Sleepless in Midland

Anti-gun groups resort to extreme exaggeration to try to make their point in Chicago display

Exaggeration is often necessary to get a laugh. And this public anti-gun display is good for a laugh, especially since it's in gun-controlled Chicago. Here's a write-up about it from ijr.com, found at Chicago Art Display Shows Buying Guns Are as Easy as Renting a Bike — Here's Why It's Completely Wrong. Excerpt:

A new art exhibit in downtown Chicago shows a row of replica AR-15s attached to a station similar to a bike rental. CNN reports the display has been put on by The Escape Pod and gun control organization the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

The point of the display is to “look as though getting a weapon is as easy as renting a bike”:

A Chicago art exhibit lined with replicas of AR-15 rifles is structured to make it look as though getting a weapon is as easy as renting a bike https://t.co/Oi9GnQZm2U pic.twitter.com/K7k7caWjsa

Photo source.

That said, the display is kinda cute.  Read the article to see what hurdles are in place for prospective gun buyers in the locale where they claim it's as easy to buy a gun as rent a bike.

The number of firearm deaths and injuries in Chicago are astonishingly high. Considering the prohibitions in place for firearm ownership there, the whole thing is laughingly misguided. But that's all they've got.

Thankfully our constitution protects us from gun grabbers, at least for now.

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10:45 AM 5/13/2018

The Chicago gun black market might be a preview of gun markets after a gun ban

Last month we talked about how the black market exists on the dark web in Australia for gun buyers in the no-guns land down under. Here in the U.S., Chicago is the poster child of restricted gun rights coexisting with a high murder rate.

I stumbled on this link while going through old bookmarks stored in my browser. It's titled How Chicago gets its guns from October of last year. It reads like a human interest story about someone who had a spell of bad luck. But regarding the gun market, here's an excerpt which summarizes the relevant part:

Most of the guns police seize in Chicago come from Indiana and other states where firearms laws are more lax, police and researchers have found. After they were purchased legally, most were sold or loaned or stolen. Typically, individuals or small groups are involved in the dealing, not organized trafficking rings, experts say.

Unlike the drug trade — often dominated by powerful cartels or gangs — illegal gun markets operate more like the way teenagers get beer, “where every adult is potentially a source,” said Philip Cook, a researcher at the University of Chicago Crime Lab who’s also a Duke University professor.

Under pressure to respond to the violence, law enforcement has focused on making examples of people caught selling, buying or possessing guns. But authorities acknowledge that these cases do little to stem the flow of guns into the city.

With so many guns individually owned in the U.S., should a law ever get passed that would require turning them in it wouldn't do much to reduce gun ownership. A black market would pop up that would make the Chicago market look like a garage sale.

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2:14 PM 4/9/2018

London murder rate exceeds NYC -- two lessons: broken windows strategy works, gun laws don't

We shouldn't be amused at this, but it certainly does fly in the face of the wrong headed theory that gun bans reduce crime. Here's the story from thetimes.co.uk: London murder rate beats New York as stabbings surge. To read the whole thing it appears the reader has to register and accept cookies. But here's an excerpt from the free part:

London overtook New York in murders for the first time in modern history in February as the capital endured a dramatic surge in knife crime.

Fifteen people were murdered in the capital, against 14 in New York. Both cities have almost exactly the same population.

London murders for March are also likely to exceed or equal New York’s. By late last night there had been 22 killings in the capital, according to the Metropolitan police, against 21 in the US city.

James Q. Wilson's "broken windows" plan of policing was implemented in NYC by William Bratton and Rudy Guiliani, in the 1990s. The theory was that a neighborhood that was kept clean and maintained would be a safer neighborhood. The addition of the "stop and frisk" strategy also helped deter criminal behavior, although that program has been criticized because more minorities were arrested because of it. It's questionable whether there is actual racism involved or whether the crime rate in the subject neighborhoods is higher which would draw more scrutiny.

Nevertheless, NYC's murder rate was lower than London's due to a "dramatic surge in knife crime." Source: London murder rate beats New York as stabbings surge.

Meanwhile, here's an interesting development: De Blasio aide busted with gun in car. The director arrested is Reagan Stevens, Deputy Director of Youth and Strategic Initiative.

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2:04 PM 4/8/2018

Australians who want guns can still get guns

Lefties are rapidly coming to believe it's time to repeal the 2nd Amendment and begin the great disarmament of American citizens.

To try to convince those who are slow to believe in the movement, advocates for gun control point to Australia as the model. But the gun confiscation program in Australia didn't really accomplish the intended result. Not only did some gun owners decline to turn in their firearms, guns are available for purchase on the black market.

The "black market" is short hand for the means through which buyers and sellers connect, and one in particular is the dark web. Tor is probably the most well known channel in the dark web. We've talked about Tor being funded by the U.S. government previously. But just because some government agency might have the means to monitor Tor, that agency might not necessarily want to intervene and miss out on future intelligence.

This topic was suggested by the Dailymail article, Thousands of Australians are buying guns and GRENADES on the dark web - and pay black market firearms dealers to sneak them into the country. However, a much more informative research project came from the Rand Corporation. For that one, click Behind the curtain - The illicit trade of firearms, explosives and ammunition on the dark web (PDF). Here are the objectives of that study, as set forth on page 12:

General objectives
1. To understand the modus operandi of buying and selling firearms and related products on the dark web.
2. To consider the viability of dark web markets for firearms selling, and more specifically, the extent to which these sellers may engage in scamming by taking payment for products they do not deliver, or may not possess.
Market analysis
3. To estimate the size and scope of the trade in firearms and related products on cryptomarkets, including:
  a. Number of dark web markets listing firearms and related products and services for sale and number of vendors.
  b. Range and type of firearms and related products advertised and sold on cryptomarkets.
4. To estimate the value of the trade in firearms and related products on cryptomarkets.
5. To identify shipping routes and most common shipping techniques.
Analysis of implications
6. To identify the potential impact of darkweb enabled arms trafficking on the overall arms black market, with particular emphasis on market dynamics and market actors.
7. To identify the potential implications of dark web enabled arms trafficking for law enforcement agencies and policy makers, at both the national and international level, including implications for existing international legal instruments designed to tackle the issue of illegal arms trade and transnational organised crime.

Read the whole thing if you want the details. But the point is that guns are available for purchase in any gun controlled country where the subjects have access to the dark web.

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1:56 PM 3/28/2018

WaPo notes similarities between anti-Vietnam war protests and pro-gun control protests, omits lefty organizers

It's James Hohmann at WaPo's powerpost in The Daily 202: How the marches for gun control are like the protests against Vietnam. He say the similarity is the fear engulfing the protesters. For the anti-war protests it was the fear of getting drafted. For anti-gun protesters it is the fear of getting shot, presumably at a gun free school.

To many of us on the outside getting it all on our TV screens, the anti-gun protesters seem to be missing the mark by focusing on citizen ownership of guns. It's a tiny fraction of gun owners who actually use a gun on another human being. If the students want to feel safe at school they should be asking for armed guards, door locks, and overall better protection. Instead they are asking for gun control, a subject about which they know very little.

Furthermore, those of us on the outside see a similarity Mr. Hohmann omits. While both protests may have started at a grass roots level, it was no time at all before well funded lefty groups took over the organizing efforts and redirected the movement toward the goals of a far left agenda.

We should be wary of those type movements.

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2:11 PM 3/26/2018

Do police have a no legal obligation to run into an active shooter situation? No.

That deputy who stood around while a killer blasted away at students inside a school in Parkland, FL, has been roundly criticized for his inaction. But did he have a legal duty to enter the building? Unless there was a Florida statute demanding that he do so, then he was not required to anything other than what he did.

I use nighttime talk radio as a sleep aid, and here in Midland, TX, a local AM station plays a delayed broadcast of The Joe Pags Show. The other night a caller tried to discuss that absence of legal duty, and Joe Pags insisted that the caller cite the law. The caller couldn't.

Actually, it's a Supreme Court case which ruled in 2005 on civil liability for police inaction. The holding was in favor of the police. Without a state statute demanding action, then the plaintiff had no cause of action against the police. The facts of the case in Castle Rock v. Gonzales were horrendous. The plaintiff's estranged husband kidnapped her children and ultimately murdered them. The wife called the police several times after the kidnapping, but the police did nothing for several hours.

A moral duty can't be enforced. And without a statute that demanded action, the Parkland deputy really had no obligation to run into the gun fight. That said, police departments in many jurisdictions train the officers to go toward the gunfire in an active shooter situation.

Meanwhile, there's that nagging old saying, "When seconds count, police are minutes away." No wonder so many citizens are obtaining concealed carry permits. As of about a year ago, 6.6% of the adult population in the U.S. had a carry permit. However, only about 1.2% carry on a daily basis. That percentage probably ebbs and flows in proportion to the number of high profile shootings in the headlines.

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11:28 AM 3/18/2018

Lock up the crazy people? That's not the easy solution to the mass shooter problem

Walter Williams make a strong case against the movement some years ago that closed mental hospitals and put the inmates on the street. See WILLIAMS: Another Liberal-Created Failure. Excerpt:

Starting in the 1970s, advocates for closing mental hospitals argued that because of the availability of new psychotropic drugs, people with mental illness could live among the rest of the population in an unrestrained natural setting. According to a 2013 Wall Street Journal article by Dr. E. Fuller Torrey, founder of the Treatment Advocacy Center, titled "Fifty Years of Failing America's Mentally Ill," shutting down mental hospitals didn't turn out the way advocates promised. Several studies summarized by the Treatment Advocacy Center show that untreated mentally ill are responsible for 10 percent of homicides (and a higher percentage of the mass killings). They are 20 percent of jail and prison inmates and more than 30 percent of the homeless.

The harm some of those people did to others was a phenomenon proponents of the plan either overlooked or knowingly downplayed. But the problem of separating the potentially dangerous from the casual crazy is a difficult one.

A guest on Sunday morning's C-Span's Washington Journal discussed this. Watch the video at Jonathan Metzl on Mental Health and Gun Violence.

He addressed this in print last year. See I’m a Psychiatrist. Making Gun Violence About Mental Health Is a Crazy Idea. Here's the key paragraph:

If there were a Propensity to Mass Violence disease, perhaps it would make a little more sense to involve psychiatrists in identifying potential mass murderers. But absent a formal means of assessing predictive violence, such as a diagnosis, mental health practitioners are often left to trust the power of their observations when asked to gauge which one of the thousands of patients they see might go on to commit a violent act such as a mass shooting. And, unfortunately, we’re not that great at it. As gun expert Jeffrey Swanson succinctly puts it when summarizing a great deal of research, “psychiatrists using clinical judgment are not much better than chance at predicting which individual patients will do something violent and which will not.” Tragically, such knowledge is often gained only after the fact. And programs that attempt to force psychiatrists to report potential shooters—such as the one supported by Governor Cuomo in New York and similar programs in other states—often result in dramatic over-reporting of psychiatric patients, who are then added to government surveillance lists.

Dr. Metzl's article drifted into the gun control arena which included an interesting tidbit on why Americans want to own guns:

As such, I believe there are more meaningful ways for psychiatrists to help in the effort against gun violence and mass shootings: by also addressing shifting American beliefs and attitudes around guns, and about our increasingly polarized reactions to mass shootings. As but one example, in 1999, far more gun owners cited hunting, rather than self-protection, as the main reason they owned guns. By 2013, those attitudes had shifted: 48 percent said protection was the main reason to own a gun, while 32 percent pointed to hunting. The question of why Americans feel so unsafe around, and mistrustful of each other seems like a pressing one for mental health experts. Mental health expertise might also help us step back from the highly polarized conversations that emerge after mass shootings, and allow people of differing ideologies to find common ground.

(Emphasis added by me.) The non-stop media coverage of the mass shootings probably plays a large part in making Americans feel unsafe.

There's no easy answer. Attempting to disarm law abiding citizens certainly isn't one. And expecting shrinks to identify killers in advance doesn't look workable either. About the only thing left is to harden soft targets.

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11:43 AM 3/4/2018

Lifting age limit on rifle purchases would do little if anything to reduce mass killings

Gun controllers and gun rights people seem close to an agreement that might raise the age limit for buying a rifle. But it's doubtful that it would do anything.

Look at Chicago for guidance, if you dare. Chicago has some of the tightest gun control laws in the nation, and that hasn't made a difference. Most of the guns used in crimes there were bought through a straw man, obtained from a friend, or stolen. The difference between the Chicago shootings and the school shootings might be that there are probably networks of people in Chicago who participate in the transfer of stolen or illegally obtained guns. Whereas the lone crazy school shooter might not be able to participate in such a network. One would hope, anyway.

In any event, there's still a lot of doubt about whether an age limit would make any difference. In a short search for stats I ran across this from Reason.com: Can Congress Save Lives by Raising the Rifle Purchase Age? Here's a short excerpt:

Of the 23 deadliest shootings in modern U.S. history, three (Parkland, Sandy Hook, and Columbine) were perpetrated by killers younger than 21 who used rifles. The Sandy Hook shooter, who was 20, used a Bushmaster XM-15 bought by his mother, so a higher purchase age clearly would not have thwarted him. The Columbine killers, who were both younger than 18 when they started collecting weapons, obtained two shotguns and a Hi-Point 995 carbine through a straw purchase by an acquaintance who was 18. If the purchase age had been 21, they might have found an older straw buyer, or they might have obtained the long guns through an illegal private sale, which is how they acquired an Intratec TEC-DC9 pistol.

It is by no means clear that a higher purchase age for long guns would have made a difference in any of these cases. But it would make it harder for adults younger than 21 to obtain firearms for legitimate purposes. "Federal law prohibits adults under the age of 21 from purchasing a handgun from a licensed firearm dealer," notes Jennifer Baker, the NRA's public affairs director. "Legislative proposals that prevent law-abiding adults aged 18-20 years old from acquiring rifles and shotguns effectively prohibits them for purchasing any firearm, thus depriving them of their constitutional right to self-protection."

Lifting the age limit might create a "feel good" moment. But it's unlikely to accomplish what proponents intend, unless the intent is to put a foot in the door for more serious gun control.

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8:53 AM 3/1/2018

Like the rodeo bull distracted by the clown, progressive ire was easily redirected to gun control

Once the bull bucks off the rider, he is hell bent on goring that cowboy. But then a clown appears, and suddenly the bull redirects he energy toward the clown. That seems to be what happened to all those progressives who were hell bent on defacing Confederate monuments not too long ago.

The shooting in Florida really got their attention. "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste," was the mantra made famous by Rahm Emanuel. And they immediately shifted targets. The NRA suddenly became the scapegoat. And they charged like a rodeo bull.

How easily manipulated they must be. It will be a while before we learn whether any of the deep pocket lefties helped finance this reinvigorated movement. But it will not be a big surprise to learn they've invested in it. At least one writer is already speculating.

Meanwhile, the NRA didn't do anything to facilitate the killings. But that doesn't matter much to progressives. It's too tempting a target. Saul Alinsky would approve.

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12:48 PM 2/24/2018

So are we back on the gun control issue again?

The triggering event was the massacre in Parkland, Florida, the other day. Listen to the callers on the C-Span's Washington Journal's open line and hear Democrats calling for gun control again. It's a knee jerk reaction. Democrats have used scapegoats for so long it's ingrained. And gun owners or guns themselves are the scapegoats again.

The problem with the idea of banning guns is that there are millions of guns owned by citizens already. Ban them and a huge black market will develop for those guns. It happened in Chicago. And it probably has happened in every jurisdiction that has attempted to ban guns.

Gun controllers' efforts should be directed at Mars. A colony there would be the only place where where there could be no guns, at least until one gets smuggled in.

Meanwhile, it's trite but true: outlaw guns and only outlaws will have guns.

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6:23 AM 2/15/2018

Maybe robots could keep us around for pets

It wasn't too awfully long ago that smart folks in the media took a break from warning of the danger of Donald Trump to warn about robots with artificial intelligence. See for example, warnings such as these: Elon Musk warns of AI's risks, calls for regulation now; Stephen Hawking: AI could be a 'real danger'; and Robots could 'threaten humanity' and will be physically stronger than humans "in the next few years", warns scientist.

Well, I always thought the robots might be human enough to want to keep humans as pets. After all, they generally clean up after themselves.

But then along came this one: Kalashnikov Group Announces Fully-Automated Combat Robots. Mikhail Kalashnikov, you will recall, was the inventor of the AK-47 which has been described as the most effective killing machine in human history. So now they've given it a brain. A Terminator. Swell.

Meanwhile, the smart folks in the media have gone back to bashing Trump. So I guess all is well.

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2:45 PM 1/8/2018

Video -- how mass shooter reloads weapons so fast

This is a jaw dropping video I saw the other night at a class about civilian response to an active shooter. The guy in the video walks up to the camera appearing to be unarmed. Then he pulls an AR-15 out of his pants, loads it with a magazine, ejects the magazine, then inserts another for a total of seven magazines.

That was remarkable enough, but he isn't finished. He then draws a semi-auto handgun. With that one he used a total of three magazines.

There were no shots fired in the video, it was simply a demonstration of how a mass shooter could reload his weapons. The lesson is solid. A bystander hoping to overpower the shooter has a very short window of opportunity between reloads.

Video link.

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9:32 AM 1/3/2018

Texas Attorney General rewrites, er uh, "interprets" prohibition of handguns in churches

To my eye, this looks like Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has trying to rewrite the handgun law restriction against licensed handgun carrying in churches. While I have no objection to the outcome, I wish the legislature had done it -- the separation of powers should apply at the state level as well as the federal level.

The statute is pretty clear:

PENAL CODE
Sec. 46.035 UNLAWFUL CARRYING OF HANDGUN BY LICENSE HOLDER.
...
(b) A license holder commits an offense if the license holder intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly carries a handgun under the authority of Subchapter H, Chapter 411, Government Code, regardless of whether the handgun is concealed or carried in a shoulder or belt holster, on or about the license holder's person:
...(6) on the premises of a church, synagogue, or other established place of religious worship;

(See also the License to Carry Handbook.)

However, Attorney General Paxton has opined that the statute should be construed with the sections which allow a property owner to prohibit carrying on the premises by displaying specific signage. He says that applies to churches, too. With that interpretation, prohibition applies only in churches that display the 30.06 (concealed) or 30.07 (open carry) signs.

That's all well and good, however his opinions don't carry the weight of law. See this from About Attorney General Opinions:

Courts have stated that attorney general opinions are highly persuasive and are entitled to great weight; however, the ultimate determination of a law's applicability, meaning or constitutionality is left to the courts.

The Texas legislature won't meet again until 2019, so to get it done right we'll have to wait.

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1:59 PM 12/23/2017

California cop Glock accidental discharge -- Chavez v. Glock Inc

Yesterday we talked about how easily striker-fired pistols are to discharge if they have no manual safety. That was in relation to the Kate Steinle case in which the illegal alien shooter got off on all but the felon in possession of firearm charge.

It brought to mind the case of Chavez v. Glock Inc. I made a half axed effort to follow the case but dropped the ball until today.

You can read the facts of the case in the California Court of Appeals decision in cause number B230346 here. In summary, officer Enrique Chavez was driving a car with his infant son in the back seat. His loaded Glock 21 was back there, too. The kid found the gun and pulled the trigger. The bullet paralyzed officer Chavez from the waist down. He sued and lost at the trial level. However, the appellate court gave his case a second chance.

Last year the parties settled the case -- see Glock Settles Negligent Discharge Case With Paralyzed Ex-LAPD Cop. That's not surprising. Paul Barrett in his excellent book, Glock: The Rise of America's Gun said that Glock Inc. fights tooth and nail against lawsuits unless they fear a loss, a negative precedent, or an embarrassment. Then they settle quietly.

(Click hyperlink to read an interview with Mr. Barrett.)

According to Mr. Barrett, Glocks came along around the time police departments were trying to transition away from revolvers. But the officers resisted because they couldn't get accustomed to manual safeties. So a Glock with no manual safety fit the bill perfectly. It wasn't long before they became popular with citizens.

But a pistol that's easily fired and has no manual safety will be involved in a lot of negligent discharges. Common sense should tell us that. Any dangerous activity that requires the user to be 100% perfect is an accident waiting to happen. That's why sky divers strap on back up parachutes.

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10:44 AM 12/2/2017

If the gun that shot Kate Steinle had a manual safety she might still be alive

The gun used to kill Kate Steinle was stolen from a Bureau of Land Management Ranger's car, according to news reports. The gun was apparently left loose in the vehicle, and that may have been a local law violation in itself. So errors started early in the Steinle case.

Thursday we heard that the jury in the murder case found the defendant, Jose Ines Garcia Zarate, not guilty of murder or manslaughter but guilty only of possessing a firearm by a felon. So he won't go free just yet.

Let's put aside the issue of sanctuary cities and the screw ups that preceded the killing and stipulate that the shooting was not intentional but a negligent discharge. News reporters are notoriously neglectful in identifying firearms they write about. But we did learn that the gun was a .40 caliber Sig Sauer. But so far I have not been able to find a report of the model number.

Old school Sigs were DA/SA with a visible hammer, a firm trigger pull and no manual trigger. It's possible to fire one negligently, but it's not as easy as with a striker-fire Glock. Glocks are very popular among handgun buyers, and it wasn't long before other manufacturers began making theirs with the striker-firing mechanism and no manual safety. Sure enough, Sig followed the pack and made one too.

So -- just speculating here -- the .40 caliber Sig involved in the shooting was the striker-fired version. Reports said the gun had a "hair trigger." A hair trigger on a striker-fired pistol is an accident waiting to happen, but more than likely, the trigger pull was standard, it was just easy to pull.

So going along with Mr. Zarate's version of the story, he finds the gun, picks it up, and BAM. Down goes an innocent bystander. It's entirely possible, and it is conceivable that that was enough to generate reasonable doubt among the jurors.

Anyway, it's been a while since I've preached about manual safeties on this blog. So maybe it's time to restart. If the gun that shot Kate Steinle had a manual safety she might still be alive, and it might have been a while longer before Mr. Zarate used it on someone.

Sources:
Kate Steinle Murder Trial: 'Freakish Ricochet' From 'Hair-Trigger' Gun Caused Accidental Death: Defense
Undocumented immigrant acquitted in Kate Steinle death
Court Filing IDs Fed Whose Stolen Gun Was Used in Kathryn Steinle Killing
Kate Steinle’s accused killer found not guilty of murder, to be deported
S.F. police didn’t investigate gun theft before pier killing.

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1:37 PM 12/1/2017

Churches in Texas are gun free zones

The cable news channels are riveted to the shootings at Sutherland Springs. See, for example, Texas town revolves around church where shooting occurred.

And while some are complaining that congregation members should have drawn their own guns to shoot back, that's mistaken.

The church congregation consisted of law abiding citizens, and therefore they obeyed the Texas law making churches gun free zones. Here's an excerpt from the License to Carry handbook:

(b) A license holder commits an offense if the license holder intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly carries a handgun under the authority of Subchapter H, Chapter 411, Government Code, regardless of whether the handgun is concealed or carried in a shoulder or belt holster, on or about the license holder’s person:
...
(6) on the premises of a church, synagogue, or other established place of religious worship.

As the old saying goes, outlaw guns and only outlaws will have guns.

The last Texas legislature had the opportunity to allow carrying in church by volunteers approved by church leadership for security. See H.B. No. 981, a bill which never made it to a vote. Hopefully, the 2019 Texas legislature can do better.

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11:59 AM 11/6/2017

Quote of the week 10-7-17

This comes from Daniel Henninger's column about Democrats' efforts on gun control in the WSJ of 10/5/17 WSJ.  Download Gun Control After Las Vegas PDF. On the difference between Democrats and Republicans, he says the following:

It is to suggest that gun control is really a proxy for a political and social divide on the broad, bedrock issue of security.

Whether that security applies to one's person, home, neighborhood, city or the nation, progressives and conservatives see humankind and the world it inhabits through a different mental lens. Progressives embrace the benign while conservatives fear the malign. Liberals say, give peace a chance. Conservatives say, Annie get your gun.

Bold added.

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2:50 PM 10/5/2017

Democrats' disingenuous call for conversation about gun control

Was it Rahm Emanuel who maintained that Democrats should never let a crisis go to waste? Whoever coined the slogan, it struck a chord, and Democrats have certainly taken it to heart.

So now we are hearing Democrats all over the cable networks calling for a "conversation" about gun control. Well, we've been listening to Democrats talk about gun control for a long time, and we've tuned them out. The problem, which they probably know, is that it is impossible to keep guns out of the hands of crazies bent on killing. They've tried. We've had bans on assault rifles and high capacity magazines, and that did nothing. Background checks may actually work, but they can't prevent every crime.

By calling for a conversation Democrats just want to remind us that they still want gun control. Their dilemma is summed up in S.E. Cupp's article What Democrats want is no guns, but they don’t have the courage to say so.

If Democrats are serious about putting an end to mass shootings, or gun deaths in Chicago, or gang violence, they should fight to take every last gun off the street. They should stand up and say they want to repeal the Second Amendment. Anything short is either a shortsighted fallacy or political window dressing.

But will they? It’s unlikely, because they want to get reelected, and they remember all too well what happens to Democrats in the wake of significant gun control efforts: a rout of the kind seen in 1994 following a now-expired assault weapons ban.

A virtuous image is important to any elected office holder, but that merely serves the purpose of their number one goal, getting reelected. Besides, the reality is that only the law abiding gun owners will obey any law that demands relinquishing privately held guns. It's trite but true, outlaw guns and only outlaws will have guns.

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9:48 AM 10/4/2017

Bam! Negligent discharge by Secret Service officer

This is supposed to have taken place in D.C. on Tuesday, 7/25/2017. Info about it is very sketchy, but WaPo says this:

A U.S. Secret Service officer accidentally discharged a weapon in Washington Tuesday, authorities said.

At around 4 p.m., an officer assigned to the Secret Service’s Washington field office “was involved in an accidental discharge of a weapon while on duty,” a Secret Service spokesman wrote in an email.

The officer, who was not named, was transported to a hospital for injuries that were not life threatening, the email said, and no one else was injured. Information about the location where the weapon was discharged was not immediately available.

No one under Secret Service protection was nearby at the time the weapon was discharged, and there was no property damage, according to the email.

The incident was referred to the Secret Service’s Office of Professional Responsibility for review, the spokesman said.

These announcements never tell us what kind of gun it was, however the internet says Secret Service officers use the Sig Sauer P229 with the DAK trigger and .357 SIG caliber ammo. That handgun has no manual safety.

The lesson for the rest of us might be that if a highly trained Secret Service officer can fire off a round negligently then the occasional shooter needs to be extra careful. However, it often seems that with dangerous machinery, the beginners are more careful than the long time users.

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10:12 AM 7/26/2017

Unlikely that any Texans will openly carry swords when it's legal -- CNN hardest hit

When open carry of firearms became legal in Texas the biggest losers were members of the msm photography squad who searched desperately for someone actually doing it. They couldn't find any. Pobrecitos.

That wasn't surprising. Gun owners, typically more focused on self defense than showing off, didn't want to take away the element of surprise and be the first target of an insane gunman intent on mass murder.

Anyway, knife rights groups are celebrating passage of the law in Texas allowing openly carrying knives with blades longer than 5.5 inches. CNN calls those knives swords. So let's do what they do and take them literally. Will anyone actually carry a sword openly?

I can imagine someone carrying a ceremonial sword in a parade or perhaps a Civil War reenactment, but otherwise, it seems unlikely anyone would do it on any regular basis.

Good advice from Florida sheriff -- arm yourselves

Long ago, in another time, way back in 2012, citizens were advised that in the event an armed man came to kill, you should run, hide, and then fight as the last resort. A helpful video told how to do that. They might have added, "wait." Because it will be several minutes before law enforcement shows up. By the way, notice at about the 59 second point in that video a glimpse of the Texas 30.06 sign prohibiting guns in the building. Gee. What a shame the killer didn't see it.

Fast forward to today when the headlines blast us with steady news of killings by terrorists or co-worker where innocent people die. One Florida sheriff offers some common sense advice -- arm your self. This is war': Florida sheriff urges citizens to arm themselves in case of attack.

Good advice. Each of us is his/her first line of defense.

Gun sales up last month -- maybe buyers aren't so much afraid of Clinton as they are of terrorists

The headlines after the November election blared about a perceived decline in gun sales, supposedly because prospective gun buyers were no long afraid of the Democrats' boasts about gun grabs. There may have been some truth there, but gun sales, at least as defined by the number of background checks, haven't declined all that much. And in May the number of checks was up compared with May of last year. See NICS Firearm Checks: Month/Year for the current month.

Here's a screen shot showing May 2017 as the last month.

The headlines about terrorist attacks -- most recently on the London Bridge -- have a way of focusing the mind on how to protect oneself in a sudden emergency. Beefing up personal protection may likely be the first option for many Americans.

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9:55 AM 6/4/2017

Misleading headline -- Gov Abbott didn't joke about shooting reporters

The print edition of the morning paper had this headline over an article: "Texas governor jokes about shooting reporters after signing gun bill."

It's an article from Texas Tribune. And the headline is the same at the Texas Tribune site. But Abbott didn't joke about shooting reporters.

Reporters are hypersensitive these days after Montana´s U.S. Representative elect, Greg Gianforte, jostled a pesky reporter. So maybe they are looking for any way to make themselves victims of Republicans. Thus the trolling.

Abbott's joke was that he should carry around the target, not shoot anyone. Here's the quote from the article:

Following the bill signing, Abbott tested out a few guns at an upstairs shooting range.

"I'm gonna carry this around in case I see any reporters," Abbott joked while holding his bullet-riddled target sheet.

Huge difference. Texas Tribune knew that. But they ran the misleading headline anyway. Poor guys must be desperate for business now that they are no longer partnered with the New York Times.

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2:52 PM 5/27/2017

A gun for every militiaman -- Maduro's armed supporters vs unarmed protesters

Many gun owners in the U.S. are opposed to gun control because they are law abiding citizens who believe they have a right to protect themselves, their families, and their property against villains who would ignore the gun control laws. Also, lurking in the recesses of their minds is the nagging fear that they might need to protect themselves from the government that disarmed them. Couldn't happen here, you say?

It's hard to predict the future, but there probably weren't many who predicted it would happen in Venezuela, either. But it is happening there as President Maduro called for arming citizen militia with military weapons. See 'A gun for every militiaman!': Venezuela's president wants to beef up armed civilian groups:

Maduro said he hopes to expand the number of civilians involved in the Bolivarian militias created by the late Hugo Chavez to 500,000, up from the current 100,000, and provide each member with a gun.

This is to protect his regime from protesters who he calls "traitors."

See also A lesson in Democracy from Venezuela where Russ Vaughn warns against Democrats' calls for disarming Americans. Ha! With record numbers of guns having been purchased by citizens in the last few years it's not likely those new gun owners will be too eager to relinquish them.

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2:20 PM 4/21/2017

gun sales still high in spite of what was previously reported

It wasn't too long ago that the media were reporting that gun sales fell off a cliff as soon as Donald Trump was elected president, i.e., as soon as it appeared that gun grabbing regulations became less likely.

But look at this: NICS Checks in the Trump Era: March 2017 Near Record. Applications to the National Instant Criminal Background  Check System are used as an approximate measure of gun sales during the applicable period. And while the comparison of the March, 2017, numbers with previous March numbers may not mean much, it's interesting that the difference wasn't so great as to justify the panic drop in gun sellers' stock prices.

Sturm, Ruger & Company for example. The stock price bottomed out shortly after the November election but has moved up almost 20% off its low. Maybe that was a dead cat bounce. Or maybe the panic selling was overblown. I certainly don't know.

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3:38 PM 4/13/2017

What are lefties up to with their new fondness for the 2nd amendment?

Reports tell us that lefties are arming themselves. See, for example, Liberals Own Guns Too – The Rise of Liberal Gun Shops, which tells us that “liberal gun stores” are popping up around the U.S. The reason is that the lefties want to arm themselves but don't want to frequent stores that might display a political leaning with which they disagree.

Ostensibly, they want to arm themselves for the same reason conservatives do: for self protection. But then we see articles like this: Author: It’s Not College Kids Creating Chaos To Resist Trump, ‘They’re Professionals’. To wit:

Trevor Loudon, the author of “Enemies Within,” was featured in a recent documentary created by the Capital Research Center called “America Under Siege: Civil War 2017.” The film is about who was behind the inaugural protests against President Donald Trump. They found organizations and professionals like Teresa Gutierrez of the Workers World Party, who proclaims in the film, “this is the revolution that will take Donald Trump down and make America a socialist country.”

No doubt, he says, some of the radical left in the “resistance” aim to push their disruption to the point of social and economic breakdown, and a weakened police so as to get an all-out revolution. But, Loudon says the short-term objective is “to terrorize the squishy Republicans” with shadowy, paid protesters, a corrupt media and mass manipulation by the Bernie Sanders-Tom Perez-Keith Ellison-Barack Obama radical left who suddenly lost their power. They seek to bring about disunity in the Republican ranks using escalating fear and political correctness.

Well, at least not all of them are working for an all-out revolution. Nevertheless, it's troubling when political ideologues suddenly adopt a pro-gun stance they opposed so vociferously not long ago.

Meanwhile, on the bright side, firearm accidents appear to be on the decline. So at least the new gun owners may be developing good safety habits.

gun sales -- down but not out

It's no secret that gun sellers have experienced a downturn since Donald Trump was elected. According to Stephen Gutowski, Gun Sales Dip in January as Trump Takes Office, citing the comparison of the January 2016 to the January 2017 background checks reported by the FBI. (It was about a 25% drop -- click on thumbnail on the right to see chart.)

Gun manufacturers' stock prices certainly took a nose dive. And maybe it's too early to plunge in after them at this point. But that's an industry to watch. At least one analyst is bucking the trend by tentatively suggesting that Ruger stock is undervalued. That may be true. I'm not smart enough to know.

However, anecdotal evidence suggests that gun sales are still strong. For example, a friend who attended a local gun show over the weekend reported that attendance wasn't that much different from previous shows. They may have just been looky-loos rather than buyers. But there's also this: Strong Attendance at 2017 SHOT Show Provides Positive Outlook for Firearms Industry. Shot Show is an industry trade show, and the optimism of the attendees might just be wishful thinking.

Nevertheless, there's something on the horizon that a lot of potential investors probably haven't considered. That's a new product line that would become possible once silencers are legalized. We talked about the movement to legalize silencers last month. But more recently, the ATF itself issued a White Paper in which they concluded silencers should not be viewed as a threat to public safety.

It will be a while yet before regulations on silencers are relaxed. But if and when that happens, who better to manufacture silencers than the firearm industry?

1:55 PM 2/8/2017

How long does it take to get a License To Carry renewed in Texas?

My own experience suggests that if the applicant is getting impatient then it's best to log into the DPS website to view the status online and not wait for some written notice of an application deficiency that may never arrive.

I applied for a renewal slightly less than six months prior to the license expiration date, then promptly forgot about it. Their website warned applicants that new finger prints might be required. I joked to a friend that they probably routinely request new prints to buy time since they were so busy.

I remembered it after a few months and decided to follow up through their online status application. Sure enough, they wanted new prints. Furthermore, a line in the status page said I had been notified. Nope. I got no notice other than my own eyeballs on their webpage. BTW, that was 135 days after I mailed the application.

Furthermore, the criminal background check apparently requires the prints, because they didn't begin that check until they had the prints in their system.

In any event, the license arrived in the mail nine days after the new prints were taken at Identogo, so kudos to the DPS for their prompt attention to the matter once they had everything in hand.

In their defense, record numbers of Texans have applied for a handgun license which is a good thing. But they were swamped. Maybe their workload has lightened a bit now that the gun salesman of the decade is no longer president.

As for statutory deadlines, they have 60 days for a new application and 45 days for a renewal once the materials have been received. Reference: §411.176. REVIEW OF APPLICATION MATERIALS and §411.185. LICENSE RENEWAL PROCEDURE found online here.

Meanwhile, if you are waiting on an original or renewal and get impatient, go log on at The License to Carry a Handgun service to check the status. If your last prints were on paper you'll probably have to get them retaken electronically. If your online status report says you need to submit new prints, don't waste time waiting for written notification, just follow the instructions at LTC Fingerprint and Photo Information and take care of it. The fee for prints at identogo.com was $10.21 with tax. Cash was not accepted at the outpost where I went.

Cultural cognition shapes scientific opinion more than we would like -- Surprisingly!

Cultural cognition is the tendency of individuals to conform their beliefs about disputed matters to values that define their cultural identities. That doesn't seem to be an earth shattering observation as we see how divided the political classes are about certain issues about which there really shouldn't be much doubt.

Conservatives, for the most part, can't understand why progressives are so intent on disarming citizens when it seems obvious that only the most law abiding citizens would obey any law requiring them to relinquish their privately owned firearms. Likewise, progressives are dumbfounded by the idea that anyone could be suspicious of the claims that climate science is settled.

Science has an answer to how to reach those with opposing views. See “Science curious” more likely to explore data contradicting their world view. Researchers attempted to measure science curiosity among survey takers and found this:

While low-science-curiosity folks were more likely to select the article that agreed with their opinion, regardless of whether it sounded novel, high-science-curiosity people preferred whichever headline was “surprising.” If anything, they were even more likely to select that headline if it ran counter to their beliefs.

The undercurrent there seems to be carrying water for the climate-change-science-is-settled school of thought. So global warming agnostics shouldn't be surprised to see more "surprising" headlines about climate change. But why should they have all the fun? Gun owners should get in on this too.

A single gunshot can cause hearing loss -- free the silencer from federal regs

Several years ago I participated in a few competitive handgun events in an indoor range. The noise in a confined area was deafening, even with both plugs and shooting earmuffs.

I was reminded of that recently while reading an autobiography in which the writer described the time he and his apartment neighbor had a conversation. The neighbor was wearing shooting earmuffs. His explanation was that he wanted to protect his hearing if he had to shoot an intruder. Good idea, as half baked as it was, but how would he have heard the intruder?

However, he certainly had a point. Even a single gunshot in close proximity can cause hearing loss. Shoot a gun in a household hallway, and the concussion can raise the roof. That's an exaggeration, but it could very easily damage unprotected ear drums.

In the movies they are called silencers, and they were the province of the professional killers and international spies. Currently, they are treated like fully automatic guns by the federal government, i.e., the buyer has to go through a class 3 firearms dealer, pay a hefty fee, get local law enforcement approval, and wait.

But all that might change. See Hill Republicans try to ease purchase of gun 'silencers,' as NRA-backed Trump arrives

Congressional Republicans are trying to change federal guns regulations to make buying a silencer, or suppressor, easier. But critics don’t agree with the argument that the proposed legislation is a safety measure to prevent hearing injuries.

The Hearing Protection Act, introduced earlier this week in the GOP-controlled House and Senate, if passed, would still require a background check to buy a silencer, which muffles or suppresses more than silences the sound of a shot.

However, buyers would no longer have to pay a $200 fee or wait for months after filing extensive paperwork with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

House Bill 367 and Senate bill 59 both would eliminate the fee and provide that silencers would be treated the same as long guns. The House Bill would be effective for transfers after October 22, 2015. So could silencer buyers after that date get a tax refund? Not so fast. The Senate bill is almost exactly the same except that it's effective only for transfers after January 9, 2017. And we can probably assume lawmakers aren't going to authorize rebates for taxes paid as far back as October 2015.

So I would hold off until those bills are reconciled and signed into law before shopping for a silencer. But I've already added one to my Christmas wish list.