- 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 a tweet that has drawn quite a bit
of backlash from Neil deGrasse Tyson.
I don't know if you saw this.
He tweeted and said something
about mass shootings and was
really insensitive and people
were do angry that he was trending.
And like if you're trending and there's
been two mass shootings, like you (beep) up.
(nervous laughter)
And basically, the tweet was about
like scale or like how we react to
the idea of people dying.
He said, like in the past 48 hours
the USA 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 get what he was trying to do.
Like he was trying to be sciencey 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 (laughter).
Let's start with that.
But secondly, I feel like it fundamentally
missed the I guess the human element
of what people are fighting for in America.
And that is trying.
Because a lot of people were like,
yeah, you tell them Neil.
People to like to make mass shootings
a big thing in America.
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 prescriptions.
Make sure you don't have an overdose.
Things are not left inside your body.
They try to 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 all right, these 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
tried with speed bumps (laughter).
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 because it's a cool road,
maybe it's because they're chasing someone,
maybe because they're late, we don't know.
What we do know is we're gonna put
a speed bump on the road (laughter)
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.
American didn't ban airplanes.
Yeah, but they locked that shit up hard (laughter).
You know what I mean? (cheering and applause)
Like there's a little thing called the TSA.
Have you flown (laughter)?
Have you flown?
You can't, like too much saliva
and they tell you, too much liquid, go back.
(laughter) Spit that shit out.
(applause)
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, 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 (laughter).
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.
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 (laughter).
If need be, we will cup your balls.
Someone will come and squeeze your balls
to make sure you're not gonna blow some shit up.
We're trying.
That's, and like that's, that for me
has always been what America's,
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, like that's all,
I don't understand about how people
argue the guns thing.
Is you go like, you're 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 the gun
to own a gun.
- [Female] Yes.
- You want to make it as hard as possible.
(applause)
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 2nd Amendment.
I go, like yes, but the 2nd 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)
(lively music)