Universal Background Checks “€“ Dana Loesch Sheds Light On What”€™s Really Going On Part Two: Should we apologize for our rights while defending them? Are new laws creating universal background checks really going to reduce the crime rate when the black market is the real source of the problem? Tune in today to find answers to these questions and much more!

Air Date: 12/13/19

Guest: Dana Loesch

On-air Personalities: David Barton, Rick Green, and Tim Barton

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Transcription note:  As a courtesy for our listeners’ enjoyment, we are providing a transcription of this podcast. Transcription will be released shortly. However, as this is transcribed from a live talk show, words and sentence structure were not altered to fit grammatical, written norms in order to preserve the integrity of the actual dialogue between the speakers. Additionally, names may be misspelled or we might use an asterisk to indicate a missing word because of the difficulty in understanding the speaker at times. We apologize in advance.

Faith And The Culture

Rick:

Welcome to WallBuilders Live, thanks for joining us today here at the intersection of faith and the culture where we talk about the hottest topics of the day on policy, faith and the culture, looking at everything from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective.

And today is a special program, we’re picking up right where we left off yesterday with Dana Loesch, she was speaking at our ProFamily Legislators Conference that just happened a few weeks ago and we want to share it with you. So if you missed yesterday, it’s available today at our website, wallbuilderslive.com. But right now we’re going to jump right in where we left off yesterday, this is Dana Loesch at the WallBuilders ProFamily Legislators Conference

Background Check System

Dana:

I’m pretty straight, no chaser when it comes to the Constitution and our rights and I’m like two steps above anarchy on certain things including the Second Amendment. But I know, I don’t believe that you change the law by breaking it. I think you have to show a better way.

Now, one of the things that can be done immediately is if you’re going to have this background check system and I understand why it was created. I mean, in the 90s, you had Bill Clinton and you had Democrats that were demanding that there be a mandatory waiting period enacted and this was trying to stop that by catching bad guys at point-of-sale. Well, in order to make the system work you actually have to submit the records to the system and not every state is doing this.

We Shouldn’t Have To Incentivize Government Agencies To Submit Records To NCIC

I brought this up at the CNN Town Hall and was promptly booed because we were there to go after me and gun owners, we weren’t there to actually talk solutions, so which was sad. So fixing this, I know that they had the Fix Nicks and there were things that I did not like and Fix Nick’s, etc., etc. The bottom line is that we shouldn’t have to incentivize government agencies to submit all records to NCIC. The NCIC, National Crime Information Center, they have a ton of different class of it, not a ton, but different classifications of prohibited possessors. People who have all had their due process, they’ve had their day in court, they’ve been adjudicated either mentally unfit or they don’t have their rights because they acted in a willfully violent manner.

And that I think I can’t remember what it is state-by-state, but there are like thousand, there”€™re essentially thousands of cases out there that have not been reported to NCIC.  And I don’t know why the other side of the aisle refuses to have that conversation. And it’s really kind of scary when you think about there’s some people out there who probably should not be able to purchase firearms, but because the entity that swears to protect us, so we should probably not own guns because they’re going to do it, they’re not doing it. And so you have all of these individuals who are just, they’ve sort of fallen through the cracks. That’s one thing that could be offered as a, to them, it could look like a compromise, but it’s really not if you make the system work.

No One’s Calling These People Out On The Carpet About This

I don’t think that it’s in Democrats best interest to have the system work, because they think they want to start with a waiting period and then irk away our rights bit by bit from there. So I honestly think that are Democrats who don’t want the system to work. They don’t care if state agencies are not submitting these records in. They don’t care if there are people who can go out and purchase firearms and that’s also a great way to say, if you care as much as I do, why are you not willing to meet with me and get this done. No one’s calling these people out on the carpet about this and that could be done tomorrow. And its common ground and its sacrifices, it does not compromise a single right. So that’s one thing that could be done.

Chicago Is The Best Example Of My Other Point

So the other thing has to do, Chicago is the best example of my other point on this. So the other thing, I watched Ted Cruz get into a fight with the mayor of Chicago. And Chicago is, I think one of the most fascinating cities as it relates to a, because you had Otis McDonald who fought to be able to carry a handgun in his neighborhood and that, to really reaffirm Second Amendment rights, he’s a hero. And then you have also the AG and you have the history of prohibition with regards to being able to carry in Chicago, etc., etc.

And now, of course, the sentencing and the problem of repeat offenders. Now, I know the president has been arguing with the superintendent of Chicago PD, but the superintendent of Chicago PD said something quite interesting about a year ago when he said, it’s the same 1,400 repeat offenders that are driving over 86% of the city’s crime. That was amazing to me. This came out after a story and I’m taking this from Emory because I put on my stuff in Google Docs.

There was just a professional athlete, his sister was taking her son to kindergarten and she had a baby in a stroller and they were walking to school, beautiful bright sunshine Chicago morning, two individuals that actually should have been either locked away for life or, you know, they should not have been out, they had just gotten probation.

And within the first week that they were back out on the streets, they ended up having a disagreement with a gang member and then they opened fire on what they thought was someone with that gang and ended up striking and killing this mother. And so that was one of the statements that came out when everyone was talking about Chicago’s crime.

It’s Insane How People Who Commit Violent Crimes Are Allowed Back Out On The Streets

How these repeat offenders and these two brothers had been in and out of the system, violent crimes. It’s insane how people who commit violent crimes, whether it’s rape and using a firearm in a commission of a felony whatever it is, they’re back out on the street, sometimes a year or less, that’s not a deterrence.

Predators and violent offenders should be made to feel terrified and our legal system doesn’t do that, they just look at it as an obstacle. And meanwhile you have some nonviolent offenders that get lengthier sentences than violent offenders. And I know that that’s kind of a polarizing topic on the right, but we really do have to talk about it to bring some of these people to the table and say, look, why are we coddling violent criminals?

So in Chicago, I went on air and I looked at 30 some-odd cases of crimes committed by repeat offenders who used firearm and every single one of these individuals had a record. I went through it case by case, I spent probably, it was one of the largest segments of my show on this one topic in my entire tenure broadcasting career, but I went through case by case by case.

Every Single One Of Them Reduced And Out On Probation, That’s A Huge Problem

Every single one of these individuals had been given wrist slaps and I just took, I literally just took 30 random cases, random, I wasn’t even searching for them. And every single one of them reduced and out on probation one by one by one, that’s a huge problem. These are the individuals that are driving the crime rates.

These are the individuals that good people want to protect themselves from. So why are we not having to conversation, we’re talking about criminal justice, let’s talk about some sentencing reform and having some really, really harsh sentencing for these individuals who have chosen that they’ve made the choice that they don’t want to be peaceful law-abiding members of society, they want to make women and children live in fear. Well, why should they get out in 18 months? That’s a problem.

The Story Of Andra

It made me think of on this story of Andra [inaudible 07:10] in my hometown of St. Louis. This happened about six weeks after Mike Brown found [inaudible 07:17] and this was four blocks from my old house in St. Louis. Young man, 18 years old, like just turned 18 years old.

So he was in trouble because several months prior, he had taken police on a high-speed chase down Grand Avenue in St. Louis which is a very populated Street with shops and restaurants and everything else, there’s [inaudible 07:41] that my kids and I used to eat it all the time. And direct the car, jumped out of the car, was trying to flee from authorities and he threw a handgun out onto the side of the road. Well, you know, he was under 18 at the time so that’s illegal for him to have been in possession of that.

So he’s arrested, he’s able to, I think what his bond was reduced like a lot percent, 1%, he was released. He just had some restrictions as to when he could, I think he had to be like back inside, like 6:00pm or something like that. Anyway, long story, short.

He was in the Tower Grove neighborhood, four blocks from my old house, beautiful area, families and they’re fighting, basically, they were trying to fight to keep drugs out of this area. And there was a plainclothes officer who was walking through Tower Grove and he was actually watching this notorious drug house in the area and oh my gosh, out comes [inaudible 08:34] and a couple of other individuals, one of whom the officer was known to St. Louis police.

Part of Helping People Is You’ve Got To Be Strict

They see him, one of the guys recognizes them, draws on him, shoots and this officer fires back and he kills [inaudible 08:47] who would have been alive if he had not been coddled by a weak judge who decided, you know what, let’s just let him go. That is not helping. Part of helping people and if we’re going to talk about rehabilitation with sentencing, is you’ve got to be strict.

I love my kids. I love my kids. But when they mess up, they don’t get off easy just because they’re my kids. I mean, they get in trouble and they need to fear consequence and our system does not do that. And so these individuals feel completely free to go and keep committing the same crimes over and over again.

Make Predators Afraid Again

I talked to one officer, actually St. Louis police, St. Louis City police who was saying, you know, we”€™re out your kids, it’s St. Louis that Chicago, I mean all the cities are, it’s the same and he was like, you know, we’re out here catching the same people, every, every day, it’s like the same people, over and over again and meanwhile, it’s the law-abiding folks who are being blamed. And in Chicago people like Otis McDonald were blamed before he passed away and you can’t have a firearm because these repeat offenders did, that doesn’t make any sense, that’s a horrible argument. So sentencing reforms, stronger penalties for predators. I know we have “€˜Make America Great Again”€™, I also like “€˜Make Predators Afraid Again”€™.

There’s A Reason Why Jesus Preferred Parables

So here’s something else that I want to tell folks when we’re talking about best ways, winning ways to message. We are never going to win this debate if we just talk in charts and graphs. Like Paul Ryan, I know Paul Ryan, I don’t agree with him on everything. But he’s like he is the word, nerd and I say that not in a disparaging way, all I mean, he loved”€¦ there are certain people they love, they get in, they love the charts and graphs, they love let”€™s just to be very clinical about this when we discuss it, we can’t with this topic, we cannot. You have to”€¦ I mean there’s a reason why Jesus preferred parables. You got to put people in the situation. You have to put the person or people to whom you’re speaking in the shoes of someone who needs to defend their family or themselves.

I talked about this in my first book because everyone thinks and I gave a speech recently to a group of college kids, another group of college kids and I said, I know everyone thinks that I support the Second Amendment and I do what I do, because they think I’m just best friends with gun manufacturers with, I literally don’t know any. I know one. I know George Pell Grant from Caltech, that’s literally the only guy I know. But when I tell people why I feel the way I feel, because I had to rely on a gun twice now to defend myself, to protect my life.

Dana’s Personal Story

One time was when I was a child, I was probably about 11 years old. I was at my grandparent”€™s house in the Ozarks and my aunt and her, well at the time was estranged husband, had been going, he was an abusive horrible person and everyone told her not to marry him. Oh, one night, it was late summer, it was the weekend before I was getting ready to go back home because I had a single mom who worked three jobs and so I spent all my summers in the Ozarks with my grandparents. And I heard the wailing of what sounded to me like a wild animal and they lived in the woods, they lived on the side of an abandoned mine and the woods were dark and thick and I had no idea what was coming through the brush and it terrified me. And it kept getting closer and closer, the window was open.

There was an amazing breeze going through and I was like right at that moment where you’re suspended between sleep and wakefulness and so you hear something and you’re not quite sure that what you’re hearing is real or if you’re just dreaming. And I heard this, it was high-pitched, it sounded like an animal in pain. And it got closer and closer. And then I heard punches in the gravel, like something in the gravel, feet paws whatever it was, my grandparents had a gravel driveway and then I remembered, oh my gosh, they actually don’t have a lock on their front door to lock.

Bring A Speaker To Your Area

Hey, this is Tim Barton with WallBuilders and as you’ve had the opportunity to listen to WallBuilders Live, you’ve probably heard the wealth of information about our nation, about our spiritual heritage, about the religious liberties, about all the things that makes America exceptional and you might be thinking as incredible as this information is, I wish there was a way that I could get one of the WallBuilders guys to come to my area and share with my group, whether it be a church, whether it be a Christian school or public school or some political event or activity.

If you’re interested in having a WallBuilders speaker come to your area, you can get on our website at www.wallbuilders.com and there’s a tab for scheduling and if you’ll click on that tab, you’ll notice there’s a list of information from speakers BIOS to events that are already going on and there’s a section where you can request an event to bring this information about who we are, where we came from, our religious liberties and freedoms.

Go to the WallBuilders website and bring a speaker to your area.

Dana’s Story Continued

Dana:

And about that time, the door burst open and it was my aunt who had just been pistol-whipped by her estranged husband, who had been detained by police and had been let go and of course, he immediately goes back drinking and drugging and grabs a gun and beats her up. So she ran in a t-shirt and underwear through the woods to get to my grandparent”€™s house, they lived a half a mile from her in Annapolis, Missouri and she was bloodied, what is it, the orbital socket was broken, she had a couple of her knocked a tooth loose, she was in bad shape.

And my grandparents, I mean, it’s just my grandparents, you know, they were there, how are they going to defend themselves against him when, because he’s a big man? And my grandpa went and got his gun, went got his rifle while my grandmother called the law. As they said, you got to call the law, Howard, that’s what she was yelling.

She calls police. Now, this is rural iron County Missouri, we only had one deputy in that town. And on average, it’s about 20 minutes. By the time law enforcement showed up on my grandparent”€™s house, it was had been 40 minutes. And my grandma’s on the phone with the law, my grandpa gets his gun and he goes and sits outside on the porch because my aunt was saying after she ran out of the house, her estranged husband, he was pursuing her and he was screaming at her that he was going to kill her. And he would have because he’s nuts. In fact, he’s in prison for life now because he did that to someone else, he killed someone else. And he was put away a long time ago.

And so my grandfather went out, sat on the porch with his gun and I, for the first, I had felt terrified and it was a fear that I can’t describe. You could think, oh my gosh, because I was 11 years old, I’m 11 years old and I may not see 12 and it’s weird the things that you think, because and he did pull down the road to my grandparent”€™s house. He turned his car lights off and he pulled down the road and he was what he was going to go and kill her. And it was finally when police responded 40 minutes later, they caught him as he was leaving the holler as they said because he saw my grandpa on the porch with a gun and that’s the only reason why he didn’t go and try to kill anybody, because he knew my grandpa would shoot him and kill him.

It Made Me Appreciate The Second Amendment More Than Just Hunting

So that made me really appreciate. I know Michael Bloomberg said that, you know, he was talking about tyrannical dear, apparently earlier, that’s what inspired the Second Amendment, I’m not worrying about dear breaking into my house and killing me. But it really made me appreciate that a lot more than just the Second Amendment more for hunting.

I Got A Call From Font Worth Police

After parkland, this was a couple of weeks after the Town Hall, we had individuals that found our address of our previous home here in Texas and they drove by our house, we lived on a cul-de-sac and they took pictures and they put them up online. They put my address up online. So we started getting some weird people coming to our house and death threats and all kinds of stuff. We we’re going to sell our house, I was too afraid to put our house on the market with all of this happening.

So we bought a house, we moved, we were still in the same town and then I was broadcasting radio because I had a studio in the house, I was broadcasting out of that old house. So we were going back and forth quite a bit as we were moving and relocating. Well, one evening, my husband was at a sporting event with my oldest son and I was at home with my youngest son and I got a call from Fort Worth police and it was the lieutenant and he sounded very concerned. He said, I just wanted to call and check on your well-being right now. I”€™m like, well I”€™m okay, why, what happened?

Well, as it turned out, one of the neighbors had called my husband because there was somebody trying to break in my house and banging on the windows with rocks and all kinds of stuff. An individual who did not like me, flew from Ohio to my home and tried to break into my house and get at me and my family. And I had no way of knowing at this individual because when we moved, media people were trying to desperately find out where we lived.

They Were Trying To Identity My Kids

They were trying to identify my kids, The Daily Mail, which is one of the largest newspapers in the world identified my oldest son by the wrong name and tried to find pictures of them. They ended up running a picture of somebody’s kid but it wasn’t mine because I try very actively to keep my kids offline.

And so anyway, police had shown up and my husband had dropped our oldest son off at home and ran over to the house, they apprehended that individual and it was terrifying. And, you know, my husband while he was gone, I kept thinking, I have no way of knowing before cops show up there if this guy is going to try to come where we are now. And I’m looking outside, we didn’t even have a working alarm system at that house yet. So I was really freaked out and I went grab my AR-15 and I had mags, all my mags are loaded and Shh-shh, we’re ready to rock, so let’s do this.

This Would Have Been A Different Type Of Call

And my husband, when this individual was put in the back of the cop car, my husband told the officer, he’s like, you know, if my wife had been here, this man will be leaving in a body bag, this would be a different type of call. If I had been here, this would have been a different type of call. They said, we know that. And I was like, God bless my Second Amendment, right my AR-15. That was the first thing I went to get.

And so when I talked to people about this, I don’t know what it is that some of these people who are anti-rights, I don’t know why they feel the need to cast aspersions on our characters.

We Love Life

The reason that we believe in the right to bear arms, the reason that we’re against laws like the ones I’m telling you all about is because we love life so much that we are willing to give up our free weekends as my husband and I have done to train, and if God forbid, we are ever called upon in a situation that presents itself to defend ourselves or defend innocent people, we can do it competently, because we love life and even if it is someone that I disagree with. I don’t care. I love life, including that person’s even though they might be wrong on everything, I still love their life and I want them to be okay. That is why we train. That is why we do what we do.

I mean, I’m going to tell you something there is not really many things that would get me to go out in the rain, in the mud, in the middle of the night to somewhere out in Oklahoma where my phone don’t even work to go and do night training with SpecOps teams and figure out how to hold a flashlight with my pistol and get yelled at and made to feel nervous and uncomfortable so I can see how I react under stress. I don’t do that. I wouldn’t do something like that for a lot of things, so I probably really care about this. That’s what people don’t realize we do it because we care and we’ve seen what can happen when you’re not prepared.

Front Sight Firearms Training Institute

Hey friends, Rick Green here from WallBuilders Live. What do Dennis Prager, Larry Elder, Ben Shapiro, Rick Green, Tim Barton, David Barton, what all these folks have in common other than the fact that they’re conservative commentators that defend the Constitution and educate America on the Constitution. They’re all raving about Front Sight Firearms Training Institute.

In fact, if you go to my website right now today at rickgreen.com, you can watch the video of Dennis Prager training at front side or Larry Elder training the front side or Tim Barton and myself training out there front side. It’s an opportunity for you to learn how to defend yourself and your family to make sure that you’re ready and able to do that. It is a fantastic place to train. They train literally 30,000-40,000 people a year and they’re just wonderful to work with. And you can go with us, we’re headed back out. We’re going to have a great time out there as the WallBuilders family.

And if you’re a supporter of WallBuilders, we have an amazing deal for you, it’s actually going to cost you one tenth the normal price to attend this two-day handgun training because you’re going with us and you’ll also get the Constitution crash course. I’ll be teaching on the constitution. You”€™ll get the intellectual ammunition that you need to defend the Second Amendment and our Constitution as well as getting the physical training on how to defend yourself and your family. And this is for everyone: guys, gals, everyone should take this class. For no matter how much you shot your whole life or if you’ve never touched a gun, learn how to defend your family.

We’re going to be going several times throughout the year and we would love to have you be a part of that. Check out rickgreen.com today to find out the dates and all the specifics and getting all of your questions answered. Check out rickgreen.com today to join us on this front sight trip for both your constitutional and your handgun defense training.

Don’t Be Afraid To Be Bold

Dana:

I want to tell you, don’t be afraid to be bold. Do not. Don’t be afraid to be bold and don’t be afraid to stand up for people’s rights and to push back against this stuff. One of the, as I wrap here and I do talk radio, I just spoke three hours before I came here to talk to you all and I have a problem with not shutting up. This is why my grandpa said he was never taking me hunting again. That man took me hunting one time and I would not shut up and he was like, this is awful and I don’t blame him.

I remember a beam backstage at parkland in the town hall and it was not going well and I felt so bad for the grieving people that were in the audience because I was watching. That’s why I was so angry at media because I watched a cameraman literally zoom in on the face of a crying mother and it made me angrier. Then I was like, oh God, put a hand over my mouth right now, please, please, please. But I watched.

And I don’t just like Marco Rubio and I’m not saying this because I’m trying to disparage him or anything like that, but I know how hard it is and he was getting piled on that stage and I watched just he began making some concessions and my husband looked at me and he said, it just got that much harder, I haven’t even gone out there yet.

You’re Not Wrong

And I thought, you can’t be afraid to be bold. You are not wrong. You’re not wrong. And you have to take comfort in knowing that. So and when you really hold the line, people will help, people will have your back if they know that you have theirs and you’re taking the arrows, they will get your back. And you will see them come up like a swarm of locusts from Twitter, I don’t know what of other animal does that besides bees, maybe insect bees might be better than locusts. But they’ll come up like a swarm and they will protect you, they will have your back, they’ll help you in debates because they realize that you’re doing this and you’re taking these arrows for them, they’ll jump in front of you.

So don’t be afraid to be bold and have faith in your fellow Americans to help you and give you some shade and be your rodeo clown of sorts when you need it because they will. So be bold.

Exercise The Second Amendment Wisely

Rick:

Well, friends, we hope you enjoyed that presentation from Dana Loesch. She was speaking at our Pro-Family Legislators Conference, we do once a year with state reps and senators from across the nation, good biblical worldview folks that are doing a great job in their states and we wanted to bring that presentation live to you right here on WallBuilders Live. If you tune it in the middle of the program today or you missed yesterday which was the first half of this presentation from Dana, it’s available right now at our website: wallbuilderslive.com.

And again today, I want to close out encouraging you to exercise not just know about the Second Amendment, but exercise the Second Amendment wisely. That means getting the intellectual ammunition about the background of the Second Amendment, what the founders said about it, but it also means getting the physical training necessary to be able to defend yourself and your family. It’s not enough to just get a concealed handgun license.

You need the training that will give you the confidence to carry safely and the confidence to be able to handle the situation should it happen. That’s what we do with our constitutional defense courses. I teach on the Constitution in the evenings, but then during the day, you’re getting the best handgun training in the nation. We do it at Front Sight Firearms Training Institute down in Pahrump, Nevada and you can go with us. We take 50-100 people with us each time we go. It’s a great time of fellowship and training and you will come home prepared and confident to defend yourself and your family.

Find out more today at patriotacademy.com. Click on the constitutional defense link there at patriotacademy.com and sign up for one of our classes we go about once a month and you can have the opportunity to join us. If you’re a supporter of WallBuilders, you actually get to go for 10% of the normal price, that’s 90% off if you’re supporting WallBuilders.

So thanks for supporting this and thanks for going with us to get trained. Thanks for listening today, you’ve been listening to WallBuilders Live.