The “prosperous” divested after hearing:
“this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control — and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous.”
Speed | 01.20.09 – 4:47 pm |
Speed is quoting President Obama’s inauguration speech after noting the stock market crash yesterday.
[I may have this slightly wrong but as Ry told me the other day, “Difficult times are never dull.”–Joe]
This is actually old news but I just ran across it reading an old Bruce Schneier post. Here is the story from last September in New Scientist:
Last year, New Scientist revealed that the US Department of Homeland Security is developing a system designed to detect “hostile thoughts” in people walking through border posts, airports and public places. The DHS says recent tests prove it works.
Project Hostile Intent as it was called aimed to help security staff choose who to pull over for a gently probing interview – or more.
Commentators slated the idea that sensors could spot people up to no good from their pulse rate, breathing, skin temperature, or fleeting facial expressions. One likened it to the “pre-crime” units that predict criminal behaviour in the movie Minority Report.
FOXNews has more.
Basically they are doing remote lie detector type measurement without the subject being aware they are being scanned and implying intent from these measurements. Given that lie detectors aren’t particularly reliable I don’t think this will be very effective either. But still, one has to ask, “At what point does it become an unwarranted search and will the courts care?”
No man can bring out of the Presidency the reputation which carries him into it.
Thomas Jefferson
[I wonder what Jefferson would have said about someone who, essentially, had no reputation going into the Presidency.–Joe]
I updated my Brady Campaign Score for state gun laws correlations. Previously I used FBI UCR data from 2005 with Brady Scores from 2007. My present results use only 2007 data and added correlations for the total violent crime rate, murder, and rape. The spreadsheet is here but the interesting part is as follows:
FBI Data Type | Correlation Coefficient |
Violent crime rate per 100K | 0.016 |
Murder and nonnegligent manslaughter rate per 100K | -0.072 |
Forcible rape rate per 100K | -0.491 |
Percent murdered with firearm | 0.056 |
Percent murdered with knife | 0.287 |
Percent murdered with weapon other than firearm | 0.028 |
Percent murdered with hands, fists, feet, etc. | -0.114 |
The correlation coefficient always takes a value between -1 and 1, with 1 or -1 indicating perfect correlation (all points would lie along a straight line in this case). A positive correlation indicates a positive association between the variables (increasing values in one variable correspond to increasing values in the other variable), while a negative correlation indicates a negative association between the variables (increasing values is one variable correspond to decreasing values in the other variable). A correlation value close to 0 indicates no association between the variables.
For the most part there is no correlation between Brady Scores and the crime data. The exceptions are there does appear to be a moderate association between good Brady Scores and a decrease in rape and slight increase in the chances that if someone is murdered they will be murdered with a knife in Brady approved states.
The rape data point is a mystery to me. Most men have enough of a physical advantage on the average woman that having “easy access” to a gun would not seem to be an important part of forcing a female victim to comply. If “easy access” to guns were to enable any crime I would think it would be murder or even violent crime in general. But that does not seem to be the case.
Also of interest is that the FBI has footnotes explaining that Illinois didn’t supply much data and that for some unexplained reason Florida was not included in Table 20.
Any speculation, other than random coincidence, on why there is a negative correlation between good Brady Scores and rape rates?
THE PEOPLE: The people is a beast of muddy brain that knows not its own strength.
Tommaso Campanella
[This could relate to many things in the present day. I’m thinking of what the people did a couple months ago and of which everyone will soon learn the unintended consequences of their muddied brain actions.–Joe]
Yesterday Barb and I went on drive. This Thursday Barb has a class in Bellingham so we drove up there ahead of time to make sure she can find it without difficulty during morning traffic. It was a nice day and it was a pleasant drive and we got a chance to talk about a bunch of stuff rather than sitting at our respective desks with our hobbies.
Just prior to leaving we stopped at Joe’s Sports, Outdoor, and More (no relation). I was looking for some .45 ACP brass so I can reload for my Gun Blog 45. Midway is out of stock. The shelf with the brass was nearly empty with only a couple bags with some 7mm brass hanging from a hook. The powder and primer shelves were nearly empty as well. Hmmm…
On the way back from Bellingham we stopped at Kesselring Gun Shop in Burlington. The parking lot was FULL. And this is on the same weekend that WAC had their big show in Puyallup! I found a narrow spot to park between a building and a pickup that was parked such that it was blocking a private road. We went inside to find the store was packed. Every aisle was crowded. There was just barely enough room to move between all the people. I found the brass I was looking for at a reasonable price (considering), paid for it and we left.
One has to wonder if we had put that much money and effort into defeating Obama in November would we have succeeded? Being reactive seldom is better than proactive but that just isn’t the way human nature works. And the money gun owners are spending on firearms, ammo, and accessories could have gone into the election process and ended up in the hands of mainstream media who are one of our worst enemies and instead of into tools of freedom in our own hands.
In a functioning market, vendors producing superior products would take share from vendors producing inferior products. Today that’s simply not possible because the cost of the most effective channel for distribution, shipping as the default browser with new computers, for everyone except the OS vendor is prohibitively high.
Asa Dotzler
Mozilla’s director of community development
January 17, 2009
competition is good (see also EU: Microsoft ‘shields’ IE from competition — Web too important to let one company dominate browser market, says Opera CEO)
[Taking this quote out of context is a bit unfair and he does address some of the issues I have concerns about. But the bottom line is there is much more to the story. “Superior products”, in his mind, is defined differently than the market has defined it. And unless there is government inference (or other application of force in the market place) then the “superior product” has, in fact, dominated the marketplace. The (relatively) free market has defined “superior product” in such a way that ease of distribution has played a major factor. In order words Microsoft is competing in the distribution channel and the market has spoken and said, “The Microsoft distribution channel is better.”
That Microsoft exploited their superior distribution channel and the customers responded favorably to this offering is not justification for some government thugs (the EU) to declare MS a law breaker and demand fines or that they offer free access of that distribution channel to their competition. Those competitors need to build their own distribution channel and compete in that market. Until they successfully do that they have a big hole in their offering because the distribution channel is part of the feature set.
Microsoft management will, almost for certain, be more “responsible to the stockholders” than I would. If it were up to me I would be strongly inclined to tell the EU they can write their own damn software. MS would refuse to allow any of their software be used in any EU country until the EU thugs making these decisions are all in prison or selling pencils and apples on the street corners to see what the free market is really all about.
Disclaimer: I work for Microsoft but I am not in a position of management and my opinion in no way reflects that of my employer.–Joe]
The Brady Law is still working to block handgun sales to convicted felons, domestic abusers, the mentally ill and other prohibited purchasers, according to a report released today by the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics. In 1997 alone, 69,000 people who were prohibited by law from buying handguns were denied access to these lethal weapons due to background checks. In the four years since the Brady Law was implemented, an estimated 242,000 ineligible purchasers have been stopped from buying handguns.
Sarah Brady
June 21, 1998
Sarah Brady Statement on Justice Dept. Report on Brady Law Success
[I find it exceedingly telling that the Brady’s measure their success in terms of the number of people denied the purchase of a firearm. I contend the only valid measurement of the success of a restriction on firearms is whether the average person is made safer by that restriction. In other words the Brady measure ignores safety and celebrates the blocking of people from exercising a specific enumerated civil right.–Joe]
David has the details on what he declares a Win For Our Side!
A personal firearm, a firearm accessory, or ammunition that is manufactured commercially or privately in Montana and that remains within the borders of Montana is not subject to federal law or federal regulation, including registration, under the authority of congress to regulate interstate commerce. It is declared by the legislature that those items have not traveled in interstate commerce. This section applies to a firearm, a firearm accessory, or ammunition that is manufactured in Montana from basic materials and that can be manufactured without the inclusion of any significant parts imported from another state. Generic and insignificant parts that have other manufacturing or consumer product applications are not firearms, firearms accessories, or ammunition, and their importation into Montana and incorporation into a firearm, a firearm accessory, or ammunition manufactured in Montana does not subject the firearm, firearm accessory, or ammunition to federal regulation. It is declared by the legislature that basic materials, such as unmachined steel and unshaped wood, are not firearms, firearms accessories, or ammunition and are not subject to congressional authority to regulate firearms, firearms accessories, and ammunition under interstate commerce as if they were actually firearms, firearms accessories, or ammunition. The authority of congress to regulate interstate commerce in basic materials does not include authority to regulate firearms, firearms accessories, and ammunition made in Montana from those materials. Firearms accessories that are imported into Montana from another state and that are subject to federal regulation as being in interstate commerce do not subject a firearm to federal regulation under interstate commerce because they are attached to or used in conjunction with a firearm in Montana.
2009 Montana Legislature
HOUSE BILL NO. 246
[I also like the part where it directs the Montana attorney general to “defend in full” any “Montana citizen whom the government of the United States attempts to prosecute” for violation of federal law concerning a firearm manufactured and retained within Montana. It also provides this protection for firearms with bores up to 1.5 inches (38.1mm) in diameter.–Joe]
Recently there has been some crowing about North Dakota having only two murders in 2008 (and neither were committed with a gun):
And of course North Dakota has a very poor score as far as the Brady Campaign is concerned.
While the claims made above are true this isn’t the whole story. It’s an example of cherry picking the data and is very risky if you are a scientist.
Using the FBI Uniform Crime Report (2005) and the Brady Campaign Scores on the states (2007) I came up with some interesting information. Starting with the FBI data I added the Brady Scores and added some additional rows and columns. The result is here*.
The bottom line is that the assuming someone is murdered then correlation between the Brady Score and a particular method of murder are as follows:
Correlation is a number between -1.0 and 1.0, inclusive. What the above numbers mean is that a good Brady score does not mean there is a reduction in the the percentage of murders committed with firearms. It may mean there is a slight increase in the percentage of murders committed with knives and a decrease in the percentage of unarmed murders in Brady favored states. Another interesting set of data would be to compare the total violent crime rate to Brady Scores. I have done that in the past with the result of discovering there was essentially no correlation. Perhaps I’ll have time to look at that this weekend sometime.
Update: As noted in the comments I made a mistake on one of the formulas in the spreadsheet. This only affected the correlation of the “Hands, fists, feet, etc.” murders with the Brady Score. Instead of there being a slight negative correlation there is instead essentially zero correlation with Brady Scores. I have updated the spreadsheet accordingly.
This dramatic decrease in gun violence debunks the gun lobby’s myth that gun control doesn’t work. Common sense laws can and have worked. The gun lobby claims that ‘an armed society is a polite society’, when, in fact, the opposite is true. These reports show that fewer guns on our streets means less crime and less violence.
While we are grateful for this news, we know that more can and must be done. We have eliminated a number of sources for crime guns but loopholes still exist which allow criminals to ‘lie and buy.’ We need to institute a national one-gun-a-month law to reduce gun trafficking to criminals even further. We need to close the gun show loophole which allows so-called ‘private collectors’ at gun shows to sell their wares to anyone without doing a criminal background check.
Sarah Brady
Chair of Handgun Control, Inc
January 4, 1999
YEAR-END CRIME STATISTICS SHOW GUN LAWS WORK, SAYS SARAH BRADY
[Note the year–1999. Also my next post will be of interest to supporters of this claim of hers.–Joe]
Pursuant to Supreme Court Rule 37.3, the American Bar Association (“ABA”), as amicus curiae, respectfully submits that the decision of the divided panel of the D.C. Circuit should be reversed, because the decision improperly rejected the long and consistent line of precedent on which this Nation has built its entire matrix of gun regulation.
William H. Neukom
January 11, 2008
President American Bar Association
Brief of the American Bar Association as amicus curiae supporting petitioners.
[Similar things could have been said about passage of the 13th Amendment or any number of things such as allowing women to vote and laws against using birth control. Hence his justification for rejecting the individual rights viewpoint of the D.C. Circuit carries no weight.
But, assuming his characterization of the nations gun laws is true, then one should reasonable expect the “entire matrix of gun regulation” to collapse under the Heller decision. I wish that were true. I think it’s possible but unlikely. We will have to play our game very, very, well in order to even approximate this.
Based on these two items which Neukum apparently got wrong I must conclude that Neukom doesn’t know what he is talking about and his opinion, in general, should be severely discounted.–Joe]
[T]he NCVS [National Crime Victimization Survey] and researchers have concluded that women who offer no resistance are 2.5 times more likely to be seriously injured than women who resist their attackers with a gun. While the overall injury rate for both men and women was 30.2%, only 12.8% of those using a firearm for self-protection were injured. Subjective data from the 1994 NCVS reveals that 65 percent of victims felt that self-defense improved their situation, while only 9 percent thought that fighting back caused them greater harm.
M. Carol Bambery
Brief of amicae curiae 126 women state legislators and academics in support of respondent.
[John Fogh said it a little more succinctly with, ‘Nothing says, “Please don’t rape me.” like multiple jacketed hollowpoints.’ But some people prefer to see the details.–Joe]
Porn is not meant to be educational. It’s meant to be amusement.
Nina Hartley (NOT SAFE FOR WORK!!)
Via Jenny Block who has been twittering about the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo live from Las Vega.
I have to wonder if we started dropping these devices from airplanes by the millions into certain mid-Eastern countries if we couldn’t eradicate radical Islam within a generation:
One end of the canister-type devices sized to fit easily in one’s lap is made of soft ‘Haptic’ synthetic material akin to that used for nipples of baby bottles.
The faux-flesh wall is slotted to allow the insertion of a body part of a man’s choosing.
RealTouch devices connect to computers with USB cables and synchronise with adult movies streamed online so the inner workings replicate what a fellow might be feeling were he to be the man in the film.
‘You watch the action on a screen and a signal is sent to the box to simulate what is happening,’ Mr Drysdale said.
Rich men in some Islamic countries have many wives unbalancing the normal male/female ratio of approximately 50/50. Sex outside of marriage is forbidden. And women who defy (or are even suspected of defying) this are severally punished. Hence significant numbers of young men have no good sexual outlet. Their religion promises those that die in Jihad go to heaven with 72 virgins for eternity. This is a powerful motivator for many men of warrior age to seek battle. If we could significantly reduce or eliminate this motivation there would be less violent conflict with these radicals.
We cannot but pity the boy who has never fired a gun; he is no more humane, while his education has been sadly neglected.
Henry David Thoreau
Walden Chapter 11. Higher Laws
[Thanks to Shyam who suggested I read The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan who used this quote in his book. I just finished the book about 90 minutes ago. It’s a good book. Perhaps a bit slow and wordy but opinion that might be because I grew up on a farm and have hunted and gathered food as well. A lot of the material covered was already fairly well known to me.
If we could but get the teaching of gun safety and shooting in our schools for all children to learn as they learn to drive automobiles we would be able to win the battle for gun rights. But then if it were taught in the schools that would mean we had already won. So we much teach the children ourselves outside the schools. Still it’s not an impossible task. The improved communication channel of the Internet favor the educated rather than the ignorant and no matter how repressive the anti-gun bigots it’s hard for them to repress our speech, or accomplishments, or recreation, and our way of life without revealing themselves for who they are. They are timid creatures afraid of confronting reality and willing to use the iron hand of government to crush the imaginary demons they manufacture in their narrow little minds from ordinary people who happen to own a gun.–Joe]
This is bizarre, but it’s New Jersey so what do you expect? The guns were legally owned but in a plea bargain the owner paid a small fine and the guns were confiscated:
Goldstein was arrested in March after Northfield police searched his Mount Vernon Avenue home after receiving a report of suspicious objects in his basement. The objects turned out to be old hand grenades and some fuses, but the discovery of a 9mm Uzi submachine gun and what police believed to be the sawed-off shotgun led to Goldstein’s arrest and extradition from Pennsylvania.
Possession of an assault weapon is a third-degree crime in New Jersey, carrying a sentence of as much as five years in prison.
Attorney Amy Weintrob said Goldstein’s Uzi was purchased and registered with the state in 1989 – one year before state law changed to criminalize Uzis as assault weapons.
“The registration was on file with the state of New Jersey,” Weintrob said, “and the Prosecutor’s Office verified the information, and therefore possession of the Uzi was not illegal.”
Housel said Goldstein did voluntarily register the Uzi under its old classification as a rifle in 1989, but after the law changed in 1990 there was a “grace period for (some) individuals who met certain criteria” to register their Uzis under the new classification as an assault weapon. Goldstein’s Uzi was never registered as an assault weapon, Housel said.
“Relying on less-than-complete information from the NRA,” Housel said, “(Goldstein) thought the prior registration was legitimate. Looking at whether there was criminal intent, it’s reasonable that he could have believed the Uzi was registered. The decision by (Assistant Prosecutor David) Ruffenach to do the plea agreement the way he did was a reasonable one.”
Regarding the shotgun, Weintrob said that she and an investigator went to the Northfield Police Department to measure the gun in front of officers. The result, she said, was that the gun was measured at 26.5 inches long, while to be legally considered “sawed-off” it had to be less than 26 inches long overall and less than 18 inches from breech to muzzle.
“That’s when they realized it was legal,” Weintrob said of the Northfield police, who she said were the lead investigators on the case. “The prosecutors realized they couldn’t proceed on that charge.”
…
Goldstein ended up pleading guilty to two amended charges of disorderly conduct resulting in a combined fine of $127. The weapons are in the custody of the Northfield police and could be either destroyed or sold, James said.
“It’s a good resolution for everybody,” Weintrob said. “Mr. Goldstein will never have those weapons again.”
Emphasis on that last line is mine. It’s good for everybody that Goldstein will never have those (legal) weapons again? Goldstein’s attorney, Amy Weintrob, as well as all the people representing the government in this case are bigots.
I received an email from Para USA a few minutes ago. They are preparing for SHOT Show and will be distributing a new catalog at the show. The page 34 of the catalog looks like this:
You can download the 2009 Para USA catalog off their website at this link http://www.para-usa.com/new/product_catalog.php.
You might have noticed the video link on the image to a web page and video of the gun blogger event. Yeah, it doesn’t work for me either.
Scott found a user interface bug. That is fixed now. There was a bug in the “Delete All Data” link that I found and fixed as well.
I have also created a new topic tag for this blog “Ballistics”. I still have to add this tag to old posts but I should get that done sometime today.