The Saturday Evening Posts

What WILL make a Difference in Curbing Antisocial Gun-Abuse

Gun-abuse is a good term that should be entered into the public gun debate. We recognize a difference between the proper and legal medical use of drugs. Most people recognize that guns do have a proper use, although what actually constitues the proper use may vary. Everyone agrees that illegally shooting people who are doing nothing wrong is certainly abuse of guns. There is also a difference in what a range of people consider the proper use of drugs. This does not keep us from trying to keep drugs from being abused in those areas that most people do agree upon. If we take a similar tact to keeping guns from being abused in the most aggreigious ways, common groung might well be reached on these issues.
It is illegal for various classifications of people to own firearms. Convicted felons are one such group. There is even a process whereby some of these convicted felons can be allowed to have there rights restored to them, although this process is complicated and doesn't happen very often. Private individuals are not required to do a background check upon anyone who buys a gun privately from them, in most jurisdictions. It would seem that such private sales and slaes at gun shows by private individuals would account for a large number of illegal gun purchaes, however this is not the case. The low percentage of illegal guns exchanged by legal private gun sales or trades speaks well of  individual citizens in controlling their own activites. We sometimes forget that most good citizens, given the opportunity to control their own behavior, will exercise honesty and good judgement in so doing.

But there are abuses of this process. Sometimes the abuses are due to a lack of understanding when it comes to the existing laws. Of course we are all taught from and early age that it is our duty to know and understand the law. Ignorance is no excuse. This becomes increasingly difficult as more and more laws are passed. Famous writer, Robert Heinline, whose works are credited with originating many popular sayings, once said something to the effect that, creating more laws creates more criminals, the point being that laws don't do much toward controlling human behavior. It is important that people know and understand laws. A good taste-test may be that if a person has a pretty good idea that womething is illegal, then it may be a reasonable law.

Again, I think most people would agree that it is illegal for someone to knowingly sell a gun to a convicted felon. Most people would also agree that it should be illegal for anyone to knowingly buy a gun for a convicted felon. This is certainly illegal and has been forever. This is also good commonsense behavior. It should not take a rocket scientist to know how irrresponible this is--which one would hope would reasonably govern s laws. And in this case it does. If a person comes to another person and asked them to go buy a weapon for them, this should raise a bunch of red flags. It should not be hard to know that if they won't buy the guns thermselves that one should probably not buy guns for them. Doing so is called a Straw Purchase, and it is very illegal to do.

The only situation in which I can see that a good ci/tizen might unknowing break such a law is if they buy a firearm as a gift for someone who is a convicted felon, but the buyer does not know this. The best way to keep this from ever happening is to never buy firearms for a second party. I never do. I have in the past bought guns as gifts for my minor children whose history I knew completely. I have gifted guns to my brothers, whose history I have also known. I never make exceptions to this and I won't do it. I am even very careful regarding whom I will sell a firearm to privately. And I go above and beyond the legal requirements when  I do do. Mostly I don't sell my guns. I sometimes trade them though. I would never buy a gun as a straw purchase for someone whom I do not know about as well as I know myself. This seems fairly basic good sense--especially today.

Shortly after the recent shooting of elementary children in Connecticut, another shooting took place in Connecticut as well that invloved a man setting a fire and then shooting fire-fighters who responded. The facts that have com eout regarding the shooter are very disturbing. First, the shooter was indeed a convicted felon who had served seventeen years for murdering his mother. Why was anyone whowas onvicted of  murdering his mother ever was allowed out of prison escapes me. By any or all accounts this man had demonstrated that he was a dangerous murderer. He should not have guns--ever.

It has since been learned that the shooter had also just killed his sister with whom he had been living since he served his prison time. At the very least, I think it is pretty clear that this was an inherently bad guy. Definitions of bad may differ. He may have been, and probalby was, mentally ill. The legal definition of mentally-ill is yet another thing. Our society is compassionate. My defineition of bad in the context is simply someonw who would kill an innoceand/or defenseless person. I think anyone who has been proven to have done so is a bad person--and is therefore fresh  out of chances to own guns. To me this is a no-brainer.  And actually it is basic law as well. This convicted felon should never have been allowed to own guns.

The news has recently reported that a former neighbor actually went to the gun store with the guy while the guy picked out the guns he wanted. The former neighbor bought these guns for him. I am only guessing that the shooter-guy had to provide the money for the former neighbor to buy the guns with. But it does not matter. The shooter could not buy the guns legally for his own use. The former neighbor illegally made a straw purchase in the shooter's behalf. Why? Shouldn't the buyer have likely known that the guy was a convicted felon--who  had killed his mother and gone to prison for seventeen years? How hard is that?

If it can be proven that this is indeed what really happened--which is just hard for me to believe, but which may well be what actually happened--then this illegal gun buyer should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. I think the law calls for a $10, 000 fine and up to ten years in prison. A jury or a judge should do this, but if more of these types of cirmes would be firmly prosecuted, it would send a message (assuming the media would publicize it, which is debateable), and it would go a long way toward drying up this as a means of the wrong people gettin gthier hands upon firearms.

Once again, it appears at first very cursoy glace that  MULTITUDE OF LAWS WERE BROKEN  that placed these guns illegally into the hands of a violent criminal. Isn't it apparent that what we need is a judicious follow-up in prosecuting such crimes. This one step would do infinitely more toward curbing illegal gun violence than all of the proposed actions now being pushed by liberals in Congress and out.

Let me remind those who do not yet know this that the so-called assault rifle is a name that has been artifically applied to a particular type of gun that is very popular among hunters, sport-shooters (shooting is after-all an Olympic Sport), and for home defense. This style of gun is NOT a military-style gun even though President Obama and others have said that it is. It merely looks a lot like military rifles. If banned, other kinds of guns will easily replace it. Any ban on these weapons will have no affect upon the availability of equally lethal models. So don't get too many warm-fuzzies about hysterically getting it banned. Those fuzzies would be misplaced and undeserved.

Remember too, that the handguns have no inherent advantage over other guns. In reality a semi-automatic weapon is more prone to jamming that other types of handguns and rifles.  A simple old style revolver can be shot just as fast as can a semi-automatic handgun, and because a revolver is less prone to jam, that's what I commonly carry (legally with a permit).I also carry what is called speed-loader, which is the equivalent of another magazine for my revolver.

High-capacity magazines can easily be replaced by multiple magazines that can be changed in less than a second and which are much handier to carry and to conceal. Neither Law Enforcement nor the military uses high-capacity hand-gun magazines. Thes magazines tend to ignore the need for hand-guns to need to cool-off to avoid overheating , which leads to malfunctions. High-capacity magazines are less dependable when it comes to feeding because the spring tension necessarily changes from very gigh to very low. This is jsut one of the factors that causes them to be more prone to jamming. So, effectively, if a person does not hav eaccess to such magazines, he is even more dangerous and lethal.

But that's mere theory. In reality, there are already so many of these magazines in the legal pipeline, that it will not have any effect upon gun violence due to availability. It is just another bogus non-argument being argued by a unknowledgeable bunch of gun-haters who really don't know what they are talking aobut.

So pelase don't feel good about this measure either. Any good feeling about reducing gun violence obtained by poushing this measure throiugh would also be undeserved. It will do no good. But if you want to make a difference, you could press your local authorities to prosecute existing gun laws.

 

 

 

Use this as a Primer on gun facts for Misinformed Liberals

In Greece, policemen in riot gear face-down disenchanted citizens who cannot comprehend the concept of, "It's gone there is no more." Some of us with rural roots recognize this condition of gonism as basic as, "You cannot get blood out of a turnip." Whomever it was who first felt the need to say this was far more clever than ever I formerly believed. Modern folk-understanding, being what it is, now has it that this once immutable law of physics is no longer applicable--I suppose by presidential decree. No wonder some are confusing our politicians with deity saviors.

These same confused individuals, likely with the help of a public education system and/or decriminalized marijuana, now believe that bad things won't happen if they think it hard enough. It has become the best wisdom for everyone to bury their heads as does and ostrich when it comes to their personal protection--but eve more dangerously, our children. Denying the existence of evil has never made evil go away. This attitude has always added to the problem, emboldening evil, rather than curbing it. Our world is not quite Shambala. Not even the bergs of the North-East.

It is said that the natural cliff caves in one area of Tibet are full of the naturally mummified remains of Buddhist Monks who starved themselves to death in a bid to astro-travel there. Although they may have believed that they did, their emaciated bodies found within those caves prove that they did not really reach their destination.- But from where the idea comes apparently held by so many that making it illegal to buy nitro-glycerine used to treat heart attacks in order to reduce deaths by cancer pretty much takes the cake.

This is fairly equivalent to what liberal anti-firearm activists are proposing while supporters such measures blindly line up behind them, shaking their signs and hurling their insults at the NRA as if they are doing some tangible to curb school violence. Just as many people will die of cancer if we ban nitro-glycerine as a heart medicine, plus a lot of people will die of heart attack to boot. This is exactly how ridiculous the proposed measures to reduce gun violence are. Before you huff off in anger, give me the chance to back up my claim, as I certainly can. First of all, so-called assault weapons are not the only weapons available to people who want to harm children. Secondly, even if reducing these so-called assault weapons in general circulation or in the hands of the legal public truly would reduce this kinds of violent acts, the threat of passing laws to stop such sales has the exact opposite effect.

With the very first outcries regarding banning these weapons, sales of these rifles sky-rocketed. By the second or third day, all the existing inventory of such rifles were completely sold-out. Additional orders were placed by dealers and suppliers and manufacturers went to work racing the fill all these orders. The gun-ban enacted under President Clinton had no demonstrable effect upon gun violence. What it did, was create greater interest in those rifles already in the marketplace. Congress does not stand a chance of passing--even in the current hysterical environment--a law to outlaw the ownership of such weapons outright, or to have them confiscated.

They just don't. No-one who understands the issues even thinks there is a remote chance of doing so. Congress will not even try to do so. So everyone who thinks they might want one of these rifles--all for legal and acceptable purposes is rushing out to buy one or more of these. It is a no-brainer from an economic standpoint, as future supply and demand will drive the price steadily upward.

Secondary fallout of such a ban is that these non-military sporting rifles erroneously nicknamed assault rifles immediately become more valuable. The demand and the price is driven up on the mere speculation of a reduced supply. This makes existing rifles more desirable targets for theft--increasing burglaries, theft, and black-market sales, thereby placing greater numbers into the hands of violent criminals--rather than in the hands of responsible citizens.

The very saddest aspect to this is that thes rifles are NOT the typical culprits used in violent gun crimes. A few public events in our recent memory notwithstanding, only a very small percentage of these weapons are actually involved in violent gun crimes. They simply are not very practical for such crimes. There are so many alternative guns available that crazed shooter types have only to pick another model. Interestingly the probable reason that these guns are the ones chosen in the recent shootings probably have little to do with their quasi-military design.

It reasonably has more to do with the fact that these are the weapons depicted in violent video war and shooting games. I am not suggesting that video games are to blame for school violence--but it is apparent that those who do play video games seem to want to emulate the weapons depicted there. These so-called assault rifles, which our president and others erroneously call military weapons (they actually do not have much in common with real military weapons), are probably also chosen for mischief, because of their wide availability. This type of "black rifle" is currently the most popular rifle made. Even so, FBI records of which I will insert a chart graphically showing within this post, clearly indicates that of all crimes involving guns and shootings, less than 4.5 % involve the use of these famously misnamed assault weapons.

You tell me, is this the best that Congress can do? Probably so; our politicians are not stupid. They know the score; they know that they will very likely be viewed unfavorably by a segment of their gun-challenged voters if they don't DO SOMETHING in the wake of this gun hysteria. The gun-ban previously enacted under President Clinton, but which was allowed to sun-down without being renewed due to its demonstrated ineffectiveness, and due to its unpopularity among another segment of their voters. It is an easy charade for politicians to play like they are doing SOMETHING about the problem of school shootings without really helping the problem even a little bit. In lieu of this type of firearm, some other type of firearm will be used, many with greater effectiveness.

If firearms are not available, maybe a car will be used to plow into a bunch of little kids waiting for the bus. The intelligence and mental capacities of these last two prominent shooters certainly gave them the ability to learn from the Internet and make far more destructive methods for killing people. In the case of the Colorado theater killings, the shooter actually did wire his apartment with powerful homemade bombs--which required bomb squads to disarm before entering. In countries where firearms are not readily available very destructive homemade bombs are the weapon of choice for the disaffected, terrorists, or other public enemies.

In England, where firearms have never been widely legal to own, and where now exists some of the most restrictive gun-ban laws in the world, destructive crimes of hate or misplaced vengeance continue to happen. It is illegal to make bombs, of course, but bombs have killed numerous people even in recent history. The first time you fly into Heathrow Airport near London, most Americans are shocked to see the major presence of armed guards decked out fully in military special ops uniforms and berets and carrying real fully-automatic military weapons. And yet violent crimes that savagely kill people on a wholesale level still happen.

 Continued in next post

National News Commentators, for the most part, lack the frame of reference to think objectively--

They may even ideologically support the Second Ammendment, but for the most part, they lack the frame of reference to think objectively--or certainly not to think subjectively in favor of gun-ownership.

They have a basic lack of understanding regarding many of the issues and facts--or even an understanding of the vernacular of firearms to be objective. They also think they know how the public thinks, when in reality, they only know how ther public from their own gun-ban leaning areas. They fail to realize many of the pro-gun-ownership counter-points, because they have never heard them nor have they ever thoughtfully entertained them. These people are obviously very intelligent and well-educated, but they lack the experience of living in a pro-gun geography or growing up in a truly pro-gun envoronment.

There have been glaring examples of this on Fox. I chose Fox for its Conservative reputation. They are not very conservative, they are a little right of center on most issues. But not on guns. They are substantially left of center. One comentator got me worked up today when they were leading a discussion and participating with their own comments regarding the New York Journal's recent publication of all the gun owners in their distribution area. While a few of the salient points were brought out during the discussion, it was clear to me that all of these particular particpants supported the New York Journal's publication of a list of gun permit owners. They pointed out that no laws were violated, and went on to say that if gun owners felt that they wanted to own guns, that thye should also understand that it was a matter of public record and be prepared to have this information publicized.

One Fox contributor to this NYJ discussion went as far as to say that he certainly would want to know who had guns in their homes as a consideration of where their children were allowed to go. As a whole, this discussion group concluded,or so it appeared that this move was a good and positive move. They seemed to conlude that the public was being served by this move, and that no downside existed for such actions and that anyone who objected to having their gun-ownership, rather their gun ownership permits publicized. There appeared to be a concensus regarding this matter, even though none of the real objections of subtance were even touched upon.

These point are so obvious to those who have been raised in progun environments and jurisdictions that no critcal thought is even required. For instance,the argument that if a citizen wants to own a gun, then he should expect that if he registers his gun, that sinc eit is a matter of public record, tht it would be published. Too bad, so sad, that's the way it is, tough luck, seemed to be the attitude exhibited by this discussion group. This points up one of the myths regarding legal gun ownership.

In reality, there is no federal gun registry. Such a registry at a national level is actually illegal. Attempts to have a national gun registry has been resisted vehemently by our Congressional lawmakers--to the degree at least that such attempts have been defeated thus far. The reason for such resistance is for fear of such a registry being abused--as was this local registry in question. The case has just been made for not ever having a national gun registry. The jurisdiction served by the New York Journal is one of the few local jurisdictions that require either a gun owner to register their guns, or to have to require a permit to possess one. By far and away the rest of the United States requires no gun registry, nor do they require a permit to own or possess one.

The rest of us simply take for granted that we can buy as many or kinds of guns as we diesire, with only a few limitations, such as fully-automatic machine guns and sawed-off shotguns. These firearms were banned durin gthe 1930's under the National Firearms Control Act--driven by the FBI, under the hysteria of the Dillanger-style Chicago and New York Mafia gangs. It is this act of law that has already made military-style weapons illegal. This is why it is not really addressing the problems so oft-cited by gun-control advocates.

Military-style weapons are already illegal. What needs to be done is to enforce the existing laws. But I am not on that right now. Gun registry and permits require toown guns. These mesures are the exceptions to the rules--NOT the norm. In most jurisdiction within the United States of America, the land of the free, home of the brave--law-abiding citizens can go buy a gun with few worries. A simple and quick backround check is performed after fillin gout and signing a form (under penaty of being fined and imprisoned if anything is falsified), you take the gun and go home. That's it. It was not that long ago that no background check was required. But since it has always been illegal for convicted felons, those adjudicated mentally -ill, non-citizens, and those dishonorably discharged from the military service to own guns in the United States, it is reasonable to require a background check.

In most of the USA, a permit is required only to carry a gun. In most of those places, no burden of proof to justify your need for such a permit is required. It is just assumed that any legal citizen who meets the above tast test can buy guns without a hassle, no questions asked, except of course those on the aforementioned form. The other way to buy guns is even simpler in most US jurisdictions; although it has long been a cause for extreme consternation. Two people meet, either at a gunshow or privately anywhere, the gun is inspected and a oprice is agreed upon. The money is exchanged for the gun(s). Wala. This is the way it has been being done pretty much forever in the USA. So if you are under any illusions that law-enforcement or any othe rgovernment agency knows who has guns or what kind they have, you are mistaken. It is actually illegal for the Federal government to maintain a gun registry, although this law was broken and one was illegally begun under President Clinton. When this candestine project was discovered under Presiden tBush, it was rightfully destroyed. Who knows what our current regime is doing. I can only guess. Theoretically, once a called-in background requisite check is done and a buyer is cleared for that transaction, the record is then destroyed. In reality, I doubt that it is destroyed. But if the law is followed the record is destroyed. Fat chance I guess.

So the assumption that anyone buying a gun should consider it a matter of public record to be published by some liberal newspaper to the detriment of the safety of those unwary gunowners is just not universally applicable to the rest of these talking heads' viewing audience--those outside of their own stuffy antigun jurisdiction. In manyof these alternative jurisdictions, it might well be easier to publish a list of thsoe people who do not own guns. Oh, but wait, there would be no legal way to arrive at such a list. If this is suprising, just wait,it gets better. There are quite a few jursidictions wherein a good citizen can not only buy guns, but they can legally strap them on in plain sight, if they are so foolishly inclined to do so, and walk down mainstreet without breaking the law.

But the real story in such cases is that, oddly, there are no gunfights at high-noon, no rampant murders, no shooting rampages--at least not between these legal packers-of-heat. Noooo! Furthermore, without any exceptions of which I am aware, the use of guns in the commission of crime ranges to the low of all jurisdictions in the USA within these geographies where little gun control is observed. This is no anomaly, this is the way it is in these realities alternate to Boomberg-berg. Since the pundits seem to be unalbe to discover any downside to the publication of such a list let me offer some.

 

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Nor-Eastern jurisdictions that seem oblivious to any other realities than their own.

I continue to be amused, though not in much of a good way regarding the cloud of gun ignorance blowing in from a few Nor-Eastern jurisdictions that seem oblivious to any other realities than their own. The winds are being fanned mostly by media spokesmen, pundits, and journalists from NYC and other historically anti-gun area of the United States. I have been amazed at the obvious lack of practical knowledge exhibited by this bunch. Even those who may be broadly identified as Conservatives, or perhaps have shown ideological support for the Second Amendment and general gun rights show a painful lack of real understanding regarding the issues, the facts, the arguments, and most especially the ability to think outside the canned Liberal arguments in which they have been steeped.

On Fox, which theoretically poses a "fair and balanced" approach, with purported leanings toward Conservative values, there has been a show of solidarity, for the most part, with the rest of their Eastern born and schooled pals, in calling for a ban on so-called assault weapons and high-capacity magazines and a variety of other gun-ban points for protest. These people seem to be completely blind to the fact that any of these proposed arguments will have no affect on the gun violence whatsoever. Please reread that last part if it is lost on you. This is not some ideological point of debate. It is a real fact. it is precisely at this point that they all seem to depart from the truth.

When this point is made, they seem to automatically regurgitate a rash of tired old gun-ban arguments upon which they whet their teeth and have been been taught from cradle to graduation form Liberal Eastern Universities and private colleges. So let me make the point again. The facts do not support their arguments. Period. This is not some trumped-up quasi-argument of the likes which they are accustomed to debating in the news or political arena. It is what truly a fact. If I had a better word to express what it is, I would use it. Facts n their world, are apparently viewpoints, rather than the old-time definition of facts. Facts can be twisted and presented and skewed and redefined, but what I am talking about are not debatable points. They are, well, facts. And in this paradigm fact are facts.

It is a fact that the currently proposed gun-ban steps and models for litigation, will make no difference in controlling the types of gun violence that we have witnessed recently. Zero, zilch, nada, none. There are some reasonable steps that could plausibly make a difference, but these steps are being ignored. It is as if the the emperor has no clothes, as my wife enjoys invoking to illustrate the absurdness of people ignoring the obvious for whatever reasons. Personally, I don't have any idea of why this phenomenon is happening. I have generally considered most modern Americans to be rationale in their thinking. But I have obviously been too kind in this view. Obviously, some people behave emotionally regarding many issues.

And emotions are fairly easily shaped by nameable techniques or propaganda. The gun debate is very emotional. People want someone to pay for the bad things that have happened recently. Some folks are sincere in thinking that the NRA or gun-owners, or so-called assault weapons, or handguns, or high-capacity magazines are to blame for these incidents. Others are merely using these events as a pretext, to push forward an ideological Liberal agenda.  But in both events, the reality is that if they honestly believe that a proliferation of these types of weapons is to blame, even partially, their hysteria and vengeful threats against gun-owners is not only doing nothing to curb gun ownership--it is actually proliferating gun ownership.

Let me repeat that point too, because it is a lot more tangible and far-reaching than most of them realize. The emotional reflexive action by gun-haters, or even those a little-bit in favor of conceding that these emotional gun-ban steps are actually helping their cause, of supporting these propose measures while thumbing their noses at measures that have at least some basis in reality, ARE ACTUALLY PROLIFERATION GUN OWNERSHIP IN AMERICA, INCLUDING THEIR OWN COMMUNITIES.

A recent Headline declared, Guns Kill Children Daily in America. To this I must say,

NO! Guns never kill kids. Guns are as cold and impersonal as are hammers. It takes some wrong, ignorant, or evil-thinking monster to consciously pick a gun up, load it, aim it, and pull a trigger. It never happens in a vaccuum. Even in the case of a child accidently killing himself or a playmate--someone else had to prepare the gun and leave it where it could be found. Even working any safety mechanisms and pulling the trigger is NOTvery intuitive. The true Old West story is told of gunfighter Tom Horne, who nearly escaped prosecution for suspician of killing a young mman for hire, was foiled in this escape attempt when he could not figure out how to fire the newfangled weapon--which was not nearly as sophisticated as the guns pictured. No. Guns still do not kill people. Crazy, unhappy, disaffected, spoiled, mean, evil, misguided people choose guns from a whole littany of other availble methods of killing to improperly and illegally use them to kill kids.

NONE OF THE PROPOSED MEASURES ARE ANYTHING OTHER THAN TOKEN OR SYMBOLIC MEASURES. To make this point more pointed, may I say that these proposed measures are completely bogus. If you will not eject from this post at the suggestion of this, I will tell you why, which may be, your first true understanding regarding these points. I don't expect someone who is emotionally vested in being against guns to change their viewpoint, but if you truly understand the points that I am making, you may actually become a more effective gun-ban advocate. More importantly, you may actually learn some alternate steps that will make an honest difference toward decreasing gun violence--if that is your desired result.

So here is the substance that makes my notions more than mere notions, but rather, facts. Let me start with part of the basic premise that I started with. News comentators on the major news media outlets are mostly from the North-Eastern area that have strict gun-control. Being raised and schooled in these areas--coupled with the general journalistic media culture in which they are emersed, these people, who are in positions to influence public opinion, trend toward liberalism with regards to guns.

To be continued in next post