Tag: gun control

The BBC Takes an Interest in Tennessee Gun Laws

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The BBC Takes an Interest in Tennessee Gun Laws

I guess since the UK has enacted “the toughest gun laws in the world”, designed to “put a firm brake on the development of a dangerous gun culture in the UK,” they have to find their jollies vicariously:

Tennessee gun law divides opinion

By James Coomarasamy
BBC News, Nashville, Tennessee

Just an aside, but I’d really be interested in Mr. Coomarasamy’s personal take on being in Tennessee. Since Knoxville seems to be Blogger Central, perhaps one of the many bloggers there could put on their pajamas and interview him?

Following a recent series of high-profile shooting incidents in the United States, the southern state of Tennessee is changing its gun laws this week.

It is relaxing them.

If a last-minute legal challenge fails, from Tuesday, gun owners in the state will be allowed to carry their weapons in a lot more public places – including bars and restaurants.

I went to Nashville to find out what local residents thought about the proposed law change.

‘Seconds count’

Nikki Goeser takes her Second Amendment right to bear arms very seriously.

One of Tennessee’s 250,000 registered gun owners, she saw her husband, Ben, shot dead in front of her in April.

She believes her right was denied when she needed it most.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/emp/external/player.swf
(Hooray for the BBC!)

I don’t believe Tennessee actually registers its gun owners – just the ones who have concealed carry licenses. Somehow I doubt Mr. Coomarasamy (or at least his editors) understands the difference.

Soon, Tennessee’s bars and restaurants will no longer be off-limits for registered weapons.

State legislators – a quarter of whom own firearms – have passed a law allowing guns into bars and restaurants, but preventing their owners from buying alcohol.

For the bill’s Democratic sponsor – State Senator Doug Jackson – it is a case of preserving the rights of individuals and those of individual states.

“People are fearful about tomorrow. They feel insecure. And the Second Amendment right is something that they cherish and it’s a means of protecting themselves and their family and defending what they have. It provides security in troubled times.”

But on the streets of Nashville, even some staunch defenders of Second Amendment rights fear that the Music City is about to become Dodge City. And that mixing guns and alcohol is a recipe for disaster.

Even though it’s not in any of the other states where it’s legal to do what Tennessee just enacted. Odd that Mr. Coomarasamy (or his editors) didn’t mention that.

Nashville restaurateur Randy Rayburn is anything but cool about the idea of his customers having guns.

He is leading a last-minute legal challenge to the law – to protect his barmen.

“Yes they’re scared, I’m scared, my wife is scared for our personal safety.”

He has done what restaurant owners are permitted to do – placed a sign in his window, saying “no guns allowed”.

But he is worried that the sign will not be enough to prevent people taking the new law into their own hands.

Er, what? Protect his barmen from what exactly? He expects CCW carriers to break the law, get drunk, and shoot the place up?

“We don’t need vigilantism inside my business,” he says. “I’m a gun owner, I have a gun at my home, but I keep it there, not at a public place where many people’s lives can be threatened.

Oh, right – vigilantism – he expects his patrons to pull out their gats and shoot bad guys for NO REASON. AND his barmen.

I think Nikki Goeser might want a word with Mr. Rayburn.

But Rayburn isn’t alone:

And he has support from the city’s police chief, Ronal Serpas, who does not believe that people who walk into bars with guns will steer clear of the shot glasses.

“If you think about how alchohol influences the choices people make… I don’t believe people are not going to drink and have guns, because I know they drink and drive,” he says.

“What process is going through their mind as it’s clouded by alcohol? [They’re] trying to do a good thing, but they have NO training, NO experience, NO time for reflective thought, and their minds are consumed by alcohol – it doesn’t make sense.”

So it’s Chief Serpas who believes that licensed CCW holders will violate the law and get drunk while armed, although up till now they’ve obeyed the law and not carried into establishments that serve alcohol. Always good to know what Law Enforcement thinks of the people it works for. In this case the Chief thinks that alcohol must give off the brain-altering waves that force people to drink.

Nikki gets the last word in the piece, though:

But for Nikki – and other law-abiding gun owners – what does not make sense is being allowed to have a gun, but being prevented from using it when it counts

“I hear people say all the time, guns are made specifically to kill,” she tells me.

“My answer to that is: ‘yes a gun can kill, but in the correct hands, it can be used to save innocent lives’. I don’t care so much about a bad guy’s life. I’m sorry, I don’t. They make the choice to be evil, that’s their choice. If they choose that, and I am armed I know what I’m doing, I will try to stop them.”

And soon she will be allowed to – in a lot more places.

Boy, it’s a good thing the UK has the toughest gun laws in the world, and doesn’t have to worry about people carrying handguns into restaurants anymore . . .

Gunman opens fire in restaurant

A man and a 15-year-old boy are recovering from bullet wounds after a gunman opened fire in a packed restaurant in west London.

Both suffered non-life threatening injuries during the shooting in Harry Morgan’s restaurant in St John’s Wood High Street, at 2110 BST on Friday.

The attacker, carrying two guns, chased the 31-year-old man into the diner and opened fire, hitting him in the leg.

But that’s UNPOSSIBLE!! The UK has the TOUGHEST GUN LAWS IN THE WORLD!!

The Metropolitan Police said no arrests have yet been made.

Because they arrived just in time to put up crime scene tape and take reports.

Several shots were fired in the venue which was filled with people.

Pop star Rachel Stevens was dining at the venue at the time.

A spokeswoman for the former S Club 7 member said: “Rachel and her family were in a restaurant where there was gunfire. It was very frightening for everyone there but none of the diners were hurt.”

An eyewitness said diners threw themselves to the floor screaming and bullet-holes could now be seen.

And, being unarmed, all they could to was huddle there waiting to die.

BBC chief economics correspondent Hugh Pym was also in the restaurant at the time.

He said: “I immediately went to ground and pulled my 15-year-old son under the table.

“We were aware of a guy running through.

“He didn’t appear as if he had a weapon – it felt like he was the victim.”

Pym continued: “We were under the table and everyone was shouting ‘stay down, stay down’.

“Obviously there was a lot of broken glass and people gradually emerged from the tables.

“People were pretty shaken up and were wailing in shock more than anything else.”

Billy Osbourne was also in the restaurant and saw the first man run in.

“Then all of a sudden a guy in a motorbike helmet came in – he had two automatic pistols and he starts firing at the guy.

UNPOSSIBLE! Handguns have been banned in the UK since 1997!!

“As soon as I smelled the cordite I was under the table.

“Everyone was screaming and hitting the deck.

“It was unbelievable – it was a packed restaurant and it does not appear anybody [among the diners] was hurt.”

The shooter was probably a lousy shot.

Harry Morgan’s was established in 1948 by a London butcher and has been shortlisted in the Evening Standard Restaurant Awards.

I bet they counted on a “Gun Free Zone” sign to protect their patrons, too.

Oh, right. The entire country is a “Gun Free Zone.” How’s that working out for you?

(h/t AR15.com for these two stories.)

The Mindset is More Important than the Tool

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The Mindset is More Important than the Tool

The Gun I Didn’t Have

By Robert M. Engstrom

I was walking home a few weeks ago when two young men, one with a knife in his hand, blocked the sidewalk and demanded my wallet and camera. I’m accustomed to having a means of defense other than my fist and an umbrella at hand. I’ve been in Washington, D.C. for three months and had almost gotten used to not having a weapon handy. At home in Arizona, I regularly, and legally, carry a concealed pistol and reluctantly left my guns at home and trusted on instincts and awareness to stay out of trouble.

The hoodlum who tried to rob me was unprepared for resistance and expected compliance to his demands because thugs know that the District of Columbia’s firearm laws and security measures punish law-abiding people who might otherwise carry a defensive weapon. My umbrella didn’t survive the confrontation, but I left the scene with my wallet, camera and the punk’s knife, a cheap piece of junk that is now in a storm sewer.

Foolhardiness on my part and a bit of good luck protected me, but there have been a few nightmares of emergency rooms, lacerated livers, and worse since that night. Training, practice and preparation for carrying a concealed firearm helped me recognize the potential threat before the knife appeared, but having my .45 along that night would have eliminated the danger of the physical contact that ensued.

But without the proper mindset, the .45 wouldn’t have been helpful, either. If you have to wander around D.C. carrying an umbrella, I’d recommend this one. Pricey, but what’s your life worth?

AZ Restaurant Carry Passes

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From an email:

Some good news to start your Wednesday. The session ran all night!

SB1113 AZ Restaurant Carry passed the Senate 19-8 at approximately 6AM Phoenix time and will be transmitted to the governor. She has 10 days (not counting Sundays) to sign or veto it.

As far as I’ve seen, there’s been very little PSH over this bill here, which I’ve been pleasantly surprised by.

Here’s hoping Brewer signs it.

Can We Actually TRY This

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Can We Actually TRY This?

Joe Huffman takes a look at Dennis Henigan’s latest PSH, his book Lethal Logic: Exploding the Myths that Paralyze American Gun Policy. Henigan’s position:

“Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” Henigan counters with Ozzy Osbourne’s take on that: “If that’s the case, why do we give people guns when they go to war? Why not just send the people?”

Joe replies (and I’m doing this post to archive this):

Suppose you were to drop Dennis Henigan and Sarah Brady in the woods with all the guns and ammo they can carry. And a half mile away you drop in an Army Ranger or Navy Seal completely naked, one hand tied behind their back and a patch over one eye. If you tell them only one side can leave the woods alive I’m betting that by the next morning, despite being outnumbered 2:1 and out armed, the warrior will be walking out of the woods fully clothed, armed, and wearing Sarah and Dennis’s ears as a necklace.

Gun are tools used by people. Without the people the guns don’t kill, with or without guns people can kill. Guns just make violence against people easier. Sometimes that violence is for good and sometimes it is for evil. Most of the time guns are used for good. Reducing the access of guns to good people enables evil.

Absolutely.

Nice of ‘Em to Actually Admit It

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Nice of ‘Em to Actually Admit It

Dancing in the blood of the slain, that is:

Gun controllers say rampage aids cause

Gun-control advocates seized on the Holocaust Museum shooting Wednesday to call on Congress to reverse its drift toward loosening firearms restriction.

They said it highlights the need for lawmakers to reconsider efforts to ease the District’s tough gun laws and allowing firearms into national parks.

D.C. Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray said the shooting underscored the need for strict gun laws in the nation’s capital.

Uh, right. The shooter was a convicted felon. The law said: A) He couldn’t possess a firearm. B) he couldn’t carry a firearm into the museum. C) He was prohibited by law from firing a firearm in the city. And D) Murder is a crime.

So we need more laws to prevent his actions?

“The philosophy cannot be wrong! Do it again only HARDER!!“

The gun ban, er control, um safety groups still aren’t getting any traction. I’ve covered this before, in Birchwood, Wisconsin is Not Hungerford, England. Neither is Washington, D.C.

(h/t: Uncle)

ANOTHER Debate Invitation

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ANOTHER Debate Invitation

A couple of days ago I replied to a rhetorical question at another blog. That blogger responded:

Kevin, Sorry it took me so long to get over here and thank you for the mention.

There have been times when pro-gun guys have pointed out to me that guns aren’t the only factor contributing to the violence, even the gun violence. I’ve always responded that I never said guns were the only factor. I realize there’s drug and alcohol abuse, there’s economics, family dysfunction, and other things that all combine to give us the gun violence we have.

In your comment you seem to be talking as if gun availability is the only factor. Since it’s not, even if your stats are perfectly accurate about the numbers of guns that were pumped into the society while the murder rate when down, there may very well have been other factors to explain that. For example, changes in certain laws, the flow of drugs into the inner cities, like crack cocaine, etc.

Besides, you conveniently leave out the accidents and suicides and talk only of murders. That’s not fair.

So, always trying to be fair, I’ve invited “mikeb30200” to debate:

Mikeb, I’ll make you the same offer I make to everyone willing to discuss the topic of gun control: I’m willing to debate you on all of the topics you mentioned above – homicide, accident, suicide, etc. – either at my blog (I’ll give you guest posting privileges) or by trading posts at our respective blogs. I don’t expect to change your mind, nor you mine. I do this so that you can present your arguments and defend them in public, and I can do the same for mine. That way, those people who have not formed concrete opinions on the topic can see both sides and make informed decisions for themselves.

If you’re sure you’re right, are you willing to defend your position?

I left the same invitation at his blog. We shall see. But I ain’t holding my breath.

UPDATE: Invitation declined:

Kevin, I’m afraid I have to decline. The reason is I honestly don’t have the time to do it. I appreciete the offer, it’s one that Bob S. has made a few times. I would also like to say, it wouldn’t really be a fair debate, my being an amateur and actually a newcomer to the gun issues and you and your friends being true experts. It’s one of the things I respect about you guys the most, you certainly have done your homework.

Since my knowledge and experience is so limited compared to yours, I’d have to invest serious time in research and referencing just to make a half way decent showing, and unfortunately I just can’t right now.

Over the last year since I have become involved in the debate I’ve learned a lot. At this rate, hopefully in a year or so, I won’t be quite so out-classed as I would be now. It would be like my getting in the ring with the Pacman.

Not that his admitted ignorance will keep him from promoting “obvious truths” that aren’t.

Facts, not Feelings

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Joe Huffman has been a source of inspiration today. First he links to a very interesting piece out of Massachusetts, then his Quote of the Day prompts me to post a reply. Blogger Mikeb30200 quoting Violence Policy Center statistics says:

The Violence Policy Center published the latest statistics which prove what many people already believed, that more guns means more gun deaths. In fact, I’ve always found it surprising that some people deny this obvious truth.

(My emphasis.) Well, I just had to respond to that. Apparently Reasoned Discourse™ hasn’t broken out there yet, so I think my comment will post, but before I hit “Publish” over there, I thought I’d do it here first:

Oh, hell, I’ll give it a shot.

Please check this Bureau of Justice Statistic page of homicide rates in the U.S. from 1950 to 2005.

Please note that, after peaking in 1991, the homicide rate in the U.S. began a steep decline until it leveled off in 1999 at a rate not seen since the mid-1960’s. Yet each and every year approximately three million new long guns and one million (or more) new handguns are purchased by American citizens.

Thus your assertion that “more guns means more gun deaths” is mathematically refuted. From 1991 through 2005 at a minimum fifty million new firearms ended up in private hands (at a guess, an increase of something like 25% over those held in 1991) yet homicide declined from a rate of 9.8/100,000 population to 5.6/100,000, or 43%.

Further, the corollary that fewer guns must equal fewer gun deaths is refuted by the example of Massachusetts. To paraphrase, their 1998 Gun Control Act has resulted in a decrease of licensed gun owners from “1,500,000 to 220,000, an 85 percent drop,” however, “Based on incidents per 100,000, gun-related homicides are up 68 percent”.

So why do “some people deny this obvious truth”, the “obvious truth” that “more guns means more gun deaths”?

Because we understand numbers, logic and reason, and check the facts.

Next question?

Now that the Comments are Posting…

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. . . over at the Christian Science Monitor, I’ve left another one. Probably too long (you know me), but it’s in response to comments 82 and 82 by Suzan Gill and “AdamG” respectively.

Susan Gill: “Well, I knew I’d bring everyone out of the woodworks with my comments, and my post did just what I wanted it to.”

But did you learn anything?

AdamG: “I’d like to see the NRA and gun enthusiasts work on a way to prevent firearms falling so easily into the hands of criminals rather than worrying about their own rights.”

Sorry, Adam. Wrong premise. Let me quote from the 1982 Carter Administration commissioned report, “Under the Gun: Weapons, Crime and Violence in America”:

“The progressive’s indictment of American firearms policy is well known and is one that both the senior authors of this study once shared. This indictment includes the following particulars: (1) Guns are involved in an astonishing number of crimes in this country. (2) In other countries with stricter firearms laws and fewer guns in private hands, gun crime is rare. (3) Most of the firearms involved in crime are cheap Saturday Night Specials, for which no legitimate use or need exists. (4) Many families acquire such a gun because they feel the need to protect themselves; eventually they end up shooting one another. (5) If there were fewer guns around, there would obviously be less crime. (6) Most of the public also believes this and has favored stricter gun control laws for as long as anyone has asked the question. (7) Only the gun lobby prevents us from embarking on the road to a safer and more civilized society.

“The more deeply we have explored the empirical implications of this indictment, the less plausible it has become. We wonder, first, given the number of firearms presently available in the United States, whether the time to “do something” about them has not long since passed. If we take the highest plausible value for the total number of gun incidents in any given year – 1,000,000 – and the lowest plausible value for the total number of firearms now in private hands – 100,000,000 – we see rather quickly that the guns now owned exceed the annual incident count by a factor of at least 100. This means that the existing stock is adequate to supply all conceivable criminal purposes for at least the entire next century, even if the worldwide manufacture of new guns were halted today and if each presently owned firearm were used criminally once and only once. Short of an outright house-to-house search and seizure mission, just how are we going to achieve some significant reduction in the number of firearms available?” (pp. 319-20)

—

“Even if we were somehow able to remove all firearms from civilian possession, it is not at all clear that a substantial reduction in interpersonal violence would follow. Certainly, the violence that results from hard-core and predatory criminality would not abate very much. Even the most ardent proponents of stricter gun laws no longer expect such laws to solve the hard-core crime problem, or even to make much of a dent in it. There is also reason to doubt whether the “soft-core” violence, the so-called crimes of passion, would decline by very much. Stated simply, these crimes occur because some people have come to hate others, and they will continue to occur in one form or another as long as hatred persists. It is possible, to be sure, that many of these incidents would involve different consequences if no firearms were available, but it is also possible that the consequences would be exactly the same. The existing empirical literature provides no firm basis for choosing one of these possibilities over the other. Restating the point, if we could solve the problem of interpersonal hatred, it may not matter very much what we did about guns, and unless we solve the problem of interpersonal hatred, it may not matter much what we do about guns. There are simply too many other objects that can serve the purpose of inflicting harm on another human being.” (pp. 321-22)

The UK has done everything that the major gun-control groups over here have insisted will reduce gun violence and access to firearms by criminals: licensing, registration, “safe storage,” and outright bans on fully-automatic weapons, semi-automatic and pump-action centerfire rifles, and all handguns. The result? The Guardian newspaper recently reported, “Firearms: cheap, easy to get and on a street near you”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/aug/30/ukcrime1

Gun violence in the UK – always low, even before there were any gun control laws on the books – has steadily increased. Crimes committed with handguns has greatly increased. While US homicide rates have been trending down sharply over the last dozen years, theirs have trended steadily upward. If the trends continue, the homicide rates in the U.S. and in the UK will be essentially equal in about five or six years.

We’re told here that states with “lax firearms laws” are responsible for the high firearm crime rates in adjacent areas with strict gun laws (think Chicago and Washington, D.C.), but no one asks why the crime rates in the areas with “lax firearms laws” are so much lower than the areas they’re supposedly supplying. The UK – England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland – doesn’t HAVE adjacent jurisdictions with “lax” gun laws. In order for guns to enter the UK, they have to come by boat or by air or by train through the Chunnel.

And they do. It’s Economics 101 – Supply and Demand. There is always enough supply to feed the demand, and the UK is the sterling example of this well known rule.

Gun control doesn’t keep guns out of the hands of criminals, it only keeps guns out of the hands of the people you need to worry about the least. We know that. Decades of research proves it. It is said that repeating the same behavior over and over while expecting a different outcome is one definition of insanity. I call it “cognitive dissonance,” once defined thus:

“When someone tries to use a strategy which is dictated by their ideology, and that strategy doesn’t seem to work, then they are caught in something of a cognitive bind. If they acknowledge the failure of the strategy, then they would be forced to question their ideology. If questioning the ideology is unthinkable, then the only possible conclusion is that the strategy failed because it wasn’t executed sufficiently well. They respond by turning up the power, rather than by considering alternatives. (This is sometimes referred to as ‘escalation of failure’.)”

I call it “Do it AGAIN, only HARDER!”

An Accompanying Sea of Disinformation

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An Accompanying Sea of Disinformation

The whole quote is:

Simply put, gun control cannot survive without an accompanying sea of disinformation. – Anonymous

Here’s a perfect example. I’d make a drinking game out of it, but nobody can drink that fast, or that much:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQN1u_aPgcM&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&w=425&h=344]
“Gun Facts” my aching sphincter. You have to wonder about someone who can spew that much bullshit in that short a period. You really do.

As Mostly Cajun put it recently, “Remember, being ignorant isn’t your fault; staying ignorant is.” This isn’t ignorance, though. It’s deliberate misinformation. And it’s just one of the reasons I started this blog – to expose these people for what they are.

Exclusion

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Exclusion?

David Codrea reports that the 2A Blog Bash has become . . . exclusive, and not in a good way. By all appearances, anyone who does not meet Bitter’s unpublished criteria won’t get blogger credentials at the NRA convention. Please do read the whole thing.

I left this comment at David’s:

Of course it’s an NRA public relations stunt. What do you think, they want news crews to tape a shouting match between the Prags and the Threepers?

Honestly, how many of you here think that mixing those two groups would result in Reasoned Discourse™? We already know what it does on the intarwebs.

And I think we’ve had this discussion before – in the Civil Right to Arms movement, the Prags play MLK and the Threepers play Malcom X. The opposition talks to the Prags, because otherwise they have to talk to you.

Don’t act all surprised and butthurt. This is the role you’ve embraced.

And this addendum:

Note:

I’m speaking for myself here. I don’t know that Bitter has done what you’ve accused her of, but I wouldn’t find it surprising, for the reason I gave above.

I’m not happy about it, but it’s her party. And no, I really don’t want to get into a shouting match with Mike Vanderboegh in the hall in front of cameras. That’s a public front I’d rather not put forth.

Discuss.