All Episodes
Previous Next
May 8, 2023 - Dennis Prager Show
01:26:50
More Mass Murder
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Dennis Prager here.
Thanks for listening to the Daily Dennis Prager Podcast.
To hear the entire three hours of my radio show, commercial-free, every single day, become a member of PragerTopia.
You'll also get access to 15 years' worth of archives, as well as the daily show prep.
Subscribe at pragertopia.com Hey everybody, hello, I hope you had a good weekend.
I'm Dennis Prager.
More mass shooting, actually mass shooting and a mass murder with a car.
So, one wonders, what is breeding this murder?
These mass murders that are taking place with such frequency in the United States of America.
In the year 2023. For the left and its simple, simple world.
It's no simplistic world.
Simple is good.
It's guns.
So, do we even talk about the guy who mowed down people with his car?
Doesn't seem to be much in the news.
It's hard to keep straight.
Where was the guy who mowed down people with the car?
Where was that?
Are they both in Texas?
And the guy who mowed down people with his car had a serious record of, if I'm not mistaken, correct, a massive amount of prior arrests.
I'll get to that fact, but I'd like to offer my thoughts here.
Almost always there's one description.
Whatever their race, whatever their creed, whatever their non-creed, almost all of them are loners.
And I was thinking about that.
That was also in Texas.
So one was outside of Dallas.
That was the shooting.
And this was Brownsville, Texas, with the car?
And how many were killed in the car?
Eight.
Eight people.
Wow.
And others terribly injured.
So, the more promising avenue to look for answers to why so much of this...
and one can't deny that there is a lot of this, is the loner issue, in my opinion.
In America, historically, from de Tocqueville in the 19th century, the brilliant, I mean, he was truly brilliant, Alexis de Tocqueville, who was a French young Alexis de Tocqueville, who was a French young man Who observed the United States of America and wrote a prescient book, Democracy in America.
And he spoke of the strength of America in having non-governmental institutions.
That's not the term he used.
I've got to get through the term, but that's what he meant.
Non-governmental institutions.
Americans joined so many groups.
And those groups were religious, those groups were non-religious, those groups were based on interests, those groups were based on hobbies, on passions.
So that was a big factor in American life until the 1960s, when almost everything came crashing down.
If you read Tom Sowell's Vision of the Anointed, which I'm reading again, it's brilliant.
The book is brilliant.
It's as if it was written yesterday.
It is so applicable to today.
And how everything crashed in the 60s.
That means that it crashed earlier because it doesn't happen overnight.
It means that these people were trained to be society wreckers.
Well before the 1960s, but it came to fruition in the 1960s.
And people just started joining things less.
And you have the atomization of individuals, such as the famous book by a Harvard professor, Bowling Alone.
What was that written in the 80s?
Bowling Alone?
You want to take a look?
Bowling Alone.
What a great title for a book.
Whereas most guys would go bowling in leagues, gradually guys started going bowling alone.
Bowling leagues started to disappear.
Kids grew up, they were in 4-H clubs.
They were in the Eagle Scouts.
They were in the Girl Scouts.
They were in the Bible class.
They were in the church group, synagogue group.
They went to summer camp.
There was always something to join.
What do you join now?
Nothing.
Nothing.
Guys were in Rotary Clubs, Lions Clubs, Kiwanis Clubs.
It was endless.
I remember my parents, it's an interesting memory because I hadn't thought about this until very recently, how regularly my mother would leave the house.
The only time she left without my father.
And my father never left without my mother.
They did everything together.
Like, inconceivable that they'd go to a movie alone.
The idea is preposterous when I think about it.
But I remember my mother saying, okay, I'm going now.
I'm going to the sisterhood meeting.
Sisterhood.
Imagine that?
A sisterhood meeting?
If I said that to a young woman today, what the hell is a sisterhood meeting?
Was it a feminist group?
That's the assumption.
Now, why would a young person, and by young, I mean under 40, why would a young person assume that my mother going to a sisterhood meeting was going to a feminist meeting?
Because everything is political.
She went to a non-political sisterhood meeting?
Yeah, it was the synagogue sisterhood.
And guess where my father would go on other days, or other nights of the month?
The brotherhood.
Synagogue had a brotherhood.
There's nothing today.
Nothing.
Everything is done alone by so many people.
Of course, people got married in the past.
That was the greatest assuager.
That was the greatest group to join, your marriage.
How many of these mass murderers or shooters or runner-overs or stabbers, how many of them are married?
How many of them are in a family?
That they have created.
They're a part of nothing.
That's the sociological explanation, in my opinion.
On the guns part, I've asked all of my career, name me a gun law that would have prevented any of these shootings.
I'm very open.
To gun laws.
I'm not open to irrationality.
I do believe that the Second Amendment preserves the First Amendment.
Do you believe that there will never be a reason in any country to fear tyranny?
You are a real optimist.
I don't happen to share your optimism knowing history.
The most cultured country in Europe produced Auschwitz.
It doesn't take long to go into tyranny, as we saw during the lockdown, which were pure, irrational tyranny, utterly and totally destructive.
They served no good purpose.
They served bad purpose.
But they did teach the government that it could control the citizenry.
And when we go almost all electric, God forbid, but we probably will, there will be more ability to control your life.
Because that is what the left everywhere since Lenin and the Russian Revolution wants to do.
And people vote the people who control their lives into office.
They're called liberals.
Of course leftists will vote left.
Conservatives will not vote left, except for the handful of people who call themselves conservative, but were so preoccupied with distaste of Trump that they voted for Biden.
That, if I may say, is a moral sin.
I don't use the term often.
If you voted for Biden, you sinned against this country.
Natural disasters, airline cancellations and runway near misses, supply chain issues, inflation, rising interest rates, and sky-high government debt.
This is Dennis Prager for Amfed Coin and Bullion.
There's a lot in the news about what consumers cannot control.
So let's talk about what you can control.
You can control how you choose to invest and protect your wealth.
That's why I choose to do business with Nick Grovich and his company AmFedCoin and Bullion.
Now is a great time to own tangible assets like gold, silver, and platinum.
With over 41 years' experience and tens of thousands of satisfied clients, Nick will help you make informed decisions and show you smart choices, which have been proven winners time and time again.
AmphetCoin and Bullion?
We'll sell you the right types of precious metals to get the maximum value for your money.
Take control of your investments like I did.
Call Nick and his team at Amphet Coin& Bullion at 800-221-7694.
Americanfederal.com Americanfederal.com The issue is procrastination.
I know that because I am human just like you.
As I have often said, I am not a talk show host.
I am a human being with a talk show.
So I've been discussing what is the area of explanation for all of these mass murders taking place just this weekend by car and by gun.
For people who don't like to think, I don't understand the people who go, the issue is guns, if we only had more gun laws.
So, of course, you know my question to ask any of your relatives or friends who say that.
If you could have one or the other, which do you think would more reduce crime?
More fathers or more gun laws?
That's an important question, wouldn't you say?
I really wonder what your left-wing or anti-gun relative would say.
What do you think most would say to that?
Unfair question?
I wonder what they would say, because it's an or question.
They're fair.
Maybe they'll say we'd like both equally.
Okay, that's an advance.
Let me write that.
Gun laws.
More gun laws.
More fathers.
I was talking to you about how there is no longer a community.
You know what kids join?
They don't join the Boy Scouts.
They join gangs.
What happened to the Boy Scouts?
Well, the left effectively has destroyed much of the Boy Scouts.
You know that that was the first time that I used my phrase, everything the left touches, it ruins.
I've now come to destroys.
But that was, it started with the Boy Scouts, I would say decades ago, when I realized the war on Boy Scouts.
The Boy Scouts were too wholesome.
They hate wholesome.
They hate beauty.
Look at the crap that they put up in museums and call art.
Look at the junk that has been produced in 20th century classical music, and it's called music.
I don't understand.
I will admit, I don't understand the hatred of beauty, the hatred of...
Well, I understand their hatred of religion because they compete with religion for telling people what is right.
In fact, it's the single greatest competitor, and that's why they're so hateful of Christians.
They don't like Orthodox Jews either, but Orthodox Jews are so small a number that they're not on the...
Left-wing radar.
There on the left-wing radar are Christians.
And anything that is healthy.
The nuclear family.
There's a tremendous war on the nuclear family.
In San Francisco, the Democratic Party is trying to get rid of a left-wing group.
That used the word family in what it called itself.
They don't like the term.
Even though they have, in fact, co-opted the term.
Their definition is, a family is anyone that calls themselves a family.
I could live with that, providing that they at least acknowledge that there is a family ideal.
Of a married mother and father with children.
They don't acknowledge that.
That is considered hate-filled for you to even say that.
So kids were in 4-H clubs.
Kids were in the Boy Scouts.
Kids were in Bible study.
Kids had so many things to join.
Now the only thing that kids have to join...
I wonder if there are more kids in the...
In gangs than in anything except the Boy Scouts.
Is the second...
I'm just posing this question.
This is not a rhetorical question.
I may well be barking up the wrong tree.
But is there anything that has...
Certainly with inner-city youth, there's no comparison.
There you'll have far more kids in gangs than you will in the Boy Scouts.
But even across the country, I don't know what has more kids in it than gangs.
But these people are not even necessarily gangbangers.
They're just loners.
I have pointed that out to you over and over.
Well, they'll say, yeah, yeah, he basically stayed alone.
I don't remember speaking to him much.
Never thought he had it in him to mass murder people.
And then, of course, we hear that they're mentally ill.
Unless you're hearing voices, and I believe that such people exist, unless you're hearing voices from the devil or from God in your mind that is ordering you to do such an evil act,
why is mental illness A factor that is always noted as the primary factor.
Wouldn't you say it's obvious the vast majority of mentally ill people know it's wrong to kill people?
We have psychotherapized morality.
That is why acts that were called evil two generations ago and throughout American history are now called sick.
Again, a point that I made many decades ago.
It's called sick.
But evil is not sick.
Evil is evil.
But these are the terms that we use.
So, between fathers and healthy groups of peers, I think you have more of an explanation for these events than too many guns.
Take your calls, 1-8 Prager-776.
Hello, everybody.
I'm Dennis Prager.
A couple of calls that I have, and I'll talk to you about the coronation as well.
I was moved.
Were you moved?
Not as much as I. Okay.
I'm curious why not.
I think that traditions are very important.
Not all traditions.
And...
People don't belong to anything anymore.
They don't belong to their country.
That was my theme.
So if it enabled more people to feel English or British, then I don't know what we lost.
I'm not a big fan of the individual who's king, but that is or might not be another matter.
We'll talk about that later.
Oakland, California.
William, thank you for calling.
Hey, Dennis.
I had a question for you.
If more guns and easier access to guns is supposed to make us safer, then why aren't we not only the safest country in the world, but in the history of the world, as we have more guns than people here, and most states have open carry?
Well, I have a few answers for you.
First, the reason that the founders wanted us...
Unless you don't believe that's a correct reading of the Second Amendment.
But the reason that they wanted most Americans to be able to be armed was to prevent tyranny.
Yeah, to form a militia, not individual people.
Okay, well, alright.
I understand.
Okay, so fine.
So would you like us to form militias?
Are you pro-militias?
I think that you could...
Well, it's also probably an antiquated concept at this point.
Okay, so all right, but it's not antiquated that the only way to prevent tyranny is through violence.
I mean, ideally you prevent tyranny through the ballot box, but I have very little faith in the human species, and I have very little faith in half of my fellow Americans, which I never said in my life, but that is how I feel now.
I think we're on the road to tyranny.
Do you?
I think that's kind of getting away from the question right now.
Okay, okay.
I don't want to get away from the question, but I want to explain that the reason...
Yeah, you are getting away from the question.
No, I'll tell you what, wait.
I promise to answer you.
I promise.
The reason I raised it was not to evade your question, was to point out that the reason for the Second Amendment was to prevent tyranny more than any other thing.
They didn't write, it'll keep us safe.
Okay, so I want to say, so there are two purposes.
One is to prevent tyranny.
The other is to protect yourself.
Given the ubiquity of arms, why would you oppose honorable people owning arms?
Because if you look around the world, reduced guns, having very low guns, reduces death.
Like Japan has...
I've had, I think, two gun homicides last year.
I'm sorry, I don't want to interrupt you.
Go on, go on.
That's 10,000 more deaths.
That's insane.
And the thing is, their population is a third of ours.
So let me answer that.
Countries that did fix it, like Australia, for example, after their major mass shooting decades ago, they took everybody's guns and they haven't had any major issues.
Okay, so now you've raised the issue of Japan.
Okay, tell me when you want me to respond.
I mean it sincerely.
Okay, but what I'm saying is that they were like us.
They were kind of Wild West, very pioneer-type attitude.
Their culture is very similar to us in Australia.
Everybody had a gun.
So it does work.
Like, gun laws and taking guns away does work as far as...
Right.
If you take guns away from everybody, there will be far less shootings.
I agree with you.
So are you for taking guns away from everybody?
I'm for at the minimum, and I know this wouldn't fix...
It wouldn't prevent every single murder, but at least treat them as...
As we treat cars where you have to pass a knowledge test, you have to do a practical test.
They can take your license away.
Certain kinds of cars are deemed unsafe for the roads.
You know, same with weapons.
Like, basically treat them as well as cars.
Regulate them.
Have a national day-to-day.
Very few people are denied cars.
You know that.
Very few people don't have a license.
You can be denied it if you have...
You can be, and you can be denied a gun.
All right.
What I'd like to address is the Japan analogy.
Japan is monocultural, somewhat like North Dakota.
I'll address that when we come back.
Just when you thought it couldn't get any better, Mike Lindell with MyPillow is launching the MyPillow 2.0.
When Mike invented MyPillow, it had everything you could ever want in a pillow.
Now, nearly 20 years later, he discovered a new technology that makes it even better.
The MyPillow 2.0 is the softest, smoothest, and coolest pillow you'll ever own.
For my listeners, the MyPillow 2.0 is buy one, get one free offer with promo code Prager.
MyPillow 2.0 temperature regulating technology is 100% made in the USA and comes with a 10-year warranty and a 60-day money-back guarantee.
Just go to MyPillow.com and click on the radio listeners square to the buy one, get one free offer.
Enter promo code Prager or call 800-761-6302 to get your MyPillow 2.0 now.
Hi everybody, Dennis Prager here talking about the latest.
Mass killings via car and via gun.
So my last caller, and I thank him for calling.
It's important.
I go to people who differ first.
For many reasons.
One of which is, I may be wrong.
And I don't like being wrong.
Because then I'm going to be wrong the next time if I'm not corrected.
So he said, well...
So whenever I ask, what would prevent, since we can't confiscate all guns, I mean literally can't.
It's not possible.
So that ship has sailed.
So what should we do?
What would have prevented any of these mass killings or mass murders, to be more precise?
So we should make gun ownership...
Okay, fine.
My own instinct, when I think about it, is it's actually harder to get a gun than a driver's license.
But I want to address something that the anti-gun people never, ever address because they don't really have fewer murderers and truth as values.
Why don't we just look inside.
Well, I'll begin with Japan.
Japan was a perfect example of how few murders there are.
It's very difficult to own guns there.
Even if there were a lot of guns, there would be more murder if there were a lot of guns, there's no question.
But there would be much fewer than the United States because Japan is one of the least...
Ethnically, racially diverse countries on the planet.
That's why.
In Japan, there's a shame culture.
You are bonded to other Japanese.
You know that we took in Vietnamese boat people and Japan didn't?
These are fellow Asians.
Not that Asian means a damn thing to Asians.
It's only a left-wing idiocy.
You think the Japanese feel close to the Vietnamese or to Koreans?
They feel more estranged from them than we do, than white Americans do, let's be precise.
Japan is completely, totally homogeneous, ethnically, racially, religiously, and the homogeneous American states also have very low murder rates.
Stay with the lowest moderate is New Hampshire.
When you think of New Hampshire, do you think of diversity?
I'd like to know what percentage of New Hampshire is white.
It's not a white supremacist argument.
Any more than the other was a Japanese supremacist argument.
The very fact that I had to say that shows you...
How much lying is part of left-wing responses?
That's what most leftists would think.
Oh, he's arguing for white supremacy.
No, I'm arguing that racial homogeneity is a smaller breeder of violence than massive diversity.
I'm not against diversity.
I actually like diversity.
As I've often noted...
I live in a cul-de-sac and I have two neighbors.
One is Arab-American and one is Korean-American.
I love it.
But I love it because we all share values.
I have infinitely, literally immeasurably more in common with an Arab-American who is conservative than with a white-American or even a fellow Jewish-American.
Who is a leftist?
My bond is values, not ethnicity.
But in the places where there is homogeneity, like Scandinavia, you have much fewer killings.
And in the states with the least heterogeneity, you have also few killings.
Maine is the second least murder rate.
One of the great lies of the left, everything the left says that differs from others is a lie.
I mean, if they say that the earth is round, they're not lying.
But that doesn't differ from others.
But every time they make one of their political statements, it's a lie.
Diversity is our strength, is a lie.
Diversity is only our strength if we have the motto e pluribus unum from many one.
But they have dropped all three of the credos of America.
In God we trust liberty and e pluribus unum.
They have made war on all three.
So diversity is not your strength at all.
Diversity is your strength if you want to shatter the society and you don't have the diverse unite under a value system.
Diversity is strength if it's not diversity of values.
Otherwise, it's actually a problem.
I bet my caller, from Oakland, California, has never been told this in his whole life.
Hey, maybe Japan has no violence, primarily not because of no guns, but primarily because it's so completely homogeneous.
Because you will never hear that at a college in the United States.
Because you never hear a differing idea at a college in the United States.
Didn't you just send me the list of the graduation speakers?
Is there one conservative?
Only at small Christian colleges.
At small Christian colleges.
That's right.
That's correct.
They have this moron prime minister from New Zealand now coming.
She was the speaker at the Harvard graduation, Julie told me, at her graduation.
And now she's, did you see, she's now hired on the faculty of Harvard?
Have you seen that?
Yeah.
Well, I've got to thank her.
I played her more often than almost anybody during the lockdowns.
If you don't hear it from the government, it is not true.
Jacinda Arden.
Now that's what they will hear at Harvard.
That's what the kids will be told.
If the government doesn't say it, it isn't true.
And you know what?
Most of these Harvard clones will agree with her.
Your future leadership.
If it's not said by the government, it isn't true.
Hello, everybody.
Welcome to the Dennis Prager Show.
show.
I hope you had a good weekend.
I addressed the issue of the mass murders in Texas via car and via gun in hour number one.
It's a reason for you to get PragerTopia.
You get every hour of my show when you want it and commercial-free.
It's PragerTopia.com.
That's Utopia with a Prager instead of a U. And I strongly commend it to you.
Once you have it, you'll be hooked.
PragerTopia.com And I spoke about how there is such a sense of less belonging than there was in the past.
That's why you always hear loner, loner.
He's a loner.
he was a loner man called last hour told me how few murders there are in Japan by gun because there's so few guns The very fact that he used Japan proves a point that I have made over and over, that homogeneous places have much fewer murders.
Remember there?
Probably don't, because...
You certainly weren't taught this in school.
In Rwanda in the 1990s, there was the last genocide of the 20th century.
The Hutus slaughtered the Tutsis.
They didn't all think of themselves as Rwandans.
They thought of themselves as Hutus or Tutsis.
And so it was a staggering slaughter, almost none of it done by gun.
Almost all done by machete.
It is much easier to get along with your own group.
Racial, religious, etc.
Ethnic.
Yes.
America has tried an experiment, and it was well on its way to success, of E Pluribus Unum people from all disparate backgrounds getting together and getting along.
Until the damn left ruined everything and taught Americans to become separate.
It is not possible to properly judge how much evil the left has done.
To the greatest experiment in decency in human history.
So it's no wonder that the least diverse states have the highest murder rates and the Excuse me, the least diverse states have the lowest murder rates, and the most diverse states have the highest murder rates.
You will never hear anybody on the left say that, because truth is not a left-wing value.
never has been and it isn't today more fathers e pluribus unum religion Membership in good groups.
Four massive, massive helps.
Most of the murderers are also single men.
One of the ten books that most influenced my thinking in life was George Gilder's Naked Nomads.
I don't know if that's the title today.
I think he combined the two books.
Naked Nomads and what was the other book on men?
Sexual suicide.
Those books I devoured.
They are classics.
Anyway, he wrote in Naked Nomads that single men is the greatest single factor in crime, and it's true.
Thanks to the left, marriage rates are lower than at any time in American history.
If it's good, The left loathes it.
I don't know where that sickness comes from in the human condition.
I don't.
I really don't.
It's very interesting.
I understand so many bad aspects of human nature.
I understand the desire to steal.
I understand the desire to kill.
It's not particularly large in me, but I understand it.
I don't understand the loving of lies.
I don't understand the loving of ugly.
I think a big part is secularism and affluence and boredom.
It gives you meaning somehow if you think that you're destroying something.
It's very sick.
Anyway, I spoke about that at length in the first hour, so I'm going to move on.
Unlike my producer, which I just discovered, I enjoyed and was even moved at moments with the coronation.
He was less so.
Would you like to see the end of the monarchy?
No, no, I don't.
Oh.
You're just as moved as I was.
Yeah, and I retain a certain kind of American life.
American-like, non-monarchy.
Yeah, I understand that.
But given that it's so far in the past, why would England be better?
No, they wouldn't.
So you agree with that.
Okay.
When the son kissed the father, and he choked up the dad, and all these elites sang, God save the king.
I would be moved if the elites of America sang, God bless America.
Wouldn't you?
Sure.
sure so I thought I thought all of that was moving you know When you see the grandson...
What is his name?
The one who will be king one day?
No, no, no, the grandson.
William's son.
You don't remember his name?
So I was reading a piece, and this was in the New York Times, and it mentioned him, and it said, who will be king one day in the distant future.
Isn't that an amazing thing to think?
The odds are that that, in fact, will happen.
What is he, eight years old, whatever, today?
Who will be king in the distant future.
Presumably, he will be king when most of you listening and I will not be here.
And such is the way in which the world works.
How old was Queen Elizabeth when she was made queen?
It was 1953. 1953. What was that?
She was in her early 20s.
She was in her early 20s?
She was a good-looking woman, by the way.
I want to play for you.
How much time do we have, Sean?
Okay, I want to play for you.
This is only 15 seconds.
Whether you're interested in sports or not, whether you're interested in hockey or not, is irrelevant.
What I'm about to play for you is the best example that I can think of of the saying, beware of what you wish for, you may get it.
This is truly A classic.
We are going to keep this 13 seconds.
In the National Hockey League, the Toronto Maple Leafs got into the second round of the playoffs.
The second round of playoffs are taking place now for the championship of hockey known as the Stanley Cup.
They were afraid they would play the team with the best record in hockey, the best record in hockey history, the Boston Bruins.
But amazingly, the Florida Panthers, the worst team to make the playoffs, or the team with the worst record, defeated the Boston Bruins.
So Toronto fans were chanting en masse, we want Florida.
And guess what?
They got Florida and not the Boston Bruins, and they're down three games to zero.
Here is the chant.
Florida!
We want Florida!
We want Florida!
We definitely...
This is going to be...
Alright, thank you.
This is going to be the go-to theme for any time when people want something and they should have been...
Been quite aware that they shouldn't be wishing for it.
They got Florida.
They're losing.
bed.
Hi, everybody.
Hi, everybody.
In light of all the debate about guns and, again, horrible murders with guns and a car.
A gun and a car.
Horrible.
We talked about that a lot in the first hour and somewhat in the second hour.
I'd like you to hear a UCLA professor of law, Eugene Volokh, one of the, I guess, few non-leftists teaching at UCLA law, a video that he made for PragerU.
Is gun ownership a right?
It's important to hear.
Here we go.
Does an American citizen have a constitutional right to own a gun?
Here's what the Second Amendment says.
A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
Now it once seemed to me like that language only protected state militias and not individuals.
Indeed, this is the view held by the four dissenting Supreme Court justices in the 2008 case of District of Columbia v.
Heller, a landmark case dealing with gun ownership.
But the more research I did, the more I came to realize that my initial view was mistaken and that the founders were in fact securing an individual right.
The five justices who voted to affirm the right to own a gun in D.C. v.
Heller had indeed made the correct decision.
Let's look at the amendment one more time.
A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
We first need to focus on the phrase, the right of the people.
Note that the people are the only ones whose right is secured here, not the militia or a state government.
This phrase, the right of the people, comes up a few times in the Constitution.
For example, the First Amendment refers to the right of the people peaceably to assemble, And to petition the government.
And the Fourth Amendment secures the right of the people to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures.
Why then, if the authors of the Constitution felt so strongly about the right of the people to own guns, did they include language about a well-regulated militia?
These opening words of the amendment might be called a justification clause.
Such clauses are used to help explain why a right is being secured.
But it's the operative clause that explains what right is being secured.
In this case, the right of the people to keep and bear arms.
And what was the word militia understood to mean at the time?
Well, the Militia Act of 1792 defined militia to mean all white males 18 to 45. Today, of course, militia would include women and people of all races.
But it was clearly not a reference to a small National Guard-type group.
And what about the part of the amendment that says a militia is necessary to the security of a free state?
What, the opponents of personal gun ownership ask, does a personal right of gun ownership have to do with that?
Again, historical context is key.
In the 1790s, the phrase free state wasn't used to mean an individual state like New York or Rhode Island.
Rather, it meant what we'd call today a free country, a nation free of despotism.
A free state is what the framers wanted America to be.
They saw unarmed citizenry as in part a hedge against tyranny.
Citizens who own weapons can protect themselves, prevent tyrants from seizing power, and protect the nation from foreign enemies.
This does not mean, though, that this right is unlimited.
Free speech, for example, has long been subject to some narrow and reasonable regulations.
But severe restrictions on owning a gun, like severe restrictions on free speech, Maybe you think this understanding of the Second Amendment is outdated today, that the Constitution needs to change as public attitudes change.
The founders included a provision for doing just that.
If the public attitude really has changed, the Constitution can be amended to reflect that change.
But ironically, even if we focus on current public attitudes, the case for individual gun ownership is as strong as ever.
Polls consistently show that over two-thirds of Americans believe that the Second Amendment secures the right of citizens to own a gun.
And Congress and state governments have repeatedly reaffirmed this view, including in recent decades.
So, does the Second Amendment secure an individual right to bear arms?
It did when it was written, it has throughout American history, and it does today.
I'm Eugene Volokh, Professor of Law at UCLA for Prager University.
Wow.
Send that to your son or daughter at college.
Show it to your high school students.
Send it to your brother-in-law.
That was interesting.
I didn't remember the people idea.
It doesn't say the right of militias.
The right of the people.
And it's exactly what I said to my caller last hour.
It didn't say, so to keep you safe.
It said to prevent...
Their thinking was to prevent tyranny.
The first thing tyrannies do is confiscate weapons.
Why isn't that something that people on the left at least have to entertain as an argument, at least respond to that?
Things are morally complex.
In the make-believe world of the left, there will be no gods.
There'll be no meat-eaters.
There will be no discrimination, no bias, no gas-powered cars.
And they use laws to force people into their make-believe utopian visions.
What was the John Lennon song again?
Imagine.
Imagine, yes.
They force people into imagine.
I was listening to a New York radio station a little bit earlier.
I try to really get a variety of input into my brain.
Are you aware that they're, at least in New York City or New York, that toilet bowls now have gone from three gallons to one gallon of water?
I'd like to check on that because this was a responsible guy on the station.
So he said, all we do is flush a lot more.
He said, same thing with dishwashers.
Yeah, run them twice.
Yeah, exactly.
The emptiness of the left-winger's life and how it's filled, it's like Bill Gates.
The man, he is the product of the secular world.
There's nothing filling the emptiness.
And the more money he has had, the greater the sense of emptiness.
And the greater the sense of, I have to change the world.
I don't want to change the world.
I'd like to improve it, but I don't want to change it.
It's very hard to make a good world.
America was making a gooder and gooder society.
Now it's not.
Hello, everybody.
Good to be with you.
They have said that the murderer this weekend...
There was one with a car.
Do we know anything about that guy?
Well, we don't really know.
I don't know if we know that was delivered accidentally.
Oh, it might have been an accident?
Well, I don't know if we know.
Is he living?
Yes, I think so.
Well, yeah, you're right.
Well, the murderer is said to be a white supremacist.
The speed with which they declare a mass murderer right-winger is the speed of light.
The hesitation to speak otherwise.
Remember the trans murderer?
They still haven't released his manifesto.
Her, well, her, him, yeah.
Oh yeah, her, her.
It was a her who became a him?
Yeah.
Her, his, her, his manifesto.
Why is that?
Why aren't we learning about the views of that murderer?
That mass murderer?
Anyway...
The amount of dishonesty in the press is equal to the amount of press.
If the left-wing press says something on any controversial issue, the odds are it isn't true.
Do you remember the mass murder of, oh God, dozens of people, was it 50 even, at the Orlando gay meeting place?
Remember that?
And how many of you know that it was a Muslim who did the mass murdering?
Just as an example.
And that it had nothing to do with their being gay.
He was just looking for a place to mass murder people.
How many of you know that Matthew Shepard was not killed by homophobes?
I had the author of the book on who was himself gay.
Almost everything you learn if you rely on the New York Times isn't true if it has to do with anything political, controversial, cultural.
Just know that.
What about the Columbia Journalism Review?
Spoke about...
The massive amount of lies the New York Times and Washington Post told.
What was that, again, about the Trump-Russia conspiracy?
Was that the issue they covered?
The Columbia Journalism Review.
Yeah, yeah.
Did the New York Times even report that the Columbia Journalism Review described them as liars?
Okay.
See, we on the conservative side, we know what the left thinks, but they have no idea what we know.
We know what they think, but they don't know what we know.
So that's a very, very big deal.
All right, let's see here.
Hey, you all hear about Ron DeSantis and how he is censoring...
History in Florida schools.
So the Wall Street Journal reports that here are some of the things that they have tried to teach high school students.
Florida rejected a planned advanced placement class in African American studies.
Because it lacks educational value and is a vehicle for political agenda, quote unquote.
In response, NPR quoted an academic, quote, involved in creating the curriculum, unquote, who explained again that CRT, critical race theory, is too advanced for high school students.
Quote, there's nothing particularly ideological about the course, he added, except that we value the experience of African people in the United States.
That's how they defend it, right?
All we're teaching is black history.
You racists like Ron DeSantis want to abolish it.
So the editorial board decided to look into what it was that Ron DeSantis was objecting to in the planned advancement placement class in African American Studies.
So here are some of the things it includes.
Well, I'll read you some of them.
Why don't we have five?
I'll give you five examples.
Of what they wanted to quote-unquote teach kids in Florida.
You should know all this.
Hi, everybody.
Yes, I hope you had a good weekend.
So many things to talk to you about.
I have covered in some detail the...
Mass killings of the weekend.
And some of my theories on the matter.
I'll tell you what's really preoccupying me.
And let me get that up for you.
There it is.
This is it.
A fantastic piece.
Really terrific piece.
I'm going to try to have her on.
Peachy Keenan.
Writing in...
Yes, that's really her name.
I'm not sure that it's really her name.
Huh?
I'm not really sure it's her name.
You mean it's a pseudonym?
It may be, I just don't know.
Okay, fine.
Okay.
Why do I care if it's a pseudonym?
I mean, George Orwell is a pseudonym.
His real name was Eric Blair.
Why do I care?
You guys are reacting like I got suckered in.
Yes, it's not...
There's something unique about the name, right?
I never met a peachy.
I admit it.
But that's what's written.
Don't give me a hard time.
It's a profound piece by this woman.
The lesson of Jordan Neely, your courage and sacrifice will be punished.
Young American men will be taught the hard way that selflessness, courage, and their masculine instincts will get them 20 to life in prison.
That's right.
The mob, the left-wing mob in New York.
Man is a hero.
Do you understand for the left...
Everything is the opposite.
Everything.
Just like boys can be girls, evil can be good, and good can be evil.
They are morally sick, the left.
Every day I bring you an example.
The mob, the left-wing vile mob, demanding that this man...
Be put in prison, or at least arrested.
You put up what?
This piece is up at DennisPrager.com?
Okay, good.
I really do want to run.
This was a truly, truly thoughtful piece.
This week a brave Marine acted when no one else would to restrain a deranged homeless schizophrenic on a New York City F-train.
Who was, by all accounts, terrorizing people and shouting, I'll hurt anyone on this train.
I don't mind going to jail and getting life in prison, screamed the 30-year-old Jordan Ely, who had 44 arrests!
Why was he out?
Used to be three strikes and you're out.
Now it's 44 and you're out.
No, it's 44 and you're anywhere.
And an outstanding warrant for felony assault, he punched an old woman in the face.
Good is ugly, ugly is good.
Man is a woman, a woman is a man.
Men give birth.
Children can decide to change their sex.
America is systemically racist.
This sick man is a victim.
The man who restrained him is a villain.
Manure is an artwork.
I told you about the major exhibit in the Netherlands a couple of years ago.
covered seriously in the New York Times art section of sculpted turds.
I have always argued that people are not basically good, that we have to fight our natures, but I must admit the left is a new form of evil, and, but I must admit the left is a new form See, the old forms of evil were more understandable.
This is doctrinal evil, and while some doctrines, like Nazism, We're evil.
Communism was evil.
They didn't flourish from a healthy society.
This is something new, I think, in history.
I'm ready to die as he flailed throwing items of his clothing.
In response, a 24-year-old Marine Corps veteran put Neely in a chokehold, incapacitating him and releasing him after he stopped struggling and passed out.
When Neely died at the hospital, all hell broke loose.
This is not the first time a courageous man minding his own business has put himself in danger to protect others.
It happened many times.
In fact, toxic masculinity has saved more lives than penicillin.
Isn't that a great line?
There's a lot of great lines.
But in this case, the erratic lunatic was black.
The courageous restrainer was not just white, but blonde and handsome.
And worst of all, the lunatic shuffled off this mortal coil when he arrived at the hospital.
Inevitably, the left's muscle memory of how politically lucrative George Floyd's 2020 death was for them kicked in.
The Floyd playbook could be run.
AOC fired up the Twitter and called his death murder.
It's hard to believe.
Let me check that out.
It is true?
Let me see here.
Yeah.
Here's the tweet.
Jordan Neely was murdered.
God, she's a lowlife.
Wow.
A bad human being.
But because Jordan was houseless, is houseless the new term instead of homeless?
And why did they change that now to houseless?
Because he really had a home?
Because it implies he didn't have a home, meaning a family?
I don't quite know.
And crying for food in a time when the city is raising rents and stripping services to militarize itself.
God, is she sick?
While many in power demonize the poor.
Who's demonizing the poor?
What is she talking about?
The city stripping services to militarize itself?
I'll tell you what this means in English.
It means that they are raising the budget for police to protect the poor.
It's not the rich like her who are getting hurt.
While many in power demonize the poor.
Who's demonizing the poor?
The murderer gets protected with passive headlines plus no charges.
It's disgusting.
Well, that was true.
She's right.
Peachy is right.
That's what AOC did.
Called his death a murder.
Al Sharpton is polishing his diamond cufflinks before his press conference.
Neely's cousins are getting fitted for new suits before their Oval Office visit.
Nancy Pelosi has already ordered the solid gold casket and white horse-drawn carriage for the funeral, which will be held after Neely lies in state in the Capitol.
She's just making this stuff up, but this is exactly, this is what's happening.
Kente cloth scarves are being passed out in the old executive building.
Kamala Harris's speechwriter is ripping nitrous balloons as he crafts her eulogy.
In the aftermath, I tweeted this.
Strong men, brave enough to intervene publicly when a deranged lunatic is terrifying people, are going to be rounded up first.
This is a brilliant strategy for the regime.
Pick off the bravest and most selfless heroes first.
Leave the cowards behind who will fall in line last.
This is one bright woman.
That's exactly right.
The enemy of the left is the courageous man of truth.
The man who resists evil is the enemy of the left.
The worse the subway Vikings' fate is, the less likely any of us, the same ones, will be tempted to lift a finger when they come for us, our friends, or our neighbors.
This woman writing in The Federalist has written a really important piece.
About what's happening because the left says good is bad and bad is good.
Man is woman, woman is man.
Ugly is beautiful, beautiful is ugly.
Yes.
I don't know what animates them.
But that's the left.
I'm going to read from the sentence I left you with.
The worse his fate is, she calls him the subway Viking, the less likely any of us, the sane ones, will be tempted to lift a finger when they come for us, our friends, or our neighbors.
If the Viking gets 20 years on Rikers Island, plus some prison rapes and beatings, for good measure, as the guards look the other way, that'll teach you boys a lesson. as the guards look the other way, that'll teach you Hmm.
Since literally the morning the first European settlers set foot in the new country, the ethos drilled into American men is, be strong, be brave, and be prepared to protect and defend your family, your homeland, or your homestead, and your fellow man.
This is what men are for, after all.
This is why God made them stronger than women.
Those biceps are not just for deadlifting.
Their main purpose is twofold, wielding a spear for the hunt and wielding your fists or a sword for defense.
It feels like good Samaritan laws have gone in and out of favor over time in America.
For many years after 9-11, no able-bodied man boarded an airplane without first preparing himself to tackle a terrorist if he had to.
Does that happen anymore?
Or would the passengers laugh and whip out their phones as the terrorists slit a flight attendant's throat?
You'll not go to jail for watching someone beat another person to death as you stream it live on social media.
That's perfectly acceptable now, even encouraged.
But every normal man I know would be unable to stand and watch a psycho assaulting an innocent stranger.
My future husband once threw the first punch in a bloody fistfight against a much larger, much drunker man who was persistently harassing me and getting in my face late at night outside a bar in New York City.
My husband won, she puts in parentheses, so I married him soon after.
As an avid Twitter user, I probably see a dozen graphic videos a week of men doing the opposite.
Standing idly by, shouting approval and laughing, cameras out, as violent individuals assault, beat, rape, and shoot innocent strangers.
This violence is almost exclusively black on white, or black on Asian.
In April, such a video made national news.
A terrified young woman in downtown Chicago was knocked down and stomped on by a large mob during a teen takeover of the city.
Where are all the videos showing the white on black and white on Asian stompings?
I'm sure if they existed, AOC herself would be tweeting them 24-7.
In this terrible, ugly, upside-down, zero-trust society I've been forced to raise a family in, I have developed new survival rules.
I have instructed my husband and son to be cowards.
That's right.
To do nothing if they were in a situation where a dangerous psycho is threatening violence to a stranger.
I have begged them to sit on their hands, to be one of the people who just watches, runs away, or calls 9-11.
It goes against every chivalric instinct in their bodies, but I do not want them dead or in jail instead of being hailed as heroes for saving some old lady's life.
They would be tried as killers and put away for life.
My teenage son informed me he won't go along with my surrender monkey ethos and is prepared to defend himself and others if he has to.
This is a dangerous virtue for a boy to have in a blue city in 2023. Does he want his mother to get gray hair?
Doesn't he know how much good hair colorists cost these days?
I have failed as a mother because I forgot to teach my sons to be cowards.
This week's watershed event on the New York City F-Train illustrates the black-pilling utility of my new rules.
Son, you see that damsel in distress over there getting her teeth kicked out by that filthy homeless man?
You just sit tight and get off at the next stop and tell the nearest social worker, it's not your problem.
Podcaster Amy Therese tweeted, a man threatening the safety of everyone else in a tiny, highly populated, contained space is a liability to himself and to others.
The Marine is a hero, and we need more men like him, which is why the left...
Is wetting the bed about it.
They don't want that ethos to catch on.
That's correct.
They don't want that ethos to catch on.
They want a nation of cowards.
Then they win.
And they got it.
They got it across the board during lockdowns.
A nation of cowards.
Yeah.
Don't let your kid play with other kids.
Don't let your kid go to school.
We'll lock down the schools.
You'll be fine with that.
And most people were.
Even most churches and synagogues.
The enemy of the left is the courageous fighter for good.
They hate them.
That's why the left-wing mob, including AOC, who is a disgusting human being, who is sick, she's morally sick, called this man a murderer.
Folks, if this doesn't get you riled up against the left, nothing will.
There is a block in you because you have been taught your whole life that the right is the enemy.
And you bought it.
And I understand buying it.
I bought it as a kid.
Then I turned 22. I grew up.
Because I thought in terms of good and evil.
This is really, this could be, I think it could be a turning point.
Do you know that?
I think that most people think that if you say this man is a murderer, you're a sick person.
This could be a dividing line.
But the Republicans have to make this clear.
We have a very bad human being in the Congress of the United States.
She's not just wrong.
She's bad.
She's vile.
She has a war against goodness.
If you don't understand that, the left is making a war on goodness, on health, on kindness.
On everything good that the human being has produced, you know nothing about the left.
Okay.
I said it today, and I'll say it tomorrow, and I'll say it next week, because every day provides more data for it.
Give us your child so we can take off our breasts.
And they're good.
And liberals will continue to vote left.
That's it.
Nothing shakes the Liberals' conviction that the Conservative is his enemy.
Nothing.
It is a brainwashed, weak crowd, many nice people, kind, fine people, who nevertheless are ruining this country.
God, I read a great quote recently.
I've got to dig it up.
Oh, it's a very powerful quote.
It was a variation on something I have said about nice people do most of the damage.
There are very few personally cruel people.
They exist.
In my life, I've known one.
Really, in my life I've known one human being whom I consider evil.
It's not common.
I have known personally more nice people than evil people.
So how do you explain all the evil, all the sickness that pervades our society?
Because nice people don't have the wisdom or the courage of their own convictions.
I hope that this is a call, a wake-up call to the liberal.
The left is despicable.
But it won't be.
But it won't be.
They ignore what bothers them.
This is a big one.
Alright, let's see.
Is anybody calling on this?
Let's see, this is an interesting, interesting.
Interesting question.
So I'll take a challenge from Columbus, Ohio, and I don't understand why Columbus is still named after that mass murdering person.
Do you think your city should keep the name Columbus?
Yes, I do, Dennis.
I'm not as fruity as you think.
But I got a question for you.
We're around the same age.
I was wondering if you had cleared up that little, the subtleness that you seem to have in your mind about Miss Babbitt being shot and the reason she got shot was because she didn't comply.
I remember bringing that up and the first thing you did, you went on a, it sounded like you got a little butt hurt because I mentioned the word comply.
You went on a rant with, when the government does this and the government does that, and I hadn't asked you nothing about the government.
I was simply asking because I wanted you to see if you could bring it all around to full circle.
Okay, so hold on.
I promise to God I'm not letting you go.
Back in a moment.
We'll be right back.
I was lost until I saw your halo.
Okay, everybody.
So I'm going to return to Columbus, Ohio.
And Jonathan.
So, okay, Jonathan, go ahead.
Yeah, I was just wondering how to finally...
I figured out, you know, with some clarity.
I know you love clarity.
Were you clear on what you were talking about when you mentioned that?
Because I remember it well.
You mentioned that you didn't know why she even got shot.
And I thought, wait a minute.
You and Candace Owen, you and Larry Elder, you hung your hat on.
All they had to do was comply.
And I'm talking about black and brown folks getting shot in the back four or five times.
Well, all they had to do was comply.
Just comply, comply.
Give up all your rights.
And I was thinking, I said, well, wait a minute.
My 10-year-old grandson knew, well, Grandpa, she didn't comply.
And I'm thinking, well, that's true.
And she had a knapsack on her back.
Man didn't know what she had in it.
And then another thing that I wanted to ask you about.
By the way, hold on.
I'll let you talk a long time, so I'm curious.
Go ahead.
When you mention the knapsack, so you're implying, obviously, that the policeman might have thought she had weapons in the knapsack.
So may I ask you, given the fact that nobody was weaponized before her, why would he assume that?
Well, why wouldn't he?
Because nobody came in with weapons.
Because nobody else came in with weapons.
Dennis.
He didn't know that.
What do you mean he didn't know that?
She was not the first person to...
She wasn't the first...
Okay, if you don't answer me, I'll just politely say goodbye.
No, go ahead.
You only assume...
Do you assume somebody coming...
If somebody has a knapsack, it's armed?
No.
Why not?
Because nobody else is armed.
If nobody else was armed, why would he assume she was?
Well, he couldn't know.
Okay, alright, so that's your answer.
He couldn't know.
Alright, but human beings live on assumptions.
We don't live on knowledge.
We live on assumptions on a daily basis.
Right?
So if you want to come into my store and you look like a gangbanger, I won't let you in.
If you're wearing a suit and tie, I will.
Dennis, don't get it twisted.
I said to a degree we go on assumptions.
All right, so what are you challenging me on?
I still don't know.
I gave you a lot of time, and I don't know where we differ.
I'm challenging on this here.
I'm challenging on this here.
It's real simple.
Don't sit up there and tell your audience and me, because I listen to you, and tell me that all they had to do, when you're speaking of Dave, you're talking about black and brown people that have been shot down like dogs, and some of them in the back, and tell me.
All they had to do was comply.
Just comply.
Okay, so it has nothing to do with Ashley, except in...
I see.
They're shot down like dogs.
Well, look, we got to the point where we differ.
I believe you live in the world of the lie.
Not that you're a liar.
I don't believe you're a liar for a second.
You live in the world of the lie.
Blacks are not shot down like dogs.
The number of unarmed blacks shot by police year after year after year is about 20. And not all the unarmed are peaceful.
They're just unarmed.
Shot down like dogs.
There is little hope for this country.
A man listens to my show.
Obviously, he's open to hearing other things.
Hears other things.
And then conveys the left-wing lie that blacks are shot down like dogs.
Then how are whites and Asians shot down, since overwhelmingly they're shot down by blacks?
There's far more black-white shooting like dogs than there is white on black.
This is an important call, and I'll add the word, unfortunately. ...
Okay, Hacienda Heights, California, Reno.
Hello.
Hi, Dennis.
My name is Rene, R-E-N-E. My mistake.
Boo-boo.
Yes, sir.
Yes, sir.
Back in late October, when you were talking about the Good Samaritan philosophy ideals, back in October, I got a loud knock on my door.
My neighbor next to me started yelling at us and said, hey, Rene, the neighbor across the street is getting beat up.
I think they're trying to break into his house.
So me being a two-and-a-half-year retired police officer, I turned around and told my neighbor, hey, hold on a second.
Let me get my sidearm, and we'll go out and see what's going on.
I turned to my wife.
I tell her, call the sheriffs immediately, tell them what little you know, and tell them that, I'm going to go out and see what's going on.
As we were walking out, I have my sidearm, too.
We walk outside of the street, out into the cul-de-sac where we live, very dark, and I go across the street and I see this guy, about 300-pound guy, up high on the driveway of my neighbor's house.
And he's acting pretty erratic, so I yell to him, hey, what are you doing?
Let me see your hands.
He turns around and says something to me.
He starts walking down towards me.
At that point in time, I pulled out my sidearm.
Because I recognize he didn't live there.
He looked, he was a complete stranger.
And I said to him, I proned him out.
I gave him some commands and I proned him out.
As I would have done when I was on duty.
And I proned him out to keep him safe, to keep myself safe.
And because I didn't really want to shoot this guy.
So, the sheriffs show up.
They brush him off.
They brush me off.
They take my gun from me.
Then we start explaining each side of our stories.
I tell them basically what I just told you.
They let me go.
They let him go, and they said it was a big misunderstanding.
This guy was down the street serving a subpoena to someone else, a neighbor of mine.
They got into a big fight down the street, and they ended up spraying each other with OC spray.
He ends up running up the street and ends up in my neighbor's yard across the street.
Well, three, four, five months later in February, a couple months later, I get a subpoena to go to court because this guy's pursuing me.
On a restraining order.
Okay.
I gotta let you go.
I don't know the whole story, obviously.
I can only say that based on the New York story, we are training Americans not to help people.
Dennis Prager here.
Thanks for listening to the Daily Dennis Prager Podcast.
To hear the entire three hours of my radio show, commercial-free, every single day, You'll also get access to 15 years' worth of archives, as well as the daily show prep.
▲
Export Selection