I can’t compete with that. Go read it. Now.
(Nod to the Blogfather for the link. Who else?)
Month: June 2003
Another Opportunity for Free Enterprise and the Internet
JoinTogether.org continues to be an unending font of material for me. In this piece they report that More Newspapers Banning Gun Classifieds. This happened here in Tucson a couple of years ago. The result? UsedGunsTucson.com (currently defunct as of 2017), a web-based classified system for people buying and selling their firearms privately. At no cost, mind you. This guy runs the site on his own dime. And I’ve used it. It works quite well.
I hope others establish sites like this to replace their newspaper classifieds.
“…they know [guns] are trouble and anytime there is one around, someone is going to get hurt.”
That quote from this San Francisco Bay Guardian column on the local chapter of the Pink Pistols who are trying to get San Francisco’s CCW permit process changed. According to the article there are only “five permits issued to non-law enforcement personnel in the city.” Five. And you can bet they’re either celebrities or government officials. Mere peons need not apply. And, of course, the header of the section on this push is entitled “Licensed to kill”.
Here’s the whole quote:
“This is an antigun city, and I’m proud to say that our District Attorney’s Office has the highest gun-prosecution rate of any county in the state,” District Attorney Terence Hallinan said. “San Franciscans don’t like guns; they know [guns] are trouble and anytime there is one around, someone is going to get hurt.”
Yeah, all those armed police officers sure are dangerous.
The article does get in this excellent zinger:
In California it’s up to the discretion of the chief law enforcement agency in each county to grant a CCW permit. Evidently Marin County is lenient about CCW permits, as it issued one to actor and resident Sean Penn, who recently made the news when his car was stolen, along with two of his handguns, when he was in Berkeley. It is no secret that Penn has been convicted of assault and domestic violence, a history that would normally disqualify any applicant from permission to carry a concealed weapon.
But he’s not a peon – he’s one of the priviledged class.
And, of course, there’s this inevitable question that comes up every time “shall-issue” is mentioned:
What would be the implications if more people were issued CCW permits in San Francisco? Would there be shoot-outs over parking spaces and taxis? Would queer bashing decrease but homicides by queers increase? Will there be a day when you’ll have to check your gun at the bar, like in San Francisco of 150 years ago?
At least the author answers that question – “Not likely” he says.
I Think He’ll be Charged with “Assault with a Deadly Weapon.”
Nod to Acidman for the pointer.
Business Owner Chases, Runs Over Robbery Suspects In Hummer
A business owner in Phoenix, Arizona took matters into his own hands after a group of men robbed his business, according to a Local 6 News report.
Police say three armed suspects walked into the Mr. Insurance building in Phoenix and demanded money. A fourth suspect was in the getaway car, according to the report.
Investigators said after the suspects left with the store’s money, the co-owner jumped into his Hummer and chased after the suspects.
Police said that the man, identified only as Peter, followed the suspects through a neighborhood and eventually caught up with them. He then rolled his Hummer over their car.
Two of the suspects were taken to the hospital in critical condition.
The two other suspects managed to get away but police later caught them as well.
I don’t think he can claim self-defense here. The attached poll is running 85% against charging him, though. I’d like to be on that grand jury.
Man, the Hummer did a job on that car.
You can bet it wasn’t an H2.
Just Googling Around, and I Find This:
From the Timberjay News in Minnesota, comes this little op-ed (I don’t know how long the link will be valid – I suspect only one day) entitled: “Public’s fear the biggest issue with concealed carry law”
Why, yes indeed, that is the biggest issue. And that fear is well fed by the gun-phobic groups and by the media. But the part of the editorial that really grabbed my attention was this:
Whether they are used or not, guns are intimidating to many people – and with good reason. Police officers carry guns and most never use them. But the presence of the gun is a reminder to the public that they have the ability to use deadly force if needed – and the intimidation factor that provides gives police officers an upper hand over the rest of us.
That’s quite correct – government is essentially exercised through the threat of force against its citizenry. But it continues:
That’s acceptable when they are highly trained and their job is to enforce the law and keep the peace. But statewide polls have already demonstrated that the idea of the average Joe walking around with the same intimidating firearms isn’t appealing to most Minnesotans.
And why is that? Because most people have been taught that defending yourself isn’t your job – it’s the job of the state. You aren’t “highly trained” or qualified to do that job. Leave it to the experts. The column continues, though, with this:
Are such fears irrational? Perhaps. The data is far from clear on the point, despite the rhetoric of supporters.
The data is far from clear??? We’ve got data from 35 states dating back years that proves “such fears irrational.”
The piece concludes:
In the end, this debate isn’t really about guns—it’s about fear and public perception. And as public officials and polls around the state have been stating loudly and clearly, this new law will make more Minnesotans feel fearful, while offering an ineffective security blanket to a very small minority. Some of that fear will likely dissipate over time. Five years from now, many people will probably have forgotten about this and moved on to worry about something else. And as one letter writer pointed out, most people will stop carrying guns once the novelty wears off and they realize it’s mostly just an unnecessary burden.
But for now, it has increased the public’s fear in Minnesota, whether justified or not. Does that serve the overall public good? It’s hard to argue that it does.
If the strongest argument you can make against concealed carry is that it inspires a little temporary fear in the brainwashed populace, then please explain to me why fifteen states still don’t offer “shall-issue” – ’cause that’s a piss-poor excuse.
Eugene Volohk Fisks the “Guns in the Home = Risk” Meme
And well. In a National Review Online column today, Professor Volokh fisks a recent repeat of this nugget of half-truth that gets repeated as often as “thirteen kids a day” does.
What the University of Pennsylvania study found was a statistical correlation: Gun ownership is correlated with gun deaths. But that two things are correlated doesn’t prove that one causes the other. The sex-crime rate is correlated over time with the use of air conditioning, but not because air conditioning causes sex crime; rather, both rise during the summer months. Likewise, whether someone in your home has been to the hospital recently is correlated with death in your home, but not because hospital care tends to kill people (though sometimes it does). Rather, both hospital stays and deaths often have a common cause: serious illness.
Logically what they are practicing is the fallacy of post hoc, ergo propter hoc – “after this, therefore because of this” – and it doesn’t work that way, as he deftly illustrates. But here’s the money quote, and the thing I find so angering about “studies” of this type:
Unfortunately, this is how conventional wisdom is molded. A badly flawed study leads to an even more flawed New York Times article. Readers read it and say “Wow, it’s dangerous for me to own a gun” — or “Since guns endanger even their owners, there’s really no reason to keep them legal.” Precisely because the study seems so authoritative, so scientific, it’s likely to be influential, even when it’s misdesigned and misreported. And this is especially so when these flaws are repeated in study after study, as they have routinely been in the gun debate. Bad social science leads to bad legal policy.
Amen.
His piece concludes with a comment on the suggestion that medical professionals should make recommendations to their patients:
Finally, the study concludes with a recommendation to the medical profession: Physicians should “discuss with all patients” “the consequences of having access to guns.” But “discussions” are only helpful if the physician actually knows what he’s talking about. Many physicians have little personal knowledge about guns, and haven’t read the rebuttals to these studies. If they start spreading this erroneous information to their patients, the results won’t be good either for the patients or for the reputation of the medical profession.
They’re way ahead of the curve on this one, Professor. Just look below at my post “This is the Kind of Thing That REALLY IRRITATES ME!”
I Can SEE!
Back from the eye doctor a couple of hours ago. My pupils are starting to come back down (very freaky having vampire eyes). So now I can read the computer screen.
Man, I missed some stuff.
This Concludes the Blogging for Today
I’m going to load some ammo.
Blogging will be light tomorrow, as I have an appointment with my opthalmologist, and she’s going to dilate my pupils and practice Chinese Light Torture photograph my retinas, and do other things to and with my eyes. As a result, I won’t be able to see very well for a few hours.
Have a pleasant evening.
Leave a comment, if you would.
Steven Den Beste Weighs In On Europe’s Proposed “Right of Reply”
In which he states again that the EU is being set up as a benevolent dictatorship. For now.
Rachel Lucas weighs in on the topic, too.
I predict this is going to get ugly in a few years or less.
This always reminds me of the (apocryphal) 18th Century quotation from Sir Alexander Frasier Tytler:
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury. From that time on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the results that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.
The average age of the world’s great civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence:
from bondage to spiritual faith;
from spiritual faith to great courage;
from courage to liberty;
from liberty to abundance;
from abundance to selfishness;
from selfishness to complacency;
from complacency to apathy;
from apathy to dependency;
from dependency back again to bondage.
I think the Europeans are just a bit ahead of us on the curve. They’ve hit “dependency” and are about to descend – voluntarily – back into bondage.
On a More Serious Note
In relation to the Doctors for the Reduction of Handgun Injury piece below, comes this link from Prof. Volokh concerning a 52 year-old woman who used instructions she found on the internet to take her own life. Now St. Louis Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce wants to prosecute the provider of that information for voluntary manslaughter.
Where do these people get law degrees?
Ms. Joyce believes that the suicide victim would not have killed herself if she hadn’t found that information. What planet is she from? She’d have found some way to end her life, if that’s what she’d decided to do. As I noted, 29,350 people offed themselves in the U.S. in 1999. Women don’t use a firearm as much as men do. The tend to use asphyxiation or poisoning, generally by drug overdose. This woman could have just as easily used the Japanese method of throwing herself in front of a train.
Question to Ms. Joyce: What if this information had been printed in a novel?
I’m quite tired of the government trying to protect us from ourselves.