Thai Teachers Firing Back

Teachers have one of the deadliest jobs in southern Thailand, with 44 killed by the bombs and bullets of an Islamic insurgency since 2004.

So the teachers are learning how to shoot back.

Don't anybody tell Wayne LaPierre. Or Sandra Froman.

More Guns More Crime?

Americans were robbed and victimized by gun violence at greater rates last year than the year before, even though overall violent and property crime reached a 32-year low, the Justice Department said on Sunday...

Professor Alfred Blumstein of Carnegie Mellon University said the rise in gun violence was particularly troubling.

“A major police effort to confiscate guns helped bring down the surge in violent crime that occurred in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s,” Professor Blumstein said. “But gun distribution is easier now because we have begun to back off gun control.”

Any bets the increases occurred in urban areas where the "gun controls" Prof. Blumstein bemoans a lack of are the most draconian?

Professor, you need to walk over to the Philosophy department and talk to this guy.

But I suppose I can't blame you. You're a big advocate of Project Safe Neighborhoods. So are these guys.

Matthew Bracken Radio Interview

Hear Matt Bracken's radio interview on the Peter Boyles morning show on Denver's KHOW 630AM, where he discusses "Domestic Enemies: The Reconquista".

Click on the post title link above, then scroll down to access the audio control and hear the show.

"Too Simple"

The federal government can surreptitiously track phone calls to protect us from terrorists, but the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms is barred from tracking gun sales and gun crimes, and if pending legislation supported by the gun lobby passes, police agencies will not even be allowed to share this information with one another...

Three letters, all calling for exploitation of NICS capabilities to "insta-register" gun owners.

While the gun lobby groups argue among themselves about whether proposed changes will help or hurt, the alternative of having a system that records no personally-identifying information on completed transactions goes ignored, except for on a few obscure blogs like this one that most gun owners will never see.

And the damndest thing is, the major "gun rights groups" evidently want it that way.

For those who say BIDS won't work, Russ Howard passed along an excerpt from an email he received:

For what it is worth, Russ, Joe Olson and I did a BIDS-type background check, electronically, for Minnesota and got it implemented in the early 90's. Then, of course, NICS came along and superseded our system. BIDS is something to pursue, because it works so well. Instead of checking and approving everybody, you run the check for the 2% who are a "problem" as defined by the law, leaving the other 98% alone. Too simple.

David Gross

"Too simple," indeed.

This Day in History: September 11

On the afternoon of this day in 1777, General Sir William Howe and General Charles Cornwallis launch a full-scale British attack on General George Washington and the Patriot outpost at Brandywine Creek near Chadds Ford, in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, on the road linking Baltimore and Philadelphia.