Happy Thirteenth, Christopher
# Author unknown - Something for Stevie - an uplifting story about a busboy with Downs Syndrome. Don't know if it's true or not, but it made my cheeks wet. [stanleyscoop]
# John Lott at The Volokh Conspiracy - Commentary on the National Academy of Sciences Report - The NAS panel found no evidence that any gun control law did anything useful. But they refused to officially state that conclusion, saying instead that more research was necessary. I've added the middle paragraph below to the right-hand side-panel of this page. [smith2004]
The panel has left us with two choices: Either academia and the government have wasted tens of millions of dollars and countless man-hours on useless research (and the panel would like us to spend more in the same worthless pursuit), or the National Academy is so completely unable to separate politics from its analyses that it simply can't accept the results for what they are.
Based on 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, and some of its own empirical work, the panel couldn't identify a single gun control regulation that reduced violent crime, suicide or accidents.
From the assault weapons ban to the Brady Act to one-gun-a-month restrictions to gun locks, nothing worked. (Something that I have been the first person to investigate empirically for many of these laws, and I also had been unable to find evidence that they reduced violent crime.)
# Garry Reed, The Loose Cannon Libertarian - You Blighted Nations - since he doesn't think the commU.N.ists will roll over dead any time soon without some help, Mr. Reed has a proposal for which six nations to add to the United Nations Security Council to quicken the death of this tyrant organization.
And that's how we pack the UN. Load it up with small and/or nonexistent nation-states that don't have an interest in ruling the world. Their first order of business? Abolishing the United Nations.
# Claire Wolfe - I'm going to be writing for ... gulp! ... S.W.A.T. magazine - Claire has a new writing gig as a one-year interim replacement for Richard W. Stevens. [claire]
When Rich and editor Denny Hansen (this time aided and abetted by Richard Stevens) asked me to be Richard's fill-in, I still said they were crazy. But this time I conceded it might be divine madness rather than the regular kind.
My job will be to be contrarian and controversial and, who knows, possibly to get a few LEOS asking themselves questions about some of the laws they enforce. Gonna be interesting ...