The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 112 - “Shall Not Be Infringed”： The 2nd Amendment ft. Prof. Eugene Volokh

00:00:00.000 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.

00:00:08.560 Seems simple enough, but nevertheless, Democrats persisted in trying to rob words of their meaning.

00:00:14.620 Fortunately, we will be joined today by Eugene Volokh, Gary T. Schwartz, Distinguished Professor of Law at UCLA.

00:00:20.820 Just a little background, Professor Volokh scored a 780 out of 800 on his math SAT at age 10,

00:00:26.480 began working as a computer programmer at age 12, graduated UCLA with a degree in mathematics and computer science at age 15,

00:00:33.720 while working as a computer programmer for 20th Century Fox.

00:00:36.720 He later earned his law degree from UCLA, at which point he clerked for the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Alex Kaczynski

00:00:42.860 and Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

00:00:45.660 Justice Scalia cited Professor Volokh on three occasions in his opinion for the landmark gun rights decision,

00:00:51.920 District of Columbia v. Heller.

00:00:53.340 Now, I know, I know, if this were a mainstream news outlet like CNN,

00:00:58.320 we would bring on traumatized know-nothing teenagers to discuss this topic.

00:01:02.340 But here on The Michael Knowles Show, you'll just have to settle for nationally recognized experts.

00:01:07.420 Then, speak of the devil, CNN invents a whole new class of firearms.

00:01:11.740 Sheriff Scott Israel vindicates Jeff Sessions,

00:01:14.300 and the Heritage Foundation says President Trump is outpacing Ronald Reagan in affecting its conservative agenda.

00:01:20.460 Let's get right into it. I'm Michael Knowles, and this is The Michael Knowles Show.

00:01:31.180 Professor Volokh, thank you for being here.

00:01:34.900 Very much my pleasure.

00:01:36.480 So, just to begin, a well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state,

00:01:42.560 the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

00:01:46.560 The Second Amendment reads, specifically, the right of the people.

00:01:50.800 It doesn't say the right of the state. It doesn't say the right of the federal government.

00:01:54.400 What does that say about the nature of Second Amendment rights?

00:01:59.040 Yeah, that's right.

00:02:00.380 The rights are rights of people, people like you and me.

00:02:04.680 That's what the Supreme Court held in D.C. v. Heller, and then in McDonald v. Chicago.

00:02:08.760 And I think it held it correctly.

00:02:10.800 That was also the view of most courts and commentators dealing with this.

00:02:15.800 In fact, almost all of them through the 1800s and through the early part of the 1900s.

00:02:21.900 A bunch of courts adopted the so-called states' rights view or militia rights view,

00:02:27.560 which seemed to be focused on preserving the rights of states to run their own National Guard-type organizations.

00:02:34.500 But that started in about the late 1930s and then was rejected eventually by the U.S. Supreme Court.

00:02:42.180 But that's an anachronistic view.

00:02:47.060 That's not something there's any evidence that the framers believed.

00:02:50.400 One other thing to keep in mind is when the Second Amendment does mention the militia,

00:02:56.740 that seems to refer to basically the entire adult citizenry.

00:03:01.480 Back at the time of the framing, it was the adult white male citizenry.

00:03:05.700 Today it would be pretty much all adults because that's what militia was understood to mean,

00:03:09.620 the armed citizenry rather than some special selected army or National Guard-like group.

00:03:16.620 That always strikes me, the militia, because opponents of the Second Amendment and of gun rights

00:03:22.040 will say, well, see, we don't have militias anymore and you're not in the militia.

00:03:25.540 But there being a militia presupposes gun rights because people have to have their own guns.

00:03:31.740 And I want to ask you about this justification clause versus this operative clause.

00:03:37.460 It says a well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state.

00:03:41.760 That is the justification clause, the dependent clause.

00:03:46.680 And then there's an operative clause which says the right of the people to keep and bear arms

00:03:51.420 shall not be infringed.

00:03:53.540 Opponents cite the justification clause all the time.

00:03:56.980 What is the relation between the justification clause and the operative clause itself?

00:04:02.360 Well, it seems to me and it seems to the court,

00:04:04.620 and I think this was the general understanding around the time of the framing,

00:04:07.700 that the operative clause is the part that actually indicates what right is secured.

00:04:14.380 And then the justification clause, the first clause in this case,

00:04:18.120 explains why it's secured or at least one of the reasons why it's secured.

00:04:21.600 So it says quite clearly the right of the people, not the right of the state,

00:04:26.520 not the right of the militia, the right of the people.

00:04:29.460 And again, the justification clause fits that actually pretty well once one understands what

00:04:35.540 militia means.

00:04:36.480 Even today, if you look at the federal statute, Title 10 U.S. Code Section 246,

00:04:41.860 it defines the militia as consisting of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age

00:04:47.620 and under 45 years of age.

00:04:50.120 So today, in light of developments in equal protection law,

00:04:53.900 I think it would also be understood as including potentially females as well.

00:04:57.720 So it basically has long been understood as referring to able-bodied adults.

00:05:05.860 To be sure, people above age 45 still have the right to keep and bear arms.

00:05:12.300 They're still members of the people.

00:05:14.320 But it explains why the militia clause and the right of the people clause

00:05:19.020 actually fit together pretty well.

00:05:22.240 It turns out, if you look at state constitutional provisions

00:05:25.800 from around the timing of the framing,

00:05:28.100 this sort of two-clause construction is actually pretty common.

00:05:35.140 Sometimes you see free press clause provisions the same way.

00:05:39.380 Like, for example, 17, excuse me, the first Rhode Island constitution,

00:05:47.260 which was enacted in 1842.

00:05:49.060 Rhode Island was slow getting its own post-revolutionary constitution.

00:05:52.280 They're a little slow up there.

00:05:53.520 They're very relaxed up in Rhode Island, Vermont, right?

00:05:56.920 Exactly.

00:05:58.280 The liberty of the press being essential to the security of freedom in a state,

00:06:02.460 comma, any person may publish his sentiments on any subject

00:06:05.640 being responsible for the abuse of that liberty.

00:06:08.580 Very similar language, right?

00:06:10.340 Being essential to the security of freedom in a state.

00:06:13.460 That explains, kind of as a rhetorical matter,

00:06:16.560 because constitutions are also political and rhetorical documents,

00:06:19.840 it explains why they're securing the freedom of the press.

00:06:23.040 But the operative clause is the part that's the law.

00:06:25.740 Any person may publish his sentiments on any subject.

00:06:28.860 And you see something similar in various other provisions in 1780,

00:06:32.860 Massachusetts constitution, 1784, New Hampshire constitution.

00:06:36.560 These kinds of two-clause constructions are actually pretty commonplace

00:06:39.560 in constitutions of that era.

00:06:41.160 And they always say, the opponents of gun rights, they always say,

00:06:43.780 well, it's such a strange constitution,

00:06:46.060 or such a strange structure for the U.S. constitution.

00:06:49.580 But of course, I think this is because our perhaps lightly educated friends

00:06:53.720 haven't looked at other state constitutions and haven't looked at linguistic conventions of the era.

00:06:59.240 But there's even a grammatical point here, which is that there is an independent clause,

00:07:03.960 which says the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

00:07:06.960 And then there is a clause which is not an independent clause,

00:07:09.560 which is this justification clause, this justificatory clause.

00:07:13.800 I also want to get to the operative clause, which is shall not be infringed.

00:07:20.420 The wording of the amendment seems clear.

00:07:22.500 And of course, we've interpreted that to mean shall be rather infringed.

00:07:26.380 Why did the framers phrase it the way that they did,

00:07:29.680 rather than saying, for instance, people shall now have the right to keep and bear arms?

00:07:35.140 Why is it shall not be infringed?

00:07:36.800 Right. Well, the rights secured by the Bill of Rights, with a few exceptions,

00:07:42.520 the Establishment Clause is one, but most rights, setting that aside, were longest, long accepted rights.

00:07:49.960 The right to keep and bear arms had existed, has been understood as one of the rights of Englishmen

00:07:55.840 long before the Constitution.

00:07:58.300 In fact, it was mentioned, although in much weaker form, in the English Bill of Rights of 1689.

00:08:03.560 The same is true of the freedom of the press and the like.

00:08:06.960 So they were taking existing rights that they understood as being secured by

00:08:13.100 traditions of English law, and they were saying those rights cannot be infringed by the federal

00:08:18.940 government. And state constitutions often said something similar about no infringement by state

00:08:24.560 governments. I should say, I don't think the framers view these rights as absolute.

00:08:28.260 Of course.

00:08:29.020 Just like they recognize that the freedom of the press might coexist with libel law, for instance.

00:08:34.600 So I think they were open to some restrictions that didn't count as infringements of the right of

00:08:41.600 the people to keep and bear arms. Unfortunately, it's not really clear what they were. There's

00:08:46.720 actually very little evidence about exactly what they understood to be covered or not at the level of

00:08:54.220 specific detailed restrictions. But it is pretty clear that they understood the big picture right

00:09:00.760 as being a right of individuals to possess at least certain kinds of arms.

00:09:05.280 And I do love the idea because, of course, yes, there can be reasonable restrictions in some ways,

00:09:10.620 especially if it overlaps with some other right. But I do love in that Rhode Island 1842 constitution,

00:09:17.860 it says the liberty of the press being essential to the security of freedom in a state.

00:09:21.580 Now, so frequently, gun rights opponents, they say, well, we don't need militias. So if that is

00:09:28.660 unnecessary now, we don't need the operative clause. But I will say, looking around at this

00:09:33.680 current state of the free press, I wonder if we could question the justification in that clause of

00:09:40.460 the Rhode Island constitution. Surely we wouldn't say CNN has become so ridiculous. At this point, 0.80

00:09:46.220 we no longer need a free press. I think they would be much more afraid of taking their logic to its

00:09:52.220 logical conclusion. On the question of the individual right, on Heller, you were cited three

00:09:58.480 times in that decision. Our benighted friends on the left now insist that until Heller, the individual

00:10:05.140 right to keep and bear arms was considered bizarre and ridiculous in some way. Writing in Politico,

00:10:11.540 Michael Waldman of NYU Law writes, quote, the NRA rewrote the Second Amendment. Can you clear that up?

00:10:18.560 Did the NRA rewrite the Second Amendment? No, not at all. So if you look at discussions of the right

00:10:28.520 to bear arms, not long after the framing, if you look at the discussions of the English right to have

00:10:36.480 arms that this right was clearly based on, and again was an extension of, from before the framing,

00:10:43.340 if you look at court cases throughout the 1800s, and you look at quite a few, especially state court

00:10:49.620 cases in the 1900s, it's quite clear that the right was understood as being a right of individuals.

00:10:57.100 Now, to be sure, the right could be limited in various ways, including ones one might disagree with.

00:11:03.060 In the 1800s, for example, it was common for courts to say, well, the right doesn't include the right

00:11:08.340 to carry concealed weapons, because that's something that sneaky people do, not good,

00:11:12.920 upstanding Americans. But that was understood as a limitation on the individual right. In fact,

00:11:19.460 if you look at the Supreme Court's decisions that mentioned the right to bear arms, and there were

00:11:24.640 quite a few, although very few dealt with it directly, the overwhelming majority just talked about

00:11:30.000 it as the right to keep and bear arms without even mentioning the militia clause. They recognized that

00:11:35.020 it's all about the right. And again, they mentioned it often as an example of a right that could be

00:11:40.500 limited in various ways. So what I think the accurate way of describing it is that the dominant view

00:11:48.460 throughout much of American history was it was an individual right. Federal appellate courts,

00:11:53.920 starting with the late 1930s and up until the early 2000s, often said it was a state's right.

00:12:02.180 So, and they were quite influential. So, indeed, among federal courts, this was the federal appellate

00:12:08.680 courts whose general understanding was contrary to what the court accepted in Heller. The 1939 Miller

00:12:14.420 decision from the Supreme Court was ambiguous on this. Some other decisions after Miller actually

00:12:19.580 seem to treat it as an individual right. But what happened was that there was therefore this dispute

00:12:26.060 on the subject with the older authorities seeming to support more of the individual rights view

00:12:30.840 and the more modern 1900s authorities, especially from federal courts supporting the state's rights

00:12:35.760 view. And the NDC v. Heller resolved the dispute. And so I guess we'd have to say it's not the NRA

00:12:41.060 that rewrote the Second Amendment. It's the federal courts and the appellate courts that rewrote the

00:12:44.940 Second Amendment. And fortunately, it has been, there has been a reform of the reform. And, and now

00:12:50.160 what I really want to ask you about now are these muskets. This is this constant line we hear. But

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00:15:32.240 slash Knowles, K-N-O-W-L-E-S. Okay, away from toothbrushes, back to guns. Professor Follick,

00:15:38.140 in our last five or so minutes here, the other main argument that we hear from the left is that

00:15:44.980 at the time of ratification, the Second Amendment was understood to protect only muskets or something.

00:15:50.140 These people, of course, have never heard of the Brown Bess or the Girondoni Rifle or the Belt and

00:15:54.680 Flintlock, the latter of which was offered to Congress in 1777 and could fire 20 rounds in five seconds,

00:16:00.600 which is much faster, I assure you, than I can shoot an AR-15. Regardless, what do we make of

00:16:06.460 this argument that the Second Amendment protects only 18th century gun technology?

00:16:12.880 The same thing we'd make from an argument that says, well, the First Amendment can't protect the

00:16:17.060 internet because, of course, the framers didn't have the internet. How could those geniuses who

00:16:21.260 invented our country, how could they ever have foreseen advancing technology? No one could imagine that.

00:16:26.240 Right. And in fact, actually, they lived at a time when they felt themselves to be in the middle of

00:16:32.200 technological revolution, which they were. That was the first industrial revolution.

00:16:36.140 They saw the world changing around them. They recognized, by the way, that the freedom of the

00:16:40.400 press was the freedom to use a particular technology, which was understood as a major invention. It had

00:16:46.900 been invented 300 years before, but it was understood as a huge technological advance.

00:16:51.500 And when they said the freedom of the press, they literally were referring to just one technology,

00:17:00.460 the printing press. But the courts have recognized that, of course, that applies more broadly to

00:17:05.800 new technologies as well. And likewise, they talked about arms. There, they didn't even limit it to

00:17:12.560 one technology. They didn't say even firearms, much less muskets. They said arms more broadly.

00:17:17.640 And that term clearly covers modern arms, as well as arms that existed at the time.

00:17:24.480 Whether we see it in other situations, too, obviously, Congress has the power to regulate

00:17:28.140 commerce, including commerce through air travel. Congress has the power to raise armies,

00:17:33.500 but also it includes to provide an air force for those armies. Courts have long recognized that

00:17:39.020 constitutional provisions need to be read in light of their application to modern technology,

00:17:45.860 technology, and not just sort of applicable as only to pre-existing technologies. And again,

00:17:52.020 we see that in the First Amendment.

00:17:53.820 And of course, the use of the word arms may have been prescient, because as we know,

00:17:58.360 many more people are killed each year with hands than are killed with rifles of any sort,

00:18:03.680 including the AR-15. Maybe arms even includes arms itself. These people, you know, Benjamin Franklin,

00:18:10.320 a founding father, a founding grandfather, was a world-renowned inventor. The suggestion that these

00:18:16.260 people didn't realize that technology would advance seems to me highly suspect. Now, on gun control,

00:18:23.660 as a civil rights matter, it has always seemed to me gun rights are civil rights. They're

00:18:28.720 constitutionally protected civil rights. This is, it's also the same that soldiers not being quartered in

00:18:36.740 my home is a civil right. Civil rights activists for centuries have recognized the importance of

00:18:42.080 the right to bear arms, Frederick Douglass and many others. Now, Oprah says that gun control is the new

00:18:47.240 civil rights movement. How did a civil right come to be regarded as an obstacle to civil rights?

00:18:53.820 Well, I support gun rights, but I have to, I think there is something plausible at the heart of

00:19:02.140 the Oprah claim that you're quoting, because one really important civil right is the right to be

00:19:07.560 protected against crime. And I totally understand that people are worried about crime and worried in

00:19:14.540 particular about gun crime, which is particularly lethal. That is to say, your chances of, if you are

00:19:22.520 shot at with a gun, your chances of dying are a lot higher than if you're punched, let's say.

00:19:26.880 Right. So people are rightly worried about this. It's just that, first of all, I do think the

00:19:35.800 Second Amendment makes a particular choice in favor of allowing people to arm themselves. And if you

00:19:41.080 don't like that, you can repeal the Second Amendment, but you shouldn't ignore it. But second, the Second

00:19:46.160 Amendment does, I think, leave a lot of room for gun regulations, including ones that I think might be

00:19:51.040 unsound. Not everything that's unwise is unconstitutional. Right. But there, the question is,

00:19:55.140 would it really help? And a lot of the regulations that I hear proposed, I don't think are going to

00:19:59.700 be terribly effective. If you ban so-called military-style semi-automatics, then people

00:20:07.120 will switch to supposedly non-military-style semi-automatics, which, generally speaking,

00:20:11.900 are about as lethal as the ones that people are proposing to ban. Now, to be sure, fully automatic

00:20:17.140 guns might be a good deal more lethal. There does seem to be real evidence of that. But those are already

00:20:22.300 very heavily regulated and largely banned. So, I do think that there is an important right that we

00:20:28.620 have to be protected by the government that we hire to do the job. And in some situations,

00:20:34.460 like in the Florida shooting, it looks like there was a real failure of government protection.

00:20:38.660 But it seems to me that trying to deny people the right to defend themselves isn't really going to

00:20:45.140 make the rest of us more secure. I see the arguments for why it might. I think,

00:20:50.660 if you look at the criminological data, it doesn't seem very likely. 0.99

00:20:54.620 I always loved Justice Scalia's category of things that are stupid but constitutional. And, 0.98

00:21:01.220 of course, some new law, or I suppose some old law, banning a gun like the AR-15 may not be

00:21:08.780 unconstitutional. But, of course, we've seen the effect of the so-called assault weapons ban.

00:21:13.500 The effect on gun homicide was negligible. And so, perhaps you're right. There is a lot of feeling

00:21:20.700 that one has a civil right to be secure in my person, in my property. But when you actually

00:21:26.320 look at the laws themselves, they don't seem to be able to prevent any of these mass shooting

00:21:31.180 incidents or have much effect on gun homicide whatsoever, which has been declining for decades.

00:21:36.740 On the question of gun control itself, the first federal gun control law in the U.S. came in 1934,

00:21:43.700 the National Firearms Act, to my knowledge. How did that law and subsequent federal gun control

00:21:50.740 laws affect the nature of the gun control debate?

00:21:54.820 Well, I think the gun control debate historically has been mostly at the state level. If you look at the

00:22:03.080 pattern of existing gun control laws, in my own California, for example, the main form of restraint,

00:22:10.600 I think, on the right to defend yourself with a gun is it's very, very hard to get a license to carry

00:22:17.500 a gun. And in many places, it's basically impossible. In L.A., it's virtually impossible.

00:22:22.980 Right. That's a state level law. And if you look at the main, the most important gun-related

00:22:29.880 legal change over the last 30-some years, it's been gun decontrol. It used to be that basically

00:22:35.840 40 states, you either needed a license which was not necessarily broadly available. It was on a May

00:22:43.520 issue basis, where it was all a matter of whether your sheriff liked you, or in order to carry a

00:22:48.800 concealed gun, or you couldn't get a license at all. Concealed carry was categorically banned.

00:22:52.900 Ten states, you were allowed to do that either in most of them by getting a license, or in Vermont

00:22:59.880 was one state where you didn't even need a license. Now the number has flipped. It's 40 states where

00:23:04.680 you're legally entitled to either a license to carry a concealed or you don't even need a license in

00:23:09.480 several states, and only 10 states in which you essentially it's up to the government, and the

00:23:16.400 government often says no as to whether to give you the license.

00:23:19.900 So most of the gun control debate really is at the state level. Now, to be sure, one thing that

00:23:27.560 pro-gun control forces say is state laws are just pretty easy to evade, because it's easy to go

00:23:33.260 across state borders and get something.

00:23:35.340 Bring something right over the border, of course.

00:23:37.800 Right. Especially laws that don't limit carrying, but laws that limit possession, essentially,

00:23:42.400 can be easily evaded at the state level, which is why I think they've tried to set up federal

00:23:48.020 level bans. But generally speaking, it's been pretty difficult for them to accomplish that

00:23:53.100 politically, because even though there are some states which are pretty solidly anti-gun,

00:23:56.820 at the federal level, it's very hard to muster political majority to restrict guns.

00:24:03.540 And when it was done, for example, in 1994 with the assault weapons ban, it was thought one reason

00:24:09.720 that the Democrats lost control of Congress that fall was because of the backlash against the ban.

00:24:16.160 And then, indeed, the ban was in effect for 10 years. It wasn't renewed. There were studies,

00:24:21.320 including by people who are not pro-gun rights, of whether there was any visible effect. And it's

00:24:28.120 not just the effect was minimal. If there was any effect, it was too little to notice. And there's

00:24:32.500 no reason to think there was an effect. There was an experiment that was conducted, and there's no

00:24:36.420 reason to think the experiment was successful.

00:24:38.020 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.

00:25:29.880 Very much my pleasure. Thanks for having me.

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

00:27:14.780 Shave Club offers everything you need to look, smell, and feel your best. Shampoo, body wash,

00:27:19.900 toothpaste. They're definitely the best razors I've ever used. They go really well with the Dr.

00:27:24.880 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 1.00

00:27:37.960 across your skin. You have got to experience it. Another must-have experience is how they just

00:27:43.660 deliver everything to you. You do not have to think about it whatsoever. For a mind-blowing

00:27:48.860 experience, join Dollar Shave Club today. And for just $5 with free shipping, you will get the six

00:27:56.160 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. 0.99

00:28:24.180 Apparently very effective. Then keep the blades coming for a few bucks more per month. 0.96

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.

00:29:02.340 This is what an AR-15 sounds like.

00:29:10.260 Sounds like a gun.

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 0.90

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 0.91

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

00:35:58.780 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.

00:44:32.320 Edited by Alex Zingaro. Audio is mixed by Mike Coromina.

00:44:36.080 Hair and makeup is by Jesua Olvera. Copyright Forward Publishing 2018.

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The Michael Knowles Show - February 27, 2018

Ep. 112 - “Shall Not Be Infringed”： The 2nd Amendment ft. Prof. Eugene Volokh

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