Gun Owners & Users Debate America’s Gun Problem | VICE Debates

how do I defend myself and my children against who guys who have AR-15s tell me how and you said yourself that the police may not make it there in time tell me you know what the best chance you got in a situation like that is to get out the house she just stated that they would reached a car there's a piece that's 90 rounds of bullets firing through the hole you need to get out of the house oh sir I Stand My Ground sorry [Music] thank you all for coming today my name is Keegan Hamilton I'm a correspondent with Vice news obviously we couldn't get somebody to represent every single perspective on this but we've tried to get across the range here we're here today to talk about guns it's a polarizing topic it can be a controversial topic and I think in some ways arguing about what to do about guns and gun policy is about as American as apple pie raise your hand if you've ever shot a gun now keep your hand up if you currently own a gun all right keep your hand up if you own more than one gun keep your hand up if you own more than 10 guns keep your hand up if you own any AR-15s how does shooting a gun make you feel I feel um powerful I feel confident fund is is pretty much what I'm thinking about and what I'm feeling when I'm shooting a gun it's a good time it's like Spider-Man with great power comes great responsibility facts determined I guess when I pick up a gun loaded not loaded am I shooting am I shooting responsibly it's always been a very neutral experience for me because of things like that where it's just about doing everything correctly yeah I usually feel tired after shooting a lot a lot of the training is extensive and as an instructor I'm usually also teaching while I'm shooting Firearms if shooting a gun is exhausting like teaching people to shoot guns is even more exhausting but it's exciting because you can Empower somebody else like after it you may feel tired and exhausted but these people might be that much safer because of what you taught them how many of y'all are long time gun owners here's your hands and how many are new gun owners who've just got into gun ownership and shooting okay I grew up around them but I recently moved somewhere where I could personally own them I started you know a closer to 2018 2019 when I just turned 18 years old when it was legally allowed to buy guns I did not grow up around guns I started owning them because of different political conditions that we were under I think the reason why I don't own a gun even though it always felt like a given I grew up in San Antonio and as a first generation American growing up I wanted to be a good American I wanted to observe what everyone else was doing and be like okay that's how you be an American that's how you do it but then I went out to a really big defensive shooting training it's like a thousand Browns over a weekend lots of like pressure exercises and I was like this is a whole lifestyle that I'm not willing to take up can we talk about why you guys chose to own guns law enforcement and similar I'm military or a former military and carried a handgun concealed while I was deployed at 19. I grew up in rural Virginia and so for us it was more of tradition the first firearm I received our own was the first firearm my father owned which is a hunting rifle and so for us we were taught to take care of it appreciate it but know that it has a place my dad grew up in rural Pennsylvania so I mean he was shooting his whole life he hunted and so he thought it was important for us to learn pretty young kind of about guns and how they work when I was growing up it was always the bad guys that had guns and I felt like I didn't have the emotional maturity at that time to own guns but as I got older I started seeing it more as Recreation and then as you know the climate in the world changed and events happened in my life I started to really be empowered by the security that they offered for me well I actually used to be a gun control activist and there were certain events that were happening where violence against trans women was you know increasing across the the country and there was this one video that went viral where a trans woman was violently mobbed in a gas station one night and that was a clicking moment for me at that moment I was like you know what the only thing that would have stopped her from this violent mob was in fact a gun how does the Second Amendment affect the way that you view gun ownership as a right in this country I think my right to defend myself how I see fit comes from my Creator not the Second Amendment a lot of people hinge on the second amendment in the verbiage and we dissect it and we try to interpret it but ultimately every person on this planet was born with the right to defend themselves I don't have any skin in the game I don't own guns so as far as 2A goes I do not feel like that is the right that I personally want to protect or defend I feel very conflicted about the Second Amendment at the end of the day when we talk about the Constitution as like this sacred document I mean it was written by a bunch of rich white guys who owned slaves didn't let women vote and thought the Electoral College was a good idea so maybe it's not a perfect document and we should kind of update it as time progresses it's my right to defend myself there is an ample amount of time between the time you call the police and the time that they arrived it's my right to be able to protect myself in any way possible as a survivor of gun violence I can't help but to think about how many people have been lost because of this perceived right or this outdated document I feel like this debate around the Second Amendment is oversimplifying a really serious and complex issue and unfortunately there's too many privileged individuals having these debates making these decisions who aren't feeling the pain of what gun violence in our country has done to us in Connecticut two officers were shot and killed one guy is firing 80 rounds one guy I don't know if those two cops combined had 80 rounds now I don't know how else they would have defended themselves other than a firearm but it also comes out to who gets it out first you know personally forget law enforcement I have a four and a half year old son I want to have a chance that God forbid I'm in a store and I see somebody down an aisle or I hear a sound that sounds like a firearm that that there's a good chance that at least my son's gonna survive we're in a world where we are literally out arming who's supposed to be protecting us and it's all coming from a place of fear if we're thinking about how to protect our homes or to protect our families they are better lower risk ways to do that and as someone who's been shot having a gun on me would have not saved my life if anything it would have cost me my life because it gives you this false concept of confidence in a life or death situation when your first instinct should be to flee or evade what are your ideas about other cost-effective ways to defend yourself when we think about defending your home or your body or from harm or assault the most impactful thing you can have is a known deterrent a gun is not a known to turn and so when we think about keeping our home safe specifically simple things like having a dog having the lights on having a fence having a security system a security camera is more effective at protecting your homes what do you guys think are are actual like good ideas in terms of gun regulation if any what the question I have is are we going after the guns are we going after the people that are using them illegally the second something happens they don't talk about the person that committed the crime time but if someone's not on the opposite side of the gun it will never go off unless the trigger is pulled and I think there needs to be more accountability whether legally or not legally used there needs to be accountability for people to say wait a minute if I do something really dumb with this or hurt somebody I might not see the LIE today for a while we've created this image in America and I partially blame the media that violence in Black communities is a result of criminal activity when in reality most situations are interpersonal conflicts that are not connected to another felony and that false sense of having a firearm will make me safer terms with what would have been a fist fight an argument into something that causes someone their life you move your finger and you end a human life that's a responsibility that we should take a lot more seriously in this country you get committed convicted of domestic violence no guns for you Universal background checks I think would be a great idea and I think the idea that we don't treat something that was created for killing people with that kind of respect is a really weird disconnect in this country I think a big problem with people have with like Universal background checks requiring regulation and accreditation I teach and I give out certificates and all that but states have been sued for the fact that they won't give it to bipoc they won't give it to poor people they won't give these rights to trans people you start denying these rights and like oh well we regulate this but we only give it to the rich and we only give it to the well-connected right and then on the other side we don't make education available to all these people that can't afford it like why isn't it free why can't you go down to City Hall and take a class on how to teach your kids about firearm safety kind of gotten rid of all of that we've kind of moved to an absence-only education culture if you have someone in your community who commits a crime that it's the community's faults like how did that person get to that point a lot of folks here say that they own guns as a self-defense tool how do we feel about that is so Bleak in America like I don't blame people for feeling unsafe everyone here is concerned with survival everyone who picks up a gun is concerned with survival there is this sense of Despair in America when it comes to Resource scarcity food scarcity housing scarcity scarcity of care people do not resort to terrible things when they have support when they have a community when they feel like their survival is not at stake in America the two solutions that are introduced are too heavily focused on the individual and the gun but a solution we never introduced is regulating the gun industry and the profiteers of massive amount of weapons being introduced into America and I think that's something that in America we're not talking about we're not talking about how do we hold the profiteers the the gun capitalists accountable in this conversation we forget to talk about white nationalism and the fact that this country was the settler Colonial Country based on taking land from indigenous people and suppressing enslaved people gun conversation as soon as you wade into it is so freaking racist it's really misogynistic and when we really start to zoom in on this stuff we find levers we can better identify where threats come from what kinds of discourse really start to put us in danger and actually the gun industry lobbies a lot and pays for the campaigns of a lot of people who condone this kind of culture and so that's one lever in which I think we need to be a lot put a lot more scrutiny on I agree with a lot of things from what everybody else said but I feel like a lot of the gun control issues drown out the actual issues like let's take school shootings for example school shootings are awful they're horrible but here's my question what has been done to make schools more secure I do executive protection and armed security and I've been offered countless times jobs at schools they pay 12 13 14 an hour a single mother with two kids that's not a an amount I can work for nor does it reflect my value as a security officer but what is being done for it we're not paying security extra we're not you know doing single points of Entry we're not reinforcing the perimeters we're not doing any of those things we're focusing on gun control and yet when this happens again we're confused as to why it happened again because nothing was done to stop the problem I don't think you know turning schools into fortresses having more armed security is a solution here I'd rather have a part-time school counselor then a full-time you know resource officer because there are counselors but are they like when you put a police officer in a school you're creating an environment where you're putting students in jail or in prison instead of going after the problems instead of spending money on lockdown drills crisis actors we could give them more food security community garden is probably going to go way farther for their mental health than simulating gunfire in the hallways if we do have School shooters well where are they coming from they're coming from the school we're letting these kids down we're showing them the rehearsal and then what tragedy look at where the money in the communities is is going already and uh and that's law enforcement who want more money and more weapons to make everyone safer inflated crime statistics whatever it takes because sadly this works in elections it works on parents it works on families who don't know what else to do but there are so many places to put money in a community and uh we are starving those places out of existence that I want to ask Joey as a police officer when you hear this group talking about cops getting money that they might not put to good use how does that sit with you you know it's hard no one sees what police officers doing every single day they hear a news clip they get 10 seconds of what happened in a five minute situation right off the bat do I think we need to change move ahead with the times 100 you can't go today with what happened 20 years ago but you can also criticize all the time and say well take away cops altogether because that that's not going to work I did not say that cops should be taken away altogether this is an area that resists reform resists regulation we don't get to see the inner workings everything we can give cops body cam so we can't make them switch them on and any uh government body that refuses to be regulated that resists transparency should not be increasingly armed should not be increasingly funded if you want respect transparency is the way if you want people to trust you you have to show them why you're trustworthy but we need so much more from police there's a lot of oversight and accountability that I don't see with the police and police are people you know people have the full range of what they're capable of and we have seen enough evidence that there are police officers who abuse that power and I think that the real fact that there is no oversight and ability to ensure that they are doing their jobs well is a real problem with people who are Licensed to Kill but that's false though you would make it seem like cops are running rampant there's a lot more oversight than people know whether it's federally city-wise and there are bad apples and there's people out there that should not be police officers and there's nothing more than a good cop that doesn't want a bad cop on the street the oversight there's a lot more than people know but we have to take everyone's word for it though from inside I don't know what that means I'm saying that you're saying that there's lots of oversight but again we just have to believe that because anytime someone from outside attempts to explore that it's obstruction 100 of the way I wouldn't agree with that I really get struggle with this concept that we have to fund communities or fun police no we have the resources to fund these communities to Fund Solutions that we know work to invest in education to invest in violence intervention and victims like we're not willing to prioritize life then we're going to pay the costs on the back end one other thing I think we have to remember that this is not just a crime crisis you know two-thirds of lives lost are lost by Suicide with guns this is really a Public Health crisis and we keep pivoting back to Crime Control strategies and it's failing no you nailed it we're the richest country in the world and we can't make sure everyone like is secure in their life doesn't have fears you want to sell less guns make people less fearful people plan for their fears why do people buy guns well they want to feel safer well why do they need to feel safer well because their Community is just like okay what can we do for their Community right I do not believe that police can in any means provide security and safety for us and a huge part of you know wanting to own guns is an aspect of you know police failing us and so to suggest that it's anecdotals that it's just a couple of bad apples within the system it's completely incorrect we have seen the system fail people and fail to really protect individuals and so the suggestion that we can fund both that we can fund both our sense of security and our sense of safety as well as funding the police departments is completely false because a huge aspect of our safety being a detriment is in fact the police States initiatives what changes would make a difference in the real world practically speaking Kendra I want to hear your thoughts on this I'm a range safety officer and as long as I've worked on the Range I have seen police come there and train once right before their call or not even they only come for their qualification and I have some friends that they train pretty often but the vast majority I outshoot them by hundreds of rounds and I just don't understand that I do situational training I do Verbal Judo so that I know how to DS escalate situations when I encounter them and I feel like that's what the police force is missing they need that consistent training with current events that are going on with different situations with their firearms so that they can better protect us that's what they're there for and there's no getting rid of them I disagree um the firearm is the last tool a police officer uses I hope Joey agrees if they're they're only spending one day at the range and because they only think they're going to use their their gun that little and they're spending all their time training de-escalation and learning about the community and being a part of it I'm fine with that but I did mention de-escalation you mentioned it from yourself police officers don't learn de-escalation at the firing range they should well they learn to you know shoot accurately hopefully and kill inevitably there needs to be a balance 100 when you defund the police police lack in training that's a problem police need to be trained because everything in life is muscle memory the number one thing you should do is use your mouth and no matter what you do you know you go out there you talk and that's where the de-escalation comes in but by no means a police service is going out there didn't say I want to use my gun today no that that's the last thing on their mind policing has gone away from enforcement nationally which it should have and is more Community Police basis and that's where the funding goes to so we can go and change the Outlook of what policing has unfortunately you know looked like it's become I just think we also have to realize by the time that the phone is calling 9-1-1 and most shootings is too late it's too late you know when I was shot if a law enforcement didn't show up until 15 minutes later my cousin tied my tourniquet and the bullet hit two arteries I was bleeding to death you know I would have died before an officer arrived and I think if we continue to look at gun violence as something that law enforcement can solve we're missing it we take these these big assumptions and apply them to reality when it's untrue we've been talking a lot about training and I mean way supportive of that um but I also really think there needs to be accountability injected into this where if a cop does something ranging from lightly illegal to murder there should be accountability for that and I think the strange thing I see is this sort of closing ranks around these bad apples even though there's also an acknowledgment that they exist and I think people will be far less likely to look at police with fear if they understand that if that cop does something they're not supposed to there's accountability I mean Joey said he does not want those people walking around and I suspect that that is a pretty Common View and I don't know why those cops are protected then right now a lot of the conversation around guns is driven by mass shootings and particularly school shootings what is the solution to mass shootings in schools our protection for our children not creating a prison environment we need to make sure that they understand that the police are their friends and they're there to protect them education is what's going to empower everybody so we need to educate them on all levels not just Firearms not just school security but how to take care of themselves and each other I was one of those kids who was trained that way and raised that way not to be super dramatic about it but things took a turn for me and I could have been one of the kids on the other side of that gun I fantasized about it I was reading things of course you you become secretive as a result of this you hide from the people who know you the most there's a protectiveness around these issues that is very difficult to penetrate because it is so bound up in our sense of safety and our sense of family and it's very difficult to address these because what makes one person safe does not necessarily make someone else feel safe I think that mental health is important like you said sometimes your mind went to other places and that's what I'm saying that we need to empower them because without mental health without good mental health you can't make any decisions about anything else and a healthy productive manner so we need to start empowering our children's minds and taking care of their mental health first and foremost I am living proof of the fact that the problem does exist and it does haunt people and I was able to come back from a place that other people might not be able to come back from and I'm not saying it's a danger for everyone but I'm saying like we can't reach everybody that way every Community is different every Community has needs and the needs need to be addressed that's why I don't think there's like a hope for like a federal change that will solve school shootings or maybe even a Statewide change because states are big and house lots of different populations I was in elementary school when Columbine happened and when the national sort of injection of those drills into schools happened and it really messed up my sense of safety I didn't personally feel more prepared from those drills I felt afraid in a new place by the time we're bracing our schools for a mass shooter it's too late and so I think that if we really want to address this you need to look at why these kids are feeling so isolated in the first place you need to look at what are the conditions of their community that they are existing in but we're operating in reality where we see it and we keep brushing it under the rub and our children are dying you know and I get really frustrated about this focus on just mass shootings and just school shootings because our kids are not safe anywhere they're not safe in their homes they're not safe in their neighborhoods but I think the real solution is not to to bring more guns into the situation I think it's really to invest in people you know invest in our kids and their Wellness if we're continuously working on ourselves and seeking help for things that we need I think things will get better in the long run but some people have you know the Prides a little high and I think that's just something that we need to bring down and again Norma normalize seeking help and that being okay and the money's a little low and the access to health care is a little low too but it's also improving you know I've seen plenty of different options for kids and their counselors in school there's Anonymous things online so as it wasn't a a topic conversation before it definitely is now and it might be moving slow but it definitely is moving in that direction not in my neighborhood though and I'll tell you what's happening right now in our neighborhoods you're traumatized here's a gun deal with it no that's not the way don't give me investment that's what I'm really struggling with but in my neighborhood people are dying we're dying and so we can't just sit here and say hey pull yourself up by your bootstraps on the concrete one thing that came up earlier was Universal background checks and I'm curious does everyone here support Universal background checks on all gun purchases and if so why or why not if I want to give anyone on this panel a background check I can't do it I have to go to a you know store with a license and they can do it and they usually do it at a cost right why don't we just open up the background check system like why don't we give people the opportunity to have personal responsibility when they transfer firearms from person to person you know we have vaccine pack supports why can't we have opt-in you know firearm passports Universal background checks in theory sounds great well I am a domestic violence Survivor right say I have to go to this medical professional this mental health person and I have to explain to her why I want this firearm based off of her own biases about me as a black woman Army veteran Survivor of domestic violence she may say because of those things I should not be allowed to own and use a firearm for my own self-defense so how do we decide who gets to have the Firearms based off of their mental health background and who doesn't the background check system does save lives and I think there are some tragedies that could have been avoided if we had a stronger background system Charleston for example young man apply for the background check after the the deadline they said okay well we haven't seen any Flags yet go ahead and purchase the firearm and he went into a church and slaughtered black folks and I do think that there's real questions about bias and how these systems are applied and what the different flags look like and I really think we have to get more focused on what is the goal here is the goal to preserve some perceived right or is the goal to save lives so let's say somebody does this Universal background check and then there's a an existing gun registry and they register on it and they've cleared all of these things but then they still go out and commit a murder there's no room with little green lights that says because this person registered on all accounts we're keeping track of them and all of a sudden this green light has gone off and yes we know this person's about to commit a murder so again speaking of prevention what is that preventing but we do that with automobiles right if you get how many drunk driving incidents or speeding tickets at some point your license gets revoked right because they're like hey we don't entrust you with this car anymore because you could harm someone else or yourself but that is the thing though with Firearms when you have a weapons carry license you can made a crime they revoke your weapons carry license but we're talking about if they haven't committed a crime yet we can't predict there's no way for us to know what's going to happen in the future but right now our background check system has loopholes where even after you commit a crime you still can keep your firearm or purchase your firearm so illegally right illegally so no law policy there is no way to legally purchase my boyfriend loophole is a perfect one so that's illegal I do this every day on the 4473 it's the ATF Form you fill out to legally purchase a firearm is are you the actual transferee or buyer of this firearm so if I am a girlfriend and I'm buying a gun for my boyfriend that is already a federal crime it's already illegal the boyfriend loophole that I I think you're speaking to the fact that if someone assaults their girlfriend if that doesn't necessarily go down in the record as the same way as if he assaults his wife and so if you assault your wife then that becomes something that forbids you from getting a firearm but if you assault your girlfriend even if you're convicted of that it doesn't necessarily go on the record in a way that prevents you from getting a gun we're not going to eliminate every person who wants to commit a crime the goal is to bring the numbers down and to take out the ones we can you know we don't live in a society right now where things are crushing it so I kind of feel like some of these possibilities you know there's always going to be drawbacks to things that we try and do I question whether they are worse than the amount of of boyfriends who kill their girlfriends now I want to bring it back to the gun question because we keep talking about mental health and there are specific laws that deal with this red flag laws if someone has a mental health crisis those laws exist to try to take the gun away from that person before they commit a crime how do we feel about that I'm pretty Pro red flag laws I I understand that these laws should be implemented very carefully there's a lot that goes into the rules portion of passing these bills that should be very well thought out but I think the overarching question needs to become do you agree that people who are in certain situations should have guns or not but I personally think that there are characteristics you can meet there are situations you can be in where yeah I do not want you owning a gun well I think the question is not so much whether or not people should have guns in certain situations I think most people would agree you know there are certain people who should not have guns but I think the question is more so will the United States of America truly take away guns from those that need to have their guns taken away and I think the answer to that question is no the United States of America has very easily labeled people criminal that they should not be labeling criminal and they're more concerned about profiting off of that label than they are actually preventing violence and so the question is not so much should red flag laws exist the question is more so will the United States of America actually enforce the law the way it needs to be enforced to know the United States will not I'm curious who are the people who you think shouldn't have guns you say there are certain people what do you have in mind well I certainly think um plenty of right-wing ideologues should not have guns they think plenty of violently anti-trans people should not have guns they think violent misogynists should not have guns they think violent racists should not have guns I think those who have the audacity to believe in ideology that is in fact an incredible danger to most of us who are in society that do not look like them um should not have access to guns with all this legislation the question is who do we have drawing it up to people who never owned a gun or the people that have owned guns you know what's the right answer I don't have that I think everyone should have a right to carry a gun but we've touched on it you know if you're a violent person you shouldn't have it domestic violence history shouldn't have it drug trafficking sex trafficking because a lot of times in the law enforcement world when you have a lot of drugs you end up having a couple guns if you're sex trafficking there's someone probably with a gun how are we going to make sure bias isn't playing a part the people who are enforcing the right flag laws there are some elitist people in this country who feel like well only we should be protected by Firearms the owners should not be on our government I think as a society as an adult in this country there should be some responsibility in knowing yourself and being able to identify when you are okay when you're not okay so I think we need to figure out a way to give the people the tools they need to identify themselves hey I'm not okay hey I don't need to have my firearms right now hey I probably am going to hurt myself or someone else and then provide the resources to do that I mean that sounds great in theory in reality though that's not going to happen every time and I'm curious what you think is the the threshold where somebody should say uh you you can't have a gun anymore I don't think that decision should hinge on one person or just an attorney or just a judge or just a mental health professor National because I've seen in a lot of these red flag instances these people never get their firearms back well if my you know mental health is declined this day or this month is tough for me but then you know I go to therapy or fix myself and I'm better months from now I should have my rights restored you can't keep them forever right I think there should be a process for that as well I think those protections and checks and balances are just critical because right now America criminalizes black men it's there's no doubt about it I've been through it I've never been caught for some type of violence offense but I've had guns Drawn On Me by law enforcement five times right when I was shot when I arrived at the hospital I wasn't met with a nurse or a doctor or surgeon I was met with Three Investigators and they asked me where's my gun and in my situation they were more focused on solving the crime than saving my life and I think that's we have to really see that reality that's impacting our communities every day before we push forward laws and legislation that adds more Authority and resources to a system that's biased against us already so there's a lot of times that there's a red flag law that's called and there's uniform police officers who go to remove a firearm from the situation who might have biases who might be have racial ideologies in their head and I think that's a lot of Confrontation I feel like there's a lack of training the police officers that go to serve these red flag laws there needs to be a lot of checks and balances and there needs to be a lot of accountability in how these things are executed when we talk about regulation and laws people need to understand like especially on the left oh this is going to take the Firearms away from the proud boys and The Oath Keepers and the three percenters and the white and the white militia men it really they're not those people don't have any interactions with the police normally right you pass these laws you're going after black men you're going after Brown men you're going after four people at the end of the day that there's systemic racism and then it leads to black and brown people being criminalized and I'm curious what when it comes to passing more gun laws how do you think we could avoid that and going forward I really think we have to think about what is the goal are we trying to save lives or solve crimes and if we're trying to save lives then we can't just keep putting it on the backs of the criminal legal system we can't incarcerate our way out of this situation if that was the case Louisiana would be the safest city in the country but it's not it's one of the most deadliest so you have the highest level incarceration and the highest level of gun violence in one state this is something where we have to think about legislation and laws that provide more resources for the communities that are most vulnerable and at risk to violence I'm curious to talk to folks and and see do you support restrictions on specific types of guns like the AR-15 for example if so why why not you know why they are 15 is popular is because it's affordable you can customize it to whatever you need to do whether it's self-defense hunting target shooting I think what you just said though is part of the problem too because the AR-15 is really like it has a marketing appeal and America does marketing really well and people respond very well to marketing especially if you're selling them something they already want so it's a very convenient the pedestal kind of grew up under it but now that it's there it's very hard to take that back what are you trying to defend yourself from with AR-15 with an AR-15 the logic no the thing is as a responsible gun owner a person who who owns several rifles our president is protective rifles AR-15 style rifles our Law Enforcement Officers use carry and have AR-15 platform rifles so if I'm defending myself against you know a lot of the two-way people will say my government I have to have equal or greater access to the tools that they have as well is the president's life more important than mine if you don't like them that's great don't buy them that's not how it works though you only need you only need to get hit with one bullet to die just because someone has an AR doesn't mean I got one we're equal we're on the same playing field have you shot them though I don't want to shoot AR-15 I'm not fighting the reason why I asked though the reason why I asked is because when you actually shoot rifles when you have experience rifles versus Team platform rifles versus handguns you understand that there is a disparity of force there I am not bringing a handgun to a rifle fight I'm not I think if someone in the Tops Grocery Store in Buffalo had an AR-15 that would have not saved lives if anything would have harmed more people I think as a security guard who defended himself using a handgun against the person who had an AR-15 he had a rifle no they asked the police chief of Buffalo after the shooting if you were armed with those types of weapons would you have been a better responder he said no he said the only reason that Slaughter stopped is because the shooter stopped not because they had the right tools by security who had a handgun who took a shot at the chest and their armor-piercing rounds they're types of ammunition for AR-15s that would have ended that threat that moment but unfortunately because he had just a handgun the shooter was forced to slow down stop gather himself but then he continued to take other people's lives what you're describing in a way sounds like an arms race where if someone else has an AR-15 therefore I need an AR-15 and that the end game is is that everyone has to start a team right the R15 has been around for what 40 50 I think it's almost 60 years old now to civilians um like Greg has shot hunting rifles pretty much every hunting rifle is more powerful than AR-15 the AR-15 is the bare minimum that the U.S government found out to be lethal to a human being just because it has 30 rounds doesn't mean you need to shoot 30 rounds at a person so why the specific feelings towards AR-15 and not a handgun with the 30 round magazine I have the same sentiments for that do you feel equally about both yeah I think these we we are in a world where we're creating these weapons that are literally built for Mass fatalities and we're encouraging that is that urging responsible gun owners to use the firearm to defend themselves to defend myself yes if I a single woman who lives at home and 30 Intruders come in God forbid okay two say two right Intruders come in with my handgun my semi-automatic handgun using my firearm to defend myself a rifle would be better it would have a better Advantage I have a longer maximum effective range as far as defending my life I don't have to be at a close distance there are so many other advantages to using a AR-15 platform rifle for self-defense and people realize what the the culture that y'all are buying into or encouraging is the same culture that armed the shooter at tops it's the same sentiment that arm the shooter in in Atlanta I mean it's the same sentiment that oh we should have these guns so what's the difference between that shooter yeah we're good people I feel like you're really putting words in our mouth because we haven't told anyone to go out and buy an AR-15 trying to jump in because I don't think it's it's necessarily about telling someone to do it it's about the availability and the access to that weapon which are part of the marketing I have a question if we get rid of AR-15s for law-abiding citizens how do we defend ourselves when those two guys and and don't say that's not probable because two guys is more probable than 30 guys to kick in your door how do I defend myself and my children against those two guys who have AR-15s tell me how and you said yourself that the police may not make it there in time tell me how much you got in a situation like that is to get out the house and you want to have a shootout with two people AR-15s and your children at home she just stated that she was reaching around a piece that's 90 rounds of bullets you need to get out of the house oh sir I'm sorry you got a better chance of jumping out that window you have a better chance does nobody have neighbors like aren't we concerned about neighbors let's talk about real life all right the average person is not walking around and the arrest of firearms are not with AK-47s let's get that right all right so after this whole panel thing that's almost like a make relieve world because people do own them but people are getting locked up with them the average person getting locked up is with a disguised gun a painted gun you'll have a magazine clip that's extended modifications that's what's happening on a daily basis people are getting their hands on illegal firearms that are disguised or defaced and using them against one another that's what's happening in the real world the average person isn't walking around out of their house with an AK-47 from what I've heard so far the two main sort of points I'm hearing is that more guns can make you safer from one mentality and another is that mental health is really the solution to prevent shootings is there anything else Solutions wise that we haven't talked about could make a difference and reduce the amount of gun violence the number of gun deaths I feel like actually the emphasis has not so much been put on mental health is actually Community um I feel like that's what I've really been hearing from you know even even with the recent disagreements like I've heard everyone here talk about Community we've had so many different ideas in this panel on how we can fix these things and so many of them involve contributing to community in different directions I want to say to the you know to all of the people who have been here advocating for responsible gun use and offering your arguments and your life experience like I really just want to say it in case no one else does it to you that I think that you have value in your community without your guns like everything that you've talked about and everything that you've presented and the skill and the intelligence and the desire to help people and to train people and to educate people I honestly think that has nothing to do with your guns my thoughts view is more Education and Training and then also we know that we are and thank you for saying that valuable with or without our Firearms whether I'm in New York whether I'm in a country where I can't have a firearm it's me I am the tool I'm the weapon so it's me and everything I know so the firearm is just an extension of who I am so I appreciate you saying that and I think no one on this panel has said more guns is the solution I don't think anyone has ever said that this entire time we've been talking I want to bounce off of that and say okay if more guns not the solution is less guns a solution no certainly not and I think you know a huge part of this that we have to you know consider is in fact the economic considerations the solution is in fact to hold the gun industry accountable for for their marketing of violence and so we can't continue to point your fingers at the individuals who wish to have such self-determination and self-defense we need to begin pointing fingers at systems and economic industries that have been so so responsible for for producing violence and producing massive amounts of weapons I imagine if the gun industry is making billions of dollars off of firearms was pouring billions of dollars into the communities that are suffering from gun violence like how would that transform our entire culture but right now we are living in a world where this billion dollar industry is selling that more guns equals more safety narrative and we're buying into it without pushing back and saying actually what we need is more resources for those that have been traumatized I wouldn't say that we're buying into it I think we're recognizing the reality that there's a violent world out there and that we need to in fact protect ourselves and we can't simply skip over the fact that the world is violent live in the Utopia but the best way to protect ourselves is to prevent violence and that's true that's to prevent violence but it's also about self-determination and self-defense as well and we have to understand that there are in fact mechanisms to stop um violence from occurring in the first place but the only mechanism to end violence that has already occurred that is already going to occur is in fact largely uh the use of firearms for many of us I'm hearing a lot of consensus that it's it's not necessarily the guns it's the reason that people are using guns the Nuance is like how do you tackle that right I was gonna say I think we glossed over the statement that you threw out there you were like so it's not necessarily the guns I think it totally is the guns there's unique gun violence problem in America we have per capita way more guns than every other country we have a unique problem and it's not just domestically and the reason why everyone here who does own or regularly shoot guns it's their weapon of choice because it is the gun it is the most powerful weapon it is capable of the most destruction and that's why people gravitate towards it there's no changes to gun policy in this country that are not incredibly controversial and divisive like how do we find that common ground and make changes that we can think you know might make a difference without triggering a second Civil War in this country the United States Congress needs to remove all legislation that's introduced to absolve the gun industry of any accountability and the American public needs to begin realizing that our elected officials are in fact advocating for such absolve of responsibility and so I think that's very much the first step and then I think the second step to this is in fact to to begin producing mechanisms that would that would stop the gun industry from marketing and and profiting in the way that it's been for so long I think if a hundred thousand people were getting sick from some serial brand every single year and 30 40 000 of them were dying the government would have stepped in immediately right and held that that brand accountable and that's what we're dealing with guns and gun violence we're losing historic numbers of lives it's really uncomfortable to wade into this conversation a lot of people wouldn't choose to unless they were personally affected by gun violence or had their safety at risk and so I would encourage people to sit with the discomfort because it's everybody's problem it's not just America's problem it's actually a global problem I just kind of want to draw people's attention to the fact that there have been a lot of different views on this panel and yet we are very much pushing for a safer Society where fewer people are killed by guns this is really important for the national conversation because this is what actually drives progress as opposed to just everybody fighting on their side thank you all for for doing this we put some really good ideas out there and hopefully change the way people think about this issue so thank you very much thanks for coming doing this we allowed to stand up go for it all right [Music] I think the biggest misconception about gun owners is that we're all the same we're not all right leaning we're not all Christian white male we look different we have differing beliefs it gets really great that those of us who are racially oppressed who are gender oppressed who are working people are beginning to really show people what it means to defend ourselves I wasn't surprised by the answers I heard but I was surprised by the background of the people who were sharing some of the same answers that I heard from folks who are very pro-gun I think at the end of the day we all just want a safer Society some of the stuff I heard in there is like fairy tale land get trained it's super important I wonder who's gonna roast me for this I would like to do some training with some of the women that I met this tonight

Channel: VICE

Views: 761,691

Keywords: documentary, documentaries, docs, interview, culture, lifestyle, world, exclusive, independent, underground, videos, journalism, vice guide, vice.com, vice, vice magazine, vice mag, vice videos, film, short films, movies, gun control, school shooting, gun laws, gun violence, uvalde texas, second amendment, gun control argument, gun control debate, us gun laws, texas gun laws, second amendment rights, debates, vice debates, Mental Health, Gun Debates, us news, Gun Owners, vice debate

Id: V3KGKQd_4tk

Length: 43min 26sec (2606 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 25 2023