Lying for Gun Control

A recent Op-ed in the LA Times entitled California needs a Gun Violence Restraining Order makes some extraordinary and misleading claims.

Between 1999 and 2010, California reduced its gun death rate 56%, making the state a model for policymakers elsewhere seeking to reduce gun violence. California now has the ninth-lowest rate of gun death among the 50 states, but that isn't something to celebrate in the aftermath of the Isla Vista tragedy.

If California is really the "ninth-lowest" state for "gun death[s]" that statistic is not reflected in the overall murder rate for the state. According to the Uniform Crime Report statistics compiled at The Disaster Center , California has a murder rate of 5.0 per 100,000 population making it the the nineteenth worst state for murder (eighteenth if I exclude the District of Columbia with its 13.9/100K murder rate). The ten best states for murder rates are:

State	Murder Rate
NH	1.1
VT	1.3
IA	1.5
ID	1.8
MA	1.8
MN	1.8
UT	1.8
ME	1.9
HI	2.1
OR	2.4
WY	2.4

If Ms. Binder was interested in reducing murders and negligent homicides then she would logically be looking at those states with low rates. However, I suspect the author is not at all interested in reducing overall murder but only in the shibboleth of "gun violence". After all, seven or eight of the best states listed above have liberal gun laws meaning they will not fit into the boundaries of her superstitious nonsense.

VD Strikes Again

Looks like Victim Disarmament has claimed another two victims. This time at a school in Omaha

The Millard South High student who shot his principal and an assistant principal Wednesday and then killed himself posted a farewell message on Facebook.

Robert Butler Jr., 17, was found dead in a car from a self-inflicted gunshot wound at about 1:30 p.m.

About 40 minutes earlier, he shot Principal Curtis Case and Assistant Principal Vicki Kaspar inside the school. He did not shoot any students.

Case was listed early this evening in serious but stable condition at Creighton University Medical Center. Kaspar was in critical condition at Creighton.

The shooter was the son of a Police Detective and it appears he used his father's gun. Whether it was the cop's duty weapon or a personal firearm was unclear in the article. I don't know if the shooter specifically sought out the two victims or if they were targets of opportunity. I'm betting on the former but it's just a an intuitive feeling.

The news media will be analyzing this for the next few days or two or until the next big story comes along. The sense of these crimes eludes people so they search for clues to a motive which they will then mistake for a reason. I don't think it is that hard. This was an impulsive act by a disturbed boy. He didn't plan this. He simply acted on a primal urge. That is not an excuse but it may be a hint of the reason.

Every human being has a capacity for violence. No where is this more evident than adolescent males. One of the characteristics of a robust and moral civilization is that it can channel that capacity into behaviors that will not harm the uninvolved.

Denying that the capacity exists is a dead end strategy. Repression simply will not work in the long run. Or even the middle run. We human are what evolution has made us and no amount of zero tolerance policies or psychotropic drugs will change that. At least not without a a few thousand generations to work with. The Victorians tried something similar with sex and that didn't work either. The human urges still surfaced but without the training a more enlightened society would provide.

Zero Tolerance has become the modern Puritanism.

Violence is a perfectly natural capacity. It, along with sexuality, is linked with the individuals ability to pass on his or her genes. A morality of non-violence only serves evil by making its potential victims helpless. Natural selection will not be denied; the only way to create a less violent society is to face the phenomenon honestly and openly.

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That said, I can speculate on how long it will take the Brady Bunch to pull on their dancing shoes now that they have fresh blood to revel in.