Apparently not satisfied with all the firearm’s aficionados posting of late, our own Veritas Omnia Vincit sees fit to chime in with his own article, where he attempts to sway nay-sayers and gun-grabbers with cold facts and logic. As if that ever worked in the history of forever. To the Left all the factual reports, stats, and peer reviews aren’t worth a bucket of warm spit when compared with emotion, anecdotes, and feelings. Science be damned.
Which brings up an interesting juxtaposition when they talk about Climate Change and settled science. But that’s for another day.
Enough. Here’s VOV and his findings.
Veritas Omnia Vincit
The Scary Black Rifle, or How Many More Must Die, Your Honor?
Much ado about many things black rifles related in the news these days, New Zealanders losing their minds Democrats increasingly looking to ban the “assault rifle” so it had me thinking, is this much ado about something? Or as I believe much ado about nothing? Not that any murder victims are nothing, but a lot of people die every day in the United States and elsewhere and if we’re looking to truly save lives perhaps we should be using real data instead of simple emotion and “feelings”.
Most of you have come to realize I’m a numbers guy, I like seeing what the data indicates before getting all worked up. If the data supports getting worked up, I’m as good as the next guy in opening my pie hole to howl at the world. I decided that it might be good to look at some numbers collected by some very different sources and try and decide if the Scary Black Rifle is the threat to human life it’s made out to be nearly every day of late in our media and on the dreaded Book of Faces.
I decided to look at some FBI numbers, and then I decided why not take a wild ride and look at the Mother Jones Mass Shooting Database. I know, I know Mother Jones…blah blah blah….but guess what? Turns out their numbers are pretty honest. Starting back at a Welding Shop in Miami in the summer of 1982 they’ve categorized a variety of shootings where mass fatalities have occurred over the last 37 years and the database is regularly updated.
Their interpretation of their numbers might be slightly different than mine so let’s take a quick peek at the numbers of victims since 1982, turns out there are close to 900 dead over the last 37 years or 24 a year. That’s right 24. Two of those events account for over 10% of all the deaths in mass shootings.
A little further research from the insurance industry and you discover that dog attacks kill between 30-35 people year or 25-50% MORE than mass shooting events. Clearly policy that affects millions of law abiding citizens should never be written on something as likely to happen to you as your pooch eating you for dinner. I’m not making light of tragic outcomes here, there is nothing light about someone walking into a bar and killing 50 people because he hates gay Americans. It’s dark, it’s twisted and it’s certainly horrific. But it’s not something to rewrite the Constitution over regardless of how sad the outcome.
After looking at the Mother Jones numbers I popped over the FBI UCR page and took a look at murder in the United States in general. There I discovered that the Scary Black Rifle tends to kill less people than hammers and blunt force trauma when it comes to more traditional murder. Also with 17,000 murders those rifles accounted for less than 400 or about 2% of all yearly murders. Once again if saving lives is the goal clearly the Scary Black Rifle isn’t much of a threat to anyone.
This leads me back to where it almost always leads me, where Heinlein and others have remarked that it’s never really about things like labels. Not Democrat or Republican or nationalist or socialist, it’s about control. It’s about the exercise of power of a mostly law abiding and free people. Ayn Rand (yes a loon in many ways but right about some things as well) remarked that there is no way to rule a free people as the only power a government has is in the enforcement of laws, consequently if left alone a government will work hard to write so many laws the free people won’t be able to do anything without breaking some of them.
I’ve said it here and elsewhere over and over and I’ll say it again. When it comes to the amendments regardless of what the courts have said there are no “reasonable” restrictions. There are only restrictions. The founders created the set of amendments to make it clear they wanted the people to continue to be able to frighten the government into submission. What’s happened instead is a people today are so fearful of the world outside their front doors they are willingly surrendering their natural born rights for an illusion of safety.
I’m all for an honest and healthy debate about what kills Americans, legally and illegally in this modern nation of ours. But the key there for me is always the honest part. The Scary Black Rifle isn’t really good at killing Americans if you look at the data, consequently if we’re being honest there is no significant benefit to the people to ban or restrict this weapon. There is only a benefit to the government in further eroding your liberties to make certain you remain the tax sheep they want you to be without the ability to make any trouble for them.
If we’re going to be honest about what kills Americans murder isn’t even the most frightening thing at a mere 15-20,000 deaths a year. Simple errors kill 12.5 times as many Americans as murders. No one talks about those deaths. Perhaps my next article will explain those errors and how your local hospital is more likely to kill you than the local gang members.
That’s all for now, feel free to tell me how wrong I am. I welcome the perspective.
VoV
Thanks, V. You’re not wrong at all, but you’ll never get the gun-grabbers to admit it. Keep the faith though, there are folks out there who can be educated on their Constitutional Rights, and how valuable they ALL are. After all, without the Second Amendment, how long will the First Amendment survive?
Good read, great writing.
VoV, how about if I paint my scary black rifle say a pretty pink, will that make it ok with the gun grabbers then? I will be happy to paint it in any color in the rainbow.
The simple answer is “No.” The grabbers want them confiscated no matter what color they are. They want you unarmed or outgunned when their proglodyte gestapo comes for you.
VoV, I take my hat off to you.
I am sorry for all the bad words I called you. I still disagree with about 50% of your positions on other issues, but your position is based and held on honest research and an honest interpretation of the facts.
Good job and keep writing.
It’s all good Joe and no apologies required, but certainly thank you for that.
I’m have no illusions that my positions or thoughts are widely held, but they are mine and I will exercise my right to articulate the as long as they allow me to here at TAH.
I welcome the dissent, as it makes me consider my position and determine if it’s worth defending or perhaps consider changing based on the new information in opposition.
I’m in general agreement with you on this issue, too, VoV, but I’ll offer a slight critique here:
My guess, and I haven’t had the time to dig through the database, is that the SBR (Scary Black Rifle) actually is pretty good at killing Americans, .. it just isn’t used all that frequently in murders.
A tongue-in-cheek comparison would be to say that nuclear weapons aren’t very good at killing Americans, since hammers have killed more Americans than nukes in the past 10 years. But, clearly, nuclear weapons are quite good at killing people, they simply aren’t the weapon of choice in your average day to day life of an American citizen, thankfully.
Similarly, I’m betting if you looked at deaths-per-incident in killings, the SBR takes a healthy lead on the OTH (Ordinary Toolshed Hammer). Even though the OTH has more kills in total.
There is no such thing as a scary black rifle. A rifle is an inanimate object which cannot operate without an animate operator utilizing it.
Therefore, the only scary thing in this is the idiots who look for anything and everything as an excuse to violate the 2nd Amendment of the US Constitution.
Which, to complete the circle, is why we have scary black rifles.
Actually Ex, I’d add that a black rifle, that has not been maintained, and fails to function when needed is truly scary!
But why would you not keep it in good working order?
That thing costs a small fortune, you know! You wouldn’t neglect your car, would you? Or the missus?
ooh, don’t get me wrong, mine would never be in such a condition, I’m just saying that if one was, it would be scary.. (and they’ve actually come down in price in recent years, a decent example can be had for less that $400 these days, though as with most things there really isn’t an upper end to the price)
Anyone read the decision by Judge Benitez striking down the California standard capacity magazine ban?
He applied the reasoning that the second amendment applies to both self defense and citizens defense of the nation.
He clearly stated that military arms (and their magazines) are the ones citizens SHOULD possess!
There was a thread earlier in the week on that topic, and yeah, his was a great opinion. actualy grounded in fact. It will be interesting to see how it fares as it works it’s way to the SCOTUS.. IMHO, they should adopt it as written, and do away with all the unconstitutional BS that’s been put out over the past decades… hey, a guy can hope, can’t he?
FF I’d love to see this hit SCOTUS. And once and for all, knock out all this silly uneffective ban garbage that only affects lawful gun owners.
You and me both brother!
Great article VoV. My $.02:
AR-15=Ruger Mini-14 Ranch Rifle.
Functionally identical.
If the anti-gun nuts would LEARN ABOUT the guns they discuss… oh wait, that would be evil…
I went and modded my mini-14 by adding a collapsible stock with a pistol grip, a ‘standard’ 30 round mag, a fore grip, and a red dot sight.
Ta-Da! Scary black rile.
Only thing missing is a set of training wheels.
Heh…
Yeah, need a light on the front rail and a target. You free tomorrow, say around 1800?
But is there a chainsaw bayonet lug on it yet? Flippy up thingy in the back?
When I went to basic training in May 1959, all the Army’s scary black rifles left over from WWI, WWII and Korea were so devoid of bluing that they were mostly scary silver rifles.
No problem…
VoV, a great article as usual. I don’t mean to pick at nits, but I would make one correction concerning the FBI’s UCR. The FBI doesn’t break down weapons into sub-types. The category you speak of is for all rifles, not just the “scary black assault rifle.” One can assume that the rifle category murders were all or mostly with those “scary black rifles,” but it would be just that, an assumption.
As an aside, you mention that hammers and other blunt objects are used to murder more Americans than rifles. Further investigation shows that ‘personal weapons’ defined as hands, fists, and feet also are used to murder more Americans than rifles at a slightly higher rate than blunt objects. But far and away more deadly are knives and other sharp instruments. They are used to murder citizens about five times more often than all rifles combined. That rate has ticked down over the last two years, but I think I can say with a degree of certainty that it was due to a few mass murders in those years – the Pulse Nightclub in 2016 and Las Vegas in 2017.
“…how your local hospital is more likely to kill you…” PREACH!!! I’m sure that others of you, like myself, have had up close and personal experience with that. They came close but I won that one too.
Great post VoV and muchly appreciated. What part of “Shall not be infringed” is so hard to understand? If the gun grabbers could read and comprehend history they will understand why the Founders wanted We The People to be able to defend ourselves from an oppressive government….Oh..wait.. never mind. I had forgotten that the gun grabbers want to be that oppressive government….My bad.
Did anyone else notice the forward assist on the left hand side?
It’s a Stag Arms AR for lefty shooters. A pal who is left eye dominant has a SA AR-10 set up for left-hand shooters.
You lost your freedom with the ’65 immigration reform act. Migrants will vote far left and the left will gut the First and Second Amendments. Nothing else in this debate matters.