ust get together." And it looks like the president's trying to play that same play. I can't imagine it working in Iran because it's a different personality, but he's basically tweeted something playful, you know, in a sense. I mean it's provocative and it's challenging, but when he says the US had nothing to do with it, we hope you figure it out, of course you're gonna read that and say he's kind of just joking and jabbing them at the same time.

It looks a lot like when he was calling Kim Jong-un Little Rocket Man. It feels like he's trying to humanize something that is otherwise statecraft and political and all those things that have not produced anything like a solution. So yeah, it's a little mocking. That's a little sarcastic perhaps. And you know if it had been anybody but Iran it probably would have gotten more of a response in kind. So if he can get Iran to match him, so he's putting something out there and essentially seeing if they'll match it. And what they would match is his tone, and his tone is sort of, you know, that it's a game and we're playing along and this is not the end of the world and you know let's put it in perspective sort of thing. Might be useful. We'll say it's worth putting it out there just to find out what happens.

Do you remember how much trouble, well let's say how many, what would be the best word, not trouble I guess it was trouble, how much trouble the president caused when early in his administration he said, or was it before he got elected, that he said he wanted to put a ban on Muslim immigration? But there's a second part of that. A ban on Muslim immigration, what he meant was from certain countries. That came out later. Well maybe he didn't mean that. Maybe he just meant we're gonna put a ban on Muslim immigration until, and it was the second part that was the important part, until we figure out what's going on here. And everybody said racist, racist, because they always leave the second part out: until we figure out what's going on.

And I remember thinking to myself, you know there's one situation where bigotry is allowed if not encouraged, and that's in the military. So in our regular sane society and business life and personal lives we try to drive out all forms of bigotry and we pretty much all agree, you know ninety-five percent of the public would agree, that getting rid of bigotry in every business, social, you know everyday experience, you know school, you name it, you want to get rid of all that bigotry. But there's an exception. The military. The military is specifically allowed to discriminate like crazy if it makes sense. Now they still have to support it. For example women typically cannot lift as much as men and there may be some other physical differences so the military discriminates against women. The military discriminates against short men. The military discriminates against men and women I assume who have physical disabilities because it could have some impact on safety. So you see that the military is a killing machine and it's the one place where we say all right, you know if they need to discriminate because it gives them some statistical advantage that's the one place we'll let it happen.

Now of course historically there was also a discrimination against African Americans in the military but that did not prove out to be useful. In other words it was discrimination that didn't have the benefit of science behind it. There was, you know, it wasn't supportable. And so in a way, but my main point is if the military can support the reason for their bigotry, meaning that there's some actual safety, you know risk management thing involved, they can get away with it. It's one place that you can discriminate.

And so what the president said, we're gonna ban immigration from Muslim countries until we figure out what's going on, I saw that as a military homeland decision which was bigotry but it was the kind that as long as the second part was acknowledged, until you figure out what's going on, I thought that was fair because we didn't, we don't know what's going on. And then when the administration and the public weighed in they said no no you can't ban an entire culture even if you think you don't know what's going on. And when the government dug into it and the public weighed in and the pundits weighed in the decision ended up, let's put some restrictions on countries that can't properly vet their citizens. Some of them would be Muslim countries, some would not be. North Korea for example. So it ended up morphing into something that was a little bit easier to swallow because those countries that had good records were still allowed in.

Now here's where I'm taking us. We had yet another mass shooting yesterday and of course there are lots of conversations about changing the laws. And let me toss out a possibility. You ready for this? I guess I felt like causing trouble today. Some days you wake up and you say I think I'm going to cause some trouble. So here's me causing some trouble. Maybe we're at the point where we should consider banning gun sales to white men under the age of 50 until we figure out what's going on. Let that sink in for a little bit.

If you were ever in favor of the Muslim country ban because we didn't quite know what was going on and we couldn't vet, you know we didn't know how to protect against that risk and we thought well temporarily, temporarily let's use bigotry, that's what we did. The country collectively used bigotry, said all right if you're from this area or from the Muslim country we will ban you until we figured it out. And it looks like we did figure it out. We figured out that if we could check their records we can still be safe enough.

So here we have the situation where for whatever reason youngish white men keep getting high-powered rifles and killing a lot of people. And so I'm just gonna put it out there. What would happen if we just said you can't buy a gun if you're a white male under 50 until we figure out what's going on? Right now I wouldn't want that to be a permanent situation, would you? Of course not. Of course not. You wouldn't want that to be permanent but you certainly want to figure out what's going on.

And so now I know that nobody would ever take that example seriously but I can tell you that as a, you know, a white male I probably would have been willing to live with it until we figured out what's going on. Maybe not live with it for more than a year but I wouldn't mind trying it out.

Now here's another suggestion. By the way if you're new to this Periscope you should know context wise I like to throw out two bad ideas because sometimes they spur your thinking to think of something related that's a good idea. So I'm going to give you some more bad ideas just like that last one. You don't need to tell me it's a bad idea. That's obvious to me. It's bad in the sense that you could never get society to agree to it. But here are some other bad ideas.

Suppose you passed a law that says you can buy a gun under the following conditions. You ready? Here. So here's a proposed gun control law. You can buy a gun if you were a current owner of a gun. So in other words if you already own a gun, a legal firearm, you have the right to buy another one. So if you already own one you can get another one. Now we might put some limit on, I don't know is there any limit on the number of guns you can have? I don't think so because there are collectors who buy quite a few guns. But let's say if you already own a gun you can buy another one because whatever danger you were going to cause, well you already had a tool for it so it's probably not the new gun that makes that much difference.

Here's another one. You can buy a gun if you're not a current owner of a gun. You can also buy a gun if you've been a member of the NRA for three years. I picked three as sort of a generic number. If you've been paying dues to the NRA and you have never owned a gun, legally at the end of the three years you can apply for a gun. You still have to pass the background checks and stuff but three years of being an NRA paid person means you will at least have been exposed to best practices. It means that you were thinking about it three years before you got the gun which should reduce the number of people who are having a mental breakdown in this month they got crazy and this month they decided to buy a gun and this month they decided to go kill people. If you decided three years ago that probably tells you that it has more to do with a long term desire over the firearm.

Here's another one. If you are a member or ex-member of law enforcement or the military you can buy a gun. So again if you're just joining, I'm throwing out bad ideas for how you could tweak gun control. All right I'm not claiming any of these are good ideas. I'm throwing out ideas that might suggest something that is a better idea. So I would say that if you're law enforcement or military you've earned the right to own a gun. I mean everybody has the right because of the Second Amendment but it would probably be a safer situation if they could get a gun. Yeah so just consider that one.

But this: women can buy guns just always. If you're a woman the rules don't apply. If you're female then you're over 18 you can buy a gun. How about that? And it would only apply to men, the restrictions. How about this: some occupations can buy a gun. Let's say you're a security guard or you know some kind of job that requires it, you could buy a gun. How about if you're male and over 50 you can buy a gun. Now maybe it's not 50 maybe it's 40 whatever but suppose that if you're male and you're over 50 you could buy a gun. If you're under 50 the other restrictions come into play.

Or how about this: you can buy a gun if someone vouches for you who's in one of these other categories. So if you're a man under 50 you can buy a gun unless you get the agreement or signature from somebody in law enforcement, somebody ex-military, a woman, or somebody over 50. Again these are not good ideas. Just throwing out different ideas, things you haven't heard before.

So anyway those are some ideas I thought I'd throw out. But the only thing I want to introduce is the idea that when it comes to death and security bigotry is allowed. And it's allowed in this particular case. What I'm suggesting is bigotry against people who look like me. Right I'm literally suggesting that we look at young white men and say maybe they should be carved out as a special category. Maybe we should do something about it.

All right here's a challenge to you. The Second Amendment proponents, of which I am one, so I'm pro-gun by the way in case that gets lost in this. I'm 100% pro-Second Amendment and gun but I'm also pro do what makes sense etc. So if you're pro-gun here's what I think is a requirement for you. You have to ask yourself how many American deaths are you willing to put up with for that right? If you can't answer that question then I would suggest that you don't have an opinion. You don't have an opinion because you've got to be able to say I like the Second Amendment and I like this set of laws or no set of laws whatever it is. If you're willing to say that's what you like you can't stop the conversation there. That's not a full opinion. The full opinion is I like all these rights and what I'm willing to give up is that X number of people will be slaughtered by guns per year in order for me to have these rights. If you can't say that in direct language you have, you don't have an argument. So it's not that you're right or you're wrong it's that you're only pretending to be part of the conversation and you're not. You're not saying anything.

So let me go first. I'm in favor of the Second Amendment. I could accept up to 20,000 gun deaths per year. Name one person who's never said that before. Name one person in years and years of gun conversations. Name one person who ever gave you a full opinion until I just did. It's the first one. You've never seen an opinion on guns until I just gave you one. That's it.

Now how many people actually die from guns per year? About twice that, right? So that's my line in the sand. I'm pro-gun up to about 20,000 accidental or murder deaths per year. That right is worth that much to me. Now of course it's easy to say if you're not the one getting shot and you're not the one whose family is dying. I get that and I'm sure I would change my opinion the very moment somebody close to me got shot. So would you. We understand that. But I gave you the first full opinion you've ever heard on guns. I want the Second Amendment and I'm willing to put up with 20,000 gun deaths a year. That's half of where we are. Damn. In other words I'm willing to try some stuff to see if we can get that down and if trying some of that stuff put a little restriction on guns I'd be willing to try it. Now I might want to try it for a while and if it doesn't work stop trying it but we should certainly be experimenting our way towards getting to another level.

Now how much did that mess with your minds? Because every one of you on here has a real opinion on gun deaths. Let's see you do yours. All right I gave you a number: 20,000 gun deaths a year. That's my price for the Second Amendment. That's what I'm willing to pay. Of course it's easy for me right because I'm not the one dying. You know I'm trading off 20,000 lives of mostly strangers for me to have the right to own a gun. That's my price. If you can't say your actual opinion out loud, shut up. Actually that's my new rule. If you put out an opinion on gun ownership and you're not willing to say what your price is, how many people dead per year, I don't want to hear it. You don't actually have anything like an opinion. All you have is blather.

Well I have one. So that's my challenge to you.

So there was a Straight Pride Parade. Milo Yiannopoulos I guess was the head of ceremony or whatever, parade master maybe. And of course the whole thing was just sort of a walking troll, right? I don't know that straight people need any parades so I'm not sure exactly what the objectives of the organizers were except to have some fun, get some attention. Maybe they had a point to make. I don't know what it was. But here's my point about this.

So however long ago it was that there was the first black pride event or when black pride was being used as a phrase, probably made sense because it was a time in our history that maybe, you know, acknowledging pride in who you are could have been an important step to getting society to the next place. Likewise when the gay pride parade became a thing, probably very useful, probably useful for the LGBTQ community to say hey we're fine, and society needs to change. We have pride in who we are. How about you society changing instead of us? That was probably important.

But I feel as though society has evolved and improved to the point where pride feels like the wrong word. Does it? Why would you take pride in something you had nothing to do with? How much of your good work was involved in you being born the way you are? How much