So the question was, neighbors had said that the door to the church had been barricaded. The shooter approached on one side of the church building. And on that side, at least two doors. It appears there had been like a two by four placed. [00:00:15] Every one of us needs to be wrapping our arms around these families, giving them every ounce that we can muster. These were Minneapolis families. These were American families. And the amount of pain that they are suffering right now is extraordinary. [00:00:37] Okay. At least two children were killed, this morning after a gunman decided to open fire inside the Annunciation Catholic Church, which is part of a Catholic school in Minneapolis. Bear with me as I try to get through the story because I'm just I'm over. [00:00:55] I'm personally overwhelmed by how many stories we have covered this year about children getting killed. You know, obviously abroad. But hearing about it here in the United States is just as painful. So this gunman is also dead with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. [00:01:11] Bringing the total death toll to three. 17 more individuals were injured, 14 of them being children. Two of those children were in critical condition in the hospital. Now, among the children who were killed was an eight year old and a ten year old. [00:01:28] And the Annunciation Catholic Church, has a school for children from pre-kindergarten to eighth grade. So this is the beginning of the school year for them. They were in church praying. It was their first day back at school. [00:01:43] And according to the New York Times, a gunman fired a rifle through the windows of a Catholic church in Minneapolis, where students were celebrating their first mass of the new school year. The attacker then shot and killed himself in the rear of the church, according [00:01:58] to Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara. So before opening fire, this sick individual decided to barricade, essentially trap everyone in the church before he carried out his attack. So at least two doors of this church had been barricaded from the outside, [00:02:18] the chief said. The gunman, who was in his early 20s, also fired a shotgun and a pistol. Now, reports do indicate that the shooter was armed with multiple weapons, including a rifle, shotgun and a handgun. [00:02:33] Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis, of course, who's a pretty strong advocate of gun control laws, was beside himself and just absolutely, absolutely rejected thoughts and prayers, which is typical after shootings like this take place. Take a look. [00:02:50] And don't just say this is about thoughts and prayers right now. These kids were literally praying. It was the first week of school. They were in a church. These are kids that should be learning with their friends. [00:03:06] They should be playing on the playground. They should be able to go to school or church in peace without the fear or risk of violence. And their parents should have the same kind of assurance. These are the sort of basic assurances that every family should have [00:03:23] every step of the day, regardless of where they are in our country. So I have no faith in our lawmakers, whether it be on a state level or obviously not on a federal level, Congress is pretty much useless. [00:03:40] And while I understand the calls for, you know, better gun laws, I don't think that gun laws alone are leading to the prevalence of gun violence that we have in this country. Yes, it's simple to point to the guns, but clearly there's also [00:03:57] a very serious problem with young people and mental health in this country. This keeps happening over and over again. And oftentimes, you know, when you hear these stories of young people accessing these weapons, the weapons might belong to their parents. [00:04:13] Maybe that's how they access them. Their parents bought it legally, but they didn't secure the weapons and their kids were able to access them. I don't know, we don't we still at this moment, do not know how the shooter obtained the guns, whether or not this individual obtained them legally or illegally. [00:04:29] We're going to have to wait for the story to develop a little more. And as you guys know, you know, in the past, I've certainly been vocal in being in favor of things like federal background checks when you purchase guns. But even if you pass those gun laws, right, even if you do, clearly there [00:04:45] is a huge problem in this country. When we talk about things like the mail loneliness epidemic, people think about it as if it's like some sort of fun, you know, sex war, gender war. No, no, no, there's something really serious happening in the country right now. [00:05:01] Okay. High levels of depression among young women. Loneliness among men. We need to figure out how we can take care of each other, how we can assist people with mental health, how we can provide better mental health care. This person. [00:05:16] I'm going to give you some details about the shooter as we know them at this moment. And again, I just want to warn you all the shooting took place this morning. It's likely going to develop further. We'll learn more about the shooter. This individual allegedly had a manifesto that police are currently investigating. [00:05:31] But from the evidence that I've seen in the reporting so far, this person was crazy. Like, like absolutely insane. Like writing all sorts of hateful, bigoted garbage on the magazines, for his [00:05:49] weapon, racist things about Latinos. Just. It was. I mean, I'm not going to repeat everything that he wrote on, those magazines, but you could tell that this person was not doing well mentally, to say the least. [00:06:04] Now, before I give you some more details about the shooter and what we know about him, the Minneapolis mayor, Jacob Frey, has kind of weighed in on something you may have seen online. You know, I don't know why this has been a trend lately when it comes to shooters, [00:06:21] but immediately you'll see a bunch of accounts online argue that it's a trans problem, that the shooter was trans. Okay, we don't have any evidence right now that the shooter's trans. And besides which, obviously you have a lot of shootings happening all across the country from different demographics, but a lot of mass shootings [00:06:39] are carried out by young white men. Okay. I don't think that there's a big problem. And we need to do something about young white men. There is a problem in the country with these shootings, and we need to get to the bottom of why they're so prevalent here in the United States, and what we can do to mitigate it, to stop it. [00:06:55] But this is what the mayor had to say. Anybody who is using this as an opportunity to villainize our trans community, or any other community out there has lost their sense of common humanity. This is what he said during a press conference. Quote, kids died today. This needs to be about them. And I totally agree with him on that 100%. [00:07:14] So here's what we do know about the shooter so far. Okay, so the police did not release his name or say whether he had a connection to the church. However, the New York Post had an exclusive where they initially identified the shooter, and now it's also being reported by other publications. [00:07:32] So there's a photo of the individual. Robin Westman is the individual's name, as I mentioned earlier. He is dead now from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Now, he reportedly had a manifesto that the police are investigating. [00:07:48] Now, Westman, who is in his early 20s, opened fire through the stained glass windows of Annunciation Catholic Church during a celebratory back to school mass filled with children around 8:30 a.m. Wednesday. [00:08:04] A disturbing video believed to have been posted by the shooter shows Kill Donald Trump and for the children scrawled on gun magazines. So that's just a few of the examples of what was posted or written on the magazines. Now, people who immediately want to jump to politicizing this [00:08:22] or making it about political identity. He also had a lot of, you know, what some would consider right wing nonsense scrawled on the magazines. So let's just please think about the victims and put this person's alleged political ideology aside. [00:08:38] Obviously, this person was not well. Okay. So we'll wait for that story and his, you know, background to develop a further before we really weigh in on it. So one video showed diary entries with a drawing of the church [00:08:54] and writing in both English and Russian. I'm not going to show you those images. They are available online, including in the New York Post article. Other videos show that the shooter had an obsession with mass shooters, including the Sandy hook killer, Adam Lanza. [00:09:11] So Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar said one of her former staff members has three kids who were in the church when that shooting happened, and she cited the account of one of the children, quote, she watched a child get shot in the stomach and another in the neck. [00:09:28] Kids were scrambling down in the pews to protect themselves. Here's more from Klobuchar. Take a look. We're mourning for those that kids that were in there that may have survived but will never be the same. And we are supporting our law enforcement and our hospitals. [00:09:47] And there is right now some doctors and nurses that are sitting in an operating room with a little kid trying to save them from a shot in the stomach or a shot in the neck. And that's what we think of viscerally now, but to just let it go there and say thoughts and prayers is no longer enough. [00:10:06] And Minneapolis has been dealing with a lot of gun violence recently. I mean, the country has been dealing with a lot of gun violence. But, you know, this really stood out to me from The New York Times reporting. Minneapolis has seen a string of deadly violence in the past 24 hours. [00:10:21] The shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church was the fourth in the city since Tuesday, and the second near a school. In total, the attacks have left at least five people dead and 25 injured, according to the police. [00:10:36] When it comes to these types of shootings, I don't know what else I can possibly say. Obviously it's tragic. I have a niece who's eight years old, and so reading about that eight year old girl or eight year old child, I don't know if it was a girl, but eight year old child getting shot [00:10:53] and killed is absolutely heartbreaking. Another ten year old getting shot and killed. We do have a problem with shootings in this country, and we got to stop doing this thing where every time a shooting happens, people will talk about it, they'll debate what the solutions should be, [00:11:09] and then nothing happens. And it's the most depressing reality about our country, just the ineffectiveness of our political leadership, the pain and suffering of our people, whether they're suffering from severe mental health issues that go untreated, [00:11:29] whether they're severely depressed, you know, whether they've been dealing with violence, domestic violence that goes unchecked. There's just all sorts of things, all sorts of problems in our country. And typically what the people of any country would do is they would look to their leadership for solutions. [00:11:46] But we haven't had any real attempt at solving this ongoing problem in the country. And that's what breaks my heart. What breaks my heart is thinking about all of those kids in that church barricaded in there. Okay? Literally trapped in there by this disgusting gunman. [00:12:04] Nowhere to hide, nowhere to go, nowhere to escape. Just terrorized by someone opening fire against them like this. So hopefully the media will do its job. I know Ken Klippenstein will, because Ken Klippenstein doesn't do this cutesy little thing that journalists do these days in America, where they hide [00:12:21] the manifesto and refuse to report on it. I think we need to know what the motives were. I think we need as much information and transparency as humanly possible. People should not be living in terror like this. People should feel comfortable dropping their kids off at school [00:12:38] or going to church without worrying about some crazy person, insane person, hateful person, whatever. Whatever motivated this person to open fire and cause the type of pain, death, and destruction that this shooter did. Every time you ring the bell below, an angel gets its wings. [00:12:56] Totally not true, but it does keep you updated on our live shows.