December 21, 2012


SATURDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2012

Putting Gun Violence into Proper Perspective

The horrible and tragic school shooting incident in Newtown, Connecticut prompts some to advocate for even tighter gun restrictions. As a common-sense individual, I'm in favor of equally common-sense and balanced safeguards as long as they do not punish law-abiding citizens who are within their Constitutional rights to "keep and bear arms."
United States Constitution:  AMENDMENT II
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
As a data nerd, I have some basic questions.  No doubt, tragic events like the Newtown shooting are sensational and garner much deserved media attention.  However, is gun violence a leading cause of death among Americans?

Let's examine actual data courtesy of the United States Census Bureau.  Table 121. Deaths by Age and Selected Causes categorizes causes of death in the United States for 2007, the most recent year where side-by-side data is available.  Low on the page, the table shows the number of murders (homicides) caused by a discharge of firearms.  The total number of people killed by firearms nationally in 2007 was 12,632.


Each death is indeed a tragedy and some deaths might have been prevented.  Are MORE gun laws the answer?  How many EXISTING local, state, and federal firearms laws did the Newton shooter violate?  Did these existing gun laws ACTUALLY make the victims at Sandy Hook Elementary any safer?  Were they enforced?

Additionally, how many lives were SAVED thanks to firearms?  That's a much harder number to qualify.  Where I live, our excellent police protection is likely a minimum of 15 to 20 minutes away after making a call.    I have a weapon for home protection and both my wife and I know how to use it.  Thankfully, we've never needed to use it, much like the fire extinguisher in our kitchen or our earthquake preparation kit.

Let's put the risk of being murdered by firearms into proper perspective.  Moving up the page a bit, see that simple falls kill nearly twice as many people as do murderers using firearms.  Is the solution to ban gravity?  No, but there are common-sense solutions to reduce the risk.  As proven in Washington, D.C. and Chicago, simply banning guns will not by itself reduce gun violence.


Deaths from other causes are far more preventable than murders by firearms or people killed by gravity. For example, move near the top of the page.  HIV kills nearly as many people in the United States as gun violence.  A major cause of HIV is unprotected sex.  Perhaps the solution is for Congress to pass a new federal law REQUIRING condoms when engaging in certain acts.  "Preposterous!" will claim many civil libertarians.  Yet, there is no explicit Constitutional guarantee safeguarding someone's right to unprotected sex.  However, there is an explicit Constitutional protection to keep and bears arms, written in the 2nd Amendment to the United States Constitution.


I agree that we should act to curb violence, especially against the innocent.  But again, let's put gun violence into perspective.  Another almost-entirely preventable action takes nearly 100 TIMES MORE INNOCENT LIVES than firearm violence.  Likely for political reasons, the United States Census Bureau does not list it along with the other causes of death.  These deaths are tracked separately in Table 102. Abortions by Selected Characteristics: 1990 to 2007.  In 2007, there were 1,210 x 1,000 abortions performed in the United States, equal to 1,210,000 or 1.21 MILLION.  This is 95 times higher than the total number of people killed by firearms that same year--including adults and children.  This is also roughly the number of Jews murdered by the Nazis at the Auschwitz death camp during all its years of operation.  This also roughly equates to the entire population of Dallas, Texas--America's 9th largest city.  Most of these deaths are also entirely preventable. However, even the simplest proposed restrictions against abortion are met with protest and outrage despite clear mentions of government protections for life in the Declaration of Independence and in the 14th Amendment.


We should work to prevent deaths when we can do so intelligently and without violating the Constitution rights of those who are breaking no laws.


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December 20, 2012


I would never be so insulting as to accuse the U. Penn Political Science Department of tokenism

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Posted by     Thursday, December 20, 2012 at 11:11am
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This is a follow up to my post, I would never be so insulting as to accuse the NY Times of tokenism, regarding the demeaning accusation by University of Pennsylvania Political Science Professor Adolf L. Reed Jr. calling Tim Scott and other Republicans who are black of being “cynical tokens.”
Let’s take a look at the University of Pennsylvania Department of Political Science Standing Faculty:

I would never be so insulting as to accuse the U. Penn Political Science Department of tokenism.
Such an accusation would be insulting to the people who worked hard (like Tim Scott) to get where they are (like Tim Scott) and who (like Tim Scott) accomplished much in their lives, and who should not be insulted or demeaned as tokens just because they are part of an overwhelmingly white entity.
Respect for the accomplishments of others, apparently, is not a requirement of being a member of the Standing Faculty of the U. Penn. Political Science Department, or an Op-Ed writer at The NY Times.

December 19, 2012


This lunatic is my Representative unfortunately  She gets re-elected over and over again by the way far left liberal Jews in my little suburban town. They all have money. Rep Schwartz NEVER replies to any of my emails or letters. Called her office once to get help and they did NOTHING!

VIDEO: Pro-choice congresswoman compares school massacre to killing of abortionists

BY KIRSTEN ANDERSEN
WASHINGTON, D.C., December 19, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com)  – A pro-choice Congresswoman has compared the mass murder of 20 first graders at a Connecticut elementary school to the killing of abortionists.
However, she downplayed any link between abortion and murder, saying “I don’t see a connection.”
Congresswoman Allyson Schwartz, D-PA, discussed the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal on Tuesday.
A caller said the legalization of abortion, and taxpayer funded abortions, have led to a “culture of death.”

“Roe v. Wade took away the right to life,” the caller said. “We encourage the culture of death by giving money to Planned Parenthood - they kill more people. Now it’s terrible what happened in Connecticut, but unborn persons killed with the support of taxpayer money – these are persons, too.”
“I don’t see the connection here,” answered Rep. Schwartz. “Of course, we have seen gun violence against those who actually do provide reproductive health services and abortion services, and that’s been pretty tragic.”
Schwartz was apparently referencing the 2009 murder of late-term abortionist George Tiller, along with a rash of shootings at abortion clinics in the 1990s that killed four abortionists and clinic workers and injured several others.  By contrast, the average number of abortions performed in the United States each year is 1.3 million, according to the National Abortion Federation. Tiller’s clinic alone was responsible for thousands of abortions, mostly late-term procedures performed on healthy babies. 

December 18, 2012


Factual weaponry for the stalwart foot soldiers fighting on behalf of the 2nd Amendment in the cause of Common Sense

 on Dec 14 2012 at 10:32 pm | Filed under: Gun control
I thought it would be useful to assemble in one place factual data refuting the Left’s instinctive demand for gun control in response to the Newtown tragedy.  In no particular order, I’m setting out their arguments and the factual counter arguments:
England is the most violent country in the Western world
1.  America’s out-of-control guns make it the most violent place in the world.  False.  First of all, there are two different types of violence.  The first is violence by a government against its people.  The second is violence by a people against each other.
Thankfully, America is still way, way, way low on the list of violence by a government against its people.  I’m sure that the beleaguered citizens in North Korea, or China, or Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, or Gaza and the West Bank, Saudi Arabia, or Iran, or in any other dictatorship around the world would love to have a chance to live in America.  They would laugh at what we call “violence,” because they understand that the worst violence is always that visited by an armed government against an unarmed citizenry.
As for the people against people violence, putting aside fairly anarchic places such as Brazil or Peru or Mexico, America still doesn’t even rank near the top of the list.  The most violent place to live if you’re afraid of your fellow citizens is . . . drumroll please . . . England, a country with ferociously stiff gun control laws.  (See the chart, above.)  Incidentally, the violent crime rate in England increased dramatically from the moment the Labour government put extremely harsh gun-control laws in place.  Not only was there more gun crime, there was more of every kind of crime.  If you read the British papers, you learn that the Brits got very creative about violence, resorting with ferocity to knives, broken bottles, head stomps, drowning, choking, poisoning, etc.  People who want to kill will kill.
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Bring out your dead in Acapulco
2.  Countries with strict gun control laws don’t have mass murders along the lines of Columbine or Newtown.  False.  There are three types of mass murderers:  (1) ideological killers, who are usually Muslims with the random Timothy McVeigh thrown in for good measure; (2) insane people; and (3) professional killers, along the lines of the drug gangs Mexico.  These people are driven to kill and will do so regardless of any limitations placed upon them.
Your crazed or professional killers will always get guns and bombs, as Anders Breivik did when he killed 77 people, mostly children, in strict-gun-control Norway.  They will use fertilizer and box cutters to turn trucks and airplanes into bombs, as Timothy McVeigh did in Oklahoma and Al Qaeda did on 9/11.  They will turn cities into charnel houses, as the Mexico drug gangs have done in Mexico, despite Mexico having some of the strictest gun control laws in the world.  (Of course, the interesting twist to the Mexico murders is that Attorney General Eric Holder ignored Mexican law and ran hundreds of illegal weapons into Mexico, courtesy of Operation Fast and Furious.)  They will blow up buses and subways, as Muslim extremists did in London; and trains, as Muslim extremists did in Spain.  They will slaughter school children, as one madman did in Scotland.  Islamic extremists in Mumbai were not slowed down even a little bit by India’s strict gun control laws.  Germany, another country in love with strict gun control, also couldn’t stop a mass murder at a school.  Gun control does not stop mass murder.
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Widowed teen mother shoots home intruder
3.  Gun control in America will lower the number of gun related murders.  False.  Even if one concedes that ideological killers, insane people, and professional killers are in a class by themselves, and operate outside of gun control laws, won’t gun control laws stop garden-variety criminals, suicides, and impulse killers?  No.  Emphatically no.  Guns are a very useful deterrent, especially for women.  Men have a physical advantage over women, but they don’t have any advantage over a trained and armed woman.  (The picture above is ofSarah McKinley, an 18-year-old widow and mother of a small child, who killed home intruders seeking drugs.)Homeowners are sitting ducks if robbers know that they are unable to defend themselves.  If you doubt these assertions, just look at the statistics.
Howard Nemorov kindly assembled some statistics and they show definitively what the NRA has always claimed:  when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns:
Collating gun ownership rates with Centers for Disease Control (CDC) homicide data underscores the above conclusions:
* States with the lowest firearms ownership average the highest firearm and non-firearm homicide rates.
* As firearms ownership rates increase, homicide rates generally decrease.
* States with the highest gun ownership have the lowest firearms homicide rates.
[UPDATE: I've also been reminded that Switzerland and Israel, both of which arm their citizens, have amongst the lowest violent crime rates in the world.]
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Fort Hood shooter
4.  At the very least, gun free zones are safe places.  False.  Gun free zones are barrels and those in the zone are the fish.  Gun free zones are the one place in the world the mass murderer knows that he cannot be stopped.  This is true whether the gun free zone is an army base, a school in Columbine, or a university in Virginia.  In each of these locations, mass murderers took advantage of everyone else’s unarmed status to go on gleeful killing sprees.  (Glenn Reynolds has more here.)
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Second Amendment
5.  Congress should outlaw guns.  False.  Even if you think Congress should, it can’t.  Like it or not, the Second Amendment stands in the way, stating as a matter of contract between government and people that the American people the right to bear arms.  There is only one mechanism to bypass the Second Amendment — more amendment.  Or, as Article 5 of the Constitution says:
The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.
Funnily enough, gun control advocates seem disinclined to attempt either of the options the Constitution provides for its amendment.
[UPDATE: In the comments, Wolf Howling noted that, while Congress can't do anything, an activist Supreme Court can. This raises an interesting question. Since the beginning of the 19th century the Supreme Court has granted itself the power to interpret a law's constitutionality. Does that same power give it the right to interpret the Second Amendment out of existence? In other words, can the Supreme Court effectively nullify a Constitutional Amendment?]
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Pulp Fiction
6.  America’s culture is violent.  Sort of true, but let’s figure out where to place the blame.  I say “sort of true” because, while America certainly isn’t up there with Britain or certain other European countries when it comes to violence, we’re certainly a more violent country than Iceland or Japan.  (Although Japan hasan insanely high suicide rate, so lack of both violence and guns doesn’t mean lack of suffering.)  Because we are a ginormous, heterogeneous country with a huge influx of immigrants, both legal and illegal, we are never going to have the social unanimity that other countries use as a counter to violence.  We cannot mimic Iceland or Japan because our population is too differently constituted.  In this regard, it’s worth noting that Nordic countries such as Sweden, Norway, and Denmark that have opened their Leftist hearts to a vast influx of Muslim immigrants who don’t subscribe to Nordic social norms have seen a huge increase in one very specific type of violence:  rape.
There’s another reason America has a violent culture:  our entertainment industry celebrates it.  Movies, TV shows, video games, and music are all blood-soaked.  They are also all the product of a dominant Progressive industry.  Yup — the people who are selling American disarmament are also the same people glorifying an extraordinarily violent culture.  My suggestion is that, before the Progressives take away my Constitutional right to bear arms, they give some thought to changing the message they sell to America and the rest of the world.
[UPDATE:  USMaleSF had the courage in the comments to speak the unspeakable:  America's violent culture tends to cluster around blacks and, more than that, it clusters around ghettos, with the greatest number of gun crimes being black on black crime.  Stating this fact honestly should be seen as the opposite of racism.  I, safe in my little suburban enclave, am far removed from this scourge.  The ones at risk are blacks themselves, especially women, children, and adolescent males.  The political correctness that silences our tongues makes us morally complicit in a violent subculture that preys upon itself.]
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December 17, 2012


Why 2012 was the best year ever

Never in the history of the world has there been less hunger, less disease and more prosperity
531 Comments 15 December 2012
Has national morale ever been as strong as it was during the Jubilee and the Olympics? Photo: Getty Images.
Has national morale ever been as strong as it was during the Jubilee and the Olympics? Photo: Getty Images.
The below is the first article of the Christmas double issue of The Spectator, the best-written and most entertaining magazine in the English language. To read the rest on iPad/iPhone, click here for a free trial. Or click here for a Kindle free trial.
It may not feel like it, but 2012 has been the greatest year in the history of the world. That sounds like an extravagant claim, but it is borne out by evidence. Never has there been less hunger, less disease or more prosperity. The West remains in the economic doldrums, but most developing countries are charging ahead, and people are being lifted out of poverty at the fastest rate ever recorded. The death toll inflicted by war and natural disasters is also mercifully low. We are living in a golden age.
To listen to politicians is to be given the opposite impression — of a dangerous, cruel world where things are bad and getting worse. This, in a way, is the politicians’ job: to highlight problems and to try their best to offer solutions. But the great advances of mankind come about not from statesmen, but from ordinary people. Governments across the world appear stuck in what Michael Lind, on page 30,describes as an era of ‘turboparalysis’ — all motion, no progress. But outside government, progress has been nothing short of spectacular.
Take global poverty. In 1990, the UN announced Millennium Development Goals, the first of which was to halve the number of people in extreme poverty by 2015. Itemerged this year that the target was met in 2008. Yet the achievement did not merit an official announcement, presumably because it was not achieved by any government scheme but by the pace of global capitalism. Buying cheap plastic toys made in China really is helping to make poverty history. And global inequality? This, too, is lower now than any point in modern times. Globalisation means the world’s not just getting richer, but fairer too.
The doom-mongers will tell you that we cannot sustain worldwide economic growth without ruining our environment. But while the rich world’s economies grew by 6 per cent over the last seven years, fossil fuel consumption in those countries fell by 4 per cent. This remarkable (and, again, unreported) achievement has nothing to do with green taxes or wind farms. It is down to consumer demand for more efficient cars and factories.
And what about the concerns that the oil would run out? Ministers have spent years thinking of improbable new power sources. As it turns out, engineers in America have found new ways of mining fossil fuel. The amazing breakthroughs in ‘fracking’ technology mean that, in spite of the world’s escalating population — from one billion to seven billion over the last two centuries — we live in an age of energyabundance.
Advances in medicine and technology mean that people across the world are living longer. The average life expectancy in Africa reached 55 this year. Ten years ago, it was 50. The number of people dying from Aids has been in decline for the last eight years. Deaths from malaria have fallen by a fifth in half a decade.
Nature can still wreak havoc. The storms which lashed America’s East Coast in October proved that. But the speed of New York City’s recovery shows a no-less-spectacular resilience. Man cannot control the weather, but as countries grow richer, they can better guard against devastation. The average windstorm kills about 2,000 in Bangladesh but fewer than 20 in America. It’s not that America’s storms are mild; but that it has the money to cope. As developing countries become richer, we can expect the death toll from natural disasters to diminish — and the same UN extrapolations that predict such threatening sea-level rises for Bangladesh also say that, in two or three generations’ time, it will be as rich as Britain.
War has historically been humanity’s biggest killer. But in most of the world today, a generation is growing up that knows little of it. The Peace Research Institute in Oslo says there have been fewer war deaths in the last decade than any time in the last century. Whether we are living through an anomalous period of peace, or whether the risk of nuclear apocalypse has proved an effective deterrent, mankind seems no longer to be its own worst enemy. We must bear in mind that things can fall apart, and quickly. Germany was perhaps the most civilised nation in the world in the 1920s. For now, though, it is worth remembering that, in relative terms, we have peace in our time.
Christmas in Britain will not be without its challenges: costs are rising (although many children will give quiet thanks for the 70 per cent increase in the price ofBrussels sprouts). The country may be midway through a lost decade economically, but our cultural and social capital has seldom been higher — it is hard to think of a time when national morale was as strong as it was during the Jubilee and the Olympics. And even in recession, we too benefit from medical advances. Death rates for both lung and breast cancers have fallen by more than a third over the last 40 years. Our cold winters still kill people, but the number dying each year halved over the past half-century. The winter death toll now stands at 24,000 — still unacceptable in a first-world country, but an improvement nonetheless. Britain’s national life expectancy, 78 a decade ago, will hit 81 next year.
Fifty years ago, the world was breathing a sigh of relief after the Cuban missile crisis. Young couples would discuss whether it was responsible to have children when the future seemed so dark. But now, as we celebrate the arrival of Light into the world, it’s worth remembering that, in spite of all our problems, the forces of peace, progress and prosperity are prevailing.
This is the first article in the bumper Christmas issue of The Spectator which (as American readers of this blog may not know) is the best-written and most entertaining magazine in the English language. To sample the magazine for free, download a trial for Kindle, iPad or iPhone by clicking here.

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