Lower Crime Hasn't Stopped Gun Control Push

Plus: The National Guard deployed to D.C., the Trump-Putin meeting on Ukraine, Texas Democrats flee the state, and a listener question on free speech in the U.K.

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Lower Crime Hasn't Stopped Gun Control Push

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This week, editors Peter Suderman, Katherine Mangu-Ward, and Nick Gillespie are joined by special guest Reem Ibrahim, head of media for the Institute of Economic Affairs. They begin with Jim Acosta's AI-generated interview featuring a deceased child urging gun control, using it as a springboard to discuss nationwide declines in violent crime and the political tendency to focus on banning specific tools. The conversation then shifts to the White House's decision to deploy the National Guard to Washington, D.C., and the dangerous precedent this could set for using federal forces to address local crime.

The panel then turns to President Donald Trump's meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska to discuss Ukraine, weighing whether it could lead to peace or embolden authoritarian demands, as well as the role of European nations. From there, they examine the decision by Texas Democrats to flee the state amid redistricting battles and the FBI's efforts to locate them. A listener question from the United Kingdom prompts a conversation about free speech restrictions and the growing use of psychological studies to justify censorship, leading into a discussion of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression's (FIRE) lawsuit against the Trump administration over immigrant First Amendment rights.

 

0:00—Media exploitation of children for gun control

11:02—National Guard deployed to D.C. amid falling crime rates

15:02—Trump meeting with Putin in Alaska

25:51—Texas Democrats flee state over GOP redistricting map

35:35—Listener question on free speech rights in the U.K.

47:00—FIRE lawsuit against Trump administration over protected speech

54:55—Weekly cultural recommendations

 

Mentioned in the podcast:

"Hostile Takeover: Trump Federalizes Law Enforcement and Deploys National Guard in D.C.," by Tosin Akintola

"Big Balls Attacked," by Liz Wolfe

"Trump says crime in D.C. is out of control. Here's what the data shows," by Olivia George, John D. Harden, Jenny Gathright, The Washington Post

"How the New Texas Map Changes the Outlook for Control of the House," by Nate Cohn, The New York Times

"The UK's Online Safety Act is a licence for censorship – and the rest of the world is following suit," by Taylor Lorenz, The Guardian

"LAWSUIT: FIRE challenges unconstitutional provisions Rubio uses in crusade to deport legal immigrants over protected speech," by FIRE

 

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• Producer: Paul Alexander
• Video Editor: Ian Keyser

What are we consuming this week?

Peter Suderman

• Weapons

Katherine Mangu-Ward

• Ticket to Ride: Europe

Nick Gillespie

• Ron Paul's 90th Birthday BBQ

Reem Ibrahim

• Must History Repeat Itself?, by Antony Fisher

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Comments

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

The case against gun control?

Besides innate rights, an armed citizenry is always better off than a nation of disarmed sheep.

[5.56]

What's worse than disarmed sheep? Armed sheep, especially those who think it's best for everyone to be corporate slaves.

[Quo Usque Tandem]

You are seriously insane.

[Chumby]

Slavers never stop their efforts.

[Uncle Jay]

Slavers recognizes their slaves are more obedient when they are unarmed.

[5.56]

Corporate slavers realize their slaves are more obedient when they think their guns make any difference.

[Quo Usque Tandem]

Noting of value here; the best part of you is the mute option [muted]

[BYODB]

Duh, that's because it's never been about gun crime it's about removing the people's ability to fight back against government overreach.

You'll note the gun grabbers never disarm their security detail, and they never will.

[Michael Ejercito]

Many weapons that they call "weapons of war" are used to protect the President of the United States.

[mad.casual]

Fun factoid: It's not just weapons of war. In the Land of Lincoln, brass knuckles or knuckledusters, reportedly carried by Pres. Lincoln's personal bodyguards, are illegal.

[Fu Manchu]

Now that the government's overreaching and the military's getting deployed as cops, where are all those oath keepers?

[JesseAz (Prime Meanster of Sarcasia)]

Is D.C. a federal district shrike?

[Fu Manchu]

I don't even know who shrike is you fucking faggot. But you might want to read up on the Posse Comitatus Act

[SCOTUS gave JeffSarc a big sad]

You might want to fuck off. You’re too stupid for this discussion. Or any other.

[JesseAz (Prime Meanster of Sarcasia)]

Why are you bringing up an act that applies to use on states on not federal districts shrike?

Reddit less, read actual sources more.

Or do you think Gov Evers calling in the National Guard for flooding is illegal too?

Fucking retard.

[Quo Usque Tandem]

Yay for the mute option, aka the button that turns trolls into voiceless grey boxes [muted]

[I, Woodchipper]

Nothing will ever stop the gun control push, and crime has nothing to do with why they want it.

[Quo Usque Tandem]

Surprised they haven't tried the "look, crime is down, so you really don't NEED any guns, right?"

Contrast this with the prediction a generation ago about society turning into the "Wild West" if concealed carry rights became the norm [of course they have, and it hasn't]

Napoleon's aphorism about not interrupting your enemy when they are making a mistake also applies here. The incessant macro approach to gun crime has done nothing but failed, and will continue to do so; unfortunately while this "common sense and reasonable" lie can be a gift that keeps on giving, we must also remain vigilant and actively oppose it on every front.

[Brett Bellmore]

The real approach to promoting gun control that we need to worry about is the left's utter takeover of 'elite' law schools. In a few years it's going to start getting really difficult to find lawyers who haven't been indoctrinated in gun control ideology, a few years after that the judicial candidates will start drying up.

[Rick James]

So if crime were going up like it was between 2012 and December of 2024, would you support gun control? What if they revise the statistics again, and what if L.A. starts reporting its crime figures?

[JesseAz (Prime Meanster of Sarcasia)]

How quickly reason shifts to another mouth piece.

https://reason.com/2024/10/21/the-fbis-quiet-revision-of-its-2022-crime-numbers-adds-fuel-to-an-argument-between-harris-and-trump/

https://reason.com/2022/10/06/did-murders-rise-in-2021-no-one-knows/

I too remember when Reason didnt blindly trust state reported statistics. And would even sometimes report stories of police commissioners caught manipulating crime data.

[Chumby]

Talk like that won’t get you invited to any DC cocktail parties. But it is just as well as the commute to the party is far more dangerous than the absinthe.

[Vernon Depner]

https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/dc-police-commander-suspended-crime-statistics/3959566/

[Uncle Jay]

"Lower Crime Hasn't Stopped Gun Control Push."

"Gun control?"
More like, "Gun confiscation."

[charliehall]

The large US cities with the lowest homicide rates are San Jose, San Diego, San Francisco, Boston, and New York City. All places with strict gun control laws,

[Gaear Grimsrud]

Okay let's do Chicago. I have to present a government ID card to buy ammo anywhere in the state of Illinois. I've never pointed a loaded gun at a living creature and odds are I never will. But a typical Chicago weekend always includes dead and wounded at multiple locations. So how exactly is that gun control thing working out for you? Even if you confiscate the guns of millions of people in this state, which by the way is written into law but is apparently unenforceable, how would that save some kid in the ghetto caught in the crossfire? You're argument fails every time in the real world.

[Don't look at me! ( Is the war over yet?)]

Charlie is also a failure in the real world.

[Quo Usque Tandem]

"You're argument fails every time in the real world."

That's generally known as idealism; "Yes We Can! Hope and Change!" etc. It appeals to hopes and desires and the belief that "if we can put a man on the moon we should be able to ________" which only equates a success in engineering to vague and nebulous social challenges. It isn't tied to reality, only a desire to think that anything is possible "if" we all believe and put the right top men and women and neithers in charge of us.

See communism for a prime example; that hasn't turned out so well, but the faith in the ideal motivated "the smartest" of the 20th century to give it a good go; and journalist like Walter Duranty to lie about its real world horrors.

[Fu Manchu]

And at least 3 of those have loads of Mexicans. Maybe we need more magic Mexicans to ward off gun crimes.

[Incunabulum]

Places with the highest homicide rates also have strict gun control laws. And places with no gun control laws have low homicide rates.

Its almost like its not the guns.

https://hwfo.substack.com/p/everybodys-lying-about-the-link-between

[NCMB]

Thanks for sharing the link, well worth reading.

[Quo Usque Tandem]

Proof that these comments are helpful, in spite of the trolls who try to ruin it

[SCOTUS gave JeffSarc a big sad]

Your claims are laughable. As are you.

[Diarrheality]

Hoplophobe got pwned. Enjoy another soy latte, you invertebrate clown.

[Z Crazy]

Red flag laws are useful against gangs.

[JesseAz (Prime Meanster of Sarcasia)]

Only against the bloods.

[GOD OF PENGUIN ISLAND]

(Insert joke about Sullum being a hypocrite hack who will ignore this story)

Breaking: Exclusive: Democrat whistleblower told FBI that Schiff okayed leaking classified intel to hurt Trump

https://x.com/jsolomonReports/status/1955066475670073460

[Incunabulum]

Of course lower crime hasn't stopped the push for gun control. Its not about safety, its not even about *guns*, its about *control*.

[Quo Usque Tandem]

Gun control narratives were the gateway for much of my belief about freedom and politics, and my distrust of progressive narratives. If you know anything at all about guns, or care to look beyond catchy headlines and slogans, their lying, deception, hyperbole, falsehoods and misleading statements are nothing less than astounding.

And then I realized that the left does this with everything.

[NCMB]

Agreed, but so does the right. Both “sides” have an extremely casual relationship with the truth.

[Quo Usque Tandem]

Yeah, "both sides..."

Neither is perfect, but I'm not going to let the perfect be the enemy of the good as I can determine what view is actually in my best interests, or not.

[JohnZ]

Is it really lower crime rate or have those running the crime infested cities figured out how to skew the statistics and either underreport crime or by some weird use of language reduce such crime to lesser degrees, thus making their stats look better.
Much like the BLS and their phony statistics. Or the CDC and their phony statistics.
One should never trust anything some government pie hole says.