#808 - Michael Wood, Jr.

[0] Yes, and we're live.

[1] Welcome back, Mr. Wood.

[2] Thanks for having me back, Joe.

[3] How are you, buddy?

[4] Good.

[5] It's been a wild year.

[6] For people who don't know, Michael was a former, you were, well, you never really a former Marine, right?

[7] Isn't that one of those things?

[8] Were you a Marine, you stay Marine?

[9] I don't quite buy that.

[10] Some Marines do.

[11] If I would have stayed, maybe.

[12] For the Marines who agree with that, okay, you were a Marine, former sergeant in the Baltimore Police Department, and you came on the podcast to why.

[13] back and expose some pretty eye -opening information about how the whole system sort of works in this sort of a kind of a closed loop in Baltimore where the same neighborhoods are having the same kind of crime and the same sort of scenarios over and over again.

[14] And that was a really important podcast for me. And it was a really important podcast for a lot of people that listened to it because they got exposed to the inner workings of police departments by someone who was, you know, I was really happy how honest you were about all of it, about the thrill of chasing people and all of the cool stuff about it.

[15] And we scheduled this podcast quite a while ago, and it's kind of crazy that you're coming in the weekend after these insane shootings in Orlando.

[16] And I'm absolutely not happy that that happened, but I'm happy as happy as I could be that you're here while this is all going down.

[17] And we get to kind of talk about these moments, these insane moments that happen, it seems like every few months or so, some new insane moment happens where some person, usually a man, blows a fucking fuse and winds up killing.

[18] telling a ton of people.

[19] I don't know what, if anything, and I'm hoping maybe you'll have some insight, what if anything could ever be done to stop something like this?

[20] Well, this is where we get into the Mike Rhodes, the dirty liberal thing, and we're going to start talking about gun control because I don't know what else we can talk about.

[21] Your only other option is to continue a cycle of more and more force.

[22] one another.

[23] So what we know for sure, without a doubt, that the path we're on, it is only a matter of time before this record is broken.

[24] Right.

[25] So what we're doing will result in that.

[26] But we have this anti -intellectualism in America that just won't take that evidence and apply it to what we know is going to be the end result.

[27] We have countries that have done gun control.

[28] They don't have mass shootings.

[29] We have mass shootings literally on the daily in America.

[30] You just don't hear about them all.

[31] So mass shootings generally characterized three or four more casualties, something like that.

[32] But this happens every day in these cities.

[33] Does it really?

[34] Yeah, you don't hear about it.

[35] Well, when it's a backyard barbecue shooting in the hood.

[36] Right, right.

[37] Yeah, so you could think of it's that.

[38] A lot of people don't categorize those as mass shootings because you think of mass shootings is someone going into a crowded place and killing how much of civilians, or innocent people, I should say, whereas they think of those kind of shootings in the hood as rival gangs, people competing over drug dealing territory, things along those lines, which is another point because you were running for, you wanted to be the head of police of Chicago.

[39] Is that still going on?

[40] No, I mean, they certainly, the corruption went in.

[41] And so we could tell that story real quick.

[42] What they did is they did.

[43] They did a national search.

[44] So the laws in Chicago said that this appointed police board has to do a nationwide search, and then they give three names to the mayor.

[45] The mayor investigates those people and then chooses one.

[46] So I predict that they weren't going to go with me. I'm too far ahead still, that no one's really ready to take that bite yet, but it's still something we could have talked about and they would have had the opportunity.

[47] I figured they would pick that I figured they would pick a black guy who was educated and not from Chicago that was my prediction and that's who the police board did choose.

[48] They chose a guy from Atlanta who fit that bill to the tea he was going to be the black guy that represents the police department but still totes their line I'm thinking of a word that everybody knows and I'm just not saying it so you can all pick up on what I'm suggesting.

[49] You're saying Uncle Tom Yeah, and some people have an uncle Tom, and he's a nice guy.

[50] So if you have an uncle and his name's Tom, don't worry about it.

[51] So that's what they're going to look for, something that will visually seem satisfying, but can structurally be exactly the same.

[52] So they chose that guy, and the mayor still said, yeah, I don't want that guy.

[53] I want to choose this guy that didn't even apply.

[54] And that's who's the commissioner now.

[55] So who is this guy that didn't apply?

[56] He was a couple ranks down.

[57] Already in the agency, he is, he said that he has never seen misconduct or corruption in the Chicago Police Department in his entire 20 -some -year career.

[58] He is intimately tied into a cheating scandal in the promotional test.

[59] Another thing which you could solve easily.

[60] So his friends like wife or something got number one a lieutenant's test, which, It's extremely qualifying, say to say.

[61] And as soon as the information comes down, that he actually was the one that was developing the test, had the answers, and then she gets this super high score out of nowhere.

[62] And, you know, it's when everybody says, oh, come on, we've seen this before.

[63] We know what it is.

[64] So you could solve it.

[65] You could retest them and see who does it.

[66] But of course, of course not.

[67] So they're not going to do that.

[68] They don't have any interest in exposing things.

[69] So if I'm going to come in there and I'm going to say, all right, that's it.

[70] we're going to be transparent.

[71] I don't think they're...

[72] Okay, so now when you say that you were a little too far ahead, what do you mean by that?

[73] Well, it seems the people of a city or of any area have to be pushed hard enough to have that change.

[74] Like, they have to have that breaking point where they say, that's it.

[75] We're going to do something different.

[76] Because what I really push is for civilian -controlled policing.

[77] I want you guys to tell me, what should be done, which is a huge drop in power.

[78] So that would require a mayor that's willing to give in to the people that have pushed hard enough to say, look, I'm going to relinquish control of my essential armed wing, and I'm going to give it to the people.

[79] And so has that ever been done before?

[80] Not that I'm aware of.

[81] Not in America.

[82] It certainly hasn't.

[83] So who's going to be the city that takes that leap?

[84] It has to come.

[85] It has to.

[86] We all know it.

[87] So it's a matter of film.

[88] Well, what they've tried to do in some areas, like in New Jersey, in particular, is force these people to integrate more into the community, make them walk the beat, which is, like, you don't hear about that anymore.

[89] Now everyone's in a car and you're driving around this closed up vehicle, whereas before everybody was walking around and you were sort of like, oh, there's Officer Mike.

[90] You know, he's a part of the community.

[91] And it became normal to see these people.

[92] They developed friendships with the people that were in their neighborhood, that they were patrolling.

[93] And it sort of ingratiated them more.

[94] I think having a bunch of people that you don't know patrolling your streets with guns in a car, just driving around and, you know, hardly ever getting out unless they're arresting somebody.

[95] That's a little odd, right?

[96] Well, yeah, but I don't see that the foot patrol is the solution to that because what they do is they put a facade on it.

[97] So they make it look like foot patrol, but it still has those essential underpinnings of being motivated.

[98] it to go and make arrests and to get the stats.

[99] So I did Foot Patrol for like six months.

[100] And that's what it was.

[101] It was just being thrown in to get drug arrests.

[102] I didn't know anybody or meet anybody.

[103] It was still those same pushing to get somebody, put them in a prison cell, do the paperwork, go back out and do it again.

[104] So what we really need is to change the incentives and disincentives so that no matter what the role, we're still going towards that objective that actually serves you.

[105] Right.

[106] I had Dave Smith in the other day.

[107] Excuse me. Dave Smith, who's a hilarious stand -up comedian, and he's also on this podcast called Legion of Skanks.

[108] He's a libertarian.

[109] Very smart guy.

[110] But he was bringing up a point about New York.

[111] After the shootings in New York where a bunch of cops had gotten shot, there was this sort of cool -off period where they had just stopped arresting people for bullshit.

[112] And the bullshit arrests, like loose cigarettes, things along those lines, just dropped substantially.

[113] And people were really excited about that.

[114] They were like, look, this is like a good step.

[115] Like, this is really how it should be.

[116] The police shouldn't be glorified revenue collectors just arresting people for the taxes lost on loose cigarettes.

[117] And that's what killed Eric Gardner, right?

[118] Precisely.

[119] Yeah.

[120] I mean, it's disgusting.

[121] It's not policing.

[122] That guy's not hurting anybody.

[123] policing should be protecting and serving, right?

[124] I'm really glad that you brought up that instance in New York.

[125] So what that is is direct evidence against what the head of the FBI has said.

[126] Comey, who's coming and he's pushing this Ferguson effect, right?

[127] So the idea around, they're saying, oh, we have crime going up in these different neighborhoods because there's this Ferguson effect that the cops are laying back so they're not being as proactive.

[128] And because they're not being as proactive, then they're not rocking people.

[129] up so so stats are going up and we know that if you have a theory and there's one situation that says your theory's complete crap well your theory is complete crap and that's what new york was so new york they they step back and they they wanted to be like oh look how much you need us and didn't work that's didn't show that the stats showed lower crime they had less calls for service everybody was happier with what was going on because that is it's we want to say that policing should prevent things and it's just not possible police are there to clean things up and to investigate after the fact every arrest should be viewed as a failure of the system we shouldn't praise an arrest that is when we failed that's an interesting way of looking at it um i think another way to look at it that's maybe more on more common ground is you're you're fucking with people when you're when you're around them all the time and you're like what's going on over there boys you know like that kind of shit you're fucking with them you're creating tension and tension creates arguments it creates crime it creates resentment it creates anger all those things contribute to crime 100 % and when you fuck with people over loose cigarettes or any sort of nonsense petty crime that nobody gives a shit about that kind of stuff isn't it's not good for anybody it's not good for the relationship the police have with citizens it's not good for the perception of the citizens of the way they view the police it makes them view the police as these these thugs Which citizens, though?

[130] A significant amount of the citizens in this country very much alike that the facts, that the police do that.

[131] Well, they don't live there.

[132] Right.

[133] But if they were poor and they lived in those communities, they wouldn't feel like that.

[134] So you always do this.

[135] You hit on these big issues because you're just like, well, wait, this is obvious.

[136] It's right in front of our face.

[137] And what they're doing is they are funded.

[138] And, you know, so you have a mayor in Baltimore.

[139] The mayor directs the police department's way, no matter what city you're in.

[140] And what that person is doing is they're serving those rich people.

[141] They're serving the mass voters of the area who just have that mentality still that they want those animals caged and to pen them in and to keep them there.

[142] So as long as it doesn't affect us, then who cares?

[143] Right.

[144] And that's really what you're hitting on there, is that they, I don't know that more of this country doesn't want our police to be that way.

[145] I think they're happy about it.

[146] I think you're probably right, but I think they're misinformed.

[147] And I think they have this incorrect understanding of how that affects the people that these cops are interacting with and that it actually does probably create more.

[148] more crime.

[149] And then on top of that, I think there's also the problem with those people that are in those poor communities could just as easily be you or I. If we were born into those situations, and we're talking about giving people an opportunity to get out, giving people a possibility to get out and do better and improve their situation, their standing in life.

[150] Well, if they're getting fucked with all the time, that's not going to happen.

[151] If they're in a terrible poverty -laden crime -laden community.

[152] Good luck with that.

[153] Good luck getting at that.

[154] It becomes almost insurmountable.

[155] And I think it's real convenient for people to be outside of that and look at those folks and go, well, those people need to stop doing crime.

[156] What you need to do is just lock them all up.

[157] Well, that doesn't seem to make sense.

[158] It seems much more likely that the best way to handle that is to lock them up less and to sort of somehow another try to calm that area down.

[159] And I don't know how you would do it.

[160] I mean, whether it's through some universal basic income idea, which I've been paying a lot of attention to that lately and trying to explore those ideas and see if I can wrap my own.

[161] They're going to call me a socialist and you're talking about minimum.

[162] It wasn't my idea.

[163] It was, you know, it was an idea that Eddie Huang brought up on the podcast and I initially laughed at him.

[164] I was like, well, I Nobody's going to fucking go for that.

[165] And then I started reading some articles on it, and I started thinking about it.

[166] And financially, the issue is where's that money come from?

[167] And you're obviously going to, it's a shit ton of money that's going to have to somehow another come out of something else.

[168] And I'm not a financial person.

[169] I don't understand economy.

[170] I'm not an economist.

[171] So I'm not the person to do the numbers.

[172] But when I think about it, like objectively, as far as from a social stance, when people have less problems, when bills are paid easier, when they're more relaxed as far as like where food's coming from, where, you know, basic needs are covered, they're less likely to commit crime.

[173] So it just makes sense that you would have to spend less money on law enforcement, less money on prisons, less money on jails, and that perhaps that could translate.

[174] There was a great article written by, see if you could find it, Jamie, there's some prominent libertarian.

[175] who wrote this piece about universal basic income.

[176] The idea is essentially giving people $13 ,000 a year.

[177] And that if you give Americans, you know, it's essentially $1 ,000 plus a month.

[178] And that if you did that, you would take care of a shitload of problems that we have in inner cities and crime and all this.

[179] And he sort of outlined it and made a pretty interesting case for this idea.

[180] But of course, you've got a lot of people that want to go on and on about welfare babies and people that are juking the system and buying cigarettes with food stamps and, you know, things along those lines.

[181] But it's like this callous sort of approach to dealing with really poor people and really bad neighborhoods.

[182] And one of the things that you brought up about Baltimore that made it so disturbing was that black people had to buy houses in these areas.

[183] They would not sell houses in certain areas to black people.

[184] and that this was like a law and this was actually written this was not like everybody conspired this was something that they actively set out to do this idea of caging them keeping them in they literally did that through paperwork right and that's so things that you're talking about and like that sociologist that has that study we know these things so what you're observing is things that the scholarly community has known for a long time and is trying to get these things out there so that people understand this, it's not even a matter of how much is this going to cost because we're already spending the money and we're spending a lot more.

[185] This book, this is why I brought it with me because I just finished going through it.

[186] It was just put out.

[187] So this is by a Johns Hopkins researcher, Stephanie DeLucah, who's a friend of mine, you know, so everybody knows that I am saying it.

[188] but she they did a study they followed Baltimore youth around for well over a decade I think it was like 15 16 years and their paths that they go through and part of that was it costs 27 billion dollars to America every single year for disconnected youth so that's just youth that don't have a drive and don't have a focus and how is that money how does it trickle down so what they do is so they don't chase things right so you get stuck and this idea that you can't escape this neighborhood because we have so many blockades in the way.

[189] There are stories that go through.

[190] They track like 100 and some people, parents having kids in these neighborhoods and moving them out and what happened to them.

[191] And the two biggest pushers for the success of any kid in these cities was that they had an identity project, which means they're finding their passion and what they're going to go towards because they don't know these passions.

[192] They don't know that a photographer like Devin Allen, a friend of mine in Baltimore, can come out and do things for their community and can actually achieve that dream.

[193] So once they see it and it's possible and you start taking the hurdles down, like the hurdles of where they live and the hurdles of the arrest for the bag of weed or for, like you said, the talking yourself into jail because the cops messing with you every single day and you're saturated with police in these neighborhoods, you start taking down.

[194] these barriers and these kids excel and that it goes completely against the narrative that we're hearing that these kids don't have motivation and they can't push out 80 % of these kids that grow up in the city never touch the streets or have anything to do with it they're getting high school degrees at four or five hundred percent the rate of their their parents it's just that what we keep doing is we keep getting them behind and they're still fighting super hard but we're still throwing more more hurdles and they're wet.

[195] So the money that you're talking about how much it costs for these disconnected youths, this is all in prisons and...

[196] This isn't even prison.

[197] What is it?

[198] This is just the lack of their productivity from achieving what they can achieve.

[199] And what it's costing us to then take care of what the fallout is in that, just that microcosm.

[200] We're not throwing in locking up everybody else.

[201] We're not throwing in the parents.

[202] We're not throwing in all these other stuff, just youth that don't have a passion.

[203] Well, this is one of the subjects that's come up over and over again on this podcast because I've always tried to figure out what it is that keeps people from trying to socially engineer these environments and make them better for the people that live there.

[204] Like we're always concentrating on all these other countries.

[205] We're concentrating on, you know, helping Afghanistan and, you know, rebuilding Iraq and all the stuff that we do.

[206] humanitarian efforts all over the world, right?

[207] What about our own inner cities?

[208] I think they do.

[209] I think they're misguided.

[210] So what we end up doing is we have this idea that we're rich and often white and we're going to come in and we're going to like have the handout or we're going to give them what we want or we're going to show them the right way.

[211] And that's not the answer.

[212] The answer is to ask what they want and provide the structure and platform for that to take place.

[213] So when these smart people that haven't been in there.

[214] They'll look at stats and they'll look at the paperwork and they'll say, oh, we just need to move people out and relocate them.

[215] Or we need to, the idea was, all right, well, we'll put them in this big tower and we'll have resources around them and everything will be fine.

[216] And we're making sure they have their own police department.

[217] So everything will be good.

[218] But then the police start locking everybody up and you just, you get into that cycle again because you're not giving the identity project even to adults where you can say whether it's comedy or whether it's photography or no matter what you have to have that goal that vision because all they see is that their future is in dealing or in a prison cell and they keep being told that if they do the right things they can move on but when they do the right things are sometimes good intentions have put up the roadblocks that prevent them from doing that.

[219] So, but how do you sort of engineer, for lack of a better term, a whole society, like, how do you give them goals?

[220] How do you expose them to all these possibilities and how do you set up paths?

[221] You just said the word.

[222] Expose.

[223] They're isolated.

[224] They don't know.

[225] Right.

[226] But how do you do that, though?

[227] I think social media is helping a ton.

[228] So they can see and interact with people that are different from them.

[229] and they can see, oh, look, this kid from New York, he did get into this school, and he has this job now.

[230] And now I can maybe go work for his company or whatever it is.

[231] They see these examples of success, and then they start to pick them up and chase them.

[232] And that's what these, the stats and all this book is showing that it's staggering how much effort these kids are putting in to their goals.

[233] It's just that we're actually setting up the prevention of it by doing things like, okay, we charge a black kid in the city, you know, you charge him, he commits a homicide because he was defending his sister from getting raped, but when he gets a prison sentence, we know that that prison sentence just slams him.

[234] But when it's a white kid from Sanford, you know what happens.

[235] So it's kind of this, I don't want to push empathy all the time, but there is that that empathy angle, but it's just kind of helping people get where they want to get instead of pushing them where you think they should be.

[236] They'll find their own past.

[237] It's like we treat poor people like their children and they're not.

[238] They're poor people.

[239] There's a dude who works at the comedy store who was a criminal defense attorney and he resigned.

[240] He stopped doing it because he got tired of his when he was bringing cases to trial.

[241] If it was a white guy, the white guy would get, whatever six months for an identical crime a young black guy would get 10 years and he was like you've got someone's got to tell me what the fuck is going on here because all I'm looking at is systematic racism I'm looking at institutional racism he was like this is just over and over and over again I'm confronted by the same kind of people the same age brackets but completely different types of sentences and what's the mentality behind it and he said everybody wanted to just bury their head in the sand and he couldn't do it anymore it was so strong I mean, when the guy talks about it, he's like smoking cigarettes and freaking out because it was just a few, a 10 years of his life.

[242] And it was just too much.

[243] You couldn't do it anymore.

[244] That kind of shit is almost insurmountable.

[245] When you're living in that world and you're one of those people that gets sent down the river for 10 years for something that you know, if you were a white Irish kid, you would get six months or, you know, a much lesser sentence.

[246] that alone is got to be a gigantic hurdle for someone living in these environments and it's not saying that people shouldn't be punished for crimes they definitely should be punished for crimes but sure about that they also should be well punished absolutely should that be our view what do you think they should do about murder should punish them or just give them a hug it certainly depend on the situation but I can't help but keep coming back to the fundamental idea that our criminal justice system is based on punishment like that's not a moral system it's like the death penalty right we know that these things don't work so now now do they get rights taken away so what i would like to see is let's take for instance we know that it costs so -and -so thousands of dollars a year to house somebody thinks 24 ,000 depends on where you are though so a college degree from an online school that's accredited which we can all do easily right now would cost way less than that so put them in a in a cell And you keep them around, but you treat them like human beings, you give them an identity, a goal where they can achieve something.

[247] And they actually, because right now we sit them into a prison of punishment and what happens when they come out?

[248] They're in a worse situation.

[249] So now we've created a greater criminal than we had before.

[250] So our goal is supposed to be some kind of rehabilitation that this is a better person when they leave than when they go in.

[251] But we have that in us.

[252] We want these fuckers to pay.

[253] Well, certainly for murder.

[254] I mean, for the families of someone that they victimized, they don't want this person to come out better.

[255] Not even all victims feel that way, though.

[256] You know?

[257] And so there are plenty of murder victims who their parents have gone and asked for leniency for the person or asked them not give them the death penalty because...

[258] That's pretty fucking rare, though.

[259] It is right.

[260] Yes, yes.

[261] Most people want revenge.

[262] Yeah.

[263] But we have to look beyond that because, you know, when your sister gets in a fight and kills your neighbor who's your friend or something like that, You're not asking for the death penalty, right?

[264] Because it's close to you.

[265] Well, the problem is others.

[266] We do that to others.

[267] We wouldn't do that to the ones we know.

[268] Well, threats to society.

[269] That's the real issue with some people.

[270] White, black, whatever.

[271] Someone's a sociopath.

[272] Someone's a psycho.

[273] They're a threat to society.

[274] Like the guy who killed all those people in the theater in Denver.

[275] That's a psycho.

[276] I mean, that guy needs to be locked up forever.

[277] Sure.

[278] Okay.

[279] Nothing you can know about it.

[280] Well, what do you do about a person like that?

[281] I mean, how do you take a person?

[282] like that and do you give him goals in prison?

[283] Do you try to give him an education?

[284] I mean, obviously, he's got a mental illness.

[285] So think about that.

[286] He could become, not him, obviously, like you're saying, he has mental illness, but somebody else, you could educate them while they're there and they can contribute to literature.

[287] They can contribute to science.

[288] They can give back to some society in some way.

[289] Is that financially feasible?

[290] How much more money would it take to make prison a safer environment for people that are locked up?

[291] I mean, the idea is that we're supposed to be protecting the rest of us from these people that have committed these awful crimes, right?

[292] Someone's committed rape, someone's committed murderer or armed robbery.

[293] We separate them from us because we don't want them to victimize any more people.

[294] Then goal number two is rehabilitation, and that goal is overwhelmingly a failure.

[295] Overwhelmingly.

[296] If you look at the statistics of recidivism raid.

[297] If we pretend that it's been attempted.

[298] Yeah, that's a good, good point.

[299] I mean, well, there are, I mean, Rick Ross, the guy we've had on before, the real Rick Ross.

[300] not the rapper guy.

[301] He, I mean, he learned how to read and literally figured out what was wrong with his case in prison.

[302] He didn't know how to read.

[303] Not all prisons do that, though.

[304] A lot of them won't give them any access that some do.

[305] You know, so there are wardens out there that are progressive and are thinking of these things.

[306] So that shouldn't really be on the warden, huh?

[307] There should be some sort of a standard nationwide where we should look at it as a culture, as a society, as a civilization, and say, hey, you know, what should we be trying to do to try to make these people better?

[308] people.

[309] Right.

[310] And you do that when you arrest them, though.

[311] So what we say now is when he goes and shoots or when someone rapes, we're not looking at that as that failure.

[312] So if you were running this business and an asset of your business failed, then you would want to have an analysis and you would want to say, all right, let's do a regression and figure out what went wrong.

[313] And you would want to fix that for the next time.

[314] But we don't do that.

[315] We just go, all right, throw that one away and continue path as normal, we shouldn't be so focused when we arrest somebody to figure out how we're going to throw them away for the longest.

[316] We should be figuring out why it happened so we can prevent it for the next person.

[317] But it doesn't seem like we actually care about solving the crime.

[318] We're just keeping these wheels turning.

[319] So if you commit murder, then I want to know why.

[320] I want to know the scenarios that led you up to that.

[321] Because the only way that I can actually prevent that That is not minority report.

[322] It's finding out what that hurdle was, that moment that you said, fuck this, and finding ways to prevent that as much as possible or reduce it for other people.

[323] And a lot of it must have to do with the developmental period that you go through when you're a young person and what you're exposed to as a small child.

[324] I mean, and that stuff becomes so deeply ingrained in a person's mind to try to reverse that.

[325] boy, it's so much harder than to try to raise someone correctly the first time.

[326] All that's in this book, they talk about that, is coming of age in the other America.

[327] I mean, they talk about these things where that's one of the predictors is how much exposure to violence that these kids have had when they were going between the ages of zero and ten.

[328] And so when they got them out of the city and they gave them opportunities, then they got exposed to less violence.

[329] The really crazy thing in this study is that we found out that.

[330] that the kids that were in the city that didn't get help, they also fought their way out at actually a higher rate.

[331] So we did these nice things and we have to tweak it, but our nice things that we did actually didn't pan out in the same results as kids that were just fighting on their own.

[332] So explain that?

[333] Yeah, yeah, it's wild.

[334] So they had these housing voucher programs where the idea was to take people out of those neighborhoods and put them into nicer neighborhoods where they would be exposed to less things, and they would have neighbors around that did the things.

[335] And that was very beneficial when that happened.

[336] But about an equal percentage of those kids went back, ended up being in the low -come areas and get involved into the streets.

[337] And then the ones that fought themselves out on their own ended up at a higher, slightly higher percentage, actually getting out and being exposed to less because of their own individual efforts and the control group trying to get out of there.

[338] So while it says that the programs need some tweaking, but it shows that it's counter -narrative that these kids aren't trying and that they're not succeeding to get out.

[339] They are pushing super hard to make something of themselves.

[340] And our cultural idea is like, oh, look, these kids are not doing anything.

[341] They're just turning to drugs and they're just dealing.

[342] And surprisingly, they're not.

[343] 12 % of the kids raised in Baltimore in this study ever spent, and these are in the worst neighborhoods, it's East and West Baltimore, ever spent a moment on the streets doing any criminal activity 12 % staggering i'm i'm shocked i feel dumb because i did the same things like yeah that's all they're exposed to right but it's it's not they're fighting out like crazy and we're the ones stopping them from coming to fruition well not us society we're responsible right like so but are we i mean here's the thing it's like how much effort is actually being done to try to fix this i mean how many people are actually thinking about it how much money is actually being spent to try to fix this.

[344] It seems like there's so many problems in the world that to concentrate on bad neighborhoods or crime -ridden neighborhoods, it's so low on the list of things the world's worried about the polar ice caps are melting, polar bears are drowning.

[345] You know, there's so much shit we're worried about on top of that.

[346] They're trying hard as hell to keep it the way it is, though.

[347] Who's trying hard?

[348] Governments are.

[349] In Baltimore, for example, there's this patentate thing that, uh, uh, uh, uh, A professor from Morgan State, Lawrence Brown, is really into this and tracks it all down.

[350] But there's a white L, we call it the White L in Baltimore.

[351] It goes down through the rich neighborhood and comes across to the other rich neighborhoods by the bay.

[352] And then there's the black butterfly, which comes off to the sides, east and west Baltimore.

[353] And it looks like butterfly wings dispersing out poverty and black people in the city.

[354] And this is in every single aspect that you're going to find.

[355] Where the money goes for schools.

[356] the bus routes are, where the free bus is.

[357] Like the white neighborhoods have a free bus and the black neighborhoods have to pay for their bus.

[358] Really?

[359] Yes.

[360] So we have all these things that no matter what you think of, this white out and this black butterfly come to fruition on where resources are allocated and what problems are.

[361] How is that possible that white people don't have to pay for the bus and the black people do?

[362] That seems ridiculous.

[363] Wait, let me tell you that they, it's the neighborhood.

[364] Because it's the neighborhoods.

[365] So they're not serving the white people.

[366] They're serving those upper class neighborhoods.

[367] But is it a in is it a tax issue?

[368] Is it a property tax issue where they spent money for the buses?

[369] No, it's all Baltimore cities and all the money states.

[370] So how the fuck could they justify that?

[371] They just do it like and nobody cares.

[372] I mean it's it's so people should follow him.

[373] It's at be more doc on Twitter.

[374] He he lays this out in so many different avenues you you just you have to be willfully ignorant and not realize that this is going on.

[375] At be more DOC.

[376] Mm -hmm.

[377] Okay.

[378] That's insane.

[379] Now, how much of it is dealing with prison guard unions and police unions that are trying to keep business as usual, because that keeps people employed?

[380] Well, that's a significant portion, and you're seeing that with the NRA, and you're seeing that with the police unions and, like you said, the correctional unions, where, and like, see, even them, they don't have these bad intentions.

[381] What they have is job preservation.

[382] Everything comes back to those incentives and disincentives.

[383] So they're fighting for their job.

[384] And that's all they're thinking.

[385] Well, we want jobs.

[386] We want safer conditions.

[387] I want to make sure that this is a big company that blows up.

[388] So they're going to put their money towards politicians that's to support them.

[389] And that's just the way it goes.

[390] It's the way it's always been.

[391] As long as we have money in politics, you can't get away from that.

[392] Well, the most transparent example of that is marijuana.

[393] That we've shown time and time and again with a million different studies that marijuana is not dangerous.

[394] or if it is dangerous, the danger that it poses is so minimal, it's so small that consenting adults should be able to do whatever the fuck they want with it.

[395] And yet prison guard unions and police unions still lobby to keep the drug laws exactly the same way they are because that ensures that you're going to need a certain amount of guards, you're going to need a certain amount of police officers.

[396] That's counterintuitive.

[397] I mean, that's dangerous for a society because that sets up this.

[398] us versus them mentality where it doesn't need to be where you're telling people there's a certain forbidden plant that they're not allowed to use we've decided this we're going to keep it this way even though it's completely illogical even though we know the history of it and we're going to do it simply because people want to keep their jobs instead of trying to figure out what other jobs these people can do like shouldn't there be a way you could take some of these people that are prison guards or police officers and give them a job with a commensurate income that's involved in helping communities, something positive, something setting up community programs.

[399] I mean, how many guys that are cops who are also into martial arts or into fitness or into something else or, you know, anything where they could teach people in these communities, set up community centers and give people high -paying jobs to establish really good environments for development and for growing and give people a chance to be exposed to maybe one of these things that could be these paths that you were talking about.

[400] Yeah, I mean, obviously, I'm going to have zero objection to that.

[401] I mean, that's a great way of going about it.

[402] And cannabis is obviously the shining example of complete illogic.

[403] They just did a new study where they tracked people for 30 years.

[404] You know what health problems they found?

[405] What?

[406] Gingervitis.

[407] Bad breath?

[408] Yeah, they just didn't brush her teeth.

[409] God damn.

[410] Hippies?

[411] Yeah, hippies didn't breasters.

[412] Stinky breath hippies.

[413] So that's what the study people said.

[414] They said the same thing.

[415] Like, well, that probably just because we're in a certain segment of the population.

[416] Yeah.

[417] And it doesn't have anything to do with the cannabis.

[418] That's hilarious.

[419] So we know without a doubt that that's the case.

[420] But what we can do is so say you still want to do that.

[421] And we only have to change them that far to get them away from the drug war, even though that's probably the biggest chunk that's fucking everything up is the drug war.

[422] But if we spend that money instead of incarcerating them, We can spend the money in education.

[423] So for every million dollars that spent fighting the drug war on the supply side, there's a 100 -kilogram reduction of supply.

[424] So if you have the kilograms of cocaine coming over the border, if you fight it with force, you know, you fight the supply side, then you get a 10 -gram, a kilogram reduction.

[425] But if you spend that same million dollars on the demand side educating people, you have a reduction of 100 kilograms.

[426] Whoa.

[427] So we, that's another, where's this from?

[428] I don't know.

[429] Somebody can look it up.

[430] It's real easy.

[431] You'll find it right away.

[432] That's very logical, though, and it makes sense to me. So we know that if you just educate people and tobacco is the shining example of that is tobacco rates have gone down like crazy.

[433] Now let's take the hair gardener situation out of that.

[434] The large part of that has been because of education.

[435] So you educate people out of drugs.

[436] Educated people, you know, like they say all the time, if heroin's all the time, if heroin's on Amazon right now.

[437] Do you order it?

[438] No, I don't order it.

[439] I don't know about Jamie.

[440] I'm going to get a heroin freak.

[441] He loves it.

[442] He gets a bunch of different styles.

[443] It mixes them up.

[444] So it's prohibition that messes us up.

[445] Yes.

[446] And we know that.

[447] And when you have prohibition, you're not determining what happens to the drugs.

[448] All you're doing is determining who is distributing the drugs because they will be distributed.

[449] The question is, is it the government, in i .e. the people doing the distribution, or is it the black market the gangs and the mafia?

[450] Well, as long as it's under prohibition, it's the black market the gangs and the mafia.

[451] We literally know this.

[452] There's nothing to discuss.

[453] And yet we continue with this anti -intellectualism and denial that's kind of, it runs throughout our society in America.

[454] Speaking, you know, about the guns, you know, we're dealing with the same thing where it's just constant.

[455] We have evidence.

[456] we can prove things empirically and we still just continue to do the opposite for reasons I just can't get my mind wrapped around like I feel like I'm fighting denial and it's been like a year that I'm fighting this denial and talking on radio shows constantly but yet a couple months ago we pull up the internet and the FBI director is pushing the Ferguson effect and it's just like fuck like how do we get past this?

[457] I think we're dealing with two completely different subjects right The gun control subject is a very different subject than trying to figure out how to elevate people in bad neighborhoods.

[458] The gun control subject is, you know, if you look at the statistics of how many Americans have guns, how many rounds of ammunition there are, how many armed people there are in this country, and then you look at how many crimes there are, how many gun shootings there are.

[459] It's relatively small, very small.

[460] We're dealing with massive numbers of people.

[461] Yeah, I mean, if you, there's 300 million plus people in this country.

[462] So if you look at this blip on the map where every few months someone goes fucking crazy and kills a bunch of people, if we really had an armed problem in this country, the logic that the anti -gun control people use would be that you would see way more shootings and you would see them all the time.

[463] If we really had a gun control problem, you have so many armed people, it was a real issue.

[464] But the issue, what they try to say, and I'm not picking the team here, but what they try to say is that what we're dealing with is just massive numbers of people, massive numbers of people.

[465] The number 300 million is so hard for the average person like you or I to wrap our head around what that means in terms of the volume, the sheer volume of people and how many guns there are out there there's as many guns as more guns and there are people in this country which is even more insane and the the people that own these guns for the most part are law -abiding citizens that don't do anything wrong why take away their rights because some dude like this asshole in orlando goes fucking crazy and kills 50 gay people okay you set up a couple premises there and one of them was that they have a right to that weapon Right.

[466] Which I'm going to argue to the end of the day that they don't.

[467] Okay.

[468] The Second Amendment is clear, well -regulated militia.

[469] It's literally clear.

[470] It says it in black and white.

[471] Well -regulated militia.

[472] And even if we go past that.

[473] The keep and bare arms, sure.

[474] Even if we go past that, forget that.

[475] I'm not a big fan of the Constitution and leaning on it because the world has changed dramatically.

[476] We're in a whole new situation.

[477] Rethink with the evidence that we have now.

[478] Let's not rely on the document that's in parchment somewhere.

[479] decaying right so written with a feather right that's why that they made it amendable so the first thing is that they have that right I don't think they have the right and the second is that that number is acceptable I so what you're trading in there is what are you getting so if you have an equation where they can have these guns so what are you benefiting and what are you losing tell me what is the society we benefit from handguns and right Well, the people that have been able to protect themselves against dangerous crime, the people that have been able to stop people from breaking into their home, stealing their property, harming them physically or protecting their loved ones.

[480] So when you talk about ratios, there's 30 ,000 handgun crimes in America every year, right?

[481] That's it?

[482] The documented of shootings, 30 ,000.

[483] Wow, I thought it was way more than that.

[484] So if we take the percentage of people that defended themselves, I mean, you've got five to ten cases a year.

[485] Like, that doesn't actually occur.

[486] But what are they defending themselves against?

[487] Those people with handguns and rifles.

[488] So you're trapped in this circular logic where you need a gun because I have a gun.

[489] And then eventually, Jamie says, well, those fuckers have a gun.

[490] I want a gun too.

[491] And we know where that goes.

[492] We literally know.

[493] It keeps getting more and more and more.

[494] Now, if we have this perpetual society where everyone has everything and everything's perfect, but that's just not going to happen.

[495] We're going to have strife.

[496] And a lot of these guns are concentrated in a few people's hands that have 200 guns.

[497] You know dudes that have 50 guns.

[498] I know dudes that have 50 guns.

[499] I know a dude who has so many guns.

[500] Justin, I'm talking about you, motherfucker.

[501] My buddy Justin has so many guns.

[502] He doesn't know how many guns he has.

[503] Right.

[504] So they have those and some...

[505] Plus, he's a giant.

[506] He's seven feet tall and he has 150 ,000 fucking guns.

[507] So they have, they have them in a safe or they have them out in rural America.

[508] Yes.

[509] But they're not even like interacting with people, like to have the strife.

[510] Well, he's a firearms enthusiast.

[511] And he is also a guy with a squeaky clean criminal record.

[512] What's the argument against him being able to be a firearms enthusiast and possess all these guns?

[513] Because of what is done to our society.

[514] He just wants to have something.

[515] And I don't want to talk about him in particular unless he's here.

[516] I know, but I'm just saying it because he's mostly.

[517] my friend.

[518] Right.

[519] So anybody, anybody, what are you gaining?

[520] So there's an equation.

[521] And one side of this equation, we have 30 ,000 handgun victims.

[522] We have a society that's gripped by fear.

[523] We have dudes that can go get an AR -15 and days later light up a nightclub and do a hate crime.

[524] We know that that's going to happen.

[525] And we know that as the future progresses, that this 103 casualties of this shooting is going to be superseded by a bigger shooting that's going to happen because, you know, we've got to break the records, right?

[526] and we're going to have more and more guns that keep coming in and keep coming.

[527] So that's on the right -hand side of the equation.

[528] And on your left -hand side of the equation for having guns, the argument is, well, I like that.

[529] Well, there's also the argument that a well -armed society is a polite society.

[530] And that if there were people that had guns in that nightclub, they would have been able to prevent that crime by taking that guy out.

[531] There were any cops.

[532] I mean, that was the same thing in Denver.

[533] Like, if there were cops there, the cops were getting shot.

[534] But didn't the cops get to a point, wasn't there a hostage?

[535] situation.

[536] I mean, I don't know the details about Florida, so it's really problematic.

[537] If this were true, cops wouldn't get killed.

[538] Right?

[539] They have the biggest army that's on our streets.

[540] So if more guns, we keep having more cops with more and bigger guns, then it would stop, right?

[541] Because the cops, the cops roll in armored vehicles with AR -15s to combat juveniles on Madame Mall during the uprising.

[542] But don't more cops shoot more criminals than criminals shoot cops?

[543] Don't more cops kill more people that are trying to commit crimes than those people can shoot cops?

[544] Of course.

[545] That's predicated upon the premise that they're trying to shoot the cops and they're absolutely not.

[546] Right.

[547] They're trying to get away.

[548] Some of them.

[549] Sure.

[550] You're ones that are actively trying to shoot cops are super small.

[551] Because you got to remember.

[552] But you're saying that cops are getting shot.

[553] They do get shot, right?

[554] Right.

[555] Right.

[556] But what I'm saying is yes, but isn't that sort of an argument that being armed will protect you better?

[557] When there is one guy with a rifle that he purchased.

[558] just legally and a bunch of cops and a bunch of cops the cops still get shot right but a lot of those guys that you're talking about this one guy's like remember the north hollywood shootout well i mean that's famous of course armed to the fucking gills and wearing body armor and all that shit they were the cops were just so outgunned as far as firepower sure so our answer is that they get more firepower right no i'm not saying that's the answer but this is the circle logic that we keep having this is one of the reasons why these cops are getting shot they're getting shot and killed in that situation in particular because they're walking around with 38 revolvers or 9mm.

[559] They're getting shot because that guy has armor and a fucking AR -15.

[560] That's what I'm saying.

[561] It's not that they are inadequately armed.

[562] Well, they would be, their handgun would be perfectly fucking fine if we didn't have AR -15 saturating our streets.

[563] Well, that guy, I don't even think he had an AR -15.

[564] He had something like, it's some really heavy shit.

[565] That's all you need.

[566] Yeah.

[567] So, like, that's what I'm saying is...

[568] Which, by the way, it's the same gun as an M -16, folks.

[569] It's a military weapon.

[570] It's the same gun that was created.

[571] I think it was created in the 50s to deal with the AK -47.

[572] There was an HBO series on Real Sports recently that talked about it.

[573] They were talking about AR -15.

[574] But any 223 can do that damage.

[575] That's a semi -auto.

[576] And we get caught up in the assault weapons.

[577] Right.

[578] And the assault weapons are going to keep you having better aim.

[579] They're going to keep you having a higher magazine capacity.

[580] It's going to be a little more reliable weapon.

[581] But a hunting rifle with a 10 magazine clips, that's a 2 -2 -3, and it's a semi -automatic, is going to do the exact same level of damage that we're talking about.

[582] So my position on gun control is extremely simple.

[583] You want your guns for these other things, like, say, hunting, right?

[584] Bolt -action rifles and shotguns.

[585] There you go.

[586] Everything that's on the pro -gun side that they want to achieve can all be accomplished by shotguns and bolt -action rifles.

[587] Well, yeah, I see that argument, but I also see the argument that hunters would use in that situation that if you limit the amount of rounds that a guy can have in his gun or the ability to fire off rounds quickly, you're limiting their ability to make a quick follow -up shot on an animal that would kill that animal.

[588] Yeah, and so if you have somebody that's that dedicated, right, I don't have a problem with that personally.

[589] So if you have somebody that, we want to establish this high standard.

[590] So say we have the super high standard where this guy, he can get his big gun that he uses and is well trained on and he's gone through a super long process of backgrounds and he's all checked out.

[591] I don't have the objection to that.

[592] But like say his gun gets stolen, you don't get it anymore.

[593] You're done.

[594] Right.

[595] So you have to maintain this high standard in order to have such extreme privilege.

[596] And I'm fine with that.

[597] Like, people that have C4 and explosives.

[598] You know, there are people that can legally carry debt cord and C4 to blow up buildings.

[599] They're not a big problem to the rest of the society using their debt cord and C4 to hurt people.

[600] So that's a unique class of individual.

[601] Yeah, I see what you're saying.

[602] So you think there should be more stringent testing and background checks on people that are getting guns?

[603] Yeah, especially those kind of high -powered ones or handguns.

[604] we we get caught up a lot in the high power because they're capable of that mass destruction.

[605] But it's the handguns that cause the fear in society every single day.

[606] Because it's so easy to conceal.

[607] Yeah, that's the whole problem, is the concealment that you can just pop it out and use it.

[608] You don't know who has what.

[609] And so everyone becomes a threat because you have this small death device on you that anybody can do anything.

[610] And it's just like, we got to go back to that equation.

[611] Like what is on the other side of the equation of 30 ,000 handguns and 300 plus mass shootings per year, the other side of that equation is that ridiculous idea.

[612] I mean, if you can figure out something for me other than I like collecting guns and I think they're cool and it's my right, then I'm willing to hear it.

[613] I just don't hear an argument beyond that.

[614] Well, the only argument is that a person who is not a criminal and a person who doesn't have any ill will in their hearts and just enjoys firearms should be able to have them, just like you should be able to have a truck that you could just drive through a fucking crowd of people with if you wanted to.

[615] Yeah, but so the argument there that you can have the truck, and the truck is capable of harm, well, so just like a knife, but a knife has a trillion other uses.

[616] So on that other side of that equation, when you could say, well, what do we need a knife for?

[617] Well, it's to chop up food.

[618] It's to skin a deer.

[619] It's to do a thousand other things.

[620] the AR or something like that is for one purpose and one purpose only and it's to kill a human being well that was what it was designed for but people use them for hunting they have a better rifle to use than that for hunting well the thing about hunting with those is that you can pull the trigger many times like for hog hunting and things like that a lot of people actually prefer them sure so let's say you even want to do that again we're talking about that higher class person and so higher class hog hunter yeah higher class that's pretty sure that's not an actual thing um like so you want to go shoot it and you want to shoot those those animals right go check it out from your parks and rec and go use it check it out yeah check it out yeah you said you just want to use it right what do you mean by that check it out right so say you could store it in an armory look at an armory that who runs the government's going to run of course oh good lord or it could be the private the private rifle range okay well that's how it is in a lot of places in Europe.

[621] Right.

[622] So I say, we know how to do this shit.

[623] We literally, other countries have done this.

[624] Australia is the shining example.

[625] They had one mass shooting, said, fuck this, and they have none sense.

[626] Right.

[627] But you can get a rifle in Australia, okay?

[628] And this is something that gets bandied about many times, so I actually had to do some research.

[629] It's not impossible to get rifles for hunting in Australia.

[630] It's super hard.

[631] It's difficult.

[632] Right.

[633] But Australia also has less people than California in an enormous chunk of land.

[634] Yeah, but we have other countries.

[635] Take China.

[636] China's four times our population.

[637] It doesn't even hit the radar screen on the amount of people they have imprisoned or the amount of violence they have.

[638] That's true.

[639] But China is, well, it was until really recently, it's a communist dictatorship that was run with an iron fist.

[640] I mean, think about Tiananmen Square and what happens when people rebel against the government there.

[641] It's a completely different sort of culture.

[642] Is it?

[643] Is it different than what happens here?

[644] Really, though?

[645] I mean, if you stand up against the government, what's going to happen to you here?

[646] Well, it's not just standing up against the government.

[647] I mean, the people, they don't have much power over there.

[648] Neither do we.

[649] It's an oligarchy.

[650] We live in an oligarchy.

[651] Like, we've proven that's another thing we've proven.

[652] So Princeton did a study where they tracked 19 ,000 cases of laws that were going on and going through Congress.

[653] So what they found out is that public opinion on whether a law gets passed or not, for instance, control, which over 80 % of NRA members agree with increased gun control and background checks and things like that.

[654] We don't get it passed, Congress at all.

[655] It doesn't have any bearing or in public opinion doesn't have any bearing on whether a law gets passed.

[656] But if you have donors that care about a law getting passed, then it's going to get passed.

[657] And even when public sentiment is completely against the law being passed, if the public, if the donors want the law passed, they still have a 30 % chance of getting the law passed.

[658] I think what the NRA IRA is trying to do is they're trying to prevent the slippery slope.

[659] They're trying to establish laws and keep them in place so that establish rights that are already in place, right?

[660] Keep them in place because they worry that if you start increasing background checks, if you start ramping up any sort of restrictions on gun owners, that it's a slippery slope that they'll never get back.

[661] They'll never get the freedom back.

[662] But what, I mean, I don't know what that freedom is.

[663] We're all afraid to go somewhere.

[664] We don't have freedom in this gun -saturated country.

[665] We're all afraid.

[666] We're not.

[667] Well, hold on.

[668] No, we're not.

[669] You don't think people are afraid?

[670] But no, I don't think people are generally afraid to go to the movies.

[671] Then why is the NRA fighting to keep the guns?

[672] But hold on.

[673] You're saying we're all afraid as if every day when you go to the movies you're worried about a mass shooting.

[674] Every day when you go to the wall.

[675] And we're not afraid.

[676] We travel freely.

[677] Occasionally things like this happen and they're horrific and they're terrifying.

[678] But people aren't generally afraid.

[679] We're not all afraid.

[680] to do things.

[681] I just don't think that's true.

[682] I don't know.

[683] So why then would we all want to protect this so much?

[684] Well, the NRA's position, the NRA's position is that liberals, Democrats, whatever, they want to take away your right to own a gun.

[685] The NRA does not want that.

[686] So they spend all their money.

[687] They do all their lobbying.

[688] They do everything they can to stop any new restrictions from passing and to stop anyone who is trying to take away guns.

[689] Right.

[690] So the way you frame that is that they are trying to protect their rights and they want to preserve this thing.

[691] But I just don't see it that way.

[692] A lot of people, what people that are fighting against guns, like so me, I have guns.

[693] I like shooting.

[694] I enjoy it.

[695] I'm fucking good at it.

[696] I made a career out of it, right?

[697] But at one point in time, I did enough.

[698] research and enough understanding that my ultimate goal is that we have a safer society and that we protect people.

[699] But the way we protect people empirically is to not have these guns.

[700] Nobody has the gun crime that we have.

[701] Nobody in the entire world that's a developed country has the gun crime and incarceration rate and everything that we do.

[702] We are the worst example in the developed world of how to do this.

[703] Every other example is a better example than what we do.

[704] do, but we're continually trying to stay into this same mold that we know is failing.

[705] I want to protect people.

[706] And the evidence says that in order to protect people, we can't have handguns and assault rifles.

[707] I said the damn assault rifle word again.

[708] But we can't have semi -automatic rifles out there like crazy that enables society to have that risk.

[709] I mean, those, on the other end of that straight bullet is a nine -year -old girl who's bleeding out to death in the city.

[710] And I just, I don't want to get rude with people, but the idea that you want to go fucking shoot something, I just don't give a shit about that when you see the destruction close to you.

[711] It's suddenly Gabby Gifford can go for gun control after it touches, you know, or somebody like that.

[712] Whenever it touches you, suddenly we start to care.

[713] If right now a mass gunman comes and starts shooting up the rest of this building and they kill Jamie, we're all going to care a hell of a lot more.

[714] Why Jamie?

[715] How come you don't die?

[716] Because I didn't want to die.

[717] I just throw Jamie under the bus.

[718] Jamie's a good guy.

[719] Please, nobody shoot Jamie.

[720] And I think we would all take a slightly different perspective once it touches us.

[721] I think you're right.

[722] And I think that's an issue with all sorts of crimes.

[723] And that's also an issue with poverty and bad communities is that it's not touching the people that are just want to be safe.

[724] Lock those people up.

[725] Get them off the street.

[726] They're in my way.

[727] I think you're right in that.

[728] I mean, I don't know if there is a perfect answer to getting rid of 300 million guns or controlling 300 million guns.

[729] I just want to stop making them.

[730] Yeah.

[731] Let's just stop making them.

[732] So, one of my ideas.

[733] But what about gun companies?

[734] Fuck them.

[735] They're making a, they're making a weapon of death.

[736] I don't care about what they want.

[737] So we know guns can last hundreds of years if you take care of them.

[738] Right.

[739] So if we stop making them, their value will all go up.

[740] And then we're getting concentrated.

[741] And I know the libertarians have been.

[742] Like, oh, my God, all the rich people are going to hold the guns.

[743] I get it.

[744] Whatever.

[745] They're not going to use them.

[746] We know that.

[747] So let's make them more valuable so they're not worth $200 on the street so that, you know, a gun, a disrespect beef or a drug war beef can lead to that shooting.

[748] I want to have you sit down with someone who's a gun proponent.

[749] Good luck.

[750] What do you mean good luck?

[751] I've been here for a year doing this day in and day out, challenging everyone from Sam Harris to whoever.

[752] They're not going to do this.

[753] The evidence is on my side.

[754] They're not going to do what?

[755] They're not going to have a debate?

[756] Oh, they certainly would.

[757] I could definitely set that up.

[758] Set it up.

[759] Okay.

[760] Well, I could set it up my friend Justin.

[761] A hundred percent guarantee.

[762] Anybody that you can get to do this, please.

[763] Okay.

[764] Because he needs to give me that pushback that other people need to hear.

[765] And if he's right on a position, I will absolutely change.

[766] Okay.

[767] Well, we're definitely going to set that up then.

[768] I'm going to bring in Justin because Justin's very articulate and don't be intimidated because he is a giant.

[769] He does have a thousand fucking guns or something like that.

[770] He's a nice guy.

[771] He's a very nice guy.

[772] He's a good buddy.

[773] and he is a like I said firearms enthusiasts but also a really nice guy that has no criminal record he's never done anything wrong and very articulate very smart very well read but he's going to say that people like him should have the guns right and he's right well he is right yeah I mean he's never done anything with those guns and he's the wrong fucking dude to break into his house every once in a while you're going to need a dude like him to kick down the door right yeah okay we know that so I wouldn't argue if he's going to say he needs you know we need this elite members of society like SWAT teams or something like that that can handle these situations of course we do well he's a competitive shooter he does contest and stuff right so he's gonna say well they should shoot like me well I sure he's right like if they can handle it and their professional as him you're not gonna get a pushback from society because nothing's even gonna happen but it's what I'm saying is he's not doing anything wrong and it's something he enjoys like when do we decide and I'm just putting this out there I'm not taking a stance because I don't understand it myself and you know people saying that I'm anti -gun or pro -gun or I'm pretty neutral on this I also own guns but I see the problems I definitely see when something like this happens in Orlando and some crazy fuck can go in and just shoot up a nightclub and kill all these people we got a real problem I don't know how to solve that real problem I'm sure some people would say concealed carry permits so all these people in the nightclubs could shoot out that guy but that's empirically false It's empirically false.

[774] You've got a gunfight in a nightclub.

[775] Yeah, more people are going to get shot.

[776] Well, not only that, most of the people that get involved in these gun fights will be their first gun fight.

[777] So you're going to fucking shit your pants.

[778] You're going to get target panic.

[779] You're going to miss. You're going to hit people.

[780] It's going to be a lot going on.

[781] Glad you're saying that.

[782] Yeah, I mean, it's not as simple as I had a gun.

[783] If you had a gun, you'd probably wouldn't even be able to point into people.

[784] And if you pulled the trigger, you'd be lucky if you hit someone right in front of you.

[785] So where was that shooting?

[786] It was relatively recent.

[787] It was out of college.

[788] And there were two Marines on base, on the college campus, with weapons.

[789] And they didn't engage because they said, hey, look, I was only going to make the situation worse.

[790] The cops weren't going to know who I am.

[791] If I had my weapon out, I could have missed and done something else.

[792] And two guys that were in their actual right state of mind that were armed decided that engaging was more dangerous.

[793] And it's actually empirically more dangerous that if you engage, you're more likely to die.

[794] something just you're going to shoot somebody else or the situation's not going to be resolved we we literally know this people have done this they've done studies where they've tried to take people and like simulate it and it never pans out yeah but that's engaging with an instance where you're not involved if you are involved you absolutely have to engage you're going to get shot like if you're if these guys are in this building and people are coming after them you have to run like so all the evidence says that if you run that's your best bet for safety and like we're We don't want to do that, right?

[795] Because that's a bitch move.

[796] Please, I'm down for being a bitch.

[797] Someone's shooting, I'm all bitch.

[798] We want to be the hero.

[799] There's like this delusion of heroship, you know, that somebody's going to save the day.

[800] And sure, you may find that happen every so often.

[801] Wait a minute.

[802] Have you not seen Sylvester Stallone movies?

[803] Because it happens all the time.

[804] Is that problem?

[805] That is a problem, right?

[806] That's a super problem that they think they can shoot people in the leg while they're running and shit like that.

[807] Well, it's also like we've developed this sort of idea of what goes down.

[808] in a gunfight based on fiction, not based on reality.

[809] The amount of people that have actually been exposed to a bullet hitting a live thing is so small.

[810] Sound.

[811] Yeah.

[812] Oh, yeah.

[813] They don't realize how loud that is.

[814] If you shoot with headphones in your whole life, they go ahead and start clacking off 15 rounds without ear protection on.

[815] You'll be ringing.

[816] You can't even understand what's going on.

[817] You have to be well trained in that environment and understand that cops aren't even in there.

[818] The first time they get in a real gun battle, because they show.

[819] shoot with earplugs in and everything.

[820] The first time they're shooting their gun, they're hearing the sound and everything else.

[821] So, yeah, I mean, you got those people.

[822] Like, everybody that I was in the Marine Corps with doing Fast Team, I don't think they're going to get any gun crimes.

[823] And I think they can handle situations.

[824] But these are a certain segment that needs to live up to a high standard.

[825] Well, not only that.

[826] Those are people that have been trained and they've developed this understanding of firearms that's so deep.

[827] Most people just don't get to that.

[828] It's like the average person who watches a UFC fight and thinks they can kick someone's ass.

[829] And then if you fought against a trained martial artist, you're fucked.

[830] Like, you really don't know what you're doing.

[831] That's kind of the same thing.

[832] And when you compare someone who really, like my friend Justin, really understands firearms, versus the average person who goes and buys a gun and thinks, well, I'm safe now.

[833] I got this gun.

[834] Maybe, maybe, maybe.

[835] But statistics say that you're more likely to shoot a family member in a fight.

[836] Or, yeah, suicide, which, you know, a lot of people.

[837] That's a wonderful analogy.

[838] I love that you did that because, I mean, it's a perfect analogy almost for MMA and who can handle a weapon as well.

[839] But.

[840] Well, it's all about undue confidence, you know, and...

[841] Perfect.

[842] So, like, here's the thing I've always wanted to tell people that feel that way.

[843] We can, I can tell you, you can have a gun on you right now, and we can set this up in the morning.

[844] And I can tell you, walk around your day as normal.

[845] At some point in time today, I'm going to take that gun away from you, right?

[846] I will get that gun.

[847] It's going to happen because you're not going to be able to protect it.

[848] And you know I'm coming.

[849] So then why are you actually think you're safe that you have that gun on you?

[850] You're just, as long as you're fighting against the inferior opponent or you're in this situation where you have distance and you have all these things like just like in an MMA fight, it's not going to go as you fucking planned it.

[851] promise.

[852] So what are you saying, look, as far as like you're going to take the gun away from them?

[853] Yeah, like, say you wanted to have a concealed weapon on you, right?

[854] And say you're standing in line at the bank.

[855] You're going about your day as normal.

[856] I could tell you at some point in time, I'm going to get that gun from you.

[857] And I'll get it.

[858] Because everything's about surprise.

[859] So when the bank robber comes in...

[860] Well, it's not surprised if you're telling you you're going to get it.

[861] Well, sure.

[862] I'm just giving you 24 hours.

[863] Well, I'll be fucking jacked up on Adderall for 24 hours.

[864] Yeah, but think about the life you're leading to keep that gun safe.

[865] You definitely would be.

[866] Well, it makes it a Adventure.

[867] Right, but that's the thing is you're bigger than me. You can be ready for it.

[868] It's still, I'm sorry, you're just not going to be it because it's just going to come out of nowhere.

[869] So when people have these guns, are you like really good at disarming people or something?

[870] No more than anybody else would be if you learned how to learn how to a holster works?

[871] I'm punching him in their fucking face.

[872] They're going to come from behind me?

[873] Is it right here?

[874] So they're going to come from behind.

[875] They're going to grab it.

[876] Sure, you can easily do that.

[877] But how hard is it to get a gun out of a holster?

[878] There's certain holsters.

[879] Long as you know the holster works, it's cake.

[880] Okay.

[881] What is that one holster where if you yank on it, it doesn't work?

[882] The triple retention holsters, yeah.

[883] I'm really going to see your gun if you have one of those because those are pretty darn big.

[884] What if I'm wearing a puffy coat?

[885] Sure.

[886] I guess you can figure out ways to get around it.

[887] I'm going to relent then.

[888] But you're just not actually safer.

[889] I know a dude who keeps several guns on them all the time and two knives.

[890] He's got a knife in his boot.

[891] He keeps several guns on them all the time.

[892] He's been hitting the head a bunch of times.

[893] So it's just some people think you just you can't you can't think that that's what's going to make you safe it's your mindset it's your it's your awareness of your surroundings it's your ability to make logical decisions okay but you're talking about a very specific case where someone's trying to take your gun away right but that's the thing is you're in a you're in a bank I don't even need a gun because odds are there's going to be one there and that's what we we have so like a big thing of policing is you don't get into like do you're in a Jitsu kind of of wrestling matches because of that gun, right?

[894] Because no matter what fight you're in, there's always a gun there.

[895] And it's the same thing with non -cops, right?

[896] You don't want to get in a fight as a cop because if the evidence shows statistically that if they get that gun from you, they're going to use it on you.

[897] Right.

[898] That's going to be no different from you.

[899] If they get that gun from you, then they use it on you.

[900] Right.

[901] Right.

[902] So why would you want to be in a fight with somebody?

[903] Well, that's a wrestling match, right?

[904] So you're saying that - But I can tackle you and fight the gun.

[905] You're introducing that potential for you dying, and there's a high possibility.

[906] And you didn't have it before.

[907] You literally are making yourself more at risk.

[908] I mean, the statistics are clear on this, that if you bring a gun to this fight, the odds are against you even higher now.

[909] Because most people that bring, even if you bring a knife to a fight, a significant portion of those people get the knife taken away from them and gets used on them.

[910] I can't tell you how many cases we've been where you're trying to figure out a stabbing call and come to find out, you know, they tried to do the stabbing.

[911] But they got that shit taken from them and they got stabbed themselves.

[912] So once you introduce that, that potential, you're more dangerous to yourself.

[913] But this is, again, you're talking about non -trained individuals and it sort of brings us back to the responsibility that you need.

[914] I just don't want to fight hard on those really trained people.

[915] I get that.

[916] Yeah.

[917] You know, that's fine.

[918] And that's like, it's not a right at that point.

[919] It's a privilege.

[920] So it's like driving the car.

[921] Driving your car is not a right.

[922] It's a privilege.

[923] So if these people want to earn that privilege, so be it.

[924] But it becomes a problem, doesn't it, when a really fucking crazy person earns that privilege?

[925] I mean, if someone hasn't done anything yet criminal, I mean, there's been several people that have committed mass shootings that didn't do anything before they did that shooting.

[926] I mean, yeah, so you're still left with those.

[927] You've still decided as a society that on that side of the equation, you're willing to accept that amount.

[928] Even though it's a lesser amount, you've decided to accept that amount.

[929] And if we can just move to a point where we can accept a lesser amount, that would be wonderful.

[930] But we're continually accepting an ever -increasing amount.

[931] Because more people are buying guns, more people buying ammo.

[932] Hmm.

[933] So what is the solution then, in your eyes?

[934] Well, I would like to stop manufacturing.

[935] I would like handguns and rifles to be banned.

[936] And maybe that has to take a long time.

[937] I mean, not rifles, just, just, uh, semi -automatic.

[938] Banned, meaning you can't own them anymore.

[939] No, let's not go.

[940] Shit.

[941] Yeah, see?

[942] So, it's tricky shit.

[943] Then it becomes a privilege.

[944] So like the handguns.

[945] Then it becomes your Twitter accounts getting attacked right now.

[946] And that happens all the time anyway.

[947] You fucking liberal pussy.

[948] You're never taking my gun.

[949] So you have to be those people that earn that privilege.

[950] The idea that it's a right.

[951] It's just, I think, I think we could call it a lot in that.

[952] It's just.

[953] Even if it, like we were saying earlier, I think the evidence is there that it's actually not your right.

[954] But if it is, like, can't we rethink that?

[955] What is the Second Amendment?

[956] Read it exactly, Jamie, in its form, please.

[957] So we can, and again, the idea that we keep the Constitution and the Bill of Rights exactly intact, some shit that was created hundreds of years ago before any of the variables that we have to deal with in society today, whether it's variables about privacy, electronic communications, whether it's the variables about the power and the ability that guns have, I mean, we're dealing with a totally different world.

[958] They made this shit back when people had muskets.

[959] We really need to consider that.

[960] And, by the way, they had just gotten done fighting off a totalitarian regime and had expanded and become their own country.

[961] Second Amendment of the United States Constitution reads, a well -regulated militia being necessary.

[962] to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

[963] See, that's pretty clear.

[964] The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

[965] Yeah, but a well -regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

[966] If they are a well -regulated militia.

[967] But it's not saying if.

[968] It's saying capital letter A, a well -regulated militia being necessary to the security of free state.

[969] So they're establishing that it is important that you have a well -regulated militia being necessary, well -regulated.

[970] That's the weird term.

[971] Well -regulated militia.

[972] What does that mean?

[973] It's a national guard.

[974] Is that what they're saying, though?

[975] That's what they meant.

[976] Because it's saying the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

[977] So the idea that your fight - What does the people of the state mean?

[978] They're just people.

[979] No, because that's what the states are.

[980] I mean, we the people, that's the country.

[981] Right, but this is a free state.

[982] What that means is they're worried that we might be invaded and taken over by England at the time.

[983] No, no, no, no, the government.

[984] Or the government, any government.

[985] It's against a federal government.

[986] Right.

[987] So that's a state being able to defend itself against the federal government, because they still were lingering with that from Britain, you know.

[988] I don't know if that's what they meant when they said a free state.

[989] Is that what they could pull that up again so I can see that, please?

[990] I mean, look.

[991] It's kind of weird arguing about this because if we had to do this over again, I mean, this is obviously something that was established, as we said, a long time ago.

[992] If we had to do this over again, if we had established new amendments or new rights, I don't know how we would rate.

[993] But that's a prepositional phrase, a well -regulated militia.

[994] That means everything after that is in regards to a well -regulated militia.

[995] So if I said, and then Joe, and everything in that sentence would be about Joe.

[996] It's a prepositional phrase.

[997] I mean, that's exactly what they mean.

[998] Well, a well -regulated militia, meaning that there's a bunch of militia, meaning regular people, civilians gathering together to form some sort of a makeshift army.

[999] Yeah.

[1000] Being necessary to the security of a free state.

[1001] Now, when they say a free state, this is back when, well, there were fucking three states or something like that?

[1002] I don't think 13.

[1003] Isn't?

[1004] It should have been 13, then.

[1005] The first ones were 13, right?

[1006] The first initial states.

[1007] the right of the people to keep and bare arms shall not be infringed.

[1008] See, it's a fucking, nobody talks like that, you fucks.

[1009] You know, today, in 2016, if you wrote a sentence like that, I'd be like, hey, bitch, what are you trying to say?

[1010] You know?

[1011] You know what I mean?

[1012] I mean, people thou shalt not forescore and 16 years ago.

[1013] Speak normal, bitch.

[1014] All right.

[1015] It's the right of the people to keep and bare arms shall not be infringed is the one that everybody clings to.

[1016] of the free state, though.

[1017] It's just that, that's definitely what they meant, because they did that back then.

[1018] You know, they formulated those, those malicious.

[1019] But they're saying shall not be infringed, the right of the people.

[1020] But remember, that's the federal government.

[1021] Shall not infringe that right against the state.

[1022] No, it's not saying against the state.

[1023] It's saying the people to protect the security of the free state, the right of the people to keep him bare arms, shall not be infringed.

[1024] The people of the state.

[1025] Right, but what they're saying is, that was annoying for people listening.

[1026] We got to do the car chase story after this that we owe everybody.

[1027] Oh, that's right, that's right.

[1028] A well -regulated militia being necessary.

[1029] So they're establishing that it, and again, if you're angry right now, you're like, I'm, you fucking, I'm riding my congressman.

[1030] You fucking pussies are trying to take my guns.

[1031] We're just trying to, we're trying to unpack this amendment, okay?

[1032] A well -regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state.

[1033] So they're establishing that we need a well -regulated militia.

[1034] to make sure that we don't get taken over by tyranny, the right of the people to keep them bare arms shall not be infringed.

[1035] I don't know, man. I mean, I'm not a constitutionalist by any stretch of the imagination, nor am a scholar of the Bill of Rights.

[1036] That seems pretty clear.

[1037] The right shall not be infringed.

[1038] Okay.

[1039] So I'll give you, let's say we give you the right of the people is what they mean is that the people can hold the arms until they're needed to form this militia.

[1040] Well, that's weird.

[1041] So that is what it sounds like.

[1042] to me hold the arms yeah so the people right of the people to keep and bear arms right so they have the guns right and so they can have them it's just that so that they can formulate a well -regulate militia later if needed so it does kind of relate that as well i don't know about that you don't think so no the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed right so the people have the guns right so i'm saying and then the idea could be that they meant that you can have the guns in case you need to formulate the militia to fight tyranny.

[1043] It could be read that way.

[1044] In case?

[1045] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1046] Well, it's just not giving you any options.

[1047] It's saying, shall not be infringed.

[1048] Scroll down, what is it saying?

[1049] What is the second amendment?

[1050] That's what I was looking for more.

[1051] What is the definition, a modern definition of the rights granted by the Second Amendment?

[1052] Is there any like sort of legal breakdown?

[1053] Nobody's agreed on this thing.

[1054] Yeah, it seems like these cock suckers that wrote that show that made it so weird.

[1055] Right, but even if you can get them, like, they certainly weren't talking about AR -15s, and they weren't envisioning a government with 5 ,000 nuclear weapons.

[1056] Right.

[1057] And they weren't envisioning 300 million people on Prozac.

[1058] The idea of fighting the government just really seems weird.

[1059] Like, so what you're saying there, so I was in the Marine Corps, what you're saying then is that if they make a law, like Trump gets in the office and he says, all right, that's it, we're going to crack down on our people.

[1060] you think that I'm going to come after you for that.

[1061] Come on, come on.

[1062] Well, some people will.

[1063] The people in our military will not do that.

[1064] These generals aren't going to do that.

[1065] They're not going to command their members.

[1066] You'd have a military coup.

[1067] You probably would, but you will have some people that are willing to comply.

[1068] But you are saying that your friends and brothers and sisters that are in the armed forces are going to turn their guns on their friends and family.

[1069] Get the fuck out of here.

[1070] Well, that's interesting because you could make the same argument about the police.

[1071] You're saying that your friends and brothers and sisters that are in the police are going to turn their guns on the civilians.

[1072] They do.

[1073] They do, but that's a small amount of people that are affected.

[1074] So if you're talking about affecting the entire country, then those people will have that personal effect because it's not just, they're turning on their own family.

[1075] Right.

[1076] They're not just turning.

[1077] Don't you think you make the same argument that a small amount of non -compliant people would be the ones that the military would have to go against?

[1078] Yeah, I mean, I guess if you have that kind of scenario sure it's kind of the same they're literally say they were to come take all the guns right right and they were going to do it by force right you're also saying this huge force for one the military's not allowed to operate on our soil but they already do they're already rolling the National Guard through cities if you look at any sort of National Guard is not the military well you that's a well regulated militia yeah but you look at the tanks and some of the the the fucking military vehicles that they're using in some of these riot drills, militarization of police is a separate, that's a separate argument.

[1079] Well, it is a separate argument, but it becomes military then.

[1080] I mean, you're talking about war machines.

[1081] Sure, that's something that clearly wasn't envisioned.

[1082] And so I would rather you didn't open up that candle.

[1083] That's another can of worms, man. Fuck.

[1084] Where is this going, right?

[1085] Yeah, this is, it's a very unusual sort of a debate because I see both sides.

[1086] I absolutely see both sides.

[1087] Just remember that equation.

[1088] though, the both sides of that equation where they can be logical.

[1089] One side of that equation is death.

[1090] Well, and the other argument would be that protecting yourself against death is a right.

[1091] But we know that if you want to have a safer society, if you want to live in Australia, you have to be rid of the goddamn guns.

[1092] Yeah, but Australia is so different than us.

[1093] I just don't buy that.

[1094] It's so small.

[1095] I don't buy that.

[1096] So we do say, buy it this way.

[1097] Buy it this way.

[1098] How many mass shootings have there ever been in California, besides San Bernardino.

[1099] Take San Bernardino out of the mix.

[1100] How many have we had?

[1101] Let's add in black people in the hood that we don't hear about.

[1102] Mm, okay.

[1103] Mass shootings.

[1104] Yeah, daily out in this country, daily.

[1105] So you're going to get them every, you know, week or two weeks in California.

[1106] Do they really get them every week or two weeks in California?

[1107] Yeah, you just don't hear about them because you're talking, it's because they happen in Compton and don't get a shit.

[1108] Right, and you're talking about people who are criminals shooting other criminals, and that's one of the arguments that gun control.

[1109] anti -gun control people use against people that talk about how many people get shot is how many people.

[1110] Like when you look at the numbers of people to get shot in this country, they're also calculating the number of people that are shot by law enforcement officers.

[1111] Oh, they don't.

[1112] Oh, sure they do.

[1113] No, they don't even get counted as hot.

[1114] They don't even get reported to the FBI.

[1115] The Guardian just figured out how many people got shot.

[1116] The 2015 is the first year we figured out how many people got shot by police in this country.

[1117] Okay, but it is 2016 and we do calculate that now.

[1118] No, the newspaper does it.

[1119] The federal government or the, Nobody does this.

[1120] But when you look up statistics of how many people are killed by guns every year, they do include bad guys killed by cops.

[1121] No. No. So this is an argument that Ted Nugent and...

[1122] These don't count as homicides either.

[1123] Well, we're not talking about homicides.

[1124] We're just talking about...

[1125] If they kill them, it doesn't count.

[1126] It doesn't count.

[1127] It doesn't count against our homicide count because it's considered justified.

[1128] Justified homicides don't count.

[1129] But deaths.

[1130] I don't think they use the word homicide when they're counting firearm deaths.

[1131] Interesting point.

[1132] Let's follow that out.

[1133] Because this was what Ted Nugent and Pierce Morgan.

[1134] I can't believe I'm using Ted Nugent as an example.

[1135] Or Pierce Morgan.

[1136] Warren Pierce, well, he's a piece of shit, but he, but his argument with Ted Nugent, he got shredded in that argument, because he went into it unarmed with facts, and Nugent spuse this out every point he can.

[1137] And by the way, he would argue with you all day.

[1138] Sure, but that's arguing with a crazy person.

[1139] He's allegedly, allegedly a little crazy?

[1140] Let's not go with the legend.

[1141] There's certain people I'm willing to call out from time to time.

[1142] That would be one of them.

[1143] You think Ted Nugia is crazy?

[1144] What do you think?

[1145] What do you think is crazy about him?

[1146] Have you seen him talk?

[1147] He's clearly crazy.

[1148] He's going to argue that until the end of day.

[1149] He's one of those people you can put the evidence in front of him day in and day out, and he'll just move the goalposts and move the goalposts, and no one's interested in having an argument with somebody that's just going to continually move goalpost.

[1150] I don't know about all that.

[1151] I don't know if he would move the goalposts.

[1152] Well, let's see.

[1153] The one thing that he makes coherent arguments about is, in fact, against gun control.

[1154] What do we got there, Jamie?

[1155] I'm halfway looking through something, but I got this, from the Washington Post, this article that starts with.

[1156] the year of 1 ,000 people nearly being shot by police that sound is annoying but it says right here they sought to compile a record of every fatal police shooting in the nation as of 2015 something no government agency had done it started after Michael Brown's shooting was when they started looking into it British newspaper did that goddamn commies or whatever they are it's Washington Post the Post sought to compile a record this is a Washington Post yeah the Guardian started Mm -hmm.

[1157] But it says the Post sought to compile a record of every fatal police shooting in the nation in 2015, something no government agency had done.

[1158] The project began after a police officer shot and killed Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in August of 2014, provoking several nights of fiery riots, blah, blah, blah.

[1159] Rays remains the most volatile flashpoint in any accounting of police shooting, although black men make up only 6 % of the U .S. population in the account for 40 % of the unarmed men shot to death by police this year.

[1160] The post database shows In the majority of cases Which police shot and killed a person who had attacked someone with a weapon or brandished a gun The person who was shot was white Hmm Interesting That's interesting In the majority of cases in which police shot and killed a person who had attacked someone with a weapon or brandished a gun The person was shot was white But a huge disproportionate number Three and five of those killed after exhibiting less threatening behavior were black or Hispanic.

[1161] So meaning they valued the life less of people who were black or Hispanic.

[1162] They were quicker to shoot them with less threatening behavior than they would with white people.

[1163] Regardless of race, in more than a quarter of the cases, the fatal encounter involved officers pursuing someone on foot or by car, making chases one of the most common scenarios in the data.

[1164] Hmm.

[1165] That's interesting.

[1166] It's interesting that it's shooting more white people.

[1167] But I guess there are more white people.

[1168] It's, you know, 60 % of the population.

[1169] It's probably more than that, right?

[1170] I don't know.

[1171] How many white people are there?

[1172] It's getting down.

[1173] It's going down.

[1174] Slowly brown people are fucking their way up to the top.

[1175] Well, we joke about that how, what is that movie where everything goes crazy?

[1176] Oh, God.

[1177] Stupid.

[1178] Come on.

[1179] Which one?

[1180] Michael Douglas?

[1181] No. The purge?

[1182] Oh, the silly.

[1183] Oh, idiotocracy?

[1184] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1185] Oh, okay.

[1186] So, like.

[1187] The silly one.

[1188] We know that the more educated.

[1189] at someone is, the less kids they have.

[1190] Right.

[1191] And as soon as you do that, you go, oh, no, all the smart people don't have kids.

[1192] Right.

[1193] And everybody that's poor has more kids.

[1194] So, like, that's another reason when we have to educate.

[1195] Yeah.

[1196] Well, that's the counter to overpopulation, that when they look at the charts and graphs, that when you're in industrialized nations, when they become more closer to the first world, they have less children.

[1197] China.

[1198] Yeah, but it's also, they're also fucking working more and they're grinding.

[1199] It's not necessarily good.

[1200] Might be better out being poor with a bunch of kids and be happy.

[1201] All right, so we know that the most likely time to get to a shooting is in a chase.

[1202] Yeah.

[1203] So we owe a chase story and we should lighten the shit up a little bit.

[1204] Okay, let's, so this is a story.

[1205] This is a story that we just got sidetracked from the first conversation.

[1206] We're in the middle of talking about it and we never got to it.

[1207] Right.

[1208] So, all right.

[1209] Right.

[1210] We were talking Jamie and I earlier about it.

[1211] It'd probably be pretty cool.

[1212] We can probably pull this up on street maps.

[1213] So let's go to the 1800 block of West Pratt.

[1214] We can actually look at it.

[1215] Okay.

[1216] It'd be interesting.

[1217] So anybody who's got their finger on the send button right now, ready to send an evil email or a Twitter, just relax.

[1218] This is a debate, folks.

[1219] This is a conversation.

[1220] I know you wish you were here so you could yell at, Mike, or me. I don't know.

[1221] You've said a pretty, you've made a couple points.

[1222] And I didn't even think about that.

[1223] We're pretty darn liberal.

[1224] I'm pretty liberal.

[1225] I'm a fucking confusing motherfucker if you're trying to pigeonhole me. I'm a liberal hippie who owns guns and hunts and loves weed and gay people.

[1226] I love everybody.

[1227] All right.

[1228] I really do.

[1229] Can we go to...

[1230] Okay, so this is the...

[1231] Right, so go down to that red awning and turn around.

[1232] First of all, how dope is Google Maps?

[1233] It's crazy.

[1234] We're traveling through Baltimore right.

[1235] now on Jamie's computer.

[1236] This is madness.

[1237] When we're seeing people's license plates and shit, that's so weird that they can do that.

[1238] They can just zoom in.

[1239] They've caught people coming out of whorehouses and shit.

[1240] Yeah, they have.

[1241] People have sued.

[1242] Because the Google car drove by right when they're just lighting up a cigarette.

[1243] All right, face it a laugh, Jamie.

[1244] Okay, so this is a really dilapidated neighborhood in Baltimore.

[1245] We don't need to necessarily see it, but we're dealing with D -A -S -H -O -O -D.

[1246] Okay.

[1247] I'm sorry.

[1248] Go left and go down the street a little bit more.

[1249] By the way, since we're talking about Baltimore, shout out to my brother John Rollo of Baltimore.

[1250] All right, so this is one of my...

[1251] Ground Control, M -M -A, go there, learn how to fight.

[1252] All right, so I'm going to tell the story.

[1253] If I could get my bearings, right, because it doesn't seem like I'm going to be able to pull it off.

[1254] It's okay.

[1255] All right.

[1256] So anyway, I'll just tell the story.

[1257] So one of my favorite times ever, best night ever had is a cop.

[1258] We were working in the Major K Squad, and we had been assigned a new VRO, which is a violent repeat offender target to go after.

[1259] You're going to hear a lot of these.

[1260] A lot of chiefs are starting to push this out again, which is the violent repeat offender, where they have people with, so they do like this predictiveness that these are the people that are likely to get shot or likely to do shootings or something like that.

[1261] So we want to focus all of our enforcement efforts on them to get them on anything.

[1262] It doesn't work.

[1263] But regardless, that's what I was doing at the time.

[1264] And we had a guy set up to, there's a bar, and at the bar, we knew that this gang would go in and out of this bar.

[1265] So we had a guy sitting covert in a van, and watch the bar.

[1266] Because our whole intent was to take pictures, you know, take pictures, document who was going in, try and see some associations.

[1267] And me and another car, we were hiding away, just waiting to see what he had a report.

[1268] Maybe we could follow somebody, things like that.

[1269] And we're talking, and it's been hours.

[1270] We're on like hour 10 sitting there.

[1271] Nothing going on.

[1272] And we had a secure channel so we could just talk back and forth in our radio.

[1273] And they're talking about sports or something.

[1274] It had to be soccer, baseball, because it was something I didn't give a shit about.

[1275] So everybody's bitching, going back on the radio, just talking, trying to pass the time.

[1276] And then the guy watching in Covert, he goes, finally hear him coming over here.

[1277] He's like, guys, you shut the fuck up.

[1278] Shut up.

[1279] They're robbing the store next to me right now.

[1280] I'm watching them.

[1281] I can see that it's a silver 38 in the dude's hand robbing the store.

[1282] Shut the fuck up and get over here.

[1283] So we're like, all right, all right, all right.

[1284] So he's calling it out, and these guys running, they get into a getaway car, and go around the block.

[1285] and we get behind them.

[1286] So we're following them.

[1287] And this is a fresh robbery.

[1288] So they got handguns in the car and everything.

[1289] Do they know you're following them?

[1290] No. So we have one more cars and we're following behind him.

[1291] And we're in this area where you have the one district to the left, to the west, the southwest.

[1292] You have the western district to the north and you have the southern to the left.

[1293] So they call the tri -district, but we're kind of in this area where our communications are going to be weird because these are all different channels.

[1294] So I'm riding with the sergeant.

[1295] I was a detective at the time and say to him I'm going to get on the Southern Channel you get on the Southwest and coordinate that way we can call this out so I get on the radio and I'm calling I'm like I need a 1031 on the Southern Channel and everybody keeps talking I'm like we're trying to follow him I need a 1031 on the Southern Channel and I look at him like why don't fuck won't they shut up like I don't understand because it's a 1033 you fucking asshole like oh okay so get on the radios 1033 yeah I don't even know what a 1031 is to this day.

[1296] So 1033 is an emergency.

[1297] So I get on there and we're calling it out.

[1298] The car is going west down Lombard and we're following it and we're coming up to the shopping center.

[1299] Turns left on shopping center, the car is full of people.

[1300] It gets to the, goes through the shopping center and it stops at a stop sign, but there's a car in front of it.

[1301] And we're thinking, all right, we're going to have to light it up here.

[1302] But that car, like it always moves, right?

[1303] As soon as we hit the lights, you can bet that car is going to move.

[1304] Right.

[1305] So we hit the lights anyway, and the car stops in the front where the stop side is.

[1306] So they can't get past.

[1307] Right.

[1308] So they all bail out.

[1309] One runs, so there's four people in the car, one goes one way, one goes back the other way, one goes for it, one goes behind.

[1310] And I jump out of the car because, let's, all right, so I leave my radio by accident, and I drop it.

[1311] Oh, Jesus.

[1312] Because let's be honest, I see a guy running with a gun out of a car, and I'm still, like, in Jackrabbit mode.

[1313] You know, I'm going.

[1314] Well, that's when people shoot people, right?

[1315] Right.

[1316] I'm getting him.

[1317] So I take off without my radio chasing this dude going behind the shopping center.

[1318] The sergeant, he forgot to put the car in park.

[1319] So he knows I don't have my radio.

[1320] He's starting to panic about where I'm going.

[1321] He has to dive back into the car to put it on.

[1322] in park so it doesn't hit the suspect's car and then the non -suspect car in front of them everybody goes running I'm chased behind him and I've got my gun out and I'm running and I'm saying you know hey I'm gonna fucking shoot you know you better stop now but I could tell he when he's running he's fucking pure panic like I had a moment of empathy for him like you could he was just like fuck fuck fuck running with that gun in his hand I'm like oh you better drop it We're running.

[1323] Some guy comes out of the woods from behind the shopping center.

[1324] It's a fucking cop from the southwest who heard us on the radio playing clothes cop.

[1325] So the guy throws the gun and he tries to throw it up onto the roof of the building, but it like pathetically just hits the building and falls down.

[1326] And the guy coming out of the woods, I yelled him to get him while I run and go back and get the gun.

[1327] You got to get the gun first if you're smart because it could end up with somebody else's hands or whatever.

[1328] and we'd get him back and so at that moment unbeknownst to me all those districts were like all coordinated as like this moment of serendipity and policing Southern District Patrol came up and got one of the guys and like Western Patrol got one of the guys and Southwest Commander was in the area was there and that drug unit was there helping me and we caught every single person bring them back we got like four guns we get everything we roll them over it's the fucking people we were looking for by mere coincidence half the gang that we were looking for to go into the bar robbed the store that was next to our guy in covert and we started our case there which ended up being completely successful because we had this huge jump start of just dumbass luck that does sound like dumbass luck because you called 1031 instead of 1033 you forgot to put the car in park you left your radio behind that and that's typical you know so that's the way you it is and that's a situation where you do shoot like people shoot in that situation right but people think I haven't been there who are these people that think you haven't been there you know who they are all over the internet the Twitter trolls and stuff or people I want to get credit to other cops you know they think oh you're just talking about Baltimore you've never actually done anything what did you actually do and those are the situations where you get into these shootings right where you could have easily shot that guy who is running with the gun and that's what Right.

[1329] The statistic show happens a lot of the time.

[1330] That would have dramatically affected me, dramatically affected him, and everyone around.

[1331] But what this kid was doing in the end was being part of a drug deal, trying to do robberies, trying to fucking eat and survive.

[1332] And yet we had those guns.

[1333] So you have this poverty and you have this fighting for resources.

[1334] And so they chose to rob the store and to be in these gangs.

[1335] But if they didn't have those guns, how differently would have it?

[1336] Probably quite a bit.

[1337] Yeah.

[1338] So when you talk about saturation, I mean, look in that incident, we got lucky.

[1339] Everything went fine.

[1340] And it had potential to fall apart.

[1341] Luckily, we were all competent in that unit.

[1342] Sort of.

[1343] Thanks.

[1344] I was the youngest one.

[1345] I was the rookie.

[1346] Cut me some slack.

[1347] But you had, you know, 30 guns going around in that situation.

[1348] And it's just like, oh, you just don't.

[1349] like England doesn't do this.

[1350] You don't see other countries like this, where this all could have just went bonkers because we're trying to respond to a situation in a way, go after people and put them in cells because we have these guns everywhere and they're fighting for these resources, but that's where we have to stop and say, why are they here?

[1351] Right.

[1352] What got us to this point?

[1353] Instead, what we continue to do is we just throw that group into jail, and the very next time, It took us like six months to take the whole group down.

[1354] We got everybody federally indicted.

[1355] But as soon as we do that, the next group just steps up because we didn't take a moment to look at the causations.

[1356] Well, you know the old argument.

[1357] If you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns, right?

[1358] Well, I mean, that's circular logic, too.

[1359] It is, but when you're dealing with a supply that already exists in the hundreds of millions, it's pretty logical, actually.

[1360] Yeah, I mean, it's going to happen.

[1361] You'd have to go door to door and dig into people's basement.

[1362] Right, but if you make guns all legal, then the only people that have guns are law -abiding people.

[1363] What do you mean?

[1364] No. Right, if they make it completely legal.

[1365] Well, if you completely legal, even for criminals, is that what you mean?

[1366] Yeah, so that's why it's a circular logic.

[1367] But no, because the criminals are still criminals, even if the guns are legal, it's not, everyone's not a law -abiding citizen that has a gun if you give a gun to a criminal.

[1368] Right, but if you don't have the law in place to make it criminal, and that's the thing.

[1369] We're saying, well, only bad guys will have guns if we outlaw them all.

[1370] Right.

[1371] Well, yeah, because we outlawed them all.

[1372] I mean, that's just, it's circular logic.

[1373] So if we have the law first, because you're not changing the gun ownership, you're just changing the law.

[1374] Right, but we've already made it illegal for people that are felons to possess firearms.

[1375] Yeah, but when you have that level of saturation, obviously it doesn't work, right?

[1376] Right, but it gets back to the same issue.

[1377] Like, how would you ever possibly, it's like trying to get.

[1378] you know, it's like taking a bucket of water and throwing it into the ocean and trying to get that fresh water out.

[1379] Like, how do you get out the guns that are in...

[1380] You just stop adding salt.

[1381] So that's the thing.

[1382] It's like, we can't instantly solve it.

[1383] We just have to stop doing it the wrong way.

[1384] That's like the drug war.

[1385] I mean, you've been into the drug war, so you know, without a doubt, it doesn't work.

[1386] But what are we still doing?

[1387] And, like, it's...

[1388] Well, we're slowly moving away from that.

[1389] Sure.

[1390] But we can stop right now.

[1391] I mean, like, you can literally...

[1392] just stop.

[1393] Just as quickly as we started it, we can say, okay, we're not going to imprison people for those offenses.

[1394] If they get into crime and they shoot somebody, well, then go after them for the shooting.

[1395] But what we do is we put that law in there and we make it, you know, like we're creating this.

[1396] We know what's wrong and we know to just stop this.

[1397] So with the guns, you know if you just stop manufacturing them, we'll get somewhere.

[1398] If you just stop locking people up for the drug war, we'll get.

[1399] Somewhere in improving that, but we're not.

[1400] We're just keep doing the same thing.

[1401] It's been a year since I was here and we discussed these drug war issues.

[1402] We haven't really moved the bar much.

[1403] Well, the only thing that it is up for ballot in several different states, marijuana, of course, not other drugs.

[1404] And slowly but surely it will become legal throughout the United States, most likely.

[1405] Now Washington, D .C. is legal.

[1406] There's a lot of places that are legal now that weren't legal before.

[1407] And then it's on the ballot and November in California and several other states, I believe.

[1408] Is it other states as well?

[1409] But marijuana is just one really benign law.

[1410] I mean, it's really, it's a rather benign substance in many ways.

[1411] It's not, it's not a dangerous thing.

[1412] It's not a real threat or a harm to society.

[1413] Guns are way more dangerous.

[1414] Sure.

[1415] So moving that, changing that.

[1416] But we're creating that, you know, so we create, the guns are being used because of the drug war.

[1417] Right.

[1418] And then we have people that are dying over heroin overdoses because of the drug war.

[1419] And notice we've had a lot of improvements when people are dying over heroin doses now that it's in Massachusetts and stuff.

[1420] What do you mean?

[1421] In Massachusetts, they are like the cops aren't arresting.

[1422] There's a chief there that decided he was going to be smart.

[1423] And he wasn't going to lock up the heroin users.

[1424] He was going to get him into treatment.

[1425] It has had excellent success.

[1426] Well, the heroin problem, that was one of those scenes.

[1427] in end shows was detailing what actually went down.

[1428] Oh, it was Anthony Bourdain show.

[1429] They were talking about what really happened was so many people got addicted to oxycontins because of prescription drug companies pushing that shit where people, you know, people are like a little small minor injuries and they're prescribing pills that are opiates and highly addictive.

[1430] They're no different than heroin.

[1431] Yeah.

[1432] I mean, like literally, they're heroin.

[1433] Yeah.

[1434] And so that's money and politics issue again.

[1435] Yeah.

[1436] We're not fighting those drug dealers who are getting everybody hooked on heroin We're fighting the drug dealers that are in the cities still.

[1437] Yeah, that's a gigantic issue of course And then these people when they started to crack down on Oxycontin's that is when heroin moved in to take its place because these people were sick They needed their pills right they didn't get their pills so then they got heroin instead Yeah, I don't know but I mean so yeah a lot of Move on to some reform measures or what's been going on in the last year?

[1438] Yeah, definitely.

[1439] All right, so let's talk about what happened as the year's gone on.

[1440] After I left here, obviously people picked up and had that, you know, the Joe Rogan effect that everybody always talks about.

[1441] After they talk to you, other people started to pay attention.

[1442] And I went back to Baltimore and this dude sends me an email.

[1443] And it says they arrange it through leap.

[1444] that he's going to come visit me and he wants to talk about a movie.

[1445] Oh, Jesus.

[1446] And so he comes.

[1447] That's how they corrupt you.

[1448] Hollywood gets you.

[1449] And we talk about some of these ideas, a very good movie idea that he has, trying to kind of put some of these things into an emotional appeal that people can understand and comes close to them.

[1450] But what that did was is it pushed me to get more involved in Baltimore so I could get other people involved in the project that would have good ideas and would really know the streets well and would know the activism path and what was going on with Black Lives Matter and everything in there.

[1451] And so I've reached out to a bunch of the activists and we started forming these tight -knit groups.

[1452] And come to find out this dude doing the movie is Matthew Kosovic.

[1453] And I don't know if he's going to do it yet or not, but he's like this big star in France and thinking about doing a sequel to a movie he made called La Hain, which really talks about these kind of things in France.

[1454] France had very similar hypersegregation problems and ghettoization 20 years ago and ended up having riots and they they did a lot to fix it.

[1455] And that's what he's kind of doing like a 20 year reunion of that.

[1456] But getting involved in Baltimore and meeting everybody, I really have been like in a school of understanding of what the cities need and what people are trying to fight for.

[1457] the black lives matter movement really means um i just didn't i had all a lot of those same preconceived notions of like you know being a white hero kind of thing where you go and you help and like you're bringing your skills down and you don't realize the things you're saying and how you play into to privilege and things like that and getting him going in there with them uh my my walls against Muslims got torn down because I ended up meeting Muslim activists who were really using religion to do the right things, you know, the good things.

[1458] The selective, of course.

[1459] But getting involved in the movement to the point where we're having these groups and we're doing things like having panel discussions and we did like stop and frisk for people so that they would see what it was like to actually have somebody come up on you.

[1460] and search through your pockets, and we've been doing documentaries, we've been doing protesting where there's a met this lady, Tawanda Jones, who her brother was killed by Baltimore police officers a couple years ago, and she's been protesting every single Wednesday for two and a half years fighting for her brother, Tyrone West, and I guess that's why they're doing on Wednesdays.

[1461] And he was beaten the death by Baltimore cops, like literally beaten the death, and we wanted to have things like where we say why don't we have people protesting good why is it always got to be like burning down the CVS or something like that?

[1462] Where's all the good people?

[1463] And like I was just flabbergasted that they were everywhere and what everyone thinks is the worst of neighborhoods was just filled with people trying to do the right thing and trying to fight for justice and doing it in the most peaceful manner.

[1464] Her brother was beaten to death by cops and what she does is peacefully protest every Wednesday for two and a half years and doesn't get any attention for that.

[1465] When they have other cops that were, those same cops beat this guy Abdul Salam in front of his kid doing the exact same kind of aggressive enforcement.

[1466] And what it opens up, kind of went away of going about it, is I got to see the other side.

[1467] And that really has affected me. That being a cop, you lock them up and you put them into the cell or you take them the court and the case goes or whatever.

[1468] Don't think about what that does on the other end.

[1469] You never see.

[1470] And then I got involved in the communities and I saw the other side.

[1471] I saw what it was like for a guy that came back from being in prison and in solitary confinement for three years and having no hopes of resources, like not getting them jobs and having to fight just to get anything because he had that record.

[1472] You get to see that, you know, those people you locked up, like they have families who were profoundly.

[1473] affected by everything that happened and they're gone for these years and it's just it's been really like I get like aggressive and when we're talking about these conversations about guns and like because those deaths on that other side of that equation that shit became real as can be to me like those are people now that I know and I know the families of the of people who are on the other side of that and it's really pushing that that's what we we need to just really do we got to stop being these tribal creatures that can only see those fellow humans that are right with us that we associate as being our team like we're all that team and we have to start having empathy for what these things do to other people we have to see this cops don't see what their actions do in order to step up and say hey we shouldn't be doing this we have to get out of this denial bubble and being involved in the city has just given me this huge check on all my privileges and everything that we have, we don't understand how much advantages we have in life.

[1474] It's ridiculous, the amount of factors that people have to fight against, that we can't even register.

[1475] And this is all fairly new to you?

[1476] Yeah, man. I mean, like, I saw it evidentially, but to see it in person, like the work that, so the photographer Devin Allen, you can pull up Devin Allen.

[1477] he took a picture of my daughter that's from a protest that's going to be in and he's doing this project now where he took the Time magazine cover shoot so if you ever saw the Time magazine during the uprising where it says 1968 and it's crossed out and says 2016 because he took that picture as a young black kid that used to be a drug dealer who picked up a camera as his identity project kind of thing he didn't know what an identity project was at that time I didn't know what an identity project was at that time.

[1478] But he picked up the camera and started taking pictures, and he got that picture.

[1479] And he's well known now, but what he did was is he took that, and now he used the publicity from all that.

[1480] And he gets, so this is Devin Allen, he gets all these, he start this project at this community development called Penn North, and he collects cameras now for all these kids, Not that he's getting paid.

[1481] He collects cameras from around the world, brings it in, and now he runs a thing going through in Santown, Winchester, where Freddie Gray was killed.

[1482] He takes those kids in and teaches them photography and gives them that project.

[1483] So they have something they can grip upon on, and they have something they can build up on.

[1484] But what's sad about that is that this is Devon, who has no resources, who is the kid who was a drug dealer, who has everything bothering him.

[1485] and he is investing in those communities and trying to provide those things to give people that identity where they can climb out of it and they can become they can see that vision of being a contributing member to society and like that's what we all have to do to give back these neighborhoods that's part of the way of fixing it is if when people want to help you literally have to go down there and say how can I help and do things like that because what he's revealing is that we all have a skill his skills photography.

[1486] But your skill is hunting or comedy or talking or however you want to go.

[1487] You have these skills that you can teach and you can pass on so other people can see an identity.

[1488] Some people can sew.

[1489] Some people can do whatever it is.

[1490] We all have these skills and that's like how we help.

[1491] If you want to be somebody that helps these cities, you go down there and you help supply that identity.

[1492] I could just see how many white knights are saying, I'm going down to the hood right now and i'm gonna help well find them fucked up no pants but but like teeth so at penn north we created this thing that well they created this thing called the safe zone and what that is is it was all worked out with everybody you got to treat everybody like humans they worked out with the with the drug dealers and everything that's going on and they participate in keeping this area of the city completely safe so that everybody can come down there and you what if you go to baltimore you want to be a white night, you come down the bottom and reach out to an activist and you want to help, it's not dangerous.

[1493] You will be fine.

[1494] And there are plenty of people that will help you and guide you through on what you can do to contribute to make our society a more whole place.

[1495] Well, obviously Baltimore is in the other side of the country.

[1496] There's got to be places around here that need some sort of a similar situation.

[1497] Doesn't matter where you are.

[1498] Yeah.

[1499] They're all the same.

[1500] All these cities are same.

[1501] They're facing all the same problems.

[1502] And that has helped me, build this reform measures.

[1503] So my application for Chicago is completely up.

[1504] If you want to pull up my website, it's Michael Aywood Jr .net.

[1505] Let me ask you this.

[1506] Had you gotten the position in Chicago, you were trying to be the chief of police in Chicago, right?

[1507] If you had gotten that position in Chicago, what would you do?

[1508] What is your idea?

[1509] I mean, I'm sure you have a grand plan.

[1510] So there's 38 pages of that on this.

[1511] But if you could kind of break it down for us.

[1512] Well, the first thing we have to do is, We have to give that power away.

[1513] And I think that's a condition that I have to have in order to take the job.

[1514] Now, I have a friend who was actually a driver when we were in Chicago, who was a cop.

[1515] And he told me that what's going on in Chicago was that they had some pretty high -level drug dealers and gang leaders.

[1516] And then they caught those guys and imprisoned them.

[1517] And when they imprisoned them, it created a power vacuum.

[1518] And in that power vacuum, over the last few years, you're seeing significant ramp up.

[1519] in crime or people try to take over these areas that were under control by other people.

[1520] Similar to what happens when you see when we take over countries like Libya, creates this power vacuum and now you have a case to almost, you say, well, it's worse without Gaddafi than it was with him.

[1521] That's sort of what this guy was telling me about Chicago.

[1522] Is that accurate?

[1523] It's possible.

[1524] One of the big problems with policing is we think we can narrow things.

[1525] down and we can like find a soul causation right and there just simply isn't any soul causation there's never soul causation in anything you're dealing with a mass amount of human beings everybody has different reasons you're not going to be able to do everything perfectly and those things can happen perfectly uh plausible that it could have happened a weird theory that i've started to uh recognize is that actually in this study the the stephania deluca study, they talk a lot about how these kids are really more passionate now, and they're exposed to more, and you can see that their work ethic is actually higher than it was.

[1526] We think that they're not working, but they're achieving things at three to 400 percent of what their parents achieved.

[1527] So these kids are ambitious, and so if you don't have any other options around, you have a more ambitious population that's now doing drug dealing and taking over terror.

[1528] What do you mean by they're achieving things three to four hundred percent more than their parents?

[1529] Right.

[1530] So you have, so the average in, I want to go like in the 90s for high school diplomas and college for residents of a neighborhood like Sandtown or these East and West Baltimore neighborhoods, worst that you can imagine in your head as far as resources go.

[1531] they these kids are actually achieving uh so say their parents got 10 % high school diplomas these guys are getting 40 % high school diplomas their parents were getting uh you know 2 % college degrees these guys are at like 25 30 % college degrees so they're really excelling but they're not achieving because of all these other barriers as you know um so a guy a black guy with a college degree is slightly less likely to be employed than a white guy with a high school diploma on a criminal record.

[1532] So even they're getting in these promises that if they play by the rules, then they'll get these things at the end, just like poor white American West Virginia is.

[1533] And what happens, though, is they're being, they see these examples with social media or whatever, and they're understanding that if they push hard, that's they're told, they're push hard and they achieve these things, then they're getting.

[1534] these rewards, but they're not getting these rewards.

[1535] They're just not there.

[1536] So if you have a more ambitious population and they're turning to drug dealing and to crime, well, it's just as likely that they're also more ambitious and dedicated to their criminal endeavors as they were to their college achievement.

[1537] Right.

[1538] So they're better criminals because they're working hard in school.

[1539] Each generation improves, right?

[1540] Yeah.

[1541] But is there any improvement in terms of crime rates?

[1542] Well, I mean, there are.

[1543] Crime is still dramatically dropping, and we live in the safest era in human history right now.

[1544] We get caught up in a lot of this.

[1545] And I mean, sure, I guess that's a weird argument for the gun guys where they can just say, hey, we are in the safest time in history ever.

[1546] So we have to not get caught up in the fact that, like you said, the odds of things happen, especially compared to the rest of history.

[1547] Because of the sheer numbers you're dealing with.

[1548] Well, it would seem like crime, the percentage of people taking crime have probably still are about the same and then, or the amount are the same, but the population is grown.

[1549] Right.

[1550] So you have a lot, a lot less crime percentage -wise than you ever have before.

[1551] But if your criminals are that much better, well, they're still going to be ambitious.

[1552] But are they that much better?

[1553] But it seems like it's so much easier to catch them doing something now than ever before other than physically catch them.

[1554] But, I mean, so much easier to...

[1555] No, that's really contrary to evidence.

[1556] Really?

[1557] Yeah, I mean, homicide clearance rates from the 80s were in 80, 90%.

[1558] And now they're down to 30 to 45%.

[1559] What is that from?

[1560] I think that's from a breakdown of community relations.

[1561] Because we think that cops aren't the answer.

[1562] The community is always the answer.

[1563] And so if you want to solve a crime, you have to have these good relationships with your communities in order for them to even trust you.

[1564] Otherwise, the streets are just going to handle it themselves, right?

[1565] If the police don't provide justice, well, then they will.

[1566] So if they can't turn it to police, that's another factor.

[1567] There's tons of factors in here, and a lot of arguments could be made for what it is.

[1568] But the conviction rate has dropped dramatically, and the homicide clearance rate has dropped dramatically.

[1569] Police are not solving crimes at the rate they used to.

[1570] Now, when you look at an area like Chicago that has a lot of violence connected to the drug war or to the drug trade, I should say, illegal drug selling.

[1571] It's also a lack of resources, too, though.

[1572] So the drug trade fills in for a lack of resources.

[1573] That's a very good point.

[1574] And that's a point that doesn't get addressed that often, right?

[1575] That's a very good point.

[1576] Now, what can be done, what would you have done had you got that position?

[1577] Well, so the first thing I have to do, here's my model.

[1578] And my fundamental model is, is think if you had a business and you have a, board.

[1579] You know, you have your board of trustees or whatever you want to call it.

[1580] I want to be a civilian leader of the police department, like a CEO.

[1581] And I want to have like officially 49 % of the power of the agency.

[1582] And then we have like seven people on this panel who come from the city who live in these neighborhoods.

[1583] I don't not sure precisely how we pick them out.

[1584] I can't appoint them because then they just become cronies.

[1585] We have some issues with voting that we may have to work out the details on.

[1586] But the ultimate principle is that we would have the majority of that board would be from the poorest of the neighborhoods around so you would create a board and what would what would be the picking criteria to create this board would it be you and other police officers would no this has to be the civilians so the civilians pick the people that are on yeah i think they would have to pick them themselves i think i think we have to have a vote this is i don't have that thought completely out right okay uh but the majority has to come from the poor populations covering the base of whatever is good for the weakest among us is good for the strongest among us.

[1587] And then those boards, while I run the agency, I can only argue to them.

[1588] They have 51 % of the control.

[1589] I have all these things I want to argue for.

[1590] Right.

[1591] But it's fundamentally not my agency.

[1592] Okay.

[1593] So you would almost give most of the control to the rest of the people, and they would work with you.

[1594] Right.

[1595] So I'm the CEO.

[1596] They're the board.

[1597] They're going to come up with that.

[1598] We're all going to discuss how we want to approach.

[1599] issues and I'm going to bring my science.

[1600] I'm going to make my cases as much as I can on the right way to do things.

[1601] But if they want to do things another way, it's their agency.

[1602] And that's what I would have to do.

[1603] Has that ever been done anywhere?

[1604] Not that I'm aware of.

[1605] So your idea is so radical and so way out there.

[1606] And that's part of the problem with getting people to accept it.

[1607] So they would have to take a huge chance.

[1608] And if it failed, it would be their failure.

[1609] Whereas if it fails right now and they do business as usual here's the trick joe it's a total cop out in a manner because the failure isn't my fault right but i'm saying failure would be the board's fault because they have the agency so if the people are responsible they can't bitch at the mayor right because they did it it's their agency it's my job to serve them it's not my job to serve a mayor right it's my job to serve them and carry out what they want to achieve so i will work at achieving what they want to achieve and establishing the milestones and incentives that they think are better for their neighborhood because they may do things which would dramatically have impacts such as hiring.

[1610] So right now, guys won't hire because they have a drug complaint or something like that.

[1611] Or they have a prior arrest record.

[1612] Well, I think if you get all those poor neighborhoods together, they're going to say, look, we know that's bullcrow.

[1613] That arrest doesn't stop you from being a good cop.

[1614] That's ridiculous.

[1615] and we can let those people in and they're going to take that risk as a whole community we can decide these things.

[1616] So you're saying make former prisoners or former criminals turn them into police officers.

[1617] Not that far, but sure, I mean, some of them.

[1618] So the difference between them and me we know is the color of my skin in the neighborhood I grew up in.

[1619] I could have easily had the criminal record that they have.

[1620] I think pretty much anybody could.

[1621] Yeah.

[1622] Right?

[1623] I mean, that's a hard pill to swallow for folks who have that pull yourself up by your bootstraps mentality.

[1624] But a lot of who you are and what you are, is luck.

[1625] Yeah.

[1626] Yeah, everybody.

[1627] It's just being born in this country, rather than an extreme advantage.

[1628] Yeah, being born poor in this country is really way luckier than being born in the middle class and a lot of other countries.

[1629] Right.

[1630] So this board that we have, how long do you think it's going to take before they end the drug war?

[1631] It's going to take a day.

[1632] Yeah, but they can't do that because it's a federal decision.

[1633] Especially you're talking about the city of Chicago, which is not even the state of Illinois.

[1634] Of course we can.

[1635] We can?

[1636] Yeah.

[1637] Who's going to stop you?

[1638] Well, the federal government?

[1639] We don't enforce laws.

[1640] We don't enforce your law, period.

[1641] Boy, good luck trying to pull that off.

[1642] That's legal.

[1643] The feds have to come in and do it themselves.

[1644] The feds would have to come in and enforce the laws themselves.

[1645] They can come in and do it.

[1646] Right, but they don't have the resources.

[1647] They were doing in Colorado for a while.

[1648] Yeah, they tried that.

[1649] It didn't work out.

[1650] Right.

[1651] Well, Colorado is a perfect example where the money was so good with the plan that was initiated, where they're making more money from.

[1652] taxes with marijuana than they ever did with alcohol, which is bananas.

[1653] Beyond the money, you have a reduction in crime and in juvenile usage of marijuana.

[1654] And in drunk driving.

[1655] Yeah.

[1656] Lowest instances of drunk driving in more than a decade, it's pretty interesting.

[1657] It's pretty interesting because it just shows you.

[1658] But it was predictable.

[1659] Yes.

[1660] Well, for people like you or I, but not for the people that were arguing against it.

[1661] They thought it was going to be chaos and hippies and they're going to light the town on fire and fuck each other in the streets.

[1662] and everybody thought it was going to be horrible.

[1663] But you're talking about a different drug when you're talking about Chicago.

[1664] You're talking about heroin, and you're talking about cocaine, you're talking about methamphetamine, you're talking about MDMA.

[1665] These are different drugs, and they have health consequences as well.

[1666] So the legalization or the prohibition, what they have right now is obviously not working.

[1667] The real problem would be if they decided to not enforce the drug.

[1668] laws and they decided to in some way, you know, air quotes, legalize these drugs.

[1669] What would take place is you're going to have some blame be placed on some deaths on your new laws.

[1670] And that's going to be paraded out in front of you.

[1671] This is you're responsible for the death of this young girl.

[1672] She never tried heroin, but because it was available at 7 -Eleven, she started snorting it and now she's dead.

[1673] Somebody can say that.

[1674] You're going to get that.

[1675] You're going to get that.

[1676] That's not the The model.

[1677] The model, so you have prohibition.

[1678] And we, like we were saying earlier, you know what prohibition does is just determining that they sell it.

[1679] Okay, it takes the hands and puts it into the black market.

[1680] Yes.

[1681] So, well, yeah, heroin is a terrible drug.

[1682] But what makes heroin so bad is its lack of purity and the environment in which you get it.

[1683] Well, also the addictive properties of it, which is why oxycontin, even though it's pure and very measurable still has a terrible.

[1684] Right.

[1685] But what kind of consequence did you say that was?

[1686] You said it was a health consequence.

[1687] Well, it has a law consequence too.

[1688] It's not a criminal consequence unless we make it want.

[1689] Well, oxycontin certainly do.

[1690] There's a lot of people that get arrested for illegally possessing and selling and distributing.

[1691] It's a huge issue.

[1692] Right, right.

[1693] I understand.

[1694] I mean the drugs, period.

[1695] Right.

[1696] They're a health issue.

[1697] Yes.

[1698] They're not a criminal issue.

[1699] They're not a prison issue.

[1700] They're a public health issue.

[1701] So we treat that with health professionals, not with jail sales and and police.

[1702] So while may, it's not like I'm saying that the drug dealers can go out there and just deal it.

[1703] That's not what I want.

[1704] I want a doctor handling everything.

[1705] I want it moved into just no different than alcohol.

[1706] Well, the problem with the doctor handling is that's what happened in Florida.

[1707] And what happened in Florida, they developed this environment where they didn't have a database, where the doctors and the pharmaceutical companies were all in cahoots.

[1708] And they said, look, let's just sell the shit out.

[1709] this and the statistics were staggering.

[1710] There was more prescriptions for oxycontins and opiate pain killers in Florida than the rest of the United States combined.

[1711] That is nuts.

[1712] But what were they doing with it?

[1713] They were selling it.

[1714] They were taking it.

[1715] They were selling it illegally.

[1716] The Oxycontin Express, a documentary that showed that these people were bringing it from Florida upstate into Georgia and Kentucky.

[1717] But they don't have that market.

[1718] They wouldn't have that market in Chicago with me, right?

[1719] So, Florida couldn't do that because you wouldn't have a market to sell it in.

[1720] So the only reason that that's, I'm confused.

[1721] Because the only reason, how are you going to take away the market?

[1722] The only reason that exists is because they can go sell it on the black market.

[1723] So if you take away the black market as being the distributor, then...

[1724] So you would allow people to just sell it?

[1725] No, no, no, only doctors.

[1726] Only doctors.

[1727] Right, for those certain drugs.

[1728] So cannabis or something like that, we need to put.

[1729] in a model similar.

[1730] And we have things in like Portugal, where what Portugal does is they just decriminalize it so they don't put people in prison cells for possessing it.

[1731] And if you want to still go after the dealers as a half measure, you know, like that's a half measure I'd have to swallow that I don't completely believe in.

[1732] But we can work those things out.

[1733] Me and you, if you're the panel and I'm the CEO, we can work these things out and come to a position where we're like, okay, let's try this.

[1734] And if you want to go by the increment, Then we see that that's okay just like in Colorado already is proven that the cannabis model is fine, right?

[1735] So we can start with the cannabis model and move that in.

[1736] And then we can say, all right, well, let's put cocaine into this model and then see how that goes.

[1737] If you want to be incremental about it, I'm fine with that.

[1738] The cannabis model, the problem is the innocuous negative effects are just, it's just really that there's almost nothing.

[1739] There's so.

[1740] little to fall on but we don't make that case with alcohol or tobacco that's true but tobacco is not a good one because it's a long slow death as long as it's yeah as long as it takes a long time yeah we can accept it I mean that's how we look at it it's almost like what we're doing to the environment cost I mean the cost of tobacco is extraordinary on our health care system oh no doubt about it right and when you think about alcohol that's the real argument because alcohol is one of the easiest drugs to kill yourself with people I think there's a staggering number I think it's like 10 ,000 people drink themselves to death every year just in this country, which is really pretty shocking.

[1741] And that doesn't count drunk driving, alcohol -related violence and all the other things that go along with it.

[1742] The problem with making heroin or cocaine with decriminalizing it but then going after the dealers is then, well, okay, if these people get hooked on it, where are they going to get it then?

[1743] Well, they have to go to a doctor.

[1744] I mean, it's just the way we have to do it.

[1745] So it becomes treatment.

[1746] But it then becomes exactly like Florida.

[1747] But remember what we do know.

[1748] We do know that every million spent on the demand side reduces by 100 kilograms.

[1749] Right.

[1750] So we have to keep focusing on education.

[1751] I don't, if those people that got hooked on oxy and became heroin addicts, if they had the education that this was the path they were going to go on, you got to believe that a significant percentage of them wouldn't have gone that path.

[1752] Yeah.

[1753] I mean, now we're all aware of it.

[1754] Now, I know plenty of people now that the doctor says, here's some oxy, and they're like, no, no, no, no, give me something else.

[1755] What do you do with people that are so fucking dumb?

[1756] They just want to party.

[1757] You got, I mean, some of those things.

[1758] You got to let them party.

[1759] Just like you've got to let them drink themselves to death.

[1760] Yeah, what are you going to do?

[1761] That's a hard pill for people to swallow, but...

[1762] It's better than putting them in a prison cell.

[1763] Yes, it is.

[1764] What do you got going on, Jamie?

[1765] Drinking too much excessive alcohol use led to approximately 88 ,000 deaths and 2 .5 million years.

[1766] years of potential life lost.

[1767] What does that mean?

[1768] I guess like you're saying drunk driving actions.

[1769] In the United States, 2 .5 million years or people's lives?

[1770] Oh, that's a weird fucking statistic.

[1771] From 2006 to 2010, shortening the lives of those who died by an average of 30 years.

[1772] Yeah, okay, so it definitely, okay, that's life lost, meaning you drink yourself into an early grave.

[1773] that's a weird thing to argue but the 88 ,000 deaths over a period of four years that's harsh but that's what we were saying I mean that it's essentially a little bit more than what I was saying but we also know the solution to that or a solution to a significant portion of that education education and legalization of marijuana yeah so those things we empirically know we know those will improve the situations but instead we continue to do things we know don't work Right.

[1774] So I'm a scientist.

[1775] I am interested in what works.

[1776] I'm going to argue for what works and someone else can argue against it, but that's going to be what I continue to argue for.

[1777] I don't have an emotional position on it.

[1778] I'm following the evidence.

[1779] Right.

[1780] We literally know these things.

[1781] Not only that, there's also a drug that is illegal that has a significant impact on addiction.

[1782] It's called ibogaine.

[1783] And Ibogaine, which is being used in treatment facilities all throughout South America and Mexico with massive positive results, is illegal in this country for no apparent reason.

[1784] Yeah, I've heard that the people that do that are just like, that's it.

[1785] As soon as they take it, they're like, I don't want it anymore.

[1786] It's completely out.

[1787] Well, it rewires the way your brain concentrates or the way your brain is affected by these substances.

[1788] It rewires addiction.

[1789] I mean, I'm not the one to explain how it works.

[1790] he'll be in this week, and he'll probably be the best person to do it.

[1791] I've got another one.

[1792] This is from the Washington Post's statistic of how many Americans drink every week.

[1793] Jesus.

[1794] You want to read that?

[1795] What in the fuck?

[1796] This little thing right here.

[1797] Up to 10 drinks per day.

[1798] What?

[1799] It says the top 10 % of American adults, 24 million of them consume an average of 74 drinks per week or a little more than 10 drinks per day.

[1800] Holy shit.

[1801] Compared to about 30 % that don't drink at all.

[1802] Holy shit.

[1803] And how many of them are doing that because cannabis is illegal?

[1804] Well, I'm sure quite a few, but quite a few, you know, look, there's a lot of, obviously, you know, I'm a marijuana enthusiast.

[1805] I love it.

[1806] I think it's awesome.

[1807] I want to spark one up right now thinking about it.

[1808] I'm a big fan.

[1809] But some people don't like it.

[1810] They don't like the abrasively introspective properties of cannabis.

[1811] They don't like the paranoia.

[1812] They don't like all the vulnerability feelings that you get from it.

[1813] I like those.

[1814] Those are good for me. My personality, I'm too type A, aggressive, you know, I'm good with a substance, a compound that sort of like calms that down and mellows me out.

[1815] It gives me a different perspective.

[1816] I enjoy it, and I think it's good for people.

[1817] I really do.

[1818] I think a lot of the things that people associate with the negative aspect of cannabis, the particularly the paranoia.

[1819] I think that's good.

[1820] I really do.

[1821] I think we need to feel more vulnerable.

[1822] I think feeling more vulnerable is better for you because it enhances a sense of community and friendship and love in a lot of ways.

[1823] And it bonds people together.

[1824] I think this idea that you're an individual, that you are, you know, you're a lone rebel out there kicking ass and taking names, you're doing it all by yourself, that's all eroded instantaneously by cannabis.

[1825] It's just said, no, no, no, no. You're a talking monkey on a spinning ball flying through infinity, you fuckhead.

[1826] And you're like, ah, I'm fucking scared.

[1827] I'm going to die someday.

[1828] I couldn't agree with you more.

[1829] I think those are really important qualities for our entire race, the human race.

[1830] I think it enhances more community -type feelings and thoughts.

[1831] And I think that's the opposite of what some drugs, like stimulants do.

[1832] Stimulants, I've always avoided stimulants.

[1833] I'm not a fan other than coffee.

[1834] I've never really tried them, but I've seen their effect on other people and I've read about their effects.

[1835] And it's not what I'm looking for.

[1836] I don't want to be cocky.

[1837] I'm trying to fight whatever urges my body and my personality have to sort of lean towards that.

[1838] But I think that people that get involved with speed, people that get involved with Coke, those are people that are like unduly confident.

[1839] I think there's a bad drug for society.

[1840] and it's a it's a drug that is very selfish in its effects like the the the impact that it has on people's they become really selfish and nasty and I'm not into that I think that alcohol for some people is a is an escape from the reality that they find themselves in and they don't know how to get out and I think education like we were talking about before allowing people to have access to the stories and the consequences that other people have experienced from taking that drug will help them.

[1841] What kept me from doing Coke when I was young was having friends that had problems with it.

[1842] And that educated me. I was like, fuck, I don't want to be like that guy.

[1843] I don't want to have that happen to me. I see what's happening to this person.

[1844] Some people don't get exposed to that.

[1845] And instead, before they know it, they're already in it.

[1846] They're trying it when they're 15.

[1847] Next thing you know, they like it too much.

[1848] Next thing you know, they're looking forward to doing that because it provides some sort of an escape from the pressure of the consequences of pursuing a dream, of chasing down life, or of not having a direction.

[1849] That's another one, not having, like you were saying, the identity that you're focusing on, whether it's this gentleman that was a photographer or someone else that wants to be an athlete or someone else that wants to be an author, whatever it is, it's one thing that you're chasing.

[1850] If you don't have that thing, this sort of futility of life is very overwhelming.

[1851] to some people and they want to escape that pain the pain of not knowing what the fuck you're doing and i think some of that i mean this is going to go way out there but i think some of that goes back to the hunter -gatherer genes that we have in our in our own bodies i think we're in a lot of ways we're a prisoner to the needs of the past and the needs of the past where we're very goal -oriented you had to go out there you know to pick the right amount of foods that you could eat you had to hunt the animals or catch the fish and that was the goal and we were very goal oriented in that way you had to go out there and do that you had to work hard and then through those goals you get this feeling of satisfaction well when you're just getting food and it's it comes to you when your job involves doing something that's not rewarding in any way shape or form and this is what you have to do to get that food you've sort of taken out all the natural reward systems that our bodies are designed to sort of gravitate towards.

[1852] And unless you find a passion, unless you find an art or a craft or a trade or some sort of a thing that excites you mentally and stimulates your creativity and stimulates your ambition, you're left lost.

[1853] And there's a lot of people that are just left lost and unfulfilled and unsatisfied.

[1854] And I think those types of people gravitate towards alcohol and a lot of other drugs as an escape.

[1855] And that's a part of the of the problem with society was how we view drugs we view drugs as an escape rather than an enhancement or rather than a perspective enhancer we view them as oh this guy's weak he needs a drug yeah i i think i think you're spot on i don't know how you can argue that but it like ties all together so i know you sound like liberal i mean you plurally sound like liberal hippies when you like start putting all these things together, but these things really do tie in together.

[1856] So you have the alcoholism because people aren't finding their identities.

[1857] So we should be doing things to like help people create identities if we want a safer environment, right?

[1858] So it's not about taking those people and put them into prisons.

[1859] As you articulate it, it's about finding that passion or educating them to do something.

[1860] And so if you want to help or police or whoever want to help, you have to be addressing those kind of issues and I think so people one thing we've noticed throughout throughout human history is that when things are really tough and there's no resources right the the leaders of the oppressed like so say it's really easy to use um black segregated neighborhoods right now you know it's easy example well it's not just easy it's an awesome example so it's a very good example so the masculine members of a society that can't achieve something they turn to making everything about masculinity and dominance and accepting of the of that lower realm and they start to treat uh intelligence and education as effeminate or or weak and so you have a that's that that plays into the culture of where you have the guns and everybody has to you know the disrespect and culture and this is my corner kind of culture.

[1861] So we have those kind of benefits that are a factor also in leveling the playing field for everybody and contributing.

[1862] So one of the things that we're doing right now is we're building a studio like this in Baltimore.

[1863] And it's called Radio Revolver, and that'll be my shameless plug.

[1864] So GoFundMe, Radio Revolver.

[1865] And we still need a few more thousand dollars to fix everything up.

[1866] What are you doing?

[1867] So we all.

[1868] We are are making it, so we have a video recording, like Skype session.

[1869] We have a podcast, the whole setup like this with eight mics, and we're trying to set everything up.

[1870] We have local artists that are painting everything in the inside.

[1871] Let me stop you right now.

[1872] Eight people are going to talk over each other.

[1873] Never have more than two.

[1874] Okay.

[1875] Okay.

[1876] We've made that mistake many times.

[1877] We have these fight companions with four, and they're my best friends, and we're all fucking yelling out of each other.

[1878] I tried to watch one of those the other day.

[1879] I was like, oh, my God, I'm getting a headache.

[1880] Sometimes they're, those are pretty fun.

[1881] Oh, they're loose.

[1882] Oh, we get hammered.

[1883] They're ridiculous.

[1884] But I'm just saying if you have eight people, really, it's like, you ever heard that expression, one boy, one boy's work, two boys, half boys work.

[1885] Meaning that, like, if you have two young kids together and they're working on something, they're just going to start talking shit and it's not going to get done.

[1886] One's going to go that way, yeah.

[1887] If you have one kid that's digging a hole, he's going to actually get that job done.

[1888] but if you have like four people nothing gets done and that's really the case okay I'm definitely going right that down it's eight people's too many so one of the people that I met was if you ever heard serial podcast Jamie do you know that sure so okay you listen to that no I don't but I'm aware of it actually the first season is about a Nod Said who's wrongfully imprisoned right now in Maryland still right so definitely wrongfully I think so well so regardless of whether you get a point of whether he did it or not I'm honestly unaware of the case.

[1889] What was he accused of?

[1890] So in high school, at 17, of murdering his ex -girlfriend, a classmate at Woodland High High School, the evidence, regardless of whether somebody wants to argue about whether he actually did it or not, the evidence is extremely clear that you do not have the evidence to put this individual in jail, period.

[1891] It's not there.

[1892] His best friend is the partner with me for Radio Revolver.

[1893] And we ended up being connected because I helped out on that.

[1894] podcast for a while and you know we've we have this community that we form now so he's helping me with this and this is an example of how you use your privilege and sensationalism so I was sensationalized by what I said before right by the the cops hitting people and all the things they did and probably what I'm most proud of is that I instantly switch from that sensationalism to how we fix things and what the reform measures are and we don't even talk about that sensationalism anymore but don't you think the sensationalism was important because it brought you to people like me. It's critical.

[1895] Yeah.

[1896] So the successfulness of turning that around into something productive, part of that is this radio revolver.

[1897] So if you have privilege and you have an advantage of something, what you have to do is you have to build platforms for other people, build structure so that other people can rise, not just for yourself.

[1898] And the idea behind this is we'll have the network, so it end up being turnkey.

[1899] It's in a room that anybody can come in at any time.

[1900] And if the community members, we already have them tied in, I think we're going to have a problem with who we cut out versus who we're going to let in.

[1901] And we're creating the entire infrastructure under one umbrella for them to come in and have their voices heard and get their message out there.

[1902] They can build a podcast.

[1903] They can build a video, like a TV show type of thing.

[1904] And none of this is ever going to cost any of them anything.

[1905] And if they succeed and we end up getting to a point where we're in the red, then we just start taking all the profits and discharges.

[1906] distribute them out to whoever, you know, proportionally has the podcast that does the best or whatever.

[1907] But the point of that is, is that you have, that is going to enable at least 10 to 20 identity projects.

[1908] So somebody else has to come in and do the other end of that.

[1909] Take whatever you have and do that same kind of thing.

[1910] If you have money, then we can take the money and we can do something good with that.

[1911] If you have that skill, then you can come into a place like we're building or a place like Penn North and pass that on that is really what we have to do as an individual level and if so i would always love it if people would help me out with radio revolvers so we can get that finished so you're what you're going to do is you're going to put together a podcast and through that podcast you're going to have people tell their stories you're going to expose the rest of the world to the the plight of these inner cities and the positive stories about people rising out of them and your friend the photographer and a bunch of other people that you can get exposed to.

[1912] So I think one of the most important things for a young person is to believe that they can somehow or another be successful.

[1913] I remember when I was young and we were poor, I always identified with being a poor person and I never thought that I would be anything other than a poor person because I would see people that were wealthy and they always felt so different than me. They always felt so anyone who is successful, I shouldn't even just say wealthy.

[1914] I'm just a normal person.

[1915] like, you know, like someone who lives in a normal house with, you know, a garage and, you know, like, wow, that's a, that's a person that the America aspires to.

[1916] They feel different than you.

[1917] If you're from a broken home, if you're from poverty.

[1918] In my case, obviously, was nothing in comparison to the extreme poverty that a lot of people face.

[1919] But I still remember feeling really insecure and really disconnected from successful people.

[1920] I think that mindset is very difficult to overcome.

[1921] It's very difficult.

[1922] It's very difficult to believe that you can achieve something.

[1923] It's very difficult to believe that you can rise from no matter where you are.

[1924] If you continue to work and you continue to pursue your goals and you can avoid all the pitfalls of negative aspects of society, you can do better.

[1925] You can do better and you can feel satisfied in that.

[1926] And to give people these opportunities to see people who have done the very thing that you, you're aspiring to do is massively beneficial because it gives them sort of a like a little bit of a blueprint yeah i mean and that's exactly the point would you say these things i mean you may as well just be me saying them uh i agree with you completely i mean it's critically important that that we set these up for people and they can do that and they do that now and it just reminds me when you said that like they come up to my house and like that's like success to them and that's what i am i'm a dude with a single family home and a garage and not really, yeah, I don't have any money.

[1927] But that is honestly all anybody ever really needs and wants.

[1928] I mean, you can get a giant ass fucking house, but let me tell you something.

[1929] At the end of the day, it's just your house, you know?

[1930] It's just where you live.

[1931] Is it comfortable, is it safe?

[1932] Yeah, that's what everybody really wants.

[1933] Yeah, definitely.

[1934] That's really what it's all about.

[1935] And one of the most positive aspects of doing this podcast is running into people that I've met that said, Hey man, I've been doing stand -up comedy for three years now.

[1936] I'm actually a working comedian.

[1937] I did it from listening to your podcast.

[1938] I knew that I could do it because you told me that anybody can do it if you just try.

[1939] That I used to suck and I tell everybody.

[1940] I always, I was fucking terrible.

[1941] But you keep chipping away at it and just listening to your recordings and all that jazz.

[1942] I've run into a million fucking people that have started doing jujitsu now.

[1943] I mean, it's not a million, but it's not countable anymore.

[1944] I've ran into so many people that, hey, man, I just got my purple belt, started listening to you guys.

[1945] You know, now I'm competing.

[1946] My lifestyle is so much healthier.

[1947] I eat cleaner.

[1948] Everything's better.

[1949] My life is just, I used to be depressed.

[1950] It's so much more positive.

[1951] So I take great satisfaction.

[1952] I would say pride, but it's not the right word.

[1953] It's great satisfaction.

[1954] It feels awesome to talk to people that have looked at this little sort of blueprint that I've laid out and said, look, anybody could do this.

[1955] You can do this.

[1956] Like whatever patterns that you're following because of the people that you're around are in these negative patterns, you don't have to follow those patterns.

[1957] It's one of the beautiful things about social media and the beautiful things about the internet is you can kind of choose what you follow.

[1958] I mean, you could go and just follow negative stuff all day long.

[1959] You could concentrate on negative bullshit and you could be one of those people who goes on Twitter and just bombs on people and shits on people all day.

[1960] And that's going to be your point of focus, but you're not going to get any better at anything doing that.

[1961] You're not going to have a better life.

[1962] You're not going to feel better.

[1963] You're not going to be happier.

[1964] You're not going to spread anything beneficial, anything positive to anybody.

[1965] But you can take a choice to not do that.

[1966] And a lot of times you need to see that someone else has done that in order to help you do that.

[1967] I hope you're inspiring others because you're kind of inspired me right now, like thinking about how many identity projects that you've led, even though they were maybe not even been obvious to you because you've gone and used this platform to do these things.

[1968] I think it's highly honorable of you that you use this platform so that I can talk about these things, about BLM, Black Lives Matter, and about police reform and things like that.

[1969] That's like the typical, like, prototype of what we're talking about.

[1970] You were doing great work by doing that.

[1971] Well, it's helping me a lot, too, honestly.

[1972] I mean, I think everyone's life is a constant journey.

[1973] Unless you just stay sedentary and you don't go anywhere and you don't take any new data, Your life is all about re -evaluating the way you think or evaluating it or enhancing it or adding to it or removing some negative aspects of the way you think.

[1974] And one of the best ways that I've found to do that is expose myself to interesting people like you or like any of the other people that I've had the pleasure and the opportunity to talk to on this podcast.

[1975] You get this.

[1976] I mean, I've had three -hour conversations with 800 fucking, well, not 800 people, but 800.

[1977] 800 times.

[1978] And having those kind of conversations, it forces you to think.

[1979] It forces you to, and like, one of the things that Eddie Wong was saying that really resonated with me is that he likes to write.

[1980] He writes every day.

[1981] And one of the reasons why he likes to write is that it makes him solidify his own thoughts.

[1982] He thinks about his own thoughts, and it really sort of like, it allows him to really, really kind of examine them and go in, depth as to how he really truly feels about something and really get a cleaner perspective instead of just I think a lot of people me included I've been guilty this in the past we operate on momentum we just get a path you're on it for some whatever reason and then you just sort of stuck and you just sort of behave that way and think that way and you don't ever examine it you know and writing allows you to really pause and look at that podcasting does the same in a lot of ways it allows me to pause and really think about some of the things that I've attached myself to or not attached myself to.

[1983] And it's recorded.

[1984] You're never going to be able to hide it.

[1985] It's not just recorded.

[1986] This shit's live.

[1987] Right.

[1988] So it is you.

[1989] It's you.

[1990] It's who you are.

[1991] You know, and for good or for bad.

[1992] And you get to see negative aspects of the way you think and the way you talk.

[1993] And then you get to see the repercussions from those and you get to consider like, why did I think that way?

[1994] Was I just, was it just a knee -jerk reaction?

[1995] Was it just, you know, was I tired that day?

[1996] Was I not respecting the medium?

[1997] Was I not respecting the power of these thoughts and these conversations?

[1998] Most likely a combination of all those things.

[1999] But through the personal growth that has been afforded me by the podcast, it's helped me in as much as it's helped anybody.

[2000] It's helped me tremendously.

[2001] And having these kind of conversations with people like you are a giant part of that.

[2002] Thanks.

[2003] I don't know how to take that guy's stuff, but not really it's that.

[2004] But I don't know.

[2005] I can't sing your praises enough for having that kind of mentality and being the alpha male that is vulnerable and lets other people see that it's okay.

[2006] Those things are important.

[2007] It's okay for the tough guys to let their guard down and be introspective and to be people that are willing to help and reach out.

[2008] It's entirely admirable.

[2009] Like, Chank is another person that I've gotten close to.

[2010] You've had him on here, right?

[2011] His name is Jank.

[2012] Jank.

[2013] So say his name right.

[2014] Yeah, I'm glad that you say it right.

[2015] He jokes about that how, like, people that have known him his whole life.

[2016] Say it wrong.

[2017] So you're right.

[2018] It's Jank, right?

[2019] Well, the young Turks, what they've done is they've developed this sort of alternative media platform that's outside of the mainstream media, but it has arguably as much impact.

[2020] When you look at what they've been able to do on YouTube, and they're one of many.

[2021] You know, there's a lot of people that are pushing on YouTube.

[2022] usual ideas on the internet um the amazing atheist is another one i've really enjoyed a lot of his stuff lately um tj is a fucking really bright guy and he puts out some really interesting well thought out videos you got a pee or something what's that was that's giving a website address just talking about chank we got jank jank jes he's good i got to go see him this week just don't call him chink so uh putting our monies where our mouth is we got locked up this year You guys got locked up?

[2023] Yeah, in D .C. Arrested?

[2024] You got arrested?

[2025] You got arrested?

[2026] Jank did too?

[2027] You got arrested together?

[2028] Yeah, we got arrested together.

[2029] What'd you get arrested for?

[2030] For sitting in for Democracy Spring.

[2031] Is that serving or protecting?

[2032] How does that work?

[2033] That would have been serving.

[2034] Do you, well, yeah.

[2035] Do you guys get arrest records for that?

[2036] Okay, so I get...

[2037] Could you still get in Canada?

[2038] I guess Jank does.

[2039] A real, legit arrest record?

[2040] So I fought it because it was in D .C. Right.

[2041] Because it's close to you.

[2042] It's close to me. I can fight it.

[2043] So they ended up dropping the charges on me. Okay.

[2044] We got a phone call that there was no way they were going to put me in a chance to speak in a recorded public forum.

[2045] That's what they said?

[2046] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[2047] So they dropped my cases.

[2048] What were you protesting?

[2049] Get money out of politics.

[2050] So we're not, people like Jank and I are not just talking out of our asses on this.

[2051] We mean it.

[2052] Right.

[2053] And so we went and we participated in the march and got arrested in Washington, D .C. And why did you get arrested for?

[2054] What was the charge?

[2055] Like loitering or some bullshit.

[2056] I forget how they completely worded it.

[2057] And so it's because you were protesting in a public area and blocking traffic or something?

[2058] That's what they said.

[2059] There was nobody trying to go in or out of the capital.

[2060] And that's where we were.

[2061] Right.

[2062] But they wouldn't be able to if they did want to because you guys were in the way.

[2063] Oh.

[2064] Okay.

[2065] That's kind of loitering, right?

[2066] But that does get attention to what you're trying to say.

[2067] It's the largest mass arrest in D .C. history.

[2068] It's like 200 and some of us that got arrested the first day.

[2069] Wow.

[2070] Like 450 overall.

[2071] So we have some good pictures of it if, Jamie.

[2072] Their website's not working.

[2073] It's Maywood Photography, M -A -E -W -O -O -D.

[2074] Oh, that's my phone.

[2075] I'm sorry.

[2076] So what were the cops like when they arrest you?

[2077] They're like, I'm sorry, this is bullshit.

[2078] We got arrested it or they're being dicks?

[2079] Some of them were still being decks, unbelievably, considering it was when you see this crowd.

[2080] So they were treating you like an actual criminal, even though it's pretty obvious you're trying to campaign against something that's something that nobody really thinks is a good thing, money and politics.

[2081] Right, the lieutenant said, hey, I'm glad that you guys are out here doing that.

[2082] Really?

[2083] The lieutenant said that.

[2084] Right.

[2085] Holy shit.

[2086] But these are capital police.

[2087] I've sang their praises before, but they don't face a lot so they had there's there's jank so that's uh captain ray lewis he also was arrested and he wears his uniform he's a retired philadelphia uh police officer and he wore his uniform and he does and got arrested in his uniform and they took his sign and threw it away and they charged what does it say what does the sign say massive civil is scratched out disobedience is next warning massive disobedience is next what does that mean well because I'm assuming what he means by this, but right now the disobedience is civil.

[2088] Right.

[2089] So we're protesting.

[2090] We're doing things like this.

[2091] But like I'm flabbergasted that the black community in these neighborhoods hasn't really said enough is enough yet.

[2092] Like the idea that we, they have children and family members dying in these streets.

[2093] Well, they're probably scared to get arrested, man. They are.

[2094] But I just, there's a breaking point that's coming.

[2095] And that's, that's what he's trying to say.

[2096] is and what I've tried to see what's on don't scroll what's up with the dude with the nose ring the fuck's going on there oh he's a he's an actual can you remember a tribe he's from and he participates in a lot of these things and what about the do with the musket scroll down there jane I don't know him I think he has a side I don't know what that is it's wood it looks like a musket when I was only seen the tip of it what yeah the tip of the I thought it was a just a tip musket that's all it never just a tip Don't fall for that.

[2097] I don't know what you're saying.

[2098] Dollars in, what does that, scroll down?

[2099] Dollars in politics, scratch out.

[2100] So it's essentially just a bunch of people standing in a place where the government didn't think you should be able to stand.

[2101] Right.

[2102] And we kind of keep drawing attention to this money in politics because I really think that's the root.

[2103] I mean, it's the root of everything.

[2104] We can't end the drug war because of this.

[2105] We can't move anything forward.

[2106] We can't do police reform because of this.

[2107] Democracy Spring, they're calling.

[2108] Yeah, that was the one day.

[2109] Different groups did different days.

[2110] So it was a whole week long.

[2111] This was the, the first day was the biggest day.

[2112] And you'll have me handcuffs at the end eventually.

[2113] Hmm.

[2114] But so.

[2115] How long did you have to stay in jail for?

[2116] Just the night.

[2117] Oh, oh, annoying.

[2118] All the people snoring.

[2119] It wasn't real jail.

[2120] There were so many people that it was just like, they were keeping us in, like, animal pens.

[2121] It felt like, so we would just be, like, penned off.

[2122] Like, they took us to a different place and had, like, uh, like fences like portable fences and they would like put you like So it's not like you really couldn't get out You could get out if you wanted to I guess I could have if I really wanted to I wasn't going to go for an escape charge This is so silly It seems like so It's a dumb way to handle it Everybody's smiling Getting handcuffed Right so as you see It's a pretty white crowd White is fuck So I think that helps on the way the police act It's like some people just psyched to be hanging out with junk yeah you know it's weird so i mean that's an example of another thing i mean you can go and you can participate in these things so if that is a passion of yours i think that's another identity thing that we have you can you can go and these groups there's all these groups out there and like you're saying that these people feel lost and they're turning to to other things but we have all these things out there and and if you don't have one just create one like they're out there Like the TYT family, like your family, like Black Lives Matter.

[2123] We have tons of movements going on that you can do something positive with no matter who you are.

[2124] Okay, so tell us one more time, what's the name of this podcast, and when do you hope this thing's going to start?

[2125] So the name of the podcast, the radio right now, it's called Radio Revolver, and that's just the umbrella.

[2126] Why Radio Revolver?

[2127] Isn't that about guns?

[2128] Yeah, we had that place.

[2129] So revolving door, like a prison cell is how I envisioned it.

[2130] They wanted to use like a gun logo.

[2131] And I was like, no, no, no, no, no, you can't do that.

[2132] Radio Revolver podcast network.

[2133] Right.

[2134] So here's some of the friends that I've made that are activists around.

[2135] And there would definitely be ones that are in there.

[2136] We were doing a serious show when we took that picture.

[2137] And so the donating is for equipment and for rental space.

[2138] We have the space was donated by Saad.

[2139] It's a basement of his house, all blocked off and done.

[2140] So that's not an issue.

[2141] We have that done.

[2142] So what do you need?

[2143] We're still just getting the last bit of equipment.

[2144] We have some of the local artists painting the walls now.

[2145] Oh, great.

[2146] Right.

[2147] And so we're close.

[2148] I mean, like maybe $3 ,000 and we're set.

[2149] Well, let me know when you guys launch and I will absolutely tweet it out and let everybody be aware of it.

[2150] The first one is going to, so again, part of the thing that we're going to do is we just take advantage of me, right, in the publicity.

[2151] So the first one is going to be a joint project with Undisclosed, who is affiliate with serial, story and all.

[2152] And that one's going to be misconduct, which is going to be one of the series we have.

[2153] So there's going to be multiple podcasts.

[2154] Oh, okay.

[2155] One of them is going to be misconduct.

[2156] And then you'll have, like, the photography one or you have a public health one.

[2157] Like Doc Lawrence Brown is going to do a public health one.

[2158] So you're essentially building like a whole station.

[2159] Whole station.

[2160] Okay, great.

[2161] Right.

[2162] And so everybody that wants in, you know, as long as you learn what you're doing and everything, you'll be able to have your voice heard in whichever manner you want.

[2163] That's a great idea because, you know, this is one of the easiest ways to get a message out.

[2164] and a message that, you know, when you hear someone talk, man, and you hear their words and you get to know them through the hours and hours of conversations, you get to know them in a really deep, intimate way.

[2165] You're a shining example.

[2166] I mean, you walk around and everybody to you, to you, they know you.

[2167] People hug me. I don't even know.

[2168] I'm like, hey, what's up?

[2169] How are doing?

[2170] Right.

[2171] So the first one's called misconduct, which is going to be a series, and I'm going to do the first one, and it's going to be the killing of Freddie Gray.

[2172] So what we're going to do for that is go through the story.

[2173] And when we first go through the story, the first episode will start and we'll start telling what happened.

[2174] Like, so these cops are in this neighborhood and Freddie Gray is in this.

[2175] And then we go, but wait, why does it look this way?

[2176] And then so like somebody like Doc Brown will come in and we'll go over through the history of segregation, how the neighborhoods are formed the way they are, why the cops are all white, why the citizens are all black.

[2177] And we'll go explain that story.

[2178] And then the next episode, I'll start over again, start telling the story, and when we'll hit the next hurdle, which will be something like, well, why are they going after him for the drugs?

[2179] You know, why are they chasing him?

[2180] So then we'll break down the history of the laws and why that is done the way it is, what policing philosophies have led to this until we finish out the entire story and everybody can understand the nuance to what happened behind the murder of Freddie Gregg.

[2181] All right, man. Well, listen, thank you very much.

[2182] Appreciate it.

[2183] And we'll definitely want to do that thing with my friend Justin.

[2184] Yep.

[2185] If he's down, we'll have a fucking gun control ho -down up in this bitch.

[2186] I'm certainly down.

[2187] And we'll definitely promote your podcast as soon as it launches Radio Revolver.

[2188] So go to go fund me .com forward slash radio revolver.

[2189] Go and contribute and you can follow Michael on Twitter.

[2190] Michael Wood Jr. Is that what it is on Twitter?

[2191] Michael A. Wood Jr. on Twitter.

[2192] Thank you, brother.

[2193] Really appreciate it.

[2194] Always good seeing you again.

[2195] We'll do it again.

[2196] Yes.

[2197] Thank you, folks.

[2198] We'll be back soon.

[2199] Bye, big kiss.

[2200] Mu -w -w -ma -ma -ma -ma.