April 2, 2009
The 90% Myth
Blog Brother TG has quoted the statistic that 90% of guns used by Mexican gangs come from the US. The Refugee has expressed strong reservations about the validitiy of these statistics. The truth is now out. A recent report that analyzed the source of these statistics found that of the guns that were traced, 90% came from the US. Since the US can trace guns by serial number and Mexico cannot (or does not), it's not surprising that the number is 90%. In fact, it is surprising that it's not 100% given the selective sample. The full truth is that when you consider all guns recovered by the Mexican government, only 17% can be traced to a US source.
In 2007-2008, according to ATF Special Agent William Newell, Mexico submitted 11,000 guns to the ATF for tracing. Close to 6,000 were successfully traced -- and of those, 90 percent -- 5,114 to be exact, according to testimony in Congress by William Hoover -- were found to have come from the U.S.But in those same two years, according to the Mexican government, 29,000 guns were recovered at crime scenes.
In other words, 68 percent of the guns that were recovered were never submitted for tracing. And when you weed out the roughly 6,000 guns that could not be traced from the remaining 32 percent, it means 83 percent of the guns found at crime scenes in Mexico could not be traced to the U.S.
The Refugee had further speculated that most arms came from South America or China. Here are the facts:
So, if not from the U.S., where do they come from? There are a variety of sources:-- The Black Market. Mexico is a virtual arms bazaar, with fragmentation grenades from South Korea, AK-47s from China, and shoulder-fired rocket launchers from Spain, Israel and former Soviet bloc manufacturers.
-- Russian crime organizations. Interpol says Russian Mafia groups such as Poldolskaya and Moscow-based Solntsevskaya are actively trafficking drugs and arms in Mexico.
- South America. During the late 1990s, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) established a clandestine arms smuggling and drug trafficking partnership with the Tijuana cartel, according to the Federal Research Division report from the Library of Congress.
-- Asia. According to a 2006 Amnesty International Report, China has provided arms to countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Chinese assault weapons and Korean explosives have been recovered in Mexico.
-- The Mexican Army. More than 150,000 soldiers deserted in the last six years, according to Mexican Congressman Robert Badillo. Many took their weapons with them, including the standard issue M-16 assault rifle made in Belgium.
-- Guatemala. U.S. intelligence agencies say traffickers move immigrants, stolen cars, guns and drugs, including most of Americas cocaine, along the porous Mexican-Guatemalan border. On March 27, La Hora, a Guatemalan newspaper, reported that police seized 500 grenades and a load of AK-47s on the border. Police say the cache was transported by a Mexican drug cartel operating out of Ixcan, a border town.
If past history is an indication of future political performance, The Left will continue to quote this statistic even though it has now been exposed as a partial truth. It will continue to be their justification for gutting the Second Amendment.
Here is another great article regarding the administration's use of the issue for policitical purposes:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=39F94B81-D7ED-45AB-8FC2-55D3317CF397
Ouch. I will admit it- I did not think about the distinction between guns captured and guns traced. That was a mistake on my part and kudos to you for calling me on it.
However, the article did prompt a thought that has never occurred to me before: do we know how representative the guns we have captured are of the population as a whole? I mean, you can hardly call the guns we have a simple random sample. Do you think it is possible that there is an overrepresentation of American guns (or for that matter, any type of weapon) due to detainment methods, size of smuggling operations, etc.?
I will have to think about this a bit more.
Thank you, thank you, thank you BR. I saw the report this morning and your post was more thorough than the one I intended.
Most of us "knew" the 90% statistic was bull, and now all of us who don't deny the existence of reason actually know it was bull.
The only thing that surprised me about the original narrative was that the figure was 90% instead of the infamous Obama figure of proportion: 95 percent. (Curiously, that figure is the same one used in the old Beatles song 'Taxman.'
Let me tell you how it will be, There’s one for you, nineteen for me, ‘Cos I’m the Taxman, Yeah, I’m the Taxman. Should five per cent appear too small, Be thankful I don’t take it all.Posted by: johngalt at April 2, 2009 12:52 PM
Hmmm, good point, TG, and there's probably no way to know. I would speculate that the guns we are aware of are the result of some US/Mexican cooperative operation perhaps within some proximity of the border. To the extent that Mexico operate independently (i.e., in the south of the country) and therefore does not report to the US would skew the statistics. We also do not know to what degree confiscated weapons are recycled back to the cartels due to corruption.
The most disturbing element to me was the degree to which M16s are sold legitimately to the Mexican army (and therefore with US serial numbers) and then stolen by defectors. These are fully automatic weapons (semi-automatic models of the same weapon would be designated as AR-15s and are available for civilian sale in the US, whereas M16s are military/police only).
Posted by: Boulder Refugee at April 2, 2009 1:04 PMYou have hit on just what makes events down in Mexico so scary. We are not dealing with a bunch of the poor kids from Monterrey who have taken up gun-running in order to get a scrap to eat. In the worst cases, you have Mexican special ops officers switching over to the more lucrative (and in many case, more secure) job as a cartel hit men. Take Los Zetas, a gang President Caldeon has compared to Al Qaeda- the back bone of the gang are gafes (the Mexican equivalent to Green Berets) who received training from U.S. and Israeli special forcs before they deserted. Extremely competent, these gangs thin the ranks of the Mexican military brass and run their own terror training camps with impunity.
Or to put things in a slightly different perspective- how long would most city governments last if the Bloods and Crips you always hear about were organized and staffed by defected Marines wielding the weapons and tactics they used in the Corp?
October 26, 2008
Weather Underground: Kill the "die hard capitalists"
From LGF: Bill Ayers' Terrorist Group Discussed Genocide of Americans (includes video)
Quoting Larry Grathwohl, an FBI informant and member of the Weather Underground, in a 1982 documentary on the group:
"I want you to imagine sitting in a room with 25 people, most of which have graduate degrees, from Columbia and other well-known educational centers, and hear them figuring out the logistics for the elimination of 25 million people.And they were dead serious."
I wonder if McPalin's last week of TV ads will include anything from this list. Though I suspect it may require pictures of Obama and Ayers building pipe bombs together to get through to some people.
Hat tip: Blog brother Cyrano
Population planning, from abortion to forced sterilization, has always been part of the liberal/collectivist agenda.
"In order to stabilize world populations, we must eliminate three hundred and fifty thousand people per day. It is a horrible thing to say, but it's just as bad not to say it." No one batted an eye when Jacques Cousteau said this completely contemptuous thing.
Posted by: Perry Eidelbus at October 26, 2008 2:23 PMJuly 23, 2008
Letter to a Young Lefty
A family member (uh-oh) sends a link to a short New Yorker piece on Senator Obama's "Flip Flops." The Flop of the Flip has been the buzz in my family. I wondered whether the far lefties who share my parents (maybe they're adopted...) were disturbed by the Senator’s move to the center, "At this rate," I told my brother, "by election day he will be calling Phil Gramm a Communist and calling for privatizing the Post Office."
A niece caught up on the thread and asked what I thought of Hertzberg's New Yorker piece. It's a pretty sympathetic scoring of Senator Obama's post-primary changes As I said in the thread, the flip flop accusation is overblown and overused. But it is curious that an unknown quantity like the Junior Senator from Illinois cannot define himself more forcefully on his signature issues. But I am not going to not vote for him because he changes positions -- I will not vote for him because most of his positions are so bad.
The article enumerated each supposed flip flop and scored it. I was interested in his views on NAFTA (which did not merit a mention) and on DC v. Heller. Here is Hertzberg, writing to the New Yorker faithful, on SOF2 (Senator Obama's Flip Flop) on the District of Columbia gun ban:
For twenty years, nominal support for the death penalty and its partner in crime, “gun rights,” has apparently been mandatory for any Democrat wishing to have a serious chance to be elected President.
I’ve never seen anything quite like it. Had he worked in support for child labor, and maybe blood-libel, I think we'd be talking Pulitzer! I'm working on my response. It happens that even the Republicans in my family are pretty squeamish on guns. I have to be careful not to overstep. I'm thinking of:
Dearest Babbolooshka,I know you don’t get to hang out with a lot of liberty minded people, but let me say one thing – and I bet about all the 9% that make up the liberty voters will agree. To lump in capital punishment with "gun rights" -- scare quoted or not -- is inappropriate and sloppy.
1. The right to bear arms is stated explicitly in the Constitution and it exists as a protector to all of our other rights. I will steal a great line I read last week: "I will use my Second Amendment rights to defend Mr. Hertzberg's First Amendment rights, even though he will not use his First Amendment rights to defend my Second Amendment rights."
2. Support for capital punishment is individual and subjective. Most libertarians do not trust the government to wield such power. I personally feel that there are sufficient protections and appeal opportunities afforded to defendants that it should continue in states that choose to allow it. I'm not an enthusiastic supporter of capital punishment by any means, and the people I know cover the whole spectrum. I have no serious opinion on Kennedy v. Louisiana.
I could not consider anybody to be liberty minded who did not support gun rights, yet even my squishy support of capital punishment pushes me toward the conservative and populist regions of the right, and would get me kicked out of any good libertarian gathering.
A free person does not look to the state to be the ultimate protector of his life, property, and liberty. Societies that do not trust a citizen with force are societies that operate in loco partentis. Government is not my mommy, and I like the idea that -- should they try to take away any of the rights we possess -- they will have to take them from millions of armed citizens. I am extremely cool with that. I saw a great bumper sticker many moons ago that said "The 2nd Amendment Ain't About Duck Hunting." I had to grow into an understanding of that.
DC v. Heller was the first substantive reading of the Second Amendment since the bill of rights was passed. The decision was of extreme interest to the liberty minded, and the opinion of a man who calls himself a law professor, who may well nominate several people to the Supreme Court is not Briefs vs. Boxers. A guy I blog with would vote for the Devil to head up a health care panel if he could demonstrate sufficient support for gun rights.
Senator Obama's changing and conflicting answers betray that this is an issue he'd like to see go away. He is not willing to take a stand on an important civil rights issue. That's a "substantive tweak" to Herzberg, but that's a flip flop to me.
June 27, 2008
Somewhat Sanguine on 2nd Amendment
The WSJ Ed Page channels blog brother JohnGalt today. The lead editorial on Heller highlights that the decision was 5-4, and the editorial pummels the (il)logic of the minority.
Which makes it all the more troubling that no less than four Justices were willing to explain this right away. These are the same four liberal Justices who routinely invoke the "right to privacy" – which is nowhere in the text of the Constitution – as a justification for asserting various social rights. Yet in his dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens argues that a right to bear arms that is plainly in the text adheres to an individual only if he is sanctioned by government.
Yeah, President Obama may appoint three justices, and it is unlikely he'll extend his candidate search to the NRA legal team.
But.
But as a guy who has lost a lot of 5-4 decisions of late, I invite my friends to enjoy a few days of celebration. A 5-4 decision is still a decision, it is still precedent. Overturning it will require the composition of the court changing and a new case getting Certiorari. The current rate of Second Amendment cases is one every 217 years.
The Democrats have seen electoral success with pro-gun (and silently anti-gun) candidates. Most are glad that Heller takes the issue off the table this season and I don't know that many Democrats will want to bring it back.
I'd have loved a 7-2 (like Dred Scott v Sandford) that eviscerated gun laws. But it looks to these untrained legal eyes that we got a good precedent that asserted an individual right to bear arms. Don't cancel your NRA membership or vote Democratic or anything stupid, kids -- but don't search for the dark cloud.
Anyone who thinks an individual right to lawful gun ownership isn't important in this, the "modern" age need look only as far as current events in Rhodesia (or as black liberation theologists call it: Zimbabwe) where only agents of the government have guns and use such to visit terrible evil upon the citizenry.
Bald-faced fraud and corruption find safe haven from even a free press when those whose interest is most threatened - the citizens of a tyrannized land - have not the means to self defense. The only reason why American pollyanists can make meaningless proclamations such as "it can't happen here" is that for the past 217 years and now, for the foreseeable future, the willing and able citizens of this land are not disarmed.
Posted by: johngalt at June 27, 2008 6:04 PMJune 26, 2008
Heller Yes!
Good to have this headline at the top of my Yahoo portal page this morning:
Supreme Court says Americans have right to guns
"There seems to us no doubt, on the basis of both text and history, that the Second Amendment conferred an individual right to keep and bear arms," Scalia said.
(...)
In Thursday's decision, the majority justices agreed with Heller's reading. "Does the preface fit with an operative clause that creates an individual right to keep and bear arms?" Scalia asked in his opinion. "It fits perfectly, once one knows the history that the founding generation knew," he said.
"That history showed that the way tyrants had eliminated a militia consisting of all the able-bodied men was not by banning the militia but simply by taking away the people's arms," he wrote.
The frightening part of this ruling is how close it came to going the other way - Justice Anthony Kennedy's mood of the moment. Had he stumbled we'd be facing the end of the land of the free and home of the brave as we know it, at least in law. Add to this that the Federal appeals court that sent the case to the higher court did so by a 2-1 decision and you might, like I, resolve to make frequent and generous contributions to NRA lobbyists.
Posted by: johngalt at June 26, 2008 3:53 PMJune 23, 2008
Quote of the Day
"I have a Smith & Wesson .40-caliber," Carrington told reporters on Sunday, "(with a) silver top and black body." -- Miss Tennessee, Ellen CarringtonY'know, if they were add to a tight grouping competition at 100 yards in evening wear, I might tune in.
Hat-tip: Instapundit (like the geography didn't give it away)
100 yards? Make it 20 yards and I might join in.
Posted by: dagny at June 24, 2008 1:51 AMI don't know from personal experience, but I was thinking that high heels would give you a little better visibility and enable a deeper field. We'll let the rules committee sort it out: perhaps rifles in eveningwear, pistols at close range in swimsuits.
Posted by: jk at June 24, 2008 11:38 AMJune 4, 2008
Future NRA President?
Jonathan Pearce at Samizdata suggests "If the NRA wants a replacement for its former figurehead, Charlton Heston, they could do a lot worse than Ms Jolie." After he links to this:
The pregnant mother of four told the U.K.'s Daily Mail that she owns guns similar to the ones she used in "Tomb Raider." Jolie and partner Brad Pitt are not against having weapons in their house for security reasons, she says."If anybody comes into my home and tries to hurt my kids, I've no problem shooting them," she said.
Gratuitous picture (stolen from Actress Archives):
UPDATE: Let the record show that I beat Insty to this story by two minutes (1:47 to 1:49) and that I included a picture. Yet still he gets more traffic...
UPDATE II: An emailer points out that I don't post a gratuitous picture of Fed Chair Ben Bernanke when I talk about him. If I could find a nice pouty one like this, maybe I would...
Now *that* makes her worthy of those "Sexiest Woman" titles. (Note that I referred to titles, not that she actually is, because that of course is my fiancee.)
Posted by: Perry Eidelbus at June 5, 2008 1:13 PMApril 6, 2008
Death of a President
Charlton Heston was a president; he was MY President. As figurehead of the NRA he said what members of America's gun culture wanted to say to those who blamed them for the crimes of others:
“Mr. Clinton, sir, America didn’t trust you with our health care system. America didn’t trust you with gays in the military. America doesn’t trust you with our 21-year-old daughters, and we sure, Lord, don’t trust you with our guns.”
Last night this American icon passed away. Rest in peace, and give my best to John Wayne and Ronald Reagan. May there be new cowboys born today to replace you.
Amen.
I joined the NRA when Mr Heston was elected, and just recently did I finish the last installment of my life-membership.
Rest in Peace, Sir.
Posted by: AlexC at April 6, 2008 12:19 PM"Oh Captain, my Captain!" Heston his supporters should take great comfort in the advancement of rights during his tenure.
Gun control forces have been in political retreat for a decade, and with a good decision in Heller, might make huge advancements before President Obama tries to dismantle them.
Posted by: jk at April 6, 2008 12:43 PMAnd Clinton never took his guns from his cold, dead hands.
Posted by: TrekMedic251 at April 8, 2008 8:14 PMMarch 31, 2008
Yabbos
My UK friends love to tease me about America's wicked gun culture. They'll be up on the latest Michael Moore stats. A friend who worked there for several years has a daughter who is afraid to visit the states.
I love Britain, cradle of liberty and all, but they, and my friends, and my friend's daughter purposefully miss one important crime statistic: the slope of the curve. In the UK, crime is escalating. While they lack the dramatic gang drive-bys, the risk of being beat up for your mobile phone climbs higher each year.
They have effectively disarmed the populace and convinced Britons that their personal safety and property rights will be attended to by the state. The state lacks the resources and the will to provide it. So the advice is to "not go out." I'm a big fan of Theodore Dalrymple and recommend his "Life at the Bottom." I was prepared to think that he was a little over the top in his storytelling, and that he was reporting from the worst areas in Britain.
Samizdata relates a couple personal stories and links to a TIME magazine article on Britain's Mean Streets.
The 40-year-old heads his own company advising on mergers and acquisitions, and usually strides through life like a Master of the Universe. This evening, though, he looks shaken. Two days earlier, he was accosted outside his central London home by eight kids — the youngest was 11 — who punched him to the ground, hustled him to the nearest cash machine and forced him to reveal his PIN number. After a series of attacks in the area, local residents have gathered in Steen's apartment to talk to the policeman handling the case. His advice: "Don't go out unless you have to."
This is the land of Churchill. "We will hide in the fields, we will hide in the beaches!"
Pardon my ghoulish flippancy. This story really does sadden me, but it also points out the first stop on the road to gun control.
In Harlem, it's become a common tactic for groups of street punks to have big kids knock a victim down, and the little ones rifle through the victim's pockets. That's pure robbery, though.
Eight kids who "forced" that Steen chap to reveal his PIN? I hope they were bigger than him and/or wielded some serious weaponry, because if they had just their fists, then that man is just a damn coward. These teens know that crime pays, because the victims appear all too ready to give up and/or unable to defend themselves adequately. People need to start stand up for themselves -- and arm themselves even with just a steak knife. After a few punks get stabbed, let's see if Brits become "outraged" over someone defending himself, or if someone defends himself and is prosecuted for it.
And then there's the lead-in picture. Oh, how sad, this Abnett wants to work but can't because he did prison time, blah blah, so he'll have to turn to crime again? It's society's fault, obviously, not his fault for doing crimes in the first place.
For these punks, the only solution isn't long prison times, but to break their legs (I say that literally) and throw them back on the streets they came from.
Posted by: Perry Eidelbus at April 1, 2008 1:14 PMIt gets worse, Perry, not only have they taken firearms away, they have also prosecuted several high profile cases against those who have, as you suggested, used other weapons. If you dare to fight back in Blighty you will be prosecuted, while the yobbo who was robbing you is let off easy.
I would also suggest that Harlem would be an American area most closely resembling British gun laws (how's that working out?)
Posted by: jk at April 1, 2008 1:33 PMYou tell me. Broderick Hehman is pushing up daisies, and his killers get to spend just a few years in juvie.
When a buddy and I went out for St. Patrick's, we were in a bank's locked ATM enclosure when a punk showed up outside the glass, asking for money. He said his girlfriend's in the hospital, do we have a car whose windows he could wash, the whole spiel. Yeah. I was about to give my friend my wallet, just in case, then go out and beat the crap out of the guy if he didn't leave. But then *I'd* be the one charged by the police.
Posted by: Perry Eidelbus at April 1, 2008 2:02 PMThe number of "kids" it takes to coerce a grown man to hand over his PIN number will vary with the particular grown man, but if 8 kids can't subdue him they'll try again later with 16, or 32... (Do you suppose they didn't first try with only 2, or 4 punks?)
I haven't been to NYC since 1996, or to Harlem ever; Britain is on and off of my travel list on a constant basis. I'll tell you one thing though, it will only be to visit - I'll never live in any of those places. Life imitates art.
Posted by: johngalt at April 6, 2008 10:28 AMJuly 24, 2007
Senator Biden on Your 2nd Amendment Rights
I missed the Dem debate last night. If they did not have one every three days...
Here is the Biden clip that everybody is talking about.
I don't know, that will play to his base well enough and I don't think it hurts his chances of becoming our next president in a statistically meaningful way. I was more intrigued by Gov. Richardson: It's not about gun rights, it's really about free child care!
I'm not sure it will play to the base... he didn't get all that much applause...
He had no chance anyway... I forgot he was running. ;)
Posted by: AlexC at July 24, 2007 1:34 PMLet me rephrase. I don't think many of those who were looking to the Delaware Senator as our next President will be turned off. A few others might enjoy his forthright answer.
Then again, this man could not statistically hurt his Presidential chances if he came out against puppies.
Guns haven't been the Dems strong point in a long time... It's good to see how little some have learned.
Posted by: AlexC at July 24, 2007 2:32 PMApril 22, 2007
The Other Virginia College Shooting
Could it be that johngalt linked to a Glenn Reynolds piece before JK did? Could be...
A google news search for "appalachian school of law shooting 2002" yielded "Which is Safer? More guns or fewer?" by Reynolds published in Denver's Rocky Mountain News.
It's a short piece and every paragraph is superb, but here's one I'd like to highlight:
What's more, she would have been safer. That's how I feel about my student as well (one of a few I know who have gun-carry permits). She's a responsible adult; I trust her not to use her gun improperly, and if something bad happened, I'd want her to be armed because I trust her to respond appropriately, making the rest of us safer. [emphasis mine]
It isn't often one reads a distinction between reality and perception - between "being" and "feeling" - in a newspaper. It's no surprise, when it happens, that it comes from the pen of a blogger.
Hat Tip: My dad, who brought me Friday's Rocky Mountain News "RockyTalk Live" column with reader comments on the VT murders, including one by "KW" that mentioned the 2002 incident.
My Internet connection was down -- I woulda smoked you!
Seriously, great post. Professor Reynolds is not only right, but also in a good position to make this point without seeming an ideologue or a gun nut.
I watched the President of George Washington University on FOXNews Sunday. When a similar a suggestion was made, he bemusedly waved it off, bragging that even Campus Police were unarmed.
I feel safer already.
"Gun Culture" Defined
"Gun culture" has been the theme of several recent postings, precipitated by the derogotory use of that term by media imbeciles opining on last week's Virginia Tech mass murder. I now offer an authoritative definition of the term in 800 pages: The 1996 John Ross historical novel, 'Unintended Consequences.' [Sorry, hardcover only.]
Here's a concise reader comment on the work from Amazon.com:
127 of 135 people found the following review helpful:It Changed My Thinking, April 27, 2003
Reviewer: Beau Thurnauer "Beau" (Coventry, CT USA) - See all my reviews
I'm a pretty conservative guy. I follow rules because I find it comfortable to do so. I stop at stop lights and do a lot of things I would rather not do as well as not doing things I would like to do because I find this an orderly and secure way to live.
I do recognize that there are many stupid poorly conceived laws and rules but I still comply. I have never thought about starting a revolution because the trivial moronic little rules and regulations that we are requested to comply with are unreasonable in a free society. But that is the topic of this book.Few books in my life have changed my thinking over the long term. Unintended Consequences did this. This book is about the gun culture. How it began and where it is today. I never never never thought about how not only many of the Federal firearms regulations are but in a more global sense how many of our regulations are ridiculous.
This may sound like a vague description of a 800+ page book. But this book is so global. It talks specifically about Henry Bowman who grows up shooting guns as a hobby like many others collect stamps or ride motorcycles. Yet he explains very slowly and methodically how his life experiences with his hobby are hampered unreasonably by Federal regulations. You do not have to be a gun lover or hater to appreciate this book. You only have to have a hobby or passion; any hobby or passion. You will see how our Constitution and Bill of Rights have been beaten and changed, how we are losing our individual rights and how dangerous the repurcussions.
Please read this book for the message, it will change you.
It didn't change me, but it did reinforce my opinions.
April 21, 2007
Maybe it is a gun culture
Miss America 1944, as told by Yahoo News/AP/LATimes:
WAYNESBURG, KY. — Miss America 1944 has a talent that probably has never appeared on a beauty pageant stage: She fired a handgun to shoot out a vehicle's tires and stop an intruder.Venus Ramey, 82, confronted a man on her farm in south-central Kentucky last week after she saw her dog run into a storage building where thieves had previously made off with old farm equipment.
Ramey said the man told her he would leave. "I said, 'Oh, no you won't,' and I shot their tires so they couldn't leave," Ramey said.
She had to balance on her walker as she pulled out a snub-nosed .38-caliber handgun.
I love this country.
UPDATE: Insty beat me to this one by a few hours, and links to Don Surber, who has a picture.
The equalizing power of firearms is awesome...
Posted by: AlexC at April 21, 2007 5:53 PMCorrection: It really WAS a gun culture... in 1944. This was the era when many a young boy carried his .22 rifle to school with him, left it in his locker all day, and hunted rabbits on his way home. These were the men who, when faced with the international threat of a genocidal madman in central Europe, and ordered by the president to go across the ocean and defeat a mighty army, kept marching forward until the enemy surrendered. They knew how to handle a firearm, and what it was for (and not for).
Today, young boys and girls are expelled from school for a week if they bring a butter knife to school. Today, it is a butter-knife culture.
Any wonder why Mahmood isn't afraid?
Posted by: johngalt at April 22, 2007 12:25 PMApril 20, 2007
"Gun Culture"?
So it's all over the news that we have a "gun culture?"
Should we be prevented from owning firearms? Should we be allowed to own firearms?
This video shows what happens when "just anyone" has a gun: Horror.
Now what would have happened if this person did not have a gun? And would that have been good, or bad?
I side with the video. Strongly.
Amen to that!
I always want to tell the gun control people: "We tried that. It's called the Middle Ages -- look it up." Their dream world of no guns would just allow the biggest and meanest to have their way at the expense of others.
Ok ... that is out of SLC ... Salt Lake City. Yet another reason to like Mitt, eh?
Posted by: mdmhvonpa at April 20, 2007 2:04 PMApril 17, 2007
VT & Gun Control
Rush Limbaugh has a really good quote from Governor Rendell regarding additional gun control laws.
Liberal "Rep. Jim Moran who, less than '24 hours after the deadliest shooting spree in U.S. history' took to the airwaves to launch a political attack against President Bush, congressional Republicans and the National Rifle Association.... Moran suggested Republicans were to blame for Monday's tragedy at Virginia Tech, which left 33 dead and injured another 30."The anti-gun congressman said Republican policies made it easy for the shooter to obtain a gun." The serial numbers were filed off of these two guns, were they not? Well, now, I'm going to tell you: if you file the serial numbers off your gun, it means you have evil intent in your mind and your heart, and there is no gun control law, period, that is going to stop you. Grab audio sound bite 18 again. If you're just joining us, I want you to go back and listen to Ed Rendell, the governor of Pennsylvania, talking about the Amish tragedy, the shooting there in Pennsylvania last fall. This is from October of last year. The reporter said, "Governor Rendell, do you see any need for any changes in state public schools in terms of security?"
RENDELL: You can make all the changes you want, but you can never stop a random act of violence by a person who is intent on killing themselves. It's the same thing as protecting the president of the United States. You can have 50 Secret Service agents there, but if someone is willing to swap their life for the president's, they're going to get a point-blank shot at the president.
A tragedy, to be sure....
But it's a little depressing to see everyone pointing fingers at each other over gun issues immediately. Shouldn't we first get that place back in order first?
One of my most beloved but misguided relatives is campaigning for a Rep. Kucinich-style Department of Peace.
I received a "Media Alert" email from her suggesting that I "Call in to a talk show and discuss how a Department of Peace would help prevent another Virginia Tech from happening."
April 13, 2007
Gun Control? B******t
Hat-tip: Instapundit
March 22, 2007
Guns and the Courts
TrekMedic passes along this Steve Chapman article about the affect of the 2nd amendment court decision last week.
So if this decision is upheld, it will not change our treatment of guns very much. Complete bans would be off-limits, but they are already rarer than white buffaloes. Most other gun-control laws would remain on the books, and anti-gun groups would be free to press for additional ones.The only obstacle would be the one that has stymied them in the past: insufficient public support. It wasn't the constitutional right to keep and bear arms that induced Congress to let the federal ban on "assault weapons" expire, or that persuaded 40 states to allow the carrying of concealed handguns. Those choices were the product of sentiment among citizens and legislators who see most restrictions on firearms as futile at best and dangerous at worst.
The bad news for gun-control advocates is that the Supreme Court may adopt an expansive view of the Second Amendment. The worse news is this may represent the will of the people.
The conventional wisdom is that gun-control issues cost Algore the 2000 election. Democrats know it's a loser. It's about time.
March 9, 2007
News Item of the Decade
What's that? Did Bill Gates promise to buy Apple Computer and divide all of its stock amongst all the AIDS patients in Africa? Did Mahmood I'mInAJihad just convert to Christianity? Did Hillary divorce Bill? No.
Owning guns in D.C. may soon become legal, as federal appeals court ruled that the right to bear arms applies not only to militias.Three years ago, a lower-court judge had told six D.C. residents of high-crime neighborhoods who wanted the guns for protection that they don't have a constitutional right to own handguns.
City argued that the Second Amendment right to bear arms applies only to militias, not individuals.
Today judge held that the Second Amendment doesn't just apply to militia service, or to people with "intermittent enrollment in the militia."
Just what was this D.C. gun ban? From the Cato Institute via P.R. Newswire: "Under existing law, no handgun could be registered in the District, and even pistols registered prior to D.C.'s 1976 ban could not be carried from room to room within a home without a license."
Well, what's wrong with that CNSnews? If that is the "democratically-expressed will of the people of the District of Columbia" then who cares that, "Even though the nation's capital had one of the strictest gun bans in the country, it also suffers from one of the five-highest murders rates of major cities nationwide?" I guess two out of three federal appeals judges care:
In a 2-1 decision, the judges held that the activities protected by the Second Amendment "are not limited to militia service, nor is an individual's enjoyment of the right contingent upon his or her continued intermittent enrollment in the militia."The court also ruled the D.C. requirement that registered firearms be kept unloaded, disassembled and under trigger lock was unconstitutional.
(...)
"The district's definition of the militia is just too narrow," Judge Laurence Silberman wrote for the majority Friday. "There are too many instances of 'bear arms' indicating private use to conclude that the drafters intended only a military sense."
The opinion of the lone dissenting judge is telling. Her foundation for supporting the 30-year old law was not that individuals are not militia members, or that handguns are not hunting tools. Instead she wrote, "the Second Amendment does not apply to the District of Columbia because it is not a state."
Can I believe my eyes? I'm still not sure I believe a sitting federal judge actually wrote this. The reporter must have misrepresented, right? I wonder if she would also argue that the first, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth, twentieth (take a breath), twenty first, twenty second, twenty third (oh really?), twenty fourth, twenty fifth, twenty sixth and twenty seventh amendments don't apply to D.C. because "it is not a state?"
For some time now I've been considering creation of a "Slave-o-Meter" that reflects the global movement toward collectivism and away from individual liberty modeled after the Union of Atomic Scientists' "Doomsday Clock." I was dissuaded by the notion that the "Slave-o-Meter" would only ever move in one direction: toward collectivization of humankind. (And because I still haven't thought of a better name than Slave-o-Meter.) This development in D.C. is one rare, delicious, possibly temporary case where it moved noticeably in the other direction.
UPDATE: [13 March] I am eternally grateful to JK for his comment link to the WaPo editorial on this. It allows me to share this remarkable quote:
"While the ruling caught observers off guard, it was not completely unexpected, given the unconscionable campaign, led by the National Rife Association and abetted by the Bush administration, to broadly reinterpret the Constitution so as to give individuals Second Amendment rights."
So in the document that begins ... We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America, an interpretation by the "National Rifle Association and abetted by the Bush administration" that one of its amendments applies to "individuals" is "unconscionable."
DUDE! WHERE'S MY COUNTRY?!
I humbly suggest "Serfdom Miles." How far down Hayek’s road we are. Like the clock, it will be hard to weight multiple parameters into a single, scalar quantity.
I am not so pessimistic as you. It is disturbing to see the free word give up its liberty by bits and pieces -- at the same time, I look at the Heritage /WSJ index of economic freedom and see that more and more people are escaping from the least free nations.
In a Sharansky sense, I'd say this planet is doing well, although in a Friedmanite, Hayekian sense, we may be giving back some gains.
Following the Constitution in the US Capitol is a good sign.
Thank GOD a court in this country FINALLY understood what the Second Amendment really means!
Now,..how soon before the knee-jerk reactions from the "let's talk" liberal crowds??
Posted by: TrekMedic251 at March 9, 2007 8:34 PMNot sure what time the WaPo hits the streets, tm, but the answer is "less than 24 hours."
Dangerous Ruling: An appeals court ruling would put handguns back in D.C. homes
Quelle Horreur! Guns in homes...
Posted by: jk at March 10, 2007 12:26 PMThanx for the link, jk
Posted by: TrekMedic251 at March 11, 2007 12:02 PMThe WaPO article JK links to above is hysterical, in more ways than one. However, I recommend reading the comments to the article. At one point a commenter notes that the comments are 82% in favor of the ruling. Perhaps there is hope for DC yet????
Posted by: dagny at March 12, 2007 7:31 PMSeptember 30, 2006
School Shootings
First I want to draw attention to an unexcusable gaffe on the part of CNN. While watching the network this morning, as I've taken to in the weeks leading up to Red November, I saw their report on the Wisconsin school principal who was shot to death by a disgruntled 15-year old "special needs student." But the stunner was the on-screen graphic, which read, "Colorado principal killed." Huh? Are school shootings so prevalent now that a major "news" outlet can't keep them sorted out?
The answer of course is no. But in the case of the Colorado shooting, within an hour's drive of Littleton's Columbine High School where the nation's worst ever school shooting occurred, one might well wonder if Colorado's "shall issue" concealed carry law has anything to do with it. Not because any of the killers involved had carry permits, but because the law specifically excludes guns from a number of "safe zones" that include, yes, school property. A debate has broken out on Colorado talk radio whether school teachers should be armed, and whether that would be safer or more dangerous. But this is the wrong question. What should be debated is whether school teachers should continue to be DIS-armed.
The answer is not to place guns in the hands of every teacher, but when criminals know that theirs will be the only gun on a school campus it gives them a warm fuzzy feeling about terrorizing, traumatizing and even slaughtering our children. The time has clearly come to eliminate schools from the so-called "safe zone" list (if not abolish it altogether) - for the children.
September 12, 2006
Firearms Refresher Course
Via e-mail:
1. An armed man is a citizen. An unarmed man is a subject.
2. A gun in the hand is better than a cop on the phone.
3. Glock: The original point and click interface.
4. Gun control is not about guns; it's about control.
5. If guns are outlawed, can we use swords?
6. If guns cause crime, then pencils cause misspelled words.
7. Free men do not ask permission to bear arms.
8. If you don't know your rights, you don't have any.
9. Those who trade liberty for security have neither.
10. The United States Constitution (c) 1791: All Rights reserved.
11. What part of "... shall not be infringed ..." do you not understand?
12. The Second Amendment is in place in case they ignore the others.
13. 64,999,987 firearms owners killed no one yesterday.
14. Guns only have two enemies: rust and liberals.
15. Know guns, know peace and safety. No guns, no peace nor safety.
16. You don't shoot to kill; you shoot to stay alive.
17. 911 - government sponsored Dial-a-Prayer.
18. Assault is a behavior, not a device.
19. Criminals love gun control -- it makes their jobs safer!
20. If guns cause crime, then matches cause arson.
21. Only a government that is afraid of its citizens tries to control them.
22. You only have the rights you are willing to fight for.
23. Enforce the "gun control laws" we have, don't make more.
24. When you remove the people's right to bear arms, you create slaves.
25. The American Revolution would never have happened with gun control.
26. ".. a government of the PEOPLE, by the PEOPLE, for the PEOPLE..."
28. Better to be tried by twelve, than carried by six.
Posted by: AlexC at September 12, 2006 7:01 PM29. The 2nd Amendment ain't about duck hunting.
From Heinlein:
(Couldn't pick just one)
"There are no dangerous weapons; there are only dangerous men."
"Get a shot off fast. This upsets him long enough to let you make your second shot perfect."
"Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors — and miss."
Of those on the original list, my favorite is #11. My future wife and I made this very entry in the "Share your thoughts on the Second Amendment" guestbook at the Concord National Battlefield visitor's center in August, 2001. Little did we know what approached...
Posted by: johngalt at September 13, 2006 5:58 PMWas it Heinlein who wrote "An armed society, is a polite one" ?
Posted by: AlexC at September 14, 2006 1:17 AMYes, you are correct, although neither dagny or I can remember which book it was in. Lazarus Long said in 'Time Enough for Love' that he almost felt naked if he left home without his sidearm, so it could easily have been in that (great) book.
Posted by: johngalt at September 14, 2006 11:51 AMSeptember 5, 2006
Will all 150 vote?
Fooled me. I read this article in TNR about the American Hunters and Shooters Association. TNR portrayed the group as serious hinters and shooters who thought that the NRA was too absolutist in defending gun rights, and that the GOP was not protective enough of conservation and habitat for hunters.
It didn't sit right with me, but folks who disagree with me frequently perplex.
Cam Edwards comes up with the goods on this group: "AHSA bills itself as a 'moderate alternative to the NRA', but in reality it’s an organization founded by leaders in the anti-gun movement who have strong ties to the Brady Campaign."
More interesting still, they have 150 members. Three digits!
I realize that for Blanding, AHSA represents a new and exciting attempt to mislead gun owners (we’re talking about a writer who once penned a “Culture of Life Top Ten” wish list for the ultra-lefty Alternet, in which he expressed his desire that Congress would pass Massachusetts-style gun control laws). New or not, AHSA is trying to deceive gun owners into buying into an anti-gun movement and to give anti-gun politicians a bit of pro-gun cover. From the tens of thousands of dollars its leaders have donated to candidates like Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, and Nancy Pelosi to the fact that the press contact for this supposedly non-partisan organization is also the head of the Fairfax City (Virginia) Democratic Committee, American Hunters and Shooters Association isn’t out to protect your rights. They’re out to deceive you, and Michael Blanding appears happy to help.
I might start a Republican alternative to NARAL and a GOP Teachers Union -- I bet I could get more than 150.
Hat-tip: Instapundit
May 20, 2006
Horror Film
This is a good argument regarding gun control. And it shows an important difference between our society and Islamic society.
Only in America!! :) Gotta love it...
January 3, 2006
Thought for the day
Is Samizdata's quote of the day:
Last century over 170 million people were murdered by their own governments, and your government doesn't want you to have a gun. Doesn't that bother you just a little?
- Unknown
or "The Second Amendment ain't about duck hunting" -- Redneck bumper sticker
October 24, 2005
Great Article, Bad Ending
I just got around to reading Glenn Reynolds The Next International Right and was highly impressed.
He's right to position self-defense as an international human right; he's right to suggest that it would cure genocides a lot better than U.N. brunches and petitions; and I'd even agree that he is right to ask the Bush administration to push this as an international right -- especially as our Secretary of State is a known believer in the importance of America's Second Amendment
It's a great article but he closes with a device that personally disturbs me:
I wonder if the Bush administration’s diplomatic corps will have the nerve and the integrity to push this argument at the U.N. and elsewhere, not merely as an argument in opposition to global gun control, which they have been making already, but an argument in favor of a positive right to be armed as part of international human rights law? Perhaps they will, if enough Americans encourage them to.
Sorry, perfesser, if the President of the United States does not drop what he is doing and push your personal agenda, it is because he lacks courage? That is the Bill O'Reilly argument leaders don't do what I say because they're chicken or corrupt, not because my idea of nuclear hair-trigger land mines on the border is imperfect.
A small nit in an important and well presented piece, but that's what you guys pay me for.
April 14, 2005
Just There to Draw the Chalk Outline
You may have heard about this story: Two weeks ago a 5 year-old girl called 911 to report that her parents were "dead" and "there is blood coming out of my dad's mouth."
According to UPI, "a man broke into a New Smyrna Beach, Fla., home and killed a couple he believed had turned him in on drug charges and then killed himself." The story goes on, "The Hernlens had nothing to do with Johnson's arrest, the deputies said." In addition, "The couple had asked for an injunction against Johnson in January, but a judge denied it. The couple said Johnson was stalking them by driving by their house and making threats."
Now, here's the rest of the story. Last night, the father of 29 year-old Aeneas Hernlen, the man of the house that was invaded and in which he and his wife were murdered, was interviewed on the O'Reilly Factor. The elder Hernlen, Tracy, told Bill that his son had sought a restraining order against the suspect three times. He also said that a couple of weeks before their murder, Aeneas had called him and asked him for a gun. Tracy Hernlen happens to be a retired police officer. He told his son, "No. You need to let the police protect you." Stiffling tears, Tracy then said, "They let him down. The system failed them."
Knowing all of this you have to ask yourself, whose hands do you want YOUR safety in? Your own, or the cops? I'm no cop basher but they just can't be counted on unless they happen to be there at the time. As my father-in-law puts it (and his son happens to be a cop), "When it comes to self-defense, the only thing the police are good for is to draw the chalk outline around your dead body."
Remember this every time you get to vote on a gun rights issue.