Mormonism After Dark: The Charlie Kirk Assassination

Hey everybody, Radio Free Mormon here. Bill Real there. Uh, welcome to Mormonism After Dark this Friday evening, 8 o'clock p.m. Mountain time. It's a sober evening. A lot of sobering things have been happening in the last couple weeks. And the one that's got the most press is the one that was probably well, the most controversial seemed like the wrong word for it. Uh, was Wednesday when Charlie Kirk got assassinated by apparently, apparently, which means allegedly, this guy they have in custody, Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old. And I want to talk a little bit about, uh, my feelings. Bill's going to talk a little bit about his feelings, and I mean, a little bit, very little bit for me. Um, but what we'd like to do is we'd like to, Oh, I'm so sorry. Before we get to that, Bill, do you have a few things you wanted to say?

Yeah, we, so, folks, tonight is a chance for you to process what's been going on. Uh, to talk out loud about the things you're feeling and thinking. Um, you've got some rules on that, RFM. But before you get to those, I, I put into the, uh, live chat, uh, right now. You should see something show up. You can jump into the stream with us. We'd love it if 10 or 15 of you guys jumped in and, uh, we'll give you some time to talk. We really do want to open up this space, which, I, RFM, I'll let you articulate why, but I think it's a big deal to give people a chance to talk, and you do too. And, uh, so folks, we're glad you're here. We hope that you enjoyed the Mormon newscast earlier today. Uh, if you missed that, you're going to want to watch that. I think it was a great way to sum up the Mormon connection to, uh, Tyler Robinson and the Charlie Kirk assassination. Uh, and we're glad you're here tonight watching Mormonism After Dark, and we hope that you'll join in, uh, and be a part of this show. So, thank you.

Yeah. So, first off, uh, apparently there's two things I got wrong this afternoon. And, uh, there's a lot of things that people are still arguing about. You know, some people are arguing very vehemently, no, this fact is this way. And other people are saying, no, that fact is the other way. And I don't know what the truth is about it. But it does appear that I was wrong about a couple things. The first thing, and I think they're ancillary, they don't really go to the actual issues involved, but the, the first thing is the occupation of Tyler Robinson's dad. There have been reports that he was had worked with the sheriff's office. The sheriff's office has apparently issued a statement saying, "No, there is a different guy here with the name Tyler Robinson, but he's, that's a different one." Okay. So, apparently that was incorrect. My understanding is that Tyler Robinson's dad runs some kind of a, a gravel or landscaping, uh, slash construction kind of business. So, uh, for whatever difference it makes, you know, what he does for a living. Bill, did you want to say something about that?

Nope.

Second thing was I had said that Jason Chavitz, Shavitz, someone corrected my pronunciation on that as well. But on top of that, I had said he wasn't a Mormon. I'm sorry. Apparently, he is a Mormon. And I had no idea he was a Mormon. By the way, that would have been confusing because the way he articulated the answer during that conversation that we played, he came off as a news reporter who was not a Mormon, connecting the dots to Mormonism with this, uh, with this alleged assassin.

Yeah. You know, you're right. And he did a really good job of it, didn't he?

Did. Well, he fooled me. I, I didn't think he was a Mormon, so I probably shouldn't have said it so, uh, concretely as if I were sure. But, um, so those are the two things that, uh, that I got wrong that I'm aware of that are pretty much black and white. Yeah, I got that wrong. So sorry about that. Don't think it matters except to the extent that I always want to be as accurate as possible in everything I tell you.

Yeah. So, um, what we want to do is I'm going to talk a little. Bill's going to talk a little. We're going to open it up. I see that Marzipan is already in the studio. That's great. I envision, though, my visions often go astray. I envision there's going to be a lot of people who want to talk about stuff and about this issue. So, what I want to do is if that's true and if there is a whole lot of people, then what I want to do is allow as many people as we can to speak, but limit that to 60 seconds or whatever point it is you want to make. Ask that you be, uh, respectful in whatever sense that you can be. I'm not here to wrangle. I just don't want it to get into a, um, a shouting or yelling match. We'll have one person at a time. I don't plan on responding, but I do want to reserve 10 minutes, which will probably end up being 15 because I'm a lawyer, but let's say 10 minutes at the end of the show. Lawyers are hopeless, uh, underestimators of the time they're going to take to speak, uh, to tell a story that I think, uh, needs to be told at this time and place. So, Bill, do you want to say anything beyond that?

No, I am, uh, today's been draining for me to prepare everything that we did for the newscast to go into this. It's a horrific moment. We all, as an entire country, watched someone get killed practically in real time. And, uh, there are horrific things that happen all across the world. But there are certain things, not that this is 9/11, that would be, that would be a false analogy. But 9/11 was a collective trauma. We all experienced something collectively. And there are other moments in time that aren't as impactful because they don't impact as many people, but they have sort of that same, uh, we all experienced it. And this was one of those. And so preparing the newscast, it was an important show that we did, but it was heavy, uh, preparing for it. And then I took a break and, and my girlfriend and I were in the middle of a hard conversation. I said, "I need to step away from this hard conversation. I just need to turn on something like Modern Family and laugh my ass off for a little bit before I go back to sitting down with you and having more conversation around this horrific thing." And I'm also, and we'll get to some of this later, I'm also hurt by how divisive our country has become and how hard it is to talk about things. And even this person who made it a point to talk about things, sometimes very aggressively, sometimes very, uh, in ways that I think sometimes hurt the people who were on the other side. But it was open conversation. And, and now you have folks on both sides who are clamoring for various things, and they're carrying their hurt with them, and it's only dividing us even more. Uh, and I'm deeply bothered by that. And so tonight will be, I think, a chance for us to talk and to hear each other, hopefully that there will be different points of view and we can say different things. We did want to start off tonight with, uh, a First Presidency statement that came out today. Uh, RFM, do you want to read this?

I think I can now that you were so nice. Uh, Bill was working on this, uh, for the last few minutes before the show started to get it large enough to where I could see it because the font is kind of difficult for me to read. But the today's date, September 12th, 2025, the First Presidency issued a statement, and here's what it says. "The Church of G The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints condemns horrific acts of violence worldwide, including the recent assassination in Utah. Period." Okay, that's really their whole statement. Everything else is, um, I think fluff. This is the only thing that has to do with what happened Wednesday. So, I'm going to read that first line again because I think it's the most important, at least to me. "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints condemns horrific acts of violence worldwide, including the recent assassination in Utah. Period." So, no name, no reference to who that is, but just the recent assassination in Utah. Period. "We affirm our repeated calls. See, we've been telling you, we affirm our repeated calls to seek peace and unity despite our differences. Jesus Christ teaches us to love one another, that hate is wrong, and that human life is sacred. We urge all to reject violence, and instead build understanding. Recognizing that we are all children of God, we must treat one another with more dignity, compassion, and respect. As we mourn with those who have experienced loss and care for those living in," That's a comma, right? "As we mourn with those who have experienced loss, comma, and care for those living in fear or conflict, comma, we call upon people everywhere to build communities of greater kindness and love." So, that's the letter. Sorry, I think that there should be a comma. I think they missed a comma there, but anyway, it's kind of a difficult sentence at the end. Um, when you and I read this before the show started, it's a strange thing. This happens in Utah. It happens at a university of young people. Even though, uh, we have universities in our state that sort of cater maybe a touch more to the non-Mormon or the post-Mormon than the Latter-day Saints, there's still a large amount of people at that university who are Mormon. Um, it involved, uh, a Mormon family on the, on the person who committed the assassination. Again, the connections there seem to be the case. Where people are in their testimonies, belief, membership, who knows? But it, on some level, this was a Mormon family. And the church comes in and gives a general statement that includes the assassination, but doesn't really speak to it very much specifically. And then what people may be missing if they didn't watch the newscast is that the church went out of its way in the Deseret News, Spencer Cox, uh, a Mormon politician, went out of his way, and then what, what materials of information were handed off to outside media? It was articulated in such a way as to avoid mention of the church at all costs. It feels to me to be intentional. It maybe it's not. Maybe it's an accident. But it, I've seen this happen before. It seems intentional. Rather than say the things that would normally come out of our mouth with Mormon language, we put this general Christian language to it, and it allows the Mormon church to get away. And this statement is another way for them to address it without really addressing it at all. And it's, it's a strange thing. Um, I don't know what else to say about it, but it, it does catch me as this is, this is not the statement I would have released. I could have gotten the same message across, but been, been more direct with my membership that this involved Mormonism in some way.

Well, this more generalized Christian kind of terminology the church is adopting is done to camouflage who the church really is. And apparently it's helpful for investigators as much as when one of your flock does something that you'd rather not take credit for.

Yeah. So, in other words, we can use it just so we can kind of go back into the bushes like Homer Simpson, right? Just fade into those bushes. Um, what I had wanted to say about it was this, that I think it's unfortunate that the church really does seem to have a knee-jerk reaction to whenever any bad news comes out to hiding it. We hide it. We hide things in the church. It's a, it's there's a culture of secrecy in the church, and it's manifest in a bunch of different ways. And I bet you can think of some of them. I thought about doing a podcast about the culture of secrecy in the church, but never got around to it. And maybe I will. But yeah, there's a lot of secrecy in this church. And this is what happens. As soon as something bad happens, we want to, as a church, say, "No, that's not us. He's not one of us." Because then we think it reflects badly on Mormonism. What the Mormon leaders need to understand is that in a case like this, what they should have done was identified the kid as a Mormon to the extent that he is, you know, and his family is Mormon, and his dad being a good Mormon, and he called a member of the bishopric. Uh, the bishop, the bishop, not a friend, right? Like Governor Cox said, and not a minister who just happens to be in law enforcement. Yes. But he called the Mormon bishop, I would use those terms, and called the Mormon bishop, and the, because the kid was going to commit suicide, the Mormon bishop took care of things, got in touch with law enforcement, and then handed the kid over. Now, what kind of publicity would the LDS church have gotten for that kind of a statement, especially in face of all the horrible stories that have been coming out against them seemingly on a monthly or bimonthly basis or semimonthly, I should say, semimonthly basis about them doing the opposite and not reporting bad things that their members do. This is a hugely missed opportunity by the church.

Yeah. And I'll say one more thing and then I'll, I'll step back and we can, uh, go to the audiences whenever you're ready. But the church could do two things and it would just so change their image into a good faith, healthy, being responsible. And yes, it'll take time to get past the, the that you've done in the past and the, you continue to do in the present. One is that you got to start behaving appropriately. You just start calling leaders into your top leadership who are good human beings who will act in healthy ways, and then you just start confronting the stuff that you've done in the past. I was telling you before the show started, there have been a dozen moments, I'll even say the last 5 to 10 years, a dozen moments where I make a mistake or I do something where my natural tendency inside is to hide from it, to escape the shame, to avoid accountability. And rather than do that, I just step forward. I make a very clear statement about the mistake that was made. Uh, I own it. I be accountable. And what I found from the very first time I did that is that the response from people is by far exponentially more positive than your fears. And it's, you're hiding from it. It's, you're trying to protect your ego. You're trying to avoid shame. You're trying not to be accountable. That's when it backfires. And so the church doesn't realize it's its own worst enemy by not just coming forward and just stating a vulnerable truth, even if it hurts a little bit or feels like it's going to hurt, because it ends up looking like integrity. And what you actually end up doing is you create the negative stigma that you carry around. You wonder why you're persecuted. You wonder why people criticize you. You wonder why people are hurt and expressing anger or feelings of, of betrayal. It's because you keep messing up and you keep not being accountable. You change those two things, and you go from a faith that's got tons of problems to a religion that's on the mend. And people will respect a religion on the mend.

Yeah. The problem is they got the perception that people will blame this on the church. They don't realize that people actually don't think the entire church would be responsible if one of its members went off the deep end. Yeah. And did something even this horrible. That's not the way people think out there. I mean, you got a bell curve. Sure. And there's crazies on each side, but basically no, right?

100%. How many, I got to ask you something. We got three people. Four in the queue. And I want to ask you four now. Okay. So, how many people can show up in the queue? How many people did the queue hold is what I'm asking.

We can put 10 on the screen.

Okay. We could bring all four of them on. So, it's probably five below then. There's five above, five below. You know what I'm talking about, Bill?

Yeah, something like that. Okay. And I'm just wondering, should we try and make it one minute? I have no idea what the future will bring. So, if that's okay, let's just try and stick to 60 seconds. I can time it if you want.

Do you want one person at a time? Do you want me to bring everybody on?

Oh, one person at a time. Yeah. I don't want it to get into an argument or anything.

All right, Marzipan is here. Hi, Marzipan.

Hello. You're looking great tonight. I, I hope so. I debated turning my camera on. I was like, um, I, you don't need to watch me eat a salad. Um, now, I, this has been such a, a difficult week. Um, politically I am about as far-left as you can be, and I am just absolutely horrified and heartbroken by this. This is, and I'm disgusted with the reactions of some of the people, and I, and I will, you know, take this that are on my side of the fence, that some of the things that people have said have been ridiculous. Um, I had seen, I, it's not like I follow Charlie Kirk. I'm not part of the Fox News, you know, right-wing media. I'm not a MAGA, none of that. But I had seen a few clips of him, um, debating with people, and I never saw him being disrespectful to anyone. I never saw him, um, you know, he, he had some opinions that I didn't agree with, but I never saw him being hateful to people. And then after this happened, um, there's people all over, you know, Facebook last night, a, a friend who's out in Utah, uh, I mean, he, my cousin is in Utah, one of his friends, uh, came on his Facebook and said, um, well, he was a, he was a Nazi and he deserved it, um, because he's an actual fascist and he was calling for the deaths of people. Well, that's not true. And I think we have to be so careful about characterizing people, particularly people that we disagree with, um, that we're mischaracterizing them. I don't know if you, I don't know how much, how much you follow X or Blue Sky, but Stephen King had to come on and apologize today because he had tweeted out, I believe yesterday, that Charlie Kirk advocated stoning gay people. Well, the fact is he didn't. And the clip that we, people were referring to, he, you know, quoted from Leviticus. The point he was making was to point out someone else being hypocritical by, uh, cherry-picking Bible verses, right? Use an extreme example and show that we don't use the scripture.

Correct.

And so if you actually watch that whole clip, that's not what he was saying at all. And not only that, but there's other clips where he's talking about, you know, I'm a Christian, and no, we don't believe in the, the law of Moses. We were given a higher law. I don't agree with him on almost anything. But can we stop saying that people who disagree with us, or can we stop mischaracterizing the things that they say? Can we start listening to each other and not just the tribalism and the not talking to each other? I feel like that's what he was trying to do by being on campus. And it guts me as a human being and as an American that this is, this is what's happening in our country. It's, this is not the kind of America that I want to live in.

Yeah. Maran, thank you for calling. It's, uh, it's been four minutes. It's been a long minute. Did you realize how long?

I'm done. I'm done. I, I may be more brutal than other people, but, uh, I know people that want to talk. That's, that's my two cents. I wanted to wait until you got to a really good point where you had really, I think, flushed it out.

Flushed it out and put an exclamation point at the end of your point. Thank you, Marzipan. Thanks. I love you guys. Appreciate you being here. Appreciate everybody who's listening tonight.

All right, thank you. I, I will say, and we'll go right to the next person, but I will say, uh, I've watched comments on the left from people who have left the same religion I've left, and there's something in the comments that almost feels like they're celebrating someone tragically being killed. And that to me is a horrific thing to, to consider is actually happening. Um, if, to whatever degree it is. Anyway, all right. Here's, uh, Boise Unknown. How's it going?

Hi. How you doing?

Good. Yeah, I just wanted to say, you know, I consider myself a, a conservative atheist. And so I really appreciate Charlie Kirk and his kind of, you know, just how he's so fearless and just really just goes for it. And he just, uh, always a kind guy. So, uh, I just really appreciated a lot of what he did. And I hope there's, you know, a hundred more that take his place. But, you know, I'd always chuckle at things that he would say, declarative religious statements or whatever, or, you know, what I would call Jesus freak type statements, but that he would say.

Yeah.

That he would say because he was, um, a very devout Christian, right?

Yeah. Exactly. So, um, yeah, very, very strong in that direction. But, um, yeah, great guy. One thing that I think we need to tap into more as, I don't, I say we as atheists, not necessarily lumping you guys into that, but, um, you know, I was, I was Mormon forever and whatever, uh, but, uh, one thing I think we need to kind of take from that, uh, culture, I guess, is a little bit more family-friendly, um, you know, maybe promoting families better. Um, I think a lot of times when we leave the Mormon church, we kind of get this attitude of everything that was Mormon is now bad, and we should be on the other side of it. There's a lot of things that religion does when it comes to family that I think is really helpful to our species, you know, and I think in a lot of ways we evolved into religion because of the fact that it favors the birth rate, you know, and the nuclear family, and it kind of strengthens society. So, I wish there was a way we could tap into that without what I would consider fairy tales. So, I don't know. That's my two cents.

Yeah. It also slows down progress, which isn't always bad. In other words, if we move too fast, we don't see the repercussions up ahead. And religion says, "Whoa, slow down. We have an old way of doing things. We should stick to the old way." And it, it forces those two things of progress and, uh, and, and, and staying still and holding the old guard. It forces those two things to be in tension. Now, it's not always a healthy tension, but it might be a productive tension.

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Anyway, thanks for sharing that, Boise. I tell you, I love your shirt. It really makes your eyes pop.

It does.

Does. Thanks, Ar.

All right, take care. Bye.

Thank you. All right. And now Grant.

Hello. How are you doing?

Fantastic. How are you?

Great. Um, yeah. I wanted the way that you guys led off the calls. RFM, you're talking about accountability. Both you and Bill spoke on accountability. In regards to zooming out, I'm not, um, personally going to get political. I'm going to just speak on personal experience. You spoke on taking accountability, the church, you know, saying the news sources that may not have, they decided to explicitly not declare anything regarding religious affiliation or upbringing. And, um, for me, my own personal experience with substance abuse, you know, being raised Mormon, I was, um, in Mormonism, left, and then I also struggled with my own substance abuse and alcoholism. Your comments on accountability connected me to AA. I'm going to be very short. Sorry. I'll speed it up.

It's okay.

AA and, uh, taking accountability and personal responsibility is imperative in that program. Um, not saying that program is perfect. It comes with a bunch of people complaining, especially people from the ex-Mormon space that I've read that I've talked to going into AA. You can feel a lot of those similar controls, um, from Mormonism going into AA, and that's fine. Um, you just see it for what it is. But in terms of taking personal accountability, there's no one else that can do it for yourself. Church is the entity. Mormonism in the history and the LDS church and how it relates politically. It required a more firm statement, a direct statement from Deseret News. I just think the obfuscation of information and not saying like they should speculate and say, "Oh, he's 100% Mormon based on all these facts," but just seeing that the, what you guys were talking about, just personal responsibility. It just really related to me in terms of the institution as a whole, taking responsibility and the lack thereof, and how glaring that is and obvious and sad it is in times like this. Um, where one, this political assassination has made these kinds of conversations, um, I don't know, it feels like just things are coming to a head based off the first two calls of the show.

Okay, Grant, thanks so much for calling. I appreciate it.

Yeah. Yeah.

In the law, we call that a chilling effect on freedom of speech. The, uh, the First Presidency statement, it really is another way of saying, "We consider the matter closed." It's another way to walk away from it and not engage, not have to go like, you know, they were, they were, this was a Mormon family, and to whatever extent things happened, we just wish everybody could treat each other better on both sides. We need to do better. That would have been great. They could have come up with something that, that would have accomplished that, been articulate, and would have shown a church that's grown up a little bit.

Jared, are you there?

Hello. What the heck? Your sound quality is not great. This looks like a UAP. No, there's a face there. There's a face in that UAP. I can't, I can't make out anything. Jared, we're going to have to let you go, my friend.

Jared. Oh man. Is he on a landline or something?

I think he was using a rotary phone. Those old ones. You, Oh, holy crap. Circles. Hopefully you can come back in on something better. Try and come back in on something better, Jared. It's nice seeing you.

Poppy. Hello, Poppy.

Poppy, I've got a couple of things to say. I just saw on Ashley Banfield that there was a bomb threat on the family's home today of the shooter. M. Which, you know, that's not a horrible thing that they're doing, but it'll be tough to get past all that media unnoticed.

Yeah. The other thing is I went on the Facebook page before they took it down, and I read about this guy, and he was actually, um, he had cancer. He had a stage four cancer. He had to go through all kinds of chemotherapy. And, and who did, what guy? The shooter. You're saying you're saying that Tyler Robinson had stage four cancer?

Yeah, he did have. Okay. Go ahead, please. I just want to make sure I knew who you were talking about.

Yeah. And he went through the treatments and such. And there's even a, a foundation, a Tyler Robinson Cancer Foundation. And this was on their Facebook. And he had borne his testimony on the Facebook telling about how the priesthood had given him a blessing and how it had strengthened him, him, and, you know, so just FYI.

Poppy, there's another Tyler Robinson that that's true for. I'm looking up the killer, the alleged assassin, and I don't see anything, uh, about that. Oh, is it someone different? I think it's a different Tyler Robinson. So, I can, I can actually put this, uh, up on the screen. And don't feel bad, Poppy. There's been a lot of mistaken identities, including his dad, Matt Robinson. Is this the kid? Is this the kid you saw Tyler's story, Poppy?

No. Uh-uh. It was this guy. It had his picture on there and it had his testimony and everything.

Is, is your Tyler a Mormon?

I don't know that. All I'm saying is that I'm not seeing anything with the story that you're talking about. And it's fine, Poppy. Uh, we're just trying to see if we, uh, it, it's a, it's a huge thing. Nobody has mentioned this, is what I'm saying. And that's why we're asking you all these questions. So, go ahead and say, uh, whatever you have to say. I think it goes without saying, but once again, let me say it, that we're not any factual information being provided by callers, we're not vouching for here on the show.

Here, here it is, by the way. Tyler Robinson, the inspiring story behind the Tyler Robinson Foundation. Okay. Is that it? Cancer at 16. He ought to have chosen to allow worry. Ought to have chosen to allow worry outline him. Instead, he chose to stay with joy. Sideline him. Yeah.

So, I was surprised that nobody had mentioned it because that's, Well, that is that is interesting. I've been watching a lot of footage from a lot of newscasts and they've been talking about a lot of things, but nobody mentioned this. Tyler passed away in 2013. So, this is not correct. This is a, they're using his picture with a thing. I don't know the story. Why did they do that? Thank you for catching that. Yeah, they're claiming this, whoever this Tyler is in the article, although this is the picture of the alleged assassin. I agree with you. What on earth? So, I would, I would want to just do a lot more research and my hunch is something is off here and somebody is misusing some part of a story.

What website is that you're on, Bill?

Uh, I will take it. Folks, if anybody wants to go and research this and figure out what's going on, you know, we all grow up with these stories where people fake diseases or fake their kid being ill. I, I have no idea what's going on here, but in this particular one, they're saying that Tyler passed away in 2013. How weird. Wow. So, anyway, Poppy, I'm not sure that the story is accurate.

Well, I'm glad you verified that. Yep. That's amazing. By the way, I'll just let everybody know, including you, Poppy, there's this other detail going around that Steve Pineker reported on earlier where apparently somebody that he considers to be a good source, some, well, somebody that this good source knows did a check on church membership records and did not find Tyler Robinson there. Oh, so there's all sorts of information coming from all sorts of different directions. And I think the only thing we can be sure of is that whatever we think is right and correct tonight will probably be changed in some degree tomorrow by the sunrise.

Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, Poppy, thank you so much for calling in. It's great to see you. Thank you. Bye-bye.

Bye. Bye. All right. So, there's Poppy. Hey, did, did Jared get back in? Did he come back in?

Uh, I see him back in. So, we can, we can pull him up right now. He came in through the bathroom window.

There's Jared. Jared, where are you?

I am in Washington.

Man, that's help. That's still really bad. It sounds like you're missing your trachea and you've got one of those mach. Is that Dan? Jared, you're out in the middle of nowhere. You're probably somewhere out at the base of Mount Rainier or halfway up. Apparently, they don't want me to talk. We'll call 911. Maybe they can triangulate your position. Keep the phone on.

A Canadian perspective calls in. Hello, a Canadian perspective.

Hello. Hello from Canada. I, well, I'm an ex-Mormon. Um, and I was raised in a very American religion. So, I just want to give my two cents maybe. And, um, I just want to say up front that, uh, since I'm coming from a Canadian perspective, I know some of what I'm saying might sound a bit unpopular to most of your American audience or not maybe what you're used to. And I just also want to know, let you know that I really respect and love Americans. Uh, even though there's been some tariffs on us.

Let me tell you something. The more unpopular your opinion, the more we want to hear it.

Yeah. Oh, okay. Well, it actually has to do with, uh, differences in the law, RFM. So, in Canada, uh, we have what's called a freedom of expression, which encompasses freedom of speech. Um, but it's the right to express thoughts, opinions, ideas, or beliefs like without unreasonable government restrictions. And we, I think you guys probably know that we have, uh, stricter gun laws here. Um, like we actually classify guns into three categories: non-restricted, restricted, and prohibited. So, there's, there's just some types of guns you can't buy here. Um, it's hard to get a bazooka down here in the USA, I bet.

Yeah. But it's a lot easier to get handguns than fully automatics. They're proh, that's what's prohibited down here.

Yeah. Okay, good. I'm not too, uh, concerned about that. But, you know, um, also just the difference between, uh, Canadians and Americans, um, just from our mods, I guess, um, I know America is "In God We Trust," and that's kind of the approach to government, governance, that I think, uh, Americans take. But in Canada, um, our motto is "Peace, Order, and Good Governance," which is a different approach, I think, to governance. It affects, it reflects, um, more of an emphasis on maintaining social harmony, rule of law, and just a stable, well-governed society. And, well, we do have our challenges for sure. No society is perfect. But, um, I guess what I just wanted to say was, uh, from a Canadian perspective, uh, we often see limitations on speech and gun laws as a way to enhance public safety and social harmony. It's not about stifling freedom or taking away fundamental rights. Uh, it's more about finding a balance that prioritizes the well-being of the community. Uh, so when we have certain regulations, whether it's around limiting hate speech or, um, like to prevent harm, or having stricter gun laws to reduce violence, we see these more as a measure that help keep people, people safer and foster a more peaceful society. And to be honest, I've heard some of the things that Charlie Kirk has said. Um, some of it is just outrageous to me. Um, but if someone like Charlie Kirk were to say certain things in Canada that might cross into legally defined hate speech or incitement of hate, um, he would be restricted or face legal consequences. But a lot of, in, in Canada, a lot of general political speech is still allowed. It's just that there's a different line, I guess, between our two countries. And, yeah, I, I, um, unfortunately saw the video before it was taken off of the internet, like when he was shot, and I was just stunned. And as an ex-Mormon, I couldn't believe that happened in Utah, you know, coming from Canada, Utah, like when I was a Mormon was like the voice of my faith. This whole Americans talking to me, talking to me. So, I'm having a very hard time just putting this together in a way that I can understand it. It's just so shocking to me. So, anyway, that's my Canadian perspective, and, um, I love you guys, and, um, I'll be down there in January. So, yeah, they're not stopping me from coming. So.

Well, good. You're welcome here. We won't let you go back, though. That's the problem.

Oh, yeah. Well, we'll see. And you're about a stone's throw from me because I live way up north, not far from the border. Yeah, we can, uh, see your mountain from Vancouver. How nice. Yeah, it's great. And there is a 40% tariff on the, on the cost of this phone call. So.

Oh, of course. Right. We'll send you a bill. Good thing we got rid of the phone studio.

That's right. Have a great perspective. Thank you so much for calling in. Great. Thanks, guys. Love you guys. Thanks.

RFM, if we can just pause for a second. Our country is different than Canada in, in, and I think both, both societies against the rest of the world and history of various societies work really well. Um, but we, we, we allow, she said that Charlie sometimes said things that were outrageous. Agreed. In this country within certain limits, but those limits are sort of far out there. We allow people to say outrageous things.

Yes. Yeah. Yes. Which is what I was trying to, is it ironic and interesting that that's how I mentioned it to her, that the more unpopular your opinion, the more we want to hear it. And so, you know, definitely different countries, different backgrounds, different origins, different creation stories. And our creation story obviously plays a lot into how it is that we end up being the way we are. And Canada different. Okay. But, um, but what I was going to say was when she read the law that they have in Canada, that freedom of expression law, whatever it was, I thought, well, that sounds a lot like the First Amendment. And then by the time she got done explaining how it's applied, I thought, no, that doesn't sound like the First Amendment. It's the effing judges, I suspect, as usual.

Tim Rathbone, how are you doing?

Good. I'm sorry. Did I wake you up? I was looking at something.

Oh, okay. Care to share with us what it was?

Uh, it's about an airplane. Oh, okay. Um, I have been shot at twice in my life.

Oh, really?

Yes. Yes. Once when I was a teenager and once about 10 years ago. No, longer than that. But, um, and it's not fun. Um, when I heard about Charlie Kirk, the first thing that went through my mind was JFK, Martin Luther King, and Bobby Kennedy. When are we going to learn that guns aren't the answer to any question? They never will be.

Yep. Knives either. Any, any weapon? No. Uh, I was, I didn't even know really who he was. You know, I heard a lot about what he said. That, and I said some things on Facebook, and I got raked over the coals for some of the things I have said, and I've said a lot today too about this, that, um, he didn't deserve to die, and no one does, like that.

M. Um, you know, because I go back to my childhood, and I've been thinking about when Martin Luther King was killed, and my dad asked me, you know, um, how are your friends at school treating you? And I said, "What do you mean, Dad?" And he told me what happened. I went, "Oh, no." You know, and I asked my, my friends, this is, "Do you know about this?" And my best friend, Jeff Pal, said, "Yeah." Says, "Okay, what can we do to change this?" Jeff, you know, we talked about. But I was shocked. And unfortunately, I think this is going to be a galvanizing point. This is going to be a point where things are going to change. And I'd recommend everybody go read Chris Hedges or listen to Chris Hedges's latest video about the martyrdom of Charlie Kirk. This will be a flash point that the right will use to make things worse for us, take away more of our freedoms that we've already lost. And that just concerns me, you know. And I figured out, I figured when I heard about the kid, I figured, oh, he's probably Mormon. He's in Utah. And that's pretty much been confirmed now. He was a member of the church. And, you know, the, like you said, the church is trying to distance itself from that. And it's sad, but the church tried to distance itself from the Laughy Brothers and from, um, I can think of lots of crimes that they committed while I was at school at BYU. The Mountain Meadows massacre. It goes way back.

Huh. Goes way back.

Yeah. Goes way, way back. Um, and, um, it's just sad that it's come to this, that we've lost the, the, the, the common square where we could go and talk out ideas is gone, that we're so polarized that, you know, we can't have a decent conversation anymore with anybody. This, you know, you, you tend to be on the people of your side and, and their side. They don't want to talk, you know. I mean, I'm trying to have discourse with friends of mine who are conservative, and they keep coming back with absurd statements. I go, "That's not the point, you know." The point is we need to solve this problem. How do we solve this problem? They come up with the argu, "So many people commit suicide with guns." Okay. And so many people die in car crashes. Okay. You know, but, you know, and then they say, "We need guns in high school to take care of the problem there." And I'm going, "Look what happened to Uvalde. The cops were cowards. They didn't go in and kill the guy who killed all those children. Guns are not the answer." Um, there has to be a better way. And my solution would be to, you know, take them away. Take away high, high capacity semi-automatic weapons, you know. Um, in my opinion, nobody should own one. They don't need to own one for personal defense. The best defense is a shotgun. And, you know, let them have a shotgun. Let them have a pistol. But, I just don't, that's just my opinion. You know, but I, I'm shocked like the rest of you. And the more I think about it, the more I go back to my childhood, how shocked we were when Kennedy was shot, you know.

Yeah. We mourned for four days. And people getting upset that, uh, Trump is flying the flag at half-mast with Charlie Kirk. Well, we did the same thing for Martin Luther King, and we've done it for other people who were killed. You know, so he deserves to be paid respect that way. I didn't agree with his views, but, you know, don't agree with a lot of what people say.

Tim, thank you so much for calling. Appreciate you. Stay safe there in Bakersfield.

Okay. Um, I often, in, in these moments, I, I don't, again, I don't, I'll be the first person to say what that person did was horrendous. It's a 22-year-old kid who somewhere along the way got misled to thinking that shooting another human being was gonna fix some sort of problem for him. But so wrong and horrific, never should happen. Violence should never be the response to someone disagrees with you or they say something that upsets you. And can't we all relate to feeling, uh, injustice, feeling like no one's listening, feeling like, in other words, I think we all have to sense what would make a 22-year-old do such a thing. What feelings? Again, let's take mental health off the table because it's its own monster. But if somebody goes through life feeling like they're being either marginalized, their voice is being silenced, they're, they don't feel like they have a say in things, they feel injustice, they feel whatever it is, that's the issue we have to start to address is to give people a way to process like this world isn't fair. There are injustices, and all of us have to go through life to one degree or another coping and processing and dealing with those. And, um, giving people the skill set and the awareness that all of us go through it. Give people the tools and resources to, to be able to learn to sit with that and to process it. Uh, and giving people the ability to feel that they're not alone, even as things in life are mounting up. Uh, and I think we all can, you know, Tim says, "What can we do?" I think understanding people who disagree with you and why they feel the way they do, maybe it's just a difference in values. Maybe it's a different in life experience. And, and they're not, they're not made, they're not created to view the world the same way you do. And maybe if we make it somehow safer for people to talk to each other, like we're doing tonight. Anyway, that's enough of me rambling.

Well, I just want to say something here, okay? And it's a bit off subject, but I've got to tell you in all honesty how impressed I am at how quickly you debunked that fake website with the picture of Tyler Robinson on it talking about cancer because my gut told me it wasn't true. And so then I pull up the site, and first I find this other Tyler Robinson, just a kid that doesn't look anything like him, even if you aged the kid. And I thought, you know, Marzipan's not a fool. She found something. Mhm. So, I keep looking and I find a site that to me looks like somebody using the other Tyler's image, whether it's him or his family or whatever, who knows? But I'll, I'll grant some sort of innocence to it, but they're using his image for this Tyler Robinson Foundation, but it's not him at all. I like.

The way your mind works. Yeah. Start off. Um, I was taught a long time ago, trust, but verify. Trust that someone's telling you the truth, but don't accept it. Go figure it out yourself. Have some skepticism. Very good. Gabe. Gabe is on the show. Gabe, how are you doing? Hey y'all. I'm doing all right. Um, I wanted to chime in as a trans person and somebody who has been directly harmed by Charlie Kirk and his rhetoric. Um, I absolutely agree that assassinations make our world a worse, scarier, more terrifying place to live in. But I also am really concerned with the narrative around this of like presenting Charlie Charlie Kirk as this great guy who was respectful and kind and wanted to have these discussions in like a respectful manner when I think that that is a total misrepresentation of him. He presents facts that are untrue. Like he once claimed that there are no children in America who are going hungry. Like that's insane. Um, and I'm not saying he deserves to die because he said this sort of but I also think that we need to be able to have nuance in discussions around this and not uh like I guess for lack of a better word, whitewash who he was and the harm that he did do. Uh, and I'm also very concerned with the way the right is responding to this. Like, uh, Nancy Mace going on live television and saying she thought the shooter was a Uh, you know, Congress. I'm sorry, Gabe. You said Nancy Mace. She's in Congress, right? Yeah. So, a congresswoman went on live television and said the word multiple times, accusing the killer of being a or protranny. And that is insane. Uh, for that to be something that somebody who should be in this uh, you know, position of respect to be okay with publicly saying and, you know, to stand by that proudly. I think that's insane. And I'm also from Minneapolis, so like gun violence here is a hot topic. Um, you know, there was the school shooting recently, the murder of Melissa Hortman. Uh, 25 months ago, one of my friends was killed in a mass shooting at a backyard show. Like, gun violence is horrific, and I know firsthand how horrific that can be. But I also think that like when we say think of his children, I also think of the fact that he said that if his daughter was raped at 10 years old and got pregnant, he would force her to deliver a child rather than allow her to have an abortion. And like I think that these things of course do not justify murder, but to go and say Charlie Kirk was this fantastic man, I just think is not accurate. And if people feel that way, I think they certainly are entitled to say that. But I also think that people like myself who have been directly harmed by him, I'm not saying we should be celebrating his death, but I do think people should be allowed to people should not be forced to mourn someone who hurt them. Um, and I think that's totally different than saying like that he had what was coming, he deserved it, anything like that. So, yeah, I just hope that there is space for people to um I think martyrdom is really dangerous in the way we can present people. I mean, like obviously with Joseph Smith, uh, use that to erase a lot of the terrible things he's done. Um, and somebody's saying we're not being forced to mourn Charlie Kirk. Like, nobody's forcing us to mourn Charlie Kirk, but there is this uh public perception that if you're not sad about this, you're a bad person. I think it was a horrific act, but like I'm not going to mourn him. Vomit over me saying but. Okay, Gabe, thank you so much for calling in. We want to hear everybody's points of view tonight, and I appreciate yours. Thank you. Thanks, Gabe. Appreciate all the work you'all do. Oh, thanks so much. Talk to you later.

Now, Bryce Nielson is here. Hi. Hi, Radio. I almost like Jared. Is that Jared? It's my first time doing this. I'm very new to this this Streamyard thing. So, bear with me. Are you using your phone? Lighting spot here. So, are you using your phone? I am just in my palm of my hand. I'm not that Can you hold it closer to your face? Oh, there we go. Oh, there we go. I can hear you a little better now. Little better. Just next to Okay. Got the lamp in the background. I'm on Eastern time. I'm on I'm in near Toronto, so I'm Canadian. 8 9 10 11 It's almost midnight there. It is uh almost 11 o'clock. Yeah, that's what I meant. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, it is nice and dark out. So, um Yeah. No, it's um yeah, the past 24 hours have been really just very emotional for for myself. Um I mean I people who know me in my circle of friends and I I mean my political opinions are probably fairly different from maybe a a lot of uh maybe your listeners that have have chimed in thus far. Um I I respect all their uh opinions. it just um you know why I have a workplace of people who have don't share my my opinions but um and I didn't necessarily agree with everything that that Charlie spoke of but a lot of it did resonate with me um as I say I'm I'm Canadian so um I won't get of the polit political aspect of things we just elected a new prime minister back in April not the one I voted for, not my prime minister. Um, after, you know, 10 years of Justin Trudeau who, in my opinion, single-handedly destroyed our country. Um, I again, we'll get into the weeds of that, but uh, you know, I've tried to explain to my liberal friends, well, well, he shouldn't have Charlie shouldn't have been saying all those things. Well, in in America, like we have here in Canada, we have freedom of speech, too. I mean, there are exceptions. You can't threaten someone, etc., right? But all Charlie tried to do was in my opinion, when he had when he had those gatherings and people would come to talk, it was the people that had the opposing views that he would let them come to the front of the line. And sometimes the conservatives would kind of if they tried to boo or to um heckle Yeah. like he hackle them sort of thing, he would he say, "Hey guys, guys, let be respectful, right?" Like just and he he always tried to keep keep it uh keep it respectful even if they disagree. Um and because not all conservative podcasters are like that. Some are a lot more abrasive. Um, and I I found Charlie Kirk was a little bit more a gentler for I for lack of a better word. Um, because I listen to other guys like like Matt Walsh, Ben Shapiro, and you know um a few others. We got some Canadian conservative podcasters up here as well that um talk about Canadian politics. But getting back to Justin Trudeau, uh sorry, diverged a little bit there. You know, I said to my liberal friend yesterday, I said, I as much as I despise Justin Trudeau, I would never wish ill will on him. I would never, if I was given an opportunity to to harm him and say, Bryce, you'll get away with it scotfree. You'll never get caught. I wouldn't even consider it because I know that he has people who care about him. He has children, and he's still a human being. and these people. And the the the the part that I really tried to stay away from just cuz it's so upsetting is we got these little I can swear a little bit because it's Mormonism after dark, right? Just a little. Just a little. So these little these on TikTok, right, that are just cheering and celebrating and just dancing on a grave like they have no humanity. Um, no, no matter what your politics are, this husband and father was taken from these little two little babies who are now going to grow up without their dad. And me as a father that that I mean anyone of us are parents that should resonate with us. Um, and we just we just need to go we need just to maintain some humanity with all this and just uh sorry trying to wrap this up. I know I'm saying a lot of things here, but uh you know sometimes if it feels good to say it, maybe don't say it. Does that make sense? Yeah. But um anyways, I appreciate that you letting me on here. This is my first time doing this and maybe hopefully I can do this on a future show, but I definitely wanted to join and be a part of this discussion. Sorry I didn't see earlier in the show. I just tuning in. So, but uh you did great, especially for your first time, Bryce. Thanks for calling in. Well, it's not my first time being on the airwaves. Actually, I I as a quick aside, uh the local radio local rock radio station, I entered a contest to uh host the radio station for the day, and I was one of the five winners. So, I got to host the station for the day, got to pick the music, got to help host the morning show, hope they host the afternoon show. Best day ever. I hope you got paid. Actually, they did. The part of the prize was you get to host for the day and they gave you a thousand bucks. Great. Fantastic. Yeah, it was great. Um, by the way, Radio Free Mormon, I I do often wear I'm the guy who was promoting your uh Radio Free Mormon t-shirt when I was in Salt Lake City last month. Thank you very much. Excellent. Who's Radio Free Mormon? And it says and I I directed them where to go. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you so much, Bryce. I appreciate the advertising as well. Absolutely. Talk to you later. Take care. Bye-bye.

Um, you know, by the way, next Friday, I want to hear about the from uh Tim, who will assuredly call in. I want to hear about the two times you got shot at and why. Yeah, those are two good stories we want to hear for sure, Tim. So, call I'm guessing women were involved. Next Friday, please. Women and alcohol. Yeah. I I just want to know before we bring Jay on, you can feel however you want to feel. you know, we had uh Gabe just come on who felt harmed by the uh rhetoric uh of Charlie Kirk. Uh and I agree. I don't I don't think anyone at least that's come on the air so far. I know there are people out there who think Charlie Kirk is an, you know, the greatest thing. Uh I think people are always a mix of good and bad. And I think Charlie said some things that were horrific and I think he said some things that made sense. And I think it's uh it's a tough thing sometimes to navigate what a person really thinks, what they believe, and why they're limited to hearing a different opinion or changing their mind on things because they've experienced life differently. But no matter how you feel about him, the what the last person said, um there are two kids who their dad's not coming home tonight. There's uh a wife who her husband's not coming home tonight. uh and we all feel something about this experience and politicians are talking and the news is making stories left and right about this angle and that angle but at the end of the day the the people suffering the most trauma are the people who uh are going to miss him from from 48 hours ago and forward. Yeah. And I'm not trying to draw an equivalency here at all, but I'm just remarking that there's a kid who is spending his first day in J the first day of the rest of his life tonight in prison. Yeah. So, I'm not trying to draw a false equivalency because I'm not talking so much about him, although there is some because that is a reality, but also his mother, his father. Yeah. who had to call the police to turn his son in for this horrific and nationally and worldwide publicized crime. So, there's a lot of uh a lot of grief to go around caused by this one act.

All right, Jay, is Tim Wrathbone coming back in? Is he Can you hear me now? We'll find Tim later. Jay, how are you doing? This is actually Jared. I put in Jay because I didn't know if you'd take my thing. I actually made it home where I have internet now. You thought we were saying we're not gonna have Jared on the show. Looks like fiber internet Jay. This is great. I'm glad you paid the bill and now you're on the show. Yeah, I did. Were you out in the the woods before or was something going on? Were you in the same place? I was over by Quill Lake in Washington County. Washington County. Now, did that mean Utah? Yeah. Oh, I thought you meant Washington State. No, I had washing I was over I had 5G and everything and it just kept blanking out on me. I'm glad you're with us now. So, do you know this this family? No, I don't know. Yeah, but and I don't even want to get political at all, but like, you know, I I don't think anybody deserves to be shot in cold blood for anything they say. I mean, they could say the nastiest thing on earth. Who gives a they don't deserve to die for it or anything else. I don't know what this kid's deal is, but the one thing I do appreciate is the fact that you guys brought up that first presidency letter because I was going to read that when I got on. Yeah. What did you think of it? Oh, I think they're bastards. can't stand them. I mean, you know, like just wash yourself away or whatever. But you know, I'll listen to those 15 the day they freaking remove their billions of dollars in stock they have invested in Northrup Grumman and Rathon and Lockheed Martin and and all these other arms companies where they profit every time a bomb is dropped that those guys sell. So don't tell don't talk to me about civility and human rights and being a peacemaker. I'm so sick of that from those guys. Like when you've got billions invested in these companies, you don't have a dime at least on the up and up invested in folders or marlboro or course. So, what's worse? A beer, a cigarette, a cup of coffee, or somebody dying and you're making money off it. So, you. you. you. I think that about says it all. Damn. I'm glad you made it in. I'm just tired of their Like, I'm tired of being preached to by these 15 And we let you say you three times because you had to call three times. Yeah. Okay. Well, I'm tired of listening to like I don't want to I don't want to listen to you preach to me about civility and everything else when you guys don't have the balls to call your freaking dummy who runs Enzyme Peak and tell him to remove your freaking stocks from these companies. And like I mean I don't want to hear it. It is weird, right, that these 15 men who we can we've done episodes laying out some immorality or unethical behavior essentially on on the part of almost all of them. Not I'm not talking to you Patrick Kiron. Uh what Patrick Kiron so far he doesn't have anything on the record that would yet wrong right yet. But I will say this that it's a strange thing that we even as believers who should know enough already with the SEC and all the stuff that's gone on. Elder Oaks lying about electroshock therapy. Elder Oaks saying that he won't he wouldn't if he had a gay kid, he wouldn't allow his kid to stay at the house for the weekend and he wouldn't introduce him to his friends. Um, it's a strange thing that we look to these old 15 men who are the worst at morality and ethics and accountability and transparency and honesty and we look to them to be the people. I can't wait till the first presidency addresses this topic. I can't wait till they make a statement and let us know how we should all feel about this assassination that took place. It's it's absurd to let these men have any bearing on what right or wrong is since they can't figure it out themselves. I know one of those men personally. He lived he lived in my world. Where did he touch you? Not where you not none were there in my heart. But I can tell you a lot of people didn't like him as a boss. What about the Patrick Kieran thing, Bill? About this Patrick Kieran thing. Yeah. No, it's not that guy. I just want to say that you don't get into the mob by being an alter. RFM, you're right. You don't get into the mob by being an alter boy. You get into the top 15 by acting like one of the top 15. That's how you get Well, I actually asked my former bishop how he got called. And one day I'll have to tell you what he told me. Please do. That's another You don't only have to be a yes man. You have to be a bow your head and say yes, man. Well, I've been there before multiple times and it was really boring. Hey Jay, that'll do. Have a great day. I will return another day. Talk to you later. That'll do. Say pig after that for a second. No, I wasn't talking about the cops here. That'll do, pig. Oh my gosh, Bill. What do you No, I say that because I told a story on the show before about a a Halloween story where my dad was in a bar and a guy came in dressed like a cop looking for my dad because me and my cousin were in the jail as little kids cuz they broke up a party and the cop came in and said, "Where's you know Mr. Real at?" But my dad didn't hear that and he goes, "Who dressed up like a pig?" Anyway, I was drawing on an old story I told in a Mormonism live or a radio or a Mormonism after dark. I don't remember the story at all. Does anybody out there remember this story? I think it's my memory. I think if I'd heard that story, I'd remember it. Where does the pig part come in? I don't get it because sometimes people will use a derogatory term of pigs towards cops. I got that part. My dad call My dad, it was a costume party on Halloween at a bar. A cop comes in looking for my dad and your dad thought he was in costume. Dad thought he was in costume and said who dressed up like the pig. Anyway, it was tied to a story. It wasn't me calling cops pigs. It was me. What happened after that? Next morning, five years later, you said, "I'm so glad to see you again, Dad." All right, I'm going to I'm going to tell the story in three minutes. I'm a little kid. I'm seven years old. I go trick-or-treating with my cousin. My uh aunt arranges for us to be babysat at a house by a older teenager. She throws a party the same night. Cops break up the party, take me and my cousin out of the home, take us to the police place to the police station to wait the police station to wait for my parents. They had to find my parents. While we're there, they're showing us a tour around the jail. They're putting us in the jail cell and closing the door. We're little kids and we're scared as hell. We're not in any trouble or anything. We're just little kids who couldn't stay at the house where the party was broke up. So, the cops would go around trying to find my parents. The cop walks into the bar. It's a Halloween night. It's a costume party. Everybody's dressed up. Guy walks in dressed like a cop. My dad says that. And then the next thing my dad figures out is that the cop is asking for him. And my dad felt embarrassment. I shared it as our our last Halloween episode. By the way, Chuck says, "I remember the story." Thank you, Chuck. Chuck's just lying to make you feel better. So, Chuck does that. I've seen that on occasion when I'm reviewing the live chat. It'll lie every now and again just to make you feel better.

Now that we've gone now that we've done an Elder Holland down the wrong road just to know that we went down the wrong road. I'm going to bring on some guy out there. Uh as long as he's not from Canada. Yeah. What's up? Can you hear me? Okay. Hey. Yes, we can hear you fine. Some guy out there. Okay. Well, happy to make my debut. big fans of the big fan of the show. Have a lot of respect for you guys. Well, thank you. So, yeah, I try to stay away from the news, but I I was dragged into this because I graduated from UVU and I guess I'm still on their emergency alert system. So, Oh, I got a text message saying that there was an active shooter. And so, uh, I I actually live pretty close to the campus. And so, this this became a very real, you know, it it was more than just, you know, a news event out there. This this was a something that that impacted me locally, especially where they thought they had the guy, then they didn't, then they they thought they had another guy, then they didn't. Yeah. Yeah. And so, yeah, it was it was definitely it's been a a roller coaster of emotions. Um, like someone else mentioned, I too saw, you know, the really gruesome video and that's just really hard to see. And just knowing that it took place so close to my home, um, they they ended up cancing my my kids after school activities. they did they did a lockdown in the the local school districts because they didn't have this guy. So anyways, this is this has been, you know, a really real thing for me. And I I wanted to address I I saw earlier on Mormonish, they seem there seem to be a lot of people and I I didn't make it to the live stream. It was after the fact, but a lot of there were several people that they were almost accusing you guys of, well, why are you trying to show this? Like, what does this have to do with Mormonism? Are you guys just trying to make a quick buck? And I always have your guys' back. And that kind of pissed me off and I thought, you know what, maybe I can call later, you know, give my two cents on on that. But yeah, maybe. You know what I thought when I saw that? some guy out there cuz I reviewed the live chat like I usually try and do. When I saw all those comments, that's what I started the comment with at the top of tonight's show. I thought, "Wow, there's a lot of people who really don't want us talking about this connection." Yes. It was It's so transparent. I mean, geez, come on. It's by the time you're 65, by the time you're Bill's age, and he's just a he's just a young, you can see this transparently, this kind of very seventh grade level of attempts to manipulate other people to do what you want them to do. Exactly. They didn't like that we were talking about the Mormon connection, so they started accusing us of making a fast buck. It just brought a smile to my face. It's a strange thing, too. I'll just note there was somebody in the comments and it wasn't there are other comments like this but there was one person in particular who was arguing that hey this family's not Mormon this kid's not Mormon. Yes. And then then the moment we you know and again I knew as I was watching the chat I knew like we're going to get to it. We're going to clearly demonstrate that there's a Mormon connection here. Oh yeah. Always show the receipts and there was. And the moment we said that rather than that guy coming on and going, "Oh, I guess I was wrong." He in the same way that the church does just disappears. Exactly. So I I don't know if it's still an you know, a pending question on people's mind. Why are we tying this in? But I mean the the way I look at it is you know when you see the the sheriff or a police officer arrested for drunk driving like that's that's newsworthy. People look at that. And you know if you look at that why is that so interesting to us? Well, they're the ones that they're claiming that they have, you know, a higher authority or or moral superiority. And you know, it's similar with with the church. And and people know that out there. People know that the church claims a really high standard. For for any of the pe people out there that are Training Day fans, the movie with Denzel Washington, you may remember the famous line where he's trying to get his rookie cop to to smoke something and he won't do it and he says, "What are you a Mormon?" You guys You guys ever seen that movie? I got to see it. As I love Denzel Washington, I just haven't gotten around to it, but it's on the top of my list. Oh, yeah. Great great movie. So So people people know that about Mormons. people know that, you know, there's this high standard of no no coffee, no alcohol. And so if if a group's not even willing to to drink alcohol, a core someone of that faith being involved in a political assassination, yes, that's that's newsworthy. Yes, that's shocking that you know the the same group that claims that they are the only one and true church on the face of the planet who only holds the the the priesthood and the the authority to be able to get into heaven. We're the only ones that can get into heaven. Of course, when someone from that group does something this crazy, Yeah. that's that's newsworthy. So, I agree with you. And on top of that, guess what the title of the show is? It's the Mormon newscast. Exactly. So, I just I just wanted to to jump on here. I actually I didn't know how how lively this would be tonight and how many callers you'd have in, but I went through and I prepared some different quotes from leaders, you know, to support these points for some people that may not have been familiar with Mormonism. You know, the the whole moral superiority is a real thing. um you know the leaders they've they've said these kind of things. They've said that this is the most important work that is happening on the face of the planet right now. And so yeah when when someone from the most important group the most special people do something yeah it's it's it's noteworthy. So that's that's pretty much it. Appreciate you guys. Thank you. Thank you. Have a great day. Thanks some guy out there. It's the biggest It's the biggest story across the entire nation. And there's an angle that's very Mormon connected that no one is talking about. And the not talking about it was the story. Yeah. And the first part of the Mormon angle is it happened in Utah. Yeah.

Okay, who's this next caller? This is uh devices not connected. Rob in Canada. Rob in Canada. I'm not going to be able to bring you on. It won't let me. You're gonna have to connect a microphone before you come on. So, I'm gonna move on to David. Uh, but I did I did leave you down there. I will come back to you if you've got things working. But right now, it's I hope you can hear that now. Rob in Canada. Uh, so he has to go back to the page before this. Or does Can you do it on this page? Uh, he'll probably have to refresh the page, but he won't have to go anywhere. Okay. It just says to me that his microphone and camera, but he doesn't need the camera. His microphone's not connected. Okay. So, Rob in Canada, we're getting overrun by Canadians tonight. Yeah. So, uh just go ahead and connect your microphone and make sure that works and then it'll change how it looks to us and we'll be able to see that you're ready to come on. Okay. Thanks. You didn't know that a huge segment of our population were Canadians. Huh. The viewership. No, I had no idea. Yeah. Well, you didn't know that. Well, I didn't either. Hey, I'm glad to find out. I love Canada. It's so beautiful. There you go. It is beautiful. lot of lot of precious metals and minerals over there too. So, I did know that. Are there? Yeah, there is. Okay. Yeah. Go ahead, David. Sorry about that, gentlemen. First time on the stream. Um, I'm I'm joining a little late and I I've tried to catch up with some of the conversations. Um, and please, if I'm being uncharitable, please cut me off, kick me out. Um, I'm having a really hard time in with this particular event in just reconciling the the terrible tragedy that is political violence. No one deserves to lose their life for expressing sincerely held beliefs. And yet Charlie Kirk is a is a provocator. He I I'm I'm passingly familiar with him and I'm not sure how much charity we should give a man who said that it is worth people losing their lives to defend the Second Amendment. And as I've gone on over myself, um I I just I I wish that we didn't live in a country where in order to get fame and clout, we need to um we just need to I don't know. The left would say trigger. The right would say um I don't know what they would say, but I'm I'm very conflicted and I'm curious to know if you gentlemen feel similarly the way that I do or if I'm just going crazy. I'm reserving my comments to the end in my story, but I appreciate you're saying it. Did you want to respond to that, Bill? I I'll only say I haven't watched enough of Charlie Kirk to be thoroughly, you know, to know all the things he's covered thoroughly. My impression in watching, let's say over the course of my life, I've watched two hours of Charlie Kirk. Um, my impression is that he there is a wanting to engage and it's not as bad as Jacob Hansen, but it's but it's sort of that thing where you're so sure you're right that there's a dismissiveness to the other person when there was a really great conversation that could have been had where you explore ideas and you push back against perspectives. But it has it it sometimes is a good dialogue with open space to communicate and sometimes it's made to look like it's an open space to communicate but there's a dismissiveness there. Um I think there's clearly an agenda um behind the the I don't know I don't I don't I won't go as far to call it an act because I do I do believe he has some convictions. Um, but yeah, and then I guess as far as the Mormon angle, uh, I think you guys said it best earlier in the day, you know, quoting, uh, uh, quoting the the story of Laban in First Nephi. And, uh, we have a faith tradition that in one of the first chapters of the book, um, in a way uh, authorizes and tacitly encourages political violence. And I wish the I wish media outlets picked up on that and hopefully you know you guys talking about it and Rebecca Bibliotech talking about it and we'll you know get it out there. Yeah. Well, thank you. Thank you David. Thanks for calling in David. Appreciate your point of view. Thanks gentlemen. Thank you.

I'll just put up here on the screen. This was something I wanted to just put up and you know people get confused. This is not a This is a This is a little more nuanced. The assassin, we don't know. We don't know if he was a believing Latter-day Saint who did this out of some warped idea around Mormonism or if he no longer believed in Mormonism and he was radicalized by the left. And there are indication that that the latter is the case by what anecdotal evidence is coming out about inscriptions on the ammo, the casings and stuff like that. So, I'll just note regardless of whether he was out of the church and never took Mormonism seriously, never believed it, or whether this Tyler Robinson was an all-in Mormon, either way, he was living the spirit of First Nephi 4:13. It's a strange thing that we have. And again, the Bible's full of nonsense as well. you know, the the rapist pays the father of his victim and he gets to marry the victim that he just raped. Like, that's insane. But Mormonism has a scripture that it is better that one man should perish than a nation should dwindle and perish in unbelief. And so, in regards to some of the things the last caller was saying, it's not that Mormonism is responsible for what happened. it pro my if I were a betting man and I would say by quite a bit it's almost certain that Mormonism didn't play a part in what happened uh 48 hours ago but from that 22-year-old warped kid's mind he was he his agenda had something to do with the spirit of it's better to take out a person and make their ideas come to an end than to let those ideas proliferate through a society Um, and and I think if we're going to denounce what Tyler Robinson did, then we ought to acknowledge that the this scripture is just room for people to have ideas around hurting others in the name of the greater good and justifying the most atrocious kind of harms that you can put on someone. Yeah. Uh if I were to give a more general view on this, I suspect that um and having some experience in this myself, uh generally people who want to kill somebody else will find justification for that if it's premeditated enough, right? And not a rash act. They will find justification for it at some point. It's what helps them do it, right? To carry through with an act like that. So Mormons would typically go there. I suppose Christians might go to something else. Um, but um everybody's got some way to justify and nine times out of 10 when everything's over and done and the heat of the passion is gone and you're looking back on this thing, the justification looks really stupid. Yeah, it I'll say one more quick thing only because there's a comment that's pointing to it. Uh Trump got shot. Kirk got shot. A Catholic school just got shot. It's 100% the fault uh of the left. And you and I were talking about this this week. We were having a conversation about how many how many acts happen that are harm attempted on people on the conservative side or harm attempted on people on the liberal side. And it's I'm not going to say it's down the middle, but it's not lopsided extremely either. Uh, I'm going to take this comment down so we can see that uh, the last TW I asked AI this. So, AI may be inaccurate about missing a person or I don't think any of these are made up. I think these are all real, but maybe something's missing. But the last 20 instances it picked out of people that had an attempted assassination on them. Of those 20, 12 were on the conservative right-leaning side. Uh, seven were on the left-leaning side and one was uh politically neutral. It was politically motivated. These were all politically motivated. The neutral one was politically motivated, too. But the person that the harm was attempted on was someone in the middle. I don't remember who it was. But this list has 11 people or 11 numbers. Uh, you said 12 and that's why I was asking. Yeah, you're right. 11. The 12th was neutral. And then Okay. Um, something's off about But I'm missing one of them. But at any rate, there's some of each. 12 and seven, I think, was the number. I think I'm missing something. Some in column A, some in column B. It's just a note that all of this black and white binary thinking that got us into trouble with Mormonism in the first place is getting us into trouble outside the church as well. We often find ourselves in new echo chambers and we want to say like, "No, it's always the right who does this. Oh, it's always the left." It's not. There is there is unhealthy horrific acts being committed by both sides on people of both sides. Uh and and to try to figure out like it's oh it's always them. It's always those guys, those are the bad guys. That's such tribalism and it's part of the problem. Yes, it is very much part of the problem I think. I mean Nancy Pelosy's husband was down there. Yep. I think his name was Paul. Does anybody remember that? There was a certain governor of Philadelphia who's a Democrat whose house got burned. I think it was on Christmas. I mean, torched by arson. Yeah. I'm forgetting his name right now. Do you remember his name? I don't. But I Yeah, I remember the story. I don't remember that.

Now, we've got knocking at the door again. Should we let him in, Bill? Well, Rob in Canada's got his situation fixed and he hasn't been on yet. Rob in Canada. Rob in C. Are you really from Canada or is this a gag? Hey, you guys hear me? Yeah. Yeah. No, I'm actually from Canada, believe it or not. I know. Series of unusual events tonight. Say about um Yeah. Well, good timing to have me on because I kind of just wanted to follow up on, you know, this whole left versus right thing. I know it's been going on and it will continue to go on, but seems to kind of kind of overlook. I mean, I'm an ex mo. I'm very familiar with um things getting very personal and things getting very heated and people not being able to agree and live lives peacefully together when deeply held beliefs are um clashing. But I'm going to just do something that's going to help Canada's reputation a lot which is read a poem which is very very short. I know everyone wants to hear a poem from Canada. This c this helps me gather my thoughts better than anything that I've seen in the last 24 hours. So for the people who can't understand why maybe you should mourn a death of someone who you you didn't agree with, um I would just say it's because it's a human. So this poem is called No Man is an island. It's called it's by John Don and it's really short. No man is an island entire of itself. Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a cloud be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a prominent were, as well as if a manner of thy friends or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee. That's all I'm going to say. Thanks, guys. Thank you. Thank you, Robin Canada.

All right, uh, we're at 9:31 and we've got Tim Raffthbone wanting a second round. So, are we closing? Okay, so I guess we're done except for maybe Tim. I Let me flip a coin here. I have a coin. Um, Tim's laughing. Okay, you win. Tim, we got Rob in Canada and Tim in Bakersfield. So, okay, Tim, come on. Come back in. Tell what is it? What did you forget to say? You asked about me being shot. No, I said for next Friday. Next Friday. Oh. Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you were tonight. No, no, next. Oh, I'm so sorry. No, no, no. But I do want to hear the story. Okay. I just don't want to take us too far a field from the subject at hand. Okay. All right. JD in Canada. Now, come on. Now, hang on. Hang on. Sorry. 75% of gun violence was committed by Conservatives, 3% by liberals. That's a statistic that's solid. Oh, and we'll take your word for it, Tim. I won't. Well, I checked it. I double checked it today. Anyway, all right. Just Okay, I'll call next week. I'll tell the story. Thank you, Tim. Have a great day. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Bye.

Now, you see there's a thing that come happens on the screen now. When somebody comes into the studio, it flashes their name at the top of the screen. You can't see it. And what just happened? Somebody said JD in from Canada came in. Is there a JD in Canada here now? I think this is this is pulling my leg. Is this John Dyn? Who is this? Can you hear me? JD, you're on. Yes. I'm not in Canada. I'm sorry. You are in Canada? I am not in Canada. Wow. So, you're a liar then? I'm a liar. That's the shortest cross- examination I've ever done. You know, I think I think what this ultimately comes down to is that the rhetoric of vilifying both sides just needs to completely stop, you know. And I I do want to say this. I appreciate you both for being as a-political as you can, especially on a stream like this. The chat is going crazy. Um, you know, it's just interesting when you call someone that disagrees with you a a threat to democracy and a threat to the United States and then they go and get shot and everyone's surprised. Like that's what that rhetoric brings. You know what I mean? That's what that's what that type of rhetoric brings and it's unacceptable. And anyways, that's just my my two cents. Well, JD, thank you for calling even though you're not from Canada. I appreciate uh your perspective. Take it easy, Jay. Bye-bye.

Uh I've said all the things I want to say. RFM, we're at 9:34. Um I'd like to hear uh you said you you had 10 or 15 minutes of things you wanted to share. I really do want to hear. Okay. So, anyway, let me share this with you. Yeah. Get this ready to go. Excuse me. I'm not going to put anything on the screen. Don't worry about that. Um, okay. So, I am 13 years old. I'm in 8th grade in Kent Junior High School. I'm in English class. The teacher is Mrs. Cra. C R A M. Not kidding. We've got our books and our books are anthologies as lots of, you know, books are in English class. And it's big book. It's got stories, short stories. It's got poems. It's got all sorts of different kinds of writing in it and it has one screenplay. I've never encountered a screenplay before. I like the title. I'm reading it. I remember sitting in that class in those golden days of 8th grade and reading this and being absolutely captivated by the story like nothing I had ever read before. And it occurred to me within an hour of going on the show tonight that this is what I need to share. Now, that screenplay was written by a man named Rod Serling. It was written for a TV show called The Twilight Zone. And the episode that I'm talking about is The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street. Perhaps the most famous episode from the Twilight Zone. As I looked it up, I find that coincidentally it actually originally aired within a week of my birth. And here's the last part of the opening narration, which I will approximate to Rod Serling, though I will not imitate him. This is Maple Street on a late Saturday afternoon. Maple Street in the last calm and reflective moment before the monsters came. Now, here is the plot summarized at Wikipedia. One late summer afternoon, Maple Street is full of children playing and adults taking talking, excuse me, and doing yard work when a shadow passes over accompanied by a roar and a flash of light. Everyone notices, but they assume it is a passing meteor and resume their activities. The residents soon discover that their power has gone off, affecting stoves and not only stoves, but strangely lawnmowers, cars, phones, even portable radios, portable radios, and they gather in the street to discuss the situation. Pete Van Horn volunteers to walk over to Floral Street to see if it is affected. His neighbors, Steve Brandt and Charlie Farnsworth, decide to go into town to investigate further. But Tommy, a neighborhood boy, urges them not to go. Tommy has read a story of an alien invasion causing similar issues and says that the monsters do not want anyone to leave the street. Tommy adds that in the story the aliens are living as a family that appears to be human but they are actually scouts and the power outage they cause is to isolate the neighborhood. The adults, of course, are incredulous, assuring little Tommy that the cause is natural. Another resident, Les Goodman, tries unsuccessfully to start his car. However, after he walks away from the car, the car starts by itself. This makes the neighbors suspect that Les may be an alien. As they all gather, one woman brings up Les's late night spent standing in the garden looking at the sky as if waiting or looking for something. Less defending himself as a resident of Maple Street for 5 years, claims to suffer from insomnia and admonishes his neighbors that they should use caution and not panic. Steve, who ends up being sort of the uh, the main character in this, Steve tries to diffuse the situation and prevent it from becoming a witch hunt, but tensions remain high. As darkness descends, Charlie begins keeping watch over Les Goodman's house. Steve suggests Charlie go home to bed. Another neighbor, Dawn, mentions that Steve has built his own radio set, which Charlie then claims no one has ever seen. As suspicion mounts, Steve's wife protests that it is a simple ham radio, but Steve sarcastically answers that, yeah, he talks to aliens with it. Steve and the other neighbors continue to argue, using each person's idiosyncrasies as evidence that they are an alien. Steve warns that such behavior looking for a scapegoat is the shest way for the entire neighborhood to eat each other up alive, quote unquote. Next, a shadowy figure approaches the residence. Remember, it's nighttime now. which Tommy the kid exclaims is the monster. Claiming it may be necessary for protection, Dawn obtains a double-barreled shotgun that Steve immediately confiscates. As the figure gets closer, Charlie panics, taking the shotgun and shooting the figure. Upon reaching the fallen figure, they realize it is Pete Van Horn who had gone to see a floral street had power earlier. and he is now dead. As Charlie struggles to defend his hasty action, the lights in his house come on by themselves, causing the residents to turn on him. Don suspiciously asks Charlie why his power is restored, while Les rebukes him for being so quick to kill and accuse, suggesting that perhaps Pete had found proof of Charlie's extraterrestrial origins and that the latter shot the former to silence him. Even Steve does not advocate. Remember, he's the protagonist. Even Steve does not advocate for Charlie. Outraged by his senseless murder of Pete. Charlie makes a break for his house. Everyone chases him, throwing stones, one of which smashes a porch lantern, causing the broken glass to fly at Charlie's face and cutting his forehead. Terrified, Charlie attempts to deflect suspicion onto the kid, Tommy. While Tommy's mother is quick to defend him, several neighbors agree with this idea. Remember, Tommy was the only one who knew about the alien's plans. Steve continues to try to defuse the situation, but no one listens. Lights begin flashing on and off in houses throughout the neighborhood. Lawnmowers and car engines start and stop for no reason. The mob becomes hysterical, hurling accusations, smashing windows, and taking up weapons as the situation devolves into an allout riot. Meanwhile, at a nearby hilltop, two humanoid aliens are observing the riot on Maple Street while using a device to manipulate the neighborhood's power, their electrical power. They comment on how simply fiddling with routine leads people to descend into paranoia and panic that can be exploited. They also discuss their intention to use this strategy to conquer Earth. one neighborhood at a time. They then ascend a stairway into their spaceship which then takes off. And I will close with the closing narration from Rod Serling. The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill, and suspicion can destroy, and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all of its own for the children and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is that these things cannot be confined to the Twilight Zone. That's all I have, Bill. Um, I don't have anything more. When we don't listen to each other, we pit each other against each other. Um, there are some games you can win only by refusing to play. Yeah. Thank you.

All right, thanks everybody for watching. Thanks to all those who called in. Thanks to all of those of you who shared your your comments in the live chat and will in the future share them in the comments below. We appreciate hearing what you have to say. Every voice is important. Every perspective needs to be heard. Thank you again and we'll see you next time on Mormonism After Dart.