Sebastian – Page 546 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Myth of Organized Gun Trafficking

Criminologist Gary Kleck has an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal:

High-volume trafficking, with or without the involvement of corrupt or negligent dealers, probably supplies less than 1% of the guns in criminal hands. Illicit gun sellers are instead more likely to be burglars who sell a few guns (typically fewer than a half dozen a year) along with all the other saleable property that they steal.

The view that extensive, organized trafficking is important in arming American criminals is based on isolated anecdotes about the occasional large-scale trafficking effort uncovered by law enforcement authorities and on interpretations of highly ambiguous ATF gun “trace” data.

Read the whole thing.

Friday Time Waster

Someone took an hour and thirty minutes of heavy traffic at Boston Logan International Airport, and compressed it down to two and a half minutes:

I was aware of the predictions of a fringe religious group claiming that the world will end tomorrow. I was not aware they had it down to an exact time. Who knew the four horsemen were so punctual. Apparently time zone is not an issue, since it will be sweeping rapture. Those must be some fast horses.

Believers still have until 6:00 tomorrow to demonstrate the solidity of their faith by signing all their worldly possessions over to me. I am also available, for a price, to take care of pets after the rapture, though, I will need to be paid up front for the service.

UPDATE: SayUncle has similar thoughts.

Big question: what drink for ringing in the apocalypse? Something I can make with cheap booze, because I’m through buying the good shit until the job situation is improved.

Colin’s Dad Hates “Modern Sporting Rifles”

I was amused to see Andrew Goddard, who’s father of Colin, the Brady Campaign’s newest rising star, post this over on a public forum in Facebook:

Andrew Goddard on the Modern Sporting Rifle

For the record, I don’t really like MSR either. When I go to practice, or more rarely these days with my schedule, to shoot a competition, I take my rifle. I don’t feel the need to call it more than that, or to justify my use for it.

Mr. Goddard’s problem is that “military assault weapon” is just as much of a finessed public relations term as “modern sporting rifle.” Sure, there are military assault rifles, but I don’t own one of those because my rifle does not fire like a machine gun, and neither does anyone else’s who hasn’t shelled out five figures and $200 for their federal stamp of approval. Both terms are inventions of PR flacks and marketing types looking to manipulate public opinion in their favor.

But before I agree with Andrew Goddard a bit too much, I will note that the National Shooting Sports Foundation’s latest data shows that 51% of “MSR”owners hold a membership at a shooting club, and 89% consider target shooting to be their primary reason for owning one. So I’m not sure, even if it’s a finessed PR and marketing term, why it is inherently inaccurate. Andrew Goddard clearly has some things to learn about what types if firearms are most prominent in modern target shooting sports.

This sort of destroys our opponents’ mental images of AR-15 owners hunkered down in bunkers waiting for the blue helmeted UN stormtroopers to follow the directions written on the back of all the road signs straight into their hideout. I really do believe that’s what they think people own an AR-15 for. They don’t think this. Or this. Definitely not this. (h/t to Robert for the pics.) They let their fear and ignorance get in the way of sound judgement on the matter.

Good to See the GOP Has Their Priorities Straight

While New York State is busy hemorrhaging money due to serious budget shortfalls, some in the NY GOP have decided to flog the gay marriage deceased equine a few more times. This is what the GOP does best when they can’t balance budgets. Unfortunately for them, this issue increasingly rings hollow with younger generations, and is probably doing more to alienate younger voters than any of their other failings.Â I predict this will be a winning issue for Democrats, especially downstate, if the GOP chooses to press it.

In other news, it would seem the term being used now is “marriage equality” rather than “gay marriage,” or “same-sex marriage.” This makes sense from a PR perspective. Kind of like how we framed the term “modern sporting rifle” when our opponents started using the word “assault weapon” to describe anything under the sun that hurled a projectile out of a long barrel that had a few ugly accessories attached to it. After all, who can be against equality? And who doesn’t like modernity, and sportsmanship? I mean other than Andrew Goddard.

Let us hope that the GOP does not borrow an idea from our opponents and adopt “assault marriage,” to describe same-sex marriage. Some of them are getting close.

Finally, Color E-Paper

Sony has unveiled color e-paper. One thing I had hoped with the iPad was that the screen would be some kind of new, advanced color e-paper, since rumors were they were going to market it as a reader.

If this works well enough, I’m pondering whether or not it’ll work well enough for digital picture frames. Judging from the display appearing in the article, it would be. I like digital picture frames, but I hate the backlighting. This makes them difficult in a bedroom, living room, or any place where you might be distracted by the soft glow of fluorescent backlighting.

At the least color e-paper will mean readers like the Kindle can host color content, for things such as magazines. I doubt Apple would want to go that route with the iPad, now that it’s out, and it’s pretty clearly a more general purpose tablet computing device. This should keep the Kindle and Nook competitive with content, like magazines, that demand color.

WordPress Upgrade

The brief outage was me upgrading to the latest version of WordPress. Feel free to unfasten your seat belts, and move about the cabin.

Campus Carry in TX

Word is that the Texas Hosue declares the campus carry amendment to the educational funding bill to be non-germane, and returned the bill to the Senate to have it removed. Campus carry probably does not happen this year, but we’ll get it eventually.

Under the Radar

Apparently Obama is working on gun control, according to one gun control advocate. But it’s under the radar. So far under the radar we don’t know what’s happening apparently. Maybe we won’t even know when it’s done.

It would be pretty amusing if the Administration is just stringing them along until the 2012 elections.

Constitutional Rights in the War on Terrorism

Good to see that some on the Islamaphobic right is willing to throw the Second Amendment under the bus for the sake of the war on terrorism. To be fair, I’m not sure the Second is the only right they are willing to throw under the bus. I’ve been pleased with how pro-Second Amendment National Review has become, but occasionally they harken back to the old days. This is one of those times.

Repeat after me, conservatives: we do not remove fundamental constitutional rights in this country without due process. The Second Amendment is now among those rights. The government can no more arbitrarily deny an otherwise eligible citizen or lawful resident the right to purchase a firearm than it can arbitrarily throw them in a brig without a trial.

Author: Sebastian