Sebastian – Page 818 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Sam Rohrer Gearing up for Guv Run

Just received this via e-mail:

I want to personally invite you to a special Townhall onÂ Tuesday, November 17 at theÂ Spring Township Fire Department, 2301 Monroe Avenue in West Lawn, PA.Â Iâ€™m organizing this forum to announce the decision on the race for governor, and begin a statewide conversation about the challenges and real opportunities facing Pennsylvania.

I’m going to guess that’s going to be an announcement that he’s running. I like Representative Rohrer, but as I’ve said, it’s without historical precedent for a state rep to make the leap to Governor. He’s a champion of limited government, and for that I admire him, but he’s going up against Attorney General Tom Corbett, who’s a proven winner in a statewide race, and Jim Gerlach, who is a U.S. Congressman, and has proven repeatedly he can win very tough elections in a swing district.

I’d much rather support Sam Rohrer for a higher office like State Senator, Auditor General, or some other state wide office. I suspect Rep. Rohrer is just trying to get his name out there, and get some of his ideas into the debate. That’s good. I will lend support to his candidacy. But it’s quite a long shot, and at the end of the day we can’t afford another 8 years of the same kind of things we’ve seen with Governor Ed.

Important Battles Proceeding in Seattle

Joe is covering what’s happening in Seattle right now. Much like us here in Pennsylvania, the Washingtonians have a preemption fight on their hands. The instigator got ousted in his primary, but his successor, just elected last Tuesday, is vowing to continue the fight. Washington’s preemption statute is even more unambiguous than Pennsylvania’s. From the Revised Code of Washington, 9.41.290:

The state of Washington hereby fully occupies and preempts the entire field of firearms regulation within the boundaries of the state, including the registration, licensing, possession, purchase, sale, acquisition, transfer, discharge, and transportation of firearms, or any other element relating to firearms or parts thereof, including ammunition and reloader components. Cities, towns, and counties or other municipalities may enact only those laws and ordinances relating to firearms that are specifically authorized by state law, as in RCWÂ 9.41.300, and are consistent with this chapter. Such local ordinances shall have the same penalty as provided for by state law. Local laws and ordinances that are inconsistent with, more restrictive than, or exceed the requirements of state law shall not be enacted and are preempted and repealed, regardless of the nature of the code, charter, or home rule status of such city, town, county, or municipality.

Seattle’s ordinance banning guns on city property, including parks, is pretty clearly illegal. Hopefully this ordinance won’t last very long.

Quote of the Day

Tam:

The cherry on the icing of the cake of the night was the mealy-mouthed General Cone simpering from the lectern about “We don’t go armed around here, this is our home,” which caused me to look at the loaded pistol on the nightstand in bafflement. I thought Texas had that “Castle Doctrine” thing? I know Texans on the internets are always bragging about how it’s legal for them to shoot someone stealing their hubcaps after dark, so I’m pretty sure a guy Allahu Akhbar-ing his way through a hospital waiting room gets the green light in the target selection sweepstakes. If they had been allowed to carry their damn guns, maybe somebody could have smoked Hasan before he rolled up a body count like an NCAA basketball score. Even the most ardent gun banners are always shooting off at the mouth about how “only the police and the military are qualified to carry guns” so how come they were unarmed and defenseless by edict here?

Because the generals are afraid of guns. The military actually has a highly defective attitude when it comes to gun handling.

Mass Shooting Coverage

SayUncle is doing a bang up job covering it. As news goes, I’ve gotten tired of covering these things. One thing I will say, however, is people might be surprised that a guy could get away from this on an army base, not realizing that army bases are gun free zones. Soldiers are not permitted to have guns outside of training exercises. We trust our soldiers to protect our freedom, but do not trust them to protect their own lives. I can’t think of anything else that’s more disrespectful to their sacrifice and service than a military that is afraid of its own soldiers with guns. This should change, but I doubt you’ll see our Commander-in-Chief issuing the orders.

Getting Ahead of Ourselves

Cemetery reports that some Garden State Gunnies are getting all excited about the prospects of CCW since the election of Chris Christie. Three words, “ain’t gonna happen.” The fact of the matter is, no matter what Steve Lonegan told New Jersey gun owners in the primary, there is no support in the Assembly or Senate to pass a shall-issue bill. Gun owners would be mistaken to look towards Chris Christie as their savior, or knight in shining armor. He’s not. He is your star goalie. His job is merely to keep the opposing team from scoring goals until you can get your team back in the game. It is not realistic to expect anything more from him.

In short, there’s a lot of work to do in the Garden State. You got rid of one anti-gun Assemblyman in Fred Madden’s district and replaced him with a pro-gunner. You have to keep doing that, until you have the votes to expect more from Chris Christie. Until then, you can’t expect him to put his political capital on the line for a fight he’s not going to win. Understand what Christie is. Understand his role. And work on getting your team back in the game.

Massachusetts Trigger Lock Provision Oral Arguments

Looks like oral arguments happened today in the case which challenges the constitutionality of Massachusetts safe storage provisions.

“They went out of their way to say that the â€¦ decision was not invalidating laws that were enacted to prevent accidents and that such regulations were presumptively lawful,” Lillios told the state Supreme Judicial Court in oral arguments.

Except that held directly in the case was that DC’s trigger lock provision was unconstitutional. Massachusetts is slightly different, in that a trigger lock is required if the firearms out of the direct control of the licensee, but is not absolutely required. Still, there’s a good case to be made that Heller applies.

Playing the Odds

MikeB wonders why people who carry guns don’t also take protective measures against being killed by falling meteors. An interesting question, but probably the wrong analogy. The odds of a person being killed by a falling meteorite are astronomically small. Best estimates of lifetime risk of being killed by meteorite impact is 1 in 700,000.

By contrast the violent crime rate in the us is currently 450 per 100,000 per year. Presuming that’s entirely random (it isn’t, far from it, actually, but let’s just assume it is for now) that’s a total lifetime probability of nearly 40% of being the victim of a violent crime. I don’t have UCR statistics for how much violent crime is stranger on stranger crime, but I do have that for murder, and about 15% of murder is stranger on stranger. Extrapolating the data for violent crime, we have a total lifetime probability of 5.3%. Now, if you adjust for other things, you can probably get that down to under 1% for people who live in very safe areas. But keep in mind, in society we also protect against other very low probability events.

For instance, your odds of being killed by a terrorists are actually lower than being killed by a meteor, yet we take great measures to prevent terrorism. Odds of dying in an automobile accident are only about 1.4% over a lifetime, yet it’s mandatory in all but a few states to wear one’s seatbelt, and we spend billions each year on making cars safer. The total lifetime odds of dying in a fire are only about 0.09%, yet we say it’s irresponsible not to have smoke detectors in the home, and most people agree it’s sensible to keep one in your automobile. The odds of being killed by amusement rides is about the same as a meteor, statistically, yet amusement rides are typically subject to fairly rigorous inspection requirements for safety.

What MikeB fails to understand is that these aren’t really games of just odds. We believe in spending a lot on automobile safety, amusement safety, smoke detectors, fire extinguishers, fences around pools, and the like, because the safety we enjoy is almost entirely the creation of many of these things our society has put into place to create that environment. Remove those things, and the relative danger goes back up.

In the context of guns, this brings us back around to the heart of the debate: does the presence of firearms in society make that society safer, or more dangerous? Those of us who believe in relatively liberal gun laws believe their presence makes society safer, on the whole. Those who believe it makes society more dangerous, naturally they want to take guns out of the society. So we’re back to where we started. And odds argument isn’t going to carry any weight, because on these things, we don’t play odds.

A Coalition I Can Believe In

Megan McArdle talks about how Republicans need to keep its coalition together:

As long as social issues dominate the Republican Party, they will continue losing their north–I had a lot of relatives who at least considered voting for Obama.Â Ironically, I wonder if the tea parties won’t help bring the two wings of the Republican party together:Â guns and lower government spending are the two things all members can agree on.Â But if the south wants to keep its northern Republicans–and the congressional seats that come with them–it’s going to have to back off trying to make the northern party look like a miniature version of itself.

Having grown up in a heavily Republican political culture in the northeast, she’s right about this. The great genius of Bill Clinton was the realization that by capturing a few important Republican economic issues, and making the switch to fighting culture wars, he could split the Republican Party by wedging apart the coalition. A lot of people in my area, including me, chose to become independent voters in the late 90s, early 00s because we did not like the direction the Republican Party was headed in. George W. Bush only made it worse. That drove a lot of people to the Democratic Camp.

Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi, by running the country far to the left on economic issues, may very well be destroying what Bill Clinton accomplished in the 90s, and giving the GOP back their unifying issue.

Shameless Revenue Generating

Baltimore is creating school zones out of thin air in order to install traffic cameras to raise revenue for the cash strapped city:

The cityâ€™s plan is to take a number of roads that are within the legally required distance to a school but are in areas where children do not regularly walk. Baltimore will install â€œschool zoneâ€ signs on these roads for the sole purpose of meeting the legal requirement that the speed cameras be used only in a school zone. The new zones include Charles Street at Lake Avenue, Northern Parkway at Greenspring, Pulaski Highway at Monument Street and Roland Avenue at West Cold Spring.

I agree with this bloggers take on these zones being detrimental to public safety.

Bear Spray Requirement

Teton County Wyoming is considering requiring those entering the backcountry to carry bear spray. Not a bad idea, but does this count?