Dr. Jarrad Aguirre, Co-Founder and CEO of Miga Health, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell, where he says his company is looking to establish the future of heart health and points to how 80% of premature heart attacks and strokes are preventable.

Closing Bell

Miga Health Raises $12 Million to Combat Heart Disease

Well, people across the us in complete shock mourning the deaths of 19 Children and two teachers at that elementary school in Uvalde Texas on Tuesday after a shooter armed with an assault rifle opened fire. Unfortunately many americans now numb to these unspeakable tragedies as they happen all too often in the nation. Well, gun control advocates insist we must use something instead of setting thoughts and prayers and moving on with our lives until the next shooting. So joining me now is brian Lemack, executive director of defend the vote, that's a political action committee ensuring voting access, education and protection and former executive director at the Birdie pac, which supports candidates who do commit to gun violence protection and prevention, brian thanks for coming on the show. I know they're shooting reigniting the gun control debate for obvious reasons in the US. How does the nation ensure? This doesn't become just another statistic? Yeah. And it's, you know, we could have had this conversation a week ago, two weeks prior to that and for three weeks prior to that, it almost feels as if every single shooting does become just that a statistic, right? And that's a real concern of ours. We all just listen to Governor Abbott and him speak about mental illness. Him not once mentioned guns as the culprit here, that's a real concern and that's a cultural concern that we have and that's something that we're seeing almost exclusively in the Republican Party. Um, thinking about the political here and thinking about our elected officials and what they can do to make change. We heard senator Murphy Sen Blumenthal, we heard coach Kerr the other day calling for common sense solutions. We know that we are that they are there. We also know that we have obstructionists in Congress that are preventing the will of 90% of Americans to see background checks passed and to see more American lives saved. It's absolutely tragic brian. I know it's been 10 years since Sandy Hook that was unthinkable in and of itself during the Obama administration gun laws, they really haven't changed hardly at all. Clearly not enough to make any sort of meaningful difference and actually saving lives and very young Children's lives as well. Why hasn't there been more significant gun control? And what's it gonna take? How is the N. R. A. Playing a role in this? The N. R. A. Doesn't have teeth any longer. But what they've been able to do is pass that rhetoric on to so many of existing law makers and passing on to so many candidates for Congress. They've taken this issue and they've made it a Republican issue. They've taken gun violence prevention and somehow demonized it. They've taken the protection of our Children and made that a bad thing by allowing firearms to be so easily purchased by so many others. So the blame here really does fall on our lawmakers that are in Congress right now and and we should encourage all americans to be voting vote for those that are thinking about you and your family, I assure you that Governor Abbott is not in his backyard this weekend is the N. R. A. Rally which will be a collection of of some of the the worst in my opinion, culprits uh for this and for this madness and for this rhetoric. So what we need to do is look at the lawmakers that we have test them, see if see how they vote, if we could even get this to a vote, see how they vote and hold them accountable. Because the obstructionists in Congress right now the instruction is in the state like texas and the state legislature are why these Children are dead, why Children will die tomorrow and why Children will die the day after that. It is absolutely devastating. And I know texas. Governor Greg Abbott relaxing gun laws in this state making it so that you don't even need a permit to carry a firearm, How to lose gun laws create this ripe environment for these kinds of shootings. Yeah, I mean the easy access to a firearm does lead to these types of things. But these types of shootings and these murders, let's call them that because that's what they were and are uh but but Governor Abbott just touted the laws that he passed at a At a press conference about the 19 Children and the two teachers that were murdered. I mean what's the disconnect here, right. What are we missing? He's talking about mental illness and mental health. He's talking about making schools more safe. At a press conference where 19 students and 19 Children were murdered. Right? So yes, the relaxed laws. Absolutely. But I think that we have people in positions of power that are out of touch, people in positions of power that would be holding to a handful individuals to a particular lobby, to corporations, etcetera that are making them make decisions against the will of the people that are helping them and allowing them to abuse their power. And that, you me, my family, your family, people in texas and throughout America, we're the ones that are victims and we're the ones that are held hostage by these individuals. Well, just this year, there have been more than a dozen school shootings. And in just the past few weeks, we also saw mass shootings in a grocery store in new york and in a church in California. How are these tragedies able to be replicated across states? Across the country? Yeah, this is a sad that that question is just so awful to have to even answer because again, you and I both know that uh, this evening, something will happen tomorrow, something will happen as well. But it can only go back to the individuals that are making our laws that are holding others accountable and that goes to making firearms easily accessible for so so many an assault Rifle, an assault weapon. There was a 10-year ban on these firearms. There's a call now for a ban on the manufacturing of existing of any new firearms, forgive me right? There are laws that exist like expanded background checks would make a really good law. Even better. They bring it up to the times, there are extreme risk protection orders that are out there. But the lawmakers that we have aren't passing these at the federal level passed Congress passed the House, rather passed. The House of bipartisan support is not even being introduced in the Senate. That's the problem. We have the wrong people in charge. Here's another question that I have brian, what can local communities do to help prevent these tragedies on a local level and can more violence prevention advocacy or even mental health resources help. And one of the reasons that I ask is because the gunman had no known history of mental health issues. Yeah, yeah. I think that mental health has to be a consideration of course, but you know, it can't have one without the other. He is not going to and and he may have not no history, but he demonstrated pretty clearly yesterday that something was wrong, right? I think that things like extremist protection orders can help us communities speak up. If you see something say something, we know the saying right, we saw in other shootings also in Parkland, we know that that individual had problems, not enough attention was drawn to it or not enough certainly to enact these extremist protection orders or to get the fire him out of his home, right. People know these individuals, they know something could be wrong. These are preventable, preventable tragedies and it is a really hard thing to address but just simply talking about Melvin illness is not enough. You have got to talk about the easy access to a firearm conversation. Yes yes please brian, I do just want to clarify something. You have said that the governor of texas, Greg Abbott this coming weekend is still planning to host and N. R. A. Event in his backyard in texas. That's still on tap. I've heard nothing, nothing different than that. No, and you saw TED Cruz standing proudly behind him. An absolute shame of an individual who is responsible for many of the obstruction that's happening in Congress. He will certainly be there as well. And I am very curious to hear what these people have to say about the 19 Children that were killed not too far down the road from there and the 40,000 that are murdered every day every year. It is, it is devastating. There's no other way to put it. And many americans obviously across the board saying that it absolutely has to end facebook playing a role in this to some extent. The shooter had actually warned on facebook ahead of time that he was going to carry out a shooting what's the role of these social media platforms Just facebook take some of the onus in allowing this to happen on Tuesday. I think any vehicle that leads to the devastation that I've experienced yesterday and that will experience throughout this year and have experienced in past years should should look into this. If there's anything that preventable that can be done, it must be done. They have to american lives and lives in general have to be valued more greatly than they are right now profits over our lives. This is unacceptable business model. It's not something that we should, any of us should stand for and they can and we are in a position of power. We have this democracy here that allows us to vote people in and out of office. If we do not like the laws that we do not like the lawmakers, We have an obligation to vote them out. We have an obligation to run, we have an obligation to promote someone to run. Someone that shares our ideas and our values, someone that can't be bought in the way that these Texas legislators and so many others have been over the years. That's where we should be focusing our attention. That's where we should be directing our attention. We have an election coming in 22, a mid term. We have a presidential In a larger election in 24. We have to put our focus and our attention there. These things will not change if these people remain empowered to full stop. We just heard the governor of a state where 19 Children were murdered. Talk about Things that he put forward that were failures and he propped them up as wins. He talked about them as if they were preventative measures that would save lives. At a press conference where 19 Children were murdered where they discussed 19 Children being murdered and two adults being killed. This is not a winning solution and that is not the winning team to save lives and they have to go, what is the power of american voters brian? I think many voters have expressed obviously gun control as an issue or simply lack thereof in this country. How can they Rally together? The family members, the brothers, the sisters, the parents, the aunts, the uncles, the friends of these 19 Children and two adults killed in the deadly mass shooting at an elementary school on Tuesday. How can they and others around the country come together to try to prevent this from happening again. Yeah, we we we need to practice empathy. We need to really understand that that could have been us. And we have to think in a way that does take the collective. We protect every american uh protect our families and our neighbors. And that does start by protecting our right to vote and making sure that all americans have the ability to vote that all americans are bringing that are electing members into into positions of power that share our values and share our interests. And as long as everyone out there is understanding that in our democracy we are allowed. That ability. It is makes us unique and it just as much as gun violence in America is a uniquely american problem. The democracy that we have and our ability to vote in and out lawmakers that can help our lives is something that we're starting to take for granted. We have 90% of Americans that support background checks Checks. Absolute. Then why is it that 50 senators can hold up the entire process, 75 million less Americans are represented by those 50 senators as well. There's a breakdown in the process here. We're all victims to that brian Lameck, executive director of defend the vote and former executive director of the brady pack brian, thank you so much for taking the time on an absolutely devastating mass shooting here in the country.