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

[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
sponsored week of
shooting competitions

that take place
across the country.

[captivating music playing]

♪

My guide during the festivals
was Marcel Benz,

the head of the Swiss
Shooting Federation,

the Swiss equivalent of the National Rifle Association.

He took me to a festival
high in the Alps,
in a military base,

outside of the small town
of Glarus.

Well, this is the part where
they start, you know, where they
have to give the ammunition

and all the, I would say,
paperwork to do first,

and then they can enter.

[Jesse] All right.
[man speaking foreign language]

Number eight.

Now, is there a gun that I'd
be able use? 'Cause I
obviously didn't bring one.

[Jesse] It was fascinating to witness the difference between the gun culture here

and the gun culture in America.

Here. guns are a part
of their lives,

a piece of their
national heritage,

and in this hut, young people and old were gathered to shoot

and honor that heritage
in their history.

[blowing horn]

This would never have
happened in America.

While I was there,
I also had the opportunity
to shoot at the festival.

[speaking foreign language]

[captivating music playing]

♪

[indistinct chatter]

[speaking foreign language]

Danke schon.

Thank you very much.

Great job.

[Jesse] It had really struck me to see the contrast between Switzerland and America,

and to see that this piece
of their heritage was still
extremely important

to who they are as a country.

[Benz] So the Swiss
Shooting Federation was
created already in 1824.

So we are close to 200 year old.

And our federation was
one of the first association
created in Switzerland.

Even our state was
not yet built

when the Shooting Federation
was created.

[Jesse] Something that has been really interesting to me, being over here in Switzerland

is kind of the differences
between Switzerland and
the United States of America

in terms of the gun culture.

Something like the Schutzenfest,
like what we're doing here

wouldn't happen in America
because the overall
view of guns in America

is that they're either
a safety hazard,
or they're bad.

Why are there those
different cultures
and different views?

I would say it's based
on our tradition as well

because it came out
of the army as well,

and so people are educated
in shooting and in handling
the weapons.

So they take the responsibility

and they know
what they have to do.

So, it's not
the security problem,

they take their responsibility,

and I think this is also
something which
all the public around,

you know, the families, know.

To take care with
responsibility and not to
do anything else with it.

So, you think it's a thing
of culture because of
the tradition of Switzerland?

Yes, culture, I would say, and
also education responsibility.

People want to contribute
to this tradition,

to be part of it,
to share it with family.

Everybody is coming
to those shooting festivals

because everybody can shoot.

It is a tradition, and even
there are festivities
around it, you know.

The people are in a tent,
there is music playing,

and the people meet friends.

I think this is a part
of that tradition.

Last year, we had more than
130,000 people

which were shooting
with the rifles,
as well as the pistol.

[captivating music playing]

[Jesse] I took a tour
of a military bunker,

one that contained
historic heavy artillery
built in the 1940s,

and learned some of the history of the Swiss people during World War II.

y tour guide, Max,
grew up in Switzerland,

and has been in the army
since he was 18.

[Max] Switzerland had
in that time, about
450,000 men in the army,

plus about around 200,000 men

only armed with a gun.

They weren't really
trained soldiers,

but on the other hand,
every Swiss man has
home, a gun.

Every man who made service
can take the gun home.

The German generals,
they considered the Swiss
loving their country,

very hard fighters, and very
not easy to take over.

One of the main reasons
Germany didn't attack
was the army.

That's my opinion, yeah.

Over there
is the Bunker Number One,

with the manned gun
hidden behind those walls

behind the trees.
You don't really see it.

And here you see
the normal bunkers.
This is the Number Two,

with the big door,
which is not a door,

for some tractors or whatever,
it is a door,

in which you have behind,
the gun.

It is made in Switzerland.

and tuned by
the Waffenfabrik in town.

Do you feel like you
are safe in Switzerland?

I feel safe, that's true.

It's good to have
an arm at home,

but you need to be educated.
You need to know what you're
doing with it.

Very important.

[Jesse]
Luzi Stamm is a congressman
in Berne,

that is an outspoken advocate
against liberal gun laws
in Switzerland.

This is Switzerland,
I believe is a historical thing.

People are used to own
their own guns,

and that is taken in
as something very positive.

It would be very wrong to say
people in Switzerland grew up
with guns,

but they grew up
with their army.

Everybody at the age of 18, 19,
20, went into the army,

they learned how
to handle guns,

so it was not a strange thing,

it was normal to keep
it at home.

In America, one of the founding
principles was that

all men had the right to keep
and bear a firearm

without fear of restriction
from the government.

And the reason
our founding fathers
did that was to

allow the people to defend
themselves from potential
violence from other citizens,

but then also to defend
themselves from a tyrannical
government taking over.

In a certain way, I think
it's a very positive thing

if a country can accept
and permit itself

to have an armed population.

I had a member of the parliament
of the old Russian countries

who said it would
never be possible,

it would never be possible,
it is Soviet Union,

to have an armed population.

And I think that is
a good example.

If you have
a problematic government,

it will never accept
that the population is armed.

Do you look at that
as being a good thing?

The people being able
to keep themselves free

if the government were to try
and encroach upon them?

I still believe that
the Swiss society
and the Swiss system

has such a positive effect by knowing our people are armed,

that you should not
change anything.

It is very difficult to answer why does the United States in a certain way,

have a higher crime rate
than Switzerland.

But I do not believe that
it depends on owning a gun.

It's other influences
which are more dangerous.

Unfortunately, it is not
so easy to answer the question

where does violence come from.

If we knew,
we could solve it.

But the United States
has different problems
than Switzerland,

the only thing I can say,
a gun at home doesn't
form you into a criminal.

I think this would be
absurd to say this.

[Jesse] In the lake town
of Lucerne, I met
with Hermann Suter,

the head of the organization,
Pro Tell,

a pro-gun lobby group
in Switzerland.

We know very well
that only dictatorships

disarm their people
because they are afraid
of their citizens, you know?

And in Switzerland,
we have exactly the contrary.

Every citizen is a soldier,
and every soldier is a citizen,

and so he has the right
to keep his arm.

And that's the best
democratic control
against the government.

Many Americans understand
the fact that

America was a nation that
was built on the idea
that men are free,

and they're born free.

Is that an idea that
is fairly prevalent in
Swiss culture as well?

Yeah, yeah.
Of course, of course.

Our most important symbol
we have is William Tell,

and you can't imagine
William Tell without
his weapon.

And that's a symbol for
the freedom of Switzerland.

That's the reason for which
we have William Tell on
our five-franc piece.

-Wow.
-Yeah.

[Jesse] Freedom and
fighting tyranny goes
back centuries,

even before 1776
in Switzerland.

It was in their blood,
and it's been passed down
through generations

and through something
as simple as a coin,

they made sure that
they would never forget it.

[captivating music playing]

Dr. Marcus Serven
has been a family friend
for quite a few years

and has also dedicated
much of his academic life
to the study of John Calvin,

a man from Geneva who had significant amount of influence on the founding fathers.

What I had learned with
Dr. Serven was that
our government in America

was based off of a legacy
from the 1200s from
the people of England,

through theMagna Carta holding their government accountable for their freedom.

That legacy then came
to Geneva, and from
Geneva to America.

I want you to see that
the motto that stretches
across this whole wall,

"Post Tenebras Lux."

And what that means is,
"After darkness, light."

And the basic idea here
in Geneva was

that they had been in
a time of great darkness,

for the past, really,
1,000 years.

So it wasn't just Calvin who
coined this particular motto,

it was the whole city
that embraced this.

And really adopting
this particular motto

that after the times
of darkness,

they came into a new light.

And one of those areas
of light was the setting up
of civil government

that recognized they were
under the authority of God.

[Jesse] As we walked
through the streets, I was
understanding more and more

that our government was not
just an arbitrary system

created by our founders
in 1776.

Its roots were in history,

other places where
people had understood
the importance of freedom,

and who'd built governments
that upheld those freedoms.

I think, so far,
one of the things that has
struck me the most

about what I've seen here
in Geneva is,

from a purely
political perspective,

understanding the fact that
the system of government
that we have in America

has deeper roots than
just our founding fathers.

[Dr. Serven]
Yeah, maybe you can
think that like this, Jesse,

it's the idea of a fire
that begins,

and at first, there's
all the wood that's there,

and there's maybe
a few sparks

that begin to ignite
the tinder.

And it begins to glow
and you blow on it,

and eventually it comes up
into a tiny little flame,

and then as it's tended,
and as it grows, it becomes
larger and larger,

and in some ways, that's what happened in terms of the causes of freedom and liberty.

It started off as a tiny
little spark,

and in God's providence,
that spark then grew into
a tiny little flame,

and then it grew over time
into a larger fire.

And so, the causes of freedom
were in much that same way.

They started out small,
and they grew into
something much greater.

And we're the heirs
and the recipients

of all that happened
earlier in our history.

It wasn't like, in the founding of our country,

that these ideas
sprang out of nothing.

They sprang out of the fact that in the previous centuries,

there were men and women
who suffered

for the cause of bringing
forth the ideas of liberty
and freedom.

Sounds like what they said,
"After darkness, light."

After darkness, light.

[captivating music playing]

[Jesse]
When I came to Switzerland,
I came looking for something.

I came to find a nation
that was armed and was free
because of it,

and I did find that.

But I ended up finding
something else,
something deeper.

I'd found hope.

I had seen a nation where freedom was deeper than simply their right to bear arms.

For them it was
a cultural mindset,

something more than words
in a political speech or
writing on a page.

To them, freedom is an idea,

an idea that defines them.

I discovered hope for America, that we aren't lost,

that if we come back
to this ideal,

we can bring America
back to its foundations,

come back to who we are,
what we're meant to be,

and restore the freedom
that has been taken away.

Over the centuries,
since the founding
of our country,

there has been a moving away
more to a socialistic mindset,

that as individuals, we don't
have to protect ourselves,

the government will
do that for us,

the government will
provide our needs,

and protect us when
there are difficulties
that come up.

And so, as a result,
people have forgotten

that these liberties
and these freedoms that
we hold dear to us

were hard-fought and hard-won.

They cost us blood
and suffering.

And so it's very easy to forget
what it really took

to bring these liberties
into existence,

and we have to ask ourselves
"What do we need to do now

to preserve those freedoms?

What do we need to do
to win them back?"

[Dr. Morecraft] Most people that are out there today think we live in a free country.

We haven't lived in
a free country in generations.

But we have grown
used to our chains.

And we think that our chains
are made of velvet,

and that if we
just give in,

and we agree to this and that,

that everything would
be okay and the State
would take care of us

because the common faith
is nobody does it better
than the State.

This old, pessimistic view
of the future,

that "everything is going
to hell in a handbasket,

there's nothing we
can do about it,"

has got to be dispelled or we will not win this battle.

When a person is convinced
he's going to lose,

he will not be disappointed.

The constitution will
never be reinforced

the way our founding fathers
intended for it to do

until most Americans have
the same kind of hearts,

and world view, and consensus

that the founding Americans
had in the 1770s.

Most of the time,
our kind of people
would get defeated,

but they're like pioneers,

they'll pioneer the way,
they'll cut down
some of the trees.

And then those that
follow them would win.

[Jesse] By the end of
my journey, I had seen a lot.

I had learned what America
was meant to be.

We were created as
a nation of free people,

and I had realized
something more,

that we will lose our battle for our freedom unless we remember the legacy of America,

a legacy that guaranteed
that we could always be free,

one that was meant
to be cherished.

And I had found the answers
to my questions. If our guns
were taken away,

we would become a nation
ruled by tyrants,

rather than a nation
rules by a free people.

I learned that our nation
was built on this idea

and that we were headed
away from those principles.

[captivating music playing]

Through it all,
in spite of what
we've become,

I found hope,

hope that free people would continue to live freely.

I traveled across the world

and I had seen what
would happen if we don't
stand up for freedom.

Another page in history
will turn, and our freedoms
will be gone.

♪

♪

But I also learned
that freedom is about
more than just guns,

it's about principle,
it's about laws,

it's about the legacy
that has been left to us.

♪

We've been given a nation whose very foundation is freedom,

and yet we are losing
that freedom

every day that we do
nothing to stop
the onslaught against it.

So what would we do?

How will we stand up
to defend liberty?

How will we fight the battles
against the tyrants

that would seek to take
our freedom from us?

How will we keep
the legacy of America that
was guaranteed to us?

Is freedom worth losing?

No.

But the only way that
we keep from losing it
is by defending it.

Is freedom worth defending?

I think so.

[captivating music playing]

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪