Alphecca

Weekly Check on the Bias

Welcome to the December 20th edition of my Weekly Check on the Bias against guns and the Second Amendment. Before I begin, I'd like to define a term I use around here a lot, namely "Mutants". Many of the best bloggers have their own names for the evil people who choose a criminal lifestyle and prey on law-abiding folks. For instance, Kim du Toit calls them Goblins and they surely are. I adopted the term mutant to signify that these creatures have defective, mutant brains that allow them to terrorize us. There is something wrong with their wiring if they are willing to rob, rape, assault, and murder normal folks.

When I first started Alphecca, I even used an analogy of mutants and home terrorism here and in other posts that week in November, 2002. I used the example of the movie Them!

There is a point to this brief sidelight so hang in there (and besides, it's my blog and I can do what I want...)

You and I are under siege from mutants who want what we have but refuse to work for it. We are also under threat of mindless beings who think nothing of killing us for whatever random reason pops into their insane, mutant brains. They are waiting for us and it's not just in some dark alley on the "bad side of town" but rather right outside our doors.

The Second Amendment gives us the right to defend ourselves, or at least the means to try to. Some sick localities have stripped that right away from us, such as the District of Columbia and Chicago. And now, the trash tyrants San Francisco Board of Supervisors are proposing to do the same to their subjects. They have decided that ordinary law-abiding people should no longer be allowed to own handguns. Many bloggers (much better than me) have already discussed this, as I have (just scroll on down...) but today I'll look at some of the bias that newspapers have shown on -- at least implicitly in their writings -- the subject. It's not all bad. And since many of you only follow the subject here, I'll also review and summerize what has been going on...

Let's start with the original AP report:

City residents will vote next year on a proposed weapons ban that would deny handguns to everyone except law enforcement officers, members of the military and security guards.

If passed next November, residents would have 90 days to give up firearms they keep in their homes or businesses. The proposal was immediately dismissed as illegal by a gun owners group.

The measure — submitted Tuesday to the Department of Elections by some city supervisors — would also prohibit the sale, manufacturing or distribution of handguns, and the transfer of gun licenses, according to Bill Barnes, an aide to Supervisor Chris Daly.

Firearms would be allowed only for police officers, security guards, members of the military, and anyone else "actually employed and engaged in protecting and preserving property or life within the scope of his or her employment," according to the measure.

Barnes said Wednesday the initiative is a response to the rising homicide rate and other social ills, noting: "We think there is a wide benefit to limiting the number of guns in the city."

In actuality, this AP report by journalist Lisa Leff was more than fair to our side and actually presented MORE comments by opponents of the bill then were for it. She even gets in what I call a stinger at the end with:

The city's voters have frequently championed liberal causes. In the last election, a nonbinding ballot measure to condemn the war in Iraq and immediately pull out U.S. troops immediately passed with ease.

I suspect that even she finds the measure dubious as she includes quotes from spokesmen for both the Gun Owners of California and the NRA. She also points out that California doesn't register guns which implies that enforcing the ban would be difficult. The caveat is that if you don't turn in your firearm and then have to use it to defend yourself, you'll probably be charged with possession... The importance of Leff's story is that most news sources in California (well, actually everywhere) simply published her story. Proof of this can be seen by a simple search.

The normally liberal SF Chronicle was also skeptical as this article shows:

By allowing some people to have handguns and not others, opponents say, the law would create a new class of people. And any requirement of permission to own handguns amounts to a license -- which, according to state law, cities are not permitted to require.

It was just this issue that torpedoed the last effort by San Francisco officials to ban handguns, in 1982, Barnes said. The drive was led by Dianne Feinstein, who became mayor after Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone were shot to death in City Hall. This time around, Barnes said, the law was written to avoid any city participation in licensing or registration of guns, and he doesn't consider it to be creating a new class of people, as foes of the measure claim.

The reporter than writes:

Supervisor-elect Ross Mirkarimi, who himself owns two handguns because of his job as an investigator in the district attorney's office, said he supported the ordinance.

"How many more Michael Moore films does it take to tell us that the Second Amendment is absolutely archaic, and other nations do it better than we do?" said Mirkarimi, who plans to donate or sell his own guns. "We should absolutely go forward with it despite the constitutional challenges."

However, he said, the legislation largely would be symbolic without enforcement.

What hypocrisy! Mirkarimi owns two handguns because he feels that as an "investigator" he is more under threat than a pizza delivery driver or a homeowner in a push-in robbery-laden district. Yeah sure, he'll donate his guns...

The real falsehood of the measure is shown by the following:

"You have to keep guns away from kids," said Alioto-Pier, the mother of young children. "We're not taking away people's constitutional rights. This is about ensuring the safety of people who live here."

Oh, honey, you ARE taking away "people's constitutional rights" and if you don't allow them to protect themselves, you are doing everything BUT "ensuring" their safety! And if this proposed ban is such a good idea and will rid the city of guns, then why are you making exceptions for security guards, military, and cops? If this bogus law will make San Francisco "gun free" then why does anyone need one?

Now how's THIS for logic:

Supporters of a ban say it would curb gun violence in the city by reducing the number of weapons available. Bill Barnes, spokesman for the campaign, said many guns used in crimes were purchased legally -- and later stolen.

Well if that's the case, then why not ban ANYTHING that is attractive to thieves and other mutants, such as jewelry, stereos and DVD players, cash?

I'm not done reporting the good news! (Huh?) Yes, this report is usually dedicated to chronicling anti-gun bias but this time I think the fools in San Francisco underestimated the scorn their ballot measure would generate. As Jennifer Freeman of Liberty Belles editorializes in the Sierra Times:

San Francisco City Supervisors sent out a beacon this week alerting criminals all over the world that by January 2006 the people of San Francisco will, undoubetdly, have voluntarily disarmed themselves making the city an easy target for violent crime...

Here's a quote from the Mercury News (CA):

Barnes said the initiative is a response to San Francisco's skyrocketing homicide rate, as well as other social ills. There have been 86 murders in the city so far this year compared to 70 in all of 2003.

"The hope is twofold, that officers will have an opportunity to interact with folks and if they have a handgun, that will be reason enough to confiscate it," he said. "Second, we know that for even law-abiding folks who own guns, the rates of suicide and mortality are substantially higher. So while just perceived to be a crime thing, we think there is a wide benefit to limiting the number of guns in the city."

The proposal was immediately dismissed as illegal, however, by Gun Owners of California, a Sacramento-based lobbying group. Sam Paredes, the group's executive director, said the state has for years had a "pre-emption law" on the books that bars local governments from usurping the state's authority to regulate firearms.

"The amazing thing is they are going to turn San Francisco into ground zero for every criminal who wants to profit at their chosen profession," Paredes said. "People are going to be assaulted, people are going to be robbed, people are going to be pushed around by thugs and the police are going to be powerless to do anything about it."

Barnes makes it sound like another feeble attempt by liberals at social-engineering. GOC director has it right.

National Public Radio was a little more supportive of the measure. On All Things Considered on Saturday, they featured a report by KALW journalist Kristin Wiederholt (listen here) which starts out with statistics on rising homicide and firearm deaths in SF and then switches to the sounds of young women and children in the background as she interviews a girl from the "Center For Young Women's Developement" in the city. The story points out that blacks and latinos are hardist hit by crime ["World ends, women and minorities hardist hit"] and that the girl has been to 8 or 9 funerals during the past year. I was tempted to say that perhaps she was hanging with the wrong crowd but never mind.

Despite the obvious bias, at least Leff did include a lengthy quote by Sam Paredes (GOC) as well. But then it concludes with another woman stating that this ballot measure was "an early holiday gift". Being politically correct, she would never utter the word "Christmas"...

As I mentioned last week, the Las Vegas Review-Journal heaped on scorn for the measure:

The only major American city that prohibits private citizens from owning guns is Washington, D.C. -- and we all know our nation's capital has a reputation for being a pastoral, crime-free paradise.

And now the deep thinkers in San Francisco hope to follow suit.

As I said last week, gun bans have NEVER WORKED. Period. Many bloggers besides myself have commented on this proposal including FreedomSight (also here) and Publicola as well as Hell in a Handbasket and Eric Scheie. Also Eugene Volokh. And plenty of others!

That was the sudden and big news of the past week. And at this point, I'll leave media bias and turn to the underpinnings of constitutional theory.

This bill from the supervisors of San Francisco would also violate the Second Amendment. Many have long argued that if all the other Bill of Rights clauses are singular-person specific, that is that they apply to the ordinary citizen rather than to some "collective state right" then so too must the right to bear arms. Glenn Reynolds has written extensively about it and his scholarship on the subject is evident here:

Thus, say Standard Model writers, the Second Amendment protects the same sort of individual right that other parts of the Bill of Rights provide. To hold otherwise, these writers argue, is to do violence to the Bill of Rights since, if one "right of the people" could be held not to apply to individuals, then so could others.[21] Furthermore, as William Van Alstyne notes, the "right" to which the Second Amendment refers is clearly the right "of the people, to keep and bear arms."[22] Thus, whatever the meaning of the (p.467)Amendment's reference to a "well-regulated militia," that reference does not modify the right recognized by the Amendment.[23]

This textual argument is also supported by reference to history. Standard Model scholars muster substantial evidence that the Framers intended the Second Amendment to protect an individual right to arms.[24] The first piece of evidence for this proposition is that such a right was protected by the English Bill of Rights of 1689.[25] As such, it became one of the "Rights of Englishmen" around which the American Revolutionaries initially rallied.[26] Standard Model scholars also stress that the right to keep and bear arms was seen as serving two purposes. First, it allowed individuals to defend themselves from outlaws of all kinds--not only ordinary criminals, but also soldiers and government officials who exceeded their authority, for in the legal and philosophical framework of the time no distinction was made between the two.[27] Just as importantly, the presence of an armed populace was seen as a check on government tyranny and on the power of a standing army. With the citizenry armed, imposing tyranny would be far more difficult than it would be with the citizenry defenseless.

Even Lawrence Tribe admits that the Second Amendment is an individual right and in The Bill of Rights, Original Meaning and Current Understanding (1991, University Press of Virginia), Stephen P. Halbrook writes about the history of the inclusion of the right to bear arms and says:

The objection to including what some believed could be construed as a limitation on the right to keep and bear arms explains why, nine years later, the U.S. Senate rejected a proposal to add "for the common defense" at the end of what became the Second Amendment. However, the framers of the Massachusetts declaration never intended a narrow construction. In fact, it was drafted by John Adams, who had defended the rigtht to carry arms for self-defense and, in his study of American state constitutions, wrote that "arms in the hands of citizens [may] be used at individual discretion...in private self-defense.
[...]
...No amount of history rewriting will ever convince the simplest citizen who can read that he is not one of "the people" whose right to keep and bear arms is secured by the Second Amendment.

I point all this out because the Department of Justice has just released a report affirming that the Second Amendment DOES secure an individual right:

For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that the Second Amendment secures an individual right to keep and to bear arms. Current case law leaves open and unsettled the question of whose right is secured by the Amendment. Although we do not address the scope of the right, our examination of the original meaning of the Amendment provides extensive reasons to conclude that the Second Amendment secures an individual right, and no persuasive basis for either the collective-right or quasi-collective-right views. The text of the Amendment's operative clause, setting out a "right of the people to keep and bear Arms," is clear and is reinforced by the Constitution's structure. The Amendment's prefatory clause, properly understood, is fully consistent with this interpretation. The broader history of the Anglo-American right of individuals to have and use arms, from England's Revolution of 1688-1689 to the ratification of the Second Amendment a hundred years later, leads to the same conclusion. Finally, the first hundred years of interpretations of the Amendment, and especially the commentaries and case law in the pre-Civil War period closest to the Amendment's ratification, confirm what the text and history of the Second Amendment require.

Needless to say, this was dramatically under-reported by MSM (Main Stream Media) and I'm sure some of the die-hard liberal bloggers are already postulating conspiracy theories about how this is all an agenda by President Bush and John Ashcroft.

Heading back now to the final story of the past week, the National Research Council released a report stating that much more, and better data was needed before drawing any conclusions about gun control laws and their effectiveness. They also stated that right-to-carry laws data is inconclusive as to whether it deters crime. Here's a quote:

Many Americans keep firearms to defend themselves against criminals, but research devoted to understanding the defensive and deterrent effects of guns has resulted in mixed and sometimes widely divergent findings, the report says. In addition, the accuracy of responses in gun-use surveys is a topic that has not been thoroughly investigated. The committee called for systematic research to define what is being measured in studies of defensive and deterrent effects of guns, to reduce reporting errors in national gun-use surveys, and to explore ways that different data sets may be linked to answer complex questions.

Likewise, new research tools are needed to evaluate right-to-carry laws. Existing studies that use similar methods and data yield very dissimilar findings. Some studies indicate that the laws reduce violent crime. Other studies show negligible effects, while still others suggest that they increase violent crime. It is impossible to draw any strong conclusions about their effects from these studies, the report says.

It's rather simply stated, they just don't know and they can't "draw any strong conclusions".

That didn't stop Fox Butterfield -- unbiased reporter for the New York Times (yes, that's sarcasm...) -- from reporting:

The report was particularly skeptical of research claiming that homicide rates fall in states that pass laws permitting its citizens to carry concealed weapons. "The committee found no credible evidence that the passage of right-to-carry laws decreases violent crime," it said.

Butterfingers goes on to dispute John R. Lott, Jr's scholarship with:

Thirty-four states now have such laws, some of them based on research by John R. Lott Jr., a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Mr. Lott has written that allowing people to carry concealed weapons does reduce violent crime, but his findings have been disputed by many other researchers.

John Lott said in an op-ed from three years ago:

Take the new National Academy of Sciences panel set to study firearms research. The panel, meeting for the first time this week was started during the last days of the Clinton administration. Its report is scheduled to be released right before the 2004 elections.

The project scope set out by the Clinton people was carefully planned to examine only the negative side of guns. Rather than compare how firearms facilitate both harm and self-defense, the panel was asked only to examine "firearm violence" or how "firearms may become embedded in [a] community." It is difficult to come up with a positive spin on terms like "embedded."

President Clinton could never bring himself to mention that guns can be used for self-defense, so it is not surprising that the project scope never mentions defensive use. But there are academic studies showing that people use guns defensively 2 million times a year. Failing to consider this makes it difficult to see how any panel could seriously "evaluate various prevention, intervention and control strategies." What if a new law disarms law-abiding citizens rather than criminals? Might that not increase crime?

Moreover, while not everyone on the committee has taken a public stand on firearms, roughly half the members are known for supporting gun control. One member, Benjamin R. Civiletti, attorney general in the Carter administration, has said, "The nation can no longer afford to let the gun lobby's distortion of the Constitution cripple every reasonable attempt to implement an effective national policy toward guns and crime." Another, Richard Rosenfeld, a criminologist at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, wrote that despite there not being any research showing that the Brady Act had reduced crime, opposition to the act rests on emotions that are "immune to scientific assessment."

Also, it is odd that the panel is accepting supplemental funding only from private foundations, such as the Joyce Foundation, that have exclusively supported gun control in the past.

So how well does this panel represent the academic spectrum on this issue? Pretty poorly. Two years ago, 294 academics from universities such as Harvard, Stanford, UCLA, the University of Chicago and Northwestern signed an open letter on gun control asking that Congress "before enacting yet more new laws ... investigate whether many of the existing laws may have contributed to the problems we currently face." These academics concluded that "new legislation is ill-advised." Yet not a single one of them was included on the National Academy of Sciences panel.

But Butterball takes the report as gospel and slants it further his way. To his credit though, he does quote the NRA and also says:

But it also questioned some favorite findings by advocates of gun control. It said, for example, that there was not enough evidence to conclude, as gun control advocates say, that owning a gun increases the risk of a gun injury.

In addition, the report cast doubt on the effectiveness of some law enforcement programs to reduce gun violence that have been widely praised, like a Boston gun project in the 1990's that focused on juvenile gun possession, and Project Exile in Richmond, which gave stiffer federal sentences to criminals arrested in possession of a gun.

These programs seem to have reduced gun violence, but they were confined to a single city and there is not enough evidence that they could be replicated nationally, the report said.

"My sense is that people on both sides of the debate won't like the report," said Jens Ludwig, an associate professor of public policy at Georgetown University. "The main thrust of it is, we don't know anything about anything, and more research is needed."

The report was commissioned by the National Institute of Justice, a branch of the Justice Department; the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; the Joyce Foundation; the Annie E. Casey Foundation; and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

So there is no conclusion according to what some consider a respectable research organization. Well, if no past results can be shown, why are cities such as San Francisco so anxious to enact further controls on firearm ownership? Why would they limit their subjects' freedoms and discard the Bill of Rights? (That is, as long as it regards the 2nd Amendment, God forbid -- oops, can't say God -- that anyone wanted to infringe on the 1st Amendment...)

As blogger Say Uncle concludes:

...there is no correlation between gun laws and crime, which makes gun control rather pointless. Yet, as the anti-gun CDC has done in the past, they conclude they need more information. They need more information so that they can get the result that they want.

Exactly.

Update: Stuart Benjamin has a round-up of sources throwing some of John Lott's data into serious question. This would be a blow to all of us who have relied on it, if it is true. That, however, doesn't mean his reasons for questioning the objectivity of the NRC report are not valid but unfortunately, it casts a pall over everything he's written. The report still states that it can't reach any conclusion as to whether concealed-carry or gun ownership helps or hurts crime.

I guess I better get this post up now since it's almost noon. I'll be doing my weekly gig on the Cam Edwards Show which you can hear every day from 2-5 PM (ET) and I'm on at about 2:20 each Tuesday. The show is great so tune in or surf in. More info is on my right sidebar. Also, it's Christmas -- oops, can't say that either... -- and if you like what I do here, and this report does take some time to put together, please consider a small donation to help me keep going. See the "Hit Me To Tip Me" link on the sidebar.

Thanks for stopping by!

Posted by Jeff Soyer at December 20, 2004 11:18 AM