010 - Guns & The Reality Of Evil

0:00 I wrote a little song to remind you choice hotels get you more of the experiences you value.

0:30 Struggling with weight loss? Prolon's five-day fasting mimicking diet is a clinically developed nutrition program designed to promote fat loss while protecting lean body mass.

0:40 Developed at USC's Longevity Institute, it assists the body in entering a fasting like state that helps reset metabolism and target visceral fat.

0:47 In just five days, Prolon offers a science-backed approach to weight loss without extreme restriction or guesswork.

0:53 Get 15% off plus a $40 bonus gift when you subscribe at prolonlife.com/now.

1:00 [music]

1:09 This is Undaunted Life, a man's podcast. I'm your host Kyle Thompson. Let's get into it.

1:14 Okay guys, as you know, I am always willing to go into areas that a lot of people don't like to discuss or that it's a little bit awkward to discuss.

1:21 So this week we're going to talk about guns here on the podcast, okay?

1:24 So last week, as all of you know by now, 17 people were killed at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

1:30 That was on Wednesday the 14th of 2018. That was Ash Wednesday.

1:34 Most of the people that were killed were children. There were some adults that were killed as well.

1:38 And as this always does, when this happens in America, it sparks the gun debate, right?

1:43 It just sparks the gun debate all over again and then the world gets to watch as we all kind of bicker and go at each other.

1:49 So this is, I guess, typically how it goes. So there's a shooting somewhere in the United States. There's shock and horror.

1:55 There's thoughts and prayers. People on the right run to their side. People on the left run to their side.

2:00 Everyone argues on social media. No one changes their mind. A week or two goes by and then everyone finds something else to be mad about or something else to focus on.

2:09 And then we forget about it. Until the next time that it happens, right? And then we run this whole cycle again.

2:15 The thing about this podcast today is I'm going to be mentioning several of the things that happened in Florida,

2:20 but also several things that have happened in other shootings. And I'm going to refuse to mention the shooter's names, okay?

2:26 So I really want to refuse to make the shooters famous. And again, I'm not self-aggrandizing what this podcast in terms of its reach.

2:34 Obviously, we know the names of all these people that shoot, but there's quite a bit of evidence, actually, that supports that.

2:39 There's a copycat theory that goes on that when somebody sees someone else do something and then they're raised up in the media,

2:47 they start to worship these people. And so it's different than it was even back in the Columbine days.

2:52 The ubiquitous nature of media and social media now is not helping. So every time one of these things goes down,

2:58 we know everything there is to know about the shooter. We know what they think. We know what they put on social media.

3:02 It's just different. So again, I'm going to be mentioning a lot of different shootings today and I'll be not mentioning any names,

3:08 I'm going to get those names if you really want. The thing I find interesting about this debate with a lot of people

3:13 is that some people will post on social media or something like that and they'll say, "You know what?

3:17 "This isn't a political statement or debate." And then blah, blah, blah. They say whatever their opinion is.

3:22 And then it's always something that's political or, you know, something in terms of a debate.

3:27 I'm just going to be upfront from the beginning. We are going to go political today, okay?

3:31 So there are going to be things that are going to be settled as podcasts that are political.

3:34 If you're not a political person and you don't really like conversations like that,

3:37 get over it because that's where we're going. You should probably just kind of lean into this conversation and see where it goes.

3:42 And we are going to talk about law. We're going to talk about policy. We're going to talk about legislation, things that can be done,

3:47 things that can't be controlled and all those different things. So, but from the very, very beginning,

3:52 and if you know me personally, you know this to be true, but I just want to make sure that all the listeners that don't know me personally

3:57 kind of know where my perspective comes from. So I am pro-gun. I'm pro-second amendment. I've been an NRA member.

4:03 I'm a gun owner. I can seal carry. I train to be lethal with all my weapons and my weapon systems.

4:09 But the big thing about this subject matter is I try to be as intellectually honest as possible and not just in this subject matter,

4:16 but in all subject matters, right? So I'm open to being wrong and I'm open to having my opinion changed on certain areas of any debate

4:24 and especially in the gun debate. So just because of my background and the things that I currently support,

4:29 that doesn't mean that I'm unable to be changed or convinced to go in another direction. So I just see that there's just a tremendous

4:35 lack of just basic logic on this subject. And so, and I feel that from the political left and the political right.

4:41 So we're just going to go ahead and go into it and we're going to tackle it. So we're going to start out very simplistically

4:46 and this is not meant to be satirical in any way, but we're going to start out with what is a gun. Okay.

4:51 And so the most logical and baseline answer you could possibly give for what is a gun is it is an inanimate object. Okay.

4:59 So it is completely an inanimate object. So basically, if you look at the Webster dictionary definition of inanimate, it is a thing

5:05 that is not alive. Okay. Again, we have to be logical. I'm going to keep going back to that as we go throughout this

5:11 conversation because this conversation is some of the things that I say are going to [inaudible] some people off on again on both sides

5:16 of the issue, but we have to be logical. We have to have a baseline understanding of the things that we're talking about, or we can't have a logical

5:23 and productive conversation. So people like to mock the statement, you know, guns don't kill people, people kill people.

5:30 There's even some clown on Twitter that said, Hey, if Kim Jong Un used a nuke to wipe out South Korea, we wouldn't sit around and say nukes don't kill people, people kill people.

5:38 Yes, actually, we would. That's exactly what we would do. Okay. Cause you know what a nuke is? A nuke is just like a gun in the same fact that it's an inanimate object.

5:47 A nuke is a gigantic inanimate object. It cannot act on its own behalf. It just can't. Okay. It has to be activated by a person. Okay.

5:58 So a gun just can't jump up and bite you. Okay. So look, if you and I were sitting across from a table from one another, we're at a diner or something like that, and I pull my gun off of my hip and I set it in between us.

6:10 Nothing's going to happen. Like it's an inanimate object, right? It can't force itself to shoot you or me or anybody else. Okay.

6:21 So I mean guns, knives, swords, rocks, two by fours, trucks, pens, microphones, like everything. These are all inanimate objects. Okay. Now, all of those things that I just mentioned, they can become murderous weapons, right?

6:35 But it requires intelligent, mindful force. Okay. Now, I mean, I hear a lot of people talk about this, but it's true. In Southwest China in 2014, there were 33 people killed and about 130 more were injured by men with knives.

6:50 Okay. They went on a killing spree, a mass killing spree using knives. So inanimate objects can be used for a lot of different things, but they're tools at the end of the day. Guns are tools. They can be used for good and they can be used for evil.

7:04 Okay. Now, I'm going to go into something that comes up a lot of times whenever people look at the current gun debate and anytime there is a type, any type of mass shooting, everyone wants to talk about gun laws and legislation and rightfully so, because we are a nation of laws. We follow some of them, but, you know, we are a nation of laws.

7:22 But the simple question that I have for people coming off the heels of any shooting of any kind, even if it's not coming off the heels of a shooting, just if we're just talking about it in general terms, is what kind of laws?

7:33 Or legislation would have prevented the Florida school shooting from happening?

7:38 Like what, what laws in legislation would have prevented that from happening? Because people love to scream at the president, whoever's in office, they love to scream at the politicians that are currently running Congress.

7:48 Some people just freaking, they scream at the sky, but they don't propose anything.

7:52 Like, do you notice that? They don't actually end up proposing anything. So you have your late night show host, they get on TV and they cry and they, they feign anger.

8:00 You know, everyone starts, you know, screaming enough is enough and it's time for change and we really need to do something.

8:06 But the reality is, is no one has the balls to propose something specific.

8:10 And that's the issue that we get into is whenever we get into specifics, right?

8:14 Because the US polling on this is clear and has been clear for a while that the majority of Americans want more gun control of some kind.

8:23 They want to be able to prevent these attacks in any way that they can, right? But they always say that until we get specific.

8:31 Until people start specifically saying the type of gun control and the type of gun legislation they want.

8:36 And then all of a sudden, their answers aren't so concrete, right? I mean, it's the same thing with government spending, right?

8:42 Everyone is for spending cuts and for tax decreases until they start proposing things that would get cut.

8:49 And they're like, I don't want to cut that. Oh, no, no, I want to have that service. I want to make sure I've access to that.

8:54 So it's the exact same thing. So, so we're left in this quandary of not really understanding what the American public actually wants.

9:00 But one thing that I think is really important to talk about at this point is there's so many statements, because again, like I said at the beginning, people run to their sides immediately.

9:09 I don't know anyone that's neutral on the gun issue, right? They're either way left or way right. Okay.

9:14 And so I want to go over some statements. There's a lot of them that I hear and that most of you hear on social media from the major news media from politicians.

9:24 And it's just common nonsensical statements about the gun debate. And I'm going to pick on both sides here.

9:30 But many of these statements do come from the political left, okay? Because the political left ideologically is on the anti-gun side.

9:37 And they have a tendency, people that lean that way have a tendency not to really understand things clearly on this issue and that is not meant to be a dig in any way, shape, or form.

9:46 But you have a lot of people that have no idea what guns are. They don't even know how to categorize them properly.

9:52 And then they want to educate the entirety of the US population on why they think they should be taken away in some form or fashion.

9:59 So the thing about this is guys is knowledge is power. You've heard that before, but intellectual honesty is paramount. So I'm going to go over some of these things that people have been saying and really talk them through and we'll do it fairly quickly.

10:11 So one of the first statements is something like this. We should listen to the survivors of these mass shootings and base some of our legislation and laws on what they say.

10:20 This is a very popular one now because, of course, a lot of the kids that were part of the shooting that survived this mass shooting, they've gone to social media, they've gone after politicians, they've gone after lots of different people.

10:31 They've been on the news. I mean, a lot of news outlets just cannot stop putting these kids on television and they're doing some sort of March, I think, toward the end of March in Washington, D.C., basically saying, hey, save our lives, you know, protect us, those types of things.

10:45 And this is going to seem a little bit, I don't know, I don't want it to seem insensitive. I know some of you might take it that way, but here's the thing is we can look at these people and feel sorry for what they had to go through and feel that it was horrific, that they had to experience something like that.

11:01 But just because they went through something that was difficult, emotionally, spiritually, whatever that may be, even physically, for some of them that survived and didn't pass on, that does not make them experts on the legislative issues that are at hand.

11:15 Okay, again, that may sound a little bit insensitive, but that doesn't make them an expert. So just as an example, if I'm hiking in Colorado and I get attacked by a grizzly bear, but I make it out alive, should the local legislators come to me for my advice on nature conservation and hunting laws.

11:33 I mean, just because I've been a part of something like that doesn't make me an expert on the nuances of how we can fix this issue or how we can even move in a positive direction. Okay, so, so again, you're going to hear a lot of that and you're pretty much going to be shamed if you say anything that's

11:48 negative about the opinions of some of these 16 year olds or 15 year olds or 14 year olds that are saying things in the media, you're kind of seen as insensitive, but there's a reality to the situation.

11:58 Another statement that people like to say right now is the authors of the Second Amendment never could have imagined that modern Americans could gain access to military grade weapons.

12:08 Okay, so we hear that one a lot, right? Like the founders would have never done this. Well, in nine era in 1791, that's when the Bill writes were ratified. And so inside the Bill of Rights was the Second Amendment. Okay, at that time.

12:20 Okay, 1791 when this when this was all ratified, non military citizens owned the exact same kind of weapons as professional soldiers, the exact same.

12:32 So a soldier on the front lines at the Revolutionary War and just some farmer on the back on the back roads or something like that. They all had muskets and long rifles.

12:41 Muskets were really military grade weapons at the time.

12:45 And then you'll also hear people say something along the lines of, you know, the founders couldn't have known we'd be able to have such powerful weapons that wouldn't require a reload after every shot because obviously, if you know anything about old school muskets.

12:56 I mean, there was one ball and yet all the gunpowder and you basically had to reload after every shot. But that also is kind of a ridiculous statement because there was something called the puckle gun. Okay, puckle PUCKLE.

13:07 And so this gun was a it was a tripod mounted gun that it was a flintlock weapon and it had a single barrel and it was manually operated and it had a revolving cylinder. So it was basically the first machine gun.

13:21 This gun was patented in 1718. Okay. This was 73 years before the First Amendment. So this idea that the founders could have somehow missed this entire contraption and had no idea that it even existed and that technology wouldn't continue to get better is a little bit absurd.

13:41 Like, I mean, it's pretty much far fetched. This idea that some of the smartest men that we've ever had in our country's history had no semblance of where things could go militarily.

13:51 So, and you know, here's a deal. Here's a reality. Modern Americans don't have access to the same kind of weaponry as our modern military. They just don't.

13:59 So you can get close with some some of the different things, but you can't just go out and buy the same types of things that our military has without some special licensing, which we'll get into a little bit later.

14:09 But yes, absolutely. The founders a lot thought the public should have military grade weapons, obviously, because they wanted us to have a well-formed militia in case there was tyranny, right?

14:19 And we've heard this before. How could anyone think that the United States would, you know, have a tyrannical takeover of its people?

14:25 Well, let's just look back at history. Let's look at the last 100 years and see when those things happen.

14:29 Maoist China, Stalin's Russia, Hitler in Europe, like those were governments that were not tyrannical before those guys took over. Okay. So another statement that people like to say at this point is no one needs to be able to have access to an automatic weapon.

14:43 Okay. So we've heard politicians like Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Nancy Pelosi, and many others.

14:50 All these people have said something about, like this, about automatic weapons. But here's the reality, guys. Almost no one in America has an automatic weapon.

15:00 Okay. Like almost nobody. I mean, could you name three shootings that have happened in America in any form or fashion where a full auto weapon was used?

15:09 I mean, I don't even know if you could name one. So, so here's the idea. It's crazy that I even have to do this, but this is doesn't need to be educational for some people because you just don't know what you don't know.

15:18 Okay. An automatic weapon means that if you pull the trigger back once, right, and hold it down, whatever is in the clip. Okay, whatever in the magazine.

15:29 Every single one of those rounds will be shot through the gun. So you pull the trigger once you hold it back and everything is shot out. The next round automatically goes into the chamber is chambered and is shot. Okay.

15:40 Now, a semi automatic weapon means you pull the trigger once and one bullet leaves the chamber. You have to pull the trigger again for another bullet to leave the chamber.

15:49 Almost every gun that you see in the overwhelming majority of guns owned in the United States are semi automatics, right? So think pistols, think revolvers, think magazine fed rifles of any kind, even hunting rifles.

16:02 A lot of these are semi automatic. You pull the trigger once and one bullet goes down range. So here's a deal. And in order to own automatic weapon in the United States, you need what's called a class three license.

16:13 Okay. So people don't normally talk about this a lot because they say such stupid things on television. But this is unbelievably hard to attain a class three license.

16:22 There's an extreme vetting process and background check. This is not like the basic background check when you go down to the pawn shop or some gun store and buy a gun. It is, it is not the same.

16:33 It takes months and months and months. It's, it's a very expensive process. And also the guns themselves are incredibly expensive. Okay. So no one is paying, you know, what they go to Cabela's and buy an AR 15.

16:45 They're not buying an automatic M4 for the exact same amount of money. It's not even close. So the thing is, is there is an unbelievable amount of regulations on that person and basically everything there is to possibly know the government knows about that person.

16:59 And they have to do it that way. Otherwise, they're not going to be able to give them that license. Okay.

17:03 So another statement people like to say around this time is more gun laws lead to lower gun violence. Okay.

17:09 Here's a deal. Most of the gun violence in America per capita. Again, we're going basically per capita based on population. It occurs in the cities with the strictest gun laws.

17:19 Okay. So think Chicago, Baltimore, Baltimore DC area Detroit.

17:25 All of these areas have very liberal Democrat precincts, right? So these are people where every part of government is ran by blue candidates, right?

17:35 But it makes no difference. So there's so many more laws to prevent gun violence in those areas, but it doesn't matter when it comes to actual gun violence. Okay.

17:43 Another statement that we hear is gun control would have prevented that mass shooting. So that being the operative word, whatever the mass shooting that that recently happened, they're pointing at that one.

17:52 The thing with this statement is it's not evidence based. It's just not. And again, we have to be logical here.

17:58 We can't just be ideologues and run to our side and just pretend this is utopia. We live in the real world. That is an emotion based statement. When you say gun control would have prevented that mass, that mass shooting or saying that from an emotional standpoint.

18:10 The thing that you have to ask when someone says something like that is, what do you mean by that?

18:15 And again, asking the simple question is what law or piece of legislation would have actually stopped that from happening, right? Because we have this idea that gun control laws prevent mass shootings.

18:26 And we just don't see that played out in the evidence. Okay. The next statement is the government should stop funding the NRA. That's kind of a funny one. The National Rifle Association.

18:35 Here's the thing. This is an easy one to debunk because they don't moron. They just don't. It's a private organization with dues paying membership. Okay.

18:43 And guess what? If somehow the government was able to do a tyrannical takeover, the NRA and keep it from happening, there would be however many million members of the NRA would start another group and they would just join that one and pay their dues. Okay.

18:56 The next statement we hear a lot keeping with the NRA is the NRA and the gun lobby are too powerful and are responsible for these deaths.

19:03 They're paying off Republicans with blood money. Okay. We've all heard something like that.

19:07 Everyone loves to point the NRA and it's their fault and those types of things. We don't want to look at the shooter and the responsibility within the shooter. We want to point it at an organization, right?

19:16 So let's be clear that the NRA is pretty much the gun lobby. So when people say the gun lobby, they're really meaning the NRA. There's a couple other smaller organizations, but the NRA pretty much runs that side of things.

19:27 So Ben Shapiro on his show last week, he ran down some facts on one of his episodes. And I think these are really, really important to talk about these different things.

19:36 But it's just basically spending from organizations like the NRA versus spending from other organizations. So from 1998 to 2016. Okay. The NRA spent a grand total of around $13 million on all political, political candidates.

19:53 Okay. Now, if you add the outside expenditures, so that's, you know, political action committees, their packs or different ads that they put out in support of candidates money that doesn't go directly to the candidate.

20:05 That is, it's about 144 million in outside expenditures. And then you add about another 46 million on top of that for lobbying. So I know you're probably not sitting there adding everything up. So it's just over $200 million on political activities over the last 18 years.

20:22 Okay. That's, that seems like a lot of money. Right. I mean, that's about $22.6 million per two year election cycle. That seems like a lot of money. Right. But, but let's look at some other segments of politics and where the money was spent.

20:35 So, and this, this information here is from the National Institute of Labor Relations Research. And it was saying that labor unions. Okay. So everyone knows about the different labor labor unions.

20:44 In 2016 alone. Okay. Just one year, one major election cycle. Labor unions spent 1.713 billion dollars, billion with a B on political activities and lobbying. Okay.

21:00 So the NRA in 2016 alone spent $50 million, 50 million. They spent a lot more in this election cycle than they normally do in other ones, right? 50 million versus 1.713 billion. Okay.

21:14 So now we have to look at how these numbers are portrayed. Do you ever hear that Democrats are being paid off by unions to the detriment of other Americans?

21:23 Like, do you ever hear something like that? I mean, all we hear about is that the NRA is paying off Republicans and thus, you know, allowing them to keep killing children, which is hilarious, especially considering most of the people that are on the Democratic side of this argument.

21:37 They're also in support of abortion, right? And so let's look at abortion lobbies, right? From 2012 to 2016. Okay, so four year stretch, Planned Parenthood spent $34 million on outside spending. Okay, 34 million. Emily's list, which is another pro murder in the womb organization.

21:56 A $33.2 million just in 2016 on outside spending, political activities. So they spent about as much as the gun lobby, right?

22:07 Do you ever hear that Planned Parenthood or Emily's list or something like that are paying off Democrats that there's blood on the hands of these Democratic politicians when every time that they kill a baby?

22:20 Like, and here's Ben Shapiro's point when he was running down those numbers is these special interest groups. They find candidates or public figures that already support their position, right? And then they put money behind them.

22:31 Like, the thing is is what what people normally think is that a politician has changed their position because of the money they get from these special interest groups.

22:40 Show me a politician that has changed their viewpoints on any of these topics based on political donations that would come in from these organizations.

22:47 Like, I can't think of a single one, like who went from anti gun to pro gun so that they could get NRA money?

22:53 Like, can you name anybody that was anti gun that went to pro gun as soon as the NRA started funding things or are given money from PACs?

23:01 I mean, who went from pro life to pro choice so that they could get Planned Parenthood support?

23:06 Like, it's just nonsensical when you say something like that. We just don't see that in modern politics. Okay, the NRA is not paying for all these things and paying for these politicians to say what they're saying, right?

23:15 It's just it's a silly statement to make. So another statement that we hear at this point is if we ban, quote, assault rifles, unquote, we will eliminate most of the gun violence in the United States.

23:26 Okay, we hear that a lot about the dangers of assault rifles, right? Well, first of all, we have to kind of debunk the first thing people think when they hear AR, you know, like AR 15, they think AR stands for assault rifle or automatic rifle.

23:39 So that's the first thing is that was the company that first kind of developed this weapon system. So that's why it's called AR.

23:46 But let's look at the criteria of what actually makes something an assault rifle. Okay, because we hear that thrown around a lot, but most of the people that are using it, they're using the term or the phrase rather incorrectly.

23:56 Okay, so it has to meet two criteria in order for it to be called an assault rifle. Number one, it has to have selectable firing modes.

24:04 Okay, so you have to be able to switch back and forth between whatever firing mode you want. In the second, it has to be able to operate in full auto.

24:11 Okay, so full auto, like we were talking about a little bit earlier, that's a machine gun, right? That's the thing that you need a class three license to have.

24:17 So when these politicians or these morons on the news get on there and say, "We need to ban assault rifles. We need to ban assault rifles. No one should be able to own these." Again, most people can't own them.

24:26 Okay, but here's the thing guys, is the overwhelming majority of gun violence in the US occurs with handguns, like overwhelmingly. Okay, there are more murders in the US that take place where the weapons used are hands or knives than assault rifles, right?

24:43 Like, those are just the real statistics. So, and here's the deal is, let's just say, you know, since some people go into utopia lane when they talk about this, let's say we did ban the sale of these weapons, of AR-15s, these, these, you know, magical evil weapons.

24:58 There are already millions of them in the United States. It's the most popular rifle in the country. People use it for hunting, they use it for target practice, they use it for all kinds of things, right?

25:07 So, banning assault rifles doesn't magically make all of them disappear, and we'll get more into some of the arguments around that subject matter here in a bit.

25:14 Another thing that we hear people say is the US has the most mass shootings and active shooter situations in the world, and you never hear about other countries having these problems, okay?

25:24 Here's the deal is you do almost never hear about these things happening other places in the world, but they certainly happen, right?

25:32 But when they happen in other countries, especially if they're not in the immediate west, it doesn't get the same type of media coverage, okay?

25:39 So, the thing is, is that most mass shootings and active shooter situations happening in the US, that is a false thing. That is not true, not even a little bit true, okay?

25:49 These situations really across the board in the west are incredibly rare, and they're also extremely rare in the United States, okay?

25:57 So, I want to run down some statistics for you just so you can get a sense of what this looks like, so these stats are coming from the Crime Prevention Research Center, okay?

26:04 And what it was looking at is the annual death rate for mass public shootings, and it was comparing European countries to the United States and Canada, okay?

26:14 And they did this on a per capita basis, so that is incredibly important, because if you just compare the countries outright without making any changes based on the population, it's going to mess up all the stats and, you know, kind of throw things out of whack.

26:26 This first thing we're going to look at is the death rate per million people for mass public shootings, and this is from 2009 to 2015, okay?

26:35 So, I'm going to run down a list of the top countries for death rate per million people for mass public shootings from 2009 to 2015, okay?

26:43 Number one, Norway, two, Serbia, three, France, four, Macedonia, five, Albania, six, Slovakia, seven, Switzerland, eight, Finland, nine, Belgium, ten Czech Republic, eleven, the United States, okay?

26:58 So, United States ranks 11th in death rate per million people for mass shootings from a fairly sizable period of time, okay? And now we're going to go to the frequency of mass public shootings, okay?

27:15 All the time, it happens all the time in the U.S., right? So let's go ahead and run down a list of these Western countries. Number one, Macedonia, number two, Albania, number three, Serbia, number four, Switzerland, number five, Norway, number six, Slovakia, number seven, Finland, number eight, Belgium,

27:29 number nine, Austria, number ten, Czech Republic, number eleven, France, number twelve, United States.

27:36 Per capita, the United States is 12th in the frequency of public mass shootings. That is not to diminish the horrors of individual mass shootings, so don't start thinking that.

27:46 But that does put in perspective the issue that we have here in the United States. So the translation here is we have about the same amount of mass gun violence as the rest of Europe, okay?

27:57 The United States has about the same amount of mass gun violence, okay? But we have significantly more guns in the United States, like significantly the closest country to us of the ones that I mentioned is Serbia.

28:09 And they have about half per capita what we have. A lot of those companies that are not companies, but countries that I mentioned, a lot of them have not even a fourth of the guns that we have in the United States per capita, okay?

28:23 So those are just some things when people say that this is an American problem, only that this is just simply an American thing and it's a problem because of the gun lobby or gun laws or whatever, this is just kind of a wet blanket to that argument.

28:34 Another thing we hear is that we need more gun-free zones. Okay, guys, criminals do not care about gun-free zones. You know what gun-free zones are? Schools.

28:47 Schools are gun-free zones. How many shootings have taken place in schools? How many people have probably seen memes like this or t-shirts? Criminals don't show up, fully cocked and ready to go, and then see a sign on the door that says, "Oh, no guns." And they're like, "Ah, [inaudible].

29:02 I gotta go somewhere else now and shoot people." They don't care, okay? So that's a stupid thing to say. We need more gun-free zones, all right?

29:08 Another thing we hear is if the government could just have more power in this area, these shootings could have been prevented.

29:15 If they just had more power, more control. Well, let's look at some of the last few things that have taken place, okay? So let's look at this Florida high school shooter from last week.

29:22 The FBI was aware of his threat to society. They knew about this guy, but they did not investigate it.

29:29 This guy made threats on YouTube, saying he would be a professional school shooter. He bragged about his gun ownership and training on Instagram.

29:37 He had commented to other students before he was expelled about good places that he could shoot from in the school.

29:45 I mean, peers of this guy reported him to the FBI on a tip line, right? Because they were scared he was going to do something, right?

29:52 They said he had this really erratic behavior. He owned all these guns. He had a desire to kill people.

29:57 He had very disturbing things that he would post on social media. He had a desire specifically to do a school shooting.

30:03 And the info was not assessed as a potential threat to life. Somehow it was not assessed.

30:09 The magical government that if we just gave them more power, couldn't do anything.

30:13 Like, here's the thing about this kid, before he was eventually expelled from the school that he ended up going back and shooting,

30:18 school administrators wouldn't even let the kid carry a backpack on school grounds, because they were so afraid that he was going to do something.

30:25 Like, why was this guy just walking around? Why was he able to buy a gun? It's ridiculous.

30:30 But let's look at the Texas church shooter that we had last year. The dude was charged with domestic violence, right?

30:36 Dishonorably just charged from the American Air Force, right? The Air Force did not report it.

30:41 So this guy was legally able to buy a gun when he should not have been legally able to do so.

30:46 The background check failed miserably. I mean, look at the other shootings we've had.

30:49 We've had the Fort Hood shooter, the Pulse nightclub shooter in Florida, the San Bernardino shooter is out in California.

30:55 There were warning signs all over the place on these people, and the Fed did nothing, right? Gun laws and processes didn't work.

31:04 So just adding a bunch more laws and processes on top, does that guarantee that it's going to work? I think it needs to be tightened up.

31:11 I clearly think the background check thing needs to be tightened up if there's certain things from your background.

31:16 That should trigger, you know, maybe an ATF interview, like a specific, you know, more in-depth type of a thing.

31:22 But guys, these shootings don't typically fall out of the friggin' sky.

31:26 Like, there are warning signs with all of these people, almost every time.

31:30 Here's the thing. The federal government can't fix roads and bridges properly, but we should just trust them to take all of our guns and do well with it.

31:37 Like, it's just nonsense. Like, why would anyone believe that would be right?

31:41 So at this point, you might be thinking, "I'm just railing on the political left."

31:44 And again, most of these arguments do come from the political left, but here's a few that we get from the right, okay?

31:49 Here's one. We don't have a gun problem. We have a mental health problem.

31:52 Like, when people say that, I'm like, "What exactly does that mean?"

31:56 Because typically you hear a lot of people in the left make political statements that actually say nothing.

32:00 But what does that mean? We don't have a gun problem. We have a mental health problem.

32:03 It's like, okay, you say that. But what's your proposal then?

32:06 Okay, and then typically you would get this type of response.

32:09 You know, better background checks will prevent, quote, "crazy" people from getting guns, right?

32:15 That's what we hear all the time.

32:16 Here's the thing, is when you lump all these people into the crazy people category, it dehumanizes them.

32:22 It makes them seem like bad guys in a movie. It makes them seem like they couldn't be our neighbor.

32:27 Like, someone from class or someone from work that we see the warning signs, but we're like, "Ah, well, they're not Hitler."

32:33 Or they're not, you know, one of these crazy people.

32:36 Like, the question is, is when you get into actually digging into when people talk about the mental health issue

32:41 and how we should do mental health screenings for people that want to buy guns,

32:44 is who will do these mental health evaluations?

32:48 Like, who will perform them? The federal government?

32:52 Are these psychologists or counselors, are they being paid? Who's paying them, right?

32:58 Like, who will pay for these things, right? So, is the gun purchaser going to pay for these?

33:03 How about the gun store?

33:05 Is the city that it's being purchased in, the state, is the federal government going to pay for this?

33:10 Like, when people suggest these types of things, they're not really saying where these things would go to.

33:15 Like, who would take care of them, right? And who will set the evaluation criteria? There's another question.

33:20 So, if a lot of Republicans are in office, like, right now, will more people be able to get guns, because their evaluation criteria will be more relaxed?

33:28 How about, if more Democrats are in office, will less people get guns, because they're going to be more strict on it?

33:33 So, when people say something like that, they're never specific.

33:36 It's like, if you're going to make an argument for the love of God, just be specific.

33:40 Like, actually have a fully developed thought before you let it come out of your face, okay?

33:45 And another one we get, another statement we get from the political right is, gun control laws like background checks and micro-stamping are an invasion of personal privacy.

33:54 Give me a friggin' break, people. And again, these are people on my side, and they don't like when I talk about this type of stuff.

34:00 But that is one of the dumbest things you could possibly say, like, I don't need the government knowing about my background, blah, blah, blah.

34:06 The government already knows pretty much everything there is to know about you.

34:09 You know why? Because of you! You post just about everything you do on social media, moron, right?

34:16 You post where you're eating dinner, you post where you're going on vacation.

34:19 Here's the other thing, guys. We bring smartphones and home technology devices into our homes, right?

34:26 This Amazon and Google Home stuff, right? Those things are literally listening in on all of our conversations, right?

34:33 They're in our homes, and they record video, they record audio, like, and we're worried about the government knowing more about us somehow.

34:41 Guys, really? Like, these are my libertarian friends. It's like, it's one of the dumbest things that you can say, like, they shouldn't have more information on me.

34:48 The thing is, if I want to own a weapon that I can possibly use for evil, I don't care at all what the government wants to know about me.

34:55 Sure, I'll tell them everything. Like, I'll do an interview. I don't need to pick my gun up today, I'll pick it up later this week.

35:01 Like, do whatever you need to do to ensure that I'm a law-abiding citizen, right? But just don't go crazy with it.

35:06 Another statement we hear right now is, "Progun people don't care about dead children." This is a new favorite one.

35:13 People are getting a little bit over their skis on this one. This is literally one of the dumbest things any human can possibly say.

35:19 Do you think people like me are happy about this? Do you honestly think people like me are happy when something like this happens?

35:26 Do you think that we just sit around, like, this is some sort of joke, you know, we pour ourselves a whiskey and get us a nice cigar and like, "Ah, another school shooting!"

35:33 Like, really, people that are pro-gun don't care about dead children? Like, do you think the NRA and its members like that this stuff is happening?

35:41 Do you honestly think that? I mean, part of the reason why the National Rifle Association even exists is to make sure people have access to guns and training so that they can stop these kinds of things from happening.

35:51 And to hear it, the same thing is true. I hate when people on the political right say that the left doesn't care enough when there's a terrorist attack.

35:59 That's what they say every time, right? Because the left, you know, they don't want to say, "Oh, there's an Islamic fundamentalist terrorist attack."

36:04 The left doesn't care about those, but they care about school shootings. That's ridiculous. That's stupid.

36:08 Like, they clearly care, but it just doesn't fit into their agenda or their rhetoric, right?

36:14 I mean, look at, you know, liberal news stations like MSNBC or CNN.

36:18 Every time there's a school shooting, they go and make sure they find students that survived or they find parents of deceased students, and they make sure to bring them on television.

36:26 But you never see them during the same thing when there's a domestic terrorist attack. You don't see them go and talking to parents or survivors.

36:32 You just don't see that happening because it doesn't fit their agenda. It doesn't fit their rhetoric.

36:35 Here's the deal. Many anti-gun people are on the political left, right? But they also support abortion.

36:42 So when someone says something like, "Progun people don't care about dead children," a lot of those people support abortion.

36:48 So you're totally cool with us ripping a baby to shreds. You know, they're alive in there and they can feel pain, but we just rip them to shreds for the sake of convenience, but that's okay.

36:57 Yeah, spare me the virtue signaling, okay? All these people that are just like, "Oh, I really care about people. You don't care about the around a million people that are killed in the womb every year."

37:06 So yeah, spare me. Another statement we hear is it's going to take more Democrats in office to fix this problem.

37:13 Okay, it's going to take more Democrats. Again, Chicago, Baltimore, D.C., Detroit.

37:19 But here's another interesting thing. For all you virtue signalers out there talking about democratic politicians and how they can fix this.

37:25 Barack Obama from 2009 to 2011, right? Barack Obama, Democrat, had the White House.

37:31 Democrats also had the House in the Senate, and they had a 60-vote majority in the Senate, okay?

37:37 So it was all Democrats and all branches of government from 2009 until 2011.

37:42 So I'm going to run down a list right now of the significant gun legislation that that group passed during that time period, okay? Here we go.

37:54 That was it. Nothing. That group literally passed nothing.

38:01 So this idea that Democrats or liberals somehow care more is patently absurd because if they really gave a damn about these things happening, right?

38:11 And the cared about our children and cared about the safety of Americans.

38:15 Don't you think they would have been able to do something over that three-year period where they controlled just about everything?

38:20 Yeah. And so the last thing that we hear a lot about, and again, there's a lot more, but you know, this podcast can only be so long, is we just need common sense gun control.

38:29 That's the favorite one, right? Hashtag common sense gun control, those types of things, right?

38:34 This is a fantasy land statement, okay? Because who defines common sense, right?

38:40 Something that is common sense to you may not be common sense to your twin brother, right?

38:44 Something that's common sense to you may not be common sense to your spouse or someone that you work with or someone in the community or someone at your church, right?

38:49 It's a political statement. And it's a political statement that literally communicates nothing, okay?

38:55 And now I want to get into what the real argument is when it comes to gun legislation because all the stuff that I've said before, those are all like primers, right?

39:03 You know, I mentioned at the top of the podcast about people not wanting to be specific enough.

39:07 Well, there's more and more people getting bold about what they want to be specific about in this area.

39:12 And so the real argument that the left wants to make here is that we need to repeal the second amendment and confiscate all guns, okay?

39:20 So if someone's actually got the balls to say what they want, they want a complete ban of all guns,

39:25 confiscate them all and, you know, get rid of the second amendment, okay?

39:29 And the big reason why people say things like this is they say the U.S. should ban all guns like Australia did, okay?

39:34 That's like the big thing. Let's do what Australia did. So we're going to break that down.

39:38 But let's just say for saying sakes and some of this is very utopian in nature.

39:42 If the government tried to confiscate all the guns in the U.S., we would have a civil war.

39:46 And that is not a threat. That is a reality, right?

39:48 You go to Oklahoma, where I'm from, and you try to take guns out of people's houses and see how well that goes.

39:54 Go into Texas, go into the back roads of Kentucky and say you're with the federal government and see how well you're received by people out there that literally their driveway is like 15 miles long,

40:07 and if they needed to call the police because someone was breaking in, they wouldn't be there for like 30 minutes.

40:11 Yeah, tell those people that you want to take their guns, okay?

40:14 But let's go ahead into the Australia thing, okay?

40:16 Because a lot of people talk about that, but not a lot of people actually know the details of what happened there.

40:21 So Australia had a mass shooting in 1996, okay?

40:25 And that same year, Australia banned guna, excuse me, gun ownership and gun sales, okay?

40:31 They banned them right there the same year that they had a mass shooting.

40:34 But they did something called a buyback system, which was basically a compensation program, so don't let them get it all twisted up with the PR language.

40:43 And people in the political left always like to use this as their main argument in an example.

40:47 They always point to Australia, okay?

40:49 But I want to compare what Australia was like in 1996 versus the US today, okay? In a few areas.

40:56 So Australia in 1996, the United States in 2018, okay?

41:00 So the population of Australia in 1996 was around 18 million people, okay?

41:06 In the US today, we have around 327 million, okay?

41:10 So 18 million versus 327 million.

41:13 Now, let's talk about the number of guns in country.

41:16 So in Australia in 1996, there were around 3 million guns in country, okay?

41:21 The US today estimates are somewhere between 300 million guns on the low end and around 475 million guns on the high end, okay?

41:30 Just depends on where you look. Those are pretty much the stats, right?

41:33 But now we need to look at trends, okay? So let's look at Australia.

41:37 Since 1996, gun violence has gone down at a lower rate in Australia than in the United States since 1996.

41:48 How is that possible? How is that possible if there is an outright ban and a confiscation happened?

41:55 How could gun violence go down at a lower rate, okay?

41:58 Well, here's a few things on that. During the confiscation, the government confiscation of weapons,

42:02 only about a third of the country's guns were turned in, okay?

42:05 So that's a million out of the 3 million were returned into the government.

42:09 And since 1996, and until right now, the country has gained back about a million guns.

42:14 So the country has about as much population and about as many guns as it had whenever the ban took place, okay?

42:20 So in the US, during that same period of time, gun ownership has exploded in the United States.

42:28 And gun violence has gone down, okay?

42:32 So in 1993, there was about one gun per citizen in the United States, and today some estimates say there was about 1.45 guns per citizen, so a 45% increase.

42:41 So here's a deal. Are you really claiming when you look at Australia as the big example?

42:47 Are you claiming that the federal government of the United States can do a better job than Australia did with the US having 100 times the guns that Australia did at that time?

42:58 Do we have a government that is 100 times as efficient as Australia's?

43:04 Like the overall suggestion of the repeal of the Second Amendment and the confiscation of guns is literally as baseless as it is ridiculous.

43:11 So now here's the thing. At this point in the podcast, you might be thinking that this is just a pro argument or a pro gun argument podcast, right?

43:19 Like that's all I'm talking about. But again, that would be hard to say because I've went after both sides of the argument, right?

43:24 Most of the arguments come from the left here, but even some of the ones that are brought up on the right, I think are ridiculous.

43:30 And I pointed those out. And in all honesty, a lot of things I've heard recently, some of the suggestions are fairly ridiculous.

43:35 I mean, we went through a long list of things that people are saying that just are completely baseless.

43:39 But there are some ideas that are floating around that I think, I mean, I'm in favor of it, at least in a rudimentary way.

43:45 I mean, these things haven't been fully vetted and thought out, but some of the ideas I've heard are actually pretty good.

43:50 So obviously the expansion of background checks so that maybe the system can actually work.

43:54 If there's any red flags that come up in somebody's background, maybe there's an actual in-person interview with the FBI or the ATF.

44:00 And again, that runs into some government interventionism type things, which, you know, would be hard to control depending upon who's in office.

44:07 I like the idea of armed security in schools. I mean, just think about think about the places that you go into that are defended by people with guns.

44:15 I mean, pretty much every bank you go into in the United States, there's some sort of security there.

44:19 I mean, we defend malls for goodness sakes, right? There's cops in there with guns. Like, why wouldn't we protect our schools in the same way?

44:26 Like, we put a sign on the door that says gun free zone and we think we're all good to go. I mean, we're protecting Benjamin Franklin's in the bank and, you know, terrible looking shoes at the mall, but we won't protect our kids.

44:35 I also like the idea of safety partitioning. So in places like hospitals or military bases, if there's an active shooter situation or some sort of an active threat,

44:45 they can actually shut down entire swaths of the facility or the complex and basically keep someone in one area.

44:53 So if they were just going to be walking indiscriminately through the hallways without anyone stopping them or any things stopping them,

44:59 it becomes a major security risk for obviously the people that are spread out through the rest of the facility.

45:04 I also like the idea of allowing teachers, coaches and school administrators to conceal and carry.

45:09 And I know this one like really, really gets at people, but it's like, wouldn't you rather, you know, we've heard, we've heard all these stories of these, these students being protected by the bodies of these teachers and the teachers or coaches.

45:21 They end up getting killed. I mean, that happened last week in Florida. Like, I would really like to see some of these people be trained to use their weapons and to be able to use lethal force to end a threat before it becomes a massacre, you know what I mean?

45:34 And I can guarantee you groups like sheepdog response. That's the company that Tim Kennedy runs. I guarantee you they would do a lot of that training for free.

45:41 I'm almost positive I saw on Instagram right after all this went down that Tim Kennedy was in Florida doing some sort of a training and he was telling any school administrator that wanted to come and get his training.

45:51 Like he would, he would bring them out. Like he would foot the bill for bringing them out to get them this training.

45:56 And also, I've heard something is kind of interesting. It's called the, like the gun violence restraining order. I think something like that. Basically, if you're immediate friends or family or people that are really, really close to you, think that you are an immediate

46:10 danger to society and you own guns, they can actually petition the local court to temporarily restrain you from your weaponry. Okay. So again, that is something that if kept in check could be effective, but it's really, what is it?

46:24 How is it going to be legislated and how is it going to be controlled in a community like say San Francisco versus a community like the one I live in like Oklahoma City?

46:32 Like is it going to be legislated differently? So not all the ideas that are out there are bad, but some are, you know, better than others and they're certainly not all created equal.

46:40 But the thing is guys is we have to calibrate and be honest about the facts of the issue at hand, right? And this is so that we can start to dissect the solutions, right?

46:50 Anyway, I talked about it earlier, we have to be logical. We cannot operate in fantasy land on if in a perfect world, you know, dot, dot, dot, like we can't operate in that world. We have to operate in the world that we actually live in. Okay.

47:02 And the thing is, is if we're going to operate in the current world that we're living in, there's two hard truths that we really have to come to grips with. Okay.

47:09 And this is going to be unpalatable for someone on the left, unpalatable for someone on the right. And again, like I said, there's pretty much no one in the middle. So there's, there are those two hard truths.

47:18 The first one is bad people with guns are almost always stopped or neutralized by good people with guns.

47:26 Gosh, that like just hurts people from the anti guns side to the core, but it's true. Bad people with guns are almost always stopped by good people with guns.

47:34 You cannot be intellectually honest and argue against that. You cannot do that.

47:40 If someone's breaking into your house at night and you don't own a gun, you call the cops. Cops are good guys with guns, right? And some people are like, Oh, well, you know, they're professionals. They should be able to have guns, blah, blah, blah, same with our military.

47:51 Well, look at the church shooter in Texas, right? Do you remember how he was stopped and how he was neutralized? He was neutralized by an NRA instructor who was using the exact same weapon as the attacker.

48:04 The attacker had, you know, the evil AR 15 so did the good guy with the gun in that situation. He used an AR 15 to stop this cat. Okay.

48:13 So again, it's a tool that can be used for good or for evil. This guy chose to use it for good. All right. So that's the first hard truth that we need to look at.

48:22 The second hard truth in this gets a little bit more a little bit deeper, but you cannot legislate evil. You cannot legislate evil. Okay. Most anti gun sentiment people, they have something in common whenever they talk about this issue.

48:38 Or when they talk about really any issue, they believe that most people are basically good. You know, I'm using air quotes right now with the word good. Okay.

48:47 They think everyone is typically good. A lot of people that fall on the more liberal side of argumentation, they have this idea that people are just naturally good.

48:54 But as disciples of Jesus, guys, we know that's a ridiculous statement. Like, we know that in a lot of ways, we are rotten to the core in a lot of ways.

49:04 Okay, but let's just say for saying sake before we get into the Christian perspective, which we will obviously get into.

49:09 Let's take an evolutionary biologist's point of view. Okay. So these are people that think we are just highly evolved monkeys that wear pants. You know, it's all good. That's who we are.

49:19 Where does altruism fit into the survival of the fittest model?

49:24 You know, the desire for everybody to have good things, the most amount of good for the most amount of people. Where does that fit in?

49:31 What about charity? Where does charity fit in to survival of the fittest? How about care for the old or the sick, caring for those people?

49:40 How about the rights for minorities? Where does that fit in? How about protections for the weak? Where exactly does that fit in?

49:49 Do you kind of see where I'm going? Because those things don't fit in to those models, right? Here's another thing. How would you explain a gauge for what evil is? Okay, if you're an evolutionary biologist, how do you gauge evil?

50:03 Okay, is a person shooting up a high school? Is that evil? Where do we get our gauge for that?

50:09 You know, again, survival of the fittest model. How about a man raping a five-year-old girl and then murdering her? Is that evil?

50:16 Let's go away from the human element, all right? Let's say a lion, a fully grown lion, eats a baby zebra. Is that evil?

50:24 A crocodile eating an old water buffalo that's getting a drink is that evil? You know, an evolutionary biologist has no gauge for evil.

50:33 And yet we have people that believe in those types of things. They believe that there is no unmovable mover. There is no intelligent creator.

50:40 They believe that we are highly evolved monkeys that wear pants. Then why are we belly-aching about people doing evil things, right?

50:47 Like, why are we complaining about things that we have made up our own morality on and make up our own issues, right?

50:53 The thing is, guys, there's a reality here, and that is that we are not all basically good. We're not.

51:00 Every single one of us is capable of unspeakable evil, right? And a lot of people that we're around are actually acting out on that.

51:09 And there's another reality is that sin entered the world and broke God's perfect model. Like, that's what happened, right?

51:16 So, the thing is, is we're all born with evil in us, right? And we can go to Scripture to look for some examples of this.

51:23 So, David, in Psalm 51, he said, "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me." Okay?

51:30 So, from the moment you were brought forth, you were brought forth in sin, right? Jeremiah 17, 9. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it, okay?

51:40 And we'll go into Romans a little bit here. This is a little bit longer, but this is in Romans 7, and Paul is kind of describing things about himself,

51:49 and you can just feel the angst and things that he's saying. So, here we go, starting in verse 13 of chapter 7, and we'll go through verse 25.

51:56 "Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means. It was sin, producing death in me, through what is good.

52:04 In order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.

52:10 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want.

52:18 But I do the very thing I hate. Now, if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good.

52:25 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is in my flesh.

52:33 For I have the desire to do what is right, and not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want,

52:39 but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now, if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

52:50 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inner being,

52:59 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.

53:07 wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death. Thanks be to the God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then I myself serve the law of God with my mind. But with my flesh, I serve the law of sin.

53:21 Okay, so some people who are maybe on the atheist or skeptic side, they may listen to that and be like, oh, yeah, that's just spaghetti monster in the sky stuff like the Bible is not real, blah, blah, blah, whatever. Okay, even an atheist or a skeptic or an evolutionary biologist knows this to be true.

53:38 I mean, we can't pour evil into a, you know, a beaker and take it to a lab and study it or something like that, but we know it in our bones. We know that we have evil in us, right? Like we know we've had these, these thoughts of wanting to do damage to somebody to hurt somebody to take advantage of somebody.

53:57 We've had these thoughts, right? But a lot of people will say that they're not evil because, well, I've never actually killed anybody. I never actually raped anybody. I've never stolen anything of value from someone.

54:09 But here's the thing, Jesus had you in mind when he, when he said this stuff that's recorded in Matthew 5. Okay. So towards the end of Matthew 5, he talks about a lot of different areas. So this is what he says in terms of anger. So this is Matthew 5 21 through 22. You have heard that it was said to those of you.

54:26 You shall not murder and whoever murders will be liable to judgment. But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment. Whoever insults his brother will be liable to the counsel and whoever says you fool will be liable to the hell of fire.

54:42 Okay. So that's on anger. Now, let's look at lust. So this is in starting in verse 27. You have heard that it was said, you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

54:57 How about our enemies? Let's look at verse 43. You have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you so that you may be sons of your father who is in heaven.

55:11 For he makes his son rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. Okay. Jesus moved the line way further than anyone was willing to go. Okay. Because everyone just says, well, I've never done that.

55:27 But the reality is, is that you've thought it. That's the evil inside of you. Okay. Like, why do you think Jesus did this? He did this for the people like us and the people like the people around you that haven't committed murder rape or grand theft auto or something like that.

55:43 And somehow still put us all in the same category of quote, good people. Okay. But the thing about this is, is we have to be able to calibrate, like I said earlier, but we have to know who we're fighting. Right. So literally one of the greatest quotes of all time came from the art of war where

56:00 John Sue said this quote, if you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself, but not the enemy for every victory gained, you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle. Okay.

56:20 Guys, we cannot fight our enemy if we do not know our enemy.

56:24 And here's the reality. Okay. Our enemy is evil. Satan is evil incarnate. Okay. Evil exists in all of our hearts. It's in the DNA of our sin nature as humans. Okay. To categorize it as anything other than that is woefully insufficient. Okay.

56:42 So to say that this is a gun control problem, it's insufficient to say it's a mental health problem. It's completely insufficient to say it's a political lobbying problem. It is just not sufficient.

56:53 So here's the deal. So we define evil as the problem and agree that you can't legislate it out of existence. Okay. So now what? Right. So some people will be like, Okay, great Kyle, you've convinced us that it's evil. Now, what the heck do we do about evil? And here's the thing, guys, is we can't stop evil thoughts from occurring.

57:11 Like most of us can't even stop it within our, within ourselves. How in the world could we think that a law on the books could potentially stop in somebody else. We can't stop all instances of evil from coming to fruition either.

57:23 Like we could literally lock down everything in every body and still bad things could happen. But here's the deal, man. We can fight back and push back against darkness.

57:35 That's something that we absolutely can do. Okay. So one of my favorite parts of the Bible is whenever Paul was talking to the church and Ephesus. And he was saying this in Ephesians six. So I'm just going to read Ephesians six, 10 through 20. Okay.

57:51 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.

57:58 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers against the authorities against the cosmic powers over this present darkness against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

58:09 Therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand firm.

58:16 Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth and having put on the breastplate of righteousness and as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one

58:32 and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the spirit with all prayer and supplication.

58:40 To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints. And also for me, that words may be given to me in the opening of my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel.

58:52 For which I am the ambassador in change that I may declare it boldly as I ought to speak. Okay.

58:58 So guys, let's talk about what should resilient men of God do. Okay. At Undaunted Life, we always talk about resilience. What should resilient men of God do. Okay.

59:09 And there's four things I want to point out to you. Okay. And they may seem somewhat simplistic, but once you dig down into what it would require for each one of those things, you will know that it would be quite the undertaking for most of us. Okay.

59:20 And the first thing is to be prayerful. Okay. That's number one, be prayerful. And I can already hear the groans right now, because it is so popular right now to belittle thoughts and prayers. Right.

59:32 You see people like, Oh, you know, I would have sent some thoughts and prayers, but I sent a check instead who like those types of people. Right.

59:39 And then even I just read a quote or a tweet today from Neil deGrasse Tyson basically talking about research suggests that Boston prayers don't actually do anything. Okay. Of course, someone like that would say something like that someone that believes that we are all monkeys.

59:52 Things that praying is not a valuable thing for us to do. But I just read in the quote above from Paul that prayer is unbelievably powerful. Okay.

1:00:02 It's not powerful because God is just going to listen to us and just do what we ask like he's not a genie. Okay. But it's powerful for us to know that he's there and we know that he's watching and we know that he's ultimately in control. Okay.

1:00:13 Number one, be prayerful. Number two is be ready. Okay. So this is something I'm going to get into probably in way more detail at a future podcast in terms of my philosophy here.

1:00:23 But, you know, everyone talks about, you know, the sheep, the wolf in the sheepdog. Everyone kind of knows that by now. But the thing is, there are plenty of sheep in this world of wolves are praying on the sheep. And the only thing that can stop a wolf is a sheepdog.

1:00:34 Okay. And so for us as resilient men of God, we, we have to be ready to act. Okay. So when I say be ready, I mean, be ready to act. So if something is happening around you, whether it's, you know, in the, in the process of happening or you just see something.

1:00:49 You have to, you have to say something, you have to be able to act. Like don't sit there and just wallow in your own self reflection. Okay. And another part of being ready is you have to be ready to protect. Okay. And for a lot of you guys, that means physical action.

1:01:01 Okay. And this is action that takes training. So in order to be ready, you need to be able to train. Okay. So train your body and train your skill set to where if something like this happens that you can protect those around you.

1:01:11 Okay, that you can protect the weak and the untrained around you that that could otherwise get caught up in this evil. Okay. We live in a post Genesis three world. Okay. This is not the perfect world that God had for us. We have to be ready to act.

1:01:23 Okay. So be prayerful. Number one. Number two, be ready. Number three is be vigilant. Okay. Got to be vigilant. Okay. So you have to look for warning signs at all times. Okay. Again, they're literally everywhere. If you look at any of these mass shootings, go back 10 or 15 years.

1:01:39 Almost none of them were random. Almost none of them were unpredictable. Okay. A lot of these we saw this like we could have done something. So for us as resilient men, we have to be vigilant. Okay.

1:01:52 You know, get out of your phone sometimes and be looking around in your normal community and see if there's a potential threat. Okay. That is your role as a sheepdog as a man. Okay.

1:02:01 So number one, be prayerful. Number two, be ready. Number three, be vigilant. And finally, number four, be engaged. Okay. So you've heard some people say this and it's just not being said enough.

1:02:11 But if you see a loner, so I'm talking if you're a teenager listening's podcast, which thank you so much for listening. And if you see a loner in school, you need to talk to them. Just engage with that person.

1:02:20 Right. Someone at work that's this kind of often themselves engage with that person in college, in any setting at church. If they're off by themselves, engage with those people, that's just good advice in all situations.

1:02:30 Just in general for life. But can you imagine what some of these threats could have been thwarted if people would have engaged with these people? I'm not saying that just going and talking to somebody is going to keep them from doing something murderous.

1:02:41 Like we don't know that to be true. Okay. But here's the thing. And those are the four things again that I think that all resilient men should do, but we will never, ever be able to fully get rid of these instances of evil and violence.

1:02:54 Like we just won't. But the thing is, is we can be prayerful. We can be ready. We can be vigilant and we can be engaged. Like those are things that we can do. Those are the only things really that are in our control.

1:03:08 Okay. And if we are prayerful and ready and vigilant and engaged, I can't imagine as a society us not being able to stop some of the violence that has occurred. Okay.

1:03:18 If that is our focus. All right. So before we wrap up, we're going to do a quick resilience boost. As most of you know, by now, we are a men's ministry and our mission is cultivating mainly resilience.

1:03:28 Specifically, we provide content that forages spiritual, mental and physical toughness. So today, I want to talk about all three. I want to talk about spiritual, mental and physical. Okay. And this is within the context of the things that we've said. Okay.

1:03:40 So spiritually, pray. Now, for some of you guys, when that's just like a normal part of your everyday life, that's not really a big suggestion. But for a lot of you guys, you need to pray. You need to pray for these families. You need to pray for the shooter.

1:03:53 You need to pray for anything that's going to happen because we know it's going to continue to happen all across the globe. So spiritual resilience. Pray. Get on your knees. Get in the spiritual realm. Pray.

1:04:04 For mental, prepare your mind to be ready to act. Okay. I talked about what resilient men should be able to do. You have to prepare your mind to be ready to act. That's just something that needs to happen. Okay.

1:04:15 And for physical side, train your body to be ready as well. Train your body to be ready to act. These are not small things. Like, it's not like, all right. Well, I prayed for 30 seconds. Good to go. All right. I had to talk with myself. So I prepared my mind and I did 10 push up. So my body's ready.

1:04:30 These are lifestyle changes, men. So for you to be a resilient man, but also to fight against the potential evil that you're going to run into in your life to protect your family, to protect your loved ones, to protect the general public.

1:04:41 If you're praying, if you're preparing your mind to act when the time comes and you're preparing your body to be ready when the time comes, you're going to be all squared away. Okay.

1:04:49 Again, guys, thank you so much for listening into today's podcast. If you would, please subscribe on iTunes, SoundCloud or Google Play and refer your friends to listen and share this on social media. If you use the hashtag undaunted life or tag us, we will be sure to like your post. Okay.

1:05:02 If we deserve a five star review, please leave us one. That is how this podcast will continue to grow. Our website is www.undaunted.life. You can check out our free devotionals on the U version app. Just search the term undaunted life under plans.

1:05:20 And we would also like to thank the band, August Burns Red, for allowing us to use their music library for our content. The intro outro track on this podcast is their song, King of Sorrow, which is off their latest record entitled Phantom Anthem. The links to all this are in the description.

1:05:33 I'm your host Kyle Thompson. Remember, keep cultivating mainly resilience. Keep forging spiritual, mental and physical toughness. Keep seeking the Lion of Judah.

1:05:50 I can stop your journey. I am your side of the sky.