Bongino Takes A Look At 2015 Column Comparing Attack on Smoking and Guns

In yesterday's Dan Bongino Podcast, Bongino took a look back at a 2015 Op/Ed written by Jonah Goldberg that compared the anti-rights crowd's attack on guns, to the attack on tobacco in the 90s.  In the article, Goldberg looked at why the gun ban crowd has been an utter failure compared to the success that the anti-smoking campaign achieved when it went after tobacco.

For a long time, smoking cigarettes was seen as even more American than owning a gun. Hollywood’s golden age is like a celluloid smoking lounge. The opening scene of “Casablanca” is a close-up of an ashtray with a lit cigarette. The camera pans out and Humphrey Bogart takes a nice long drag.

Cigarettes, much like guns, were deeply tied to notions of masculinity — remember the Marlboro Man? But they were also symbols of urbane sophistication, for men and women alike (Marlene Dietrich in “Morocco,” Audrey Hepburn in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”). James Bond was a chain smoker. In the books, he smoked 60 a day. Sean Connery cut back, just a bit, for the movies.

Now cigarettes are so widely reviled that the MPAA includes smoking along with violence and sex in its warning language.

Goldberg went on to conclude that to the gun ban crowd, guns are like cigarettes — products that when used as intended only hurt or kill people. The real reason the war on guns has been such an abysmal failure is that they aren’t alike after all, because there are many uses for a firearm, whether it is hunting, sport shooting, or self defense.  You can watch Bongino talk about the article below.