When it comes to guns and seemingly never-ending senseless mass shootings in America, popular podcaster Joe Rogan gets it, as seen in a recent episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience,” where he talked about a previous stance he took that America has a mental health problem, not a gun problem.
In 2013, Rogan tweeted: “This country has a mental health problem disguised as a gun problem and a tyranny problem disguised as a security problem.”
This country has a mental health problem disguised as a gun problem and a tyranny problem disguised as a security problem.
— Joe Rogan (@joerogan) January 27, 2013
Rogan was discussing the horrific Uvalde, Texas school shooting that resulted in 19 elementary school children and two adults being killed by a disturbed 18-year-old gunman, and he stressed that if you take away guns, criminals will end up being the only people who have them.
“It’s like, how do you stop that? No one knows how to stop that,” he said. “What is the answer? Is the answer to take everyone’s guns? Well, they’re not gonna give their guns up. Only criminals are gonna have guns. It’s not gonna be a good situation. Is the answer to make schools these armored compounds, where you have armed guards outside of every school? … Boy, that’s not something we want either.”
Securing schools can involve much more than just armed guards, and when considering what can happen, armed guards are certainly the better option.
“I wrote this thing once that this country has a mental health problem disguised as a gun problem,” Rogan said. “And that’s what it is. There’s so many guns, there’s more guns than there are people. I don’t think it’s a gun situation and I don’t think you can change the fact that it’s — I don’t think it’s wise to take all the guns away from people and give all the power to the government.”
“We see how they are with an armed populace, they still have a tendency towards totalitarianism,” Rogan explained. “And the more increased power and control you have over people, the easier it is for them to do what they do. And it’s a natural inclination, when you’re a person in power, to try to hold more power and acquire more power.”
“There’s never an inclination to give more power back to the people. to give more freedom back to the people,” he continued. “Freedoms lost are rarely regained.”
The latter remark is a play on the famous words of Founding Father John Adams, who said in a letter to his wife, Abigail: “A Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.”
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Tom Tillison grew up in Maryland before moving to Central Florida as a young teen. It is in the Sunshine State that he honed both his passion for politics and his writing skills. Tillison also contributes to BizPac Review.
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