The Brady Campaign Forgets History

A recent email from our friends at the Brady Campaign warned

Rick Perry -- Will We Have a Pistol-Packing President?

and went on to tell me

Proud and packing, Texas Governor Rick Perry’s extremist "guns everywhere" ideology is something he will insist on imposing on the whole of America if he becomes President - you can be sure of that. Over at the NRA they must be rubbing their hands with glee.

WE MUST STOP RICK PERRY WHILE WE STILL CAN.

First--the "guns everywhere" ideology is misleading and is really a bit of scaremongering.

Current law forbids certain people (for instance, convicted felons) from owning firearms.

And just because a law allows the legal carry of firearms doesn't mean its mandatory. A person can choose whether or not they will carry.

No one is forcing you to do so.

And the scaremongering part? By saying "guns everywhere" Paul and Co. want you to think anybody with a gun is coming to kill you. The implication, yet again, is that only criminals have guns, therefore gun-owners are criminals and they're coming to kill you.

Second, Paul Dennis and Co. seem to have forgotten our own President Teddy Roosevelt:

[Theodore Roosevelt]'s behavior after receiving his honorary LL.D. was so archetypal as to imprint itself on the eyes and ears of many observers. [Harvard president] Dr. Eliot escorted him to a guest suite to change, and watched with fascination as he tore off his coat and vest and slammed a large pistol on the dresser. Eliot asked if it was his habit to carry firearms. "Yes, when I am going into public places." *

I don't recall history telling us that Roosevelt forced America into a "guns everywhere" policy around the turn of the century.

Unless there's some bit of history I'm not aware of?

* Edmund Morris, Theodore Rex, p.117 (Modern Library Paperback Edition, 2002)

The Brady Campaign Wants You Dead

The Brady Campaign and other anti-gun groups would've preferred the rape and murder of these college students.

"Apparently, his intent was to rape and murder us all," said student Charles Bailey.

If it hadn't been for the quick thinking of one of the students held hostage, grabbing a gun from a backpack and using it against the invaders, these students would be dead by now.

But if you leave it up to the Bradys and their cohorts, that student wouldn't have been able to save his friends.

They'd be dead.

And that's really what Paul Helmke Dennis Henigan and Co. want.

They don't want you to protect yourself. They want you dead.

Yes, it's an old news report. But it clearly shows how a gun in the right hands can save lives.

And a gun in the hands of a college student no less.

Click here for the news video of that report.

Misleading Us Yet Again

Here's someting that stood out for me in the Brady Campaign's recent press release about missing guns:

Weak federal gun laws allow gun manufacturers and dealers to operate without security or inventory controls.

And yet Title 19, Section 923(g)(1)(A) of the US Code states:

Each licensed importer, licensed manufacturer, and licensed dealer shall maintain such records of importation, production, shipment, receipt, sale, or other disposition of firearms at his place of business for such period, and in such form, as the Attorney General may by regulations prescribe.

So the law is weak how?

Scary Numbers To Scare You

Here's a scary report from our Friends at the Brady Campaign:

A new Brady Center report, "Missing Guns: Lost and Dangerous" shows that licensed gun manufacturers nationwide "lost" an average of at least 18 firearms every day over the last two and a half years, according to a Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence analysis of new data released in August by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).

Scary, isn't it.

18 firearms every day.

Wow.

Actually, it only seems scary.

Let's look at the numbers, shall we?

On page 5 of the report (click here for the PDF file) we get two sets of criteria for the numbers--

• Firearms initially missing from inventory determined at inspection
• Firearms still missing after searching records and inventory

Let's call them F1 and F2, respectively.

The "18 firearms every day" comes from the total F2 figures for 2009, 2010, and mid-2011.

That total comes to 16,485.

The "18 per day" comes from the following math:

16, 485 missing firearms / 912.5 total days* = 18.065 missing per day

But this is kinda misleading.

Think about it.

That statistic of "18 per day" supposes a repeating event over a period of time. Like your pulse, for example.

It's saying that every single day, including Saturday and Sunday, 18 guns disappear from gun factories.

Unless they can document 18 firearms being lost every day, I call "Bullshit!"

Don't think I'm downplaying losing 16,000+guns.

I'm not.

That's a goodly amount to lose in two and a half years.

But consider this--

According to the report, F2 in 2009 was 11,178. That's 11,178 guns that went missing from U.S. Gun Manufacturers.

But the ATF's Annual Manufacturing Report for 2009 shows a total of 5,417,003 firearms (pistols, revolvers, shotguns, and rifles) manufactured in the U.S.

So the percentage of missing guns comes out to:

11,178 / 5,417,003 x 100 = 0.206%

0.206%

Not even 1%.

In fact, not even half a percent.

I know. 11,000+ guns lost in 2009 isn't anything to sneeze at.

But in the context of 5,000,000+ manufactured that same year?


*More math: 912.5 days = 365 days (2009) + 365 days (2010) + 182.5 days (mid-2011)

Back Again...

Yes, Folks. We're back.

We weren't actually gone. Just busy with other projects.

So let's get back to raving, mmm-kay?