In this episode - Liberals keep condescendingly asking us why “we need guns.” https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-culture-of-deathand-of-disdain-1507244198 Was the Las Vegas attacker radicalized? https://pjmedia.com/homeland-security/2017/10/05/new-isis-infographic-vegas-shooting-claims-paddock-converted-six-months-ago/ Debunking liberal “gun control” claims. https://www.conservativereview.com/articles/nyts-phony-house-conservative-repeal-the-second-amendment http://www.newsmax.com/t/newsmax/article/556155?section=US&keywords=John-Lott-guns-background-checks&year=2014&month=03&date=05&id=556155&aliaspath=%2FManage%2FArticles%2FTemplate-Main The September job numbers are out and there’s some bad news, and some good news. https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/susan-jones/631-participation-rate-reaches-trump-era-high-record-number-emp https://apnews.com/144f13eaafb043b9878059dd7c6ddf94
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Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.
Where did that go?
The Dan Bongino Show.
It's time we take off the gloves, okay?
Get ready to hear the truth about America.
Right now we have a party that supports American values and then there is a party that represents everything America isn't.
On a show that's not immune to the facts with your host Dan Bongino.
Welcome to the Renegade Republican with Dan Bongino.
Producer Joe, how are you today?
Hey man, all set and ready to go.
Dan?
Good to be here.
You ever see Donnie Brasco, by the way?
Yeah.
You know, Al Pacino, Johnny Depp.
My wife loves that movie.
I was watching it the other day, and we didn't get through the whole thing.
She thinks one of the funniest lines in the whole movie, which is so indicative of some of the people I grew up with in New York, and especially my Italian friends, me being Italian, obviously Bongiorno.
But there's a line in the movie where he's sitting down on the couch with Lefty, played by Al Pacino, Johnny Depp playing Donnie Brasco.
And the son walks in and he walks out and he gives him a strange look and Al Pacino goes, you know, I can't believe it.
You know, my, my son's a junkie.
And my wife thinks this is the funniest line ever.
The way he comes back to the Johnny Depp character.
Yeah.
What are you going to do?
The guy just tells him his son's a junkie and the best he can do is, what are you going to do?
That's, that's my buddies in here.
That was all, that was the, forget about it, what are you gonna do?
That was the answer to every question.
Hey, my car was just stolen with everything in it.
Yeah, what are you gonna do?
That was the answer to every single question ever.
I don't know, I just felt the need to bring that up.
My wife thinks it's so funny.
My son's a junkie.
Yeah, what are you gonna do?
Forget about it.
What are you gonna do?
All right, so listen, on a serious note, a lot, a lot going on and it was a A major revelation in this Las Vegas attack that folks, there's something going on here.
I mean, I think that's obvious.
And I, again, I'm trying to stick to what we know and not get into, you know, any kind of like big, bold theories that are going to, I don't want to lose any of my credibility doing this, but there's something going on.
Something very, very strange about this case.
And let me just start with one thing.
There was a revelation last night, wide beat around the bush, about the use of, or the, no, I should say the subject in the case, the guy who killed himself, the killer there, who also killed himself, that he was trying to acquire tracer rounds.
Tracer rounds are rounds that leave a visible trail when they're fired from the gun.
You would typically load them every fifth round or third round.
The idea behind a tracer round is you can see where some of the rounds are going, specifically if you're firing in high volume.
So if you had a belt-fed weapon, it'll give you a better idea downrange where the rounds are actually going because you can see them as they project out from the barrel of the weapon.
Now, there was a police officer on this morning and his theory is perfectly valid.
I'm not questioning him at all.
He was on Fox this morning.
A very knowledgeable guy.
And they asked him about the tracer rounds and its subject, trying to acquire them.
And, you know, he said, well, they could have been done to increase accuracy for the shooter.
And he may be correct.
I'm not sure.
But folks, I think this speaks to something in conjunction with another development yesterday that should bother everyone here.
Actually, a couple of developments.
Number one, the Dems are really, really quiet right now on gun control.
I know it doesn't seem that way, especially given the last two shows I've done, but relatively speaking, The common hysteria the Democrats will try to, which they commonly use after every one of these shooting attacks, is noticeably absent on this one.
Do you remember after Orlando, the Orlando nightclub shooting, the Democrats, despite they knew they were breaking every rule of the House of Representatives, they sat there and they videotaped themselves on the floor and all that stuff, and they were all over the country pushing for gun control.
Every day there was a new speech.
Have you noticed how, relatively speaking, They've been particularly quiet on this.
Now folks, this is a fact confirmed to me by a lot of knowledgeable people on the inside.
I'm not patting myself on the back, I'm just telling you I deal with a lot of folks who know a lot of stuff about what goes on.
And even they've commented on it on some emails that there was something going on behind the scenes and there's something going on about the Democrats noticeable lack of we gotta go out and push guns or we gotta go out and push gun control or you know Republicans you're all gonna lose and we're gonna make you run on gun advocacy and they're not just they're just not doing that.
Combine that with the tracer rounds, or apparently his desire to acquire tracer rounds, the attacker.
And also, ISIS's revelation last night through their weekly newsletter, they released this newsletter that they print and release online, I think it's called Al-Naba, N-A-B-A.
And last night, they released this newsletter, and again, Joe, again claimed responsibility for this attack, claiming that the shooter, Was radicalized and was motivated by Islamic fundamentalist ideology.
Folks, this is very strange.
Now, ISIS has in the past claimed, just to be fair here, has claimed credit for attacks, notably the one in Manila, that were deemed later not the result of ISIS, but other motivations altogether.
But it's very rare for them to do that not just once but now twice and now put it out in their newsletter.
You may say what do these all have to do with one another?
The Democrats being quiet on this says to me that they know something.
That there's something about this case they know that points to a radicalization.
That the Democrats would change on a dime.
Because remember, the Democrats, the Islamic terror thing does not... Remember, the Democrats are all about politics.
I just want to be clear where I'm going with this.
They're all about politics.
Forget this gun control thing has nothing to do with safety or security or anything.
This is about political leverage.
Number one, the polling data on the gun control issue is terrible for them.
Number two, if this guy turns out was radicalized, if, we don't know, but if that's the case, and I'm giving you evidence, I'm not just throwing this out there as some crazy kooky theory so you'll listen to the show.
I'm telling you what's been posted by ISIS.
What the suspicion of many people up on the hill is that they know the real reason and the reason Democrats now are not trying to make this case a big big thing like they were with the last two as although I mean politically speaking it's obviously a national tragedy.
You get what I'm saying?
Yeah.
It's because they know the story is going to change rather soon and when it changes this is an issue that's going to benefit Republicans not Democrats.
Politically.
I'm not justifying the fact that people use these strategies for political leverage.
I'm telling you what's going on behind the scenes.
Now, what do the tracer rounds have to do with all this?
Folks, I don't think this guy tried to acquire the tracer rounds for accuracy purposes, because if you wanted accuracy, you would not use a bump stock.
And you would not fire from 1,400 feet away.
Makes sense.
Bump stocks, by the way, the device that goes on the stock of a weapon that uses the recoil pressure to simulate a cyclical fire right of an automatic weapon.
It doesn't turn a semi-automatic into an automatic weapon.
An automatic weapon is one trigger pull, multiple rounds.
That's not what a bump stock does.
You don't use bump stock.
Nobody I know who are operators, military people, federal agents, cops, recreational sportsmen who use firearms.
Nobody I know uses a bump stock.
You know why folks?
They suck.
They jam up your weapons, they're atrociously inaccurate, and they are a very poor replacement for the mechanics of a fully automatic weapon if that's what you're looking to simulate.
They cause untold jams.
You think I'm making this up?
Read any report out there that covers what they saw on the inside of the hotel room the shooter was in.
What did they find, Joe?
A bunch of jammed weapons.
Bump stocks suck.
They are a terrible device.
I don't think they're particularly effective in what they're trying to do.
This banning of bump stocks, or this regulatory push, I think is a sham measure.
It's not going to do anything.
You're not going to legislate this away.
It's Congress trying to feel good about themselves, you know, doing something politically to try to gain leverage.
Now, having told you how poorly, I think, designed bump stocks are for accuracy, why would you buy tracer rounds to increase your accuracy while in turn using a bump stock that's going to decrease your accuracy?
There is no question in my mind that the tracer rounds were done for the visual effect.
Now, again, I'm not going to point you to Hollywood movies for any sense of reality, but I don't have a range to show you right now, and even if this was a video podcast, I'm not going to go shoot a trace around from a 556 around to show you what it looks like.
But if you've ever seen Hollywood movies where, you know, they fire around and you see it leaving the gun, it looks like a laser almost, that's what a trace around is.
It is an extremely disturbing thing to see if you are on the receiving end of that.
I think this subject went to go acquire tracer rounds to make this attack appear on video that much more horrifying.
As if it could get any more horrifying.
You see what I'm saying, Joe?
Yeah, yeah I do.
Which says to me that the radicalization theory and ISIS's claims that this may have been a radicalized subject of theirs may in fact be legitimate.
In other words, this guy, I don't think the traceruns had anything to do with accuracy.
If he was interested in accuracy, he wouldn't have used bump stocks, and he wouldn't have shot from the 32nd floor.
He would have just stood out on Las Vegas Boulevard.
It doesn't make sense.
And the Dems are really quiet.
So the point I'm trying to make here is I think the radicalization story is and may turn out to be legitimate in the coming days.
You would hear Democrats all over the place if this was strictly a gun control story.
The fact and which by the way they think works for them politically.
The fact that there's a there may be a hint of radicalization here.
An issue that works for Republicans and national security folks.
may be leading to the fact that they're really quiet right now on this whole topic.
Does that make sense?
Yeah.
Because folks, there's something not right about this.
This case just stinks.
There is something about this that's off.
Okay, I want to get to a more important topic.
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All right.
You know, there's an interesting piece by Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal today.
She's a very gifted writer, by the way.
She does an unbelievable job.
And in the piece, she talks about this disconnect between liberals and conservatives and how they don't understand one another.
She poses an interesting question that she answers in her way and I want to answer in mine because it's a good one, Joe.
Why do we need guns?
And why do liberals not understand why we need guns?
So hence the title of the show today, you know, Dear Liberals, Here's Why We Own Guns.
Now, let me just be clear on this, folks.
If you're a liberal listener, and again, I know we have them, And you're genuinely interested in that question, which you claim you are, Joe.
Because liberals go on Fox and CNN and MSNBC all the time, these talking heads, and they go, I just don't understand.
I just don't understand why you think you need guns.
I just don't get it.
What are you going to do?
What are you gonna do?
Dude, that was funny.
That was good.
I did not see that coming.
What are you gonna do?
Forget about it.
What are you gonna do?
That in New York with me when I lived, that would be my answer.
What are you gonna do?
I have, since I've gotten into political commentary, what are you gonna do?
And forget about it.
It doesn't really work anymore.
So I put together a little homework on this.
And if you're sincerely, if you're not, if you're a liberal hack and you don't care and you're just saying that because you think it sounds good, you know, like, you know, Jimmy Kimmel, You know, we need to have a conversation.
Okay, we're having a conversation.
I am going to add to the conversation right now.
Here's why we need guns.
You are asking us, right?
Liberals.
And gun control advocates.
You are asking us to have absolute faith in government.
To protect us.
That's what you're asking us to do despite The evidence of Joe's favorite book, Black Swan Events.
You are asking us to have absolute faith, folks, not relative faith here.
You're asking us, not comparative faith, not like comparative advantage versus absolute advantage, you are asking us, gun owners, to have absolute faith in the government to protect us, okay?
Don't worry, you don't need guns, only the cops and the military can have guns, they'll take care of you, don't worry about it.
Despite the evidence of what we can all agree are black swan events.
Black swan events, it's a great book by the way.
I talk about it all the time by Nicholas Taleb.
I can't recommend it highly enough.
And in the book he talks about these, a black swan is a rare event.
Swans are white.
If you see a black swan you're like, wow that's strange.
Black swan events are rare events.
But in these black swan events, the consequences of the black swan event should matter.
In other words, a black swan event You know, like getting stung by a bee, Joe?
It's not an event, which is rare.
I've been stung by a bee once in my lifetime.
I've been alive for 42 years.
Can we agree it's rare?
Now, I don't have an allergy to bee stings.
So for me to spend any significant amount of time preparing for a low-risk, low-probability event like that, a bee sting, is ridiculous.
Follow me, folks.
It's going to make sense.
Specifically liberals.
You asked why we own guns.
I'm going to explain it to you.
Open your ears for a second if you're interested.
I get stung by a bee.
It's not a big deal.
It's going to hurt.
I think it was in my shoe one time and I was golfing, which I'm terrible at, by the way.
I tried it one time.
It was awful.
And I got stung in the foot and it hurt.
And you know what happened to me?
Nothing.
It didn't even swell.
For me to go out there in an armored bullet-resistant suit, Joe, in Florida, I mean, I'm preventing bee stings, right?
Right.
I'm preventing them.
It's a low-risk, low-probability event, but I need to prevent bee stings.
So I go out in the armored suit.
It's ridiculous, we can all agree, because you're taking a mitigation measure, the costs to you, which are far greater than the risks of anything happening.
You're gonna be hot, you're gonna have to go buy this bullet-resistant suit, you're gonna have to put it on every day, you won't get stung by a bee, right?
It'll land on the Kevlar outfit you have on.
You have prevented bee stings at a cost to you completely not commensurate with the risk or the probability of it happening.
The problem with the liberal, with the modern liberal, is the liberal thinks this is a bee sting event.
Us, our ownership of guns.
They think our ownership of guns, Joe, and if I'm losing you stop me, is the equivalent of wearing the Kevlar suit to protect against the bee sting.
I'm with it, yeah.
They're like, well, you being involved in a mass shooting, God forbid, it's, you know, it's, that's a very, uh, that's a very low probability event, but it's not low risk to you.
It's not a bee sting.
Now I'm going to argue the probability factor in a minute, but it is not low risk to you or your family.
It is in fact terminal.
It's over.
Yes, liberals, you are correct.
These are Black Swan events, singularly, not collectively.
In other words, the chance of me being involved in an attack like had happened in Mandalay Bay are very slim.
I agree.
But the risk, Joe, is it's over.
It's done.
It's not anaphylactic shock.
It's not the pain of a bee sting.
It is death.
It is terminal.
The risk to you is everything.
It is all over.
There is no coming back.
Only one person rose from the dead.
Jesus Christ, it's not going to be me.
Not in that sense, at least.
I do believe in the second creation, but not that way.
Do you understand where I'm going with this?
And I will concede to you the low probability part, but you're making this out to us.
You're making us to be the Kevlar wearing outfit people in a bee sting.
Not understanding that it's not a bee sting.
It is a fatal event.
Now, on your point, you may say, okay, it's a fatal event, but the chances are really low.
But that's not what you're asking us.
You're asking us for absolute faith.
You are asking us in many cases to not purchase weapons we want to defend ourselves under the mistaken idea that we should have absolute faith in the government possessing Joe these weapons because they will protect us.
Now, why are these not low probability events?
They are when you view them singularly.
But now, are we crazy or are we reasonable here when we put the analysis of the probability collectively together?
Here's what I mean.
Let's just go over a couple things here.
You've got the North Korean little fat kid, the maniac over there, testing nuclear weapons and openly threatening an EMP attack on our electrical grid, which would basically knock out the United States northeast coast from having electrical power for potentially a year or more.
Is that low probability?
Hell yeah!
Yeah.
Is it zero probability?
Hell no!
That's a black swan.
You're damn right it's a black swan, which is again Joe, high risk and in many cases terminal.
You have this opioid crisis breaking out.
People breaking into people's homes.
Is it the national catastrophe that, you know, listen, there's a lot of political feelings on both sides.
I want to be clear on this because I get a lot of emails.
I don't think the government, I'm sorry folks, has a role in this.
The government's done nothing in the drug war.
I'm just saying, there are towns ravaged by an opioid crisis where people are breaking into people's homes.
Again, are these people, are they going to break into your home and kill you?
Very low probability.
But it's not zero.
And it's especially not zero when combined with the chances of being involved in a mass shooting, the North Koreans.
You say, oh, well, those are three really low probability events.
OK, let's go on.
Let's go.
Liberals, you're asking.
You want an answer or not?
Ferguson, Baltimore, civil unrest.
Oh, well, come on.
The North Koreans, Ferguson.
That happened in Ferguson.
Yeah, and Baltimore.
Yeah, but I don't live in Ferguson or Baltimore.
Oh, but you don't live on the Northeast for the North Koreans either?
You don't live in Las Vegas?
You never had a concert?
You see where I'm going with this show?
Yeah, yeah.
How all of these events singularly are low probability events.
But you're asking us why we feel the need to own weapons to protect ourselves.
The weapons we choose, not you choose.
I'm giving you the answer if you're open to it.
These are terminal events that are all viewed singularly, low probability, but collectively it is very reasonable to say to yourself, well I have a family and the chances of the North Koreans doing something are low.
The chances of a Ferguson-like riot breaking out here are kind of low.
The chances of an active shooting situation are kind of low.
The chances of some opioid addicted maniac breaking into my house and killing my family are kind of low.
But all combined, these are not zero probability events with no risk.
It goes on.
We all saw Hurricane Katrina.
Total civil chaos.
Folks, this just happened not very long ago.
We're talking about a decade.
We're not talking about 7,000 years ago.
We're talking about Hurricane Katrina and Key West annihilated, where there was chaos.
And Key West, obviously, different scenario there.
Puerto Rico, total chaos!
Or someone correct me, Puerto Rico.
I'm sorry, that's the, you know, listen, sometimes it just goes, but they are correct.
If you're going to pronounce Oregon right, and Nevada, it's Puerto Rico.
So to the listener, email me.
Thank you for that.
So you are correct.
You should pronounce it right.
Joe, you need more?
Folks, I'm gonna go on.
Liberals, you asked.
Why do we have guns?
Venezuela!
That bastion of the socialist utopia, bastion of socialists of far-left liberal values, where people are eating pigeons, Joe.
Pigeons and dogs.
You don't believe me?
Google it yourself.
Venezuela.
Pigeons.
The first article that'll probably come up is not about the pigeon watching in Venezuela, it's about the eating of pigeons.
Because the government you are asking us to have absolute, Joe, absolute faith in protecting us was the very same government that destroyed the citizenry there.
It goes on!
Antifa!
Once a month, there's an Antifa, the anti-first amendment group.
These far leftist kooks.
Once a month or so there's a story about Antifa beating the snot out of people who are conservatives like us.
Now am I saying a firearm is going to solve that situation?
I'm not.
I'm just saying we see the outbreak of civil unrest largely on the far left using politics to attack and beat people.
What do I need to post the YouTube videos?
Liberals, you're asking us why we own guns.
You want a conversation?
We're giving it to you.
Just a couple more here, folks.
Berkeley.
That Milo guy shows up at Berkeley.
They try to burn the campus down.
Literally!
Watch!
Fires, Berkeley.
Here's my last two examples.
You keep telling us, oh you don't need those weapons, you don't need this, you don't need a semi-auto, you don't need, you know, and to be clear folks on this, the genesis of this, I probably should have started with this, the genesis of this was not just the Peggy Noonan piece.
Bret Stephens, who is just a jerk, I'm sorry.
I was trying to give this guy the benefit of the doubt because I like this writing at the Wall Street Journal.
This guy is just a jerk.
He went after Mark Levin.
I mean, he couldn't wipe Mark Levin's nose.
And he's constantly going after Mark Levin.
And the guy is just a jerk.
I'm sorry, Brett, but he wrote a piece.
He left the Wall Street Journal to go write at the New York Times as their fake conservative of the year.
And he wrote a piece about how we should repeal the Second Amendment.
And at one point in there he writes, And these people who are, like, preparing for a Red Dawn scenario.
Remember the movie Red Dawn?
Marines!
Where the Russians attack and this high school football team, like, magically takes out the Russian army?
Yeah.
Um, no, Brett.
You dope.
You elitist snob.
Jerk.
Red Dawn?
Yeah, Brett, I think the Russians are gonna storm Hammock Creek in Palm City.
Are you an idiot?
Are you really that stupid?
That I, you know what?
I own a number of weapons.
A lot.
I have a good amount of firearms.
I'm preparing for a Russian invasion?
Are you that stupid?
I just gave you a bunch of reasons why rational, reasonable people like, I know I am.
I'm not interested in your opinion about me.
I know why I have those weapons.
That's because they are an insurance policy against high risk, extremely low probability events, but low probability events that when they're combined, Joe, are not that low probability that they don't require me to take a mitigation action against them to prevent me from having to respond if, God forbid, I had to protect my family.
What is unreasonable about that?
Do you really think we're all walking in our gun closets with the John Jay Rambo look and we're, you know the bandana when Rambo used to put around, he used to tie it like really dramatically.
We're walking in with the bandana and then the knife goes in the belt and then we're lacing up the boots and then the BDUs come on and the belt gets going.
Are you that stupid?
I walk around in cargo shorts and t-shirts all day and I carry a gun on me just because I don't want to be robbed.
You think I'm going out there with like one of those balaclava ninja suit type things out there looking for the Russians in Red Dawn?
I mean you totally discredit yourself.
You're like a clown when you write that.
But remember, he's part of the pseudo-intellectual, bowtie-wearing, foie gras-eating class, and we're all supposed to respect his opinion because I have no idea why.
Idiot.
Jerk.
That's right.
I'm sorry.
It's the jerk.
But he thinks we're preparing for Red Dawn.
And they say, well, the likelihood of you being in a mass shooting.
You know what?
It's not zero.
What about the Bataclan?
What about Paris and Charlie Hebdo?
What about Brussels, Las Vegas, San Bernardino?
It's not irrelevant.
And your dopey responses, these liberals, like, well, what were you gonna do, fire back at the guy on the 32nd floor?
No, not at all.
But I'll tell you what, if you were in San Bernardino when the guy walked in the room and pulled out a weapon and started firing, you're damn right I'm firing back.
To protect me or my family?
That's unreasonable?
And let me end this on one final, because I've got a couple of other things to get through, folks.
And by the way, I'm going to put out a Rough Cuts for tomorrow, so you're more than welcome to listen in.
You know, I said to a guy on a radio station up at WBAL in Baltimore, the competitor to Joe's station, Sean and Frank are going to be mad.
Joe's like, whoa, dude, dude, did you just mention our competitor?
What are you going to do?
That's great.
Yeah.
You're on fire today.
You're on fire.
But he's a, he's a, he's very reasonable on guns, but he is a Democrat.
And I think this was after Sandy Hook.
And I said to him, you know, why are my rights in question?
And I asked him one simple question.
My house had been broken into once while I was home.
I've mentioned this story before.
It was a very traumatizing experience.
And I couldn't get out of my head, what if I would have walked downstairs?
Because it happened in the middle of the night.
I didn't.
While they were in my house.
Now, I have weapons.
I have access to them because I was a secret service agent, HR 218.
I can carry a weapon all over the country.
Thankfully.
What do you do, Joe, if you hear someone in your house and you walk downstairs?
What are you gonna do?
What are you gonna do?
Say they have a gun, which a lot, by the way, many of them do.
What are you gonna do?
You gonna tell them, oh no, I'm a liberal, I believe in gun control, I'm on your team?
What are you gonna do, use foul language?
What are you gonna, ask them to write on the chalkboard a number of times?
I won't rob any more houses?
What are you gonna do?
Criminals don't understand anything other than force.
You asked us why we carry guns, why we own guns, why we want the guns of our choice to defend ourselves.
I just gave you approximately eight to ten reasons why it is very reasonable for us to prepare For a very high-risk, extremely low-probability event, because these low-probability events, when viewed singularly, are low-probability, but collectively, any reasonable person would take out an insurance policy against them.
Just not you, liberals.
Actually, you would too, because you're frauds, and a lot of you can't have bodyguards while, you know, you're rich and Hollywood-type-ies, and you go out there and you have your bodyguards protecting you, but you don't want us to protect ourselves.
Did that make sense, Joe?
Sure, yeah.
All right.
I didn't find anything that difficult about that at all.
All right.
One last note on this and I'm going to move on to a different topic.
We had some economic news today and I got an email about taxes yesterday.
It really bothered me because no matter how many times I bring this up on taxes, I always get emails that misinterpret or completely lie sometimes about what I said.
So this one was interesting.
I was on Dana Perino's new show on Fox the other day, The Daily Briefing, at 2 o'clock, and I was on with an advocate from the Brady Center for Gun Violence, and she's basically a gun control, you know, person.
And she was nice enough, Avery something, she was on last night again as well.
But she threw out a number in there, and I didn't get the chance to respond, and I want to throw it out there now.
She threw out a number she was using as some kind of success story for the Brady gun checks, and I don't...
I mean, again, does she believe in facts and data or not?
She said at one point, and you'll hear this number a lot in the news the next coming day, the next coming couple days, because this is all, you know, the gun control thing is still out there.
She said, well, you know, nearly 3 million gun sales were stopped due to gun checks because of, you know, gun check, you know, background check laws.
She doesn't use that number in any context, Joe.
In other words, she's using that as a sign of success.
And my first question was going to be, but I didn't get the chance, well, are you suggesting you stop three million criminals from buying guns?
Because I don't understand, like, how is it then in Chicago and DC and in America's big cities run by Democrats, there's still elevated levels of gun crime.
Like, I don't, I don't, you know what I'm saying?
I don't get it.
The numbers meet.
This is what liberals do all the time.
They throw out a number with no context to it, and they expect you to respond emotionally.
Like, oh, that's great!
So the Brady gun campaign, we can thank them for background checks that stopped three million gun sales.
From who?
Well, I'm going to post the piece.
It's not a new piece, but it's from Newsmax.
It's in the show notes today, and it's a very good piece.
I suggest you read it.
It's by John Lott, who's done a lot of research on this.
And in there he includes some data that shows a 2004 study showing that the Brady gun checks not only had no effect on violent crime, Joe, but had no effect on any category of violent crime either.
Again, liberals, don't let that data get in the way of you continually citing gun checks for stopping violent crime despite the fact that the data doesn't say that.
It's just, it is literally just you saying that.
You're the only one saying that.
Secondly, of those 3 million gun sales that were stopped, Joe, about 2 million of them were people because of name snafus.
In other words, names like, you're Joe Armacost.
Let's say it was Joe Armacost with a K who was a wanted felon.
All of a sudden Joe Armacost who has done nothing wrong wants to go buy a firearm to protect himself and Joe can't get a gun because Joe Armacost with a K is a similar type name and there was a screw up in the phonetics or whatever it may be.
Okay.
That's not a model of success, folks!
So the Brady campaign spokesperson is basically saying, two out of three of these people are stopping law-abiding citizens who should be able to purchase weapons to defend themselves, who now can't buy weapons because of our checks.
By the way, while criminals are still getting guns in Chicago and Washington DC and all these other places.
This is not a model for success.
The data says otherwise.
But again, don't let the data get in the way of your argument.
I mean, they just It's just frustrating dealing with them.
Thanks for all the emails yesterday, after yesterday's show.
I got a ton of email, people saying, hang in there.
I'm never giving up the fight, folks.
It was just, you know, it was just frustrating when people start sending you death threats, you know, with your kids and stuff.
I get it's not serious.
I'm not trying to be dramatic about it.
I don't need like police protection, not like sitting here frightened or anything.
It's just, you know, it just makes you, more than frightening anyone, Joe, I think what it does is it makes you question humanity more.
Yeah.
Like, let me get this straight.
I mean, it really does.
We're trying to have an argument about who should and should not be able to obtain weapons to protect themselves.
And your first response is, you should die horrendously and your kids too.
And it just makes you lose faith.
You want to believe, I think, and I'm constantly disappointed that the liberals we debate are good folks.
Yeah.
But as, You know, because I know what they think of us.
They think we're bad people, evil people attached to bad ideas, and we just think they're bad ideas attached to people on the other side.
But there are times I say, you know what?
These aren't good people.
They're just not.
They're angry, vitriolic, hate-filled people.
Who wishes death on someone and their kids?
Well, it's enlightening, isn't it?
In a negative sort of way, if that makes any sense.
Yeah, it is.
It's negatively enlightening.
You're right.
It absolutely is.
All right, before I move on, have you signed up for CRTV yet, folks?
We have a big announcement coming up.
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I wish I could break the news.
But October 12th, we have another big announcement.
You know, we just added Gavin McGinnis to the lineup.
We have Mark Levin's show.
We have Steven Crowder's show, Michelle Malkin's show, Steve Dace's show.
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You got John who does the White House brief.
We have really solid content at CRTV.com, and it is a fraction of what you'll pay for cable.
I'll give you a promo code, right?
You'll get $10 off.
It's Bongino, my last name.
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Go sign up today.
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It's a waste to sling it to your TV.
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Save yourself some money, cut the cord, get into this, and then you will not be disappointed.
It's the best conservative content out there, and keep a lookout for that announcement on the 12th, okay?
We got some good stuff coming up.
All right, so I got an email yesterday from a guy.
It was a nice email.
Cool, calm, and collected about it, but he said, you know, here's the deal.
You keep talking about how income tax cuts, income tax rate cuts, have not cost the government money, but, you know, tax revenue goes up and has gone up basically every year and goes up for all types of reasons, you know, that are potentially unrelated to tax cuts.
Folks, I don't want to beat this, you know, to death.
But you're right, sir, the guy who wrote me the email.
Yes, tax revenue goes up for all kinds of reasons.
The point I'm trying to make is I'm not making a correlational or causal, well I am making a correlation but not a causal argument.
I'm simply trying to say that the left's claims, liberals' claims that tax rate cuts are going to cost the government money are factually incorrect if you are interested in the data.
I don't know the reasons that tax revenue's gone up every year.
I don't know!
I have my suspicions due to economic growth, over time relatively low tax rates in the United States, an entrepreneurial spirit in the United States, solid contract law, an effective court system, over time at least what was a light regulatory load that's changing now.
Everybody has their suspicions, free marketeers, as to why the United States has been an exception to the rule.
And has grown over time, and as it's grown, it has grown its tax revenue as well.
I'm just telling you, to be clear, and I feel like I've said this, Joe, at least 50 times on the show, if not more.
I'm just telling you that the liberal argument that tax rate cuts are going to quote, cost the government money, are just factually not true!
People always send me back, especially, this guy was not a liberal, he's a nice guy, he has a great email, I'm gonna be clear on that.
But I get emails from liberals that are particularly nasty and they never actually debunk that.
They say they're going to.
I'm going to show you.
I read an article about percentage of nominal inflationary adjusted Keynesian keynote speaker GDP supercalifragilisticexpialidocious and this guy said this.
Sir, did tax revenue go up?
Uh, but it went up.
Okay.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I win.
That's all I'm saying.
Tax revenue has not gone down!
So my point, I had to make this point to Austin Goolsbee when we debated on my pilot for my CRTV show.
Has tax revenue gone down after tax cuts?
No.
That's it.
That's the only answer.
That's the only answer.
There's nothing else.
Don't email me anything.
I read them.
I don't want to be a jerk.
Email me if you feel like you have something to say.
I'm just telling you, if it's not related to that point, you're making a different argument.
The left can't answer that simple question.
Has tax revenue gone down after major tax cuts?
The answer is no.
Now why it's gone up?
There's a thousand different reasons.
Would it have gone up more if you had tax hikes?
Has tax revenue gone up when you've had some tax hikes?
It's gone up then too!
The point is, if I am going to err on the side of an economic policy, Joe, I want to err on the side of a policy that puts more money in my wallet, don't you?
Yeah.
And if more money in my wallet can be achieved while simultaneously decreasing the tax rates, then why would we, and by the way, government revenue is still going up to pay off some of our debt, why would you not take that approach?
No, no, I want to pay more.
Yeah, but you can pay less and still get more money to the government.
No, no, I want to pay more.
Okay, good, go ahead, knock yourself out, it's voluntary.
Man, is it frustrating sometimes dealing with that?
All right.
This is important, by the way.
The September job numbers came out.
I don't want anybody to panic.
They were not good.
The September job numbers came out.
It turns out we lost 33,000 jobs.
I'll put in the show notes.
Good article out there by CNS News.
I think they work with the Media Research Center.
I try to put links in there, by the way, that are conservative outlets so we don't start paying off the Washington Post with clicks or anything.
But, folks, don't panic.
It's not great news.
I don't want to do what people did in the Obama administration, the liberals.
Like, every time there was economic bad news, they had an excuse.
But last month, we added 150,000 jobs.
We lost 33,000 this month.
It's the first time in seven years.
But you've got to dig into the numbers.
A couple quick points on this so you can calm your liberal friends down who are probably freaking out and celebrating.
Joe, they're probably celebrating that the economy is collapsing right now, or they think it is, right?
Uh, 105,000 jobs were lost based on the job numbers in Texas and Florida.
Hmm.
What, something happened in Texas and Florida?
Hmm.
Yeah, we had a couple hurricanes.
We had RV and we had Hurricane Irma.
Now, keep in mind, the unemployment rate actually went down and here's where people are getting screwed up on this.
They're saying, I don't get it.
If we lost 33,000 jobs in September, how did the unemployment rate go down to 4.2?
Because folks, this is why I'm telling you not to worry.
The way they categorize jobs added or jobs lost is a different methodology than how they categorize unemployment.
Let me make this make sense for you.
The job loss numbers, Joe, if you are a, and by the way, the job losses were concentrated in Texas and Florida, a lot of them, and they were concentrated in the food and like bar type business arena.
Completely makes sense.
No one's going out to a restaurant in the middle of a hurricane.
Now, the reason those numbers are so high, 33,000 jobs lost, is because if you miss a couple of paychecks, let's say, whatever, Joe's Saloon, right Joe?
You have 10 employees?
Yep.
If you tell them, hey, you got to take a couple weeks off or a week off so we can prepare here for the hurricane, You are counted as a job lost, despite the fact that your job's not lost.
Does that make sense?
So you will not be categorized as unemployed in the unemployment numbers.
So does that make sense?
So I just don't want you to panic.
There was actually a lot of good news in this report.
Hourly wages are up 2.9%.
Unemployment is down because outside of Texas and Florida and the food and beverage industry in Texas and Florida, which took a temporary job loss, which is inflating those job loss numbers, Job growth around the rest of the country has been pretty solid.
But does that make sense to you?
Yeah.
You would be, if Joe, God forbid at the radio station, if there was a hurricane that hit Baltimore, and they told you, Joe, we're going off the air for five days, you could be technically counted as a job lost.
Okay.
But you're not counted in the unemployment numbers.
Yeah.
Because you're not unemployed.
I got somewhere to go back to.
Yeah.
Right, right, exactly.
So they're calculated differently.
The point I'm trying to make is don't panic.
The numbers, they're obviously not good.
Anytime you have a negative job number and not a big, big job growth number, it's bad.
But given what happened to the economy, my suspicions are you're going to see a nice rebound next month from this.
So don't worry too much.
All right, can I just kind of sum up?
I don't usually do this, but just to go back to the first thing I talked about, I'm gonna wrap it up.
I just want to be clear on this so I don't get into like, you know, conspiratorial nonsense, all right?
Folks, I'm pretty convinced over the next coming days you're gonna see this radicalization thing come out.
This case makes no sense.
My experience is in the Secret Service with school shootings, and we did a thing called the Exceptional Case Study Project, Joe.
The Secret Service did this years ago where they studied presidential assassins.
None of the pre-attack indicators of an assassin or someone involved in targeted violence are there in this case.
This doesn't make any sense.
There is something seriously wrong here.
If this guy was as psychologically disturbed as it would take to do this with no motivation at all, in other words, you weren't radicalized, it wasn't revenge or anything like that, there would be some indicators.
They're missing.
So don't be surprised at all if you see some kind of a radicalization thing come out in the next few days.
All right, folks, thanks again for tuning in.
I really appreciate it.
Please go to my email list, Bongino.com.
You can subscribe there.
I will send you all these cool articles, including the one from CNS News telling you not to panic about this data, and the Peggy Noonan article as well, which is really good.
I'll talk to you all tomorrow.
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