Mass Shootings and Earthquakes

I don't mean to downplay the terribleness of the San Bernardino shooting, nor the value in seeking preventative measures. But let's state the obvious: this sort of thing has happened before and will happen again.

Despite existing laws. Despite new laws.

I am opposed to virtually all gun control, not because it's proven to be completely ineffective, but because they take away from all for the actions of a few (I understand this argument is meaningless when taken to extreme, but so is anything: why have freedom at all if people violently misuse it?).

So let's step away from the philosophy and the triggery politics, and maybe look at it with a cold, practical perspective.

Let's assume there are no deus ex machinas around (always a good idea), i.e., everybody will not magically agree to ban guns and destroy every last trace of lethal projectile weaponry; nobody will come up with a new gun control plan that everyone agrees with AND is super effective; nobody will cure or effectively prevent crazy from happening; etc.

That doesn't leave us with much. My view on this is that there are essentially two approaches to crime:

1. Stop bad people from doing bad things.
2. Empower good people to stop bad things from happening to them.

For most things, #1 is good enough. Reasonable law enforcement, jail, fines, prison, social pressure is enough to deter and prevent most crimes, or force restitution. We can live with a few burglaries now and then, knowing that burglary is out of the ordinary. Even most bad people will go along to get along if that means they stay out of jail.

For everything else that isn't easily fixed, there are no good collective/top-down solutions. You can't stop an earthquake, but you can prepare for it. I don't think that means making our kids wear bullet-proof vests to school, but I do think it means making the average citizen a higher risk target for potential mass murderers.

In most places people are defenseless, which is nice and all, and is perfectly fine 99.9% of the time. But nobody ever shoots up a police department. And that .01% (or whatever the number is, I'm guessing, but I'd imagine I'm fairly close) is a big deal. If more good guys concealed carry, the average citizen would be higher risk for potential mass murderers. And what's nice about concealed carry is that for 99.9% of the time, it looks and feels just like those nice defenseless places, except they're not defenseless.

I guess the question comes down to what balance are we comfortable with? If we encouraged and trained a lot more good people to carry concealed, I'm pretty sure mass shootings would occur less often and with fewer casualties.* That's something I would be comfortable and happy with. But maybe not for others. That's the discussion I think we should be having, not the same gun control debate that goes nowhere and is largely made for easy political points and/or virtue signalling.

*Unlike most crimes and the criminals who commit them, there are far less data on mass shootings & shooters, but there is some. Counterfactuals are hypothetical and sketchy at best, but the logic is sound and the scant evidence that does exist, suggests that good guys with guns tend to stop bad guys with guns (plus it's impossible to calculate, even fuzzily, the number of shootings prevented). I'm lazy so I'm just going to say don't take my word for it and do your own research.

Stupid with Authority

Is a terrible combination. I honestly don't think it could ever be emphasized enough.

Stupidity alone is just awful, but give it some authority: a badge, a title, a position of influence, and that isolated case of awful just became a rabid werewolf with smallpox.

I just thought I'd lob a pebble against the roaring tsunami of stupid, at the very least, as a symbol of  protest.

I'll start out with my somewhat mundane example: A whole lot of people on the internet well and truly believe that violating a company's terms of service is illegal. Often criminal. As in you're risking prison time if you don't do exactly as the fine print on some website tells you.

I think a lot of otherwise semi-intelligent people conflate the law and TOS because not only do they not think about it, the TOS often reiterates the law.

• So a website tells you not to steal their stuff or you will be prosecuted. That's a no-brainer. Stealing is illegal and nobody likes to be stolen from.
• After a few of these reiterations of the law, they slip in some of their own rules: You may not download any content on this website unless otherwise noted. Or you may not view this content without the provided functionality, or something similar.

Such TOS are, of course, all in legalese, making it sound all law-ish.

Theft is illegal and against many TOS, but viewing a website in your custom-built browser, is NOT illegal. Also, once you initially view online content in whatever browser, you are in fact downloading it, regardless of whatever the legal definition of "download" is. If your device couldn't download content, you would never be able to see or hear that content. I'm no IT expert, but I believe most online content you experience is stored in some temp file, browser cache, or both.

With the right knowledge, you could store and access this temporary memory, permanently. Businesses don't own your personal device, nor the memory on it. But I'm getting off track.

Say someone views some private, exclusive content, without signing an NDA, and they want to tell their friends about it. But they did read a very scary TOS. According to an alarming number of forum mods and commenters, you'll get 20 years in rape-prison for blabbing your mouth. You might even get scary Cease and Desist letters from soulless lawyers, even though the act of free speech is, for the moment, theoretically perfectly legal.

Hell, I'm sure ad-blocking software is against a plethora of TOS, but that doesn't stop millions of web surfers and Stupids with Authority from ad-free surfing.

What it boils down to is that TOS are not the law of the land (nor cyberspace). If you don't break the law, you're legally safe to break the shit out of any TOS you want. Businesses might try to sue you, especially if you caused them harm, but they can't tell the Sheriff to arrest you.

Despite what Captain Badass McForum Mod tells you. Do a google search and shut that stupid down. Or show him this link. But I fear stating the simple common sense that private companies do not make laws probably won't shake the stupid, because they don't think, and any repudiation diminishes their "authority."

So please, throw your pebbles at this kind, or any kind, of Stupid with Authority. It has far-reaching, hard-to-see chilling effects, and just sucks for everyone. Fight the good fight, friend.

Does this sound like legal advice? It kinda does, so take it to the bank despite the fact that I may or may not be a lawyer, despite every fucking lawyer and non-lawyer on the planet putting up an idiot warning disclaimer saying it's not legal advice. In other words, use your brain and fight the stupid.

Our thought leaders

Perry over at Samizdata boldly went forth and commented on a Guardian article, which refers to the Pakistani and Arab rapists as "Asians."

Perry's comment:

I have never… ever… heard a person of Pakistani or Arab origins called ‘Asian’ in the UK other than in the mainstream media. Never. Not even once. ...

It was deleted of course. So what kind of comments aren't deleted on such an article?

This kind:

Perpetrators of abuse are members of society that come from all walks of life, all nationalities and creeds. How many members of society have known or know of a child that is being abused and do nothing about it. If you want to live in a civilised society then society has to take collective responsibility for their actions, otherwise it is just a veneer. It is the people that create and choose what kind of a society they want to be. Maybe some soul searching is in order.

I lol'd.

That comment isn't only not deleted, it is a recommended comment!

So a bunch of non-native "Asians" go on a raping rampage and the proper response is to "take collective responsibility" and do some "soul searching."

I may not be a fancy Guardian editor, but if a bunch of Americans went on a raping rampage in Pakistan, the last thing I would expect from Pakistan is for them to do some collective soul searching and ask how society contributed to it. That would be absurd. Comically absurd.

It's not because I think the West is superior or Pakistan is primitive, but because that kind of a response is a priori absurd. It's self-freaking-evident.

The only "soul searching" and "collective responsibility" going on should be about why the raping wasn't ended much, much sooner: Fear of being labeled racist. Nobody wants to be called "the nigger guy." That's a societal problem, that's an environment we created--Guardian editors probably more than others.

Colion Noir debuts on NRA News

So here's NRA News' new spokesman, Mr. Colion Noir, a lawyer and firearms enthusiast, making the case against more senseless gun control.

Pretty good. I like the part about the President suddenly caring about gun violence, as if Chicago never had such a problem.

Police perjury

I have been thinking this for years.

If, in a court of law, the issue at hand comes down to just a he-said, she-said and one of those persons happens to be a cop, that testimony shouldn't be considered any more or less true (unless the other person's account is an obvious lie AND the officer's account is factually unquestionable).

Why would we give dirtbag criminal suspects an equal footing with law enforcement? Because that could be you standing there, and the only thing preventing you from years of absolute misery is that cop's word. I don't trust anyone that much, let alone a guy I never met.

I mean why, in a court of law, would we give one person's testimony more weight than another's?  Especially if the defendant is presumed innocent! It's foolish to think police officers are somehow inherently more honest. Tell me how they are more honest than the rest of us? Show your work!

I was reminded of this via a commenter at Classical Values, by this NYT op/ed.  Almost shocking, but definietely sad:

But are police officers necessarily more trustworthy than alleged criminals? I think not. Not just because the police have a special inclination toward confabulation, but because, disturbingly, they have an incentive to lie. In this era of mass incarceration, the police shouldn’t be trusted any more than any other witness, perhaps less so.

In defense of Video Games & Hollywood

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Played by millions. Surprisingly, pixelated bullets have not caused an epidemic of murderous sociopaths pillaging their way accross rivers of blood.

The blaming of violence on video games (particulary violent, first person shooter games), and violent hollywood films is getting ridiculous.

This is coming from the left and the right, and although it tends to get political, it's actually less about politics and more about ignorance.

Who you ask is pointing the finger at games and film? Old people. Stupid old people who don't know what MMORPG means, are no longer entertained by violent films, and couldn't figure out how to turn on an Xbox to save their life.

If this sounds mind-numbingly familiar to you, it's because we've all had this discussion before. Remember the outrage and controversy over the game Grand Theft Auto? Yeah, it turned out that it was just a video game, not a mass-recruitment for MS13.

There has been an explosion of video games, especially violent video games just in the last decade. And thanks to improving technology, these games are looking more realistic every day.  You would think, even if the violent video games flooding American homes in the last decade had a shred of influence on physical violence, our crime rate would reflect that. After all, millions of kids and adults alike, play these games on a daily basis. But no, violent crime is going down.

There are even benefits from playing video games.



Movies. We all love movies. Except for some (old) people.

Apparently movies, just like video games, are turning our kids' brains to mush, except the part where it turns them into highly efficient killing machines. You would think with such rhetoric being repeated ad nauseam, Hollywood does a better job of training soldiers than our own military. I don't really want to test that theory, but if killing needs to be done, I'm still pretty sure professional soldiers would do a better job of it.

[You are getting sleepy, very sleepy. Now you must go buy lots of guns and indiscriminately shoot people]

I agree violence can be done poorly in movies. Gratuitous, excessive violence is really just poor film-making especially when it doesn't advance the plot. But it can be done well; even disgusting, bloody, horrific violence can be tasteful in the right context.  And it serves a valuable purpose.  There is not only the action to get one's attention, but emotion, suspense, and consequences that tell a part of a larger story; many times without the violence it would make the film a lot less interesting.

Imagine Saving Private Ryan, only nobody gets shot. D-Day happened of course, but it was summarized by narration. Or maybe people get shot, but there's no blood, and nobody gets blown to pieces. Now there's a lot less suspense, and while the consequences are technically the same, they are significantly less dramatic. In the end you get a crappier, less realistic movie.

But there is no real, hard proof that violence in media increases violence in society. I mean, television, film, games, especially violence in media really didn't take off until say, the 80s (that's when it was ubiquitious). And now there's the internet with more free media violence available than ever before.

Yet global violence is down, even warfare.

Unfortunately, stupid old people run the government, and they like to make rules for the rest of us, even if those rules have no scientific basis, or a snowflake's chance in hell of working. But hey, if it makes a few old people feel better, we all should be grateful to suffer for them. Or we can tell them to stop fucking with our freedom.

Taft High School shooting

I don't want to dance in the blood of the victim(s), and thankfully there reportedly were no deaths. And yet the ignorant will, and already are using Taft as another example why we need more gun control:

Oops, That's Taft High in Taft, CA! False alarm yet still horrid. When is this gonna stop?! GUN CONTROL NOW and plain outlaw assault rifles

— michael john dimkich (@michaeljdimkich) January 10, 2013

Another school shooting? Yes, let's keep doing absolutely nothing about gun control. #Taft

— Alex Wickline (@WicklineAlex) January 10, 2013

Can we talk about gun control yet? Apparently not, since there's been yet another school shooting. #Taft

— Aura Bogado (@aurabogado) January 10, 2013

Reports: the Taft shooter made previous threats. How were guns accessible to him? If you think gun control is a dirty word, please wake up.

— J. Kitch (@MsJenKitch) January 10, 2013

The gunman in this case, used a shotgun. Not a semi-automatic pistol or an AR-15 with a 30-round magazine, but a shotgun.

Now think about that. Even if we all agree to these proposed draconian gun laws banning "assault rifles", high-capacity magazines, semi-auto handguns, ravamping background checks, and outright confiscation of such items; there still is the matter of the tens of millions of shotguns residing in a vast number of American homes.

Not only that, but revolvers, bolt-action rifles, lever-action rifles, not to mention knives and dangerous combinations of household chemicals.

The only way to prevent lunatics intent on acquiring guns, is mass-confiscation. Which not only is blatantly unconstitutional, but let's be honest, would be a cure more deadly than the disease.

I don't know about you, but I wouldn't particulary care to hand over any firearms I enjoy and spent good money on, nor am I going to let the police trash my house without good reason.

More gun laws = more stupid

This video goes well with Larry Correia's An Opinion on Gun Control.

These stupid laws aimed at inanimate objects lend themselves to analogy after analogy demonstrating how absurd they are:

How many people die from loose/untied shoelaces? Probably dozens! We should therefore ban or seriously restrict shoelace ownership. No need to consider the benefits of proper shoelace use or the rights of law-abiding shoelace owners, especially when people are dying.

via Kevin and US Citizen

Everyone is a criminal

We are arguably the most free (freest?) country in the world, and for the most part I would agree. Americans tend to have a stronger sense of fairness and live-and-let-live mentality than others I think. Coupled with our constitutional, representative democracy where the rule of law is paramount, our comparatively huge and diverse country has surprisingly withstood all kinds of attacks with varying intensity on our liberty (for the most part).

But then there is our criminal justice system, on steroids thanks to our legislatures. For our own good of course. John Stossel disagrees:

The rules that bind us now total more than 160,000 pages. The Congressional Research Service said it was unable to count the number of crimes on the books. Yet last week the feds added or proposed another thousand pages. States and cities have thousands more. Have you read them all? Have our "representatives" read them all?

...When there is a big crime, legislators quickly demand that felons be given longer jail sentences and "mandatory minimums" for repeat offenses. This wins votes but kills judicial discretion and crushes unlucky people.

In Iowa, a man with an old felony conviction found a bullet, put it on his dresser and forgot about it. A police officer, looking for something else, saw the bullet. Felons may not possess any ammunition, and this "crime" made the man a repeat offender. He's now serving a 15-year mandatory sentence for possession of ammunition. Really.

Ron Paul was the only candidate to talk about this with any passion, not even Obama has discussed this.The article goes on to point out that if Obama had been prosecuted for his admitted crimes, he would not be president today, far from it actually. We were all young, and we've all done stupid things. In that respect, many of us are similar to Obama. Like him or not, he made something of himself, started a family and supported that family. Now imagine if he went to prison.

The point is that this is becoming a nation of people who are caught, and people who are not of increasingly vague and victimless crimes. And a prison term does not exactly open doors for people, at least not the doors we want.

They deserve better #Aurora

I'm not your average news or political junkie. When something significant occurs the atmosphere seems to get acutely partisan, and the predictable hacks come out peddling their pet causes complete with rehearsed rhetoric, I get burned out.

I'm turning off the television, I've had enough of the blogs and tweets, and the endless articles. The Aurora victims deserve better.

12 dead, dozens wounded in Colorado theater. Update: Suspect apprehended

 
Update/Correction: Reports now saying 12 dead. Let's hope there are no more. I've corrected the headline.

Update: Federal officials have apprehended a suspect. See below.

More updates below.

***


Tragic news from Aurora, Colorado:

A heavily armed gunman killed at least 14 people and wounded 50 more during an early Friday morning screening of the new Batman movie at an Aurora, Colorado, theater, police Chief Dan Oates told reporters.

Police arrested a man believed to be the shooter in a rear parking lot of the theater, Frank Fania, a police spokesman, told CNN. The suspect was not immediately identified, though Fania said he was believed to be in his early 20s.

"He did not resist. He did not put up a fight," Fania said. Police seized a rifle and a handgun from the suspect, and another gun was found in the theater, he said.

The Denver Post reports that the man was wearing a gas mask, released some kind of gas and then opened fire:

Witnesses said gunman wore a gas mask and was clad in black.

"Witnesses tell us he released some sort of canister." Oates said. "They heard a hissing sound and some gas emerged and the gunman opened fire."

A witness, Benjamin Fernandez, 30, said he was watching the movie when he heard a series of explosions. He said that people ran from the theater and there were gunshots as police shouted 'get down!"

Sounds like the police were on the scene as it happened, or very shortly after it started.


This was only 13 miles from the Columbine High School.

Update: It appears they caught the killer:

A suspect was apprehended in the shopping center's parking lot, Oates said. He was named as 24-year-old James Holmes, two federal officials from different agencies told NBC News.

Update: Huffington Post has the tweets of people inside the theater as it happened. There is also cell-phone video of the scene on Youtube.

CNN is reporting that the number of wounded has been revised down to 38.

Update: Some people can't resist the urge to make this political.

Hey Mr. Bloomberg, why don't we find out exactly how and why this happened before we start the gun control debate over again?

Update: More on James Holmes:

Law enforcement officials and witnesses told ABC News Holmes, 24, wore what appeared to be a bullet-proof vest and riot-type mask as he opened fire...

A San Diego woman who identified herself as James Holmes' mother told ABC News she had awoken unaware of the shooting and had not yet been contacted by authorities. She immediately expressed concern that her son may have been involved.

"You have the right person," she said, apparently speaking on gut instinct. "I need to call the police... I need to fly out to Colorado."

...the suspect reportedly told police he had explosives inside.

Update: Eye-witnesses give their account:



Update: Warner Bros. has issued a statement on the shooting:

Warner Bros. is deeply saddened to learn about this shocking incident. We extend our sincere sympathies to the families and loved ones of the victims at this tragic time.

The Paris premiere of the new Batman movie has been canceled, and at New York theaters the NYPD has increased security.

Update: The suspect, James Holmes:

All further updates will be in a new post.