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Let’s Have a Real Conversation About Solutions for Gun Violence

October 03, 2017
Staff

WRITER

People are responding to the shooting in Las Vegas this week with understandable emotion and anger. But their outrage toward gun owners is misplaced – “gun control” will simply mean that powerful people and criminals have access to guns, not the average American.

While taking over for Glenn this week, Doc criticized the hypocrisy of gun control advocates who would never give up their own guns or armed guards.

“What they’re saying is they don’t want you to have a gun,” he said.

Doc listed some real solutions to fight gun violence and help every American.

  • Better mental health services available to more people

  • A freer, better economy

  • More guns in the right hands

  • Less government oppression and more opportunity

  • A society that values human life

Do you agree with his list?

This article provided courtesy of TheBlaze.

DOC: Doc Thompson in for Glenn. I'll be with you tomorrow, then Pat Gray will be pinch-hitting on Thursday and Friday as well.

Coming up immediately following this broadcast, on TheBlaze Radio Network, Pat Gray is going to be covering the Alex Jones video from yesterday.

KRIS: He connected the dots. I'm so glad Alex Jones is in our lives.

DOC: I cannot fully do it justice.

KRIS: No.

DOC: I didn't talk about it. I didn't discuss it this morning on our broadcast, on The Morning Blaze because I knew I couldn't do it justice like Pat Gray.

KRIS: Oh, he's so good at it.

DOC: Pat Gray has covered the crazy that is Alex Jones for a while. Even on this program, you know if you're a regular listener of this broadcast that Glenn and Pat and Stu and Jeffy have covered this quite a bit.

Alex offered up some insight to the shooting in Las Vegas.

KRIS: Brilliant.

DOC: And by brilliant, we mean.

KRIS: Amazing.

DOC: And by amazing, we mean crazy.

KRIS: Crazy.

(laughter)

DOC: Even for Alex Jones, this is like crazy. I'm telling you, I'm telling you, here's what's going on!

KRIS: Does it have to do with gay frogs?

DOC: No. But he throws out -- and I'm not going to spoil it for you. He connects a lot of dots --

KAL: It's all about the flicker rate!

(laughter)

DOC: He connects the dots and even brings in a dot that is not a dot, it's so far off the chart. But you're like, okay. All right. There we go.

Pat will cover that today. TheBlazeRadio.com for more information. All right. We'll get some calls. 888-727-BECK. 888-727-BECK. We'll also get to some tweets and some comments from the Facebook as well.

KRIS: Oh, sorry. Yeah. Fell asleep on that one. You have this one. This is interesting, Doc, because you've been very critical of the left.

DOC: I was like, when specifically -- you mean beginning in 1995?

KRIS: The last two hours.

DOC: Oh, yeah. That's true.

KRIS: Very critical. You're mocking them.

DOC: Have I been mocking them?

KRIS: Very mockfully.

DOC: Really? Really?

KRIS: Yes. Yes.

DOC: Okay.

KRIS: Ron brings a good question. And actually I support Ron right here.

DOC: Okay. Let me have it.

KRIS: I've heard a lot of mocking others for offering solutions.

DOC: Yes. Yes. And I'm glad you bring this up. Because we bring up solutions all the time.

KRIS: But none from you. See. You all about blah, blah, blah, blah. What about you?

DOC: Okay. Yes, I'm about the blah, blah, blah, blah. I don't appreciate the high-pitch blah, blah, blah, blah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much.

KRIS: Yeah.

DOC: Yes, I have solutions to this thing. Are you talking about the shooting in Vegas?

KRIS: Yeah. What's the solution?

DOC: The mass murder. How do we keep that from happening?

KRIS: You have Vicente Fox, the former president of Mexico saying gun control.

DOC: Right.

KRIS: You got Jimmy saying, hey, we need to push more gun control.

DOC: Right.

KRIS: So what is your solution, Doc Thompson, go.

DOC: I will offer those solutions now. Let me first say, as far as gun control goes, the reason that is not a solution is because, first of all, when has gun control ever been inclusive of the government or the people in power? Chuck Schumer talks about gun control, and he owns a gun. Lots of these politicians talk about gun control. They own guns. Lots of the political left, the Hollywood, the limousine liberals out there, they talk about gun control. They own guns.

Many of them have security that own guns. They hire security forces with guns. So they're being hypocritical. What they're saying is they don't want you to have a gun.

Gun control has been used to keep you, the masses from having guns. The history of the world is one of oppression. That's the truth.

The history of the world is about some people having power. Now, they can set it up as a dictatorship, an oligarchy, a theocracy, any of these. They can even set it up as a seeming democracy or even a republic. That can happen as well. Because what happens -- well, even an oligarchy, those people in power, whether it's power through money, influence, or an outright dictatorship, theocracy or any of these, they still have access to guns. And they want access to keep you, the masses, from having them. That's the history of the world.

Part of the genius of America was that we would do the best to stave that off, to keep that from happening. And we have, for the most part. There are still those influential powers. Obviously, there's corrupt members of the government and some people that are powerful because of the money and influence they have.

But that's the reason I fight so hard for the Second Amendment and others. Is because as long as it's there, the playing field is level.

Gun control only controls the guns from some. And it's not just the criminals. Of course, the criminals are still going to have them. But also those people in power.

So my solutions, Kris Cruz and --

KRIS: I still don't hear any solutions. Ron.

DOC: -- other guy. Ron. Number one, as far as this guy is concerned and what happened in Vegas, better mental health screenings, better mental health services. And you know where we would get and have about right mental health services? In a redesigned health care system, where we would have access to more medicine. Where all people would have access to medicine because it would be cheap and it would be plentiful. And how do we get that? Less government, less rules, less regulation, and what we have never had when it comes to medicine in America, and that is a free market. The closest we've come is in the infancy of medicine in America, when a person could go to their family doctor out in the country and pay them in -- in a chicken or, you know, a couple dozen eggs or something like that. Or a couple of quarts of honey for fixing their kid. That's about the closest we've come.

A free market health care system would offer better mental health care services. It would be plentiful. It would be cheap.

What else would stop this from happening? A better economy. One of the reasons people go crazy and do these things, one of the trigger points is a bad economy. How do they radicalize people in the extreme -- extremist Muslim countries? How do they radicalize people in America? In the West to join their crazy exploits?

By telling them, how come you don't have more? You're just as good as everybody else. Join us. We'll make you strong. Look, you don't even have anything.

I mean, Kal, your family is from Egypt. The Middle East, a lot of poor people. A lot of poverty.

KAL: Yeah, primarily poor.

DOC: And because of that, a lack of education, a lack of money. People are easy to be preyed upon, to be radicalized, because they say, you don't have.

A better economy and better education through a better economy and less government rules and regulations and a free market, provides for more money and opportunity for people.

A secure border. How else have people attacked people in America? By bringing guns or bad people to America, when we don't know who they are or what they have.

Secure the border. What else would help? More guns! Yeah, sounds kind of counterintuitive. More guns likely wouldn't have happened -- or excuse me, wouldn't have helped with what happened on Sunday night in Las Vegas. Because the guy was in a room. More guns on the street from the average person probably wouldn't be able to stop him, but a lot of these other cases -- Adam Lanza. How about Cho at Virginia Tech? How about the movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, with James Holmes? These were all gun-free zones. They were all gun-free zones.

There were no guns, except for the illegally gotten guns from those criminals who had nefarious intent.

More guns in those places would have at least given the opportunity for people to stop the rampage of those knuckleheads.

By the way, most casinos are gun-free zones. Not that he shot people in the casino. But he was in a hotel. Did it stop him from taking the gun in the hotel?

No. So more guns is something. What also helped? A less oppressive government. What do I mean by that?

I mean with a less oppressive government, I get to make more decisions for myself. I get to have more money and keep more money. To make my life and my family better. More education. More opportunity. And a government that will stop pissing me off by telling me how I'm supposed to raise my children and run my life. Because that is less of a trigger.

And finally, when it comes to some of this stuff, better police work. I'm not criticizing the cops. Cops do a pretty good job. But their hands are tied quite often because of police unions and the political left telling them that they're bad and they're just indiscriminately shooting people. Or even worse, purposefully shooting people and killing them because of their race. Better police work and more respect.

And finally, more appreciation for life. And we get that by recognizing our higher power and being more thankful of what we have. Human life is cheap in most parts of the world. Human life doesn't count for much. They don't value it. It just doesn't matter.

We've always valued it in America because we have that higher power and different covenants with God. We help each other.

The history of America is people getting together for barn buildings, to help their neighbor. In times of crisis, look at what happened with Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma and even now with Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, Americans help people. Americans help the world. America has saved the world countless time from bad guys.

So more faith and more appreciation for what we have. And a little more respect from our neighbors. These things will all stop some of this violence from happening. But you've got to remember one thing: Nothing will stop all of it. There will always be some bad.

We can tamp most of it down. We can get rid of most of it with the things I just mentioned. But there will always be some. And at those times, we have to fight against the natural knee-jerk reaction from a lot of the people we've discussed today on the air, to say, "Something must be done," as they wring their hands and call for more oppression.

Government oppression has led to more bad than guns. So when those rare cases under the system I just discussed, happen, we have to make sure we don't join with those people who are obviously upset, emotional because of the circumstances and say, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold it. Mourn. Be upset. Get the information. Get closure. All of that's therapy. That's fine. But stop right now, before you make a knee-jerk reaction, based on your emotions."

As long as the imminent threat is gone, hold it. Wait. Stop. We can discuss this. We can move ahead. Because most of what you want to do is a slippery slope that's going to bring about a lot more bad.

There's a story at TheBlaze.com. I have had my differences with Bill O'Reilly over the years. Seems like a nice guy. I think I met him one time. I don't agree with a lot of what Bill says. And I agree with some of what he says. But I've had differences. But one of the smartest things Bill has said is a story that's posted at TheBlaze.com. Bill O'Reilly said of this tragedy -- and I'm paraphrasing, but this is the price of freedom. Some bad will always happen in a free society. But good people will keep a lot of it from happening. And when it does, we'll make sure that there are the best circumstances in that bad.

This is the price for freedom. If you're willing to give up some freedom because of some bad, you will end up with neither safety and security, nor freedom. To paraphrase Ben Franklin. Back in a minute with more on the Glenn Beck Program.

Patriotic uprising—Why 90% say Old Glory isn’t just another flag

Anna Moneymaker / Staff | Getty Images

In a nation where the Stars and Stripes symbolize the blood-soaked sacrifices of our heroes, President Trump's executive order to crack down on flag desecration amid violent protests has ignited fierce debate. But in a recent poll, Glenn asked the tough question: Can Trump protect the Flag without TRAMPLING free speech? Glenn asked, and you answered—thousands weighed in on this pressing clash between free speech and sacred symbols.

The results paint a picture of resounding distrust toward institutional leniency. A staggering 85% of respondents support banning the burning of American flags when it incites violence or disturbs the peace, a bold rejection of the chaos we've seen from George Floyd riots to pro-Palestinian torchings. Meanwhile, 90% insist that protections for burning other flags—like Pride or foreign banners—should not be treated the same as Old Glory under the First Amendment, exposing the hypocrisy in equating our nation's emblem with fleeting symbols. And 82% believe the Supreme Court's Texas v. Johnson ruling, shielding flag burning as "symbolic speech," should not stand without revision—can the official story survive such resounding doubt from everyday Americans weary of government inaction?

Your verdict sends a thunderous message: In this divided era, the flag demands defense against those who exploit freedoms to sow disorder, without trampling the liberties it represents. It's a catastrophic failure of the establishment to ignore this groundswell.

Want to make your voice heard? Check out more polls HERE.

Labor Day EXPOSED: The Marxist roots you weren’t told about

JOSEPH PREZIOSO / Contributor | Getty Images

During your time off this holiday, remember the man who started it: Peter J. McGuire, a racist Marxist who co-founded America’s first socialist party.

Labor Day didn’t begin as a noble tribute to American workers. It began as a negotiation with ideological terrorists.

In the late 1800s, factory and mine conditions were brutal. Workers endured 12-to-15-hour days, often seven days a week, in filthy, dangerous environments. Wages were low, injuries went uncompensated, and benefits didn’t exist. Out of desperation, Americans turned to labor unions. Basic protections had to be fought for because none were guaranteed.

Labor Day wasn’t born out of gratitude. It was a political payoff to Marxist radicals who set trains ablaze and threatened national stability.

That era marked a seismic shift — much like today. The Industrial Revolution, like our current digital and political upheaval, left millions behind. And wherever people get left behind, Marxists see an opening.

A revolutionary wedge

This was Marxism’s moment.

Economic suffering created fertile ground for revolutionary agitation. Marxists, socialists, and anarchists stepped in to stoke class resentment. Their goal was to turn the downtrodden into a revolutionary class, tear down the existing system, and redistribute wealth by force.

Among the most influential agitators was Peter J. McGuire, a devout Irish Marxist from New York. In 1874, he co-founded the Social Democratic Workingmens Party of North America, the first Marxist political party in the United States. He was also a vice president of the American Federation of Labor, which would become the most powerful union in America.

McGuire’s mission wasn’t hidden. He wanted to transform the U.S. into a socialist nation through labor unions.

That mission soon found a useful symbol.

In the 1880s, labor leaders in Toronto invited McGuire to attend their annual labor festival. Inspired, he returned to New York and launched a similar parade on Sept. 5 — chosen because it fell halfway between Independence Day and Thanksgiving.

The first parade drew over 30,000 marchers who skipped work to hear speeches about eight-hour workdays and the alleged promise of Marxism. The parade caught on across the country.

Negotiating with radicals

By 1894, Labor Day had been adopted by 30 states. But the federal government had yet to make it a national holiday. A major strike changed everything.

In Pullman, Illinois, home of the Pullman railroad car company, tensions exploded. The economy tanked. George Pullman laid off hundreds of workers and slashed wages for those who remained — yet refused to lower the rent on company-owned homes.

That injustice opened the door for Marxist agitators to mobilize.

Sympathetic railroad workers joined the strike. Riots broke out. Hundreds of railcars were torched. Mail service was disrupted. The nation’s rail system ground to a halt.

President Grover Cleveland — under pressure in a midterm election year — panicked. He sent 12,000 federal troops to Chicago. Two strikers were killed in the resulting clashes.

With the crisis spiraling and Democrats desperate to avoid political fallout, Cleveland struck a deal. Within six days of breaking the strike, Congress rushed through legislation making Labor Day a federal holiday.

It was the first of many concessions Democrats would make to organized labor in exchange for political power.

What we really celebrated

Labor Day wasn’t born out of gratitude. It was a political payoff to Marxist radicals who set trains ablaze and threatened national stability.

Kean Collection / Staff | Getty Images

What we celebrated was a Canadian idea, brought to America by the founder of the American Socialist Party, endorsed by racially exclusionary unions, and made law by a president and Congress eager to save face.

It was the first of many bones thrown by the Democratic Party to union power brokers. And it marked the beginning of a long, costly compromise with ideologues who wanted to dismantle the American way of life — from the inside out.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Durham annex EXPOSES Soros, Pentagon ties to Deep State machine

ullstein bild Dtl. / Contributor | Getty Images

The Durham annex and ODNI report documents expose a vast network of funders and fixers — from Soros’ Open Society Foundations to the Pentagon.

In a column earlier this month, I argued the deep state is no longer deniable, thanks to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. I outlined the structural design of the deep state as revealed by two recent declassifications: Gabbard’s ODNI report and the Durham annex released by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).

These documents expose a transnational apparatus of intelligence agencies, media platforms, think tanks, and NGOs operating as a parallel government.

The deep state is funded by elite donors, shielded by bureaucracies, and perpetuated by operatives who drift between public office and private influence without accountability.

But institutions are only part of the story. This web of influence is made possible by people — and by money. This follow-up to the first piece traces the key operatives and financial networks fueling the deep state’s most consequential manipulations, including the Trump-Russia collusion hoax.

Architects and operatives

At the top of the intelligence pyramid sits John Brennan, President Obama’s CIA director and one of the principal architects of the manipulated 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment. James Clapper, who served as director of national intelligence, signed off on that same ICA and later joined 50 other former officials in concluding the Hunter Biden laptop had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation” ahead of the 2020 election. The timing, once again, served a political objective.

James Comey, then FBI director, presided over Crossfire Hurricane. According to the Durham annex, he also allowed the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server to collapse after it became entangled with “sensitive intelligence” revealing her plan to tie President Donald Trump to Russia.

That plan, as documented in the annex, originated with Hillary Clinton herself and was personally pushed by President Obama. Her campaign, through law firm Perkins Coie, hired Fusion GPS, which commissioned the now-debunked Steele dossier — a document used to justify surveillance warrants on Trump associates.

Several individuals orbiting the Clinton operation have remained influential. Jake Sullivan, who served as President Biden’s national security adviser, was a foreign policy aide to Clinton during her 2016 campaign. He was named in 2021 as a figure involved in circulating the collusion narrative, and his presence in successive Democratic administrations suggests institutional continuity.

Andrew McCabe, then the FBI’s deputy director, approved the use of FISA warrants derived from unverified sources. His connection to the internal “insurance policy” discussion — described in a 2016 text by FBI official Peter Strzok to colleague Lisa Page — underscores the Bureau’s political posture during that election cycle.

The list of political enablers is long but revealing:

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who, as a former representative from California, chaired the House Intelligence Committee at the time and publicly promoted the collusion narrative while having access to intelligence that contradicted it.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), both members of the “Gang of Eight” with oversight of intelligence operations, advanced the same narrative despite receiving classified briefings.

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, exchanged encrypted text messages with a Russian lobbyist in efforts to speak with Christopher Steele.

These were not passive recipients of flawed intelligence. They were participants in its amplification.

The funding networks behind the machine

The deep state’s operations are not possible without financing — much of it indirect, routed through a nexus of private foundations, quasi-governmental entities, and federal agencies.

George Soros’ Open Society Foundations appear throughout the Durham annex. In one instance, Open Society Foundations documents were intercepted by foreign intelligence and used to track coordination between NGOs and the Clinton campaign’s anti-Trump strategy.

This system was not designed for transparency but for control.

Soros has also been a principal funder of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, which ran a project during the Trump administration called the Moscow Project, dedicated to promoting the Russia collusion narrative.

The Tides Foundation and Arabella Advisors both specialize in “dark money” donor-advised funds that obscure the source and destination of political funding. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was the biggest donor to the Arabella Advisors by far, which routed $127 million through Arabella’s network in 2020 alone and nearly $500 million in total.

The MacArthur Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation also financed many of the think tanks named in the Durham annex, including the Council on Foreign Relations.

Federal funding pipelines

Parallel to the private networks are government-funded influence operations, often justified under the guise of “democracy promotion” or counter-disinformation initiatives.

USAID directed $270 million to Soros-affiliated organizations for overseas “democracy” programs, a significant portion of which has reverberated back into domestic influence campaigns.

The State Department funds the National Endowment for Democracy, a quasi-governmental organization with a $315 million annual budget and ties to narrative engineering projects.

The Department of Homeland Security underwrote entities involved in online censorship programs targeting American citizens.

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

The Pentagon, from 2020 to 2024, awarded over $2.4 trillion to private contractors — many with domestic intelligence capabilities. It also directed $1.4 billion to select think tanks since 2019.

According to public records compiled by DataRepublican, these tax-funded flows often support the very actors shaping U.S. political discourse and global perception campaigns.

Not just domestic — but global

What these disclosures confirm is that the deep state is not a theory. It is a documented structure — funded by elite donors, shielded by bureaucracies, and perpetuated by operatives who drift between public office and private influence without accountability.

This system was not designed for transparency but for control. It launders narratives, neutralizes opposition, and overrides democratic will by leveraging the very institutions meant to protect it.

With the Durham annex and the ODNI report, we now see the network's architecture and its actors — names, agencies, funding trails — all laid bare. What remains is the task of dismantling it before its next iteration takes shape.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

The truth behind ‘defense’: How America was rebranded for war

PAUL J. RICHARDS / Staff | Getty Images

Donald Trump emphasizes peace through strength, reminding the world that the United States is willing to fight to win. That’s beyond ‘defense.’

President Donald Trump made headlines this week by signaling a rebrand of the Defense Department — restoring its original name, the Department of War.

At first, I was skeptical. “Defense” suggests restraint, a principle I consider vital to U.S. foreign policy. “War” suggests aggression. But for the first 158 years of the republic, that was the honest name: the Department of War.

A Department of War recognizes the truth: The military exists to fight and, if necessary, to win decisively.

The founders never intended a permanent standing army. When conflict came — the Revolution, the War of 1812, the trenches of France, the beaches of Normandy — the nation called men to arms, fought, and then sent them home. Each campaign was temporary, targeted, and necessary.

From ‘war’ to ‘military-industrial complex’

Everything changed in 1947. President Harry Truman — facing the new reality of nuclear weapons, global tension, and two world wars within 20 years — established a full-time military and rebranded the Department of War as the Department of Defense. Americans resisted; we had never wanted a permanent army. But Truman convinced the country it was necessary.

Was the name change an early form of political correctness? A way to soften America’s image as a global aggressor? Or was it simply practical? Regardless, the move created a permanent, professional military. But it also set the stage for something Truman’s successor, President Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower, famously warned about: the military-industrial complex.

Ike, the five-star general who commanded Allied forces in World War II and stormed Normandy, delivered a harrowing warning during his farewell address: The military-industrial complex would grow powerful. Left unchecked, it could influence policy and push the nation toward unnecessary wars.

And that’s exactly what happened. The Department of Defense, with its full-time and permanent army, began spending like there was no tomorrow. Weapons were developed, deployed, and sometimes used simply to justify their existence.

Peace through strength

When Donald Trump said this week, “I don’t want to be defense only. We want defense, but we want offense too,” some people freaked out. They called him a warmonger. He isn’t. Trump is channeling a principle older than him: peace through strength. Ronald Reagan preached it; Trump is taking it a step further.

Just this week, Trump also suggested limiting nuclear missiles — hardly the considerations of a warmonger — echoing Reagan, who wanted to remove missiles from silos while keeping them deployable on planes.

The seemingly contradictory move of Trump calling for a Department of War sends a clear message: He wants Americans to recognize that our military exists not just for defense, but to project power when necessary.

Trump has pointed to something critically important: The best way to prevent war is to have a leader who knows exactly who he is and what he will do. Trump signals strength, deterrence, and resolve. You want to negotiate? Great. You don’t? Then we’ll finish the fight decisively.

That’s why the world listens to us. That’s why nations come to the table — not because Trump is reckless, but because he means what he says and says what he means. Peace under weakness invites aggression. Peace under strength commands respect.

Trump is the most anti-war president we’ve had since Jimmy Carter. But unlike Carter, Trump isn’t weak. Carter’s indecision emboldened enemies and made the world less safe. Trump’s strength makes the country stronger. He believes in peace as much as any president. But he knows peace requires readiness for war.

Names matter

When we think of “defense,” we imagine cybersecurity, spy programs, and missile shields. But when we think of “war,” we recall its harsh reality: death, destruction, and national survival. Trump is reminding us what the Department of Defense is really for: war. Not nation-building, not diplomacy disguised as military action, not endless training missions. War — full stop.

Chip Somodevilla / Staff | Getty Images

Names matter. Words matter. They shape identity and character. A Department of Defense implies passivity, a posture of reaction. A Department of War recognizes the truth: The military exists to fight and, if necessary, to win decisively.

So yes, I’ve changed my mind. I’m for the rebranding to the Department of War. It shows strength to the world. It reminds Americans, internally and externally, of the reality we face. The Department of Defense can no longer be a euphemism. Our military exists for war — not without deterrence, but not without strength either. And we need to stop deluding ourselves.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.