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Never forget!
I ran for Idaho state senate in 2008--didn't win
I've written a number of history books, as well as scholarly and popular articles, (see my web page).
Sorry, high pressure isn't included.
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THE MESOPOTAMIAN: TO BRING ONE MORE IRAQI VOICE OF THE SILENT MAJORITY TO THE ATTENTION OF THE WORLD
Specializing in discussions of discrimination and affirmative action
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Proving that the United States military does more than kill people and break things.
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A blog dedicated to "Documenting Saddam Hussein's support of Terrorism"
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J. Norman Heath's Blog--a circus rigger and Second Amendment scholar (really!)
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I Guess The Students Like Me
I ran into the department chairman today, and he said, "I'm hearing good things about you," I presume from the students in my class. "I'm going to have to introduce you to the poli sci department." I mentioned this to a friend who remains in California, and his response was, An introduction to a poli. sci. department in California would: 1) have resulted in a matter/anti-matter reaction which would have consumed the planet or 2) required that you be identified through dental records.
Loans, Not Grants
I am a little mystified while Democrats--some of whom insisted that we were only going into Iraq to get oil--now want to turn some of the aid into loans.
Don't get me wrong--Iraq is going to be a wealthy country in a few years, since they won't be funding absurdly expensive WMD programs such as Saddam Hussein had. But this is a very short-sighted policy to loan the money to the Iraqis. Ten billion dollars isn't chicken feed, even for the U.S., but it makes us look parsimonous when we should be looking generous. And it plays into exactly the nonsense that some of the anti-war left was spouting--that this was all about oil.
Bush, fortunately, knows better than to play the skinflint that many members of Congress (not all Democrats, either) seem intent on showing the world.
It Appears That Australia's Increasingly Strict Gun Control Laws Are Doing The Job
From one of the Australian newspapers: POLICE Commissioner Ken Moroney last night vowed to catch the "urban terrorists" who have Sydney under siege.
Yup. Tim Lambert keeps attacking John Lott's work because it is being used to prevent proper Australian-style gun control from reaching America. I can see why.
He pledged to hunt down and jail the criminals, who are operating with a level of lawlessness never seen in the city before.
In an exclusive interview with The Daily Telegraph Mr Moroney had one message for the killers of Greenacre mother Mervat Nemra and Ziad "Ziggy" Razzak: "I'm coming for you."
...
In an extraordinary admission from a serving police chief, Mr Moroney said he feared for the safety of the community - and police.
"This is a form of urban terrorism," he said.
...
Yesterday, as Ms Nemra was buried and a Liverpool home was attacked in a driveby shooting, Mr Moroney vowed to lift police resources and end the "trade in death" and "the sale, distribution and possession of illegal handguns" in Sydney.
The Daily Telegraph understands 31 Glock semi-automatic pistols stolen from a Chester Hill security company in late August are now being used in the drug war in Sydney's southwest.
Mr Moroney said he feared not only for the public's safety but for the safety of police.
"In my 38 years of being a policeman, I've never known this level of brazen unlawful activity involving this sort of shooting and murder," he said.
A New Iraqi Blogger
There's not a lot of entries in it yet, but there is this interesting description of what to do to Saddam Hussein: Maybe the Americans are really closing in on him as they say. I want to live long enough to see him caught ALIVE. the possibilities would be endless. I'm sure it would be a great day for some real celebration in Iraq. I just hope the Americans won't make the stupid mistake of killing him like they did with his sons. Some might ask 'but wouldn't you like to see him killed?'. Believe me I would. But I would rather see him alive and humiliated for all he has done to this country and to humanity. I'm not even sure a trial would satisfy me. I want him to be put in a large glass cage at Fardus square where his statue once stood. It should be bulletproof so that no idiot would simply come and shoot him. He would sit in rags and be fed garbage once a day. People from all over Iraq and the world would come to watch him until he rots. It would be our national zoo, our primary tourists attraction. I would give 20 years of my life just to see that. And I'm sure 30 million Iraqis would do the same. I just hope someone from the Pentagon is listening.
Rep. Alcee Hastings: A Most Amazing Congressman
The website of Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL) describes himself as, Known to most as "Judge," Alcee Hastings has distinguished himself as an attorney, civil rights activist and judge.
Well, yes he has distinguished himself as a judge, no question. He is one of the very few federal judges who has ever been impeached. Even though he was found innocent in criminal court of accepting bribes, his conduct at the trial, and the evidence that the U.S. Senate subsequently heard, was sufficient to get him removed from office.
Unsurprisingly, Hastings had no problem getting himself elected to Congress--which doesn't say much for his constituents, does it?
UPDATE: Here's a bit more about this case. An attorney who was convicted of accepting a bribe from an undercover FBI agent in the Hastings case was pardoned by Bill Clinton (no surprise) in 2001--and was asking the Supreme Court to restore his right to practice law. They refused to overturn a lower court decision that refused to restore Borders right to practice law.
Interesting Souvenir to Bring Back From World War II
From a Florida TV station: MOUNT DORA, Fla. -- The Mount Dora Police Department was evacuated Thursday night after an 85-year-old woman walked into the station's lobby and dropped off a grenade, according to Local 6 News.
Police said that the unidentified woman carried a toolbox through the front doors of the Mount Dora Police Department and said she wanted to get rid of it and its contents.
When an officer looked inside the box and realized that there was a grenade inside, the entire building was evacuated.
Authorities also shut down North Donnelly Street at Lincoln Avenue after the discovery.
The Lake County bomb squad was able to remove the World War II-era grenade without injuries.
General Boykin's Remarks
General Boykin is getting a lot of flak for the things he has been saying in churches around the United States. Boykin's Providential view of history is hardly unique, and there are many examples that we can point to in American history of this point of view. Consider Benjamin Franklin's remarks at the Constitutional Convention: In the beginning of the contest with Great Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayer in this room for the divine protection. Our prayers, sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending Providence in our favor. To that kind Providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful Friend? Or do we imagine that we no longer need his assistance? I have lived, sir, a long time, and, the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth--that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, sir, in the sacred writings, that "except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it." [Elliot's Debates 5:253-4]
Vice President John Adams' charge to the first Senate:A trust of the greatest magnitude is committed to this Legislature; and the eyes of the world are upon you Your country expects, from the results of your deliberations, in concurrence with the other branches of government, consideration abroad, and contentment at home--prosperity, order, justice, peace, and liberty: And may God Almighty's providence assist you to answer their just expectations.[Journal of the Senate of the United States of America, 1789-1793, Tuesday, April 21, 1789, p. 15]
The First Congress passed a Thanksgiving resolution, and made it clear what their belief was about God's role in American history:Resolved, That a Joint Committee of both Houses be directed to wait upon the President of the United States, to request that he would recommend to the People of the United States, a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed, by acknowledging, with grateful hearts, the many signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a Constitution of Government for their safety and happiness.[Journal of the House of Representatives of the United States, 1789-1793, Friday, September 25, 1789, p. 123]
George Washington's letter to Samuel Langdon shows similar views of God's intervention on behalf of the American Republic: The man must be bad indeed who can look upon the events of the American Revolution without feeling the warmest gratitude towards the great Author of the Universe whose divine interposition was so frequently manifested in our behalf. And it is my earnest prayer that we may so conduct ourselves as to merit a continuance of those blessings with which we have hitherto been favored.[The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources, 1745-1799: Series 2 Letterbooks, George Washington to Samuel Langdon, September 28, 1789]
There are many similar examples available here.
Boykin's statements reflect not only widely held views throughout American history, but throughout the Christian community today in America--and indeed, throughout my home!
No question, some of his statements will make it more difficult for Bush's efforts to engage moderate Islamic factions against terrorism--but had NBC not chosen to report Boykin's remarks, how likely is it that they would have come to the attention of the Islamic world? Almost zero. So there is someone who has some responsibility for making this struggle against Islamic terrorism harder than it needs to be: NBC.
Boykin's remarks were as a private citizen, not in his official capacity. They were said in churches, places where reporters for the mainstream media would seldom be found. NBC's goal on this is clear: to obstruct Bush's efforts in the war on terror, in the hopes of getting a Democrat in the White House, regardless of the human costs of the war.
It has been clear for a number of years that the mainstream media hate Bush so much that they are willing to put the nation at risk, as long as they achieve their goal of putting a Democrat in power. NBC's actions simply show what a despicable bunch they are.
Amusing Quote About Franz Kafka
I don't know for sure what the political context of this essay from the Sydney Morning Herald is, but it seems like an historian's response to the efforts of multiculturalist post-modernists to deny that history is anything but a tool of oppression. The rest of the essay is sensible, but not particularly memorable, except for the very last two paragraphs:I have one paragraph left to demonstrate the social and political usefulness of analysing the experience of the past for the lessons that analysis might yield. I don't mean the big, obvious lessons that even idiots have got straight by now - don't invade Russia in winter, don't invade Afghanistan, period - but more subtle and therefore more useful ones.
I offer a single fragment from that great consultable record of the past: a comment by Kafka's niece, who somehow managed to survive the 1939-45 war, which, of course, Kafka missed: "Ah. Uncle Franz. He always was too optimistic."
Tinfoil Hat Brigade At Work
Read the following statements from this news story, then try to guess who said this, and how many layers of tinfoil he has on the inside of his hat to keep out the mind control rays: "Jews rule the world by proxy"
Wow! They invented not only communism, but its two strongest enemies, human rights and democracy! Clever folks, those Jews!
...
[], ... criticized what he described as Jewish domination of the world...
...
"The Europeans killed 6 million Jews out of 12 million, but today the Jews rule the world by proxy," [] said. "They get others to fight and die for them."
...
[] said Jews "invented socialism, communism, human rights and democracy" to avoid persecution and gain control of the most powerful countries.
So, who is this paranoid believer in conspiracy theories? Some guy living on a steam grate in New York City? A member of Aryan Nations, living in a ramshackle cabin in Montana? No, prime minister of Malaysia. The whole story of his ranting and raving can be found here.
And who was he addressing? The Organization of the Islamic Conference. There is a real struggle for the future--and it is beginning to look like Islam vs. the West.
Can You Believe It? I Never Would Have Guessed
From Fox News: HARRISONVILLE, Mo. — A man convicted of killing three women in Kansas pleaded guilty Thursday to five more murders in Missouri, where some of the victims' bodies were found stuffed into barrels in a rented storage locker.
Gee, someone who has sexual pleasure all tied up with inflicting pain and humiliation. I never would have guessed that such a person might commit murder.
John E. Robinson Sr., (search) 59, avoided trial and a possible death sentence in Missouri by admitting that he killed the two women and teenage girl whose bodies were found in the storage locker, as well as two other women whose bodies were never found.
...
Authorities in both states have said that Robinson -- whose record of theft, embezzlement (search) and other offenses dates to 1969 -- lured some of his victims to northeastern Kansas with promises of work or sadomasochistic sex. Like Godfrey, he lived in the Kansas City suburb of Olathe.
I expect to get a lot of angry emails from people who think I'm a bigot for thinking sadomasochism is a sign of something a little twisted and damaged. "After all, most sadists aren't murderers." No, they aren't. But it really tells me how weird our society has become that a sign of one's liberalism is the belief that someone who gets a sexual satisfaction from inflicting or receiving pain and humiliation is in perfect psychological and emotional health.
Does Anyone Besides Me See Something a Little Ironic About This News Report?
It's from the Philadelphia Inquirer: Bush told his senior aides Tuesday that he "didn't want to see any stories" quoting unnamed administration officials in the media anymore, and that if he did, there would be consequences, said a senior administration official who asked that his name not be used.
Open Carry in Arizona
Open carry of a handgun is legal in many Western states, but in practice, police will hassle you enough, and concealed carry permits are readily available to the law-abiding, that it just doesn't make sense to do so. Arizona police seem to be well aware that the law allows this, however, and don't apparently hassle people very much. I did see this amusing anecdote from someone describing his experiences carrying openly in Tucson:I live in Tucson and I open carry every day. I have had the following in the last two years: 1) A woman asked me "You do have a permit for that?" I responded "No permit is required in Arizona". 2) I was in the teller line at my favorite bank when I heard a woman say to the bank receptionist "That man has a gun", The receptionist replied "Yes and we feel a lot safer when he is here than when he is not". Other than that, nothing. I have a CCW but rarely carry concealed.
Rush & Prohibition
Randy Barnett has some remarks about Rush Limbaugh's drug addiction problem, and William Bennett's gambling problem, and the implication of it is that those who bang the drum for the government prohibiting various vices are hypocrites.
There's another explanation: Rush knew full well how dangerously addictive prescription pain medicines are, and was interested in preventing others from getting on the same track. I have several good friends who have long been insistent on the importance of keeping marijuana illegal. Why? Because they perceive that their abuse of marijuana in high school and college was very, very destructive. Because I wasn't a potsmoker when I was young (yeah, I was a rebel in that regard), I tended to regard all of this concern about marijuana as a little overblown. I wasn't sympathetic to the use of marijuana, but I also regarded marijuana as a vice rather like alcohol--probably destructive, but trying to ban it seemed even more destructive.
My sympathy for decriminalization of marijuana has diminished these last few years, primarily because I was trying to raise kids in Sonoma County, California, a place where intoxication of all sorts--alcohol, marijuana, meth, cocaine, crack--was a way of life for not only teenagers, but adults and even elementary school kids. I talked to one drug rehab counselor who was working with 2nd graders with marijuana addiction problems--it's hard to keep the kids out of Mom's stash. At least at one time, the DA's office had a full-time staff just prosecuting rapes of minors passed out at parties. (I don't mean 16 and 17 year old girls, either. I mean 12, 13, 14.)
My daughter was at one party where one girl passed out, and was starting to breathe quite shallowly. While the rest of the crowd was trying to figure out what to do--without bringing this, and their little teenaged drinking party to official attention--my daughter had the good sense to call 911, even though she knew that there was going to be some trouble for all involved.
More troubling than just the intoxication problem, was that the parents of the passed out girl thought this was funny. This wasn't the first time that their daughter had drunk to the point of unconsciousness. Just ignorant parents? I don't think so. Mom was a doctor. Of course, Mom wasn't that much involved in childrearing--the daughter had a combination nanny/chauffeur until she got her own driver's license--and this is really the essence of Sonoma County and a lot of other upscale parts of America--places with more money than parents, where many parents provide alcohol and marijuana to their junior high and high school children. My daughter tells me that the police would just wave when she and her fellow junior highers were smoking pot on the street in Cotati. (Just another reminder that just because your neighbors look like you, and sound like you, don't assume that they share any values with you.)
It was startling to me how many funerals of peers my daughter attended when she was 16 and 17. Some of these were drunk driving deaths, but there were some startling deaths as well--like cirrhosis of the liver (a combination of heavy junior high age drinking and ibuprofen, apparently).
One of the reasons that I changed my mind about taking a job in Boulder some years ago was both housing prices, and conversations with parents there who had a very Sonoma County attitude: drug abuse is just part of growing up, and there's nothing you can do about it, so why bother? A lot of adults who started the use of intoxicants at 16, 17, 18, don't realize how dramatically different of a situation it is when kids are getting drunk at 12 and 13. Young brains are still developing, and still learning what situations are inappropriate for intoxication.
I still don't think that prohibition of drugs is the most effective way to deal with the problem. It does have one positive effect, however: it encourages parents whose lives are built entirely around intoxication to move to places where those values predominate, like Sonoma County, leaving other parts of America relatively civilized.
I have no illusions about where I live in Boise. My son tells me that for most kids at Centennial High School, alcohol or marijuana is the dominant influence on the weekends. But at least parents around here don't encourage it, or pretend that it is okay.
Fast Action To Prevent The Spread of AIDS
I was pointed to this excerpt from a Tennessee newspaper: A Memphis, Tennessee middle school teacher who continued to teach science for eight months after his indictment for exposing a teenager to HIV has resigned. Juan Thomas, 33, had been on unpaid leave from Lanier Middle School since last week, when police came to the Whitehaven campus and arrested him on a warrant issued in August. He was indicted on one felony count of criminal exposure to HIV.
I guess they were busy on the more serious crimes, like jaywalking.
Law enforcement officials were unable Tuesday to say why the suspect was not arrested immediately. They said an informal system to flag priority warrants didn’t work in this case.
Thomas admitted to having a consensual relationship with the 17-year-old boy, who later was diagnosed with the virus, according to an arrest report. Thomas also allegedly said he knew he had the virus.
Enrage a Gun Control Advocate--Forward This Link
It's an article from the Wall Street Journal about the Knob Creek Machine Gun Shoot:The special draw here is to be able to go full auto--something heavily regulated since the 1930s--with some of the most impressive hardware on the planet. I knew this was serious when I walked through the main gate and the first range offered flame throwers for rent--$65 for regular grade; $125 a squirt if you wanted to upgrade to Napalm.
Yeah, it's definitely family bonding time. I took my daughter to submachine gun class at Front Sight some years ago, and it was definitely a family bonding experience.
This upper range was where they had the heavy stuff: everything from a Civil War-era Gatling gun to its modern-day cousin, the minigun, which can spit out 6,000 rounds a minute. Also on display was a bevy of Browning .50-caliber machine guns, as well as M60s, M-16s, Uzis, Browning Automatic Rifles and just about anything else you can think of. There was also a trade show, where you could buy everything from World War II bayonets to the guns they fit on.
After the usual safety checks, the upper range opened up--with a vengeance. The fully automatic gunfire was deafening, with a dozen or so heavy machine guns firing at any one time. Every now and then, the din would be punctuated by the sonic-boom-like thud of a .50-caliber sniper rifle.
...
But not before watching 10-year-old Emily fire the Heckler & Koch MP5, the preferred weapon of counterterrorist units the world over. ... More important, whole families were here, most of whom see a day at the gun range not as a precursor to Columbine, but as good bonding time.
Such was the case with Emily's dad, Rob, who, like most people, declined to give his last name. When asked by the MP5 owner if Emily had ever shot a gun before, Rob quickly rattled off an array of pistols and shotguns. "I think she'll do fine," the gun owner said. And she did.
A little nervous at first, she pulled the trigger with trepidation, squeezing off a round or two. But Emily quickly discovered why the MP5 is loved by the FBI, Delta Force and others. It's a full-blown submachine gun, but with the kick of a cap gun. With renewed confidence, she quickly expended the rest of her clip and walked off the line with a big grin.
I'm Beginning to See a Pattern Here...
and more signs of how well strict gun control will work in the United States: TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) -- A prisoner pulled out a handgun and fired two shots at a guard in the Lucas County jail's maximum security unit, the sheriff said.
Both shots missed the guard, and the inmate gave up the gun within a minute of the shooting after guards surrounded him Tuesday night, said Sheriff James Telb.
Prentiss Williams, 24, was being held in the jail in the separate shooting deaths of three people.
Telb said he was not sure how the gun got inside the jail or how Williams got to it. Sheriff's deputies and jail guards searched for any other weapons and ammunition that might have been hidden inside.
...
Williams is charged in the shooting deaths of Carmita Dickey and Jonathon Booker. He also was indicted in 2002 for the 1994 killing of Robert Hendricks of Toledo.
Dickey, 30, was gunned down May 25, 2002, as she sat in her car.
I'm Overwhelmed By What's Available for Free
All California court published decisions from 1850 to July 31, 2003, are available free of charge here. It's searchable.
CIA Efforts to Destabilize a Democratically Elected Government?
Interesting article by Stephen F. Hayes at Weekly Standard about the evidence concerning an al-Qaeda link with the Iraqi government--and why the Bush Administration has been reluctant to discuss the subject too openly. Most disturbing, the article suggests that the CIA is attempting to downplay the al Qaeda/Iraq connection as a method of injuring Bush--including leaking part of a document that discredits such links--while not leaking another part that suggests such a link.
Why would anyone at CIA be willing to leak secret information to injure Bush? Some of it might be the well-known leftist tendencies of mid-level CIA officials--and some of it might be concern that CIA utterly blew it before 09/11. By distracting attention from their failure, they might be able to avoid tough questions about things work on the analyst side at Langley.
Thanks to Instapundit for the link.
Stephen Halbrook's Statement About Handgun Registration
Over at Keep and Bear Arms.com, Angel Shamaya is expressing indignation about Stephen Halbrook's oral arguments in a court case attempting to overturn the District of Columbia's ban on bringing handguns into DC. THE COURT: THE GOVERNMENT CAN PUT RESTRICTIONS ON THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS.
Here's the points that I have been making on email lists where this question has come up:
MR. HALBROOK: YOUR HONOR, WE ARE HERE WANTING TO REGISTER HANDGUNS. WE ARE NOT HERE WANTING UNRESTRICTED ACCESS. WE'RE NOT HERE ASKING TO CARRY THEM, OTHER THAN IN THE HOME.
THE COURT: YOU'RE SAYING THAT THE GOVERNMENT CAN IMPOSE REASONABLE RESTRICTIONS?
MR. HALBROOK: YES, YOUR HONOR. YES, YOUR HONOR.
1. The District of Columbia has had mandatory handgun registration since at least 1976--it was already in effect (I think starting in 1972) when they adopted a "freeze" law that prohibited the purchase or importation of handguns into DC. Halbrook is giving up nothing when he says that there's no problem with registration.
2. Halbrook is asking federal judges to strike down a gun control law that I'm sure that federal judges generally support---and he's asking them to do it based on Second Amendment grounds--a quite dramatic step. Reassuring them that he is not asking them to strike down every gun control law that DC has makes it easier for them to strike down what is clearly the most outrageous part of the law--the law that prohibits people who move to DC from having a handgun in their own home.
3. Handgun registration is a waste of resources, money, and time. The evidence is pretty clear that gun registration sorts solves very, very few crimes--except for gun control law violations. Nonetheless, registration, by itself, is constitutional. I don't see that it conflicts with the Second Amendment in any way. (You might be able to make a privacy right argument based on the Ninth Amendment, however.) Registration can be used (and has been used) to confiscate guns from law-abiding people, but that doesn't make registration intrinsically unconstitutional, in the same way that just because guns can be criminally misused, doesn't make gun ownership intrinsically bad.
4. While many gun advocates find the notion of "reasonable restrictions" to be the first step down the slippery slope to confiscation--and they are correct, it usually is--as a matter of constitutional law, the courts have always recognized that there are "reasonable restrictions" on most rights. As an example, the right of free speech (unless you are an ACLU absolutist) doesn't mean that you have the right to walk through a residential neighborhood at 2:00 AM, using a bullhorn to express your opinion about President Bush. I agree that "reasonable restrictions" have often been abused, and my book For the Defense of Themselves and the State (Praeger Press, 1994) is full of examples of how the courts have abused this notion. But this doesn't invalidate the notion of "reasonable restrictions." In the case of the DC law, recognizing that "reasonable restrictions" are constitutional both calms the nerves of the judges involved, and faces the reality that our laws have always recognized that this is an accurate description of the rights we enjoy under the Constitution. What Halbrook is doing is indeed "slippery slope": but he's trying to push up the slope, not down it. DC's gun control laws are already just about all the way down the hill.
5. A victory in the federal courts with respect to the DC handgun law, on Second Amendment grounds--would set us up for the next question--does the Fourteenth Amendment impose similar protections against state laws. This is the question that the Silveira case is now trying to raise before the U.S. Supreme Court--and in my opinion, Silveira should not even have been filed until we had a clear-cut modern Supreme Court decision that recognized that the Second Amendment protected an individual right--the sort of decision that might come out of this challenge to the DC handgun law.
UPDATE: I'm impressed how upset some of the mail that I have received is for saying that registration by itself isn't unconstitutional. The essential complaint is that registration is a form of prior restraint, because you can't own a gun unless it's registered. Huh?
Some--probably most mandatory registration laws now on the books involve confiscation of an unregistered firearm, but that's not intrinsic to such laws. A mandatory gun registration law could specify that if the police found an unregistered gun in the course of an investigation, would record the registration information and write you a ticket for a $25 fine. Would that prevent you from owning a gun? Not in the least.
A mandatory gun registration law might hold you liable for criminal misuse of a gun that you had failed to register. That would not be an infringement on the right to keep and bear arms.
I am not in support of, or even neutral, on gun registration. These laws are almost completely ineffective at solving violent crimes, as near as anyone can tell, completely useless for preventing violent crimes, and primarily useful for punishing gun control law violations--assuming that the police make any serious effort to use the existing registration for those purpose. They are potentially useful for various gun confiscation schemes, which is why many people--myself included, are afraid of mandatory registration laws.
These registration laws don't actually make it practical to disarm the criminals and mental patients that need to be disarmed--remember, the Supreme Court has ruled that if you can't lawfully own a gun, you can't be punished for failing to register it, since the Fifth Amendment protects you from mandatory self-incrimination. Only the lawful owner of a gun may be punished for failing to register. But they do provide an excuse that the gun prohibitionists can use to persuade the ignorant that such confiscation schemes can work. Stupid, ineffective, a waste of time and money, yes. But unconstitutional? Not necessarily.
Aside from the philosophical questions, there's a larger issue here. The right to keep and bear arms has been largely destroyed in places like the District of Columbia by taking one slice at a time, until they have managed to get just about the whole loaf. To get our rights back means taking them back, one slice at a time. Recognizing the constitutionality of registration in DC--no matter how stupid it is--gives up nothing. DC has had mandatory registration since the 1970s. Getting back the right of law-abiding adults to move into DC, and bring a handgun with them--that's a big slice of our rights. Absurd arguments about purity are counterproductive.
Bush Approval Numbers Rising
Two Gallup polls in a row now showing Bush's approval numbers above 50%--and rising.PRINCETON, NJ -- Despite continuing perceptions of troubles in Iraq and low ratings of his handling of the economy, President's Bush's overall job approval rating is up from his administration's low point recorded less than a month ago.
While Gallup seems to suggest the improving economy is part of it, Andrew Sullivan suggests that Bush Administration finally trying to defend its Iraq occupation policies is a big part of the reason. Both are probably important; in spite of the best efforts of the Democratic Party's public relations arms (NBC, CNN, ABC, CBS, and NBC), enough news has been leaking through on FoxNews and through the Internet to get the word out that Iraq isn't the unmitigated disaster that the left wants it to be.
Bush's job approval rating in the just-completed Oct. 10-12 poll is 56%. It was 55% in Gallup's Oct. 6-8 poll. Both of these are higher than the 50% approval rating Bush received in a Sept. 19-21 poll.
The uptick in job approval ratings also represents a reversal of the general decline in Bush's ratings that has been taking place since the mini-rally of public support for Bush occurred in March and April, during the war in Iraq. At that time, his approval reached 71% -- lower than his record approval of 90% reached after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, but higher than it had been in the seven months before the start of the war.
The Lott Question
Professor Randy Barnett at the Volokh Conspiracy says essentially what I have said: this isn't the same situation as the Bellesiles scandal:My inability to independently reach a judgment on the substance of these issues--and the similar inability of others--is why I think it is so important to assemble an independent panel to assess the merits of this controversy. For me, this is what distinguishes the Lott affair from the controversy surrounding Michael Bellesilles. I could read for myself the truncated and misrepresented quotes identified by those who studied his work. ... I do need a comparable panel whose motives I can trust here, and I am sure I am not alone.
Barnett also links to Dr. Lott's latest responses to the charges--some of which are pretty telling criticisms of the accuracy of some of his opponents.
More Victims
Instapundit had a link to this amazing column in the Washington Post: But if German bestseller lists reveal a German reassessment of the United States, they have also in recent years revealed an even more vigorous German reassessment of Germany. Not one but two books have become popular through their descriptions of the Allied bombing of Dresden in 1945, which resulted in fires that caused tens of thousands of deaths. One of the authors used the word "crematoria" to describe the burning buildings, described the Allied bomber pilots as the equivalents of Nazi police units that murdered Jews and concluded by wondering whether Winston Churchill, who ordered the bombings, ought to have been condemned as a war criminal.
Certainly, Germans suffered tremendously during World War II, and many Germans were opposed to Hitler--but most Germans supported Hitler until very late in the war. It's hard to see Germany as a "victim." As often happens when nations follow bad leaders, individual innocents suffer, but that hardly makes the whole nation into a victim.
These books have also been effective: According to another opinion poll, more than a third of the Germans now think of themselves as "victims" of the Second World War -- just like the Jews.
Was Dresden a horrifying use of strategic bombing? Sure. Should it have been done? No. But Germans who try to equate their suffering with that of the victims of German agression are like the bank robber who ends up paralyzed from the waist down by a policeman's bullet.
Another Victim
This news story is about a man in Britain who, knowing that he had AIDS, went out and infected two women with the disease. According to the BBC news story:Father-of-three Dica, from Mitcham, south-west London, had told police both women knew of his condition before they had sex.
This wasn't an accident, it appears, but a conscious decision to infect others. Dica's wife, of course, is full of excuses for her husband's infidelity in this article:
But the court heard he told his first victim he had undergone a vasectomy and pursued the second victim, a mother of two, repeatedly telling her he loved her and wanted her to have his children. Mrs Dica, who asked for her first name not to be published for fear of reprisals, added: "It is so unfair that my husband is going to jail when he does not deserve to. He is a good father, a kind man, and now his children will be without him for a very long time.
Okay, there are plenty of women prepared to make excuses for husbands behaving badly (although I can't understand why). What is even less excusable is this nonsense from the BBC article:
"These women were not raped, they consented to having sex with him. My husband is now in prison because of them.
"Everything those women said about him in court, that he is kind, a gentleman and charming, is all true - the rest of it is lies.
"He told them from the very beginning he was HIV positive. He's a very honest person."
Mrs Dica, who refuses to say whether she has been infected, said she never questioned her husband's infidelity and maintains he is an innocent man.
Speaking from the family's semi-detached home in Mitcham, she said: "I didn't want to listen in court to those lies. It was bad enough Mohammed had to go to court when he is ill.
"I never asked who gave him the illness, it was probably another woman, probably one of the two women he went with.
"They are the ones in the wrong, not Mohammed. They had their partners, but they were not good enough for them so they had to take mine.
"One of those girls had the audacity to ring me to ask whether I knew Mohammed had HIV. Of course I did, he told me straight away, he is not ashamed of having the disease." Derek Bodell, National Aids Trust chief executive, said: "Today's case is a tragedy for all parties.
Yeah, poor Mr. Dica is a victim! He wasn't prosecuted because he had AIDS; he was prosecuted because he knowingly went out and infected others, lying to these women to get them to have unprotected sex.
"Treating cases like this as a criminal offence will not prevent such incidents in the future, and on the contrary may be counterproductive.
"People with HIV should feel able to disclose their HIV status without fear of rejection or discrimination."
The HIV charity George House Trust said the case set a "dangerous and frightening precedent for all people living with HIV."
In a statement it said: "Every adult has a responsibility for their own consenting sexual behaviour and for protecting themselves.
"Criminalising the transmission of HIV simply puts all of the responsibility on people living with the virus.
"HIV positive people already live with uncertainty, discrimination and stigma.
"This court case does absolutely nothing to improve public education about HIV. It does nothing to help create an environment where people with HIV can live without discrimination."
Chief executive Michelle Reid said: "This case means that people with HIV will now have to live with the fear of prosecution.
"It will mean fewer people being open about their HIV status; fewer people taking HIV tests because unless you¿re HIV status is known you cannot 'knowingly' infect someone and fewer people benefiting from support and health care.
"This is a dangerous step backwards to the climate of blame and ignorance of the 1980's."
Why Raising Income Tax Rates Doesn't Much Impact "The Rich"
Sen. Joe Lieberman is out to raise income tax rates on rich people. But how much income tax do "rich people" really pay? If you are really rich--rich enough that you don't need to work at all, which is the only definition of "the rich" that makes sense to me--paying income tax is purely voluntary.
You don't believe me? If you have five million dollars in net assets--a pretty typical average for engineers that I know in California--you don't need to pay income taxes at all. You invest that five million dollars in municipal bonds of the state in which you live. Municipal bonds are exempt from both federal income tax, and state income of the issuing state. (There are a few exceptions for private activity bonds in which various private firms get government agencies to issue the bonds for their benefit, but you can avoid these sort of bonds pretty easily.)
Municipal bond interest rates right now, like all other bond interest rates, are pretty dismal. If you buy 30 year bonds, you'll get about 5-5.5%. That means your five million dollars will only earn you $250,000 to $275,000 a year in income--but you aren't obligated to pay any income tax on that income. Can you live on that?
So who is going to get hit by Lieberman's "tax the rich" strategy? Sure, there are rich people who don't mind paying lots of income taxes, and they will have to pay more. But realistically, the "tax the rich" policy mostly hits relatively high income people are not yet rich, but are trying very hard to get that way.
A true "tax the rich" policy wouldn't raise income tax rates, but instead would either tax net worth, or amend the Constitution to take away the exemption of municipal bonds from federal income taxation. There are strong public policy arguments against both, but let's stop kidding ourselves: Lieberman needs truly rich people to contribute to his campaign, throw fundraising coffees, and all the rest of the nonsense that is required to win public office if you aren't as rich as Arnold Schwarzenegger. Do you honestly expect Lieberman, or any other politician, to try and tax the people that they want to contribute to their campaigns?
There's a reason that billionaires like George Soros and multimillionaires like Arriana Huffington are Democrats--it's to keep their existing wealth free of confiscatory taxation, by distracting ordinary Americans with "tax the rich" rhetoric. Here's an example:TV commentator and author Arianna Huffington, who launched her campaign for governor with criticism of "fat cats" who fail to shoulder a fair share of taxes, paid no individual state income tax and just $771 in federal taxes during the last two years, her tax returns show.
UPDATE: Just to clarify: you don't have to be a millionaire to use this strategy; but unless you've got something close to a million dollars to invest in municipal bonds, the income stream your bonds generate aren't going to be enough for you to live on. Furthermore, if you use this strategy to produce a tax-free income stream and your net income is only $40,000 to $60,000 a year (as would happen with $800,000 to $1,100,000 invested), you are better off buying much higher-yielding corporate bonds whose dividends are taxable--but you will be in such a low income tax bracket that you will still be ahead paying the income tax on a higher yielding bond. Ditto for buying Treasury bonds, which are taxable for federal income tax purposes, but not taxable by the states.
Huffington, who released her tax returns for the last two years to The Times, lives in an 8,000-square-foot home in Brentwood above Sunset Boulevard that is valued at about $7 million. She socializes with many wealthy and prominent people.
I've been told by someone at the Schwab bond desk (which means, that I don't know for sure, because I've never had any bond income in this category) that Puerto Rico municipal bonds are exempt from not only federal income tax but also the income tax of all American states. Of course, there's the added risk of Puerto Rico's long-term political stability to worry about.
Another Chance To Annoy Atheists
If I were an atheist, I would have no choice but to oppose democracy in all forms. This recent survey conducted by Opinion Dynamics Corporation for Fox News found: Fully 92 percent of Americans say they believe in God (as in, "one Nation, under God"), 85 percent in heaven and 82 percent in miracles, according to the latest FOX News poll. Though belief in God has remained at about the same level, belief in the devil has increased slightly over the last few years — from 63 percent in 1997 to 71 percent today.
What's also interesting is the percentage that regularly attend church or some other house of worship. 37% attend once a week; another 13% almost weekly (that's me); 12% once a month. Those answering "seldom" "never" and only on holidays total 37%. (The 1% that are "not sure" how often they attend worry me.)
What I also find interesting is that while belief in astrology, ghosts, and reincarnation--none of these exactly orthodox belief systems from the Judaeo-Christian perspective--are a bit higher than I would like, they aren't exactly a large fraction of the population, either: 29%, 24%, and 25%, respectively. I'm going to make a perhaps questionable assumption and suggest that many, if not most of the people that gave these answers are part of the crowd that seldom or never attends church, synagogue, or mosque.
Minnesota Law Enforcement Does Its Job
I'm here to cheer on a sheriff refusing to issue a concealed weapon permit:An Iron Range man is the first person in St. Louis County to challenge being denied a handgun permit since Minnesota's concealed-carry law went into effect in May.
People like Johnson are one of the reasons that many of the non-discretionary concealed weapon permit laws have a provision such as this, where a sheriff may refuse to issue a permit to a person who technically meets the legal requirements, but for which there is evidence that a particular applicant represents a threat to public safety. The burden of proof is on the sheriff when refusing a permit, as it should be--and this sounds like exactly the sort of creep that, based on his pattern of behavior, shouldn't be carrying a pocket knife, much less a gun.
St. Louis County Sheriff Ross Litman denied Rodney Orville Johnson's application for a permit to carry a pistol in Minnesota on Aug. 6.
Litman has denied eight of 1,114 applications through Wednesday.
Johnson, 54, of Iron, Minn., a convicted sex offender, has filed a petition for reconsideration. A hearing before Judge James Florey is scheduled for Oct. 28 at the St. Louis County Courthouse in Virginia.
...
Under the new law, no sheriff, police chief, governmental unit or official may limit the exercise of a permit to carry. However, the sheriff of each county can deny a permit if the sheriff makes a determination that there is a "substantial likelihood that the applicant is a danger to self or to the public."
The sheriff has the burden of presenting clear and convincing evidence for denying the permit. In his denial letter to Johnson, Litman cited Johnson's 1995 gross misdemeanor conviction for fifth-degree criminal sexual conduct. The letter also indicated that Johnson was suspected of providing alcohol to minors in 1994 and was in possession of pornographic materials in 1996, in violation of his probation.
Johnson was charged in 1994 with three counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct, solicitation of a child to engage in sexual conduct and attempted third-degree sexual conduct involving juvenile boys. As part of a plea agreement, he pleaded guilty to fifth-degree criminal sexual conduct.
Amusing Example: A Free Speech Question?
It almost sounds like this could be viewed as an insult to the Nazis:A German man is to appear in court charged with teaching his dog to give the Hitler salute.
The black sheepdog-mix, named Adolf, has been taught to lift his right front paw up straight in the salute on command.
Police were called to the scene in Berlin when Roland T, 54, shouted at passers-by last year.
When a patrol arrived, he allegedly showed them the trick he had taught his dog, gave the salute along with Adolf, and shouted: "Sieg Heil."
Now he has been charged with using symbols of unconstitutional organisations. If found guilty, he faces up to three years in prison.
Is The ACLU Arguing That Age of Consent Laws Are Unconstitutional?
It seems from this article that this is the case. The case involves an adult man convicted of having sex with a 14-year-old boy. The ACLU's argument is that because the law punishes heterosexual sex with a child under 16 less severely than homosexual sex with a child under 16, the law is discriminatory. Okay, I can understand their reasoning (equal protection) and still disagree.
But because the ACLU has to dance to the tune of their masters, it wasn't enough to argue that this was an equal protection violation.{Kansas Attorney-General] Kline cited a footnote in the ACLU's brief for Limon, in which it said teenagers have a well-established "liberty interest in being free from state compulsion" in making personal decisions about sex and marriage.
Does anyone seriously believe the ACLU is going to find any compelling state interest in preventing adults from having sex with 14 year olds after arguing that teenagers "have the right to make personal decisions about marriage and sex"? Why do teenagers have this right, but no younger? Why not six year olds (if a molester has enough candy)?
"I'll tell you what: I would be deeply offended if, when my daughter turns 13, she walks out the door to meet her 30-year-old boyfriend, and I say 'no,' and she says, 'I've got a 1-800 number for the ACLU; it's my constitutional right,' " Kline said. "That's their argument. They have to live with it."
While Lange acknowledged the ACLU said teenagers have the right to make personal decisions about marriage and sex, she said the state can override that right if it can show it has a compelling state interest -- such as protecting children.
Hilariously Wrong
I just ran across Professor Robert J. Spitzer's "Lost and Found: Researching The Second
Amendment," which appeared in the issue of Chicago-Kent Law Review 76:349 [2000] that the Joyce Foundation paid for. They paid multi-thousand dollar honoraria to professors who were known not to support an individual rights view of the Second Amendment to write articles. By the admission of those who organized this, they were explicitly not interested in presenting both points of view.
Now, as I read through Professor Spitzer's article, I am amazed at how many gross errors of fact it contains. Here's one especially amazing example:Such interpretations are false, as the Verdugo-Urquidez case has nothing to do with interpreting the Second Amendment. In fact, the case deals with the Fourth Amendment issue of whether an illegal alien from Mexico was entitled to constitutional protection regarding searches.
What does the decision say?Respondent Rene Martin Verdugo-Urquidez is a citizen and resident of Mexico. He is believed by the United States Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) to be one of the leaders of a large and violent organization in Mexico that smuggles narcotics into the United States. Based on a complaint charging respondent with various narcotics-related offenses, the Government obtained a warrant for his arrest on August 3, 1985. In January 1986, Mexican police officers, after discussions with United States marshals, apprehended Verdugo-Urquidez in Mexico and transported him to the United States Border Patrol station in Calexico, California. There, United States marshals arrested respondent and eventually moved him to a correctional center in San Diego, California, where he remains incarcerated pending trial.
Illegal alien? No. In the majority decision, Chief Justice Rehnquist discussed the meaning of the phrase “the people”—given that the phrase appears not only in several parts of the Bill of Rights, but also in the Constitution’s Preamble in order to determine its applicability to a noncitizen. Rehnquist speculated that the phrase “seems to have been a term of art,” Verdugo-Urquidez, 494 U.S. at 265, that probably pertains to people who have developed a connection with the national community. Rehnquist’s speculations about whether the meaning of “the people” could be extended to a noncitizen, and his two passing mentions of the Second Amendment in that discussion, shed no light, much less legal meaning, on this Amendment.
What did Rehnquist write about this?The Fourth Amendment provides:
Is it a "speculation" when Rehnquist's opinion is joined by Justices White, O'Connor, Scalia, and Kennedy, and none of the other justices dispute that "the people" means the same thing everywhere it appears in the Constitution?
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
That text, by contrast with the Fifth and Sixth Amendments, extends its reach only to "the people." Contrary to the suggestion of amici curiae that the Framers used this phrase "simply to avoid [an] awkward rhetorical redundancy," Brief for American Civil Liberties Union et al. as Amici Curiae 12, n. 4, "the people" seems to have been a term of art employed in select parts of the Constitution. The Preamble declares that the Constitution is ordained and established by "the people of the United States." The Second Amendment protects "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms," and the Ninth and Tenth Amendments provide that certain rights and powers are retained by and reserved to "the people." See also U.S. Const., Amdt. 1 ("Congress shall make no law . . . abridging . . . the right of the people peaceably to assemble") (emphasis added); Art. I, 2, cl. 1 ("The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the people of the several States") (emphasis added). While this textual exegesis is by no means conclusive, it suggests that "the people" protected by the Fourth Amendment, and by the First and Second Amendments, and to whom rights and powers are reserved in the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, refers to a class of persons who are part of a national community or who have otherwise developed sufficient connection with this country to be considered part of that community.
Justice Stevens concurred in the result, and gave no disagreement about what "the people" means. Justices Marshall and Brennan disagreed with the result, arguing that "the people" included aliens illegally brought into the U.S. by government agents--but even they didn't argue that "the people" meant something different in the Second Amendment from the rest of the Constitution.
I just can't take seriously an article that pretends to be correcting careless and partisan pro-gun scholarship when it can't even get the details right on a case like Verdugo-Urquidez--and cites Bellesiles's discredited scholarship: Moreover, as historian Michael Bellesiles has found, actual firearms ownership in America has been greatly exaggerated and mythologized.
It gets better: In short, Levinson offers a bona fide constitutional argument proposing that vigilantism and citizen violence, including armed insurrection, against the government are legal, proper, and even beneficial activities within the Second Amendment umbrella. The idea that vigilantism and armed insurrection are as constitutionally sanctioned as voting is a proposition of such absurdity that one is struck more by its boldness than by its pretensions to seriousness. Yet it appears repeatedly in the individualist literature.
What a concept! Our government was born in revolution--not by voting. Is anyone surprised that they guaranteed a "right of the people" to be armed--but didn't even guarantee every free white man a right to vote? (Look carefully: the Constitution left qualifications for voting to the states.)
Mother Jones on the Lott Controversy
Instapundit calls it "Allowing for the fact that it has a certain Mother Jones slant, it's not a bad summary, I think," and gives an example of the slant--that Professor Saul Cornell isn't adequately identified for the partisan that he is, or that he was a long-time defender of Michael Bellesiles's "scholarship." (There's no permalink yet to the Instapundit entry, however.)
I would point to some other serious problems with the Mother Jones article.But many gun rights conservatives have taken a pass on the Lott issue. A glowing review of "The Bias Against Guns" in National Review -- which made much hash of the Bellesiles affair -- failed to mention Lott's recent difficulties in corroborating the existence of his survey. "It's so interesting that Michael Bellesiles gets hung from the highest tree, while Lott, if anything, he's been more prominent in the last couple of months," says Donohue.
At least one significant difference is that anyone of normal intelligence could read the critiques of Bellesiles's work and immediately see that Bellesiles had altered quotes and misrepresented sources. The allegations against Lott require some in-depth knowledge of statistics to understand. Even those with a little knowledge of the subject (like myself) have to work very hard to fully understand the criticisms and rebuttals--and even then, I don't know enough about this subject to be confident that I understand all the points being made. The Bellesiles fraud was, by comparison, easy to understand.
There is one allegation against Lott that requires no detailed knowledge of statistics: did the 1997 survey actually take place? There is simply no persuasive evidence that it took place; this bothers me a lot. Lott's explanation involves a long sequence of events that are individually unsurprising but collectively bizarre. However, there is no overwhelming evidence that it did not take place. (That Lott was able to reproduce similar results with a 2002 survey--even though the 1997 and 2002 results conflict with lots of other studies--suggests that the 1997 survey could have taken place.)
This is where the comparison to the Bellesiles scandal falls apart. Bellesiles's problem wasn't primarily that he claimed to have probate data that no one else could reproduce; it was that Bellesiles had data that others were able to check--and demonstrate that Bellesiles's data was wrong. Furthermore, the vast number of cited documents that Bellesiles misrepresented demonstrated that Bellesiles was a liar. So far, I have seen nothing that puts Lott's work into quite so simple and obvious a category.The right has good reason to stick by Lott: "The entire ideology of the modern gun movement has basically been built around this guy," says Saul Cornell, an Ohio State University historian who has written widely on guns.
This is wrong. The "ideology" of the modern gun movement has been built around the constitutional questions (as the following sentences in the article show), and the work of other sociologists, such as Gary Kleck.Over the years the pro-gun intellectual agenda has had two prongs: Defending a revisionist legal understanding of the Second Amendment in constitutional law, and refuting social scientists and public-health researchers who argue that the widespread availability of guns in America plays a key role in the nation's staggering number of homicides and suicides. Without Lott's work, the latter argument becomes much harder to make.
As the Mother Jones article points out, however, even Ayres & Donohue's work "shows statistically insignificant decreases in murder, rape, and robbery" as a result of non-discretionary permit issuance laws. If you want to argue that these laws don't make any real difference in violent crime rates, I'm willing to seriously discuss it, because it fits in with the rest of the evidence that most gun control laws are pretty much irrelevant to violent crime rates. But Lott's work is the cherry on top of a lot of other work that suggests that gun control laws are largely a waste of time. It isn't the core of the evidence.
UPDATE: When I say above, "There is simply no persuasive evidence that it took place" I mean that the evidence that I would consider persuasive would be names of the surveyers; cancelled checks or other written evidence of payment to people that worked for Lott on this; phone bills showing lots of random phone calls. What Dr. Lott has are statements by people that remember that he was working on such a survey, and that he said he had completed it, before the hard disk crash destroyed the data (and a lot of other data for other projects as well), as well as David Gross's statement that he was surveyed in 1997 with questions that sound like Dr. Lott's survey.
Part of why written documentation persuades me far more than statements from a variety of individuals is that, even assuming that no one lies or shades the truth, the human memory is a funny thing. It tries to fit information into structures that it already has. This is why under very good viewing conditions, you can see canals on Mars; your mind sees disconnected dots, and makes lines of them. This is why eyewitness testimony is so often wrong.
If you read some of the statements from witnesses that are here on Dr. Lott's website, you can see Dr. Mustard's statement:When do I first remember talking with John Lott about the survey?
Dr. Mustard is absolutely sure that Dr. Lott told him about the survey before 10/20/1999, and "highly probable" by November 1998. This helps a lot, but Dr. Mustard's certainty about this declines as he goes further back in time. This is not surprising (memory works that way). This doesn't mean that Dr. Lott is a liar; it means that contemporaneous evidence from eyewitnesses of the survey gets less and less certain the closer we get to the date of completion.
I do not remember the first time John Lott and I talked about the survey. At the time there was nothing exceptional about the survey for me to associate with it and help me remember when I first learned about it.
I believe it likely that John informed me of the completed survey in 1997.
I think it highly probable that John told me he had completed the survey at the time of my talk at the Academics for the Second Amendment conference in Washington, DC in November 1998.
I know beyond a reasonable doubt that John and I talked about the completed survey before I testified to the Maryland House of Delegates Judiciary Committee on 20 October 1999 about Maryland House Bill 736 to allow citizens to carry concealed weapons.
Dr. John Whitley's statement in that same place is also interesting for what it says--and what it doesn't say. Whitley gives us evidence that Dr. Lott employed undergraduates for some research project at the time, but doesn't give us any evidence that it was the 1997 defensive gun survey that Tim Lambert, among others, insists didn't happen. Notice the uncertainty in it--just like real memories are:Unfortunately it is possible that I am mixing this scene up in my head with other events, but it is fairly clear in my head so I am at least reasonably confident in it. If my recollection is correct, it is entirely possible (very likely, in fact) that these were some of the students who had worked on the survey (I do have some vague recollection that they had coordinated something and that others may have been involved). Unfortunately that is all I can really remember on that one right now, sorry I can't be more specific.
Geoffrey Huck's account in that same place establiishes (as does the memo from David Mustard) that Dr. Lott suffered a hard disk crash at the time:I have a vague recollection of a chapter or a section or sections of a chapter that had to be scrapped because of the computer crash, but I don't at this stage remember the subject of it (or them). At the time, we were talking about a variety of things John could do (e.g., including a chapter on mass public shootings). As to my e-mail archives, there are a couple of brief mentions in John's and my exchanges about the crash and loss of data, though I have found nothing explicitly about the defensive use of handguns in them (which doesn't mean anything in itself, since we were mostly talking on the phone and there must have been all kinds of things that were lost in the crash that we didn't discuss in the archived e-mails I still have).
Unfortunately, it doesn't establish that there was a 1997 defensive gun use survey lost in that crash. A number of other letters that the Washington Post chose not to publish also demonstrate that there was a catastrophic hard disk crash that Dr. Lott suffered during this time.
So what do we have from the statements that Dr. Lott has made available? Clear evidence of a hard disk crash (which happens often enough that no one should consider this surprising). Evidence that Dr. Lott had been thinking of doing a defensive gun survey, and that certainly by late 1999, and perhaps earlier, he told Dr. Mustard that he had completed such a survey. David Gross's statement is a strong piece of evidence that someone (probably Dr. Lott's students) surveyed him in 1997 about defensive gun use.
On the negative side, there are no written records to substantiate this survey. No payment records to the students who worked for Dr. Lott. No names of the students who did the work, and they have not appeared to confirm that they did this work. No written records from the phone calls (as I would hope to have as a backup to computer failure of any sort). No canceled checks available, because Dr. Lott's wife does the taxes, and throws everything out after three years. Are any of these items absurd? No. Every single one of them is entirely plausible. But all of them combined are being used to great effect by Tim Lambert and John Donohue to cast doubt on Dr. Lott's integrity.
What's my reaction? David Gross' statement is likely a memory of Dr. Lott's survey, because no other survey that year was published, and no other survey in the late 1990s was short enough to match what David Gross remembers. There is the possibility that someone started a survey, and either didn't complete it, or didn't publish it. I would not think this is a strong possibility, but it's at least possible.
The other evidence that Dr. Lott has put up on his website is persuasive evidence that Dr. Lott suffered a hard disk crash, and that by late 1998, and certainly by late 1999, Dr. Lott had told Dr. Mustard about the 1997 survey. Only two of them can really be considered evidence that Dr. Lott did such a survey: David Gross's statement, and Dr. Mustard's statement. Neither of these statesment establishes certainly that Dr. Lott performed such a survey in 1997, although both provide some evidence for this claim.
The 2002 survey that Dr. Lott did (and it is well established to have happened), gave roughly similar numbers to the 1997 survey results. It seems unlikely that Dr. Lott could construct a survey that would give him numbers to match a previous survey, unless that previous survey was real. He could certainly just make numbers up to match--but running a real survey certain to give the right numbers would require an amazing level of knowledge of how real people would answer the questions. That's probably the strongest piece of evidence that the 1997 survey actually happened.
So, here's what it comes down to: is there any reason to believe Dr. Lott, or any reason to disbelieve him? My general inclination is to believe someone until they give me reason to disbelieve. Unfortunately, Dr. Lott stumbled into a highly politicized area, and when you are confronting people like Tim Lambert or John Donohue, you need to have very persuasive evidence. Why? Because both of them are partisans on this issue (Professor Donohue's protestations are not persuasive), and they are going to demand very high standards of proof. The evidence for the 1997 survey having been completed boils down to this: Dr. Lott's word (somewhat tarnished by the Mary Rosh matter), the assumption (likely true) that David Gross was one of those surveyed by Dr. Lott's students, and the repeatability of the survey in 2002 with similar results.
On the negative side, the lack of written records is quite astonishing, but then again, I tend to be a packrat, and won't let my wife throw away records after three years (as Dr. Lott's wife does).
I don't think there is evidence to justify calling Dr. Lott a liar, and that's what those who insist that the 1997 survey didn't happen are saying. To call someone a liar means that you need a lot more than just a lack of evidence that someone is telling the truth. Right now, Dr. Lott has a bunch of jigsaw pieces that all together support his claim to have done such a survey--but the lack of any written evidence is really damaging. What Dr. Lott asserts happened to all the records is a series of plausible but unfortunate situations: hard disk failure; records thrown out before he knew he would need them; required to vacate an office at Yale in only 48 hours, so he had to throw out a lot of notes and materials that might have helped (Lott isn't sure if the materials he threw away included any of this); inability to remember his research assistants' names (not surprising, this many years later).
All of these things together are still within the realm of legitimate disaster, and to call Dr. Lott a liar based on the lack of written records is unjustified. I will say that the evidence for the 1997 survey is unpersuasive to anti-gun academics, and not persuasive to me. I am not happy about this at all, especially because I played some part in raising the bar on this subject, by actually checking Bellesiles's work for accuracy. The standard for establishing someone as a fraud, however, is a lot more than just inability to prove that something happened. Fraud requires a much higher standard of proof than evidence of error. No one, to my knowledge, has reached that level with respect to Dr. Lott's 1997 survey, and I suspect that no one can. Proving that something didn't happen is a lot harder than proving that it did happen.
Ed Asner On Stalin
The following exchange leaves four possibilities open:
1. This is a ferocious slander on Ed Asner;
2. Evidence that Asner doesn't listen to questions very carefully;
3. A sign that Ed Asner doesn't realize that Stalin was one of the great monsters of human history; or,
4. Evidence that Asner believes that mass murder, political repression, and institutionalized torture are a path to being admired.
From a column by Kevin McCullough, describing a press junket interview with Asner, about the film Elf in which Asner stars:"Mr. Asner, I do have a question – unrelated to the film," I said. "In your long and distinguished acting career, going back to your earliest days in Chicago all the way up to present days working with Will Farrell on 'Elf', you have had the chance to do almost anything you could ever wish to do. But if you had the chance to play the biographical story of a historical figure you respected most over your lifetime, who would it be?"
Thanks to Andrew Sullivan and Instapundit for the link.
Remembering the sad story he had told about the poor kids in Chicago, I half expected him to come out with a political name of some sort.
"I think Joe Stalin was a guy that was hugely misunderstood," said Asner. "And to this day, I don't think I have ever seen an adequate job done of telling the story of Joe Stalin, so I guess my answer would have to be Joe Stalin."
UPDATE: I'm glad that I left four possibilities on this. McCullough is now saying that he got the question and Asner's response entirely wrong. Go re-read his retraction at the link above.
