James Lileks, in his extraordinary eloquence, responded to yesterday’s bombings in Spain in today’s Bleat. James says what I wish I had, the way I wish I could but haven’t the talent to.
Go read.
Month: March 2004
Even Tom Diaz of the VPC Admits the AWB is Useless
I paid $4.95 for the transcript of *hawk, spit* NPR’s Morning Edition story about the failure of S. 1805 after the AWB extension and “gun show loophole” amendments were added, after I saw Eugene Volokh’s post quoting Tom Diaz of the Gun Ban Violence Policy Center. Here’s the complete Diaz quote:
If the existing assault weapons ban expires, I personally do not believe it will make one whit of difference one way or another in terms of our objective, which is reducing death and injury and getting a particularly lethal class of firearms off the streets. So if it doesn’t pass, it doesn’t pass.
Remember, however, what the VPC said so blatantly about an “assault weapon” ban in 1988:
It will be a new topic in what has become to the press and public an “old” debate.
Although handguns claim more than 20,000 lives a year, the issue of handgun restriction consistently remains a non-issue with the vast majority of legislators, the press, and public. The reasons for this vary: the power of the gun lobby; the tendency of both sides of the issue to resort to sloganeering and pre-packaged arguments when discussing the issue; the fact that until an individual is affected by handgun violence he or she is unlikely to work for handgun restrictions; the view that handgun violence is an “unsolvable” problem; the inability of the handgun restriction movement to organize itself into an effective electoral threat; and the fact that until someone famous is shot, or something truly horrible happens, handgun restriction is simply not viewed as a priority. Assault weapons—just like armor-piercing bullets, machine guns, and plastic firearms – are a new topic. The weapons’ menacing looks, coupled with the public’s confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons – anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun – can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons.
Efforts to stop restrictions on assault weapons will only further alienate the police from the gun lobby.
Until recently, police organizations viewed the gun lobby in general, and the NRA in particular, as a reliable friend. This stemmed in part from the role the NRA played in training officers and its reputation regarding gun safety and hunter training. Yet, throughout the 1980s, the NRA has found itself increasingly on the opposite side of police on the gun control issue. Its opposition to legislation banning armor-piercing ammunition, plastic handguns, and machine guns, and its drafting of and support for the McClure/Volkmer handgun decontrol bill, burned many of the bridges the NRA had built throughout the past hundred years. As the result of this, the Law Enforcement Steering Committee was formed. The Committee now favors such restriction measures as waiting periods with background check for handgun purchase and a ban on machine guns and plastic firearms. If police continue to call for assault weapons restrictions, and the NRA continues to fight such measures, the result can only be a further tarnishing of the NRA’s image in the eyes of the public, the police, and NRA members. The organization will no longer be viewed as the defender of the sportsman, but as the defender of the drug dealer.
Efforts to restrict assault weapons are more likely to succeed than those to restrict handguns.
Although the majority of Americans favor stricter handgun controls, and a consistent 40 percent of Americans favor banning the private sale and possession of handguns, many Americans do believe that handguns are effective weapons for home self-defense and the majority of Americans mistakenly believe that the Second Amendment of the Constitution guarantees the individual right to keep and bear arms. Yet, many who support the individual’s right to own a handgun have second thoughts when the issue comes down to assault weapons. Assault weapons are often viewed the same way as machine guns and “plastic” firearms—a weapon that poses such a grave risk that it’s worth compromising a perceived constitutional right.
Although the opportunity to restrict assault weapons exists, a question remains for the handgun restriction movement: How? Defining an assault weapon—in legal terms—is not easy. It’s not merely a matter of going after guns that are “black and wicked looking.”
Charles Krauthammer had one point correct in his editorial “Disarm the Citizenry, But Not Yet”:
Ultimately, a civilized society must disarm its citizenry if it is to have a modicum of domestic tranquility of the kind enjoyed by sister democracies such as Canada and Britain.(See Britain’s current violent crime rate for some idea of its “domestic tranquility.” Hell, now they’re trying to get rid of glass beer bottles because they make such handy weapons.) Given the frontier history and individualist ideology of the United States, however, this will not come easily. It certainly cannot be done radically. It will probably take one, maybe two generations. It might be 50 years before the United States gets to where Britain is today. Passing a law like the assault weapons ban is a symbolic – purely symbolic – move in that direction. Its only real justification is not to reduce crime but to desensitize the public to the regulation of weapons in preparation for their ultimate confiscation.
The VPC is at least honest and upfront about its goal of banning all handguns and its willingness to do anything, anything to reach that goal.
Speaking of Teddy Kennedy…
Let’s fisk his little rant from his Senate testimony on S. 1805 concerning armor-piercing ammo:
As we all know too well, the debate about gun violence has often been aggressive and polarizing with anti-gun violence advocates on one side of the debate, pro-gun advocates on the other. There are deep divisions in the country on the issue of gun safety, and the current debate on the gun immunity bill has thus far only served to highlight those divisions.
I believe, however, that there are still some principles on which we can all agree. One principle is that we should do everything we can to protect the lives and safety of police officers who are working to protect our streets, schools, and communities.
The amendment I am offering today is intended to close the existing loopholes in the Federal law that bans cop-killer bullets. Police officers depend on body armor for their lives. Body armor has saved thousands of police officers from death or serious injury by firearm assault. Most police officers who serve large jurisdictions wear armor at all times when on duty. Nevertheless, even with body armor, too many police officers remain vulnerable to gun violence.
According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, every year between 50 and 80 police officers are feloniously killed in the line of duty. In 2002, firearms were used in 51 of the 56 murders of police officers. In those shootings, 34 of the officers were wearing body armor at the time of their deaths. From 1992 to 2002, at least 20 police officers were killed after bullets penetrated their armor vests and entered their upper torso.
Some gun organizations have argued that cop-killer bullets are a myth. The families of these slain police officers know better. In fact, we know that armor-piercing ammunition is not a myth because it is openly and notoriously marketed and sold by gun dealers.
I direct my colleagues’ attention to the Web site of Hi-Vel, Incorporated, a self-described exotic products distributor and manufacturer in Delta, UT. You can access its online catalog on the Internet right now. Hi-Vel’s catalog lists an entry for armor-piercing ammunition. On that page you will find a listing for armor-piercing bullets that can penetrate metal objects. The bullets are available in packages of 10 for $9.95 each. Hi-Vel carries armor-piercing bullets for both the .223 caliber rifles such as the Bushmaster sniper rifle used in the Washington area attacks in October 2002, and the 7.62 caliber assault weapons. Over the past 10 years, these two caliber weapons were responsible for the deaths of 14 of the 20 law enforcement officers killed by ammunition that penetrated body armor.
Check the sleight-of-hand here. Hi-Vel does indeed sell “armor piercing” ammunition designed to penetrate steel. But police vests aren’t made of steel. They are made of kevlar fiber. The police wear relatively soft, relatively flexible National Institute of Justice Class II, IIA or IIIA rated vests at best. These vests are designed to stop 9mm, .357 Magnum, and .44 Magnum handgun rounds, respectively. In order to stop any centerfire rifle round, “armor piercing” or not, would require moving up to the heavy, rigid Class III and Class IV vests worn by our military personnel. You’ll remember the Class IV vests from the “embedded” journalists during the invasion of Iraq. They were those very heavy vests with the splatter-deflecting collars that looked so uncomfortable, like this one:
But Senator Kennedy, like all gun control zealots, wants to convince you that it requires special “armor-piercing” ammunition to penetrate a soft Class II, IIA or IIIA police vest. He wants you to believe that the officers killed with .223 and 7.62mm so-called “assault weapons” were using ammunition like Hi-Vel’s ammo, and not off the shelf standard hunting ammo or even more common military surplus full metal jacket rounds. He expects his listeners to be ignorant, and to believe what he doesn’t say.
In a recent report, the ATF identified three, .223 and the 7.62 caliber rifles, as the ones most frequently encountered by police officers. These high-capacity rifles, the ATF wrote, pose an enhanced threat to law enforcement, in part because of their ability to expel particles at velocities that are capable of penetrating the type of soft body armor typically worn by law enforcement officers.
“Particles”? I think the Senator meant “projectiles.” What he doesn’t say is that any centerfire rifle “expels particles” at velocities high enough to penetrate soft body armor. That’s why the National Institute of Justice classifies vests as it does. But the facts are just too inconvenient for the Senator.
Here’s where he really goes off into the twilight zone, though:
Another rifle caliber, the 30.30 caliber, was responsible for penetrating three officers’ armor and killing them in 1993, 1996, and 2002. This ammunition is also capable of puncturing light-armored vehicles, ballistic or armored glass, armored limousines, even a 600-pound safe with 600 pounds of safe armor plating.
Say WHAT?
The .30-30 was introduced in 1895 as the .30 Winchester Centerfire, chambered in the “high-capacity assault weapon” of its day, the Winchester 1894 lever-action rifle. This is a ’94 Winchester:
Scary, isn’t it? It was one of the first commercial cartridges loaded with then-new smokeless powder, but it was stuck with the cartridge naming convention of the era – bullet diameter and black powder load equivalent: A .30 caliber bullet and 30 grains of black powder. According to my copy of Hodgdon’s No. 25 reloading manual, the standard .30-30 load pushes a 150 grain bullet at about 2200 feet per second out of a rifle with a 24″ barrel. The bullet used in the .30-30 normally has a blunt, flat tip because of the tubular magazine normally used in lever-action rifles. Yet Teddy Kennedy wants us to believe that this magical round – responsible for the deaths of three officers – is capable of penetrating “600 pounds of safe armor plating.” Whatever the hell that means. Sounds impressive, doesn’t it? Here’s some comparisons:
The .30-30, 150 grain bullet, 2200 feet per second.
The .308 Winchester (7.62NATO), 150 grain bullet, 2600 feet per second
The .30-06, 150 grain bullet, 2800 feet per second.
The .300 Winchester Magnum, 150 grain bullet, 3100 feet per second.
The .300 Remington UltraMag, 150 grain bullet, 3400 feet per second.
.30-378 Weatherby, 150 grain bullet, 3500 feet per second
Here’s a picture to give you some idea of the cartridges.
From right to left, smallest to largest: .308 Winchester, .30-06 Springfield, .300 Winchester Magnum, .300 Remington UltraMag, and the .30-378 Weatherby.
Remember, the lowly .30-30 is fast enough to penetrate a Class IIIA vest.
Yet Senator Kennedy doesn’t want people to think that he’s interested in banning hunting ammunition, just ammunition that can penetrate a soft police vest.
It is outrageous and unconscionable that such ammunition continues to be sold in the United States of America. Armor-piercing ammunition for rifles and assault weapons is virtually unregulated in the United States.
“Assault weapons” like the ’94 Winchester.
A Federal license is not required to sell such ammunition unless firearms are sold as well. Anyone over the age of 18 may purchase this ammunition without a background check. There is no Federal minimum age of possession. Purchases may be made over the counter, by mail order, by fax, by Internet, and there is no Federal requirement that dealers retain sales records.
Note all these things that the Senator wants: Background checks for ammunition sales. A minimum age for possession of rifle ammunition. Dealer record keeping for ammunition sales – a record keeping requirement that would convince most retailers that it was simply too much trouble to sell ammo.
And now he goes off on the current boogeyman, the evil .50BMG rifle:
In 1999, investigators for the General Accounting Office went undercover to assess the availability of .50 caliber armor-piercing ammunition. Purchasing cop-killer bullets, it turned out, is only slightly more difficult than buying a lottery ticket or a gallon of milk. Dealers in Delaware, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia informed the investigators that the purchase of these kinds of ammunition is subject to no Federal, State, or local restrictions. Dealers in Alaska, Nebraska, and Oregon who advertised over the Internet told an undercover agent that he could buy the ammunition in a matter of minutes, even after he said he wanted the bullets shipped to Washington, DC, and needed them to pierce an armored limousine or theoretically take down a helicopter. Talk about homeland security.
The .50 BMG round, by virtue of its weight and velocity (750 grains at 2800 fps) will penetrate any body armor, and even if it didn’t, that much kinetic energy would most probably kill a human being from mere shock. Kennedy has pulled a sleight-of-hand here – he’s not talking about protecting officers in soft body armor any more, but he hasn’t bothered to tell anybody.
In a single year, over 100,000 rounds of military surplus armor-piercing ammunition were sold to civilians in the United States.
And there were how many officers shot through their vests and killed? Twenty, between 1992 and 2002, according to the Senator. That’s two per year, versus one million rounds of “armor piercing” ammunition sold. And not one of those officers was killed with an “armor piercing” round. They were killed with standard, everyday centerfire rifle ammo.
And now he goes off on Smith & Wesson’s horrible new .500 S&W Magnum, the new weapon designed, in his eyes, specifically to kill cops:
In addition, the gun manufacturer, Smith & Wesson, recently introduced a powerful new revolver, the .500 magnum, 4-1/2 pounds, 15 inches long, that clearly has the capability of piercing body armor using ammunition allowed under the current law.
Well, it is bigger than the .44 Magnum, I’ll give him that.
The publication, Gun Week, reviewed the new weapon with enthusiasm: “Behold the magic, feel the power,” it wrote.
Many of our leaders will buy the Smith & Wesson .500 Magnum for the same reason that Edmund Hillary climbed Mt. Everest: Because it is there.
Note the ad doesn’t say:
Many of our leaders will buy the Smith & Wesson .500 Magnum because it will penetrate body armor and kill cops.
Teddy just hates it because people will want it, and the proles shouldn’t own guns.
Current Federal law bans certain armor-piercing ammunition for handguns. It establishes a content-based standard. It covers ammunition that is, first of all, constructed from tungsten alloys, steel, iron, brass, bronze, beryllium, copper, or depleted uranium or, secondly, larger than .22 caliber with a jacket that weighs no more than 25 percent of the total weight of the bullet.
However, there are no restrictions on ammunition that may be manufactured from other materials but can still penetrate body armor. Even more important, there are no restrictions on armor-piercing ammunition used in rifles and assault weapons. Armor-piercing ammunition has no purpose other than penetrating bulletproof vests. It is of no use for hunting or self-defense. Such armor-piercing ammunition has no place in our society–none.
Except you don’t need “armor piercing” ammunition to penetrate “bulletproof” vests. Standard soft-point hunting ammo from a .30-30 will do the job, as Teddy pointed out.
Armor-piercing bullets that sidestep the Federal ban, such as that advertised on Hi-Vel’s Web site, put the lives of American citizens and those sworn to defend American citizens in jeopardy every single day. We know the terrorists are now exploiting the weaknesses and loopholes in our gun laws. The terrorists training manual discovered by American soldiers in Afghanistan in 2001 advised al-Qaida operatives to buy assault weapons in the United States and use them against us.
Terrorists are bent on exploiting weaknesses in our gun laws. Just think of what a terrorist could do with a sniper rifle and only a moderate supply of armor-piercing ammunition.
Just think what he could do with a .300 Magnum bolt-action rifle and some decent 168 grain match rounds. But Teddy doesn’t want to take away sporting ammunition, right?
My amendment amends the Federal ban on cop-killer bullets to include a performance standard and extends the ban on centerfire rifles, which include the sniper rifles and assault weapons responsible for the deaths of 17 police officers whose body armor was penetrated by this ammunition.
My amendment will not apply to ammunition that is now routinely used in hunting rifles or other centerfire rifles. To the contrary, it only covers ammunition that is designed or marketed as having armor-piercing capability. That is it–designed or marketed as having armor-piercing capability, such as armor-piercing ammunition that is now advertised on the Hi-Vel Web site.
Bullets that are designed or marketed to be armor piercing have no place in our society. Ducks, deer, and other wildlife do not wear body armor. Police officers do. We should not let another day pass without plugging the loopholes in the Federal law that bans cop-killer bullets.
This is an issue on which mainstream gun owners and gun safety advocates can agree. I urge my colleagues to vote in support of this amendment.
Except we “mainstream gun owners” understand that standard rifle ammo will immediately become a “loophole” because, by design or not, it can penetrate police vests.
And if the lowly .30-30 is “capable of puncturing light-armored vehicles, ballistic or armored glass, armored limousines, even a 600-pound safe with 600 pounds of safe armor plating” then we know he’s going to go after our 7mm Magnums, our .30-06 bolt-actions, and every other centerfire rifle cartridge extant.
All he needs is an open door, and a law that the lawmakers “don’t realize all that was in it.”
A professional politician is a professionally dishonorable man. In order to get anywhere near high office he has to make so many compromises and submit to so many humiliations that he becomes indistinguishable from a streetwalker.
Henry Louis Mencken
And Teddy’s a prime example.
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UPDATE: As of August 6, 2013, due to the herculean efforts of reader John Hardin, the original JS-Kit/Echo comment thread for this post (read-only) is available here.
“There’s No Way to Rule Innocent Men” Redux
The Geek points to this Fox News op-ed on the law and the reaction of Congresscritters to the realities of the McCain-Feingold Incumbent Protection Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act. Selected excerpts:
Last week, Martha Stewart was convicted of lying to federal investigators about a crime with which she was never charged. Most analysts agree that prosecutors never charged Stewart with the crime of insider trading because it’s a law too complicated for most jurors to understand.
Putting your personal opinion of Stewart aside for a moment, the case prompts larger questions about the laws and regulations that govern our land: If jurors can’t understand a law well enough to determine if someone broke it, just how do lawmakers expect citizens to understand it enough to obey it? Do we really want to live in a country where good-intentioned people are required to pay high-priced attorneys to tell them whether or not they’re breaking the law?
America has too many laws, and the laws we do have are tedious, overly complex and sometimes not only impossible to understand, but impossible to comply with. Our elected officials pass laws in fits of whimsy, responding to the latest scare headlines, demands from interest groups or data from polling firms. Reason, freedom or constitutional authority rarely enter into the debate.
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary” – Henry Louis Mencken.
Now think upon the words of the ancient Roman historian Cornelius Tacitus: “Corruptissima res publica plurimae leges.” (The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.”)
The Federal Registry (search), which records all of the regulations the federal government imposes on businesses (all of which carry the force of law), now exceeds 75,000 pages.
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It’s even worse with regulation. With the EPA, for example, it’s often impossible for corporations in some industries to abide by one environmental regulation without violating another. That’s fertile ground for corruption, particularly when the same body is charged with making, enforcing and adjudicating the law.
And then there’s the Rand quote from Atlas Shrugged:
There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted — and you create a nation of law-breakers — and then you cash in on the guilt. Now that’s the system!
It certainly appears to be. And now Congress has done it to itself, in some small degree:
Although Congress generally exempts itself from most of the laws it passes, this law (the McCain-Feingold
Incumbent ProtectionBipartisan Campaign Reform Act) applies specifically to Congress. The same congressmen who voted for the bill were now required to abide by it. Faced themselves with the burden of complying with the complex, inches-thick laws they pass for others, both parties were forced to hold education sessions with specialty lawyers explaining to them what they could and couldn’t do under the new law. A lawyer who taught the Democrats told The New York Times that his seminars elicited “a sort of slack-jawed amazement at how far this thing reached.” A lawyer who taught the Republicans said: “There’s an initial stage where the reaction is, ‘This can’t be true.’ And then there’s the actual anger stage.” Democratic Rep. Henry Matsui, who championed the bill, told the Times, “I didn’t realize all that was in it.”That’s how much careful consideration Congress gave a bill it passed that applied to itself. Now imagine how little thought and care goes into bills it passes that apply to everyone else.
The answer, of course, is none.
Now they get some idea of the reaction of those of us “little people” in the flyover states when they pass this stuff without a thought.
No wonder Teddy Kennedy is worried about the limousine-armor-piercing capabilities of the .30-30 cartridge, eh?
We have the greatest opportunity the world has ever seen, as long as we remain honest – which will be as long as we can keep the attention of our people alive. If they once become inattentive to public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, judges and governors would all become wolves. – Thomas Jefferson
Nice idea Mr. Jefferson. But it didn’t last.
What’s Next? Licensing and Registration for Bar Glasses?
I’m still seething over the bomb attacks in Spain, but haven’t got anything printable to say about it, yet.
I did, however, find this unassociated story:
New pint glasses to cut violence
A new type of pint pot is to be introduced into bars to reduce the number of “glassings”.
Council licensing officers in Rossendale, Lancashire, are testing safety glasses which shatter into small pieces on impact.The glass is similar to the type used for car windscreens.
Under new legislation, it will soon be possible for councils to demand bars where there have been disorder problems to stock the glasses.
Lancashire Police officer Pc Chris Adams said: “There are many events this year, in particular, Euro 2004, that could be the sparking point for violence.
“We want to prevent that violence, but if it does happen, this product will reduce the effects of it.”
Let’s see: They banned guns and knives, don’t allow pepper spray, and now are making bars use glasses that can’t hurt anybody.
In association with that story comes this one:
Welsh MPs want to call time on glass bottles in bars and pubs.
They have signed a motion in the House of Commons calling for glass bottles to be replaced by safer multi-layered plastic ones.They are backing research by the University of Wales College of Medicine in Cardiff, which shows that thousands of fight injuries could be prevented if clubs served drink in plastic bottles.
The man behind the study, plastic surgeon Jon Shepherd, said the MPs’ support was another step in the campaign to see Cardiff bars with a high-risk of violence selling only plastic bottles, perhaps within two years.
Theres’s more, but this is the money quote:
“City centres are littered with glass, particularly bottles, strewn everywhere. Anyone looking for a scrap has a weapon readily available.”
Thus spake plastic surgeon Jon Shepherd.
Think about that. He’s worried that someone just looking for scrap might come upon a weapon in the form of a broken bottle. A weapon that, apparently in his mind, would immediately turn this person into a fiendish killer, as weapons do to everyone since they give off mind-altering radiation.
Jesus!
England, the soon-to-be NERF nation.
More on Guns and Kids
From across the pond, Mr. Free Market weighs in on how he’s raising his son to be a future customer of the firearms trade, and the Backroad Blog has something to say about the topic as well (which is where found the link.)
It’s Not a GUN CONTROL Problem
Today’s Washington Post has this column by Courtland Milloy:
So Many Guns In the Hands Of Children
Police officers George Young and Sylvester Garvin III were on routine patrol last month in the District when they detained a juvenile who was driving without a seat belt. Asked for his driver’s license, the boy took off — only to be caught again.
“We asked him why he ran,” Young recalled. “He said, ‘I have a gun.’ ”
In fact, the boy, who is 14, had two guns: a Mac-11 semiautomatic handgun and a .380 semiautomatic pistol, both fully loaded.
First, he’s a 14 year-old boy driving a car. No comment about that?
Since the arrest Feb. 3, however, the case has virtually disappeared behind a shroud of official secrecy, behind one set of laws that protects the identity of juveniles and another that restricts the release of information about confiscated guns. But the questions remain: Who was that 14-year-old boy? How did he get those guns? Why did he have them?
According to a 2002 report by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, 57 percent of recovered “crime guns” in the District were taken from people 24 years old and younger.
Handguns accounted for 82 percent of the District’s crime guns, with the semiautomatic pistol being the weapon of choice — especially for those 17 years old and younger, according to the report.
“It’s a shock to sensibility,” said John P. Malone, the ATF special agent in charge of the Washington field office. “At 14, you’re supposed to be a freshman in high school, not driving around with guns.”
For one thing, it’s a perfect example of the fact that “gun control” doesn’t work. DC keeps trading places with that other “gun control” mecca, Chicago, for the highest homicide rate in cities larger than 500,000 population.
The ATF, it should be noted, is neither pro-gun nor anti-gun.
Really? You’ve obviously not been keeping up with the ATF’s actions, then.
Part of its mission is to trace guns that have been used in the commission of crimes and to keep firearms away from ineligible receivers.
Last year, 1,982 guns were confiscated in the District — where a ban on handgun ownership has been in place since 1979 — and turned over to the ATF for tracing. Moreover, 77 percent of the city’s 243 homicides last year were gun-related.
Then DC is significantly above the national average, because according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, firearms nationwide are used in only about 70% of homicides.
Boy those gun bans really make you safer, don’t they?
So far this year, D.C. police have seized 387 illegal weapons. The Mac-11 (which police initially said was a Mac-10 submachine gun) and the .380 semiautomatic were among them.
“I thought, ‘What is a 14-year-old doing with this kind of fighting power?’ ” recalled Young, who is 30 and has been a police officer for two years.
Shouldn’t you have asked “What has driven kids like this to create a market that supplies them these weapons?” Nobody just came up and handed the kid these guns. There aren’t gun manufacturers going around like drug pushers giving them their first gun for free just to get them hooked (though to hear the VPC, et. al you’d believe that.)
The boy was arrested in the 700 block of Yuma Street SE, in Washington Highlands, the neighborhood where Young grew up.
“We weren’t into guns when I was growing up, unless we were playing cowboys with cap guns,” Young said. “Firearms were off limits. Kids my age just didn’t see guns. But this younger generation is different. Every day that I’m on the street, I expect to face juveniles who are armed. And I know what a 14-year-old is capable of.”
When I was growing up, I was exposed to guns, and did see them. And I also played “cowboys” (the politically-correct term for “cowboys and indians“) with cap guns and other toy guns – a behavior that the PC crowd today wants to eliminate because it “breeds violent behavior.” I doubt this youngster ever played “cowboys” in his neighborhood. He played “gangsta.”
Young hastened to add that such youngsters also are capable of doing good and doubtlessly would do much more of it if given the chance.
“Hastened” because to do otherwise would be seen as un-PC.
This is the liberal “all people are inherently good” position, which I disagree with. People are not inherently good. They are inherently neutral, and develop behavior based on their environment. The poor, urban, welfare environment is what’s responsible for this, not the “easy availability of guns” – but it’s much easier to blame the guns than to face the failure of decades of well-meaning but (literally) homicidally flawed social policy and try to address that. It can’t be the fault of liberal social policies! It can’t be the result of conservative prohibitions! It must be because of those evil gun manufacturers who make Mac-11’s and “Saturday Night Special” .380’s!
“What I’m seeing is a lot of children raising children, parents allowing their children to do anything they want,” he said. “When you’re that young and facing adult situations, you’re going to make a lot of wrong decisions. You’re going to go for the simple and easy and fast, because you don’t see people working long and hard to make it.”
At least officer Young is willing to state, and the WaPo is willing to print, that the problem has to do with the fact that these kids aren’t being raised, but that avoids the underlying cause of that neglect.
The ATF report notes that 55 percent of the District’s traceable crime guns were purchased initially in Maryland or Virginia and that Bryco Arms and Lorcin Engineering 9mm semiautomatic pistols were the preferred weapons of most youths caught with firearms in the District.
Those models can cost as little as $100 if bought in, say, Georgia. But in the District, with its gun ban, they can fetch as much as $300.
See! It’s the gunmakers fault! It’s the fault of the loopholes in gun control laws! It’s the fault of unscrupulous gun dealers!
I’m sure this kid drove down to a gun shop in Virgina and slid past the NICS check when he bought that Mac-11, which sells for in excess of $350, according to GunsAmerica.com.
Anyone wonder where a 14 year-old comes up with, say, $300 to buy a Bryco .380?
Asked about the high demand for guns in D.C., Young said: “For many of these young people, a firearm is like money. It makes you powerful. You can use it to collect so many things the wrong way. A kid with a gun can take a vehicle. He can take someone’s livelihood or his manhood or his life. The person who gets violated may want to retaliate, but if he doesn’t have a gun, then he’s not capable. The one with the gun feels immortal, as if life is stopping for him.”
The 14-year-old’s mini-arsenal certainly made people stop and think, just not for very long.
And, like this article does, it made them think about the wrong questions.
Young, urban, black males are overwhelmingly the victims of homicide. It’s an epidemic among that specific population. Less than 13% of the population provides 47% of the victims of homicide, yet we’re told that guns are the root cause of the problem, and are the only vector for fighting this “public health concern.”
No, a combination of the misguided “War on (some) Drugs®” and the even more destructive “War on Poverty™” are the primary vectors here.
Unless and until we are willing to face the failures of both of these policies, young urban black males will continue to kill each other at epidemic levels – levels six times that of the general population. But instead, people like Courtland Milloy will continue to push for more “gun controls” that will inevitably fail to affect the slaughter.
My Invitation to Paul Vitello
I just sent this email:
Mr. Vitello:
I wrote a hostile dissection of your original piece on gun control, and I called you a blatant liar – pointing out several of your assertions that were, at best, hyperbole. That piece is here:
http://www.smallestminority.blogspot.com/2004_02_29_smallestminority_archive.html#107853301015717758I have done the same to your most recent piece, where I have again illustrated that you are in error. That piece is here:
http://www.smallestminority.blogspot.com/2004_03_07_smallestminority_archive.html#107885502842211218
I called you a liar, Mr. Vitello. I believe your statements to be deliberate and knowingly wrong, not mere misstatements of the ignorant – though you do appear to be unsurprisingly ignorant on the topic as well.
You said: “I do not know why there are any objections, though, to laws protecting citizens from nuts and criminals – and terrorists – who want to buy assault rifles at any sporting goods store in America.”
I’d love to discuss that topic with you, at length. The answer isn’t simple or obvious, and it requires quite a bit of background information and education to understand. There’s a REASON “(t)he gun lobby is intensely well-organized to fight every single one of these laws, however, and to make each one as ineffective as possible.” The “gun lobby,” Mr. Vitello, is several million politically active but otherwise average American citizens who happen to believe that the Bill of Rights actually means something. All of it.
So here’s my invitation: If you really want to understand the reaction your piece drew, let’s discuss gun control, preferably in a public forum. I promise you, you’ll learn a lot. I don’t expect to “convert” you – but you will understand WHY we believe what we believe when we’re finished, even if you do not accept that belief.
I await your response, but don’t honestly expect one.
Paul Vitello, Serial Liar, Responds
Apparently the response to Mr. Vitello’s Newsday piece drew a lot of fire, metaphorically speaking. Enough that Mr. Vitello felt a need to comment:
Readers’ lock-n-load response
Are you lonely? Do you crave attention from passionate and devoted respondents? Would you like to receive letters, e-mails and phone calls by the hundreds, so many that you pine for that lonely old life you used to know?
Well, here’s the answer: Write something favorable about gun control. Lament how easy it still is to buy semi-automatic assault weapons such as the one used in the Washington, D.C., sniper case by John Allen Muhammad and John Lee Malvo. Get your hand-wringing piece published in the newspaper.
For good measure, throw in some improper gun terminology – get your AR-15s mixed up with your AK-47s – just to show how little time you have spent in your life killing little leaf-eating mammals. Then, feel the heat as gun enthusiasts from all over the country devote their passionate attention to your once-lonesome self.
“If I hit someone in the head with a hammer, who’s fault is it, mine or the hammer’s?” wrote one such enthusiast, responding to a column I wrote last week about efforts in Congress to end existing restrictions on the sale and manufacture of assault weapons. The NRA has made ending the assault ban one of its top priorities.
“Personally, I think you are a dumb –, but as long as you are fighting against the freedoms of all Americans, I wouldn’t have you any other way.”
The letters and e-mails were angry and contemptuous and, I regret to say, too well-written for my taste. All pointed out some errors of fact by me:
The Bushmaster XM-15 assault rifle, used by Muhammad and Malvo to kill 10 people in the Washington, D.C., area in 2002, is not a civilian version of the AK-47 rifle, as I stated, but a semi-automatic version of the automatic AR-15 rifle used by the U.S. military. Excuse me.
It is also, apparently, not killer enough to be termed a “sniper rifle” in the military sense. As one respondent explained: “just because a sniper uses a rifle doesn’t make that gun a ‘sniper rifle.'” I erred again.
“I once heard that it is better to remain quiet and seem a fool than speak and remove all doubt. Never have those words been more accurate,” wrote a Mr. Manos of Springdale, Ariz.
But by far the most serious complaint was about my implication that all a buyer needed to buy an assault weapon is a driver’s license and money.
“When you only tell half a story it’s the same as lying,” wrote L.C. of Woodmere.
Here is the rest of the story, as best I can tell. A federal law was adopted in 1998 requiring a background check for anyone purchasing a handgun or long gun. If you go to a gun store to buy a gun, after asking for your money and your license, they will run your name through the FBI’s National Crime Information Center, or NCIC system.known as NCIS.
Gun control advocates and members of Congress have complained since the implementation of the 1998 law that the NCIC is a sieve, however. More than 30 million criminal records are missing from it.
The NCIC depends heavily on information provided by states; and too many states have failed to computerize and update their records. Two cases in point: John Allen Muhammad was able to buy his Bushmaster despite a court order-of-protection pending against him for having threatened his ex-wife, a disqualifier not in the NCIC system. And Peter Troy, despite a long history of mental illness, was able to buy a rifle in 2002 and kill two people at Our Lady of Christ Church, Lynbrook. He wasn’t in the system either.
THE LYING MOTHER%*^%&# DOES IT AGAIN!
Malvo has confessed that he stole the Bushmaster. They’ve already gotten another man for doing a straw-purchase of a Remington 700 bolt-action rifle for Muhammed from the same store! But this sorry bastard claims that Muhammed bought the Bushmaster, and slipped through the NICS check! Peter Troy bought a .22 caliber rifle – not an assault weapon – another case of bait-and-switch. Surely with just a bit of research he could have turned up an incident where a nutcase bought an AK and mowed down a crowd? No? Further, Peter Troy had no criminal record. He had a history of mental illness – a record protected by the doctor-patient relationship. I don’t know if Mr. Troy had ever been involuntarily placed in custodial care, which would have disqualified him, but that’s the difference between me and Mr. Vitello – I tell you when I don’t know – he just goes and makes up “facts” to fit his agenda.
The e-mails have slowed down since yesterday. But I had to stop picking up the phone on Friday because of the many calls from shooters who were earnest or angry or both, and wanting big chunks of my ear.
I heard them. They have their case to make, and they made it.
I do not know why there are any objections, though, to laws protecting citizens from nuts and criminals – and terrorists – who want to buy assault rifles at any sporting goods store in America.
Mr. Vitello, I’d be more than happy to debate this topic with you. You drop me a line. I’ll set it up.
The gun lobby is intensely well-organized to fight every single one of these laws, however, and to make each one as ineffective as possible.
That’s because we believe “shall not be infringed” means what it says.
That includes deluging with complaints and letters people who argue in any way against their culture of weapons.
I am not lonely, to tell you the truth; and I actually don’t like being buried in angry communications. But better that than to be buried at the hands of the next Peter Troy.
There is no Constitutional guarantee of safety, Mr. Vitello. Our Founders understood that.