Let's follow with expanding ban of sales to those convicted of domestic violence - research shows it REALLY works. https://t.co/dkoWVuIEBZ
— Cory Booker (@CoryBooker) October 3, 2015Omg. This is already a law. https://t.co/ZVrMTumC59
— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) October 3, 2015Pinning down exactly how much the NFA [ National Firearms Agreement ] contributed is harder. One study concluded that buying back 3,500 guns per 100,000 people correlated with up to a 50 percent drop in firearm homicides. But as Dylan Matthews points out, the results were not statistically significant because Australia has a pretty low number of murders already.Actually, there's no causal evidence that the Australian murder rate declined due to the 1996 gun confiscation regime. The Vox leftists are lying trough their teeth, and it's not the first time.
However, the paper's findings about suicide were statistically significant — and astounding. Buying back 3,500 guns correlated with a 74 percent drop in firearm suicides. Non-gun suicides didn't increase to make up the decline.
After any mass shooting someone will invoke the name “Australia” and raise the question, “Can Australia’s gun-control laws be a model for the United States?” This time [after the Charleston massacre] the honor belonged to CNN’s Laura Smith-Spark, who recounts the circumstances that led to Australia’s current gun-control laws and outlines their provisions. The laws were passed after the Port Arthur massacre, a 1996 mass shooting in which one man killed 35 people. Australia outlawed semi-automatic rifles, certain categories of shotgun, and implemented strict licensing and registration requirements. The cornerstone of its new gun-control scheme, however, was a massive gun buyback program. The Australian government purchased 650,000 to one million guns with funds raised via a special tax.Following the links takes us to Cooke's article, at National Review, "Obama Praises Australia’s Gun Confiscation."
The Australian paradigm became popular in the wake of the Newtown, Connecticut, school shootings in 2012. USA Today, ABC News, Slate, the Washington Post, and the Christian Science Monitor were among the outlets that published articles urging Americans to look closely at the actions their antipodean cousins took after a similar tragedy. Nor are Americans the only ones who think we should heed the Australian example. Numerous Australians have expressed pride in their country’s gun laws by penning columns beseeching Americans to transport America’s gun laws from Down Under.
These articles all point to the reduction in the rate of gun deaths in Australia after the new system was established as its main achievement. But it is the policy that allowed that system to be established which holds the writers’ and consequently the reader’s attention. That policy is the gun buyback program, which removed up to one million weapons from Australians’ hands and homes. This was, depending on the estimate, a fifth to a third of Australia’s gun stock. The statistic does not seem remarkable as a raw number, but it is quite so when expressed as a percentage. No wonder commentators fixate on it. The problem is the way most of them tell that tale: when they describe Australia’s gun buyback program, almost none of them tell the truth about it.
The Australian Law Banned and Confiscated Guns
The crucial fact they omit is that the buyback program was mandatory. Australia’s vaunted gun buyback program was in fact a sweeping program of gun confiscation. Only the articles from USA Today and the Washington Post cited above contain the crucial information that the buyback was compulsory. The article by Smith-Spark, the latest entry in the genre, assuredly does not. It’s the most important detail about the main provision of Australia’s gun laws, and pundits ignore it. That’s like writing an article about how Obamacare works without once mentioning the individual mandate.
Yet when American gun control advocates and politicians praise Australia’s gun laws, that’s just what they’re doing. Charles Cooke of the National Review shredded the rhetorical conceit of bellowing “Australia!” last year after President Obama expressed his admiration for gun control à la Oz:
You simply cannot praise Australia’s gun-laws without praising the country’s mass confiscation program. That is Australia’s law. When the Left says that we should respond to shootings as Australia did, they don’t mean that we should institute background checks on private sales; they mean that they we should ban and confiscate guns. No amount of wooly words can change this. Again, one doesn’t bring up countries that have confiscated firearms as a shining example unless one wishes to push the conversation toward confiscation.
WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama vowed to use the bully pulpit for the remainder of his term to draw attention to gun violence following Thursday’s mass shooting on a college campus in Oregon.And at Big Government, "Obama Goes Beyond Mere Gun Control, Hints at Confiscation."
Mr. Obama, speaking during a news conference on Friday, appeared resigned to getting no traction on gun-control legislation before he leaves office. Instead, he said his primary strategy going forward would be to mount a public campaign.
“I’m going to talk about this on a regular basis, and I’m going to politicize it,” Mr. Obama said. “Because our inaction is a political decision that we are making.”
Thursday’s shooting took place at Umpqua Community College, outside Roseburg, Ore., which is about 180 miles south of Portland.
Mr. Obama said until the political dynamic on gun safety changes, he won’t make a big dent in the problem.
He dismissed critics’ argument that the issue is mental illness—not guns. The majority of people who have mental illnesses aren’t shooters, he said, and other countries have angry young men but lower homicide rates.
“The only thing we can do is make sure they can’t have an entire arsenal when something snaps,” the president said. “You can’t kill as many people when you don’t have easy access to these kinds of weapons.”
Just three years ago, President Obama famously ridiculed GOP opponent Mitt Romney’s statement that Russia remained America’s main geopolitical foe by taunting: “The 1980s are calling to ask for their foreign policy back.”Keep reading.
Four years before that, Obama stood at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate to declare that once he became president, all people would join him around a global campfire, hold hands and put an end to the world’s evils and miseries.
Well, seven years into Obama’s presidency, the promised worldwide Kumbaya is instead global chaos — caused in large measure by his willful retreat from America’s position of leadership.
Washington’s traditional allies increasingly feel abandoned, its enemies emboldened. The United States isn’t even leading from behind — it’s cowering in weakness.
And no one is taking better advantage of this than Vladimir Putin, now storming headlong into the yawning chasm of American retreat and reasserting Russia’s global influence and power — just as Mitt Romney said.
Putin remains unchallenged in his invasion of Ukraine, leaving him free to intervene — again unchallenged — in the Middle East.
In Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, Obama’s outreach to the Muslim world hasn’t ended the threat of terrorism. On the contrary, it has seen the rise of “JV team” ISIS and new power for the Taliban. Israelis and Palestinians remain as far apart as ever — because only Israel has been targeted to make concessions.
This president accuses his political foes of wanting to wage war as their first option and warns of the limits of unilateral military power.
But in his eagerness to leave office as the president who ended America’s wars, he refuses to consider any use (or even a credible threat) of US force — even when hundreds of thousands are being massacred in Syria, many by the chemical weapons he claimed to eliminate.
His premature abandonment, against all military advice, of Iraq and Afghanistan (where the pullout is still under way) has left both countries worse off. Iraq, in particular, is bleeding far more than it did even in the worst years of “George Bush’s war.”
Equally eager to open America’s arms to longtime adversaries, this president has begun new relationships with Iran (all but giving Tehran a direct path to a nuclear arsenal) and Cuba without any concessions in return — even on such basic issues as human rights...
The Angels staged one of the most improbable comebacks in franchise history on Saturday, rallying for five runs with seven hits in the ninth inning for an 11-10 victory over the Texas Rangers that kept their slim playoff hopes alive.More.
With the Angels trailing, 10-6, Erick Aybar and Kole Calhoun opened the ninth with home runs to right field off Rangers closer Shawn Tolleson to cut the deficit to 10-8.
Right-hander Ross Ohlendorf replaced Tolleson and got Mike Trout to ground out to shortstop. Albert Pujols reached on a bloop double that dropped when the gloves of first baseman Mike Napoli and second baseman Rougned Odor collided in shallow right field.
With a Globe Life Park crowd of 37,277 on its feet in anticipation of the Rangers clinching their sixth American League West title, the Angels followed with four straight two-out singles to take the lead...
.@Rangers are THREE OUTS AWAY from winning the AL West. pic.twitter.com/p6XTmJvpel
— MLB (@MLB) October 3, 2015
BACK-TO-BACK! 💪💪
@Angels cut it to 10-8 with no outs in the 9th.
— MLB (@MLB) October 3, 2015
Bloop double for Pujols, tying run at the plate in Murphy with one out. #Angels
— Angels (@Angels) October 3, 2015
.@Angels within ONE!
— MLB (@MLB) October 3, 2015
— MLB (@MLB) October 3, 2015
And the @Angels take an 11-10 lead! This is WILD.
— MLB (@MLB) October 3, 2015
I've covered some 3,000 MLB games in last 20 years ... this might be the craziest.
— Mike DiGiovanna (@MikeDiGiovanna) October 3, 2015
— MLB (@MLB) October 3, 2015
Last time @Angels scored 5+ runs in the 9th to win a 9-inning game by 1 run was Aug 29, 1986. pic.twitter.com/5AnWPVajCw
— MLB Stat of the Day (@MLBStatoftheDay) October 3, 2015
True definition of team win today...WOW!!! One of the best comebacks I been a part of...lots of work still to do!!! pic.twitter.com/rr4zDtBljN
— Shane Victorino (@ShaneVictorino) October 3, 2015
— MLB (@MLB) October 3, 2015
Last time #Angels scored five or more runs in ninth to win a 9-inning game by one run was Aug. 29, 1986.
— Mike DiGiovanna (@MikeDiGiovanna) October 3, 2015
'This is a time to grieve,' mayor tells town in wake of Oregon college shooting http://t.co/CEfLZWez0f pic.twitter.com/CzjJ09gySV
— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) October 3, 2015Donald Trump has boasted that he's "leading every poll and in most cases big." Not anymore. The latest IBD/TIPP Poll shows him in second place, seven points behind Ben Carson.Keep reading.
The nationwide survey found that 24% of Republicans back Carson, compared with 17% who say they support Trump.
Marco Rubio came in third with 11% and Carly Fiorina fourth at 9%. Jeb Bush, once considered a prohibitive favorite, ranked fifth with just 8% support, which was a point lower than those who say they are still undecided.
The IBD/TIPP Poll has a proven track record for accuracy, based on its performance in the past three presidential elections. In a comparison of the final results of various pollsters for the 2004 and 2008 elections, IBD/TIPP was the most accurate. And the New York Times concluded that IBD/TIPP was the most accurate among 23 polls over the three weeks leading up to the 2012 election.
The October poll, conducted from Sept. 26 to Oct. 1, included 377 registered voters who are Republican or registered independents who lean toward the Republican Party, with a margin of error of +/- 5 percentage points...
Obama's "reset." 2008: US is the world's sole superpower & Russia is a pathetic has been. Today the roles are reversed.
— Joshua Muravchik (@JoshuaMuravchik) October 2, 2015
Yesterday, the New York Times published a list of “27 Ways to Be a Modern Man.” The Times’s attempt to reach out to metropolitan pseudo-intellectuals too highbrow for cat memes and Saved by the Bell gifs is so absurd as to warrant a point-by-point rebuttal. What follows, then, is the original list, corrected to reflect the defining characteristics of a real modern man.RTWT.
The shootings that left 10 dead at an Oregon community college on Thursday are focusing attention on security measures on U.S. campuses and stoking debate over whether firearms should be allowed on campus for protection.More.
Federal officials said Friday that six guns had been recovered from Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Ore., where the shooting took place, along with a steel-enhanced flak jacket and five magazines of ammunition. Seven more guns were found at the alleged gunman’s nearby apartment, officials said.
In recent years, colleges across the U.S. have implemented measures to identify potentially violent students and respond more effectively to mass shootings. Many of the changes came in the wake of the 2007 rampage at Virginia Tech that killed 33 people, in the deadliest campus shooting in U.S. history.
Colleges have focused broadly on two areas: improving emergency notifications to people on campus and responding quickly and forcefully to crises, said S. Daniel Carter, director of a campus-safety initiative at VTV Family Outreach Foundation, which was formed as a result of the Virginia incident. “The campus-security landscape has changed profoundly since the 2007 shootings,” he said.
The number of campus attacks at colleges has increased in recent decades, according to a 2010 study by a group of federal agencies, including the U.S. Secret Service. Under the study’s definition of such incidents, they grew to 83 in the 2000s—including data only through 2008—from 79 in the 1990s and 40 in the 1980s. Data compiled by Everytown for Gun Safety, which advocates for stricter gun controls, show that shootings at colleges increased to 31 in 2014 from 14 in 2013. Thursday’s incident was the 17th this year, according to the group.
More broadly in the U.S., federal authorities also have reported an increase in mass shootings in recent years. The Federal Bureau of Investigation identified 160 shootings from 2000 through 2013 that it defined as “active shooter” events, or an “individual actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a confined and populated area.” There were an average of 16.4 active-shooter incidents a year between 2007 and 2013, up from an average of 6.4 a year from 2000 to 2006. A total of 486 people were killed and 557 wounded in the incidents.
The Virginia Tech shootings highlighted weaknesses in identifying potentially troubled students and intervening to prevent them from acting violently, security experts say. Though the gunman had raised concerns among numerous people on campus who encountered him, there was no centralized system to gather such warning signs.
Since then, many colleges have implemented “threat-assessment programs” that bring together law enforcement, administrators, counselors and others to share information and investigate worrisome reports, said Gene Deisinger, managing partner at Sigma Threat Management Associates and a former deputy police chief at Virginia Tech. “Once you’ve got an initial concern, you don’t wait,” he said.
Institutions also have rolled out far more robust emergency notification systems to alert people about dangerous situations. The University of Texas has a system that can send text messages to 68,000 students, faculty and staff within three to four minutes, said Bob Harkins, associate vice president for safety and security at the Austin campus. It can also send warnings by email, social messaging and to desktop computers around campus.
Colleges are also increasingly replacing security guards with police officers they have hired or enhancing existing police departments on campus, said William Taylor, president of the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators. Agencies are outfitting officers with equipment such as body armor, ballistic helmets and rifles. And they are providing more training on how to respond to active shooters.
One program at Texas State University has been adopted as a model by the FBI. The main areas of training involve how to neutralize a gunman on a rampage—moving in quickly rather than waiting to establish a perimeter—and how to tend to victims before medical personnel can arrive, said J. Pete Blair, executive director of the program.
Yet many of these reforms are concentrated at larger four-year colleges with greater resources. In contrast, at Umpqua Community College, there is only one, unarmed security guard on campus at a time...
