In reaction to this Missouri law, a friend of mine asked me “why police are not standing up to the gun lobby more vociferously and effectively? It seems to me that their jobs are made immeasurably harder and more dangerous by rollbacks in gun laws such as this.” You’d think, she said, police would want fewer guns out there that…
Tag: gun control
Clarence Thomas, misdemeanor convictions, and constitutional rights
[Note: I wrote this back in March. It never ran. It’s no longer even relevant, since the Supreme Court ruled in June (Voisine v. United States) that you can lose your right to own a gun over a misdemeanor conviction. But I still thought I’d let it see the light of day.] On February 22, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas…
Gun Control? “Your Side Won”
First published many years ago. I’ll just keep doing so. Tom Tomorrow, one of my favorite cartoonists, summarizes gun control and killings quite well. Click through to read. “Barring some seismic realignment in this country, the gun control debate is all but settled–and your side won. The occasional horrific civilian massacre is just the price the rest of us have…
Why did New Yorkers stop shooting each other?
In New York City not only has the number of homicides being going down, but the percentage of homicides committed with a gun has been decreasing. Put another way, there were about 309 people shot and killed in 2011 in NYC (for UCR reasons we’re talking incidents, so this is a bit of an undercount). In 2013: 188. That’s a…
Yeah, but they’re foreigners!
What can we learn from them? I know. Nothing. Because this is America. Exceptionalism and all that. I’m not saying we could go to this model overnight, damnit! But we could still learn from it. We could learn a lot from other countries, if we got around to looking. If we start looking at police in other countries, next thing…
Gun Rights
This recent decision in DC saying there is right to carryis actually bigger news than you’d think. Why? Because up till now you did not have that right. This decision asserts constitutional rights beyond what the Supreme Court has ever ruled. The Court said that the government cannot prevent you from having a gun in your home for protections. But…
Detroit police chief gives credit to armed citizens for drop in crime
From the Detroit News: The incident was the latest in a string of homeowners opening fire to defend themselves, although after a flurry of such shootings early this year, before Monday there hadn’t been a reported incident since May 4 — an indication that criminals are thinking twice about breaking into people’s houses, Craig said. Detroit has experienced 37 percent…
Zimmerman Trial (2): Justice vs. Stand Your Ground
I received this interesting and thought-provoking email from my friend Alan (bold added): It seems to me that if Zimmerman is convicted of a felony, then the Florida laws are apparently defensible. Sure, a guy is allowed to shoot someone in certain circumstances; in this case such circumstances did not present and so he’s going to jail. The laws did…
Police officers’ opinions on gun violence and gun control
A summary of the results of a survey of 15,000 police officers by Police One.
Gun Guys, by Dan Baum
I finished reading Gun Guys, and it’s very good. Here’s Dan Baum talking about his book on the BBC. And here he a more in-depth interview with Dan Baum on KMO’s C-Realm Podcast (which just happens to have been recorded in my basement). [Update: and here is Baum in the New York Times.] Baum makes the point that nothing productive…