April 2013 – Page 12 – Shall Not Be Questioned

But I Thought Law Enforcement Supported Gun Control!

The survey, which was conducted in early March 2013, received 15,000 responses from law enforcement professionals. It found that the overall attitude of law enforcement is strongly anti-gun legislation and pro-gun rights, with the belief that an armed citizenry is effective in stopping crime. Response percentages varied only slightly when analyzed by rank and department size. Among the results:

Here’s the detailed results. This is quite good because 15,000 police officers is a very sizable survey, and represents a good chunk of law enforcement officers. A lot of the survey data on law enforcement attitudes toward gun control were getting stale, so I welcome this. This goes to show that when the gun control movement claims law enforcement is on their side, they are full of it.

UPDATE: On further investigation, the methodology leaves a bit to be desired. But then again, so do Bloomberg’s surveys, so I don’t see any reason not to use it.

A Common Phrase in the Media

Say Uncle takes a look at the media treatment of negligent discharge cases. I see this one often: “Investigators said the gun owner wonâ€™t face charges because he has a carry permit.” I’ve always kind of been baffled by that one too.

Why Transfers?

Publicola notes:

That is why laws prohibitingÂ transfersÂ are a staple of most of the gun owner control packages we’ve seen this year; they want us to stop spreading our values and way of life. A culture is much harder to eradicate if it’s continually growing ya know.

I think this is absolutely right. There are ways to write a background check expansion that would be difficult to argue against, but that’s not what we’ve been seeing. We’ve been seeing sweeping prohibitions on even temporary and supervised transfers, where just handing a gun to someone else in the wrong circumstances would be prohibited. This reminds me of when they were targeting the “gun show loophole,” which you haven’t heard as much now because they decided “universal background checks,” was better rhetoric. Back then their bills allegedly were just meant to require background checks at gun shows, but contained onerous nonsense like requiring promoters (who just sell tables, not guns) to be licensed, for people entering gun shows be logged and reported, or other such nonsense which had nothing to do with background checks.

“Kill the Gun Culture” is an old game, and also, I think, one increasingly played by mostly old people. The real fear is if we free New York, Chicago, California and New Jersey, it’ll all be over for them. Heller and McDonald were just the beginning, and though we may not know where this road ultimately leads, the possibilities scare the snot out of people like Bloomberg.

Whacko Birds At it Again

Twelve GOP Senators are joining the threat to filibuster any motion to proceed on gun control legislation. Meanwhile, it would seem John McCain doesn’t understand why they would do such a thing. Where McCain will ultimately stand on any legislation is up in the air, but previously he’s supported bills that would impose onerous regulations on gun shows. If you live in Arizona, be sure to call McCain’s office.

Burnt Out

This weekend I was looking forward to putting the finishing touches on my office, and getting it ready for the final step of new carpeting. The last part was to be putting up new baseboard covers. Got the first screw secured in the stud, no problem. The second one went in no problem too, except when I stopped the drill I heard the sound of hissing water. That was no stud. Shutoff didn’t stop it. Uh oh. Turns out my water main for the house comes in about 8 feet from where the main shutoff is and runs behind that wall, and right behind the drywall, with little room to spare.

The water company was out quickly, to shut the water off from the street, but no shutoff was to be found. Turns out it had been buried under the driveway, which I just had resurfaced (it was a previous resurfacing that had buried, and apparently bent the shutoff). They had to hack through my driveway to get to the shutoff, which fortunately had not been so bent by a previous resurfacing that it wouldn’t turn. It turned. This morning I ran to the Home Despot as soon as it opened at 6AM. The water company guy gave me a nice shutoff valve to put right where it comes into the house. I’ll have to make a little access door when I replace all the freshly painted drywall I had to pull out to get to the pipes behind. So now I’m not really all that close to being done, since I have to redo a good part of what was already done.

Compensating for Something

Joe Huffman has a regular Monday feature where he links to stories or quotes where gun control advocates make comments about gun owners having something to compensate for in the manhood department. I thought today’s was a real doozy if you click through.

Blogging Delays

Sorry for the lack of weekend posts and for the lack of posts scheduled for tomorrow. You know those home improvement projects that just manage to need one more thing? Then, when you get that thing, something isn’t quite right, but you don’t notice something was missing from the package until you get home after the store has closed? Yeah, it’s been one of those weekends. We’ve got more time sensitive work to do today, so don’t expect much, if anything, on the blog.

On the positive side, Sebastian & I had been going back & forth over whether a decor idea I picked up from Pinterest was at all possible. I insisted it was, but he said no. Weeks of back and forth over this. He finally let me try it this weekend. Let me just say that it looks beautiful. :)

UPDATE (from Sebastian): The good news is that I now know where the water comes into the house behind the walls of my finished basement. This is the only good news.

Philadelphia Crapping on Preemption Yet Again

They are banning guns in parks and city owned public property. Obviously, this is illegal under Pennsylvania’s preemption law, but since there’s no cost to violating preemption, they routinely do it. Unfortunately, this also shows how little regard Philadelphia has for its police officers, who would be open to civil rights suits for enforcing this ordinance, given that preemption is well-established in the Courts. Any officer enforcing this law is open to being personally sued, and that suit can reach up the chain of command all the way to Nutter. Pennsylvania has a bill pending that would give teeth to the preemption statute, but so far it hasn’t moved.

So Many Lies…

The district he represents will never be competitive, but I would still like to think that the constituents of Rep. Chakah Fattah’s district deserve better than being lied to about what the laws are surrounding gun sales in Pennsylvania.

It’s just such flagrant disrespect, especially to a crowd of seemingly older folks who he probably views as too passive to actually challenge his fact-challenged anti-gun rant.

Why Shouldn’t Columnists Be Required to Carry Insurance?

David Frum, the media’s token conservative who’s not really a conservative, thinks that it’s just fine to require gun owners be insured. As someone in the media, I’m sure Frum is aware that there’s a possibility that columnists could be sued for libel or slander. Why not require that columnists carry insurance policies? After all, if someone wins a successful suit, it would be a shame for that person to not be able to recover the money because the columnists is uninsured. I support the First Amendment, but there are reasonable, common sense measures we can take to ensure that it is not abuse, and those engaging in speech are responsible.