Joe Rogan and Pete Dominick Debate Gun Control

Yeah. And the justice system is obviously, that's a really interesting thing to talk about in constitutional laws, a fascinating thing for people studying. This idea that we argue about the Second Amendment, like let's let constitutional lawyers, I think, discuss a lot of those things and we should all understand that and be curious about it. But I would, our Constitution is also silly. Like let's remake everything. Like let's have that conversation. It's so much better that we can do. Have a serious conversation about what kind of guns and bullets people can have. Not that they can have them or that they can't have. Like that's the conversation. That's where we should be right now. Everything gets regulated, everything. There are trade-offs in healthcare. There are trade-offs in everything, but Americans now are so divided. They want everything that they want, that compromise is something that we don't do as Americans, much less in government. That's preposterous. The Democrats that demand purity or anybody that is doing that, you don't agree with me. You're wrong. Hold on. That's not, you don't have any relationships with people in your real life like that. Like my wife and I don't agree on a lot of stuff, but I love her. I adore her. Well, it's what we've talked about before. They're on teams and you want your team to win, so you state emphatically. Why do you want your team to win? It's a natural thing with human beings. All right. I agree with that. The gun thing, the most fucked up part about the messiness of the gun thing is that even if you made guns illegal, even if you said you can't have any bullets, you'll all go to jail. There's so many guns. You're not getting them all. It's not possible. There's more guns than there are people, which means there's more than 300 and what, 30 million guns in this country alone? It's absolutely the most important point in the discussion. That's a nutty number, man. You really stop and think about that number. You're like, what? Is that real? But you don't really stop the behavior by necessarily creating certain laws about why someone might behave a certain way and shoot people. That's not going to necessarily change. What you do is you do limit the access to certain types of weapons and rounds of ammunition, right? The real question is why would someone do that, right? That's the number one question. Like limiting... It's a harder question to answer. It's a harder question to answer. The easier question to answer is make them less accessible to people who have problems that we can't figure out or solve. If you could make them less accessible to people that have problems. But the president will blame like, I don't mean to get political, but like there's no data on the video game argument. There's no data on that. Well, the video game argument is interesting because I've had soldiers bring it up to me, including Dakota Meyer. Yeah, I heard that conversation. I'm willing to have it. I mean, I don't think it necessarily makes sense that people would act out in a certain way that's horrific because of video game. But if they were already inclined to violence to begin with, maybe they already had a fucking short circuit and then they get desensitized to violence in movies and violence in video games, does that have an impact on them? I'm not the guy to answer that question. Whether or not has an impact on this... But it's a variable. It is. But it's a variable that I think merits discussion. I don't know if it's true or not. That's why I don't think it is because... You don't think it merits discussion? Well, let me make this point and then you decide if you think it merits discussion. The violent video games are played at far higher rates in Japan and they don't have the gun violence we have. It's a good point. They have a very different culture though. The way they interact with each other. They don't have access to guns. That's true. That's it. But they don't also have a lot of... They've had a few mass stabbings. It's the access... Dude, I have shotguns. I shoot guns. I get... I have nothing but respect for hunters. I grew up in a hunting community. But I mean, I don't know. I don't think that there's much past the conversation about accessibility to guns that can fire that many rounds that quickly, killing that many people. I don't think... We have to get rid of those somehow. But I agree. How do you do it? Yeah, that's the question. That's the most important point. There's already 330. There's more guns than there are people. So what do you do? By the way, I think you buy as many as you can back for sure. You spend a whole bunch of taxpayer money. Just help... By the way, there's a ton of people in a bind right now that have a rifle, like, oh my God, I'm not gonna be able to afford my insulin. Let me get rid of this AK-47 to live another month. You buy some guns back. It's a good expenditure of money. And then melt them down and turn them into furniture for people. So if you wanted to do that without changing the Second Amendment, like you just have a buyback where you just offer people the opportunity to make some money by giving their guns up. Well, the Second Amendment has been interpreted wrong by the Supreme Court, in my opinion. I mean, it doesn't say that people should have... Until 2008, it didn't say that. Nobody thought that. That people should have a personal right to guns until the Heller case. But... So I don't think you even need to talk about the Second Amendment. I think just people just need to agree that these guns shouldn't be sold. The ammunition... Well, you need to talk about the Second Amendment. I mean, it's a big conversation. No, because people can have guns. You can have guns. The brick has a right to have guns. You just can't have these guns anymore. No more of those ones. You can have all these guns. There's reasonable restrictions anywhere, right? Like New York City, you can't have a handgun. Yeah, they work. I don't think you can have a switchblade in New York City. Yeah. Cyrus Vance, the DA there, is terrified that they're changing. The federal government is changing the law because he knows that those gun laws in New York work really well. And by the way, people always make the argument, well, they have those gun laws in Chicago and there's a ton of violence. That's because Chicago's on the Board of Indiana. It doesn't have them. Guns go across the border just fine. Gun laws work. They work. Well, Chicago is also in the middle of a bitter drug war. Well, yeah. I mean, that's where the violence is coming from. But people should have less accessibility to those types of guns. That goes back to what you were talking about before. Like every other civil society in the world. Come on. This is like... But it goes back to what you were talking about before. Like that drugs, if they were legal, you wouldn't have that sort of a drug war. Right. For sure it's the root of most of the violence in the inner cities and obviously in Mexico. Yeah, it's black markets. It's the illicit drug. Yeah, they're making tons of money on that. What is the Second Amendment exactly as it's written? The right to bear arms shall not be infringed. So how do you think that the Supreme Court misinterpreted that? That in the 2008 Alla case, everybody should just... I would plug the work of Eric Siegel. The well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state. The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Yeah, those commas get argued by constitutional scholars. For a date. Yeah, but the Supreme Court didn't decide until 2008 that Americans had a right to have their own weapon. That's such a crazy statement. Like when you read it, it's so interesting because we're going back in time trying to figure out how people in 1776 thought about guns and whether or not that applies to us. Because if it doesn't apply to us, we have to think on 1789. If it doesn't apply to us, we have to think, well, then who gets to decide? Like one of the reasons why... We get to decide as a society on any of these things. One of the reasons why it's so interesting... That's what I want to believe. One of the reasons why it's so interesting to read these things is like we have, for whatever reason, when things get written into stone or carved into a stone or written onto a document, like the First Amendment, like the freedom of expression, that is, we have it. So we all agree on it. Freedom of speech. We don't want to change it. Yeah, freedom of speech, freedom of expression, whatever. We want to hold on to that. We want to keep it. Sure. All humans do. This is our law. All humans do. The Second Amendment, the right to have a gun. That's our law. We got it written down. If any of those kinds of words, like scrolls, like to go over these scrolls and look at the commas and look at the words, shall not be infringed upon, what did they mean? That's fascinating. It is fascinating, but I think that they didn't mean this, Joe. I think that... How could they? They didn't know what this is. They didn't, and the whole gun thing is a racket to make money. That's what that is. It's a way you sell fear. I mean, home invasion is any family's worst fear, but it doesn't happen very much. Nor does kidnapping, nor do all, a lot of these crimes that all my helicopter, our generation of parents is helicopter parents, terrified of everything, not- That's true. That's true. Not letting their kids go outside? You're right. Come on. Thinking that your kid's going to get kidnapped, you don't know anybody who had their kid kidnapped. But you're generalizing, because home invasions do happen sometimes. Right, but that's not how we should make laws. But we don't have to exist like everybody's going to kidnap your kid or everyone's going to break into your home. I'm saying those kind of- But the balance is that sometimes it's real. That's why people want to be able to have guns, because sometimes someone can break in your house and people have defended their house and their property with guns. Sure, but is it a way, is it a realistic threat? Or is it something that the gun industry creates these amazing ads and scares the shit out of people? Oh come on man, crime is real. Whether they make ads or not- Crime is real. Yeah, crime is still real. I think the clear point is the reason why we have so many guns in America is because there's so much money to be made off of them. I think we could absolutely limit them and regulate them and have a thoughtful conversation. I think that's where most people are at, although I hate that generalization. There's something to that, but there's also something to the reason why we have so many cars. People like them. I'll have that conversation, but we should get rid of all the cars. Okay. Well, I mean, we're not. Don't get me wrong. That seems ridiculous. Why should we get rid of all the cars? Do you not like freedom or do you want, you have a better solution? Are you going to transport places? I don't have a better solution, but if there, there should be one, or I think that we are killing ourselves with all the cars. The pollution is- Okay, but you can make them electric. Yeah, then that's fine. I think that would be fine. If they were, I have a Chevy Volt since 2012. I have solar panels. I'm trying to be the change I want to see in the world. If I'm coming off as a, I'm a complete hypocrite in all of it. I hate me and I do all kinds of things. I think having a thoughtful conversation about guns and why they're each part of our culture and not another culture, the way that other cultures and countries regulate their weapons, the problems that they have are problems. Sure, we should talk about mental health, but the problem with that conversation that people don't want to have is everything costs money. That's why you have to pay taxes. Paying taxes is the price of civilization. What does that have to do with mental health? You have to pay for people to help people. Right. You have to advocate in government, Republican or Democrat, for the, this is what unfortunately Trump and Republicans have advocated. Let's get mental health solutions to the violence. Let's do that. And everybody's behind that, except they cut the Obamacare programs that funded mental health. It's just, you can't do, you have to spend the money providing mental health. It is a problem. It should be addressed, but it's not, the main issue is definitely the guns and the bullets in them. Well, the main issue is the person that's capable of shooting people with the guns and the bullets. No, it's the guns and the bullets. The guns and the bullet are inanimate objects without a person pulling the trigger. We're talking nonsense here. They're not going to just shoot themselves. The main problem is someone who's willing to grab the gun and shoot people. Right. We agreed. We both agree there's problems with having guns. But don't you think the main problem is the person who actually shoots people? I think that in every other country in the world, they don't have this problem because they don't have the gun. That's where I start and end on the argument. Why is that wrong? That might be the case, that they don't have the guns, but there are places that do have guns and they don't have a lot of mass shootings. Canada is one of them, right? No, they don't have the type of guns we have up there. They have a lot of guns. They do, but they don't have AK-47s with unlimited rounds. That's crazy. Well, do you think they have more or less limitations? By the way, I love, I shot those guns. They're awesome. I get it. Do you think they have more or less limitations to what firearms they're allowed to have? I believe they can. Canada. I believe the Canadian gun laws are far stronger, more regulated. I think they just tried passing something, some really recently Trudeau announced something that was going to severely limit, this is very recent, severely limit the type of firearms you could have, including things that can have multiple rounds in chambers and certain types of guns that are used right now as hunting rifles. And so there was a big pushback about that. This was really recently. Did you find that? The conversation about the freedom, the Second Amendment to me is, it's just your interpretation, fine. Whatever your interpretation is is fine. Well, that's what's interesting about it is it isn't. But it does a human insight. It's a healthcare issue. And it's so extreme. If you want to know the answer to healthcare issues, you should talk to public health experts. They have those answers. They have the research. But hold on, what research? On what? They don't have enough research on gun violence, unfortunately. Well, what are you talking about? I'm talking about if you want to know the solutions for what is impacting and creating death by any measure, accidental death. Right, but we're talking about gun violence, right? What healthcare professionals have the solutions to gun violence? I think a lot of healthcare solutions, I think certainly surgeons have argued for why certain ammunition is destroying the inside of the body and unsurvivable. I think public health officials have argued, certainly pediatricians all argue this idea that you can't ask a parent if they have a gun in the house because the gun lobby is against that because they're building this conspiracy that the government is going to track your gun. That's terrible. Your pediatrician has to ask you, do you have a pool? Where do you keep the poison? Where are the guns? Because God forbid you're not responsible enough or educated enough to know that that kid might accidentally get that gun. And it happens all the time. There's a rule against that. Yeah, public health officials and doctors and physicians are pretty much on the same case with this issue. These guns and mental health, I think experts do. I don't know. Maybe there's a large disagreement. And if there is, I'm happy to be wrong about this or any dumb shit I've said. What you're saying is that these public health officials would be able to make these guns less lethal by banning certain types of ammunition because it's destroying people and checking to see if the parents know if they have a gun or where the gun is or how it's treated, how it's locked up. I mean, how do you feel like public health officials could have any impact on that? Well, public health experts are their entire responsibility to keep people safe from sickness and death. But by ban, if you have any bullets at all, they're lethal, right? So do you want to have bullets that are less lethal? I think that could be a law for sure. Less lethal. Yeah, to human bodies. We shouldn't be killing each other with bullets all the time. A bullet will stop anybody, a blunter, but whatever it is. I don't understand the arguments about ammunition. But the point about public health- Well, you brought it up. That's why I brought it up. Fine. Public health experts will look at what is creating sickness and death, car accidents. What I'm saying to you is that I think it's disingenuous to say that public health officials have an answer to why we're having so much mass violence. I don't think anybody has an answer. I think we're terrified. And I think we could say it's, if they didn't have guns, they wouldn't be able to do it. And you're right. These people weren't mentally handicapped or filled with, I shouldn't say handicapped, mentally compromised, filled with- All kinds of demons. All kinds of demons. All sorts of different medications that are fucking with their judgment. Maybe, yeah. Abuse, all sorts of trauma, the experience in childhood. There's a lot of factors. No one has any idea why someone who is abused and who's fucked up is capable of making that leap. We have some thoughts on it. That's all. We have some thoughts on it. And we talk about it endlessly. And you're right. If no one had a gun, there would be no issue with that. You wouldn't be able to mass shoot people. But would we still have fucked up people that are lashing out trying to hurt people? Of course we always will. But we have to fund mental health. We have to fund research. No one's arguing with you. Yeah, a lot of people are. No, I'm not. I think you should. I think we should, not only should we completely change the way we think about mental health, it should be a top priority. I think we should think about having four hour work days being mandatory. Done. I think we should help people. I think, you know, they just did an experiment that Microsoft did in Japan, in fact, and they found that four hour, a four day work week, rather, increased productivity by 40%. I think a lot of people, I don't know, maybe this is their culture, maybe this is a specific instance of the type of people that would get a job at Microsoft. But you know, what you're dealing with for most people is beating down shells that are tired. Tie all that together. I think, you know, I'm not going to go back to the gun argument, argue for the four hour work week and any other type of benefits that civilized nations around the world, especially in Scandinavia have, studying that culture is really interesting in what they do. And you realize that there's any number of things that you can do to help people. And how do you, you have to be able to fund those solutions and people don't want to do it. Right. People don't want to pay more taxes, but they also have a distrust in the way the government spends their money. It comes to catch 22. I'm sorry. Even if they wanted things to be better, they don't trust the government to spend their money. Like if you work hard and you make X amount of dollars in the government, that's always a fair argument, but there's not a necessarily a better way. Fine. I give you that argument, but we have to come together as a society degree. This is how we're going to spend money on a fire department, on schools and so on. Yeah. Well, no one's arguing.