A Follow-up on Gun Control

Thursday 25 April 2013 - Filed under Uncategorized

Following up yesterday’s poll about the lack of outrage from the American public concerning Obama’s gun control initiative failing:

The paradox of American gun control got deeper Wednesday. Or, at least it appeared to.

On the surface, the poll released by The Washington Post and Pew Research Center made no sense. Only 47 percent of respondents said they were “disappointed” or “angry” that the Senate last week failed to advance a bill to expand background checks to gun shows and online sales.

Yet in February, a Pew poll found that 83 percent of respondents supported an expansion of background checks to cover gun shows and all private sales – measures that would actually be stricter than what the Senate rejected.

So what gives? If Americans overwhelmingly support strict background checks, why aren’t they angrier that the Senate failed to pass even moderate background checks? How could 39 percent be “happy” or “relieved” by the result? Where is the outrage to which President Obama was appealing when he called the Senate vote “a pretty shameful day for Washington”?

There are, perhaps, clues in the poll itself, which suggests that the forces against the bill were more motivated than those supporting the bill. Americans might also have come to the conclusion that the bill wouldn’t do much.

But the real takeaway, some say, is that the gun control debate played into the broader narrative of America’s enduring libertarian streak. As with the legalization of marijuana, the spread of same-sex marriage, and the fresh possibility of comprehensive immigration reform, the common thread is that, in many cases, Americans are loath to tell their neighbors what to do.

“Americans do have a certain live-and-let-live attitude, and guns are a good illustration,” says Robert Spitzer, author of “The Politics of Gun Control.” “That’s why you’ve never gotten a majority of Americans who favor an outright ban on handguns. That’s not because most Americans own guns, or even handguns, but there is a certain attitude that, ‘Look, I’m not a gun owner, I don’t like guns around, but if someone else wants to own a gun, I’m not going to insist that ought to be somehow restricted.’ There’s sympathy for that brand of libertarianism in American politics; it’s not real libertarianism, it’s libertarian lite.”

One can only hope that Americans are moving towards libertarianism.

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Overwhelmed

Thursday 25 April 2013 - Filed under Uncategorized

John Geraghty at The National Review on Obama’s seeming inability to govern with anything resembling competence:

Obamacare’s implementation is a “train wreck,” in the words of retiring Montana Democrat Sen. Max Baucus.

The president’s gun control proposals are rejected, because he can’t persuade Red State senators in either party that they would really be of any use in preventing gun violence.

The great news is that the Boston bombers were killed and apprehended quickly, but Boston’s ordeal left serious questions about the government’s ability to keep an eye on those deemed dangerous, and how carefully it scrutinizes those who seek to become American citizens.

[. . .]

Of course, the “shovel-ready jobs” of the stimulus didn’t really live up to the promises, as Obama himself admitted.

And the web site meant to detail how every dime of stimulus spending ended up full of bad data and nonexistent congressional districts.

And that as of June 2012, three and a half years after the stimulus passed, nearly $8 billion was still waiting to be awarded or sitting in agency accounts.

And the entire green jobs initiative clearly hasn’t quite lived up to the hype, including the president’s infamous pledge that “companies like Solyndra are leading the way toward a brighter and more prosperous future.” Now another one of the administration’s high-profile loan recipients, Fisker Automotive, is contemplating bankruptcy; the company hasn’t built a car since July.

[. . .]

When federal program after federal program fails to generate the desired result, it’s not crazy talk to become at least a little skeptical of the latest pledges and promises and idealistic visions.

But Democrats often speak as if the Right’s skepticism of the government’s problem-solving ability is driven by some sort of abstract ideological theory. It’s not. It’s usually built upon hard experiences; human behavior isn’t predictable, particularly their interactions with the government. Unintended consequences pile up like a car crash. The pattern is depressingly predictable: Someone in government comes up with some laudable goal, and announces some new program. After the press conference, when the cameras and microphones are away, implementing the idea proves more complicated than the press conference announcement made it seem. Deadlines get missed. Costs turn out much higher than expected. Bureaucratic inertia begins to exert the gravitational pull of a black hole.

Perhaps it is the nature of the modern presidency of the occupant of the Oval Office to glide from photo-op to photo-op, and never spend too much time getting entangled in the messy work of actually making his policies live up to his promises. Certainly that’s the pattern for this president; even in this non-campaign year, the schedule is heavy with a campaign-style rally on gun control initiatives here, a DCCC fundraiser there, then off to a tour of a national laboratory. He flits from issue to issue; to judge from his remarks and his schedule, the health care issue is resolved and our health care system’s problems are fixed. Maybe White House Press Secretary Jay Carney will get a question about the health care exchanges or electronic health care records system, which he’ll defuse with another defensive, meandering word salad.

Implementing Obamacare? Hey, that’s for somebody else to worry about.

If only he would leave operating the government for someone else to worry about perhaps we would be better off.

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Statistics

Wednesday 24 April 2013 - Filed under Uncategorized

I thought that “90% of Americans supported stronger background checks.” I just can’t believe that the fine politicians in DC and pundits who help shape policy would lie to me.

The key Senate vote that halted gun control legislation last week is drawing a mixed reaction from the American public: 47% express negative feelings about the vote while 39% have a positive reaction to the Senate’s rejection of gun control legislation that included background checks on gun purchases. Overall, 15% say they are angry this legislation was voted down and 32% say they are disappointed. On the other side, 20% say are very happy the legislation was blocked, while 19% say they are relieved.

The new national survey by the Pew Research Center and the Washington Post, conducted April 18-21 among 1,002 adults, finds a wide partisan gap in reactions. Just over half of Republicans are either very happy (29%) or relieved (23%) that the legislation was voted down, though roughly a third of Republicans say they are either disappointed (26%) or angry (8%). Among Democrats, fully two-thirds (67%) express negative sentiments about the legislation’s failure, with more saying they are disappointed (41%) than angry (26%).

So much for 90% support for the gun control agenda. If that stat were even close to the truth, it would be reflected in how people feel about the bill failing.

Comments Off on Statistics  ::  Share or discuss  ::  2013-04-24  ::  madlibertarianguy

Another Reason Gun Control Failed

Wednesday 24 April 2013 - Filed under Uncategorized

There are many reasons why the gun control bill that Obama pleaded for is dead in the water. Many Americans saw his tacky rhetorical stunts during our “national conversation” as tasteless, relegating what should have been an intellectual conversation in to a party where only those willing to wear the bloody shirts of dead children were welcome. Others simply blame fear of the NRA on the part of the senators who voted against the bill. But it’s much simpler than that. It wasn’t the NRA and their fund-raising prowess: it’s NRA MEMBERS and the tens of millions of other gun owners who are completely unaffiliated with the NRA and their willingness to vote against ANYONE who appears to be anti-Second Amendment. Megan McArdle:

If you want to actually understand why gun control failed, let’s try a simple exercise. Raise your hand if you had a strong opinion about the background check bill that was in front of Congress.

Keep your hand raised if you know how your own Senator voted on it. Otherwise put your hand down.

Keep your hand raised if you actually live in a state that might plausibly elect a Republican to congress.

Okay, now keep your hand raised if that bill was in the top one or two issues that you’ll be voting on in 2014 or 2016. By which I mean, if your Senator votes the wrong way on that bill, you will vote for anyone who opposes them. Anyone–even someone with the wrong opinions on gay marriage, social security reform, transportation subsidies, the Keystone XL pipeline, carbon taxes, marginal tax rates on people who make more than $250k per annum, the deficit, and student loan repayment programs.

Now look around. Aside from those three guys in the back from Handgun Control Inc., do you know who still has their hand raised? NRA members.

Support for new gun control laws was high in the immediate post-Newtown period. But that support was evanescent; it’s already back below 50%, and probably still falling. Gun owners care year in and year out. And they vote on the issue.

This had little to do with the fearsome power of “the NRA”, or their fundraising efforts. It had to do with gun owners who will do their best to unelect any politician who votes to deprive them of what they view as constitutional rights. Those gun owners are more likely to live in swing states than the most avid gun controllers: progressives who cram themselves into a handful of cities. And they vote on the issue, unlike progressives, who, for all their furor at the outcome, put a large number of issues–taxes, abortion, welfare programs, and so forth–much higher on their list of priorities. By 2014, the odds of any “No” vote losing their job over it are pretty slim.

Exactly right. The senators who voted against the gun control bill aren’t afraid of the NRA. They’re afraid of getting voted out by their gun owning constituents. Which is precisely how representative government is supposed to work. They weren’t cowardly, or kowtowing to special interests, but doing exactly what their constituents sent them there to do.

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Evolution

Tuesday 23 April 2013 - Filed under Uncategorized

The kind of evolution that repels statists the world over. PJ Media:

A moment of levity during a very serious, very scary night.

It was the moment I evolved on guns — the moment my support for the 2nd Amendment went from abstract to concrete.

Boston-area residents were told to “shelter-in-place.”

We’re asking people to shelter in place. In other words, to stay indoors with their doors locked and not to open their door for anyone other than a properly identified law enforcement officer[.] Please understand we have an armed and dangerous person(s) still at large and police actively pursuing every lead in this active emergency event. Please be patient and use common sense until this person(s) are apprehended.

I realized at that moment that the police cannot protect me from the Dzhokhar Tsarnaevs of the world.

The best they can do is tell me to lock myself in my home while they search for the bad guy. Though the residents of Watertown (and the surrounding greater-Boston area) were held in a state of near-martial law, the best most of them could do was huddle in their homes, hoping the police would take their 3 a.m. call and come running to rescue them before the terrorist killed them.

Snip . . .

As I listened to the police scanner during the Boston manhunt, I wasn’t thinking about “police all over the place” in the “personal security guard” sense that Feinstein seemed to be implying.

Instead, I imagined a mother huddled in the nursery with her baby. Her husband is out of town and she is also listening to the police scanner, praying the terrorist doesn’t burst through her back door.

I imagined an 85-year-old World War II veteran living alone. He fought the Nazis on foot across Europe and his government just instructed him to “shelter-in-place.” He turns out the lights in his home and hunches over his radio waiting for updates though the long night.

I wondered if they could protect themselves if the worst happened.

In the middle of that night listening to the Boston police scanner, I evolved.

I realized right then that if I were holed up in my house while a cold-blooded terrorist roamed my neighborhood, I wouldn’t want to be a sitting duck with only a deadbolt lock between me and an armed intruder. There are not enough police and they cannot come to my rescue quickly enough. They carry guns to protect themselves, not me. I knew at that instant if Dzhokhar Tsarnaev showed up at my door while I was “sheltered-in-place” and aimed a gun at my head and only one of us would live, I could pull the trigger.

As if trying to liberate the greater Boston area from full-on military occupation, 9000 militarized, heavily armed cops descended on Watertown and Cambridge to look for a lone 19 year old who was badly injured and couldn’t find him until they lifted the “lockdown” order (after which he was found in a matter of minutes). People were ordered to huddle in their homes and hope that the police and their massive dragnet (which did not work as he was apprehended outside of their search area and in an area they had already searched earlier in the day) would protect them with most people not having an effective means of protecting themselves should Tsarnaev choose their home as his hideout.

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Doom and Gloom

Tuesday 23 April 2013 - Filed under Uncategorized

Earth Day: full of shit for 43 years.

The 1970s were a lousy decade. Embarrassing movies, dreadful music and downright terrifying clothes reflected the national mood following an unpopular war, endless political scandals and a faltering economy.

Popular culture was consumed with decline, especially Hollywood. The Omega Man, Soylent Green, Damnation Alley and countless other dystopian films showed a planet wrecked by war, pollution and neglect. In large part, the entertainment industry was reflecting the culture at large.

In 1970, the first Earth Day was celebrated — okay, “celebrated” doesn’t capture the funereal tone of the event. The events (organized in part by then hippie and now convicted murderer Ira Einhorn) predicted death, destruction and disease unless we did exactly as progressives commanded.

Behold the coming apocalypse as predicted on and around Earth Day, 1970[.]

Earth day is one of those days with good intentions; I ‘m a conservationist and have actually worked hard on environmental clean-up and wildlife preservation projects (likely much harder than your average Facebook poster who posts links to shit on global warming and the demise of humanity unless we all take part in a massive transfer of wealth from your average person to some crony who started a “green company” that lives off the government teat), but all Earth Day really does is serve as a platform for doom and gloom scientists activists to tell us that we’d all be much better off if we just figured out a way to kill half of the Earth’s population and cease all economic activity and use of energy. They’ve been monumentally wrong since Malthus, and continue to be wrong with every single one of their “predictions,” yet somehow because they have a PhD people still put stock in whatever these crackpots have to say.

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The Math

Monday 22 April 2013 - Filed under Uncategorized

I’m no economist. But I do know that changing the math does not change reality. CNBC:

The U.S. economy will officially become 3 percent bigger in July as part of a shake-up that will for the first time see government statistics take into account 21st century components such as film royalties and spending on research and development.

Billions of dollars of intangible assets will enter the gross domestic product of the world’s largest economy in a revision aimed at capturing the changing nature of U.S. output.

You can fudge the math all you want, but changes on paper do not equal changes on the ground. The economy is still fucked regardless of how much you dick around with the formulas.

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Enough

Saturday 20 April 2013 - Filed under Uncategorized

We’ve watched our civil rights be incrementally eroded over the last decade in the name of the War on Terror™ Enough is enough. Mirandize Tsarnaev, or let him go. Glenn Greenwald:

Needless to say, Tsarnaev is probably the single most hated figure in America now. As a result, as Bazelon noted, not many people will care what is done to him, just like few people care what happens to the accused terrorists at Guantanamo, or Bagram, or in Yemen and Pakistan. But that’s always how rights are abridged: by targeting the most marginalized group or most hated individual in the first instance, based on the expectation that nobody will object because of how marginalized or hated they are. Once those rights violations are acquiesced to in the first instance, then they become institutionalized forever, and there is no basis for objecting once they are applied to others, as they inevitably will be (in the case of the War on Terror powers: as they already are being applied to others). As Bazelon concludes:

No one is crying over the rights of the young man who is accused of killing innocent people, helping his brother set off bombs that were loaded to maim, and terrorizing Boston Thursday night and Friday. But the next time you read about an abusive interrogation, or a wrongful conviction that resulted from a false confession, think about why we have Miranda in the first place. It’s to stop law enforcement authorities from committing abuses. Because when they can make their own rules, sometime, somewhere, they inevitably will.

Leave aside the fact that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has been convicted of nothing and is thus entitled to a presumption of innocence. The reason to care what happens to him is because how he is treated creates precedent for what the US government is empowered to do, including to US citizens on US soil. When you cheer for the erosion of his rights, you’re cheering for the erosion of your own.

If they can deny Tsarnaev, a US citizen who committed a crime and was captured on US soil, his 5th Amendment rights, then they will do it to you. Count on it.

Just as a reminder, the Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution states:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

The government has already claimed to be the sole interpreters of our civil rights, and their interpretation is most definitely NOT in our favor. It’s time to exercise our agency as citizens and demand that the government back the fuck off.

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Reason 1,255,000

Friday 19 April 2013 - Filed under Uncategorized

Schools being openly anti-Second Amendment and First Amendment, all at the same time, having a student suspended and arrested for wearing a pro-2A t-shirt. WOWKTV:

When 8th grade Jared Marcum got dressed for school this morning he says he had no idea that his pro-Second Amendment shirt would initiate what he calls a fight over his First Amendment rights.

“I never thought it would go this far because honestly I don’t see a problem with this, there shouldn’t be a problem with this,” Jared said.

It was the image of a gun printed on Jared’s t-shirt that sparked a dispute between a Logan Middle School teacher and Jared, that ended with Jared suspended, arrested and facing two charges, obstruction and disturbing the education process, on his otherwise spotless record.

Jared’s father Allen Lardieri says he’s angry he had to rush from work to pick his son up from jail over something he says was blown way out of proportion.

“I don’t’ see how anybody would have an issue with a hunting rifle and NRA put on a t-shirt, especially when policy doesn’t forbid it,” Lardieri said.

If “disturbing the education process” is a crime, then I would think that teachers who would deny a student his first amendment rights because she personally disagreed with the politics of his t-shirt would qualify.

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Cowardice

Thursday 18 April 2013 - Filed under Uncategorized

Jacob Sullum on Obama and Giffords’ insistence that those senators who declined to vote yea on the gun control bill did so out of cowardice and fear:

Former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), who stood next to President Obama yesterday, nodding as he berated the senators who voted against his gun control proposals for their “shameful” failure to agree with him, continues the tantrum in today’s New York Times. As gun controllers tend to do, she opens with an emotion-laden non sequitur[.]

[. . .]

In Giffords’ view, these senators are two-faced, because you cannot truly sympathize with her unless you vote for the bills she supports. But I am a little confused about the purported motivation for this perceived betrayal. Obama and Giffords both insist the senators who voted against new gun controls did so not out of conviction but out of fear—specifically, fear that they would be defeated the next time they run for re-election. If their constituents “overwhelmingly favored expanding background checks,” however, wouldn’t voting for the bill mandating those have been the politically expedient thing to do? And why is opposing the will of the majority a mark of “cowardice,” as Giffords says, rather than a mark of courage?

They talk of “fear” and “cowardice” because they haven’t any intellectual ground on which to stand. Their only argument is “they didn’t allow the emotional pleas of an ex-congresswoman and the parents of dead children whose bloody shirts we wave as a banner of solidarity to convince them to vote our way, and have been consumed by fear of the NRA.”

Sullum concludes:

Enough already. If you have an argument to make, make it. But do not assume that the only possible explanation for your failure to persuade people is their bad faith or lack of compassion.

Unfortunately for the left, non-sequitors and invective is all they have.

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