Preventing School Shootings

The NRA has come out in favor of armed guards at schools, which while it might help, probably won't work as well as one might hope. Think about it. One armed guard at the front door of every grade school, middle school, and high school. Probably several at the high schools as those are large buildings with multiple doors. And what about colleges? Do we really want the TSA groping students on a daily basis? Because ultimately that's who will get the job. They're a branch of the government, and they're unionized.

Larry Correra has a better suggestion that calls for some of the faculty to get trained, get a CCW, and carry discreetly on the job. This would be far more effective. From the point of view of a potential shooter, a guard at the door is one person who can be ambushed, giving access to the target-rich environment inside. Knowing that multiple persons inside, identities unknown, are armed and will oppose him, the shooter looks for a less risky target, like a movie theater with a "no guns" sign out front.

The problem I see is that in order to get a job inside a school building, one must first survive 4+ years of Ed school, so the mindset may not be there. In the second place it places the teachers union in the position of opposing all guns on the one hand, and demanding "combat pay" for the CCW members, perhaps to cover ammo and fees for one range trip a month on the other.

Of course it's possible that if such a policy were implemented, more teachers than you'd expect might come out of the closet for the training. After all, it would be "for the kids".

Gun Ban - Colorado II

Following up on the post below, here are the thirteen mayors that support Mike Bloomberg's all out assault on gun ownership.
Mayor Matthew Appelbaum
Boulder, CO
   Mayor Michael B. Hancock
    Denver, CO
Mayor Randy P. Penn
Englewood, CO

Mayor Marjorie Sloan Golden, CO

Mayor Carolyn Cutler Lafayette, CO

Mayor Bob Murphy
Lakewood, CO

Mayor Robert Muckle Louisville, CO

Mayor Marc A. Snyder
Manitou Springs, CO
Mayor Joe Gierlach
Nederland, CO

Mayor Joyce Downing Northglenn, CO

Mayor Don Stephens
Salida, CO
  Mayor Andrew Muckle
   Superior, CO
Mayor Stuart Fraser
Telluride, CO       

If you live or work in one of there towns, or a town adjacent to one of there towns perhaps a letter to the Mayor might be in order asking if their constituents are aware they support Mayor Bloomberg's rather extreeme position on guns which extended from this:

But if he had his preference, Bloomberg said he would go farther than the 1994 ban and outlaw all automatic and semi-automatic weapons and high-capacity magazines. The mayor said magazines shouldn’t be allowed to contain more than five or even three rounds. 

to a ban on letting the national guard help with the hurricane cleanup since he didn't want anyone with guns in his kingdom that wasn't directly on his payroll. Of course if he's going to ban all semi-autos, then magazine capacity becomes a moot question. With only a small amount of linguistic gymnastics, double-action revolvers could be classified as semi-autos as well.

Click the link, and e-mail your mayor:

Dear Mayor________
             It is with some consternation that I note your political alliance with anti-gun rights extremist Mike Bloomberg (MAIG). Mayor Bloomberg has come out in favor of a complete ban on all semi-automatic weapons which currently constitute the majority of all weapons owned by the public at present.

As we know, the criminal elements in society would be unaffected by this sort of legislation while the law-abiding would be left defenseless.

Could you please cite for me the polling information from your constituents in support of this position? I will be pleased to pass it along to the local paper.

Regards
_________

Gun Ban - Colorado?

The Colorado chapter of Mayor Bloomberg's gun-ban club has lined up like so many trained seals and honked their horns in unison calling on the President to "do something" about guns:

The letter from Mayors Against Illegal Guns whose co-chairs are Boston Mayor Thomas Menino and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg was sent Wednesday, seeking to require criminal background checks for every gun buyer, a ban of high-capacity rifles and magazines and to make gun trafficking a federal crime.

Not sure what a "high-capacity rifle" is, possibly one with multiple barrels.

As to making gun trafficking a federal crime, we know good and well that Obama's not going to jail Eric Holder on this kind of a technicality.

NICS Checks

November set a new record for number of NICS checks called in at 2.009 million, eclipsing the previous high of 1.862M set last December.

Historically, December outpaces November by 15-20%. Notwithstanding that not every NICS check defines a gun sale, it still looks like there will be a lot of new firearms under the trees this year.

The stata get updated monthly and the direct link to the stats won't work in January. To get the numbers, go here, and look for - Total NICS Checks, Nov. 30, 1998 - November 30, 2012  (pdf) which should be updated to the previous month. I.E. come January it should say ..... December 2012 (pdf).

Caught A SWAT Perp

SWATting someone goes way beyond just a bad joke. When you call in the cops and they show up dressed for Falluja and armed to the teeth all it takes is one oopsie and the intended victim is dead. To add insult to injury, the cops still don't need to apologize.

The LAPD caught a SWATter. Turns out to be a juvie so no names. Probably no serious time either, but one can hope. In an earlier time he's just be stalking celebrities, now one can aspire to being a mass murderer by proxy. Ain't technology grand?

You Want Me To Do What?

The "iron river of guns" flowing from the U.S. to Mexico turns out to have its headwaters in the U.S. Justice department.

The flow of military weapons to Al Quaida in Lybia seems to have its headwaters in the U.S. State department.

The proposed sale of 20 brand new F16's to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt has its origins in the U.S. White House.

And they think we're going to turn our guns over to them?

Polls And Petitions

There's a petition here asking the President to back off on gun bans.

There's a poll here asking what you think of magazine bans.

The petition was put up yesterday and will probably get the 25,000 minimum required signatures tonight.

The poll is at the Wall St Journal and is running 80/20 against regulating magazines.

UPDATE: Interestingly there's a poll in the Hartford (Conn) Courant that suggests that new gun laws aren't very popular. With 3 possible answers, 2 of which amount to a no vote, it's about 85% against.

Update 12/19: The petition is adding 25,000 signatures a day, The magazine ban is opposed 81/19, and Hartford opposes new gun laws 90/10. Obama, instead of calling for hastily written gun laws has appointed his court jester, Slow Joe, to head up a blue ribbon study committee to see which way the wind might be blowing. Diana DeGette, D-Blisninny, has put up HR-308 (fortuitous number, no?) to ban high capacity magazines, which she admits won't do any good, but makes her feel like she's doing something.

Observations

Perusing the web, I notice
1. A quote from Fredrich Hayek from his early days as a student that pretty much every time the government passes a law to address some problem, the net effect is to make the problem worse.

Of course they do. If laws actually solved problems lawmakers would quickly find themselves surplus to society's needs. If the problem gets worse, then more laws are obviously needed along with bureaus to interpret them and collect fees. The surest route to success in government is to fail.

Hayek was speaking to laws governing economics, but the rule generally holds. Bear with me here.

John Fund in the National Review cites a paper by John Lott:

Lott offers a final damning statistic: “With just one single exception, the attack on congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson in 2011, every public shooting since at least 1950 in the U.S. in which more than three people have been killed has taken place where citizens are not allowed to carry guns.”

Also noting that of the seven theaters showing the Batman movie within 20 minutes of the shooters home, the one he visited was the only one with "no guns" posted.

2. In that same vein, what is the correlation between tight gun laws and high murder rates? Chicago already has everything the Brady Bunch is now demanding and Nancy Pelosi is promising to offer for the nation as a whole. I checked and discovered that in the last year Chicago averaged some 42 murders a month, mostly gunshot, mostly black. This is the gun-free nirvana we're being set up for. Of course when it doesn't work, the obvious solution will be closer surveillance.Or Something.

So 42 black people a month is a statistic, but 27 white people in a year or two is a tragedy, to paraphrase papa Joe Stalin.

3. In the same article:

A lengthy study by Mother Jones magazine found that at least 38 of the 61 mass shooters in the past three decades “displayed signs of mental health problems prior to the killings.”

The word you're looking for here is deinstitutionalization. This involves closing down the state and privately owned minimum security homes for the moderately unstable and turning the lot of them out on the street where they are allowed to make their own decisions about their medications. Properly managed this could work out well for the nanny-staters. The Twinkies, instead of populating the busy intersections all day are now busy cutting out paper dolls with blunt-tipped scissors and their absentee ballots arrive at the front desk in a bundle where the staff can quickly and accurately fill them out and get them mailed in in a timely manner.

Musical Interlude

I love good music. Here's Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, third movement. This guy plays the whole thing including his backups. Not at the same time of course.

I can just imagine old Ludwig himself banging his bewigged head on the keyboard...

H/T to Grouchy Old Cripple, who finds this sort of thing fairly regularly.

QOTD - Gun Rights

Found the reference to the site in a newsletter I get (Colorado RKBA) and visited it. Holy guacamole! While I sympathize with the anguish over the Newtown massacre, some of these folks are coming completely unhinged.
This comes across as similar to Mark Twain's description of southern justice in which

"if a crime were committed, the menfolk would band together and search the county top to bottom and East to West, and if the actual perpetrator couldn't be found they would at least lynch a nigger."

The question has often come up as to why the anti-gunners tend to be so violent. Well who knows. Apropos of that thought, here's the QOTD from Clayton Cramer in an article he published in 1st Freedom magazine:

Most people in our society still retain the right to keep and bear arms - but not everyone who has that right should exercise it.

The article just came out and I couldn't find it on the web so no link. It's an excellent article and everyone should read it, describing how California at one point passed a ban on concealed carry, then 7 years later realized that it was only enabling the thugs and robbers and repealed it.

Come to think of it Mr. Cramer's comment applies to a lot of things, rights and privileges both, like driving, voting, and holding office. At least there's a qualification test for driving.

Appointments Matter

In the case of the president some of his appointments tell you a lot about his mindset. His Attorney General refuses to prosecute any misdeeds done by blacks for example.

I firmly believe that he appointed Hillary to Sec. of State only to insure that she didn't mount a primary challenge to him in the last election.

Now that the election is over and Hill is claiming a concussion as a work-related injury (watch her retire on disability) He's considering John Kerry for the post. As a Viet Nam Veteran, I consider Mr. Kerry to be an untrustworthy lying, backstabbing, two-faced weasel. He should fit in well in the Cabinet.

Obama doesn't seem to actually like anyone although he fakes it fairly well. We know he doesn't like white people very much and Jews in particular, but he may have found a good solid anti-Semite for the Sec Def position, since after suggesting Kerry for the job he was probably starting to hear the words "military coup" whispered in his ear by advisers who weren't quite so politically tone deaf.

Chuck Hagel never saw a pro Israeli position he could support up to now, and probably won't in the future. I'm guessing that if he gets the job, he'll serve out his term without ever visiting Israel.

Small Guns

O.K. very small guns. Homemade toy guns at that. Jeff over at Alphecca had a video of a fellow making a toothpick gun from a single clothespin. I have to admit I liked the shotgun-style slide action cocking and the economy of making the whole thing from a single pin.

Here's my version, somewhat more elaborate, which I used to make in grade school:

You cock it using the remaining piece of clothespin (not shown) pushing the spring back between the number 2 and the word "sand" written on the top piece. It shoots toothpicks better if you add scotch tape fins to the rear, as well as BB's and small stones.

Modern clothespins with the open wound coils are noticeably weaker than the tight wound ones of days of yore. Evidence of the decline of western civilization.

Guns - Newtown Followup

No less an expert than Rupert Murdoch has weighed in with a tweet:

Terrible news today. When will politicians find courage to ban automatic weapons? As in Oz after similar tragedy.

This was mentioned on Insty, to which a reader answered:

1934

Which is close anyway. Back then even a mega-statist like FDR recognized that he couldn't simply disarm the American public, the constitution wouldn't allow it. Plan B was to impose a prohibitively high tax on selected items, probably with the intention of expanding the list later. Remember as in the case of Obamacare, the legislature cannot demand or forbid the purchase of an item but it can tax.

And tax he did. You could have your machine gun, short barreled rifle or shotgun, or a suppressor if you paid a $200 tax for a stamp. At the time this was a lot of money. An internet inflation calculator I found suggests that in 2012 dollars that would be $3436.13. The going current rate for an AR pattern rifle is about $800 (+/- YMMV) so the tax if adjusted for inflation would be a bit over 4 times the purchase price.

As to mass shootings, Boston.com has a graphic showing about how often we can expect one of these:

The answer appears to be about 20 times a year. "Mass" in this case I believe is defined as "more than 3". So 20 per year per 300M population or 1 per year per 15M population. Do the math for your own bailiwick.

England is often cited for its draconian gun control which results in crime victims doing more time than the criminals if they try to resist a crime and are found to have used somewhat more effort in the resistance than the criminal used in the crime. Not surprisingly criminals are finding that this favors them. The police there have been under a great deal of pressure to help prove that the Labor-passed laws have been effective to the point that no one actually believes them any more. What reporting there is, however, suggests that the laws aren't working out all that well.

Guns - Stormy Weather

It's still early and the whole story is not yet out, but the Newtown massacre will no doubt figure heavily in the upcoming legislative session.  The Dems, having taken control of the legislature and the governors office think that now would be the time to "have a discussion about guns" which is PC speak for "try to grab all we can".

Locally there are mutterings as to what is about to be proposed, and mayor Bloomberg is planning to figure significantly in the writing of the bills. Speculation at this point is that the following will or may be addressed, via Greg Smiths newsletter:

Updated information on anti-Second Amendment bills in the 2013 Colorado Legislature

We can expect 14 to 20 anti-gun bills. The current Democrat package includes:

A ban on an undetermined number of semi-automatic firearms (No grandfather clause);

A ban on magazines of over ten rounds (No grandfather clause);

Making an individual with a violent misdemeanor a "prohibited person" re: gun ownership;

A ban on private sales by requiring universal background checks;

A waiting period on background checks that will kill gun shows;

Rollback of concealed carry on college campuses;

More strict enforcement of gun confiscation related to restraining orders; and

Wider use of mental health treatment information for gun control purposes.

Published reports indicate that rabid, anti-gun, millionaire, New York City Mayor Bloomberg is sending a well-funded team to Colorado to push gun control.

Bloomie counts 13 Colorado mayors as his minions, and the standard talking points will be rolled out. The question to be asked is why the legislature wants to disarm the law abiding citizens to the benefit of the thugs?

I was communicating with some gun rights folk in England (yes they have some) and his rather discouraged position was that every time you ask the government to let you protect yourself, they drag out the Dunblane massacre in which a man with an SKS killed 16 children and a teacher which resulted in a nationwide ban on handguns. My observation was that the tragedy occurred not because a man had a gun, but because only one man had a gun.

Perhaps a counter proposal that some percentage of the faculty at public schools be trained and given CCW . A double whammy here since the CCW teachers would be unlikely to vote with the sheep and could be a "bad influence" on them

Gun Fun - Hi Point 4095

I got my carbine back from the factory today, about 2 weeks sooner than I had expected and Hi Point deserves their reputation as the best customer service group out there.

They didn't send me back a whole new gun but it was a near thing from the look of it. Anything that was worn was replaced. Anything that has been upgraded in the last 2-1/2 years was replaced. Anything that needed polishing got polished. Five stars out of five and a +.

Time for a range trip. Wish it was warmer. I hate winter.