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Hey, Robert here. It's been like two months since I had LASIK and I'm still seeing 2020. All I had to do was go in for a consultation, then go in for a maybe 10 minute procedure and then my eyes have been great ever since. You know, I healed up wonderfully. It was very simple, couldn't have been a better experience. So if you want to explore LASIK plus I can't recommend it enough. They have over 20 years experience in the industry and they performed more than two million treatments right now if you want to try getting LASIK plus you can get $1000 off of your surgery when you're treated in September, that's $500. Of per eye, just visitmylasikoffer.com to schedule your free consultation. Hello, I'm Erica Kelly from the podcast Southern Fried true crime. And if you want to go from podcast fan to podcast host, do what I did and check out spreaker from iheart. I was working in accounting and hating it. Then after just 18 months of podcasting with Spreaker, I was able to quit my day job. Follow your podcasting dreams. Let's breaker handle the hosting, creation, distribution, and monetization of your podcast. Go to spreaker.com. That's spreaker.com. In the 1980s and 90s, a psychopath terrorized the country of Belgium. A serial killer and kidnapper was abducting children in the bright light of day. From Tenderfoot TV and iHeartRadio, this is La Monstra, a story of abomination and conspiracy. The story about the man who simply become known as. Lamaster. Listen for free on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Matt sleep. How are you doing today? I'm good, man. I just got married. You did just get married. I got married. Married? Former guest, Francesca Florentini. You know? Yeah. One of our favorite guests with our least favorite. Ohh, ****. Ohm. How dare you? I'm just being an *******. We love you. I love you. That's why I've brought you on to read you a 12,000 word script. About who? A script. Oha script. That's right, Matt. Because because I do love you. We have such a good time. Talk. Yeah, and I wanted to celebrate. I'm sorry. You. You have. Embarked on this new chapter of your life? Yeah. Love making you very sad. Yeah, I actually. This is the perfect palate cleanser to a weekend of joy. That's right. That's right. Coming on this podcast and just being just torn to shreds emotionally because there's gonna be no joy here. Matt. Yeah. How do you feel? How do you feel? Well, First off, I guess. Have you ever heard of a ************ named Harlan Carter? Harlan Carter? I don't think so. OK, OK, so Jimmy Carter's brother. Oh, boy. Not at all. That would be Billy Carter. And Billy Carter will be on our our episode behind the Heroes. Yeah, because he's mentioned Bill. I thought you were gonna ruin, you know that guy because he seemed pretty dope. Can you imagine back when, like, the biggest scandal of President had was that, like, his brother made bad beer? Right? My God, what a time. Yeah, what an administration. Yeah, it was just like, hey, his brothers too cool. Yeah, dudes. Dudes were not supposed to rock this much. That was. But you know, that was the biggest scandal. This guy out of the White House and put in a dude who's gonna do part of a genocide anyway. Matt, how do you feel about? The proliferation of firearms in American Society. I'm pro, OK? I think, you know, the more guns, the better. Obviously nothing. You know, the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. We think we all know that. And I think it's 19 good guys with guns stacked outside of a classroom for 78 minutes. Exactly, dude, just kind of sitting around waiting to be like, Oh my goodness, I can't wait to be a hero. I'll just give it another 45 minutes. You gotta clock in first. Yes. So it's interesting. It's fun that we got to the military, the incompetent militarization of police, because this is a thing. One of the things that's frustrating, obviously, you and I may have some slightly different attitudes towards firearms, but I'm, I'm, I'm frustrated with the American gun culture, which I think is primarily toxic, and also the culture of police militarization, which is 100% toxic. And the guy we're going to talk about today, Harlan Carter, is the dude who started both of those things. He's the guy who started militarizing the police, and he's the guy who made the NRA. Dude, it is. Sophie's got a picture of him. He looks like he looks like who you would cast if you were putting kingpin. That like comic book villain. He looks like kingpin. Like he literally looks exactly like kingpin. Oh my God. And spoiler for body shaping the NRA guy, I would prefer any gangster to. It's not even body shaming. He just looks like like his his neck is the width of his ears. No, he's like a literal ********. Like it is the most ******** ish head. Ever seen he is a ***** someone poured into a suit? I'm pretty sure, I'm pretty sure that this is what what Joe Rogan was like. I want this. And then Joe if Joe Rogan off of like some someone has been cutting Joe Rogan's HGH with lemon juice just to try to keep him from getting too huge. But if Joe got the amount of HGH that he intended to shoot into his testicles, this is how he would look. Yeah, he would look like this guy. His name would be even thicker. He's exactly the way you are. Picturing him in your mind, listeners, he does kind of look like cause Alex Jones has that thick neck but he's like not that not he's a little, he's smaller. Yeah and and Joe Rogan's got that that big muscle, muscle guy head. If like Joe Rogan and Alex Jones if you like in vitro, fertilized like cut their sperm in half and like merged them together with the egg from like a dead California Condor, you would get Harlan Carter. What's better is this painting of him where he literally looks like Doctor Evil. Yeah, he does look like Doctor Evil who painted him. I don't know a lot of people. He's a very important person. We would not get drinks with fair. So we're going to have to start by discussing the history of gun control in the United States and because this is the United States that also started with white supremacy, I can only yes I like just from this is just a guess, but I bet you gun control laws that have been enacted were mostly racist. Yeah, it's it's one of those things when you get these. You get these arguments online where, like, people will be like, gun culture is white supremacist. And it's like, yeah, now if a lot of it is. And then folks who are pro gun will be like, well, gun control is white supremacist. And you're both right because it's the United States of America. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, if you try, it's like people talking about like, Oh well, the Democratic Party used to be, like, was a white supremacist party for a very long time. And it's like, yeah. Yes, yes. Both major US parties are primarily rooted in white supremacy. 100% and it's always, it's always super weird that, you know, whenever someone is just like, Nah. And it's like, what? Why are you you don't need to be so attached to being a Democrat that you're just gonna refuse to believe that it's. This doesn't make an argument one way or the other about gun control because like, you could say, like, zoning laws have a lot of the routing and white supremacy. It doesn't mean zoning shouldn't exist, right? Because fundamentally, yeah, factories maybe shouldn't be in the same places. Apartment complexes, right. But that also that like, yeah. Anyway, whatever we're going to do, right? Yeah. We're doing gun control. We're doing CRT on this podcast. This is gonna be a little, a little bit, yeah, we're getting into a lot of stuff, but we're gonna be talking a **** load about the Border Patrol. But first, let's talk a little bit about the history of gun control in the United States. Obviously, 1619, thereabouts is when the first African enslaved people are brought to the United States. Well, it wasn't the United States then, but you know what I'm saying, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, the the colonies. Against their will and not that long after in 1680, which is pretty quick considering how slow things went back then, the Virginia Assembly passed one of, if not the earliest gun control laws in the colonies. Now, this law did not restrict the ability of white people to be armed. It might even be more accurate to say it wasn't gun control, but weapons control. Hmm. But this law passed in 1680 and made it a crime for any African American to carry a weapon or weapon like object now. That last term there is interesting Matt, because you could I mean I like as a man right anytime you're out in the world you think about all the different things you could use as weapons. Everything is like it's it's just a thing that happens for every room going. What could I use for self-defense and or if I just felt like harming someone. Yeah if I had to defend myself against the 84 year old man next to me in the post office how hard could I hit him with one of these empty cardboard boxes. This is seriously in the genes of of every dude is. This is Mark Wahlberg going. I would have stopped 911 if I had been on that plane. God, and you know, that's that's all of us. It would have been so funny. It would have been really funny if he'd like if he'd stopped it, but then he'd had to try to land the plane and had accidentally crashed it into the White House, like, oh God. Anyway, so as you might guess, the vagueness around the term weapon, like object mean that meant that this law, it didn't just like ban black people from from carrying guns. It meant that they could be punished brutally. We're holding any object if it can be used to hit somebody. This started what wound up being like a more than a century long tradition of elderly black people being banned from having canes. Oh my God. Because you can hit someone with a cane, right? As Gandolf showed us, you know? Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. They weren't they weren't being fooled by that in Virginia in 1680. Yes, we will pardon old man from his walking stick. I know a wizard staff when I see one. You think I don't know you're gonna cast a spell? Now, this being 60 years after the forced importation of African slaves to the continent, the 1680 law was aimed at slaves, obviously, but it applied equally. There were some free black people in the colony of this. And it applied to them as well. The law was amended in 1723 to specify that Africans, African Americans were not allowed to use firearms for any purpose, be it hunting or self-defense. And again, 1723, it's kind of important to be able to use a gun, you know, just if you're living in the Virginia frontier. Yeah. There's a lot of other people with guns, and it seems just, like, fun to have one. You need food and stuff, you know? And there's bears, like. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. How do you catch your food? Yes. If you are not allowed to use a gun, you can trap. But I I think the purpose here, no one's thinking about, like, they're not. They're they're doing whatever they can to make these people's lives harder because, like, they're terrified of the existence of free black people. Yes. And under this law, a freed black person who defended himself from a white person. Using a firearm was committing a crime technically with any weapon like is any, like any tool they were to use to defend themselves would be illegal. So gun control in the early colonies, most of the time. These kind of laws in Virginia were sort of the exceptions of the rule because as a rule like there were, the laws were less kind of specifically banning certain things and more just kind of generally trying to make it possible for black people enslaved to free to challenge white supremacy in any way. Right. So it wasn't just guns and in fact, that because guns were, like, not as good back then, those were less of a focus than some other objects that might surprise you. Possession of dogs by black people was heavily regulated in this. Just having they couldn't have dogs. Well, it was not impossible, but it was very hard. If you were a black person who wanted to own a dog in Maryland in the early 1700s, for example, you were forced to get a license from the justice of the peace who was going to be a white man? So it was not easy to get a license from a justice of the peace. For this, and if you manage to get one, you were still restricted to owning no more than one dog at a time. Mississippi banned the ownership of dogs for black people under any circumstances and even allowed slave patrols to kill dogs found in the House of a black person. So the police tradition of shooting people's dogs is, is very old indeed. Of course I should have I, I should have known. Of course, dog control also, you know, ties directly to white supremacy. Well, and it's one of those that you have to again, weapons, firearms. Are a lot less deadly back then. So like a gun, you get one shot and it's not easy to reload. Yeah, I think it's got helicopters, but yeah, dog. A dog, you don't need to reload, right? A Doberman will keep ******* going until you know. Yeah. So that's what you know, white folks were particularly scared of. And again, it's also worth noting. Obviously, the prohibition against black people carrying guns or other weapons makes sense if you're afraid of a slave or, you know, just an uprising, right? Because a group of people with guns can do an uprising, you can't really effectively organize a bunch of dudes and their dogs to do an uprising together. It's hard to do like, with. I'd like to see it, though. It would be cool. That would be clearly greatest what they're doing here. They don't want black people to be able to defend themselves from, like, mob violence, sure, like individual and families. They don't want them to have any kind of defense if like somebody wants to to do a murder, you know? Jesus Christ. They're just like inventing, inventing laws that are completely useless. The idea that somehow this is like, Oh well, we can't we can't kill that guy. He lives in a a kennel filled with ravenous dogs surrounding him like he's ******* Ramsay Bolton. Just like ready with hungry dogs to bite **** **** off if I'm yeah. So in the late 1700s, spoilers, the American Revolution broke out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And by 1787, we have a constitution. You know, we we get, we we fight them English, we beat them. And then we're like, oh boy, this first government we tried as a giant **** show, we should probably, like, give another shot at, at this. And they they do constitution. And eventually this Constitution comes to include a Bill of Rights and the now infamous Second Amendment. We're going to be talking a lot about the changing. Says this has been interpreted through time, and despite what people on tend to say on either side of the modern issue, there are a couple of different ways to interpret how the so-called founding fathers intended it to function. And again, as a general rule, they weren't all in agreement about pretty much anything. But one thing is perfectly clear, they did not see the right to bear arms is extending to black people. Now, black people were not categorically forbidden from owning weapons in the new United States, but in those states where it was legal for them to own arms, they were. Always required to register those weapons with the government. This was not the case for white people. While there was some hope during the revolution among black Americans that independence would bring about an improvement in their circumstances, and that was not unreasonable. Again, the British Empire allowed slavery too. So at this stage in time, it's not like it's perfectly reasonable to hope that, like, well, maybe things will get better when they don't have a king anymore, right? Yeah, obviously that doesn't happen. And when that doesn't happen, there's some uprisings in in the new. United States. In 1811, Louisiana Uprising of enslaved Persons failed, and in response to this, New Orleans made it a crime for black people to carry weapons. And this was again, primarily, even more than guns banned them from stuff like canes. Crutches? Wheelchairs? Yeah. Any yeah, definitely. Going with an assault. Wheelchair? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, as we've discussed in our behind the police series, many Southern police departments started as slave patrols made-up of armed white dudes searching for escaped slaves and using weapons to keep a boot on the neck of even free black people. In 1825, Florida gave slave patrols the right to enter any black person's home and take away firearms, ammunition, or any other weapons found. And obviously these kind as as is the case with no knock raids. Today, these often were basically just pretexts to kill people in their homes. Right. By saying you felt threatened? Yeah. Now in the early 1860s, obviously we have us a civil war over slavery. And broadly speaking, this goes pretty well if you're if you think slavery is bad, US civil war, broadly speaking, is all goes alright. Yeah. Now, one of the most kind of revolutionary aspects of the civil war is that for the first time in U.S. history, a **** load of black men are legally carrying guns in an organized way. 179,000 black people serve in the Union Army, which is roughly 10% of its total. And you suddenly have 10s of thousands of black men with guns marching across the US S which really freaks out people in the South. Yeah, that's gotta be the scariest thing there. They looked at that and they're like, see, this is what I'm talking about. This is a scary **** I did not want to happen. Yeah, This is why we're losing. Started this war that we're losing. So post civil war, black people are not immediately entitled to the same rights as white people. So starting in 1865, which is the year though the war ends, states like former, you know, states that had lost basically start enacting black codes. And these are kind of, OK, these people aren't slaves anymore, but we we want to treat them that way. So let's just write new. Let's just, we'll take the old laws that we had that restricted slaves from doing things in order to keep them under control. And we'll replace the word slave with servant or, you know, something similar so that we can try to hold them under the same laws. In Mississippi, black people were still banned from possessing weapons or ammunition. And if white people turned them in for this crime, they would be given their firearms as a reward. And again, this is after they've been freed, so they, like, should have the the right to bear arms and whatnot, right? I want to quote now from a 2021 honors thesis by Alexandra Lanzetta from the University of Colorado. Quote. Other southern states to enact their own set of black codes were Alabama and Louisiana. Both states prohibited African Americans, not including veterans, from owning guns without a license or special permit. Not surprisingly, these permits and licenses were controlled by white men, making it virtually impossible for a black man or woman to legally obtain a gun. This resulted in many blacks illegally purchasing guns, making the potential penalties of exposure even greater. Punishment for having an unlicensed firearm was a fine and confiscation of the weapon. Old slave patrols reemerged to enforce the black Codes and to terrorize African Americans. This along with the combination of. Good incentives to catch blacks with weapons and a hatred over their new found freedom created a white frenzy making it extremely difficult to hide a gun as an African American. White frenzy is the worst frenzy. It's and it's it's it's the most common frenzy too in this country. Yeah, it's it's it's their most traditional American frenzy, but it is not is not a fun one. We do love us a frenzy. We love our friends. We love a good frenzy. We love a mad frenzy. So 1865, right? Should bunch of black codes come into effect to basically try and keep black people in similar positions to how they've been during slavery even though the war was over? So in 1866, U.S. Congress passes the Civil Rights Act, which this is like, there's a big old fight over this and this is the, this is the law that basically says, hey, you actually have to these people have the same rights that white people have. Right, right, right. Like that's what that does, you know? And, you know, things do get a lot better for a while. You know, we talk about. And at this point was like, look, do you ever just, like, read up on reconstruction and go, like, holy **** for a hot second there? We seem to be on a good track from on a good track. Like, it seemed like **** was gonna, like, work out. Yeah, I think things get a lot better for a while. And then there's a violent reaction from the reactionaries, and they do an insurgency, which is kind of centered around the KKK. We have talked about this in other episodes. It ends with a series of demeaning, bigoted laws aimed at maintaining. White supremacy in the former Confederacy. These are, you know, Jim Crow laws, right? And and these these come into place alongside a wave of lynchings which kill at least, like 5000 black Americans. Obviously, there's no way of knowing the actual total good chance it was significantly more, but yeah, at least 5000. So in response, black people do what you would expect. They form militias. You know, they start carrying guns for what I I don't think I need to explain the logic here. Right. And they organized to stop lynchings. This culminates in Louisiana in 1876, where a bunch of Klansmen who were also government officials, these are like elected leaders in Louisiana who are also in the KKK, are charged with conspiring to disarm a meeting of black Americans. Basically, like one of these groups of black folks had gotten together with guns to like. Figure out how to protect their community and these state officials like try to take their weapons away, right? A bunch of court **** happens. It goes to the Supreme Court who rules in favour of the Ku Klux Klan, saying that the state had the legal right to disarm this meeting to protect the common good. God. And you know, in this period of time there's also one of the things happening during the lynching. Is sometimes lynchings get stopped because the person who is attempted to be lynched has a gun and they shoot the people trying to lynch them. And when that happens, a number of laws are passed in different towns and states to ban the carrying of concealed firearms. And in fact those are some of the first specific laws against the carrying of concealed handguns. Now this is an area where like the kind of the anti gun control people tend to focus entirely on this stuff. It's very much worth noting. All gun control in the United States in this. Is not based in white supremacy, in part because a lot of it is put in areas where like most of the population is white. And there was, it's worth noting, significantly more gun control in portions of the like the the so-called Wild West than there are in a lot of those same states today. In places like the Dakotas and whatnot, it was common for the open carrying of firearms to be restricted in many towns. If a visitor came into town, they would be expected to leave their guns with the local police. Before entering, they'd get like a little card or something you weren't supposed to like. Like, there were it's it's it's. And there's, you know, a lot to be said about like, why this is being done. But in general, it's being done because they see that it's it's perfectly reasonable to say that, like, well, there should be restrictions on what you can do in town with a firearm, right? Yeah. And walking around with a gun seems, I don't know, threatening. Yeah. They they certainly don't want you doing it openly. And then, like, there's a bunch of there's laws about carrying concealed, and those kind of vary from place to place. But it's worth noting that the infamous gunfight at the OK Corral actually occurred because a guy like it was over gun control, right? Like a guy was openly carrying his guns in the city. And, you know, there was, as far as I'm aware, like everyone involved in that I'm pretty sure was like a white dude. So I don't think there's anything particularly racist in the gunfight at. You could talk about it, be it involving like police overreach, sure. Which people will make the case that, like, this was this was a case of like a ******* early cop going bug **** on some people, yeah. Yeah, but don't tread on me. And, yeah, people, you see, this whole time I I didn't know that that was a real gunfight at the OK Oh yeah. Oh no, no, no. It's a pretty cool story as as it perfectly accurately described in the documentary tombstone. Hmm. It's a great doc starring Val Kilmer. Yes. See, I yeah. I I thought the reason was, you know, like a card game got lost or something. Or someone had, like, extra aces up their sleeve. But it turns out gun control. No, that would be the that would be the documentary. **** was at Maverick. What's the document? That's hard guy who gets like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's yeah. I need to rewatch that. That was a good *******. That's a good movie. My other guest was gonna be a giant metal spider who, yes, tries to take over my third favorite documentary. And this is what brought about the the famous U.S. law against the carrying of gigantic metal spiders. Right, right, right. Which I consider to be the civil rights era of the day, I think. Of course, I think access to giant metal spider should be democratized. I mean, I'm not. That's just a legit. Well, the only thing that stops a bad guy with a giant metal. Fighter is a good guy with a job. Would argue that you can't be a bad guy with a giant metal spider. Agree? Cause look, no matter what it's doing, if I get to see a giant metal spider tromping around town, my days improved. Like, yeah, OK, with that spider is going. Everyone feels safe and everybody feels better with a giant metal spider. So this podcast is brought to you by giant Metal spider.com promo code. Giant metal spider. Get yours today, actually. Right on time. Because it is that. It is about that time. Wow. Well, look. Everybody's talking a lot about AR fifteens. You know what's more powerful than an AR15A metal spider spider the size of of the Chrysler Building? That is scary. Yeah, yeah. Mint Mobile offers premium wireless starting at just 15 bucks a month. And now for the plot twist. Nope, there isn't one. Mint Mobile just has premium wireless from 15 bucks a month. 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That's better helpp.com/behindbetter. Com behind. Hey, it's Rick Schwartz, one of your hosts for San Diego Zoo's Amazing Wildlife podcast. In this special episode, we sit down with Doctor Jane Goodall to hear her inspiring thoughts on how we can create a better future for humans, animals and the environment. If we don't help them find ways of making a living without destroying the environment, we can't save chimps, forests or anything else. And that becomes very clear when you look at poverty around the world. If you're living in poverty, you can't afford to ask as we can. Did this product harm the environment? Was it cruel to animals like, was it factory farmed? Is it cheap because of unfair wages paid to people and so alleviating poverty? Is tremendously important. Listen to amazing wildlife on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Ah, we're back. So you have, you know, again, the Wild West, how common gun fights and stuff were, especially in like cities and towns is exaggerated. But also there was a lot of, like, there were a lot of robberies, there were a lot of crimes like and and it's it's the same as it is today. Like the gunfights that have kind of come down to history were like the ones that the media went nuts on in the day, like the gunfight at the OK Corral, right, but broadly speaking, by the the end of the 1800s. Most places in the United States had banned the concealed carrying of handguns, although open carrying remained legal in a lot of places. We'll talk about when that ended in 1893, the government of Texas said that quote, the mission of the concealed deadly weapon is murder to check. It is the duty of every self respecting, law abiding man. And again, he was probably saying that primarily because he didn't want black people to have concealed guns. This is the Governor of Texas in 1893, so do keep that in mind. But US gun control in this. Was at least deeply preoccupied with the spectre of armed black people, and even where laws were perfectly reasonable, they were often used specifically to enforce white supremacy, even if that hadn't been the initial intent of the law, lanzetta writes. Quote another example of discrimination is found in legal proceedings during the Jim Crow era involved an 11 year old Black Boy with a toy gun and Saint Louis. In 1900. It was illegal to fire a gun within city limits, and the boy was charged for violating this law, however, when his case was being reviewed by a judge to determine his guilt. Was discovered that the gun was fake. Knowing this new information, the judge should have dropped all charges given that it is not possible to fire a fake gun. But this was not the case. Instead, the boy was found guilty and the judge fined him $10, almost $310 today. Which is interesting. I did again. Another thing that goes back very far is black kids being penalized for having toy guns, right? Exactly. Quite, quite far back. Yeah. I mean, it's literally just these are like rulings. It's like, well, yeah, scared me. Yeah, that's that's the entire thing that has been the, I believe, the explanation for the deaths of countless, countless black people. Well, and it's also just like this. I was scared. Perhaps we don't like, perhaps we're fundamentally frightened by the concept, even if it's a toy of like, black people having guns, because that's how we maintain our power over them, right? Right. Which is, again, even in these areas where concealed carrying or open carrying is illegal, it's generally not illegal for white people to do if they're being vigilantes. Right. This is a key aspect of this. And this brings us back to the glorious state of Texas. Like much of the South, after the Civil Rights Act, legislators had to at least pretend that their laws meant to disarm black people were not motivated by racism. Brendan Rivas from Texas Christian University writes quote the post 1865 laws, however, used race neutral language to accomplish a racially motivated goal. Most of these laws attempted to disarm black Texans, but some from the 1870s stopped to curb the racial violence of the Ku Klux Klan. By disarming everyone. For instance, a part of the Texas Slave Code prohibited slaves from carrying a gun without written permission from a master or overseer, and a law passed in 1866 prohibited laborers from carrying firearms onto a plantation without the owners consent and race neutral and race neutral. Language at the 1866 law achieved the same result as the slave code without specifically declaring that African Americans should be disarmed. Their arming was conditional, subject to the authorization of an interested White Party. Similarly, the state's first comprehensive weapons control law did not use racially charged. Language, but left enforcement in the hands of local officials who could apply it selectively against uppity blacks or white vigilantes, depending on which political party controlled those local offices. And you can guess which of those happens more often. And this is the state of affairs legally in the state of Texas when Harlan Bronson Carter is born on August 10th, 1913 in Granbury, TX. Now the at the time, Granbury's primary claim to fame was that it was the home of Davy Crockett. For a little while. And every town in Texas was Davy Crockett's home for a little while. So not super impressive. And yet every, every town is just. He stayed at a motel here for two weeks. Yeah, and he's ******* all our hookers. He's he's like a celebrated hunter and and frontier guy. And Harlan, certainly like, I I I heard God knows how many ******* stories about David ******* Crockett when I was a kid and my mandatory Texas. History class, I am going to guess in like 1920 young young Harlan Carter is growing up and learning even more of these stories. Yeah. And obviously he's also in mesh in the local gun culture of the time. Pretty much everywhere is semi rural. So he's you know he he does a lot of hunting. He does a lot of target shooting. He becomes an excellent shot from an early age and he he he develops a an intense affinity for firearm, shall we say. So when he's young the family moves to Laredo. And Laredo is a border town, right? Umm and his father. They moved to Laredo because his father is a Border Patrol agent and in fact is one of the very first Border Patrol agents. So wow. The year that they moved to Laredo is 1927 Harlands 14 and it's the same year that a Border Patrol inspector named Clifford Perkins makes a trip to the town and expresses in an official document has shocked to find that quote. Laredo was strictly a Mexican town. Probably 90% of the people were either Mexican or of Mexican. Percent, he adds, with horror. The only Anglo on the police force was the chief himself. And this is an interest like Loretta at this point because it's it's so heavily Mexican. Is is not a town controlled by white people and the police are not a white force. Right. You'll note that quote I read earlier states that like kind of the laws against gun control were usually mainly like put into force against like armed black people, but depending on politics could be used to try to stop white vigilantes. Well, this is one of those towns. Or maybe that's more likely because the police force is not white. Well, the Border Patrol, however, is not happy with the idea of a town where Mexican folks are running things, right. That does not thrill them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, next, you know, they'll start inviting other Mexicans to live here, and they won't stop the border. I mean, I I love the idea of these, like, people going to a town right on the border of Mexico in Texas, which used to be Mexico, and being like, what the hell are all these Mexicans doing? Yeah, these communities that had been there for decades. For the state of Texas was a thing that anyone had thought of being like, exactly. These people are gonna change the nature of Texas. Yeah. Now this is not the Texas. I know that. Yeah, we invented about 20 years ago. We had that we invented when I was 15. Yeah, exactly. So this inspector guy Perkins again as exactly as racist as you might expect and he, he decides that Laredo's immigration cops are not going to be able to enforce US immigration restrictions, which are again geared towards enforcing white supremacy if the. The state of affairs in Laredo remains the way that it is, so he carries out what he describes as a quote, full scale house cleaning. Now in the wonderful book Migra Kelly Hernandez writes quote he charged local officials, the chief Patrol inspector, and Border Patrol officers in the Laredo station with immigrant smuggling and forced just under half of Laredo's 28 Border Patrol inspectors and the Chief Patrol inspector to quit or be fired. Perkins then transferred select border patrolman who had all been Texas Rangers into the Laredo sector because all were experienced. Well disciplined fighters who knew the country well. Detailing former Texas Rangers to Laredo was a strategy used to divorce the Border Patrol station from the local Mexican American political elite. Tension quickly mounted between the ex Rangers and the Laredo community, particularly the Laredo Police Department, while the Border Patrol enjoyed close relations with the local police in most borderland communities. In 1927, several officers of the Laredo Border Patrol got in their Model T automobiles and spent about half an hour circling and shooting up the police station. Holy ****. So he cleans house, brings in a bunch of Texas Rangers, which is like the most racist police force in the United States of this. Yeah. And has them shoot up the police station. ******* a I mean, like on the one hand, a cab. Yeah, but it's it's like on the one hand. But on the other hand, I don't think it's a, I think it's just these particular cabs, you know what I mean? Like, well, and it's they're going after specifically an armed group of Mexican Americans. It's also probably worth noting, but that in this. If you being a ******* being a being a Mexican American police officer in Laredo in 1927 is a bit different from being a police officer pretty much anywhere in the United States at this point. Which is part of, like, why the Border Patrol is purging them. Because it's like, you guys, they're not stopping. They're not stopping immigration. They're not, like, violently cracking down on people who aren't white and they're not enforcing white supremacy. So we have to get rid of them with guns. Yeah. And they get rid of, they do get rid of the Laredo police force with guns. So it only time in American history that police have been able to be fired. Yes. Yeah. This is the, this is the one time it happened. This is what it took the one time. So it's safe to say that Laredo was a pretty wild place when Harlan Carter was an adolescent. His father, Horace, was among the first cohort of Border Patrol agents hired in 1927, and he was transferred to Laredo in 1927. As part of this process, it's entirely possible that Horace Carter was one of the guys shooting that police station. And in this period of time, Harlan's father would have seen his job as explicitly to use violence to assert white supremacy in a place where most people were not. White quote from migra. Although most local stations developed their own strategies, policies and procedures, the Laredo station was exempt until the men and the infamously brutal racial violence of the Texas Rangers slashed away at the bonds between the Laredo Border Patrol and local Mexican American leadership. The cleanup transformed the Laredo Border Patrol into a refuge for white violence within Mexican dominated Laredo. So they've turned the the Border Patrol prior to this and they're all like local guys, right. So they don't really care about like Mexican America, like Mexicans coming into America because, like, that's how they got there, right? That's right. Their family, everybody like. And again, they also probably don't see the border as this solid thing because they made-up relatives have lived here for forever. It used to not be like a thing to cross. Yeah. But this is the period where the border is really is becoming a thing in a way that hadn't been before. And part of how they do that is they. Clean house. Bring in a bunch of white people and have them shoot anybody who disagrees. Right? Like that's that's how the border becomes real in Laredo, the American way, and it's our borders are enforced. Yeah, everywhere. Yeah. In. That's why borders are bad. So today, I mean, there's a long conversation to be had about the fact that the Border Patrol today is extremely diverse. Like one of the things people on the left particularly have gotten wrong about ivaldi is like the assertion that, like, well, they probably didn't go in because those kids were Hispanic. And it's like, have you seen the pictures of the ivaldi police? A lot of them are Mexican American. It's. And the Border Patrol guy, like, it's it's it's a whole thing. Like if you go down to border communities, you'll see it's not that simple is always as like superficial. Yeah. And simple as it. As it seems, yeah. So in 1930, Harlan, aged 16, joins the National Rifle Association. And again, the NRA is rightfully again, I'm I'm. More pro gun than that most people on the left tend to be. But the NRA is like, undoubtedly, for we'll be spending hours talking about this, incredibly toxic. It's not at this point, right? Right, it's not. There's nothing wrong with the NRA at this stage, really. And in fact, the NRA has its roots on the the, the correct side of the Civil War. There's these two union generals who are like, because, again, civil War One of the things early on the South is doing pretty well. And part of why they're doing pretty well is that, like, all the boys who, like, wind up fighting in the confederacies military, like, they're country boys, right? They've grown up shooting. And hunting, they're like and and using guns to enforce white supremacy. They're good with firearms, whereas most of the Northern boys who get drafted are like city kids and many of them had never had any chance to to use firearms. So they're like they they suck with them, right. And these two union generals are like, boy, our soldiers are really bad at shooting and it takes a long time to train them up. Maybe if we should get ready for the next war by having an organization where boys who grew up in urban areas can like go in and learn. How to shoot, you know, like that seems like a good thing to encourage. So that's and the NRA up until the early 20th century is like a sportsman's association. You're doing it for target shooting. You're doing it for hunting. Now, it is worth noting that, like from the beginning, and this was not seen as problematic at all at the time. There's a military aspect to it as well. It's not like a military organization, but part of the purpose of the NRA is to prepare people to be part of the military if necessary. And this is also the military is a really different thing in this. You know, we have a big standing army during the Civil War, but we hadn't before and we don't quickly afterwards, right? Like, this is again, when World War One happens, they have to, like, make an army. When World War Two happens, they have to, like, make an army in a way that, like, it had not hugely existed prior to this. So there's this understanding that, like, if there's an emergency, we're going to need to activate all of these civilians and they need to be ready to, like, fight and and and whatnot, right? So yeah, the US Defense Department would regularly hand over old weapons and other equipment to the NRA, which would sell them to members quite cheaply. This used to be able to get like World War Two guns like garrens for really cheap from the NRA was a bunch of stuff they did like that. So in February 1931, the Carter family's car is stolen from in front of their house. Right now. They have no idea who does this. This is the origin story of so many racists. Would go on. Oh boy. Matt. So again, as far as I know it was never figured out who had done this, but a couple of weeks after their car is stolen on March 3rd, 1931, while Horace Carter is out at work, Harlan's mother sees 3 Hispanic boys, quote UN quote, loitering out in front of the house. Now, she says, loitering. We have no idea. It's they may have just been like walking around or what? Like even if they're loitering it doesn't justify this. But like racist white lady sees people who are not white and vaguely close to her house, and she decides that, like these boys must have been who stole my car. Yes, yes. The earliest recorded incident of Karen. Yeah, yeah. So Karen Carter calls the cops. Karen Carter? Well, you can't really call. It's 1931. Some people do have phones. I don't know if they do. It's that easy to call. It's not as easy to call the cops. They send a pigeon or whatever. Those those guys did that? No. Her son winds up taking this into his own hands. Ah, yes, that's right. I'm gonna quote from a write up in timeline here. The elder Carter was at work and likely wouldn't be home for hours. Of the sun picked up his shotgun and walked out the door. It didn't take him long to find the boys, who were between the ages of 15 and 12. At a swimming hole nearby. He demanded they come home with him. When they asked why he wouldn't say 15 year old Ramon Cassiano responded. Hell no, we won't go to your house and you can't make us. Carter and Casiano started swearing at each other. Casiano pulled out a knife and asked if he wanted to fight. Carter lifted his shotgun to Ramona's chest. According to testimony from that time, Rimon told him not to do it and pushed the shotgun aside. Then he took a step back. Laughed, annoyed by Ramones. Lack of fear. Carter asked if he thought he wasn't going to shoot, then he did. Cassiano lay dying on the ground with a 2 inch shotgun wound in his chest. Jesus. So that sounds familiar, right? There's there's shades of Rittenhouse, there's shades of of of Zimmerman. You know, like this is again not. And obviously I'm sure like if we had been around at the time and paying attention to the news would say, oh, there's shades of like this thing that happened like 1920 and this thing, right? Like. What happened to the most recent incidents? Yeah. You know, this is a very familiar incident, right? And you can imagine even if this happened today, it would be a massive culture wars. Well, he had a knife. What was kids supposed he was just defending his family, you know, yadda, yadda, yadda. So it's worth noting, talking about why Harlan felt comfortable leaving the home, carrying a shotgun, which there are somewhat like, obviously it's not entirely illegal to carry shotguns because people go out and hunt and stuff, but this is you're not supposed to, like, walk out to try and solve the robbery of your car with a 12 gauge. Top Gun, like, that's not explicitly legal. Yeah. But there's a long history of vigilante violence by white people. And so whether or not this actually is legal is gonna come down heavily on the local courts. Right. And so the fact, because this is happening in Laredo, if this had happened in, like, Dallas, you know, the City of Hate, perhaps it would never have been even an issue. But because it's happening in Laredo, this is going to be a problem for Harlan. Did you call Dallas the City of hate? That's literally it's nickname. What? Yeah, that's the nickname of Dallas, TX. In the city we killed JFK. I mean, good point. Bully **** yeah? The City of Brotherly hate. That's wow. I mean, not anymore, but like that is that is the nickname of Dallas, TX like. Umm. Yeah. So because this happens in Laredo, the law is not as on his side as you might expect if it had happened in some other parts of Texas. Harlan Carter is arrested. He has tried, and he is convicted of murder. He's sentenced to three years in prison. Again, you can say like he should have been sentenced to more. I I. I'm mixed because he was a child, right? Like this is bad, but also like I think you have to if you believe children are not culpable in the way that adult. But anyway, this is academic because he only serves 2 years. His family appeals the the the judgment and they complain for about a number of things. They say the judge is related to the prosecutor. That that self-defense had not been adequately explained to the jury that one of the witnesses was like a a criminal himself and wasn't trustworthy a bunch of racist. Yeah, yeah. They were like, well, the judge failed to consider that the victim was no Angel that, like, that's based. Yeah. Although they focus more on like the the kid who watched Him's friend to get his brother or whatever get murdered was no angels. Yeah, more than he was also no Angel. So they are legally allowed to kill no Angel. That's right. That's right in the Bible. That's right. That's why anytime I see a bunch of floating eyes, I just start shooting. Hmm. That was a biblical Angel joke. Sure was. So eventually a judge with the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals agrees that, like, the case was bad, and he overturns Harlan Carter's conviction on these grounds. And because, quote, several of the material witnesses for the state have been discredited, having been convicted of infamous crimes. It does not seem accurate that they were convicted of infamous crimes. Yeah, but you know it. It's also worth noting that, like Harlan's dad helped run law enforcement in Laredo. Hmm. It's impossible that some of the people who had witnessed the shooting were like targeted by the police to provide plausible deniability for his kid. And if not likely so Harlan gets let out of prison, his conviction is overturned and he he proceeds with life. Now as a young adult, as a free man, he enrolls in the University of Texas, but he changes his name so he his original name had been Harlan Harlan and he swaps out the A for an O and he does this basically under the understanding that like. Well, this will make it hard. If people go looking for Harlan Carter is criminal record, they won't find anything. Wait, so he changed it to Horrorland or Harlan. Harlan KJRLON is supposed to HR LAN. OK, got it. Got. And again, it's it's a marker of like how different the time is that like, this works perfectly for him for decades. Like people are like, Oh well, they they swapped in a with an O with no another we can do. Yeah. Yeah, I was like, well, the search engine doesn't do other letters, so **** it, I guess. So easy to get away with crimes back in the 30s. My God, was it easy speaking. You could be getting away with crimes if you walked fast. Like if you could walk pretty fast, you could get away with a crime. Oh, man, those are the days. Those were the days. Let's bring them back. Yes, Sophie. Who else gets away with crimes? The corporation, when they hired those mercenaries to gun down union organizers in Latin America, that was mob. And you took it. I'm very proud of you. Yeah. Yeah. Mint Mobile offers premium wireless starting at just 15 bucks a month. And now for the plot twist. Nope, there isn't one. 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Ah, we're back and I'm just going to have a nice refreshing sip. Oh, it's the classic drink. You know that just like locking a bunch of nuns and you can organizers in a church and lighting it on fire. God, that's good stuff. Yummy. Love it. So again, it's one of those things. If this had kind of been the end of Harlan Carter story, I'd say like, well that was a ****** ** thing that happened, but I guess I don't believe a 16 year old should be locked in prison for their whole life, so. Yeah, but that's not the end of the story. It sucks that, like, there are, yeah, like cases where I'm like, it would be sick if he had. It's like with Kyle Rittenhouse. I don't think the right thing was to throw him in a hole for forever. Certainly the right thing is not to turn him into a celebrity and give millions of dollars. That's right, maybe even worse. But like, I I think fundamentally you have to believe that, like, well, if a child does something, even if it's heinous, you have to be extra focused on the possibility of rehabilitation, because otherwise. You don't actually believe that children are less responsible than adults. And anytime you like, try to set up, anytime you, you know, try to be more punitive. Yeah, it always affects, you know, brown people and people of color way more. And obviously, yeah, like Raymond Cassiano suffers even more for, you know, whatever, however questionable you want to thank, his call to pull a knife might have been. Although I think, again, you could argue justified because the other kid had a *******. Anyway, what? ******* shotgun. It's like it's it's one of the problems with guns in America is how often angry teenage boys get a hold of them. And this is, again, quite an old story. This time. But regardless of like what you think of should be done when kids commit murder. Harlan definitely committed murder. That's not self-defense. Yeah, and anyone who says otherwise is probably racist. But it's worth noting that even modern sources, and this is something, this is where things get really income. Even modern sources that are like very pro gun control, very anti Harlan Carter, who will attack Harlan for his later work with the NRA, tend to tell the story of what happened with him in and Raymond Casiano. The ways that sometimes subtly reinforce Hartland's claims of self-defense. This is a very strange thing. I've noticed in a couple of sources. I've read a lot of articles about this guy and his his actions can be framed in fascinating ways. I want to highlight particularly a passage from the book Gunfight by Adam Winkler and Gunfight. There's actually like 5 books titled Gunfight. I think one of them's like seemed to be slightly gritty. It's like a former gun industry lobbyist who like does an anti gun book because I think maybe that's where the money was. I don't know. I'm not going to. It's going today because I haven't read it. I haven't, I haven't read it. But like, there's a bunch of books with this title. The good one, the one that you would actually be worth reading, is Winkler's gunfight. He's a he's a UCLA professor. And gunfight is a critical history of the battle over the Second Amendment in US politics that has a lot of really useful context, including some of what I went over about, like the early racism and gun control. It's it's a good, and again, very much anti NRA. But here's how Winkler describes what happened between Harlan Carter and Ramon Cassiano, which I find. Very peculiar quote. Carter left guns from childhood. He was an excellent shot and would go on to win two national shooting titles and set 44 National shooting records during his lifetimes. His most infamous shot, however, came at the age of 17 when, in defense of his mother, he unloaded a shotgun into the chest of a knife wielding Mexican teenager. Nope, that's a weird way to describe that happened at all. That's not what happened at all. That's such a weird way for and again, Winkler is like he's a professor of law at UCLA. Like he's all over the New York Times. Writing about this kind of stuff, it's like really weird that he describes it that way. Maybe it was just like, ohh man, I've done all this other research. I'm just not gonna. I'm just gonna go with the autobiography that he wrote this. It's just it's like calling Ramon Cassiano a knife wielding Mexican teenager. Yeah, like an unsettling way to choose to phrase that strange. It was just like people forget that Cassiano was guilty because he hadn't. He had a knife. Yeah, guilty of bringing a knife to a gun. It is, yeah. Yeah. It's again, the book is not at all right winger, reactionary. There's a lot of good stuff in there. The fact that he describes Cassiano's murder in this way, though, makes me question some stuff that, like, maybe I missed in vetting this thing, because it's it's a really weird passage. So strange. Now, let's compare that to this write up by a right wing dude, Dave Coppell, from an article he wrote explicitly defending Harlan Carter's legacy. Now, in this article, he's critiquing a fundraising letter from a gun control organization that acts. Accurately noted quote 50 years ago, Carter shot and killed a 15 year old boy and was convicted of murder. Arguing against this, copal writes, the letter admitted the fact that Carter was defending his mother's ranch against a gang of intruders led by the boy, and that the boy was menacing Carter with a knife. Again, this is also not true. He was not defending his mother's ranch. They were swimming. They're swimming and having a good time and being accused of doing a crime that they. I mean did they do the crime even? I don't think there's ever been any evidence that they did. She just stole the car it kite again this is a little murky but it kind of seems like what happened is their car was stolen. A couple of weeks later she sees some Mexican kids walk past their house towards the swimming hole and six her son on them. Right. That kind of seems like what happened that seems that tracks and it's it's weird because Winkler and Coppell. Could not be more apart ideologically. Umm, but their description of this murder is very similar in what? Like, I just it's. I don't want to harp too much on this, but it's like really weird to me that that happened. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you have any, like inkling as to why that may be? Or is there just a most people don't dwell too much on it? Took me a while actually to find good specific details about what happened that day. And I think most people take the attitude that just like. Well, he said he was defending his mom and like that. That's the I I don't know, I, I, I I think in part, you know, Winkler's covering a lot of ground, right? Because his book as a whole is not, it's not focused on Carter. It's a whole history of like, kind of the the how the Second Amendment has been interpreted and ruled on and whatnot over a couple of centuries. So he does have a lot of ground to cover. It's just very. And I guess that one of the things he did was just kind of brush over what happened there. It's right. Yeah. Just unconscious bias. Yeah. Like the way I would do it. Right. Because it's perfectly reasonable. If you're covering a broad history to not go into detail, but I would have just said something like he confronted, you know, another teenager over, like, you know, something his mother said and like, or you could he just confronted another teenager and shot him under. Suspicious even. That would be better, right? Yeah. And and also this is, you know, you do a podcast. This guy's a UCLA professor. Yeah. It's just it's like, yeah, I again, I don't wanna like **** on him too much because it's like there's a lot of good stuff in the book. It's it's just that part. I I don't get it. I don't get why you would. Right about it, though. Anyway. Yeah. So Harlan Carter commits murder, does two years in prison, goes to college, and then he decides to follow in his father's footsteps and join the Border Patrol. He becomes an agent in 1936, three years after leaving prison. Carter's rise was rapid, if not meteoric. So he joins in 36, having been in prison two years earlier, in 1950, he's running the entire Border Patrol. Wow. Now, again, Border Patrol is a lot smaller back then it's a lot newer. It's easier to become head of the Border Patrol. And also his murder was definitely something on his resume. You know what I mean? Like probably unlike the secret, I don't think he put it on his paper resume, but I'm sure. But certainly because he's known in Laredo is like, I'm sure the guys giving him his first gigs all know about it and think it's bad, right? Right? Yeah. But he also, he does keep it a secret publicly, right? Like he doesn't brag about it in public. Again, when he's hanging out with his buddies, I'm certain it comes up ******* constantly. Mm-hmm. But it's not like a part of his public persona as a sure a, A, you know, once you're the head of the Border Patrol, that is like a political position, you know? Right, right, right. Yeah. It's not like today in which that would be something he would be celebrated for and talk about on, you know? Oh yeah. He would like. He the shotgun that he used to kill. Ramon Cassiano have been auctioned off for 10s of thousands of dollars, and he used it to buy an F-350 with the daily wire. Would give him his own column. That would be a whole. Yeah. Yeah. He'd he'd be making documentaries with Matt Walsh. Hmm. Times were a lot more chill back then. Which is it? Is it? Is. When we talk, we're talking about the story of this guy who does, like, a racist murder as a teenage boy. And, like, wow, he really was less proud of it than he would be today. Right? Exactly. Yeah. That's where we're at, where we're like, oh, wow, he didn't make that, like, his whole brand. Yeah. Weird. Wild. So the Border Patrol. And shifted at this point from being geared mainly towards policing the border to being a force for policing Mexican Americans inside the United States on the pretext of them being potentially undocumented migrants. As a result, their work strayed further and further from the border and increasingly into American cities, factories, farms, and anywhere expected of harboring illegals. Some Border Patrol agents had difficulty with this, right? This was not a lot of the folks who had signed up earlier. This was not like the thing that they had signed up for specifically. Harlan, though, is hugely supportive of this change. And in fact, he wanted to expand the Border Patrol's purview even further and use it to eliminate Mexicans from the country entirely. This was justified, in his mind, by the fact that a large number of undocumented migrants were living and working, or this was justified publicly. Right. So Harland, there's like a racial motivation, but you can't use that like, as we talked about earlier, right? Like you have to hide when your laws are racially motivated. Yeah. So the justification is that a large number of undocumented. Migrant so living and working on ranches and other businesses in the Borderlands, often under nightmarish slave like conditions. Now this is a real problem that's happening right like the as it is today, right? Yes. Yeah completely. And yeah there's this like suggestion of a new of a thing called the Bracero program that will provide kind of like a legal way for these people to like work. But they'll have, you know there will be more control over the conditions that they can work in which obviously the people who would be hiring them don't like. It's it's a whole thing. Uh, just so ****** ****** every which way for. From the perspective of Harlan Carter, though, this is primarily a humanitarian pretext for carrying out like a purging of Mexican Americans and from like the Borderlands. And I'm going to quote from Migra again. Carter had convened a meeting to request the assistance of the US military and the National Guard to purge the nation of undocumented Mexican nationals and seal the US Mexico border. The border patrols proposal was titled Operation Cloudburst and. Consisted of three basic steps. First, an anti infiltration operation on or near the border would seal the border with the assistance of 2180 military troops. In addition to stationing troops along the border line, the Border Patrol plan to build fences along the areas of heaviest illegal traffic. 2 metal picket, barbed wire fences 8 feet high and eight feet apart with rolls of concertina wire in between and one roll of concertina wire on top of the fence nearest Mexico, built several miles along the border, would form the fence, but previous experience that taught the Border Patrol. The fenced areas still needed additional security. Therefore the concertina fence would be reinforced by officers and Jeeps who will be directed to the scene of any attempted fence or canal crossing by observers in radio equipped towers. So this is the first modern, this is the wall, right? This is the start of it. This is the beginning of that. Not that there hadn't been like fences and stuff in different areas before then. This is the first time someone's like, we need to build a wall and has like a concerted vision of that, yeah, and specifically at a vision of using the of the wall. As a system of violence in order to keep the Borderlands white, right? Yeah, that's that's what he's doing here. And he he invented that **** you know? Wow. Wow. He's like the Thomas Edison of making racist borders. That's right. Yeah. Wow. He's the, he's the Elon Musk of border racism. Sure. Yes. So to continue that quote, race X race wanted to do. Yeah. Sorry. Good, good. Good work. Thank you. Yeah. So I'm going to continue that quote. Second, a containment operation would maintain roadblocks on all major roads leading from the southwest to the interior of the United States. These roadblocks would be used to inspect traffic, including railroad traffic for the purpose of detecting illegal entrance and to maintain safety patrols around the checkpoints. The roadblocks were planned for strategic locations that would prevent aliens from fleeing to the interior of the nation when the mopping up operations. The third phase began the mopping up operations. Can be conducted in northern areas such as San Francisco, where the task forces would raid designated locations such as migrant camps or places of business. So. San Francisco. I don't know if you've ever been, Matt. Yeah, that's super close to the border. Ohh. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Like, yeah. Like, well, I guess close to like a sea border, right? No, no, we're building towards, but yeah, exactly. I mean, those are the other aliens that they also wanna put a fence around, you know, watch out for all those turtles and ******* you know, don't worry, we'll get rid of those in a couple of decades, right? Exactly. Just put a few more of those soda, you know, ******* soda rings in the water. But yeah, no, not close to the border. I lived in San Francisco and I'll tell you, it was a trek. You get to pretty far north. Yeah, exactly. So the primary downside to his plan, right? This is a pretty good idea if you're a white supremacist right solid plan. The only problem with it is that it is. Wildly unconstitutional. So there's this thing, right? This law, that that kind of gets in the way of this. So right at this point in time nowadays, the Border Patrol, like, you see those guys ******* walking around and they look like soldiers, right? They've got their plate carriers and their their AR fifteens and all their ******* cool tactical gear. Yeah. At this point the the Border Patrol is like slightly better armed than a modern Boy Scout troop. You know? Like, they're not, they're not, they're not packing that much heat compared to what they're going to be packing. And they have a lot of merit badges. They have a lot of merit badges in racism, but there's not a ton of them. Right, so they they're not they can't do this without the US military. And in fact, the military is going to wind up being a significant portion of the effort if they try to do this. But here's the problem. There's this stupid ******* ******** *** 1878 law called Posse Comitatus, right? And that means you can't use the military to enforce domestic laws without Congress's approval. Yeah, I know. I know. We all hate posse comitatus. Yeah, dude, I for one think the military should enforce all of the laws. Yes. That's literally jaywalking. Exactly. They're the best at it. You don't want to, you don't want a bunch of, you know, Boy Scout border patrols, getting a cooking merit badge for walking a Mexican old lady across the border, have backgrounds making sure, watching for people to cross the street illegally. And we should have MLRS rocket systems to just bombard. The area, if they cross the street, not at a crosswalk. Exactly. Dude, we want more robocops, and we want them absolutely. Yeah. Better roll. Yeah. Yeah. Reinstate the draft and use it to stop jaywalking and littering. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Someone cuts, you know, absolutely. Someone, like cuts you off or someone speeding Agent Orange immediately. Absolutely. Absolutely. So this this ******* law, posse comitatus really, really grinds harlands gears. Yeah. So obviously I I should also note here that like the fact that it's the military's not supposed to be used to enforce the law doesn't mean it isn't right. If you casually Googled the Watts riots, you know the government has a way of finding out figure making it, being able to use soldiers to do cop **** when it needs to. But in this case the government wasn't willing to like push things that far, right. And the general who's like job it is to like basically the general who's liaising with Carter, this guy named Swing, who really wants. To do this like, he's a racist too, but he's like, hey, we can't make this work legally right now, but we could do it if the president issued a proclamation like, it's not impossible to do, but like, it's you'd have to get Eisenhower on board. So Harlan Carter gets in touch with Eisenhower's people and he tries desperately to get approval. But Eisenhower isn't quite willing to deploy troops. Now he again, not to give like any credit. He agrees with Harlan's basic goals, right? He just this like using the army in this way is a little too far for him. Yeah, but yeah, yeah. Again, he's not against this. So in May of 1954, Eisenhower appoints General Joseph Swing to be Commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Right INS. We don't have INS anymore. Now we've got eyes, whatever, but like these guys are in. So he's basically now he's Carter's boss, essentially this like general and and swing had a long history of commanding troops in battle from Mexico to Korea. Obviously, you can see the fact that now a, a general is in charge of INS is like the start of the militarization of the Border Patrol, right? And swing is a ******* in his own right. But this is really happening in part because of like what Carter is pushing to turn the Border Patrol into, right. This is this is not just the start of the militarization of the Border Patrol. The Border Patrol is going to become the first large police agency to militarize, right? This happens decades before, you know, we talked about the Watts riots, which happened like a decade or so from now. And then the LA riots, which were a big, you know, decades later, which were a big pusher. This happens way before all of that. This is 1954. So this is like in a lot of ways the the beginning of police militarization happens because Harlan Carter and General Joseph Swing want to cleanse the Borderlands of of of Mexican Americans. Yeah, quote, as promised, one month after joining INS, Swing announced that he would lead the US Border Patrol in an intensive, innovative and paramilitary law enforcement campaign. Designed to end the problem of illegal Mexican immigration along the US Mexico border, no one questioned how in 4 short weeks he had prepared the officers of the Border Patrol for such a massive campaign. I mean, at this point, too, what was even the the like, what were the migration numbers like? Was it even that? I mean, certainly it's not as much as it was now, but I'm thinking about like what 1950s, nineteen, 50s, Mexico was, what they had, you know? Yeah, the, the, the civil wars not that long ended. Yeah, the PRI's in power, it's. Yeah, isn't it fairly stable at this point, I feel like. Yeah. So it's like, it's like what they were doing this pretense of, like, oh, we got to stop the illegals. I mean, we're not even talking about, like, you know, we're not talking about modern Latin American immigration that we have today, which is used as a pretext for all sorts of racist laws against Latin Americans here. Legally, we're talking about a lot like, yeah, labor stuff that's taught. And again, they have to, like, do moral panic and stuff about the treatment of migrants. Like, this is all very messy because, like, some of the biggest people opposing the government doing this crackdown are these different ranchers and other employers who are like who want to exploit to exploit people's lives like it's not. There's a lot that's that's going on. Overall in this issue. But when it comes to Harlan Carter, it's pretty simple, right? He's he's a racist, you know? Yeah, he's trying to do a racial purge under the pretext of like, ohh man, you know, they're not paying fair wages. Like, he gives a ****. And it's, you know it he's he's also like starting the process of of. Justifying figuring out ways to justify this and that are, like, palatable to large chunks of Americans. And yeah, that's a. That's what's happening in this period of time. And you know what else is happening right now? What? I'm going to ask you for your puggles. Oh, hell yeah. So my plugable's are I just finished the entire series. The Sopranos, pod yourself. A gun is a podcast that I do with Vince Mancini, and we just did our very last episode. We watched all of it. We watched all The Sopranos. And you can listen to the series finale wherever you get your podcast. So check that out and also follow me on Instagram because, you know. I feel like that's where all the like, cool kids hang out. So yeah, you know, hit me up, hit me up there and also be be excited because me and Vince, our next show, we're gonna be talking about the wire. That's right, 20 years after the wires come out, finally 2 white men will break down the wire. Because finally, finally, someone's got to do it. I mean, that is the right group to break down the wire. Season 2O for sure. For sure. Very excited. You got to make sure at least one of you is a poll. Oh yeah. They're gonna get some. We got some polls. Who are gonna come on. We got a bunch of Greek Baltimore friends. We're going to come on. It's going to be great. But yeah, look, look, look for that common. What do you calling it? Probably when you pod through the garden, you know? Which, you know, kind of continues our tradition of having a really bad title for ATV rewatch podcast. Yeah. So check it out whenever that comes out. But for now, listen to pod yourself a gun. You can go back, listen to the whole thing, tell your friends. Know who your favorite character on the wire was. I mean, I relate the most to bubbles because I used to love heroin, but other than that **** probably Clay Davis. Play Davis is cool. He's a he's a state senator. Yeah. Who says? Yeah, who says **** a lot? She she. You know, for a show that is like lift lift it up as one of the greatest TV shows of all time. There are sure certainly are a lot of catchphrases. There's a weirdly catch phrase heavy show for something that is incredibly serious, you know? You know, what the **** did I do? Yeah, you know you got a proposition. Joe is like I got a proposition for it's like this is a serious show. But. I love catchphrases. Anyways, I'm excited. That's awesome. Me, too. Back up. Behind the ******** is a production of cool zone media from more from cool zone media. Visit our website coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, I'm Erica Kelly from the podcast Southern Fried True crime, and if you want to go from podcast fan to podcast host, do what I did and check out spreaker from iheart. I was working in accounting and hating it. Then after just 18 months of podcasting with Spreaker, I was able to quit my day job. Follow your podcasting dreams. Let's breaker handle the hosting, creation, distribution, and monetization of your podcast. Go to spreaker.com. That's spreaker.com. In the 1980s and 90s, a psychopath terrorized the country of Belgium. A serial killer and kidnapper was abducting children in the bright light of day. From Tenderfoot TV and iHeartRadio, this is La Monstra, a story of abomination and conspiracy. The story about the man who simply become known as. The monster. Listen for free on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This podcast is brought to youbyjbl.com now. Our friends at JBL understand the power of tuning in to the real U. From true wireless headphones to pulsing party boxes, you can dare to vibe your way with the wide and colorful range of JBL products. Catch your favorite podcasts like this one unfiltered the JBL podcast on the Go. Play your music. Never wherever and live in the moment, your moment. Be unfiltered at jbl.com.