Registration Leads to Confiscation, Not Solving Crimes: House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, announced last week that she wants to
register guns. Her next move will be to try to confiscate them...
Politicians and bureaucrats routinely claim that registration helps
solve crimes. If a registered gun is used in a crime and left at the
crime scene, registration supposedly lets the police trace the gun back
to the criminal. Though this turn of events might work on fictional TV
crime shows, it virtually never occurs in real life. Criminals' guns are
rarely left at crime scenes. When guns are left behind, it usually is
because a crook has been seriously injured or killed and the police are
poised to catch him anyway... Because registration doesn't help solve
crime, it is important to ask why government wants to register the
people's firearms. History provides the answer. In countries from
Australia to England, registration has been used to create lists of guns
that later were confiscated by their governments. Despite Mrs. Pelosi's
assurances to the contrary, Americans' fear that registration will lead
to confiscation is well-founded. Indeed, Mrs. Pelosi's own state of
California already has used existing registration lists to confiscate
so-called assault weapons just a half-dozen years ago... (California's
"assault weapon" registration, as I recall, is a dead-end street - it
severely restricts use of the firearms and bans their inheritance. The
confiscation I recall involved a an overturned ruling by the AG that
allowed SKS rifles modified to accept detachable magazines to be
registered after the statutory deadline. There may be more recent
confiscations of which I am unaware.)
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/apr/13/39we-want-them-registered39/
---
Newsweek Chides Big Brother et al.: ...In the past, national political
leaders might have raised troubling questions about how such an unstable
character could obtain easy access to high-powered weapons. They might
have been even more motivated given that Poplawski's cop-killing spree
was part of a near epidemic of mass homicides that have left 58 people
dead over the past month. Or given that Mexico's insanely violent drug
cartels are arming themselves with high-powered assault weapons
purchased at U.S. gun stores and later smuggled south of the border. Yet
many past champions of stricter gun-control measures are silent. These
include top Obama White House officials who have squelched any talk
within the administration about pushing further gun-control
measures."It's weird," says Peter Hamm, the communications director for
the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. "When you see people like
[Attorney General] Eric Holder or Hillary Clinton or [White House chief
of staff] Rahm Emanuel become muted on this issue, you feel like you
want to call up a friend and say, 'What's up?' " ...
http://www.newsweek.com/id/193589
CNN Chimes In: During the 7:00 p.m. hour of Saturday's CNN Newsroom,
anchor Don Lemon pushed the view that Barack Obama should try to emulate
European gun laws as a way of reducing gun violence in America as he
discussed the subject with four guests. During an interview with former
FBI agent Gregg McCrary, who expressed support for an assault weapons
ban, Lemon suggested Obama learn from the Europeans: "The one person who
can probably weigh on this and may have the most influence is the
President. Since he's over there in Europe now, and they're, you know,
they're not perfect, but it seems that their gun laws seem to be at
least working in a way that ours are not." ...
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brad-wilmouth/2009/04/10/cnn-s-lemon-suggests-obama-learn-europe-s-strict-gun-laws
---
Mexico Repeats 90% Lie: Stopping the flow of money and weapons from the
United States into Mexico is critical to dealing with the violent drug
cartels creating havoc on the border, the Mexican ambassador to the U.S.
said Sunday. Mexican officials think that 90 percent of the weapons
seized in their country can be traced to the U.S., Ambassador Arturo
Sarukhan said. "The key issue right now is how can the United States
help to shut down those guns and shut down that bulk cash that is
providing the drug syndicates in Mexico with the wherewithal to corrupt,
to bribe, to kill," Mr. Sarukhan said on CBS' "Face the Nation."
..Although Mr. Sarukhan contended that the cartels' use of assault
weapons rose dramatically after the U.S. ended its ban on the firearms
in 2004, he stopped short of advocating that Congress reinstate the ban.
"What we will say is ... by reinstating the ban, that could have a
profound impact on the number and the caliber of weapons going down to
Mexico," he said...
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/apr/13/mexico-us-guns-money-fueling-drug-war/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7996196.stm
It's been confidently reported, as of late, that the United States is
the source of 90% of all the weapons utilized in Mexican crime. This
has become a dogma, repeated by no less than Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton and others. It's an impressive-sounding statistic - but is it
true? In a word, no. It's not correct. The 90% figure was originally
based upon a misunderstanding, and thereafter it has been constantly
repeated in the media and political world. According to a spokeswoman
for the ATF (U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives),
"over 90 percent of the traced firearms originate from the U.S." To
borrow a Shakespearean expression, "there's the rub." The fact that 90%
of the "traced weapons" were from the U.S. was transformed in the media
to the false report that 90% of the weapons used for criminal purposes
in Mexico were from the U.S...
http://www.mexidata.info/id2226.html
---
Speaking of Lies...: ...The following transcript is from Oct. 1995. The
speaker was Thomas Busey, then chief of ATF's National Firearms Act
Branch. The subject was the NFRTR, the National Firearms Registry and
Transfer Record. It's the official record the government keeps on all
National Firearms Act-registered weapons, such as machine guns,
short-barreled rifles and shotguns, suppressors, destructive devices and
AOWs, or "Any Other Weapons" the agency deems taxable/requiring
registration. Here's what Mr. Busey said about it: "Let me say that when
we testify in court, we testify that the data base is 100 percent
accurate. That's what we testify to, and we will always testify to that.
As you probably well know, that may not be 100 percent true." ...
http://www.examiner.com/x-1417-Gun-Rights-Examiner~y2009m4d11-If-we-cant-trust-ATF-under-oath-when-can-we-trust-them
---
Brady Pants Also on Fire: In May of 2007, the Brady Center, research arm
of the Brady Campaign, published a report entitled No Gun Left Behind:
The Gun Lobby's Campaign to Push Guns Into Colleges and Schools. Though
nearly two years have passed, numerous inaccuracies remain which, having
persisted this long in a publicly-accessible document, call into
question the Brady Campaign's ability to publish credible reports and/or
their capacity for telling the truth...
http://www.examiner.com/x-2879-Austin-Gun-Rights-Examiner~y2009m4d12-Brady-Campaign-Biased-inaccurate-research
---
20/20 Gun "Report" Analyzed: ...At the very end of the program, Ms.
Sawyer said that they could not find any studies supporting the numbers
of self-defense shootings which seem to have inspired this entire report
-- the idea that an armed citizen can blunt or even stop a killing. The
exact quote is: "And by the way, if you're wondering where all the
studies about the effectiveness of guns used by ordinary Americans for
self defense are, well, keep searching. we could not find one reliable
study and the ones we found were contradictory." This statement is
perhaps the most outrageous of the entire report. It could be her
misguided opinion, perhaps her staff misled her, but the statement is
entirely untrue. She just misled the American Public, intentionally or
not. That ABC News could not find what Professor John Lott, Gary Kleck
et al, our own Department Of Justice, beat police officers and
researchers could find from professional experience and from FBI crime
data does not pass the test of reasonable expectation. We found it. So
can ABC News. Ms. Sawyer's closing line is the exquisite example of the
kind of movement blatantly opposing liberty in discouraging the armed
citizen by way of hiding facts, values and discouraging the American
spirit of Independence from our servants. The thing that gets tens of
millions of gun owners is that these people are fighting us instead of
fighting crime...
http://www.examiner.com/x-2323-LA-Gun-Rights-Examiner~y2009m4d11-If-I-Only-Had-A-Gun-misfires-for-2020-when-they-cannot-stay-on-topic?cid=examiner-email
---
The Beat Goes On: Ralph Scott has an easy explanation for why sales at
his gun shop - the Lock, Stock and Barrel - have been booming since
Barack Obama's election last November. "Here's the sad fact of the
matter - our business thrives on bad news," he says. Scott's firearms
store in Portsmouth, Ohio, an economically stressed river town on the
edge of Appalachia, has seen a 40 to 50 per cent spike in sales over the
past five months, reflecting a national surge in demand for personal-use
weapons that dates to just before the Nov. 4 election. Across the United
States, firearms buyers have reported difficulty finding ammunition at
major retailers like Walmart, while manufacturers like Winchester and
Remington Arms say they are running at full capacity. The evidence of a
sustained run on guns isn't just anecdotal. The FBI says the number of
criminal background checks - required for guns bought from licensed
dealers - conducted from November through February jumped by almost 30
per cent from the previous year...
http://www.canada.com/news/news+good+news+dealers/1487633/story.html
If the rash of mass shootings nationwide is leaving you thinking that
there are too many guns in Buffalo and in America, just wait. Gun sales
are booming nationwide - and in Erie County, applications for pistol
permits are rolling in at nearly three times last year's rate, the
county clerk's office reports. Meanwhile, in the nation's capital, gun
control has become, in essence, dead on arrival. Chalk it all up to the
election of a Democratic president with a long record of supporting gun
restrictions and a Congress that includes a surprising number of pro-gun
Democrats from rural areas. The election of Barack Obama as president is
sparking a run on firearms and ammunition in both Buffalo and
nationwide, according to gun dealers and experts on the issue... (Wait a
minute - pistol permits in New York are a form of registration. I
thought that was what these folks wanted.)
http://www.buffalonews.com/home/story/638237.html
---
University President Opposes Campus CCW: University of Missouri system
President Gary Forsee has denounced legislation approved by the state
House that would allow concealed weapons to be brought onto college
campuses. Forsee said in a written statement Friday that the legislation
"increases the risk that our university family could be put in harm's
way." He added: "Missouri's college students should be allowed to learn
and exchange ideas in an environment free from the threat of concealed
guns." Forsee, who was hired December 2007, leads a four-campus
university system that governs public institutions in Columbia, Kansas
City, Rolla and St. Louis... (Why do legally concealed firearms pose a
greater threat to academic freedom than criminals who don't care which
laws they violate? Would Forsee be happier if the firearms of
law-abiding students were carried openly?)
http://www.nbcactionnews.com/news/local/story/MU-President-Denounces-Concealed-Gun-Bill/ONrQ1TpUo0WjSX2sVajHrw.cspx
---
Oops, Wrong House: Armed with a double-barreled, 12-gauge shotgun, the
resident of a Botetourt County home fatally shot an intruder Friday
night, authorities said. A family living in the home heard someone
yelling, cursing and pounding on their house about 10:40 p.m., according
to a release Saturday from Botetourt County Sheriff Ronnie Sprinkle. A
man living there called 911 and secured his family members in a locked
bedroom, then loaded the shotgun. The intruder used a wrought iron patio
chair to break a glass sliding door and come into the house, and the
male resident shot him. "From what I'm told, he showed some restraint,"
Botetourt County Commonwealth's Attorney Joel Branscom said about the
shooter. "But it got to the point where he didn't have much of a
choice." ...
http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/200867
---
Solution to Somali Piracy: ...I don't fish as often as I did in the
Texas Gulf Coast in the 1970s. But I do get an occasional invite to go
deep sea fishing off the Carolina coast with three good friends. Two of
these friends work in a national security capacity for the federal
government (please pardon the pseudonyms). So it should go without
saying that we have the hardware and skills to defeat a small (or large)
band of pirates whenever we venture into the Atlantic Ocean. We don't
have any evidence of piracy off the Carolina coast. But we all subscribe
to the belief that it is better to have a gun and not need one than to
need a gun and not have one... I understand quite well that there are
ports that will not allow entry to boats that are carrying firearms. And
I understand that they are in places where we would like to deliver
humanitarian aid. But the solution is not to go into these areas
unarmed. The solution is to tell the nations in which these ports are
located that they must change their laws or forfeit charitable goods
coming from our generous Christian nation.
http://townhall.com/columnists/MikeAdams/2009/04/13/the_solution_to_somali_piracy?page=full
---
I Guess We're All "Rightwing Extremists": So, if you disagree with Obama
on amnesty for illegals or stand up for the Second Amendment, you are
branded a "rightwing extremist" by the Department of Homeland Security
and become the subject of scrutiny by some 850,000 local and state law
enforcement personnel. The assessment goes on to link concerns about the
economy, and the stockpiling of emergency food supplies and weapons and
ammunition to violent militias and extremist "rightwing" groups. In my
state of California, the state government urges all citizens to keep
emergency food supplies in case of earthquake. And who isn't concerned
about the economy? Most disgusting of all, it targets veterans for
increased law enforcement scrutiny. "Returning veterans possess combat
skills and experience that are attractive to rightwing extremists.
DHS/I&A is concerned that rightwing extremists will attempt to recruit
and radicalize returning veterans in order to boost their violent
capabilities." ...
http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=94799
---
Another Look at British "Gun Control": ...The Home Office was worried by
the 1917 Russian Revolution: perhaps British "working class" soldiers
would do the same thing and overthrow the British establishment when
they came home at the end of WW1. In the eyes of the Home Office these
men, who had been fighting and dying for their country, could not be
trusted. The Home Office was much more concerned by the fact that, in
fighting for their country, such men had become familiar with firearms,
than the greater truth that they had also been prepared to die for their
country - and had done so in vast numbers. Clearly guns should only be
permitted in the hands of those "approved" by the State... (I have been
under the impression that it was the earlier independence movement in
Ireland that had prompted Britain's early 20th century restrictions on
firearms. While there were several mutinies of working-class soldiers
and sailors in WWI, I recall them as being among the French and the
Russians.)
http://www.firearmscoalition.org/images/stories/british%20faith%20re%20gun%20control%2C%2011apr09.pdf
---
Some Partisan Humor: Do you have an Anti-gun Democratic friend who
doesn't seem as 'joyous' as they were after the election of the "Great
One"? Maybe they're worried about their 'security' at home with the
increasing "residential crime" they've been reading about. Also, maybe
they realize now that the police can't be everywhere to protect them
within seconds. Well here's 'good news' for them, and those of us
familiar with firearms. Smith & Wesson has just announced a new handgun
designed just for the left-wing person who is un-familiar with and
possibly afraid of handguns, yet wants to have adequate home protection...
http://www.federalobserver.com/2009/04/12/tell-your-friends-the-answer-is-here/
---
From Alan Korwin:
..I just got word from a highly placed reliable authority that
officials will comply with Arizona law and firearm possession will not
be banned at the NRA Convention in Phoenix, May 15-17.
Though the city technically could insist under existing law that people
check their firearms as they enter the Convention Center, the idea of
managing 60,000 people that way tipped the scales. There are not enough
lockers, and cooler heads realized the logistics were unworkable.
The liquor-license issue remained a stumbling block, since carry is
currently banned in establishments licensed to serve alcohol. The NRA
Show however has no alcohol service during the main events, so the only
places where that will be an issue is during the Annual Banquet and
several planned cocktail parties. Checking facilities will be provided
and staffed there by NRA instructors working cooperatively with Phoenix
PD. There is
even a contingency for overnight storage in case an attendee becomes
intoxicated.
If the restaurant-carry bill were to pass before the convention, even
that limitation on your civil rights might be lifted. This is unlikely
however, due to the legislative calendar, but it points out the
importance of being on the email alert lists, so you can add your voice
when that bill and other key RKBA bills come up for votes soon. Join the
local NRA at
http://www.asrpa.com and the state AZCDL at
http://www.azcdl.org. They
offer free alerts, and you help preserve your rights by signing up. Do
it. Join my free eblast list for more news like this at
http://www.gunlaws.com.
Our own Tucson-based NRA director Todd Rathner brokered the complex
arrangement, working with at least seven state and local agencies. Way
to go Todd...
http://www.gunlaws.com/ArizonaEventsAndNews4-09.htm
---
From Force Science Research Center:
New study yields unique grid for computing suspect speed in officer attacks
The latest time-and-motion study from the Force Science Research Center
offers investigators and prosecutors a new tool to apply to
officer-involved shootings and other threat encounters and presents
trainers with a challenge in improving their students' firearms skills.
The study's core findings are captured in a unique grid chart that you
can download and print out free by clicking here or typing
http://forcescience.org/speedgrid.html into your browser. (If you print
it out now, you'll better understand the applications described in this
article.)
This chart, called the Force Science SpeedGridTM, allows you to
understand and demonstrate how to compute the speed at which a suspect
is charging toward an officer with an edged weapon, for example, or
running away after a confrontation.
"The chart expresses the speed in miles per hour," explains Dr. Bill
Lewinski, FSRC's executive director. "This is a means of measuring and
illustrating speed that is readily understood by civilians--jurors, for
instance--and can help them appreciate the urgency that officers often
face in force encounters.
"If you can show that a knife-wielding offender was running toward an
officer at 15 mph, let's say, it can help a layman better understand why
that officer needed to shoot without delay before the suspect reached him."
The chart has other possible applications, as well, Lewinski says. "It
can help establish how fast an officer needed to move to escape a
vehicular attack or help explain why an officer's rounds struck a
fleeing suspect in a particular location or at a particular angle or
missed him altogether.
"In short, this is one more means by which reviewers can assess an
officer's actions and analyze the human dynamics involved in certain
encounters. When an officer says, 'The suspect was coming at me fast,'
you may now be able to explain just how fast."
The study that resulted in the SpeedGridTM stretched across a 15-year
period in which Lewinski conducted fitness evaluations of students
entering the professional law enforcement program at Minnesota State
University-Mankato, where he is a faculty member and where FSRC is
headquartered.
Among other things, the testing involved the students sprinting for 50
yards and running for a quarter-mile to simulate a foot pursuit. This
was done on a compacted sand-and-gravel track where each footfall left a
visible impression.
"When I first started competing in track meets nearly 50 years ago, I
noticed that people accelerated at different speeds," Lewinski told
Force Science News. "I also noticed that as each person accelerated, his
or her stride changed. There is a fairly consistent style of movement
that most people use as they drive forward. They start with short, quick
steps, then take increasingly longer but quicker ones as they pick up
speed."
When testing the law enforcement candidates, Lewinski began periodically
recording measurements of time, distance, and cadence of strides. "Each
step a subject took connected to a different rate of acceleration and to
a different length of stride," he says. "Realizing this led to the idea
of computing how fast the runners were actually traveling at the various
stages of their acceleration."
He estimates that he studied more than 1,000 individuals--"all kinds:
short, stocky, fat, tall, lean, male, female, predominately in the age
range of suspects officers are most likely to encounter in force
situations."
On average, he found that when youthful, vigorous, relatively fit people
start to run, their first step takes about .35 of a second (not counting
reaction time) and covers 1.5-2.0 feet. Their second step requires about
34 of a second and covers about 3.0 feet. Their third takes about .33
of a second and the stride lengthens to 3.5 to 4.0 feet...and so on.
Typically, after 5 to 7 steps, people max out at about .25 of a second
per 5.5- to 6.0-foot stride, which they can then maintain for a short
period of time.
With the help of Dr. Bill Hudson, FSRC's deputy director and head of the
university's Electrical and Computer Engineering Dept., Lewinski
transformed his findings into a grid that allows you to convert stride
length and speed into a miles-per-hour (mph) reading.
A suspect whose stride takes about 1/3 of a second and covers 4 feet,
for example, is traveling 8.26 mph. If his stride has stretched to 7
feet and is down to 0.3 seconds, he's moving at 15.91 mph. Sounds
fast--and it is. But such a speed is not unusual for an "ordinary"
person fueled by adrenalin. Olympic runners and some other rare
superstars can accelerate to more than 27 mph. By comparison, a
comfortable walking speed is 3 mph and a comfortable bicycling speed is
12 to 15 mph.
How do you know what stride length and time per stride to plug in to get
a mph reading? Two possibilities:
1. Go with the averages, which are denoted in a box that's included as
part of the SpeedGrid TM. To illustrate:
Say you're investigating an OIS in which an officer has shot and killed
a fleeing suspect. The officer says she decided to shoot when the
running offender, at a distance of about 25 feet, turned toward her and
fired at her. But the suspect actually was hit at a point about 15 feet
further away--and ended up shot in the back.
Using averages from Lewinski's study, you can assume that the suspect
was fully accelerated at the point the officer decided to fire. His
stride would have been about 5.5 to 6.0 feet long and have taken about
one-quarter second, so it was likely he was traveling at about 15 mph.
The subject then covered the distance between the point that the officer
decided to shoot and the point the bullet struck in just over one-half
second - about the time it would take an officer to just align their
weapon and fire.
"Knowing that, it's easier to grasp that the suspect would have traveled
more distance and could have turned his back to the officer between the
time she decided to shoot and her bullet actually impacted."
As another example, take a common training scenario: an edged-weapon
suspect charges toward an officer from a distance of 21 feet.
Using averages, the attacker's first stride is at about 3 mph. But
accelerating, he can reach a speed of 12 mph or more and cover 21 feet
in about 1.7 seconds in about 5 steps. Considering that the average
officer requires about 1.5 seconds to draw and fire one round from a
Level 2 holster (not even allowing for his initial reaction time), his
disadvantage in this situation is made crystal clear.
2. In some cases, evidence at a scene may allow you to be more precise.
"Often runners leave marks on a surface that you don't have to be a
tracker to see," Lewinski says. "You may be able to see where they dug
their toe in to start and then perhaps see where the front edges of
their shoes bit into the surface at each stride.
"If someone hasn't disturbed it, this kind of forensic evidence can
often be detected on asphalt and other hard surfaces as well as on dirt,
sand, and grass." You can measure these markings to determine stride length.
If you're fortunate enough to have video of the suspect running, you can
clock the timing of his stride and then find mph on the SpeedGridTM. "If
you don't have an exact time measurement," Lewinski says, "you can still
plug in the average as an approximation."
Here, the physical characteristics of the suspect may help you refine
your calculations. "Large, lumbering people will likely have a stride
time slower than average," Lewinski points out, "and more agile,
athletic body types may be faster.
"What you come up with won't be exact, but you can get a good estimate
that's meaningful in the average person's frame of reference."
In some cases, the chart may be useful in measuring an officer's speed
of movement. In cases where officers are targeted in vehicular assaults,
for example, it's sometimes claimed that the officer could simply have
stepped out of the way. But could he?
A car coming at an officer at just 10 mph covers nearly 15 feet every
second. "Figure that the officer requires 1/3 of a second to react and
then takes 2 lateral steps of about 1/3 of a second each, moving as fast
as he can," Lewinski suggests. "That means it takes nearly a full second
for him to cover only about 3.5 feet, and that may not be enough for him
to safely clear the oncoming car--unless he's Superman."
The ability to accentuate the speed at which people can move underscores
a challenge to firearms instructors, Lewinski points out. "When you
state a running suspect's speed in miles per hour, it's easy to
understand why officers often miss when trying to shoot under those
circumstances.
"In simulator scenes, the threat usually occurs in the middle of the
screen, rarely or never running across it, even though lateral movement
in officer-involved shootings is very much a real-world fact. Officers
typically will miss in shooting at a suspect dashing across their line
of sight because they usually aren't trained to properly lead a target
that can be running at 15 mph or more.
"Hopefully, the SpeedGridTM chart will motivate instructors to expand
their training to include fast-moving targets and thereby improve both
their officers' hit ratios and personal safety."
================
(c) 2009: Force Science Research Center, www.forcescience.org. Reprints
allowed by request. For reprint clearance, please e-mail:
[email protected]. FORCE SCIENCE is a registered trademark of
The Force Science Research Center, a non-profit organization based at
Minnesota State University, Mankato.
================
--
Stephen P. Wenger, KE7QBY
Firearm safety - It's a matter
for education, not legislation.
http://www.spw-duf.info
