It's Tuesday, January the 18th, and welcome back to Goodfellows, a Hoover Institution broadcast examining social, economic, political, and geopolitical concerns.

I'm Bill Whalen. I'm a Hoover Distinguished Policy Fellow. I'll be moderating today's show.

That makes me the gateway to the stars of our show. Hoover's Good Fellows, as we joke, and refer to them.

That would include the historian Neil Ferguson, the economist John Cochran, the geostrategist, Lieutenant General, HR McMaster, decidedly casually clad today, I might add. Looking good, HR.

And today, gentlemen, we have a guest.

We're going to talk about guns today.

And joining us for our conversation is Charles C.W. Cook, National Review, senior writer and co-host of the Mad Dodds and Englishman podcast.

Hey, we stole from Scorsese.

He can steal from Joe Cocker, I guess.

Charles is a graduate at the University of Oxford where he studied modern history and

politics. That explains the podcast title and his accent as you'll soon hear. He moved to America in

2011, becoming a citizen in 2018 and taking up residence in what seems to be an increasingly

crowded Florida. Charles, welcome to Goodfellows. Thank you very much for having me.

So, Guns. I did a little research for the show, Charles. Here's what I've learned.

Apparently, there are 400 million or so guns in this country. There is no hard count. It's an

estimate. That means that there are more guns than there are Americans. That means there

about 100 million more guns than there are cell phones or automobiles. If we break down gun

ownership on a per capita basis, Charles, the United States is far ahead of second place Yemen,

which is in the midst of a civil war for seven plus years. We are far ahead of third place,

Switzerland. Swiss men after mandatory arms training for militia service are allowed to keep service

rifles at home. You've been here for 10 years, Charles, like Neil Ferguson, who came to our shores as well.

You've studied our curious ways.

...