Another flawed study

Just when you thought it was safe to walk through the front door...

Along comes the Harvard School of Public Health claiming that Household Firearms Increase Suicide Risk. Does this sound familiar? Like a retread of Kellerman? It's not that bad, but it still has a major flaw. This study found an increase in gun suicide rates in states with higher gun ownership rates. OK... Your first reaction might be "Duh... That's like saying that states with more cars have more traffic deaths." But it gets better. The study's lead author says...

“Removing all firearms from one’s home is one of the most effective and straightforward steps that household decision-makers can take to reduce the risk of suicide,” says [Matthew Miller, Assistant Professor of Health Policy and Management at HSPH].

This statement ignores the positive effects of having firearms in one's home. These positive effects are documented month after month after month in the Armed Citizen column of your favorite NRA magazine. Firearms related suicides account for ~16,000 deaths in the US annually. However, Americans use firearms upwards of 2,000,000 times each year to prevent violent crimes; saving lives. Removing firearms, as Professor Miller suggests, might save 16,000 lives, but at the cost of how many thousands more?! Since one is not "less dead" when killed by a thug, I don't see how one could call this a fair trade-off.

Registration = Confiscation: Example #406,282, 185

Call me paranoid, but this item from Indonesia makes me think that allowing the government a list of guns and gun owners is a bad idea.

"We used to give permission to civilians to possess firearms for self-defense. But as of now civilians can no longer carry firearms," [National Police chief Gen.] Sutanto said after welcoming new graduates at the Bhayangkara Police Academy in Semarang, Central Java.

That which is by permission of the government is not a "right".

The *real* reaction of the NRA to the election

As opposed to the drivel at the Huffington Post, here is the real reaction of the NRA to Tuesday night's election results...

Thursday, November 09, 2006

On November 7, 2006, the American electorate took out its frustration and anger on the Republican Party and turned over control of Congress, not to mention governors’ mansions and majorities in several state legislatures, to the Democrats. Importantly, however, on a day that saw voters expressing dissatisfaction over conduct of the war, over political corruption and over competency to govern, Americans cast their votes for record numbers of pro-gun candidates, both Democrat and Republican.

Many of the newly elected office holders pledged their support of the Second Amendment while on the campaign trail. They got elected when voters took them at their word. Those same voters, which certainly include first and foremost NRA members, will be closely watching them to make sure they walk the walk as well as talk the talk. NRA will make sure opportunities for tests of true intentions are not long in coming.

Change in Washington, D.C., will be very real. Extreme opponents of our Right to Keep and Bear Arms have been elevated to seats of power, especially in the House of Representatives, where Nancy Pelosi will become Speaker and John Conyers is set to take over the powerful Judiciary Committee. Anti-gunners will also assume the chairs of important sub-committees. The power shift is balanced in part by the fact that Second Amendment champion, and former NRA Board Member John Dingell, the longest serving member in the House, is set to regain the reins of the Energy and Commerce Committee and will be a powerful voice for gun owners rights among his colleagues. Pro-gun Democrats will also chair some very relevant committees and sub-committees.

There will be battles ahead, and, with the 2008 elections on the ever-nearing horizon, NRA members and their fellow gun owners must remain ever vigilant. We must let our representatives, both Democrat and Republican, know one thing: we expect our Second Amendment rights to be respected.

Again, thank you for all you have done this election year, and all you will continue to do in the future.

The huffing and puffing at Huffington are just that. The Brady Bunch would love to think that they had a big evening; but they really didn't. Electing Democrats might, at first glance, seem like a threat to the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, but many a Democrat respects the 2nd Amendment. Here in California, we owe a lot to liberal Democrat Rod Wright. Without Democrats like Rod and Rep. Joe Bacca, California would be a very different, very bleak place for gun owners.

We've seen this before...

Belgian authorities are doing their part to increase gun sales in that country.

In response to criminal activity, the Belgian government is debating stricter gun controls on law abiding citizens. Of course, we've seen this before. What we've also seen here in CA is increased gun sales in the run-up to any new laws! Anti-gun politicians, ever looking for new ways to reduce privately held firearms, usually get the opposite of what they intend. New gun laws here in this State usually cause a flurry of gun sales. It seems that this phenomenon is not limited to the Golden State.

The story as reported on Xinhua

Dagnabit!!

I thought that I shut that feature off...

My apologies if any off-color/off-topic comments appeared under the postings on this blog. I thought that I turned off the comments, but it got left open for Blogger.com members. A few spammers posted comments that I deleted. This is now "members only", so that should incease the SNR.

Yet another reason why gun registration is bad

Yet again, a nation of the Commonwealth serves as a living laboratory.

From the Great White North, we learn that their very, very, very, very expensive gun registry database is easy to hack. One of the geeks who worked on the computerized system has written a simple program to hack into the system. Once in, a hacker would have access to personal information on Canadian gun owners; information that includes their addresses and the types of guns they own. For a criminal, this would be the equivalent of an online shopping site.

Here in the US, and here in California in particular, we are regularly told what a wonderful thing a gun registry would be. I suppose that this depends upon the definition of "wonderful".

If it's broke, don't fix it?!

Canada's gun grabbers are fearing a conservative "take-over" up North. (Aren't these things called "take-overs" when the electorate votes for the wrong people? But I digress...) Hence, the Tories are being urged to leave Canada's firearms laws alone. Never mind that the laws aren't working as advertized. Hopefully, our neighbors to the north will be relieved of some of the regulatory burden they've suffered under. Pointless, ineffective laws have no place on the books. Trust me; I know about these things. I'm a Californian. We invented pointless gun laws.