What Would Luke Do?

The Daily News of Washington Parish LA reports

For at least the third time in three years, a Rayburn Correctional Center street cleaning crew found a gun on the side of the road and instead of using it to make a quick getaway, the men who spend most of their time locked behind bars left the weapon alone and reported it to the officer in charge.

The gun, a Titan .25 caliber pistol, was loaded.

The six-man RCC crew found the weapon Tuesday morning at Sullivan Drive and E. 9th Street in Bogalusa.

“They turned it over to a public works employee who turned it over to us,” said Police Chief Joe Culpepper. “I can’t think of any guns we’re looking for, but it’s normal procedure to send it to the St. Tammany crime lab where they have a gun database.”

Wait a minute, what was that about a database? Does the NRA know about this? They should be able to get the St. Tammany crime lab to tow the line, don't you think?

About those prisoners in Louisiana, I guess they just don't make 'em like they used to.

What do you think? Please leave a comment.

Pro-Gun Demonstration on VA Tech Campus

via The Truth About Guns where you can read one banal and unconvincing comment after another. I thought The Young Turks made good points.



Commenter ern had this to say: "Properly carried guns make environments safer, not less safe."

I responded with this:

That would be true if every single concealed carry guy acted properly. But they don't.

The statistics you guys keep throwing around showing how low a percentage of CCW permit holders fuck up, are not trustworthy. The truth is some percentage is unfit and does wrong, the same is true of any group, and it's not that ridiculously low percentage you say.

That's what we object to, the percentage of gun owners who are not responsible and have somehow succeeded in acquiring a concealed carry permit anyway.

What's your opinion? Are college campuses better off with the gun-free-zone policy or not? Are the pro-gun demonstrators out of line doing their protest there of all places?

Please leave a comment.

civics lesson

Thanks to microdot at the Brain Police. This should be passed on.

How Americans elect their president:



The problems with that system:

Triple Murder / Suicide in Pittsburg CA

SF Gate reports

A Pittsburg man suffering from financial problems posted a suicide note on Facebook, then shot and killed his wife and her parents early Thursday in his foreclosed home before turning the gun on himself, police said.

Do you think anyone checked if this guy was a concealed carry permit holder? I don't. I don't think anyone cares if he is in cases like this. That's why the claim that CCW permit holders are responsible for so little trouble is wrong. No one knows how much trouble they actually cause.

Was this the economy's fault. Yes, in a sense, at least partly.

Was the fact that they guy had a gun available partly responsible? Yes, very likely. It's too easy to kill people with a gun. Without one, it takes more resolve and motivation, which many distraught people do not have.

Would mental health screening have identified this guy as a risk? Perhaps, it certainly would pick up some, the worst cases for sure.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Should Toy Guns be Banned?

ABC News reports on another case of the cops being mobilized for a toy gun. In this case no one was killed or injured.

 Maybe it's time to eliminate toy guns from our world. They, even more so than their real counterparts, do more harm than good.

When I was a kid, toy guns were like this.

Nowadays toy guns look more like this.

I say ban the sumbitches. What do you say.  Please leave a comment.

A Good DGU

 
My contention is that for every one of these you're going to have a dozen cases of misuse of the gun. One indicator, unscientific as it is, is the fact that stories of true DGUs are very rare in the main stream media. We've heard many justifications for that, usually the pro-gun crowd claims the main stream is biased against them, but the truth is these are sexy stories that are widely disseminated when they do happen. Unfortunately they are rare.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

Jumping the Gun - Or Is It?

David Hardy posted the following brief post on his wonderful site, Of Arms and the Law.

Senator Lautenberg and Rep. Carolyn McCarthy urge Obama to veto the national handgun reciprocity bill. Since the bill hasn't been passed by either Senate or House, let alone both, calls for its veto do seem a bit premature.

My comment went like this:

David, Isn't it common practice to publicly urge the President to veto a bill not yet approved? Isn't that part of the Washington DC legislative game? In your post you sound like you're poking Lautenberg and McCarthy with the stupid stick for having done this, while what they've done is normal practice.

The automatic response:

Your comment was denied for questionable content. Comment spams blocked at last count totally 200,000, and I have set filters to block certain strings (but "cialis" blocks "socialism"). If you are a real commenter and not a robot, just email me.

I guess I'm banned over there, but I'll write to him to be sure it's not a mistake with the filter.

I suppose the undercurrent is that David likes the federal government to intervene in States' business when it suits him, just like so many other hypocritical gun-rights advocates.

You see for them, the gun is supreme, it trumps everything. So indoctrinated are they, that their brains trigger a lightning-fast negative response to any and all gun control suggestions, even the most sensible. Then they scramble around for justification, which they find in each others writing and rhetoric, much of that coming from their big-daddy leaders in the NRA.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.