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By Gregory Taggart, January 4, 2013 9:30 am

Dear reader, this rifle:

Is not the same as this rifle:

(Note the owner’s discussion of his rifle; unfortunately, what to him looks “cool,” to others looks scary.):

Wouldn’t it be more honest and wouldn’t it lead to more productive debate on the important gun control issue if we referred to actual assault rifles as, you know, assault rifles and mock “assault rifles” as, well, mock assault rifles? Or look-alike assault rifles or pretend assault rifles or fake assault rifles or __________ (fill in the blank) assault rifles?

Our military uses assault rifles. People who hunt or shoot recreationally do not. The dweebs, schmucks, twits, wackos who shoot up schools and theaters also do not use actual assault rifles. They use the pretend, the mock, the look-alike variety. And that variety is not automatic. It is not a machine gun. It shoots one bullet per trigger pull. Actual automatic rifles and machine guns have been well-regulated and basically outlawed for personal use (with very minor exceptions) since the National Firearms Act of 1934.

The Wikipedia** entry on assault rifles, provides the following definition of an assault rifle, the type of rifle our men and women in uniform use in battle:

An assault rifle is a selective fire (either fully automatic or burst-capable) rifle that uses an intermediate cartridge and a detachable magazine.

Wikipedia then list 5 criteria a rifle must meet to qualify as an assault rifle:

In a strict definition, a firearm must have at least the following characteristics to be considered an assault rifle:
-It must be an individual weapon with provision to fire from the shoulder (i.e. a buttstock);
-It must be capable of selective fire;
-It must have an intermediate-power cartridge: more power than a pistol but less than a standard rifle or battle rifle;
-Its ammunition must be supplied from a detachable magazine rather than a feed-belt.
-And it should at least have a firing range of 300 meters (1000 feet) (emphasis supplied)

The key element for my purposes is “It must be capable of selective fire“; that is, the shooter must be able to change from fully automatic mode to semi-automatic or “burst-capable” mode, essentially by a flick of a switch on the gun.

Now here’s the important part: the AR-15 used at Sandy Hook and the guns used at the Aurora, Colorado, theater and at Columbine and at the mass shootings elsewhere, by this definition were not assault rifles. They had only one mode: semi-automatic, which means that each pull on the trigger results in just one shot. Yes, I realize that trigger pulls don’t take a lot of time, but that’s another argument. For now, I’m just trying to define one term of this important debate.

So why is the term “assault rifle” and its cousin “assault weapon” bandied about so cavalierly? Well, we have Congress and the the gun control lobby (and a less than vigilant and sometimes cheerleading media) to thank for that. In 1994 Congress, with the help of the gun control lobby, enacted the Assault Weapons Ban. According to Wikipedia:

In United States politics and law, “assault weapons” are usually defined in legislation as semi-automatic firearms that have certain features generally associated with military firearms, including assault rifles. Some definitions in “assault weapon” legislation are much broader to the point of including the majority of firearms, e.g. to include all semi-automatic firearms or all firearms with detachable magazines. The 1994 Federal Assault Weapons Ban, which expired on September 13, 2004, codified the definition of an assault weapon. It defined the rifle type of assault weapon as a semiautomatic firearm with the ability to accept a detachable magazine and two or more of the following:
-a folding or telescoping stock
-a pistol grip that protrudes conspicuously beneath the action of the weapon
-a bayonet mount
-a flash suppressor or threaded barrel designed to accommodate a flash suppressor
-a grenade launcher (emphasis supplied)

Note the absence of the “selective fire” element. Folks, I repeat: We’re talking about weapons here that fire just one bullet each time you pull the trigger.

So, by a simple sleight of hand, Congress took a weapon that is really no different than most hunting rifles in its essential mechanics and turned it into one that general public thinks must be the same type of rifle our military uses in Afghanistan–simply by hanging the word “assault” around its neck.

Again, my purpose in this post is not to debate gun control. My purpose is to define terms fairly and accurately, so that when we participate in the debate, we use terms accurately and thereby actually communicate.

Now if the media would just pitch in.

**Yes, I know that Wikipedia has its problems as a reliable source; however, I chose to use it here because it is easily accessible and because the discussion seems fairly balanced.

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By Gregory Taggart, January 3, 2013 8:41 am

Will these guys ever get clean?

Al Gore pockets $100 million in the sale of Current TV to Al Jazeera, a broadcast entity owned by the Arab state of Qatar.

Matt Damon’s anti-fracking movie, Promised Land, financed by oil-rich United Arab Emirates.

To be clear, that the money in both cases comes from an Arab government doesn’t bother me in the least. That it comes from governments whose source of wealth is more than 80% dependent on oil revenue does. And then, that only bothers me because both Gore and Damon are so anti-carbon footprint and all that. And that only bothers me because if the print were on another foot, say, the foot of someone whose environmental research were funded by the oil industry, you know what the storyline would be.

In almost all cases, opponents/critics use the source of the money as an ad hominem and a red herring to smear the researcher or person making an argument and to distract from the real and very important question: is the research or argument sound? Yes, the source of funding may sometimes play a part in that assessment, but only a minor one.

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By Gregory Taggart, January 2, 2013 1:45 pm

I have never cared for Congressman Pete Stark (Dem.-Calif.). He was a demagogue of the worst sort, illustrated here by his parting comments on Morning Edition today. (I can give you more evidence if you want, but this will do.)

And what will Stark miss most when he leaves Congress?

“It’s one of the areas in which you get up … in the morning and look at the mirror … and say, ‘Hey, I’m going to do something today that’s going to make life better for somebody.’ And that’s pretty neat,” Stark says. “When I was a banker I’d get up and say, ‘Whose car am I going to repossess?’ or ‘Whose house am I going to foreclose?’ and that didn’t start you out on a very nice approach for the rest of the day.”

Because that’s all bankers do, you know, repossess and foreclose. Nothing else. And no mention that much of what Stark did to make “life better for somebody” almost certainly made life worse for somebody else.

Given that he (as a former banker, no less) reduces banking to repossession and foreclosure, it’s no surprise that he doesn’t understand the law of unintended consequences. For example, we have a stock market that has climbed to great heights under Mr. Obama–who gets lots of credit for that. But why is the market climbing? Well, it’s due in no small part to the almost-free money policies of the Fed. And who does that hurt, who does that “make life” worse for? Well, among others, people on fixed income, especially retirees who find themselves with nest eggs unable to generate enough interest income to sustain them in their golden years.

How low are the rates? Here’s a chart from the Treasury showing short-term and long-term rates on Treasuries over the last year. The second chart shows those same rates, starting back in January 2008.

Note the steady decline in rates since 2008, until 10-year rates hover around 1.5% and 1-year rates are around 0.25%–that’s 1/4 of 1%, for the decimally challenged. Now imagine that you’re living on a fixed income at those rates. Yes, Pete, when you help someone to a better life, you often impact the life of another for the worse. How many of those on fixed income have lost their homes or cars to the bank.

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By Gregory Taggart, December 31, 2012 12:40 pm

Is “Giv{ing] Up on the Constitution” on your list of resolutions for 2013? It’s on Louis Michael Seidman’s.

I get his point, and I disagree with it. I like that the Constitution has been a drag on powerful presidents, finger-in-the-wind senators, a sometimes capricious judiciary, and an often fired-up citizenry. It had its flaws in the past, has others even now, but the Constitution also has mechanisms to correct those problems. It’s also worth mentioning that the Constitution has little or no bearing on much of what passes for law nowadays. In other words, not every legal issue is a constitutional issue.

In any case, to Professor Seidman, I’d respond with the words of Robert Bolt–through the mouth of Sir Thomas Moore–in his play A Man For All Seasons:

More [to his soon-to-be son-in-law William Roper]: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

Roper: Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that!

More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ‘round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat?
This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down (and you’re just the man to do it!), do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!

Even Mr. Seidman acknowledges some good things in our Constitution: free speech, equal protection, things like that. He’d like to keep them. And so would I. But how secure would those rights be without a Constitution? Not very, I worry. They’re under attack even now. Fish in a barrel they’d be if we amended the Constitution out of existence.

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By Gregory Taggart, December 27, 2012 3:49 pm

Piers Morgan, the British ex pat currently lecturing the USA on its guns laws, is a sometimes Constitutional scholar, or at least he plays on on TV–and on Twitter. To wit:

When our elites are this dense, is there any hope for the rest of us? Jim Treacher thinks not . . . kind of. I mean, after all, David Gregory is a member of the lecturing, hectoring elite class, no? Where will we go for guidance? Oh the humanity. Etc. etc. etc.

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By Gregory Taggart, December 19, 2012 9:42 am

Frank Miniter, a gun owner and the author of “The Ultimate Man’s Survival Guide: Rediscovering the Lost Art of Manhood,” writes today on National Review Online to offer some good advice to both sides of the gun debate:

. . . So let’s step forward . . . onto common ground. Consider what President Barack Obama said in Newtown: “In the coming weeks, I’ll use whatever power this office holds to engage my fellow citizens — from law enforcement, to mental-health professionals, to parents and educators — in an effort aimed at preventing more tragedies like this, because what choice do we have?”

What about engaging gun owners? The National Rifle Association (NRA) estimates there are 100 million gun owners in America. An October 2011 Gallup poll found that 47 percent of American adults keep at least one gun in their home. Americans own more than 300 million firearms. In both recent shootings — in the Oregon mall and the Connecticut school — the killers used stolen guns. How about working with gun owners to make sure guns are stored safely? How about allowing those with concealed-carry permits to defend fellow citizens? Aren’t these choices? After all, currently more than 8 million Americans have concealed-carry permits.

When gun-control proponents feverishly demand that law-abiding Americans give up their right to self-defense as the price for a disturbed person’s heinous act, then free, law-abiding gun owners necessarily find themselves on defense, as they’d rather not be left defenseless. There is a better way.

As gun-control advocacy groups and politicians focus solely on gun control, the NRA, the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), and others have been left with the task of teaching firearm safety. While Hollywood and the video-game industry sell gun violence, somehow those preaching gun safety and self-defense have become the bad guys. This demagoguery is counterproductive. . . .

Miniter goes on to discuss “five things gun-control advocates and gun-rights groups should be able to agree on to help prevent a future Columbine or Sandy Hook.” You can read them at the link. They all sound reasonable and doable to me. And they just might actually work. As he says, in the first of his five points:

When an epidemic of drunk driving bloodied our highways, we didn’t demonize car owners and pass bans on automobiles. We worked with the American people, stiffened penalties, and had national campaigns explaining the problem. We talked about designated drivers and hotlines for alcoholics. We treated the American people as adults. We showed a good, moral path to follow.

We need to work with gun owners in the same open, honest way.

Just guessing here, but if you treat gun owners like an adults instead of demonizing them as a brain-dead gun nuts (cue the Piers Morgan video clip), they might consider working with you towards solving this problem.

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By Gregory Taggart, December 19, 2012 9:15 am

The following is a comment on this post on Ann Althouse’s blog. Though I imagine it could be expensive to implement, the idea could save lives. It sure beats huddling behind some desks in a classroom, listening to gun shots in the distance.

By the way, the actual post is worth reading. Ann looks at the “common sense” meme that’s thrown about by talking heads and politicians. Short story: when you hear an “expert” say that we should adopt common sense solutions to this or that problem, you can be pretty sure that they are referring to their solutions not yours.

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By Gregory Taggart, December 13, 2012 11:39 am

First the good news:

Aspirin is a wonder drug, one that virtually all men over 45 and woman over 55 should take to keep the arteries clear and cancer at bay. So says Dr. David Agus, a professor at USC’s medical school, in an Op-ed in today’s New York Times.

Many high-quality research studies have confirmed that the use of aspirin substantially reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease. Indeed, the evidence for this is so abundant and clear that, in 2009, the United States Preventive Services Task Force strongly recommended that men ages 45 to 79, and women ages 55 to 79, take a low-dose aspirin pill daily, with the exception for those who are already at higher risk for gastrointestinal bleeding or who have certain other health issues. (As an anticoagulant, aspirin can increase the risk of bleeding — a serious and potentially deadly issue for some people.)

New reports about aspirin’s benefits in cancer prevention are just as convincing. In 2011, British researchers, analyzing data from some 25,000 patients in eight long-term studies, found that a small, 75-milligram dose of aspirin taken daily for at least five years reduced the risk of dying from common cancers by 21 percent.

Dr. Agus is so excited about aspirin that he argues, “why not make it public policy to encourage middle-aged people to use aspirin?”

Which leads me to the bad news:

Dr. Agus apparently can see no end to such policy initiatives, at least when his money is at risk because of someone else’s bad health practices:

[W]hen does regulating a person’s habits in the name of good health become our moral and social duty? The answer, I suggest, is a two-parter: first, when the scientific data clearly and overwhelmingly demonstrate that one behavior or another can substantially reduce — or, conversely, raise — a person’s risk of disease; and second, when all of us are stuck paying for one another’s medical bills (which is what we do now, by way of Medicare, Medicaid and other taxpayer-financed health care programs).

Now, who can’t see the benefits of everybody eating better, exercising more, and so on? I can. But I can also see a problem here: one man carrying out his duty can easily become another man’s oppressor. And a woman with one finger on the pulse of America and the power to call out the nannys when that pulse rate increases, is likely a woman with too much power.

In Oral Arguments for the recent Obamacare case, Justice Scalia asked Solicitor General Verrilli whether if the government could mandate that we buy health insurance, it could also mandate that we eat broccoli. Supporters of Obamacare laughed at the idea. As James Stewart wrote in The New York Times, in an article titled “Broccoli Mandates and the Commerce Clause,”

The Supreme Court itself has said: “The principal and basic limit on the federal commerce power is that inherent in all Congressional action — the built-in restraints that our system provides through state participation in federal governmental action. The political process ensures that laws that unduly burden the states will not be promulgated.” And absurd bills like a broccoli mandate are likely to fail other constitutional tests. (emphasis supplied)

All I can say in response to that is, “Mr. Stewart, meet Dr. Agus.”

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By Gregory Taggart, December 13, 2012 7:22 am

Why do we listen to this plutocrat when we apparently don’t want to listen to this one?

Emily Litella comes to mind.

Never mind indeed.

Warren Buffett’s $1.2 billion share buyback from a single unnamed investor likely helped that person’s estate save substantially on taxes, just one day after the Berkshire Hathaway CEO said the rich should actually be paying more, not less, when they die. With the “fiscal cliff” looming and … taxes set to rise dramatically in less than three weeks, the timing was seen as advantageous — and, according to Berkshire watchers, also out of place in the context of Buffett’s recent tax activism. … Berkshire said it bought 9,200 Class A shares from “the estate of a long-time shareholder,” whom it did not name, at $131,000 per share, a price in line with where Berkshire has traded in recent weeks. …

Yet given his wealth and his own self-professed low tax rate, Buffett has been called out in some quarters for not practicing what he preaches.

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By Gregory Taggart, December 4, 2012 4:50 pm

Ross Douthat is the token conservative on The New York Times’s opinion pages.Tyler Cowen is a polymath economist who teaches at George Mason University. I’m a polyremedialmath living in Utah. We all agree that the birthrate in the USA had better recover, or we’re going to be in a world of hurt even greater than the world of hurt we’re in now.

My wife and I have done our part. How about you?