Targeted: Exposing the Gun Control Agenda (2016) Movie Script

[instrumental music playing]

♪

[Jesse]

This story is about America.

It's about who we are,

where we've come from,

what we stand for.

It's about freedom.

And this story is my story.

Growing up as an American,

I always knew that America was unique because it was free.

But today, I'm watching

the freedoms that we have

slip away.

So I set out on a journey

across the world

to learn more about

the fight against freedom,

and to uncover the agenda

behind it.

This is my journey.

For me, this story began

as a way to explore an issue

that I was passionate about.

Coming from California

and living near the capital,

the topic of gun control was

a regular political issue

that people like me

were dealing with.

I was raised around guns

and growing up, my dad

was an avid hunter

but until the recent push

for more gun control,

I never really understood

how important a right

the Second Amendment

guaranteed.

And in America over

the past few years,

there has been a fairly steady battle against that right.

That idea was really

the springboard

for this journey.

I had questions.

What would happen

to our country if our guns

were taken away?

What was the point of it all?

Where is America headed?

But my first question-

How did this all start?

[operator] Newtown 911, what's the location and emergency?

[woman 1] Sandy Hook school,

I think there's somebody

shooting in here.

In Sandy Hook school.

[operator] Okay, what makes

you think that?

[woman 1] Because somebody's

got his gun.

I saw a glimpse of somebody

running down the hallway.

[operator] Newtown 911,

what's the address?

[woman 2] It's 10 Dickinson Drive in Sandy Hook. Newtown, Connecticut.

[operator] What's going on

at 10 Dickinson Drive?

[woman 2] It sounds like there are gunshots in the hallway.

[operator] Keep everybody calm, get everybody down,

get everybody away

from the windows, okay?

[operator] Newtown 911, what's the location of the emergency?

[caller]

Sandy Hook Elementary School

I believe they're

shooting at the front...

at the front glass.

Something is going on.

Right here in Newtown,

Connecticut, the site today

of a mass shooting...

What would drive a young man

to do such a thing?

He was armed to the teeth

with legally purchased guns

and went from obscurity

to infamy.

[Jesse]

On December 14, 2012,

Adam Lanza entered

Sandy Hook Elementary School

in Newtown, Connecticut,

and went on a killing spree.

That day he shot and killed

20 elementary school children

and six teachers,

accomplishing the second

deadliest school shooting

in American history.

After that, there was

a firestorm of debate

over gun control laws

all across America.

President Obama gave

impassioned speeches

and legislatives became

fired up

to try and fix the issue

of gun violence and

mass shootings

by pushing for more

restrictive gun control laws,

spanning everything from

tighter background checks

to assault weapons bans.

And along with the discussion, the rhetoric flew.

I'm not remotely against

people having the right

to bear arms,

I'm seriously against the right to have military style assault weapons

to blow kids' brains

to pieces in school.

Our journey is not complete

until all our children,

from the streets of Detroit

to the hills of Appalachia, to the quiet lanes of Newtown,

know that they are cared for.

[Jesse] One of the first

stops in my journey was

with Tim Donnelly,

a former California State Assemblyman from the mountains of southern California.

[Jesse]

From a political perspective,

how did this assault on

the Second Amendment begin?

It started with a tragedy.

We saw the tragedy at Sandy Hook

in Connecticut,

and as soon as that happened,

the liberals got out

Saul Alinsky's play book,

and didn't want to let

a tragedy go to waste.

So instead of reacting

in a calm, responsible manner,

and making sure that

we protect the kids,

they went right after the right

of people to protect themselves.

Here's the thing,

there's not a single law

that was proposed across

the entire United States

that would have prevented

that tragedy.

In fact, that kid tried

to buy the weapon

at a gun store

that wouldn't take

the background check,

and therefore he was denied

the right to legally purchase

a firearm.

Criminals don't abide

by laws, period. That's why

they're criminals.

They're outside of the law.

And this idea that we're gonna

deprive even teachers,

why shouldn't the teacher

have a right to defend her life

and the life of her children?

Why do we wanna deny her

the right to defend her life

and how's that gonna make

anybody else safer?

[Jesse] I wanted to get a feel for the reality of how firearms impact crime.

So I figured the best

place to do that was

in my own county,

and I met with my sheriff,

John D'Agostini.

When I took office, there were

roughly 720 licensed

concealed weapons carriers

in the county.

I've been in office

almost three years now,

we have over 2,000.

Our gun crime rate

hasn't gone up,

we don't have blood running

in the streets,

it's not the Old West,

that's not the case.

We have more law-abiding

citizens that are responsible,

people that are responsibly

exercising their

Second Amendment right

to carry a concealed weapon.

And I'm comfortable that

if evil came into my county,

and intended to do harm,

we wouldn't have

a mass incident,

we'd have a bad guy

neutralized.

The old saying now

is kind of a buzzword

in the last year is,

"The only thing that stops

a bad guy with a gun is

a good guy with a gun."

Good guys with guns don't

get into trouble.

Bad guys with guns will

always get into trouble.

You are never going to keep,

no matter what the laws are,

keep guns out of the hands

of bad guys.

It's not going to happen.

How about we just make sure

that law-abiding citizens

are able to exercise their

Second Amendment rights

to fort those bad guys

that do have firearms.

[Jesse] The rhetoric from

the media surrounding

the gun control debate

had really interested me.

I traveled to New York City to speak with former governor, Mike Huckabee.

First of all, liberals would

love to get rid of guns

because liberals, if they

don't understand something,

they want to eliminate it

so they don't have to have

an honest assessment of it.

So because of that arrogance,

they don't want anyone else

to own a gun,

and they don't want

anyone else to understand,

and they're not interested

in the facts, thank you,

because their minds have

already been made up.

I get so tired of liberals

when they say, "If we can

just save even one life--"

If there is a step we can take

that will save just one child,

just one parent,

just another town from

experiencing the same grief

that some of the moms and dads

who are here have endured,

then we should be doing it.

That sounds so stupid if you

stop to think about it

'cause we could save a lot

of lives getting out of cars,

airplanes, trains, boats.

People die all kinds of ways

everyday in America,

and it's easier for them

to have every person get

rid of his or her guns

and it would be for them

to take the time

to think about the fact that

guns are not the real problem.

It's people who have

an intent to kill,

who are the real problem.

[Jesse] David Keene

is the Editorial Editor

of theWashington Times

and formally served as the president of The National Rifle Association.

And he brings a unique

perspective to the table,

that of both a gun expert

and an expert in media

and rhetoric.

The media, by and large

does not enter coverage

of firearms related stories

as an unbiased journalistic...

you know, storyteller

or reporter.

Let me give you an example.

In the course of the gun debate

of the year or so ago,

I was invited to attend

and be the guest

at what's known as

theChristian Science Monitor

Breakfast in Washington.

That used to be called

theSperling Breakfast.

One of the questions that arose

was the question

of the so-called

"gun show loophole,"

that some of these folks

like to talk about.

And I finally, after answering

the question, said,

"How many people at this table

have ever attended a gun show?"

-Nobody.

-Hmm.

And so I said, "It happens that

a very large gun show next week

will be taking place

in sub-urban Virginia,

and we're sending around

a sign-up sheet right now.

Anybody who would like to

attend this gun show

can go with me as my guest."

TheChristian Science Monitor

called me a few days later,

and how many people

do you think signed up?

None.

Because they prefer to write

something based on their

own prejudices

than actually find out

what it was like

before they wrote their stories.

[Jesse] Gun control advocates have built an entire case based off of rhetoric and emotion

rather than reason.

They had turned

guns into criminals,

and gun owners, the backbone

of American gun culture,

into extremists.

Jessie Duff and Julie Golob

are both world champion

pistol shooters

whose lives are centered

around that gun culture

and are proof of who gun owners really are.

Something that I think gets

pumped out from the media

is this idea that, essentially

any person that loves guns

and owns guns

is probably in some way,

a yahoo, a redneck,

or just kind of a loser.

-Yeah.

-Um...

Being with all of these people,

what do you think of that view?

I think the media

portrays us completely wrong,

which, you know, they do that

for their advantage.

In the shooting industry,

you have every walk of life

you can imagine.

You have someone such as myself, a mid-twenties female, who loves to shoot.

I do girly things as well.

I make sure of my makeup,

and I have diamond earrings on

when I go shoot.

-That's not typical.

-Yeah.

Then you have your

older generation that

grew up with firearms

and love to compete, and just

go out and do what they can,

you have the younger generation

coming in,

you have any type of person

you can imagine

just enjoying firearms.

And for us to be stereotyped

in such a way

is... is not fair to us.

For me in particular,

guns have always been

a part of my family,

but I've always been tied in

closely to the roots of

the concept of being able to

not only have guns for fun

and hunting and shooting,

but also from the primary

aspect of that's what

makes us Americans.

If they would take a moment

to look into our world,

they would realize that...

people that enjoy the firearms and traditions, and everything that go with it,

nine times out of ten, we're

just good... good-hearted,

red-blooded Americans

that love our traditions

and what these firearms mean.

-It's just a way of life for us.

-Yeah.

[Jesse] What I was learning

through all of this was that

in almost every way

whether it came down to guns

themselves or gun owners

in America,

gun control advocates didn't

even understand the issue.

And as I studied it more,

that became abundantly clear.

This is a ghost gun.

What's a barrel shroud and why should we regulate it?

-I actually don't know

what a barrel shroud is--

-Oh, okay.

-It's in your legislation.

-It's a shoulder thing

that goes up.

No.

This right here has the ability

with a .30-caliber clip

to disperse with 30 bullets

within half a second.

Thirty magazine clip

in half a second.

For most purposes,

having these... these...

these magazine, um, clips

that have... that have

more than 15 rounds in them

there's really no purpose for those except for shooting targets or shooting people.

Pistols are different.

You'll have to pull

the trigger each time.

An assault weapon,

you basically hold and it goes

[imitates gun sound]

[Jesse]

Yeah, they don't get it.

And these are the people

who are claiming to be

the experts in the issue.

[Donnelly] Ultimately,

the founders were afraid

of the government.

They were afraid of investing

too much power,

central control in one body.

And that's what we have.

The more and more you deprive

the people of the right to

defend their lives,

the more they depend

on the government.

Pretty soon, the government

becomes so powerful that

the only people who have guns

are the military and the police.

It doesn't matter

where your politics are.

This is not a Republican

or a Democrat issue,

it's not a right or left issue,

this is an American issue.

This is about freedom.

This is about fundamentally,

whether you're gonna live free

or you're gonna let

the government control you

and rule over you

rather than rule

at your consent,

which is what the promise was

of the founding documents.

In the Declaration of

Independence,

it says that the power

is derived from the Creator.

It is given to the people,

and the people lend it

to the government.

[captivating music playing]

♪

[Jesse] So this entire issue

really came back down

to the time when

the Constitution was written,

in the context to that

the founders had when

they were drafting it.

Not too far from my hometown

lives Mike Winther,

the head of the Institute

for Principle Studies

and a long-time student

of the Constitution.

[Winther]

Let's start with the concept

of the Constitution.

When you're framing

a government, there's two ways

you can frame it legally.

You can frame a government

with a document that lists

all the "Do not do's,"

so the government can't do this,

can't do this, can't do this.

If that is the only way

you frame your government,

that "Do not do" list would

have to be pretty long.

It would be an infinite list.

Our Constitution was not framed

as a "Do not do" list.

Our Constitution was framed

with the opposite view of

a "Can do" list.

And so what our Constitution is,

is the "Can do" list.

"Here's the list of enumerated powers that the federal government can have."

So the US Constitution

and the government

that it created

is a creation of the states,

and the states were taking

their sovereign power

and granting certain powers

and authorities to this

federal government.

So take away the Bill of Rights

because that came along later.

Without first ten amendments,

the Bill of Rights,

the Constitution

grants the federal government

no power to infringe on

freedom of speech.

It grants the government

no power to infringe on

freedom of religion.

It grants the government

no power to infringe on

the right to keep and bear arms.

So without the Second Amendment,

our gun rights should be still

secure under the Constitution.

You can use the layout, 30 or 40 quotations from founders

all saying that rights

come from God.

And without that idea of

rights coming from God,

there's no liberty,

because if government

gives you your rights,

then government can

take them away.

[Jesse] So I was hearing that constitutionally, all authority that the government has

is granted by the people.

And therefore, the governing

authorities are subject to

the people's control.

But it seems many lawmakers

either ignore or refuse to

understand that idea.

I spoke with South Carolina Attorney General, Alan Wilson,

also the head of US Attorney Generals Association, about this fact,

and asked why the anti-gun leftists disregarded the truth.

[Wilson] You know,

what's interesting about

the Second Amendment,

if you look at the second part,

"the right of the people

to bear arms,

to keep and bear arms

shall not be infringed."

What's interesting about

that is, the way it's

written is, it's that...

the amendment presupposes

that the right doesn't

come from government.

It says that that's a right

that shall not be infringed.

It's telling the government

"You can't infringe

on the right."

The right pre-exists

the government.

The right to possess

firearms does not come

from the government.

It's an inherent right

that we have,

and the amendment is

a restriction on government.

Why are there so many

people in power today

that just... it's almost like

they refuse to try and even

understand it that way?

Because if they educated

themselves on the issue,

then it would contradict

their beliefs and views,

and people don't

want to challenge

their beliefs and views,

they want to validate them.

And a lot of folks who

are radical on an extreme

on trying to curtail

the Second Amendment...

it's not about making

things better, it's about

making you feel better.

[Jesse] In the course

of the gun debate

after Newtown,

none of these ideas have ever really even been discussed,

but they're unique, and they're important to debate.

Is the truth just

being passed over?

I think President Obama was

sort of the drum major for

ignorance when it came to guns.

He clearly wanted to demonize

the guns,

whether it was after

Sandy Hook or the theater

shooting in Colorado,

all of which were horrible,

but all of which happened

in gun-free zones.

And you think about if

gun-free zones were the answer,

if taking guns and making

them inaccessible

to law-abiding citizens,

if that were the answer,

how come the worst

mass-murder crimes we've had

have happened

in gun-free zones?

It's because people

who were gonna use a gun

to commit a felony

and gonna kill somebody

pay no attention to the fact

that it's a gun-free zone.

The fact is, if people

don't have a gun,

they'll use a stick,

they'll use a knife,

they'll use a bomb,

they'll use a rope,

they'll use whatever

they may have at hand.

You know, it's the, again,

irrational approach

that so many people have

toward guns

that they don't apply

to any other type of

instrument of death.

[Jesse] So I'd heard

a lot of things about guns

by this point,

that they were big,

bad killing machines

with a capability of doing

extreme amounts of damage,

and because of that, they

should be essentially banned,

kept out of the hands of

people because killing was

their only real purpose.

But that isn't true.

The National Safety Council once released a study that said

that guns were used 80% more often to protect lives than they were used in crimes.

And other studies show

that they were used

almost 2.5 million times

per year in self-defense.

I traveled to the suburbs

of Washington DC to meet

with West Taylor.

West spent 42 years

as a law enforcement

officer in DC.

And I spoke with him

because he had

a different story to tell

than the one that

I had been hearing.

It was about 10:15

in the evening,

and we had retired,

gone to bed, and I was

watching television,

my wife was asleep,

and I heard a couple of loud,

banging noises downstairs.

So, of course, I was...

I'd never heard that kind

of noise before, all the time

we'd been here,

so I went to investigate.

So I walked to the door,

put the weapon behind me

so as not to frighten anyone,

and I opened the door.

As I get to here, I could see

the hooded masked subjects.

One to the left lunges at me,

the one to my right raises

an aluminum baseball bat

to strike me.

I fell back into the hallway,

produced the weapon,

-and started to fire.

-Okay.

At this point,

they turned to run.

Okay.

So--

And how many rounds

did you fire at--

Approximately six rounds

from the Walther PPK.

-Okay.

-It's a small caliber weapon,

so...

They turned to run,

they ran down the driveway,

I couldn't see where

the one that had lunged

at me initially had gone to.

The one that had

the baseball bat ran

down the driveway,

jumped the bushes,

fell into the yard, and that's

where he stayed.

-Those are the bloodstains.

-Those are the--

Those are the bloodstains from

the subject that expired.

-Really?

-Yeah.

[Jesse] Wow.

So you can see how close

they actually came.

They actually had,

if you consider their arms,

they had actually

entered the home,

and then they turned to run,

so he fell into the yard.

There's still one of these

subjects that's out here and I

have no idea where they're at.

So I come down the stairs,

I could see this perpetrator

laying in the yard,

and I stop about right here

because he's there.

Okay.

And I'm standing

just about like this,

and I'm trying to look around,

and all of a sudden

I hear a car start.

I look over my right shoulder,

the car is right there,

just ahead of the mailbox,

and the backup lights

are on and it's backing

in my direction.

So I put the Glock in this...

I'm trying to run out of

the way and fire.

And at that point in time,

they put it in drive,

and fled up the street.

-Okay.

-Yeah.

I've been in law enforcement

for 42 years.

And you still work

in law enforcement?

And I still work

in law enforcement.

But this is the first time

in my life I felt actually

unsafe in my own home.

What are the gun laws

in Maryland like?

-Are they pretty strict?

-Well, very restrictive.

They've had a 10-round magazine

capacity for a long time.

So fortunately,

I had two weapons,

which obviously I needed.

Ten rounds would certainly

not have been enough

in this particular situation.

So, if that had been in place

at that point and you had

complied with it,

you probably wouldn't be here.

I would not.

[Jesse] So the research that

I had turned up

just wasn't working

with the rhetoric that

I was hearing.

The way that the issue

was being portrayed,

"guns were bad,

and making it more

difficult to own them

would prevent violence."

But West's story among

countless others seemed to

contradict that theory.

So I looked more heavily

into the numbers and this

was what I came up with.

Looking at the statistics, I found that the United States of America

is number one

on the list of civilian

firearms ownership,

with 88.8 firearms

per hundred citizens.

Out of the approximately

650 million civilian-owned

firearms worldwide,

US citizens alone own

almost 270 million of these.

However, in spite of the high

rate of gun ownership,

the US is still only 28th

in the world in gun murders

per 100,000 people.

Between the years

of 1992 and 2011,

a time when US gun regulation became much less restrictive,

the violent crime rate

in the United States

fell from 757.7

per 100,000 people

to 386.34 per 100,000 people.

And at the same time,

the murder rate fell from

9.3 per 100,000 to 4.7.

Again, all of these drops

were in conjunction with

the lessening

of gun restrictions

and the increase

of ownership.

Now let's

look at the other side.

The city of Chicago, Illinois

has the strictest gun laws

in the entire nation,

and yet the murder rate there

is one of the highest,

giving Chicago the unenviable titles of deadliest global city

and murder capital

of the world.

Well, what if Chicago

simply has this issue

because of the fact that

it's a large city,

possibly filled with gangs

and serial killers?

Well, in conjunction

with Chicago, we can also

look at Australia.

In 1996, carrying a couple of semi- automatic rifles,

Martin Bryant entered the town of Port Arthur, Australia,

and proceeded to kill 35

and wound 21.

He was caught by police

the next day

but public opinion had

already been swayed

in favor of gun control,

and the government placed

an almost draconian gun ban

on the people of Australia.

However, it had the opposite effect that they were seeking.

Within a short time, the rate

of gun murders had increased

by almost 19%

and armed robberies

were up about 69%.

So, obviously gun control

is ineffective.

Well, the simple fact remains that gun control worldwide does not achieve the basic ends

that politicians say

that they desire.

Peace, safety,

and the reduction

of gun-related violence.

However, these numbers

aren't difficult to find.

So politicians must be

ignoring them.

Why are they pushing

so strongly for gun control

when their fix for

the problem of gun violence

is an ineffective system?

There is no such thing

as gun control.

There's only people control.

There is only

government control.

And we've seen,

played out in history,

when the government

wants to control,

it owns the arms.

And when you take away

the right of people

to bear arms...

you saw it with

the confiscation of weapons

under Hitler in Germany,

you saw it under Stalin,

and what happens is that

the government controls

your right to free speech.

There is no right to protest,

there is no right

to lawfully assemble.

If you don't have the right

to keep and bear arms,

then the government, who

controls the police force

and the military,

they will control, whether

or not you are able to

actually exercise that right.

I think we have to understand

gun control is really not

about gun control.

It's about people control.

That's what it's really about.

It's when politicians

decide that they wanna

control other people.

They wanna control

their behavior, they wanna

limit their freedom,

they want to dictate

to their lives,

they wanna keep them within

the boundaries of what they,

the politicians believe

would be

the appropriate behavior.

And whether that's,

you can believe things but

you can't believe too much.

And if your belief

conflicts with

what some government official

thinks you should believe,

government wins.

Or if gun ownership

conflicts with what

some politician thinks,

the politician wins over

your right to protect yourself

and your family.

This is not how

our founders saw America.

We have witnessed

epidemics of tyranny

throughout history,

and we are watching one

start to take place here

in the United States,

two hundred and forty years

after the revolution.

We are seeing the very

foundations of our freedom

are being eroded and ultimately

they're at threat.

[Jesse] I had never thought

about freedom as being

at threat before,

but it's an interesting

concept.

Somehow to those in power,

the ability to be held

accountable by their people

concerns them.

So my next big question

needed an answer.

If, like I had seen,

gun control isn't

constitutional,

and it doesn't even work, then what's the purpose for it?

This question was really

the defining question

for my entire journey.

What is the deeper agenda

behind gun control?

So what I was

figuring out was that

the power that is granted

to the government comes

from the people,

and also that power is

given to the people

to hold the government

accountable to

the Constitution.

So, on a deeper level,

the power that

the government would hold

if they'd gone away

with disarming us

would make them a power

unto themselves, completely

unaccountable to anyone.

Our power as the people

guarantees our freedom

by giving us the capability to keep the authority in check

and under the umbrella

of the Constitution.

If we lose that,

we'll lose everything.

I scheduled meetings

in Washington DC with

Congressman Joe Wilson,

Senator Rand Paul, and

Congressman Thomas Massie,

all outspoken advocates

against gun control,

to look into this issue.

[Wilson] I see this as a means to control the public.

I believe people are

portraying it and they

made them believe

that they're promoting

a safer environment, but

they're not. We know that.

The same people who wanna

take your gun also wanna

take your Big Gulp.

Now your Big Gulp, we don't

have an actual Bill of Rights,

you know, we don't have

an amendment protecting

your Big Gulp,

but it's part of the same

sort of philosophy.

If the government does not

respect its people,

it will continually

and gradually,

but inevitably encroach

on all of the rights

of those people.

Fortunately, owning a gun

in self defense was elevated

to a much greater level

than a lot of things that

we think the government

shouldn't be doing.

Here, we were very fortunate

that the founding fathers

thought self defense

and owning a weapon was

something important enough

to be in the Bill of Rights.

As people persist for

gun control laws,

to me it's an enhancement

of power of politicians

over the public.

If they don't get

the Second Amendment,

then they just don't

get the Constitution,

in my opinion.

[Jesse]

How did this issue play out

from a legal perspective?

Does the government have

the right to legislate

the Second Amendment?

I think the best way

to look at popular sovereignty,

the sovereignty of the people,

is that the people have

these unalienable rights,

and as a result of that,

the only thing that

the government can possibly be

are agents of the people,

or servants of the people,

therefore they have to

operate as agents do,

on behalf of the people

and subject

to the people's control.

And so, the whole idea

is to check... you have to

create power

in order to protect

our rights and liberty,

and then you have to check

the power you have created.

So the problem

of constitutionalism

is two-fold.

One is, how do we create

an effective government

that will actually protect

our liberties and rights,

but at the same time,

won't violate them?

[Jesse] So everyone had

essentially given me

the same answer.

Gun control, at its most

basic level was a way to gain

control over the people.

But I wanted something

more concrete,

a way to essentially

prove in my own mind

that this was going on

in America.

As I did more research,

I learned about

OperationFast and Furious,

which was a big piece

of evidence that proved

what I was being told,

that the government

was out for control.

and aFox News correspondent,

Katie Pavlich has spent

the past two years studying

OperationFast and Furious.

So essentially, Operation

Fast and Furious

was a program implemented by

the Department of Justice

from September, 2009

to December, 2010.

ATF, which is really

the Department of Justice,

was sanctioning the sale of

2,500 plus AK-47s,

.50 caliber rifles,

other types of firearms,

to known straw purchasers

who were working for

Mexican cartels.

They then watched these

firearms go from

Arizona gun dealerships

to these straw purchasers,

and into Mexico, and did

nothing about it.

On December 15, 2010,

Border Patrol agent

Brian Terry was killed,

and the firearms left at

his murder scene were

connected to this program.

And whistle-blowers

came forward

and said, "Look, my agency

has been watching people

working for cartels

buying thousands of weapons,

trafficking them to Mexico.

These guns are being used

for crimes in Mexico,

hundreds of crimes,

hundreds of people dead,

and now here we are,

with a US law enforcement agent

who has been murdered

as a result of our program."

Now the really important

thing here is,

why did the government do this?

The government and

the Department of Justice

and ATF would argue,

"Well, we wanted to see if

these guns would trickle up to

the top of the cartel,"

and take out, what they call

"the big fish."

So, the problem is,

out of 2,500 plus weapons,

only two of those weapons had GPS recording devices on them,

which doesn't really sound like a very serious tracking program

when you're talking about

high caliber weaponry going

into the hands of

some off the most violent

criminals in North America.

Meanwhile, as soon as

those guns ended up in Mexico,

you have ATF officials

at the highest level,

including a US attorney

from Arizona,

saying, "These dealerships

are responsible, we have to

do something about them,

we need more gun control,"

and it was the government

sanctioning those sales

all along.

So they had a reason to say,

"Look at all the murder

and mayhem and catastrophe

in Mexico

as a result of American

gun laws, we need

more regulation."

Was President Obama involved

in this? Did he know about

any of this?

Well, this is the big question.

President Obama

denies any involvement.

His attorney general changed

his testimony about

when he found out

about this multiple times.

The key here to

understanding whether

the President knew or not

is in June of 2012,

Attorney General Eric Holder

was holding contempt

of Congress.

Before he was holding

contempt of Congress,

he was asked to turn over

a bunch of documentation that

he refused to turn over.

So, we've been trying to get to the bottom of Fast and Furious where people died,

and we can't get

the information to get

to the bottom of that,

so I don't need lectures

from you about contempt.

Fifteen minutes before

the Oversight Committee voted

to hold him in contempt,

President Obama asserted

executive privilege over

the very documents,

the Fast and Furious he claimed

he had no idea about.

So if President Obama

knows nothing about

this operation,

then why is it

all of a sudden,

that he needs to assert

executive privilege?

What do you think that

all of this says about

the administration,

that they're,

in the United States,

with law-abiding citizens,

they're pushing so heavily

for super strict gun regulation

but then they're completely

willing to traffic guns to

people that are know criminals?

It's hypocritical at best.

You know, I think it's

essential for the American

people to understand

that they turned

law-abiding citizens,

law-abiding business owners

who own gun dealerships,

who do everything they can

to obey the law,

they turned them into criminals

for a political purpose.

That is a fact.

Despite all the statistics

and the evidence to show

that gun ownership

by law-abiding citizens

reduces crime,

Barack Obama and his

administration are hell-bent

on continuing their

anti-gun agenda,

and it's not because they

want to keep people safer,

'cause if it was, they'd pay

attention to those statistics.

It's because they're interested

in government control.

[Jesse] There it was.

Fast and Furious was dead on

confirmation of what I had

been finding out.

Gun control in America was for the purpose of having direct control over the people.

Where do you see America

in another 20, 30 years?

Where are we headed?

That's a deep question.

I think that question rests

in what we do right now.

I think that question

rests on... how we

address the crisis

that we are facing.

It is a crisis that goes

to the very heart and soul

of who we are as a people.

If we address that

head on, this would be

the greatest, freest...

most prosperous country

in the world.

If we don't...

then it would be a place

that people talk about...

"The America that

was once free."

The place that...

our forefathers fought and sacrificed their lives for, shed their blood for...

for those three colors,

red, white, and blue,

that banner would

just be irrelevant.

[instrumental music playing]

♪

[Jesse] "The America

that was once free."

It's a concept that most

of us never even think of.

Freedom is such a part of

our way of life,

that we begin to

take it for granted.

But what I was learning

on my journey was that

that is not enough.

I had found out what would happen to America if we allowed our leaders to disarm us.

And I had seen that

we had slipped, that we

had lost our footing,

and are headed on a path to tyranny unless we stand up right now to do something

and defend our right

to bear arms.

The name Hank Parker

is synonymous with

modern outdoorsmanship.

A hunter, TV host,

and world champion fisherman.

I traveled to South Carolina

to speak with him.

So, you as an American,

doing what you do, fishing,

hunting, all of those things,

how important

is the Second Amendment to you?

Besides my profession,

besides... my outdoors passion,

and all the guns that

I have for that purpose,

above all that,

I am an American,

and I take that very serious.

And to me, the Second Amendment is the only check and balance system we have as a people.

And to take that away,

you're gonna be Venezuela,

you're gonna be Cuba,

you're going to be

a third-world country

that have no voice.

People don't really

understand that,

and so many people think

that the government can

take care of them,

that the government's

the good guys.

There is a lot behind

on where we're headed

with socialism

and there is a big push

to get rid of our guns,

and I don't think

it's an innocent push.

I think it's very calculated

and I think that we are

really looking toward

a socialistic shift.

[Jesse] The prevalence

of the gun culture in America

is discounted by

the anti-gun Left

because it does nothing

to prop up their ideology.

In fact, it harms it.

Columbia, South Carolina

is the home base of

Palmetto Armory,

a retail firearms

and ammunition company.

Jamin McCallum is the owner and is also an expert on guns.

I spoke to him about

the legacy of guns

in American history.

I got this for

my eighth Christmas.

You can tell it's well worn.

This book, to me, it just

gave me an absolute passion

'cause it talked about

the guns and the specs,

and I was always math-oriented,

so I started seeing

the different calibers,

and the ranges, and how far

they would shoot,

and just got

passionate about it.

I went from loving it

in the books and getting

to shoot a little bit

to doing it full-time

for a living.

In basic training I was

at 45 Bravo, which is

small arms.

So I got back from

my deployment,

and, you know, I love

the county, which is where

my degree was in

but I also still hooked on.

But I still went on with

an accounting degree

and everything,

and turned around

and made a gun company.

You know, it all started...

in my opinion, it started

with this book right here.

And not just... it's not

the pages, it's the story,

the history.

In my opinion, you can tell

huge amounts of history

through the firearms.

I think in our collection,

this is one of the most

interesting pieces.

It was dropped over Germany.

It's called the Liberator.

It was made by General Motors.

They made over a million of them

in the World War II effort.

It would take one round

and you would load it

one at a time,

and the idea was that you

would go up to a German soldier

who was an occupier,

and you had unarmed

civilian population,

they would get their hands

on a weapon

and they would go from

a sitting duck to being able

to fight the occupiers.

And the instructions were

to load one round at a time,

come off, and then to shoot

the German soldier and then

take his gun.

It's an excellent example

of how, you know,

civilian use of firearms

ca be used to stop

a tyrannical government.

All over Europe,

totally unarmed civilians.

I mean, think about

the Jewish population,

totally unarmed.

But the Americans went

with the intent to

arm those civilians,

so they could fight

their occupiers.

[assault weapon firing]

[Jesse] One of the biggest

influences in my life in

the area of American history

is Dr. Joe Morecraft,

a pastor, teacher,

and historian who lives

outside of Atlanta, Georgia.

His study of the founding era of the United States is unparalleled,

and to truly grasp the concept of tyranny and tyrannical government in our history,

I can think of no one

better than Dr. Morecraft.

The founding fathers,

they hadn't spent many years

during the revolution

fighting against

a tyrannical government.

How did they define

what tyranny was?

That is a very

important question

because it's

misunderstood today.

The greatest influence

on the colonies prior to 1776

was John Knox

and the Scottish Reformation.

And John Knox had

a unique view of politics

that shaped the minds

of most Americans at that time.

He believed in a covenantal

view of politics.

And Knox believed that

there were four covenants,

or four vows

that lay at the basis

of a free and just republic.

The first is a vow

that the civil magistrate

makes to God,

that he will govern the people

in terms of God's supremacy

and God's sovereignty.

The second is a vow

that the civil magistrate

makes to the people,

that the civil magistrate will

protect the people according

to the standards of God's law.

The third is a vow that

the people would take

to the civil magistrate,

and herein hangs the tale,

as long as the civil magistrate

was faithful to his covenants

with God.

And in the fourth covenant,

was the covenant that people

made with God that they'd

be His faithful people.

So if you read the Declaration

of Independence,

in the light of John Knox's

theory of politics,

you'll see that Knox's

influence and fingerprints

all over the Declaration

of Independence.

Why did America

cast off its relationship

with Great Britain?

Two reasons.

The despotism of the king

who had broken his covenants

with the colonies,

and the tyrannical attempt

on the part of parliament

to govern the colonies

when actually, and legally,

and historically,

parliament had absolutely

no authority over the colonies.

So tyranny, in the light

of the American colonists

was when the civil magistrate

broke his covenants with God,

and sought to rule

in terms of his own name,

rather than to rule in terms

of the name of God.

James Madison said that

once a man is elected office,

don't give him more power

than you want him to use,

or he'll use it,

because power, like drugs,

is addictive.

I mean, you go to Washington,

and it has a sense of power.

You can see why people

can get seduced by it.

When as a matter of fact,

that power in Washington

is an illusion of power.

[Jesse] In my mind, what

Dr. Morecraft had described

was exactly what

America has become.

All of what I had learned,

read, and been told by now

on my journey was

puzzling and maddening.

To have leaders in office

that were anxious for

draconian tyrannical power,

and were willing to put

morals aside in order

to gain full control

was a slap in the face

of the American legacy

that he had spoken about.

But what he had said about the influence of others on the founders

had been interesting to me.

He had said that our

system of government

was based on something

that had come before that,

principles of freedom that

were based in history.

As I studied it more, I learned that another one of the influences on the founders

had been the city of Geneva

in Switzerland.

Along with that,

today Switzerland is one

of the freest nations

in the world,

in terms of gun ownership.

A fact which has resulted

in one of lowest violent

crime rates in the world,

more than 50% less than

the United States per capita.

I traveled over to Switzerland in the middle of May,

the week before

the yearly Schutzenfest,

a government and military

Targeted: Exposing the Gun Control Agenda (2016) - full transcript