Arms Control

The War On Guns has a link to a debate forum where the candidates for chairman of the Republican National Committee will be debating.  Users can post questions and vote for questions to be asked of the candidates.  This is a chance to get some significant input into the Republican Party's direction over the next few years.  David's a little peeved that no one seems to be helping out on the political end, so this is me doing my part.  Now, you go do yours.  The deadline is tomorrow (Monday, Jan 5th) so I really do mean NOW.

UPDATE: Here are some of the questions you might want to vote for.

My question:

Lately the Republican party has ignored three major elements of the coalition: gun owners, small-government proponents, and fiscal conservatives. The response to Sarah Palin's selection as VP by an otherwise miserable top-ticket presidential candidate should make it obvious to the party where the passion is. I would like each candidate for RNC chair to name three things: 1) Name one federal gun control law which violates the 2nd Amendment (DC's restrictions do not count) and explain how you will work to remove this unConstitutional law. 2) Name one federal beaurocracy which is not Constitutionally authorized, and explain how you will work to remove it. 3) Name one significant position the party has taken in the past that you feel is incorrect, explain why, and how you will act to correct the situation.

Michael Bane's question:

Are you willing to unequivocally support the Second Amendment, including: 1) Unequivocal opposition to any so-called "Assault Weapons Ban." 2) Opposition to any ban on magazine capacity, types of ammunition, etc. 3) Opposition to any attempt to subvert at a federal level state-approved concealed carry laws. 4) Support for concealed carry rights on a national level. 5) RELENTLESS opposition to any federal registration schemes, whether on firearms, ammunition, etc. The GOP has treated those of us "under the tent" because of Second Amendment issues as the "crazy uncles in the closet" for far too long! The GOP must embrace the Second Amendment if we are to embrace the GOP. Michael Bane Host & Producer SHOOTING GALLERY THE BEST DEFENSE

It should not surprise anyone that the man is a nightmare for gun owners.  It seems that when Obama claimed he supported the 2nd Amendment, he was... shock!  horror!  lying.  Like many other politicians.

... the anti-gun agenda surely has come out of the woodwork now that the election is over.  From Sebastian and Ahab comes this press release from the Humane Society of the United States, seeking a ban on lead-based hunting ammunition.  They claim there is a health hazard involved in eating meat killed with lead bullets or shot.  Unfortunately for them, the study they cite for their proposition explicitly concludes that there is no health risk at all:

Participants [people who eat game meat harvested with traditional ammo] in the study had readings lower than the national average and well below the level the CDC considers to be of concern.

Children in the study had readings that were less than half the national average and far below the level the CDC considers to be of concern.

The study showed a statistically insignificant difference between participants who ate game harvested using traditional hunting ammunition and the non-hunters in the control group.

The Humane Society here is simply lying, and hoping that no one will call them on it.

From Obama's transition website:

Address Gun Violence in Cities: As president, Barack Obama would repeal the Tiahrt Amendment, which restricts the ability of local law enforcement to access important gun trace information, and give police officers across the nation the tools they need to solve gun crimes and fight the illegal arms trade. Obama and Biden also favor commonsense measures that respect the Second Amendment rights of gun owners, while keeping guns away from children and from criminals who shouldn't have them. They support closing the gun show loophole and making guns in this country childproof. They also support making the expired federal Assault Weapons Ban permanent, as such weapons belong on foreign battlefields and not on our streets.

So what's the story here?

First, the Tiahrt Amendment is a budgetary rider that forbids the federal BATFE (the agency in charge of regulating firearms) from sharing certain types of gun trace data.  It does NOT forbid sharing information necessary for local law enforcement to investigate crimes; instead, it protects information that many local governments have sought solely for the purpose of formulating lawsuits against firearms manufacturers.

"Common sense" measures for keeping guns away from criminals and children are already in place.

Closing the "gun show loophole" is nonsense; there is no such loophole.  What Obama wants here to is make all firearms sales require government permission and recordkeeping, ie, firearms registration.

"Childproofing" guns is basically impossible.  Young children should not have access to firearms at all; older children should be supervised; that's common sense.  What Obama means here is that he wants "smart guns" which only fire for the "authorized user".  The problem is, that technology doesn't exist.

And of course the assault weapons ban is self-explanatory at this point.   It had no effect on crime, bans cosmetic features that make no functional difference to the firearm, and is generally a worthless piece of annoyance.

Hat tip to Sebastian of Snowflakes in Hell for finding it first.

UPDATE: The page is gone, down the memory hole.  Interesting.

In each election year the NRA sends around a questionnaire to politicians running for office asking them to specify their position on guns and gun rights.  The questionnaires are important in picking who to endorse or oppose.  It seems the Brady campaign isn't happy with the way the questions are worded, so they did a bit of fact-checking.  Now, it's my turn to fact-check their fact check.

When the NRA says "gun sales by private citizens who are not engaged in an ongoing firearms business should not be subject to federal background check requirements," its officials mean that unlicensed sellers should be able sell dozens of guns at gun shows, at tables marked by huge banners saying "No Background Checks!," to anyone who shows up.

Has anyone seen a table like that at a gun show?  I haven't.

Regardless, it's important to realize that there is no gun show loophole.  Gun shows are no different than other private sales by federal law; individuals can sell guns to other individuals at a gun show and be governed by the same laws that apply to private sales generally.  If someone is in the business of selling guns, rather than selling off their own private collection, they need a federal firearms license (on top of whatever state or local requirements are).  Since there is usually a strong law enforcement presence at gun shows, anyone actually in the business of selling firearms without a license will probably be out of business before very long.

When the questionnaire reads "the Federal government should not ban firearms," what is meant is that no type of firearm whatsoever should be prohibited for sale, even handguns that would not be detected by airport security, or military-style AK-47s, or even machine guns. The NRA opposes the Federal machine gun ban enacted in 1986.

The 2nd Amendment does seem to preclude almost all blanket gun bans, based on the Supreme Court's ruling in Heller.  Handguns that would not be detected by airport security for any reason other than TSA's incompetence are a gun banner's fantasy, not a real threat.  According to the rules of the assault weapons ban, there's no functional difference between a "military-style AK-47" and a common semiautomatic hunting rifle.  And of course the 1986 ban on machine guns was justified by the total number of 0 crimes committed by ordinary citizens with legally-owned machine guns since those were heavily regulated in 1934.  Yes, zero.

When it asks if the candidate agrees that "ammunition magazines should not be banned," it means there should be no restrictions whatsoever on the number of rounds a gun can fire without reloading. The NRA opposed the Federal assault weapons ban, which limited ammunition magazines to 10 rounds. Now that the ban has expired, the sale of 30, 50, even more than 100 round magazines is legal again.

Because criminals can't switch magazines, right?  This is just another case where restrictions on millions of law-abiding citizens are passed in the vain hope of mildly inconveniencing some criminal somewhere.

When it says "no records should be maintained on any lawful gun buyer," it means that Federal law enforcement shouldn't be allowed to retain even for 24 hours the records of anyone who successfully cleared a Federal Brady background check - even if more time is needed to see if a gun was illegally sold, or if the buyer is on a Federal terrorist watch list.

Because if they passed the check then they are not a criminal.  Mechanisms are already in place to provide for a "delay" response while the purchaser's identity and criminal history can be verified if necessary.  That is already a prior restraint on 2nd Amendment rights for law-abiding citizens.  (I was about to say that we would never tolerate such a prior restraint upon the 1st Amendment, but I fear we already are.)

When it asks candidates if they "support legislation to restore the Second Amendment rights of DC residents," it means legislation which would go much farther than the Supreme Court's decision in D.C. v. Heller, and eliminate the District of Columbia government's authority to pass any gun laws at all.

That would be because the DC government has proven itself incapable of acting in good faith in complying with the Heller decision and respecting the 2nd Amendment rights of their residents.

UPDATE: A case study in new media versus old media.

Hits from a link posted to saysuncle: 100 and counting
Hits from a link posted to the New York Times gun control page: 2
Hits from a link posted to Instapundit: Unknown...
Hits from a link posted to Daily Kos: I may never know.

Derek Reeves over at Outdoor Life has a good article on the divisions within the gun community and how those divisions often hurt our ability to elect politicians who support the whole community rather than one narrow splinter of it.  On the whole, he has a good point, as the Zumbo affair demonstrated.  However, he does make one significant error:

Now is the time for all of us, gun owners and constitutionally minded individuals, to come together under one banner. That banner can be the NRA but most importantly it has to be heard through votes. There are an estimated two to three hundred million registered firearms in the hands of law abiding Americans--that is a strong and very loud voice at the polls. Or we can stay divided, kick back and hope for change or is it change for hope?

"Registered" firearms?  Last I checked we don't have universal firearms registration in this country.  Three hundred million legal firearms, sure.  But let's not give the antis ammunition by equating "registered" firearms with "legally owned" firearms.

Sensibly Progressive lays it out.

There's a short article here.  One possible explanation for police claims that they "only took guns that were stolen or found in abandoned homes": apparantly, New Orleans police have had an informal policy of confiscating any firearm they encountered in a traffic stop unless the person could produce a receipt:

In the course of doing research for our book ("The Great New Orleans Gun Grab") Todd Masson (my co-author) and I kept running across stories and evidence that New Orleans traffic cops were taking guns from motorists during routine traffic stops. The ploy used is to ask a motorist if he has a gun in the car, then ask to see it. Upon issuing the traffic citation, the cop asks the motorist if he has a receipt for the gun. Of course, no one has one, so the cop informs the motorist when he/she comes up with a receipt proving ownership, he/she can retrieve the gun at such-and-such a district.

After something like that, the gun certainly could be described as "stolen". 

... somehow their prejudices show through.  The Huffington Post gets all annoyed at gun owners for refusing to believe Democrats will leave their guns alone:

National Public Radio (9-24-08) recently spoke to Democrat Louis Brandenburg in southwestern Pennsylvania, whose friends are voting for McCain-Palin because of "the hunting issue." "I can't understand what happened to our party....the Republican Party is always the ones who back hunters and sportsmen...all we get from the other one is flack about hunting and guns," protested Mr. Brandenburg.

So here's a Democrat who doesn't believe the Democrats on guns. Is it any wonder that they have no credibility on the issue?  In an attempt to skewer their purported ally, the Post explains...

In fact, Democrats have never challenged the right to own hunting or sports guns. Yet, in classic bait-and-switch fashion, leaders of the National Rifle Association incite the masses by raising the specter of Democratic "gun grabbers" confiscating citizens' "hunting" and "sports" guns - even as NRA leaders promote "sporting" events with automatic weapons and .50-caliber military sniper rifles (deadly at a mile, with a range of over four miles).

And yet in the very same paragraph they claim that Democrats have never challenged hunting or sporting guns, they challenge guns regularly used in extremely popular sporting events.  Yes, there are sporting events that use automatic weapons (already heavily regulated, no thanks to the Democrats) and .50-caliber rifles.  I've participated in some of the latter, albeit without using a .50 -- others at Boomershoot did. 

What's happening here is that anti-gun Democrats believe they can get away with their prejudices by separating out "hunting" and "sporting" weapons and then attacking anything that's not "hunting" or sporting".  The problem is that hunting and target rifles become "military sniper rifles", popular competitive sporting rifles become "assault weapons", and handguns become "Saturday-Night-Specials". 

Following that spectacular demonstration of idiocy, there follows a huge parade of attacks on gun owners, the religious, and even abortion opponents.  While political differences are fine and dandy, I thought this article was supposed to be about how Democrats aren't attacking gun owners?  Most of it isn't even worth quoting.  Finally, several paragraphs down, there's some actual argument worth rebutting:

The stranglehold of the gun lobby on Congress supercedes even national security. Agents of bin Laden were revealed buyers of U.S. .50-caliber military sniper weapons during the trial of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers. Yet, three separate bills to regulate .50-caliber weapons by reclassifying them the same as machine guns under the National Firearms Act have languished in congressional committee since 1999. Consequently, U.S. 18-year-olds have easier legal access to fifty-caliber guns than to handguns. CBS 60 Minutes reported in 2005 that .50-caliber guns and other assault weapons continue to be shipped out of the U.S. as "hunting rifles," often on commercial airlines.

Oh, the horror that such instruments of death and destruction have contributed to a grand total of ... 0? deaths in the United States.  Criminals simply don't use .50 caliber rifles to commit crimes, because they can't be concealed and cost several thousand dollars each.  There's no .50-caliber crime wave.  People who buy these rifles are serious shooters who have the time and money to invest in developing their long-range shooting skills.  Not criminals.

Oh, and the alleged sale to bin Laden agents?  It was legal, because it happened when Afghanistan was fighting to free their country from the Soviets. 

The NRA's shell game nurturing false fears of Democrats seizing hunting guns is classic bait-and-switch, calculated to scare voters, intimidate lawmakers and derail reasonable gun safety laws and national security measures.

That's "reasonable gun safety laws and national security measures" that, by some remarkable coincidence, would ban hunting and sporting guns.  The anti-gun lobby would be a lot more effective if they could manage to hide their agenda effectively.  They realize this and are increasingly investing in false-flag groups like the so-called "American Hunters and Shooters Association".  But even when they are explicitly trying to appeal to gun owners, they can't keep the lies and vitriol concealed.

The facts are simple.  The only way to be pro-gun is to be pro-gun.  Gun owners aren't easy to fool.

The trial of John Noble for the legal activity of carrying a firearm openly to a political rally began today.  He is charged with misdemeanor charges of disturbing the peace and disrupting a public meeting, neither of which appear to have any basis in fact beyond his presence at the rally distributing literature and openly carrying his firearm.  (The arresting officer even described him as "pleasant gentleman").

What disturbs me about this case, beyond the so-called authorities exceeding their legal authority, is the fact that the police were called by someone else there with a concealed carry permit:

Prosecutors called John Atkinson Sr. of Vanport Township, the first person to spot Noble in a crowd of about 300 people standing in Beaver?s McIntosh Square... Atkinson said Noble had a semiautomatic 9mm handgun holstered on his right hip and was carrying a Bible. Noble crossed under a police tape cordoning off the park and began distributing literature... Atkinson, who has a license to carry a concealed weapon and has been a gun owner most of his life, said he immediately hailed a sheriff?s deputy and pointed out Noble, who was arrested on the spot.

?He had every right to (have the gun), but in my opinion, this was a presidential rally, and that isn?t the right time or place to carry a firearm,? Atkinson said.

I have a little sympathy for Atkinson's position.  There are legitimate security concerns involved, but the appropriate way to handle that is to ask people who attend armed to leave their weapons outside the secure area or leave the event, not bring charges against them for a legal activity. 

There have been quite a few cases where open-carry activists have been arrested for peacefully going about their business armed.  They usually end in vindication for the gun owner, but not always... and fighting charges, even baseless misdemeanor charges, is expensive and time-consuming.  There's a definite discouraging effect and I suspect that's the point. 

If we can be arrested for activities that aren't against the law, do we have the rule of law or the rule of the police?

... we had better hope Sarah has this study at her fingertips. 

Gun shows don't contribute to increased homicide or suicide rates, according to results of a study announced Wednesday by the University of Michigan's Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy.

The joint University of Michigan and University of Maryland examination of gun death data in the weeks surrounding more than 3,400 California and Texas gun shows concluded tighter regulation of the flea market-like operations did nothing to reduce firearms-related deaths in the following month."

McCain has in the past voted to close the fictional "gun show loophole."  With any luck, he'll be able to read this study and realize that even if there was a loophole, it's not doing any harm. 

The House has passed legislation taking authority for regulating firearms out of the hands of the DC local government and putting in place reasonable regulations consistent with the regulations present in the majority of states.  The bill now proceeds to the Senate, where the Democratic leadership has so far refused to schedule a vote.  This would be a good time to contact your Senators and urge them to push the bill. 

Remember, this will likely be our last chance to pass the bill before the 2008 elections.  We want Congress to go on the record for supporting or opposing the 2nd Amendment.  This is a very simple case: does the DC government need to follow the Constitution or can they make it up as they go along?

Yes, the DC government has passed a new law "allowing" private citizens to more freely exercise their 2nd Amendment rights by removing the ban on semiautomatic firearms.  It only took three lawsuits, one Supreme Court victory, and the House of Representatives passing a much better law to take the issue out of their hands.  How much better?

The bill includes measures that would restrict the council from regulating gun ownership, remove the District's gun-registration requirement, remove criminal penalties for possessing an unregistered firearm and allow D.C. residents to purchase handguns in Maryland and Virginia.

In other words, the law in DC would be fairly similar to the law in the rest of the United States, and better than some.

In a free society, police who make mistakes and arrest people who haven't violated any laws would be punished.  Police who then refused to return the man's property would be charged and convicted of theft -- and in cases like this, armed robbery would be a more useful charge.

... about a hunter who checked into a hotel with his firearm (securely cased and unloaded) and was arrested because Democrats with a security detail happened to be staying at the hotel at the same time.  I found it from Bitter.  The full story from here or here.

This should be really worrisome.  Simplying staying with a firearm at the same hotel as someone with a bodyguard is not cause for suspicion, much less arrest.  And the hotel clerk called the police based only on seeing a rifle case.  So far, it sounds like the man was arrested while police investigate his explanation, and they may charge him with unlawfully carrying two handguns in his luggage.  The fact is, he doesn't need an explanation for lawfully carrying firearms in the normal course of his business. 

This is a simple case of overreaction, and it should concern anyone who has ever considered travelling with a firearm, whether for an African safari or just staying a few nights in a hunting lodge.  There's no way to predict whether you'll be sharing your hotel with a celebrity or politician, after all.

If they don't charge him after investigating his explanation, I wonder if he has a case for false arrest?

UPDATE: Note that this fellow isn't the only one who got arrested with firearms around the convention.  The other group of people are much less sympathetic.  I may not like Obama as a candidate but he needs to be defeated with the ballot box.  The struggle for Liberty is one of hearts and minds.

... does the 2nd Amendment cover these?

"To have somebody that I consider a friend, have been with dozens of times, shared meals with, treated as a friend, to have her be an employee, a subcontracted spy for the NRA, is just mind-boggling. It's so venal," Miller said. "In the battle of ideas with the gun lobby, we're at a constant disadvantage because we're honest."

From a story about the NRA's alleged "spy" within gun control organizations.  I don't think that "honest" means what Miller thinks it means.  Why?  Well, let's plug in the wayback machine and take a look at what the Violence Policy Center has to say about their "assault weapons" strategy:

Assault weapons -- just like armor-piercing bullets, machine guns, and plastic firearms -- are a new topic. The weapons' menacing looks, coupled with the public's confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons -- anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun -- can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons. In addition, few people can envision a practical use for these weapons.

Honest, hmm?  Right.

... over at The Smallest Minority.  The police did an armed raid on a Maryland gun owner merely because he bought ammunition in a caliber that he is not registered as owning a weapon for.  This is, quite simply, harrassment -- and every single gun control policy is designed to enable exactly this sort of bullshit.  To make gun owners vulnerable to intimidation tactics.  To make them question the legal risk of owning a gun.  To discourage where they cannot, yet, prohibit. 

Don't they have anything better to do -- like chasing real criminals?

The person this happened to needs to find a lawyer and sue.  We have to make it expensive for the police to pull these police-state stunts.

.. about one gun owner writing inflammatory letters to the editor of a local paper.  People are asking whether he's stupid, insane, or just wrong... or if maybe he's right and everyone not saying so is a coward or a statist or something. 

Personally my feelings are simple: Anyone saying they would violently resist the government under conditions short of Hitleresque tyranny has got the wrong idea.  Any government that will confiscate guns door-to-door will first come knocking individually on the doors of anyone stupid enough to put statements about armed resistance out to a widespread audience, and they'll probably use those very statements as the reason they had to act. 

How many times have we heard the news reporting that the police raided someone's home, arrested the owner, and confiscated all his firearms... because of "threatening behavior" or "advocating violence against law enforcement" or similar phrases?  Unless you want to be that person, keep the rhetoric below the imminent threat level. 

If it should ever come to pass that exactly that kind of resistance is necessary, it won't matter how many times you've said you would resist on the Internet.  And it certainly won't convince anyone that gun ownership is desirable; quite the opposite.  It's a concession that you've lost the argument (or perhaps that your debate partner wasn't really listening).  When your arguments boil down to, "Well, you can't make me, and if you try, I'll kill you," most people aren't sympathetic... even if you mean every word.

A number of mayors have volunteered to lose the next election by signing their names to an article supporting the DC handgun ban.  Here's the list:

Shirley Franklin is mayor of Atlanta. Contributing to this column were: Tom Barrett, mayor of Milwaukee; Manuel A. Diaz, mayor of Miami; Gavin Newsom, mayor of San Francisco; Greg Nickels, mayor of Seattle; and Douglas H. Palmer, mayor of Trenton, N.J.

Is your mayor on this list?

... send in some comments to the National Park Service suggesting that they allow the firearms rules for their parks to match the rules in the surrounding state.  Joe Huffman has some good visuals showing why. 

Laws on firearm carry in national parks should mirror state laws.  The states have already made their own decisions on whether and how to restrict concealed or open carry of firearms by law-abiding citizens.  States which allow open carry of firearms, with or without a permit, should also have that right available to their citizens in national parks within the boundaries of the state; likewise with lawful concealed carry of firearms.  There is no need to add yet another layer of confusing and conflicting regulations upon the behavior of honest citizens attempting to enjoy our national parks safely.

Not as much as you might think.  In this case, pointed out by Patterico, the 9th Circuit upholds a 5 year sentence for using a gun while possessing marijuana for distribution.  The catch?  The person involved was a border patrol officer who tried to steal a portion of drugs seized while on duty.  They happened to be caught on videotape.  The only reason there was a gun involved is because the guy had to carry one as part of his uniform and law enforcement duties. 

Now, nevermind that the drug war is wrong; never mind that this law enforcement officer is clearly corrupt; is wearing a gun on your belt as part of your normal clothing, without ever drawing the gun from its holster and without any attempt at force or intimidation, really "using" the gun in commission of a crime and worth 5 extra years in jail?  Bear in mind the sentence for using a gun (60 months), was twice the sentence for the theft of the drug (30 months).

That's a lot of potential bad for a concealed-carry licensee who makes an otherwise small mistake.  And I'm a lot more concerned about the fact that a law enforcement officer would steal something he's supposed to be confiscating than that he did so while wearing his duty weapon.

Scott Bach explains the issues.  There was a favorable court ruling (a surprise in New Jersay) that struck down one-gun-a-month laws as having no rational basis.  That's doubly-surprising, because the rational basis test is one that is usually very easy for a government to pass.  The ruling has caused some of the local gun control groups to push for statewide gun rationing laws.

There's one point I found particularly interesting:

What they conveniently forget to mention is that a large percentage of the traced guns have nothing whatsoever to do with criminal activity, but they are given the label "crime gun" nevertheless, because of a BATFE database requirement that all traced firearms must first be given a descriptive code before they can be entered into the system, and the only available codes happen to carry the designation "crime" in their name, regardless of whether the traced firearms were actually involved in crime.

I'll keep that in mind the next time someone is ranting about BATFE trace data on "crime guns". I already knew about this particular tactic for demonizing traced guns, but I didn't know the specific details that explain the designation.  Sometimes, knowing a detail like that can be more convincing than the bald assertion of fact alone.

... but interestingly enough, not support for gun bans.  The survey covered 50 people, from what I can tell all currently in prison, 42 of which were serving time for drug offenses.  The author sometimes calls his respondents "inmates" and other times "students"; why he does this is unclear.  Perhaps his respondents are inmates who are also students?

I'm assuming the survey population from which answers are drawn is the same, regardless of whether "inmates" or "students" is used.

Some interesting points from the survey:

Have you ever been shot, or shot at, with a firearm? If so, provide details :

Thirty-one inmates answered "Yes," and only three of them said the shots had been fired by law enforcement officers.

Of course, the answers as reported do not preclude criminals shooting at criminals.  In fact, all but one of the reported responses were cases that could easily be characterized as criminal-on-criminal activity -- the responses quoted had a definite tendency to initiate or escalate a confrontation, even while some could reasonably be considered defensive.  There's really no way to characterize most of the responses as being solidly self-defense or solidly criminal, it's all in the context that's missing from the responses.

The last reported response was someone who was shot after being robbed.  Note that he was shot after cooperating with his attacker.

But some students did seem to back some gun control measures, with 42 of the 50 in favor of licensing (for any and all guns), waiting periods and pre-purchase mental competency tests. 

So, criminals want to institute strict gun controls, yet obviously they have had no difficulty obtaining their own guns despite the mere possession of a firearm being a felony for probably everyone who participated.  (The odds are that everyone surveyed was either a prior felon or addicted to drugs, given the rough details we have about the participants in the survey -- currently incarcerated, 84% for drug crimes).

The survey was conducted by a Joseph Cooper, who teaches media law and ethics.  What the relationship between that field and criminology is, I have no idea. 

Because I'm always more than a little suspicious of excerpted media reports from such surveys, I asked the person who conducted the survey for his data.  This is a normal request in most scientific circles, because it allows for peer review.  His response to my request:

Thank you for your inquiry and request, but because my surveying will continue (following the Court's decision in D.C. v. Heller), and because of Dept. of Correction protocols and policies, and because of a book prospect, I must decline.

I will leave the reader to judge whether that's a reasonable response or not.  While, obviously, he would be in something of a bind if the data he used has conditions attached to it, I'm not sure I buy that; how would any research on questions like this be peer-reviewed if the data cannot be shared due to a firm policy?  I wouldn't mind waiting until after Heller v DC to get a complete dataset, but if that's holding him up, why publish articles about it in the newspaper?

It seems a little defensive to me.  I'm particularly curious how any of those reasons could justify his refusal to share non-personally-identifiable data while not preventing him from excerpting that data in nationally-published newspaper articles.

Amusingly enough, he visited my blog immediately before issuing his response to me in email -- less than 2 minutes before, in fact.  I wonder if that had any influence on his decision?

At any rate, since he refuses to provide his data, I'm not inclined to give his results any significance -- particularly not his carefully-excerpted and nationally-published excerpts.  The price of credibility is openness to validation.

Thanks to David Hardy for his patience in answering a few questions concerning the ettiquette of data sharing.

From the VPC blog (to which I will not link):

Victory is imminent; we expect a 9-0 decision in favor of D.C. Paul Helmke may pay lip service to the possibility of losing the case, but, in reality, he is quite confident of the outcome. Our forces are metaphorically preparing to cross the Rubicon and smash the NRA.

"Metaphorically" prepared?  It better be a metaphor, seeing as actual preparation to "cross the Rubicon" with "forces" to "smash the NRA" would involve... guns.  Which I think the NRA has more of.