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This week (so far) we have seen a mass shooting, a crisis at the border, a major walkback from President Trump’s favorite lawyer, Sidney Powell, and more. On today’s Dispatch Podcast, Steve, Sarah, Jonah, and David talk about all of it and then some. Gun violence has been front and center in the news, and rather than yelling about it, the gang has a well-informed, meaningful discussion about how best to solve this problem in the U.S. Plus, after discussing the border and China, all four talk about just how ridiculous the motion by Sidney Powell to dismiss the case against her is and what it means for center-right media. As Jonah puts it, “If you gave her a platform on your network, on your radio show, either in person or by proxy or simply reading their stuff and then you don’t tell your audience that this woman … has treated you all like suckers … then you’re part of the problem.”
Show Notes:
-Study on effectiveness of state gun regulations
-American Psychological Association study on gun laws
-Washington Post Fact Check on 1994 assault weapons ban
-Reuters article on how and why kids are “smuggled” into the U.S.
-Is there a “surge” at the border? Washington Post looks at the data
-Jonah’s column on the China bilateral meeting
-Last week’s Dispatch Podcast with Danielle Pletka
-The Morning Dispatch: ‘The Kraken is Backtrackin’
Time for an overly long dissent that no one will read, but it's helpful for me to write down my disagreements, of which I had a fair number today.
1. Gun Policy- I think both of the ideas that David has mentioned have some merit- red flag laws and the 'gun restraining orders' seem interesting. But they don't go nearly far enough, and I think that some of these things misplace their attention by focusing so much on mass shooting events as opposed to broader policy goals. The bottom line is that to have less gun violence (especially gun-based homicides and suicides), you have to get rid of guns. That's it. You can nibble around the margins, and states should do their best to enact good, evidence-backed policies. There's good evidence that red flag laws, for example, help to reduce suicides to some extent, while their effects on mass shootings are not well studied (https://journalistsresource.org/politics-and-government/mass-shootings-red-flag-laws/). Background checks, waiting periods, licensing/permitting requirements, minimum age requirements, all have pretty good evidence that they reduce violent crimes. Child-Access Prevention laws are incredibly robustly supported in reducing unintentional injuries, suicide, and possibly violent crime and seem like a no brainer. Stand-your-ground laws are strongly correlated with increases in violent crime ((https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy.html#latest-updates-april-2020-). As Sarah mentioned, there's pretty good evidence that assault-weapons bans and high-capacity magazine restrictions have helped to reduce mass killings (see also https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/03/24/bidens-claim-that-1994-assault-weapons-law-brought-down-mass-shootings/). However, state policies will always be hobbled by an ability to go to other areas and just buy a gun under a different set of laws. At a minimum, Congress should continue to avoid the Dickey Amendment and fund gun control research, which they got off to a good start in some of the recent appropriations bills. What would perhaps be the most effective proposal is also the most controversial: mandatory gun buybacks. More guns = more homicide (https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/guns-and-death/). Australia's gun buyback program, for example, was incredibly effective. When South Africa passed a raft of gun control legislation, it was incredibly effective. But, until you have a change in the federal judiciary and overturn Heller and go back to something more like the Miller standard so that these laws don't get immediately struck down; until you have something that completely resets the paradigm for Republican views on gun control (eg you don't have this https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/03/23/ridiculous-theater-cruzs-pushback-gun-restrictions-epitomizes-its-high-hurdle/ happening), then we're fated to have the same tedious cycle of yelling at each other over gun control legislation and forgetting about it till the next time we have to watch a group of innocent people die.
2. Border crisis- I agree that there's a lot to criticize about Biden's response here. I agree that the way this was implemented could probably have been timed better, and that while a big portion of it is due to Trump doing his best to break the immigration system, it's still bad on humanitarian grounds to have children suffering in detention centers they shouldn't be in. I agree with Jonah that, at some point, the US has to set a firm quota for the number of people that can be let in. However, I first have to deeply object to David's approval of the Remain in Mexico program. The conditions of the Matamoros camp were deplorable, and its a stain on American that we forced a squalid, crime-filled refugee camp on our borders. If you can read articles like this (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/23/us/mexico-migrant-camp-asylum.html) and this (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/22/us/politics/trump-asylum-remain-in-mexico.html) and not feel angered and ashamed, to still approve of the policy that caused this, then we're working from utterly irreconcilable positions. What America desperately needs is some type of immigration reform: something that modernizes our processing system, that creates new Visa types, that attempts to attract more highly skilled immigrants, that provides amnesty for the current undocumented populations, that provides an easy path for refugee application and for becoming a citizen, and that treats immigration as a strength and not a problem. Cato does a lot of good work on specific policy proposals here, and I particularly like the Heartland Visas idea (https://eig.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Heartland-Visas-Report.pdf). If this has to be paired with money for border enforcement to get it through, so be it. Long-term, we want to, as Jonah and Sarah say, work with the market to mitigate push factors in Central America to control the desire to emigrate in the first place. I also find it disappointing that the crew focuses more on the smugglers rather than the refugees and immigrants fleeing wretched conditions, and the motivations that drive them to take the drastic steps they do. Do they really think families *want* to hand their 2 year old over to smugglers?
3. China- I suppose I take the point about Blinken's response to Yang at the Alaska summit. Yang spent a lot of time talking up China's virtues and I think that even if Blinked didn't go as confrontational and denunciatory as Jonah wanted, he could have and should have extolled some of America's virtues as well as acknowledging our shortcomings. So, sure, I'm willing to ding him for that. However, I think you also have to look at Biden's policy moves in Asia, and I'm disappointed that nowhere have his **actual policies** entered into these discussions- just the rhetoric. He's already had the first head-of-state meeting with the Quad and arranged a plan with India counter China's vaccine diplomacy. In a separate 2+2 meeting with Japan, he and Suga issued a joint statement putting China on watch against the Senkaku's and reaffirming their Article 5 commitments (https://thediplomat.com/2021/03/us-and-japan-name-china-as-threat-to-international-order/). Biden also coordinated a fresh round of sanctions on Chinese officials over the Hong Kong election law, which is part of what provoked such an intense reaction from Yang, and has now coordinated with the EU, UK, and Canada to impose sanctions over the Uighur genocide (https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/22/us-allies-sanctions-china-uighers-genocide-477434). I don't think this was intentional, but it was foreseeable, that these have prompted immediate retaliation against the EU in the form of new sanctions by China, which is in turn setting the S&D group even more firmly against the CAI deal, which would be a big diplomatic win for the US (https://www.ft.com/content/6b236a71-512e-4561-a73c-b1d69b7f486b). So, sure, Blinken could have responded more forcefully at the summit. But their actions have been pretty hard against China, and in a productively multilateral way.
4. Sidney Powell- No arguments here! She's an utter lunatic, and every bit she's discredited is positive.
Congrats to anyone who actually read all that!
In the very unlikely event that David reads this comment, I think it’s important to note that humans are very bad at assessing relative risks, particularly very low probability risks, and that they sometimes make decisions in the interest of safety that do not make objective sense. The decision to own a gun is one of these instances.
I am a former gun owner, but I sold my shotgun when my daughter was born because I read the research on the relative risks of gun ownership. Many people buy guns to protect their families. But armed home invasions while homes are occupied are exceedingly rare. Much less rare are drunken domestic disputes, having depressed family members with access to guns, or making mistakes when handling, cleaning, and storing (or failing to safely store) weapons. The guns that people store in their households are therefore FAR more likely to be used to injure or kill a family member than they are to protect the families that own guns. In other words, owning guns makes you and your family less safe, which I why I no longer own a gun.
Here’s a high level summary of some of the research...
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/more-guns-do-not-stop-more-crimes-evidence-shows/
It’s also important to note that the greatest risk of owning a gun comes not from an accident or a homicide but instead from a suicide. There are twice as many annual gun deaths from suicides than from homicides. The latest and, in my opinion, best research on the issue indicates there’s a 9x increase in suicide risk if you own a gun. (8x for men and 35x for women). Suicidal ideation is fleeting, but, if you have a really effective tool for the job during those moments when your despair spikes, you’re far more likely to be successful.
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa1916744
When I owned a gun it gave me a false sense of security. I thought about everything that could go right with gun ownership. What I didn’t adequately consider was everything that could go wrong. When I objectively understood that the risks of what could go wrong far outweighed the risks of what could go right, I made the decision to keep my family safe by not having a gun.