Quote of the day…

First there was: “War is Peace,” “Freedom is Slavery,” “Ignorance is Strength.”

Now we have:

“We felt that, for a variety of reasons, the collective rights model was under represented in the debate, and wanted to give scholars an opportunity to enhance or further illuminate the collective rights position. Sometimes a more balanced debate is best served by an unbalanced symposium. I did not, therefore, invite anyone who I knew subscribed to the individual rights model.”

-Carl Bogus, June 12, 2001

Erm, what was that again? I’m beginning to think that George Orwell was right, he was just off by a few decades…

Read the post at Joe’s blog (link above) and then the linked article by David Hardy.

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Dear Senator Biden

NEWS RELEASE
CCRKBA TO BIDEN: IT’S NOT YOUR GUN OBAMA WANTS, IT’S EVERYONE ELSE’S

BELLEVUE, WA – Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden was trying to convince rural Virginians the other day that he’s a devoted gun owner who will not allow presidential nominee Barack Obama to “fool with my Beretta.”

“Senator Biden must think America’s gun owners are dumber than rocks,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “Here is a man who has supported every restrictive gun control and gun ban law that ever landed on his desk, suddenly telling Virginia residents that he’s a gun owner, and very pro-gun.

“Biden tried to sound folksy in Virginia, talking about his ‘little over and under’ Beretta,” Gottlieb noted. “Senator, it’s not your Beretta that concerns American gun owners, but their own Colts, Smith & Wessons, Kimbers, Winchesters, Marlins, Remingtons, Mossbergs, Springfields, Kahrs and Brownings.

“If Biden really does own an over-and-under Beretta, has he fired it lately,” Gottlieb wondered. “What model is it, what’s it chambered for, and where is it? Why does he think that’s a more worthy gun to own than, say, an AR-15, or a Benelli semi-auto? What makes a Beretta shotgun more deserving of protection against Draconian legislation than a .45-caliber Model 1911, a .357 Magnum Ruger Blackhawk, a .50-caliber Thompson/Center or a .22-caliber Colt Diamondback? Would Joe Biden know the difference between any of these guns if he saw one?

“Joe Biden has spent the last three decades on Capitol Hill voting not merely against guns, but against the law-abiding American citizens who own these guns,” Gottlieb stated. “He has voted against their civil rights, and against their traditional values, and now he is running as second fiddle to a Chicago suburbanite who has dismissed such citizens as bitter, and clinging to their guns and religion.

“And now we are supposed to believe that Joe Biden is a gun-toting defender of the Second Amendment, after years of trying to dismantle it,” Gottlieb concluded. “This guy has spent a career in Washington, D.C. assaulting the civil rights of gun owners. Now he’s insulting their intelligence.”

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Home Invaders and Carjackers for Gun Control

(h/t) Michael Bane

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Cartoon of the Day

D.C.’s Bullet Control:

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Irony

Chinese journalists wounded in gun control display

Three journalists have been injured in a shooting accident at a media conference in southwestern China organised to highlight the success of a local gun-control campaign.

The incident occurred in Nanchong in Sichuan province.

Official media reports say a police officer dropped one of the weapons while attempting to display them to journalists, and it discharged by accident

It’s unclear if the gun was loaded with bullets or shotgun pellets, but one of the journalists required surgery after being hit in several places.

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The Definition of Insanity

Albert Einstein once said “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”. Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t guns already banned in Japan?

Japan eyes tougher gun, knife controls after crimes

TOKYO, July 17 (Reuters) - Japan is set to tighten restrictions on guns and knives after a series of fatal shootings and a recent stabbing spree in a Tokyo shopping district in which seven people were killed. A panel of experts has suggested to the government that double-edged blades such as daggers be banned, Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura said on Thursday.

“Preparations are now going ahead to submit a bill to parliament in the autumn on gun control, also including knives,” Machimura told a news conference.

The panel’s report also called for stalkers and those who have been violent towards their spouses to be added to a list of groups to be barred from owning guns.

Gun-related crime has been rare in Japan, which already has strict laws on firearms, but a spate of shootings last year shocked the public and prompted calls for even tighter control.

The number of shootings in Japan rose for the first time in six years in 2007, a year that included the assassination of a city mayor and gun use by gangsters.

Restrictions on knives have also been the focus of heated public debate after a disaffected 25-year-old fatally stabbed seven passers-by on a busy Tokyo shopping street last month with a double-edged dagger.

Knives with blades over 15 cm (6 inch) long are currently banned in Japan, but the weapon used in the crime had a blade of 13 cm. (Reporting by Chisa Fujioka; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

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Survey

medpage Today would like to know whether or not you consider gun regulation a public health issue. Why don’t you go tell them what you really think.

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Sour Grapes from Arthur Kellerman

Yes, that Arthur Kellerman. Author of the flawed and much discredited study. The one who said:

“If you’ve got to resist, you’re chances of being hurt are less the more lethal your weapon. If that were my wife, would I want her to have a .38 Special in her hand? Yeah.””

The one whose study said a handgun in the home is 43 times more likely to kill a family member than a criminal. Of the 43 deaths reported in his flawed study, 37 (86%) were suicides. Other deaths involved criminal activity between the family members (drug deals gone bad).

Kellerman admits that his study did “not include cases in which burglars or intruders are wounded or frightened away by the use or display of a firearm.” He also admitted his study did not look at situations in which intruders “purposely avoided a home known to be armed.” This is a classic case of a “study” conducted to achieve a desired result. In his critique of this “study”, Gary Kleck notes that the estimation of gun ownership rates were “inaccurate” , and that the total population came from a non-random selection of only two cities.

Source: Gunfacts

Guns for Safety? Dream On, Scalia.

The Supreme Court has spoken: Thanks to the court’s blockbuster 5 to 4 decision Thursday, Washingtonians now have the right to own a gun for self-defense. I leave the law to lawyers, but the public health lesson is crystal clear: The legal ruling that the District’s citizens can keep loaded handguns in their homes doesn’t mean that they should.

In his majority opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia explicitly endorsed the wisdom of keeping a handgun in the home for self-defense. Such a weapon, he wrote, “is easier to store in a location that is readily accessible in an emergency; it cannot easily be redirected or wrestled away by an attacker; it is easier to use for those without the upper-body strength to lift and aim a long rifle; it can be pointed at a burglar with one hand while the other hand dials the police.” But Scalia ignored a substantial body of public health research that contradicts his assertions. A number of scientific studies, published in the world’s most rigorous, peer-reviewed journals, show that the risks of keeping a loaded gun in the home strongly outweigh the potential benefits.

In the real world, Scalia’s scenario — an armed assailant breaks into your home, and you shoot or scare away the bad guy with your handy handgun — happens pretty infrequently. Statistically speaking, these rare success stories are dwarfed by tragedies. The reason is simple: A gun kept loaded and readily available for protection may also be reached by a curious child, an angry spouse or a depressed teen.

More than 20 years ago, I conducted a study of firearm-related deaths in homes in Seattle and surrounding King County, Washington. Over the study’s seven-year interval, more than half of all fatal shootings in the county took place in the home where the firearm involved was kept. Just nine of those shootings were legally justifiable homicides or acts of self-defense; guns kept in homes were also involved in 12 accidental deaths, 41 criminal homicides and a shocking 333 suicides. A subsequent study conducted in three U.S. cities found that guns kept in the home were 12 times more likely to be involved in the death or injury of a member of the household than in the killing or wounding of a bad guy in self-defense.

Oh, one more thing: Scalia’s ludicrous vision of a little old lady clutching a handgun in one hand while dialing 911 with the other (try it sometime) doesn’t fit the facts. According to the Justice Department, far more guns are lost each year to burglary or theft than are used to defend people or property. In Atlanta, a city where approximately a third of households contain guns, a study of 197 home-invasion crimes revealed only three instances (1.5 percent) in which the inhabitants resisted with a gun. Intruders got to the homeowner’s gun twice as often as the homeowner did.

The court has spoken, but citizens and lawmakers should base future gun-control decisions — both personal and political — on something more substantive than Scalia’s glib opinion.

– Arthur Kellermann, a professor of emergency medicine and public health at Emory University

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Gun Control Kills

Consider this:

An outbreak of xenophobic violence, also known as ethnic cleansing, has resulted in the murders of 56 people and forced thousands more to take shelter in camps, community halls and churches across South Africa – the victims are foreigners who are strictly forbidden from owning guns.

Foreigners in Gauteng Province are suffering from gunshot and stab wounds, while many others have been raped, fatally beaten and burned alive.

Thomas Eastes, national chairman of Gun Owners of South Africa, said foreigners are unable to defend themselves from such atrocities because they are not allowed to be armed in South Africa. He believes the rise in crime and chaos is chiefly a result of the Firearms Control Act passed by the South African Parliament.

“Arming foreigners and as many citizens in South Africa will surely provide an equal opportunity of survival for all,” Eastes said. “The weak, the marginalised, the oppressed and frail have a chance of survival if they are armed. I believe that firearm ownership places great responsibility on people but also enables foreigners and legal citizens not to live in fear.”

Approximately 22,000 people are murdered annually in the country for being of another race, Eastes said. Some are killed because they own cars or $5 cell phones.

…

Mbeki disarms law-abiding refugees and citizens while widespread crime is rampant in South Africa, Makumbirofa said. Thieves and outlaws are free to do whatever they wish with their victims.

“Guns will help innocent people to protect themselves from criminals, robbers, murderers, rapist and car hijackers,” he said. “Criminals will become afraid of armed citizens because tyrants do not want armed citizens. Genocide is preceded by tight gun-control laws.”

Eastes asserts responsible firearm ownership is the answer and would help shield a defenseless populace from rape, torture and slaughter.

“Without the means to protect yourself and your family, you are not a citizen but a mere subject,” he said. “This is well explained by the brilliant Founding Fathers who wrote the USA’s Constitution and firmly entrenched rights to firearm ownership in their Second Amendment.”

This is the kind of world caused by strong gun control. The weak are at the mercy of the strong, women and children are left at the mercy of criminals and corrupt government agents. This is not the kind of world I want, and this is not the future I want for America. I will do everything in my power to make sure this doesn’t happen here.

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Gun & Knife Control at the Convention

From the NY Daily News:

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - A small but startling sign welcomed the gun lovers who arrived at the National Rifle Association’s annual gathering Friday.

“Firearms WILL NOT be allowed in Hall A during the Celebration of American Values Leadership Forum.”

Beyond this sign at the Kentucky Exposition Center was a row of 10 metal detectors. They were manned by uniformed Secret Service officers deployed because the scheduled speakers included presumptive Republican nominee John McCain.

The Secret Service sets the rules in such circumstances, and even NRA big shots had to go through the screening. Thousands found themselves standing in a long, slow, feeder line before they even reached one of the lines that stretched in front of each metal detector.

Many had been alerted to the no-firearms edict, so few arrived packing.

“I got a gun in the car,” said Deborah Phelps of Fredonia, Ky.

The alert, however, said nothing about pocketknives, which seemingly everybody here was carrying. Hundreds of conventiongoers finally reached the detectors only to be told they could not be admitted with an implement they had never even considered to be a weapon.

Yet another long line formed at a glassed-in kiosk where a pair of Expo Center security guards agreed to watch over the knives.

“It’s kind of ironic, isn’t it?” Rob Stevens of Bedford, Ky., said. “We preach the right to carry everywhere, and we got to start by turning in a pocketknife.”

A pair of Long Islanders who had driven 800 miles to attend the gathering turned in their tickets rather than suffer the humiliation of standing in line to surrender a tiny knife.

“It’s supposed to be about freedom,” said Anne-Marie Biggins of Bethpage as she stood with Brian O’Connor of Farmingdale.

A 16-year-old local boy named Zachary Hicks who arrived in uniform was turned away because he had a folding knife.

Barbara Heetderts of Dallas was about to follow her husband through the screening when an officer found she had six spent shell casings. She was barred from entry.

“Why?” she asked. “It’s empty brass cases.”

“They’re cartridges,” the officer said.

“No, they’re cases,” she replied. “A cartridge has powder, a primer and a bullet in it.”

“I’m saying you can’t take them in,” the officer said.

Her empty cases joined hundreds of knives, scissors and nail clippers at the kiosk. The line now stretched across the lobby, and the woman running the German Roasted Nuts stand on the far side began taking knives and placing them in white paper bags bearing the owner’s name.

“We’re hoping they buy nuts when they pick up their knives,” said Eydie Brown.

“This whole thing is nuts,” one of the knife owners remarked.

Nearly 100 people were still waiting to check their knives when the pro-gun speeches began.

Former Bush mini-me Karl Rove got three standing ovations as he made jokes about Barack Obama’s unfortunate remark about bitter people clinging to guns and religion.

“Doesn’t that make us clingers?” Rove asked the crowd. “Or does that make us Klingons?”

NAVY SEAL Marcus Luttrell told the crowd he’d been briefly jailed in New York Thursday for slapping a foreign-sounding man who had insulted America.

The man who will almost certainly be facing Obama in the November election was the last to speak. John McCain bemoaned those occasions when a particular violent crime has prompted calls for tighter restrictions on firearms. Such crimes include assassinations and attempted assassinations, the memory of which make even NRA members cringe at jokes even about Obama. The fear that such a thing could also happen to McCain himself was what prompted the zero tolerance at the hall’s entrance.

As McCain spoke on, the Secret Service began dismantling the metal detectors, having briefly brought gun and even penknife control to the NRA convention.

Members began drifting out to reclaim their knives - and all seemed back to normal as they wandered down the hall to inspect the thousands of firearms on display in what another sign called “Acres of Guns.”

mdaly@nydailynews.com

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