04-23-08

John Lott – More Guns on Campus: …In cases from the church shooting in Colorado Springs, Colo., last December, where a parishioner who was given permission by the minister to carry her concealed gun into the church quickly stopped the murderer, to an attack last year in downtown Memphis, to the Appalachian Law School, to high schools in such places as Pearl, Miss., concealed handgun permit holders have stopped attacks well before uniformed police could possibly have arrived. Twice this year armed Israeli citizens have stopped terrorist attacks at schools (once by an armed teacher and another by an armed student). Indeed, despite the fears being discussed about the risks of concealed handgun permit holders, I haven’t found one multiple-victim public shooting where a permit holder has accidentally shot a bystander…

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,352006,00.html

 

03-31-08

"Sixteen months ago, Arthur C. Brooks, a professor at Syracuse University,

published 'Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate

Conservatism.' The surprise is that liberals are markedly less charitable

than conservatives. If many conservatives are liberals who have been

mugged by reality, Brooks, a registered independent, is, as a reviewer

of his book said, a social scientist who has been mugged by data. They

include these findings:---Although liberal families' incomes average 6

percent higher than those of conservative families, conservative-headed

households give, on average, 30 percent more to charity than the average

liberal-headed household ($1,600 per year vs. $1,227).---Conservatives

also donate more time and give more blood.---Residents of the states

that voted for John Kerry in 2004 gave smaller percentages of their

incomes to charity than did residents of states that voted for George

Bush.---Bush carried 24 of the 25 states where charitable giving was above

average.---In the 10 reddest states, in which Bush got more than 60 percent

majorities, the average percentage of personal income donated to charity was

3.5. Residents of the bluest states, which gave Bush less than 40 percent,

donated just 1.9 percent.---People who reject the idea that 'government

has a responsibility to reduce income inequality' give an average of four

times more than people who accept that proposition." ---George

Will (http://PatriotPost.US/opinion/entrylist.asp?source_id=50)

5 Mar 08 From John Farnum

When opportunity meets unpreparedness!  From a friend in WA:

"A local resident was brutally beaten here Saturday afternoon.  He owns a house that he uses as an office.  It is in the high-rent district!

Saturday, he was working alone when a man knocked on his front door.  The moment he opened the door, the man pushed his way in and immediately starting striking the resident in the head the beck with a metal tool, probably a hammer or wrench, all the time screaming, 'Where's the money!'

The resident, unarmed and untrained, put up no effective resistance and, as a direct result, suffered several severe cuts to his face and head and well as broken facial bones.  The suspect ultimately threw him out of the house and onto the front lawn, closed the door, and then ransacked the house, apparently looking for valuables.

When the suspect came back out, he took the resident's watch and wallet, and abruptly left.  The resident had called the police via his cell phone, but they did not get there for over twenty minutes, and, even when first beat car arrived, he waited anther ten minutes for the second car to arrive, before either approached the bleeding resident, ultimately rendering aid and summoning an ambulance.

As of today, no arrests have been made.  The resident did not know the suspect personally.

The resident sustained significant injury, but he is expected to recover, to the degree that he can.

Here is yet another example of a naive, clueless, unprepared VBC, “Victim By Choice,” who could not bring himself to believe that anything like this could ever happen to him.   He is lucky to have lived through it, but he is going to have to endure months of hospitalization and painful recovery and, in addition, is likely to suffer permanent disfigurement/disablement."

Lesson: "Bad luck" is what happens when unpreparedness collides with opportunity!

Every police department in the nation puts out three patrol shifts every day (sometimes two).  There are only so many police cars, and so many officers, available at any given moment, and we prioritize calls for police services as best we can.  Even with the best-funded departments, the notion that a beat car will arrive at your doorstep within seconds, or even minutes, of being summoned, is largely delusional!

Bottom line: We'll get there as soon as we can, but our "response-time" is always largely outside of our control.  In the interim, you had better have some personal capacity for dealing effectively with threatening circumstances, or, like the self-deceptive VBC in the foregoing, accept "victim-status," with all that implies!

/John

Comment from S.P.Wenger (When I look back at the lessons I have retained from all the training I took from Ayoob’s Lethal Force Institute, I believe that most of them reflect the experiences of Jim Cirillo and the NYPD Stakeout Unit. One that has always stood out in my mind was Mas recounting when he started getting invited to go home with SOU members and wondering, after they had walked inside, when do the guns come off? They didn’t. Mine stay holstered until I go to bed, at which time they are close at hand, as is a .223 carbine. Before I shower in the morning, as I assemble these mailings, one is in a pocket holster and the carbine is two steps away.)


 

2-24-08

From John Farnam:

This telling note from a university senior professor, and one of our students:

"With regard to the NIU campus shooting last week...

'Response Plans' by college administrators are dedicated solely to averting litigation, not keeping innocent people from being victimized.  I have read through hundreds of  "response plans" for dealing with armed VCAs who invade the sheep-herd, and not one involves arming the sheep!  Conversely, all begin with the unchallenged assumption that police cannot arrive in time to save a single life.  Therefore, the 'plan' continues, a massacre of innocents will invariably take place and cannot be prevented.  Not surprisingly, that part of the 'plan' is routinely kept from public scrutiny,  particularly scrutiny from parents!

THE TRULY TERRIFYING ASPECT OF THIS INSTITUTIONALIZED CHARADE IS THAT EVERYONE: CAMPUS ADMINISTRATORS, POLICE, PROFESSORS, STUDENTS, LAWYERS, POLITICIANS, AND JUDGES, APPARENTLY ACCEPT THIS MENDACIOUS ASSUMPTION AS SOMEHOW DIVINELY-REVEALED, AND THEREFORE BEYOND DEBATE AND IRREFUTABLE.  Who dare suggest that consenting to the fundamental American right of armed self-defense might make a positive difference, are resentfully, venomously labeled fanatics, heretics, and are dismissed out of hand without ever being allowed to make their case.  Only those proposing to debate global warming get a colder reception!

As far as the University is concerned, lambs may be slaughtered, just as long as the Institution survives lawsuits, and administrators all keep their cushy jobs!  Students, faculty, the whole lot, are, of course, expendable.  It as much as says that right in the 'plan.'

As a professor, LEO, and War Veteran, I have, many times, confronted this fraudulent dogma head-on in our graduate school.  When students and other faculty discover that I am covertly armed, they become upset that a gun is even in the same room with them.  They have allowed themselves to become drunk on the Kool-Aid of learned-helplessness to the point of mass delusion.  They are irrationally fearful of guns, even those under the direct control of police!

This is the same pathetic herd-mentality that produced sanguine lines to the showers to sedately form, on command, day-after-day, at Auschwitz!   And,with few exceptions, this is what has become of the descendants of  once-mighty warriors.

It makes me crazy!"


21 Feb 08

I talked with a friend today who is directly involved with the investigation of the recent shooting episode at NIU.  Actually, as he pointed out, there is not much to investigate.  The Case is closed!   All details subsequently discovered only serve to assist CNN in finding something to jam between male-impotence-drug ads.  That is also the sole function of  "surveillance" cameras.

As part of the investigation, my friend attended interminable meetings with members of the campus administration.  Here is what he was treated to, and his responses:

"... its about 'incident-management' and the 'mental-health  crisis'.." (How is any of that psycho-babble going to keep YOU from being murdered, today?)

"We need to improve our ability to respond to and mitigate these events" (How much "better" do you think it is ever going to get?)

"... statistically, there is still only a small chance any one individual will be harmed" (However, when that "one individual" is YOU, all those statistics become so much BS, don't they?)

"... what we need is strict enforcement and maximum jail time for those who commit felonies with weapons" (Don't you idiots think we're already doing that?).

"...I am personally against guns.  Hopefully I'll never be forced to own one for my own protection.  (By the time you honestly confront your own self-deception, Bud, it will be too late.  You'll be dead, and you'll no longer have to worry about any of this, eh?)

"... Those identified as 'mentally ill' (whatever that means) need to be closely monitored..."  (You're describing half the population!  What are you going to do?  Herd them all into gulags?)

A noted sociologist became visibly irritated with me and my smart-ass responses to their predictably, knee-jerk drivel.  She finally said, "So, you're telling me there is nothing substantive we can do to prevent something like this from happening again, tomorrow?

I responded, "There is nothing you, nor any of us, can do to 'save' what victims there may be.  There is something you can do to save yourself."

"... and what would that be?"

"Get a gun!"

Comment: I'm a simple soldier.  As such, like my friend in the foregoing exchange, I see things simply... apparently far too simply for my academically-sophisticated brethren.

However, I'm unsophisticated enough to plainly see that the omnipresent culprit with all these incidents is cowardice... personal, intellectual cowardice.  I wish there were a more polite way to put it.

These people have no sense of duty to themselves, their Art, their families, nor their nation.  They would rather face certain death than be compelled to candidly confront their own (professed) principles, ie: admit  they're wrong.

Like my friend, I can have neither personal nor professional respect for any of them.  They're Victims, by Choice.  They're not just "part of the problem."  They ARE the problem!


 

2-18-08 GOVERNMENT 

"Supporters of the stimulus only consider its 'seen' affects. If government

takes or borrows money from Jones and gives it to Smith, Smith's spending

will be visible for all to see. Not so visible is the 'unseen' affect: What

Jones would have done with the money but didn't because it was transferred to

Smith. Economists call this the 'broken window fallacy.' In the 19th century,

French economist Frederic Bastiat illustrated it with the story of a boy

who breaks a shop window. At first the townspeople lament the loss, but then

someone points out that the shopkeeper will have to spend money to replace the

window. What the window maker earns, he will soon spend elsewhere. As that

money circulates through town, new prosperity will bloom. The fallacy, of

course, is that if the window had not been broken, the shopkeeper would have

'replaced his worn-out shoes... or added another book to his library.' The

town gains nothing from the broken window. This logic is lost on the stimulus

promoters. I'm surprised they don't suggest that we prevent recessions by

breaking lots of windows... I'm not saying the government can do nothing about

the economy. The best thing it can do is get itself out the way. Economies boom

when governments remove impediments to production: high taxes, regulations,

subsidies, trade barriers, manipulation of the money supply, etc. Removing

those should be permanent---not temporary---measures." ---John

Stossel (http://PatriotPost.US/opinion/entrylist.asp?source_id=29)

15 Feb 08 from John Farnum

Same circus, different clowns!

At a news conference today in IL, NIU officials talked interminably about the campus shooting incident yesterday and spent virtually every available second of air time repeatedly justifying themselves and the wonderful "Emergency Plan" they had in effect.  This is, of course, the "Plan" that saved no lives and had no effect on the outcome!  NIU is, or course, yet another "Gun-Free Zone!"

As is the usual case, police arrived on the scene as fast as humanly possible.  The incident was long-since over, ending when the lone perpetrator fatally shot himself, after shooting a number of unarmed and defenseless university students and faculty in a campus auditorium.  Police never confronted the VCA, never fired a shot.

On network news, we were then treated to a parade of driveling "experts" who talked about the deceased perpetrator (that, of course, none of them had ever met) and predictably cited all the usual suspects: "He played violent video games," "He was a loner," "His mother didn't breast-feed him as a child," "His underwear were too tight," ad nauseam.

The ultimate outcome is easy to predict: Campus officials will scurry about in an effort to appear as if they're actually accomplishing something.  No one will lose their job.  Nothing will change.  And, a week from now, the campus will be functioning normally, as if nothing had happened.  And, the next armed VCA will encounter no more difficulty  than did the last one!

Nothing is so difficult to see as the obvious, particularly when it flies in the face of Leftist dogma that dominates virtually all college campuses and that can never be questioned!  More cameras, more reams of "plans," more  "prayer-assemblies," and more hand-wringing will accomplish nothing, any more than the last layer did, save providing employment for a few more, erstwhile unemployed, bureaucrats.

So long as Americans are taught, from birth, that "being a good and cooperative victim" is their ultimate civic duty, and that they must never even  think of individual initiative or (Heaven forbid!) using force to defend themselves, we'll continue to be awash in victims, and all the "plans" in the  world will avail us nothing  Helpless, defenseless sheep will never derive  effective protection from well-meaning, but clueless, "shepherds," who  ultimately regard sheep as expendable anyway!

Accordingly, as Americans, we must maintain our own personal, individual state of readiness, no matter where we are. This decision is yours, and your life depends on it!  Risk attaches to maintaining a reasonable state of readiness, but, as we see from recent events, it pales in comparison to being unprepared.

As this incident so poignantly illustrates, YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN.  Be ready!

 

2-15-08

Federal law (18 USC § 922(q)(2)(B)(ii)) already provides an exception, for concealed weapons (CCW) permit holders, on the restriction regarding the possession firearms on school property.  SB 1214 complies with Federal law by removing the current restrictions in ARS 13-3102.

The presence of armed, law-abiding citizens is a crime deterrent.  Decades ago, after terrorists repeatedly attacked their schools, Israel adopted a policy of allowing adults to carry firearms in schools.  Terrorist attacks diminished greatly.  Recently, Thailand adopted a similar approach.  Closer to home, Utah has allowed CCW permit holders to carry concealed handguns on college campuses since 2006.  Since this was implemented there has not been a single act of gun related violence.

Where law-abiding adults have access to firearms, violence ends quickly.  In 2002, at Virginia's Appalachian Law School, a shooting spree ended when two armed adult students confronted the attacker, and persuaded him to surrender.  In 1997, the vice-principal of a high school in Pearl, Mississippi, armed himself and ended a shooting rampage without firing a shot.

Restrictive laws, not access to firearms, have led to a rise in school shootings.  Prior to 1968, any child could buy a gun through the mail.  Most schools had shooting clubs and it was common for students to bring their rifles into classrooms.  Yet, school shootings were almost unheard of.  Now, with irrational gun bans in place everywhere, anyone determined to do a lot of harm knows that they can literally get away with murder on school grounds, because no one will stop them until it's too late.  On April 16, 2007, twenty-seven students and five faculty members at Virginia Tech lost their lives to a madman who possessed one distinct advantage over his victims – he wasn't concerned with following the "gun free zone" rules.  Nineteen of his thirty-two victims were over twenty-one, the legal age for obtaining a concealed handgun permit in Virginia (and Arizona).

In addition to satisfying State mandated firearms training requirements, which include a written and skills test, CCW permit holders must be 21 years old and undergo routine background checks by the Department of Public Safety (DPS) to verify that they are the most law-abiding of the citizenry.  Statistically, studies have shown that CCW permit holders are the most law-abiding individuals.

 

2-12-08

Who Would Have Guessed?: Josh Sugarmann, head of Violence Policy Center, has a Federal Firearm Dealer's license. The business address is VPC's headquarters in D.C. Which, if I recollect DC law correctly, means VPC is exempt from the handgun ban they defend.

http://armsandthelaw.com/archives/2008/02/the_quintessenc.php

The Brady Campaign’s original name was Handgun Control Inc. The founder, the late Pete Shields, made his goals clear in an interview in with the New Yorker Magazine in 1976:

"We'll take one step at a time, and the first is necessarily -given the political realities - very modest. We'll have to start working again to strengthen the law, and then again to strengthen the next law and again and again. Our ultimate goal, total control of hand-guns, is going to take time. The first problem is to slow down production and sales. Next is to get registration. The final problem is to make possession of all handguns and ammunition (with a few exceptions) totally illegal."

Spiking crime statistics show how well this ban, implemented by the UK and Australia, has emboldened scofflaw criminals.

10-19-07

Is This Our Next Generation?: The UConn chapter of Students for Concealed Carry on Campus wishes to hold a protest against the seemingly wise choice of not allowing any weapons on the UConn campus. It comes down to personal safety, they say. You never know when the next massacre may occur, and as such people need to be prepared to defend themselves...However, I think it is quite apparent that had people been allowed to discharge concealed weapons at Virginia Tech at the time of the tragedy, it would have only resulted in more deaths and more chaos. Students, as well as cops and those carrying concealed weapons, would have not been able to reliably discern the criminal from the vigilante...
 

http://media.www.dailycampus.com/media/storage/paper340/news/2007/10/18/Commentary/Allowing.Concealed.Weapons.Poses.Danger.To.Campus-3041238.shtml

"Flawed Laws Help Stalkers Victimize Women"
By John Lott and Sonya Jones

What do you do when the police can't protect you? Police may be the single most important factor for reducing crime, but there is something the police themselves understand: They almost always arrive at the crime scene after the crime has occurred.

 

Expecting people to trust the police to protect them and to behave passively is a recipe for disaster.

The last couple of weeks have seen a couple prominent murders where restraining orders did women little good. Numerous news organizations, such as ABC News, have run headlines asking "How Do You Stop a Stalker From Killing You?"

Unfortunately, despite acknowledging that "many women find themselves on their own," the media are drawing the wrong lessons. To simply advise that women "Get the hell away him" often doesn't go anywhere near far enough.

With her tragic murder on Monday on the campus of the University of Washington, Rebecca Griego learned this the hard way. Twice she had filed for restraining orders against her abusive and physically violent former boyfriend, Jonathan Ghulam-Nabi Rowan, but the police didn't know where he lived and could never serve him.

It wasn't like they didn't try, for in January they couldn't even locate Rowan for an outstanding warrant for a drunk driving conviction.

Rowan made Rebecca's life hell. In police reports as well as her request for a restraining order, she described Rowan as a "suicidal alcoholic" who had "punched," "slammed," and "thrown" her to the ground.

To no avail, she moved a couple of times and changed her cell phone number. Nevertheless, on March 7th and 14th, Rowan called her at work, threatening both her and her dog. He then called and threatened Rebecca's older sister.

But restraining orders often aren't worth the paper on which they're written, even when they are served.

For a stalker intent on killing his victim or committing suicide after the attack, the penalty for violating a restraining order is irrelevant. With Seattle police's response time of seven minute for the highest-priority emergency calls, the police simply can't be there to protect you even with a restraining order. Seven minutes can seem like an eternity.

With such rampant failures in the system, there is one piece of advice that could have saved Rebecca's life: self-defense, get a gun.

Indeed, the University of Washington goes in the opposite direction and tries to protect people by declaring the campus a "gun free zone," with the school's code of conduct banning the "possession or use of firearms . . . except for authorized university purposes."

Gun free zones may be well intentioned, but good intentions that is not enough. It is an understandable desire to ban guns. After all, if you ban guns from an area, people can't get shot, right? But time after time when these public shootings occur, they disproportionately take place in gun free zones.

It is the law-abiding good citizens who would only use a gun for protection who obey these bans. Violating a gun free zone at a place such as a public university may mean expulsion or firing and arrest, real penalties for law-abiding citizens. But for someone intent on killing others, adding on these penalties for violating a gun free zone means little to someone who, if still alive, faces life in prison.

Unfortunately, instead of gun free zones ensuring safety for victims, ensuring that the victims are unarmed only makes things safer for attackers.

One of us conducted research with Bill Landes at the University of Chicago that examined all the multiple-victim public shootings in the United States from 1977 to 1999. We found that when states passed right-to-carry laws, these attacks fell by 60 percent. Deaths and injuries from multiple-victim public shootings fell on average by 78 percent.

To the extent that attacks still occurred, they overwhelmingly happened in the special places within right-to-carry states where concealed handguns were banned. The University of Washington is a good example of this.

There is no evidence that there are any more accidental gun deaths that occur from right-to-carry laws. Permit holders also tend to be extremely law-abiding.

Ironically, earlier this year University of Washington President Mark Emmert began consideration of making the school's ban somehow apply to students living off campus as well. Students are sitting ducks on campus, but the change would make them vulnerable off campus as well.

Not only did the gun free zones fail here, but it is extremely unlikely that Rowan could even legally own a gun. As a non-resident alien Rowan needed an alien firearms license to even own a gun, something that rarely granted.

There is an even simpler point to make. It is the physically weakest, women and the elderly, who benefit the most from having a gun to protect themselves. The U.S. Department of Justice's National Crime Victimization Survey has shown for decades that resistance with a gun is by far the safest course of action when one confronts a criminal.

Good intentions don't necessarily make good rules. What counts is whether the rules ultimately save lives. Unfortunately, too many rules primarily disarm law-abiding citizens, not criminals.


See this article at http://johnrlott.blogspot.com.

*John Lott is the author of the forthcoming book, Freedomnomics and the Dean's visiting Professor at the State University of New York at Binghamton.

Sonya Jones is a lawyer

10-18-07

Do Gun-Free Zones Encourage School Shootings?: ...This raises a question. Do shooters consider schools "gun-free zones"? Do they consider it unlikely that any authority figure - whether teachers or, in some cases, security guards - poses an armed threat? But in some school shooting cases, guns helped to end shooting sprees and minimize loss of life and injury...Israel gets it. Since the 1970s, on school campuses in Israel, policy requires teachers and parent aides to arm themselves with semi-automatic weapons. The result? School shootings have plummeted to zero.
 

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=58200
 

10-11-07

John Lott On Kids And Guns: ...Convincing patients not to own guns or to at least lock them up will cost more lives than it will save. It also gives a misleading impression of what poses the greatest dangers to children. Accidental gun deaths among children are fortunately much rarer than most people believe. Consider the following numbers. In 2003, for the United States, the Centers for Disease Control reports that 28 children under age 10 died from accidental shots. With some 90 million gun owners and about 40 million children under 10, it is hard to find any item as commonly owned in American homes, as potentially as lethal, that has as low of an accidental death rate.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/lott/lott57.html

8-11-07

Metal and Wood by Dennis Bateman

8-10-07

A perspective of isms from the Patriot Post

Alan Korwin Responds to JPFO:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 28, 2007
Contact info at end

HB 2640 Gun Ban Worse Than Originally Thought

Illegal Aliens Exempt If Amnesty Bill Passes

Rights Restoration Clause Died In 1992

Attorney General Would Get Arbitrary Control

Any Database Manager Can Issue "Procedures"

Undefined "Determination" Can Add You To The Ban List

Still time to fix it

Associated Press takes typical biased swipe at NRA

by Alan Korwin, Author
Gun Laws of America
http://www.gunlaws.com

In a sensational national email alert, Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership (jpfo.org) incorrectly stated yesterday:

"Is the NRA just another 'gun control' group? Alan Korwin, author of 'Gun Laws of America' seems to think so." JPFO is using my name to promote a belief they hold that I do not.

The NRA is the most powerful gun-rights group in the world, even if other groups (like Jews for the Preservation and others) don't think so, or believe they outperform NRA in some fashion. Like Hillary Clinton or any big dog, the NRA must endure a certain level of attack from their own side, it comes with the territory.

I don't know why NRA is supporting the McCarthy NICS expansion bill as it is currently written, but it doesn't make them the enemy. I think they have misread certain passages, or hold mistaken beliefs about how BATFE and the Justice Dept. will perform under the bill if enacted.* Reasonable people will differ. There is still time for a fix.

This has prompted me to reexamine the bill, and unfortunately, it seems worse than I originally believed. To the NRA, media and others who disagree with my assessment of HB 2640:

1. Not Just Adjudications

Bill supporters have expressed that "adjudicated" mental incompetence, which implies action by a proper court of law, is a fair standard for gun denial, and with an appeals process in place is a reasonable line in the sand. I generally agree. But the bill says "adjudications" can come from any federal "department or agency," not just courts.

And HB 2640 isn't limited to adjudications. It speaks throughout of people with "adjudications, determinations and commitments," and not even "involuntary commitments." The word "determination" scares me most -- it isn't even defined. Who can make "a determination"? The law doesn't say. An agency with even a narrow view could read that to mean almost anything. You're comfortable with that? Does it subject people's rights to a bureaucrat's whim? Where are the controls on "a determination"? There aren't any apparent.

It's true that the adjudications, determinations and commitments must include a finding that the person is "a danger to himself or to others or that the person lacks the mental capacity to manage his own affairs." However, BATFE is already on record that any level of "danger" is enough, and it does not have to be imminent, or substantial. Name some sort of mental issue that doesn't have some sort of danger attached -- you can't. Call me a skeptic, go ahead, I can take it.

2. Funding Denied for Restorations

Restoration of rights is subjected to 18 USC 925(c). I don't know how I missed this the first time around. That's the statute Congress has refused to fund since 1992. No one can get rights restored under that statute. We know that. Why would gun-rights supporters place faith in that as a valid appeals route? More than anything else, that item makes me wonder what's going on. It's a legitimate worry. Either the NRA missed that and must fix it, or their critics' worst fears have merit.

3. Arbitrary Control by Attorney General

Even if 18 USC 925 were valid (i.e., funded), as currently written it gives the U.S. Attorney General absolute and arbitrary control over restoring gun rights to a person who applies. It doesn't require any action by the AG. It says, "the Attorney General may grant such relief if it is established to his satisfaction that... the applicant will not be likely to act in a manner dangerous to public safety and that the granting of the relief would not be contrary to the public interest." A politician (unelected in this case) who doesn't think the public should have guns in the first place would never restore rights under that language. Does that seem like a fair and reasonable approach to you? Do you trust that as a baseline standard?

4. Doctors Issuing Gun Rights?

The mental health community is entrusted with the ability to restore a person's rights by declaring them fit (I'm paraphrasing a lot of legalese here). Doctors are by-and-large among the most anti-gun-rights groups in society (check the med journals, AMA, CDC, etc., but I know you know that). What are the chances that anyone within that community will be certifying former mental cases as competent to keep and bear arms? What would give you hope that this part of the bill will be any help at all? Will doctors take the time to make a distinction between real mental cases and people wrongly listed in the official FBI mental case database? If doctors or shrinks make a single mistake, will the feds pull their license to practice, encouraging all of them to keep in line and take no action? Maybe just fear of lawsuits will do the trick.

5. Illegal Aliens Exempt

Another giant one I missed: Under 18 USC 922 it's clear that illegal aliens cannot legally have guns in this country (and most can't have guns in their native Mexico or elsewhere). But they're not in the NICS denial files because, as newspapers put it, they're "undocumented," so there's no way to get the 20 million of them in there. So here's another blockbuster hidden in HB 2640 -- anyone who loses their "illegal alien" status is exempt from NICS (under Sec. 101 (b)(1)(B)). In other words, if the Amnesty Bill removes the illegal status from the people here illegally, they cannot be put in the NICS denial list! Did I read that wrong? It is deliberately convoluted, but it does single out 18 USC 925(g)(5), the illegal-alien gun ban.

6. Legislation by Database Management

Getting a person on or off the NICS list depends on "laws, regulations, policies or procedures governing the applicable record systems." That applies to every database and set of records everywhere that NICS draws from. Are those database "procedures" and "policies" a) known, b) available for review, c) open to public comment, d) subject to challenge, e) fair, f) subject to time frames, g) subject to change at whim, and h) are the people who make those rules known or subject to any jurisdiction we can identify? What about database "rules" mentioned in the bill? Curious minds want to know -- before this bill becomes law and grants that much power to data geeks in some deep dark isolated windowless data processing center somewhere.

--

OK, so the swift and irregular passage raised eyebrows everywhere, this you know. The NRA made some of its most devout supporters wonder what's going on. News media everywhere called it gun control, the NRA insists it's not. It seems to many observers that something's not right.

And it's not too late to make corrections, demand changes before giving any further support, and answer the questions that gun owners are asking. When I was consulting I learned the adage: Don't bring me problems, bring me solutions. So here are some solutions (in plain English... would need translation into legalese) to add to the bill:

(a) Failure to act on a request for a correction to NICS in a specified short time frame shall incur fines, paid by the agency, to the aggrieved party (a sweet addition many laws could benefit from; why would a diligent bureaucrat intent on obeying the law object?).

(b) Failure to act on requests in a specified short time frame shall subject the agency itself to budget cuts based on the length of delay and the number of people whose rights are held in limbo. If delays exceed a specified limit, the head of the agency is subject to sanctions (another sweet feet-to-the-fire remedy for many rampant abuses at federal and local levels -- activists should start adding related language to bills as standard procedure).

(c) Delete the words "determination" and "commitment" as grounds for rights denial, and remove "any legal authority" as a player, replacing it with "court of competent jurisdiction."

(d) Any person whose civil rights are wrongly denied in any way by the NICS system may seek damages, attorney fees, and court costs. Why would an honest person object? To reduce the risk of hefty costs to government, make careful determinations before adding names to NICS, instead of allowing the innocent to appeal after their rights are denied. It's just a reasonable, common-sense safeguard.

There's more, but that's enough for starters. Will our side act to fix it or run with it as is? Respond to membership's concerns or increase their confusion?

Let's get this bill on track -- no one wants nut cases buying guns, and no one wants people with prescription meds or a group-therapy appointment denied. Kids forced onto Ritalin because of a schoolyard scuffle shouldn't permanently lose their rights. And we sure don't want people avoiding medical attention because they fear it might abrogate their rights forever.

Sure, government functionaries and McCarthy's side will howl that they can't possibly live up to these solutions, for a dozen really good reasons. Let's hear the howls now, not when the country is thrown into a rights-denial pit with no bottom.

--

In other news, the Associated Press today placed prominent stories in more than 1,000 U.S. newspapers implying the NRA is working in Congress to support serious felony crimes committed by, "corrupt gun dealers and illegal gun traffickers," a complete distortion promoted without a disclaimer by the Brady anti-gun-rights lobby. The AP ran the virtually libelous comments, as it always does, from known biased sources.

The NRA is actually working to protect lawful gun owners' privacy from, "anti-gun activists, headline-hungry politicians and opportunistic trial lawyers," all worthy goals mentioned near the end of the story. No other gun-rights group is mentioned in the protective effort at the Senate Appropriations Committee, where leading Democrats are working to weaken or eliminate existing protections gun owners currently enjoy.

Alan.

4-20-07

Gun-free nations are safer—at least for folks like Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Mao, Idi Amin, Castro, Pol Pot and Saddam, all of whom disarmed their detractors before slaughtering them by the tens of millions.

4-18-07

You should hope to have a good lawyer after the shooting stops.

Letter To The Editor:

What should we do to prevent college massacres like what happened at Virginia
Tech?  Beefing up campus police will be expensive and still will not prevent
these kinds of disasters.  More campus police will enhance traffic law
enforcement and response to complaints, but will not stop a madman bent on
killing many innocent students and professors.  A Minneapolis Star-Tribune poll
shows that most people believe that these attacks cannot be prevented.  I
disagree.

The Air Marshal program, which came into being to stop plane hijackings, has
been very successful because of outstanding personnel and training.  No one
knows if the person seated near you is an armed Air Marshal ready to act on a
moment's notice or not.  As a result, hijackings have been virtually
eliminated.

I believe we have similar resources that should be taken seriously at this
time.  We have hundreds of active military service personnel coming home that
have already received, at taxpayer expense, the kind of high quality training
that could be used at the time of need in a Rapid Response Unit at any college
in our nation.  For example, I have a son who is now completing four years in
the US Marine Corps as a garrison military police officer.  He'll leave the
Marines with a degree in law enforcement and criminal justice and will also be
enrolling in a university to further his higher education.  Where could his
training and experience continue to help his fellow man?

The answer is -- he should be allowed to apply and qualify for the
yet-to-be-created College Marshal program.  These ex-service personnel would be
slightly older than the average college population but would easily fit in with
that group, and applicants must pass a thorough screening program.  Then they
should be admitted to the college of their choice - incognito, but be further
trained to engage those who would kill innocent students and faculty.  No one
would know that they are armed, carry alert pagers and cell phones.  In
addition, they would have a police identification card and badge worn on a
chain around their necks - to be displayed only during and after a major
incident.

College Marshals should serve until they graduate.  Their only "pay" would be
free books and tuition.

The College Marshal program needs to be implemented at the national level and
Congress should pass legislation to establish it.

The program is workable, cost effective, and efficient.  It will save lives!

Grant E. Kemp
 

3-26-07

Militia Versus Standing Army, The Biblical View: David Kopel presents a summary of the experience of ancient Israel with war and governance and how the Biblical account influenced the Founding Fathers' preference for a militia system over a standing army.
 

2-22-07

Collateral damage in a defensive shoot.

12-06

50 shots in the big apple

10-3-06

From Alan Korwin:
 

GUN-FREE-SCHOOL FRAUD COSTS LIVES AGAIN
 

Pennsylvania Is Latest State to Suffer
 

Another armed murderer has used the so-called Gun-Free-School-Zones law to simply walk onto school grounds and with impunity begin killing innocent children.
 

These dangerous criminals rely on the fact that no one on campus will be able to offer resistance. Congress passed the law in 1990, renewed it in 1995, and though it cannot stop murderers it has enabled many, experts say.
 

"The Gun-Free-School law is a cruel hoax that costs lives," said Alan Korwin, author of Gun Laws of America. "Time and time again, these killers are using the law to provide a safe haven, where they are the only people with guns." It's no surprise these madmen never attack gun stores, police stations, or other places where people are known to be armed, he says, and news reports consistently overlook this point.
 

Hoplophobic teacher's unions, school administrators and legislators project their fears onto the system and disarm honest people, instead of taking prudent steps to protect the kids. Hoplophobia is a poorly understood morbid fear of weapons that afflicts millions. It is one of the greatest undiagnosed and untreated sources of harm in the country, Korwin and other experts believe.
 

People who are terrified of guns give themselves a good feeling but false sense of security by passing such dangerous laws. "All they have done is create target-rich, no-risk environments for monsters who have no fear of encountering an armed teacher or administrator, or a legally-armed private citizen who might happen to be in the building," says Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Second Amendment Foundation. The Pennsylvania attack comes less than a week after a similar attack in Colorado.
 

"Gun-control extremists will use this incident to claim we have not done enough," Gottlieb predicted, and in the past, the harm caused by gun-free laws has lead to calls for more of the same. This is irrational, which is a sign of hoplophobic behavior. "They  have disarmed the wrong people and left our schools, and the children inside, vulnerable to this kind of atrocity."
 

"We need empowerment, not avoidance," Korwin says, who believes that properly trained and prepared teachers are at least one prudent step to take against a rash of homicidal maniacs preying on schools.
 

Hundreds of thousands of FBI-certified individuals, who routinely use personal firearms for crime deterrence and safety, but are kept out of the news, are also banned from school grounds under many states' laws. They can provide little help against the criminals who simply ignore the words in a distant law book.
 

Several states have introduced Gun-Free-Zone Liability laws, which allow people to make the arbitrary and unenforced gun-free zones, but would hold them liable for any harm the zones cause. It is believed this would make people think twice about making the dangerous and negligent zones. Sample bill language is here: http://www.gunlaws.com/GFZ/index.htm
 

Gottlieb categorizes gun-free zones as a myth, since they stop no one, leaving victims defenseless.
 

An unintended consequence of the federal gun-free-school-zones law, 18 USC 922(q), is to criminalize millions of citizens who travel near schools. Because the law stipulates a 1,000-foot gun-free perimeter around schools, virtually all private travel with firearms in American cities violates the law.
 

This creates tens of millions of federal felonies, of unsuspecting citizens, with no enforcement, but no actual harm done. The law is a travesty needing repeal. See maps and details here: http://www.gunlaws.com/Gun_Free_School_Zones.htm
 

###
 

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