Welcome to part 5 of a 6 part series on the very important topic of gun safety. As one of the most pressing issues The United States is facing today, Robert suggests that a solid starting point comes from taking a close look and realizing that a very large percentage of gun owners purchase them to protect their families. When we can begin to see the protective nature l we can find a way to create more peace and meaningful conversations. Robert expresses the need to set strong boundaries for those individuals that are fostering violence and increasing the dangers of guns. Those that have violated laws need to be jailed. We need not get lost in hating them but rather, they need to be taken out of circulation. This means empowering people with guns to step into the responsibility of being protectors (with close coordination with police/National Guard) but also empowering our police departments so they are ready. Stay tuned as Robert will be addressing police reform in future episodes.
There is also a responsibility on the part of the gun owners to recognize the unintended consequences that they don’t see of the few enraged, mentally disturbed, impulsive, and untrained segments of their population. Trust is earned. Would you sit on a plane if you knew the pilot had no training or seek treatment from a doctor who did not go to medical school? These are minimum requirements. Why would we treat gun owners any differently? Robert offers the psychological perspective that until we have the best people trained to verify the credibility of gun owners there will be continued fear.
These subject matters are inherently polarizing and can be overwhelming. It is easy to want to close down, however, Robert urges, we must continue to open up the best we can to face our collective fear, anxiety, and paranoia and then respond with balanced actions. Our democracy likely depends on it. The point is not to hit the guilt button but to hit the wake-up button and create a shift. It is not about taking away guns. It is about lessening the chance of death. See that if you have common sense, you will be able to keep your guns. Understand that they are valid for safety, but they are not valid in careless hands.
Mentioned in this episode
The Global Bridge Foundation
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Transcript
Announcer: (00:00)
The Missing Conversation, Episode 62.
Robert : (00:04)
Would you sit on a plane if you knew your pilot had no training, didn’t have a license to fly? When you drive someone, won’t you ask your passengers to put on their seat belts? Would you seek treatment from a doctor who didn’t train with the right doctors and to learn their specialty? These are the minimum requirements to drive, to fly, to treat others. Why would we treat gun owners any differently?
Announcer: (00:28)
On this podcast, we will propose critical new strategies to address world issues, including homelessness, immigration, amongst several others, and making a connection to how our individual psychology contributes and can help transform the dangers that we face. We will break from traditional thinking, as we look at our challenges from a freer and more independent point of view. Your host, Robert Strock, has had 45 years of experience as a psychotherapist, author, and humanitarian and has developed a unique approach to communication, contemplation and inquiry. Born from working on his own challenges.
Robert : (01:07)
So again, very warm and spirited welcome to The Missing Conversation, where we generally address the most pressing issues that the world’s facing. However, today we’re gonna be zeroing in more on the issues that our country is facing as it relates to the division and the hatred that’s going on from one side to another, as well as how we can optimize a chance of gun safety. We’re trying to clarify that for very large percentage of us, we have a side of us that is well intentioned, and we have a side of us that is not as awake and is more self-centered and that’s the norm. And so for those of us that are there, whether we’re a gun owner or not a gun owner, we need to make peace with each other. As long as it’s not a gun owner that really has intention to kill, or isn’t a real danger there,
Robert : (02:07)
we need to find a way to have and create more peace and more conversations and not have it be so difficult to have a dinner with our family relatives. But people that are lost and following president Trump in the extreme way, or have been complicit in the crimes that it’s clear that he’s committed, they don’t fall in this relative category, not the extreme ends. So we’re talking about some percentage of the country that’s dominant, and I’m not gonna try to measure how many people are the Trump followers. I believe that we strongly need to set boundaries to have those individuals that are fostering violence that are increasing the dangers of guns. I believe that those that have violated laws need to be jailed, need to be boundaried, and we need to not get lost in hating them. We need to get them out of circulation.
Robert : (03:06)
So strength, yes; hatred, no. Gun safety, yes. Seeing people’s intentions that are disagreeing with our basic ideas politically, yes. Looking deeply enough to see the more innocent part, the more good-natured part of people that we disagree with in terms of our ideas. So we’re gonna be fostering both issues as we explore this today. So I’d like to start off by introducing Dave, my partner at the Global Bridge Foundation, more recently, someone who, uh, has resisted me in a very expansive way, a way that we haven’t done before on our show, which I’m extremely grateful for. And also, a 50 year plus closest friend.
Dave: (03:59)
Thank you. I do aim to please, but I’m glad you’re happy. Uh, these are subject matters that are, no other way to say it, they, they do inherently have polarization that that can be overwhelming and can close one down. And so, uh, I look forward to opening up as best I can and, uh, continuing on.
Robert : (04:26)
So, one of the things we really haven’t touched upon is the importance of empowering the police department to have a division that’s always ready with the appropriate weaponry and power. So that what happened in Texas can never happen again. Every police department has to be empowered to have the weaponry, to fight fire with fire. Our fear of the small percentage of corrupt police officers might create a resistance to that saying, oh my God, now they’re gonna use AR-15s to go after, uh, certain races or certain populations they don’t like. I don’t believe that. I believe that this has to be a privilege of people that would have the greatest trust from the police chief, that they would use it with the greatest care. We’re gonna be doing another episode on police reform that will be tying into this, but we need to empower our police department to have the type of weaponry AR 15s and plus to be able to quickly wipe out someone that’s gonna be wiping out innocent civilians.
Robert : (05:47)
And we need to see our fears as not interrupting our sensibility that, oh my God, you’re gonna give the police more power. Yes. We’re gonna give the police that are trusted more power. I’ll give you a preview into the police reform so that perhaps you’ll see a broader perspective, which is the police having a confidential rating system with each other that would go into a, a box that would not be, people would not be named. They couldn’t be busted and they would be ranking their fellow officers on a 1 to 10 scale of prejudice. Now, I believe there’s a lot more detail of that. So please don’t attack that before you hear that is just the beginning point that if we had something like that, where we had the most trusted officers segmented and they being the only ones that could use this weaponry, then I believe that would be, we would be strengthening our democracy.
Robert : (06:51)
We’d be strengthening our police departments. We’d be able to allow the police officers that are utterly innocent and are really servants to be distinguished from those that aren’t. And in this police restructuring or this police reform, there would be an identification of people that are trustworthy from those that aren’t. And there would be probations. There would be all kinds of ways that we would be able to make the public safer without having to jeopardize people being busted. I don’t see any way other than increasing the power of the police departments to make us safer. And in order to do that, we have to do what we’ve been talking about, which is not let our fears or our paranoia stop us from being sensible, where there is a potential for real strength. Switching to gun owners, gun owners need to recognize the unintended consequences that they don’t see of the few enraged, mentally disturbed, impulsive, or untrained segments of their population.
Robert : (08:04)
They need to develop a compassion for why people are afraid and why people are even paranoid. They need to assume goodwill also because they see publicize, almost daily, not who they are, but people who are carrying like they’re carrying weaponry, that seems ludicrous, and they need to distinguish themselves and say, I am doing it for protection. I would never be at risk. And so they need to develop this greater capacity to create an America that has a democracy that’s based on strength and compassion, not on hatred. They need to be supporters. I’m asking you to be supporters of a, a deep process of being trained, volunteering, showing your courage, having psychological testing and seeing the necessity for it. It’s the only way it can happen. There needs to be not a blind trust. There needs to be an earned trust.
Robert : (09:20)
So I would ask you: would you sit on a plane if you knew your pilot had no training, didn’t have a license to fly? When you drive someone, won’t you ask your passengers to put on their seat belts or to be present to help train teenagers in your family to drive, rather than just letting them drive? Would you seek treatment from a doctor who didn’t train with the right doctors to train and to learn their specialty? These are the minimum requirements to drive, to fly, to treat others. Why would we treat gun owners any differently? Gun rights advocates must seek similar conditions to bear arms, in my eyes, even if it’s not required. Put yourself in a different group, encourage other people to be in a different group where you’ve been trained and certified. Come up with your own certifications to differentiate yourself from people that might be careless gun owners. This is not the primary purpose of what we’re talking about, but hopefully you bear a responsibility because you’re in a group that has the rare killer, and you need to earn the trust of the community to lessen the hatred, to turn down the heat, to not be so reactive to the hatred that might be coming toward you
Robert : (10:42)
so you can be a peacemaker as well. We’re gonna need to come up with trainers that would be qualified trainers, who would be the smartest and best gun practitioners that also either have a team of psychological trained people to give tests and to give interviews. And those of you that have guns, mustn’t see this as a punishment, but see this as a safety guard for you. So you’re differentiated from the people that are violators. Don’t you wanna protect yourself? Don’t you wanna understand why people are a bit paranoid when they see it on their TV on a regular basis? Don’t you see that you wanna vote in people that were gonna vote for background checks, they’re gonna vote for raising the ages, they’re gonna vote for training, are gonna vote for even psychological testing? Don’t you wanna differentiate yourself? It’s hard to imagine that this won’t serve the gun owner, you the gun owner.
Robert : (11:50)
If that’s you, if you make movements toward creating a core of training, maybe you’ll become a trainer. Maybe you’ll join a training organization. Maybe you’ll be part of setting, setting up laws. Maybe you’ll be in Congress and you’ll make this a requirement, a bare minimum for all gun owners. But part of what’s going to do this is if we turn the heat down, that doesn’t mean turn the strength down. We need to increase the strength and lessen the hatred. People that are getting away with murder literally, can’t happen anymore. We need to be stronger with enforcing the people that have violated the laws and have killed people. We need to be much stronger. We need to use the National Guard and the police for training. We need to use the best psychologically trained people to be verifying people’s credibility. Until we do that until we do that as a country, we are going to have more fear and more hatred. No matter what I or anybody else does from a psychological level, there is going to be understandable fear, just like Dave said, he doesn’t wanna travel to another state.
Robert : (13:10)
There are going to be the majority of people that are gonna feel that way and are gonna be paranoid and angry, or have a healthy sense of fear, and have a healthy sense of anxiety, and are going to be prone to be impulsive, maybe themselves. So for your own benefit, you need to be advocates not against the training. And that means even if you vote on a poll, that means you can’t elect these people. You’ve gotta see the flaws of supporting Trump when he’s going to claim again and again, things that are lies and are gonna create more hatred in the country, more hatred against you. You can’t join them without having a form of self-destructiveness. You’re gonna be clumped in. You’ve gotta differentiate someone who is completely anti-democracy from someone who’s a Republican, a real Republican.
Robert : (14:10)
Why would you wanna geta gun urgently? Or why would you wanna support anyone who wants to get a gun urgently? Why wouldn’t you wanna support these things? And the, the answer is you probably wouldn’t, but you’re voting in blindly, people who are not respectful of the truth of democracy who are out to kill democracy. This is a wake-up call to you. This is a challenge to you. This is a way for you to respect yourself and for you to be able to have more dinners with your family, because you’re a standout, you’re taking a stand of the necessity for voting for somebody that’s not going to increase gun violence. So you can have your gun. Of course, you’re gonna be cloned with the violent, if you’re voting for people like Trump, or I don’t know if there’s anyone like Trump.
Dave: (15:09)
To be clear. I think if that were the simple choice, these politicians would not be voted in. However, the voters in most of those districts are inundated with a viewpoint. The viewpoint being the slippery slope: They’re after your guns. First step yes, background checks, but you know, I know you may like background checks, but you gotta know what’s coming next, and what’s coming next, and what’s coming next. And by the time we’re done here, you are, you are unarmed and unable to protect yourself. And there’s lots of money and lots of ads and lots of fear being generated that they will not be left being able to protect themselves in the way they believe they’re entitled to.
Robert : (15:58)
That is beautifully said. And the thing I really wanna highlight is the fear and the paranoia. And I think there’s paranoia, not only fear. The paranoia of the slippery slope. I agree with you is why people are electing people that are not in alignment completely with their views, but it makes them feel safer they’re gonna have their guns. And that need for safety to have their guns is coming from a paranoia they’re gonna lose their guns. And those people who are feeling that need to separate out paranoia from fear: your guns are not gonna be taken away. And if they were gonna be taken away, they’re gonna be taken away because of Trump. They’re gonna be taken away because they’re being used for violence. They’re gonna be taken away because you’re not differentiating between corruption, lies, anti-democracy, and acting like it’s part of democracy,
Robert : (16:53)
it’s part of your freedom. Freedom in this case is another word for tyranny, for violence, for corruption, for domination, for killing, fear and killing unite. Here, you need to see you are responsible. If you voted for Trump, you are responsible. You are a part of the responsibility for why there’s a great lie about the elections. You are responsible for the violence that occurred that killed police officers. You bear a responsibility, and the point is not to create guilt. The point is to create awareness and a shift you can’t afford to vote for ’em; the price is too deep. It is the greatest risk to your guns. You will be clumped in if you vote for Trump and especially your family, everybody that knows people that know that you’re voting for him, in spite of the fact that he’s perpetuated the greatest lie in the history of our country. For your safety, you need to not vote for him, or if he doesn’t come in the next person that’s gonna spread the same conspiracy about no election that doesn’t vote for me can be trusted.
Robert : (18:06)
Do you not see that this isn’t a minor flaw? This isn’t a personality issue? This is a core character disorder. This is the killing of life. This is a Hitlerian kind of core personality. This is someone that’s going to kill. This is someone that’s bent on killing democracy. Don’t rationalize. I invite you to fight with me in private. Call me as, as much time as I have. If you’ll call me with some degree of openness–I don’t wanna just hear ranting and one sidedness–but if you’ll have a real dialogue, I wanna have a real dialogue. Trump is creating violence in this country and it’s obvious. And if that violence continues to be created and he, or people like him, continue to be voted in the anti-gun lobby is going to be much stronger. You’re voting to take away your guns because your guns are being misused by him.
Robert : (19:08)
See it, see if you can even argue with me. I don’t know how you can argue with me. You’re being clumped in with a killer. You’re being clumped in with a liar. You’re being clumped in with somebody that hates democracy. You’re being clumped in with someone who simply wants to control the world. He wants to do whatever it takes for him to be in power. He believes he’s smarter than the generals. He’s smarter than the congressmen, smarter than the justice department. He should own everything. I don’t have enough time to go into all the areas that he feels entitled. If you voted for him, you are co-responsible. Again, don’t let it hit the guilt button, let it heal. Hit the wake-up button for gun safety. You need to not vote for Trump or the people that are supporting him. This is a wake-up call. You must do this for your ability to maintain guns or else
Robert : (20:06)
what you’re setting up is a potential revolution. He has no respect for the truth. It is utterly obvious. He is being busted left, right and center. The only question is whether he is behind bars. And you know, as well as I do, most of you, maybe there’s a small percentage that don’t know, but there’s a large percentage of you that are voting for him that believes that he’s anti-democracy. But because you wanna protect your guns and you think that’s gonna make you safe, you’re voting for ’em. It’s not gonna make you safe. Listen to what the argument is. It’s going to endanger you and your guns. It’s crucial that you hear this and that you have this debate inside yourself. Is it really gonna give me guns? No. All the people that are anti-gun are more anti-gun. Even the laws finally are starting to be passed.
Robert : (21:01)
Your day is gonna be done. The key to you losing your guns is Trump. I know, and we all know that 70 to 80% of you agree that there should be a waiting period, there should be background checks, should be some kind of age raising, should be some kind of training. Most of you agree with that. So why are you electing these officials? And the reason is because of a primitive need for safety. That is paranoia, and you don’t see it as paranoia, you have it mislabeled as safety, or at least he agrees with this. You are going to be able to keep your guns unless guns equals violence, which is where we’ve been heading. Please debate this inside yourself and with people in your community. Don’t elect people that are committed to kill democracy and to kill the truth. So see how absurd it is when you notice: Of course, you wouldn’t go to a doctor that didn’t have training,
Robert : (22:06)
of course you would wanna have a pilot have a pilot’s license and have training; you wouldn’t go on a plane with a pilot that didn’t have training. Why would a gun owner that can kill, why would they not have to have some kind of training? Why would you not want to volunteer? If you are a gun owner to be of help to differentiate yourself from this black and white thinking. It is your responsibility and if you are not someone that is in this group, it is your responsibility to not be hateful and to try to communicate and not to give up, not to throw up your hands, not to either flee or fight, but to be strong as hell. And the key place that we need to see is that for every other area that has authority or the power to kill whether it’s safety belts or whether it’s driver’s licenses or whether it’s pilot’s licenses, we would never allow it.
Robert : (23:06)
See the commonality. It’s not about taking away your guns. It’s about lessening the chance for death. See that if you have common sense you will be able to keep your guns, see that they are valid for safety, but they’re not valid in careless hands. And if you support careless hands, you are threatening yourself. I hope this message goes in very deeply to those of you that are in this place, or know people in this place or can talk to people that are in this place. This is the conversation that is missing. This is what we need to spread throughout our country. Without hatred, with strength, with clarity, these people that are in these positions are unwittingly, unconsciously jeopardizing the very rights that they’re fighting for. I hope that this message inspires you to go out and have conversations. If you’re one that is in this situation to vote for different people that are going to ensure the likelihood that you will be able to have the guns that make sense, and that you will consider the possibility of declaring yourself as a protector.
Robert : (24:29)
I am a protector. I want to, I hope I’ll be accepted. Hopefully you’ll feel insecure that you won’t be accepted because the criteria will have to be strict. Hopefully this creates a fear because you’ll want it so badly. And I know there are a lot of you that will want it so badly. And those of you that don’t know that I want you to know that. So hopefully the goodwill of all the people that are not on that severe end of Trumpland will move toward voting for people that will ensure the rights of sensible gun laws, sensible gun ownership, sensible gun preconditions, to have the ownership and will dignify you in your goodwill. But if you don’t fight for your goodwill, how would you expect everyone else to fight for it? If you don’t show some of your positive intention, how do you expect others to see it in you? And if we don’t ask those to reveal themselves in that way, and we withdraw, how do we expect that they’re just gonna wake up on their own. We all bear a responsibility in this. We all need to be involved. Thank you very much for your attention.
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