Tag: GFWs

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England, Gun Controllers, and the “Aggressive Edge”

Just a quick one, as this has been making the rounds of the gun blogs. It seems that the producers have chosen Daniel Craig as the next Bond; James Bond. IMDB’s bio says:

Daniel Craig was born in 1968 in Chester, England. He grew up in Liverpool, England and moved to London, England when he was 16. Here, he trained at the National Youth Theatre and graduated from the prestigious Guildhall School of Music and Drama (early 1990s). He made his film debut with The Power of One (1992) in 1992 as Sergeant Botha.

Quote from The Power of One attributed to the character of Sgt. Botha:

I was branded an idiot by everyone I knew!

How… poetic.

It seems that Mr. Craig is not likely to actually receive a “License to Kill” since he hates firearms:

New Bond: I hate guns
By This is London
25 October 2005

Daniel Craig will have a problem playing the new James Bond – because he hates guns.

The actor will wield 007’s famous Walther PPK in the movie Casino Royale.

But he revealed in OK! magazine: “I hate handguns. Handguns are used to shoot people and as long as they are around, people will shoot each other.

“That’s a simple fact. I’ve seen a bullet wound and it was a mess. It was on a shoot and it scared me. Bullets have a nasty habit of finding their target and that’s what’s scary about them.”

He should see what a shotgun can do.

However, this reminded me of an earlier piece I wrote, Americans, Gun Controllers, and the “Aggressive Edge” which discussed the making of – and the casting for – the movie Aliens:

The first (special feature) section on pre-production talked about the fact that the film was shot in England, mostly at Pinewood Studios, but this little bit piqued my interest:

Mary Selway, UK casting for Aliens:

“It was INCREDIBLY hard to do, because, um, James kept saying, ‘State of the art firepower. They’ve got to be incredibly, sort of on the cutting edge of American military…’

“So, what often happens here when American actors come to live in England, they become a bit Anglicized, and they don’t… they lose that really, sort of aggressive edge if you like, that this sort casting required.”

She said it, I didn’t.

Immediately after Ms. Selway’s piece:

Gale Anne Hurd – producer.

“I think we probably went through 3,000 people before we could even consider bringing anyone over from the United States.”

Hmmm… They went through 3,000 “Anglicized” people and couldn’t get enough aggressive ones?

I have to believe that there are more than 3,000 British actors they could have gone through, but I guess casting an American in the role of James Bond just wouldn’t have been cricket.

But at least then they could have found one that wasn’t a GFW.

They Never EVER Stop

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Part Who-the-Hell-Can-Keep-UP?

Via David Codrea’s War on Guns comes this mendacious and malicious op-ed from the Strib:

Guns at work/A recipe for danger, not defense
September 19, 2005

Neil Mahmoud had every reason to live. Newly married and on the verge of a career as a computer programmer, the 23-year-old student saw little peril in his job at an Apple Valley convenience store. The job entailed ejecting the occasional troublemaker, of course, and just this July Mahmoud tossed out two young men who tried to rob the place with a pellet gun.

Good thing they didn’t have a real gun. Or a knife. Or a crowbar. Or a really bad attitude (it was two against one.)

But the neighborhood was regarded as supremely safe, and locals were shocked late last month when Mahmoud was found on the shop floor bleeding to death from a gunshot wound. How could such horror invade a tranquil town?

It invaded not because a criminal came to call, but because the store’s owner had recently purchased a gun. The weapon was meant to deter robbers and protect employees, but — as too often is the case — ended up underwriting a tragedy. The person who shot Mahmoud, police have determined, wasn’t an intruder. All evidence suggests that Mahmoud shot himself — accidentally.

The accident may seem a fluke, a rare and unfortunate happenstance hardly worth a second thought.

That’s because in this case it is a fluke. If it were common, you wouldn’t be reading about it in an op-ed. Man-bites-dog. If-it-bleeds-it-leads.

In truth, Mahmoud’s needless death vividly illustrates the folly of counting on guns for safety.

Right. An absolute minimum of 68,000 defensive gun uses per year, but “counting on guns for safety” is “folly.” Tell that to the Algiers Point Militia. Tell it to Joyce Cordoba.

But the first mendacity:

Thousands of accidental gun deaths occur in this country every year.

Thousands? As in “In excess of two thousand?”

No.

The editorialist just lied to you. According to the Centers for Disease Control WISQARS tool the number of accidental gunshot deaths in 2002 was 762. In 2001 it was 802. In 2000, 776. In 1999, 824. That’s quite a few, but those aren’t scary numbers like the vague “thousands” that could imply 7,000, 8,000, 9,000 or more are they?

The key to reducing the number is clear.

Of course it is! “Reduce the number of guns!“

More than a decade ago, a study from the New England Journal of Medicine found that private gun ownership heightens a household’s risk of homicide threefold and raises the likelihood of suicide five times above that of a gun-free household.

That’s our friend Dr. Arthur Kellermann’s study. I discuss Dr. Kellermann in This is the Kind of Thing that REALLY IRRITATES ME, from June of 2003. (See why I say they never EVER stop?) Note the logical fallacy of correlation = causation. If you own a gun, it will cause you to suicide or become a victim of homicide. Not that you might own a gun because you live in a dangerous neighborhood, or you purchase a gun because you have suicidal feelings. Oh no. The evil mind-altering waves given off by firearms are the cause of Bad Things Happening.

The Joyce Cordoba link above relates the following:

Former assistant district attorney and firearms expert David Kopel writes: “When a robbery victim does not defend himself, the robber succeeds 88 percent of the time, and the victim is injured 25 percent of the time. When a victim resists with a gun, the robbery success rate falls to 30 percent, and the victim injury rate falls to 17 percent. No other response to a robbery — from drawing a knife to shouting for help to fleeing — produces such low rates of victim injury and robbery success.”

What do “gun control activists” say?

The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence’s Web site displays this oft-quoted “fact”: “The risk of homicide in the home is 3 times greater in households with guns.” Their Web site fails to mention that Arthur Kellermann, the “expert” who came up with that figure, later backpedaled after others discredited his studies for not following standard scientific procedures.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Kellermann now concedes, “A gun can be used to scare away an intruder without a shot being fired,” admitting he failed to include such events in his original study. “Simply keeping a gun in the home,” Mr. Kellermann says, “may deter some criminals who fear confronting an armed homeowner.”

He adds, “It is possible that reverse causation accounted for some of the association we observed between gun ownership and homicide — i.e., in a limited number of cases, people may have acquired a gun in response to a specific threat.”

That op-ed was signed. By Larry Elder. Back to Mr. (or Ms.) Anonymous:

In short, having a gun close at hand is generally more dangerous than not having one. Plain logic suggests that this is true not just on the home front but in the workplace as well — and research bears out the speculation. Workplace violence has become an American commonplace, and those who study it insist that blessing the presence of guns on the job can only bring more bloodshed.

Got some cites? Names of “those who study it”? Another example of argument by “appeal to authority” – anonymous authority. “Take my word for it! I’m unbiased!”

“Workplace violence” seems to be a new stick with which to beat the gun-control drum, attempting to frighten people into defenselessness, but read the FBI’s 2004 report Workplace Violence (an 80-page PDF file) where it reports that from 1993-1999 there were an average of 900 workplace homicides annually (more than the average number of accidental deaths by gunshot) and

(V)iolence by criminals otherwise unconnected to the workplace accounts for the vast majority – nearly 80 percent – of workplace homicides. In these incidents, the motive is usually theft, and in a great many cases, the criminal is carrying a gun or other weapon, increasing the likelihood that the victim will be killed or seriously wounded. This type of violence falls heavily on particular occupational groups whose jobs make them vulnerable: taxi drivers (the job that carries by far the highest risk of being murdered), late-night retail or gas station clerks, and others who are on duty at night, who work in isolated locations or dangerous neighborhoods, and who carry or have access to cash.

Robbery. Not accident. Victims like Mr. Mahmoud, even though his Stop-and-Rob was in a good neighborhood.

More than that, however, is this little tidbit:

As the total number of guns in circulation has gone up, as the total number of people with concealed-carry licenses has done likewise, workplace homicide has been declining. I’m not arguing correlation = causation. I’m arguing the opposite. More guns does not equal more death.

But this guy is.

As researcher Dean Schaner has argued in a book about employer liability, “It is far more foreseeable that an employee will be injured in a workplace full of guns and an environment reminiscent of the Old West, than one in which weapons are prohibited.”

And here we have an invokation of Ravenwood’s Law: “As a discussion about guns grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Dodge City or the Wild West approaches one.”

All tragedies give rise to a flood of “if onlies.” Surely all who cared for Neil Mahmoud are consumed with thoughts about how his life might have been saved. Yet such thoughts should preoccupy not just those mourning this charming young man, but all Minnesotans. This tragedy teaches a lesson to which employers — and all of us — should hold fast: To keep the workplace safe, banish weapons.

Right. So only the criminals and disgruntled employees can have a “safe working environment.”

Sell it somewhere else. The American public isn’t buying it. They’re buying guns.

Behind the Curve

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Kim, Kim, Kim...

I know you’ve been busy, but I take time to read YOUR site every day…. 😉

I covered the story of UK teacher Linda Walker back in April. Turns out that she’s been released already, but she’s not a happy camper:

I felt I was being crucified by the full force of the law, says teacher jailed for waving air pistol at yobs

By David Harrison
(Filed: 08/05/2005)

A special needs teacher jailed for defending her home against a gang of thugs said last night that she felt as if she had been “crucified” by the system.

That’s because she’d been crucified by the system.

Linda Walker, a middle-class mother-of-three described her time in prison as “humiliating”. She was strip-searched, put on suicide watch, forced to go on hunger strike and suffered panic attacks during which she thought she would die.

Mrs Walker, 48, was jailed for brandishing an unloaded air pistol in front of a gang of thugs she believed had terrorised her family for two years while the police did nothing. Her sentence provoked outrage and her case became a symbol of Britain’s law-and-order crisis.

Mrs Walker was released by the Court of Appeal last Wednesday after the judges said she should not have been jailed in the first place.

But she was. And that jailing was covered pretty heavily.

The result of which is another reminder to the populace not to “take the law into their own hands.” Another “chilling effect” that keeps the sheep in their place.

Last night, back at her home in a Manchester suburb after spending 38 nights in jail alongside drug addicts, she spoke for the first time of her ordeal and how she felt let down by the criminal justice system.

Her and thousands of others.

Speaking to the Mail on Sunday, she said: “I’ve spent my life supporting the weakest and most vulnerable members of the community. But when I needed support from the establishment, not only was it not there, but the full force of the of the law came down on me like a ton of bricks. I felt like I was being crucified.”

The nail that sticks up gets hammered down, goes the old Japanese proverb.

Her worst moment came two weeks into her sentence when she was told that her application to be released on bail had been refused. She felt there had been a conspiracy, that she was “an embarrassment to the Government” and that she was a “political prisoner”, kept in jail “because I raised embarrassing and sensitive issues just before a general election”.

I think that’s getting to be the equivalent of a felony there. Don’t embarrass those in power.

Come to think of it, it’s getting to be a felony here.

“The issues were anti-social behaviour, gun crime, householders’ rights and why there are so many women in prison.

“I felt so trapped, but I wasn’t going to be swept under the mat. I told the prison governor I had kept quiet about my case but I had plenty I wanted to say.”

Mrs Walker went on hunger strike for three days. She had a heart attack and thought she was going to die.

“It was two or three in the morning,” she said. “I felt totally alone. The place was frightening and intimidating and feelings of helplessness overcame me. I’d had a panic attack during the day which caused my heart to pound at a frightening rate. I had never had one before.

“As I lay awake, it began to beat hard and fast again and I became desperately worried.

“My grandmother died of a heart attack after losing weight quickly. I had lost weight as a result of my hunger strike and I know that the heart is a muscle and if you lose weight too quickly, it can be seriously weakened.

“Alone in my cell, I became very frightened that I might die and never see my family again. I also felt petrified because I had no control over my own destiny and I felt people were conspiring against me.”

Mrs Walker was found guilty of affray and possessing a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence. She was sentenced to six months imprisonment by a Manchester court on March 29.

Meanwhile, the “yobs” who tormented her and her family are still out, free, and running around.

She felt, she said, “more like a naughty child than a criminal”. After all, her crime was simply to confront a gang who for two years had made her family’s life a misery through spiteful acts of vandalism.

Her shed had been broken into and bicycles stolen; garden ornaments had been dumped into her pond; there had been threatening telephone calls and petty acts of sabotage.

Goaded beyond endurance, she had fired an unloaded, gas-powered airgun into the pavement near the toes of the gang leader. Supporting her in court were her partner John Cavanagh, 57, her daughter Donna, 20, and her father Jim Mairs, 78, an ex-Royal Marine. Mrs Walker said: “I didn’t take anything to court. I was not prepared for prison – not even a toothbrush.

“I was confident the pre-sentencing reports the judge had requested would keep me out of jail because it stated in one that prison would be ‘highly inappropriate’.”

When she was moved to Styal prison, near Manchester airport, the inmates treated her like a heroine. “Well done Linda!” they shouted. “You should have bazooka’d them.”

Note that even the imprisoned think that fighting back is a good idea.

She was deluged with more than 2,000 cards and letters of support, including one from Tony Martin, the farmer jailed for killing a teenage burglar, and many from her pupils.

Mrs Walker said she would never forget her ordeal. “Some people lose everything when they go to prison. My experiences will live with me for ever. But I’m fortunate because I still have my home and my family.”

I don’t think they’d have let her out except for fear that she’d die in prison and become a martyr. Can’t have that. And if they could have figured out a way to confiscate her property, I’m not too sure they wouldn’t have done that.

I don’t hold out much any hope for the UK any more. They’re going to have to bottom out first. There’s no chance to arrest their descent any more.

More Idiocy from the Other Side of the Pond.

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Reader Doug sent me a link to the Daily Telegraph to an article informing me that now even a butter knife is considered an “offensive weapon” in Merrie Olde England.

A butter knife can be an offensive weapon, the High Court ruled yesterday.

The decision came in the rejection of an appeal by Charlie Brooker, of Welling, Kent, who had been convicted under the Criminal Justice Act of carrying a bladed instrument.

Mark Hardie, appearing for Brooker, argued that the knife had no handle, sharp edges or points and therefore could not fall foul of a law intended to protect people from dangerous weapons.

But Lord Justice Laws, sitting with Mr Justice David Steel, disagreed. He said: “I would accept that a sharp or pointed blade was the paradigm case – however the words of the statute are unqualified and refer to any article that has a blade.”

I did a quick Google search, and found a wee bit more information in The Scotsman. Excerpt:

Section 139 of the (1988 Criminal Justice) Act says any person who has an article “which has a blade or is sharply pointed” shall be guilty of an offence if they carry it in public without good reason or lawful authority.

Mr Hardie said it was important that, as the statute criminalised a person for possession alone and placed a defendant at risk of two years imprisonment, it should not be read too broadly.

The law should only be applied to blades which had a point or sharp cutting edge and were inherently dangerous.

But Lord Justice Laws, sitting with Mr Justice David Steel, disagreed.

He said: “I would certainly accept that a sharp or pointed blade was the paradigm case – however the words of the statute are unqualified and refer to any article that has a blade.”

“In my judgment we should perpetrate a very great mischief if we construed this statute so as to invite argument in case after case on whether an object is sharp or not.”

During the hearing, Mr Hardie said the law would now catch even plastic knives restaurants and cafes supplied to customers with take-away food.

The judge said they should be protected by the section of the Act which allowed such knives to be carried if there was reasonable excuse.

But don’t be caught with a plastic spork if you don’t have take-out food! What, Mr. Booker didn’t have a “reasonable excuse” to be carrying a dull butter knife? It couldn’t have been for self-protection, unless he expected his assailants to fall down laughing at it.

I swear, sometimes I’m convinced that two World Wars and emigration have thrice decimated England’s gene pool; leaving most of the leadership brainless, too much of the population spineless, and the criminals vicious.

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Josh Sugarmann: One of the Few Semi-Honest Gun-Grabbers Out There

Googling around for the last piece, I found an op-ed written by Josh Sugarmann, Executive Director of the Violence Policy Center, and outspoken gun ban proponent. Josh pulls no punches. He wants all handguns banned – as in, “Mr. & Mrs. America, turn ’em all in” banned. And he’s in favor of any means necessary to reach that end, too, as I’ve noted before in the VPC’s (in)famous “anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun” willingness to mislead the public. He wants “assault weapons” banned, too, but even Josh admits that the threat represented by “scary looking guns” is overblown. But, hey! If it helps in the eventual confiscation of handguns, Josh is all for it.

Anyway, let’s fisk Josh’s latest “frighten the peons” piece from the Charlotte Observer, April 2. (Registration required, use Bugmenot.com)

`The price of freedom’: More bodies

The harsh reality is that too many Americans love their guns more than they love their children

JOSH SUGARMANN
Knight Ridder/Tribune

Now, I’m not sure if Josh or if the Charlotte Observer put in the subtitle (I suspect Josh) but isn’t that just a wee bit inflammatory? “Americans love their guns more than they love their children”? How about “Americans cherish their freedom, and want to pass it on to their children,” Josh? Hmm?

In just 10 days last month, two mass murder-suicides — one ending in a Minnesota high school, the other taking place during a religious service in a Wisconsin hotel — left a combined toll of 18 dead and more than 10 injured.

As Americans go through the familiar ritual of asking how this could happen, the National Rifle Association has a stark answer articulated by former head Harlon Carter more than 20 years ago. America’s gun death toll, he explained, was simply “the price of freedom.”

To Carter, no matter what atrocities stem from America’s unfettered gun culture, they were a small price to pay for the unparalleled “freedom” of Americans to own virtually any gun of their own choosing: from pocket-size derringers to military-bred 50-caliber sniper rifles that can destroy aircraft and penetrate a half inch of armor plating from a mile away.

Did Harlon Carter actually say that? I Googled a bit, but didn’t find such an attribution. I did find a couple of quotes. Harlon is attributed with this:

Can our form of government, our system of justice, survive if one can be denied a freedom because he might abuse it?

I found that on several different pages. Now, Joseph Sobran said something about the “price of freedom:”

The prospect of a government that treats all its citizens as criminal suspects is more terrifying than any terrorist. And even more frightening is a citizenry that can accept the surrender of its freedoms as the price of “freedom”.

As did Benjamin Franklin:

Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

I suppose Josh Sugarmann’s position on whether owning handguns is “an essential liberty” is not in doubt.

I did, however, find a Dave Kopel piece on National Review Online from August of 2000 that addressed the Harlon Carter question. Here’s the pertinent excerpt:

A much more serious error, however, is the description of the late Harlon Carter, the leading architect of the NRA’s transformation from a sportsman’s club into the most powerful civil liberties organization in the history of the world. According to the (Washington) Post, “Asked in 1975 if he would rather let convicted violent felons and the mentally deranged buy guns than endorse a screening process for gun sales, Carter did not hesitate to say yes. That’s the ‘price we pay for freedom.'”

Not really. At the 1975 congressional hearing, a congressman asked the question described by the Post, but when Carter began to answer, the congressman cut him off, saying he wanted a different witness to answer. In the official transcript, Carter’s answer is “The price we pay for freedom — “.

The Post‘s inadvertent distortion of Carter’s meaning was doubtless the product of an interview with someone from a Washington anti-gun lobby, where the politics of personal destruction have been the norm for decades.

Misrepresenting Carter’s statement was pretty mild compared to other attacks that Handgun Control, Inc., launched on Carter. One fundraising letter from HCI featured a picture of Harlon Carter on the envelope. The letter screamed that Carter “has seen to it that thousands of life-loving people like you and me DIE every year — shot with a handgun.”

I’m not so sure that Carter was all that misquoted. Smeared, yes. Misquoted, no. Nevertheless, I will be the first to admit that IF there were no guns, we’d have no gun crime. However, I’ve a firm grasp on reality, and I know that there’s no way to get rid of all the guns, so the point is moot. But let’s continue:

Carter’s words have shaped the world view of today’s NRA. They also lead to a more important question. At what point will Americans agree that the price exacted by guns — the gun lobby’s “price of freedom” — is simply too high?

Well, Josh, I’d say that after 9/11 it will be a point – if ever – far in the future. And you know why? Sept. 11, 2001 was a wake-up call for a lot of Americans, who suddenly looked around them and saw reality, and realized that all the fuzzy-bunny wishful-thinking I’m-OK-you’re-OK philosophies offered by the people who wanted to disarm America for its own good was just that – wishful thinking. They started thinking about the real price of freedom.

An all-too-familiar pattern has already emerged after the Red Lake High School shooting in Minnesota — the worst school shooting in the United States since Columbine. Attention has focused on virtually everything except the actual tools — reportedly two handguns and a shotgun — that made the massacre possible.

Yes, weapons belonging to a police officer. Weapons issued by his police department.

And your point is…?

Did the school have metal detectors?

Yes.

Was the security guard armed?

No.

Did the unique struggles faced by the residents of Indian reservations play a role?

Apparently not.

What about the shooter’s postings on a white supremacist Web site, and did other students help plan the attack? What have we learned since Columbine?

That we have some seriously messed up kids, and that drugging them might be a contributing factor in school shootings?

Each of these questions is legitimate. Yet while other Western, industrialized nations face their own civic, social and economic problems, they understand the direct link between gun availability and gun violence and severely restrict access to specific classes of firearms. The result is that other countries simply don’t experience mass shootings as commonly seen in the United States. The United States is unique in the ease with which it allows its citizens to act on their rage through the barrel of a gun.

Very true. Yet other countries have had school shootings and other forms of lethal attack. Dunblane, Scotland, March 1996. Sanaa, Yemen, March 1997. Friesing Germany, Feb. 19, 2002. Erfurt Germany, April 26, 2002. Vlasenica, Bosnia-Herzegovina, April 29, 2002. Carmen de Patagones, Argentina, Sept. 28, 2004. All shootings. Osaka, Japan, June 8, 2001 (knife, 8 dead, 21 wounded.) According to the Time Magazine’s Asia edition from Nov. 2004:

Last week, the city’s place in (China’s) consciousness acquired a stain that may take years to fade. At midnight, a 21-year-old named Yan Yanming reportedly entered the dormitory of Ruzhou’s No. 2 High School and slipped into the rooms where male students slept. Yan slashed some students’ throats, according to Xinhua, the state news agency. Others he stabbed in the heart. Eight died without rising. Four survived—hours later, witnesses saw the smears where their blood flowed down the school’s front steps. Police caught Yan the next day after he overdosed on drugs at his parents’ home. The attack left the city in shock. “People couldn’t believe that their school could be so unsafe,” says Cheng Honggen, a local Xinhua reporter.

The Ruzhou killings are part of a chilling rite of passage endured by modern societies all over the world. Ruzhou was the sixth in a string of deadly attacks on Chinese schoolchildren that began in August, when a schizophrenic janitor at a Beijing kindergarten stabbed 14 children, killing one, according to police. A bus driver in Shandong province was executed earlier this month for slashing 24 kids in September; last month, a teacher in Hunan province was arrested for killing four students and wounding 12; two weeks later a man in Beijing was arrested for killing a six-year-old and stuffing him into the school’s washing machine. The violence stalking the land of one-child families is not confined to the lower grades. In April, a college student named Ma Jiajue hacked four classmates to death after an all-night poker game. Ma said he was “too poor to afford shoes” and killed from jealousy.

The number of murders, rapes and batteries committed by juveniles in China is growing faster than 10% a year, says criminologist Pi Yijun of the China Politics and Law University. Stunned parents and authorities are searching for reasons for the surge. Some blame greater individual freedom and the decline of authoritarian control. Others explain it as the result of epochal social change and the loss of moral ballast once supplied by communist ideology.

One thing they’re not blaming it on is “knife availability.”

Sorry, Josh, but “gun availability” isn’t the reason we’re having mass shootings. We’ve always had guns.

Even when Americans’ attention is focused on gun policy, a timid mindset takes hold. Advocates and policy-makers look for minor, “common sense” policy proposals into which they can shoehorn the discrete circumstances of a particular attack.

To avoid ugly realities like “cops have guns, and they aren’t going to give them up.” Which might be a message you ought to take from the Red Lake massacre. You’ll notice they ignore your major “ban-and-confiscate” legislation because by common sense they know better than to try.

They are unwilling to acknowledge the basic fact that America’s gun violence problem is a direct result of the ease with which Americans can obtain virtually any gun of their choice for almost any intent. Why talk about banning handguns when you can focus on trigger locks?

Well, Josh, I reject your premise right there. America’s “gun violence problem” has been declining for over a decade – while our stock of guns has been increasing by at least three million new guns per year. That’s over 30 million new guns, and declining gun violence. More guns do not equal “more gun violence.”

No matter how many times you keep repeating the lie.

Mass shootings today are treated almost like tornadoes or earthquakes — unstoppable forces of nature that we must endure. The harsh reality is that too many Americans love their guns more than they love their children. Each new shooting — regardless of the number of people killed or the formerly “safe” environment violated by the sound of gunfire — seems less to shock us than to inure us to the next horrible incident.

Perhaps because we are not willing to be treated as criminals for crimes we have not committed? Perhaps because we resent being told things like “Americans love their guns more than they love their children” by preening self-righteous moralists like you? America listened to the Prohibitionists tell us that outlawing alcohol would solve all kinds of problems. It didn’t. It created all kinds of new ones. England’s subjects listened when their gun prohibitionists told them that banning semi-auto weapons would solve problems. It didn’t. They listened again after Dunblane, and banned all handguns – and that hasn’t helped either, has it? Why would we want to follow that disproven path?

In April, when parents across America think twice about sending their children to school on April 20, the sixth anniversary of the Columbine massacre, remember Harlon Carter’s words: We are just paying “the price of freedom.”

Perhaps they should think about something else: Their children are going to “gun free zones” where there isn’t anyone to protect them against anyone with harmful intent, regardless of the weapon used. No administrator, no teacher, no groundskeeper, in most cases no security guard, will be able to stop a determined attacker.

They’ll have to wait until the cops show up. With their guns.

The world has changed, Josh, but it’s not the guns that are the problem, and it never has been.

Even China is figuring that out.

KevinLeave a comment

Well, at Least She Wasn’t Driven to Suicide.

Reader Chris Allen emailed me from Australia last week with a link to another sad damned story out of England. This was covered by some others, such as Lurch over at the English blog Gun Culture. Here’s the story, or at least the TimesOnline version of it:

Jailed: teacher who snapped
By Russell Jenkins

Special-needs tutor fired air pistol near ‘yobs’ whom she believed were terrorising her family

A MIDDLE-AGED teacher is starting a six-month jail sentence today because she decided to fight back against “yobs” with a pellet gun.

Linda Walker, 47, who teaches at a special school for children with behavioural problems, has been heralded as an example to other less energetic and caring teachers.

Her life and career now lie in ruins after a moment of self-confessed madness when she pursued a group of teenagers she blamed for a campaign of vandalism directed at her home and family.

During the midnight confrontation near her suburban home in Urmston, Greater Manchester, she fired up to six rounds from the gas-powered air pistol into the ground close to the feet of her antagonist. She later confessed to police officers that she had acted “like a madwoman possessed” but complained that the activities of the youths had left her at breaking point.

Mrs Walker looked apprehensive in the dock at Minshull Street Crown Court, in Manchester, as the judge told her yesterday that she would serve at least three months before being considered for release.

Her partner, John Cavanagh, 56, a lecturer at Salford College, watched from the public gallery as Mrs Walker, who has complained that the law always appears to be on the side of the “yobbos”, was led to the cells to begin her sentence.

Mrs Walker shares her home in Urmston with Mr Cavanagh and her two 17-year-old sons.

She has taught children with special needs for 25 years, rising to head of Food Technology and head of Year 11 at New Park High School, Salford, where her work has been praised by Ofsted inspectors.

Her work has also won the admiration of colleagues. Nigel Haslam, a former head teacher, said: “She was very professional and thorough. She did a tremendous amount for young people. She worked all the hours that came and provided the students with many opportunities to succeed.”

Beyond the school gates, Mrs Walker was being driven towards breaking point by groups of youths “terrorising” her neighbourhood. She logged a catalogue of complaints with officers, from abusive phone calls to thefts and vandalism.

Anonymous callers would abuse her son as a “poof”. A wing mirror of her other son’s car was broken off, the garden shed was broken into, ornaments thrown over the wall and fish stolen from her pond.

The final straw came when she noticed that a five-litre plastic container of washing up liquid was moved from the back garden and emptied over her son’s car in the driveway.

She was “fuming mad” when she rushed out of her house at night to confront a knot of teenagers 250 yards away. After an exchange of abuse she returned home to arm herself with a Walther CP88 gas-powered air pistol, which she had kept in her underwear drawer for four months since she had been burgled, and an air rifle.

She phoned the police to tell them that she was going to “shoot the f****** vandals. I’ve got an air rifle and a pistol and I’m going to shoot them.”

Mrs Walker squared up to one 18-year-old, firing off several rounds from the pistol into nearby ground. The youth, Robert McKiernan, now 19, who has a number of convictions including burglary, told her that she was a “psycho”.

She later expressed surprise when an armed response unit arrested her and not the youths. Afterwards she complained to officers: “Police are very sympathetic but the law is on the side of these criminals and yobbos and not the victims. They have all the rights.”

In evidence Mrs Walker said: “I cannot say I am sorry I challenged him (the teenager). I think I needed to do it to get rid of my anger. I know I shouldn’t have done it. I know I was loopy.”

Farrhat Arshad, for the defence, suggested that Mrs Walker had given “her lot to society”. Ms Arshad said: “The court is familiar with the acts of petty vandalism and theft that were caused to her property. Although they may appear as petty, the effects on Mrs Walker were great. She thought her family, which was supposed to be safe, was being attacked.”

Mrs Walker was found guilty of affray and possessing a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence after a week-long trial in February.

FAMILY’S DIARY OF DESPAIR

Linda Walker says that her home was targeted by vandals in the months before the shooting. There were thefts and vandalism which, the family believe, amounted to persecution:

She told police officers that she had intercepted several malicious phone calls. In one, the caller talked about one of her sons being a “poof” and threatened her. Mrs Walker believes that the youths that gather at night on the neighbourhood streets were driven by jealousy of her two sons. She said that her sons had saved up their money since they were small and were now able to afford a car and a mountain bike

During the summer holiday, while the family were staying in their caravan, the garden shed was broken into and the family’s bicycles were stolen. Bottles of alcohol were also taken and garden ornaments were thrown over the wall

Fish from the pond disappeared in a separate incident and the front door was kicked in, splitting the PVC coating

Cars parked in the driveway were damaged. Wing mirrors were smashed and a brick was thrown through a window. Mrs Walker told police: “Kids keep coming down the road to vandalise my sons’ cars because they do not have cars and are jealous. When your kids work hard for things and they get damaged you get protective.

I have had harassment and mischievous phone calls. I got a phone call calling my son a poof and asking, ‘Does he want a good bumming?’ I asked who it was and why they were doing this and he said I would get bummed as well.”

The final straw came on August 14 last year when she noticed that a five-litre plastic container had been moved from the back step and placed on the roof of her son’s car in the driveway.

She said: “They did not know whether it was brake fluid or anti-freeze and they poured it all over his car”. John Cavanagh, Mrs Walker’s partner, said: “Things have been pretty terrible at home with the vandalism going on. It has caused one or two stressful moments.”

“One or two stressful moments.” Ah, the fabled British gift for understatement.

The Times allowed its readers to comment on the case. Here’s a few choice samples:

My son was recently attacked by local yobs in a drive-by style shooting involving an air weapon. The offenders were caught and admitted the crime along with other offences. The response of Devon and Cornwall police was to confiscate the weapon and caution two of the offenders. As for the minor damage to my son’s car, to get any form of compensation would involve a private prosecution against the youths. It would seem that justice depends on where you live and not on what crime you have committed. Christopher Sweetman, Great Torrington

I was appalled by this sentence. This is the first offence committed by an otherwise valuable and upstanding member of the community who has been pushed beyond her limits. She, alongside countless others up and down the country, have to put up with years of abuse in their own home and nothing is done. Police response times to these crimes are too slow to gain evidence and so the yobs carry on without any real prospect of prosecution. I am taking my legal finals next month and I’m wondering what the point of my qualifaction will be if this is how the legal system responds to people such as Linda Walker. How can we reconcile the use of ASBOs for yobs (which still do not deprive them of their freedom) with prison for a person such as Linda Walker? Alexa Noble, Poole

Remarkably good question. Here’s one from someone upon whom his chains rest comfortably:

Walker deserves the sentence she received. She approached a group of youths who she had no evidence against, carrying firearms and discharged them. Even if she had seen these youths committing an offence at her home, her vigilante action was completely inappropriate. It is easy to have two sepearte points of view in matters like these, one point of view if you are not directly affected and one if you are, by this I mean if all the bleeding hearts who think that the sentence is unjust had been affected, e.g. it was your son or daughter she approached in a raged state you would think differently. As far as I am aware, the police investigated all the matters she had reported previously and infact arrested offenders, none of these offenders identified were the people she approached that night. Well done the police and well done the judicial system. The maximum sentence for an offence of this kind is 10 years, I think the judge on the day displayed great restraint with regard to her sentence. James Smith, Manchester

Thankfully, Mr. Smith was the only respondent who was quite this vehement about Ms. Walker’s sentence.

Wanker.

But at least Ms. Walker wasn’t driven to the point of despair that 64 year-old Martin James was. Or 77 year-old Bill Clifford. The “yobs” drove Linda Walker past the point they drove Maureen Jennings, but not that far. As Lurch put it, “Yet another good person hung out to dry by the very legal system which failed them in the first place.”

Like it failed Amelia Whale.

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England: A Nation Run OVERRUN by Gun-Fearing Wussies

Sweet bleedin’ jeebus.

‘Gun photo’ candidate suspended

A Conservative Parliamentary candidate has been suspended after he was pictured on the internet with a range of guns, rifles and a hunting knife.

An inquiry is now to be held into why Robert Oulds, the prospective MP for Slough in Berkshire, appeared with the weapons in the camera phone images.

A party spokesman said: “We take this matter extremely seriously.

“We have suspended Mr Oulds from the list of candidates, and as candidate for Slough, with immediate effect.”

‘All licensed’

A national newspaper reported that there were 11 images of Mr Oulds, 28, a councillor in Chiswick, west London, with the weaponry.

The weapons included an AK 47 assault rifle and a shotgun.

Mr Oulds told The Sun: “Those photos were taken at the home of a member of the Conservative association.

“I went round to this friend’s house and he is a member of a licensed gun club and he showed me his firearms and that is it.

“They are all licensed and all legal. They are not mine.”

I believe that in Texas what Mr. Oulds did was a requirement for people running for office. And the hopeful has to own a few, too.

If there’s an AK in that group, it’s not “licensed and legal” unless the gas system’s been disabled to convert it to fire like a bolt-action.

Damn, it’s sad that the nation that spawned this one has fallen so freaking far, and seems to fall farther every day. Whatever happened to the “rifle in every cottage” attitude?

Running Out of Steam?

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“I fear that the Sunday Telegraph’s campaign is running out of steam after only a few editions.” That’s what Lurch at the English blog Gun Culture thinks, and I think he may be right.

Today’s London Sunday Telegraph piece in their campaign to enact a “Make My Day” anti-burglar law is this sad article:

Burglar murders grandmother
By Karyn Miller
(Filed: 21/11/2004)

Police are investigating the murder of an 85-year-old grandmother, found dead after dialling 999 to report a burglar at her home.

Police found her collapsed at the bungalow in Longton, Stoke-on-Trent, where she lived alone. Attempts to revive her failed.

Police believe that her killer got in through the back of the bungalow and that her handbag may have been stolen.

Det Chief Insp Nick Baker, the senior investigating officer, issued an urgent appeal for information on behalf of the Staffordshire force and expressed his dismay at the pensioner’s death.

“This woman was a vulnerable lady who has been murdered as a result of her being considered an easy target,” he said. “This is now a murder investigation and we would like to hear from anyone who may have seen anything suspicious around the bungalows on Friday night.”

The victim was a widow and the mother of three adult daughters. Yesterday, frantic attempts were being made to trace them.

A post-mortem examination has been carried out, but the cause of death has yet to be disclosed. The woman had a heart condition, but it is not known if this was a contributing factor.

A team of 20 officers has been assigned to the case and yesterday carried out house-to-house inquiries.

Longton, one of Stoke’s famous “six towns”, is regarded as an up-and-coming area, popular with young families and the elderly.

In recent weeks, The Sunday Telegraph’s Right to Fight Back campaign has highlighted the cases of other men and women who have been viciously attacked in their homes and has called for a change in the law to give householders greater rights to defend themselves against intruders.

Now here’s a question I’d like everyone to sit and think about: How is an 85 year-old woman – with a heart condition – going to effectively defend herself from one or more burglars in a society that does not allow its citizens defensive firearms, nor even pepper spray? What weapon is allowed to her that will keep assailants out of contact distance? Hmmm?

That Telegraph piece also links to one from last week that I missed:

Community wardens are ‘the future of crime fighting’
By David Harrison
(Filed: 14/11/2004)

To her supporters, Liz Lovatt is the future – one of the first of what will eventually be 20,000 crimefighters who will transform our streets and relieve the pressure on over-stretched police forces. To her detractors, she is another example of policing on the cheap, a toothless non-officer who patrols a Kent village by day while the yobs rule the streets by night.

Guess which side I sit on?

Either way, Mrs Lovatt, 33, a community warden, is the only visible agent of law and order in Wye, near Ashford – a village of 2,000 people which, like so many others across Britain, is in the grip of hooligans and vandals after dark.

Mrs Lovatt is in no doubt of her contribution to David Blunkett’s war on anti-social behaviour. Taking a break from her patrol, she recounts her greatest success to date: “I caught a 12-year-old boy ripping flowers from a window box and he ended up so ashamed of what he had done that he re-planted the flowers himself.

Be still, my beating heart. How about the kid gets a good whipping after his gardening is complete?

What the hell happened to punishment?

“I don’t want to blow my own trumpet, but I got a vote of thanks from the parish council for that one.” This style of law enforcement practised by Mrs Lovatt is the Government’s answer to what many perceive as rising lawlessness in rural areas. There are 1,000 community wardens and 4,000 police-funded community support officers in Britain. Last week, the Home Office announced plans to increase those numbers to a total of 20,000 within four years.

On the surface this appears to be a good idea, but why does it remind me of the Soviet stukachi – the people who lived in apartment buildings and reported to the Party on the actions of other residents?

Mr Blunkett, the Home Secretary, describes these green-anoraked crusaders as the “new bobbies on the beat”, heralding the return of Dixon of Dock Green-style policing. His optimism is shared by Kent county council which trained Mrs Lovatt – a management with economics graduate – for eight weeks. But look beyond Mrs Lovatt’s undoubted dedication to her job and to the people of Wye and, critics of the community officer scheme say, you will find a tale of penny-pinching and gestures: Mrs Lovatt is paid ÂŁ16,000 a year – a new police recruit can expect a salary of ÂŁ4,000 more than that; she has no greater power of arrest than an ordinary citizen; she never works later than 10pm; and she lives 25 miles away from Wye – “to protect my family” from reprisals.

OH, even better! She’s not even a member of the community she’s “policing”! And the reason? TO PROTECT HER FAMILY FROM THE PEOPLE SHE INTERDICTS. That ought to give you the warm fuzzies!

Mr Blunkett pledged last month to give wardens powers to issue on-the-spot fines for anti-social behaviour including litter-dropping, graffiti and excessive noise at night.

Err… Does she get to collect those on-the-spot fines? Even if not, will this become a major source of revenue for the State? Because I can see the path to major abuses of that power. And she knocks off at 10 PM. What about “excessive noise” after then?

But for now, a typical day for Mrs Lovatt consists of giving villagers tips on crime prevention – anything from warnings about bogus doorstep salesmen to reminders to cancel the milk and papers when going on holiday.

And possible littering fines for those who let newspapers collect on their doorstep if they don’t, for example? New York Mayor Bloomberg tried something like that not too long back.

She does look out for graffiti but merely arranges for it to be erased. As a former firefighter, she checks burglar and smoke alarms. She also gives occasional talks – a recent one was on “stranger-danger” at a primary school – and attends Neighbourhood Watch meetings.

The rest of her time is spent patrolling the village, “keeping an eye on things and just being a visible presence like the old-fashioned bobbies”, she says.

What Mrs Lovatt and all the country’s other wardens do not do, however, is tackle crime. “That’s not my job,” she explains.

“I’m more of a liaison officer. I’m the eyes and ears of the village, the link between the community and the police. A big part of my job is to reduce people’s fear of crime.”

Not actually reduce crime, merely the fear of it.

Many villagers are not impressed.

Understandably so.

There may not be many serious crimes but, they say, there are drugs, burglaries, vandalism and violence – even a rape not so long ago. Mrs Lovatt is very pleasant, they say, but they want “proper” police officers.

Peter Lee, 74, who has lived in the village for 14 years, says: “It’s not the fear of crime that bothers us but actual crime. The yobs rampage through our gardens and allotments, smashing fences, and ripping out flowers and vegetables and scattering them all over the place.

“They ride motorbikes across our gardens, break into sheds, and throw eggs at windows. It goes on day after day, night after night. Many people are afraid to go out after dark.

“If we say anything then we just get abuse. And they give us a warden who knocks off at 10 o’clock – and that when she’s working the late shift. Don’t we have the right to live in peace?”

Apparently not. Those behaviors would be actual crimes. Things outside the job scope of Mrs. Lovatt. The yobs have more rights than you do. And they know it.

The warden “is trying hard”, Mr Lee adds. “But we want real policemen who can stop the yobs ruining our lives.”

Unfortunately, it isn’t the police (even the lack thereof) that is the real problem. If you want a better idea, read an English policeman’s blog. The major problem is in the courts.

Around the corner, 78-year-old Louisa Gray answers the door nervously. Persuaded that we are not about to rob her, she speaks slowly: “I don’t think a warden is the answer. I called her last week about fireworks being thrown at the house and she said that she was on leave until November 1 – and it was November 1 when I rang her.

“I’ve lost count of how many times they have smashed my greenhouse. They use bits of wood, signs they tear down, pellet guns, anything they can get their hands on. It’s terrible round here now. I would move out tomorrow if I could.”

Elsewhere in the village, there is little support for wardens. Gill Moffatt, the manager of The Gift Horse gift shop, which has suffered smash-and-grab raids twice in the past seven weeks, says: “Most of the offenders are teenagers who are at school in the day. The trouble starts at night – when the warden isn’t around.”

Ann Sutherland, the chairman of the Wye business association, says that the warden “gives old people in particular someone to talk to but can’t really deal with crime”. Her husband Peter is more blunt: “Wardens are a sop to people to avoid providing proper policemen.”

Cynic. How dare you insinuate that your government would rather make noises than actually do something useful! Besides, vandalism? Smash-and-grabs? Actual crimes. Outside her job scope.

Heather Hooper, who has a home near Wye and one in London, agrees: “We’ve had a lot of burglaries around us and nothing ever seems to get done about it. Sometimes I feel safer in London.”

Given London’s crime problem, that’s significant. But talk to Mrs. Lovatt. Perhaps she can help you fear crime less.

At the Tickled Trout pub, Richard Bartley, a resident involved in community work, said wardens picked up vital information that people would not give to a police officer. “They can play an important role in preventing crime and binding the community together,” he said.

Can you give an example?

Any example?

(tick tick tick tick….)

Richard Stagg, the landlord, disagreed. “The kids know that she’s got no powers and they are laughing at her,” he said. “We should send a couple of proper policemen in full-time for two months. That would really sort out the yobs.”

Or, how about you do it yourself?

When did Sir Robert Peel’s seventh Principle of Modern Policing become completely forgotten:

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.

Every single word in that article said “The job of policing the community is the job of the STATE, not the people living in the community.”

You want to know why England has the crime problem it does? That’s it, in a nutshell.

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I’ve Said it Before, I’ll Say it Again…

England is done. Stick a fork in it.

Acidman points to this Bloomberg story illustrating, once again, the complete inability of the gun-fearing to see any difference between legitimate and illegitimate gun use (and they have absolutely no sense of humor):

Ford’s Land Rover Ad Banned by U.K. Regulator on Use of Gun

Aug. 31 (Bloomberg) — Ford Motor Co., the world’s second biggest carmaker, has had a television commercial for its Land Rover brand banned by the U.K. communications regulator after it was judged to “normalize” the use of guns.

The advertisement, which featured a woman brandishing a gun later revealed to be a starting pistol, breached the Advertising Standards Code and must not be shown again, Ofcom said in an e- mailed statement. The regulator received 348 complaints against the ad, many concerned that the commercial glamorized guns and made it “appear that guns are fun and cool.”

Might that be because guns are “fun and cool?”

Carmakers in the U.K. often come to the attention of regulators for their portrayal of speed in ads, which the advertising code says must not “encourage or condone fast or irresponsible driving.” Ford’s Land Rover division did not immediately comment on the ban.

Ofcom said glamorization is “part and parcel” of the advertising process but this commercial “normalized” gun ownership in a domestic setting. The pistol, fired by the woman into the air as a man got into his car, was used in “an apparent casual manner and just for fun,” Ofcom said.

I shoot all of my guns mostly “just for fun”. So?

The large number of complaints compares with 427 against an ad for Virgin Mobile Holdings Plc, the highest number Ofcom received this year. Earlier this month, the regulator dismissed the complaints against Virgin Mobile’s ad, which portrayed a young man being helped to urinate by an attendant at a urinal.

So, let me see if I got this straight: In a country with a population of, oh, 60 million, they receive complaints from 348 people with their panties in a bunch, and have an ad yanked. BUT when 427 people (22.7% more) complain about a DIFFERENT ad, it’s NOT yanked.

Because there was a different ‘gun’ involved.

What are they putting in the water over there?

UPDATE: David Carr of Samizdata comments there:

The right to keep and bear arms is not a debate in this country. Nor is it an issue or an idea or an argument. It has all been subsumed into a deep national psychosis for which I see no prospect of any cure.

That’s what I just said.

I Also Do Requests

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Reader Sarah forwarded a link to me and asked that I fisk it. It’s to the Brady Campaign’s “CCW FAQ” page. I’m very much pressed for time at the moment, so I’m going to have to do this in pieces, but I promised her I’d do it, and it is fiskworthy, as you’d expect. Let’s get right to it, shall we?

Q: What is a “carrying concealed weapons” license?
A: A “carrying concealed weapons” (CCW) license allows an individual to carry a loaded, concealed gun.

CCW laws have nothing to do with private firearms ownership in the home. They relate solely to allowing individuals to carry their concealed guns almost anywhere in the community.

Except places where the government prohibits, like courtrooms and schools and restaurants that serve alcohol, and places that have signs prohibiting concealed carry on the premises. Pretty much anywhere the Brady Bunch et al. can get the business owner to object.

Q: The gun lobby, headed by the National Rifle Association, has been engaged in a major campaign in all 50 states to pass the weakest CCW laws. What is their rationale for making it easier for just about anyone to carry a concealed, loaded weapon?
A: It is extremely important to understand the NRA’s motivation for advocating these laws – the NRA is a special interest group whose primary goal is to increase gun ownership in America.

Right-o! The idea behind the NRA is to have a nation of marksmen – people who possess weapons and are trained in their proper use. I’m all for that.

The NRA no longer disguises the fact that they are an advocacy group for the gun industry. In response to questions about the new, more deadly ultracompact guns that have appeared on the market, Tanya Metaksa, chief lobbyist for the NRA, crowed that: “The gun industry should send me a basket of fruit – our efforts have created a new market.”

“More deadly”? More deadly that what? The high-capacity pistols that they made ultra-expensive by stopping the manufacture of magazines of greater than 10 rounds capacity? How is an “ultracompact” 9mm handgun that holds ten rounds “more deadly” than a regular sized one that carries fifteen? Sophistry.

This is evidence that “the NRA is an advocacy group for the gun industry”? The NRA must have a gun industry to accomplish its ends – defined above as “increasing gun ownership in America.” Allowing the gun controllers to wipe out the source lets them end-run the Second Amendment without bothering to overthrow it. Damned straight the NRA supports the gun manufacturers. The gun banners change the rules, and then bitch when the market responds to the rule changes. You don’t get it both ways.

Or perhaps, if you’re the Brady Bunch, you do.

Laws that make it easier to carry concealed weapons are legislative sales tools for the gun industry and their loudest cheerleader, the NRA. In fact, gun sellers view these laws as excellent marketing tools. According to the Vice President of Marketing for Interarms, the effort to weaken CCW laws is the “most important star on the horizon.”

They sure are. And they’re also a great way for people to take responsibility for their own safety. It’s a win-win situation for people who want to be citizens and not wards of the State.

Former National Rifle Association President Tom Washington was often quoted as saying: “an armed society is a polite society.”

If he was, he was quoting author Robert Anson Heinlein from one of his science fiction novels.

If this were the case, the United States would be the most polite society on earth. Already there are over 222 million privately-owned firearms in the country, and we are by no means the safest nation on earth.

And we are not and armed nation. We’re a nation with a lot of guns, certainly, but we’re not “armed” in the sense that Heinlein meant it. Here’s the entire quotation:

“An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.”

(Emphasis mine.) In Heinlein’s meaning, “armed” means “bearing weapons.” Yes, perhaps as in carrying concealed. Yet in the states that have “shall issue” CCW only about 2% of the eligible population actually acquire a permit, and it’s probable that only about half of those actually carry at any time. This is hardly an “armed society.”

We’ve got lots of guns in cabinets, safes, and closets, but very damned few in hand or on hips. Perhaps if there were more of the violent but protective out there bearing arms, our society would be more polite.

In 1994, 38,505 Americans were killed by firearms – in homicides, suicides and accidents. Between 1987 and 1994, the rate for non-handgun murders declined by 11%, while the rate of handgun homicides increased by 52%. 1.1 million violent crimes were committed with handguns in 1993. Recently, the extraordinary benefits of reasonable gun control laws like the Brady Law, the Federal ban on assault weapons, and certain state laws have started to emerge. Crime with guns is just now falling faster than the overall crime rate. It is vital that we continue to move forward in our fight against gun violence in America.

Spin, spin, spin. It’s all they can do. They know that all the gun laws they’ve tried have not affected violent crime in the least, but they’ve got to make it look good. How about some reality? Here’s the long-term homicide trend in the U.S., 1950 through 2000:

Click on the graph for the data set by year. Note that there were peaks in 1972, 1980, and 1991. By 1994 and the passage of the Assault Weapon Ban, the homicide rate was declining. Bear in mind that each and every year about two million new long guns and one million new handguns enter the civilian market. Including lots of those “assault weapons” that the Brady’s and others protest “skirt the ban.”

The Brady’s want to take credit for that decline by citing “the Brady Law, the Federal ban on assault weapons (that isn’t a ban), and certain state laws.” Let me present another graphic for you to look at of “certain state laws,” and please note the dates:

Is CCW in any way responsible for the precipitous decade of decline in homicide rates? I don’t know, but my assertion is every bit as possible as theirs. Throwing in the other statistics about violent crime and handguns? Just more cherry picking to obscure the fact that gun control laws haven’t had any noticeable effect on crime rates. Here’s another long-term trend, this time of gun crime:

Again, click on the graph for the source data. Notice that the Brady center picked 1993 – the WORST year for gun crime in the last 30 for their piece. But the Brady law was passed in 1994 and was reviewed in 2000 by the (not gun friendly) Journal of the American Medical Association by (not gun friendly) Jens Ludwig and Philip Cook of Georgetown University in their paper “Homicide and Suicide Rates Associated with Implementation of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act.” Let me quote from the paper for you:

Our analyses provide no evidence that implementation of the Brady Act was associated with a reduction in homicide rates. In particular, we find no differences in homicide or firearm homicide rates to adult victims in the 32 treatment states directly subject to the Brady Act provisions compared with the remaining control states.

—

Although our study detected no reduction in homicide rates in treatment states compared with control states, we found that suicide rates for persons aged 55 years or older were reduced in the treatment states. The estimated association between the Brady Act treatment and gun suicide rates among persons aged 55 years and older is equal to ?0.92 per 100000 (95% CI, ?1.43 to ?0.42), or about 6% of the gun suicide rate among this age group in the control states after the Brady Act had become law.

However, we did not detect an association of the Brady Act with overall suicide rates.Wefind 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.”

Let me translate: The Brady law did not affect homicide. It resulted in some elderly men choosing a different method of committing suicide. That’s it. And that result was reported by two champions of the gun control movement.

As I keep saying, the gun control philosophy cannot be wrong! So “Do it some more, only HARDER!“ is ever the cry.

More to come…