I really am fascinated
by some of the conversations people have
post-mass shootings in America.
One of the more interesting ones for me was, um, a tweet
that has drawn quite a bit of backlash
from Neil deGrasse Tyson.
I don't know if you saw this.
He, um, he tweeted and said something about mass shootings
and was really insensitive,
and people were so angry that he was trending.
And, like, if you're trending
and there's been two mass shootings,
like, you (bleep) up.
Um, and basically, the tweet was...
It was about, like, scale
or, like, how we react to the idea of people dying.
He said, like, in the past 48 hours,
the U.S.A. horrifically lost 34 people.
And then he was talking about, like, shootings on average.
You know, he was saying, like, across any 48 hours,
we also lose 500 people to medical errors,
we lose 300 people to the flu,
200 to car accidents, 250 to suicide, 40 to homicide.
And then he said, "Often our emotions
respond more to spectacle than to data."
That's what he said.
And then people... You know what I mean?
And I, like, I get what he was trying to do.
Like, he was trying to be, like, science-y in that moment,
but, first of all, timing.
Do you know what I mean? At a funeral is not the time
to tell the people that the guy owed you money.
That's not the time. Let's start with that.
But secondly, I feel like it fundamentally missed the-the...
I guess the human element
of what people are fighting for in America,
and that is trying.
'Cause a lot of people were like, "Yeah!
"You tell them, Neil.
"People like to make, you know, mass shootings a big thing
in America. A few people die."
And I was like, yes, but it's interesting to me
how all these other things that people bring up
still have a country that tries to stop them.
Trying is the thing.
You know? Medical errors happen,
but you know what they've done over time?
They've tried to decrease medical errors
by implementing new laws, new systems
where they go like, maybe the nurse can help
and, you know, track what the doctor's doing.
The pharmacist can look at your, you know, your prescriptions,
make sure that you don't have an overdose,
things are not left inside your body.
They try and decrease the numbers.
Same thing with cars.
People say... They go like,
"More people are dying in car accidents.
We don't ban cars."
It's like, yes, but you know what we do?
We ban dangerous cars.
Over the years, what we've done as a society is we've gone like,
"All right, these are cars are not working."
You have to have a certain type of car.
To get a car, you need a license.
You need to go through a process because we just want to minimize
the chance of a person dying in a car.
We're going to have random stops
where they check if you are drunk driving
to try and protect people
from dying in drunk driving accidents.
We try.
Speed bumps is the best...
Like, people try with speed bumps.
Do you know speed bumps is literally just going like,
"All right, we don't know why people go fast on this road.
"We don't know how they go fast.
"We don't know. Maybe it's 'cause it's a cool road.
"Maybe it's because they're chasing someone.
"Maybe 'cause they're late. We don't know.
"What we do know is we're gonna put a speed bump on the road
"just to make it harder to go fast.
That's all we're gonna do."
And people run to the extremes.
You know, they'll be like, "Oh, after 9/11,
3,000 people died. America didn't ban airplanes."
Yeah, but they locked that shit up hard.
(laughter and applause)
You know what I mean?
Like... there's a little thing called the TSA.
Have you flown?
Have you flown? You can't...
Like, too much saliva,
and they tell you, "Too much liquid. Go back.
Spit that shit out."
They try.
They try harder and harder to make flying safer and safer,
and as a flyer, I appreciate it.
I go, "Yes, I understand the shit that I have to go through,
but I appreciate the fact that it has become safer."
Airlines used to get hijacked all the time.
Before, like, terrorist attacks, it was hijacked for anything.
Political prisoners would be like, "I'll hijack it."
Someone has a hostage situation.
People would just do it for a statement.
Planes would get hijacked. Then they said, "You know what?
We're gonna make it harder. We're gonna lock the door."
I don't know why that was a thing that had to be invented,
but they said, "We're gonna lock the door."
They said, "You know what else we're gonna do?
"We're gonna make it more difficult.
We're gonna check your ID. We're gonna..."
These are the small things. Then they went with the big things.
"We're gonna bring metal detectors.
"We're gonna bring things that scan you.
"We're gonna cup your balls.
"If need be, we'll cup your balls.
"Someone will come and squeeze your balls
"to make sure that you're not gonna blow some shit up.
We're trying."
That's... And that, like, that...
That, for me, has always been, like, what America is.
America tries, man. You just go like,
"No, we're just gonna keep on trying."
It's not about perfect.
It's about trying to be more perfect.
You know what I mean?
And that's all I...
Like, that's all I don't understand
about how people argue the guns thing,
is you go like...
Not saying get rid of guns.
You're saying, "Try to minimize the chances of this happening."
Try to make it as hard as possible
for people to own a gun because you only want
people who are willing to work hard to own a gun
to own a gun.
You only want people who respect a gun to own a gun.
You want to make it as hard as possible.
(applause)
That's-that's all it is.
And then people always say the same thing to me.
They go, "Trevor, you just... you don't care
about the Second Amendment."
I go like, "Yes, but the Second Amendment fundamentally,
"fundamentally, if you think about it,
is about protecting human beings."
That's what it was written.
It was about protecting human beings.
What is the good of writing a law that now protects the guns
as opposed to the human beings that it's supposed to protect?
(cheering and applause)