HUGE BREAKING NEWS! LATEST "PRO-GUN" LAW IS A TRAP!

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]Major breaking news as the deadly force rules for when you can use your firearm and self-defense in Tennessee is being negotiated. This is a huge deal, folks, because we in America do need to expand the use of deadly force to dealing with issues of property and civilizational risk. And Tennessee has taken on this issue. And I want to break this down.

[00:00:23]This is a hugely important issue.

[00:00:25]something that I've talked a lot about privately with other people, but now we need to break it down in a public way to identify why this is such a huge issue, why we often overlook this, and why we should no longer do so moving forward.

[00:00:38]Let's talk about it when we come right back.

[00:00:42]Hey folks, I'm Mark Smith, host of the fourbox diner, proud American gun owner, concentration store attorney, member of the United States Supreme Court, Baron, and proud to say the top voice of the Second Amendment in America. Thank you.

[00:00:52]2025 and 2026 Gundy's awards. All right, folks. So, the state of Tennessee, the legislature down there is negotiating new laws as to when you can use a firearm for deadly force. When you can use a firearm and discharge it to defend yourself and property and civilization.

[00:01:13]Now, this is an issue that probably doesn't go, we don't pay enough attention to this, and I want to flag why this is such a huge deal, folks. But I want to talk about the right to self-defense at kind of a higher level than that. More of a public policy constitutional level than kind of the nitty-gritty details of when you can pull out a gun and pull the trigger to defend something. The reason why this is a huge deal and I don't think this what I'm about to say has gotten enough attention although I have spoken about this at the Federalist Society before is that if you think about it for the moment the text of the second amendment says the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. The right to keep means to possess. The right to bear means to carry the gun. We know the Supreme Court says you have a right to carry a gun in public for the purpose of self-defense in case of a confrontation.

[00:02:03]But none of these issues specifically deal with, nor does the text of the Second Amendment specifically deal with when you can pull the trigger, when you can use the gun either to brandish to get someone to run away, to stop them, or to pull the trigger and shoot someone or something in self-defense.

[00:02:25]So, we have to understand that the right to use your gun in self-defense is mission critical because it does no good for anyone in America or anyone anywhere for that matter if you possess a gun and you even carry the gun. But if you're not allowed to pull out the gun and use the gun and discharge the gun and or brandish the gun in self-defense or otherwise, then you have a glorified hammer.

[00:02:54]And don't kid yourself, this is a realistic scenario. Just Google the 1999 case in the United Kingdom of Tony Martin and you'll see that in the United Kingdom, even if you're allowed to have guns, you're not allowed to use guns in self-defense.

[00:03:13]So never ever say we have a gun culture that is not sophisticated enough for a viewer of the four boxes diner. We have a private gun ownership, self-defenseoriented gun culture. Lots of countries have guns to shoot and hunt and go target shooting, but none of that matters if you cannot use the gun in self-defense, which you can't do, for example, in the United Kingdom. Now, the reason why this all comes up is the state of Tennessee is trying to supposedly with their Republican majorities expand the ways or the instances in which you in Tennessee can use a firearm for deadly force. And they're trying to, and this is the debate, we're going to get to that in a second. They're trying to cover more property related crimes. So, what I'm going to do is I'm just going to briefly discuss the use of guns for self-defense against people versus property. Then, I'm going to paint a scenario that I want every single one of you to think about and how we solve the scenario, the hypothetical that I'm going to paint for you in just one minute. Again, as a general matter, in all 50 states, you are all allowed to use a firearm in self-defense if you are basically at imminent threat of being killed yourself. deadly violence. If someone is like trying to hit you in the head with a hammer or cut your head off with a samurai sword or shoot you or anything like that in every state, you're allowed to use a firearm to pull the trigger to engage in deadly force to save your life. That's true. In contrast, you're on the other end of the spectrum in all 50 states basically. If somebody comes into your candy store and grabs a candy bar and tries to run out the door with the candy bar without paying for it, that's viewed as a property crime. And generally speaking, you're not allowed to kill them. You can't shoot them. You can't use deadly force for like shoplifting. That is generally the law in most states, okay?

[00:05:16]If not all states. Now, the theory is, and this is where we're going to get into our hypothetical problem I want you all to think about. The theory is that well life is so important that if your life is threatened, yeah, you can defend your life with violence and kill someone to defend your life. That's okay. But property is just it's just property. So you should not be able to kill someone who's merely engaging in a property crime because property is not a person.

[00:05:46]It's just the thing BFD.

[00:05:50]Who cares? That's the alternative theory. Now I have a different take on this and it's a bit more extreme than many but I'm right and that is this. If you look at philosophically at the foundational philosopher of American society and I got several reasons for this we'll get to that. If you look at the foundational philosopher behind the Declaration of Independence, you see the philosopher John Lock. Now John Lock's views of property are consistent with my views and that is this. Think about this for a moment. You're sitting on your couch watching a TV.

[00:06:27]That house you're in, that car you're in that you own.

[00:06:33]How did you get those items? Those items are property. The TV's property. The car's property. The house is property.

[00:06:41]That's all true. They're property. So, generally speaking, if your theory is you cannot use deadly force to defend property, you can't use deadly force to defend those items. Right? conceptually.

[00:06:51]However, my view is consistent with John Lock's view. And his view is this. In order for you to watch the Four Boxes Diner channel today on your phone, on your TV, on your computer, to sit in your car, to sit in your home, to sit on that couch that you own.

[00:07:09]You had to get that stuff. Presumably, you had to pay for it. You had to acquire it. And to pay for it and acquire it, you had to make money or make something of value in our society, in the marketplace. And then you took that currency, the money, whatever it was, and you went to the store and you acquire the property. But the only way you were able to acquire your TV, your phone, your couch, your house, whatever, is through working with your own body.

[00:07:40]Your body. Your body went to work. Your body went to school, your body, you know, put in the hours. Your body did X, Y, and Z that allowed you to earn the income you needed to buy stuff. Which means that if someone destroys your property, they are enslaving you and taking away essentially your physical being because it was your body that generated the stuff that the wealth that needed to buy this stuff. In other words, you own your body and you own the fruits of your own labor. And if the fruits of your own labor is that TV, is that phone, is the house, is the couch, whatever it is, the fruits of your labor come from your body. So when someone destroys, steals, and takes your property, they're essentially taking in effect part of your life. They're enslaving you.

[00:08:34]They're denying you the fruits of the labor that you generated with your hard work and giving up and making sacrifices. So I think there is a clear dis a clear line and connection between your physical self and you owning your body and you owning the fruits of your labor and the property that you use to acquire with the fruits of that labor.

[00:08:57]So it really is nonsensical kindergarten thinking of the sort I would expect by liberals to draw this clear distinction between property and your body because the reality is you don't get the property if your body doesn't go out and generate the work and the wealth that you need to acquire the property. So when you destroy property, then they take your couch or whatever your house, your car, they're taking a part of your body and your work that gave rise with your body to the fruits of your labor that allowed you to get that property.

[00:09:28]So it really is connected. Now, the reason why I wanted you to understand this is to segue into my hypothetical that I keep positive to people and I keep looking for a great answer. And that is this.

[00:09:41]If you are in a society where you basically say you cannot use deadly force to protect property, but you can use deadly force to protect yourself, there's a huge problem from our perspective of people that support civilization. That's right. At the start of this video, I said that what's going on in Tennessee is a debate about how you defend civilization. And you may have said to me, Mark, that's hyperbolic. You're exaggerating. No, I'm not. Think about it. Now, let's say you live in the middle of Kansas, for example. Pick any state you want and you'll understand. And everyone gets their pharmaceutical products. They go to the pharmacy. They get their gas.

[00:10:20]They get their food. They get their items. They get their stuff from a super Walmart in the middle of Kansas. That is where everyone goes to get the vast majority of what they need to live. They get their eyes examined there. You see what I'm saying? And then one day a whole bunch of anti-American protesters show up and they decide that they're going to not going to burn down Walmart.

[00:10:46]They're just going to show up. A hund of them show up and they walk into Walmart and they want to destroy the Walmart in that Kansas town. And the Walmart, the super Walmart is where everyone gets everything. And these protesters to protest Donald Trump or whatever just want to destroy the place.

[00:11:06]Now Walmart is property. The stuff in Walmart is property. The building is property.

[00:11:13]The parking lot is real property. It's property. Whether it be real property or personal property, it doesn't matter.

[00:11:18]It's property. So when some group shows up as a mob to destroy the property of Walmart or whatever the story is or your town square or whatever it is where you you you all can envision where you live and they decide destroy destroy the pharmacy and they just and the grocery store and the gas stations in town. Are is are we really saying that we as Americans are not able to get our buddies together with our firearms and go down and stand in front of that store, that gas station, that pharmacy, that Walmart and say no, you cannot destroy civilization because the reality is these gas stations, these these stores, thesearmacies represent what makes civilization work. So yes, it's property in one sense, and yes, as a general matter, you're not supposed to be able to use deadly force to defend property.

[00:12:15]But what happens when these protesters show up, these mobs show up to destroy the the the only supermarket in town?

[00:12:22]It's property, yes, but they are destroying what makes civilization work.

[00:12:28]So with that backdrop in mind and that question in mind, my view of course is that you and your friends should be able to bring your firearms and stand in front of that property and prevent those thugs, those mobs from being able to destroy what makes your town, your city a civilization, a place worth living.

[00:12:51]Because if they destroy that super Walmart in that part of Kansas, let's say the everyone that lives around there is so you're not just impacting property. You're impacting the ability of people to live in a civilization.

[00:13:06]And therefore, in my view, deadly force and the threat of deadly force should be available to protect civilization.

[00:13:12]Otherwise, you allow the invaders and the barbarians at the gate into your gates and you let them run them up, which I think is not a good idea. and a terrible idea for any civilization, in particular for Western civilization, of course. So, with that said, down there in Tennessee, this is what's happening.

[00:13:30]There's a discussion here about protecting property with firearms, and there's a House bill, there's a Senate bill. I'm not going to break down this in great detail because I just want you to be aware of the issue. So, when you all down there in Tennessee, and you all there are looking at what's going on, I want to make sure you understand the issues, how to think about this prop properly. And that is if you're in Tennessee and and and and a mob shows up to do something terrible to, you know, to the Grand Old Oprey, let's say, and the police are under gunned or they're elsewhere or whatever it is, or they're said, "We don't want to get sued. We don't want to become Derek Schovin, so we're not going to get involved." You see what I'm saying? We as Americans should be able to step and buy and by by and large don't forget a lot of these corporations won't care if their property is destroyed in the sense that they're insured. So yes, it will be a bummer to a corporation if a store is destroyed, but they will, I can promise you, have insurance that offsets that loss. But that will not offset the dayto-day loss of the civilizational nature and your ability to engage in day-to-day transactions that you need to live by in a modern society. So the point is, I can see corporations saying, "We're not going to defend the property.

[00:14:43]We're just not going to get involved because we don't want the problems." But that means you, the American, will have to step up to engage in this kind of defense potentially. So Tennessee is essentially debating these kinds of issues and there's a lot of back and forth about this. And I just want to read something because there was some excellent reporting done on this by Cam Edwards over there on the bearing arms website. And I just want to read a quote that he procured from the Tennessee Firearms Association. And I think this is a very important thing that I want you all to be aware of in down in Tennessee and otherwise as we debate the importance of the right to use a gun for self-defense because the right to keep, the right to carry, the right to bear means nothing if you cannot use it to defend yourself and civilization.

[00:15:26]It's not just about property. It's about civilization as they see it. These kinds of issues dealing with property because without property, you don't have a civilization. So, here's a statement from the Tennessee Firearms Association about this proposed bill as it's going back and forth in the legislature down there. Check it out. Despite being framed as a protection of property measure, the statute as amended in 2026 expressly prohibits the use of deadly force unless there is an imminent threat of death, serious bodily injury, or grave sexual abuse to a human being, or on circumstances where lesser force would expose a person to those same risks. In practical effect, the amendment does not create an independent right to use deadly force to defend property. Although the 2026 amendment has new language suggesting an expansion of the affirmative defense of using force to defend property, it does not do that. The 2026 amendment contains essentially the same person center threshold of imminent threat to a human that already governs Tennessee self-defense law under Tennessee code annotated with numbers. Once the rhetoric is stripped away, the amendment appears to have changed nothing, nothing nothing other than potentially misleading the public and tricking them into making choices for which the consequences are felony charges. The defect in the legislation is that it was clearly filed and marketed as a property rights reform. However, as enacted, it entirely denies property owners the ability to rely on deadly force to protect property unless the facts independently amount to a classic self-defense scenario. And that's a great statement. Again, I'm not here to assess the particular statute. I could read the statutes and bills and walk you through it, but I would just want to say what I think they're getting at is this.

[00:16:58]Historically, self-defense laws in a lot of these states say that there is sort of an exception if someone is about to engage in arson or some sort of particular act uh involving property.

[00:17:11]There are instances where deadly force can be justified. Uh, for example, if you're trying to burn down or blow up an apartment building where there's likely people in it, that would be an example where you might be able to use deadly force to stop the person from blowing up the building or burning the building down via arson because the pe there may be people in let's say the apartment building and that would be a danger to life. But again, without getting into the nuances of the Tennessee law, I'm not here to do that. There's other excellent channels that, you know, will do that for you. Uh, I just want you to understand the big issue. The only other big issue I want you to understand, this is critically important, that the the second amendment right is not just the ability to have the gun and to carry the gun. It also has to encompass the right to use the gun. And one thing that has not been litigated in any robust way is the interplay between the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms on the one hand and criminal self-defense codes. And I do think that at some point the second amendment community and second amendment litigators need to start to think about what can we do to improve the self-defense u laws that are put into the criminal code of these states. Because again the definition of when self-defense is justified and deadly force is justified it is usually defined by state criminal code state criminal laws state criminal procedures and processes and not actually by the constitutional juristprudence of the second amendment.

[00:18:42]So, at some point, we probably need to spend more time connecting the dots up and showing how Second Amendment juristprudence protects this right to deadly force in more instances than perhaps state criminal codes allow for.

[00:18:55]And that is something that we should probably spend more time on. Uh because again, it doesn't do any good if you have the right to keep and to carry the gun if you're not allowed to actually use the gun in self-defense and you get put in prison by these blue state jurisdictions uh because you defend yourself, which will 100% occur in many jurisdictions because uh most of these Democrats, in my view, uh like criminals, thugs, and foreign invaders far more than they like heritage Americans. That's just my opinion. Let me know in the comments below if you disagree with what I had to say here.

[00:19:25]All right. Well, there you have it, folks. Hope you enjoyed uh uh my presentation here today. Make sure you give me comments about my hypothetical of defending a store from mob violence and the role of collective people coming together to stop that. See what you think about that. And again, thanks for tuning in. Make sure you follow me over there on X4box of Dire. Don't forget to subscribe to YouTube and to run. I'll talk to you again real soon here at the four box of D. Orders up. Table 2A.