Ep. 677 Liberal Myth Busting and the Value of Hope
Summary:
In this episode I address an interesting analysis of yesterday’s election upset in Pennsylvania. I also address some common gun control myths and the potential firing of the FBI Deputy Director and what it says about Jeff Sessions.
News Picks:
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Get ready to hear the truth about America on a show that's not immune to the facts with your host, Dan Bongino.
Welcome to the Dan Bongino Show.
Producer Joe, how are you today?
Um, I'm, yeah, I'm doing good.
Yeah, there you go.
I usually say when I talk to you offline, fair to me.
Fair to me.
Fair to me.
All right, a lot of news.
Hey, I told you.
I told you to give old A.G.
Jeff Sessions some time!
Hang tight!
As they used to say in the police academy when we were on the muster deck.
Stand easy!
Stand easy!
Give the man some time!
If something doesn't start happening soon, All right.
It's all good.
And you can start asking for terminations.
You can ask whatever you want.
It's free country.
You're not obligated to listen to me.
But why am I bringing this up at the beginning of the show?
Well, one of the stories I'm going to get into today is there's a rumor, Joe, you probably heard it creeping out there in the news ecosystem about Some potential firings happening, and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe at the heart of this entire Spygate, Clinton email scandal, that he may be getting terminated job-wise.
We're not the left, of course.
Job-wise before Sunday, which is his earliest retirement date.
Yep.
So we'll see what happens.
I've got some ideas on that.
I've got a couple other things, too.
Some gun violence myths.
These are just myths, folks.
They are absolute myths.
And in light of, of course, what happened yesterday with the rally and everything else, I want to get some facts out there and debunk some of these myths about gun violence so we can have a rational conversation.
This is all important stuff.
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Okay, so.
McCabe, the rumor is that he may get fired before Sunday.
Now, there are a couple of ups and downs to this.
First, let me just explain to you again McCabe's key role in this entire scandal, because this is critical.
McCabe...
was the deputy director of the FBI during the Clinton email scandal.
McCabe's wife had run for office as a Democrat while being in charge, by the way, of this Clinton email scandal.
He was the deputy director of the number two, but it's not in question that he was in the significant decision-making chain for this process.
McCabe's wife runs as a Democrat in the state of Virginia.
McCabe's wife, I believe her name is Jill, Also received $700,000 in donations from PACs affiliated with Terry McAuliffe, the Democrat governor of Virginia, who is also deeply embedded with the Clintons.
He's been a Clintonista his entire life.
Now, he doesn't recuse himself to the end.
McCabe is not a friend of Mike Flynn's.
That's a whole other topic.
But McCabe's role in this, and here's where I think the problem is, and this is what I told you in a show, if you listened to it a week ago.
Here's where I think he's running into legal problems, McCabe, and I think his problems are way, way deeper than losing his pension if he gets terminated from the FBI before his Sunday retirement date.
Now, I don't want to confuse anybody here, but just so you understand, he cannot retire before Sunday.
He can't because there are minimum times in service that McCabe has to meet.
But this Sunday, this is it.
This is the red line.
He has to get to that.
He's like this at a marathon, Joe.
I'm almost there!
Dude, you know what's funny?
I'm watching you do that and I thought that was a drop because that sounded so unlike you.
He's almost there.
It's like when your muscles lock up at the end of a marathon.
Now, Why is he in trouble?
Because as I had said to you in one of the shows last week, the Inspector General Horowitz, who is conducting an internal affairs type investigation of the Clinton email investigation and crime surrounding what may have happened or bureaucratic missteps that surrounded this, I had said to you that it's convenient That Sessions in an interview with Shannon Bream had said that he already has someone looking into this from outside of Washington DC.
Right.
He said he's had someone for a little bit now.
That time period corresponds to the discovery of leaks within the FBI about this case.
I really can't lose you on this because this is a critical point.
Folks, this is super important because there's so much rage directed at Sessions out there now, and I get it, I totally get it.
I'm just suggesting to you, hold on, there's something going on behind the scenes.
The appointment, Jeff Sessions has already acknowledged that he made of an outside Washington D.C.
investigator within DOJ to look at all of this stuff.
That appointment corresponds to the release of the Internal Affairs IG report.
I say Internal Affairs because it's easier for people to understand.
I know that's not the proper title, so please don't email me on it.
Well, you're welcome to if you'd like.
But the Internal Affairs IG report released over the summer that just passed, information about leaks within the FBI.
This is where McCabe, I believe, may be in a world of trouble.
The leaks of classified information, folks, are a crime!
McCabe is- you see where I'm going with this show?
Him losing his pension is the least of his worries right now.
Now, the reason I think this is even an issue, and why it's taking so long, because you may, fairly enough, you may be asking, well Dan, if Sessions was all over it, like you say he was, You know, why wait?
Why wait till now?
You get it, Joe?
Yeah, yeah.
You know, why wait till now?
I mean, the deadline is Sunday.
Like, hey, dude, get on the ball.
All of a sudden, we're supposed to have faith in you, but you waited till the last minute?
Folks, I believe this has been going on for a long time, but having worked within the federal government and the law enforcement side, I can tell you, and you probably know this just by instinct, The federal government is a bureaucratic mammoth.
It is a woolly mammoth.
It is a beast.
It is very, very difficult to fire people even who've been convicted of crimes sometimes.
It's really hard.
It's not easy.
Now because of the Responsibility to carry a firearm and the law enforcement authority given to law enforcement officers within the government.
It is a little easier to fire law enforcement personnel because of that responsibility.
If you're an administrative assistant at the Social Security office and you've been, you know, committed a you know you've been accused of a crime the
procedures if you ever if you're a gun carrier you can lose your
Clearance and losing your clearance makes you ineligible to do the job that may not be an issue for
Administrative staff in the Social Security Administration does that make sense Joe?
Yeah, you know if you're I'm not knocking administrative folks
I'm just saying that don't take it the wrong way.
If you're inputting, say, social security records and you work for social security, you may not need a top-secret clearance to do that.
So one of the mechanisms in my experience in the government on the law enforcement and intel side
of getting rid of people is They pull their clearance now
Obviously if you're gonna be if you're guilty of leaking classified information
You're gonna lose your clearance and if you lose your clearance you cannot do the job because you have no access
to the information You need so they say kindly exit stage, right?
You get you see what I'm saying Yeah, no clearance, no gig.
No clearance.
Well, as always, Joe sums it up nicely.
No clearance, no gig, no job.
Thank you.
Have a nice day.
But that process of revoking the clearance is not that clear-cut.
That may have been what took so long to get and push McCabe out the door.
It doesn't just happen like that.
It's not a private company.
It's the federal government.
It moves at a glacial pace at best.
I mean, it is as sclerotic an organization as you're ever going to find, the federal government.
I know, I work there, you can't get anything done.
They still use paper to inventory your expense accounts overseas.
Your expenses, I shouldn't say expense accounts, but your expenses.
It's unbelievable.
We used to have to do these vouchers, Joe, for plane tickets, and you'd wind up having to make 500 copies.
You're like, really?
How many trees are we burning down with this thing?
I thought you were supposed to be environmentalist.
So I told you, be patient with Sessions.
Just for now.
Because I'm convinced, based on this latest piece of information, that McCabe may be out as soon as tomorrow, that things are happening.
And listen, if he's not out by next weekend, obviously by Monday's show we'll know, and I'll come back and say, hey, listen, it didn't work out, they didn't get rid of him.
But there is no doubt in my mind somebody is trying.
I assure you the news channels that are running with this story are not doing it based on nonsensical, spurious information.
You get what I'm saying, Joe?
They're getting this from reliable sources that McCabe may be out the door.
I am confident that this is, that the information came from the IG.
It is probably in the hands of this person.
Sessions has not named him or her yet outside of DC who is looking into all this stuff.
And that information is probably being used right now to try to get McCabe out the door.
Something big's gonna happen.
That's why it's being released on a Friday, Dan.
Yeah, I think so.
You know what?
They may have it now, and it may be... You know what, Joe?
It's a good point.
Maybe they're trying to spare him the embarrassment, because he still has information that he could use if he goes public.
There's no doubt.
Remember I told you this on a show months ago, where people said, well, why is Peter Stroke and Lisa Page the two...
lovers there doing their thing who were investigating the Clinton email scandal
and were on the Trump Special Counsel and exchanged those really nasty texts
about the Trump people. And I said to you one of the reasons I think
they're still working there is because they have information. Better to have
those people contained indoors than have them out there doing their thing.
So it's a good point, Joe.
Maybe they're waiting till Friday, Friday at 5 o'clock, to do a data dump to say, hey, Andy, here's the deal.
We're going to fire your butt.
You're out the door.
We're going to save you some public embarrassment.
So we're going to announce this Friday at 5.01.
Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.
So good point.
That's actually a good analysis.
I hadn't thought about that.
So it could be.
But we'll... I mean, either way, you and I will know on Monday.
Hey, I got some good news, by the way, for you folks.
My wife, on a side note, is working on... I've been calling it the chum store.
Finally, we're working on some t-shirts and some mugs, so I'm real excited about it.
I'll hopefully have some announcements soon on that.
The Chum store.
Yeah, you know, Chum.
You throw it in the water.
That was a Secret Service thing.
In the Secret Service, we had a store, a Secret Service store at the Training Center.
You can go and get stuff with the Secret Service logo on it, and we used to call it the Chum store.
Chum.
Because it was a good way on the road to make people feel good.
You know, when you're on the road, not to beat this up, folks, I never really talk about personal stuff because I don't want to waste your time, but it's an interesting story about how law enforcement works.
You know, in the movies, right, Joe, you've seen movies about the Secret Service and the FBI.
What do they do?
They show up, they flip a badge like, Secret Service, FBI, all you little local law enforcement punks, get out of the way.
I'm telling you right now, you try that in the real world, you're going to get your, mm, kicked all over that town.
You're going to Chattanooga, Tennessee, and you think you're going to tell the local law enforcement how, this is how it's going to go down, and you're in the wrong town, believe me, because they're going to laugh your caboose right out of town if you don't get your butt kicked beforehand.
The real world, that's not the way it works.
You show up, humble as all hell, and you go, hey Mr. Sheriff in Chattanooga, you think you can do us a favor and shut down our roads?
That's the way it really works.
I know, I was there.
So the chum store helped because you'd spend your own money, you'd go, you'd get like two, three hundred dollars worth of Secret Service coins, t-shirts, golf balls, and you know, when you're done with the visit because these are really nice guys, you'd hand out some chum and they like it.
Cool.
But we will have a Dan Bongino show, Chum Store, up and running soon.
Before I get to the gun violence stuff, because this was such a well done piece.
The author of The Daily Signal did a great job.
I'm going to try to have her on my NRA TV show today at 5.30pm, which you can watch at NRATV.com for free.
It's so good.
Before I get to that, I want to bring up another point.
Pat Cadell.
Listen, whether you like Pat or not, he's on Fox a lot.
You've probably seen him.
He's a very nice guy in person.
Super nice.
I mean, has a big heart.
But he's a Democratic strategist.
He had a really great point about the Pennsylvania 18 election that I wanted to put out there because there's You know, there's understandably a lot of hurt feelings about it and people are getting worried.
And as I said to you on yesterday's show, I'm not here to gloss over these things.
Yesterday's show, I indicated to you that the results of that election, that congressional special election between Conor Lamb and Rick Saccone in Pennsylvania, are devastating for Republicans.
And us, you know, pretending and putting lipstick on the pig here, that it was no big deal, it's not going to do anybody any favors.
The bottom line from that race, I think I got to yesterday, was a Republican plus 11 district.
A Democrat is going to wind up winning.
The absentee ballots are not going the other guy's way.
And R plus 11.
That is a heavily, heavily Republican skewed district.
Now, let me be clear on this, because some people emailed me.
They said, well, there are a lot more Democrats registered there.
It doesn't matter.
I don't care about the registration.
I care about how people vote.
Historically, people there, even if they're registered Democrat, have voted Republican.
That Charlie Cook PVI, that Republican plus 11 number, is heavy.
I ran in a D plus 6, and I was considered a, what, 50 to 1 underdog?
This was double that in the Republican side, and the guy wound up winning.
I know, I've been through this process.
To win an R plus 11 as a Democrat or a Democrat plus 11 as a Republican is an astronomical upset.
But Cadell had a really good quote on this race and an interesting piece of analysis I wanted to just put out there for you.
He made a really great point, and this is a quote from him.
He said, Voters never reward you for what you've done in the past.
Every election is about the future.
So a couple of thoughts on that, folks.
Listen, Saccone was not a great candidate.
I'm not going to pile on the guy.
I mean, he ran.
Good for him.
He's got a lot of guts putting his name on the ballot.
And I'm not here to trash the guy.
But he obviously, from everything I've heard, was not a great candidate.
I'm not saying he's not a great guy.
He wasn't a great candidate.
The skills to win weren't there.
Clearly.
Maybe the speeches weren't inspirational.
The volunteers weren't inspired.
I don't know what it is.
It makes more sense, his failures as a candidate, in light of that quote.
Failing to inspire is failing to make people believe that you are going to lead them down or represent them in some path that's going to be better for them.
He didn't do it.
But secondly, and the more important takeaway, is to the GOP, if you're listening, and I know some of you do.
I know it because I've heard it.
Gosh, you've got to get off your butts.
We can't run on the tax cut.
Remember, let me say that again.
This is a quote from Cadell.
Voters never reward you for what you've done in the past.
Every election is about the future.
The tax cut's great!
I love it!
Good job!
Round of applause!
It's over!
It's over!
We did it!
Great!
What's next?
If every election is about the future, which he's right about, Cadell, I am 100% convinced what he's saying is spot-on accurate.
What is the future plan?
How are we doubling down on the tax cut?
What are we going to do next?
Is it regulatory reform?
I saw some action on Dodd-Frank, getting rid of some components of that that have been really cumbersome for small banks in America that are trying to lend money.
What are we doing about government spending, Joe?
A huge issue.
What are we doing about defunding Planned Parenthood?
What are we doing about military technology?
What are we doing about school choice initiatives?
What are we doing?
These are all critical, critical components.
What are we doing to advance the Second Amendment and national reciprocity?
Why does the Constitution end at the state line when it comes to the Second Amendment?
Why is a concealed carry permit holder in the state of Florida?
Can I not carry my weapon in New York?
I mean, I can because of an H.R.
218, but most can't.
Why?
I'm convinced, Joe, that the GOP seemed to think that they could ride this tidal wave of economic optimism from the tax cuts into the next election and not do anything.
Folks, that's not going to work.
Every election is about the future.
Listen, what's next?
What's next?
What are you guys doing?
You've done nothing on spending.
We've thrown the BCA, the sequester, out the window.
You know, you want to inspire solid conservative, libertarian, and republican voters.
You want to inspire them to believe that you're going to provide them prosperous leadership in the future.
A more prosperous America through the votes you're going to take.
And yet, your recipe for the future is what?
To run on a tax cut you passed a few months ago?
Great, but that's not enough!
You've got to do something.
The do matters.
You've got to get off your butts.
I just, I can't, I can't say that enough.
I just feel like there's this apathy that's set in, like, well, we won the House of Reps, we won the Senate, we won the presidency, we passed the tax cut.
That's not the way this works.
You need big, bold agenda items.
It's the only way.
All right, enough on that.
I'm not trying to give him some kind of inspirational speech today.
I just want to put it out there that resting on your laurels is not a recipe for future success.
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Okay.
A note on yesterday's rally because I owe you an opinion.
The reason I was hesitant, you know, yesterday to bring it up and even today is, you know, folks, I just, I feel like these kids are being taken advantage of.
I do.
I am.
And Dana Lash said it well this morning on Fox, and I applaud her for bringing up this point that we can't credibly, though, and this is the kind of the conundrum I find myself in.
So on one side, I mean, it's obvious that the rally, at least in D.C., was made political.
Well, why?
Because politicians were up and talking.
Tell me a Democrat politician, they were there giving political speeches.
There's nothing controversial about that unless your media matters.
Political rallies where politicians speak about political causes.
That's what happened at the D.C.
portion of the rally.
But I do believe a lot of kids out there really would just say, you know, I saw signs never again.
OK, we agree.
But Dana on the other side.
So on one side, I'm torn because politicians, I think, took advantage of the opportunity to advance their political cause, not necessarily the cause of a lot of these kids.
On the other side, Dana said, You know, we're a Second Amendment advocacy organization.
She was talking about the NRA, which she's a spokesperson for.
She said, so, you know, I could never go out there, and nor would I, and nor are we interested in ever of speaking out against anyone's First Amendment rights.
That is your right, absolutely, to go out there and thank God we have it, and we will passionately defend your right to do so.
So I was torn a bit, because, and if you notice, if you follow me on Twitter, I'm usually pretty vocal on Twitter, on the news of the day.
I have tweeted nothing or retweeted anything about this, the rally, because I just, I'm torn on that issue.
Having said that, though, There is a lot of misinformation out there.
And what I find odd about the rally is some of the same politicians who made parts of that rally political showed up yesterday protected by men and women carrying firearms.
Funny how that works.
Which is odd.
So I did tweet out last night before I went to bed, which you may say, well I thought you shouldn't tweet.
No, last night before I went to bed because I saw that because that part I found kind of interesting.
That it's fascinating that There's a rally going on where kids were there at this political rally in DC where the kids are advocating to take away rights from their parents while the politicians showing up to speak at the rally are protected from the same kids and parents with the firearms they want to take away.
The irony.
Did I just say any of that wrong?
I mean tell me about what I just said is wrong.
Kids at a rally are speaking out about taking rights away from their parents, while politicians show up to advocate for taking those rights away, protected using the tools the kids want taken away from their parents.
I found the irony of that just stunning.
Like, does anybody else get this?
Am I missing this?
It just seemed quite odd.
And I was on Tucker last night.
There's one other point I want to bring up, which I missed on the show last night because it was a three, four minute segment.
You know, when I was a Secret Service agent, we went to schools that were gun-free zones with guns when we were protecting the president's kids.
Think about that.
So when the president's kids are involved, the VIPs, the elites, the dignitaries among us, gun-free zone signs don't matter at all.
We ignored them.
We didn't even, you know what I'm saying?
We just did our thing.
Then it's okay.
But when it's your kids involved, we're expected to rely exclusively on the sign that says this is a gun-free zone.
So when it's elites, the kids and the children of elites, we realize that the sign will do absolutely nothing.
Everybody understands that.
Because there'll be a real penalty for failure.
A real penalty in terms of the elites.
But when it comes to our kids, when the real penalty would be something happening to our kids, then we're supposed to only rely on the sign with no tactical measure to fight back at all.
No, no, no guns on campus.
It's a gun-free zone.
But why doesn't that work for the elites?
Why not just say to the Secret Service, hey guys, this is a gun-free zone.
We don't need those here.
Why don't they do that?
Well, has it occurred to any of the liberals listening to the show?
I know you're there.
I get your emails.
Has it occurred to you that when the penalty is a penalty for an elite or a wealthy person who has access, That they all realize the sign is a joke, it's a farce, it's not going to matter.
But again, when it's your kids, they rely exclusively on the sign.
I mean, it's disturbing.
Man, the hypocrisy is just endless, and the fact that people can't be honest about it.
All right, I wanted to get to this piece.
It's up at the Daily Signal today, and it's very, very good.
It's about some gun violence myths.
I haven't done a show like this in a while, and I'm probably going to try, like I said, to have the author of the piece on my NRA TV show tonight because it's so very good and it addresses some of the biggest 30,000 feet issues on firearms and how the myths are so pervasive and so easily debunked by actual data in real world experience.
Here's myth number one.
Myth number one is that America is this grotesquely violent place.
Now, I addressed this in the past with a Mises blog article about how the way the left portrays America as some uniquely violent cabal of devious, you know, legion of doomed criminals, is they compare them to a handful of countries that don't resemble us.
And they say, in the civilized world, America is the most violent place on earth.
Meanwhile, keep in mind, folks, that doesn't comport at all with your experience.
The truth is the overwhelming majority of our listeners out there, thankfully, will never in their entire lives be victims of a violent crime.
But how does that comport with the left's theory, Joe?
The left's theory is this place is so violent you can't even walk out of your house.
Those things don't gel.
Well, not to do the old show over again, but the point in that piece was that when you compare America to places that look like us, That are diverse like us in socioeconomic background, culture, heritage, race, gender, creed.
When you compare America to places that look like us, that we are actually quite safe.
Now, that may not make you comfortable comparing America to places like Russia and Mexico, you know, for different reasons.
Like, based on income scale, you may say, well, they're not as wealthy as we are.
Yeah, fair enough.
But wealth doesn't make people more violent or less violent.
The fact of the matter is, when you look at a country population size somewhat close to us, Russia, we are actually geometrically safer.
When you look at a place that has more of a similar kind of diversity component, like Mexico, like we do, we have a lot of Hispanic immigrants, we're actually quite safer.
What they do is they cherry-pick these countries that are largely homogenous, and they say, oh look, America, you're so uniquely violent.
That's not true.
So number one, that was kind of off, I should have stuck to it, but I'm passionate about this, folks.
I like to debunk this stuff.
Number one myth, America's this uniquely violent place, is nonsense.
America's getting safer, folks.
Now there have been pockets of increased crime in big cities, ironically run by Democrats.
But even those trends are starting to turn down.
Violent crime has been declining, Joe, since the 1990s.
That's a fact.
America is not getting more violent.
America is getting safer.
Read the Daily Signal piece.
I'm going through the key points because it's not that long.
It's about 700 to 900 words.
She has links, studies, bullets, the author of the piece.
All of it laid out in there nicely.
I'm giving you the highlights of it in the top line.
Top line number one, America is not getting more violent, it's getting safer.
Point number two, Joe.
The real public safety concerns when it comes to firearms are suicides and illegal guns.
Folks, that's just backed up by the data!
The data!
Are you interested in the numbers?
Are we interested in the data?
Are we interested in the real world?
What are we trying to do here?
Are we trying to advance an ideological cause here, gun confiscation, by ignoring the data?
Or are we trying to have a reasonable argument based on what's actually happening in the real world, buttressed by facts, data, and research and on-the-ground experience?
What are we trying to do?
If you're interested in the real threats to public safety from gun violence, the public safety concerns here are suicides and illegal guns.
How do I know this?
This fact's been out there for a long time, but she highlights it in the piece.
Two-thirds of all gun deaths, Joe, are suicides.
Now, listen.
Notice, I clearly stated in the headline, this is still a public safety concern.
Because someone kills themselves with a gun, it's not, oh, don't worry, they just killed themselves.
This is clearly a concern.
But arguing about the gun violence problem in the United States and pretending it is someone attacking you with it, when in reality they're ending their own life, they are... Joe, let me be crystal clear.
These are two significant problems, but they are not the same problem.
They are not the same problem.
Does that make sense?
A person killing themselves is a tragedy.
A person shooting you is a tragedy too, but they're different!
Liberals need you to believe that you are under some kind of a special threat from a firearm, and the way they do that is by disingenuously proclaiming, through their talking points, that the threat from gun violence is to you.
Which, listen, in many cases it was, but that is not where the data says the overwhelming number of cases are from.
Two-thirds of gun deaths are suicides.
People who are killing themselves.
Now, if we have time, I'm going to get into what I think the real crisis is and why this is happening.
But that is a different problem.
Clearly, there's some kind of psychopathology, mental health issue going on.
I mean, clearly, who ends them?
I can't imagine doing that.
There's something going on.
There's some mental health issue so powerful that someone couldn't deal with the pain anymore and ended it.
But that is a different problem than that person going out with a gun and shooting, God forbid, Joe Armacost.
God forbid.
Man, we couldn't lose Joe.
Where would we get all those zingers?
It's a different problem.
So just to recap, number one, America's getting safer, not more violent.
Number two, the public safety concerns are suicides and illegal guns.
Another point under this, a sub-bullet.
So two thirds, nope, no pun intended.
Sorry about that, folks.
Sometimes, you know, you say stuff and you're like, but you know what it means, right?
Joe's like, woo, right over that.
So two thirds of gun deaths are suicides.
Second, let's call them sub-points here for the purposes of this.
80% of gun crimes are carried out with illegal guns.
80%!
8 out of 10 gun crimes are committed with people who either stole the guns, acquired the guns illegally, strawman purchases from other people.
In other words, the law didn't matter.
I've been making this point over and over.
Criminals don't care about gun laws.
They don't care.
It doesn't matter to them.
They are entirely irrelevant.
One of the oddest things I find about people that argue about gun laws His gun laws work the opposite of most laws designed to stop violence and criminality in our society.
Think about this.
This is a point worth repeating.
When you have a law for something that's really horrible, like a burglary, like breaking into people's homes, aggravated assault, whatever it may be.
I'm confidently telling 90 plus percent of my audience that law will not affect you one bit and it will not alter your behavior one bit.
That law is designed to put a perimeter around the behavior of criminals.
Not you!
You are not going to burglarize a house.
A law against burglary is not going to affect you, the listener, at all.
You are never going to burglarize a house whether there was a law against it or not.
If we were in the zombie apocalypse, you would not burglarize someone else's house.
I don't know.
Well, maybe if we were in the zombie apocalypse, but you get the point.
The perimeter around the behavior is designed to put a perimeter around the bad guy's behavior.
Bad guys don't do this, right Joe?
Or here's what's going to happen.
You get charged and convicted of burglary, you're going to do five, 10 years in jail.
It's not going to affect you.
Neither are, you know, robbery laws or any of these other laws.
Gun laws work the opposite way.
They put a perimeter fence around the behavior of the law-abiding, while the criminals are outside the fence looking in and laughing!
They're like, oh, you guys have to go fill out a 4473.
You guys have to wait three to seven days or ten days, maybe.
You guys can't buy a standard, you know, 30-round magazine.
You guys can't do this.
But they don't care!
They just shop in the black market on the street.
Hey, I need a 9mm.
Okay, thanks.
Here you go.
They don't care one bit.
Criminals don't care.
Let me read that statistic again.
80% of gun crimes are carried out with illegal guns.
Joe, 80% is bigger than 50%, right?
Yeah.
So it's well over a majority.
Yeah, baby, yeah.
It's well over a majority.
80%.
8 out of 10.
They just steal them.
They go in the cars.
They steal them.
They break into homes.
They steal them.
They get straw men to buy them for them.
They buy them from the Saturday night specials on the street.
They don't care.
Firearm laws work the opposite way.
They stop you, in many cases, from protecting yourself against the wolves.
They don't care at all.
They're outside the fence.
They live in the black market.
That's what they do.
You go to the state of Maryland where you can't get an HQL, a concealed carry license there.
New York, where you can't carry at all.
You need some kind of connections, political connections.
Criminals don't care.
You're the one.
Your behavior's altered, not theirs.
So the public safety concerns here, again, being suicides and illegal guns, you should hammer home to your liberal friends that criminals don't care about gun laws because 80% of the gun crimes that are committed are committed with illegal guns.
Oh, but we need another law.
Why?
Because the first law didn't... Oh, criminal... Oh, I get it.
I get it.
I get your point.
And now it makes the world of sense, Joe.
Criminals didn't care about the gun laws now.
It's the new gun laws they're going to care about.
That makes a ton of sense.
I totally get it.
All right.
Finally, under this second header here about the public safety concerns being suicides and illegal guns, Joe, this one I didn't know.
More people are stabbed every year, sadly, than are murdered with rifles.
I didn't know that either.
Matter of fact, Joe, more people are killed By blunt force trauma from a blunt object, then are murdered with rifles as well.
So, again, if the public safety concern now, just shifting a little bit here, is to rifles, the AR-15 platform, whatever it may be, 5.56 rifles, .223 rifles, if that's your big public safety concern, why isn't your concern knives and baseball bats and 4x4s?
That's a bigger public safety concern based on the actual real-world data, folks.
Why aren't we banning lumber?
Oh, Dan, that's stupid.
You can't outrun lumber.
I mean, you know, you can't outrun a rifle round, but you can outrun... I've heard this lie.
You can't run a baseball... Yeah, no kidding!
That's why we need to defend ourselves against it.
Because you can't outrun it.
With what?
With firearms.
That's why we have that right.
You're making my point, not yours.
I can run away from a baseball bat too.
And hopefully a knife if I'm fast enough.
I may not be with my broken knees.
But you get it, Joe?
When liberals use that talking point, they go, guns are uniquely dangerous.
You can't outrun them.
Exactly.
And 80% of crimes committed with guns are committed by guns that are illegal.
Meaning I should have the right to defend myself against something I can't outrun.
What do you want me to just sit there and take it?
You're making our point, not yours!
But there's nobody arguing, Joe, to ban knives.
Yeah, that'll be next.
And 4x4s.
I shouldn't give them any ideas, right?
But more people are stabbed and killed by blunt force trauma than are murdered with rifles.
Those are just the numbers, folks, however uncomfortable they may be for you.
All right, I've got two more to get to.
Before I get to that, I just want to welcome on another new sponsor.
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All right, here's number three here.
More of these gun violence myths that are really disturbing.
More guns does not equal more crime.
Again, folks, read the Daily Signal piece.
The author does a tremendous job putting this together.
But these are just the facts, however uncomfortable they may be for people strongly desirous of more restrictive laws.
Now, some data points, because anybody can say that.
I've said this to you repeatedly.
I've posted on Twitter charts here showing this.
Gun ownership in the United States has gone up and gun violence has gone down.
When you do a scientific survey, folks, you want the biggest sample size possible.
If I am testing the effects of a medicine or a treatment on a population, I don't just test it on Joe.
Joe may have some unique gene code which he's a non-adapter to that medicine.
So in order to randomize the effects across people, I want a really big audience of subjects.
The biggest audience possible is the United States.
And firearm ownership has gone up dramatically and gun violence has gone down.
Up.
Down.
So the thesis out there by the left is entirely not true that more guns equals more crime because more guns doesn't.
Does not equal more crime.
It's the inverse.
Having said that, I entirely understand.
I hate that I have to keep doing this, but I get it that correlation is not causation.
For those of you who are new listeners, I've used this example often.
I'll bring it up again.
The winter is correlated with more head colds.
That does not mean cold weather causes head colds.
Some of you listening may be like, you're sure?
I've heard that forever.
No, it doesn't.
Or else, you know, Eskimos would be sick all the time.
The reason the cold weather is correlated but doesn't cause colds, correlated, meaning there's a relationship, but it's through another variable, it's not direct, is the cold weather causes your mucus membranes to secrete more mucus in your nose because the air's dry.
So you wind up blowing your nose more in the winter.
You also wind up rubbing your nose more because of, you know, the secretions.
It bothers some people.
You rub your nose more, you're introducing germs into your nasal passages, and that's why you get sick more.
That's it.
It's not the cold weather.
It's not.
It is a correlational, not a causal relationship.
Meaning two factors move together in some direction, but they're not necessarily related.
More winter, more colds.
Did winter cause colds?
No.
It just caused you to rub your face more.
That's it.
If you stopped rubbing your face more, you wouldn't get more colds in the winter.
I say that because I am absolutely conceding the point to our liberal friends that just because there are more guns in the United States and less crime, that that doesn't mean more guns cause less crime, but it does mean that your argument that more guns equals more crime is entirely nonsensical!
I'm not making any other point than that.
Am I clear on this, Joe?
Because I get emails about this all the time.
Really?
Yes, there are people who, they're usually from liberal listeners, which you're always welcome here, of course.
Really, I mean it.
Preaching to the choir is not my only goal here.
But they fail to understand what I'm trying to say.
That sounds pretty simple to me.
It's not.
I will get an email from a liberal listener who will say, what are you saying?
More guns causes less crime.
I'm not saying that.
It may.
I don't know that.
I'm not a researcher on the topic.
I'm simply suggesting your premise That more firearms equals more gun violence is absolutely categorically false.
It's not true.
The inverse is true.
Your correlation is wrong.
It is not backed up by any group of collective data in the United States.
You're just making it up.
Now, to further solidify this point and drive it home, Some data points from the Daily Signal piece, which are really good.
Joe, both Switzerland and Israel have higher gun ownership rates than the United States.
I didn't know.
I knew about Switzerland.
I did not know that about Israel.
They also have fewer gun homicides and fewer violent crimes.
Now, you may cherry pick and say, well, you know, the United Kingdom has less gun homicides and they have more restrictive guns.
I can do that too!
I just did it!
You see the point I'm trying to make?
I am not trying to prove that more firearm ownership equals less crime.
I'm simply telling you the premise you're making.
More firearms, more gun crime.
It's not true!
The correlation doesn't hold up.
What about UK?
What about Israel?
You answer me about Israel and Switzerland, then I'll answer you about the UK because it's the same answer.
Your premise is simply wrong.
It doesn't stand up as you increase the data set.
It doesn't!
Okay, here's another one.
Right-to-carry states, despite liberal assertions otherwise, Joe, where people have the right to carry firearms, well, you know, the Second Amendment guarantees that right, but states that have honored the Second Amendment, which shouldn't be an issue, but is sadly, have seen decreases in violent crime.
Liberals keep touting Other research, it says otherwise.
But what they do is they cherry-pick certain areas.
The research is pretty clear on this, that the right to carry decreases violent crime, doesn't increase it.
Here's another, this was a great point.
Hat tip to the author on this one.
Gun ownership, Joe, is higher in rural areas.
A lot higher than it is in urban areas, city-type environments.
But murder rates are higher in urban areas.
How is that?
That's a great point!
How is that?
How is it that murder rates are higher in urban areas when gun ownership rates are lower?
Legal gun ownership, because we don't know about the illegal ones.
That goes back to a whole other point.
But how is it, if your premise is more firearms equals more crime, how does your premise stand up there?
Yeah, thank you.
That's a perfect time for our head scratching drop.
It doesn't make any sense.
More guns equals more gun crime.
Yeah, but there are more guns in rural areas and the murder rate's lower, not higher.
Hold on.
Let me get back to you on that one.
Here's another one.
Another great point.
Gun freedom states, as measured by the Brady Center, which is an anti-gun advocacy group, right?
Yeah.
Gun freedom states, and this is a bad thing for them, for us it's great, but their thing is gun freedom states really bad.
States that have relatively non-restrictive firearm laws, like New Hampshire, Vermont, Idaho, and Oregon, also have very low homicide rates.
Folks, you seeing a pattern develop here?
Again, I'm not suggesting it's causal.
It may be.
I kind of owe you some explanation of this.
It may be causal.
And one of the reasons I think it is, is because, a very simple reason, Joe.
If you're a burglar, if you're a forced entry, you know, robber, wants to break into a house, you want to break into a house with an armed subject or a non-armed subject?
That would be a non-armed subject.
That would be non-armed, right Joe?
There you go.
Joe the audience ombudsman always comes up with a nugget of brilliance.
You don't want to break into a house where you think the homeowners could potentially cost you your life.
Hell no.
So my humble opinion, I'm not a researcher on this topic, but a little bit of common sense here.
My experience in law enforcement dictates to me that the reason some of these violent crime rates in high gun ownership areas and high gun ownership states is lower is because people don't want to lose their life to commit a crime.
It's not complicated to figure out.
Okay.
Here's one more.
Australia.
I've already talked about the research on Australia, the American Medical Association, and a number of other studies have shown that the Australia gun confiscation law had little effect on suicide and homicide rates.
It's just, whatever the liberals tell you about Australia, they're making it up.
The laws had very little effect, statistically significant effect, on homicide or suicide rates.
All right.
One more point on this, because I know we're running a little low on time today.
Check that out there.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, I like these beefy shows full of information.
Point number four, concealed carry weapons holders.
This is an amazing statistic, Joe.
Our law-abiding citizens.
Well, you say, well, what does that mean?
Give us some context.
People who hold concealed carry permits commit crimes, Joe, at estimates of one-sixth and one-tenth the rate of You thought I was going to say like the general population, right?
They commit crimes at one-sixth to one-tenth the rate of police officers.
Oh!
Yeah, there are some police officers who commit crimes, unfortunately.
Concealed carry permit hold, that is obviously infinitesimally small, the rate of crime by police, right?
Police officers, it's a rarity to find a police officer committing a crime.
But concealed carry permit holders, folks.
Commit crimes.
Let's go on the low end.
Let's not even use the 110.
Let's use 1-6.
At 1-6 the rate of cops!
And you think they're the problem?
Legal gun owners, what data do you have to back that up?
The data doesn't back you up, it backs us up.
You're just making it up.
Alright, now what's the real crisis here?
I'm gonna wrap up on this.
Folks, the real crisis we have to address here, there's a terrific piece.
By the way, that Daily Signal piece will be at the show notes today.
Please read it.
It's so, so good.
Be at Bongino.com.
If you subscribe to my email list, which we always appreciate, I will email you these articles every day along with other selections.
I take about two hours every day going through the internet to get you the best stuff out there.
I have another piece that will be...
Up today at my show notes.
It's from Star Parker.
It's really, really good.
Star's a friend.
And she talks about the real crisis.
And this is very serious, folks.
The real crisis has been the war on men going on for a very long time in our culture.
The liberal war on men.
We've talked about this, you and I. Yeah, it's troubling.
Whether it's the war on boys, or the term toxic masculinity, or whatever these new generation liberals want to do to knock men off this pseudo-perch they think we're on here, it's been troubling.
And I just want to give you some numbers to back this up.
Star writes about, she's talking about a researcher here, a guy by the name of Nicholas Eberstadt, who wrote a very popular book, and they're talking about the crisis of men working now.
Or, as I should say more precisely, the crisis of men not working.
Here's a quote from Eberstadt.
The proportion of economically inactive American men of prime working age leapt from 3.4% in 1965 to 11.8% in 2015 and remains at 11.5% today.
By my own calculations, this is star talking, almost 5 million prime age working men have disappeared from the workforce.
Man, folks, listen, I'm not your preacher.
I'm not.
I'm a sinner like everybody else.
But gosh, what does it do to a man to be in your prime working age and to seemingly have no hope?
You know, I like to tie these shows together.
There was a reason I started with the Cadell quote.
If every election is about the future because people are generally optimistic and like to have hope, every life's about the future too.
You know, when you talk to men who've suffered unspeakable horror, who've been POWs in prison camps, I know quite a few of them, and you ask them what got them through it, it was hope.
It was a hope that, quite literally, it was hope.
It was hope that they were going to see their family again, that they were going to get to eat a steak one day again, that they were going to see a movie again, that one day they were going to taste freedom again, that they were going to get out of their jail cell and they were going to breathe free air one more time.
When you squash that hope, you squash everything.
If there were no hope of that ever, if someone had convinced them that the United States as they knew it was now gone, and this prison wall was the last thing they were ever going to see, it is over.
Elections are about hope, but so are people.
Five million guys out there, prime working age, with nothing.
No hope, no job, no prospects.
And we're wondering why some people turn to crime and violence?
What else do you have but the immediate satisfaction of taking what belongs to someone else?
You have nothing left.
Your life is a vacuum.
Folks, that's why I talk all the time about the economy on the show.
Because it's not about the economy.
It's about hope.
It's about work.
It's about meaning.
It's about jobs.
It's about value.
It's about imparting value on society.
I've seen it firsthand.
I know when I lost that first election.
I was out of work for a little while.
It was devastating.
But you know what it did?
It spurred me and Joe to do something.
It spurred me and Joe on a Sunday at my house at Severna Park, Maryland, Stewart's Landing, to start a show called The Dan Bongino Show at the time.
