So we can help pass more gun laws that wouldn’t have done anything to prevent the tragedy we’re shamelessly trying to exploit.
Archive for March 5th, 2008Bryan Miller is once again blaming Pennsylvania for crime in New Jersey:
New Jersey has effectively extinguished lawful gun ownership. Only about 12% of households owned guns in The Garden State. Only Hawaii, which never had much of a shooting tradition, has a lower percentage of household firearms ownership. Pennsylvania’s household firearms ownership rate is much higher, at 35%. A fairly sizable portion of shooters at my gun club are from New Jersey. They come here, because there just aren’t many places to shoot over on their side of the river anymore. The past several decades has seen range after range, club after club, and gun shop after gun shop, close its doors and fold up, and more and more people chose to either leave the state, or give up gun ownership, rather than face the sea of regulations, and the risk that screwing up could land you very serious time in prison. There’s very little doubt that criminals will follow the path of least resistance when it comes to acquiring firearms, and it’s easier to smuggle them from other jurisdictions than it is to start making firearms in garages and basements. I don’t dispute this. What I do dispute is that creating restrictive laws elsewhere is going to have an effect on anything other than trafficking patterns. Even if you outlawed them nationwide, there will always be a bridge, and it’s not hard to manufacture firearms to begin with, even in a war zone like Chechnya. The real question isn’t whether gun control affects trafficking patterns, but whether it effects crime, and there’s never been any conclusive evidence that it does. Let’s take a look at crime rates between New Jersey and Pennsylvania: Traditionally, New Jersey has had a much higher violent crime rate than Pennsylvania, and it’s only been since New York’s revival that New Jersey’s crime rate has dropped significantly. This makes sense, because as much as criminals cross borders to commit the crime of smuggling firearms, they also cross borders to commit violent crimes. New Jersey’s crime would no doubt be even lower if Philadelphia could get its act together, since New Jersey has no large cities of its own. Many of its smaller cities are among the most violent in the nation. Far worse than Philadelphia itself. Bryan can argue all he wants that Pennsylvania needs to “destroy the village in order to save it” in regards to our shooting heritage, but there will always be a bridge. Criminals will find ways to get guns, and it’s not going to do much to lower crime. The State of New Jersey is considering increasing the penalty for possession of an “assault firearm” from a third degree crime to a second degree crime, which carries a penalty of up to ten years in prison and a $150,000 fine. Before anyone in New Jersey suggests “Well, it’s the law and you should obey it!” consider that this is considered an assault firearm in the State of New Jersey: Clearly any New Jersey gun owner who happens to be an unbeknowing lawbreaker, and possesses one of these high powered .22 caliber machines of death, they deserve 10 years in the pokey! Over at Subguns.com, an accusation that politicians are registering machine guns and selling them to finance their campaigns. The whole theory seems to hinge on this:
922(o) is pretty short and sweet:
But you can’t really just read 922(o), which is part of the United States Code, and represents an Act of Congress. You also have to look at Code of Federal Regulations Title 27, particularly 479 Subpart G, which are all the regulations promulgated by ATF under its authority granted by Congress for the purpose of registration of machineguns. There is no Congress Critter exception to the ban. It has been completely unlawful to register a fully transferrable firearm since May 19, 1986. If this is going on, it’s illegal, and people could go to jail. Color me skeptical, though. The Virginia senate failed to override. Folks in Virginia… you need to punish Kaine’s party next election. Via SayUncle Story in the Idaho press about Ryan’s day in court. Ahab points to (read his whole post, it makes a good point) this rather interesting article in the LA times on Eric Thompson, proprietor of Top Glock, who we mentioned last week. Back during the assault weapons ban, I ordered one of the few (and expensive) fifteen round magazines from TopGlock for my Glock 19. It’s never been used in a killing, and I hope to God is never is. I’m glad to see Mr. Thompson isn’t questioning his convictions when it comes to second amendment rights. Bitter has more on a board candidate, Curtis Jenkins, who is reaching out to the blogosphere to help gain our support in the board elections. I think he deserves our consideration. Looks like they are looking into it. Indiana also allows people that are over 18 to obtain carry permits. Of course, federal law doesn’t allow anyone under 21 to buy a handgun, but there’s no law against possessing one. I would imagine this has a chance of passing in a pistol packing legislature. Now that Hillary has won Texas, Ohio and Rhode Island, and seems to be on somewhat of a comeback heading into Pennsylvania, I am faced with a dilemma. John McCain has the election sown up. My vote as a Republican would be meaningless, short of feeling better by lodging a protest vote for Ron Paul. What might not be meaningless would be to vote for Hillary in Pennsylvania’s primary, in hopes of keeping the bloodletting among the Democratic candidates going all the way up until the convention. I will call this The Breda Strategy, since even though I understand Rush Limbaugh has been calling for this, Breda is where I first got the idea. I kind of like this idea, because it’s a way to avoid voting for McCain in the primary, but still help him out in the general election. But can I do it? Can I really pull the lever for that harpy? How will I feel if I help her win the primary and she actually beats McCain? I’d say I have a month to decide, but Pennsylvania’s primaries are closed, and the time to switch registration is fast approaching. I’m giving into a stereotype a bit here. But I’ve heard this type of accusation enough that I grow tired of it. From the comments of my post about CeaseFire PA board member Jennifer W. Stein:
As it turns out, JML is a local gun control activist who organizes gun control meetups in our local Philadelphia metro area. He probably knows Jennifer Stein personally, so I won’t take it too personally that he’s steamed I embarrassed her. I’d probably be a little pissed too if someone google ruined one of my friends’ reputations. But I do mean to address the assertion that we think society “needs more guns.” Go back to my original arguments in that post about tolerance in a free society. That seems to have been completely lost on our gun controlling friend here. We’re arguing that people should be free to have effective means to defend themselves and their families. We’re arguing that the Bill of Rights and the constitution mean something. We’re arguing that we have a right to preserve and defend our shooting sports. This has nothing to do with some simple belief in “more guns” and everything to do with freedom. In truth this line of arguments belies something in the mindset of people passionate about gun control; that we’d be a safer society with fewer guns, and therefore we have to pass laws that will ensure that. I reject this dogma, so therefore they assume what I want is more guns, rather than more freedom. Their assumption is mistaken. |
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