Well, it is special session day here at T-Rex Arms.
Again.
Alright, welcome back to another T-Rex Talk.
And we had hoped that we would be done by now.
The Senate, as we talked about in previous livestreams,
really limited the scope of what they were trying to do in this special session,
and they had planned.
They had actually gotten their adjournment procedure on their schedule for 11 o'clock this morning,
but instead at 11 o'clock this morning they met and they changed it to Monday.
So this thing is running at least until Monday.
So there's good news and bad news in that.
The bad news is that we're not done.
And Tennessee taxpayers are going to continue to pay $58,000 in change
for every single day that people are on the hill doing stuff.
And that's only in the podiums and the mileage because they have their regular salary.
And then the people on the hill have their regular salary.
So they're getting paid regardless of whether special session happens or not.
But there's that extra $58,000 a day for them to be up there and talk about primarily gun laws.
That's what everybody wants them to talk about.
That's what the left wants them to talk about.
That's what the media wants them to talk about.
And it's a very annoying thing to watch some of the coverage.
And it's very annoying to watch some of the debate and it's very annoying to watch the protesters
because we talked about this a little bit in the live stream yesterday.
We had a tremendous amount of bad gun bills proposed by people.
A hundred bills were filed for special session, which was supposed to last for four days.
Obviously you're not going to listen to all of those bills in four days.
Obviously you're going to table a bunch of them and you're going to try to pass them
and just get through the special session really quickly.
But what has happened is the protesters have gotten a lot of media attention.
Fortunately, I would say that the actual legislators are listening to the protesters.
Somewhat less as time goes on for a couple of reasons.
Number one, it's way too hot outside for a lot of the protesters.
So a lot of them are not even showing up anymore.
A bunch of them showed up on Monday and they did things like create human chains around the Capitol and stuff like that.
But it's too hot to do that on Tuesday or Wednesday or today.
But the other thing is the protesters have been really, really annoying.
And I think that that actually backfires.
And it hurts their cause a lot more than it helps it.
And a lot of the people inside of the legislature have also been a lot more annoying and probably hurt their cause more than help their cause.
And that's because a lot of the people inside of the Tennessee state legislature are there not so much to do the job,
but to use the job as a stepping stone to the next political position that they are aiming for.
So there's some people there who are definitely grandstanding.
And they're trying to create a whole bunch of material that will...
You will see it in their next campaign ads for the next political position, the next office that they want to run for.
So all kinds of stuff is going on and everybody wants different things from the special session.
What is interesting is a lot of the protesters are super angry with how the special session is going.
And they're calling it a sham and a waste.
And I agree with them because I think it is also a sham and I think it is also a waste.
I've talked about why it's a waste, $58,000 per day seems wasteful.
And I've talked about why it is a sham because there is no emergency.
We are ostensibly meeting to deal with the emergency of gun violence because of a shooting that happened in March.
In April, the legislature of Tennessee said this is not actually an emergency.
We're not actually going to pass emergency legislation in session.
We're going to address it later.
So they're being called back to address an emergency that they already addressed the second time.
So that's kind of a sham.
But here's what's interesting.
This kind of shows the two different sides of the political spectrum here.
The protesters and I agree that this special session is a sham and is a waste.
But that doesn't bring us any closer together of politically or ideologically speaking.
And what it means is the legislators themselves are now in this very unenviable position
where they're not going to please anybody.
They're in this position now where it is just no matter what they do, they're going to offend people.
And I think that in some cases, for some of the legislators, that is a new position.
That's not fair.
I'm sure that they know that they have constituents who are going to be annoyed with them if they do this.
And other constituents will be annoyed with them if they do that.
But I think that this is the first time where they are dealing with people who spit on them
and threaten their lives and threaten the lives of their children no matter what they do.
I think that they are realizing now that there is actually nothing that they can do
to really please some of the protesters.
Not all the protesters, but some of the more specifically, I would say, advanced political protesters
have one goal and one goal only in mind, which is total disarmament.
So if they deliver anything less than that or even anything that is incrementally on the way to that,
they are going to be yelled at and spit at and called traitors and white supremacists, which we heard a lot of that.
In fact, we played a clip last livestream.
We'll place some more clips about this.
We called out specifically Chris Todd, who has had some really excellent gun legislation in the past.
Some of it has been shot down because it was too good for leadership.
He had some good gun legislation that would just allow off-duty cops to be able to take their side arms into schools.
Or just be on school property.
These are off-duty police officers with their duty weapons on them.
Currently, in the city of Tennessee, they're not allowed to go on to school property with those weapons.
Only the SROs that have been appointed by the school boards.
Those are the only police officers, deputies, law enforcement officers, who are allowed to have weapons on school property.
And even different schools and different jurisdictions and boards have set different rules for how those, it's kind of complicated.
So this bill that allows for that is just the worst thing.
The worst thing that some of the protesters can imagine.
They're not here for solutions that protect children, like allowing more people to be around schools with the only thing that is proven to stop school shootings and school shooters.
They only want weapon confiscation. They only want gun reform.
So did we show the picture of this session as a sham?
It's a very, yeah.
Politically, I would imagine that that woman and I are on opposite poles.
I feel that woman's pain.
We, our moods, are the same right now.
So that is, that is the sort of thing that's going on.
I'm going to try to pay a little bit better attention to the chat here.
I want to show some of the clips of Chris Todd talking about the bill.
We showed some clips of, was it a subcommittee we showed yesterday?
It's hard to keep track because there are a hundred bills getting talked about.
His bill passed a subcommittee and the protesters were horrified and started shouting white supremacists because that is the thing.
Everything has been really flattened. All the political ideologies, all the goals, everything has been flattened
onto a single one-dimensional plane where anything that you don't like is white supremacy.
Letting more police officers have firearms to protect children is white supremacy.
But he also brought that bill, once it got out of subcommittee, that bill went to the committee and we will play some clips from there.
Noel is also helping me keep an ear on what is happening on the floor right now in the house.
So the Senate is off till Monday.
The House is still talking about stuff and still trying to put the screws to the Senate and make them hear more bills.
So we will see how that goes.
Everyone is in the chat here pointing out that the chat is pretty calm.
People are asking for chest rigs. Just be patient.
Where is the new chest rig? Yes.
A lot of questions about this.
People asking where the AK-50 is at.
I do want to pester Brandon Herrera.
I do want to get this idea going that finishing the AK-50 will be one of his campaign promises.
So that would be a good thing to get going.
If you're on social media and you follow Brandon Herrera, I want you to demand this as a campaign promise.
It's a lot more doable than most of the campaign promises I've heard in my life.
I don't want to say I'm skeptical of the AK-50 project.
I'm going to say that it's extremely ambitious and it's an excellent campaign promise.
What about the ATF trying to restrict private sales with their next rule?
There's a whole bunch of ATF stuff that is brewing.
The good news is that all of the previous things that the ATF has tried to do,
rule change wise, has been struck down fully or partially or mostly.
The brewing decision that we got a couple of one year ago now, over a year now,
not quite two years ago now, has changed the landscape when it comes to gun control laws.
But there's another one that was at West Virginia versus EPA.
That changes how regulatory and enforcement agencies can apply rules.
That limits the amount of rule making authority that they have.
So we have several really good legal precedents that are going to clamp down on the ATF a little bit.
Now that still requires that people take them to court.
It still requires that people actually push back.
That is something that we have as ammunition though.
And that's part of the reason that the protesters are here in Tennessee right now.
I would love to know how many protesters on the Hill are actually from Tennessee.
And there's definitely quite a few that I know are from Tennessee.
And I recognize from previous interactions.
And so we have actual Tennessee people.
And we actually have true believers who really, really want this stuff.
And then we also have some paid out of town people.
Because the red flag thing is the new frontier or the new battle line.
It is the new front in weapon confiscation.
Because it hasn't.
We have a bunch of red flag laws.
None of them have been challenged legally yet.
And so this is this is the new game plan that we're seeing.
Do you have you have clips now all ready to go?
Let's play a Chris Todd clip because he makes some excellent points about what is the crux of the issue.
And then the way that the protesters respond is kind of the next thing that I want to cover here.
Now take it away technical team.
Well, as you well know, there are a number of schools that where the local governments have chosen not to provide SROs.
And this is certainly going to help fill that gap.
But we on top of the SROs, we have administrators in schools that are literally begging us for this ability.
They have their enhanced carry permits.
And they're begging us for this ability because they see these vulnerable children.
And they want to add protection to them along with the SROs that are there.
They plan to coordinate that.
We've got retired officers that are asking us for this.
We have off current officers that are asking us for this knowing they're about to retire.
And they want to volunteer.
They want to be a part of the school that might be in their neighborhood so that they can provide this no cost security.
Whatsoever is no cost to this at all.
And those are the most trusted members of our community.
So that's one of the reasons that we brought this.
I'm not sure you could hear all that with the moaning and groaning going on, but I hope you could.
Yeah, so that is Chris Todd.
I was going to say friend of the show, but I'm not sure that he knows that we have a show.
But he's a friend to gun owners in Tennessee.
And you've seen him in some previous T-Rex videos talking about gun control.
He worked on 1735, which was the bill to lower the age of handgun ownership for.
When was this?
With this two years ago, we were lowering the age of handgun ownership in Tennessee from 21 down to 18.
He was part of that effort.
He was one of the sponsors of those bills.
And we were not able to get that passed.
But then the Bruin decision came down.
There was a lawsuit run by firearm policy coalition and some other folks that actually got, you know,
we got a ruling from a judge that it was unconstitutional to restrain 20-year-olds and 21-year-olds from owning firearms or 19-20-year-olds from owning firearms.
That was unconstitutional, and so they can now.
Thanks to a court decision, not actually successful legislation.
So as he pointed out, he has a plan and a solution for protecting children in schools,
especially small schools that don't have tons of resources, where the children are especially at risk,
and then I think you have a bull so clip as well.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you sponsor for bringing this bill.
You know, this bill really raises and answers one question, which is,
is it prudent to have an armed response in school to protect children and staff in the event of an active shooter?
The bill obviously answers that question in the affirmative.
And it seems to me that there is significant historical support for that result.
So let's take back members to 2018.
We had a horrific shooting at Marjorie Douglas-Nome in high school in Parkland, Florida, that you all recall very vividly.
In that particular case, the shooter within the first 99 seconds before any armed response arrived shot 21 people.
That's what happened in 2018 in Parkland, Florida.
In 2022, you all also remember members that horrific shooting at Rob Elementary, and you've all day Texas.
In that case, within the first three minutes, the shooter had gotten off 100 rounds, 100 bullets, aimed at children and staff.
And so as much as we want to do things like what representative can has done and create a direct dispatch, panic alarm system, to get law enforcement to the schools as quickly as possible, what history tells us is that we need an armed response in place at the school to protect the kids.
Because of how quickly these bullets start to fly.
Yeah, so another excellent explanation of why this would actually be helpful, why this would actually be a solution to the problem that is being discussed, why this would actually be a solution for gun violence, why this would actually enhance public safety, why this would actually do the things that we are trying to do with the special session.
And let's see what the response is to this bill being voted on.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I'll preview this question.
You saw our hands up.
We have our hands up from the beginning.
We have our hands up from the beginning of this committee.
You know, we have our hands up.
You saw our hands up.
You saw our hands up.
We have our hands up.
Would you let the chair speak without jumping up where you did so well?
Well, I'm sorry.
You caught him with our hands were up.
He was on the list.
Set down this committee sat down and the chairman will make the call.
Do you want to call the question at this point?
Yes, sir, I do.
You recognize him when our hands were up.
Mark, you saw our hands up.
I had my hand up from the beginning.
I was the first one to raise my hand.
And we told you because we knew the games that you played.
We knew that you played these games.
Don't be cowardice.
Have the discussion as people been waiting for this bill.
And I am sorry.
Do you recognize him, or the chairman, the links are on board there.
One chairman, the link.
The question was called that it is a parliament conference.
You recognize him spicy shows.
Your choice to recognize him.
You recognize him before moving on.
Go ahead.
Mr. Chairman would all do respect, that is a crack of crap.
We had our hands up when we called the motion.
up because we wanted to beat this call of the question.
Colleen looked at me and nodded her head too.
And then you called on everybody else except us too.
That is wrong and that's disrespectful and very unlike you normally would have.
But if you want to run this bill and ram it down everybody's throat and down these people's
throat, you're doing exactly that and that's wrong.
You have no idea how we're going to vote.
We saw our hands mark.
Revision Warner, would you allow a discussion and withdraw your call at this point?
We have to obey the rules and I'm asking you to withdraw the call of the question.
Let's have a discussion on this.
Mr. Chairman, three bills ago, Representative Parking stood up and called a question.
The first thing.
Go ahead, finish.
No, I will not reject.
I will not pull my call for the question.
Let's vote.
Good.
I would ask the audience to sit down.
This is the Parliament's procedure.
We do not get anything done by people talking out of order and screaming.
We have, we have a process.
Representative Parkison, I have a list here.
He was on the list first.
And Jones, Mackenzie, Parkison, Sapiki, and Valsau.
I'm sorry.
Sir, sir, I am not going to put it with that accusation.
You are my colleague.
You're not my boss, Cersei.
Let's check ourselves real quick.
Let's take ourselves out of order.
You can remove me with these security guards, but I'm going to speak.
No, you're not.
I'm not stepping out.
I'm a member of this committee, so you can remove me.
No, this committee is out of order.
The chairman is out of order.
The people of District 52 are being silenced.
The people of District 2 are being silenced.
To be fair, people are saying here they were waiting.
They wanted to see the end of the clip when he throws the gavel.
He doesn't actually throw the gavel.
There's also people in the chat telling me that I need to run for office.
Did you not watch the clip?
I would have thrown the gavel, and that is why I'm not running for office.
But I am very sympathetic for those guys, because they have been under a huge amount of pressure from all over.
Jones is not helping.
I actually really like Parkinson, normally.
I feel like he's on his last nerve, because these are his people that can have looked bad.
And he's trying to help him, but yeah, I feel for those guys.
And not so much for Jones.
Now, it seems like we're picking on Jones a lot.
He is one representative, so he is one percent of the house.
And he comes up in our clips a lot.
And he is also complaining a whole bunch.
A lot of the interviews with him recently have with mainstream press have been that he is being...
He's not being hurt.
It's saying he's saying there how he's not being hurt.
Every time we cut live to the house, we're not cherry picking clips of him.
He just is hogging all of the time.
He's one percent of the house.
He wants 90 percent of the airtime.
He's getting about 50 of it, and he's complaining that he's not getting as much as he wants.
That's really what it seems like at this point.
It's kind of amazing.
And then Justin Pearson is similar, but quieter, although there was a hilarious moment last night,
where he was...
There's no polite way to put this.
His accent is fake.
He has a fake accent.
And when he gets really annoyed, his fake accent goes away.
So that was happening last night.
You could tell that he was really, really wound up.
So yeah, that was interesting.
So the protesters have been throwing tantrums.
Some of the people on these committees have also been throwing tantrums.
And there has been this idea going around that the rules,
the more restrictive rules that have been put into place for this special session
so that they can get more done are the end of democracy.
You know, having rules means that you cannot get your way,
and it is just one step on the road to fascism.
And I'm not exaggerating for a comic effect.
These are the kinds of things that are all over Twitter.
And did you have another clip to follow that, Noel?
Or do you want to show the shirt now?
So there are people who claim that they are being silenced.
I don't want to put everybody in one bucket.
But the cool thing about this shirt that we're about to show
is it will show you that there's a whole bunch of people
that are putting themselves in one bucket.
So if you look at this shirt here,
for those of you who are listening on audio,
it says, what do we want, power?
What do we want it now?
How do we get it?
Take it.
And then if you zoom in, Noel, on the bottom of that shirt,
you can see a whole bunch of organizations
that are in this thing together,
the people who made that shirt.
And a number of people are pointing out that Memphis,
so there's a group, a political group,
called Memphis for all.
I'm not actually sure what do they mean.
Do they mean that they want the city of Memphis
and all that that implies for everyone?
Or do they mean that everybody who lives in Memphis
should have some say in how Memphis runs?
I'm going to assume that they mean that last one,
but it sounds like they're trying to impose
a Memphis on all people when they show up.
But you can also see some other groups in there.
There's every town, of course.
That's a very obvious one that you would expect,
but there's also Planned Parenthood.
Now, if you know anything about Planned Parenthood,
oh, it's not every town.
It's mom's demand action, right?
Yeah.
They are kind of the same thing.
They run by some of the same people.
They get their money from the same people.
Every town and mom's demand action very similar.
But mom's demand action has been more active here in Tennessee.
There's a local brigade of folks.
Every town has spent a lot of money.
Every town spent $100,000 on ads
that they mostly put in Nashville a couple of weeks ago
in preparation for this.
But you might be wondering to yourself,
if you're a logical person, what does Planned Parenthood
have to do with mom's demand action?
Because even though Planned Parenthood's name has parent in it,
the main thing that they do is stop people from being parent.
So you would assume that Planned Parenthood and mom's demand action
would not be on the same page,
or be on the same t-shirt demanding power
and saying that they're going to take power.
So let's talk for a little bit about the spectrum as the wrong word.
Now, there's not a political spectrum per se.
But there are a lot of groups on the left
who have different specific things that they want accomplished.
And they do a really good job of all getting together on the same page
and showing up for the same issues together.
There's no reason for Planned Parenthood to be on the hill right now
lobbying for gun control.
Planned Parenthood makes its money by killing children.
So they don't care when children get killed in schools.
Right? That's the obvious logical inference here.
But Planned Parenthood gets about 45% of its money from the government
and Planned Parenthood wants to have more power.
And they want more money from the government and they want a bigger government.
And other groups that want a bigger government and more money from the government
and more of a specific political flavor and direction to come out
get together with groups that have really similar desires.
And that right there is what they all have in common.
So whether they are talking about reproductive rights,
which is what they call killing babies,
or gun reform, which is what they call weapon confiscation,
or various other things related to trans rights or various other things
that seemingly have nothing in common.
They actually do have an end result that all really does tie them together.
This idea that the government will have more power,
the government will have more authority, and people will have less freedom.
That is something that is really fascinating to me.
The way that this has developed is interesting.
And it's just fun to find that particular shirt.
All these different groups, if you go to all these different groups,
websites, and you look at all the different things that they want.
There's not a ton of overlap.
But the shirt says what they want.
They want power.
All of those groups want power.
And all of those groups are affiliated with the government enough
that more government power turns into more power for them.
They want power, and they want to just take it.
That's why they're throwing tantrums in Nashville right now.
So people keep telling me to run for Congress.
I'm not going to.
Brandon Herrera will do it for me.
He will be my representative at San Antonio.
And I really like the two reps that we have for this district here.
And I really like our senator, Carrie Roberts.
We haven't mentioned the Carrie Roberts before in the last couple of livestreams.
But have known Carrie Roberts for a long time.
And I've been very impressed with stuff that he has been doing.
So yeah, I think that's good.
A lot of people commenting on throwing the gavel.
Yes.
Just don't let him hold the gavel when he's angry.
Yeah.
If we could, you know, throw the gavel, get it back.
Whoever possesses this gavel has all the powers of the chairman of what subcommittee that was.
That was full committee.
Yeah.
The other thing that's kind of interesting about this particular topic.
Conservative groups need to get better at working together.
When there is an issue like the large fuzzy issue that is this particular special session,
gun, violence, public safety, and mental health.
It isn't just the two A groups that should show up and be a part of this.
People who are interested in free speech should show up and be a part of this conversation.
People who are interested in the right to privacy to show up and be a part of this conversation.
People who are interested in the right to privacy to show up and be a part of this conversation.
People who are interested in homeschooling and education freedom should show up and be a part of this conversation.
Because the decisions that people want to make about these issues are going to impact all of those things.
And in a negative way.
Because the people who want to grab power are the ones that want bigger and larger restrictions on all of those different things.
Some of the bills that talk about mental health, we haven't had a chance to go through a whole lot of bills.
Because again, there are a hundred bills that are filed.
And some of those have been tabled. Most of them have been tabled in the Senate.
Some of them are still being discussed in the House.
Some of those bills have massive privacy implications.
Some of those bills have massive educational implications.
Some of those have massive freedom implications outside of weapon confiscation.
Some of the safe storage bills don't make it clear whether or not people can just come into your house whenever they want.
To find out if your guns are locked up.
There are massive freedom implications in some of these poorly thought out bills that are being ramroded through the special session.
Now, the good news is it seems like things have stalled and it seems like people are getting pretty tired of the constant interruptions from the protesters.
I think of that as all working in freedom's favor.
While what is frustrating now is that there is so much conflict going on between leadership.
There are a number of people that have their own personal agenda in Nashville.
They have specific bills that they want to pass for their own personal reasons.
And now they're kind of at loggerheads.
And I don't think they're being driven by political pressure.
I don't think they're being deliberately steered about by the governor.
The governor hasn't even showed up.
Apparently he's not in the county, which given all this going on is probably a wise move on his part.
But calling the special session was not a wise move.
Again, special sessions are for actual real emergencies.
And then you do a real small amount of stuff that's required for an emergency.
You don't just ramrod stuff through because the care and the due diligence is really, really important.
So let's take a quick break to talk about the chat here.
Are there any questions?
Why are you keeping an eye on the chat?
Anything in particular that we should talk about.
People talk about building their own 43x pistols.
This is good. This is good. That is a good thing.
I have a 43x.
You should definitely get the one with the rail because you're going to want to put a light on it at some point.
And you should put a threaded barrel on it.
It's useful.
A lot of the questions.
A lot of the questions that are coming up inside of not so much the chat, but inside of some of these committee conversations show that.
The questioners don't really know how things work.
And when I say things, I don't just mean guns.
It's not just that they don't know how guns work, but oftentimes they're commenting on an SRO bill.
They don't know how SRO's work. They don't know how schools work.
They don't know how law enforcement works.
And then they also don't know how guns work.
And so what happens is, this is part of the reason you want the due process.
There's a whole bunch of people on Capitol Hill that don't know how things work outside of Capitol Hill because they're very focused on their jobs.
Are they, is it fair to call them bureaucrats, no?
I think it's fair.
Some of them are good bureaucrats.
Were you a bureaucrat when you were there?
That's a good guy.
I see why you got ahead of that there.
Also, later on in the chat, we are going to introduce Noel.
You've heard from Noel, and Noel has helped tremendously on these chats on the live stream, so Noel will appear before you.
And well, and you'll have a microphone so she can talk.
But the fascinating thing is that when you get really, really focused on doing a job on Capitol Hill, you're really isolated from the real world.
And when you have regular session and you have bills that will take days and days in between each committee hearing and then report it on in a, I would say, more normal way by the media, people who are in the real world and have context and have information about how these things work, have the time to actually get in there and be part of some of those conversations.
Instead of just random politicians and bureaucrats trying to remember about another bill that they read about SROs.
And a study they read that said that minority children shouldn't have to see cops because it's triggering for them.
And that's why we shouldn't have SROs inside school.
That was actually the only reason I could come up with why they were yelling that Chris Todd was a white supremacist.
Apparently, it's because seeing cops is something that only white supremacists want to do.
White supremacists apparently love cops.
They really want a cop to show up when they're doing their white supremacist activities, I think.
I guess.
Yeah.
So, yeah.
And part of the problem with the 21st century in general is a lot of us are very isolated from the real world.
It's really easy for us to see parts of the real world through our phones on social media and have a job that is really compartmentalized from other things.
And one was the last time you were on a farm.
One was the last time you watched somebody milking a cow.
One was the last time you watched a video of somebody milking a cow.
Now, do you have some really good points to make to the legislature about regulations on agricultural stuff?
Probably not.
So, that's why the longer procedure actually allows for better information to go into making some of these decisions.
But one of the things that the freedom-minded community should really work on is getting together and working together on some of these issues.
I may not be an agricultural expert, but I want freedom and less government involvement.
So, I should totally help out our local agricultural boards when that is what they are trying to do.
And then I would learn more about the agricultural stuff and they would have the support of me when we actually want to do legislative stuff.
So, that is the homework assignment for you guys.
Really think about how you can do this stuff.
If you want limited government, if you want smaller government, if you want government to have a jurisdiction that it's not allowed out of, as our founding fathers intended and as the Constitution very clearly lays out.
And if you have seen some governmental overreaches in your time and you think that it's a pretty poor idea, then you should be willing to not just talk about second amendment stuff, but the other amendments.
And you should hang out with not just gun people, but with agricultural freedom people and educational freedom people and some of the other freedom people.
Now, some of the other freedom people are weird, but is isn't our diversity our strength or something like that?
One of the things that's so fascinating to me about the diversity is our strength people.
On the back of that t-shirt, they have totally aligned themselves around a single issue, which is wanting power and taking power.
So, that allows them to overcome some of the difficulties of having too much diversity, really narrow it down to a single issue and then just go after it.
Do we have any other clips? No, well, or is there anything else that we want to try to try to cover talking about how we should get more involved?
Or is anything happening on the floor? I can tell you right now, if Justin Jones hasn't been expelled.
It can very well happen.
He has already asked when the right time in the order of businesses to call for a no confidence vote for our speaker, that was how we started the session.
Here's the fascinating thing. He wants a no confidence vote in the speaker. I would love a no confidence vote in the speaker.
Now, maybe not tonight, but my confidence in the speaker is pretty low, just like Justin Jones' confidence, but for totally different reasons.
And I would actually like to fix some of the issues inside the Tennessee State legislature, which I don't think is what Justin Jones is trying to do.
I think that this is just another plan scheme.
I don't mean to pick on Justin Jones, but I do want to point out that this is kind of his whole stick.
The only trick that he really has is the victim card.
And that's really the only card that he has ever played. His star really rose when he got expelled or removed. What was the actual official term?
Expelled from the legislature in April for disobeying a bunch of the rules.
And expelling him was actually probably the wrong move because he was immediately reappointed by the city council where he's from.
And everyone knew that that was going to happen, so expelling him all it did was make a martyr out of him and then none of the consequences of being a martyr.
So that has been something that he did.
But even before that, who he's throwing milkshakes at a lot of people.
What was his most successful milkshake assault?
That really launched him into prominence.
I should give you your microphone now if you're going to tell the story.
Yeah, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to introduce you to Noel former good bureaucrat and currently friend of the show.
Someone who has helped on a bunch of projects, but has helped a ton on the political side and helped a ton on this particular trilogy of live streams that we have just done.
You should just say hi.
Hello, hello.
Hi, T-Rex YouTube.
I feel like I should manage expectations by saying I also know nothing about the new chest trick, but just to kind of set expectations from the beginning.
That is true.
The chest rig information is going to be pretty.
No, yeah, pretty limited from Noel.
It's a little bit about politics, but nothing about the new chest rig.
So.
So Justin Owens got his start by throwing a milkshake at someone and not just anybody.
It happened to be the speaker of the house.
It happened to be the speaker of the house.
It happened to be one of the only people that had protection, one of the only people who was actually protected by highway patrol.
So he chose a target that would get him arrested in the most public way possible so that he could be addictive.
Yes.
And it initially didn't work out very well for him because he was banned from the state house after that and assault charges were pressed.
But the D.A. of Nashville seems to have a soft spot for Justin.
So nothing ever came of that.
Very annoying.
That's nothing ever came of that.
I did see a funny quote on Twitter.
Somebody was mocking him and saying he couldn't hold down a job at dairy queen.
Which I don't think he could, but not only because of the milkshake thing.
But yeah, he rose to some level of prominence basically playing the victim card claiming that he had been persecuted by the Republicans.
Even though he picked the one guy that you get arrested for throwing a milkshake at to throw a milkshake at and waited until the cameras were there.
So that's totally on you.
And then the same thing in April.
When tensions were highest and emotion was highest, that was when he did the bullhorn gag.
So all of this he was brought on himself pretty carefully.
And I would say in some ways Bravo Justin Jones is timing is pretty impeccable.
And he has dealt himself many victim cards to play.
And now Eric Holder is apparently going to bat for him.
So we will see Justin Jones around.
This is one of these things where I feel like he doesn't really deserve as much attention as we're giving him.
But I think he'll be around for a while.
So just keep your eye out for Justin Jones.
He is indeed a rising star.
And I think at this point every state has their career activists, but he just happens to be ours.
So we get to talk about him.
And this is not a new trend.
We've always had this kind of political activism.
We've always had these kinds of political protesters.
We've always had issues with heightened emotions.
And we've always had some level of, I mean, we've had terrorism in this country as a political mechanism.
So milkshakes is not that big a deal.
But I do think that here in Tennessee, this is a little bit of a new thing.
I think that a lot of our reps are not quite sure what to do with a guy like Justin Jones.
He's very much a political operative type.
He is not a public servant type.
And they don't really know what to do with him.
And then the same thing is true with a lot of the protesters.
And the things that the protesters are saying and doing.
I am positive that they've seen this kind of thing on Fox News or CNN in DC.
But I don't know that they were ready for it to happen to them inside of their state house.
But this is something that they do need to be ready for.
And you guys need to be ready for it.
And you need to be getting your own local reps ready for this kind of thing.
This is the way that people take power now.
This is the playbook that people are following.
Now the good news is, I don't think the playbook is going super well in Tennessee.
Like people are not exactly rolling over and bending the knee the way that they anticipated.
But special session is still going.
And the Senate will reconvene in Monday.
So we will still see what happens.
Yeah, I would like to think that people are catching on.
I really think this spring was kind of a low point in a lot of ways for the Tennessee General Assembly.
I don't think they'd ever seen that level of protest.
And unfortunately, we know from leaked audio of a Republican caucus meeting that it actually had their caucused all turning on each other.
And just really like very scared and angry that they were being called all these horrible names.
Again, relatively new for Tennessee.
And I think their first response was to turn on each other, which was really sad.
But I think as time goes on, they'll be more prepared.
Honestly, the more they read up on the conflict theory playbook, it's just going to be easier to realize.
You know, it's any more in the conflict theory framework.
It's not really about what you do.
Your individual actions actually don't matter.
It's really about who you are.
Yeah.
Oh, that's an excellent point.
Yeah.
All sorts of horrible things without any individual events.
And we're seeing that play out with Donald Trump.
At this point, it doesn't matter what Donald Trump does.
It's who he is that matters.
He is Donald Trump.
So nothing that he does can be good.
Even when Donald Trump was going after the guns, and he has that famous quote,
take the guns first and do the due process.
Second, liberals did not like that.
That is exactly what liberals want to do.
That is exactly what red flag laws are.
But, but Donald Trump can't do that because he's Donald Trump.
Donald Trump can't be applauded for anything good because of who he is.
And that's why when people were attacking Chris Todd for wanting to improve the security
of the schools to protect children, he was called a white supremacist.
Because if Chris Todd is a white supremacist, it doesn't matter what he does.
It just matters that he's a white supremacist.
But, I mean, the problem with a lot of these different things is,
all the meanings of those words just kind of go away.
Like, when people started calling Donald Trump a racist at the beginning of his campaign,
it kind of stung a little.
And now I don't think anyone just, he doesn't bat an eye.
I don't think anybody bats an eye about this anymore.
It's kind of like taking the meaning out of the word anymore,
which is honestly a shade because it's a real idea, it's a real concept,
but anymore, yeah, it's kind of just an empty insult.
Yeah, I was thinking of the Darth Vader quote, that name no longer has any meaning.
So, don't have to listen to it when people say that anymore.
It's kind of crazy.
Yeah, so there's a bunch of people watching and we have some time left.
So, let me tell you real quickly what the plan is.
The plan is not to have another live stream tomorrow,
unless something crazy happens, which is always possible.
We should keep an eye on the local dairy queens,
and see if Justin Jones is arming himself for action.
I see something about a dairy queen holding star in the chat.
Excellent.
The milkshake ready, ready?
Okay, so this could have been a really cool chestering joke
if we've thought about it ahead of time.
But this is just one of those things that makes itself happen.
So, one of the things that we will do is continue to keep a close eye on what is going on,
but I actually think you should tell me what you think,
because you have not only worked there,
but you have worked there during previous special sessions.
My sense is that stuff,
important stuff that helps us predict what is going on
is not going to happen in front of the cameras quite as much anymore.
This is kind of moved to back rooms a little bit.
Honestly, I didn't really think special sessions could get much worse
than the last couple I was part of,
but this one is actually proving me wrong.
In a whole new way, the standoff,
and particularly the fact that it's sort of ending not with a bang,
but with a whimper at this point,
like the Senate has gone home,
hopefully with their feet up and their comfortable slippers,
and the house is just trucking to the fair.
They're bringing this on themselves,
so I am a little less empathetic, but it's looks terrible.
Yeah, and it's hard to understand at this point how,
yeah, it's going to end well for anybody.
Like Isaac mentioned before,
everyone's frustrated,
and tired, and angry, and hot, and a lot of things.
And nobody can please anybody.
Yeah.
They're not giving the governor what he wants.
They're not giving the protesters what they want.
They're not giving real conservatives what they want.
They're burning all of the emotional trust that they have
with one another at this point,
and all of these clips are going to come into play
in the next elections.
So, you know, I do think that Justin Jones might be winning.
Just in terms of airtime,
I think if it was about airtime.
If it was about airtime, he is winning,
but he's still not giving one loss.
Second from the clock, he's got the most seconds on the clock.
But I honestly, after sitting here for three days,
discussing, and watching, and noting what's happened.
Honestly, it would be kind of fun if we could end this.
Maybe with just some constructive thoughts on political involvement.
What do you think about that?
We will end this episode on constructive thoughts.
Things that you guys can be doing in your own states.
And we will update you when something that matters happens.
So, when the special session is finally well and truly over,
or something really climactic happens,
or there is a massive blizzard battle in the Senate chambers
or something like that,
you thought the ostrich eggs were bad?
I just had an amazing idea.
We will keep you updated,
but let's plan on no livestream for tomorrow.
And we will keep you posted on what happens,
and we will bring you closure when it finally,
if it finally arrives.
But yeah, let's talk about what is positive.
So, a couple things that were very positive about this special session.
Conservatives did get engaged,
a number of new organizations popped up,
and got organized, and that is excellent.
And then you guys contributed to,
mostly those of you in Tennessee,
but you contributed a lot of emails.
We sent, I think around 1200 emails rather,
to reps together.
So, that is something that I think had a pretty significant effect.
But what are some of the other things that you wanted to mention?
Well, I know there were some questions in the chat about,
you know, what's the best thing you can do for 2A right now,
and just significant meaningful action.
And I think it's kind of neat to be able to say,
like after spending a few years as staff in the Tennessee State House,
that there's absolutely a way that you can be effective.
But I think one of the things that can be difficult to hear right now
is that it does take time, because often, you know,
politics is the most exciting or frustrating in the moment.
When there is a special session happening,
that present moment, and we're trying to affect what's happening.
But honestly, I would say T-Rex is in a position to actually have
some influence because of things that were set in motion,
you know, a year ago, two years ago, three years ago.
So the fact that, but it's good that, you know,
if you're paying it, if you're paying attention now,
it's a good start.
But a lot of political involvement actually starts really
when you just get to know your rep or senator.
And I was going to tell a story on Toby if I can.
You can. Maybe you shouldn't mention his name.
I already did.
Maybe you shouldn't mention who else is in the story.
That was definitely a pin name.
But yeah, so what Isaac was saying earlier about how,
even just average normal people can be super helpful,
was I found to be true back in my first year in the state house,
because I, both my boss and I were new,
and we were getting to know the code, Tennessee code,
which is very extensive, as you've mentioned.
And one day, someone with just a random, very energetic,
fast walking citizen walked into our office and handed us a list.
It was his Christmas wish list of gun legislation.
Yeah.
And you guys can all be writing those kind of wish lists,
and you guys can all be taking those to your reps.
Not only is that allowed, but a lot of times that is appreciated.
Yes, because a representative cannot be an expert on every issue.
And so we ended up relying so heavily on citizens
to let knew the code better than we did in our office,
especially the first year we were there to tell us,
what is currently in statute?
What are the changes that need to be made to protect
firearms rights in this particular state?
And every state is going to have a very different,
like when it comes to the technicalities of what's in the code,
how the laws are written.
So that is actually something.
There's a place for really everybody to do something.
And you may be the person making phone calls,
or you may be the person who loves history.
And like Isaac did could give testimony on gun rights
and the history of gun rights within Oregon.
Yeah, that was interesting.
Yeah.
Not only are you going to have specific strengths
that other people don't have, but also just every pair of hands,
every pair of eyes watching and researching,
and having conversations with people
and just building relationships is huge.
That is the other thing that I think a number of people
have asked about T-Rex, how is it that we got involved
and engaged in this?
And when was it that David went to the Hill?
Was that 19?
Yeah.
So just starting to have relationships with people in 2019
means that now four years later we have a little bit of a track record
and these are not people that we see all the time,
but we have now seen them over and over and over again
in good times and in bad.
When gun bills were in favor,
because the governor was passing something like constitutional carry
and calling it constitutional carry,
and then also when gun laws are out of favor,
when the governor would like to pass red flag laws,
and maybe or maybe not call them red flag laws.
So yeah.
Yeah.
And I would say even in blue states,
I'm sure it's so to be in a blue state right now
and always has been, but there's usually one or two
or maybe even three conservative reps or senators
that could really use your encouragement.
And they in turn can give you some pretty interesting intel
into your state and how it's what's happening kind of in the hive
and how it works.
Yeah, for sure.
I would say especially in some of those blue states,
if you have three conservatives that are utterly and completely outnumbered
by the far left,
they need a lot of encouragement and a lot of support.
But even in Tennessee, I feel like we have a few hardcore conservatives,
we have some left conservative guys, we have some rhinos,
and then we have a few Democrats who are on the far left.
So there is a lot of opportunity in both supermajority situations
on the right and supermajority situations on the left
to give support to guys who really need it.
Like Chris Todd right now really needs support,
because he is getting hammered by the mainstream press
and being a white supremacist because he wanted to protect kids.
So that is right there,
somebody that could do with a phone call or an email tonight even.
So yeah, did you want to actually tell people that do this?
I would love to really,
because I think you have his phone number.
Yeah, from talking to some of the LAs down there,
legislative assistance,
it's a rough time for them right now.
And I know that Chris Todd, particularly after sponsoring
the SRO bill and getting so much heat for that,
could use just a note of encouragement.
And his email address,
which we can also probably drop into the chat,
is rep.Chris.Todd at capitaltn.gov,
capital.tn.gov,
and then his office number is 615-741-7475.
So yeah, he can use a little bit of encouragement right now.
Yeah, it's very frustrating.
And he's one of these guys. He's just a super nice guy.
He probably isn't used to having people scream at him
the way that he has this week.
He probably is not used to being called a white supremacist all the time.
If you're on the internet a lot,
being called a white supremacist just means that it is Tuesday.
But for these guys, it is not entirely new,
but it's certainly very hard to deal with that level of attention.
So yeah.
So those are some things that we could do immediately.
What are some of the other things that people should get ready to do?
A lot of this stuff is,
it is a bit of a process.
I would say,
are you part of the local chat that's talking about the chicken,
the chickens in Dixon?
Well, you should get part of that chat.
I'm part of several chats,
some of which are talking about special sessions,
some of which are talking about Brandon Herrera,
some of which are talking about national stuff,
and then Dixon County is about to ban chickens inside of city limits.
But this is why you need to be involved,
not just at the high levels,
but if you're really low levels,
there are a whole bunch of things that you can get involved with
in your city council or your county commissioners level.
And those are the guys who often go on to become state reps.
So that is the place where you need to get to know these people.
The reason that you get to know the people who are on the hill now
was more important is that you get to know the people who are going to be there in the future.
Builder relationships with the people who are going to be running from office for office
so that you're not getting involved at the ballot stage,
where you look at the ballot and you vote for whichever R is on the top,
or whichever R you've heard of before.
If you actually know these people ahead of time,
you've actually seen guys like Chris Todd prove themselves
and you know that you can actually support them
as opposed to just taking a gamble on all the guys from your county.
So get involved at that low level.
Don't despise that they have small beginnings
and be faithful in those really tiny little things
because they end up, they end up mattering.
Little tiny companies like T-Rex turn into slightly less tiny companies.
And some of the guys that we worked with four or five years ago
are now in Nashville.
And they're involved in this whole mess.
So yeah, so get started now because this is where the ball really starts rolling.
And don't immediately try to jump into a presidential campaign
and think that that is your starting point
and where you're going to get the most done.
The more relationships that you have, that closer, closer circle,
is where you're actually going to have the most influence
and you're actually going to be able to do the most good
and then grow that circle as opposed to immediately starting in DC.
Yeah, definitely.
Yeah, and I would just add, you'll probably be surprised at how accessible
your local council members are, your commissioners,
and even your state reps, how few phone calls they get or visits
and how, especially in the offseason when they're not in legislative session,
how easy it is to just sit down with them for 30 minutes or an hour
and just get to know them and let them know what things matter to you
and how you think about issues.
And if you become a good source of information, they will...
They know it's good for them, they'll definitely rely on you
because they can't know everything and be everywhere at once.
Yeah.
Yeah, so, how are you encouraged?
I know that you were hoping that we would be done by yesterday.
I was hoping we would be done by yesterday.
Yeah.
Are you looking forward to figuring out what happens next week?
I mean, we always, we have to see how this ends.
At this point, we're committed.
There's a sunk cost.
We've put so much time into this.
Five streams.
Is this the best trilogy ever created or the worst trilogy ever created?
It's neither.
Those two titles go to Star Wars.
Unfortunately.
We will be back.
We will be back to tell you guys what happened or to tell you what is happening
if something important is happening.
But I really do feel like all of the energy I'm trying to keep an eye on what's being discussed.
I feel like all the energy is gone in Nashville.
And there's nothing left but misery.
And people are going to try to just survive and try to do a lot more of the figuring stuff out behind closed doors.
So it's not going to be nearly as interesting to watch.
I mean, Justin Jones will still be.
He'll still be doing stuff.
And Justin Pearson.
And Gavin Newsom is in town.
In fact, I believe that he has a fundraising gig tonight.
So, so Gloria will be there.
Almost certainly.
Well, then we will have to end session at some point tonight so everyone can go see Gavin Newsom.
This is one of the advantages that we're a Republican super majority.
They can just leave and the Republicans will go and they'll still have a quorum.
But it won't actually matter because I think the main battle right now is the speaker of the house versus the Senate.
It isn't actually partisan.
It isn't actually related to any particular issues.
It's just stuff on there to do list.
That level of politics is in some ways the most brutal, the personal politics, sadly.
So in the future, we may actually know what is going on behind those closed doors.
But as soon as we know what is actually happening with session, we will let you know.
And there will be one more final livestream addressing the special session at a date to be determined by the special session.
And we will let you know.
It will be the fourth chapter, the scouring of the shy right?
Probably not. Probably it'll be a whimper instead of a bang.
It will fizzle out and everybody will have hurt feelings.
And the annoying thing is everybody will be frustrated with each other as opposed to the governor who started this thing.
And they'll be frustrated with each other as opposed to the protesters and the media that are making it as miserable as it is.
That is something that I want us as a community to figure out how to do as well.
When people put pressure on us and we get frustrated and we lash out at each other, we need to be a lot quicker at understanding that we need to get along better and forgive one another.
That's something that we really need to work on as a community too.
I've been frustrated by seeing that, but I've also been a part of that.
So in the tactical community, the gun community, the second amendment community, let's really think about some of the conflicts that we have and try to handle those in a much more mature way.
And if that feels then milkshakes, milkshakes.
No one can be mad about milkshakes.
I mean, hey, it's, yeah.
So thank you so much for watching this third and penultimate live stream.
Thank you for helping us follow all of this stuff.
And once again, you guys, yes, hit the like button, the subscribe button, the bell button, all the buttons.
And thank you so much for contributing to this process, all of the political stuff that we have been trying to do behind the scenes.
T-Rex has been able to do that because of your support, either your support in following us on the internet or buying stuff from T-Rex.
I think stuff like that new and improved chest rig coming next week sometime, details to be revealed later.