Sunday - March 05, 2006

To the Gun Grabbers

Via the Geek, I read this magnum opus by Jim March.  He has single-handedly done more for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms in the state of Kalifornia than anyone.  As a response to the harrasment he (and others) have been the object of, he takes them all out behind the woodshed for a good dose of clue-batting.  It is done with civility, facts and links and should be required reading before engaging in the gun “debate”

Here’s a quick sample, but you reall have to go and read it all.

The three of you have been Emailing people who you see as “gun nuts” regarding the Prop H situation in SF. Some of your comments include turns of phrase like “mindless sexually frustrated pricks” and go downhill from there.

As one of the people you’re addressing, I’m going to respond rationally to you, and try and show you that there really is two sides to this debate.

Where to start...well let’s start with some interesting statistics. Ever compared the number of murders and population levels between the single most “pro gun” state (Vermont) and the single most self-defense-restrictive area of the US (WashDC)?

It’s rather interesting.

Vermont’s population at 621,394 is larger than DC at 553,523:

http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/50000.html

http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/11000.html

Washington DC basically bans all handguns, bans all carry of guns and strictly regulates long-guns. Vermont in contrast is one of only two states where anybody without a felony record can legally carry a handgun concealed or open with no prior government permission needed – and has since 1903. (Alaska copied this system in 2004 so for a very long time Vermont was uniquely pro-self-defense above all other states.)

So if guns cause murder, one would expect more in Vermont?

Not exactly. The total number of murders in Vermont in 2004 was 16:

http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_04/documents/CIUS2004.pdf - page 256 as pages are printed in the document pages, not in the Adobe page number readout.

The total in DC isn’t in that document that I could find but I did find a Washington Post reference to 420 murders in ’04 and even more in ’05:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...010101049.html

(Only three of the VT murders were gun-related. Seven involved “knives or other cutting implements” and six were “misc. other weapons” – not at all what you’d expect in a place “awash in guns”.)

Obviously, gun access isn’t the whole story regarding causes of violence.

That begins the first of a number of arguments he pays out in a logical and methodical way, napalming the gun grabbers all the way through.

Posted by Drew458     on 03/05/2006 at 10:17 PM   
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