This isn't the NRA. This is real hook and bullet conservation.
FromOxford American, the "southern magazine of good writing":
They’re the polluters’ worst nightmare: greens with guns. They hunt, but always eat what they kill. They work within the system, and they’re not afraid to go to court. They punch above their weight in government circles, operating on a budget smaller than your average lobbyist’s bar tab. And despite Florida’s best efforts to drain, pave, and overpopulate itself to death, they are hell-bent on saving it.
The Florida Wildlife Federation is the most effective environmental outfit in the South, maybe in the country. Over the past decade, this eclectic posse of deer hunters and bunny-huggers, backyard Darwins and bird-watchers, dedicated anglers and nouveau Thoreauvians, has become a force to be reckoned with. “We’re agile and we’re lean,” says Manley Kearns Fuller III, president of FWF. “If you’re not selective with what you emphasize, you can get bogged down. You need a plan, win or lose. When you get whipped, you’ve got to have a masterful retreat, like Robert E. Lee after Gettysburg."
A Little More Hexane in Your Veggie Burger? Mother Jones magazine, notes that "In order to meet the demands of health-conscious consumers, manufacturers of soy-based fake meat like to make their products have as little fat as possible. The cheapest way to do this is by submerging soybeans in a bath of hexane to separate the oil from the protein." Hexane, of course, is an EPA-regulated neurotoxin, but despite that fact, the FDA does not test for it. Read the article.
This Is Why You Defend the Second Amendment: The U.S. Constitution says nothing about guns. Not a thing. What it talks about is the "right to keep and bear arms." If you remove that right, the state can actually march in and take your pocket knife. Think that's crazy talk? It's not if you live in the U.K., where a disabled man who kept a Swiss Army knife in his car's glove box has just gotten a criminal record for possessing an offensive weapon. The knife was not just in his glove box, by the way -- it was in a pouch in his glovebox, along with a small flashlight, a first aid kit, and waterproof matches.
This Is Why You Defend the First Amendment: The Associated Press reports that: "Sarah Palin spoke to a crowd of about 16,000 attending an evangelical Christian women's conference in Louisville Friday night....She asserted that America needs to get back to its Christian roots and rejected any notion that 'God should be separated from the state.'" Great. Just what we need to be: a theocracy like Iran, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, and the Vatican.
Tasering Sheep on Meth: In a study of Taser safety, scientists got a bunch of sheep hopped up on meth and then zapped them with tasers to see how they did with that. Read all about it.
Native American Genius: W.T. Wallington's Forgotten Technology web site shows techniques he has developed to show how the stones for Stonehenge and the Pyramids might have been hauled, rotated, and lifted into place using nothing more than simple physics. Check it out by clicking on the picture on the home page, and clicking through the links at the bottom of each subsequent page. Yes this stuff works! No space ships or Martians needed -- or massive ramps either from what I can gather.
Dominance in Pigeons: Who is the alpha pigeon? Researchers are studying it with little GPS backpacks.
The Garden of Cosmic Speculation: The Garden of Cosmic Speculation was created by Charles Jencks and Maggie Keswick in Dumfries, Scotland in 1989. It contains bizarre and mind-blowing geometric patterns. Check it out! This is a private garden and open to the public only one day a year, so these pics are probably your only opportunity.
Whatever Happened to Sealyhams? Sealyham's are a breed that was sucked into the kennel club vortex almost upon creation. For a web site documenting that, see this interesting, if obscure, web site on show sealyham terriers in the 1920s, '30s and '40s, complete with a pictures of what the Westminster show looked like at Madison Square Garden back then, and a little note about the first head of the "professional handler's association." Hat tip to Paul H. for the link!
Nice Blog! If anyone wants to see what a fun life in Western Colorado looks like (complete with great photos), see the Dirt and Dogs blog and check out "the hunter and the hunted" post for a little amusement. Also a few pictures of Arizona in here. Of course, Jamie O'Neal claims there is no Arizona. I think Trina might disagree!
Vitamin C for Canine Snake Bites? I am quite happy that we do not have to worry, too much about venomous snakes in my area; we are a little too far north for water moccasins, copperheads are way over-rated, and rattlesnakes are rare all over and generally confine themselves to rocky shelves and outcrops in the mountains. That said, not everyone is so fortunate and Jonathan from South African passes on this tip about Vitamin C shots as a treatment for snake bites in dogs. Does it work? There are reports on the internets that it does, but I have to say I am skeptical. Snakes do not always envenomate when they bite, and there's a lot of mis-identification of snake species as well. Still, when nothing else is there to help, break out the Vitamin C. It cannot hurt!
This is Taser XREP Wireless Round -- a self-contained shotgun shell that delivers 500 volts of electricity, which is more than enough to knock you off your feet. It weighs 25 grams, fires out at 270 ft. per second, and has a range of 100 ft.
The XREP is for law enforcement only, but I suspect the Chinese will be making bootleg versions within a year or two.
Of course, as I have written in the past, gun control in and of itself, does nothing to stem violence; it is a false cure for deeper social problems.
And, as I have noted in the past, Barack Obama did not campaign on gun control; in fact he promised that his Administration would do nothing in that arena.
Back during the election season, I battled a never-ending tribe of know-nothings, right-wing wackos, wink-and-nod racists, paranoid conspiracy theorists, professional thumb suckers, and amateur bed wetters -- the people who have now coalesced into what is called the "Tea Bagger" arm of the Republican party.
They spewed this kind of stuff like an open sewer, hoping the toxin would catch fire like the Cuyahoga River did back in '69.
I noted that Barack Obama believed the Second Amendment was an individual right and that he had no intention of restricting it.
Now The Chicago Tribune has come out with an article noting that Obama is not anti-gun -- he is anti-gun control!
No surprise here, of course, but apparently this is quite a surprise to those on the far right and the far left who intentionally blinkered themselves in order to profit from massive direct mail campaigns designed to separate the American people from their money.
Among the many groups that opposed Barack Obama's presidential race, few were more certain or vehement than gun-rights organizations. "Barack Obama would be the most anti-gun president in American history," the National Rifle Association announced. "Obama is a committed anti-gunner," warned Gun Owners of America.
So it's no stunner that after a year in office, the president is getting hammered by people who have no use for his policy on firearms. The surprise is that the people attacking him are those who favor gun control, not those who oppose it.
Obama's record on this issue has been largely overlooked — except by the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, which recently issued a report card flunking Obama on all seven issues it deems important. Said President Paul Helmke, "If I had been told, in the days before Barack Obama's inauguration, that his record on gun violence prevention would be this poor, I would not have believed it."
Had he listened to the candidate in 2008, he would have believed. At a September campaign rally in rural Virginia, Obama declared unequivocally, "I believe in the Second Amendment. I believe in people's lawful right to bear arms. I will not take your shotgun away. I will not take your rifle away. I won't take your handgun away. .. There are some common-sense gun safety laws that I believe in. But I am not going to take your guns away."
.... [Obama] has proposed nothing in the way of new federal restrictions on firearms. Even the "assault weapons" ban signed by President Bill Clinton — and allowed to expire in 2004 — has no visible place on Obama's agenda.
Not only that, he's approved changes that should gladden the hearts of gun-rights supporters, a group that includes me. He signed a law permitting guns to be taken into national parks. He signed another allowing guns as checked baggage on Amtrak. He acted to preserve an existing law limiting the use of government information on firearms it has traced.
Still, the NRA is not rushing to recant.
Well, of course the NRA is not rushing to recant.
The National Rifle Association knows its membership is mostly comprised of right-wing gullibles who have responded to "fright factory" direct mail written for only one purpose: to winkle another $20 out of the pockets of those who are easily frightened and who are emotionally volatile.
The good news is that gullible fools represent a small percentage of hunters and an even smaller perentage of total gun owners.
To put that another way, 91% of all hunters and 96% percent of all gun owners are not NRA members!
Of course, even a smaller percentage of those who voted for Obama in the last election were members of any type of "gun control" organization.
And, to put a point on it, groups like the Brady Center are also professional "liars for hire," the same as the NRA.
The only real difference is one group seeks to pluck dollars from gullibles on the fringe left, while the other trolls for gullibles on the fringe right.
The Obama Administration is saluting neither fringe. Instead, it is saluting the U.S. Constitution, and it is saluting all of it, not just one Amendment.
Will the NRA now take to the streets demanding that wife-beaters have an unrestricted right to guns?
After all, you do not lose your First Amendment rights after you beat someone. Why should you lose your Second Amendment rights?
And will civil rights groups now take to the streets to protest the outrageous discrimination which says hitting a spouse in the face is a worse crime than hitting a random stranger in the face?
Aldo Leopoldwas one of the most important people in the history of U.S. conservation. A 1909 graduate of the Yale Forestry School, Leopold wrote first the book on Game Management (it is still in print and it is still used at a text book), and was the first person to predict that the widespread extirpation of wolves through poison and trapping would result in an explosion in the deer population that, in turn, would wipe out much of the understory of American forests. Most famous for his eco-philosophical journal A Sand County Almanac, about his Wisconsin farm, Leopold also explored the role of wilderness and hunting in American culture.
In an early essay entitled Wildlife in American Culture, Leopold noted that even in the era before World War II, "the gadgeter, otherwise known as the sporting-goods dealer," was dominating the sporting press and warping America's understanding of the outdoors.
The phenomenon is very easy to see today, with hunting and fishing magazines centered less on wildlife and wild places than on the Quad Bikes, scent sprays, lures, bait, and expensive guns, rods, and reels that we are told we will need before we even think about going into the woods.
This ethos has now expanded into the world of camping and hiking, where everything has to be rip-stop, multi-fuel, Goretex, and composite construction. Not only must everything be lighter weight, there must be more luxury and options than ever before. As Leopold noted in this 1940-era essay, describing the beginning of the modern ethos:
"Then came the gadgeteer, otherwise known as the sporting-goods dealer. He has draped the American outdoorsman with an infinity of contraptions, all offered as aids to self-reliance, hardihood, woodcraft, or marksmanship, but too often functioning as substitutes for them. Gadgets fill the pockets, they dangle from neck and belt. The overflow fills the auto trunk, and also the trailer. Each item of outdoor equipment grows lighter and often better, but the aggregate poundage becomes tonnage. The traffic in gadgets adds up to astronomical sums, which are soberly published as representing 'the economic value of wildlife.' But what of cultural values?"
The great thing about fox hunting and terrier work is that, with the exception of the locator collar, the equipment we use to today would need no explanation to Jaques Du Fouilloux (1560) or Sir Walter Scott (1810). Nothing much has changed, and very little has gone "high tech," in large part because the intervening variable -- the dog -- is immune to mechanical intervention.
At its core, the fox hunter is a primitive hunter and the dog is a primitive animal. As Leopold noted about mounted American fox hunting (which has never included killing the animal being chased):
"Fox-hunting with hounds, backwoods style, presents a dramatic instance of partial and perhaps harmless mechanized invasion. This is one of the purest of sports; it has real split-rail flavor; it has man-earth drama of the first water. The fox is deliberately left unshot, hence ethical restraint is also present. But we now follow the chase in Fords! The voice of Bugle-Anne mingles with the honk of the flivver! However, no one is likely to invent a mechanical foxhound, nor to screw a polychoke on the hound's nose. No one is likely to teach dog-training by phonograph, or by other painless shortcuts. I think the gadgeteer has reached the end of his tether in dogdom." .
This piece was written on April 20th of last year, and is reposted here today, on the first anniversary of the Virginia Tech massacre in which 32 students and faculty were killed by a mentally ill young man.
As hoped, proper action is being taken to address the real root of the problem. A lot more, of course, remains to be done.
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Reid Farmer sent me a piece from The Los Angeles Times in which that august paper suggests that the shootings at Virginia Tech are all about Virginia's "primitive" rural gun culture.
I find that pretty odd, as I have lived in Virginia for a hell of a long time and I am unaware of a gun culture in my state.
Sure some people hunt deer and turkey, but no one I know is reading Soldier of Fortune.
In my neck of the woods, the problem is not guns, but Mara Salvatrucha gang members from El Salvador who occassionally hack each other up with machetes.
I first wrote about Mara Salvatruchain 1992, when Conrad Hilton's Best Foundation for a Drug-Free Tomorrow paid me to go to East Los Angeles to look at gang violence there. At the time, South Central was still smoldering, but East LA was far more violent, with two-thirds of all gang deaths in the City.
In fact, East Los Angeles remains one of the most violent places on earth. In rural Virginia, on the other hand, the thing that is most likely to kill you is a deer on the road.
The simple truth is that themassacre at Virginia Tech is not about guns: It's about violence, and most importantly, it's about mental illness.
Sadly, there are ferked up people all over, and there is not much intervention anywhere. This nation is heavy with people who are drunk, hazy, crazy, and stoned, but it's pretty damn hard to do anything about it, and that's just as true in Los Angeles as it is in rural Virginia, no matter what the good editors of The Los Angeles Times think.
Why is it so hard to do anything about it?
Simple: back in the "bad old days" of the 1950s, 60s and 70s, there were horrific civil rights abuses and people were locked up in mental wards with little due process (and often no real treatment) for very long periods of time.
The court- and state-ordered antidote to this abuse is that today we have severely restricted the ability of police, schools, families and neighbors to involuntary lock someone up.
You may think someone is a ticking time bomb, but now he or she is going to have to "go off" before anyone can take legal action to stop it. Merely having auditory and visual hallucinations is not enough. Not bathing is not enough. Living on the street is not enough.
Today people have "a right" to not bathe, to see and hear things that are not there, to live in a cardboard box in the park, and to panhandle for change. Similarly, people have "the right" to drink themselves silly on a routine basis, and there are also many who think people have the right to abuse other drugs as well (and why not; sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, they argue).
Add to this the fact that we have decided that people also have the right to drive cars and trucks, to preach odd religious beliefs (your religious beliefs are odd, but mine are not), the right to buy gasoline, the right to buy nitrate fertilizer, the right to own a gun, and the right to buy rat and ant poison, and it's amazing we do not have mass killings every day.
Ultimately, we cannot make the world safe, and crazy people will always figure out a way. For $500 (the cost of just one of the legal guns used at Virginia Tech) you can buy 1,000 pounds of nitrate fertilizer anywhere in the Shenandoah Valley and kill far more people in 5 seconds than this lunatic did with two handguns and a couple of clips. Indeed, the very day that the Virginia Tech massacre was going on in Blacksburg, nitrate bombs killed more than 180 people in Baghdad. Am I the only one that noticed?
The "silver bullet" idea of banning guns is stupid on its face. This nation is awash in heroin, methamphetamine, illegal aliens, counterfeit handbags and watches, and cars that never saw an import sticker. I can get methamphetamine or heroin a lot faster than I can get a legal handgun and a box of bullets, and I live in (supposedly) gun-crazy Virginia.
Here's a hint: If a suburban matron can find an illegal aliento mow her front lawn, and an addict can find an eight-ball of heroin or cocaine, rest assured that criminals and lunatics will be able to find and obtain guns even if they are banned. In fact, they may be able to find them easier and with less oversight than they can now. After all, no one does a criminal background check at a drug dealer's, and there is not a 30-day waiting period for illegal alien jump labor.
Despite the fact that mental illness (and an inability to deal with it) was the obvious problem in Blacksburg, both sides of the gun debate are anxious to have another long-winded "throw down" about the Second Amendment.
And you know why? Because for Sarah Brady, the National Rifle Association, and the editorial writers across the country, gun control is the answer to the only question they REALLY want answered. And that question is this: What topic can I write a direct mail letter or newspaper column about that will generate a lot of money and/or attention?
As far as I can tell, not one of these groups really gives a damn about violence in America. When was the last time that the NRA talked about community-based mental health programs or the need for national health care so that all the crazies can afford their medications? When was the last time Sarah Brady pushed for more therapeutic communities in jail? When was the last time a newspaper or magazine said it would not accept alcohol ads because alcohol fuels so much of the violence in this country?
I am a proud Virginian, and I believe that the people of Blacksburg are not going to chase butterflies, but are going to ask the right question. The right question is: How can we enable people to be more responsible? How can we help people reach out to the troubled and disturbed people within the community, the dorm, the family, the neighborhood, and the job site?
We Virginians may be "primitive" in the minds of the arugula-eating, white-wine-and-brie crowd that edits The Los Angeles Times, but we know our ass from our elbow, and a real solution from a fake.
Above all we know enough to remember our dead for the bright young men and women that they were, rather than focus all the attention on the confused madman who craved media attention and was willing to kill to get it. .
What Will Barack Obama or John McCain mean for hunters and wildlife?
Good question, but let me start with another question: What did the Bush administration mean for hunters and wildlife?
How about the Clinton Administration?
How about the Reagan, Ford or Carter Administrations?
You see?Nothing.
As odd as it may seem, hunting, wildlife and guns are not really Presidential issues.
They are local issues and state issues. Very occasionally, they are national legislative issues which may devolve into litigation issues. But the Executive Branch? That's not where hunting, wildlife and gun issues typically play out for 99 percent of all hunters and anglers.
When Ronald Reagan was President, breakfast was not served with a "State of America's Wildlife" report next to the orange juice and a BATF "Second Amendment Report" next to the eggs.
Which is not to say that such obvious truths have too much to do with the kind of nakedly partisan discourse we are likely to hear this year. The folks at the Sierra Club are not staying up nights thinking too deeply about the Second Amendment, and the folks at the National Rifle Association don't give a damn about public lands, clean water, clean air, or whether the population of whitetail deer or redhead ducks is rising or falling in your area.
Now, here's the good news:The country is in pretty great shape no matter what anyone says.
Whether you want a rifle or a shotgun, a crossbow or a derringer, a .50 caliber Desert Eagle or a Smith and Wesson kit gun, a black powder rifle, or a laser-sighted Remington that fires saboted ammunition, you are free to buy it and own it.
And whether you want to hunt deer or elk, rabbit or ducks, geese or coyote, you are free to do it, and there's plenty of game to be had as well. Nearly everything is at 100-year record levels of abundance.
Well, OK, some may say, "But you know, Obama is not a hunter." Right. And neither is John McCain. And isn't that a breath of fresh air! I, for one, am pretty damn tired of all this Elmer Fudd stuff coming from our politicians.
It all started with George W. Bush. I don't remember Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton trotting out into a field for a shotgun photo-op.
The funny thing here is that George W. Bush is not a real hunter. He's just a beltway frat boy who borrowed a shotgun in order to strike a redneck rural pose.
Karl Rove figured most National Rifle Association members would not care, and that many would not know the difference, never mind all those pictures that showed George W. Bush to be a walking gun safety violation.
I am happy to say Al Gore took a pass on this nonsense, but John Kerry did not, and so we have him shooting a few geese to show his bonafides. Mitt Romney figured he could claim the mantle of a "lifelong hunter" because he shot a few rats with a pellet gun back when he was 15. Two weeks ago up in Wisconsin, Hillary Clinton claimed she once went duck hunting with her father "100 years ago."
I think it safe to say you won't find Barack Obama or John McCain standing in a field clutching a borrowed shotgun. Obama is not a hunter, and he has never claimed to be one. Neither is John McCain. Neither one of these guys is going to pretend to be something they are not.
Some would count that as a liability; I count that as integrity.
OK, but what about guns?What about them?
Both Obama and McCain believe in the Second Amendment, and both John McCain and Barack Obama believe the Second Amendment is an individual right.
Neither one thinks guns are just about hunting. But neither John McCain nor Barack Obama are oblivious to the kind of world we live in, and so both quite reasonably believe that insane people should not have guns, and criminals should not have guns.
Both politicians think terrorists should not be allowed to walk through airports with loaded bazookas on their shoulders.
Do these common-sense positions endear either candidate to the National Rifle Association? No, they do not.
But so what? The National Rifle Association is a direct mail fear factory of the same stripe (albeit catering to a different demographic) as the Humane Society and PETA.
Most gun owners see them for what they are; a useful wrench to grab and twist the gun-grabbing nuts on the far left, but not the kind of organization they actually care to support with membership dues.
More than 85 percent of hunters are not NRA members, and the percentage of personal-protection gun owners that are NRA members is even lower.
Besides, name one time in your entire life when a President's position on gun legislation, one way or another, mattered a damn. Guns are not a presidential issue; they are a state issue and a legislative issue and a litigation issue, but the influence of the Chief Executive is pretty minimal.
If Sarah Brady were made President of the United States, we would have the same gun laws eight years from now as we do today.
What do John McCain and Barack Obama think about conservation and environmental issues?
John McCain likes to beat the Teddy Roosevelt drum, but in truth his interest in environmental issues is generally weaker than Barack Obama's, and this is reflected in the rather anemic amount of environmental material on his campaign's web site. Obama's web site has over 20-pages of single spaced position papers on energy and the environment. McCain's has zero.
Having said that, John McCain and Barack Obama agree on quite a lot.
For example, both think the U.S. should have signed the Kyoto Treaty, and both support capping greenhouse gases to fight global warming, which they both think is real and man-made.
Both oppose drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Both supportexpansion of nuclear power as a way to generate more electricity with little greenhouse gas pollution, and both support expansion of liquefied coal and ethanol energy technology.
Of course, there are some differences. While McCain supports greenhouse gas reductions, his proposal is far weaker than Barack Obama's, calling for only a 30 percent reduction by 2050 (from a 1990 baseline), rather than the 80 percent reduction called for in the Obama plan.
McCain is also weaker when it comes to energy conservation. For example, McCain opposes mandating improved vehicle fuel economy standards by 2020, while Obama supports such measures.
Now stop there for a minute.
Think about that in the context of the current world in which we live.
How can anyone oppose mandating fuel economy standards on car manufacturers (who are capable of making a good 90-mile-per-gallon carright now with existing technology) while being FOR waging a 100-year war in Iraq that will inexorably result in more kids dying, more terrorists coming to our shores, and many more trillions of our tax dollars going down a rat hole in the sand?
There is no good answer there.
McCain is similarly out of touch, and politically shifty, when it comes to wildlife issues. For example he has run television ads mocking a $3 million appropriation to study the DNA of bears in Montana, suggesting Uncle Sam is running some kind of weird Yogi Bear paternity test. In fact, the U.S. Geological Survey is engaged in classic rub-pad hair-sample research of the kind usually used to determine grizzly bear population densities.
And though McCain mocked the research in a political ad, he actually voted to fund it. I will let others figure out what that means; loveable lying maverick, insane megalomaniac, or teachable ignorant -- your choice.
McCain shows more shaky logic when it comes to National Forest issues. For example, he would repeal the Clinton Administration's executive order banning new road construction in more than 58 million acres of National Forest. McCain's argument is that such things should not be done by executive order, which sounds good until you realize he is simply ignoring the more than 3 million public comments received during the rule-making period, 99 percent of which were were in favor of forest protection. How much more public input does he want? Who other than the public would he have decide the future of America's public forests?
It turns out that John McCain is also a little shaky as to what a National Forest really is; he thinks timber harvest issues should be decided by local residents. Never mind that forest service personnel, road maintenance, campgrounds, hiking trails, and docks are paid for by ALL of America's taxpayers. Never mind that the the U.S. Forest Service loses more than $400 million dollars a year selling National Forest timber off of public lands. He wants the locals to decide what happens, and never mind if America's taxpayers get sacked with financial, as well as environmental, loss while a few thick-thumbed dropouts get the world's biggest subsidy to run a skidder or feller-buncher ripping down our national heritage.
OK, what about Barack Obama? How does he do on these same issues?
Unlike John McCain, Obama supports the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which would keep 58 million acres of National Forest lands in pristine condition.
Obama also supports strengthening the Conservation Reserve Program and the Conservation Security Program which would create additional incentives for private landowners to protect and restore wetlands, grasslands, forests, and other wildlife habitat.
Much of this land is now open to hunting.
The rest of Obama's environmental positions can be read on the rather impressive Energy & Environment section of his campaign web site which features a 9-page single-spaced backgrounder on the environment (sections include: climate change, clean water, clean air, healthier communities, encouraging organic and sustainable agriculture, support for local family farmers, partnerships with landowners to conserve private lands, and protecting national parks and forests).
Be sure to also check out his 11-page single-spaced backgrounder on energy (sections include: cap-and-trade greenhouse gas emissions, investing in clean energy technology, investing in biofuels research, investing in developing clean coal technology, safe and secure nuclear energy, renewable energy goals, making the federal government an energy conservation leader, creating incentives to improve building energy efficiency, investments in developing advanced vehicle technology, and increased investment and incentives for public transportation).
OK, fine. But isn't all this just Washington gobbley-gook? I mean, what evidence is there that Obama or McCain really care about the environment at all?
Good question.
To tell the truth, there is not much evidence to suggest John McCain cares about public lands, energy issues, or wildlife.
This is not to blame him; born on an airbase to a military family, he was often uprooted as a child, and raised in the concrete-and-lawn world of naval bases enclosed by guarded perimeter wire fences.
Barack Obama's childhood was quite a bit different. Though he was raised by his apartment-living grandparents in Hawaii, he spent a few early formative years in Indonesia where he learned that the chickens in the backyard were destined for the family meal pot, where he had a monkey and a pond full of small alligators as pets, and where wild and domestic animals of every type were sold as food and were sampled by a curious youth from America.
Later, fresh out of college, Barack worked as an organizer at a public housing development in Chicago that had a sewage treatment center on one side, the City landfill on the other, and a toxic-poisoned river running across the back. The development itself was shot through with asbestos contamination -- a situation he helped correct, and which left him a firm believer in the value of clean water, clean air, and recreational space for youth -- and not just because one of his own young daughters has asthma herself.
Obama sees environmental issues as a thread which can tie us together as a people. As he noted in a recent speech:
"Environmentalism is not an upper-income issue, it's not a white issue, it's not a black issue, it's not a South or a North or an East or a West issue. It's an issue that all of us have a stake in. And if I can do anything to make sure that not just my daughter but every child in America has green pastures to run in and clean air to breathe and clean water to swim in, then that is something I'm going to work my hardest to make happen."
John McCain's relationship with wild places and wild life is a little less clear. We know he loves Sedona, and the rugged beauty of that countryside, but not much else. Is it the wildlife habitat he loves, or is it scenery? And yes, there is a difference.
As previously noted, the environmental section of John McCain's web site is as austere and empty as the desert, and there is no energy section at all.
In this silence, it is hard to think John McCain is not telling us quite a lot.
But, of course, as I noted at the beginning, it's easy to overstate the role of the President when it comes to hunting and fishing issues. The President can suggest legislation, can veto legislation, and can water or prune things to make them bloom or wilt, but Congress has to pass a bill for a President to actually sign it.
And, of course, a lot of hunting and wildlife issues (as I have said before) are not federal issues at all; they are state or local issues.
The bottom line is that no matter who wins in November, your hunting access is less likely to be determined by Washington politicians than it is by remembering to shut all the farm gates, keeping your truck out of wet fields, and thanking the farmer at Christmas with a bottle of his favorite beverage.
Which is not to say the President has no impact on conservation and environmental issues. In fact, quite a lot is done through administrative action by cabinet-level appointees and lesser associates.
The problem here is that until an Administration is in power, we cannot guess who will fill any particular cabinet-level slot.
That said, while past is not prologue, that's generally the way to bet at the track. In that sense, what we've gotten from each political party in the past is probably a little bit like what we will get from each political party in the future.
So what can we learn by looking at the environmental appointees of George W. Bush (the last 7 years) and Bill Clinton (the previous 8 years)?
In both cases, there is a tendency to fill posts with former politicians, corporate lobbyists, professional administrators, academic experts, and public interest group representatives.
For example, Christine Todd Whitman, a former Governor of New Jersey, was put in as the head of EPA under Bush II, while Carol Browner, the former head of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, was put in as head of the EPA under Clinton. Neither EPA administrator did much to distinguish themselves in my opinion.
A more interesting comparison can be seen by looking at the Secretaries of the Interior and the Under Secretaries of Interior for Natural Resources and Agriculture. If you have an interest in what goes on in our National Forests, our National Parks, and on BLM land, these are the two jobs where things happen, for better or for worse.
At the U.S. Department of Interior, Bruce Babbitt (a former Governor of Arizona and former head of the League of Conservation Voters) was put in as head of the Department of Interior under Clinton, and Jim Lyons, a Yale-educated professional forester and wildlife policy expert was put in as Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Agriculture in charge of National Forest issues.
During the Clinton-era, these two gentleman, along with U.S. Forest Service Chief Michael Dombeck (a former fishing guide and fisheries biologist who was actually raised in a National Forest) pushed through the Roadless Area Conservation Rule to protect 58 million acres of pristine National Forest land.
With encouragement from Babbitt and Lyons, the Clinton Administration also created the Giant Sequoia National Monument in California's Sierra Nevadas (a 328,000-acre monument protecting 34 groves of ancient sequoias and the surrounding forest), the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument (1.9 million acres of astounding scenic desert in Utah), the Sonoran Desert National Monument (496,000 acres), the Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument to protect 149 miles along the Upper Missouri River in central Montana, and the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument (53,000 acres of forest) in southwestern Oregon.
With the end of the Clinton Administration, there was a changing of the guard at the Department of Interior. Gale Norton, a former Attorney General of Colorado, and a lobbyist for a lead company and other mining interests, was tapped as head of the Department of Interior, and Mark Rey, a paper and timber lobbyist, was made Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Agriculture in charge of National Forest issues.
From day one, the Bush Administation sought to reverse the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, but they have been unsuccesful so far thanks to protracted litigation which is likely to outlast the Bush Administration itself.
Gale Norton's contribution to the debate was a Washington Post editorial in which she claimed that the forests needed to be "thinned" for the forest birds -- an editorial which was roundly laughed at by the National Audubon Society which sent her a letter noting that the birds cited were not forest birds at all, and perhaps she might consult an Audubon Field Guide next time?
In the end, Norton got herself wing-shot out of the sky in a swirl of corruption charges when the "Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy," an industry front group she created prior to her tenure in the Bush Administration, was found to be receiving large donations from now-jailed lobbyist Jack Abramoff on behalf of Indian gambling interests (note that the Bureau of Indian Affairs is part of the U.S. Department of Interior).
Though Norton herself managed to avoid jail, J. Steven Griles, the number two person within the U.S. Department of Interior, and himself a former mining industry lobbyist, went to jail on public corruption charges as part of the Abramoff scandal.
As for Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Agriculture Mark Rey, the latest news is that he is waiting to see if he goes to jail for deliberately skirting the law so that the Forest Service could use a flame retardant known to be toxic to wildlife. The result of Rey's actions and inactions was a massive fish kill in Oregon that left a creek totally lifeless, and 20,000 fish dead.
So where does that leave us, the hunter-voter?
The same place we were before -- alone with our conscience and our vote.
Which is OK.
This is a great country and a free country, and the more we all know about the issues, the options, and the trade-offs, I think the better off we will all be.
As always, vote as you see fit.
I think if you are reading and asking questions about these kinds of issues, you are on the right road. And in my experience the right road rarely leads to the wrong place.
Carry on.
Bruce Springsteen does Woody Guthrie: "This land was made for you and me" .
Some year back, I got a missive about a new organization being formed called the American Hunters and Shooters Association. Could I look into it?
So I did.
Upon cursory inspection, it looked to be nothing more than a start-up organization that eschewed the right-wing paranoia of the National Rifle Association. The pitch was that this new organization was going to talk "common sense and conservation."
Sounds good.
But I am natural skeptic, and so when I drilled a bit more, I found John Lott's piece which suggested the organization was something a bit different that it at first appeared to be. According to Lott, the American Hunters and Shooters Association was really a false front operation of the Democratic Leadership Council, which hoped to use it as an apologist for politicians willing to join the ban-all-the-handguns crowd.
Lott and others noted that the American Hunters and Shooters Association seemed to be located within the office of an internet public relations shop called "DCS Politics" whose client listwas a catch-basin for the left.
Was it an accident that DCS Politics was located in the same building as the Democratic Leadership Council itself? Hard to say.
What one can say is that even to this day, if you go to the web site of the American Hunters and Shooters Association, you find it's like a Hollywood western town: one board thick, with nothing but the desert behind it.
If you look carefully, you find no address and no phone number for the organization -- only a web interface which could be connected to a call center in Peshawar for all I know.
Look deeper, and you will find that no staff is mentioned.
Look at "Our Programs" and you find a lot of verbiage, but little evidence -- either on the web site, on the Internet, or in the media -- that the organization has done very much of the work it has promised.
The Executive Director of the American Hunters and Shooters Association is Bob Ricker. Ricker knows a lot about guns because he is a former 20-year employee of the NRA. Now, however, Ricker is the principal behind "Ricker & Associates," which is a consultant to anti-gun groups. Apparently, being Executive Director of AHSA is not his fulltime job.
Look over the web site of the American Hunters and Shooters Association, and you find no pictures of handguns, and little or no mention of guns being used for self-defense purposes or target shooting.
Bottom line: Lott's characterization of the American Hunters and Shooters Association as a "front group" for the gun control lobby seemed to hold up in 2005, and it seems to hold up today.
So imagine my surprise, when I was emailed a piece stripped from The Daily Koswritten by Ray Schoenke, the Chairman of the American Hunters and Shooters Association, that said his organization was about to file an amicus curiae brief in the D.C gun-ban case that is to be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court this summer.
And get this: the organization is going to file "a brief supporting the position that the Second Amendment provides an individual right to own firearms."
Really? Excellent!
But of course, as I said before, I am a natural skeptic, and so I read the whole thing.
And yes, more words did follow.
You see the American Hunters and Shooters Association was going to support the position that the Second Amendment provides an individual right to own firearms HOWEVER (emphasis added), "we also support reasonable public policies so that all Americans can enjoy the benefits of this crucial and historic liberty."
Huh? What does that last bit mean?
I'm not sure.
But one thing is for certain. It means something.
Is the American Hunters and Shooters Association going to boldly say we should not give guns to criminals or the deranged? We hardly need a new organization to tell us that!
Is the American Hunters and Shooters Association going to tell us that the state should require folks to take a gun safety course? Of course, and already in place!
Is the American Hunters and Shooters Association going to suggest that it should be against the law to fire a bazooka in downtown Washington? Well yes, existing law is pretty clear on that point, and it's not too controversial, so far as I can tell.
Is the American Hunters and Shooters Association going to give us a nice feel-good lecture about how we all have a "civic responsibility to make our communities safe?"
If so, go ahead -- but recognize that those words mean nothing without action, i.e. a lot of hard (and expensive) on-the-ground lobbying to make them so.
And making our communities safe, as I have noted in the past has very little to do with gun laws, but a lot to do with alcohol and drug treatment programs, funding family-crisis and anger-management programs, locking up abusive husbands, and providing for community-based mental health centers and outreach facilities (to say nothing of affordable mental health care).
And so, with baited breath, I look forward to the the American Hunters and Shooters Association amicus curiae brief.
I am not pre-judging it.In fact, I may agree with it.
I am, I suspect, the kind of person the American Hunters and Shooters Association would like to court -- a centrist-lefty hunting conservationist with a solid track record on issues like forest protection who can articulate a liberal case for gun ownership.
I am not an NRA member and I do not hesitate to sneer at their macho (and mostly fake) posturing on the environment.
That said, I am interested in how the first half of the sentence ("the Second Amendment provides an individual right to own firearms") actually connects to the second half of the sentence which says there must be "reasonable public policies" so that I or anyone else can "enjoy the benefits of the crucial and historic liberty" of owning a firearm.
What, exactly, is this organization trying to protect me from? And why do they think gun legislation is the first (or second, third, or fourth) action needed?
And as for connecting America's shooters and hunters to conservation, why do we need the American Hunters and Shooters Association any more than we need the National Rifle Association?
But I am skeptical about the American Hunters and Shooters Association.
You will pardon me my skepticism; it is my natural condition.
Experience has shown me that when people obfuscate too much, I should use one hand to grab my wallet, and the other hand to grab my ass.
That said, I am always happy to be surprised.
Right now, however, I am keeping my expectations low.
As one of my old farmer friends once observed, "You hear a lot of 'yeah buts' from the folks up there in Washington, but down here on the farm nothing follows a butt except bullshit."
True, brother, true.
But let us see. Maybe this time it will be different. Past is not prologue ... even if it is the best way to bet the ponies.
The Five Best Dog Books? Writing in The Wall Street Journal, Stanley Coren (author of Why Does My Dog Act That Way?) says the five best dog books are: 1) For the Love of a Dog by Patricia B. McConnell; 2) If Only They Could Speak by Nicholas H. Dodman; 3) If Dogs Could Talk by VilmosCsányi; 4) Bones Would Rain From the Sky by Suzanne Clothier, and; 5) Always Faithful by William Putney. Others will disagree, of course. Feel free to add your recommendations in the "comments" section. See Amazon or AbeBooks to order Nutria are Coming to New Jersey: Actually, they are already there. Now the push is on to wipe them out before they get a foothold. Good luck with that!
Corruption and the Endangered Species Act: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has finally admitted that "sound science" has been routinely ignored when making decisions about wildlife protection under the Endangered Species Act, and it has said it will now reverse or re-examine seven decisions involving the White-tailed Prairie Dog, the Preble's Meadow Jumping Mouse, the Canada Lynx, the Hawaiian Picture-wing Fly, the Arroyo Toad, the California Red-legged Frog, and the Sacramento Splittail fish. The Fish and Wildlife Service's reversal comes hard on the heels of an investigation of Julie MacDonald, the former Deputy Assistant Secretary overseeing the Fish and Wildlife Service. Ms. MacDonald was a civil engineer who routinely pressured scientists to alter their findings in order to curry favor with developers.Congressman Nicky Rahall of West Virginia, who is Chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources, says MacDonald "should never have been allowed near the endangered species program." Francesca Grifo of the Union of Concerned Scientists says the seven admitted instances of wrongdoing "do not begin to plumb the depths of what's wrong" at the wildlife agency and its implementation of the Endangered Species Act. A hat tip to Chris for pointing to the ESA reversal article. The U.S. Department of Interior, for the record, is a cess-pit of corruption. Look at oil and gas leases at the Minerals Management Service if you want to see billions of dollars lost from corruption and incompetence.
The Wall of Death? John Wegner, the chief environmental officer of Emory University, has labeled the facade of the math building at his school "The Wall of Death" because 60 birds a year are killed while flying into it. Sixty birds over the course of a year is a "Wall of Death?" Please, let's not debase the language (or the cause) by flashing into hyperbole too quickly, eh? So what's Mr. Wegner's solution to the crisis? Believe it or not, it's draping mesh off the side of the Math Building for three months a year. In my opinion, this makes a horrible environmental statement, suggesting that a huge cock-a-mamie production is required to do even minimal environmental good. Don't get me wrong: I am not opposed to saving birds -- all for it in fact. But bird impacts on buildings are not a new problem and it's not one to panic about. Bird populations -- especially passerines -- rise and fall, and tend to balance themselves out. Yes, let's try to reduce bird impacts, but it's generally a good idea to innovate rather than hyperventilate. David Sibley is trying to do that. He has posted a nice couple of pieces about his experiments with low-cost bird-proofing which is based on the theory that birds can see UV wavelengths pretty well. He's clearly got an idea here, and since Emory is a University, how about throwing that building-drapery money towards a couple of Chemistry Department geeks who can be detailed to coming up with a spray-on UV-bright window coating? A hat tip to Marie E. for sending me the Emory article.
North Carolina to Allow Sunday Falconry/Hawking: It look like North Carolina is going to allow Sunday falconry. Under "Justification" for the rule change, the North Carolina Wildlife Commission notes: "The Commission has the legal authority to allow falconry on Sundays, and there is no biological reason to maintain the current prohibition. " To which I would only add: "Damn straight, and let's get it on." The propensity to legislate without a reason is the Mother of the Devil. How many falconers are there in North Carolina? About as many working terrier enthusiasts, I would venture. They can do no harm to anything. In fact, artisan hunters of all kinds (bow and arrow hunters included) should be encouraged and dropping all restrictions on Sunday hunting (where they still exist) is a good first step. A hat tip to Moose Droppings for this one.
Exactly What Does the Windows Key Do? It's down there on the left side of your keyboard -- the one you ignore. Is it just branding? No, actually. Press it and it opens up the "Start Menu." Press it and "E" at the same time, and you get Windows Explorer. Press it and "F" at the same time, and your computer will start the search menu for files on your computer. Press is and "L" and your computer will log you off. Now you know. Thus endeth this useless lesson.
Yesterday morning Redskins football player Sean Taylor was shotby a burglar trying to break into his Miami home in the early morning hours.
All day yesterday, Taylor was in critical condition and the situation was the talk of the town here in Washington, D.C. where guns are already an ongoing topic of conversation thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to review the 31-year old D.C. handgun ban.
We are going to hear a lot about guns in the next few months and most of it will be "sound and fury signifying nothing."
The simple truth is that guns are here to stay, like it or not.
And, as shocking a piece of news as this is to some people, guns are not all about hunting; self-defense is (on very rare occasions) an acceptable reason to draw and fire a gun.
The odd thing about guns in the debate about Presidential candidates is that there is not much any presidential candidate can do (or should do) about them.
After all, Congress makes the laws, and the Courts interpret them. A President has no role in changing or interpreting the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. We are not a monarchy, and no one is electing Rudy Giuliani, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, or Mitt Romney king.
That said, the gun debate will be fought, so as we enter the debate season, let’s review the numbers and the history.
Let me make that number a little more meaningful: If you stand in front of your house and look at the house to the immediate left and right, there's an almost 100% chance that one of these three abodes has at least one gun inside.
And yet, for all that, I am willing to bet that no one was shot on your block this week, this year, or in your lifetime.
The biggest caucus on Capitol Hill is the Congressional Sportsmen's Caucus with 300 members in 46 states. These folks represent the interests of America’s hunters and anglers, and this is the most important environmental caucus on Capitol Hill. And, for the record, they are almost all strong supporters of the Second Amendment
More than a few members of the U.S. Supreme Courtare hunters and gun owners, as are a tremendous number of lower-court judges. In fact, it's estimated in judicial newsletters that up to 25 percent of all judges in some states have a concealed weapons permit.
Judges may look down their nose at crime, but a lot of them also look down the barrel of a gun once in a while, and self-protection arguments for gun ownership do not necessarily fall on deaf ears in court.
While guns are intrinsically dangerous, people know that and, for the most part, act accordingly.
Guns -- and guns alone -- are considered inherently evil and sinister.
Each to his own, of course. If people want to demonize guns, there's not much you can do about it. Some people demonize wolves, bears and snakes as well. Others demonize religious or racial groups.
And yet, are we not Americans? The Ku Klux Klansman, the ACLU-card holder, the communist, the Gay Pride activist, the militant feminist, the vegan, the Orthodox Jewish Rabbi, the black Baptist minister, the union-card boiler maker, and the retired Colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps all may differ from each other in terms of race, religion, and politics, but they all believe in the First Amendment.
You do not need to be Mormon to respect the concept of separation of Church and State, nor do you have to be a hate-spewing Klansman to value free speech.
By the same token, you do not have to own guns or even like guns to respect the Second Amendment.
What were our Founding Fathers thinking when they wrote the Second Amendment?
Well, they were not engaged in narrow partisan politics. They were not posturing for Fox News or trying to “make nice to soccer moms.”
These were serious men who came fresh from the white-hot forge of revolution. A war had just been fought to overthrow the yoke of an oppressive and unresponsive Government that invaded homes without warrant and which exposed the populace to "dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within."
In short, while it was a bit hotter back then, the issues we face today are not so completely different.
As left-wing, NPR-loving Virginia author Joe Bageant notes in his book Deer Hunting With Jesus:
”With Michael Savage and Ann Coulter openly calling for putting liberals in concentration camps, with the CIA now licensed to secretly detain American citizens indefinitely, and with the current administration effectively legalizing torture, the proper question to ask an NRA members these days may be 'What kind of assault rifle do you think I can get for three hundred bucks, and how many rounds of ammo does it take to stop a born-again Homeland Security zombie from putting me in a camp?'
"Which would you prefer, 40 million gun-owning Americans on your side or theirs?"
Bageant is not a new liberal, but an old liberal – the kind that once protested things and took to the streets in opposition to stupid wars, and which stood up to be counted when civil rights were being violated.
The old liberals know the value of guns.
They know that after the Civil War, southern whites denied blacks the right to own guns, because it was easier to lynch an unarmed black man than it was one who owned a deer rifle and 200 rounds of ammunition.
Some gay Americans have discovered this secret knowledge as well. As Jonathan Rauch wrote in Salon magazine back in March of 2000:
"Thirty-one states allow all qualified citizens to carry concealed weapons. In those states, homosexuals should embark on organized efforts to become comfortable with guns, learn to use them safely and carry them. They should set up Pink Pistols task forces, sponsor shooting courses and help homosexuals get licensed to carry. And they should do it in a way that gets as much publicity as possible."
If this sounds like Revolutionary talk, it is. It is the kind of language our revolutionary Founding Fathers might have used if they were gay, or black, or Hispanic, or Muslim, or Jewish and living in America today.
”Don’t Tread On Me,” was not a bumper sticker back then – it was a warning every bit as ominous as the shake of a rattlesnake’s tail.
The notion that our Founding Fathers contemplated armed insurrection inside the United States seems to surprise some people.
But it shouldn’t.
The Good Old Boys of Virginia -- Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Washington -- knew that power belonged to the people only so long as the power of the state could be met with an equal power organized by the populace at large working in tandem.
Guns were not to be used capriciously, but they were part of the long term plan crafted by our Founding Fathers to protect this great nation from powerful, cunning and patient forces of oppression -- whether those forces came from within or without.
But of course the Second Amendment was not just about securing freedom at the national level. It was also about securing some modicum of personal protection at home as well.
Our Founding Fathers were not living "on the grid."
In 1776, you could not dial up a patrol car and expect someone to show up at your door a few minutes later.
On the empty plains and in the dark woods, it was every man for himself, and a prudent person was both well-armed and quite cautious.
But, to tell the truth, is it really that different today? If you are a suburban housewife, or a well-heeled lawyer with cable television in the den and GPS in your Mercury Mountaineer, you may not know what it feels like to live 20 miles outside of town and up a dirt road. But if you spend some time out on a farm, and also happen to be a member of a religious or racial minority, you may come to a whole new world of understanding.
"Michelle, my wife .... was driving through this nice, beautiful area, going through all this farmland and hills and rivers and she said 'Boy, it's really pretty up here,' but she said, 'But you know, I can see why if I was living out here, I'd want a gun. Because, you know, 9-1-1 is going to take some time before somebody responds. You know what I mean? You know, it's like five miles between every house.'”
Yeah, I know what you mean.
But guns are not just a rural security need. There is, argueably, a place for a gun, even in top-end homes in Miami. Homes like that of Sean Taylor.
And what if you are one of those poor unfortunates living in a down-at-the-heels neighborhood? Don’t these folks have security needs that trump those of rural Iowa farmers?
"Most liberal antigun advocates do not get off the city bus after working the second shift. Nor do they duck and dodge from street light to street light at 1 a.m. while dragging their laundry to the Doozy Duds, where they sit, usually alone, for an hour or so, fluorescently lit up behind the big plate-glass window like so much fresh meat on display, garnished with a promising purse or wallet, before they make the corner-to-corner run for home with their now-fragrant laundered waitress or fast-food uniforms. Barack Obama never did it. Hillary Clinton never did it. Most of white middle-class America doesn't do it either. The on-the-ground value of the Second Amendment completely escapes them."
To which I can only add that Rudy Giuliani never rode the City Bus at midnight either. Neither did Mitt Romney. Or Sarah Brady. And all of them are Republicans.
The point here is that the gun issue is not about Democrats vs. Republicans, or liberals vs. conservatives, or even rural residents vs. urban residents.
It's about something deeper and more important than that: it’s about empathy and respect and tolerance.
It’s about recognizing that not everyone goes to nine-to-five jobs in air conditioned offices while commuting down safe suburban streets.
It’s about recognizing that not everyone can afford to have an ADT alarm system installed in their house.
And, most important of all, it’s about not living in fear of the fact that people who look different from you, who think different from you, and who pray different from you, may have rights too.
And not just First Amendment Rights, but Second Amendment rights too, including the right to protect their house and home from invasion and robbery.
But if everyone has guns, won't we all live in fear? Won’t small altercations inevitably rise to violence due to the close proximity of weapons? And what about school shootings?
Well, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, guns help prevent crime.
Approximately 2.5 million Americans protect themselves with guns every year. Most of the time, the gun is never actually fired –- it is simply brandished, and the person breaking and entering is told to “get the f*ck out of here” and that’s exactly what happens.
Job done.
Yes, citizens do occasionally shoot and kill people while defending themselves and their property. In fact, citizens shoot and kill twice as many criminals as police do every year.
In short, guns are routinely used to deter crime, but these guns are rarely fired. When citizens do fire a gun to deter crime, they are rarely acting like Yahoos.
Which is not to say that Yahoos, criminals and crazy people do not exist; they certainly do. But these people exist with or without guns, and are a danger to us all, with or without a gun.
Remember, Yahoos in cars kill far more people than Yahoos with guns.
And as for criminals, do you really think they are going to be deterred by gun laws? Have these people been deterred by our drug laws, our murder laws, or our robbery laws? Why would the gun laws be treated with any more respect?
As for the shooting of small children, both in and outside of school, the phenomenon has never been common, and the numbers are going down.
New York City -- ground zero in the war against guns -– has 2.6 million children under the age of 10 and approximately 3 million guns owned by adults.
Clearly, most gun owners are pretty safety-conscious. The same cannot be said for automobile drivers or mothers who do not bother to read the instructions that come with child safety seats.
But, as I said, statistics are cold comfort.
Early this morning, while I was writing this blog post, Sean Taylor died. His encounter with a burglar entering his home early yesterday morning was a decidedly one-sided affair.
Let the theorists talk now. It will not matter to Sean Taylor. He is dead.
