Senator Rand Paul was a featured guest Wednesday on the ultra-liberal daytime talk show The View. When the topic of gun control came up, the senator held his ground, informing one co-host about the difference between automatic and semiautomatic weapons.
"I just don't understand why anyone objects to getting rid of automatic weapons," Whoopi Goldberg, a handgun owner, exclaimed.
Goldberg’s belief that automatic weapons are available to the public exposes her ignorance on the issue. Like most liberals, her ignorance doesn’t preclude outrage or advocating for the regulation of guns.
Senator Paul kindly explained that automatic weapons are actually banned, and what the The View co-host must have meant was "semiautomatic" weapons.
Glenn and his co-hosts on The Glenn Beck Program had a bit of fun discussing the exchange.
"I would love to know from Whoopi Goldberg, I would love to know what kind of gun she has," Glenn posed. "Because unless it's a revolver, she owns a semiautomatic weapon."
Watch the exchange between Senator Paul and Whoopi Goldberg beginning around 4:28.
Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it might contain errors.
GLENN: Rand Paul and Whoopi Goldberg had a fascinating conversation about guns that we have to get to. In fact, we're going to start there, right now.
(music)
GLENN: Let's start with some good news on Rand Paul who is -- you know, is in my top three guys of who I could vote for. I could vote for -- and actually if Rand Paul was doing better in polls, I would say he's my number two guy. But as far as I am, full disclosure, policy-wise, it's Cruz, Rubio -- sorry -- Cruz, Paul, and then policy-wise, a distant third is Rubio. And the rest of them I don't think I could consider.
If I think of electability and policy be, it would be Cruz, Rubio, Paul. And I would have put Paul up there earlier if he hadn't just kind of fizzled out. I mean, he has -- unfortunately, he's nowhere to be seen. And I think this is a real tragedy.
But he is good. He is really good when he sits down for an interview and is going -- and you're arguing with him. Listen to him with Whoopi Goldberg on The View.
WHOOPI: I don't understand why anyone objects to getting rid of automatic weapons. Automatic weapons, they're not for hunting. They do nothing. They're not --
PAT: As if the Second Amendment was made for hunting.
GLENN: Right.
STU: It's a hunting clause. They call it the hunting --
GLENN: Sports and hunting. There wasn't bowling as we know it, at the time. Otherwise, that would have been the Third Amendment. Your right to bowl and go to bowling allies on Tuesday nights for our league shall not be infringed.
(laughter)
PAT: It's a pretty historically famous story, when James Madison, Gouverneur Morris, and Thomas Jefferson were sitting around. I think it was Gouverneur's pad one night.
GLENN: Pad?
PAT: And Tom said, "Jim, I don't know. We need something for hunters." And Gouv said, "Well, what about -- what if we let them have a gun so they can go out and shoot some deer from time to time?"
GLENN: You know what, let's make that the First Amendment. And that's when Jefferson knocked on the door and said, "No, you got to make it the second one. I have something about speech or something that I really want to do --
STU: It the right to pornography. We got to get that as the first one.
GLENN: That's right. There's going to be a guy in a golden wheelchair at some point that wants to show, you know, mama's jugs, and we got to get that in first place.
JEFFY: Amen.
(laughter)
PAT: And we call that the Jeffy Amendment.
JEFFY: Thank you.
GLENN: So hang on. Before we go back. Whoopi is now talking about automatic weapons.
PAT: Automatic weapons.
GLENN: And we already have a ban on automatic weapons.
WHOOPI: -- are only there to kill. And you notice that a lot of things that happen, happen with automatic weapons.
GLENN: Can you stop for a second? She's so stupid.
PAT: Oh, my gosh.
GLENN: Okay. So, first of all --
PAT: I just can't.
GLENN: -- the dumbest sentence of her mouth is not what you're thinking. I think the dumbest sentence of her mouth was, "Automatic weapons are only there to kill."
PAT: AR-15s, of course, the semiautomatic weapons are there to heal and as planters --
GLENN: Right.
STU: And handguns are known as the massage weapon.
(laughter)
GLENN: I mean, that's what a gun is for, to kill.
PAT: They're only there to kill. Stupid.
WHOOPI: -- why don't we say, "You know, who really needs to have one, other than people who are at war?"
(applause)
PAT: And then the lemming audience, every time, this drives me out of my mind. Oh, jeez.
JEFFY: Oh.
GLENN: You have to understand, I've been on that set. I was on -- I'm on that set. They have applause signs, and they have people to get the audience to applaud.
PAT: Jeez.
STU: Right.
GLENN: So they're trained to be lemmings.
STU: But even if they were lemmings completely and they just had no thought and were clapping, you could be excused maybe for not knowing the difference between automatic and semiautomatic weapons or whatever.
JEFFY: Yes.
STU: But when you're a commentator making a point on the air about how smart you are about guns and how dumb the other argument is, shouldn't you be mildly aware that what you're saying is completely wrong?
PAT: Yes, mildly.
JEFFY: And she always makes a big point of being a gun owner.
PAT: She does.
GLENN: And I'd like to know what kind of gun she has. Does she have a revolver? Does she have a revolver, or does she have a Glock? Because if she has a Glock or a Sig, she owns a semiautomatic weapon. Unless she has a revolver or a flintlock, I'll give her Cap 'N Ball as well, she owns a semiautomatic.
PAT: Wow. And nobody needs that. That's the other thing. Progressives always do something you don't need. Nobody needs this. Nobody needs more money. Nobody needs certain things.
Well, who are you to tell me what I need and what I don't need?
GLENN: I would love to know from Whoopi Goldberg -- I would love to know what kind of gun she has. Because unless it's a revolver, she owns a semiautomatic weapon.
PAT: Yeah.
RAND: Truly automatic weapons, we don't have. You know, we banned truly automatic weapons I think in 193- --
WHOOPI: Yeah, but we still got a lot of them, Rand.
RAND: Well, what we have are not automatic weapons. We have semiautomatics --
GLENN: Hold on just a second. Stop. How many automatic weapons do we -- how many fully automatic weapons, just ballpark it, Stu. You had this number for me a couple days ago.
STU: Yes. I actually have the same article up. Give me a second, and I can find it.
GLENN: Truly automatic weapons.
STU: Something like 160,000.
PAT: 160,000 or something like that.
GLENN: I was amazed at the number. I own two fully automatic weapons. And I was amazed at the number -- how small the number is. 160,000 fully automatic weapons.
STU: We should point out none of the attacks --
PAT: None. Since 1934. There hasn't been one since 1934.
GLENN: You're kidding me.
PAT: There's been no automatic weapon fire killing Americans in America since about -- well, since 1933. Then they banned them in '34.
STU: Right. There are some. There is 160,000 that still exits.
PAT: They still exist. They're just not killing anybody.
STU: They were banned in 1986.
GLENN: Hang on just a second. Do you know why? Do you know why? Because to buy them, first of all, the government has inflated their price so to buy a used -- a gun that costs you $3,000 can cost you anywhere from ten to $30,000, depending on how much everybody is freaked out by Barack Obama. Okay. So they've inflated the price, and they've made it almost impossible for you to buy or to use. You have to -- the reason why you could have 160,000 of these weapons out is because the people who have them are really, really responsible. You're going into a store, you're not going in and buying a -- I mean, even if you're a drug dealer and you have $10,000 to lay down on this weapon, you're not buying it.
STU: And you're going through so many background -- it's so ridiculous to try -- one of the first things they did with this was you had to have the head of your local police force sign a document saying it was okay for you to have an automatic weapon.
GLENN: I'm -- I'm not sure --
STU: I'm not sure if that still applies, but that's one of the first --
GLENN: I'm not sure, but I think at least in Connecticut, maybe in Texas too, I think -- something makes me remember that I think I had to let the police department know that I had an automatic weapon.
STU: Oh, yeah. And there's all sorts of requirements like that. Drug dealers are not going in and getting legal automatic weapons. That's absolutely implausible.
GLENN: No.
JEFFY: And they're not letting the local police chief know they have it either.
STU: No.
GLENN: Right. And I will tell you this. I think your stat -- you should check with the border. I think with all the drug cartels. Because they're carrying now automatic weapons on our side of the border with the drug cartels.
PAT: Yeah, the drug cartels rarely kill people in America though. They kidnap them and take them to Mexico. But rarely do they kill their potential customers. It usually doesn't happen.
GLENN: Okay. Good one.
RAND: In a fairly fast sequence, but you can't pull the trigger and then come like a machine gun. Those are -- those are no longer out there.
WHOOPI: Okay. But you know what I'm saying.
RAND: Yeah. This is --
GLENN: No, I don't.
STU: Yes, we do know what you're saying. What you're saying is you don't know anything about the issue you're talking about.
PAT: What you're saying is stupid. Yeah.
STU: You're announcing it to everyone who does know something about the issue you're talking about.
PAT: And thank you for doing that.
GLENN: I wish he would have asked her, what kind of handgun do you have? Because that would have sealed it that she has no idea. Whoopi, what kind of handgun do you have? I don't know. It's a --
STU: It's a little black one.
GLENN: Does it have a revolver? Do you spin the chamber out, and do you put the six little bullets in and put it back in?
No, I put it in with the clip. I put the clip in the bottom of it. Okay. All right. Then you have a semiautomatic. I thought no one needed one of those.
STU: Guaranteed that's what she has.
GLENN: Guarantee it.
PAT: Oh, that would have shut it down completely.
GLENN: Shut it down completely.
RAND: People do hunt with them. And do shooting. And sport shooting and target shooting with these guns. And come to Kentucky, I'll introduce you to -- there are a lot of people who like and enjoy this as a sport. But the other problem is if we're going to take away ownership of specific types of guns, you really have to modify -- something that big has to either be legislation or even possibly a constitutional amendment. We can't allow one individual to do it, and I'll give you an example why.
Let's say we had a terrible president that you didn't like from another party, and that president said, "The View, oh, you should hear the things they're saying on The View. We should limit their speech. We should register the journalists, and then we should have an approval board." And, you know, that's silly. We would all be opposed to that. But that's the danger of letting a president make the rules.
PAT: Undeterred, here's how Whoopi finishes.
WHOOPI: Sorry, man. There's no reason anybody needs to have an automatic weapon. I'm sorry. I get everything else --
(applause)
PAT: She's just told they've been banned.
GLENN: She doesn't have any idea.
PAT: No idea.
GLENN: These people are so stupid. So stupid.
STU: And it's not just Whoopi Goldberg, by the way. Michael Bloomberg, the guy who is donating tens of millions of dollars to organizations to stop you having a gun has made the same mistake on television.
GLENN: No, he has.
STU: And several journalists have done it as well.
GLENN: And I'd like to ask Michael Bloomberg what kind of gun he carries because he has a carry permit. What kind of gun does Michael Bloomberg carry? Does he carry a six shooter?
PAT: No way. You know he doesn't.
STU: He has one with a bayonet on it.
GLENN: Hang on just a second. I've got to open up the powder tray and put some powder into it. Nobody needs more than one shot.
STU: You don't have to know every detail about guns. But if you're telling people that they have to restrict certain types of guns, you need to know what types they are. You need to understand whether they're already banned and have been since the 1930s. That's kind of a major issue. And you need to have a basic handle on that before you start running your mouth.
Featured Image: Screenshot from The View