Our resident anti, Mikeb302000, raised some points regarding RF’s recent piece, U.S. Cop Fatalities Rise 13 Percent. DOJ Jefe Holder Blames Guns. I’d like to say they were valid points, but I just can’t. Not with points like this:

You’ve got to have brass balls to take that table and spin it to your liking. A 15% increase is BAD, and it’s directly related to the gun availability you believe in and that you fight so hard for.

While I will agree with Mike that a 15% increase in gunfire deaths is BAD, I must completely disagree that it’s in any way related to your gun availability boogeyman. Consider the following…

  • Three of those officers were killed by “friendly” fire
  • Three died from gunshot wounds received decades ago.
  • Two were killed with their own weapons, and
  • One died from a ND of his own shotgun.
  • One (Jaime Zapata) died in Mexico from an ATF-walked gun

Those ten can hardly be counted as arguments against liberalized gun laws. In addition, five out of nineteen officers (not counting any of those ten) were killed by gunfire in California and New York, hardly bastions of liberal gun laws. And in New Jersey, two out of five of the line-of-duty deaths were from firearms. So 29% of the officers killed by “easily available guns” were killed in states where guns aren’t easily available.

As for those states where guns are easily available, Texas had just 2 (out of 13 deaths total) killed by gunfire. And one of the Texas killings was a straight up assassination; the officer was at a light, another car pulled up next to him and the passenger opened fire. I submit that if a gun weren’t “available,” a Molotov cocktail would have done the job, just more horrifically. Another of the top five, Georgia, (with their “notoriously lax” gun laws) had 3 non-accidental gunfire deaths out of 10 officer fatalities.

Mikeb also fails to take into account the fact that overall police deaths were up 13%, with 39.3% of that total being from gunfire. And when you look at the last decade (not counting 2001 because 9/11 skews the numbers), 36.3% of total deaths were gunfire related, so as a percentage of the whole, gunfire related deaths were only up 8.3%, meaning that the “easy availability” of guns has reduced the proportion of officers killed by gunfire. Not that availability or lack thereof bears any relation to criminal violence, but Mikeb claims that it’s that simplistic.

But wait, Mike had more:

Your patronizing remark that “While every human life is precious” doesn’t work here any better than it does when we talk about kids getting shot with daddy’s gun. The point is not how small a percentage these tragedies are but that they are largely preventable.

If I were a lawyer I’d be objecting for his assuming facts that are not in evidence because there is no evidence that these tragedies (cop killings) are largely preventable using the methods Mike supports. As for the kids getting shot with daddy’s gun, yes those are largely preventable. Unfortunately the anti-gunners use every resource they have to block the measures (safety training in schools) which would most effectively prevent these tragedies.

I say you could use simple common sense and agree that making guns less available to bad guys would directly impact on whatever gun violence we’re looking at.

And the cost to your precious rights is minimal.

Okay Mike, how would you go about making guns “less available to bad guys?” Keep in mind what Mafia underboss Sammy “The Bull” Gravano said on the subject:

Gun control? It’s the best thing you can do for crooks and gangsters. I want you to have nothing. If I’m a bad guy, I’m always gonna have a gun.

And remember too, that in order to keep the cost to my precious rights minimal, your proposal must:

  • Serve a compelling government interest like national security or protecting the lives of multiple people. Oh, yeah, and that does not violate an explicit Constitutional provision (you know, like freedom of speech, or the right to keep and bear arms).
  • Be narrowly tailored, i.e. must make guns less available to bad guys without making them less available to good guys.
  • Be the least restrictive means to achieve your end.

But a little further on, Mikeb lets the cat out of the bag when he says:

Isn’t it a little shortsighted, not to mention convenient, for you to say one criminal buys a gun from another and leave it at that.

Think just a step or two further, man. Where did the criminal gun seller get it? If you go back enough steps, you’ll find a point at which one of you legal gun owners handed the gun over to a criminal, in one way or another.

Riiiight. Because the hoods in the U.K. get their weapons from legal gun owners who are required to keep them under lock and key. In fact a friend of my parents lost his permit because his wife knew where he kept the key to his safe and she didn’t have a permit.

Or how about those Mexican drug lords, arming themselves from “legal gun owners” which, in Mexico, means the cops and the military who are constantly leaking guns (and people) to the narcotrafficantes? That’s when they don’t bring them in by the shipload from China, past corrupt port officials, or by the truckload from Central America past corrupt border guards.

No, the idea that crooks can only get their guns originally from legitimate gun owners is hogwash and is used to bolster Mike’s and his ilk’s laws targeting the law-abiding. Laws like:

Of course there are laws against stealing. But what’s lacking are the safe storage laws that most gun owners don’t have the common sense to do on their own.

Ahhh, safe-storage laws – also known as burglar protection laws. The way things are now, about 75% of burglars report they avoid occupied homes because they are worried about getting shot. But with burglar protection laws in place, they don’t have to worry about that, so they can wait for people to get home, break in and force them to open the gun safe.

This is an excellent example of the counterintuitive nature of complex systems, and we already have a great test case in South Africa. South Africans are required by law to keep their weapons locked up. But most S.A. criminals get their guns from burglaries. See? It’s counterintuitive, but that’s because here in the U.S. we associate burglary with empty homes (see above about fear of being shot).

In South Africa, since guns are required to be locked up, thieves can break into a gun-owner’s home with impunity then threaten (or torture) the residents into opening up their safe and, voilà . . . bad guys with guns.

No, Mike, despite your fervent denial of reality and wishes to the contrary, “reasonable, common-sense” gun laws won’t save cops’ lives and will cost plenty of civilian lives.

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20 COMMENTS

  1. The way things are now, about 75% of burglars report they avoid occupied homes because they are worried about getting shot.

    Here in the NY area, home invasion is gradually becoming the crime of choice. Because of restrictive gun laws, as well as cultural reasons, the probability is extremely low (<5%) that an assailant will invade a house that contains a gun. The "thrill factor" notwithstanding, many criminals would actually prefer to encounter the occupants so they can simply ask where “the goods” are rather than have to rifle through the whole house. Of course, when people are suddenly made helpless, they give up “the goods”.

    While victims are usually roughed-up or pistol-whipped for effect, these crimes usually do not result in serious injury or fatality (but sometimes they do). Almost never is the home defended in this region.

    • See, that would be success according to gun control activists. Just give the bad man what he wants and everyone’s happy. No one got hurt. Well, except for the pistol whipping. And the theft of valuable goods. Assuming of course the criminal was merciful and didn’t harm the victim much.

      This is so much better than the alternative of one dead criminal. Because all lives are precious, and the criminal is of course a victim of society, etc.

  2. Figures don’t lie, but liars figure! One stat I didn’t see is what was the increase (or decease) in the number of police in the pool for this time period? Given that a lot of stimulus funding went to state and federal agencies, my thought is that the numbers may have increased. Also the use of percentages can exaggerate a small increase in nominal terms.

  4. ■Three of those officers were killed by “friendly” fire
    ■Three died from gunshot wounds received decades ago.
    ■Two were killed with their own weapons, and
    ■One died from a ND of his own shotgun.
    ■One (Jaime Zapata) died in Mexico from an ATF-walked gun
    Yeah, we really need to ban civilian guns for events such as the above.

  5. Great piece. I’m really starting to appreciate Mike’s presence here since he essentially validates the principles of the pro-gun community.

    In defenseless England, the home ‘hot-burglary’ rate (when owners are home is more than 55%). In America, the hot-burglary rate is about 11%. Why the difference? You all know: thieves and thugs fear breaking into the home of an angry determined American citizen armed with a gun.

  6. There’s nothing better than getting a better than getting an Armed Robber call where the victim has shot the suspect 🙂

  9. “Gun control is like trying to reduce drunk driving by making it tougher for sober people to own cars.” – source unknown

    Mikeb would try to eliminate every legally-held gun in the world, in a futile attempt to reduce an infinitesimal number of police fatalities.

  11. Nice fish-in-a-barrel shooting as ever, Bruce. Really, is it even a challenge anymore when it comes to him?

    And only a true anti-American would sarcastically refer to an Amendment as a “precious right.” Hey mike, how about the government decides it doesn’t like what you have to say and silences your pathetic blog? After all, they’re just keeping online peace without much damage to your “precious rights.”

  13. Once again I point out that anti gunners (actually anti-almost anything) know nothing about HUMAN NATURE. Most of us are loathe to commit crimes, even the petty stuff. That “most of us” is around 99.9%. Are you in this group Mikey? If you are, then you damn sure don’t understand the criminal mind (part of Human Nature). I dare say most criminals are recidivist, impossible to rehab. A few rare cases may be out there but usually these aren’t the hard core. My opinion, for what it’s worth, is if we totally eliminated gun laws and let everybody buy whatever he wanted with no impediments, we wouldn’t have any more crime, definitely fewer home invasions, and very little parking lot confrontations and car jackings, not to mention all the other heinous crimes. Prohibition was a total failure but we stick with gun control and “controlled substances”. You could put a hundred guns of all types in a room on a table and only 0.1 person out of 100 would pick up a gun or guns and go out and shoot people, the same number as do it now. Give it up, Mike.

  14. That is what I like about sites like this. People like Mike show up, regurgitate Brady crap, and in return get facts. Share any of these facts with the Brady groups, and you get banned and censored. Kinda makes it clear who can’t survive the light.

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