Welcome to Texas ProRodding, where we take just 10 minutes to get you smarter

on the collision of tech, business, and politics.

I'm Danper Mack.

On today's show, the business world's Houdini speaks and a startup's plan to prevent

mass shootings.

But first, blood and oil.

So last night, as you've certainly heard by now,

Iran fired over a dozen ballistic missiles at a military base in Iraq that houses both Iraqi and American troops.

This was in response to last week's U.S. drone killing of a top Iranian general,

and depending on who you speak with, either represents an escalating

situation that will lead to war, or maybe a de-escalation, because Iran's missiles didn't

actually kill anyone, according to preliminary reports from Western media, and it's possible

the missiles were fired for the primary purpose of saving face at home rather than causing

death and destruction. Either way, conventional wisdom in the U.S. usually is that military tensions in the Mideast,

particularly with Iran, will lead to higher oil prices and in turn higher gas prices.

And obviously that is bad news for American consumers at the pump and even in other areas,

because higher energy costs for manufacturers can get passed on to consumers down the line.

But the reality today is the gas prices have remained low throughout this conflict and even stuff that happened last year,

and many experts expected to continue, even if the situation with Iran does escalate.

Why? Because America's booming domestic oil production has created a massive

cushion. We're not really energy independent as we still import lots of oil, but we are closer than ever

before, meaning that the old rhetoric about wars for oil may no longer be as operative. In 15 seconds,

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