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Vin Suprynowicz
Gun grabbers shoot blanks in latest stunt
The Associated Press represents itself as an unbiased purveyor of news. So I reserve the right to be disappointed -- if not truly shocked or even surprised -- when I see the time-honored news service embracing some of the ridiculous but currently fashionable presumptions of the ignorant and politically correct.
This past week, the SHOT show returned to Las Vegas. This is the annual sales convention of the Shooting, Hunting and Outdoor Trades -- a $28 billion American industry -- staged here by the Connecticut-based National Shooting Sports Foundation.
An AP reporter attended the first day of the convention on Tuesday. She reported that she saw "shinning [sic] displays of M-14s" (which are in fact scarce as hens' teeth, licensed as Class 3 machine guns because they'll fire full-auto -- it's equally possible she was looking at semi-auto M-1As) and "long range rifles" (always the best kind).
The third paragraph of her report states: "That there are renewed calls for tougher gun restrictions after a Jan. 8 shooting rampage in Arizona killed six people and wounded 13 others -- including apparent assassination target Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz.-- did little to dampen spirits at the giant show."
Just to make sure the reader didn't miss the juxtaposition of these two events -- so ironically related in the mind of the reporter -- the sixth paragraph of the piece expands on the "related" subject: "Jared Loughner, 22, the suspected Arizona shooter, legally purchased a Glock 19 two months before police say he opened fire at a Giffords district meet-and-greet outside a Tucson store.
"Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, a New York Democrat, introduced legislation in Washington Tuesday that seeks to ban large-capacity magazines such as those recovered at the Arizona crime scene. Her husband was killed and her son seriously wounded in a 1993 shooting on the Long Island Railroad."
The cynical way Rep. McCarthy used the death of her estranged husband to win election is now ancient history.
Meantime, at the risk of sounding ghoulish, Rep. Giffords is alive today -- thank heavens -- because the twerp in Tucson used a Glock 19 with that big, sexy magazine full of pathetic 9 mm rounds. Doctors have said she would not have survived a similar hit from a round of .45 or even, presumably, .40.
When magazines were limited to 10 rounds, meaning a single round had to do the job, manufacturers concentrated on and more people bought .40s and .45s.
But the main point here is the way this report makes it sound as though the organizers of the SHOT show should somehow be ashamed or embarrassed to go on with their event, a mere 10 days after the Arizona shootings.
This is like saying a Las Vegas hardware trade show went on as scheduled, with no apparent "dampening of spirits," no shame or embarrassment, despite the fact some lunatic used a hammer to commit a murder in Idaho last week.
Can we sense the imposition of some previously established views, here?
The clear implication is that another Jared Loughner could have walked into the SHOT show at the Sands Expo and Convention Center in Las Vegas last week, bought another Glock 19 handgun, along with magazines and ammunition, and promptly carried it outside and used it to do wrong.
But that's simply not true. The SHOT show is a trade show, "licensee to licensee." It's not a retail "gun show." (We still have those here, thank goodness. There's one at Cashman Center this weekend.)
But unlike "gun shows," the SHOT show has never been open to the general public. To get credentials, each of this year's 58,000 attendees (excepting members of the press) had to convince organizers they were legitimate retail buyers for legitimate retail outdoor stores, gun dealerships or police agencies interested in seeing the wares of the 16,000 vendors from 103 countries who exhibit there.
Attendees at the SHOT show may carry away shopping bags full of fancy brochures, maybe the occasional souvenir plastic duck call or baseball cap, but they carry away no firearms. Exhibitors hope they will place orders for rifles, deer-hunting tree stands, duck calls, tents, boots, police or military load-bearing belts, etc., which are then shipped from distant warehouses only after the buyer demonstrates he has all required licenses and permits.
In fact, if the section of the SHOT show devoted to marketing products exclusively to police agencies were set aside as a free-standing trade show, "It would be the second-largest law enforcement show in the United States," says Lawrence Keane, senior vice president and general counsel of the Shooting Sports Foundation.
So it's highly likely that the next time a police sniper gets the go-ahead to take out a bad guy who's holding a gun to the head of a hostage in the aftermath of a botched bank robbery, that officer -- who I hope we can all agree is the "good guy" in this scenario -- will be using a rifle, a telescopic sight, an electronic range-finder, and possibly even a brand of bullet and cartridge that first came to the attention of his department at the SHOT show.
The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority says the SHOT show brings $51.8 million in nongaming revenues to the region each time it spends four days here. And if our hotels didn't entice some of those guys to also drop some quarters in a slot machine while they were here, our guys are in the wrong line of work.
"The show is 30 years old. It's most frequently in Las Vegas because that's where the participants want to be," Mr. Keane told me Wednesday.
"We bring into Las Vegas and the greater Clark County area economic activity and tax revenues probably approaching if not exceeding $80 million during the four days of the show. Something that happened in Tucson is utterly unrelated. ... And (the fact that) some anti-gun groups would seek to exploit this tragedy to advance their misguided political agenda is disappointing but not surprising."
Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Review-Journal, and author of the novel "The Black Arrow." See www.vinsuprynowicz.com.
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Hmm still waiting.....nothing yet....
MSchaeffer: Still waiting for the citations...eager to start reading them in detail.....
Here is the main problem with gun control folks.....what is the stated goal? disarming criminals....it has failed in it's main goal at every turn...it has NOT (and could not) keep weapons out of the hands of criminals and in the absence of firearms other means are used....edged weapons, bombs, cars, or other mechanical devices...Also it criminalizes the citizen who merely wants to defend himself...this of course is not a positive outcome...As a historian, I see the only "good" result of gun control is seen by totalitarian governments who can control both the populace as well as it's access to ALL consumer goods through a militarized interior police and military border control....in Britain weapons are now showing up from the east block...they are banned but they show up....British police are arming increasingly due to this inescapable economic fact...you may ban something like say liquor in the 1920s but banning a thing outright simply moves it into the criminal area and away from the civil area.....
nothing recent and most commentary in papers or magazines etc with little substance (mostly just accusations about his research with little fact backing them up) give me some citations and I will read the criticisms you find so compelling and I can read what you read....
@ Malousnormal: You mean like trying to use econometrics to analyze the effectiveness of gun control laws?
Malousnormal,
Name the critiques you have read and detail why they are wrong.
I read some of the critiques and they are by and large hit pieces designed to give cover to the sad litany of gun control idfiocy....empty comments with improper stochastic comparisons (which is standard for gun control zealots)
Mr. Schaffer: There is no prior restraint on shouting "fire" in a crowded theater. Anyone is free to do so. There are, however, consequences for doing so. You are correct when you say no right is absolute, and I have never argued in favor of allowing people with violent pasts to own guns. If you're convicted of a violent crime you should lose that right forever. On the subject of John Lott, boy oh boy, if I had not been able to produce my data in any of my research, as he could not, I would be drummed out of academia. The data backing up my doctoral dissertation (interview transcripts and codes, survey data, etc.) ran to hundreds of pages. There are multiple copies of everything. No credible researcher would ever be unable to produce data when asked. Having other people check your work is an essential part of the research process.
@ Malousnormal: Your comprehensio skills are sorely lacking. For the last time: People have a right to own firearms, it says so in the constitution, and I am not in favor of taking away that right. To pretend, however, that the ubiquity of guns somehow makes our society safer is lunacy. And Mr. Schaffer is correct; I will not waste my time reading John Lott. When asked to produce the data he used in making his claims he said he couldn't and blamed the loss of data on a computer crash. he is, at the very least, a shoddy researcher. Any idiot knows to back up his hard drive. He also claims to have lost the actual paper copies of the surveys in a move, and when asked for the names of students who had worked on the survey he said he couldn't remember any. He also posted reviews of his own book on line using a fictitious name and called himself "the best professor I ever had." And you think this guy has credibility?
Hi JohnF,
How often does free speech actually, by the words themselves, cause death? You should note that there is prior restraint in the law for speech that is equivalent to yelling fire in a crowded theater. No right is absolute. Are you now going to argue that some one with a history of violence should then, for the first time, be allowed to buy firearms?
Malousnormal,
John Lott has no credibility but you would have to read the critiques of his 'research' to understand this and you will not do so.