In Do We Have A Constitutional Right To Own An AR?, I noted 2-, 3-, 4- and 5-man home invasions that had occurred all over America in the span of just a few days.  In recent news:

In Louisiana, a 4-man home invasion.

In Clemson, S.C., a 4-man home invasion.

In Akron, Ohio, a 4-man home invasion.

In Longwood, Florida, a 2-man home invasion.

In York, Pa., a 3-man home invasion.

In Independence, Mo, an 11-man home invasion leading to three deaths.

In Oklahoma, a 3-man home invasion.

In Knoxville, Tn., a 2-man home invasion.

In Tucson, Arizona, a 3-man home invasion.

In Arkansas, a 3-man home invasion.

In Rockford, Ill, a 3-man home invasion.

In Georgia, a 2-man home invasion.

In Texas, a 2-man home invasion with three family members shot.

In Philadelphia, a 2-man home invasion.

Man beaten and intentionally burned in home invasion in Laurel, Montana.

In N.C., a 2-man home invasion.

In Grantville, Pa., a 4-man home invasion.

In St. Petersburg, a 2-man home invasion.

In Georgia, a 2-man home invasion.

When a violent crime is intended, the criminals are increasingly teaming up into multiple-man crews to perpetrate their evil.  Thanks, but I think I’ll keep my high capacity magazines.

Prior: The Wrong Way To Argue About Assault Weapons

According to the WSJ, yes.  According to the Baltimore Sun, no.

The Wall Street Journal over the weekend used Baltimore and the world-renowned Maryland Shock Trauma Center as the setting for a story saying hospital statistics show gun violence nationwide was “soaring,” and that a continuing national decline in homicides in spite of this trend was improved trauma care.

The article doesn’t go into city-specific data. But at least in Baltimore, those findings go against most every measure of crime available, and indeed Shock Trauma’s own statistics.

[ … ]

Dr. Thomas Scalea, the physician-in-chief at Shock Trauma, allowed the Journal access to the unit, where 24 people were admitted before the sun rose, including five people shot or stabbed. “Violence down?” Scalea told a reporter. “I don’t think so.”

This is not the first time Scalea has been on record questioning whether violence is down. “The violence is getting worse, in my opinion; it’s not getting substantially better,” Scalea said during an appearance on the television show “Square Off.” “The guns on the street are more deadly, and it’s every day for us.”

In fiscal year 2009, which is how the trauma center collects data, there were 414 people from the region treated there for gunshot wounds that were the result of assaults, according to internal demographics reports. That declined to 347 in 2009-2010, and 306 in 2011-2012. That’s a drop of 26 percent.

In comparison, during the 2008 to 2011 calendar years, police statistics show total shootings declined 29 percent — within the margin of error of Shock Trauma’s data.

The Wall Street Journal also said that the national percentage of people who died after being shot has declined two percentage points since 2007 to 2010, to 13.96 percent. Scalea told the Journal that the mortality rate for gunshot wounds at Shock Trauma is about 4 percent, including the patients who are dead on arrival.

In Baltimore, where trauma victims are likely to be taken to Shock Trauma or Johns Hopkins Hospital, police statistics show that of the total number of people shot in 2000, 203 died — about 21 percent. In 2011, 149 homicide victims had been shot, representing 28 percent of all shooting victims.

So here is the narrative.  Gun violence is getting worse, so the “experts” say.  In case you want to trot out statistics, they have some anecdotal evidence of their own.  National trends showing a decrease in homicides are merely due to better trauma care.  They’re sure of it.

Got that?  But the data in Baltimore, the very subject of the WSJ article, doesn’t support the narrative.  Gun violence is down, and just in case you were wondering, the Baltimore Sun shows you that the trauma care is about the same or a little worse, and that the actual number of people who died as a result of gun shots actually went up as a percentage of those who were shot.  So in other words, better trauma care isn’t the reason for the decreasing national gun violence trend.

The truth.  Destroying the gun control myths and turning the “experts” into liars at every turn.

Following up on ATF Ruling On Sporting Purposes Exemption To Armor Piercing Ammunition, Cam Edwards talks to John Frazer, NRA-ILA’s Director of Research and Information, in a very informative video.  It’s worth watching.

From The Daily Beast:

David Hemenway, the author of this debunking, traces the overstatement of defensive gun uses to an inherent statistical problem: with very rare events (like defensive gun use), seemingly small sampling errors can lead to very large overstatements of incidence.

Say that survey findings are a 1% overestimate of the true incidence. If the true incidence were 40%, estimating it at 41% might not be a problem. But if the true incidence were .2%, measuring it as 1.2% would be six times higher than the true rate, and if the true incidence were .1%, measuring it at 1.1% would be a teen fold overestimate.

How might this work in practice? Hemenway offers a funny example.

In May 1994, ABC News and The Washington Post conducted a national random-digit-dial telephone survey of over 1,500 adults. One question asked: “Have you yourself ever seen anything that you believe was a spacecraft from another planet?” Ten percent of respondents answered in the affirmative. These 150 individuals were then asked, “Have you personally ever been in contact with aliens from another planet or not?” and 6% answered “Yes.”

Extrapolating to the U.S. population as a whole, we might conclude that 20 million Americans have seen an alien spacecraft, and 1.2 million have been in actual contact with beings from other planets.

Frum then goes on to undercut his case.  He says “I wouldn’t want to suggest that defensive gun use against real dangers (i.e, not carrying a shotgun to investigate raccoons rooting through the trash) is quite so rare as contact with extra-terrestrials. But it’s rare enough that conscientious people should think very hard about exposing themselves, their children, and their loved ones to the large and amply documented dangers of a weapon in the house.”

“Real dangers,” he says.  A Raccoon isn’t the animal that would have immediately come to mind.  Frum lives a sheltered life.  I have chased many of them away myself, and although I have multiple guns, I live in an area where discharging firearms into the yard is illegal.  I just went for a baseball bat.  Some other animals might be bears, wolves, hogs (and more hogs), mountain lions, or maybe gangsters in the inner cities of Detroit, Chicago or L.A.  My own son was hired to kill coyotes by a church in Anderson, S.C., because the animals were so aggressive that the congregants couldn’t even get into the building to attend worship.  He used … here it is … guns.

Frum also behaves as if guns are dangerous even to the trained person.  It’s as if he should be opposed to the use of cars because people cannot be taught to drive.

Over-sampling statistically insignificant data is the problem according to Frum.  Here’s what I think.  We’ve oversampled Frum’s brain and we’ve reached the very end of its usefulness a long time ago.  His experiment into progressive ideology has caused him to be even more puerile than he was before.

Long-time suppliers tend to lose control over QA.  I don’t know if this has affected Colt’s proposals for the new M4s, but I do know that even though my former Marine son, Daniel, was a SAW gunner, of course he had to shoot and qualify on the M16 and M4.  After shooting my Rock River Arms rifle, he was very impressed at its quality.  I believe he had some complaints about the rifles with which he qualified.

So Colt has lost the contract for the next generation M4s, and here is the rest of the story.

Colt recently filed another complaint with the Government Accountability Office in further attempts to block competing vendors from supplying the US Army with new rifles. They do not want to lose their position as the primary M4 supplier to the Army, and they’re pulling out all the stops to prevent being undercut by the competition.

Shortly after signing Remington to the US Army’s $84 million M4 contract, Colt filed a complaint with the GAO, claiming that the contract did not properly calculate the royalties owed to Colt for each rifle. The GAO agreed, and the Army re-opened the bidding for the contract to supply them with much-needed M4A1 carbines.

Colt since filed a second complaint with the GAO, and while the details of their filing are unknown, it matters little as the GAO has denied their second claim.

Vendors will continue on with the current bidding schedule, and hopefully get back on track to supplying the military with the M4A1s they need to replace their aging M4s and M16s still in service starting in 2013. In order to keep things fair, all vendors have had to make their first bids public, acknowledging the fact that Remington’s bid was revealed by the GAO inquiry.

The plan to roll out new rifles dates back to 2008 when the Army started looking into ways to improve or possibly replace the M4. That could have been Colt’s intent all along, in order to be able to come in for less than all of the competing vendors.

The M4 Product Improvement Plan eventually settled on updating the M4A1 and fielding it to all troops. Although the M4A1 is more than a few years old it’s also extremely well-established in the military, and replacing existing rifles with it means no additional training requirements nor any teething issues rolling out a new main infantry small arm. Also, it’s very cost-effective. The cost per rifle Remington originally contracted for was just $673.

[ … ]

The main advantage of the M4A1 is that it fires in full-auto rather than in a three-round burst. On AR-type firearms, the way the three-round burst mode works is with a ratchet that, on ever third shot, engages with the disconnector halting continued fire. This effectively gives the trigger two different pulls, one when the disconnector is in the stop notch and one when it isn’t. Even though a mil-spec trigger isn’t the best in the world, it’s still better than two different mil-spec trigger pulls.

Absurd.  The Marines are dumping the M249 in favor of the ridiculous IAR, about which my son said this.

This is sad. The reason we went with the SAW was because the BAR and its associated concept were inadequate.  At times in combat in Iraq, we had all nine SAW gunners firing during engagements, and I’m glad that we did.  We needed the fire power.  In the thousands of rounds I put down range stateside and Iraq, I never had a single problem … never … had … a … single … problem, with my SAW.  I kept it clean.  This change to the IAR is a testimony to laziness.  What do Marines want to do – take someone out on a date?  What else do they have to do when they’re deployed?  What’s the problem with cleaning weapons?  Mine worked because I maintained it right.  All this has done is make the Marines weaker.  It may be that this IAR could be used for select circumstances like room clearing, but the death of the SAW will bring nothing good.

So we’re dumping our only true stand-off area suppression fire system for the fire team and squad, adding full auto machine guns back to the fire team, and essentially returning to the days of Vietnam where everyone has a machine gun, the fire team is homogenous and the members don’t have different functions, and they waste ammunition.  Great.

And the complaint that Colt filed?  It rested on this charge.

The issue? Colt has a five percent royalty agreement with the Army for its rights to the M-4 rifle model. A royalty is a payment to the owner of the “intellectual property,” White said.

Colt argued in May its royalty wasn’t factored into the other manufacturers’ total prices and questioned the Army’s assessment of Remington’s past performance and production capability, according to a July decision issued by the Government Accountability Office.

While the decision dismissed the challenge of the assessment to Remington’s past performance and production capability, it was agreed the instructions on how the royalty was determined were not clear because the Army didn’t notify Colt or the competing manufacturers the royalty would be subject only to parts of the product.

And so Colt protested again in August, arguing this was inconsistent with the agreement, but in mid-November that was dismissed, and the accountability office determined it would not resolve a dispute involving the specifics of the agreement.
This is something that must be settled between the Army and Colt.

Seriously?  Royalty?  To Colt?  For the M4 design?  Seriously?  How about this.  Ditch royalties to Colt, find the surviving members of the Eugene Stoner family, and give the money to them.  Eugene Stoner was a genius.  Colt is being a bunch of snots.  And if the Army isn’t getting a Rock River Arms rifle, they aren’t getting the best.  Sorry. Story over.

That’s the plea, of course, when gun control advocates wax on concerning their views about how to save the world, one gun at a time.  The articles written with this meme are too numerous to cite, but one recent commentary stands out as particularly bad.  The author inveighs at the end:

Perhaps now is a good time for a reminder that the flood of guns onto our streets and in our homes is a hazard to all of us. Our cultural tolerance of ubiquitous guns is killing us. If nothing else, perhaps one memorial we might offer for the memory of Kassandra Perkins is to begin to talk about guns in our culture, and what we can do to change things.

Exactly how there is a “flood” of guns on the street we don’t learn, and why it’s a hazard to us all isn’t explained.  I handle my firearms in a safe manner, as do most of the owners I know.  Furthermore, in spite of the sweeping net they wish to cast for all gun owners, I have never even once felt the urge to shoot any loved ones.  If the author or her commenters have felt this urge, they shouldn’t purchase a gun, and I support their right not to purchase a gun.  As I’ve said before, “Crime is a moral decision, value judgment and social and cultural phenomenon.  It isn’t related to the existence of guns, and if guns weren’t available, they will use hammers.  Gun control laws cannot raise children to believe in values.”

But while there isn’t time to address all of the awful arguments in this commentary, the comments are most interesting, and a few different types seem to appear.  First, there is the argument from ignorance.  Ann Olivier says “nobody needs an AK 4(7) for self defense. They should be outlawed.”  Of course, Ann knows no such thing.  She doesn’t know anything about what response to a home invasion is required of the homeowner in order to stay alive.

Don’t forget that I have documented 2-, 3-, 4- and 5-man home invasions all over the country that could have been stopped with weapons and high capacity magazines.  Perhaps the most remarkable case came with Mr. Stephen Bayezes.  In order to survive the attack by three home invaders, he emptied a 30-round magazine and then had to retreat to his bedroom and grab another.  Mr. Bayezes needed a rifle and high capacity magazine, and it’s likely that in order to survive, Ann would too.

Analogous to the argument from ignorance is the argument from fantasy.  Tom Blackburn has this silly daydream.

He is sitting at a table in the bar when a gunman, armed to the teeth, starts shooting up the place. Our hero turns over his table and reaches for his own gun. Unfortunately, the table leg catches in the hem on his pants, and he can’t get his weapon out of his pocket. The gunman sprays his part of the room and our hero notices the table is not stopping the bullets. He rolls to his right, freeing up his pistol, which goes off, shooting a hole in his pants. Suddenly he is deafened by a fusillade fired by another armed self-defender, which attracts the gunman’s attention to his side of the room. He rolls further to his right to a spot behind the end of the bar, pulls himself up on one knee and draws a bead on the gunman. He fires just as a police officer, responding to the shots, steps in the way and wounds the officer. His fellow cops put down heavy fire on our self-defending citizen, hitting him in several places, while the gunman makes his escape.

Tom ends his fantasy with the notion that this gun owner “saw the light” and advocated “sensible” gun control policies, but the general thrust of the story has already been set.

While we don’t know the color of the sky in Tom’s world, we do know that it isn’t the same as the real one.  In Tom’s world, the police aren’t really ten to fifteen minutes away, there are right around the corner ready to respond to his every whim.  They are concerned most about his safety rather than their own, and thus they won’t wait on the SWAT team to arrive.  They will charge ahead into gun fire to save Tom.

And in Tom’s world, the NYC police department doesn’t discharge 84 rounds at a single shooter, missing with 70 of them.  The police are perfect shots, and they perfectly respond to all situations regardless of the level of stress.

In Tom’s world, those who carry firearms are just goobers who cannot tie their shoes correctly, much less be trusted to defend their own lives with a firearm.  In Tom’s world, they would much rather leave the shooter alone, duck behind chairs and pray that the shooter doesn’t aim for them than have some law abiding citizen respond to stop the carnage.  Tom would rather risk your life and the lives of your loved ones than allow you to carry a weapon to stop the death.  Tom doesn’t care about you.

It’s difficult to respond to this sort of pathology because it is based on irrational fear, bigotry and fantasy.  But rest assured, it is indeed based on fantasy.  The facts show that shootings are best stopped by individuals carrying weapons than by the police.  Tom is unaware that the Supreme Court has decidedly ruled that police are under no obligation to assist you or even to stop crimes during their commission.  They are obligated to respond once the crimes have been committed (past tense).

Another observation is that while this publication is ostensibly a Christian publication, it’s remarkable how few Christians have developed a consistently and holistically Christian world and life view.  The gospel becomes social work, soteriology becomes bettering mankind by laws and regulations (ironically, a distinctly Islamic view), and Christ was a passive doormat upon whom people could walk.  These things aren’t true, and a good starting point for understanding what the second amendment is about can be found in my own Christians, The Second Amendment And The Duty Of Self Defense.

Finally, back to the meme of the article, I’ve seen this same appeal almost every day for the last year.  And I’ve written on guns for just as long, as have most of the gun bloggers in my own blogging community.  Lisa Fullam, the author, wants to have “the conversation about guns.”  Lisa has apparently been absent for the last year.  We’ve been having this conversation, again, and again, and again, and again.  It isn’t that we’re not having it.  We disagree, and what Lisa and her ilk want is for us to agree with them.  And their real complaint isn’t that we’re not having the conversation, but that second amendment advocates are winning it.

Courtesy of Say Uncle, the NRA has caught indication of what could be a very important ATF ruling, if not for what it does, certainly for the precedent it sets.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is taking public comments on its website until December 31, with regard to how it should determine what types of projectiles meet the “sporting purposes” exception to the federal “armor piercing ammunition” law. At this time, the question centers primarily around rifle-caliber projectiles made of metals harder than lead, such as the Barnes Bullets solid brass hunting bullets.

Under the law, adopted in 1986, “armor piercing ammunition” is defined as “a projectile or projectile core which may be used in a handgun and which is constructed entirely (excluding the presence of traces of other substances) from one or a combination of tungsten alloys, steel, iron, brass, bronze, beryllium copper, or depleted uranium.” A second definition, added in the 1990s, includes “a full jacketed projectile larger than .22 caliber designed and intended for use in a handgun and whose jacket has a weight of more than 25 percent of the total weight of the projectile.”

Because handguns have been made in certain rifle calibers, many bullets that were designed originally for rifles also “may be used in a handgun.” If such projectiles are made of the metals listed in the law, they are restricted as “armor piercing ammunition” unless they meet one of the law’s exemptions. Being considered at this time is the exemption for “a projectile which the Attorney General finds is primarily intended to be used for sporting purposes.”

Last week, BATFE met separately with gun control activist groups, firearm industry groups, and groups representing hunters and other gun owners. The latter meeting included the NRA; Safari Club International; representatives of state wildlife agencies; and firearm and ammunition importers.

BATFE has expressed two opinions about the law and exemption that warrant particular scrutiny.

First, BATFE suggested that it believes that the “armor piercing ammunition” law was intended to affect all ammunition capable of penetrating soft body armor worn by law enforcement officers. NRA reminded BATFE that the law was intended to protect law enforcement officers against the potential threat posed a very narrowly-defined category of projectiles: those, such as KTW and Arcane, which by virtue of their hard metal construction were designed and intended to be used by law enforcement officers to shoot through hard objects, such as automobile glass and doors, when fired at the velocities typical of handgun-caliber ammunition fired from handguns. Neither before nor since the law’s enactment, has an officer been killed due to such a bullet penetrating soft body armor.

NRA further pointed out that the legislative history of the law clearly shows that members of Congress, including the sponsor of the law in the House, Rep. Mario Biaggi (D-N.Y.), a decorated former NYPD police officer, expressly did not want the law to restrict rifle-caliber bullets that happen to also be useable in handguns chambered to use rifle cartridges.

Second, BATFE says it considers projectiles to not be exempt under the “sporting purposes” test if they “pose a threat to public safety and law enforcement.” BATFE also expressed concern that since the law was adopted, various new rifle-caliber handguns have been invented. On that point, NRA made clear that the sporting purposes exemption is straightforward: it applies to all projectiles that are “primarily intended for sporting purposes”–nothing more, and nothing less. Under the law, a projectile would be exempt if it is primarily intended for sporting purposes, even if it is secondarily intended for self-defense or some other legitimate purpose. Furthermore, the law does not condition its restrictive language or its “sporting purposes” exemption on the design of a particular handgun; the law is concerned only with specific projectiles that can be used in handguns. NRA cautioned the BATFE against interpreting the law in a manner more restrictive than Congress intended.

I think that the NRA comments are, in the main, on target.  It’s easy to conflate purposes for laws that were crafted so long ago.

Also see the comments at Say Uncle.  I agree that this will end up in an effort to control long gun ammunition, and have recommended before the complete abolition of the ATF as an unwarranted, unconstitutional and wasteful intrusion on the rights of citizens of the U.S.

Take careful note, too, what they say concerns them: “BATFE also expressed concern that since the law was adopted, various new rifle-caliber handguns have been invented.”

I wonder how many Department of Justice employees are equally concerned when SWAT teams raids the homes of unsuspecting and incorrect targets, such as Mr. Eurie Stamps, or Ms. Zaelit, or Mr. Tuppeny, or Ms. Lloyd, or Thomas and Rosalie Avina, or Mr. Kenneth Wright?  Statists will be statists.  Can a leopard change its spots?

Finally, this issue of the sporting purposes test is laughable.  The ATF didn’t listen when I pointed this out before, and they aren’t likely to start now.  It isn’t that the test is difficult, or convoluted, or hard to apply, but necessary nonetheless because it’s the law.  The issue is that it is self referentially incoherent.  It cannot be logically applied because it presupposes the consequent.

The ATF must decide what is the “sporting purposes” category by populating the list with examples, and then make the claim that such-and-such an example is deemed to be or not to be a “sporting purpose” because it is or isn’t on the list.  It reasons in a circle.

Not that the ATF will care.  And not that they will care what we have to say about ammunition either.

UPDATE: Thanks to Glenn Reynolds for the attention!

UPDATE #2: See also David Codrea, Mike Vanderboegh and Kurt Hofmann.

From the Union Leader, Manchester, New Hampshire.

At a community meeting in Bedford Thursday, a resident asked the police chief under what circumstances a resident could use lethal force against a burglar.

“Say you’re asleep, you hear a noise, glass breaks, you hear somebody in there, you know they don’t belong,” said the resident, who didn’t provide his name. “Are you expected to ascertain whether they’re armed if you have the ability to take them out legally?”

Joking that he’s not a lawyer but has been accused of being one, Chief John Bryfonski sidestepped the question, saying it’s inappropriate for him to provide a legal opinion.

“The RSA is there,” Bryfonski said. “I think that folks should read it. Understand it. If they don’t fully understand the aspects of the use of force or deadly physical force by a civilian . . . then you should seek your own legal guidance.”

The meeting was called a week and a half after an assault at an upscale Bedford home. Dr. Eduardo Quesada and his wife, Sonia, were both hurt in the attack, which occurred after they entered their home. Quesada, an anesthesiologist at Elliot Hospital in Manchester, was in critical condition and remains hospitalized. His wife was released last week.

I’ll tell you what.  I wouldn’t live in a place where one has to wonder if a home invader is armed or attempt to ascertain his purpose before acting in self defense.  The Castle doctrine should be a part of the legal and regulatory framework of every state in the nation.

Any man who invades my home, assuming I can get to my weapon, is a dead man before the first question can be asked.  People tend to have very odd views of how such a thing is all going to go down, but there won’t be occasion for banter, conversation or ascertaining intent, and if you’re not careful and you have your weapon too far from your reach, there may not even be time to defend your own life or the lives of your loved ones.

Any legal framework that doesn’t recognize this and allow for defense of the home isn’t funny, or cute, or needful of legal counsel, or complicated.  It’s also not the occasion for stupid jokes.  It’s immoral.

We’re all familiar with the fact that one week ago, Jovan Belcher perished by his own hand after killing his girlfriend.  Blame the gun, Bob did.  No apologies.  In fact, there is continued discussion of it, and it is seen as a societal problem, or a problem particularly for the NFL, that some 70% of the players own guns.  The same conversation is going on in baseball.  The Padres general manager worries over his players “involved with guns.”

San Diego Padres general manager Josh Byrnes, who lost one of his top pitchers, Andrew Cashner, for up to six months after a hunting accident last week, worries about the rash of baseball players who are involved with guns and hunting in the offseason.

“As a GM, I am concerned,” Byrnes said. “You’re dealing with young guys, and obviously, we can control things on the job, but away from it, we hope they make the right decisions.

“I don’t know if athletes are predisposed to guns or not, but it’s certainly something that concerns you.”

So over the week there were other poor decisions made among players in the NFL.  A Dallas Cowboys player drove drunk and ended up killing a fellow player in a single car accident.

Costas inveighed again on Sunday night football concerning this week’s incident (it isn’t clear why he believes his opinion to be important).  He remarked how strange it is that this sort of thing could happen when it is so easy to avoid the tragedy.  Any player can call any time they feel that they are too impaired to drive.

And I suppose that this is analogous to the fact that any player can call for assistance when they feel that they are about to commit acts of violence.  So why is the gun to blame for the death of Jovan Belcher and his girlfriend, but alcohol to blame for the death of Jerry Brown?

The NFL or the team could prohibit players from driving and send chauffeurs to pick them up when transportation is required.  How many NFL players own cars, Bob?  How did you decide to blame the gun and not the car?

Prior:

Hi, I’m A Man And I Condone Wanton Violence

Does Bob Costas Really Know What His Problem Is?

Frankly, the objections to guns being trotted out by Bob Costas are disjointed and difficult to categorize.  As we’ve already seen, his initial objections had to do with guns in general.  He cited Jason Whitlock, and indicated that if Jovan Belcher had not had access to guns, he and his girlfriend would still be alive today.

But not long after those comments, he amended his stance to the following.  “Why do you need a semiautomatic weapon? What possible use is there for a citizen to have a semiautomatic weapon?”  Costas also inveighed that “he thinks there should be reasonable gun control so that people don’t…can’t go on line and build an arsenal of guns and put in their basement.”  I replied that I couldn’t help but think of the fact that Mr. Stephen Bayezes saved his life with a semi-automatic weapon and high capacity magazine.  And what exactly is the problem with more than one gun, located in the basement?  All it took for Belcher’s girlfriend to die was a single gun.  How is the issue of multiple firearms related to his initial diatribe?

Now the stipulations and qualifications grow and expand to include this set of issues.

Costas acknowledged that drugs, alcohol, and the debilitating mental and physical effects of football all could have contributed to Belcher’s breakdown, but explained that due to time limitations he focused on one particular aspect of the tragedy: guns.

From there he made pains to distinguish between the simple existence of guns and what he calls “gun culture.”

“I never mentioned the 2nd Amendment, I never used the words ‘gun control.’ People inferred that. Now, do I believe that we need more comprehensive and more sensible gun-control legislation? Yes I do. That doesn’t mean repeal the 2nd Amendment. That doesn’t mean a prohibition on someone having a gun to protect their home and their family,” Costas said.

But he also argued that, even if guns were harder to obtain, the most intractable problem facing the country is pervasive gun culture, which manifests itself in “the Wild West, Dirty Harry mentality” of people who believe that if only everyone carried firearms, mass shooters like James Holmes would be stopped in their tracks.

He also expressed concern over the specific popularity of guns among professional athletes. Recounting a story told to him by former Colts coach Tony Dungy, who was startled to discover that 65 of 80 players at training camp owned firearms, Costas asserted, “You can’t have 65 guys in their 20s and 30s, aggressive young men subject to impulses, without something bad happening.”

He continued: “Give me one example of an athlete – I know it’s happened in society – but give me one example of a professional athlete who by virtue of his having a gun, took a dangerous situation and turned it around for the better. I can’t think of a single one. But sadly, I can think of dozens where by virtue of having a gun, a professional athlete wound up in a tragic situation.”

So we have in order the following problems: (1) guns, (2) semi-automatic guns, (3) too many guns, (4) guns in basements, (5) the “gun culture” (whatever that is), (6) guns among professional athletes (given that they are a large proportion black, this sounds oddly racist to me).

It’s difficult to tell what to address with Costas.  His objections are a moving target, and he uses changing props, from Belcher, to the Colorado shooter, to the general culture and violence in young men.  If Costas settles down and makes himself clear and logical, we can address his concerns.  Unfortunately, I don’t think that he is disposed to clear, logical thinking, so his objections will have to remain a moving target.  Costas should stick to football and leave the policy to us.

Prior: Hi, I’m A Man And I Condone Wanton Violence