Health Update

For my non-Facebooking readers, I received a call from Mayo Tuesday morning - they had a kidney.  Had the surgery Tuesday evening.  They're kicking me out of the hospital tonight.  Have to spend the next 3-4 weeks up here for testing and examinations while they nail down the right cocktail of drugs (again) and make sure everything is working. Kidney will need a week or so to settle in, so I still have dialysis until then, but looking good so far.  Amazingly, once again after a major surgery I have little to no pain except when I try to use my abdominal muscles. Another, not quite as long scar.

I love living in the future.

It's Not Just Europe

Stanisław Aronson, Polish Jew, veteran of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, wrote something everyone should read:  I Survived the Warsaw Ghetto. Here Are the Lessons I’d Like to Pass On.Pullquotes:

(D)o not ever imagine that your world cannot collapse, as ours did. This may seem the most obvious lesson to be passed down, but only because it is the most important.

--

If disaster comes, you will find that all the myths you once cherished are of no use to you. You will see what it is like to live in a society where morality has collapsed, causing all your assumptions and prejudices to crumble before your eyes. And after it’s all over, you will watch as, slowly but surely, these harshest of lessons are forgotten as the witnesses pass on and new myths take their place.

Enforcement of the Brady Act?

In 2010 a Justice Department study looked at the efficacy of the Brady Background Check, the one that requires all purchasers of firearms from Federally licensed dealers to undergo an FBI (or State law enforcement) background check prior to purchase. The purchaser fills out BATFE form 4473 stating that they are not a prohibited person for a myriad of reasons. If they check one box wrong, the background check does not happen and the sale is denied. If they do check all the boxes correctly and they are a prohibited person, they just signed a confession to a Federal felony that carries a five year sentence.

In the 2010 study, Enforcement of the Brady Act, 2010: Federal and State Investigations and Prosecutions of Firearm Applicants Denied by a NICS Check in 2010 (PDF) the report noted that of the 76,000 firearms purchase denials in that year - some 47% of which were for "a record of a felony indictment or conviction" - a grand total of 62 cases were referred for prosecution.

Things have NOT improved. The General Accounting Office released a report, Few Individuals Denied Firearms Purchases Are Prosecuted and ATF Should Assess Use of Warning Notices in Lieu of Prosecutions

The takeaway from this study?

In fiscal 2017, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives referred about 12,700 denied purchases to its field divisions for investigation. As of June 2018, U.S. Attorney’s Offices prosecuted 12 of these cases.

2010, 35,000 denials due to felony conviction or indictment, 62 referrals for prosecution. 2017, 12,700 denials, 12 prosecutions.

If they’re not going to USE the law, what’s it for?

Oh, and the law didn’t work, so we need to DO IT HARDER!!

This is Why "Gun Control" Will Never Work, Part Deux

Feds say nearly a third of firearms recovered in the state are homemade, unserialized, and untraceable

An Investigation by NBC Bay Area in partnership with NBC San Diego, NBC Los Angeles, and the non-profit journalists at The Trace found that law enforcement agencies across California are recovering record numbers of ghost guns. According to several ATF sources, 30 percent of all guns now recovered by agents in communities throughout California are homemade, un-serialized firearms, known on the street as “ghost guns.”

I find that percentage suspiciously high, but the fact remains that Fr. Guido Sarducci in his "Five Minute University" bit got the part about Economics right: "Supply and Demand. That's it."



Of course, the reaction to this is, inevitably, "SOMETHING MUST BE DONE!"

As Tam says, 80% Sten Gun lowers are available at every hardware store, but if you're really cheap, just build yourself a pipe shotgun.  You can use that to upgrade your collection should SHTF.

Deregulation

I've always liked Stossel:

This is Why "Gun Control" Will Never Work

If Afghan tribesmen can manufacture AK-47's in caves with hand tools, imagine what you can do with just a small shop at home.  Or even less:

Make a factory-quality 9mm rifled barrel at home.

Quora - a Target-Rich Environment

Here's a short, pithy exchange from Quora.  The original answer is mine.

Original question: “How many ‘good guys with guns’ have saved the day against criminals in the US?”

The lowest estimate for defensive gun usage in the U.S. is approximately 108,000 per year - that’s (carry the one…) 295 times a day. The vast majority of these defensive gun uses involve no shots fired. As a result, no mention in the news. A few do make it, like these:

Man holds suspected burglar at gunpoint in east Tulsa

Citizen holds assault suspect at gunpoint at Wenatchee gas station

Deputies: Homeowner pulls gun on intruder with face he won't forget

Couple holds home invasion suspect at gunpoint

NH Dad Pulls Gun on Intruder Until Police Arrive

Michael Hill
4h ago

You claim 295 times a day then as evidence for decades all over America give just FIVE cases.

How damned stupid do you think we are?

Self-Defense Gun Use is Rare, Study Finds...

Kevin Baker
Original Author · 3h ago

“How damned stupid do think we are?”

I gave five specific instanced in the past few weeks where NO SHOTS WERE FIRED, and the story still made the (local) news.

How stupid do you have to be to misrepresent that?

EDITED TO ADD: A Violence Policy Center paper? Really? An organization dedicated to the banning of all handguns is supposed to be nonpartisan? Pull my other leg.

Michael Hill
2h ago

Boring NRA propaganda.

Don’t cry. We won’t take your guns away.

Kevin Baker
Original Author · 1h ago

OK, I’ll see your 2015 VPC paper and raise you a 2013 Centers for Disease Control report. They’re a shill for the NRA, right? Who was President in 2013?

From Page 15 of Priorities for Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related Violence:

“Defensive use of guns by crime victims is a common occurrence, although the exact number remains disputed (Cook and Ludwig, 1996; Kleck, 2001a). Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million (Kleck, 2001a), in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008 (BJS, 2010). On the other hand, some scholars point to a radically lower estimate of only 108,000 annual defensive uses based on the National Crime Victimization Survey (Cook et al., 1997). The variation in these numbers remains a controversy in the field. The estimate of 3 million defensive uses per year is based on an extrapolation from a small number of responses taken from more than 19 national surveys. The former estimate of 108,000 is difficult to interpret because respondents were not asked specifically about defensive gun use.”
 
108,000/365 = 295.89 defensive gun uses PER DAY. Absolute minimum.

CDC propaganda? National Crime Victimization Survey propaganda? Or fact?

And you’re right, you won’t.

I'm curious as to whether or not he'll respond.

UPDATE: He did!

Michael Hill
4m ago

Lies, lies lies in your article:

“According to the Congressional Research Service, public mass shootings “have claimed 547 lives and led to an additional 476 injured victims” since 1983 (Bjelopera et al., 2013, pp. 7-8). “

Real world with actual data for this year alone:

List of mass shootings in the United States in 2019 - Wikipedia

More lies in your article:

“with ESTIMATES of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million (Kleck, 2001a), in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008 (BJS, 2010). On the other hand, some scholars point to a radically lower ESTIMATE of only 108,000 annual defensive uses based on the National Crime Victimization Survey (Cook et al., 1997). The variation in these numbers remains a controversy in the field. The estimate of 3 million defensive uses per year is based on an extrapolation from a small number of responses taken from more than 19 national surveys.

So it is anything from 108,000 to 500,000 to 3,000,000. What kind of crazy figures are those? They are EXTRAPOLATIONS from a small number of responses.

The great stsistics LIE:

Fascinating new book that shows how easily we're misled by statistics

Kevin Baker
Original Author · Just now

So the CDC - and by extension the National Crime Victimization survey are lying. But the Violence Policy Center isn’t. And Wikipedia is never wrong. Because you say so. Check.

(Wikipedia? Seriously? Well, you believe the VPC, so…)

UPDATE II: He came back for more.

Michael Hill
6h ago

A Government body lying? Who’d have believed it?

As to wikipedia your arm waving is a decade out of date as they have long ago proved what they say by giving references, etc.

So another failure.

Kevin Baker
Original Author · 3h ago

So the references Wikipedia uses are dependable, but the CDC and Justice Department aren’t because they’re government entities.

What happens when Wikipedia cites government entities?

But hey, let’s use the all-knowing oracle that is Wikipedia - Defensive gun use - Wikipedia

Excerpt - “Estimates over the number of defensive gun uses vary wildly, depending on the study's definition of a defensive gun use, survey design, country, population, criteria, time-period studied, and other factors. Low-end estimates are in the range of 55,000 to 80,000 incidents per year, while high end estimates reach 4.7 million per year. ”

So let’s take that absolute lowest estimate, 55,000 defensive gun uses per year as our basis. That’s 150 per day. Are you going to tell me that’s false too?

OMFG Why Didn't This Go Viral?

Quote of the Day - Wolves and Sheep

I don't know who came up with this, but I cannot disagree with it:

Democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding on what to have for dinner.

A representative republic is 5000 wolves and 4000 sheep voting 5 wolves and 4 sheep into office to decide what to have for dinner.

A constitutional republic is a similar situation but with a constitution saying that lamb cannot be for dinner, with a Supreme Court of 5 wolves voting against 4 sheep to determine that mutton is not lamb.

Government has no real restraints in reality.

Quote of the Day - Glenn Reynolds Edition

Even if it’s pure incompetence, it’s Third World level incompetence. And that’s a best-case scenario. 

 -- Glenn Reynolds, commenting on the death of Jeffrey Epstein.

"The Number of Guns" - or "Why isn't America Like Europe?"

In the aftermath of more rampage shootings, Quora has become, unsurprisingly, a hotbed of gun control questions, such as:

Why are guns still legal?

Why does America allow the general public to keep guns?

What would it take for there to be a genuine shift/change in America's views on, and relationships with guns?

Why do so many Americans conflate "gun control" with "gun bans"?

Why do we allow politicians to dance around gun-control legislation? Would it bother you if assault weapons were illegal in civilian hands?

As someone who is pro-gun, are you able to understand the reasons for banning guns?

Et cetera,et cetera, et cetera.

Then there are questions like these:

Research suggests that reducing the number of guns can save lives.  How can we convince gun rights advocates that this is the case?

Are there any gun enthusiasts who see the logic that the number of guns in circulation needs to be reduced drastically to reduce the killing of civilians?

Why isn't there a prohibition on the number of guns a person can own?

Do you support the gun ban and confiscation proposed here as the best way to immediately reduce the number of guns in the US?

 Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

You see, The Other Side™ has determined that the number of guns in private hands is The Problem®, and all we have to do is reduce it to prevent all these "gun deaths."   Only we gun-loving troglodytes can't or won't see that and willingly surrender our evil death machines for the betterment of society.

One of the best expressions of the difficulty with "reducing the number of guns" in private hands I've ever seen came from the 1982 meta-study of gun control legislation commissioned by the Carter Administration in 1978.  It was published under the title Under the Gun: Weapons, Crime and Violence in America.  Remember, this was more than 25 years ago.  From the books conclusion, all bold emphasis mine:

The progressive's indictment of American firearms policy is well known and is one that both the senior authors of this study once shared. This indictment includes the following particulars: (1) Guns are involved in an astonishing number of crimes in this country. (2) In other countries with stricter firearms laws and fewer guns in private hands, gun crime is rare. (3) Most of the firearms involved in crime are cheap Saturday Night Specials, for which no legitimate use or need exists. (4) Many families acquire such a gun because they feel the need to protect themselves; eventually they end up shooting one another. (5) If there were fewer guns around, there would obviously be less crime. (6) Most of the public also believes this and has favored stricter gun control laws for as long as anyone has asked the question. (7) Only the gun lobby prevents us from embarking on the road to a safer and more civilized society.

The more deeply we have explored the empirical implications of this indictment, the less plausible it has become. We wonder, first, given the number of firearms presently available in the United States, whether the time to "do something" about them has not long since passed. If we take the highest plausible value for the total number of gun incidents in any given year - 1,000,000 - and the lowest plausible value for the total number of firearms now in private hands - 100,000,000 - we see rather quickly that the guns now owned exceed the annual incident count by a factor of at least 100. This means that the existing stock is adequate to supply all conceivable criminal purposes for at least the entire next century, even if the worldwide manufacture of new guns were halted today and if each presently owned firearm were used criminally once and only once. Short of an outright house-to-house search and seizure mission, just how are we going to achieve some significant reduction in the number of firearms available? (pp. 319-20)

--

One could, of course, take things to the logically extreme case: an immediate and strictly enforced ban on both the ownership and manufacture of all firearms of every sort. Let us even assume perfect compliance with this law -- that we actually rounded up and disposed of all 120 million guns now in circulation [Remember, this was 1982. - Ed.] that every legitimate manufacturing establishment was permanently shut down, and that all sources of imported firearms were permanently closed off.  What we would then have is the firearms equivalent of Prohibition, with (one strongly suspects) much the same consequences. A black market in guns, run by organized crime (much to their profit, no doubt), would spring up to service the now-illegal demand. It is, after all, not much more difficult to manufacture a serviceable firearm in one's basement than to brew up a batch of home-made gin. Afghanistani tribesmen, using wood fires and metal-working equipment that is much inferior to what can be ordered through a Sears catalog, hand-craft rifles that fire the Russian AK-47 cartridge. Do we anticipate a lesser ability from American do-it-yourselfers or the Mafia? (p. 321)

--

Even if we were somehow able to remove all firearms from civilian possession, it is not at all clear that a substantial reduction in interpersonal violence would follow. Certainly, the violence that results from hard-core and predatory criminality would not abate very much. Even the most ardent proponents of stricter gun laws no longer expect such laws to solve the hard-core crime problem, or even to make much of a dent in it. There is also reason to doubt whether the "soft-core" violence, the so-called crimes of passion, would decline by very much. Stated simply, these crimes occur because some people have come to hate others, and they will continue to occur in one form or another as long as hatred persists. It is possible, to be sure, that many of these incidents would involve different consequences if no firearms were available, but it is also possible that the consequences would be exactly the same. The existing empirical literature provides no firm basis [my emphasis] for choosing one of these possibilities over the other. Restating the point, if we could solve the problem of interpersonal hatred, it may not matter very much what we did about guns, and unless we solve the problem of interpersonal hatred, it may not matter much what we do about guns. There are simply too many other objects that can serve the purpose of inflicting harm on another human being. (pp. 321-22)

During the intervening 25 years the media has tried to convince us that there are fewer and fewer people owning more and more guns, as the total number of guns purchased by individual citizens has skyrocketed.  I've addressed that previously.  But in the early 80's the estimated number of guns in private hands (and it's just an estimate - without universal registration, no one knows) was ~120 million.

I've seen a reasonable argument that today it's more like 500 million.  The minimum number is on par with the present U.S. population - one gun for every man, woman and child in the country.

So I have to concur with authors Wright and Rossi, the "time to do something" about the "number of guns" has long since passed.  The horses are out of the barn, pandora's box has been opened.

The UK managed to (mostly) disarm its citizens by a slow, incremental process that began in 1920.  First a permit required to purchase a handgun - a simple matter of going to a post office and paying a fee.  Then, slowly over the decades, ramping up the restrictions on purchase and possession until only the wealthy and dedicated would jump through the hoops necessary to (legally) possess a firearm.

Each additional rule or regulation was supposed to make the British citizen safer, but never did.  Oh, for certain the number of killings with firearms was reduced, but murder rates there have continued to climb, decade on decade, while overall violent crime there has skyrocketed since the 1950's.  Sure, you're not likely to get shot there.  You never were. But after all that "gun control" you're more likely to get shot than you were in 1919 when there was no gun control.  And you're a helluva lot more likely to get stabbed or beaten.

The Other Side™ has, since the 1930's attempted to implement such laws here, but were stifled by the Second Amendment protection of the right to arms.  They were able to get the 1934 Gun Control act by passing it as, not gun control, but a revenue enhancing measure.  In 1968 they took advantage of high-profile assassinations of public figures to enact sales restrictions and import bans.  And they spent decades trying to convince the public (and federal judges) that the Second Amendment didn't mean what it said.

And they were pretty successful at that.  Until the Supreme Court heard D.C. v Heller in 2008.  Even then the call to repeal the 2nd Amendment and get rid of all guns was still being repeated.  Daily Kos for example put out an op-ed in 2012 that detailed the path to a gun-free future. It was basically,

1. National Registry
2. Confiscation
3. "Then we can do what we will."

But regardless of whether or not there's a legal protection to the right to keep and bear arms, the thing that no one but us gun owners seem to understand is the American attitude towards guns.

Steven Den Beste (PBUH) wrote an interesting piece many years ago entitled "A Non-European Country."  It had nothing to do with gun ownership, and everything to do with philosophy.  He said, of the people who come here to be Americans:

It's true that America is more like Europe than anywhere else on the planet, but it would perhaps be more accurate to say that the US is less unlike Europe than anywhere else on the planet.

Someone pointed out a critical difference: European "nations" are based on ethnicity, language or geography. The American nation is based on an idea, and those who voluntarily came here to join the American experiment were dedicated to that idea. They came from every possible geographic location, speaking every possible language, deriving from every possible ethnicity, but most of them think of themselves as Americans anyway, because that idea is more important than ethnicity or language or geographical origin. That idea was more important to them than the things which tried to bind them to their original nation, and in order to become part of that idea they left their geographical origin. Most of them learned a new language. They mixed with people of a wide variety of ethnicities, and a lot of them cross-married. And yet we consider ourselves one people, because we share that idea. It is the only thing which binds us together, but it binds us as strongly as any nation.

Indeed, it seems to bind us much more strongly than most nations. If I were to move to the UK, and became a citizen there, I would forever be thought of by the British as being "American". Even if I lived there fifty years, I would never be viewed as British. But Brits who come here and naturalize are thought of as American by those of us who were born here. They embrace that idea, and that's all that matters. If they do, they're one of us. And so are the Persians who naturalize, and the Chinese, and the Bengalis, and the Estonians, and the Russians. (I know that because I've worked with all of those, all naturalized, and all of them as American as I am.)

You're French if you're born in France, of French parents. You're English if you're born to English parents (and Welsh if your parents were Welsh). But you're American if you think you're American, and are willing to give up what you used to be in order to be one of us. That's all it takes. But that's a lot, because "thinking you're American" requires you to comprehend that idea we all share. But even the French can do it, and a lot of them have.

That is a difference so profound as to render all similarities between Europe and the US unimportant by comparison. But it is a difference that most Europeans are blind to, and it is that difference which causes America's attitudes and actions to be mystifying to Europeans. It is not just that they don't understand that idea; most of them don't even realize it exists, because Europeans have no equivalent, and some who have an inkling of it dismiss it contemptuously.

It is that idea that explains why we think being called "cowboys" is a compliment, even when Europeans think it's an epithet. It is that idea that explains why we don't care what Europeans think of us, and why European disapproval of our actions has had no effect on us. It is that idea which explains why, in fact, we're willing to do what we think is right even if the entire rest of the world disapproves.

Our supposed "betters" have pushed for decades to make Americans more European in philosophy.  America has been balkanized by public schools and media over the last century or so to the point today where we are pretty much two nations at each others throats, but the ones who embrace, even slightly, the idea of America understand this - that you as an individual have intrinsic worth.  That you are not a cog in a vast machine.  That you are responsible for yourself, and that what you work to earn belongs to you.  And that you consent to be governed, not ruled.

After the Dunblaine massacre in Scotland, the UK immediately considered the banning of handguns.  At first, only large-caliber handguns were banned, but what was the result of that? 

The resulting Firearms (Amendment) Act 1997 banned all handguns over .22 calibre with effect from 1 October 1997. A hand-in exercise took place between 1 July and 30 September 1997 which resulted in 110,382 of these larger calibre handguns being surrendered in England and Wales, while 24,620 smaller calibre handguns were handed in voluntarily in anticipation of further legislation.

 Here we just had two mass shootings, both using semi-automatic weapons.  Another "assault weapons ban" is in the political news.  What do Americans do?  Well my friend the gun-shop counter guy, affectionately known as Merchant O'Death® wrote me after a long, long Saturday at the shop.

Yeah, we go buy what we think the .gov is going to tell us we can't have anymore.  Barack Obama was the best gun salesman the U.S. has ever seen, and the gun industry misses him badly.

That Daily Kos piece?  The author wrote on the topic of the National Registry:

"We need to know where the guns are, and who has them. Canada has a national firearms registry. We need to copy their model. We need a law demanding all firearms be registered to a national database.

Except Canada only has a national registry for handguns dating back into the 1920's like England.  They tried long gun registration.  It failed.  Spectacularly.  They estimated that there were about 8 million long guns in private hands.  Legislators were told that the registry would cost something like $119 million to implement, with $117 million of the cost covered by registration fees - so for $2 million, they'd be able to register all 8 million guns, and it would go quickly.

The law passed in 1995, with licensing starting in 1998 and all long guns were to be registered by January 1, 2003.  By 2000, it was obviously not going according to theory.  Registrations were backlogged and riddled with errors, and costs were WAY over estimates.  An audit in December of 2002 showed that costs were going to exceed $1 billion by 2005, with an income from registration fees of only $145 million - $28 million OVER estimates for well under the number of guns estimated.

That was due to lack of compliance.  By January 1, 2003, only about 65% of the estimated 8 million firearms were registered, and there was no reason to believe that the other 35% were going to be.

Finally in 2012 Canada scrapped its long-gun registry, after dumping an estimated $2 billion into it.  It solved no crimes, it apparently prevented no crimes, and it took vast quantities of money and manpower away from law enforcement with its implementation.

New Zealand considered it too.  They gave up on the idea 2004.  So when a whack-job shot a bunch of people there recently and they said "Mr. and Mrs. Kiwi, turn them all in," compliance has apparently been in the single digits.  You see, they don't know exactly who owns exactly what.

So, one nation with the population of Louisiana (and nowhere near as many guns) and another with a population slightly smaller than California (and nowhere as many guns) couldn't get their populations to register their guns.  Of course, Canadians are well known for their extreme orneryness.

 You see, everything hinges on registration.  Another question asked at Quora was "Doesn't the registration of machine guns prove that gun control works?"  Sure.  If you can get people to comply.  It's almost tautology to say "If there were no guns there would be no gun crime."  It's like saying "If there were no cars, there'd be no car crashes."

But there are guns.  And they're not going to go away.  And Americans aren't going to register them so they can be, eventually, confiscated.  Because, as Tamara Keel put it,

“Where the hell do you get off thinking you can tell me I can’t own a gun? I don’t care if every other gun owner on the planet went out and murdered somebody last night, I didn’t. So piss off.”

Hey gun-grabbers:  Piss off.

Tough History Coming - Part Whatever

Recent question over at Quora: "What's pretty much over but society hasn't quite given up on it yet?"

My answer:

As much as I hate to say it, America. The idea of America. That we’re a representative Republic that practices Rule of Law and protects the rights of individuals.

It becomes more apparent each day that the nation has descended into oligarchy, and that there’s (at least) a two-tiered “justice” system - one for the politically powerful and one for the rest of us. And that the politically powerful don't care if we know it anymore.

Our “Representatives” think themselves our rulers, our police forces are increasingly militarized and have the mindset to go with it. As one writer put it, “The military protects the state, the police protect the people. When the military become the police, the people become the enemies of the state.”

We’ve got one political side convinced that the other isn’t just wrong, misguided or ignorant, but EVIL. Since you don’t debate with evil, you don’t compromise with evil, you don’t tolerate evil, you destroy evil, that has been their goal since the 1960’s.

When the other side finally understands this is when we give up. An acquaintance recently observed:

A friend of mine who is a political activist said something interesting the other day, and that was for most people on the left political violence is a knob, and they can turn the heat up and down, with things like protests, and riots, all the way up to destruction of property, and sometimes murder… But for the vast majority of folks on the right, it’s an off and on switch. And the settings are Vote or Shoot Fucking Everybody. And believe me, you really don’t want that switch to get flipped, because Civil War 2.0 would make Bosnia look like a trip to Disneyworld.

The General Public

Always remember:  In any group of people, half are at or below the median level of intelligence.

From my friend the Merchant of Death™ comes this text message (ALLCAPS are his):

OH MY GAWD!!! TWO MASS SHOOTINGS THIS WEEK!  POLITICIANS TALKING ABOUT GUN CONTROL!!  NEED TO GO BUY A GUN!!!! NEVER THOUGHT OF OWNING ONE BEFORE BUT I NEED ONE NOW!!!  IT CAN'T COST MORE THAN $200 AND CAN'T HAVE ANY RECOIL AND HAS TO LOOK BADASS!  AND I WILL NEVER LEARN HOW TO USE IT PROPERLY...HELL, I WILL NEVER EVEN TAKE IT OUT OF THE BOX!!  BUT I NEED ONE RIGHT NOW!!!!

(*sigh*)

Universal Background Checks

I have previously written about the ineffectiveness of the Brady Background Check law, that supposedly “stops” prohibited persons from purchasing a firearm from a federally licensed dealer, but then doesn’t prosecute the prohibited person for signing a confession (BATFE Form 4473) that should get them five years in Club Fed.

But I’m not against the idea of background checks per se. What I am against is the requirement that ALL interpersonal “transfers” of firearms must be run through such a background check - the so-called “gun show loophole” that isn’t a “loophole” at all. Why? Well if I want to give a gun to my grandson, background check. My wife buys me a rifle for Father’s day? Background check when she buys it, background check when she gives it to me. And I already own several firearms. Duh. The recently passed “universal background check” law in Washington was so poorly written that if you left your firearm at home with a loved one and they had access to it, it COULD BE interpreted as an illegal transfer. But, we are assured that the law will NEVER be abused like that…. Go ahead, pull my other leg.

I live in Arizona, where if you have an Arizona CCW permit, you don’t have to have a background check run on you when you purchase a firearm. You undergo a very thorough check before the permit is issued. Fill out form 4473, sign it, show your permit and your ID, get your gun.

Everything you do in the U.S. (with the notable exception of VOTING) requires a state-issued photo ID.

• Alcohol? ID
• Tobacco? ID
• Buy or rent a place to live? ID
• Buy a car from a dealer? ID
• Travel by commercial air? ID
• Check into a hotel? ID
• Purchase Sudafed? ID

Anyway, you get the point. So here’s my suggestion:

Everybody who needs a state-issued ID gets a background check and a new ID. If you are a prohibited person, somewhere on that ID will be this symbol:

If you’re not prohibited, you get a green circle (don’t want to trigger the sensitive by putting an icky gun on their ID). Everyone that already has a driver’s license or a state-issued photo ID gets a new one with one of the two symbols. Any new IDs issued, the applicant gets the background check.

You want to buy a gun, whether from an individual or a FFL dealer? Show your ID. If the red symbol is on it, no sale. If NO symbol is on it, no sale. If you don’t have ID, no sale. If you do something that makes you a prohibited person, you must turn in your ID for one that has the red symbol. If you don’t, five years in Club Fed on top of whatever sentence you got for the crime that disqualified you.

The state can’t build a database of gun owners, and everybody who wants to buy a gun gets a background check. That’s what I call “compromise.”

It’ll cost a lot of money and won’t prevent any crimes, but that’s what “gun control” usually does. But hey, we’re DOING SOMETHING!!

Stupid Should Hurt

By far the most viewed, upvoted and commented on answer I have ever given at Quora was a question about concealed-carry vs. open carry.  I mentioned it here a little while ago.

Since the three mass shootings last week I've been answering a slew of gun control questions.  Someone I respect over on Facebook today posted about this yo-yo: "You're presuming guilt of a crime he hasn't committed. Want attention, surely. Up to no good? Debatable."

Here we're going to part company. Somebody shows up at a public venue carrying a long gun who is not obviously law enforcement, I'm going to assume the worst and try to put them down. I'm glad the firefighter didn't dump a mag into this idiot, but had he I would have voted to acquit. The "debate" can occur in the courtroom. If he was wrong, only ONE person would have been shot.

I'm glad the CCW carrier didn't do a mag-dump into the idiot, but if he had I would vote to acquit.

It may not be illegal to walk around in public tacticooled out, but it's STUPID, and stupid should hurt.

The Jordan Peterson Phenomenon

I finally got around to reading the op-ed linked below on Jordan Peterson. I'll admit right up front that I've read neither of the two books he's published, but I have listened to a LOT of his lectures and interviews. The author of the op-ed objects that Peterson's Maps of Meaning is obscure, that he uses a lot of words but doesn't really say anything, much less anything new, and he gives examples. I cannot argue with him over the selections he made. It reads like a PhD thesis.

But having heard the man speak, I think I understand why so many people pay money and stand in line to hear him. What I kept thinking while I read the criticism of Peterson was that a LOT of people seem to have benefited from what he has to say. This puzzles the people who hate him. He talks about personal accountability, duty, struggle, and most of all MEANING. And this morning my brain went "click" when I thought of a song that could be the anthem for a couple of generations of young men, and for that matter, women - John Mayer's "Why, Georgia?" If you're unfamiliar, the lyrics go:

I am driving up 85 in the
Kind of morning that lasts all afternoon
Just stuck inside the gloom
4 more exits to my apartment but
I am tempted to keep the car in drive
And leave it all behind

Cause I wonder sometimes
About the outcome
Of a still verdictless life

Am I living it right?
Am I living it right?
Am I living it right?
Why, why Georgia, why?

I rent a room and I fill the spaces with
Wood in places to make it feel like home
But all I feel's alone
It might be a quarter life crisis
Or just the stirring in my soul

Either way I wonder sometimes
About the outcome
Of a still verdictless life

Am I living it right?
Am I living it right?
Am I living it right?
Why, why Georgia, why?

So what, so I've got a smile on
But it's hiding the quiet superstitions in my head
Don't believe me
Don't believe me
When I say I've got it down

Everybody is just a stranger but
That's the danger in going my own way
I guess it's the price I have to pay
Still "everything happens for a reason"
Is no reason not to ask myself

If I am living it right
Am I living it right?
Am I living it right?
Why, tell me why
Why, why Georgia, why?
Peterson tells them there's meaning in life and how to go look for it. And that eventually there will be a verdict.

And that's a good thing.

The Intellectual We Deserve

Quote of the Day - Cultural Revolution Edition

Like the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Left seeks to destroy every recollection of the past, not because our ancestors were so wicked, but rather because it wants to clear the ground for its Frankstein-like experiments in the creation of a New Man. That is what Mao did in the 1960s during China's horrible Cultural Revolution. A Chinese acquaintance comments, "Now America is having its own Cultural Revolution."

David P. Goldman, No-One's Life Matters. That's Why There Are Mass Shootings.

RTWT.

More Quora Content

Quora has been inundated by question about last week's mass shootings and gun control.  Here's one answer I left recently:

Original question: “Another shooting in a mall and Americans still don't want to ban weapons, why?”

Democracy.

Yes, I’m serious. Here’s what the rest of the world doesn’t seem to grasp about the U.S. We have a population of more than 250,000,000 people of voting age. Of those, probably a third own a firearm. Well over half know someone who owns a firearm, and in a majority of cases, they live in the same home with someone who owns a firearm. As someone once said, “Basically, I figure guns are like gays. They’re kind of scary until you get to know a couple, and once you have one in your home you get downright defensive about them.”

Other nations don’t have that kind of familiarity with firearms, and the unknown is frightening. For example, this news “story” from the UK:

MOST TERRIFYING GUN IN THE WORLD SEIZED

That’s extreme, but indicative of the mentality. For citizens of the UK the pearl-clutching is completely normal. They know hardly anyone who owns a firearm, and if they do, it’s most probably a nice old 12-gauge double-barreled bird gun. Here most people recognize that “MOST TERRIFYING” weapon as the machine pistol wielded by Morpheus in The Matrix movie.


Yeah, not that terrifying. Because a lot of people actually know how guns WORK.

So we have a population that owns and is comfortable with guns, and you know what we think when some whack-job shoots up a public venue? This:

“Where the hell do you get off thinking you can tell me I can’t own a gun? I don’t care if every other gun owner on the planet went out and murdered somebody last night, I didn’t. So piss off.”

We refuse to be collectively shamed for the actions of an individual. And we make up a significant portion of the voting public. So when our supposed “betters” tell us what’s best for us is to give up the guns we didn’t kill anybody with, we go to the polls and tell them “Piss off.”

For example.

OP, do you know anyone who owns a firearm?

The "guns are like gays" quote comes from acknowledged lefty Teresa Neilson Hayden. The "piss off" quote comes from Tam off of Facebook.