The View From North Central Idaho

Following up on my post from last Thursday I created an Excel spread sheet with the Brady 2004 Report Card, the FBI 2003 Uniform Crime Reports, and the CDC reported suicide rates from 1990-1994.  I wish all the dates matched up better, but that was the best I could find with a modest amount of searching. The crime/suicide was expressed in terms of rates per 100K and the Brady grades were assigned a numerical value.  Then the correlation of the crime/suicide rates with the Brady Grades was computed.  The correlations I obtained were:

Violent Crime	Murder	Forcible Rape	Robbery	Assault	Suicide
0.07	-0.12	-0.31	0.38	0.01	-0.63

The Violent Crime category is the total of the murders, forcible rapes, robberies, and assaults. 

Correlation is a number between 1.0 and -1.0.  A 1.0 would mean a perfect match between a good Brady Grade and the rate of crime/suicide occurring.  A 0.0 would mean there is no apparent connection, and a -1.0 would a perfect match between a good Brady Grade and the crime/suicide rate decreasing.  As you can see it appears that overall violent crime is unrelated to Brady Grades.  Robberies show a modest increase with a good Brady Grade, and rapes tend to decrease with a good Brady Grade.  Suicide rates show a fairly strong decrease with a good Brady Grade.

This is consistent with the recent National Academy of Sciences report.  From their news conference:

The literature on "right-to-carry" laws has obtained conflicting estimates of their effects on crime, despite the fact that data and methods used in these studies differ in only minor ways. Thirty-four states have enacted these laws, which allow qualified adults to carry concealed handguns. However, we found no credible evidence that such policies either decrease or increase violent crime.

...

And although research does show associations between gun availability and suicide with guns, that research does not show whether such associations reflect actual cause and effect.

What should I expect with three hours of research?  Nothing earth shaking here.  The Brady Campaign wants to restrict our freedoms but would be unable to promise any improvement in the violent crime rate.  On the other hand we can't say the violent crime rate would go down if they would repeal the repressive gun laws either.

If you download the spreadsheet you might want to check my numbers.  Make sure I copied the crime rates correctly, did my calculations correctly, etc.  Let me know if you find mistakes.

True wisdom is less presuming than folly. The wise man doubteth often, and changeth his mind; the fool is obstinate, and doubteth not; he knoweth all things but his own ignorance.

Akhenaton
Egyptian pharaoh c 1350 BC

With the latest round of entry fees I paid off $400 on the loan and bought a new generator.  The one we used last year and it's back up both failed.  I wanted this one.  But ended up buying this one. I was so tempted to pay $200 more for 2500 fewer Watts and 70 fewer pounds.

3500 W is more than I will probably use.  I got by on 600 W from '98 until '03 but things have a way of expanding to consume the resources available.  A friend is working on a machine to produce the explosives without blenders and Kitchen Aid mixers.  Just dump in the raw materials on one end and then package the output from the other end.  No idea how much power it will consume--assuming it works and is safe.  Plus there are the lights.  I can power lots of lights now...

Verification of this is lacking but it does sound plausible.  I really need to write up a proposal for the lab where I work and try to do a valid research project on airplane security alternatives.  Everyone knows the current system is a total failure.

From Ms. Malkins post:

He and his partner were assigned to a flight (the airline, airport, and destination were not disclosed) in their customary undercover security role. They boarded the airplane early in order to meet the flight attendants, at which time the cleaning crew was still on the airplane -- somewhat longer than expected. My patient and his partner sat together in seats near the middle of coach class.

The passengers began to board, and he and his partner noticed a single Middle Eastern man sitting near the front of first class. After a number of passengers had boarded, two Middle Eastern men walked by this man and made eye contact, but said nothing. They sat down together in the front of coach class. Shortly thereafter, two other Middle Eastern men also walked by the man in first class and made eye contact without speaking. They sat near the back of coach class.

Shortly after the flight attendants completed their post-boarding check of the overhead bins, an announcement came from the cockpit: the pilot stated that there had been a security breach, and everyone needed to deboard the plane for a second, more thorough, security screening. The Air Marshall and his partner were confused, as they had not triggered the security alert nor been notified of it prior to the announcement.

After all the passengers had deplaned, the Federal Air Marshalls checked with the flight attendants for more information. During a final check of the overhead bins, a flight attendant had noticed that one of the blankets was slightly unfolded, and he repositioned it in the bin. At this time, a razor blade fell out of the blanket. Concerned, but still believing this might be a straightforward mistake, the flight attendant began to check other overhead bins. Several additional incompletely folded blankets were noted, and hidden in each one was a box cutter: a total of five. It appeared that these had been placed there by the cleaning crew prior to the boarding of the airplane.

After the repeat security screening, the passengers reboarded -- all except the five Middle Eastern men, who were nowhere to be found. The flight proceeded to its destination uneventfully.

If you are even the slightest bit 'connected' in the gun rights movement you will already know about what happened in Maryland.  They implemented a database of fired bullets and shell casings from all new handguns sold in the state.. This was an attempt to track down the owner if a bullet or shell casing were found at the scene of a crime.  Gun owners and manufactures told them it wouldn't work.  They did it anyway.  Now they find out it didn't work for all the reasons they were told it wouldn't work plus some at least one new reason.  That reason is that different materials take on the markings differently.  Some bullets are made primarily of lead, some have copper jackets, and some even have steel jackets.  There are numerous alloys of lead too, some even use silver.  Shell casings are made of brass, aluminum, and steel.  If the manufacture supplied a bullet and shell casing made of one material and the criminal used another then the chance of a match is greatly reduced.

What amuses me the most about this is that the system failed and they suggest an alternate scheme that I am certain will also fail.  I have posted on it here:

• Update on ammo marking
• More info on bullet serial number scheme
• Naive gun control

This qualifies Maryland for a When Prophecy Fails mention.

Others have commented extensively on the report from Maryland:

• CCRKBA SAYS MARYLAND REPORT ON BALLISTIC IMAGING SHATTERS GUN TRACKING MYTHS
• Ballistic Fingerprinting Doesn't Work (Kim du Toit)
• Nation of Rifleman Forum (Kim du Toit)
• Why Ballistic Fingerprinting Doesn't (and Won't) Work (The Smallest Minority)
• That's one expensive way to say “Duh!“ (the Hobbesian Conservative)
• Told ya (Say Uncle)
• The failure of so called “ballistic fingerprinting“ (More Eclipse Ramblings)
• Ballistic Fingerprinting Fails (Chaos-In-Motion)
• Updated: State Police Call for Shutting Down Maryland`s Ballistic "Fingerprinting" System (From the NRA-ILA)

I have included the entire Maryland report below for those interested in the details.

2. Integrated Ballistics Information System Remains under Scrutiny

Background

The Maryland Integrated Ballistic Identification System (IBIS), operational since October 1, 2000, provides police investigators with a tool to focus an investigation around a firearm. Chapter 2,

Acts of 2000 (Responsible Gun Safety Act of 2000), required that manufacturers submit a test-fired shell casing with each handgun shipped for resale in the State.

The dealer then sends the casing to the State Police after the gun has been sold. The IBIS system receives the casing from the dealer, and firearms investigators and technicians perform a full analysis of the casing. The investigator uses microscopic technology to identify striations and other markings

that are unique to each individual gun. The striations are formed when the gun is fired, as the firing pin strikes the back of the casing, creating a unique series of identifying marks. The aim of the system is to create a massive database of identifying marks, so that any spent shell casings recovered at a crime scene can be compared against the IBIS database, to try to identify the gun used in the commission of the crime. Based on then-current handgun sales statistics, the State Police anticipated that 30,000 cartridge casings would be received annually for input into the IBIS system. As such, the system was designed to hold around 300,000 casings over a 10-year period.

The system has thus far received around 35,000 cartridge casings for input, including around 2,000 from trooper-issued semi-automatic 40-caliber Beretta firearms. There have been 160 requests to match crime-scene casings with the IBIS system, resulting in four "hits" or matches.

Costs

DSP anticipates continued maintenance supplies and personnel costs of $435,269 for fiscal 2005 to continue to operate the IBIS system. Initial start-up costs of $1.4 million were absorbed in fiscal 2001. IBIS requires one full-time equivalent position to maintain the system. DSP’s Forensic Unit currently assigns three forensic examiners to this program, each devoting one-third of their time to the IBIS system.

Problems

The State Police are concerned about the lack of hits yielded by the IBIS system, and there have been problems with the system. Some of these problems are the result of operational failings and others simply the result of circumstance.

Number of Cartridges Stored – No Link to the National Integrated Ballistics Information Network (NIBIN): Chapter 2 of 2000 included ‘external safety lock’ requirements and the shell casing identification provision. Gun manufacturers were required to add ‘integrated mechanical safety devices’ to firearms, as well as external safety locks to any firearm sold in Maryland.

These two provisions made up an effort by the General Assembly to make the prospects of accidental shootings less likely. These two mechanical requirements, coupled with the requirement to test-fire the gun and submit the cartridge casings, has effectively reduced the number of firearms sold in the State. While DSP had anticipated 30,000 casings submitted annually from 215 qualifying manufacturers, the number of casings received since October 2001 stands at around 34,000 from only 49 manufacturers.

In essence, the guns most often recovered from crime scenes are not sold in Maryland, and therefore, not linked (via cartridge casing) to the IBIS system. DSP has also indicated that .38 mm revolvers are often used in crimes, and these guns are less likely to leave spent shell casings.

The Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) division of the U.S. Treasury Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have a system in place, similar to the Maryland IBIS system. The NIBIN is a system that uses identical technology to IBIS, to create a national database of crime scene shell casings and bullets. However, a memorandum of understanding between the ATF and State and local law enforcement agencies prohibits the linking of NIBIN to any State or local system, such as IBIS. In that the guns used in Maryland crimes are less likely to be sold in Maryland, the inability to link IBIS to NIBIN prevents the largest field of possible matches from being searched.

Time to Crime: The Maryland IBIS system has been in place since October 2000. Criminology research suggests that if a legally obtained firearm is going to enter the stream of criminal activity, it takes between three and six years for this to occur. This ‘time to crime’ statistic indicates that the guns and cartridge casings inventoried in IBIS since 2001 will start to match firearms used in crimes from 2004 to 2007. The statewide deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) inventory saw a similar preliminary waiting period until the number of matches increased dramatically. The DNA database began in 1994, had its first hit in 1998, and has had 72 hits to date. Of these 72 hits, 39 have come in 2003.

Glock Casings Unreliable: It has been learned that cartridge casings submitted by Glock firearms did not match the casings recovered from the same gun at crime scenes. As a result, all cartridge casings submitted by Glock were flagged in the IBIS system, and a list of the guns affected by the problem has been generated. Any firearm sold in Maryland from the list was also flagged. The Glock Company indicated that this problem has since been resolved.

Change in Striations As Firearms Age and Break-in: Research suggests that as firearms age and are broken-in the internal characteristics of the firing pin may change which will result in different striations being left on the spent casings. This makes the casings submitted by the manufacturer less reliable. The more the gun is fired, the more the striations will change.

Modification of Firing Pin by User: Gun users with working knowledge of the assembly process can alter the firing pin of the weapon, which would significantly change the striations left on the cartridge casing.

Different Cartridge Casing Materials Used: There is no standard material used to make cartridge casings. These different materials absorb the striations differently. Additionally, if a different material is used in the manufacture process and by the user, it is possible that a spent cartridge casing will not match the casing stored in IBIS.

Increase in Database Size Decreased Likelihood of "Hit": As the number of similar guns stored in the database increase, the likelihood of a match decreases. As an example, there are approximately 2,000 cartridge casings from Trooper-issued firearms. Tests have been run, using spent casings from these guns, and the system has not yielded a match in the top 15. However, the more experienced the examiner who inputs the casing, the more likely that the input will be accurate and reflect the unique characteristics of the gun.

Remote IBIS System Failure: DSP purchased a remote IBIS unit to run a search of the found cartridge casings and to submit the findings to the IBIS database to be tested for a match. This device has not worked due to overheating and data transmission problems. The manufacturer has since stopped producing these units. Not only can these casings found at crime scenes not be compared to IBIS while on-site, but DSP cannot link to any other State forensic facility.

Future and Alternatives

A new technology exists to perform a similar task as the IBIS system. This version of nanotechnology creates a ballistic ID or fingerprint on cartridge casings. The technology would create a number or symbol on the firing pin of the weapon, and this marking would be transferred to the cartridge casing each time the gun was fired. However, this technology would have to be done at the manufacturer level and would lead to resistance from the industry. Research suggests, however, that this ballistic fingerprinting method would be less expensive and more accurate than the IBIS, as the "serial number" imprinting removes the subjectivity inherit in digitizing a visual set of striations. DLS recommends that DSP comment on whether, in light of circumstantial difficulties, this program has justified continued operation.

If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life.

Henry David Thoreau
(1817-62), U.S. philosopher, author, naturalist.
Walden, "Economy" (1854).

I just received this email:

Greetings all,

I have spoken to Chris Knox (one of Neal Knox's son) and told him I wanted to make our subscribers aware of this. He agreed with me that the timing was critical.

It comes with great grief and sorrow to break the news that Neal Knox is very ill, and nearly to the point of death due to cancer. Essentially, if Almighty God does not intervene with a miracle, Neal may succumb and die within a few short days, possibly even hours. We just don't know how long he has. Regardless, nothing less than a miracle will bring him out of this.

If you have ever believed, or do believe in prayer, please pray for Neal.

Neal Knox's website is http://www.nealknox.com/

And above all requests, PLEASE PRAY FOR A MIRACLE FOR NEAL.

Read more about Neal Knox: http://www.gunownersalliance.com/knox_bio.htm

Sincerely,

Gun Owners Alliance
Chris W. Stark - Director
Director@GunOwnersAlliance.com

Neal Knox is one of the smartest and most faithful defenders of the 2nd Amendment I have ever known about.  I met him at Gun Rights Policy Conference 1999 in St. Louis.  We talked for a while about computer security.  I worked at Microsoft at the time and he had concerns about how secure PGP email was.  I also was privileged to listen to Neal and Alan Gottlieb (Second Amendment Foundation and Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms) discussing political strategy for dealing with Congress.  I was amazed at the depth of knowledge and the way they went about their 'chess game'.  The compromises they would make in one house knowing they could defeat it in the other.  The favors they could pull in from some congress critters and the favors they would give to others.  It was wondrous to see how they mapped out the game plan for things that would happen months in the future.  Who was really on our side and who would “play with us” as long as they could do it without endangering their seat.

I don't believe in miracles.  His death will be a huge loss in our fight for freedom.  I'm glad he got to see the expiration of the AWB and I hope we can continue the fight to see the defeat of all the unconstitutional gun laws.  The job will be more difficult without him.

We discover with some gratification that a Swiss citizen, in order to maintain his rights of citizenship, must qualify annually with his rifle, even when he is on station overseas. We knew that the Swiss had to do this while in Switzerland, but we find that Swiss diplomats in Washington are experiencing some difficulty in finding a facility on which to maintain their Swiss citizenship. Riflemaster John Pepper has been helpful in this matter by encouraging these people to make use of the Fort Meade ranges where he conducts his training and competition operations.

Jeff Cooper
From Jeff Cooper's Commentaries
Vol. 4, No. 3
February 1996

I got an email from Eugene Econ, the clinic instructor, today.  Details are here.  The most important bit of information is that he only has two slots open.

This is amazing.  The clinic going to be sold out by the third week of January--nearly three and a half months prior to the event.  I've expanded the number of shooting positions for the main event so I still have lots of room there but if I hadn't it would be two thirds full now instead of one third.  In absolute numbers I'm signing people faster than ever before.

I updated the blogger list.  I attribute bloggers for the apparent increase in attendance.  Thanks everyone.

These are reasonable claims.  They will involve a lot of work, and there may be some initial skepticism from some judges and jurors. But that's just the kind of skepticism you saw initially with tobacco. As [the cities] work on it, I think they'll find paydirt.

Richard Daynard
Tobacco litigation expert
Referring to Boston's lawsuit against gun manufactures.
From Join Together Online 11/25/1998
He now heads a project to determine whether insights learned in tobacco litigation can be applied to the obesity epidemic.

This is another When Prophecy Fails example.

Joyce Lee Malcom is a history professor and has been beating up on the British about their weapons control laws for a long time now.  She wacked them pretty hard again yesterday about people getting prosecuted for defending themselves.  The following is just the start.

There is an old Navajo saying,

"If you find you are riding a dead horse, dismount".

But public outrage over the prosecution of householders who injure burglars and one of the highest levels of violent crime of any industrial country, don't seem to have convinced Tony Blair's "tough on crime" government to switch horses. They find dismounting unnecessary and risky; the horse is fine, the spectators are over-reacting. All that is needed is a slight shifting of the saddle bags, clearer signals to the horse, a check-up by its chief veterinarian, and the public will find they were mistaken. Unfortunately, this blinkered approach will not bring the horse back to life, or, more importantly, protect law-abiding people.

Actually, it's my state, Idaho, that got the F+.  The Brady bunch released the 2004 Report Card.  Someone else will probably beat me to it or I would do a correlation between the grades of states and their violent crime rate.  Correlation doesn't prove causation (gun control may not cause crime), but if the correlation doesn't exist you can be pretty sure there isn't a causation (lack of gun control does cause crime).

You would think that it would eventually sink in to these people that weapons restrictions don't make people safer.  But that's not the way it works.  This is just another When Prophecy Fails example.  If certain conditions exist when you are proven wrong you will become an even greater advocate for your failed ideas.  This model for human behavior is so powerful the book, or at least the model, should be required teaching material for all kids in about the 8th grade.

I'm keeping track of all the blogger posts on the status page for Boomershoot 2005.  So far it looks like nine different bloggers will be attending.  This includes Ry and I so it's not quite as big a deal as you might think.  But I'm still very pleased.  This might be the year that I make a little money and get to pay back the loans I made to cover the building of the explosives magazine.  Kim du Toit in particular has generated a ton of web traffic and numerous entries for both last year and this year.

Thanks everyone.

When sending children to a friend's home for a playdate, ask the parent or guardian if there is a handgun in the home. Do not send your child to a home where a handgun is present.

Cease Fire, Inc.
P.O. Box 33424
Washington, D.C. 20033-0424

From: http://www.ceasefire.org/html/hfp2risk.html (as of November 11, 1998)

I've had confrontations with the leftists that were so blinded by hate they couldn't even relate to rational thought.  Which was the reason for subtitling my blog “Ramblings of a red-necked, knuckle-dragging, Neanderthal“.  If you call yourself a bad name they can't really use the same phrase against you in a way to hurt you.  I was hurt and confused by the attack in my hate mail but reading excerpts of Michelle Maulkin hate mail was so intense it caused me to cry.  I can't imagine what is going through these peoples minds.

Michelle, if you read this and if you feel you need the instruction I'll teach you handgun self-defense for free.  Tell me when you have a day available in Seattle or maybe it would work out when I go to D.C. on business a few times a year.  If you want the instruction sooner I can find instructors in your area.  And if it would be of any use to you I would like to offer some lessons on long range rifle shooting and explosives manufacturing as well (Boomershoot 2005 is coming up on May 1).  If nothing else you could write about it just to piss them off some more.

I just did a quick check on the hate mail for the most vicious left wing attacker I know of.  What he calls hate mail would seem like fan mail to Ms. Malkin. 

It's no wonder they don't want us to have guns.  If they believe we hate them as much as they hate us then the targets of that hate would be acquiring severe cases of lead poisoning on a regular basis.  They know they couldn't be trusted with firearms so they must believe we can't be trusted either.

Here is a sample from Ms. Malkin's inbox:

Hi Self hating flat nosed Filipino Bitch! As we used to refer to your kind - little brown Fucking Machines. Looks like this little LBFM learned to whore in a different way to make some pesos. How sweet.

***

Surely you are a big put-on. Did some minor Republican operative purchase a mail-order bride and train her to do this?

***

Proverbs 69:69 counsels: "Like a whore who infects those she sleeps with, so doth the ultra-republican faux columnist infect her readers with lies." While you are looking in the mirror, cursing the Left because you weren't born blond, think about the above. Amen.

***

Is is such a shame that you look like a Filipino- because your thinking, writing (if you can call that) is a disgrace to any member of the Asian community. Someday, when you are no longer motivated by greed, and when you are closer to your next life stage, you will realized what a horrible sellout you are.

***

You're a filthy whore.

***

I just hope that I am still around when the karma catches up to those of you that have spread the lies and attacked the innocent. I hope your fate is somewhat similar to the women of the Phillipines when the Japanese invaded. Then Michelle you can drop the "media" from "media whore" when someone asks your occupation.

***

You're just a Manilla whore shaking your ass and waiting for the Republican fleet to come in, aren't you? You've even got the lip gloss about right. Maybe if you love sailor long time, he bring you home to big American house? I don't think so. Just like in Manilla, Honey, they'll pass you around 'til they've all shot their load in you, and then they'll try to scrub off the stench so they can sail off in their crisp, white uniforms to the land of W.A.S.P.

***

Here's a tip. We know you are lyin' pond scum and a whore to your profession......and, not a very expensive whore at that. So............when we get rid of you neocons; how will you ever pay your rent? You're not good enough to make it as a real writer. fuck you; I hope you get cancer & die a horrible painful death all alone, with your collegues shunning you and the rest of us reading how wrong you are AND WHAT A CRUMMY WRITER YOU ARE.

***

Malkin, you're a dumb fucking whore. You're a philipino piece of shit who should be wiping my ass. Go back to the massage parlor. Sucky sucky long time. How dare you thing you have any right to express any opinions in this country. You're a joke. Go back to nursing school. Whore.

***

Young lady you should be ashamed of yourself. My husband is Filipino and is all I have met have had integrity. However, you have disgraced the Filipino Americans by spreading these awful lies and being a Bush whore. I was going to vote for Bush, but never after these dirty tricks and lies. Just like the old Marcos days' eh. Disgraceful, you family and your community are desparately ashamed of you. How much are they paying you to sell your soul. You have disgraced us all.

***

oh, mz. malkin, there are more profitable ways to whore yourself than to do it on television for the likes of the neocons. (they are even quicker to dump their whores when they are finished with them...) you would make a discreet fortune on aurora avenue here in seattle, and no one would be the wiser...

***

Say, how does it feel to be a paid prostitute for the republicans? Go get some more collagen injected in your lips, it makes you look more the part.

Hundreds of millions of Kalashnikovs, M-16s and other automatic rifles were stored during the Cold War and these stores are leaking all over the world with disastrous consequences. It's not tanks or big weapons that kill, it's small arms. We cannot ban small arms such as revolvers, pistols and other light weapons that the police, security guards and hunters legally carry all over the world... We want to build a global network of like-minded NGOs and governments with the aim to create new standards to control small arms transfers which will be as effective as the regulations covering big arms.

 Jan Egeland
 Head of the Norwegian Initiative on Small Arms Transfers
 and former deputy foreign minister under Norway's former
 Labour government, interviewed by Reuters December 19, 1997.
 From: http://www.prepcom.org/low/pc7/index.html#5 as of 01/07/99

A few days ago I questioned whether aid to the tsunami victims would alter the anti-Americanism in the Muslim world.  Now we have reports of previous aid efforts to Muslim after natural disasters failing change the attitudes towards non-believers.

After Mt. Tambora erupted in 1815, killing 100,000, a Christian Science Monitor report notes that “imams on the northwest coast of Java preached that the eruption was a sign of Allah’s displeasure at infidel rule, and urged a violent jihad, according to Sartono Kartodirdjo, am Indonesian historian.”

 Likewise, after the eruption of Mt. Krakatoa in 1883, according to historian Simon Winchester, “the Dutch made this superhuman effort to bring relief to the area because they were aware of the significance of the event and that the Muslim clerics were quickly making political capital from the event.” But the relief changed no hearts, and Muslims mounted a violent assassination campaign against Dutch officials.

There are signs of similar thought processes in present day Muslims:

...the South African Mufti Ebrahim Desai, the imam of an “Ask the Imam” feature at a Muslim question and answer site, made a statement that, had Powell known of it, might have diminished his confidence in the effect of the aid. The questioner asked (spelling and grammar as in the original): “The west is often criticised by Muslims for many reasons, such as allowing women go to work. But shouldnt the west also recieve praise because its always them who intervene when muslims r being tortured, they stopped Milosovic kiling muslims and sent their own troops to the country, they r usually the first to send aid when theres a flood, they r also intervening in Isreal and condeming them killing Muslims, so should we appreciate their efforts or not?”

 Desai’s answer was brief: “In simple the Kuffaar [unbelievers] can never be trusted for any possible good they do. They have their own interest at heart.”

One might think this doesn't make any sense.  That surely they must realize that we have helped far more Muslims than we have harmed.  Sorry, but you would be wrong.  It is irrational to expect people to be rational or at least to use the same rational as you.  A far better model for human behavior is expressed by the out of print book When Prophecy Fails.  If certain conditions exist the believer (of any type, not just religious) will become even more fanatical about their beliefs and increase their proselyting and conversion efforts when predictions fail.  In this case their predictions are about Allah being good and non-believers being evil.  And the result is predictable with the When Prophecy Fails model:

“God is angry with Aceh people, because most of them do not do what is written in the Qur’an and the Hadith,” said the Indonesian imam Cut Bukhaini. “I hope this will lead all Muslims in Aceh to do what is in the Qur’an and its teachings. If we do so, God will be merciful and compassionate.”

...

...a recurring phenomenon of Islamic history: when disaster of any kind strikes, it is all too frequently interpreted as having been caused by a failure on the part of the people to be Islamic enough. So the result is a renewed fervor, and new miseries for non-Muslims inside and often also outside the Islamic state in question. It is beginning to look as if the tsunami may be another occasion of this. There is nothing wrong with focusing and reforming one’s actions in the face of the reality of death; the potential problem here is that when the Muslims “wake up,” as they are being called to do now in Indonesia, they will direct their attentions not only to matters of individual piety, but to that other Muslim obligation, jihad.

It is still my belief that we have to “attack” their youth.  We have to destroy their culture via a “corrupting” influence.  Osama bin Laden made it very clear--we have two choices:

 If you fail to respond to all these conditions, then prepare for fight with the Islamic Nation.

My weapons acquisition doctrine is driven in part by what I'm likely to find when I am shopping at the Dead UN trooper/Gun Confiscation Police Sporting Goods store. That pretty much comes down to M14, M16, HK MP5 and what not.

Ward Dorrity
November 20, 1998 10:53 AM
Microsoft Gun Club Public Folder

A few weeks ago I speculated on how many Islamic extremists had a desire to kill us. Now Newt Gingrich gives us his numbers:

According to the former speaker, between 39 million and 52 million young men -- out of a total of 1.3 billion Muslims around the world -- could become available to Islamist recruiters as the war on terror grinds on.

My numbers were much larger but included not just “young men” but everyone that had a desire to kill us.  Still, assuming Gingrich is right, even accounting for the differences in who is being counted I was way off.  I would love to know the method by which he arrived at those numbers.  But regardless, 40 to 50 million warriors are a lot.  I'm not sure that even with the kill ratios we have that our country will tolerate the military losses and the money spent to defeat that large of force until the Muslims attack us on our own soil again.  Will we be attacked again on our own soil?  I don't know.  I suspect so.  The elections in Iraq have to be the first priority of the Muslims, then attacking us at home.  We could see an attack in this country by the end of this month.

But then I read some speculation that Osama bin Laden had been told we would nuke, literally use nuclear weapons on, Mecca if there was another attack of 9/11 proportions on U.S. soil.  Assuming that is true, would that be a deterrent?  Or would that be a price worth paying to recruit millions of Jihad warriors?