Ayn Rand on Gun Control

[Selene]

OK so now is the time to ban all sharp pointy objects also...

A Tennessee man has been charged with attempted murder after shooting a TV weatherman in the chest with a crossbow during a home invasion.

Gerald Delbert Taylor, 53, from Johnson City, is accused of breaking into the home he once shared with Robert William Batot, 43, and firing a crossbow bolt into Batot's chest during an altercation.

Batot fled the house as Taylor also fired at him with a 9mm handgun, missing him with every shot.

Batot, who uses the name Rob Williams when working as a meteorologist for WJHL Channel 11, still had the bolt sticking out of his chest when police arrived on the scene after the attack early on Monday morning.

It is unclear why Taylor launched such a vicious attack against Batot, but the TV personality had taken out a restraining order against Taylor in May.

In court details for that order or protection, Batot alleged that Taylor had earlier vandalised his car - slashing the tyres - had stolen from him, and had threatened to kill him on precious occasions.

Taylor, who had been staying at a local motel after being evicted from Batot's house, had allegedly threatened to ruin Batot's reputation, before threatening to kill Badot and then himself.

On duty: Robert Batot presenting the Channel 11 weather, where he goes by the name of Rob Williams

The restraining order prevented Taylor from going to Batot's Ashworth Court home or his place of work at Channel 11.

Taylor has now been charged with attempted first-degree murder, aggravated burglary and violation of an order of protection.

The attack occurred at Williams' home before 4am on Monday.

Police said Taylor broke into the house through a window and shot Williams with the crossbow when the home owner confronted him.

Taylor is then said to have fired several shots from a 9mm handgun as Williams tried to run from the house. But all bullets fired from the weapon missed their target.

Police claim Taylor fled the house after firing the weapons and was found by police on a dock nearby Batot's waterside property.

He was still holding the handgun, arresting officers claim, and was subdued with the use of a Taser after a brief confrontation.

Batot is recovering in hospital and has posted a statement on his Facebook page about the incident.

On the Channel 11 website, Batot has thanked everyone for their concern, and is helping the police with their investigation.

man-recovering-shot-chest-crossbow-home-invasion.html#ixzz1ww23njQm

[Brant Gaede]

This never would have happened in Canada.

--Brant

[caroljane]

This never would have happened in Canada.

--Brant

True, apparently we like our pointy objects up close and personal.

[Selene]

This sounds a little less than up close and personal...

YOUR SKILL & ETHICAL STANDARDS: Ultimately, the final answer is up to YOU. A crossbow bolt is surely lethal at 50, 75, perhaps even 100+ yards, but only if you can control it. With a little practice, an average crossbow shooter will be able to place shots accurately out to 30 or 40 yards with little regard for loss of arrow trajectory, changes in ground elevation, or compensation for wind conditions. But if you expand that range to 75 or 100 yards, precision becomes much more difficult, and you'll need extraordinary skills to reliably control your shot-placement. So if you're new to crossbow shooting, you may find that your first season's effective hunting range is only 30 yards, but with repeated practice you may be able to expand that range to 40 or 50 yards (or more). The bottom line is....as a responsible bowhunter, it's up to YOU to decide when to shoot and when not to shoot. You must set your own ethical standards, based of the limitations of your skill and your equipment.

[Dglgmut]

Who knows, maybe someone will invent a new weapon that will make guns look like crossbows look to us now... then gun control won't be as big a deal and people will be worried about the new pocket sized laser beam murdering devices that will be circulating through criminal groups.

[Selene]

MILLER: Gun ownership up, crime down

FBI violent-crime rates show safer nation with more gun owners

By Emily Miller

-

The Washington Times

Monday, June 18, 2012

• 
  Enlarge PhotoIllustration: Second Amendment by Alexander Hunter for The Washington Times
  

Gun-control advocates are noticeably silent when crime rates decline. Their multimillion-dollar lobbying efforts are designed to manufacture mass anxiety that every gun owner is a potential killer. The statistics show otherwise.

Last week, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced that violent crime decreased 4 percent in 2011. The number of murders, rapes, robberies and aggravated assaults all went down, continuing a pattern.

“This is not a one-year anomaly, but a steady decline in the FBI’s violent-crime rates,” said Andrew Arulanandam, spokesman for the National Rifle Association. “It would be disingenuous for anyone to not credit increased self-defense laws to account for this decline.”

Mr. Arulanandam pointed out that only a handful of states had concealed-carry programs 25 years ago, when the violent-crime rate peaked. Today, 41 states either allow carrying without a permit or have “shall issue” laws that make it easy for just about any noncriminal to get a permit. Illinois and Washington, D.C., are the only places that refuse to recognize the right to bear arms. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence did not respond to requests for comment.

If the gun grabbers were right, we’d be in the middle of a crime wave, considering how many guns are on the streets. “Firearms sales have increased substantially since right after the 2008 election,” said Bill Brassard, spokesman for the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), which represents the $4 billion firearms and ammunition industry. “There was a leveling off in 2010, but now we’re seeing a surge again.”

The FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) serves as one of the best indicators of gun sales because it counts each time someone buys a gun. Checks hit an all-time high of 16.5 million last year. In the first five months of this year, the numbers have gone up 10 percent over the same period last year as Americans rush to the gun store in case President Obama decides to exercise “more flexibility” in restricting guns in a second term.

Gun manufacturing is the one private-sector industry “doing fine” on Mr. Obama’s watch. Sturm, Ruger & Co. sold 1 million firearms in the first quarter of 2012 - an amazing 50 percent increase from the first quarter of 2011. The jump was so steep that the company stopped accepting orders from March to May to catch up with demand for its products.

Last month, Smith & Wesson announced a firearm-order backlog of approximately $439 million by the end of April, up 135 percent from the same quarter in 2011. Sales in that period were up 28 percent from 2011 and 14 percent over its own predictions to investors. NSSF estimates the industry is responsible for approximately 180,000 jobs and has an annual impact on the U.S. economy of $28 billion.

Mr. Obama could honestly take credit for this jobs program, economic boost and the reduction in violent crime that has followed the spike in gun ownership on his watch. Instead, he’s silent about his greatest positive accomplishment.

Emily Miller is a senior editor for the Opinion pages at The Washington Times.

[Dglgmut]

Actually, these kind of laws are quite obviously contradictory. Consider a law that says you can't walk your dog without a leash. Now, the reason for this is not because people are not trusted, but because the animals are not. With this kind of law, if a dog were unleashed, the owner could get a fine. If the dog bit someone, the dog would not be the criminal, the owner would have been negligent.

However, with gun control laws it's as if the people are the dogs. We are told not to shoot anyone, and threatened with severe consequences. Then, like the leash, we are told not to carry a gun... because we cannot be trusted. Well, if we cannot be trusted, why have a law telling us not to shoot each other? Why make the crime our responsibility, then at the same time say we are irresponsible?

If someone gets shot, like the owner of the biting dog, the government should get the fine for not leashing its citizens. Negligence... letting some guns slip through the cracks into the hands of humans! What were you thinking, Government!? Don't you know people are wild animals that, if not kept on a leash, will bite an innocent person?

[Brant Gaede]

Gun control laws don't control guns. Knife control laws don't control knives. All these controls are people controls.

--Brant

[syrakusos]

Arguably, no one should have a gun.

Police: All Empire State shooting victims were wounded by officers

By David Ariosto, CNN

updated 9:54 PM EDT, Sat August 25, 2012

Details here.

For a class paper and on my blog, I discuss defensive gear, such as The Bat Shield. In my duty bag, I carry kevlar gloves. I can stop a bullet with my hands and not hurt nine other people. It is not the best solution, but like Hans Oersted's dynamo clearly an indication that better products wait to be invented and marketed. It should be possible to stop aggression by purely defensive means. Judo (the gentle art) and karate (empty hand) are indications that a different philosophy leads to different understandings and alternative solutions for the problem of aggression among humans.

Given that, though, you stil might want to own a gun (or two):

Grizzly bear kills backpacker in Alaska's Denali National Park

By the CNN Wire Staff

updated 9:44 PM EDT, Sat August 25, 2012 here

... though, you know, not going someplace like that would be a good start. I repeat my ealier quip:

The scientific name for grizzly bear, ursus horribilis, was given by the second person to find one.

[dennislmay]

In my duty bag, I carry kevlar gloves. I can stop a bullet with my hands and not hurt nine other people.

Could you send a link or demo video on these gloves? What range of bullet types and calibers are

they expected to be effective on? What is the effective cross sectional area of protection?

Dennis

[anthony]

In my duty bag, I carry kevlar gloves. I can stop a bullet with my hands and not hurt nine other people.

Could you send a link or demo video on these gloves? What range of bullet types and calibers are

they expected to be effective on? What is the effective cross sectional area of protection?

Dennis

Just large enough to cover my face and my groin will be big enough.

(What's to say? I'm vain, and the rest is self-explanatory.)

[Frediano]

"He knew they would be back. So, he called police to report the burglary, but he also armed himself with his 9 mm pistol and slept in a chair in the front room that night. And when three people broke in about 3 a.m., Whitfield shot one of them, leaving the man dead on the kitchen floor."

_{At that point, he wasn'r confronting burglars; he was confronting robbers.}

_{Burglars are smarter than robbers; robbers are stupid as hell, and there is no reason to place your life in their incapable hands.}

No homeowner has ever woken up and confronted a burglar, by definition. Burglars are never shot by homeowners; only robbers.

[Frediano]

Let's skip right past Drug Control Laws, and create the next failed prohibition black market.

Subtract gun deaths associated directly with Drug Control and then let's see what is left in a nation of 330 million people.

When I point this out to folks I'm often asked 'Then do you want to legalize drugs?" And the point is, has it made any net positive difference that we we have not?

I don't see Anheuser-Busch machine gunning barrels of Miller Lite in our cities. And alcoholism is as lethal and destructive as its ever been.

But we don't have a border war with Canada, influenced by Canadian Beer Cartel leaders trafficking in Molson Golden Ale.

A ban on guns will not do anything to make the Drug War less lethal; it will create a new lucrative black market period. Are we insane? Maybe if we became more like East Germany and a totalitarian police state, then -maybe- we could put a dent in the War on Drugs. No f'n thank-you, that would be a state worth destroying.

[dennislmay]

[syrakusos]

Dennis, that pretty much sums it up. Now, see if you can find a clip of a chimpanzee (it was not a "monkey") calculating compound interest among a group of bankers.

[syrakusos]

In my duty bag, I carry kevlar gloves. I can stop a bullet with my hands and not hurt nine other people.

Could you send a link or demo video on these gloves? What range of bullet types and calibers are

they expected to be effective on? What is the effective cross sectional area of protection?

Dennis

http://www.hatch-corp.com/

With these, I would have to hold up both hands, take the shot, and trust that it would not penetrate too much farther into my body. As I said, it is an indication of what is possible. I believe that before an officer is issued a firearm, they should be issued armor. AVALON was the sheath of Excalibur. The famed sword could cut anything, except its own guardian.

[Selene]

Folks:

Here is an interesting fact.

The Batman theater shooter had a choice of six (6) movie theaters near his apartment that night.

He did not pick the closest one. Nor did he pick the largest one with the largest screen.

He picked the only one with his radius that banned concealed carry guns.

Interesting,,,don't you think?

A...

[Xray]

Another horrible tragedy happened yesterday at a Connecticut elementary school:

http://abcnews.go.com/US/connecticut-school-district-lockdown-shooting-reports/story?id=17973836#.UMx043eP-eY

[Selene]

Another horrible tragedy happened yesterday at a Connecticut elementary school:

http://abcnews.go.com/US/connecticut-school-district-lockdown-shooting-reports/story?id=17973836#.UMx043eP-eY

Angela:

That is one of the reasons that I posted #317. Schools are another "gun free" zone and therefore present perfect targets for psychotics like this savage to attack.

Apparently, his mother was the children's teacher and apparently she was the owner of the guns that he used.

Those poor defenseless children never had a chance. Had there been armed private security at the school he might have been stopped.

Their parents will suffer with this every day of their lives.

I only hope that they can find some king of peace.

A...

[Selene]

UK has highest violent crime rate in EU, higher rate than US and even South Africa

From the UK Daily Mail in 2009:

Britain's violent crime record is worse than any other country in the European union, it has been revealed.

Official crime figures show the UK also has a worse rate for all types of violence than the U.S. and even South Africa - widely considered one of the world's most dangerous countries.

The figures comes on the day new Home Secretary Alan Johnson makes his first major speech on crime, promising to be tough on loutish behaviour. . . .

The figures, compiled from reports released by the European Commission and United Nations, also show:

• The UK has the second highest overall crime rate in the EU.
• It has a higher homicide rate than most of our western European neighbours, including France, Germany, Italy and Spain.
• The UK has the fifth highest robbery rate in the EU.
• It has the fourth highest burglary rate and the highest absolute number of burglaries in the EU, with double the number of offences than recorded in Germany and France. . . .

In the UK, there are 2,034 offences per 100,000 people, way ahead of second-placed Austria with a rate of 1,677. . . .

[caroljane]

None of these countries has a higher death rate from gunshots however, than does NRAmerica.

[Dglgmut]

But a worse ratio of innocent:criminal gunshot deaths.

Oh wait, we're all equal.

[caroljane]

Even the smartest criminals could not steal a nonexistent gun.

[anthony]

No, no, no. Are you tracking back the causality to Samuel Colt now?

[Jonathan]

Even the smartest criminals could not steal a nonexistent gun.

Huh? Are you saying that you believe that it's possible to confiscate all guns? Guns would be "nonexistent"? They'd, what, be available to government authorities who you deem to be trustworthy enough to have them, and they'd somehow never make it in to the hands of others, or never be manufactured illegally and sold on the black market (um, like illegal drugs which are available everywhere)?

J