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Tag: gun control

  • Three Cheers for Chicago Police Supt. McCarthy

    Here’s the story with the video.

    Here’s the story about the inevitable backlash to anybody who talks about the harms that guns cause to people in our cities. They tend to be ad hominem.

    Kudos for not being afraid to talk about race. Yes folks, racism used to not only be legal, but mandatory. And yes folks, that still matters. Even today. Even with a black president. Even if you’re sick of hearing about it. And no folks, bringing this up does not excuse crime. Nor does it mean you’re a racist.

    Shall we continue?

    From the Sun Times:

    McCarthy went on to say that in the debate about gun control, there has to be “a recognition of who’s paying the price for gun manufacturers being rich and living in gated communities.”

    McCarthy told parishioners an anecdote about a brutal night of killings in Newark, N.J., where he was previously head of the police department. McCarthy said that after he got home that night, he turn on the TV to relax, and tuned in to Sarah Palin’s Alaska.

    “She was caribou-hunting and talking about the right to bear arms,” McCarthy said. “Why wasn’t she at the crime scene with me?”

    P.S. I’ve met McCarthy at John Jay College. I like McCarthy… But, chief, you know it’s wrong to be stepping on casings at a crime scene. You shouldn’t be there messing up the crime scene in the first place! (But maybe he was speaking figuratively.)

  • The Elusive Search for “Mr. Kingpin”

    The Elusive Search for “Mr. Kingpin”

    The LA Times reports that the ATF Director is expected to resign over the “Fast and Furious” gun program. It sure does seem a little strange for law enforcement to watch guns being sold to criminals and not acting.

    The operation marked a rare instance in which ATF agents allowed guns to “walk” into the hands of criminals, ostensibly with the goal of catching higher-ups in gun-trafficking organizations.

    But is this any more strange than watching drugs be sold and not acting in the name of gathering evidence, going up the ladder, and building a case?

    Ah, the illusive search for “Mr. Kingpin.” If only we could nab him, the whole criminal enterprise would tumble. Witness how we’re all safe from terrorism after the killing of Osama bin Laden. And notice how the drug war in Mexico has been won after the death or arrests of not one but at least six drug kingpins: one, two, three, four, five, and six!

    Update: This just in! Another kingpin has just been arrested! Seven is the charm.

    Mr Calderon described the capture as a great blow to organised crime…. Mexico’s security spokesman Alejandro Poire said the arrest had “destroyed the chain of command” of the cartel.

    This drives me to drink, but excuse me if I don’t break out the champagne!

  • Gun Control? “Your Side Won”

    Gun Control? “Your Side Won”

    Tom Tomorrow, one of my favorite cartoonists, summarizes gun control and killings quite well. Click through to read.

    “Barring some seismic realignment in this country, the gun control debate is all but settled–and your side won. The occasional horrific civilian massacre is just the price the rest of us have to pay.”

    As if we need it, the horrible shooting in a police station in Detroit is yet more proof that guns are not a good defense against guns. The gunman shot four before being killed by the police.

    “But relax,” as the penguin says, “Your paranoid political fantasies notwithstanding, no one’s going to take your guns away!”

  • 2nd Amendment for Immigrants

    It’s not too often supporters of the 2nd Amendment and supporters of immigrant rights can find common political ground. But here’s a case. Whatever happened to discretion?

    Immigration officials are always on the lookout to deport “criminal aliens,” and it appears that last week, Mr. Valerio’s name came up.
    …
    He had been a legal permanent resident of the United States for nearly 30 years.
    …
    Mr. Valerio’s offense dated back more than 20 years to a conviction for possessing a gun without the proper license. He had bought the gun to protect the bodega he owned from burglars, his daughter said. He served three years’ probation in the mid-1980s and had never again been in trouble with the law.

  • Happiness is a Worn Gun

    In Harpers, Dan Baum has the best piece you’ll ever read about carrying a concealed gun. Why is it the best? Because it doesn’t fall into any of the usual left-wing-hate-guns right-wing-love-guns cliches.

    Along with guns, Baum likes rational drug policy, bicycles, hats, food, and my book (we have much in common). He’s, you know, your typical gun-loving liberal Jewish boy from New Jersey (errr).

    Baum is also the author of the sleeper hit Smoke and Mirrors and the much acclaimed more recent Nine Lives.

    Alas, this article is only available by subscription so you’ll have to run out to your local newsstand a buy the current issue of Harpers. It’s worth it. [Update: here’s a pdf of the article] Here’s an excerpt, not from the article, but from his gun blog:

    I like guns for a lot of reasons: I hunt, I enjoy the sensual pleasure of manipulating their exquisitely exact mechanisms, I’m drawn to the history they evoke, I enjoy the elegant geometry of marksmanship. But I can’t pretend that guns aren’t at their heart instruments of lethal violence.

    There may be some dark “real” reason that I like guns lurking under there — something about my penis, perhaps, or a latent desire to dominate others by force. It may also be that I like guns for all the reasons I think I like guns. What is clear is that most of my friends, who tend to be liberal Democrats like me, don’t get it. Neither, quite frankly, do the liberal Democrats in office who keep trying to impose restrictions on a device — and a culture built around the device — that they don’t understand.

  • NRA gun owners for gun control

    E.J. Dionne writes about an interesting poll of NRA members.

  • British Badass

    Man wrestles gun from 19-year-old outside pub in Manchester.

    No doubt helped by a bit of Dutch courage.

  • Holiday (Criminal) Spirit

    The Christmas crime season is the US begins. This storyfrom the NY Daily News. [November 30 Update] And the Chicago Sun Times. Street crime really does up before Christmas. Keep that in mind.

    I’m in a pub in York, UK, right now. Leeds, where I’m staying, and where David Simon said he might have set The Wire if he set it in the UK, has maybe 3 or 4 homicides a year (or so I was told). Population 440,000. Baltimore, population 630,000 has more than 200.

    In answer to one burning question here in the UK: Are parts of the cities becoming “like The Wire”?

    No.

    Baltimore (and most American cities) have more killings than the entire United Kingdom. Amazing how they manage to fend off all the anti-social drunks here without firearms. Somehow they manage.

  • Lack of Gun Control

    Lack of Gun Control

    Nice to know that all those places with right-to-carry and relaxed gun laws, like military bases and the state of Florida, are safe from gun violence.

    Florida, for some strange reason, is often held up by gun-righters as an example of a good state. Yet Florida is violent and has become more so since gun control was relaxed.

    Here’s my logic:


    The problem with people who don’t believe in gun control is that Cell #2 is impossible to achieve so they choose to live in Cell #1.

    Gun haters believe that Cell #4 is theoretically possible (and desirable), but it isn’t politicallypossible in this country.

    So we’re left with either Cell #1 or Cell #3. And either way we’re left with some gun carnage.

    And though it certainly may seem that Cell #1 the better of the two (“if criminals and crazies have guns, better for us to, too!” …Assuming we’re not crazy, of course).

    The problem is that there is a correlation between the general availability of guns and the odds that a criminal or crazy carries a gun.

    I’d prefer to live in Cell #3 than Cell #1 because they’ll be less carnage and I’ll be safer, even though I would have to give up some feeling of control over my environment. That’s why we have police.

    Speaking of which, can somebody tell me why it takes a civilian police officer on or near an army base to shoot somebody? Don’t the soldiers have guns?

  • Gunshots or Firecrackers

    Justin Fenton writes about a gunshot detection system in the Eastern. An interesting concept. Mixed results at best.

    Cops, after a little while, get pretty good at telling the difference between gunshots and firecrackers. They’re very similar, but gunshots are kind of a shorter, tighter bang. It’s kind of hard to describe. But you would think a computer could better tell the difference. They can’t yet.