hi my name is sandy baird and this is what's happening which occurs once a month approximately where these experts get to comment on current affairs and everything that's bothering our country and in fact the world since our country seems to a lot of the world this i going on and it came to my mind about guns is that this united states still has what's called the second amendment and we are one of the only countries in the world which probably first of all has a constitution in the first place and second has a bill of rights and in the bill of rights is the second amendment which guarantees to the people there's a controversy about whether people organized in the militia or people themselves have a right to bear arms and the latest case from out of washington in the supreme court which was the heller case seems to indicate that the court at least at this point feels that this individual citizens have the right to bear arms i would also mention that the right to bear arms as outlined in the vermont constitution and that from our constitution was adopted before the constitution of the united states in the vermont custer touche and it's even much clearer people are under the vermont constitution here in this wonderful state have the right to bear arms but they also have the right not to bear arms which i think is probably the best kind of definition of the right to bear arms it's also includes the right not to bear arms i would argue that that means that people don't have to be drafted but i might be wrong about that so anyway let's talk they solve the problem the problem of being gun violence of which mass shootings of a component of gun violence that robs the headlines and apparently provokes a response and legislators well britain doesn't even have a constitution a written constitution is that also correct it's not written right so the united states probably was one of the for certainly probably maybe was the first republic that had a constitution about you not certain maybe the old italian city states had constitutions but the united states certainly was the first republic that i know that had a constitution and most specifically add a bill of rights which of course are the rights that are guaranteed to individual citizens against the tyranny of government right so yeah so this constitution and its amendments are there all not yeah so that the the difference difference relating to free speech of course is the is the veil of bellotti of and that means that people have now the broad are a couple of things we're talking about your take on the second amendment correct the decision that the supreme court made was in two thousand and eight it's it's sort of  nstructive that it's only this this absolute certainty is only ten years old that is on the legal level and before that it was everybody it was a free for all and probably still is because who would expect the supreme court with the balance of the supreme court being that to to argue any other way in two thousand and eight about whether there's a distinction between a well regulated being part of a well regulated militia and just being an individual and which way what that was referring to i personally think it's quite clear putting militias having armed militias was a way to keep the slaves from rebelling and in fact that was a demand of the slaves slave states  and it certainly wasn't related so that you know all of these people with guns could revolt against the government could protect themselves against the government which is part of what people are saying now with the reason that they need to be able to individually hold guns aside from you know the break in at the house or if you know the solution to a good guy to bad guys with guns is good guys with guns and it's quite incoherent what people are talking about and i think so the whole question about the second amendment and whether or not the as currently constituted supreme court politically appointed supreme court has any metaphysical reality of it has a political reality has a legal reality but been about you and remember that i wish we had brought our constitution because in the second amendment as says something like to guarantee a free state people have the right to bear arms and so i would disagree with mark on  militia i would know it's come up but also there's something else there's something else and that is regardless of whether you like the present court or you don't the present court has said that it is an individual right regardless of what we think about that court and i i don't i it's the court order i know that's been political decisions made by the court all the time but you have to obey them so that essentially you know you don't have to but it's troublesome if you don't end up in  well it was also to do to rebel against the english empire which was the largest empire on earth they had plenty of guns so the american felt and i think rightly so that they also had to bear arms against the empire but there are now more than i think it's two hundred eighty five million guns in private hands and the u s so what what do they get used for  purpose so hunting is one we're definitely aware of and vermont so if defense is one where aware of an individual and defending protecting one's family that's another one there are several ok the national guard used to be for the defense of the state and to help in disasters then was federalized it's now become part of the federal government right now and that's a shame it seems to me aspects to this mass mass shooting this actually is a it's a small one but of course it terrorizes the whole population are you know numbers of people whenever it happens the numbers i saw recently random occurrences from the point of view of the of the victims on have a huge effect on the kid but i'll give you my position which is not particularly pro gun but i would argue if you take away guns from citizens and guess what the government has all the guns and the government uses those guns in a lot of ways that are also mass shootings and that's called war so in my there's a simple solution in my opinion is that is to take the way those kinds of weapons from everybody and i think you could do that constitutionally you could argue that the government simply shouldn't give contracts to places like lockheed to produce them in the first place but that would be constitutional wouldn't it do you see anything wrong with that or anything that even smacks of the gun control of citizens i was i was really interested the other day that trump said something that i believe will eventually happen will and he i think made a big mistake because he got in trouble at the n r a but he said let's take away people's guns without legal process right ok so how would that end up we have oh good that's a great idea to due process riot to due process instance in that seem typical to me when police are called to a home in which there's domestic violence and there's a weapon ok so there's an incidence of domestic violence when the police arrive there's another principle in our constitution right which is incredibly important because just right you arrive at a scene with domestic violence you don't that person has not been convicted of anything at that point he has not been convicted so he i'm using that word carefully because in general it's the male that is can make committing violence but not always ok so the police arrive and guess what they do do and that is constitutional de cite that person into court where the evidence is overwhelming that he did it it's cite him into court and then he or she get convicted of a crime at that point if it's a felony they can have guns anyway it leaves out the scenario where there is some when waving a gun and guess what me if we're really worried about particular about assault weapons and the weapons of war i agree that assault weapons are the weapons of war they're not they're not a weapon that you should have anywhere on earth including in the hands of soldiers and i certainly agree with that th and the gun by the way it's just interesting that we talk about people with rifles in seven thousand nine hundred one when the amendment was written people didn't have rifles higher tactics military tactics had to change because the the north and through smuggling the south the changed over from muskets to rifles and they no longer could have this face to face contact and everything had to be done at a distance all right so that's nowhere near the chin the but that's like eight hundred sixty three in seven hundred ninety one you know it's not it's what the got the guns that were being written about in the second amendment or distant relations in terms of it doesn't matter it doesn't matter if that matters to you it does not a matter of general to the american people hate when up i'm not the american people i have an i have an opinion yes and i agree completely with you that that if you step back from this that it's the guns and the lasers and the and the nukes and the nukes and the drones and you know that and it's and you talk about seventeen kids getting killed but at the very moment that seventeen kids are being killed seventeen hundred kids are to the level at which you're seeing it but i don't i don't want to insert you know any you know you read today stories about these and this killers in this series of mass killings and killing mass killings is more than four people and there are six out of seven days of that mass killings to me that leaves out the main thing which is the dependence on violence in the culture and in the pull in the this argument of something about the culture economy exactly put its finger on it though he blames the media for for creating a culture of fear around violence he said the media is blamed for everything you know it seems to me maybe it's to blame it somewhat is to blame i think currently in stirring up this mass hysteria against russia that's i think correct in my view that's correct and russia of course is the main superpower that the united states has always been hostile to and has always resurgent apparently softer several years of sell off to the u s in one nine hundred seventeen though even when it wasn't and when it was really not resurgent it was you know the victim of great war and violence against russia the united states has taken a position that russia has to have a different kind of government really has been true since one thousand seventeen and so i say most of the media contributing to this attitude after nine because things that kind of calmed down after nine eleven we had a new diablo which was terrorism and muslims right and so since is essentially a creation of the megaphone of the mainstream media well not only the mainstream media but the democrats i personally like that's how it is i who are trying to say that that's why clinton lost may be a little bit more about why china stan of that president moon well right the new president of south he was elected to the possibility of making peace with north korea that was why people voted for him i believe yeah yeah yeah and  of the news in the last week or so because it's one of those countries which will be affected by the tariffs proposed tariffs well as already affected by the i think the washing machine sanctions if you want to call it that and yet at the same time that back in the news relating to talks with north korea the thing that i think is really interesting about the koreas is that it come from something that i really believe in that peace will only come from ordinary grassroots people i mean it's clear to me that the united states doesn't really want peace with korea maybe trump maybe even does but it doesn't seem to me that the state department wants peace with korea is or tell us and or any of the kind of the stablish state states they simply want to maintain this military posture but the south koreans really spoke in the election  president moon they want some kind of deal with north korea why wouldn't they i mean if there's a war with north korea guess who's going to be hit first i mean who would be hit first of the united states bombs north korea the north korea is going to bombs south korea where all our troops are correct so the south koreans have a big interest in peace they were the ones who pushed the olympic games and having a joint team so it really confirms the idea that sometimes actors don't occur from the top down sometimes actions really occur more on a grassroots level i think it did in recently in burlington or on the f thirty five frankly and so i think this is a terrific this is terrific news and the other thing it seems to indicate to me is that the koreans want to be together they don't want this division it was never in a division that they agreed to you know they want they want to have korea be for the koreans both sides right and so more immediately what does north korea want we have to i think north korea wants t want to have some deals that they're not going to be starved about i mean this whole these whole economic sanctions is really a war measures and that i mean they want to be normal to get as much as possible fence right and i wouldn't i that they also want to be reunited with their brothers and sisters why not and they probably as i know you've told me sandy they are probably looking at what happened in iraq and what happens  where on the way to having nuclear weapons probably never really achieved anything what will happen to iran well potentially yeah right they are and i cross has because of the nuclear program which it has been abandoned now  thrown into chaos factional fighting north korea doesn't want bad to happen now but they've agreed to put it on the table which i find right did you hear that at that he's agreed to denuclear agreed is agreed to meet to that that would be on the table but nothing's been agreed to and trump today i think said or somebody said in the ministration that and it wasn't a declared war in the first place right it was just what was it a police action that area police action yeah right but the division of the koreas was never anything that the koreans wanted that  division happened as a result i believe of world war two right and as a result of and that occurred in vietnam to the division i mean the koreans are one people right having been occupied by japan and the second world war two and it seems to me that the minute world war two ended which is a controversial like when did it end for instance for vietnam when did it end for korea it hasn't ended for korea or germany or germany right but it seems to me that manny and i wish that we could about kicking away the ladder and then another book about the bad samaritan claiming that tariffs benefited south korea hugely in the post  flooding our markets when he goes to excuse canada and mexico so is it really to get after china them well vet was the rhetoric but the action doesn't correspond with that rhetoric so is it just totally insane idea or what that's my question doesn't have to look very smart to me that all the commentators that i'm reading well anyway i guess we'll see right it seems that the two places working class areas that trump carried in michigan and wisconsin seem to be happy with this and that's what was reported today i suppose we don't have very much time left and we can't leave this program without mentioning what happened in the local elections which i thought were incredibly interesting on two levels one that our present mayor who's been responsible for so much of the development in this town that's been so controversial really did not win fifty one percent of the vote that he was out voted by fifty one percent of the electorate a brawling to and they were that vote was divided between two people nevertheless it was fifty one percent about and the other thing that was really interesting to me was that the proposal to have the f thirty five based here was reputed by the electorate also so i wonder if you and that to me is gun control you know controlling they have the authority five's is a way to control planes guns and in effect long term war right except that wasn't the way it was presented i know that but it does yeah i know and and in a certain way not presenting it that way or keeping that under was part of a strategy that seems to have worked but wasn't finally very true wasn't clear well well the ballot put in the introductory passage to support for the national guard and so but the idea of avoiding the military consequences you know was really down pedaled you know i know  there was not an anti war proposal however and the reason i voted for it was because i'm i would i view it as an anti war measure because it was seeking to control the war machine or so and meanwhile i guess have a nice month