Welcome guys to episode 99 of Behind the Shield
podcast. My name is James Geering and this week
I bring to you my second interview with Lieutenant
Colonel Dave Grossman, who is highly respected
in military law enforcement and other fields
when it comes to the psychology of killing, psychology
of combat, and also the violence that we're seeing
in our schools. So we were about to sit down
for our interview. And I received a text from
my stepson, Ethan, who is at the local high school
just down the road from our house. We started
hearing all these sirens and these police cars
and rescues flying by. And being a firefighter,
I had a very sickening feeling in my stomach
that something was very, very wrong. And they
were all headed towards that direction. And there's
really only one main building over there, which
is his high school. So then we got some texts
from him and I'm going to read them to you to
kind of set up the premise for this interview
today. The front office is getting shot. There
are shots. Don't call me, we're hiding. I'll
be safe. I love you. I'll be fine. I've got a
way to defend myself even if they come to the
library of all places. I'm in the library in
the dark. I hear radio saying they need security
immediately in the front office. I hear a lot
of choppers, and the sirens have gone away already.
So, as it happened, that was a false alarm. However,
the neighboring high school, just further to
the east in Ocala, actually had an active killer,
a murderer, come in, an ex -student, with the
intent of killing as many students as he could.
This is happening all over the place and it's
funny because I almost thought about releasing
this at certain times, but the irony is almost
every single week we're seeing this happening
somewhere around the country now. And we're throwing
up our arms and then the social media wars begin
of pro -gun, anti -gun, and all these other elements.
And what I love about... Lieutenant Colonel Dave
Grossman is he has some solutions and he is not
by any means saying that what we talk about are
the only reasons, but they're reasons and they're
delving into some of the backstory of some of
these shootings. And I think that's what we really
need to open our mind to. We can't just play
the blame game. We can't just lock away all the
guns. We can't assume that every single person
is in a state of psychosis. There are all these
factors, but we need to look at all these factors
and address them. So I'm not here to preach to
you. I am not an expert. I'm merely just someone
who wants to help fix this problem myself and
be part of the solution. But Lieutenant Colonel
Dave Grossman has been called in by... every
walk of life. And prior to this interview, I
believe he was sitting down with President Trump
addressing this very issue. So with that slightly
elongated introduction out of the way, I wanted
to set it up because you'll hear us discussing
this in the interview. So listen, be open -minded,
and then look around and evaluate what are your
kids doing? What are the kids in the community
doing? Are we helping or are we hurting in some
of these scenarios? So as I always say, please
go to iTunes, rate the show, please share the
show. But without further ado, I introduce to
you Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman. Enjoy.
Welcome back to the podcast, Lieutenant Colonel
Dave Grossman. It's funny, I got that right this
time. Last time when we had the first recording,
I called you Lieutenant Dave Grossman. So that's
an improvement already. So where are we finding
you on planet Earth today? You know, I just got
back from Dallas. I had three days in Dallas
doing the inter -race show there. We spoke on
the Bulletproof Mind for the Armed Citizen all
three days. artesia new mexico with the uh at
the federal law enforcement training center artesia
west there training a bunch of federal agents
and i forget where i was before that but i had
a full week on on the road and i'm home for uh
for just two nights and back out again wow so
you're back in chicago then at the moment well
actually you know what we live outside of st
louis you know when we tell people we live in
illinois they just immediately think chicago
You get 100 miles away from Chicago and it's
a pretty neat state, you know, anywhere south
of there. But we're outside of St. Louis on the
wrong side of the river there, the St. Clair
County outside of the Scott Air Force Base. Brilliant.
All right. Well, so let's talk about that first.
And so we were supposed to record just over a
week ago. And I called you guys and said that
I had to cancel. It's so ironic because it's
exactly one of the things that we're going to
be talking about. We had to cancel because we
actually had a school shoot in here in Ocala.
Now, I'd had a bizarre instance about three months
prior where I dropped my son off after a doctor's
appointment. And we got stuck in the school because
they had what they call a Code Red, which for
them is an active shooter. It ended up being
a false alarm. But I had such a unique perspective
what it was like to be a first responder on the
inside of a school during one of these events.
And you see how vulnerable these kids are. You
see how there's no communication and how just
terrifying it must be. And I've said this in
a podcast before. I was literally looking around
this room we were in and there was one of those
paper guillotines. And I was going in my head
thinking about how I'm going to pull the blade
off and use it as a machete. And it was crazy.
What was sad was a few months later, when we
were supposed to have ours, we actually had one.
So we got texts from our teenage son saying,
I hear gunshots, you know, we're all hiding now,
we're in the dark, someone's shooting up the
front. And it's the most terrifying text you
can receive as a parent. It ended up being that
his school and my youngest son's school, who
also spent a good part of their morning in the
dark, hiding on the desks, not sure if they were
ever going to see their parents again. Those
two were false alarms, but one of the other high
schools we had in Ocala was a real one, and a
kid shot through a door, hit one young man in
the ankle. I think, luckily, it was not a serious
injury. But from what I understand, there was
some sort of weapon malfunction or something
that made the shooter drop his gun and give up.
But it had every intention, from what I believe,
of... carrying through yet another event. So
I just kind of want to open with that discussion
because it's just so bizarre that I had to cancel
our talk because of that. Where is that? Where
do you live at, James? So we're in Ocala in Florida,
which is about an hour north of Orlando. Yeah.
You know, I guess kind of one beginning point
that I can bring some perspective to that is
nationwide we're working real hard to get rid
of the phrase active shooter response. You know,
I tell people, whenever you hear that phrase,
active shooter response, laugh at them and tell
them we'd be real busy during deer season. You
know, first off, we're not going to wait until
they start shooting. Ideally, we want to take
action long before he starts pulling the trigger.
We want to intercept him. So, you know, we're
encouraging nationwide and we're making great
movement called active intruder. Also, you know,
shooters are not bad. You know, shooting is not
a criminal act. If we call, you know, the Columbine
shooting, the Parkland shooting, if shooting
is a term for a mass murderer, then, you know,
it's kind of, I know you're beginning to make
that movement down that path of arming and training
yourself. You know, shooting is not a criminal
act. It's kind of anti -gun propaganda. But it
also traps us mentally that we've got to wait
until he starts shooting. What if the kid's got
knives? Kid in Pennsylvania slashed 21 people
with knives in his school. Kid in Colorado had
firebombs, Molotov cocktails, ran down the hallway
throwing firebombs. So, you know, just kind of
think about how our language guides us and the
whole phrase of active shooter, you know, and
that shootings are not a criminal act. When we
talk about response to this across America, one
of the things we're doing is arming educators.
And it's costing nothing. 85 % of the counties
in Ohio have some armed educators. And it's costing
nothing. They've got a program of training that
they take. It's great. It's called FASTER. Look
up the acronym F -A -S -T -E -R. A guy named
Dick Castor is doing the training. The teacher
provides the weapon and the ammo. The training
is donated. They're doing it in Colorado, also
the FASTER program. I do a lot of work in Utah.
I don't think there's a school left in Utah that
doesn't have armed indicators. You know, those
Mormons said they love their kids more than we
do. I don't know, but they take it seriously.
And they think it's just a no brainer. There's
one or two people in every school that ought
to be carrying a gun. And they've been doing
that closing on 20 years. The superintendent,
the principal makes a call and decentralized.
and empowering down at the lowest levels. Nobody's
being forced to carry a gun, of course. It's
those who have the skills and demonstrate it.
It was just in Texas. Every year, Texas has more
and more armed educators. They train them in
the summer. They put them in the schools. They
call them their school marshals. It's like the
sky marshal. Somebody that plain has a gun. You
don't know who. You don't know when. And, you
know, we've never had a multiple homicide in
a school. when there's somebody in the building
that could shoot back. In Columbine, the cop
never got in the building. And, of course, in
Parkland, the cop didn't go in the building.
And, you know, the cops have been sued for that,
rightfully so. What would you say if you were
on the jury? Given the info you have now, you
know, I think you and I would nail them to the
ground like a tent stake, not going in while
children are being slaughtered. But it represents
a leadership flaw and a training flaw. We want
people who are trained to go in. We want warriors.
We want sheepdogs. You don't say, oh, no, we
don't want warriors. We want guardians. You need
to develop that warrior spirit. I'm going in
and I'm going to lay my life down for these kids
if I have to. But for that one case when the
cop didn't go in, we had the one in Maryland
this year where the cop went in like thunder
and shot the perpetrator. shot two people one
died god bless you we had solo homicide in that
school because the cop went in like thunder we
had a uh a case uh last fall this school year
in uh spokane washington where the janitor hammered
the kid with a broom from behind and the school
resources there was in seconds and cuffed them
we had a case in illinois my home state just
a little north of us here where a 49 -year -old
female PE teacher tackled the kid, and the school
resource officer was there in seconds and cuffed
him. And these are just the ones we know about,
where the SRO is stopping crimes. So just recognize
that there's just an array of possible things
we could do to prepare for that. The president,
after Parkland, talked about armed indicators,
and the media acted like it was insane. I wish
the bastards in the media would give us news.
I believe every state in America has some armed
educators. Most of them are. I worked in a school
in Massachusetts recently with armed educators,
public school, but private schools. Now, the
only exception is California. California had
two school districts with armed educators, and
the state passed the law to stop them from doing
that. Other than California, which had two school
districts with armed educators, every state in
America has some form of armed educator. I'm
not saying that's right for your school. But
recognizing there's a continuum of responses
and the media's refusal to give us information
is just horrendously frustrating. A crime identical
to Parkland happened in 2002 in Erfurt, Germany.
A 19 -year -old high school dropout comes into
school, murders 17 people. Isn't that worthy
of reporting in the news? The exact same crime
happened in Germany. 19 -year -old high school
dropout comes to school, murders 17, including
himself. The all -time record juvenile mass murder,
you know, the 19 -year -old in Parkland and the
19 -year -old in Erfurt, Germany, don't qualify
for a record juvenile mass murder. The all -time
record juvenile mass murder was 2009 and been
in Germany when a 17 -year -old high school student
murdered 15. Germany has the strictest gun laws
in Europe. And yet the all -time record. juvenile
mass murder in school, a juvenile mass murder
period was in Germany, and a crime identical
to Parkland happened in Germany. So when politicians
tell us we'll make the bad man go away with those
gun laws, they're lying to us. Why don't we make
it against the law to shoot people? It is against
the law. Why don't we make it against the law
to bring a gun into school? It is against the
law. Another law is not going to stop this crime.
Germany can't stop kids from committing these
crimes. no way in america you're going to prevent
anybody getting access to a weapon but what we
can do is empower educators and empower parents
and empower kids to take action um we're teaching
the kids what to do you know don't don't if we
don't teach kids what to do we're teaching them
to do nothing and so we're teaching them throw
something in get out the door get out of there
take action And that's a positive step. Run,
hide, fight is a good set of, and it's a set
of options. It's not a sequence. It's a set of
options that we use. The first two to die at
Sandy Hook were two female unarmed educators
who charged the killer. The principal and another
educator just charged out and were gunned down.
One principal told me, he said, I will die for
my kids right now, like those two. Give me something
beside my keys in my hand. When the killer comes
to murder my children, I will die for them. Give
me something beside my keys and my hand. A school
district in Alabama has given every educator
pepper spray. I'm training them with it. We recommend
go to Amazon .com. Look at Saber Red Pepper Gel.
It's a straight stream. There's no cross -contamination.
It dyes their face. If you want something in
their hands right now, every educator, anybody
you know who's an educator, get them a can of
that. go to amazon .com sabreband s -a -b -r
-e they're the ones military law enforcement
use they're the only ones with really good quality
control and they uh they've got great products
and oh it's against the rules right i'm not allowed
that purpose it's never been enforced if you
pull out a can of pepper spray at the moment
of truth and give the bad guy a shot in the face
i guarantee it nobody's asking where i came from
oh i happen to have a can of pepper spray in
her purse he he had a can of pepper spray in
his jacket nobody's thinking anything of it James
said they're doing goofy stuff, like putting
wasp spray in every classroom. Yeah, yeah, we're
not allowed to have pepper spray, but we can
have wasp spray. Really, we're going to spray
the bad guy with this stuff. Well, best I can
tell, there's two kinds of wasp spray out there.
One is like shooting them with a squirt gun.
The other one is maybe game over, die on cockroach.
He's dead right now. We should not give every
teacher deadly force. If you carefully train
carefully with the teachers, maybe. But give
them pepper spray. And regardless of the rules,
you know. Little civil disobedience that nobody's
going to care about. Every educator out there,
start carrying pepper spray, something in their
hands beside their keys when they come to kill
our kids. So there's actions we can be taking,
empowering our children, empowering our educators.
You know, we come back to Parkland. How do you
get in the door? How do you get in the door with
a rifle? In Jonesboro, this is the 20th anniversary
of Jonesboro. An 11 and 13 -year -old boy stole
a van. They could barely look over the dashboard.
They could barely reach the gas panels. They
stole a van. They drove across town. They broke
into a law enforcement officer's house. They
drove back across town. They put themselves in
a kill position overlooking the playground. The
11 -year -old boy pops in the back door and pulls
the fire alarm. Stop. What did he do? Popped
in the back door. If the door had been locked,
the crime would not have been possible. Here
we are 20 years later. Parkland, how did he get
in the door? It's too hard to keep the doors
locked and control who works in our building.
Half the cost of the building goes into fire
code. Not a kid in America has been killed by
school fire in over 50 years. Half the cost of
the building goes into fire code, but it's too
hard to keep the doors locked. Now, the sheriff
and the superintendent has blood on their hands.
The superintendent in Parkland knows that he
should have had the doors locked and control
who walked in the building. The sheriff knew
that he should have cops that went in like thunder
and shot that killer. They had blood on their
hands. And the first thing to do is start pointing
the finger at the evil guns. They got to point
the finger somewhere else. The media, the evil
TV shows and the movies and especially the video
games are a key piece of the equation. The Parkland
killer played video games. The neighbor said
played violent video games 15 hours a day. It
was kill, kill, kill. every minute of every day,
playing violent video games. Isn't that an important
aspect of understanding what happened? Instead
of blaming the object, let's look at the individual
and see what he did with his life. But the media
knows they have blood on their hands, and they've
got to point the finger somewhere else immediately.
And so the guns are just an object. England,
we had a month last, two months ago, England
had more murders in London than New York, and
they were all night murders. Now, the ban on
knives in England, there's no reason why any
citizen should carry a knife. They've got chefs
on TV. There's no culinary reason why any knife
should be longer than three inches. When do we
stop blaming the object and start focusing on
what's in the life and the mind of the individual?
A guy wrote a book, Inside the Mind of a Teen
Killer, and he surveyed 21 teens, or over 100.
teen killers. And every time they had one thing
in common, an obsession with media violence.
So here we got the media with blood on their
hands. We got the superintendent with blood on
their hands. We got the sheriff whose people
failed to perform. And the first thing they all
do is start pointing the finger at the guns.
When in reality, across America, we've got armed
educators. We've had 100 percent success with
that. Yeah, well, I want to point out that the.
Officer that was attributed to stopping the one
we had here was Marion County Sheriff's Deputy
Jimmy Long. So I want to give him a shout out.
But he was obviously one of an entire team that
then responded and they did an incredible job.
I didn't hear about that. He went in the door
and told me what happened. He went towards the
gunfire. Now, like I said, I don't think he was
faced with gunfire because... um from you know
whatever happened the kid i believe it dropped
the the weapon by that point however he went
towards the initial gunfire um but that's another
thing that i wanted to ask you about as well
is the um you know the prevention side of having
a uniformed armed officer at these schools too
because it with the educators being armed i see
how that's definitely um dissuading to a shooter
but having uh an officer with body armor and
and you know uh Just a visual deterrent, I think,
is very powerful as well. Absolutely. But again,
you use that phrase, shooter. We're in denial.
These are killers. Yes, let me rephrase it. Killers.
It took me years to retrain myself from using
that phrase. But again, the officer is a shooter.
The perpetrator is an attempted murderer. But
you're quite right. The problem is... Yet we
don't have the money to put one in every school.
An armed cop in every school is a worthy investment.
Now, remember, half the cost of a modern building
goes into fire code. Fireproof material for the
structure of the building versus the cheapest
alternative. Fire sprinkler system under pressure
of the light of the building. Electrical system
brought up to fire code. Double the electrical
system to run wiring to every fire exit and every
smoke alarm. And then think about the money for
the fire alarm system. A separate network of
wiring runs through our whole civilization from
every fire alarm to the fire guy. And then the
fire hydrant. There's a separate network of huge
pipes that runs to every fire hydrant. I mean,
think of the money we spend as a civilization
to prepare for fire. So it's not unreasonable
to spend the money to have a cop in every school.
And yet what happens is. In a few years, they
say, oh, we don't want that. We don't need that.
And then we got the people who talk about, well,
we got the school -to -prison pipeline. We got
cops in the school that arrest the kid, and they
go straight to prison, and it's all the evil
cops' fault. They send them right to prison.
If we didn't have a cop there, they wouldn't
go to prison. They're committing violent crimes.
I think there's evidence to believe that the
superintendent and the sheriff conspired to conceal
crimes in that school. I think if the information
I've seen is accurate, I think you may end up
seeing that sheriff and that superintendent in
jail. And I hope so if it's accurate information.
By that you mean the Parkland one? The Parkland,
yeah. Yeah, there's really cause to believe that
they conspired to conceal crime. Because, oh,
we got this school -to -prison pipeline. And
once they hit a certain point, they stopped reporting
felonious acts to keep the numbers down. Things
are bad. Criminal action's happening. And the
response of the school too often is to hide it.
When we have a cop in the school, we can't hide
it. And so you've got all kinds of craziness
going on out there that a year or two from now,
we don't have the budget to pay for the school
resource officer. The vast amounts of money going
to fire prevention is too much money to pay the
budget for a cop. So you're right. Cop in every
school is the best answer. And in an ideal world,
we allocate the funds. It's nothing compared
to the amount of money we pay for fire prevention.
So, yes, it's a worthy endeavor. And if we could
do it, we'd do it. But again, armed educators,
you know, in the state of Ohio are free, Texas
free, Utah free. Across America, they're doing
it for nothing. And so it becomes the Israeli
model. armed educators and armed people everywhere
charged into the sound of the guns. Israel can't
afford to put an armed cop in every school, but
they can afford. Well, actually, they do to some
degree, but they can't afford to have armed educators
everywhere they go. So there's a variety of tools
that we can apply. We're not helpless. We have
a lot that we can do. And people say, oh, we
can't prevent it. Yes, you can. And the first
thing, as you say, is to deter the killer. to
have something in place that says, I'm not going
to get a body count here, so I'm not going to
try. Yeah, I mean, exactly. I think that's a
huge thing. And what's sad is I've had this issue
with the fire side, and obviously the prevention
is well done, but the actual response. I mean,
they close down stations all the time. These
guys have got to beg for equipment. And then
the PD side, as I'm being more exposed to now,
and we'll talk about this later, but with the
sheepdog response and some of those things, you
learn. that my fellow law enforcement officers,
and I'm a firefighter, I'm not pretending I understand
it, but you learn that they only get so much
ammunition and they get to qualify and arrange
twice a year. They only ride one to a car. And
then you ask yourself, as a community, when your
child is at risk, do you care about that $100
you saved on your taxes because some politician
sold you a budget? And to me, it's like we need
to reprogram the way we think as a society and
prioritize what's most important and give the
best. resources to FD, PD, EMS to allow them
to save our families when it matters. And you
know, the fire guys really are a student, you
know, not a single kid about killed by school
fire in half a century. And what they've done
is they've written it into the law with the fire
code. So there's a model in place. You know,
once it gets written into the law, it becomes
accepted. You know, we live with it. They wouldn't
buckle their baby in the car seat if it wasn't
the law. It becomes a law, you know, we find
the money to get the car seat. We find car seats
for them. It becomes the law that the fire code,
that fire sprinklers and fire exits. And so I
think there's a great model in place if we really
care that we get this public safety. The baseline
of every government is public safety. You know,
the Pharaoh, the Roman Empire. uh you know the
the social contract says you obey the law you
pay your taxes we'll help keep you safe you know
the marauding barbarians the criminals within
you know that that's what civilization does you
pay your taxes you obey the law we'll help keep
you safe if we can't keep them safe the contract
breaks down why should we pay your taxes why
don't you obey your law when you can't even keep
us safe So the very social contract is being
braided by this crime. And something to understand
here is the number of people murdered has been
coming down every year for a decade because of
medical technology. You know, tactical combat
casualty care in just the last decade has got
the body count of the battlefields been cut in
half. by innovations in just the last decade
on saving lives. And the same thing is true in
our street. We've got a UMass Harvard study that's
20 years old that tells us if we had 1970s technology,
the murder rate would be four times what it is.
So the murder rate's been coming down year after
year. And then in the last two years, something
horrible happened. In 2015, we had 1 ,700 more
Americans murdered the year before. The number
should be going down. In 2016, we had 1 ,300
more Americans murdered the year before. Now,
we'll get the 2017 data in August, but it looks
like it's going to be just as bad. It should
be going down, and it's compound interest on
top of the previous year. And the FBI, we've
been building up this for a very long time, but
the FBI calls it the Ferguson effect. For two
years straight, the homicide rate has exploded
like nothing we have ever seen before. And there's
this sense of anger in our criminals, like the
cops, the bad guys are enforcing the law. And
we've got entire states that say, oh, you don't
have to obey the law in our state, sanctuary
states and sanctuary cities. And, you know, a
Supreme Court justice, Louis Brandeis, said crime
is contagious. If government becomes a lawbreaker.
It breeds contempt for the law. Every man for
himself. It breeds chaos. And that's where we're
at with these sanctuary cities and sanctuary
states, regardless of the justice of their cause.
Their methodology of saying you don't have to
obey the law does great harm to the fabric of
our civilization. So we're in tragically lawless
times with the homicide rate exploding, with
lawlessness exploding. with school violence exploding.
But remember, it's worldwide. And there's one
new factor in the equation. And that's the sick
media and the stories we tell our kids. You know,
gang membership has exploded in recent years.
When I grew up, I sincerely wanted to be Marshall
Dillon and Gunsmoke, you know, and I had the
lunchbox. Today, a whole chunk of this generation
believes. One of the greatest achievements is
grow up and be the Sopranos, Breaking Bad, Sons
of Anarchy, and the Gang Lord at the end of Grand
Theft Auto. And here we come back to what makes
America unique is that every other first world
nation that I can find regulates children's access
to media violence, except for America. My book,
my new book, Assassination Generation, we talk
about how they fought all the way to the Supreme
Court. to sell any video game to any child at
any age. And we're the only major industrialized
first world nation, to my knowledge, that doesn't
regulate children's access to violent visual
imagery. And we're paying a horrible price for
it. And once again, the media knows they have
blood on their hands and they've got to point
the finger somewhere else. Yeah, we had a, you
probably saw it, it was two Florida police officers
murdered about three weeks ago. They were literally
assassinated in a Chinese restaurant. And it
was very strange because this gentleman, or this
murderer, I shouldn't call him a gentleman, there
was no information on him whatsoever. No picture,
like nothing. And I'm not talking about some
sort of conspiracy theory, but I put a little
social media post about that. why is it that
we don't know anything and and um uh you know
the kind of people bit back oh we don't want
to mention their name they're not worthy it's
like well actually i want to know what their
history was were they extremists were they you
know i even mentioned you know video games um
because you want to learn from these it's awful
but you want to learn and and when i mentioned
the video games my goodness i got some some you
know snappy little responses And I've always
said this way before I was introduced to your
work. And when I was, I was blown away because
take away, you know, just down to bare, bare
bones. If you want to relax with your family,
so you put in a DVD of teenagers being brutalized
and tortured and murdered as entertainment. I
think that's a bit weird. Amen. Amen. And again.
When we talk about the violent video games, all
your listeners, and I recommend the book Assassination
Generation. I put a copy in the president's hand
a month ago. I was at the president's roundtable
on media violence. Senator Rubio was there. We
had two representatives. We had Brent Bozell,
who's been one of the long -term leaders in the
media violence movement. Six of the most powerful,
influential people in the video game industry.
And, you know, the Parkland Killer played violent
video games 15 hours a day. And the president
turned to these people and said, we're deeply
concerned about this. People are concerned about
it. I hear it everywhere. What can we do about
violent video games? And they actually said nothing.
We don't have to do anything. You can't make
us do anything. And they talked about, you know,
the Supreme Court decision, which, again, in
my book, Assassination Generation, you get. far
better understanding of what happened. And I
told them, you don't believe your own propaganda.
You know what you did to manipulate a couple
old men who never played pong in their life.
You know, the reality is our medical community
is screaming from the mountainside about the
harmful effects of these things. And we've got
this disinformation campaign for this horrendously
wealthy industry. You've got to understand, one
video game, Grand Theft Auto V. made more money
than the entire global music industry. One video
game made more money than every rock concert
on the planet. Every musician, every concert,
every CD, every download on the planet. And it's
a cop killing murder simulator. This industry
is fabulously, vastly, amazingly wealthy. And
they devote great resources against any attempt
to limit the terrible things they're doing around
the world. And in America, they've been enormously
successful in using the First Amendment to hide
behind. But, you know, the worst thing in many
ways, the most pervasive impact, is to teach
children to take pleasure from other people's
suffering. And I tell my audience, I say, everybody
in this room, even you ladies, at one time or
another, we all played toy guns. Bang, bang,
I got you. No, you didn't. So you smack them
with your cap, and it leaves a mark, and he cries.
And you try to convince the hurt kid not to tell
mom. Somebody gets hurt, the play stops. A basketball
game, a football game, one of the players gets
hurt, the fans go silent, the play stops. In
healthy play, whenever somebody gets hurt, the
play stops. In the video game, you blow your
playmate's heads off, an explosion's of blood.
Does the play stop? Do you get in trouble? You
get points. This is pathological play. This is
dysfunctional play. Can you not tell the difference
between healthy play when somebody gets hurt,
the play stops, and where you're conditioned
and rewarded to inflict suffering? So the most
pervasive impact of these games is horrendous
bullying. People say, I was bullied when I was
in school. It can't be worse than that. It's
worse. Are the mass murders in this school worse
than we were kids? Believe me, the bullying is
worse. I tell everybody, remember when you were
a kid, remember that bully who sincerely took
pleasure in making you suffer. because there's
many many more of those kids out there today
and that's that that pervasive influence of these
of these murder simulators in which you take
you know you're rewarded and conditioned to to
receive reward for for committing violent acts
on your playmates on these individuals you're
interacting with so the the the harmful facts
that rippled through our whole civilization every
piece of technology had to be digested We had
automobiles for 50 years before some genius said,
you know, kids probably shouldn't be driving
these things. And that's where we're at. We've
got this horrendous new technology that our civilization
needs to digest very quickly before it destroys
us. And we have this vastly wealthy industry.
We're deeply invested in continuing to sell the
product to children. I wanted to kind of underline
as well to make sure, again, people are listening.
So you're not talking about Sonic the Hedgehog.
You're talking about these cop -killing ones
and the first -person shooters that mimics exactly
the way the military trains some of their soldiers.
And I'll tell you what else. We're not talking
about civilization. I'm a huge Civ fan. Every
time the latest version of Civ comes through,
I spend my limited spare time for months playing
it through. My goal with Civ is always to win
it at the hardest level and find some angle by
which I can work the system and win at the very
hardest level. Always, I must admit, at the military,
I'm good at military stuff. If you win at the
hardest level through any of the other methodologies,
my hat's off to you. But there's a great endeavor.
Nothing horrible about civilization. You know,
the graphics are, you know, it's... So there
are many good things we can be doing. But when
you get these vivid depictions of human death
and suffering and you're rewarded for it, that's
where we got to start drawing the line and where
you're inflicting death and suffering. The first
person shooters, as you well say, even others
where you may not be a first person shooter,
but you're manipulating human death and suffering
and vivid depictions. And, you know, the video
game industry really does a good job with their
ratings. They just refuse to accept any regulation
of the ribbons. They say, you know, they told
the president, well, we have voluntary compliance.
They wouldn't buckle their baby in the car seat
if it wasn't the law. You know, one of the gun
owners said, you know, you can sell guns to a
kid, but we have voluntary compliance. You know,
the tobacco, alcohol, pornography. There's so
many things you can sell to adults, but you can't
sell to children. And we're all good with that.
I'm a real laid back libertarian kind of guy.
Leave me alone. I'll leave you alone. But, you
know, when it comes to laws saying you've got
to buckle your kid in the car seat, we're all
good with that. But this is the one industry,
the visual violent imagery, television, movie
and video games. It says you cannot regulate
children's access to a product in any way, shape
or form. We have voluntary compliance. But the
rating system really is pretty effective. And
we talk in my book, Assassination Generation
of the Video Game Rating System, many lies for
the price of one. It's tremendously deceptive.
They take the worst games and they call it M,
mature, 17 and above. Every kid thinks he's mature.
I'm mature, Dad. I can play a mature game more,
I guess. It's the greatest insult. That's very
immature. I disappointed you. Greatest compliment.
Very mature. That was well done. So they take
their worst games. They put a smoke screen out
front, A, 18 and above. None of them are A. It's
a smoke screen. And then they take 17 and above
and make it the most desirable term. But if you
understand that an M -rated game is like an X
-rated movie, and if you enforce it, and then
you've gone down through the system, T, 13 and
above, they want you to think PG -13. It's not.
It's a hard and fast line. Children under the
age of 13 should not be playing the game. And
then the biggest lie of all, E. What's E stand
for? Everyone. No. You've got to actually look
at the fine print. Everyone, seven and above.
They've got E with a little seven. Everyone.
You know, five and above. It's like the tobacco
industry. It's tobacco for the whole family.
18 and above. Look at the fine print. You know,
guns for everybody. 18 and above. So this is
a sick industry. Even the rating system and the
way they do it is twisted. But if we take that
rating system as a baseline to recognize the
harmful games, the T -rated games, you know,
Fortnite is just an overwhelmingly popular game
right now. It's a T -rated game. You know, there's
not horrendous violence, but children under the
age of 13 should not be playing the game. It
took me about 15 minutes looking online to find
out what the rating of it was. I had to keep
digging and looking. It's not something that's
right up front. But the rating system does form
a pretty good baseline. People ask me at Fortnite.
I say, you know, if your kid's 13 and above,
limit the amount of time. Don't let them get
obsessed with it. You know, it's not bad. If
you've got an M -rated game. You know, it's like
letting your kid have X -rated movies. Hardcore
pornography for your children. We've got to enforce
the rating system, kind of a baseline. We're
not talking about all these games. But remember,
they took these most horrendous games and they
gave the most desirable possible term, M, you
know, mature. Every kid wants to be mature. So
this is a very sick, twisted industry. And all
of it's in my book, Assassination Generation.
Like I said, I disabled it. slide a copy across
the table with the president you know it was
uh it was quite an experience no absolutely well
i also want to um delve into a little bit an
area that when we spoke last time i was just
breaking into and i am so passionate about this
now because it's just been the elephant in the
room for a lot of the health and mental and physical
health issues in first responders too. And that's
the sleep deprivation side of video game use.
And I didn't think about it until I heard your
book. So if you, if you wouldn't mind elaborating
on, on how powerful that part is on some of these
things that we're seeing. Now, first understand
these video games are enormously addictive. The
online games are a constant laboratory. I mean,
you've got the online games. And this happens,
and 10 % of our people say, oh, this is a good
time to quit the game. So they stop doing that.
And any time they find something that causes
somebody to say, oh, this is a good time to take
a breath and stop the game, any time that happens,
they stop that from happening. It's this constant
interactive feedback loop year after year to
make the games more and more addictive, more
difficult to turn off. So understand these games
are fantastically addictive. When you play the
games, you go into an alpha state. And you're
actually becoming capable of keeping track of
time. Suddenly it's 3 o 'clock in the morning,
got no idea where the last six hours went, and
your spouse is sincerely ticked off. Research
tells us that in America, video games are responsible
for 15 % of all divorces in America. Google video
games divorce, come right up, 15%. And in the
younger age, it's actually quite a bit higher.
Not that many six -year -olds get divorces over
video games. So this horrendous, pervasive sleep
deprivation. After 18 hours without sleep, your
impaired judgment equaled a .08 legally drunk.
After 24 hours without sleep, your impaired judgment
equaled a .10 above legally drunk. After two
days without sleep, you're a psychotic. Any graduate
of Army Ranger School will tell you about hallucinations
on the third day without sleep. So here's this
worldwide epidemic of sleep -deprived children.
And here are the effects. Number one, an explosion
of suicide. In the armed forces, in the active
duty army, our suicides have nothing to do with
combat. A non -combat vet is as likely to take
life as a combat vet. But a sleep -deprived person
can be up to five times more likely to take their
life. Parenting 101 for the 21st century. When
you send your kid to bed at night, take their
cell phone away from them. No cell phone in the
room, no laptop in the room. They have got to
go to their room and sleep. Our cop told me one
time, he said, he said, I had a good girl. He
said she was an A student. She said, Dad, it's
embarrassing. You don't have to take my cell
phone every night. You can trust me. So I trusted
her. And he said a little while later, she took
her life. And I never knew the hell my little
girl was living in until we looked at the text
messages on her cell phone. Night after night
of ceaseless, relentless, vicious bullying. He
said, my little girl was bullied to death, sleep
deprived and bullied to death. And I let it happen.
He said, I can't ignore that text message in
the middle of the night. How do we expect our
kids to? So understand this epidemic of suicide
around our civilization is completely interwoven
with an epidemic of sleep deprivation. And teen
suicides around the world have exploded to levels
that we have never seen before in our darkest
nightmares. Traffic fatalities for decades went
down. Populations up. Number of people killed
in traffic gets down. Seatbelts and airbags.
And now in recent years, they're back up again.
And teen traffic fatalities have skyrocketed.
When your kid gets behind the wheel, the best
thing you can give them is a good night's sleep.
Before they get the keys, they got to get a good
night's sleep. Sleep -deprived people, truck
drivers require a lot of getting asleep for a
very good reason. Sleep -deprived people behind
the wheel are horrendously dangerous to themselves
and others. And then drug overdoses. The three
major killers of our kids, drug overdoses, suicides,
and traffic fatalities, depending on who you
talk to, which one's first, second, and third,
but they're all huge. And they're all related
to sleep deprivation. Yeah, there's scary new
drugs out there, but they're not that new. They're
not that different. One of the new factors is
sleep -deprived people making life and death
decisions on drug doses. And so we got three
factors that you as a parent can influence. drug
overdoses, suicides, and traffic fatalities,
you as a parent can powerfully influence by making
your kid get enough sleep. Sleep is a biological
blind spot. Our bodies don't know how to make
us get enough sleep. You've got to make it happen.
And you know, I recently started wearing the
Fitbit. And the Fitbit does an amazing job of
keeping track of your sleep and the quality of
sleep and your heart rate. Violent video games
make your heart rate go up. When I play Civ,
my heart rate goes down almost to the level when
I'm sleeping. I'll look at my heart rate scale
on my Fitbit and say, wow, look how low it was
when I was on the plane. And I was on the plane
with my laptop playing Civilization. And I went
into a state that is almost like sleep as far
as the heart rate is going. So powerful, restful,
which can be addicting. You've got to be careful.
But the Fitbit does such a good job of keeping
track of heart rate, keeping track of sleep,
monitoring sleep. You know, I think there's great
value in putting it on our kids and tracking
their sleep and their quality of sleep as one
of the most dynamic health trends for all of
us. Again, sleep is a biological blind spot.
Our bodies are not going to make us get enough
sleep. We have to develop the personal discipline
to make it happen. And so it's this elephant
in the living room with first responders and
our children. our whole civilization of profoundly
sleep deprived people and it's a it's a technological
dynamic you know prior to electric lighting you
know candles were rare and precious commodities
firewood was rare and precious you know it got
dark and you know it had so much talking so much
sex everybody went to sleep our bodies didn't
have to make us sleep the environment made it
happen because it was dark and now we get electric
lighting and television and video games And it's
a biological blind spot. And the one area that
would make an enormous impact is sleep deprivation.
And I've become a huge fan of the Fitbit to help
us measure our sleep and see the quality of our
sleep and what we can do about it. Brilliant.
Well, I'm so glad that you said that because
that's one thing I've seen as the, I guess you
use the expression elephant in the room, for
us as well. We've had a huge increase in firefighter
suicides, an increase in firefighter overdoses.
And I'm sure you're seeing a very similar trend
in PD. And then probably if you look at junior
doctors and ER physicians and that kind of thing
as well, anyone that's up on these shifts, we're
seeing that. And then you look further down the
career, you're looking at the cancers and the
heart disease because the immune system is so
compromised from the sleep deprivation as well.
Let's talk about that. There's an angle on this.
In the law enforcement community, there are two
profoundly stupid things that we're doing. One
is rotating shifts. Every time you rotate shifts,
you're kicking everybody in the nuts and put
them up behind the power curve on sleep deprivation.
It takes up to a full year to fully adapt to
night shift. And then the other thing that law
enforcement is doing is the 12 -hour shifts.
California Highway Patrol recently came out with
12 -hour shifts. It was a disaster. Accidents
exploded. Internal affairs investigations exploded.
Complaints exploded. At the end of a 12 -hour
shift, cops are exhausted. And tired people make
mistakes. Tired people do things and say things
they will regret for the rest of their life.
And my cops all want to be like firefighters.
You know, work 12 -hour shifts, get all that
time off. I tell them, well, firefighters get
to sleep on the job. Only firefighters and prostitutes
make money in bed. So, you know, just all in
fun, all you firefighters out there. You know
we love you. It's all in fun. But the truth is
a lot of our fire and EMS, they don't get asleep
during the day. The truth is they're constantly
on calls. And in law enforcement, the old timers
knew what they were doing. Eight -hour shift,
bid for your shift based on overtime. You know,
let me say that again. Eight -hour shift, bid
for your shift based on seniority and put a cap
on overtime. You know, you want to stay at nights
for a lifetime? Good for you. Stay on nights,
you know. There's no need to rotate. Rotating
shift takes years off people's lives. You've
got this seniority, you want to move to day shift,
good for you. You've earned it. You've got this
seniority. But what happens is the new guys come
on and say, I don't want to wait to get seniority
to be on day shift. This is no fair. Let's rotate
shift. Well, suck it up, buttercup. Rotating
shift means everybody loses. It is one of the
most profoundly destructive things we can do.
It literally takes years off people's lives.
I'm a huge science geek. My favorite website,
sciencedaily .com. I check it every day through
every category. We live in amazing times. Exoplanets
and dark matter. What is it really? Dark energy.
What is it? The latest in climate science and
medical science. But I'm a huge science geek.
And we're learning great information on a daily
basis. We've got to apply that information for
the wellness of our civilization. Absolutely.
I think from the fire side, what I've found,
and I've delved into sleep medicine a lot too
with Kirk Parsley, and there's a new gentleman
I just discovered, Matthew Walker. But it seems
for the firefighters specifically, because they
have that facility, that station where they are
able to... to rest in periods the 24 is still
good but you need to give them more days after
because right now the firefighters are working
56 hour weeks so the person bagging your groceries
is working 40 hours and the person doing drug
calculations at three in the morning on your
child is sleep deprived i mean it's insanity
it is it is it's negligent i mean i mean lives
are irrefutably being lost because of this insanity
oh you know people should rise up in outrage
You know, I tell my cops, you know, truck drivers
are required to log in to sleep, but cops aren't.
That should enrage us. If I were king and could
pass one law, I would mandate sleep for first
responders, just like truck drivers and air traffic
controllers and airline pilots, nuclear power
plan operators. There's dozens of professions
required to log in to sleep, including airlines.
If airlines don't have arrested crew, they cancel
the flight. Better no flight than a tired pilot.
I'm in those planes every night. I'm good with
that. And I'm good with that. I don't want to
fly with a tired pilot. Better to have no cop
than a tired cop. We're undermanned. We're going
to have maximum overtime. Put them on the streets.
No. Better no cop than a tired cop. I tell my
cops, we are now in a zero -defects environment.
And you know what zero -defects looks like is
the airlines. You cannot crash a single plane.
Oh, come on. You know it. Traffic accidents happen
every day. We have 100 ,000, I mean, we have
a million people in the air every day. One airline
crash a day is reasonable. No. Well, one airline
crash a year is reasonable. No. Well, one airline
crash every 10 years, that's reasonable. No.
You cannot crash a single plane. You crash a
single plane, we will investigate, we will put
you in jail, we will fine you, we will fire you.
That's what zero defects looks like. And that's
where law enforcement is today. And I think all
the first responders will very soon find themselves
in that environment. Better to have no flight
than a tired pilot. Unless it's a declared emergency.
I teach chiefs and sheriffs nationwide. You've
got to understand, we're in zero defects. Everything
every cop does is caught on camera. And if one
cop does something stupid, you will have rioting
in the streets. And you want to be in the next
burger, you want rioting in the streets. Put
tired cops out there because there's no slack
anymore. Everything they do is being caught on
camera. And you won't pay a tragic price for
it. So sheriff, chief, you say, hey, if it's
a declared emergency, then the blood's on your
hands and I'll work my people to the bone. But
until then, I will not put tired cops on the
street. It's a negligent act. And you want more
cops? Pay them more. Because once we dig our
heels in. and say, we're not going to have sleep
-deprived first responders. Whoa, whoa, we want
first responders, then pay them more. And that's
what's going to happen. Once we stop doing this
insanity of working these people to death and
having tired people out there making life and
death decisions, once we stop doing that, you're
going to start seeing first responders get paid
what they deserve to be paid. You want more people
doing this job, then pay them more. Until then,
we will not put sleep -deprived people on the
streets. Absolutely. And if you're paying a low
wage, you get a revolving door too. Like my county
department here, I don't even know if they're
able to, I don't know what the statistics are
as far as the time on in the department, but
it's, you know, they go in and these men and
women a lot of times just can barely afford to
even pay the bills. So then they spin out again.
And then coupled to that, a very, very important
thing that you see in a lot of fire and police
is that they're understaffed. So then these men
and women are not only doing their own shifts,
but they're being told the next morning after
24 hours, oh, I'm sorry, you have to stay for
another 24 hours, which, as you and I know, neurologically
is basically a recipe for disaster in itself.
That brings us back to, you know, the baseline,
the social contract for every government is public
safety. Everything else is secondary. Public
safety has got to be right. You know, the social
contract, you obey the law, you pay your taxes,
we'll help keep you safe. If we can't keep them
safe, the social contract breaks down. So every
other aspect of government is secondary to public
safety. And we've got to get that part right.
And we've got to just demand that they do it
and they do it right and provide proper resources
and allocate the money to do it right. Those
poor, like you said, your department, you know,
who would think of the accounting department
as the weak link in your chain? But any area
where we underpay people, you're going to start
seeing this rotating door and this weak link
in the chain and the breakdown of the process.
If it's worthy of doing, it's worthy of paying
a living wage. And we've got to allocate the
resources of our civilization to do that. So
we're talking about ownership from the community
as far as creating the budgets to... set the
the fire police ems up for success but i also
want to talk about ownership of the community
themselves i uh i grew up in england i had weapons
when i was young but they were they were for
hunting had a shotgun had a rifle um But then
when I moved to the US, I wasn't really exposed
to weapons much and used martial arts as the
self -defense and the German shepherd in my house
as a deterrent for crime. But I recently listened
to you, listened to Tim Kennedy, some other people,
and it changed my view on being the sheepdog.
And this is obviously an area that you, you know,
definitely known as one of the pioneers of that
philosophy. So I would love to delve into. what
it means to be a sheepdog in your community.
Well, you know, what we're really, what you and
I are looking at is this next step up to firearms
and being trained and being prepared and having
those tools. I think when we look at the violence
around the world, you know, I was just at the
NRA conference and presented there and I showed
a list of the 20 most homicidal nations in the
world. 19 out of the 20 all had those European
gun laws, gonna keep us so safe. The reality
is that empowering our citizens with the tools
to protect themselves is the only possible movement.
I think we'll see Europe moving that way. You
know, when the director of Interpol, a couple
years back when there were all those massacres
in France, the director of Interpol said, you
have to ask yourself, could this have happened
in Dallas? Could this have happened in an American
city? And maybe we got something to learn there.
Israel and America have kind of pioneered this
dynamic of don't take away rights, give them
more rights. Entrust your citizens with the tools
and the rights to protect themselves and others.
And I think that's the inevitable outcome of
dealing with violence in our civilization. I
think you'll see Europe undergo some real dramatic
changes in coming years. Europe? Europe may be
doomed. They've got a negative birth rate in
nation after nation. Of course, they've got the
Muslim population that is breeding at very tremendous
levels. And the Muslim population has told Europe
in a generation we're going to own them. And
so this dynamic of empowering our citizens, Switzerland
is another good example of a nation that does
that, and a few in the world. We've got to understand
that this is a right and a privilege, and it's
got to be done responsibly. But I tell people,
you know, the first step is having that firearm.
And we don't want to be, you know, I see this
a lot with my Brits, you know, we've got to call
them the gun snob. You know, you've got to fire,
you know, 500 rounds a month minimum to be entrusted
with a firearm. Well, you know, there's a continuum
there, Mike. My grandmother, my great grandmother
in New Orleans, 1932, shot a shooter off the
second floor balcony. You know, it was New Orleans,
summer, it was hot. The second floor was wide
open, all the doors were open, all the windows
were open. Guy climbs up on the second floor
balcony and granny points a revolver at him and
pulls the trigger until he goes away. The ultimate
point and click interface. Granny probably never
fired more than, you know, than a dozen rounds
in her life. But, you know, she hit with at least
one of those bullets because they followed a
blood trail out the alley the next morning. But
Granny with a revolver in the bedside stands,
of course, we recommend. Across Europe, we see
home invasions very common. Americans are terrifying.
You know, a big guy comes in the house and what
can you do? Well, if you've got a firearm, it's
a great equalizer. In a world without firearms,
if a big guy kicks in the door, what are you
going to do? In America, we've got that right
to protect ourselves. That Israeli model of an
armed citizen responding to the terrorists is
really the only possible model. But along with
that right comes responsibility. So proper securing
of your weapon, we're doing that more than ever,
and proper training with that weapon. I've become
a huge fan of the martial art of the thyroid.
Americans don't like to compete. Let me lay a
foundation for this. I think your listeners will
really like. Let me talk to you about what happened
at the Draw the Prophet Muhammad Art Festival
in Dallas, Texas in May of 2015 when two would
-be mass murderers We believe it's the first
targeted ISIS attack on American soil. They had
rifles. They had body armor. They had the element
surprise. They rolled out of the vehicle. And
a 59 -year -old traffic cop with a pistol killed
them both. So what I tell people is, you know,
we've got a couple of options here that I want
you to have. Decide now which one you're going
to be. You know, the first option is the Pulse
nightclub in Orlando, Florida. There was a cop.
in the parking lot on security. He said, I heard
a rifle. I had a pistol. I chose not to go in.
What would it feel like to look at 49 dead bodies?
No, they'd all be alive today if I'd have had
the confidence and my skills to go in. Odds are
50 -50, you'd come in behind the bad guy, shoot
him in the back, he'd never know you were there.
And to have such poor skills, such total lack
of confidence that you don't even go in. Most
of us would live the rest of our lives, you know,
in hell knowing those people died while we quivered
outside and didn't even go in. So the mass murderer
in the Pulse nightclub pops out of an exit, chases,
you know, chasing down two people who are running
and shoots them in the back as they run away
and then engages the cop. The cop had no choice.
The cop's behind the vehicle. The vehicle's riddled
with bullets. The cop fired most of the magazine.
Those who are there tell me it was less than
30 feet away, fired most of the magazine and
didn't hit once. So, you know, obviously there's
a reason why he didn't go in. He had no skills.
He had no ability. And same with Parkland. The
cop didn't go in. That cop is being sued. You
know, if you were on the jury, given what you
know now, what would you decide? I'd drive him
to the ground like a tent stake. He deserves
to be, you know, where cops can be destroyed
for not shooting, for not going in. we need to
understand that so understand the limit that
they're in but go back to the uh outside of dallas
texas garland texas that draw the prophet muhammad
art festival could they be more provocative it
was their right to do it they were afraid to
draw bad guys and and two art critics from arizona
showed up with ak -47s and body armor it could
have been the pulse nightclub times two they
had the element of surprise they had that They
had body armor. They had rifles. Now, some of
you may not understand. The body armor cops wear
stop most pistol bullets. Rifle bullets just
wave on the way through. So the bad guy's rifle
has neutralized the cop's body armor. If the
bad guy has body armor, he's neutralized the
cop's pistol. Body armor stops pistol bullets.
Unless the cop's making head shots or pelvic
shots. You understand the enormous disadvantage
a cop with a pistol has. That rifle's punching
holes through his body armor like it ain't even
there. And that body armor is stopping the cop's
pistol bullets. So they roll out of the vehicle,
and Officer Greg Stevens, 59 years old, 37 years
on the department, and never once Drew has gone
to life and death event. But he trained for a
lifetime. Anytime the range was open, ammo available,
he was there. In many cases, he spent his own
time and his own money. to prepare for a lifetime
without one day he was 40 feet away they fired
over 30 rounds of ak -47 fire and never hit once
now he's uh he's he's 40 feet away on the passenger
side the vehicle stopped both doors pop open
and he immediately that hair stands up in his
head he said i wasn't even conscious of drawing
my weapon uh he said that the bad guy on the
passenger side 40 feet away Spins out and swings
around and shoots a rifle at him. He said, I
cannot tell you who fired first. I'll tell you
who fired best. He put a volley of four on the
bad guy and put him down. Bad guys got body on
them. They can make him pelvic shots. Put him
down. From 40 feet away, draw and fire. Snapshot.
Draw and fire an effective. He said, I had a
sight picture for every single shot. Not a perfect
sight picture, but a good enough sight picture
for every shot. Fires a volleyball, puts that
bad guy down. And then he moves kind of laterally
and in. So he's moving toward the bad guy, but
he's also moving sideways. Bad guys have tunnel
vision too. And lateral movement takes you right
off their radar screen. So the bad guy on the
driver's side wounds an unarmed security guard.
We tell people, you cannot call unarmed people
security. You'll be sued. You'll be successfully
sued. God bless all the great people that do
that job. Unarmed people are not security. Call
them safety. Call them a Walmart greeter. Call
them run like hell with a man with a gun shows
him. But there's legal liability associated with
the word security. So he wounds an unarmed security
guard on the other side and then spins around
and starts shooting at Greg Stevens. And Greg's
done an initial movement and fires another volley
at this guy and puts him down. Accurate shots,
closing a little bit, maybe 30 feet. Now, the
bad guy on the other side is grabbing at his
throat, the one that's already been shot on the
passenger side. Greg Stevens, for all he knew,
the guy had an igniter. They both had backpacks,
but he had bombs. The car could have been loaded
with bombs. The guy might be setting off an igniter.
Greg spins around and puts several more rounds
in the bad guy's head. And then the one on the
driver's side, he said he's still kind of moving
and pushing up. He could hit an igniter any minute.
He said, I've got two rounds left. The city's
paying for the ammo. Game over. Tack mag change.
Check 360. Who would not want to shake that man's
hand? I got a photograph of him. Just Google
Officer Greg Stevens and Obama and see the photograph
of President Obama putting the Congressional
Medal of Valor around this man's neck. Which
one are you going to be? And what I tell people
is there was a time. In the 1970s, when the World
War II veterans were still running the show,
right up to the 1970s, the World War II vets
were our sheriffs and our chiefs, our sergeants
and our captains. And they honored the roly -poly
little guy on the pistol team more than anyone
else. They all had a pistol team, and they honored
pistol marksmanship above all else. Officer Greg
Stephenson manifest that. We'll grow old and
we'll grow fat. and we can still be one hell
of a shot. And they honored the roly -poly old
guy on the pistol team above all else because
they knew the one skill that mattered was pistol
marksmanship. We'll all grow old. We may put
on some weight, but we can still be a hell of
a shot. And so I tell my cops, you've got to
seek a hobby that reinforces your survival skills.
And nurturing your pistol marksmanship is a great
thing to do. This generation is not big on competition.
But look at the martial arts as a model. 20 million
Americans are the martial arts. We love the martial
arts. Striving for the next belt. Striving for
a standard. Only a couple thousand actively compete.
So there's the martial art of the firearm. Hojutsu.
H -O -J -U -T -S -U. And I'm a huge fan. Hojutsu
.com. It's a hotel. oscar juliet uniform tango
sierra uniform dot com but youtube .com and uh
that'll take you to uh uh to uh the showcase
jeff hall's the founder uh of 10 degree black
belt that martial art of the firearm jeff hall
is the most decorated alaska state trooper he's
a vietnam ranger right at the end of the war
one of only about 30 grandmaster pistol shots
on the planet high -level martial artists in
many different fields, and he's resurrected the
martial art of the firearm. I thought I was good.
I'm a gun -side grad. I'm a front -side grad.
I do a little competitive shooting. I like to
shoot. I showed up on one of the three -day weekends
and barely qualified ground belt. You shoot for
your belt. I worked for two years to make my
black belt. I knew what shots I was missing.
There's one caught at the black belt level. great
god has got three weapons retention moves built
into it transition from armed to unarmed fire
and the actual course of fire for qualification
virtues is amazing it's all target under time
uh jujitsu practitioners have now had over well
over 20 gun fights with right at a 99 percent
hit ratio of over 20 gun fights an amazing amazing
record So for those who want to push that envelope,
practice and establish standards. But it's hard
to, you know, if we're not actively competing.
And that's a good thing to do. But if we're not
actively competing, you know, how do you constantly
improve? And the idea of the firearm as a martial
art and striving for that I felt. Look at the
jujitsu dojos that are going in across America.
Get one of those three -day weekends. You'd be
glad it did. It's one of the best things that
ever happened to me. I think that. It was put
here for just such a time as this. The idea of
the martial art of the firearm is just the time
is right. If you're a martial artist, if you
have a dojo, you want to push that next standard,
the next growth industry, I think you'll see
a lot of success with putting together a jujitsu
dojo and pushing that off. Yeah, I think that
sounds like a great idea. And I want to go back
to something you mentioned before, though, Officer
Stevens. 37 years of not drawing his weapon.
However, 37 years of preparing for the day that
he was going to draw his weapon. And I think
that's something that's lost a little bit, certainly
in my profession. And I know in my department,
even right now, there's that mentality of, oh,
it's never happened, so we're fine, instead of
the reverse psychology, which is every day it
hasn't happened, we're getting closer to the
day it does. You know, I... I tell all my audiences
that sometimes the greatest love is not to sacrifice
your life, but to live a life of sacrifice. You
know, we're not all called to sacrifice our life
for our nation, but to live a life of sacrifice.
And Greg Stevens led a life of sacrifice. He
prepared for a lifetime for that day. He took
his own time and his own money. Every time the
range was open to Emil Wibble, he was there.
Be ashamed. As a law enforcement officer, have
the range open, ammo available, not be there.
And most departments have got some kind of program
where periodically the range is open, ammo is
available, the range guys are there. It's like,
you know, having the golf pro available and the
golf course open for free. You know, when my
classes, we mock golfers a lot, but it's all
in fun. But we can all look at how we spend our
money, how we spend our time to better prepare
for the time. You know, 9 -11 was the first,
attack on american soil with the external war
you know when if you think of 9 11 as an act
of war it's the first attack on american soil
since pearl harbor and we live in a world where
that attack could happen again anywhere you know
i i i think that what we might see is daycare
masters and school masters in some dark morning
it will destroy our way of life and cripple our
economy but the answer to that is is to prepare
for it and you know The last time we thought
we might truly be invaded in the darkest hours
of the Cold War, in the early 1960s, when we
truly thought the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Russians
were building, they could come across the border
in Europe any day. We really didn't have the
institutions in place to stop them. The darkest
days of the Cold War, the President of the United
States, John F. Kennedy, said today, and he said,
my own home state of Massachusetts. We had the
Minutemen, citizens who were prepared to rise
up at a minute's notice to fight for liberty.
He said, today we need a nation of Minutemen,
citizens who believe it's their daily sacrifice
to prepare for the moment of truth. You know,
we've got two kids' books. One kid's book is
the Sheepdog Kids book. These are on Amazon .com.
It would really make a great impact. But the
first Sheepdog Kids book is mostly first responders
and military. And people say, well, we've got
a civilian sheepdog. So the next one is Why Mommy
Carries a Gun. And it's a great book. We found
the most awesome artist. We talk about all the
things. If anybody in the family is going to
carry a gun, here's what you want the kids to
know. You know, stop. You find a gun, stop. Don't
touch. Get an adult. The four universal gun safety
laws, responsible ownership and securing. the
Second Amendment. And we've got a famous sheepdog
throughout history. And in the book, gunfighters
in America, you know, you got Harriet Tubman,
who always carried a gun, you know, the great
Underground Railroad engineer, they call her
Moses, because she led so many people to freedom.
And then she was an armed scout in the Civil
War, you know, and she always carried a gun.
The wanted poster said, looks harmless, but carries
a pistol when she was running the Underground
Railroad. We've got Eleanor Roosevelt. As the
president's wife during World War II, she insisted
on driving herself and going on her own. And
the Secret Service will at least carry a gun.
And she carried a gun. She trained with it. When
FDR died, she went back to New York, got a pistol,
carried a gun for the rest of her life. You know,
there's sheepdogs that we've got in our book.
But we also got that quote from John F. Kennedy.
And we got a series of quotes in the back about
training and about preparing. and about needing
a nation a new nation of minute men who were
prepared to sacrifice john f kennedy made them
sacrifice for their nation he says the cause
of liberty the cause of america cannot succeed
with any less effort so it's time for patriots
to rise up to train themselves to prepare themselves
uh the enemy could strike any time uh you know
uh state of kansas passed a law authorizing all
first responders to carry. Firefighters, EMS,
I'm told across America, on most fire trucks
in most states, in most ambulances in most states,
there's a gun somewhere. But in Kansas, they've
led the way. I think you can see a lot of other
states that are doing it. That's an Israeli model,
that the first responders are all responsible,
first and foremost, for their own security. Firefighters
in Israel are armed. BMS in Israel are armed.
We all are the first line of defense for ourselves.
So just that whole idea of pushing that envelope,
empowering our citizens, empowering ourselves,
it's not enough just to have the gun. You've
got to train with it. You've got to seek that
training. You've got to strive to be better.
Are you going to be Officer Greg Stephens? Are
you going to be standing there with the president
putting a medal around your neck? Are you going
to be that unknown officer who... who didn't
go in in the post -nightclub? Are you going to
be that cop who didn't go in at Parkland, who
was fired and will live the rest of your life
in hell, labeled a coward, you know, and with
the blood of those children on your hands? Are
you going to have the confidence to sacrifice,
sacrifice your time, sacrifice your money, train,
and prepare for your moment of truth? Amen to
that. Absolutely. And then I want to just kind
of add to the gun concept as well. I did the
Sheepdog Response with Tim Kennedy. The other
eye opener is, yes, you own a gun and you have
to be able to do the training with that. But
then the other element, your physical fitness,
your health, your awareness of the situation
and your ability to end an incident without a
gun. If it's something that's just a physical
altercation where your only option isn't to kill
because you're morbidly obese and letting the
pharmaceutical companies having all your money
instead of putting it into protecting your family.
Yeah. And, you know, the thing about Jiu Jitsu,
again, is you're expected to have an unarmed
art. It can be Krav Maga. It can be, you know,
any of the oriental martial arts. It can be Stema.
You're expected to have a parallel at every level.
And so you can it's integrated into that. But,
you know, and it's easy to say right now, I'm
61 years old, but still in very good condition.
But it gets harder and harder every year. You
know, it's easy to say that while we're young,
but when you're 60, when you're 70, I think you'll
find it gets harder and harder. And so we want
to stay in good shape as long as we possibly
physically can. But we're all human, you know,
and we'll all hit that time when we're too old
to take an ass whooping, and the only option
is to take that gun out and defend yourself with
it. But if we can possibly avoid that, if we
can stay in shape, I'm... i love the martial
arts i love every aspect of it but you know again
we we don't want to be this this physical fitness
snob that uh that says you know up right up to
the end of your life you'll be able to you know
fight one -on -one we're all human we all grow
old it's this balancing act just like you know
you know you don't want to be the gun snob that
says you know if you're not willing to do all
this training you can't have a gun but on the
other hand if you do have that gun then you have
that that drive to get better with it and the
same thing with physical fitness every one of
us should our first priority should be to keep
our body in the best possible shape and yet we're
all human we all have various diseases and things
that as the years go by that way upon us and
uh and one thing we can all do right up to that
to the end is is be able to be a people fishing
with that gun we'll grow old and we may grow
fat but we can still be a hell of a shot Absolutely.
All right. Well, I just want to ask some some
wrap up questions. But before I do that, there
was one question I asked you. I remember I haven't
got it written down, but I remember asking you
a year ago. And I just want to see if you still
have the same answer. So I asked with you being
so well versed in war in general, do you see.
an end to war any time? And your answer back
then was maybe in 100 years. Now, has that changed
at all, or is it pretty much the same? I think
there may be cause to see an end to war. You
know, with the end of the Cold War, a guy wrote
a very famous essay about the end of war and
the end of history, that nations with McDonald's
never go to war with other nations with McDonald's.
Well, the missing ingredient, though, is that
whole impoverished Islamic belt around the world
that needs to be integrated into modern civilization
one way or the other. And what we're really doing
is we're facing a battle, and that needs to be
resolved. And I think faith in the constant path
forward of civilization, that we can very well
see it happen. The other thing we've got to get
control of is... It's a horrendous, harmful effect
of violent visual imagery inflicted upon children.
So until we integrate this impoverished and isolationist
portion of the Islamic world and fully integrate
them into modern civilization, and until we get
a grip on this new technology of violent visual
imagery inflicted upon children, there is no
hope. But I can think of two... conditions that
uh that can be met and and thereby would give
us pretty good hope that we may do that that's
to to integrate this new technology of violent
visual imagery and how harmful it is on children
at every level and then to uh to recognize the
fact that there's a portion of our world civilization
the one way or the other that has to be dragged
kicking and screaming into uh into the modern
world and that is this this how how are we as
a civilized world gonna gonna deal with islam
around the world and their integration. And the
ultimate answer to that is yet to be determined.
But there's still cause to hope that 100 years
from now, we could see our great grandchildren
living in the kind of world that at the end of
the Cold War, people thought was coming. And
they always have hope, you know, that for an
ever better world and ever better civilization.
And we sure need to get it under control. There's
so many threats to their existence of our...
of our planet our species that need to be brought
under control yeah it's just it's crazy when
you look fundamentally that most people on the
on the planet just want to you know see their
kids grow up and have food in their stomach and
a roof over their head and we all share that
same common goal and it's the you know these
crazy ideologies that end up creating so many
conflicts and and genocide around the world and
you know that comes back to my book on killing
You know, On Killing now has sold a half a million
copies worldwide. It's translated in at least
eight languages. Marine Corps Commandant's required
reading. And, you know, for your listeners, in
a nutshell, On Killing, people point some horrible
crime. Oh, that proves we're all killers. No,
that's an outlier. There's more of those outliers,
you know, and that should concern us. But you
explain to me. The 99 plus percent of our civilization
will go a lifetime, never kill anybody and never
try to. Explain that. Divorce, infidelity, layoff,
traffic accidents. And well over 99 percent of
our citizens will a lifetime, never kill anybody
and never try to. Explain that. You know, that's
that's on killing that resistance to killing.
And then how we have to over healthy people have
sociopaths don't have that resistance. Healthy
people have to be trained to kill. And oh, by
the way, the violent video games are doing the
exact same thing to our children that modern
training does to military and law enforcement
to empower killing. And that's really on killing
in a nutshell. You know, don't focus on that
one in a million horrible crime. Focus on the
vast, vast majority of our lifetime and never
kill anybody, never try to. You know, that should
give us great hope. To understand that the vast
majority of citizens, like you say, just want
to lead a quiet life, be left alone and able
to raise their families and have their children
have a safe environment to thrive and raise their
grandchildren. All of us want to bounce our grandbabies
and our great grandbabies on our knee and in
our old age in a safe and secure world. Absolutely.
Now, it just reminded me of one thing I was going
to talk about as well very quickly. Have you
heard of a company called C3 Pathways? I don't
think so. Rooms are very painful. Okay, so it's
run by a retired fire chief, Bill Goffrey, and
I had him on the show. I actually went down to
his facility because he's local here near Orlando.
But it kind of ties in very well because he's
using computer, basically video game software,
to train for active intruder events. There we
go. Got it in about 60 minutes. But what he does
is he creates, it's initially just on a screen,
but he gave me an introduction to his virtual
reality version. I actually went in and played
a police officer and cleared a room. But you
bring in all these agencies. So you have dispatch,
you have police officers, you have fire, you
have all the elements that you would need in
one of these events. And they run live time these
scenes. And even to the point where I come across
you and you've been shot, it's real time. I have
to do my interventions and you will real time
bleed out if I don't do it properly. Yeah. So
I just want to bring it around with demonizing,
you know, and demonizing in a good way some of
these awful. murder, you know, torture elements
of video games and movies, that there are so
many great applications if we change focus. Right.
And here we are using it responsibly with adults,
you know, in a disciplined structure. And I mean,
this is a great tool with enormous benefit for
our civilization, like, you know, like automobiles.
And I accept, you know, we've got to say this
is something children cannot do. that this uh
you know adults can find great value in automobiles
but you're i'm sorry you know your 10 year old
can't drive a car period never allowed under
no circumstance so uh that's a great example
of the positive impact of when our civilization
finally completely digest this this new technology
yeah exactly it's this great hope once again
great cause for hope yes yeah and a great great
training tool i was amazed that uh it's funny
though the The way it unfolds, he's being used
all over the country, but we've still got to
persuade our local agency here to actually use
him, which is insanity again. But that's another
podcast in itself. But anyway, well, let me ask
some of the closing questions that I asked you
last time. We'll see if you have any new stuff
for us. So the first one is always, is there
a book that you love to recommend to people?
I'll have all your books, again, listed on the
webpage for this episode. But is there anything
you've come across in the last year that you've
raved about? Yeah, and I appreciate Mitch and
my stuff. You know, Assassination Generation
is a defining book right now. It's just all of
these questions. It's a culmination of a lifetime
of effort. The book, For Our Times, my book,
Assassination Generation, off the top of my head,
you know, there's a couple others that are valuable
for military, valuable for this. But across that
broad spectrum, nothing recent that I can throw
out there to your listeners. I really think these
two children's books that we've done, Sheepdog
Kid's book, and then Why Mommy Carries a Gun,
and Assassination Generation, I feel real good
about bringing those together for this point
in time. By the way, I've got a book coming out.
I've got a great co -author doing most of the
work on it. It's called The Bulletproof Marriage.
And it's very scripturally based. It's straight
out of scripture, so it's very Christian, biblical
based. It's 90 Days to Enrich Your Marriage for
Military and First Responders. It's coming out
from Broad Street, which is a major Christian
publisher in a couple of months. I just finished
off the little forward piece to it just the other
night. I got the manuscript to the publisher.
It's called Bulletproof Marriage. And it represents
one of the great needs in this community is to
guide our relationships. within that first responder
community. And of course, the spiritual side
of that whole world is another angle. If you're
inclined that way, if you're pointed that way,
that can be of value to you. Brilliant. Well,
I look forward to that coming out and I'll make
sure we list that in the webpage as well. All
right. What about a movie? It's funny because
we've been talking about movies a lot. A good
positive movie and or documentary? You know,
for adults or mature teens, the movie 12 Strong.
It was an amazingly valuable movie. It deserved.
We live in a crazy media times. I think Saving
Private Ryan today would be the same as 12 Strong.
The media is just not talking about it. There's
this dearth of information on it. It's based
on the book Horse Soldiers about the first special
forces team in Afghanistan. Just tremendously
well done. You know, and there's a scene in there
where you see the Taliban murdering a teacher.
And in real life, the Taliban would murder the
teacher and the children. In 2009, we had 600
reported attacks on schools of school children
in Afghanistan. Take that incident and think
about it 600 times a year. And that's what the
enemy does when they really want to shred your
way of life. Their Sunday punch to hold them
back, what they have not done to Europe, what
they have not done to North America, what they
did 600 times a year in Afghanistan is to hit
those. daycares and elementary schools and to
understand the threat and to understand the amazing
courage and the opening days of that war in afghanistan
the best movie i've seen in a very long time
12 strong you need to catch it yeah i've seen
it already actually i had um fahim fazli he's
uh afghani uh born and then he came over to the
u .s and was so enamored with the opportunity
that america gave him um because he'd actually
gone to hollywood he'd become an actor but he
became an interpreter for the marines and went
back out to afghanistan for several years to
to help the communication between the afghanis
and and the soldiers so another amazing story
but he was actually in 12 strong as well he was
one of the horsemen that they rode with isn't
that amazing yeah yeah incredible so but that's
you know that's an american you know that's someone
who comes here from a different country and understands
that they want to be part of making this country
truly great not just waving the flag and you
know yes And there's a great example of a book
they made me think of. It's a book, The Horse
Soldiers. I know there's a very humorous scene
in the book that they could have put in the movie.
It would have taken five seconds. It was a great
sight gag. But, you know, these special forces
guys are these, you know, they're great athletes.
They're scuba divers. They're skydivers. They're
just enormously balanced in incredible physical
condition. And here they are riding horses. Some
of them for like the first time in their life.
And so they're on this huge switchback coming
down a mountain. You know, you zigzag down this
mountain and this big zigzag. And at the back
of the formation, one of these special forces
holders horse slips off the side of the mountain.
And the horse is skittering down this mountain
and the special forces are just hanging on, you
know, like. You know, like the man from Snowy
River. You know, you see a lot of that in that
old movie. And all of a sudden, he finds himself
at the front of the formation. And, you know,
it's just an incredible feat of skill and balance
to stay on top of the horse. And the horse is
kind of shaking. And the guy is acting like,
yeah, I meant to do that. And he talks very quickly
to the commander who's at the front. And the
warlord says something, and they turn to the
interpreter and say, oh. What did he say? He
said, you are the bravest man and the finest
horseman in all of Afghanistan. That would have
been just as great a sight gag. It could have
taken 10 seconds. But the book, The Horse Soldiers,
is a great insight into how a small group of
individuals can make an enormous impact on the
path of our civilization. Yeah. And just when
you were talking about the schools, I want to
add this as well. When you hear that kind of,
anti -war anti -soldier sentiment when you hear
and i've had many of the special ops guys on
here when when you talk about we hear them saying
when you watch uh you know acid getting thrown
on a child by someone and you know you're not
going to let that happen or someone's about to
you know you start to put yourself in that human
perspective whatever the politics were that initiate
that particular conflict when these men and women
are on the ground seeing these horrendous acts
towards other humans especially children and
women you start to reprogram your mind as to
well what would you do of course you would stop
that as well All right, so the next question
is, is there a person that you would recommend
to come on this show as a guest to talk to the
first responders of the world? Yeah, I think
Jeff Hall, the founder of Hojitsu, would be a
great guy. That's the first one that comes to
mind to me right now, given the events and the
things we're talking about and the idea of...
First responders taking that next step up. You
know, you're right. First responders see these
horrible things. And they say, I'm not going
to let this happen in my life. I'm not going
to let this happen to my loved ones. And there's
this, you know, tying in with what you just said.
There's a dynamic in first responders wanting
to be sheepdogs in their own lives and protect
their loved ones from these horrible things that
they see. I put Jeff Hall at the top of that
list. Shoot me an email. I'll get you in touch
with him. That would be fantastic. Thank you.
Actually, I think Lauren Christensen would be
another great guest as well. Lauren is just one
of the most amazing human beings. You know, Martial
Arts Hall of Fame, high -level martial artist,
a writing fiend. He's closing on 50 books, a
Vietnam veteran, a retired police officer. He's
one of the most amazing renaissance men of our
time. Yeah, Lauren would be a great guy. I'll
be greedy and ask you for two then. Thank you
so much. All right, so the very last question
before we talk about where we can find all of
your work is what do you do to decompress? You
know what? I tell you, I like to shoot. I've
got a range in my basement. It's nothing fancy.
I'm only home one or two nights a week. I like
to shoot. My wife and I, we get on a cabin on
a river, and I like to canoe. She does a little
photography. Uh, we just turned 61. We broke
our piggy bank and I got an RV and a little RV
in with the dog. You know, I like being around
the dog. Uh, when I'm on the road, I, um, you
know, when I get only, you know, my, my, you
know, all that, you shoot the gator closest to
you, you know, and nothing immediately gonna,
that needs to be dealt with. When I'm on the
road, I like to break out a video game. I like,
I like the civilization games. I like that type
of very in -depth, very long, intricate. interwoven
game with steady progress. It's enormously rewarding
and relaxing for me. When I look at my Fitbit,
if I'm on the plane, I'd say, look at there.
My heart rate went right down to where it is
when I'm sleeping. What was I doing? I was playing
Civ. I was on the plane playing Civilization.
Very relaxing. The first shooter games, your
heart rate goes up, your blood pressure goes
up. There's a totally different kind of game
there. So when I'm on the road, what can I do?
I read. I'm a big science fiction fan, and I
do a little, like I said, I do little video games
where I get a chance. When I'm at home, I like
to shoot and spend time with my family and my
dogs, and life is good and rich and full. Excellent.
Well, thank you so much for taking your time
to reach out to us, not only the first time,
but the second time. I mean, I feel kind of greedy
with getting you on, but... Just such a wealth
of knowledge. So where can people, after listening
to this, find more about you, find the books,
and any other project that you've got out there?
Our website's killology .com. And we link it
to a lot of other stuff. We do our Sheepdog House
of Worship security team training every Saturday
at sheepdogseminars .com. But really, the primary
website for everything we've got, with the links
to all the other directions, is... Killology
.com. My son is a genius, a master gunsmith.
He's got eight patents to his name. And his gun
business is Sheepdogknifeandgun .com. Sheepdogknifeandgun
.com. We just got that website redone and up
to a nice level. We've got some patented firearm
safety innovations that are really making some
great headway. That would be something worthy
of looking at as well. Fantastic. Well, again,
I want to thank you so much. A, it's an honor
even to speak to you because you're revered in
so many fields, especially the military. But
like so many people that I've had here, I see
these philosophy and these teachings that are
so pertinent to the profession that I'm in, whether
it's police and fire and EMS, and to have someone
like you talking about it. Adding more clout
to it. As you said, my whole point of this podcast
is to get people pissed off and to start changing
things themselves. Well, the same back to you,
my brother. It's an honor to be on board with
you. Thank you for what you do. To you and all
your listeners out there, believe in who you
are. Believe in what you do. Our civilization
desperately needs what you have to give.