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To read more about Episode 244, visit the main episode page.
Michael Moore [00:00:15] Hello. This is Rumble with Michael Moore, and I’m Michael Moore and I welcome you. More than two and a half weeks ago on the day of the Texas children’s massacre, I got a call. I was asked to come on one of the cable news networks the night of the shooting in Uvalde. And I began by saying I have not accepted any request to be on TV after these mass shootings for over a decade because between the time I made “Bowling for Columbine” in 2002 and 2012 when Sandy Hook occurred, you know, I was the ‘go-to guy’ because I made “Bowling for Columbine.” They’d have me on and I would say what I had to usually say about guns in this country and what we needed to do. And I remember, I think it was on Larry King or whoever was sitting in for him there in 2012 and I just said, “don’t call me again. No disrespect, but I’m not going to be part of the new normal, which is to bring on Michael Moore to talk about this latest mass shooting.” I stayed away from it for ten years and then they called me on the day of Uvalde and I said yes, I would come on because, you know, making a film that I thought would end this didn’t work, did it? And then staying off TV, that didn’t work. So I went on and I said something and I thought for a few seconds before I said it, but I thought no this is… I have to be completely honest with people. And so I said it. I said something I know that the Democratic Party leaders and others don’t want… They don’t want this said. But I believe a majority of the Americans are thinking it. A lot of people are afraid to say it. I’m going to say it. I said it that night live on television. They couldn’t edit it out. Not that they would. They gave me a lot of space there to say what I had to say. The other networks have not invited me back on. Probably afraid that I would say it again. And, you know, there are certain people, well-meaning people, trying to fix this gun problem and they don’t want me to say this. They’re afraid it will hurt their reelection chances in November. I think the opposite. I think that being bold, and being brave, and saying what the majority of Americans are thinking is exactly what the Democrats should be doing. And so I said it.
Michael Moore [00:03:03] It caused quite a controversy. It led to, yesterday, right-wing Congressman Jim Jordan taking to the floor of the House of Representatives in the United States Capitol building. He stood there at the microphone and dropped my name into what he had to say as he spoke against any form of gun control. I’m sorry. That’s my job, I guess, right? I’m not going to not say the things that you and I are thinking and need to be said. And it’s sad that I end up being the only one saying it. I don’t care. Throughout history, somebody had to go first. And I realize going first is not easy. I accept that. I’ve accepted that for a long time, I’m not complaining about it. But I wanted to speak to all of you directly about it, because I’m going to say it again right here on this podcast, and then we’re going to talk about it. And I’m going to ask you to say it with me as we do the work that needs to be done to finally fix our problems here. We have no choice.
Michael Moore [00:04:23] Before I dive right into this, I have to first thank our underwriters who support our podcast. So let me just give them a brief shout out for standing up for my voice to be heard and then we’ll continue. First up, a huge shout-out to Raycon. Thank you, Raycon for supporting my podcast and supporting my voice. It’s much appreciated. If you do subscribe — you the public — subscribe to my Substack, which by the way, if you haven’t, you should do so right now at michaelmoore.com. It’s free, no paywall. You’ll get my written columns every week or two here that I put out, but this Pandemic Playlist that I share with my Substack subscribers has been my favorite way really to listen to certain songs during this era that we’ve been in. It’s just always good to escape into a great song, right? I mean, I find it therapeutic. I’m sure you do, too. And that being said, there’s nothing more annoying than getting jolted out of that moment when your earbuds incessantly slip out of your ears over and over and over again. It drives me crazy. It makes me think there’s something wrong with my ears. Did I not get human ears? But I’ve been using these Raycon — they’re called Raycon fitness earbuds. Now, Raycons don’t budge. They stay in. And the audio quality — impeccable. It’s not me that has learned this about Raycons, they’ve got 37,000 5-star reviews. They’ve been voted the “Best Earbud of the Year.” There is such a thing by Esquire magazine’s Best Gadgets of 2021. I mean, you can see why once you get them — they come with this interchangeable gel tip and you can customize it to fit your ears and it has nearly double the battery life of any other brand. And the best part is they’re half the price of the other premium audio brands. So now’s the perfect time to pick up a pair of these. And you could get Raycon’s Fitness Earbuds for $20 off at BuyRaycon.com/rumble. And to make this deal even sweeter, those of you who are my listeners — you get an extra 15% off when you put that code “rumble” in there. This is a limited time offer. They’re doing this to support me, to support you, to have you try their earbuds. So use the code “rumble” at BuyRaycon.com/rumble.
Michael Moore [00:06:40] I also want to thank our other underwriter today for this week’s episode, and that is Stamps.com. As you know, Stamps.com is a long-time supporter of Rumble. Stamps.com — it’s the ultimate time and money saver when it comes to shipping. Like I’ve told you before, we use Stamps.com on all my film productions because it’s so easy when you’re traveling — all you need is your basic computer (ie — your laptop), and a printer, and you are up and running in minutes printing official postage for either the Post Office or UPS for any letter, any package, anywhere you want to send it. And you get discounts that you can’t find anywhere else. Discounts that are up to 30% off with the Postal Service, and 86% off for UPS. But this isn’t just me telling you how great this is with Stamps.com, it’s been around for more than 20 years, and it’s been an indispensable means of shipping for over 1 million users. So, my friends, stop wasting time, don’t stand in line at the post office, and start saving money when you use Stamps.com to mail and to ship. Sign up with the promo code “MOORE.” “MOORE” is your promo code for a special offer that includes a 4-week trial plus free postage and a digital scale. No long-term commitments or contracts. Just go to Stamps.com, click the microphone at the top of the page and enter the code “MOORE.” Thank you so much, Stamps.com. I really do thank you for supporting me pretty much since the beginning of this podcast, and thank you for helping us during our productions to ship the things we need to ship while we’re making our movies. And of course, thank you for your continued support for this podcast. I truly, truly appreciate it.
Michael Moore [00:08:39] Let’s get to the heart of the matter. What I said on live television the night of the Uvalde massacre wasn’t being said by anybody that day, and I haven’t heard anybody say it since on television at least. I know that there are Democratic Party leaders that do not want me saying this thinking “We’re going to lose the election.” But what I said that night and I’m going to repeat this again right now, I make no apologies for it because I understand the history of this country, and I don’t think we should be afraid to say this — repeal the Second Amendment. Repeal the Second Amendment. And so yesterday on the floor of the United States House of Representatives, right-wing Congressman Jim Jordan from Ohio drops my name into the debate that they’re having on these new gun control laws that the Democrats are trying to get passed. It comes very quickly. I’ll just play it so you can just get a sense of how, out of nowhere, you hear my name. Can we run that?
Audio clip of Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) [00:09:51] Thank you, Madam Speaker. What happened in Uvalde, Buffalo, Tulsa is as wrong as wrong could be. And our hearts go out to those communities and those families who have been impacted in such a terrible way. But the answer is not to destroy the Second Amendment, but that is exactly where the Democrats want to go. You don’t have to take my word for it — just look at what they said. The President of the United States said last week that he wants to get rid of the most popular handgun in the country. Michael Moore, Democrat, not a member of Congress, but Democrat said that it’s time to repeal the Second Amendment.
Michael Moore [00:10:30] “Democrats like Michael Moore” and then his brain has a fart and he has to say “he’s not a member of Congress.”
Audio clip of Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) [00:10:37] Michael Moore, Democrat, not a member of Congress, but Democrat said that it’s time to repeal the Second Amendment.
Michael Moore [00:10:42] Drops my name. It’s like it’s just in there and is rattling around in his brain. They’re worried. See, I’m not out on some left wing here. I’m in the mainstream of American thought and opinion. The majority of Americans don’t like what’s going on. The vast majority of Americans do not own a gun. And he and they are worried that we are going to win. And we will win. I said it then and I’ll say it now and I’ll keep saying it, and I want you to join me in saying it… Repeal the Second Amendment — this sentence in our Constitution that was written 235 years ago. Repeal the Second Amendment. This is what it says, “a well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” And some time ago, not that long ago, the U.S. Supreme Court for the first time finally said that they meant that not just collectively. That collectively people, the people within the state, have a right to defend themselves. And they wrote this, of course, you know, right after they beat the British and they were afraid of the British coming back. The British were still in Canada and the founders thought it’d be a good idea for everybody to have a musket in their homes in case they had to form a militia to fight the British. That was really what they were thinking about. But the Bush’s Supreme Court, the majority of conservatives on it, said, no, that’s an individual ‘right.’ They meant everybody should just, if they wanted to, have any kind of gun they wanted.
Michael Moore [00:12:37] Well of course, let me just back this up… As I said to you last week, there were no guns back then. Not the way we know them now. They had these muskets, these kind of rifles that didn’t have bullets because the bullet had not been invented yet. So they had musket balls. You’ve seen this in the movies, right? They put the gunpowder down the top of the muzzle, the long gun, put some gunpowder in there, put a musket ball in there, put some more gunpowder and jam it all down with that rod. Get your flintlock all fixed and ready to go so you can fire the musket. That’s all they knew then. That, and cannons. The bullet was invented, I believe, in 1832. And then Samuel Colt invented the six shooter where you could actually not have to reload, but you could fire it six times in a row. Back when you had to reload, you could only fire that gun, that musket gun — it took about a minute to do that whole rigmarole to fire the one musket ball. So you could kill a person a minute. They had no idea that we would have what we have now. So the right to bear arms, weapons — what ‘weapon’ meant then isn’t what it means now. If they had seen what we have now, honestly do you think these group of enlightened white guys would go for such a thing? Well, we don’t know. They’re not here to tell us.
Michael Moore [00:14:16] So I said on TV on the night of the Uvalde shooting that we need to repeal the Second Amendment. We need to get rid of it. There’s no ‘right,’ there should be no ‘right’ to be able to own these weapons. Now, since then, all the debate has been on whether or not the police did their job that day. They didn’t. They let kids die. We all know it. Just say it. Cops were frightened. They’re human. But they took a job that gives them a gun and a badge and the ability to stop harm from happening to people. Instead, they hid behind their vehicles. Some of them, actually, they went inside, but then they did not go in the door for — like once inside, I think they were there for over 40 minutes, 77 minutes in total from the time they arrived till they finally went in. How did they get in the door to stop the guy? Somebody went and got a key. I love how the news said that they ‘breached’ the door by putting the key in the door. They ‘breached’ it? They friggin did what you’re supposed to do: get the key, unlock the door, go in, stop him. By that time, he had done all his damage killing those 19 children. But you know, because they were there and they’d waited so long out in the hallway hearing all these shots and doing nothing, they opened the door with a key, and they put 15 bullets in him. Oooo — good job. Good job. With 19 kids, two teachers laying there dead and another number of students wounded.
Michael Moore [00:16:05] “A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” Well, that’s what they’re using as an excuse for all this. And really, why mess around with trying to pass this little law, that little law — background checks, etc. I mean, yes, these are all good ideas. And anything that makes there be less guns in this country, the better. But ultimately, don’t we just need to get rid of these guns? There should be no ‘right’ to a gun. I don’t have a ‘right’ to a car. First I have to be able to buy the car. But then I got to prove I know how to drive it. I have to go to school. I have to take lessons. I have to pass a driver’s test both on the road and then a written test. And I have to pass an eye exam. Then I got to give them money. And they’re going to take down the registration numbers on my license plate, on my registration, and the PIN number that’s on the vehicle that the manufacturer installs. You know, it was written in a different era, in a different time. It said that black people are 3/5 of a human — we had no problem, obviously, removing that. That was sick and evil. It said women couldn’t vote — we repealed that. You know, we fixed a lot of things over the years when we, I don’t know, got more enlightened, got less hateful. And now we have to do it again. Because we live in a different time than the time they wrote this sentence. We need real change. And one of the ways we could change, because we have the power to do this, we can change the Constitution. We can repeal the Second Amendment. It would take a two-thirds vote of Congress and then three-quarters of the states, their legislatures, have to pass their approval of the repeal of the amendment. And the approval, if we want a new amendment, to clarify this even further, we could do that. In fact, I’ve taken the time to write a new Second Amendment that would deal with guns. Would you like to hear it? Remember, I’m not a lawyer. I’m not a politician. Any of this can be changed. But this should give the general idea of what I think the Constitution should say when it comes to guns and gun violence. “Congress shall have a well-regulated system for the extremely limited ownership of firearms and weapons. And they will make laws regarding ammunition, capacity, storage, locks, registration, the vetting of the owner, strict minimum age requirements — all of which are necessary to the security of a free state and the right of the people to be kept safe from gun violence. The people’s right to not be shot or threatened by those who bear arms shall not be infringed. Over the five years following the repeal of the Second Amendment, the government shall organize a gun buy-back program with the goal of removing nearly every gun from civilian ownership.” That’s it. That’s what we need to do. We need to start a movement to repeal the Second Amendment and replace it with something that says it’s not about the right of somebody to own a gun, it’s the right of all of us to be protected from gun violence. We have a right to live. Oh — right to life? Did I? Is that? Oh, no, that’s that other group.
Michael Moore [00:20:06] No, my friends, seriously, yes, pass these laws. We need them passed. But ultimately, we need to be going toward what we know is right. Nearly 70% of us do not own a firearm. We don’t own a gun. We’re not a nation of gun owners. And the 30-some percent who do own a gun, you know, most of them are law abiding citizens who aren’t going to use that gun for — I don’t know what they think they’re going to use it for. Those who are hunters, I understand that, they like to hunt. Those who like to fire guns on firing ranges, shooting ranges, it’s fun to hit the target. Great. Go for it. But we need to do like other countries do this where you store the guns at the gun club, at the gun range. You don’t want a gun in the house. If you’re afraid of somebody breaking in, get a dog. But you don’t need a gun. You have a greater chance of harming yourself or others in your family with that gun in the house.
Michael Moore [00:21:14] So, you know, we’re still mourning the loss in Buffalo, Uvalde, Tulsa — where the guy was in so much pain from his back surgery and was losing his mind, didn’t feel like he was getting the help he needed. He stops by a gun store, buys an AR-15, a war weapon, an assault weapon, and then drives to the hospital and an hour later kills his surgeon and another doctor and a patient that the doctors were seeing and the woman who ran the doctor’s office at the hospital in Tulsa. Madness. I mean, this is non-stop — in Philly, in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in Arizona… And I told you last week, I said “the only thing I can guarantee is that there will be more mass shootings this week.” Mass shooting is defined as 4 victims, not including the perpetrator. We have that on average once or twice a day. And this week will be the same. And nothing will change this. The nothing that we’re doing is going to — all these guns: Tulsa, Buffalo, Uvalde, they were all legally bought, all with a background check. Again, I’m not saying don’t pass those laws, but let’s not kid ourselves here. There’s something wrong with us. Why don’t the Italians do this? The French? The Germans? The British? The Danes? You don’t have to stay in Europe, you can go anywhere around the world — they don’t kill each other like we kill each other. And yet they’re human, just like us. They’ve got the same 23 chromosomes per cell that we have. And as I’ve said before, they watch the same violent movies, our kids play the same violent video games, they, too, have mental health issues with people. What’s the difference between us and them? That’s what I want us to examine. That’s what I want us to fix and change. We can do this. Repeal the Second Amendment.
Michael Moore [00:24:03] My thanks to my producer and editor Angela Vargos, to everybody else who helps me with this podcast and to all of you who are listening. I’m extremely grateful. I’ll talk to you soon here. Be well. This is Rumble. And I’m Michael Moore.