Category Archives: Crap For Brains

People and especially governments do some incredibly stupid stuff. This is about those stupid actions.

Women and Guns (and some other stuff)

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I’m just wondering aloud here.  When will we decide that women are regular citizens, instead of treating female shooters as though they are a separate class of citizen?  I understand that there is a perception that women need their own, separate training classes and all that, so they feel comfortable.  Is that condescending to women or am I missing something?  At what point, or under what circumstances, will we be treating female shooters the same as we treat male shooters (within the sport I mean)?

Maybe it’s a dumb question.  Maybe men can’t help but see a woman as something special and maybe that attitude is bound to find its way into our chosen sport.  Maybe some women are so accustomed to being treated differently that they expect it without a lot of thought.

Maybe the question is simply premature.  Any female shooters want to comment on that?  Do you believe you need separate training or separate categories in a competition, and if so, why?  Should there be guns made for girls, and others for the boys and if so, why”  Marketing strategies are beyond the scope of the question.  Hell, maybe it’s all about marketing, in which case, never mind.

I could understand if shooting involved some heavy lifting, but even then we’ve all seen some women who can out-lift some men.  So you want different weight classes, like in wrestling?

Here’s another.  How long is it going to be before the various races of humans are treated the same in general, in the media, and in the courts?  I understand personal preferences, but that’s quite different.  I’m talking socially, politically and legally.  When will I be able to tell a black guy he’s being a fool without being accused of racism, or tell a Mexican woman she’s wrong without her getting in my face on some racial or sex-related tangent?  When will we be able to disagree without changing the subject as a form of crutch?  I really am getting sick and damned tired of this, so I am herein putting my foot down.  Knock off the race and sex defenses.  Some people are using it as a tool and I’m not buying it.  Not at all, and I’m getting right back in your face if you try it with me so don’t even start.

When, or under what exact specified circumstances, will the gun-restriction advocates declare their work done, pack up their tents, and get jobs?  Any time you hear one of them guffaw over the assertion that they won’t quit until all guns are banned, your immediate response must be, “OK, then tell me precisely when or under what circumstances you will stop, declare victory, and find something else to do, ’cause what I see is that any time you get a win, you’re right on to calling for another restriction.  This has been happening for over 70 years, so, you know, we have a pretty undeniable track record here.  Go ahead.  Lay out the circumstances.  I have all day.”

Staying on the title subject;
A problem with saying, “this far and no farther” is you’ve already established that a) you’re willing to give ground, and/or that b) you’ve accepted or granted your opponent’s basic premise(s).  Some things are properly subject to compromise (such as where to go for lunch, assuming you want the company) and others are not (such as basic rights).  When it comes to basic rights, the response it not, “this far and no farther”.  Properly, the response is zero tolerance, same as it would be for a robber or a rapist.  If someone violates your basic rights, they are criminal and it is not incumbent upon you to prove your magnanimity by compromising with them.  You fight to win, then you fight for compensation and restitution, then you fight for justice, assuming your opponent is still breathing.  Few if any in Congress, for example, seem to have a clue how that might happen with regard to their violations of our basic rights.

Quote of the day–Tim Naumetz

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The number of firearm owners who fail to renew their gun licences has steadily increased since the Harper government tabled legislation to scrap the federal long-gun registry.

Opposition critics and the Coalition for Gun Control in Canada say the problem has increased risk for frontline police officers and undermines public safety.

Despite an amnesty the Conservatives introduced to coax gun owners into licence renewals, the latest RCMP figures show the opposite occurred.

The rate of non-renewals climbed to 25.3 per cent of expired licences in the first three months of this year, compared with 14.1 per cent in 2005.

…

A little-noticed RCMP report for 2007 on the Canada Firearms Centre contains positive information about the registry and its use by police that could surprise even diehard opponents.

The report includes a groundbreaking RCMP survey that found general duty police officers use the online version of the registry at a high rate to check for potential weapons while responding to trouble calls.

On average, 73 per cent of the officers said they log on to check for the presence of firearms en route.

The rate was even higher for officers trained to use the online registry – 81 per cent of that group use it on calls.

Tim Naumetz
June 27, 2009
Declining gun-licence renewals a risk to police: observers
[Would the same concern on the lack of renewals be expressed if instead of gun owners it were Jews, blacks, and gays being registered?–Joe]

VPC says gun laws are not about safety

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No wonder they can’t answer Just One Question! The laws weren’t intended to “regulate for health and safety”. Kurt explains.

If the regulations were to “regulate for health and safety” Sebastian explains what that would be like.

I would like to point that it seems to me that the VPC is over stating things just a bit with this claim:

President Obama’s signing of a bill granting the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulatory authority over the tobacco industry now leaves the gun industry as the last American industry not regulated for health and safety.

Let me repeat. Guns are now the only consumer product manufactured in America not regulated by a federal agency for health and safety.

Could someone explain to me what federal agency regulates the following consumer products for health and safety:

  • Software
  • Buckets
  • Jewelry
  • Swimming pools
  • Websites
  • Books
  • Music
  • Entertainment
  • Prostitution (legal in parts of Nevada and the Feds once owned a brothel confisicated for failure to pay taxes but the Feds couldn’t even make money running a whorehouse and they went out of business)
  • Locks and keys
  • Hand tools
  • Cardboard boxes

Also note that the number of accident deaths due to gunshot wounds are at, or near, an all time low in the neighborhood of less than 700 per year (642 in 2006–See table 18).

Finally I would also like to point out that there is a private model for health and safety approval that appears to work quite well for electrical applicances. It’s call the Underwriters Laboratory.

Hence, Federal regulations are not needed because; 1) there isn’t a problem that needs to be fixed, and 2) There are private solutions that would work better if there were a problem.

Myth busting the myth buster

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A new book written by anti-gun bigot Dennis Henigan has just been announced. He calls it Lethal Logic: Exploding the Myths that Paralyze American Gun Policy. If I could borrow a copy rather than have my money go toward his furthering of discrimination against gun owners I’d take the time to read it. I’d love to take it apart in public for him. But since I don’t have a copy in hand right now I’ll just do what I can with what I presume are his best shots as given in the press release:

In Lethal Logic: Exploding the Myths that Paralyze American Gun Policy, published by Potomac Books, Henigan takes on the highly memorable, but completely unsupportable slogans that for decades have been the staple of the National Rifle Association and other relentless opponents of sensible gun laws, and dismantles them one by one. Lethal Logic also is the first book to assess the impact on the gun control debate of last year’s Heller decision by the Supreme Court and the book’s conclusions about Heller will surprise many on both sides of the issue.

…

Some of Henigan’s observations on the gun lobby’s “bumper sticker” slogans:

  • “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” Henigan counters with Ozzy Osbourne’s take on that: “If that’s the case, why do we give people guns when they go to war? Why not just send the people?”
  • “But what you really want [is to ban all guns.]” Henigan explains that for the gun lobby, “the gun debate needs to be a debate about banning all guns. The slippery slope argument is the NRA’s primary means of achieving this goal.”
  • “An armed society is a polite society.” The more guns, the safer we all are, the gun extremists say – and they cite Switzerland as Utopia. But Henigan points out that Switzerland has high gun ownership because of mandatory militia service, and that citizens in mandatory militia service face government inspection of the guns in their homes and must account for all their bullets. “Can you imagine the fury of the NRA’s opposition to any suggestion that guns in the homes of U.S. citizens be subject to government inspection?”

As to “If that’s the case, why do we give people guns when they go to war? Why not just send the people?” Try sending the guns without the people and see how well the war goes. It’s the people that make the difference.

Try this experiment (okay, do the thought experiment if you don’t think you can get the human subjects testing approval):

Suppose you were to drop Dennis Henigan and Sarah Brady in the woods with all the guns and ammo they can carry. And a half mile away you drop in an Army Ranger or Navy Seal completely naked, one hand tied behind their back and a patch over one eye. If you tell them only one side can leave the woods alive I’m betting that by the next morning, despited being outnumbered 2:1 and out armed, the warrior will be walking out of the woods fully clothed, armed, and wearing Sarah and Dennis’s ears as a necklace.

Gun are tools used by people. Without the people the guns don’t kill, with or without guns people can kill. Guns just make violence against people easier. Sometimes that violence is for good and sometimes it is for evil. Most of the time guns are used for good. Reducing the access of guns to good people enables evil.

As to “But what you really want [is to ban all guns.] … the gun debate needs to be a debate about banning all guns.” No, the debate doesn’t have to be about that. Why not answer Just One Question? Justify the existence of any legal restriction on guns with data that conclusively demonstrates the restriction improved public safety. Or if that is something Henigan wants to avoid then explain why a “reasonable restriction” against gun owners wouldn’t be just as constitutionally repugnant as a similar restriction against black slaves who had been freed by the 13th Amendment.

As to government inspection of guns and accounting for all the bullets in the homes of the Swiss Henigan has to heavily distort the truth to make his point.

Here is the part where what Henigan says is mostly true:

Each such individual is required to keep his army-issued personal weapon (the 5.56x45mm Sig 550 rifle for enlisted personnel or the SIG 510 rifle and/or the 9mm SIG-Sauer P220 semi-automatic pistol for officers, medical and postal personnel) at home with a specified personal retention quantity of government-issued personal ammunition (50 rounds 5.56 mm / 48 rounds 9mm), which is sealed and inspected regularly to ensure that no unauthorized use takes place.[2]

Here is what Henigan completely ignores in order to make his point:

The government subsidizes the production of military ammunition and then sells the ammunition at cost. Swiss military ammo must be registered if bought at a private store, but need not be registered if bought at a range. Registration consists of entering your name in a log at the time of sale. No serial numbers are present on the individual cartridges of ammunition. Technically, ammunition bought at the range must be used at the range, but according to David Kopel “the rule is barely known and almost never obeyed.”[2] Ammunition for long gun hunting is not subsidized by the government and is not subject to any sales control. Non-military non-hunting ammunition more powerful than .22 LR (such as custom handgun ammunition) is registered at the time of sale.[10]

The article goes on to say:

Purchases from dealers of hunting long guns and of small bore rifles are not even recorded by the dealer. In other words, the dealer would not record the sale of a .30-06 hunting rifle, but would record the sale of a .30-06 M1 Garand rifle.[2] According to chapter 2 article 10 of Swiss law, people over the age of 18 do not need a permit to purchase a rifle for use in hunting, off-duty shooting and sport-shooting events.[10]

So why is it that Henigan didn’t tell us the rest of the story? That’s right, the facts hurt his case. He can’t make his points without cherry picking the data.

If those are the best shots Dennis could come up with the rest must be so poor as to be the equivalent of not getting his shotgun to get on paper with an USPSA target at five feet. Which of course means he must be shooting blanks.

Crap for brains

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As pointed out in a comment by fishyjay:

Herbert concludes his column with this:

” The first step should be to bring additional gun control back into the policy mix.”

So the NRA has been lying about the Obama administration wanting more gun control, and the Obama administration should respond by pushing for…more gun control?

You can’t make this stuff up.

Sometimes you just have to conclude the anti-gun people have mental problems and/or they have crap for brains.

Huh?

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From an opinion piece:

Still, it’s hard to argue that the easy availability of handguns and assault weapons is good for crime prevention or what the Founding Fathers had in mind in the Second Amendment.

Yes, they are right on the first point. It is hard to argue “easy availability of handguns and assault weapons is good for crime prevention”. If it were easy then people wouldn’t have so much trouble answering Just One Question. But I don’t think that is what they meant.

But on the second point, “shall not be infringed” obviously means availability cannot be restricted by the government.

As usual, the gun banners have trouble thinking straight. He apparently believes words mean what he wants them to mean rather than what they actually say.

No such thing as personal property?

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At times the only way I can make sense of some of the things the anti-gun people say is if they are of the belief there is no such thing as personal property:

Although police will run serial-number checks on all firearms submitted, they will not hold residents legally responsible for the guns they return.

All guns will be destroyed and not kept for resale, said O’Keefe, who had his own gun stolen during a burglary in 2006.

“The guns they return“? Do they think the guns were on loan from the police?

And what does “not kept for resale” mean? Does that mean something different from “not resold”? It almost seems like they might mean “reloaned” but didn’t want to come right out and say that.

I have to conclude these people frequently have mental problems.

Quote of the day–L. Hope

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I can see that our politicians haven’t cornered the market on stupidity and insanity. I think after a liberal/progressive person gets to a certain age, they should have a net thrown over them and hauled away somewhere. The longer they are liberal, the crazier they get.

L. Hope
Baldwinsville, USA
June 15, 2009
In the comments to First ‘anti-stab’ knife to go on sale in Britain
Via Jeff.
[In a sense I think L. Hope is right. They are, in a sense, crazy. What I think is going on is that they do not or cannot understand the complexities of the real world. They believe central planning/control by “the right people” will result in a better result than letting people make their own decisions and being responsible for their own well-being  When unintended consequences happen they think they need to exercise more control rather than understanding there are people just as smart, if not smarter, working to defeat their controls and even take advantage of those controls to their advantage. Hence criminals take advantage of disarmed people by nearly risk free home invasions. The disarming of the population made the home invasions possible with only a knife as a weapon. This sort of thing is repeated on a massive scale in the black market, taxes, prostitution, gambling, etc. Government controls, implemented with the best of intentions, almost always create more problems than they fix. The person that believes government can solve everything keeps thinking “just one more law” when a new problem shows up that was caused by the previous law. Eventually, such as in this case with the “anti-stab” knife, outsiders realize the proponent of government control is in some sense insane. But unless one or more of the five conditions are broken the people on the inside will not only fail to realize their insanity but will proselytize even more. This happens even when the proponents are facing near certain death. Read up on Joseph Stalin and his supporters sometime.

The only real solution that I know of is to remove the social support for their delusions. Point out their insanity. Rub their noses in it. People that have do not have the commitment to the “cause” need to be made aware and then join in on the public humiliation of the proponents of the insanity.

If we fail to stop the insanity early enough we run the risk the next Joseph Stalin will take over the reins of power of a system intended for use only by “the right people” with predictable and catastrophic results. And even after tens of millions have died there will still be people saying Stalin was a great leader. I believe there are some forms of insanity which are not completely curable and liberalism/communism/progressivism/socialism/statism may be one of those. The best we can do is to remove them from power and ignore them as they spout their mad ravings in public.–Joe]

Gun handling

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Ry, I’ll match that and raise you several magazines of tracers and about 100 people.

Any range I have ever been to would ban for life any of the people for their gun handling seen in this video (via email from Rob):

I’m all for having fun with guns but we can do it with much lower risk.

Quote of the day–Robert V. Thompson

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Gun lovers typically argue that when a perpetrator encounters an armed person–the perpetrator will either back down or get shot. The way to stop gun violence is with guns. We can prevent gun violence so long as sane and rational people are properly armed. So, crazy people care–or even notice?

Robert V. Thompson
June 11, 2009
Holocaust museum shooting–‘just say no’ to the gun lobby
[Actually, Mr. Thompson, the crazy person did notice. Someone with a gun shot him and he stopped his attack. As Greg Hamilton said, “Nothing is as debilitating and disorienting as blowing chunks of heart, spine, and brain out of your opponent.”

I did not leave the above comment for Thompson. Since Thompson quoted Gandhi, I left a couple Gandhi quotes and asked him Just One Question. My guess is either Reasoned Discourse will break out or the comments will be ignored.–Joe]

He must be using a different dictionary

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The anti-gun bigots often use words in ways that make no sense. For example “vigilantism” is frequent used to describe self-defense.

Here Paul Helmke demonstrates he is confused about definition of the word “force”:

Congress should think very hard about their responsibilities for public safety before weakening gun laws in our nation’s capital, and should rethink their decision to allow more guns in our national public areas,” said Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

“It is dangerous to force more guns into places that American families expect to be gun-free and safe,” he said.

With the help of George Washington let me explain it to Paul (someone at the Brady Campaign office subscribes to the RSS feed for this blog):

Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master.

George Washington
speech of January 7, 1790

Laws are force. Government enforcing those laws are force. Removing restrictions on people being able to defend themselves is not force. It is freedom.

And another thing, that shooting occurred in a “gun-free zone” already–just like Chicago and D.C.

“Gun-free and safe” is a self-contradictory phrase. Look up the FBI stats for yourself Paul.

I’d buy Paul a new dictionary but I think the problem is much more systemic than merely having a problem with the definition of words. Like many other anti-gun bigots I don’t think he is capable of determining truth from falsity.

Speaking of irrational

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Via Ry and the Seattle PI:


A vehicle drives on top of plastic toy guns to destroy them in Medellin, Colombia. Police exchanged children’s plastic toy guns for food as part of a campaign to diminish the use of toy weapons. (AP Photo/Luis Benavides)
(June 08, 2009)

Terrorist-Proof Airlines

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Via email from Rob:

WELCOME TO TPA
(Terrorist-Proof Airlines)

We at TPA, Terrorist-Proof Airlines, are in the flying business!

We can absolutely guarantee no WALK-ON GUNS, KNIVES, BOX CUTTERS, SHOE-BOMBS or other weapons will ever be carried onto OUR FLIGHTS!

Book your next flight with TPA, the safest airline in the industry.

Image here (not safe for work).

The claims are a bit exaggerated but still it makes for an amusing presentation. It would be much more effective and cheaper than existing airplane security. But neither the government nor the general public are interesting in effective security. They only want the appearance of security. People are willing to spent billions on ineffective security but you don’t even hear a hint of something like the above as part of the solution. Why is that? Is “modesty” that important to people? Existing security has been repeatedly shown to be a complete sham yet people are not willing to do away with it for fear of an attack–yet they will not even consider doing something much cheaper that is effective.

[heavy sigh]

As I have said before, it’s irrational to expect people to be rational.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Ibn al-Haytham

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Truth is sought for its own sake. And those who are engaged upon the quest for anything for its own sake are not interested in other things. Finding the truth is difficult, and the road to it is rough.

Ibn al-Haytham
A key figure in development of the scientific method.
[I mention this because I suspected an anti-gun person was completely clueless as to how to distinguish truth from falsity. I was right. It is a very, very common problem–especially among anti-gun people. Asking them to explain how they determine what is true from false gets a blank stare and/or indignation without a valid response every single time I have tried it.

I was going to use a couple paragraphs from this article for the QOTD but Jeff bet me to it.–Joe]

Reasoned discourse in 3, 2, 1…?

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Apparently I’ve run across another novice trying to run with the big dogs. I posted about him earlier today and he let my comment go through then responded with this:

This is what really gets me about people who believe that the Second Amendment means that we have a constitutional right to own a gun. I provided a whole bunch of statistics in this post about the cost of our love affair with guns in terms both of money and the impact on our lives, but yet, you choose not to address any of that. Instead, you pose a question which is completely unanswerable, as if that’s supposed to render everything else I’ve described as irrelevant, which it doesn’t by any means (and by the way, I have no desire to waste my time trying to find an instance like the one you describe).

As noted here, “in a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court departed from over 100 years of judicial precedent and held that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess firearms for self-defense purposes unconnected with service in a militia (in the Heller ruling).”

Even the Cruikshank case you cite states that, “The right there specified is that of ‘bearing arms for a lawful purpose.’ This is not a right granted by the Constitution.”

Individual states and municipalities should be allowed to regulate guns as they see fit, but I will never believe that there’s a Second Amendment right to own a gun (and, in Cruikshank, it sounds like Chief Justice Morrison Waite didn’t think there was either).

I responded with the following which apparently went through without moderation:

What really gets me about people trying to infringe up on our specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms is they only look at the downside of gun ownership. They refuse to look at the benefits. There are between 800,000 and 2,500,000 defensive gun uses in the U.S. each year. Most of those were without a shot being fired resulting in no injuries to anyone.

Another thing that gets me about people trying to infringe on our rights is they include legally and morally justified deaths and injuries from successful defensive uses of guns in their totals of dead and injured. They even include justified police shootings!

If you had read the actual decision you would have found that the question of an individual right was supported 9-0 in Heller. The 5-4 decision was about whether the D.C. law infringed upon that right.

If you had read the very next line in the Cruikshank decision you would have discovered “Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence.” The right to keep and bear arms is a preexisting right. The Second Amendment is a guarantee that it will not be infringed.

If you “will never believe that there’s a Second Amendment right to own a gun” then I guess there really isn’t any more to discuss. Facts and legal decisions are irrelevant to you. But I just have to ask, are you also of the same opinion in regard to the 13th Amendment as well? Should individual states and municipalities be allowed to regulate slaves as they see fit?

If you carefully read his comment above you will notice he has announced phase one of “Reasoned Discourse” (graphic stolen from Robb Allen):

Also note that he says Just One Question “is completely unanswerable”. Nice of him to admit that right up front.

I will not be surprised if phase two, deleting or blocking of comments, occurs shortly.

Have fun with the new toy I found for you guys. Play nice now. Be sure to share your toy with others.

Update June 10, 0800: More comments are coming in. His inability to pay attention to detail is remarkable.

Scott:

Here’s some statistics on deaths and injuries caused by medical care: http://www.ourcivilisation.com/medicine/usamed/deaths.htm
(with links to supporting documents)

783,936 total iatrogenic deaths annually; 98,000 specifically from medical errors. From these numbers would you make a case that we should ban doctors?

When you look only at the “cost of our love affair with guns” and not the benefits you’re making a case for banning doctors due to the harm they cause.

Another question for you: are all deaths by gunfire bad?

When armed robbers, muggers, psychotic ex-boyfriends, etc. are shot and killed by their intended victims – is that a bad thing? Those people are counted in the statistics you cite.

The plural of anecdote is not data, but anecdotes are useful in understanding the data. See http://www.claytoncramer.com/gundefenseblog/blogger.html for defensive gun use anecdotes.

doomsy:

I took a look at the claytoncreamer site you linked to, and you’re right; you’re talking about anecdotes of people who defend themselves with their guns versus the statistics I presented in my post. I don’t know if the number of people in this country using guns to defend themselves matches the number of suicides/accidental shootings, but I have a feeling they don’t (have to leave it up to someone else who has the time to compile those stats, if they can).

I could find stories of accidental victims of gun violence if I had the time or desire, but Bob Herbert already noted them (happens all too often in Philadelphia, for example, followed by the predictable wailing and gnashing of teeth while nothing changes). And concerning the claytoncreamer site, I have no issue at all if the guns the people used to defend themselves were purchased legally.

Oh, and your suggestion that I would be in favor of banning doctors is so silly that it doesn’t deserve a response.

doomsy:

OK, I just saw the comment including the link to the Keszler study citing (allegedly) two million instances of defensive gun use. Good for you – you made your point.

Just make sure you communicate this information to the families and friends of police officers killed in the line of duty because they’re outmanned by thugs, or families and friends of school children killed by stray fire from drug dealers. God forbid that they impugn your right to own any gun you want whenever you want.

doomsy:

Sorry, I meant the Gary Kleck study – and speaking of which, you might want to look at this.

Joe:

That criticism of Kleck’s study was published in 1997. A lot of followup studies have been done to address the concerns expressed there and elsewhere. The results keep coming up very close to the same.

Regardless of the actual number any honest advocacy of restrictions on weapons must take into account the benefits as well as the harm attributed to free access. Hence my Just One Question which you say you have no interest in answering.

I therefore can only conclude public safety is not your real objective. Just what is your objective with advocating restrictions on this specific enumerated right?

Update June 10, 0910: Phase two of Reasoned Discourse has been implemented:

Not Found

Sorry, but you are looking for something that isn’t here.

Update June 10, Final: I found his deleted post in the Google Cache for future reference. It doesn’t include the comments however. The above and the comment here are probably all but one or two.

Quote of the day–Ben Franklin

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Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.

Ben Franklin
Also attributed to Dale Carnegie.
[I was reminded of this by what The Liberal Doomsayer had to say yesterday on guns. I left a comment which is “awaiting moderation”. In fear of reasoned discourse I am posting it here as well:

The individual right to keep and bear arms has been recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court since at least 1875 (U.S. v. Cruikshank).

It was only in the 20th Century that people attempted to rewrite it to prevent blacks from obtaining firearms. See the link above for more details.

And before you advocate for more infringements on this specific enumerated right please answer Just One Question:

Can you demonstrate one time or place, throughout all history, where the average person was made safer by restricting access to handheld weapons?

–Joe]

Quote of the day–Doug Pennington

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What people don’t realize, at the national level, at least, is that I can count the federal gun laws on the books on one hand. I don’t even need all five fingers to do it.

Doug Pennington
June 7, 2009
The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence
Gun Loving Sons-of-Guns–How different is Georgia’s attitude about guns from those of other states?
[He goes on to enumerate “the 1934 ban on machine guns”, the Gun Control Act of 1968, and the Brady Law.

Giving him an allowance for NFA34 covering suppressors, short barreled shotguns/rifles in addition to machine guns and that GCA68 covers more than prohibition of felons owning firearms. He conveniently overlooks the following (here and here are partial references):

  • The executive order import bans
  • The “sporting purpose” requirements on imported guns
  • The Hughs Amendment
  • Bans on “destructive devices” which includes some shotguns
  • Restrictions on disguised guns (disguised as pens, cell phones, canes, etc.)
  • Restrictions on handguns with a forward grip
  • Extra taxes on guns and ammo
  • Restrictions on guns near schools
  • Restrictions on sale of a gun to a person in another state
  • Restrictions on how you can ship a firearm
  • Restrictions on firearms on airplanes
  • Restrictions on transporting a firearm while aboard a “common carrier”
  • Age restrictions on gun possession
  • Age restrictions on ammo possession
  • Restrictions on “armor-piercing handgun ammo”
  • Restrictions on sales of multiple handguns to one person within a five day period
  • Documentation of sales via form 4474 which must be stored for 20 years
  • Bans on possession by people convicted of domestic violence

Apparently Pennington is living in an alternate reality from the one I’m living in. But that isn’t surprising. It’s long been known that gun control advocates have mental problems.–Joe]

Quote of the day–Ben Franklin

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This will be the best security for maintaining our liberties. A nation of well-informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the religion of ignorance that tyranny begins.


Ben Franklin
[I can’t say that I disagree. The problem is that people have not been taught to know and prize their rights. Ignorance has been a big part of our country’s downfall. People vote for politicians promising perceived benefits without glimmer of recognition there might be unintended consequences.–Joe]

Lying or out of touch with reality?

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I am generally of the opinion that someone who can graduate from law school and become a state attorney general would have to be someone pretty smart. Hence, if they say a bunch of stuff that is totally wrong one must either conclude they aren’t that smart, they are lying or they are out of touch with reality.


I have yet to meet a lawyer I considered really stupid. Incompetent, yeah, I saw a public defender I wouldn’t want defending a dead dog. But he wasn’t really stupid.


Lawyers aren’t supposed to lie to the court. Supposedly they can get in trouble for that. But I’ve seen lawyers do it. Flat out, bald-faced lies to the judge. He had been given the facts just a few hours earlier and lied–big fat juice lies. My lawyers was flabbergasted and because he wasn’t expecting it was unable to present any evidence to the contrary or even put up a coherent argument about it. Other people that saw and heard it and a bunch of other actions he engaged in concluded he was a sociopath. Apparently you can make a lot of money as a sociopathic lawyer.


Another explanation for presenting false evidence is they are just out of touch with reality. They live in some sort of imaginary world that only occasionally intersects with reality–like a few times a day for water and food intake and semi-solid elimination.


I’m not sure if J. Joseph Curran Jr. is a sociopathic liar or is just out of touch with reality. But here is one of his semi-solid elimination deposits:



I further proposed that while hunting and other recreational uses of firearms should remain unfettered, our long-term goal should be an end to unrestricted handgun ownership. Sportsmen do not typically use handguns, and studies on self-defense make clear that people in households with handguns are more likely to be victims of gun violence than those in homes without them. I argued that handguns exact too high a price.


…


Legislation to close the gun show loophole nationally is pending in Congress. Childproofing handguns so only owners and authorized users can fire them would save many lives. The notion that guns in our national parks will make vacationing families safer should not carry the day. And surely we can agree that civilian ownership of military-style assault weapons, which make mass slaughters possible, serves no positive purpose.

Guns have killed 300,000 and maimed another 700,000 in the past decade – a million victims since Columbine. Had we done more 10 years ago, how many of those million might we have saved? Ten years from now, do we want to be asking ourselves the same question?


“Sportsmen” do use handguns. Both for hunting and numerous other sports such as USPSA, Steel Challenge, bowling pin shoots, IPDA, cowboy action shooting, and bullseye pistol just for starters. It’s not at all uncommon for some sportsmen to shoot 10K to 100K rounds through their handguns in a single year. This makes the use of handguns in the shooting sports much, much more common that rifle hunting. Is his statement a lie or is he out of touch with reality? He probably really doesn’t know what handguns are used for. So, I’m saying he is out of touch with reality on this one.


In his reference to “studies on self-defense” he apparently is referring to the discredited Kellerman study. That study was so bad that when congress held hearing on it (it was paid for by the government and questions were being asked about it being shoddy science as well as being written for a preordained political conclusions) Kellermen and others that approved of the study didn’t even bother to show up for the hearing to defend themselves. That hearing was in the mid to late 90s. One would think a college graduate with an interest in gun politics would know his pet piece of “evidence” had been completely and totally trashed in a very public forum. Unless, that is, he was intent on lying or he was out of touch with reality. I really can’t decide which it is.


There is no gun show loophole. The same laws that apply to gun shops apply to dealers at gun shows. Is he lying about this or is he out of touch with reality? He is a lawyer. He should know. He claims to know of the existence of laws in states that “closed their gun-show loopholes”. I say he’s lying on this one.


“Childproof handguns” do not exist. I used to work with biometrics (the type of technology proposed for use in making guns only usable by their owners) and I have my doubts the technology will ever be capable of delivering this dream. Let alone passing some law (like New Jersey did some years ago) and having biometrically equipped guns magically appear on the shelves. He must be out of touch with reality on this one.


The “notion that guns in our national parks will make vacationing families safer should not carry the day” implies he does not care about the facts. He apparently only cares that people believe as he does. He’s definitely out of touch with reality with this one–and he wants the rest of the world to join him.


“Surely we can agree”? No. We can’t agree. He implies “assault weapons” have no positive purpose. But he doesn’t come right out and say it. He is using weasel words to bias people’s thinking. I suspect he knows the “assault weapons” he wants to ban include millions of guns owned by everyday Americans. Most of the guns I own, rifles and pistols, qualify as “assault weapons” under one or more “assault weapon” bans in the various states. I call this a lie on his part.


Guns have killed or injured a million victims in the last ten years? No. Completely false. People using guns have killed or injured a million people, not necessarily victims. He doesn’t use any weasel words here. He flat out says guns killed people. And he calls all those people “victims”. About half of the deaths were suicide. Suicides are not caused by guns. There are many factors but gun ownership is not one of them. He completely ignores the justified and praiseworthy deaths and injuries of violent criminals by innocent victims using guns to defend themselves. He must be out of touch with reality to be unaware of these facts. Had he been lying I think he would have tried to use some weasel words to defend against the obvious flaws in his statement.


Final score:








































Statement

Lie

Reality impaired

Sportsman and handguns

0

1

Studies on self-defense

0.5

0.5

Gun show loophole

1

0

Childproof handguns

0

1

Notion on guns in national parks

0

1

Surely we can agree on assault weapons

1

0

Guns killed or injured a million people in the last 10 years

0

1


Total:

2.5

4.5


I have to conclude that he is out of touch with reality. It’s time to send him to the funny farm and give him some meds.

Quote of the day–Reverend Sydney Smith

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When a man is a fool, in England we only trust him with the immortal concerns of human beings.


Reverend Sydney Smith
From the book I Wish I’d Said That! by Nick Harris which gives more background:



In the good/bad old days, a man’s eldest son inherited his estate, another son went into the army — and the dunce went into the Church.


[Perhaps that should now be “When a main is a fool, in the U.S. we only trust him with writing editorials.”


I’m reminded of this because of this dunce who says, “This writer grew up on a farm, enjoying hunting for ducks, geese and pheasants, and in adulthood, shot deer while a pastor in Spearfish.” I don’t intend to tar all pastors and it appears this guy is no longer a pastor anyway. Perhaps he had trouble with comprehension of the Bible as well as the Second Amendment and D.C. v. Heller.


More available from Jeff, Robb, Say Uncle, and Sebastian.–Joe]