Phoning it in. I wanted to see if could actually blog by talking into my telephone using the handy new Jott software program, Jott.com. listen
Powered by Jott
Update: This part is typed. But how cool is that? I called a toll free number on my cell phone and spoke a post. Neat. Might have to try harder words.
Update 2: Now, I can blog from anywhere.
I just need to figure out how to do the linky.
Sebastian notes another line item that says we can use non-lethal firearms to introduce folks to shooting. So, after they tell us not to show human shaped targets they suggest non-lethals like airsoft and paintball which are sports where instead of shooting human shaped targets you shoot actual humans?
Bitter is liveblogging the NSSF webcast. She notes regrettably that there is no clarification that NSSF is not embracing these action items as is. One of those action items was this:
Public acceptance of rifles and shotguns is greater than acceptance of handguns, the latter having some negative connotations for some individuals in American society.
Action Item 163. Efforts to promote acceptance of shooting sports should focus on rifles and shotguns
My Google-fu is mightier than your Google-fu.
That took, what, 23 minutes?
In all fairness, it does help that I have ‘an audience’.
HR 6310 will allow the firearms and ammunition industry to pay the FAET on a quarterly basis, the same payment schedule as every other industry that supports conservation. Currently firearms and ammunition manufacturers must pay the FAET bi-weekly. This payment schedule forces many manufacturers to borrow money to ensure on-time payment, and industry members spend thousands of man-hours administering the necessary paperwork to successfully complete the bi-weekly payments — monies that are due long before manufacturers are paid by their customers. This legislation will not lower the amount of conservation dollars collected by the tax.
Personally, I don’t care for the tax. IIRC, it’s 11% (and 10% on handguns). And, in TN, add 9.25% for sales tax and quite a bit of your purchase price is taxes. And the other $0.10 per box of ammo. Anyway, gun owners pay a lot of taxes.
But I’d think the hunter sorts would like the fact that the ammo and weapons I buy to not hunt with are funding their hobby.
Also, one reason why building your own EBR is cheaper: no tax on parts.
Now, what stands out to me is the jump from 2005 to 2006. With people supporting self-defense as one of the top reasons to own a gun, my guess is Katrina. Thank you, New Orleans.
This is one of the dumbest things I’ve seen:
Thousands of parents could face a choice: volunteer at your child’s school or pay a $100 fine.
A bill introduced in the Ohio legislature would require parents to donate at least 13 hours of time to their school district each year or pay the price. And, if parents failed to pay up, the fine could be deducted from their state income tax refunds.
How many tax dollars go to schools? And it’s never enough. Ever.
Seen at the Volokh conspiracy:
The Poker Players Association has an urgent action item:
Tuesday, the House Financial Services Committee will review a bill, H.R. 5767, that would block the implementation of UIGEA regulations. In order to get this bill out of Committee on onto the House Floor, we need your help. We need you to contact the committee and express your support for H.R. 5767, as well as the King amendment which will refine the bill language. PPA strongly supports H.R. 5767 and the King amendment, but this important bill and amendment won’t pass without your help!
Call or Fax the House Financial Services Committee* Democrats’ Committee Office:* Ph: (202) 225-4247 – FAX: (202) 225-6952 Republicans’ Committee Office:* Ph: (202) 225-7502 – FAX: (202) 226-4301
So, there was a bit in the paper yesterday athat said: Applications for concealed handgun permits triple in a year. And now the article doesn’t even mention that. It is here and mentions they are slightly down.
The original article that other reports are based on (still not corrected) said: Applications for Tennessee carry permits statewide have skyrocketed over the last five years, increasing from 237 in 2003 to 195,251 in 2007. Applications more than tripled between 2006 and 2007, records show.
Wow, that would be quite an increase. And our local Merchant of Death tried to clue them in:
That’s right, a near thousandfold increase in applications. Hm. I doubt it. The Channel 8 guy did too, and didn’t run the story at all, in fear it might be wrong.
I clued Channel 6 onto this information, before they did the interview. Newschick didn’t particularly care, figured she’d still do the interview. Same questions, same deal. Only, when they got back to the studio, all of the “find out why carry permit holder numbers in Tennessee are SKYROCKETING!” audio they did was fairly useless, since the real numbers actually show a decrease in permit applications, regardless of whether or not we’re seeing an increase in them here in our store. Exactly the opposite of what they originally wanted to talk about. Suspect that trucated their useable video a bit, too.
Alright, pay attention. This one is important.
One of the epic battles we gun rights people face that is far more damaging than anything The Brady Campaign To Prevent Gun Ownership can ever do is the fighting amongst ourselves. You’ve heard it before. We call hit hunters v. shooters; fudds v. gun nuts; or, as Bob Ricker says, self-defense whackos v. sportsmen. We all seemed to unite after the Jim Zumbo incident. After all, the industry got it pretty quickly. And hats off to them for that.
But this divide can quickly come back to haunt us. And this weekend, that could have happened. Michael Bane:
These items Jim references are here, buried deep in the back of the omnibus “The Future of Hunting and the Shooting Sports,” prepared by NSSF and Response Management, produced under a grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service:
PAGE 235
Public acceptance of rifles and shotguns is greater than acceptance of handguns, the latter having some negative connotations for some individuals in American society.Action Item 163. Efforts to promote acceptance of shooting sports should focus on rifles and shotguns.
Now, if you wanna know what keeps a gun blogger up late at night, this is it. This report marginalizes the shooter/handgunner demographic by that rather poorly thought out action item. As I’ve noted before, hunting is on the decline but gun sales are up. People are buying defensive weapons (handguns and evil black rifles, specifically).
And, frankly, the math supports my contention. Check out bitter’s lengthy piece on fear and the shooting sports.
And this fear of handguns thing is grossly overstated. In fact, there is quite often positive coverage of the shooting sports in the press (see here, here and here for very recent and real examples). When educated, folks in the press can highlight these sports and do so positively. Industry should embrace GSSF, SASS, IDPA and USPSA and promote them.
Being the shooter type, that really concerned me that an industry study would conclude that marginalizing the fastest growing demographic was a possible action item. This mentality could quickly get the Zumbo juices flowing again pit us against our allies. Jim Shepherd agrees:
Shooters – especially those who primarily shoot handguns feel they’ve been consistently ignored. So too, I’m hearing, are some of the manufacturers who see their dollars going into a pot where they don’t feel they’re getting equitable shares.
So, there’s an undercurrent of tension that most of those in attendance will do everything possible to either downplay or minimize.
But the stage is set- and the Survey itself has contributed to the tension with its long litany of suggested action items.
Bottom line, if the survey of “recruitment and retention strategies” is endorsed or adopted as written, the damage will be certain. It will also be obvious very quickly, due to the fact that the “blogosphere” is already chattering about the report.
In short, the natives are restless. They’re not revolting -yet, but they’re getting tired of the status quo.
Indeed. And Bane notes:
The L’affaire du Zumbo sent a message to the industry that the tail — the huge part of the culture involved in sports shooting and self-defense issues — was now officially wagging the dog — the hunting side of the industry. That’s something we in the tail have known for a long time…we buy the lion’s share of the guns and ammo, pay the lion’s share of the federal excise tax and face the lion’s share of the heat from our enemies.
Bitter notes: So did someone throw a pot shot? I have to say, I think they did. At best, it was careless and a result of internal biases.
So, after I got all this info this weekend, I was a bit concerned. I decided to go straight to the source. I emailed someone at NSSF and the replied pretty quickly that they wanted me to call them. So, I did. NSSF’s Rep stated that the they do not endorse these action items. That the firm that did the study (Responsive Management) generated 196 action items. Obviously, some of them are unacceptable. The concern among some folks is that NSSF put their name on it. And NSSF was clear to me that they did not endorse these action items and that one of the goals of this week’s summit was to go through these list of action items and formulate a plan.
And I’m with Bitter on this one and hope that tomorrow’s session includes a very thorough condemnation of this line item.
Not today.
It’s like they’re teasing us or something.
Odds are opinion is written by Scalia. That’s a positive.
Could be today. In the next few minutes. ScotusBlog is swamped and connection is spotty. Alternate route here.
Someone in the press points out the obvious: Criminals tend to ignore wishful ‘Gun Free Zones’
Really? Who knew?
Names changed to protect the, well, fine people
In the early 1990s, I knew this girl who we’ll call Allison. Two things about Allison were that she was 1) smoking hot and 2) queer as a football bat. Seriously, we’d go to the mall and ogle chicks together. She was very nice, smart, fun to hang out with, and just generally good people.
She had another lesbian friend who we’ll call Tammy. Now, Tammy and Allison were not a couple. That always surprised me because, honestly, how many lesbians can there be on a Baptist college campus in Jefferson City, Tennessee? I’m guessing that market was pretty small. But I digress.
This ain’t a post about that. It’s a post about this. When your average person met Allison, they’d never know she was queer as a plaid rabbit. She was just a regular college chick who happened to be hot.
Now, her friend Tammy was different. Within a few minutes of meeting her, you’d know she was queer as fish feet. Because she’d tell you. Over and over. She’d even remind people who already knew. And she’d up in your face asking you if you had a problem with it and why it made you uncomfortable. It was quite annoying. To the point folks stopped asking her to come around.
I get that same vibe from a lot of open carry activists some time. Seriously, don’t interrupt someone’s dinner to make your point. All you’re doing is pissing those folks off. And you’re scaring the white people.
Whether your issue is gay, gun owner, your race, your religion, or hobby; people don’t like you in their face.
Update: In comments, Chris says:
these people had cooperation of the restaurant including that they had microphones and a sound system… that is no different than the golden corral hosting the lions club… now if one guy stands up at the olive garden and spouts that he has a gun, that is a problem… but the incident where the people raised their hands was pre-planned and even featured local politicians as speakers…
Did not know that.
Ya know, I’m not surprised when some nitwit thinks banning handguns is a good idea. I am surprised, however, when such a nitwit is in my state:
Current laws on possession of handguns by juveniles are fine and appear to be enforced, from my vantage point in Juvenile Court. But as we all know, handguns continue to be available to Nashville kids. Something more needs to be done.
The current laws are not curing the problem. They are a Band-Aid. Kids are still carrying handguns, still being charged with robberies using handguns, and kids are still being injured by handguns.
The most practical and effective method for handgun control is also the easiest to describe: Ban handguns.
Couple things: I don’t think you know what practical or effective means. I’d also lay 5:1 you couldn’t tell me what current gun laws are.
Whenever a place has lots of gun crime, their local politicos are quick to posture and subsequently pass laws that only affect the people not committing the gun crime in the first place. In New Jersey, there’s a push for a one gun a month bill. Scott Bach tells us why that bill is a bad idea:
A New Jersey Court recently pronounced: “There is no rational relationship between restricting the number of guns that a licensed gun dealer and a licensed gun owner can transact per month and the frequency of illegal gun possession and crime.”
In so holding, the Court voided a local ordinance that rationed firearms specifically to law abiding citizens pre-certified by the State as having no criminal or mental health record after passing a 13-point background investigation.
Trying to reduce gun crime by rationing firearms to law abiding citizens is a little like trying to reduce stabbings by rationing steak knives to restaurant goers, which is why the Court found the ordinance to be irrational. The criminal misuse of any lawful product is not a function of the number of units sold to honest citizens; it’s a function of how effectively society deals with those who misuse them
Despite judicial recognition of the fallacy of gun rationing, gun ban extremist group CeaseFire NJ, embarrassed by its loss at the local level, is now pushing for passage of statewide gun rationing in the form of Assembly Bill A339, misleadingly citing statistics to buoy their latest whopper — that handguns bought by law abiding citizens from New Jersey licensed dealers are significantly involved in crime and illegal trafficking.
I do not think it means what you think it means.
This one left me speechless. However, it did not leave Bruce speechless:
A Lakeville man says he feels violated after two police officers woke him up at 3 a.m. to tell him his door was unlocked.
Their surprise visit was part of a public service campaign to remind residents to secure their homes to prevent thefts. Usually, officers just leave notices on doors.
But they went further in Troy Molde’s case on Thursday. Police entered the house where four children under 7 were having a sleepover, and then went upstairs to Molde’s bedroom.
The source of Toronto’s illegal guns is Chicago? That’s odd because guns are banned in Chicago too.
When Metallica is not busy sucking, they’re busy pissing off their fans. Ya know, the two they have left after being such douchebags. Via Aunt B.
George Carlin has died. That guy was seriously funny.
Good: Montesano Mayor Ron Schillinger says he vetoed a gun ban in city parks after receiving numerous protest messages, many of them from National Rifle Association members across the nation.
So, folks predict tomorrow is the big day. And we’re all pretty much predicting a major civil rights victory for the good guys. I mean, I’d say tonight, you could stick a piece of coal up Paul Helmke’s rear and by the end of tomorrow it would be diamond. But . . .
Roberta is asking what plan B is if it doesn’t go our way? I’d predict a shit storm of epic proportions if that happened. But we’d have all drink a nice big glass of ‘cool our shit’ juice and come up with a plan.
Update: All the marbles!
The Mrs. is out of town. Just me and the kids. Can you tell?
In addition to the giant mess of toys everywhere, it’s one o’clock and we’re still in our jammies.
Ya know, if hard core metal bands (since we’re talking about metal) decided our foreign policy, the world might be a better place.
Even a nothing threat, deserves a response you won’t soon forget
Kids today. It’s like they’re neocons or something!
Update: probably explains why dude don’t host Empty Vee’s Headbanger’s Ball no more?
Update 2: speaking of metal
Three years after Kelo and what happened: Nothing.
South Carolina passes sweeping reciprocity law.
Even the idiots at Gun Guys have gotten the memo that they’re going to lose. Man, the anti-gunners get their marching orders out across all their astroturf outlets pretty quickly. It’s like they’re all working together. Or, you know, there’s just not many of them.
Going after ammo in Cali. Only 50 rounds a month? I shot six times that on Tuesday.
Judge rules no guns sign violates state law and is pretty fucking stupid. Ok, he didn’t actually rule the sign was pretty fucking stupid but, seriously, he should have.
In what may be a first for Barack Peep And The Big Wide World Obama, he has embraced the free market:
Barack Obama chose winning over his word.
The Democrat once made a conditional agreement to accept taxpayer money from the public financing system, and accompanying spending limits, if his Republican opponent did, too.
No more.
The chance to financially swamp John McCain — and maneuver for an enormous general election advantage — proved too great an allure.
Obama, a record-shattering fundraiser, reversed course Thursday and decided to forgo some $85 million so he could raise unlimited amounts of money and spend as much as he wants.
I take it as good news. I mean, here I thought Barack Who Farted? Obama was kind of a socialist because he’d never seen a place where government funding or meddling or control was bad. Now, he’s opted for the free market route. Well, regulated market. But, you know, it’s better. Maybe there is hope(change).
Investigators with the Maryland state prosecutor’s office, who have been probing Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon’s financial dealings during her tenure as City Council president, searched her home yesterday for more than seven hours.
She’s a member of Mayors Against Guns and hosted one of their events.
Sullivan added that most licensed gun dealers are law-abiding and that, to be fair, ATF needs to apply the rules more uniformly across the country.
Well, you guys do in fact uniformly ignore the courts. And you uniformly prefer to go after clerical errors instead of real gun crime. Consistently bad is still consistent.
Heh:
In the film [V for Vendetta], the anarchist revolutionary V incites the population of Britain to don his mask and rise up against the government, because nothing captures the spirit of anarchy better than a mob of people in identical uniforms unquestioningly obeying one man.
Aunt B. is with me. She offers a guideline:
Say a Preacher is throwing a record burning or CD smashing. If, when he holds up an album by that group, you and your friends would have laughed and laughed and laughed that anyone could have thought that music was Satanic, it’s probably hard rock.
I dunno. Perhaps she should check out Demon Hunter, a Christian metalcore band. Here’s a tune. Kinda the opposite of Satanic but probably would cause convulsions in your average preacher.
Update: The outrage seems to be universal.
Looks like they may be easing their onerous restrictions since gun rights proponents are forming their own party. Sebastian has more.
or Here’s how easy it is to inadvertently break federal gun laws and not even know it
For Christmas this year, my wife got me a subscription to Guns Magazine. It’s a good mag and there’s even a column in each issue by David Codrea. In short, I enjoy the magazine so I’m not trying to be unnecessarily harsh on these guys.
In the current issue, they review the KEL-TEC PLR-16. The following picture is on page 57.
On page 58, is a similar pic with a note that says something like equipped with a surefire flashlight and forward grip, it makes a fine home defense weapon. Trouble is that ATF holds that attaching a vertical forward grip to a pistol makes the pistol an Any Other Weapon (AOW). The manufacture of an AOW (which you would do simply by putting a foreward grip on a pistol) requires payment for a $200 tax stamp and an extensive background check. It’s basically the same process as buying a machine gun or suppressor. This, per sentencing guidelines, is a pretty serious violation that could result in 10 years in jail and a $250K fine. Now, this ruling has been successfully challenged in court in South Carolina. The court ruled that: Even after being modified with grips, the pistols are still “pistols” as defined above and not “any other weapon” as defined by 26 U.S.C. section 5845(e). But that doesn’t matter because ATF as an institution has acted as though that ruling never happened and still holds that such a grip makes a pistol an AOW.
This incident shows how easy it is to run afoul of gun laws, particularly when related to AOWs, short barreled rifles and pistols. Chris has a fine write up on the classifications here.
I’m sure the author of the piece thought absolutely nothing of it. After all, the flashlight fits on the picatinny rail. Just takes tightening a bolt. It’s easy to do and no one would think that putting a light on their handgun was a big deal. But it is. I hope Guns Magazine lets its readers know that when it comes to gun laws, the enthusiast acts at his peril.
I can see it now where the ATF rules that pistols can no longer come with rails as that makes them readily convertible to AOWs.
Careful out there.
Update: In comments, Mr. Taffin notes that the weapon was fired stock. The grip was only put on during photo ops.
Update 2: People keep pointing out that registering an AOW is only $5. That is true. But making one yourself (i.e., putting a grip on it) requires a $200 tax stamp.
It’s good that the abuse of asset forfeiture is starting to make the mainstream press. Drug War Rant notes a four part series on NPR that deals with the issue.
PGP:
Couldn’t it be that some of us actually care about the affected people and think we’d all be better if certain groups could thrive instead of wither?
No. It must be because we’re racist. It has to be or someone might be forced to deal with reality.
Given that Heller is pending, the next two cities with the most onerous of gun controls will be challenged on their gun laws. Additionally, I’d expect some other lower courts to again be challenged. First up, is NYC. A challenge to the Sullivan Act, the best gun control a corrupt syphilitic with paranoid delusions could create.
Then, Chicago:
But what’s not often reported by the decidedly pro-gun-control media is that since Chicago’s anti-handgun law went into effect in 1982, only two classes of people have had ready access to firearms:
The criminals. And the politicians.
Also passed its gun controls for those nice and corrupt reasons.
* thanks to Wachel Wucas, that’s one of my new favorite terms.
In NYC, an armed guy hid out in a school. That is odd because carrying a gun in NYC is illegal (unless you’re rich and famous) and a school is a gun-free zone.
The 25 best heavy metal bands presented by someone who obviously doesn’t listen to metal.
Most of the bands on there are hard rock.
Madrocketscientist in comments at a post here:
I never knew that “Economically depressed, politically disenfranchised social subgroup” began with an N?
AC linked to my post about big boy pants. Didn’t take long for the accusations of me being RACIST!!! in comments:
This applies more to class than race, although this is a back-door attempt to scream the N-word.
And that, ladies and gentlemen (whichever one chooses to wear the pants), is why we can’t talk seriously about this issue. Thanks Mr. The C-Word for making my point.
Coincidentally, following the unspeakable class that accounts for half of murders while making up 3% of the population, is another class that follows in terms of gun violence. Poor rural white guys. So, is that my back-door attempt to scream Cracker err the C-word?
Update: Now, I’m using codewords.
Maybe it’s because I now have a gun safe cabinet, but suddenly people want to give me guns. A friend has offered to gift me a 20-gauge with a shortened stock (it was his boyhood gun, so the stock was cut down and then rebuilt with rubber padding). He also wants to permaloan me his 12-gauge.
I’ve never done person-to-person transfers of guns, and I’m wondering what kind of commonsense precautions I need to take so I don’t run afoul of the law. In NY, long guns aren’t restricted much (at least outside of NYC), so I’m not too worried. But let’s say I’m paranoid. What steps would I take?
Not today.
I guess all the anti-gun groups got the same memo. We now have Washington Cease Telling The Truth President Ralph Fascitelli stating that, well, the Heller ruling is irrelevant since anti-gunners are probably going to lose but here’s some gun controls we can still pass. Same old crap consisting of you don’t need a gun, gun show loophole, blah blah. But I found his headline odd:
Gun violence is everyone’s problem
Sorta. It is everyone’s problem. But there is predominately one socioeconomic group that comprises an overwhelming majority of both victims and perpetrators of gun violence. And, basically, until we can all put on our big boy pants and talk openly about that, there will be little impact on gun violence.
Those dastardly Republicans. How can they ban Muslims from being in their photo op. Oh, wait, that was Obama’s folks.
So, there are these stupid allegations that Barack Hawaii Five-O Obama may not have been born in America and, therefore, is not a citizen and cannot run for president. So, they asked for a birth certificate. One showed up. Allegations were it was fake since it looked like it came from Dan Rather’s HP printer. Smart people realize that, gasp!, maybe the state of Hawaii, like most places, has document retrieval technology. So, basically, no big deal. And, honestly, pretty fucking stupid if you ask me.
And a while back there was speculation that McCain being born in Panama was also excluded from running for president. This claim was equally fucking stupid.
The difference in the two is that there was actually considerable press time devoted to the fucking stupid story about John McCain. And the only mention of the fucking stupid story about Obama is on some right wing blogs.
Update: In comments, it was said that there are actually two federal cases to disqualify McCain. Interesting. I have not read about those.
Turns out, these will be deployed at the hippie quadrennial in Denver.
First Maxine Waters acts all socialist. Now, Maurice Hinchey of New York:
We (the government) should own the refineries. Then we can control how much gets out into the market.
Update: I think I found your answer.
How Paul Helmke of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Ownership likes to find some statistic about gun dealers and stolen guns then mentions Abrams and NRA in the same paragraph. To imply something, it seems.
You know, when he’s not dancing in the blood of someone’s dead child, of course.
The place where Great Britain used to be is the world’s largest arms exporter:
Britain was the world’s biggest arms seller last year, accounting for a third of global arms exports, the Government’s trade promotion organisation said.
UK Trade and Investment (UKTI) said that arms exporters had added £9.7 billion in new business last year, giving them a larger share of global arms exports than the United States.
“As demonstrated by this outstanding export performance, the UK has a first-class defence industry, with some of the world’s most technologically sophisticated companies,” Digby Jones, the Minister for Trade and Investment, said.
Unpossible! Since they tell it’s the US who’s responsible for all those guns in other parts of the world. And, ya know, 1 in 6 guns on earth is an AK and neither the US nor UK is big on exporting those.
And it’s kinda funny that the world’s largest exporter of arms is looking at banning pointy sticks, knives and clubs. ’cause those might hurt people.
Little background. Former sheriff is corrupt. Resigns because of it. County selects new sheriff. Instead of cracking down on corruption in her department, she cracks down on those few who happen to be luck enough to get concealed carry permits in Cali. The former sheriff advocated shall issue and the new sheriff seems to think his manner of giving out permits showed corruption.
You have voted for your favorite gun blogger in ParaUSA’s weekend at Blackwater event, haven’t you?
You could win a seat by voting!
Mentioned before I was creating a gun nut. He’s in process. Well, last night we went to the range at Gunny’s and put about 240 rounds of 5.56 down range. He’s going to build an AR soon, would be my guess.
When someone asks you about licensing and registration, pick up a pen and a sheet of paper. Tear the paper in half and hand half to your questioner. Say “Okay, this pen is a gun. The paper I’m holding is my license and the paper you’re holding is the registration. Using only these two pieces of paper, explain to me just how you are going to keep me from shooting someone?”
Anyone? Buller?
Oh, and by the way: Unpossible!
This was emailed to me by reader JKB:
========================================
I’ve been taking a look at this Syracuse University Clearinghouse on federal law enforcement data (http://trac.syr.edu/). I got to the clearinghouse via this post at instapundit. The ATF data is interesting. Seems the ATF enforcement is more active in rural areas than in the big cities. I looked up Philadelphia out of curiosity since it doesn’t appear on the list of low activity. I found some interesting details which I lay out below; #1 in referrals but low prosecutions, top reason for non-prosecution: No federal interest.
I hope you find this useful if you weren’t already aware of the clearinghouse. I enjoy both your blogs. Keep up the good work.
BTW, the Tennessee East (Knoxville) ATF district is an active area for ATF referrals (18th out of 90) and has a good prosecution and conviction rate with longer than average sentences.
JKB
From the summary of Regional Patterns in ATF Enforcement:
Big cities have a reputation for having more armed felons than rural areas. And the ATF, moving out of the drug and alcohol enforcement business, is now concentrating its energies on prosecuting previously convicted felons who have been discovered with weapons.
Why then, when considered in terms of the number of referrals in relation to population, are six of the nation’s “big city” districts among the least active? In FY 2002, for example, California South (San Diego), California Central (Los Angeles), Illinois North (Chicago), California North (San Francisco), Massachusetts (Boston), and the District of Columbia all fell in the bottom third of the 90 federal judicial districts in the United States in terms of this particular measure.
As for Philadelphia:
Seems Philadelphia was #1 for referrals for prosecutions (2004) (latest data available free online)
But is #2 is declinations of prosecution (2004) or 89th out of 90 in referrals actually prosecuted
| District | City | #Prosecuted | # Declined | Percent | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US | 10,238 | 6,798 | 39.9 | ||
| Mass | Boston | 95 | 555 | 85.4 | 1 |
| Penn, E. | Philadelphia | 238 | 1,340 | 84.9 | 2 |
| R.I. | Providence | 35 | 152 | 81.3 | 3 |
| Nevada | Las Vegas | 158 | 358 | 69.4 | 4 |
Interestingly, in the Pennsylvania East (Philadelphia) district, the top reason for declining to prosecute for 2003 (81.5%) and 2004 (86.4%) is “Minimal federal interest or no deterrent value”. (Note-There is a separate categories for prosecuted by other authorities, insufficient evidence, etc.)
The US Attorney for Eastern PA lists Safe Neighborhoods on top of his initiatives
Project Safe Neighborhoods is a firearms initiative that aggressively targets violent and dangerous firearms offenders in the local court systems (Philadelphia County and the surrounding suburban counties) for prosecution in the federal system. By prosecuting these cases in the federal system, the local and federal authorities hope to take advantage of a more certain and severe sentencing scheme, the pre-trial detention of federal defendants pending trial, and the swifter disposition of these cases in federal court
However, he seems to not find a federal interest to prosecute 85% of the cases the ATF referred for prosecution with 86.4% being declined due to lack of federal interest or no deterrent value. I wonder if the US Attorney had prosecuted Sergeant Liczbinski’s killers for the multitude of gun charges they had prior that fateful day if there would have been a deterrent value?
========================================
Interesting. A few notes:
So, what about enforcing the laws on the books. Why not try that first instead of clamoring with calls to do more, harder! Even though we’re not doing much with what we have, apparently.
As far as not prosecuting in the big cities, I wonder if that’s because ATF figure big cities with big PDs ought to do that on their own. It is, after all, not entirely uncommon for local PDs in small towns to generally look the other way when it comes to federal gun laws. If you don’t believe me, visit south Texas one day.
Here in Knoxville, our police are involved in Project Safe Neighborhoods. The signs are literally everywhere. I guess the prosecution rates relate to participation in that program.
I also found this bit interesting:
Are there not a fair number of armed felons in these six cities? Is it possible that these particular police departments are so proficient in the gun control business that ATF managers decided to deploy their troops in other parts of the country? Perhaps.
But the ten districts that come out on top in the listing of per capita ATF referrals raise other kinds of questions. This curious list includes Tennessee West (Memphis), Nevada (Las Vegas), Kentucky East (Lexington), Rhode Island (Providence), Louisiana Middle (Baton Rouge), Missouri West (Kansas City), Utah (Salt Lake City), Delaware (Wilmington), Oklahoma North (Tulsa) and North Dakota (Fargo).
So, no sign they’re out in South Texas either. Of course, that explains why drugs come in and guns go out.
More info here.
Interesting stuff, nonetheless.
Update: Ouch:
So if the feds aren’t using the laws to go after actual violent criminals, but are using the law to go after people like Wayne Fincher, David Olafson, and various other folks who are no threat to polite society, what use are they really in terms of public safety? What is the “federal interest” in sending hobbyists to federal prison, but not violent felons?
More ATF stuff here.
Seems the number one source of crime guns for New York is, err, New York. Unpossible! We’ve been told it’s all those dumb, cousin-humping rednecks from the south sending the guns there.
Dallas County commissioners are asking the county criminal court judges to generate more revenue from their courts or possibly lose funding for some key programs such as drug court and jail education, as well as and services for the homeless and mentally ill.
Silly me. I thought courts were supposed to mete out justice. Not bring in bling.
First, Red’s Trading Post was being investigated for errors in firearms transactions. Said investigation was, well, dubious at best and what we’ve come to expect from ATF. Now, they’ve gone and had the audacity to own land where a future city hall needs to be.
This is amusing:
City officials say the deal is legal, though they acknowledge that they had to work around state law that bars urban renewal board members from benefiting from the projects they oversee.
Because laws are for little people.
Now, I’ve not really followed nor particularly given a crap about this AP blogger con job. But it looks like they’re considering charging bloggers for content:
In the name of “defin[ing] clear standards as to how much of its articles and broadcasts bloggers and Web sites can excerpt” the Associated Press is now selling “quotation licenses” that allow bloggers, journallers, and people who forward quotations from articles to co-workers to quote their articles. The licenses start at $12.50 for quotations of 5-25 words.
Like Rusty says, they’ve gone from dismissive of blogs to concerned. But that’s not the funny part, this is:
Now, in a slightly ironic twist, the AP is taking content from a blog site. Namely, mine.
In a news item about the e-mail from Judge Kozinski’s wife that I posted on this site, an AP article lifted numerous passages.
I counted 154 words quoted from my post. That’s almost twice the number of words contained in the most extensive quotation in the Drudge Retort.
So am I going to be an ass and threaten to charge them, or sue them, or demand that they remove the quotes? Of course not. They benefited from my content and I benefited from their link.
Oops. I think $10,000 per word ought to cover it.
Squeaky tells us gunnies to listen up:
Jesse tells us that there’s a bill trying to get pushed through by a couple of Memphis Senators that would make serialization of ammunition required by January of 2009.
No worries. This is the second (maybe third) time this has come up. And it will again get killed in committee.
Barack Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom Obama has proposed, I shit you not, a Credit Card Bill of Rights. You see, children, you’re just too fucking stupid to be trusted with managing your debt. And you’re too fucking stupid to read a contract before you sign it. So big brother will be there. And it will force credit card companies to play nice and fair. Because, you know, spelling out the terms in advance isn’t fair. And, though it’s just a rumor, they may even be required to give you a puppy.
So, Al Gore waited until there was only one left and endorsed him. I mean, who could have possibly predicted that a Democrat would endorse another Democrat?
Politicians never accuse you of “greed” for wanting other people’s money — only for wanting to keep your own money.
I’ve talked before about how anti-gunners suffer some sort of belief in mysticism because they think inanimate contain evil spirits that drive otherwise ordinary folks to commit bloody rampages. Yet, they naturally (like everything else) project those feelings on gun rights folks.
Well, looks like they also like to occasionally exorcise those evil spirits.
When your only tool is a hammer, all problems look like nails:
Whenever you propose a new law, imagine what the results would be if that law was enforced by your worst enemy or the stupidest person you know.
Well, one of those two seems to be in charge now.
The last day of the party’s state convention went long and at times got nasty. In the barn-like Bonner County Fairgrounds, where politics will give way to a horse and mule expo next week, GOP delegates battled faulty microphones and disparate views in a fight for the party’s soul.
Semanko was pushed to victory largely by an eclectic group consisting of supporters of former Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul and social conservatives who want to shift the party to the right.
Remember, I do this to entertain me, not you.
Uncle Pays the Bills
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