Looks like we have another state considering this technology. The main problem with the technology, other than it being trivially easy to defeat, is that it won’t affect the existing stock of guns on the streets. If you look at ATF’s time-to-crime numbers, it shows that most crime guns have been on the streets for a long time. A lot of gun control proposals are, unfortunately for the other side, going to be rendered useless by the fact that the United States has had widespread firearms ownership for a long, long time.
Category: Guns
So Many Exemptions
Can’t Fred Madden just admit this one-gun-a-month law is useless and repeal the damned thing? These exceptions proposed to New Jersey’s one-gun-a-month law are useless too. There is no legal definition of “competitive shooter” or “collector.” Â There is a type of federal firearms license you can get in the latter category, but having this C&R is not in itself an exception. To get any exception to this law, you have to make an application to the New Jersey State Police, which presumably they will not enthusiastically grant within any reasonable amount of time. What are also the standards for showing you’re a competitive shooter? There is none. This is the most useless thing I’ve ever read:
The applicant shall certify, on a form prescribed by the superintendent, the specific exemption sought and the particular handguns to be purchased. This form shall be submitted to the superintendent at the same time as the permit to purchase a handgun, along with any pertinent documentation supporting the need for an exemption. The superintendent shall consider the veracity, accuracy, and completeness of the information provided in determining whether the applicant meets the requirements for an exemption pursuant to this section. In considering an exemption sought under paragraph (3) of subsection a. of this section, the superintendent shall not consider the merit or validity of the applicant’s collecting activities.
The superintendent shall not grant an exemption if he finds a reasonable likelihood that the public safety would be endangered by granting the exemption, including but not limited to instances where the applicant may be purchasing a handgun to give, sell or distribute to a person who would not qualify to purchase or otherwise acquire a handgun under the provisions of this chapter.
Either two things are going to happen. They will routinely deny exceptions, or they will largely grant all exceptions. In the former, this fix is worthless, and if the latter, the whole law is worthless. If we were silly enough to believe that New Jersey criminals were going to their local police, filling out all the forms for a license to own, and then the forms for multiple pistol purchase permits, submitting to a multi-point FBI background check, submitting references, place of employment, and all the other intrusive things New Jersey asks for to own guns. Now Senator Fred Madden would have us believe that adding one more form to the process is going to put a stop to criminals getting guns legally and selling them to other felons? Hogwash. The worst part is, I think he knows this is hogwash. But this is New Jersey, and politics is politics.
The Ignorance is Sometimes Just Too Astounding
Through the course of any given day I get a lot of editorials coming across my inbox that advocate for gun control. I ignore the vast majority of them, unless I see a new pattern, a new angle, or it’s exceptionally well done. If it’s just your standard tripe, which is most of them, I tend to ignore it. But occasionally, you’ll find an op-ed that is not so standard tripe. This turd glistens and gleans like few others:
Columbine High School in Colorado. Thirty-two killed at Virginia Tech. Last month, it was the shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, where investigators questioned whether a better system for background checks could have averted the killings.
It came up again last week, when four police officers were gunned down at a diner in Washington State.
The Columbine kids broke a number of federal gun laws to get their guns. They used a straw purchaser, who could clear the background check, to buy their guns and transfer to them. That is what is known as a felony. How would making it more illegal help? The killer at Virginia Tech cleared the background check too, but that problem is already been fixed. Hasan was not on the terror watch list, and had no criminal background. How would any changes in the law have prevented that? The killer in Washington State was a convicted felon. It’s already a 10 year felony for him to possess a firearm. How can we make it more illegal?
At the same time, we wonder why anyone needs a handgun, which exists simply to kill people. And, for the most part, handguns are in the possession of people bearing bad thoughts and bad attitudes. Almost three-quarters of gun homicides in our country are committed with handguns.
Wow, you know, all those matches we run at my club with handguns must be a figment of my imagination, then, if they are only “meant to kill.” Also, if killing in all circumstances is wrong, and a stain on society, then why do we allow police to carry handguns? The police aren’t murdering thugs, are they?
One common excuse is regular folks need handguns to protect themselves from the bad guys. Did being armed protect those four police officers in Tacoma?
So by that logic, we should strip firearms from all police officers, right? Since they are completely and obviously useless for self-defense. This one situation obviously proves it!
Governments have tried. The attempts include: restricting firearms purchasing by youths; setting waiting periods for firearm purchases; establishing gun “buy-back” programs; restricting gun shows; issuing stiff sentencing of gun law violators and educating everyone about firearm safety.
None of these efforts has worked.
As tough economic times add to the stresses on everyone, it might be a good time to revisit the handgun issue. There are laws in place — in Michigan and across the country. It is time to make those laws tougher — before someone gets killed in the Quay Street parking lot.
We’ve tried all these things, and none of them have worked, so clearly we just need to redouble our efforts. Some of those things have clearly not worked, but some of them have. We know that cracking down on criminals lowers crime. We know adding police officers to the streets lowers crime. We also know that gun safety education works, since we’ve seen gun accidents decline while the number of guns has gone up.
The op-ed says they want to find a way to preserve the Second Amendment, but seems to be open to the idea of a handgun ban to accomplish that. How does the Times Herald reconcile that? How do they reconcile that with DC v. Heller? You can’t just say “make the law stricter.” How is this going to work? There’s a lot questions the editorial board is clearly not thinking seriously about, at the least, and at worst isn’t thinking about at all.
More Evidence …
Just a Heads Up on Pro-Gun Books
If you have another gunnie in the family who needs the perfect holiday gift, consider a couple of pro-gun books.
Rise of the Anti-Media: In-forming America’s Concealed Weapon Carry Movement by Brian Anse Patrick sounds interesting. I bit the bullet and bought it because Amazon has a great price on it – cheaper than the discount offered through the publisher. But, given that it’s published by a textbook house, it’s still a bit more than you may be expecting for one book. If you pre-order from Amazon, the price will not increase for you, and it could decrease. If it drops before it ships, you automatically get the lower price.
Aiming for Liberty: The Past, Present, And Future of Freedom and Self-Defense by my blogcrush Dave Kopel is also a great deal. If Sebastian doesn’t get back to finishing the book soon, I’ll be stealing his copy. The quotes Sebastian has been blogging have been great. It’s a great stocking stuffer. I see that Amazon is currently out of stock, but I suspect that it will be back in stock soon. And again, I don’t know how long they will have it marked down by about a third, so you might want to look at ordering now to reserve that price.
The Old Canadian Argument for Gun Control
I grow tired of seeing Canadian crime rates presented as evidence for the effectiveness of gun control, such as in the LA times article from yesterday. I meant to address this, but it was one of those things that took more time to put together than I had. International comparisons are always going to be suspect, because of the different ways that different countries count and categorize crimes. However, since the other side is fond of these comparisons, we can’t just summarily dismiss it. It seems reasonable to me that we should do as much as possible to compare like populations, and contain our variables to just the differing law as much as possible. It seems reasonable in this case to compare American states with their nearest Canadian providence in that regard. For this I will use statistics from the FBI, as well as some Canadian statistics.
| Canadian Province | Violent Crime Rate | Murder Rate | Bordering States | Violent Crime Rate | Murder Rate |
| New Brunswick | 256 | 0.4 | Maine | 118 | 2.4 |
| Nova Scotia | 307 | 1.3 | |||
| Quebec | 298 | 1.2 | |||
| Vermont | 136 | 2.7 | |||
| New Hampshire | 157 | 1.0 | |||
| Ontario | 277 | 1.4 | New York | 398 | 4.3 |
| Michigan | 502 | 5.4 | |||
| Manitoba | 629 | 4.5 | Minnesota | 263 | 2.1 |
| Saskatchewan | 671 | 3.0 | North Dakota | 167 | 0.5 |
| Alberta | 389 | 3.1 | Montana | 258 | 2.4 |
| British Columbia | 407 | 2.7 | Washington | 331 | 2.9 |
| Yukon | 722 | 9.1 | Alaska | 652 | 4.1 |
Rates here are per 100,000, and I tried my best to make the Canadian and American violent crime statistics use the same types of crimes. You will notice on the Canadian stats, there is a “Violent Crime” stat which is way way higher than any US state, because the Canadian government counts many crimes as violent that we do not. But the Canadian government lists statistics for crimes which are very similar to what the FBI uses. I also did not include Ohio, Wisconsin or Pennsylvania, even though they technically share a border with Canada, because it’s a lake border, and our respective peoples would not reasonably travel without transiting through another state/province. Nova Scotia is counted because there’s ferry service from Maine.
When you break them down like that, it looks pretty different, eh? What conclusions can be drawn? For one, the US states that compare least favorably to their nearby Canadian provinces are the ones with the strictest gun laws (New York & Michigan). Interestingly, it shows that rural Western Canada, which has a stronger gun culture than the east, shows an opposite pattern from the US, with higher violent crime rates and murder rates. Yukon and Alaska are both more violent than average, probably due to the fact that the industries in these respective jurisdictions tend to attract young males, who are more prone to criminal activity.
Overall, Ontario compares favorably to New York and Michigan. But most of the other states have lower violent crime rates and murder rates to their respective Canadian provinces. Whatever conclusions you might want to draw from the numbers, I don’t think that gun control laws is a major factor here can be among them.
Joyce Funded Movie?
Given what Thirdpower found a few days ago, now we’ll have to wonder.
What Tiger Woods Says About Lautenberg
The Lautenberg Amendment, the provision of federal law that strips Second Amendment rights from people convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence, is one of those areas that’s poor ground to have a serious public debate on, since no one wants to appear to condone domestic violence. When one says as much, there’s typically the image of a man beating his wife. Lost in the detail is misdemeanor versus felonious assault, and how things work in the real world. The late happening with Tiger Wood is a good example of how domestic violence in the real world is never as cut and dry as people imagine it to be. That goes for Senator Frank Lautenberg as much as it does for Rep. Daryl Metcalfe.
I don’t think too many of us would argue that someone who beats their spouse to the point of serious injury ought not have their constitutional rights, including their constitutional right not to be in jail, jeopardized. In these cases, it’s much easier to identify victim and defender. But whether a lifetime ban on certain fundamental constitutional rights should hinge on unclear and often murky situations, is something we shouldn’t be afraid to have a serious debate over. Tiger Woods’ situation, where it’s not completely clear who is the victim and who is the perpetrator, is probably a lot more a typical than a lot of people would care to recognize.
Right to Arms in Pennsylvania History
Dave Kopel talks about a law review article that will be appearing in the Widener Law Journal next year, coauthored with Clayton Cramer, on the history of Pennsylvania’s right to bear arms provision in the 1776 constitution. I covered a bit of the constitutional history of Pennsylvania’s right to bear arms provision back in September, for those who might have missed it. The 1776 version read:
That the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the state; and as standing armies in the time of peace are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up; And that the military should be kept under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.
Seems hard to believe that anyone could read “defence of themselves” as being purely the right to participate in a militia. While it’s not as direct and to the point as the 1790 and subsequent state constitutions, it’s still pretty crystal clear for anyone who hasn’t already made up their mind about there being no real individual right.
Violent Attack Back Home
I normally don’t report on armed citizen stories, but this one was from back home where I grew up. An 84 year old man managed to ward off an attacker with a .32 caliber colt pistol, after a brief gunfight. I’m wondering if it was one of these, in which case it wouldn’t be a six shot, but you never know with the media. Criminals often target the elderly because they seem to be easy targets, but being a veteran of World War II, my guess is this is “professional thief” is probably not the first, or the most dangerous person, who has fired bullets in Mr. Kaighn’s general direction. I would say he held up remarkably well to the stress of a gunfight at 84.