I reckon Truth Revolt’s Bill Whittle [above] is the best pro-gun commentator commentating on YouTube today. Fans of firearms freedom may grouse that NRA-sponsored pro-gunner Billy Johnson is Whittle’s equal, but I reckon Whittle’s quiet sarcasm gives him the edge. In any case, in both cases, this is how pro-gunners run rings around the antis: by presenting a logical, fact-based argument for defending and extending Americans’ natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms . . .

Whether or not firearms fence straddlers are persuaded by logic — as opposed to the antis’ incessant appeal to emotion — is an open question. The general population’s lack of education is deeply worrying in that regard. Anyway, Whittle’s fighting the good fight with class and class and coherence.

Good on ya Bill. Thanks for playing.

[h/t Pascal]

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59 COMMENTS

    • Loved the Plano riff….”They got tomahawks, bowie knife, jack knife, pointy rocks, sharp sticks…..”

    • Its nice here, though Im not a native, wed love to have ya! Nice and 65 degrees today, just went on a bike ride.

      • New Englanders would prefer if you kept that last bit to yourself. Nothing makes you miss the bike more than a proper snow storm.

    • No doubt that number would be pretty low.
      But the same could be said for any nation. Big cities are violent places.

    • Removing the top 10 gun control cities brings us down to about 4.0/100k; which puts us about #120.

      This doesn’t include other factors though. Australia has 21 million people, the UK has 62 million, we have 320 million. Even though removing these top cities brings us down pretty significantly, there’s all kinds of other extrapolations that can be made, since we simply have more people.

      While I’m not sure I agree with extrapolating Plano, TX to the entire US at 0.4, summing the entire US at 4.7 is obviously wildly off the mark as well since removing even a handful of cities where gun control is present brings us down almost an entire point.

      Numbers can be made to look shocking either way, but because of that, they never tell the whole story. However, no matter how they’re read, none of them show gun control as a causation or even a correlation, within the US, to a lower homicide rate.

      If someone backhandedly compares Australian percentage of homicides by firearm (11.5%) to US percentages of homicides by firearm (60%), it can be made to look somewhat convincing to the uneducated who fall for the “correlation is causation” trap.

      If everyone, upon birth, in Australia, was bestowed a “great big shiny knife” – the percentages of “homicides by knife” in Australia, would likely be very high, even if the homicide number and rate stayed exactly the same as otherwise.

      People who try to relate “number of guns” to “number of murders” are missing the point that these statistics do not ever, EVER show that “guns cause murder”, only that “when murder is done, it is done more often by firearm.”

      The “Step 3, Profit!” that grabbers use is, “Therefore, more guns = more murders”, which is absolutely a statistical (and logical) fallacy — and many of them even know that. I can guarantee you that in medieval times, nearly 100% of homicide was “homicide by sword or club”; and the murder rate per capita being lower now than it was back then likely has little to do with the change in availability of pointy sticks.

      • Your numbers are a bit off… Between them, Chicago and NYC alone are responsible for almost 10% of all homicides in the US. They do not have 10% of the population. Nowhere near. Chicago is responsible for almost 80% of all homicides in Illlinois and has barely 20% of the population.

      • The more urban a country gets, the more crime (as a generalization, criminals love the density of big cities). So you are right in stating that population is important.

    • I’ve done some work on that. Dropping the top 50 or so cities cuts the rate by about half. If you went deeper and cut more, smaller dangerous urban centers it goes lower still. Haven’t finished the math on that one yet.

  4. Bill has some great videos out there on youtube covering guns. The Republic of Bill is another good video that while not gun exclusive makes a lot of other good points. He also has a series called the virtual president, shortly after Sandy Hook he added another video to that series about gun control. Also worth a watch and a thumbs up.

  5. To bad his info and data are wrong about Detroit. Detroit has never had gun laws any different than the State of Michigan. So, it’s great that he tried, but any Anti with 15 seconds of Google- fu can figure out that his info is wrong and thus look to invalidate the entire argument.

    More so, the Chief of Police of Detroit has been featured right here on TTAG as ENCOURAGING it’s residents to be responsible gun owners and has ZERO issues with lethal force when someone breaks into your home.

    • Detroit’s violence can be attributed to the fact that their liberal leadership drove them to bankruptcy and economic hopelessness, not liberal gun laws.

      But their police chief’s statements encouraging armed home defense were made in early 2014, and the crime data Bill cites is older than that.

      • Detroit’s violence can be attributed to the fact that their liberal leadership drove them to bankruptcy and economic hopelessness…..

        Don’t believe Leftist lies that poverty cause crime.
        Violent people of Detroit have a bankruptcy of VALUES not FINANCES (Dennis Prager)
        If you were bankrupt tomorrow would you resort to mugging and killing people?
        Billions of people are dirt poor and don’t go out and rob and kill people.

        • To clarify: I don’t believe poverty causes crime.
          Keep in mind that the denominator of a crime rate is the population. Detroit’s deterioration as a viable place to live has led to a mass exodus. The city has lost half its population. The only people that didn’t go elsewhere looking for employment are the people who have no desire to be employed. Further, their law enforcement budget has been slashed and they don’t have the resources to provide a viable police presence. Police response times are measured in hours, which gives the thugs plenty of time to perpetrate whatever they want.

        • I have had the distinct impression, right or wrong, that a lot of residents left Detroit in order to escape the crime. If correct, that would mean only criminals are left there, eventually. Which recent newsclips tend to confirm, for me.

    • Yeah, I cringed when he brought up Detroit as an example of bad gun cities. Michigan has full state preemption on gun laws, correct?

      • I’m not from the area, clarify for me. Are you saying that, 30 years ago, Detroit was the equivalent of “shall issue”, for example? The city was destroyed, a walking dead, several decades back, were the laws at that time tolerant of individual firearm freedom? That would be interesting, I seriously doubt it. A culture does not turn around on a dime, a culture of despair is going to take decades to repair. How LONG has this gun mecca you describe existed?

        • LarryinTX,

          Michigan passed their “shall-issue” concealed carry law in 2001. I put “shall-issue” in double quotes because the law allows for counties to interview applicants before issuing their license. Some counties have used that provision to require every applicant to appear for an interview — which increases the hassle. And some counties would require the applicants miss work to appear for the interview which increases the hassle and costs them money. Even worse, some counties would only be available for interviews one day a week or month and sometimes at really odd hours.

          At this point my guess is that pretty much anyone who wants a concealed carry license in the Detroit Metropolitan Statistical area has one.

      • Delmarva Chip,

        Since the early 1990s, Michigan has had full pre-emption of gun laws with one — actually three — exceptions: Michigan’s constitution empowers three universities to enact ordinances as they deem fit. That means you go to prison if they catch you with a firearm.

      • The Detroit leadership of the past 40 years would have Detroit with gun bans in place like D.C. tried if they could get away with it. Is the former Detroit Mayor out of jail yet?

    • That was the firs thing that jumped out at me, and damaged his credibility. As blue as it is, Detroit is not a gun control mecca, just the opposite, which undermines his argument. Detroit’s problem is that the jobs moved elsewhere.

  6. One problem…Detroit does not have strict gun control.

    If we’re going to use facts about cities with strict control, at least highlight a city that fits the bill.

  9. Big fan of Bill’s. Thanks for posting. Do a YouTube search and watch his speech several years ago, “If I were president.” Priceless.

    • He doesn’t sound anything like Dingy Harry Reid. Harry Reid does look like Saul Alinsky though.

  11. I really enjoyed Bill’s video — both the content and especially the delivery.

    My only quibble: I would like to see a shortened version for the masses that have trouble paying attention to anything for more than 2 minutes.

      • Grabbers are one-worlders who think Europe is the model for everythig (Europe has been decaying for centuries, physically, politically, economicly), so they love to show how pathetic the US is regarding gun violence in the world. The international comparisons are important. Unfortunately, the comparisons are facts; facts are not allowed in the liberal worldview.

        • Also unfortunately, most of the European countries were considerably lower than the US in terms of homicide rate. Italy, Spain, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, etc. The country with the highest homicide rate in “civilized Europe” as the grabbers would say is Norway at 2.2. So… that’s a pretty large disparity from the US at 4.7.

          I would like to see the chart of violent crime rates per capita. But since different countries consider “violent crime” to be different things, it’s hard to compare directly. My guess is that the overall crime rate isn’t that much different between America and Europe.

  12. I think Bill’s video could be even more compelling if he compared the murder rate in the state of Maine versus other countries of the world.

    It would also be interesting to compare the murder rate in the United States where criminals did not use a firearm for the murder weapon with the overall murder rate in the rest of the world.

  13. Bill is pretty awesome, and that vid is too! therealTrippleB is freaking hilarious with the logic hammer as well.

    • Bullshit. I am a multiengine qualified instrument rated commercial pilot, and a lot of my friends are, too. But none of us can talk like that, the man has a gift. A gift more important and more valuable that even such special training.

  15. If Johnson isn’t Whittle’s equal, it’s only because Johnson is Whittle’s superior. I find Whittle’s quiet sarcasm off putting and distracting. But that’s just personal preference in style. On substance, they’re both good and our side and the cause of liberty benefit from their talents.

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