In the News (Blogosphere)

The past several weeks have been quite busy for me. From having a newborn son, to being out-of-state for a week, to a returning home and having family down for my daughter’s two year birthday. And many other events that just consumed a lot of my time. All of which resulted in me being a bit behind on events in the news.

While I have been posting intermittently through the past few weeks I’ve only managed to post about 1/2 of what I intended to. So here’s a few items to make up for things:

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Pin & Weld – Snowflakes In Hell discusses that fact that the “pin and weld” option for short rifle barrels does not appear in the new ATF handbook. For those not familiar with the pin and weld technique. Short barrelled rifles and shotguns are regulated by the BATFE. One option that had been considered acceptable in the past was to take a short barrel and pin and weld onto it a flash suppressor. The resulting combined length no longer being considered to fall under short barrel regulation. If this is being changed, it poses the risk of making thousands of rifle owners “felons” awaiting conviction.

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CCWs vs LEOs – Security cameras prove once again that permit holders are safer than police officers. Two permit holders get into a fender bender. No big deal. Minor damage. All is well…until the father of the man who rear ended the car in front of him gets involved. He goes into the Lukoil store where the passengers of the front car were. He comes in, grabs the girl (Ms. Lawless) and puts a gun in her face. (By the way, did I mention the dad is a Philly cop.) Originally, the officer claimed that Lawless assaulted her. And she would be have probably have been convicted of that charge if not for this security video showing a thug wearing a badge.

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Interesting Reads:

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How free is your state?
(Seen this one before, may have even posted it – but it’s always fun to revisit!)

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CNN talks about the ammo shortage
(I know, this one’s already made it’s rounds through a lot of the blogosphere. I actually saw it when it was on CNN’s homepage and meant to post it then. Sorry)

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Do more guns equal more death?

Some interesting insights can be drawn from this chart.

U.S. population is increasing.
U.S. firearm ownership is increasing (faster than the population rate in fact)
Deaths / Population is decreasing, in fact, deaths per handgun are also dropping.
(Thus defeating the “More guns equal more death!”)
States that allow legal personal carry of firearms either as “shall issue” or “free carry” has greatly increased.

Some additional causations can be implied. There is a fair drop that at first glance seems to begin when the Brady Act and AWB went into effect. But look closely – the drop actually began before the Act went into effect. And there is absolutely zero difference when the AWB was passed.

Walls of the City (creator of the chart) hypothesizes that the drop may correspond inversely to the increase in right to carry.

I’ll wager another hypothesis, because I remember that era. In the late 80’s and early 90’s gang crime was intense. In the early 90’s there was a nationwide crackdown on gangs. The crackdown involved numerous large and medium cities, state and Federal law enforcement agencies. Many of those arrested in those crackdowns faced 10 yr, and 20 yr sentences. The first batch to be released would be the early 2000’s. Right around when we see an increase in deaths. However, we are still seeing a decrease in deaths per capita.

H/T Walls of the City