Quote of the day–Paul Helmke

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While we opposed the Court’s decision to overrule 70 years of precedent and over 200 years of Second Amendment history, gun violence prevention advocates praised Section III of Justice Antonin Scalia’s decision to find a wide variety of gun control regulations “presumptively lawful” under the Constitution. Such laws include restrictions against carrying concealed weapons, laws against gun possession by felons and the mentally ill, laws against taking guns into “sensitive places” such as schools and government buildings, and laws that restrict “dangerous and unusual” weapons. Indeed, Justice Scalia stated that his list of “presumptively lawful” regulations comprised only examples, and was “not exhaustive.”


Paul Helmke
Brady Campaign president
January 21, 2009
OPINION: New Day Dawning for Gun Violence Prevention
[From reading his gloating the only thing the 2A protects in the right to keep a firearm in your home for self-defense. Concealed carry elimination is clearly one of his goals. Registration is almost for certain is one of his goals. And if I squint just a little as I read his article I can even see the desire to limit people to owning just one gun.


Molôn Labé, Paul, Molôn Labé.–Joe]

Comment on hunting regs in Washington state

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Via reader Roger I became aware we have this proposal to make a change in the archery hunting regulations:

WAC 232-12-054  Archery requirements–Archery special use
permits.  (1) Rules pertaining to all archery:
(a) It is unlawful for any person to carry or have in his
possession any firearm while in the field archery hunting, during
an archery season specified for that area, except for modern handguns
carried for personal protection.  Modern handguns cannot be used to
hunt big game or dispatch wounded big game during an archery, big
game hunting season.

The underlined portion is the proposed change. It sounds like a good idea to me. Why should you give up your right to defend yourself with a handgun just because you are doing some archery hunting?

Email your comments to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife here before February 20th, 2009. More details on the commenting process can be found here.

I don’t even recognize his name

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Some might ask if I know this guy who is sort of a neighbor of mine:



A 65-year-old Spokane man has been ordered held in custody on federal charges of illegally possessing automatic weapons and illegally storing explosives in a Bellevue commercial storage shed while agents investigate how he came to possess a huge military-grade arsenal that included grenade launchers, machine guns and plastic explosives.


Ronald Struve, heavyset and bearded, appeared in Seattle before U.S. Magistrate Judge Mary Alice Theiler on Tuesday after being extradited from Spokane, where he was arrested Jan. 7 during a raid by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF).


In four searches in Bellevue and Spokane, agents seized 37 machine guns, 12 silencers, two grenade launchers, more than 60 high-explosive grenades, several pounds of military-grade C-4 plastic explosives and thousands of rounds of ammunition.


…


One box contained 54 M406 high-explosive grenade rounds — 40-millimeter shells that can be launched from a shoulder-fired weapon to distances of 300 yards or more, according to military specification.


Its explosion creates a “kill radius” of up to 16 feet from the point of impact and injuries dozens of yards beyond that.


Agents also found several other anti-personnel grenades, including a Korean War-era “Chicom” stick grenade.


In another box, agents found six blocks of C-4 plastic explosives.


Agents counted 32 apparent machine guns, including M-14s, M-16s, and several “Sten guns,” a mass-produced submachine gun known for its high rate of fire — upward of 500 rounds per minute.


They also found nine silencers and the parts for several others, as well as thousands of rounds of ammunition and various other military hardware.


“All of the military explosive items seized are considered contraband and cannot be possessed by anyone other than the military,” Wallace wrote in a search warrant. “The majority of the items seized appeared to be stolen military explosive materials.”


Spokane isn’t that far away from my home in Moscow and I think I could literally throw a rock from the front door of my office in Redmond and have it land in Bellevue. But this guy has never appeared on my radar of “people of the gun” in the circles I run in.


He shouldn’t have been storing the stuff in an ordinary storage unit or be in possession of stolen property. That’s just wrong and he should “pay the price” for that. But other than that he’s being charged with a victimless crime. Had he purchased those items on the open market (as they should be) and had he stored them in a proper manner all would have been fine.


So, for the most part, all this effort and money being spent on investigation and prosecution is because the government has repressive laws on the books. Sort of like laws against sex toys. Except sex toys aren’t constitutionally protected like “arms” are. [Updated with the following sentence.] Except while protected in general by the constitution, sex toys aren’t a specifically enumerated constitution right like “arms” are.

Quote of the day–Speed

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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]

Big brother wants to read your mind

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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?”

Communication Skills, Part Two – We get Mail

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Notice anything wrong with this message?



I recently purchased a mini-14 scout mount and the rear U – shaped mounting bracket which secures the mount to the barrel seems to have the threads on one side either cut crooked or damaged.  Is it possible to get another bracket and screws?

Thank you,

Neil

 

Neil (last name)

(e-mail address at Earthlink dot com)

 

No address.  No phone number, and an Earthlink mail domain.  He wants me to send him a part, but doesn’t give me his address.  This happens a lot.  I find his original transaction (assuming there’s only one Neil with that last name in the country) and get the address, but I don’t know if it’s current.  I then reply to the e-mail so I can get him to verify the address, but as with all Earthlink users, my reply e-mail is rejected because I’m not on his white list.  I have a phone number on the original transaction, and try that.  No answer.  I left a voice message with someone who has the correct name.  We’ll have to wait and see what happens.  All this for a five dollar set of parts.

 

Teach your children; when asking someone for something, you might want to include some usable contact information.  Just sayin’.

Quote of the day–Thomas Jefferson

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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]

More Brady Campaign Score correlations

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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


Remember:



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?

Quote of the day–Tommaso Campanella

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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]

More data points on gun sales

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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.

Quote of the day–Asa Dotzler

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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]

Quote of the day–Sarah Brady

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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]

Peter vs. Paul– Politics of the Nags

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When it comes to turning off lights around the house, my wife is a nag (not as a member of the National Association of Gals, but one who incessantly nitpicks on her own).  “You’re wasting electricity” she will say, approximately thirty eight thousand times per day (give or take).  Similarly, the political nags (not NAGs) are ordering us to use CF lights instead of the tungsten filament jobs, saying we’re destroying the very planet with our light bulbs.


If we cast aside all arguments about rights and liberty (and if we have a chance to toy with other people as a means of boosting our self esteem, why wouldn’t we?) there is the issue of home heating during the cooler months.  I gathered my family together, and explained this to them in terms anyone can understand;


If you have a 100 Watt light going full time inside a heated living space, that’s 100 fewer Watts, on average, that the home heating system has to put out. You have shifted 100 Watts of your energy use from the heater to the light bulb.  Your total usage is exactly the same.  Same goes if you leave the refrigerator open a little longer, or the television on all night.  If you’re heating that space anyway, it makes no significant difference.


Say I have a 10 KW electric furnace.  I could hook up 100 light bulbs, each rated at 100 Watts, through a relay to my thermostat (assuming I had the proper wiring) thereby taking all the heating load off the furnace and placing it on the light bulbs.  Will my heating bill change?  Maybe, and maybe not.  It would depend on the distribution of the lights within the house, the quality of the insulation on my furnace duct work in the cold space under the house, and a few other minor variables.  Maybe I’d save a few pennies, and maybe I’d loose a few pennies.  If you have a gas furnace the situation is still the same– you’re just trading back and forth between gas and electricity, but your total energy usage is going to be about the same.


The situation is completely different in the summer of course.  The waste heat from your TV, fridge, etc., is of no use to you.  If you’re running an air conditioner, anything else in your house that produces heat is causing the AC to work harder.


In both cases, insulation, windows, door seals, and the structure’s orientation and exposure to the sun will overwhelm the other issues.


So we can stop nitpicking each other.

Another step closer to Incorporation

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David has the details on what he declares a Win For Our Side!

Quote of the day–2009 Montana Legislature

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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]

Brady Score versus murders committed with a firearm

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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:



  • Weapon:Correlation
  • Firearm:0.009
  • Knife:0.215
  • Weapon other than firearm (including knives):-0.014
  • Hands, fists, feet, etc. (including being pushed):-0.180 0.007

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.




* Please check my numbers and formulas. The Brady Scores were hand entered and hence are error prone. Also note that the original FBI table does not list Florida. I did not remove it intentionally.

Quote of the day–Sarah Brady

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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]

Quote of the day–William H. Neukom

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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]

Quote of the day–M. Carol Bambery

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[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]

Quote of the day–Nina Hartley

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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.