The Blind Leading the Ignorant

As MikeB didn't ask for his keys back...

Following up on an earlier article about the Dallas-area mayor who killed herself and her daughter, several updates.
First, it appears the mayor had financial and mental health problems.Second, we now learn the mayor got the gun from another mayor:

Cedar Hill Mayor Rob Franke lent a handgun to Coppell Mayor Jayne Peters six days before Peters used the gun to kill her daughter and then herself.
Franke gave the Glock 17 9 mm pistol to Peters after she expressed an interest in getting a concealed handgun license. Peters first expressed interest about a month ago, after a meeting with other city officials in North Texas, Franke said.

Gunloons are often so eager to spread their fetish they make decisions they really have no business making.

Linoge Uncovers a Bogus DGU

Linoge posted an interesting article about a DGU that he found to be suspicious.

...if a criminal already has a gun out and pointed at you, there is absolutely nothing you can do – nothing at all – to change the outcome of the situation, so you might as well give the criminal what he wants. And that is why this particular news story is obviously a complete and utter fabrication.

To give credit where credit is due, at least Linoge isn't one of those Lott/Kleck types who count every possible incident in order to reach their incredible numbers. But the certainty with which Linoge rejects this one seems weird.

Here's my comment, which may not be published over there since he's banned me like so many of the other pro-freedom and pro-rights gun bloggers.

I'm glad you said we don't really know what transpired. Aren't you the one who often points out how stupid some criminals are. Maybe the guy allowed his gun to be pushed to the side while the ATM guy pulled his.

About disarming the populace, we'd be much better off in my opinion. Where do you think the two guns in this story came from? Answer: the same place. They both started out as legally owned firearms. The sloppiness or stupidity or criminality of some gun owner with a clean record accounts for one of them ending up in the hands of a robber.

So, yes the fewer guns, the better.

What's your opinion? Do you think pro-gun folks purposely leave out the inconvenient fact that unlike illegal drugs, guns all start out legally owned? Shouldn't the legal gun owners take some responsibility for this, start doing the right thing, stop denying the obvious connection between themselves and the criminals who are using their guns?

Please leave a comment.

The NRA Spin Doctors and Their Choirboys

FatWhiteMan sent me the link to this wonderful article, which apparently he finds credible.

In 1979, the group, renamed Handgun Control, Inc., updated its prediction, saying, “over 50 million handguns flood the houses and streets of our nation. . . . If we continue at this pace, we will have equipped ourselves with more than 100 million handguns by the turn of the century.” Hoping to provoke the reader to answer “no,” it asked, “Will we be safer then?”

“More guns = more crime” is an article of faith for some politicians too.

In order to answer yes to the question, "Will we be safer," and to refute the idea that more guns = more CRIME, the article produces several Linoge-like charts on murder. Isn't it a bit misleading to leave out the suicides and woundings and criminal threatening that're done with those guns. Don't those things also militate against the concept of "safer."

Even accidents are often criminal due to improper storage and negligent supervision of children.

What's your opinion? Mine is the NRA could learn a few tricks from Linoge. At least he never tried to pass off such a simple and superficial disconnect as this. His are much more complex. I guess the NRA can do this because they're preaching to the choir.

Go ahead, choirboys, tell me how you can disprove decreased safety by citing muder stats and leaving out all the rest.

Please leave a comment.

The SAF Sues NY

The Second Amendment Foundation is challenging the New York State law which requires concealed carry permit applicants to provide a reason.

“American citizens like Alan Kachalsky and Christina Nikolov should not have to demonstrate good cause in order to exercise a constitutionally-protected civil right,” noted SAF Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb. “Our civil rights, including the right to keep and bear arms, should not be subject to the whims of a local government or its employees, just because they don’t think someone ‘needs’ a carry permit. Nobody advocates arming criminals or mental defectives, but honest citizens with clean records should not be denied out of hand.

Maybe the gun control side is guilty of this too, but I think Mr. Gottlieb would do better to tone down the rhetoric. Describing these cases as being "subject to the whim of a local government" is an example of exaggerated nonsense. So is the phrase, "should not be denied out of hand."

There's nothing "whimsical" or "out of hand" about these decisions except in the paranoid mind-reading of the gun advocates. Local police are in a particularly advantageous position to know who among their citizenry are fit to carry concealed weapons.

Investing local law enforcement with this power is a perfect example of reasonable restrictions on the 2nd Amendment.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

NRA Supports Serial Killer

Tough on Crime? Yeah, surrre.

DAYTONA BEACH --
Police in one Volusia County city want to find you if you purchased a certain type of gun in a specific year.
Most area gun shops said they continuously cooperate with the State Attorneys Office and police, especially in the hunt for a serial killer.
But when they received a letter from Police Chief Mike Chitwood, they said wait a minute.

I'm Back

I just got in and spent 20 minutes reading some of the posts and comments. Thanks JadeGold for keeping it going. Turning the blog over to you was one of my better ideas lately.

Before the jet lag crushes me, I just wanted to try and describe some of my experiences as they related to the gun discussions. I think writing the blog and focusing on the gun argument has given me a distorted view of America. What I saw in Toms River and Brick and Seaside New Jersey, which were the places I circled around in for two weeks, was a total absence of guns. I'm sure it would have been different in Virginia and Louisiana, but what I witnessed at the homes and neighborhoods of four or five relatives was absolute suburban tranquility, Jersey Shore style.

I asked three different people what the crime's like, do they worry about break-ins and home invasions. Each one said just about the same thing. "Well, no, not really. I lock the front door at night. There's not much crime like that around here." One said that there was some kind of incident down the block last year but they didn't know what really happened.

If you're not familiar with those cities, you can drive 15 minutes and find a black neighborhood where they sell dope on the street corner and where you see what must be crack houses. You can drive an hour in several different directions and find yourself in a full-fledged ghetto.

So, what does it all mean? I'm still pondering it, but I have a strong suspicion that it relates to some discussions we've had before, which may just be at the very heart of the gun control theory.

Unless a person lives in a particularly bad area, or unless his work makes him a target for violence, he does not need a gun. Over the course of his entire lifetime, the chances that the gun will be misused are much greater than the chances that it will be needed defensively.

Dallas-Area Mayor, Daughter Found Shot

Murder-suicide suspected.