Sebastian – Page 668 – Shall Not Be Questioned

New Blog That Looks Interesting

The Power of Epsilon. If there’s one thing I think we need in the gun blogosphere, it’s more math geeks. No, I’m serious. This is why:

It’s hard to describe what it is about this comment that irritated me.Â Part of it is the statistician in me, annoyed at the misuse of statistics in an attempt to prove a claim that has been discredited over and over again.

When the other side argues statistics, it’s nice to have a statistician in your back pocket to call on. Of course, arguing with MikeB is about as productive as smashing bricks against your head repeatedly, but attacking MikeB is probably a reasonably smart way to start a blog out. Guaranteed to bring commenters, especially if he shows up.

He notes that he won’t strictly be a gun blog. That’s probably smart too. It’s getting tough to write about guns regularly. All this economic meltdown means people don’t pay as much attention to gun issues. That’s probably good for the movement, but not so much for people who talk about it.

Canadian Emergency Physicians Shilling for Registry

As experts on statistics and criminal investigation, naturally this is a fit:

Snider said most patients coming to hospital with gunshot wounds are accompanied by police, who use the registry regularly to determine whether the patient had a registered gun in the home.

I’m fairly certain that most people who show up, and the gun shot wound is from a gun in their home, it doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure out who done it. And maybe I’m nuts here, but I’m betting the percentage of rifle and shotgun wounds treated by emergency room physicians in Canada is vanity small compared to handguns, which are already registered and highly regulated in the land of snow and beavers. According to their own statistics, 76 percent of the 774 of the firearms deaths in Canada were suicides. And this helps your case how? Are the police in Canada really that dumb that they can’t figure out the gun laying next to the dead guy with an empty round in the chamber might likely be a suicide?

If you ask me, this please comes down to “Eeew… guns are icky,” rather than science or good medicine.

Semi-Auto Ban Ballot Measure Squashed in IL

NRA is reporting their challenge to the Cook County ballot measure has been successful. A semi-automatic firearms ban will not appear on the November ballot, the petitioners having not even come close to meeting the requirements. See what kind of grass roots support gun control has? Even Cook County’s numerous dead voters wouldn’t show up to sign on.

EPA Considering Banning Lead Ammunition

NSSF is springing into action, as the public comment period opens on EPA considering a regulation that will ban all traditional lead ammunition. This would basically end the shooting sports as we know it. Remember this is a no-win situation for us, because bullets made of materials other than lead are often considered armor piercing by law. Copper is your basic material, and copper is expensive, and has much poorer performance properties than lead.

As NSSF has pointed out, there’s no real scientific basis for restricting lead ammunition. Just about all shooting ranges at this point are recycling their lead (it’s too valuable to just leave in the ground). California’s ban has not been shown to reduce lead levels in Condors, and has driven more people away from hunting. Additionally, it’s interfered with lawful self-protection in parts of California that are considered condor habitat.

Are the gloves coming off? The Obama Administration has, until now, been reluctant to antagonize gun owners. Perhaps now that his popularity is reaching new lows, he’s looking to appeal to an important part of his green base by beating up on gun owners and shooters. Having utterly failed to eliminate the Second Amendment by hook, now it would seem he’s proceeding to do it by crook; by demonizing gun owners and the shooting sports as environmental devils. Let’s hope this is about as successful as the President’s other endeavors.

UPDATE: Black Bear Blog thinks this is beyond EPA’s mandate under the TSCA. His argument looks compelling.

How Not to Kill a Bat

A Minnesota man is in trouble after trying to use a .38 to kill a bat that got into his home. Apparently the bullets penetrated the walls of a nearby townhouse. If you insist on using a projectile weapon to kill a bat, I’d suggest an air gun. But really, bludgeons work fine on bats. When I had one in the house once, I just threw a trash can over it, scooped it up, and let it outside.

Guns in Church Case in Georgia

Looks like some folks in Georgia are suing over the state law that prohibits guns in churches. At the first stage, it would seem to have not managed to get a preliminary injunction against enforcement of the law. The lawsuit also makes a First Amendment claim. This is an interesting case, but not one I think is wise to make this early. We need the Courts to say there’s a right to carry outside the home first. Heller strongly implied that there was, but I’m not sure the case I’m comfortable doing that with is a fairly narrow ban of guns in churches. At some point we’re going to need to litigate on this issue, but I don’t think now is the time.

Good to See That Strict Gun Control Working Out

A spate of shootings in Sydney has authorities panicked:

His spokesman said Operation Kadar was formed earlier this month to deal with outlaw motorcycle gangs and Middle Eastern organised crime gangs believed to be behind gun crime emerging across Sydney.

The great problem with drug related crime, is that the profitability of the business creates a strong incentive to kill anyone who gets in the way, including residents who call the police on the dealers, and get a reputation for being snitches. You are never going to successfully disarm people who deal in illegal commodities. You will, however, succeeded in disarming, and rendering helpless, the residents who’s neighborhoods the dealers operate in. This doesn’t seem to be a recipe for less violence to me.

Who Would Oppose Such a Wonderful Idea?

Paul Helmke stands in disbelief how anyone could oppose the Brady agenda, and brings up the judiciary committee meeting hosted by John Conyers, a meeting where Conyers had one of those “Don’t you realize who I am?” moments with Todd Vandermyde, who apparently isn’t allowed to attend hearings as a concerned citizen. Personally,Â I don’t understand how the Bradys can associate with gangster rappesr whose rap lyrics promote gun violence, but that’s just me.

Getting Squared Away, Ready to Go

Bitter and I leave for Hawaii on Friday evening. Not wanting to neglect the blog the entire time, I’ve arranged to have some guest bloggers, and I will be posting from time to time as well. Got just about everything packed, getting the house clean, arranged to have my dad house sit while we’re gone (the advantage of having a retired dad). Now the crappy part is I’ve promised three big things at work before I go. Yesterday I delivered one of them. Today I hope to deliver the other. Friday it’s do or die for the third. Hopefully I’ll make it. Sometimes I think it creates more job stress to take a vacation than not to.

Pre-Litigation Demands on CA Lead Ammo Policy

NRA and CPRA seem to be preparing to run a lawsuit against California’s lead ammo ban, among other things. The argument would appear to not be that California can’t ban lead ammunition for the purposes of taking game, but that the regulations are overly broad and interfere with mere firearms possession which is unrelated to the taking of game. Actually, most of this seems to be that the California Fish and Game Commission lacks statutory authority to regulate firearms possession in the manner they have chosen to regulate it.