A Childrens National doctor claims to have found that universal background checks reduce child firearms deaths by a whopping 35%. That’s rather astonishing.
State Gun Laws and Pediatric Firearm-Related Mortality
The presence of these laws was associated with a >35% lower rate of firearm-related mortality, even after adjustment for socioeconomic factors and gun ownership.
I was going to do an all-out analysis of this paper, since just from the press release I knew it had problems (cross-sectional analysis, without longitudinal; 18-21yo “children”), but this persuaded me to not waste that much time.
These data were used to select firearm-related deaths per year for those aged ≤21 years by state, except in states with <10 annual firearm-related deaths where the counts were suppressed.
Allow me to summarize: We compared death rates in states with gun control laws to state without, and found those states with the laws had fewer deaths once we tossed out the low death/no-law states.
You see, we can look up the states with the laws in question and see that their numbers of deaths exceeded the threshold for inclusion. Therefore, it had to be states without those laws that they tossed.
When I thought I was going to write all this up, I took a look at their supplemental information. Look at Table 5.
They confused a firearm owner identification card requirement for actual background checks on transactions.
Table 6, and even the inclusion of a microstamping/ballistic fingerprinting law, was simply pointless. Maryland and New York gave up fingerprinting because it never worked (pro-tip: the average “time to crime” for a firearm is over ten years, by which time the rifling and firing pin have been changed by a decade of wear or replacement, so it’s useless). California’s microstamping law is even more pointless because no commercial gun has it (and would be subject to the same wear).
So, starting with bad data, and excluding data that would invalidate their thesis, they did a cross-sectional comparison only, with no longitudinal analysis to find an effect of implementation of background check laws on in-state trends. A UC Davis study found no effect on homicide or suicide rates in the ten years after California’s passage of a universal background check law. More recently, California has seen an increase in firearms homicides.
The firearm homicide rate, which adjusts for population changes, increased by 15 percent from 2014 to 2016.
I can only speculate why they excluded 2016 and 2017, for which WISQARS data are available. Particularly since those years saw a 17.25% increase in 0-21yo firearms deaths over the 2011-2015.
And even so, a 35% decrease in fatalities seems odd, since approximately 96% of guns used in crimes were obtained through theft or trafficking, bypassing background checks; and at least 75% of murderers were prohibited persons due to felony convictions (60% alone), misdemeanor domestic violence convictions, rulings of mental illness, or court orders. Add in drug users (like this guy) and the percentage is even higher.
Just another BS paper with a pre-set agenda, lacking in anything resembling science.
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You know, it seems more and more often I hear the left justify their criminal behavior as “fighting hate”, “fighting evil” “fighting fascism” or another one I hear from time to time, “Trump is so evil”. No, I don’t believe President Trump is evil, misguided and screws up? Yep. But I notice those that claim he is “evil” usually do so because he is denying them something they want such as illegal immigrants voting, or on welfare, or how about just coming here illegally, un-vetted and we have no idea who they are, what diseases they have or what their character is.
Recently a conservative journalist was attacked in the city of Portland Oregon. A shame and disgrace, Portland used to be a very beautiful city. I very much enjoyed my trips there when I was younger. But Portland has become a liberal haven, like Berkeley. And like Berkeley, antifa flourishes. What is antifa like?
I’m reading a book right now called Women Heroes of WWII.
He instituted the Hitler Jugend (Hitler Youth), a state-run program for all children ages 10–18. The Hitler Youth program was geared to make Germany’s children proud, militant Nazis. They engaged in warlike games, killed small animals (to become insensitive to suffering and death), sang songs about German streets running with Jewish blood, and were encouraged toward fanatical, personal devotion to Hitler, a devotion that was to take precedence over their relationships with their parents. (Children were encouraged to turn in their own parents to the Gestapo if they heard them say anything against the Führer.)
The members of antifa certainly fit that description! My Mom and I were talking the other night and she was telling me a statistic she thought she had heard about the percentage of people that want socialism vs the people that don’t, and want capitalism. And in their public educatioindoctrination centers skools they learn what is “social justice” and “victimhood” 300 level classes in this are available at most universities, along with BDS and anti-Zionism against the one Jewish state in the world, which is in no way of course, antisemitic. In addition to physically attacking their victims, they strive for fear, intimidation and humiliation. Again, familiar.
But adults can have differences of opinions, they can discuss ideas. Very spirited discussions can result between two adults that argues their points, theories and ideas.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.
Brainstorming is a beautiful thing. Antifa doesn’t brainstorm. I’m not sure they really think, they seem more like violently programed robots. They are absolutely indoctrinated to hate. How else can you scream “Love trumps hate” as you try to beat another living being?
Some of this just seems so familiar, it’s like a memory ringing in the back of my mind.
I’m seeing a pattern. Conservatives, especially in this time of Trump have been de-humanized to the point that the liberal tolerant left feels perfectly justified in physically attacking them. Women alone, old men, doesn’t matter. They function as a feral pack, they seem to single out one person and go after them. Because of they have different ideas than that of the left and that is no longer permitted. Stores are boycotted, careers are ruined, jobs are lost. All because someone expressed an opinion that the left doesn’t allow them to express or believe. Which goes with the pattern, it’s why Russia and Germany had to lock up and isolate leaders of the opposition, be they teacher, doctors, sailors, soldiers or the neighborhood grocer.
Antifa sympathisers are ‘whitewashing’ violence: Andy Ngo
You notice this report came from outside the U.S.
Also like the days of old, those in authority are telling the police to “stand down” and not protect the Trump supporters. Whether it was Berkeley, the lady in San Jose when the police blocked the door and wouldn’t let her in as antifa surrounded her or the attack on Andy Ngo which occurred right in front of a police station. The authorities are not doing the “serve and protect” thing. Well, not if you’re a conservative anyway.
Have you noticed another similarity between the cities where antifa seems to be flourishing? Yeah, I thought you probably had. They all have strict gun control. While that will affect conservatives who tend to be law abiding, it does not affect antifa who show up armed with crowbars and bats. And while the liberal talking heads aka #FakeNews tend to belittle the milkshake thing, the “milkshakes” often have quick drying concrete which makes them capable of blunt force trauma as well as chemical acid burns.
The point of the all this intimidation is something gun owners have seen for a long time. The media tells us some massive percentage of the people support further restricting our Second Amendment rights. And while we know it’s crap, many others, the Fudds out there will believe it. Especially if there is a collaborating story from the VNRA. With the stifling of free speech, and the ability to safely assemble at a political rally the tolerant, progressive anti-fascist fascists are ensuring only one opinion, theirs, is safe to express or will be heard.
And while some say “Love Trumps Hate”, I say love may well trump hate, but these days love and a AR-15 are a way better way to go.
I hate it when FactCheck.org shows up in my news searches. Because this is fairly typical of the lying SOBs.
A False Claim About H.R. 8 and a ‘Firearms Registry’
A viral meme falsely accuses five House Republicans of voting with Democrats to create a “firearms registry.” The bill in question specifically prohibits “the establishment, directly or indirectly, of a national firearms registry.”
The headline is certainly right: Angelo Fichera is making a false claim. A classic strawman argument. I’m not aware of anyone claiming that HR 8 would create a firearms registry. We correctly note that it would enable the creation of such.
For Angelo and his fellow short-bus riders, I’ll explain.
HR 8 would expand preemptively-prove-your-innocence (PPYI) checks to virtually all firearms transactions. It does that by requiring private parties go to a federally licensed dealer (FFL) so that the dealer can process the transaction in exactly the same way that his own transactions are done: boundbook entry, 4473, NICS, fees.
The 4473 is the potential problem, because it’s forever. Even when and if an FFL goes out of business, the stack of 4473s goes to the ATF to be filed.
Fichera knows that, but blows it off, because everyone knows the ATF is forbidden to enter those into a searchable database. Of course, that law got passed specifically because the ATF was caught doing exactly that. And they still do mass photocopying of 4473s during license inspections.
Let’s pretend that HR 8 passes the Senate, too, and Trump signs it. As a result, Trump properly loses the 2020 election to a Democrat who will stab us in the chest, not the back. So at least we can see “them” coming and dodge.
Then they pass another bill repealing the databasing restriction. The ATF issues a Request for Purchase for several thousand document scanners with character recognition, along with thousand of temp hires to hit every FFL in the country for copies of those conveniently collected 4473.
Database.
We had a Dem presidential candidatedesignated gun control stalking horse, whose main campaign promise was to confiscate every semi-auto firearm in civiilan hands. To do that, the government needs to know who has what and where. If they didn’t know that before, they’ve surely learned from New Zealand’s embarrassing ban attempt.
Universal PPYI, with 4473s is the perfect setup. And the government is well aware of it. Since NICS began, pro-rights people have advocated different systems that would allow background checks, while preventing the creation of a permanent record subject to ATF collection. BIDS: Blind Identification Database System is one of the better suggestions (assuming our rights are going to be violated at all). BIDS still has weaknesses, but those can be fixed.
Legislators and bureaucrats have actively resisted all attempts at switching to a recordless system. Go ahead; tell me I’m paranoid for thinking they want those permanent records.
I wonder how Fichera would like his favored right — the First Amendment — regulated in the same way.
Imagine some congresscritter doesn’t like being ridiculed, and files a bill “prevent verbal violence” by requiring everyone who purchases a computer or smart phone to pass a background check. The transaction would be logged on an FCC form 7734, and will include things like purchaser’s race, and the device’s serial number and MAC. Bill makes it into law, because only someone who wants to verbally abuse children could object.
Then someone else insults Rep. Wilson‘s intelligence (properly, the lack thereof). So she files a bill to collate those 7734s into a searchable database; all the better to track down that mean person.
No doubt Mr. Fichera will be just fine with preemptively proving his own innocence before exercising his First Amendment rights online, and being forced to pay for it. Of course, if he smokes marijuana, or has a felony conviction, or even some misdemeanors, he won’t be allowed to buy that phone. And if he has one, someone may “red flag” him because maybe he’ll slander someone or write a article based on his own… li… oh. Wait.
No First Amendment for Fichera.
Of course, once the Dems are on a roll, they could ban high capacity batteries because no one needs to talk for more than half an hour. And there would be an 8 day cooling off period before you could take possession of your phone or computer, lest some hack writer draft an ill-conceived strawman column on the spur of the moment. Writer licensing (that’s been proposed before).
How about safe storage laws for computers and phones so little children can’t get their hands on them and hook up with an Internet predator? And that’s all the more reason to register devices and owners, right? S0 you can use the MAC to track pedophiles… or annoying journalists who insist on covering embarrassing government screwups.
Heck, maybe they’d even ban those fully automated smart phones suitable only for military communications. Or swapping kiddie porn. Do that for the children.
That, FactCheck and Fichera, is why we object to “universal background checks.” It would enable all that.
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For better than a year and a half, The Zelman Partisans have been trying to warn gun owners that the bump-fire stock ban was a bigger deal than just that. In late May, we warned that lawyers were taking notice and making this argument in public.
Now they’re arguing in Nevada state court that all semi-automatic firearms are “easily convertible” to machineguns and therefore are machineguns.
Machine guns have been banned since 1986. But the lawsuit the couple filed last night claims a gun that’s easily modifiable to fire automatically is a machine gun, and is therefore “flatly illegal” under federal and state law.
This challenge to the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act hinges on the bump-fire ban. PLCA doesn’t protect manufacturers when they’ve broken the law, and this argument is that they’ve been unlawfully marketing post-1986 (thanks, VNRA) “easily converted” machineguns to civilians.
If you want to derail this suit, and avoid the otherwise inevitable unpleasantness of an attempted semi-auto ban, you need to support the groups fighting the bump-fire stock (or even rubber bands) ban:
Please note that I am not recommending any donations to the National Rifle Association. They got us into this mess. And, to date, I can find no indication that they’ve diverted a penny of LaPierre’s wardrobe-and-busty-intern budget to a ban challenge; I’ve not found so much as an amicus brief in someone else’s case.
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Just the other day, a friend was telling a few of us about the Prius his son had bought. One acquaintance interrupted to advise him* to tell his son to get rid of it or move out, because the car uses the same power/drive system as an SSBN. and it’s illegal. I told “Al” he should hold off on giving advice like that because he clearly knows nothing about the Prius, which most certainly is not nuclear-powered. “Al” declared that his ignorance of cars and motors doesn’t disqualify him from commenting on car ownership, motor vehicle accidents, or the law.
Should I keep trying to explain to “Al” that giving bad advice based on ignorance can harm other people and make him look like an idiot, or should I just sit back and enjoy the show as he continually makes a fool of himself? It isn’t as if “Al” is really a friend; just a workplace acquaintance.
signed
“Picking the Best Option”
* Update: I see Amy has edited that to delete much of her ignorant display. There is no note — at this time — acknowledging the changes.
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Ahh, the double standard of the left. What they think should be shown on every TV set 24 hours a day. For example, a women telling lies about a man whom the left disagrees with would get wall to wall coverage. When she changes her story or admits the truth, not so much. When it involves actual physical attacks on someone they disagree with, that, they cover up.
The hypocrisy has just been strong of late.
In the world of (un)social media and big tech:
It seems Ilana Mercer has been locked out of Twitter of late. Was it her latest column about Logic being disallowed? It used to be the old joke about Fathers needing shotguns to defend their daughter’s honor from randy young lads. Now it seems dog owners need them to defend their dog’s honor from illegal immigrants. But, blocked out she is. As she points out, part of the price you may have to pay to get back in, or at least what they lead you to think, is that if you surrender your cell phone number to them. Then they may let you back in. Of course, once they have it, well. The US government of course wants to know everything about everyone at all times, and this was long before this administration. Anyone remember the tale of Lavabit? Lavabit was founded as an alternative google and the privacy concerns that were arising. The government can’t stand for you to have a private conversation on your own phones or email. U.S. May Outlaw Messaging Encryption Used By WhatsApp, iMessage And Others, Report. But then, google is already spying on you. Review: Google Chrome has become surveillance software. It’s time to switch.
But back to Ilana for a moment, locked out of Twitter. What does Twitter find acceptable? Apparently antifa. Antifa has a un-throttled, unblocked account. I’m guessing they aren’t losing followers due to a Twitter algorithm. Antifa has been a busy little pack of cowardly cupcakes the last few days. In case you aren’t familiar with Andy Ngo, he is a journalist in the Portland OR area. He recently put up a story about a woman being randomly attacked along with this comment, this is from 2 or 3 days ago.
Exclusive video. This happened this week in Portland, Ore. with absolutely no media coverage. Steps away from the iconic Voodoo Doughnut in downtown, Daniel Tuski Bertrand suddenly attacks a woman. Her eye socket was ”crushed,” says a source. The man was only charged with a misdemeanor & released without having to pay bail.
Also apparently the Portland mayor is not too distressed about the crime. Apparently Andy with Quillette, is known in the Portland area. He was attacked by a Twitter approved antifa mob. I guess throwing milkshakes with quick drying concrete in them on people (conservative only) and shooting them with silly string, beating them up (only allowed if they are wearing something conservative looking like a patriotic shirt) is fine by Twitter. And it seems several very obnoxious leftists have been openly calling for violence against conservatives on Twitter and that doesn’t seem to cause a problem for @TwitterSupport either. For the people experiencing it, it is. Twitter approved antifa also stole his camera, before they sent him to the hospital. Note the two tolerant leftists who seem to think it is perfectly acceptable to throw milkshakes at people they don’t like and chase them. Chew on that one. The left thinks there is a class of people it is ok to attack in public and chase down and assault. That will just be the start. This isn’t the right side of the political spectrum, it’s the left. The virtue signaling left.
Apparently there were no police around to intervene. As in many liberal cities, it seems the police just aren’t around. Or as in the case of the Berkeley riots, were told not to intervene when conservatives were attacked. But what makes this odd, is Andy is gay, and Asian. So a pack of bandana clad (to show how tough cowardly you are, you hide your face) mostly white boys physically attack a gay Asian man, chase him like a pack of wild animals and the response from his brethren and sisters in the mainstream media_______crickets. Victims of course are mandated not to have a gun to defend themselves, by the left of course. Strict gun control in Portland, because if it saves “just one life”, unless of course it’s Andy Ngo by defending himself with one. Maybe we need #MilkshakeControl? Was that a large extra-capacity #AssaultMilkshake?
Twitter of course will ban the associated accounts, just kidding.
But that brings us to google. Will it show up in google searches? For how long and how far down the list? Of course, google may have supplied antifa with the concrete and milkshakes. Turns out google not only runs gmail, youtube, a pretend search engine, they also have gprotest, gantifa if you will. You know, g out of gmail, and antifa? G-antifa. Seems James O’Keefe has been busy, again.
They are also becoming the electronic media arm of the #Demoncratic party. It seems the muckty mucks at google have decided President Trump was a horrible mistake. And they are determined to prevent that from happening ever again. Because they know better than you. Seems google is to the left of even Fauxcahontas politically. Believe it or not. Google exec caught on hidden camera saying that they will stop Trump’s re-election
In the video, Gennai said that she opposes Democrat Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s proposal to divide up Google. Gennai said, “I love her but she’s very misguided, like that will not make it better it will make it worse, because all these smaller companies who don’t have the same resources that we do will be charged with preventing the next Trump situation, it’s like a small company cannot do that.”
And while they whine about Russian collusion, they are actively planning to corrupt elections. At least a couple states are now giving driver’s licenses and voting cards to illegal immigrants.
The media has such a lockstep view of perceptions of they will push, allow the edited story in the public arena.
For example recently the NY Slimes #FakeNews, ran a story about a restaurant in South Africa and made the purpose of the article about racism. They think a restaurant allowing anyone to eat there is the most upsetting thing facing the white South African farmers? I suspect it’s them, their families and their livestock being butchered and cut up alive, and their land confiscated is a bigger concern, but, it is the Slimes. All the news that’s fit to print, unless of course it’s about Six Million Jews being murdered in Europe. And the good friend of the Jews, Roosevelt-Demoncrat, sending Jews escaping back to Europe to be murdered. And just like the Slimes didn’t want to see it was the peace loving Germans committing the atrocities back then, and so they didn’t tell the world, they really haven’t changed much. With the Slimes politics and political correctness comes before news. Dangers from peace loving illegal immigrants to citizens, especially Jewish ones is not something the Slimes is really leading the way on.
The BESA Center reported in 2018, “Sweden has taken in the highest number of migrants in western Europe as a percentage of population. Most immigrants come from Muslim countries where societies are permeated by extreme anti-Semitic prejudices. The authorities there promote Jew-hatred as national policy. Sweden can thus be characterized as a major importer of anti-Semites out of humanitarian motives.”
Well, humanitarian except for it’s Jewish citizens.
And another big importer of Antisemitism? What from Germany?
A year ago, 951 cases of anti-Semitic incidents had been reported in the German capital. The episode in the Steglitz park comes a few days after another boy was attacked in the Prenzlauer Berg district in Berlin for wearing a kippah.
And that’s in just the capitol. I don’t think the Slimes has changed much in the level of honesty in their reporting the danger to Jews in Europe. Or America either for that matter. Plus the Slimes persist in calling nazis right wing. They aren’t. For not the last time, I’m sure, nazis are socialists, like AOC. They are left wing, big government control, not individual rights. Not as far left as communists like Bernie, but but left wing, not right.
And so while the left bills itself as tolerant, accepting, and caring about people, they actually are the party that believes in using government control, physical violence, surveillance, propaganda, and media lies and misdirection to control a disarmed populace. What information they do not want you to know, especially about making informed voting choices, they will hide. They will stifle the voices with which they do not agree, because they are not worthy of being heard. Your private information? They will suck up, gather and store like a vacuum cleaner bag. They will spy on you like the NSA.
“There was a female, 10 years old, who was found with 20 different types of semen inside her body. She was dispatched to a family member. The girl who was with her who was supposedly a family member was not really a family member, just someone who bought her from her family in Guatemala. These are real problems that exist here on the border. There are some people who are trying to leave jugs of water out here for them. A lot of these people come to this country needing help,” the professional stated.
Migrants are obtaining “Rent-A-Kids,” and since Border Patrol cannot perform DNA tests to determine if children are related to adults most of the human traffickers get into our country.
Ahhh the “compassionate, caring” AOC preventing policies that could help some of the kids.
I thought I’d share a video of her when she recently heard about hula hoops. As per usual, perhaps she should seek more information before declaring herself an “expert”.
The Firearms Policy Coalition and Cato Institute have filed an amicus brief in Gun Owners of America v. Barr, the GOA’s bump-fire stock case in the 6th Circuit.
Read it. It’s only 17 pages in full, and the brief proper is just 11 pages (the remainder being the standard legal paperwork administrivia).
Yes, read it; but I’m going to distill the basic message for you anyway.
The ATF’s Interpretative Reversal Is Based on Political Expediency, Not Statutory Ambiguity
[…]
What prompted this reversal? The proposed rulemaking reveals that the impetus for this change in position was not an organic review of agency policy. Instead, the change was triggered by public outrage following the October 2017 mass killing in Las Vegas, which likely involved a bump-stock-type device:
[…]
The ATF admits that the rulemaking was commenced “in response” to outside political pressure.
[…]
On February 28, 2018, the president hosted a meeting with members of Congress to discuss school and community safety. […] President Trump interjected that there was no need for legislation because he would deal with bump stocks through executive action:
“And I’m going to write that out. Because we can do that with an executive order. I’m going to write the bump stock; essentially, write it out. So you won’t have to worry about bump stock.”
[…]
Reportedly, Justice Department officials told Senate Judiciary Committee staff that the government “would not be able to take [bump stocks] off shelves without new legislation from Congress.”
Likewise, the ATF director told police chiefs that his agency “did not currently have
the regulatory power to control sales of bump stocks.”
While the Department stated that “no final determination had been made,” President Trump boasted that the “legal papers” to prohibit bump stocks were almost completed. […] [B]efore the rulemaking was announced, President Trump tweeted: “Obama Administration legalized bump stocks. BAD IDEA. As I promised, today the Department of Justice will issue the rule banning BUMP STOCKS with a mandated comment period. We will BAN all devices that turn legal weapons into illegal machine guns.”
Right there, they document that the decision had been made, regardless of the actual rulemaking process or facts, and that it deliberately bypassed legislation. We knew that, of course, but they collated and documented it in incriminating detail.
This is now a test of the court itself, not just ATF or DOJ. Taking the longer view, because I anticipate the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals blowing this off, it is a test of the Supreme Court.
If the ban is upheld, despite flawed regulatory practices (which didn’t really matter, as the process was a Potemkin show to pretend they weren’t actually banning by political fiat), and the grossly improper bypassing of Congress, there is no law.
By and large, honest gun owners try to live by the Constitution and the rule of law. We’ve put up with much over the decades because it was framed as “law,” and we thought we, too, had the courts and law to make our case for freedom. The politicians, bureaucrats, and especially the courts must consider the ramifications of making that impossible.
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I ran across another research paper regarding gun control. I was expecting the usual biased crap, but…
That title.
Mathematics ties media coverage of gun control to upticks in gun purchases
Through the analysis of time series from 1999 to 2017, we identify a correlation between the occurrence of a mass shooting and the rate of growth in firearm acquisition. More importantly, a transfer entropy analysis pinpoints media coverage on firearm control policies as a potential causal link in a Wiener–Granger sense that establishes this correlation. Our results demonstrate that media coverage may increase public worry about more stringent firearm control and partially drive increases in firearm prevalence.
The actual paper is paywalled. The available abstract… makes sense, and confirms what everyone has known empirically for years: Threats to restrict rights drive people to exercise them while they can. Maurizio Porfiri et al quantified it.
The study itself doesn’t use garbage “synthetic controls” or inappropriate “cross-sectional analysis.” It’s straight temporal analysis of real data looking for cause and effect. I had to see who Porfiri is; he’s not your usual social “science” type.
He certainly isn’t. He’s an engineer; mechanical, not social. You know, the guys who comprehend that you have to get facts right, or the airplane won’t fly.
In fact, when I looked at some of his other paper titles, I realized I’d heard of his work. He’s done some really neat stuff with robotic fish. That work.
Like his seemingly realistic analysis of how gun control threats drive sales.
If academia really wants to understand “gun violence” and how that relates to the Second Amendment, they need to dump the social scientists (and social justice weasels), and hire more reality-based engineers.
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Any law proposed must be consistent with PRINTZ, MILLER, LAMONT, HELLER, MCDONALD, and CAETANO.
Define objective metrics by which success or failure of any proposal can be measured.
All proposals must be technologically feasible.
Define the enforcement mechanism of any proposal, including specifics on dealing with noncompliance.
Specify if the suggester will or will not participate personally in active enforcement operations (i.e.- be a member of a raid team or other action in which s/he directly interacts with the target of the enforcement action).
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Senatorial scumbags Chris Murphy and Dianne Feinstein are still riding their “assault weapon” ban hobbyhorse. In fact, they’re pushing several of the usual rights-violations, but I want to focus on this one just now.
Act to Break the Cycle of Gun Deaths
Outlawing these weapons, an action supported by 60 percent of Americans, will bring down the number of mass shootings and reduce the number of casualties, just as it did when the ban first passed in 1994.
Just how effective was the ’94 “assault weapon” ban? Let’s ask the experts paid by the Department of Justice to check that.
A 17% to 72% drop sounds good, right? Not so fast.
That’s a 17-72% drop of the 2%-8% of crimes that involved “assault weapons” as defined in the law.
If so-called “assault weapons were 2% pre-ban, then the drop during the ban was to 1.66% – 0.56%.
If AW usage was as high as 8% pre-ban, then the drop was to 6.64% – 2.24%
In other words, “assault weapons” were and are used so rarely that the change is actually lost in the statistical noise. An alleged “improvement” that is meaningless. A “gain” at great cost in rights. What do I mean?
Let’s say you own a house, and you want to make it more energy efficient by adding expensive insulation (=the infringement of 2A rights) to reduce heat loss in the winter (=firearms deaths). Currently, you’re losing 2% to 8% of your power bill to lost heat. You pay a contractor to insulate your attic (=AWB ’94), at a cost of $5130.00 – $6120.00 (just for example); call it $5,625.
Pre-insulation, you were paying $150/month for power, and wasting 2%-8% of that: $3 to $12.
Post-insulation, you save 17%-72% of that wasted energy: $0.51 to $8.64 per month.
If the numbers are at the low end of savings, you’ll pay for that five grand of insulation in energy savings in a mere 11,029 months. 919 years.
More optimistically, with the high end, you pay off the insulation in 651 months. 54 years.
That’s what gypsy insulators Murphy and Feinstein are trying to “sell” you: Just give up your rights, and we’ll promise you a an improvement you’ll never notice.
You’ll never notice the “improvement” because — statistically speaking — you’re unlikely to be the victim, or have a family member victimized, unless you or they are gangbangers… who aren’t going to give up their weapons anyway.
Go knock on some more gullible neighbor’s door; I’m not buying your scam.
[Permission to republish this article is granted so long as it is not edited and the author and The Zelman Partisans are credited.]
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They confused a firearm owner identification card requirement for actual background checks on transactions.
Table 6, and even the inclusion of a microstamping/ballistic fingerprinting law, was simply pointless. Maryland and New York gave up fingerprinting because it never worked (pro-tip: the average “time to crime” for a firearm is over ten years, by which time the rifling and firing pin have been changed by a decade of wear or replacement, so it’s useless). California’s microstamping law is even more pointless because no commercial gun has it (and would be subject to the same wear).
