Tag: 2a

Yesterday evil decided to visit another school, this time in Santa Fe Texas. As of this posting 10 confirmed dead with another 10 wounded and the lunatic loser of a murderer in custody. Coincidently, whether by accident or on purpose, May 18th is actually the anniversary of the worst school massacre in US history, the Bath School Massacre. On May 18th, 1927 another lunatic loser detonated explosives at an elementary school and killed 38 children, 6 adults, and himself. He also killed his wife earlier in the day. I only bring this up because it seems the current lunatic loser also had explosives, that apparently did not work, which is an odd choice of weapons for your typical school shooter. Was this an attempt to emulate and even exceed the Bath School Massacre loss of life?

But getting back on point, again the usual suspects come pouring out calling for more gun control, except this time their standard talking points don’t seem to be forthcoming. The proponents appear to be at a loss about what to call for,except the very vague “something”. Why is this? Well quite simply,this loser upended the game and did things a bit different.

This loser broke down almost every standard stereotype about a mass school shooting; chose to use a shotgun and revolver, appeared to not be your typical loner as he was on the JV football team, didn’t appear to have any family issues, no overly troubling digital footprint, etc…

It was his choice of weaponry more than anything else that has the gun control fanatics in a box. He used two weapons the vast majority of gun control proponents think are the “good guns”.  Initially it was reported he used an AR15 by some outlets, but I think that was media whores betting the odds and trying to be “first” to report the news about this event without any REAL source for this inaccurate reporting. So drawing on my post after the Marjory Stonehouse Douglas massacre, their goto talking points by and large are lost on this event.

Neither weapon, at this time, appears to qualify as an “Assault Weapon”, so calls banning those in response to this is using a tragedy to further an agenda. But leave it to the politicians and/or their lackeys to be political ghouls, some candidates are actually fund raising off the deaths of 9 young teens and a substitute teacher.

The high capacity magazine ban, well I have not heard the type of shotgun used, but it is possible it was magazine or drum fed, but that has yet to be revealed.

The gun show loophole, as in most of these shootings, the weapons appear to be legally acquired by someone else, the murderer’s father. It appears they were purchased via a NICS check as well, so this talking point doesn’t apply.

Lastly there is the “no fly/no buy” loophole, this murderer doesn’t ever appear to have been on anyone’s R.A.D.A.R. So yet again, closing this “loophole” would not have prevented this massacre.

All this has the gun control proponents painted in a corner. There is nothing specific they can call for and demonstrate it would have even had the potential to prevent this massacre, short of a change in federal law that absolutely BANS the simple possession and/or usage of a firearm below a certain age. There is a federal law close to a ban, but it has several exemptions to it, so highly unlikely it has ever been used to prosecute anyone. So these people are just vaguely calling out for “something”, or “common sense legislation” or other such vague and obfuscatory terms.

Sadly, I suspect with the Royal Nuptials and this stereotype breaking shooting, the chattering about this massacre will fade. Ten funerals will be held, hopefully none of the injured succumb to their wounds, and this murderer will spend the next 50 to 60 years of his life in a cage. which is more than he deserves to be perfectly honest.

Very few people are going to call out for what REALLY needs to be focused on, the broken young men of our society. Why are they broken? What or who is causing them to break? When are they being broken? Can we identify the broken ones early enough to glue them back together? Even sadder is if people start asking these question, no one will support answering them. It would take longer than an election cycle to get the answers and Congress is not about to try to do anything that takes longer than two years. Congress wants something they can parade around in a campaign ad or in a town hall meeting beyond simply stating “We are looking into it!!” They would rather try to placate the masses on their particular side of the argument; either calling for more gun control, or calling to enforce the laws we already have. It is such a good thing we are not relying on the 21st century Congresses to get us to the moon. I suspect dogs and/or cats would have come up with a space program before any of the modern Congresses could get around to it.

With the latest mass shooting, on cue the usual calls to action by the Democrats. They begin to whip out the golden oldies like Assault Weapons Ban, High Capacity Magazine Ban, Universal Background Checks, Gun Show Loophole, and the newest two of the bunch Terror Watchlist/No Fly List Loophole and the Bump Stock Ban. I think a thorough examination of each of these is in order to see if one or more of them might actually have an impact.

Assault Weapons Ban – To say been there, done that, got the t-shirt is entirely accurate. The federal government did have an assault weapons ban for a while, it was cheerily called the “Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act” passed in 1994 with a ten year sunset provision, meaning unlike most legislation it would expire in 10 years if not renewed. Ah if only ALL legislation was like this. Anyway, what this did was ban so called assault weapons. Now what is an assault weapon you might be wondering? Well there is no real definition for this, it is basically a made up phase. “Assault” is the action of brining harm to another and “Weapon” is any implement that can cause harm, so by definition ANYTHING can be an “assault weapon”. I like to call it the Big Scary Gun Ban, because per the original ban, it only focused mostly on cosmetic items that had very little to do with the lethality of the weapon itself. What it classified as an “assault weapon” was any rifle with a detachable magazine and any TWO of the following:

• Folding or telescoping stock
• Pistol grip
• Bayonet mount
• Flash suppressor, or threaded barrel designed to accommodate one
• Grenade launcher

Bayonet mounts and grenade launchers, oh come on. When was the last time some lunatic yelled “Fix Bayonet” and ran amok anywhere engaging people with a perfect form “Thrust Series”. And grenade launchers, yes while 37 mm ones are legal to own, they are for flares. If you want a real M433 HEDP lobbing capable 40 mike mike, you need to have the ATF all up in your business in the first place. These two were just stupid. Flash suppressors, okay anyone that has fired a weapon with a flash suppressor at night can confirm that it doesn’t suppress all that much. I suspect the political ninnies saw “suppressor” and thought James Bond silencer, no noise making bullets, in their minds. Now the last two do have a little, well very little, merit. A pistol grip can help a person maintain better control of their sight alignment but even without a pistol grip most practiced shooters can put rounds on target at pretty good distances. Lastly the collapsible stock, it is not like you are going to be able to hide the weapon that much more. Yes it makes it less clunky until you extend the stock, but a military style rifle is big and clunky no matter how you try to hide it. A collapsible stock does nothing to enhance the lethality of the weapon at all. So all in all what impact did the AWB have in curbing gun violence, well according to the most recent study by the DOJ, little if any.

Having said this, the ban’s impact on gun violence is likely to be small at best, and perhaps too small for reliable measurement. AWs were used in no more than 8% of gun crimes even before the ban. Guns with LCMs are used in up to a quarter of gun crimes, but it is not clear how often the outcomes of gun attacks depend on the ability to fire more than 10 shots (the current limit on magazine capacity) without reloading.

High Capacity Magazine Ban – First of all it is a magazine people, not a clip. I mentally, if not physically, cringe when someone uses clip. It just screams the person knows next to nothing about firearms and this will be a very aggravating debate. But getting back on topic, the study mentioned above pretty much nails this down, but let’s put some common sense into this as well. I am guessing the theory here is that if a nutjob has to reload often that potential victims will have time to get away or charge and subdue the gunman. Anyone who thinks this is kidding themselves. It takes next to no time to change out a magazine with a little practice and preparation. It would take most people longer to realize there is an actual lull in fire than it would be for a practiced gunman to load in a new magazine and chamber the next round.

Universal Background Checks – This one is a doozy because its originates from “statistics” found in a flawed study, specifically the discussion concerning Table 3.14, of how weapons were acquired. It stated 60 to 70% of all firearms were acquired from the primary market. So of course that means 30 to 40% were from the secondary market. But this has problems, as detailed here

The survey sample was relatively small — just 251 people. (The survey was done by telephone, using a random-digit-dial method, with a response rate of 50 percent.) With this sample size, the 95 percent confidence interval will be plus or minus six percentage points.

The analysis concluded that 35.7 percent of respondents indicated they did not receive the gun from a licensed firearms dealer. Rounding up gets you to 40 percent, although the survey sample is so small it could also be rounded down to 30 percent.

Moreover, when gifts, inheritances and prizes are added in, then the number shrinks to 26.4 percent. (The survey showed that nearly 23.8 percent of the people surveyed obtained their gun either as a gift or inherited it, and about half of them believed a licensed firearms dealer was the source.)

Also consider that most of this survey period was before the National Instant Check System, NICS, was even setup. This nonsense has been regurgitated as often as people claiming gum stays in your digestive tract for 7 years. So much so that even that bastion of conservatism, PolitiFact, considers it FALSE and have repeatedly called out politicians who use it.

Gun Show Loophole – This goes hand in hand with Universal Background Checks. There is this belief that gun shows are some wild and raucous affair where military weapons are exchanged without anyone checking on anything. Well nothing could be further from the truth. The overwhelming majority of tables at gun shows have FFL dealers and FFL dealers are required to run background checks on ANYONE they sell a firearm to, even if it is from their own private collection. Would someone, ANYONE, please tell me the last mass shooter, or any shooter for that matter, that acquired their weapon by “exploiting” this “loophole”.

Terror Watchlift/No Fly List – This is something relatively new that popped up in the early 2000s and really gained traction in the aftermath of the San Bernardino shooting, even though none of the shooters were on any of the lists in the first place. That bastion of conservatism, the Washington Post, has taken this one to task already. I will add one thing here, and that is Due Process. Before you can deny ANYONE a right, you have to use Due Process. 5th Amendment ring any bells? The ACLU has sued on behalf of Americans that found themselves put on these lists without any notice and not given any clear guidance on how to get off of them. Ted Kennedy, yes Sen. Ted Kennedy found himself on the “Selectee List” for additional screening because T. Kennedy had been put on the list and it took him communicating with the Director of Homeland Security to get it resolved. What chance do us plebs have of getting a similar issue resolved. It is not like we can call up this person and speak with them.

Bump Stock Ban – This is a direct result of at least twelve bump stock weapons being found in the Las Vegas shooting. I have never actually fired a weapon with a bump stock, but I have fired M16A1s, M249s, M60s, M2s, Steyr AUGs, AK47s, AK74s and a few other weapons in full auto mode and while fun, they are not very accurate. Cyclic fire is meant to just throw lead down range, generally for suppression. It is not meant to be, nor is it, very accurate. The same can be said for a bump stock. I would bet real money that the long term effects of fast food has killed more people in the last year than bump stocks have lead to the death of people since they were introduced.