Today marks, and I can't believe this, 11 years since the Sandy Hook massacre when 20 children and eleven adults were killed. It was one of the most devastating at that point, acts of gun violence. And coming out of it, some people had the tiniest shred of hope that perhaps this [00:00:20] will be a turning point, that past massacres had not been, but that this one, perhaps, especially considering the heroic deaths of the adults and the tragic deaths of kids so young, might break through. Well, it's been 11 years that has obviously not happened. [00:00:37] And to sort of commemorate that and put some pressure on those who have helped to stop reforms from going through the group mothers against Greg Abbot released this video to mark the anniversary. [00:01:11] >> Speaker 2: Please, God, save her. Do something. Save her. Please save her. >> Speaker 1: My thoughts and prayers are with you. >> Speaker 2: Thoughts and prayers. >> Speaker 1: Thoughts. >> Prayers. [00:01:28] >> Thoughts and prayers. [SOUND] [MUSIC] [00:01:50] >> Those obviously devastating, difficult to watch as a parent. The concept of that and these horrific acts of violence, especially in schools, definitely hit harder now that I have a child. And I understand some people will attempt to totally write off that ad saying, how dare you say thoughts and prayers are meaningless. [00:02:07] They're meaningful to many people. Yes. They don't save lives, though they clearly do not. We've tried it now as a country, we tried the thoughts and we've tried the prayers as dozens and hundreds of these acts have happened. [00:02:22] They have not saved any lives. The massacres continue and they will continue until we stop them from happening with something more effective than thoughts and prayers. Waz, what do you make of that? >> Speaker 3: I mean, it's quite a powerful message, obviously, [00:02:38] that this idea that we stand back and allow for millions of Americans to have been slaughtered here senselessly in this country by acts of gun violence, it's kind of crazy. And the thing about that commercial and [00:02:54] this anniversary makes me remember is that specifically what I remember about Sandy Hook is that it's the shooting that I kind of lost hope. It was just like, look, [LAUGH] if we can't generate popular will, [00:03:10] we can't generate enough support in the government bipartisan around children being slaughtered at school. We're talking about five and four year olds and six year olds being slaughtered at their school. [00:03:27] If that can't move anybody to act, then absolutely nothing else will. It's just impossible for me to imagine that any one thing could drive people, the powers that be, to do some meaningful change. [00:03:46] So, yeah, I'm not surprised at all. >> Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I feel roughly similar. I don't know for sure that it was Sandy Hook for me, but I think a lot of people who've been following this for a while, have experienced that, that gradual erosion of your faith in humanity, I mean, let alone the pandemic. [00:04:03] I mean, if you had any faith in our ability to come together collectively to solve tragedies, then that was gone by then. But, yeah, Sandy Hook and Parkland and Uvalde and the many high schools and the many colleges and all of that. [00:04:19] I mean, once a nation has said, we are not gonna do anything after five and six and seven year olds are blown to pieces with weapons of it. Yes, that country is going to have Parkland, and [00:04:35] they're gonna have Uvalde because they were okay with Sandy Hook. We are okay with these blood sacrifices to the profits of gun manufacturers and the political aspirations of conservatives, and we are okay with that. I mean, obviously, many of you watching are not okay with that. [00:04:51] And I would say the majority of Americans are not okay with that. But we have been utterly unable to actually translate that into political action. And so the murders will continue. More kids will be blown apart, because that's the country that we live in. And it really sucks, especially as a parent, [00:05:10] to think that that is very unlikely to change. We used to do these hypotheticals, Waz, like, what if it happened in a church? What if it happened at a concert? What if it happened at a mall? No. What if it's happened at all those places? And it will continue to. [00:05:26] I watched a movie. Shailene Woodley was in it, and there was a really devastating scene of a mass shooting in a mall, and it was hard to watch. But then I thought, this is supposed to be highly dramatic, [00:05:42] but it wasn't worse than many instances. Mandalay Bay, our reality, is more horrifying than what screenwriters can come up with. And that's the country we have. Maybe someday it'll change. [00:05:57] I see no reason to believe that it will. >> Speaker 1: Yeah, and also, man, I kind of wish maybe you mentioned those mass shootings. Part of me wonders if we marketed this gun problem a little differently, if it could have an effect. Because the bottom line is, the vast majority of people who get killed by guns, [00:06:19] it's over petty arguments from people that they know or kind of gambling debts, lovers quarrels, etc. These are the overwhelming majority of gun deaths. It's these everyday, [00:06:35] mundane things that aren't these sensationalized mass shootings, which obviously are horrible, particularly when this violence visits young children. But the vast majority of gun debts are these everyday, innocuous discrepancies, and disagreements. [00:06:52] Where somebody, because they have a gun, decides they're gonna settle the dispute via deadly force. That's the saddest part about this, man, is that it's so regular, it's so normal for somebody to just die from a BS argument. [00:07:08] [MUSIC]