Diving into America’s formidable gun control debate, Andy Pate and his guests explore the murky waters of legislation, mental health assessments, and Second Amendment rights. This discussion illuminates the tension between ensuring public safety and preserving individual freedoms. Coupled with an analysis of the recent Supreme Court rulings and how they affect legal interventions, this episode promises an engaging look at significant contemporary issues.
SPEAKER 04 :
This is Rush to Reason.
SPEAKER 14 :
You are going to shut your damn yapper and listen for a change because I got you pegged, sweetheart. You want to take the easy way out because you’re scared. And you’re scared because if you try and fail, there’s only you to blame. Let me break this down for you. Life is scary. Get used to it. There are no magical fixes.
SPEAKER 05 :
With your host, John Rush.
SPEAKER 14 :
My advice to you is to do what your parents did!
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Get a job, Turk! You haven’t made everybody equal. You’ve made them the same, and there’s a big difference!
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Let me tell you why you’re here. You’re here because you know something. What you know, you can’t explain. But you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life. That there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there. It is this feeling that has brought you to me.
SPEAKER 15 :
Are you crazy? Am I? Or am I so sane that you just blew your mind?
SPEAKER 04 :
It’s Rush to Reason with your host, John Rush. Presented by Cub Creek Heating and Air Conditioning.
SPEAKER 01 :
Filling in is Andy Pate, party of choice.
SPEAKER 16 :
And I’m your host, Andy Pate, filling in for John Rush today. John’s taking the week off. And joining me, of course, is Luke Cash and Tanner Kolb. You know, once again, more man than anybody can believe. But you know who was not a real man? the cowardly sniper up in Idaho. And apparently, you know, obviously the guy was found dead, and apparently they know who it was now. Let me just read a little of this from Town Hall. Idaho is reeling from a heinous act of violence that left two firefighters dead. On Sunday, someone intentionally started a fire in the hills outside Coeur d’Alene. It was a trap. As first responders and members of the fire department arrived, they were fired upon by an unseen sniper. Now, you’ve heard about this story, I assume.
SPEAKER 12 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 16 :
Now, you’ve been up to that area, right?
SPEAKER 12 :
Yeah, I was there a year ago. My mom’s from Boise, so we’re there all the time.
SPEAKER 16 :
Oh, okay. So you know the area.
SPEAKER 12 :
Yeah, love it.
SPEAKER 16 :
I think you’re on the wrong mic.
SPEAKER 12 :
Yeah, it sounds like it. There we go.
SPEAKER 16 :
Now you’re on the right mic. You sound like Tanner again.
SPEAKER 12 :
Yeah, Coeur d’Alene’s a beautiful lake town up there. They got a little bit of everything you want. I can’t even imagine what they’re going through right now. Great people up there, great communities.
SPEAKER 16 :
Okay, well, really quick here. Supposedly, you know, and this is all allegedly, it’s pretty new coming out. You never know if these stories will change. So understand, folks, I’m saying all this allegedly, okay? The suspect was named as Wes Rowley. He’s 20 years old. Don’t know anything about him, except he apparently has a prior arrest for assault in 2024 involving attacking a woman with a knife. for which he was charged with a felony assault. Okay, so this kid has a past.
SPEAKER 08 :
We’re attacking women and firefighters. Yeah, women and firefighters.
SPEAKER 16 :
Like I said, he’s not all man, okay? I mean, that’s what you choose is firefighters who are fighting a fire and are prone and helpless because they’re fighting a fire, not you. And they don’t know you’re coming, and you apparently set the fire to bait them. Apparently, that’s, you know. I mean, that makes sense, right?
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 16 :
And of course, you go after women. What a guy. Luke, you are our Second Amendment expert here. Now, of course, the left is rising up as always saying the answer to this is to, you know, disarm all the law abiding. You know, if we just had fewer guns out there. None of this would ever happen. And or, you know, this guy is crazy. So everybody should be put through a mental health test. And we should have black flag laws, all this kind of stuff. What say you, Luke?
SPEAKER 08 :
I mean, it feels like it’s always like the same pieces. And I can’t. I don’t want to say I don’t get it because, you know, something like this happens. It’s like there’s a knee-jerk reaction. It’s like, this is awful.
SPEAKER 16 :
And we just want it to stop.
SPEAKER 08 :
Right, this is terrible. We want to solve the problem. And I think the knee-jerk reaction of just disarm everyone is a very… What they perceive is a very easy solution to that problem. The answer is simple. Just get rid of it all. Not the case. And I feel like it’s also – it’s a hard topic to discuss, especially right after a tragedy because any amount of pushback feels – kind of twisted in a way, right? It’s like, well, hold on. Hold your horses. Let’s not disarm everybody. I agree we need to find a way to make sure stuff like this doesn’t happen, right? But the solution isn’t to pull guns away from every person.
SPEAKER 16 :
Well, let me ask you this because, once again, you’re the expert. You know guns. I don’t. Okay? I try my best. I own one. So, you know, I’ve gone to the range a few times, but I don’t know guns like you do, okay? Well, thank you. And… These people will say, well, what about mental health tests and red flag laws? Here’s my big concern. Who would determine them? Because do you trust the government, the government that kept kids out of schools during COVID, okay? The government that has wrecked virtually everything it has touched for the last hundred years. Do you trust the government to, in unbiased fashion, who is mentally stable to hold a gun. I’m not saying they wouldn’t get a bunch of them right. I’m sure that they would. Yeah, this person really shouldn’t. But… The government is going to be run by the party in power, which opposes the other party in power, so they’ve already got a large group of people they hate, and we’re supposed to hope that they will be unbiased. Do you see my concern?
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, absolutely, and I think it’s a very legitimate concern, right? I mean, you give the whole point of the Second Amendment, by its very nature, is to use in the protection of yourself from other people or a tyrannical force. So you don’t want to give a potentially tyrannical force access to the power to remove your Second Amendment right or suppress it in any way. It’s kind of a no-brainer, I think. That being said… At the very least, there are systems in place currently that should have prevented him from getting that firearm. Well, yeah.
SPEAKER 16 :
I mean, if he’s got this felony charge right there, it’s game, set, match.
SPEAKER 08 :
Felony assault charge. How did he get access to that firearm to begin with? So I think if you want to solve that problem, you address that issue right there. How did a felon with a violent charge, 20 years old, get access to this firearm? Right. I mean, we don’t know that information right now.
SPEAKER 16 :
We don’t. It’s also new.
SPEAKER 08 :
There’s a number of ways they could have gotten it, but if the system as intended should have prevented that, we need to find out where that gap is and fill it.
SPEAKER 16 :
Right. And looking at it more broadly, because you’re right, in this one situation, it looks like new laws wouldn’t have changed anything. The laws in place should have kept him from having a weapon.
SPEAKER 08 :
There are already laws that would have prevented it.
SPEAKER 16 :
I agree. But here’s the thing. Once again, as we always do, when you look at statistics and you look at gun-free zones, that’s where all the mass shootings happen for the most part. When you look at the cities that have the strongest anti-gun legislation, that’s where all the shooting is happening. It seems like every time you disarm the law-abiding, the law-breaking go wild. And it doesn’t seem like it’s ever going to happen. Well, we’ll rely on the cops. You don’t have enough cops, first of all. They can’t be there. I love the cops, but guess what? There’s a few of them. There’s millions of us. They can’t instantly be there to be the one acting as a human shield for every human. In, say, Denver. Okay, they can’t do it. People need to be armed so they can defend themselves. And the simple fact is, statistically, it’s overwhelming. When you disarm the law-abiding, you have a lot more of this. Am I right, Tanner?
SPEAKER 12 :
A hundred percent.
SPEAKER 16 :
Yeah. So that’s what worries me. Okay, Luke, I just wanted to throw it to you. It just sounds to me like, you know, there are things that we can do.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 16 :
But the prescriptions of the left are not those things. They’re not going to work. It seems to me that they want activism, not fixes. Do you see what I’m saying?
SPEAKER 08 :
Right. And I think there’s this parallel that gets drawn a lot of the times where people on the left who are advocating for total disarmament are pointing towards countries. and using them as an example when they themselves will typically don’t have a history of firearm culture, right? That doesn’t exist embedded into the culture. You see a lot of parallels drawn to Australia. Australia was at one point armed, and then they willingly became disarmed, and the number of gun violence went down. Asterisks, not all violence went down. The violence just changed forms, right?
SPEAKER 16 :
Well, and also, Luke, look at during COVID what a disarmed public – Look at how a disarmed public in Australia was treated during COVID. Right. I mean, they were literally encased in their homes. They were treated as almost lab animals. I mean, it was horrible. They had no freedoms whatsoever. They had nothing to fight back against, as Luke was saying earlier, a tyrannical government.
SPEAKER 08 :
Right. So it’s like when you’re talking about solving the issue of gun violence in America, I think all of us can agree that… This kid shouldn’t have had a gun. Right. Violence with firearms is a bad thing. Yeah. When we address that issue, we need to address that issue from a position of understanding that left and right, you’re not getting rid of all the guns. It is too deeply ingrained and baked into the very foundation of America. So we’ve got to throw that idea aside because every time you say disarm everyone, it’s creating head-butting and creating friction between the parties as opposed to solving the problem, which is what we’re supposed to be doing.
SPEAKER 16 :
Well, and I would agree in one last thing. The jurisdictions, you’ve got places like Waco, Texas, places in Florida and so forth, where people are heavily armed, there’s no shooting. Because a nutcase feels that they can go off and shoot when they know nobody’s going to shoot back. A nutcase, they live in a dream world, don’t they? They live in a dream world of all the wreckage that they want to cause around them. And they envision this world where I can go around and I can shoot and get these people and so forth. Nowhere in that imaginary world are there people shooting back at them. Everybody’s just fishing a barrel. Yeah, I think we we need fewer fish in a barrel. I think we need more people who are armed to fight back. You know, I mean, this was different. This was obviously, I mean, a sniper. They were waylaid. They were lured in. But I think in general, for the left to jump to conclusions like this and try to use this of all things as a reason for more gun laws is insane. Agreed?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 16 :
OK, let’s take a break. When we come back, we’ve got to talk a little about the Supreme Court. They do know there was a little catfight.
SPEAKER 12 :
Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER 16 :
Yes, there was. I didn’t know about this one. Oh, yeah. They’re fun. Up next is roof savers. To strengthen your roof or to fix it after a storm, call Dave Hart at Roof Savers, 303-710-6916.
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SPEAKER 16 :
And welcome back to Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560, Andy Pate filling in for John Rush along with Luke Cash and Tanner Cole. Okay, we’re going to talk a little bit about women. And they are talking on the Supreme Court. This got a little edgy. Okay. And there were three different rulings that came down on Friday. Only a couple of them I’m really going to get into. There was one about porn, internet porn. You’ve got to show that you’re of age, just like you show you’re of age if you go into a store and buy porn, I guess.
SPEAKER 12 :
Cool. Okie dokie. Whatever. Worth our time.
SPEAKER 16 :
Yeah. That was the minor one. The two big ones, though. where, as you know, there have been all these national injunctions. You’ve had hundreds, because you’ve got hundreds of these lower court judges, right? And any one of them could stop the entire Trump administration from moving forward and governing. which was a real problem because guess what? They weren’t elected president. They were appointed as judges, which is fine, but that’s their power level. And they were able to shut down the entire us government again and again and again. And I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but it’s something ludicrous. Like this has been done more to Trump in four and a half years of being the president than than like, I don’t know, the last hundred years combined or something to the other presidents. Something ludicrous like that. In other words, the activists are going after Trump at a rate and a level that is way above anybody else’s. They’re simply using the courts to govern. They’re using the courts to overrun the guy who is actually, you know, what’s that word? Elected. to do what he wants. And you may like him. You may dislike him. Hey, man, I couldn’t stand Biden. I couldn’t stand Obama. But guess what? At least Obama for sure was elected and Biden was president. OK, that’s the way it is. Yeah, I still have my concerns because of we’ve talked about this before with me. I don’t buy into every conspiracy theory about the 2020 election being stolen, but there are some real statistical anomalies there that concern me. We won’t go into that. All right, I’m just a numbers guy. And that would be boring. I don’t want to bore everybody. But getting into this, you had Kentonji Brown-Jackson. And she wrote the dissent. And at one point, listen to some of her reasoning. She says she doesn’t even ground any of her argument in legal theory. She goes, it is not difficult to predict how this all ends. Eventually, executive power will become completely uncontainable and our beloved constitutional republic will be no more. Because one judge in Missouri somewhere can’t shut down the entire country and the president when that judge was not elected president. To her, that’s not enough. She goes, quite unlike a rule of kings governing system in a rule of law regime. Notice rule of law regime. Nearly every act of government may be challenged by an appeal to law. At the very least, I lament that the majority is so caught up in the minutia of the government’s self-serving, finger-pointing government’s arguments, sorry, that it misses the plot. She’s serious. Now, look, Elena Kagan is a far-left wacko. But I think she is highly intelligent. Okay. And she’s on the Supreme Court. I oppose her, but she’s highly intelligent. This woman is a moron.
SPEAKER 12 :
Well, she’s the same lady. I’m pretty sure you can’t tell you what a woman is.
SPEAKER 16 :
Right. She couldn’t tell you what she was asked. What is a woman?
SPEAKER 12 :
Right. You know, it’s like, well, that’s multifaceted. What?
SPEAKER 16 :
No, it isn’t. It’s a female human. Okay. Yeah. Anyway, she couldn’t do it. Now, here was Amy Coney Barrett’s response. Listen to this, because you normally don’t hear this from Supreme Court justices. We will not dwell on Justice Jackson’s argument, which is at odds with more than two centuries worth of precedent, not to mention the Constitution itself. I mean, we will observe only this. Justice Jackson decries an imperial executive while embracing an imperial judiciary. What do you think?
SPEAKER 12 :
I like it.
SPEAKER 16 :
I mean… And I don’t even like Amy Coney Barrett. She’s too liberal for me. I personally think she has been a terrible choice by Trump. I think that she’s let us down. I find her to be a pure moderate, and I think she’s emotional. I think she makes decisions just like I think the Supreme Court… john roberts i think he’s a very emotional guy i think both of them make decisions based on emotion much more than they do on the constitution that’s my opinion okay because their rulings at times i just look at them and i’m like what are you kidding but she’s right on this and she nails katanji right between the eyes and basically what she’s saying is this you’re a moron right why are you even on this court You know, and I have to ask this question at this point. Why are Katonji Brown Jackson and Justice Sonia Sotomayor even on this court? Now, they’re put on the court because liberals put them there. I get that. And they have the right to do that. They were elected by the people. That is what democracy gives us. But it is awful. I don’t think these two should be judges in any court, at any level, anywhere. Once again, I want to remind people what Justice Sonia Sotomayor said, okay, before she was confirmed. I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life. She’s a bigot, okay? She could have simply said, well, you know, my Latina background, it’s really enriched me and so forth, and I’ve learned a lot. No, no, no. She singles out white men as the ones who would come to a worse decision. Now, what if I did the reverse? Okay, what if I said, you know, I believe that… Get mobbed on the streets. Yeah, I’m just going to do this. You know, Luke, I would hope that a wise white male with the richness of my experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a black female who hasn’t lived that life. Would I be called a bigot?
SPEAKER 08 :
I’m watching the predator drone coming hot from the airplane.
SPEAKER 16 :
Or would anybody be trying to make excuses for what I’m saying or say, oh, no, no, no. What he really meant was they’d call me a racist. Yes. And they’d be right. Okay. Because I get news for you. You know? It doesn’t matter what color or gender you are. You can be smart or stupid. Welcome to the real world.
SPEAKER 12 :
Right.
SPEAKER 16 :
What is she doing on the Supreme Court? She’s a bigot. What is Katonji Brown-Jackson doing on the Supreme Court? She’s a moron. I mean, look, it is it is obvious that you shouldn’t be that. And by the way, it’s constitutional. The Constitution never, never provided for all these lower courts to simply each one act as the president so that the president, every time he wanted to do anything, be it Biden, Obama, Trump, anyone would have to fall begging before, you know, several hundred judges and say, I hope none of you disagree with this.
SPEAKER 12 :
Nothing would ever get done. No. It would just be a revolving door of opinions and then getting shut down by some random court in who knows where, Wisconsin, New Mexico, wherever someone wants to say something.
SPEAKER 16 :
Exactly. What Ketanji Brown Jackson wants is judicial monarchs. Okay. And notice this. Here’s the big difference between the president and judges. The president, whoever it is, Biden, Obama, Bush, Trump, has to respond to the voters.
SPEAKER 12 :
Right.
SPEAKER 16 :
Okay? If this person doesn’t get voted in, they don’t govern. A judge doesn’t have to respond to the voters. A judge doesn’t have to compete. And by the way, there was and we got just a minute here and then I got to go to break. But they had another ruling that came down that said that, you know, parents of religious faith, really any parents can pull their kids out of classes that are teaching LGBTQ ideology and their kids. OK, fine. I agree with that ruling, too. By the way, I would agree with that ruling if what was being thrown on their kids was Andy Pate and I were the teacher and I was trying to make every one of their kids a right-wing evangelical Christian. Okay? Should I be allowed to do that in a tax-funded school?
SPEAKER 12 :
No.
SPEAKER 16 :
Of course not. And how can you say that? I have great beliefs. It’s very hateful. But do you see where I’m going with this? Mm-hmm. And I want to end with this. Look at what is in common between these two rulings. Do you see it? Judges have no competitor in the courtroom. There’s not an opposing judge, okay? Teachers have no competitor in the classroom. There’s not an opposing teacher, okay? The Democrats want to use all power when they have all power.
SPEAKER 12 :
Right.
SPEAKER 16 :
They want to be monarchs. And what really blows my mind is right now they’ve been doing these all kings. I mean, no kings. Right. Sorry. These no kings demonstrations when Trump isn’t a king, but they want to be.
SPEAKER 12 :
Right.
SPEAKER 16 :
In every situation they can be, they want to be a king.
SPEAKER 12 :
Well, we’ve moved on from fascist dictator to king. I kind of like at least they’re not using as harsh terms anymore.
SPEAKER 16 :
Yeah, you’re right.
SPEAKER 12 :
He’s only a king. Yeah, I mean, I think he’s a pretty good king. We had a vegetable king before, so at least we have a living king now.
SPEAKER 16 :
Right now, Trump’s on a roll. Okay, I’ll just say it. His record right now, the tariffs are proving to be incredibly valuable. Things are working. Inflation is down. Hiring is up. Did you see that for the first time in over four years, wages are now outpacing inflation again? I saw that. Which we hadn’t had since Trump was in the White House. So I’m telling you what, he’s doing well, and he’s only going to get more popular every day. And by the way, he did a great job with Iran, and he’s making peace everywhere he goes. I have no idea what’s going to stop this guy right now.
SPEAKER 12 :
I saw his approval rating was at the highest it’s been.
SPEAKER 16 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 12 :
At like 59 or something.
SPEAKER 16 :
It’s been really flying up. Okay, let’s take a break. When we come back, we’re going to be talking to Todd Watkins. We’re going to talk a little bit about immigration. And no one knows it better than Todd. And I think it’s going really well. Up next is someone no one knows medicine better than Dr. Scott Faulkner. Now, he can see you in a matter of days, not weeks, for the best in total health. Call Dr. Scott at 303-663-6990.
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SPEAKER 05 :
The best export we have is common sense. You’re listening to Rush to Reason.
SPEAKER 16 :
And welcome back to Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560 online right now. We’ve got Todd Watkins. Todd, how are you, sir? I’m great, Andy. And yourself? You know, I’m doing well because we have a secure board. And I wanted to talk to you today because, Todd, what was that, sir?
SPEAKER 07 :
Is it everybody benefits?
SPEAKER 16 :
Oh, it’s been great. I wanted to talk to you today because, quite frankly, I have big-time opinions on the border, on immigration reform and so forth, but you have knowledge. I have opinions. You have knowledge. So I want you to kind of tell me, how are things going? Because, I mean, it seems to be going really well, and yet ICE seems absolutely overrun. What do you think?
SPEAKER 07 :
So, first of all, I will separate these two things. And that’s kind of important to do. There’s the border and then there’s immigration. Right. Immigration is a subset of the border and, you know, border security, national security, all that. So you have to kind of you have to carve these two out. And Biden then to Trump gave us the perfect laboratory to examine these two things in their in their separate environments.
SPEAKER 16 :
Well, I mean, yeah. Biden allowed an all-out invasion of our country, which I’ve never seen before. I mean, we have had way too much unchecked illegal immigration for many years, not just under Biden. But Biden, he swung the doors wide open. It was unlike anything I’d ever seen.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, I’ve never seen a policy of allowing the border to be violated that way before. I was Border Patrol from 1997 to 2021, and I’ve seen the border in various states of security. There was bad times. Trump’s first term, which I was in for that, never saw it that secure. But it still wasn’t 100%. It was far better than we’d ever seen. We had that family unit caravan crisis, right? Right. So we had to deal with that. That could have gone better, I think. But then along comes Biden, and he just opens the door. And for the first time in decades, You know, Border Patrol turned 101 in May last month. And never, you know, in that 101-year history, never has there been a scenario where illegal aliens would illegally enter the country and sit there and wait for us.
SPEAKER 16 :
Yeah, I know. Because they only wanted to be escorted.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, let me ask you this, Todd. We turned into the U.S. Uber, basically.
SPEAKER 16 :
What did that do? Because you still have a lot of friends in the service there. And how are they feeling now, now that they’re able to do it, now that they’re able to actually work at the border? I mean, are they bored, though? I mean, it doesn’t seem like there are that many crossings.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, it’s kind of a bit of a paradox, I guess. You know, super, super secured. Everything’s working out great. Actually, morale is through the roof. But simultaneously…
SPEAKER 16 :
you know you kind of you’d like you’d like to find a a group to go chase you know right okay well okay well let me ask you this let me ask you this because obviously it’s the other side of the coin for ice and they’re having to kick in doors they’re having to they’re having to go through a lot of extra steps to deport people who should not be here because they’re here illegally and it can be very dangerous at times is their morale high though because of the backing they have from the president
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, it is, and there’s a little bit of history here with ICE. ICE, of course, didn’t come into being until the DHS was created in 2002. So in their 20-plus year history of being the— immigration enforcement inside the U.S., right? They don’t work the border. I’ve never seen the leash taken off of them the way it is now. And we kind of knew that was going to have to happen. Every administration since their inception, including George Bush in the aftermath of 9-11, they were very… I guess, trepidatious with how they used ICE, the amount of enforcement that they were allowed to pursue. Because the truth is, you know, we get wrapped around the axles. And part of this is from the administration. Their messaging also is criminal aliens, criminal aliens. You don’t have to be a criminal alien to be illegal and removable, deportable.
SPEAKER 16 :
Right.
SPEAKER 07 :
I mean, you look. That’s the only criterion is you’re not you’re here illegally. Therefore. you will be deported, regardless of what your criminal history is.
SPEAKER 16 :
Well, Todd, no, no, no, don’t run on, don’t run on. I want to jump in there because I brought this up with people before. You know, people want to make it, really take it lightly that these people came here illegally and they’re quote-unquote undocumented. Anywhere I go undocumented, I’m illegal there. Okay, so, you know, well, there are no illegal people. Nobody’s saying you’re an illegal person. You’re legally a person. We’re saying you’re an illegal immigrant. You immigrated illegally. If you’re a bus driver, you drive a bus. Okay. If you immigrate illegally, you’re an illegal immigrant. It’s not, you know, we’re not calling names here. We are describing your actions. And I think that, you know, we’re dealing with incredible numbers. And I will say this. There are these people who have come in. It was so broadcast around the world, especially South America, that it was so accepted to come here illegally that they felt, well, gee, it’s like going over 55. I’m not really breaking that big of a law. And I got to be honest, I feel for them in that way. Right. They wanted a better life and it wasn’t being treated as a major crime. So they didn’t see it as a major crime, even though they’re invading a nation, which is what you’re literally doing. I mean, if I go to a nation and I’m there without documentation, I’m an invader. OK, what I want to know is what I want to know is this. Have we seen such a change because of a change, honestly, with the Hispanic vote? And I know that’s out of the blue here, but hang on with me for a moment. When you go back during the Bush time and during the Clinton time, right, and even during the Obama time when they weren’t enforcing, During that time, a very high percentage of Hispanic Americans, which was a very growing, a rapidly growing segment of the voting public, a very large percentage of them, a big majority, did not want us to enforce voting. immigration law okay they didn’t want us to why they had too many family members they knew too many people it was just too close to their community that has shifted so now when trump is going to his people and saying no enforce the law enforce it across the board he’s doing it in the context of the hispanic voters in america now a majority of legal hispanic voters now want deportations Do you think maybe the change in the Hispanic voter is unleashing ICE?
SPEAKER 07 :
I never… I hadn’t analyzed it against the attitudes of the Hispanic voting bloc. I looked at it in more terms of Trump didn’t have any choice but to do this because of what Biden did. Biden essentially… he invited an invasion, essentially declared war on American citizens by allowing foreign nationals of every flavor, every color, every size, shape, whatever you want to call it, into the United States, deliberately releasing them into the United States to skew the population and really to tilt the political… framework of the united states the political uh climate of the united states you know that’s going to change uh representation in a lot of states uh well i mean seriously because well you’re talking about the census there but also what does it say to the american voter when an entire political party looks at them and says i really want to replace you i i want you overrun with new voters who like us your listeners see that what
SPEAKER 16 :
Go ahead again, Todd.
SPEAKER 07 :
I didn’t hear you. I said, I seriously wonder how much of the Democrat voting bloc, how much of the Democrat Party actually sees it as an effort to displace their vote, to supersede them with foreign nationals. I saw that. I think most everybody in the Border Patrol saw that. I know you recognize it for what it is. I don’t know how widespread that understanding is. But it’s absolutely true. But a president cannot, in good faith, ignore the fact that there are, you know, 15, 20 million illegal aliens residing in this country. They have to be removed.
SPEAKER 16 :
Right. Okay, now let me ask this. Manpower, okay? ICE is obviously overwhelmed. When we have the big, beautiful bill go through, and at some point it’s going to go through, and we’re going to have suddenly the money go toward rebuilding the wall. Now, we’re going to hire a lot of new ICE and Border Patrol agents, but as you know, it takes, what is it, six, 12 months to get them trained up and even ready to go on the streets. You tell me. But in the meantime… The more we secure the border, the less we need Border Patrol. Can we shift that manpower to help ICE?
SPEAKER 07 :
So you’re in the military. You know what TDY is.
SPEAKER 16 :
Yes, I do. Temporary duty.
SPEAKER 07 :
You could detail, temporarily assign Border Patrol, which we’ve been doing. So if you watched a lot of the footage there in Los Angeles when they were having their mostly peaceful protests against ICE, You saw a lot of guys in green uniforms, and those were Border Patrol, by and large. I know there are some other agencies out there that happen to wear green, but Border Patrol went up there in force from San Diego sector, El Centro sector, and I believe from Yuma sector, sent people up there also. And that was not for the express or even the primary purpose of joining in those crowd control efforts, the riot police, they were going up there to enforce immigration law. So we’re doing that. We’re detailing BP agents to these ICE task force across the country and And doing exactly that. Okay, well, one more question.
SPEAKER 16 :
Okay, one more question here, Todd, before we go to break. We’ll come back. I actually want to talk a little about the vice chair race here in Colorado because that may sound boring to some people. It is not. It’s actually blowing up online. Here’s my question. Let’s say Trump builds the wall. And by the way, he’s going to. I think the wall is going to get built. I think it’s going to get built very quickly. And obviously, it’s not a pure wall all across. There’s different terrain. We all get that. We’re not stupid. Okay, we get it. We’re just talking. We just call it the wall. Once it is in place all across our southern border, policing that southern border becomes much easier, especially with the high tech that they’re going to have attached to this. Ergo, you don’t need the same amount of manpower. So at that point, doesn’t that free up even more border security to help ICE?
SPEAKER 07 :
No, because you still have to respond.
SPEAKER 16 :
Yeah, but respond to what? I mean, aren’t you going to dramatically lower the number who even try? I mean, how do you even try when you’ve got not just the wall, but you’ve got high tech able to detect you’re underneath and above and at a distance from the wall? I mean, it becomes awfully, I mean, it just becomes pointless to try to cross at that point, doesn’t it?
SPEAKER 07 :
No, I mean, we’ve, We have a lot of ISR platforms, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, as it is, and we’ve had them for really since post-9-11. We’ve got drones with the whole radar, camera array. So detecting has gotten much, much better. So our ability to identify or just detect incursions is dramatically increased. If it becomes 100%, Well, now you have 100% detection, so you still have to go and interdict them. And if you let off on your ability to interdict, they’ll just run. They’ll come right through. They don’t care if we see you. It doesn’t count unless we catch you.
SPEAKER 16 :
How do they come right through once we have that level of walls and gates? I mean, it’s going to be dramatically larger than what we have now.
SPEAKER 07 :
So whether… You may not see groups of 100, but a group of 10, you still have to chase them. If you build a 100-foot wall, they will build a 101-foot ladder.
SPEAKER 16 :
And I will… Well, yeah, but I mean, trying to carry a 101-foot ladder across the desert, you know, below the border, you’re going to get seen miles away. I mean, is it… You know what I mean. I mean, it just seems pointless.
SPEAKER 07 :
So in… Almost equal in importance to that wall is the other infrastructure to access some of these remote areas. I watched groups of aliens come in, come over. They knew where our cameras were. They knew when they were on film, as it were. And it didn’t matter because their scouts told them where the rest of the other agents are. And you can do this all night long, all week long with a group of 10 goes here, a group of 10 goes there. You pull off the agents for that, and then you run a group of 20 up the middle. And they’ll get over that fence. They’ll get over it. They’ll get under it. I don’t care what you build. They will get through it. They have nothing but time. And their budget on the cartel side is absolutely limitless. They don’t have requirements.
SPEAKER 1 :
I know.
SPEAKER 07 :
of allocating funds. They don’t have to go to Congress to beg for tunneling equipment to defeat the Americans.
SPEAKER 16 :
No, they don’t. But surely you’re not saying that defending an enormous barrier like that is exactly the same as defending an empty field where there’s no barrier whatsoever. I mean, come on. That’s ridiculous. I mean, obviously a large barrier is going to slow you. It’s going to make it more. That means you’re going to need the large ladder. That means you’re going to need to do things that are more easily detected. I agree with what you’re saying. They’re going to, you know, they’re going to play. They’ll do it. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. They’ll find ways. But I just think it’s going to be greatly slowed.
SPEAKER 07 :
To some extent, yes. I mean, the idea of the wall was to give us time to respond to the incursion. It’s a lot different, like you said. than just three-strand barbed wire, snip, snip, and you’re through, whereas this takes a little bit more time and effort. They’ll develop the effort. They’ll develop technology that we hadn’t even imagined yet to get across it. I’ve seen them fabricate basically car carriers that were a ramp to ramp over our border fence, and obviously they’re not going to do that with a 30-foot barrier. The taller the barrier, the harder it’s going to be. I’m not saying that it’s a waste of time that we shouldn’t do this. Absolutely, we should do this. But don’t be lulled into complacency that, well, we’ve got this big, beautiful wall and it’s got all this tech. We only need half the Border Patrol there. You’ll be proved very wrong about that after a couple of years, and you’ll be racing to catch up.
SPEAKER 16 :
Okay, so you’re basically saying it’s going to help, but we’re still going to need the manpower. That’s fair. Okay, you know your job, man. I mean, you’ve been there. But keep in mind, you’re saying, well, I’ve seen them come with barriers that go over fencing. I’ve seen them march tens of thousands across empty fields. Okay? I mean, that’s what I’ve seen, where there’s no barrier whatsoever, and all they do is walk.
SPEAKER 07 :
But you still have to respond. Yeah, I know, I know, but you see the difference. And interdict it, yeah. I mean, a couple of years before I came in, they had the big, wide-open fields there south of San Diego.
SPEAKER 16 :
Right.
SPEAKER 07 :
You know, with Tijuana, and they would just fill up, and the sun would go down, and then hundreds would just run down. nor into California. You don’t see that anymore, but you almost get more concerned with that group of 10 that went through all that trouble to get over that fence. That’s fair. That’s a level of desperation and commitment You kind of want to know who they are. Okay. Well, tell you what. It’s not the easy route.
SPEAKER 16 :
All right. Well, that’s good info. Tell you what. Let’s take a break. When we come back, I just want to spend just a few minutes talking about the vice chair race. I want to get your thoughts on that. Sound good? Sure. All right. Up next is Cub Creek Heating and Air. It’s time to get your air con ready if you haven’t already. Better because it is hot out there. So call the best. Cub Creek at 303-656-5467.
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SPEAKER 05 :
Now back to Rush to Reason on KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 16 :
And welcome back to Rush to Reason. Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. Andy Pate filling in for John Rush along with Tanner Cole and Luke Cash. And on the line right now, we’ve got Todd Watkins. Todd, really quick here. We’ve got about four minutes. I want to talk about the vice chair race. Here in the Colorado Republican Party in Colorado, because the vice chair stepped down, he had differences with the chair, Britta Horn. And I don’t want to go into those because I just don’t have time right now. I want to talk about the people who are vying for a spot. And what we have is something that we’ve never really seen before. We have, or at least not for many years, we have a couple of the candidates for vice chair who want to get in specifically for one reason, to undermine her and to attack her from within. Am I correct?
SPEAKER 07 :
I am not going to argue with that assessment.
SPEAKER 16 :
Okay, and what are their names, sir?
SPEAKER 07 :
So, well, I know Mark Hampton out of Douglas County, the Parker area, and I believe there might be one other that’s on that side of the aisle, if you will.
SPEAKER 16 :
Is Darcy running? That’s running. Darcy Shanning?
SPEAKER 07 :
She said that she was, but I…
SPEAKER 16 :
haven’t seen anything more about so okay maybe she is maybe she isn’t maybe i don’t care well in that case let’s just talk let’s just talk about mark hampton who is a rhino watch crazy and yes i will call him that and i don’t care um mark hampton yeah i know he did he he is rhino watch mark hampton is one of the most aggressive um just mean, vicious people online I have ever seen here in Colorado politics. He’s in the top 10 of just these people who just breathe fire. And he has spent, for the last year, attacking Britta Horne at every level. She’s a rhino. She’s terrible. You know, and he was, of course, he’s a big Davidian. He supports Dave Williams and the old regime. And he he fought against her getting elected all he could. Now he wants to run for vice chair. What on earth is he going to do as her partner?
SPEAKER 07 :
I don’t know what he thinks he can do. Here’s they they think, oh, this is going to be the number two. I’m going to have you know, all this, uh, power and authority to do something. That’s not how that works. I urge anybody who wants to run for any of these political offices at these parties, read the bylaws, see what it is. The job description is in there. The job description.
SPEAKER 16 :
Hello. Are you there?
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah. I mean, did, did I, you dropped out for a moment?
SPEAKER 16 :
You said the job description, then you dropped out.
SPEAKER 07 :
The job, the job description is in the bylaws. It’s literally two sentences. It is to serve as the chair when the chair is absent, right? Yeah. So kind of like when the chair isn’t here, so you’ll be the chair. And the other is to basically do whatever job the chair gives you. That’s it, man. That’s it. You don’t have anything else. So if he thinks he’s going to, you know, sally forth on his own, carrying whatever agenda or initiative he wants, That’s absolutely incorrect. The chair can completely cut him off.
SPEAKER 16 :
Well, I believe he entirely intends to do that. And, you know, Todd, just so you know, we’ve got less than a minute left. Sum up what you see happening. What? Go ahead.
SPEAKER 07 :
It wouldn’t last but a moment if he tried to, you know, go off on his own. I mean, she can shut him down.
SPEAKER 16 :
Okay, but wait a minute.
SPEAKER 07 :
You’ve got 30 seconds. I want you to answer this and sum up.
SPEAKER 16 :
What’s it going to look like, though, for Britta Horne since she’s already lost one vice chair? And by the way, I like Britta, but you know. And she’s already lost one vice chair who says, hey, I can’t work with her. And then she gets another one and she has to shut him down. How’s that look for her? I mean, remember, what do you think Rhino Watch is going to do?
SPEAKER 07 :
I don’t care what Rhino Watch does. That’s fair. And anybody who listens to Rhino Watch is just foolish for listening to it. I mean, if you’re an enemy of the party, then that’s your… You know, that’s your prerogative. Yeah, it’s the propaganda from the opposition.
SPEAKER 16 :
Well, running against him is Richard Holthorff. I’m sorry, sir, we’re pretty much out of time. But, Todd, I want to have you back again because thank you so much for enlightening us on what can be done at the border and what can be done to help ICE. I appreciate it. Sure, Andy. See you guys. Have a great day. Okay, that was Todd Watkins. Okay, that’s it. That’s it for our number one. In our two, we’re going to be talking Trump, the military, lots more. We’ve got lots more to talk about, and also Richard Rush will be joining us to talk sports. Keep it right here on Rush to Reason, KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 14 :
Average Guys Average Guys
No Kings, No Clue: Protest Logic Falls Apart