Author: Kevin

Saul Cornell has a Protégé?

KevinLeave a comment

The wonders of academia.

Dave Kopel reports at The Volokh Conspiracy on more revisionist history requiring deliberate omission and erroneous interpretation of written documentation.

Shades of Michale Bellesiles – only this is done in an amici brief to the Supreme Court. Bellesiles is actually cited, as though Arming America had never been disproven, and Bellesiles disgraced for his academic malpractice.

Once again, Clayton Cramer has done the heavy lifting on the history.

These people have absolutely no shame.

More “Reasoned Discourse”

KevinLeave a comment

This time OUR side gets dinged.

When I posted Another Debate Invitation Refused I did not consider (though I should have) that some of the people who read this blog would charge over to give the author of the blog and the author of the comment I was responding to what-for.

Do me a favor:

STOP.

If you can’t discuss the topic rationally without the use of invective, ad hominems and other insults, then DON’T. I don’t need nor want your “help.”

I appreciate your frustration. I understand that we are, as Dr. Michael S. Brown described it, the victims of a decades-long slow-motion hate crime, but THAT IS NO EXCUSE. If you cannot control your temper over some other person’s words and attitudes, then WHY SHOULD THEY EXPECT YOU TO BE RATIONAL WITH A FIREARM IN YOUR HANDS?

Any chance I had to actually discuss the FACTS with anyone from that site is now GONE. You have, whoever you are, done what Say Uncle intelligently advises against: You’ve “frightened the white people” (non-gun-owners), and given them more reason to consider us as Joe Huffman describes our current condition: “gun niggers” – people who they consider dangerous and “not like us” for whom it is OK to restrict our rights.

Thanks a lot.

I’ve left new comments of apology over at the site. I would not be surprised if they disappeared in short order. DO NOT “HELP” ME BY BEING JERKS.

Here’s one of the comments I left there, just in case she does decide to yank it:

Maggie wrote: “His blog contains a link to my posts on gun control on healthbeat, which explains why so many ideologues suddenly appeared out of the woodwork to drown out any possibility of rational discussion here–just as they had when Robert Feinman tried to raise the subject in an online diary.

“The NRA, and its supporters, are very well organized. One person who saw my post (a troll named Bob G) alerted Kevin, he in turn put a link on his blog to health beat, and suddenly we were overwhelmed with negative, nasty and personal comments. (They have removed –and will be in the future.)”

Maggie:

I’m sorry it happened, too. I certainly did not want it to, and I will write a post to that effect. However, while I will apologize for the behavior of those who came here and posted “negative, nasty, and personal comments” I cannot and will not take responsibility for them.

Again, I never made any suggestion that I was a “disinterested party.” Your blog attaches a hyperlink to my name which happens to go directly TO MY BLOG. My email address, which I assume you have access to since I must leave it in order to comment here, is “gunrights@comcast.” There was NO attempt made to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes.

The fact that you popped over to my site, saw the “McCain-FEINGOLD Insurrection” link and leaped to the mistaken conclusion that I’m a McCain supporter (and that somehow that dubious “fact” apparently disqualifies me in some way from being a reasonable person) says far more about you than it does about me.

Further, you had – PRIOR to my Friday evening post – already refused my THREE offers to discuss the topic of gun control – publicly or privately – because of your fear that “rational debate” would be drowned out by other voices. (How that would occur via a private email exchange is beyond me, but…)

I am FULLY aware of the acid and vitriol that the gun control debate stirs up. I am a veteran of the talk.politics.guns Usenet forum and a full six months and more than 1800 posts in the “gun dungeon” of DemocraticUnderground.com. I have been blogging on the topic for nearly five years now, and studying it for nearly thirteen. I know how hostile BOTH sides can be.

As one writer described it, gun owners have been the victims of a decades-long slow-motion hate crime. We’ve been described in the national media as red-necked, knuckle-dragging inbreds with one tooth and single-digit IQs. And those have been some of the KINDER things said. Media forces have SELF-ADMITTEDLY (I have the references) dropped any pretense of impartiality on the topic.

While “the NRA and its supporters” ARE very well organized, you might not understand that the organization you speak of truly is “grass roots.” We do this because it is IMPORTANT to us, and it isn’t the NRA telling us what to do and what to think. The NRA pretty much has to follow our lead.

Again, I really would like to discuss this topic with you either publicly or privately, and that invitation goes out to ANY interested party. No negative, nasty, or personal comments. No acid, no vitriol, just a calm discussion of the FACTS, the history, the law, the statistics, and the reasoning behind my position and yours. As I said before, I don’t expect to reverse anyone’s beliefs, but I DO expect to give you a perspective you haven’t previously been exposed to.

Again, my apologies for the trolls my post brought to your site. I should have expected it. But this is the internet, and we’re both grownups. If either of us are that affected by mere words, we shouldn’t be posting on the internet.

C’mon people. I thought we were better than that.

UPDATE: My comments were erased, but even more, sometime today (3/9) BOTH of her posts on gun control and all their comments were shoved down the memory hole.

“Reasoned Discourse” indeed. (h/t to Kevin P. for the heads-up.)

“Does she want to serve me Cheez Whiz on Triscuits, or bust a cap in my ass?”

KevinLeave a comment

Via Tam, I visited the Creative Loafing web site for a review of the book She’s Got a Gun by Georgia State University photography professor Nancy Floyd. This book is similar to Kyle Cassidy’s recent Armed America, but it concentrates specifically on the fairer sex. It’s a pretty good piece, and I’ll probably pick up a copy of the book, but the site also has a slide show of some of the images from the book, narrated by the writer of the Creative Loafing review.

You’ve GOT to watch that.

Here are a few images from that slide show:

That last young lady is eleven years old. According to the review, her comment for the piece was “Shooting is FUN!”

Indeed it is.

KevinLeave a comment

I Thought I was Only Kidding When I Called England Nerf™Land.

(And I really have! Here’s the evidence: 2005, and 2006, and I’m sure a couple of other places as well. )

But apparently now they’re doing it for real (h/t Phelps):

Brick Lane made Britain’s first ‘Safe Text’ street with padded lampposts to prevent mobile phone injuries

—

Around one in ten careless Brits has suffered a “walk ‘n text” street injury in the past year through collisions with lampposts, bins and other pedestrians.

The 6.6million accidents have caused injuries ranging from mild knocks and embarrassing cuts and bruises through to broken noses, cheekbones and even a fractured skull.

Look, I’ve heard of “Condition White” before, but if you are so disconnected from your surroundings that you walk into lamp posts, then the world doesn’t need to be padded for your protection, you need to be locked in a padded room for ours.

RTWT.

England. Where Great Britain used to be.

EDITED TO ADD: I really hope this story is a joke, because if it isn’t, that nation is just too far gone to save. (And the fact that we can’t tell if it’s satire says that it’s pretty far gone already.)

UPDATE 3/12: Phelps has the scoop. It was a “guerilla marketing” ploy by a wireless service provider – i.e., a joke.

But, as I said, the fact that we couldn’t tell is a sign that England is pretty far gone already. Even reader Phil B. reported that the local (UK) news treated it as real, so they couldn’t tell either.

Another Debate Invitation Refused

KevinLeave a comment

I swear, you’d think I intimidate them or something. Reader Bob gave me a link to a web page that asked the question What Ever Happened to Gun Control? Like its disappearance as a political topic was a bad thing.

I questioned the author, an economist who writes on heath-care topics, on some of her “statistics,” and I invited her not once, not twice, but three times to discuss the topic of gun control either publicly or privately.

She declined. Oh well.

But the subject of this post comes from another comment posted at that site. One “robertdfeineman” wrote:

A couple of years ago I posted a diary about gun control where I suggested treating it as a public health issue. As I recall I defined several classes of gun control issues:

1. Accidental injury
1a. by children
1b. by adults
2. Injury in the course of a crime
3. Injury in the course of a domestic disturbance
4. Injury caused by a mentally unbalanced individual
5. Suicide

I asked those who opposed gun control to select any category of their choosing and suggest what steps should be taken to lessen the rate of injury.

As you have discovered vitriol was quickly forthcoming, however useful suggestions – none.

Even the example of Canada isn’t able to bring any sanity to the discussion. Canada has a fairly high level of gun ownership (mostly sports and hunting), but has a much lower level of misuse. There seems to be no discussion of why this is so.

Without getting too deep into the American psyche there just seems to be a vocal core of gun supporters who are motivated by something deeper than rational arguments. As with most such inexplicable attitudes it is likely that it has its basis in a deep seated fear, of what isn’t clear.

As simple observation will show other advanced countries, that don’t permit the same freedom of gun ownership and use, are not overrun by people in black helicopters, nor by crazed gangs or druggies, nor by criminals threatening home and family. Whence the insecurity?

Given that the US is in a fortress mentality mode (personal Hummers, gated communities, domestic surveillance, etc.) expecting rationality about guns seems unlikely for the immediate future.

Coming from a guy who apparently believes that the world is suffering from overpopulation and resource shortages (I guess he’s never heard of Paul Erlich and The Population Bomb), he seems to believe that capitalism is outmoded and needs to be replaced by a “steady-state” economy (AKA “zero-sum” – the model every socialist system has based its economic system on).

Quelle suprise.

But I thought I’d take a shot at providing some useful suggestions without vitriol.

Here we go:

1. Accidental injury
1a. by children
1b. by adults

The answer to this is obvious, ongoing, and highly successful.

Education, education, education.

And it’s obviously been working for quite some time, too. Accidental death and injury by firearm in this country is at an all-time low, and has been declining ever since we started collecting statistics. This despite the fact that 3-4 million new firearms are added to the total in private hands in this country each and every year. It doesn’t require new (and dubious) safety features on guns, it doesn’t require free trigger locks to be given away by government agencies, it simply requires education – and the firearms industry and the NRA are doing apparently a damned good job.

Which is more than can be said for the Brady Campaign or the Violence Policy Center.

Doubt me? Do you doubt the Centers for Disease Control?

Total accidental gunshot deaths by year:

1981 – 1,871 (Crude rate, 0.82/100,000)
1982 – 1,756
1983 – 1,695
1984 – 1,668
1985 – 1,649
…
1990 – 1,416
1991 – 1,441
1992 – 1,409
1993 – 1,521
1994 – 1,356
1995 – 1,225
…
2000 – 776
2001 – 802
2002 – 762
2003 – 730
2004 – 649
2005 – 789 (Crude rate 0.27/100,000)

The actual incidence of death by accidental gunshot wound has dropped 58%. The rate has dropped by 67% (the overall population has gone up over the same period.)

Over the period between 1981 and 2005 (25 years) the number of firearms in the U.S. has increased by approximately 100,000,000. Yes, that’s right, one hundred million, of which about 40 million were handguns. Over that same period the number of states with “shall-issue” concealed-carry laws has increased from eight (8) to 35 (now 37). The number of “no issue” states has declined from 15 to two.

I don’t know about you, but I call that “improvement.”

Topic: 2. Injury in the course of a crime

Well, for one thing, since 1990 the number of deaths and injuries from criminal assault have been declining rapidly to levels not seen since the 1960s. Homicide, highly variable over the nation’s history, has dropped dramatically, according to this Bureau of Justice Statistics chart:

Non-fatal attacks are down significantly, too:

What caused this? Well it wasn’t “gun control” by any indication. The only “gun control” law passed during this period was the 1994 “Assault Weapon Ban” (that wasn’t), but in 2005 even the New York Times admitted:

Gun crime has plummeted since the early 1990’s. But a study for the National Institute of Justice said that it could not “clearly credit the ban with any of the nation’s recent drop in gun violence.”

Research for the study in several cities did show a significant decline in the criminal use of assault weapons during the ban. According to the study, however, that decline was offset by the “steady or rising use” of other guns equipped with high-capacity magazines – ammunition-feeding devices that hold more than 10 rounds.

So, should one conclude from this that “high-capacity magazines” lead to a decrease in overall violent crime?

The first thing that leads to a decrease in injury in the course of crime is to reduce crime. How? Well, it would appear that a good economy helps. Of course, incarcerating more than 1% of the population might be contributing factor, too. I’ll leave that up to you to decide whether that’s a good thing or not. But how about defense with a firearm of your own?

Only about 29% of criminal assaults involve a perpetrator with a firearm, and even if they are so armed, defending yourself with your own firearm has proven to be the most likely way to escape without injury. That is, if you believe Gary Kleck’s analysis of Bureau of Justice Statistics National Crime Victimization survey data. Kleck’s study indicates that defending yourself with a firearm reduces your chances of injury below any other method, including not resisting at all.

Topic 3. Injury in the course of a domestic disturbance

That’s a tough one. Congress passed a law that is supposed to disarm anyone who has received so much as a ticket for misdemeanor domestic violence. Of course, like the Brady background check, the law has been equally effective at actually disarming dangerous people – that is “not at all.” Generally, in this situation on party or the other may get a restraining order, but these have proven to be nothing more than tissue paper. Reciprocal restraining orders only guarantee that the one who is willing to kill is ensured of a defenseless victim, and then a knife will do as well as a gun. Here I’m going to have to admit defeat, and state plainly that I see no way to legally, constitutionally, affect this problem.

Strike one!

Topic 4. Injury caused by a mentally unbalanced individual

Again, a law has been passed that supposedly disarms people who have been adjudged mentally imbalanced or a danger to themselves or others. Again, as the Virginia Tech massacre proved, the effectiveness of this law is less than stellar. Too, there is the doctor-patient relationship which is supposed to be legally sacrosanct, the fear being, of course, that if doctors can be compelled to report about their patients to the legal authorities, some (perhaps many) would refuse to seek help at all.

Personally, I’m convinced that the recent (last decade or two) upswing in rampage killing / suicides is due to the use of anti-depressants that have a bad effect on a tiny percentage of the people who use them. That percentage is so small as to be statistical noise, but it has resulted in the deaths of a significant number of people. What to do about it? I don’t know. It’s a Catch-22 situation, and again, the best I can hope for is that someone law-abiding and armed can end any such situation before the perpetrator decides he’s finished.

Topic 5. Suicide.

I have already considered this one in great detail. Basically, my conclusion is that while Americans do use firearms in large proportion to commit suicide, firearms are not the cause of their decision to end their own lives. America is on the low end of the scale for nations with relatively high GNPs, ranking below Norway, Germany, Sweden, Japan, Switzerland, France, Austria, Denmark and Finland for suicide rates. The leading method of suicide varies with each nation, but it appears that if you really want to kill yourself (as opposed to a “cry for help”) you find a way. This is especially true among young people, as evidenced by Australia’s youth suicide problem. For no apparent reason, in Australia the leading method of suicide of young men changed from firearms to asphyxiation by hanging. There were no gun laws passed during the period during which this occurred to account for the shift.

A study of the Brady 3-day waiting period found that it reduced the number of suicides by firearm among people 55 and older, but that it didn’t affect any overall suicide rate. In other words, people that might have used a firearm found another, equally effective method.

My conclusion here is that the appearance of firearms being a cause of suicide is an illusion. If all firearms disappeared tomorrow, the rate of suicide would be essentially unchanged.

So in answer to your questions:

1: We’ve tremendously reduced accidental death and injury through education, even with a massive increase in the number of firearms in curculation. Perhaps if we want to affect this particular problem even more, we should be teaching firearm safety education in schools alongside sex education.

2: We’ve greatly reduced death and injury due to criminal acts over the recent decade, without any notably effective new firearms legislation. The “Assault Weapons Ban” didn’t seem to have any effect, and the worst thing you can say about the massive increase the number of states that have passed “shall-issue” concealed carry laws is that those laws might not have been responsible for any of the reduction in crime.

3: Injury in domestic disturbances has also decreased, but nowhere near as much as with other types of violent crime, and here I admit defeat. In a nation founded on the concept of individual sovereignty and individual rights, I really don’t see where we can affect this particular problem except by allowing the threatened parties to be armed in their own defense, and the law just isn’t written that way.

4: Mentally unbalanced people deciding to commit suicide and taking strangers, coworkers, or loved ones along with them present the same problem. The only thing I can think of here is for those coworkers or loved ones to pay attention to the situation and try to get obviously disturbed people into mental health care. Unfortunately, given the same rights as everyone else, this does not seem to be effective.

5: The suicide problem appears to be one of false perception. Yes, a lot of Americans who choose to end their own lives choose to do it by means of a firearm, but that doesn’t mean that they wouldn’t find another way if access to a firearm was denied to them. If “gun access” caused suicide, America’s suicide rate would far exceed any other nation in the world.

But perhaps instead of considering the beam in America’s eye, our neighbors to the North should consider the one in their own. Even our Roger Ebert has recognized that, while Canadians don’t murder each other as often as Americans do, their violent crime rate far exceeds our own.

Maybe Canada needs more guns.

UPDATE: See More “Reasoned Discourse”

KevinLeave a comment

Quote of the Day.

In keeping with the recent Liberal Facism / Locke v. Rousseau post:

All public policy issues ultimately boil down to one thing: Locke versus Rousseau. The individual comes first, the government is merely an association protecting your interests, and it’s transactional, versus the general will, the collective, the group is more important than the individual. Everything boils down to that eventually. And the problem with “compassionate conservatism” is the same problem with social gospelism, with Progressivism and all the rest: it works on the assumption that the government can love you. The government can’t love you. The government is not your mommy and it’s not your daddy, and any system that is based on those assumptions will eventually lead to folly. – Jonah Goldberg in his podcast interview with Glenn and Helen Reynolds, 12/27/07. (MP3 file.)

Give it a listen.

KevinLeave a comment

Nate Sends an Open Letter to College Students.

And it’s a good one. Quote of the Day:

So, how can you, the college student, as an individual and as a group, change the circumstances of the violence you face on campus and in a bigger sense, citizens face everyday in their daily lives whether it be at the shopping mall or at lunch at Wendy’s? You can accept that your protection is your responsibility and then you can choose to be prepared to face potential violence and prepared to stop the violence when it presents itself.

I’ve been saying that for quite some time.

Go read the whole thing.