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George Rebane

In doing some research for the upcoming Breaking Bread episode on the Second Amendment, I found this clear summary of America’s murder rate.  It is compiled by the Death Penalty Information Center using FBI statistics. These numbers and the trend overwhelm the infrequent episodic mass killings that have occurred over the last years.

MurderRate
Guns account for approximately 75% of the means used to murder people in America according to factcheck.org (I thought it would have been higher).  The rate of guns used for murder has been going down for the last twenty years, while gun ownership has been steadily rising.  In 2007 Americans owned about 89 guns for every 100 people.  And other gun violence numbers also going down are ‘gun aggravated assault’ and ‘gun robberies’ which in 2011 were the lowest since 2004.  All this goes to illustrate and highlight the bogus nature of the recently failed gun control bill in Congress, and the misleading arguments used by the nation’s gun control crowd even before the Second Amendment considerations are included.
 

[Addendum]  Apropos to the ongoing gun control debate, the following is a verbatim extract from one of several such emails that are circulating among conservatives, and fueling the polarization of Americans.  I post the email in its entirety to let our liberal readers understand what also fuels the emotions of the Right; emotions that go beyond the more reasoned and measured arguments usually made by conservatives in defense of the Second Amendment, and the private ownership of arms and the concealed carry of guns.  The Brunswick, Georgia mother most certainly could have used one, and should have had one to protect herself and her baby.  The murder is reported by CNN here, and the Crime Library site gives some background here on the alleged killer’s family.


I have no corroboration of the additional claims made about Elkins in the second paragraph.  But since these allegations can be verified, I think it’s plausible that a profitable enterprise would result from making book with a progressive or two on which of these claims being ultimately verified as true.


ElkinsMugshotIn late March 2013, 17 year old De’Marquis Elkins shot and killed a 13 month old baby who was sitting in a stroller.  Elkins shot the infant in the face after the mother refused to give him money.  He also shot the mother in the leg and the neck in Brunswick , GA.

De’Marquis Elkins is not a member of the NRA.  He did not use an assault rifle.  He did not get his stolen pistol from a gun show.  His favorite music is rap.  He did not attend Christian school, nor was he home schooled.  He did attend multicultural public education, and was not instructed in the Ten Commandments.  His Momma was on welfare, got food stamps, and lived in public housing.  His daddy was not around, and his two brothers have a different daddy.  He already has a record for violent crimes.  He is gang member.  His mom, grandma, and Aunty all voted for Obama.  He never earned his hunter safety card, nor did he shoot CMP, Junior NRA, or 4H Air Rifle Competitions.  He was never instructed in gun safety from his father or grandfather.  His public education and family taught him that the white man owes him something.  He went to collect it.  He has no plans on getting married, but does have a Baby Momma, and no, he is not supporting her baby.  He smokes dope.  He does respect Kayne West.  While he has no job, nor is looking for one, he is well fed.  He has no skills outside of crime.  He speaks Ebonics, and is not capable of doing a professional interview, even though he spent 11 years in public education.

He is one of millions.  This is what we are up against.  Make no mistake that people like Elkins will have their guns.  There are people wanting to deny you the right to arm yourself.  Your tax dollars are paying for the continuation of a system that breeds pieces of shit like this one.

[27apr13 update]  Here is an eye-opening survey of gun policy attitudes held by the ‘boots on the ground’ law enforcement community.  It was conducted recently by the PoliceOne.com organization and involved a very impressive sample size of over 15,000 law enforcement officers nationwide.  It throws a new light on the kind of reports we get from the lamestream. 
Download PoliceOne Gun Policy Survey.

Posted in , , , , ,

115 responses to “US Murder Rate History [Addended] (updated 27apr13)”

  1. fish Avatar
    fish

    300 million privately owned guns is a temporal problem. Make them more expensive and the law of supply and demand will reduce their number over time.
    Excellent! You’ve just stapled the “over time they’ll all just rust away” argument onto the creation of a fabulous new black market for firearms. 2K for the equivalent of a $50 Saturday Night Special and I’ve found a lucrative hobby for my weekends.
    Sounds like you are committed to pioneering innovative solutions in the Sierra Nevada.

    Like

  2. Steve Frisch Avatar
    Steve Frisch

    Well Fish, I do believe in market based solutions, so coupling making guns more expensive with buy back programs should be a nice business for someone for a while. The combination of regulation and markets can be a very powerful force!

    Like

  3. Todd Juvinall Avatar
    Todd Juvinall

    You are simply emotional Frisch. The guns exist and many guns, owned by good law abiding people are swiped by the bad guys. (horse out of barn, get it?)Heck, even our government sold a bunch to the Mexican drug machine.
    You have not answered the question and you lame response is repetitively fallacious. Elkin’s killed a baby and I want to know how you would have stopped him since he already had the weapon. Waiting.

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  4. fish Avatar
    fish

    The combination of regulation and markets can be a very powerful force!
    Yes…it’s done wonders for drug policy.

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  5. Gregory Avatar

    Sorry Steve, but the so-called assault weapons ban came and went before the 2nd was finally incorporated into law with DC v Heller and McDonald v Chicago. Better late than never.
    It’s now a settled individual right, not a collective one. This is an issue of constitutional rights, and the 20th century solutions involving a collective rights interpretation of the 2nd, allowing states and Federal legislation to ban guns or implement infringements as they wished, is no longer arguable.
    It may surprise you, but large capacity magazines are still quite legal to possess and use in California, if you bought them before their sale or importation was made illegal, another law that predates McDonald v Chicago. Expect it to be challenged eventually, but working the kinks out by via the courts takes time.
    Why did Handgun Control, Inc. change their name to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence? It might have been because Handgun Control had lost the war over public opinion:
    http://www.gallup.com/poll/150341/record-low-favor-handgun-ban.aspx

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  6. fish Avatar
    fish

    Why did Handgun Control, Inc. change their name to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence?
    And lets face it….the fundraising was much more effective with the big scary black machine gun resembling guns.

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  7. Gregory Avatar

    ” I do believe in market based solutions, so coupling making guns more expensive with buy back programs should be a nice business for someone for a while. The combination of regulation and markets can be a very powerful force!” – Frisch
    Isn’t that the Sierra Business Council rent-seeking recipe? Making guns more expensive was also the basis for the campaign against Saturday Night Specials, those cheap handguns that even poor blacks could afford to buy and use on those crazy Saturday Nights in, umm, well, with the dog whistle in place everyone knew the campaigns against “Saturday Night Specials” were not aimed at the guns middle class white people owned.
    Steve, so you think it’s a public good to price self defense above what the working (or not working) poor can afford?

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  8. Gregory Avatar

    “And lets face it….the fundraising was much more effective with the big scary black machine gun resembling guns.” –Fish
    It’s even better than that… it was a Brady Center guy in the first place who invented the bogus “assault weapon” category to confuse the public into thinking they were “assault rifles”, the machine guns used by the military, and time after time, news accounts of the ban’s working its way through Congress invariably showed an automatic version spraying bullets into a target.
    In an even greater Newspeak development, the Dept. of Homeland Security has a contract out to buy seven thousand “Personal Defense Weapons” for their personnel, with 30 round magazines. A PDW is a very compact assault rifle, firing the same 5.56mm round the M16 assault rifle fires. Let’s hope they go to the likes of the FBI and not the Toilet Safety Administration.

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  9. Gregory Avatar

    “a fingerprint based trigger lock would have literally meant Mr. Elkin could not fire the gun.”
    As long as Frisch is inventing things that don’t exist now, would probably never work reliably if invented and can never be retrofitted to the 300 million guns now owned by Americans, [sarc] I vote to built a giant space based laser for God (Allah where necessary) to use to shoot bad guys just before they kill.
    Yes, I understand God (as usually envisioned) can do this already if S/he wants to, but if you make it really cool with all sorts of gizmos sticking out of it mounted on Picatinny rails of the Gods, maybe S/he’d decide it could be fun. [/sarc]

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  10. fish Avatar
    fish

    I vote to built a giant space based laser for God (Allah where necessary) to use to shoot bad guys (or the “other” planet) just before they kill.
    …and as usual the Simpsons are way ahead of you!
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTJ0qYR6YFo
    Don’t blame me I voted for Kodos.

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  11. Steve Frisch Avatar
    Steve Frisch

    If you all spend your lives looking at the last 200 years and wishing for what was instead of looking at the next 200 hundred years and what can be you will never see the change you want in society. The entire story of this web site is that 80% of the posters long for Norman Rockwell and the other 20% are looking forward with optimism.
    Todd, I answered your question: no one has ever said that there is a way to put the toothpaste back into the tube, and framing the question in a way that implies I have to do that is both disingenuous and intellectually bereft of meaning. You can imply I am the emotion one, but the obvious reality is that you are an inferior intellect.
    Greg, every major legal scholar believes an assault weapons ban would pass the test established in Heller–and that is not the case you cited to support your many points, you used Miller, which any intelligent reader would look at and quickly surmise paints you as a babbling idiot…it has no bearing on the many points you tried to make.
    Finally, there is nothing you can say about my job, my salary, or the model of change that I advance through my work that will ever effect me negatively Greg. I am proud of both what I do, and the people I work with. This line of critique simply makes you look small, petty, envious, and frankly, mentally unbalanced.

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  12. Bill Tozer Avatar
    Bill Tozer

    The combination of regulations on the markets has been a powerful force.

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  13. Paul Emery Avatar

    Actually Steve the nostalgia on this page is more for the 1880’s when we were free to plunder and commit acts of genocide in the name of Manifest Destiny. Yes, free land, cheap resources, virtual slave labor from children and immigrants, the freedom to tromp over weaker cultures and no pesky environmental regulations. Those were the days.

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  14. Steve Frisch Avatar
    Steve Frisch

    Paul, I think the universally common break point I hear here is 1913 and the Wilson administration with its institutionalization of Progressivism as a unifying theme of American government. Although I do agree with you that the real break point is probably the ascension of Theodore Roosevelt: it’s just that conservatives tend to want to keep claiming him in an effort to maintain a patina of respectability.
    I hope you did not take my “crazies” comment personally, I was of course saying you have the patience to break bread with regressives.

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  15. fish Avatar
    fish

    Those were the days…….
    Yeah! It must have been something to see them in person eh Paul?
    If you all spend your lives looking at the last 200 years and wishing for what was instead of looking at the next 200 hundred years and what can be you will never see the change you want in society.
    While not perfect the last 200 years were pretty good from a world historical perspective. Other than forcing me to read your promotional literature….what does Steve think will be of benefit to society over the next 200 years.

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  16. Paul Emery Avatar

    Steve
    It’s not patience it’s the boxer in me I think (Golden Gloves 1963) that prompts me to appreciate a good sparing partner. George is tough and a crafty counter puncher, Gregory absorbs punishment well but is flat footed with too much ego for a boxer, Todd is easy-he telegraphs his punches and cries foul when hit and Mikey gets angry and loses all poise and has no defense, Crabbman is tricky with hidden punches when he needs them but disappears when the going gets rough and is only good for a round or two.

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  17. Steve Frisch Avatar
    Steve Frisch

    Hmmmm……boxing is a pretty good analogy Paul.

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  18. Steve Frisch Avatar
    Steve Frisch

    My philosophy for next century Fish is “internalize the externalities”. I believe that markets and capitalism are responsible for our progress over the last 400 years, and can be reformed to create even more prosperity and benefit in the future. Government has a role, but it is limited, everyday people will be largely responsible for the progress we make through millions of individual decisions and actions. Ultimately individual personal responsibility, coupled with the power of capitalism to reward good behavior, and the rise of technology, the technological revolution supplanting the industrial revolution, will be our savior.

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  19. fish Avatar
    fish

    Government has a role, but it is limited…….
    Have they been informed. As near as I can tell the “point of diminishing returns” for government passed about 40 years ago…..I think they missed the memo.

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  20. Gregory Avatar

    Frisch, I only cited Miller in the context of Miller’s requirement that a weapon had to be usable in a well regulated miltia for a 2nd amendment argument to be made, and that DiFi’s ban is against weapons that Miller would have obviously passed. They really are usable in a well regulated militia, though the military prefers military weapons, not ones that just look like military weapons.
    I’m sure you thought every “major legal scholar” thought the District of Columbia could ban handguns, and that Chigago could ban handguns and even ban gun stores. That isn’t the case now, is it? There are legal scholars who are making the cases that will be defining just what the limits to state and Federal power to infringe the right to keep and bear arms despite the constitutional imperative that it shall not be infringed.
    A sticky question, especially with majoritarian statists like Steven Frisch in backwaters like Nevada County.
    You’ve made the claim I’m angry enough to require counseling, yet to my knowledge no one who has met me agrees. Why do you think that is true? Now that you’ve established for us that you think Paul Emery is rational, perhaps Paul will gauge my personae… Paul, did you at any time think I was about to escalate to any sort of physical violence?
    Others who have seen me in action include Juvinall and Steele, and while I’d not want to discuss the issue being discussed among a large number of interested parties for an hour or so, I think they can verify I was the one who suggested a purely passive approach to the problem at hand, and that it worked beautifully to diffuse that problem.
    Yes, DiFi thought she crafted a gun ban that would pass constitutional muster. Why? The summary of DC v. Heller states ” The handgun ban and the trigger-lock requirement (as applied to self-defense) violate the Second Amendment. The District’s total ban on handgun possession in the home amounts to a prohibition on an entire class of “arms” that Americans overwhelmingly choose for the lawful purpose of self-defense.”
    DiFi, instead of banning an entire class of arms, just named every arm in that class and banned the list. I suspect the failure in the Senate had something to do with senators not being as sure as DiFi that Scalia & friends would be fooled by the end run.
    There are tens of millions of magazine fed semi-automatic guns in private hands in the USA which establishes them as being in common use (they have been available to civilians since 1897) and even before the post-Newtown push to reinstate the bans it was hard for dealers to keep them in stock. The shelves are empty now; congratulations, you’ve just added about a million members to the NRA roster. If you keep it up, maybe I’ll join.

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  21. Gregory Avatar

    Paul, boxing is a game, fake combat. This isn’t a game to some of us.

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  22. Paul Emery Avatar

    Like I said, you absorb punishment well.

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  23. Gregory Avatar

    “I believe that markets and capitalism are responsible for our progress over the last 400 years”
    Technology has driven higher standards of living and fed increasing number of people for 1000 years. Affordable energy has been a major driver of the past century but the Steve Frischs of the world are doing their best to shut that down.
    Is there any state that pays more per kilowatt-hour or per gallon at the pump than California?

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  24. George Rebane Avatar

    re SteveF 159pm – A model assessment, and most agreeable. Also one which I cannot connect to much else that Mr Frisch has heretofore prescribed for our communal wellbeing. But no doubt the weakness there is mine as I have related in –
    http://rebaneruminations.typepad.com/rebanes_ruminations/2009/11/why-reason-fails.html

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  25. Gregory Avatar

    “Also one which I cannot connect to much else that Mr Frisch has heretofore prescribed for our communal wellbeing.” gr 3:18
    George, it’s just Frisch’s usual doubletalk. Here’s one look between the lines:
    Ultimately individual personal responsibility,
    We’ll fine the hell out of them if they don’t
    coupled with the power of capitalism to reward good behavior,
    We’ll fine the hell out of them if they don’t
    and the rise of technology,
    we’ll bet someone will actually invent the stuff this will fall apart without
    the technological revolution supplanting the industrial revolution, will be our savior
    pray for a miracle, we’ll need it

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  26. Russ Steele Avatar

    This arrived in my e-mail and thought it contributed to the dissuasion on guns and murder rates:
    http://www.breitbart.com/InstaBlog/2013/01/31/A-Tale-of-Two-Cities

    Like

  27. Todd Juvinall Avatar
    Todd Juvinall

    Frisch loses the abate to me and refuses to tell us how he would save the baby from Elkins, Just like Dukakis screwing the pooch on the “rape” of his wife question. Liberal gobbledygook responses, but quite telling. My guess is the Frisch would have seen Elkins show the gun and then run like hell the other way and let the baby die. I think my intellect is far advanced of the rent-seeker.
    Paul uses a boxing analogy to snark Greg and I so in returning the favor, in debates, PaulE is doing a ropa-dope trying to make his points with a lie. That is not good journalism. When confronted, he grabs the ref and places himself behind him for protection. LOL!

    Like

  28. Steve Frisch Avatar
    Steve Frisch

    Fish, government does what we require it to do. Require less and it will do less.
    Most of the businesses (and thus people because we are all economic players) in the world today externalized some portion of the cost of production, for example, in the form of pollution, low wages and benefits, or subsidies. Because some portion of those costs are externalized government, in this example, regulates and mitigates pollution, provides social security and redistributes wealth. If all of the costs of production were internalized government would not need to do those things. If we create business models that “internalize the externalities” the cost of goods and services will be higher, but the need for government to act as an arbitrer of the public interest will be lower, and thus taxes,
    fees etc. will be lower.
    Sure, there will always be government, to do things like big infrastructure, provide for defense, select representation, make some tough decisions, and ensure domestic tranquility.
    This should be no surprise to Greg and George, it is the theory I have always expoused here, they just have not been hearing because their ears are plugged with …..um…..ideology. You want to reduce the cost of environmental regulation, pollute less. You want to eliminate social security, pay living wages and create good jobs. You want
    to eliminate subsidies, make people pay the true cost of production, but the user pays, no one else has to pay or it, and innovation will provide solutions. This is the very theory
    that the much hated here Cap and Trade program works on: internalize the externalized ost of emissions, put a price on it, and companies will emit less and innovate more.

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  29. Steve Frisch Avatar
    Steve Frisch

    I did not lose the debate Todd, I refused to accept the premise of your question, and clearly answered it. We cannot stop some people from killing. We should punish them. It’s that simple.
    Seriously, your overestimation of your intellectual acumen demonstrated here makes it clear to the readers that you are highly unlikely to be wowing them at the TSA checkpoint!

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  30. Steve Frisch Avatar
    Steve Frisch

    George Rebane | 23 April 2013 at 03:18 PM
    Yes George, the weakness is yours. Thank you.

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  31. Todd Juvinall Avatar
    Todd Juvinall

    Frisch loses again and his ego won’t allow him to admit it. Help is needed.
    Regarding the TSA women swooning. Just happened again Frisch. I am a celebrity at LAX.

    Like

  32. Gregory Avatar

    ” This is the very theory
    that the much hated here Cap and Trade program works on: internalize the externalized ost of emissions, put a price on it, and companies will emit less and innovate more.”
    The fantasies you continue to have, Steve, are that CO2 emissions can and will result in catastrophic warming, that making fossil fuels expensive to use will drive innovation to a point that solar and other ‘renewables’ can compete with carbon fuels within the next century or two, and, even were the IPCC process and conclusions valid, nothing you want the western world to do would make any difference besides delay the warming by a few weeks. China and India alone are more than making up the difference, and all driving our use of affordable energy into the dirt does is make it even more affordable to the Chinese and Indians.
    Even the usually warmist press has been dialing back the alarm. Die Zeit, The Telegraph and The Economist have all recently made it clear their coverage will no longer ignore those ‘deniers’. “The climate may be heating up less in response to greenhouse-gas emissions than was once thought.” Imagine that.
    Frisch, your ideology is doing real damage to science; the case for global warming is falling apart, and in the end all you will have done is ruin the ability of scientists to raise an alarm the next time, when humanity faces a real crisis.

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  33. fish Avatar
    fish

    Fish, government does what we require it to do. Require less and it will do less.
    I don’t recall any need for the government to give away free cell phones or prescription drugs, or criminalize plants, or a host of other things that they currently deem vital but society seemed to get along without just fine before government “decided that we require it. I doubt government will ever of its own volition decide to do less. It will probably do less once, having taken on a whole range of tasks it is ill equipped to perform, suffers a financial crisis that forces it to stop. We’ll see.
    This is the very theory that the much hated here Cap and Trade program works on: internalize the externalized ost of emissions, put a price on it, and companies will emit less and innovate more.
    Maybe, but if history is our guide letting politicians get their mitts on a huge new revenue source is an invitation to disaster. Much like “Meathead”s smoking tax they quickly grow accustomed to the new revenue and then as they see a program succeed, find that the revenue is now in jeopardy. Tom Friedman just posted another one of his empty headed missives about carbon taxing our way to prosperity…he doesn’t want to save the planet so much but he does want to spend the money. I wouldn’t be so cavalier about accusing others of ideological prejudice given that we have been bludgeoned about the end of the world if carbon emissions weren’t severely cut while we watch potential beneficiaries divvy up in advance the spoils from continuing to emit.
    You want to reduce the cost of environmental regulation, pollute less.
    Complying with the costs of the regulations rarely if ever go down. A company may pollute less but the compliance costs live on…..audits, forms, reports, corrective action, and staff to handle these tasks all are with a firm until it can buy its way out (lobbying) or it externalizes these ongoing costs by moving to less restrictive jurisdictions, or ceases to do business entirely. I suppose that actually polluting less could reduce the “cost” but again with revenues threatened I would expect carbon costs to increase to compensate.
    Again once the program is up and running the bureaucracy will never shrink to the extent you think. These programs always develop “champions”

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  34. Steve Frisch Avatar
    Steve Frisch

    I would be curious to have George weigh in here, since Gregory is focused on the example rather than the theory, and Todd is too stupid to realize no one cares about the size of his schlong.
    Or I could just go back to moving my office!

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  35. George Rebane Avatar

    SteveF 644pm – Would love to weigh in, but am not sure of the proposition that I could add anything beyond what I have on record here. As I said in my 318pm, your statement is in remarkable accord with my own beliefs, and, I suspect, the beliefs of most of the commenters to the right of center here. However, as I admitted, connecting the dots from there to your considerable record of RR comments is not always within my ken.
    I lay my belief system bare in these pages in order to invite full debate on the issues, and am grateful for all the participating commenters, even though quite often I don’t connect with all readers. I admit to pushing sensitive hot buttons more than a more circumspect and prudent commentator would do. But that is my choice and style to elicit equally strong and clear responses from RR readers. Perhaps that is one reason why RR is an open forum that continues to draw the interest from many points on the ideological spectrum.

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  36. Todd Juvinall Avatar

    SteveF, please tell us all how you would protect the 13 month old baby from the death rendered him by Elkins. You refuse to answer that, why? I would suggest you have lost the argument and are now on your usual personal attack mode. I love whipping a liberals ass with their own insecurities.

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  37. Paul Emery Avatar

    Steve
    Yeah, Todd is becoming the Rodeo Clown of this blog. All discussions with him are summarized by a reference to his unit. Kinda sad, Being a legend in his own mind he still has war stories from the 80’s. It’s really a joke to those of us where were around those days.

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  38. Steve Frisch Avatar
    Steve Frisch

    Well then George, you agree with sustainability theory. I am indeed pleased. See there is not really that much that separates us.

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  39. Todd Juvinall Avatar

    ( see PaulE cannot stay away from personal attacks. If I was to stoop to his level (short man’s complex) I would too. Bit since PaulE apparently did not read the Frisch’s initial comment referencing TSA (dodging the Elkins question I asked) then we see the bias PaulE shows(as usual in his “reporting”). As I also use LOL in my responses, apparently the PaulE does not understand what that means either. But little minds of liberals sure are fun to screw with. They always go personal.
    SteveF, how would you have saved the 12 month old child murdered by Elkins? I am curious as to what a liberal thinks when confronted with with danger.

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  40. Steve Frisch Avatar
    Steve Frisch

    Tod, I have answered your question about three times now. You are not only being repetitive you are diverting attention from the discussion.
    First, I never said I could prevent this crime. I reject the premise of the question.
    I have stated clearly that some people will simply be killers, they should be punished, and society protected from repeat offenses.
    I have stated that your stated premise, that if the mother had been armed this may not have happened is questionable. First, had she been armed, according to the multiple news reports I read she probably would not have had the opportunity or time to respond. You are asking me to disprove a hypothetical, which I will not do, and no one can do.
    In short it a stupid question.
    My point remains: keep the offending weapon from Elkins hands, make it harder, more costly and more risky to possess and sell illegally, make it more difficult to use by installing a fingerprint based trigger lock, and you reduce the statistical likelihood that such a cime will be omitted. No one on the ‘gun control’ side of this debate is disputing that the laws we already have in place should be enforced.
    Finally, this entire thread was started with me posting a data point, and Mr. Goodknight attacking me personally, by stating that I was “wallowing in the blood on the children in Newtown”. You want to be treated with respect, you hold your friends to the same standards of behavior that you hold your opponents too. Anything else is hypocrisy.
    Good day little man.

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  41. George Rebane Avatar

    SteveF 954pm – I have promoted (preached?) sustainability in these pages for years. Was not aware that there is a body of knowledge called “sustainability theory”, but I have given rigorous definitions of sustainability in various areas of public policy and resource management. But sustainability is a complex and domain specific concept. Anyone who attempts to sell the sheeple that it is one simple notion is bamboozling them
    I’m not aware of any conservative/libertarian group that is against sustainability, it is against their very nature contrary to the way the Left characterizes them (but that’s another story). The problem of sustainability is always in its technical details, and that is where perfidy and honest perspectives can divide people.
    For the technical reader, sustainability always refers to a dynamic process. To speak reasonably about sustainability, especially when making public policy, one needs to use tools like system identification (obtain the process transfer function), control theory (is the process sufficiently observable and controllable), estimation theory (are the observation errors manageable), utility theory (how is ‘good’ sustainability defined) just to characterize the problem correctly so as to present decision makers – politicians, regulators – the appropriate decision (control) variables and the likely response of the dynamic process to such decisions.
    Such considerations are seldom if ever applied in making public policy. Witness the adoption of AB32, Obamacare, the recent gun control debate, etc. In short, the sustainability terrain is complex, convoluted, and best traveled together by people of goodwill and adequate understanding.

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  42. Todd Juvinall Avatar

    SteveF, you have not answered the simple question I asked and I have fine tuned it many times for you to make it easy for your intellect. Elkkins murdered the baby and you keep talking about keeping the gun from his hand by laws and regulations. It appears you are denser than 80 weight motor oil.
    BTW, I am actually 6-4 and 218 pounds. Not a little man but one aspired after by folks like you and PaulE. LOL!!

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  43. Steve Frisch Avatar
    Steve Frisch

    George Rebane | 24 April 2013 at 08:20 AM
    George, just to be clear, I am not trying to sell sheeple anything….. or ‘bamboozle’ anyone….I merely stated in a very simple economic equation, the economic theory at the core of sustainability, nor have I said that the libertarian mindset is “against’ sustainability. I actually think that at its core sustainability is a fundamentally libertarian theory (modern conservatism is another matter). After having worked in this field for almost 20 years now I can say I heartily agree with you that the theory of sustainability requires a complex domain specific approach.
    For those here interested, here is a short article on externalities, and what internalizing them may mean in an economc model.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality

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  44. George Rebane Avatar

    re SteveF’s 938am – good link Steve, thanks.
    Bad externalities (pollution, subsidies, etc) are another type of commons (cf Garrett Hardin). Not all such externalities are significantly impactive at all stages of production or activity. For example, at low densities the solution to pollution is indeed dilution, at higher densities this no longer holds due to the intrinsic carrying capacities of the commons involved.
    The first problem of public policy forged by contending factions is the adoption of a shared utility function. And that from the gitgo is difficult and therefore almost always dispensed with. From there the contending sides talk past each other, each arguing how their policy proposal maximizes their own utility without so much as a mention of the other’s utility.
    The gun control issue illustrates this perfectly. One side highlights ‘gun violence’ and argues its reduction through means that amount to constructive gun confiscation (most certainly wrt to par force). The other side highlights the constitutional and historical arguments of an armed citizenry able to contain their government’s going rogue. The first side does not even consider that to be an existential threat, and argues policies to reduce gun deaths. The second sees government’s drift to autocracy as a daily reality, and is willing to tolerate and marginally reduce gun deaths as one of the costs of living in a (here’s that word) sustainable free society, arguing that autocratic governments kill overwhelmingly more of their own than do liberal gun ownership policies.

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  45. Joe Koyote Avatar
    Joe Koyote

    But little minds of liberals sure are fun to screw with. They always go personal.” How do you label your “little minds” comment if not a personal attack? Is that a term of endearment? It seems to me that a lot of name calling and personal attacks come from you, yet you accuse those who oppose your opinions for doing the same thing.

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  46. Todd Juvinall Avatar

    Anyone using a phony name like Joe coyote deserves no answers for anything. What a hoot. You libs sure do stick together in bias.
    So JC, how would you have protected that 13 month old baby from murder? That is the simple question I asked your buddy and he went personal. Can you do better?

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  47. Gregory Avatar

    Steven Frisch, if the supporters of the Brady Center (nee’ Handgun Control, Inc.) can’t be said to have been ‘wallowing in the blood of the children’ in the aftermath of the Newtown massacre, no one in history could have ever been said to do so, in the name of raising the rabble. DiFi was doing it, and you, in your declarations of lobbying for DiFi before her Assault Weapons Bill part Deux was even released, was doing the same thing when you declared to us your support in advance.
    Declaring to the world I needed mental health counseling for deflating your bubble with words you found troubling is right up there with ‘reeducation’ efforts that authoritarians have used in closed societies worldwide.
    Large capacity magazines have been around for more than a century; they aren’t the cause of the carnage, and anyone with a pump action shotgun could kill more children in less time than the Newtown shooter, who averaged about one shot every two seconds for the short time he had before police showed up; that rate of fire is no faster than a standard police revolver with speedloaders at the ready. The problem was not with the availability of the guns, as, especially in the same town as the National Shooting Sports Foundation headquarters, three miles from the school, a wealthy middle aged woman without a criminal record will always be able to get a gun. There is no law possible under the 2nd Amendment that would keep her from acquiring one or more guns.
    What would have made a difference is the law that the Connecticut legislature killed about a year ago that would make it easier to involuntarily commit a mentally ill relative who desperately needed the care of a facility that can keep them from being a harm to themselves or others. The shooter’s mother by many accounts was in the process of getting legal conservatorship over her barely adult son in order to do just that, and he was upset by this; since we’re STILL waiting for the police report, it’s unclear what is good info and what isn’t, but a picture has emerged of the problem being mental health approaches, not the availability of magazines that hold more than 10 rounds.
    DiFi has asked, multiple times, why someone needs more than 10 rounds; she could have gotten the answer from her Federal bodyguards who are armed to the teeth, probably with 15 round mags in their Glocks.
    ‘Don’t let any crisis go to waste’ is not a formula for good governance in a free and open society.

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  48. Gregory Avatar

    “I actually think that at its core sustainability is a fundamentally libertarian theory (modern conservatism is another matter)…the theory of sustainability requires a complex domain specific approach.” -Frisch
    Who in the District of Columbia or (egads!) Sacramento is capable of mastering a “complex domain specific approach”?
    Sustainability is an aspect of a libertarian open society, but not including an enlightened ruling class of coersive Utopians who are masters of a “complex domain specific approach”. It just takes a semblance of a free market whose pricing isn’t at the whim of those Utopians who know better what we need. What we have in California in the moment is a massive mis-allocation of resources caused by AB 32, the “Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006” passed by an activist legislature caught up in the IPCC AR4 parade and a RINO governor eager for good publicity who had his own problems to deal with.
    California cap and trade is under fire in court at the moment, googling, this seems to be a very fresh look at what’s happening right now:
    http://www.calwatchdog.com/2013/04/24/ca-global-warming-is-big-business-for-government/
    Libertarian/classic liberal pricing theory is nicely summarized here:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_calculation_problem

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  49. Steve Frisch Avatar
    Steve Frisch

    Greg, bottom line is when you start a conversation with the charge that someone is “wallowing in the blood of ….children” it is an insult, it is intended as an insult, and no one here is stupid enough not to understand that.

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  50. Gregory Avatar

    Steve, bottom line is when you start a conversation with the implied charge that someone’s behavior is ultimately responsible for the massacre of children, that they will be traveling to Washington to lobby for new laws to criminalize what is a constitutionally protected right, it is an insult, it is intended as an insult, and no one here is stupid enough not to understand that.
    Here’s a Sandy Hook school parent with a different message than what MSNBC of Stev en Frisch would have picked up:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUA4fpDv1jk
    While I wouldn’t choose the same words or appeals to a higher power, the message is clear and concise.
    And by the way, Steve, managing to actually insult you (thanks for the acknowledgement) isn’t cause for a public charge of mental illness. That was a clear and baseless defamation for which you still owe me a retraction.

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