Rep. Maxwell Frost LIVE On The Don Lemon Show
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How did Rep. Maxwell Frost introduce himself and set the interview tone?
When I was in legacy media, you just sort of come in and producers do everything. Yeah. This is amazing. This is amazing. Congressman Maxwell Frost. Yeah, good to be here. Yeah. The most popular. I think you're the most popular. I don't think so. So we're going to talk about some serious stuff and we'll talk about some fun stuff. The serious stuff, when you were on break, last week there was a shooting in Minneapolis and sadly two kids died. This is very important to you, this painting, because of Parkland and you're from Florida. So talk to me about that. What are you doing to help stop this madness?
What am I doing to help stop? I mean, well, we're fighting for gun violence prevention, and I always explain in three different ways. This is how we end gun violence in this country. One, we need to pass laws to make sure guns don't get in the wrong hands, right? That's gun regulation, right? Assault weapons ban, making sure that we have universal background checks. Two, we need to make sure that we fund the groups on the ground that do good gun violence prevention work. These are called CVI groups, community violence intervention. These are people who literally identify who's most likely to be shot, who's more likely to shoot someone, and they intervene and stop the violence before it even happens.
And then number three, we need to fix everything else. I mean, if you want to end gun violence, you have to work to create a country where people don't feel the need to use a gun to solve their problems in the first place. So to be the gun violence prevention person, you have to be the anti-poverty person, the health care for all person, the fighting hunger person, the one job being enough person. All these things help us get a point where people don't feel like that gun is going to help them get ahead. And the fact of the matter is most gun violence are crimes of condition. People have been pushed to the brink. And so we've got to figure out how do we do all this, right? And that's important. I'm really happy with a lot of the work we've done the last two years.
You know, we got the first Office of Gun Violence Prevention. We got the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act three years ago. Gun violence has been going down in this country the last three years. Not enough. We have a lot more to do, but it's all being reversed right now.
So I want to, you know, there was a big consternation last week, as there always is after these things happen. Thoughts and prayers, right? Thoughts and prayers. And people are saying thoughts and prayers. That's not enough. Now, the Republican and right wing media will say, oh, what do you have against God? But that's not what people are saying. That's not right. It's a comprehensive.
Fixed to the problem.
How does Maxwell Frost propose ending gun violence in three steps?
Exactly. But they don't want to.
They don't want to. No one's saying don't pray. What we're saying is don't only pray. I grew up in Southern Baptist Church. I wanted to be a youth pastor my whole life. I went to Awana. You know what Awana is? That's Boy Scouts, but Bible verses instead. Oh, you were deep into it. I was dedicated in the church as a baby. No one's saying don't pray, but we're saying faith without works is dead. Right. It says that in the Bible many times. And what we're saying is for leaders to say thoughts and prayers and then not do a damn thing about it is actually against the religion you profess to be about. Right. Because, you know, Jesus in the Bible didn't just go, all right, I'm going to pray for you all and that's it.
His entire life was about action to help them, seeing the world through the most vulnerable, helping the poor. And that's what we have the opportunity to do. And so that is a deflection point. No one's saying we hate Christians, we don't pray. We're saying don't only pray. Pray and then what are you going to do? And after every single one of these shootings, if the only thing you're doing is saying I'm going to pray for you, it rings hollow. And that's why people are dying. Yeah.
So tell me the significance of this.
So this is really special to me.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
How did Rep. Maxwell Frost introduce himself and set the interview tone?
0:15–2:34
2
How does Maxwell Frost propose ending gun violence in three steps?
2:34–6:38
3
Why does Maxwell Frost say 'thoughts and prayers' are insufficient after shootings?
6:38–12:52
4
What is the story behind the Parkland memorial art and Change the Ref activism?
12:52–18:02