A Little Exchange With Bob S.

 Bob S. wrote one of his pretend-indignation posts.  I couldn't resist leaving this comment.

Bob, Let me show you where you're the one doing the lying.  In your first proposal, which you self-righteously declared "Lie no. 1. crime can and does happen in any type of neighborhood," you yourself are already lying. No gun control person I've ever read, and certainly not japete or myself, has ever said "No crime ever happens in good neighborhoods," or "All crime happens in bad neighborhoods."  We don't say that. You say we say that and then you get all huffy and arrogant and act like you really believe your own bullshit.


What I say, and probably japete agrees, she can speak for herself, is that the chances of your needing to use a gun to save the day are smaller than the chances of its being misused. That's if you live in a good neighborhood.


There are exceptions, of course,


I find it an abomination of American values to imagine Elmo and Weer'd and I guess yourself opening the door to trick-or-treaters armed like that. It's sick and paranoid and if it only affected you I wouldn't mind.  But you guys are part of the problem, and that problem affects many of us.

What's your opinion? Did you know before he started his own blog, Bob S. was one of the most frequent commenters here. One could say he got his start here, I suppose. But do you think he'd treat me with respect and gratitude, no sir. Even still he frequently calls me a liar for no reason. He literally manufactures a reason by first putting words in my mouth and then arguing against them as if I'd really said them.

Lest you think this is a personal attack against Bob S., let me give you the big picture. This tactic is one of the hallmarks of the pro-gun bloggers. Most of their blogs are circle-jerks of like-minded people blowing smoke up each other's asses. So, it's not personal against Bob S., it's directed at all of them, and they know who they are. If the shoe fits wear it, fellas.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Live Ammunition

From the same story that follows about the U.K. cop. "Live ammunition: Bullets found at Razaq's home after a raid by police."

Don't you hate it when the liberal gun-hating press says stuff like "live" ammo. This is blatant bias designed to subtly frighten people. It is absolutely despicable to twist and manipulate like that with words in order to brainwash gullible people with their fear-driven, anti-freedom, sheepish message. There outta be a law.

Crooked Cops - U.K. Style

It's not only the prospect of another Cumbria incident, as Jadegold linked to yesterday, that has the U.K. lawmakers considering stricter regulations, it's the crooked cops.

Of course it's hard to picture a guy who looks like this getting away with anything in the U.S.  Our racial profiling policy sees to that.  The one on the left was the cop turned gangster, the one on the right was the gangster turned convict.

Salim 'Sal' Razaq, 31, became a 'mob boss in police uniform' after assuming control of a drug and dirty money racket when his brother [Hafiz] went to jail over a vicious turf war.

Officers found two Uzi sub-machine guns and a 9mm Sten sub-machine gun hidden in a suitcase under the stairs, when they raided his suburban home.

They also recovered 224 live rounds of ammunition from a shed, £72,000 in cash plus a knuckle-duster, balaclava and bullet-proof jacket.

Inside the house was a 'tick list' of names and amounts of money which police believe refered to drug contacts.

It is suspected he had also been using the police national computer to check on the movements of rival mobsters.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Miami Man Disrespected - Again

28 years is a bit heavy for manslaughter. What would he have gotten if the 2nd-degree-murder charge had stuck? But the best thing about this story is how it closely parallels what many consider a legitimate DGU. Take away the drug-deal part and definitely remove that "disrespected" part, lawful gun owners don't deal in that, and what you've got is the classic DGU.

Prosecutors say McReynolds shot Troy Absher in October 2008 when Absher tried to use the front yard of McReynolds' Valrico home for a drug deal.

McReynolds claimed he was acting in self-defense after Absher and his drug dealer blocked his van with their cars.

Prosecutors say Absher was unarmed and that McReynolds was upset because the other men had disrespected him.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Mudrake on the Election

Our friend Mudrake wrote a wonderful essay about the election.

Rancor, division, obstructionism often work better than flying planes into tall buildings.  The anger foments and spreads like a cancer across the land.  We witnessed that anger in $3 billion of negative TV commercials, 24/7 for the past month.  That constant,  negative energy emanating from our TV sets is absorbed into our psyche and festers. 

What do you think? Is that an accurate picture of what's gone on lately?  Is the description of the President's reaction correct? And John Boehner, what do you think of him?

Please leave a comment.

The NRA Hunter Safety Course

Obviously an Instructor:

A bow hunter is shot by another hunter who mistook him for a squirrel, according to deputies.
...
During the investigation, deputies smelled an odor of alcohol on Fawcett and tested his blood alcohol concentration.

Authorities said the test revealed a .12 BAC level, which is over the legal limit to operate a motor vehicle.

Recommendation to Tighten Gun Laws in UK

Apparently, the UK never got the NRA memo that they have no guns. 'Cause they're looking at tightening up gun laws over there:

Whiting called for formal links to be set up between doctors, the mental health service and police to allow medical experts to alert officers if they have concerns about those with gun licences. He also said police should make a formal approach to an applicant's family when licences were granted or renewed and bring in a single licence for firearms and shotguns. His review found that 10 percent of all gun holders had a criminal conviction and he said parliament should consider a change in the law so that those who are given a suspended prison sentence are banned from owning a gun.

I am the NRA

Oh yeah:

It also appears that Patock, who told police he was fresh off a visit to the NRA, has a long-standing grudge against a politician (surprise!) -- specifically, former President George W. Bush.

[Patock's former neighbor, Jim] McFarland said Patock owned several guns and displayed aggressive behavior. When asked to describe Patock's character, McFarland responded, "Weird. He hated the president (George W Bush). He hated everything. He said if he got a chance he would shoot the president."
McFarland said he wasn't surprised that Patock turned up in Washington.

The Navy Seal Loophole

Analyzing the Fimian Defeat

We talked about this character before the elections, now in retrospect CSGV is coming out with an analysis of his defeat.

While Fimian had carried considerable momentum and showed gains in the polls in recent weeks, his position on guns and irresponsible comments stopped him in his tracks. When pressed by reporters in late October about his views on guns in schools, Fimian said that the Virginia Tech shooting would have been averted if the victims had been “packing heat.” Fimian and his campaign later backtracked, saying it was an "offhand comment" and that "his words were very poorly chosen," but when reporters asked Fimian if he supports closing the Gun Show Loophole, he refused to answer (See WUSA9 story at http://www.wusa9.com/rss/local_article.aspx?storyid=117759).

What's your opinion? Do you think the gloating and revelling on the part of the pro-gun crowd is failing to take into account some of these very significant defeats?Do you think the reasons for his defeat are well described by the CSGV folks?



Do you think if he'd been a little more decisive in his responses it would have made a difference? Maybe the reason he lost is not that he's a gun-rights supporter but that he wasn't able to say so clearly enough. What do you think?

Please leave a comment.

I Say Indict the Bums

Mike Licht has a post up about George W. Bush's book which is coming out in which he admits to authorizing torture.

Mike's conclusion:

 Waterboarding is not just criminal, cruel, and inhumane.  It is also useless and unproductive.

What's your opinion? Do you find it admirable that the former president is admitting this? Or does such an admission further damage the already poor reputation of the United States.

Please leave a comment.

It's All About Me

With all our gunloon buddies gleefully chortling that the Kenyan Muslim Marxist Black dude in the White House will soon have to pack his things and depart to the home of William Ayres, I thought it a public service to remind them--once more--of their hero, George W. Bush. Who is White.

Seems George W. is out hawking a book that his daddy had ghostwritten he's written. In an interview with Matt Lauer of NBC, Shrubby responded to the question of his worst moment in his pred..Prensnit..preditnic... tenure as the Decider:

Yes, I do. He called me a racist

Junior is actually saying that when Kanye West said, "George Bush doesn't care about black people" in the aftermath of Katrina--this was his worst moment in the White House.

Ahem.

Cenk on the Election Results

Sleepwalking Shooter

Ohh Shoot has the story. I'll bet this is something that goes unreported if no one gets shot, not unlike any other unintentional discharge.  That would make it hard to know how often it happens.

The Sacred Bill of Rights

Maleanie Hain Back in the News

As embarrassing as it is, the Meleanie Hain story is back in the news.

Meleanie Hain's license to carry a weapon was revoked in 2008 after parents complained she endangered the community by openly carrying a gun to her 5-year-old daughter's soccer games. 

A judge later reinstated the permit. But Hain and her husband sued Lebanon County Sheriff Michael DeLeo, claiming they suffered emotional distress and lost customers for her home baby-sitting service. 

U.S. Middle District Judge Yvette Kane tossed the lawsuit Tuesday. It had been continued by Hain's estate.

Hain's husband, Scott, fatally shot her in October 2009 at their home before killing himself.

What's your opinion? Are you unclear on what I mean by "embarrassing?"  Well, here it is.

1. Filing a frivolous lawsuit claiming emotional distress.
2. Filing a frivolous lawsuit for having lost customers for your home baby-sitting service when it turned out to be a violent and dangerous home.
3. Having been raised to the level of role-model for gun owners in general and women in particular only to end up murdered with a gun by your husband.

These are embarrassing facts, which I suppose the pro-gun crowd was well aware of when they reacted with such ferocity to any negative comments or observations at the time of the murder-suicide. I wonder if things are any different now.

The fact is, poor Meleanie is a perfect illustration of what's wrong with guns. An armed woman are no match for a murderous, suicidal husband. What helps in that type of abusive relationship is to leave him, and if that's not possible or until it is possible, to get the guns out of the house. Becoming the armed soccer-mom poster child was the exact wrong thing for her to do.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

13-year-old Chicago Boy Dead

The inexorable flow of guns from the manufacturer through the FFL system to the lawful individual owners, with its inadequate controls, results in this.

Thirteen-year-old Isaiah Mendez was hanging out with two other teens on a back porch of a two-story home in the Humboldt Park neighborhood Tuesday afternoon when one of the boys started playing with a handgun.

The boy chambered a bullet in the gun and it went off, fatally striking Isaiah in the head about 3:25 p.m.

Some pro-gun folks pretend to not understand what I mean when I say I blame them. Allow me to clarify.  With proper controls, this kind of incident could be extremely rare.  The reason we don't have proper controls is because the gun lobby supported by individual pro-gun folks does everything in its power to block them.

I'm referring to background checks on every transfer, licensing of all gun owners and registration of every gun.  This would need to be followed up properly as I've described here. To thwart gun theft, we need proper storage laws.

Those who oppose these common-sense initiatives are to blame, plain and simple. Because of you, we have this to be proud of:

Guns are a constant problem for teens in the neighborhood, said Manuel Rodriguez, who described himself as a street-outreach minister.

"They have easy access to guns and nothing to do. The streets are their playground," Rodriguez said.

Three young men who were standing with Rodriguez outside the home where Isaiah was killed said they also have been shot.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

It's an Epidemic

In Pittsburg, New Hampshire - 1 dead, 1 wounded.

In Racine, Illinois - 1 dead, 1 seriously wounded.

In Russell Springs, Kentucky - 1 dead.

Fortunately we won't have to tighten up on the gun availability because there is a working solution.

In Miami, Florida - 2 men get life sentences.

In Largo, Florida - 40 year sentence.

I realize these are just a few stories plucked out of today's headlines, but it is interesting that Florida, one of the most violent and gun-friendliest states is one of the places where they tend to hand out heavy sentences. These were both killings so I'm not saying the sentences were too heavy, I'm just saying that perhaps Florida is representative of the whole country in perpetuating this vicious cycle of easier and easier access to guns followed by more and more gun violence followed by heavier and heavier punishment.

Is that the best we can do?  I don't think so.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

TTAG Employs the SGT Schultz Defense

Fresh from a self-proclaimed thrashing of a high school student, the intrepid authors of The Truth About Guns took time from high-fiving, fist pounding, and chest bumping each other to take umbrage at a comment I made on their blog.

TTAG Contributer Wm. C. Montgomery elected to carry his blog's standard into battle.

Needless to say his response was...underwhelming. Basically, his thesis is that he's never seen any of the behavior described. Well, here's my response (X-posted at TTAG):

I see Mr. M has employed the Captain Renault gambit. " I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here! "

He claims not to know of "anyone that believes that gun control leads to totalitarianism any more than gun control leads to crime. It is correct, however, to point out that gun control leaves nations and individuals vulnerable to exploitation by tyrants and criminals."

Hmmm. Sounds like a non-denial denial to my ears. But I'm sure Mr. M has possibly heard of gunloon groups such as JFPO whose major theme is gun control leads to genocide. I'm equally certain Mr. M. has heard rumor of Don Kates who, until being shamed by the Anti-Defamation League, used to claim the Holocaust was due to gun control. It's really not difficult to find gunloon agitprop equating gun control to the Holocaust, Armenian genocide, or the killing fields of Cambodia.

Mr. M has never heard of guns being a "God-given right?" Gosh, sounds like he doesn't get around much. There's this thing called "google," a truly wonderous contraption; when we plug in "guns god given right," we discover instances of folks like Chris Cox asserting same. Why, during the confirmation hearings of Elena Kagan, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Corn Subsidies) wanted to know if she, too, believed God gave us the right to bear arms.

Re international comparisons, gunloons are always quick to point at Switzerland and Israel. But they always seem to neglect certain, well, inconvenient truths. Such as the fact both countries have gun control features such as registration and test requirements and limits on gun ownership that US gunloons would find abhorrent.

Despite this, Switzerland still has significantly higher gun homicide rates compared to its European neighbors.

I see Mr. M. has borrowed heavily from Halbrook's laughable treatise on Nazi Germany and gun control.

Funnier still, is Mr.M's assertion that gunloons "embrace" statistics--especially from John Lott. This akin to saying one loves gourmet fare--especially from the dollar menu at McDonalds. Lott's problems and frauds are well-documented and his career deathspiral has taken him from an endowed chair at the University of Chicago to relying on the kindness of a friend to get get him an associate professorship in the nether regions of the University of Maryland.

No, Mr. M., this isn't a gunfight. But you've not refuted my argument so much as claim that you see nothing. Perhaps comparing you to the wily Captain Renault of Casablanca was an overstatement on my part. You're much closer to SGT Schultz of Stalag 13.

Updated to add linky.

Robert Farago on Adomas Grigonis

The Truth About Guns highlighted the essay of a Massachusetts high school student entitled Problem with the 2nd Amendment. Robert said he wouldn't tear the kid apart, which he kindly refrained from doing, but it got me to thinking.  What would he have taken issue with had he decided to critique the young man's writing instead of use it as a call to arms, if you will, for the gun community to win over misled and confused anti-gun folks?

For one thing, the young gun control aspirant, Adomas Grigonis, said, "all of the guns used in the Virginia Tech massacre were purchased legally."  There's nothing wrong with that, surely.  In fact he should get some points for not saying or implying that the gun show loophole allowed Cho to arm up.

He said, "According to firearms regulation in Canada the gun death rate per 100,000 people in America (13.47), is much higher than England (0.4) and hundreds of times higher than that of Japan (0.07)."  Now, I'm sure no one would bother to challenge him on "According to firearms regulation in Canada." That ambiguous phrase introduces a few stats which, even taken with a grain of salt, are quite devastating. Does anyone really think the stabbings in Great Britain make up for that disparity?

Of course, even Robert couldn't resist throwing a little Heller/McDonald mojo at the boy. "[his position] completely ignores the Supreme Court’s recent ruling affirming Americans’ constitutional right to armed self-defense."  That made me wonder what would have been said two years ago, or less.  Is the idea that before the landmark Supreme Court rulings, gun control folks had a point about the 2nd amendment and now they don't?


There's more, but I have to say the parts Mr. Grigonis gets wrong are not that important.  The part he gets right is.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

Straw Purchases or Theft

Which means supplies more guns to the criminal world?  This story supports the "theft theory."

Numerous guns were stolen Friday from a residence near Mondovi, Wis., including a fully-automatic machine gun, according to the Buffalo County Sheriff's Office.

Chief Deputy Colin Severson declined to say what type of guns or how many were stolen from the residence on County Road H in the town of Naples, other than that "numerous" long guns and handguns were taken. The guns were not antiques.

He said the machine gun was legally owned and that the residence is not a police officer's home, but declined to be more specific. It is illegal for most people to possess a machine gun in Wisconsin.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Burglar Kills Man with his Own Gun

Tulsa, Oklahoma was the scene of the tragedy. Mark Miller died trying to intervene in a neighbor's burglary.

Miller encountered a man who apparently had broken into the town house, later identified as Nevels, and the two men fought in a parking lot behind the residence. The burglar apparently got the gun away from Miller and shot him with it

If you own a gun and you're not willing to practice with it, you might as well not have it in the first place. I don't think this kind of thing could happen to some of our commenters who are always talking about training with their weapons. I know I often accuse them of being paranoid, but worse yet is the unprepared gun owner who allows a criminal to take the gun away.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

Small Town Alaska

This terrible shooting between two friends leaves one dead and the other in jail.  No one can understand it. They're all so shocked. Nothing like this has ever happened in their peaceful town and especially in the "family-friendly" lounge in which the shooting took place.

I wondered if the only difference between this town and Baltimore, let's say, is the number of inhabitants.  Now that Talkeetna has an incident to work with, it should be a simple matter of dividing their population into that of Baltimore's in order to get the factor.  Then, you'll need to add some economic and social problems like they have in the lower 48, and it'll all make sense.

Guns are bad news in bars and everywhere else for that matter.  If this small town was so peaceful, what need was there for carrying a handgun anyway? If Dirk Fast had received an uncalled-for and surprising punch on the nose, the Latitude 62 would still be known as a family-friendly place. But those days are over.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

The Purpose of the e-Trace System

The pro-gun crowd is always complaining that our laws are ineffective because criminals will not obey them. I guess this is the answer.

The goal is to identify the “first purchaser” of the weapons and hold them accountable. If the e-Trace system identifies a lot of guns coming from one U.S. source the Justice Department can open up an investigation.

There, now that wasn't so difficult, was it?

Please leave a comment.

Gun Owner Paranoia Reaching New Heights

The NYT on the Washington Post Piece

A great op-ed.

As a new Congress looms, we suggest lawmakers travel to Washington by way of West Virginia and an obscure federal building called the National Tracing Center. There they can see workers laboring through unmanageably high backlogs of handwritten paper records submitted by the nation’s gun dealers. This is Congress’s handiwork — at the behest of the gun lobby and to the detriment of public safety. 

Each year the center receives 300,000 inquiries from police officers trying to track weapons from tens of thousands of gun deaths. But it is prohibited, by law, from collecting gun ownership records through a modern computerized database. Instead, paper prevails in assorted scraps. Workers huddle over desks with tape and magnifying glass, while crime marches on. 

The center’s plight was described in a Washington Post report detailing the insidious roadblocks and lethal damage wrought by bipartisan pandering to the gun lobby. Congress’s failure is also clear in the underfinancing and short staffing at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Beleaguered enforcement agents must monitor 115,000 firearms dealers with 600 agents — the same number as three decades ago.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

A Trigger-happy Cop in Dallas

I'm afraid this cop's got to go. What do you think?

Guns in Bars - Long Island Style

One dead, one wounded, that's the toll.  If it's bad for criminals to have guns in bars, why would anyone think it's a good idea for the law-abiding?  Isn't the problem mixing guns with alcohol?

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

Guns in Bars - Chicago Style

One dead, six wounded, that was the toll. What I'm wondering is, if it's bad for criminals to have guns in bars, how could it be good for the law abiding? Isn't the problem mixing alcohol with gun availability?

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

Halloween in Gun-Friendly Atlanta

Trick or Blam,Blam,Blam.

Police around metro Atlanta Monday were tallying the toll of dead and injured following a Halloween weekend marred by several shootings and other violent incidents.

The latest shooting happened around 8 p.m. Sunday when a motorist whose car had just been egged opened fire on a teenager in northwest Atlanta, police said

The Rally to Restore Sanity

via Urantian Sojourn along with a wonderful description of the rally.

She Shot Me, She Shot Me

via Robert Farago, who rather than taking a minute to enjoy the incredible lyrics and high energy of the song, immediately turned it into a lesson of home defense. Now that's what I call obsession.

Gun Fired Outside Bar

The action took place in Great Falls, Montana. A 20-year-old was arrested, but since he's got a clean record and comes from a good family, the "assault with a weapon and criminal endangerment" charges will surely be plea-bargained down to misdemeanors. Perhaps in Montana those charges already are misdemeanors. The important thing is that this young man doesn't have to forfeit his gun rights. He's young and will have lots of reasons to own guns throughout his long life.

Yes I made up that part about the clean record and good family, and the rest was pure sarcasm.

What's your opinion? Isn't it true this is what often happens with misuse of guns as well as accidents? Hasn't it been proven that people who do this kind of stuff tend to do it again? Oh, sorry, I just made that up too. But don't you think it's true?

Please leave a comment.

Benjamin Linus

After watching the 4th season of Lost, I think Benjamin Linus has surpassed Jack Bauer as my favorite character.

4-year-old Shoots Mom

Of course no charges have been filed.  They're considering a slap on the wrist for the dad who gave the kid a shotgun shell to play with but no one would dare suggest anything more severe.  It was only an accident, after all.

The bolt was pulled back and locked open, [Kitsap County Sheriff's Office spokesman Scott] Wilson said. "All the kid did was drop the shell in the chamber, touch the bolt release and pull the trigger," Wilson said. "He had probably seen his dad do it a hundred times."

How many times do you think this responsible gun owner gave his son the Eddie Eagle lesson of never touching a gun? I'll bet he did it plenty, which makes him doubly stupid, once for giving a kid a live round and twice for thinking a kid's curiosity and longing to imitate dad could be overcome with some silly NRA instructions.

I know I'm reading a lot into the story. But, if he never attempted to teach the kid the Eddie Eagle lesson and gave him a shell and left the shotgun within reach, he'd be even worse.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Assisted Suicide By the Tacoma Police

The poor guy didn't even fire the gun.

What's your opinion? Does the sanctity of life end at birth, like old George says?

Please leave a comment.

Keith Fimian Spouting the Rhetoric

Talk about jumping to wild conclusions, Mr. Fimian says the massacre at VA Tech would not have happened at all if Cho had thought someone might have had a gun there.



What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Michael Bloomberg - Gun Control Hero

Smoking is Hazardous to Your Health

In Battle Creek Michigan an incredible fiasco took place. There was a shooting inside a club. A cop driving nearby the club radioed to an emergency dispatcher that he heard shots. He was injured when his car was struck by another vehicle as patrons of the club fled the area. Later the brother of one of the victims was arrested at the hospital for being disorderly. And here's the best part.

... but no one has been arrested for the shooting.

What do you think? Is that a fiasco or more like a fubar.

Oklahoma Murder Suicide

This time it was the mom.  The story is a heartbreaker about the older boy coming home to find the door locked and his mother and baby brother inside, dead.

One thing they have plenty of is guns in your typical Oklahoma household.  And guns and depression definitely do not go well together. But would anyone think of removing the guns when someone is acting funny.  No, of course not. That would be a violation of rights and it might lead to total gun confiscation throughout the land.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

Gunloonery As Religion

"You would get a far better understanding if you approached us as if you were approaching one of the great religions of the world."--Warren Cassidy, NRA Executive VP.

When one comes to the gun debate, the great lesson that is quickly learned is that gunloonery is a religion or a faith. Its adherents are rapidly exposed as unable to argue or debate based on facts or science. In fact, if you do refer to facts or scientific studies, you are told all universities, all research facilities, all scientific bodies are biased and wrong. You will be told statistics are "hogwash" and statistical inference is slightly less reputable than alchemy.