Shall Not Be Questioned – Page 1646 – The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …

NRA Safety Program Hits St. Louis

Looks like St. Louis Today is trying to say nice things about the NRA in advance of the upcoming convention which I will be attending and live blogging:

The NRA says fatal firearm accidents among children in the Eddie Eagle age group â€” preschool through third grade â€” have dropped 80 percent since the program began 19 years ago.

Good. But from there:

No local figures are available, but earlier this year, two children shot and killed two others in separate incidents. Timberlyn Terrell, 2, died in January when a child under 5 found a loaded handgun and shot her in the head in a Venice apartment. A few days later, an 8-year-old boy found a shotgun under a couch at his home in Edmundson and killed his 3-year-old brother.

Throw in a little local anecdotes to cast doubt on the claim.Â And of course, our friends at the Brady Campaign:

On average, according to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, a young person was killed by a firearm once every three hours in 2002, the last year for which statistics were available.

That year, the organization said, guns were involved in the murder, suicide or accidental death of 2,893 young people.

Paul Helmke, president of the Brady group, credited the NRA for promoting gun safety.Â But he criticized the gun group’s tactics.

“It’s their version of Joe Camel,” he said of Eddie Eagle.

Because Eddie Eagle is all about making kids buy guns, right?Â How can someone even say that with a straight face?Â Overall this is at least a decent attempt at a balanced article.Â But the media should not take either the NRA or the Brady’s numbers at face value.Â The Brady’s have been caught counting people up to 24 years old as children, and here they throw statistics on murder and suicide in to obscure the fact that gun accidents among children are exceedingly rare.

I’m not arguing that murder and suicide of young people is not a legitimate social problem, but it’s not one likely to be solved by any of the Brady’s prescriptions.Â But why debate that when it’s easier to jumble statistics together to create an impression that accidents are a bigger problem than they really are?

We Need More Paternalism

According to a new study, Pennsylvania’s penchant for local government is really hurting the state.Â Any article that has something like this in it:

Recent studies say the state’s fragmented governmental structure and near-total absence of regional planning holds back economic progress, crippling older communities and allowing unchecked development despite nearly $1 billion in new funding aimed at community revitalization and open-space preservation.

is automatically suspect. Â I read it thusly: the decentralization of state power makes it really hard for those of us who would like to impose our own personal tastes and preferences on the rest of humanity.Â We really need to take control of these matters at the state level, so that we can dictate to your locally elected leaders just how wrong you are.

Piss on that, I say.

Apparently I’m a Suicide Risk

A gun in the home leads to higher suicide rates. According to The Harvard School of Public Health:

“Removing all firearms from one’s home is one of the most effective and straightforward steps that household decision-makers can take to reduce the risk of suicide,” Miller said.

“Removing firearms may be especially effective in reducing the risk of suicide among adolescents and other potentially impulsive members of their home,” Miller added.

So this is a new article. But I’m pretty sure this study came out a while ago. The question is, then, why is the media rehashing it now?

While just 5 percent of all suicide attempts involve a gun, the person succeeds in killing himself or herself 90 percent of the time.

People use drugs to attempt suicide in 75 percent of cases, but actually die less than 3 percent of the time, the researchers said, citing other surveys.

What about success rates for slitting wrists, jumping, or throwing oneself in front of a train? It would seem to be that if someone were hell bent on suicide, there are many substitutes. By this logic, we should tear down the Golden Gate Bridge, which is the number one location in the world for people jumping to their doom. I’ve always wondered whether people who use drugs aren’t really all that serious about getting the job done.

Don Imus

Because everyone else has this headline, I figured I should too.Â The fact is, I’ve never listened to the guy.Â Â I really don’t care about what he said, or whether he apologized, or whether he gets fired.Â But apologizing for racist comments to Al Sharpton seems like apologizing to a Kennedy for drunk driving.

Someone Want To Explain…

to this blogger why gun control won’t help Philadelphia? Be polite and respectful, please. I would point out that ending the war on drugs would do more to fix the cities problems than starting a war on guns, which will just give the criminals another black market product to kill each other over, but what do I know?

Some Interesting PA Case Law

Things are kind of slow right now, so I thought I’d drag an old bit of Pennsylvania case law out in Oritz vs. Commonwealth. The money quote:

Because the ownership of firearms is constitutionally protected, its regulation is a matter of statewide concern. The constitution does not provide that the right to bear arms shall not be questioned in any part of the commonwealth, except Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, where it may be abridged at will, but that it shall not be questioned in any part of the commonwealth. Thus, regulation of firearms is a matter of concern in all of Pennsylvania, not merely in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, and the General Assembly, not city councils, is the proper forum for the imposition of such regulation.

For the foregoing reasons, the order of Commonwealth Court is affirmed.

And with that, the courts threw Philadelphia and Pittsburgh’s assault weapons bans off the books, and upheld statewide preemption.

Wishful Thinking?

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, it’s high noon in the battle over gun control.

(midday Friday)The effort comes at a time when the number of slayings in Philadelphia is edging painfully upward – 105 at last count, the majority of them at the point of a gun. At least 15 bills are back in the pipeline; Gov. Rendell has turned up the volume on his pleas for stronger gun-control measures, and Democrats now control the state House. All this comes at a time when a new poll suggests a majority of Pennsylvanians are willing to accept handgun-sale limits.

Because we can see how well one-gun-per-month in Virginia, and strict handgun regulations in Maryland reduced violence in Washington DC.

Rep. Dan Surra (D., Elk) said that while he sympathized with residents living in high-crime areas, he could not support any gun-restriction bill because in certain quarters of his district, a hunting stronghold in the north-central part of the state, guns are a single-issue item at the polls.

“They will vote you out on this,” Surra said.

Why yes, we will.

“The feeling out here is that proposals that deal with firearms in general are inched toward the precipice, and once you start eroding Second Amendment rights, it’s a cascading effect,” Surra said.

“Guns are part of our culture, too. The difference is we don’t shoot each other,” said Surra, who recalls teaching students to build guns in shop class.

Man.Â I wish he taught my shop class.Â All I got to make was a damned stool.

And although Evans is determined to get the one-handgun-a-month bill to the floor this year, Caltagirone, the new chairman of the Judiciary Committee, does not think he can deliver it. “I don’t have the votes at this point in time,” Caltagirone said, adding that he hopes to work on a compromise that could pass.

Compromise?Â I don’t see where there’s room to compromise on “shall not be questioned” you loser.

Pennsylvania “is a priority state for us,” said Peter Hamm, communications director for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Handgun Violence, which teamed with other gun-control groups to form the coalition Pennsylvanians Against Trafficking Handguns in 2005. “We believe there is enough political ability in the legislature to enact change.”

Let them have one-gun-a-month, they won’t go home happy.Â It’s important to fight this.Â There are already laws on the books for tracking multiple handgun sales both at the state and federal level. Â The only reason they want this is to open the door to further restrictions on guns in the commonwealth.

But can we carry a gun without a license?

Apparently the Keystone State has the 24th highest tax burden at 10.8 percent of income on average.Â The highest?Â Vermont, with a tax burden of 14.1 percent.Â I guess there are some advantages to not having a graduated income tax.Â Apparently New York, Maine, Ohio and Rhode Island are pretty tax crazy too.

Sam Katz Blog

Sam Katz, who has run for mayor on the Republican ticket back as far as I can remember, has a blog, apparently.Â He’s offering advise to the current Mayoral candidates.Â At least the Philadelphia media is calling it a blog.Â Â This looks more like a column to me.Â I think the media is a bit challenged on what a blog is.

Slow Blogging

Got in late last night, so didn’t get anything going up for today.Â At work today I have a vendor in to upgrade a software product, and will be busy babysitting that process in addition to other things.Â Will be more busy with blogging once I get home.