A bit of fisking, low hanging, easy pickins from New Jersey.
There's little harm in the bill our state Assembly just passed, to expand gun buyback programs across New Jersey. It comes at no cost to the taxpayers. It would be paid for with forfeiture funds and private donations. Nothing from government comes at "no cost". It costs someone something: their rights, dignity, etc
And who knows? It may even do some good. Having fewer guns lying around could mean they won't end up in the hands of a curious child, abusive spouse or suicidal person. Having a gun at home makes it three times more likely that you'll be murdered by a family member or intimate partner, or successfully attempt suicide. Greater good argument.
But let's not kid ourselves: Gun buyback programs are not going to reduce murders in cities like Newark and Camden. Studies have found that buyback programs don't have much effect overall on either gun crime or gun-related injury rates. So, why do them?
They don't directly target the guns that are more likely to be used in violence, and in general, the guns collected haven't overlapped much with crime guns. These are old weapons that some middle-aged guy found in his basement. What criminal is going to trade in his $700 Bushmaster for $250 from the state? Those programs specifically target individuals who know nothing about guns, or who grab them in order to defy a family member, and sell them to the state. It is the crime of theft underwritten by government. See my argument that nothing the government does comes without cost.
The biggest problem with this approach, though, is that it tiptoes around the one reform that could really make a difference, but that Americans would never accept: Mandatory gun buybacks. That's what Australia did, after its own version of Newtown. Let's become like Australia!
Following a mass shooting in Tasmania that left 35 dead, Australia banned semiautomatic and automatic rifles and shotguns, and required all the newly banned weapons to be bought back by the government. This cut the number of gun-owning households by as much as half. Love it. "As much as half" which is a rhetorical device which means the statistical reduction in gun ownership may have been reduced to a statistically insignificant amount.
The mandatory buybacks were also accompanied by a uniform national system for licensing and registering firearms. Gun owners have to present a "genuine reason" to buy a weapon. A claim of self-defense isn't enough unless you have an occupational need to carry a gun. The claim you have something to print in a newspaper isn't enough. You must have a compelling argument (see: greater good) for advancing free speech. See how easy that was? Using the "greater good argument" I managed to advocate the use of the one weapon fascists would reach for once guns are taken.
We understand this is not going to happen. Neither American courts nor most of the public would support it. As a nation we remain wedded to the delusion that gun ownership stops crime. Just as the editorial writer remains wedded to the illusion that keeping and bearing arms is a public safety issue. It isn't, despite all the claims to the contrary. It is a basic right, property in an individual's possession that no other individual or government can take away no matter how much of a greater good it may serve.
But guess what? It worked in Australia. The gun homicide rate fell by 59 percent, and the suicide rate fell 65 percent. It virtually eliminated mass shootings. Bully for Australia. We do things differently in America, and that is why this land is the arsenal of democracy.
And there was no corresponding increase in homicides or suicides that didn't involve firearms. In other words, people weren't just switching to other methods of violence -- when guns weren't as easily available, they weren't acting on these impulses at all. See: Bully for Australia above.
So do all the voluntary gun buybacks you want. But until they are mandatory, and our society can see past its hysteria over "gun confiscation," don't expect it to make much difference. The only "hysteria" being generated is that which comes from near constant threats to take guns and the soothing lie that more and more restrictive gun laws don't mean confiscation. They do and they always will.
#3
These are old weapons that some middle-aged guy found in his basement.
Wellshitgoddamm, just the other week I went downstairs for the backup roll of paper towels and found an assault rifle shotgun with a high capacity tactical optic bayonet lug. Must have got in through the window well.
Criminals aren't going to trade in their trade tools; they will turn in other peoples' firearms. And set your martini down buttercup, because criminals use thug guns when hunting scrilla, no matter how much Bushmaster makes your cocktail dribble.
Nice capital M on Mandatory, really makes your ass show, but other than the excellant example of lazy parlor writing, there is no call to disarm criminals, in fact let them be them, but to disarm or criminalize those who follow the law.
And what is the right occupation? How about Guard of the Family? Put the iTingle down and step away from your boyfriends sipping coffee and come wrestle this 80lb dog of muscle who occasions our path. Citizen Patrol/First Responder? I am at 50/50 was a drug deal going on next to the school - what if that had gone bad or dipstick was short so robbed a kid. Cashier? The out of town crazy dude who forced himself into my business after hours during z-out who wanted to buy a butterfly net. In January.
I live in a great town. One week I noticed one of our then resident meth heads at nearly the same spot at the same time for the week, he would call somebody every time someone passed him on the way to work or whereever. Sure enough, stuff started getting stolen in daylight, so don't bring that capital M to my dinner table buck-o.
[DAWN] SO endemically controversial has become the ISI director general's post in recent years that if incoming DG Gen Rizwan Akhtar were to simply leave office at the end of his term with his reputation neither bolstered nor harmed, it would count as a success at this stage. Consider the deep controversy that Gen Shuja Pasha had generated by the time he retired in 2012: a one-year extension the year before, the the late Osama bin Laden ... who is now neither a strong horse nor a weak horse, but a dead horse... raid and 'memogate' are just some of the stunning lowlights, with persistent rumours of meddling in the political process dogging the latter part of his tenure. Now Gen Zaheerul Islam is set to leave office as an ongoing national political crisis he has been accused of engineering by some quarters rumbles on. So perhaps if the new director general were simply to keep a distance from politics and avoid national security crises, it would be an improvement over his predecessors.
Yet, while politics and the ISI are no strangers, the politicisation of the ISI in recent years has obscured a more fundamental challenge: getting the strategy against militancy right and helping restore internal security. In that regard, Gen Akhtar's counterterrorism experience in Bloody Karachi
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Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2014 00:00 ||
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[Family Security Matters] It is the 21st-century version of the classic question once posed by The Eagles. So who you gonna' believe: President Obama or your lyin' eyes? Whether you're dealing with a cheating spouse or an incompetent president, a moment comes when the picture sharpens. This past week provided many such moments, all centered on the widening gap between our best national security experts and the amateur in the Oval Office. An insightful article, only slighting eclipsed by yesterday's air campaign. We'll see what the Champ has to say in his media victory lap this morning.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
