Guns – Page 704 – Shall Not Be Questioned

What Are They Supposed to Use? Harsh Language?

The Freedom States Alliance, a gun control organization based in Chicago, hints that they thinkÂ even the military probably ought not have guns, and can’t be trusted with them:

Such a definitive statement from the commanding general of the largest American base demonstrates the militaryâ€™s own concern about the easy access to handguns and other weapons, even from its own highly trained and disciplined military personnel. Such a restrictive policy against carrying guns, even for soldiers who are prepared for combat, should give guidance to lawmakers about the need to better control access to firearms for civilians.

Yes, because we can see how well that all worked out.

Williamson Derringer

If Bitter had more money, I’m pretty sure she would collect derringers. She’s a big fan of them, and I’m sure she’d love this Williamson Derringer here, and even has a nice heart and gemstones on it.Â Shoots .41 rimfire.

Book on Long Range Shooting Ballistics

Chris Byrne looks at a new book by Brian Litz, who is the chief ballistician for Berger Bullets, as well as National Palma Champion. Sounds interesting. I might have to get a copy.

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.

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.

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?

Canada Moving Closer to Registry Repeal

It’s passed second reading by a vote of 164 to 137, a margin of 27 votes. As Dave Kopel points out, that means that 20 members of the other party have joined conservatives in voting this way.

This is very positive. Very positive. It’s one of the only other countries turning back gun control currently, and we’ve had a rough time on the international front.

NRA Reaction to Election 2009

Landslide. For the record, I probably went a little easy on the Bradys in agreement that the election wasn’t about guns. That’s not entirely true. A reader pointed out that guns were most definitely an issue in the Virginia Attorney General’s race, with Democrats running ads like this against Ken Cuccinelli, in addition to a TV spot showing here:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQ7_s06LKJk[/youtube]

If this race wasn’t about guns, it wasn’t for the Democrat’s lack of trying. Ken Cuccinelli won the Attorney General race by a 15 point margin over Democrat Steve Shannon. While we can’t take credit for all that margin, we are no doubt a nice chunk of it. This shows that Democrats can’t make a winning issue out of guns. Corzine also beat on the gun control drum, and it didn’t save him either. Â If that’s the case, why do they bother? Increasingly they don’t, and that has to scare the Brady folks, no matter what their public rhetoric says.