Idiots

[JimC]

Nearly 200,000 guns were reported lost or stolen last year, according to federal data. (2012)

More were not reported. So in 10 years, the idiots allow evil doers to steal 2 million guns. Enough to keep them going.

Er, not all stolen guns are used to commit crimes and not all lost guns are recovered by someone with malicious intent, so your example is fallacious, as usual.

It doesn't have to be "all" for the point to be valid, simply a significant number...

[Seth]

Most gun uses (defense or other use by non criminal) are in the escalating argument/aggression/idiot type of situations. Running off would lead to fewer deaths.

“Guns are used to threaten and intimidate far more often than they are used in self-defense. Most self-reported self-defense gun uses may well be illegal and against the interests of society.”

The surveys also found that when someone uses a gun in self defense, it is often part of an escalating hostile interaction — one in which both participants are likely to be responsible for the event that initially prompted the DGU. One male respondent who reported a defensive gun use described an incident as follows: “I was watching a movie and he interrupted me. I yelled at him that I was going to shoot him and he ran to his car.” Another respondent pulled out a gun to resolve a conflict with his neighbor: “I was on my porch and this man threw a beer in my face so I got my gun.”

It is not at all clear that cases such as these are in the public interest — let alone constitute legitimate defensive gun use. After all, these incidents are substantially different from a situation in which a victim is taken by surprise, such as during a street mugging.

In his new NCVS study, Hemenway also found that defensive gun use is exceedingly infrequent. While smaller private surveys estimated that there are up to 2.5 million DGUs on an annual basis, the NCVS data indicates that victims used guns defensively in less than 1 percent of attempted or completed crimes, with an annual total of less than 70,000.

http://www.thetrace.org/2015/07/defensi ... -hemenway/

Oh God, not Hemenway crap again. "Public interest" my ass. My right to self defense and my right to be armed for that purpose is not up to an analysis of the "public interest" to determine if I can so equip myself because my right to not be a victim of crime trumps any and all public interest in preventing me from effectively doing so.

The surveys also found that when someone uses a gun in self defense, it is often part of an escalating hostile interaction — one in which both participants are likely to be responsible for the event that initially prompted the DGU. One male respondent who reported a defensive gun use described an incident as follows: “I was watching a movie and he interrupted me. I yelled at him that I was going to shoot him and he ran to his car.” Another respondent pulled out a gun to resolve a conflict with his neighbor: “I was on my porch and this man threw a beer in my face so I got my gun.”

This is why Hemenway's stuff is such crap. He cites two examples of unlawful actions as defensive gun uses, which they are not. In the first case it's the crime of felony menacing (if he actually displayed a gun, which is not stated) that does not constitute a legitimate DGU but rather a crime, and in the second case no information is given as to what happened after he got his gun, which is a perfectly lawful thing to do when someone throws a beer in your face on your own front porch. Whether he brandished or fired the weapon would depend on other factors, such as whether the attacker was an invitee or a trespasser and whether other actions by the attacker justified a concern that more violence might ensue, which the legal obtaining of a firearm for self defense might have deterred.

Somebody walks up to my porch and tosses a beer in my face while trespassing on my property and I'm damned sure going to prepare for further attack by arming myself. What I do after that point is what counts. If the individual intended the beer-throwing as a distraction and a prelude to a more harmful physical attack, then my gun will likely dissuade him from continuing the already illegal action he's involved in, which is an assault no matter what the circumstances.

And that's 70,000 (or more) people who were not victimized, each and every one of whom has an absolute right not to be victimized by crime that is absolutely superior to your fear, paranoia and fallacious propaganda, and who would have been victimized but for their legally-used defensive firearm. You don't give a damn about that fact, do you?

[Seth]

Nearly 200,000 guns were reported lost or stolen last year, according to federal data. (2012)

More were not reported. So in 10 years, the idiots allow evil doers to steal 2 million guns. Enough to keep them going.

Er, not all stolen guns are used to commit crimes and not all lost guns are recovered by someone with malicious intent, so your example is fallacious, as usual.

It doesn't have to be "all" for the point to be valid, simply a significant number...

It has to be rather a lot more than 0.002 percent of all guns in the US to make your point valid.

[Tero]

ran across Idiot Data
http://karireport.blogspot.com/2015/06/ ... ns-of.html

[Tero]

According to Seth, all these idiots should be doing this idiot thing because it is their right.

Wow. The volume is really starting to pick up toward the end of the year. And it doesn't even look like hunting is really to blame this time, as I recorded just four hunting-related accidents. But there's no break in racking up numbers in the most popular kind of GunFAIL, that is, the accidental, self-inflicted gunshot wound. I found twenty-three people who accidentally shot themselves between the 18th and the 24th of October. And by the way, October appears to have shattered all my previous records in that category, as I found 103 people who accidentally shot themselves in the course of the month.

In other common statistical categories, eleven minors were accidentally shot, eight accidental shootings resulted in fatalities, seven people cleaning and/or repairing still-loaded guns accidentally discharged them, killing one and wounding seven more. Five people were wounded by guns that discharged when they were dropped, which we are repeatedly assured "cannot happen with modern weapons." While I understand and appreciate the point, apparently there are still an awful lot of delicate antiques still in daily use. Or a lot of "responsible gun owners" who are in fact liars, when the chips are down. Neither explanation is particularly confidence-inspiring, to my mind.

Transition times with guns also continue to be a problem. In addition to the four dropped weapons, two people shot themselves while holstering their guns, two were shot with guns they had tucked in their pants. Two of our dropped guns accidentally escaped from pockets and/or purses on their way to the ground.

There are very nearly too many incredible, standout stories this week to even mention them all in special, above-the-fold callouts. So many, in fact, that there's hardly room for separate mention of not just another accidental shooting by a dog, but even this year's third accidental gunshot wound caused by a bullet that ricocheted off of an armadillo! There's the outrageous story of the Tombstone, Arizona, reenactment of the "Gunfight at the OK Corral" in which one participant bypassed the normal pre-show safety check (because he was late in arriving) and, golly-gee, that one time he did that he just happens to have accidentally loaded his show gun with live ammunition and shot a fellow re-enactor and grazed a spectator. There's the Texas woman who dropped her gun while rummaging through her purse for paperwork in a doctor's office, discharging it, sending a round through a wall of the office, and hitting another patient in the hip.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/11/0 ... FAIL-CLXIV

Stray bullets: my pet peeve

[Tero]

Oct 3
But the title for the week goes to the possibly not-all-that-good guy with a gun in Houston who witnessing a carjacking, decided to draw his gun and intervene, only to end up shooting the victim of the carjacking in the head, while the carjackers got away. So proud of his heroism was he, that he cleaned up his own shell casings and took off before the police arrived.

[Tero]

Yes, a dog named Trigger shot her human, accidentally as far as we know. Trigger has had little to say about the matter.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/27/us/indian ... ots-owner/

[laklak]

Fuck you, Federales.

An Oregon county has approved a controversial measure giving the local sheriff discretion to ignore gun laws he deems unconstitutional -- It bars the county from using government resources to enforce any "unconstitutional" laws that infringe on the right to bear arms -- and declares "it shall be the duty" of the sheriff to decide which laws are constitutional and which are not.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/11 ... tcmp=hpbt1[/url]

And fuck you again.

An ambitious plan by Maryland to catalog the “fingerprint” of every gun sold in the state -- making dealers fire a shot and send in the spent casing -- is being scrapped, literally.

State authorities have conceded that the bullet ID program, enacted in 2000, cost $5 million, was plagued by technical problems and did not solve a single crime. Now, the 300,000 shell casings, one from every handgun sold in the state since the law took effect, will now be sold for scrap metal.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/11/10/sc ... tcmp=hpbt1

And this in Liberalland. Imagine public opinion down here in the Gunshine State. Y'all stand NO chance.

[Tero]

Obviously a conspiracy by the state and scrap metal processor!

[Seth]

According to Seth, all these idiots should be doing this idiot thing because it is their right.

You are a liar. A flat-out, bald-faced liar. And that is not an insult, it is the absolute truth. I have never once said anything of the kind.

But there's no break in racking up numbers in the most popular kind of GunFAIL, that is, the accidental, self-inflicted gunshot wound. I found twenty-three people who accidentally shot themselves between the 18th and the 24th of October. And by the way, October appears to have shattered all my previous records in that category, as I found 103 people who accidentally shot themselves in the course of the month.

If someone wants to, or is stupid enough to shoot themselves, their punishment for that stupidity is instantaneous.

The negligent discharges (there is no such thing as a gun "accident") that are of concern are where someone other than the gun-handler is placed at risk, injured or killed, and those incidents are increasingly rare thanks to the NRA's ongoing gun-safety education programs.

In other common statistical categories, eleven minors were accidentally shot, eight accidental shootings resulted in fatalities, seven people cleaning and/or repairing still-loaded guns accidentally discharged them, killing one and wounding seven more. Five people were wounded by guns that discharged when they were dropped, which we are repeatedly assured "cannot happen with modern weapons."

Well, the weapons involved were probably not modern.

While I understand and appreciate the point, apparently there are still an awful lot of delicate antiques still in daily use. Or a lot of "responsible gun owners" who are in fact liars, when the chips are down. Neither explanation is particularly confidence-inspiring, to my mind.

Transition times with guns also continue to be a problem. In addition to the four dropped weapons, two people shot themselves while holstering their guns, two were shot with guns they had tucked in their pants. Two of our dropped guns accidentally escaped from pockets and/or purses on their way to the ground.

There are very nearly too many incredible, standout stories this week to even mention them all in special, above-the-fold callouts.

Try "incredibly rare" instead. Despite 300 million guns all this twerp can find is an infinitesimal fraction of gun owners who did something stupid with their gun. It's classic for twerps like this to ignore the thousands and thousands of times every day that some idiot hurt themselves or someone else with a car.

So many, in fact, that there's hardly room for separate mention of not just another accidental shooting by a dog,

It's not an accident and the dog didn't do it, it's negligence by the gun owner.

but even this year's third accidental gunshot wound caused by a bullet that ricocheted off of an armadillo!

And that's predictable how, exactly? People have been shooting armadillos for hundreds of years and this is the FIRST TIME it's ever been reported. This unique event proves that guns should be banned how, exactly?

There's the outrageous story of the Tombstone, Arizona, reenactment of the "Gunfight at the OK Corral" in which one participant bypassed the normal pre-show safety check (because he was late in arriving) and, golly-gee, that one time he did that he just happens to have accidentally loaded his show gun with live ammunition and shot a fellow re-enactor and grazed a spectator.

That is outright criminal negligence.

There's the Texas woman who dropped her gun while rummaging through her purse for paperwork in a doctor's office, discharging it, sending a round through a wall of the office, and hitting another patient in the hip.

Again, negligence on the part of a very small number of people does not justify interfering with the rights of the non-negligent gun owners. It's already illegal to negligently discharge a firearm everywhere in the US.

Stray bullets: my pet peeve

Mine too, but the remarkably small number of them doesn't lead to any sort of rational conclusion favoring gun bans. At best it militates for universal gun safety training in schools so that the next generation of gun owners won't do stupid stuff with their guns.

[Tero]

OK, what is your solution for idiots with guns? We record these incidents, stich them up and slap them on the wrist.

They can barely walk around with a gun without the gun somehow going off.

[Seth]

OK, what is your solution for idiots with guns? We record these incidents, stich them up and slap them on the wrist.

Well, it depends on the particular circumstances. If they only hurt themselves they have likely been adequately punished and are far less likely to repeat such negligent behavior, but they may be prosecuted and punished (or rehabilitated) as the courts deem proper and necessary.

If they hurt, or threaten to hurt others, then prosecution is both possible and desirable.

You see, if you demonstrate that you cannot exercise the right to keep and bear arms (or drive a car) properly and lawfully, you can lose that right if the circumstances warrant and a judge and jury decide to constrain those rights. It's called "due process" and it is invoked against those individuals who misbehave, rather than your plan, which is to punish all non-negligent law-abiding gun owners for the misbehavior of a tiny number of people.

They can barely walk around with a gun without the gun somehow going off.

Which of course is a horseshit statement to make.

[Tero]

And there are actual people in Colorado who are not felons but through some misdeed are not allowed to own guns?

[Seth]

And there are actual people in Colorado who are not felons but through some misdeed are not allowed to own guns?

Many thousands of them I expect. Anyone who is the subject of a domestic violence restraining order, anyone who has been convicted of a misdemeanor offense of domestic violence, anyone who has been adjudicated as mentally defective, anyone who has been involuntarily admitted to a psychiatric hospital, anyone who is a habitual drunkard or habitual illegal drug user, anyone who possesses or consumes marijuana, anyone who has been debarred the use of arms by a judge as the result of behavior demonstrating that person is not able to safely own one, and of course anyone convicted of a felony or a crime for which the penalty is imprisonment in a county jail for more than one year is not allowed to own guns.

[Seth]

Maryland legislators and hoplophobe gun banners are idiots, and this proves it.

Maryland’s Controversial ‘Gun Fingerprint’ Database Shut Down After 15 Years, $5 Million — Here’s How Many Crimes It Solved
Nov. 11, 2015 10:33am Dave Urbanski
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They sit in an old fallout shelter underneath the Maryland State Police headquarters in Pikesville.
Image source: Baltimore Sun

Image source: Baltimore Sun

More than 300,000 bullet casings — each one photographed and sealed in its own barcoded envelope and then stacked in boxes from the floor to the ceiling.
Image source: Baltimore Sun

Image source: Baltimore Sun
Image source: Baltimore Sun

Image source: Baltimore Sun

They’re the voluminous remains of a program launched back in 2000 that created a database of bullet casings from every single gun sold in the state with the hope that the “gun fingerprint” information would lead to forensic breakthroughs and solved crimes.

And after 15 years and $5 million in costs, how many cases has the program cracked?

Zero.

And now the state has scrapped the whole thing, the Baltimore Sun reported.

Maryland passed a law in 2000 that required gun manufacturers to fire every handgun for sale in the state and then deliver the bullet casings to authorities, the Sun noted. And that’s where the “gun fingerprint” database came into play.
Image source: Baltimore Sun

Image source: Baltimore Sun

While markings etched on a bullet casing can indentify the gun from which it was fired, technological issues doomed the Maryland program.

For one thing, when investigators submitted bullet casings from crime scenes, the computerized imaging program sometimes returned hundreds of matches. The state sued the manufacturer in 2009 for $1.9 million, settling three years later for $390,000, the Sun reported.

Indeed the program has helped investigations somewhat — 26 times since it was launched. But in each instance authorities already knew about the gun, state police told the Sun.

“Obviously, I’m disappointed,” former Democratic Gov. Parris N. Glendening, whose administration was behind the program’s launch, told the paper. “It’s a little unfortunate, in that logic and common sense suggest that it would be a good crime-fighting tool.”

Others disagree. “There’s things that they could have done that would have made sense,” Frank Sloane, owner of Pasadena Gun & Pawn in Anne Arundel County, told the Sun. “This didn’t make any sense.”

After a new gun control law passed in 2013, Maryland gun sales spiked and the “fingerprint” law triggered a huge backlog for the program, which had to hire eight people just to organize almost 60,000 new casings that had come in. By the fall of 2014, state police said the program had solved no crimes, the Sun reported.

“If there was any evidence whatsoever — any evidence — that this was helpful in solving crimes, we wouldn’t have touched it,” state Sen. Bobby Zirkin, a Democrat, told the paper. “The police came in and said it was useless. No one contradicted that.”

Gun manufacturers weren’t happy, complaining for most of the program’s existence that they were firing rounds from brand-new guns for no reason.

“It drove the gun collectors nuts,” Maryland State Police spokesman Greg Shipley told the Sun. “It’s like a car. As soon as you drive it off the lot, it loses value.”

When the ballistic fingerprinting law was repealed effective Oct. 1, bullet casings were no longer required to be sent in — and the General Assembly said state police could sell off its inventory for scrap.