Archive for the 'Gun Control' Category

Time.com:

Churches are, indeed, families — some large, some small. In fact, Baptists and other evangelicals often refer to their congregations as a “family of God.” As with all families, there is good and bad to church-family life. Just as in any home, relationships in God’s house often experience tension, stress, grudges, offenses and even, in the rare instance, physical confrontation. Introduce a bunch of guns into God’s house — perhaps carried mostly by well-meaning and responsible volunteers, but a few possibly carried by troubled souls nursing angry resentment or undergoing emotional distress or suffering mental illness, and the same noxious, deadly outcomes can threaten the wider “family of God.”

Rob Schenck, whom we’ve met before, is no evangelical like he claims to be in this commentary.  He’s just a professional controller who makes his living purveying his gun controller claptrap.  And don’t claim that he’s a “pastor.”  He is no pastor unless he is under active call by a congregation and in the pulpit.  Taking a degree in Divinity doesn’t make you a pastor.  There’s a process – education, examination (both oral and written), calling by a congregation, and actively being under the employ of a church.

So what does the controller recommend rather than arming the congregation?

There is a better and far less risky way to protect God’s house — and every house — from deadly violence: stop known domestic abusers from ever getting their hands on the guns that make their fury so fatal. Responsible reporting of criminal histories; sharing of local, state and federal databases; streamlining the administrative process for background checks; closing gun sale loopholes; and rewarding gun dealers who refuse to sell to suspicious and banned buyers would go a long way in preventing catastrophes like the one in Texas that so sickened every reasonable American.

That’s right.  More laws, more control, and more infringement on your rights.  It’s everywhere, folks, from the admitted statists to the wolves in sheep’s clothing.  Don’t listen to them.

Codrea:

“But even then, assault weapons like the one Kelley used will remain for sale in this country, and that’s the fundamental problem. Civilians have no legitimate reason to own military-style firearms …”

…

But it’s interesting The Times admits they even disagree with the Heller opinion that you can have a gun in your home. And it doesn’t matter what kind, because they’ve long supported handgun bans as well. And forget them recognizing any right to carry either openly or concealed.

And it’s also interesting that while I think Heller was a horribly flawed and very weak opinion, one of Scalia’s worst on record, the Times cites it where it suits them and then disagrees later concerning one of the only respects in which I concur with Heller.

For the controllers, the final solution is weapons in the hands of the state, and only the state.  We’ve seen that plenty of times before.  It’s amusing to me what I’ve observed before, that the sons and daughters of the hippies became statists and controllers.  They became everything their mothers and fathers hated.  If you believe in nothing, you’ll believe in anything.

And my answer to the controllers is the same as it’s always been, and same as it ever will be.  Any time you feel froggy.  Give it a try any time you feel froggy, boy.

Tom Nichols writing at L.A. Times:

Every disaster brings out human irrationality. When there’s a plane crash, we fear flying; when a rare disease emerges, we fear we will be infected. And when there’s a mass shooting in a church, we think we should bring more guns into churches. Or at least some people think so. This is a completely irrational response to the tragedy in Texas this week, but it’s being pushed by people for whom “more guns” is always the right answer to gun violence.

Incompetency in assessing risk is something displayed in the very article Nichols wrote, but more on that in a minute.

It’s amusing and even sad that he brought up the shooting in Walmart in Denver.  We’ve already discussed that, and in no way, shape or form did anyone interfere with anything except causing the need for the police to watch a few additional hours of video.  It’s as ridiculous to say that self defense is interfering as it was to say that the open carrier during the Dallas shooting caused police response to be delayed or impeded.  It did no such thing, as the Dallas Police Department chased the actual perpetrator until the end.  No one on scene was confused or misdirected – it was only cops watching videos hours after the event who were temporarily confused, and that was their own fault, not that of the open carrier.

Now back to the issue of risk.  Nichols conflates the concept of probability and risk.  They most certainly are not the same thing.  The Nuclear Regulatory Commission explains risk as a product of probability and consequences, and this is usually determined using fault trees and Boolean Logic.  Sophomoric explanations where the likelihood of occurrence of an event is equated with risk are not helpful, and certainly don’t rise to the level of good engineering.

Similarly, the food and agricultural industries use the same model for risk.  Risk is the product of probability and consequences.  An event can be a high likelihood and yet low consequences, and involve moderate to high risk, depending upon the magnitude of the consequences.  An event can involve low likelihood and low consequences, and thus low risk.  See the risk matrix linked above.

In my line of work, we have argued upon being backfitted or told to implement some set of modifications that the risk is low.  When we argue in this manner we’ve always done our homework to substantiate those claims.  At times we’re told to implement those modifications anyway because of public perception.  But we never implement modifications without informing everyone of the cost.  For example, “Implementing that set of modifications and backfits will cost $600 million.”  Since we don’t grow money on trees, someone will pay for all of it.  The cost doesn’t disappear – it will be borne by someone.

In the case Nichols discusses above, i.e., carrying a weapon to a worship service, it might have been moderately more compelling if he had argued that probability of the event is low, consequences are low, thus risk is low, and besides, the cost is extremely high (e.g., weapons cost $100,000 each).  You always assess risk in terms of cost because if everything is free then there is no practical limit to the reduction of risk.

In his case he has argued for nothing.  He has argued that he believes risk to be low (while conflating probability with risk), and thus carrying to worship is apparently a bad thing (while ignoring the high consequences of said event).  But he hasn’t assessed the cost of this choice.  For gun owners and carriers such as myself and many of my readers, there is minimal cost to this endeavor.  Allow me to convey my personal observations.

I hate carrying things on my body.  I don’t wear jewelry (rings, etc.), watches, or anything else that weighs me down.  I even hate to carry a phone in my pocket.  So when I made the decision to carry a number of years ago, it had to become a discipline or else it wouldn’t obtain.  I had to consciously practice and rehearse the rules of gun safety, look for good belt support and holsters, spend time at the range, and on and on the carousel goes.  Many readers can identify with my travails.

Over time it becomes habit such that conducting yourself in a safe and efficient manner becomes second nature.  Now let’s suppose that I spend my whole life attending worship services carrying a weapon and no such awful event ever occurs.  I hope this is indeed the case.  If so, then I have lost nothing.  The cost to me has been minimal (the cost of a good firearm), and the time spend developing self discipline.  On the other hand, I have been prepared for an event of unknown probability but high consequence, with at least moderate and perhaps high risk.

It makes perfect sense to conduct myself in this manner.  But the strained argument Nichols put forward offers no compelling reason to adopt his approach.  One gains absolutely nothing by following his counsel, and you stand to lose big due to moderate to high risk.

Nichols is a professor at the Naval War College.  This makes the third article within one week from persons within the defense apparatus – or loosely affiliated with the defense apparatus – taking a gun controller viewpoint.  First it was Adam Routh with CNAS hyperventilating about North Korea getting night vision equipment (so we needed to put it on the prohibited list for American civilians).

Next, Phillip Carter weighed in with this formal fallacy: (1) Pistols are ineffective against vehicular attacks, (2) Vehicular attacks is terrorism, therefore, (3) Pistols are ineffective against terrorism.  It’s almost as if someone makes the call to the next Kamikaze pilot: “You’re next.  It doesn’t matter how stupid you look or how bad your case is, it’s your turn to be the controller of the day.”

Who does this?  Everytown?  Former president Obama?  Who makes these calls, and how does this go down?  There must be some sort of outside pressure to do this sort of thing in order to go public with such a knuckleheaded commentary as this.

We may never know, but for the future, Mr. Nichols, research your concepts, be precise in your definitions, and be a critic of your own work before it goes out in order to find and fix its weaknesses.  Obviously, the editors aren’t going to do it.

NYT:

“Right now everyone’s in a holding pattern, because some people around here have hope that A.T.F. will bail us out,” said Representative Carlos Curbelo, Republican of Florida, who has co-sponsored a bipartisan measure to ban bump stocks.

[ … ]

“If you believe that automatic weapons should be highly regulated and limited, then why would you be against banning a device that makes a gun an automatic weapon?” Mr. Graham said.

That’s the problem, Ms. Graham.  I don’t believe that “automatic weapons should be highly regulated and limited.”  I consider that an infringement and thus abdication of your sworn duties and obligations and malfeasance in your office.  Ma’am.

WFAA.com:

DALLAS – A gun-owning Texas Democrat said banning the open carry of long guns or military style rifles might prevent another mass shooting like what happened at a church in Sutherland Springs on Sunday.

“If the gentlemen had not been allowed to carry this weapon openly, maybe somebody calls. Maybe as he’s gearing up and crossing the street from the Valero [gas station], maybe somebody calls and says ‘Hey there’s a guy with an AR 15 [rifle] crossing the street. Send help,” said State Rep. Poncho Nevarez, D-Eagle Pass.

Well that’ll fix the problem, won’t it?  Sure, the shooter will stop at the local gas station, “gear up,” and make sure everyone sees him while he’s doing it, enabling a caller to notify the potential victims or the police.  I’m sure it’ll happen like that.

The Texas church shooter got out of his vehicle right at the church, left the vehicle running, and there was no indication that he was open carrying because no one was around to see and report it.  But hey, as long as we make yet another law that affects only law abiding citizens, we can claim that we’re making the public safer.

Slate:

Imagine this: You’re in a church, or a school, or a concert, or a movie theater, and you hear gunshots. The next thing you know, you wake up in a hospital bed. You learn that you’re a survivor of a mass shooting, and that doctors spent hours removing bullets from your body. Soon, you’ll discover that the health care you’ve received so far will cost you thousands of dollars out of pocket, and that you’ve incurred injuries that will require pricey lifetime treatment. You then hear the details of the shooting. The gun that nearly killed you was an assault weapon marketed to civilians for its military-grade performance, it was designed to shoot many people in a brief amount of time, and its manufacturer supplied the weapon to a dealer notorious for selling firearms illegally.

Under centuries-old theories of liability, you should be allowed to sue both the manufacturer and the dealer for torts like negligence and public nuisance. You could then use that money to pay your medical bills. If you are hurt by a car or a prescription drug, after all, you are typically allowed to sue for damages. But thanks to a law called the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, you have no legal remedy if you are hurt by a gun.

The author is lying to you.  There is a great gulf between a lawsuit for negligent manufacturing of a structure, system or component and the malicious use of said component.  For example, someone can sue a drunk driver, a sleepy driver, or someone who hits you with a baseball bat in the head (if the state doesn’t prosecute you for a felony, the victim can sue in civil court for damages plus awards).  No one sues the manufacturer of a baseball bat because a person who buys it decides to hit someone else in the head.  That’s all this law is preventing, i.e., the misuse of tort law.

Of course, it’s no surprise that a write for Slate lies to make his point.  Hey, I also cited Phillip Carter when he wrote for Slate not too many days ago.  Hey Philip – how does it feel to have gone on record having written for a worthless rag like Slate?  Does it embarrass you?  Don’t you feel that you’re above that?

Mother Jones:

Atrios says that if lefties want to fire people up about gun control, they need to get more passionate about it:

To inspire hardcore single issue voters you have to take an absolutist stance on things. I’m not saying this is good politics….Still, there is literally no politician who goes on teevee and says, “the courts won’t allow it right now, but if it were up to me I’d put the well-regulated back in the 2nd amendment and make it extremely difficult for people to own most kinds of guns, and we should work long term to appoint judges who have a more reasonable view of what our constitution plainly says.” Is this good politics? Probably some places it is. Many places not. But lack of voter intensity on issues can be explained by lack of intensity on issues from politicians.

Actually, that still sounds too milquetoast to me. My campaign slogan is simple: Ban all automatic and semi-automatic weapons. That basically leaves revolvers, pump-action shotguns, and bolt-action rifles. I’d probably have a few regulations around those too, but not many.

So Kevin, I expect you to kick my door in tonight to grab my guns.  Oh, I see, you’re a coward and won’t show up here.  Just as I guessed, you want to send other armed men to do it.  This only proves that you don’t really believe in gun control for everybody, just some people.

As long as the right people have guns, you’re okay with that.  Just like Hitler.  As I’ve said many times before, the sons and daughters of hippies are controllers and statists.  They’ve become everything their mothers and fathers hated.  As they say, when you believe in nothing, you’ll believe in anything.

David Codrea:

Some of us would argue the edicts she demands makes things a lot more dangerous, and just ceding to Delatorre or Becker their own characterizations without at least addng qualifiers like “self-professed” gives credence to their side. Because what they’re claiming to be is debatable.

And more to the point, “Just because gun-grabbers call themselves “Second Amendment supporters” and “safety advocates” doesn’t mean the media should just take them at their word.”

I prefer to call them “The Controllers.”  It’s what they are in their heart of hearts.  Besides, they hate hearing the truth and they’ve tried to change the narrative by focusing on words other than controller.  Don’t let them.

Phillip Carter writing for Slate:

Before the bodies cooled Tuesday after a deadly terror attack in Manhattan, conservative commentators raced to proclaim that a good guy with a gun might have stopped the speeding truck that killed eight on a bike path along the Hudson River. This is absurd.

So Phillip has spoken in the superlative, stated absolutes, and committed formal logical fallacies in this awful commentary.  Let’s dissect it for a while, shall we?

First of all, everyone understands the difficulty of stopping a moving vehicle.  But at some point in the commentary one gets the feeling it must take superman to perform this feat – or Delta Force.  Or Ryan Nash or any other cop in New York (his expansion of the discussion to solutions involving beat cops and the actions by Ryan Nash shows that he doesn’t really believe what he’s saying, but we’ll get to that more in a moment).  My son did this in Iraq (dealt with moving vehicles).  True enough, he didn’t use a pistol to do it, but it doesn’t take superman.

Furthermore, shooting the tires out of moving vehicles does actually happen to bring an end to carnage.  But notice that after Carter paints the most impossible picture imaginable to bring and end to carnage – with physical barriers in place in Iraq, heavily armed Marines ensconced or on patrol, good intelligence as a foundation for their actions, but still all leading to and endless stream of busted and entangled cars and vehicles and bombs – his solution is more police.

Yes, more police.  It takes either Delta Force, or NYPD officer Ryan Nash, because why?  Well, because ordinary citizens cannot be entrusted with firearms.  Why, it would lead to a hail of bullets fired at the wrong thing and mass casualties, no doubt.  Let’s forget about the fact that the NYPD is famous for shooting wildly at targets and then missing.  NYPD fired 84 rounds at the Empire State Building shooter, missing with 70, and injuring numerous other people in the process.  Let’s also not forget that the Stockton Police engaged in an hour-long rolling gun battle involving 32 officers discharging more than 600 rounds, at speeds of at least 120 MPH over 63 miles, with the result that at least one innocent hostage was killed.

Our catalog of negligent discharges by cops, dogs shot by cops, and wrong home SWAT raids makes Phillip’s trust in the police appear juvenile.  But I’ll virtually guarantee that Phillip cannot point to a similar set of incidents where civilian carriers (concealed or open) were responsible for rolling gun battles or the legendary “hail of bullets” we all hear about from “moms against whatever.”  His objection is the chicken little “The sky is falling” warning.  The sky isn’t really falling, no matter what Phillip says.

But there is a larger problem here than this exaggeration by Phillip.  Regardless of what one might think of claims that a concealed carrier might have stopped the carnage (and an open carrier did do just that), Phillip expands his injunction against carriers by stating “Arming bystanders in Manhattan—and hoping they could stop the attack with a lucky shot—could have only killed more people in the crossfire.”

He doesn’t really know any such thing, he just made that up.  But notice how he puts this: “Arming bystanders.”  People don’t voluntarily purchase expensive guns, nor do they go to the range and spend lots of money on ammunition learning to shoot well.  No, by allowing people to carry, we’re “arming bystanders.”  Who’s doing the arming is left a mystery.  Notice the word gaming he’s doing?

Getting past his stilted prose, he argues against carrying firearms generally.  Since someone may not have been able to stop the carnage from a vehicle, no one should be allowed to carry except cops.  This is like saying that since a sharpshooter shovel (forestry spade) is required to trench water mains to the required 16″ freeze line without tearing up too much lawn, construction workers should just throw away all of their other tools regardless of the fact that not all jobs are trenching water mains for homes.  Let’s put this in more formal language.

His syllogism goes like this: (1) Pistols are ineffective against vehicular attacks, (2) Vehicular attacks is terrorism, therefore, (3) Pistols are ineffective against terrorism.  It is the fallacy of the undistributed middle, and either Phillip knows better, or he should.  This is the second commentary in two days from folks at CNAS (Center for a New American Security), Michele Flournoy’s organization and Obama’s favorite think tank, arguing for some form of gun control (the first being written by Adam Routh at CNAS).  So regardless of Phillip’s juvenile trust in the police or his logically fallacious thinking, there may be little more that I can do than recommend the same thing for Phillip that I did for Adam.  These folks are pathologically problematic to themselves and others because of their controller nature.  For Phillip I am recommending a good therapy and support group.  Same as for Adam, you must begin this way.

“I am a controller.  I think I’m smarter than everyone else.  I want to control everything people do.  I want to control what they think, how they behave, how they talk and what they say, what they have, what they do with it, how they spend their money, and what they believe.  I am admitting my problem to you in open honesty.  The only thing I don’t want to control is myself.  People hate me for it.  No one loves me.  I’ve been a controller for ___ years.  Please help me.”

HuffPo:

Kim, 42, lives in China and was traveling on a Cambodian passport. He planned to ship the goggles from Hawaii to China in a box labeled “toys.”

The sale turned out to be a sting operation, and Homeland Security agents arrested Kim a short time later. Federal prosecutors charged him with violating the Arms Export Control Act, which regulates the sale of military equipment, and a judge sentenced him to 40 months in prison after he pled guilty in 2016. A separate smuggling charge was dropped as part of a plea deal.

But Kim’s crime wasn’t buying military-grade technology — it was his attempt to export the equipment without a license. Prosecutors argued that the high-tech military equipment could have ended up in the hands of the North Korean government.

The kind of gear Kim was trying to export was once prohibitively expensive, but low-end night vision gear is now marketed to hunters and can be purchased from sporting goods retailers for under $100. Advanced models can cost over $20,000, but are also perfectly legal and available to buy online. There are a variety of models on the market — goggles, handhelds, devices integrated in rifle scopes. Some models allow users to see in the dark by electronically enhancing the amount of light available, while others use thermal imaging to create a picture from the heat radiating from bodies or objects.

If Kim had an export license, very little would have prevented him from sending the equipment to North Korea, which is a major concern for experts who warn that military-grade night vision gear could fall into the hands of terrorists or rogue states.

Low-quality night vision equipment is easily available overseas and used by the militaries of most countries. But the high-end equipment available in the U.S. isn’t ― and if exported, that gear could give adversaries similar night vision capabilities to those of the American military, said Adam Routh, a research associate with the Defense Strategies and Assessments Program at the Center for a New American Security, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.

Okay, so let’s not pretend that only the military has the best equipment.  That’s ridiculous and certainly false.  I saw the crap the Marine Corps issued to my son in the Marines, and he usually got better equipment of all kinds at TAGs (Tactical Applications Group) right outside Camp Lejeune than he got in the military, whether boots, tactical vests, or whatever.

Furthermore, every Marine got issued a Colt M4 that had too many rounds through it to be reliable, and he demanded that the action in his SAW be replaced before he deployed to Iraq because of reliability issues related to SAW operation.  They did, and it changed everything for him by giving him a reliable machine gun.

The Marines used ACOGs, we can get ACOGs and any number of other good optics.  I have a Vortex Strike Eagle 6X scope with illuminated reticle and BDC holdover indices for much less than an ACOG costs, and just as good.  The Marines got used and beaten up M4s, and if we’re willing to spend the money, we can get Rock River Arms, Daniel Defense, Head Down, or any number of better and newer rifles.  As those who financially support the military rather than being members of the professional military, we can purchase the very best Night Force scopes if we can afford them.  Virtually every innovation comes from the market, e.g., PMags, lighter MLOK forends, etc.

We can choose to purchase a very good 1911 from Springfield Armory, Smith & Wesson Performance Center, or Dan Wesson (CZ).  For a little more, we can have a Wilson Combat if we can afford it.  We get to choose.  If we want a double stack gun, the sky is the limit and the field is wide open.  And as we’ve discussed so many times before, the way to have the very best equipment for your military is to vet it in the civilian marketplace before you deploy it.  If it fails, ten thousand negative posts and discussion threads will be written on it.  The market is the best gauge of success.

It’s no mistake that the author of the article, Sascha Brodsky, contacted CNAS for his moral support.  This is the group led by Michele Flournoy, and upon whom Obama relied so much during his failed tenure.  And it’s no mistake that they sent the author to supposed expert Adam Routh, who is former military.  He is not stupid, and he knows and understands everything I’m saying.

But note his “concern.”  It’s not for cost or equipment success in the market in order to deploy the best equipment.  It’s for imperial operations overseas.  We need to “own the night,” as they say.  In order to effect open borders and a sociological death wish by ensuring diversity, we need to tamp down on the sources of violence overseas, as if that’s ever going to be possible.  The problem Adam is worried about is a problem created by the globalist elites who want to fundamentally change America.  Otherwise, this isn’t really the problem it’s purported to be with a closed and sealed border and diversity not the ruling factor in American politics.  Adam knows this.  The author, I suspect, is just stupid.

Finally, in addition to the idea that we will always be able to afford better equipment than the military (and I haven’t even brought up for discussion the fact that we simply cannot continue to throw away money on defense as if costs don’t matter), Adam also knows that the ownership of firearms under the second amendment isn’t about hunting or self defense, it’s about the amelioration of tyranny.  Thus, whether weaponry can fall into foreign hands is a secondary concern to the notion that our own standing army has it, and they are potentially a greater danger to us than any foreign army.  At least, the founding fathers saw it that way.  Based on a survey of history and the nature of mankind, that idea isn’t antiquated.

As a postscript, note the misdirect thrown in by the author that feral hogs are considered pests in Texas and thus there are no limits on hunting them.  In fact, there are very few limits on hunting them anywhere, anytime, and the word pest doesn’t even begin to describe the ecological disaster wrought by these awful creatures.

To the author, Sascha, may the turds of a thousand swine lay in your own yard and you need a gun you don’t have to kill them.

To the controllers, you will not be successful trying to control night vision, since it is just cameras and optics.  I suggest instead that you try to find a support and therapy group for your problem.  You can begin like this.  “I am a controller.  I think I’m smarter than everyone else.  I want to control everything people do.  I want to control what they think, how they behave, how they talk and what they say, what they have, what they do with it, how they spend their money, and what they believe.  I am admitting my problem to you in open honesty.  The only thing I don’t want to control is myself.  People hate me for it.  No one loves me.  I’ve been a controller for ___ years.  Please help me.”

Adam, you’re very young to be such a control freak, and you need to consider a support group like this too.