Left Rudder

The usual cast of gunloons are jibber-jabbering away with excitement; they believe an overwhelmingly conservative SCOTUS is going to give them something that’s never existed: a constitutional right to a firearm.

To do this, the SCOTUS will have to overturn about 150 years of precedence and given Scalia, Thomas, Alito and Roberts are largely political hacks, it’s not a stretch to imagine them doing so.

Thus, I make several predictions:

1.) No matter what the result, gunloons will hail the decision as a victory greater than V-J and V-E Days.

2.) SCOTUS will produce a very mixed message; it will assert an individual right to firearms but will permit localities great latitude in regulation. This could mean the DC handgun ban stays in place.

3.) See (1); there will be a brave face put on this by gunloons–but they will be very, very unhappy.

Disclaimer: I’ve never been a fan of libertarians or their goofy ideology. Essentially, self-described libertarians are Republicans who want to smoke dope or legalize prostitution or are simply tired of having to apologize for the latest wackiness of the religious right.

Public support for libertarian candidates, at all levels, has been waning for the past decade as the electorate has come to understand exactly how silly and impractical the libertarian ideology is.

Therefore, imagine my delight at finding conservative gunloon Sebastain Sassi is running for state office as a libertarian. And he’s on a ticket filled with fellows who believe society’s greatest issue is the legalization of marijuana!

Oh yeah.

PHOENIX (AP) — A would-be bar owner angry at being denied a liquor license threatened to shoot people at the Super Bowl and drove to within sight of the stadium with a rifle and 200 rounds of ammunition before changing his mind, federal authorities said.

Kurt William Havelock, who ultimately turned himself in, had vowed to “shed the blood of the innocent” in a manifesto mailed Sunday to media outlets, according to court documents. “No one destroys my dream,” he wrote.

The documents say he was armed with an AR-15 assault-style rifle Sunday when he reached a parking lot near University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, where pre-game activities were happening.

Apparently, the ‘dream’ of this gunloon was to open a bar called “Drunkenstein’s.”

Of course, this gunloon’s weapon of choice was a firearm that was previously banned but now quite popular among unstable gunloons seeking to fulfill their fantasies. The comments of an interviewed NRA quisling are quite interesting.

As I’ve noted a number of times, gunloons seem to attract more than their fair share of racists, bigots and kooks.

Surely the fact folks like Larry Pratt, Randy Weaver and various white supremacist ‘militia’-types all seem to find support in gunloon circles is evidence. Having engaged gunloons for some time, I fully understand that many gunloons are racists, bigots, and kooks.

And some gunloons are aware of this and would wish to play down or mask their associations with these dubious groups and characters. But, like Homer Simpson to a donut, it seems gunloons can’t resist.

Recently, a commenter in another forum brought up Julia Gorin. Gorin, a failed rightwing comedienne and actress (anybody see Ax ‘Em?) wrote an op/ed for some rightwing rag that attacked gun control advocates as girly men or worse. It was pretty typical rightwing gunloon drivel.

But Gorin also has another sideline; she often advocated in favor of Serbs like Slobodan Milosevic, the Butcher of the Balkans:

At the time of his death, Milosevic faced 66 charges, including those of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed during the disintegration of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. He was called the “Butcher of the Balkans” because of the ethnic cleansing campaign, in which Bosnian Serbs systematically killed Bosnian Muslims.

Where do the gunloons find these folks?

David Kopel has long established his kook status in gunloonery. In 1994, dishonest Dave wrote an op/ed which cited, favorably, Samuel Francis. Who is Samuel Francis?

The 1990s saw Francis radicalized to the point where he is today the chief editor for a leading white supremacist hate group, the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC)*. That tie was initiated in 1993, when Francis published his first column in the CCC’s tabloid, Citizens Informer, complaining that the media ignored whites murdered by blacks while police brutality victim Rodney King, characterized as a black criminal, was celebrated.

The next year, Francis made his first appearance at a conference of American Renaissance*, a magazine devoted to eugenics (the “science” of breeding better human beings) and allegedly race-based characteristics (such as IQ levels, sexual aggressiveness and propensity to criminality). In June 1994, Francis praised the CCC in a Times column for “planting seeds that may eventually bear greater fruit” than the Republican Party (the “Stupid Party,” in Francis’ phrase).

Amusingly, Dishonest Dave also refers to J.Neil Schuman as a “firearms expert.”

…if you’re a US gunloon.

Gunloons have long held that the UK is just a Wild West-like atmosphere where ordinary citizens are gunned down everywhere.

Again, the facts keep getting in the way.

Hmmm.

Another law-abiding, NRA member goes berserk at a Illinois shopping center and guns down five women.

Pages 3-4 of NoFacts:

Myth: Texas CCW holders are arrested 66% more often.
Fact: Most arrests cited are not any form of violent crime (includes bounced checks or tax delinquency). 13

This “myth” is concerned with a 1998 Violence Policy Center study that demonstrated two points: 1. Texas Concealed Handgun License Holders Arrested for Crimes That Include Murder, Kidnapping, Sexual Assault, Weapon, and Drug Charges; and 2.) Texas Concealed Handgun License Holders Arrested for Weapon Offenses at Rate More Than Twice That of State’s General Population Aged 21 Years and Older.

Author attempts to conflate the two findings and fails miserably. Author cites “13 “Basis For Revocation Or Suspension Of Texas Concealed “, Texas Department of Public Safety, December 1, 1998.” Cite makes no sense whatsoever; Texas DPS numbers show out of 946 crimes by TX CCW permit holders, 263 were felony arrests, including: six charges of murder or attempted murder involving at least four deaths; two charges of kidnapping; 18 charges of sexual assault; 66 charges of assault, including 48 cases of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon; and, 42 weapon-related charges. Six-hundred eighty-three were misdemeanor arrests, including: 194 weapon-related charges and 215 instances of driving while intoxicated.

Fact: The VPC “study” only includes arrests, not convictions.

No cite is provided but the VPC study does say “arrests.” So does the author’s “myth.”

Fact: Many of these arrests in this premature VPC “study” came in the early years of Texas CCWs when the law was not understood by most of the law enforcement community or prosecutors.

Again, no cite.

Fact: Compared to the entire population, Texas CCW holders are about 7.6 times less likely to be arrested of a violent crime.14 The numbers breakdown as follows:
• 214,000 CCW holders15
• 526 (0.2%) felony arrests of CCW holders that have been adjudicated
• 100 (0.05%) felony convictions

Author cites “14 Texas Department of Corrections data, 1996-2000, compiled by the Texas State Rifle Association, www.tsra.com/arrests.htm.”

Link no longer works, but thanks to the Wayback Machine, we find a ’study’ by William Sturdevant was removed in early 2006. Mr. Sturdevant provides no cites.

Fact: A different study concludes that the four year violent crime arrest rate for CCW holders is128 per 100,000. For the general population, it is 710 per 100,000. In other words, CCW holders are 5.5 times less likely to commit a violent crime.16

Author cites Mr. Sturdevant’s ’study’ which contains no references, footnotes, or cites.

Brief one. Page 11:

Myth: Gun registration will help police find suspects
Fact: Registration is required in Hawaii, Chicago, and Washington D.C. Yet there has not been a single case where registration was instrumental in identifying someone who committed a crime.65 Criminals very rarely leave their guns at the scene of the crime. Would-be criminals also virtually never get licenses or register their weapons

Author cites the infamous John Lott. Which is interesting since Lott acknowledges registered guns are used in crimes but rarely.

To debunk this myth, I need cite only one case to render it bogus.

The argument by the author is something of a strawman; one of gun registration’s byproducts is to assist law enforcement in criminal investigations. But there are other advantages of registration such as weeding out those who should not have access to firearms.

This week’s Sassi Award™ for Creative GunLoonery (Darwin Division) goes to:

CHAPARRAL, N.M. (AP) — Getting a tattoo can be a painful proposition, but usually it’s just the needle you have to worry about. Two men trying to trace a loaded .357-caliber Magnum as a pattern for a tattoo accidentally shot themselves, the Otero County Sheriff’s Department said Monday.

Robert Glasser and Joey Acosta, both 22, were treated at a hospital in El Paso, Texas, after the shooting Thursday evening in nearby Chaparral.

Authorities said Glasser was struck in the hand when the gun accidentally went off, and Acosta was hit in the left arm. Their injuries were not life-threatening, authorities said.

Winners receive a handsome piece of wheel-thrown stoneware that is safe for use in dishwashers, microwave ovens, and conventional ovens and may be eligible for a trip to Italy.

A quickie. Page 15:

Myth: .50-caliber rounds can pierce light armor at 4 miles81

Author cites “81 Senator Dianne Feinstein, Senate testimony, March 9, 2001.”

Unfortunately, Sen. Feinstein said no such thing. In fact, this quote was attributed by the Fifty Caliber Institute to the Violence Policy Center. VPC asserts they made no such claim:

FCI Alleged Lie #1: “.50cal rifles can shoot with deadly accuracy up to four miles away.”4

The Truth (Pages 4-7): The VPC has never claimed any such thing.
As FCI’s staff should well know, the “maximum range” of the 50 caliber
rifle—i.e., the maximum distance a fired bullet will travel if it doesn’t hit anything in the way—is indeed four miles. But the “maximum effective range”—the maximum distance of deliberately aimed fire—is much less. Here is what the VPC actually did write on the subject of “maximum range” and “maximum effective range” in 2001’s Voting From the Rooftops: How the Gun Industry Armed Osama bin Laden, Other Foreign and Domestic Terrorists, and Common Criminals with 50 Caliber Sniper Rifles:
The maximum range of the 50 caliber round is between 7,000 and 8,000 yards, depending on the specific ammunition….This is the maximum
distance a fired 50 caliber bullet can travel, considerably more than the
distance that a round can be accurately fired. The latter, called the “maximum effective range,” is….certainly at least 1,000 yards and about 2,000 yards in skilled hands.5