Tag: gun control

More Misinformed Ignorance and Hyperbole

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Checking Sitemeter’s referral log the other day, I came across a link to a piece at CommonDreams about guns in America. What a fascinating look into what passes for the minds of the really, really far Left. The piece itself has the normal talking-points and clichés:

Guns, and the violence their possessors inflict, have never been more prevalent in America. Gun crime has risen steeply over the past three years.

After declining precipitously for the previous ten. Note that no actual numbers are cited, and there are no links to any supporting data.

Since the killing of John F Kennedy in 1963, more Americans have died by American gunfire than perished on foreign battlefields in the whole of the 20th century.

Stipulating that this is accurate, I would note that it’s far, far less than the number of people killed by their own governments during the latter half of the 20th century.

The piece goes on, quoting Kellermann “statistics” and referencing Michael Bellisiles’ discredited “truthiness” from his book Arming America: Origins of a National Gun Culture – without, of course, actually citing them. At the end, however, the piece does make a bit of a concession:

In the meantime, the gun culture is so firmly entrenched and society so full of guns that there is little prospect of it retreating. Even those who advocate much tighter laws have long accepted defeat of the ideal of creating a society where guns are rare in public life, or even completely absent. ‘That notion is absurd. There is no way to de-gun America,’ said (University of Toledo Professor Brian Anse) Patrick.

Not that the fact that it’s absurd will actually stop people from trying.

But what I found was most interesting was the comments to the piece, some of which I’ll excerpt for your reading… enjoyment. (Yeah, that’s it. Enjoyment.)

The US gun culture is a terrible tragedy. Yet it seems to me that gun-toting Americans are more passionate over this issue than EVERY other issue we as a society must face. I have tried to speak peacefully with them, but have had to hold my tongue because they get very angry when their ownership is questioned, lest I become another of these frightening statistics. I give up. I do not know how to stem this tide. Like everything else, most gun-toting Americans have been brainwashed into thinking it provides them security (from criminals and the Government), when the reverse is true.
I should point out, however, that I own a gun, as I live and hike in a remote area with mountain lions and feral dogs. I pray that I never need to use it for I wish to never harm any creature. – “WTF”

So… guns don’t provide security, but this clown carries one… for security? Just not against criminals or the government. Right.

A country that was founded on and credited with violence will never give it up. This is a country where people LOVE to watch and experience violence from children watching violent cartoons and playing violent video games to adults watching violent shows and even the wars for oil. And what about all those toy weapons that happily get advertised in those sleazy commercials? And what about all those “get tough or get lost” attitudes teenagers end up growing with? We cannot blame just the guns but instead must learn to take control of our urge to be violent if we’re really going to be safer ever again. – “maxpayne”

Here’s an example of cranial-rectal inversion if I’ve ever seen one. It’s not our urge to be violent that makes us unsafe. As Trefor Thomas put it on Usenet so long ago, “To be civilized is to restrain the ability to commit mayhem. To be incapable of committing mayhem is not the mark of the civilized, merely the domesticated.” Here’s another case of someone unable to distinguish between “violent and predatory” and “violent, but protective.” They see only violence.

The president of NRA sums up the American societal values. He said that America takes pride in “god, gun and guts”. Most of the Republican presidential candidates were present in the function when he made this statement.

Guns takes pride of place in the American family values;
Weapons of mass destruction takes the pride of place in American foreign policy (Again America has stood first in the sales of weapons in 2006);
That means VIOLENCE takes the pride of place in the American value system;
Violence takes the pride of place in American Religion;
USA = UNITED STATES OF ARMAGEDDON – “gandhi”

But don’t question his patriotism!

People always thought I was such a twit because I would not allow my daughter’s to play with water pistols or those imitation cowboy-type pistols you load with caps. I did not want them thinking that a pretend toy, in reality, if real murders people.
I would ask parents, if my kids were going to be in their home, if they had guns in the home. Some would get very irate at this question I posed, pissed off neighbor or dead daughter, Hmmmmm, I really could not have cared less if they thought of it as an insult.
I live in a burb of Philly, my brother lives in town, and I am in town 3-4 days a week. You have to know which parts of Philadelphia has that high incidence of murder. N. Philly, certain parts of W. Philly and S. Philly past a certain block, K & A, Germantown and more. It is not the entire city of Philadelphia. I am not saying that it is okay for the increase in murders to be happening here, just have to know where to avoid. Like any other city.
Americans are gun crazy, I have never understood this phenomenon. I do not understand hunting, murdering these animals. It sickens me that the NRA weilds so much power in this country. – “Turce”

That’s because you’re a twit, Turce. You can identify the “dangerous” sections of Philly, but believe that if your daughter visits a home in which there is a gun, she’ll end up dead?

I never felt the need to own a gun or to protect myself from my neighbors. Never until until the Fascists coup. Are we safer yet? – “whatfools”

No comment!

I don’t want to have to use my .22. And I don’t see why people need assault-type rifles that would stop a rhinoceros, or punch holes through armor plate. – “Moonshadow”

More misinformed ignorance and hyperbole.

You can read the whole thing yourselves, but here’s the best comment in the whole thing:

Some unpleasant facts need to be considered:
• The natural state of mankind is tribal war. The strong will always dominate the weak if they can get away with it. This is historically true, and remains true to this day unless I have missed some subtle evolutionary sea change.
• Civilization is an artifice. The society of gentle souls who people this blog live in a happy, orderly, sheltered society carefully crafted over centuries of European jurisprudence, maintained by standing armies and policemen with glocks. But the peaceable kingdom is not the default reality among our fellow hominids. In most parts of the world you’d be insane to give up your guns. Lethal power both protects and oppresses us. I don’t like this, I just think it is true in the sublunary world.
• American society, inasmuch as both cops and robbers are living out their cowboy fantasies, is a potentially very dangerous place. The fabric of our society is a card house of non-existent money which could collapse at any time, leaving us unprepared to repel the innumerable people who today have blood issues with us.
When everybody in the world throws their guns into a big pile, I’ll be there. Until then, distasteful as it may be, I’m reluctant to give up my corporate share of lethal power.

WTF: I also live in a remote place. I decided some time ago not to be afraid of animals. The last animal I killed was in 1957 and it still makes me sick to remember it. I think the official advice about mountain lions is to chat them up. I can vouch for the effectiveness and educational value of this from personal experience. – voxclamantis

It would appear that vox is, in fact, a resident of Oracle, AZ – a town about 45 minutes North of Tucson. His real name is, ironically enough, Michael Moore. He may be a “progressive,” but at least he actually looks at the real world. At least on this topic.

No, wait! HERE’s the best comment in the thread:

Absolutely no guns at home. Only military and police can carry guns. Period. – “Bolondvero”

Because we can trust the military and the police, right? Bolondvero? Meet “whatfools.” I think you two ought to get to know one another.

I thought CommonDreams.org was a progressive web site?

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More of That “Conservative Language Manipulation” by the “Right-Wing Media”

Via Say Uncle (why do I bother to read anyone else?)

It would seem that AK-47 style rifles are “assault weapons,” but AR-15 rifles are now “police-style rifles.” Yeah, that’s it. My AR-15 can’t be banned, it’s a police-style rifle!

Because, after all, if “assault weapons” are “spray firing bullet hoses” only good for firing from the hip and mowing down large groups of people, well then our police wouldn’t need those, right?

And does anybody have a problem with the fact that a town of 2,000 has a SWAT team?

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Laura Washington. (Again)

Say Uncle is right on top of this. It used to be said, “Never pick an argument with someone who buys ink by the barrel.” Since the advent of the bit, the byte, and the pixel, this has become much less true. Still, Laura Washington is paid to produce her op-eds, and we “People of the Gun” have to respond and react on our own time and on our own dime. The “gun lobby” isn’t paying us (either that, or they’re in arrears for about twelve year’s worth of back pay to me.)

At any rate, she’s at it again, in another Chicago Sun-Times editorial calling for the election of a state representative who is running on a gun-control platform. As I have twice in the past, I sent her another email this morning:

Ms. Washington:

Since you declined to answer or even acknowledge the questions of my last email to you concerning your In These Times column “Let’s Pry Open Those Cold, Dead Hands,” I hold no hope that you will acknowledge this one. However, since I am one of those “People of the Gun” you blame Chicago’s violence on, and you’ve declared war against us, apparently, I feel required to continue to attempt diplomacy.

Your error on this topic is typical. You have mistaken two distinct cultures for only one. You are unable to distinguish between what has been called the “violent and predatory” culture from the “violent but protective” culture. You see only violence, and to you (and most urban residents) all violence is wrong, except (perhaps) violence done by uniformed officers of the State, and even there you are ambivalent.
Let me quote from a piece I read a long time ago that makes this point plainly:

Very nearly all the violence that plagues, rather than protects, society is the work of young males between the ages of fourteen and thirty. A substantial amount of the violence that protects rather than plagues society is performed by other members of the same group. The reasons for this predisposition are generally rooted in biology, which is to say that they are not going anywhere, in spite of the current fashion that suggests doping half the young with Ritalin.

The question is how to move these young men from the first group (violent and predatory) into the second (violent, but protective). This is to ask: what is the difference between a street gang and the Marine Corps, or a thug and a policeman? In every case, we see that the good youths are guided and disciplined by old men.

I will ask again the questions I raised in my previous email:

How will prying open the “cold, dead hands” or shoving “tougher gun policies” down the throats of the “People of the Gun” – people you yourself have identified as almost exclusively suburban and rural white males, have ANY effect on the behavior of young, urban, black males who are part of the culture of “violent and predatory”? And, again, don’t you think all those churches and those women could be far more effective at reducing the truly horrific carnage if they addressed their efforts directly at the young men in question, their sons and grandsons, nephews and neighbors, rather than at the suburban and rural white men who are not? Does this not hold true as well for the legislature?

Or are these questions simply too difficult for you to face, making blaming the guns and “The People of the Gun” much easier?

Tilting at windmills, but someone’s got to do it.

KevinLeave a comment

Dear Laura:.

I read with interest your latest obloquy, Let’s Pry Open Those Cold, Dead Hands published at In These Times last week, and was inspired to once again put fingers to keyboard in response. I hope that you will again endure to read to the end, even though this is just one more of the “rabid responses” your plaints attract.

I was struck, at first, by the fact that the heart of your piece was on the topic of my first email to you – the grassroots response of those of us who (from my perspective) defend a crucial right of the individual; the fact that we respond spontaneously, in volume, and with our time and money, and your side’s obvious deficiency in this regard. I suppose I should feel honored.

The second point of interest you pronounced in your piece was that we “People of the Gun” as you term us (a term we have since embraced as only the speed of the internet allows), are largely suburban and rural white males. Regardless of the smattering of vocal urban males, females, and people of color who make up our number and are welcome among us, your observation is largely correct. (If you’re interested in the female “People of the Gun” among us, I would be more than happy to forward you a number of web addresses.) Here’s a hint, though: you really should de-emphasize the networking capability of the NRA. They are far too slow and cumbersome a group, and tend to be dragged along behind the leading edge which is made up of the gun blogs and gun boards on the internet. I dare say that most of us don’t visit the NRA’s web site very much. I know I don’t. You are stuck in the mindset that some monolithic organization must lead people in the desired direction. I assure you, it doesn’t work that way any longer.

I was struck thirdly by your citation of the Justice Department report that blacks, who make up only 13 percent of the population, constitute 49 percent of the victims of homicide.

I was struck, because most people avoid mentioning this fact which has been the case for quite a while, and I am loath to do it myself in most discussions on the topic of gun control because, like a corollary to Godwin’s Law mentioning race in any internet discussion almost immediately devolves into accusations of RACISM™! and the discussion quickly crashes to a halt. But since you brought it up, if you’ll do further research you will discover that about half of the perpetrators of homicide are also among that 13 percent of the population. In fact, they are far less than 13 percent. They are most definitely not suburban and rural white males, they are a very tiny, very identifiable demographic: Young. Urban. Black. Males. And they kill each other and the innocent at a rate six times that of the rest of the population. You are absolutely correct that “African Americans have plenty of motivation” to address this problem. They’ve had this motivation for literally decades.

But whose throats do you want to shove “tougher gun policies” down? Whose “cold dead hands” do you intend to “pry open”?

And just how, exactly, will doing this affect that much smaller than 13 percent demographic in any way, shape, or form?

Allow me to quote the final paragraphs of your column:

The Rev. Michael Pfleger knows the numbers. In June, Pfleger and Jackson were arrested for criminal trespassing during a protest outside a gun shop in a Chicago suburb. Pfleger, pastor of St. Sabina’s, an African-American Catholic Church on Chicago’s South Side, has been crusading for stricter regulation of gun shops and manufacturers. Pfleger is in agony over the 34 school-age children in Chicago who were killed by gun violence in the first six months of 2007.

St. Sabina’s 2,200-member congregation is 70 percent female. Pfleger, who happens to be white, is recruiting the pastors at neighboring churches to get into the fight. “The church should be leading the path,” he says. “Women are much more vocal. I believe partly because of their sensitivity to the murder of children. Historically, women are much more progressive. Thats why churches are so vital, because women make up the main membership.”

I venture to guess that the 2,200 members of St. Sabina’s are 70% female because there’s a distinct lack of older black males, in part because of the epidemic levels of violence have been ongoing for so long. But let me point out that the 34 school-age children who died in Chicago were not killed “by gun violence,” they were killed by young black men firing guns. Young men who live in those very communities. The sons and grandsons, the nephews and neighbors of those congregations.

Pardon my asking, Ms. Washington, but don’t you think all those churches and those women could be far more effective at reducing the truly horrific carnage if they addressed their efforts directly at the young men in question, rather than at the suburban and rural white men who are not?

Again, if you’d care to discuss the topic further, I remain:

Your Humble Servant,

Kevin Baker

(Let’s see if she responds to this one.)

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Do It Again, Only HARDER!.

Say Uncle points to another Laura Washington piece on gun control. It seems Ms. Washington wants to “energize the base,” since in her previous jeremiad she stated that she wanted to “get organized and shove tougher gun policies right down their throats.”

One of those throats, obviously, would be mine. Now she wants to “pry open those cold dead hands.”

Guess whose?

Say Uncle has done a masterful job fisking her op-ed (and I’ll get back to that), and Ahab has some things to say about it, as does Sebastian, and Countertop, and Alphecca. Since Ms. Washington states in her current piece, “Whenever I write about the plague of gun violence, I get a huge blowback from the gun lovers of America,” I thought I’d do my part as well.

Before I do that, though, allow me to bask in the pleasure that Ms. Washington took what I told her in my first email to her, and wrote an op-ed from it. I wrote previously:

Ms. Washington, you note in your piece: “(I)t seems the gun control advocates have been outmatched. Abigail Spangler acknowledges as much. Spangler is the founder of ProtestEasyGuns.com, a Virginia-based group that has been spearheading a slew of anti-gun protests around the nation.

“Gun control activists, she wrote me, ‘are TRYING HARD but they are seriously affected in state after state by lack of funding and contributions.” She recently met, she says, with the leader of Virginia’s only gun control group. “He says they may not even be able to afford any lobbyist at all soon in Virginia!'”

Ms. Washington, the citizenry will offer an opinion to anyone. Opinions are free. But activism costs money – and the anti-gun side has shown that the hearts and wallets of the general public are not really into it. Ask any hundred random people on the street if they favor stricter gun laws and most likely the majority will say “yes.” Ask them what the current gun laws are, and they won’t be able to tell you. Gun rights activists can. The gun control side of the argument has been supported for decades with money from foundations, perhaps the largest contributor being the Joyce Foundation. Look them up. Those of us who believe in the right to arms are the true grass-rooters, and there are far more of us than the mere four million that the NRA claims as members. As someone once put it so pithily: “Poor Lefties; they’ve been playing on astroturf so long that they don’t know grassroots even when fed a mouthful of divot.”

In the current piece she writes:

Through organizing, the Internet, and plunking down plenty of cold hard cash, the gun lobby has proven it is ready for primetime. Meanwhile, its opponents are languishing in the wee-hours of late-night local cable.

Right. The Violence Policy Center, the Brady Center, IANSA, the Second Amendment Research Center of Ohio State University, the Harvard School of Public Health, the…. Well, you get the idea.

Gun control advocates should piggyback on the success of online activist groups like MoveOn.org and MeetUp.com. These efforts have raised millions to promote political candidates and the antiwar movement. The money is there. Barack Obama, for one, has raised over $17 million on the Internet. Marches and protests are fine, but it is imperative to devise a response that is sophisticated and symmetrical to the gun lobby’s tactics.

She realizes her side needs money, but I don’t think she knows the mailing address for her grant application to the Joyce Foundation.

ANYWAY, back to Say Uncle’s fisk. In it, he uses one of my favorite “Uncleisms” – “Gun control is what you do instead of something.”

Ms. Washington makes two statements that I think are crucial to understand about the topic, but that almost no one on either side ever addresses. To wit:

The gun army, made up almost exclusively of white men from suburban and rural areas….

and:

According to a recent report by the U.S. Justice Department, nearly half the people murdered in the United States in 2005 were black. Most lived in cities and were felled by guns. While blacks make up about 13 percent of the nation’s population, they comprised 49 percent of all murder victims.

I am reminded of the truth of the first point every time I go to the range. While Zendo Deb, Denise, Tam, Bitter, KeeWee, Breda, and hundreds if not thousands of women, not to mention black men like Kenn Blanchard and Walter Williams, are members of the “gun army,” the overwhelming majority of us are white males, mostly suburban or rural.

But very nearly half of the victims and perpetrators of violent crime are less than 13% of the population. A very identifiable less than 13%.

Young. Urban. Black. Males.

In fact, the level of violence committed by and upon this tiny demographic skews America’s violent crime rates markedly, as I pointed out in Questions from the Audience? back in January of last year.

But whose throats does Ms. Washington want to shove “tough new gun policies” down? Whose “cold dead hands” does she want to pry open, in the apparent belief it will somehow affect the problem she herself identifies?

If you misidentify the problem, it’s no surprise that you misidentify the solution, but it’s more than a little exasperating when the other side points right at a crucial datum, and continues to make the same error. It leads one to suspect either a logical disconnect, or an ulterior motive.

“Gun control is what you do instead of something” indeed.

KevinLeave a comment

Another Debate (That I’m Supposedly Terrified Of).

Yesterday Say Uncle linked to a rather hysterical (as in PSH, not ROFL) piece by someone who is, shall we say, rabidly anti-gun. Having lost two family members in separate incidents, his hatred of the tools of violence is understandable, but he’s extended that hatred out to those of us who defend the right to arms as well.

One of the posters defenders is also a blogger, and has written an invitation to debate at his blog, Unique Like Everybody. Now we just need to work out the logistics of how to do this; either trade posts at each other’s sites, or (I would prefer) post everything at both sites. I prefer to keep a record of the exchange, after The Fabulous Baker Boys debate disappeared.

JHupp, the poster at Unique Like Everybody appears to be a reasonable, intelligent person. While I doubt either of us will change our positions much, these discussions aren’t really aimed at that. They’re aimed at the audience of fence-sitters, the people who don’t have much knowledge of the topic, but who want to know more so that they can make up their own minds.

I hope he’s serious. It’s been a while since I’ve had this opportunity.

Parker Goes to SCOTUS… as D.C. v. Heller

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Not surprising. We knew this was coming. (PDF file.) Give me a couple of days and maybe I’ll fisk it. Now the question is whether SCOTUS will grant certiorari.

There was an interesting online “debate” held on the case over at The Federalist Society recently. The parties involved were:

Ohio State professor Saul Cornell, University of Tennessee Law professor Glenn Reynolds, Legal Director of the Brady Center’s Campaign to Stop Gun Violence, Dennis Henigan, Executive Director of the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence, Joshua Horwitz, and lawyers for the plantiffs in Parker, Alan Gura (Gura & Possessky, PLLC.), Bob Levy (Cato), and Clark Neily (the Institute for Justice)

It was an interesting read, especially when Glenn Reynolds echoed my position:

I’m going to go out on a limb here and predict that the Supreme Court will deny certiorari on this case. I think that’s likely because of the difficult position the Court would be placed in if it failed to find an individual right to arms under the Second Amendment. As Prof. Mike O’Shea wrote Concurring Opinions : How many Americans would view District of Columbia v. Parker as the most important court case of the last thirty years? The answer must run into seven figures. The decision would have far-reaching effects, particularly in the event of a reversal. Here is one way to think about the message the Supreme Court would be sending if it reversed the D.C. Circuit on the merits in Parker . . . That’s a comparison between the Court’s handling of the enumerated rights claim at issue in Parker, and its demonstrated willingness to embrace even non-enumerated individual rights that are congenial to the political left, in cases like Roe and Lawrence. “So the Constitution says Roe, but it doesn’t say I have the right to keep a gun to defend my home, huh?” The Court’s jurisprudence of unenumerated rights (with which I’m largely in agreement, by the way) would make it politically very difficult for the Court to eviscerate a clearly enumerated right to which many Americans attach great importance. At the same time, I don’t think the Court is willing to affirm in Parker. If I’m right, a denial of certioriari is the only way for the Court to avoid a very difficult situation.

I said as much back in May.

But my absolute favorite part of the debate was the last post, where Gura, Levy, and Neily come down with both feet on Professor Cornell for living in his Jabberwocky world:

This debate has mostly been conducted on a high level. Regrettably, Saul Cornell’s final post has stooped to ad hominem attacks, barefaced attempts to promote Cornell’s book, and reliance on a quote for which Cornell inexplicably provides no source. Let’s focus on the strange quote – the only part of Cornell’s post that isn’t personally offensive or transparently self-serving. After we repeatedly pressed Cornell to identify a single contemporaneous source for the militia view of the Second Amendment, he produced what he trumpets as “a good illustration of how Americans in the Founding era viewed the right.” Essentially, the quote states that only “the use of arms in common defense” was constitutionally protected; other purposes, such as self-defense, were subject to interdiction by the state legislature. Was this the declaration of Madison, Hamilton, or another luminary among the Framers? Cornell didn’t say. Well, we checked. The quote is from the estimable [hold your hat] Scribble Scrabble, a newspaper essayist. Was this profound thinker published in a scholarly journal? Not quite: It was the Cumberland Gazette, a newspaper in Portland, Maine. Was Scribble Scrabble opining on the U.S. Constitution? No, he was writing about a provision in the Massachusetts state constitution. Moreover, the article appeared five years before the Second Amendment was ratified. Why has Cornell quoted this bizarre source, without citation, including its deceptive reference to “The Bill of Rights,” but no mention that the provision in question was from the Massachusetts Bill of Rights? Because he could not respond any better to our challenge: Name “a single 18th century voice explaining how the Second Amendment right is to be read collectively.” Suppose, however, we accept Scribble Scrabble’s analysis, as if it applied to the federal Constitution. The notion that the legislature may freely “interdict” citizens’ ability to own guns cannot be reconciled with any clear-headed conception of “the right of the people.” Indeed, one might also assert that “the people” enjoy a right to own pens and pencils “till the legislature shall think fit to interdict.” After all, the right to own writing instruments is implicit, but not explicitly recognized, in the First Amendment. Of course, every serious-minded person rejects interdiction of pens and pencils, even those that are ultimately used for something other than free speech or a free press. Those of us on the pro-freedom side reject interdiction of guns as well. The burden of persuasion for treating guns differently than writing instruments clearly lies with those who would make that distinction. Our opponents in this debate offered precious little beyond Scribble Scrabble.

That, friends, is a professional bitch-slap.

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The Latest News from the Petri Dish.

This is actually old news, but I just ran across it recently. In the August 26 Sunday Times of London, reporter David Leppard (I wonder if his nickname is “Def”?) informs us:

THE government was accused yesterday of covering up the full extent of the gun crime epidemic sweeping Britain, after official figures showed that gun-related killings and injuries had risen more than fourfold since 1998.

Remember, the UK banned all licensed, registered centerfire handguns in 1997, and extended the ban to .22 rimfire handguns in February, 1998. The Home Office reported in February of 1999,

162,353 handguns and 700 tonnes of ammunition have been safely surrendered at an expected cost of £95 million.

The National Audit Office’s main conclusions are:
On ensuring prohibited handguns were surrendered or otherwise accounted for

* 25,000 fewer handguns were surrendered than the police forces estimated would be handed in. Forces have since concluded that this was because their estimates were inaccurate and included, for example, firearms which could be retained lawfully under various exemptions.
* We visited more than half the police forces in Britain (26 of 51) and found that most had satisfied themselves that all legally held handguns had been surrendered or otherwise accounted for. In four cases police investigations found that handguns that should have been surrendered had been retained illegally.

Only four cases! Boy, licensing and registration sure are effective measures.

If you want to confiscate things.

Home Office Minister Alan Michael announced after passage of the Act: “Britain now has some of the toughest gun laws in the world. We recognize that only the strictest control of firearms will protect the public.”

Riiiiight.

To continue with the Times report:

The Home Office figures – which exclude crimes involving air weapons – show the number of deaths and injuries caused by gun attacks in England and Wales soared from 864 in 1998-99 to 3,821 in 2005-06. That means that more than 10 people are injured or killed in a gun attack every day.

Granted, this pales in comparison with, say, the fifteen people killed in Chicago over the long weekend, but remember: England is an ISLAND. They have “needs-based” licensing, “safe storage” laws, ammunition quantity and type restrictions, bans on machine guns, semi-automatic and pump-action rifles, and all handguns. Their gun crime has always been a fraction of ours, and while our rates were decreasing each and every year (despite 3+ million new firearms being purchased here annually), their rates were slowly but steadily increasing.

They thought gun bans would make them safer.

But firearm-related crime is up fourfold since the handgun ban. And most of it is committed with handguns.

So, what to do? Cook the books!

This weekend the Tories said the figures challenged claims by Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, that gun crime was falling. David Davis, the shadow home secretary, tells her in a letter today that the “staggering findings” show her claims that gun crime has fallen are “inaccurate and misleading”.

And, of course, repeating the same behavior while expecting a different result:

Smith last night proposed the setting up of neutral “drop-off zones” where illegal weapons could be handed in. “This means we can actually take that gun out of circulation and stop it from doing harm,” she said.

That’s what the handgun ban was supposed to do. The philosophy cannot be wrong! Do it again, only HARDER!

The Home Office has repeatedly denied gun crime is rising. Last week it pointed to the latest annual crime statistics, which appeared to show that overall gun crime was 13% down on the previous year.

Denial. River. Egypt. You know the cliché.

But in his letter to Smith, released today, Davis said these claims were contradicted by figures “buried” in a Home Office statistical bulletin, published earlier this year.” [Here] we find the most revealing indication of the true gun-related violence sweeping Britain. Gun-related killings and injuries (excluding air weapons) have increased over fourfold since 1998,” he wrote.

The Home Office said: “We remain fully committed to tackling gang culture and gun and knife crime through responsive policing, tough powers and funding prevention projects.”

Otherwise known as “escalation of failure.”

Hey! I know! Let’s try it here!

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“Be consoled that you are winning the battle.”

(From that email from Laura Washington.) Want to know why we’re winning? Because we have turned away from the gun control path taken by the Brits. We have not allowed ourselves to be marginalized and politically silenced through the death-by-a-thousand-cuts.

And because too many people are willing to think for themselves about the question of guns and gun control. While anecdotes are not data, people like this woman pop up all over the country each and every week:

They’ve found a body in the woods. Again. Another missing girl, woman, sister, mother, friend strangled, stabbed, shot, raped, mutilated, dismembered and tossed in the brush, in a ditch, beside railroad tracks, in a dumpster, in the ocean like so much garbage. The details don’t really matter. They were all guilty of nothing more than perhaps smiling at the wrong man, speaking to the wrong stranger, being at the wrong place at the wrong time, not being wary enough while going about their daily lives, not realizing that they were prey, that someone was watching them, following them and thinking violent thoughts about them.

The photographs their loved ones give to the police are all eerily similar..a sideways smile, a dream behind the eyes. They could be me, or you, your best friend, your neighbor or your mother. And then the body is found and the coroner talks about needing dental records, about decomposition, about DNA. I can never get over the horror of it, those women, their thoughts and hopes and precious temples of flesh so quickly turned to nothing but scraps of meat and bones and if never found, nothing. Forgotten, except for the whispered hometown legends about the girl who got lost, disappeared without a trace.

How fragile we are.

Every time I hear another one of these stories, I decide that this will never happen to me. That I will not be a victim. A man will never understand the fear a woman has walking across a dark parking lot alone. How it may be a risky thing to take a walk by yourself around your own neighborhood. How no amount of judo or karate will make a difference if you are a small female person and there’s a large male person who’s running after you or, God forbid, has gotten close enough to put his hands on you.

I have two defenses. #1, listen to that internal warning alarm and pay attention to my surroundings and the people in it. #2, get my concealed carry permit. I’m halfway there.

“Abe Lincoln may have freed all men, but Sam Colt made them equal.”

Women, this is for you too. Don’t be afraid of protecting yourself. You really are worth it.

Every day people realize that they bear primary responsibility for their own protection, and that depending exclusively on the police or others is unrealistic. They consider the options, and then many of them consider a gun. Education is the key. People fear what they do not understand, and can be convinced of anything in their ignorance. Knowledge is empowerment:

I come from a long line of awesome women. Brave and bold and clever…and not the least of these my own mother. I took her shooting at the range today. She was tiny bit apprehensive at first and jumpy at the sound of the guy shooting the .357 next to us, but after a quick lesson on gun safety, loading, and lining up the sights, she got right in there and started shooting. After her first 10 shots, she put down the gun, turned around and had the most immense grin on her face. It was a beautiful thing.

I’ve decided that it is now my task to convince every girl I know to come to the range and and shoot with me. If my 60-something, breast cancer survivor mother can shoot (and hit the target!), anyone can. And should.

Amen! (H/t to Say Uncle for the initial link.)

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“Authorized Journalist” Misses the Key Facts.

Big freaking surprise.

A Keyboard and a .45 has the real scoop on how the legacy media once again allowed itself to be manipulated in the battle against those eeeevil guns, the giant gun industry and its all-powerful lobby that wants to see a gun in every child’s hand!

Hie thee hence. And maybe write a short letter to the editor when you’re done reading.