Category: Anti-Gun Folks

… the community really needed a replacement for the “shoulder thing that goes up.” This replacement has been making its way around the online gunny community.

We’re increasingly ruled by clowns, and this guy is just a particularly good example.

Since the Brady Campaign and Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence have released their 2013 scores, it offers an opportunity to examine the effectiveness of their policies. I’ve done similar analysis in previous years, but wanted to take a fresh look at it. My raw data can be found here, sourced from both the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report for 2012 for crime data, and the Center for Disease Control’s Death Statistics for 2010 for suicide and gun death data. First, let’s look at violent crime:

At first this looks like it might correlate, but the Coefficient of Determination (r²) for these two sets is 0.00009, which is statistically insignificant. This means you can’t explain the variation in violent crime by the variation in the Brady Score for any state. There is no correlation between a state’s Brady Score and that states violent crime rate. Conclusion? Brady policy is not effective at controlling violent crime.

So what about other crimes? Perhaps it can control murder? And let’s not forget a favorite Brady tactic of including suicides in their statistics to justify their policies. How does that fare?

Even visually you can see there’s absolutely no correlation between Brady score and the murder rate, and the statistical calculations bear that out. The r² value between Brady Score and Murder is 0.004. This is not statistically significant, meaning that the variance in the murder rates between states is not explained by the Brady Score. The Brady folks do a bit better with their nebulous “Gun Death” rate, which is how many people die from gunshot wounds every year, including suicides. The r² value between Brady Score and Gun Deaths are 0.52, which means 52% of the variation in the gun death rate can statistically be determined by the variation in Brady Score. This is statistically significant, and the correlation coefficient (r) is -0.74, which is considered a strong negative correlation (Brady score goes up, gun death goes down). They Brady folks do less well with overall suicide, which has an r² value of 0.41, and an r value of -0.64, which is considered a moderate relationship. This would tend to suggest there is a considerable substitution effect if guns are not as available.

The overall conclusion I think can be reached is that Brady policies have absolutely no effect on violent crime or murder rates, and probably do not greatly affect the availability of firearms to criminals. Brady policy does have a strong effect on the ability of non-criminal citizens to purchase firearms, which is reflected by the correlation between gun deaths (which includes suicides) and Brady Score, and suicide overall. There appears to be a substitution effect of guns are not available, since suicide rates do not correlate as strongly with Brady Score as Gun Death rates. While there is a correlation between state data and suicide rates, international comparisons have found no link between gun prevalence and suicide rates.

Governor Cuomo notes that you’re not welcome in New York. That’s fine by me. I do my best to stay out of New York. I didn’t think there would be any way to make New Jersey seem welcoming in comparison, but Cuomo has accomplished it:

“You have a schism within the Republican Party. … They’re searching to define their soul, that’s what’s going on. Is the Republican party in this state a moderate party or is it an extreme conservative party? That’s what they’re trying to figure out. It’s a mirror of what’s going on in Washington. The gridlock in Washington is less about Democrats and Republicans. It’s more about extreme Republicans versus moderate Republicans.

… You’re seeing that play out in New York. … The Republican Party candidates are running against the SAFE Act — it was voted for by moderate Republicans who run the Senate! Their problem is not me and the Democrats; their problem is themselves. Who are they? Are they these extreme conservatives who are right-to-life, pro-assault-weapon, anti-gay? Is that who they are? Because if that’s who they are and they’re the extreme conservatives, they have no place in the state of New York, because that’s not who New Yorkers are.

If they’re moderate Republicans like in the Senate right now, who control the Senate — moderate Republicans have a place in their state. George Pataki was governor of this state as a moderate Republican; but not what you’re hearing from them on the far right.” – Andrew Cuomo

You heard the man. Get out, and take your tax dollars with you. Come to Pennsylvania, and help us fight so that we don’t have to deal with our own Andrew Cuomos in a few years (she might end up being called Governor Allyson Schwartz, or Kathleen Kane). We need gun loving New Yorkers in the Keystone State. But if you come, come prepared to fight. We have our own ninnies here, and Bloomberg has been digging in our backyard for some time already.

Jeff Soyer points to an article in the WVU school paper:

Speaking from experience as a gun salesman, just about anyone can come in and buy an AR-15 as long as they don’t have a felony, which leaves room for a pretty broad horizon of people.

Gun salesman? Dude worked for Wal-Mart. Give me a fscking break. I don’t offer this guy any creds as a gun salesman. There’s a big difference between slinging guns over the glass for many years at a real gun store, where you might actually have to learn a thing or two about what you’re selling, and “Attention all Wal-Mart employees. Customer needs help at the sporting goods section. Customer needs help in the sporting goods section.” I usually question any time someone claims some credential or another to give their argument some extra weight. Usually someone doing that is selling you a bridge, even if the topic isn’t gun policy.

You can see the full list of e-mails obtained by Judicial Watch between MAIG leadership. Bitter linked to earlier today. It’s rather long, but 90% of it is uninteresting. But it does offer a view into the world of our opponents in the first few weeks after Sandy Hook. Some takeaways, some of which are different than the Blaze article:

• They still don’t really know who their enemy is. Reading their e-mails, they are a very much top-down movement. They coordinate to a much much greater degree than we do. While they were coordinating our opposition from the top, we were all watching a grassroots movement self-mobilize, and just trying to help spread the word and contribute any way we could.
• They really do believe their own BS about the NRA representing the gun industry. A lot of them wisely realized that assault weapons were a bridge too far, but assumed it was because it threatened industry profits rather than the fact that gun and magazine bans really really piss off our grassroots. Colorado’s recalls I think helped drive that message home.
• Mark Glaze was smart for being skeptical of former Senator “Monkeybusiness” Gary Hart wanting to start a new false flag group. That would have been laughable.
• Someone formerly in the gun control movement approached MAIG looking for a job back in the gun control movement around page 420. Feinblatt asked Glaze if they should hire him. Glaze responded with “I don’t think so – but part of me wants to. XXXXXX really screwed him.” They did a good job of blacking out that person’s info, but I’d really love to see under who XXXXXX was, because I have some speculations.
• From the balance sheets included, MAIG is bankrolling a lot of the movement. They’ve given money to CSGV, among others. My guess is this is to keep them in line and compliant with MAIG’s leadership. Brady, as the Blaze article mentioned, stepped on their toes and got knocked for it by MAIG.
• PA Attorney General Kathleen Kane’s office takes recommendations from MAIG on page 429. That’s about 3/4 of the way down. Someone should file a PA equivalent of a FOIA request for documents relating to that. I’d do it myself, but I lack tim and familiarity with the process. If someone is more familiar with the process, it would be worth knowing exactly in what manner MAIG is/was coordinating with AG Kane’s office.
• See page 442 and note some of those recommendations. Know what their end goals are. It’s right there.
• The NFL and most of the sports teams are our enemies.
• The media coordinates with the anti-gunners. For instance, on page 518, it’s mentioned that certain cartoonists are onboard with gun control.
• This is a movement of political elites and celebrities, and not of ordinary people. We knew that, of course, but it’s always good to see that confirmed behind the scenes. From the looks of it, MAIG only really writes checks to consultants, media groups, lobbyists, PR flacks and polling firms.

I would encourage other people to take a look at the documents. I can read very fast, but at that speed I miss an awful lot, and I don’t really have time to read through everything carefully. The e-mails stop at January 22, 2013. I think the best stuff would be after that date, when the real political fight heats up.

I think Miguel gets credit for the picture that speaks 1000 words for 2014. That’s a snap of Moms Demand Action Facebook page, where they note that their plans are coming together. Gun owners are lined up in compliance to their tyranny, and registering, as they properly should.

IT’S WORKING: Hundreds of gun owners lined up to register their assault rifles and high-capacity magazines with Connecticut state authorities before a Jan. 1 deadline.

I’m fairly certain they’d say the same thing if it were cattle cars we were lining up for. I’m not going to discuss my plans for “if this comes to my doorstep,” but I will say that lining up like the compliant fool they want everyone to be is not part of my plan.

Mike Bloomberg’s fortune went from 4 billion to 27 billion while he was in office. Bloomberg is wealthy enough that he doesn’t have to ever worry about getting his hands dirty with his own security. He can afford all the private security money can buy. It’s a shame he doesn’t understand how wrong it is to interfere with the personal security of the 99% who can’t afford personal bodyguards.

h/t to Cam Edwards of NRA News for the story.

Joan Peterson doesn’t seem to having a very happy holiday season, because so many of us bought guns for Christmas gifts. I sincerely hope we will continue to disappoint her. This latest hysteria is over a picture of a newborn posed with guns. She asks:

Why take photos like this? Why do some gun owners think that guns and kids go together and then put them together in a photo that goes viral on social media? We have enough examples of children shot in “accidental” and intentional shootings.

Why take photos like this?  The reason, dear Joan, he took that photo was to get a rise out of hysterical ninnies like you. Mission accomplished! I am not a fan of the baby’s hand being placed so close to the muzzle of the firearm, but I’m not naive enough to believe the baby is in any real danger. Don’t be surprised when you stick your nose in other people’s business they don’t decide to rhetorically punch it every once in a while.

Also notice that Joan believes all those firearms shown in that photo are dreaded “assault weapons.” Thanks for proving our point that “assault weapons” are any guns that scare you, which is all guns, apparently. It helps in understand the real agenda here.