2018 Preview – Gun Laws – Trump’s Decorum

After every mass casualty attack, the same suspects trot out the same fusty canards. New gun laws would be palliative, therapeutic, ineffective and would save no lives. 
2018 Preview – Gun Laws – Trump’s Decorum
By: George Noga – December 10, 2017
       As 2017 fizzles out, we evaluate the past year and plan improvements for the next. Total readership is robust but hard to pin down because most of the growth comes from other blogs that pick up our posts and from an incredibly large number of forwards – in some cases, four generations of forwards. We had 50,000 visits to our website in 2017. Our commercial email service reports we have one of their highest open rates. We have a strong presence on social media. Our Red October series achieved primo placement on Google’s search engine – competitive with that of The Wall Street Journal.
       We are taking a short holiday break from publishing; hence, this is our penultimate post for 2017. The final post likely will be in late December when the final outcome of  tax legislation is known. That will be the last part of our series: Taxation in America. Our weekly blog will resume in mid-January. Thanks again to all of you for your loyal readership, forwarding and financial support during this past year.
      Changes are afoot. Most of our posts have followed a pattern: we identify issues, marshal facts, draw logical inferences and present perspectives not often found elsewhere, always fact based and principled. We will continue doing some of that but plan to take more of a cosmic approach. In addition to issues, we will write about the juxtaposition of man and state – sometimes from a highly personal perspective. We will reprise our popular Montana Moments segments during the summer and will continue shamelessly flogging what has become our signature issue – climate change.

Mass Casualty Attacks and Gun Laws

      The US has suffered many mass casualty attacks and after each one, gun control advocates engage in the same kabuki. They espouse antediluvian bromides that would be palliative, ineffective and would not save lives. Proposing futile laws apparently is therapeutic for liberals. Not one law they ever proposed would have prevented any mass casualty attack. They mask their real goal of banning and confiscating all guns.
       The mass casualty problem is – first and foremost – one of untreated mental illness. WND News has compiled a list of 24 mass shooters with untreated mental illness during the past 20 years, which accounts for a large percentage of such events. In recent shootings in Sutherland Springs,TX and Charleston, SC, the killers were able to obtain weapons because of government failure to post data to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. Progressives’ solution is to place more trust in government – the very same government that failed abysmally in TX and SC.
     The dirty truth is that progressive beliefs are responsible for the large number of people with untreated mental illness roaming the streets. Liberal dogma forbids forcing treatment or institutionalization. The number of hospital beds for psychiatric patients in the US is down over 95% in the past 50 years – thanks totally to progressive ideology.
Note: There are 2 main causes of mass casualty attacks. This post addressed untreated mental illness. A future post will focus on the second leading cause – copycat attacks.

The Dignity and Decorum of Donald Trump

      My liberal friends like to complain about the lack of dignity and decorum of The Donald. They often ask if I too am turned off by it; here’s my answer to them.
       In the 1970s you called Richard Nixon “tricky dicky” and mocked him incessantly. During the 1980s you labelled Ronald Reagan, arguably the best president of our time, an “amiable dunce“. During the 2000s you referred to George W. Bush, a man of quiet dignity, as stupid and evil. You called him a chicken hawk, liar and an international embarrassment. You savaged John McCain, a man who sought collegiality. You turned Mitt Romney, a genuinely nice human being, into an unrecognizable monster.
    Now you come and attack Trump as evil incarnate. We have repeatedly tried collegiality, dignity and decorum; where has that gotten us? We are locked in a bitter, divisive culture war and, unlike the others, Trump is fighting back. Yes, sometimes he can be short on decorum but I am not shedding crocodile tears over it. Trump is our president during the midst of the culture war and he is a fighter. Get used to it!

Our next post will follow final disposition of tax legislation.

Guns in Switzerland and Honduras

The gun homicide rate in Honduras is 44,000% that of Switzerland. The countries
are equal in population and Honduras has stricter gun laws and 90% fewer guns. 
Switzerland Versus Honduras
Gun laws, Ownership and Homicide
By: George Noga – November 27, 2016
      Switzerland (population 8.1 million) has gun laws similar to the USA and in sharp contrast to the highly restrictive laws of the European Union. Swiss males between ages 20 and 30 (34 for officers) are supplied with military assault rifles which they are required to keep at home. Once their service ends, they may keep their weapons. It is a common sight to see a person in active military service carrying his rifle in public.
       Data on Swiss gun ownership are maintained at the canton level and such statistics are often not reliable, especially for guns acquired before registration was introduced. Estimates of gun ownership vary but the accepted number is 60%, ranking Switzerland third highest in the world – behind the USA and Yemen. Switzerland has a strong gun culture and the government subsidizes and actively encourages recreational shooting.
      For the most recent year data are available, Switzerland experienced 49 homicides with 18 involving firearms. The total homicide rate was less than 0.5 per 100,000 and the homicide rate from guns was .000000225 – equal to .2 per 100,000. Both metrics are among the lowest in the world along with those of Japan, Iceland and Singapore.
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      Honduras’ population of 8.1 million is identical to Switzerland. Under current law, it is legal for Honduran citizens to own guns, but only under a strict regimen with mandatory registration and many other restrictions. Gun ownership in Honduras is 6.2% which is the 87th lowest in the world; few citizens own guns. Guns may be sold legally only by one outlet which is a branch of the Honduran armed forces.
      The homicide rate for Honduras is 104 per 100,000, ranking it highest in the world and twice as high as the second most dangerous place on the planet – Venezuela. Of all the homicides, 85% are with guns; this equates to a rate of 88 per 100,0000.
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   Comparisons are stark. Switzerland has relatively permissive gun laws – even requiring military and reservists to keep weapons at home. Gun ownership of 60% is third highest in the world; yet the gun homicide rate is among the lowest in the world. Honduras restricts gun ownership with only 6% owning guns, ranking 87th worldwide. Nevertheless, the gun homicide rate is the world’s worst – higher than Switzerland by a factor of 440, i.e. for every gun homicide in Switzerland, there are 440 in Honduras.
       I understand: (1) gun laws and gun availability are not related to gun violence and may even be inversely related, i.e. more guns equal less violence; (2) economic, cultural and social factors account for differences in gun violence; and (3) comparing countries as different as Switzerland and Honduras is problematic and that the ideal is to compare countries that are identical except for gun laws and availability. Note: go to www.mllg.us to see my “Guns in America” series which contains such comparisons.
      Nonetheless, the juxtaposition of Switzerland and Honduras is too tantalizing to pass up as it proves beyond any reasonable doubt, and in the starkest possible terms, that gun laws and gun ownership do not beget gun violence. It renders moot the entire gamut of gun control dogma and liberal orthodoxy about banning and confiscating guns. Honduras suffers forty-four thousand percent (44,000%) more gun homicides despite much stricter laws and only 10% the gun ownership of Switzerland.

Our next post, rescheduled from November 13, addresses voter ignorance.