Plausibly Undeniable
The good news is there’s one less thug in Dallas. (And you know it wasn’t his bike, either.)
The bad news is too many people at the Dallas Morning News still don’t understand the basics of guns and gun laws in Texas.
Hall then pulled out his licensed pistol and shot Lewis multiple times, according to police.
One more time: Guns are not licensed in Texas, nor are they registered. People can get a license to carry a concealed handgun.
It’s here at Cracked.
It’s beautiful man, beautiful.
But here’s Jamie and Adam at it if you want the pros.
Via PeterK, we have this from John Lott:
President Obama surely didn’t intend it, but he deserves some credit for last year’s 7.4 percent drop in murder rates. His election caused gun sales to soar, and crime rates to plummet.
At the same time gun sales were soaring, there was an unusually large drop in murder rates. The 7.4 percent drop in the murder rate was the largest drop in murder rates since the 1999. For those who don’t remember, 1999, when President Bill Clinton and Columbine occurred, was another time when gun sales soared. With people such as Elena Kagan serving as Mr. Clinton’s deputy domestic policy adviser were pushing hard for more gun control, Americans were worried that more gun bans were coming. And in response gun sales soared.
While gun sales started notably rising in October 2008, sales really soared immediately after Mr. Obama won the presidential race. 450,000 more people bought guns in November 2008 than bought them in November 2007, that’s over a 40 percent increase in sales. By comparison, the change from November 2006 to November 2007 was only about 35,000. Over the last decade, the average year-to-year increase in monthly sales was only 21,000.
The increase in sales continued well beyond November 2008. From November 2008 to October 2009, almost 2.5 million more people bought guns in the 12 months after the election than in the preceding 12 months. The National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS, doesn’t tell us how many guns each person bought just the number of people who bought them. Most likely though, gun sales rose by more than the number of people who purchased them.
You know how when people like me advocate that more people carry guns in public, up pop the Chicken Littles who claim the streets will turn into something like out of the Old West?
The truth is, you could only hope that would be the case.
How many murders do you suppose these old western towns saw a year? Let’s say the bloodiest, gun-slingingest of the famous cattle towns with the cowboys doing quick-draws at high noon every other day. A hundred? More?
How about five? That was the most murders any old-west town saw in any one year. Ever. Most towns averaged about 1.5 murders a year, and not all of those were shooting. You were way more likely to be murdered in Baltimore in 2008 than you were in Tombstone in 1881, the year of the famous gunfight at the OK Corral (body count: three) and the town’s most violent year ever.
There was a time when the fight for civil rights involved courageous men standing up to government-imposed segregation. (This was before it became the shake-down racket it is today.)
Over at Volokh Conspiracy, there’s a wonderful account by one such civil rights bad-ass, John Salter, about how when the media cameras weren’t around, the only thing that kept him and his fellow rebels safe was the fact they exercised their most important civil right — their right to self-defense with whatever arms they so chose.
Here’s a taste:
Later, I worked for years in the Deep South as a full-time civil rights organizer. Like a martyred friend of mine, NAACP staffer Medgar W. Evers, I, too, was on many Klan death lists and I, too, traveled armed: a .38 special Smith and Wesson revolver and a 44/40 Winchester carbine.
The knowledge that I had these weapons and was willing to use them kept enemies at bay. Years later, in a changed Mississippi, this was confirmed by a former prominent leader of the White Knights of the KKK when we had an interesting dinner together at Jackson.
Again, I was glad I had many firearms and, again, we guarded our home and let this be known. We responded to hate calls on the telephone by telling the callers we were quite prepared for them.
(Notably, the gun control movement in America traces its roots to the effort to keep free blacks disarmed. See this book, the Spirit and the Shotgun. Great read.)
I will never understand what goes on in the mind of a gun control freak.
Example: A criminal fires a gun outside the Texas capitol, so therefore the first thing we should do is ban law-abiding people with concealed handgun licenses from carrying inside the capitol building and put up metal detectors.
WTF?
Still on deadline, so not much from me this week. But here’s fellow Dallasite and Reasonoid Jacob Sullum on how the challenge to Chicago’s oppressive anti-gun laws could be a boon for economic liberty.
The right to weapons was one of the liberties frequently cited by the 14th Amendment’s backers, since disarmed blacks were defenseless against attacks by Klansmen and local officials. As reflected in post–Civil War legislation that the amendment was intended to reinforce, its supporters also were concerned about economic liberty: the right to own and exchange property, make and enforce contracts, and work in the occupation of one’s choice—all freedoms the Southern states tried to deny former slaves.
I didn’t realize it was already happening again. But Big Bob say yes.
Flashback to the last buyback and our weird video here.
(Amanda Warr did a great job, but I hate seeing myself on video. Unless I’m naked.)
Full story behind the video here.
A story today in the Dallas Morning News about police having confrontations with two people who were playing with toy guns or pellet guns.
Here’s the thing — and I mentioned it first in my feature for D Magazine about the growing nanny state in Dallas — kids have always played with toy guns, and they’ve always had toy guns that look real. And yet we didn’t have this problem 20, 30 or 50 years ago of police drawing down on them, or the public freaking out when they see someone with a gun.
What’s changed?
(EDIT/CLARIFICATION: I’m speaking more here about the incidents involving kids where the kid gets shot. Happens about twice a year nationally. These two Dallas incidents in the story linked were just jumping off points for the discussion. Thanks to Keith for correcting my course.)
I think the problem is police are too quick to draw down on anyone holding a gun — which isn’t a crime in itself — and people have been programmed to automatically and irrationally fear anyone who has something that looks like a gun. Yes, officer safety is important, but not as important as the rights and lives of those they’re sworn to protect and serve. Irrational fear leads to irrational actions.
And boy, have we gotten a lot more irrational about inanimate objects.
Oh, and for those who say that toy guns today look real where toy guns from the 1950s and 1960s didn’t look real, here’s a sampling of toy guns from the 1960s, and here’s some toy guns from the 1950s.
Awesome ad for the Dick Tracy .38 snub and Tommy Gun.
The untalented flotsam at the Dallas Morning News calls gun owners “sheep.”
From what I see, they are one of the most naive, most easily manipulated political groups in the country.
Naive? Why?
There’s no evidence the Obama administration has any major shift in gun laws in mind.
Oh really?
“The Obama administration will seek to reinstate the assault weapons ban that expired in 2004 during the Bush administration, Attorney General Eric Holder said.” ABC News Link
Mr. Obama hasn’t made any move yet to enact gun control only because he doesn’t have the votes. Even he admits this. He and Joe Biden know the losses the Democrat Party suffered when they enacted the first massive gun ban in the early 1990s.
But here’s a sampling of Mr. Obama’s past quotes and positions in favor of gun control, showing if he had the votes and could sell it, Obama would ban guns in a heartbeat.
——————
Mr. Obama supports the proposed HR 45 bill that would enact draconian gun control.
He is in favor of “closing” the non-existent “gun show loophole” — despite the fact that every firearms dealer at any gun show must conduct a full background check on every buyer.
Mr. Obama opposes concealed carry.
“I am not in favor of concealed weapons,” Obama said. “I think that creates a potential atmosphere where more innocent people could (get shot during) altercations.” Link
Obama’s pro gun control position from Ontheissues.org
His attorney general, Eric Holder — who never met an anti-gun law he didn’t support — wants to re-enact the so-called “Assault Weapons” ban. Obama is on the record as supporting the ban’s renewal. Link
The ban on “armor piercing bullets” that Obama supports is a Trojan Horse.
Obama voted for an amendment by longtime ammunition ban advocate Sen. Edward Kennedy (S. Amdt. 1615 to S. 397, Vote No. 217, July 29, 2005), which would have fundamentally changed the federal “armor piercing ammunition” law (18 U.S.C. ‘ 922(a)(7)), by banning any bullet that “may be used in a handgun and that the Attorney General determines… to be capable of penetrating body armor” that “meets minimum standards for the protection of law enforcement officers.”
Federal law currently bans bullets as “armor piercing” based upon the metals used in their construction, such as those made of steel and those that have heavy jackets. (18 U.S.C. ‘ 921(a)(17)). The Kennedy amendment would have fundamentally changed the law to add a ban on bullets on the basis of whether they penetrate the “minimum” level of body armor, regardless of the bullets’ construction or the purposes for which they were designed (e.g., hunting).
Many bullets designed and intended for use in rifles (including hunting rifles) have, over the years, been used in special-purpose hunting and target handguns, thus they “may be used in a handgun.”
The “minimum” level of body armor, Type I, only protects against the lowest-powered handgun cartridges. Any center-fire rifle used for hunting, target shooting, or any other purpose, and many handguns used for the same purposes, are capable of penetrating Type I armor, regardless of the design of the bullet.
“I’m consistently on record and will continue to be on record as opposing concealed carry.”
Chicago Tribune, 4/27/04
“I think it’s a scandal that this president (Bush) did not authorize a renewal of the assault weapons ban.”
Illinois Senate Debate #3: Barack Obama vs. Alan Keyes, 10/21/04
“I believe in keeping guns out of our inner cities and that our leaders must say so in the face of the gun manufacturers lobby.”
The Audacity of Hope, by Barack Obama, 2006
“I think that local jurisdictions have the capability to institute their own gun laws.”
BaltimoreSun.com, 2/15/08
“There was a discussion today about a law that has just passed in California that allows micro-tracing of bullets that have been discharged in a crime so that they can immediately be traced,” he said. “This is something that California has passed over the strong objections of the NRA…That’s the kind of common sense gun law that gun owners as well as victims of gun violence can get behind.”
Baltimore Sun.com Feb. 15, 2008
So what’s really naive? Worrying that a superficial man with a long track record of supporting and voting for gun control might, indeed, try to force more gun control on us while saying he won’t?
Or is naive just taking the word of a politician who says, “Trust me”?
(h/t Tom E.)