President Biden has signed a historic gun bill into law – with many wondering if the legislation will actually help curb gun violence. Mike Papantonio is joined by journalist & podcast host, Rick Outzen, to discuss.
Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Mike Papantonio: President Biden signed a historic gun bill into law with many wondering if legislation will actually help curb gun violence. It’s a start, isn’t it?
Rick Outzen: It’s something better than nothing. It’s kinda, it’s kinda how this, that goes, you know.
Mike Papantonio: Give us a rundown on this.
Rick Outzen: Well, I mean the, the only thing that nationally has an impact is they’re, they are gonna do background checks on children, you know, kids under 21.
Mike Papantonio: Right.
Rick Outzen: And that, that is something new. But everything else is a hundred, $750 million to go to the states, which mostly controlled by Republican governors.
Mike Papantonio: Right.
Rick Outzen: They can use for mental health. They can use it for red flag laws. They can use it, you know, to put.
Mike Papantonio: The discretion’s crazy, isn’t it?
Rick Outzen: Right, right. And it’s back to the Republican governors to be able to make those decisions.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. Let me talk about red. The, the red, the idea of this red flag law, that, that’s important.
Rick Outzen: Right.
Mike Papantonio: Because with the red flag law, a, an agency has the right to go into your home and confiscate your gun if you have reason, if you’ve given them reason to do it. Like wife beaters or somebody that’s gone.
Rick Outzen: Domestic violence is part of it.
Mike Papantonio: Domestic violence, or they’ve shown they’ve been on the internet and they’ve said things on the internet that should scare the bejesus out of all of us. The red, the red flag law is important. This idea of being, of saying to a 20 to somebody who’s under 21, we’re not gonna just let you walk in here and walk out with an AR 15. We’re gonna look at this for 10 days and we’re gonna find out, is there anything you’ve done on the internet? Is there anything that you’ve done that should cause us concern that looks like mental health, or it looks like criminal activity? I think, look, it is a start. And it’s tough in, it’s tough in the, the, the gun trafficking law.
Rick Outzen: Right. That was the other point they brought up in that you can’t go out and buy a gun for someone else, which we’ve seen happen in some of these cases. The other thing it does, it does close that boyfriend loophole, where in these domestic violence situations, you had to be married or part of the family for that to, to take place. Now it sort of closes that loophole, which is, it is a positive. And, you know, to get 15 Senator, Republican senators and 14 congressmen to step in favor is, you know
Mike Papantonio: I, I, you know.
Rick Outzen: It’s a good move.
Mike Papantonio: As Biden says, there, you know, there’s more has to be done.
Rick Outzen: Right.
Mike Papantonio: But it’s a start. It’s a good start. You know, the part of this story that’s so interesting is this, the gun trafficking. You know what goes on in Chicago, LA and New York, the traffickers just take droves and droves of guns and they empty them. This weekend, what 51 people shot in Chicago.
Rick Outzen: Right.
Mike Papantonio: Every weekend you see that. Well, what’s happening? They know that this, it’s, it’s gang, it’s gang on gang.
Rick Outzen: Mm-hmm.
Mike Papantonio: In Chicago. Nobody seems to care that 35, 40 people get shot every week in Chicago. Same thing goes out in places like LA and New York. And, and there’s nothing being done about it because if you think about it, the numbers of guns moving into those key areas are it’s, they’re being trafficked, knowing that it’s gonna be used for gun violence gang on gang.
Rick Outzen: Right.
Mike Papantonio: So nobody, you know, what the heck. Everybody says, well, that’s not our, that’s not our problem. We don’t, we don’t live in that part of the city. We live in the gated communities.
