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Ummmm, guns!

By The Armorer on October 17, 2005 | | Comments (16)

WE CAN'T LET THE ASSAULT WEAPONS BAN EXPIRE! BLOOD WILL RUN IN RIVERS DOWN THE STREETS! GUN BATTLES ON EVERY CORNER! HOUSES POCK-MARKED WITH BULLET HOLES! SCHOOLS OVER-RUN WITH GRUMPY TEENS WITH GUNS!

Oh, wait - no, that's just prime time tv.

The reality is a little more prosaic.

And, I'm being a little disingenuous, given the ban expired in September 2004. The 2005 numbers will be more instructive. Still, Sarahillary BoxSchumerstein *can't* be happy with that news.

Something to keep in mind while reading that - you are getting raw numbers and percent changes. So, what's missing contextually to help you better evaluate the news?

Well, best would be an apples to apples comparison, such as those figures given as a function of murders per hundred thousand people. That would be a good number. But it's not as fun as raw numbers for shock value. Showing the percent increase is okay - but it would be nice to know what the percent increase in the population was over the same time period... just to keep comparing apples to apples... Gives one a sense of perspective. Like the fact that a gross drop in discrete events, combined with the population increase actually makes the drop comparatively larger... just a thought.


SNERK! "Could cause serious injury..." If to nothing else, a career! H/t, CAPT H. (yeah, this *was* in the post below... you're not seeing things I just decided to move it up here).


In other news... Press Outraged Over Staged Flag Raising.


Well Damn! Despite our best efforts, too! War is on the wane... geez, where's them eeeevil Neocons when you need them? Jobs are at stake here! I blame Bush.


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16 Comments

By Barb on October 17, 2005 11:58 AM
So just how stupid is it to forget your GUN, fer gosh sake?? Argghhh! I've read about the staged pic controversy before, but it's just like last week's fluff over the Video Conference. Stir things up just for the sake of stirring.
 
By Jim on October 17, 2005 12:13 PM
OK, what is the big news? Women issued a gun, what do you expect. Flag raising? Read "Flag of our Fathers". Just a bunch of guys standing around got famous. How many reporters were there? Zero is the answer because they were on the ships sipping coffee with the PIO types.
 
By John of Argghhh! on October 17, 2005 12:24 PM
Whew, Jim - don't talk like that around SWWBO, or Barb... or any of the other armed denizens.
 
By Cricket on October 17, 2005 1:24 PM
I am off to learn how to use our weapons now that the streets are overrun with assault rifles. You know, for the longest time as an unarmed Citizenne, I really didn't give a hang for the Brady Bunch because I *chose* to go weaponless. I do not believe that our Second Amendment should be struck down and I detest regulation with a passion. I always looked on the Second Amendment as my choice to keep and carry arms, not the Hildebeeste's. Nor do I like the lawsuits on gun manufacturers. I will admit to ignorance about weapons, considering owning them and learning about them to be a matter of responsibility. Now that the government has forced me into owning arms just to preserve my right to choose not to, I am mega torqued.
 
By Fuzzybear Lioness on October 17, 2005 2:32 PM
As a non-gun-owner, I hear where you're coming from, Cricket...
 
By John of Argghhh! on October 17, 2005 2:43 PM
Hmmm, some of my cooler pieces are non-guns. What kind of non-guns d'you own, Fuzzy?
 
By kat-missouri on October 17, 2005 3:21 PM
well, the murder rate HAS gone up in this city, but, surprisingly, it is largely the matter of young punks with pistols, strangulations, knives and blunt objects. On the other hand, on a per capita basis, there is very little increase like two decimal points. So, wonder which way it is going to spin in the paper when the year is done.
 
By Dr_Funk on October 17, 2005 3:43 PM
'the US-made Sig Sauer'...huh? I was under the impression that SIGs were made in Germany or Switzerland.
 
By Neffi on October 17, 2005 5:28 PM
Mine was made in Germany... John, that 'non-gun' remark may have been a touch subtle for FbL- given her lack of an armory...
 
By Barb on October 17, 2005 10:24 PM
Actually, SIGarms US-subsidiary has a facility in Exeter, NH - which makes (or at least made) P229's starting in 1992.
 
By John of Argghhh! on October 18, 2005 5:43 AM
Ah, but Barb - don't miss the fact that it's a nice way to bash the US gun-making monster! No Euro involvement at all. Somehow, deep down inside - you know it's Bush's fault, anyway. The making of the pistol (92! Bush Sr!), the Poodle's Armed Force buying it, and the testically-challenged Captain's misplacing it, no doubt because of PTSD from Bush's War - all squarely at the feet of Bush. C'mon, you know it's true!
 
By Cricket on October 18, 2005 10:10 AM
While I have decided to own a firearm just to protect my right to choose, I still have a major hurdle in learning to use it. One of my best friends is a vegetarian Republican, a paralegal and female. She loves to bump off tin cans and go to target ranges. She has encouraged me to consider knocking off tin cans and target shooting, so I will take her up on it. A real chick's night out: Shooting and dinner. heh. And *why* am I not letting the Engineer be my Spirit Guide? Simple. He Is A Man. And he is more familiar with rifles than small arms, so I want to get familiar with a pistol before we go together as Husband And Wife.
 
By eddie g on October 18, 2005 11:33 AM
How bad a city to live in is Chicago, that their murder rate goes down by 130 and it has an appreciable effect on the national rate? And you know that most of those deaths were caused by knives and rocks, seeing as it's really tough to have a gun there.
 
By Sigivald on October 18, 2005 6:12 PM
Heck, while "Assault weapons" were "banned", I purchased a CETME, an FAL, and an AR-15, every one with at least 20 round magazines. (As well as a few Mausers, an AG-42, and a Nagant, and sundry other firearms not classified as "assault weapons" by the stupid law, despite nothing it covered being an actual assault weapon, and the guns I did buy being used in actual combat, in some cases. At least I'm pretty sure my Finnish-marked 1914 Nagant probably saw combat. Seems likely, eh?) And I haven't murdered anyone. I must be getting slow.
 
By John of Argghhh! on October 18, 2005 8:48 PM
More importantly Sigivald - were you the perpetrator of any drive-by bayonetings or rifle grenadings?
 
By spurwing plover on October 21, 2005 8:38 AM
Wheres the blood flowing like rivers through the streets? like all the liberals were saying wheres the high crime rate we were suppost to be getting when bill clinton gun control ended? wheres the bodies pilling up all over? wheres all the carnage wheres the rest of all the mess that was puppost to be happening when this gun ban expired last year? maybe all those liberal left-wing news paper columists should eat their typewriters or at leats the birdcage linners they write the stupid colums in
 
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