Monthly Archives: November 2009

I know that guy!

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The Second Amendment Foundation, NRA, Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms and the Washington Arms Collectors filed suit against the city of Seattle (see also the SAF news release):

“Every time the anti-gunners want to push gun control, they say we are doing this for the children,” said Alan Gottlieb with the Second Amendment Foundation. “It’s almost like it’s their lead banner every single time, no matter what.”

They say the ban violates Washington State’s long-standing preemption statute.

“The ban makes it impossible, under threat of criminal trespass penalty, to lawfully carry firearms for the protection of spouses, partners and children on public property where these citizens have a right to be,” he said.

But there was some support for the ban at Green Lake.

“I don’t know why anyone needs a gun at a playground or any place where there are kids around,” said Brain Nevenhouse.

But for others, they say the need for protection is everywhere. One of those party to the suit is Bob Kennar who supervises parolees for the state. He carries his own gun, because some of the bad guys don’t like him.

“It’s in the back of my mind,” Kennar said. “I don’t lose sleep over it, but like the police I know there’s a chance that could happen.”

Kennar has carried a gun for 29 years. He says the city of Seattle can’t tell him no.

Ray Carter is gay. He’s a founder of the Seattle Chapter of Pink Pistols. He carries a .380 because he says gays are targets and police can’t prevent that.

“They can show up in time to write the report and mop up the blood and maybe find out who did it,” Carter said. “As a potential victim that doesn’t do me a lot of good.”

Carter and Kennar use parks and community centers They understand the desire to protect children, but say they need protection too.

Ray Carter is a Seattle area blogger who uses a pseudonym so I’ll not provide the link to his blog. But I have known Ray since long before there were blogs. Ray has been a force in gun rights for many years. See for example this Seattle Time Editorial that mentions both Ray and I. It was at a pizza restaurant in Seattle where Ray, some other pro-gun people and I were planning our (political) attack against the anti-gun organization Washington CeaseFire who had been scoring some painful blows against our rights in the late 1990s. It was Ray who said we should call our little organization Washington Cease Fear. It was while doing work for this group that I came up with my Jews in the Attic Test. That organization didn’t thrive even though it still exists as a the Yahoo Group ceasefear. About a year after our founding and work on Capital Hill (see the Jews in the Attic Test web page) the Pink Pistols came out with essentially the same idea and took the nation by storm. Ray was a founding member of the Seattle Chapter of the Pink Pistols.

I’m not surprised he is taking point on this lawsuit.

Horrified and fearful

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As our neighbors to the north attempt to regain a little bit of their freedom the anti-freedom people are “horrified and fearful”:

Gun-control advocates say they are horrified and fearful that Canada’s long-gun firearms registry is on the verge this week of being scrapped because the Conservatives may have enough support from the opposition to kill it.

Wendy Cukier, president of the Coalition for Gun Control, says her organization has been monitoring the progress of a Conservative private member’s bill to abolish the registry and is now bracing for it to clear an important vote in the Commons on Wednesday.

“It is astonishing, just a few months after the opposition parties voted for a Bloc Québécois motion that reiterated support for the firearms registry and against efforts to repeal it, that many of the same MPs will support this Conservative bill,” Cukier said Sunday.

“It not only eliminates the need to register rifles and shotguns but requires that the information contained on seven million registered guns be destroyed.”

I find it very telling they don’t tell us how many crimes the two billion dollar gun registry helped solved. The last time I heard a number it was one. Yes, one crime was solved that would not have been solved without it. Two billion dollars to solve one crime and these people are “horrified and fearful”?

The only conclusion that I can come up with is that it’s not about crime. It’s about control. They are “horrified and fearful” they will have less control.

U.K. reports on women and guns in the U.S.

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As strongly as the U.K. is politically opposed to guns in the hands of private citizens it sometimes seems they have a fascination with people in the U.S. having guns. Here is an example:

Debbie Ferns travels the USA organising “Ladies Only Gun Camps” complete with pink weapons to encourage women to take up shooting.

Mrs Ferns, 55, from Tucson, Arizona, has also written a book called Babes with Bullets, Women Having Fun With Guns.

“Every woman in America should shoot a gun,” said Mrs Ferns, who has more than 20 in her home collection.

She added “As long as the woman is a legal and law-abiding citizen I feel they should at least have a basic education in firearms safety.”

The three-day camps, which cost £400, are exploding across the country and in January next year a US TV show will begin documenting the female gun trend.

“It started with one camp in 2004 and now we’re planning 15 to 20 camps for 2010,” said Debbie, who has helped recruit over 1,000 women to the shooting world.

“Women love it. We get schoolteachers, lawyers, nurses, women from all walks of life.

“They come in as novices and go away with a brand new skill using a powerful tool.

“Quite often they make new lifelong friends at camp as well.”

The women-only gun camps are particularly popular with women over the age of 35, up to those in their 60s.

“We have so much fun and it’s very exciting.

“It’s a fast paced program and by the third day of camp we have women safely drawing from holsters and shooting on the move,” said Mrs Ferns. “We often get emails from women telling us that the camp has changed their lives.”

There’s more and it is a very positive article. I have to wonder what that means for the future of gun ownership in the U.K. Is it an indicator of change for their firearm bans?

Quote of the day–Dennis A. Henigan

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I am not arguing here that higher rates of gun ownership cause higher rates of crime, violent crime, or homicide. Such causation is difficult to show because so many other factors bear on the incidence of crime. For instance, simple cross-national comparisons of gun availability and crime do not control for the degree to which various countries impose legal restrictions on firearms. It also is difficult to sort out whether high levels of gun ownership lead to high crime rates or whether high crime rates lead to high levels of gun ownership.

Dennis A. Henigan
Lethal Logic: Exploding the Myths That Paralyze American Gun Policy page 107.
[I find this an extremely interesting admission. With this admission how can he in good faith advocate for restricting private citizen access to firearms? In essence he is admitting that he cannot answer Just One Question yet he wants to push the envelope as far as he can in infringing upon a specific enumerated right.

As I said in a Tweet yesterday after getting off the plane, I’m nearly certain I could find a fatal flaw on every page of his book. It’s filled with half-truths, cherry picked data, and straw man arguments. I stand behind my nickname of Half-Truth Henigan for him.

I do have to give him credit for pointing out a few valid instances of NRA (almost all his attention is directed at the NRA) overstating things as well. John Lott gets some valid criticism too. He is not stupid but he’s not going to be winning any awards for piercing insight either.

I’ll be posting much more on this book over the next few days. In the meantime take a look at Dave Kopel’s review of it.–Joe]

Cruising the Bahamas

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We had a nice time on our cruise. Below is a picture from the wedding (it was on a beach on a Disney Island, not on the ship like I said earlier):

Barb and I were somewhat surprised at the nice time we had. Disney, as usual, paid a lot of attention to detail on the cruise and their island (99 year lease I was told). More pictures and stories later. Barb says we can check our bags in now at the Alaska Airlines ticket counter (we are still in Orlando).

Quote of the day–George Wallace

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I’ve seen many politicians paralyzed in the legs as myself, but I’ve seen more of them who were paralyzed in the head.

George Wallace
[I’m not a fan of his politics but I can’t help but wonder if Wallace wouldn’t have more than one ax to grind with the current occupant of the White House. I’m not saying all of them would be valid but from the above quote I think at least one would be applicable.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Dave Stancliff

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The column achieved what it was supposed to do. It got people thinking about the problems associated with assault weapons.

Whether you believe there’s a problem or not, the reality trumps your rhetoric and your use of conservative/NRA babble trying to pass for the truth.

I don’t have the answers, but if enough people work on it they will come.

Dave Stancliff
September 13, 2009 4:13 PM
Comment to Let’s face it, no one will take the high road to gun control
In response to demonstration that his “facts” in an anti-gun editorial were all wrong.
[“If enough people work on it” they will be able to refute verifiable facts? I suppose if the Ministry of Truth (or is it the Truth Czar these days?) puts enough people on the problem it’s possible.–Joe]