He SHAMED Congress at 18 — Now He’s Running for Office (w/ Matt Post)

Of course.

And it's different, it's been, what, nine years since that speech gave or take? Eight, nine years? Seven.

Seven? Seven years? Um-

2018.

Uh, Cam, you can interject, Cam, if you think I'm misrepresenting you, but you s- you're a little world weary by the whole, uh, gun, uh, you know, gun rights fight, um, and, uh, and sometimes feel like, ugh, this is hopeless or maybe that there's not ... you don't have as ... you, you have less hope maybe? Is that fair? (laughs) I thi- ...

Yeah, I think for me, the big thing is when we were first organizing at least w- uh, uh, around the time we met, gun control was a matter of seeing what we could get from Republicans.

That was the big thing is could we get these Republicans to bite, m- oh, pie in the sky on an assault weapons ban.

Could we at least get these, you know, extreme risk protection orders? Could we at least get red flag laws? What can we get from the Republicans? And now, from what I understand of the gun violence prevention space, a lot of it is like, "What can we get the Democrats to keep pushing on?" Right.

'Cause I think so many people see it as a losing issue now.

But to ask the question I think Tim was leading to, like, where are you at on the hopium versus copium stage of gun violence prevention?

Yeah, I mean, I am, I, I am still pissed.

Um, uh, I'm pissed at Republicans and I certainly am also pissed at, at Democrats who are willing to throw away this issue, um, um, and, and not talk about it, not push it, um, 'cause it's out of the news.

You know, I think the, the power of March for Our Lives in 2018, um, and the power really of young people in any movement is the ability to, to see that things do not have to be the way they are because that's the way they have always been.

And so I refuse to allow myself to become numb to the losses, to the stagnant policies, to the, um, to the lack of progress, because I think you have to have that fire in you that things are still possible or you will give up and join the crowd of this is too hard, let's, you know, focus on other things, let's focus on the immediately practical, or let's accept that there's nothing that can be done.

I reject that, um, entirely, fundamentally.

Um, and I think the ... something that, that helps hold onto that hope that change is possible is looking at the state level where enormous progress has been made since 2018.

Over 300 gun safety laws have been passed around the country.

And we've lost ground in some states, but in blue states before, including in Maryland where universal background checks did not pass until the Parkland shooting, until there was that enormous surge of political will.

Mm-hmm.

And so the state level is where we're gonna continue chipping away, continue making progress, um, and hopefully when we do regain power at the federal level, we'll be replicating some of the successful laws that we're implementing at a state level.