Gov. Bevin: Again here's what I'll say, I mean a
hundred years ago, and even fifty years
ago, we had more guns per capita in
America than we do now. It's not a gun
problem...guns in these instances have
been involved, clearly. Guns have often
been involved when people have lost
their lives but the reality is it's not
a gun problem, it's not having too many
guns...there used to be more guns per
person in America than there are now but
children did not go to school and kill
other children. When I was a kid,
especially after Christmas, people
brought their guns to school. My friends would get a new shotgun, get a.22 or something, you'd come
to school and show it to your friends. It
was supposed to stay outside in your
truck, which may or may not have been
locked, but kids would bring them on the
buses. Sometimes they would be in kids'
lockers. Nobody even thought about
shooting other people with it, so it's
not a gun problem. What I would say to
those for whom that is the solution: get
a new idea, because that is not the
solution. It is a cultural problem. We
have a culture that is desensitized to
death, that is desensitized to the value
of life and we celebrate death through
our musical lyrics, we celebrate death
through video games that literally
reward you with extra points for going
back and finishing people off. I mean it
is horrific and it is graphic and
increasingly realistic. The television
shows that now are even on prime
time, movies, again these are things
that have long existed but the degree of
specificity, the graphic nature of them,
the encouraging of people to participate
in the form of video games and then the
belief that none of this is connected to
what we're seeing? Give me a break.
We've removed any responsibility from
the homes and from communities, from
schools and from churches, from things
that once were the background and
the foundation of the mores of
a nation. We've told these people to keep
a lid on it, keep that in your own mind,
so we've removed any sense of right or
wrong.
We've infused that with a whole lot of
do whatever, including taking human life,
and then we're shocked when people do it?
We got to grow up here in America, we got
to be serious about the fact this is a
cultural problem and in America at every
level, from the homes that we live in to
the White House and everywhere in
between, we need to have a frank and
honest dialogue about the cultural
reasons for young people killing young
people.
It's not the gun, because they could just
as easily run kids over while they're
waiting in line to get on the school bus.
What is the mindset that's causing young
people to kill other young people? That's
what needs to be addressed.
Scott Wartman: Is there any evidence that,
drawing the connection to video games and movies, and this behavior?
Bevin: Again, go back before any of these existed.
How many children walked into
schools and slaughtered other children?
How much more evidence do you need? You have 17
more dead children in Florida. We had a
couple dead children a few weeks ago
here in Kentucky.
How much more evidence do people want?
The people who say there's no evidence
are full of crap,frankly, and are using
that as an excuse to not address the
fact that we have plenty of dead bodies
of our children that are the evidence. I
don't know how much more anybody needs.
Wartman: What should the government do about this, if anything?
Bevin: Again, let's start a dialogue. The
most important thing, back to the
beginning of your question, not to have
any knee-jerk response. The idea that we
need to do this or to do that, this rule
or that law, that is not the answer. And
mistakes are made when people with good
intention, in moments of emotion, rush to
judgment. Let's start an honest
conversation about what is or is not
appropriate to be infusing into our
young people. And I'm a big believer in
the Constitution and the First Amendment
and in the right to free speech, but there
are certain things that are so graphic
as it relates to violence and things
that are so pornographic as well on a
whole other front that we allow to pass
under the guise of free speech, which
arguably are, but there is ZERO
redemptive value. There is ZERO upside to
any of this being in the public domain
let alone in the minds and hands and homes of our young people.
We need to have honest conversation
about what should or should not even be
allowed in the United States as it
relates to some of the things that are
being put in the hands of our young people.
Wartman: Do you know what that threshold should be?
Bevin: Again, no, I mean this is, let's start a conversation. I'm one person, you're one person, there's no
one person not one person who has it all
figured out, nor is there a perfect
solution, because evil exists and don't
kid yourself: what you saw was evil. But
I'll tell you another thing too as long
as we're talking about this, we talked
today about a company that's looking at
the pharmacodynamic effect of certain
drugs in the pharmacogenomic effect of
certain drugs, every human being has a
different physiology. And you look at the
number of children that have been
involved in these shootings who are on
some kind of psychiatric drug.
Listen, watch a football game, watch a basketball game, I don't care what they're advertising, it could be for
constipation, it could be for PTSD, it
could be for anything in between...you
listen to the little disclaimer at the
end. How many of them have very specific
warnings about suicidal thoughts, the
thoughts of self-harm, the thoughts of
depression. These are the catalysts for
some of what we're seeing in these
schools. Let's not kid ourselves if we
fail to talk about that by having
knee-jerk responses about more rules
needed for this, that, or the other thing.
We are intentionally misleading
ourselves and that is a mistake. There
will never be a perfect solution for
keeping evil in a box but we can be a
lot smarter by talking about the
societal impact of encouraging certain
behaviors that have absolutely no upside
for America.
