Ravenwood reports that the same politicos that demand background checks on firearms purchasers are not so hot on the idea of setting up a database to help with the background checks on illegal aliens.
But in my latest Shotgun News, columnist Clayton Cramer writes about recent 5-3 SCOTUS decision ‘Small vs US’ that basically stated ‘Any person known to have been convicted of a felony outside of the US can still purchase firearms in the US’.
What makes the ruling all the more strange is that most the Justices who found in favor of giving firearms to foreign felons would most likely be the first to rule against you and I on the 2nd Amendment; Breyer, Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg and O’Connor / Scalia, Thomas and Kennedy (Rehnquist was ill and sat this one out).
So I guess it doesn’t matter if we even had a database of aliens, legal or illegal, they would all be allowed to buy guns, but a tax evading US citizen would not.
And if you want some actually logical firearms issues reading, go read john Lott Jr. about “The Big Lie of the Assault Weapons Ban� that I found at The View From North Central Idaho.
I’m confused—are you saying that foriegn AND American criminals should have unrestricted access to unlimited firepower, or just American criminals?
BTW, what’s your favorite thing about John Lott—the way his research is a fatally flawed collection of lies and distortions, or the way he poses as a woman to write flattering reviews of his own books?
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2003/10/we_590_01.html
OOPS! Sorry, forgot to include this link. Mea Culpa
http://www.whoismaryrosh.com/
Actually, I shouldn’t rag on John Lott—not when the 18 April 2004 issue of SCIENCE Magazine can do it for me:
“Here is John Lott: ex-University of Chicago Law School, now at the American Enterprise Institute. His book More Guns, Less Crime claims that on 98% of the occasions in which citizens use guns defensively, the mere production of a weapon causes the criminal to desist. These data were allegedly based on some 2000 interviews conducted by Lott himself. But when pushed for the survey data, Lott gave a hauntingly familiar explanation: His hard drive had been destroyed in a computer crash. Apparently the dogs in this controversy eat everyone’s homework.
Wait. It gets even funnier. As the debate over gun laws spilled over from the scholarly journals to the Internet, Lott was defended passionately by a persistent ally named Mary Rosh. She attacked Lott’s academic critics, including John Donohue of Stanford Law School, claiming in one posting that Lott had been the “best professor I ever had.” Alas for Lott and his case, Mary Rosh now turns out to be — John Lott! The American Enterprise Institute has not yet followed the example Emory set with Bellesiles, though it might think about it.
Meanwhile, though, legislators in a number of states are still considering liberalizing concealed-weapon laws, and Lott’s book plays a continuing role in the debate. That moves this story from high comedy to a troubling challenge in social policy that isn’t funny at all. Death by shooting is a national public health problem. Sound social science, not cooked data, is what we need to work out the tough problems like the relationship between gun ownership and violent crime.”
So Don, your main bitch about Lott, and only flaw that you can actually find on him other than his willingness to not be a sheep like yourself, is 1. He was defending his book in a chat room under a pseudo-name, and 2. He lost his harddrive in a CPU crash and could not produce 1 fucking study.
Never mind that your guy, Bellesiles, not only couldn’t produce ANY of his studies that were in question, but when asked, actually admitted to not even looking for a good sample to base his studies on. But in your mind, Bellesiles’ book is the one telling the truth.
And I love the objective journalism in that Mother Jones article; (paraphrasing economist Dan Black and criminologist Daniel Nagin, the main detractors to one of Lott’s studies ) ‘If we fuck with Lott’s data, we can show completely different results!’
No shit Sherlock! If I fucked your mom instead of the guy who did, you’d look completely different too. While your ignorant self may be impressed by the smoke and mirrors presented by that article, due to you inferior ‘critical thinking’ skills, I can look at something Analytically, taking it apart, examining all of the evidence and putting the mound back together while deciding which side had the better argument, am absolutely not.
Face it, Don. You can hate a man who proved you wrong for days, months and years.
But that doesn’t make him a bad person, it just means you were wrong.
Get over it.
Oh, and BTW, my point is that no felons should be allowed to own firearms unless the charges were adjudicated by a US court on a singular examination of the charges, evidence and verdict.
In simple terms, so that you can understand what is being said here, Donny; Due to the fact that some felonies are non-violent and to the fact that the vast majority of foreign courts are inferior to the US model, on a case-by-case basis, the courts may restore the gun rights of individuals convicted of felonies in America or on foreign soil, but there should be no blanket amnesty.
There, was that clear enough?
Oh, and as for your SCIENCE article that you quote; First off, anti-gun publication, and secondly, if they really didn’t want ‘cooked data’ they would not only distance themselves from Bellesiles, which they have never done (after accepting his conclusions at face value) and two, they would stop including criminals shot by police in their data for “Death by Firearm� and they would also quit including the deaths of 18yr old gangsters in their “Childrens gun deaths� studies.
Sorry Donnie, you source is flawed. Again.