Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Coming up on this episode ofthe Logical Lawyer Podcast,
but certainly upon conviction, a judgecan say, uh, as part of the sentence,
the convicted defendant, especiallyif it involved in a violent, a
violent crime, crime of violence, can.
(00:35):
Welcome all to Bernie Brown'sdelight, where legal minds unite
both day in uncertain times.
He's
so gather around.
Let's set.
Welcome to the Logical Lawyer Podcastwith attorney Bernie Brown, retired Los
(00:59):
Angeles assistant city attorney withdecades of legal experience and also
extensive leadership experience servingin top bar associations like the John
M Langston Bar Association and theAssociation of Black City Attorneys.
Bernie is powered by a deep personaltestimony that took him from South
(01:19):
Central LA to the courtrooms.
In downtown la Bernie divesinto today's toughest legal,
social, and spiritual issues.
He brings facts, answers, and sharpanalysis to cut through all of the noise.
So if you are ready for a nononsense perspective, then let's
get started with your host attorney,Bernie Brown, the logical lawyer.
(01:44):
Hello there.
My name is Bernie Brown.
I am the logical lawyer.
I've got bad news for you today.
Um, gun violence is incurable.
That's my logical analysis.
Gun violence in the UnitedStates of America is incurable.
(02:10):
Now, before you start gettingupset with me, listen, hear me out.
Please hear me out.
There are 500 millionguns in the United States.
That's more than the entire population.
You could almost give, uh, almost two gunsto everybody in the in the country, 500.
(02:37):
Million guns in theUnited States of America.
46,728 gun related deaths in 2023.
46,728 gun related deaths in 2024.
(02:58):
It's over 40,000 gun related deaths.
And 79% of the murders are by guns.
So you say that doesn'tprove it's incurable.
We can do something, can we?
(03:21):
Well, I hate to be the doomsdayguy, but I think the answer,
logical answer is not in America.
I mean, the debates havebeen going on for decades.
Uh, how to control, uh, guns, what to do,how to control gun violence, I should say.
(03:42):
And some states have open carry laws.
Laws where they say,well, you can carry a gun.
And the idea is, or.
Theory is that if everybodyhas a gun, no one will use it.
'cause everybody will be afraidthat they're gonna get shot.
Unfortunately, that theory doesn't work.
Then you have other states that say, ohno, take away, well, not entire states,
(04:06):
but other, uh, political ideologistswho say, take away everybody's guns.
Well, that violates the Second Amendment.
Constitution of the Constitution,it says everybody has the
right to keep and bear arms.
There are limitations.
We'll get to that later.
(04:27):
But basically it gives theUnited States population the
right to own firearms, guns,
and you know, it goes beyondjust mere firearms because.
And people own assault weapons.
(04:48):
I mean, these are guns that arejust made to kill and they, um,
assault weapons can fire a hundred,200 yards with great accuracy.
Then you have guns that will just canshoot off so, so many bullets per minute,
second, or more, just that many bullets.
(05:13):
I know what you're saying.
You gotta have a gun, right?
You gotta have a gun to protect yourhome, to protect your life, to protect
your liberty from government, tocontrol from felons and criminals.
You gotta have it right.
Well, it's a difficult situation,difficult analysis, uh, you know, and
(05:38):
you come at it from various perspectives.
And guess what?
The robots are coming.
Are they gonna have guns?
Are you gonna give a robot a gun?
Yeah.
We're looking at robot armies at somepoint and robot police officers, oh man.
(05:58):
And you know, states, they, youknow, many states have the stand your
ground laws virtually all states.
Well stand your ground laws alllaw that says if somebody's coming
at you, you can stand your ground.
You don't have to back down.
Well, virtually all states haveself-defense and virtually all of them
(06:21):
have a law that says, if you are attackedby deadly force, you can use deadly
force to defend yourself in self-defense.
In theory that well,arguably that's a gun.
That includes a gun.
So there we have it.
You've got a situation that's beengoing on for decades, centuries with
(06:47):
one side saying, oh, there's too manyguns, too much killing, too much murder.
And there are, now we're atpoint 500 million guns and.
Thousands and thousands of murdersand gun related deaths, and we look
at saying, well, what can we do?
What can we do?
Well, let's look at some other countries.
(07:10):
Let's just look at what's going onwith them in the United Kingdom.
Guess how many gun related deaths theyhad in the United Kingdom last year?
22. 22 in the whole country, all nation.
(07:31):
Similar in China, only about 20deaths in the entire country.
Why is that?
Well, it's, it's illegalwith holding a gun there.
They banned all guns.
Okay?
So there are no guns.
We can't do that here 'causewe have the second Amendment
(07:53):
and it's not going anywhere.
But we see what happensif you have no guns.
Similar in Japan.
Now Russia, they have strict licensingcontrols, but we don't have data.
You know, they're very closed lip.
But we looked in at Australia.
(08:16):
Oh, it's getting worse.
They had 262 gun relateddeaths in the year.
Okay.
262, come on now.
That's still very compared to 47,000.
That's still a very low number.
(08:37):
They have strict licensingrules, very strict licensing
rules on who can own a gun.
Now let's look at Mexico.
Let's look at Mexico,where you can own a gun.
You gotta have a permit.
You're supposed to have a permit.
(08:58):
But it's okay to own a gun.
How many deaths do you think therewere gun related deaths in Mexico?
Uh uh There were last year,
30,000.
Oh God.
So the bottom line is if you let the,it seems to be the case, a logical
(09:19):
analysis supports the conclusion thatif you allow people to own a gun.
They're gonna use them, and somepeople are going to use them improperly
to hurt or harm other people.
You know, some people will say thegenie's out the box, there's nothing
you can do, you can't undo what's done.
(09:40):
As for this, the, the proliferationof guns, they're just so many of them.
I'll admit to you, I, I have a coupleof guns for, for home protection.
And you gotta be very careful.
You, you gotta make sure yourkids don't get access to it.
(10:01):
And, you know, some, some stateshave a lockbox rule and, and some
states will hold you liable if yourchildren, um, harm somebody with a gun.
So, uh, there's all these rules, butthe bottom line is, um, virtually
more guns does not reduce crime.
(10:23):
That seems to be the casedoes not reduce gun violence.
Criminals, typ typically useguns when they commit crimes.
And especially murderers.
As we heard, 79% of allmurders are gun related.
(10:43):
So I mean, you know, we come aroundto the issue of what can be done.
Well, you know, one side says.
Guns don't kill people.
People kill people.
Oh, really?
Is that the most?
Oh God.
But if they didn't have guns, theycouldn't kill people with guns.
(11:05):
And so that, that, that's justan argument that logically I've
never been able to comprehend.
Uh, but the other sidesays, stricter controls.
Screen Who can get guns better?
Screening?
Well, you know, what's thedifficulty with screening?
(11:27):
You know, the difficulty with screening.
You can't predict.
You can't predict who will commit a crime.
Well.
You know what we do have is incourt cases, people who have
already committed a crime, theirgun ownership can be restricted.
If they've committed violent crimes,judges can decide upon conviction or
(11:52):
upon arrest with, well, I don't wannaget into the total legality of it, but.
Certainly upon conviction, ajudge can say, uh, as part of the
sentence, the convicted defendant.
Especially if it involved ina violent, a violent crime.
(12:14):
Crime of violence can berestricted from gun ownership.
That's in many crimes in manystates, and especially we see
a lot in spousal abuse cases.
And in other cases where, uh, uh,a person's security is an issue,
(12:37):
but in those cases, you can keepthe guns out of a person who has
a history of criminal conduct.
The problem is, is be as you tryto screen to protect society from
future criminal conduct, you don'tknow who's gonna commit the crimes.
You don't know who will use a gun.
(12:59):
A lot of the gun issues are just peoplegetting into arguments and fighting
and killing each other, and a lot of'em are criminals, but you don't know
who they are until you catch 'em.
And so the idea that you can screenout, you would theoretically screen
out a whole lot of people who arenot inclined to commit any crime.
(13:23):
You say, well, well, certainpeople with mental issues should
not be allowed to, uh, own a gun.
Well, that's, that's a great argument.
It is just that, where's the line?
How do you decide who's goingto commit a crime and who isn't?
There was a movie, uh, recently about,uh, that had that same kind of theme
(13:47):
where they, they had this abilityto look into the future and see who
was going to commit a crime and theyactually would go and try to apprehend
that person, but that, that's a fantasy.
So the bottom line, the idea that youcan screen out possession for all people
(14:09):
or for certain segments of societyor certain mental types, shall we
say, uh, if you could, that you couldscreen them out and not allow them
to own a gun is difficult 'cause you.
Going to conceivably infringe on therights under the second amendment of
(14:31):
some people who are entitled to own a gunand are not likely to commit any crimes.
So the idea of screening isit's, it's not gonna work either.
So, so I mean, what are we left with?
(14:52):
Uh, what did I start off with?
Gun violence is incurable inthe United States 'cause we
can't get rid of all the guns.
We can't possibly screen to ddetermine who's going to commit the
crimes and just take their guns away.
That's not gonna work.
And, uh, giving everybodya gun isn't gonna work.
(15:12):
And so that's why we have decades anddecades of debate and mass shootings.
I mean, it goes on and on and on.
You have these criminals or these peoplewho go crazy and commit mass shootings and
kill people, you know, kill politicians,kill people who they disagree with,
(15:35):
kill innocent people, uh, you know,commit robberies, burglaries, murders.
It goes on and on and on, and it isjust, you know, it would be great.
If we could end it, if everybody justturned in all their guns and said, I
(15:55):
love everybody and I'm gonna be friendlyand nice and kind and gentle and
resolve everything through discussionand, and reflection and kindness and
purity, and I'm, and all the people,nobody will commit any crimes anymore.
It's just not a realistic world.
And it's certainly not realisticin any in the United States.
(16:19):
Like I said, the only countriesthat have really controlled gun
violence are those that have bannededand under our second amendment.
That's not permissible.
So where are we?
I go back to it again.
Let me just say, I will say this much.
(16:39):
Stricter licensing, stricterpermit controls may reduce some
gun violence, uh, training.
A permit process, maybe evena change in the constitution.
Uh, gun lock laws, registration,uh, reduction of assault weapons,
(17:04):
uh, court, a court evaluationprocess in certain situations.
That would allow a judge torestrict, uh, uh, gun ownership.
Like I said, that that does applyto many, uh, convicted, uh, felons
and some convicted misdemeanors.
But in any event, those could, thoseactions could reduce gun violence, but
(17:29):
they're just not gonna get rid of it.
And you, so you have, this goes on foreverand ever and ever somebody gets killed.
Some major politician or somebody,some innocent person who didn't harm
anybody or do anything, and in thePalo, or there's a mass shooting.
(17:51):
We've seen them in Las Vegas.
We've seen them throughout the country.
I mean, I don't need togo through all of them.
We know that they're,that they're happening.
And then we, you know, we had the recent,uh, Charlie, Charlie Kirk assassination.
That was terrible.
But I mean, you know it.
This is the reality we live in.
(18:11):
And then after these things happen,the politicians are all, oh, we gotta
do something about gun violence.
Oh, we gotta do something about, and then.
It just goes on and on and on.
For decades and decades.
For months and months, years and years.
The same thing.
They say, oh, we gottado something about that.
(18:32):
All the candidates, all of the officials,all of them say we have to do something,
and they don't know what to do.
And why?
Because it's incurable.
You heard it from BernieBrown, the logical lawyer.
Gun violence is incurable.
The only thing that we've seen from anexamination of other nations that works is
(18:57):
totally banning gun ownership, and that'snot gonna happen in the United States.
So we just gonna continue tohave gun violence for years and
years and decades and decades.
I'm sorry to tell youthat I wish it wasn't so.
But that is the reality.
(19:20):
That is a logical reality,the logical analysis.
Thank you.
I welcome your comments.
I am the logical lawyer.
My.
My webpage, uh, is at the, uh,the Logical lawyer@gmail.com.
I'm sorry, my and my webpage is actuallythe logical attorney.me, but my Gmail
(19:47):
address is the Logical lawyer@gmail.com.
Uh, my book is a prosecutor'sanalysis of Personal Supernatural
Experiences, and my other webpageis the Supernatural attorney.net.
It is been a pleasure talking with you.
I'd love to hear your comments.
I'd love to hear what you think.
(20:09):
If you've got a solution,I'd love to hear it.
Until then, gun violencein the United States.
Is incurable.
Sorry.
Well, that's a wrap for thisepisode of The Logical Lawyer.
If you found this insightful, be sure tolike, follow, subscribe, leave a review,
(20:31):
and share it with others who appreciatestraight talk and sharp analysis.
Got a question or topic for Bernie.
We'd love to hear from you.
Connect with bernie@thelogicallawyer.me.
That's at the Logicallawyer.me, and you've got it.
So until next time, stay informed.
Think critically and asalways, keep it logical.
(20:55):
Tune in each week,there's so much to learn.
The logical lawyer shares insights.
You'll earn case by case wisdom,he'll impart part with reason,
thought, and a whole lot of heart
(21:17):
with knowledge profound.
In the realm of justice he's renowned.
Seek the logical where answers arefound on each new shows sound guide.