Posted by
Mostly Genius – December 18, 2008
Orlando police chief’s top goal for 2009 is to take guns away from criminals
The article doesn’t explain how the police chief is going to go about accomplishing this, and I am sure the devil is in the details:
“It’s going to take a whole lot of people to help us do that,” said Demings, who pledged to work closely with the public, prosecutors and legislators for stricter gun control.
“It’s not about keeping guns out of the hands of law-abiding citizens who have every right to possess them,” she said. “Our initiative will focus on the people who are not supposed to have them.”
The most interesting bit of the article is here:
Data released Wednesday show the male murder victims and suspects share a common background of repeated arrests without imprisonment.
At least 95 percent of the victims and suspects had criminal histories. One-third of the suspects had been arrested at least 20 times. One quarter of the victims had been arrested at least 10 times. And about 40 percent of the suspects and victims had been busted for dealing drugs.
If 95% of the people getting murdered are actually criminals then taking guns away from them has a very good chance of increasing other types of crime. The sample size is pretty small here, but it would be interesting to know how many people killed by firearms (other than suicides) are in fact criminals.
Posted by
Mostly Genius – December 15, 2008
Guns, U.S. Parks: A Deadly Mix
Crime rates in the national parks are down significantly. Yet the international trade in animal organs may be pushing poaching to new heights. The National Parks Conservation Association reports poaching is partly responsible for the decline of at least 29 species of wildlife in national parks. Nineteen species — including grizzly bear, lynx and the desert tortoise — are in danger of being eradicated.
I think that people attempting to poach grizzly bears with handguns are going to be a self-correcting problem. I should ceased to be amazed by journalists who have opinions but no facts on which to base them.
Posted by
Mostly Genius – December 9, 2008
Gifts for guns
So people turn in roughly a 1000 guns and get roughly $1000 in gift cards for each one. Why is this supposed to be a good thing?
Most of the guns collected belonged to people who never used them, deputies say.
“We’re not naive enough to think that criminals will come in and give their guns,” Tellez said. But he said that because many crimes were committed with firearms stolen in home burglaries, getting guns off the street would help decrease violence.
Maybe if the city wasn’t fencing stolen property for greater than market value there wouldn’t be so much demand for stolen firearms. Creating an incentive for criminals to steal guns, use them in crimes, and then dispose of the evidence at a profit is just stupid. Instead of putting another police officer (or two) on the street they are wasting money on programs like this.
Along with the guns, deputies collected 80 pounds of ammunition and two grenades.
Grenades? Doesn’t somebody want to track down the source of those? Isn’t a hand grenade amnesty going a little bit too far?
Posted by
Mostly Genius – December 8, 2008
Guns don’t belong in national parks
Thank goodness we have the uninformed college kid opinion on this issue:
The National Rifle Association played the self-defense card as justification for lifting the firearms ban in national parks, but being safe at a park is about being smart. Putting food away properly, locking doors, closing windows and not approaching dangerous animals will make for a much safer park experience than just carrying your gun around.
It isn’t the bears that people need to worry about. It’s the rapist-murderers (who don’t care about how your food is stored) that people need to protect themselves from. Secluded areas like parks are ideal places for this sort of predators.
It is a constitutional right to carry a firearm, but there are some places where guns just don’t belong. A park is a place where a handgun is totally unnecessary. While I understand that most people with a concealed firearm permit will not use national parks as shooting galleries, the potential for damage to the indigenous wildlife population is just too great.
While I agree with the authors constitutional position, many state governments do not. “The potential for damage to the indigenous wildlife” is the same regardless of this of this law, unless we are talking about rapist-murderers: they are going to get culled.
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