The Rights of non-Citizens

FatWhiteMan left this comment about the video which the Liberal Viewer is commenting on.

If they are a foreign national, regardless of where they are committing their act of terror, they have nothing.

Sorry, FWM, the Liberal Viewer says you're wrong about that.

New Wintemute Study

The Ethiopian Review is the first place I've seen reference to this study, which should attract a bit of attention.

A new UC Davis Health System study finds that handgun buyers, if they have any prior criminal record, go on to commit felonies and violent misdemeanor crimes at much higher rates than law-abiding gun owners do. Identifying individuals who legally purchased guns and likely still own them after being convicted of subsequent crimes that prohibit gun ownership could be a valuable violence prevention measure, according to the study.

“The United States works hard to prevent felons, domestic violence offenders and other people with serious criminal convictions from buying guns,” said Garen Wintemute, an emergency medicine physician and director of the UC Davis Violence Prevention Research Program. “We looked at how often people who have purchased guns legally, then became prohibited from owning them. It was a surprise to find such a significant correlation between minor criminal records among legal handgun purchasers and their subsequent convictions for more serious crimes.”

I think the good doctor was being a bit sarcastic when he said that last sentence. I don't find that surprising at all. In fact this is one of the common sense conclusions that reasonable people could easily agree upon, the very type that gun rights advocates insist on denying unless proof is supplied. Well, here it is.

Of course, when surveys and polls prove what any unbiased person would already agree to, the gun folks attack the survey and say it was all a trick. I'm sure they'll have no trouble disproving any study Prof. Wintemute comes up with. He is the enemy, after all.

What's your opinion? Do you think people with minor criminal records are more likely to commit felonies than people with clean records? If that's the case, do you think some or all of them should be disqualified from buying guns?

Please leave a comment.

Soldier of Fortune on Kagan

Soldier of Fortune sounds off on Elena Kagan.

So it is more than a little interesting that Barack Qbama has reached into his closet of political leftists to bring out Elena Kagan — a woman whose legal views have been shaped by the most extreme socialist voices in Washington.

Did you get that: "shaped by the most extreme socialist voices in Washington?"

Kagan doesn’t have a record of judicial opinions. She hasn’t been a judge. So the crafty Obama figures that, without a paper trail, we won’t know of the ways she is moving American jurisprudence to the left until it’s too late.

Did you get that: "the crafty Obama?"

Kagan was also part of the Clinton team that pushed the firearms industry to include gun locks with all gun purchases and was in the Clinton administration when the president pushed legislation that would close down gun shows.

How about this one: "pushed legislation that would close down gun shows?"

President Obama has made it very clear that he expects Kagan’s “powers of persuasion” to make her and Justice Anthony Kennedy the swing votes to uphold his anti-gun ObamaCare legislation.

And this: "President Obama has made it very clear."

Kagan, like the President who nominated her, is an extreme leftist. According to WeeklyStandard.com (May 6, 2009), she is so far to the left she has lamented that socialism has “never attained the status of a major political force” in our country.

And finally, this: "Kagan, like the President who nominated her, is an extreme leftist."

What's your opinion? Do you think the Soldier of Fortune writer likes to exaggerate a little? Or do you find these descriptions accurate?

Please leave a comment.

Vermont Manslaughter Trial

Google reports on the manslaughter trial in Vermont.

John Reiss, English Professor Emeritus was sitting down to eat dinner in his suburban Essex home when a rifle bullet tore through a window and hit him in the chest, killing him on the spot.

Police didn't have to look far to figure out what had happened. At the house next door, four men were taking target practice with rifles and a shotgun in a backyard shooting range, the sound of gunfire still heard by police arriving at Reiss' home in response to a frantic 911 call from his wife.

Because the four had been taking turns shooting the weapons, prosecutors concede they don't know who fired the fatal shot.

But they charged two of the men with involuntary manslaughter, and the trial got under way Tuesday for one of them — Joseph McCarthy, a 40-year-old tool operator at IBM who had set up the shooting range in his backyard, about 750 feet from Reiss' house.

Prosecutors say McCarthy, who had passed a hunter safety course 10 days before, should have known the risk posed by the shooting party and should be held criminally liable for Reiss' death. If convicted, he could get 15 years in prison.

Isn't it possible to blame this accident on the lax gun attitudes in Vermont? And by extension, wouldn't it be possible to blame all gun rights supporters who tout Vermont as the paragon of gun-totin' liberty?

I say yes. And you're only defense is a shabby one, that it happens infrequently enough that it's worth it.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Virginia Boy to be Tried as an Adult

The Washington Post reports on another case of trying a teenager as an adult.

A judge has ruled that a 15-year-old student accused of firing a gun inside a Portsmouth high school will be tried as an adult.

Keith Elliott is charged with underage possession of a firearm, brandishing a firearm and discharging a firearm, one count of breaking and entering while armed with a deadly weapon and two counts of discharging a firearm in a school.

A police detective testified in Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court on Monday that Elliott told him he didn't intend to hurt anyone.

The judge watched a video of students running out of the Wilson High School cafeteria after shots were fired on April 28.

I don't know whose bright idea it is to try kids as adults, but it just doesn't make sense. Regardless of the severity of the crime, who could possibly believe that putting a kid into an adult prison will do anything but make matters worse?

In this case it's especially silly. One of the charges is "underage possession of a firearm." What are these people thinking?

Of course, we are talking about Virginia which is giving Texas and Arizona a run for their money as the state with the most backward laws.

Ehat's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Boulder, Colorado - Murder / Suicide

Fox News Denver has the report.

A disgruntled employee shot and killed the owners of a Boulder flooring store in an apparent dispute over sales commissions, police said Tuesday.

Boulder Police Chief Mark Beckner said officers found the bodies of 50-year-old Robert Montgomery, 40-year-old Sean Griffin and 41-year-old Staci Griffin inside Boulder Stove & Flooring on Monday after witnesses heard gunshots in a back office.

Beckner said the Griffins, who lived in Longmont, suffered multiple gunshot wounds, while Montgomery had just one. A coroner will officially rule whether Montgomery killed himself.

The video says he bought the gun ten days beforehand and practiced. Too bad he didn't live in Washington D.C. where the authorities have some kind of chance at spotting a nut like this and preventing him from getting his hands on a gun. In Colorado, where guns are a way of life, that's not possible.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

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