Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Flyover Country, Episode 59 – Kevin Creighton and the Sad Trombones
Ricochet contributor, gun expert, and ReluctantTrumper @kevincreighton stops by this week to remind Ryan and Terry just how wrong they are about November. He sticks around to talk guns, politics, and — as always — to weigh in to the general conversation!
Intro includes music from Ronald Jenkees; closing song is from the Jay and Kai Trombone Octet.
Published in General
Good stuff again. Have Kevin as a regular.
if the podcast sounds like it starts in the middle of an ongoing conversation… that’s because it does.
Kevin was a great sport and a lot of fun to talk to!
Regular what?
We don’t really have guests (as our guests find out pretty early in the conversation). We have co-hosts.
The old Ricochet used to be “a cup of coffee with friends,” and Peter would end each podcast with “Ricochet: join the conversation.” For me, conversations are a lot more fun than interviews. Our podcast started during the Ricochet 1.0 days, so it is based on that model.
Melted people… Are you thinking about the scene in There Will Come Soft Rains where the shadows of the family are blasted onto the side of their house? If so then that is Ray Bradbury. ;-)
I just caught a Hillary Clinton ad during the Olympics as well. It was something about stimulating the economy by taking money away from one group and giving it to another group. We’ll see how well that works out.
Although to Ryan’s point, I was under the impression that there aren’t any Trump commercials, whether he wanted to run them during the Olympics or not.
Where I live in Montana, people are finally taking down their “Butte for Bernie” signs, and I’m unaware of the political ads in the rest of flyover country, so has anyone seen a Trump commercial anywhere?
Nope, this one. I remembered that the family name was “Sakkaro”, but couldn’t place the title.
Yep… that one was a stretch of the memory!!! I read that in high school along with many other Asimov stories. I got bit by the SciFi bug in 7th grade after reading the Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Vol 1.
Great podcast, as usual! Kevin was terrific. I haven’t read any of his pieces in the past, a fault I will correct in the near future. As for the length of the podcast, I could have happily listened to another hour or two. I really enjoy all of the podcasts on Ricochet, but there is something about you guys that has a special appeal. I think it is the fact that we live in relatively close proximity and our thinking is very much along the same lines, barring bicycles and cyclists. ?
Well, nobody can agree on everything!
So I just want to make a point on the subject of gangbangers in Chicago arming themselves with guns from Indiana. It is indeed absurd to claim that the high crime rate on the southside of Chicago is the fault of Indiana’s liberal gun laws. Guns do not make otherwise law-abiding citizens become criminals.
It is, however, true that straw purchases at gun stores in Northwest Indiana are a major source of arms for the criminal element of Chicago. My wife used to be a prosecutor in St. Joseph County and straw purchase cases were routinely encountered, though rarely prosecuted due to the difficulty in proving the subsequent transfer to the baddies. If you don’t have a criminal record or any job skills, small time arms dealing is a lucrative career option. I remember one instance of a first offense domestic violence case where the defendant was a unemployed twenty year old man with no visible means of support who had in the past year purchased twenty eight handguns, including half a dozen each Glock 19s and Sig 229s.
I can dig it. The gun used in the Fort Myers nightclub shooting was also a straw purchase. Clamping down on straw purchases is probably the fastest way to curb so-called “gun violence”, but the only ones who seem interested in doing so is the gun industry itself.
Why, it’s almost as if so–called “gun safety” groups like Moms Demand Action are more interested in disarmed legal gun owners than they are stopping criminals, or something…
All true. @salvatorepadula, I think the point is more about demographics of gun violence. If gun purchases are less restricted in one area, yet many guns end up being used in another area, the straw-purchases simply don’t explain that violence. When asking “why is there so much violence in my town,” it seems grossly insufficient to say “because guns are legal in another town,” especially when there is not the same violence in that other town.
With Chicago, democrats are far less willing to blame their own policies when they can point to conservative policies in another state… even if it defies logic.
Ryan- I agree both that guns in the hands of law abiding people do not pose a problem and that guns (from whatever source) are not the cause of inner city crime. That said, I do think it’s hard to argue with the fact that the widespread availability of firearms is a contributing factor to America’s disproportionately high murder rate. Guns don’t make people violent, but they do make violent people more deadly. For example, the UK has a higher rate of violent crime generally then does the United States, but it’s murder rate is substantially lower.
I’d like to emphasize that I like guns and I own several, and that I don’t think the fact that guns make violence more deadly justifies increased restrictions on firearm ownership, but I think it’s worth pointing out that, though they are by far the worse offenders in this respect, the left aren’t the only ones trying to steal a base rhetorically.
Woo woo!! Calgary!!
I agree with all of that. When arguing with a lefty, I wouldn’t deny any of it, but would argue that there are always tradeoffs and that the infringement of liberty would require both extremely high tradeoffs and proof that such restrictions will make people exponentially better off (among other things). My point was that when you look at crime rate in Chicago, a small factor might be guns from Indiana, while a massive factor is liberal policies.
Agreed (we seem to be doing that a lot). Particularly frustrating is the fact that Chicago, primarily because the offenders are overwhelmingly young black men, doesn’t actually prosecute the majority of its gun offenses.
Greatly enjoyed.
Interestingly, my experience has been almost opposite of Kevin’s regarding Tea Partiers and Trump: most of my acquaintance are NeverTrump. What evidence I’ve seen seems to indicate something of a regional split.
I would say part of the explanation is that there’s two tea parties. The first is made up of people who are actually conservative, care about constitutionalism, and were sincere in their claims of fiscal probity. The second is made up of people whose primary motivation was to stick it to the establishment.
You’ll hardly be shocked to learn that we agree!
Great minds think alike.
Sal being on here has reminded me that it’s about Sal time. Or Tom time. Or Kevin again.