Political commentator and actor Steven Crowder decided to set up an experiment to see just how well people that want “common sense” gun control knew about firearms.
He set up a tent for “Citizens Coalition for Common Sense Gun Reform” to ask people that do not own or are interested in guns to see how much they knew about firearms and which ones should be banned based on “common sense.”
Crowder quickly finds out that the people who are in favor or “common sense” gun control know very little about guns in the first place and what they are capable of. The people just
decided which guns should be banned based on how it makes them feel.
[See John R. Lott’s More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws, Third Edition (Studies in Law and Economics) at Amazon]
For example, many people wanted more “tactical looking” firearms banned, but yet other kinds of rifles displayed on the table were fine, such as hunting rifles. Crowder does point out on the side that the AR-15 is actually a popular small game hunting rifle but because it looks tactical, it should be banned.
People were also not well informed on what types of guns were used in crimes and thought that the AR-15 is used in many cases, but as Crowder points out, from 2007 to 2015, 70% of shooting murders are from handguns.
Source: American Military News
— H. L. Mencken
Buried somewhere in the above Daily Beast article is probably a perfectly decent, arguable case for a certain kind of small-ball, incremental legislation. Unfortunately, but predictably, its case is comically undermined by hateful, shallow, silly, dishonest writing.
Ohh! Those evil Republicans! They should be taken out and horsewhipped! Here, hold my drink. I’ll do it. Get outta my way. I’ve got some GOP ass to beat. Oh, never mind.
Never mind that this advocacy item masquerading as journalism doesn’t even attempt to demonstrate how the measures will have any impact whatsoever, to “avert mass shootings”. Which is understandable. One; averting mass shootings is not, and never was, the goal of activist gun-control legislation. And two; There’s no evidence that “averting mass shootings” can be accomplished by legislation in the first place.
Think the gun debate isn’t polluted with toxic stupidity from the Left? Read on:
“…But with the substantial distortion of our democracy around guns, they are the issue with which this particular method most adheres to the original intentions of the progressives who created it a century ago, at a time when large interests such as timber and railroads blocked popular reforms in legislative bodies around the country.”
The progressives who created it a century ago. Right. Wait, you mean the puritan, racist, anti-constitutional Wilsonian reformers of that era, the progressive activists who gave us segregation, prohibition, and Jim Crow laws, those guys?
The early 20th-century progressives’ “original intentions” are in stark contrast to the intentions of our founders. Cautious, deliberative men, keenly aware of the historically destructive effects of “direct democracy“.
Ever notice how our most sacred and treasured rights are intentionally safeguarded, hardwired in the Bill of Rights? Completely out of reach of voters?
The founders were no fans of democracy.
Benjamin Franklin definition of democracy is as clear now as it was over two centuries ago. Read the rest of this entry »
A former spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin who co-founded the Kremlin-backed news outlet RT died in a Washington hotel room of blunt force trauma to the head in November, according the office of D.C.’s medical examiner.
The Thursday revelation runs counter to previous reports that Mikhail Lesin‘s November death was due to a heart attack, reigniting accusations that foul play may have been involved.
[Also see – Palace Intrigue: Putin’s Aide Mikhail Lesin Found Dead]
A joint statement from the Washington Office of the Chief Medical Examiner and the Metropolitan Police Department claimed that Lesin, 59, also suffered “blunt force injuries of the neck, torso, upper extremities and lower extremities,” which contributed to his death. Read the rest of this entry »
Brawl erupted in Ukraine’s upper house of parliament when a member of the legislature attempted to drag prime minister Arseny Yatsenyuk from the floor’s podium.
From The Daily Beast:
The Ukrainian parliament on Friday broke out into a brawl after one member approached Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, handed him a bouquet of roses, and then forcefully picked him up by the crotch, and removed him from the podium. Mayhem ensued, with members rushing toward the two men. The prime minister had been defending his embattled government.
— Syed Farook’s father
CORONA, CALIFORNIA — Law enforcement officials have identified Syed Farook as one of the suspected shooters who attacked a center for the disabled in San Bernardino, California, according to NBC News….
From the New York Daily News:
After police announced that two suspects — a male and a female — were dead following a car chase and shoot out with police, a search began at a nearby Redlands apartment linked to the suspects.
A man who identified himself as Farook’s father told the Daily News his son worked as a health technician inspecting restaurants and hotels.
“I haven’t heard anything. He worked in a county office,” Farook’s dad told The News. “He’s married and has a kid. We’re estranged because my wife got the divorce, and they are together. She doesn’t want to see me.”
Farook said he hasn’t seen his son in some time.
“He was very religious. He would go to work, come back, go to pray, come back. He’s Muslim.”
JUST IN: Suspect in #SanBernardino shooting ID’d as Syed Farook; Another believed to be Farook’s brother: Sources https://t.co/XuFyOhXh2T
— NBC News (@NBCNews) December 3, 2015
Police pursued a car leaving from the Redlands address, Chief Jarrod Baraugan said at a Wednesday evening press conference. A male and female suspect were inside the car, and both of them have been killed. Both of the suspects were armed with assault rifles and handguns, Baraugan said.
The Daily Beast reports:
…Mercer reportedly demanded to know victims’ religions before opening killing them, according to witnesses and authorities.
A MySpace account belonging to Christopher Harper-Mercer is registered to Torrance, California. Harper-Mercer and his mother previously lived in Torrance before moving to an apartment in Winchester, Oregon, where neighbors tell The Daily Beast there is a heavy police presence currently.
The MySpace page features a photo of Harper-Mercer holding a gun and smiling into the camera. The profile includes images of pro-Irish Republican Army propaganda….(read more)
Source: The Daily Beast
Nickarama writes:
Whoa, baby…
Via Daily Beast:
The rest of the Daily Beast article is a festival of Ahmed delighting in how famous he is. The reporter doesn’t seem to really understand what he just heard, and then blames it on ‘Islamophobia’….(read more)
Source: Weasel Zippers
Nick Gillespie
writes: Call me a heartless bastard, but images of dead Syrian children washing up on beaches should have absolutely nothing to do with American foreign policy, refugee quotas, or immigration schemes. Photo-based emotionalism is no way to conduct the affairs of nations. That way madness—and all too often, even more carnage—lies.
[Read the full text here, at The Daily Beast]
It’s one thing when highly charged images speak to pressing domestic concerns whose solutions are clear and within a single country’s ability to effect. In late 18th-century England, for instance, Thomas Clarkson’s illustration of slaveswedged into a ship’s hold like barrels of rum helped jump-start Britain’s abolitionist movement. Footage from Bull Connor’s Birmingham and Vietnam electrified the Civil Rights and anti-war movements. In such cases, the solutions were self-evident (if difficult to achieve): Stop your own countrymen from perpetuating evil. Nothing is so simple when it comes to wars and catastrophes in which you are not even a direct participant. Read the rest of this entry »
David Francis writes: So far, the State Department, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, has released just a small sampling of 55,000 pages of email from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s home internet server. The 
timing of the releases have been less than ideal: The first batch was released on the afternoon of May 22, the Friday before the long Memorial Day weekend. The second came late in the evening, on June 30, less than an ideal time for reporters to dig in to find a story.
According to U.S. District Judge Richard Leon, the pace of the releases, just like their timing, is also less than ideal.
“Now, any person should be able to review that in one day — one day,” the judge said at a Wednesday hearing, while reviewing an Associated Press request for the release of just over 60 emails. “Even the least ambitious bureaucrat could do this.”
New York Daily News
[Read the full text here, at ForeignPolicy.com, and more at the New York Daily News]
[Noah Rothman on the Media’s Favorite Framing Device: ‘Republican Reaction’ Stories]
The premiere of “Breaking Bad” spin-off @BetterCallSaul did not disappoint: http://t.co/vtYINFUZVX pic.twitter.com/3XzBkqM8fP
— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) February 9, 2015
‘American Sniper’ is the most widely screened R-rated movie in history
Demand to see American Sniper is so great that it will expand to 3,705 screens this weekend, making it the most widely screened R-rated movie in history. The controversial war movie starring Bradley Cooper as a Navy SEAL made $105 million over the four-day weekend instead of the expected $50 million…(read more)
Joel Kotkin writes: You are a political party, and you want to secure the electoral majority. But what happens, as is occurring to the Democrats, when the damned electorate that just won’t live the way—in dense cities and apartments—that you have deemed is best for them?
This gap between party ideology and demographic reality has led to a disconnect that not only devastated the Democrats this year, but could hurt them in the decades to come. University of Washington demographer Richard Morrill notes that the vast majority of the 153 million Americans who live in metropolitan areas with
populations of more than 500,000 live in the lower-density suburban places Democrats think they should not. Only 60 million live in core cities.
[See Joel Kotkin’s book “The New Class Conflict“ at Amazon.com]
Despite these realities, the Democratic Party under Barack Obama has increasingly allied itself with its relatively small core urban base. Simply put, the party cannot win—certainly not in off-year elections—if it doesn’t score well with suburbanites. Indeed, Democrats, as they retreat to their coastal redoubts, have become ever more aggressively anti-suburban, particularly in deep blue states such as California. “To minimize sprawl” has become a bedrock catchphrase of the core political ideology.
As will become even more obvious in the lame duck years, the political obsessions of the Obama Democrats largely mirror those of the cities: climate change, gay marriage, feminism, amnesty for the undocumented, and racial redress. These may sometimes be worthy causes, but they don’t address basic issues that effect suburbanites, such as stagnant middle class wages, poor roads, high housing prices, or underperforming schools. None of these concerns elicit much passion among the party’s true believers. Read the rest of this entry »
Amanda Knox waves to supporters as she makes her first appearance at SeaTac Airport after arriving in Seattle following her release from prison in Italy on October 4, 2011. US student Amanda Knox arrived home a day after she was acquitted of murder and sexual assault charges and freed from jail in Italy, after a four-year ordeal. Kevin Casey/AFP/Getty Images)
Pamela Geller writes: On the very day that the devout Muslim group Boko Haram released a video of the kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls, clad in burkas and being forced to recite the Qur’an, author Dean Obeidallah declared in the Daily Beast that “The Nigerian terrorist group that kidnapped hundreds of schoolgirls has nothing to do with Islam, and it’s grotesquely irresponsible of the media to suggest it does.”
Mr. Obeidallah, it’s not the media that suggests it; it is Boko Haram that declares it.
It is not grotesque to tell the truth. What is grotesque is that the widely-read Daily Beast would run such damaging propaganda by a failed yet self-described “comic.”
[Geller‘s book: Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance
The Daily Beast is doing an end run for Islamic jihad when these girls’ lives hang in the balance. That is a different kind of savagery. The Beast is more worried about Islam’s PR than it is in educating the public on the most grave threat to freedom, not just in Nigeria but across the world.
Clearly, the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls is just more empty rhetoric from hypocrites, not an honest clarion call for action.
This one seems real to, not like the early January hoax that “reported” 37 deaths from marijuana in Colorado soon after the law decriminalizing the drug in that state went into effect.
Historians will look back at the present moment with astonishment that Iran so skillfully outwitted the West, says David Keyes, the executive director of Advancing Human Rights.
“They will note the breathtaking naiveté of American and European officials who let a brutal theocracy undermine Western interests throughout the Middle East,” he writes for The Daily Beast:
At one of Iran’s most vulnerable moments, America threw the mullahs a life-line; an ill-conceived nuclear deal coupled with a complete inability to stop Syria, Iran’s closest ally, from continuing to slaughter en masse. Western diplomats speak optimistically of a deal with Syria in Geneva, while the region’s thugs use force of arms to impose their will.
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