If You Want Fewer Shootings, Ask Politicians To Back Off

Headlines feature grim reports of senseless violence, including the wounding of Ralph Yarl in Kansas City, Missouri, the killing of Kaylin Gillis in Hebron, New York, and shootings of Payton Washington and Heather Roth in Elgin, Texas, and of 6-year-old Kinsley White and her parents in Gaston County, North Carolina. We’ll learn more in days to come, but the incidents seem the results of irrational fear and rage.

These incidents feed the usual debates, with “reformers” promoting gun restrictions or criticizing “stand your ground” self-defense laws. But while the impulse to do something is understandable, these eruptions of violence come after decades of plummeting crime that coincided with increasing firearms ownership and eased laws. Something changed: us. Boosted by bad pandemic policies, already agitated Americans became nuttier and more prone to conflict. Politicians and laws can’t fix that.

“In an era of frequent mass shootings, Americans know all too well that tragedy lurks nearly everywhere: schools, churches, offices, grocery stores, movie theaters. But these three incidents in the span of just six days have deepened a gnawing sense that no place is truly safe,” NBC News’s Daniel Arkin reported this week. “The incidents have renewed and intensified calls for stricter gun control legislation” and “have also put scrutiny on ‘stand your ground’ self-defense laws.”

Misunderstood America

Arkin captures the horror of such incidents, but he also neatly distills misunderstandings behind our debates. Of the incidents he describes, none really invoke stand your ground laws, under which people have no duty to retreat before defending themselves in public places. Yarl and Gillis were at their shooters’ homes which, if the shootings were justified, involves the common-law castle doctrine right to defend yourself at your dwelling. Washington and Roth (and White and her parents, whose case came after Arkin’s piece) were chased by their assailants, which isn’t self-defense by any understanding. Whatever the principles, and no matter the legislation, states allowed self-defense and people purchased firearms over the course of decades during which crime declined.

“Both the FBI and [Bureau of Justice Statistics] data show dramatic declines in U.S. violent and property crime rates since the early 1990s, when crime spiked across much of the nation,” Pew Research Center noted in November 2020, less than three years ago.

If we were well-armed and had wide freedom to defend ourselves while enjoying 30 years of plummeting crime what, if anything, changed?

“In the eyes of some observers, the shootings point to a more fundamental sickness in American life: the toxic brew of paranoia, distrust and suspicion that poisons so many of our day-to-day interactions,” Arkin adds. Unfortunately, the data supports his point.

We’re Nuttier

“Nine out of 10 adults said ​they believed that there’s a mental health crisis in the US today,” CNN reported last October of a poll conducted jointly with the Kaiser Family Foundation.

“Nearly 8 in 10 psychologists (79%) said that they had seen an increase in the number of patients with anxiety disorders since the beginning of the pandemic, and 66% saw an increase in demand for treatment for depression. Nearly half (47%) said they had seen an increase in demand for substance use treatment (up from 43% last year) and 64% saw an increase in demand for trauma treatment, (compared with 62% in 2021),” the American Psychological Association reported just one month later.

It’s easy to find evidence that people have become nuttier since we first heard the term “COVID-19.” Fear of illness and death, added to forced isolation and economic disruption, made people very antsy.

Pandemic Policy Broke Us

“My colleagues and I conducted a review of all of the studies on mental health conducted during the first year of the pandemic,” social psychology Professor Gery Karantzas of Australia’s Deakin University wrote last year. “We found that overall, social restrictions doubled people’s odds of experiencing mental health symptoms… Those who experienced lockdowns were twice as likely to experience mental ill health than those who didn’t.”

“Societal and lifestyle disruptions during the COVID-19 pandemic may have triggered brain inflammation that could affect mental health,” Harvard researchers found. “Brain imaging revealed that people tested after pandemic restrictions had elevated levels of two markers of neuroinflammation—translocator protein and myoinositol—compared with those tested prior to restrictions.”

That’s not to say that we were doing great before the pandemic. America’s social and political divisions are the stuff of modern legend.

Well, Pandemic Policy Broke Us More

“Do Americans hate each other too much to find common ground?” the Los Angeles Times asked in 2017. “Large majorities of Americans say the tone and nature of political debate in the United States has become more negative in recent years,” Pew Research noted in 2019.

Two years later, Pew found that “a large majority of Americans say there are strong political and strong racial and ethnic conflicts in the U.S. and that most people disagree on basic facts.”

These conflicts came amidst collapsing trust by Americans in institutions and in each other. By this year, the Edelman Trust Barometer reported that only 30 percent of respondents would help those with whom they strongly disagreed; 20 percent would be willing to have them as coworkers or neighbors.

People have turned against one another and become more fearful. More than half tell pollsters they believe crime increased where they live. The data isn’t as ominous so far, finding “violent and property crime remained consistent between 2020 and 2021” as the FBI put it in December. But those numbers are old and at odds with headlines about senseless shootings, as well as reports of shoplifting, muggings, and businesses abandoning city centers. People act on what they see, not on aging crime statistics.

Spare Us Another Dose of Policy

Some lawmakers and activists see a nuttier and more conflicted country as requiring tighter control. But even before we grew more anxious and hostile, Americans were never prone to obey restrictive laws. New York’s registration requirement for “assault weapons” drew maybe 5 percent compliance not quite a decade ago. Today’s Americans who distrust government and each other aren’t going to submit to new dictates or put themselves at the mercy of a world they view as dangerous.

Let’s not forget that disagreements over the means of control—our political institutions—were already sources of division and conflict well before COVID-19. Tighter laws in the form of pandemic lockdowns exacerbated those tensions, made us all crazier and more hostile, and brought us to a moment dominated by headlines about senseless shootings and other crimes.

What we might need is less top-down control and fewer restrictive laws in order to reduce the points of conflict. But I doubt that improvements will come easily or quickly. It took years to break our society; we’ll be a long time making repairs.

One person dead in shooting during attempted robbery, Chattanooga

A person is dead after a shooting during an attempted robbery on Saturday night in Chattanooga, according to police.

Officers were called at 8:58 p.m. and found a person dead from apparent gunshot wounds in the 100 block of West 41st Street, a news release states.

The man who reported the shooting told police that he responded in self-defense when the shooting victim was robbing him.

An investigation is ongoing.

April 24

1183 BC – By reckoning of Eratosthenes, the chief librarian of the Library of Alexandria, Troy falls after Epeius’ Steed, the ‘Trojan Horse’, is taken into the city and 40 Greek warriors hidden inside open the city gates to let the rest of the Greek army attack.

1704 – The first regular newspaper in British Colonial America, The Boston News-Letter, is published by John Campbell.

1800 – The Library of Congress is established when President John Adams signs into law an appropriation for $5,000 to purchase “such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress”.

1885 – Phoebe Ann Moses, better known as Annie Oakley, is hired by by Nate Salsbury to be an exhibition shooter in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show

1895 – Joshua Slocum, aboard the sloop Spray, sets sail from Boston, to be the first to sail single handedly around the world.

1913 – The 60 story Woolworth Building in Manhattan, for the next 17 years  the tallest building in the world, is opened.

1915 – The arrest of 250 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Istanbul marks the beginning of the Armenian Genocide by the Turks.

1918 –  During the second Battle of Villers-Bretonneux in World War I, 3 British Mark IV tanks engage 3 German A7V tanks in the first tank vs. tank combat action.

1967 – PER ARDUA AD ASTRA  Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov dies aboard Soyuz 1, when its parachute fails to open during reentry. The first man to die during a space mission.

1980 –  During Operation Eagle Claw, an attempt to rescue the American embassy members taken hostage by Iran, 8 U.S. servicemembers and 1 Iranian national are killed, and 5 U.S. servicemembers are injured at staging point Desert One, when RH-53D Sea Stallion helicopter Bluebeard 3 collides on the ground with EC-130 Hercules aircraft Republic 4, causing a massive fire.

1990 – During shuttle mission STS-31, the Hubble Space Telescope is launched from Shuttle Discovery.

1996 – The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 Public Law No. 104-132, 110 Stat. 1214 is signed into law by President Clinton.

1997 – Eugene Stoner, designer of a direct gas operating system for firearms and used in many different models, dies, age 74, at Palm City, Florida.

2011 – WikiLeaks starts publishing the Guantanamo Bay files; documents relating to detainees at the United States Guantánamo Bay detention camp.

You gotta wonder why this was classified information. Ya know, the jihadis already know what they’re doing there and aren’t trying to hide it, so……

Afghanistan has become a terrorism staging ground again, leak reveals

Less than two years after President Biden withdrew U.S. personnel from Afghanistan, the country has become a significant coordination site for the Islamic State as the terrorist group plans attacks across Europe and Asia, and conducts “aspirational plotting” against the United States, according to a classified Pentagon assessment that portrays the threat as a growing security concern.

The attack planning, detailed in U.S. intelligence findings leaked on the Discord messaging platform and obtained by The Washington Post, reveal specific efforts to target embassies, churches, business centers and the FIFA World Cup soccer tournament, which drew more than 2 million spectators last summer in Qatar. Pentagon officials were aware in December of nine such plots coordinated by ISIS leaders in Afghanistan, and the number rose to 15 by February, says the assessment, which has not been disclosed previously.

“ISIS has been developing a cost-effective model for external operations that relies on resources from outside Afghanistan, operatives in target countries, and extensive facilitation networks,” says the assessment, which is labeled top-secret and bears the logos of several Defense Department organizations. “The model will likely enable ISIS to overcome obstacles — such as competent security services — and reduce some plot timelines, minimizing disruption opportunities.”

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April 23

1229 – During the Reconquista, King Ferdinand III of Castile conquers Cáceres, Spain.

1635 – The first public school in the United States, Boston Latin School, is founded in Boston. Salvete Discipuli.

1662 – Connecticut is chartered as an English colony

1879 – Fire burns down the second main building and dome of the University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana, results in the construction of the third main building.

1914 – The first baseball game is held at Wrigley Field in Chicago, then known as Weeghman Park, with the the Chicago Federals home team beating the Kansas City Packers 9-1.

1939 – Boston Red Sox’ left fielder Ted Williams hits his first major league home run off Philadelphia Athletics’ pitcher Bud Thomas at Fenway Park in Boston.

1940 –  A fire at the Rhythm Club dance hall in Natchez, Mississippi, kills 209 people.

1945 – Adolf Hitler’s designated successor, Hermann Göring, sends him a telegram asking permission to take over leadership of Nazi Germany

1946 – Manuel Roxas is elected as the last President of the transitional  Commonwealth of the Philippines government,

1951 – American journalist William N. Oatis is arrested for espionage by the Communist government of Czechoslovakia.

1954  – Milwaukee Braves’ right fielder, Hank Aaron hits his first major league home run off St. Louis Cardinals’ pitcher Vic Raschi at Busch Stadium in St. Louis.

1985 – Coca-Cola changes its formula and releases New Coke to vastly negative reviews. The original formula is back on the market in less than three months. There is speculation that the introduction of the new formula was actually to provide time for people to forget the taste of the original and replace the Cane Sugar used in the recipe with cheaper High Fructose Corn Syrup.

1992 – McDonald’s opens its first restaurant in Shenzhen, China.

1999 – NATO bombs the headquarters of Radio Television of Serbia. Some commentators see that as the starting point of the new ‘Clinton Doctrine’ where the rules of engagement include the political leaders, bureaucratic support structure, intellectual underpinning, and media infrastructure of an opponent as legitimate targets of war.

2005 – The first YouTube video is published by co-founder Jawed Karim.

2009 – NASA’s Swift Gamma Ray Burst Mission satellite observes Gamma ray burst (GRB) 090423, in the constellation Leo that lasts for 10 seconds, the most distant object of any kind observed in the universe with a spectroscopic redshift.

Comment(s) O’ The Day
If it contained something bad for Republicans, it would have been leaked by now. Is that cynical of me? Yeah, and also correct.

If they don’t want you to know about it, it’s because they don’t want you to think and feel the things you’d think and feel if you did know about it.

Nashville Police Deny Daily Wire’s Request For Trans Shooter’s Manifesto.

Nashville police have denied The Daily Wire‘s request for a copy of a manifesto or diary from the transgender killer who shot up a Christian school March 27, leaving six dead, including three 9-year-olds.

It has been 25 days since the shocking shooting spree, in which the killer — a woman who identified as a man and who this publication is not naming to avoid giving notoriety to shooters — carried out the massacre at the Covenant School before being gunned down by police. City Council members said shortly after the incident that there was a “manifesto” and that it would be released. But since then, state and local police have gotten “assistance” from the FBI in psychologically profiling the killer, which has been used as a reason to block release of the materials.

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After 53 [now 54] Earth Days, Society Still Hasn’t Collapsed.

Cassandra in Greek mythology was the Trojan priestess who was cursed to utter true prophecies but never to be believed. Ideological environmentalism features a cohort of reverse Cassandras: They make false prophecies that are widely believed. Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich in his 1968 classic, The Population Bomb, prophesied, “The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now.” Ehrlich continues to predict imminent overpopulation doom.

Another reverse Cassandra was Rachel Carson who warned in her 1962 Silent Spring of impending cancer epidemics sparked by humanity’s heedless use of synthetic pesticides. In fact, even as pesticide use has risen, rates of cancer incidence and mortality have been falling for 30 years.

On the occasion of the 53rd Earth Day, let’s take a look at the prophecies of another reverse Cassandra, the Club of Rome’s 1972 The Limits to Growth report by Donella Meadows, Dennis Meadows, Jorgen Randers, and William Behrens. The book and its dire forecasts were introduced to the world at a March 1972 conference at the Smithsonian Institution. Let’s focus primarily on the report’s nonrenewable resource depletion calculations. The 1973 oil crisis was widely taken as confirming the book’s dire scenarios projecting imminent nonrenewable resource depletion.

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Tesla beats Autopilot lawsuit as jury rejects crash victim’s claim.

Tesla today defeated a lawsuit that claimed its Autopilot technology caused a car crash that left the plaintiff with severe injuries.

“A California state court jury on Friday handed Tesla a sweeping win, finding that the carmaker’s Autopilot feature did not fail to perform safely in what appears to be the first trial related to a crash involving the partially automated driving software,” Reuters reported.

Justine Hsu sued Tesla in Los Angeles County Superior Court in 2020, saying Tesla’s Autopilot technology in her Model S malfunctioned and caused the car to swerve into the road’s center median so fast that she had no time to react. The lawsuit said the airbag deployed improperly during the July 2019 crash, “caus[ing] numerous breaks in Hsu’s jaw and the loss of multiple teeth.”

Hsu’s lawsuit said she had undergone three surgeries and continued to require medical treatment. “Because of the Autopilot failure, and the improper deployment of the airbags, Plaintiff Hsu suffered severe injuries, resulting in a broken jaw, broken teeth, and multiple injuries to her face, hands, and legs,” the complaint said.

Hsu sought over $3 million in damages, while Tesla argued “that Hsu used Autopilot on city streets, despite Tesla’s user manual warning against doing so,” according to Reuters. In addition to rejecting Hsu’s Autopilot claim, the jury “found that the airbag did not fail to perform safely, and that Tesla did not intentionally fail to disclose facts to her,” Reuters wrote.

Tesla is expected to face more trials over its automated-driving technology. One pending case was brought by five Texas police officers who were injured in February 2021 when a Tesla Model X in Autopilot mode crashed into police vehicles that were stopped and had their flashing lights turned on. There’s also an ongoing investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration into crashes involving Tesla cars using Autopilot.

Observation O’ The Day

 

Tennessee [Congesss]Adjourned Sine Die but Special Gun Control Session Coming

Yesterday, the Tennessee General Assembly adjourned Sine Die, and all anti-gun bills have died in committee. Despite intense pressure from Governor Lee, no “red flag” or gun confiscation bills were introduced. We want to extend our thanks to the leadership of the House and Senate for their unwavering defense of the Second Amendment and for protecting the rights of Tennesseans.

The Tennessee General Assembly did pass Senate Bill 494/House Bill 395, which was sent to the Governor’s desk for his signature. This legislation recognizes a person’s Second Amendment right, if not otherwise prohibited by law, to carry a handgun while hunting for self-defense. NRA thanks Senator John Stevens for sponsoring this piece of legislation and for his steadfast commitment to defending the Second Amendment rights of Tennesseans throughout session.

However, the fight is still ongoing. Governor Lee has stated he will call a special session to address public safety which we know from previous statements will likely include “red flag” and gun control legislation. The NRA will be there to defend the Second Amendment rights of Tennesseans. We must remain vigilant and fight against any attempts to infringe upon our constitutional rights.

HANSON V. DC: “LARGE CAPACITY” MAGAZINE BAN

I’ve only been up for a couple of hours (as I begin typing), and the news is already full of stupidity that I’ll need to address. I’ll lead off with a case challenging Washington, DC’s “large capacity” magazine ban, Hanson v. DC. The judge, one Rudolph Contreras, denied a preliminary injunction against the ban. His… reasoning is… remarkable. Or something; I’m trying to be somewhat polite.

A weapon may have some useful purposes in both civilian and military contexts, but if it is most useful in military service, it is not protected by the Second Amendment.
[…]
[Large capacity magazines] are not covered by the [2A] because they are most useful in military service.

Oddly, Contreras cites HELLER in making that point. I can’t find that argument in HELLER, which was largely about whether non- military weapons could be regulated, and how, but there is this.

It may be objected that if weapons that are most useful in military service—M–16 rifles and the like—may be banned, then the Second Amendment right is completely detached from the prefatory clause. But as we have said, the conception of the militia at the time of the Second Amendment’s ratification was the body of all citizens capable of military service, who would bring the sorts of lawful weapons that they possessed at home to militia duty. It may well be true today that a militia, to be as effective as militias in the 18th century, would require sophisticated arms that are highly unusual in society at large.

Rather the opposite of Contreras’ weasel-wording, eh? Indeed, HELLER even cites the earlier MILLER, which establishes that militarily-useful arms are protected by the Second Amendment.

In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a ‘shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length’ at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument.

Having chucked decades of SCOTUS precedent already, Contreras proceeds to demonstrate an amazing lack of judicial awareness of current events and Supreme Court decisions. Now that he’s established in his own deluded mind that standard capacity magazines are not 2A-protected, he addresses whether this particular restriction of such magazines is permissable.

WARNING: If you’re drinking, swallow before proceeding, for the protection of your screen.

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ABC News Accidently Admits AR-15s Aren’t as Dangerous as the Dems Pretend They Are

In their latest hit piece on Long Island’s GOP Rep. George Santos, ABC News let a little fact slip about the AR-15.
Santos co-sponsored a bill to name the AR-15 the “national gun of the United States.” ABC News stroked an article about voters protesters showing up at Santos’s office to protest the bill.
The ABC article states, “Research shows an AR-15-style rifle has been used to kill at least 226 people in mass shootings since 2012.”
If my calculator is accurate, that’s roughly 22.6 people per year, or 1.8 people per month, who have been killed by AR-15s in mass shootings.Let me open with this: one death is too many.

And now for my question: why do lefty jackpuddings regurgitate their avocado toast over AR-15s when so few people are killed by them?

Perspective

Let’s take a look at ways in which more Americans die every year than by AR-15s used in mass shootings:

  • Twenty-eight people are killed every year by lightning.
  • Roughly 2,167 Americans die annually from constipation.
  • On average, 951 people are killed by their lawnmowers while another 4,193 are killed by farm tractors and other agricultural equipment.
  • Murderous toasters kill 45 people per year.
  • Eleven teenagers die every day while texting and driving.
  • An estimated 40 people die every year while skateboarding.
  • Roughly 10,206 are accidentally strangled to death while they sleep, and for those who survive the night, another 10,386 will die every year falling out of bed.
  • As per the FBI, rifles of every variation — including but not limited to the scary AR-15 — killed 215 Americans in 2019. But another 1,533 were killed by knives, and 651 people were beaten to death by hands, fists, feet, etc.
  • In 2015, 5,051 people choked to death while eating.
  • Americans average 62 deaths per year by bees, wasps, and hornets.
What Have We Learned?

We’ve learned that if you want to cut down on needless deaths, you’re better off handing out prune juice than trying to purloin AR-15s, as we Americans are roughly 10 times more likely to die as Elvis did — on the toilet — than by an AR-15 in a mass shooting. We’re 50 times more likely to be beaten to death. We’re roughly 1,000 times more likely to be killed — either by accidental strangulation or falling — from our beds than by an AR-15.

BONUS LESSON: None of this info will help you in a debate against your liberal sister-in-law and her pink-haired, gender-uncertain boy?-partner freakshow because facts are useless against the bolshies who want us defenseless.

So why do the apparatchiks on the left want your A5-15? The same reason you want to keep it — it’s the best gun available to fight tyranny — either foreign or domestic. And with the terrifying number of military-aged Chinese men crossing the southern border, we might find ourselves fighting either, or both.

Home intruder shot dead in Northeast Austin

A Northeast Austin homeowner shot and killed a suspected intruder during an attempted break-in early Tuesday morning.

According to the Austin Police Department, at around 5:31 a.m., officers responded to a call in the 7600 block of Bethune Avenue, where a female resident reported a man attempting to break into her home through the door and a window. The caller then stated that the male suspect had entered the home, followed by the sound of gunshots.

Upon arrival at the scene, the APD officers and EMS medics found the male suspect dead. APD says the preliminary investigation indicates that the suspect was shot by one of the residents in self-defense.

There is no indication that the residents knew the male suspect. He was later identified as 61-year-old Samuel Wolf. While further details about other occupants of the home have not been released, the police confirmed the residence is a duplex with side A and side B.

The investigation is ongoing, and the APD is urging anyone with information to call the homicide tip line at 512-472-TIPS. No charges are expected to be filed against the resident who shot the suspect at this time.