Tag: gun control

Tim Lambert Responds!

KevinLeave a comment

Tim has a new post up, dedicated to proving me wrong after that long exchange. Too bad we seem to be arguing different topics, but… My response is (typically for me) really long, and the preview function in his comment section seems to have puked, so I’m responding here. Please go read Tim’s opening salvo first so you understand what I’m responding to.

Glad you responded, Tim. I thought for a second you’d abandoned the field!

Point 1: I stated, quite plainly:

Where have I said a gun is the ONLY way?

Please, point it out.

I’ve said that, for those so willing it’s the BEST TOOL FOR THE JOB. But as Mr. Lindsay demonstrates, it’s hardly the “only way.”

Now you’ve changed the assertion to that I state a WEAPON is the “only way” to defend yourself, even though I gave a hypothetical example of unarmed self-defense in that same thread:

Example: Someone confronts me and demands my wallet (with an implied threat of physical injury if I do not comply.) Instead of yielding up my wallet, I punch him in the mouth and knock him out. Doing so, I break my hand. I am injured, but I have not lost my wallet. I have successfully defended myself, even though I did not avoid injury. I have done something else – I have prevented a crime of violence (robbery edited from the original) through the legitimate use of force. My punching him in the mouth is not assault, it’s self-defense. If I am able to call the police and the mugger is apprehended, (hopefully before he recovers consciousness) I have aided in removing a violent criminal from the street (until they put him out on bail ten minutes after arraignment.) If I then testify against him and put him in jail, I’ve done a bit more effective job (unless he gets a sentence of probation.) Regardless, I’ve not only defended myself, I’ve defended society by resisting violent crime and attempting to remove a violent criminal from the general population.

Now, repeat the exercise above with the assailant holding an (illegal) knife, and me with only my hands and feet with which to defend myself.

Then add my wife and my two grandchildren to the equation.

I note you didn’t comment on that example.

Point 2: “If the law disarms attackers, then it can make self defence possible where it would have been impossible if the attacker was armed.” Nice of you to admit that last point. Big “if” there at the start, though. Because what you are saying here by implication is “Honest citizens should never use a weapon in self defense, and the government is honestly doing everything it can to disarm everybody so that you can successfully defend yourself in your unarmed state.” Well! That’s comforting. Good to know the government is looking out for its citizens. But it’s obvious to anyone with two brain cells to rub together that the law doesn’t disarm attackers. They choose to carry a weapon or not regardless of the law.

You’re damned right I focus on cases where the only way to defend yourself is with a weapon, because the UK government has seen fit to disarm the law-abiding. As the link you provided in the original thread stated,

One of the most important limitations on the use of weapons is of course that they cannot be carried or used to injure other people. (Emphasis added)

Apparently any other people, including someone who assaults you.

I did indeed assert that the laws against weapons have essentially no effect on the access to weapons by criminals. I didn’t provide evidence because I thought anyone reading would acknowledge that the English experience pretty much illustrated that, but no, you’ve whipped out some pretty charts to ostensibly prove otherwise. Well, I’m game.

Your first chart indicating violent crime rates shows a climb from about 2.2 million incidents in 1981 to about 4.2 million in 1995, then a reduction to about 2.5 million in 2000. According to this Home Office page in 2002/03 it’s back up to not quite 2.8 million. You’re certainly right about crime going up and down, but you’re looking at the short trend, not the long one, and you neglect to note that violent crime here in the States – where we don’t “enjoy” the kind of weapon control laws the UK does, also began trending down at the same time. One problem – the rates in England & Wales now exceed ours, and have for a while. Hell, they exceed most everybody’s.

The second graphic shows armed robberies involving firearms and you use it to state “Robberies with firearms are less frequent now than they were at the start of the 90s.” They are? The way I read that chart, they climbed dramatically from 1990 to ’95, dipped pretty significantly after 1995 (prior to Dunblane) and they minimized in 1998, but they’re right back up to where they were in 1990. I thought the handgun ban was supposed to make everyone safer? This Home Office report indicates that from 1991 through 1995 violent crime committed with firearms in England and Wales stayed fairly stable at about 13,000 per year. Then there was the ’96 handgun ban and things started to fluctuate, but the trend is still UP rather than DOWN. UP, in fact to a level of over 22,000 for 2002.

Aside from that, British weapon control laws started long before 1981. They actually started about 1920 (Bolshevism and all that) with The Firearms Act, 1920 that required registration of rifles and handguns and introduced the “good reason” restriction. “Self defense” at that time was an accepted “good reason.” It really got going in the middle of the century with the Prevention of Crime Act, 1953 which made it illegal to carry an “offensive weapon” without demonstrating a “need.” “Offensive weapons” included knives, pointed objects, and tear gas along with firearms. This is, apparently, where the government decided that “the most important limitations on the the use of weapons is of course that they cannot be carried or used to injure other people.”

Here’s a challenge, Tim. You work at a university and have access to stuff that’s not on-line. Go dig up the violent crime rate statistics for England & Wales from 1900 through 2000. Long ago I found statistics that showed the rate was low and stable up until shortly after passage of the Prevention of Crime Act, 1953. In 1958 the rate was a tiny 69/100,000, but it climbed strongly and steadily from there until by 1997 it was up to 647/100,000 – a more than 900% increase. According to this report the rate for 2002/03 was 1900/100,000. Now, I’m certain that changes in the way crimes are recorded has had an effect on those numbers, and while Gary Mauser’s graph shows an apparent step-change in those rates right about 1997, they just kept going up.

Perhaps you’re right, perhaps the fact that the government implemented a philosophy of

All weapons are offensive and weapons cause violent crime, therefore we must do everything in our power to disarm our populace in order to prevent violent crime!

isn’t responsible for the increase, but I’ve not seen any other explanation for it. But you know us “gullible gunners!” So simplisme.

What I have seen is that implementation of that policy has not made England and Wales safer. That polity has moved up rapidly to achieve the rank of #1 in violent crime in the developed world. Regardless of whether the laws passed as a result of that philosophy are responsible for the increase, both have proven useless in actually reducing violent crime. The philosophy has failed, yet it has been repeatedly tried, each time with more vigor, in a textbook example of cognitive dissonance.

I’ll repeat myself, since it seems necessary: This isn’t about guns. It isn’t about weapons. It’s about a philosophy that denies the absolute right to defend yourself, your family, and your property while giving that right lip-service. If you can defend as valid a system that tells people they have a right to self-defense but denies to them the means to exercise that right then we can’t have a productive discussion. We won’t be talking to each other. But I hope sincerely that you’ll continue this exchange, because other people need to see it. They need to see how you can answer the question,

And how is a woman to exercise her presumed inherent right to lethal force against a rapist if she’s denied any means with which to do so? What weapon is she left with? Foul language? Mean thoughts? Rapier wit?”

with

Restrictions on weapons might make self defence more difficult in some cases, but they can also make it easier in others.

Abstractions are always so much easier to deal with than hard realities.

I’ve got lots of questions to ask you Tim, and I’m really interested in your responses. Here’s an invitation: I have another blog that I started just for discussions like this, because comment sections are just too damned limited. Want to join me there? Would you rather just trade posts? Or would you rather stop now before I make your brain hurt in your defense of the indefensible? As I said, I’m game.

UPDATE, 4/5/04 10:30 AM MST: Tim has a new post up, but has yet to respond to this post in either my comments, his comments, or the body of his blog. It’s only been two days, though. I’ll give him a couple more…

UPDATE 5:00PM: You’ve GOT to read this! Aaaaaahhhggghh! And I can’t post on it yet! THAT gets archived!

UPDATE 4/6 11:00AM: Tim has responded in the comments of his post. I think he’s going to find that forum restrictive if this exchange goes on very long, but his choice. I’ll reply in a couple of days, probably after I have something to say about my question above.

No Time to Post Here, But…

KevinLeave a comment

Instead I engaged in a short exchange with a commenter to a thread over at Dean Esmay’s:

Stu:

If you’re a young, urban, black American male you have a very high chance of being murdered. If you’re a young, urban, hispanic American male, your chances are lower, but still quite high.

If you do not fit either of those demographics, your chances of being murdered are about the same as the average Canadian’s. Perhaps lower, because young, urban black males in America die of homicide at six times the rate of the rest of our population.

In comparing the US and England, the homicide rate ratio between the two countries has always been in excess of 5:1 – even when neither nation had any gun control whatsoever. I believe the ratio is currently just under 4:1, but I cannot be sure of that at the moment.

And finally, “‘The reality is that banning guns does not keep guns out of the hands of criminals;’ The logic of that statement completely eludes me. The primary source of illegal guns is theft from legal gun owners. So eliminate ALL of the guns, and criminals have a much more difficult time accessing them.”

England has tried that. It made possession of all handguns illegal in 1996. All 156,000 legally-owned handguns (Actually, I think it was 163,000) were turned in, along with 750,000 rounds of legally possessed ammunition. Handgun crime has gone UP every year since. England recently had a “firearm amnesty” where people could turn in illegal weapons, no questions asked. The collected almost 200,000 firearms and over a million rounds of ammo – but in the violence-ridden areas of London and Manchester there was almost no response.

Banning guns makes it more difficult for criminals to acquire them, but it does not make it effectively difficult, as England demonstrates.

It is not physically possible to “ELIMINATE ALL OF THE GUNS” – and since violent criminals represent somewhere around 1% of a population, it doesn’t require very many guns to service that population. And they will be served – the first rule of economics is that demand will be met with supply.

Banning guns ignores these simple and obvious facts. And all it does is disarm the people you DON’T need to worry about. The inability to see this logic is what eludes me.

Posted by Kevin Baker on March 25, 2004 at 11:39 AM

Kevin: “If you’re a young, urban, black American male you have a very high chance of being murdered. If you’re a young, urban, hispanic American male, your chances are lower, but still quite high.”

Chopping up demographics in this way is what I meant when I said “tortured statistics”. Unless you’re saying that this group doesn’t count, or something.

Kevin: “In comparing the US and England, the homicide rate ratio between the two countries has always been in excess of 5:1 – even when neither nation had any gun control whatsoever. I believe the ratio is currently just under 4:1, but I cannot be sure of that at the moment.”

Britain has had what would be considered to be tight gun control (in comparison to the US) since 1920. And the overall homicide rate ratio is 10:1

Kevin: “England has tried that. It made possession of all handguns illegal in 1996. All 156,000 legally-owned handguns were turned in, along with 750,000 rounds of legally possessed ammunition. Handgun crime has gone UP every year since.”

And the homicide rate?

Posted by Stu on March 25, 2004 at 12:09 PM

Stu:

That’s not “chopping up demographics” or “tortured statistics” – it’s explaining that homicide is not homogenous throughout a society. Handgun ownership, for instance, is largely concentrated in the white male population, but homicide is heavily concentrated in the young, black, urban male population. You are attempting to make the case that “more guns = more homicide” yet that conclusion cannot be logically drawn given the facts. In the United States approximately 1 million handguns and two million long guns are added to the private market each year, yet we’ve had ten or more years of declining homicide rates.

Homicide in England has trended – slightly – UP since the handgun ban. The proportion of homicides committed with handguns has gone UP since the ban.

This suggests that guns are not the cause of homicide, yet gun bans treat them as though they are.

“Britain has had what would be considered to be tight gun control (in comparison to the US) since 1920. And the overall homicide rate ratio is 10:1” That is incorrect. The U.S. homicide rate in 2000 was 5.64/100,000. England & Wales had a rate of 1.61/100,000, for a ratio of 3.5:1. The firearm homicide ratio is 10:1. What you consider to be “tight” gun control may differ somewhat from mine.

Dean’s comment section is not an appropriate place to hold this discussion IMHO. I have a blog that I set up specifically for discussions of this type. Would you be interested in debating this topic with me there?

Posted by Kevin Baker on March 25, 2004 at 1:39 PM

“Dean’s comment section is not an appropriate place to hold this discussion IMHO.”

I disagree. This is what the comments section is for.

Why did you just post the homicide rate for England and Wales, and not include those of Scotland and NI? Even so, what would attribute the higher homicide rate in America to?

Posted by Stu on March 25, 2004 at 1:57 PM

Stu:

It’s inappropriate because it’s his bandwidth, and it’s an awkward place to make extended points – which a discussion of this type requires.

I excluded Scotland and Northern Ireland because they are not normally included in the general comparison between the U.S. and what most people here think of when you say “Britain.” If you average England & Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, the rate is about 2.25/100,000. Both Scotland and Northern Ireland have higher homicide rates than England & Wales. That would bring the ratio down to about 2.5:1.

Homicide is a largely cultural thing, but it is exacerbated by the illicit drug trade and consumption of mind-altering substances, both of which are concentrated in specific demographics in both the U.S, the UK, and Canada. The culture of the U.S. is still relatively young compared to Europe, and it is historically violent. Europeans seemed to prefer engaging in killing wholesale (with war after war after war) we tend to do it retail. Canada seems to be more European in nature.

Posted by Kevin Baker on March 25, 2004 at 2:15 PM

I guess that means he won’t debate me over at The Fabulous Baker Boys. Too bad. That would have been fun.

KevinLeave a comment

There’s a Police Force that Still Issues REVOLVERS?

Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls, here’s another example of the cluelessness of the media when it comes to firearms, and the double-standard between the honorable law-enforcement community and we mere peons.

And, of course, the obligatory reference to evil “assault weapons.”

The Corpus Christi Caller-Times reports on the police force’s desire to upgrade from revolvers to semi-autos. Let us fisk:

Police may switch to semi-autos

Rank and file police officers could soon holster identical firearms if the police chief gets his way. He’s developing a standardized gun policy to better protect officers with concern for not risking public safety, he said.

Remember that point.

“We must provide officers with the tools to combat the crooks who are better armed than we are,” said Police Chief Pete Alvarez. Alvarez’s officer survey indicates semi-automatic weapons are the gun of choice.

A cost of approximately $500 to $700 per gun for officers will be paid for using drug seizure money allotted for the police department, the chief said. Police officers are initially issued revolvers and now pay for their own semi-automatic weapons.

That’s a pretty sucky policy, I’ll grant. But here comes the evil “assault weapon” bit:

Police ability to protect and defend the public wanes when they’re caught in the open and run out of firepower while facing a bullet-spitting SKS assault rifle wielded by a gang member, Alvarez said.

It’s a semi-automatic rifle that fires more accurately from long-range.

“The SKS is a common weapon in Corpus Christi, and police are definitely outgunned,” said John Hornsby, 36, Corpus Christi police ballistics’ identification supervisor. “But I’m not a fan of the ‘one-size-gun-fits-all’ mindset.”

(*Sigh*)

First, the SKS is NOT an “assault rifle,” even by the (admittedly loose) Federal definition. It has a fixed magazine, no pistol grip, and only holds ten rounds.

It is a semi-automatic rifle, but then, so is the Ruger Mini-14 – a weapon excluded from the AWB that does take a detachable magazine. They both “spit bullets.”

Aren’t all firearms “bullet-spitting?”

And what, exactly, does “fires more accurately from long-range” mean? More accurately than what? What constitutes “long range”? The switch to semi-auto pistols is supposed to make the police equal to SKS-toting gangsters? Um, the SKS is a rifle. A pistol is what you use to fight your way to your rifle.

I’m supposed to believe the author of this is a Texan? Must be a Yankee transplant.

Gun uniformity is a law enforcement agency trend recently adopted by the Texas Department of Public Safety, FBI, Parks and Wildlife wardens and others, Alvarez said.

Because they are often in rural areas and might be chasing vehicles, the Nueces County Sheriff’s Department often uses weapons designed for more long-range use. The DPS already uses a semi-automatic weapon.

As a long-range handgunner myself, I call “BULLSHIT!” Revolvers are by far more suitable to long-range shooting than semi-autos, second only to single-shot specialty pistols. Semi-autos are better at “bullet-spitting,” though. (Remember that “public safety” quote, now.)

Benefits of standardizing

The benefits outweigh the concerns, Alvarez said. A standardized weapon policy would:

Enhance officer safety

Save costs by not duplicating training

Better protect the public

The Corpus Christi Police Department provides cadets with either a .357-caliber Magnum or .38-caliber revolver that holds six bullets and trains them with this type of gun. But about 80 percent of the 437 officers have received secondary training to carry semi-automatic weapons that have cartridges holding 16 rounds. The department has nine models and calibers approved for use, police officials said.

Uh, right. Well, he didn’t call them “clips” at least. Anyway, the cops have the choice of carrying a six-shot revolver, or a sixteen shot pistol. I know what choice I’d take. I’d much rather spit sixteen rounds between reloads.

When officers choose to shelve the department-issued revolver and purchase, out of their own pockets, a semi-automatic weapon, they have to complete a 10-hour automatic weapon transitional course before they’re allowed to use it in service. If the department adopts a standardized firearm policy, only the initial 40-hour academy weapons training would be required.

“This standardized firearm policy would save the department about $350 per officer by eliminating secondary training,” said Cmdr. Bryan Smith, in charge of police training. It will also reduce the ammunition inventory kept in stock at the firing range, he said.

“The benefit is creating one method of training with one trigger-pull that every officer would be expected to master,” Smith said. Guns come with different trigger pressures and grips.

Now there’s a newsflash.

Most buy own semi-autos

Most Corpus Christi police officers have chosen to buy their own semi-automatic weapons in the past 20 years, but opinions regarding the use of revolvers and semi-automatic guns are as varied as the types of weapons being used.

Assistant Chief Ken Bung has been reviewing responses from officers regarding a change to standardized weapons and says that most officers seem to prefer a .40-caliber semi-automatic weapon.

“We want a weapon that the biggest majority of our officers can shoot effectively,” Bung said. Of 58 responses to the chief’s survey, some of which represent several officers’ opinions, more than half favor a standardized weapon, Bung said. Twelve respondents thought more than one weapon should be authorized, and almost all wanted a semi-automatic weapon, he said.

The department is also reviewing research material from other police agencies, and Bung said they should make an educated decision “fairly soon.”

Surviving with revolvers

Some officers have survived tense situations with the standard-issue six-shooter.

“One officer was shot a few years ago before he cleared leather with his weapon,” said Cmdr. Jesse Garcia, the uniform police supervisor. “He emptied his .357 returning fire and had the barrel in the guy’s stomach when it finally clicked empty.”

But last November Officer Phillip Bintliff, 34, ran out of ammunition in a shootout in the 4000 block of Schanen Boulevard when a suspect shot him in the abdomen, Garcia said.

In the same shootout, officer Jose Smith, 28, was shot in the forehead and dropped his weapon, a 9 mm semi-automatic handgun that holds 16 rounds, and the suspect retrieved it to shoot police officer Israel Carrasco, 32, in the shoulder and leg, Garcia said.

“Hands down, the semi-automatic is the way to go,” Garcia said. “But it’d be like the department buying one size rain coat for everyone.”

Err, perhaps a poor analogy Commander. That way you end up with some officers enveloped in their raincoats, and some with their limbs sticking out in the rain.

It’s more important that the officer be able to shoot what he or she carries, as New Mexico State Trooper Lt. Don Day recently demonstrated when he used his single-action revolver – loaded with only five rounds – to stop a bank robber.

Some semi-automatic weapons have been known to jam.

“It depends on the quality of the gun,” Garcia said. “Any automatic has the possibility of a jam, but proper caretaking minimizes it, and officers are trained to clear jamming.”

Well, yes and no. If you’re wounded and “limp-wristing” the reliability of semi-auto pistols is definitely less than that of revolvers. Revolvers can fail, though it’s rare, and they’re far less sensitive to ammo quality, but when a revolver fails, it’s usually a major failure, not a “tap, rack, bang” semi-auto jam.

Calls for variety of weapons

Other high-ranking police officials voiced concerns.

“We don’t buy one size pair of pants,” said Capt. Mike McKinney, communications supervisor. “I don’t think we can buy one handgun and everyone be able to shoot it competently.”

Apparently Captain McKinney isn’t fond of the single-size issue raincoat.

McKinney thinks the department should have gun manufacturers provide a variety of guns for extensive testing.

“We need different size officers, with different skill levels, men and women, to shoot several hundred rounds from each firearm,” McKinney said. “That’s the only way to compare a cross-section and decide what’s best for the department as a whole.”

There’s a variety of ammunition to choose from for use with semi-automatic weapons, and it is an important consideration for public safety, Alvarez said.

Some agencies have different requirements.

“FBI agents use ammunition that penetrates and exits the suspect,” McKinney said. “Their thought is that the suspect will bleed out and drop sooner with two wounds.”

For local police, the ammunition of choice for semi-automatic weapons is a 124-grain hollow-point bullet made by Federal called Hydra-Shok, McKinney said.

Hollow point bullets take in fluid and tissue while tearing through a body, which causes the slug to expand and slow down, Hornsby said. Depending on the angle of the shot, distance and how it hits, the slug often doesn’t exit the body, he said.

Alvarez said the nature of the hollow points lessens the possibility that a bullet could exit an intended target and strike another person.

“We need to select ammunition with enough knock-down power to get the job done,” Alvarez said. “But not powerful enough to continue trajectory to others.”

“We’ve got to change with the times,” Alvarez said. “Criminals are better equipped and we shouldn’t be left behind.”

OK, now remember the bit about public safety? Check the graphic that came with the story:

Yet New Jersey makes civilian peon possession of hollowpoint ammo illegal, calling them “cop-killer” bullets, although the NYPD uses the 124 grain 9mm Hydrashok. But this article explains that hollowpoint ammo is safer for the public – that’s why the police use them.

I love the ignorance and logical inconsistencies the anti-gun crowd constantly exhibits.

It would be more entertaining if they weren’t so dangerous.

Speaking of Teddy Kennedy…

KevinLeave a comment

Let’s fisk his little rant from his Senate testimony on S. 1805 concerning armor-piercing ammo:

As we all know too well, the debate about gun violence has often been aggressive and polarizing with anti-gun violence advocates on one side of the debate, pro-gun advocates on the other. There are deep divisions in the country on the issue of gun safety, and the current debate on the gun immunity bill has thus far only served to highlight those divisions.

I believe, however, that there are still some principles on which we can all agree. One principle is that we should do everything we can to protect the lives and safety of police officers who are working to protect our streets, schools, and communities.

The amendment I am offering today is intended to close the existing loopholes in the Federal law that bans cop-killer bullets. Police officers depend on body armor for their lives. Body armor has saved thousands of police officers from death or serious injury by firearm assault. Most police officers who serve large jurisdictions wear armor at all times when on duty. Nevertheless, even with body armor, too many police officers remain vulnerable to gun violence.

According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, every year between 50 and 80 police officers are feloniously killed in the line of duty. In 2002, firearms were used in 51 of the 56 murders of police officers. In those shootings, 34 of the officers were wearing body armor at the time of their deaths. From 1992 to 2002, at least 20 police officers were killed after bullets penetrated their armor vests and entered their upper torso.

Some gun organizations have argued that cop-killer bullets are a myth. The families of these slain police officers know better. In fact, we know that armor-piercing ammunition is not a myth because it is openly and notoriously marketed and sold by gun dealers.

I direct my colleagues’ attention to the Web site of Hi-Vel, Incorporated, a self-described exotic products distributor and manufacturer in Delta, UT. You can access its online catalog on the Internet right now. Hi-Vel’s catalog lists an entry for armor-piercing ammunition. On that page you will find a listing for armor-piercing bullets that can penetrate metal objects. The bullets are available in packages of 10 for $9.95 each. Hi-Vel carries armor-piercing bullets for both the .223 caliber rifles such as the Bushmaster sniper rifle used in the Washington area attacks in October 2002, and the 7.62 caliber assault weapons. Over the past 10 years, these two caliber weapons were responsible for the deaths of 14 of the 20 law enforcement officers killed by ammunition that penetrated body armor.

Check the sleight-of-hand here. Hi-Vel does indeed sell “armor piercing” ammunition designed to penetrate steel. But police vests aren’t made of steel. They are made of kevlar fiber. The police wear relatively soft, relatively flexible National Institute of Justice Class II, IIA or IIIA rated vests at best. These vests are designed to stop 9mm, .357 Magnum, and .44 Magnum handgun rounds, respectively. In order to stop any centerfire rifle round, “armor piercing” or not, would require moving up to the heavy, rigid Class III and Class IV vests worn by our military personnel. You’ll remember the Class IV vests from the “embedded” journalists during the invasion of Iraq. They were those very heavy vests with the splatter-deflecting collars that looked so uncomfortable, like this one:

But Senator Kennedy, like all gun control zealots, wants to convince you that it requires special “armor-piercing” ammunition to penetrate a soft Class II, IIA or IIIA police vest. He wants you to believe that the officers killed with .223 and 7.62mm so-called “assault weapons” were using ammunition like Hi-Vel’s ammo, and not off the shelf standard hunting ammo or even more common military surplus full metal jacket rounds. He expects his listeners to be ignorant, and to believe what he doesn’t say.

In a recent report, the ATF identified three, .223 and the 7.62 caliber rifles, as the ones most frequently encountered by police officers. These high-capacity rifles, the ATF wrote, pose an enhanced threat to law enforcement, in part because of their ability to expel particles at velocities that are capable of penetrating the type of soft body armor typically worn by law enforcement officers.

“Particles”? I think the Senator meant “projectiles.” What he doesn’t say is that any centerfire rifle “expels particles” at velocities high enough to penetrate soft body armor. That’s why the National Institute of Justice classifies vests as it does. But the facts are just too inconvenient for the Senator.

Here’s where he really goes off into the twilight zone, though:

Another rifle caliber, the 30.30 caliber, was responsible for penetrating three officers’ armor and killing them in 1993, 1996, and 2002. This ammunition is also capable of puncturing light-armored vehicles, ballistic or armored glass, armored limousines, even a 600-pound safe with 600 pounds of safe armor plating.

Say WHAT?

The .30-30 was introduced in 1895 as the .30 Winchester Centerfire, chambered in the “high-capacity assault weapon” of its day, the Winchester 1894 lever-action rifle. This is a ’94 Winchester:

Scary, isn’t it? It was one of the first commercial cartridges loaded with then-new smokeless powder, but it was stuck with the cartridge naming convention of the era – bullet diameter and black powder load equivalent: A .30 caliber bullet and 30 grains of black powder. According to my copy of Hodgdon’s No. 25 reloading manual, the standard .30-30 load pushes a 150 grain bullet at about 2200 feet per second out of a rifle with a 24″ barrel. The bullet used in the .30-30 normally has a blunt, flat tip because of the tubular magazine normally used in lever-action rifles. Yet Teddy Kennedy wants us to believe that this magical round – responsible for the deaths of three officers – is capable of penetrating “600 pounds of safe armor plating.” Whatever the hell that means. Sounds impressive, doesn’t it? Here’s some comparisons:

The .30-30, 150 grain bullet, 2200 feet per second.

The .308 Winchester (7.62NATO), 150 grain bullet, 2600 feet per second

The .30-06, 150 grain bullet, 2800 feet per second.

The .300 Winchester Magnum, 150 grain bullet, 3100 feet per second.

The .300 Remington UltraMag, 150 grain bullet, 3400 feet per second.

.30-378 Weatherby, 150 grain bullet, 3500 feet per second

Here’s a picture to give you some idea of the cartridges.

From right to left, smallest to largest: .308 Winchester, .30-06 Springfield, .300 Winchester Magnum, .300 Remington UltraMag, and the .30-378 Weatherby.

Remember, the lowly .30-30 is fast enough to penetrate a Class IIIA vest.

Yet Senator Kennedy doesn’t want people to think that he’s interested in banning hunting ammunition, just ammunition that can penetrate a soft police vest.

It is outrageous and unconscionable that such ammunition continues to be sold in the United States of America. Armor-piercing ammunition for rifles and assault weapons is virtually unregulated in the United States.

“Assault weapons” like the ’94 Winchester.

A Federal license is not required to sell such ammunition unless firearms are sold as well. Anyone over the age of 18 may purchase this ammunition without a background check. There is no Federal minimum age of possession. Purchases may be made over the counter, by mail order, by fax, by Internet, and there is no Federal requirement that dealers retain sales records.

Note all these things that the Senator wants: Background checks for ammunition sales. A minimum age for possession of rifle ammunition. Dealer record keeping for ammunition sales – a record keeping requirement that would convince most retailers that it was simply too much trouble to sell ammo.

And now he goes off on the current boogeyman, the evil .50BMG rifle:

In 1999, investigators for the General Accounting Office went undercover to assess the availability of .50 caliber armor-piercing ammunition. Purchasing cop-killer bullets, it turned out, is only slightly more difficult than buying a lottery ticket or a gallon of milk. Dealers in Delaware, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia informed the investigators that the purchase of these kinds of ammunition is subject to no Federal, State, or local restrictions. Dealers in Alaska, Nebraska, and Oregon who advertised over the Internet told an undercover agent that he could buy the ammunition in a matter of minutes, even after he said he wanted the bullets shipped to Washington, DC, and needed them to pierce an armored limousine or theoretically take down a helicopter. Talk about homeland security.

The .50 BMG round, by virtue of its weight and velocity (750 grains at 2800 fps) will penetrate any body armor, and even if it didn’t, that much kinetic energy would most probably kill a human being from mere shock. Kennedy has pulled a sleight-of-hand here – he’s not talking about protecting officers in soft body armor any more, but he hasn’t bothered to tell anybody.

In a single year, over 100,000 rounds of military surplus armor-piercing ammunition were sold to civilians in the United States.

And there were how many officers shot through their vests and killed? Twenty, between 1992 and 2002, according to the Senator. That’s two per year, versus one million rounds of “armor piercing” ammunition sold. And not one of those officers was killed with an “armor piercing” round. They were killed with standard, everyday centerfire rifle ammo.

And now he goes off on Smith & Wesson’s horrible new .500 S&W Magnum, the new weapon designed, in his eyes, specifically to kill cops:

In addition, the gun manufacturer, Smith & Wesson, recently introduced a powerful new revolver, the .500 magnum, 4-1/2 pounds, 15 inches long, that clearly has the capability of piercing body armor using ammunition allowed under the current law.

Well, it is bigger than the .44 Magnum, I’ll give him that.

The publication, Gun Week, reviewed the new weapon with enthusiasm: “Behold the magic, feel the power,” it wrote.

Many of our leaders will buy the Smith & Wesson .500 Magnum for the same reason that Edmund Hillary climbed Mt. Everest: Because it is there.

Note the ad doesn’t say:

Many of our leaders will buy the Smith & Wesson .500 Magnum because it will penetrate body armor and kill cops.

Teddy just hates it because people will want it, and the proles shouldn’t own guns.

Current Federal law bans certain armor-piercing ammunition for handguns. It establishes a content-based standard. It covers ammunition that is, first of all, constructed from tungsten alloys, steel, iron, brass, bronze, beryllium, copper, or depleted uranium or, secondly, larger than .22 caliber with a jacket that weighs no more than 25 percent of the total weight of the bullet.

However, there are no restrictions on ammunition that may be manufactured from other materials but can still penetrate body armor. Even more important, there are no restrictions on armor-piercing ammunition used in rifles and assault weapons. Armor-piercing ammunition has no purpose other than penetrating bulletproof vests. It is of no use for hunting or self-defense. Such armor-piercing ammunition has no place in our society–none.

Except you don’t need “armor piercing” ammunition to penetrate “bulletproof” vests. Standard soft-point hunting ammo from a .30-30 will do the job, as Teddy pointed out.

Armor-piercing bullets that sidestep the Federal ban, such as that advertised on Hi-Vel’s Web site, put the lives of American citizens and those sworn to defend American citizens in jeopardy every single day. We know the terrorists are now exploiting the weaknesses and loopholes in our gun laws. The terrorists training manual discovered by American soldiers in Afghanistan in 2001 advised al-Qaida operatives to buy assault weapons in the United States and use them against us.

Terrorists are bent on exploiting weaknesses in our gun laws. Just think of what a terrorist could do with a sniper rifle and only a moderate supply of armor-piercing ammunition.

Just think what he could do with a .300 Magnum bolt-action rifle and some decent 168 grain match rounds. But Teddy doesn’t want to take away sporting ammunition, right?

My amendment amends the Federal ban on cop-killer bullets to include a performance standard and extends the ban on centerfire rifles, which include the sniper rifles and assault weapons responsible for the deaths of 17 police officers whose body armor was penetrated by this ammunition.

My amendment will not apply to ammunition that is now routinely used in hunting rifles or other centerfire rifles. To the contrary, it only covers ammunition that is designed or marketed as having armor-piercing capability. That is it–designed or marketed as having armor-piercing capability, such as armor-piercing ammunition that is now advertised on the Hi-Vel Web site.

Bullets that are designed or marketed to be armor piercing have no place in our society. Ducks, deer, and other wildlife do not wear body armor. Police officers do. We should not let another day pass without plugging the loopholes in the Federal law that bans cop-killer bullets.

This is an issue on which mainstream gun owners and gun safety advocates can agree. I urge my colleagues to vote in support of this amendment.

Except we “mainstream gun owners” understand that standard rifle ammo will immediately become a “loophole” because, by design or not, it can penetrate police vests.

And if the lowly .30-30 is “capable of puncturing light-armored vehicles, ballistic or armored glass, armored limousines, even a 600-pound safe with 600 pounds of safe armor plating” then we know he’s going to go after our 7mm Magnums, our .30-06 bolt-actions, and every other centerfire rifle cartridge extant.

All he needs is an open door, and a law that the lawmakers “don’t realize all that was in it.”

A professional politician is a professionally dishonorable man. In order to get anywhere near high office he has to make so many compromises and submit to so many humiliations that he becomes indistinguishable from a streetwalker.

Henry Louis Mencken

And Teddy’s a prime example.

—

UPDATE:  As of August 6, 2013, due to the herculean efforts of reader John Hardin, the original JS-Kit/Echo comment thread for this post (read-only) is available here.

It’s Not a GUN CONTROL Problem

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Today’s Washington Post has this column by Courtland Milloy:

So Many Guns In the Hands Of Children

Police officers George Young and Sylvester Garvin III were on routine patrol last month in the District when they detained a juvenile who was driving without a seat belt. Asked for his driver’s license, the boy took off — only to be caught again.

“We asked him why he ran,” Young recalled. “He said, ‘I have a gun.’ ”

In fact, the boy, who is 14, had two guns: a Mac-11 semiautomatic handgun and a .380 semiautomatic pistol, both fully loaded.

First, he’s a 14 year-old boy driving a car. No comment about that?

Since the arrest Feb. 3, however, the case has virtually disappeared behind a shroud of official secrecy, behind one set of laws that protects the identity of juveniles and another that restricts the release of information about confiscated guns. But the questions remain: Who was that 14-year-old boy? How did he get those guns? Why did he have them?

According to a 2002 report by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, 57 percent of recovered “crime guns” in the District were taken from people 24 years old and younger.

Handguns accounted for 82 percent of the District’s crime guns, with the semiautomatic pistol being the weapon of choice — especially for those 17 years old and younger, according to the report.

“It’s a shock to sensibility,” said John P. Malone, the ATF special agent in charge of the Washington field office. “At 14, you’re supposed to be a freshman in high school, not driving around with guns.”

For one thing, it’s a perfect example of the fact that “gun control” doesn’t work. DC keeps trading places with that other “gun control” mecca, Chicago, for the highest homicide rate in cities larger than 500,000 population.

The ATF, it should be noted, is neither pro-gun nor anti-gun.

Really? You’ve obviously not been keeping up with the ATF’s actions, then.

Part of its mission is to trace guns that have been used in the commission of crimes and to keep firearms away from ineligible receivers.

Last year, 1,982 guns were confiscated in the District — where a ban on handgun ownership has been in place since 1979 — and turned over to the ATF for tracing. Moreover, 77 percent of the city’s 243 homicides last year were gun-related.

Then DC is significantly above the national average, because according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, firearms nationwide are used in only about 70% of homicides.

Boy those gun bans really make you safer, don’t they?

So far this year, D.C. police have seized 387 illegal weapons. The Mac-11 (which police initially said was a Mac-10 submachine gun) and the .380 semiautomatic were among them.

“I thought, ‘What is a 14-year-old doing with this kind of fighting power?’ ” recalled Young, who is 30 and has been a police officer for two years.

Shouldn’t you have asked “What has driven kids like this to create a market that supplies them these weapons?” Nobody just came up and handed the kid these guns. There aren’t gun manufacturers going around like drug pushers giving them their first gun for free just to get them hooked (though to hear the VPC, et. al you’d believe that.)

The boy was arrested in the 700 block of Yuma Street SE, in Washington Highlands, the neighborhood where Young grew up.

“We weren’t into guns when I was growing up, unless we were playing cowboys with cap guns,” Young said. “Firearms were off limits. Kids my age just didn’t see guns. But this younger generation is different. Every day that I’m on the street, I expect to face juveniles who are armed. And I know what a 14-year-old is capable of.”

When I was growing up, I was exposed to guns, and did see them. And I also played “cowboys” (the politically-correct term for “cowboys and indians“) with cap guns and other toy guns – a behavior that the PC crowd today wants to eliminate because it “breeds violent behavior.” I doubt this youngster ever played “cowboys” in his neighborhood. He played “gangsta.”

Young hastened to add that such youngsters also are capable of doing good and doubtlessly would do much more of it if given the chance.

“Hastened” because to do otherwise would be seen as un-PC.

This is the liberal “all people are inherently good” position, which I disagree with. People are not inherently good. They are inherently neutral, and develop behavior based on their environment. The poor, urban, welfare environment is what’s responsible for this, not the “easy availability of guns” – but it’s much easier to blame the guns than to face the failure of decades of well-meaning but (literally) homicidally flawed social policy and try to address that. It can’t be the fault of liberal social policies! It can’t be the result of conservative prohibitions! It must be because of those evil gun manufacturers who make Mac-11’s and “Saturday Night Special” .380’s!

“What I’m seeing is a lot of children raising children, parents allowing their children to do anything they want,” he said. “When you’re that young and facing adult situations, you’re going to make a lot of wrong decisions. You’re going to go for the simple and easy and fast, because you don’t see people working long and hard to make it.”

At least officer Young is willing to state, and the WaPo is willing to print, that the problem has to do with the fact that these kids aren’t being raised, but that avoids the underlying cause of that neglect.

The ATF report notes that 55 percent of the District’s traceable crime guns were purchased initially in Maryland or Virginia and that Bryco Arms and Lorcin Engineering 9mm semiautomatic pistols were the preferred weapons of most youths caught with firearms in the District.

Those models can cost as little as $100 if bought in, say, Georgia. But in the District, with its gun ban, they can fetch as much as $300.

See! It’s the gunmakers fault! It’s the fault of the loopholes in gun control laws! It’s the fault of unscrupulous gun dealers!

I’m sure this kid drove down to a gun shop in Virgina and slid past the NICS check when he bought that Mac-11, which sells for in excess of $350, according to GunsAmerica.com.

Anyone wonder where a 14 year-old comes up with, say, $300 to buy a Bryco .380?

Asked about the high demand for guns in D.C., Young said: “For many of these young people, a firearm is like money. It makes you powerful. You can use it to collect so many things the wrong way. A kid with a gun can take a vehicle. He can take someone’s livelihood or his manhood or his life. The person who gets violated may want to retaliate, but if he doesn’t have a gun, then he’s not capable. The one with the gun feels immortal, as if life is stopping for him.”

The 14-year-old’s mini-arsenal certainly made people stop and think, just not for very long.

And, like this article does, it made them think about the wrong questions.

Young, urban, black males are overwhelmingly the victims of homicide. It’s an epidemic among that specific population. Less than 13% of the population provides 47% of the victims of homicide, yet we’re told that guns are the root cause of the problem, and are the only vector for fighting this “public health concern.”

No, a combination of the misguided “War on (some) Drugs®” and the even more destructive “War on Poverty™” are the primary vectors here.

Unless and until we are willing to face the failures of both of these policies, young urban black males will continue to kill each other at epidemic levels – levels six times that of the general population. But instead, people like Courtland Milloy will continue to push for more “gun controls” that will inevitably fail to affect the slaughter.

And Another

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A Call (Or Recall) To Arms

Stan Hall is the Director of the Victim Witness Program for the Gwinnett County District Attorney’s Office. He is also the host of the Gwinnett County Communication Network’s television show “Behind the Badge.”

I have never met a conservative who did not support the constitutional rights that we, as Americans, have to bear arms. In fact, most conservatives will tell you very quickly that the right to bear arms is one of the foundations of our Constitution and it is just as important as any of our guaranteed rights.

This right has proved very beneficial on many documented cases when our forefathers were called to defend themselves from everything from tyranny to carpetbaggers and many other threats that were thwarted by fast moving projectiles from the muzzle of a gun.

Not just our forefathers. We’re still doing it today.

Our country’s history is steeped deeply in the fact that every American has the right to protect themselves, their family, and their homes. This defense has been most often performed by the use of a firearm. I am one of those conservatives that truly believe everything that I have alluded to thus far. If you are waiting for the “however” part; well here it comes!

Personally, I find myself in a position whereby I eschew anything that has to do with the weakening of the rights concerning firearm possession. On the other hand, I have been involved professionally as a law enforcement person who is sworn to do everything possible to protect life and property. An interesting dilemma; don’t you think? Is it possible to stand by the principles of your political beliefs and also believe in something that will be beneficial in your sworn duty at the same time? My Libertarian friends would answer that question with a very loud “no.” My liberal friends (I do actually have some) would answer just as quickly with, “of course.” Libertarians would like to see all waiting periods repealed, as well as, to do away with anything that prohibits an individual to carry a concealed firearm. Liberals think that we should extend the waiting period and that, most often; no one ever needs to carry a concealed weapon.

Hold on, here. What you’re saying is that as a “law enforcement person” you see beneficial aspects in weakening the rights concerning firearm possession? Well, then, I’m right with your Libertarian friends. What you’re advocating is statism – “big brother knows better.” That’s in direct opposition to what you state you believe politically. But to continue…

Personally, I find myself somewhere in the middle of all of them. But professionally, I have come to a conclusion that will probably make segments of both groups, not to mention my conservative friends upset. I cannot imagine a reason where there would be a need for a citizen to possess an assault type weapon.

You can’t? The Founders could. Legal scholars can. Sitting judges can. I feel for your inability to reason, but why should I allow you to affect my rights?

These weapons are not even issued to police officers with the exception of specialized units.

That is incorrect, Mr. Hall. AR-15 rifles are common equipment in many patrol cars, having replaced the ubiquitous riot shotgun in many jurisdictions. Perhaps not in Georgia, but in many municipalities. There is, for example, a minor brouhaha going on in the Calexico, California police department over whether their officers – all of them – should be allowed “assault rifles” that are denied to the general public. Calexico is hardly a major metropolis. New Jersey has an “assault weapon” exemption for police officers – one that recently bit officer Ken Moose, Jr. on the ass. If you’re a law-enforcement officer, you should be aware of this fact.

But, now we have armed robberies, home invasions, and assaults on police officers during the commission of a crime where assault weapons are commonplace.

Another lie. Blatant, unrepentant, out and out lie. The first one I can let go as a mere oversight. This one I cannot.

Long guns – all of them – are used in only about 13% of firearm-involved crime, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, and if homicide is any indicator, about half those long-gun crimes are committed with shotguns. Violent crime involving firearms has been declining since 1991, not increasing. Hell, Diane Feinstein claims the “assault weapons ban” caused “assault weapon” usage to decline. You don’t get it both ways, Mr. Hall. The use of “assault weapons” in crime is a rarity – not “commonplace.”

It seems absurd that criminals are showing up better armed than police officers whose job it is to protect the public.

Why? It’s always been that way. It wasn’t that long ago that cops carried “service revolvers” in .38 Special, and people protested their “upgunning” to .357 Magnums. Now they carry “high-capacity” semi-auto pistols and “assault rifles” in their cruisers.

It is no longer uncommon for police officers to find themselves in a scenario where their body armor will not even stop the ammunition that is being fired on them.

If the are being shot at with a rifle, no standard soft vest is going to stop the round. But here you’re – quite intentionally – raising the specter (in the meaning of “phantom”) of the “cop-killer bullet” fantasy. Another deliberate mendacity?

Quite frankly, when someone buys an assault weapon, it should be assumed that it will be used for some type of an assault. Many gun enthusiasts will dispute this by countering that they maybe (sic) for assaults fro (sic) some, for them the weapons are for competitive shooting, collector series, and all of the other reasons that may be legitimate. Despite these legitimate reasons, the majority of these weapons are being used to kill people in a violent act. They are causing law enforcement agencies all over this country to upgrade their arsenals simply to be competitive with the bad guys.

Willful, blatant, inexcuseable LIE

Our good buddies at the Violence Policy Center have provided an accounting of firearms manufactured in the U.S. According to them, Armalite built 32,504 “assault rifles” between 1995 and 2000. Bushmaster built 150,589 during the same period. Colt built 185,693. DPMS: 18,211. Knight’s Manufacturing: 2,611. Olympic Arms: 24,045. Those are just manufacturers of AR-15 clones. That’s 413,653 AR-15 “assault rifles” built and sold after the 1994 “ban.” Note that this does not include manufacturing during the years 2001 to the present. This also does not include AK-47’s, H&K G3 clones, FN-FAL’s, or any other so-called “assault weapons.” If “the majority of these weapons are being used to kill people in a violent act” then at a minimum there would have been 206,827 homicides since 1994 attributable to AR-15 clones alone. According to the CDC there were 105,142 homicides by firearm for the period 1994-2001. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, handguns are used in about 80% of homicides by firearm.

You’re lying to us, Mr. Hall, deliberately and badly. Perhaps you have an agenda?

This problem has led to many law enforcement executives leading the cause to prevent the ownership of assault weapons from being sold across the counter.

I just illustrated that “this problem” doesn’t exist. It’s been blown to hysterical proportions by lies such as this.

It is not a position that they take lightly, but has become a position that they are forced to support based on the past and potential tragedies that have and will be caused by these weapons in the hands of thugs. It may go against constitutional merit, but stands tall in the common sense department.

“Forced to support”? Even you admit it “may go against constitutional merit.”

So how about a constitutional amendment? But you never hear that option bandied about. No, they’d rather strip us of a right because it’s too costly – but I just illustrated that the cost they proclaim is false.

So why is it they want to destroy the right to arms through subterfuge?

Every person in this country should have the right to bear arms. (For now.) Every hunter in this country should have the right to bear arms; as many as they like. (For now.) Every person in this country should have the right to use these weapons in an act of self-defense or protection of their properties.

Tell that to Ronald Dixon. Tell that to Hale DeMar. Tell that to Melvin B. Spaulding. Tell it to Lester Campbell.

I would never argue these premises. (Yet) However, in the atmosphere that we find ourselves in, where one horrific act of violence is topped by the next, we have to do something. Policies that would keep assault type weapons off of the streets and out of the hands of those intent on creating a chaotic (sic) is something that I feel necessary to support. Maybe this is a case where the personal and protective rights of the many have to override the rights of the few. It is not a perfect science or formula but what in this world is anymore?

William Pitt once said, “Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.” Here is but another example.

Are you afraid enough now to put your shackels on?

Or would you rather buy an “assault weapon” and tell them “Molon Labe!”?

Another Long List of Lies, Untruths, and Deliberate Mendacities

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Here we go again.

Talking sense on gun laws

You know with a title like this, the only “sense” will be “non.”

By Dan K. Thomasson

Well, here we are again, in the throes of another election-year battle over how to keep guns out of the hands of all the modern Jesse Jameses while not trampling on the rights of the intrepid Elmer Fudds. Don’t expect Congress to do anything exceptionally courageous.

Well, they tried to pass the lawsuit exemption, but wussed out and allowed the bill to be contaminated, so I’ll give Mr. Thomasson a pass on that comment, but being one of the Elmer Fudds he refers to (those are my rights he’s talking about, after all) I’m offended by his belittling. He obviously doesn’t care about my feelings. I should sue for pain and suffering.

The vast majority of gun owners in the United States are law-abiding citizens who use their weapons in pursuit of honest activities like hunting or skeet shooting or as an inducement for sleeping easier knowing their trusty six-shooter is nearby. They are no threat to anyone except perhaps themselves, especially during hunting season, when the nation’s forests resound with the reports of thousands of rifles all seemingly firing at the same deer.

Largely true, but off by a couple orders of magnitude. According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, there are an estimated 19 million active hunters in the U.S. The state of Washington alone issued 13,139 deer permits in 2002, 7,107 elk permits. In West Virginia, over 250,000 deer were taken in 2002. Just deer.

Not thousands of rifles, Mr. Thomasson. Not tens of thousands. Millions. Deer, elk, bear, cougar, bobcat, coyote, prarie dog, wild pig, and more. Trying to belittle us “Elmer Fudds” as being just a few thousand isn’t going to fly here.

Many of these citizens spend hours each weekend at one of the hundreds of gun shows staged for their benefits across the nation. They have every right to do so without being hassled by anti-gun forces, including law-enforcement officers at all levels, who increasingly see these events as a main source of the murder and mayhem that plagues our urban society.

And with his next breath:

While gun shows provide legitimate enterprise and entertainment for thousands of good citizens, they also have become a major marketplace for the trafficking in illegal weapons by criminals who can easily avoid the deterrent of a background check through a loophole in the federal law.

Wait just a damned minute here. Even the Bureau of Justice Statistics admits that gun shows are the source of less than 2% of guns acquired by criminals. Criminals can “easily avoid the deterrent of a background check” by stealing a gun, trading drugs for a gun, having a friend or relative buy a gun for them, or any number of different ways. Going to a gun show would be less convenient for most of these people.

But it gets better!

Very simply, dealers in used weapons are exempt from the statute that requires licensed dealers selling new weapons at these shows to put their customers through a record search. So why should a person intent on using a gun for illegitimate purposes buy from an honest, licensed dealer either in his shop or at one of these shows when the guy selling a used semi-automatic handgun from the next booth has no such restrictions?

Very simply, that’s a blatant lie.

Dealers in used weapons are required to be licensed just like dealers in new weapons are. If you’re a dealer, you’re making a living off of selling firearms for a profit. If you attempt to do so, it’s the BATF’s job to find you, arrest you, and see you’re put in jail. If, however, you’re a poor schmuck like me who simply wants to sell a gun out of your personal collection, that doesn’t require a license. If I want to sell everything in my collection, that doesn’t require a license. But if I try that three times a month, I should be expecting a visit from my friendly Federal agents. And licensed dealers are required to run the background check. I, on the other hand, am legally prohibited from running a background check. I’m not allowed to determine if the guy who wants to buy my .357 snubbie is a felon or not.

That’s the crux of the problem that has made these weekly events the second-largest source of weapons for criminal activity.

Blatant lie #2. Notice there is no attribution for this lie. I’ve given you a link to the Bureau of Justice Statistics that states that less than 2% of criminals get their guns from gun shows – yet Mr. Thomasson claims baldly that gun shows are the #2 source of crime guns. Why shouldn’t you believe him? He’s published in the Washington Times!

The first still is licensed dealers who either ignore the law or unwittingly sell to a straw buyer who can pass the background check.

Note again, no attribution for his claim that bad gun dealers and straw purchases are the #1 source for crime guns. He’s just making this stuff up. The inference is that a criminal buys a gun or has one purchased for him, then goes and commits a crime with it immediately. Undoubtedly that happens occasionally, but it’s the exception, not the rule. The California Department of Justice produced a report on the efficacy of implementing a “ballistic fingerprinting” database on all new handguns sold in California. In that report is this statement:

In the Crime Gun Trace Reports 2000 from the ATF, average TTC (Time to Crime – the time between the selling of a firearm and actually committing a crime with it.) are mentioned per age of the offender and type of firearm [X, p.30-40]. The following results are obtained for semiautomatic pistols (4.5 years), revolvers (12.3 years), rifles (7.0 years), shotguns (7.6 years) and other firearms (7.1 years). The nationwide average TTC for all firearms for all ages of offenders is 6.1 years.

The average time between a gun being sold and it being used in a crime is over six years. But unscrupulous gun dealers and “straw purchases” are the number one source of crime guns?

But he doesn’t stop there:

Congress clearly should deal with the first by closing the gun-show loophole and with the other by vastly improving its prosecution of federal gun-law offenders.

First, there is no “gun show loophole.” I just illustrated that fact. Second, I heartily agree that violators of federal gun laws aren’t being prosecuted enough. I can’t figure out, for example, how Brian Borgelt, the FFL holder who owned Bull’s Eye Shooter Supply in Tacoma Washington managed to hold on to his license for so long after “losing” over 200 firearms. What does it take?

Apparently a high-profile crime committed with one of the “lost” firearms.

Let’s get one thing straight here: I’m an advocate for the right to arms, but I believe that there is some appropriate regulation of arms sales. I also think the BATF has proven to be incompetent to do that job, and passing more gun laws – especially ones that address phantom issues – isn’t going to make them more effective.

At the same time, lawmakers ultimately should extend the ban on the manufacture and sale of assault weapons, which expires in September, and reject a gun-lobby effort to immunize the nation’s manufacturers of firearms from the legal responsibility for the rising toll of gun crimes – an act law-enforcement officials oppose as relieving the industry of any obligations to make their weapons safer.

Another blatant lie. The bill is dead, but it didn’t relieve the industry of “any obligations to make their weapons safer.” It didn’t address “making weapons safer.” This is bait-and-switch. The immunity bill was designed to protect gun manufacturers and dealers from frivolous lawsuits brought when they did nothing illegal, and a gun one made and the other sold was used criminally. For instance, in the DC Sniper shootings, Bull’s Eye and Bushmaster – the manufacturer of the rifle – are being sued. If it can be proven that Bull’s Eye sold the rifle illegally, then they would not have been protected by the bill, but how the hell can Bushmaster be held liable for criminal misuse of their product?

And, just out of curiosity, how do you make a device designed to hurl a small metal projectile at high velocity “safe?”

More:

While all three prongs of the attack on firearm misuse are important, tougher enforcement of existing laws probably outweighs the others because of the message it would send to casual violators. Federal prosecutors for years have been looking the other way when it comes to gun-law violations. Only 2 percent of federal gun crimes are ever prosecuted, according to the Americans for Gun Safety organization.

For instance, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives cited the Washington state dealer who sold the sniper rifle that killed so many in and around the District with six violations of federal law and recommended prosecution. But so far no charge has been filed, a disappointing contradiction to recent Justice Department pledges to go after gun violators.

Supporters of stronger enforcement also had hoped the Bush administration would give ATF the prosecutorial support when it was moved to the Justice Department. Somehow, that backing has been slow in emerging and anti-gun forces blame it on the fact Attorney General John Ashcroft has been a strong pro-gun advocate.

This predates Ashcroft by quite a bit. Actually, I view it as a two-edged sword. The BATF has proven to be a grand-standing out of control organization that Michigan Democratic Representative John Dingell called “jack booted thugs” in House testimony over BATF abuses which are many and egregious. Moving the Bureau to the Justice Department wasn’t, I think, an improvement.

The ban on assault weapons is regarded as essential in ensuring that the nation’s law officers aren’t outgunned, as they have been in a number of highly publicized instances recently. The gun-safety group, citing Justice Department figures, says that during the 10 years the ban has been in effect the proportion of assault weapons traced to crimes has dropped by 65.8 percent.

Yet other organizations bitch and complain that the law didn’t stop the manufacture of “assault weapons,” that more “assault weapons” are being sold today than in 1994, and that one in five officers killed with firearms were killed with “assault weapons.” Who do you believe?

Accomplishing anything in the direction of a more responsible national firearms policy during this election year will be difficult, if not impossible, with most politicians from both major parties terrified of the repercussions of supporting such action.

Note that “more responsible national firearms policy” means, well, more laws making it harder for people to acquire and keep firearms. That’s the only way these people measure the effectiveness of “gun control.” No mention of the fact that without any major “gun control” laws passed before or after the 1994 so-called “ban” that violent crime of all types was on the decline, that passage of the AWB didn’t accelerate or retard that decline, and that the level of violent crime now is lower than it’s been since the 1960’s. Yet we need more gun control laws.

The well-heeled National Rifle Association, despite the fact its membership is largely made up of those law-abiding citizens who use guns wisely, has never been supportive of responsible steps to protect the rights of those who don’t hunt, shoot skeet or targets or collect antiques or sleep with a gun under their pillows.

And what rights would those be?

The NRA (more or less) defends one right: the right to arms. And it protects that right even for those who don’t exercise it. The NRA leaves the defense of the other rights to other organizations.

So… Gunshows are “Supermarkets for Criminals” eh?

KevinLeave a comment

Not according to J. David Phillips of Crystal River FL, and his experience is just about a duplicate of mine. Which is why I don’t go to Evil Loophole Gunshows anymore. Here’s an old rec.guns newsgroup post on the topic. Keep spewable liquids away from the keyboard:

Is your show anything like this one?

Arrive early. Usually a short wait to get in. For parking that is. Overpriced parking that costs more than show admission. Gunshow is usually held at the same time the Women’s Knitting Society Doll Show is held, and they open earlier, so all the good parking is snapped up. Oh well, I suppose no one in Florida has any right to complain about walking in the rain.

Now we’ve got the line to get in. Let’s see, there are three lines. Gee, this one is a bit shorter. Oops, why is it going so slow? Why the #### is everyone in MY line paying with loose change? Cripes, the other lines have cleared out twice over. Finally get to the booth. Oops, now it’s shift change. At 9AM?

A couple of sleezy looking good ole boys holding up the wall shout “Hey, what’ya got on that chrome AK? Does it have the switch on it ?”

Now for the line to get in. Everyone has to be checked for guns. No, I’m not carrying a gun. Thank goodness. The old geezer rent-a-cop is having trouble trying to figure out how to open someone’s 30-30 action.

OK, now we’re cooking with gas. Literally. I have to run the gauntlet of BBQ grill dealers.

Ah, a gun table. Looks interesting. Oops, spoke too soon. Someone must be kidding. These are parts guns and this guy wants 50% over MSRP? Move on.

Here’s a familiar sight. This old fella always has a table full of Winchester Model 71’s. The same table full. Meaning he hasn’t sold any for several years. I guess he’s just displaying his collection and is tired of saying they aren’t for sale, so he’s resorted to putting astronomical prices on them to discourage sales. At least that’s what I can figure out.

Oh look, the Beanie Baby dealer fom Ozello has managed to move closer to the front door.

Couple of ultra fat sleezy good ole boys holding up the South wall shout “Hey, what’ya got on that there chrome AK? Has it got duh switch on it ?”

Now I have to run the gaunlet of safe dealers who take your order but never deliver. My sister had to get the state attorney general involved to get her money back from one. Quickly move on.

Make quick pit stop. Wish I had gone before I left home. The facilities are so filthy that I cannot describe them here. Wish I had used the safe of the ripoff dealer to relieve myself.

Now I pass the snack bar. I could never figure out why it is located right next to the restrooms. People are standing in line for hotdogs that look like they’ve been cooking since the last gunshow. The smell of hotdogs and urinal mints must make some people hungry, I guess. Quickly move along.

This guy seems to have quite a crowd around his gun parts. Wait to get close to table. Dang. It’s all the pot metal 1911 bushings with built-in comp and bayonet lugs. Work my way out of the crowd and on to the next table.

More Beanie Babies from a dealer in Aripieka.

Now a jerky and sausage vender from Brooksville.

Darrel and Darrel come up to me and ask “Hey, what’ya got on that chrome AK? Do it have the switch on it ?”

Ah, some real gun parts. Unfortunately none for any of the many gun projects I have. but it’s good to know that if I ever get a Mondragon that this guy has cornered the market for firing pins.

More beanie babies from an idiot in Crystal River.

Say, here’s three tables with books. Let’s see… “How To Turn Your 10-22 Into A Thousand Yard Assault Sniper Rifle”. “How To Make A Fully Automatic 10-22 Assault Sniper Weapons System”. “Converting Your 10-22 Into a Fully Automatic Thousand Yard Assault Sniper Weapon”. Hmmm, I’m begining to see a pattern here. Move along.

Ah, the mountain man muzzleloader dealer. This guy seems knowledgable, reasonably priced, has lots of inventory and accessories, and is friendly. Too bad I’m not into muzzleloaders.

Here’s a fellow I can’t figure out. He is a collector. Yet he brings glass display counters. Six of them. Full of brand new guns with warranty. No 4473, cuz he ain’t a dealer. He’s a collector. Gee, wish I could be a collector and sell dozens of brand new guns still in the box from my collection each weekend. Course, if you are in ‘business’ , then you have to have a license.

Next is the eight tables of guns from a local storefront dealer. They are selling like hotcakes. Can’t be the price, because they are marked up even more than what they sell for in the store. After looking over the guns and hearing “You gunna buy or what?” from three different clerks, it begins to dawn on me that people are there for the abuse. I think they’re from Inverness.

Quickly move along.

Here’s a table dedicated to sniping. He sells sniper rifles, sniper scopes, sniper ammo, sniper clothes, sniper books, sniper bumper stickers, sniper posters, sniper conversion kits for 10-22’s, sniper jacket pathes and how to snipe video tapes. Quite a crowd too. The seller is telling some youngsters about the brave and noble Waffen SS snipers who would hold their fire while old Russian women crossed the street with their babies. Made sour mental note that perhaps Waffen SS snipers might be a level above Lon Horiuchi.

Stop at a little table with an interesting old pistol. Unfortunately, the seller is not there, as he ate one of the hotdogs and is soaking up some of the restroom mints, but his sister’s cousin’s daughter’s boy is, and he’s watching the table. Have to come back later.

Oh look, the magazine dealer. This old gentleman makes my visit worthwhile. His prices are pretty high, but it’s amazing the magazines he comes up with. I need a magazine for a Walther P-38 in 22LR. By George, he’s got one. New in wrapper. $60. Ouch. Buy it anyway. Have to make the parking and entrance fee seem worthwhile. Wish he’d sell out of his house, but no, only at gun shows.

More Beanie Babies from another idiot in Lecanto.

Bruce and Larry from Queer People, Inc, ask “What’ya got on that there chrome AK? Does it have the switch, sweetie?”

Another magazine dealer. Let’s see what he has. Lots and lots of bins of magazines for every imaginable military firearm since WWII. Uh oh, they are all USA magazines. But, they’re guaranteed for life.

And another book dealer. Let’s see. “How To Turn Your 10-22 Into a….” QUICKLY move along.

A pawn shop table. Cheap jewelry, watches and junk from a competitor in Crystal River. I guess he’s finally found out that one has to watch how much stuff they take into the store.

Another sausage and jerky dealer from the place next door to the pet store in Crystal River.

Alright! An old west firearms dealer. Rusted pre-war Win 1894 – $650. Rusted Iver Johnson topbreak 32 revolver with peeling nickel finish – $400. Halfway decent Colt SAA – note says it was owned by Jesse James. (sigh)

Another parts dealer. Yep. Lots of parts alright. Too bad they all are either demilled by being torch cut or look like they’ve been salvaged from a sunken U-Boat. Thought I heard someone say they’re from the Atocha, and found by Mel Fisher.

Here’s an interesting table full of guns. Decent prices. Decent looking old guns. Hey, just what I’m looking for. Says the bore is good. Can you please snip the ty-wrap so I can inspect the bore? Why not? Oh, you aren’t allowed to do that? Show management said so? How come all the other dealers do it? You won’t sell to me because I’m a trouble maker? Geeeesh, must be from that Hernanidiot club.

Surplus military clothing. Lots of it. Along with surplus moth holes. All at non-surplus prices.

Table full of cheap toys made by slave labor in communist China.

Oh boy, this looks interesting. Lots and lots of reloading equipment, much of it in older boxes. Might find some obsolete dies. Yep, just what I need. 25-35 and 32-40. I figure $20 each is fair. What? Do you know your price is double the new RCBS price? Take it or leave it? They got a lifetime warranteeee. Leave it.

A guy selling gun stocks. Do you have a stock for a pre-64 Model 94 Winchester? Looks around, slightly confused, then says his stocks fit all Winchester 94’s. Sorry, but no, they don’t, they are the same stock as the Win 1892. Well sonny, I’ve been in the stock biznuz for thutty yaars, and I oughta know.

Familiar looking cast bullet dealer. Lots of nice looking bullets. Ask him the same question I ask at every gun show. Do you have soft cast 45-70 and 45 Colt bullets with either SPG lube or no lube? I see, only hard cast with lube so hard it might as well be plastic. What’s SPG ?

Another gun dealer. Hmmm. Interesting Broomhandle Mauser. Say can I ***HEY MISTER YOU WANT TO SELL THAT SPRINGFIELD?*** look at your ***WHAT DO YOU WANT FOR THAT WINCHESTER?*** Broomhandle Maus- ***I HAVE A BAYONET TO FIT YOUR GARAND RIGHT HERE*** Give up and leave. He’d rather cast his line at fish going by than one nibbling on his hook.

Another Beanie Baby dealer from New York, shouting out ” Such a deal for youse”.

See an old acquaintence of mine that is a total gun show whore. Hey Samuri Davie boy, you sure have put on weight. How much ya got on that there chrome AK? Does it have the switch on it?”

A table with all sorts of old junk, none of it having anything to do with firearms, being manned by a kindly looking old lady. Politely smile and nod and move along.

Table full of project guns. All torch cut in two. Yep, they’d be a project alright.

Samuri sword dealer. I started feeling for my pocket gun and the switch on the AK.

Nazi collectibles dealer. Why are these guys always about 330 pounds, need a shave, have a tooth missing, wear plumber’s butt jeans and wife beater t-shirts and have their hair slicked back? Oh, the ‘DEATH TO ZOG’ bumper sticker is a nice touch. Skip whole row.

Demonstration row. Here’s a guy with a hotplate and tea kettle showing how his goop fog proofs your eyeglasses. I bought some of the stuff a couple of years ago from a woman with huge tits. Still have it, as it doesn’t work. Here’s a guy showing how his vacuum cleaner can pick up a bowling ball (will keep that in mind when the bowling ball buildup on my carpets gets out of hand). Here’s a guy selling a complete butcher shop kit. Bandsaw, huge sausage grinder, giant meat slicer, more knives than a Ginsu ad, everything to keep Jeffery Dahlmer happy. Here’s a guy selling a meat blade that attaches to your chainsaw to cut up your deer. Must be for the high volume hunter. What else? A knife sharpener. Carpet shampoo. Car wash. Kit for making 800 lbs of jerky. At least walking this isle was better than going by the hotdog and urinal mint stench.

More Beanie Babies from the Christmas Store down the street.

Table with lots of AR15’s. And the obligatory old geezer spouting off to no one in particular, “By gum, that be them thar ay-salt wippins thet be gettin the rest of ouh gun rayhts taken away, yessir. No self ray-spectun sportsman would evah own one o dem. No sir. They need ta be banned.” Notice at least he has a wide space around him. Maybe it’s a plan to keep from being jostled by the crowd. I think he’s the guy that sells the blowguns down the aisle.

T-Shirt vendor. Has t-shirts like “DEATH TO ZOG”. Gee, this guy is about 330 pounds, needs a shave, has a tooth missing, wear’s plumber’s crack jeans and a wife beater t-shirt and has his hair slicked back. Shake head wondering if he’s related to the Nazi collectibles dealer.

This table is loaded with all the gun gimmicks of the last 30 years. Glow in the dark sight paint. Folding 10-22 Assault Sniper Weapon Stocks with Flash Hider and Built In Bayonet Lug and Oversized Tactical Safety and Magazine Release kit. Barrel heat shield for 10-22 (they get might hot after conversion to a thousand yard fully automatic assault sniper rifle, ya know). Ah, this is interesting. Why I don’t know. A 150 round snail drum for a Charter Arms AR-7. At least when you’re living off the land you won’t have to reload all winter.

Jerky and sausage dealer from New Jersey, shouting ” Oy Vey”.

Bikers selling Harley parts for 20% above retail from one of the biker trash shops around Crystal River.

Mutt and Jeff stop by and ask, “What’ya got on that chrome AK? Duhs it have switches on it?”

Local gun club group who says they are raffling off a Winchester 22 Magnum rifle with a 3-9 scope. Raffle tickets are $10 each and go to defending gun rights and their building fund. What building? Free club patch, suitable for patching holes in your shirt. Ask them who won the last rifle they were raffling off. Sorry, can’t tell ya. Privacy and all that. Do you at least have a photo of the winner holding up his gun? Uneasy silence while they all look at each other with that “gee, maybe we’d have more credibility if we faked a photo like that.”

Guy with a few bins of gun parts and a HUGE-BY-LARGE sign that says I CARRY ALL GUN PARTS – JUST ASK!. Do you have a loading gate for an 1886 Winchester? No. Do you have a firing pin for an 1892 Winchester? No. Do you have an extractor for a Rem 788? No. (Hmmm, let’s try an experiment.) Do you have a kit for converting a Ruger 10-22 into a thousand yard fully automatic assault sniper rifle? Yessir, sure do.

Old woman at a table full of books. She weighs about 330 lbs, has a tooth missing, greasy hair and is selling books with titles like “DEATH TO ZOG”. She vaguely resembles someone. Shake head and move on.

Only a couple of tables to go. Getting hungry too. And need to make a pit stop. Figure I’ll drive to the nearest McDonald’s rather than risk the toilet mint aroma hot dogs and the filthy facilities.

And what are the last two tables?

Beanie Babies seconds from their factory.

And a guy who has REALLY figured out marketing. His table has jerky, 10-22 conversion books, rusty gun parts, old reloading dies, a few Nazi medals, and a rusted up top break Webley revolver, formerly owned by Jesse James.

My contribution? Parking fee, entrance fee, bought one pricey magazine, headache from the toilet mint smell, and two black tire marks out of the parking lot.

The only difference between Mr. Phillips’ experience and my own is that the gun shows out here have a lot fewer gun vendors, and only one “DEATH TO ZOG” booth.

(Multiple Expletives Deleted…) THIS is What We’re Fighting

KevinLeave a comment

Via AR15.com I found this… (*ahem*) propaganda video produced by those concerned citizens of the Brady Center. The NRA is “bullying” Congress into “ending” the AWB! No, we concerned gun owners are “bullying” them into letting the damned useless law sunset like it’s supposed to. But that’s not how the Brady people spin it, oh no! It will “put dozens of illegal weapons back on the street!” Excuse me? It never took them off the damned street. At least they got the quantity right. Dozens is about it.

But what do they do? Frighten the kiddies! “Criminals will have access to a terrifying arsenal!” You morons, they already do! Even in England, where guns are banned, they have access to machineguns and handgrenades!

Oooh! Look at the scary guns! Right.

“12 rounds into a cop’s body in 2 seconds.” Suuuure! Can you pull a trigger twelve times in two seconds and hit anything?

Oooh! “In a recent poll, 70% of Americans supported keeping and strengthening the Assault Weapons Ban.” Well, how surprising. Who funded the poll? Who worded the poll? And who is responsible for ensuring that the populace doesn’t understand the idea of Constitutional protections of individual rights?

“Favor #2: Slam the courthouse door on victims and their families.” Oh, right. It’s the gun manufacturer’s fault when somebody is shot during a robbery. It’s the gun manufacturer’s fault when some moron points a loaded gun at someone and pulls the trigger. Are we going to sue cutlery manufacturers for stabbings with evil “assault knives?” Willl we sue them when someone cuts a finger while chopping celery? The Lousville Slugger company for baseball-bat assaults? Or players injured by flying ones? Ford, when someone deliberately runs someone over? Or drives drunk into a tree? That’s not justice, it’s a perversion of it.

“The NRA is pushing a bill giving sweeping immunity from civil lawsuits.” Well, YEAH, because the Brady Foundation and others have been using civil lawsuits in an attempt to bankrupt gun manufacturers. Here’s what several decisions in these lawsuits have said:

“Although this public nuisance lawsuit is brought by the Attorney General on behalf of the State of New York – while the Hamilton action was one initiated by private parties for negligent marketing – both were brought against handgun manufacturers and sellers. Plaintiffs attempt here to widen the range of common-law public nuisance claims in order to reach the legal handgun industry will not itself, if successful, engender a limitless number of public nuisance lawsuits by individuals against these particular defendants, as was a stated concern in Hamilton (96 NY2d at 233). However, giving a green light to a common-law public nuisance cause of action today will, in our judgment, likely open the courthouse doors to a flood of limitless, similar theories of public nuisance, not only against these defendants, but also against a wide and varied array of other commercial and manufacturing enterprises and activities.

“All a creative mind would need to do is construct a scenario describing a known or perceived harm of a sort that can somehow be said to relate back to the way a company or an industry makes, markets and/or sells its non-defective, lawful product or service, and a public nuisance claim would be conceived and a lawsuit born. A variety of such lawsuits would leave the starting gate to be welcomed into the legal arena to run their cumbersome course, their vast cost and tenuous reasoning notwithstanding. Indeed, such lawsuits employed to address a host of societal problems would be invited into the courthouse whether the problems they target are real or perceived; whether the problems are in some way caused by, or perhaps merely preceded by, the defendants completely lawful business practices; regardless of the remoteness of their actual cause or of their foreseeability; and regardless of the existence, remoteness, nature and extent of any intervening causes between defendants lawful commercial conduct and the alleged harm.” – from the appeals court decision upholding the dismissal of New York v. Sturm Ruger et. al.

—

“Knives are sharp, bowling balls are heavy, bullets cause puncture wounds in flesh. The law has long recognized that obvious dangers are an excluded class. Were we to decide otherwise, we would open a Pandora’s box.”

“The city could sue the manufacturers of matches for arson, or automobile manufacturers for traffic accidents, or breweries for drunken driving.

“Guns are dangerous. When someone pulls the trigger, whether intentionally or by accident, a properly functioning gun is going to discharge, and someone may be killed. The risks of guns are open and obvious.

“We hold that the trial court properly dismissed the city’s complaint. The city’s claims are too remote and seek derivatively what should be claimed only by citizens directly injured by firearms. The city cannot recover municipal costs. We overrule its assignment of error and affirm the judgment of the trial court.” – Judge Ralph Winkler, Ohio 1st District Court of Appeals in the decision upholding dismissal of Cincinnati’s lawsuit.

—

“As an individual, I believe, very strongly, that handguns should be banned and that there should be stringent, effective control of other firearms. However, as a judge, I know full well that the question of whether handguns can be sold is a political one, not an issue of products liability law, and that this is a matter for the legislatures, not the courts. The unconventional theories advanced in this case (and others) are totally without merit, a misuse of products liability laws.” Judge Buchmeyer in the dismissal of Patterson v. Gesellschaft, 1206 F.Supp. 1206, 1216 (N.D. Tex. 1985)

But you won’t be hearing any of that from these people.

“Even the notorious Bull’s Eye Shooter Supply will be protected by the bill. 52 crimes were traced to guns sold by Bull’s Eye. The government discovered 238 guns missing or stolen from Bull’s Eye Shooter Supply, including the Bushmaster used by the DC snipers. Victims will have no recourse against dealers who supply guns to the criminal market.”

Where do I start? First “52 crimes were traced” is exactly backward. The BATF traces guns not crimes, so did we have one guy committing 52 crimes with one gun, or 52 different guns and different crimes? It’s pretty damned vague. How old were the guns? Were they in the possession of the original owners? Were they illegally purchased by felons? Were they “straw purchases”? Were they stolen? None of this matters to the Brady people, because all guns are bad to them. So, the “government discovered 238 guns missing or stolen” from Bull’s Eye. Wonderful. If the company was so fucked up, why did it take years for the BATF to pull the license? Regulating licensed dealers is their goddamned job! And Bull’s Eye was the source of the DC sniper’s Bushmaster? But I thought the sunsetting Assault Weapons Ban kept these guns off the street! Guess not, huh?

Get this straight – if it can be proven that the DC snipers bought that Bushmaster “under the table” then Bull’s Eye’s previous owner is civilly liable even if the preemption law passes. But if the gun was, as Malvo has confessed, stolen it’s not his fault. But you won’t hear that either.

“The NRA wants complete immunity for Bull’s Eye and other bad gun dealers and justice denied to victims and their families.” HORSESHIT! The NRA wants immunity against nuisance lawsuits that are nothing more than blatant attempts to litigate businesses into bankruptcy. The Brady bunch doesn’t give a rat’s ass about “victims and their families” except as poster-children for their pogrom against guns. They know that these lawsuits are groundless, but it hasn’t stopped them from filing them all over the country, and appealing defeat after defeat. If they actually gave a damn, they’d be giving “the victims and their families” the money that the greedy fucking trial lawyers are expecting.

“Right now gun victims can sue irresponsible gun manufacturers and dealers. The NRA wants to change this.” Fucking-A right they do. For all the reasons listed above.

“Right now, military style semi-automatic weapons are illegal.”

NO THEY ARE NOT

That is a blatant lie and the Brady bunch doesn’t give a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut about lying to you if it furthers their agenda. And their agenda is to make that statement true.

“STOP THE MADNESS” Here’s an idea: STOP THE BRADY BUNCH AND THEIR ILK!

Here’s the source of this shameless bullshit, hunted down by AR15.com contributor colinjay:

Kenneth Lerer Associates
331 West 57th St
PMB 465
New York, New York 10019
United States

Registered through: GoDaddy.com
Domain Name: NRAMADNESS.COM
Created on: 29-Sep-03
Expires on: 29-Sep-05
Last Updated on: 29-Sep-03

Administrative Contact:
Lerer, Ken [email protected]
Kenneth Lerer Associates
331 West 57th St
PMB 465
New York, New York 10019
United States
917.254.8732 Fax —
Technical Contact:
Lerer, Ken [email protected]
Kenneth Lerer Associates
331 West 57th St
PMB 465
New York, New York 10019
United States
917.254.8732 Fax —

Domain servers in listed order:
VARICK.DATAGRAM.COM
VANDAM.DATAGRAM.COM

Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence
1225 Eye St, NW
Suite 1100
Washington, District of Columbia 20005
United States

Registered through: GoDaddy.com
Domain Name: NRABLACKLIST.COM
Created on: 26-Sep-03
Expires on: 26-Sep-05
Last Updated on: 26-Sep-03

Administrative Contact:
Hall, Keith [email protected]
Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence
1225 Eye St, NW
Suite 1100
Washington, District of Columbia 20005
United States
(202) 898-0792 Fax —
Technical Contact:
Hall, Keith [email protected]
Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence
1225 Eye St, NW
Suite 1100
Washington, District of Columbia 20005
United States
(202) 898-0792 Fax —

Domain servers in listed order:
VANDAM.DATAGRAM.COM
VARICK.DATAGRAM.COM

Campaign, Brady (ZSATDLEOQD)
Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence
1225 Eye St, NW
Suite 1100
Washington, DC 20005
US

Domain Name: STOPTHENRA.COM

Administrative Contact:
Campaign, Brady (35898741P) [email protected]
Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence
1225 Eye St, NW
Suite 1100
Washington, DC 20005
US
202-898-0792

Technical Contact:
Network Solutions, Inc. (HOST-ORG) [email protected]
13200 Woodland Park Drive
Herndon, VA 20171-3025
US
1-888-642-9675 fax: 571-434-4620

Record expires on 04-Sep-2006.
Record created on 04-Sep-2003.
Database last updated on 24-Feb-2004 03:24:21 EST.

Domain servers in listed order:

NS61.WORLDNIC.COM 216.168.225.201
NS62.WORLDNIC.COM 216.168.225.202

AR15.com contributor rayra googled and found this:

“Ken Lerer” pops up as a publicist / shill in New York. There is another hit for “ken lerer” in DC, and joining AOL / TIme Warner.
Then there is a “ken lerer” who left AOL Time Warner, and joined something called the “New Democracy Project” – http://www.newdemocracyproject.com/about/board/
http://www.newdemocracyproject.com/about/board/#Lerer
which states –
past Executive Vice President at AOL Time Warner, is currently head of Kenneth Lerer Associates, LLC and a lecturer at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.

Don’t let anybody tell you that gun owners are paranoid and that “nobody wants to take your guns away.”

These fuckers do. And they’re well organized and well financed. And I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to find out that Mr. Lerer has one of the few NYC gun carry permits, or employs an armed bodyguard.

(Pardon my language, but these people really piss me off!)

Now, call your Senators and tell them that you want Senate Bill S.659 to pass without amendment.

The number is 202-224-3121. You have to call twice, once for each Senator. Do it now.

One Before I Resume Programming

KevinLeave a comment

Via KeepandBearArms.com

David Codrea, professional writer for gun magazines, wrote this excellent letter to San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, acting Chief of Police Heather Fong, and Judge James L. Warren, which I will reproduce here in whole:

Dear Mayor Newsom , Judge Warren and Acting Chief Fong,

Mayor, I see you are authorizing city employees to perform homosexual marriages, Judge Warren, you are allowing them to proceed, and Chief Fong, you are allowing California law, as enacted by a vote of the people, to be publicly and repeatedly broken without making any arrests.

I’m not commenting on that issue, per se, so much as observing that you are all three instigating and abetting the violation of that law.

Judge Warren, you went so far as to state that you couldn’t issue a restraining order to halt the marriages because, as Reuters reported, “there was not enough evidence presented showing that immediate damage would be done by allowing them.”

Which leaves me with an interesting dilemma.

You see, I also belong to a group that is forced by social prejudices to keep a low profile—often times to hide my choices and practices lest I suffer disapproval and ultimately, life-threatening persecution by the state.

I am a gun owner and I live a gun owner life style.

I don’t know if I was born with a tendency to be this way, or if it was an acquired disposition. All I know is, I don’t see why I should be forced to change. Truth be known, I like owning guns, and am happy with who I am. I hope I suffer no repercussions by “coming out of the safe,” but I just can’t hide the truth any longer.

We gun owners have been living and working among you. Our kids go to school with yours. We may be your doctor, or minister, or your child’s teacher. We may even work in city administration, or the courts, or on the police force. And we are sick of being abused for simply being who we are, all because of hoplophobic* prejudice and fear. We don’t see any reason why we should have to put up with it any more.

Which brings me back to my dilemma and the reason I am writing you.

You have shown progressive thinking and tolerance for that which the majority condemns. So I was thinking of coming up to San Francisco and exercising my right to keep and bear arms, maybe showing up at City Hall with a state-banned AR-15 and a couple 30-round magazines, and also carrying several pistols concealed without a permit.

Yes, I know, it will be a violation of California laws, but you’ve shown that you’re willing to disregard those when it serves your goals. And because I am a peaceable citizen, I should easily meet Judge Warren’s criterion that no immediate damage would be done by allowing this.

So what do you think, if I visit your city and proudly display my lifestyle choices, can I count on your support? As a private citizen, don’t I have as much right to disregard laws I find reprehensible as you public officials? Isn’t that what equality is supposed to be all about, where no class of citizen enjoys privileges and immunities not extended to all?

How about it? You wouldn’t have me arrested, would you?

Please let me know if I have your support.

Sincerely,
David Codrea

* Credit and gratitude to the peerless Col. Jeff Cooper for coining this term.

The response to this excercise of freedom of speech? An investigation by the San Francisco Police Department because the letter was perceived as threatening. David received a phone call from a Inspector Peter Walsh of the SFPD who conducted an interview. Read David’s account of whole thing, but these are the parts that I think are important here:

He explained several times that it was just routine to follow up on things like this, that his job was apolitical, and they just have to investigate. I told him I understood that, and hoped he also understood what a chilling effect a police response to political speech created.

He indicated I did not sound like a threat and sounded “intelligent”.

I was left with the impression that they were probably not going to put much more energy into it — although I would be surprised if they haven’t checked my background, records and gun purchases, and wouldn’t be surprised if a judge didn’t consider the circumstances probable cause to tap into my phone and internet. But anyone who is an activist is an automatic target, especially if it’s about something that scares the hell out of civil authority (people with guns!!!), and I’ve felt there’s probably a good chance the government has been doing that for some time.

He told me he had also asked the Redondo Beach Police to drop a message off at my home as backup to the message he left on my machine, so to just ignore the message they delivered. We then said our goodbyes.

—

I do find it bizarre that civil authority is so fearful of an armed citizenry that if they feel there is any chance of it happening, their response is to send armed men. It also confirms my opinion of the corrupt gangsters in charge of San Francisco’s city government — ready to use the force of law to advance their agenda, but publicly flout the law when it doesn’t.

But of course. They’re the government. That puts them above the law.