From Kevin D. Williamson: Almost every single substantive gun-control proposal put forward by our progressive friends is oriented toward adding new restrictions and regulatory burdens to federally licensed firearms dealers and the people who do business with them: what they can sell and what they cannot sell, to whom they can sell, under what conditions they may sell, etc. But, as I often remark, gun-store customers are just about the most law-abiding demographic in the United States. The best information we have comes from the Department of Justice, which found in 2019 that less than 2 percent of all prisoners had a firearm obtained from a retail source at the time they committed their crimes. Criminals mostly don’t get their guns at gun stores — because they mostly can’t. The great majority of murders committed in the United States — upwards of 80 percent — are committed by people… Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Guns
Schools Focused on the Wrong Things
In a study of mass shootings from 2008 to 2017, the Secret Service found that “100 percent of perpetrators showed concerning behaviors, and in 77 percent of shootings, at least one person—most often a peer—knew about their plan.” — dailysignal.com 100 percent is pretty high. It doesn’t get much higher than 100 percent. It’s always seemed to me that mass shooters turn out to have been known to family, friends, co-workers, law enforcement, mental health professionals, etc., as violent and unstable, but no one took effective action to keep the person from going off the rails. For example, co-workers of the Uvalde school shooter had a nickname for him: “school shooter.” Meanwhile, here’s what the National School Boards Association (NSBA) is focusing on. Last September, the NSBA drafted a letter to President Biden calling for use of the “Army National Guard and its Military Police” to prevent parents from becoming… Read more →
Wrong Place, Wrong Time
15-Year-Old Arrested in Shooting Death of 11-Year-Old Girl — usnews.com Give the poor kid a break. He was shooting at a 13-year-old boy and missed. The girl was in the wrong place at the wrong time, that’s all. Read more →
Who is to Blame for Buffalo?
From Kevin D. Williamson: Before the blood was even dry in Buffalo, Democrats were asking the most important question: “How can we well-heeled white progressives most effectively use the murders of all these black people to our personal and political advantage?” The murderer in Buffalo didn’t kill anybody you’ve ever heard of, and so the first thing to do if you want to exploit the deaths of all these people — and that is what Democrats intend to do — is to connect the crime to some famous name or prominent institution. It doesn’t matter if there isn’t any actual connection: Just assert it, and that’s good enough for the newspapers and the cable-news cretins and the impotent rage-monkeys on Twitter. The usual suspects: social-media platforms, Tucker Carlson, Donald Trump, the Republican Party, Fox News, the National Rifle Association, etc. The shooter was actually well known in advance as a… Read more →
It’s Time to Ban Things That Are Already Banned
My 4-year-old just FaceTimed to ask what I’m doing to “help the people in Buffalo” and “why did the bad man do this?” Absolutely gutting. This cannot be his normal. It’s time to BAN ASSAULT WEAPONS. #EndGunViolence — Rep. Eric Swalwell (@RepSwalwell) May 16, 2022 “Assault weapons” are already banned in New York. New York has every gun law you could possibly want, including a “red flag” law. Do you have a more serious suggestion than “It’s time to ban things that are already banned”? BTW, the replies to this dubious tweet are hilarious. A couple examples: In the middle of enjoying her after-dinner all-natural watermelon fruit bar popsicle, my 5-year-old leaned back in her chair, looked me dead in the eye and asked, “What will we ever do to escape this inflationary spiral in which this country currently finds itself.” I’m shook AF. — Will Stafford (@WillStaffordLSU) May 17,… Read more →
Status
Sometimes when I taste the delicious acai berry, I put down my gun and give thanks to a nonexistent God.
Gunmen on Jet Skis: Another Reason I Prefer to Just Stay Home
Cancun tourists take cover as gunmen on jet skis pull up to beach in hotel zone, open fire into air — abc7.com Read more →
And That’s the Truth: Columbus Cop Saves Black Girl’s Life
[And That’s the Truth is a feature by our guest blogger, Sojourner Truth — PE] I don care how old she is, if some 200-pound female be swingin a 6-inch kitchen knife at one o’ my chillen, I hope dey’s a cop there to shoot her. People say cops need more trainin’, that the cop shoulda tasered her, or hit her with a baton or some pepper spray, or shot her in the leg or sumthin. Man you dumbfucks be watchin too much television. Maybe he shoulda shot the knife right outta her hand like Clint Eastwood. When you get on a airplane, do you tell the pilot how to fly it? Do you tell doctors how to do surgery? Do you tell mechanics how to fix a motor? Maybe we need more trainin for chillen not to be stabbin people in broad daylight. I know they’s people think it… Read more →
And That’s the Truth: The Talk
[And That’s the Truth is a feature by our guest blogger, Sojourner Truth — PE] Man I am so tired of hearing about “the talk” that black parents supposed to have with their boys. What do they talk about? “Carry guns in your car, resist arrest, get into a fight with a cop, flee the scene of a crime”? That ain’t the same talk white parents give, which is you have an encounter with a cop, you say yes sir, no sir, follow directions, be deferential. Have your day in court if it comes to that. Cop tells you to stand on your head, then stand on your fuckin head. Don’t be some “I know my rights” wiseass. Resistin arrest is a damn poor survival tactic. You dont even need a talk for that. All you got to be is a person living in America to know that. Black boys… Read more →
What is the Likely Result of Overcharging the George Floyd Case?
Active law enforcement officers, by policy, can’t have a voice in America. They’re not allowed to speak their mind. They’re not allowed to say what they’re going through because of department, anti-social media policies. It’s down to the point now where if their wives or husband likes something, they’re being questioned over that. So, I’m that voice. I don’t have the restrictions of having a department policy over me. And I have my ear to the law enforcement officers across the nation, what they’re going through amongst themselves with their supervision, with politicians, with the community. And I speak on that. And again, we get back to that false rhetoric, the narratives. There’s 800,000 police officers, sworn law enforcement officers in America. There are 300 million police community contacts a year, 30 million criminal investigation contacts, 1.7 million violent felonies. Police in 2019 shot under a thousand people and only… Read more →
See You in Hell, Violent Idiots
[See You in Hell is a feature by our guest blogger, Satan — PE] Greetings mortals! I was reading about the shootings that occurred in Atlanta last Tuesday. The author says, “Eight people were murdered. Six of them were Asian-American women. It seems impossible to feel this as anything other than anti-Asian and misogynistic violence.” Here’s a tip: Whenever someone prefaces an opinion by saying “it’s impossible to feel differently about this than the way I feel about it,” the speaker is full of shit. State your case. Hit me with some evidence. If the shooter had opened fire in a supermarket like the violent idiot in Boulder, he could have killed anyone he wanted to. Had he killed mostly Asian women, then I’d say you’ve got a good case for anti-Asian, misogynistic violence. But the guy in Atlanta shot up massage parlors. He blamed them for turning him into… Read more →
I Don’t Think I Would Be Allowed to Run a Store
The convenience store where I buy sodas in the morning has literally four signs at the entrance saying wear a face covering if you come in the store. This morning a guy comes in with no face covering and a cup. The girl at the register says to him, “You can’t come in without a face covering.” “I’m just going to get a cup of water,” he says. So there’s another problem, which is that nobody knows the provenance of that cup and he’s going to push it into a public water dispenser. “You can’t be in here without a face covering,” the girl says a little more loudly. “I said I’m just going to get a cup of water!” Which he does. When I get to the register, I say to the girl, “I don’t think I could run a store because I would pick up the gun that… Read more →
And That’s the Truth: Jacob Blake
[And That’s the Truth is a feature by our guest blogger, Sojourner Truth– PE] I seen the Jacob Blake video from two or three different angles. From what I can tell, a neighbor called police, told them Blake shouldn’t be there, he took someone’s keys and wouldn’t give em back. One officer showed up, called for another officer, they called for more officers. They tried to arrest Blake, he wasn’t gonna have it. [Editor’s Note: Mr. Blake had an active arrest warrant related to charges of third-degree sexual assault, trespassing, and disorderly conduct, in connection with domestic abuse.] They tasered him, tried to physically subdue him, he gets up, walks around his car, opens the driver-side door and leans inside. What’s he got inside the car? I don’t know but I don’t aim to find out by having him pick it up and kill me with it. I got another… Read more →
Ain’t That Peculiar?
Mayor Says Seattle Will Move to Dismantle Protest Zone, After Second Shooting in Less Than 48 Hours — TIME It’s peculiar how leftist radicals get hold of a piece of ground and all of a sudden they love guns and border walls . . . Read more →
When Is a Mass Shooting Not a Mass Shooting?
Chicago shooting: 13 people were shot at a house party honoring a man killed earlier this year — CNN.com This is a wild story . . . First of all, the shootings took place at a gathering honoring a man slain earlier this year. According to police, shots were fired within the residence, which caused everyone to start to leave. As partygoers fled the home, police believe one of them opened fire outside. Then a vehicle was driving down the street and one of the people who left the residence, not the same person who was randomly firing at people leaving the house, fired on the vehicle. So we had one person firing inside the house, one person firing at people leaving the house, and a third person firing at a vehicle driving down the street, for a grand total of 13 victims. Because no one involved can be labelled… Read more →
AR-15s and AK-47s
Here’s a phrase I’m hearing a lot of lately: “AR-15s and AK-47s.” As in “We’re going to take away your AR-15s and AK-47s.” It really doesn’t make sense to talk about those two weapons together. I’m not a gun expert but among media people reporting on gun issues and especially among politicians presuming to legislate gun issues, the level of ignorance is really appalling. The AR-15 is the most popular rifle in America. It’s a semi-automatic rifle, meaning the action will automatically cycle a new round after each shot, but the shooter must release the trigger and pull it again to fire another shot Granted, the AR-15 looks a lot scarier than older rifles favored by Buffalo Bill and George Armstrong Custer, but the principle is the same: only one round is discharged with each pull of the trigger. In fact, the AR-15 looks like an M16, the military version… Read more →
What is the Goal of Background Checks?
What is the goal of background checks? To prevent murders? The Odessa shooter, to cite one example, couldn’t pass a background check, but he got his hands on a gun anyway. If you’re trying to get a gun for the purpose of murdering one or more persons, why would you care about passing a background check? Has anyone ever said “I was planning to go on a murderous rampage but I didn’t want to do it with an illegally obtained firearm.” So for Odessa, charges would include seven deaths, 19 wounded, plus illegal possession of a firearm?! Is that a deterrent? Read more →
Praying for Protection
Texas state lawmaker calls for ‘praying for protection’ instead of gun reform in wake of mass shooting CNN Let me ask you: what is “gun reform”? Why would it be better than prayer for preventing mass shootings? Pray for protection and if you get shot, take comfort in knowing it was God’s will. Can I get an amen? Read more →
Mass Shootings, Thwarted and Unthwarted
Arresting some knucklehead on a weapons charge and saying you “thwarted a mass shooting” is a speculative fantasy. Meanwhile, since El Paso there have been 25 actual unthwarted mass shootings (per Mass Shooting Tracker), which don’t make the news because they don’t fit the preferred narrative. For example, four of the shootings occurred in Chicago, where in each case the shooters fired into a crowd of people. By my count, about half the victims were women. I can’t find any reporting on this in Mother Jones, which is pretty shocking given their obvious interest in mass shootings. They’d rather report on imaginary mass shootings by white males than on the actual mass shootings of Chicago residents . Read more →
What is a “Mass Shooting” and Who Commits Them?
The Mass Shooting Tracker defines a mass shooting as “an incident where four or more people are shot in a single shooting spree.” The FBI definition of “mass murder” is three or more people murdered in one event. The FBI doesn’t have a definition for “mass shooting.” You have to actually die for the FBI to take notice of you. As of this writing, of 75 mass shootings in 2019, where the race of the perpetrator is known, 22 were white, 39 were black, 8 were Latino, 3 were Asian, 2 were American Indian and 1 was Arab. Many of the 2019 mass shootings are currently unsolved, thus the race of the shooters is not known, but they often took place in black areas and claimed black victims. Mass shootings of black citizens is not generally considered newsworthy, possibly because media have written inner cities off as unsalvageable, so what happens… Read more →