Toe the party line, or else!

So Dick Metcalf, a dude who makes his living reviewing firearms and writing pieces for gun magazines has suddenly become anathema to gun nuts everywhere. How? He dared to use the word "regulation" in a way that wasn't an accusation. He points out the obvious: that the 2nd Amendment itself says, "A well regulated militia..." He points out more obvious (something I literally learned and understood in middle school civics): that all of our rights are regulated by some extent -- that individual liberty ends when public safety / welfare begins to conflict with it.

And so those of us who have always understood that gun rights can and must be regulated, and that the argument is about specifics, not if...well, we belong in what's called "the reality-based community," while people who literally are single-issue gun rights voters (i.e., nutbags) are not.

Kristof on guns

Today's NYT:

The imbalance in our priorities is particularly striking because since 2005, terrorism has taken an average of 23 American lives annually, mostly overseas — and the number has been falling.
More Americans die of falling televisions and other appliances than from terrorism. Twice as many Americans die of bee or wasp stings annually. And 15 times as many die by falling off ladders.
Most striking, more than 30,000 people die annually from firearms injuries, including suicides, murders and accidents, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. American children are 13 times as likely to be killed by guns as in other industrialized countries.
Doesn’t it seem odd that we’re willing to spend trillions of dollars, and intercept metadata from just about every phone call in the country, to deal with a threat that, for now, kills but a few Americans annually — while we’re too paralyzed to introduce a rudimentary step like universal background checks to reduce gun violence that kills tens of thousands?
Wasn’t what happened at Sandy Hook a variant of terrorism? And isn’t what happens in troubled gang-plagued neighborhoods of Chicago just as traumatic for schoolchildren, leaving them suffering a kind of post-traumatic stress disorder?
I don’t see any glib solutions here, just a need for a careful balancing of risks and benefits. I’d say that in auto safety, we get it about right. We give most adults access to cars, but we regulate them with licenses, insurance requirements and mandatory seat belts. In the case of national security and terrorism, I wonder if we haven’t overdeployed resources.
In the case of guns, we don’t do enough. Baby steps, consistent with the Second Amendment, would include requiring universal background checks, boosting research to understand gun violence and investing in smarter guns. A debit card requires a code to work, a car requires a key — and a gun, nothing at all.

Gun fallacies

Going to start a running post here on the common "counterpoints" (as if they deserve to be considered valid) to the idea of universal background checks, or any change in gun laws generally. This is a work in progress and I will add new points and commentary over time, then erase this sentence later on...

Although it isn't particularly germane to the discussion, for the record I own two shotguns.

Regulation of assault weapons

I like this take by Kristof, which hits the nail home in terms of stats and studies on gun violence:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calculates that each year there are more than 11,000 gun homicides and nearly 19,000 gun suicides. That’s 30,000 firearms deaths a year in the United States. At that rate, there have already been some 2,500 violent gun deaths since Sandy Hook. David Hemenway, a public health specialist at Harvard, says that having a gun at home increases the risk of suicide in that household by two to four times.
To reduce auto deaths, we’ve taken a public health approach that you might call “car control” — driver’s licenses, air bags, seat belts, auto registration. The result is a steady decline in vehicle fatalities so that some time soon gun deaths are likely to exceed traffic fatalities, for the first time in modern American history.

See, the point is that no one said we'd ban cars when we had auto deaths. Instead we applied more rules for how you get a car and track ownership. The government didn't "take away your cars" and they aren't going to do that now. But it's about time for registration and careful database tracking on every firearm, along with other commonsense measures to improve public safety (e.g., firing pin markers, bans on all "highly-lethal" ammo types...).

When a debate turns into an exhibit

Piers Morgan invited nutjob Alex Jones to "debate" gun control. Jones does not provide testimony or evidence to support an argument. He instead functions as a piece of evidence -- a talking exhibit against his own position:

Newtown, Conn

I haven't had much to say about Newtown because there isn't much to add. Gun nuts still blame "liberals" for not wanting to live in the Wild West where everyone has a six-gun on their hip. This though research has shown that in a chaotic situation, anyone who isn't trained as a police officer will probably shoot innocent people or be mistaken for the shooter themselves. Of course it can't be that politicians who pushed for making these kinds of weapons easily available are responsible for the deaths caused by them. Noooooo...that's just a bridge too far!

Sometimes I try to follow their arguments and give them the benefit of the doubt. But to believe in an absolute Second Amendment that allows any type of weapon by mail to pretty much anyone is just fuc*ing nuts. There is no such thing as an absolute Amendment to the Constitution. Take the First Amendment. Just because speech is protected doesn't mean I can call up a school and tell them I planted a bomb there this morning. Just because religion is protected doesn't mean I can commit ritual sacrifice or use outlawed substances as part of my mystic rituals.

I support the idea that people who obey the law should be able to buy a rifle or shotgun for sport or home defense. But I just don't believe that anyone needs a handgun at any time other than police officers. Perhaps my interpretation is too strict. But oversize magazines, semiautomatic assault rifles, mail-order ammunition, hollow-point shells, etc., is just loony tunes.

It's really not that hard to fix the problem: just see the middle ground here between the red-meat red-wingers in the South who scream that Obama is going to take away their guns and the hoplophobic Northeasterners who think all guns should be outlawed. We all know that the risk of a homicidal maniac will never be completely eliminated. But the risk can be managed. Outlaw all weapons of mass murder and their accessories. If it isn't used for sport or home defense, you don't need it. Institute a buyback to purchase all the weapons out there that will be banned, rather than grandfathering them in. Close the gun show loophole already. Improve the technology of firing pins so that every bullet fired is imprinted with a code that can be traced back to the purchaser.

Anybody with half a brain cell was ready to keep the ban on assault weapons and accessories (like the oversize clips) after Columbine. After the VT shooting I lamented that politicians were cowards and the NRA was not much better than an American Taliban in its fundamentalist zeal. At the end of the day, facts are facts: more guns = more gun deaths. And if Obama doesn't grow a spine and lead on this one his legacy will be tarnished.

Guns vs deaths

Take what you will from the statistics. But don't pretend the facts aren't facts.

via Mark Reid: http://mark.reid.name/iem/gun-deaths-vs-gun-ownership.html

I like Jim Boeheim's take:

With his wife, Juli, looking on at the postgame news conference and his young children close by, Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim's final remarks were not about his milestone 900th career victory. Instead, he was thinking about two 6-year-old boys who were buried Monday, victims along with 18 other children and six adults in a shooting massacre last week at an elementary school in Connecticut. "If we cannot get the people who represent us to do something about firearms, we are a sad, sad society," Boeheim said Monday night. "If one person in this world, the NRA president, anybody, can tell me why we need assault weapons with 30 shots -- this is our fault if we don't go out there and do something about this. If we can't get this thing done, I don't know what kind of country we have."

PS: (12/30/12) It appears that the NRA has been blocking funding for research into gun violence for some time. I think that demonstrates the likelihood of what they expect to find: a link between guns and gun violence (duh). Also see some interesting charts here.

PSS: One of the few good research reports written recently on gun violence I could find: .pdf, site

Avoid placing blame and focus on fixing the underlying issue

The news media thinks I give a rat's posterior about what a former half-term governor from one of the nation's least populous states has to say about the shooting and who is to "blame" for it. I am not. If there is any question that your own words or actions could incite others to violence -- even though, in this particular case, I don't think they did -- perhaps you should take that as an indication that you should think before you speak. Or, barring that, given the relative difficulties involved, at least speak least often.

Instead of caring about whose words do or do not incite violence, I care much more about the weapons of violence that are used to cause mass carnage. Do you realize how many shootings since 2004 have caused multiple fatalities and involved an assault weapon? I have two loaded shotguns within reach of my bed for home defense. Consider that before labeling me the new epithet: hoplophobe.

The shooting in Tuscon makes me have to reiterate a question I've posed before -- isn't there some reasonable middle ground between allowing assault weapons to be sold to criminals and banning all guns outright? This nutball was able to walk in and buy a weapon that holds 31 bullets. What person with an IQ above room temperature thinks that is reasonable? The VT killer, Seung-Hui Cho, was able to buy them despite being labelled mentally ill and a danger to himself and others. Before 2004, handguns could not hold more than 10 bullets. This is far more than any reasonable person would ever need to use in hunting or self-defense.

"Wait," you say, "surely you're exaggerating. Criminals can't legally obtain assault weapons in the US!" Bullshit. Walk into a gun show in 33 states and you don't even need an ID. Just cash money. The ATF followed thousands of weapons used by criminals and they found gun shows to be the second-leading way that weapons are obtained by those who couldn't get them otherwise.

One of the favorite right-wing myths out there is that if everyone is always packing a firearm, there will be no deadly rampages by crazed gunmen. They seem to believe that if there is common knowledge that everyone is armed, two things will conspire: one will be more averse to use their weapon given the knowledge of quick retaliation, and citizens can effectively end a shooting rampage before the body counts go up. As with many right-wing fantasies (e.g., "trickle down" wealth, Laffer curve...) the logic here is not only lacking in empirical support, but it is contradicted by research studies that examine the evidence surrounding "right to carry" (RTC) laws in states and their effect on crime:

Overall, the most consistent, albeit not uniform, finding to emerge from the array of models is that aggravated assault rises when RTC laws are adopted. For every other crime category, there is little or no indication of any consistent RTC impact on crime.

This is something that gun nuts can't get around or over -- the statistics involving gun violence are staggering. They can scream about the Second Amendment all day but they can't even whisper when it comes to dealing with the numbers. I have often pointed out to gun nuts that while there were 134 "justifiable homicides" with a handgun in 1999, there were 866 (6.5 times that many) accidental fatal shootings, 314 deaths where intent was unclear, 12,102 murders and 17,424 suicides in 1998. There were 336 deaths of children by accidental shootings in 1998. This basically shows you that the idea that you'll likely need to defend yourself with lethal force is a poor excuse for carrying a gun. It is 3 times likelier a child will be killed by your gun, 6.5 times likelier that someone will be accidentally killed with your gun, 120 times likelier someone will be murdered with it and 170 times likelier someone will use it to commit suicide.

The hopeful idea that citizens who are armed can end a shooting rampage early and thus reduce the harm done is mortally wounded by the reality of recent events:

Zamudio had released his safety and was poised to fire when he saw what he thought was the killer still holding his weapon. Zamudio had a split second to decide whether to shoot. He was sufficiently convinced of the killer's identity to shove the man into a wall. But Zamudio didn't use his gun. That's how close he came to killing an innocent man. He was, as he acknowledges, "very lucky."

That's what happens when you run with a firearm to a scene of bloody havoc. In the chaos and pressure of the moment, you can shoot the wrong person. Or, by drawing your weapon, you can become the wrong person -- a hero mistaken for a second gunman by another would-be hero with a gun. Bang, you're dead. Or worse, bang bang bang bang bang: a firefight among several armed, confused, and innocent people in a crowd. It happens even among trained soldiers. Among civilians, the risk is that much greater.

So there was in fact a man carrying a pistol nearby when the shooting started in Tuscon last week. And that man very nearly killed someone other than the shooter. A recent 20/20 investigated this same concept in looking at whether colleges should allow students to carry weapons on campus.

Police and the military are given months and years of formal training on how to prevent wrongful death shootings. Even with all this training, the employment of lethal force by police is sometimes unjustified and "friendly fire" still kills many in our military. Simply put, when gunshots ring out, the last thing we need is even more chaos and confusion when everyone has guns and no one is sure who to shoot. In addition, even the best-trained civilian who has complete composure under fire may be mistaken or miss the intended target, hitting an innocent bystander.

Many who go on shooting rampages are either mentally ill and/or intend to die in the carnage, and so the knowledge that others are armed would have no discernible effect on them.

So what's my "final solution"? Reasonable gun laws. Ban extended capacity magazines. No one but gun nuts and madmen want more than 10 bullets in a handgun. Close the gun show and private sale loopholes that allow criminals and the insane to buy any kinds of guns (including assault weapons) perfectly legally. Anyone who wants to argue with me on this topic feel free to present valid rational points...

Thune Amendment

It's funny that Republicans talk about supporting "local control" and "states' rights"...until they disagree. They want to prevent states and localities from deciding their own criteria for concealed weapons permits. This goes back to an issue I've discussed before: why do citizens need to walk around with handguns when it's 3 times likelier a child will kill themselves with it and 120 times likelier their gun will be used for murder than defending themselves?

So basically the GOP is for "states' rights" and "local control" only when it comes to...

• keeping people from voting (trying to push federal ID laws)
  
• keeping people from receiving welfare and social assistance ("welfare reform")
  
• keeping people from smoking pot (medical marijuana laws)
  
• keeping people from choosing to die with dignity (assisted suicide in Oregon, Terri Schiavo)
• keeping people from choosing to lower pollution (California emissions standards)
  
• keeping people in prison longer and on death row (Bush DOJ demanding longer sentences and death penalty in specific cases)

Good to know.

More on guns

Following up on Sunday's item, Bob Herbert writes on Tuesday in the NYT:

This is the American way. Since Sept. 11, 2001, when the country’s attention understandably turned to terrorism, nearly 120,000 Americans have been killed in nonterror homicides, most of them committed with guns. Think about it — 120,000 dead. That’s nearly 25 times the number of Americans killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

For the most part, we pay no attention to this relentless carnage. The idea of doing something meaningful about the insane number of guns in circulation is a nonstarter. So what if eight kids are shot to death every day in America. So what if someone is killed by a gun every 17 minutes.

The goal of the National Rifle Association and a host of so-called conservative lawmakers is to get ever more guns into the hands of ever more people. Texas is one of a number of states considering bills to allow concealed guns on college campuses.

Supporters argue, among other things, that it will enable students and professors to defend themselves against mass murderers, like the deranged gunman who killed 32 people at Virginia Tech two years ago.

They’d like guns to be as ubiquitous as laptops or cellphones. One Texas lawmaker referred to unarmed people on campuses as “sitting ducks.”

...

Murderous gunfire claims many more victims than those who are actually felled by the bullets. But all the expressions of horror at the violence and pity for the dead and those who loved them ring hollow in a society that is neither mature nor civilized enough to do anything about it.

Well put.

"If I Only Had a Gun" ABCNews 20/20

First: I have two loaded shotguns within reach of my bed for home defense. Consider that before labeling me the new epithet: hoplophobe. I think it is wise to have a loaded shotgun in your home for this reason, but I obviously think it should be kept completely safe from children and teenagers. This was one of the main focal points of the program -- the statistics involving gun violence are staggering.

One of the major thrusts of the news piece was to inform viewers about the ridiculous gun show loophole that allows criminals and crazy people to buy guns, no questions asked, with no tracking records. It's fuc*ing insane. A young man whose sister was killed at VT went in and bought 15 guns in an hour, including handguns and shotguns and an assault rifle, no questions asked. No ID needed. And lawmakers have zero balls to do anything about it because they are beholden to gun nuts in this country.

All a sane citizen can hope for is a common sense common ground between allowing assault weapons to be sold to criminals and banning all guns outright. And that sort of middle ground does exist. In England, handguns are illegal and their murder rate is one-third of ours. Handguns are used in 8 of 10 murders by firearms. That still gives law-abiding citizens the right to bear arms, just not a certain kind of them. Obviously, that's already the case! We already can't legally own Stinger missiles either, but is that an infringement of our 2nd Amendment rights? No. Ditto for many other kinds of "arms" that are illegal.

I watched the 20/20 piece and came away semi-informed as to the general difficulty of responding with force when a shooter is causing carnage all around you. Basically, your adrenaline counteracts your ability to think clearly and aim effectively, and likely your gun is stowed in an inconvenient place so that you will have to be exposed to pull it out and use it. I don't want to carry concealed, mainly due to the fact that I don't think we need to return to the Wild West where everyone is out there with a gun fending for themselves. The probability of needing to have a gun to defend yourself is basically very unlikely compared to the risk involved in carrying one.

I have often argued with gun nuts that while there were 134 "justifiable homicides" with a handgun in 1999, there were 866 (6.5 times that many) accidental fatal shootings, 314 deaths where intent was unclear, 12,102 murders and 17,424 suicides in 1998. There were 336 deaths of children by accidental shootings in 1998. This basically shows you that the idea that you'll likely need to defend yourself with lethal force is a poor excuse for carrying a gun. It is 3 times likelier a child will be killed by your gun, 6.5 times likelier that someone will be accidentally killed with your gun, 120 times likelier someone will be murdered with it and 170 times likelier someone will use it to commit suicide. And, the 134 justifiables include police shootings! Probably less than a third of that number comes from citizens defending themselves and/or their homes. I will do some research this summer, rather than a few quick Google searches, and compile more relevant statistics and correlations.

Critics of the 20/20 program say the show was unrealistic, but I think they are distorting the facts. They claim the instructor immediately went for the kid with the gun, but as you can see from the clip, that is blatantly untrue. The instructor killed the lecturer first, then went right-to-left sweeping through the room, shooting everyone along the way. The students with the gun were often hit early because they stood erect, trying to unholster the weapon, rather than taking cover first. The other people in the room ran wildly in all directions, ducking.