Matthew McConaughey Pushes Democrat Gun Control Myths

CLAY: Yesterday, right about time we were finishing the show, Matthew McConaughey decided to appear. This is following on the Korean pop band sensation, I think I wrote this down because I would totally screw this up, BTS. Are you familiar with BTS’ biggest songs, Buck?

BUCK: No, I’m loyal to PSY and Gangnam Style. Remember?

CLAY: That was a great song back in the day. So, the BTS people, Matthew McConaughey was in the White House, taking questions and answering comments, everything else. And I thought it was interesting because the conversation on gun control continued. Let’s play one of the cuts of Matthew McConaughey here discussing gun control.

BUCK: Does anyone think this will bring down gun violence in the country? Does anyone actually think this would prevent the…? One of the problems of mass shootings that we see in schools, which are… In the data they’re not separated from, but they really are different from a lot of what are considered mass shootings which involve criminal gang behavior on the street, where they fire indiscriminately and hit a number of bystanders. That’s also calculated in the FBI statistics as a mass shooting.

You’re talking about with the school shootings, with essentially premeditated mass murder of that kind, events that are statistically — emotionally, they’re deeply impactful and scar the country’s psyche. Statistically, they are very rare even still. I know people don’t think that because of the media coverage around them, but they are statistically rare events. So you’re trying to stop something that is statistically very rare with a policy that will do what exactly? They think that somebody who is going to plan out this kind of an attack won’t go through a waiting period? They think that’s going to…? Really look at it. He wants to have a serious adult conversation about it. Okay. Okay. Let’s do that. But what is this going to stop, Clay?

CLAY: I think a serious adult conversation would have to involve looking at the total numbers. 25,000, I think, people-ish are killed by violent crime in the United States every year. As we have talked about on this program, less than 1% of those victims are involved in so-called mass shootings. So, if we as a society decide we are going to attack violent deaths, murder, and we want to cut 50% of the murders in the United States off the table, what is required there? I’ve got some solutions for you, Buck: More police. Actually putting violent criminals behind bars and keeping them there.

Analyzing who are the shooters who are committing the vast majority of these murders. And, by the way, that might be uncomfortable because it isn’t a statistically representative sample of Americans. It’s overwhelmingly male. Right? Young men are overwhelmingly involved in gun violence and violence overall. It’s overwhelmingly minorities, and people are uncomfortable even having that discussion because they’re afraid — especially on the Democrat side — if you discuss real facts, you’re going to be called racist.

And it’s about having to make uncomfortable choices. Of course, even for many Democrats, I think. Guns are an easy out for them, they say, “Let’s just focus on the gun.” Somebody is pulling the trigger on that gun. And what are we doing to try to stop that from happening? One of the answers should be we need more aggressive policing. We need more police in the areas of cities where crime is overwhelming. By the way, I think we need armed security in every school in America.

We didn’t have it there. My kids have it in their public school. I would support it for any kids out there. I think that’s an easy answer. We’re not having an adult discussion, and that’s what’s frustrating to me. If you claim that you really care about this issue, let’s have a real adult discussion and figure out a way to reduce the number of people who are dying of violence all over this country.

BUCK: And good faith for Democrats to start with is “Republicans want children to be safe, too.” Stop with that. I hate that crap they pull.