A new academic study has found that, once again, gun laws are not having their desired effect.

A joint study conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the University of California at Davis Violence Prevention Research Program found that California’s much-touted mandated background checks had no impact on gun deaths, and researchers are puzzled as to why.

Jon Miltimore
December 5, 2018

California’s Background Check Law Had No Impact on Gun Deaths, Johns Hopkins Study Finds
[When someone demands more background checks on gun sales tell them, according Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the University of California at Davis Violence Prevention Research Program, it is a waste of resources. The existing resources used to do the background checks should be reallocated to things that might make a difference. Perhaps more police officers or better mental health care. Or even letting people keep their tax money and spend it as they see fit.

If they insist, them ask them, “Since we know for a fact that background checks do not improve public safety what is your real reason for continuing to insist on expanding them?”—Joe]

News accounts of 23 shootings in which more than six people were killed or wounded and LCMs were known to have been used, occurring in the United States in 1994–2013, were examined. There was only one incident in which the shooter may have been stopped by bystander intervention when he tried to reload. In all of these 23 incidents, the shooter possessed either multiple guns or multiple magazines, meaning that the shooter, even if denied LCMs, could have continued firing without significant interruption by either switching loaded guns or changing smaller loaded magazines with only a 2- to 4-seconds delay for each magazine change. Finally, the data indicate that mass shooters maintain such slow rates of fire that the time needed to reload would not increase the time between shots and thus the time available for prospective victims to escape.

Gary Kleck
June 1, 2016
Large-Capacity Magazines and the Casualty Counts in Mass Shootings: The Plausibility of Linkages
[The next time someone claims society needs to ban standard capacity magazines because of mass shootings tell them the facts do not support their hypothesis. Then ask them, “What is the real reason you want to ban them?”

H/T to Matthew Carberry‏ @CarberryMatthew via a Tweet.—Joe]

The ban impairs using guns for self-defense. The government’s entire case is that smaller magazines mean more reloading. That may make guns less effective for ill—but so too for good. The government’s own police detective testified that he carries large magazines because they give him a tactical “advantage[],” since users must reload smaller magazines more often. App. 116-18. And he admitted that “law-abiding citizens in a gunfight” would also find them “advantageous.” App. 119. So the ban impairs both criminal uses and self-defense.

The law does not ban all magazines, so it is not per se un-constitutional. But it does impair the core Second Amendment right. We usually would stop there. How much the law impairs the core or how many people use the core right that way does not affect the tier of scrutiny. So like any other law that burdens a constitutional right’s core, this law warrants strict scrutiny.

Stephanos Bibas
Circuit Judge, dissenting.
December 5, 2018
Page 5 of the dissent in Association of New Jersey Rifle and Pistol Clubs, Inc.; Blake Ellman; Alexander Dembrowski, Appellants v. Attorney General New Jersey; Superintendent New Jersey State Police.
[See also my “dissent”.—Joe]

Most people don’t realize an easy high explosive is nothing but nitromethane and ammonium nitrate. Beats TNT in some aspects. Add 800 mesh Al powder, and you can make EFP’s with a decently formed plate.

An RPG is a step up in complexity. And fusing a fuel air bomb is as well. All doable with patience.

Wheel of Death
November 29, 2018
Comment to Mark Walters: What a Democrat House Means to Our Gun Rights
[People talk the talk over there but I haven’t seen anyone walking the walk. Until then we need to invest in lobbying, voting, and lawsuits.—Joe]

Of all the active shooter events there were 33 at which an armed citizen was present. Of those, Armed Citizens were successful at stopping the Active shooter 75.8% of the time (25 incidents) and were successful in reducing the loss of life in an additional 18.2% (6) of incidents. In only 2 of the 33 incidents (6.1%) was the Armed Citizen(s) not helpful in any way in stopping the active shooter or reducing the loss of life.

Thus the headline of our report that Armed Citizens Are Successful 94% Of The Time At Active Shooter Events.

…

At the 33 incidents at which Armed Citizens were present, there were zero situations at which the Armed Citizen injured or killed an innocent person. It never happened.

Jacob Paulson
September 18, 2018
Armed Citizens Are Successful 94% Of The Time At Active Shooter Events [FBI]
[33 is a pretty small sample so it’s not a fair comparison but do remember it has happened that when the police showed up they injured or killed an innocent person.

I have never been able to find the study referenced but according to Jeffrey R. Snyder in A Nation of Cowards:

A nationwide study by Kates, the constitutional lawyer and criminologist, found that only 2 percent of civilian shootings involved an innocent person mistakenly identified as a criminal. The “error rate” for the police, however, was 11 percent, over five times as high.

This is not to say that the police are necessarily stupid, poorly trained, or trigger happy.  The more likely reason is that they were not there as the situation developed and don’t know the participants as well as the armed citizen who is caught up in a deadly force situation.

Via an email from Rolf.—Joe]