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April 2, 2019 - The Michael Knowles Show

43:36

Ep. 324 - Killing Babies, Saving Murderers

The Left launches a crusade to murder innocent babies in Georgia while simultaneously trying to overturn the death penalty for rapists and murderers. A new study shows assault weapons bans don’t reduce homicide. Finally, Dorothy Parker offers a macabre kick off to National Poetry Month! Date: 04-02-2019 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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	The left launches a crusade to murder innocent babies in Georgia while simultaneously doing its best to overturn the death penalty for rapists and murderers.
	We will examine the left's inverted judgment and why good judges matter.
	Then a new study shows that assault weapon bans do not reduce homicide.
	Finally, Dorothy Parker describes all the ways to kill yourself on this macabre way to kick off National Poetry Month.
	I'm Michael Knowles and this is The Michael Knowles Show.
	Today's show is all about death.
	Thank you.
	Beginning to end, it's all about death, because there was a very important decision that just came down from the Supreme Court, thanks to Justice Gorsuch, and I guess thanks to Justice Kavanaugh, because this was a 5-4 decision on the death penalty, and Kavanaugh was the one who replaced Anthony Kennedy.
	He was that swing vote, and he sided with the conservatives.
	This is very important.
	And it's funny I say sided with the conservatives, because a lot of people who are conservative or libertarian or in the conservative movement...
	Oppose the death penalty.
	They hate the death penalty.
	They're very wrong about this, and we'll examine why.
	Judge Gorsuch was the one who gave this opinion.
	The case was Bucklew v.
	Preseth, the director of the Missouri Department of Corrections et al.
	The case was all about cruel and unusual punishment.
	The case was all about evolving standards of decency.
	The case was basically about whether we can outlaw the death penalty by making up imaginary things in the Constitution.
	That's really what it's about.
	Whether you like the death penalty or you don't like the death penalty, what this case is really about is whether a bunch of robed justices or benevolent bettors or self-appointed elites can outlaw the death penalty simply because they imagine something in the Constitution that isn't there.
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	What was this Supreme Court decision about?
	Bucklew versus Preseth, director of the Missouri Department of Corrections.
	This guy, Bucklew, he's a convicted murderer, convicted rapist.
	He's on death row.
	He has blood-filled tumors on his neck.
	And I told you, this show was going to be really tough.
	It's a little grotesque, a little tough to listen to.
	But very important decision that came out.
	He's got all of these blood-filled tumors and...
	What his lawyers are arguing is because of this medical condition, it could make lethal injection painful.
	Now, I know what you're thinking.
	The guy's going to be dead in 30 seconds.
	If he has a little pain, what's the big deal?
	The question in this case that ostensibly the judges were looking at is whether the possibility of this guy having a painful execution makes the execution itself cruel and unusual punishment and therefore unconstitutional.
	And Justice Gorsuch and Kavanaugh and all the conservatives came out and said, of course...
	This does not, because you have a tumor on your neck, this does not mean that the state can't execute you.
	This does not mean that the death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment.
	The Constitution does not ensure you a painless execution.
	That's one of the main takeaways from this decision.
	By the way, it was a total cheap trick.
	Total BS. This guy Bucklew had faced the death penalty for 18 years he was waiting on death row.
	And then, 12 days before he was scheduled to be executed, all of a sudden, he said, oh no, I've got this medical condition, and we have to file appeals.
	So they filed appeals.
	This led to five years of litigation.
	The appeals ran out last year, so he was finally going to be killed.
	He was on death row for 18 years, then another five years of litigation, and you're looking 23 years down the line.
	And just as he was about to be killed, the justices halted the execution when...
	Kennedy sided with the liberals.
	So some of the fears with Kavanaugh being appointed to fill Kennedy's spot is Kennedy sort of liked him, he clerked for Kennedy, Kennedy sort of picked him, and there's this fear that Kavanaugh is going to side with the liberals.
	But on this case, On this exact case, you saw Kavanaugh siding with the conservatives while his predecessor, Kennedy, had sided with the liberals.
	You are seeing a change in the shift of power on the court.
	So thank goodness for Kavanaugh.
	Thank goodness for Neil Gorsuch.
	Thank goodness for the election of Donald Trump, because you wouldn't have had any of those things had Hillary Clinton won.
	So to the actual meat of the case, I guess the question is, why do we need to kill this guy?
	Because we're only arguing over these points of the Constitution.
	We seem to forget that there is a criminal here who has committed serious crimes, crimes serious enough to merit execution in an age where we don't like killing people very much.
	This is what Gorsuch wrote.
	The people of Missouri, the surviving victims of Mr.
	Bucklew's crimes and others like them, deserve better.
	Under our Constitution, the question of capital punishment belongs to the people and their representatives, not the courts, to resolve.
	Now listen to this.
	Adam Smith used to say, he wrote down famously, mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.
	And we think, all we think about is this poor, murderous rapist, Buckloo, who's got some tumor on his neck and it might hurt when he gets lethal injection.
	That's what we think about.
	We don't think about the victims of his crimes, which we'll get to in a second.
	Most importantly of all, the people that we always forget about are the citizens, the people of Missouri.
	Listen to how Gorsuch begins this.
	The people of Missouri...
	Deserve better.
	Why?
	Why?
	He didn't murder the people of Missouri, not more than a couple of them.
	He didn't attack the people of Missouri.
	He did.
	Because crime is an assault on the country, on the community, on justice.
	And therefore, the civil authority has to enforce justice, has to bring us justice.
	Because it affects all of us.
	This is the point of criminal justice that we always forget.
	We remember the criminal part.
	We remember rehabilitation.
	We remember deterrent.
	We forget about the justice part of it.
	And this is important, and this affects all of us, and we all demand it.
	Then, of course, Gorsuch gets to the point here.
	The question of capital punishment belongs to the people and their representatives, not the courts, to resolve.
	Okay.
	Obviously, at the time of the ratification of the Constitution, Nobody thought that the death penalty was cruel and unusual punishment.
	The death penalty was basically the definition of a felony.
	There was the death penalty everywhere when the Constitution was adopted.
	Nobody thought that was cruel and unusual punishment.
	Now today, some people think it's cruel and unusual to kill criminals for committing crimes.
	It's becoming increasingly unusual because these courts and these judges have taken away the power of the people to decide this.
	But let's say we don't like the death penalty anymore.
	Society has gone soft.
	We don't want to kill criminals anymore.
	Whatever the reason.
	Say you don't trust the state to carry it out.
	You think there's too much corruption.
	Okay, there are a lot of arguments against the death penalty.
	If you don't like the death penalty, then convince your fellow citizens and pass a law outlawing the death penalty.
	You can do that.
	That's what a self-governing people is allowed to do.
	What you shouldn't do is have attorneys general or DAs or governors or presidents or judges just waving their hand and saying, oh, pish posh, forget about the law.
	We don't need the law.
	Who cares what the people want?
	I know, in my infinite wisdom, I know better than everybody else.
	I know better than all the citizens of this country, the citizens of this state, the framers of the Constitution.
	I know better than everybody, and so I'm just going to pretend that the death penalty is unconstitutional.
	It's not unconstitutional.
	It's very constitutional to kill criminals.
	But if you don't like it, fine.
	Convince your fellow citizens and pass a law.
	However, remember that these guys are pretty bad hombres.
	Remember that these victims deserve justice.
	Remember that a civilized society deserves justice for the victims, on behalf of the victims, on behalf of justice generally, and for the perpetrators.
	This guy Bucklew...
	Now, 20 years ago, 23 years ago, I guess, went on a rampage in 1996 after his girlfriend tried to break up with him.
	Where are the feminists on this?
	Where is the Me Too movement?
	This guy goes on a violent rampage as his girlfriend tries to break up with him.
	She flees to a neighbor's house.
	He goes over there and shoots and kills the neighbor.
	He then beats this woman with his gun and rapes her.
	Then, the police come and he gets into a shootout with the police.
	Finally, thankfully, he's arrested.
	He's sent to jail.
	He escapes from jail, and then he goes and attacks the girlfriend's mother with a hammer.
	This guy needs to be put down.
	He needs to be taken out back and put down like old yeller.
	For all reasons.
	For all three reasons that we have capital punishment and criminal justice as a deterrent, and we would have a much better deterrent effect if we had taken this guy out back and put him down like old Yeller in 1997, right after it happened, not 23 years later.
	We have to do this for the retributive effect, because this demands justice.
	Justice demands to be satisfied.
	And, even as a matter of rehabilitation, I don't think any amount of therapy is going to turn this guy around.
	I don't think going into a therapy session and hugging each other and saying, oh...
	Hey, let's talk about our feelings.
	Oh, daddy didn't go to your baseball game when you were a kid.
	Oh, okay, they're there.
	Now you're reformed.
	I don't think so.
	The only chance this guy has at rehabilitation is to stare down the gallows and say, well, I'm about to meet my maker in an hour.
	I guess I had better start taking these things seriously, and I better throw myself on the ground and ask for forgiveness.
	That's the closest to rehabilitation this guy's ever going to get.
	So what's the bottom line from this case?
	We're talking about cruel and unusual punishment.
	We're talking about the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution in the Bill of Rights.
	And this is what Gorsuch writes.
	The Eighth Amendment has never been understood to guarantee a condemned inmate a painless death.
	That's a luxury not guaranteed to many people, including most victims of capital crimes.
	This is a great point, by the way.
	For the vast majority of people on Earth, for all of human history, no one can expect a painless death.
	We all sort of hope, we think, you know, when my day finally comes, I hope that I can go out in my sleep.
	Or, you know, smoking a cigar on a beach somewhere.
	You say this, oh gosh, I'd just like a painless death, because for the vast majority of human history, we've had very painful deaths.
	Now, He makes that point about everybody.
	Then he makes the point of the victims of capital crimes.
	Because Bucklew's girlfriend didn't have a pain-free experience with him.
	His girlfriend's mother didn't have a pain-free experience.
	That neighbor, just in the very moment of that incident, didn't meet a pain-free death.
	And Bucklew can't expect to meet a pain-free death either.
	Now, Neil Gorsuch goes on to clarify what he means.
	Does this mean that we should torture the guy?
	Does this mean that we should give him an intentionally painful death?
	No, of course not.
	Gorsuch writes, what the Eighth Amendment does guarantee is a method of execution that's not cruel and unusual.
	And ever since the founding, people have understood that the only way to tell if the method is cruel is to compare it with other known and available alternatives to see if the state is inflicting substantially more pain than necessary to carry out its lawful sentence.
	So we don't want cruel and unusual punishments.
	In the opinion here, they talk about other punishments that, at the time of the ratification of the Constitution, We're done away with.
	Drawing and quartering people, disemboweling them, those sort of things would be cruel and unusual.
	They were understood to be cruel and unusual at the time, and so even as the Constitution was adopted, you couldn't inflict that sort of capital punishment on somebody.
	But how about today?
	This is the question that the court's liberals bring up.
	I mean, why are we having this discussion?
	It is so obvious that capital punishment is not unconstitutional.
	And yet a lot of people are pretending that it is.
	Why?
	Because of this one man, Chief Justice Earl Warren, in 1958, coined the term evolving standards of decency.
	He did it in this case, Tropp v.
	Dulles.
	Evolving standards of decency.
	This is a very funny statement because we like to flatter ourselves, we moderns, we people living in 2019.
	We say, gosh, we're just such decent people.
	We're just so good.
	We would never do barbaric things like kill murderers and rapists for their heinous crimes.
	We would never do awful indecent things like...
	Enforce justice and bring about justice for the victims of violent crimes and for the society at large.
	Oh, that would be so indecent.
	Oh, hey, let's go kill a million babies a year.
	Hold on, I'm sorry, I'm just...
	I'll be right there.
	I'm going to go kill a million babies a year.
	I'm going to go boycott Georgia because they don't want to kill a million babies a year.
	But hold on.
	I just have to finish my lecture on decency.
	But I'll be right there, and then we can go kill all of those babies.
	I'm sorry.
	Where was I? Oh, yes.
	I was talking about our evolving standards of decency and how much more decent we are today than those awful people in the past who enforced capital punishment for violent criminals and also didn't kill a million babies a year.
	Decency.
	So, Gorsuch basically goes right at the jugular of this stupid idea from Earl Warren.
	And he says, quote, the Constitution allows capital punishment.
	In fact, death was, quote, the standard penalty for all serious crimes at the time of the founding.
	It was the definition of a serious crime.
	You hang.
	You hang.
	He goes on, It is manifestly clear that the Constitution permits the state to deprive criminals of life for serious crimes.
	This is an argument also for originalism, especially on this case, because conservatives are divided about this.
	Pope Benedict said this when he was still Pope, which is that there can be legitimate disagreement among Catholics as to the question of the death penalty.
	He's recognizing Catholics are very split on the question of the death penalty.
	This new pope wants to pretend that there can't be legitimate disagreement.
	But there can be.
	And the same is true for the conservative movement.
	I totally get the arguments against the death penalty.
	I don't think they're ultimately convincing.
	I don't even think they're really that good.
	But they're legitimate arguments.
	I think there can be totally legitimate disagreement among conservatives about the death penalty.
	However, there cannot be legitimate disagreement over the constitutionality of the death penalty.
	The death penalty is obviously, repeatedly, manifestly constitutional.
	And even if you don't like the death penalty, even if you wish that there were some prohibition of the death penalty in the Constitution...
	You still should defend originalism.
	You still should defend what the Constitution means.
	You still should defend the constitutionality of the death penalty.
	Why is that?
	Because what is the alternative?
	Even the liberals should defend originalism.
	Even the radicals.
	Even the radical reformers.
	Because what is the alternative?
	I got to ask Justice Scalia this when I was still in college.
	I got to meet him twice before he died.
	And one of the questions that was asked was, shouldn't this method of constitutional interpretation, originalism, shouldn't this just be taken in the context of all the other methods of constitutional interpretation?
	And he said, what other method?
	At least originalists have a clear interpretive scheme.
	At least originalists have a clear interpretive methodology.
	What's the constitutional interpretive methodology of Ruth Bader Ginsburg or Sonia Sotomayor?
	It's willy-nilly.
	What is the clear method of constitutional interpretation of Earl Warren?
	There isn't one.
	It's whatever little fancies pop into his head.
	Who is to decide evolving standards of decency?
	Earl Warren, I guess.
	Just whatever they want.
	They say, you know, those framers obviously allowed for the death penalty, but today I, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, don't like it, and so I'm going to pretend it's unconstitutional.
	Okay, well, I think when the framers wrote the Constitution, I think what they really meant was that in 2019, Michael Knowles should get a lifetime supply of Chick-fil-A sandwiches.
	I'm pretty sure that's what they meant.
	That's just what I feel, because...
	Because that would form a more perfect union for me.
	So I think they wrote, we the people, in order to form a more perfect union, obviously my having free Chick-fil-A sandwiches for the rest of my life would make the union more perfect, definitely to me.
	So give me my Chick-fil-A. It's there.
	Look, it's just an evolving understanding.
	I know what you're going to say.
	There wasn't Chick-fil-A at the time of the ratification.
	Right, right.
	But because of evolving standards of decency, because of evolving standards of taste and deliciousness, I think it's manifestly clear that in order to form a more perfect union, you need to give me free chicken sandwiches for the rest of my life.
	What the liberals on the court are saying is not in any way less ridiculous than the statement that I just made.
	And I really am waiting.
	I know a few liberals, left-wingers, who would call themselves textualists and originalists because they see that what's good for the goose is good for the gander.
	They see that either you accept the meaning of the Constitution for what it is or you don't have a Constitution.
	Either you accept what the words mean and then if you don't like them you amend the Constitution or if there's more wiggle room in the law you just pass a law.
	Or you don't have law.
	Or you don't have the Constitution.
	This reminds me of that Bible analogy.
	When people say, they start quoting the Bible out of context.
	Alyssa Milano does this a lot.
	We'll get to that in a second.
	To defend the indefensible.
	But when people say, well, in the Bible it says this.
	And that's why.
	And then they go form all these crazy conclusions from it.
	Looking at the Bible...
	Without context, without a knowledge of history, and trying to draw grand theological conclusions from that is like looking down a deep, dark well, and all you see is your own reflection on the surface.
	This is why there are 30,000 denominations of people who all have the one true interpretation of the Bible.
	And it was finally discovered in 1967.
	Finally, oh, after 2,000 years of darkness, finally, random Joe Schmoe has figured out the true meaning of the...
	Okay, fine, whatever.
	The same thing about the Constitution.
	When you look down at that profound document, with all that profound history and tradition that it represents, and all of the tradition that's come from it, and you look down at it and you take it completely out of context, completely out of the context of what the words meant by the people who wrote them and what they were commonly understood to mean at the time of ratification, you are just looking down a deep dark well and all you see Is your own reflection on the surface.
	Your own evolving standards of decency, or in this case, indecency.
	Excellent decision from Judge Gorsuch.
	Excellent decision from Kavanaugh and Alito and Roberts and Thomas.
	All the good conservatives.
	Well done, guys.
	Really glad we won that last presidential election so we got those two judges to make a very good decision.
	Speaking of death, there is...
	An evolving indecency standard from Alyssa Milano, who now is leading the charge in Hollywood to boycott Georgia.
	Why, you ask?
	Because Georgia doesn't want to kill as many babies.
	This has become the crusade.
	Now Alyssa Milano is invoking God in her quest to kill more babies.
	We will analyze Alyssa Milano's very suspect theology.
	Then, news that the assault weapons ban doesn't lower homicide...
	Then, a poem about suicide to kick off National Poetry Month.
	But first, go to dailywire.com.
	You have to do it.
	You have got to do it.
	Listen to the headline today from Think Progress.
	This was after that decision came down from Judge Gorsuch.
	Gorsuch just handed down the most bloodthirsty and cruel death penalty opinion of the modern era.
	Get your tumblers out.
	You need the Tumblr, or the tears will get all over your computer, or your phone, and it will all break apart.
	All your electronics will fizzle, and then you'll drown.
	So go get the Leftist Tears Tumblr.
	$10 a month, $100 for an annual membership.
	You get everybody at The Daily Wire.
	You get to ask questions in the mailbag coming up Thursday, so make sure to get your questions in.
	We'll be right back with a lot more.
	Alyssa Milano is invoking God to kill more babies.
	Okay, so why is this?
	The background here is that Georgia is trying to pass a heartbeat bill.
	This is the idea that you can't kill babies down the line.
	Now, we know that 80% of Americans oppose late-term abortion.
	We know that two-thirds of Americans who identify as pro-choice oppose late-term abortion.
	The vast majority of this country opposes late-term abortion.
	But Hollywood loves late-term abortion.
	And the Democrat Party loves late-term abortion.
	And the Democrat governor of Virginia loves abortion after the child's already been born.
	And the governor of New York loves abortion while the child's being born.
	And all of the Democrat senators love taking away protections from babies who survive abortion.
	They've just gone crazy on the question of abortion.
	So now, George is trying to pass this heartbeat bill to save some babies, and Hollywood is up in arms.
	Because a lot of TV and film is shot in Georgia.
	This has been going on for years now.
	Georgia had a lot of tax incentives for Hollywood to come out there.
	And so it's brought a lot of the industry out to Georgia.
	Now Hollywood is threatening to take it all away if they don't let them keep killing babies and serving them up to Moloch for dinner.
	So Alyssa Milano is leading the charge, of course.
	Alyssa Milano, the voice of Her liberal generation.
	Alyssa Milano has somehow become the most articulate spokesperson on the left.
	It's her and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
	And she's leading Amy Schumer, Judd Apatow, Alec Baldwin, all threatening to boycott if Georgia doesn't keep killing babies.
	Also, for those last two guys, Judd Apatow and Alec Baldwin, how creepy is it when men are pro-abortion extremists?
	It is the creepiest thing.
	It's creepier than Beto O'Rourke.
	Well, I guess he's just an example of that.
	Never mind.
	It's so, so creepy.
	It's creepy when women do it, too, but it's especially creepy when men do it.
	This is what they wrote, quote, We cannot in good conscience continue to recommend our industry remain in Georgia.
	Now, Hollywood brings a lot of money to Georgia.
	Hollywood brings a lot of work to Georgia, because a lot of people now have gone to Georgia, worked in the industry, working around the industry, working downstream of the industry.
	So Hollywood is now literally offering to Georgia a deal with the devil.
	They're saying, ooh, hey, do you like all that mammon that we keep bringing you?
	Do you like how we keep satisfying all of your lusts and greed and giving you a lot of money?
	Do you like that?
	Okay, we'll keep doing that, but you have to keep feeding us all of those babies of yours.
	You have to keep giving us all those babies.
	Listen, it's a really simple tax incentive structure.
	You just give us a little bit of a tax incentive, and you pour an endless stream of babies down the gullet of Baal to satisfy his demonic urges, and then we'll keep bringing you the jobs.
	Come on, it's no big deal.
	We hash these out all the time.
	I'll get my agent from CIA on the line.
	We'll hash it out.
	You'll give us all your babies, and we'll eat them, and it's all good, right?
	Okay?
	That is what a deal with the devil is.
	So it's no surprise that Alyssa Milano is now invoking God to justify killing babies.
	Here's what she wrote.
	I love God.
	I believe in God.
	But I don't believe my personal beliefs, of which we can't confirm, should override scientific facts and what we can confirm.
	Okay, then she goes on to quote John 3.12, but I'll just obviously try to get past the incoherent grammar and syntax.
	She says, I love God.
	I believe in God.
	That's interesting.
	I didn't know that she believed in God.
	I take her at her word.
	So she believes in God.
	But I don't believe my personal beliefs, which we can't confirm, should override scientific facts and what we can confirm.
	So she doesn't believe in God.
	Because what she's saying is that God is a personal belief that she can't confirm.
	And God is not a fact.
	The existence of God is not a fact.
	So she's saying the existence of God is not knowable.
	She is not claiming that God exists.
	She's not claiming that the statement God exists is true.
	What she's really saying is, I sort of have this personal feeling about God.
	I just have the feels.
	You know, sometimes I imagine certain things, and I guess one of them is God, but the existence of God is not a fact.
	So I prefer scientific facts.
	What scientific facts is she talking about?
	We know that unborn babies are babies.
	We know that they're alive.
	They're not dead.
	They're not rocks.
	They're living.
	We know that they're humans.
	They're not giraffes.
	They're not platypuses.
	They're not goldfish.
	They're humans.
	So they're living human babies.
	That's a scientific fact.
	Now, taking God out of it for just a second, it's very...
	I don't know what her personal beliefs really are on God.
	She hasn't really explained that very much.
	We do know the personal belief that she's really pushing here is that it is morally acceptable to kill babies.
	But then look at what she just said.
	She said that personal beliefs that we can't confirm should not override scientific facts that we can confirm.
	Babies are babies.
	That's a scientific fact that we can confirm.
	It is morally acceptable to kill babies and murder them in the womb.
	That is a personal belief that we most certainly cannot confirm.
	Even if you believe that it's true, even if you think it's perfectly fine to kill babies in the womb, At the very least, you would have to admit that is a personal belief, and we can't confirm it.
	You can't confirm that to me, right?
	Okay.
	So, if it is the case that we should not allow personal beliefs that we can't confirm to override scientific facts that we can confirm, then we most certainly should not be killing babies in Georgia, or anywhere else for that matter.
	She actually makes the case for the opposite of the thing that she thinks she's making the case for.
	And then she goes on.
	And quotes John 3.12.
	If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?
	Again, just a total, total self-own.
	Just a total colossal attack on her own argument.
	Here is an earthly thing.
	Babies are babies.
	That's an earthly thing.
	And you do not believe that.
	So how can you possibly believe if you're told heavenly things?
	Really bad argument, really weird obsession, really out of line with the vast majority of Americans who oppose killing babies in the womb.
	That's Hollywood for you.
	No wonder people aren't going to their movies.
	That's so weird.
	It doesn't make any sense, does it?
	No wonder Unplanned, a pro-life movie, one of the first ever made, Made on a shoestring budget, cut off from social media, savaged by the mainstream critics.
	Became the number five movie in America over the weekend.
	94% audience score.
	It's a huge...
	When you look at it, You know, Vox.com is finally admitting.
	They finally say they went crazy with the Russia thing.
	It was Matt Taby from Rolling Stone said, in purely journalistic terms, this is an epic disaster.
	Sean Illing from Vox said, a lot of people simply did not want to believe that Trump was a legitimate president, that someone this vulgar and this dishonest would win the election.
	And I think that disbelief and the emotional devastation of his election colored a lot of our judgments.
	Basically taking a mea culpa and saying, you know, We all went crazy.
	Gosh, wasn't that crazy how for two years we all convinced ourselves that Donald Trump, the guy we've all known for 40 years, tabloid star, reality TV star, that that guy was actually a super secret double agent spy working for the Kremlin?
	Wow, what a crazy self-induced psychosis we've just lived through.
	That's what we're seeing with abortion.
	We're going to look back on this.
	Or future generations are going to look back and say, do you know that the most famous people in the country, people who were in movies and TV, they were totally obsessed with killing babies?
	And do you know they made arguments invoking the name of God himself to justify killing babies?
	How on earth did that happen?
	It's a self-induced psychosis.
	And the way you know it's a psychosis is it's basically only believed by these small numbers of lunatics in Hollywood.
	That they are not representative of the American people.
	They're not representative of Democrats.
	They're not representative of liberals.
	They're not even representative of people who support abortion.
	Even people who support abortion, two-thirds of them oppose late-term abortion.
	These guys cheer on abortion up until the baby's being born, and some of them thereafter.
	That is a self-induced psychosis.
	And they're all going to look very foolish in the coming years.
	They already look foolish, I guess.
	But it's a very dangerous game to be invoking God on these things.
	They might have consequences beyond just public opinion.
	Speaking of death, again, there was a new study that came out.
	You know, we've been told by all these same people, we need to ban the AR-15.
	We need to ban large capacity magazines.
	We need to do something.
	Do something.
	David Hogg is going to go on television and call senators murderers and terrorists.
	All those kids from Parkland who decided to try to get famous off of a tragedy.
	They go on TV. If you don't stop taking money from the NRA, if you don't ban the AR-15, if you don't ban high-capacity magazines, you're a murderer, you're a terrorist, you have blood on your hands.
	Turns out, none of that's true.
	It was a study that came out.
	It's called The Impact of State Firearm Laws on Homicide and Suicide Debts in the USA, 1991 to 2016, a panel study.
	This study looked at four states.
	It looked at ten different types of gun control.
	It concluded, high-capacity magazine and assault weapons bans do not lower homicide rates.
	Period.
	Punto e basta.
	Now, I sort of say these things with a little bit of a sarcastic voice, or I'll put them in quotes when I write it.
	Because what is a high-capacity magazine?
	I think in California these days, it's like, if you can have 11 rounds, that's high capacity.
	What is an assault weapon?
	Assault weapon is a made-up term.
	What's the difference between a regular hunting rifle that you can think of and an AR-15 assault weapon?
	Practically, basically no difference at all.
	But the reason that they use these terms, the reason that activists invented these terms, is because they create a false image in your mind.
	When you hear assault weapon, you think of an assault rifle.
	You think of a fully automatic rifle.
	You think of a machine gun.
	You think of people going into war, pulling the trigger once, and having a spray of bullets come out.
	You think of Al Capone with a Tommy gun.
	What is an assault weapon, though?
	It's just a gun.
	You pull the trigger once and one bullet comes out.
	Fully automatic weapons have been outlawed for a very long time.
	Heavily, heavily regulated.
	Pull the trigger once, one bullet comes out.
	And the people who are pushing gun control laws are so disingenuous.
	This study is not going to change their mind.
	It was never about preventing homicides.
	It was never even about preventing mass shootings.
	We know for a fact that many, many, many more people are killed every year from handguns.
	Than from AR-15s and actually any rifle all put together.
	Order of magnitude and multiples more people killed from handguns.
	More people are killed from hammers and baseball bats than are killed from AR-15s.
	And yet they go after the AR-15.
	One, because the AR-15 is a very popular rifle.
	And two, because they know they can trick people.
	Because it looks scary.
	It's not really much more lethal.
	It just looks really scary and they know that it's totally disingenuous.
	All a gun-grabbing law.
	So this is a good statistic to have to be able to cite, but it's not going to change anybody's mind.
	It's not going to It's not really going to change the discourse other than giving the people who want to protect our rights and our liberties and our constitution a little more ammo, so to speak.
	But it doesn't matter.
	The arguments over gun control are not going to be won on statistics.
	Very few arguments generally are won over statistics.
	I was just talking about this last night at Drew University, which I was giving a talk last night on identity politics there.
	At all these schools, the students will come up and ask, how can I make more compelling arguments to the left?
	And I say, stop being an egghead.
	Stop using statistics.
	Statistics are all fine.
	They're all well and good.
	They're sort of impressive.
	They're also easily manipulable, and especially in the social sciences.
	So, that's fine.
	Cite a few statistics.
	But arguments are not won and lost on statistics.
	You have to make a moral argument.
	You have to make a qualitative argument.
	You have to The reason that we need the Second Amendment is to protect our liberty.
	The framers of the Constitution knew this.
	We need to have the Second Amendment in case the government ever turns tyrannical and tries to take away our Second Amendment.
	Democratic governments have turned tyrannical many, many times throughout the West in recent history.
	Happened all throughout Europe.
	It hasn't happened here yet.
	Good thing.
	One of the reasons that it very, very likely will never happen here is because we have the right to keep and bear arms.
	The right to keep and bear arms is not about hunting.
	It's not about target practice.
	It's about protecting me and my family and my friends and my property.
	That's in a very personal, tangible way.
	In a broader sense, it's about protecting my community.
	It's about protecting my liberty.
	It's about protecting my way of life.
	It's about protecting my traditions.
	It's about protecting our system of governance in the United States.
	That's what it's about.
	Oh, and also, assault weapon bans don't do anything to change the homicide rate.
	It's a little addendum there.
	Even if you could make a good moral argument, you lefties, you're also making a completely stupid argument because the thing that you're proposing doesn't achieve the thing that you say it will achieve.
	But it's not inefficiency that is the cause of the argument being bad.
	It's the premises themselves.
	It's the arguments themselves from the left that are bad, and we should discuss them on those terms.
	Do we have time to talk about Biden's second accuser?
	Oh, I really want to talk about it, but I think we're out of time.
	So instead, I will end...
	Oh, gosh, it's so good, though, because I have to defend Joe Biden again.
	I have to do it.
	I guess we'll have to do it tomorrow.
	More people coming out of the woodwork.
	Looks like Bernie Sanders is behind a lot of these hits.
	And it's just a totally BS, disingenuous attack.
	We'll get to it tomorrow.
	Before we leave today, it's National Poetry Month.
	Poetry is basically dead.
	Nobody reads poetry anymore.
	But conservatives should read poetry.
	Don't be an egghead.
	Make good arguments.
	People forget.
	We think of conservatives in this day and age as these sterile, cold, clinical, calculating economist types.
	When Edmund Burke began what we would call modern conservative thought, he said, the age of chivalry is gone, that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded it, and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever.
	Edmund Burke and the conservatives who follow in his tradition are not sophisters, economists, and calculators.
	Actually, the people who followed right after Burke were the Romantics.
	Romantic poets, Coleridge, those guys.
	And so it's National Poetry Month.
	The left has sort of alienated conservatives from poetry because they've written horrific poetry for a century.
	So when you think of poetry, you think of some schmuck wearing a black beret in some club downtown saying, like, fish.
	I saw my dad in the hallway.
	Hamburger.
	And they think that that's a poem.
	You know, as the literary critic Harold Bloom said, slam poetry is the death of art.
	But good poetry is a wonderful thing, and it enriches our lives.
	And there can be light poems.
	There can be funny poems.
	There can be profound poems.
	You know, poetry is just a wonderful art form.
	It's too bad that it died.
	So to begin, in keeping with our theme today, I wanted to read a very mediocre poem.
	But sort of funny, nonetheless, by Dorothy Parker called Resume, and I'll try to bring up some more poems as they occur to me throughout National Poetry Month.
	Resume by Dorothy Parker.
	Razors pain you, rivers are damp, acids stain you, and drugs cause cramp.
	Guns aren't lawful, nooses give, gas smells awful, you might as well live.
	That's our show.
	I'll be back tomorrow.
	See you then.
	In the meantime, I'm Michael Knowles.
	This is The Michael Knowles Show.
	The Michael Knowles Show is produced by Robert Sterling.
	Executive producer Jeremy Boring.
	Senior producer Jonathan Hay.
	Our supervising producer is Mathis Glover.
	And our technical producer is Austin Stevens.
	Edited by Danny D'Amico.
	Audio is mixed by Dylan Case.
	Hair and makeup is by Jesua Olvera.
	Production assistant Nick Sheehan.
	The Michael Knowles Show is a Daily Wire production.
	Copyright Daily Wire 2019.
	Today on the Ben Shapiro Show, is the Democratic Party ready to break with Joe Biden and Barack Obama?

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