Snowflakes in Hell

Both blogs have approved more comments.  They only seem to be approving comments that they feel like responding to, so pretty clearly they aren’t willing to engage in unmoderated, or even reasonably moderated debate on the subject.  One of my posts not approved questioned their statistics.  I’ll give them credit, their moderating policy is smarter (from their point of view) than the Brady’s.  Make it look like you have comments, and only let the people see the comments that make your argument look good.  Let’s take a look at some of their claims:

Phelps, that’s actually not true. If you look at CDC data for 2005 and analyze the states by gun death rate per capita, the states with the highest per capita gun death rates are (in order): Louisiana, Alaska, Montana, Tennessee, Alabama, Nevada, Arkansas, Arizona, Mississippi, West Virginia, and Wyoming. There’s not a state in that group with tough gun laws. Interestingly, the bottom six states with the lowest gun death rates per capita are: Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Hawaii (lowest). All states with tough, smart gun laws.

Except they are conflating gun deaths with gun violence again.  What they are referring to is a VPC study using CDC data.  The problem, again, is these statistics include suicide by gun, which is going to be higher in areas where guns are more common in homes.  Would CSGV feel better if people threw themselves in front of trains instead?  If you remove suicides, Alaska, Montana, West Virginia, and Wyoming all have homicide by gun rates lower than the national average, and in the case of Alaska, Montana and Wyoming, far lower than New Jersey or New York.  And keep in mind this is just gun homicide, not overall violence.

There’s an old saying, “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.”  There is a correlary here that should go “Beware of gun control groups bearing statistics.”

UPDATE: Sailorcurt shows some of the samples that haven’t been approved.  Pretty clearly they aren’t going to let through any argument they can’t refute.  At this point, I’ll go back to ignoring them, since pretty clearly before the pro-gun folks came along, they had no commenters.

Hat tip to Professor Kerr for pointing out this interesting photo montage of the things people carry around with them.  There is a Glock among the pictures.  I have to wonder how many of these people who are carrying around half the contents of a Radio Shack around with them every day would suggest that we were all stark raving mad for thinking carrying a firearm for self-defense is really no big deal.

As I’ve told people, if they made little pocket sized fire extinguishers that could put out even a large raging fire, I’d probably have one in my book bag.  I already keep a conventional fire extinguisher in my vehicle.  It just makes sense to be prepared.

UPDATE: Countertop shows his entry.  John Moses Browning would be proud.

For those of you who missed the interview Cam Edwards did of Russel Ford, the inventor of Ammunition Encoding, and president of Ammunition Coding Systems, you can watch here:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Pretty astounding.

Get used to articles like this.  There are many interests out there which are very threatened by the Heller case, and they aren’t going to go away quietly.  It’s the same pattern as many other articles we’ve seen.  This isn’t a coincidence.  Look at the familiar names.  We notice John Timoney, who’s name always appears in articles of this pattern.

It shouldn’t be surprising.  We have the anti-gun forces on the ropes politically, and continue to whale away.  They will turn to their traditional strengths, which is manipulating the media to create a public sentiment against guns and gun owners.  They are very good at this, and they have a lot of allies in the media to count on.

This is one of the many things that keeps the city down, but it’s a big one.

Cam Edwards has a good post up on the recent push by DC and Boston authorities to go door to door asking homeowners whether they can voluntarily search the house for drugs and guns:

This effort may end up leading to more violent crime. If it’s already leading to police being referred to as “vampires”, you’d have to think it’s not a great boon to establishing rapport between the beat cops and the people who live in these high-crime communities. It seems designed mostly to get positive press coverage rather than achieving any real benefit.

The politicians in D.C. have become so used to taking away liberty in the name of the common good that it’s fair to say they really don’t see anything wrong with this. And that’s the scariest part of all.

Indeed.

Nope, no need at all.  They are perfectly safe places, really.

Apparently Alternative News Media in Idaho are run by a bunch of juvenile high school students.  At least that’s about the grade level this editorial is written on.  Actually, strike that.  That’s insulting to high school newspapers everywhere.

Kansas is about to join the twenty other states that have passed “Katrina Bills” which prohibit mass confiscations of firearms during states of emergency.  Not everyone is happy about this:

I understand the unfairness of disarming citizens and not criminals, but Greensburg isn’t New Orleans.

It just seems silly to craft a bill to guard against something that never happened in Kansas and probably never will.

I don’t see how whether or not this ever happened in Kansas is really at issue, and pardon me if I don’t take a reporter’s word that it’ll never happen there.  What harm is there in passing this law?  I don’t know about you, but it sounds like a case of sour grapes to me.

You could break something.

New Jersey is a long ways down the slippery slope, thanks to people like, this who now see their goal of banning all hunting and gun ownership within political reach:

Hunting makes an unnecessary contribution to a world already plagued by too much violence and suffering.Wildlife and the outdoors can and should be experienced through activities such as camping, hiking and wildlife watching; ways to get close to nature without having to cause suffering and death.

Joe Miele, President, Committee to Abolish Sport Hunting
Maywood, NJ

Anti-hunting forces in New Jersey were dealt a pretty significant blow in New Jersey’s last election, but they aren’t going away.  Joe Meile and his ilk are not biologists, they do not understand the role hunters play in conservation and wilflife management efforts.   He also, apparently, isn’t above telling people from Mississippi how they ought to be living their lives.  People like this need to be vigorously opposed.

From Barack Obama campaign spokesperson Jen Psaki:

Barack Obama believes the Second Amendment creates an individual right, and he greatly respects the constitutional right of Americans to bear arms.  He also believes that the Constitution permits state and local governments to adopt reasonable and common-sense gun-safety measures.

This was their answer in regards to the question of why Barack Obama, if he’s such a supporter of the second amendment, didn’t sign onto the Congressional brief with 55 other colleagues asking the Supreme Court to find the DC gun ban violates the second amendment.  We can only assume that DC’s gun laws are “reasonable” and “common sense” in the senator’s eyes.

Over at Volokh.  McCain most definitely fits the mold of “National Greatness” conservative, and what National Greatness conservatives always forget is that it’s liberty that made this country great.

Got wood?

Very nice example of an M1903 Springfield. From the serial number, this is 1942 production.

Very interesting can opener.  Just remember, can openers are always loaded.  I once had a Russian guy show me how to open a bottle of wine without a corkscrew if you had sufficiently decent knife to stab and twist the cork out with.  You won’t keep a Russian from his drink, apparently.