Our Second Amendment rights are in serious jeopardy. Each new "common sense" law threatens our right to own and operate guns in a reasonable way.
John Lott, Jr., the man many believe to be the nation's preeminent gun expert, joined Glenn on radio Thursday to discuss his new book, The War on Guns: Arming Yourself Against Gun Control Lies.
According to Lott, the Supreme Court has protected our rights to the extent that they've not outrightly banned guns, but legislation has chinked away at the Second Amendment.
"What Democrats have largely been doing is just by putting taxes and fees and other regulations that make it difficult for people with guns. Particularly, the most vulnerable people in our society, poor minorities who live in high crime urban areas are the ones who are particularly being disarmed as a result of this," Lott said.
For example, in Washington, D.C., it costs $125 to transfer gun ownership from one person to another. For people struggling to make ends meet, that's an impossibility.
Lott also shed light on how politicians fudge numbers in a significant and outrageous way.
"When Hillary Clinton says there are 2.4 million prohibited or dangerous people that have been stopped from buying guns because of background checks, that's a lie. What she should say is that there have been 2.4 million initial denials and that virtually all of those are mistakes, law-abiding citizens who simply had names similar to someone that they wanted to stop," Lott said.
"Holy cow," Glenn replied.
Lott used the late senator Ted Kennedy as another example of how statistics are distorted. Kennedy was on a No Fly List because his name was similar to someone else on the list. The senator was stopped five times from flying, which the government would translate into stopping a terrorist or dangerous person --- not once, but five times.
"That's essentially the way they count that 2.4 million. Because about 99 percent of those are people who simply have names similar to a felon or somebody else that we want to stop from buying a gun. And it's racist, in terms of the way it's set up because people tend to have names similar to others in their racial group. Hispanics have names similar to other Hispanics. Asians have names similar to other Asians. Blacks tend to have names similar to other blacks. So when you have 30 percent of black males in the United States being legally forbidden from owning guns because of past criminal history, who are they most likely to have their names be similar to? It's going to be other law-abiding, good black males who may need a gun to protect themselves and their families," Lott said.
In 2013, when Colorado was passing expanded background check rules, legislators called Lott and he suggested an amendment that would exempt people below the poverty level from having to pay the new state tax on transferring guns.
"With the exception of two pro-gun Democrats, every other Democrat in the statehouse voted against exempting people below the poverty level from having to pay the new tax. How many taxes can you think of that Democrats would fight tooth and nail against exempting people below the poverty level from having to pay? Something similar happened in Maryland, where in 2013, they passed licensing and registration rules for handguns. It costs about $250 now to license and register a handgun in Maryland," Lott said.
Lott's fascinating and informative conversation with Glenn can be heard in full below, including how Democrats and the media purposefully misuse the term "automatic weapon" to mislead the public and how murder rates sky rocket in countries with gun bans.
"I cannot recommend John Lott's books any higher. I mean, every person who believes in the Second Amendment needs to have a library of his books. This, according to John, is the best one he's ever written: The War on Guns: Arming Yourself Against Gun Control Lies.
John R. Lott, Jr. is an American economist, political commentator and gun rights advocate. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from UCLA. Lott formerly held positions with the University of Chicago, Yale University, the Wharton School (Univ. of Pennsylvania), the University of Maryland (College Park) and at the American Enterprise Institute conservative think tank. As of 2016, he is a columnist for FoxNews.com and the president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, a nonprofit he founded in 2013.
Listen to this segment from The Glenn Beck Program:
Featured Image: Screenshot of John Lott, Jr. on The Glenn Beck Program, August 25, 2016.
