Guns – Page 460 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Tough to Admit You Were Wrong

The Roanoke Times is having a hard time coming to grips with the fact that concealed carry in restaurants hasn’t increased crime in those places, but that crime in bars and restaurants actually seems to have decreased, and proceeds to rationalize their position, and suggest they could still be proven right:

But it is irresponsible to extrapolate too much from a naÃ¯ve numerical count. Other factors weigh on crime rates. For example, was business down in bars over the same period? If bars had fewer patrons drinking less during the recession, then gun incidents might similarly fall off.

A 5 percent change could be statistical noise. It could reflect a decline from a previous increase. It could be the result of reduced enforcement in the face of less spending on public safety. Without deeper analysis and context, it is unreasonable to conclude any causal connection exists.

But if there had been a five percent increase, you can bet they’d be shouting from the rooftops how right they were. All their criticisms very well could be valid, but the fact of the matter is, the sky did not fall. We told you the sky would not fall. Now you don’t want to admit you were wrong, and that just seems to us to be a lot of whining to us.

Beretta Nano

An interesting addition to Beretta’s pistol line-up. I have some experience with their compact pistols, as my friend Jason has a Tomcat in .32ACP. The ergonomics of their smaller pistols are pretty good, as small pistols go. But it’s not quite as good for pocket carry as, say, a P-3AT or an LCP. This looks like it may work well in a pocket holster. I’ll be anxious to see.

Raising them Right

In response to a post from yesterday, a friend in Illinois sends this along with the caption, “My 8 year old trying to talk me out of my MAC-10”:

Good finger off the trigger discipline. Looks to be good muzzle discipline. Glad to see some people are raising their kids right these days. I present this to you in order to horrify the gun control folks who I know sometimes follow this site.

The Horror

Maxim Lott, who comes from a family friendly on the issue, is reporting from Fox News notes:

Would you let your kid touch a machine gun?

Photos of officers from the Santa Rosa Police Department letting kids handle the departmentâ€™s SWAT team weaponry at a community event has sparked a debate over how much exposure to guns is healthy for kids.

The people who are getting hysterical really need real problems to worry about. It never ceases to amaze me, that there’s no problem so unimportant or trivial, that a busy body who doesn’t know enough to mind their owned damned business won’t worry about it. Personally, I have enough problems of my own to sit around worrying about other people’s problems. I’d love to be one of these people who has time and energy to worry about other people’s kids.

I’d not only let my kid touch a machine gun, I’d actively encourage the interest. But I do have to chuckle at this:

“Our goal is saying to people, â€˜hey, don’t be intimidated by the police.â€™ We want to break down that barrierâ€¦ Once these events are over, people will be more comfortable having conversations with officers.â€

Well, you might want to start by not sending the SWAT team in to take down grandma for growing a few pot plants in her backyard. Or for, “Sorry, wrong house. And we’re really sorry about your dog.”

Plainfield Touts Buyback, Gun Shot Detector

Plainfield, New Jersey is yet another community to install gunshot detectors. I don’t honestly have much of a problem with this technology, as if I have to fire a gun within a city’s limits, I want the police showing up quickly. But does it actually work? I’ve yet to hear these systems revolutionizing police work, and their deployment, as best I can tell, has been pretty limited. New Jersey law enforcement seems to be keen on them, however. My guess is the system probably provides a lot of false positives, and doesn’t buy you much in terms of crime prevention for the cost. Cities would probably do better to spend the money on more police.

UPDATE: Interesting study:

Police response times to technology-generated reports of gunfire wereÂ compared to response times to citizen-generated reports both before andÂ during the test period. For the most part, there was little differenceÂ between response times to technology-generated reports of gunfire duringÂ the test period and response times to citizen-generated reports before theÂ test period. However, the mean response time to citizen-generated reportsÂ of gunfire during the test period (about 30 minutes) was about 30 percentÂ less than the mean response time to technology-generated reports (aboutÂ 45 minutes). Nonetheless, the overall mean response time during the testÂ period (to the technology- and citizen-generated reports combined) wasÂ about 41 minutes, just 2 minutes longer than the mean response timeÂ before the test period (to citizen-generated reports only). ResearchersÂ concluded that using the technology did not change in any substantial wayÂ the speed with which the police responded to reports of gunfire.

Also:

There are two possible explanations for this significant increase in policeÂ workloads: First, gunshot detection technology may generate some falseÂ alerts. Given the design of the evaluation and the relatively early stage ofÂ this technology’s development, this first possible explanation could not beÂ explored in more detail. Second, Dallas may have a high rate of unreportedÂ gunfire, at least in the Oak Cliff neighborhood; if so, this finding couldÂ have significant ramifications for future crime analysis and crimeÂ prevention activities that seek to control the random gunfire problem inÂ Dallas.

Given that, it seems to me this technology is a net negative, if it’s not resulting in a better response and is consuming police resources. Yet the conclusion is still relatively positive. But then again, our society likes easy solutions to complex problems, so I guess it’s not surprising.

Paranoid for Body Armor?

Heather from Alaska doesn’t think it’s all that paranoid to own body armor. My test for this is pretty simple, if you own body armor, and had a reason to actually put it on, you’re probably not paranoid. Heather shares her story of having to put it on.

Fantasy Land on Microstamping

I’m not sure what planet New Yorkers Against Gun Violence lives in, but it’s not this one:

Microstamping legislation is supported by more than 100 mayors and 80 police departments and law enforcement organizations from across New York who know it would provide an additional tool to help solve gun crimes and get violent criminals off the streets.

Is it that surprising 100 mayors and 80 police chiefs in New York are fools? These are the same folks that convinced New York State that CoBIS, New York’s ballistic database, was absolutely an essential law enforcement tool as well, and even USA Today admits it’s been pretty much worthless, and Maryland’s database doesn’t fare much better.

Our opponents aren’t experts in much of anything these days, except hysterical rantings. But this is new, and better technology. Just trust them. It’s essential. And it won’t cost much.

Pretending We Didn’t Say That…

I know plenty of gun folks get all giddy when they see a newspaper-written editorial headline like this. “Gun control: Misfire” And then to see that the piece goes on to talk about how gun control advocates are completely unwilling to admit they are wrong on the blood in the streets predictions no matter how much evidence is thrown in their face – that’s just happy dance territory.

I guess the pessimist in me just had to come out and play. Because it seems rather odd that the newspaper staff would condemn anti-gun groups & politicians for not being willing to concede when they are wrong when traditionally the media has been wrong on this, too. Google, being my friend, helped me out in quickly finding an editorial in the very same paper pulling out the lethal mix rhetoric.

In Virginia, those who possess concealed-carry permits cannot possess their weapons in establishments that serve liquor or beer. Some in the state legislature believe it’s time to scrap that restriction. Yet guns, booze, anxiety, and stress can combine for a deadly mix.

Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the side they are taking today. I don’t expect them to publicly lash themselves for engaging in the same kind of rhetoric they now condemn. But, just remember that if you’re doing the happy dance now, they could bring back the blood-in-the-streets rhetoric depending on who mans the editorial desk.

On Chamber Checking

Tam relays a story about how she became obsessive compulsive about checking that guns were empty. I don’t have any war stories to tell in this area, and hope I never do. It would seem that people who handle guns enough invariably have these stories, but the consistent pattern I’ve noticed is that the redundancy built into the rules has worked in every case where I knew one of the actors. Remember that you have to break two rules for someone to get shot. It’s like RAID, for gunnies.

New Shooter

Kitsap Rifle and Revolver Club in Washington introduces some Japanese citizens to shooting.