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We’re about to have a Surgeon General who’s also a gun owner . . . Surgeon general nominee, asked about gun violence, treads carefully

At a hearing Tuesday for five of President Trump’s nominees at the Department of Health and Human Services, a long contentious issue briefly flared: the public health threat posed by gun violence.

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) asked Dr. Jerome Adams, Trump’s nominee for surgeon general, what the surgeon general can do to stem gun violence. It was a notable moment because Dr. Vivek Murthy, the former surgeon general, saw his confirmation delayed for a year because of his support for gun-control laws.

In response, Adams, the Indiana health commissioner, sought to separate gun violence from guns themselves.

“Guns and gun owners aren’t inherently a public health problem, but the violence that results absolutely is,” he said, likening the difference to car crashes being a public health issue, even if cars themselves are not.

Of course it does . . . Concealed-handgun carry bill triggers pushback from coastal mayors, police chiefs

Mayors and police in states like New York and California, which have relatively restrictive guns laws, are organizing against making concealed-handgun carry permits in one state valid in all states.

Earlier this year, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N.C., introduced the Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act of 2017, which would allow individuals with concealed-carry privileges in their state of residence to exercise those rights in any other state while abiding by that state’s laws. …

“Since introducing this common sense bill, I have received an incredible amount of support from folks across the country,” Hudson told Fox News, adding that it currently has 207 co-sponsors from both sides of the aisle. “I expect the Judiciary Committee to take it up when the House comes back into session in September. We are primed to make national concealed carry reciprocity for law-abiding citizens a reality.”

Did he say September?

 

Battery-free illumination . . . Trijicon Introduces the 4-16×50 AccuPoint Riflescope

Wixom, MI – Trijicon has created another Brilliant Aiming Solution™ with the introduction of the new 4-16x50mm AccuPoint riflescope. The latest model in the AccuPoint series gives tactical marksmen, long-range hunters, and precision rifle shooters the ability to accurately extend their range in any light – without the need for batteries.

Packed with features for the serious shooter, Trijicon’s new 4-16x AccuPoint is built around an advanced fiber-optic and tritium illuminated reticle that speeds target acquisition and extends available shooting time. This battery-free dual-illumination system automatically adjusts the aiming-point brightness to existing lighting conditions. Shooters can also easily control the brightness of the reticle with Trijicon’s unique manual brightness override feature.

Lies, damned lies and statistics . . . Does carrying a gun make you safer? No. In fact, right-to-carry laws increase violent crime

It’s a challenge to figure out what would have happened had the law not been adopted. There’s this new technique called synthetic control. What we will do is try to look at states that have not adopted right-to-carry [laws] at the time when, let’s say, Texas adopts, in 1996. We will look at the crime pattern that Texas had the 15 years before they adopted the right-to-carry law, and see if there are other states we can think of as a composite of Texas, that mimic that identical pattern of crime that Texas had prior to 1996.

We take that composite of other states and see what happened in that composite of other states after 1996. Then we’re comparing Texas against this composite of other states, because that composite was such a good match for identifying the impact, the pattern of crime prior to 1996.

The NRA Foundation Awards $22,500 in College Scholarships

FAIRFAX, Va. – The NRA Foundation awarded a total of $22,500 in college scholarships to attendees of the 2017 NRA Youth Education Summit (Y.E.S.), a seven-day educational experience in Washington, D.C., for rising high school juniors and seniors, held this year from July 24-30.

The Youth Education Summit encourages young adults to become active and knowledgeable U.S. citizens by learning about the Constitution, Bill of Rights and the federal government. Since the program’s inception in 1996, more than $540,000 in scholarships has been awarded to participants. The following students received scholarships based on their display of leadership qualities and performance in debates and speeches conducted over the course of the week.

As his partner was murdered with a Fast & Furious gun, discovery could be very revealing . . . ICE Agent Wounded in 2011 Cartel Ambush Will Revive Litigation Against U.S. Government

A former Immigration and Customs Enforcement Special Agent who survived a 2011 Mexican drug cartel ambush that left an American officer dead is moving to resurrect litigation against the U.S. government to force the release of records that could shed light on the events leading up to the attack.

Victor Avila, who retired from ICE in 2015, has accused his supervisors of ignoring a State Department security alert that prohibited U.S. officials from traveling on a central Mexico highway, where former special agent Jaime Zapata was later killed.

Avila and the Zapata family seek to resolve why the agents, who arrived in Mexico only days prior to the attack, were sent unescorted on a notorious, gang-ridden highway to retrieve equipment from other ICE officers that Avila said could have “easily” been delivered by alternative means.

When you’re losing at virtually every other level, you have to trumpet even the smallest “victories” . . . Brady Campaign: We turned ‘Dear Abby’ into a ‘gun safety’ advocate

The column happened to be posted on “ASK Day,” the day gun control advocates remind parents to ask about guns in others’ home before a child visits.

Because she encouraged readers to not ask about guns, the columnist, carried on through Van Buren’s daughter, Jeanne Phillips, received flack from gun control groups, including Moms Demand Action, the Brady Campaign, and Everytown for Gun Safety.

The Brady Campaign took to Twitter to condemn Abby, which included retweeting others’ responses to the columnist.

Your feel-good defensive gun use story of the day . . . Police: Customer fatally shoots man trying to rob Phoenix drugstore

A man had pulled out a gun and jumped the pharmacy counter, pointing the weapon at people and demanding oxycodone from the pharmacist, (Sgt. Jonathan) Howard said.

A customer who was in the store and armed with a gun shot the man, Howard said.

Officers got everyone out of the store and found the robbery suspect, who was still armed but wounded, Howard said. A police dog was used to pull the man from his gun, Howard said, adding that the man had a second gun.

Police administered CPR to the man, but he died at the scene.

A cowboy can come from anywhere.

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32 COMMENTS

  1. To illustrate coastal mayor’s you use a pic of The Tiny Dancer©?!? Sure…oh I’m really getting tired of posting my”required fields” every post…

    • Well, Chicago is on “a” coast…

      And re the names etc., good to know it’s happened to someone else. I thought it was a new Avast “feature” or something. (Strangely, they still autofill on my phone.)

        • seems to have started after the scrolling target reviews comments were initially “closed.”
          and yeah, there is a third coast.

        • The Gulf Coast is the third coast. The great lakes can be the 4th-whatever coasts.

          On the names thing, TTAG recently switched servers (I think this week) and is still working out a few bugs (according to a reply to complaints on another article). I think it is happening to everyone.

    • Sure…oh I’m really getting tired of posting my”required fields” every post…

      Really, what’s up with that? What do they think, I’m a robot?

    • Broadening the Sporting Purposes clause, carry reciprocity, and federal preemption would effectively *end* the anti-gun movement in this country. Sadly, our pols likely have no appetite for actually resolving any political dispute, thinking it somehow hurts their fundraising efforts (I might actually donate to Trump this time if he does jack for me gun-wise besides banning VEPRs and solvent traps).

      Still, there’s a reason why a big, important man like Cuomo took time out of his busy schedule to address such a kooky, far fetched bill with absolutely no support at all among anyone in America. Even the mention of Reciprocity and more recently the preemption bill clearly shook these guys to their core. They’re done the instant congressional Republicans and the President decide they don’t want to fight this stupid century-long battle with the Democrats any more.

      • “Broadening the Sporting Purposes clause, carry reciprocity, and federal preemption would effectively *end* the anti-gun movement in this country.”

        I’m not sure on that.

        Never underestimate the lengths Leftists will go implement their will by force, if necessary.

        Consider this one – Broadening the definition on what will be considered a ‘prohibited person’.

        Such as, a ticket for careless driving being seen as proof you are too careless to be trusted with owning a gun…

        • Consider this one – Broadening the definition on what will be considered a ‘prohibited person’.

          You mean, something like banning people on the “terrorist watch list”?

      • Restrictive jurisdictions do not want reciprocity since it ends their monopoly on those they decide are worthy of carrying, notwithstanding the constitutional right. They are convinced, despite all the contrary or at least neutral research that more guns does NOT result in more gun crime. Most importantly, they blindly ignore the fact that concealed weapons carriers commit a negligible number of crimes, less even than police officers. In fact, their cars are substantially more likely to cause injuries or deaths from accidents when they cross state lines than any gun they might have in their possession. When added to the fact that criminal jurisdiction extends to any crime they commit, in no matter what state the crime is committed, there is no reason what so ever to deny national reciprocity.

        Federal pre-emption, though, has little chance of success–and in my mind, thankfully so.I’d rather that gun laws be subject to the whims of state legislatures who are more answerable to their constituency than a federal government who seems more answerable to the whims of its ruling classes and the parties they control.

        the federal bans on ammunition, specifically various .223/5.56 or 5.54 based on a broad reading of the “sporting purposes” law are inane. Jut about an rifle bullet will blow right through anything less than hardened steel plate or a ceramic vest, whether it has a steel core or not. To suggest that police officers are “more at risk” because of these ammunition types ignore the fact that the soft body armor typically issued is not designed to stop rifle bullets–or knives for that matter. hence, the risk is the same.

        • I hate preemption in general because it usually means overly complicated federal law that doesn’t mesh well with state law principles in place of state law. That said, I’m fine with federal preemption on a constitutional right that just says that states can’t make or enforce laws violating this particular aspect of that right, and if the states do, you can sue.

  2. Rusty Chains says you need to fix the problem where you are blanking out Name* and Email*
    Problem happens on both Win10 and Android.

    Synthetic Control in statistics looks to me like another attempt by the anti-gun left to confuse everyone with pseudo scientific made up gobbledygook that no one will believe because of the source.

    • Synthetic = Artificial = Made-up = Phony

      They are cherry picking small states that have completely different demographics than Texas to produce their “synthetic” result. With computers, they can run hundreds of variations to come up the most extreme result. It’s the demographics that are responsible for most criminal behavior, not the availability of firearms.

      Aside from that, why don’t those folks use their technique to explain why Texas and California have vastly different gun laws but the same overall murder rate ???

      • They cherry pick states that (cumulatively) had the initial # of citizens as TX, but no where near the population growth as Texas over the same time. The cumulative state’s line stays flat while you get a bump in the TX line.

    • I had never heard of the “synthetic control model” before, and I took statistics in high school and college. I e-mailed my statistics professor asking whether or not it was credible. I didn’t mention what the study was covering. He replied “[t]he method is credible (useful, in fact) but the study might still be crap.”

      One of the main reasons we took statistics in my degree plan was so we could know whether or not a study was b.s. It is really easy to make the numbers come out the way you want if you’re not being honest. It’s also real easy to get bad results from double counting causes. For example, if x causes y and z, you use y and z as explanatory variables for the causal relationship of x on w, the fact that y and z both correlate to x can screw up your results showing whether or not x is causing w. Or something like that. It’s been a long time since I studied statistics, and I haven’t kept up with it.

  3. Wow, when you use the word “composite” that many times in a statistical analysis…well, remember how it worked out for risk-assessment for mortgage-backed securities? And that was with people who had a financial stake in the results being at least somewhat accurate, as opposed to an axe to grind for political special interests. Mathematically, excessive aggregation of data has the effect of extrapolation when it comes to proving hypotheses, since technically any stats analysis only applies to the *aggregated* dataset and not the raw data (i.e. reality, or the best approximation of it)

    I’m also reminded of the aggregated data used for our climate scientists’ warming models, come to think of it…

    • The whole mortgage thing was a game of hot potato. Everyone knew many of the mortgagees weren’t going to be able to pay. They also knew they could sell them up the line until they were sold as part of some pension plan.

      I know of at least one guy who said he didn’t care that the bubble was going to burst because he would be rich by then.

  4. I’d be more inclined to believe “synthetic control” if they assembled their “composite” *before* the data was in. There’s a reason legit psychological studies, and medical trials are *double blind.*

    • Nailed it. I was going to say that “synthetic control” isn’t inherently a bad idea, but in practice it’s succeptible to abuse.

      I have no doubt if two comparable synthetic control groups led to 2 different conclusions, they’d pick the one that supports their cause.

  5. By “composite” they mean “surrogate” but they’re trying to make you think “proxy.” And that makes all the difference.

  6. A “proxy” is a representative, like an ambassador. A “surrogate” is a substitute: maybe close enough from your POV, but not attached to what it subs for. Like, a presidential voting poll, to take a crazy example.

    “Correct” a proxy hard enough, and you end up with a surrogate — perhaps it gives the same answer, but only by accident. But “corrections” are always toward what the adjusters prefer. Funny how that works.

    • Well color me unimpressed by the statement.
      “Guns and gun owners aren’t inherently a public health problem, but the violence that results absolutely is,”
      The violence that results from guns and gun owners that are not inherently a problem?
      Sounds like more double speak to me.

  7. “Guns and gunowners aren’t inherently a public health problem, but the violence that results absolutely is,” he said, likening the difference to car crashes being a public health issue, even if cars themselves are not.
    PEOPLE are the problem. Stupid people making stupid decisions, period.
    We don’t have a gun problem or a car safety problem or a opioid problem….we have a STUPID PEOPLE problem…dumb people making dumb decisions and way too many of them at that. Even our “leaders” in washington, on both sides are SO damn dumb. It’s truly amazing.

    • Back in the 1960’s, democrats gave endangered species protections to stupid, lazy and incompetent Americans. Since that time, intelligent folks have been severely out-bred.. Our collective National IQ drops about a point every year or two. Sorry.

  8. “There’s this new technique called synthetic control.” – Likely we’ll be seeing a LOT of this in the future. It’s perfect for pushing a desired agenda, because it would take a lot of time and effort to identify and test a variety of equally-valid composites to establish whether or not the one they chose to present the results from was representative, or whether they tested a number of different composites and just selected the one (or few) that gave the results they like most. Unlike most past studies purporting to show some beneficial correlation between gun restrictions and drop in violence, this technique doesn’t allow critics to just look at the data and immediately see the glaring flaws in methodology.

  9. National reciprocity will hit most gun control laws but harrassment will continue
    If they won’t do anything about illegal immigrants they won’t respect a national carry law either

  10. I’m glad to be of assistance to you, Doctor, as English is obviously not your primary language:

    Violence is not a public health problem.
    Accidental injury is not a public health problem.
    Disease IS a public health problem.

  11. Notice the way that statnews frames the issue – “a long contentious issue briefly flared: the public health threat posed by gun violence.” It is conclusory. The contentious issue is not whether or not “gun violence” is a public health threat. It assumes that “gun violence” is a public health threat.

    Crime is not a public health threat. From the CDC’s “What is Public Health” page: “CDC keeps America secure by controlling disease outbreaks; making sure food and water are safe; helping people avoid leading causes of death such as heart disease, cancer, stroke and diabetes; and working globally to reduce threats to the nation’s health.” “CDC monitors health, informs decision-makers, and provides people with information so they can take responsibility for their own health.”

    Claiming crime as a public health threat is just mission creep.

    They might have a claim on suicides and accidents, but calling those violence, while technically correct, is misleading.

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