Tucker Carlson May Be Done With 2A Debates, It's Too Stupid :: 09/23/2019

Tucker Carlson is easily one of the biggest names in right-leaning media, if not the biggest. Between his Fox News show and his website, The Daily Caller, he definitely knows how to make a splash. Couple that with his incredibly popular books, and the man has a name.

However, it seems he may be finished debating the Second Amendment. At least, that’s what he says.

No, he’s not turning his back on guns, gun owners, or the Constitution. Instead, the debate has become something else entirely.

Fox News host Tucker Carlson debated former Clinton pollster Bernard Whitman on the topic of gun violence in cities like Chicago and Baltimore.

However, Thursday night’s heated “Tucker Carlson Tonight” discussion ultimately left the Fox News host seemingly bewildered and apologizing to his audience for putting them through Whitman’s “stupid” arguments.

“Why are the places with gun bans, Chicago and Baltimore, for example, so much more dangerous than places where so-called assault weapons are common like Vermont or New Hampshire?” Carlson asked as they began the discussion.

“You have to look at where the guns are coming from,” Whitman said. “In Chicago, 60% of the firearms that Chicago police seize are coming from states like Indiana with very weak gun laws. In New York City and New York state, 74% of the guns seized are coming from states with weak gun laws. In New York City alone nine out of 10 guns purchased and used quickly come from states with lax gun control laws.”

Whitman went on to rationalize that the reason Indiana doesn’t have higher crime is that all the guns have been taken to Chicago.

Yes, really.

Carlson later ended the interview saying that he may well be done with debating the Second Amendment, telling the audience, “This might be my last gun control debate. It’s too stupid. I’m sorry to inflict that upon you.”

The video for your own personal amusement:

In truth, I can’t blame Carlson. Whitman’s argument is beyond insane. Especially when he’s parroting the talking point of “internet sales” and “gun show loopholes” that Carlson was trying to debunk. He didn’t want to hear that.

But we’re expected to hear that the reason Indiana isn’t as violent on a per capita basis than Chicago is either because guns are leaving Indiana–which isn’t true as there are still plenty of guns in Indiana–or because there are more people there. Of course, the “more people” argument is negated by the fact that this is per capita. In other words, the rate per 100,000 people. Cities like Chicago and New York are always going to have more raw numbers of crimes than Podunk, Arkansas and we all know it, so we use the per capita rate to normalize things for comparison.

Whitman can’t be that stupid. He has to understand this.

What he clearly didn’t understand, though, was the topic at hand. No wonder Carlson finds these debates to be so stupid. They kind of are.

Though, in the interest of fairness, Carlson didn’t get everything right either. My understanding is that he started off the segment by saying that Beto O’Rourke wanted to come door-to-door to confiscate guns. That’s not entirely accurate. Remember, Beto thinks he won’t need to do any such thing. So no, he’s not saying any such thing and Carlson really shouldn’t be claiming he did.

Of course, compared to what Whitman spouted, that’s a big old nothingburger if ever there was one.

Tom Knighton is a Navy veteran, a former newspaperman, a novelist, and a blogger and lifetime shooter. He lives with his family in Southwest Georgia. https://bearingarms.com/author/tomknighton/

https://bearingarms.com/tom-k/2019/09/20/tucker-carlson-may-done-2a-debates-stupid/