Dissident Veteran For Peace

False is the idea of utility that sacrifices a thousand real advantages for one imaginary or trifling inconvenience; that would take fire from men because it burns, and water because one may drown in it; that has no remedy for evils, except destruction. The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Can it be supposed that those who have the courage to violate the most sacred laws of humanity, the most important of the code, will respect the less important and arbitrary ones, which can be violated with ease and impunity, and which, if strictly obeyed, would put an end to personal liberty—so dear to men, so dear to the enlightened legislator—and subject innocent persons to all the vexations that the guilty alone ought to suffer? Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man. [Cramer's emphasis omitted].

Source: Clayton E. Cramer, Concealed Weapon Laws of the Early Republic: Dueling, Southern Violence, and Moral Reform (Greenwood, 1999) pp. 5-6 quoting Cesare Beccaria, On Crimes And Punishments, trans. by Henry Palolucci (New York: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1963), 87-88.

Labels: civil liberties, crime, critical thinking, freedom, guns, quotations

If Black lives really mattered to BLM, the media, and academia then they would tell the truth about the Black homicide rate instead of promoting specious, unfounded narratives about racism and police brutality. I was reminded of this once more while listening to an almost hour-long program on National Prevarication Radio (NPR) yesterday.

The show was Freakonomics Radio and the episode was "What Are the Police for, Anyway?" I actually agree that the US has a murder and incarceration problem. I also support an end to the War on Drugs and evidence-based police reforms that are effective at increasing the safety of both officers and the communities they serve. 

Unfortunately, BLM, most of the media, and most academics don't care about facts. They are driven by false narratives that sow division and enhance their careers and the power of politicians and business elites.

Here's an illustrative excerpt from the radio show transcript:

Black Americans are five times more likely to be arrested than white Americans. On a per-capita basis, Blacks are also much more likely to be fatally shot by the police. There has of course been a racial reckoning around policing lately

    PROTESTORS: Hey, hey! Ho, ho!  These racist cops have got to go!

Highlighted by the police murder [sic] of George Floyd. According to a recent Gallup poll, just 51 percent of U.S. adults have either 'a great deal' or 'quite a lot' of confidence in the police.

Anyone with even a modicum of common sense, let alone statistical education, realizes that on "a per-capita basis" is a wholly inadequate way to analyze police shootings by demographic group.

According to the Washington Post 2015-2021 police shootings database, 95.5% of the people shot and killed by police in the US are males and yet they make up slightly less than half of the US population. Thus, on a per capita basis, men are far more likely to be shot and killed by police but no one screams about systemic police misandry. An honest, sensible person looks at that discrepancy and say, yes, but males commit proportionality far more violent crimes than females.

In fact, year after year, Blacks commit around 50% of the murders in the US and most of their victims are Black. Anyone who thinks this fact bears no relation to outcomes of police encounters with Black people is profoundly stupid, profoundly dishonest, or both. Cops of all colors may not be able to cite the precise statistics but they know by experience that, ceteris paribus, Black people they encounter are far more likely to be a threat to police and others than people of any other race. (That doesn't mean police should not regard everyone as putatively law-abiding individuals, most Black people are not violent criminals and they deserve to be treated respectfully unless objective circumstances dictate otherwise.)

Moreover, FBI data (Zip file) reveals that Black criminals upped their game in 2020.^* In 56.6% of cases where the race of the "murder offender" is known that offender is Black; the comparable figure for Whites is 40.6%.^† Academics have long known that Black Americans have a criminal violence problem that dwarfs that in all other communities but, by and large, they haven't had the courage or integrity to vocalize that and hold the media and activists accountable in discussions of police conduct.

For instance, in 2013, Siegel et al. published an article on the predictors of firearm homicide rates in arguably, the premier US public health journal, but they buried the lede. They claimed "ours is the most up-to-date and comprehensive analysis of the relationship between firearm ownership and gun-related homicide rates among the 50 states."

In their final statistical analysis they found that the strongest predictor of "gun-related homicide" rate was a racial factor. In their tables 2 and 3 they reported: "For each 1 percentage point increase in proportion of Black population, firearm homicide rate increased by 5.2%" and "For each 1-SD [standard deviation] increase in proportion of black population, firearm homicide rate increased by 82.8". The comparable firearm homicide rate increases associated with an "increase in proportion of household gun ownership" were 0.9% and 12.9%.

There is no discussion whatsoever of the relationship between proportion of Black and firearm homicide rate in the body of their paper, which was titled "The Relationship Between Gun Ownership and Firearm Homicide Rates in the United States, 1981–2010". Now, if you really cared about reducing homicides wouldn't you foreground the strongest predictor found in your analysis? Needless to say this finding, as far as I can tell, has never been reported in any mainstream media outlet. In the only coverage I could find of the study anywhere was in Science Daily and they didn't report on any predictor but household gun ownership.

Notes

^* See "Expanded Homicide Data Table 3, Murder Offenders by Age, Sex, Race, and Ethnicity, 2020".

^† 8,142 ÷ (20,982  - 6,592) = 0.5658 = 56.6%; 5,844 ÷ (20,982  - 6,592) = 0.4061 = 40.6%

Labels: Black America, crime, George Floyd, guns, media, National Public Radio, police, race, science

" ... Where do you stand on this gun stuff?"

"I own them and know how to use them, as you are aware," Cantrell says.

... Cantrell has evidently decided that a more thorough answer to Randy's gun question is merited. "But the more I practiced with them the more scared I got. Or maybe depressed."

"What do you mean?" ...

"Holding one of those things in your hands, cleaning the barrel and shoving the rounds into clips, really brings you face-to-face with what a desperate, last-ditch measure they really are. I mean, if it gets to the point where we are shooting at people and vice versa, then we have completely screwed up. So in the end, they only strengthened my interest in making sure we could do without them."

"And hence the Crypt?" Randy asks.

"My involvement in the Crypt is arguably a direct result of a few very bad dreams that I had about guns."

     Source: Neal Stephenson. Cryptonomicon, 2000 Harper Perennial paperback edition, p. 719.

"Wealth that is stored up in gold is dead. It rots and stinks. True wealth is made every day by men getting up out of bed and going to work. By schoolchildren doing their lessons, improving their minds ..."

     Source: Character of Goto Dengo in Cryptonomicon, p. 861.

Labels: art and literature, economics, guns, philosophy, quotations

In the last couple of weeks I've discussed the death of Ahmaud Arbery with two people. Both of them had some familiarity with the matter and had seen William Bryan's video of the last few seconds of Arbery's life.

What was initially stunning to me is that their recall of the video was that the McMichaels were in motion in their vehicle and simply gunned Arbery down. I asked them if they had noticed that, in reality, the video clearly shows that at the time of the shooting the McMichaels were stopped with no one in the driver's seat. And that Arbery had run/jogged toward them and then alongside the passenger side of the McMichaels' truck before suddenly veering in front of it to attack Travis McMichaels, who was on the other side. They both denied noticing or recalling any of this.

The second person, I'll call her P., lives far south of the Mason-Dixon Line in a state where slavery was legal until 1865. P. is, arguably, herself of "redneck" stock. Nevertheless she reflexively denounced the McMichaels as vicious "rednecks". In all the years I've known she has never used that word, as she later acknowledged to me.

She also got angry that I characterized Arbery's final actions as "attacking a man armed with a shotgun". She objected to the word "attacking" even though, as I pointed out, that the word is neutral and if Arbery was engaged in actual self-defense, as she contended, he would have every legal right to attack the McMichaels.

Above I indicated I was initially stunned by the perspective of my friends. However, given the mainstream media's aggressively dishonest agenda-pushing it would be surprising if most people didn't accept the dominant narrative of the shooting. To be clear, my point is not that the McMichaels (and William Bryan) are innocent of any crime—although that seems to be the case based upon the evidence I've seen so far—but rather that the actual facts and the video alone paint a more complex picture of events than the simplistic characterizations of most mainstream and fringe Left/Right media outlets.

The McMichaels have both been arrested for aggravated assault and felony murder. The key charge the prosecution must prove is aggravated assault. If they are found guilty of that then perforce—because Ahmaud Arbery is dead—they must be guilty of felony murder (O.C.G.A. § 16-5-1). I was surprised that they were charged with aggravated assault (O.C.G.A. § 16-5-21) because, in my reading of the Georgia statute, I think the prosecution will have a more difficult time convincing a jury of that than of the charge of criminal attempt to commit false imprisonment (O.C.G.A. § 16-5-41), which is one of the charges against Bryan.

Going out on a limb here, I predict that, before they go to trial (assuming, as I do, that there will be a trial), the prosecutors will charge the McMichaels with criminal attempt to commit unlawful imprisonment in place of or in addition to aggravated assault. If they don't do that then I think the McMichaels will almost certainly be acquitted.

In any event, everyone interested in this case should critically scrutinize media and activist motives and narratives, consider the available evidence, and make up their own minds. Also ask yourself why some killings become national new stories with frequent updates and others get mostly ignored, nationally (see also here and here). Below is the best video (although the accuracy of the narration is spotty) of which I am aware of the events leading up to the shooting and some links to additional key case documents or sources.

• Glynn County Police Report of the Shooting
• Autopsy Report of Ahmaud Arbery
• DA George Barnhill's letter to Glynn County Police Department
• Ahmaud Arbery Murder Investigation | Georgia Bureau of Investigation

Labels: crime, critical thinking, guns, Justice, law, media, politics, race

Labels: children, civil liberties, crime, Democrats, guns, politics

Police in Arlington, WA, recently seized the legally possessed firearms of Kaleb J. Cole, reportedly a "neo-Nazi" member of Atomwaffen. The weapons were seized pursuant to an Extreme Risk Protection Order (ERPO) issued by a King County judge at the request of the Seattle Police Department (SPD). Arlington, where Cole apparently lives, is in Snohomish County, WA. The long reach of the SPD, via RCW 7.94, across county lines is notable here.

Under Section 9 (see below) of the ERPO petition, "Violence and Threats", you may notice that it is indicated that Cole has "recently committed or threatened violence" and "shown ... a pattern of acts or threats of violence".


Yet, the SPD produces no conclusive evidence of any of that in its petition. The SPD's evidence consists of the decision by the Canadian government to exclude Cole along with two reports of an "Unknown suspect" placing Atomwaffen decals and two reports of people being offended by Cole engaging in protected First Amendment activities. The videos cited, which I have not seen, are offered in support of the allegation that Cole attended "ORGANIZED FIREARMS TRAINING/HATE CAMPS", neither of which are threats or acts of violence in any meaningful sense. Remarks in a KING 5 report are telling in regard to the lack of evidence of anything but thoughtcrimes here:

King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg, whose deputy prosecutor Kim Wyatt argued the ERPO case before the judge, said the order to surrender guns is the right tool when law enforcement does not have enough evidence to file a criminal charge.

"In this case, the [FBI] joint terrorism task force had assessed Mr. Cole and said he was somebody who was doing more than thinking and talking about his extremist, violent beliefs, but that he was actually acting on it," Satterberg said.

Yet, if he were "actually acting" on his beliefs in any criminal manner then he would be rightly subject to arrest. The KING 5 report also makes it clear that federal authorities, including the FBI and CBP, were instrumental in bringing this action forward.

The CBP report (Exhibit 3 of the ERPO petition) says: "COLE also stated that he discourages people (other members) from things that are illegal and he stated that his group is not interested in overthrowing the U.S. Government." The ERPO petition also included material about Atomwaffen from the disreputable ADL and SPLC.

If Cole and his associates were carrying out actual criminal activities such as harassment, assault, or homicide or conspiring to do so then I would be the first to say arrest and try them. What we, evidently, have here is a case of someone being deprived of their rights as guaranteed under the 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 14th Amendments to the US Constitution because of his objectionable ideas and his lawful activities in support of those ideas.

The rule of law and civil liberties are only as secure for members of any given majority as they are for a despised minority or individual. Unfortunately, this country has a long history of officials betraying those purported values when it is politically expedient or technically feasible.

In this case federal, state, county, and local authorities have all violated their oaths to uphold the U.S. Constitution and I am hoping civil libertarians will put aside their distaste for Cole's ideas long enough to mount a vigorous legal defense of the state and federal constitutions. It would be nice, too, to see some of the oath breakers—including, but not limited to, Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best, Seattle Police Sergeant Dorothy Kim, Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes, Kim Wyatt, and Dan Satterberg—held accountable at the ballot box and/or in civil court.

Labels: censorship, civil liberties, freedom, government, guns, police, Seattle, surveillance, thoughtcrime

The soldier, be he friend or foe, is charged with the protection of the weak and unarmed. It is the very essence and reason for his being. When he violates this sacred trust, he not only profanes his entire cult, but threatens the very fabric of international society. The traditions of fighting men are long and honorable. They are based upon the noblest of human traits—sacrifice.

Source: Gen. Douglas MacArthur, 1946, confirming the death sentence imposed by a United States military commission on General Tomoyuki Yamashita, as quoted in the epigraph to Telford Taylor's Nuremberg and Vietnam: An American Tragedy (New York: Bantam, 1970 [1971]).


A few years ago, just days after the Sandy Hook/Newtown massacre, I was involved in an email conversation with another veteran (whom I'll refer to "T." ). I've lightly edited the conversation as it appears below. T. started things off as follows:

Reportedly, bushmasters and high capacity handguns and magazines are flying off the shelf as the gun people anticipate new legislation.

If you're antiwar you've probably noticed who the war people are, who form the permanent political base in support of the military as an institution, and become hyper-activated to support every war as soon as the bugle blows. [emphasis in original]

By supporting gun control legislation, you can reduce the self-reinforcing group-think at work here.  They will come around, over decades.  They'll accept that guns are no good.

Liberals are notorious for not noticing their true allies, or the fact that we have a common moral and logical framework.

I replied:

Stereotype much, [T.]? I guess you never saw the GI Voice/Coffee Strong documentary, Grounds for Resistance. One of the opening vignettes is a bunch of the Coffee Strong guys firing a wide array of guns in a gravel pit near Olympia; you can see Seth Manzel firing an AK-47 in the trailer. My point is there is no neat relationship between being pro-gun rights and pro-war. Some of the most active, committed anti-war activists I know are "gun people".

I remember, too, that the President who signed the federal assault weapons ban in 1994 is the same guy who presided over US-enforced sanctions that led to the death of +500,000 Iraqi children under the age of five. On national television, his Secretary of State said of the dead Iraqi children: "We think the price is worth it." A year before he signed the federal assault weapons ban, Bill Clinton also presided over a siege in Waco, TX by the federal gun police that led to the death of 76 people, at least eleven of whom were under the age of five. Where was the liberal outpouring of grief and anger over the death of the Iraqi children or the children in Waco? No one was ever held accountable for any of those deaths. This is part and parcel of the strong pro-violent culture in the US, where, for example, Die Hard is seriously regarded as a Christmas movie.

Supporting gun control legislation in response to the Newtown shooting is a perfect example of "self-reinforcing group-think". And if Obama and the US Congress really care about saving children from violent deaths then they can start by ending US drone attacks on Pakistan. What thinking person in their right mind would trust US politicos on gun control or anything else? As Kevin Carson writes in CounterPunch:

"... what strict gun laws will do is take the level of police statism, lawlessness and general social pathology up a notch in the same way Prohibition and the Drug War have done. I'd expect a War on Guns to expand the volume of organized crime, and to empower criminal gangs fighting over control over the black market, in exactly the same way Prohibition did in the 1920s and strict drug laws have done since the 1980s. I'd expect it to lead to further erosion of Fourth Amendment protections against search and seizure, further militarization of local police via SWAT teams, and further expansion of the squalid empire of civil forfeiture, perjured jailhouse snitch testimony, entrapment, planted evidence, and plea deal blackmail."

T. responded:

1. this is a struggle over worldviews.  Whether guns, power and force are effective-- the efficacy of violence.

2. yes sadly, I'm aware many of our fellow veterans think guns are ok.  A lot of them think their military tour was honorable. It wasn't.  military veterans are among the most fucked up people in the country.  VFP are the best of the lot but they think they're smarter than simple indigenous people, women, people who didn't join the military.

In my final response, I said:

You're right about worldviews, [T.]. One worldview I don't understand is that of the peace activist who embraces the idea that empowering people with badges and guns to arrest or otherwise penalize other people for making, selling, owning, or lawfully using guns is consistent with an ethic of peace that eschews violence. Peace activists who support "gun control legislation" should at least have the integrity to admit they're not all that different from "our leaders," who think force violence is okay as long as it's used for some cause they or "the people" support. I fail to see how one can support gun control legislation (or any most any other type of legislation) without implicitly, at least, supporting the force or the threat of force used to enforce that legislation and the force or the threat of force used to collect the taxes to pay the folks with guns and badges who enforce the laws.

You've also answered my question about whether you "stereotype much". You clearly do, viz. your remarks on "fucked up" military veterans and VFP members who "think they're smarter than simple indigenous people, women, people who didn't join the military". The "simple indigenous people" in the US serve in the military in disproportionately higher numbers than just about any other demographic group. Swil Kanim, a Lummi US military veteran and violinist, explains the phenomenon this way: "We're not the enemy. We're not. We're on your side. We believe in America. That's why Indians have the highest percentage of service of any ethnic group in America." As for women, Adam Lanza's mother, Nancy, was reportedly a "gun enthusiast," which kind of smashes that stereotype. As for "people who didn't join the military"—that group includes Barack Obama ... and any number of chicken hawks who never served in the military and lots of mothers who proudly send their children off to the military and to war. So, really, your juxtaposition of veterans and VFP members with "simple indigenous people, women, people who didn't join the military" just doesn't hold much water.

Finally, I submit that military service, even in the US military, can be honorable. Gen. Douglas MacArthur perhaps said it best (even if if he did not always live up to the standard he set): "The soldier, be he friend or foe, is charged with the protection of the weak and unarmed. It is the very essence and reason for his being. When he violates this sacred trust, he not only profanes his entire cult, but threatens the very fabric of international society. The traditions of fighting men are long and honorable. They are based upon the noblest of human traits—sacrifice." It is noteworthy that Telford Taylor chose this as the epigraph to Nuremberg and Vietnam: An American Tragedy. Those who do not knowingly and willingly violate this ethos serve honorably even if they later come to realize that they were misled and betrayed by their parents, teachers, clergy, elected officials, NCOs, officers, etc. The dishonor is to those who knew better and for venal reasons violated the "sacred trust" and deceived others. So maybe you think your military service was dishonorable and shameful—your call—but I hope no one else will be convinced by you that military service is inherently dishonorable.

See also:

• "Green Berets: Who's the Coward?""
• "Ulysses S. Grant on 'Moral Courage' "

Labels: Clintons, guns, military, quotations, War

For [Cody] Wilson, the public danger of 3D-printed guns is far outweighed by the danger posed by a government strong enough to block the free flow of information in the name of safety.

"If they could build a system that could prevent people from downloading that pistol, it would be far more dangerous and the effects would be far more terrible than that little pistol," he said. "Power wants to know everything, surveil everything, absorb everything. This impulse should be checked."

Source: Chuck Lindell, "Texas man in 3D-printed firearms case welcomes legal battle," Austin American-Statesman, Aug. 14, 2018.

Labels: anarchism, civil liberties, Cody Wilson, government, guns, quotations, resistance, technology

National Public Radio did an almost 6-minute infomercial today on the music of the new Ubisoft release, Far Cry 5. FC5 is a first-person shooter game where the player is a sheriff's deputy and the bad guys belong to Eden's Gate, an evil cult in Montana. I haven't played the game but various media reports indicate the cult is Christian-based (see here and here). One of the cover art pieces (see image at right) is a clear reference to Da Vinci's "The Last Supper" and then there's the baptism trailer.

The game also calls to my mind the massacres at Ruby Ridge and Waco, along with the M.O.V.E. massacre. According to the game's creative director, Dan Hay, FC5 was partly inspired or influenced by the 2016 armed protest at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge but mostly by his own insecurities:

"[That] brings us to the creative of the game," Hay said. "We are going to Montana. We are going to the frontier of Montana in present day. What we learned there is this concept of 'freedom, faith, and firearms.' People in that region, they don't want to be fucked with. We're applying that to Far Cry. We did that two-and-a-half years ago. But even today, this morning when I turned on the news, this concept of dissatisfaction, feeling like something is wrong, something is off. It brings me very much back to when I was a kid. I don't know that I feel safe."

Hay's words seem to also echo Obama's notorious bitter clingers remark.

I realize that my limited engagement with the game is no substitute for having actually played it. My analysis here though is not really so much about the game itself as about the mainstream media response to public representations of FC5.

Thus, listening to the fawning NPR piece left me wondering how they would cover a mirror-image game where the first person shooter is a militia member or a deputy sheriff who is gunning down a caricature of the Left, say evil prominent Lefty gun controllers who are surrounded by armed guards and based in New York, for example. What about a game taking out protesters run violently amuck, based loosely on Black Lives Matter or Antifa?

Methinks Ari Shapiro et al. would not similarly overlook the dynamics of who was shooting whom and why in such a game. A gamer friend made a search and found no such parallel games to FC5 with contemporary center-Left villains so we needn't worry, I suppose.

See also:

• Some Lessons of "Unintended Consequences"
• Cho not McVeigh

08 April 2018 update: I've done a bit more reading of and about responses to FC5. Unsurprisingly, I'm not the first or only person to think about the ramifications of using an identifiable, albeit exaggerated, contemporary American political/cultural subgroup as the targets of an FPS game.

Last year, Chris Plante wrote in The Verge: "But Far Cry 5, should it commit to the direction the key art suggests, will be the biggest and most aggressive game to adjust the sights of the first-person shooter genre against people in the United States .... The game promises a conversation about ... why it became acceptable to murder virtual versions of one group of people, but not another." Unfortunately, I see very little evidence of the promised conversation taking place.

There have been complaints about why the "bad guys" aren't more clearly identifiable as members of the real "alt-Right" and other perceived nemeses of the Left. As Adi Robertson put it, writing more recently in The Verge: "many reviews have criticized Far Cry 5’s cult for not drawing on real Christian Fundamentalist or neo-Nazi ideology" (that would likely be the Left's insupportably expansive definition of neo-Nazi ideology).

Relatedly, some are also unhappy that the "good guys" aren't more clearly not conservatives. The two links below astutely critique in much greater detail some left-of center responses to FC5.

See also:

• "SJWs Complain That Far Cry 5 Isn’t Anti-Conservative, Anti-Christian Enough"
• "Gamespot Whines About Far Cry 5 Portraying Conservatives As Good Guys"

Labels: culture, gaming, guns, National Public Radio, politics, terrorism, United States, violence

Used to losing battles over gun control, gun controllers latch onto any proposal popular enough to make it through the legislature—usually right after some school shooting or other tragedy. Whether or not a proposed law will actually curb gun deaths is irrelevant; gun control extremists will stand behind it. —Adam Winkler in Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America (Norton, 2011).

Labels: civil liberties, crime, guns, video

This image comes via Reddit.

Labels: civil liberties, guns, United States, US Constitution

Lies, Incorporated: The World of Post-Truth Politics by Ari Rabin-Havt and Media Matters has an important and, I submit, true premise. Namely that, on a host of issues, Americans and US politicians face manipulation by orchestrated, well-funded campaigns of deliberate misinformation. No surprise there, right?

However, readers should be aware that Rabin-Havt and Media Matters are themselves part of the propaganda machine they call Lies, Inc. I'll give just one glaring example.

In the epigraph to the book a "lie" is defined, in part, as "to create a false or misleading impression". This is exactly what the authors do in their hit on firearms researcher John Lott.

On page 116, they write: "When a group of researchers convened by the National Academy of Sciences examined Lott's thesis that the liberalization of concealed-carry laws leads to a decrease in violent crime, fifteen of the sixteen panel members found 'no credible evidence' to support this theory" (emphasis added) In support of their claim, the authors cite a 2015 article in Mother Jones magazine by Julia Lurie.

Here's the problem: Lurie is clearly engaged in an attempt "to create a false or misleading impression". In short, she's a liar. Given that the authors of Lies, Incorporated are aware of the methods of deceptive propagandists and yet take no care to correct Lurie's false narrative and tell the truth, I conclude they, too, are liars, especially since they took the liberty of slanting Lurie's statement even more strongly against Lott's position.

Here's Lurie's version: "The National Research Council, a branch of the National Academy of Sciences, assembled a panel to look into the impact of concealed-carry laws; 15 of 16 panel members concluded that the existing research, including Lott's, provided 'no credible evidence' that right-to-carry laws had any effect on violent crime" (emphasis added).

I claim Lurie, Rabon-Havt, and Media Matters are liars because, years ago, I read much of the NRC report in question—Firearms and Violence: A Critical Review—and it was a real eye opener. Here is the full sentence from which Lurie (and Rabon-Havt and Media Matters) lifted the "no credible evidence" phrase: "For example, despite a large body of research, the committee found no credible evidence that the passage of right-to-carry laws decreases or increases violent crime, and there is almost no empirical evidence that the more than 80 prevention programs focused on gun-related violence have had any effect on children’s behavior, knowledge, attitudes, or beliefs about firearms."

The sentence in question is from page 2 of the report, in the Executive Summary (Lott's name appears nowhere in the Executive Summary). Here is one glaring and misleading omission by Lurie et al.: "the committee found no credible evidence that the passage of right-to-carry laws ... increases violent crime". Lurie et al. do not include this information or draw it to the attention of their readers because it does not serve their gun control agenda.

They also fail to note that the NRC panel takes a decidedly more judicious—though hardly uncritical—approach to Lott and his work. Readers interested in forming their own opinions on the matter are advised to read Chapter 6 and Appendices A  and B of the report along with the links below. My point here is not to defend Lott and his work—I leave that to others—but to highlight the hypocrisy of Ari Rabin-Havt and Media Matters.

See also:

• "A response to Mother Jones’ mistake filled article on John Lott and the Crime Prevention Research Center" on the CPRC web site, Aug. 1, 2015
• "Is it a 'Lie' That More People Carrying Guns Can Lead to Less Crime?" on the Reason.com web site, Apr. 26, 2016. This is a response an article by Rabin-Havt in the Nation.

Labels: crime, critical thinking, guns, truth

The above advertisement was published in the American Rifleman in November 1940.

Labels: guns, history

Some acts, most people would agree, are intrinsically wrong and evil. Murder is one such case. Therefore, it makes a certain amount of sense for the government to have laws against murder. It makes sense not because anyone thinks making murder a crime will stop all murders but because it probably has some ex ante preventive effect and, more importantly, a law expedites punishment and that usually has an, albeit limited, ex post preventive effect.

Fewer people would agree that gun ownership is intrinsically wrong and evil and I am not one of them. In fact, I am hard-pressed to think of any gun law that makes much sense. The folly of gun control was highlighted once again in Munich, Germany where Ali Sonboly killed nine people with a gun recently. Although as the Telegraph (UK) notes, "Germany has relatively tough gun laws and there is no way the teen could legally have obtained the gun in his own country" the government there is calling for "EU-wide gun controls".

Here's the real kicker from the Telegraph:

A 2014 police inquiry found there are 5.6 [million] legally owned weapons in Germany — including shotguns and hunting rifles — but estimated there are four times as many illegal weapons in the country. Just five per cent of guns recovered from crime scenes were legally held with a license.

In other words, 95% of guns used by criminals in Germany were illegal. So, just who are the German authorities most likely to disarm? Hint: It's not the criminals. Sure, some criminals might be momentarily inconvenienced but at what expense to otherwise law-abiding Germans? You can be sure, too, the black market will expand to fill any void created by the new gun laws.

Perhaps, the German government should just make the country a gun-free zone. Have a look at the photo below to see how well that worked out last year in Chattanooga, TN.


See also: "Will Obama call for truck control after Nice attack"

Labels: civil liberties, crime, critical thinking, guns

Labels: guns, LGBT

I wish people would promote policies that truly address the real threat we face, instead of ones that promote bigotry and prejudice. It's extremely disturbing to see people take advantage of a national tragedy to score political points or to make a profit at the expense of dividing our nation. I do believe that gun ownership is seen as a central part of American identity for a large group of people, and so by excluding Muslims from that, it reinforces the idea of Muslims as the "other." And that's a big problem. Owning guns is a fundamental right enshrined in the Constitution. The Constitution either protects all of us or none of us. Our position is that you can't let our enemies win by allowing us to divide ourselves as Americans.

Source: Hassan Shibly as quoted in "This Is What It's Like to Be a Muslim-American Gun Owner" on The Trace, July 29, 2015.

See also:  "Blood, faith unite Muslims, LGBT and others after rampage" by Bethany Rodgers in the Orlando Sentinel, June 12, 2016.

Labels: civil liberties, guns, Islam

Pink Pistols Saddened by Attack on Orlando Club

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (Philadelphia, PA) June 12, 2016: Early Sunday, around 2AM Eastern Time, the Pulse nightclub in Orlando was attacked by an armed individual. Approximately 20 persons were killed and over double that wounded when the attacker, whom police have identified as Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old from Fort Pierce, FL, pushed his way into the club and opened fire on patrons. Weapons carried by Mateen are reported as an "assault-type" rifle, a handgun, and a suspected explosive device. UPDATE: Reports are that the death toll is around 50, with over 50 more wounded.

"It appears he was organized and well-prepared," said Orlando Police Chief John Mina at a news conference on Sunday. Additionally, Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings said "This is an incident … that we certainly classify as a domestic terror incident." Authorities say the FBI is involved. Preliminary information reveals that Omar Mateen's family is from Afghanistan, though Omar may have been born in the United States. His family is reported to be distraught at the actions and loss of their son.

Gwendolyn Patton, First Speaker of the Pink Pistols, an international GLBT self-defense organization, warns people not to jump immediately to the assailant’s guns as the object of blame, but to concentrate instead on Mateen's violent acts. "The Pink Pistols gives condolences to all family and friends of those killed and injured at Pulse," began Patton. "This is exactly the kind of heinous act that justifies our existence. At such a time of tragedy, let us not reach for the low-hanging fruit of blaming the killer's guns. Let us stay focused on the fact that someone hated gay people so much they were ready to kill or injure so many. A human being did this. The human being's tools are unimportant when compared to the bleakness of that person's soul. I say again, GUNS did not do this. A human being did this, a dead human being. Our job now is not to demonize the man's tools, but to condemn his acts and work to prevent such acts in the future."

Patton's concerns are that knee-jerk gun-control efforts may make preventing future events harder rather than easier, as only the law-abiding potential victims will be affected by such laws. “It is difficult, if not impossible, to foresee such an event,” continues Patton, "But if they cannot be prevented, then they must be stopped as fast as someone tries to start them."

Some bars and other establishments that serve alcohol are difficult to protect because many states forbid the carrying of weapons where alcohol is served, but that just as one might have a designated driver who stays sober, one might have a designated carrier with a concealed-carry permit who goes armed and does not drink. "It's sad that we must consider such things, but when there are persons out there who mean us harm, we must find ways to protect ourselves within the law." Patton concludes.

The Pink Pistols is an international organization dedicated to the legal, safe, and responsible use of firearms for self-defense of the sexual-minority community. Chapters may be found across the United States and Canada. Though the Pink Pistols is for the GLBTQ community, it is not solely composed of the GLBTQ community, and all are welcome to join.

Contact:
Gwendolyn S. Patton
First Speaker, Pink Pistols International
firstspeaker@pinkpistols.org
http://www.pinkpistols.org
Ph: (610) 879-2364

See also:

• "LGBT Gun Rights Group Speaks Out After Orlando Shooting" by KTXL
• "In wake of Orlando, gays should arm themselves: Otherwise, in gun-free zones like the Pulse nightclub, we're sitting ducks to maniacs and terrorists" on NYDailyNews.com

Labels: crime, guns, LGBT, violence

Below are some excerpts from Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America by Adam Winkler (Norton, 2011).

Despite the utopian dreams of some gun control advocates, guns in America aren't going anywhere ... Nevertheless, disarmament was the motive behind the D.C. laws challenged in the Heller case. The D.C. city council hoped that its ban on handguns would trigger a nationwide movement to eliminate civilian ownership of guns. The folly of its idealism was highlighted when, a decade or so after enactment of its strict gun laws, the District came to be known as the "murder capital of America." ... In the absence of any short-term hope of disarmament, gun control extremists throw their support behind poorly designed and predictably ineffective reforms. The statistics that clearly suggest bans on handguns and assault weapons don't reduce crime—or even the number of handguns and assault weapons in circulation—don't seem to matter. [p. 10]

Few people realize it, but the Ku Klux Klan began as a gun control organizations; after the Civil War, the Klan and other violent racist groups sought to reaffirm white supremacy, which required confiscating the guns blacks had obtained for the first time during the conflict. To prevent blacks from fighting back, the night riders set out to achieve complete black disarmament. In the 1960s, race was also central to a new wave of gun control laws, which were backed by liberals and even some conservatives, like Ronald Reagan. Enacted to disarm politically radical urban blacks, like the Black Panthers, these laws sparked a backlash that became the modern gun rights movement—a movement that ironically, is largely white, rural, and politically conservative. [pp.13-14]

Nelson "Pete" Shields III, one of the founders of Handgun Control Inc.—later renamed the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence—argued for eliminating all handguns. "We're going to have to take this one step at a time ... Our ultimate goal—total control of all guns—is going to take time." The "final problem," he insisted, "is to make possession of all handguns, and all handgun ammunition" for ordinary civilians "totally illegal." Sarah Brady, who serves as chair of the Brady Center, argues that "the only reason for guns in civilian hands is for sporting purposes," not self-defense, and supports the creation of a national gun licensing system in which only people with government approval can have a gun. Self-defense, the core reason why many people in America own guns, would not be a proper basis for government approval to be gra.[p. 35]

Used to losing battles over gun control, gun controllers latch onto any proposal popular enough to make it through the legislature—usually right after some school shooting or other tragedy. Whether or not a proposed law will actually curb gun deaths is irrelevant; gun control extremists will stand behind it. ... Consider the federal gun ban on so-called assault weapons, adopted in 1994 during the Clinton Administration. The controversy flared up a few years earlier, when Josh Sugarmann, founder of the pro-gun control Violence Policy Center, published a study entitled "Assault Weapons and Accessories in America." Sugarmann called for a ban on guns he termed assault weapons—a name derived from a German World War II-era battle rifle called the Sturmgewehr, or storm rifle. ... Machine guns have been heavily regulated in the United States since the 1930s [civilian ownership of new machine guns has been illegal since the 1986 passage of the Firearm Owners' Protection Act - VFPD], Sugarmann was referring to semiautomatic rifles that just looked like machine guns. A semiautomatic rifle can't spray fire like a machine gun. Instead, when you pull the trigger on a semiautomatic rifle, it fires only one bullet. ... Sugarmann was unusually frank about how public misperception of assault weapons would make banning them the sale of them easier. "The weapons' menacing looks, coupled with the public's confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semiautomatic assault weapons—anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun—can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons." [pp. 35-36]

... in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, law enforcement began confiscating guns from law-abiding people even though police protection was nowhere to be found amid the looting and theft. Often, if there's a crisis, the easy solution is to do away with the guns. [p. 40]

Not only did killing [in Washington, DC] become more common after the [1976 Washington, DC] gun ban, but guns also became a more common way to kill. [p. 42]

Concerning the legislative debate over the federal Gun Control Act of 1968, Winkler writes: Gun rights advocates managed to defeat registration and licensing by arguing that such measures would lead eventually to confiscation of all civilian guns. In the House of Representatives, The Michigan Democrat and NRA board member John Dingell warned his colleagues that the Nazis adopted mandatory registration and used the records to disarm the Jews and political dissidents. This law, too, could be the first step toward a holocaust. While others dismissed the analogy to the Nazis, it didn't help that [US Senator from Connecticut] Thomas Dodd had in fact asked the Library of Congress to provide him with a translation of the German laws of the 1930s when he was drafting his bills ... [p. 252]

Labels: civil liberties, Clintons, guns, politics, quotations, Ronald Reagan

Gun control supporters frequently like to point out that the US fares poorly (or worst) in comparison with other industrialized countries on firearms-related homicide rates. They often further correlate this with "lax American gun laws" and imply or openly claim that correlation is causality. There is some logical basis for this--guns, as compared to other weapons used in crime, are generally more deadly.

The illogic comes in play when gun control advocates suggest that the answer is more gun control laws and more draconian ones at that. I have pointed out to such people that there are countries with much stricter gun laws and lower gun ownership rates than the US that nevertheless have higher firearms-related homicide rates, which suggests that the solution to reducing the use of guns in homicides is not so simple as more and/or stricter laws.

More evidence for this comes from Craig. R. Whitney, author of Living with Guns: A Liberal's Case for the Second Amendment (Public Affairs, 2012). Make no mistake, Whitney's case is truly a liberal's--he's no "gun nut" or libertarian when it comes to gun control. But he seems to be sincere and striving to be honest.

Any way, on p. 156, Whitney points out:

... a closer look at the statistics shows that strict gun-control laws by themselves do not lead to less gun violence. Census bureau figures show that the homicide rate in Massachusetts, where the gun laws are pretty strict, was much lower in 2008 than it was in Georgia or Mississippi, where they are pretty lax. But the Massachusetts rate was barely below Vermont's, a state that has no statewide gun laws at all, and it was almost twice as high as the rate in Utah, where guns laws are also very relaxed (Utah adopted the Browning M1911 .45 pistol, invented by a native son, as the state firearm, in 2011).

Even in cities where handgun ownership has been so severely restricted that it amounted to a ban, it is hard to see what effect that has on gun violence. Chicago banned handguns in 1982. Yet in the years that followed, the crime rate and the murder rate rose steadily. The rate of murder involving handguns in Chicago was 9.65 per 100,00 residents in 1983, the Supreme Court was told in the McDonald case, but by 2008, with the ban in effect, it was even higher at 13.88 per 100,000. Similarly, in the District of Columbia, the homicide rate also rose in the 1980s, after the district banned handguns--in fact it rose even more than it did in forty-nine other comparable major cities, as Justice Breyer conceded in his dissent in the Heller case. In 2008, the murder rate per 100,000 of population in the District of Columbia was 31.4, far higher than the rates of 6.3 per 100,000 in New York City (where handguns are not banned but only 37,000 people are licensed to own them and only 4,000 have concealed-carry permits) and 3.1 in Austin, Texas, where as everybody knows, it's a lot easier for anybody legally to get a gun.

Below, using the source Whitney consulted, Table 304 of the Statistical Abstract of the United States, 2011, are the homicide rates for the five states he mentions. The figures in parentheses are the percentage, by state, of the 201,881 respondents to the CDC's 2001 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System survey who said they kept firearms in or near their home (I couldn't find any more recent figures).

Georgia 7.1 (40.3%)
Massachusetts 2.6 (12.6%)
Mississippi 8.9 (55.3%)
Utah 1.5 (43.9%)
Vermont 2.8 (42.0%)

I also want to point out that Vermont does not issue permits/licenses for the concealed carry of firearms. In Vermont, anyone who can legally own a handgun can lawfully carry a concealed handgun.

See also: Don B. Kates and Gary Mauser. "Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide? A Review of International and Some Domestic Evidence." Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy. Vol. 30, No. 2. Spring 2007.

Labels: crime, critical thinking, guns

• Coalition to Prevent Assault Weapon Violence
• The Truth About Assault Weapons

Labels: guns