Universal Background Checks “€“ Dana Loesch Sheds Light On What”€™s Really Going On: 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 the problem? Tune in today to find answers to these questions and much more!

Air Date: 12/12/19

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 the intersection of faith and the culture, it”€™s WallBuilders Live where we’re talking about today’s hottest topics on policy, faith in the culture, always from a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective.

And I just want to start today by thanking all the folks out there that are making it possible for us to even have that conversation. All of our listeners that are supporters of the program, thank you, thank you, thank you. Looking at donations just in the last couple of days from loco. Yes, loco, Oklahoma; Raytown, Missouri; Hanford, California; Troy, Missouri; Boulder, Colorado; Morning View, Kentucky; Rossville, Indiana, all over the nation, thank you. Charlotte, North Carolina, Miami, Florida, we really appreciate each and every one of you that are making these donations. These are $5 and $10 and $25 donation, some of them are $100 and $200 and $500 donations. We greatly appreciate your support the program, doesn’t happen without you. So God bless you.

Anyone else that wants to join us out there, we need you. Wallbuilderslive.com is the place to go. It’s very quick and easy, click on the donation button. You make that contribution. It can be one time or it can be monthly, but it is a huge blessing to us and WallBuilders. More importantly, it allows us to bless people across the nation and get them equipped and inspired to save our constitutional republic.

And speaking of the Constitution, today, we’re doing a special program. We’re headed out to the ProFamily Legislators Conference and Dana Loesch is going to be speaking there. She’s sharing on the Second Amendment, you’re really going to enjoy this. Let’s dive right in. Here we go to the WallBuilders ProFamily Legislators Conference and Dana Loesch; you’re listening to WallBuilders Live.

Welcome Dana Loesch

Dana:

It’s good to see you all here and I’m really glad that everybody is here. And I’m excited to talk to you all, particularly, I’m going to talk to you about guns and how to fight this in your state, how to fight very specific pieces of legislation and policy that is now creeping in state by state by state by state. And I’ve written two books so far on it. And well, one was basically on explaining why Trump won. And then the first book that I came out with a lot of things have changed with regard to not just federal law. Well, things have been proposed federally, but a lot of things have changed state by state as well.

And now of course, we hear that Northam is going to be calling for universal background checks, red flag laws, they’re going to limit purchases, they want to limit purchases to one gun a month. That’s just some of the stuff that they’re talking about proposing and they’ll probably get it done, which is what’s terrifying.

Because by the way, how many of you are dealing with this fight pretty heavily in your state? Good. That’s a pretty good. How many of you have lost this fight in your state? Oh, God love you. It’s going to be happening to I hate saying this, it’s going to be happening to pretty much, well, everybody’s going to be dealing with it.

Universal Background Checks

So first off, red flag laws and universal background checks, these are going to be the two big things that you all are going to be fighting and this is something that we’re dealing with at the state level. Obviously, the Texas, we’re dealing with federally. There’s a couple of pieces of legislation in the house, there’s also something in this senate as well that is getting into all of this. I know I’ve already had Dan Patrick on my show here in Texas to talk about why he supports universal background checks, which is insane and because it creates a registry.

I want to point out this tweet from Dianne Feinstein, this is I wanted to make sure I had her verbatim. She tweeted this just a few days ago because it marked, on November 5 was the”€¦ I don’t like to say anniversary, but it was two years since Sutherland springs took place and 26 people lost their lives because an individual who was a prohibited possessor was allowed to legally purchase a firearm because his record wasn’t submitted to NCIC, which is the National Crime Information Center. And that’s what everything, when you go and buy a gun, your 4473 that you fill out, it checks that center and it’s supposed to stop bad guys at point of sale, only if those records are actually being submitted.

Dianne Feinstein”€™s Tweet

So she tweets this, and this was on November 5 and I thought this was ghastly. She wrote, “€œTwo years ago, a shooter took 26 lives in Sutherland springs. The shooter was able to buy guns despite a domestic violence conviction. We need to pass universal background checks and other common sense bills to prevent such tragedies from happening again.”€ Now, there’s so many things that are wrong with this and I noted to her that it was actually stopped by a hero with an AR-15, my friend Steven Williford.

And I asked her and she’s never answered. We reached out to her, we tried to get her on air. I reached out to her staff. I’ve tried to get a statement. I’ve done this six ways to Sunday. And I’ve asked her, I said, well, please explain this to me, Senator. Since the Air Force was the entity that had failed to submit this individual”€™s record, he was court-martialed, he received his due process, his rights were revoked because of his willful violent actions: he had beaten up his wife. And why was it that the Air Force, how do you plan to check his record when the Air Force didn’t submit his record into the database that is supposed to be checked? How do universal background checks solve that? She never answer that. I mean, I’m not surprised, but she never answered it. How was that solved with a universal background check? And I told her, I’m like I await your answer.

The thing about universal background checks is number one, the only way they’re going to work is with a registry. Universal Background Checks, that’s a fancy phrase for criminalizing private transfers.

Private Transfers Are Not the Problem

Private transfers are not the things that are driving up the crime rate. In fact, there have been a number of studies on this and there was a government report that came out a couple of years ago, where they verbatim said, yeah, in order to make universal background checks work, we’re going to have to have a registry to do it. There’s no way to not.

And one year ago, there was another report that came out and they surveyed felons. They surveyed incarcerated prisoners and they asked them, they said, oh, where did you get your gun? And the overwhelming majority was over 80% of them said that they got their firearm from the black market. So it’s not, you know, my father in law giving my son a hunting rifle that is contributing to the crime rate, it is not you acting with in accordance of your rights and acting lawfully and engaging in a lawful private sale with someone that you know. That’s not what’s driving up the crime rate. It’s the black market that is providing these firearms to these individuals.

And I also think language is important when we’re talking about this. I hate the phrase illegal gun. I hate the phrase illegal inanimate object. There is an action that determines whether or not an individual is behaving in illegal fashion. In my opinion, all guns are illegal or should be. But whenever someone is prohibited through their own willful action from owning one, they are illegal possessor, they are prohibited possessor, the guns itself is not illegal. It’s little bitty changes to language to condition people into believing that these inanimate objects and by way of this our rights that we should be prohibited from accessing us.

Never Apologize For Defending Your Rights

So two things that I want you to realize, number one, never in a million years apologize for our rights when defending them. Never. Never. Never. Never. The second thing is, and I have been asked this by a number of lawmakers, a number of lawmakers. Since before the stuff with Ukraine and everything else, I’ve had a number of senators and from members of Congress that have reached out and asked me about a number of different proposals that were either in committee or that Democrats were getting ready to bring out of committee in the house or that were being discussed in the Senate.

And they were all terrified to talk about these with their constituents and in their states because they were afraid of gotcha moments and things like that. And I told them, I said there is a way and this is the second thing, there is a winning way to talk about this without compromising a single thing. And at the bare minimum, red flags are a complete usurpation of due process. Think about it like this. Forget the gun aspect of it. Completely eliminate that variable.

What red flag laws are doing is they are setting up any variable, not just firearms, it is a revocation of due process in a ton of different instances. You know, I have asked progressive friends, what is your issue? Is your issue, you know, the war on drugs? Is your issue criminal justice? Is your issue with illegal immigration and you want amnesty? Imagine this applied to every single one of your issues. If you’re concerned about the corruption in our justice system, you’re concerned about this. Now, how do you think that this is going to work when we suspend due process because it completely flips it?

Red Flag Laws

Seventeen states so far, individually have the past red flag laws and I’ve read every single one of these laws. I don’t have a researcher and I don’t have a staff. That’s one thing. So I make sure that I read all of this so that when I’m on TV, I don’t ever get caught off and my husband can attest, I maybe sometimes get four or five hours of sleep at night. I’m constantly reading everything and I’ve read every single one of these laws. And I’ve seen some that are being proposed, but haven’t yet made it all the way through that process. Every single one of these laws, there’s no exception, due process is completely as just a second thought. It is not considered a priority in this, which is terrifying to me.

And in most of these, I think Vermont may be the exception, if memory serves, but they require the lowest standard of evidence to obtain, which is scary. Because you’re talking about having your rights suspended, just on the lowest standard of evidence, that’s really frightening. So it doesn’t even really have to do with firearms. I mean, what it does is it establishes a precedent that can be used against an individual to essentially declare them guilty before they’ve had their day in court. And all of these individuals that are against guns, how many rights do they want to suspend just to go after one? Is it worth it to them to do that? That’s the argument that needs to be made first and foremost about red flags.

Chipping Away At the Second Amendment

Is it worth it to you to forfeit your right to be considered innocent until you’re proven guilty in a court of law because that is what you are sacrificing in order to try to chip away at the Second Amendment? That is terrifying. And we will never, ever get that back, ever. That’s the scary thing. Once a right is lost, it is lost. We’ve seen this.

So this is that is to me and I was telling this member of Congress, that’s the first and foremost thing you need to be discussing. Everyone wants to focus on guns and the winning messaging for this debate is to actually remind people this is more than just about guns. We’re going to make it not about guns because this is about rights. These are about rights first and foremost.

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.

Say “€œGoodbye”€ to Due Process

Dana:

Red Flag laws, a total abrogation of due process. It inverts the order of innocent till proven somewhat guilty until proven innocent. I was reading a case of a man in Florida and I talked about this on air. This is unbelievable. So in Florida, they have red flag laws. And there was this gentleman who ended up getting in trouble. He had police come to his house. They served him, he had been red flagged, they wanted to take his firearms because his name was very similar to that of, actually, it was exactly the same as this other guy who had committed a bunch of crimes, engaged in a lot of felonious activity while illegally possessing a gun and all of this other stuff.

And so they wanted to go and they were trying to serve this red flag on the guy that they thought was correct, a very young man in his early 30s, who had all of his hair, unlike this guy who was like in his 50s and he was bald. He’s like, clearly, I am not this man. Didn’t matter, he still has to go to court. Last I check, he was still going through the process, fighting to free his name. He has to pay in order to get his property back and to defend his rights.

And then a lot of these red flag laws that have been passed in the states, you’re not granted counsel you have to pay to fight. There also isn’t any recourse for you to engage in civil litigation to sue the person who falsely accused you.

Marco Rubio”€™s Bill

There’s no provisions for that either. And also Marco Rubio’s bill as it relates to red flags, that’s also not”€¦his is just as bad. His is pretty much similar to the 17, what the 17 other states have, what they’ve passed as it relates to red flag laws.

Everyone always, for instance, they always say Parkland. Well, Parkland, they didn’t need red flag laws. They had an individual there, who as it came out later, this murderer was so violent and so dangerous. He had to be frisked and have his bag checked every single day before he entered school. Nobody in the media really talked about that, do they?

He brought knives. He brought bullets. He held a gun to a kid’s head previously. He beat his mother so badly. He knocked teeth out of her head. He threatened to kill numerous of his fellow students. And if anyone is from Florida here, do we have Florida, anyone from Florida here? Okay, well, you understand what your state law, if you are, it really doesn’t even need to be state law. This is actually, there’s federal protections for this too. It’s not protected speech to if I text you and say I’m going to kill you. That’s actionable. That’s not protected speech.

And he had so many of those where he had messaged through social media and through other different platforms and just text message. He messaged so many different death threats to people. He could have actually been if they would have followed the law, if former Sheriff Israel, would have follow the law, they could have arrested this murderer before he was able to legally purchase a firearm.

Language Is Important

You did not even need a red flag in this situation. He was breaking the law. He was violating the law. Which goes to my point about language again. Everyone always acts like loopholes, we have loopholes. I want to be really clear. There’s no such is a loophole. You have a criminal act and a non-criminal act.

If someone has their license suspended, if they get a DWI and they’re out still driving, that’s not a loophole, that is a criminal act. And we need to accurately refer to it as such. We have to fight for the language just as much as we fight to protect our rights, because that’s all part of it. So there wasn’t a loophole here. This murderer was engaging in criminal felonious activity, because what he was doing by Florida statute was considered a felony and so that was never exercised. Because of what former Sheriff Israel was doing with the school board there and with Robert Runcie, the idea of reducing the crime rate was to literally stop recording it. And they consider that a reduction of criminal activity. It’s pretty unbelievable.

For instance, in Charleston, everyone keeps saying the phrase, “€˜Charleston loophole”€™, how many of you have heard this phrase? Everybody says “€˜Charleston loophole”€™? So Charleston, the bold cutted racist murderer who ended up shooting a bunch of people as they sat with him and even prayed with him. This individual was a prohibited possessor. In that particular state, if you are charged with a felony, not convicted, you’re considered a temporary prohibited possessor as I understand the law.

Waiting Periods Would Not Have Helped

And the problem was and former FBI Director James Comey issued a statement about this, which is still available [inaudible 16:23] fbi.gov What happened is the woman that was actually filing the paperwork and was doing you know, the back end of things, didn’t know the geography well enough and made literally a paperwork error, which allowed his sale to go through. A waiting period would not have stopped this because it wasn’t discovered until after he had murdered innocent people. And then through the investigation, it was discovered that he was actually prohibited possessor. And that’s when Comey had to release this big statement and then it was just sort of not really covered by media and everyone kept saying Charleston loophole, Charleston loophole. It would have never been discovered, had he not done what he did.

The system is as good as the people that are running it. I mean, I could go on and on. In Orlando, that individual was known to law enforcement and was being watched in Dayton, the murder in Dayton, Ohio. This individual pretty, it was almost step by step, the same as Parkland, which some of those families at Parkland have become very good friends of mine. And it infuriated them that they saw this happening again with an individual who wrote, published and spread around school even wrote it on the bathroom wall, a rape list of girls at the school and a kill list of boys at the school. This is not protected speech system. This is considered actionable and because he had a violent history. But he was able to go and purchase a firearm because nothing was ever acted on.

Innocent People Are Paying the Penalty

So you have innocent people who are being told that they have to pay the penalty of the system that’s supposed to protect them from not following the law and actually protecting them. This is what is incredibly upsetting.

Borderline, the same thing, the borderline massacre in California. This individual, they had law enforcement call to this individual’s house in which he lived with his mother because he was shooting up her house. And when they arrived, they determined that he wasn’t a threat to anybody, they’re just going to let him go. What is the universal background checks going to do with that? Again, you don’t even need a red flag law, you follow the law. There’s the law. Red flag was an attempt to create an entirely different set of laws while suspending due process.

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.

Constitution Crash Course

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.

Creating a Registry

Dana:

So private sales, universal background checks can’t work without a registry. One of the questions that I always had is, how do you propose to expand a system and create more work for a government that can’t handle what we have now? Because that’s it. Private sales are not the problem. There is no data whatsoever that supports the argument that private sales contributed to homicide committed with illegally possessed firearms. None. I have looked for it, I always try to be able to argue both sides of an issue and I have sought this out. I have called every friend that I could call to determine if I’ve missed something and there is nothing out there that supports this, nothing. But what we do know is that prohibited possessors and sentencing reform and all of this, that actually is what is contributing to this, which is what we’re going to talk about.

So when you’re talking to people really on either side of the aisle about this, there’s several things that you can incorporate in order to help persuade. Because ultimately, isn’t that what we’re trying to do? We’re trying to persuade people to see the actual reality and common sense of this debate. And tone and response and policy comes into this a lot.

Another friend of mine who is in the Senate, a lawmaker who’s in the Senate, was saying I can’t just tell them that this isn’t going to work and then walk away and leave it at that. And I understand what they were saying, because you feel in a way that you have to offer something.

The Left Undermines Their Own Argument

Okay, if we”€™re not going to do this, let me offer this as a consideration. And you can absolutely do that. I mean, there are things that can be done, this is what I tell people. There are things that we can do immediately or tomorrow and they would have been done if Democrats are actually wanted to do it.

So and here’s something else, by the way too when you’re talking especially to people who disagree with you where it concerns the red flag stuff, the people who report your Twitter account and your Facebook pages and everything else because they just like your opinion, they want you to trust a government run system where people can without serious penalty of law, report you and have your property confiscated before you’re allowed to defend yourself in court, weeks, even months later. Politicians refer to law abiding gun owning Americans as domestic security threats. Yeah, want you to trust them and the implementation of such a system. So that’s true. They’re undermining their own argument here, which is very fascinating to me.

So when we’re talking to people about this, first off, we have to explain the reality to them and we have to put, they need to be to see themselves in this position of losing a right. And so to me, that’s one of the first things I say.

I spoke recently in Boulder, Colorado where they passed and it’s an ineffective ordinance that they’ve banned pretty much all semi-automatic firearms. And I walked in because [inaudible 23:14] was sitting there and they were getting ready to raise some cane. And I said, how many of you think that this administration, they’re a bunch of horrible bigoted Nazis and they’re just going to run roughshod over you and all of your rights?

We Must Expose the Reality

And of course, the whole section of Antifa raised their hand. And I said, okay, how many of you only want those people that have guns because that’s what you’re arguing when you’re pushing these policies? So we have to expose the reality of all of this to these individuals. And that’s one of the ways to do it.

We also and for whatever reason, mental health is never a huge discussion in this. Mental health, sentencing reform and looking at criminal justice are the things that are going to solve this problem, not any other policy that a government is going to create. We have a society that champions a disrespect for life, abandons responsibility for one’s actions and a society that redefines criminal activity by calling it a loophole instead of a criminal act and a culture that accepts violence as a legitimate form of disagreement. And we have also a society where good male role models are hard to find and thus it’s creating a crisis among young men that is not attributable to video games.

When we are looking at showing the realities of these proposals to people, they need to imagine what these laws would look like if someone like me took office because I am not meant for office. I am not meant for elected office because I have a temper and I’m sassy. And you people are way better equipped to that than I am. You know, I mean that right there, that should be a wake-up call to these people, but it’s not.

The Whole Background-Check System

With policy and policy proposals, like I said that a friend of mine in the Senate was asking, what can I offer, I don’t want to just shut them down and then not offer anything because I don’t look like I’m contributing to solving this problem. Well, one of the first things that I had suggested and I’ve talked about this for a while is the whole background check system and NCIC, the National Crime Information Center.

Now, I know it’s a separate argument about background checks because there’s some people in the [inaudible 25:16] community that think that anything that is extra is an abridgment and I understand their arguments. I’m pretty straight, no chaser when it comes to the constitution and our rights.

Rick:

We are out of time for today, folks, you’ve been listening to Dana Loesch at the ProFamily Legislators Conference, speaking to the WallBuilders  legislators from across the nation. We”€™ll have the second half of that presentation tomorrow, so don’t miss it. It’ll all be available at our website, wallbuilderslive.com.

As we’re closing out today, I just want to mention, as Dana was pointing out, we all should be able to defend ourselves and our families. If you feel like you’re not ready, if you have not had good training, I don’t care if you got a handgun license or not, if you have not had good training you need to join us at Front Sight for our constitutional defense course.

Universal Background Checks “€“ With Dana Loesch

Whether you”€™ve never touched a gun in your life or you”€™ve shot your whole life, I promise it will give the confidence and the training you need to carry your weapon and defend yourself and your family. I pray, it never happen and you will want to be ready if it does and our training will do exactly that for you.

So make sure you visit patriotacademy.com, click on Constitutional Defense course and we”€™ll get signed up to come, join us. For our WallBuilders supporters out there, we make this class available for one-tenth, that”€™s 10% of the normal cost, so you literally get 90% off if you”€™re a supporter of WallBuilders. Check it out today at patriotacademy.com. Thanks so much for listening. You”€™ve been listening to WallBuilders Live.