Articles by Herschel Smith

Courtesy of Say Uncle, the NRA has caught indication of what could be a very important ATF ruling, if not for what it does, certainly for the precedent it sets.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is taking public comments on its website until December 31, with regard to how it should determine what types of projectiles meet the “sporting purposes” exception to the federal “armor piercing ammunition” law. At this time, the question centers primarily around rifle-caliber projectiles made of metals harder than lead, such as the Barnes Bullets solid brass hunting bullets.

Under the law, adopted in 1986, “armor piercing ammunition” is defined as “a projectile or projectile core which may be used in a handgun and which is constructed entirely (excluding the presence of traces of other substances) from one or a combination of tungsten alloys, steel, iron, brass, bronze, beryllium copper, or depleted uranium.” A second definition, added in the 1990s, includes “a full jacketed projectile larger than .22 caliber designed and intended for use in a handgun and whose jacket has a weight of more than 25 percent of the total weight of the projectile.”

Because handguns have been made in certain rifle calibers, many bullets that were designed originally for rifles also “may be used in a handgun.” If such projectiles are made of the metals listed in the law, they are restricted as “armor piercing ammunition” unless they meet one of the law’s exemptions. Being considered at this time is the exemption for “a projectile which the Attorney General finds is primarily intended to be used for sporting purposes.”

Last week, BATFE met separately with gun control activist groups, firearm industry groups, and groups representing hunters and other gun owners. The latter meeting included the NRA; Safari Club International; representatives of state wildlife agencies; and firearm and ammunition importers.

BATFE has expressed two opinions about the law and exemption that warrant particular scrutiny.

First, BATFE suggested that it believes that the “armor piercing ammunition” law was intended to affect all ammunition capable of penetrating soft body armor worn by law enforcement officers. NRA reminded BATFE that the law was intended to protect law enforcement officers against the potential threat posed a very narrowly-defined category of projectiles: those, such as KTW and Arcane, which by virtue of their hard metal construction were designed and intended to be used by law enforcement officers to shoot through hard objects, such as automobile glass and doors, when fired at the velocities typical of handgun-caliber ammunition fired from handguns. Neither before nor since the law’s enactment, has an officer been killed due to such a bullet penetrating soft body armor.

NRA further pointed out that the legislative history of the law clearly shows that members of Congress, including the sponsor of the law in the House, Rep. Mario Biaggi (D-N.Y.), a decorated former NYPD police officer, expressly did not want the law to restrict rifle-caliber bullets that happen to also be useable in handguns chambered to use rifle cartridges.

Second, BATFE says it considers projectiles to not be exempt under the “sporting purposes” test if they “pose a threat to public safety and law enforcement.” BATFE also expressed concern that since the law was adopted, various new rifle-caliber handguns have been invented. On that point, NRA made clear that the sporting purposes exemption is straightforward: it applies to all projectiles that are “primarily intended for sporting purposes”–nothing more, and nothing less. Under the law, a projectile would be exempt if it is primarily intended for sporting purposes, even if it is secondarily intended for self-defense or some other legitimate purpose. Furthermore, the law does not condition its restrictive language or its “sporting purposes” exemption on the design of a particular handgun; the law is concerned only with specific projectiles that can be used in handguns. NRA cautioned the BATFE against interpreting the law in a manner more restrictive than Congress intended.

I think that the NRA comments are, in the main, on target.  It’s easy to conflate purposes for laws that were crafted so long ago.

Also see the comments at Say Uncle.  I agree that this will end up in an effort to control long gun ammunition, and have recommended before the complete abolition of the ATF as an unwarranted, unconstitutional and wasteful intrusion on the rights of citizens of the U.S.

Take careful note, too, what they say concerns them: “BATFE also expressed concern that since the law was adopted, various new rifle-caliber handguns have been invented.”

I wonder how many Department of Justice employees are equally concerned when SWAT teams raids the homes of unsuspecting and incorrect targets, such as Mr. Eurie Stamps, or Ms. Zaelit, or Mr. Tuppeny, or Ms. Lloyd, or Thomas and Rosalie Avina, or Mr. Kenneth Wright?  Statists will be statists.  Can a leopard change its spots?

Finally, this issue of the sporting purposes test is laughable.  The ATF didn’t listen when I pointed this out before, and they aren’t likely to start now.  It isn’t that the test is difficult, or convoluted, or hard to apply, but necessary nonetheless because it’s the law.  The issue is that it is self referentially incoherent.  It cannot be logically applied because it presupposes the consequent.

The ATF must decide what is the “sporting purposes” category by populating the list with examples, and then make the claim that such-and-such an example is deemed to be or not to be a “sporting purpose” because it is or isn’t on the list.  It reasons in a circle.

Not that the ATF will care.  And not that they will care what we have to say about ammunition either.

UPDATE: Thanks to Glenn Reynolds for the attention!

UPDATE #2: See also David Codrea, Mike Vanderboegh and Kurt Hofmann.

From the Union Leader, Manchester, New Hampshire.

At a community meeting in Bedford Thursday, a resident asked the police chief under what circumstances a resident could use lethal force against a burglar.

“Say you’re asleep, you hear a noise, glass breaks, you hear somebody in there, you know they don’t belong,” said the resident, who didn’t provide his name. “Are you expected to ascertain whether they’re armed if you have the ability to take them out legally?”

Joking that he’s not a lawyer but has been accused of being one, Chief John Bryfonski sidestepped the question, saying it’s inappropriate for him to provide a legal opinion.

“The RSA is there,” Bryfonski said. “I think that folks should read it. Understand it. If they don’t fully understand the aspects of the use of force or deadly physical force by a civilian . . . then you should seek your own legal guidance.”

The meeting was called a week and a half after an assault at an upscale Bedford home. Dr. Eduardo Quesada and his wife, Sonia, were both hurt in the attack, which occurred after they entered their home. Quesada, an anesthesiologist at Elliot Hospital in Manchester, was in critical condition and remains hospitalized. His wife was released last week.

I’ll tell you what.  I wouldn’t live in a place where one has to wonder if a home invader is armed or attempt to ascertain his purpose before acting in self defense.  The Castle doctrine should be a part of the legal and regulatory framework of every state in the nation.

Any man who invades my home, assuming I can get to my weapon, is a dead man before the first question can be asked.  People tend to have very odd views of how such a thing is all going to go down, but there won’t be occasion for banter, conversation or ascertaining intent, and if you’re not careful and you have your weapon too far from your reach, there may not even be time to defend your own life or the lives of your loved ones.

Any legal framework that doesn’t recognize this and allow for defense of the home isn’t funny, or cute, or needful of legal counsel, or complicated.  It’s also not the occasion for stupid jokes.  It’s immoral.

We’re all familiar with the fact that one week ago, Jovan Belcher perished by his own hand after killing his girlfriend.  Blame the gun, Bob did.  No apologies.  In fact, there is continued discussion of it, and it is seen as a societal problem, or a problem particularly for the NFL, that some 70% of the players own guns.  The same conversation is going on in baseball.  The Padres general manager worries over his players “involved with guns.”

San Diego Padres general manager Josh Byrnes, who lost one of his top pitchers, Andrew Cashner, for up to six months after a hunting accident last week, worries about the rash of baseball players who are involved with guns and hunting in the offseason.

“As a GM, I am concerned,” Byrnes said. “You’re dealing with young guys, and obviously, we can control things on the job, but away from it, we hope they make the right decisions.

“I don’t know if athletes are predisposed to guns or not, but it’s certainly something that concerns you.”

So over the week there were other poor decisions made among players in the NFL.  A Dallas Cowboys player drove drunk and ended up killing a fellow player in a single car accident.

Costas inveighed again on Sunday night football concerning this week’s incident (it isn’t clear why he believes his opinion to be important).  He remarked how strange it is that this sort of thing could happen when it is so easy to avoid the tragedy.  Any player can call any time they feel that they are too impaired to drive.

And I suppose that this is analogous to the fact that any player can call for assistance when they feel that they are about to commit acts of violence.  So why is the gun to blame for the death of Jovan Belcher and his girlfriend, but alcohol to blame for the death of Jerry Brown?

The NFL or the team could prohibit players from driving and send chauffeurs to pick them up when transportation is required.  How many NFL players own cars, Bob?  How did you decide to blame the gun and not the car?

Prior:

Hi, I’m A Man And I Condone Wanton Violence

Does Bob Costas Really Know What His Problem Is?

Frankly, the objections to guns being trotted out by Bob Costas are disjointed and difficult to categorize.  As we’ve already seen, his initial objections had to do with guns in general.  He cited Jason Whitlock, and indicated that if Jovan Belcher had not had access to guns, he and his girlfriend would still be alive today.

But not long after those comments, he amended his stance to the following.  “Why do you need a semiautomatic weapon? What possible use is there for a citizen to have a semiautomatic weapon?”  Costas also inveighed that “he thinks there should be reasonable gun control so that people don’t…can’t go on line and build an arsenal of guns and put in their basement.”  I replied that I couldn’t help but think of the fact that Mr. Stephen Bayezes saved his life with a semi-automatic weapon and high capacity magazine.  And what exactly is the problem with more than one gun, located in the basement?  All it took for Belcher’s girlfriend to die was a single gun.  How is the issue of multiple firearms related to his initial diatribe?

Now the stipulations and qualifications grow and expand to include this set of issues.

Costas acknowledged that drugs, alcohol, and the debilitating mental and physical effects of football all could have contributed to Belcher’s breakdown, but explained that due to time limitations he focused on one particular aspect of the tragedy: guns.

From there he made pains to distinguish between the simple existence of guns and what he calls “gun culture.”

“I never mentioned the 2nd Amendment, I never used the words ‘gun control.’ People inferred that. Now, do I believe that we need more comprehensive and more sensible gun-control legislation? Yes I do. That doesn’t mean repeal the 2nd Amendment. That doesn’t mean a prohibition on someone having a gun to protect their home and their family,” Costas said.

But he also argued that, even if guns were harder to obtain, the most intractable problem facing the country is pervasive gun culture, which manifests itself in “the Wild West, Dirty Harry mentality” of people who believe that if only everyone carried firearms, mass shooters like James Holmes would be stopped in their tracks.

He also expressed concern over the specific popularity of guns among professional athletes. Recounting a story told to him by former Colts coach Tony Dungy, who was startled to discover that 65 of 80 players at training camp owned firearms, Costas asserted, “You can’t have 65 guys in their 20s and 30s, aggressive young men subject to impulses, without something bad happening.”

He continued: “Give me one example of an athlete – I know it’s happened in society – but give me one example of a professional athlete who by virtue of his having a gun, took a dangerous situation and turned it around for the better. I can’t think of a single one. But sadly, I can think of dozens where by virtue of having a gun, a professional athlete wound up in a tragic situation.”

So we have in order the following problems: (1) guns, (2) semi-automatic guns, (3) too many guns, (4) guns in basements, (5) the “gun culture” (whatever that is), (6) guns among professional athletes (given that they are a large proportion black, this sounds oddly racist to me).

It’s difficult to tell what to address with Costas.  His objections are a moving target, and he uses changing props, from Belcher, to the Colorado shooter, to the general culture and violence in young men.  If Costas settles down and makes himself clear and logical, we can address his concerns.  Unfortunately, I don’t think that he is disposed to clear, logical thinking, so his objections will have to remain a moving target.  Costas should stick to football and leave the policy to us.

Prior: Hi, I’m A Man And I Condone Wanton Violence

They say that it’s the first step to healing.  But before we get down to that, let’s briefly rehearse the weekend.  I dropped by Allen Arms in Greenville, S.C., to pay my next installment on my new Auto Ordnance M1 Carbine (beautiful Walnut stock) with my oldest son, Joshua, and then not three miles down the road, we stopped in at the brand new Sharpshooters Gun Club and Indoor Range to check it out.  It was nice.  I’ll be visiting there again, and often, and I’ll be buying guns from Wayne.

At least, that’s how I felt until I was upbraided by Bob Costas concerning the death of Jovan Belcher and his girlfriend.

“Our current gun culture,” Whitlock wrote, “ensures that more and more domestic disputes will end in the ultimate tragedy and that more convenience-store confrontations over loud music coming from a car will leave more teenage boys bloodied and dead.”

“Handguns do not enhance our safety. They exacerbate our flaws, tempt us to escalate arguments, and bait us into embracing confrontation rather than avoiding it. In the coming days, Jovan Belcher’s actions, and their possible connection to football will be analyzed. Who knows?”

“But here,” wrote Jason Whitlock, “is what I believe. If Jovan Belcher didn’t possess a gun, he and Kasandra Perkins would both be alive today.”

Actually, I’ve never been that impressed by Costas, and have always dismissed him as a childish, self-important narcissist.  But then I rethought his views when I read Caryn Riswold writing at Feminismxianity.

These are the kinds of things I want to hear more men saying about guns and masculinity …

I’m glad Costas said what he said, when he said it, and where he said it.  Surely it’s the NFL audience (men men men) who didn’t want to hear it, but they are the ones who perhaps most need to hear it. And really, they need more than 90 seconds.

While reminding us that we shouldn’t forget about Kasandra Perkins, the first victim in this tragedy, Kevin Powell writes over at CNN.com that our constructs of what it means to be a man are part of the culture problem that we have got to solve:

Be tough, men do not cry, man up — these are the things I’ve heard my entire life, and I now cringe when I hear this relayed to boys or younger men by teachers, coaches, fathers, mentors and leaders …

I’ve seen the tragic pattern across our nation of men who, in the heat of rage, have killed their girlfriends, wives or lovers, as if they had no other vocabulary or emotion to deal with the disagreement or the break-up.

More men need to have more honest conversations about guns and interpersonal violence.

So they say that confession is the first step to healing.  I am a man, and therefore, according to Ms. Riswold, I condone wanton violence and have no language with which to deal with all sorts of emotions – I know not what they are – and need to get more in touch with my feminine side, or something like that.

But now that there is this new-found freedom and honesty, I have so many unanswered questions.  For instance, if guns lead to so much violence, then why doesn’t the data back up this hypothesis?  Why do I and all of my gun-carrying friends work so hard to avoid confrontation if we can just win the argument by the pull of a trigger?

Ms. Riswold and I worship a very different god and see things through much different theological eyes.  Upon her evolutionary view of human nature, why is it evil to like wanton violence?  Isn’t this just an evolutionary adaptation to propel me to the top of the species?  Whence cometh this supposition of the heart of darkness in man?

Costas, reading word-for-word Whitlock’s angsty tract to the rapt millions, seemed to think that the world of American gun owners can be reduced to “convenience-store confrontations over loud music coming from a car [leaving] more teenage boys bloodied and dead.”

And if this heart of darkness obtains, then what am I to make of my felt need to defend my family from it?  Should I expect my attackers to seek their more feminine side too?  How would I cause this to come about, seeing as I had previously believed that:

Crime is a moral decision, value judgment and social and cultural phenomenon.  It isn’t related to the existence of guns, and if guns weren’t available, they will use hammers.  Gun control laws cannot raise children to believe in values.

Costas then continued his diatribe in a different venue.  Costas inveighed, “Why do you need a semiautomatic weapon? What possible use is there for a citizen to have a semiautomatic weapon?”  But what about Mr. Stephen Bayezes, who saved his life with a semi-automatic weapon and high capacity magazine, I thought?

Why does Costas drive a car, since automobiles cause four times the number of deaths in America that guns do?  After all, we don’t have to listen to Costas wax on about sports, do we?  He could just stay home.

But I’m sure that Ms. Riswold’s god can give us the answers if we pose these questions to him (er … excuse me, her).  But since I have this new found freedom and boldness, I’ve decided that I’ll only engage Ms. Riswold on this issue if she supports me in my mission to ban assault hammers because of the violence they perpetrate.  I expect to hear from Ms. Riswold soon on this, and we can skip to nirvana together.

UPDATE: You see, David, this is exactly the kind of reaction that makes the goddess unhappy.

We’re all under surveillance.

The FBI has the e-mails of nearly all US citizens, including congressional members, according to NSA whistleblower William Binney. Speaking to RT he warned that the government can use information against anyone it wants.

­One of the best mathematicians and code breakers in NSA history resigned in 2001 because he no longer wanted to be associated with alleged violations of the constitution.

He asserts, that the FBI has access to this data due to a powerful device Naris.

This year Binney received the Callaway award. The annual award was established to recognize those, who stand out for constitutional rights and American values at great risk to their personal or professional lives.

RT: In light of the Petraeus/Allen scandal while the public is so focused on the details of their family drama one may argue that the real scandal in this whole story is the power, the reach of the surveillance state. I mean if we take General Allen – thousands of his personal e-mails have been sifted through private correspondence. It’s not like any of those men was planning an attack on America. Does the scandal prove the notion that there is no such thing as privacy in a surveillance state?

William Binney: Yes, that’s what I’ve been basically saying for quite some time, is that the FBI has access to the data collected, which is basically the e-mails of virtually everybody in the country. And the FBI has access to it. All the congressional members are on the surveillance too, no one is excluded. They are all included. So, yes, this can happen to anyone. If they become a target for whatever reason – they are targeted by the government, the government can go in, or the FBI, or other agencies of the government, they can go into their database, pull all that data collected on them over the years, and we analyze it all. So, we have to actively analyze everything they’ve done for the last 10 years at least.

And here I thought that maybe our government would be doing needful things like finding and shutting down MS-13, and preparing for Hezbollah sleeper cells inside the U.S. to become operational.

It’s really we, the citizens, who are the biggest threat to the country.  See how much I know?  I wouldn’t have guessed it.

Fellow gun blogger Mike Vanderboegh gives us a link to Strategy Page on the various issues surrounding quality with SAPI plates.  As I’ve said before, my own son was saved by a SAPI plate.

I usually don’t like citing Strategy Page for anything.  They don’t provide sources, and if it’s public domain (as it is from time to time), they don’t supply URLs.  I also think that this particular Strategy Page article spends too much effort to explain something fairly simple.  SAPI plates are for 5.56 mm rounds, while ESAPI plates are designed for 7.62 X 39.  Troops generally train with SAPI plates, and get issued ESAPI plates in theater.

But this little tease at the end of the article is worth some thought.

All these plates are made of boron carbide ceramic with a spectra shield backing. This combination causes bullets to fragment and slow down before getting through the plate. Occasionally, some fragments will get through, but these are stopped by the layers of Kevlar that make up the flak jackets. The ceramic plates require a manufacturing process that uses, and produces, a lot of toxic chemicals. As a result of this, much of the production has moved to China.

Did you get that?  Much of the production has moved to China.  Ponder that statement for a moment.

China is the land of counterfeit parts, and not just any counterfeit parts, but ones intended for our military.  But there is another dirty little secret that most engineers know.  The Far East (China, and to some extent Japan) doesn’t do QA.  Engineers who have components fabricated in Japan must travel there extensively and repeatedly to ensure that they get what they’ve ordered.  Then usually they still don’t.

China is even worse.  The concept of QA isn’t part of the cultural or social fabric of the country.  They don’t understand it, don’t live it, don’t abide by its principles, and don’t have any conceptual understanding of it.  Nuclear power plants are forbidden by federal orders from installing parts fabricated in China.

Here is a note to my readers.  Procure anything that must be reliable in America.  Do not purchase guns, ammunition, tactical equipment, important products and supplies, body armor (soft or hard plate) or anything else from China.  Don’t do it.  Just say no.

As for the ESAPI plates being made there, it’s just a little hypocritical to claim that our EPA is trying to protect the environment while in fact we just ship our “pollution” overseas.  This isn’t the only product with which this kind of thing is done.

Ah.  Hypocrisy.  Rather like the ATF claiming to enforce gun laws while shipping thousands of rifles and handguns into the hands of Mexican cartels, no?

Briefly, recall what I said about the data from Virginia in which we learned that gun sales had soared, while crime had dropped.

Second amendment advocates aren’t making the case, generally speaking, that increased gun sales equals decreased crime.  As an anecdotal note, my own home might be safer with weapons, but that’s a different conversation. The case that must be made belongs to the gun control advocates, not us.  They must make the case that the increased availability of weapons causes an increase of crime.  Otherwise, what’s all this silly argumentation about the “scourge of guns” across our inner cities, and the “rivers of blood” caused by the “easy availability of illegal firearms,” and so on ad nauseam?  Their national conversation with us makes no sense whatsoever if they cannot trot out the data to make it meaningful.

In fact, they cannot.  It is the lack of this data that is remarkable.  The gun control advocates and their ideas fail at every point, and this is the reason behind Chicago being the crime capital of the U.S. in spite of the stringent gun control.  Crime is a moral decision, value judgment and social and cultural phenomenon.  It isn’t related to the existence of guns, and if guns weren’t available, they will use hammers.  Gun control laws cannot raise children to believe in values.

I don’t have to demonstrate that the exercise of my constitutional rights doesn’t affect anyone else in order to legitimize such exercise (think here the first amendment as a case study).  Nor do I have to demonstrate that the public good – whatever that is (it sounds too utilitarian for my tastes) – is served by said right in order to justify its existence.  But what does indeed have to happen is in order for the national conversation the gun control advocates want to have to make any sense whatsoever, they must demonstrate that there is data to justify their claims.

This is important to recall as we examine a recent article by Jeffrey Goldberg entitled The Case For More Guns (And More Gun Control).  Jeffrey makes a few errors of fact, such as the claim that the Colorado shooter was wearing body armor.  He wasn’t.  He was wearing a tactical vest, and that vest had neither soft armor nor hard plates.  Not, of course, that it is a problem to have body armor if someone wants to have it and can afford it, but it is an error of fact anyway.  There are other slight or moderate problems like this throughout the piece.  The Brady Campaign wants to come off as oh-so-sensible in their admission that we do actually have constitutional rights to own and bear arms, but in fact as anyone who has followed their activities can attest, this is disingenuous.  One remarkable element in Goldberg’s interviews is the tacet (if unintentional) admission by progressives and behaviorists as to the existence of evil, and the possibility that a gun wielding concealed carrier will just blow his top and begin shooting when he gets into a heated argument.  Not good form, unforgivable, and the society of humanists might just have to evict them for this outrage.

But on the whole the article is very interesting if for no other reason than Goldberg finds gems here and there and discusses this issue with enough people (including gun control advocates) that one gets a good sense of their arguments.  For me, the money quote is this:

In 2004, the Ohio legislature passed a law allowing private citizens to apply for permits to carry firearms outside the home. The decision to allow concealed carry was, of course, a controversial one. Law-enforcement organizations, among others, argued that an armed population would create chaos in the streets. In 2003, John Gilchrist, the legislative counsel for the Ohio Association of Chiefs of Police, testified, “If 200,000 to 300,000 citizens begin carrying a concealed weapon, common sense tells us that accidents will become a daily event.”

When I called Gilchrist recently, he told me that events since the state’s concealed-carry law took effect have proved his point. “Talking to the chiefs, I know that there is more gun violence and accidents involving guns,” he said. “I think there’s more gun violence now because there are more guns. People are using guns in the heat of arguments, and there wouldn’t be as much gun violence if we didn’t have people carrying weapons. If you’ve got people walking around in a bad mood—or in a divorce, they’ve lost their job—and they get into a confrontation, this could result in the use of a gun. If you talk to emergency-room physicians in the state, [they] see more and more people with gunshot wounds.”

Gilchrist said he did not know the exact statistics on gun-related incidents (or on incidents concerning concealed-carry permit holders specifically, because the state keeps the names of permit holders confidential). He says, however, that he tracks gun usage anecdotally. “You can look in the newspaper. I consciously look for stories that deal with guns. There are more and more articles in The Columbus Dispatch about people using guns inappropriately.”

Ooooh.  Sounds ominous, no?  Sounds as if Goldberg has landed on someone who has authority and backbone  to go after the evil gun lobby and the data to back it all up.  But wait.  This little issue of tracking “gun usage anecdotally” seems like it might be a bit problematic.  Goldberg has the scoop.

Gilchrist’s argument would be convincing but for one thing: the firearm crime rate in Ohio remained steady after the concealed-carry law passed in 2004.

Well there you have it.  The gun control lobby’s case remains stillborn, and thus their national conversation with us remains self referential and nonsensical.  It is a myth, a phantom, and they believe their case in spite of – not because of – the facts.  Since there is no real case, they turn to this wonderfully emotional appeal at the end of the article.

“In a fundamental way, isn’t this a question about the kind of society we want to live in?” Do we want to live in one “in which the answer to violence is more violence, where the answer to guns is more guns?”

Note the construction of the phrases to achieve maximum effect.  I have a different way of expressing the same question.  In a fundamental way, isn’t this question about what kind of society we want to live in?  Do we want to live in a society in which we are able to defend ourselves against the designs of criminals and those who would wish us harm, or do we want to be defenseless against their acts?

I know what kind of society I want.  I don’t think it’s the same one as the gun control lobby.

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.  I leave for a few minutes and this is what I come back to?

Let’s recall that in A Terrorist Attack That America Cannot Absorb, I described in some detail an attack on the main step-up transformers of the fossil fuel power plants in the nation as being perhaps the most serious threat to the economy and infrastructure that this country faced.  I also linked two papers on Hezbollah fighters already being in America.  I described an attack in which fighters destroyed the transformers completely and thoroughly enough that they could not function.  For this article I relied on a colleague at work who knows far more than I do about the subject.

David Codrea discusses the Obama administration’s reaction to this same type of threat.

Rifles, even .22 caliber models many young people receive as their first gun, are “among the greatest threats to the reliability of the nation’s power system,” U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Jon Wellinghoff claimed at a Tuesday Bloomberg Government Breakfast, Bloomberg News reported yesterday.

Citing “inadequately protected” transformers as easy targets, Wellinghoff told the group that terrorists in “coordinated” actions committed to destroying them “could get 200 yards away with a .22 rifle and take the whole thing out.”

A .22 rifle.  When I learned to shoot a .22 rifle, I did my target practicing in my back yard (we lived in the country) using our aluminum trash can lid as a target.  The .22 round would penetrate that lid, but not much more.  My dad would come home from work, inspect my targeting, and let me continue.

Has Wellinghoff ever shot a .22?  Rather than focusing on Hezbollah they are focusing on backyard shooting with a .22.  Rather than working to shore up the nation’s energy grid and its vulnerabilities, they have put their attention on 200 yard shots taking “the whole thing out!”  Nothing about Hezbollah, nothing about securing the border, nothing about additional security infrastructure around these components, but hand-wringing over .22 rifles.

This is unserious.  It isn’t adult-like analysis.  It’s juvenile and childish.  As soon as I turn my back, this is the kind of twaddle that the Obama administration comes out with.  See, this is why we can’t have nice things.  Everything gets broken.

Oh dear.  Someone named Peter Galuszka waxes on about the Virginia gun statistics we briefly discussed.

Virginians have been buying more firearms than ever, even though crime has been steadily falling. Why?

Last year, 420,829 firearms were bought through licensed gun dealers in the state. That’s a 73 percent increase over 2006. Leading the list were pistols (175,717), followed by rifles (135,495). According to the Richmond Times Dispatch, central Virginians packed more heat than anyone else, followed closely by Northern Virginians.

And yet, as more firearms are sold, the crime rate has continued to drop. From 2006 to 2011, the number violent crimes committed with handguns fell from 4,040 to 3,154, about 25 percent, the newspaper reported.

Is there a correlation between increased gun sales and decreasing crime?

Indeed, some believe that hardened criminals are less likely to threaten victims if they know there’s a chance they could end up looking down the barrel of a 9 mm. Glock, or perhaps something that fits more easily into a lady’s handbag, such as a Ruger LCP 380 Ultra Compact Pistol. And by some accounts, women as well as men are flocking to training courses and firing ranges operated by gun stores.

At first glance, “the data is pretty overwhelming,” Thomas R. Baker, a criminologist at Virginia Commonwealth University, told the Richmond newspaper.

When you take a longer view, however, this thinking starts to fall apart. According to FBI reports, violent crime has been on a fairly steady downward trend since the early 1990s – much earlier than 2006, when Virginians started buying guns like crazy. The Economist magazine says the violent crime rate is at its lowest in 40 years and that the murder rate is less than it was a half a century ago.

It’s anyone’s guess why crime has continually dropped. Theories include demographic shifts resulting in fewer of the younger, inner-city men who tend to be involved in violent crime. Better community-based police work could be a cause. Some even say it’s because of large numbers of abortions by low-income women.

This last sentence is disturbing, and betrays a gross moral failing on his part.  But wait!  Peter has thought of something no one else has stopped to ponder.  Really.  Does correlation equal causation?  Peter is alone in the world.  No one else is smart enough to raise that particular question.

Or maybe not.  Go over even pro-gun web sites such as reddit/r/guns and and post a statement that this proves that guns decrease crime and you’ll get eaten alive.  Everyone knows that correlation isn’t equivalent to causation, and no one … no one … is making this argument.  That isn’t what’s being said.

So what is being said?  Recall what I said earlier.

Here the point isn’t about correlation and causation.  In order to demonstrate that gun control achieves its “purported” purpose, one must find evidence that it reduces crime, and it is the absence of this evidence that is remarkable

So let’s extend this a bit.  Second amendment advocates aren’t making the case, generally speaking, that increased gun sales equals decreased crime.  As an anecdotal note, my own home might be safer with weapons, but that’s a different conversation. The case that must be made belongs to the gun control advocates, not us.  They must make the case that the increased availability of weapons causes an increase of crime.  Otherwise, what’s all this silly argumentation about the “scourge of guns” across our inner cities, and the “rivers of blood” caused by the “easy availability of illegal firearms,” and so on ad nauseam?  Their national conversation with us makes no sense whatsoever if they cannot trot out the data to make it meaningful.

In fact, they cannot.  It is the lack of this data that is remarkable.  The gun control advocates and their ideas fail at every point, and this is the reason behind Chicago being the crime capital of the U.S. in spite of the stringent gun control.  Crime is a moral decision, value judgment and social and cultural phenomenon.  It isn’t related to the existence of guns, and if guns weren’t available, they will use hammers.  Gun control laws cannot raise children to believe in values.

So there.  Peter may stop wringing his hands now, and worrying over issues that only he ponders.  Others have thought of these things as well, and Peter isn’t alone.  I’m glad to have helped.   As for Peter’s irrational fear of firearms, I can help with that too, but Peter must be willing to listen and participate.

I’m available Peter.  Give me a call and we can go shooting.