More Impossible Impossibly Happening

Somehow even though, according to Paul Helmke, gun ownership is apparently down the number of National Criminal Instant Background Check System (NICS) checks is way the Hell up:

The March 2012 NSSF-adjusted National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) figure of 1,189,152 is an increase of 20.0 percent over the NSSF-adjusted NICS figure of 990,840 in March 2011.

For comparison, the unadjusted March 2012 NICS figure of 1,715,125 reflects a 19.3 percent increase from the unadjusted NICS figure of 1,437,709 in March 2011.

This marks the 22nd straight month that NSSF-adjusted NICS figures have increased when compared to the same period the previous year.

22 months of increases over previous years. Somehow the anti-gunners are trying to claim that gun ownership is down, yet it’s pretty obvious the number of sales is through the roof. I’m not even sure how the anti-gunners came to their zany conclusion but I’m pretty sure it involved a mixture of depressants and stimulants at the same time.

Gun Control Fails Again

California consistently scores the highest on the Brady Campaign Scorecard [PDF] meaning they have the most draconian gun laws on the books. You can’t carry a firearm unless you’re extremely wealth or politically well connected so I have to ask, which was this guy:

The gunman who killed seven people and injured three others at a California college has been named by police as 43-year-old One Goh.

If Goh was not wealth or politically well connect it should have been impossible for him to carry a firearm into that school. That is, of course, if you’re dumb enough to believe the gun control advocates’ claims about gun control being an effective means of preventing crimes involving firearms. What could have stopped Goh before he managed to murder seven people? Another armed individual who could have fought back. Unfortunately this occurred at a school, which is a gun-free zone in California. Wait… if college campuses are gun-free zones then how did Goh carry a firearm onto campus grounds? Was he not properly informed? Perhaps the idea of gun-free zones is a load of malarkey and does nothing to prevent criminals from brining a firearm onto a college campus.

Time and time again the ideas of the gun control advocates are proven to be entirely wrong. It’s a good thing people are waking up to this fact because were people still listening to the gun control advocates we wouldn’t have so many states allowing individuals to legally carry a firearm.

You Can’t Rely on the Police

Those of us in the gun rights community say it time and time again; you simply can’t rely on the police. While a violent burglar is kicking down your door the police are outside setting up a perimeter :

The incident unfolded at about 11:40 p.m. in the 300 block of SE Fifth Street, as deputies responded to a report of someone roaming around the neighborhood acting strangely and banging on the walls and doors of homes.

As officers searched the neighborhood for the suspect, they heard a loud crash at a home down the street, said Cindy West of the King County Sheriff’s Office. At the same time, they received a 911 call from the owner of the home saying that someone had broken in.

As deputies set up a perimeter around the home, they heard loud noises coming from inside. Deputies then received a second 911 call from the homeowner saying that he had shot the intruder.

A lot of good that perimeter did. Let this be a lesson to people, even when the police do manage to arrive before your untimely demise they’ll be too busy dicking around to actually come in and help you. Stories like this demonstrate the fact that police are merely the cleanup crew, they exist to find the guy who killed you. Of course finding the guy who killed you is pretty pointless when you’re, you know, dead. Thankfully the homeowner in this story had a means of self-defense at hand otherwise he’d likely be another homicide statistic.

Count the Anti-Gun Memes

Articles written by anti-gunners usually bore me. Instead of bringing up new arguments and solutions to the problem they perceive they continue regurgitating the same bullshit over and over again. Let’s play a game, I’m going to call it Count the Memes. The idea is simple, to count the number of anti-gun memes mentioned in an average anti-gun article. In this pose I will point out the meme, give a brief explanation about each meme when it first occurs, and keep a running score of the memes dropped in the article. The contestent today is this article titled Silencing the Guns:

That was not, however, the first bipartisan moment related to the attack on Gabby Giffords, nor would it be the last. In 2004, Congress let the assault weapons ban Bill Clinton had passed “sunset” despite overwhelming public support.

“Assault” weapon ban + 1

“Assault” weapon ban points are awarded for mentions of the “assault” weapon ban as a mechanism that would prevent crimes involved criminal uses of firearms.

Total Memes So Far
“Assault weapon ban: 1

That law limited the number of rounds of ammunition a shooter could fire before having to reload, and letting it die an untimely death allowed a mentally ill young man in Tucson to purchase a handgun with a 33-round magazine. Had the assault weapons ban remained in place, he may well have been able to shoot the congresswoman, but he would not have been able to empty his clip, killing 6 people and wounding 13 others, before being tackled to the ground.

Ignorance of gun law + 1

Ignorance of gun law points are awarded when an article incorrectly states what a law legally defined.

Total Memes So Far
“Assault weapon ban: 1
Ignorance of gun laws: 1

But on neither that national day of mourning nor on any day since has the president or the members of Congress, who are either too frightened or too corrupted by the National Rifle Association, honored Giffords or the memory of those who died in that massacre in Tucson in the most appropriate way: with a return to common sense, like reestablishing the assault weapons ban that might have saved their lives.

The evil NRA + 1.

The evil NRA points are awarded for instances where the National Rifle Association (NRA) is mentioned with some kind of clandestine power or other undue influence. This point gets awarded often as anti-gunners like to mention the NRA as some kind of powerful puppet-master that has total control over our government and people.

“Assault” weapon ban + 1

Total Memes So Far
“Assault” weapon ban: 2
Ignorance of gun laws: 1
The evil NRA: 1

Later in January, Representative Carolyn McCarthy and Senator Frank Lautenberg proposed legislation to outlaw high-capacity magazines; it has gone nowhere.

High capacity magazines/clips + 1

High capacity magazines/clips is awarded whenever an article mentions standard capacity magazines. The award contains the verbiage magazines/clips because most anti-gunners are too stupid to realize there is a difference between the two.

Total Memes So Far
“Assault” weapon ban: 2
Ignorance of gun laws: 1
The evil NRA: 1
High capacity magazines/clips: 1

The first President Bush, unlike his swaggering son (who advocated the demise of a ban on assault weapons whose sole purpose is to hunt humans) showed political courage by publicly quitting the N.R.A. in disgust in 1995 when it began advocating ideas like its contention that citizens need military-style assault weapons to protect themselves against our own government (members, for example, of the National Guard).

Insurrectionist + 1

Insurrectionist points are awarded whenever an article mentions militias, insurrectionists, or other anti-government individuals or groups in a manner meant to strike fear into readers.

“Assault” weapon ban + 1

Total Memes So Far
“Assault” weapon ban: 3
Ignorance of gun laws: 1
The evil NRA: 1
High capacity magazines/clips: 1
Insurrectionist: 1

One of them, of course, is Florida’s “stand your ground” law, which discourages de-escalation of potential firefights in public with predictable results, like the shooting death in Sanford, Fla., of Trayvon Martin.

Ignorance of gun laws + 1

Total Memes So Far
“Assault” weapon ban: 3
Ignorance of gun laws: 2
The evil NRA: 1
High capacity magazines/clips: 1
Insurrectionist: 1

If an assassination attempt on one of their own did not move members of Congress to ask whether the N.R.A. has a little too much sway in their chambers, a few dead and wounded teenagers, medical patients, and their family members were not going to unlock their safeties.

The evil NRA + 1

Total Memes So Far
“Assault” weapon ban: 3
Ignorance of gun laws: 2
The evil NRA: 2
High capacity magazines/clips: 1
Insurrectionist: 1

Most have clearly made the risk assessment that they have more to fear from the N.R.A. than they do from an occasional sniper.

The evil NRA + 1

Total Memes So Far
“Assault” weapon ban: 3
Ignorance of gun laws: 2
The evil NRA: 3
High capacity magazines/clips: 1
Insurrectionist: 1

In the 2010 election cycle, the N.R.A. spent over $7 million in independent expenditure campaigns for and against specific candidates, and it has a remarkable record of success at taking out candidates and elected officials with the misfortune of being caught in its crosshairs.

The evil NRA + 1

Total Memes So Far
“Assault” weapon ban: 3
Ignorance of gun laws: 2
The evil NRA: 4
High capacity magazines/clips: 1
Insurrectionist: 1

Last year alone guns killed or wounded another 100,000 Americans; roughly 30,000 of them died.

Not differentiating between suicides, accidents, self-defense, and homicides + 1

Not differentiating between suicides, accidents, self-defense, and homicides points are awarded whenever an article mentions statistics involving firearm related incidents without differentiation between the number of suicides, accidents, self-defense cases, and homicides. Anti-gunners purposely avoid differentiation to make their case look stronger by using artificially inflated numbers.

Total Memes So Far
“Assault” weapon ban: 3
Ignorance of gun laws: 2
The evil NRA: 4
High capacity magazines/clips: 1
Insurrectionist: 1
Not differentiating between suicides, accidents, self-defense, and homicides: 1

We don’t know exactly how many have been killed in the fighting in Libya, Egypt and Syria, but our elected officials have had far less trouble calling for the ouster of Middle Eastern leaders than the leadership of the N.R.A.

The evil NRA + 1

Total Memes So Far
“Assault” weapon ban: 3
Ignorance of gun laws: 2
The evil NRA: 4
High capacity magazines/clips: 1
Insurrectionist: 1
Not differentiating between suicides, accidents, self-defense, and homicides: 1

In contrast, everyone but the lunatic fringe in America supports gun safety laws — such as eliminating the gun-show loophole that allows the sale of military-grade weapons without background checks, and has led to the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans as well as Mexicans, whose drug cartels find the loophole extremely helpful.

Demonizing gun owners + 1

Demonizing gun owners points are awarded whenever an article attempts to demonize gun owners in a general sense. Usually this is done by stating gun owners are uncivilized rednecks from or by questioning the size of a gun owner’s penis.

Gun-show loophole + 1

Gun-show loophole points area awarded whenever an article makes mentioned of the fictional gun-show loophole. When anti-gunners state gun-show loopholes they really mean the legal ability of two individuals to perform trade between one another without government involvement.

Military-style weapons + 1

Military-style weapons points are awarded whenever an article arbitrarily states a firearm is military in nature. This award is based on ignorance as bolt-action rifles are based on military weaponry but generally never mentioned as such.

Background checks + 1

Background checks ponts are awarded whenever an article makes references to background checks. Statements regarding background checks are usually made in an attempt to make gun owners seem unreasonable. That is to say most people accept background checks as a good thing and therefore people opposing background checks are seen as ignorant, extremist, or simply evil. It’s related to the demonizing gun owners category although happens with enough frequency to merit its own category.

Ignorance of gun-related events + 1

Ignorance of gun-related events is awarded whenever an article makes a statement regarding a gun-related event without actually knowing what happened. In the case of Mexican drug cartels getting firearms, they were given those guns by the United States government through a smuggling operation called Fast and Furious, not a loophole in any existing firearm law.

Total Memes So Far
“Assault” weapon ban: 3
Ignorance of gun laws: 2
The evil NRA: 4
High capacity magazines/clips: 1
Insurrectionist: 1
Not differentiating between suicides, accidents, self-defense, and homicides: 1
Demonizing gun owners: 1
Gun-show loophole: 1
Military-style weapons: 1
Background checks: 1
Ignorance of gun-related events: 1

In national testing, we’ve found that a simple, non-equivocating statement focusing on that point of intersection — law-abiding — beats the toughest “they want to take away your guns” message we can fire at it. It leads every demographic group other than those who stockpile weapons to support common-sense gun safety laws.

Special side note: it’s interesting to see an article admit that anti-gunners use the manipulation of language to persuade people to support gun control. Usually they aren’t so brazen as to outright state such a fact.

Offered a message that speaks to their ambivalence, people readily recognize that a 33-round clip makes it virtually impossible to tackle a shooter until he has had time to kill 15 or 16 people.

High capacity magazines/clips + 1

Total Memes So Far
“Assault” weapon ban: 3
Ignorance of gun laws: 2
The evil NRA: 4
High capacity magazines/clips: 2
Insurrectionist: 1
Not differentiating between suicides, accidents, self-defense, and homicides: 1
Demonizing gun owners: 1
Gun-show loophole: 1
Military-style weapons: 1
Background checks: 1
Ignorance of gun-related events: 1

hey understand that allowing people to purchase military-style weapons at gun shows without a background check renders gun safety laws meaningless.

Military-style weapons + 1
Gun-show loophole + 1
Background checks + 1

Total Memes So Far
“Assault” weapon ban: 3
Ignorance of gun laws: 2
The evil NRA: 4
High capacity magazines/clips: 2
Insurrectionist: 1
Not differentiating between suicides, accidents, self-defense, and homicides: 1
Demonizing gun owners: 1
Gun-show loophole: 2
Military-style weapons: 2
Background checks: 2
Ignorance of gun-related events: 1

Beginning with a statement of principle both makes clear the speaker’s intent and inoculates against all the slippery-slope arguments used by the N.R.A. and the elected officials in its employ or fearful of its power: “My view on guns reflects one simple principle: that our gun laws should guarantee the rights and freedoms of all law-abiding Americans. That’s why I stand with the majority who believe in the right of law-abiding citizens to own guns to hunt or protect their families. And that’s why I stand with the majority who believe they have the right to send their kids to school and see them return home safely at night.”

The evil NRA + 1

Total Memes So Far
“Assault” weapon ban: 3
Ignorance of gun laws: 2
The evil NRA: 5
High capacity magazines/clips: 2
Insurrectionist: 1
Not differentiating between suicides, accidents, self-defense, and homicides: 1
Demonizing gun owners: 1
Gun-show loophole: 2
Military-style weapons: 2
Background checks: 2
Ignorance of gun-related events: 1

This shouldn’t be an issue of left or right. Grocery stores in Tucson, where Gabby Giffords was shot (and where my mother-in-law shops — she just happened to be out of town that Saturday), are not hotbeds of “socialism.” I don’t know the party affiliations of the fallen teenagers in Chardon or the staff members, patients or families in Pittsburgh, but I suspect they ranged across the political spectrum.

Pretending to relate to a gun-related event + 1

Pretending to relate to a gun-related event points are awarded whenever an article author tries to tie themselves with a gun-related event in an attempt to generate sympathy from readers. It usually involves a mention of the author’s mother’s friend’s uncle’s cousin’s former roommate living within 100 miles of where the gun-related event occurred.

Total Memes So Far
“Assault” weapon ban: 3
Ignorance of gun laws: 2
The evil NRA: 5
High capacity magazines/clips: 2
Insurrectionist: 1
Not differentiating between suicides, accidents, self-defense, and homicides: 1
Demonizing gun owners: 1
Gun-show loophole: 2
Military-style weapons: 2
Background checks: 2
Ignorance of gun-related events: 1
Pretending to relate to a gun-related event: 1

In the end this article composed of 14 paragraphs had 23 memes with zero citations to backup any made claims. Overall I feel the meme score for this article was fairly average. In the future I would advise the author to work harder to get insurrectionist points and pretending to relate to a gun-related event points. Focusing on the evil NRA points is common and makes it difficult to distinguish one article from another.

Unfortunately the predictability of anti-gun articles make them a bore to read. All I do anymore is count the memes as they never contain original material, research, or information. As you can see the meme counts can get pretty high in short articles meaning this would make a very harsh drinking game. Now that I think about it I believe I’ll begin writing drinking game rules for this.

Never Ending Punishment

A phrase that used to be common in my area was, if you do the crime you do the time. Two things were implied by this saying: a person convicted of a crime would be punished and once the guilty person served their time they would be free to rejoin society as their debt had been paid. Unfortunately the last part isn’t recognized in our culture, especially if you’ve been charged with a felony.

I’ve been an outspoken critic of the law prohibiting all felons from owning firearms. What ground exists for banning a person charged with tax evasion from owning a firearm? None as far as I’m concerned. Yet in this country if you’re charged with a felony your life is suddenly worth less than other people’s. In fact your life is worth so little that it becomes a crime to defend yourself:

Anthony Robinson, 19, allegedly was trying to break into Wright’s home in the 6400 block of South Morgan Street to steal liquor about 6:30 a.m. Monday when Wright shot him in the leg, police said.

Wright was charged with unlawful use of a weapon, a felony, police said.

Robinson, of the 6600 block of South Wood, was charged with burglary. He appeared in bond court wearing a blue hospital gown that he held closed with one hand. Authorities said Wright had shot him in the ankle.

Court records showed Wright pleaded guilty to a 1990 theft charge and served two years on probation, and then served another 2-1/2 years on probation for a 1994 charge of unlawful use of a weapon.

Wright took measures to defend himself but, because he pleaded guilty to theft in 1990, will likely spend time in a cage for having the audacity to value his life over a person breaking into his home. This kind of thing is ridiculous. After ~22 years Wright is still being punished for his crime. ~22 years for pleading guilty to theft. Not only that but the state has also said that his life is now without value simply because he pleaded guilty to an act of theft.

How is tossing somebody convicted of theft in a cage for two and a half years and prohibiting him from defending his life in the futre justice? He should have been made to repay what he stole (I’d actually say he should be forced to repay double what he stole) and all costs of recovery and nothing more. Our so-called justice system does many things, but delivering justice isn’t one of them.

New Yorks’ War on the Poor Continues

First the city of New York banned donating food to the poor:

Outlawed are food donations to homeless shelters because the city can’t assess their salt, fat and fiber content, reports CBS 2’s Marcia Kramer.

Glenn Richter arrived at a West Side synagogue on Monday to collect surplus bagels — fresh nutritious bagels — to donate to the poor. However, under a new edict from Bloomberg’s food police he can no longer donate the food to city homeless shelters.

Now a New York court has rule that a $340 fee to obtain a permit to carry is perfectly fine:

A New York judge says it’s Constitutional for the city to charge an application fee for a handgun permit.

Federal Judge John Koeltl (KOH’-tuhl) Monday rejected a lawsuit brought by guns rights advocates including the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association and the Second Amendment Foundation. They sued last year, saying a $340 handgun license fee every three years is unconstitutional because it burdens a basic right.

The judge says there’s no evidence the fee has stopped anyone from exercising their rights. He says the city showed the fee helps cover administrative costs.

From the evidence I have at hand it appears as though New York wants all the poor people to go somewhere else. What does that city have against those with little means? Are they just not valuable because they can’t make major campaign contributions to Bloomberg’s reelection campaign? Do city officials think they’ll reduce crime by making life more miserable for the poor? After all somebody who doesn’t have the means to purchase food or legal permission to defend themselves obviously has the means to move out of the city right? It’s not like moving costs money or anything, you just rent a U-Haul… wait that’s not free.

Either way it’s becoming obvious that New York is becoming more hostile towards the downtrodden every day. I wonder when they’ll start rounding up people who make less than an arbitrarily selected amount of money every year and place them in designated ghettos.

Obviously Gun Sales are Down

Paul “Gun Sales are Down” Helmke has been trying to convince people that, well, gun sales in the United States are down:

Washington, D.C. — At the NRA’s national convention in Pittsburgh this week, look for the speakers, presidential hopefuls and ardent supporters to rally around the fairy tale that America is a gun-loving country. But don’t believe it.

Gun ownership in the nation is at the lowest level ever recorded by the General Social Survey, according to an analysis issued Tuesday by the Violence Policy Center. The National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago has been surveying the American public on gun ownership since the early 1970s. Far from representing the mainstream sentiment of Americans, the NRA’s gun-in-every-home-and-hollow mantra is resonating with fewer and fewer of us.

Apparently nobody told Ruger:

Gun shop owners around the nation told FoxNews.com that sales, brisk ever since President Obama was elected, have spiked upward in recent months. And manufacturers are having so much trouble keeping up with the demand that one, Sturm, Ruger & Co., can’t keep up with demand. The Southport, Conn.-based company has had to suspend new orders after taking orders for more than 1 million guns in the first three months of the year. Smith & Wesson sales are way up, as well.

I wonder what else differs between reality and the anti-gunner’s fantasy land. We already know in anti-gunner fantasy land everybody with a gun is a murderer, gun sales continue to decline, and a militia lurks around every corner, but I wonder if basic things like gravity, thermodynamics, and the general theory of relativity exist there.

The ATF Let Main Gunwalker Suspect Walk

Fast and Furious is the gift that keeps on giving. Not only did the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) arm Mexican drug cartels, only did a border patrol agent get murdered by one of those guns, but the ATF even arrested one of the main suspects they were supposedly looking for and let him go:

The prime suspect in the botched gun trafficking investigation known as “Fast and Furious” — Manuel Acosta — was taken into custody and might have been stopped from trafficking weapons to Mexico’s killer drug cartel early on. But the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) let him go, according to new documents obtained by CBS News.

An ATF “Report of Investigation” obtained by CBS News shows Border Patrol agents stopped Acosta’s truck on May 29, 2010. Inspectors said they found illegal materials including an “AK type, high capacity drum magazine loaded with 74 rounds of 7.62 ammunition underneath the spare tire.” They also noted ledgers including a “list of firearms such as an AR15 short and a Bushmaster” and a “reference about money given to ‘killer.'”

A copy of the report can be found here [PDF]. Let me just start by saying the ATF obviously does some stellar work. I guess when you set up an operation to advance gun control in the United States the last thing you want to do is actually stop the gun running.

The Fast and Furious rabbit hole gets deeper and deeper with each passing day. While I’m generally not one to attribute malice when stupidity and incompetence can explain a scenario, the case of Fast and Furious is looking more like purposeful action on behalf of the ATF than pure bureaucratic incompetence. The very fact that evidence exists showing Fast and Furious was about gun control and that the ATF had, but set free, one of the primary gun smugglers seems like an awfully large coincidence. Of course I will close by stating my cynicism which does make me bias.

Speaking of Gun Control

If you thought the guy in France was entirely unaware of gun control laws then you’ve seen nothing, apparently quite a few people are unaware of Chicago’s strict gun control laws:

Five people were killed and at least 12 other people wounded in shootings Saturday night and Sunday morning across the city.

[…]

Police have impounded the car and found a gun that may have been used in the shootings.

The evening attacks follow the fatal shooting of a 6-year-old girl and the wounding of four other people in Chicago within an hour Saturday afternoon, and 16 shootings, including the slaying of a 42-year-old man, overnight Friday and early Saturday morning.

You know things are bad when the story says “In other shootings:” instead of “In other news.” Chicago is basically the anti-gunner’s idea of paradise, a land where almost no firearm is legal to possess. If the gun control advocates were correct you would think Chicago would enjoy a dramatically lower number of shootings than other areas in the country but quite the opposite is true. Yet states that have enacted laws that make it easier (or in some cases possible at all) for citizens to legally arm themselves the changes in violent crime rates have been neutral to positive. In other words more guns doesn’t seem to lead to more crime but less guns certainly isn’t looking good on the violent crime rate maps.

From the Land of Gun Control

One of the failures of gun control is that many people are unaware of the laws put into place that prohibit the possession of firearms:

One of the biggest manhunts in recent French history is under way after four people were shot dead at a Jewish school in Toulouse.

Police have linked the attack to two shootings last week in which three soldiers of North African descent died.

The same gun and the same stolen scooter were used in all three attacks, sources close to the investigation say.

According to the anti-gunners banning firearms will prevent violent crimes such as the ones mentioned above. The story states that the attacker has two handguns in his possession:

A 17-year-old boy was seriously hurt. Initially, the killer used a 9mm gun, but when it jammed, he switched to a .45 calibre weapon.

According to French firearm laws:

Firearms there are divided into different classes, numbered 1,4,5,6,7 and 8.

[…]

The fourth category comprises what are called defence firearms, and includes any revolver and pistol, centrefire or rimfire, of a non-military calibre, short rifles having a total length of less than 80cm or a barrel length of less than 45cm, semi-automatic rifles with more than three shots capacity, repeater rifles with a magazine capacity of more than ten shots, riot guns with over five-shot capacity, semi-automatic or repeating military lookalikes, and disguised arms such as pen guns.

[…]

Another important fact should be noted. In France, on a firearm certificate renewable each five years, the private citizen is allowed to have one fourth category handgun with fifty cartridges for home defence, pursuant to a police background check. This can be in any non-military calibre from .22 to .44 Magnum. The handgun cannot be moved outside the house. Sometimes a second handgun is allowed for a secondary house.

It seems the attacker is either entirely ignorant of the fact that it’s illegal for him to possess two handguns and any handgun that is of a military caliber. The 9mm is considered a military caliber under French laws and I’m guessing the .45 is as well (although I’m not entirely sure as France hasn’t issued any firearms in .45 that I’m aware of). So either the anti-gunners are full of shit and prohibitions against owning firearms doesn’t deter criminals or criminals are simply unaware of the fact that they’re breaking gun control laws. Either way gun control doesn’t work and trying to further it is foolhardy at best.