Archive for the 'Firearms' Category

From The Sacramento Bee:

Gun deaths and injuries have dropped sharply in California, even as the number of guns sold in the state has risen, according to new state data.

Dealers sold 600,000 guns in California last year, up from 350,000 in 2002, according to records of sale tallied by the California Attorney General’s office.

During that same period, the number of California hospitalizations due to gun injuries declined from about 4,000 annually to 2,900, a roughly 25 percent drop, according to hospital records collected by the California Department of Public Health.

Firearm-related deaths fell from about 3,200 annually to about 2,800, an 11 percent drop, state health figures show.

But wait!  I thought that people couldn’t control themselves when presented with lethal weapons?  I thought there was a “scourge of guns” across America leading to a national epidemic of violence?  I thought we would just shoot our eyes out if we had guns?

Or maybe the problem to Feinstein and her ilk isn’t guns — it is guns in the hands of the wrong people.

Valuable statistics from New York Daily News:

The gun scourge in New York goes far beyond the assault weapons that are grabbing headlines in the wake of the Newtown, Conn., massacre.

New state stats show that firearms were responsible for more than 58% of the murders statewide last year — but the biggest problem was handguns.

Of the 769 homicides reported in 2011, 393 were the result of handguns. There were 16 deaths by shotgun, five by rifle, and 33 by an unknown “firearm-type,” the state Division of Criminal Justice Services reports.

The rest of the killings were a mix of stabbings, beatings and other assaults.

A package of new proposals that Gov. Cuomo says he’ll push to give New York the nation’s toughest gun laws would come down on the military-style assault rifles like those used to kill 26 people in Newtown and by the crazed gunman who attacked firefighters responding to a blaze in Webster, N.Y., on Monday.

But Cuomo is also mulling measures that would rein in handguns including tougher gun registration rules and limits on the size of gun magazines to no more than seven bullets.

Gasp!  You mean that the dreaded and evil AR wasn’t the firearm of choice with criminals?  Perhaps owning them requires productive members of society to work hard and save their money because they cost so much?  Just a guess.

Take note of the other important point here.  At 42%, murder by other-than-firearm accounts for nearly half the total.  This is remarkable, and yet leave it to New York politicians to work hard at more of the same failed gun control policies to address the issue.  In order to address crime, the Governor is proposing more rules for law-abiding citizens.  If something doesn’t work, do it again … and again … and again.

Here is Senator Feinstein’s proposed law.  Of course, the remarkable thing is that not a single aspect of the law would have stopped the Connecticut shooting, or the Colorado shooting for that matter.

Magazine size is irrelevant, since the shooter was unimpeded (which is the core problem anyway).  Registration of firearms is also irrelevant, since the firearm owner was fully legal (the firearm was stolen and then used to perpetrate another crime).  Finally, grandfathering firearms is also irrelevant, since this firearm would clearly have fallen under such a stipulation (which Feinstein sees as necessary to pass the law).

Also note that the old issue of “sporting purposes” is back in the framework.  Recall what I said about such a test.

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.

And moreover:

While ATF lawyers might disagree, for something to have a “sporting purpose” means nothing more than it can be taken to the range and operated by the owner to his or her entertainment or training.  The shooting skills – whether for official competitions such as IDPA or 3-Gun, or for unofficial activities such as regular range visits for the purpose of betterment at the science of firearms operation – are sports.  All of them.  Period.  This is non-negotiable.  If it is a firearm, it has a sporting purpose.

But then again, this isn’t really about sporting purposes, or safety, or public concerns, is it?  It’s about government control, as such progressive laws always are.  Gun control has always been about gun control.  Progressives aren’t liberal.  They’re statists and control freaks and micro-managers and social engineers.  This proposed law is another testimony to that.

That’s its formal title.

U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici on Tuesday co-sponsored House Resolution 308, Large Capacity Ammunition Feeding Devices Act, following the horrific shootings in Newtown, Conn., and Clackamas Mall last week.

“The loss of so many promising lives to gun violence last week was a call to action that we cannot ignore,” said Bonamici.

“As a first step, this legislation will help to keep ammunition clips like those used in the recent massacres out of public circulation. My colleagues and I will continue to explore additional policy options for ending gun violence in all communities and addressing our mental health crisis, but this commonsense bill is a step to protect American families from the unimaginable horror and grief that follows the mass shootings that have become too common in recent years.”

The Large Capacity Ammunition Feeding Devices Act, introduced by Rep. Carolyn McCarthy of New York and co-sponsored by 113 members of Congress, is modeled on provisions in the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act that was signed into law in 1994. The bill will prohibit the possession, transfer, or import of large ammunition clips manufactured after the date of enactment. It includes exemptions for law enforcement and public safety.

Mike Vanderboegh (correctly) says that Speaker Boehner is a liability.  Chance Ballew gives us three reasons gun control isn’t going to happen.  Boehner can stop this from ever coming to a vote.  Will he?  Does he have the spine?

Either way, fight House Resolution 308.  It increases the power and control of the federal government, and doesn’t add a single thing to your safety.

Glenn Reynolds links to (what should be) an embarrassing blunder concerning Howard Kurtz discussing a “high magazine clip.”  This is reminiscent of Carolyn McCarthy’s blunder that is still a favorite over at reddit/guns.

According to Mark.

Guns are, socially and ethically, devastating. Worthless. They add nothing of positive, intrinsic value to a culture, a people, a country. They only diminish, destroy, display an awesome sense of malformed ego and disastrously warped humanity.

Too much? Too far? Not really. I’m sure you already sense that all those cartoonish action movies, thuggish hip-hop songs, clunky old westerns, ultra-violent video games and the racks of high-caliber weaponry over at Cabela sporting goods and the local gun show – all of which we’ve been led to believe are so essential to our national identity – none of them offer anything of deep worth to the culture; no authentic masculinity, no real patriotism, no genuine power or strength or class. Heart, soul or integrity? Don’t be absurd.

It’s all a vulgar illusion, Hollywood glitter-bombing, manufactured mythology in service of shameless capitalism and a false, bloody American ideology that’s never served us well and only made us the ugly, violence-drunk stepchild of the civilized world. Don’t you already know?

Here is the truth: Guns are pain. Guns are impotence masquerading as virility, shame masquerading as valor, the devil disguised as an outrageously misinterpreted chunk of the Constitution that was never meant to suffer what the fat lords of the gun lobbies have made it suffer.

Do you wish to speak of false gods? Things virulently anti-Christian? The antithesis of everything a peaceful, advanced country is ideally supposed to be founded on? Because guns are all that and more. Jesus would be disgusted.

Mark is just confused.  Objects are something that the theologians call adiaphorous, neither good nor bad.  They can be used for either.  They can be used for home defense, and when a family remains alive after they have defended themselves from a home invasion, they have been used for good.  If they are used to slaughter innocents, they have been used for evil.

Mark wants to find negative ethical value in something that cannot possibly sustain such weight, any more than automobiles can be evil if someone perishes from them.  As for what Jesus thinks of guns, the founding fathers, who knew Jesus much better than Mark does, carried theirs to worship and were required to practice with them on Sundays, as well as introduce their children to them at a very young age.

Mark is just being hysterical, like the rest of the anti-firearm lobby.  Come to Jesus, Mark.

There is a crescendo in incivility, with gun owners being called everything from stone age vigilantes to tinfoil hat Bircher NRA peckerwood with a long gun.  This is the social media equivalent of the posturing over guns that is occurring on the political scene, but it matters because it emboldens the politicians.

Democratic Senators are threatening a new “assault weapons” ban, something openly pursued by Senator Feinstein immediately after the election.  But in addition to the known anti-firearms politicians, the movement has gained supporters from the ranks of those whom we all knew were anti-firearm, but who persuaded the electorate otherwise.

A growing number of lawmakers – including a leading pro-gun senator – called on Monday for a look at curbing assault weapons like the one used in a massacre at a Connecticut grade school, a sign that attitudes toward gun control could be shifting.

Senator Joe Manchin, a conservative West Virginia Democrat who has earned top marks from the gun industry, said Congress and weapons makers should come together on a “sensible, reasonable approach” to curbing rifles like the one used in the killings Friday of 20 young children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown.

A hunter and member of the National Rifle Association, Manchin said the availability of such high-powered weapons does not make sense and called on the gun lobby group to cooperate with a reform of the nation’s gun laws.

A 10-year U.S. ban on assault weapons expired in 2004.

“We’ve got to sit down. I ask all my friends at NRA – and I’m a proud NRA member and always have been – we need to sit down and move this dialogue to a sensible, reasonable approach to fixing it,” he told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program.

“Never before have we seen our babies slaughtered. This never happened in America, that I can recall, ever seeing this kind of carnage,” said Manchin, an avid hunter who once ran a campaign ad showing him firing a rifle at an environmental bill. “This has changed where we go from here.”

Historical scholarship may not be his strong suit.  In 1927, Andrew Kehoe used explosives to attack a local school in Bath, Michigan, apparently being disgruntled over paying higher taxes to fund that school.  Thirty eight children were killed, with one family losing three.  Nearly every family in the town of 300 lost a child.

The only gun Kehoe carried was used to light one of the explosive charges.  The only weapon used by Timothy McVeigh was explosives.  But the point is not to show that it can be worse.  Those poor souls who search for answers in guns, mental illness, and societal problems will search in vain.  The problem is evil, and it is one of the oldest philosophical issues known to man.

The proximate answer for those who would perpetrate violence on you or your loved ones is to respond by stopping them.  Shopping malls, schools, public buildings, parades and other activities and places are often “gun free zones.”  This means that only the criminals have guns, and thus they are unimpeded in their nefarious aims.

The Connecticut shooter, as I pointed out, could have perpetrated his evil acts with single action revolvers and bolt action rifles if he had desired.  No one could stop him, and that’s the problem.  No one could have stopped the criminals who attacked Mr. Bayezes and his wife without the use of a rifle that will be illegal under the Ms. Feinstein’s proposed ban, along with a 30-round magazine.  He emptied one magazine and retreated to find another.

Mr. Bayezes did what what we all should have done, for we all have a moral duty to defend self and family.  Sacrificing the best home defense weapon because someone may use it to perpetrate acts of evil is like being forced to return to horse and buggies because there are 40,000 vehicle accidents every year.

But along with the factual silliness of being worked up over fully automatic weapons (which were not used) and other misdirects, there are nonetheless very clear plans being deployed for sweeping bans.  The Democratic Senators want it, Obama has said that he wants it, and communist China agrees.  The voters in West Virginia who thought they were voting for a conservative or defender of the second amendment got hoodwinked.  Manchin has declared that he is no defender of the second amendment, and the Democrats are getting their support lined up.

The proposed ban may not end with guns.  Token conservative David Brooks has floated the idea of an ammunition ban.  No doubt the Democrats have included this in their plans, but it must make them feel confident to see a “conservative” agree with them.

Don’t be deceived into thinking that you can buy them now while they’re legal and keep them.  Feinstein has made it clear there will be no grandfather clause in her version of gun control.  Besides, grandfather clauses are problematic anyway.  The federal government may not need to enact confiscatory policies immediately.

For example, they may make all or some of our weapons illegal, along with their high capacity magazines, and then empower gun ranges, local law enforcement officers, and gunsmiths to confiscate any illegal component they find, while they also call the ATF.  You may end up in a federal penitentiary if you take your firearms to the range or use them in self defense.

Make no mistake about it.  There is a war on guns and ammunition.  It wasn’t stated by advocates of the second amendment, but it has landed squarely in our laps.  Obama will never have more power than he does now, right after the election, still controlling the Senate, and right after a horrible event such as in Connecticut.

Gird your loins and prepare for the battle if you care about the second amendment and your rights under the constitution and God.  Now is not the time to be weak, weary or squeamish.  In many ways the progressives and statists have been waging this war for years, while many second amendment advocates have sat on the sideline.  It’s time for everyone to play in the game.

UPDATE: Thanks to David Codrea for the attention.

Prior:

The Wrong Way To Argue About Assault Weapons

Christians, The Second Amendment And The Duty Of Self Defense

No One Needs ARs For Self Defense Or Hunting?

Do We Have A Constitutional Right To Own An AR?

Dreams Of International Gun Control

In Come And Get My Assault Weapons, we talked about threats to “come after” the assault weapons owned by “Stone Age Vigilantes” such as me.  The bigotry and incivility only continues to escalate.  On Friday, Mother Jones’s Adam Weinstein said the following:

As a 3rd-gen. gun collector, I say you can have ’em. Now. And go after every tinfoil hat Bircher NRA peckerwood w/a long-gun, too. Now.

As I said before, ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ.

As seen on Facebook.

But see Jeff, I think you’ve overlooked one problem.  If you don’t believe in “assault weapons,” then you don’t have any.  I have them, and you don’t.  How are you going to get them from me?

As Glenn Reynolds replied to similar threats, ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ.

According to the WSJ, yes.  According to the Baltimore Sun, no.

The Wall Street Journal over the weekend used Baltimore and the world-renowned Maryland Shock Trauma Center as the setting for a story saying hospital statistics show gun violence nationwide was “soaring,” and that a continuing national decline in homicides in spite of this trend was improved trauma care.

The article doesn’t go into city-specific data. But at least in Baltimore, those findings go against most every measure of crime available, and indeed Shock Trauma’s own statistics.

[ … ]

Dr. Thomas Scalea, the physician-in-chief at Shock Trauma, allowed the Journal access to the unit, where 24 people were admitted before the sun rose, including five people shot or stabbed. “Violence down?” Scalea told a reporter. “I don’t think so.”

This is not the first time Scalea has been on record questioning whether violence is down. “The violence is getting worse, in my opinion; it’s not getting substantially better,” Scalea said during an appearance on the television show “Square Off.” “The guns on the street are more deadly, and it’s every day for us.”

In fiscal year 2009, which is how the trauma center collects data, there were 414 people from the region treated there for gunshot wounds that were the result of assaults, according to internal demographics reports. That declined to 347 in 2009-2010, and 306 in 2011-2012. That’s a drop of 26 percent.

In comparison, during the 2008 to 2011 calendar years, police statistics show total shootings declined 29 percent — within the margin of error of Shock Trauma’s data.

The Wall Street Journal also said that the national percentage of people who died after being shot has declined two percentage points since 2007 to 2010, to 13.96 percent. Scalea told the Journal that the mortality rate for gunshot wounds at Shock Trauma is about 4 percent, including the patients who are dead on arrival.

In Baltimore, where trauma victims are likely to be taken to Shock Trauma or Johns Hopkins Hospital, police statistics show that of the total number of people shot in 2000, 203 died — about 21 percent. In 2011, 149 homicide victims had been shot, representing 28 percent of all shooting victims.

So here is the narrative.  Gun violence is getting worse, so the “experts” say.  In case you want to trot out statistics, they have some anecdotal evidence of their own.  National trends showing a decrease in homicides are merely due to better trauma care.  They’re sure of it.

Got that?  But the data in Baltimore, the very subject of the WSJ article, doesn’t support the narrative.  Gun violence is down, and just in case you were wondering, the Baltimore Sun shows you that the trauma care is about the same or a little worse, and that the actual number of people who died as a result of gun shots actually went up as a percentage of those who were shot.  So in other words, better trauma care isn’t the reason for the decreasing national gun violence trend.

The truth.  Destroying the gun control myths and turning the “experts” into liars at every turn.