Posts Tagged ‘Guns’
Sunday, April 29th, 2018
If you think that all this talk of violent revolution or civil war in the United States is nonsense, this piece, from a flood hydrologist, makes a compelling mathematical case that you should think again.
While we don’t have any good sources of data on how often zombies take over the world, we definitely have good sources of data on when the group of people on the piece of dirt we currently call the USA attempt to overthrow the ruling government. It’s happened twice since colonization. The first one, the American Revolution, succeeded. The second one, the Civil War, failed. But they are both qualifying events. Now we can do math.
Equations omitted.
Stepping through this, the average year for colony establishment is 1678, which is 340 years ago. Two qualifying events in 340 years is a 0.5882% annual chance of nationwide violent revolution against the ruling government. Do the same math as we did above with the floodplains, in precisely the same way, and we see a 37% chance that any American of average life expectancy will experience at least one nationwide violent revolution.
This is a bigger chance than your floodplain-bound home getting flooded out during your mortgage.
Snip.
Two instances in 340 years is not a great data pool to work with, I will grant, but if you take a grab sample of other countries around the world you’ll see this could be much worse. Since our 1678 benchmark, Russia has had a two world wars, a civil war, a revolution, and at least half a dozen uprisings, depending on how you want to count them. Depending on when you start the clock, France had a 30-year war, a 7-year war, a particularly nasty revolution, a counter-revolution, this Napoleon thing, and a couple of World Wars tacked on the end. China, North Korea, Vietnam, and basically most of the Pacific Rim has had some flavor of violent revolution in the last 100 years, sometimes more than one. Africa is … hard to even conceive where to start and end the data points. Most Central and South American countries have had significant qualifying events in the time span. And honestly, if we were to widen our analysis to not only include nationwide violent civil wars, but also instances of slavery, internment, and taking of native lands, our own numbers go way up.
Or we could look at a modern snapshot. Counting places like the Vatican, we have 195 countries on the planet today. Somalia is basically in perpetual war, Syria is a hot mess with no signs of mitigation any time soon, Iraq is sketchy, Afghanistan has been in some flavor of civil war or occupation my entire life outside the salad days of the Taliban, and Libya is in such deep throes of anarchy that they’ve reinvented the black slave trade. Venezuela. Yemen. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict may be a qualifying event depending on how you define it. And again, Africa is … hard to even conceive where to start. Spitballing, perhaps 3% of the nations in the world today are in some version of violent revolt against the ruling government, some worse than others. There’s at least some case to be made that our 0.5% annual chance estimate may be low, if we’re looking at comps.
Or we could look at a broader historical brush. Since the fall of Constantinople in 1453, there have been 465 sovereign nations which no longer exist, and that doesn’t even count colonies, secessionist states, or annexed countries. Even if we presume that half of these nation state transitions were peaceful, which is probably a vast over-estimation, that’s still an average of one violent state transition every 2.43 years.
If we just look at raw dialectic alone we reach dismal conclusions. “Do you think the United States will exist forever and until the end of time?” Clearly any reasonable answer must be “no.” So at that point, we’re not talking “if,” but “when.” If you don’t believe my presumed probability, cook up your own, based on whatever givens and data pool you’d like, and plug it in. The equations are right up there. Steelman my argument in whatever way you like, and the answer will probably still scare you.
Plus some bits on Silicon Valley entrepreneurs building bunkers, a zombie apocalypse as a good proxy for real disasters, and the AR-15. Read the whole thing.
(Hat tip: Instapundit via Michele Frost on Twitter.)
Tags:Guns, prepper
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Friday, April 13th, 2018
Enjoy your Friday the 13th LinkSwarm! And don’t forget to finish your taxes this weekend!
Kurt Schlichter is not at all impressed by liberal plans to win the culture war by the rest of America magically giving up and becoming California:
California is a bankrupt failed state that is essentially Illinois with palm trees and better weather. Outside the coastal urban enclaves where Jack and his pals mingle, drinking kombucha and apologizing for their white privilege to their baffled servants, it’s a crowded, decaying disaster. Bums wander the streets, littering the sidewalks with human waste. Crime is rising. Illegal aliens abound, more welcome in the Golden State than actual Americans. California is an example all right, but a cautionary one.
So how did California go from conservative in the 80s to the blue hellhole it is today? The leftist zillionaires and the Democrat government unions bought the elections. It also got so expensive and so crowded here that a lot of the kind of people who made California red and not terrible moved away. Now you have a relatively small elite of really rich liberal jerks, and a large class of serfs to the Democrat welfare state – many imported for their delightful obedience and complacency – but no more huge middle class of Normals. Those Normals went east, toward opportunity.
The liberal plan for civil war does not take into account how prosperous states like Texas went hard right in the 90s and show no sign of changing colors, and there is no mention of how Republicans hold more elected offices today than at any time in history.
Snip.
“If the liberals ever get their wish for a new civil war, my money is on the side with all the guns.”
President Donald Trump lifts Obama-era waiver for welfare work requirements.
What happened when states no longer required able-bodied adults to work to receive benefits? Predictably, the number of able-bodied adults on food stamps skyrocketed, more than tripling since 2000, while the cost to taxpayers went up fivefold.
Even though unemployment has since rebounded to near-record lows and more than 6 million jobs are open nationwide, these Obama-era waivers are still in place and many states continue to operate expanded welfare rolls under them.
They only complaint I have is that President Trump didn’t restore those rules sooner…
“Science proves communism makes nations poorer and less healthy.” Duh. That is, when it’s not murdering people outright. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
Attorney General Jeff Sessions freezes aid program for illegal aliens.
Cynthia Nixon is attacking Andrew Cuomo from the left. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Hyperinflation hits Iran in the wake of President Trump threatening to suspend the ill-conceived nuclear deal.
More on the same theme: The solution to Syria runs through regime change in Tehran:
Khamenei has sent tens of thousands of Iranians and Iranian mercenaries to Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon. His failed and murderous regime, with Russia’s help, is responsible for the astonishing casualty, refugee, and death totals in Syria. Without the manpower Khamenei’s regime provides, there would be no debate over “what to do about Assad” because Assad would be gone.
That should have produced a winning strategy for the United States and our friends and allies: support regime change in Tehran, thereby pulling the plug on the Assad regime, depriving the Russians of cheap cannon fodder, and ending the Iranian funding of Hezbollah.
It has long been possible to subvert the failed mullahcracy. Most Iranians detest the regime. Keen-eyed mullahs and ayatollahs know this, and know that they will cease to matter to the majority of Iranians the minute the Islamic Republic falls. They all know, because they have heard the words from Washington, that Trump has no sympathy with the regime. Unlike Obama, he does not want a strategic alliance with Tehran. He prefers Jerusalem and Jedda. As do most Iranians.
So we should be supporting the internal opposition. Perhaps we are, but our leaders and pundits, even now, keep talking as if we must choose between a bigger war and the survival of the regime. I find that unfortunate and deplorable. Why are our leaders not openly calling for democratic revolution in Iran?
I am all for sanctions, but too many of the sanctions advocates seem to think that the sanctions are necessary to bring about the manifest failure of Khamenei and his cohorts, when that failure is evident to anyone who looks at the country. All the banks are rupt, including the central bank. The rial is worth one one-thousandth of its value at the end of the shah’s rule. Like the Soviet Union before it, the Iranian tyranny has destroyed the whole national ecosystem, starting with the water supply.
(Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instaopundit.)
Why does the left hate Israel?
Left-leaning politicians, including leaders of the UK Labour Party, tweet stern condemnations of Israel’s shootings on the Gaza border where they were silent, or at least more restrained, in relation to Turkey and the Kurds. Academic and cultural institutions boycott Israel where they do not boycott Turkey, or China, or Russia, or America and Britain for that matter, which have done their fair share of bad things – ‘bloodletting’? – in the Middle East in recent years. That only Israel is boycotted by the self-styled guardians of the West’s moral conscience, by our cultural and academic elites, constantly communicates the idea that Israel is different. It is worse. It stands above every other state in terms of wickedness and hatred and war. BDS institutionalises the idea that Israel is alien among the nations, a pock among countries, the lowest, foulest state. It is a bleak irony that BDS activists holler ‘apartheid!’ or ‘racist!’ at Israel while subjecting Israel to a kind of cultural apartheid and contributing to the ugly view of this state, this Jewish state, as the maddest state, the state most deserving of your anger and even your hatred.
(Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Lovely: Thieves are intercepting new debit cards and replacing the chip on them with old chips. People activate the card, unaware those thieves are using the new chip on another card to drain the cardholder’s account…
All the factors working against preserving the Second Amendment.
Remember: New York City’s strict gun laws don’t apply to members of Democratic mayor Bill De Blasio’s staff.
MCAT medical exam demands fealty to “social justice.”
Funny how liberals were silent when the Obama campaign did the same data scrapping as Cambridge Analytics did in 2016.
Former Texas Republican congressman Steve Stockman convicted of bilking charities and lining his own pockets. When last we checked in on Stockman, he was running a very poor senate race against John Cornyn.
Another day, another hate crime hoax.
“Movement That Demands Forceful Silencing Of All Opposing Viewpoints Unsure Why Nation So Divided.” (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
“This court rules that Constantin Reliu is dead.” “No I’m not! I’m right here!” “No, you’re dead. Now shut up and get back on the cart.”
Man goes to hospital for severe headaches after eating Carolina Reaper pepper. (Confession: If I could get at least $10,000 for eating a Carolina Reaper pepper on camera, I would totally go for it. After all, I put Ghost Peppers in my last batch of salsa…)
Tags:Andrew Cuomo, Bill De Blasio, California, Communism, Crime, Cynthia Nixon, Democrats, Facebook, Foreign Policy, fraud, Guns, hate crime hoax, Iran, Israel, Jeff Sessions, Jihad, Kurt Schlichter, LinkSwarm, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Steve Stockman, welfare, Welfare State
Posted in Communism, Crime, Democrats, Foreign Policy, Guns, Jihad, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | No Comments »
Friday, April 6th, 2018
Welcome to another Friday LinkSwarm! Today’s LinkSwarm runs the gamut from Ann Althouse to Zsa Zsa Gabor. So dig in…
This New York Times piece on the Islamic State is must reading for its glimpse as to just how the murderous would-be caliphate was able to hold on to and rule significant swathes of territory for years at a time. In short: Bureaucrats and taxes.
Weeks after the militants seized the city, as fighters roamed the streets and religious extremists rewrote the laws, an order rang out from the loudspeakers of local mosques.
Public servants, the speakers blared, were to report to their former offices.
To make sure every government worker got the message, the militants followed up with phone calls to supervisors. When one tried to beg off, citing a back injury, he was told: “If you don’t show up, we’ll come and break your back ourselves.”
The phone call reached Muhammad Nasser Hamoud, a 19-year veteran of the Iraqi Directorate of Agriculture, behind the locked gate of his home, where he was hiding with his family. Terrified but unsure what else to do, he and his colleagues trudged back to their six-story office complex decorated with posters of seed hybrids.
They arrived to find chairs lined up in neat rows, as if for a lecture.
The commander who strode in sat facing the room, his leg splayed out so that everyone could see the pistol holstered to his thigh. For a moment, the only sounds were the hurried prayers of the civil servants mumbling under their breath.
Their fears proved unfounded. Though he spoke in a menacing tone, the commander had a surprisingly tame request: Resume your jobs immediately, he told them. A sign-in sheet would be placed at the entrance to each department. Those who failed to show up would be punished.
Meetings like this one occurred throughout the territory controlled by the Islamic State in 2014. Soon municipal employees were back fixing potholes, painting crosswalks, repairing power lines and overseeing payroll.
“We had no choice but to go back to work,” said Mr. Hamoud. “We did the same job as before. Except we were now serving a terrorist group.”
Snip.
After seizing huge tracts of Iraq and Syria, the militants tried a different tactic. They built their state on the back of the one that existed before, absorbing the administrative know-how of its hundreds of government cadres. An examination of how the group governed reveals a pattern of collaboration between the militants and the civilians under their yoke.
One of the keys to their success was their diversified revenue stream. The group drew its income from so many strands of the economy that airstrikes alone were not enough to cripple it.
Ledgers, receipt books and monthly budgets describe how the militants monetized every inch of territory they conquered, taxing every bushel of wheat, every liter of sheep’s milk and every watermelon sold at markets they controlled. From agriculture alone, they reaped hundreds of millions of dollars. Contrary to popular perception, the group was self-financed, not dependent on external donors.
More surprisingly, the documents provide further evidence that the tax revenue the Islamic State earned far outstripped income from oil sales. It was daily commerce and agriculture — not petroleum — that powered the economy of the caliphate.
They also seized land and goods from Shia, Christians, etc. and redistributed it to their followers as ‘war spoils.”
Also this: “Mr. Hamoud noticed something that filled him with shame: The streets were visibly cleaner than they had been when the Iraqi government was in charge.”
Read the whole thing.
Last week: Kevin D. Williamson leaves National Review for The Atlantic. This week: The Atlantic fires Kevin D. Williamson for wrongthink. Well, there goes my chance to snag the Sarcastic Texan Chair at National Review…
Black people should stop mindlessly voting for the Democratic Party says…Donna Brazile?
“We have to stop giving up our votes. I have done just about everything in the Democratic Party but run for office – everything that they have asked me to do. I have done it. I have registered millions of people in my lifetime. I have knocked on so many doors that I cannot even see the black of my own knuckles. I have carried their water,” Brazile said during her keynote address at the Stateswomen for Justice Luncheon last week, which was organized by Trice Edney Communications.
“I have put their platform within my heart to support. I have championed their issues. And when it came time for me to say what I believed was important, they said ‘shut up, Donna’ and I said ‘hell no, I am not shutting up,’” she added.
Forgive me if my enthusiasm for Brazile’s truthtelling is tempered by the suspicion it comes less from deep philosophical conviction than resentment at taking the fall for Hillary’s dishonest and incompetence.
“Study: 70% of Europeans see rapid population growth of Muslims as a serious threat.”
“Anti-Mass Migration Sweden Democrats Polling First Among Young Voters.” It’s almost like a party standing against rape is more popular than the party standing for “multiculturalism.”
Chicago suburb Deerfield, IL passes law allowing confiscation of modern sporting rifles if they have more than a ten shot magazine. (Gun owners have already filed a lawsuit, backed by the NRA-ILA.) So remember: When Democrats state they “don’t want to confiscate your guns,” they’re lying. (Hat tip: Director Blue)
EPA Director Scott Pruett ends “secret science” (i.e., regulating on the basis of unpublished, unverifiable studies), and the New York Time (naturally) goes crazy. And here’s the debunking of same. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
68% of India’s military equipment is “vintage” (i.e., old Soviet crap).
Apple to drop Intel? Maybe, but not until 2020. If so, does this mean Apple will build their own fab? That would be an expensive proposition, but one Apple would be one of the few companies in the world capable of affording. Or they could keep getting their chips fabbed by TSMC. (Or, the hybrid option, pay TSMC to open up a fab dedicated to producing the new chip at x number of years for y price, after which TSMC would own and run the fab, a technique Apple has used for other component manufacturers before.)
Man using the lady’s room at Target exposes himself to little girl. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
Kurt Eichenwald pens a bold screed at the evil conspiracy to make him look foolish, mentioning Parkland kid Kyle Kover but oddly omitting a certain media figure whose initials are “K.E.”…
Republican Tim Pawlenty to run for Minnesota governor again, an office he held from 2003 to 2011.
If you view the crucifixion of Jesus Christ as Christ having “masochistic sexual relations with his own father,” then maybe you shouldn’t be teaching at Holy Cross.
Ann Althouse watches and annotates an episode of Roseanne so you don’t have to. However, one correction: I’m pretty sure that the Conners don’t think of themselves as “poor,” they think of themselves as “broke.”
Speaking of Roseanne Barr, never forget that she’s a nut case. Indeed, back in 2012 I got into a tiny Twitter spat with her over whether HAARP controlled the weather…
When it comes to basic technical facts about firearms, liberal gun grabbers are proudly ignorant.
ESPN’s revamped morning SportsCenter is losing to Peppa the Pig. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
If you ever wanted something from the Zsa Zsa Gabor estate, now’s your chance. Especially if you wanted a painting of Zsa Zsa or her sisters: she had plenty…
Tags:Ann Althouse, Apple Computer, Deerfield (IL), Democrats, Donna Brazile, EPA, ESPN, Europe, Guns, Holy Cross, India, Intel, Iraq, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Kevin D. Williamson, Kurt Eichenwald, Kyle Kover, LinkSwarm, Media Watch, Military, National Review, NRA, Roseanne Barr, Scott Pruett, Syria, Target, The Atlantic, Tim Pawlenty, Zsa Zsa Gabor
Posted in Democrats, Foreign Policy, Guns, Jihad, Media Watch, Military, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Friday, March 30th, 2018
Happy Good Friday! Spring has sprung and I’m knee-deep in my taxes.
The sitcom Roseanne‘s return features the titular character as a Trump supporter and enjoys smash ratings.
French President Emmanuel Macron talks about sending forces to Syria to block Turkey, then almost immediately walks it back, offering to “mediate” between Turkey and the coalition-backed, Kurd-led Syrian Democratic Forces. That’s…interesting.
What will Middle East Studies academics do now that Saudi sugar daddy Alwaleed bin Talal is out of favor? (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
More ObamaCare rate hikes coming, as Democrats in blue states scramble to avoid the inevitable results of their own policy choices. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Headline: “POPE SAYS HELL DOESN’T EXIST!” (tiny print) “According to a 93 year old atheist who has been wrong before, didn’t tape him, and is quoting from memory. And the Pope himself denies it.” Guess I’ll have to cancel that hooker and blow party I was going to throw Easter Sunday, just in case…
Gun ownership rates say absolutely nothing about homicide statistics.
When a media source such as Mother Jones or Everytown for Gun Safety implies that “we have a gun problem,” they are making exactly the same reasoning error as if they said, “we have a black people problem.”
And black population was six times more predictive than gun ownership was.
Harris County hit with lawsuit for refusing to turn over voter roles so non-citizens can be purged.
Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban is running for reelection on a platform of opposing Muslim immigration and George Soros.
Texas booze lobby defeated in court, paving the way for Sam’s Club, Costco, and other national chains to start selling hard liquor. (Hat tip: Cahnman’s Musings.)
Mozilla launches a “condom” extension to thwart Facebook spying on other sites.
Of all the things to be adopted by the InfoWars right as a bulwark against the radical left, an Austin vegetarian cat café would seem to be among the most unlikely.
What happens when an airliner crashes in your front yard.
Oracle vs. Google heads back to trial.
Karl Rehn attended the 2018 Rangemaster Tactical Conference and brought back lots of insights on things like engaging active shooters. That’s just the first of four after action reports, and all are worth your time to click through.
Latest Hollywood bigshot to sexually exploit underage women: Ren & Stimpy creator John Kricfalusi.
In an extensive report from BuzzFeed, cartoonist John Kricfalusi—the creator of iconic Nickelodeon series Ren & Stimpy—has been accused of sexually exploiting teenage girls, promising them careers in animation at his studio Spumco while allegedly grooming them for sexual relationships. One of the women, Robyn Byrd, says it all began in 1994 when she was only 13, after she sent Kricfalusi a video of herself talking about how she wanted a career in animation and how important Ren & Stimpy was to her. Kricfalusi, who was 39 at the time, responded by sending her packages of toys and art supplies, and eventually he helped her set up an AOL account so they could communicate more regularly.
Kricfalusi visited Byrd at her home and told her that she could “become a great artist,” and later he invited her out to Los Angeles, where she says he “touched her genitals through her pajamas” while they were at his house. She was 16. In 1997, Kricfalusi gave Byrd an internship at Spumco; she lived with him during this period, prompting him to allegedly call her “his 16-year-old girlfriend.” Convinced that he was helping her launch the career of her dreams, Byrd moved in with Kricfalusi once she graduated from high school.
Apparently, this was all an open secret in the animation world at the time, partly due to an interview Kricfalusi gave with Howard Stern in which he creepily noted that a “hot chick with big cans and nice legs” he had drawn for a comic book was “underage, too.” People working at Spumco allegedly shrugged off the relationship between Byrd and Kricfalusi, with another former intern noting that Kricfalusi once “left out a drawing he made of Byrd, naked, with a dog ejaculating on her.”
Via Dwight comes a followup to yesterday’s Waco biker trial roundup: “Yesterday a judge ordered the McLennan County District Attorney’s Office to stop distributing what his attorney calls “private, intimate sexual images” of former defendant Cody Ledbetter and his wife.”
All good things must come to an end. And all bad ones.
Polish man kayaks across the Atlantic. Three times.
Tags:Alwaleed bin Talal, Crime, Democrats, Emmanuel Macron, France, George Soros, Guns, Harris County, Hollywood, Houston, Illegal Aliens, John Kricfalusi, Karl Rehn, LinkSwarm, ObamaCare, pedophilia, Pope Francis, rape, Saudi Arabia, Social Justice Warriors, Syria, Syrian Democratic Forces, Texas, Turkey, Voter Fraud
Posted in Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Foreign Policy, Guns, Jihad, Military, ObamaCare, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 28th, 2018
Finally!
Finally, a high ranking Democrat finally has the guts to say what lies near and dear to the cockles of the vast majority of their party’s heart: “Repeal the Second Amendment.”
Thanks you, John Paul Stevens, for not just, at long last, admitting what Democrats have long-believed, but doing so out-loud and in mixed company!
There, was that so hard? All you had to do was tell the truth.
Democrats want to repeal part of the Bill of Rights so they can forcibly disarm law-abiding Americans.
Both left and right have known this for a long time, but Democrats felt compelled to lie about it for trivial reasons like “losing elections.”
To thine own self be true!
Additional reactions:
Ann Althouse:
Usually, advocates of gun control tend to give assurances that they’re not out to repeal the Second Amendment. A forthright demand for a repeal of the Second Amendment would wreck those assurances and elevate the pro-gun side, which could credibly intensify its rhetoric with reality-based anxiety that they are coming to take away your constitutional rights. If they can take away your Second Amendment rights — if the Bill of Rights is on the chopping block — they may come for your freedom of religion next, they can take away your freedom of speech, you right to be free of unreasonable searches and seizures — whatever they like, whatever they think stands in their way.
Ed Morrissey at Hot Air:
The op-ed comes across as whining over his Heller defeat and the implication that the Constitution should be treated as a historical relic (Stevens’ term). That certainly explains some of his votes on the Supreme Court, perhaps most notably in Kelo, although courts had unfortunately paved that road long before. At least in this case, Stevens suggests using a valid constitutional process to erode individual rights rather than a Supreme Court decision that effectively rewrites the Constitution to expand federal power at the expense of liberty. That may have more to do with Stevens’ lack of a seat on the court at this time, though.
So how likely will a repeal effort be? Maybe if Democrats really start pushing it — as they clearly would love to see it happen — it might get, oh, 40% of the House to vote for it, far short of what’s necessary to send it to the states. The only states likely to ratify such an amendment proposal are those whose gun-control regulations have utterly failed to stop violence in their jurisdictions, as was the case in Washington DC when Heller was decided in 2008.
However, such an effort would certainly clarify the choices for voters outside of those jurisdictions in national elections, and Democrats would be lucky to comprise 40% of Congress if they tried to follow Stevens’ advice. Don’t expect too many of them to climb on Stevens’ bandwagon, especially as rickety as it is in this essay.
And some tweets:
Tags:Ann Althouse, Ed Morrissey, Guns, John Paul Stevens, Second Amendment, Supreme Court
Posted in Guns, Supreme Court | No Comments »
Thursday, March 15th, 2018
I tried to Tweet out a link to this Daily Signal piece on “8 Stubborn Facts on Gun Violence in America”…when I discovered that I couldn’t.
Twitter has once again decided that there’s information its users should not be allowed to share.
Try it yourself, and see if the secret block has been lifted or not.
In the meantime, here are the eight points in the article, each backed up with supporting data:
- Violent crime is down and has been on the decline for decades.
- The principal public safety concerns with respect to guns are suicides and illegally owned handguns, not mass shootings.
- A small number of factors significantly increase the likelihood that a person will be a victim of a gun-related homicide.
- Gun-related murders are carried out by a predictable pool of people.
- Higher rates of gun ownership are not associated with higher rates of violent crime.
- There is no clear relationship between strict gun control legislation and homicide or violent crime rates.
- Legally owned firearms are used for lawful purposes much more often than they are used to commit crimes or suicide.
- Concealed carry permit holders are not the problem, but they may be part of the solution.
Read the whole thing.
Edited to add: I can now tweet this link from my home computer…but I still can’t post it from my iPhone.
Tags:Guns, Media Watch, Twitter
Posted in Guns, Media Watch, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Monday, March 12th, 2018
Greetings, refugees from the formerly great state of California! I hope you’re enjoying your new home in Real America!
Sometimes it can be hard to figure out how to act in new surroundings, so here’s are a few tips from Some Random Guy On Twitter:
(Filed under: Lazy blogging.)
Tags:California, Guns, lazy blogging, Twitter
Posted in Guns | 1 Comment »
Friday, March 2nd, 2018
Happy Texas Independence Day!
I keep waiting for things to slow down, and they keep not slowing down. And the Texas primary election is next week…
Eric S. Raymond discusses elite blindness about immigration.
Diversity erodes social trust, trust being that extremely valuable form of social capital that enables people to make handshake deals, leave their doors unlocked, and trust institutions to treat them fairly. Sociologist Robert Putnam was so shocked to discover this that he sat on his results for seven years before publishing. In diverse communities trust drops not only between ethnolinguistic groups but within them. It’s insidious and very harmful – low-trust societies are bad, bad places to live.
The U.S. has a proud tradition of assimilating legal immigrants into a high-trust society, but it succeeds in this by making them non-diverse – teaching them to assimilate folk values and blend in. Putnam’s work suggests strongly that without the ability to rate-limit immigration to be within some as yet undetermined maximum, the harm from erosion of trust would exceed the benefits of immigration.
We are probably above the optimal legal immigration rate – the highest compatible with avoiding net decrease in social trust over time – already (later in this post it should become obvious why I believe this). There is little doubt that we would greatly exceed it without immigration controls.
Anyway, even if ending border enforcement were a good idea (and I conclude that it is not, despite my libertarian reflexes) it’s a political nonstarter in the U.S. Trump got elected by appealing to sentiment against illegals, and beneath that is a phenomenon one might call Putnam backlash; everywhere outside a few blue-state enclaves, Americans sense the erosion of social trust and have connected it to illegal immigration.
If you run around saying “We should end border enforcement”, enough people to form a blocking coalition are going to hear that as “He wants the U.S. to sit on its hands as erosion of social trust degrades it into a shithole.” Of course most of them don’t have this intellectually analyzed – it’s a more a gut feeling. But no less powerful for that, especially since the problem is real.
Do you want more Trump? Because that is how you get more Trump – or possibly someone worse. I don’t think there is actually a large cohort of Americans willing to sign on to full-throated 19th-century-style nativism yet, and I’m glad of that. But that’s where the next turn of the screw takes us.
We can only save the positive benefits of immigration by controlling it. And by growing some freaking humility about our biases. It’s easy for elite whites like you and me to see only the upside of immigration (cool restaurants, interesting music, exotically pretty girls, lower price levels due to labor cost push on the things we buy, getting to feel virtuous about our inclusivity); immigration seldom has any obvious downside for us unless we roll snake-eyes and get killed by MS-13 or something.
We tend to miss the fact that if you’re a native-born unskilled laborer or minority or legal immigrant the cost-benefit ratio looks very different and not favorable at all. Loose labor markets are good to us, but sure as hell not to our poorer compatriots. A little more compassion and a little less class-blindness on our part would be an improvement.
Kurt Schlichter is having none of your gun control wobbliness:
Show of hands: Who thinks this stops, even slows down, once those mean old not-actually-assault weapons get banned? That liberals have taken a hard stand in favor of cowardice does not exactly fill one with confidence that once we give up our Second Amendment rights that we’ll be safer or freer.
I guess we both have blood on our hands for having this chat – the real heroes are Sheriff Israel and the Broward Cowards. Because of the children or something.
But at CPAC, the president was super clear – he is not wavering on the Second Amendment. Sure, gooey puff boys like Marco Rubio are eager to roll over and show belly, but a hard line on our rights is not going anywhere. Hey Little Marco, this is the Republican Party, not the Foam Party.
Rubio, displaying the political savvy that convinced him to don a studded leather collar and be led around on a leash by Chuck Schumer, talked Congressman Brian Mast into rolling too. Suckers. The New York Times was delighted that Mast agreed to commit career suicide by sticking his constituents in the back when he tried to leverage his being a vet into somehow qualifying him to tell everyone else what their rights are. Amazing, but those of us vets who don’t dance to the libs’ tune never seem to get a Golden Ticket to the NYT op-ed page.
These gullible outliers don’t change the fact that the rest of the GOP is solid. That’s why the left is changing the rules and trashing our norms to do what they can’t do politically through intimidation. They have cultural power and we don’t, and they now seek to use businesses to destroy our rights and silence our voices. Understand that they don’t want an argument or a conversation – they want to use their non-governmental cultural power to deny us access to a platform so that we are unable to make our views heard. We need to recognize this dangerous trend and counterattack ruthlessly with our political power.
Schlichter also reminds conservatives that liberals don’t hate the NRA, they hate you:
Just give them a listen. Those carefully selected moppet puppets are out there on TV telling Normals “We are going to outlive you.” When leftists tell you that you are going to die first, you should believe they mean it. They have a track record of making that happen.
And then there is the new meme, that the NRA is a “terrorist” organization. This means you are a “terrorist” simply by advocating for your political views. Think about that. Labeling your political opponents as “terrorists” – gee, that can’t end badly. Violence against and suppression of terrorists is okay, isn’t it? And when this ploy works with guns, it will happen with the next right the left wants to take from us.
How’s that blood on your hands? Sure, you were thousands of miles away, and your AR-15 – like the 14,999,999 other AR-15s out there – never shot up a school, but just believing in the Second Amendment makes you a non-human. Those of us who know something about history know that the people leftists regard as non-human always tend to end up non-living.
Those off-the-cuff gun statements were just Trump being Trump.
Q: Why are Senate Democrats torpedoing their own gun bill? A: Because it might pass:
When Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) first proposed the Fix-NICS act last November, he had four members of each party as sponsors, calling it “the most important piece of bipartisan guns legislation since Manchin-Toomey.” The bill would plug the gaps in reporting by federal agencies to the background-check system, failings that contributed to the fatal church shooting that month in Sutherland Springs, Texas.
Now, though, Democrats have spent their first days back from recess rejecting Fix-NICS, and even Murphy doesn’t want a stand-alone vote for his “most important” bill.
Because it fixes problems with the existing NICS system rather than disarming law-abiding Americans. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
New York’s Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo would like to remind you that rules are for the little people:
In late November, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo flew to Buffalo for a fund-raising trip, a quick two-stop jaunt that brought in more than $200,000 in donations for his re-election campaign.
The events, one at an Embassy Suites hotel and the other a more intimate gathering at a private residence, were hosted by two men familiar to Mr. Cuomo — and to state government.
One host, Steven J. Weiss, had been appointed by Mr. Cuomo to the New York State Housing Finance Agency in 2011 and the state board of the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in 2016. Government records show that Mr. Weiss has donated $53,000 to the governor’s campaign since being picked for the housing agency.
The other, Kenneth A. Manning, had been named by lawmakers to the same cancer research institute board, and had been appointed by Mr. Cuomo to a state judicial screening committee in 2011. Records show that Mr. Manning has donated $50,500 since his 2011 appointment.
That type of arrangement — appointments go out, campaign cash comes back in — has vexed government reformers in Albany for generations. Things were supposed to change in 2007, when Eliot L. Spitzer, then the newly elected governor, issued an executive order barring most appointees from donating to or soliciting donations for the governor who made the appointment. Mr. Cuomo renewed the order on his first day in office.
But a New York Times investigation found that the Cuomo administration has quietly reinterpreted the directive, enabling him to collect about $890,000 from two dozen of his appointees. Some gave within days of being appointed.
The governor also has accepted $1.3 million from the spouses, children and businesses of appointees, state records show.
Unemployment claims at 45-year low.
Murdering migrants roil Italy’s election.
Even the liberals talk like Ukip, while those on the Right talk of mass deportations. Every conversation involves the phrase: ‘I’m not racist but . . .’
Last weekend, thousands of Left-wing demonstrators descended on the town for an anti-fascist demonstration following the attack on the migrants. The locals, however, did not take part.
All tell me that the situation had been getting out of hand long before recent atrocities, with a marked rise in begging, petty theft and increased inter-racial tension.
Most suspect the authorities are not telling them the whole story about Pamela Mastropietro’s death.
(Hat tip: Instapundit.)
So remember how Russian “mercenaries” got their ass kicked by American forces in Syria? Evidently there’s audio from the survivors talking about just how bad that ass-kicking was. Evidently (assuming the audio is legit, for which I make no claim one way or another), “our guys didn’t have anything besides the assault rifles…nothing at all, not even mentioning shoulder-fired SAMs or anything like that.” If true, this posits a tremendous failure of either leadership or situational awareness akin to attempting a bayonet charge uphill against an entrenched machine gun nest in World War I. You don’t attack a well-defended enemy’s position across a river using only small arms. But it also makes it harder to draw any conclusions about the relative quality of American and Russian troops; an American unit attempting such a monumentally stupid attack against similarly defended Russian forces would likely suffer the same devastating defeat.
“The Federal Election Commission (FEC) fined Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign $14,500 for accepting illegal in-kind foreign contributions from the Australian Labor Party (ALP) during the 2016 elections.”
Police arrest Daniel Frisiello, the guy who allegedly sent an envelope of white powder to Donald Trump, Jr. Judging from his targets, the things Frisiello allegedly hates are: A.) Trump, B.) Jews, and C.) People who hate pedophiles.
Also: Guess which party he belonged to?
UT Twitter revolutionaries get their account suspended. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
The public blames government failure for the Parkland shootings, not guns. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
D.C.’s school district had a massive dishonesty problem, aided and abetted by a compliant press.
Google sued yet again for its institutional racism.
A more in-depth look at that Israel/Syria/Iran dustup.
Labour: The rape party:
A 43-case dossier handed to the party leader in the document entitled LabourToo contains shocking complaints from women describing themselves as MPs, candidates, staff and activists.
MPs are due today to debate proposals for a new parliamentary complaints and grievance system drawn up by Leader of the Commons Andrea Leadsom, in the wake of a rash of complaints of inappropriate behaviour.
One woman told LabourToo she was raped at the annual conference, but “no-one cared” when she told her regional party and an MP.
Another said an individual facing rape accusations was allowed to resign quietly and others told of lewd comments and leg-stroking.
After Rotherham, is anyone really surprised?
A tweet:
“China cracks down on funeral strippers.” Is there no end to their perfidy?
Too close to home. (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)
Tags:Andrew Cuomo, Annie's List, Australian Labor Party, Bernie Sanders, Border Controls, China, Daniel Frisiello, Democrats, dogs, Donald Trump, Eric S. Raymond, FEC, Google, Guns, Illegal Aliens, Iran, Israel, Italy, Kurt Schlichter, Labour, Marco Rubio, Military, NRA, rape, Russia, Syria
Posted in Austin, Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Foreign Policy, Jihad, Media Watch, Military | No Comments »
Thursday, March 1st, 2018
Given that various liberal gun-grabbing orgs have declared a boycott against Amazon for refusing to cut ties with the NRA, supporters of the NRA and the Second Amendment should declare today a buycott and cluster all of your Amazon purchases today.
For example, today I’m going to place an order for this very powerful, high-end carpet steam cleaner (because doggies):
Pet Stain Remover Bundle – Big Green + Bissell 2X Pet Stain Odor Full Size Machine Formula, 60 oz
Here’s some hand cream I strongly recommend for those that get cracked and chapped hands in winter, which I use to get when walking my dogs before this stuff:
O’Keeffe’s Working Hands Hand Cream, 3.4 oz., Jar
Also, here are some worthy books that may be of interest:
More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws, Third Edition (Studies in Law and Economics)
The Samurai, the Mountie and the Cowboy
Deadly Force: Understanding Your Right to Self Defense
The Gulag Archipelago Abridged: An Experiment in Literary Investigation (P.S.)
The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine
The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression
Losing Ground: American Social Policy, 1950-1980
Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics
I don’t usually flog Amazon product links, but today I have an excuse…
Tags:Amazon, Guns, NRA, Social Justice Warriors
Posted in Guns, Social Justice Warriors | No Comments »
Thursday, February 22nd, 2018
Having learned nothing from the failure of polling in 2016, Democrats are once again mistaking their inordinate domination of major news outlets with a groundswell of support for gun control.
With various polls and liberal-packed CNN town halls theoretically showing gun control to display an overwhelming popularity that it’s never evidenced at the ballot box, Democrats are poised to make the same mistake they have every previous time this topic came up: They’re getting high on their own supply.
Let’s remember what senate seats are up for reelection in 2018:
Which of those Republican seats do you think are going to be enthused for gun bans? Tennessee? Mississippi? Texas?
Conversely, which Democrat-held senate seats in states Trump won are more likely to remain blue thanks to gun control? Montana? North Dakota? Missouri? Michigan?
I’m sure Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, the state that gave all of 26% of it’s vote to Hillary Clinton in 2016, is just dying to run on gun control.
Months after the click-bait articles and breathless “blood on your hands” accusations have faded, gun owners will be going to the polls, and they’ll remember the politicians who promised to disarm them if ever given the chance…
Tags:2018 Election, Democrats, gun control, Guns, Joe Manchin, Media Watch, West Virginia
Posted in Democrats, Guns, Media Watch | No Comments »
