Right to Opine

A young mom—cornered in her home by two armed intruders—shot and killed one, sending the other fleeing for his life.

This is exactly why every law-abiding American citizen—particularly the most vulnerable—should have a gun and know how to use it. The Left—spearheaded by George Soros, the Brady Campaign, and their ilk—would prefer to have left this young woman and her infant child defenseless.

The NY Times has yet another hit piece on gun owners. It quite naturally begins with an unarguably illegal use of a handgun by a CCW holder. It also contains many of the hallmarks of the typical anti-gun screed, including this gem:

Gun advocates are quick to cite anecdotes of permit holders who stopped crimes with their guns. It is virtually impossible, however, to track these episodes in a systematic way.

This is, of course, followed by the citation of a few specific incidents in which CCW holders committed murder or manslaughter. (Including at least one in which the CCW had no relevance—a husband killed a man he caught with his wife. Hello? What does his CCW have to do with that?) So it isn’t permissible to cite known instances where a CCW holder successfully and legally used his weapon, but you can trot out the stories that support your side?

To further support its slant, the Times pats itself on the back for having “examined the permit program in North Carolina.” Their study uncovered 8 convictions for murder or manslaughter with a handgun by concealed carry permit holders in North Carolina over a five year period (2006-2010). Since 1995 there have been 228,072 CCW permits granted by NC (almost 60K in 2007 alone). The NC permit is good for five years, so not all of those are current, but permits have reportedly been increasing. Suppose there are only 150,000 CCW holders in NC (I’d bet that’s low, but it skews the numbers against me). That works out to 0.005% of CCW holders being convicted for some form of gun-related wrongful death. Now, in 2005-2009 there were 7,515 vehicular fatalities in NC. Now North Carolina has 6,536,601 licensed drivers. So deaths caused by vehicular accidents occur at a rate of 0.115% per licensed driver—twenty-three times the rate of gun-related deaths caused by CCW holders. North Carolina’s entire population is 9.5 million and if every one of its citizens were a driver, the rate of vehicle deaths per driver would still be 0.079%—almost 16 times the “kill rate” of CCW holders.

So using real-world numbers—even when skewed against the “gun lobby”—which is a bigger threat to public safety, CCW holders or drivers? Only when you have a clear anti-gun agenda can you answer the former, but I have yet to see a Times piece clamoring for more stringent vehicle licensing. Now that’s good journalism.

In yet another poorly written attempt to demonize American gun ownership, CNN published this piece about the first homicide to occur in Windsor, Ontario in just over two years. You know the story isn’t really about the homicide just by reading the first three paragraphs:

In his 60 years, Arnold Blaine has known only two people who’ve owned a gun: one a hunter, the other a nightclub owner.

“We don’t even have gun shops,” said the Windsor, Ontario, business owner.

The paucity of guns is one of three factors police in the city across the river from Detroit cite for its low homicide rate.

Those police are, quite simply, near-sighted fools—as are the authors of the hit piece article. Choosing one crime statistic and a single potential factor and tying them together is not only statistically invalid, it is entirely illogical. Let me demonstrate.

Mesa, Arizona, is a city of just under 440,000—close in size to Windsor at roughly 215,000. I pulled the 2010 crime statistics for both Windsor and Mesa for a direct comparison. When you look at these numbers, keep in mind that while it is very difficult to own a handgun in Canada, Arizona has some of America’s most permissive firearm laws. Having until recently been an Arizona gun owner myself (I now reside in North Carolina—with guns—but my kids were in Mesa schools) I can guarantee there are thousands of legally owned firearms of all types throughout the city of Mesa. Handguns, rifles, shotguns, bullpups, “assault weapons”—you name it, there are a whole bunch of ’em in Mesa. If guns were the primary (or even a significant) problem in and of themselves, you would expect Mesa to be a fearful place to live. So let’s see the numbers in residents per crime:

[Note: MV = motor vehicle.]

That paints a little different picture, now, doesn’t it? You are more likely to be the victim of a property crime in Windsor than in Mesa, and far more likely to be the victim of assault or sexual assault. I don’t know how you read those numbers, but I can tell you with certainty that you would be safer in the city that has all those evil guns. I’ll keep my freedom—and safety—thank you very much.

The left in America would have us become more like Europe: a largely secular society with cradle-to-grave “security” provided by the government. After seeing the rioting in England—public depredations that can only be described as evil—I’ll pass.

MOBS have begun stripping people and taking their belongings as police struggle to control riots in London and in other major English cities…

A young man is shown being forced to hand over all of his clothes after appearing to be stripped naked during the third night of lawless riots…

Another picture which emerged shows an unnamed woman completely naked next to a police officer after apparently having her clothes taken from her…

…another shocking video shows a bleeding teenager being robbed in broad daylight by lawless thugs who pretend to help him to his feet.

[Note the stirling security provided by the British government. The Bobbies—yes, that’s one ‘o’ and two ‘b’s, not the other way around—can’t control the mobs, and the people have been entirely disarmed by their own government so that they can’t protect themselves. But that’s a whole ’nother can-o-worms.]

And what are they rioting over? The big-government teat at which they’ve been feeding is drying up. This is swiftly becoming a recurring pattern—riots in Greece, France, and England by a populace weakened and spoiled by decades of government coddling. Once people grow accustomed to being cared for, they lose the ability—and the moral determination—to care for themselves. Think that couldn’t happen here? Yeah, I’d have thought the same thing a few decades ago when I lived in Europe and visited the U.K. with my family. But I was young and naive then.

A school board meeting in Florida became the scene of a potentially deadly shooting spree today when a disgruntled—and rather incoherent—area resident opened fire with a handgun.

The gunman opened fire at [Superintendent] Husfelt and school board members. He missed them all, even though he was at close range, said Lee Stafford, director of student services of Bay District Schools.

Fortunately the man was incompetent with his weapon or this would have turned tragic. Please explain to me again why it’s a good idea to ban law-abiding citizens from carrying concealed weapons in situations like this. It only creates victims out of the innocent.

This really shouldn’t surprise anyone, since most of what passes for news in popular media regarding guns is inaccurate and/or outright biased. Today CNN reports in shock that hollow-point bullets were used in the murder of Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen last week.

“One bullet was recovered from her back while at the hospital and is possibly from a 9 mm hollow point,” according to the document shown on Los Angeles television station KTTV.

Hollow-point bullets are controversial because the slug is designed to expand after it enters a body, causing greater damage to tissue than a solid bullet.

Hollow-points are only controversial to anti-gun crusaders and people who aren’t familiar with ammunition in general. Here’s the rundown on the two major types of ammunition available to the general public.

Jacketed rounds have a solid lead core which is fully or partially encased by a covering “jacket” of some other metal. This jacket minimizes the amount of deformation which takes place when the bullet hits its target. As a result, jacketed ammunition has an improved ability to pierce through hard materials such as wood, concrete, and steel. This property is highly desirable for military applications in which the target is often concealed by an obstacle of some sort. The major drawback to jacketed ammunition is a direct consequence of this property: jacketed rounds tend to overpenetrate or pass entirely through soft targets—such as humans. This is not a problem for the military, as the guy standing behind the target is highly likely to also be a target. In civilian and police applications, however, this is clearly not a desirable trait. Very often in such scenarios, other humans in the immediate vicinity of the target are not targets, but are innocent bystanders. A jacketed round is quite likely to penetrate all the way through the target and, on exit, strike something unintended.

Hollow-point rounds, on the other hand, are not jacketed (or are only semi-jacketed) and have a lead core with an indentation hollowed out of the point (hence the name). The shape of the bullet’s tip is designed to cause the lead to flatten—or mushroom—achieving two simultaneous and highly desirable goals: the increased surface area of the bullet after deformation causes more internal damage to the target (and increasing the probability that the target’s attack will be stopped) and it slows the bullet down so that it is much less likely to pass through the target into an innocent bystander. While hollow-points are used mostly in handguns, in recent years they have become available in some popular defensive rifle calibers (e.g., the .223 and 7.62×39 that the AR and AK rifles employ).

Although the CNN article certainly doesn’t tell you this, police everywhere in the U.S. use hollow-point ammunition and recommend that civilians do the same in their self-defense weapons—primarily for the two reasons highlighted above. So the fact that hollow-points were used in this murder—any murder, really—does not surprise anyone who has any real familiarity with guns and ammunition. Almost all handgun owners load their weapons with hollow-points.

This is not news—and certainly not headline news. It is merely more manufactured hysteria.

It was only six months ago that Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon, in an address to Congress, blamed the escalating drug war violence in his otherwise tranquil nation on lax American gun laws. He even called for reinstatement of the 1990s weapons ban—to thunderous applause from the leftists in the audience—even though the high-powered weaponry employed by the cartels doesn’t come from our shores and can’t be acquired here under current laws.

Now Arturo Sarukhan—Mexico’s ambassador to the U.S.—in an address to the Council on Foreign Relations, wants to tell a different story.

[Sarukhan] has criticised the international media for paying excessive attention to the drug-related violence in his country.

So which is it? Is the drug violence—rising murder rates, including beheadings and other gruesome and torturous executions—an impending disaster which can only be averted by undermining American sovereignty or is the reportage of the crisis overblown? You can’t have it both ways.

After a year of studying the incident—in which Muslim Army Major Nidal Hasan ruthlessly murdered a dozen fellow soldiers—and the events that lead up to it, the Army and Dept. of Defense have come out with their findings. The report focuses on information sharing between the military, FBI, etc.

The focus of the findings and recommendations in the Information Sharing area was the lack of policy, procedures and systems for the sharing of threat related information between the Services, Combatant Commands, DoD and other federal agencies such as the FBI.

Unsurprisingly for a government investigation, they reached exactly the wrong conclusion.

The Army report says no single action would have prevented Fort Hood.

And, of course, the Army notes changes which, while welcome, are still not the single action that could be taken to avoid a repeat.

The Army says it already has implemented changes, including having first responders move in quickly to respond to a shooting rather than cordoning it off and awaiting special teams.

And

[Military Police] are now authorized to use jacketed hollow point ammunition to reduce the risk of injury to innocent bystanders.

Those are certainly commendable, but they don’t address the real issue. Why not?

Major Hasan was able to carry out his murderous rampage for exactly one reason: he knew there would be no one able to return fire before he had accomplished his mission. You see, even though we trust soldiers with high-powered weapons in the field, they are not allowed to carry weapons on stateside bases. Just a few miles away, civilians walking the streets of Killeen have the ability to lawfully defend themselves with a firearm, but the very soldiers whose oath includes defense of the Constitution are denied the protection of the 2nd Amendment while on-base.

The DOD could take one “single action” which would with almost 100% certainty guarantee that such an incident is not repeated—allow our servicemen to carry sidearms on stateside bases. That the report does not include this recommendation (at least according to more than a dozen articles I read) is not surprising, but it is damnable.

Two U.S. Postal Service employees were fatally shot in TN. The perp is still at large. Think he would have been as bold if he thought half the people in the building were armed instead of knowing they weren’t?

A former employee of Emcore Corporation forced his way past “security” with a handgun and killed two people inside.

[Police Chief Ray] Schultz called the Emcore campus a “very secure facility”

Yep. Very secure.

It wasn’t known how Reza got past security at Emcore Corp.

Um…he had a handgun. I’d bet dollars to donuts the “security”—if it’s like most such corporate mall cops—didn’t. Brilliant idea. Disarm your employees for “safety” and post Paul Blart at the front door. As long as companies can’t be held legally responsible for the safety of their employees when they disallow personal protection, most workplaces will remain safety-free. The notion that they are gun-free would be laughable if it weren’t so often tragic.