EXCLUSIVE: Tim Kennedy’s Gun Control Statement, Clarified?

Editor's Note: Today we ask Tim Kennedy to explain the position he took on an international podcast back in March, when he declared there should be additional age restrictions for Americans to own so-called assault weapons. In today's conversation, Kennedy reframes his statements and characterizes them as an effort to meet the opposition in the middle. Read, listen, and engage in a conversation about it.
-Dave Merrill

For those of you in the dark, Tim Kennedy, a former member of the US Special Operations community, renowned MMA fighter, and self defense instructor, made a statement about gun control during a podcast with Lance Armstrong that has the gun rights community in an uproar.

The conversation that caused the outrage was spurred by Armstrong bringing up Kennedy's proximity to the Parkland High School at the time of the shooting while in Flordia for filming. Rather than summarize the podcast, we urge you to listen to it in its entirety.

When the podcast reached the firearm community, gun rights supporters had a lot to say about Kennedy's statements supporting a restriction on young adult's access to firearms. We figured we'd give the guy a chance to explain the rational behind his statements. Here some salient points from my phone conversation with Kennedy over the weekend.

Tim Kennedy: “Who knows how many tens of thousands of people that listen to that podcast came from such a far hateful side of this conversation to maybe a middle ground that maybe now we can have a realistic, a real, safe conversation about how the second amendment should be protected, and how gun rights should be protected. So that, that was the intent of my position.”

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RECOIL: “The thing that I was curious about specifically because I’d like to give you an opportunity to clearly state your position about age limits, specifically.”

TK: “Why does my position on age limits matter?”

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R: “I don’t think anybody is questioning your belief in the second amendment. Um, I think that, again, specifically that people are upset about…”

TK: “I don’t care what they are upset about, they should get their fucking panties out of their pussies and they should start focusing on keeping their guns and winning conversations that we’re losing. They should stop attacking people that are on their side and they should start focusing on the people that disagree with them and learning how to understand what their perspective is and then winning them over. That’s what they should start doing. That is what they should start doing.

I’m not avoiding your question. I will answer [unintelligible] and I already have that everybody, every law-abiding citizen should be able to have access to every single fucking firearm. If that doesn’t answer your question as to an age limit, then go fuck yourself. You gotta figure it out. Cause that’s a blanket coverage of everything. Period.

But winning the conversation is what we need to be talking about and what we should be doing and that’s what I’m doing, and I’m not going to get any more specific than that.”

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R: “Tim, if people are upset about something that you said, it’s hard to have that conversation among the gun community. It’s hard for me to present your side to them if I can say ‘Hey, guys, like he’s not against us. This is what he was trying to do. This is how he feels about that particular statement. Unless I can tell people that, like I can’t –”

TK: “Should an 18-year old have an AR? Yes. Should Tim Kennedy at 19 should have been able to have an AR? No. I was not a law… I was not a law-abiding citizen, I was a little piece of shit. And that's what I said in the interview. So when I say that I stand by every single word that I say, I do. I'm not going to go back and disagree with anything I've ever said.

Do I think that every single law-abiding American citizen should have the right to bear arms? Absolutely. That's an open statement. That doesn't mean 18, that doesn't mean 16.”

Tim further elaborated his position in a social media post after I spoke with him. 

What do you think? Does this clarify Kennedy's statments on gun rights and gun control?

In the video below, we interviewed Kennedy to gain clarity on his stance of gun control: