When the chips are down and democracy's back is up against the wall, two radio veterans step up to the microphone to right the wrongs, standing for truth, justice and just because.
Hey, are they ready to go yet?
It's John and Gordy on 92.7 WMDX.
You know, when I leave the studio, I always turn the headphones down completely.
Is that what you do?
No.
Apparently somebody else does.
Somebody thinks that's a good way to save the headphones.
Apparently we're on the air and, you know, both of our headphone things are down.
The volume controls are
down.
What the heck?
You know, there's etiquette here, you know?
Studio etiquette.
I've
had to leave the studio how you found
it.
Yeah, it wasn't me guys.
We weren't
we weren't
accusing you of anything
Just because your shirts shrank in the dryer don't take
everything
I
just don't know how to do my laundry guys.
I'm not I don't know
use cold water
or or lukewarm warm water.
Yeah, I get to start doing that.
Now if you do
that, you know, you're obviously someday going to have to disinfect your clothes because it's not hot water anymore.
And that bacteria builds up over time and starts smelling.
So you're going to have to do that.
And that's and that's the way it normally is now with these new washers and the new temperatures they're using.
And everybody's saving their clothes that
way.
Do you have the heat on with your dryer?
Yes.
Yes,
I do all the way up.
No, not all the way up.
I don't use that anymore.
Yeah, I don't do
that either.
Yeah, that's crazy when I think about it.
No wonder I destroyed so many shirts and pants.
Just baked them, you know.
They do have elastics in pants and shirts now.
And when you do that hot,
a temperature,
then it destroys the fabric.
There you
go.
All right.
We're
resetting the computer.
Everything's a little off here this morning.
Well, you know.
Okay.
We were
searching around for some other discussions in regards to Charlie Kirk.
We'll be talking about Charlie Kirk a little bit later on.
Yeah.
And by the way, good morning.
Happy Thursday.
That's John Peterson.
I'm Gordy Young, Dominic Lee.
is in the air chair setting things up here for us.
Getting it all set.
Okay.
We're almost ready to start the show.
Are we?
I think so.
It's the 11th day of September.
We've got so many
things coming up today.
We've got Tim Slecker in from Busted Pencils and you have it right next on the sheet here.
It says, Idiocracy, Tim Slecker.
That's not right.
Uh, let's see here.
And then of course we have Jim Santel will talk about legal stuff, which has been building up over the last couple of
weeks.
Yeah.
Well, the Supreme courts, you know, in line now to get the decision on tariffs.
Yeah.
Eventually we don't know when, you know, probably
a shadow docket thing.
And they'll just come out with a decision and no explanation for it.
But they keep giving the president more and more powers.
And, um, uh, yeah, is that a good thing?
I'll
say we're working out for us.
Amy
Coney Barrett had that interview with Brett Barrett and it was very revealing because she says, well, you know, we're making decisions not just for this president, but every president after her.
So all of this applies to all those other presidents.
Really, you think there might be a president after this guy?
Not sure about that.
So, you know, just handing people these decisions without any facts.
Okay, you're making these decisions.
You're giving more power to the president, but you're giving more power to all the presidents after that.
Is that still a good idea?
No, it's the same thing.
You know, you don't want the presidents to have power that is not vested to them in the Constitution.
I wish the questions had gone that way just a little bit with Brett Bear.
He did ask good questions.
He just avoided some of the more important ones.
How'd you come to that decision?
That was an easy question.
That's the way it goes
over there on Fox.
I know, I know.
We got a text here already here.
Mark from Prairie to Sack up early this morning says the heat even on the low setting should take care of the bacteria.
No, it doesn't.
Yeah.
No, it doesn't.
You don't think so?
No.
I've had experience with it.
I'm buying
gallons of this disinfectant now.
I get the unscented.
I can't stand scents in anything at all.
So
no dryer sheets
with scents in?
Oh, no way.
Do you
use dryer sheets?
No.
Really?
Not at all?
No, not at all because
it
leaves a coating in the dryer and you don't want a coating on some of the stuff.
Now we put our
eyeglass towels in there as well.
So if you put your eyeglass towels, you know, you clean them off with these towels and you have that coating on it, the softener coating, it just smears in.
Come on.
Yeah, I mean really
I glass towels
you're you guys are so guy-like, you know, but I can't believe you don't
use dry I'm
so
domesticated What's that I can't believe you don't use dryer sheets though.
I doesn't that feel weird I thought that like makes the fabric feel really weird.
Oh At least for me not not having dryer
sheets.
Yeah, you're fabric
feels weird
if
you don't have softener in it of some sort, right?
No, I don't think so.
If you just dry it normally and not at a super high temperature and you dry it longer but at a lower temperature, your clothes turn out perfectly and you don't shrink all of the polyesters and everything else that are now interwoven in your cottons, it doesn't hurt that stuff and you save your clothing for a longer period of time.
You know, texture from Catherine says, leaves a coating on clothes too.
It does.
Well, that's, and that's the point of it, right?
And you don't want that.
You don't want it, it leaves a coating in the dryer drum and it puts coating on everything.
So again, if you don't want coating on whatever it is you're drying, you're stuck.
Your dryer is all coated up with that gunk.
I'm learning more here.
So am
I. I really need to know.
She says dryer sheets are terrible.
Makes towels smell.
Use hot dry on towels only.
Yeah.
Okay.
Hot dry.
Yeah, because they,
you know,
again, if they're not dried thoroughly at a lower temperature for a longer period of time, you do kind of keep those bacteria alive and well in your towels.
And over time, it builds up and it starts smelling.
So you have to
You have to do the towels a little bit differently.
Sometimes you put it on sanitize, which is another setting.
Hey guys, ever looked
at this?
Fascinating.
No, what?
Never looked at the part of the dial that says sanitize.
No, tell us.
I have
no idea what you're talking about.
That's it.
You guys are really deep in the weeds on this.
What about to?
Yeah, I just looked at the dial on the dryer.
That's all.
What about washing blankets?
coats blankets what about to give us your what about your
flannel shirts how do you do that was pretty much the same as any other thing made of material confusing confusing me now
What do we have
a look
at that there a new feature right there just
just ask Catherine Okay, all right for it for some household hints.
Yes, things like that Well, I hope I'm
filling in fairly well here Catherine just fill in as many
do use Windex for your windows or do you do vinegar and water?
What do you
do?
I asked about the windows,
what do I
use
on it?
I use
cinch.
Is
that
like Windex?
It's better than Windex, Windex sucks.
Cinch is so much better.
Cinch, I've never heard of
cinch.
That's why.
The thing is with cinches, it really does make your windows shine.
It makes glass shine and it's just super clean and shines.
It's really...
Really great stuff and used it in the cleaning business.
She had for just a little while Okay, so we're very familiar with that one of the things though that a lot of people don't know and you get all these These spray cleaners right at the store.
You don't need that for all you need is what I use is is straight vinegar Okay, straight vinegar straight vinegar
because
no straight.
Yeah, it does but then it doesn't smell you know dries and goes away
I put it sometimes I put a little dawn in it just to kind of add a little you know soap to it but you can use that amazingly you get all of that crud around your handles your sink handles and you know I'm on the sink surface that's it takes it
takes it away.
None of the stuff you buy in the store to clean your countertops works.
None of that works.
Only vinegar does.
How about
cleaning your
oven?
What do you do with the oven?
How about your microwave in your oven?
I use the oven cleaning setting on the oven.
How
often do you do that?
Everything burns to a crisp and
turns
into powder and dust.
No, you don't have to do anything.
There we go.
Just ask John.
Okay.
If you have any carpentry questions, just let me know.
Yeah, how do you clean your carpet?
How often?
No.
Okay.
Let's move on to, would you rather, what do you think?
Their Dominic Lee?
The Italian Stallion?
Yes.
I like that nickname.
Do you?
I love it.
Yeah.
Okay.
They overused it with...
Who gave you that name?
Yeah, Todd Alba.
Todd Alba did, yep.
Oh, really?
Yeah, the Italian stuff.
Yep, yep, and he says it every single time he comes in.
Okay.
All right.
Boy, that guy.
And he tried to steal Sam away for most of it.
So many times.
Now he's, now he's going for Dom,
huh?
Okay.
All right, first question.
Yeah, go ahead.
Would you rather, would you rather live in an all glass house
or a house completely without windows.
Just sure brick, no windows.
All
glass house.
All glass
house.
Really all glass.
I don't think I would.
I think I would do house without windows.
Yeah, I think I would too.
I love the darkness.
I thrive in the darkness.
Well,
they do make shades, you know.
It's
just a little tip there.
But if it's an all glass house, you shade everywhere, that'd be very difficult,
right?
No.
No.
What's the next question?
Alright, next question.
Would you... You're just leading me on.
Make John talk some more.
Second question.
Would you rather... Crow like a rooster after every sentence?
Or act like a duck?
I feel like I really want to try doing that or
quack like a duck Can't do a
duck noise Something
like
that.
Yeah, it you ever see the movie Howard the duck Yes, I heard
that
it was like terrible.
It's horrible.
No,
it isn't a horrible movie
It was very interesting how they did that duck
Okay, but he didn't quack every time he talked so no You know, I I'm just like I don't know the rooster thing would be interesting to do an entire show where we make a statement and then
we I Think I would do the rooster though.
Yeah, I would like a rooster.
Yeah, I think Catherine would like that if we tried that once
Okay, that would be really difficult.
Yeah
Where's your clothes?
Would you rather?
Where's the new clothes?
Right here.
Did you use it?
Yeah.
I didn't understand the beginning or the end.
He hates the feature.
I hate this feature.
Really?
Yeah.
I'm mad every time I have to make.
All right.
We're coming back with more.
We're just getting warmed up on this Thursday morning.
It's John Peterson and Gordon Young and Dominic Lee on WMDX.
Stay with us.
And
that's really what's trending, the age of stupid.
Why is it ever?
That's John Peterson.
I'm Gordy Young.
WMDX 92.7 check us out on the civic media app if you can
weather for today mid 50s this morning clear skies I'm seeing a few clouds from our window though But hopefully those are clear out for sunshine and highs in the mid 70s today out in some of the low-lying areas.
There's some
dense fog, so watch out for that.
Don't
lie in those low-lying areas.
That's what I
always say,
yeah.
We used to always say that way out in Sun Priory, you know, the middle of a cornfield.
It was foggy out there.
It was.
And
we realized that the fog's only around us, the cornfield.
That's right.
Everything else is fine.
And we kept seeing children out in the cornfield.
Yes.
It was so creepy.
It was.
Yeah.
That building is still out there.
I
don't know if their
corn is still there because I think they've built buildings all around
there.
Yeah, I think I don't know.
Yeah,
there are buildings all around it But that building is still there for some pretty sure that building.
I thought we destroyed that it was
haunted A lot of bad mojo there.
Yes.
Yeah, I doubt okay.
Yeah, so
What do we have here?
What do we have?
I don't know.
What's up?
What do we talk about?
I don't know.
It's the age of stupid.
It is the age of stupid.
That's what it's really all about.
You know, all the accolades for Charlie Kirk.
I mean, it was, it was wall-to-wall last night.
Yeah, it was.
And you wouldn't have expected something like that.
I mean, this was just Charlie Kirk.
Yeah, but he had a year, I mean...
He started this turning point thing the day after high school 13 years ago Yeah, and it just grew and grew and he was really kind of the I mean, I'll kind
of feel the void of
Rush Limbaugh and you
know, I mean
kind of went in but for younger younger males mainly on the Republican side And he decided to do the college circuit.
Yeah, that was that was his
thing.
Yeah, but he
That turning point, you know, at the podcast, he had a lot of other, I mean, like a political action group.
A hundred million bucks a year he was raking in.
Should we bring up our little discussion about Charlie Kirk's studio?
I don't recall.
We had been using books for our microphones to hold up our microphones for so long.
actual mic stands arrived from wherever they were.
And I just accidentally saw a podcast of Charlie Kirk and his studio was just unbelievable.
Well, sure.
I mean, it was gorgeous.
It was beautiful, just very simple, but perfect.
All the stuff was there.
Yeah, I'm just like did he have his microphone on bookstand
and I showed everybody I showed the studio to everybody I took a little screenshot of it and look this this this is Charlie Kirk podcast and You know, I thought we could do better than that.
I see you
were You were encouraging the engineers to arrange our studio just like
like Charlie yeah, that's that's my tie-in.
So that was the Charlie Kirk
inspiration.
Yeah interesting
I didn't I didn't I must have missed that meeting.
I don't
remember you showing those pictures
now You know Charlie Kirk said a lot of very controversial things.
We'll get to those a little after seven, but I was listening on the way into NPR and
Steve Inskeep has been a reporter there for ages and he gets all the big interviews and he was talking to a Republican, a very young Republican, a Jen Zier who's running for Congress and and Charlie Kirk was his mentor, helped him out, helped pay for some of the things that he wanted to do before he ran for Congress.
He started a group
to encourage Gen Z individuals to run for political offices.
And Charlie Kirk helped fund that for him.
And then Steve Inkscape said, well, you know, Charlie had said a lot of controversial things, but he always went out there and he had these discussions and these debates.
And he went out to the college campuses.
Was there anything that he learned from that?
And this guy went off on Steve in Scape.
He just said, are you kidding me?
Is that what you're getting at here?
And he was never like that.
Boy, you guys, you and the media, you always do this to people on the right.
And it's just like it was one of those.
those moments where poor Steven's kid was just trying to say, do you think he learned any lessons or maybe, you know, changed his mind about a few things?
Very innocent question.
But this guy leveled off on him.
It was just uncomfortable.
I wish I'd heard that.
Yeah, I'll try to find that.
I actually try to find it on the way in driving.
It's not easy doing a search.
When you're driving the space car.
When you're driving the space car.
Oh, I gotta tell you this.
Space car comes with a certain connection.
It's called Kia Connection.
It's software.
It gives you the ability to do a few things like...
run your car remotely.
I could be in the house, I could turn it on, I could get the car warmed up before I go out there.
And you can do all these things with Kia Connect.
Well, it's a pay service, get that.
So now this is another pay service.
I might as well have another streaming service.
Everything, everything is a pay service.
Ridiculous, right?
And YouTube TV was how much?
$50 a month?
Oh, at least no, it's about 80 or 90.
Yeah, it's about 80
or 90 bucks a month.
Yeah.
Yeah, I was checking last night after we talked about it yesterday.
Yeah, because I had it and it costs that much and the thing is after you watch a show, it keeps it.
You know, you can't delete it from your
From your library from your history, so you're just sitting in those big long history trying to find the shows It's just what show was it that I like so much, you know You can't just save the ones you like but yeah, it's it's pretty expensive, but now I'm you know on Kia Connect
Kia Connect.
And I had to get a special badge or a certificate or something.
This is my story.
I had to come up with a nickname for my car.
Oh, did you?
And you know what it is.
Space car.
Space car.
Like it.
That was easy.
Okay, we've got the Midwest Farm and Food report coming up.
And then Tim Slecker from Busted Pencils will join us on John and Gordy on WMDX.
you
92.7
WM DX when you hear that music you know who's coming up Tim Slacker
Really?
Is
that
his
theme?
Busted pencils.
Yeah, that's what it means
Uh, John and Gordy in the morning here.
It is
full
day
so far.
Yeah.
6 35.
We've got some early morning clouds.
We'll see sunshine highs in the mid seventies right now.
56 degrees.
Tim Slecker is with us now from busted pencils.
The podcast that you can listen to on the civic media radio network.
Yeah.
So,
uh, good morning,
Tim.
Good morning to you.
We understand that, uh, test scores are out.
Yes.
For high
school seniors.
What?
How are we doing?
Yeah.
Well, it seems that last year's graduating class, um, they can't read.
Really?
It's the simplicity is that.
I mean, yeah, you know, so any, uh, so that would mean freshmen this year in college.
Have gone to college without the ability to read.
Wow.
Well, that's pretty That seems like that's not great information Yeah, I Yeah, the National Assessment of Educational Progress in Nape.
It's called the nation's report card released scores from last week and the highlight or
Was it earlier this week?
I forget.
But the highlight was is that the reading assessment portion of the test for high school seniors indicated that a whole entire third of high school seniors read below basic levels.
And that's that's one of the the bars that they put in the nape basic and Below basic is you know an indicator and a third and you go okay.
What's what's going on there?
Is this really a drop in test scores and you know typically Johnny and I really rail on test scores as And again, these are really worth railing on too, but
They are actually lower than the test scores of high school seniors in 1992.
Wow.
Yeah, and so What's going on there?
Good question Are you thinking cell phones?
I was seeing and that's we do a lot of reading on our cell phones Well, there's a
There's a big issue right now with this that is brought up is that, well, of course, they can't read.
We don't ask them to.
We don't do any reading.
They don't read books.
Wasn't
it mandatory to read a few books or?
Yeah, that's the you know kind of the reality there in this move over the last 40 years to get test scores up One of the tactics was is to break reading down down down down down So that we were actually doing this thing called close reading
where we don't ask people to read long works of fiction or anything like that.
You teach them how to read paragraphs to elicit good test scores.
And it seems that the high school, the senior level reading assessment for the NAEP is really geared towards actually seeing if kids have an ability
to understand deep meaning.
Well, they don't.
And I'm kind of looking at this going, well, why would they?
Because we've spent 30 years trying to tell them that deep meaning in reading, that's not the goal.
The goal is to read short passages and remember which colors were mentioned in the first three
sentences.
Wow.
That's not good for people with short term memory.
It seems counterproductive.
It really
does, doesn't it?
Now, okay, I hate to say this phrase.
No, go for it.
But when I was in school, I remember doing book reports as early as like second grade, you know, and then all the way through school, you did book reports, you would have to, you know, an English class or whatever, you would have to go to the library, which was down the hall in the school.
You checked out a book, you read the book, and in a couple of weeks, you had to give a book report, and maybe in front of the class, or at least a written book report, and then that
would be great.
Do they not do that anymore?
Well, no.
Come on.
There's what you guys, like what we all remember, and then actually, it was my first years in teaching, and I was teaching second grade and fifth grade, Pizza Hut.
had a reading initiative and so every time kids came in and let me know they read a book.
You know, I gave them like a free pizza coupon.
Wow.
That's nice.
You know, and I'm still to this day pretty convinced that most of the parents who signed that their kid read 13 books overnight, they could get 13 pizzas.
I'm pretty sure that that was the parents saying, get these free pizzas.
And a whole stack of cliff notes.
You know, but
Pizza Hut
is not really well known anymore.
I mean most
of them are closed.
They went out
of business because they were giving
away free
pizza.
They weren't known
for reading
either.
All those books read.
We brought this up though on the Wednesday show and actually because
I admit this we had we have great gas and put people on make sure you tune into the show on Saturday Randy Weingarten president of AFT me and she but this came out because she has a new book out why fascists fear teachers and Kind of coming into it.
Wow.
I admitted that I don't read books anymore Myself
Let me get this frog out of my no My
only input on that I stopped reading books as well.
My wife is a writer.
She writes fiction.
I Haven't
read one book of hers partially
Her first book, but I really do have to finish that one of these days,
but it's true This goes back to what you kind of the original part of saying is like has reading itself also changed in the air cell phone social media Yeah, you know, we read we do a lot of short reading nowadays.
Yes, you know, we're information gatherers We don't get in depth and you know, hey, guess what when it when it comes to being deep
Netflix But but I brought this up because I said, you know, I hadn't read a full book and I couldn't remember how long until we got you know an advanced copy of Randy Weingarten's book and digging deep into that it was a great book and so, you know kind of thinking about this and putting the test scores in there together and kind of you know what maybe the test that is is testing for something we don't
really do anymore which is this kind of deep reading and now we can criticize that the fact that we maybe don't do that anymore but the reality is is what we said is you know we're not doing in-depth deep book type of reading and if that's the type of reading we're trying to assess
seems to not make sense.
And so maybe these test scores are suspect from the standpoint of going, you know, were they really testing the things that kids are doing today?
Because, you know, short form reading is what we do.
But anyway, you know, put all that together.
But why fascist for your teachers?
Now, if you want to start reading deep, long books, not again, not really, really long, Randy Weingarten's new book is fully worth.
Sitting down John and I know your wife might get mad that you read this book over hers.
Oh, yeah, but but I would take the opportunity to read this book It's
not I think it's a great Book at least it sounds like a good book for the times right?
Oh, you know something
we
need to kind of know more about
It is and you know, yeah, you know started off with a little bit of the lightness with the the NAEP scores, but why fascist fear teachers and then you know the horrendous episode that happened yesterday, you know in Utah Valley University with the political assassination of Charlie Kirk Yes, and recognizing where are we at in these times that actually
education places where, you know, we said, and this is what we really liked about what Randy talked about, is that schools and teachers for the longest time have been inviting people with differences to safe spaces to have critical, sometimes uncomfortable conversations.
And that's the work of a teacher.
And the reality that we've now been facing is that, you know, welcoming differences was this kind of like, well, that's diversity, equity and inclusion.
That's woke indoctrination.
You can't do that.
And mix that in together where we've got these, you know, political extreme conversations happening on the fringes that, you know,
Is there a safe space?
And this is frightening to realize that college campuses and, you know, let's not forget that yesterday there was another high school shooting in Colorado.
Right.
Just after the Charlie Kirk shooting.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That are spaces of where we're supposed to feel safe because you can't learn if you don't feel safe.
These places now have been fully now.
put up to say, yeah, guess what?
There's no safe place right now in America for us to have conversations about potentially critical topics, things we disagree with.
And how did we get here?
How did we get to this point that now it seems that your political opposition, the way you engage with them is to take them
out?
Yeah, it's a sad state of affairs.
You know, we had these free speech zones, but when they had those, then they banned firearms near them.
And they kind of suggested that they were dangerous areas to be in if you were in a free speech zone because you weren't armed.
And then, of course, I think all of these speakers like Charlie Kirk, way back when, maybe 10, 20 years from this point, they all
played up the fact that they were in danger speaking on campus.
I don't
know,
remember it was the academic freedom movement and they invited these very controversial guests and the conservative ones played up the fact that their lives were threatened and they had to have these huge entorages of protection around them.
The universities couldn't even afford the protection for some of these people.
their requests for protection.
They couldn't afford it, so they didn't invite these people on.
And then they got in trouble for not doing that.
So it became a badge of honor, having a lot of protection around you because your life is always threatened.
I think they brought on a lot of this by suggesting that, you know, maybe you're a target.
Just a theory.
Gordy.
Yes.
Well, I want to get back to reading books and how some of that's on the parents.
I don't want to blame the schools.
I think I summed it up, but
I'll tell you what, we're going to come back after this break
and we'll continue with Gordy's point on this.
Tim Slecker from Busted Pencils stays with us here and we'll be right back with John and Gordy on WMDX.
That's John and Gordy in the morning on WMDX 92.7 and on your Civic Media app as well.
Check us out.
Give us a text or a voice note.
We want to hear from you.
It is 6.52.
We've got partly cloudy skies this morning.
We should be in for a good deal of sunshine mixed in with the clouds.
Highs in the mid-70s today, right now, 56 degrees.
We started out this conversation talking about reading skills and tests that have recently shown that- And not reading books anymore.
Kids don't know how to read anymore.
And I think, this is maybe just my opinion, but I think a lot of this has to do with what environment did you grow up in at home?
Did you have parents that read books?
And I did.
And there were books all over the place.
I remember big bookshelves in just about every room of the house.
And so I grew up in that environment and the library was a place to go to see all the different books and just see the thousands of books out there that have been written over the ages.
And what do you want to take a look at?
You wander around the library and just pick out something interesting.
And also I still to this day, I guess, unlike you guys, I still read at least two or three books a year.
I feel like I'm kind of lacking in that.
I think I should be reading more.
Man, I didn't realize that you were that old.
Yes, I am that old.
Wow.
But I still enjoy going to, you know, Barnes & Noble is still a fun place for me to go.
I enjoy, you know, just seeing what's out there.
Oh, I love going in there.
I'd like to go to the library once in a while, but I guess, you know, you guys, library cards may have expired.
Well, I don't know.
Let me adjust my thinking
about you.
I thought you had attention deficit, but you can read a whole book.
Wow.
Wow.
There are lots of great books out there.
Yeah.
Well,
I think what you're talking about, Gordy, though, too, is there's a cultural shift that actually, you know, and it's worth criticizing, it's worth knowing about, and it's also kind of
going huh you know so maybe what I did isn't necessarily you know the way things should be done now you know that that's not criticizing you for being you know a weird solo kid hanging out in the library when
Other kids were out playing.
He
was a quiet like that.
He
was a quiet.
Collecting the weapons at home.
Making it sound creepy now.
But no, no, no, no.
Well, the other thing is, you know, what about, I mean, come on, what about reading Rainbow, LeVar Burton?
Do we mean, are there still shows like that on educational television?
And I guess, you know, because PBS has had their funding cut, you know, there.
that goes we don't need reading rainbow we've got we've got
Prager you now
but you're right it is a cultural my son reads a lot of books my 40 year old son is you know he's deep into science fiction he loves it and he reads yeah you know several books at a time sometimes but my daughter just the opposite I don't think
so it is shifting um you know the again you know is it the information how it's how we get information now how it's delivered you know print reading the idea of holding a book and um you know when
you get your book on your phone.
If you do want to read it, you know, the Kindle kind of in that sense.
And I remember, you know, my father-in-law and my mother-in-law, you know, who were, again, voracious readers.
you know they had transitioned though to the Kindle and
so
not holding a book you know moving on and so thinking about now students and kids who are on their phones and they can get books and things like that so you know are they reading but then how much of that turns into
this kind of, you know, short form scrolling for information.
And then the ability, and we even said, you know, so audio books, I mean, even back in the 90s, when I was driving back and forth to the University of Maryland for my doctorate, I was doing books on tape like crazy just because I was spending it.
And so I was getting that that way.
And now here's something to throw at you guys.
I could take a book, I could throw it into my favorite chat GPT feature and I can ask chat GPT to read it to me with some some voice intonation that makes it
Fun and
I could
actually load up my chat GPT and say actually what I want you to do with this book is actually Scale it down figure out where there are probably likely going to be test questions from
this
book and prepare me for the test
that obviously my teacher is going to throw at me for reading this book.
That's
amazing.
Interesting.
Yeah, so what does all this mean?
And we said during the break, it might mean that we just go back to the feather quill.
I was thinking the same thing.
We got to start from the beginning.
I think a lot of people are using their phones.
I think social media has made things more immediate for people.
They want to find out things immediately.
I read an article about teenagers now using their phone to get sexual advice, emotional support, dating.
AI dating.
Everything is kind of immediate for now.
What's happening socially and reading something long term is
is much more difficult now.
Just a thought.
Well, I use it, you know, when my wife and I have our disagreements, I turn it on and record, and then I have an earbud in, and I have it say, now say this to her.
You know, and
it helps.
Oh, that's a good application.
We'll have to leave it there.
Dr. Tim Slecher, thanks for joining us.
You can catch Busted Pencils on the Civic Media Radio Network on the website there on the app.
Tim, always great to talk to you.
Hey, Saturday show, Randy Weingarten.
Why
fascist fear teachers?
That sounds good.
All right.
Good deal.
Jim Santel comes into our 7 o'clock hour next on WMDX.
And Dom at the
control.
Thank you.
Every
morning.
Is that
here?
Coffee.
Coffee.
Coffee.
We're
here and we're asking for your opinions as well.
You know, tell us what you think.
Our topic, of course, this half hour is going to be Charlie Kirk.
So if you have something you'd like to add, text us or voice notice as well.
We're going to try to get into this a little
bit deeper.
You can also call us, 608-879-8255.
Seven minutes past the hour, some sunshine breaking through the early morning clouds, highs today in the mid-70s, right now 57 degrees here.
Checking the WMDXRadio.com website, the poll question is still up for today and tomorrow.
What's the most challenging part of getting to the Dane County Farmers Market?
Finding parking still leads the way at 41%.
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Coming up in our next half hour, Jim Santel will join us, attorney at law.
We'll talk about what's happening at the Supreme Court and anything else that comes up legally.
All right, let's get into it.
All right.
Everybody knows that Charlie Kirk was killed on a campus yesterday.
Utah Valley University.
He was speaking there, debating as he always does.
He does his presentation.
He asks for people to disprove what he's saying.
And I think this was one of those events.
Prove Me Wrong was posted up all over the place.
And I just want to mention
this about social media.
I'm a little disturbed by social media in this case because I was directed to Facebook to watch Charlie Kirk get shot.
And I
Didn't think that they would allow those posts to be on Facebook.
I mean, I'm just saying I don't
think I
don't think this is something we all need to see right if you want to see that particular video I guess you could do a deeper search, but not as easily accessible as something like Facebook There's just something wrong now with the ability to not have to screen anything that they post on Facebook at this point
Yeah, you know, there's there, what, 3,000 people at this event and, you know, how many cell phone cameras are rolling or, you know, are recording.
Yeah, there were a lot of them.
Tons of them.
Now we're seeing all that video.
And once it's on the internet, it's there.
It
is.
You can't, I don't know that they have any kind of delay to control that.
kind of
video.
They can take it off
once
they notice it.
Once it's there, they can take it off.
I'm not for censoring.
I'm for taking brutal videos off.
You don't need to see something like this.
You can certainly read about it if you want.
But to see it, it's just
I don't know.
What would you?
Yeah, it just seems that this whole thing seems wrong.
This is seems like we would not have seen this maybe 10 now.
OK, a year or two ago, we would never have seen this on there.
And of course, a lot of people would call that censorship.
I don't think we need to see brutal, bloody killings on Facebook or any of these social media sources or the major ones, at least, right?
You can search out on other, you know, darker web.
Sites if you
want.
Yeah, I suppose Yeah, but again once it's out there.
It's I don't know how they should be able to patrol it But I don't know if they that they have
that kind of control I would say it's it's really hard to as well because I've seen you know I've already seen lots of videos of it get taken down Yeah, so many people repost it and bring it back up.
It's almost impossible for the algorithm to Contain all of those videos.
It's yeah.
Yeah.
Well, that was just my
big complaint.
That
was a
little surprised that somebody said, Hey, just
go to
Facebook.
Yeah.
Well, so okay, that's what I did.
And I pointed my mega friend in Milwaukee, you can go there and check it out.
I gave him a link to it and just spread it around myself.
What
the hell,
right?
But anyway, quite a reaction from the shooting.
Trump had a comment he
came out with a video, and let's listen to his commentary here.
This is Trump.
To my great fellow Americans, I am filled with grief and anger at the heinous assassination of Charlie Kirk on a college campus in Utah.
Charlie inspired millions in tonight.
All who knew him and loved him are united in shock and horror.
Charlie was a patriot.
who devoted his life to the cause of open debate.
This is a dark moment for America.
Charlie Kirk traveled the nation joyfully engaging with everyone interested in good faith debate.
For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world's worst mass murderers and criminals.
This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we're seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now.
All right, I just
want to interrupt here because Charlie Kirk has some interesting friends.
These are white nationalists that he's hung out with, he's had on the show, he's talked to, he spreads that word.
That is part of what Charlie does, to hide that and to portray it as something happy and goal-lucky and he goes around talking to people and getting their input.
I think, you know, the fact that he went around trying to disprove other people.
and make fun of them for their answers, for what they believed.
You know, it goes both ways.
And this praises a little over the top, but let's continue.
Especially the word joyful.
Yes.
Go ahead.
My administration will find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity and to other political violence, including the organizations that fund it and support it, as well as those who go after our judges,
law enforcement officials and everyone else who brings order to our country.
Okay.
Radical.
Going after the judges, right?
Yeah.
Who the hell is going after the judges, Trump?
Trump goes after the judges.
He vilifies them.
They dox the judges and his wife and everybody else in the family.
He's promoting this.
Yeah.
And he's acting like, well, you know, the left is doing this.
He's blaming the left right away.
No one knows who the killer is yet.
Right.
Well, yeah, exactly.
And nobody's a bigger promoter of hate speech than Donald Trump.
Absolutely.
Let's continue.
To our country, radical left political violence has hurt too many innocent people and taken too many lives.
Tonight, they ask all Americans to commit themselves to the American values for which Charlie Kirk lived and died.
Charlie was the best of America and the monster who attacked him was
attacking our whole country.
An assassin tried to silence him with a bullet, but he failed because together we will ensure that his voice, his message, and his legacy will live on for countless generations to come.
Today, because of this heinous act, Charlie's voice has become bigger and grander than ever before, and it's not even close.
I live like a capitalist every single day, Shank.
I live as a
capitalist.
Okay, just pause it here, pause it here.
I want you to play the next cut, not that that kind of runs into this cut that I definitely want to play, and that is cut 68.
Hold on to that just a moment here.
I want to say something first.
Look, it's it's a horrible thing that happened.
Yes, we don't want to silence people this way obviously You know it it's a tragedy even for anybody on the right especially a guy like Charlie Kirk No one deserves anything like this.
This is horrific.
This is not free speech.
This is the worst way you could
certainly deal with the opposition.
We don't want to see things like this happening.
I mentioned to Tim Slecker how I think a lot of
A lot of the people on the right wanted to actually promote stuff like this, that their lives were in danger if they spoke on campus.
They suggested this.
And if you suggest something like that, it's going to make somebody think, hey, maybe I should try something like this, shoot somebody.
We don't know who the shooter is.
We don't know if they're from the left, the right.
We don't know who they are.
To assume this and to say this is a misdirection play.
And I think it's just, you know, using it for their
political advantage, period.
Now, I want you to get an idea of what Charlie Kirk does talk about, what he does say.
Let's listen to this track.
I live like a capitalist every single day, Cenk.
I live as a capitalist.
I live when I play.
What do I do?
I get charity every single year.
I'm like, I'm sorry.
If I see a black pilot, I'm going to be like, boy, I hope he's qualified because of DEI.
it begs the question when you see a black pilot you wonder you say I hope they are qualified if I'm dealing with somebody in customer service who's a moronic black woman I don't I wonder is she there because of her
Her excellence or she there because affirmative action almost creates thought patterns that are not necessarily.
No one really cares when it's HR managers.
No one cared when it was, you know, just kind of paper shufflers or even engineers.
But now when it's like, wait, wait, hold on a second.
You're going to remove my appendix and you're a black lesbian.
Amazing stuff.
Wow.
So that's kind of stuff.
Yeah.
You talked about it.
Mm hmm.
And so I think this praise goes a little over the top, you know, flags at half mast, as Trump always puts it.
Instead of staff, you
know.
Let's go to the phones right away.
We've got Charles
from
Milwaukee
on the
line.
Yep.
Charles,
good morning.
Go ahead.
Hey, good morning, guys.
You know I...
Hate that he was killed.
I'm not a fan of guns.
I killed anybody that yeah, I'm sorry for his family his kids He spewed hate there was nothing positive about this guy except for he spewed hate He denigrated people of color people that didn't look like him I I'm concerned about
Where is the outrage for the kids that were shot at school yesterday?
Yes,
the right never seems to be outraged by kids being killed whether it's kids in inner cities whether it's kids that are at school Whether it's kids that have gotten a hold of a loaded gun playing with it and it goes off
Where is the out?
I'm on Facebook and I'm like wow I got friends that were oh Charlie Kirk.
Yes.
I feel sorry for him But not one of them said But three kids were shot at a school today what they went to go learn not spewing hate like this guy did every day These were innocent kids that were gunned down and hopefully they won't die No outrage about that from the right
The president, he spews hate.
Every single day had the nerve to say the things he said.
Yes.
I like this guy was just this humble, great guy.
This guy spewed hate every single day.
He should not have died for it.
No,
but he was no champion of the American people.
What?
Well put, Charles.
Yeah.
Well said.
Thank you.
Thank you for your call.
19 past the hour coming up in about 15 minutes.
We'll talk with Jim Santel.
We'll have more of your phone calls.
I have a
quote from Charlie Kirk that'll put all of this into perspective.
Okay, that's coming up next.
Stay with us.
We're going to elect a president.
He's going to do what the people want.
We're going to
run things our way.
WMDX, John and Courtney, 92.7.
We're talking about Charlie Kirk this morning, getting a lot of feedback here.
We've got a few texts and Carrie, I'm going to play a cut that you suggested here.
Charlie Kirk said this a while back and I think this puts everything in perspective.
Let's
listen.
made up New Age term that does a lot of damage, but... You
know, it's just that... I don't know.
I mean, he pretty much predicted what would happen.
And it's just, it's shocking.
In fact, this last discussion that he had just before he was shot, was all about guns.
The question from an audience member, do you know how many transgender Americans have been mass shooters over the last 10 years?
And Kirk says too many.
The same audience member went on to save the numbers five and proceeded to ask if Kirk knows how many mass shooters there have been in America over the last 10 years.
Kirk said, counting or not counting gang violence?
The actual answer is 5,700.
So I have this cut from Nancy Mace who has asked a question about this Congressperson Nancy Mace.
Let's listen to cut 65, I believe.
Let's hear
it.
I'm going to say this.
Democrats own what happened today.
I am devastated.
My kids have called panicking.
They probably all the kids of every conservative in the country called panicking.
Just because you speak your mind on an issue doesn't mean you get shot.
Then by that logic do Republicans own the shooting of the two Democratic lawmakers in Minnesota?
Political.
Isn't this on both
sides?
Are you kidding me?
No, I'm asking
you a serious question.
We don't know what condition Charlie Kirk is in right now.
Some raging leftist lunatic put a bullet through his neck and you want to talk about Republicans right now?
No.
No,
I'm asking
you.
No, not
at all.
No, this is on Democrats own this.
But is there a
problem with political violence across the
spectrum?
Yeah, we're talking about Charlie Kirk right now.
Yes, we don't want to talk about, you know, what happened on the ride.
Yeah.
Yeah, we don't want to do that.
How about this?
This is cut 66 from Jesse Waters, Fox News host.
Listen.
Trump gets hit in the ear.
Charlie gets shot dead.
They came after Kavanaugh with a rifle to his neighborhood.
They went after Musk's cars.
They just shot two Jews outside the embassy.
Think about it.
Scalise got shot, barely survived.
It's happening.
You got trans shooters.
You got riots and LA.
They are at war with us.
Whether we want to accept it or not, they are at war with us.
What are we going to do about it?
How much political violence are we going to tolerate?
And that's the question we're just going to have to ask ourselves.
Now,
Charlie would want us to put as much pressure on these people as possible.
Dana nailed it.
This is unacceptable.
and has to stop, and it has to stop now.
And everybody's accountable, and we're watching what they're saying on television, and who's saying what?
The politicians, the media, and all these rats out there.
This can never happen again.
It ends now, Greg's right again.
This is a turning point, and we know which direction we're going.
All right.
That was Jesse Waters, Fox.
Steve Bannon also declared this is war.
I saw a clip of him.
Alex Jones, same thing.
Same thing.
This is war.
This is them against
us.
You know, if they could just say the same thing after school shooting, they'd have more credibility.
I'm sorry, I don't believe any of this crap.
Many a son put out a list by the way the man who he put out a list of the shootings from the right Okay, the man who targeted and killed Democratic seat representative Melissa Hortman Was a Trump supporter the man who targeted the home of Democrat governor Josh Shapiro for a Trump supporter the men who wanted to hang
Pence were Trump supporters.
The man who targeted and killed the son of Obama appointed District Judge Esther Salas was a Trump supporter.
The man who tried to kidnap Nancy Pelosi and assaulted her husband was a Trump supporter.
The men who were convicted trying to kidnap Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer were Trump supporters.
to the homes of Obama and Biden was a Trump supporter.
There's no equivalent or even similar list of Obama or Biden supporters who have carried out similar murders, attempted murders or violent acts.
That's according to Mehdi Hassan who put on the list.
Yeah, well that says
it all.
It does.
It's quite the list.
It does.
And then we had Scott Ross who we have to have on this show as a guest, a Wisconsin political commentator.
He found a post from...
Derek Van Orden, while Democrats at all levels are publicly condemning the political violence, Van Orden is threatening political violence.
So it's just one thing after the next year.
It's back and forth.
And unfortunately, we're really not getting to the actual problem, and that's called guns.
Political
violence is bad on both sides.
And it's ingrained, seemingly, in our culture.
Because of guns
and
readily available.
Yeah.
Yeah, and they haven't even found the man who shot Charlie Kirk.
Yeah, and But they're jumping to the conclusion.
It's somebody on the left.
Yeah You know it doesn't
The thing is that violence like this is going to happen because people are instigating this violence.
How many times have you heard Trump go after Democrats and liberals and woke?
Anytime they say woke, they're talking liberals and they want to get rid of woke.
which means they want to get rid of liberals.
This is getting dangerously out of control.
29 past the hour, Jim Santel will join us after the Midwest Food and Farm Report on WMDX.
It's John Peterson, Gordy Young.
Stay with
us.
Know who's a why
WMDX 92.7.
John and Gordon in the morning.
Dom at the controls.
Time once again for... Yes?
Amicus, a law review.
Yes, we have Jim Santel standing by here.
It is 735.
highs today in the mid-70s, right now 56 degrees.
Before we get to Jim, let's... Mark has been waiting patiently on the phones here.
Mark, go ahead with your comment and we need to keep it a little short here.
We have Jim waiting for us, but go ahead, please.
Not a problem, brother.
Charlie Kirk actually didn't mind school shootings at all and thought that was just the price we have to pay for it.
Considering the Second Amendment is how we secure liberties, I mean that our liberties are
established by governments to secure these rights, you know, governments are instituted among men.
The preamble to the Constitution includes both the general welfare and domestic tranquility in it.
And these guys have, for a long time, Charlie Kirk and his conservative minions and full thinkers, they're protesting the things that they're protesting in the Confederacy, the doctrines of natural liberty, human equality, and the social contract.
they do not believe there's a social contract out there and the shooting of Charlie Kirk was unacceptable but for these people to say well it's declaring war against us i mean for god's sake they got what alex jones talking about this the guy who denied sandy hook happened for for the love of you know that we did have to declare war on conservatives over the shooting of the people in in minneapolis or and the other you know that um... the uh...
Giffords was um, um in Arizona we got shot that um, that uh, we didn't declare a war then against conservatives because that was a conservative shot her I mean that Gabby Giffords a symmetric warfare that they're practicing against us is Is it and we can't you know if you use hate using word war But we it's got to be a word of words.
It can't be a word of war of bullets.
Yeah.
Yeah
All
right.
Thanks,
guys.
Thank you, Mark.
Thank you, Mark.
I got to push him.
Gabby Giffords.
Yeah.
That that was another horrible.
Yeah.
Example.
I don't want to list examples.
We just got to get rid of these damn weapons.
And let's talk to Jim Santel this morning and find out what your input is, what your thoughts are on all of this.
Yeah,
Jim.
What do you think about this?
Good morning, gentlemen, to your listeners.
Another profoundly sobering day in the life of America and the history of our nation.
Frankly what the solutions to this are I offer a couple of things I happen to be there serving as a president of the board of directors or a group called wave it is an a Nonpartisan non political group that advocates for rational reasonable balance and legal and constitutional conditions on the possession and use of firearms We know going back to 2008 the first time in our nation's history that in a case called Heller
Antonin Scalia said for the first time in our history that there is a constitutional right to possess weapons individually in the home for self-defense purposes.
We never interpreted the Second Amendment that way before until 2008.
It was reaffirmed just a few years ago in another case called Bruin.
Again, another Supreme Court justice writing for the majority.
Said that you can also take those weapons out into the street and you've got a constitutional right That's the law in America and yes We embrace the rule of law even on a day when we have had this these horrific events plural yesterday We know what the statistics are we can all cite them and we condemn with absolute clarity Yes, and without condition everything that happened yesterday as to Charlie clerk at Utah Valley University and the students at Evergreen High School the many others it is all
unacceptable, it is all tragic.
And here's the point of all that.
In 418 days from today, you know this well, 418 days from today, we go to the polls and we elect the 120th Congress of the United States of America.
That includes 435 members of the House of Representatives that includes the third of the United States Senate.
If you go to the polls and you elect people who are committed to making a difference and changing what happened in America, you can do it.
Why?
Because we know what works.
We know that if you get rid of assault weapons in America, that happened back in the 90s.
We know that the incidents of these kinds of things happen.
We know that if you do the gun show loophole and create universal background checks, we know that that works.
We know that safe gun storage works.
We know that extreme risk protection orders.
work.
I can go on.
Wave and others talk about these things all the time.
How do we know that they work?
Because in those states, those states in the country that have enacted these kinds of things, they have got a dramatically, dramatically statistically lower incidence of yes, school shootings and mass shootings and individual shootings of the sort that we are once again talking about America.
America, you know what works.
go to the polls in 418 days from today and elect people who in their first hours and the 120th Congress on January 2nd of 2027 will introduce legislation and pass it and change America so that we can begin to address these issues.
We know what happens.
We know it works to respond to it.
And we've got it within our purview to make a change here, so the Charlie Kirk's and the Evergreen High School and all of the others that we can talk about.
309 mass shootings in America just since January 1 of this year alone, mass shootings for more people shot.
We can change that.
And when the people look back on the history of this time and they're going to ask whether it's children, grandchildren,
What did you do?
The answer is we knew what we could do.
It's effectively like solving a serious medical issue.
We've got the solution to it.
The question of history will be, why didn't you act?
Why didn't you stop to do this?
And the answer is, Americans have it within their purview to do just that.
We've always had it within our purview.
418 days from now, you go to the polls and not single issue voters, but people who, again, are rational, reasonable people who will say, yes, indeed, we can enact these things.
We can make a safer nation where the Charlie Kirk's of the future are not assassinated, where the children at Evergreen High School are not shot.
We can do this.
And let's do it.
let's make it happen.
So you head up a group called Wave and you're looking at the best ways to control firearms in some way shape or form.
You know, the right has complained about this kind of control, even though they say guns are a right that we have, constitutional right that we have, but we also have a constitutional right to vote.
And they made us jump through hoops.
one hoop after the next just to cast a ballot.
That's okay.
But we can't put a hoop up, one hoop up for owning a gun, which drives me crazy.
Now here's a point.
RFK Jr.
came up with another gun violence excuse, SSRIs.
And that's a class of medications used to treat mental health conditions like depression and anxiety.
While magas blame mental health for shootings,
And the need for treatment, RFK Junior is now saying that the treatment and those drugs are turning people into shooters.
So you can't even use the drugs nowadays, and you can't treat people with mental conditions because the drugs are creating shooters too.
There's no way out of this
box.
Exactly.
And to those points, that is the solutions that are out there.
Again, here's your civics lesson, which I am always inclined to do with the two of you and all of your listeners.
I talked about Heller back in 2008 through and in 2015.
In both of those cases, you know who told us?
that your right to carry firearms is conditional.
It can be restricted and can be limited by the government.
I know what you're talking about.
Antonin Scalia.
That's right.
Yes.
And he says that, you know what, there's nothing about our decisions.
And yes, Clarence Thomas and others recite the same thing in Bruin three years ago.
There is nothing about the right under the Second Amendment.
And it is there.
Yes, we can debate whether or not it really is there.
But that is part of our constitutional law today.
You have a personal right.
to own weapons.
You do not have an unconditional right.
When people say, Jim, I've got gun rights, yes you do.
Absolutely.
And there's also a prerogative, and I would offer an obligation of government to restrict those based upon all sorts of things, including the places and times of manufacturer, sale, distribution, use, possession, all those kinds of things.
And Antoinette Scalia and the United States Supreme Court have said that your right to own and possess and use weapons in America is conditioned.
It is restricted by all of those things.
There is nothing about
the list I gave before that is unconstitutional, you can do all of those things tomorrow within the ambit of the Constitutional Law.
Do it.
It's just that simple.
Yeah, absolutely.
Boy, that's well said.
Yeah.
Let's go to the phones.
We've got CJ on the line.
CJ, what do you got for us today?
Thanks for taking my calls.
Sure.
Bad day in America.
Yes.
You know and I've heard some of your callers.
They sure don't know Charlie Kirk as the man preached about God and country faith and the love of his fellow human beings
and
he called people to the microphone front of the line like you guys do sometimes people that disagree with you and I met him twice
proudly.
I heard someone say that he loves school she rings or whatever.
He spoke the truth about the black community.
Only 20% of kids born in the black community have a father or two parents in the home today compared to probably 25 30 years ago, which it used to be 80%.
He cared about the black community.
He wanted kids to have both parents in the home because he saw the destruction of the family structure.
And he preached.
Um, he loved to have people dispute, uh, or question his beliefs, but they don't, they don't believe you shouldn't believe that this man preached hate.
because if you hear him, he's trying to, whether you agree with him or disagree with him, he treated people with respect.
Well, he said that he didn't really trust black pilots.
I think there's a problem there.
What do you think of his quote where he said, I
think,
we just played it.
We just played that.
What he said was, if they're getting extra points,
He
doesn't know that though.
He didn't see Jay.
He doesn't know that So it was soon because they're black.
Do they have that training?
Well, okay
Well,
let's set that aside for a second.
What about his comment?
I think it's worth to worth to have a cost of unfortunately some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our God-given rights.
How about that comment?
He became a victim himself at this point
Well, I tell you what, he didn't do what he believes.
He
didn't believe in violence.
He didn't believe that it's okay.
But it's okay for people to lose their lives just as long as we keep the Second
Amendment.
I think we should keep the Second Amendment legal, legal gun owners and law abiding citizens.
But some gun deaths every single year is okay.
Having some gun deaths per year is okay.
Just so we have that right.
Well, I tell you what, it's not gonna change.
Legal gun ownership should be allowed in this country.
It should change.
People that are evil, it's the person that pulled the trigger guys.
It's not the gun.
No, it is the gun, actually.
And it was a gun, by the way, a long distance away from a building top.
So if you had a knife, it wouldn't have been a danger.
All right.
Oh, no, CJ, we got to go.
We've got our guests here.
I want to mention this too, Jim.
You're part of a group that is looking at ways to make gun safety better in this country.
Your group is WAVE.
Has there ever been talk about maybe getting an insurance policy in place to require insurance?
And Jim will give you a chance
to answer that question.
When we come back, just
a
quick break here.
We're coming right back with Jim Santel on John and Gordy, WMDX.
WMDX
92.7 John and Gordy in the morning or guest Jim Santel from Amicus a law review you can hear his show
9 to 11 on Saturday mornings and we've got a few questions for him and we've got a couple of
A couple
of
texts here that we want to get to.
Pete from Winniconny says, good morning guys.
First my condolences to the people grieving Mr. Kirk today.
While scrolling through the reactions last night and this morning I was struck by how quickly conservatives went from bots and prayers to the left did this with no proof.
Another one from Darren.
Why are we letting him lie and put these false facts out there?
He was talking about.
CJ, because we want to hear from CJ.
CJ's explaining is too much this early morning, according to somebody, no name there.
But anyway, that's some of the input there.
I asked Jim about some requirement, maybe to have insurance, if you're going to buy a gun, have insurance for it and have the insurance companies decide whether you qualify it enough to buy a gun.
What
do you
think, Jim?
This is not directly responsible.
I will get back to that.
There are two kinds of insurance that are out there and it's not mandated necessarily, but part of our discussion is of course about the gun industry itself and I know it's a broader issue and it also raises lots of commercial issues as well, but significant as well that in 2025, just a few months ago, the United States Supreme Court in a unanimous decision, Smith and Wesson is sued.
by the Mexican government, by Mexico.
The name of the case is Smith & Wesson versus Estados Unidos Mexicanos.
And in the end, the Supreme Court, and the reason why Mexico brings the lawsuit is to say our crime in Mexico is a result of your producing all these weapons in America.
Okay, we're going after the weapons manufacturers and the Supreme Court comes back and says you lose Mexico and the reason is of course something that we are thoughtful about as we think about all these issues on this somber horrific morning once again.
We have the protection of lawful commerce in arms act passed by the United States Congress a number of years ago and it says that domestic firearm manufacturers cannot be sued
And the basis for that is the shield that has been provided by the Congress for manufacturers.
And so Mexico loses.
And again, it's the other reason why it suits generally against manufacturers of...
of firearms fail because the Congress has provided a shield that does not exist from any other companies and manufacturers out there.
And it's just an observation as we think again about the kinds of things that are out there.
And so that's one perspective.
There are two categories of insurance generally, property coverage for the firearms themselves against loss or damage and liability coverage, for instance, that occur during the firearms use.
And
Some of the policies out there do incorporate that, you know, different varieties out there.
Yes.
The notion is, of course, we're providing insurance to prevent this horrific thing that will happen.
Let's get to the core purpose issues, which I said before.
We can prevent the core things from happening by doing things like background checks and safe gun storage and all those things.
And yes, you put together the package of things that address this.
Those are several of them.
Jim, and to your point, you know, we were talking during the break about, you know, putting laws in place.
And I mentioned this that in Australia before 1996,
they had
they had no national registration system for guns, no ban on semi-automatic weapons.
There was a horrible situation where a number of people died due to gun violence.
It was a mass shooting.
And then they put
laws into effects, you know, because they had inconsistent state laws, they put those in effects, they put in registration, they put in all kinds of background checks, and the gun depths, you know, went way down.
And, you know, Australia, I mean,
What is it going to take?
When is it going to happen that the United States wakes up?
This can be done.
It can happen.
It happened in Australia.
There's other places around the world that don't have near the level of gun violence that we have.
What's it going to take?
And there is our actual civics, our government laboratory.
We know it works.
implement it, right?
For what it's worth, just to add one more thing about the insurance issue that you asked about.
The other piece of this, again, liability insurance for legal liability always does not cover intentional or illegal acts.
Insurance companies do not want to be insuring people who are engaging in intentional illegal acts, including obviously homicides and attempted homicides of the sort we saw yesterday.
So it's an interesting issue.
Also, underscoring, what are we doing in America?
What are we doing in America?
We're even having that kind of discussion.
It is very, very troubling because you both have so very well and eloquently.
We touched on it right
away, the fact that the Second Amendment was misinterpreted in the first place.
thanks to Justice Scalia, seeing something that no one else ever saw in the Second Amendment.
In fact, it almost seems like the Second Amendment doesn't really apply anymore because we don't have some of the, I guess, the laws that were needed back when the country first started, right?
So,
I don't know.
That's right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And again, the real focus on if you look at some of the history and Scalia do historical analysis into that conclusion nobody had before 2008.
But again, we focus upon the notion of the right of people to put together a militia.
Yeah, that's always been the discussion.
Jim, we got to leave it there
sometime.
We'll have to go back and hear what Warren Burger had to say back in the 60s.
Oh,
yeah,
we have
that.
We
have
it.
We'll have to get
to
that some other time.
Jim Santel, thanks for joining us tomorrow on the show.
It's our 500th episode.
Rocker will join us.
Also, Samantha Tomei Olson.
Pam Yankee will be here and a surprise special guest tomorrow.
Oh, all right.
All right.
I don't even know about the guest.
I know.
Yeah.
That's going to do it for us.
Stephanie Miller is next.
We hope you have a good day.
So
long.
