June 22, 2018, HBO
But first up he’s an attorney and the provocative gun rights enthusiast who hosts NRA TV’s Noir Colion Noir!
I have seen your videos many times, you’re very good at what you do.
Thank you
I am not a gun lover.
Okay
Now if I say the term “gun nut” I hope you realize that is not an insult.
I don’t take it as much.
Good. I don’t mean not like you’re crazy, I mean like something you really love to do.
I’m incredibly passionate.
Right, I’m a drug nut. I mean a pot nut, not all drugs. Just the ones I can get my hands on… okay.
Jesus…
But when I watch your videos I’m very often… at the end you kind of have a smirk, like “I laid it out” and you know what you kind of earn your smirk. Because people like me who don’t really like guns, we don’t know much about guns and the theme with you really I think is like it’s annoying isn’t it that people who talk about guns and don’t know about guns I’m not restrained by their lack of knowledge. What are the misconceptions that bother you the most?
Well there are two dynamics: there’s the actual physical component of the gun and then the individuals as we’ve turned gun nuts right so there’s that aspect of say for instance semi-automatic.
Yeah, tell me about.
That vast majority of your guns almost all of them are semi-automatic
almost all good right I didn’t know that yeah I didn’t know that
and so that stuff you would learn after you follow the rabbit down the hole so to speak
And semiotic meaning you have to pull the trigger every…
And once you get one bullet right and that’s almost all gun pretty much yes not just so there seem to be obsessed with the AR-15 yes so with the they are does not stand for assault rifle that’s a common misconception right the AR stands for ArmaLite Rifle, which is the red actual rifle and it’s a semiautomatic rifle in the sense that you pull trigger once you get one you get one round.
So why do people think—liberals, let’s be honest—why did they think that getting rid of the ar-15 would go so far to solving this problem and tell me why it wouldn’t.
Um you know as the saying goes optics is everything. There’s a certain theatrics with guns in general right especially when you start thinking talking about things like they are 15 what they are 14 you see it it’s big usually most people who aren’t too familiar with guns they usually know about them by way of movies. So you see the movies with all the bad guys, spraying and praying, doing all these crazy things with the firearms and then you see that in reality and you’re like “oh my god, I don’t want those anywhere near me or on the streets”. And so what ends up happening is they take that and then they see it and it’s like, well they don’t know much, the knowledge base is not very high so what they end up doing is they start feeling alright because it evokes a feeling. This is the theatrics behind it they’re loud, there’s a muzzle flash, you know, all of those things…
And it could be said we like their is a lot of hypocrisy there if guns weren’t so popular why do they dominate movies as much as they do.
Because there’s there’s a fascination there like yeah it’s kind of like going to an amusement park, right?
And that’s why I say to gun nuts like just be honest and admit that you love guns and it’s sort of a vice in that like gambling alcohol drugs and these are all things that have some collateral damage. That I am willing to live with because you can’t tell me that I can’t smoke pot because some people will be hurt by it. You can’t organize society around what some people might do or be hurt by completely. So you would admit that you just like guns you’re like holding them you want to have sex with them…
It’s multifaceted. There’s an element of recreation there there’s an element of sport there, there’s an element of protection there, and then there’s an element of philosophy, with regard to what this country was founded on. So it’s incredibly multifaceted so winds up happen is just a lot of people who don’t really know much about firearms have a very myopic view of them and the only lens that they see them through is that the are the bad things that are done by bad people.
I feel like it’s self-reliance a lot too.
Absolutely.
Isn’t that what you feel? I get that from your videos.
Well, it’s it’s self-reliance based on reality.
Right, you don’t trust the cops to show up.
It’s not that I don’t trust…
… and if they do they might shoot you.
There’s always there’s a possibility for everything, right? But that’s not my main concern. My main concern is that in the in the moment, whenever something arises where I may have to defend my life I wouldn’t be in a position to do absolutely anything possible I can to make it out of there alive, along with the people I love and anybody else who seems to be around that I care about.
Right, but I had Killer Mike here, about a month ago, who was on your show and got in a lot of trouble for talking about guns…
No, he got a lot of trouble just being on my show.
…just for just being on the show… right. But you guys made some interesting points about how it’s very easy for people who live in safe neighborhoods to talk about gun control it’s a whole different story for some other folks who don’t have that luxury.
Yeah, I think one of the things that ends up happening when we start talking about some of the gun control measures that people are pushing is how they disproportionately affect people who are in lower economic environments and in environments that have a higher level of violence. right and so like you stated before I can live in a gated community have a security guard outside I’m gonna be feel relatively safe. Even then something could still happen but if say for instance I’m a single parent mother and I live in an inner city somewhere and I’m working two jobs and I can’t afford a car and I have to walk late at night and when I get off work at night and walk back home. Or if I’m at home with my kids in an environment where there are home invasions, I as a woman in that particular situation and just anyone I don’t want me protecting my life to be a competition, I want it to be as lopsided as possible, because I’m not the one threatening someone’s life, I’m going about my life and someone shiny with that and so I’m gonna be in the best position possible to guard against that.
Right, and I am sympathetic to the argument that if you’re in a horrible situation it would be a good thing if a good guy had a gun.
Absolutely
And we’ve seen many times and I know you think that they don’t report it.
I don’t think they reported enough in comparison to.
Right, but my question is where does that lead? we can’t go back to the Old West where we’re all strapped all the time.
Oh we are.
Well, I’m not.
I’m sorry there a gun somewhere around here.
I hope so, you’re right yeah, but not everybody. Because everybody can’t do it I mean you don’t really want teachers themselves to have guns do you?
I only don’t have a problem with arming teachers
But teachers aren’t…
There’s a contingency there’s a contingency
This is where the NRA loses me I mean they lose me a lot of places but but a place like that that that does seem unreasonable. I can’t understand a guarded a school and I think if the parkland guard who didn’t do his job, had done his job, we would be having a different debate.
Absolutely
But not teachers
But see here’s the thing about that with respect to this conversation one of the biggest issues that I’ve seen is that we’ve all kind of separated into our separate corners and kind of just lob attacks at each other. We all agree that we want to find a solution to these issues that’s we all agree with that. We just differ about how we go about it so Irish I can respect your position and not wanting to arm teachers. The way I look at it is when I look at some of these these mass shootings that have happened in the past. A lot of these teachers had to sacrifice themselves to protect their students and so my mind goes “well why not put them in the best position to fight back against the evil person that comes into the class” so instead of making them instead of being sacrificial lambs they fighters now and they’re willing to die for these students. So why not put them in the position to fight for.
Because their teachers. They don’t want it. They don’t want to have that job anymore, anymore the guard wants to teach physics.
You’re absolutely right but the moment somebody walks into that classroom with the gun and starts shooting at kids, well they don’t have an option so the only options they have is either sacrifice them so fight.
What about background checks. Now twenty percent of the people in this country get their guns without having to pass any sort of criminal check.
And when you say that would give me some some basis behind that well that if you’re talking about private sells?
Yeah I mean they get them from a relative gives up to them, or it gets passed down, or a gun show or something like that… and the NR I used to be for closing all those loopholes. Yeah, Wayne LaPierre.
Loopholes.
Loopholes.
Well when you say “loopholes” what do you mean?
Well here’s what Wayne I’m gonna ask you for this cuz it’s funny because when most people think of an NRA spokesman they don’t think of you.
Okay, fair enough.
They think of Wayne LaPierre, okay… I like to fuck with people’s minds… Wayne LaPierre in 1999: “we think it’s reasonable provide mandatory instant criminal background checks for every sale at every gun show, no loopholes anywhere for anyone”. What changed?
Yeah but when you go to a gun show and you purchase a firearm…
Is it really a show?
What would that be?
I don’t know, cuz I’ve never been. It sounds…
… like it’s a masturbation?
I wouldn’t know… No, I’m good with regular masturbation… But a show sounds like Annie Oakley*… it sounds like you know…
Still the show nonetheless, right?
But it’s really a sale, right? Isn’t that what a gun show is?
Yeah, where you can buy guns.
But why do they call it a show?
Well, because I… when I first went to a gun show I treat it as such…
Really?
You went there because what it is it’s an aggregation of a bunch of guns that you normally…
Yeah, but wouldn’t it be good if it we had a hundred percent of people who got it but background check? Wouldn’t that be good?
Sure, but how do you go about doing that from private self standpoint?
Well I don’t know. I know you’re against any sort of registry because you think that leads to confiscation but…
Well, it has before though…
In America?
No in America that’s what we’re trying to prevent but it has happened in places where people use as examples of shining beacons of what we should do gun control wise here in America.
I can’t imagine a country that loves its guns as much as this country. I mean we have almost half the gun in the world with 4% of the population I can’t imagine anyone ever tried to take away people’s guns. And if the people who were taking away the guns we’re doing it they’re usually the people who like guns they’re law enforcement you know.
And argue with that yeah.
Look, I’m I’m a little more gun reasonable these days now the Trump is the president… but I still think if people came after me to get even if I fired back then they could come back with always superior fire but the government is always going to outgun you okay. So why fear…
Well so if ii maybe understand the second amendment was written right to protect us and be in a position to fight off a tyrannical government so then why not provide us with the same weapons if the guns that I have now are not gonna be enough?
Actually Gary Wilson says “the Second Amendment”—listen to this, I want to get to reaction—”shows us just how far the poison of slavery pervaded the Constitution,” he says “the second meant was not meant to let individuals prevent federal tyranny—how could it?—but by training our rifles or handguns on the Army Navy and Air Force. It was meant to guarantee militia to handle the state’s internal problems, essentially the problems of a large slave population”. That’s a big reason why we have the Second Amendment, because we really needed to keep the slaves.
Here’s the irony behind that. We actually use the concept of the Second Amendment to revolt against a country that was oppressing us.
Right.
Right. And then in the same breath because of the purity of the language of that Second Amendment I now sit before you as a gun advocate with the ability to carry a gun.
I don’t want to make you mad. now you’re ready talking about this I appreciate you coming to us. Colion Noir! Thank you very much!
[Applause]
Notes:
* Annie Oakley (born Phoebe Ann Mosey; August 13, 1860 – November 3, 1926) was an American sharpshooter and exhibition shooter. Her “amazing talent” first came to light at 15 years old when she won a shooting match against traveling-show marksman Frank E. Butler, whom she later married. The couple joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show a few years later. Oakley became a renowned international star, performing before royalty and heads of state.
