Ninth Stage

You need not wonder why.

Kellerman’s numbers may have changed, but so have his terms.

The original (and debunked) quote was, “a gun owner is 43 times more likely to kill a family member than an intruder.” The new and improved quote is, “guns kept in the home were 12 times more likely to be involved in the death or injury of a member of the household than in the killing or wounding of a bad guy in self-defense.” This statistic is from a new study that is likely as “selective” as the original, debunked, study.

So, in the first Kellerman gives the (debunked) numbers for deaths v deaths. The new numbers are for death or injury v death or injury.

Also, who says that “bad guy’s” are never family members? Seems to me that those closest know better than strangers know who needs killin’.

The best thing to say to Arthur Kellermann is, “There’s no time left for you.”

HT SUncle.

So, those who think the Supreme Court got it 180 degrees wrong, I guess the following would finally guarantee the people a right to arms:

A well regulated people, being necessary to the security of a Police State, the right of the government to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Right?  If not, you were lying about your views on the Second Amendment and Heller.  If yes, youknow you’re being unserious.

In Cowboy Blob’s caption/photoshop contest this week.  Oops!  Way to go self, ya probably jinxed it.

Its as if many of today’s politicians read Atlas Shrugged when they were young and decided to dedicate their lives to becoming the villains.

- madmax

It’s worse than I’d hoped (pdf) but better than I’d feared.

Meanwhile, Radly Balko pees in the party pool.

UPDATE: Then Radly Balko faults the NRA for not pushing Heller from the start while saying, at the link above, “I’m having a hard time getting too excited about today’s decision.”

No to Lisbon Treaty, no to EU bureaucrats!

Via Dodgeblogium.

I hope, for the artist’s sake, that he has an FFL.  And ran a NICS on his buyers.  And observed CA’s 10 day waiting period before transferring his blinged up rifles.

Among the most accurate descriptions of a weapon I’ve read in the media in a long time.

Pendleton said several shots were fired from a semi-automatic AK-47-type . . .

And then they blow it completely.

. . . assault rifle inside the house and several more were fired on the outside.

Folks, folks, folks.  Semi-automatic rifles are not assault rifles.  Assault rifles are capable of select fire (more than one shot per pull of the trigger) operation and are highly regulated in the United States.

Found here.

I had always thought that great civilizations went out with a bang or at least with barbarian hordes providing a convenient delineation between civilization and post. While Britain is going down under a horde alright, the horde is not barbarian, at least not in the common sense. And it isn’t a foreign culture that is overwhelming Britain, that’s saved (staged?) for a second wave.

The chronicler of this slide from civilization is the pseudonymous Barry Beelzebub. He documents the petty so called crime-fighting that plagues the nation while the whole mess slides down the rails into barbarism. What he calls the “Turkey Army”, government employees, plaguing the average subject.

The latest crime wave seems to be occurring at the trash bins, not of society but literal trash bins awaiting collection by the trash man.

Step up to the stocks if you will, Desert Rat veteran Lenny Woodward. Now Lenny didn’t stab anyone to death or keep his children in a cellar for 30 years, but in the view of the Powers That Be, his crime is no less serious.

You see Woodward committed the heinous offence of “Putting an Empty Tomato Sauce Bottle in the Wrong Bin”, contrary to the Recycle Or Be Shot Act 2008. There is no excuse: Woodward had been issued with the full complement of blue wheelie bin for cans and cardboard, a green box for glass and a black bin for other waste. Regardless of this, he blithely threw the ketchup bottle into the blue bin when – as eny fule nos – they should have gone into the green box.

Now I don’t want to hear that Woodward is 95 years old and therefore possibly confused, or even that he is almost blind and could hardly read the council’s orders; indeed, if he’d read the “yellow card” the binmen left him and publicly apologised on his knees on the steps of Norwich Town Hall, he wouldn’t have subsequently received the “red card” that denied him any further collections.

And

The 73-year-old [Barry Freezer of Norwich] (and why is it always our older people –war veterans and the like – who seem to be victimised by the town hall numpties?) apparently transgressed a rule which states that food which may have come into contact with meat can’t be mixed with composting waste to prevent outbreaks of diseases such as foot and mouth.

But in Barry’s case, the cabbage stalks hadn’t even been anywhere near the kitchen. They were dug up from his vegetable garden and went straight into the bin without even a nodding acquaintance with half a pound of mince.

The actions of the binmen are interesting here. Upon discovering the illegal cabbage stalks, they attached an immediate ‘red card’ to Barry’s bin, instead of the usual warning system of two yellows (no, I’m not making this up) and refused point blank to empty his bin. It should be pointed out that Barry already pays £35 a year just to have his green bin emptied although, as he says, he could burn the whole lot on a bonfire while shouting “bugger the environment”, but chooses not to.

The law which Barry apparently fell foul of is the Animal By-Products Order, imposed by the Department of Food and Rural Affairs following, in turn, a European Parliament directive which is part of an overall master plan to make all of us pay for every ounce of rubbish that we produce.

And

Not a week passes without another series of aberrations: this week’s horrors included the council in Plymouth forcing families to nominate an adult member of their family who could be fined and given a criminal record in the event of any bin-related malpractice; the stunned pensioners of Skipton being told that they had to lift the heavy internal containers out of their wheelie bins themselves “to spare the binmens’ backs”; and the case of arch criminal single mother Zoe Watmough of Bolton, who was fined £265 for putting her bins out a few hours too early.

. . .

Sixteen-year-old Max Twizell was attending a charity event in Newcastle city centre when the pink, helium-filled balloon he was carrying escaped his grasp and floated away. This prompted a litter warden to pounce and present him with a £50 fine for littering.

. . .

Stephen Savage, director of regulatory services and public protection at the council (and there’s a Turkey Army job if ever I’ve heard one) is predictably pathetic: “To some people this may seem harsh but we believe that to create a cleaner, safer city we must send out a clear message that this will not be tolerated.”

Now you know why the government in Britain has banned virtually all means of self protection - to protect itself from outraged citizens. Still, I think, a few judicious (or extra for that matter) might set the clock back a few years.

for President.

“But we cannot, and will not, abandon the values of our most valuable and precious republican base. I speak of course of the NRA. <clunk clank-clunk chunk zip-chunk>”

Via Kevin Baker.

Patrick Lockyer, a British born retiree living in Jacksonville, asserts, two times,

Fort Myers is more dangerous than London you idiots. Brits call violent crime ‘purse snatching’. Totally different planet and species reading your stuff. Jax had 150 shootings just a last year.

Ignoring the name calling, we have the assertion that Fort Meyers, Florida, is more dangerous than London, UK; British violent crime is mostly “purse snatching”; and an implication that Jacksonville is more violent than London.

I found 2006 crime data for Fort Meyers and Jacksonville easily and quickly. Turns out that Fort Meyers suffers violent crime at almost three times (ouch!) the U.S. rate and Jax’s rate is about 50% over. Our Paddy O’Lockyer seems to have hedged his bets by picking a city known to locals to be particularly violent – makes him seem not too sure of his assertion.

On to London. It was harder to find data and it turns out, the London Metropolitan Police report crime by fiscal year. I’m using F.Y. 2006/2007 because it reports FEWER violent crimes than 2005/2006, and I don’t want to be accused of cherry picking the data.

In short, ambiguously ex-pat-Pat McLockyer is Dead Wrong. Here are the violent crime rated per 100 thousand inhabitants of:

USA Average: 553.5
Jacksonville: 837.2
Fort Meyers: 1577.1
London: 1717.1
And - Ratio of Violent Crimes per (purse?) snatch: 12.8 9.5 to 1
(Chart for London below the fold.)

So, as he’s batting 3 for nothing, we can dismiss Patrick Lockyer as an opinionated blowhard.

UPDATE: Sebastian finds an error. I should not have counted common assault in calculating London’s crime rate. I’ve corrected it above with the new rate of 1717.1 per 100k instead of an erroneous 2319.6.

Continue reading ‘Jax-Brit-Ex-Pat-Pat’

There are basically two types of crimes. One is the type where you take something from someone else. The other type is a thought crime, usually starting with the thought: I’m a free man why would it be prohibited?

MORE thought (less crime) on the subject.

You have to be pretty smart to dismiss a point by point refutation of your argument with a simple “nu-uhh”. I guess just about as smart as an M.D.

Via Uncle.

Obecalp,

Obecalp,

When your sick

Your pocket it scalps.

God helps those who help themselves. Government helps the rest, who don’t.

- Anonymous

So, I guess my Tennessee concealed carry permit is now recognized there too.

UPDATE: The NPR link used to quote the governer as saying, “We’re just trying to respect the laws of other states and other governments,” (just as I heard on the radio). It has since changed as you can see from this google result page (clickety for biggity):

John Webber, now 70, used to use a brass mug given him by his grandfather as a target for practice with his air-gun. Turns out it’s not brass, but gold, and dates back to 400 B.C.

The Persian mug is expected to sell, at auction, for around a million bucks.

If Kevin can do this with a brand new rifle, why couldn’t Lon Horiuchi hit what he was aiming for with his business rifle?  Oh wait, he did.

that Clayton Cramer does not win the primary against incumbent Corder. I wish it were otherwise and it may be that the morning light surprises me. I hope so.

Ever wonder why the self selected political class in the western world wants you disarmed, even from knives? It’s so when they tell you to spread your cheeks, the only possible answer can be how wide?

Every adult should be forced(*) to use a ‘carbon ration card’ when they pay for petrol, airline tickets or household energy, MPs say.

The influential Environmental Audit Committee says a personal carbon trading scheme is the best and fairest way of cutting Britain’s CO2 emissions without penalising the poor.

Under the scheme, everyone would be given an annual carbon allowance to use when buying oil, gas, electricity and flights.

. . .

MPs, led by Tory Tim Yeo, say the scheme could be more effective at cutting greenhouse gas emissions than green taxes.

Of course, MPs like Tim Yeo would be exempt from this, at least while flying in “public service” and trips to the Dacha. In a just world, assholes like Tim Yeo would have a nation’s worth of Guy Fawkes masks shoved up his ass at the mere suggestion of such an elitist scheme.

* Forced - at the point of the F^*King gun of the dot.gov.