Ep. 112 - “Shall Not Be Infringed”： The 2nd Amendment ft. Prof. Eugene Volokh
Summary
Eugene Volokh, Gary T. Schwartz, and Michael Knowles discuss the role of the Second Amendment in shaping our understanding of gun rights and gun control. They talk about the history of the amendment and the role it played in shaping gun rights.
Transcript
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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.
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Seems simple enough, but nevertheless, Democrats persisted in trying to rob words of their meaning.
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Fortunately, we will be joined today by Eugene Volokh, Gary T. Schwartz, Distinguished Professor of Law at UCLA.
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Just a little background, Professor Volokh scored a 780 out of 800 on his math SAT at age 10,
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began working as a computer programmer at age 12, graduated UCLA with a degree in mathematics and computer science at age 15,
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while working as a computer programmer for 20th Century Fox.
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He later earned his law degree from UCLA, at which point he clerked for the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Alex Kaczynski
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Justice Scalia cited Professor Volokh on three occasions in his opinion for the landmark gun rights decision,
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Now, I know, I know, if this were a mainstream news outlet like CNN,
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we would bring on traumatized know-nothing teenagers to discuss this topic.
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But here on The Michael Knowles Show, you'll just have to settle for nationally recognized experts.
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Then, speak of the devil, CNN invents a whole new class of firearms.
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and the Heritage Foundation says President Trump is outpacing Ronald Reagan in affecting its conservative agenda.
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Let's get right into it. I'm Michael Knowles, and this is The Michael Knowles Show.
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So, just to begin, a well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state,
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the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
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The Second Amendment reads, specifically, the right of the people.
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It doesn't say the right of the state. It doesn't say the right of the federal government.
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What does that say about the nature of Second Amendment rights?
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The rights are rights of people, people like you and me.
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That's what the Supreme Court held in D.C. v. Heller, and then in McDonald v. Chicago.
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That was also the view of most courts and commentators dealing with this.
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In fact, almost all of them through the 1800s and through the early part of the 1900s.
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A bunch of courts adopted the so-called states' rights view or militia rights view,
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which seemed to be focused on preserving the rights of states to run their own National Guard-type organizations.
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But that started in about the late 1930s and then was rejected eventually by the U.S. Supreme Court.
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That's not something there's any evidence that the framers believed.
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One other thing to keep in mind is when the Second Amendment does mention the militia,
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that seems to refer to basically the entire adult citizenry.
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Back at the time of the framing, it was the adult white male citizenry.
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Today it would be pretty much all adults because that's what militia was understood to mean,
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the armed citizenry rather than some special selected army or National Guard-like group.
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That always strikes me, the militia, because opponents of the Second Amendment and of gun rights
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will say, well, see, we don't have militias anymore and you're not in the militia.
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But there being a militia presupposes gun rights because people have to have their own guns.
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And I want to ask you about this justification clause versus this operative clause.
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It says a well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state.
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That is the justification clause, the dependent clause.
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And then there's an operative clause which says the right of the people to keep and bear arms
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Opponents cite the justification clause all the time.
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What is the relation between the justification clause and the operative clause itself?
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Well, it seems to me and it seems to the court,
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and I think this was the general understanding around the time of the framing,
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that the operative clause is the part that actually indicates what right is secured.
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And then the justification clause, the first clause in this case,
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explains why it's secured or at least one of the reasons why it's secured.
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So it says quite clearly the right of the people, not the right of the state,
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not the right of the militia, the right of the people.
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And again, the justification clause fits that actually pretty well once one understands what
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Even today, if you look at the federal statute, Title 10 U.S. Code Section 246,
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it defines the militia as consisting of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age
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So today, in light of developments in equal protection law,
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I think it would also be understood as including potentially females as well.
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So it basically has long been understood as referring to able-bodied adults.
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To be sure, people above age 45 still have the right to keep and bear arms.
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But it explains why the militia clause and the right of the people clause
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It turns out, if you look at state constitutional provisions
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this sort of two-clause construction is actually pretty common.
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Sometimes you see free press clause provisions the same way.
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Like, for example, 17, excuse me, the first Rhode Island constitution,
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Rhode Island was slow getting its own post-revolutionary constitution.
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They're very relaxed up in Rhode Island, Vermont, right?
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The liberty of the press being essential to the security of freedom in a state,
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comma, any person may publish his sentiments on any subject
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being responsible for the abuse of that liberty.
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Being essential to the security of freedom in a state.
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because constitutions are also political and rhetorical documents,
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it explains why they're securing the freedom of the press.
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But the operative clause is the part that's the law.
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Any person may publish his sentiments on any subject.
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And you see something similar in various other provisions in 1780,
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Massachusetts constitution, 1784, New Hampshire constitution.
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These kinds of two-clause constructions are actually pretty commonplace
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And they always say, the opponents of gun rights, they always say,
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or such a strange structure for the U.S. constitution.
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But of course, I think this is because our perhaps lightly educated friends
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haven't looked at other state constitutions and haven't looked at linguistic conventions of the era.
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But there's even a grammatical point here, which is that there is an independent clause,
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which says the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
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And then there is a clause which is not an independent clause,
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which is this justification clause, this justificatory clause.
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I also want to get to the operative clause, which is shall not be infringed.
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And of course, we've interpreted that to mean shall be rather infringed.
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Why did the framers phrase it the way that they did,
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rather than saying, for instance, people shall now have the right to keep and bear arms?
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Right. Well, the rights secured by the Bill of Rights, with a few exceptions,
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the Establishment Clause is one, but most rights, setting that aside, were longest, long accepted rights.
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The right to keep and bear arms had existed, has been understood as one of the rights of Englishmen
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In fact, it was mentioned, although in much weaker form, in the English Bill of Rights of 1689.
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The same is true of the freedom of the press and the like.
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So they were taking existing rights that they understood as being secured by
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traditions of English law, and they were saying those rights cannot be infringed by the federal
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government. And state constitutions often said something similar about no infringement by state
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governments. I should say, I don't think the framers view these rights as absolute.
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Just like they recognize that the freedom of the press might coexist with libel law, for instance.
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So I think they were open to some restrictions that didn't count as infringements of the right of
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the people to keep and bear arms. Unfortunately, it's not really clear what they were. There's
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actually very little evidence about exactly what they understood to be covered or not at the level of
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specific detailed restrictions. But it is pretty clear that they understood the big picture right
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as being a right of individuals to possess at least certain kinds of arms.
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And I do love the idea because, of course, yes, there can be reasonable restrictions in some ways,
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especially if it overlaps with some other right. But I do love in that Rhode Island 1842 constitution,
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it says the liberty of the press being essential to the security of freedom in a state.
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Now, so frequently, gun rights opponents, they say, well, we don't need militias. So if that is
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unnecessary now, we don't need the operative clause. But I will say, looking around at this
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current state of the free press, I wonder if we could question the justification in that clause of
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the Rhode Island constitution. Surely we wouldn't say CNN has become so ridiculous. At this point,
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we no longer need a free press. I think they would be much more afraid of taking their logic to its
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logical conclusion. On the question of the individual right, on Heller, you were cited three
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times in that decision. Our benighted friends on the left now insist that until Heller, the individual
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right to keep and bear arms was considered bizarre and ridiculous in some way. Writing in Politico,
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Michael Waldman of NYU Law writes, quote, the NRA rewrote the Second Amendment. Can you clear that up?
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Did the NRA rewrite the Second Amendment? No, not at all. So if you look at discussions of the right
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to bear arms, not long after the framing, if you look at the discussions of the English right to have
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arms that this right was clearly based on, and again was an extension of, from before the framing,
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if you look at court cases throughout the 1800s, and you look at quite a few, especially state court
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cases in the 1900s, it's quite clear that the right was understood as being a right of individuals.
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Now, to be sure, the right could be limited in various ways, including ones one might disagree with.
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In the 1800s, for example, it was common for courts to say, well, the right doesn't include the right
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to carry concealed weapons, because that's something that sneaky people do, not good,
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upstanding Americans. But that was understood as a limitation on the individual right. In fact,
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if you look at the Supreme Court's decisions that mentioned the right to bear arms, and there were
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quite a few, although very few dealt with it directly, the overwhelming majority just talked about
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it as the right to keep and bear arms without even mentioning the militia clause. They recognized that
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it's all about the right. And again, they mentioned it often as an example of a right that could be
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limited in various ways. So what I think the accurate way of describing it is that the dominant view
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throughout much of American history was it was an individual right. Federal appellate courts,
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starting with the late 1930s and up until the early 2000s, often said it was a state's right.
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So, and they were quite influential. So, indeed, among federal courts, this was the federal appellate
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courts whose general understanding was contrary to what the court accepted in Heller. The 1939 Miller
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decision from the Supreme Court was ambiguous on this. Some other decisions after Miller actually
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seem to treat it as an individual right. But what happened was that there was therefore this dispute
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on the subject with the older authorities seeming to support more of the individual rights view
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and the more modern 1900s authorities, especially from federal courts supporting the state's rights
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view. And the NDC v. Heller resolved the dispute. And so I guess we'd have to say it's not the NRA
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that rewrote the Second Amendment. It's the federal courts and the appellate courts that rewrote the
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Second Amendment. And fortunately, it has been, there has been a reform of the reform. And, and now
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what I really want to ask you about now are these muskets. This is this constant line we hear. But
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slash Knowles, K-N-O-W-L-E-S. Okay, away from toothbrushes, back to guns. Professor Follick,
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in our last five or so minutes here, the other main argument that we hear from the left is that
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at the time of ratification, the Second Amendment was understood to protect only muskets or something.
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These people, of course, have never heard of the Brown Bess or the Girondoni Rifle or the Belt and
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Flintlock, the latter of which was offered to Congress in 1777 and could fire 20 rounds in five seconds,
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which is much faster, I assure you, than I can shoot an AR-15. Regardless, what do we make of
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this argument that the Second Amendment protects only 18th century gun technology?
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The same thing we'd make from an argument that says, well, the First Amendment can't protect the
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internet because, of course, the framers didn't have the internet. How could those geniuses who
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invented our country, how could they ever have foreseen advancing technology? No one could imagine that.
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Right. And in fact, actually, they lived at a time when they felt themselves to be in the middle of
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technological revolution, which they were. That was the first industrial revolution.
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They saw the world changing around them. They recognized, by the way, that the freedom of the
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press was the freedom to use a particular technology, which was understood as a major invention. It had
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been invented 300 years before, but it was understood as a huge technological advance.
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And when they said the freedom of the press, they literally were referring to just one technology,
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the printing press. But the courts have recognized that, of course, that applies more broadly to
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new technologies as well. And likewise, they talked about arms. There, they didn't even limit it to
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one technology. They didn't say even firearms, much less muskets. They said arms more broadly.
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And that term clearly covers modern arms, as well as arms that existed at the time.
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Whether we see it in other situations, too, obviously, Congress has the power to regulate
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commerce, including commerce through air travel. Congress has the power to raise armies,
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but also it includes to provide an air force for those armies. Courts have long recognized that
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constitutional provisions need to be read in light of their application to modern technology,
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technology, and not just sort of applicable as only to pre-existing technologies. And again,
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And of course, the use of the word arms may have been prescient, because as we know,
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many more people are killed each year with hands than are killed with rifles of any sort,
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including the AR-15. Maybe arms even includes arms itself. These people, you know, Benjamin Franklin,
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a founding father, a founding grandfather, was a world-renowned inventor. The suggestion that these
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people didn't realize that technology would advance seems to me highly suspect. Now, on gun control,
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as a civil rights matter, it has always seemed to me gun rights are civil rights. They're
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constitutionally protected civil rights. This is, it's also the same that soldiers not being quartered in
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my home is a civil right. Civil rights activists for centuries have recognized the importance of
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the right to bear arms, Frederick Douglass and many others. Now, Oprah says that gun control is the new
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civil rights movement. How did a civil right come to be regarded as an obstacle to civil rights?
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Well, I support gun rights, but I have to, I think there is something plausible at the heart of
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the Oprah claim that you're quoting, because one really important civil right is the right to be
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protected against crime. And I totally understand that people are worried about crime and worried in
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particular about gun crime, which is particularly lethal. That is to say, your chances of, if you are
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shot at with a gun, your chances of dying are a lot higher than if you're punched, let's say.
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Right. So people are rightly worried about this. It's just that, first of all, I do think the
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Second Amendment makes a particular choice in favor of allowing people to arm themselves. And if you
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don't like that, you can repeal the Second Amendment, but you shouldn't ignore it. But second, the Second
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Amendment does, I think, leave a lot of room for gun regulations, including ones that I think might be
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unsound. Not everything that's unwise is unconstitutional. Right. But there, the question is,
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would it really help? And a lot of the regulations that I hear proposed, I don't think are going to
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be terribly effective. If you ban so-called military-style semi-automatics, then people
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will switch to supposedly non-military-style semi-automatics, which, generally speaking,
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are about as lethal as the ones that people are proposing to ban. Now, to be sure, fully automatic
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guns might be a good deal more lethal. There does seem to be real evidence of that. But those are already
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very heavily regulated and largely banned. So, I do think that there is an important right that we
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have to be protected by the government that we hire to do the job. And in some situations,
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like in the Florida shooting, it looks like there was a real failure of government protection.
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But it seems to me that trying to deny people the right to defend themselves isn't really going to
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make the rest of us more secure. I see the arguments for why it might. I think,
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if you look at the criminological data, it doesn't seem very likely.
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I always loved Justice Scalia's category of things that are stupid but constitutional. And,
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of course, some new law, or I suppose some old law, banning a gun like the AR-15 may not be
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unconstitutional. But, of course, we've seen the effect of the so-called assault weapons ban.
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The effect on gun homicide was negligible. And so, perhaps you're right. There is a lot of feeling
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that one has a civil right to be secure in my person, in my property. But when you actually
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look at the laws themselves, they don't seem to be able to prevent any of these mass shooting
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incidents or have much effect on gun homicide whatsoever, which has been declining for decades.
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On the question of gun control itself, the first federal gun control law in the U.S. came in 1934,
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the National Firearms Act, to my knowledge. How did that law and subsequent federal gun control
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laws affect the nature of the gun control debate?
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Well, I think the gun control debate historically has been mostly at the state level. If you look at the
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pattern of existing gun control laws, in my own California, for example, the main form of restraint,
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I think, on the right to defend yourself with a gun is it's very, very hard to get a license to carry
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a gun. And in many places, it's basically impossible. In L.A., it's virtually impossible.
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Right. That's a state level law. And if you look at the main, the most important gun-related
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legal change over the last 30-some years, it's been gun decontrol. It used to be that basically
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40 states, you either needed a license which was not necessarily broadly available. It was on a May
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issue basis, where it was all a matter of whether your sheriff liked you, or in order to carry a
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concealed gun, or you couldn't get a license at all. Concealed carry was categorically banned.
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Ten states, you were allowed to do that either in most of them by getting a license, or in Vermont
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was one state where you didn't even need a license. Now the number has flipped. It's 40 states where
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you're legally entitled to either a license to carry a concealed or you don't even need a license in
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several states, and only 10 states in which you essentially it's up to the government, and the
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government often says no as to whether to give you the license.
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So most of the gun control debate really is at the state level. Now, to be sure, one thing that
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pro-gun control forces say is state laws are just pretty easy to evade, because it's easy to go
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Bring something right over the border, of course.
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Right. Especially laws that don't limit carrying, but laws that limit possession, essentially,
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can be easily evaded at the state level, which is why I think they've tried to set up federal
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level bans. But generally speaking, it's been pretty difficult for them to accomplish that
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politically, because even though there are some states which are pretty solidly anti-gun,
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at the federal level, it's very hard to muster political majority to restrict guns.
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And when it was done, for example, in 1994 with the assault weapons ban, it was thought one reason
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that the Democrats lost control of Congress that fall was because of the backlash against the ban.
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And then, indeed, the ban was in effect for 10 years. It wasn't renewed. There were studies,
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including by people who are not pro-gun rights, of whether there was any visible effect. And it's
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not just the effect was minimal. If there was any effect, it was too little to notice. And there's
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no reason to think there was an effect. There was an experiment that was conducted, and there's no
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Well, that's a wonderful note to end on. One, in that we don't have to worry about crazy changes
00:24:45.340
in gun homicide. But also, the Democrats have been pushing so hard for gun control these past few
00:24:51.260
weeks. One wonders if we can have another 1994, another Republican wave. When I read your work,
00:24:57.240
Professor Volokh, I always feel much better about my country and the state of law. And now speaking to
00:25:03.920
you, it does exactly the same thing in this particularly political way. Professor Volokh,
00:25:08.500
we have to let you go teach a course, I believe. But thank you so much for taking the time. Very
00:25:14.120
illuminating. You know, rather than, I know what we're supposed to do in the news these days
00:25:18.880
is just bring on teenagers to demagogue issues. But I suppose we'll make an exception to have a
00:25:25.300
national expert explain it to the audience as well. So thank you very much.
00:25:31.720
Is that guy just the smartest guy in the entire world? I don't know.
00:25:35.800
When I read Professor Volokh or I speak to him, I just think, wow, there is a level of
00:25:41.660
intelligence that I will never reach, but at least I can read him and he'll tell me what to think.
00:25:45.720
Okay. Before we move on, we have a lot of news to get to. And I do want to put a button on this
00:25:50.840
gun question. But before we do that, we need to talk not just about guns, we need to talk about
00:25:56.380
razors. That's another. This is a very productive and important thing that I use every day.
00:26:01.720
I certainly use it more than what we've been talking about. And that would be my razor,
00:26:05.740
which I love. I'm talking about Dollar Shave Club, which does many great things. It allows me to have
00:26:10.640
my nice, smooth skin and it keeps the lights on in the studio. So please give them a shout because
00:26:15.520
we really like Dollar Shave Club. When I say Dollar Shave Club, if the first thing that pops into your
00:26:20.260
head is an amazing, affordable shave, then I am going to blow your mind because I talk about the
00:26:25.640
razor all the time, but they have so much more than that. Dollar Shave Club dot com. They deliver
00:26:30.060
everything you need to look, feel, and smell your best. It is more than just razors and it is better
00:26:35.700
than shopping in a store. You know, I never would go to a store anyway. I've always used nice razors,
00:26:40.280
but I would never go into a store to refill the razors because I am a millennial and I am fused
00:26:47.420
to whatever sitting vessel I am in at the time. So I, on the rare occasion, I would go to a drug
00:26:54.120
store to get razors. As a man, you know, you always end up walking down that aisle that you're not
00:26:58.940
supposed to walk down and then you feel very self-conscious and you think, oh, where are the
00:27:02.540
razors? And oh, yuck, I don't want to be part of that. Be, come on guys, it's 2018. Be keeping up with
00:27:08.740
the technology. Have them send razors right to your door and you won't get just razors. Dollar
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Shave Club offers everything you need to look, smell, and feel your best. Shampoo, body wash,
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toothpaste. They're definitely the best razors I've ever used. They go really well with the Dr.
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Carver's Shave Butter. It's not that giant foam that your father used. It's not that little gel stuff
00:27:30.980
that soy boys use. It's a nice, good American Dr. Carver's Shave Butter. It helps the razor glide
00:27:37.960
across your skin. You have got to experience it. Another must-have experience is how they just
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experience, join Dollar Shave Club today. And for just $5 with free shipping, you will get the six
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blade executive razor plus trial sizes of shave butter, body cleanser, and how do I put this?
00:28:03.060
You know, you know when you're in Europe and you want to get a little cleaner during your trips to
00:28:09.760
the water closet, you know, a little cleaner than people get in America, and you want to maybe wash
00:28:14.280
a little bit where the sun don't shine? Well, don't get a bidet installed in your home. That'll be very
00:28:18.600
expensive. Just use one-wipe Charlies. I'll let you use your imagination for what they're for.
00:28:24.180
Apparently very effective. Then keep the blades coming for a few bucks more per month.
00:28:28.440
Get yours at dollarshaveclub.com slash covfefe. C-O-V-F-E-F-E. That is dollarshaveclub.com
00:28:36.360
slash covfefe. Okay, let's, we got to put a button on this. We have to get to Heritage Foundation's
00:28:43.380
wonderful report about President Trump and his administration, but let's put a, put a period on
00:28:49.680
this gun control debate. CNN is now, they've invented a new class of firearms. They're warning
00:28:56.340
Americans about the dangers of full semi-automatic weapons. Watch.
00:29:11.360
General Mark Irving served in the U.S. Army for 37 years, so he knows what the AR-15, which used to
00:29:16.800
be a weapon of war, can do. And he has strong feelings about the semi-automatic assault-style
00:29:22.020
rifle, which is the precursor to a weapon currently used by the military, the M4.
00:29:30.400
Now, those are single shots. If I wanted to fire this on full semi-automatic, all I do is keep
00:29:36.880
firing. Now, I won't probably hit the target when I do this, when we look at the target later on,
00:29:42.080
but I'm going to fire about five shots. I don't even know where to begin with this. He goes and he
00:29:52.320
says, this is what an AR-15 sounds like. And then do you know what it sounds like? It sounds like a
00:29:58.120
gun. That's what it says. I was shocked. My jaw hit the floor. I said, wait, you're telling me that
00:30:01.980
gun sounds like a gun? I thought it was going to sound like a cuckoo clock or something. Wow.
00:30:06.360
So it sounds like a gun. And then he fires it, right? And he fires it slowly as one may fire a
00:30:11.620
gun. He says, boom, boom, boom. Okay. And he said, okay, now I'm going to go full semi-auto.
00:30:16.880
And full semi-auto is a contradiction in terms. There are guns that are fully automatic. That's
00:30:22.140
when you pull the trigger once and a gazillion bullets come out. And then there are guns which
00:30:25.940
are semi-automatic, where you pull the trigger once and one bullet comes out. And you can hold it
00:30:31.280
down as long as you want. It's just going to be one bullet that comes out. So what CNN is obviously
00:30:35.720
trying to do very dishonestly is conflate the two things. That's why they always say it's
00:30:39.900
military style weapons. This is not what they use in the military. I assure you of that.
00:30:45.820
So he, but then he says, okay, now I'm going to go full semi-auto, but it's not like he clicked
00:30:50.160
anything on the gun. He just pulled the trigger faster. He didn't even pull it that fast. He just
00:30:54.300
started, he said, now I'm going full. I got to warm my finger up here. Don't you, this is a federal
00:30:59.560
weapon. This is an assault weapon right here is my index finger. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. Totally,
00:31:04.160
totally disingenuous. But just to, just to compare for you, what they're trying to make you think
00:31:09.260
is that AR-15s, the most popular rifle in America, that they are like machine guns or like their
00:31:15.600
assault rifles, you know, guns that have a fully automatic fire. Here is a guy shooting an M240
00:31:21.360
machine gun. The gunner will fire 10 seconds or 130 rounds. We will then score the results. Let's watch.
00:31:34.160
So I got to tell you, I think not even that CNN guy's assault finger could fire at that rate of
00:31:51.320
fire. That was really, you know, just I don't, I don't know how he could do. You'd have to get
00:31:55.120
some much higher license of index finger in order to fire that fast. Now here is a guy shooting an AR-15,
00:32:02.220
a regular old shotgun and a Glock 19. Here, here is that. See if you can tell the difference.
00:32:32.220
Now, I don't know. Did you, could you tell the difference? Could you spot the difference there?
00:32:41.180
The giant machine gun that was shooting a gazillion rounds per second, or just the regular old guns,
00:32:47.760
the handgun, the Glock, the shotgun, a regular old shotgun, and the AR-15, those all sounded exactly
00:32:54.420
the same because you pull the trigger once and one bullet comes out. They all sounded quite different
00:32:59.340
from the gigantic machine gun that that military guy was shooting. Those are the two things. CNN
00:33:04.740
really wants you to conflate the two. You're going to hear the phrase full semi-automatic weapon now,
00:33:09.780
I'm sure, on CNN. I think Steve Crowder actually did a joke about this. He was doing a little bit,
00:33:14.700
and someone said, is that an automatic weapon? He goes, yeah, it's fully semi-automatic,
00:33:17.840
fully semi-automatic. It's like a jumbo shrimp or something. So just wait for that one. It is just,
00:33:22.580
it's completely ridiculous. But make sure that the reason we don't let Democrats write our gun laws
00:33:27.340
is they don't know anything about firearms. They don't know anything about firearms. If you have
00:33:31.620
ever once been to a gun range, you know much more about firearms than virtually any elected Democrat
00:33:37.380
in this country. Don't let them get away with this. Make sure when they start spouting off and
00:33:42.080
your lefty friend starts spouting off on guns, just show them those videos. Say this, this is an
00:33:46.400
automatic weapon. This is an AR-15. This is a shotgun. Why is the shotgun okay, but the AR-15 isn't okay?
00:33:52.620
They both fire the same rate of fire. The shotgun is going to blow a much bigger hole in the wall
00:33:57.400
than the AR-15 is. Just a few of those little, those hate facts, you know, just drop a few hate
00:34:02.440
facts on them. And I think it will quell down at least their hysteria. Okay. Speaking of guns not
00:34:08.720
being handled properly, real gun control where the sheriffs didn't use the guns at all. Sheriff Scott
00:34:13.160
Israel, the guy who blames everyone for his own failings, except for himself. The buck stops just
00:34:19.480
before Scott Israel, that guy. He apparently circulated a memo to employees, instructing
00:34:24.520
them to vigorously defend him against conservative calls that he resigned. Now, I'm sure that Scott
00:34:30.820
Israel will probably deny that he circulated that memo. But regardless, he will say that
00:34:37.760
somebody beneath him did it, you know, and that he can't be held responsible for things that
00:34:41.200
he didn't know, even though of course it is his job to know those things. But this, this
00:34:47.200
is a reminder that sheriffs are politicians. I'm going to go into that a little bit because
00:34:50.940
people don't understand that sheriffs are politicians, but I'm sorry. Look, if you're
00:34:55.360
on Facebook and YouTube, well, you're not on YouTube, but if you're on Facebook, you haven't
00:34:59.800
been on YouTube in months, I'm sure. But if you're on Facebook, you have to go to dailywire.com
00:35:03.520
right now. I know you want more. Listen, we did, we went an extra five minutes today,
00:35:07.720
I think, just so you could get all that, all those hate facts from Professor Volok. But you got
00:35:12.140
to go to dailywire.com. It's $10 a month or $100 for an annual membership. What do you get? You get
00:35:16.340
me, the Andrew Klavan show, the Ben Shapiro show, the conversation next time starring the big boss,
00:35:21.320
Ben Shapiro, and you'll get to ask questions in the mailbag. Make sure to get your mailbag
00:35:26.760
questions in. None of that matters because now we, there are, there is a, there are a lot of assault
00:35:32.580
emotions coming out from Democrats and CNN, and you're going to want to be able to defend yourself
00:35:37.180
and your families. I promise you the leftist tears Tumblr is protected for civilian use in the
00:35:42.980
Second Amendment. The right to protect yourself from radioactive leftist tears shall not be
00:35:48.080
infringed. But you've got to make sure that you can protect yourself. You have to have this important
00:35:52.860
vessel, which is the only FDA approved vessel to store leftist tears, hot or cold, always salty and
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delicious. Go to dailywire.com right now. We'll be right back.
00:36:13.460
You know, Sheriff Israel, this guy is unbelievable. The gall of this guy, if he were an actual law
00:36:19.420
enforcement officer, he would have resigned a week ago. Wouldn't he have? Because he would have had
00:36:23.380
integrity and he would have, he probably would have done his job actually if he weren't, but he's not
00:36:27.480
a law enforcement officer. He's a politician. He, we don't, we don't remember this too much in the
00:36:33.280
United States, but Jeff Sessions got in trouble the other day. He said the office of sheriff is an
00:36:38.020
important part of the Anglo-American heritage of law enforcement. And they called him a racist
00:36:42.720
because people don't know what words mean anymore. But the sheriff's office is an elected office.
00:36:48.060
And it's so the civilians can have some control over their law enforcement to protect against tyrannical
00:36:53.760
governing. Uh, so the, the office of sheriff is this guy. There are several photos of this guy,
00:36:59.120
Sheriff Israel posing with Hillary Clinton. He endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016. If he were a
00:37:05.600
regular old police officer, somebody working for the government, he wouldn't have been able to do
00:37:09.300
that so publicly, but he's just a politician, apparently a Democrat politician who goes out and
00:37:14.080
endorses candidates. And what do politicians always do? They pass the buck. They do their best to avoid
00:37:19.420
any sort of responsibility. He went on Jake Tapper. He ignored, uh, Jake Tapper, I think suggested he
00:37:26.020
ignored 23 warnings about the shooter in Florida. But, uh, then there was a word around that he, uh,
00:37:33.060
ignored 39 warnings about the shooter. And he said, absolutely. We didn't ignore 39. I guess he's
00:37:38.400
right. He apparently ignored 45 warnings. His office ignored 45 warnings about this shooter. He goes on
00:37:44.560
Jake Tapper. He says, I've done an amazing job. I amazing leadership for me, Sheriff Israel.
00:37:49.420
He is a politician who's going to pass the buck, but he failed. He utterly failed. None of his
00:37:54.420
excuses hold water and we should hold him to account just as we hold politicians to account.
00:37:59.160
This is the reason the sheriff gets elected is so that we can kick him out when he does a terrible
00:38:03.260
job and people should kick him out. It is really a despicable display to go up there knowing that
00:38:09.200
your own deputies didn't go into the, uh, go in and fight, didn't go in and try to stop the shooter to,
00:38:14.640
to know all of that and go and try to demagogue and vilify a civil rights organization. Really awful
00:38:20.500
stuff. And we shouldn't let up. I mean, we should tweet this guy every five seconds. Now he's trying
00:38:24.800
to tweet all the good things that the sheriff's office is doing. They caught some kid who could
00:38:28.900
have shot up a school or whatever. Too little, too late, buddy. Sorry. I missed your chance,
00:38:32.420
to quote a great man, sad. There is another point that gets lost in these debates beyond Sheriff
00:38:38.120
Israel. There is not an epidemic of school shootings in America. There is not one. I know
00:38:43.020
if you watch CNN, it seems like there is. And they're all saying that there is an epidemic of
00:38:46.640
school shootings in America. That's the premise of all these new gun control policies. The data
00:38:51.420
don't bear that out. A new analysis by James Allen Fox, the Littman family professor of criminology,
00:38:56.400
law, and public policy at Northeastern University shows this is not an epidemic. Mass murders in the
00:39:01.820
United States, a country of well over 300 million people, occur 20 to 30 times per year. And mass
00:39:07.680
murder meaning when there are four or more people killed within a 24-hour period. One of those
00:39:13.420
incidents on average takes place each year at a school. Now, actually, mass shootings and school
00:39:18.380
shootings have declined precipitously since the 1990s. And during the early 1990s, four times the
00:39:24.840
number of children were killed in schools as are killed today. I know you watch CNN. It looks like
00:39:30.180
these things started five minutes ago, and they've only increased. And it's probably Trump's fault for
00:39:34.240
some reason. But really, if you compare the school shootings today to those in the 1990s, the early
00:39:39.640
1990s, four times the number of kids were killed in the early 90s. There are 55 million children in
00:39:45.980
the United States. On average, over the past 25 years, 10 school children per year are killed by
00:39:51.800
gunfire at school. 10 is 10 too many. Nobody suggests that that isn't true. Also, the imagination
00:39:58.640
of man's heart is evil from the beginning. We protect civil liberties in this country, and there
00:40:02.960
are more guns than people in this country, and those guns prevent crime. So there is a balancing act
00:40:07.680
that's required here. And in a country of 55 million school kids to suggest a demagogue and say there is
00:40:13.060
an epidemic, that there are many more school shootings now, that many more children are dying.
00:40:17.420
What? You don't care about dead children? What? You don't care about dead children? That is just a
00:40:21.680
lie. That is lying demagoguery. We shouldn't let them get away with any of it. Even, by the way,
00:40:26.600
making schools fortresses likely won't work. People are now saying we should have a guard or two guards
00:40:31.740
or metal detectors or whatever. In 1989, decades ago, a shooter killed five and injured 32 elementary
00:40:37.880
school children in Stockton, California by targeting them on the playground. In 2005, a 16-year-old
00:40:43.100
killed 17 people at his Minnesota high school by walking through the front door metal detector and
00:40:49.080
just shooting the guard. In 1998, in Arkansas, two students pulled a fire alarm and sniped people as
00:40:54.960
they fled the building, killing five and wounding 10. You can't eliminate these things. The imagination
00:40:59.800
of man's heart is evil from the beginning. It's a very sad thing, but we have to inform our legislation,
00:41:05.800
inform our policy by data, not just by the hysterics and prostituting teenagers on CNN.
00:41:13.120
It's really irresponsible, and it's a really despicable thing to do. So now we have to move
00:41:18.660
on to a very important thing. This is not with guns. I wanted to end it on a high note because,
00:41:24.020
obviously, this has been a long couple weeks. We've just been arguing about guns all week and how to
00:41:30.480
protect school children. Let's end on a high note. The Heritage Foundation has concluded that the Trump
00:41:35.280
administration has already affected 64% of its agenda, two-thirds of the 334 agenda items called
00:41:42.300
for by Heritage, which puts him on a faster pace of conservative governance even than President
00:41:47.840
Reagan. You know Trump, that fake conservative that a lot of Republicans still don't like because he
00:41:52.420
sips Chardonnay with the wrong hand? That guy, he is affecting conservative policy according to the
00:41:58.060
Heritage Foundation, the preeminent conservative think tank, at a faster rate even than President
00:42:02.640
Reagan. We should qualify a few things. Reagan did have a Republican Senate, but he had a Democrat
00:42:08.700
House for his entire presidency. That, obviously, is going to slow down Republican governance.
00:42:14.860
Conservative governance, you've got to give him credit there. Trump has a fully Republican Congress,
00:42:19.260
but nevertheless, we should give him credit. He has unprecedented opposition from his own party.
00:42:24.040
I still read these articles about how he doesn't sip Chardonnay the right way or whatever. He's too
00:42:28.920
one coup. Oh, he uses naughty words. I still read that all the time, even from self-styled conservatives,
00:42:35.060
even from people in his own party. He faces opposition from the conservative wing, even of
00:42:40.200
his party, that Ronald Reagan really didn't face in quite the same way or for quite the same reasons.
00:42:47.000
President Trump also has unprecedented Democrat opposition, the calls for the resistance, the
00:42:51.920
special counsels from day one of his presidency, accusations of treason, whatever, people walking out.
00:42:57.120
Now, politics is always nasty. They really have upped the temperature a little bit on Trump on both sides of
00:43:03.460
the aisle. So, Heritage puts Trump at 64 percent. It put Reagan, at this point in his presidency, at 49 percent.
00:43:10.940
So, obviously, that's no knock on the gipper, but Trump is doing very well and much better than we expected,
00:43:16.680
and his agenda has hit a wide variety of conservative policy categories. So, it's not just tax reform.
00:43:21.500
It's tax reform and the Mexico City policy and its strength abroad and its massive deregulation and on and on and on and on.
00:43:27.840
So, a really good start, and let's hope that he doesn't turn left or anything like that. Let's hope that it keeps going on.
00:43:34.300
There's a reason that President Trump used the Ronald Reagan campaign line, Make America Great Again,
00:43:39.200
and it looks like he's doing a very good job, and it looks like because of the conservative revolution
00:43:43.960
that Ronald Reagan ushered in, we are now in a more conservative country than we were in in the 1980s.
00:43:49.120
In many ways, President Trump is building on that. It's a wonderful thing, and I'm glad to see Heritage Foundation
00:43:54.780
is as pleased as I am with all the covfefe. When I think of heritage, I don't necessarily think covfefe.
00:43:59.980
I think more bow ties and things like that, but, you know, maybe these things all go together.
00:44:04.300
Okay, that is our show. We've got some really good people coming up this week,
00:44:08.800
but I don't want to spoil the surprise, so you just have to tune in.
00:44:11.800
Until tomorrow, I'm Michael Knowles. This is The Michael Knowles Show. I will see you then.
00:44:20.200
The Michael Knowles Show is a Daily Wire forward publishing production.
00:44:23.340
Executive producer, Jeremy Boring. Senior producer, Jonathan Hay.
00:44:27.940
Supervising producer, Mathis Glover. Our technical producer is Austin Stevens.
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Edited by Alex Zingaro. Audio is mixed by Mike Coromina.
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Hair and makeup is by Jesua Olvera. Copyright Forward Publishing 2018.
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