A Breakdown Of Sorts

I am getting to the end of a little "break" from participating on Facebook.  Quite frankly, the whole gun debate was getting to me in unhealthy ways.

A big part of the problem is that there is no firm basis for a reasoned discussion of the subject.  The "facts" have been polluted by liars to the extent that rational people are no longer able to express an argument that is based in reality.

Robb Allen of Sharp As A Marble links to an article penned by a doctor that is filled with factual errors.  Somewhere, someone with a lack of knowledge about guns and who is trusting of medical professionals will read that story and become committed to banning or severely restricting gun rights.

And it will be impossible to have a rational discussion with that person until you first go through the laborious effort of emptying out the lies and replacing them with facts.

A short list of the lies involved include:

• Including 24 year old adults as "children".
• Using heart disease as a comparative with gun deaths.  Heart disease is the result of decades of low exercise, poor food choices, and smoking.  Children don't get heart disease because they haven't lived long enough.
• Not using drownings as a comparative with gun deaths.  Because kids (the real kind) die from drowning at a much higher rate than they do from guns.  Yet the movement to ban backyard pools is pretty ineffective.
• Talks about rates of fire as if it makes a difference in the number of deaths.  The issue is not the gun.  It is the intent/purpose of the person holding it.
• Calls our rights "privileges" and states that they were "granted" by the Constitution.  Our rights, including the right to self defense, existed before the Constitution was written.  It only acknowledged what already existed.

The list continues in the comments.  Having a rational discussion on gun issues is impossible because of the rhetorical filth such as the above that have contaminated public discourse.  Perhaps irreparably so.

Can You Hear The Hate?

Probably not.

During a recent interview on NPR, ESPN's Howard Bryant made an analogy between the remorseful cyclist Lance Armstrong and a theoretic spokesman for the NRA.

I mean, I think the big problem that I had with listening to Lance over the last couple of days was how controlled – how much he was trying to control this confession. That someone had put out a very funny tweet in my timeline that other day that said, "With this much remorse he could be the next spokesperson for the NRA." I mean, it was really that controlling. And I'm listening to this, and I'm thinking, he's not sorry at all about this.

But when a listener later went to the NPR website to get the transcript, the offensive remark had been scrubbed.....er...edited.

Just imagine if this had been Fox News instead.....

Fooling Yourself

What do Todd Akin and Chicago Tribune have in common?  They both tell themselves lovely lies so they can sleep at night.

Was Akin engaged in "an intentional deception"? That seems highly implausible, as it implies both that he knew that what he was saying was false and that he expected others to believe it was true. It's much likelier that, like Knowles and his staff at the Tribune, Akin was misinformed and made "a careless mistake."

It would be preposterous, however, to deny that Akin was biased. Indeed it seems obvious that he believed the falsehood in question because that falsehood made it easier to justify his ideological position to himself (and, he mistakenly believed, to others).

The falsehood from the Chicago Tribune had to do with a blatantly misleading graphic and story about "assault weapons".  

While we can usually count on the media to point out when politicians are telling themselves and us fantastic fabrications, who can we count on to point out when the media is equally full of it?

Arming 12 Year Olds

In the news this past week was the story of a 12 year old girl that shot an intruder to her home in self defense.

A day off for fall break was anything but relaxing for a 12-year old Bryan County girl, when an intruder broke into her home on Michael Avenue.

Deputies say, the girl was home alone when a man she'd never seen before, rang the front doorbell. They say when no one answered the door, the man went around to the back of the house and kicked a door open. That's when authorities say, the girl grabbed a gun and hid in a bathroom closet.

The right person came out on top in this instance.  One should shudder at the possibilities after an grown man gets hold of an unarmed 12 year old girl.

While no one should wish for such a young girl to find herself in such a position, everyone should be glad that she was able to fend off her attacker.

[a day or so later]

Call this another one where a few moments of reflection would be wise.

I'm not suggesting that we arm 12 year olds.  I also wonder about parents that leave guns loose where 12 year olds can find them.  I believe the phrase "it just ain't right" was invented for such things.

However, we don't know....

• the girl
• her family (were they among the working poor?  did they spend the babysitting money on drugs?)
• the neighborhood where they live (leaving the home may not have been a good option)
• their access to decent childcare/supervision ($3 an hour for childcare is a killer if you only make $11 an hour.
• if something unusual happened where she was left alone (she expect to be met by an adult and wasn't)
• if she was taught firearms safety (that's good parenting)
• if she was taught firearms usage (also good parenting)
• if her folks were ordinary, law abiding citizens
• if her folks were drug dealers
• or anything else about the circumstances

My sole point is to indicate that guns are used for legitimate self defense purposes.  More frequently than the ideologues that want to curtail gun rights will admit.  Absent evidence that this little girl was a criminal, this was such a legitimate self defense use.

Real World Translation

While this might seem like political "red meat", I do think this is a great summary of Mr. Obama's recent pronouncements on executive orders regarding gun sales.  I could summarize the summary as being multiple instances of:

• Tell government officials and agencies to do their jobs
• Waste money doing things that private agencies already do, and do better than government agencies.
• Spend money, sometimes without an obvious benefit
• Pretend that the ACA doesn't say what it actually says

The first one on the list is really very frustrating.  We have plenty of gun laws.  But they are not enforced.  We have plenty of policies.  But government agencies elect not to follow them.

Yet when a tragedy occurs, all we hear is a hue and cry for more gun regulations.  Why?

Or better yet, why not try using the current regulations and laws to do what we said needed to be done after the previous incidents?

One of the tools that federal prosecutors have is the ability to get felons convicted of gun crimes sentenced to facilities that are no where near their families.  I read about a prosecutor in either West Virginia or Virginia (I think) that was making full use of that law.  As as result, crimes committed with guns were down in this individual's area.

It seems that while the criminals were willing to commit crimes, they were unwilling to commit crimes that would keep them far from their families for extended periods of time.

Which might also suggest that we inconvenience them in other ways while they are incarcerated, but that is probably a discussion for another day.

You Mean Walter Is A Girl?

At least in this case:

A Georgia mother hid her two 9-year-old twins and shot an intruder, Paul Ali Slater, several times during a home invasion on Friday, according to multiple media reports.

The deaths of all those kids in Newtown, CT were a stark tragedy.

The deaths of that young woman and her twin children would have been no less of a tragedy.  It was averted by a woman with modest skills needed to defend her family from a committed and experienced criminal.

Fortunately, she also possessed the only tool that would have enabled her to put those skills into action.

It is regrettable that the many lives saved by guns each year are not weight weighed equally in the balance when the folks that want to ban guns get busy waving bloody shirts to justify curtailing our civil rights.

Where The Killing Is

In all the hubbub over guns and deaths, there is a lot of number fiddling that goes on.  Take for example this piece that accurately points out that 62 school aged children were killed by guns in Chicago this year.  It also accurately points out that 442 school aged children were shot this year in Chicago.

The underlying point that this piece makes is that Chicago is some of the most draconian anti-gun laws in the country.  And still, these kids are dying by the wagon load.

Here is the deception.  While the vast majority of those kids were certainly "school aged", my bet is that they were not in school.  My bet is that the vast majority of those kids were killed willfully taking part in drug deals when they were shot and/or killed.

Which brings to mind a salient point that if we really wanted to cut the number of deaths due to guns in the U.S., we would legalize drugs immediately.  It would have the salutatory effect of also cutting other rates of crime as well.

Of course, none of this has anything to do with the tragedy in Connecticut last month.

The underlying point that kids are dying in Chicago under some of the most onerous anti-gun laws in the country is a fact.  Adopting those kinds of laws on a national level will do nothing to cut gun deaths in the U.S.  We will instead become a nation of unarmed victims amidst armed brigands.

Establishing public policy based on unusual circumstances seems to be counterproductive to me.  The dominant problem causing gun deaths in America is our failed War on Drugs.  The dominant problem causing mass shootings is people with untreated mental health issues.  Addressing both of those problems would be of far greater service to progress than making life easier for the criminals that walk in our midst.

Mad Magazine Government - Gun Control Edition

Why you should never, ever, ever, ever trust the government.

Ever.

This operation could not have taken place without the cooperation of the Department of Homeland Security — DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano should bear responsibility for her agency’s actions. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has apparently lied to Congress about when he knew of Gunwalker, and considering the scope of the operation it is implausible that he was not involved in its implementation.

Eric Holder is destined to become the first U.S. Attorney General since John Mitchell to go prison due to his serial crimes committed while in office.  At least, if there is any justice in the world, then prison would be Mr. Holder's next "duty station".

Regulate Actions....Or Regulate Things

Some wisdom from Robb Allen at Sharp As A Marble....

I'm still of the belief that attempting to regulate things rather than setting punishments for specific behavior [is] idiocy. Things can be created from scratch, and the doohickey the law focuses so intently on can be modified so that my thing doesn't exactly match the definition of the legal thing and therefor isn't really a thing per-se.


Mowing down a bunch of blind orphans on a field trip to the art museum though? That's a behavior that's easy to identify, isolate, and punish for. Trying to decide if the particular paint job or threaded doodad on the firearm wasn't documented properly is not only harder to do, it has no bearing on the action of the individual.

A little editing from me.  Great thoughts from Robb.

A Liberal Appeal

From Daily Kos......regarding the Second Amendment?  Pigs are flying somewhere.

Justices Denied

Jacob Sullen over at Reason points out the hypocrisy involved by members of the Supreme Court that oppose granting the Second Amendment equal footing with the rest of the Bill of Rights.

If "the people" want to ban handguns, they say, "the people" should be allowed to implement that desire through their elected representatives.

What if the people want to ban books that offend them, establish an official church, or authorize police to conduct warrantless searches at will? Those options are also foreclosed by constitutional provisions that apply to the states by way of the 14th Amendment. The crucial difference between a pure democracy and a constitutional democracy like ours is that sometimes the majority does not decide.
Likewise, Stevens defends "state and local legislatures' right to experiment," while Breyer is loath to interfere with "the ability of States to reflect local preferences and conditions—both key virtues of federalism." Coming from justices who think Congress can disregard state decisions about the medical use of marijuana because a plant on the windowsill of a cancer patient qualifies as interstate commerce, this sudden concern about federalism is hard to take seriously.

Another reason to doubt the dissenters' sincerity: They would never accept federalism as a rationale for letting states "experiment" with freedom of speech, freedom of religion, or due process protections. Much of their job, as they themselves see it, involves overriding "local preferences" that give short shrift to constitutional rights.

Second Amendment rights are different, Breyer says, because "determining the constitutionality of a particular state gun law requires finding answers to complex empirically based questions." So does weighing the claims in favor of banning child pornography or depictions of animal cruelty, relaxing the Miranda rule, admitting illegally obtained evidence, or allowing warrantless pat-downs, dog sniffs, or infrared surveillance.

When they decide whether a law or practice violates a constitutional right, courts cannot avoid empirical questions. In cases involving racial discrimination or content-based speech restrictions, for example, they ask whether the challenged law is "narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest" and is the "least restrictive means" of doing so.

h/t to the blogfather

Gun Owner Receives Apology - Policeman Gets Off With A Wrist Slap

The Knoxville News Sentinel has the story of a Tennessean who has received an apology from the chief of police for the Knoxville Police Department.

The short version is that Trevor Putnam had a permit to carry a concealed weapon.  It is also legal in Tennessee to carry an unconcealed weapon.  One evening a while back, Mr. Putnam escorted his girlfriend on a shopping trip to the local Walmart.  While he ordinarily would either wear a jacket or pull his shirt tail out to cover his pistol and holster, on this evening he did neither.

KPD officer Glenn Todd Greene pulled him aside to ask why he was carrying a firearm in public.  Officer Greene eventually told Mr. Putnam "he'd find a reason to put me in jail,".  A clear abuse of authority.

The fact that Mr. Putnam had a Constitutional right to do so apparently never crossed Officer Greene's mind. 

A KPD investigation following Mr. Putnam's complaint concluded that Officer Greene did not know the law and had acted unacceptably.  A letter of reprimand and mandatory supplemental training on the law resulted.  Department wide training will also take place over the course of the coming year.

My sole complaint when it comes to our law enforcers is when they forget that ordinary citizens created the governments that they serve.  Our rights supercede their perceived duties.

Any other arrangement makes us property of the government; subject to the whims of government agents.

Fortunately, most of the law enforcers I've had the pleasure of knowing look at things the same way.  They walk a tough line and I'm glad to have their honorable service.

Civil Rights = Second Amendment Rights

Over at the Volokh Conspiracy, David Kopel has the story of armed defense of the civil rights movement.  He relates the story of John Salter and his many examples of how armed minorities...and the widespread knowledge that they were prepared to defend themselves....actually saved lives during the Civil Rights movement.  Given that local law enforcement was not only unwilling to defend minorites from the Klan, local law enforcement was a part of the Klan in some parts of the South.

Having received many death threats, Salter carried a Smith & Wesson .38 special in his attaché case. One night, on a long stretch of isolated country road, a Klan vehicle tried to force Salter’s car into a high-speed chase, by tailing him nearly bumper-to-bumper. "But I continued to drive sedately, mile after mile with my revolver in my hand." Salter and the other community organizers had put out word on the grapevine that they were all armed, and he surmises that this was the reason that the Klansmen did not try to shoot him that night.

Soon after, "a local civil rights stalwart, Mrs. Alice Evans, of Enfield, opened fire with her double-barreled 12 gauge, sprinkling several KKKers with birdshot as they endeavored to burn a cross in her driveway one night and, simultaneously, approaching her home with buckets of gasoline." The Klansmen fled and went to the hospital. Mrs. Evans donated the cross to the Smithsonian Museum.

Modern gun proponents point out that most of our anti-gun laws were born during the Civil Rights era as an attempt to disarm minorities while leaving everyone else with their guns.

To advocate for Civil Rights is to advocate for our Second Amendment rights.  One doesn't exist without the other.