-In a few minutes, we are going to talk
to Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy,
which I am very grateful for,
because he gave a very powerful speech
on the Senate floor yesterday
demanding that his colleagues take action.
And I was thankful for those words
because among many other things,
it reminded us that we can't become numb.
Because what is happening right now does not have to happen.
It is not inevitable.
It is a choice, a choice that our leaders
and the powerful forces behind them have made
and are continuing to make every day
that they refuse to do anything at all
that could make these horrific events less likely.
America has more guns than people.
We have more mass shootings by far than any other peer nations.
Those two things are obviously related.
So now to talk a little bit more about how we got to a place
where those two things can be true,
it is time for "A Closer Look."
♪♪
[ Applause ]
Entrenched, powerful forces have perpetrated a monumental,
decades-long fraud in convincing large numbers of people
that it is their constitutional right to own arsenals
and military-grade weaponry.
And they've invested large sums in convincing people
that that made-up right --
a right five Republican justices essentially invented
out of whole cloth not that long ago --
is constantly under threat.
And to be clear, that's not just my opinion.
I'm not a constitutional scholar.
I think that's clear.
Constitutional scholars do not have tiny figurines
of Andy Samberg on their desk that say, "My doink fell off."
I'm not saying they don't have them.
I'm just saying if they do, they're kept safely in a drawer.
So, I didn't just come up with the take that the unregulated
right to own military-grade weaponry is a fraud.
on my own -- it was the opinion
of former Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger,
a conservative who said this in 1991.
-If I were writing the Bill of Rights now,
there wouldn't be any such thing as the Second Amendment.
-Which says...
-That a well regulated militia,
being necessary for the defense of the state,
the people's rights to bear arms.
This has been the subject
of one of the greatest pieces of fraud --
I repeat the word fraud -- on the American public
by special interest groups
that I have ever seen in my lifetime.
Now, just look at those words. There are only three lines
to that amendment.
"A well regulated militia."
If the militia, which was going to be the state army,
was going to be well regulated, why shouldn't 16 and 17 and 18
or any other age persons be regulated in the use of arms
the way an automobile is regulated?
-First of all, it's a shock just to see a conservative justice
say something in public without sneering like the villain
from every '80s teen comedy.
Second, he's right.
The words "well-regulated" are right there in the amendment.
There is no mystery. It's not Wordle
or the New York Times Spelling Bee.
We don't have to guess --
which, by the way, it's what I do, guys.
After I get the easy ones,
I just start typing in fake words
and hoping they're real. Moaxy?
Is moaxy a word?
Let me try 30 more times.
[ Laughter ]
The idea that the Second Amendment
guarantees an individual's unregulated right to own
an arsenal of military-grade weaponry is so insane
and was shrugged off as ridiculous for so long.
Then, in 1982,
Senate Republicans went to the absurd lengths
of issuing a report that claimed to have discovered
"clear and long-lost proof
that the Second Amendment was intended as an individual
right of the American citizen to keep and carry arms."
It is absolutely insane
that Republicans claim to have found long-lost proof
that changed the meaning of a document written in 1787,
in 1982, which means --
definitely means one of them had just seen
"Raiders of the Lost Ark" and then said,
"You know, sometimes people find old [bleep]
I'm just saying."
I mean, how'd it go? Did Nicolas Cage find a secret
Post-it Note hidden inside the Liberty Bell?
We were so focused on the crack, we never looked inside!
[ Laughter ]
But that should give you an idea of how preposterous
and unhinged this whole idea is.
The side that claims to care
about the plain language of the Constitution
and the original meaning of the Founding Fathers
had to pretend to unearth some secret,
hidden proof that the Second Amendment
actually means something completely different
from what it obviously says, which is totally divorced
from how other sane countries deal with these kind of horrors.
Australia, the UK, New Zealand, Norway --
they've all responded to mass shootings
with stricter gun laws
or campaigns to confiscate or buy back guns.
And those laws have worked because again,
there is an obvious correlation
between how many guns we have in this country
and how many gun deaths we have. And by the way,
when local governments have tried gun buyback programs
on a small scale here in the US, they've often been successful.
In fact, just a few days ago,
the police department in Sacramento
held a gun buyback event in exchange for $50 gas gift cards.
The event, which was supposed to last for five hours,
got more takers than expected.
The department announced just 45 minutes into the event
that it had exhausted its supply of gift cards
due to overwhelming response. I'm not surprised.
You know what I'd give up for a $50 gas gift card right now?
Half a tank?!
[ Laughter ]
That's why I dress like this right now.
I gave all my suits back as part of a buyback program,
and now I don't have to pay for gas for another week.
I also gave up haircuts, which is why I'm now
on an ongoing mission to get cast
in the next Marvel movie as Old Loki.
[ Laughter and applause ]
I think I can do it.
Because I look, like...
5 to 10 months older than Tom Hiddleston.
[ Laughter ]
But even more revealing than the success of the event itself
were the reasons people gave for turning in these guns.
Among other reasons, community members most commonly cited
a lack of experience or knowledge with firearms,
lack of knowledge of the legality of firearms,
or an inability to safely store the firearms
as the main reasons for participating in the exchange.
It turns out some people don't even want these guns
and would like to get rid of them.
Imagine if we launch a national campaign like that
or like what Australia did in the '90s
when it confiscated 650,000 guns,
and as a result, gun deaths plummeted.
Of course, in Australia they didn't give out gas gift cards,
they gave out Foster's because, you know,
it's Australian for beer.
Real talk, though --
they don't drink Foster's in Australia.
"Foster's -- it's Australian for beer"
is just a marketing lie
they invented to try to sell it to us,
and they used Crocodile Dundee to do it.
I trusted you, Croc!
I trusted you, and you lied to me.
"Fosters -- it's Australian for beer" would be like
if I were in a commercial on Australian TV
where I said, "Arby's -- it's American for steak."
[ Laughter ]
Or if Republican senators
said they claimed to have discovered
clear and long-lost proof that the Second Amendment said
everyone is allowed to have all the guns they want,
in that it's obvious bull[bleep] because again, as we've seen,
gun safety measures like assault weapons bans
and gun buyback programs have worked.
They have worked in other countries.
When we've tried them, they've worked here, too.
Our gun production and ownership rates are simply off the charts,
incomparable to any other nation on Earth.
And as a result, so are our gun deaths.
It's within our power to stop this,
and allowing these massacres to continue is,
in fact, a choice,
as Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy
said in a speech on the Senate floor yesterday.
-What are we doing?
Why do you spend all this time
running for the United States Senate?
Why do you go through all the hassle of getting this job,
of putting yourself in a position of authority?
If your answer is that as this slaughter increases,
as our kids run for their lives, we do nothing.
What are we doing?
Why are you here?
I'm here on this floor to beg --
to literally get down on my hands and knees
and beg my colleagues.
Find a path forward here.
Work with us
to find a way to pass laws
that make this less likely.
-This is a moment, if you are a person in a position of power,
to ask yourself what you're doing to stop this.
Because he's right. Why are you there?
Why else are you in the United States Senate?
Unless it's to raise money and give speeches
and dole out favors
and ride that secret little train in the Capitol basement
that looks like the railroad to Disneyland,
except instead of dropping you off at the Magic Kingdom,
it brings you to Lindsey Graham's office.
[ As Graham ] My office is like a castle,
in that my meemaw calls me a little Prince Charming.
[ Normal voice ] And yet, maddeningly,
there are those who claim
to support popular gun safety measures
but aren't actually willing to use their power
to get those measures passed,
like West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin.
CNN reported yesterday that Manchin says he would do
"anything I can" to move common sense gun legislation forward,
but still refused to eliminate the filibuster
to get gun legislation through the Senate.
Then you're not willing to do anything you can!
It's like if you told your spouse you're willing to do
anything to clean the dishes except get up from the couch.
"I can do it from here
if you tie a sponge to a long stick."
[ Laughter ]
If you're willing to live with these horrors,
then just say that.
Just say you're willing to.
But don't hide behind a bull[bleep] procedural rule
that, by the way, is not in the Constitution
and didn't even exist when the Senate was created anyway.
You guys all act like the Constitution
has an entire section on the filibuster,
when the word isn't even so much as mentioned once.
Maybe we need to get Nick Cage to burst into Manchin's office
with a secret piece of parchment screaming, "Joe!
I found a note from John Adams in the Lincoln Memorial's taint!
He said the filibuster is bull[bleep]"
No, of course, Nick Cage would never agree to do that.
But what about someone who does an excellent impression of him?
[ Laughter ]
Just think about it.
And by the way, this is the same Senate
that moved with the speed of a Saturn V rocket
to get Supreme Court justices more security
when some people were picketing outside their homes.
So that should give you a sense of their priorities.
When they do want to protect someone,
they're capable of doing it quickly.
And while the Manchins and Mitch McConnells of the world
are offering their empty words and refusing to take action,
the most depraved people in our politics are suggesting
that instead of doing the obvious thing
that many other countries have done successfully,
which is to simply pass laws
regulating the number of guns in the country
and the ability to easily get them,
we should instead arm teachers and essentially turn schools
into fortified military bases.
-The most effective tool for keeping kids safe
is armed law enforcement on the campus.
-People, retired military, retired law enforcement
outside the perimeter of every school in the country.
They can donate their time. They can --
We can offer them tax breaks, no income tax in the state,
no income tax federally, 10 hours a week.
And we could have every school in America covered.
-We have to harden these targets
so no one can get in, ever, except through one entrance.
-What we need to do is utilize smart technology.
That's what's needed. We need to install man traps.
This is something we've discussed in the past,
back in 2018 -- I checked.
Man traps,
a series of interlocking doors at the school entrance
that are triggered by a tripwire.
-We can't stop bad people from doing bad things.
They're gonna violate murder laws,
they're not gonna follow gun laws.
I've never understood that argument.
But we are -- we can harden these schools.
We can create points of access
that are difficult to get through.
We can potentially arm and prepare and train teachers
and other administrators to respond quickly.
-Are you out of your [bleep] mind?
You guys want to turn schools into maximum security prisons
with man traps and tripwires
and teachers carrying guns?
If these people had their way,
everything would be a scene out of [bleep] "RoboCop."
There are truly no words for how grotesque this is.
They want to arm teachers and yet they're not even willing
to throw enough money at schools to get them history books
that don't end with the fall of the Berlin Wall.
And that's... [ Applause ]
And that's, right there...
[ Applause continues ]
Kids, that's how Ronald Reagan saved democracy.
If you want to know what happened after that,
get into college.
And to the people who cynically parrot
the mindless talking point that advocates for gun reform
are somehow politicizing this -- what else?
What else is politics for? It's a crisis.
And this is what our political system
is supposed to do -- address the crisis.
If that's all you can muster in the wake of this horror,
that tired, empty mantra, then you need to look inward
because we can -- we can do something.
We know from our experience, our own experience,
and from the experiences of other countries,
it's possible.
It has not always been like this.
It doesn't always have to be like this.
We can change things.
And if you're a person in a position of power, you must act.
Because if you choose to spend this moment
in the wake of this horror
using your power to do nothing, then you are a...
-Fraud. I repeat the word fraud.
-This has been "A Closer Look."
♪♪
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