This is Why I Read Free Market Fairy Tales!

Mr. Free Market is in rare form in this post, daydreaming about having his own TV channel in Britain. I don’t grok all of the references (the English and Americans are still separated by a common language) but this part? This part I grok:

Shame it would never work, still, we can all fanatisise, especially me – although I have to confess that these days, said fantasies increasingly feature Kylie … on a tractor … in a wet suit … full of mayonnaise.

I could do without the mayo. And the wet suit. And even the tractor.

Hmm… Perhaps in sheer lingerie atop a mechanical bull…

The Second Amendment, “The American Disease”

Tim Lambert, my often sparring partner and proprietor of the blog Deltoid, has a fascinating quote from Australia’s Prime Minister John Howard up in a recent post of his:

(W)e will find any means we can to further restrict them because I hate guns. I don’t think people should have guns unless they’re police or in the military or in the security industry. There is no earthly reason for people to have … ordinary citizens should not have weapons. We do not want the American disease imported into Australia.

And this is precisely why the Second Amendment was included to codify the right to arms in our Constitution – so that our so-called “civil servants” could never, in fact, become our civil masters. It’s not about “sport,” it’s about control, and the Founders understood that to their bones.

I personally don’t give a shit if John Howard or Diane Feinstein or Chucky Schumer or anybody else in high office in any country or any organization around the world “hates guns.” I’m a sovereign citizen of the United States of America. You AREN’T GETTING MINE unless you want the projectiles first, and in this country attempting to take them puts you in material violation of the fundamental law of the land.

I’ve drawn my line – this far, no further.

At least here we have (for the moment) put the gun-grabbers on the defensive for a change.

Just Heard on the Radio: D.C. Personal Protection Act Passes House

I don’t think it has a prayer in the Senate, but I’m glad our side is taking the offensive for a change. Of course the GFWs are up in arms (pun intended) but read this Washinton Post article for a description of just how “successful” D.C.’s ban has been.

It’s time and past time to allow the law-abiding the chance to legally protect themselves again.

This is What We’re Fighting



(Via SayUncle, Via Spoons)

A Saudi television station does “man on the street” interviews investigating the Arab attitude towards Jews. (Vidcaps at the original site.) Text archived here for my own records:

The following dispatch, recorded and translated by MEMRI’s TV Monitor Project, are excerpts from a show on Saudi Arabia’s IQRA TV Channel, which featured “man on the street” interviews about feelings about Jews. To view a segment from this show, visit http://memritv.org/Search.asp?ACT=S9&P1=275

Interviewer: ‘Would You, as a Human Being, be Willing to Shake Hands with a Jew?’

Respondent 1:

“Of course I wouldn’t be willing to shake hands with a Jew, for religious reasons and because of what is happening now in Palestine, and for many reasons that don’t allow me to shake a Jew’s hand.”

Respondent 2:

“No. Because the Jews are eternal enemies. The murderous Jews violate all agreements. I can’t shake hands with someone who I know is full of hatred towards me.”

Respondent 3:

“No, the Jew is an enemy. How can I shake my enemy’s hand?”

Interviewer: “Would you refuse to shake hands with a Jew?”

Respondent 4:

“Of course, so I wouldn’t have to consider amputating my hand afterwards.”

Interviewer: ‘If a Child Asks You Who ‘Who are the Jews,’ What Would You Answer?’

Respondent 5:

“The enemies of Allah and His Prophet.”

Respondent 6:

“The Jew is the occupier of our lands.”

Respondent 7:

“The murderers of prophets. Our eternal enemies, of course.”

Respondent 2:

“The murderers of prophets, that’s it.”

Respondent 8:

“Allah’s wrath is upon them, as the Koran says. Allah’s wrath is upon them and they all stray from the path of righteousness. They are the filthiest people on the face of this earth because they care only about themselves – not the Christians, not the Muslims, nor any other religion.

“The solution is clear, not only to me but to everyone. If only [the Muslims] declared Jihad, we would see who stays home. We have a few countries… There is one country with a population of over 60-70 million people. If we let them only march, with no weapons even, they would completely trample the Jews, they would turn them into rotten carcasses under their feet. There is another country that donated money, saying, ‘I am behind you, I’ll support you with weapons, just wage [ Jihad ].’

“But the cowardice inside us, deep within our hearts, was instilled by the Arab leaders, may Allah forgive them. They breast-fed us with it from the day we were born to this very day it has grown with us.”

This is why Iran cannot acquire nuclear weapons. And this reminds me of a piece that Charles Johnson did a while back, a photo essay about how many Muslims were raising their children to be terrorists. (Can’t find the link.) The Wahabist schools in the Middle East teach these attitudes to children. And they do it with the active approval and support of parents.

I hope we can change these attitudes in the Middle East, beginning with Iraq and Afghanistan. Because if we don’t, the only other option involves a LOT more bloodshed.

Looks Like Canada’s not Giving Up its Registration Scheme Without Some Arrests

Apparently one of the more vocal opponents was arrested – at a gun show – on Sept. 11 this year. I don’t know if this part is true, but if it is…

That he was arrested is not overly surprising. The Area Firearms Officer knows all about Bruce and does not like him or his flaunting the law so flagrantly.

What is surprising is the way this case has been handled. After all, Bruce had been openly asking the government to charge him for ages. He would have gladly taken Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) officers on a tour of his home and showed them where the unregistered firearms were.

Instead they dragged Bruce away to jail, left his 12-year old daughter Katie alone in the Dryden gun show. Donna Montague, Bruce’s wife, only found out about the arrest because a friendly vendor called Donna to let her know what had happened, and that Katie was with him. The OPP apparently couldn’t be bothered to let anyone know they had abandoned the 12-year old child after arresting her father.

I find that difficult to believe, but not impossible. Anyway, according to this report, they also charged his wife, but he’s now out on bail. There is a fund for his defense. That information is also here. More detail seems to be available here.

When are they going to finally admit that the gun registration idea was a complete disaster? New Zealand did.

Now, Where Was I?

When we last left our fisking of the Harvard Magazine article Death by the Barrel, I promised I’d take on the “guns cause suicide” meme. Again. Let’s see where we were…

Oh, yes. We left off at the paragraph that stated,

In general, guns don’t induce people to commit crimes. “What guns do is make crimes lethal,” says Hemenway. They also make suicide attempts lethal: about 60 percent of suicides in America involve guns. “If you try to kill yourself with drugs, there’s a 2 to 3 percent chance of dying,” he explains. “With guns, the chance is 90 percent.”

This is another incidence of “just enough fact” I mentioned in the first piece of this fisk. It is true that suicide attempts with firearms are far more likely to be “successful,” thus ending in death, but the implication is that people who don’t really intend to commit suicide choose a firearm simply because they’re available, and thus an attempt that would have been a “cry for help” actually ends in death.

I’m sorry, but that doesn’t appear to be the case.

Let’s continue with the next couple of paragraphs as author Craig Lambert lays it out for you:

Gun deaths fall into three categories: homicides, suicides, and accidental killings. In 2001, about 30,000 people died from gunfire in the United States. Set this against the 43,000 annual deaths from motor-vehicle accidents to recognize what startling carnage comes out of a barrel. The comparison is especially telling because cars “are a way of life,” as Hemenway explains. “People use cars all day, every day—and ‘motor vehicles’ include trucks. How many of us use guns?”

Suicides accounted for about 58 percent of gun fatalities, or 17,000 to 18,000 deaths, in 2001; another 11,000 deaths, or 37 percent, were homicides, and the remaining 800 to 900 gun deaths were accidental. For rural areas, the big problem is suicide; in cities, it’s homicide. (“In Wyoming it’s hard to have big gang fights,” Hemenway observes dryly. “Do you call up the other gang and drive 30 miles to meet up?”) Homicides follow a curve similar to that of motor-vehicle fatalities: rising steeply between ages 15 and 21, staying fairly level from there until age 65, then rising again with advanced age. Men between 25 and 55 commit the bulk of suicides, and younger males account for an inflated share of both homicides and unintentional shootings. (Males suffer all injuries, including gunshots, at much higher rates than females.)

First, let’s take a look at the study done for the (not gun friendly) Journal of the American Medical Association done by (not gun-friendly) Jens Ludwig of Georgetown University and (not gun friendly) Phillip J. Cook of Duke University. That study is entitled Homicide and Suicide Rates after the Brady Act (PDF file). The study was to determine what, if any, effect the five-day waiting period required by the Brady Act had on suicide and homicide when compared to areas that previously had such waiting periods in place. The conclusion drawn when it came to suicide was:

(W)e did not detect an association of the Brady Act with overall suicide rates.

We find some signs of an offsetting increase in nongun suicides to those aged 55 years or older, which makes the reduction in the total suicide rate smaller than the reduction in gun suicides. Neither the increase in nongun suicides nor the decrease in suicides from all causes are statistically significant at the conventional 95% level, though the overall pattern of findings is consistent with theories of “weapon substitution.”

Note that. The only effect a waiting period apparently had – and the evidence is tenuous – is that those people 55 and older choosing suicide had a tendency to choose another method. It’s called “weapon substitution.”

Let’s look at another example of such substitution, in another country. The rate of suicide for young men in Australia began climbing in the mid 1960’s. It reached a peak in the early 1990’s where it remains essentially unchanged, according to this site. What has changed, however, is the method of suicide, and for no apparent reason. According to this site

In 1972, the leading method of suicide for young men was using firearms or explosives (44%). However, by 1992, suicide by hanging, strangulation or suffocation had become their leading method of suicide (33%). The shift in method occurred in the mid to late 1980s. During this period the death rate for young male suicide by firearms and explosives decreased marginally, from 9 to 8 per 100,000, while the rate for suicides by hanging, strangulation and suffocation increased substantially, from 3 to 8 per 100,000. These data contradict much of the recent literature which has focused on the greater use of firearms as the cause of the increase in young male suicides.

In contrast, the most prevalent method used by young women was poisoning by solid or liquid substances, accounting for 29% of cases in 1988-92. Although the incidence of suicide from hanging, strangulation and suffocation also increased among young women during the mid to late 1980s the corresponding rate was much lower than that of young men (less than 2 per 100,000). Firearms were used in 13% of cases and hanging, strangulation and suffocation in 24%.

It would appear that if you really want to die, the method is immaterial. There were no notable gun-control measures passed in the period where youth suicide in Australia tripled, but the leading method changed from firearm to suffocation anyway.

Further, the implication is that the United States has an astronomical suicide rate because of our astronomical number of guns. Remember, 58% of death from firearms is suicide here, 15,000 to 17,000 annually, right? Well, the U.S. is, in actuality, right in the middle of the pack internationally, as suicide rates go. Let me quote myself from an earlier piece:

Yes indeed, according to CDC statistics 16,599 Americans did kill themselves with firearms in 1999. Another 12,764 killed themselves by other means. The total number of suicides was 29,350, and the rate per 100,000 population was 10.66.

That puts the United States, with its 200,000,000+ firearms, over 65 MILLION of which are handguns, firmly in the MIDDLE OF THE PACK for suicide internationally. If firearms actually cause suicide, then our population should have offed itself a few generations ago.

Let’s look at some comparitives, shall we? Japan, a nation with a population of about 126,600,000 in 1999, a little less than half our own, suffered 31,385 suicides – a rate of 24.8 per hundred thousand population. And there are essentially NO privately owned firearms in Japan. Even Japanese police officers leave their firearms at work when they go home. The Japanese kill themselves by asphyxiation (either by hanging or car exhaust) or by jumping off of buildings or in front of moving trains. To be fair, Japan’s suicide rates have skyrocketed with their recent economic downturn (it would appear that a bad economy represents a much higher risk of suicide than individual ownership of a firearm.) On average, the suicide rate in Japan has run at about 17 per 100,000. Considerably higher than the U.S. but not more than double.

But most people are aware of the high rate of suicide in Japan, and dismiss it as being “cultural.” Are they also aware, however, of the suicide rates in France? According to this CDC report from 1998, France had a suicide rate of 21 per 100,000. Leading method? Suffocation. France is followed closely by Denmark with a suicide rate of 18 per 100,000. Leading method? Pretty much evenly split between suffocation and poisoning.

According to this table, in 1997 of the eleven countries with the top per capita Gross National Products (the US ranks in the middle), the US has the second lowest suicide rate. Only the Netherlands was lower. See the chart:

Now, the author of the Harvard Magazine article states “If you try to kill yourself with drugs, there’s a 2 to 3 percent chance of dying,” he explains. “With guns, the chance is 90 percent.” You are to assume from this that because guns are available they become the choice of people wanting to attempt suicide, and therefore more people actually die in the attempt than would otherwise. However, looking at international comparisons, especially in countries like France and Denmark where suicide rates are far higher than in the U.S., and suffocation and poisoning are the leading causes, the likelihood of “successful” suicide seems unaffected by “gun availability.”

In the specific case of Finland, where I noted before that 50% of households contain a firearm as opposed to 35% of households here, 95% of deaths by firearm are suicides. That sounds horrible, and it sounds like it supports the proposition that “guns cause suicide” – but it doesn’t. The fact is that criminal homicide in Finland is very, very low, so suicide represents a far greater proportion of deaths by firearm. (It also shoots in the *ss the idea that “guns cause homicide,” but that’s beside the point.) Suicide by firearm here represents 56% of the total number of suicides. In Finland, the majority of suicides are committed by suffocation – specifically, by hanging oneself.

Canada, our neighbor to the North, has a slightly higher rate of suicide that the U.S. The most common method there is suffocation, followed by poisoning. Firearms are used in only about 22% of Canada’s suicides.

Like criminal homicide, the level of suicide is a cultural thing. The availability of method appears to be immaterial. If someone wants to die, they will accomplish that end. If guns are not available, other methods will be substituted and they will be effective. If a “cry for help” is intended, then the person will choose a less-lethal option, because everybody knows that if you put a loaded gun to your head and pull the trigger, chances are you won’t survive the experience.

GUNS DON’T CAUSE SUICIDE, no matter how much the gun controllers want you to believe it. The availability of method is unimportant to someone intent on killing themselves, “gun control” won’t affect the numbers no matter how they want to twist it, and Craig Lambert and David Hemenway are twisting pretty hard.

I Need to Win the Lottery



After those last two fisks, I WANT TO BUY A GUN! I want to buy A LOT OF GUNS!

Anybody else seen CDNN’s latest catalog? (It’s a 13.5Mb PDF download – broadband strongly recommended.) It’s got things like this in it:

And this:

UPDATE: I found one of these “tangent sight” Hi-Powers in a local gun shop today. Asking price: $799

And this:

And I REALLY want one of these:

In .40 S&W. I really like that “Safety-Fast System” action in a single-action pistol. Hammer down and locked until the safety is released, then it’s ready to go! Besides, everybody should own a Hi-Power. It’s John Moses Browning’s other masterpiece.

*GASP!* Did You Know an AR-15 can SHATTER CONCRETE?

Well, yes, actually, I did. The pipsqueak .223 round will do a number on cinderblocks, as CNN illustrated quite graphically in May of 2003, and I covered their little piece of propaganda when I started this blog in The Lying “News” Media, Pt. II. But apparently this was news to a New York Daily News writer in her hysterical phillippic:

Weapons that can shatter concrete

Semiautomatic assault rifles have returned, and cops who face them know all too well what they can do
By PATRICE O’SHAUGHNESSY
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

The Cold (That’s COLT, moron – ed.) AR-15 semiautomatic assault rifle is long, black and sleek and shoots .223-caliber ammunition, or 2-inch long bullets.

First paragraph SENTENCE, two technical errors. The COLT AR-15 fires the .223 Remington/5.56Nato cartridge, with bullets (the projectiles) that are about 3/4″ long and 0.224″ in diameter. The overall cartridge (case, bullet, primer, powder) is about 2.2″ long. Let’s get more from the “expert,” shall we?

For 10 years, the sale and manufacture of the fearsome weapon was illegal anywhere in America.

Only Colt’s version, if it was marked “AR-15.” Lots of other manufacturers made it, and sold it with perfect legality. And many other manufacturers made weapons chambered for the (apparently fearsome) .223 Remington round. It’s quite the small game round.

Last week, as some Southern stores resumed sale of the rifle, Police Officer Darrell Corti demonstrated its destructive power.

Oh, I’ll bet he did. Just like Broward County Sheriff Ken Jenne did back in May, 2003.

Corti aimed the weapon at a cinderblock at the NYPD firing range at Rodman’s Neck in the Bronx and pulled the trigger. The burst of gunfire rang loudly in the ears despite protective gear. The narrow bullet traveled at such a high velocity that it pierced a half-dollar-sized hole in the inch-thick side of the stone before shattering into shiny fragments.

“Burst” of gunfire? As in “full-auto?” Probably not, but that’s the impression it’s supposed to leave. Hell, you liked that? You should see what my 1896 6.5×55 Swedish Mauser will do to one! Or my 1917 Enfield chambered in .30-06. Or a .45-70 Government round that dates back to the Old West. Half-dollar-sized hole? Hell, that cinderblock would be dust!

The round is capable of penetrating some bulletproof vests.

Actually, the .223 round will penetrate just about any vest a duty officer would be willing to wear. I covered that, too in Speaking of Teddy Kennedy… Any rifle bullet will, including the venerable old .30-30 deer cartridge. Most police vests are designed to stop handgun bullets only.

“These are weapons of war, and to make them more readily available is certainly a concern for us,” said Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly. “It is a concern for police officers because they’re the ones at 2 a.m. who are most likely to confront these types of weapons.”

My 1896 Swede is a “weapon of war.” My 1917 Enfield is a “weapon of war.” My No. 5 Mk I Lee-Enfield, built in 1945 is a “weapon of war.” What’s your point?

But so-called “assault weapons” are not “more readily available.” They were “readily available” all through the so-called “ban”. That was a fact decried by the gun-control groups calling to “strengthen” the “ban.”

More than a decade ago, the AR-15 had been routinely used by dealers to guard drug dens. Now it can be legally sold in federally licensed gun shops in certain states, along with Uzis, Macs and Tec-9s, the sinister-looking pistols toted by thugs who devastated the city.

Now there’s a bold-faced lie. The AR-15 has never been “routinely” used by druggies because it’s too large to easily conceal. They liked small guns. Now, they did like the Uzi and the Mac and the Tec, but that’s because they can be concealed relatively easily. But every one of those fires the 9mm pistol cartridge, and is no more deadly that a police-issue Berretta or Glock.

But you’re not supposed to know that.

With the expiration of the federal assault weapons ban two weeks ago, will the guns that held neighborhoods in the clench of violence in the late 1980s and early 1990s be making a comeback?

Well, since they never left, why should they?

“Assault weapons will be more lethal and less expensive.”

Say WHAT? “More lethal” than WHAT? The same gun without a bayonet lug?

“High capacity magazines will be back in production for civilian sale,” the Consumer Federation of America darkly concluded after polling weapons manufacturers.

Yeaaa! No more $50 magazines!

New York’s own ban on assault weapons remains in effect, and the city has some of toughest gun laws in the nation, but traffickers have managed to smuggle in thousands of illegal handguns each year through Southern states, where lax laws allow multiple purchases and the use of so-called straw buyers.

Really? The law allows this? I thought those acts, like bringing guns into NYC and selling them out of the backs of cars was illegal. That means NOT ALLOWED. Did somebody forget to send me a memo when the definition of “illegal” changed? What about the Brady Background Check? Isn’t it working? No? Why not?

Authorities are concerned that as stores now offer the higher-powered weapons, as well as certain styles favored by criminals and magazines holding as many as 50 bullets, that the weapons will make their way into the arsenals of the city’s gangs and drug organizations.

Um, those weapons and magazines were already out there. If the cities “gangs and drug organizations” wanted them, they’ve got ’em already. The elevated price didn’t worry them any. They’re selling drugs. That’s a high profit-margin business, I understand.

“We are concerned anytime illegal firearms, whether handguns or rifles, are trafficked or possessed in New York City,” said William McMahon, special agent in charge of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives New York office. “In the hands of criminals, any of these weapons can be deadly.”

In the hands of criminals, any gun is “deadly.” Doesn’t matter if it’s a zip-gun, a sawed-off, or a full-auto. THEY’RE CRIMINALS! GUN LAWS MEAN JACK SHIT TO THEM.

The new availability of increased firepower is a major concern. Under the ban, dealers could not sell magazines holding more than 10 bullets.

Another bold-faced lie. Dealers could sell all the “pre-ban” “normal capacity” magazines they could get their hands on, and there were tens of thousands of them. Only the price went up. And criminals and drug dealers can afford it.

“With the magazine limitation lifted, you have in effect what amounts to putting an automatic weapon on the street,” said Kelly. “A 30- or 50-round clip put in a semiautomatic, you just keep pulling the trigger and you put out an awful lot of firepower.”

So, my post-ban AR with my pre-ban 30-round magazines is equivalent to an “automatic weapon?” Really? Tell that to the Army. They’ve been paying extra for the full-auto option.

They’re going to shoot what they’ve got,” said a Bronx investigator.

But the National Rifle Association said the fears are unfounded.

“We’ve received phone calls from numerous rank-and-file police who know this ban had nothing to do with crime,” said Andrew Arulanandam, an NRA spokesman. “These guns have been available in different forms. A magazine is a piece of metal. The focus ought not to be on an inanimate object, but on the criminal, who gets guns through the black market.”

This is the writer’s deliberate effort to be “fair.” Moving on…

The ban on 19 weapons was signed into law by former President Bill Clinton after shootouts among drug dealers claimed hundreds of innocent lives in inner cities and deranged killers armed with assault rifles grabbed headlines in pristine suburbs.

Note that she didn’t say “shootouts among drug dealers armed with assault rifles.” That’s supposed to be implied, but deniable.

Assault rifles had such features as a folding stock, a night sight, a flash suppressor, a bayonet mount, a pistol grip and a large magazine capacity.

Right. And prohibiting the folding stock, flash suppressor, and bayonet mount made these guns so much more “less lethal.”

Now, read this part:

Of 125 guns taken off the street last year by just one firearms investigations team, 10 of them were banned weapons; most were cheap 9-mm. handguns.

What was the breakdown of those ten weapons? How many of them were AR-15s? Hmm? Enquiring minds want to know.

With the ban lifted, some criminals may covet the status and intimidating reliability of once forbidden firepower, investigators said.

Oh JESUS CHRIST! “Forbidden firepower” my aching ASS!

For example, the newly available Colt AR-15 bears a revered name in the gun industry, known for accurate, well-made weapons.

Likewise, the Mac-10 is twice the size of the Glock 9-mm. carried by cops, and packs a 30-shot ammunition clip.

Perhaps the cops should carry them, since they seem to have a hard time hitting anything with their 15-round Glocks. Amadou Diallo ring any bells?

Although the firms that manufactured some of the guns are defunct, stores may have inventories they were previously unable to sell. And authorities believe a manufacturer will fill the void. The Tec-9 is also a weapon that helped spike the city’s murders to a record 2,245 in 1990.

“The Tec-9 has the same power as the Glock, but it’s a bigger gun, with a big handle, and you can add a flash suppressor – and it’s a very menacing gun, and that’s why criminals wanted it,” said a federal firearms investigator.

“Currently the Tec-9s are the biggest concern,” added a detective in the firearms unit. “They’re everywhere … and in the winter, these guns are easily concealed under bulky jackets.”

Wait, wasn’t this story about how the AR-15 could shatter concrete? Penetrate police vests? Now it’s about Tec-9s? (Which you could still get after the “ban?”)

“It remains to be seen what the effect will be, but lifting the ban can only bring about bad things,” Kelly said.

Really? Only bring “bad things?” Want to bet you won’t be able to tell the difference?

DAMN I’m tired of these bloviating, mendacious, fearmongering ASSHOLES!

UPDATE, 9/29: Head of Head’s Bunker liked Ms. O’Shaughnessy’s article so much, he created an educational poster suitable for schools and daycare centers and everywhere ignorant people need to be frightened. Excellent! Give it a look.

More Foaming-at-the-Mouth from the GFWs™



One of the posters at AR15.com linked to this lovely little op-ed in the online version of the Arizona Republic:

Bullet-riddled rifle ban explained

Peter Aleshire

Sept. 16, 2004 01:51 PM



I finally figured out why President Bush and the Republican Congress let the ban on assault weapons expire.

Initially, I thought Bush was just so afraid of the foam-at-the-mouth National Rifle Association that he was willing disagree with two thirds of the voters and flip-flop on his four-year-old campaign promise.

But then I read about the federal court case in New York that established that Osama bin Laden’s boys bought 50 sniper rifles in the U.S. and shipped them to Afghanistan right before the U.S. invasion. Snipers can down helicopters and kill you at a range of half a mile with these .50 caliber rifles, which aren’t included in the assault weapon ban.

So, obviously, Bush let the loophole-ridden assault weapon ban expire so he can quickly introduce a meaningful ban on the weapons terrorists, gang members, drug smugglers and general all purpose nut-cases could use to spread terror and mow down cops. Granted, the now dead ban did prevent the nutcases from buying 30-clip magazines, but left most of the most deadly weapons freely available. Clearly, we needed tough restrictions in these terrorist-tainted times.

I feel so bad for having doubted the President.

So expect that meaningful crackdown to protect American this week.

Next week at the latest.

Right?

George?

Are you there?

Mr. Aleshire’s email address is [email protected], so I sent him the following response:

Mr. Aleshire:

I read your short op-ed piece with interest. It’s good to know that Dan Rather’s excursion from truthfulness isn’t an isolated case, I suppose.

First, President Bush did keep his campaign promise, inasmuch as he could. No bill ended up on his desk to sign. Not even the Democrats in Congress wanted to seriously consider renewing the “Assault Weapons Ban” during an election year. It cost them too much the first go-around, and they knew it. You do understand the function of our government, don’t you? The legislature legislates, and the President either passes or vetoes? He doesn’t do much introduction of new legislation. It’s not in his job description.

I’m curious, do you have a reference to that “federal court case in New York that established that Osama bin Laden’s boys bought 50 sniper rifles in the U.S. and shipped them to Afghanistan right before the U.S. invasion”? I’m really interested in that, seeing that the only reference to Bin Laden and .50 caliber sniper rifles I could find had to do with twenty-five (not fifty) .50 caliber Barrett rifles shipped to Afghanistan in 1988 (not 2001). According to the manufacturer, Mr. Barrett, he was in full compliance with the law at the time, as the U.S. government was providing material assistance to the mujahadeen (read: “our bastards”) then. (See this link: http://www.barrettrifles.com/news/ltr_laden.htm.)

The case you’re referring to must be U.S. v Usama Bin Laden et al., Feb. 2001. So there are two errors, right there: the quantity, and the date, but since there’s no attribution to the actual case, you’re just hurling unsubstantiated accusations. You’re quite good at fearmongering! Good thing your journalist friends have editors to keep the media on the straight-and-narrow! Instead, they just publish tripe like this.

Also, I was fascinated to read that “the now dead ban did prevent the nutcases from buying 30-clip magazines,” especially since when I bought my “post-ban” AR-15 a couple of years ago, I was able to purchase – perfectly legally – functional 30-ROUND magazines for it that had been manufactured before the ban. What, I’m not a nutcase, then?

You’ve been drinking the Violence Policy Center’s kool-aid, haven’t you?

I’m one of the “pajamahadeen” Mr. Aleshire, one of the bloggers who fact-check and expose the bias and outright lies of the “old media.” Your peice, and this rebuttal, are now up on my site where about 400 people a day will see it – and will pass it on to others. There’s a lot of us “gunbloggers” out there. Together, we have quite a readership!

Tag! You’re it!

I also copied the Corrections department. And if you liked that piece by him, read this one, Vote Bush: Employ Bloggers.

Hey, you other gun-blogging pajamahadeen! FIRE MISSION!