hello and welcome to preview spotlight. thanks so much for being with us, well in a country which was founded on violence and when we're currently there more guns than people, it should not be a surprise that once again the united states has witnessed political violence. former us president donald trump was shot ear during assassination attempt. this is a country where almost 10% of the presidents have been

assassinated and even more attempted assassinations, but why? well stay with us as we look at all of this and what it means on the spotlight. i'd like to welcome my guests to the program. out of rochester, new york, david k. johnson, investigated journalist, author and founder of cr report.org. out of tampa, florida, neil mccape, conservative political commentator and national political reporter for redstate.com. thank you both for being with me. i like to start this off uh with david in rochester. um, let's look a statement made by us president joe biden regarding the assassination of tip and he said that there's there's not a place this kind of violence in america. your thoughts about the statement and and what exactly does it mean when in the us, i mean there... at

least 44 thousand americans that are killed every year by guns. well, i think the number killed is 24,00, not 44,000, and that's homicides. um, homic kill, killed by guns means homicides and suicides all together, but go ahead, yeah, but not all homicides are by gun and not all suicides are by gun, but these are by gun, i'm sorry to interrupt, i just want to be exact because it's really important as a journalist, when i was researching this, it was considered homicides and suicides by gun, but but go ahead. okay, without question, there is way too much gun violence in the world, there's modern uh mature economy in the world, no democracy in the world anywhere near the level of the united states when it comes to gun violence, and it is the goal of uh donald trump and many of his supporters that there be no rules whatsoever about carrying guns. the the second amendment of the american constitution doesn't refer to guns, it refers arms, and i have written the past that if you want to be

an absolutist about the second amendment, we now have nuclear weapons that will fit in the backpack, and i want a personal nuclear weapon, because nobody will mess with me if i'm carrying one rap. clearly we have a problem in the us, people having weapons like the one used in attempt to kill donald trump, that are intended to be military weapons used on the field of battle, don't belong in the civilian arena, but in america you can walk into a restaurant, a movie theater, uh store and you will see people carrying just guns on their hips, but assault rifles slung over their shoulder. yeah, that's pretty frightening. well, neil, i mean, let's talk about this in general, because would you say that the united states is just in general very violent society. i mean, we remember even the violence that took place, let's say on january 6, 2021, do you think that american general uh seem to feel that by

taking up guns, mean it's more of an american tradition. david just talked about the second amendment and and the roots may lie there, but mean your overall assessment, well i think uh humans are violent people and in america people are free to be humans and uh there are less controls that that we see in other countries and the founding fathers and the last 250 plus years we've basically made the decision. that we would rather have freedom than too much government control, and i want to remind you that the american revolution started at lexington and conquered because king george and his troops were sent to get the guns from farmers that they were storing in in lexington, and so it's uh, it's it's really interwoven into the american story, into the american dna, that to have a of free society, to have a free country that americans have the freedom to be armed, not everybody... wants to be armed, not everybody

is armed, but for the people who want to protect themselves, their families, their farms, their livelihood, well that should be the right, and certainly when the mob is marching down the street, looking to attack and looking to burn down buildings when there is a failure of the government to preserve tranquility, what other choice do americans have, and let's talk about that, let's talk about that, buse isn't that the responsibility of any government actually to make sure that their society is secure, not the individual, not the individual citizens, so what happens like we saw it in los angeles, what 20, 30 years ago, when they were the la riots and the police literally the korean neighborhoods, there was zero protection as there was as there was mayhem and chaos in that neighborhood, the korean americans had to go to the rooftops to protect their neighborhoods, we saw it in texas, we saw it in the nightclub shootings

and then we see another failure in butler pennsylvania, just because law enforcement fails doesn't mean you take away the rights of americans, because the americans want that right in case government. fails, it's a circular argument that does not help people make them safe. right, right. it's actually quite mind-boggling, can i say? well, david, um, when the united states was actually um founded on violence, apparently there are more guns and there are people. are you surprised by this event, by this assassination attempt? no, mean, we don't know much about the young man, a republican who shot at donald trump. and i hope we find out much more, but let me point out that we have always had gun controls in the united states, including in the british colonial area under the first american republic which only lasted seven years and under the constitution in dodge city, kansas, now that is the iconic image town for the frontier old

west, you were required at the city limits to holster your weapon and to go to the sheriff's office and to turn it in. you were not allowed to go down the street, to go to a bar, to do anything arm. with a gun, and the idea that individual americans are better off with all these guns, i think is disproven by the fact that other democratic or modern country allows this, and nobody else has the level of gun deaths that we do in america, so i i i reject totally your other guests argument that david, let's be honest, david, when you're driving through washington, when you're driving through, when you're driving through. new jersey, you're you don't want to be armed, you crazy? i go to trenton, new jersey fairly often, and also i don't interrupt people, try to have some manners, trop being aggressive. i go to harlem, i go to many places and i'm somebody who has personally hunted down murderers and

confronted them and gotten them arrested, so yes, i have no problem with that. i live five blocks outside of one of the cities that has one of the highest murder rates in america. but it turns out all the excuse me, it turned out that almost all the crime occurs in three of 40 zip codes, it's highly concentrated and what you're spelling is just classic okay, stay with me, neil, stay with me, would have a conversation, he's just ranting and i'm never going to get a word, yeah you, it's your turn now, go ahead, go ahead neil, first of all, i just want to address a quick point that the united states was was created out of violence, i would say unfortunately every country was created by an act of violence, mean they just happen to get a revolution if the rebels win, it's a civil war if the government wins, it was also, it was also a genocide of the native americans, let's let's remember the root of that, we're talking about genocide, let's deal with the united states, let's deal with the united states in

the context of other countries rather than comparing us with candyland, first of all, second of all, americans are not feeling safe, we do not feel protected by our government, we do not feel protected by law enforcement, and when government fails, americans want the right to protect themselves, and that's the bottom line, the vast majority of american gun owners wish to god that they did not have to have a gun, but this is a this, this is decision forced upon them by the failure of the government to create t tranquil society, what we saw in butler, pennsylvania was a failure. enforcement, what we saw at you waldi was a failure, what we saw these school shooting is a failure where law enforcement will literally wait for the victims to bleed out rather than to seek to seek the killer and take him down, and so what are we supposed to do? honestly, you know, he can say he he's he

doesn't feel, he feels david feels safe going through harlem, he feels safe going through trenton, he feels safe going through these neighborhoods in washington dc, god bless him because in washington dc. so to mayor, the supreme court justice of the united states was carjacked like a week ago. i mean, so if you have a supreme court justice who isn't safe in washington dc, then where are we? so so wouldn't you say then that the problem there's something more fundamental here with the problem that the people, the individual people have to protect themselves, i mean it's not the old west, we're talking about 2024, there are systems that are in place throughout the world, that societies are safe, so what is it about the united states that it is not safe? well, maybe we should stop hugging the thug and put them in jail and keep them in jail, maybe we need to expand the death penalty so that so that families of victims understand that what they... through is valuable to society and so that criminals understand that they will be held accountable. criminals do not feel like

they will be held accountable in this country. they go to jail where they are treated very well and they are hampered, they get their master's degree, the the victims, the children of their victims can't go to college, but the murderers get their master's degree in college. it's an absurd system that we have in this country. david, um, mean, there is a long history of violence and politics. in the us, if we look at the 60s and 70s where several people were assassinated from president john f kennedy to martin luther king, malcolm x, robert kennedy and others and of course in the 80s we had president ronald reagan and attempted assassination was shot, so political violence is not foreign to this society. i want your assessment overall of this, and why is this the case in your perspective? well, a political alliance absolutely has been endemic. to american society from the beginning, whether it was, as you pointed out, the uh taking of land from the

indigenous peoples here uh right up to the shooting yesterday of mr. trump and the unfortunate supporter of his who was killed. uh, gun violence begets gun violence, more guns equals more killings. the simple fact is us is an outlier in the world in terms of its unviolence, the amount of guns has, and i take it that your other guest, unlike me, has not spent a great deal of his life with law enforcement and talking to people who are criminals. uh, prisons, bring people in prison simply breeds more crime, it doesn't address the reasons that we have crime. now, i'm sure that your other guest won't agree with that whatsoever, but look at canada, australia, new zealand, england, france, italy, they don't have any level of crime like we do in america. and we don't have any level of homicides by gun as in the united states. there is no reason for a civilian to

carry assault rifle, a weapon specifically designed to kill as many people as possible, as quickly as possible in a military battlefield. okay, well neil, republican congress and mike kelly from pennsylvania says the blame lies somewhere in the psychee of america. your thoughts on statement, what do you think he meant? by that, i uh, it it boggles my mind that he would say something so stupid, it's uh, i can't read congressman's mind, and doubt very much that he can read the mind of america, uh, i think that the bottom line is that uh, if american, if americans feel threatened, they should have the right to arm themselves and someone's, it's - someone's going to tell me that i can't protect my family, i can't protect myself, my business, the people i care about, then then i'm really offended and the idea that you're just, i'm supposed to just take my chances because of some stupid

ideal that somebody cooked up in academia or wherever it came from, it's absurd. in the real world, in the real world, most americans who own guns, wish they didn't have to own a gun, but they do it out of necessity, and they don't do, they do it out of love, love for them for themselves, their family, their livelihood and their community, the people who walk around the... communities with cast with with who are armed, they are like shepherds amongst us, okay? a best case scenario for cops showing up the shooting is 10 or 15 minutes, okay? these by the time the cops show up, they're just putting yellow tape around the crime scene and taking statements. if someone is armed and at the scene, they can take down the threat in seconds and that that saves lives and we there are no statistics, all of the crimes and all of the lives saved. because americans are armed, but i would guess it's probably million a year of these things that go on,

and i, i, it's never happened to me personally, but i know number of people who have saved their own lives and the lives of others just by brandishing a weapon and getting themselves out of very dangerous situation, but the i guess the alter your alternative for them would be put your weapon down, get shot, and in 15 minutes a police officer will show up and take crime pictures. yeah, can i just say? "this is very interesting conversation for me as an american, uh, growing up in the united states and living in iran now, country where as i a woman, i can actually in this major city of tehran, i don't know 10 million." that i can actually go out and walk at two o'clock in the morning by myself and not expect to get shot so so it's it's really mindling why the united states with its sophistication technology um being the the hegemon of the world why it cannot keep its own people safe i mean i guess this is the main question at

hand but but let me let me just go on i mean i would just that in iran they don't let the criminals out of jail i think that the the just in iran is swift and appropriate, and if somebody rapes and murders a child, i imagine they don't get three years with probation, yeah, that's for sure, iran, that's for sure, if someone rapes a murder child, that is definitely for sure that is the case. well, david, i mean, um, let's talk about um, this whole situation, because i don't, sitting here, it seems somewhat ironic that we have trump and also biden, both individuals, let me just say, who have allowed and ordered assassin. nations of other people, but now there's such outrage, because i mean, this is, i'm so sorry, but this is what we see from the united states, whether we're talking about under donald trump that he assassinated, of course with colonel um, solimoni, who was in another country, who had fought the terrorists, the dish terrorists, and trump ordered the assassination in

another country, even though he was invited by iraq and bragged about it, or we're talking about biden who is... supporting right now genocide in gaza a palestinian babies who've been cut to pieces, so it's amazing the outrage. i mean, your take, david. well, the world is look a very complicated place, and unlike neil, un who just said he was speaking for millions of americans, but the congressman doesn't know the mind of americans, i'm not going to try to do that. uh, the fact is that the president of the united states, because the u.s. is de facto empire, uh, whoever it is, is going to end up - using his position as commander and chief to order killings of people, and some of those are going to be really bad decisions as with the iranian military officer where it provoked unnecessary responses. it is one thing to shoot a sniper, it's another thing to pick out a political target as donald trump did,

and part of the reason for that is donald who i known for 36 years have written three bestselling books about him, and i was the first person to write that he might become president of the united states in 1988, 36 years ago, donald doesn't know anything. if you asked donald, what's the difference between a sunni and a shia, he would have no idea, and i don't expect most americans to know that, but the president of united states better know that very well, so there are always contradictions in the world. i think the issue about violence in america that needs to be addressed is that we have over 390 million guns in this. country, other country has a gun ownership rate anything like that, we allow any kind of gun, you have to show identification to buy certain kinds of medicine if you have a cold at the drug store, but not if you buy an assault rifle and the bullets that go in it, and that's the core of the problem here, and combined with that we get things like neil making up history and not recognizing that we've always

had gun controls in america as my example showed with dodge city, kansas. well neil, though there has been called for national unity, i have been monitoring social media after this assassination attempt, how likely is this to cause greater division in the country as there are many questions still surrounding the overall assassination, because of our political system, especially as you get closer and closer to the election and then very much during the election when there's actual voting, this system is uh forces people into a binary choice. which is why there's always talk of third-party candidates in fact abraham lincoln was a third party candidate, but in the end it's uh, you know, it's black or it's white, you know, and that's it, and so there's going to be division because our system forces you to make decision, in effect there's no middle ground, you either pick the republican or you pick the democrat, but to go back to your

really, i think the point of this conversation is political violence in the united states, i do want to point. now that the leader of the republican party who got more than 70 million votes in 2020, there was a there was an attempt to kill him, and yet no cities were burned, nobody was tearing down any statues, no police stations were torched, and so at least on the republican side, which you was often the surched is sort the party of so-called insurrectionist, there was no political violence in response to this assassination at. and democratic politics uh, even in massachusetts, with the car union, that political violence is is very much a part of left-wing politics. okay, any

final comments, you have 30 seconds. well, i think we need to recognize that violence in america is a long endemic problem, that donald trump has repeatedly made public calls for violence, he's told people to beat up people in his audience and he'd pay their legal bills, which he would never do, and donald trump is a man of violence. he's called for the executions of people even get trials like the central park f who were later exonerated, and you have to see him in that context. he's not a politician, he's a conartist who has declared he wants to be our dictator, something i said in 2015 and wrote in 2016, would be his plan, he would never peacefully leave the white house, and that's what we saw with his failed coup three years ago. okay, all right, and on that, i think both of you for being with me, david k. johnson, gative journalist, author and founder of dcreport.org out of rochester new york, neil mccape, conservative political commentator, national political reporter for redstate.com, out of tample, florida, and

thank you viewers for being with us on another spotlight, i'm marsia hashimi, hope to see you right here next time, goodbye. "all options are on the table, we are not take any options off the table, no options off the table means i'm considering all options, somebody is killing iranian nuclear scientists, گفتم شما شهید میشید ولی نمیدونستم انقدر زود عمده اینتر ها ناشی از توانی امریکا و رژیم صهیونیستی بوده. maximum coordination with the israelis, united states manufacturing a false premise for confronting

iran, for what reason? i believe that working together we can make history.

"your headlines on per more than 140 palestinians are killed and some 400 injured in just one day of the israely genocidal war on gaza. the iranian president elect reaffirs tehran's support for palestinians, saying the islamic republic will not leave the palestinians alone under difficult conditions and the yemeni army carries out new anti-israel operations hitting an israeli ship and the regime's military target." with drones and ballistic missils.