Batman--Seduction of the Gun

The power of Art:

The DC Graphic Novel Batman: Seduction of the Gun, by John Ostrander and Vice Giarrano is said to be the impetus for Virginia passing its one gun amonth bill in the 1990s. The novel was written after an adult son of one of the Warner Brothers executives who worked with DC Comics was senselessly murdered in 1990.

The comic talks about a gun runner who goes to Virginia to bring guns back to Gotham City. Batman masquerades as a gun dealer while Robin enrolls in an inner-city high to protect the dealer’s daughter from gang reprisal. This picture is where Robin is talking to the other non-gang affiliated kids at the School.

I have to admit I wonder if this is where Fat White Man got his nom de plume as a dig at the sentiment expressed in the comic.

See also:

• Batman takes on the Virginia gun lobby: David Usborne visits the state which is the main source of guns used in crime in eastern America
• Monday PSA: Batman — Seduction of the Gun
• Batman: Seduction of the Gun

What's the cure for gun deaths?

This editorial from the Charleston (WV) Gazette caught my eye.

First off, it's from West Virginia--a state I would have assumed to be pretty strongly "RKBA".

Secondly, they say what needs to be said:

Nearly all politicians fear the powerful right-to-bear-arms lobby, so they pretend not to notice that America leads the world in gun killings. U.S. gun murders at home are worse than all of America's casualty tolls in wars.

In January's issue of the Journal of Trauma, researchers compared gun death rates in 23 advanced nations. They found that America's toll was astoundingly worse than the rest of the world's. The report concluded:

"Among these 23 countries, 80 percent of all firearm deaths occurred in the United States, 86 percent of women killed by firearms were U.S. women, and 87 percent of children aged zero to 14 killed by firearms were U.S. children."

Anyway, While trying to find the Journal of Trauma article mentioned in the editorial, I found that Harvard's Injury Control Research Center has an interesting collection of studies about Guns and Death. They find that broad array of evidence indicates that gun availability is a risk factor for homicide, both in the United States and across high-income countries.

Tammerlin Drummond on Gun Availability

After writing a very fair article in the aftermath of yet another justified Oakland police killing, pointing out how some of these incidents are indeed justified, Ms. Drummond makes the following observations.

There are countless young men in this city with guns who appear intent on annihilating one another -- and anyone else who gets in their way.

Why is it so easy for them to get access to guns?

Who is bringing them into the city?

What can we do to get this frightening arsenal off the streets?

That's the root issue that we need to be focused on.

What's your opinion? Is gun availability part of the problem?

Please leave a comment.

Antique Guns Stolen from Armory

The Free Press has the story.

A collection of antique guns, which survived for decades in a Mapleton man’s home and many more years in the Blue Earth County Library, has been stolen from a Mankato armory.

A full-time guardsman called police Thursday morning after he reported to work at the National Guard Armory in Mankato and found a broken window. Dozens of antique firearms that were on display in the lobby of the building were missing.

Roughly two dozen rifles and about 70 handguns are missing, said Maj. Darrin Janisch, who works at the armory. Some of the rifles were left behind by the burglar or burglars. Most of the handguns were gone.

I would imagine the black market for these guns is not the usual one. To off this merchandise we'd have to seek out those folks among the legitimate gun owners that I call "the hidden criminals." This are the bad-laws-be-damned crowd.

What's your opinion? Don't you think many a lawful gun owner would enjoy owning some of this stuff.

“There was everything there from cap and ball single-shot handguns to modern guns up into the 1940s and 50s.

One of the weapons was a Japanese machine gun.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Henderson Texas - The Usual

In gun-friendly Texas, a man shot two women, who both survived, then when the police were closing in, killed himself.

I know the pro-gun answer is to arm the women too, but can't we come up with something better than that?

What do you think?

2 Dead in Florida - Longtime Friends

The police aren't releasing enough details yet, but some think it was a murder suicide.

Lt. Tod Goodyear of the sheriff’s office said his department was piecing together the information in the case.
“One of them was renting a place from the other, that is my understanding. There was some bad blood between the two,” he said.

Bad blood, or whatever, in Florida these things are straightened out with a gun.

What's your opinion?  Does Florida's being a gun friendly state have something to do with this?

Please leave a comment.