Josh Sugarmann Wants You To Be Raped

In the chapter "Handguns and Women" in Every Handgun is Aimed at You, VPCs Josh Sugarmann writes about a 1985 ad from the Second Amendment Foundation depicting

a beaten woman, eye blackened and lip swelling, wrapped in a bathrobe. "Last night I was raped...Where were the police?" she asks.*

He further quotes from the ad:

The days when you tought you'd never be the victim of a rape--that it "can't happen to me"--are over....You might be the next victim.

Then Josh writes:

Contrary to these images, rape primarily happens between people who know each other. The National Victim Center's 1992 study, Rape in America: A Report to the Nation, revealed that only 22 percent of rape victims were assaulted by someone they had never seen before or did not know well. Furthermore, the majority of rapes occur during childhood and adolescence. More than six out of every 10 rapes occur to children and adolescents under the age of 18. Recognizing that under the Gun Control Act of 1968, persons must be at least 18 years of age to purchase a long gun and 21 years of age to buy a handgun, the gun lobby's arguments ring particularly hollow.

Disturbing.

Read it again.

The implication behind those words is this: "Rape happens. Deal with it. Furthermore, it's okay--even morally superior--to be raped. Just as long as you don't have a gun."

*from Every Handgun is Aimed at You, New Press, 2001, p.90 (hardcover edition)

San Francisco-based Gun Control Cultists

The Legal Community Against Violence was formed in response to the 1993 shootings at 101 California Street in San Francisco, when a gunman entered a law firm and shot 14 people.

Yup. Another Gun Control Cultist site.

And the fun part? They're in our neck of the woods.

San Francisco.

As we're doing with Brady, VPC, and CSGV, we'll be taking a look at their various reports to uncover blatant misinformation, half-truths, bigotry, and general policy sleight-of-hand.

Keep an eye out for upcoming posts!

Defending Against Home Invasion

Here's one way to do it:

Video on Gun Control

Found this neat little video the other day. Enjoy!

Gun Control's Conflicting Information

Here's VPC's Josh Sugarmann's recent HuffPo post talking about a new study they just released (PDF) which looks at California's youth homicide victimization rates.

The study concludes that "homicide, and particularly gun homicide, continues to be one of the most pressing public health concerns in California among youth and young adults ages 10 to 24" and states that "effective violence prevention strategies must include measures that prioritize preventing youth and young adults from accessing firearms, especially handguns."

Wait wait wait wait!!!

Hold the phone!

According to the Brady Campaign, California scored the highest in their Gun Law Scorecards and is

a model of sensible gun laws. Its universal background check system, strong gun dealer regulations, and assault clip ban are just some of the laws that provide a road map to preventing gun violence.

Which should mean there can't be any homicides in California.

I mean, sensible gun laws and such should render homicide figures nonexistent because such laws would keep criminals from committing crimes.

Right, Josh?

Right?

You wanna explain the discrepancy?

Shouldn't you two groups be on the same page on this?

Josh? Dennis?

We're waiting...

Knuckle-Dragging Rednecks...In India?!?

Ran across this piece by David Codrea on a recent leopard attack in India.

David then links to Abhijeet Singh, one of the "modern voices...recognizing the intolerable debasement a monopoly of violence always produces, and...speaking out."

Singh writes:

I live in India and I am a proud firearm owner - but I am the exception not the norm, an odd situation in a country with a proud martial heritage and a long history of firearm innovation. This is not because the people of India are averse to gun ownership, but instead due to Draconian anti-gun legislation going back to colonial times.

Read what Singh has to say.

So, Gun Control Cultists: is Singh also knuckle-dragging redneck like all of us gun owners?

Are you now racists as well as bigots?

Media Matters Misses Lott's Point

Media Matters's Chris Brown fisks John Lott's recent FoxNews.com op-ed piece.

Says Brown:

Not surprisingly Lott again uses distorted anecdotes to support the gun lobby favored National Right-To-Carry Reciprocity Act. In fact, the same examples Lott cites to suggest gun laws are unreasonably punitive and inflexible actually show that even in states where gun charges can lead to stiff penalties, prosecutors have used discretion to avoid excessive punishments.

Unfortunately, Brown completely misses the point.

Lott is saying Graves and Meckler shouldn't have had to deal with the prohibitions of carrying in the first place.

Period.

Gun Control Cultists Conveniently Forget Details

Over at the CSGV website is the blog "Ordinary People" which

examines the gun lobby’s frequent claim that gun owners—and concealed carry permit holders in particular—are the most law-abiding citizens in our country.

And as an example of such an examination, they give us a post on Michigan's Shall Issue law and write

Ten years after Michigan made it easier for residents to obtain concealed handgun permits, an investigation by the Center for Statistical Consultation and Research (CSCAR) has revealed numerous problems regarding the implementation of the law. Of particular concern is the inconsistent manner in which permit applicants and permit holders are screened for public safety.

They also tell us that

The CSCAR investigation has revealed several alarming cases in which concealed handgun permit holders committed horrific acts of gun violence

and go on to provide three examples of those alarming cases.

The post ends with

We are constantly told by the National Rifle Association and its gun lobby partners that concealed handgun permit holders are the most "law-abiding citizens" in America. It’s now abundantly clear that such a guarantee holds little or no weight in Michigan.

Now, let's back up a bit.

Smack dab in the middle of the post, we get a link to an MLive.com article covering this investigation.

Now the article notes

License holders now stand at more than 270,000, double the number five years ago.

We also learn that

The records indicate a tiny fraction of permit-holders break the law

Also,

more than 1,000 charges were listed in the most recent annual report

which, if I'm reading the article correctly, means that there were more than 1,000 cases of problems.

If we just take the 1,000 charges listed, plus the three cases the post quotes, we get 1,003 cases of trouble.

Now according to the MLive.com article, there are, to date, more than 270,000 permit holders. Let's just go with 270,000 for this example.

Do some math with those numbers and we see that 0.37% of the current number of permit holders went bad. (1,003 / 270,000 x 100 = 0.37148, rounded up to 0.37)

0.37%.

Less than a full 1%.

Not even half a percent.

Let's look at it another way.

270,000 permit holders to date - 1,003 trouble cases = 268,997 permit holders who did not get into trouble.

Or if you like percentages, that's 99.63% of permit holders who did not get into trouble.

Now mind you, these are just calculations based on the numbers in both the CSGV/Ordinary People post and the MLive.com article. The 270,000 is noted as the number of license holders to date. To me, that means as of the writing of the MLive.com article (2011). Of the three cases the post mentions, two happened in 2009, the other in 2010.

A better analysis might be to compare total permit holders vs. permit holders gone bad on a yearly basis.

But for the purposes of this example, let's look at it as totals to date.

So-- of the 270,000 permit holders to date, 0.37% of them went bad and 99.63% did not get into trouble.

The point?

CSGV only wants you to look at the several alarming cases revealed in the investigation.

They purposely disregard the rest of the cases in which nothing bad happened.

Because that undermines their agenda.

And we can't have that.

The VPC Lies With Numbers

Following up on the previous VPC post...

Let's go back to the VPC's webpage and to the box on the left side of the page. The one labeled "Concealed Carry Killers."

Now, if you click on the words "Concealed Carry Killers," you go to this page and get a cool chart giving various types of totals and neat little number wheels beneath each heading.

Lookee here:


Lots of numbers. And some big numbers.

Which, at first glance, leads the Average Person, to believe, "My god! Concealed Carriers kill lots of people!"

But let's take another look, shall we?

See that number in the middle of the chart? The one labeled: "Total People Killed by Concealed Carry Killers." That one.

385.

385 people killed by concealed carry killers since May 2007.

The page notes:

Above is the current tally from May 2007 to the present of killings involving persons with concealed carry permits or who committed a killing in public with a legal handgun in a state that allows concealed carry without a permit (Alaska, Arizona, and Vermont allow the carrying of concealed handguns without a permit)

So.

385 people.

385 people to date.

To date, meaning as of 19 January 2012.

Also as of 19 January 2012, the total population of the United States was 312,877,956 as of 20:23 UTC.


Some math:

385 people killed out of 312,877,956 total people is 0.0012%

385 people killed out of 312,877,956 means 312,877,571 people survived.

Okay, let's look at the two numbers on the right. Mass shootings and murder-suicides committed by concealed carry killers.

You'd initially assume a total of 49 for both labels. 20 for mass shootings, 29 for murder-suicides. But if you read through the two reports (PDF files) linked to each box of numbers and account for overlapping names, you actually get a total of 39.

So to date, 39 concealed carriers committed killings.

LegallyArmed.com appears to carry statistics on the number of concealed carriers around the country. According to their current numbers, there are 6,972,652 concealed carriers in the U.S.

More math:

Out of the total number of concealed carriers, 39 committed killings (according to the VPC) while 6,972,613 did not commit any killings.

In percentages, that's 0.00055% of total concealed carriers who committed killings.

So what do we have?

To date:

• 0.0012% of the total U.S. population were killed by concealed carriers, or 385 out of 312,877,956
• 0.00055% of the total number of concealed carrier committed killings, or 39 out of 6,972,652

Are we saying we should excuse those concealed carriers for their crimes?

Hell no. Punish them properly.

But don't begin to imply by your "studies" that killings by concealed carriers is some sort of pandemic.

When you do, you're just lying to the public.

Gun Control Cultists Like To Generalize

Here's the VPC's page as of yesterday, 19 January, around 10-ish in the morning. (Yeah, it's the upper portion of the page, but it's their page.)

Look on the left-hand side of the page, the box headed "Concealed Carry Killers" and sporting a nifty bullet hole graphic.

Right off, what kind of mental picture are we getting here?

We've got the words "concealed carry" and "killers" paired together.

The Average Person, when seeing those words, will likely immediately assume all persons who carry concealed are killers.

Now, look at this tweet in that box. (I marked it for clarity.)


Here's a better look, from VPC's Twitter status page:

Egads! It's listed under "Concealed Carry Killers" which must mean, by leaping to conclusions, that this woman planned to kill people!"

But go read the article they link to. It notes:

[NBC 5] reports that she told police she forgot the gun was in her bag.

But the VPC conveniently forgets that little tidbit of info and only tells you the woman went aboard a plane with a gun and later got arrested.

See what the VPC is doing here?

Sin of omission, for one thing.

But more importantly, guilt by association.

Here's what they want you to be thinking: "Since some concealed carriers have committed horrific crimes including killing people, then it must follow that all concealed carriers are planning to kill people."

This, of course, makes no sense.

This is the same as saying if there is one bad apple in a bushel, then the entire bushel must be bad.

This is also the same as saying if a robbery is committed by a black or Hispanic male, then all black or Hispanic males are robbers.

Go. Read. Now.

An Open Response to Joan Peterson by Barron Barnett.

'Nuff said.

More Gun Rights Push In Kalifornia

Firearms training school Front Sight is spearheading a campaign to put Shall Issue on the 2012 Ballot.

Another one to watch.

Lawsuit To Challenge CA Gun Laws

Got this press release in my inbox a few days ago and thought I'd share:

California Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr has been served with a Federal Summons requiring him to explain why California's ban on openly carrying a loaded firearm is constitutional, particularly the state's ban on openly carrying a loaded handgun.

Read the rest of the release here and the filed suit here.

Gonna keep an eye on this one.

The Gun Control Cult

Enough with the euphemisms. It's time to call Gun Control Advocates what they really are.

Cultists.

Gun Control Cultists.

This is a variation on the term "anti-rights cultists" and I'm going to use it to mean the same thing.

For the origin of the term "anti-rights cultists," I direct you to Linoge's post here.

CSGV Lets It Slip?

This tweet from @CSGV earlier today is...different.


Closer:


Do you really think they mean it?

I'm a little skeptical.

But there it is.

Gun Control = Insanity Thinking

Gun Control Advocates want us to believe that a certain population of people who routinely and willfully rape, steal, and/or commit murder will suddenly obey a law prohibiting the possessions and/or use of firearms.

That, Folks, is called "insanity."

I'm challenging you, Gun Control Advocates.

Joan Peterson (aka japete). Dennis Henigan, Karen Arntzen, and the Brady Campaign. Sen. Feinstein. Joshua Horwitz, Ladd Everitt, and the rest of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. Mayor Bloomberg and the Mayors Against Illegal Guns. Rep. Carolyn McCarthy. And the rest of you out there.

Explain: How exactly does that work?

What makes that particularly law (gun control/gun ban) more effective than the other laws (against rape, theft, murder, etc)?

And why would a criminal (for lack of a better word) follow that law but not the others?

Go on.

I'm waiting.

MLK And Guns

Pop on over to the Brady Campaign's site and you'll see this graphic featuring Martin Luther King, Jr.
On it are the words:

"He would have lit a candle against the darkness of gun violence."

Yet Adam Winkler, author of the book Gunfight* notes that

King kept firearms for self-protection. In fact, he even applied for a permit to carry a concealed weapon.

Reason.com's Damon Root agrees:

There’s nothing unusual about this. Many civil rights activists—including those who publicly engaged in non-violent forms of resistance—kept guns for self-defense.

But the Brady Campaign wants you to think otherwise with this nice little banner graphic of theirs.

They want you to think that King wouldn't have anything to do with guns.

This is called "intentionally misleading."

And that's simply fucked up.


*an Amazon affiliate link

Gun Control Advocates Say: Don't Analyze Data in Context

Submitted for your approval...

WISQARS data for 1996 shows 2,457 firearm homicides for those age 15 - 19.*

To this, Gun Control Advocates would be decrying the excessive violence and shaking their fists at guns and beating their breasts in sorrow.

"2,457 young people are dead because of guns!" they'd wail. "Shame upon our lawless society! Cursed be guns and those who dally with them!"

WISQARS data also shows the population of those age 15 - 19 in 1996: 18,920,160

2,457 is 0.013% of 18,920,160.

In 1996, the total U.S. population was 265,189,794.

2,457 is 0.00093% of 265,789,794.

No no no.

That simply won't do.

2,457 is a much better number to use than 0.013% or 0.00093%

It's a bigger number, you see.

Better to say

In 1996, 2,457 young people between the ages of 15 and 19 died due to firearm violence

rather than

In 1996, 0.00093% of the total U.S. population died due to firearm violence.

See?

Much better.

*if the link isn't working, the data also available as an Excel spreadsheet here

The Brady Campaign Is Full of Bullshit

Over at the Brady Campaign's website is a section showing a map of states color-coded by how weak or strong their gun laws are.

Look at the map and you'll see good ol' California color-coded in the 75-100 range. Choose California from the drop-down menu and you'll find that Cali actually scored 80 out of a possible 100 points.

Once again, California holds the top spot with the nation’s strongest gun laws that help combat the illegal gun market, prevent the sale of guns without background checks and reduce risks to children

So why is it that according to this report (PDF) from the BJS Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics, California has tallied over 1,000 firearm-related homicides each year between 1999 and 2007?

From Table 3:

1999: 1,380
2000: 1,483
2001: 1,589
2002: 1,810
2003: 1,782
2004: 1,808
2005: 1,878
2006: 1,883
2007: 1,701

Why would a state with strong gun laws still have firearm homicides numbering over 1,000 every year?

Shouldn't there be zero firearm-related homicides?

I mean, strong gun laws should deter such crimes, right?

Right?

Okay, Brady Campaign. Explain that one to me.

Otherwise, I call "bullshit."

Happy New Year!

It's 2012!

Just 364 days before the world ends, right?

Back to blogging in a couple of days.

See you soon!

(photo: peterl1084/flickr)