The trend Josh Horwitz doesn't want you to see

Josh Horwitz, executive director of some third-tier gun control group called the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, gives us a rather odd interpretation of the levels of NICS checks over the past thirteen years:

These are rates of (potential) gun sales per capita utilizing annual U.S. population data:

2011: 10,037,110 (3,217 per 100,000)
2010: 8,753,555 (2,835 per 100,000)
2009: 8,927,138 (2,907 per 100,000)
2008: 8,426,245 (2,771 per 100,000)
2007: 7,530,727 (2,499 per 100,000)
2006: 7,361,033 (2,467 per 100,000)
2005: 6,935,952 (2,346 per 100,000)
2004: 6,599,292 (2,253 per 100,000)
2003: 6,333,371 (2,182 per 100,000)
2002: 6,347,492 (2,206 per 100,000)
2001: 7,207,720 (2,528 per 100,000)
2000: 7,067,634 (2,504 per 100,000)
1999: 7,857,932 (2,816 per 100,000)

As you can see, over the past 13 years, the per capita "sales" figure has fluctuated between a high of 3,217 per 100,000 in 2011 and a low of 2,182 per 100,000 in 2003. But there have been no "dramatic" spikes in either direction dating back to the final two years of the Clinton administration.

The context here is that Joshy-boy wants us to believe that there is a continued decline of gun ownership in America, based on data collected in the General Social Survey, in which respondents are asked if they have guns during a telephone call from a stranger working for the government.  

In a wonderful Baghdad Bob-esque fashion, he implores his followers to ignore the steady increase in NICS checks.  One NICS check is performed every time an individual buys, or attempts to buy, one or more firearms from an FFL.  People generally don't like to waste time, so people will not attempt to buy a gun from a federally licensed dealer unless they will pass the instant background check.  Most transactions involve one gun at a time.  Therefore NICS checks track well with new gun purchases.  But this gun banner doesn't want you to think that.  

So let's vizualize  Horwitz's time series, and see if his claim - that  per capita "sales" figure has fluctuated between a high of 3,217 per 100,000 in 2011 and a low of 2,182 per 100,000 in 2003, is true.  The only correct use of "fluctuating" here would be that there is random variation around a constant mean.  Let's look:

Clearly, there has been a steady increase in NICS checks since 2002 after four years of decline from 1999 to 2001.  There's no argument about these numbers and no white-noise fluctuation as Josh Horwitz wants you to believe.  He intentionally avoided presenting the data in the clear manner I have done.  Look at his data presentation, and consider why he used reverse chronological order, along with levels and rates in the same row.  His intention was to hide meaning in the data, not to enlighten.  

You can also look at the annual percent change of the same series:

Again, the trend is clear.  For the past decade we're seeing consistent, positive growth rates in NICS checks, which closely tracks with gun purchases whether or not the Horowitzes and Sugarmanns want to believe it. 

Maybe the Joshes would believe it if they just visualized the data honestly.  

Racist anti-gun comment of the day - NH State Rep Stephen Shurtleff

From today's Globe:

State Rep. Stephen Shurtleff, D-Concord, said the bill would mean people could bring guns into the Verizon Wireless Arena and Fisher Cats baseball stadium in Manchester. The arena is the site of concerts, hockey games and other events.

"Imagine if there is a hip-hop concert at the Verizon arena," he said.

Yes, imagine if black people gathered in large numbers in a place that didn't have "no guns allowed signs". We can't have them shooting up the place and raping all the white women.

Thank you, Rep. Stephen Shurtleff, for protecting us from the negroes.

Fudd of the day - Cap'n Crunch

Written by someone claiming to be pro-gun rights on one of the anti-gun blogs (there are three of them or so, so you can guess which one): 

Cap'n Crunch says: 
here are the measures for citizens who want to be armed:
...
"(3) Everyone registers all of their firearms and every sale requires the buyer to pass a background check.
(4) Government cannot use registration information for mass confiscations."

"The only reason I favor registration is to help reduce the flow of firearms to people who have criminal backgrounds and would fail a background check when trying to purchase one from a dealer. I don't think for a moment that registration would significantly reduce the supply of firearms for criminals."

Here are a couple of amazing juxtapositions.  First, advocating for universal registration with the caveat that government can't use the list for mass confiscation.  You have to be a real moron to think like this, that government has to follow its own rules. 

The second statement is just baffling and makes no sense.  He's favoring registration in order to reduce the flow of firearms to criminals, even though registration wouldn't reduce the flow of firearms to criminals. 

This is a Fudd who has a major mental impairment.  Or is it a sockpuppet of one of the illiterates who publishes on that site? 

Boston firearms licensing now requires appointment

The Boston Police Department is now requiring that LTC applicants call ahead and make an appointment for their application.  Before that, you could walk in from the street, pay your $100 and get the criminal treatment (background check, fingerprinting, etc.).

The reason given for the change is that there is a surge in license applications and the licensing department needs to balance their workload, but this doesn't make given that licensing is a self-financing operation.  Of every $100 application fee, $25 goes to the feds for the background check, $50 goes to the Boston Police, and $25 goes to the Commonwealth to spend as they please (yes, you read that right).  

If every application process takes about a half hour, the $50 of revenue per application should be able to support staffing the licensing office at an appropriate level to allow walk-ins.  Sadly there's no political will in Boston to do this.  

No advanced notice was given of the change, and I'd like to know how many applicants the office is turning away - people who took the morning off from work to make the trip to headquarters to get a gun license.  Imagine the uproar if the government used this practice for voter registration.  

How much bullshit can you squeeze into one Guardian UK article?

Chris McGreal wrote a real hack piece for the Guardian UK last week.  

Early into it he quotes Kristen Rand, the foremost authority on why US gun laws cause Mexican gangs to kill people.  

Kristen Rand, director of the Violence Policy Centre, which campaigns for greater gun control, said drug traffickers faced little more than a few logistical difficulties in buying weapons in the US. "If you wanted to design a set of laws to encourage gun trafficking, that is what the US has done. The traffickers can access a high volume of assault weapons, sniper rifles, armour-piercing handguns. All the weapons they need to wage war are readily available on the civilian market."

Last I checked, Kristen, federal law makes it a crime to buy a firearm if you are not the actual buyer.  I know this, because every time I buy a gun from an FFL, I have to check a box and sign my name on a form that says I am the actual buyer.  Trafficking is already illegal.  One more law won't help.

Here's a flat out lie:

It is even easier to buy ammunition. Although many states demand a driver's licence to buy common types of cold medicine that can also be used to manufacture methamphetamine, not a single state requires identification to purchase ammunition, even in large quantities.

In the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, where I live, a seller of ammunition is required by law to check the buyer's firearms license (FID or LTC).  A drivers license or library card won't suffice - it must be a gun license.   I know this because I have to present my LTC every time I buy ammo.  If I don't show it, the clerk won't sell me ammo.  Why did this make it past the many layers of editorial oversight at the Guardian? 

Another flat out lie:

According to the US Government Accountability Office, 87% of firearms seized by Mexico over the past five years were traced to the US.

Why is this a lie?  It's a lie because the percentage uses the wrong denominator.   Here's the correct statement for the 87% figure:  Of firearms seized in Mexico AND submitted for tracing to the BATFE, 87% were traced to the US.  

Suppose 10,000 guns are seized by authorities in Mexico, of which 9,000 appear to be military weapons from, say, Costa Rica; and 1,000 of which are semiauto pistols and rifles which could very well have been trafficked into the US.  The federales will only submit the 1,000 plausibly-American guns to BATFE for testing, and 870/1,000 will be traced to the US.

It is wrong and deceitful to say that 87% (870/1000) of guns seized in Mexico are traced to the US, because it ignores the 9,000 guns bought from Central America that Mexican authorities don't bother tracing.  The correct percentage, for the way Chris McGreal phrased it, would be 870/10000, or 8.7%.  Whatever the exact percentage is, it's a small fraction of the 87% figure.  Why are journalist so dense about this?

This excerpt is just flat out confusing:

A report by the US Senate's narcotics control caucus in June said: "Congress has been virtually moribund while powerful Mexican drug-trafficking organisations continue to gain unfettered access to military-style firearms coming from the US. The reason [better gun control] doesn't happen is because the National Rifle Association owns Congress," said Rand.

So, is the US Senate saying this, or is Kristen Rand saying it?  Is the US Senate actually complaining that it can't enact gun control because the NRA owns the Senate?  Or is McGreal quoting Rand reading from a report?  I'm so confused.

Then comes the concealed carry bogeyman:

"Congress is right now ­working to pass legislation to loosen the restrictions on the carrying of concealed weapons. There's no will, no leadership from the White House."

What the ongoing wonderful liberalization of CCW laws in the US has to do with Mexican drug dealers, I have no idea.  Neither does McGreal or Rand.

J Dewey Webb, the ATF agent who's doing a bang-up job in chasing gun traffickers, pulls a bizarre statement out of his ass:

"Every person that pays for that marijuana, that meth, that cocaine is paying for the tools of the trade, which are guns. Those people buying the drugs are just as responsible as the people buying those guns and just as responsible as the people pulling the triggers in Mexico."

I'm pretty sure that smoking pot or doing a little blow is not the moral equivalent of murdering people to protect or expand your drug turf.  Way to be a blowhard though. 


We finally finish this abortion of an article with a whiny, dishonest quote from Mexican president Felip Calderon:

Mexico's president sees it differently: "Why does this arms business continue?" Calderon said in June. "I say it openly: it's because of the profit which the US arms industry makes."

Yes, Phil, like most business they try to turn a profit.  Nice insight. 

I POSE SERIOUS YO

Two ground rules for debating gun control

1. When the gun banner notes how many people guns kill, you can't point out the fact that cars kill more people. 

2. When the gun banner claims that countries with strict gun laws have lower "gun death" rates, you can't point out counterexamples of countries where individual gun ownership is banned and the "gun death" rates far exceeds that of the US, such as Mexico or Jamaica. 

The gun banners get really really butthurt when you say these things. 

Guns and borders

Weer'd wrote about the silliness of arbitrary borders making criminals of us.

I walk my dog at a public park next to a middle school in Boston.  To get to the park I have to walk an extra block so I don't cross the school parking lot and become a criminal.  The route has me walk adjacent to the school zone, my heater mere inches from crossing that imaginary line that determines my criminality.

I wonder, if I touch the school property with my toe, but every other part of me is on city property, am I committing a crime?  What if my whole foot is in the school zone?

What about the poor bastard who doesn't even realize it's a school parking lot?