Gun Rights News Roundup

Articles, news stories, and op-eds of interest to gun owners:

Howard Nemerov on the world according to Brady (with graphs):

Carl Moody, Economics Professor at William and Mary, and co-author with Dave Kopel and me on a published paper, was kind enough to analyze the data from an earlier article. His response:

When I did the regressions, I found that Economic freedom, Overall freedom, and Personal freedom were all negatively correlated with Brady score, significant at the .01 level (highly significant). Violent crime and LEO rates were positively correlated with Brady at the .001 level (very highly significant).

Sorting by Brady quartiles, the three graphs above still show very strong, negative correlations. (Both have R-values over .90; read here for a brief description of R-values.) As Brady scores increase, personal and economic freedoms decrease. [emphasis added]

[Washington] Careless slobs jeopardize shooting on public land for everyone:

The lowlands corridor along Interstate 90 some 38 miles east of Seattle which runs through the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest is being closed to recreational shooting starting this weekend and continuing for at least 12 months, while the Forest Service determines whether the closure should become permanent.

The problem: Slob shooters. The bane of all responsible gun owners, these people are responsible for other such closures on public lands all over the map. For years, they have brought their garbage onto public property, shot it to pieces, and left it as an eyesore. On rare occasions, they accidentally shoot one another while ricocheting bullets off of boulders against which they have propped a target.

Their litter in the North Bend-Snoqualmie Ranger District – where this closure is taking effect – has included aerosol cans, televisions, computer monitors, appliances and even stolen cars. In the shooting community, these individuals are not simply black sheep, they are social lepers. Responsible shooters don’t want them around, as they are typically responsible for the low image some people have of all gun owners.

[Ohio] Armed residents clean up streets:

STEUBENVILLE - To participate in a cleanup on the streets of the Labelle neighborhood, about a dozen residents brought not only rubber gloves and plastic garbage bags.

They also brought handguns, which they kept in holsters worn around their waists - some in plain view and some not - in a move they said was aimed at promoting awareness of laws allowing Ohioans the right to carry firearms in public.

Wayne Johnson, a resident of Belleview Boulevard - one of the streets where the group worked - said under state law, anyone may carry any gun they have the right to legally own. ...

[Louisiana] ACLU sues New Orleans on behalf of man whose gun was confiscated by city:

A New Orleans man is suing the city and its district attorney for refusing to give back a gun that police seized when he was arrested on drug and firearms charges that were later dropped.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana filed the federal lawsuit Thursday on behalf of Errol Houston Jr., who was arrested last year following a traffic stop. The lawsuit says the district attorney's office declined to prosecute Houston but has refused to return his .40-caliber firearm.

Houston's lawsuit claims District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro has instituted a policy that firearms seized during arrests will not be returned to their owners. The ACLU says that policy violates Houston's constitutional rights.

"Mr. Houston has done nothing wrong. There are no criminal charges against him. His firearm, which he is and was entitled to carry, has been confiscated for no reason," ACLU of Louisiana executive director Marjorie R. Esman said in a statement. ...

San Fran surveillance cams don't reduce violent crime

From the "Well, Duh!" files, via the ACLU of Northern California:

San Francisco — A report released today evaluating San Francisco's surveillance cameras concludes that the cameras have failed in their mission to reduce violent crime in the city. Independent researchers at the University of California Berkeley conducted an outside evaluation of the City's ill-advised video surveillance program and issued today's report.

In line with similar studies from around the world, the report finds that San Francisco's video surveillance cameras do not make people safer. The cameras fail to prevent or reduce violent crime, including homicide. The cameras also have no effect on drug offenses or prostitution.
...
While some city officials have suggested that additional funding for active monitoring of the cameras would improve outcomes, the report cautions that such systems have also proved ineffective. For example, London has spent millions of dollars over the last ten years on actively-monitored cameras—one camera for every 13 people—that photograph people over 300 times a day. As in San Francisco, studies of London’s surveillance program revealed that crime rates haven't gone down, nor do people feel safer.

The UC Report concludes, "...given the lack of deterrent effect on violent crime and its limited usefulness with respect to investigations, it is clear that one of the questions the City must consider is whether or not to continue the CSC [community safety camera] program at all." (p 157).

Article here.

Read the study report here.

NYPD shootings data

The New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU, which I believe is the ACLU's NY affiliate) has made available the NYPD's Firearms Discharge reports from 1996 through 2006 on the NYCLU website.

The reports are available here.

In typical fashion, NYCLU decries the lack of white people shot by NYPD, claiming that "[d]uring the last two years the NYPD reported the race of those shot by police, nearly 90 percent of the people shot at by officers were black or Latino." NYPD evidently stopped reporting the race of subjects shot (or shot at) back in 1998. Gee, I wonder why.

I'm no apologist for the NYPD or its leadership, but looking solely at the races of the subjects shot doesn't seem to relate the whole picture as to whether or not some form of invidious discrimination by NYPD is occurring. Seems like you would also need to compare the likelihood of whites getting shot (or shot at) under circumstances similar to those where non-whites are shot, before you can declare that there's a real problem.

Nevada ACLU bucks national organization's anti-gun position

As noted in this post, the ACLU stubbornly continues to support the idea that the Second Amendment is not an individual right, despite the Supreme Court's ruling to the contrary. The Nevada chapter of the ACLU, however, begs to differ:

CARSON CITY — Everyone loves guns in Nevada. Ducks Unlimited, the National Rifle Association, Republicans, the American Civil Liberties Union, the ...

Wait. The ACLU?

The Nevada ACLU has declared its support for an individual’s right to bear arms, apparently making it the first state affiliate in the nation to buck the national organization’s position on the Second Amendment.

The state board of directors reached the decision this month after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment protects the rights of individuals to own handguns.

“The Nevada ACLU respects the individual’s right to bear arms subject to constitutionally permissible regulations,” a statement on the organization’s Web site said. “The ACLU of Nevada will defend this right as it defends other constitutional rights.”

Smart move by the Nevada ACLU. Hopefully other ACLU chapters in freedom-friendly states will break from the national organization's anti-gun collectivist position.

ACLU: Second Amendment still a "collective right"

According to this article, the ACLU is apparently still insisting that the Second Amendment is a collective, rather than an individual right, despite the Supreme Court's ruling to the contrary.

The American Civil Liberties is getting blasted on its own blog site for holding onto the belief that the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution establishes a collective right for militias to have weapons, even though the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled the right applies to individuals.

"Sorry ACLU you lost me," wrote SuperNaut. "I just took the money I had slated to re-up my lapsed ACLU membership and used it to re-up my NRA membership."

Hundreds of comments have been posted in just the first few days of July, almost uniformly condemning the ACLU's explanation of its position on gun rights, which is that individuals don't have them.

"The ACLU interprets the Second Amendment as a collective right. Therefore, we disagree with the Supreme Court's decision in D.C. v. Heller," the page started. "While the decision is a significant and historic reinterpretation of the right to keep and bear arms, the decision leaves many important questions unanswered that will have to be resolved in future litigation, including what regulations are permissible, and which weapons are embraced by the Second Amendment right that the Court has now recognized."

Read some of the comments posted on the ACLU blog at the article link above.

The ACLU couldn't be more wrong on this issue. To think that the Second Amendment is a collective right of "the people" is pure left-wing fantasy. What a way to alienate tens of millions of Americans who might otherwise support their other work.