are you looking at my small penis? Is that right?
It stands for Armolot Rifle, which was the first company that developed.
It, armorite rifle. Yes. Yes, Liberals see the AR fifteen and tend to think it's a weapon of war. And it feels like I go to a gun show and people say it's for hunting, it's for sports. Who's right?
Well, you just all you have to do is look at the industry's own marketing. The industry sells it as an offensive weapon.
Of war, just turning to market towards kids, right.
Yeah, so you know guns have long been marketed to kids, target guns, trying to get kids involved in the shooting sports and in hunting. But what's different now is that's being marketed to kids through things like the Jr fifteen, the Junior fifteen, not the AR fifteen. The Junior fifteen. It's a shrunken down kids version of an AR fifteen.
Yeah, a JR fifteen? Is that so little kids can stand up to government overreach.
If you're worried about trial grooming, here's your child grooming.
This is how gun manufacturers are reaching out to the public.
Here you got the marketing for the JR fifteen to little kids. Check that out. O.
Great. So we have pacifiers and a skull tactical passifire tactical pacifier. Cute. Yeah, my two and a half year old would be drawn to that.
This is a magazine cover. You have the vicious skateboard attacker and the glorious father defending his terribly afflicted family.
Was that one in case Tony Hawk goes crazy. Yes, I need to get this sword. Tony Hawk's here. So this is Spike's tactical ad.
It was a twenty eighteen huge ad at the Industry trade show. Guys in jeans, T shirts, backwards, ball cap AR fifteen staring down the protesters. Here you have Kyle Rittenhouse jeans, backwards, ball cap, T shirt AR fifteen shooting the protesters.
This is two years apart, two.
Years apart the marketing works. I don't know how if you can't draw a direct line between those two things, I can't help you.
What are steps we can take to limit the number of mass shootings with weapons like the air fifteen.
I think, like our politics, a lot of this is about voluntary social norms. Yes, legislation needs to be instituted to help reinforce some of these norms, but some of this is going to be on us.
That's right, It is on us. So it shouldn't be too hard for all of us to come together and agree on what weapons should and should not be owned by the average civilian. Should should we be able to buy tanks? You bet you? Yeah, you bet you. If tanks are okay? Should we each be able to have apache helicopter. There should be a line of the things that are available. Well, maybe we shouldn't go around with nuclear bombs. Straped, that's the line. But you don't have
to buy. You don't have to We had nuclear bombs. We were agreen. Looks like we've still got some figuring out to do America. You know, as part of my job, I talked to a lot of men, a lot of dumb men. We treat women with respect here, yes we do. That's an American ideal. Tell me about your shirt. What's insane? It says Hillary sucks, but not like Monica. Read the transcript right, read the transcript. I have not read it. Look at the transcript.
R Yeah, look at the transcript.
Have you read the transcript?
I trust the worry of our president. Man, Come on, thank you?
What you got home about yourself?
A safe space?
Let me get this right. You're yelling at me to find a safe space, and you have elevated yourself with a megaphone and you have a shield. Oh well, you know we never kept in touch. But outside of my job interviewing dumb men, I'm also the father of a young son, and as a father, my biggest goal is to not end up interviewing my son as part of my job. Make sure that happens. He's going to need
some help. And that's what I want to talk about in tonight's long story Short, America is in the midst of some long overdue changes around gender and power, reexamining ideas of masculinity, femininity, the spectrum in between, and how fluid it all is. It's a difficult and necessary conversation, but luckily for us, we get to have these nuanced debates on Twitter. Now. This cultural change is important, and I'm glad it's happening. But when there is a cultural shift,
it's easy to get lost within it. And even though it feels strange to say this, a group that is being left out is young boys. And I know, I know, I know, or on men, I sound like I'm on a network that just got sued out of seven hundred and eighty.
Million dollars, But.
I know, jokes on you, how many Central doesn't have that kind of cash. My point is we've had a great conversation about what men shouldn't be. Men shouldn't be toxic, they shouldn't be overly aggressive, they shouldn't pay a porn star to keep quiet about an affair they had right after their son was born.
It's a high, high bar, but.
We haven't been showing men what they should be, and that matters to young boys who are looking for an identity, for a narrative about what it means to be a man, and that vacuum is being filled by people with the worst possible idea of manhood.
Former kickboxer and Big Brother contestant Andrew Tate, infamous for being the self proclaimed King of Toxic Masculinity, takes core message centers around the belief that masculinity is in the crosshairs and he's defending it. His target audience young men.
This whole idea of being toxicy masculine is complete garbage. The most dangerous men on her are the weak men.
Feel feel feel feeling, leave the feelings for the girls, right, that's what they do.
We act.
We're men of action.
Empowering females is the easiest way to can the will of men. Study, study, study, give up your whole life in school. Then you get to be a doctor. You can't even buy him with a sports car.
The problem with most of you is that I am sitting here with my sunglasses, bald head, millions of dollars, nearly unmatched fighting skills.
I am Morpheus. I need action. I need constant chaos in my life to feel content.
I need to be.
Driving a supercar and fighting a bunch of champagne going crazy.
Okay, okay, okay, we get it. You have a small penis. Even through the video, you can tell this guy wears too much cologne. And by the way, not to tarnish his sparkling image. But Andwtate is currently under investigation for human trafficking. I know it's always the first one you suspect. Now, maybe you don't know Andrew Tate. Maybe you're thinking, who is this porn parody Vin Diesel. You may not know him, but trust me, your sons do.
With over thirteen billion views on TikTok, Tate's rhetoric is moving from online to the classroom. So I'm a teacher and I teach sixth grade.
The amount of a young eleven year old boys that told me that they love Andrew Tate is ridiculous.
One teacher says she hears blatant misogyny from the boys in her class, hearing them say that girls belong in the kitchen and only exist for reproduction, and another claiming they talk about alpha's in sixth grade now.
One teacher in South London noticed that his students we're parenting Tate's ideology. About a third of the thirty students in the class passionately argue that women were responsible for their own sexual assaults.
One of Tate's top lines.
Wow, times have really changed. When I was in sixth grade, the most toxic role model for boys was Michelangelo hates Pezza for breakfast, lunch and dinner that Turtle doesn't give us. Seriously, how can you be misogynistic in sixth grade? It's like the one year in life where all the girls are bigger than you. I wouldn't be running my mouth about Alison if Alison could hang me by my underwear on the flag pole. The solution to this problem is not
to cancel enter. Tate Inner pole is probably going to do that for us, because even if he disappeared, Even if he disappeared, someone else would take his place and spew toxic shit at young boys just as well, and social media algorithms would pump it into young boys eyes and ears just as fast. Because that's really all this is about. Entertate is not interested in being a role model. He wants clicks for money. He doesn't want to raise
your son. He's taken Dad's seat at the table. But he's really the loudmouthed uncle, that uncle who seems cool when you're a kid, but when you grow up you realize living in a hotel is not a vacation. What we need is an alternative, positive narrative for young men
to follow. And it's ironic that these guys are talking about taking the red pill and using these matrix metaphors, because if you're looking for a complex, emotionally available male role model to counter their bullshit idea of manhood, just look at the guy who took the red pill. Keanu reeves this. This is a man who is wildly considered to be kind and decent. He donates huge sums of money to cancer research. He gives up his seat to women on the subway. He bought Sandra Bullock champagne and
truffles because she had never had them before. He's the perfect man. Maybe his movies glorified gun violence, but nobody's perfect, and that makes him even more perfect. Because our children shouldn't strive for perfection that will only make them sad,
and those movies sometimes are pretty cool. The point is, young boys need a cultural role model who is kind and comfortable in his skin, not guys who are so fragile in their masculinity that they can't puff a cigar without putting it on every social media platform like they invented fire. Hell Kiata Reeves he isn't even on social media, that's how healthy he is. So so, as a society,
we have two options. We can either follow Keanu Reeves around and put everything he does on TikTok, or probably better, we make sure that the conversation about modern society includes a role for men that young boys can look up to. Because long story short, if we don't talk to our boys, Andrew Tate is going to talk to them, and that means ten years from now, I'm gonna be talking to him.
Explore more shows from the Daily Show podcast universe by searching The Daily Show wherever you.
Get your podcasts. Watch The Daily Show week nights at eleven ten Central on Comedy Central and stream.
Full episodes anytime on fair Mouth Blocks.
This has been a Comedy Central podcast