Here We Go Again

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So earlier this week I write my post Defending the Weak, and it drew a link from my old friend James Kelly at Scot Goes Pop. Apparently I offended his sense of propriety. So, in my usual style, I left a comment which has inspired yet another post by Mr. Kelly.

As I’ve noted before, we don’t have discussions. Our worldviews are so divergent we simply talk past each other.

Now, James has commented on my emphasis on statistics and their meaning before, yet I note that this time James goes straight to statistics which, I am forced to assume, he believes proves his point. You see, in Scotland, they don’t kill each other as often as we here in Arizona do. And when they do, they hardly ever do it with firearms, whereas here firearms are the preferred method.

I think what you’re supposed to gather from this (remember, I’ve been doing this sort of thing for years now, so I have experience at it) is that, since they don’t have guns, they can’t kill each other as much.

And this is based on one year’s data – 2009.

The logic is staggering.

His source states that in 2009 there were 79 homicides in Scotland, versus 324 in Arizona. Scotland and Arizona have roughly equivalent populations. I believe we’ve danced this dance before, however.

Once again, here’s a graph of Scotland’s homicide statistics from 1945 through 1997:

And here’s a homicide rate comparison table (in deaths per 100,000 population) I worked up using that data, along with data for the entire U.S. and also England & Wales (a separate single political entity):

Year US England & Wales Scotland
1946 6.4 0.81 0.72
1947 6.1 0.86 0.59
1948 6.1 0.78 0.66
1949 5.4 0.68 0.47
1950 5.3 0.79 0.68
1951 4.9 0.75 0.41
1952 5.2 0.91 0.53
1953 4.8 0.74 0.80
1954 4.8 0.70 0.63
1955 4.5 0.63 0.68
1956 4.6 0.71 0.57
1957 4.5 0.71 0.51
1958 4.5 0.58 0.82
1959 4.6 0.59 0.66
1960 4.7 0.62 0.68
1961 4.7 0.57 0.71
1962 4.8 0.64 1.12
1963 4.9 0.65 0.88
1964 5.1 0.63 0.98
1965 5.5 0.68 1.21
1966 5.9 0.76 1.65
1967 6.8 0.86 1.35
1968 7.3 0.87 1.40
1969 7.7 0.81 1.57
1970 8.3 0.81 1.59
1971 9.1 0.93 1.38
1972 9.4 0.97 1.62
1973 9.7 0.94 1.47
1974 10.1 1.21 1.49
1975 9.9 1.03 1.49
1976 9.0 1.14 2.03
1977 9.1 0.98 2.03
1978 9.2 1.08 1.59
1979 10.0 1.27 1.56
1980 10.7 1.25 1.73
1981 10.3 1.12 1.70
1982 9.6 1.25 1.70
1983 8.6 1.32 1.86
1984 8.4 1.37 1.77
1985 8.4 1.28 1.64
1986 9.0 1.24 1.62
1987 8.7 1.31 2.08
1988 9.0 1.42 1.73
1989 9.3 1.33 1.98
1990 10.0 1.31 1.68
1991 10.5 1.42 1.72
1992 10.0 1.33 2.68
1993 10.1 1.31 2.22
1994 9.6 1.41 2.18
1995 8.7 1.45 2.67
1996 7.9 1.31 2.30
1997 7.4 1.41 1.72

You can go to the old post and get the later data, I’m not really interested in reproducing all that here, nor in updating it, really, but the point I want to make – again, since James seems incapable of understanding it – is that as far back as 1945, when neither country had much in the way of firearms laws, the homicide rate in the U.S. was 8.8 times the rate in Scotland.  As time has progressed, and the UK has instituted stricter and stricter laws against firearm possession (promoted in every case to make the UK “safer”), the homicide rate trend has been converging. 

James likes to point out that the U.S. – with all of its privately possessed firearms, spreading “right to carry” laws and all – has a homicide rate that is – let me find his number, oh yes – “more than two-and-a-half times greater” than Scotland’s. But sixty-five years ago, it was eight point eight times greater. Scotland’s homicide rate in 2009 was 1.52/100,000, (down from 1.9 in 2008). The U.S. homicide rate that year was 5.0/100,000. The ratio was therefore 3.2 to 1.

Now, I ask you – what does a trend from 8.8:1 to 3.2:1 indicate to you? Especially bearing in mind that gun laws here are “lax” and in the UK are “the strictest in the world” by their own admission?

But hey!  At least they’re not killing each other with GUNS!  Because somehow that makes a difference.

And lastly, there’s this:  Scotland has been called “the most violent country in the developed world.” The UN said it in 2005, and yes, that includes the U.S. They might not kill each other at anywhere near our rates, but they violently victimize each other far more often. In 2010 the Scottish Labour party bemoaned the fact that the violent crime rate in Scotland is “four times the rate of England and Wales.” That polity ranks #2 in the world.

And remember, the crime statistics in the UK aren’t exactly reliable.

Back when I wrote What We Got Here is … Failure to Communicate, I noted that Thomas Sowell pointed out one major difference between those who believe humans are perfectible and those like me who believe human nature doesn’t change.  Those who believe in human perfectibility believe in solutions.  Those like me see trade-offs.  James believes the solution is to disarm everyone.  I believe otherwise.

Hey, maybe he’s right.  Maybe if the Scots had guns they would kill each other at astronomical rates.  Given their obviously hyper-violent culture ….

Then again, there might be a few more deaths but a lot fewer Glasgow smiles.  And if the potential victims are armed ….

It’s an Honor Just to be Nominated

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I knew my NRA Patron membership would be good for something!

Sean Sorrentino suggests that perhaps the NRA needs another “Cincinnati revolution” where the hoary old-guard is thrown out in favor of more fire-breathing rights-defenders. He lists 14 possible nominees, of which I am one. I had to laugh out loud at his description of me:

Kevin will be prepared at any time to drop 100,000 words of extensively footnoted explanations on one of two subjects. How gun control is racist, sexist, immoral, and fattening. And how American schooling is designed by socialists to teach conformism and government control to kids in an effort to demoralize future generations and make them less likely to try to control their own destiny.

Yeah, that about covers it.

The others are just as amusing.

More Panem et Circenses

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I received an email yesterday.  Season three of Top Shot (aka:  As the Cartridge Turns) will premiere on August 9. 

The new season of Sons of Guns has already started.

Look, I’m a gun-nut. I like the fact that television has discovered that guns are fun and the people who like them are not all knuckle-dragging neanderthals with the IQ of a rotting rutabaga. I get the fact that those of us who collect guns and/or shoot a (relatively) lot are a pretty small minority of the total national population. (There very well may be 80+ million gun owners in America, but I’m willing to bet that 70 million of them don’t take their rifle or shotgun out of the closet more than twice a year, if that.) I just wish Top Shot focused more on shooting than on drama-llamas. And I wish Sons of Guns didn’t have a cast of rutabagas.

OK, that’s not fair. They’re not really that bad, but as representatives of the “gun culture” I enthusiastically belong to, I can and do wish they were better than The Discovery Channel portrays them.

So a new season of gun-centric television is starting up. Hooray for the re-normalization of the good “gun culture.”

Discuss.

Oh, and BTW, here’s a link for the new cast for Top Shot.

“We could try liberty.”

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Jerry Pournelle points out what we all know:

Budget Cuts: we will increase spending, but we will reduce the rate of increase. We just spent $9 Trillion we didn’t have, but we will make a $1.1 Trillion cut – over ten years. Which is to say we will cut $100 Billion a year, having spent $9 Trillion. The deficit will continue to grow. So the only choice is to raise taxes or the nation is finished, the elderly will not get their Social Security checks, the Veterans will not get their benefits. Inspectors in the Department of Agriculture will continue to get “cost of living” raises and step increases in their civil service ratings. Department of Education SWAT teams will get their raises including full health and pensions. The deficit will grow, and there will be another financial crisis. The EPA will continue to impose regulations, the courts will continue to accept lawsuits to harass anyone who intends to open a mine, drill an oil well, or create a business.

The only remedy will be to raise taxes. We must have shared sacrifices so that the Washington elites can go about business as usual. Washington public schools will continue to deteriorate but none of the elites will send their children to those public schools so that won’t be a problem.

In other words, the Dance goes on, and we are being played.

The Geek with a .45 said it best some time back:

“Entire Societies Can and Have Gone Stark Raving Batshit Fucking Insane.”

The raving hasn’t really started yet, but it’s coming.  The wheels are coming off the trolley, and the trolley off the tracks, and We the People are powerless to stop it.

Where’s my soma?

Monster Hunter: Alpha

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I finished Larry Correia‘s latest, Monster Hunter: Alpha last night about 10:20.  I picked it up from Barnes & Noble on my way home from work Monday evening.  I read from the time I got home until about 10:45, taking just enough time out to post yesterday’s car/gun porn.  I dog-eared the book at Chapter 14, page 223 (do you think he planned that?) and went to sleep.  When I got home last night, I picked it up again and read until it was finished.

Larry’s Best.  Book.  Yet.

Non-stop action, great characters, rollicking storyline . . . just, DAMN!

No spoilers, but I will say one line from the book had me laughing until I hurt: 

“Love what you’ve done with the place.  Very industrial.”

You have to read it to understand.

And yes, I’m a sick puppy.

Two thumbs WAY up.  Go get it.  Today.

Smedley, Bring Me My Four-Bore

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OK, I haven’t seen this elsewhere on the gunblogs, and it’s kinda unique for Wired, but how would you like to own your very own Rolls-Royce set up for hunting tiger and elephant?

A vintage Rolls-Royce festooned with weaponry and upfitted for off-roading to hunt tigers and elephants may be the definition of automotive grandiosity, but it also could be yours for a mere $1 million.

This preposterous 1925 New Phantom was built as a dedicated hunting car by Rolls-Royce with coachwork by Barker & Company in 1925 at the request of Umed Singh II, Maharaja of Kotah. Apparently Raj-era Kotah was similar to modern day Wasilla, overrun with both wild animals and politicians who like to shoot them from moving vehicles.

On board is enough firepower to blow away the Bronx Zoo including a double-barrel howdah pistol and a mountable Lantaka cannon used for hunting elephants. There’s also a rifle stand in the rear seat and, especially for Bengal tigers, a machine gun that can be trailered from the rear of the car. Rifles and bird guns are stored in the rear of the car.

Here’s the towed machinegun:

And here’s the auction video:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zcml4EgOuPg?rel=0]

I don’t think it has air-conditioning, though.

And I see that Sean Sorrentino beat me to it.

Now I’m going back to reading Monster Hunter Alpha.

Defending the Weak

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Unless I’m very much mistaken, the “Grim” who penned the recent Blackfive piece, Defending the Weak is the very same Grim who said “It’s most important that all potential victims be as dangerous as they can.”

Commenting on the recent mass-murder in Norway, Grim reiterates:

When (the shooter) began shooting, everyone ran.
 
That last factor alone is responsible for almost all of the dead.  A tight group of young men taught to run at danger instead of away from it could have overpowered him almost at once.

As that did not happen, he had a clear field of fire and a target rich environment.  As that started a panic, probably some were trampled and others drowned.  The police did not arrive for a long time, giving him time to finish what he had begun — but the police will never be around when one of these mass killings happens, unless it is targeted at them specifically.  It is always easy to find a soft target if you want one, even in a police state.

The key lesson to mass shootings is that the whole of our societies must remember their duty to fight for the common peace and lawful order.  We must all do it.  We must train for it, and we must equip ourselves as well as the law and our natural abilities permit.  This is the duty of a citizen.  It is a duty that cannot be delegated to the police or to the military.  It must be borne by all of us.  We must train our sons for this duty also.  In a dangerous world, this alone is what makes civilization possible.

I refer once again to Sir Robert Peel’s Nine Principles of Modern Policing, specifically Rule 7:

Police, at all times, should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.

Western civilization has abandoned the idea that the safety of the public is incumbent on the public itself.  It’s not just the police who should maintain that relationship.  Relationships go both ways.

Yes, had a group of young men charged the shooter, some of them would have been wounded or killed.  But no one charged the shooter, and literally dozens are dead.

Edit:  It would appear that I’ve disturbed James Kelly again.   Good.

Quote of the Day – Inevitable History Edition

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There are any number of significant contributory factors to the societal collapse now looming in front of us. Ken Royce and L. Neil Smith both make a compelling case that this all started with the Federalist’s Constitutional coup, but I think there are three things that inevitably doomed the USA.
1) the establishment of centrally controlled, state funded, mandatory public education, (AKA the Prussian system, or Progressive education) which got into high gear around the turn of the 20th century. This system was overtly designed to indoctrinate the young and to prevent the propagation of unwanted memes infiltrating from Eastern Europe. Our modern education system is designed to teach conformity and obedience, and it largely works as intended.
2) the establishment of the Federal Reserve Bank, the final and successful attempt to give control of the money supply to the ruling oligarchy, and thus to confer control of the economy to the Fed.
3) the amendment to allow personal income tax, which required a heretofore unheard-of intrusion into private affairs, and allowed enormous transfers of wealth to the government.

After those three events had occurred, we were doomed.

By “Historian” in a comment to Welcome To The New Captain Tammany H. Plutocrat Seawater Economy. I can’t say that I disagree with any of that, except to say that the public education system – established as noted for the reasons noted – was suborned by people who had absorbed the very Eastern European memes that it was established to prevent.