Adventure is worthwhile - Aesop

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Just for the hell of it,
Great shooting and Great tunes.

and

I Love to shoot, when i get the time, it is in many ways a great form of release from the stresses of daily life. Sadly the cost of it is ever growing, the cost of ammo is on a continual rise, due to the prices of the metals used in production of ammo. Copper, Zinc, Brass, Tin and Antimony, are on the rise oh and now it seem that Lead, will be to.  It seem that our Imperial Federal government, via the EPA has decided that the lead, specifically used in ammo, is a danger to the environment.

With the fall hunting season fast approaching, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under Lisa Jackson, who was responsible for banning bear hunting in New Jersey, is now considering a petition by the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) – a leading anti-hunting organization – to ban all traditional ammunition under the Toxic Substance Control Act of 1976, a law in which Congress expressly exempted ammunition.  If the EPA approves the petition, the result will be a total ban on all ammunition containing lead-core components, including hunting and target-shooting rounds. The EPA must decide to accept or reject this petition by November 1, 2010, the day before the midterm elections.

The CBD is pretty much your typical feel good environmentalist organization, with the admirable goal of saving wildlife from the ravages of man, at pretty much any cost. This group is so concerned about overpopulation, destroying the enviroment, that they are handing out Endangered Species Condoms.
Now this is just a petition from one organization, how much weight they carry with Lisa Jackson, is something I do not know, but you can bet your sweet ass that other anti-hunting and firearms groups will pile on this.

So what is the issue here?
According to the CBD:

An estimated 10 million to 20 million birds and other animals die each year from lead poisoning in the United States. This occurs when animals scavenge on carcasses shot and contaminated with lead bullet fragments, or pick up and eat spent lead-shot pellets or lost fishing weights, mistaking them for food or grit. Some animals die a painful death from lead poisoning while others suffer for years from its debilitating effects.
“The science on this issue is massive in breadth and unimpeachable in its integrity,” said George Fenwick, president of American Bird Conservancy. “Hundreds of peer-reviewed studies show continued lead poisoning of large numbers of birds and other animals, and this petition is a prudent step to safeguard wildlife and reduce unacceptable human health risks.”
American Bird Conservancy, Center for Biological Diversity, Association of Avian Veterinarians, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, and the hunters’ group Project Gutpile are asking for the ban under the Toxic Substances Control Act, which regulates dangerous chemicals in the United States.

With a error range like that one has to wonder how they conducted the estimation. I would assume that they took a few known deaths and multiplied it by a number of their choosing.
While it is true that animals some times consume lead shot, it is also true that many pass it and are unharmed, others once they get the taste of the metallic lead spit it right back out, it is not a pleasant taste. None the less, the source of the Lead that poisons the Condors can not be verified.
Lead, when consumed is dangerous I have not doubt that the hundreds of peer reviewed studies show that. As far as the Human race, we have gone on a crusade to ride the nation of Lead paint, and pipes. One often repeated myth is that Children got lead posing from eating chips of paint, when in fact, it was the inhalation of lead dust during renovations, that was the major factor.

From Wikipedia:
Ingestion of metallic lead, such as small lead fishing lures, increases blood lead levels and can be fatal. ingestion of lead-contaminated food is also a threat. Ceramic glaze often contains lead, and dishes that have been improperly fired can leach the metal into food, potentially causing severe poisoning. In some places, the solder in cans used for food contains lead. People who eat animals hunted with lead bullets may be at risk for lead exposure. Bullets lodged in the body rarely cause significant levels of lead poisoning, but bullets lodged in the joints are the exception, as they deteriorate and release lead into the body over time.

And yes that is peer reviewed too. Oh notice words like, can be, potentially, and may be.

As a hunter in California, compliance with the recent state nonlead ammunition regulation has been simple,” said Anthony Prieto, a hunter and co-founder of Project Gutpile, a hunter’s group that provides educational resources for lead-free hunters and anglers. “I still get to hunt, there is no toxic impact on wildlife or my health, and copper bullets shoot better.”

Shoot better? How so? Copper has a lower mass, which to any person that knows their firearms an ammo, know this means less range, less energy delivered and worst of all less accuracy.
Oh by the way Copper can be toxic too.

So how much of this horrible Lead is injected into the environment each year?

In the United States, 3,000 tons of lead are shot into the environment by hunting every year, another 80,000 tons are released at shooting ranges, and 4,000 tons are lost in ponds and streams as fishing lures and sinkers.

I wonder if they realize that a vast majority of the bullets fired at ranges is recovered and recycled? Lead is a commodity and is has value, no range owner in their right mind would pass up recovering that precious metal. 3000 Tons might seem like a lot but it is spread over the vastness of this nation,

Lead ammunition also poses health risks to people. Lead bullets explode and fragment into minute particles in shot game and can spread throughout meat that humans eat. Studies using radiographs show that numerous, imperceptible, dust-sized particles of lead can infect meat up to a foot and a half away from the bullet wound, causing a greater health risk to humans who consume lead-shot game than previously thought. A recent study found that up to 87 percent of cooked game killed by lead ammunition can contain unsafe levels of lead. State health agencies have had to recall venison donated to feed the hungry because of lead contamination from lead bullet fragments. Nearly 10 million hunters, their families and low-income beneficiaries of venison donations may be at risk.

notice the use of “can “ again.

This guy lived for years with a bullet in him. There are numerous stories similar to this and none of then that I can recall ever mention lead poisoning. 

Some studies have shown that hunters do not have elevated lead levels. Think about it. What dinner plate would have the most “harmful additives”? The plate of a rural hunter, or that of a suburban dweller?

The CBD helpfully cites alternatives to lead based bullets, such as

Non-toxic steel, copper, and alloy bullets and non-lead fishing tackle are readily available in all 50 states.

See here is the thing, all metals are toxic , it just depends on the amounts you are exposed to. Also You get a performance hit with the lighter metal bullets, and metals that are less malleable, such as steel, are banned or controlled due to their penetration abilities. You know Armor …..
Oh and another thing, those non-toxic bullets?
Tungsten
and again.
“Green" ammo
And more Green ammo. Which is vastly more expensive than the traditional ammo.
Copper bullets, which also is very much more expensive than traditional lead based bullets, are on the market, but due to the price, and performance hit, they have not flown off the shelves.

the EPA with out any congressional over-site, can unilaterally ban a entire class of commodity from the market., while claiming as they did with CO2 that it is a pollutant and needs to be regulated, you know for our own good.
IF this rule goes though it will cause a major uproar in the gun owners community. One part of this that particularly bothers me is Enforcement, will one just get a ticked and a fine,in the 100’s or 1000’s of dollars? Or will they get a 2 AM visit from the EPA swat team?
A major component of the firearms community is handloaders, men and women that reload their own ammo and cast their own bullets. What will become of them? Will this require them to turn in thier lead, stop manufacturing new cast lead bullets? What would the penalties be,and how will this effect the re-manufacturing market?

I would have to guess the people at the CBD dont give a shit.
The folks over at the CBD, are pushing a agenda that has no real basis in reality, it is simply another backdoor means to restricting firearm ownership.

Oh by the way the decision is due to me made on November 1, 2010…

Thoughts, comments?

Update:

The EPA has decided that, they do not have the authority to ban lead in bullets, but it can regulate the CO2 you produce from your daily activities.
So for now we win, but we must remain vigilant.

Monday, June 28, 2010

Outstanding news:

The Supreme Court held Monday that the Constitution’s Second Amendment restrains government’s ability to significantly limit “the right to keep and bear arms,” advancing a recent trend by the John Roberts-led bench to embrace gun rights.

By a narrow, 5-4 vote, the justices also signaled, however, that some limitations on the right could survive legal challenges.

Writing for the court in a case involving restrictive laws in Chicago and one of its suburbs, Justice Samuel Alito said that the Second Amendment right “applies equally to the federal government and the states.”

Those laws appear to be the only outright bans left in the country.

I’ve only seen selected quotes, but the dissent appears to bend over backward to justify a handgun ban.  Incorporation of constitutional rights is something the liberal wing of the Court has traditionally upheld.  I guess that goes out the window when it comes to guns.

I’ll be posting links to commentary throughout the day.  Right now, I’m seeing some very nice quotes from Thomas’ concurring opinion.  But just remember that, according to his critics, Thomas has never issued a significant ruling.

Update: SCOTUS also ruled on Sarbanes-Oxley today. They didn’t change much but Bainbridge has a stirring quote from Roberts.

Friday, January 08, 2010

The latest employment numbers have been discussed and analyzed ad nauseum today, so I’m not going to go beyond what is obvious--we are still deep in the shit, and aren’t coming out any time soon.  I may post a collection of links that explain this over the weekend.

Instead, I want to link to an article that Jason Whitlock wrote about the Gilbert Arenas situation.  Whitlock writes:

Do you think they would paint their bodies in tattoos if they comprehended they were joining a multi-billion-dollar industry tied to presenting a wholesome image of its players?

So there is little reason to marvel at Gilbert Arenas’ stupidity. He’s in crowded company, many of the NBA’s biggest names have as little self-awareness as Agent Zero IQ.

To them, the NBA is not a business. It’s the Senior AAU Tour with bi-weekly paychecks, private planes that double as floating casinos and a potential baby mama (or two) waiting in every city.

I don’t disagree with the last statement.  While many players in the NBA take their jobs very seriously, there’s also plenty of players who haven’t matured emotionally past that AAU stage in high school.  To be somewhat fair, the “baby mama” attitude goes back decades, snaring superstars such as Julius Erving, Karl Malone, and The Sperminator himself, Shawn Kemp.

I’m not sure where Whitlock gets the idea that the NBA is promoting itself as a family-oriented business, though.  Stern’s most brilliant business manuever was taking the Faustian bargain that encouraging the hip-hop “street ball” culture of the ghettos to come to the NBA would result in increased interest and fan devotion has paid off in spades.  And while it’s made a lot of people in the NBA fabulously wealthy, and provided us with some incredible displays of talent and athleticism, the other side of that is that when you allow an environment that gives a wink and a nod to gangster culture to develop, it’s hardly surprising that many players would continue to emulate the worst aspects of the street, especially if they came into riches so soon after high school.  Why bother cleaning up your act when you’ve been coddled as a superstar your whole life for showing your ass in public?

Whitlock goes on to suggest the following:

If I were Stern, I’d use this latest player-instigated embarrassment to implement an elevation of the league’s age limit to 21 and entice NCAA schools to offer elite athletes (and other students) majors in the study of professional sports. If a musician can study music, why can’t a basketball player study sports? Sports have played as significant a role in influencing American culture as music or art.

While the idea is interesting, I think Whitlock is missing the forest for the trees here.  I have no problem if the NBA decided to set the age limit to 21--it’s a private organization, can set its own rules about hiring criteria as long as it doesn’t violate the equal protection measure clause, and players can always try to get a European or Latin American team to hire them if they want to play early professionally.  But I don’t think it’s going to solve the problem; it might help somewhat, but only a fundmental change in the sport’s culture will accomplish what Whitlock wants to see.

There’s anothe issue to consider as well.  Arenas may have shown the gun as a joke, but the other player involved, Javaris Crittenton, is now reported to have actually locked and loaded his own gun that he had brought to the arena.  Arenas was suspended indefinitely, and his guns weren’t loaded; if Crittenton actually loaded his gun, what sort of punishment should he get?

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

I lived in Baltimore for three years.  So the only thing that surprises me about this story is the weaponry involved:

Hours earlier, someone had broken into John Pontolillo’s house and taken two laptops and a video-game console. Now it was past midnight, and he heard noises coming from the garage out back.

The Johns Hopkins University undergraduate didn’t run. He didn’t call the police. He grabbed his samurai sword.

With the 3- to 5-foot-long, razor-sharp weapon in hand, police say, Pontolillo crept toward the noise. He noticed a side door in the garage had been pried open. When a man inside lunged at him, police say, the confrontation was fatal.

“He was backed up against a corner and either out of fear or out of panic, he just struck the sword with force,” said Baltimore Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi. “It was probably with fear for his life.”

Pontolillo, who rents the house in the 300 block of E. University Parkway in the Oakenshawe neighborhood, struck the intruder no more than twice, police say, nearly severing his left hand and inflicting what police termed a “spear laceration.”

The intruder, Donald D. Rice of Baltimore, a 49-year-old repeat offender who had been released from jail only Saturday, died at the bloody scene.

Rumors that he set the criminal’s head on a spike in the front yard as a warning to others are false.  Maryland authorities would not comment on whether they will now require samurai swords to be kept disassembled in a sword safe.

Monday, August 17, 2009

Part of the purpose of the 2nd Amendment is giving the citizens that ability to resist tyranny from their own government. This is the final option for keeping our elected officials in check.
Its really sadding that when citizens exercise this right publicly they are treated as a threat. A threat against Whom? i ask… Why the government of course.Over time i have come to the conclusion that ALL elected officials should live in utter fear that if they fuck the public trust, and manipulate the power of government to maintain their position and safety, then a mob of citizens can very well, and legally shell the hell out of his house and drag him into the street and hang him by his heels.
The government should FEAR the citizens, not the other way around.
This brings me to this piece of news, out of Arizona.

PHOENIX (AP) - About a dozen people carrying guns, including one with a military-style rifle, milled among protesters outside the convention center where President Barack Obama was giving a speech Monday—the latest incidents in which protesters have openly displayed firearms near the president.

Gun-rights advocates say they’re exercising their constitutional right to bear arms and protest, while those who argue for more gun control say it could be a disaster waiting to happen.

Phoenix police said the gun-toters at Monday’s event, including the man carrying an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle slung over his shoulder, didn’t need permits. No crimes were committed, and no one was arrested.

The man with the rifle declined to be identified but told The Arizona Republic that he was carrying the assault weapon because he could. “In Arizona, I still have some freedoms,” he said.

Given the stressed environment at the health care rallys, carrying loaded arms may not be the best thing, but then again given the Union thug driven violence, maybe it is a good deterrent?
Anyhow, Armed citizen who oppose the Presidents plans showed up, and no one was killed, not even scratched, imagine that.

Paul Helmke, president of the Washington, D.C.-based Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said people should not be allowed to bring guns to events where Obama is.

“To me, this is craziness,” he said. “When you bring a loaded gun, particularly a loaded assault rifle, to any political event, but particularly to one where the president is appearing, you’re just making the situation dangerous for everyone.”

He said people who bring guns to presidential events are distracting the Secret Service and law enforcement from protecting the president. “The more guns we see at more events like this, there’s more potential for something tragic happening,” he said.

While he does have a point, nothing did happen, and the president was quiet safe. after all he has numerous secret service guards armed with full auto weapon heavy armor and a wide assortment of gear that we mortal citizens could never legally possess under current law. As far as i see it the citizens were out gunned anyhow.
It is truly touching that liberals are only happy when the government has the only guns, how dare we simple peasants exercise our rights, like speaking our minds.
We have seen in the recent weeks what those on the left think about anyone but them protesting.

Update:

Glen Reynolds has a link to other events too.

Oh BTW did i mention i may get a chance to interview him here in a few weeks?

Tips questions and suggestions are VERY welcome,and needed.

Monday, April 20, 2009

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, the origin of many of our nation’s truly bizarre examples of judicial activism, makes an old wrong right.

The majority opinion was written by Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain, with a concurring opinion from Judge Ronald M. Gould, who wrote, “The right to bear arms is a bulwark against external invasion…That we have a lawfully armed populace adds a measure of security for all of us and makes it less likely that a band of terrorists could make headway in an attack on any community before more professional forces arrived.”

Although the court found against the plaintiffs in the case of Nordyke v. King – Russell and Sallie Nordyke, operators of a gun show in Alameda County, CA – the court acknowledged that its earlier position that the Second Amendment protected only a collective right of states has been overruled by the Supreme Court’s 2008 historic ruling in District of Columbia v. Dick Anthony Heller. That was the case in which the high court ruled that the Second Amendment protects an individual civil right to keep and bear arms.

“This is a great victory for advancement of the fundamental individual right of American citizens to own firearms,” said SAF founder Alan Gottlieb. “The Ninth Circuit panel has acknowledged that the Heller ruling abrogated its earlier position on the Second Amendment, and it further clarified that the Second Amendment is incorporated to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment through the due process clause.”

This is refreshing, and continues the recent trend in which the 9th Circuit delivers lucid decisions, such as their surprise 2004 ruling on the difficult question of whether dolphins can file lawsuits.

(They can’t.)

I’ll tell you this: the usual suspects have been remarkably restrained on gun control, avoiding traditional efforts to whip up hoplophobic mania around incidents like the Binghamton shooting. My read is that they’ve been down this road before and realize it’s political suicide. Give them a few years to get drunk on power again, though, and this issue will be back in full force.

Saturday, April 18, 2009

I finally got a chance to watch ABC’s “If I Only Had A Gun” hit piece (I can’t embed their stupid code).  The basic gist of the piece is that they did some “experiments” to show that common citizens are too stupid and incompetent to use weapons in self defense and should rely on the professionals.

I’ll wait while you watch it, assuming you can put up with 16 minutes of ABC’s condescending anti-gun bullshit.  Please don’t be drinking anything and don’t take out your frustrations on the computer screen.

Here’s Cato’s response—you really should real the whole thing.

The simulation is too narrowly construed to show the full impact of an armed response.  First, the experiment is limited to one armed student in the first classroom that the spree shooter hits.  At Virginia Tech, the spree shooter entered several rooms, so a student in any room other than the first would be able to draw, find a position of cover and concealment, point the gun at the door, and wait for the assailant to enter.  Second, the experiment supposes that an intended victim pulling a gun and shooting back, even if not immediately effective, does nothing to stop the attack.

These results don’t reflect the reality of an armed citizen responding to a spree shooter.  Contrary to what the firearms instructor says, it is not “too much for a normal person” to deal with.  Often, the mere confrontation with an armed response takes them out of their revenge fantasy and derails the killing spree.

...

The scenario is also unrealistic in that the student is seated dead center in the front row, a bad move for someone trying to conceal a gun on their hip under a T-shirt; far better in the back of the room in a corner.  Plus, the spree shooter is expecting resistance and knows where the armed student will be, advantages that will not be replicated in the real world.  In one iteration of the scenario, a second assailant is placed a couple of seats away from the armed student.  When the armed student draws to shoot at the assailant, he is blindsided by the co-conspirator.  This isn’t a result of “tunnel vision,” as the program would tell you.  This is a rigging of the experiment.  A second assailant in placed practically next to the armed student, while our amateur is wearing a face mask that restricts vision?  No one, not even the firearms instructor playing spree shooter, would win in that situation.

I’m reminded of the words of Suzanna Hupp, a survivor of the Luby’s Massacre who tragically left her gun in her car to comply with a dumb law forbidding firearms in restaurants.  She noted that maybe she wouldn’t have been able to defend herself had she been armed—but it certainly would have improved the odds.  Why is someone fumbling for a weapon worse than someone utterly defenseless?

Notice something else in the video—while the gunman is dealing with the armed student, the other students are able to escape.  ABC notes, again in the condescending tone, that the famous firefight video between a clerk and two robbers ended with no one getting shot.  Um, ABC?  What the fuck do you think might have happened had the clerk not been armed?

I would also point out that ABC has missed the entire point of conceal carry—that the bad guys don’t know who is armed.  They don’t know when they are going to run into armed resistance.  The point is to create doubt, uncertainty and fear in their minds so that they don’t attack in the first place.  Passage of conceal-carry laws corresponds to drops in violent crime.  Gee, ABC, do you think there might be a reason for that?

Now, in fairness, although I support conceal carry on college campi, I don’t think that horrors like the Virginia Tech massacre are a good justification Those events are so rare that any ideas for how to deal with them are an over-reaction.  If the gun-grabbers are assholes for using Columbine to justify gun control, the the gun-toters are assholes for using Virginia Tech to oppose it.  I support conceal-carry because I believe in the second amendment and the right of self defense.  I don’t need a horror story to be right.

You know what bothers me most about the gun control freaks?  It’s not their opinions or their moral smugness or their absolute faith in the police (a faith, notably, unique to rich white people like ABC producers).  It’s that their arguments are so lazy.

Update: One final point.  ABC starts out their piece talking about how people fantasize about defending themselves with guns because of video games and movies.  But it’s ABC that has let video games and movies warp their thinking.  In a video game or a movie, the only way to defend yourself with a gun is to kill the other guy.  But in real life, simply having gun, simply waving it around, simply pointing it, simply firing it—all of these are effective defenses.  You don’t have to kill and people rarely do.  If someone ever breaks into my house, the first thing I’ll do is go to the top of the stairs and loudly chamber a round so that they’ll hopefully run for their lives.

Sunday, April 05, 2009

Oh, you know that story about how 90% of the guns being used in Mexico’s drug war come from America?  Bullshit.

There’s just one problem with the 90 percent “statistic” and it’s a big one:

It’s just not true.

In fact, it’s not even close. The fact is, only 17 percent of guns found at Mexican crime scenes have been traced to the U.S.

What’s true, an ATF spokeswoman told FOXNews.com, in a clarification of the statistic used by her own agency’s assistant director, “is that over 90 percent of the traced firearms originate from the U.S.”

But a large percentage of the guns recovered in Mexico do not get sent back to the U.S. for tracing, because it is obvious from their markings that they do not come from the U.S.

“Not every weapon seized in Mexico has a serial number on it that would make it traceable, and the U.S. effort to trace weapons really only extends to weapons that have been in the U.S. market,” Matt Allen, special agent of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), told FOX News.

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.

Most of the guns are coming from Mexico’s black market, the Russian mob, trickle down from past guerilla wars and defecting members of Mexico’s Army.

Right now, the Left is in retreat on the gun issue.  They have so thoroughly lost on the issue that gun control was not raised in response to last week’s shootings.  They’ve won back the majority in Congress, in part, by running pro-gun blue dogs.  And last year, SCOTUS established that the Second Amendment protects an individual right—a cold stare decisis that not even the liberals can ignore.

But that doesn’t mean they’ve given up.  They’ll continue to try to slip the crowbar in here and there, hoping to peel off some support, making “practical” suggestions.  The price of freedom is eternal vigilance and we must be prepared, as always, to counter their garbage.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Ten innocents were gunned down today by a crazed madman in Alabama.

A gunman on a terrifying rampage across two southern Alabama counties killed at least nine people Tuesday, including members of his own family and apparent strangers, and burned down his mother’s home before shooting himself at a metals plant, authorities said.

Police were investigating shootings in at least four different locations in several communities, all of which were believed to be the work of a single gunman who had not yet been identified by investigators.

The afternoon of bloodshed began in Kinston, near the Alabama-Florida border, where the shooter burned down his mother’s house, according to the Coffee County coroner, Robert Preachers. Officials located the woman’s body inside the house, but they had not been able to get inside the still-burning house to determine if he shot her first.

The gunman then headed east, into Geneva County, where he shot and killed five people—four adults and a child—at a home in the nearby town of Samson. Then he killed one person each in two other homes. The identities of all the victims were unknown, but Preachers said they included other members of the shooter’s family.

“He started in his mother’s house,” Preachers said. “Then he went to Samson and he killed his granny and granddaddy and aunt and uncle.”

“We don’t know what triggered it,” Preachers added.

The gunman also shot at a state trooper’s car, striking the vehicle seven times and wounding the trooper with broken glass.

He then killed someone at a Samson supply store, and another person at a service station.

When, oh when, are we going to learn the abject stupidity of allowing so many guns in America?  When are we going to adopt a more logical, civilized, rational approach to guns?  Why don’t we just ban them like they do in Europe, so that this sort of thing can never happen?

At least 10 people have been killed in a shooting at a school in south-west Germany, police say.

A number of people are also thought to have been wounded in the attack at the Albertville school in Winnenden, north of Stuttgart.

Police say the gunman, who was reported to have been wearing black combat gear, has fled into the town.

A major search is underway, and police and rescue workers are at the secondary school.

“We have at least nine dead and numerous injured,” a police spokeswoman said.

The editor of the local paper, Frank Nipkau, told television channel N-TV that eight pupils and two adults were among the dead.

It’s the latest gun control success!

Monday, February 16, 2009

Last week, the Memphis Commercial Appeal published a list of all the holders of conceal-carry permits in Tennessee.  This week, they are shocked, shocked! to learn that people who treasure their right to arm bears also treasure their privacy.  Here’s their response.  Check the justification:

News events like the Feb. 6 shooting at Trinity Commons shopping center led many people to wonder, logically and instantly, who else might be packing a gun. At the point of that shooting, the online list of who is licensed to carry a concealed weapon became a matter of deep public interest. That’s why, during the past week, thousands of people looked at the list that had been sitting mostly unnoticed on the Web site for two months.

Actually, news of shootings makes me wonder if I should be carrying.

Also, memo to the Appeal: internet knowledge tends to explode suddenly and unexpectedly.  Given the number of shootings in Memphis, you could always connect the sudden awareness of the list with some shooting.  Ever heard of post hoc propter hoc?

A mom might now check the list to see if the parents at her kid’s sleep-over next door had a concealed weapon permit. If so, maybe it would be worth talking to them to make sure the gun is locked up.

Well that.  Or you could just ask them.  Keep in mind that most gun-owners do not have a conceal-carry.  Just because someone’s name isn’t on the list, doesn’t mean their home is gun-free.

A school official, concerned about whether teachers were bringing guns onto school grounds, might check the list to see whether anyone on the staff has a permit to carry, and then have a discussion about it.

Business people who sell goods and services that might be of interest to those who carry concealed weapons might use the list to generate new leads.

They’re doing a public service!  Wait for the Appeal to publish other information that might be of use for discussion or sales, such as religion, sexual orientation, immigration status, political persuasion, HIV/AIDS status, TV viewing habits or whether someone has had an abortion or not.

But there is one overriding, enduring reason the permit-to-carry list needs to be public. Once a concealed weapon is pulled out at a shopping center, a hospital or a business, what happens next with that gun becomes a matter of public concern to everyone.

Really?  So when one gun is misused, we have to violate the privacy of tens of thousands of innocent people?  Check your facts. Because conceal-carry permits are so difficult to obtain, holders are far less likely to commit a violent crime than non-holders.  If you’re looking for dangerous people, you’re probably better of starting off with people who don’t have gun permits than people who do.

Let’s try an experiment here.  Suppose there was a high-profile case of child molestation involving a gay man.  How do you think the Appeal would react if I published a list of everyone in Tennessee who is (or might be) gay?  They would rightfully point out that gays are no more or less a danger to children than straights and castigate me for pointlessly violating people’s privacy and painting targets on them for the anti-gay kooks.

What if a crime was committed by a legal immigrant from Mexico and I published a list of all Mexican immigrants?  Or if, in response to 9/11, I published a list of all Tennessee’s Muslims?  How do you think they would respond to any guilt by association that did not involve gun owners?

The default assumption here is that gun-owners are dangerous individuals who everyone needs to keep their eye on.  That is factually incorrect.

And there are very many valid reasons to keep the conceal-carry knowledge out of the hands of the public.  A couple of years ago, the Fort Wayne News Sentinel refused to publish such a list.  Why?

When the newspaper surveyed its readers, the paper was informed of a situation in which one licensee was living a reclusive, secretive life because of fear of a violent ex-spouse. If the paper published the CHL [concealed handgun license] list, the woman’s life would be endangered. The newspaper’s final decision was in favor of the immediate safety of that one woman, and thus against publishing the list.

Bingo.

Publishing a list also defeats the purpose of conceal-carry.  One of the benefits of conceal-carry is that even people who don’t carry guns are protected by them because the criminals don’t know who’s packing.  What do you think will happen when you give them that information?

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

The Second Circuit apparently believes that the Bill of Rights only applies to DC:

The Second Amendment guarantee of the right to bear arms does not apply to override state firearms bans, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit declared Jan. 28. Under the incorporation doctrine, only certain provisions of the Bill of Rights apply to the states, and the Second Amendment is one of those that does not, the Second Circuit held (Maloney v. Cuomo, 2d Cir., No. 07-0581-cv, 1/28/09).

The statute at the center of this case, N.Y. Penal Law §265.01(1), provides criminal penalties for possession of a broad range of items, including weapons used in martial arts. The plaintiff was charged under the statute after police found fighting sticks, or nunchaku, in his home. He ended up pleading guilty to a different charge and then filed a lawsuit against the county prosecutor and others seeking a declaration that the law offends his Second Amendment right to bear arms.

It’s funny how, of all the rights in our Constitution—including several that aren’t there—the only one not covered under incorporation is the Second Amendment, which I would argue is the most important one.

It will be interesting to see what SCOTUS does here.

Friday, November 28, 2008

I’d laugh if it weren’t so damn sad.

It’s the stuff of a suburban nightmare.

The woman shot to death in her San Mateo home while handing her two small children out the window to police was fleeing a stalker who had sneaked into her home through a partially opened garage door as her husband left for work Tuesday, Police Chief Susan Manheimer said Wednesday.

“This was not a random attack or a home invasion robbery, but an incident of stalking,” Manheimer said at an evening news conference. “In the past several weeks, he has pursued her through the Internet, and there may be other contacts as well.”

Police are investigating how Raymond Gee, 22, of Oakland first came into contact with Loan Kim Nguyen, 24, a beauty pageant contestant who hoped to one day become a television news anchor. Investigators don’t know if the two had ever met in person before Tuesday morning, Manheimer said.

But Gee, whom Manheimer described as “an unstable individual” with a history of weapons possession, was apparently staking out Nguyen and her family.

So it seems that the net result of California’s, and especially San Francisco’s draconian gun laws is that the insane stalker murderer was able to get his hands on one and kill her with it.

Also, note the introductory paragraph.  “It’s the stuff of a suburban nightmare.” Yes, Chronicle, it is.  That’s the reason people need guns in their homes, for that one fucking time that someone needs it. 

Thursday, July 17, 2008

The government of DC has responded to Heller by imposing ridiculous restrictions on gun permits:

The new law includes strict storage requirements that opponents of the handgun ban say violate the Supreme Court ruling. Gun owners must keep their pistols at home, unloaded and either disassembled or equipped with trigger locks. Weapons can be loaded and used only if the owner reasonably believes that he or she is in imminent danger from an attacker in the home.

The city also has continued to ban most clip-loaded semiautomatic handguns—which dominate the firearms market—by including those weapons in its broadly written ban on machine guns, which was not at issue in the Supreme Court ruling.

Newsham said if anyone shows up to register a semiautomatic pistol that fits the city’s definition of a machine gun, police will confiscate the gun but will not immediately arrest the owner. But he said police reserve the right to investigate and eventually file charges.

This means, ironically, that Heller himself can not register his gun, a Colt .45.  Nor could I register mine, a 9 mm Smith and Wesson.

To lump semi-automatic handguns in with machines guns is a flagrant abuse of the law.  To require burglars to wait patiently while their victims unlock their guns, locate ammo, assemble and load the gun, is to deprive the citizen of DC of any reasonable possibility of self-defense.

With every day, I become more convinced that it’s time for Congress to simply dissolve the DC government.  What the hell point are they serving?  DC has dreadful roads, terrible schools, a horrid traffic situation, high crime and a massive rat problem. Their biggest accomplishment in recent years has been building a stadium for a baseball team.  Now they’re basically giving the middle finger to the Supreme Court.

Thursday, June 26, 2008

From McArdle: “At least one good thing has come out of the Bush presidency.” You have to give him credit for the Alito/Roberts appointments, at least on this issue.