Oleg Volk identifies gun control as a classic case of the assignment of collective responsibility.

Via Vanderleun.

More Hoplophobic insanity

NBC Philadelphia:

A 7-year-old child allegedly shot a Nerf-style toy gun in his Hammonton, N.J., school Jan. 18. No one was hurt, but the pint-size softshooter now faces misdemeanor criminal charges.

Hammonton Police began an investigation into the “suspicious activity” at the Hammonton Early Childhood Education Center Jan. 18 after school officials alerted them to the incident.

The “gun” the child brought to school was a $5 toy gun, similar to a Nerf gun, that shoots soft ping pong type balls, according to the school’s superintendent.

Officials also say that there was no evidence of anyone being threatened. The child’s mother told school officials that she didn’t know her son brought the toy to school.

Dr. Dan Blachford, the Hammonton Board of Education superintendent, said the school has a zero tolerance policy.

“We are just very vigilant and we feel that if we draw a very strict line then we have much less worry about someone bringing in something dangerous,” said Blachford. …

Police charged the 7-year-old with possessing an imitation firearm in or on an education institution – a misdemeanor and a minor juvenile offense in New Jersey.

Hat tip to Walter Olson.

From Theo.

Gallup poll results show that pinning the blame on conservatives failed.

Most Americans reject that theory, with 53% agreeing that commentators who allege conservative rhetoric was responsible were mostly attempting to use the tragedy to make conservatives look bad.

And efforts to drum up support for more control on the basis of the tragedy in Tuscon are really going nowhere.

Most Americans… do not believe tougher gun laws in Arizona would have prevented these shootings. One in five say stricter laws would have prevented the tragedy, while 72% disagree.

Alan Caruba points out once again that gun control laws are ineffective in disarming the insane.

In 1247, the Bethlehem Royal Hospital was established at Bishopsgate, just outside the London wall. It was better known as Bedlam and was the first asylum for the mentally ill in England. By 1403 it had some prominent guests. Bedlam had become the generic name for psychiatric hospitals and, more colloquially for a disturbance of the peace.

There was such a disturbance on Saturday when Jared Loughner shot U.S Representative Gabrielle Giffords in the brain at point blank range. He then shot others including a Federal judge and a nine-year-old child.

There is something like 25,000 laws on the books concerning the purchase and ownership of guns and not one single one of them could have prevented what happened.

This is not a defense of guns. The U.S. Revolution began at Concord and Lexington when a group of farmers picked up their guns and shot at British soldiers. No one is going to un-invent guns and everywhere they were banned, tyrannies of every description occurred.

This is about the Jared Loughner’s who, in my lifetime, assassinated men like John F. Kennedy, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X. Some nine U.S. presidents have either been killed or attacked by assassins. …

Anyone who has been a reporter as I have been will tell you that every American city has a section that local residents fear to travel to or through. Murder occurs in every American city, large and small, every day. Usually it is a drug deal or robbery gone bad or a gambling dispute.

For reporters, the killing of someone prominent is a news bonanza. It overrides the usual buzz in a newsroom devoted to the more commonplace stories. There’s a reason the news channels are into full coverage mode and why, by the end of the week, when they have exhausted the few known facts of the Tucson shooting, they will return to a normal coverage of the news.

Here’s what you need to keep in mind. It’s not about gun laws. It’s not about Tucson. It’s not about Arizona. It’s not about political analysis and dialogue, so you can ignore the hypocritical ravings of MSNBC’s Keith Olberman and others eager to blame Rush Limbaugh or the Fox News Channel.

Loughner is Hinkley redux. Described by all who know him as “a loner” and rejected for military service, invited to leave the campus of a local college, more than a few people understood that Jared had a screw loose.

The closest you can get to understanding what happened is to rent Martin Scorsese’s brilliant film, “Taxi Driver.” There you will see Robert DeNiro’s portrayal of Travis Bickle, the archetype of every lone gunman. And yes, also in the film, you will find Jodie Foster.

The shooting was about mental illness. It was about paranoia. It was about schizophrenia. It was about all the other killings where innocent people were gunned down by someone hearing voices in his head.

Say a prayer for Rep. Giffords, but remember, they walk among us.

Via Theo.

Providence, Rhode Island addresses violent crime by destroying children’s toy guns at Christmas time.

Boston Globe:

Dominic Johnson, a 10-year-old fourth-grader with a fledgling Mohawk, brandished his black, long-nosed toy gun and caressed the muzzle appreciatively.

“It’s like a shotgun mixed with a rifle,’’ he said, as his mother, April, told him to stop pointing it at nearby children.

Soon it would be junk.

Dominic joined dozens of children yesterday at the annual Toy Gun Bash in the gymnasium of Pleasant View Elementary School. There, they lined up to toss their toy guns, from dainty purple water guns to camouflage-painted pistols, inside the Bash-O-Matic, a large black, foam creature with churning metal teeth and the shape of a cockroach spliced with a frog.

Prodded by Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch, who wore a fuzzy Santa hat, the children stared curiously as the Bash-O-Matic mashed up their guns and digested them into a plastic bin near its tail. …

For seven years, Providence municipal and law enforcement officials have organized the event around Christmastime as a way to raise awareness of the dangers of playing with guns, real or fake. …

In exchange for their toy guns, all the children received wrapped presents that were indisputably not violent — dolls, stuffed animals, and board games like checkers.

Some children were not thrilled with the trade.

Malik Hall, a round-eyed second-grader, looked apprehensive as he stood in line with his favorite toy, a thick, blue gun with plastic sword underneath the muzzle. The 8-year-old was furious when his mother, Amanda, told him he would have to give it up. Yesterday morning, he tried to hide it under his pillow, she said.

“I’m worried,’’ she said. “He might cry.’’

But when it was his turn, Malik strode dry-eyed and with quiet dignity to the Bash-O-Matic and fed it the gun. When his mother approached, he said nothing.

“You don’t want to talk to me?’’ Hall asked. He looked at her stonily and left to retrieve his gift.

Hall said she had no regrets. The 26-year-old mother of six said she has been trying to wean her only son off toy guns for years. In kindergarten, he brought a pop gun to school and shot at a classmate when the child refused to return his toy truck.

The police and representatives of the state’s children services department rushed to the school, and the boy was expelled.

Hat tip to Adam Freedman.

M1 Garand

The Korea Times reports that the Obama administration is blocking the sale to US importers of tens of thousands of surplus M1 Garands and M1 carbines, avidly desired by American target shooters and collectors on grounds that they might find their way into the hands of terrorists (!).

The U.S. government opposed South Korea’s bid to sell hundreds of thousands of aging U.S. combat rifles to American gun collectors, a senior government official said Thursday.

The ministry announced the plan last September as part of efforts to boost its defense budget, saying the export of the M1 Garand and carbine rifles would start by the end of 2009.

The U.S. administration put the brakes on the plan, citing “problems” that could be caused by the importation of the rifles.

The problems the U.S. government cited were somewhat ambiguous, said an official at the Ministry of National Defense on condition of anonymity.

“The U.S. insisted that imports of the aging rifles could cause problems such as firearm accidents. It was also worried the weapons could be smuggled to terrorists, gangs or other people with bad intentions,” the official told The Korea Times. …

The Seoul government sought to sell the outdated U.S guns back to the United States.

A total of 86,000 M1 rifles and another 22,000 carbines were to be sold, as the weapons have been mothballed for about five decades in military warehouses. The per-unit price of the M1 rifle is about $220 and the carbine is more than $140, according to the ministry.

M1s were made first in 1926 and used in World War II and the 1954-1975 Vietnam War. The carbines were first produced in 1941 and used during the 1950-1953 Korean War.

Hat tip to David Kopel.

ChinaSmack, a blogsite translating Chinese news and comments, publishes a Chinese comment thread on gun ownership in America. They are even sold in Walmart!

Hat tip to Bird Dog.

The Court’s decision in McDonald v. City of Chicago was handed down this morning.

Erin Miller, at SCOTUSblog, live blogged the announcement:

Erin:
Alito announces McDonald v. Chicago: reversed and remanded
Monday June 28, 2010 10:04 Erin
10:04

Tom:
Gun rights prevail
Monday June 28, 2010 10:04 Tom
10:05

Erin:

The opinion concludes that the 14th Amendment does incorporate the Second Amendment right recognized in Heller to keep and bear arms in self defense
Monday June 28, 2010 10:05 Erin
10:05

Tom:
5-4
Monday June 28, 2010 10:05 Tom
10:05

Erin:
Stevens dissents for himself. Breyer dissents, joined by Ginsburg and Sotomayor.
Monday June 28, 2010 10:05 Erin
10:05

Tom:
The majority seems divided, presumably on the precise standard
Monday June 28, 2010 10:05 Tom
10:06

Erin:
The majority Justices do not support all parts of the Alito opinion, but all five agree that the 2d Amendment applies to state and local government.
Monday June 28, 2010 10:06 Erin
10:06

Erin:
Alito, in the part of the opinion joined by three Justices, concludes that the 2d Amendment is incorporated through the Due Process Clause.
Monday June 28, 2010 10:06 Erin
10:07

Erin:
Thomas thinks the Amendment is incorporated, but not under Due Process. He appears to base incorporation on Privileges or Immunities.

Evidently, the Court actually did rule that the 14th Amendment’s Incorporation of the Bill of Rights makes applicable the Second Amendment to the states, limiting the right of states and municipalities to restrict the right of Americans to keep and bear arms.

Shannon Love, at Chicago Boyz, explains (quite correctly) that it’s all about shifting the blame.

A lot of the big urban areas of the Northeast have turned into war zones. Virtually, without exception, they place the blame on lax “gun control”… laws for their sky-high murder rates. I wonder if their voters have ever asked themselves why their mayors are so obsessed?

I think the answer is simple: It give the mayors external actors to blame so they don’t have to answer for their own incompetence.

Think about it. What is every one of those mayors really saying when they talk about disarming the citizenry? They’re really saying, “Hey, it’s not my fault our city has become a shooting gallery, it’s the fault of those rednecks three states over! You can’t blame me because I can’t control what those rednecks do! Oh, if only we could overturn two centuries of Constitutional law we would have safe streets! Until that happens, don’t even think of voting me out! It wouldn’t be fair!”

Apparently, the urbanites’ regional, racial and class bigotries make them more willing to blame people outside of their communities than to accept responsibility for the safety of those very same communities. The mayors and the rest of the failing big-city pols have figured out that the age-old practice of blaming outsiders is the sure path to political job security.

The problem in the big cities of the Northeast isn’t guns. If guns caused problems, it’s rural America and pro-gun states like Texas that would be murder horror shows, not the Northeast cities crammed with people too self-righteously moral to accept the responsibility of protecting their loved ones and their communities. When young black men are safer in small, gun-packed southern towns than they are in northeastern urban areas, you know something has gone seriously wrong in the big city.

No, the problem in the Northeast’s urban areas is an unusually large population of individuals who chose to kill and a political and criminal-justice system that cannot or will not contain them. It is ineffective law enforcement that drives high murder rates, not access to guns.

Hat tip to the News Junkie.

The Supreme Court is expected shortly to overturn the city of Chicago’s gun ban, and Mayor Richard M. Daley has been talking a lot about gun control.

Mike Dumke, a reporter for the in-no-way-conservative Chicago Reader, brought up at the mayor’s recent press conference the obvious point that Chicago’s draconian gun laws have been ineffective in stopping the use of guns in crime, and hizonner (while brandishing a police-confiscated military rifle complete with bayonet) proposed a hypothetical including the reporter.

Guns are one of the mayor’s favorite soapbox topics—he regularly goes out of his way to point out that he despises gun manufacturers and “extremists” like the NRA. “It’s really amazing how powerful they are,” he said today, standing next to a table covered with handguns, rifles, and even a machine gun that police had seized. “They’re bigger than the oil industry, bigger than the gas industry, bigger than Google, bigger than President Obama and the rest of them.” …

But even supporters of tough gun regulations—myself included—have to admit that it’s not clear how much they reduce violence. Despite having some of the most restrictive laws in the country, Chicago is a national leader in shootings and murders, and the mayor himself noted that “we’ve seen far too many instances in the last few weeks” of firearm violence, including the shooting that left a cop dead last night.

So I asked: since guns are readily available in Chicago even with a ban in place, do you really think it’s been effective? …

“Oh!” Daley said. “It’s been very effective!”

He grabbed a rifle, held it up, and looked right at me. He was chuckling but there was no smile.

“If I put this up your—ha!—your butt—ha ha!—you’ll find out how effective this is!”

For a moment the room was very, very quiet. I took a good look at the weapon. It had a long bayonet. (Was it seized during the Civil War?)

“If I put a round up your—ha ha!”

The photographers snapped away. Suddenly everybody started cracking up.

Daley went on. “This gun saved many lives—it could save your life,” he said—meaning, I think, that getting that gun off the street might have saved many lives, including mine.

And he went on some more. “We save all these guns that the police department seizes, you know how many lives we’ve saved? You don’t realize it. First of all, they’re taking these guns out of someone’s hands. They save their own life and they save someone else’s. You cannot count how many times this gun can be used. Thirty, forty times in shooting people and discharging a weapon. I think it’s very important.

“Next will be hand grenades, right? We’ll say that hand grenades are OK. I mean, how far can you go in regards to mass weapons? To me, any gun taken off saves thousands of lives in America. I really believe that, I don’t care what people tell me. You have to thank the police officers for seizing all these weapons. We lead the country in seizing weapons. This is unbelievable.”

I had to agree.

0: 24 video

Mayor Daley’s understanding of firearms and America is pretty sad. The National Rifle Association has typically around 3-4 million members, its membership roll fluctuating and tending to rise significantly when major new gun control initiatives make the news. The NRA is an influential lobbying organization, but its strength is not really a matter of the size of its membership or annual budget, which is certainly small potatoes compared to the oil and gas industries or Google. The NRA is influential because it represents the views of many millions of American sportsmen and gun owners who have demonstrated their opinions by voting against liberal politicians who supported gun control. The gun control issue has cost the democrats a great any congressional seats and certainly the Presidential election of 2000, in which Al Gore lost his home state of Tennessee. Mayor Daley’s adversary on the gun control issue is not the NRA. It is the American people.

Mayor Daley then holds up the military rifle with fixed bayonet. He is holding it sideways, so we can only see the bottom. It is short, a carbine, and seems to have an extended magazine. I think it was probably an SKS with a a folding bayonet.

Did confiscating that SKS really save anybody’s life? It seems doubtful to me.

There is plenty of crime and many shootings take place in Chicago, but gangbangers and muggers tend to use pistols which are considerably easier to carry and conceal than a carbine. Mayor Daley’s “To me, any gun taken off saves thousands of lives in America.” is obviously craziness.

Chances are overwhelming that that SKS was never used in any crime whatsoever. (Anybody hear of any bayonetings in Chicago recently?) And guns actually fired in the commission of a crime tend to be used once, by and large, and then discarded. There are many, perhaps hundreds of, millions of guns in private hands in the United States. Some collectors own hundreds. The percentage of firearms actually ever used in crime is infinitesimal.

People like Mayor Daley want to focus law enforcement efforts on confiscating objects instead of apprehending criminals simply because taking weapons away from people not committing any crimes with them is so much easier than catching the bad guys.

The LA Times is predicting that the Supreme Court will ultimately rule in McDonald v. Chicago as it did in District of Columbia v. Heller, striking down the City of Chicago’s complete ban on the private ownership of handguns.

Reading the tea leaves is not very hard, since Justice Anthony Kennedy these days casts the deciding vote.

[D]uring Tuesday’s arguments, the justices who formed the majority in the D.C. case said they had already decided that gun rights deserved national protection.

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said the individual right to bear arms is a “fundamental” right, like the other protections in the Bill of Rights. “If it’s not fundamental, then Heller is wrong,” he said, referring to the D.C. ruling, which he joined. Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel A. Alito Jr. echoed the same theme.

At one point, Justice John Paul Stevens proposed a narrow ruling in favor of gun rights. Two years ago, he dissented and said the 2nd Amendment was designed to protect a state’s power to have a “well regulated militia.”

Now, however, Stevens said the court could rule that residents had a right to a gun at home, but not a right “to parade around the street with a gun.”

A lawyer representing the National Rifle Assn. scoffed at the idea and opposed a “watered-down version” of the 2nd Amendment.

Scalia also questioned the idea. In his opinion two years ago, he described the right to bear arms as a right to “carry” a weapon in cases of “confrontation.” Such a right would not be easily limited to having a gun at home.

The justices will meet behind closed doors to vote this week on the case of McDonald vs. Chicago. It may be late June before they issue a written ruling.