Firearms - The US Discussion Thread

[Loachman]

Yep, that Obama wants to go around and grab everyone's guns which is proved by all the gun control legislation that has been passed under his administration, which by my last count is ZERO.

No. What the latter proves is the number of Americans who own firearms and express their wishes to their politicians and the effectiveness of the various firearms associations to which they belong.

 

[McG]

Removing guns isn't the sole answer no, but it would have an immediate and direct effect on fatalities and injuries related to murder, suicide and NDs.

No it wouldn't.  Someone intent on murder or suicide will find a means, and not necessarily with a firearm.

I have seen this element of this debate a few times here, but it is never referenced.  I understand opposing sides sides of the theoretical model:

• People intent on committing crimes of violence will find other means if guns are not available, or/but/and
• the significant stand-off and over-match of fire arms emboldens people to attempt violence they might not had they needed to close with to use knife and muscle.

I don't know what is more significant. Does anyone have relevant raw data (not yet filtered through somebody's opinion) on this? The National Post recently carried an article suggesting statistics from Australia support the idea that violence does drop and criminals do not all turn to other weapons when firearms access is restricted.  Is it true? 

‘We are not like America’: Australia has had no mass killings since gun control laws tightened 20 years ago
Austin Ramzy, Patrick Boehler, Michelle Innis
The National Post
05 Dec 2015

SYDNEY, Australia – In the continuing debate over how to stop mass killings in the United States, Australia has become a familiar touchstone.

President Barack Obama has cited the country’s gun laws as a model for the United States, calling Australia a nation “like ours.” On the campaign trail, Hillary Clinton has said the Australian approach is “worth considering.” The National Rifle Association, meanwhile, has dismissed the policies, contending that they “robbed Australians of their right to self-defence and empowered criminals” without reducing violent crime.

The oft-cited statistic in Australia is a simple one: There have been no mass killings – defined by experts there as a gunman killing five or more people besides himself – since the nation significantly tightened its gun control laws almost 20 years ago.

Mass shootings in Australia were rare anyway. But after a gunman massacred 35 people in the Tasmanian town of Port Arthur in 1996, a public outcry spurred a national consensus to severely restrict firearms. The tightened laws, which were standardized across Australia, are more stringent than those of any state in the United States, including California.

Pushed through by John Howard, the conservative prime minister at the time, the National Firearms Agreement prohibited automatic and semi-automatic assault rifles and pump shotguns, in all but unusual cases. It tightened licensing rules, established a 28-day waiting period for gun purchases, created a national gun registry, and instituted a temporary buyback program that removed more than 20 per cent of firearms from public circulation.

“It is the ready availability of weapons, particularly those that are automatic or semi-automatic, that increases the likelihood that people in a moment of madness, or malice, or hatred, will kill a lot of people,” Howard said in October, after a man opened fire on a community college campus in Oregon, killing nine.

Measuring the broad effectiveness of Australia’s gun control laws is complicated. Australians themselves continue to debate their impact, and some have sought to loosen restrictions on gun ownership.

Critics have argued that gun violence was falling in Australia before 1996 and would have continued to fall even without the gun control measures. Others have suggested that even as gun-related deaths fell, people have resorted to using other weapons to kill.

To assess these claims, scholars have examined not just mass shootings, but also all intentional deaths caused by firearms, adjusting for population growth.

Total intentional gun deaths fell by half in the decade after the 1996 restrictions were put in place, even as Australia’s population grew nearly 14 per cent. The rate of gun suicides per 100,000 people dropped 65 per cent from 1995 to 2006, and the rate of gun homicides fell 59 per cent, according to a 2010 study by Andrew Leigh of Australian National University and Christine Neill of Wilfrid Laurier University.

When the data in that study is updated to include the latest figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, as well as the numbers going back to 1968, several facts emerge.

First, the rates of intentional firearm deaths were substantially higher in the 28 years before the gun control measures were adopted in 1996 than in the 17 years after.

Second, the initial drop in firearm deaths in the decade after the 1996 restrictions were enacted appears to have levelled off. In 2013, the most recent year for which figures are available, there were 200 gun-related homicides and suicides, for a rate of 0.87 deaths per 100,000 residents. That is up slightly from the low in 2005, when 0.82 deaths per 100,000 residents were recorded, but still far below the 2.71 deaths per 100,000 residents in 1996.

The data confirms that gun deaths were already falling before the National Firearms Agreement. The rate of intentional gun deaths fell about 33 per cent from 1986 to 1996. The decline accelerated, however, under the new gun control measures, with the rate dropping about 60 per cent from 1996 to 2006.

Looking at gun-related suicides and homicides separately also shows similar trends – higher rates of both before 1996 than after, declines in the decade before 1996 but sharper declines in the decade after, and a levelling off in recent years.

Leigh and Neill found that the Australian states and territories where the most guns were removed from public circulation also experienced the largest drops in intentional gun deaths.

The data also indicates that overall homicide and suicide rates fell in the decade after 1996, meaning Australians did not respond to the gun control measures by using other weapons at higher rates.

Overall, Leigh and Neill estimate that at least 200 lives are saved annually because of Australia’s gun buyback program.

The introduction to the Australian market this year of a shotgun that allows rapid fire using a lever action rekindled debate over the restrictions, with some enthusiasts arguing that they felt cheated out of owning a gun. The government banned a version of the shotgun that holds seven rounds but approved a five-round version. There are also efforts to lower the legal age of supervised shooters in Tasmania, to 15 from 16.

Sen. David Leyonhjelm, who supports easing gun controls, said Australia resembled Britain, Canada and New Zealand, where mass shootings are infrequent.

“America is an outlier,” he said. “We are not like America.” 

http://news.nationalpost.com/news/we-are-not-like-america-australia-has-had-no-mass-killings-since-gun-control-laws-tightened-20-years-ago

 

[Colin Parkinson]

The homicide decline continued in the US and Canada at the same time.

 

[c_canuk]

Yep, that Obama wants to go around and grab everyone's guns which is proved by all the gun control legislation that has been passed under his administration, which by my last count is ZERO.  Gun rights have actually increased under the infamous gun hater.

This could be because nothing would ever make it through the current congress and senate.  Or maybe, while he personally does care much for firearms, despite pictures of him clay shooting earlier in his administration, he realizes those feelings shouldn't guide legislation.  He hasn't even signed any executive orders concerning guns, like everyone keeps fearing he will.

Note:  I realize that the president doesn't introduce legislation, but it wouldn't be hard for him to get someone else to do it for him.

You're right, since his party has been known for effortlessly passing legislation that the republicans hate because they own the house and the senate... oh, no wait that's completely wrong.

 

[Loachman]

The National Post recently carried an article suggesting statistics from Australia support the idea that violence does drop and criminals do not all turn to other weapons when firearms access is restricted.  Is it true? 
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/we-are-not-like-america-australia-has-had-no-mass-killings-since-gun-control-laws-tightened-20-years-ago

The article is rife with terms like "gun deaths". Not "deaths", but "gun deaths". There is a good reason why misleading terms like that are used. It is very easy to suggest a benefit, especially when speaking about suicides, to "gun control" when one speaks only about "gun deaths". Criminals remain completely unaffected by firearms legislation, no matter how restrictive it is, and most murders are committed by people with criminal backgrounds. People who commit suicide, however, come from all walks of life. Law-abiding people who wish to commit suicide may find it harder to acquire a firearm, so, yes, firearms-related suicide rates do drop, and it is only the firearms-related suicide rates that anti-gunners crow about. Overall suicide rates, however, are completely unaffected - expensive legislation that targets extremely law-abiding citizens yet exempts criminals merely increases sales of small lengths of rope and painkillers.

Note, from the charts that Colin P posted, that, following the very expensive Australian gun buyback of 1995, homicides actually increased slightly, and did not fall (consistently) below the 1995 level until 2003, by which time an awful lot of those honest Australians who had been forced to surrender their valuable property had simply bought new firearms that were permitted under the new legislation. I have no information regarding ownership rates that match this period, but it would be interesting to see them. Ownership rates would have initially declined following the buyback and then gradually recovered - I believe, but would have to dig for confirmation, that Australian ownership rates now exceed the pre-1995 rate. Graphed against the homicide numbers, that would show the two lines moving in opposite directions, ie a decline in ownership compared to a rise in murders, followed by a decline in murders compared to a rise in ownership. That would fit the US pattern.

There are no credible studies that show a drop in overall murders (or other categories of violent crime) that can be linked to restrictive firearms laws. None. That is why weasel-words like "gun deaths" are used in order to give false impressions of benefit. See also http://www.bizpacreview.com/2013/08/08/dems-publish-gun-grabbers-how-to-playbook-to-capitalize-on-tragedies-81203 for more on that.

http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/082113-668335-cdc-gun-violence-study-goes-against-media-narrative.htm

CDC Gun Violence Study's Findings Not What Obama Wanted

Second Amendment: The White House asked the Centers for Disease Control "to research the causes and prevention of gun violence." We're pretty sure that what the CDC found wasn't what the White House was looking for.

The Democrats, and their media allies, obsess over some shootings while ignoring many others.

Kill innocents in a school or theater in large numbers, and the media will fixate on the tragedy while Democrats wail about America's "gun culture."

Shoot a minority who's wearing a hoodie and the left twists the story into something it isn't while the media turn the shooter into a "white" man, though he, too, is a minority — and an Obama supporter with a mixed ethnic background.

It was under these raw and highly charged circumstances that President Obama asked the CDC in January to perform the study. He was surely looking to manufacture a crisis that he could take advantage of.

What that study revealed, though, does not fit in with the media-Democrat message.

"Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals," says the report, which was completed in June and ignored in the mainstream press.

The study, which was farmed out by the CDC to the Institute of Medicine and National Research Council, also revealed that while there were "about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008," the estimated number of defensive uses of guns ranges "from about 500,000 to more than 3 million per year."

Here are a few more salient points from the study:

• "Whether gun restrictions reduce firearm-related violence is an unresolved issue."

• "Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies."

• One "body of research" (Kleck and Gertz, 1995) cited by the study found "estimated annual gun use for self-defense" to be "up to 2.5 million incidents, suggesting that self-defense can be an important crime deterrent."

• "There is empirical evidence that gun turn-in programs are ineffective."

Does anyone recall this study getting extensive media coverage or the administration plugging its key findings? Of course not. It doesn't support their anti-Second Amendment, anti-gun ideology. It's therefore ignored as if it never happened at all.

More:

http://www.guns.com/2013/06/27/cdc-releases-study-on-gun-violence-with-shocking-results/

http://www.bizpacreview.com/2013/08/18/results-of-obamas-own-cdc-study-on-guns-support-other-side-81812

The one bright spot for the president was the finding that “the U.S. rate of firearm-related homicide is higher than that of any other industrialized country: 19.5 times higher than the rates in other high-income countries.”

However, these rates are horribly skewed by state and local gun laws. “If one were to exclude figures for Illinois, California, New Jersey and Washington, DC,” notes the Guardian Express, “the homicide rate in the United States would be in line with any other country.” Those are, of course, jurisdictions that have chosen to enact the country’s strictest gun laws.

The New American noted that these latest CDC findings mirror those it published in 2003, which found, “Evidence was insufficient to determine the effectiveness of any of these laws”:
— Bans on specified firearms or ammunition,
— Restrictions on firearm acquisition,
— Waiting periods for firearm acquisition,
— Firearm registration and licensing of owners, and
— Zero tolerance for firearms in schools.

 

[GAP]

Gun Control means Using Two Hands

 

[Loachman]

How creeping restrictions work, and why we resist every attempt by our opponents to establish them:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/12/16/assault-weapons-bans-wont-reduce-crime-but-will-help-lead-to-handgun-bans/

The Volokh Conspiracy|opinion

Assault weapons bans won’t reduce crime, but will help lead to handgun bans

By Eugene Volokh December 16 

From Charles Krauthammer, writing in The Post in 1996:

"The claim of the advocates that banning these 19 types of "assault weapons" will reduce the crime rate is laughable…. Dozens of other weapons, the functional equivalent of these “assault weapons,” were left off the list and are perfect substitutes for anyone bent on mayhem….

"[T]he assault weapons ban will have no significant effect either on the crime rate or on personal security. Nonetheless, it is a good idea ….

"Passing a law like the assault weapons ban is a symbolic - purely symbolic - move in [the direction of disarming the citizenry]. Its only real justification is not to reduce crime but to desensitize the public to the regulation of weapons in preparation for their ultimate confiscation.

"De-escalation begins with a change in mentality. And that change in mentality starts with the symbolic yielding of certain types of weapons. The real steps, like the banning of handguns, will never occur unless this one is taken first, and even then not for decades."

I generally like Krauthammer’s work, and though I disagree with him on the merits of trying to “disarm [the] citizenry,” I think the mechanisms he describes - relatively narrow bans “chang[ing voters’] mentality” and paving the way for broader bans - are quite plausible. (For more, see this article, and in particular pp. 1077-82.)

But in any event - as I noted yesterday when quoting something similar from the Violence Policy Center — this is just good to keep in mind if you hear people wondering why some allegedly “alarmist,” “nutty” or “paranoid” gun rights supporters worry that bans on so-called “assault weapons” are just an attempt to help promote broader bans (such as on handguns). It’s hard to view taking one’s opponents at their word as “paranoia.”

Eugene Volokh teaches free speech law, religious freedom law, church-state relations law, a First Amendment Amicus Brief Clinic, and tort law, at UCLA School of Law, where he has also often taught copyright law, criminal law, and a seminar on firearms regulation policy.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/12/15/promoting-assault-weapons-bans-will-confuse-the-public-help-strengthen-the-handgun-restriction-lobby/

The Volokh Conspiracy|opinion

Promoting assault weapons bans will confuse the public, help 'strengthen the handgun restriction lobby'

By Eugene Volokh December 15 

From the pro-gun-restriction Violence Policy Center, back in 1988, near the dawn of the "assault weapons" debate (emphasis added):

"[A]ssault weapons are quickly becoming the leading topic of America’s gun control debate and will most likely remain the leading gun control issue for the near future. Such a shift will not only damage America's gun lobby, but strengthen the handgun restriction lobby for the following reasons:

• "It will be a new topic in what has become to the press and public an "old" debate. Although handguns claim more than 20,000 lives a year, the issue of handgun restriction consistently remains a non-issue with the vast majority of legislators, the press, and public. . . . Assault weapons - just like armor-piercing bullets, machine guns, and plastic firearms - are a new topic. The weapons' menacing looks, coupled with the public's confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons - anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun - can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons. . . ."

But the Violence Policy Center also noted the political danger of proposing assault weapons bans, especially coupled with proposing handgun restrictions:

"America's handgun restriction movement has been cautious in its response to the assault weapons debate. Their reticence is understandable. By moving against a category of firearm that is not only a long gun, but difficult to define, they run the risk of appearing to prove the gun lobby right: that is, that handgun restrictions are merely the first step down the aforementioned slippery slope."

Keep these frank statements in mind if you hear people wondering why some allegedly "alarmist," "nutty," or "paranoid" gun rights supporters worry that bans on so-called "assault weapons" are just an attempt to help promote broader bans (such as on handguns).

Eugene Volokh teaches free speech law, religious freedom law, church-state relations law, a First Amendment Amicus Brief Clinic, and tort law, at UCLA School of Law, where he has also often taught copyright law, criminal law, and a seminar on firearms regulation policy.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

When looking at the stats, keep in mind the ones they wash over, there are approx. 300 million guns in the US and anywhere from 17-30 million in Canada. In 2010 the North American market including police and civilians but excluding military purchased 12 billion rds of ammunition, that for 1 year and the average has been around 9-10 billion a year for the last 7 years.

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

At 12 billion rounds for about 300 million guns, it's an average of 40 rounds per gun per year.

I can't recall going to the range for target practice and using less than forty rounds per evening. And I was definitely going more often than one evening a year and don't consider myself an "avid" shooter compared to many people I know.

So accounting for target shooters like me (and more devoted than I) and hunters, I think that there is a very large segment of the gun owning population out there who own guns (probably for their own safety purposes) but have never really taken them out or shot them. In case of "emergency", I would be a lot more leery of these owners reaction than the reaction of those of us that are some times pictured as "gun nuts" by the anti-gun lobbies.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

as anyone in the sport know there is no "average", lot's of hunters shoot perhaps 40 rds a year. My IPSC instructor goes through 40,000rd s year. I have some guns in my safe I might shoot 2-3 times a year and others twice a month.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

At 12 billion rounds for about 300 million guns, it's an average of 40 rounds per gun per year.

I can't recall going to the range for target practice and using less than forty rounds per evening. And I was definitely going more often than one evening a year and don't consider myself an "avid" shooter compared to many people I know.

So accounting for target shooters like me (and more devoted than I) and hunters, I think that there is a very large segment of the gun owning population out there who own guns (probably for their own safety purposes) but have never really taken them out or shot them. In case of "emergency", I would be a lot more leery of these owners reaction than the reaction of those of us that are some times pictured as "gun nuts" by the anti-gun lobbies.

I've seen annual C7 qualifications limited to 40 rounds\ shooter\ year.

My uncle had a 44-40 Winchester that he used for deer hunting. Every year he got his deer with one shot. That casing went back in the box. After he died, the box (of 20) held 15 empty casings and five live. Other than .22 for rabbit, etc. It was the only box of ammo in the house.

On the other hand, those that reload (a figure that's never taken into account for the amount of ammo in the public domain) can realistically turn out 500-800 rounds per hour in their garage.

For US numbers, you have to take into consideration the Feds. Homeland Security alone tendered for 1.2 billion rds of ammo just for its 70,000 agents training. However, their claim that training uses 1000-1200 rounds per agent amounts to approx 70-85 million rounds per year doesn't jive with the tender. They are stockpiling. How many other armed agencies are doing the same?

The numbers cited for ammo are taken from store\ manufacturer sales of new ammo. Millions of rounds of surplus ammo, sold by the crate, in Canada and the US is not part of the equation.

The ammo numbers are so fluid, that in all honesty, no one can accurately guesstimate how much is out there.

 

[KevinB]

For US numbers, you have to take into consideration the Feds. Homeland Security alone tendered for 1.2 billion rds of ammo just for its 70,000 agents training. However, their claim that training uses 1000-1200 rounds per agent amounts to approx 70-85 million rounds per year doesn't jive with the tender. They are stockpiling. How many other armed agencies are doing the same?

There was no stockpiling by DHS
They had open contracts for that ammo with multiple sources, and also allow other entities to buy off their contracts, and have 5 year contracts
Also while DHS annual qualification/training is 1000-1200 rds this does not include agents going to courses, agents in training pipeline, nor operational expenditures.

They did not buy 1.2 Billion rounds of ammo for a year.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

There was no stockpiling by DHS
They had open contracts for that ammo with multiple sources, and also allow other entities to buy off their contracts, and have 5 year contracts
Also while DHS annual qualification/training is 1000-1200 rds this does not include agents going to courses, agents in training pipeline, nor operational expenditures.

They did not buy 1.2 Billion rounds of ammo for a year.

Ammunition stockpiling confirmed, reasons unknown

Data and statistics from various sources clearly show that the combined purchases of bullets by the dozens of secret and not-so-secret federal agencies has more than doubled from the Bush administration to the Obama administration. As far back as August 2012, we at Whiteout Press documented that debate with the article, ‘History of DHS Ammunition Purchases’.

While DHS and its backers in the firearms community continue to site false statistics claiming both DHS and federal ammunition stockpiling and purchases are not true, it seems Homeland Security officials reversed those claims when called to testify under oath before a Congressional Committee. Last week, federal officials confirmed an Associated Press report showing that the Dept of Homeland Security was planning to purchase 1.2 billion rounds of hollow-point bullets, just for its sub-agency alone.

As detailed by Associated Press and RT News, that’s a far cry from the 70 million rounds the DHS notified the General Accounting Office of just four months ago. Not only that, the DHS official told Congress that the Department now had an army of 100,000 armed domestic soldiers. That’s 30,000 more than DHS admitted to in the same GAO documentation. When asked what DHS planned to do with all that ammunition, officials refused to say other than insist it was for training.

“They have no answer for that question,” US Rep. Timothy Huelskamp (R-KS) told media outlets after DHS Congressional testimony, “We’re going to find out.” Curious as to why domestic federal agencies are increasing ammunition purchasing at a time when our wars are over and the sequester forced mandatory spending cuts, Rep. Huelskamp provided his own suggestion to get to the truth, “I say we don’t fund them until we get an answer.” Supporters of a recent House and Senate Bill to halt federal ammunition stockpiling point out that the amount of bullets DHS is purchasing is the same number that would be needed to fight more than two full Iraq Wars all over again.

-snipped-

Full article - http://www.whiteoutpress.com/articles/2014/q2/the-facts-on-dhs-and-government-ammo-purchases/

Perhaps they ended up not purchasing, but the intent was there. There was obviously enough concern and politics involved to get Congress looking at it.

The point of my post was to say that you can't even try estimate how much ammo is really out there.

[tangent]As an aside, do the other US agencies sell their ammo off to surplus after a set amount of shelf life, like the military does?

 

[a_majoor]

One does have to wonder what all those domestic agencies are doing purchasing firearms and ammunition, when many of them don't have any connections with law enforcement, security or military operations...

For example,

the Social Security Administration (SSA) confirms that it is purchasing 174 thousand rounds of hollow point bullets to be delivered to 41 locations in major cities across the U.S.

 

[cupper]

One does have to wonder what all those domestic agencies are doing purchasing firearms and ammunition, when many of them don't have any connections with law enforcement, security or military operations...

Security is the main concern, particularly in government offices where public are served directly. The Agencies themselves may not have anything to do with law enforcement, security or military operations, but the do have interactions with people, some of whom may be pissed off for whatever reason.

 

[cupper]

Interesting turn of events in my home state. It doesn't effect me in that I don't own a firearm, so do not currently have a need for a concealed carry permit. But I'm not entirely sure which side i come down on it either. On the one hand you would expect that if you are issuing a concealed carry permit through reciprocity that the person applying would have to meet the same requirements as your state. But by revoking the reciprocity of most states, Virginia permit holders have a tricky maze of regulations to move through when traveling out of state.

Lawmakers split after Virginia revokes many out-of-state concealed carry permits

http://www.insidenova.com/headlines/lawmakers-split-after-virginia-revokes-many-out-of-state-concealed/article_c07d3854-a97c-11e5-b55d-8b093f5564e0.html

Predictably, reaction to Attorney General Mark Herring’s announcement that Virginia would no longer recognize concealed-carry permits from 25 of 30 states split along party lines Tuesday.

While local Democratic state lawmakers offered their approval, some Republicans denounced it as a politically inspired overreach.
“When you have 25 states that don’t meet Virginia’s standards [for concealed-carry permits], it just makes sense,” said Sen.-Elect Jeremy McPike, a Democrat whose 29th District includes Manassas, Manassas Park and much of Prince William County.

“This is a public safety issue. … We shouldn’t be playing to the lowest-common denominator,” McPike said.
Virginia concealed carry disqualifiers and safeguards

State Sen.-Elect Scott Surovell, a Democrat whose 36th district also covers part of Prince William, praised the announcement on his Facebook page, saying he called for a similar move two years ago.

“I took to the floor of the House to fight universal reciprocity for Virginia concealed-weapon permits for exactly this reason,” Surovell wrote. “In most other states it is MUCH easier to get a permit.”

But Republican delegates Scott Lingamfelter and Bob Marshall, whose districts also include parts of Prince William, were quick to criticize Herring for playing politics with Virginians’ safety.

Both said the move would effectively endanger Virginia concealed-carry permit holders – or subject them to criminal prosecution – because their permits are not likely to be recognized in states no longer included on Virginia’s reciprocity list.

Herring’s announcement included the news that six of the 25 states – Florida, Louisiana, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Wyoming – would likely immediately stop recognizing Virginia permits when the change goes into effect Feb. 1 because they have laws requiring mutual reciprocity.

There was no immediate word from the other 20, but Lingamfelter said their response seemed “obvious.”

Lingamfelter called Herring’s announcement “political rhetoric” aimed at “scoring points” with the liberal anti-gun lobby.
“This is an orchestrated effort to gain the approval of the anti-gun movement that spent millions of dollars in their failed effort to win the Senate of Virginia,” Lingamfelter said in a reference to Everytown for Gun Safety, a pro-gun control group that spent significant sums supporting Democrats in the tight race for control of Virginia’s upper chamber.

Lingamfelter further said Herring acted without any data to suggest that firearms violations among out-of-state permit holder are a problem.

“The question is, what are they trying to prove? What are they trying to stop?” Lingamfelter asked. “This whole effort directly affects law-abiding citizens. It doesn’t target criminals because criminals can’t get concealed-carry permits.”

Marshall said Herring’s decision is especially bad news for women traveling outside of the state.

“Women are more affected by this than men,” Marshall said. A firearm is an equalizer between a 5-foot-2-inch woman and a 6-foot-2-inch guy.”

Marshall said Republicans lawmakers were generally “annoyed” and surprised by Herring’s announcement.
“It was like a meteor across the sky,” Marshall said. “I had no indication that this was coming.”

In his announcement, Herring, a Democrat, said Virginia law stipulates that state police should not recognize concealed carry permits from states with laws that would grant permits to individuals who would be disqualified under the commonwealth’s criteria.

A months’-long investigation of state concealed-carry permit laws revealed the following states to have less stringent criteria than Virginia: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

Already, four of the 25 do not recognize Virginia’s concealed-carry permits, including Delaware, Minnesota, Washington and Wyoming, Herring’s announcement said.

Five states were determined to have laws similarly to Virginia’s, including Michigan, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia. Permit holders from those states will continue to be recognized by state police.

All concealed handgun permit holders are encouraged to review the applicable laws of Virginia and states they may visit to determine whether and how they can legally carry a concealed handgun, the statement said.

 

[a_majoor]

While the CDC finally managed to get one by, I suspect that they are not too pleased with the actual results, since they are not in line with the narrative nor their preferred "solution" of banning weapons. The other thing is the results are hardly surprising, most of us could have figured this out without spending a dime of government money. The only open question really is what sort of "intervention" is going to be advocated for, and is it going to be particularly effective?

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/25/us/cdc-gun-violence-wilmington.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fscience&action=click&contentCollection=science&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=6&pgtype=sectionfront&_r=0

When Gun Violence Felt Like a Disease, a City in Delaware Turned to the C.D.C.
By JESS BIDGOODDEC. 24, 2015

WILMINGTON, Del. — When epidemiologists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention came to this city, they were not here to track an outbreak of meningitis or study the effectiveness of a particular vaccine.

They were here to examine gun violence.

This city of about 70,000 had a 45 percent jump in shootings from 2011 to 2013, and the violence has remained stubbornly high; 25 shooting deaths have been reported this year, slightly more than last year, according to the mayor’s office.

A city councilor, Hanifa G. N. Shabazz, said the violence felt like an illness, so city and state leaders turned to the nation’s best-known disease specialists for help investigating it. “Just like any other epidemic,” Ms. Shabazz said, “we need to be quarantined, categorized by severity, infused with nutrients, healthy substance, programs, and healed.”

The study has been received here with a measure of enthusiasm and questions about what to do next. And it has caught the attention of researchers around the country, who call it a fairly rare look at gun violence by an agency that they say has been effectively limited for nearly two decades in pursuing that line of inquiry by its congressional appropriation.


U.S. & POLITICS By JONATHAN SILVERS, AINARA TIEFENTHÄLER and AXEL GERDAU 3:12

An interview with David Hemenway, director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, about the lack of research on gun violence since Congress stripped funding for it from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the mid-1990s. By JONATHAN SILVERS, AINARA TIEFENTHÄLER and AXEL GERDAU on Publish Date December 24, 2015. Watch in Times Video »

“To me, it’s a reminder of what C.D.C. can do,” said Dr. Garen Wintemute, an emergency room physician and the director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, Davis, School of Medicine. But he added: “This is one study in one city. It falls far, far short of what they can do, what they are trained to do.”

The final report, which has been submitted to the state, reached a conclusion that many here said they already knew: that there are certain patterns in the lives of many who commit gun violence.

“The majority of individuals involved in urban firearm violence are young men with substantial violence involvement preceding the more serious offense of a firearm crime,” the report said. “Our findings suggest that integrating data systems could help these individuals better receive the early, comprehensive help that they need to prevent violence involvement.”

Researchers analyzed data on 569 people charged with firearm crimes from 2009 to May 21, 2014, and looked for certain risk factors in their lives, such as whether they had been unemployed, had received help from assistance programs, had been possible victims of child abuse, or had been shot or stabbed. The idea was to show that linking such data could create a better understanding of who might need help before becoming involved in violence.

“The C.D.C.’s research helped show that its analysis can help identify persons most at risk of perpetrating or being victimized by gun violence,” Rita Landgraf, the Delaware secretary of health and social services, said in a statement. “However, the C.D.C. report is not meant to be an operational plan for reaching those individuals and turning their lives around,” Ms. Landgraf said, adding that she planned to lead a community advisory board on intervention. Local leaders are also calling for a renewed focus on intervention.

Wilmington, a city better known for chemicals and corporations than crime, is grappling with a level of violence that has brought fear even to trusted community pillars here.

“You’ve got maybe a few hundred holding the city hostage,” a county councilman, Jea P. Street, said.

Take the West Center City Early Learning Center at West Sixth and North Madison Streets, which has been in the neighborhood for decades, in a grid of brick rowhouses, churches and the odd corner store. This stretch of the neighborhood has become a gallery for shootings, and bullets pock the fence around the playground.

The children there “come back to you talking like, ‘Somebody got shot outside my school,’ ” said Sharon Tolbert, 46, a cosmetologist with four children and five grandchildren who attended the day-care center. She added, “You’re always on edge, you’re always on pins and needles.”

The center made the wrenching decision this year to move to another part of the city, even though it means taking a vital source of support out of the neighborhood. “You could not continue to allow those kids to be in danger, right in the path of bullets flying,” said LaMontz Hayman, 46, a mortgage broker who attended the day care himself and is now on its board.

Researchers like Dr. Wintemute, as well as the Obama administration, say gun violence is an issue of public health that would benefit from epidemiological study and rigorous data analysis. The agency was a key player in such research until the mid-1990s, when, after pressure from gun lobbyists, Congress stripped $2.6 million — which the agency had been spending on gun violence research — from the C.D.C.’s budget, and stipulated that none of the agency’s funding “may be used to advocate or promote gun control.”

It is not an outright prohibition, and while there has been some work done with available data, researchers and former C.D.C. officials say those measures effectively discouraged the agency from funding research specifically on gun violence and “shifted the kind of proposals that we were submitting,” said Dr. Matthew Miller, the co-director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center.

In 2013, President Obama called for new funding for agencies like the C.D.C. to study gun violence, but no appropriation was made. Officials like Nancy Pelosi, the House minority leader and a Democrat, and even Jay Dickey, the former Republican representative from Arkansas who wrote the restrictive language, say such research should be funded. But the language, and the lack of appropriations, remained in the spending bill that Congress passed last week.

Experts said the request from leaders in Wilmington seemed to have created a specific opportunity for a small group of researchers at the Epidemic Intelligence Service, the C.D.C. division that might investigate a disease outbreak or the aftermath of a disaster, to look at the causes of gun violence.

“Our investigation was not focused on the mechanism of injury,” said Courtney Lenard, a spokeswoman for the agency, “but rather on understanding opportunities to intervene on more root causes of violence such as prior exposure to violence, family disruption and limited educational attainment.”

The Wilmington research sidestepped the funding restrictions, because it was a response to a request and because “it doesn’t focus as much on the issue of guns themselves; it really focuses on these other risk factors and ways to intervene,” said. Dr. Linda Degutis, the former director of the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control at the C.D.C. She added that it was frustrating to be unable to do an extensive study on gun violence while she was there.

David Hemenway, a director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, said that could be a shortcoming of an effort to look at gun violence. “Unfortunately they feel like they can only talk about part of the problem, they can’t talk about the gun part of the problem,” Dr. Hemenway said, adding, “Looking at the supply side — how do they get these destructive weapons?” (comment: last tow paragraphs are not too subtle about wanting to seize the guns, the CDC does not get money to advocate for gun control for precisely this reason)

Questions remain about whether the focus on risk factors before a shooting amounts to profiling people who have not committed a crime, and how exactly to coordinate data, social, health and educational services that could help intervene. Still, public health experts say it is a methodically sound and instructive study, if limited.

“If there were adequate funding on firearm-related research, there would have been papers out on this a decade ago, not just in Wilmington, but in many other large cities,” Dr. Miller said.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2015/12/dean-weingarten/2015-guns-numbers/

 

[cupper]

Taking a step back for a minute, this is why the whole "No Fly List" needs to have safeguards, and a means of addressing mistakes and similar names. Now, I'm sure that he was a Habs fan had a lot to do with it, but still...

This 6-year-old Habs fan is on airline’s security watchlist

http://globalnews.ca/news/2428393/this-6-year-old-habs-fan-is-on-the-feds-terror-watchlist/

Thousands of young boys and girls, including scores from Canada, are set to converge on Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass. on New Year’s Day to watch their heroes play in the latest installment of the NHL’s Winter Classic.

Among those lucky enough to go is six-year-old Syed Adam Ahmed, alongside dad Sulemaan Ahmed from Markham, Ont.

Syed was born in Toronto, but isn’t a Leafs fan — which given the home team’s dismal performance throughout Ahmed’s young life, is perhaps understandable.

“My husband is a diehard Habs fan, so he kind of instilled that in him,” Khadija Cajee, Ahmed’s 37-year-old mother said by phone Thursday.

But the father and son, who goes by his middle name, Adam, took longer to get to the game than most did who were headed from Pearson International to Logan in Boston. That’s because Adam is on Air Canada’s security risk list, and was flagged as DHP, or Deemed-High-Profile individuals who could pose potential threats to public safety.

Both were held up at Pearson en route to the game after Adam’s name once again surfaced on Air Canada’s system as the pair checked in for their flight. How the boy got on the secretive list is a mystery.

Certainly the Ahmed family doesn’t.

“We’ve been trying to get answers from the government,” Cajee said.

From Adam’s birth, the family has faced delays when travelling by air, regardless of what carrier they fly with, Cajee said. But the family of five – Ahmed and Cajee have two daughters, age 12 and 7, as well – fear what could happen as Adam gets older.

On a 2011 family vacation to Mexico, the Ahmeds had their passports taken by Mexican officials only to have them returned half an hour later with little explanation. “They wouldn’t give us any answers – we were panicky,” Cajee said.

It was then a “very kind” Air Canada agent did something they perhaps weren’t allowed to, but did anyway: informed the Ahmeds their son had somehow landed on a watchlist.

Inquiries to Transport Canada and Public Safety Canada resulted in letters returned with vague responses. “They said basically they can’t acknowledge if there is or isn’t a list or [whether] his name is or is not on it,” Cajee said. “It’s basically a non-answer answer.”

The Ahmeds are by all accounts a quintessential Canadian family. Sulemaan Ahmed was born in Ottawa in 1974. He met Cajee when both their families moved to Nova Scotia, hers to escape Apartheid South Africa. Ahmed attended Dalhousie University in Halifax.

Fourteen years ago, the couple moved to Montreal — where Ahmed’s Canadiens loyalties were cemented — then onto Toronto to open a consulting business.

“This is kind of like a step backwards for me,” Cajee said in a phone interview from Halifax where she was visiting family as her husband and son were finally in the air making their way to the NHL’s mid-season highlight.

Before leaving, her husband tweeted out his frustrations to Air Canada: “Why is our (Canadian born) 6 year old on DHP no fly list? He must clear security each time.”

Attached to the message was a picture Ahmed took of a computer screen at the Toronto airport that shows Adam’s name with the words “high profile – DHP”.

“He is 6. ” Ahmed’s tweet said, poking a bit of fun at the situation.

An Air Canada spokesperson said the airline was reviewing the situation.

“Like all airlines we must comply with the law,” Peter Fitzpatrick, a spokesperson, said in an email. “Nonetheless, we will review this matter to determine what measures are available to facilitate future travel.”

Delays and the odd passport scare at a foreign airport are what the family confronts now. But it’s what’s to come for their son if he remains flagged on this list – one that contains verified terrorists, according to reports – that has them worried.

“I’m just afraid that as my son gets older, the security checks are going to escalate,” his mother said. “He’s going to have to deal with being in the light of suspicion for the rest of his life.”

“It’s the reason we want to get this resolved soon,” Cajee said.

A media relations spokesperson for Public Safety Canada said the department planned to comment, but has yet to send a response to Global News.

“It’s unfair,” Cajee said. “I look at it as, he’s basically being carded for being Muslim.”

CORRECTION: This story was updated on January 2nd. It originally stated that Syed Adam Ahmed was on a federal watchlist but has been corrected to note that he is on an Air Canada Deemed-High-Profile list of potential threats to public safety.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

KevinB, what are the pitfalls of this new push by Obama to increase the requirements to get a FFL? I am assuming extra costs, more recording, storage, license fees, etc?