“Children die from gunfire. They can only be saved by removing guns from society, and you gun people are all savages and selfish bastards if you won’t give up your guns to save JUST ONE CHILD’S LIFE!”

Sigh.  Yes, that’s the kind of argument we get from the prohibitionists.

Let’s talk.

It is generally accepted that a far greater number of tragic, accidental deaths of children are due to drownings, often in private swimming pools or even hot tubs, than to unintentional gunfire. Let’s explore that.  See: http://www.m1-garand-rifle.com/gun-safety/firearms-versus-swimming-pools.php , and also http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2001/07/27/levittpoolsvsguns/.

If you want to save the children, why not become an activist for banning private ownership of swimming pools and hot tubs?  After all, there is nothing in the Bill of Rights that guarantees the right to own such things, the way there is with firearms.  You could play the Bloomberg Card and change the terminology to fit your narrative. “Oh,” you could say, “we just want to regulate your swimming pool.  We’ll start by demanding twenty-foot-high fencing, nuclear facility grade if you please, around the pool property.  And of course, require 24/7 lifeguards.”  Michael Bloomberg could afford that, just as he can afford his large, heavily armed contingent of round-the-clock bodyguards.  Ordinary folks can’t afford that?  Too bad.  There you go being selfish bastards again, instead of thinking of those poor children!

Of course, all those nice, law-abiding citizens whose hard-earned pools you might want to brick over will say, “But – but – we didn’t install that pool to kill anybody!” Well, guess what, law-abiding gun owners didn’t spend their hard-earned dollars at the gun shop so they could kill people, either, or American sidewalks would be littered with corpses.

“But, pools are beneficial to society. They relax people. And there are all kinds of healthful benefits from swimming, and exercises physically challenged people can do best in pools.” True. And guns are hugely popular in sporting applications, from target shooting to harvesting meat from the hunting field.  And marksmanship is one of the few sports at which some physically challenged people can compete and win on equal ground with the able-bodied. More than once, the handgunner in the wheelchair has been overall top shot in my classes.

And, as statistics show to those who simply open their eyes and minds, guns save a huge number of innocent lives and prevent a great many serious crimes.

All of which is why banning guns, or restricting them to the rich and privileged, makes no more sense than doing the same with hot tubs and swimming pools.

47 COMMENTS

  1. Love your comparison with swimming pools. It seems that much of the liberal/progressive anti-gun campaign (although they will never admit it) is aimed at disarming minority communities (witness the most draconian gun restrictions are in the democrat controlled big cities with high percentage minority populations).

    I was raised in a racially segregated Texas of the ’50’s and early ’60’s. Texas was majority democrat party affiliation at the time. When the push for desegregation was gathering steam and southerners were resigning themselves to the fact that “whites only” facilities were going to be a thing of the past, one of the first casualties were public swimming pools (at the time “whites only”). The pool my family used frequently was 15 miles distant, in a slightly larger small-town. This town chose to close the pool down, fill it with dirt, and cover it with a concrete slab, turning it into tennis courts, rather than risking the possibility of whites having to swim in the same water with “coloreds”.

    I suspect that present day liberal/progressives fear of “coloreds” having access to guns is reason enough to deny that right to everyone. After all, the intellectually challenged can’t be trusted to make the “right” choices concerning gun ownership any more than we could be trusted to make the “right” choice of whether or not to share swimming pools with “coloreds”.

    Yep, we lesser folks need someone much smarter than ourselves to make those decisions for us, at the same time, being accused by our “betters” of of being racist.

  2. This week I went to see Dinesh D’Souza’s film Hillary’s America. It is a brilliant documentary on American history and the Democratic party. I plead with folks to please go see it prior to the election. It will provide you with plenty of “ammunition” to refute the leftwing Democratic anti-freedom arguments. An eye opener to say the least.

  3. Let’s say that we have causes A, B, C, D, and E which cause accidental death in children, with A being the most common and E the least.

    Is there any law or moral principle that they cannot be addressed in the public forum except in their order of danger? Is there any law or moral principle that a citizen cannot choose which to campaign against?

    To claim that it is inappropriate to argue against D when B has not yet been resolved says, in effect, that the kids who are being killed by D are less important than those killed by B and that we should simply accept those deaths until A, B, and C are resolved.

    “If you want to save the children, why not become an activist for banning private ownership of swimming pools and hot tubs?” Why _should_ you? Why can’t you choose which one to be an activist about? There’s a campaign on right now to try to do more to prevent kids being killed by being left in hot cars. I have no idea whether such deaths are more or less common than deaths of kids from pools, but can people only be an activist for the one which is more common? According to the CDC in 2011, unintentional drowning (all kinds, not just pools) is a more common cause of death in kids than non-homicide deaths due to fire. That’s a reason not to be an activist for fire safety around kids, right? And a reason to oppose all fire regulations, correct?

    There may be reason to disagree with the quoted comment — and where did that come from, by the way? I Google-searched for it an only got links back here — but comparison to other kinds of child death isn’t one of them.

  4. Mas,

    The problem with statistical arguments, such as the one above, is that they generally do not changes minds. They don’t change minds because they are irrelevant.

    The problem is basically one of definition. If one tries to look up Leftist or Leftism in a dictionary, one generally gets something like this from the Merriam-Webster on-line version:

    Definition of LEFTISM

    1: the principles and views of the left; also: the movement embodying these principles
    2: advocacy of or adherence to the doctrines of the left

    Looking up the Definition of Left gets us:

    Left: of, adhering to, or constituted by the left especially in politics

    Notice the circular nature of these definitions. Left is defined as being “Left”. This is not at all helpful, IMHO.

    If you try to really pin someone down about what it means to be “Left” or “Left-Wing”, you will generally end up with vague examples of Leftist policies (i.e. Views big Government has having a positive role in society, favors socialism over capitalism, favors gun control over firearm ownership rights, etc.).

    This is just a more nuanced way of says “Left” means “Left”. In fact, our greatest problem in understanding the Left-Wing / Right-Wing conflict, in the world today, is our inability to rigorously define these terms. As many readers of the blog know, I have proposed the following definition:

    Left-wing Individual: Any human being who has assumed (consciously or sub-consciously) that the human race, as a whole, is inherently good (defined as tending toward moral behavior) and who bases their entire world-view and, especially, their political views upon this axiom.

    So, gun control is not about, and has never been about, “saving lives”. As your linked article indicates, there are plenty of other areas where a greater “bang for the buck” could be reaped if the goal was to just save lives. Indeed, I pointed out in a previous blog post that medical mistakes kill 10 times more people in the U.S. then all forms of gunfire-related deaths (suicide by gun, homicide by gun, accidental shootings, etc.) combined. Therefore, a mere 10% reduction in deaths from medical mistakes would save more lives than gun control could ever possibly save. A 10% reduction is also a more achievable and politically acceptable goal. Nevertheless, gun control receives many times more support and media coverage than the effort to reduce medical mistakes.

    Saving lives is just a smoke-screen. It is rationalization being put forth to justify a political position. No one who really understands the gun control issue believes, for a split-second, that the issue is about “saving lives”. The true issue is ideological.

    A Leftist, because of his underlying belief system, views firearms as an “evil social force” at large in the world. This is nearly identical to the way that alcohol prohibitionists viewed alcohol consumption as an “evil social force”. The Prohibition of Alcohol movement was not about saving lives either although that rational was advanced to justify it.

    No, the Leftist view is that this is a fight of “Good” against “Evil” with firearms being “Evil” and with anyone who owns, shoots, buys, sells or manufactures a firearm also being part of this “Evil”. Therefore, in their minds, gun control is about stamping out an evil that is loose in this world. It is a “Holy” cause and they are numbered among “the righteous of the land” for their good works in helping stamp it out. Think I am wrong about this attitude? If so, then read this:

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/16/michael-bloomberg-heaven_n_5157221.html

    Of course, thinking yourself “righteous” and “heaven-bound” does not make you so. All fanatics think of themselves as “righteous”. The ISIS fighters who behead “infidels” and die by exploding a suicide vest in a crowd are also equally sure that they are bound for heaven. Who knows, maybe they will run into Bloomberg there? 🙂

    My point, in all of the discussion above, is to make it clear that the gun control debate will never be settled with “studies” or with “statistical analysis”. All the thousands of man-hours spent on this approach and all the articles and books written on this topic are a total waste of effort. They will change few if any minds.

    The gun control debate is a classic Left-wing / Right-wing clash of worldviews. It is ideological from top to bottom. To ultimately win, the gun-rights people are going to have to “break the ideological spirit” of the gun-grabbers the way that the spirit of the alcohol prohibitionist was ultimately broken.

  7. It can be so impossible to try and explain that law abiding people can own firearms and never consider harming anyone other than self defense. I’ve swayed a few when speaking of the beauty of a hand built pistol and the incredible accuracy from a fine rifle. They miss the whole picture, including the part of how we take great pride in our lack of a criminal history and our patriotism to all things American, especially human life. We all have to try and change a mind and open a new interest to someone who only sees the violence potential. Thanks a bunch Mr Ayoob. Your information is always helpful.
    J Burke

  8. Liberal Dave,

    I’ll bite on the bait you’re pulling through the water, but first, I have some unanswered questions, stuff not covered in the story you linked.

    1. What information led the officers to this location with the intent to serve a felony arrest warrant on a known violent offender, who may be armed? Hot pursuit? Stake out observing him entering residence? Just a hunch that he might be visiting his mother? A tip?

    2. Does law enforcement not have the right to approach a structure/residence believed to house a wanted felon, in order to prevent the escape of said felon, or investigate/observe?

    3. Does law enforcement have the right to create a noise in order to see if the wanted felon steps out of the residence?

    4. If (this may be a stretch on my part, but I have experienced this) they spotted the wanted felon in the living room when the 1/2 brother ran out the door in response to the diversion, does this not now become “on view”/”plain view”? (think, door opens, officer sees marijuana plant in plain view)

    5. Was officer’s testimony as to announcing who they were and that they were wearing clearly marked “Police” apparel false, or just ignored, possibly, out of bias by the jurors?

    6. How were they not held accountable? They underwent a departmental review, which I would guess (as I must, due to lack of information from the story) was also reviewed by departmental and city attorneys, and found not to have violated departmental SOP, General Orders, or any state, county, or municipal laws.

    7. Does the fact that someone is found not guilty of assaulting a police officer automatically make the officer guilty of assault for defending himself and thus, by extension, guilty of a false arrest?

    8. Lastly (I will use the Hillary Clinton defense now), did the officers set out to deprive an innocent civilian of their civil rights or was their intent to remove a dangerous felon from the streets as expeditiously as possible?

    Now, my verdict. Unless you or someone with facts to answer my listed concerns negatively, I’m going to say these are good cops whose arrest was voided by a not guilty verdict from a jury who was ready to find this guy not guilty no matter what the cops said. (it happens,think O.J.) I feel a trial before the judge would have had a different verdict. Kudos to this guy’s defense attorney, sounds like he spun a good story and picked a willing jury.

    Of course, I’m a conservative, I may be wrong. I know you liberals don’t have that shortcoming. (just kidding, still friends)

  9. P.S. – Dave, I was just assuming that your position on this link was adversarial to mine.

    I might also take this opportunity to point out the phenomena of jury nullification. This is (as you well know) when a jury chooses not to rule according to the letter of the law, but rather to, for whatever reason, ignore the law and the evidence and rule by the dictates of their heart/emotions (or anything they choose). This sometimes helps a police officer who may have had a momentary lapse in judgement, resulting in harm he never would have intended. This, also, is a fairly common occurrence when someone believes they are protecting their home or family members, and must face a jury for their actions. This is what I believe happened in this incident, and is what the defense attorney was banking on. I also think the officers took this into consideration by not charging him with assault, also.

  10. Getting liberals to help save lives of innocent children is futile. They cherish their status symbols such as gated communities, house keepers, gardeners and swimming pools. They also love their extremely expensive collection of firearms. They love sex without responsibility, abortion, so how can we expect them to pitch in and help save innocent lives? Monthly security checks by government inspectors to make sure their pool is locked up when adults are not present, finger print or retina scan access control, intrusion alarms and surveillance cameras 24/7.
    Those are JUST COMMON SENSE steps to protect innocent lives from irresponsible pool owners.
    Obviously I was speaking of the wealthy liberals, the poor ones follow along with a few crumbs tossed their way.

  11. Due to a mutual acquaintance, I recently had a Facebook ‘conversation’ with a fellow I understand is an East Coast gun store owner. He had supported a MoveOn dot org petition to ban ‘assault rifles’.

    I quoted FBI statistics showing c.300 people/year murdered with all rifles combined, gave the source site info, and suggested the government has a responsibility to submit to the Constitution. He replied:

    Gun Store Owner: “Finally, get off the Constitution bull shit. That’s the grand right wing cover story for “I’ll do what I want.”

    Me: Thanks for coming out of the closet…. ‘the Constitution bull shit” : spoken like a true modern Democrat. …Thanks again for declaring your position on constitutionally empowered and limited government.

    Gun Store Owner: I’ve been out of the closet for a long time just waiting for people like you to show your vast ignorance. Hide behind your guns and call for your Constitutional rights. You are definitely from fairy tale land. And I’m glad you’re voting for Trump (I had never mentioned Trump.); I’m sure you would have voted for Hitler and more law and order. Why don’t you just start shooting now. You’re clearly salivating over the use of an assault weapon.”

    As it happens, I don’t own any “assault rifles”- unless one calls a Mini-14 an “assault rifle”. How a professional gun guy takes my support for the constitution and sees that as evidence that I am pro-Hitler or pro-Nazi and salivating at the thought of shooting people (I assume that’s what he meant) is beyond me, but that seems to be the state of lefty thinking these days, even among gun guys.

    If this is what East Coast gun store owners are like, we have a loooong way to go, folks.

  12. Most (not all) anti gunners also support “womens choice” and would allow abortion. The mantra of bannings guns to “just save one life” falls apart when you ask them to ban abortion, which would, obviously “save lives”

  13. Dennis, I certainly recognize the possibility that this was jury nullification, but there’s another principle possibly involved: That one of the privileges and duties of the jury is to assess the credibility of the witnesses and decide who that they are going to believe. Criminal cases are decided by reasonable doubt based on the credible evidence and the jury gets to decide what is credible. So while it is possible that they decided that the facts said that this guy was guilty but held him not guilty anyway (jury nullification) either because they didn’t like the police or thought that the police abused him or thought that the interfering with public duty law is nonsense or because they resented having to be on a jury and wanted to get out to go to lunch, they could also have simply decided that they didn’t believe what the cops said about it. I have no reason to pick one or the other or, for that matter, doubt that they simply followed the facts and law.

    But I find the credibility theory interesting in light of this case from only a couple of days before: The conviction of officer Stephen Rankin (White) for the killing of William Chapman (Black):

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/08/05/white-cop-convicted-of-manslaughter-for-shooting-unarmed-black-man-outside-va-walmart/

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/01/witnesses-testify-william-chapman-shot-charging-at-officer

    If you read the facts of that case, it would ordinarily be a classic for the police officer to walk. Black shoplifting suspect gets put on the hood of the patrol car, struggles with office, gets tased, knocks the Taser out of the officers hands, officer pulls gun, “According to the officer, he ordered Chapman onto the ground but the teen instead taunted him, saying ‘Shoot me.’ Chapman then ‘came towards me aggressively,’ Rankin claimed. ‘I thought he was coming to kill me,’ he testified,” cop shoots suspect, who dies. Nearby construction workers verify cop’s story, but Black witnesses – who the prosecution attempted to show did not, unlike the construction workers, have a nearby clear view of the incident – say that Chapman never charged. Officer is acquitted of first-degree murder and illegally using a firearm to commit a felony, but convicted of voluntary manslaughter.

    Here again, we have a case where it would appear that the jury took a position which believed the witnesses who said that the officer had no reason to have a reasonable fear for his life and did not believe the officer and the witnesses who said that he did. Either that or we had jury nullification in reverse: they decided he was plainly innocent and convicted him anyway.

    Here’s my question: Is the tide turning? Just as law enforcement departments are becoming much quicker to discipline officers involved in matters such as this, are juries becoming more ready to not trust the testimony of police officers over other witnesses?

    Still friends.

  14. @J Burke: Computers are more accurate than fine rifles (indeed, computers are used to measure the accuracy of rifles) and fine watches are more beautiful than hand made pistols. And there are far more computers than firearms and far more watches than firearms. By the logic of the argument made in the main section here, just like because the fact that there are more kids killed by pools than by guns means there is no reason for anyone to be concerned about the kids killed by guns, the fact that computers and watches are both more admirable and more numerous than firearms means there is no reason for anyone to choose firearms for admiration.

  15. It appears that our friend, Liberal Dave, is wishing to “high jack” this blog and divert it to his favorite subjects of (a) police misconduct and (b) the holiness and purity of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) Movement.

    Note, to be fair, Dave has not mentioned BLM even once yet. However, I can see the discussion heading in that direction.

    Of course, Dave can counter that I am also bringing up my favorite topic of the clash of Left-Wing / Right-Wing worldviews and how this clash is ruining America and spreading conflict around the world.

    Nevertheless, my favorite issue does (at least) apply to the discussion at hand.

    My preference would be to stay “on topic” and keep the focus on the gun control / firearm ownership rights issue.

    Just my opinion.

  16. The No.1 cause of death in America today is Doctors, you can look it up. I don’t know if it it the stress of Obummer Care no one would ever admit it if it were true. I have anti gun kinfolk and Mas I was raised up where guns put food on the table and protected you from the evils in our life. If they start in on gun control I eat their lunch and do it in a very simple and now threatening way and it still does no good. The sad thing about it is the generation just once removed from having to depend on a weapon for safety or food. None of them have ever been hungry or just go to the store and get what they want. It was very different when I was coming up. My Dad died 2 weeks before I turned 6 and the only gun we had at home was a single shot 22lr. My Mom was born in 1922 and was taken out of school in the 2nd grade because of the depression never to return and she was smarting than most people today that have degrees as long as their arms. But it still does no good what so ever to explain to these people. People have let themselves become brainwashed. So how can we after proving the Antis wrong and they still chose to remain blind and deaf, how do we change that?

    I chose a long time ago that if I knew that I was right I would stand on that no matter what people thought about me. I’m the kind of person that will go toe to toe with anyone. I have fought all my life to have what I have today, the thing I own, my family and my freedoms. We preach to the choir ( sorry I guess thats the Baptist in me) we understand and talk to each other and try to show non gun people how and where they are wrong but we seem to be losing the battle. How do we change this? I want my son and 2 daughters to enjoy the freedoms we have today. I want them to be protected and safe when it is time for them to have their families. I want my grand kids to be safe. I’m starting to think it would be easier to have world peace than to get people in America to be united on things that is going to tear our nation apart. And if they want to ban swimming pools they can have mine I tell my wife those things are just holes in the ground that hold water and you throw money into. Kidding kinda my family enjoys our pool if you don’t have to work for and at something it’s not worth having.

    I always enjoy your articles and it has given me a lot of fodder to use against the non gun people in my life. At least they leave the battles limping and bleeding but only to return to face the on slaught again and again. That proves you really can’t fix stupid.

  17. Liberal Dave,

    Yes, I believe there is a “tide” turning. The question is inferred, do I think this is good or bad. My answer is yes….and no.

    Are departments becoming quicker to discipline officers? Not really. They are becoming quicker to go public with the fact that an investigation is going on, and the releasing of the results after the investigation is completed. Quicker or more likely to file charges against an officer? That’s when politics rears it’s head. Are D.A.s more likely to go forward with a weak case if it has already been tried, without the facts, in the court of public opinion? Yes. We saw that in Baltimore.

    There always seems to be, with some folks, concerns of racial make up of a jury. In the past, juries seemed to do the “right” thing (for the most part), no matter what the racial makeup. They went where the facts carried them, followed the laws as explained to them, and followed the judge’s instructions. Black majority juries were just as likely to convict a black defendant as a white majority jury. It seems though, in the last several years, as the media, the race industry (Sharpton, Jackson, BLM, and yes, Obama), try to convince certain segments of society that they are under attack/ at war with police (specifically white police), that impartiality from juries seems to be slipping away. (the trial in Baltimore of first officer almost ended with a conviction before a racially mixed jury) It appears now that some jurors see themselves as soldiers in a war against their community, with a mandate to send a message, facts and evidence be damned. They are being led in this direction by people that profit from the narrative.

    In Ferguson,Mo., the D.A. had to keep the identities of the Grand Jurors and some witnesses secret in order to protect them from “community” backlash. A sad commentary, but true.

    Is the tide turning? Yes. Is it for the better? I can’t answer that. I’ve seen this “tide” ebb and flow over my lifetime. Folks tend to get the policing they demand. New York City emerged from a slime pit of crime and corruption under the leadership of Mayor Giuliani and commissioners Bratton and Kelly, using tactics that are now being decried as abusive and racist. De Blasio is rapidly going to a more “progressive ” approach to crime prevention, and from all reports, the city is rapidly descending back into the pit. Is this progress?

    In the past, citizens gave the benefit of the doubt to the police officers that they saw as doing a job they themselves, did not want to do, standing between society/civilization and that segment of mankind willing to do them harm. When society withdraws that support, or when politicians restrict those officers to a point they become ineffective, remember this; Anarchy stands ready, frothing at the bits, to replace civilization lost. This is a fact, proven throughout history, not a stylish progressive theory.

    So, Dave, are these anecdotal stories of police officers being “held accountable” for a possible infraction, with conflicting testimony from racially disparate witnesses, something to be celebrated as “progress”? If that is the case, what ever happened to the “progressive” meme that “it’s better for a hundred guilty people go free than for one innocent person to be found guilty”? Or does that not apply to those evil police officers?

    Still friends.

  18. Good point Dave, only politicians aren’t shutting down swimming pools. And, I can’t protect myself, or family by using a swimming pool.

    Also, a swimming pool can be a liability. And, I’ve been told by my neighbor, while having an in ground pool being built in his own yard. Backyard pools are used the most, the first year after they’re built.

    Politicians are using the death of kids in order to remove the firearms from our homes. If that were achieved, I have a feeling, the media would report mass shootings a lot less. Since after all, the politicians would’ve got what they wanted.

    I’ve seen the movie, Hillary’s America. It’s scary.

  19. Keep in mind that about 2/3 of the deaths from fire arms are suicides. CDC keeps these records.

    …and for what its worth, those fences used on a nuclear site? yeah, you can walk over them in winter….

  20. “Drown-proofing” aquatic training, producing entertaining and up-to-date firearms safety videos, and the use of gun safes and firearms safety devices such as trigger locks are important to progress with child safety. The Second Amendment is at least as important in saving children’s lives, though, in preserving freedom in the face of fatal threats from ideologies that have proven historically disastrous. We are seeing a convergence of Marxism and another apocalyptic delusion that may require an active, “well-regulated militia” in order to handle it. Let us not argue over the population of angels on the head of a pin, but let’s keep our powder dry, and “check our loads.” By the way, have you double-checked your loads today, right now?

  21. Well, of course the left’s argument is not really about saving children.

    But of course, we already knew that.

    In any case, with over 300 million firearms likely in private hands in the United States, ultimately gun owners will decide what the Second Amendment means and doesn’t mean.

  22. I suspect more children drown in bathtubs than die of gunshot wounds. (I don’t consider an 18-year-old gang banger to be a child.)

    I don’t think the gun debate is left wing versus right wing. After all, there are totalitarian dictatorships of both kinds. Rather, I think it is part of the larger debate between private individuals and society. That is, between libertarianism and communitarianism. The libertarian view is that the private individual is supreme and that society exists only because the private individuals who make up society benefit from it. The communitarian view is that society comes first and that the welfare of private individuals should be sacrificed to achieve social goals determined by leaders. A simple example of this difference is autonomous vehicles. The head of the NHTSA has argued for their implementation even though, as demonstrated by a recent Tesla failure, the technology is less than perfect. The libertarian position would be that autonomous systems should not be mandated until they are at least as capable as an attentive, competent driver. The communitarian position would be that attentive, competent drivers should accept the risk of failure if flawed systems save the lives of drunk, drowsy, distracted or incompetent drivers.

    It remains to be seen whether the recent increase in inner city violent crime is a brief statistical fluke or a reversal of the long term decline. If the latter, I expect the public’s response will be to elect hard core, law and order, lock-em-up-and-throw-away-the-key leaders. Social justice warriors will not be happy about this.

  23. Dennis,

    This is in response to your first post. I’ve always wondered why a guy like Rudolph Giuliani is against concealed carry. He seems so well-educated, a fine prosecutor, pro-police, pro-decency and the Constitution, that I wonder why he is against the “bear arms” part of the Second Amendment. Then I remember where he has lived his life, and where he was mayor. If NYC had CCW, that would mean that a lot of those black people would be carrying guns legally. Well, the gang-bangers already carry them illegally. My guess is that Giuliani, and a lot of other whites in big cities, just don’t trust “city people” to behave themselves while carrying guns. This is obviously racist. My guess is that Chris Christie thinks the same as Giuliani. I can’t prove this assertion, but it may explain why whites in major cities are against CCW. They don’t trust their fellow citizens with guns. Atlanta is a large city with many black people. I should check their gun laws, and see if they are different than the other cities with large black populations.

    Remember when Bernie Sanders said Vermont didn’t have a problem with gun ownership? Is that because Vermont is mostly rural, or is that because Vermont is mostly white? It’s very sad to have to say these things. I believe gun ownership in black communities would result in less crime, not more. We have to give law-abiding people the chance to shoot back and get the victory over the law-breakers. Mexico could also profit from gun ownership and CCW for the same reasons.

    Penrod,

    Isn’t it odd when you meet someone like that East Coast gun store owner? He’s like a freak of nature. I’m trying to figure out what his motivation is. Maybe he wants to make a buck in an environment where the business in firearms and ammunition is booming. But, if he has been a gun store owner for a long time, then that explanation would not work.

  24. Dennis, I know that you don’t believe this about me, but let me say it just in case someone else does: I do not, ever, in any way support or desire false convictions, whether the defendant is a cop or a civilian.

    _However,_ going back to the credibility point I was making, at one time police were given such credibility by juries that some jurisdictions had jury instructions in criminal cases telling the jury that they shouldn’t automatically believe cops more than they would any other witness. An example:

    https://www.jud.ct.gov/ji/criminal/part1/1.2-8.htm

    My point is that the trend may actually be going the other way where there is some presumption that LEOs are not telling the truth, or at the very least, where juries are actually _following_ the notion set out in that jury instruction. And, based on a Google search on these terms – jury credibility police officer – I may, indeed, be late to that perception.

  25. Incidentally, in the “The Mad Dance in the Blood” thread a month or so ago, a poster by the name of Walt White, who said he was a criminal defense attorney, claimed that in his experience 15% of cops would lie to get a conviction, a claim with which some, including Mas, took issue. The Google search I mentioned above happened to turn up this law review article from 1998-1999:

    http://digitalcommons.pace.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1527&context=lawfaculty

    I’ve not read the article except to scan the first few pages and do not vouch for its reasoning, conclusions, or applicability to the current environment, but in glancing at it, my eye caught on the following from footnote #8 on page 457:

    “[Myron W. Orfield, Jr., Deterrence, Perjury, and the Heater Factor: An Exclusionary Rule in the Chicago Criminal Courts, 63 U. COLO. L. REV. 75, 110 (1992),] at 107 (noting that the author’s survey study shows that Chicago prosecutors, judges, and defense attorneys agree that police perjure themselves in search and seizure hearings on average 19% of the time; defense attorneys estimate that perjury occurs 53% of the time); see also Irving Younger, The Perjury Routine, THE NATION, May 8, 1967, 596-97 (‘Every lawyer who practices in the criminal courts knows that police perjury is commonplace.’); H. RICHARD UVILLER, TEMPERED ZEAL: A COLUMBIA LAW PROFESSOR’S YEAR ON THE STREETS WITH THE NEW YORK CITY POLICE 116 (1988) (stating that police perjury is ‘prevalen[t]’).” (Capitals as in original.)

    Orfield’s study and the others mentioned here may have been thoroughly trashed in later academic writings, I mention it here only for what it’s worth, if anything.

  26. Dave, If you and Mr. Orfield want me (or anyone else) to believe that a survey of practitioners including prosecutors and judges believe that cops lie 19% of the time, perhaps one of you can explain to us how prosecutors who confess that square it with the fact that it’s normally the prosecution that offers the cop as witness, so how do they manage to do that without losing their bar cards and going to jail for subornation of that perjury? Can you explain to me why the judges in that survey would not be calling those 19% of all police officers to account for committing perjury in their courtrooms? Can you explain to me why, if defense lawyers believe police lie against their clients more than half the time, they aren’t doing their due diligence and seeing to it that half of America’s cops charged with perjury?

  27. Lew” I think you owe it to us here and all the other gun buyers on the “East coast” to name this gun-store owning anti-gun Liberal. Either one if or all firearms or not. I an guessing he is in a State that does not allow the sales of “assault rifles” so he is free to express his feelings that no one should have them whereas, if he COULD sell them, I feel strongly that he would be (at a profit) with no mention of his distaste for the people buying his wares.
    Store name? City/State?

  28. Penrod:
    “Due to a mutual acquaintance, I recently had a Facebook ‘conversation’ with a fellow I understand is an East Coast gun store owner. He had supported a MoveOn dot org petition to ban ‘assault rifles’. ”

    Pardner, sounds like you got led into a lopsided debate by a troll.
    No way I would accept the claim that he/she/it is in the firearms business unless I could go to the store, walk through the door and buy a gun.
    Almost impossible to win a debate against a troll, they’re slippery, or is it slimy ?

  29. Mas, you must have missed the part where I said, “Orfield’s study and the others mentioned here may have been thoroughly trashed in later academic writings, I mention it here only for what it’s worth, if anything.” However, _if_ that statistic is correct, I suspect that the answer to your question is this:
    – Suspicion, but no solid proof.
    – Going along to get along.
    – Too much trouble, particularly political trouble, to go after.
    – End justifies the means.
    – Slips through the cracks.

    I can certainly tell you that when I was a prosecutor there were any number of times where I had substantial doubt about the credibility of my cop witness, but where I had no proof that they were lying. Situations in which I simply didn’t believe what they were telling me, but in which I couldn’t point to any specific proof that they were or situations where there was evidence which could have indicated untruth but which could have also meant nothing. In a world in which prosecutors had infinite time and resources perhaps I could have mounted an effort to investigate and dig into my suspicions, but with the caseload I had to keep moving, anything less than knowledge of actual falsehood or knowledge supported by at least some unambiguous, specific proof fell into the category of “let the defense raise it and the judge or jury decide the credibility.”

  30. Liberal Dave,

    So, let me absorb these “beliefs” you cited. Judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys as a group, believe that 19% of police officers commit perjury, while 53% of defense attorneys, as a separate group, do so. Using these figures, and doing the math in my head, defense attorneys, as a separate grouping, believe that about half the time police officers lie. That leaves judges and prosecutors as a group believing this is true about 6% of the time, to come up with a 19% combined average. In other words, a defense attorney is about 8x more likely to believe that premise than a judge or prosecutor. (TN_MAN can correct my math if necessary)

    What would cause such a disparity in their beliefs? They all have similar educations, observe and hear the same testimony/sworn statements to come to a conclusion on what they believe. Or as a “progressive” might ask, what biases are rearing their ugly heads?

    Seriously, these arguments have little, if any, validity. The fact is, the prosecution wins a much larger percentages of the cases that go to trial than do the defense. Some defense attorneys can accept the fact that they are working for a flawed client with the facts not on their side, knowing going in that they are likely to lose. Others choose to believe the prosecution must have cheated by depending on untruthful testimony. Does it happen? Of course it does, we are all humans and flawed. Does it happen at the rate that some would have us believe? Only if you believe that police officers as a group are less trustworthy than those charged with crimes.

    In closing, unless provable, surveys such as this prove nothing, but do point out how different groups of similarly educated humans can form radically differing perceptions when confronted with a non-qualitatively provable query. Yes, again, that ugly word “bias” rears it’s head. I guess it doesn’t apply only to conservatives. Thanks for pointing this out to us Dave. Oops! Did I just show my bias of believing most defense attorneys are “progressives”?

    Still friends.

  31. Roger Willco,

    Truthfully, I don’t know Giuliani’s stance on concealed carry. I’m pretty sure NYC’s gun laws were in place before he took over. What he did, with the help of his police commissioners, was to embrace a philosophy of enforcing all laws, not just the “big” ones, believing if you took care of the little things, the big things slowly shrink to manageable numbers. They flooded the streets with both uniformed and plainclothes officers, stopping and frisking suspicious persons, removing a tremendous number of illegal guns/criminals from the streets (most importantly, guns from the bad guys). They brought the number of “street people” down dramatically, separating the tax evading panhandlers from the true homeless. They found housing for the true homeless. They felt that spending money on incarceration was worth the benefit of removing dopers and muggers from the population, thus improving the environment for those who made the city work, and returned the parks and recreation areas back to decent people. I must add that he cleansed the police department of a lot of corruption at the same time. Of course, progressives screamed racism to high heaven, long enough to convince those who benefited most from these policies (minorities) to elect a socialist to power. This has precipitated a rapid slide back into the past.

    As to why white mayors in large cities tend to be anti-gun and to their possible distrust of armed blacks, I would submit that, to my knowledge, all major cities are lead by liberal/progressives, who by dogma, do not believe the lower/less educated are capable of making such decisions for themselves. This is especially true, in their minds, of blacks. Now, my thoughts on this relationship between blacks and progressives is my own, based on my own observations of progressives penchant to micro-manage the lives of those they purport to help, all the time watching their lot in life deteriorate.

    As to Atlanta’s gun laws, I don’t know. Most southern states do not allow cities to enact laws conflicting with state law. Does racism play a role? Yes. By extension, is this racism coming from progressives? It would appear to be.

  32. Swimming pools are indeed extremely dangerous.

    Does anyone here remember the rabidly anti-gun black journalist in the Washington D.C area who used a handgun his police officer son gave him for protection, to shoot at several teenagers who climbed over a fence and was frolicking in his swimming pool? As I recalled, this hypocrite was never charged with a crime. Yes the kids had trespassed on his property, but that was not a good reason to shoot at unarmed teenagers who were not threatening him. Besides, possessing a firearm not registered to him in D.C, is a big No-No. Kind of reminds me of the pool scene in MAGNUM FORCE, minus the bomb. Fortunately in this case, no targets were hit.

    Wouldn’t be surprised if this gun hating journalist is now a fanatical supporter of black lives matter and other crazy liberal movements.

  33. Liberal Dave,

    Sorry, I missed one of your points, where you pointed out that up until some point in history, juries did not have to be advised by the judge not to lend more credence to a police officer’s testimony than anyone else’s. Wow! The only response that pops into my mind is, this admonishment to jurors came about around the same time they started placing warning stickers on power lawn mowers to not stick your fingers under the deck while its running. Which translates, a persistent lawyer can eventually win a victory, convincing a court that some folks must be told these things.

    Laughing with you friend, not at you.

  34. I believe it was Carl Rowen, from North Carolina. He’s a long time, anti-gun senator. But, he’s definitely a hypocrite.

  35. It continues to be a fools errand to attempt to use reason, logic and facts to sway the opinions of emotion driven, knee jerk reactionary liberals.

  36. @ Kendahl,

    Libertarianism and communitarianism are just synonyms for Right-Wing and Left-Wing. They are just variations upon the same theme.

    A Left-Wing individual views all humans as innately “Good”. Therefore, a human cannot be evil in and of himself or herself. Something, some EXTERNAL factor, must (in the leftist mind) have CAUSED this human to do bad things. Therefore, the Leftist Worldview continually “scans” the world looking for “reasons” that people go bad.

    Thus, a left-wing individual arrives at the view that the only way to control evil is to identify these external causes (let’s call them ESOE’s – Environmental Sources of Evil, for short) and then, once they are identified, enact “programs” to mitigate or (best of all) eliminate them. Thus, the leftist mindset is inherently activist in nature due to this underlying belief system.

    Therefore, Leftists live for a perpetual ESOE hunt. The Left has long since compiled a list of ESOE’s. They include:

    Poverty
    Ignorance
    Child Abuse
    racism
    drug and alcohol abuse
    firearms and weapons in general
    destruction of the natural environment

    Plus a bunch more that I don’t have time to list.

    So, the Left views “big government” as the solution to the evil of the world. Only by organized government action can these ESOE’s be attacked and mitigated. Therefore, from the left-wing perspective, the role of government is not just to provide the services that a society needs (defense, police/fire protection, immigration control, infrastructure management, etc.) but to also “improve” society by means of ESOE elimination. Thus, the Left adds ESOE control to the list of proper government functions whereas a right-wing individual would not. Hence the “small government” view of the Right versus the “big government” view of the Left. The Left needs big government for their ESOE control effort.

    So, what you see as Communitarianism (putting government and society first) is really the Left trying to use the government as a “tool” to crush and destroy all the ESOE’s that they have identified.

    For example, consider the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE). Did you ever ask yourself why in the world such a miscellaneous collection of items is lumped together for regulation by a single bureau?

    The answer is clear when you consider the matter from a left-wing perspective. These items are all physical-item ESOE’s that the Left has identified. So, the BATFE is really the Bureau of Physical-Item ESOE control.

    This tells us, immediately, that the BATFE is a left-wing construct. It is part of the Left’s attempt to use government for ESOE suppression. It also explains the general lack-of-support for the BATFE by right-wing politicians. Any right-winger worth his salt will instinctively feel that the BATFE is a tool and construct of the Left. Therefore, one sees why the BATFE is beloved by Left-wing politicians and despised by Right-Wing ones.

  37. Georgia has state preemption for gun control laws, but may allow local jurisdictions (cities and counties) to enact certain “reasonable restrictions.” So Atlanta can’t prohibit you from owning a firearm (assuming you can legally own it under state and federal law), but they can have an ordinance against discharging a firearm inside the city limits.

    Re: campaigning against D when A, B, and C are involved in more deaths and injuries, I would assume that one’s personal experience affects attitude and opinions. So, if your child got shot, you might become a rabid anti-gun activist, and you might be uninterested in statistics showing that more children die from drowning, fires, and traffic accidents than from shootings.

    But what about politicians and activists who have no personal reason to feel strongly about an issue? Their judgment is not clouded by grief, and they should be able to look at the argument objectively. If their real goal is to save lives, shouldn’t they prioritize? If more children drown in swimming pools than get shot, shouldn’t the government be passing laws to ban pools (or to require reasonable regulations, like requiring that pools be surrounded by fences) before passing more anti-gun laws? (I believe some cities and counties have ordinances requiring fences around pools, but I don’t see any political candidates or Hollywood celebrities calling for federal laws on the subject.)

    It is not a question of whether the lives of the drowning victims are more or less precious than the shooting victims. It is more a question of why politicians and activists are so monomaniacally focused on guns, and seemingly so uninterested in other potential hazards.

    But then, swimming pools were never used in a revolution against a tyrannical government.

  38. Dennis,

    I looked up Atlanta’s gun laws. They are indeed the same as Georgia’s, and Georgia does not allow pre-emption. Both concealed carry and open carry are legal in Atlanta. I never hear about Atlanta being a high crime area, and I know a lot of African Americans live there. So, maybe Atlanta is a city that “works” and therefore, we don’t hear about it in the news.

  39. tc,

    “But then, swimming pools were never used in a revolution against a tyrannical government.”

    I believe you nailed the political elite’s worry. I also believe it is no longer an exclusive democrat crusade. Witness how many republicans have announced they will vote for Hillary, who has made no bones about her anticipated gutting of the 2nd. amendment.

    I can just see a billboard—“SWIMMING POOLS KILL MORE CHILDREN THAN GUNS—-NO CORRUPT, TYRANNICAL, POLITICIAN HAS EVER BEEN REMOVED FROM POWER AT THE POINT OF A SWIMMING POOL”

  40. Lew” I apologise. While scrolling down to post a response I mistakenly grabbed your name instead of Penrod (the Troll). And a Troll I’m sure he is (now that you pointed that out to me). I took the bait like a bass.

  41. Apparently I missed a great post with good comments while on vacation! Where to begin?

    Let’s see…let’s ban swimming pools, cars, bicycles, motorcycles, sugar, salt, alcohol, and water. While we’re at it, let’s also ban peanuts, peanut butter, wheat gluten and milk because banning all those dangerous things CAN SAVE JUST ONE LIFE!!!!! For a humorous interlude, check http://www.rifftrax.com and search “danger” for some short films about “danger” made funnier by their comments. BTW, that isn’t really a commercial plug since I have no interest in their site than as a customer!

    @ Penrod: Lew beat me to it in stating that someone appeared to have posed as a gun shop owner. However, there are still gun shops in New York City though they are few and far between. I can see someone living in that People’s Republic Worker’s Paradise entirely buying into the BS spewed by the anti-gun crowd even to the point of working against his own business interests. The one shop that I did pass by and even enter to search for a leather belt seemed to cater mostly to law enforcement, so the civilian dollar probably makes little difference.

  42. TN_MAN,

    I enjoy your explanations of Left vs. Right, and their world views. For a long time, I’ve known the basic differences between both outlooks, but it was like I was viewing them with my natural eye sight. Your explanations help me view the differences as if I was looking through 10-power binoculars!

  43. If, for that matter, there’s a petition somewhere to ban swimming pools, sign me up. After having to deal with my mother-in-law’s for a few years, I came to hate them. I’ve built two houses since then with big, nice back yards and wouldn’t even consider putting one in, no matter how much my kids wanted one.

    Yeah, I’m a pool-hating liberal. Guns, eh, not so much. 😉

  44. @ Roger Willco:

    Thank you for the kind words.

    I do feel that an understanding of the right-wing / left-wing worldviews is really helpful in understanding the problems that America is facing today. It also helps in understanding the political arguments that are dividing this country.

    For example, the big government vs. small government debate that I mentioned above. As an illustration, take a U.S. government department or agency and then ask yourself the following question: Is the function performed by this government department or agency directly authorized by the Constitution of the U.S.?

    If the answer is YES, then that function would fall into the “basic services category”. For example, the Constitution does authorize army / navy / militia actions. So, we have to say that (in general) the Department of Defense is OK. The Constitution also authorizes debt payment and minting money so the Department of the Treasury is (in general) OK too.

    However, whole departments and agencies have been added to the U.S. Government by the Left simply to suppress ESOE’s.

    For example, the Left has long considered poverty to be a MAJOR ESOE. So, all of the anti-poverty, social safety net type functions are Left-wing driven. You can read the Constitution from front to back and nowhere does it provide a right to be free from poverty. So, all these functions are Left-wing ESOE suppression efforts. Whole Departments (Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Department of Labor, etc.) are Left-Wing add-ons.

    The Department of Education is too. Its purpose is to fight the ESOE of ignorance. Of course, Education is important but the Founding Fathers never envisioned it as a U.S. Government function. At least, I don’t recall seeing it authorized by the Constitution. They probably envisioned education as a local government / private institution type function.

    Within the Department of Justice, you have the DEA to fight the ESOE of drug abuse and the BATFE to fight physical-item ESOE’s (as I noted above).

    I could go on and on but you see the point. You see how conducting the Left’s ESOE hunt expands the U.S Government up to the super-size it is today.

  46. @ Dennis:

    Thanks for the link to the article. It takes a different path but it arrives at the same location as was mapped out in my last post. In other words, that the US Government is performing a lot of functions today not specifically authorized by the Constitution.

    Of course, from the Left-Wing perspective, this is not important. From their point of view, it is CRITICAL that the ESOE hunt continue. If the Founding Fathers failed to include a license for the ESOE hunt in the Constitution, then that was a mistake on their part! For it is only by hunting down and killing all these ESOE’s, currently on the loose, that the World can be transformed into the utopian Left-Wing paradise that it needs to be!

    So, if the ESOE hunting license is missing from the Constitution, then they will just appoint a Left-Wing SCOTUS to write it in for them. After all, the Constitution is a “Living Document”, isn’t it?

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