And their point is?

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has ruled:

As to the ban on large-capacity magazines, the court upheld it by again pointing to Newtown and the shooter’s ability to fire “154 rounds in less than five minutes” — an observation that was in line with the lower court’s finding that “large-capacity magazines result in more shots fired, persons wounded, and wounds per victim than do other gun attacks.”

Using that criteria they could also ban six shot revolvers as well as ten round magazines. And I expect, single shot guns. As that is only about one shot every two seconds. Certainly two round magazines would be fail their criteria.

Here you see 12 shots from a revolver in under three seconds:

Hence, using a revolver, people could shoot 154 rounds in less than 40 seconds. Okay, not everyone is Jerry Miculek. And this was pretty much a peak achievement for Jerry. Even multiplying Jerry’s time by a factor of three, which brings it into the range of mere mortals, results in the 154 rounds being fired in less than a minute and a half.

Here I demonstrate shooting 35 rounds in less than 16 seconds with 10 round magazines even though I had to clear a malfunction:

This means one could easily fire 154 rounds in less than a minute and a half.

What these people don’t realize is that the size of the magazine isn’t the critical part of putting a lot of bullets on target. It’s the target acquisition time. If the number of shots fired per unit time were something they were seriously going to restrict they would have to ban cartridges.

Of course they would consider that a valid and worthy goal. But it would be ignored and just as easily circumvented as their existing ban on standard capacity magazines.

So, what’s their point? I have to conclude Ayn Rand has their number.

Share

118 thoughts on “And their point is?

  1. The framework of their conversation has them actually talking about the equipment that a murderer can legally posses. Once the anti-logic of their position sinks in, you realize that continuing in such a conversation is insane.

    I reject their premise and insert my own.

    Limiting by law what a criminal may or may not use to commit his crimes is only a poorly-crafted smoke screen of course. A diversion. They don’t actually believe it, and so they’re left to hope that enough people are stupid enough to go along with it. Apparently it’s all they have, but it is so bad as to recommend them to an asylum for the mentally incompetent. For now they’d rather hide behind THAT than be honest about their motivations.

    It won’t be long though, before they directly and openly defy and denounce the constitution without bothering to make up these silly assertions as justification. I could almost have a modicum of respect for them in that case.

    • Lyle: The Court in this case seems well aware of the “anti-logic” you allude to.

      Plaintiffs complain that mass shootings are “particularly rare events” and thus, even if successful, the legislation will have a “minimal impact” on most violent crime. That may be so. But gun‐control legislation “need not strike at all evils at the same time” to be constitutional (pp. 40–41).

      And

      Plaintiffs counter — without record evidence — that the statutes will primarily disarm law‐abiding citizens and will thus impair the very public‐safety objectives they were designed to achieve … plaintiffs’ concerns are speculative at best … The mere possibility that some subset of people intent on breaking the law will indeed ignore these statutes does not make them unconstitutional (41).

      * NY State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Cuomo; Connecticut Citizens’ Defense League v. Malloy (2nd Cir. 2014)

  2. In this age of obfuscation and mass delusion I suppose it bears repeating; a criminal is by definition one who flouts legal limits. Placing legal limits on magazine capacity therefore deters the criminal not at all. It may deter the defender however, and so it serves only to weaken the defender and thus embolden the criminal.*

    The American founders understood this perfectly, and clearly said as much, and it was ratified and enshrined in our constitution. We are faced with legal professionals today who must know this as well as you or I know it, as it is part of America’s defining history, and yet they reject it. They push credibility beyond its limits in a sad and dangerous attempt to bolster their citizen disarmament agenda, and so clearly they have a tremendously powerful motivation, else they would not take such a risk of appearing delusional in their beliefs and assertions.

    * You will notice a distinct lack of discussion of defense against mass murder, among the members of what can only be described as an anti human rights movement. If defense against evil acts were a significant part of the discussion (and why on Earth should it NOT be?) then the conclusions would be completely different, and they can’t have that. To frame the discussion in such a way as to portray the victims of crime as utterly helpless, and the perpetrators as all-powerful but for the proposed legal limits on the capacity of their ammunition magazines, is to open a window into the minds of the Progressives themselves. This is the world they imagine. It the world they are making. We are letting them make it. They are insane, and we are insane for entertaining them.

    • Lyle: Interesting points. You’ve been around this block so you know the rejoinder: if knowing a law will be broken implies the law is pointless then we’d have no laws. Right? The same logic could apply to speed limits, theft and everything.

      Not every gun homicide is a well planned enterprise. There are degrees of murder and manslaughter to account for variations. Whatever guns are available now and wherever the targets happen to be seem more common considerations than careful legal evasions. Grab and go.

      Yes, criminal laws are unlikely to prevent organized efforts to thwart them. But that’s not how most homicides happen. Or speeding. Or assaults. Or any visceral crimes. If laws only reduce unplanned gun violence, isn’t that enough?

      • Nice try, but you’re ignoring the point, as I’m sure you are aware. Murder is illegal, and no one is saying it should be legalized on the grounds that the law cannot prevent all murders. You’re trying to blur the distinction between right and wrong here, between laws that are just and laws that are unjust and quite frankly stupid.

        Under virtually all gun restrictions, the good and the honest defenders of goodness and honesty are being restricted MORE than criminals would be restricted, thus tipping the balance in favor of the criminal. It is a violation of human rights, and thus no good can come from it. QED.

        Alcohol Prohibition and and War On some Drugs make a good comparison. In those cases, the people less inclined to be a problem are the ones who must do without, while criminal gangs enjoy a government-enforced monopoly on the drug trade.

        You and your alliance are calling, in essence, for a government-enforced monopoly on certain weaponry. RESERVED FOR CRIMINAL USE ONLY!

        Do you intentionally avoid talking about the increased incentive these programs create, for criminals to arm themselves? Under a zero restriction scenario, the criminal gains little advantage in being armed. At best he can only be on par with those around him, but still he is out-numbered. The balance of power thus favors the peaceable citizens.

        In a restrictive environment, where many of the peaceable are disarmed or restricted in their armament, the criminal gains a greater advantage by being armed. If he can he will increase that advantage by selecting “fun free zones” (criminal Empowerment zones) as his targets.

        If he’s going to break the highest law anyway, and go for a mass shooting, he may as well break a few lesser laws and use illegal weaponry. It certainly won’t be any more difficult to obtain than the most illegal drugs, or more difficult than it was finding illegal alcohol during Prohibition.

        The arguments you quoted above, about constitutionality, are idiotic. The second amendment says nothing about relative effectiveness of this or that restriction toward this or that end. It prohibits restrictions on the grounds that they are violations of human rights. The people you’re quoting are playing a game of bait and switch. Don’t fall for it.

        • Lyle: “The arguments [I] quoted above, about constitutionality,” you suggest, “are idiotic.” You do realize those are the words of the U.S. Supreme Court Justices, referenced by the case this blog entry is about? Seven of the twelve are Republican appointments. You know Constitutional Law well enough to say they’re idiotic?

          Your hypothesis that “under virtually all gun restrictions, the good and the honest defenders of goodness and liberty are being restricted … tipping the balance in favor of the criminal” is easily tested. How does our crime rate compare to Canada, Australia or the U.K.? Have criminals gained the upper hand in those nations?

      • Thank you for finally “getting off the dime” and letting everyone know that all you really were from the beginning was just another bigot with an anti-gun, anti-freedom, anti-civil rights agenda.

        Quite an introduction you tried to foist off on us as just someone who felt the ‘further study’ was needed because you possibly hadn’t made your mind up yet. Several people were trying to figure out your vacuous meanderings.

        It was noted quite well that you tried sliding past the question. “Can you demonstrate one time or place, throughout all history, where the average person was made safer by restricting access to handheld weapons?”

        Since you didn’t answer, all you did was raise the suspicion level to “near certainty”. Funny how that works isn’t it? You did it to yourself. And I guess you probably figured that out and decided that it was simpler to just take the mask off.

        You’ll get short shrift with your views that basically echo “if it just saves one life”.

        Here’s my short answer: If the effect of any of your proposed ‘solutions’ might, just “might” negatively affect my safety, the answer will be “Oh Hell No!”.

        And just because you think a court has negatively opined on a subject to the detriment of a right, you think everybody will just pack up their bags. go home and quietly acquiesce. Like I wrote, I’m rolling and that means on the floor laughing my ass off.

        I’ll write it again too, jus to make sure it didn’t slip by you : LEAVING the RIGHT ALONE is the best policy. There is a new paradigm and now everyone gets to play.

        • Miles: Does quoting the Supreme Court, most of which is Republican, expose bigoted, anti-freedom views? To continue the sinister exposé, read the rest of the decision referenced by this blog entry. I find it sensible.

          I responded two days ago to your interest in historical evidence for the effectiveness of gun restrictions by saying we could consider their effect “on crime trends in Australia or the U.K., that to me seem indicative.”

          • Citing Australian and U.K. crime statistics shows that while your icky “gun violence” did decrease, the entire violent crime numbers Increased.
            Home invasion, armed robbery, all the bad ones, went up almost immediately.

            But, I’ll help you out and trot out your line “but gun violence decreased, right?”

            The only thing that means is that you actually do believe that a woman who has been raped, then strangled with her pantyhose is somehow morally superior to one standing over the dead body of her assailant with a smoking gun.

            Or similarly, a home owner in Merry England who took a shotgun to a burglar actually should be held legally liable and serve more time in prison than the burglar, and also be responsible for the burglar’s medical bills.

            That’s what they’ve got over there…today.

            And to put Australia into context. The % of the guns that were supposed to be confiscated is estimated to have been less then 25% of the total that were banned. Also, just to ruin your day, the number of “legal” guns bought since ’96 has more than equaled the number that were confiscated.

            Don’t try to tell us you don’t want to ban and confiscate out guns….sir.

            Just understand that we aren’t the people of Australia, or England.

            But please keep on thinking that we are.

            Your kind make me sick.

          • Oh, I had one thing slip my mind.
            You seem to think SCOTUS is the end all, be all.
            SCOTUS history, which you want to refer to, has a singular case in point that emphatically proves they’re not the final arbiter.
            It’s referred to as the Dred Scott decision.
            But they were ‘correct’ weren’t they?

          • Miles: You asked for “one time or place, throughout all history, where the average person was made safer by restricting access to handheld weapons.” Although “we aren’t the people of Australia or England,” as you say, they’re certainly a “time or place.”

            Australia passed their well known gun restrictions in 1996. The crime trend there isn’t universally positive, as you observe. Murder after 1996 is down from 1.7 to 1.0 person per 100,000 but sexual assault has risen from 79.4 to 88. Robbery has dropped from 89.4 to 42.1 (!) per 100,000.¹

            The years immediately following the law did see a continued rise in crime but one wouldn’t expect policy changes, whether restrictions or shall issue laws, to have immediate effect. After a couple years, all crimes did drop.²

            The situation in England is clearer. Violent crime has declined continuously there since 1995. It is now lower than it was in the 1980s.¹ England added gun restrictions in 1968, 1988 and 1997.

            There is no reason to feel sick about any of it.
            ___
            ¹ Australian Bureau of Statistics, “Recorded crime” (2014)
            ² Australian Institute of Criminology, “Victims of violent crime
            ³ Office of National Statistics, “Crime in England and Wales” (2014)

          • Miles: The Supreme Court is the “end all, be all” of existing cases but future Courts and cases can obviously go another direction. Perhaps our kids will have a role in some such future change, find these old remarks online and think, “wow.” Life is often fun like that.

          • Let’s see if this makes it under your last comment since my email notification seems to be inoperative.

            And you don’t think it’s a well known fact that the U.K. and the commonwealth nations don’t skew their crime statistics by only reporting “solved” crimes?
            If even a murder isn’t solved, and a conviction rendered, it isn’t reported in the official statistics, just like other lesser crimes.
            Remember; we are not stupid.

            On to the rest.
            Either you are so dense you didn’t get the point, or you are purposely being obtuse.

            Actually I believe it’s the latter, but I’ll make it clear just so that everyone can get it.

            Did you actually think I was referring to the continuation of ‘court cases’ ?

            The Dred Scott decision was never reheard, it was just made moot and not just by congressional acts and a constitutional amendment. Those were merely the legal recognitions of a mooting by a most assuredly more certain means.

            Let me make it again plain

            Don’t ever mistake calmness for acceptance or patience for fear to action.

            And yes, you can read exactly whatever you want to into that.

          • Miles: It seems like backpedaling to ask for any “time or place, throughout all history” then complain that it’s England, then suggest its crime statistics must be skewed.

            England requires that all offenses reported to the police be recorded and reported, regardless of whether they’re solved. There is a hundred page guide you can read all about it complete with crime reporting and quality assurance process flows (figures 3a and 3b).* Furthermore, England continuously surveys residents about their crime experience to double-check the police records, also thoroughly described in that guide.

            There is no rational or empirical reason to doubt England’s residents are indeed safer after their series of gun restrictions.
            ___
            * Office of National Statistics, “User Guide for Crime Statistics” (Oct 2015)

          • Tell us again about all that ‘reported’ child abuse the Rotherham. Please.

            No one yet knows the totality of all that.

            So you can guess what I think of any purported honesty with the U.K. police and their statistics.

          • Linoge: I was careful to say “after” not “therefore.”

            U.K. police reports are shown with the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW), mentioned previously. The police, for their part, were found to have under-reported but not at a rate affecting the trend. And you could always see the CSEW result.

          • Miles: Unless U.K. crime was under-reported far more than indicated in breathless exposés, the truth remains: gun restrictions were enacted, decade after decade, and the people are safer.

          • Great. Then you acknowledge you haven’t answered Miles’ charge to find “one time or place, throughout all history, where the average person was made safer by restricting access to handheld weapons”, if you aren’t claiming causality.

            Guess we’re done here.

          • Also, if a 20-60% under-reporting (depending on the specific crime) is not enough, in your world, to “affect the trend”, then there’s really no point in continuing this conversation.

          • Linoge: People can be safer after nations enact gun restrictions. It is useful just to know that. If the question is only satisfied by unambiguous causality then it wasn’t a sincere question since such causality is never demonstrable. Social policy relies on inductive, not deductive evidence.

            Do you have data showing violent crime in England has increased since 1995? If, after adjustments to police reporting, it is still known to have decreased, then how is the point affected?

            HMIC¹ found British police hadn’t treated as crimes some activities it considered criminal for a total “under-recording of 19 percent” (¶¶ 1.16, 7.1) due to “poor knowledge of and therefore adherence to crime-recording rules” (¶ 7.14, cf. ¶ 7.12).

            However, police records were always reported alongside the CSEW² (¶¶ 7.20, 7.25; p. 117) which independently and continually demonstrates declining crime (p. 120). “For 20 years, these national data have shown what amounts to dramatic reductions in crime during a time when the rules and standards governing crime-recording practice have been tightened significantly” (¶ 1.9).

            People can be safer after nations enact gun restrictions.
            __
            ¹ Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, “Crime Recording: Making the Victim Count” (November 2014)
            ² For more about statistical methodology, see Office of National Statistics, “CSEW Technical Report” (vol. 1)

          • “There is no rational or empirical reason to doubt England’s residents are indeed safer after their series of gun restrictions.”

            By the same logic, there is also no empirical reason to doubt that U.S. residents are indeed safer after we loosened our gun restrictions, since the rate of violent crime has decreased steadily after the expiration of the AWB in the mid 90’s, and the expansion of legal concealed carry during that same time frame.

          • Jason Abbott: “Australia passed their well known gun restrictions in 1996. The crime trend there isn’t universally positive, as you observe. Murder after 1996 is down from 1.7 to 1.0 person per 100,000…”

            A 40% drop in less than two decades. That’s pretty good. The problem is we’ve had the same drop in the United States over the same period, while increasing gun rights. Additionally, we don’t have that problem of sexual assaults being up and violent crime rates as a whole have dropped more here than down under.

            http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm

            Jason Abbott: “There is no rational or empirical reason to doubt England’s residents are indeed safer after their series of gun restrictions.”

            Likewise, there is no rational or empirical reason to doubt the USA’s residents are indeed safer after their series of relaxing gun restrictions. Do you want to just call it a draw and concede that there is no correlation between these crime drops and gun control. We’ll just keep our rights then.

          • Jake: I agree. The data only tell us gun restrictions don’t reduce safety and may, in some circumstances, improve safety. No dataset describes a complete answer but each datum narrows the set of rational possibilities.

          • TS: Those are good points. In this part of the conversation (scroll way, way up) I’m glad to establish that gun restrictions don’t reduce safety and may, in some circumstances, improve it. It doesn’t prove strict causality but it’s the kind of empirical evidence that can shape public policy.

          • If the question is only satisfied by unambiguous causality then it wasn’t a sincere question since such causality is never demonstrable.

            *headdesk*

            And I’m out. I only deal with innumerate people when I’m paid to.

          • Jason Abbott: “I’m glad to establish that gun restrictions don’t reduce safety and may, in some circumstances, improve it.”

            And I’m glad to establish that lifting gun restrictions does not reduce safety, as evidence by what happened here in the United States. The UK, Australia, and the USA all saw similar reductions in their murder rates since 1996. The UK and Australia confiscated and destroyed large amounts of guns, while the citizens of the USA got to keep their guns and even got an expansion of their rights with the sun-setting of the “assault weapons” ban and magazine restrictions, and improvements of carry rights. Furthermore, the USA did slightly better than Australia in overall violent crime reductions, and blows away the UK which saw no reduction in violent crime rates at all.

            https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/historical-crime-data

            So certainly we can’t conclude that “in some circumstances” safety was improved due to gun restrictions when between these three countries safety was improved the most in the United States. When we look at state data within the United States we also see that there is no correlation between violent crime or murder and gun laws.

            I am not trying to draw any causational relationships myself, but rather I am ok with concluding that gun control is useless based on empirical data. In that case, let’s just keep our guns and our rights, and not even bother with the “safety vs. freedom” philosophical discussion. Public policy shouldn’t be shaped by useless restrictions. That would be meddlesome and un-American.

          • Linoge: I suppose it can be frustrating when empirical analytics don’t yield to outrage peddling, self-affirming media outlets that would have us satisfied with intellectual incest (let’s all quote each other and call it research).

          • TS: I think we largely agree, though I’m less sure about the claim that the U.K. “saw no reduction in violent crime rates at all.” If I find an actual chart of crime data alluded to by your link, it notes “this is a 8% decrease compared with the previous year’s survey, and the lowest estimate since the CSEW began in 1981.”*

            Since causality cannot be proven without having recorded every crime and potential crime (and perhaps the thoughts of those involved), it’s only feasible to consider the strength and consistency of correlations.

            Since crime is declining similarly among first-world nations with different gun restrictions we might say “gun control is useless” with respect to the trend. Is that enough, case closed? What if a nation has the same trend but instead of 10 to 4% for some crime their drop is 42 to 36%?

            While aware of the positive trend, many remain dissatisfied with the level of gun crime (and gun mortality generally). It’s not so obvious that “gun control is useless” with respect to the level of crime.

            Useful versus meddlesome — you’re right to conclude there. It will come down to that. I am open to the possibility of gun mortality (if I may focus there) being unaffected by gun control. But I don’t think data support a conclusion just yet.
            ___
            * Office for National Statistics, “Crime Survey for England and Wales and police recorded crime” (October 2015)

          • Jason Abbott: “Do you have data showing violent crime in England has increased since 1995?”

            Yes, I do. The “gov.uk” link that I previously provided above shows 311K incidents of violent crime in 1995, and 779K in 2014. If you look at the fine print, there was a reporting rules change in 1998, so we have to take that into account. For 1998 they list the crime totals under the old rules and the new rules (331K vs. 616K). If we extrapolate the difference to 1995, we get an estimate of 579K if they had recorded violent crimes under the new rules. That is a 35% increase in violent crime totals since banning handguns. This is a total, not adjusted for population, but it looks like from the charts England and Wales had about 10% population growth since the mid-90s, so we are looking at a clear increase in rates of overall violence (though murder went down). Mind you, during this same time, the USA saw a 40% decrease in violent crime rates, along with a 40% reduction in murder rates as well.

            https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/historical-crime-data

          • Jason Abbott: “While aware of the positive trend, many remain dissatisfied with the level of gun crime (and gun mortality generally). It’s not so obvious that “gun control is useless” with respect to the level of crime.”

            That’s shifting the goal posts a little, don’t you think? The discussion was around a possible positive effect that gun restrictions had on UK and Australia. Looking at it closely, we see that they improvements were not as good as the improvements stateside- and the US did the exact opposite of what they did. If the discussion comes back to “well, the USA still has far more murders than the UK and Australia”, then the rebuttal is that they had far fewer murders before enacting their gun control laws. So there is nothing pointing to gun policy as the reason.

            Jason Abbott: “I am open to the possibility of gun mortality (if I may focus there) being unaffected by gun control. But I don’t think data support a conclusion just yet.”

            There is some pretty solid evidence at the state level supporting no correlation if you want to go there.

          • TS: Thank you for the explanation. Sorry I didn’t see precisely what you were referring to initially. You made reasonable accommodation for the April 1998 crime recording change¹ but not, that I can see, the April 2002² NCRS change or implementation of the 2013–14 HMIC audit recommendations.³

            Each of those events, all between the dates we’re comparing, “had the effect of increasing the number of crimes recorded by the police [such that] numbers of recorded crimes are not comparable with previous years.”²

            As such, the police records you’re parsing “were found not to meet the required standard for designation as National Statistics.” Rather, “data from the CSEW continue to be badged as National Statistics.”⁴ And those data do show a continual crime decline since 1995.⁵

            For a picture of how CSEW compares to changing U.K. police records, see this chart.
            ___
            ¹ Home Office, “Recorded Crime Statistics for England and Wales 1890 – 2001/02” (note 59)
            ² Home Office, “Recorded Crime Statistics for England and Wales 2002/03 – 2014/15” (note 1)
            ³ Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, “Crime Recording: Making the Victim Count
            ⁴ Office for National Statistics, “User Guide to Crime Statistics for England and Wales” (p. 3)
            ⁵ Office for National Statistics, “CSEW Technical Report” (vol. 1)

          • TS: That there’s more than one goal post was part of my point. I know this section of the conversation is about comparing national trends indexed to gun laws but that horse may be nearing death. My last comment sounded like whinnying and snorting (HMIC, NCRS, CSEW!), even to me.

            Australia has added gun restrictions several times since the 1920s¹ and the U.K. many more times since 1508.² It’s not obvious what time is “before enacting their gun control laws.” I suppose we’d have to probe the effect of each one for any hope of knowing if they’re related to lower crime rates.

            I would be glad to consider domestic state and city data, maybe under a fresh, full-width comment, with room for horses to roam.
            ___
            ¹ Wikipedia, “Gun laws in Australia
            ² Wikipedia, “Firearms Act: United Kingdom

          • I could go on for a while about state level correlations (or lack thereof), but to start I will point you to this article. Volokh covered just about everything I have to say.

            zero-correlation-between-state-homicide-rate-and-state-gun-laws

            Regarding the UK data, personally I would tend to weight recorded incidents stronger than I would a phone survey of a few thousand people. In the USA we also use survey information (NCVS), but at least it trends with the FBI UCR stats. Something is amiss in the UK for them to be so wildly off from each other. Still, at best you are trying to make the case the UK hasn’t done worse than the USA since their gun ban, and that instead they’ve been similar. You do this by disregarding recorded events and instead focusing on a phone survey. This still doesn’t make a positive case for enacting gun restrictions. We got to keep our guns and saw significant improvements in murder and violent crime rates.

            Second, the link you provided showing the difference between recorded events and the phone survey in the UK is showing values for total crime. The violent crime rates I am referring to are a much smaller subset of all crime (excludes property crime) and categorized as “total violence against the person”. The recorded events tables that I downloaded off the link I provided do show a drop in all crime consistent with the table you linked to (6M in 2002, 3.8M in 2014). However, violent crime against a person is up in the UK. In the United States, violent crime has gone down over the same period.

            Lastly, thank you for pointing out the additional reporting rules change in 2002. I can’t make the same estimate for what effect it had that I did for 1998 because they don’t show both values for the year that it changed. However, the year before the change they were at 600K violent crimes against the person, and the year of the change it went to 650K. What this bump because of the rule change, or was it an actual increase? They say under the new reporting rules it will show higher. Either way it doesn’t change the fact that violent crime has been increasing since their gun ban. The latest figure shows 779K violent crimes against a person, up from 650K in 2002 and directly comparable since the National Crime Recording Standard was introduced. Again, the USA saw decreases in this category.

          • TS: Those whose careers are devoted to the subject strongly favor the accuracy of the CSEW over U.K. police records. I know that’s a cop-out, an “appeal to authority,” but I find myself at the limit of what I’ll invest in sifting primary data on a sidebar subject. Hats off to you if you’re still raring to research.

            If the CSEW are correct then it is not the case that “violent crime against a person is up in the U.K.” Rather, it’s down a substantial 68% since 1995.* I know: uh-huh; nuh-uh.

            I will read the Volokh article and comment at the top level.
            ___
            * Office for National Statistics, “Crime in England and Wales, Year Ending June 2015” (table 1)

      • if knowing a law will be broken implies the law is pointless then we’d have no laws. Right? The same logic could apply to speed limits, theft and everything.

        Wrong.

        Look up “malum prohibitum” and “malum in se”.

        • Linoge: You might have to elaborate. I’m not sure how moral versus statutory wrong pertains to the Court’s assertion (which I was reiterating): “The mere possibility that some subset of people intent on breaking the law will indeed ignore these statutes does not make them unconstitutional.”

          • The question wasn’t pertaining to Constitutionality, but good attempt at a deflection to appeal to authority.

            The question was whether or not we should have laws that we know criminals are going to break. In the case of laws that cover direct and meaningful harm to another person, of course we should have them – it allows for a punishment of the criminal who harmed another person.

            In the case of laws that simply define something as being bad because the government thinks it should be bad, there is no point… except, of course, as revenue sources or means of keeping the populace in check.

          • Linoge: I agree we should have laws proscribing “direct and meaningful harm to another person” whether or not some will violate those laws. I also agree, as I think you imply, these laws should rest on empirical, not emotional or economical considerations.

            Our difference, I suppose, is over how direct and how meaningful Does driving 15 MPH over the speed limit count? Having a bonfire in my cul-de-sac? Ripping a copy of my neighbor’s music collection? Poaching a deer? I say we just follow the data.

  3. Yes.

    A “high” round-count magazine IS conducive to putting a lot of rounds downrange in a very limited amount of time.

    But it’s not the only limitation. Shooter experience has a LOT to do with it.

    A few months ago, I was demonstrating the “El Presidente” drill to a class of my students, and I embarassed myself by discovering in the last third of the stage that I had failed to reload an 8-round magazine that I used for a reload.

    I shot six rounds, then five rounds and found myself in slide-lock.

    So i reloaded with a fresh magazine and still ended up with a stage time of 8.76 seconds with 54 points.

    That’s 12 rounds with TWO reloads for an average of 0.73 seconds per shot, including the reaction time to the buzzer, the turn, the draw and TWO reloads.
    (Including the time to react to the unexpected slide-lock, and the moment I spent cursing myself.)

    I’m not saying this wasn’t a fluke for me, because it was.

    All I’m saying is that when people say that magazine capacity is the be-all and end-all of expending a lot of aimed shots quickly, they are ignoring the fact that ‘normal-capacity’ magazines are only a convenience; they don’t necessarily mean that limited capacity magazines are a hindrance to the expeditious and accurate high volume of fire in a relatively short time.

    In other words: the people who are regulating equipment don’t really know what they’re talking about.

    But then, you already knew that.

  4. As far as I know, most mass shooters don’t have the opportunity to set up extra magazines on a table in front of them before they start shooting. How much extra time would it take to get the magazines from a vest or from a bag sitting on the floor?

    • Amazingly the stupid one missed the point.

      I am shocked, shocked I tell you!

      Maybe if Ubu cuts down the trees obscuring her view, she might see the forest.

      • The really stupid ones are the ones who don’t seem to understand that if you add a step to any process, it slows the process down. Shooting 30 rounds from one magazine is faster than shooting 30 rounds from three magazines.

        • And, you fucking moron troll, when the killer chooses a gun free zone with disarmed victims conditioned that all violence is wrong, the point is 100% moot.

          None of the massacre killers after Charles Whitman were skilled shooters. They were at best polished novices. They didn’t train out thier attack, and they only used basic tactics.

          Idiot

          • And let’s forget that the ratio the court cited was “154 rounds in less than five minutes”.

            You know, a round every other second.

            But this does show Ubu’s complete ignorance on technical issues. But hey, feelings man!

            Hey Weerd wanna lay ods that Ubu will bring out the saw of “Well with more reloads that means there’s better odds the killer can be jumped!”

            You know the whole, endorsing jumping an armed attacker while saying that CCW would just make things worse?

          • You couldn’t make your point without the personal insults? Anywhere else, you’d be banned for that, but here, I guess you’re *special*.

          • To be fair, you idiot troll, you’d be banned from most places for your constant trolling of leftist talking points with complete disinterest to support your points or respond to rebuttals.

            But Joe’s blog, Joe’s rules.

            Also if Joe would like me to tone it down, I will.

            But you got my respectful responses years ago.

            Now i’m just reflecting back the contempt you have for this issue and for those who defend it from mental midgets like you.

        • Adding an insignificant step/process is meaningless to teh end result.when you are talking about a fractionsof a second to a second at most, and they don’t have to be laid out in front of you. Of course you wouldn’t know that because you have only read about it, and have no real experience to base your opinins..

    • “How much extra time would it take to get the magazines from a vest or from a bag sitting on the floor?”

      Ask the Virginia Tech shooter. Or the Sandy Hook shooter. Both had ample time to reload frequently.

  5. I think it is instructive to consider the Appellate Court’s reasoning.* It acknowledges “the laws at issue are both broad and burdensome … They impose a substantial burden on Second Amendment rights” (pages 33–34). It flatly stipulates, “these laws ban weapons protected by the Second Amendment.” (28)

    Any liberty, however, may be limited if it threatens the right to life, the safety of our persons. So the Court proceeds, as it has many times, on the basis of “substantial governmental interests in public safety and crime prevention” (37), finding the statutes address “particularly hazardous weapons” (39).

    Liberty is limited but not eliminated by the right to life. “Numerous alternatives remain for law‐abiding citizens to acquire a firearm for self‐defense” (35), the Court explains, so “the burden imposed by the challenged legislation is real, but it is not severe.” (36)

    There is a lot of other interesting detail in the decision addressing plaintiff arguments.
    ___
    * NY State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Cuomo; Connecticut Citizens’ Defense League v. Malloy (2nd Cir. 2014): http://www.ca2.uscourts.gov/decisions/isysquery/7541c52a-9924-4ba1-af2b-59f16bbeb2a5/3/doc/14-36_14-319_opn.pdf

    • Nice try, really, but again it’s a swing and a miss. Yes, you have correctly pointed out the best arguments being made by the opponents of liberty. Those arguments are ridiculous.

      It would be reasonable then, to start banning books of a political nature, or conservative movies, because of “substantial governmental interests in public safety [from]…particularly hazardous ideas”.

      We could argue that it’s perfectly constitutional on the grounds that “Numerous alternatives remain for law‐abiding citizens to acquire a book for information or entertainment” (35), the Court explains, so “the burden imposed by the challenged legislation is real, but it is not severe.”

      Substitute “religion” during a proposed ban on Christianity, or “location” to support a ban on freedom of assembly anywhere near a government building or college campus.

      It’s not that you still have some difficult and pathetic alternatives to proper militia arms, so long as you ask politely for government permission and pay a fee.

      No, Young Grasshopper; it’s that your rights have been violated, thus tipping the balance in favor of criminals and tyrants.

      • Lyle: If the Supreme Court Justices, as cited by the Appellate Court, seem to you like “the opponents of liberty” whose “arguments are ridiculous” then I can understand your frustration.

        In fairness to the Justices, they didn’t exactly indict “hazardous ideas.” You inserted that. They described hazard in the sense of “more numerous wounds, more serious wounds, and more victims” (p. 39). Unless your religion does that, it’s safe from indictment.

    • “I think it is instructive to consider the Appellate Court’s reasoning.* ….”

      Again, as it’s even more appropriate to the point.
      And just because you think a court has negatively opined on a subject to the detriment of a right, you think everybody will just pack up their bags, go home and quietly acquiesce.

      The best rate, even the state has is that there is only – ONLY – somewhere in the area of 10% compliance with the NY “safe act”. And just about every local LE agency outside of NYC and LI isn’t enforcing it either!

      Think about that. Roll it around in your mind for awhile. Consider all the ramifications.

      • Miles: I heard anecdotes of low SAFE Act (half of the statutes just upheld) compliance when it was passed a couple years ago. I haven’t seen follow-up reports. I think the most valuable data will indicate whether gun mortality is affected in those states.

        I am not sure where you’re getting the impression that I want people to leave (or think they’re dumb, or anything else). The clash of ideas is a great part of our nation. I wouldn’t want it to end.

        • “I haven’t seen follow-up reports. I think the most valuable data will indicate whether gun mortality is affected in those states.”

          And if it is not affected do you acquiesce that the SAFE act was a failure?

          • TS: Definitely. And it should be repealed if it’s ineffective. Laws that do nothing to improve our lives are meddlesome and un-American.

        • There you go again with this “gun mortality” variant of “gun violence”.

          How about total violent crime?
          But we with you it’s, GUNS! Those evil, evil GUNS! .

          We know you just don’t like guns.
          Guns in people’s hands.
          In vast quantities that are totally untraceable and un accountable.
          It’s not even the fear of guns is it?
          Isn’t it just the fear of guns in the hands of people who don’t see eye to eye with yout?
          I really don’t feel sorry for you.
          Mainly because I figure it’s got to keep you awake at night knowing there’s people out there WITH GUNS! who don’t just disagree with you but take great exception to your plans.

          But please, do please, keep on planning. And keep on thinking you’re on the ‘right side of history’ too.

          Like I started, when I had the first, best inclination where you were really coming from; keep thinking that way if it makes you feel all warm and fuzzy.

          • Miles: I don’t think a gun is evil anymore than a rake or shovel. I’ve offered no moral judgments whatsoever. Whether something might impinge our right to life is an empirical, not emotional matter.

          • You keep going on with this as if you simply are unable to deal with the premise that there a vast numbers of people who have considered all alternatives and concluded that the ability to point the hand and smite at a distance (now being facilitated by the use of GUNS) is the preferred methodology.

            Personally, if I could point the finger and shoot lightning bolts, I’d go with that, but since the current alternative is cold steel, or a stick, I’ll have to go with guns.

            It’s just too, too bad you think that it needs all this ‘further study’ BS line you pull as opposed to simply recognizing that there never been anything proven that would call for more gun control, YET, you just can’t stop.

            It’s an obsessive-compulsive mental aberration.

            It’s time you came top your senses and give it up.

            This is for the best results for you.

            Alternatives are not so nice.

          • Miles: I have no doubt everyone here has put much thought and good intention into their beliefs. I regret if I’ve implied otherwise.

          • When your beliefs from “much thought” are pretty much exactly the same as known anti-gunners, I really have no need to wonder about intentions, or what’s implied.

            The old saw about the road to hell being paved with good intentions relates to my, and many, many other’s observed results of ‘do-gooders’ causing more ( and more serious ) problems than they ever thought about solving. It’s axiomatic because it’s grounded in fact, again and again.

            Think real hard on that for more than a few minutes. And I mean all the implications of what this crap can lead to.

      • I am reminded of the scene from the Avengers, when the ‘world security council’ informs Nick Fury of their decision to nuke NYC to prevent the alien invasion from spreading.

        Whereupon Fury’s reaction is ‘I recognize that the council has made a decision, but given that it’s a stupid-ass decision, I’ve elected to ignore it.’

        Keep pushing, libs. Eventually we’re going to start just ignoring you.

          • It’s completely irrelevant if they’re liberal, conservative, or they hail from Planet 10.

            It’s a stupid decision, and if they persist in stupid decisions, they might find themselves being ignored.

        • Toastrider:

          I’ve considered several times in the past, that there’ll soon come a point when most of the federal government actually will; just be ignored.

          The “I Will Not Comply!” movement is gaining ground. And it’s simply from people getting fed up with all this grasping for control.

          I can see there’ll be all kind of federal laws banning, or requiring this, that, or the other and federal court decisions proclaiming such is and isn’t. And
          except for when law or a court decision just happens to agree with what they’re doing, or is easier to follow than not, people will simply do what they want and if anyone tries to interfere? Well..too bad for them.

          • Miles: Bombastic bloggers seem more common but is that “gaining ground” or just the sound of voices multiplied in an echo chamber?

            Another Idaho blog I follow is III Percent Patriots. Kerodin has continually rallied for action. So far, it has amounted to slapping “resist” stickers on a few public signs. “Is there a shred of evidence that Liberty Forces are growing or coalescing?” he finally wondered a few days ago (Oct. 20). “No. There is not,” he concludes. “Examples of the specific do not translate to the general in this matter.”

  6. If life is worth defending, then surely it is worth defending with the best means available.

    You will note among the Progressives a conspicuous lack of serious discussion of the best means of self defense for the individual.

    Progressives, fundamentally, see government (themselves, really) and not you, as responsible for your actions, your standing in society, and for your very life, and everything they think, say and do is based on that falsity. They will therefor always think wrong, propose wrong, react wrong, promote wrong and do wrong, until the switch in the brain is somehow flipped back over to the “liberty, reason and human rights” setting.

    • Lyle: “Like most rights,” the Supreme Court explained, “the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.”* Do you disagree? Could that limit “the best means available” for defense? What if a P90 would be the best defense?

      If the human right to life is not a reasonable limit on gun access, what is?
      ___
      * District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008)

      • “If the human right to life is not a reasonable limit on gun access, what is?”

        So…. you enjoy alcohol there Jason? You do know about drunk drivers and the people they kill… so…

        “If the human right to life is not a reasonable limit on alcohol access, what is?”

        Or how about knives and bats? I mean if we’re going with “right to life” .

        And… with the right to life… who gets sued when a person is beaten to death?

        There’s also that you’re advocating for prior restraint (that is restricting something before a person’s guilt can be proven in court) and doing so on extremely broad grounds.

        • The Jack: I am not sure I understand your point. The right to life does restrict drunk driving. Knives, bats or naked roller skaters* can kill but don’t pose a substantial risk. The amount of risk-to-life we wish to tolerate is up to legislative bodies and, by extension, us as voters.

          As for “prior restraint,” doesn’t that refer to freedom of the press? It gets a little weird when applied elsewhere. If I’m not allowed to have chemical weapons, is that prior restraint? I promise I’ll be good. And why can’t I fire a gun in town? Or speed? Or have a subdivision bonfire? Prior restraint! (Maybe I’m not understanding your full point.)
          ___
          * Monty Python, “The Meaning of Life” (VII)

          • Jason Abbot: Just so no casuall readers are left with a misconception, it should be pointed out that while drunk driving is restricted, the ban on alcohol was repealed many years ago. But people are still trying to ban guns.

            Also, since blunt instruments such as bats and hammers are used in more murders each year than “assault weapons,” perhaps attention actually should be diverted in that direction away from banning sport rifles.

          • Ttl: Assaults with a long gun have killed 9,912 between 1999 and 2013. Assaults with an unspecified firearm killed 150,162 in the same period (surely some rifles). Mortal assaults with a “blunt object” in that time? 1,824.*
            ___
            * Center for Disease Control and Prevention, “Underlying Cause of Death, 1999–2013” (reporting tool)

          • Jason Abbot:

            Your data aren’t readily at hand in your reference, but in any case, “long guns” is a little too inclusive of a category. Below is a link to some FBI numbers which show how blunt object murders consistently come in higher than rifle murders (of which “assault weapon” murders are a smaller subset).

            Please note that knife murders come in significantly higher than both. These numbers show that whatever agenda “assault weapon” banners have, it isn’t public safety.

            I’ve made my point, thanks for playing. Peace, out.

            https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8

          • Ttl: Thank you for the UCR link. Comparing police (UCR) to physician (CDC) mortality reports (typically autopsies) is interesting. Medical mortality is classified from among 155,000 ICD codes so can be very specific. And the medical report is legally required while police reports are voluntary (less comprehensive).

            In addition to different gun classifications you noted, the CDC has several categories that are presumably combined into “blunt object” for the UCR (e.g. hitting with a car or hot object). Comparison is possible but not definitive.

            UCR assault mortality (2013)¹
              Rifles 285
              Shotguns 308
              Other guns (not handguns) 123
              Unspecified gun 1,956
              Blunt object 428

            CDC assault mortality (2013)²
              Rifles and Shotguns 495
              Unspecified gun (not handguns) 9,859
              Blunt object 50

            Even with UCR data, if only seven percent of “other” and “not stated” guns were rifles, blunt objects (which apparently includes things like cars) are exceeded. Balanced with more comprehensive and precise CDC data, I don’t think blunt objects should be a greater concern than rifles.
            ___
            ¹ F.B.I., Uniform Crime Reports, “Murder Victim by Weapon, 2009–2013
            ² Center for Disease Control and Prevention, “Underlying Cause of Death, 1999–2013.” I can’t link directly to the report because you must first “agree” not to attempt victim identification. It’s just a couple clicks to run a report.

        • I’m impressed he had the balls to quote Heller while promoting gun control.

      • Because gun laws have been relaxing since their apex in 1994 and more people own firearms and carry firearms than ever before in this country, and violent crime is DROPPING.

        So if gun access has been getting easier, and more people are gaining access, and more lives are being saved or bettered, then maybe gun restriction is a HORRIBLE idea.

        • Weer’d Beard: Data from five surveys¹ conducted regularly for decades all show household gun ownership has declined from a peak of 50% thirty years ago to 35 or 40% now (see chart).

          To ensure data aren’t being skewed by under-reporting, surveys have been seeded with the phone numbers of people already known to have a gun by their concealed carry permit² or hunting and handgun licenses.³ Over 90% answered accurately, indicating the surveys are reliable.

          That gun sales are up while individual ownership is down reflects the trend away from having a few rifles for hunting to having a larger self-defense collection. (Anecdotally, I often hear from folks with a dozen or twenty guns where just a few once seemed the norm.)
          ___
          ¹ Gallup, “Guns”; General Social Survey, “Have Gun in Home”; Pew Research Center, “Gun Ownership Trends and Demographics”; PollingReport.com, ABC/Washington Post; The Economist/YouGov, “Personal Gun Ownership
          ² Tom Smith, Journal of Quantitative Criminology, “A Seeded Sample of Concealed-Carry Permit Holders,” 2003, vol. 19, no. 4, p. 441
          ³ National Library of Medicine Public Health Reports, “Validity of a Household Gun Question in a Telephone Survey

          • ‘Household’ alternated w/ ‘individual’. Two completely different statistics.

            Among mine and my neighbors (in-laws), there are 7 people, 6 of which are gun owners, two of them new w/i the past year.

            That’s counted as 2 ‘households’.

            Even if 90% of firearm purchases are by repeat buyers, that’s hundreds of thousands of new firearm owners every year.

            I guarantee you the numbers aren’t accurate by the polls because many firearm owners don’t respond to them. And the ‘seeding’ is from reports over a decade to 20 years out of date.

            So where did you copy/paste that from?

          • Weer’d Beard: The large “Seeded Sample” study from December, 2003, found 94% of gun owners in Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Louisiana and Montana answered the ownership question honestly. The respondent didn’t know their ownership was known. Even their questioner didn’t know. The data were matched up during analysis.

            A principle of rational inquiry is to begin with the interpretation requiring the fewest assumptions. Anecdotes and personal guarantees are assumptions. Contrary to those assumptions, the decline in hunting and increasing urbanization (most gun ownership is rural) is consistent with survey results. Public policy should be guided by empiricism, not assumption.

          • No, that percentage that answered the survey responded to the questions. Not those that didn’t bother picking up the phone. There’s also a 15+% difference between many of the polls. That’s far outside of standards of deviation.

            Where did you copy/paste the info from? I ask a second time

          • Thirdpower: I wasn’t sure what your “copy/paste” question meant since each of my citations has a link to the source. Maybe they don’t show on a mobile device or something? I can spell out the full web address if you can be more specific about the “info” you want.

            I had the pleasure as a student of conducting surveys for the Social and Economics Sciences Research Center. I know not everyone answers. Does that mean the majority who do answer aren’t representative?

            There are differences between the five polls, yes, as much as 42 versus 32% ownership. That’s why I cited a range in the middle. All, however, are much lower than the 50% ownership rate twenty or thirty years ago. A drop is a drop.

          • You know exactly what I meant by ‘copy/paste’. What source did you copy you post from? Where did that chart number 11 come from?

            And ‘households’ have increased at a greater percentage than the population therefore phone polls are not necessarily representative of reality. There is not one bit of physical evidence that firearm ownership is decreasing. Purchases and checks are up. Classes are filled w/ increasing demographics. Memberships of organizations and clubs continue to expand.

            Yet according to ‘polls’, half the population wants more ‘gun control’ but no anti-gun group is able to survive by membership alone, only w/ huge influxes of money by a few rich philanthropists.

            Explain the disparity.

          • Thirdpower: If the majority think Scientology is silly, how is it classes are filling up and e-Meter use continues to rise? Explain the discrepancy!

            NRA membership is about five million or 1.4% of the population. Members of other clubs, but not the NRA, probably add a little to the number. Club activity doesn’t exactly preclude a 33% ownership rate.

            The experiences you’ve described are anecdotal. My experience as a fifth generation Idahoan, growing up in the countryside where everyone had rifles, is that I can think of only a couple occasions when friends, family or acquaintances have even mentioned a gun since I was a kid. I don’t know of anybody taking a class or joining a club.

            Should I conclude from my experience that 33% ownership is an exaggeration? It must be lower? Of course not. Empirical data, not private experience should guide policy.

            The strange “copy/paste” thing …
            Is it data for the chart you want? If so, it’s here, under the “National” tab: https://goo.gl/HyPvs9. I generated the chart from exactly the sources I cited above. If you’re talking about the post itself, I typed it letter-by-letter with my fingers. I compose my posts in Google Docs. I could share the file and let you see my typing history, if that seems important.

  7. Joe; the argument you present in the post (that magazine capacity restrictions, when one chooses to obey them, are little hinderance to either the criminal or the defender) is at best a wash. At worst it makes the point made in the anti rights courts, as pointed out by Jason Abbot, that such a restriction leaves the citizen with adequate self defense capability and thus it is not a significant infringement to his second amendment rights. Are you sure you want to make that point?

    One might similarly argue that military infantry could do as well with five or ten round magazines as with thirty round magazines, since adequate training would allow them to use the limited capacity magazines to full effect. And if a five or ten round magazine is adequate, then we may logically discuss single shot weapons as an option for infantry. And if a single shot is too much for a criminal, being that he can still kill people with it, then surely a permanently deactivated weapon is the only acceptable weapon for possession by the general public.

    • Not only does Joe make that point, I’ve seen videos like his to support the magazine restrictions (with the timers, etc.). They might even be using his video.

      • Just like CC.
        If it doesn’t make a difference, why all the continual harping on it from you anti-gunners?

        But we know the answer: Because you think it’s poking your finger in our eye isn’t it?

    • I think the line we are toeing here is the difference between those who side with Authority and those who side with Liberty.

      Look at this anti-gun Bloomberg article:

      http://www.thetrace.org/2015/10/lower-crime-rates-not-caused-by-concealed-carry/

      “But what we do know is that rigorous studies on RTC laws and permit holders, combined with empirical data on defensive gun use and studies of people’s perception of gun prevalence, provide powerful evidence that concealed carry does not reduce crime.”

      Now we can argue if their methods are sound (they aren’t) or their conclusions are rational (they aren’t) but what they are ADMITTING to is that gun laws were relaxed over a long period of time when crime rates fell.

      I won’t even claim that more guns = less crime because the numbers are just too dirty. And moreover I don’t have to.

      See the Bloomberg shills says “We can’t conclude that gun rights and ownership lower crime, so we should feel free to restrict those things to our hearts content”.

      While I say: “You certainly can’t conclude that gun rights and ownership INCREASES crime, so quit messing with what people do on their own time that doesn’t hurt anybody.”

      On the anti-gun side is a fixation akin to teenage boys and sex. Teenage boys will borrow $200 to get a bus ticket where he will sit for hours with a neck cramp next to a stinking chemical toilet, and stay in a cheap motel room where he will be assaulted, and witness the murder of another human being, JUST to sleep with an unattractive woman with the sexual prowess of a dead fish with chlamydia. Same with anti-gunners and banning guns. There just isn’t a valley too deep or a mountain too high for them to pass the dumbest and most silly gun bans or restrictions.

      Meanwhile our philosophy is about the same with any human behavior. You want to have lots of gay sex in a pig-pile? Not my thing, but whatever floats your boat!

      You want to marry 3 other people of various genders in a consensual polygamist marriage. Whatever, even if I had an opinion, why should you care?

      Want to shoot a little heroin while listening to music after a long day at work. So long as you stay off the roads while twisted on smack, enjoy yourself!

      The point we have is that magazine size is irrelevant. Killers are going to kill no matter what the cap on their boxes are (Virginia Tech was done almost entirely with 10-shot mags, and is the current “High Score” Next is Sandy Hook, where the bulk of the shooting was done with 30 round AR mags….but then after that was the University of Texas where again the bulk of the shooting was with a simple bolt-action hunting rifle) so there is simply no correlation to mag cap or weapon to number of dead/injured when it comes to spree killers.

      It has also been shown that when it comes to defensive gun use capacity doesn’t really amount to much either. Fast mag changes, simply not needing much ammo to deter violence, and of course the plethora of data from the days when the local PD had nothing in their cruisers but a 6-shot revolver and a 5-shot riot gun, maybe an M1911A1.

      So the anti-gun side says “See you’re fine with a limited magazine” but note that the limitations ONLY succeeded because Police and security forces were exempted.

      The pro-gun side says “If it doesn’t DO anything, why pass a stupid law?”

      I boils down to this: Which Sounds Logical to you?

      And there will be honest takers on BOTH sides because some people are NOT rational.

    • No. I’m pretty sure (I have a very poor Internet connection now and can’t watch it again) my video points out that someone planning a mass murder will carry as many magazine as they want. But the everyday person going about their daily life is encumbered by carrying more than one or two. I know it points out that some attackers require a dozen or more hits to stop their attack. With multiple attackers the person defending needs multiple normal capacity magazines to be reasonably sure of not running out of ammunition.

      Also an attacker against defenseless victims can take their time in the slaughter. A defender cannot. Every fraction of a second counts.

      • I find it intriguing that neither ubu nor Abbott feel inclined to address the ‘learned helplessness’ angle.

        Perhaps they like it that way.

        • Toastrider: Well shucks, I haven’t had a second to break away from the action above and scroll this far down. I’ll consult my thoughts on the matter and see if any wish to be shared.

        • Toastrider: I am not sure I understand the helplessness at issue. I guess it’s related to these remarks of the Appellate Court: “Numerous alternatives remain for law‐abiding citizens to acquire a firearm for self‐defense” (p. 35), it explained, so the Second Amendment “burden imposed by the challenged legislation is real, but it is not severe” (36).¹

          I see no slippery slope to helplessness. The Supreme Court clearly said in Heller that “the requirement that any lawful firearm in the home be disassembled or bound by a trigger lock makes it impossible for citizens to use arms for the core lawful purpose of self-defense and is hence unconstitutional” (3).² That rules out Lyle’s “permanently deactivated weapon.”
          ___
          ¹ NY State Rifle & Pistol Assn v. Cuomo; Connecticut Citizens’ Defense League v. Malloy (2nd Cir. 2014)
          ² District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008)

  8. That was my question. Extra second? Extra two seconds? From something I read yesterday, I guess the Sandy Hook killer changed mags six times. I just wonder how much it would have slowed him down if he would have had to change mags 16 times. Do vests even hold that many mags?

    Jared Loughner was tackled when he went to change mags.

    • Ubu52: “I just wonder how much it would have slowed him down if he would have had to change mags 16 times.”

      Another 20-30 seconds. I suppose. So instead of taking 5 minutes he would have taken 5 and a half.

      Ubu52: “[Tucson shooter] was tackled when he went to change mags.”

      Not exactly. He put in a fresh mag, dropped the slide and it jammed on chambering the first round- something of which extended magazines are prone to do. On trying to clear the jam, he dropped the magazine on the ground where Patricia Maisch was able to grab it. He was then hit by a chair and tackled.

      I am glad to see you seemingly approve of taking an active defense role as opposed to laws which require a duty to retreat. How do you feel about armed self-defense with a firearm? Or do you only approve of armed self-defense with folding chairs? There is not a lot of time during a reload, so if the only use of restricting magazine capacity is to increase the couple second opportunities to fight back, you would have to support using the best and quickest self-defense tool where you don’t have to be immediately next to the killer during these few seconds. Additionally, the Tucson shooter was more vulnerable because he only brought one gun, and ironically made a poor choice by using extended magazines. The Newtown shooter was armed with multiple guns and engaged in tactical reloads where there is still a round chambered during magazine swaps making the un-armed tackle defense far less likely to be successful.

      • I agree with self defense, even armed self defense in one’s home or business. I’m against “shall issue” concealed carry.

        Over the years, I’ve noticed a lot of gunmen are tackled during the reload process. You can google it and find many examples. Personally, I think it would be beneficial to teach women (and others who may not play football) how to tackle someone.

      • Ubu52: “I agree with self defense, even armed self defense in one’s home or business. ”

        You are a damned liar, sir. You would make serfs of us all if you could.

      • So in a public, mass shooting scenario, you’d prefer those defending their life to be unarmed during those few seconds of reloading time? That kind of limits any positive effect that magazine restrictions might have, don’t you think?

        Again, the Tucson incident was not a simple reload, and he did not take simple measures that most shooter do to protect themselves during reloads or jams (like carrying multiple guns).

        http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jan/09/nation/la-na-0110-gabrielle-giffords-20110110

    • Lanza changed magazines before they were empty. and yet he got off 154 rounds when he could have emptied them and possibly killed more. He had proverbial sitting ducks for targets, partly because his victims did exctly what they were trained to do, hide in a corner and prepare to meet their maker.

  9. (moving this conversation for the full width)

    Jason Abbott: “Those whose careers are devoted to the subject strongly favor the accuracy of the CSEW over U.K. police records.”

    Do you have any quotes from these people specifically explaining why the count of reported and documented incidents should be discounted in favor of phone interviews that rely on people’s memory and integrity? Perhaps there is a good reason (apart from them wanting to favor the stat that puts them in a better light). I’m open to hearing it. It is just odd to me, but things are often odd in England. I could understand how surveys could make a nice supplement to hard data, and it is logical for there to be differences. But in this case they are diametrically opposed to one another. Hard counts are showing a 35% increase while the survey is showing a 68% decrease? One of them has to be wrong. Come on, England. Get your shit together.

    Here’s another problem. If we don’t count the police records because the survey is gospel, then what do we do with the murder rate? That came from the police records. It would be quite dafny of them to count murders by calling people at random and asking if they have been murdered in the past twelve months. Earlier I admitted that they had a nice 40% drop in murder over the last 20 years, so now what? Do we discount that?

    Ultimately any way you cut it, the US still wins the tale of the tape regarding progress over the last two decades. If we look at murders, violent crime, and all crime based on whether we count reports, surveys, or both- the best England can do is say they’ve had similar success as the place that expanded gun rights in lieu of bans. There is nothing that they have been noticeably better on, and a clear area where they have done a lot worse (reported violence).

    • TS: I agree that the U.K. crime survey and police records can’t both be right. And also that homicide isn’t a sensible object of a survey. I would notice (I suppose only as a rhetorical point) the others in this conversation, Linoge and Miles, seemed utterly persuaded that it’s the police records in the wrong.

      I recall no specific quotes explaining professional reliance on CSEW over police reports other than the evidence of police audit shortcomings¹ versus statistical rigor.² I’m sure somebody has said something more elaborate but I’d rather end up somewhere nicer than esoteria if I’m going bushwhacking.

      I agree to your final paragraph, which I think still allows much of the point I meant to make for Miles. England does seem safer after its gun restrictions just as our nation is safer after loosening restrictions. Gun regulations have no obvious impact on overall violent crime.

      My Volokh comments are forthcoming.
      ___
      ¹ Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, “Crime Recording: Making the Victim Count” as well as earlier, smaller audits
      ² Office for National Statistics, “User Guide to Crime Statistics for England and Wales

  10. TS: About the comparative effect of state gun restrictions on gun mortality, you suggested, “Volokh covered just about everything I have to say” in his article, “Zero correlation between state homicide rate and state gun laws.”* Although his quick tabulation seems reasonable, Volokh acknowledges it omits “confounding factors (such as demographics, economics, and so on)” that could obscure the real effects of gun policy. As I noted above, “gun access is eclipsed by global issues of culture and economics as predictors of crime.”

    Robust studies that have controlled for such factors do correlate gun access and gun mortality. It’s unsurprising, really, that one-dimensional regulatory differences across permeable state boundaries have no obvious effect on a multi-faceted issue like crime.

    Even if policy implications are “devilishly difficult” (Volokh’s words) to extract from regional analyses, we have one clear consideration: even if gun access and mortality are correlated, if the correlation isn’t strong enough to rise above ambient variables then is it strong enough to trigger a “compelling state interest” that limits liberty? I’m not settled on the issue. I think I’m wishing for a clean rubric of the sort Justices like to invoke.
    ___
    * Eugene Volokh, The Washington Post, “Zero correlation between state homicide rate and state gun laws” (Oct 6, 2015); I earlier performed the same analysis across metropolitan areas to reach the same conclusion: 2007 Gun Homicide Rate for Cities in the Fifty Largest Metro Areas with Gun Policy Annotations

    • @Jason, Anyone who researches “gun homicide rates”, or “gun violence” is researching an invalid metric. “gun homicide”, and frequently “gun violence” includes justified homicide and defensive use of guns. Even if corrected for the illegal versus legal use of deadly force it still ignored what really matters. What really matters is criminal violence regardless of the tool, or lack of tool, used to implement the violence.

      Anyone who uses the phrase “gun violence” outside of a few very specific set of conditions reveals themselves as either an ignorant fool or someone with an evil agenda.

      • Joe: Relying on semantics to make moral distinctions seems superstitious. Even so, I didn’t mention “gun violence.” Perhaps you’re objecting to the phrase “gun mortality,” a common shorthand to describe lives ended with a projectile fired from a gun.

        As an American, I don’t believe in the notion of taboo concepts. Everything is open to reason and free enquiry including the number of people killed in cars, by guns or pursued by naked roller skaters — empiricism not emotionalism.

        One could hardly be surprised to find themselves increasingly isolated from the political process if, like Miles, they “reject ‘reasoned discourse’ as necessary” and presuppose any rival is either “an ignorant fool or someone with an evil agenda.” That is not the way of democracy.

        We should require reasons of the surest sort before indicting a concept as inherently ignorant or evil. (Your other comment has me thinking. I’ll reply within a day or two.)

          • Jake: Not a pure democracy, no. If you read the Federalist Papers you’ll find they opted for a representative democracy, a republic, precisely out of concern at the general population’s inability for reasoned discourse.

            The reason of man continues fallible … as long as the connection subsists between his reason and his self-love … So strong is this propensity of mankind, to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions … A pure democracy … can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction.*

            ___
            * James Madison, “The Federalist No. 10

        • Do you find “black violence” an acceptable subject? If so, then imagine looking at the level of crimes committed by people with black skin from 1800 through present day. It would be clear the incidence of “black crime” could, and arguably should, be reduced by repealing the 13th Amendment and reinstating slavery for people with dark colored skin.

          To talk about one component of crime in isolation from other issues, particularly when they are well known to not be orthogonal, necessarily confirms my conclusion.

          • Joe: I find hundreds of scholarly articles on “black violence” (with Google’s scholar search). Why wouldn’t that be a legitimate category to consider? As with software engineering, effective solutions are found when a problem is divided into its constituent dimensions, no part ignored. City violence, gun violence, black violence — none is taboo. To consider it evil or ignorant to even talk of some things seems superstitious and irrational.

          • And do those researchers have a one track mind on restrictions on blacks as potential solutions? I don’t think so. But that is the mindset of those researching “gun violence”.

    • Jason, it is not a matter of semantics. “Gun deaths”, or “gun mortality”, or “death by gun”, whatever you want to call it, is a false metric. That is why the correlations I am referring to (and in Volokh’s piece) are murder rates and violent crime rates (regardless of whether or not a gun was used). In fact there is a statistical correlation between gun laws and “gun deaths”. Those who advocate for gun control constantly point this correlation out. But there is not a correlation with violent crime and murder rates, something which gun control advocates don’t want to draw attention to (hence sticking to the metric of “gun death”). As Joe pointed out, “gun deaths” is a combination of suicides by gun, murder using a gun, legitimate acts of self-defense homicides using a gun (including by police), and accidental deaths by gun. The biggest category by far is suicides by gun, and therefore the main driver of this statistic. Unsurprisingly, there is a very strong inverse correlation between strength of gun laws and gun ownership rates. It is clear to me that what we are seeing is when states don’t have a strong gun ownership community that fights for their rights- they get a lot of gun control. We see this throughout the years. States with the most gun control keep passing more and more gun control because there simply aren’t enough people fighting against it. States with high gun ownership have more gun suicides, and likewise when people want to commit suicide but don’t gun own a gun, they tend to not use a gun. So there is a strong correlation with gun ownership (and therefore gun laws) and suicide by gun. The gun control advocates then lump in smaller statistics like gun homicides and gun accidents into the “Gun Death” metric to make it seem like gun control has a positive effect on community violence, when that is not the case.

      One thing I have noticed (and I believe Volokh also acknowledged) is that overall suicide rates also correlate to gun ownership (albeit not as strongly as “gun suicides”). This is the only correlation figure that I have seen that points for the side of gun control. However, there are many easy rebuttals to a statement of causation- namely, why isn’t the correlation there for murders? If guns cause more suicides because they are effective devices, why aren’t they also causing more murders? Many of the things which gun control people complain about are not factors in suicides (like high capacity magazines, semiautomatic function allowing for quick follow-up shots, guns can kill from a range, etc), so if anything we should see a bigger effect on murder rates, yet there is no correlation at all. Is this because guns also prevent murder, while they don’t prevent suicide? Or is this just a case of “correlation does not equal causation”? When we look at international murder rates, gun control advocates like to call the USA the worst developed country in the world (though incorrect), but when we look at suicide rates compared to those same countries we see that USA is one of the better countries. Most of Western Europe has significantly higher suicide rates.

      Jason Abbott: “Robust studies that have controlled for such factors do correlate gun access and gun mortality.”

      As I said above, when the metric is “gun death” there is a direct correlation. When the metric is murder or violent crime, there is not. To your point, I have seen “studies” where other factors are controlled for where they conclude with a correlative or even causational statement on guns to actual murder rates. These are invariably paid for by someone like Bloomberg or Soros and have an agenda. Likewise there are other studies that show the exact opposite. The problem is as soon as we do a “robust study controlling for other factors” it becomes subject to manipulation. What other factors do you control for? How do you control for them? These are human decisions and there are literally limitless ways to conduct a multivariable study. That’s the nice thing about the Pearson’s r calculation that Volokh performed (as I have done myself in the past). It’s just math. It can’t be cheated unless you use false data. It is limited in what kind of conclusive statements you can draw from it. You can’t make a causational statement, but what you can do is say that gun control has had no effect on violent crime and murder rates.

      As an example of manipulation, one gun control study that I looked at controlled for the crack epidemic. Many criminologists attribute the late eights/early nineties spike in crime to the prevalence of crack. The problem is, crack was the only drug they controlled for. Not heroin, meth, ecstasy, powdered cocaine, bath salts, etc.- just crack. Their study concluded that guns were causing increases in homicides throughout the 2000’s because homicides weren’t dropping as much as they were in the late 90s as crack use waned. Mind you, homicides were still dropping this whole time, but when you control for the right things, they can make it look like guns were causing more murders. See what I mean?

      Jason Abbott: “It’s unsurprising, really, that one-dimensional regulatory differences across permeable state boundaries have no obvious effect on a multi-faceted issue like crime.”

      We can however see many different one-dimensional correlations with crime. Income is a good example. Unfortunately, race also correlates. As does weather (crime goes down remarkably during the winter months in northern areas). If guns are such the awful public menace and health epidemic that those who advocate for stricter laws say they are, then we should be able to see correlations just like we do for other factors.

      • TS: I don’t mean to pretend a gun access-mortality correlation, such as you acknowledge, describes the net effect of gun access on society (let alone whether it’s worth regulating) anymore than the gun-crime lack of correlation. But both facts are useful (as opposed to good or evil). Both narrow the field of possible answers.

        I agree that controlling for confounding variables seems more art than science. I remember a study that controlled for crack, like you mention. Lott has been particularly criticized for elaborate controls that seemed tuned to produce a result. I don’t doubt some with the opposite agenda bend to the same temptation.

        Contrary to some perceptions, I don’t have a hard position on gun control. I have a hard position on epistemology. I’ve been explicit about that (cf. Oct 16, 12:05 ᴘᴍ; Oct 16, 6:03 ᴘᴍ; Oct 17, 5:51 ᴀᴍ; Oct 19, 7:29 ᴘᴍ). You’ve offered good food for thought. I’m going to review my folder of gun study PDFs with a more critical eye.

        In the meantime, I’m likely to continue commenting, being “evil,” “bigoted” and all the rest. Somebody has to do it.

        • Jason: “In the meantime, I’m likely to continue commenting, being “evil,” “bigoted” and all the rest. Somebody has to do it.”

          I wouldn’t say that. I have found you to be quite open minded compared to everyone else I have debated on the subject. Thanks for the dialog.

Comments are closed.