Well, I think all the parents watching tonight this is
this your biggest nightmare?
Look, I got AI got a 17 year old and
and he witnessed a shooting at a Community Center playing
volleyball.
Those things don't leave you as a member of Congress.
I sat in my office surrounded by dozens of the
Sandy Hook parents and they were looking at my 7
year old picture on the wall.
Their seven-year old were dead and they were asking us
to do something.
And look, I'm a hunter.
I own firearms.
The vice president is, we understand that the Second Amendment
is there, but our first responsibilities to our kids to
figure this out in Minnesota, we've enacted enhanced red flag
laws, enhanced background checks, and we can start to get
data.
But here's the problem.
If we really want to solve this, we've got folks
that won't allow research to be even done on gun
violence and this idea that we should just live with
it.
And I and I here's what I do think that
this is a good start to the conversation.
IA 100% believe that Senator Vance hates it when these
kids it's it, it's abhorrent and it breaks your heart.
I I agree with that, but it's that's not far
enough when we know there are things that worked.
I've spent time in Finland and seen some Finnish schools.
They don't have this happen even though they have a
high gun ownership rate in the country.
There are reasonable things that we can do to make
a difference.
It's not infringing on your Second Amendment and the idea
to have some of these weapons out there.
It just doesn't make any sense.
Kamala Harris, as an attorney general worked on this issue.
She knows that it's there.
No one's trying to scaremonger and say we're taking your
guns.
But I ask all of you out there, do you
want your schools hardened to look like a Fort?
Is that, is that what we have to go when
we know there's countries around the world that their children
aren't practicing these types of drills?
They're being kids.
We owe it to them to get a fix.
These are things that shouldn't be that difficult.
You can still keep your firearms and we can make
a difference.
We have to.
If you're listening tonight, this breaks your heart, Senator Tim,
first of all, I didn't know that your 17 year
old witnesses shooting and I'm sorry about that.
And I appreciate Christ have mercy.
It is it is awful.
And I appreciate what Tim said actually about Finland because
I do think it illustrates some of the frankly weird
differences between our own country's gun violence problem and and
Finland is OK.
First of all, we have way higher rates of mental
health abuse or mental health substance abuse.
We have way higher rates of depression, way higher rates
of anxiety.
We unfortunately have a mental health crisis in this country
that I really do think that we need to get
to the root causes of because I don't think it's
the whole reason why we have such a bad gun
violence problem, but I do think it's a big piece
of it.
Another driver of the gun violence epidemic, especially that affecting
our kids, it doesn't earn as many headlines, but is
the terrible gun violence problem and a lot of our
big cities.
And This is why we have to empower law enforcement
to arrest the bad guys, put them away and gun
offenders off the streets.
I think it's a whole host of things that we
can do here.
But I do think at our schools, we've got to
talk about more security.
Senator.
Thank you.
Governor, you previously opposed an assault weapons ban, but it's
only later in your political career did you change your
position.
Why, Yeah.
I sat in that office with those Sandy Hook parents.
I've become friends with school shooters.
I've seen it.
Look, the NRA, I was an NRA guy for a
long time.
They used to teach gun safety.
I'm of an age where my shotgun was in my
car so I could pheasant hunt after football practice.
That's not where we Live Today.
And several things I want to mention on this is
talking about cities and where it's at.
The number one, where the most firearm deaths happened in
Minnesota are rural suicides.
And we have an epidemic of children getting guns and
shooting themselves.
And so we have, and we should look at all
of the issues, making sure folks have healthcare and all
that.
But I want to be very careful this idea of
stigmatizing mental health.
Just because you have a mental health issue doesn't mean
you're violent.
And I think what we end up doing is we
start looking for a scapegoat.
Sometimes it just is the guns.
It's just the guns.
And, and there are things that you can do about
it.
But I do think that this is 1.
And I think it's a healthy conversation.
I think there's a capacity to find solutions on this
that work.
Protect Second Amendment, protect our children.
That's our priority.