You Know You're a Gun Nut When

I don't know if I agree with that, but it's a cute idea.

via My Tumultuous Adventures which I discovered through our old friend Mike W.

Guns in Arizona

The Arizona Republic published one of the most biased articles you're likely to find. Of course they pretend to be presenting a balanced description of both sides of the argument. No one was fooled.

Eugene Volokh, a law professor at UCLA with expertise on gun-related issues, points to a 2005 paper in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine that could not discern any significant impact on violence from eight types of gun-control laws.

"We don't have any reliable studies on the subject," he said. "It does seem pretty clear that the possible impact of any (gun-related) laws is going to be modest in either direction."

Now, as if that whopper from Volokh isn't enough, they go on to cite John Lott.

What's your opinion? Is it fair to say that there's been so much research on the subject of guns that both sides can support their argument and then quote Eugene saying "the possible impact of any (gun-related) laws is going to be modest in either direction?"

It sounds like biased double-talk to me. What do you think?

Please leave a comment.

Arizona Senator Lori Klein - Proud Gun Owner

A New York Times op-ed by Frank Bruni

Tip sent in by Bruce

The dispute was this: Did a local lawmaker intentionally point her loaded .380 Ruger at a newspaper reporter during an interview, or was it all just a silly misunderstanding?

The reporter, Richard Ruelas, who writes for The Arizona Republic, said it was deliberate. Not hostile, mind you, but purposeful: State Senator Lori Klein was proudly showing off her piece. He told this story first in an article published Sunday in The Republic, repeated it in subsequent public comments and went through it one more time on the telephone with me. He sounded incredulous still.

He said that as he sat with Klein just outside the Senate chamber to discuss her gun-toting ways, “I looked down and saw a red dot on my chest.” He looked up and realized the dot was the laser sight of the Ruger, which she carries in her pocketbook. Although he wasn’t sure just then whether it had bullets in it, she informed him — after she’d lowered the pistol — that it always does.

The Republic article caused a public outcry that she had been reckless. Even Arizonans have their limits. She then disputed Ruelas’s account, saying that he had strayed into the gun’s sight as she demonstrated how it worked. After that she went silent.

The author goes on to bemoan the fact that "a cavalier attitude about guns persists and even flourishes" in spite of the recent high profile shooting in Arizona. He states that the Senator's pink gun is not cute and cannot be compared to Häagen-Dazs ice cream. But what in the world does Lori Klein and all the other lawful gun owners have to do with the criminal use of guns? Aren't they two completely separate things? That's what our gun-rights friends keep trying to say.

In my opinion they're all part of the same problem. There's much more in common between criminal gun owners and lawful gun owners than there is between either of them and the gun control folks. Let me explain.

All the guns that are used in crime start out legally owned by someone. In the case of Jared Loughner, he himself was the legitimate and legal owner of the gun, as sad a fact as that is, given the terrible and tragic lack of mental health screening that exists. He bought the gun, and then used it in a crime.

But, the same is true for the inner city hoodlum who shoots a rival drug dealer in Newark. He may have bought the gun from another criminal, in fact his particular gun may have had several illegal owners before it was used in a murder. But if you could trace it back far enough, you would find a point at which it passed from the hand of its legitimate owner to that of a criminal.

This is why we need strong gun control laws at the national level AIMED AT THE LAW ABIDING. No one disputes the fact that criminals won't obey our silly laws. That's exactly the reason, along with the fact that the legitimate gun owners of America seem to have such a hard time holding on to their guns, that we need proper gun control laws.

Of course, if I were writing those laws, Lori Klein would have to relinquish her guns immediately.

How does that sound? Please leave a comment.

Florida Woman Kills ex-Husband

Bradenton.com reports

Detectives searching Pier Point subdivision in Northwest Bradenton on Friday morning found the handgun they say is the weapon used in a bizarre slaying that has stunned one of Bradenton’s most quiet and exclusive neighborhoods.

Also known as 86th Street Court Northwest, Pier Point is where 10 large and luxurious homes rise among old oaks and mango trees.

But it is also the place where a divorced couple, Robin Claire Crane, 49, and her ex-husband, Ernie Crane, 56, apparently shared a rental home and had a domestic dispute that, according to the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office, led to Robin Crane fatally shooting Ernie Crane at 8:30 p.m. Thursday.

They called this shooting "bizarre" because the police "had issued the couple domestic violence packets, which they had both signed and which deputies dispense dozens of times a day in the waning moments of domestic disputes."

The only problem was in this case the dispute was not in its "waning moments."

Now, I'm usually on the side of the woman in domestic violence situations. I realize that men are almost always the abusers in these cases and even in the rare situations in which the woman turns the tables on her abuser and kills him, it could often be considered self-defense.

Nevertheless, when a woman decides to pick up a gun and shoot her abusing ex-husband or boyfriend, I'm afraid I have to blame her for pulling the trigger.

Unless her life was in imminent danger that very moment, I don't accept the cumulative effect of domestic abuse as an excuse. She needs to find another way to resolve the problem other than killing him.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Atlanta Security Guard Kills One Wounds Two

CNN reports

Police arrested a 22-year-old security guard and charged him Friday with murder and aggravated assault in a triple shooting in a garage in Atlanta's Midtown neighborhood.

Nkosi Thandiwe surrendered to police Friday afternoon and was charged with one count of murder and two counts of aggravated assault related to the shooting death of a woman and the wounding of two other people earlier in the day, said Carlos Campos, a spokesman for the Atlanta Police Department.

The first shooting occurred on the third floor of the parking deck, where Thandiwe was waiting for the woman he killed, Campos said. The suspect was inside the victim's Toyota Prius when he shot the woman, who also worked in the Proscenium Building, Campos said.

There's no doubt this guy was a legitimate gun owner. He probably had all the training and mental-health screening as any other gun owner in Georgia, maybe more. Is it so difficult to agree that the screening and training required is inadequate?

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Dearborn Conflict Resolution

The Detroit Free Press reports on how some people resolve conflict.

Fadi Hassan Faraj, 34, was charged Friday with first-degree murder in the death of a 23-year-old man outside Riverside Academy on Wednesday night. Both men are from Dearborn. Police said Faraj and Hassan Mustapha Zeidan were playing basketball when they got into an argument that escalated into a fight. Witnesses said Faraj then got a handgun and shot Zeidan multiple times.

Of course the gun apologists will point out that these guys were probably terrorists anyway arguing over some gang or norcotics business of their own. I figured they were legitimate civilian gun owners with the same qualifications and temperment as many others.

What do you think? Please leave a comment.

Shoots Puppy, Kills Husband?

Because you couldn't make this stuff up.
From aol news / Huffington Post:
Betty Walker Shoots At Puppy, Instead Kills Husband, Robert Walker In Mississippi: Police
Associated Press
JACKSON, Miss. -- Police in Mississippi say a woman opened fire on a puppy that had threatened children, but wound up shooting and killing her husband.
Witnesses tell police that the pit bull named "Cocaine" had lunged at some children and tried to attack them on Friday. The dead man's son says the children were taken inside and his father picked the dog up.
It was then that police say Betty Walker fired twice, hitting the dog once and her husband once in the chest. Jackson police spokeswoman Colendula Green says the death of 53-year-old Robert Walker appears to have been accidental.
She says a Hinds County grand jury will decide whether to charge Betty Walker.
Animal control officers have taken the dog, and its owner could face charges.