Defensive Dog Use!

Are you getting sick of the Defensive Gun Use Stories where the person says something along the lines of: "I was walking down the street and I saw this group of youths with evil intent. I showed them my gun and they walked away"?

Nevermind a story like this is fraught with things that would raise questings in the mind of any thinking person and be objected to in court:
--State of mind: How does he know the kids' intent? Is he a mind reader?
--Opinion: again evil intent.
--And just general hearsay! Yes, this is an out of court statement being offered for its truth!
--How many more hidden, yet incorrect assumptions are within this story.

We have no police report, unless the group of kids pull their cellphones, take a picture (or better yet a movie) of our "defender", call the cops, and have him arrested! Why, because this was a group of innocent school kids walking home!

Of course, all this presumes that this event really happened.

In the spirit of that genre, I bring you a defensive dog tale:

Laci weighs a mere 8 pouds (maybe 9 wet), yet one night we heard some rattling at our door. It was obviously a miscreant intent on breaking into our house. Laci barked (he bark is very loud) and the rattling stopped. A minute later my keys came through the door.

Laci stopped a criminal from breaking into my house. My wife and my mother both said, "that person could have broken in, but Laci stopped him from doing that. Good Laci"

Now you say, how can I know all this was the case? Well, I don't, but neither do you know that the anecdotal cases of defensive gun use are for real. They fit your version for reality.

As AztecRed pointed out:

You've engaged in the greatest fallacy of the internet: You read it on the internet, so it must be true.

Or specifically, in your case: You didn't read it on the internet, so it must not be true.

You've got to do better than that.

Well, I think I am by pointing out the real logical fallacies and the fact that you have misunderstood the point about DGUs. DGUs are statistically rare, unless you believe the discredited Kleck and Lott surveys.

Likewise, we see loads of anecdotal evidence for DGUs which is similar to my story about Laci stoppping the burglary. You will say she didn't stop it for a myriad of reasons. Whereas I can argue that it is a true story until I am blue in the face. Likewise, shouldn't you be questioning the DGU stories? Actually, this is even more of a fallacy, "it fits my version of reality, so it must be real. I believe that DGUS happen, so I accept these stories without question."

“Knowledge Is The Enemy Of Faith!”

You are taking it on faith that these DGUs happened if you aren't questioning them.

Dumb Question time...

So, what exactly do the Bloomberg and Brady folks do with the guns they buy at gun shows?

I mean you see videos where they plunk down cash for firearms and then walk off with them.

Other than the because they can, why do this?

Do they take them and have them destroyed? Do they turn them over to law enforcement?

Or do they turn them into art like this bike rack made by Guns into Art?

I couldn't say it better myself..

I keep wanting to do a post on using "Wedge Issues" as a distraction. Then, this video turned up in some research I was doing for the previous post.

Song by Tommy Roz. From the description:

What makes a poor man vote for a rich polititian? All this and more are explored in a singing indictment of America Gone Wild! An entertaining yet forboding parody of the current political and social landscape which suggests that the only thing standing in the way of a second civil war is a third world war. So hold onto your helmets! It looks like it's time for Armegeddon again.

There's hope yet

Man With the Muckrake has an interesting post about how exposure to chemicals in the brains of male foeti change change their patterns of play. In this study, the frequency of engaging in "typically masculine play" decreased with a greater foetal exposure to certain phthalates in males.

Muckrake asks: "If the phthalate exposure neutralizes the male aggressive gene, will the military find it more difficult to find recruits to fight in future wars?"

This could prove yet another glitch in the gun lobby's attempt to raise sales in a saturated market. I mean who will buy firearms if males become less aggressive? Of course, they can raise the panic level the way gun cretins usually do by creating fear of crime.

Will this change the attitude of the pro-life crowd since they don't want to procreate "effeminate" males? Will they use Amniocentesis to deterine that they kid won't be macho? I mean they want those macho men who love the smell of gunpowder instead of wimps who think guns are dirty, loud, and noisy.

Missing the obvious

Mikeb had a post where he discussed a Times article I sent him where Sir Paul Stephenson, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, said that the annual murder rate in London was two deaths per 100,000 of the population — compared with 35 per 100,000 in Baltimore.

That post had the following table:

Murder rates per 100,000 population

133 Ciudad Juárez, Mexico
130 Caracas, Venezuela
67 New Orleans
62 Cape Town
35 Baltimore
6 New York
2 London

Of course, comparing crime rates between countries is a bit of mental masturbation, but the salient part is that these are the murder rates compares by areas with "gun control" and without "gun control".

First off, why might Ciudad Juárez, Mexico's murder rate be so high? Well, it's across the U.S. border from El Paso, Texas. El Paso and Ciudad Juárez comprise one of the largest binational metropolitan areas in the world with a combined population of 2.4 million people. In fact, Ciudad Juárez is one of the fastest growing cities in the world, in spite of the fact that it is "the most violent zone in the world outside of declared war zones."

Mexico does indeed have strong gun control measures, but we are dealing with a city that suffers from a plague of drug violence. That means that the city probably has its share of smugglers who are capable of moving large quantities of drugs north of the border into the United States.

Not to mention it is directly across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas.

Likewise, the drug smugglers can move large quantities of firearms South of the Border. We can debate the issue, but allegations are made that weak US gun laws fuel the gun violence problem in Mexico. The border here is porous enough to render Mexican gun laws moot.

Drug Killings have skyrocketed such that the the death toll for 2009 already has surpassed 2,000 homicides, almost 400 more than the total count for 2008. Of course, not all of those were committed with a firearm. According to Ciudad Juarez government figures, about 100 homicides in 2009 have been "inocentes," or innocent bystanders, compared with around 30 in 2008. These homicides include people caught in crossfire and relatives of cartel members.

Maybe the Yanks could end their stupid drug war. But that's not my point.

Next we come to Caracas, Venezuela with 130 deaths. Colombian-organized illegal narcotics and paramilitary activities penetrate Venezuela's shared border region. Cross-border violence, kidnapping, drug trafficking, smuggling, and cattle-rustling occur frequently in areas along the 1,000-mile long border between Venezuela and Colombia per the US State Department. The CIA factbook states that:

small-scale illicit producer of opium and coca for the processing of opiates and coca derivatives; however, large quantities of cocaine, heroin, and marijuana transit the country from Colombia bound for US and Europe; significant narcotics-related money-laundering activity, especially along the border with Colombia and on Margarita Island; active eradication program primarily targeting opium; increasing signs of drug-related activities by Colombian insurgents on border

Again, perhaps the Yanks can do something about their war on drugs. SO, my comments about Caracas are similar to those about Ciudad Juarez,

Strangely enough, the presence of the next one, New Orleans, seemed to have been missed by the commentators to mikeb's post.

Probably because New Orleans isn't a foreign city, but one in the United States. Not only is it in the United States, but it is in the gun friendly jurisdiction of Louisiana! It's a shall issue CCW state! I thought I would look up "New Orleans Guns" and see if I could learn more about this, but it seems that the gun cretin crowd is only worried about any possibility of a "gun grab". Maybe that's why that one was missed.

The gun cretin crowd wants to point a finger and distract from everything at hand, but the fact that lax gun laws mean more gun crime!


Cape Town is the next one on the list which has gun control. Owning a gun is conditional on a competency test and several other factors, including background checking of the applicant, inspection of an owner's premises, and licensing of the weapon by the police introduced in July 2004. South Africa does have a strong gun culture though.

The next three on the list have even more stringent gun controls with London being the strongest.

NRA Has Yet to Explain Why It Wants to Help Killers, Criminals, Lunatics, and Imbeciles Acquire Guns

Because that's its membership base?

A N.Y. probe exposes loopholes that let criminals buy firearms -- and the need for greater regulation.
LA Times Editorial (Editorial comment: For the fucking morons who don't understand a page link)
October 16, 2009


For shock value, they may not rank with the videos released last month showing ACORN workers giving tax advice to a couple of undercover investigators posing as a prostitute and her pimp. But New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's covert recordings of what really goes on at gun shows are appalling nonetheless.

In the midst of a reelection campaign in a Democratic-majority city, the Republican (sort of) Bloomberg has latched on to an issue that appeals mainly to liberals: gun control. Though New York state has fairly restrictive gun laws, Bloomberg believes firearms bought out of state play a big role in Gotham's crime problems. So he sent private investigators to seven gun shows in three states between May and August and posted the results, including video shot with hidden cameras, on a city-sponsored website.

"So no background check, right?" the investigators ask. "Because I probably couldn't pass one." The response, over and over, is laughter, a shrug or even admissions from gun sellers that they couldn't pass one either. Out of 30 vendors approached, 19 sold guns to people they knew were barred from owning them. Also captured on tape were dealers selling weapons to an obvious straw buyer -- someone who buys a gun for someone else, usually because the actual buyer couldn't pass the federal background check. Sixteen of 17 vendors approached sold guns to straw buyers, which is a felony.

Gun shows are thought to be a key supplier of guns used in crimes, though how big a role they play is the subject of heated debate. To understand why they're considered a problem, one first has to understand the contorted nature of federal gun laws.

New-gun retailers are closely regulated, with laws forcing them to obtain licenses, keep transaction records so that guns used in crimes can be traced, and perform background checks on buyers to ensure they aren't legally barred from owning guns. Convicted felons, drug addicts, the mentally ill and illegal immigrants are among those who fall into that category. Meanwhile, nonprofessional used-gun traders are subject to none of those requirements, although even resellers are forbidden from transactions in which they know the buyer couldn't pass a background check (something Bloomberg's investigators caught on tape repeatedly).

The absence of regulation of second-hand sales is often referred to as the "gun-show loophole." Any criminal can go to a gun show in most states and buy an armful of used firearms, including semiautomatic assault weapons, knowing they're untraceable and that no one will check his conviction record. Bloomberg and other activists seek to close this loophole, and they have powerful friends. During the presidential campaign, Barack Obama agreed, as did his Republican opponent, John McCain. Yet bills that have sought to close the loophole have never gone far, and there's little reason to think that current efforts, including a bill from Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.), will be more successful. That's because the gun lobby enjoys political power that greatly exceeds the number of hard-core gun enthusiasts in the United States, and because many Democrats believe they lost their congressional majority in the mid-1990s because of their aggressive pursuit of gun-control laws -- and they're terrified of a repeat.

Democrats' cowardice is distressing, particularly when it's exhibited by Obama, who has been silent on the issue since the campaign and has made no attempt to back Lautenberg's bill. But even if it were to pass, it wouldn't go far enough. In truth, the phrase "gun-show loophole" is a misnomer, because unregulated secondary sales don't just happen at gun shows. Used guns are sold at swap meets, through classified ads and even over the Internet. What's more, criminals get their guns from many sources besides gun shows, including straw buyers and licensed dealers who break the law.

What's really needed is a federal law patterned on California’s tough restrictions on firearm sales. Lautenberg's bill, S. 843,:S.843: regulates gun-show transactions exclusively. In California, it is illegal for anyone to sell or transfer a firearm, whether at a gun show or not, without processing the transaction through a licensed dealer, who must perform a background check. Opponents claim that this would be overly burdensome, but it has had no discernible effects on gun sales in California, which, according to a recent UC Davis study, hosted 100 gun shows in 2007 and like many other states saw a 30% year-over-year sales increase in late 2008 and early 2009. Though there's little evidence that this law has reduced gun violence in the Golden State, that's probably because it's still so easy for criminals to get guns from elsewhere, especially from anything-goes border states such as Nevada and Arizona. A federal law would change that.

But it still wouldn't go far enough. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives investigates a gun show only when it gets a tip that illegal activity is expected; as a result, it conducts operations at less than 5% of them. If nothing else, Bloomberg's investigation proves that more attention is badly needed. The agency should be given the funding, and a mandate, to post undercover operatives at most if not all gun shows. Though the lunatic fringe that believes the ATF to be a Gestapo-like arm of a repressive government would loudly object, most legitimate merchants wouldn't, because they're tired of unfair competition from resellers who don't follow the rules.

None of these measures would restrict the 2nd Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens; their intent is solely to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous individuals. Though the gun lobby raises a hue and cry whenever such proposals arise, it has yet to explain why it wants to make it easy for murderers, armed robbers and other criminals to obtain the tools of their trade. Bloomberg's gun-show expose has the whiff of a political stunt, but if it gets politicians and the public talking about gun control again, it's a stunt we can applaud.

Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times
Another editorial comment for assholes too stupid to understand the word "plagiarism": this article is not my own but an editorial from the LA Times. I never took credit for it, but you are too fucking stupid to understand that.

So

FUCK YOU!

Guns in cars

I am reading about how GPS thefts are on the rise, which doesn't come as much of a shock to me having had two stolen from my car last month. The car was in a parking garage which had CCTV. Unfortunately, the CCTV was nonfunctional, but that's another story.

Anyway, the gist is that the thieves spot the tell tale signs of the GPS cradle, such as the suction cup marks, and then break in. They will pull apart your car to find the unit, which is why they found both of mine in the glove box and boot.

The nice thing is that theft from Auto is pretty hard to prosecute since there usually isn't a witness. Or, the witness is from out of state.

So, valuables in cars are something that thieves love.

Now, legislatures are coming up with laws that say that guns can be left inside of cars if one has a CCW permit. What's wrong with that picture? I mean, we have other items (GPS units) which are pulled from cars with ever increasing frequency, but now we are going to put firearms into a place which make them easy targets for thieves.

Of course, the gun lobby claims that illegal guns appear magically from the fairies. The fairies go to the ghetto and turn legal guns into illegal guns. Hey presto. So, nothing to worry about.

But for someone who had two GPS units taken from a car with an alarm (they busted the window with the alarm indicator) in a place which appeared to have CCTV, this sounds like a really bad idea.

Maybe an individual right isn't that bad an idea!

I was in a preliminary hearing today where several gun charges were raised in relation to a drug dealer. For the most part, they were possession charges: such as not having a permit for a firearm. Now, the gun was in a place of business. Sure, the business was selling drugs, but he has to protect his business!

Amusing aside, there was the issue of a business card and I was imagining something along the lines of "Kwame Johnson: drug dealer to scumbags".

Now, once an individual right is announced, these gun charges can be fought. In fact, they should be fought anyway since the State constitution provides: The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State shall not be questioned. I mean what the hell is a law that prevents drug dealers from having guns doing on the books!?!?!?!?

More guns for criminals! More work for lawyers!

Yeah!

US Air pilot and Gun

Well, I haven't flown any US Airlines since the FFDO program began. Finally, one of these nitwits discharges his gun in a plane. And it seems this "well-trained" clown was mishandling his gun. It's one thing to fuck around with a gun on the ground, but another to do it in a pressurised cabin of an airliner.

As one person pointed out, one wrong shot with a .40 and the whole plane comes down. A bullet through the wind screen or the control panel of a jet traveling at over 500 miles per hour means an instantly killed crew and, a few minutes later, several hundred dead passengers. Well, the experts say a gunshot wouldn't be likely to cause the kind of damage that would lead immediately to a crash.

O.K., maybe not immediately, but maybe it might take a little while longer.

Anyway, a hijacker of the 9/11 ilk isn't going to be put off by some middle-aged jet jockey with a gun. In fact, I am pretty sure al-queda would train them to take out at least one of these guys. FYI, al-queda doesn't just rush into action.

Furthermore, al-queda is probably done with hijacking jet airliners. They can take them out of the sky with a Man-portable air-defense systems (MANPADS), such as a SA-18 Grouse or stinger, if they want to drop one as well. It's been done before, and I can see al-queda as being more likely to do that than hijack again. Rumours are that TWA flight 800 was taken out by a MANPAD. MANPADS are far more of a threat than hijacking these days.

Imagine what would happen if al-queda took out a few US airliners during a period of time. Especially if that happened in US airspace!

Are people really that stupid as to think a handgun will stop someone with a guided missile?

I guess this is just another way of feeling like you're something when the US rolled over and played dead after 9/11. Personally, it doesn't make me feel safe having any loaded weapons in the cockpit. Especially when this country is doing zip to really address the terrorism issue.