Gun News of the Week: Harvard Research Shows Mass Shootings Spur Ineffective, Knee-Jerk Laws
TOP STORY
Brady Bunch brings Chuckie Cheeze to his knees
Good ol’ Chuckie Cheeze. If there is a poster boy for do-nothing grandiose pomposity, for suck-up, stomach-turning synchopantism, it is none other than the liberal Democrat Senator from New York — Sen. Chuck ‘Chuckie Cheeze’ Schumer.
In a heroic made-for-TV speech, Schumer bravely announced last week that he would introduce yet another universal background checks bill in the Senate on May 16. Schumer did so not because it has a chance of passing, nor is he actually concerned with proposing a bill that would do anything to keep guns out of the hands of lunatics. None of that matters now, or ever did, to Sen. Cheeze and his cabal of ideologues.
No. Schemer’s proposed bill is nothing more than a gambit to retain the adoration — and campaign donations — of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, which issued a statement earlier in May criticizing the all mouth-mouth-mouth-and-no-action Schumer for being, well, useless.
According to Schumer’s office — his staff is among the best on Capitol Hill — the Senator felt compelled to introduce a bill that has no chance of passing “to avoid any misunderstanding” that he still opposes legal gun ownership.
Bottom line: Schumer is proposing this go-nowhere bill to “avoid misunderstanding” with campaign sponsors.
“It’s probably going to come as a great disappointment to (the Brady campaign) but one of the few things that politicians hate more than losing elections is wasting the time to author a bill which has no chance of getting out of committee for a vote, and when it comes to the sort of background checks favored by the Brady Campaign and other gun control groups, we’re discussing an already well-trod path of failure,” writes Bob Owens in Bearingarms.com.
For more, go to:
— Chuck Schumer to unveil universal background checks bill after outside pressure
— Gun-control group pushes Schumer, he obliges
— Don’t You Know You Catch More Fish With Torn Nets?
BOTTOM LINE ANALYSIS
Harvard: Mass shootings spur ineffective, knee-jerk laws
Mass shootings account for only 0.3% of all gun deaths in the US, but they evoke a significantly larger policy response than regular gun-related fatalities.
A trio of researchers from the Harvard Business School researchers have documented what we all know: Mass shootings, although a scourge of our time, are statistically insignificant when counted with all gun-related deaths, yet they have profound influence on policy-making.
According to HBS researchers, mass shootings account for less than 0.3 percent — that’s 3 in 1,000 — of all firearms-related deaths in the United States but spur a corresponding 15-percent knee-jerk increase in the number of gun-control bills submitted by politicians seeking to capitalize on peoples’ emotions in the wake of a horrific, highly-publicized mass shooting.
The study calculates the “per-death impact of mass shootings on bills introduced (is) about 66 times as large as the impact of individual gun murders.”
The ironic, perhaps surprising, aspect of the study isn’t that mass shootings spur a spike in gun-control legislation, but that it sometimes does the opposite. In fact, whether those bills tighten or loosen gun regulations depends on which party controls the legislature.
According to the study, when Republicans are in power, a mass shooting increases the number of laws that are passed loosening gun restrictions by 75 percent while there is no significant legislative response when Democrats control the legislature.
“I was surprised that politics is more dominant than policy in the aftermath of a mass shooting,” said Michael Luca, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School, and one of the working paper’s authors, told Jenny Anderson of Quartz.com on May 11.
The study’s bottom line: More gun laws have not made America a safer place and until that fact gets some ambient airing, the TV-educated will continue to be beguiled by the prevailing wisdom that guns are bad, people who own guns are bad, and gun laws actually decrease gun violence.
For more, go to:
— Harvard researchers uncover what happens with US gun laws after mass shootings
— When Mass Shootings Lead To Looser Gun Restrictions
— Harvard Study Embraced by Gun Rights Advocates Is Neither a “Study,” Nor Really “Harvard”
— When Mass Shootings Lead to Looser Gun Restrictions
— The Impact of Mass Shootings on Gun Policy
STATE ROUNDUP
Bloomberg bucks helping Missourians learn what’s best for Missourians
Missouri gunowners are bracing for what promises to be a nasty assault on their characters and intellect as anti-gun zealot Michael Bloomberg unleashes the full broadside of his media empire on them, state lawmakers and the U.S. Constitution.
Bloomberg-financed front frauds Everytown for Gun Safety and the Missouri chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, are using the former Nw York City Mayor’s deep pockets to pay for ubiquitous ads urging lawmakers to vote against a Missouri proposal to allow open carry. The same bill would also expand the state’s so-called “Stand Your Ground” protections to include public places.
The Bloombergians’ ad, which began airing May 11, is only part of the effort to derail Constitutional carry. According to the Bloombergians themselves — a team of 80 “volunteers: (aka “professionals”) flown into Missouri to help Missourians determine what is best for Missourians — they are also making “hundreds” of calls to legislators opposing permit-less carry and lobbying (aka, stalking) lawmakers wherever they.
“Out-of-state billionaire and former New York City mayor, Michael Bloomberg, has once-again launched a misinformation campaign aimed at undermining the rights of law-abiding Missourians,” the NRA said in an alert. “Bloomberg-funded gun control groups are misrepresenting facts and statistics in an attempt to persuade your elected officials to oppose these constitutional carry bills. Don’t let Bloomberg bring his big-city style gun-control to Missouri!”
For more, go to:
— Gun Control Group Moves to Block Missouri’s Constitutional Carry
— We The People: 2A Group Rallies Citizens to Defeat Gun Control in MA
— Arizona Governor Signs Two Pro-Gun Bills Into Law
— Wisconsin: Officials call for stronger laws on straw gun purchases
— Giffords lend support to Washington gun confiscation initiative
— SC Senate Panel Passes Bill to Protect Gun Rights
— Would-be gun buyers who fail Michigan background check targeted in new bill
— California: Package of Gun Bills Moving Through State Legislature
— Actress Delivers Gun Control Lies on Cue
— NRA Lobbying Arm Fights Nevada Gun Background Check Measure
IN THE COURTS
Fourth Circuit hears challenge to Maryland 'assault weapon' ban
The Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Virginia on May 11 heard arguments in Kolbe v. Hogan, the National Rifle Association-supported lawsuit filed by the Maryland State Rifle and Pistol Association and others challenging Maryland’s bans on detachable magazines and semi-automatic rifles defined as “assault weapons.”
The Maryland suit is similar to those filed in Connecticut and New York, which were unsuccessful, in challenging bans on semi-autos adopted after the December 2012 Newtown shooting.
Maryland’s Firearm Safety Act of 2013 banned possession of firearms designated as “assault weapons,” which gun-owners recognize as a politically contrived term designed to scare those unfamiliar with firearms. Maryland’s definition of “assault weapon” includes dozens of types of high-capacity weapons, including the popular AR-15 rifle. Maryland also banned sales and purchases of ammunition magazines of more than 10 rounds among other provisions.
In February, according to the Associated Press, a three-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit vacated a lower-court ruling upholding Maryland’s law. A month later, the Fourth Circuit voted to rehear the case, but this time putting it before all of the judges on the appeals court.
The appellate court’s decision is anxiously awaited. Many speculate that this case could ultimately be kicked up to the Supreme Court. The outcome “is too close to call at this point,” the NRA stated in a press release after the hearing.
For more, go to:
— Second Amendment Challenge to Maryland Gun Law Goes Before Appeals Court
— US appeals court hears Maryland gun control case
— Appeals Court to Revisit Maryland 'Assault' Weapon Ban
— The Latest: US appeals court hears Maryland gun-control case