Gun Questions For Democrats

Last week bill H.B. 388 went up for a vote at the state house.  The bill protects the owner of a fire arm taken from that persons control or premises without their permission if it is later used in a crime.

Seems straight forward.  Some discussion on it can be found HERE asking the reasonable questions that if someone were to steal your truck and use it in a crime should you be held in any way responsible or if someone were to steal your baseball bat and used it in a crime should you be held responsible for that. 

In the roll call vote taken, 166 Democrats and 1 Republican voted against this (Yeas vote was to kill the bill).

In the discussion to the article on the patch there were some Democrats who gave reasons they didn't support the bill.  Jan Schmidt for instance states that she would have voted for it had the bill contained the text "if the weapon had been reported to the police as stolen" and others echoed similar feelings that the bill did not promote safe gun ownership.  This of course relies on the fact the gun owner must know the gun was stolen in the first place.  Someone who keeps a gun in their house for safety may not routinely check to see if its in the drawer or safe location they keep it in so if someone they allow into their house like a maid for instance, finds it and steals it they may not know until long after it had been used in crimes.

Another poster (Rick Watrous) writes that "It is so broadly written ... that someone could leave an arsenal of loaded weapons on their open front porch and not be liable if someone grabbed one and killed someone".  In the summer time I often leave my axe laying in my yard while I head inside for a drink or a baseball bat laying out while my son and I take a break from playing.  If someone takes them from my yard how is it any different then a gun if its used for a crime?

The discussion lead to a couple questions, one of which I posted on the patch but have not received any answers.  I post them here in hopes that at least one of my Democratic readers will share with me their answers.

1) How is a gun any different from any other object you own if someone steals it from you and uses it in a crime (baseball bat, car etc)?

2) If a gun is stolen from my house and I wasn't aware of it being taken and that gun was later used in a crime yet never reported stolen, should I be held in any way responsible for the crime and if so what should the punishment be?

3) For those who don't even agree with Jan's suggested addition, if a gun is in my house and stored in a locked box but yet still stole and I report it stolen, and then that gun is later used in a crime should I be held in any way responsible and if so what punishment would fit this case?

4) Lastly, let's use Mr. Watrous' example.  I'm cleaning a gun on my front porch.  It's a hot day so I go inside for a drink leaving a pistol and loaded clip sitting on the table.  Someone sees it, grabs it and runs off.  Later they us it to hold up a store and shoot the clerk.  Since this is the example Mr. Watrous warns us about with a gun owner leaving weapons on their front porch, what would be the punishment appropriate for the gun owner who's gun was stolen in this case?

Carols plan vs reality on guns

In Carol Shea Porter's column "Time For Action" she spells out her simple plan to end gun violence.  I'd like to share and evaluate each of her simple steps, I'll skip the first few paragraphs where she skillfully invokes the poor children in an attempt to muster up emotion over factual discussion.  After all it's more important that we "feel" safe.

Some in Congress were upset at even the mildest suggestions, such as doctors asking if there are guns in the house so they can talk about safety issues involved when there are children in the residence. Doctors ask if somebody smokes around children. They talk about being safe and careful with candles and stoves, but apparently, they should not ask about a huge killer of children—guns.

If a doctor wishes to ask questions of patients there is no problem with that.  Doctors are just as entitled to free speech as anyone else in this country.  However, the problem is when the same government who requires business to provide "free" birth control and requires doctors to perform abortions even when those things go against their religious beliefs push the "conscience objection" clause to allow doctors to refuse to treat families who own guns. Carol, you aren't a doctor so don't play one.  Let doctors do their jobs and ask what questions they want, not which questions you force them to ask.

The easiest step should be to require background checks for gun sales. This means gun sales involving most private sales also. The majority of Americans support this plan. We also need to make sure that critical information is available when there is a background check. Records right now are too often incomplete, and do not identify a buyer’s criminal history or a dangerous mental illness.

The reason records are often incomplete is because Democrats continue to push laws protecting criminals.

Mass is a perfect example, they have a state law which prevents any mental health records from being shared with the FBI.

What's interesting is how the left push for privacy of medical records, they bend over backwards to allow women access to abortions even when they are in their teens with total privacy including from their own parents.  They fight to protect the privacy of criminals and illegals.  But then when it comes to gun registration they're the first ones to push to print names and addresses of legal gun owners in the news papers.

It is time to end high-capacity magazine sales. It used to be that citizens had a chance to get away from a shooter when he had to stop to reload. But with high-capacity magazines, the killer can just keep firing away a lot longer, murdering many more innocent folks. Hunters do not need to fire 30 rounds. Neither do citizens exercising their right to defend themselves. I support banning magazines holding more than ten rounds. This will help law enforcement and the public to disarm a mass shooter, and it will give people a better chance to escape a madman.

It's statements like this that show how out of touch Carol is.

Again she's high on emotion but lacks factual data.  For starters, with new 3D printing technology a killer no longer needs to buy a 30 round clip.  Just print one from your home.

Secondly, the idea that you'd be able to somehow get away when a shooter has to stop an reload is something that only happens in movies.

Look at the shootings that Carol and others publicize.  Sandy Hook, the killer had 4 guns with him.  In Columbine they carried four weapons between the two of them.  Even if it did take a while to reload, when you are dealing with people carrying multiple weapons, the reload time is irrelevant.

And speaking of reloading time, take a look at YouTube, there are several videos showing people dropping a cartridge and popping in a second one in 3 seconds time.  When you have a school full of children hiding in bathrooms and under tables without and defense and as in the case of Sandy Hook it takes police over 20 minutes before they enter the building from the time the first shots are fired, do you really think that 3 or even 10, assuming the killer is slow, seconds to pop out a clip and pop in a new one is really going to make a difference?  They can do that while walking down a hallway from one room of innocents to the next.

Carol's suggestions sure feel like they would make us safe but in reality would they accomplish anything?  Would they even save one life?  Or by creating a false sense of security would they cost lives?

I support President Obama’s call to close loopholes in gun trafficking laws, and to beef up law enforcement in communities.

Gun trafficking, you mean like the Fast and Furious where Obama's administration gave away 2,500 of the same high powered guns they want to take away from Americans then lost track of them?

Let’s also step up mental health services, and work together to encourage a reduction of violence in video games and television and movies.

Since many of those same Hollywood liberals who make the violent shows on TV and movies are Obama supporters, I'm sure Carol and the rest of the Democrats will have no problem getting them to stop making movies like they do.

And as I pointed out, it's Democrats who passed law after law over the years to protect our privacy that now also prevent medical professionals and others like the FBI, access to information that would otherwise prevent someone mentally unstable from having a gun in the first place.

There is another step, an assault weapon ban, that will require more political debate, but these ideas listed here are common-sense ideas that should have no political test of courage attached to them. Can’t we at least get this done now? Let’s get it done now. It already has been a long and deadly wait.

And there you have it, she artfully saves the best for last... the ever so popular suggest from the left, the gun ban on "assault weapons", which of course gets silly when you begin to define what makes a regular weapon an "assault weapon".

If Carol wants to have more political debate then let's have it.. let's discuss safety and what we can do to really make us safe, not what makes everyone "feel" safe.

Here's some idea...

3 out of every 5 of all gun deaths in this country are self inflicted suicide.  Democrats claim to be in favor of doctor assisted suicide so supporting that belief, shouldn't these deaths be viewed as ok?

When you look at 2011 numbers, of the 32,163 total gun deaths, 19,766 were self inflicted and only 12,397 where not.  Compare that to the fact that 19,741 people in a given year (1999 in this case) die due to accidental poisoning.

So you have a higher chance of being accidentally poisoned then you do being shot.

Roughly 3,000 gun deaths every year are "children", that makes up about 10% of the total deaths.  Now I say children in quotes because most of the government agencies that report on statistics of gun deaths use ages 0 to 19 as children.  This is important because taking 18 and 19 year olds out of the mix cuts that number in half and at 18 and 19 many "children" have graduated and moved on to full time carriers in crime as drug dealers or gotten involved in gangs.

In fact when looking deeper at numbers by cities, some cities report that between 60 to as high as 95 percent of all gun deaths are gang related.

Given these statistics, how exactly is anything Carol suggests going to fix the problems leading to gun deaths?  When you have 5 or 10 gang members all carrying weapons do you think a victim will have more of a chance if those 5 or 10 people only have clips with 10 bullets instead of 15?

Here's another statistic for you to consider, 82% of all gun crimes are committed with stolen weapons.  Of the remaining, 11% guns received from "unknown sources".

So registration and background checks might effect a total of 7% of all gun crimes.  And that assumes that the people who would actually conduct that 7% wouldn't be able to pass a background check in the first place.  A husband who snaps because his wife is cheating on him wouldn't have a mental health issue showing in his background check.

Let's also think about what that 7% actually amounts to... Of the 12,397 gun deaths that were not accidental in 2011, 7% of that would be 868.  So 868 gun deaths were actually committed with legally purchased guns that may have actually gone through background checks.

Think about that number, 868, and then think about the fact that the US has an estimated 270,000,000 guns in the hands of civilians.

These are facts with no emotion driving them.

I'm open to people like Carol suggesting we should have political debate but if you want to do it, stick to actual facts and when you propose a solution explain how, using those facts, you suspect your solution will fix the problem without infringing on the rights of the rest of us.

What really caused Chief Maloney's death

Any time there is a violent crime we question what happened and often wonder if anything can be changed to prevent future violence.

Our friends over a Blue Hampshire bring up the death of Chief Maloney in an article found HERE and raise questions about gun rights.  They also muddy the water bringing up several other shooting incidences.

On April 12, Police Chief Maloney and four other officers were gunned down in Greenland. The same day, the shooter, Cullen Mutrie, shot his accomplice, Brittany Tibbetts, and then turned the gun on himself in an apparent murder-suicide. Also on April 12, two men were found dead in Dalton. Christopher Smith allegedly shot and killed Joseph Besk and wounded Wayne Ainsworth, then turned the gun on himself. On April 13. a nine year old boy in Hollis died after apparently accidentally shooting himself in the head with a shotgun.

On April 14, one man in Chesterfield who was shot multiple times died, and a second suffered gunshot wounds. On April 17, police found three people dead in the northern New Hampshire town of Lancaster. One, 44-year-old David Collins, was found dead at his home of apparent gunshot wounds. Two other bodies were found nearby in a burning pick-up truck. According to my count, during a six-day period, eight people were shot to death and six were wounded in New Hampshire. That total doesn't include the two bodies found in the pick-up truck since the cause of their death was not revealed.

What caused this spate of violence? Obviously, guns were part of the equation. All these people were killed with guns. According to the Boston Globe (4/23/12), "New Hampshire has among the most lax gun control laws in the country"

In reading what they wrote here you would think that since NH has "among the most lax gun control laws in the country" that we're one of the most dangerous places to live.

While they sensationalize on several crimes, over all facts do not support what Blue Hampshire is claiming.

For starters if you look at gun violence per 100,000 population NH has the lowest rate of gun violence in the country coming in at .43%.  Compare that to NY 2.67, MA 1.53% or Illinois 4.59%.  All three of those states have far more stringent gun laws and yet they have far more violence then we do.  In fact every state in the country has more gun violence then we do, so if anything those "lax gun control laws" are helping, not harming.

What is also interesting to consider is the over all percentage of homicides using guns.  Based on 2004 data 30.8% of all homicides were with a gun, 23.1% were knife and 46.2% were "other".

What does that tell you?  Fewer then one third of all homicides in NH, which already has the lowest rate in the country, involved guns, which as Blue Hampshire argues are far too easy to attain.

Looking back on the three other states, New York, Massachusetts and Illinois, they were 57.8%, 58.1% and 75.2% respectively.

Given these facts, the assertion made by Blue Hampshire just doesn't hold up and if anything the opposite is true. The fact we do have lax gun laws has made NH a safer place.

I suppose if you wanted to sensationalize to support your argument you could likewise claim that on Sept 9th, 2011 2,996 people died as a direct result of attacks carried out by box cutters by a group of religious extremists.  Or on November, 18 1978 918 people were murdered including over 200 children as a result of drinking poisoned cool-aid in a massacre known as the Jamestown massacre also carried out by religious extremists.

Should we ban all region as well as a result of actions of a few bad examples?  Whenever Muslim extremists are brought up the left is often quick to point out that not all Muslims are terrorists but yet they use that same broad brush to attack gun owners.

The two largest mass murders ever carried out in this country where the two I mentioned and neither of them involved guns.

In the case of Chief Maloney he was serving a drug related warrant.

Just as I write this article there is a story headlining on Yahoo in regards to 49 headless bodies left on a Mexican highway in what appears to be a drug war.

I could sit here all night listing one example after another of drug related crimes or cases of otherwise good people who have had their lives ruined because they wanted a little marijuana.

That's the real problem here.  History does repeat itself and instead of learning from prohibition we created an even worse criminal underground by outlawing a weed that can be grown anywhere.  Drugs are what lead to Chieg Maloney's death.

Are the deaths that keep adding up day after day and the money taken from tax payers used to fight this war on drugs and to imprison people who's only crime was to do something to their own bodies worth it to outlaw a substance that is natural and grows wild and causes similar effects as alcohol worth it?

Rules To Protect The Stupid

I heard a story on the radio this week that really makes me wonder if we're on the path of making the movie Idiocracy into reality.

Back in March in Vineland, NJ police were called on report of a man carrying a firearm.  The call resulted in a near by school going into lockdown mode at 8:50 AM as the police investigated until they were given the all clear at 9:15 AM.

From the news story:

The man turned out to be a “meter reader who was holding a scope that resembled a rifle,” Winslow Elementary School Principal Debra Bechtel said in a note sent home to parents after the incident.

...

Two parents from the nearby St. Isidore’s Day Care Center reported they saw a man in dark clothing who was carrying a rifle as he walked down the road, Bechtel said in the letter.

Living relatively close to a tree farm that is frequented by hunters I can honestly say I see people with guns walking the streets all the time, not once have I been prompted to call the police.

In vacations I've taken to parts of the south I've seen men walking down commercial blocks surrounded by local businesses carrying guns and rifles, never felt worried enough to call the police.

I've even had hunters walk onto my own property openly carrying weapons thinking it was ok to hunt there since it's so wooded, again I didn't phone the police.  I actually approached them and talked to them about it.

Yet here we have two parents who panic at what they thought was a gun and their first thought was to call 911. 

This prompted the following response from the utility company which can be found in full HERE:

To avoid a repeat in the future, we will take the following action.

• 1) VMU meter readers, in addition to their uniforms, will wear bright yellow vests with stenciling identifying them as VMU meter readers.

• 2) The device will be clearly marked in such a way that it could not be mistaken for a firearm.

Note the part about "in addition to their uniforms", let's call that part Exhibit A.

Exhibit B I'd like to supply a photo of a typical utility meter reader:

In other words you have a man walking down the street in a uniform with utility company logos on it and who anyone who has water or electricity has most likely seen before carrying a large square box and two idiots freaked out enough to call 911 over that.

And now the utility company is actually creating rules because of the reaction of two idiots.

It's a good thing they didn't see anyone surveying property in the area they would have had reports of snipers.

This is exactly why the free state project members open carry, to get people used to seeing guns and not panicking at the mere site of what they think is a gun.

Guns Around Obama - Again

For the second time now in two weeks Obama events were attended by citizens carrying weapons.  None of those open carrying broke any laws or did anything beyond demonstrated their 2nd amendment rights yet once again it made national news.

Yesterday in Arizona around a dozen protesters showed up carrying weapons including an assault rifle.  Here is what CNN wrote about the event:

A man toting an assault rifle was among a dozen protesters carrying weapons while demonstrating outside President Obama's speech to veterans on Monday, but no laws were broken. It was the second instance in recent days in which weapons have been seen near presidential events.

A man is shown legally carrying a rifle at a protest against President Obama on Monday in Phoenix, Arizona.

Video from CNN affiliate KNXV shows the man standing with other protesters, with the rifle slung over his right shoulder, a handgun in a holster on his left hip and a bullet clip in his back pocket.

"I'm exercising my rights as an American in Arizona," the man, who refused to give his name, told KNXV.

...

Arizona law has nothing in the books regulating assault rifles, and only requires permits for carrying concealed weapons. So despite the man's proximity to the president, there were no charges or arrests to be made.

...

"I come from another state where 'open carry' is legal, but no one does it, so the police don't really know about it and they harass people, arrest people falsely," the man said. "I think that people need to get out and do it more so that they get kind of conditioned to it."

I hope this trend catches on and I hope peaceful demonstrations such as this help to break this country out of it's conditioned fear of guns.