A post I was reading earlier today got me thinking about carrying of guns. I can imagine some (very limited) circumstances where someone could argue that they need to do concealed-carry. The number of cases where someone has an actual need to open-carry a pistol … well, I struggle with thinking of one.
But open-carry of a long arm? If you're not in the woods hunting (or concerned about being hunted)? I can honestly say that I cannot imagine a single rational reason for doing so, except to intimidate and posture. Neither of those are crimes, to be sure, but I'm pretty sure they're not why the Founders passed the Second Amendment, either.
How rational is the NRA's current mantra, "The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun"? According to this gun owner — not very.
It's an interesting article, because it's written from the perspective of someone who comes from gun ownership in the family and personally, and is rethinking the idea of carrying a gun as a useful means of personal protection or being able to take out a bad guy threatening others. The comment section is (surprisingly) pretty level-headed as well.
It’s Really Hard to Be a Good Guy With a Gun
My wife and I got into an argument last night over a dead man. His name was Joseph Robert Wilcox. He was 31 on Sunday, the day he tried to stop cop-killer Jerad Miller in a Las Vegas Walmart and was shot by Miller’s wife Amanda. Wilcox was a good guy with a gun. It cost him his life.
Do people murder their whole family with weapons other than guns? Sure.
When given a choice, do they tend to opt for guns, which can kill quickly, effectively, and at a distance? Sure seems that way.
But, remember, guns must be freely available to keep families safe.
(See also: suicide rates by gun, and suicide success rates by gun.)
Florida sheriff: Man guns down 3 daughters, wife, himself in ‘everyday USA’ mass killing
“This is everyday USA behind me,” Scott said on Sunday as he was standing front of the crime scene. “Something snapped, something went terribly wrong. And we’ll never know the answer to why.” WBBH reported that Enrique Medina may have been drunk after a party at the family’s home until early …
Ran across the below, and it prompted a flurry of tiny aneurysms.
If your prime counter-example is a domestic terrorist from almost twenty years go, it seems you're reaching — especially when the number of people killed by guns in that same time frame is much, much higher.
The analogy falls apart for other reasons. Yes, you are still "free" to buy fertilizer — but there are now restrictions on (and monitoring of) purchases of that type of fertilizer. You can rent a box truck — but try using your "freedom" to park one in front of a government building. (Also: it was diesel fuel, not racing fuel.)
And all of those things — fertilizer, diesel, box trucks — are used by millions of people in ways that have nothing to do with blowing up buildings.
Gun control is, in fact, people control — in that it ties to keep demonstrably (indeed, intentionally) deadly weapons out of situations and the hands of people where tragedy can occur. Yes, absolutely, murderers will murder with or without a gun — but there's a reason why most murderers go with the gun option: guns are fast, effective, work from a distance, and can target multiple people in very short order.
I don't kid myself that if only we ban all guns then we'll have puppies and unicorns and all sing "Kumbaya" together. Gun control is not a complete solution, nor is it the only tack we need to be taking — better mental health care* and prison rehabilitation** would go a long way toward eliminating some of the drivers toward violence that guns enable to be all the more deadly.
But it is blindingly clear that enabling factor of guns also needs to be factored in. Guns don't kill people — but they make it a lot easier for folks who want to kill people, or threaten to kill them, to do so. Yes, we should enforce the laws on the book more strenuously — but those laws have been purposefully watered down to allow loopholes for purchases, and to prevent or greatly hinder any sort of record-keeping or coordination between states and the feds to track problematic sellers or buyers, and other laws have been passed to prohibit or defund government efforts to even study the problem. Let's tackle that part, first, and then see where we are. But let's not just pretend that, because one heinous crime was committed without use of guns that guns — or, at least, their high availability for misuse — aren't a problem.
Unfortunately, any discussion of any sort of action that might help us control access to guns, or what sorts of firearms are needed in society to protect people from whatever people feel they need guns for, is apparently completely off the table, because the NRA and their firearms-industry-funded ilk immediately turn it into a huge conspiracy about how That Man in the White House and his thugs are going to take all our guns, throw us into prison camps, and do unspeakable acts to our womenfolk. Because only Adolph Hitler ever took away people's guns, and Timothy McVeigh didn't even use one.
[* Of course, I suspect a lot of the "the government is going to steal my gun just like the Nazis did" crowd will then start to shout that "the government is going to lock me up in an asylum for disagreeing with them, just like the Soviets did." See also: anti-vaxxers and parental rights fanatics.]
[** We often conflate, in the gun control / violence issue, "crazy" murderers and the use of guns by criminals. Trying to solve one doesn't help much with the other. Gun violence in the US is symptomatic of a lot of societal problems, and they all need to be solved. By the same token, a high fever is symptomatic of a lot of diseases, and usually the first thing doctors try to do is bring the fever down before they start tackling the underlying causes.]
Sometimes it seems that a lot of the pro-gun arguments in this nation are a combination of what folks have seen in TV/movies and gun-manufacturer-backed propaganda.
For example, there's this idea that, "Well, if I had a gun and was there, I'd keep that Bad Thing from happening." When in reality most people faced with a Bad Thing either freeze, or respond inappropriately, and even regularly trained and range-certified police officers have a piss-poor chance of hitting their intended targets with their pistols, but others in the vicinity of their shots aren't always so lucky.
"Guns don't kill people." But people who are out to kill other people find guns a lot more effective way of doing so.
10 Pro-Gun Myths, Shot Down
Fact-checking some of the gun lobby’s favorite arguments shows they’re full of holes.
‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens
ISLA VISTA, CA—In the days following a violent rampage in southern California in which a lone attacker killed seven individuals, including himself, and seriously injured over a dozen others, citizens living in the only country where this kind of mas…
"Look, you have freedom of speech, but you can't go this far"
There's a very, very, very fuzzy line about how one represents one's employer when one is functioning in the public square. We've seen a lot of folks get in trouble over saying things in social media that their superiors (and/or the public) though reflected poorly on their workplace.
The most recent result of that is the Kansas Board of Regents revising their social media guidelines. Now employees (including University of Kansas professors) not only can't say anything that might create violence or disclose private or confidential information, but can't say anything that is "contrary to the best interests of the university."
Which will be judged, of course, by the Board of Regents.
Now, an employer has to look after its interests — and, in this case, the Board of Regents is apparently pretty darned scared of the Kansas Legislature, which holds the purse strings (just as the governor appoints the regents), and which had prominent members up in arms about a particular tweet by a faculty member after a shooting: "The blood is on the hands of the #NRA. Next time, let it be YOUR sons and daughters." The lege, and some of the public, went bonkers, leading Rep. Travis Couture-Lovelady of the Kansas Legislature to utter that lovely quote in the headline, in support of the new social media policy, adding, "I think having a clear understanding between faculty and the board of regents on what's acceptable and what's not is better for everyone involved."
I.e., don't say anything in public that might get the public upset.
What's particularly galling about this is how the regents and pols are trying to paint it as increasing "academic freedom" — apparently by providing clear guidelines about what you can't freely talk about. Except, of course, they don't. "Academic freedom" isn't defined by what the taxpayers or their elected representatives might get upset about. If you are looking after the "best interests" of the university, you are not acting freely. If posting an anti-NRA tweet is "contrary to the best interests of the university," then what about a tweet about climate change, or gay rights, or political candidates, or religion, or evolution?
(And, yes, that goes both ways as far as political orientation. I'd like to think I'd be just as outraged if someone who tweeted a very strong pro-NRA message in a very liberal state were being slapped down by a formal policy of this sort. _Especially_ where the employer imposing the policy is, in fact, the government.)
The only restrictions I can think of that might possibly be legitimate, aside from the other caveats in the policy would be making public statements that might cause serious concern among students or employees about whether contrary opinions (or simply being of the wrong race, faith, orientation, origin) might be dangerous to their grades or their employment — in some ways, exactly what this policy does. Of course, being on the outs with the prof, for whatever reason, is always risky — and sooner or later that means that opinions are going to bump up against each other, sometimes with unpleasant consequences.
But that's part of what academic freedom is about. Something that the Kansas legislature and Board of Regents seem to be forgetting in their desire to make "don't rock the boat" the foundation of speech and liberty (and the irony there for ostensibly liberty-loving conservatives is even more galling).
In Kansas, Professors Must Now Watch What They Tweet
Last fall, a University of Kansas professor criticized the National Rifle Association in a tweet. Wednesday, the Kansas Board of Regents approved a strict social media policy for university employees.
Yes, it takes a big man to spit in the face of a disabled woman. Or to get in the face of an old man and poke him in the chest. Or to use a poster from a mothers organization against firearms as a shooting target then smirk and wish his viewers "Happy Mothers Day."
Just the sort of big man who you'd expect to make a really, really big deal about being able to carry a gun out in the open all the time. I'll leave it as an exercise for the student as to what such a big man might be compensating for.
(And, yes, there is legitimate debate and discussion that can be had over firearms, the Constitution, public safety, personal liberty, crime, tyranny, and all that jazz. My point is that these folks are not exercising it. They're being cowards and bullies, and are demonstrating both why they love to open-carry and why they probably shouldn't be allowed to.)
When Missouri in 2007 repealed a law requiring a gun permit to purchase a handgun, homicides went up, and the number of recently-purchased guns recovered from criminals and crime scenes doubled.
Neighboring states did not see a similar increase, nor was there an increase in non-firearm homicide in Missouri in the same period.
If there is a particularly noxious element to human beings during or in the immediate aftermath of a crisis, it's their instant latching onto said crisis (with or without any facts at hand) to flog their particular notions about the world and IF YOU ONLY DID THINGS LIKE I THINK THEY SHOULD BE DONE THEN NONE OF THIS WOULD HAPPEN SO IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT!!!
To illustrate, simply review the Letters to the Editor for any newspaper about the shooting at Arapahoe High School yesterday. Before anything was known about what had happened, you already had people blaming it all on the NRA, on gun control laws, on conservatives, on liberals, on secularism, on religion.
And even as a few, scant facts, most of them "hey, I knew that guy, he was like this" anecdotes from other students have come out about the shooter, each morsel has been absorbed and regurgitated into THE DEFINITIVE AND OVERWHELMINGLY CONVINCING PROOF THAT MY STEREOTYPES ARE 100% ACCURATE!
Just … stop it. Please. If there's one thing worse than I KNOW WHO IS TO BLAME FOR THIS! people, it's I KNOW WHO IS TO BLAME FOR THIS WITHOUT KNOWING ANYTHING ABOUT WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED! people. I mean, please don't feel any urgency to rush to judgment. I'm sure there will be enough information coming to light in the next few days that you can oversimplify and extrapolate-beyond-all-reason while not looking like a total idiot.
So … Arapahoe High School is about 3.5 miles from our house. We pass by it frequently. Kay's Middle School is about a 3 minute drive down the street from it. It is, in fact, where Kay will be going to 9th grade, next year.
So … yeah. That.
To add to the excitement, Kay's band was on a field trip today up at Flatirons mall. And I was with them as chaperon.
So … just about the time we were scheduled to get back on the bus, word started coming through about the shootings at AHS. In fact I found out about it by a phone call from my mom, in California.
A number of the kids were really concerned, since they have friends and relatives at AHS. But the band teacher got a call informing her that Kay's middle school was on lockdown, which meant nobody could leave and nobody could enter.
Including us.
We hung out at the mall for a while, before word came that we were to get on the bus and travel back south to a retail center near (well, about 5 minutes from) the middle school.
Which we did. And waited. And waited.
One thing I found remarkable was that, with the number of smartphones and tablets on board — adults and kids — we were not at all lacking for updates of information, from tweets to IMs to phone calls (including reverse-911 calls from the district) to kids watching streaming video of the new coverage.
(I managed to run my battery down. Imagine that.)
We eventually got word that we could head back to the school, as students were beginning to be released to parents coming to pick them up. But half-way there we were contacted, again, and told to hold off because there were too many parents there, parking in the bus loading area, etc.
Rrg.
We parked next to a Wendy's, and the chaperons walked groups of kids in to use the facilities.
Eventually, they okayed us to come back and stop at the freight entrance (which was good, because we still had all the band equipment), and we did so, and since I was there I was able to nab the daughter and leave, a couple of hours later than originally planned.
It was interesting watching and listening to the reactions of the kids to what was going on. Besides the folks who were frightened over loved ones, there was also a lot of snap judgment that reminded me of the Internet ("well, at least the only one who should be dead is").
The band teacher commented that we chaperons probably regretted volunteering today. I didn't, I told her — if Kay was going to be on this particular trip, I'm glad I was able to be with her.
My manager just ran out the door because there's been another shooting reported here in Colorado — this one at the HS his son attends!
2 Injured In Colorado High School Shooting
At least two people were injured in a shooting at Arapahoe High School in Centennial, Colo. on Friday. Police are calling this an active shooter situation as of 1 p.m., according to 9 News.
+Syrus Drake posted this privately in response to an image macro saying "Switzerland: 1 in 2 citizens has guns, lowest crime rate in world". Reposted with permission:
Okay, I'm feeling very, very uncomfortable with my country being used by American weapon enthusiasts to argue for their weird cause.
Both parts of that statement are technically true but especially the distribution of firearms amongst the population and the way rifles are handled need to be examined closer.
First of all, probably around 80-90% of those guns are SIG 550, the standard rifle of the Swiss military. If you’re part of the militia, you may just keep that thing at home. As soon as you’re discharged, you can get it for cheap. So people don’t really want it, they usually just get it. In fact, most members of the army who live in the civilised-urban parts of Switzerland are trying to get rid of the thing as soon as possible. And people who decide to keep it do so for recreational or practical reasons (so you don’t have to get it from the arsenal for mandatory shooting). Also, you’re not getting any ammunition anymore. If you’re going to the range, for recreational or mandatory shooting, you are allowed to carry the SIG 550 and certain other guns but they must not be loaded. You can BUY a weapon relatively easy but if you want to CARRY a loaded weapon, you need to get a special permit. For that you mustn’t have a criminal record, you need to take a test (!!!) and you have to explain what you need the weapon for and against which concrete threat you want to defend yourself. So “To protect my family” doesn’t count.
Basically, nobody is carrying a weapon in Switzerland. Many people OWN one and you often see people TRANSPORTING one, but nobody is actually carrying a loaded weapon. I know many people who have guns and who regularly use them on the range. In fact, one of my closest friends is a really skilled shooter and all family members shoot as well and are members of the local shooting association. But neither they nor any other person I ever talked to has ever rationalized their weapons with “I need them to protect myself and my family”. They ALL just have it for recreational uses.
Yes, Switzerland has one of the highest gun densities in the world. And one of the lowest crimes rates in the world. But you know what else it has? A high social security. High average income, mandatory, cheap healthcare, high education standards, systems to reintegrate criminals into society and so on and so forth. That’s the reason why Switzerland has low crime rates.
And we have our police, of course. People who are trained to prevent crime (and use guns, if absolutely necessary)! Nobody in their right mind would use their SIG 550 (or any other gun) to defend their home against burglars. You know what we all do in that case? We call the police!
We don’t have dozens of shootings in our cities every week, not because everyone is carrying a gun but because NOBODY is carrying a gun. So possible violence doesn’t escalate.
Yes, both statements here are true but there’s no, I repeat NO correlation whatsoever.
So please, American gun nuts enthusiasts: Make whatever argument you want. You can even disregard those pesky “rational” and “factual” aspects.
But please, please, leave my country out of it. We don’t want anything to do with your cause.
See, I don't remember Christ forming a militia. He didn't seem big on organized armed conflict. And, honestly, he didn't seem big on patriotism, either. So I kind of wonder the thinking that goes into naming your group the "Christian American Patriots Militia".
But I guess when you also figure it's a swell idea to announce that "We now have authority to shoot Obama, i.e., to kill him," rational, lucid, or lexical thinking isn't high on your list of job skills.
I’m not sure how I got onto a mailing list for The Tea Party (or that splinter of them hanging out at TheTeaParty.net), but it does make for some entertaining reading at times. Like, say, today.
Stop the Obama Regime and his EPA from taking our gun rights away! Sign and share our new petition!
Yes, of course, the “regime” is using their national police force, the FBI, to … wait, the EPA? What?
Dear Patriot,
Howdy! I appreciate being called a patriot.
The Obama Administration thugs are it again.
When in doubt, call the other side “thugs.” (Note, this is not strictly a right-wing thing. Zanies on either extreme use this term when the other side is in power and doing stuff they don’t like. Both sides like to prefix it with “jackbooted,” but the Far Right likes to use the term alone, just to evoke those Gang-Banging type of thugs.)
Turning up the heat on those who don’t play ball, …
Yes, requiring people to comply with the law is “turning up the heat” on folks who “don’t play ball.”
Lead! It’s what’s for dinner!
… the Obama Administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is forcing the closure of the nation’s last remaining lead smelting plant, creating dire consequences for employees, their families and the millions of firearm owners across the country. We must continue to stand together against this tyranny!
Are they cackling and twirling their mustachios as they do so?
The nation’s last remaining lead smelting plant provides lead for ammunition used in firearms nationwide. Without the lead, ammunition will become scarcer and costs will continue to rise- a turn of events that is sure to delight the gun-grabbing leftists in Washington. Do you want that to happen?
Wow! Out of the blue, the EPA is trying to shut down a company vital for our home defense industry? The fiends! Clearly this is a back door avenue to rendering the populace helpless!
Operating like old-school thugs, …
Are those the ones who wear black uniforms or the ones who wear black hoodies? Just checking.
… the EPA has demanded the Doe Run Company, which has operated for more than a century, pay $65 million to be in compliance with the EPA’s restrictions and also pay a $7 million civil penalty. The EPA laughably gloats that Doe Run has made a “business decision” to close down the plant, leaving the plant’s 218 employees and contractors out of work.
Herculaneum, Mo., a small town on the bluffs above the Mississippi River, was always a company town. The company, Doe Run, is the largest lead producer in North America, trucking in lead from Missouri’s rich mines to a 120-year-old smelter on the river. For 25 years, the smelter didn’t meet federal air standards for lead, and now, after decades of battling government regulators and angry parents, Doe Run is leaving town at the end of next year.
Percentage of kids 6 and under testing with high lead levels in their blood around the smelter.
[…] For one thing, there was this thick dust on the streets where the trucks drove in from the lead mines. […] The Department of Natural Resources test came back: the dust from the streets in Herculaneum contained 300,000 parts per million lead. That’s 30 percent. […] Within a quarter mile, 56 percent of kids [6 and under] had high levels of lead in their blood. At a half-mile, it was 52 percent. Jordan-Izaguirre says she’d never seen numbers like that, except in the developing world.
[…] In 1988, Doe Run was fined for 177 health violations at the plant – accused of breaking “virtually every section” of the workplace lead standard. […] In 2002, Doe Run and state and federal regulators decided it was easier to get rid of the people than the pollution: the company agreed to buy out the 160 homes closest to the smelter. […] Around that same time in 2002, Doe Run met the Clean Air Act lead standard for the first time ever, since it was set in 1978. […] Despite all this, and even though the air was meeting federal standards, it was still recontaminating people’s yards with lead.
[…] By law, EPA is required to review the national ambient air quality standard for lead every five years to make sure it matches up with current science on public health. But Lipeles discovered the agency had never completed a full review. She filed a lawsuit against the EPA in 2004. Four years later, the agency released a new national lead standard. It was ten times more restrictive than the old one, dropping from 1.5 micrograms lead per cubic meter, to 0.15 micrograms. Doe Run agreed to close the smelter, rather than try to meet the new standard.
So a company that was responsible for massive environmental pollution did some stuff to clean up, but what they were doing was still dangerous (do I need to belabor the dangers of lead and other heavy metal pollution?), so they’ve decided to shut down rather than investing further to correct the problems. That hardly seems radical, or thuggish.
And note when that new national lead standard was released (after lengthy work by the EPA): in 2008, distinctly not during the “Obama Regime,” but during that tree-hugging, gun-hating Bush Administration.
The Doe Run smelter (2001)
Oh, and in case you’re worried that this is some innocuous Mom & Pop company being oppressed by the Man for harmless mistakes …
(Kansas City, Kan., Oct. 8, 2010) – Doe Run Resources Corp. of St. Louis, North America’s largest lead producer, has agreed to spend approximately $65 million to correct violations of several environmental laws at 10 of its lead mining, milling and smelting facilities in southeast Missouri, the Justice Department, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Missouri Department of Natural Resources announced today. The settlement also requires the company to pay a $7 million civil penalty.
The release from the EPA goes through the various pieces of what that’s about and what it covers. None of it strikes me as particularly vindictive or thuggish. Back to the Tea Party:
Is this the “hope” and “change” America signed on for? The Obama Administration, having been thwarted in their efforts to curtail Second Amendment rights time and time again by principled gun owners, have now tasked the EPA with doing their dirty work by making ammunition scarcer and more expensive. Enough is enough.
The main question asked is “Will this shut down your supply of lead.” The answer to that is no. First, Sierra buys lead from several different vendors to maintain constant supply. Second, this facility only smelts primary lead or lead ore. This is lead ore that has just been brought out of the earth. Sierra uses no primary lead at all and never has, so we use nothing directly from this facility. The lead we buy from Doe Run comes from their recycling facility in Boss, MO that is about 90 miles away from the smelter that is closing.
Our supply should not be in jeopardy and we do not anticipate any changes in our supply chain at this time. Could the lack of primary lead create a little more demand for recycled lead? Sure, but how much is unknown. Could this increase in demand also create an increase in price? Sure, but again, by how much is unknown at this time.
There are many other primary lead smelters in the world and so the flow of primary lead will not be shut off.
So a company that’s been responsible for lead pollution at multiple locations in the US and abroad is closing one of their smelters in response to pollution regulations put forward during the Bush Administration, and this will have little to no effect on ammunition supplies. Clearly nothing demonstrating a Deep, Dark Conspiracy to Take Away Our Ammo by the Obama Regime Thugs.
Yeah, nothing here that needs fixing! Defund! Defund!
Like the IRS, the EPA has become an enforcer in the Obama regime and it’s time for them to go. While maintaining protections for the environment remain important, the EPA’s heavy-handed tactics prove that they are not protectors of the environment, but enforcers of the leftist agenda. We must send a message that we will not be intimidated! Join the fight and sign the petition calling for the defunding of the EPA.
Well, that certainly makes sense. Or, more likely, not.
