Speaker 1: Hello, everyone. Welcome to The David Pakman Show. I'm producer Pat Forde, filling in
for David today as he continues his paternity leave. David should be making his triumphant
return to the show soon, relatively soon. But he's, of course, taking this time to enjoy himself
as a new parent and to spend some time with the little one and get some sleep whenever he can find
the time to. Today, we're gonna be talking about a number of different topics. We're going to be
talking about the January 6th hearings. We're going to talk about inflation and gas prices
and all these different things. But I wanted to start today talking about gun control, because
there's a new bipartisan deal in the Senate on the topic of gun control, and it actually includes
ten Republican senators, which is crucial because that means there's a solid chance of this actually
passing in the coming weeks and becoming law. I don't want to celebrate it too much
because for one, it hasn't actually happened yet. Right. And these things could fall through. We we
need to see the actual text, but also it seems a little bit lackluster. It doesn't come
nearly close to all the things that we have to do to actually make a difference when it comes to
guns and gun safety in this country. But given the fact that Republicans have been steadfast in
their refusal to do anything about guns in the wake of mass shootings over the years,
it's hard to not feel some level of optimism over this announced agreement. The deal will include
support for state crisis intervention orders, funding for school safety resources, an enhanced
review process for buyers of guns under the age of 21, and penalties for straw purchases. That's when
you have one person purchase a weapon on someone else's behalf. The legislation will also have a
red flag provision so that states and courts will have the resources to make sure firearms are kept
out of the hands of people who are at significant risk of doing harm with them. There's also going
to be increased funding for mental health, suicide prevention and trauma intervention, which is,
of course, an important aspect to all of this. We know that the right wing in this country loves to
claim that mass shootings are all about mental health and that they're just exclusively a mental
health issue. We know that they just use it as a red herring. But there's there's something to
that, right? Because that is one aspect in all of this. And we have to not only look at gun control
measures, we have to look at the mental health side as well. So if they're willing to have a
good faith conversation about mental health, we should absolutely take them up on that and take
advantage of it. The ten Republican senators who have signed on to this piece of legislation that's
in the works are John Cornyn, Thom Tillis, Richard Burr, Roy Blunt, Bill Cassidy, Susan Collins,
Lindsey Graham, Rob Portman, Mitt Romney and Pat Toomey. The centrist Democrats who tend to torpedo
pieces of legislation that we like as progressives and Democrats. Those are Joe Manchin and Kirsten
Cinema. They've also pledged their support. So this is very, very promising. Joe Biden said about
this, quote, Obviously, it does not do everything that I think is needed, but it reflects important
steps in the right direction and would make the most significant gun safety legislation to pass
Congress in decades. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said about the bill. If we get a real baby step,
not kind of a distraction from the solution, she's going to support it. So both Biden and AOC kind of
providing the same sentiment there that like, yeah, this is great and all, but we could just do
so much more if we had more willingness from the Republicans to do anything about guns. Sadly, I
think this is going to be treated as the solution. That's probably what we'll see. We'll probably see
this get signed into law and then they'll do some sort of victory lap and everyone will pretend as
if we actually did something significant when it comes to gun safety in this country, when we know
we can just go so much further. You know, there are some solid provisions in this legislation,
that's for sure. But we know that we can do more when it comes to universal background checks,
raising the legal age to own a semiautomatic rifle to 21 magazine capacity limits. None of that
stuff's in there. So maybe we can try with future legislation, but it just doesn't seem like it's
going to be able to happen any time soon. For as long as we have such a slim majority in Congress
and for as long as Republicans are not willing to compromise on much when it comes to this issue.
So definitely go ahead, pass the bill. Let's try to avoid the victory laps afterwards. I want to
see us try to make this a voting issue come the 2022 midterms, because it seems like now we do
have somewhat of a chance of maybe holding on to the House and Senate. It would be great to to pick
up an extra two Senate seats, because that means that we could potentially eliminate the filibuster
and do so much more. And I think, you know, this focus on abortion and gun control at this point,
given how the economy is, might have to be the path forward for Democrats. The kitchen table
issues tend to be more economic and financial issues. And there's some aspects of that that,
you know, we're having a tough time communicating about because gas prices are so high,
inflation so high. So maybe given this a. Courts leak draft opinion when it comes to abortion.
Maybe, you know, the mass shootings and the backing for new gun control measures, that's going
to be enough to maybe propel Democrats to hold on to the majorities. But we just don't know yet
and we really don't know what the big issues are going to have to be once it's actually time to
vote. So that's the latest when it comes to gun control. It looks like we're going to have some
piece of legislation pass through the Senate and the House, and that's very good to see.