The 40% background check stat a sham

Words are important.

You may see a number of people (including the White House) stating that 40% of gun sales are done without a background check. That is not quite true. The number seems to come from a 20 year old study which was a phone survey to determine what and how people acquired their weapons. What it actually said was

About 60 percent of gun acquisitions involved federally licensed dealers [my emphasis]

“Acquisitions” not “Sales.” Why is this important? Because 29% of the acquisitions were gifts, inheritance, etc. Not sales.

Only 7% of total acquisitions were done mail order or at a gun show. Of those 7%, many were dealers (who do background checks) and some were not.

There is no giant sales loophole.

And all of this is inferred from the type of acquisition. They didn’t ask “when you got your gun, did you pass a background check?”

(for completeness there is some 4% “other store” category that for some reason doesn’t fit into the 60% they assume does background checks. I’m not sure how any store can legally sell a gun without being a licensed dealer who does background checks)

Gun control metaphor fail

“Shouting fire in a crowded theater” is not the same as “Possessing a gun in a crowded theater”

“Possessing a mouth in a crowded theater” is the same as “Possessing a gun in a crowded theater”

“Shouting fire in a crowded theater” is the same as “Waving a gun around in a crowded theater”

But then again, we already have laws against that so what’s a pent-up-frustrated-politician-who-hasn’t-increased-the-police-state-recently to do?

Fully licensed strippers?

State Rep. Bill Zedler, R-Arlington, has filed a bill to require employees at sexually oriented businesses - including dancers - to get a license and display it while working.

Most licensing done by the state is ostensibly to protect the public from quackery. I’m not really sure there is a problem here. Is there an epidemic of subpar pole dancing and lap dances being delivered to unsatisfied customers?

No, this is much more insidious and Rep. Zedler is even quite upfront about it. He wants to institute a licensing scheme as a public shaming record.

"They won't want to get a license as a stripper from the state of Texas," Zedler said of his legislation. "I think it would keep a lot of girls from getting involved in that lifestyle and basically wrecking their lives.

Or as I interpreted it “If you want to engage in behavior I don’t approve of, I’m going to tell your mother.”

Oh, and they would have to wear their license while they work.

It doesn't matter what I need.

The conversation keeps coming back around to "who needs a gun that can do X?" The gun control crowd wants the conversation to be framed in a mode that you have to defend your choice to exercise your rights. That is the wrong conversation. The real conversation (and backed by case law) is "what justification do you have for taking away my rights?"

I don't NEED to be able to blog.
I don't NEED to have lunch with my friends every single day.
I don't NEED to own a rifle.

...right now.

All of the things above are freedoms (speech, assembly, arms) I am assumed to have just by the mere fact that I am a human being. I don't need to justify them. To anyone.

US case law history demonstrates this and states that if you want to curb one of these rights, restrict it in some way, the burden is on you to provide a really good reason. A really good reason. And that restriction has to be narrowly tailored, very specific, and address some imminent threat to the general public.

Shouting fire in a theater, directly calling for and inciting a riot, or waving a gun in a crowd do create an imminent threat. Merely owning a firearm does not.

You can talk all you want about whether I may or may not need something right now, but if you plan to tell me I actually can not have that something, you had better have a solid fact based reasoning behind your supposed "sensible and common sense" proposal. Otherwise just walk away and have a nice day.

Quick! Do something before I can think!

This is the primary problem with trying to pass a law in the wake of a highly emotionally charged event.

 

The people having the conversation regarding "common sense" concepts don't fully understand the concepts. Watch Mayor Bloomberg try to explain why supports a ban on semi automatic rifles by describing how an automatic weapon works.

 

He is either totally ignorant of that which he discusses or is being totally disingenuous in order to get his real agenda passed. Either way this is not the kind of people you want making new laws.

 

 

When making laws, you have to be VERY specific about the language and definitions. That opens the opportunity to take advantage of other peoples ignorance.

Dear NRA, I appreciate the input but placing one armed guard at every school is insufficient. For that to work you really need an armed guard for every person. While that sounds really expensive, it's not. It's called "eliminate the 'gun free zones'" You welcome, TFM

TSA vs SFO

I recently travelled through the SFO airport few times and have decided it is an excellent example of government inefficiency thwarted. Most people do not realize that you can opt out of having TSA run your security. You still have to follow TSA procedures and guidelines but you can have private security put you through the naked scanner instead. Some time ago, SFO did just that. The lines at SFO consistently move faster than most places I've been and the security seems more alert and sensitive to getting everyone through with a minimum of fuss. The time they it took them to scan and approve someone? About 5-10 seconds. Mainly just because they were paying attention to the fact that we all already knew how to do it. We had to wait on the machine to spin, not wait on the agent to talk everyone through each agonizing step. TSA is replaced with private security and the TSA sanctioned personal violations are more palatable, coincidence? I think not.