Miss Sloan

So there's a movie opening this weeked wherein the NRA is bashed by a Washington lobbyist.  I thought I was going to have to sit down and write a screed, but someone already beat me to it.  Once again in the longstanding tradition of TSM, here are another person's words who said it better than I could.  From the IMDB.com page for the film, I give you AdultAudienceMember's review of "Miss Sloan":

Movies like this are like peeing on yourself in a dark suit. It might make you feel warm and relieved for a little bit, but in the end you have done nothing but stained your underwear. This movie was obviously meant to be red meat for the victorious Hillary. Ooops, that didn't work. Libs, gun control is dead. This movie is full of lies and half truths. According to the FBI, so-called assault weapons are used in so few crimes (only a fraction of the 500 deaths out of 30,000 annually), that they don't bother keeping and exact count. Most deaths (2/3rds) are suicides of old white men. Of the remaining the vast majority of deaths are associated with gangs, drugs, and cities run by Dems. Why isn't there a movie about the urban culture of Chicago where young black men are being slaughtered by other young black men? Well, that wouldn't fit the narrative, would it? As for the contention that most gun owners want more restrictions, that is believed only by the uneducated. I teach psychology, sociology, and statistics. That number was milked from a survey. Surveys are statistical and psychological manure. They require voluntary participation and honesty. Few gun owners are going to participate and civil-rights opponents will lie.

The WHO concluded that there is no correlation between gun violence and ownership. It is a cultural issue. As for suicides, Japan allows no firearms and has just about the highest rate while the US, with just about the loosest on the planet, is tied for 50th in the list of nations. It doesn't take any courage to make a movie based on lies. It's about the money....and this dog will lose tons of it.

Since 2000, the FBI has processed 300 million firearm sales. Prior to that there was a conservative 200 million already in civilian hands. BHO has sold more guns than any other President hands down. And yet, with one half billion firearms in the US, the violent crime rate continues to fall. As concealed carry States have swollen to include all but three, crime has dropped. Where is the blood in the streets?

What should have been made is a movie about Obamacare and all the damage it has done to health care. That is a crime. Well, that's going to get washed away soon, too.

I am sure pajama boys and overweight Trigglypuffs will go see this and then weep at what could have been. And that is good. Nothing is so sweet as the taste of liberal tears.

Bravo, sir. Bravo!

More Fish-in-a-Barrel from Quora

OK, so someone asked the question Why is the NRA is so vehement that the 2nd Amendment is interpreted as broadly as possible and is interpreted as if it's 1776?

One "Andy Zehner, statistical analyst at Purdue University" gave an answer. Let the frivolity begin!

They espouse a strong interpretation of the 2nd amendment because it works to their favor. But I don't believe the NRA is much concerned about civil rights as a principle. The NRA works for what is beneficial to gun manufacturers.

From their point of view, more guns is the only answer. If the problem is "Not Enough Guns," then the answer is "More guns." If the problem is "Too Many guns," the answer still is, "More Guns."

Are you sure about the second part of your question? I don't think the NRA wants to "interpret as if it's 1776." I think if Thomas Jefferson came into the room, Wayne LaPierre would dismiss him as quickly as he dismissed the Sandy Hook survivors. Cleaving to 1776 and original intent means justifying private gun ownership in terms of a "well-regulated militia." That isn't something the NRA wants to have to do. They want "The right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed," and damn the consequences.

I replied:

Cleaving  to 1776 and original intent means justifying private gun ownership in  terms of a "well-regulated militia." That isn't something the NRA wants  to have to do.

So you mean that the NRA wouldn't want all eligible males of military age to be required to keep an M4 carbine, body armor, and a standard infantryman's loadout of ammunition at home? (See The Militia Act of 1792.)  (And given their support for women with guns, perhaps them too?)  Actually, I don't think they'd really have much of a problem with that.  But if instead you mean that they're more interested in making sure that deer and duck hunters get to keep their wood-and-blued-steel guns, well, you may have a point.

What they've worked for in recent decades has been ensuring that law-abiding citizens are not made unable to defend themselves by state action. The NRA (along with the Second Amendment Foundation and many other national and state pro-rights groups) have worked towards expanding right-to-carry laws nationwide, so that now there are NO states where concealed-carry is outright prohibited, and only eight states where the law remains "may issue" instead of "shall issue."

And the worst thing that can be said for this massive expansion in the right to arms is that it might not have contributed to the massive drop in violent crime that's been recorded since the mid-1990's.

So, yeah:  "More guns" does seem to have been "the answer."  Or at least, it's not "the problem."

Facts are funny that way.

Of course, he took the bait:

"So you mean that the NRA wouldn't want all eligible males of military age to be required to keep an M4 carbine, body armor, and a standard infantryman's loadout of ammunition at home?"

No, I don't think the NRA would want that. Dictating which weapons and the amount of ammunition would be a considerable curtailment of gun owners' rights as they exist today. If I want a BushMaster or a Glock, what right has the government to tell me I have to have a M4?

And more to the point, the makers of the BushMaster and the Glock wouldn't want that (unless one of them happens to make the M4, which I don't know and am not going to bother to look up.)

So I set the hook:

Of course you won't bother to educate yourself.  Your mind is made up!  Facts are irrelevant! 

Yes, Bushmaster does make M4 carbine clones.  As do over two hundred other manufacturers including (but not limited to) Armalite, Colt's Manufacturing, Stag Arms, Rock River, DPMS, H&K, Fabrique Nationale, Barrett, and on and on and on.  The AR-15 platform is the most popular rifle sold today, after all. 

What right would the government have to tell you you must have an M4?  Surely you jest!  The same right it has to tell you you must have health insurance, of course!!  (Though in point of fact, it isn't the government's right - governments don't have rights.  Governments have powers.)  Supporters of the Patient Protection and Affordable (yeah, right) Care Act held up the 1792 Militia Act as a model for the individual mandate.

And the government wouldn't tell you you must have a Glock.  If anything, they'd tell you you must have either a Beretta 92 (standard 9mm issue sidearm) or a 1911 (the previous standard issue sidearm).  I'd bet on the latter, since there are just as many manufacturers of that weapon as there are manufacturers of M4 carbines.

We'll see if he doubles-down on the stupid.

UPDATE:  He did.

There is logical fallacy called "shifting ground" or non sequitor(sic), in which the arguer fails to address the rightness or wrongness of what has been said, and instead jumps to a different place without connecting what they are saying now with what was said previously.

Here's an example:

Earlier Kevin Baker said: "So you mean that the NRA wouldn't want all eligible males of military age to be required to keep an M4 carbine?"

I responded that I thought the NRA would not want that. I responded to the question he asked, which was about what the NRA would want. I said nothing about whether the government would want that or would do that. Clearly, what the government would or wouldn't do is a different question from what the NRA would want.

And then Kevin Baker implies (rudely) that I'm all kinds of wrong because the government would do one thing rather than something else. But we weren't even talking about what the government would do.

Oh, and here's a bonus logical fallacy: All the minutia about which gun maker manufacturers which types of weapons proves that Kevin Baker knows more than I know about guns. He know a lot about guns, in fact. But it's all just stacked evidence or extraneous detail. He could expend any number of words listing which manufacturer makes which guns and it wouldn't erode the validity of my point in the slightest. My point stands: The maker of any particular gun wouldn't want people to be required to own different guns from the ones they make, and the NRA wouldn't want such requirements as opposed to unlimited right to own guns.

Sounds like he's got a little sand in his mangina. We'll see if he replies to this:

Oh, there's some "ground shifting" going on, but it's not coming from me. 

"Earlier Kevin Baker said: 'So you mean that the NRA wouldn't want all eligible males of military age to be required to keep an M4 carbine.'

"I responded that I thought the NRA would not want that. I responded to  the question he asked, which was about what the NRA would want."

My question was in direct response to your original assertions: "The NRA works for what is beneficial to gun manufacturers." and: "Cleaving  to 1776 and original intent means justifying private gun ownership in  terms of a "well-regulated militia." That isn't something the NRA wants  to have to do."

Given those two assertions, I asked if you meant that the NRA wouldn't want all males of military age to be required to supply themselves with rifles suitable for militia duty as per the Militia Act of 1792?  After all, if "The NRA works for what is beneficial to gun manufacturers," what would be more beneficial to gun manufacturers than a need to produce, oh, 100 million M4 carbines?

"I  said nothing about whether the government would want that or would do  that. Clearly, what the government would or wouldn't do is a different   question from what the NRA would want."

Read your own reply: 

"If I want a BushMaster or a Glock, what right has the government to tell me I have to have a M4?"

Since what people decry is the NRA's involvement in legislation (or stopping of said legislation) then the basic question is what the NRA can or can't get the government to do.  Restoration of the Milita Act - "justifying private gun ownership in  terms of a "well-regulated militia" - would fit that bill.

"And  then Kevin Baker implies (rudely) that I'm all kinds of wrong because  the government would  do one thing rather than something else.  But we  weren't even talking about what the government would do."

And that right there is "ground shifting."  I imply you're "all kinds of wrong" because you're all kinds of wrong, but we were most definitely discussing what the government COULD do if influenced by the NRA for the benefit of gun manufacturers, as you asserted is their raison d'etre.

"My  point stands: The maker of any particular gun wouldn't want people to  be required to own different guns from the ones they make, and the NRA  wouldn't want such requirements as opposed to unlimited right to own  guns."

But you didn't assert that the NRA exists to benefit "the maker of any particular gun". (Thus, you're shifting the ground, not me.)  You asserted that the NRA exists to benefit gun manufacturers.  All or most or many of them. If this is true, then creating a demand for, say, 100 million M4 carbines and 100 million 1911 pistols (both of which are made by numerous manufacturers) would be a net benefit to "gun manufacturers," Q.E.D.

And once you've established not only a right, but a DUTY to possess weapons suitable for use in militia service, what does it matter if those same individuals have "sporting" rifles, shotguns and handguns?  In essence, haven't you established an "unlimited right to own guns" (from your perspective)?

UPDATE II:  Aaaaand this one's over:

You're all sound and no sense. You really don't see your errors, do you?

Pot? Meet kettle.

The Word That Dare Not Speak Its Name

"Registry."

So, the NRA has joined the ACLU in a lawsuit against the NSA?  Does that give anyone else this image?



Or is it just me?

DECLINING GUN OWNERSHIP!!

OK, I've covered this topic before, but since it seems to be one of the Democratic Talking Points™ being parroted widely these days, time to take it up again.

A recent survey announced (and was touted by the media):

The share of American households with guns has declined over the past four decades, a national survey shows, with some of the most surprising drops in the South and the Western mountain states, where guns are deeply embedded in the culture.

The gun ownership rate has fallen across a broad cross section of households since the early 1970s, according to data from the General Social Survey, a public opinion survey conducted every two years that asks a sample of American adults if they have guns at home, among other questions.

The rate has dropped in cities large and small, in suburbs and rural areas and in all regions of the country. It has fallen among households with children, and among those without. It has declined for households that say they are very happy, and for those that say they are not. It is down among churchgoers and those who never sit in pews.

The household gun ownership rate has fallen from an average of 50 percent in the 1970s to 49 percent in the 1980s, 43 percent in the 1990s and 35 percent in the 2000s, according to the survey data, analyzed by The New York Times.

And again:

The number of US households with guns has dropped 15 percent since the 1970s, from 50 percent the population's households to 35 percent, according to a new survey.

And again:

All the stories about people rushing out to buy guns after recent mass shootings may give the impression that more Americans have guns at home. Yet a survey reveals that the percentage of U.S. homes with a gun has been in steady decline over the past four decades, with a surprisingly sharp drop in the South and Western mountain states. Whereas an average of 50 percent of households owned a gun in the 1970s, that number declined to 35 percent in the 2000s, with 34 percent of households reporting gun ownership in 2012, notes the New York Times.

And again:

When we see attendance at gun shows and reports of brisk gun sales at gun stores, it's easy to get the impression that a larger percentage of Americans are choosing to purchase firearms. There is, however, ample evidence to the contrary -- even as gun sales go up, the percentage of households with guns goes down.

ad infinitum. As goes The New York Times, so goes the world they say.

The Wall Street Journal had, I think, the most balanced opinion piece on the subject, Guns Present Polling Conundrum. I recommend you read the whole thing, but here are some pertinent excerpts:

Press clippings over the last 25 years show reported counts of gun owners fluctuating from 44 million up to 192 million, with dozens of different figures cited, some in the same year, and some — such as the 192 million figure — the result of confusing estimates of guns in American households with counts of gun owners, some of whom own more than one gun.

The polling discrepancies have baffled pollsters.

--

Michael Dimock, director of the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, said he also expected question wording to explain the difference: "I was sure we’d find the answer there." However, Dimock said "you don't see those things having a consistent effect" — some ask very similar gun questions and get very different estimates. "It's certainly to me one of the biggest polling puzzles I've come across in the last few years."

"Nobody's really explained why they come up with such dramatic differences," Aaron Karp, senior consultant to the Geneva-based Small Arms Survey and senior lecturer in political science at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va., said of pollsters.

--

Who answers the phone in the household could affect responses. "We know that in a survey where respondents are randomly selected from adults in the household, a household headed by a married couple is substantially more likely to report guns in the home if the husband is selected than if the wife is selected," said Philip Cook, an economist and gun-violence researcher at Duke University.

Also, some gun owners may be reluctant to tell researchers they own guns, because of legal and political considerations, which makes the question more like behavioral or attitudinal questions than like questions that ask basic facts about respondents. "This is an unusual demographic-type question," said Frank Newport, editor-in-chief of Gallup.

I'm reminded of the Slate piece by Emily Yoffe, the "human guinea pig," in her piece Guinea Get Your Gun: How I learned to love guns:

So anathema are guns among my friends that when one learned I was doing this piece, he opened his wallet, silently pulled out an NRA membership card, then (after I recovered from the sight) asked me not to spread it around lest his son be kicked out of nursery school.

Lest his son be kicked out of nursery school. Yeah, there's real incentive to admit gun ownership!  (Do read that whole piece.  Her experience is what scares the piss out of The Other Side™ - guns ARE fun!)

The Gallup poll they reference is this one - Self-Reported Gun Ownership in U.S. is Highest Since 1993, which concluded in 2011:

Forty-seven percent of American adults currently report that they have a gun in their home or elsewhere on their property. This is up from 41% a year ago and is the highest Gallup has recorded since 1993, albeit marginally above the 44% and 45% highs seen during that period.

That's just a hair below the 50% Gallup reported in 1991. And it adds this tidbit:

The new result comes from Gallup's Oct. 6-9 Crime poll, which also finds public support for personal gun rights at a high-water mark. Given this, the latest increase in self-reported gun ownership could reflect a change in Americans' comfort with publicly stating that they have a gun as much as it reflects a real uptick in gun ownership.

So we have one side insisting - and I quote: "More guns, fewer homes," and "Number of US households with guns drops 15 percent," etc., etc., but what do the numbers actually say? Well, if we take the General Social Survey results at face value, the percentage of households containing a firearm has dropped from 50% in 1970 to 35% in 2012. According to this site, the NUMBER of U.S. households has increased from 63.5 million in 1970 to 114.8 million in 2010. That's a net increase in households containing firearms of 8,430,000. If Gallup is right and the percentage has declined from 50% in 1991 to 47% in 2011, then the total number of households containing a gun has increased by - again - just over eight million, but in a much shorter period. The discrepancy between the two estimates is right at 13.8 million households.

Either way, there were apparently eight million more households in 2011-12 with firearms than there were at some time in the past.

And yet violent crime, homicide, suicide AND accidental deaths by firearm have declined year-by-year for over a decade.

Now, when I walked the floor at the NRA convention in Houston last weekend, I took time to speak with several vendors and some people I saw walking the show, asking them how business had been for them.  One such vendor was Aaron Ludwig of Action Target, the company that recently rebuilt the indoor range at NRA headquarters in Fairfax, VA.  I asked Mr. Ludwig how business had been doing for Action Target year-on-year.  He informed me that when he joined the company ten years ago, annual sales were $15 million.  Last year the company did $100 million in sales.  Robert Lewis of EAR Inc. said they'd just had their best year ever.  I stopped Susan Rexrode and Natalie Levasseur of Shooting for Women Alliance as they were walking down an aisle in front of me because they were both wearing vests with "Instructor" embroidered on them.  SFWA has, they informed me, trained over 10,000 women since its inception.  They'll train men, too, but the men MUST be accompanied by a woman.  Business has been so good they are planning to expand this year. I've already quoted Kathy Jackson of The Cornered Cat on her training business's success. Jeff K. of Magpul Industries of course reported that they're selling everything they can make.  Their shipping department has grown from four people to ten, and they still can't keep up.  The CCI representative for their ammunition manufacturing division stated the same concerning ammunition - demand has been steadily increasing until the recent overwhelming demand - and no, the .gov isn't actually buying more ammo than they normally do - at least not from CCI/Speer.

I personally know two people who recently went into business making holsters for a living.  They're doing well, too.

The NRA Annual Meeting and Exhibits increased its floorspace this year to 440,000 square feet from 340,000 square feet last year.  I believe them.  I walked the whole thing.  Attendance was up, too, from 70,000+ last year to over 86,000 this year.  I believe that too - it was wall-to-wall people all day Saturday.  I cannot imagine where they all parked.  Membership has reportedly surged as well, to 5 million.

And then, on top of all of this, comes the undeniable fact that guns are being sold at record rates, and have been for several years.  Yet we're supposed to believe that the number of people who own guns is declining?

On what planet?

No, We're a Different Species to Them...

In an outstanding op-ed entitled Waking the dragon — How Feinstein fiddled while America burned, Iowa State Daily assistant opinion editor Barry Snell observed:

I’ve come to realize after the Sandy Hook shooting that the reason we can't have a rational gun debate is because the anti-gun side pre-supposes that their pro-gun opponents must first accept that guns are bad in order to have a discussion about guns in the first place. Before we even start the conversation, we're the bad guys and we have to admit it. Without accepting that guns are bad and supplicating themselves to the anti-gunner, the pro-gunner can't get a word in edgewise, and is quickly reduced to being called a murderer, or a low, immoral and horrible human being.

He said a lot more than just that, but for this piece, that's the pullquote.  But if you haven't already, go read the whole piece and all the links.  This one will wait.

Hell with it, I'll add this excerpt too:

Gun people don't trust anti-gun people because I and many of us are what they call "sheepdogs" and we’re proud of that. Yet anti-gunners make fun of us, calling us "cowboys" and "wannabes" for it. Wanting to save lives and being willing to sacrifice one's own to do it used to be considered a virtue in this country. Anti-gunners think they have the moral outrage, but the moral outrage is ours. I have never expressed any of these feelings openly to anyone because they are private and deeply personal. Screw you for demeaning us and motivating me to speak them.

I'm serious - go read it.

Back? Good.

Now, while I was at the NRA Annual Meeting over the weekend, I spent some time observing the other people walking around with "MEDIA" badges. One such, I'm pretty sure, was the New York Daily News's Bill Hutchinson, who came to my attention Saturday morning as I was on my way into the venue. On the sidewalk outside the entrance he was interviewing (or at least engaged in conversation with) a very nice lady who was there protesting in her own way. I'm deeply sorry that I did not get her name (I gave her one of my cards and invited her to debate), but I've been waiting for her to pop up in a NYDN op-ed, so that's how I came across a couple of pieces there that inspired this post.

The first one was National Rifle Association's 'culture war' convention opens in Houston. Opening graf:

Houston buzzed Friday with tens of thousands of gun owners revved up for the National Rifle Association's first convention since the Newtown school massacre and a pro-firearm victory on Capitol Hill.

But as the event got underway, it sounded more like a mustering of forces in the "culture war."

Ya think? But the piece that triggered this post followed on Sunday - YOU'RE KIDDING! NRA pushes guns on kids as young as Newtown victims in sick 'Youth Day'. This was the work of a team, one of which was the aforementioned Bill Hutchinson, and it merits a fisking. Before I begin, let me mention that, interspersed between the paragraphs of the op-ed and the "frightening" pictures of kids handling guns were no less that three links to Newtown related pieces, two of which were to the same set of photos from the Sandy Hook massacre. Other links went to the piece I mentioned above, and one on incoming NRA President James Porter ("TOP LOON" "Worse than LaPierre!") just so you completely understand where we're going here. Let us begin:

The National Rifle Association capped its annual convention Sunday by hosting a "Youth Day" — enticing youngsters to attend by offering free six-month memberships.

Billed by the NRA as a family-fun outing, the event drew hundreds of kids. Some of the attendees were the age of the Newtown massacre victims, others too young to know the difference between a toy gun and a real one.

"Spend the day exploring 400,000 square feet of exhibit hall containing over 550 exhibitors from across the country. Share the excitement with spectacular displays and fun-filled events for the entire family," the NRA wrote on its website.

The event was staged a day after the NRA welcomed its youngest lifetime member, 3-year-old Elaih Wagan, whose grandfather purchased the membership.

As an aside, on Saturday Hutchinson came by the table where a group of gun bloggers were sitting to ask us if we knew the name of that 3-year-old. For this piece, I assume.

Activities inside Houston's George R. Brown Convention Center prompted outrage outside.

Among the dozen or two protesters.

"They shouldn't be teaching kids how to use guns. What happens when they get older? They might become like that Connecticut killer," said Cal Castille, 24, of Houston, referring to Newtown gunman Adam Lanza.

Or they might become police officers or soldiers, or concealed-weapons permit holders who are more law-abiding as a group than the Mayors Against Illegal Guns!  Hey, they give kids sex education, does that mean they might become prostitutes?

Anti-gun protesters, reading names of gun-violence victims across the street from the convention center, said the NRA event was akin to "brainwashing these kids to love guns."

Uh, the kids don't need any help with that. Kids make guns out of their fingers, or even Pop-Tarts.

"This is indoctrination," said Jose Sequeiros, 67, of Houston. "These kids are too young to see that guns are wrong."

Aaaand there it is: "...guns are wrong."

Yet we're supposed to have a debate on the topic.

Heather Ross, 27, said organizers of the event were tone deaf, given the horrific mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December.

"It agitates me that these people don't think it could happen to their children," said Ross of Austin. "This is just beyond words."

And yet you found some, Ross! And no, Heather, it wasn't tone deaf, it was the business of the NRA, carried out as planned well over a year in advance, in the full knowledge that tens of thousands of their supporters would be coming.  The difference is, we know it COULD happen to our kids.  That's why we want to be armed, and why we want someone in the schools to be legally armed. 

In the convention center, pint-sized gun enthusiasts, some taught about the Second Amendment before they learned to read, perused the latest makes and models of firearms.

"I like guns because guns are fun," said 9-year-old Kaykay Mace, who attended the NRA Youth Day with her dad, Scott, and big sister, Calla, 11.

Scott Mace, 37, called the event "a fun thing to do."

Just like the NRA said! Imagine that!

"If a child understands how to properly and safely shoot, then they become much safer," he said. "In a bad situation, they will understand what needs to be done."

Like this 12 year-old?

Calla Mace said she enjoys going to gun ranges and bragged, "I'm a pretty good shot."

"I've shot a .22 rifle before and a handgun," Calla said.

The convention floor was packed with little girls and boys with guns in their hands.

One blond girl in camouflage tights and pink skirt, who appeared to be about 7, gripped an air pistol as an instructor gave her tips on her aim.

Another young girl, with help from an adult, practiced aiming a rifle nearly as tall as she was. It was only an air gun that shoots pellets, but was made to look like an menacing AR-15 assault rifle — similar to one used by Adam Lanza at Sandy Hook.

And currently the most popular firearm sold in America.  But let's ignore that and keep hammering on Sandy Hook, right?

Trent Mattison, 51, of Beaumont, Tex., watched proudly as his 5-year-old son, Cooper, practiced shooting at the air-soft rifle range.

"I like it because I like the smell of gunsmoke," said Cooper.

As opposed to the smell of marijuana, I suppose.

East Orange, N.J., high school teacher Ron Fierro, 62, was volunteering at the rifle range to show kids like Cooper how to shoot properly.

"I'm passing the tradition on to the next generation," Fierro said. "Guns are tools. You have to teach kids how to use them safely. When you teach gun safety, you reduce the amount of gun accidents."

In the Dark and Facist State of NEW JERSEY? (That's the GeekWithA.45's appellation.)

Ray Ruley, 39, of Bay City, Tex., brought his six children and was thrilled they all received six-month free memberships in the NRA.

"I believe in our Second Amendment rights and want my children to appreciate the safe handling of firearms so the next generation doesn't easily give that freedom up," Ruley said.

But, but... guns are BAD!  And SIX KIDS?!?  He's one of those people, the ones who buy  big jars of mayonnaise!

Adults as well as children learned something at the event.

In a seminar, gun instructor Rob Pincus advised parents that the best place to put a home gun safe is in their children's bedrooms.

"Here's my position on this: If you're worried that your kid is going to try to break into the safe that is in their bedroom, with a gun in it, you have bigger problems than home defense," Pincus said.

Pincus' words have since been twisted into NRA speaker Rob Pincus advises parents to keep guns in kids room.

You know, throughout that whole piece I could picture the authors, Bill Hutchinson and Daniel Beekman nodding their heads sagely when New York Times columnist David Carr called flyover country "...the dance of the low-sloping foreheads."

Barry Snell is right to an extent, but it's actually worse, in my opinion, than he states it.  The Other Side™ doesn't think we're the "bad guys," they think we're a different species.  Dehumanizing is necessary, don't you know.

There are, at the time of this writing, 655 comments to the piece.  I don't have the stomach to wade through them.  Forgive me.

1098 Miles in the Saddle by Maj. Assburns

As noted, I skipped the last day of the NRA convention and headed for home Sunday.  I pulled out of the hotel parking lot at about 8:10 AM CDT, and into my garage at 9:03P MST (Arizona doesn't do Daylight Savings).  That's just a tick under 15 hours, largely thanks to the 500 mile stretch between San Antonio and El Paso where the posted speed limit is 80 MPH.

It's nice to be home, with a full day off to recuperate.

Iron Man 3 is in my immediate future.

And So It Ends....

Had a wonderful evening with 25-30 people, some I knew, some I'd met, some new to me.  Back in the hotel and ready for my last night in Houston.  I tried to extend my stay one more day, but apparently there's a Big Oil thing going on next week.  I was told that the hotel was completely booked for Sunday, but even if there was a cancellation, the room rate would be $400 that night, so I'm outta here.  I'll decide tomorrow whether I want to stop in El Paso (about 10 hours) or drive on through to Tucson (another five hours).  At any rate, the plan is to hit the road early, and it's 11:47 10:47PM CDT as I type this.

G'night, y'all.  I had a great time this weekend.  No blogging tomorrow, most probably.

Yes, the Gun-Control Activists are Stoked NOW!

Across the street from the entrance to the 2013 National Rifle Association Annual Meeting and Exhibits this morning about 11AM:






As you can see, the media had them outnumbered.

There were a few more this afternoon, but my camera batteries were dead by then.  Alan Andrews took these shots and posted them to Facebook:




Of course, like the rest of them, that last guy is wrong.

Meanwhile, INSIDE the building:




 Wall-to-wall people. More on this later.

Quote of the Day - Robert Cottrol Edition

Sitting at a table in the Media room with Robert Cottrol.


Asked about the ACLU's position on the Second Amendment:

The ACLU's understanding of the Constitution agrees with reality only accidentally, and they will correct that error as soon as possible.

Or words very much to that effect.  He just read this and gave his approval.

Maybe Somebody Knows Who THIS Guy Is

He's famous in the RKBA world:


Ran into him on the sidewalk outside the GRB Convention Center. Very pleasant gentleman. Very happy to say that I have finally met him.  I wish I'd remembered he'd been in a helicopter crash in January.  I'd have asked him how he felt about whacking feral hogs from the air.

Now it's time to get ready for dinner with the Cool Kids.

This Must Be an E-Ticket Ride

(Yeah, I've dated myself with that one.)


Vertex Tactical Aviation, when you absolutely, positively need your bacon delivered by air.


WANT!!

A Couple of Good T-Shirts

I bought the second one.  I'm tempted to go back and get the first.

Some People Famous for Being Famous

Seen around the display floor:





Well, she's famous for something else, but...

And then there's...

One of These Things is Not Like the Others

At the Smith & Wesson booth:

At the NRA Annual Meeting

Got out of class at 11:30, got to the GRB Convention center by about 12:30, drove around for half an hour trying to find a parking lot closer than half a mile away and failed.  Finally got to the media room a few minutes ago and got my credentials.  Now I'm sitting at a table in the media room with Nancy R., Jay G., and Ambulance Driver.

Had dinner last night with those three and:

Weer'd Beard
Michael
In Jennifer's Head
Gay Cynic
Sandcastle Scrolls and family
Phlegmfatale
Old NFO
LawDog
Expert Witness
TOTWTYTR
Smoke on the Water
No Lawyers - Only Guns and Money
Snooze Button Ronin

And a couple of readers/commenters.  If I missed anyone, my apologies.

Cool!!  Time to hit the convention floor.  Looking forward to the rest of the weekend. 

Quote of the Day - Try "Both" Edition

Now I am scared. The NRA may be right. We have heard from several hunter friends they have had the same experience. Either the Department of Justice is a total joke or the government is building a database so they know where to go and pick up private citizens' guns. -- Maybe the NRA's right to be paranoid

This is not an either/or question. There's every reason to believe that the answer is "Both."

(h/t to SayUncle)

One Picture, > 1,000 Words

Over at Excels at Nothing Nancy R. and her husband lay down the smack on H-S Precision at the NRA convention in Charlotte. Be sure to click on the picture for the super-size version, and check out the stink-eye the guy in the upper left is giving.

I literally laughed out loud.

Call it What it REALLY Is

Markadelphia emailed me today with a link to an in-depth Christian Science Monitor piece, Targeting guns to reduce violent crime. His comment:

Can't wait to hear what you think about it!

OK, here's my comment:

More leftist language manipulation
Let me explain. Here are the opening paragraphs of the piece:

In the roll call room of Baltimore's Northwestern District Police Headquarters, a squat building in a neighborhood of liquor stores and crumbling row houses, photos of the city's most wanted suspects flash on a new, flat-screen TV.

They are not necessarily drug kingpins or murderers or even dealers. But to Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III, they are top priority in this city with one of the highest homicide rates in the country; a city that residents occasionally, grimly, refer to as Bodymore, Murderland.

This would be one of the areas of the country with the strictest gun controls outside of Chicago, in a state where former Attorney General J. Joseph Curran published his 1999 manifesto A Farewell to Arms: The Solution to Gun Violence in America (PDF). Curran's "solution"?

We are overrun with guns. Despite waiting periods, one-gun-a-month laws, and other faltering attempts to stem the flow, we are hemorrhaging guns into our streets, schools and homes. In a country of about 270 million people, there are over 200 million guns - 65-70 million of which are handguns - and these numbers are climbing. Forty-four million Americans - or 25% of all adults and 38% of American households - possess at least one gun.

--

Thus, there are two critical questions we must ask ourselves. First, what do we pay to indulge the minority among us who accumulate firearms? In other words, what is the cost of gun ownership in America? The answer lies in our daily headlines, in the quiet mourning for lives lost, and in the economic toll of these recurring tragedies. The costs are at once incalculable and astronomical.

--

As this tragedy has unfolded, how has the gun industry responded? It has refused to make guns safer. It has failed to market and distribute its products in a way calculated to keep guns out of the hands of children and criminals. It has reacted to a saturated market by creating new products with greater killing power and by attempting to expand its market to women and children.

--

The time is now. We must get serious - no more band-aids, no more excuses. The moral fiber of our society will be measured by our response. The problem is not just guns in the wrong hands or a failure to enforce laws already on the books. Yes, we should use all the tools at our disposal to prevent crime. Yet this is about more than crime. It is a public health crisis - an epidemic of violent yet preventable death. Modest measures that keep guns away from criminals, together with all the punishment a civilized society can impose, will never stop all the dying.

--

For me, therefore, the answer is easy. I have added up the costs, and they outweigh the benefits. As a grandfather, I am ready to say enough children have died. In short, I believe that we should no longer allow unrestricted handgun ownership. More effective laws and vigilant enforcement can reduce criminal firearm injury. Increased safety and child-proofing features on handguns can prevent unintentional shootings. Personalized guns can prevent teen suicides and injury from stolen guns. Yet even all these measures would still leave untouched thousands of preventable handgun injuries and deaths every year. We would still be left mourning the multitude of deaths and disabling injury which result from the adult suicide attempts and domestic assaults which occur in homes across
America every day.

Thus, our public policy goal should be to restrict the sale and possession of all handguns to those who can demonstrate a legitimate law enforcement purpose or can guarantee that the use of such guns will be limited to participation in a regulated sporting activity. Handgun ownership that advances reasonable law enforcement purposes must be permitted. Individuals with a professional need to have a licensed gun - law enforcement officers, gun collectors, some business owners and certain other professional groups - will continue to keep handguns on business premises or for use on the job. The rest of us, however, must give them up.

(My emphasis.)

THAT is "Targeting Guns," and it's hardly a new idea. It's been the unstated focus of Handgun Control/Brady Center and most all of the rest of the gun control safety organizations, with the exception of the Violence Policy Center (I still think that would be a great name for a gun shop) which has stated that a ban on handguns is their goal since their inception.

No, what the cops in Baltimore are doing now is what the NRA has been advocating for decades - enforcing the laws on the books, and in spite of the title of the CSM article they're not "targeting guns," they're targeting criminals:

"If you start boiling down the violence in Baltimore – the homicides and the nonfatal shootings – you find that 50 percent of all the people we charge with those offenses have one thing in common: They have gun offenses in their backgrounds," Mr. Bealefeld says. "And we know that when bad guys get out, they get guns again. They don't work for IBM. They don't hand out Bibles. They stand outside with guns waiting to perpetrate another crime."

And so, Bealefeld says, he has made it clear whom his officers should be targeting.

"I don't aim to make [it] all that complicated," he says. "Find out all we can about gun offenders and focus on those guys."

(My emphasis.) Those guys, not "those guns."

"For a long time, many police departments in this country really focused on the war against drugs – they believed that drug trade sparked violence…. [Now] we're seeing a shifting of that focus to gun trafficking and getting guns off the street."

Not according to this story. They're getting "those guys" off the street. There are plenty of guns and always will be.

Baltimore, under the guidance of Bealefeld, shows one of the clearest breaks with old police strategy.

The commissioner has encouraged his officers to focus their efforts on gun crime, even if that means letting some drug arrests slide. The "bad guy" with the gun, he says, is the focus.

"When my cops pull up to a corner, what I want them to do is look for that guy first," Bealefeld says, pointing to a face on the flat-screen. "The 15-year-old with three bags of weed? He's going to drop the weed and run and lead them on a four-block foot chase. The guy with the gun, with the baggy pants and no belt? With the Glock jammed down there? He's going to saunter off very quietly. He's been arrested before; he knows what cops do.… I want my cop to get out of my car and say, 'Run, Forrest, run. But you sit down. I'm talking to you."

Bealefeld's strategy is multipronged: He has created a gun-trace task force, coordinated more closely with parole officers, and has worked with city and court officials to develop a gun offender registry – one of the first in the country – that tracks his "bad guys" much the way sex offender registries do.

Tracks bad guys - not bad guns.

For example, on Dec. 17, police got a tip that a man named Marcus Ellis was involved in a narcotics deal. After checking with parole and probation officers, the police realized that not only was Ellis on probation for recent drug offenses, but he also had a history of handgun violations.

They quickly got a search warrant, and found that Ellis was carrying a semiautomatic 9mm handgun. These sorts of arrests happen regularly, Bealefeld says.

YES! And felon-in-possession is a FEDERAL FELONY with a mandatory FIVE YEAR SENTENCE. But the Feds tend not to prosecute most of these cases - they would "clog the courts" as Janet Reno once said.

But why target these specific criminals?

Though national rates of robbery, murder, and rape have fallen since the 1990s, gun violence in inner cities has persisted or increased. Criminologists at Northeastern University in Boston, Mass., for instance, released a study in early 2009 showing that the number of young black men and teenagers who either killed or were killed in gun crimes has increased 40 percent since 2000.

Gun crime, particularly homicide and attempted homicide, is concentrated in a very small, very identifiable group - young urban black males. It is even more concentrated than that - an easily identifiable subset of that group - young urban black males with firearm and violent offenses on their records. In 2006, according to the CDC, there were 416 homicides by firearm in Maryland out of a total population of 5,602,000. Young black men 34 and younger made up only 7.7% of that population, but they were 63.7% of the victims. Nationwide in 2006 there were 38,595 non-fatal gun injuries due to assault among the 73 million males under the age of 35. Of those, 20,472 were young black males. That group represented only 15% of that population, but were 53% of the victims. Again, the overwhelming majority of those homicides were concentrated in the "inner cities" like "Bodymore Murderland." We don't really have a "gun crime" problem. We have an "inner city" crime problem.

Perhaps we ought to do something to address that, eh?

Eric S. Raymond in his essay The Myth of Man the Killer makes a convincing argument that "Individual human beings, outside of a tiny minority of sociopaths and psychopaths, are simply not natural killers." This is backed up by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman's study of men in combat, On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to kill in War and Society. It takes time and conditioning to bring someone to the point where they can and will deliberately try to kill another person. People thus conditioned are a very small portion of the public, but that conditioning can come from living a criminal lifestyle. Criminal records illustrate this. Per Don Kates et. al:

Looking only to official criminal records, data over the past thirty years consistently show that the mythology of murderers as ordinary citizens does not hold true. Studies have found that approximately 75% of murderers have adult criminal records, and that murderers average a prior adult criminal career of six years, including four major adult felony arrests. These studies also found that when the murder occurred "[a]bout 11% of murder arrestees [were] actually on pre-trial release"--that is, they were awaiting trial for another offense.

The fact that only 75% of murderers have adult crime records should not be misunderstood as implying that the remaining 25% of murderers are non-criminals. The reason over half of those 25% of murderers don't have adult records is that they are juveniles. Thus, by definition they cannot have an adult criminal record. Juvenile criminal records might well show these murderers to have extensive serious criminal records. "The research literature on characteristics of those who murder yields a profile of offenders that indicates that many have histories of committing personal violence in childhood, against other children, siblings, and small animals." Though juvenile criminal records are not generally available, they occasionally become known in connection with some high-profile cases. In one recent case which generated nationwide publicity, a five-year-old boy was thrown from a fourteenth story window by two other boys because he had refused to steal candy for them. Police revealed that both killers, ages ten and eleven, had prior arrests for theft, aggravated battery, and unlawful use of a weapon. At the time of the murder, one of the perpetrators was supposed to be confined to his home on a weapons conviction.

Most of the rest of the article talks about other efforts at reducing gun violence - gunshot-detection cameras, California's new restrictions on ammunition sales, gun "buybacks," the "gun show loophole" that isn't, even handgun bans like D.C.'s and Chicago's (boy, those really worked, didn't they?) It even mentions Mayors Against Illegal Guns without, of course, noting the number of members who have had to drop out due to criminal activities of their own, nor the recent release of MAIG's 40 point plan to make it harder for the law-abiding to get firearms (without, of course, affecting the illegal traffic in arms at all). All of those have been tried before, but targeting known offenders seems to be working:

Since Bealefeld took the commissioner job two years ago, with the explicit goal of targeting gun crimes, homicide numbers in the city have dropped to record lows. The 234 murders in the city in 2008 was the lowest annual total in two decades; by Dec. 29, 2009, the city had 235, indicating a sustained trend rather than – as usually happens in Baltimore – a one-year dip.

Nonfatal shooting numbers have also dropped. In the early 2000s there were close to 1,000 nonfatal shootings in Baltimore annually; by Dec. 29 of 2009 there were 447 – down 23 percent from last year.

The story implies this improvement is due to getting "illegal guns" off the street, even going so far as to imply that "10 percent of the guns sold legally in Maryland" were seized from criminals. Why?

Violent crime is down nationwide, despite the fact that gun sales in 2009 were the greatest ever recorded, but it would appear that Baltimore has had better than average improvement. Perhaps, just perhaps, this is because they're concentrating on the criminals instead of the guns.

UPDATE:  The original JS-Kit/Echo comment thread for this post is available here, thanks to the efforts of reader John Hardin.

Perspectives

Perspectives

David Codrea, today:

"The Favorite Son"?

Former Massachusetts governor and presidential candidate Mitt Romney was the final speaker and gave what may be a prelude to his stump speech for 2012. By appearing before the convention for a second straight year there is no doubt that he is currently the favorite son of the NRA going forward.

You've got to be kidding.

I wonder if anyone opposed to that will be told how "the perfect is the enemy of the good"?

Of course, I also wonder exactly what kind of "American values" Dick Morris represents that we should be "celebrating".

Funny, isn't it, looking at the type of people who are applauded and welcomed into the fold?

There I go being divisive again.

Sorry for quoting the whole thing, but it was a short post, and it was all pertinent.

Here's Sebastian's liveblogging of Romney's speech as one of the NRA-credentialed media:

03:35: Oh boy, here comes Mitt the Shit. Chris Cox incorrectly says "He was the first Republican Governor in a long time." Umm... and Bill Weld and Jane Swift were Democrats?

03:36: I still think he made a deal with Satan.

03:37: "The Boston Chapter [of the NRA] is a little on the small side these days." I’m sure that'll make Jim Wallace feel good.

03:38: Mitt says we’re here today to defend our constitution, and pass onto our children a legacy of liberty.

03:44: "The supreme voice in this country is not the government, it is the people."

03:45: I don't recall Romney ever being this conservative when he was Governor of Massachusetts. But I'm sorry to admit I'd rather have him in the White House than the Big-O.

03:45: He just took a swipe at Harry Reid. Unless we can turn the Senate around, which I don't think we can do, for the gun issue we need to keep Harry Reid in office. Harry Reid has been pretty pro-gun, and will keep bad bills from hitting the floor of the Senate.

03:50: Mitt is going far afield too.

03:51: Mitt just oozes. I just don't trust him.

03:55: Mitt keeps telling me things he thinks I want to hear. It's what he's best at.

03:57: Mitt stands up loud and proud for torture. I'm waiting for McCain to come out from the back and strangle him.

04:00: Mitt says we have a lot of work to do together, which I'm going to suspect involves helping him get elected for President in 2012. We shall see.

It's all a matter of perspective.

There I go being divisive again.

For Those of You Visiting from the Christian Science Monitor...

. . . and who have read the first comment posted there by "Susan Gill," I wrote a piece last week that coincidentally addresses her "more gun control" recommendation. It doesn't look like CSM will be printing my direct reply to Ms. Gill, but if you have an attention span longer than the average American's, I invite you to read Cultures: Compare and Contrast. You might discover something you were previously unaware of. And if you'd like to know why you were previously unaware of it, I invite you to read The Church of the MSM and the New Reformation.

Thank you for your time and attention.

UPDATE: The comment floodgates at CSM have opened!