Alphecca

Weekly Check on the Bias

Welcome to the January 17th edition of my look at stories and editorials in the media regarding guns and the Second Amendment. I cover much of this all week long of course and will reference a couple of those posts here.

"Shall Issue" in Delaware: Good article in Delaware Online -- and my thanks to reader Mike Y. for the pointer -- about how the state might soon join 34 other states that take discretion out of the process for law-abiding citizens to obtain a concealed carry permit:

Right now, the law requires a person to demonstrate a compelling need for such a permit and convince a Superior Court judge to issue it.

Under a proposed bill, which has not yet been introduced, the judge “shall issue” the permit if the applicant meets a defined set of requirements and no grounds are presented for denying it. The legislation would bring Delaware in line with the 34 other states that have “shall-issue” permit systems.

The proposal, which is also backed by the National Rifle Association, is expected to rekindle a debate that flared in Delaware a decade ago. At that time, stiff opposition from then-Gov. Tom Carper and the Delaware Police Chiefs Council was enough to bury the bill.

This time, the outcome may be different.

Last week, nearly 1,000 people packed the largest meeting room in Dover’s Modern Maturity Center to call for a shall-issue system in Delaware – and Gov. Ruth Ann Minner stopped by to pay her respects.

Minner did not speak at the event, which featured NRA President Sandra Froman and the organization’s chief Capitol Hill lobbyist, Christopher Cox.

But the governor was praised for her work as a legislator in helping amend the Delaware Constitution to guarantee citizens “the right to keep and bear arms for the defense of self, family, home and State,” and for her stance on other firearms-related bills as governor.

“She is a very, very good friend of gun owners,” Thompson told the crowd.

In an interview, Thompson said Minner has “indicated to us that she’s supportive of our efforts. She hasn’t promised to sign it; we haven’t asked her to promise to sign it.”

Through a spokeswoman, Minner said she agrees the law should be changed but would not comment further without seeing the actual legislation.

[...]

The shall-issue movement got its start in Florida, which enacted its statute in 1987 amid dire predictions that simple disputes would escalate into shootouts if more people were carrying guns.

Those predictions fell far short of the mark. Since 1987, more than 1.1 million concealed-carry licenses have been issued in Florida, according to that state’s Division of Licensing.

From 1987 through the end of 2005, only 157 licenses – .01 percent – were revoked due to criminal misuse of a firearm.

In addition, in the five years that followed enactment of the shall-issue statute, Florida’s homicide rate fell 23 percent while the rate for the United States overall rose 9 percent.

Since then -- and can it be a coincidence that many more states have enacted laws that permit concealed carry -- overall homicide rates in the U.S. have fallen.

I actually found this a good, positive article by J.L. Miller and I had to laugh at one point. The person he quotes as being against the proposed idea of "shall issue" is someone who couldn't own a gun anyway:

Johnson, pastor of Wilmington’s Joshua Harvest Church, has been on the wrong side of the gun issue. He couldn’t get a concealed-carry permit if he wanted one – nor can he even legally possess a firearm.

In 1978 he stole a handgun, shot a man and served time for manslaughter, and in 2002 he was sentenced to six months of home confinement for illegally possessing a firearm. He knowingly allowed a gun to remain in the guest bedroom of his home after his father left it behind, and that was enough to put him afoul of federal law.

Johnson said he not only opposes the proposed legislation, but favors “any standard that makes it more difficult for even law-abiding citizens” to obtain handguns.

Anyway, sounds like gun owners have some good friends in high places in that state. I know nothing about Governor Ann Miner or Representative Nancy Wagner but it looks as if they will support such a bill. Excellent.

Not so across the ocean where yesterday I posted about the plight of English shooters -- and we're talking about competition pistol shooters, such as will be in attendence at the London Olympics -- who cannot even practice their sport in their own country. From a United Press International story:

British lawmakers are being urged to ease a ban on handguns so Britain`s champion shooters can train for the Olympics.

Competitors currently must travel to Switzerland, where their guns are kept locked in an armory at a shooting range in Zurich, the Times of London reported.

The ban was imposed after the 1996 massacre of 16 children and a teacher at Dunblane Primary School in Scotland by a gun collector.

A dispensation for handguns was granted during the Manchester Commonwealth Games in 2002, but the rules were so strict that some international teams lodged complaints, and are now asking for better conditions for the London Olympics in 2012, the newspaper said.

Shooters were escorted from Heathrow Airport under armed guard and their guns were taken in an armored vehicle to the national shooting center. Spectators had to watch events behind screens and shooters were guarded by armed officers.

Pretty straight forward. It does seem like a rather ridiculous amount of security and imposition for the contenders whom, we presume, are not members of warring street gangs in London. Well, in a column today in The Guardian, Richard Williams writes:

Britain's pistol shooters are up in arms over the law that prevents them from practising their sport in their home country. There are about a hundred of them, and their weapons are kept under lock and key at a shooting gallery in Zurich, which is where they have to go when they want to keep their eye in. They claim that by obstructing what they consider to be their right to fire at targets closer to home, and thereby restricting their scope to improve and maintain their skills, the government is damaging Britain's chances of medals at the Olympic and Commonwealth Games.

Funny that neutral Switzerland should be the place where people are allowed to exercise their skill in a sport involving lethal weapons. It was the Swiss who, following the deaths of 80 spectators at Le Mans in 1955, suspended all forms of motorsport within their borders, a ban still in effect more than half a century later. But it is all right, apparently, to bang away with handguns in the land of the cuckoo clock.

[...]

Most bans have unintended consequences and this one is no exception. The pistol-shooters believe that it is unreasonable to turn them into collateral victims of a law aimed at an entirely different type of person. But the law is not aimed at them; it is aimed at their weapons.

Unlike shotguns and rifles, pistols have no application outside personal violence - either the commission of violence or, in the hands of policemen and members of the armed forces, the prevention of it. If you live in the country and you want to shoot game or vermin, a handgun will not be your weapon of choice. You will need something with a stock, for stability, and a long barrel, for accuracy. A pistol is fashioned for swift use at close quarters and for ease of concealment: for use, in fact, against another human being.

[...]

...But there is nothing, it seems to me, to prevent the pistol-shooters from transferring their attention and their skills to long-barrelled weapons, thus satisfying the requirements of a perfectly sensible law while indulging their own enjoyment of firing bullets at targets. They might even be encouraged by the statistics, which suggest that, while the use of handguns has given Britain no significant competitive success over the past 20 years, plenty of Olympic medals have been brought home by those - including Malcolm Cooper and Richard Faulds - who prefer the rifle or the shotgun.

Granted, this is an editorial column but notice first his slam at Switzerland by suggesting with innuendo that they are -- cuckoo? -- to allow competitive shooters to practice in their country? I would suggest to Williams that the Swiss give far greater latitude to their citizens in owning firearms for any purpose than England does and yet Switzerland has little gun crime. In fact, aside from one lone horrific shooting in their government house several years ago, armed crime there is almost unknown. In England, armed criminals are running rampant and violent crime is out of control. So who's the cuckoo, Richard?

Then he states that handguns have no use except for violent confrontation. But the whole point -- I'm guessing -- is that we are talking about law-abiding competitive pistol shooters, not criminals or law enforcement, who want to practice their sport. Obviously there IS another use for pistols. There must be since it's an Olympic sport! And since target shooting by all sorts of firearms is one the the five most popular sports around the world.

But Williams won't have any of it. He says that British target pistol shooters should stop whining and switch to long guns. To Hell with the 100 or so participants trying out for a place on England's team. Don't grant them an exemption from the handgun ban in the country listed as having the second highest level of violent crime in the developed world.

Richard? Your clock needs cleaning.

This past Sunday I mentioned that several new gun control laws were working their way through the NY legislature. They've passed the NY Assembly now and will head towards the Senate. David Henderson is an outdoors sports columnist for The Press & Sun-Bulletin but I'm not in agreement with him regarding his take on the bills:

The Assembly caused quite a furor among paranoid gun owners last week when it passed nine bills concerning firearms.

When the text of the bills is read, most would have marginal effect on the majority of hunters or target shooters who legally own their firearms. Our local Assembly persons, Donna Lupardo and Cliff Crouch, voted together on all but one while Gary Finch was excused that day.

The bill that drew the loudest outcry was A02466A, which amends the definition of the long-banned assault rifle. It passed the Assembly by an 87-47 vote with both Lupardo and Crouch voting against it. The text of the bill could make Remington's and Mossberg's new thumbhole-stocked autoloading shotguns and Benelli's SteadyGrip autoloaders illegal, as well as an autoloading rimfire rifle like a Ruger 10-22 target model when fitted with a muzzle break.

More furor came from the passage (87-47 again) of A04471, which outlaws the possession of .50-caliber weapons and provides for the state to purchase them from anyone who now legally owns one. Lupardo and Crouch both opposed this one, too. The bill's text specifically refers to rifles, exempting shotguns (most gauges are larger than .50 caliber) and muzzleloading rifles.

The outcry was loud against A02833, which would outlaw armor piercing ammunition. Sportsmen oppose it since most common hunting rifle ammo might be included since it will pierce body armor. The bill, which passed 99-35 with Lupardo and Crouch voting against it, specifically denotes pistol and revolver ammunition only. Gray area would be hunting handguns like Thompson Center Contenders and Encores that handle rifle ammunition.

Lupardo and Crouch also opposed A09280, which calls for stricter in-store storage of firearms and requires gun dealers to have $1 million in liability insurance. The Assembly passed the measure 89-45. A02302, which would ban the sale of firearms unless they were fitted with a childproof (average 5-year-old) locking device passed 91-44 with both Lupardo and Crouch voting against it.

[...]

The only bill on which the local legislators split, Lupardo voting for and Crouch against, was A00673, which specified legal parameters of private gun storage. The Assembly passed that one,104-32.

I'm sorry, "paranoid gun owners?" Henderson gives a laundry list of bills that passed that would make many shotguns and even a simple Ruger 10/22 if fitted with a muzzle brake -- one of the most popular rifles in the country -- illegal. And NY gun owners don't have a right to be paranoid?

I was ready to give Henderson the benefit of the doubt, that maybe he thought that NY gun owners should be paranoid. But the second paragraph of his column, where in essence he says, "Well, most hunters and target shooters won't be affected" kind of scrapped any doubt that he doesn't consider these bills to be bad. To hell with many popular ammo's used in both pistols and long guns for target practice or for hunting. So what, who needs .50 caliber rifles? So what if all firearms sold must include child-proof locking mechanisms? So what if homeowners will now be told exactly how they must store their firearms, thereby rendering them useless in an emergency...

Is this guy serious? Doesn't he see that as more and more gun control laws are passed by NY State, that the number of legal firearms and ammos available to the law-abiding hunter or sportsman keeps shrinking and that left unchecked, one day there won't be any? Paranoia is indeed called for!

Contrast that with -- albeit on another subject -- the remarks by columnist David Dirks, also an outdoors writer, From the Times Herald-Record (NY)

The headline was another clear indication that when it comes to guns, politics rules over reality. This time, the politics came from Canada. The headline in a CNN news item read: "Canada Blames U.S. for Gun Violence."

"It's a sign that the lack of gun laws in the U.S. is allowing guns to flood across the border that are literally being used to kill people in the streets of Toronto," said Toronto Mayor David Miller.

I might point out to Miller that the U.S. does, in fact, have many restrictions on handguns and guns at-large. He also must not realize that it's almost impossible to restrict the illegal flow of guns if the bad guys find that they can sell them to a ready market and law enforcement can't stop them.

[...]

Critical to the whole issue, as always, is the actual execution of the gun laws. We have enough laws on the books; the issue is enforcement.

John Thompson, with the Canadian-based Mackenzie Institute, noted specifically that Canada has a gang problem.

"It's a cop-out. It's an easy way of looking at one symptom rather than addressing the whole disease," Thompson said.

Once again, focusing more on restricting the flow of guns, especially handguns, from the criminal element in any country is the issue. It's a tough proposition only because if the criminal element feels the risk of prosecution is small in relation to the flow of cash, then they will do whatever to sell guns illegally.

As always, it's the few with criminal intent that the politicians use to justify their punishment of the majority of law-abiding citizens.

Dirks' thinking is correct. Illegal guns would not be smuggled to Canada if there wasn't a criminal element waiting to purchase them. Start enforcing the gun laws. Quit punishing the majority of law-abiding citizens for the crimes of criminals.

So NY politicians blame the gun and keep enacting more and more gun control and that's alright with David Henderson if it doesn't directly effect him.

So Canada blames US guns and David Dirks says wait a minute, don't punish the law-abiding. Enforce existing laws.

I know which columnist I'd take more seriously.

The Virginia Senate just rejected a bill designed to close the supposed "gun show loophole". From WTOP:

For the fourth year in a row, legislators on Monday rejected a bill requiring private sellers at gun shows to conduct criminal background checks on buyers.

Current law requires only federally licensed dealers to conduct background checks. Sen. Henry Marsh, D-Richmond, proposed toughening the law to make it harder for criminals to buy weapons at gun shows.

The Senate Courts of Justice Committee voted 9-4 to kill the bill after hearing from several gun-rights supporters who said it would be unduly burdensome and would do little to stop crime.

Firearms industry lobbyist Tom Evans said most private sales at gun shows involve old shotguns, hunting rifles and military rifles - which are not typically used by criminals.

"Rarely do you see a pistol," Evans said.

But Jim Sollo of Virginians Against Handgun Violence said the guns used in the Columbine High School massacre were purchased at a gun show by a young woman who gave them to the killers. "Colorado subsequently closed the gun show loophole," Sollo said.

Marsh said the bill would do nothing to impede most private sales, which do not take place at gun shows. A private seller at a gun show could easily meet the bill's requirement by getting a licensed dealer at the show to conduct the background check.

One curious note: Senator Marsh admits that the bill wouldn't affect most private sales "which do not take place at gun shows." Well okay then, why bother passing the bill?

I tried to find the text of the bill (or even the bill's #) and couldn't from the official Virginia legislative website but in examining other bills like it from other states, the one thing I've noticed is that most of them have rather loose definitions of what constitutes a "gun show" and could include a few friends meeting at the range or even sitting around someone's living room. And there in lies my problem with bills such as these: Almost anywhere that a couple enthusiasts meet, it becomes a gun show and requires an official background check if someone sells or trades a firearm to a friend.

I am not, per se, against a bill that would narrowly define a gun show as a huge place with more than, say, 10 FFL gun dealers. Then, if someone actually has a table with guns spread out on it for sale, I could see requireing that person -- FFL or not -- to run NICS checks on purchasers with the aid of either state cops or another FFL. It's complicated and if anyone has further information on what the Virginia bill actually said, please enlighten us in the comments.

The Washington Post. Yes indeed, my post yesterday about the Washington Post coming out in favor of a nationwide handgun ban certainly attracted a lot of attention and some superb comments (well, go read them!) and I won't repeat it all here. It's the post just previous to this. I do want to add one thing though. The editorial quotes a column by Jenny Price that says, in part:

Of the 12,000 guns used to kill people every year, 160 are used in legitimate self-defense. Guns in the home are used seven times more often for murder than for self-defense...

I commented on Ms Price last month, noting that I have no idea where her statistic comes from but we DO know annecdotally that guns are used -- and rarely fired -- for self-defense hundreds of thousands of times every year here in the U.S.. Some statistics put that figure in the millions but let's use the low-ball estimates and say it was only 800,000 times a year. That being the case and using Price's own "160" as the number of times people kill others in self-defense, THEN that actually makes the case FOR keeping a gun in the home or with you! It means that just the possession of and "showing" of guns by law-abiding citizens to the bad guys are stopping hundreds of thousands of crimes every year with almost no loss of life. Jenny Price has made the argument for us: Guns save lives -- albeit those of mutants.

Two home invaders almost did lose their lives. From the North Carolina Herald-Sun:

About 3:40 a.m., Whitted Sr. was sleeping in the bedroom at the far end of the home when he woke up to a loud noise. "It sounded like a bomb went off," he recounted Monday afternoon.

Two men in their early 20s had kicked in the door of the mobile home and burst inside, he said. They came in firing their guns, Whitted Sr. said. One shot hit his wife, who was in the living room at the time, and another hit his daughter, who came running out of her room to see what was happening.

The two men came down the hallway toward Whitted's bedroom and began trying to push the door in, he said. "I tried to push the door shut, and I got my hand on my gun," Whitted said.

Whitted kept a loaded .22-caliber rifle that holds 16 bullets behind his bedroom door. Just about the time he got hold of the rifle, he heard his son yelling from the other end of the mobile home that he was calling 911, Whitted said.

When the two intruders heard that, they turned and headed back down the hallway toward his son's bedroom, Whitted said. When they did, Whitted said he stepped into the hallway and fired shots at the two men, hitting both of them in the back.

One sustained wounds to his head and back, and the other was hit once in the shoulder, said Greg Strowd, an investigator with the Orange County Sheriff's Office.

After they were shot, the two men ran out the door of the mobile home and fell off the back step onto the ground between the mobile home and an old house that stands just behind it.

The men were later captured when they sought treatment at the local hospital. Police say that no charges will be filed against Whitted.

There, I always try to end on a high-note. Anyway, naturally I'll be doing this live on Cam Edwards' NRA News later today and as always, thanks so much for stopping by.

Posted by Jeff Soyer at January 17, 2006 11:01 AM