"Gun Control": Another Homer for TSM

The Smallest Minority: Gun Control:

The Brady Campaign report Brady Background Check: 15 Years of Saving Lives (PDF) proclaims that over that 15 year period through 2008 the background check "blocked" 1,631,000 purchases, but the DoJ report states that from 2006 through 2010 a total of only 209 guilty pleas or guilty verdicts were recorded due to background check prosecutions. Moreover, the "referrals for prosecution" declined from 273 in 2006 to 62 in 2010.

"So what?" you may ask. Well, if the prohibited person wasn't put in jail, what was to stop him or her from getting a gun some other way? I mean, if we're not even willing to imprison the stupid felons, what's the point? It's as though the DoJ didn't want the background system to do the job we were told it was created to do. And if a Federal program fails, what is the inevitable result of that failure? Do It Again, ONLY HARDER!

But what if the purpose of the background check system isn't to keep guns out of the hands of criminals?  Then what is it for?  What if its actual purpose is "less gun sales"?  Each year we've added well in excess of four million new or imported old guns to those already in circulation, bringing the total in private hands to somewhere in excess of 310 million by one recent estimate. (PDF) Well, obviously it's failed there too, and thus: Do It Again, ONLY HARDER!

And when Sandy Hook occurred, what was the proposed banner legislation?  Strengthened background checks!  (Along with the inevitable "assault weapon ban" and magazine restriction renewal, of course.) 

I concur totally that "the real problem is the ongoing violence that is non-spree related" which has been declining without new gun control laws, but apparently neither the government nor the "gun safety" groups do. Why do I say that? Well, instead of just taking them at their word, I observe their actions - with the exception of the Violence Policy Center which states plainly that its charter is the disarming of the American public.  If "the ongoing violence that is not spree-related" was what was being addressed, we wouldn't be having this argument.


It has been well documented for decades that the majority of violent crime up to and including homicide is committed by a small, identifiable population - people with prior police records of violent offenses:

I have often cited Uber-Blogs by Kevin Baker of "The Smallest Minority" as (a) my single most consistent Daily Read, and (b) one of the best writers on Second Amendment issues that I know of ... bar none.

In fact,  his research is so extensive, his sources so authoritative, and his connective logic so smooth that I despair  of measuring up to standards which he has established.

Sometimes I think I should write a single post, and re-present it as new post each day; the post would consist of a single line:

What are you looking here for?   Go read The Smallest Minority!"

In this latest Uber-blog (see the link at the top), Kevin addresses all the issues I had addressed yesterday, but with better organization and a HUGE amount of reference links to his sources.   It's not just observations and opinion,  but a thorough review of the history of both gun-control and gun rights going back to the sixties.

I intend to bookmark this article because ... well, in the move to The New Blogger last February I lost all of my best links and haven't yet found them all.    I recommend that you also bookmark it for the same purpose.  Where else are you going to find, for example, a link to the ....
"...gun control study commissioned by the Carter Administration in 1978, published in 1983 and titled Under the Gun: Weapons, Crime, and Violence in America:"?

Besides that, it's a damned good read.

Keep up the good work, Kevin.  America is depending upon you to keep us informed on the issues behind the issues.

(There.  That should assure me of another year's tacit permission to steal cite shamelessly from his research.)