I'm not going to comment about this conundrum
other  than to note that in order to obtain a license to drive, applicants in all 50  states must be able to demonstrate their ability to drive. 

If Iowans are concerned about this, their licensing program should include  live fire proficiency. 

Texans must fire 50 rounds at three distances and score 70%. Until this year, shooting was also required to renew a concealed handgun license.

 - Dr. Gatling

You may have seen headlines about Newtown shooter Adam Lanza’s “arsenal” of weapons. 

Well, I don’t often commend the New York Times, but thanks, guys, for posting the entire list of items seized under a search warrant.
 
For starters, since Adam took his mother’s AR-15 and two pistols to Sandy Hook Elementary, and left his shotgun in the trunk of his Honda, that left little at home to constitute an arsenal, let alone a cache or even a collection.

Second, since this list was compiled by veteran police officers, I’m a little surprised by some of the entries, including:

 -          An Enfield “Albian” rifle in .323 caliber. Since they also recovered boxes of standard .303 British ammunition, the .323 looks like a typo. So does the Albian. Albion Motor Works in Scotland  made .38 revolvers for Enfield, but I’m not
familiar with an Albian rifle.
 -         A Volcanic .22 caliber starter  revolver. This only fires blanks, so is not a firearm.
 -         A Saiga semi-automatic 12-gauge shotgun found in his car, along with TWO magazines containing SEVENTY rounds of ammunition. I’ve seen a 20-round drum for the Saiga, but not one that could hold 35 rounds. 

Please take a look at the published list. I’d appreciate any corrections, clarifications, or additions.

 - Dr. Gatling

Well, the second part of the poll pretty much explains the absurdity of the first.
 
Quinnipiac University, a small school in Hamden, Conn., which does a lot of polling, says it found 91 percent of Florida residents polled favor universal background checks for gun purchases.
 
Trouble is, nobody doing the polling ever explains that the universal background check would require a universal database in order to be efficient. If that were known, perhaps the results would be different. 

The poll also found favor in banning so-called assault weapons and high capacity ammunition magazines.

But imagine the results of a poll that asked, “Would you favor banning semi-automatic rifles
that look like military rifles, but aren’t?”

Or:  “Would you favor banning magazines that automatically load a bullet each time the trigger is pulled? If
so, how many times would the shooter have to pull the trigger before the magazine became of a high enough capacity to be banned?”

But there is a bright light in the polling tunnel. Apparently they don’t measure the passion of the respondent. And this story says that’s why the Democrats way overestimated the national sentiment for gun control.

-  Dr. Gatling


 

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper cited the number of suicides by firearm as he signed new gun  restrictions into law. 

"However many homicides we have each year with handguns,  we have about 20 percent more suicides," he said. "That number drops  significantly when you have universal background checks."

I’m not sure where the governor gets that figure, but it is NOT from the Centers for Disease Control. 
 
The most recent (2012) data from the CDC simply studies the methods used to commit suicide. 
 
"For Americans, suicide  is the 10th leading cause of death. It resulted in 36,909 lives lost in 2009.
The top three methods used in suicides included firearm (51%), suffocation  (24%), and poisoning (17%)," the CDC said.

Now here’s the interesting part. The CDC says deaths from suicide are only part of the  problem. “More people survive suicide attempts than actually die. In 2010, about  465,000 people received medical care for self-inflicted injuries at emergency  departments across the United States,”  the Centers reported.

However, the CDC does  not break down the percentages of which methods attempted were unsuccessful. So
it stands to reason that, for whatever reason, guns may not always be the deadliest  and most efficient method to end it all.

Perhaps Gov. Hickenlooper theorized that conducting a background check on all gun purchases could save lives. Maybe
he also should have looked into background checks for selling rope and prescription drugs.

- Dr. Gatling


 

Well, New York residents today lost the right to possess detachable ammunition magazines holding more than 7 rounds and buy AR-15 or similar semi-automatic rifles that have one feature resembling an assault weapon -- such as a pistol grip. Any such weapon must now be registered with the state.

A court challenge to Governor Cuomo's late-night lawmaking and waiver of the three-day waiting period for bill passage failed in Albany when the judge said he could not rule on the governor's statement of necessity because previous law made it clear that such statements could not be questioned.

“The Court of Appeals has been clear, is clear, that judicial intervention or judicial review of a message of necessity is not
allowed,” said New York Supreme Court Justice Thomas  McNamara.

Thus, state lawmakers are implementing changes that would not pass in Washington. Colorado has a new magazine limit law and a silly statute that, effective July 1, requires all private gun transfers between unrelted parties to be processed by a licensed Federal Firearms Dealer, who must conduct a background check through the FBI NICS system unless the gun recipient has a valid Colorado concealed handgun license. It is then the gun dealer's responsibility to archive the 4473 form completed for the transaction. 

The firearms dealer can charge no more than $10 for the background check and paperwork processing. In the past, dealers have gladly done this in order to sell a gun. But ten bucks is hardly worth the time taken away from sales and customer service to walk an applicant through the process and make the call. Oh, we're hearing that NICS line has been pretty busy of late.


 

 Gov. Cuomo will have to convince a judge that there was a need for speed to  pass New York’s new gun control laws.

 State Supreme Court Judge Gerald Connolly signed an order today directing the  governor  and legislative leaders to show cause that the law should not be enjoined. A March 11 hearing is scheduled in Albany County court.

The Cuomo-backed bill passed January 15 without the required three-day waiting period.

We The People of New York, Inc., comprising more than 1,200 plaintiffs from  58 New York counties filed a constitutional challenge to Cuomo’s “message of  necessity.” 

The governor had said:  “Some weapons are so dangerous, and some  ammunition devices are so lethal, that New York State must act without delay to  prohibit their continued sale and possession in the state in order to protect
its children, first responders and citizens as soon as possible. This bill, if enacted, would do so by immediately banning the ownership, purchase and sale of assault weapons and large capacity ammunition feeding devices.”

But Cuomo had no immediate comment on the judge's order.

 Stay tuned.

 - Dr. Gatling

You’ve probably seen  the video of the Vice President telling women that the best home defense weapon  is a 12-gauge double-barreled shotgun. 
 
I agree, up to a point, for a variety of reasons: 

- It is probably the most intimidating weapon to face, including a so-called “assault rifle.”

- Few intruders will  try to wrestle it away from you. Just don’t let them get too close.

- It is hard to miss  your target.

 - A load of 7½ dove shot will cut somebody in half with a minimum of collateral damage to other  people in the home or next door.

 But as menacing as a  double-barrel is, I prefer a good old pump action shotgun that has the  unmistakable snick-snick warning that speaks all  languages. And it holds more rounds.

As for Biden’s  suggestion that the resident discharge both barrels outside the dwelling, the  NRA makes great points that firing a gun up in the air is illegal in most urban  jurisdictions and would leave the potential victim with an empty gun.

 The Washington Post fact-checkers looked into the argument from both sides. But I think they got a little nit-picky by narrowing the instance to just Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware.

 But you gotta love what they found out when checking with State Prosecutor Kathleen Jennings. 
 
“In Delaware,  a person can legally fire a weapon to protect themselves and others from someone  intruding onto her dwelling,” said Jennings, who heads the Delaware Justice  Department’s Criminal Division.

Well, maybe.

Even in Texas, that’s  stretching the lethal force statute pretty far. And the Texas Department of  Public Safety tells concealed handgun licensees not to fire warning shots.

 But here’s the best  part.

Jennings works for Biden’s son, Delaware Attorney General Joseph “Beau” Biden, who appointed her in 2011.

‘Nuff said!
 
- Dr.  Gatling

The following is from a USA Today article written today by Raju  Chebium, Gannett Washington Bureau.

"Marc LeForestier, a deputy California attorney general, touted the state's  gun laws as a potential national model.

"Like California, Congress should require gun buyers to undergo criminal  background checks and use those records to build a firearms registry, he said.

"But in response to [a] question, LeForestier acknowledged that 600,000  firearms are still sold illegally every year in California even though the state  reputedly has the nation's toughest gun laws." (emphasis added)

So, how many guns would fall through the cracks if the United States implemented a strict California Plan?

Kind of makes you wonder.

- Dr. Gatling.

 Before school shooters made headlines, it was mad bombers who killed our  children.

 The deadliest mass murder in a school in U.S. history took place in May 1927  in Bath Township, Michigan. 

Wikipedia’s entry on the tragedy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_School_Disaster) says  Andrew Kehoe “killed 38 elementary school children and six adults, and injured  at least 58 other people. Kehoe first killed his wife, fire-bombed his farm and  set off a major explosion in the Bath Consolidated School, before committing  suicide by detonating a final explosion in his truck.”

 Kehoe is said to have used a timed detonator to ignite hundreds of pounds of dynamite and  incendiary pyrotol.

 In September 1959, my wife and her brother survived a bombing at Poe Elementary School in Houston, Texas. 

Six people, including the perpetrator, were killed, according to the  Wikipedia listing,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe_Elementary_School_bombing  .

 The debate continues about limiting firearm magazine size or outlawing  semi-automatic rifles (guns that require a separate pull of the trigger to fire  bullets one-by-one) that resemble military rifles. 

True assault rifles, capable of fully-automatic fire, have been strictly  regulated since 1934.

But I have to wonder what might happen if new gun control initiatives make it  more expedient for deranged killers to resort to real weapons of mass  destruction.

 - Dr. Gatling