Posse Incitatus

Hutaree case collapses - surprising no one

The Posse has been remiss in providing updates on the strange case of the Hutaree Militia.

Readers will recall that more than a year ago we had regular digests detailing how flimsy this case appeared to be and how badly the Justice Dept. was managing things.

To quote Darth Vader, now their failure is complete:  most of the accused were acquitted and the remaining two got minor gun charges.

It is not surprising that this case ends with a whimper rather than a bang – follow-through has never been a strength for this administration – but it is interesting how little media interest this whole sordid episode has excited.

Consider:  If the case against the Hutaree was in fact correct, then a bunch of extremely dangerous terrorists just evaded law-enforcement and are now free to resume their nefarious work – and they now have had government-agent supplied bomb-making training. 

Of course, there is also the possibility that these were loud-mouthed but otherwise harmless individuals who were targeted in order to distract attention from other gun-related investigations – like the brilliant Operation Fast and Furious, which no one seems to authorized.  It just happened, like a thunderstorm or earthquake.

 

Why Fast and Furious (Gunwalker) is a different kind of scandal

With the election a little more than a year away, political scientists across the land are busy tabulating their data and feeding it into their proprietary formulae – all with the goal of successfully predicting the outcome.

Pundits are doing the same, and the data points are pretty much the same:  economic growth, unemployment, approval numbers and right direction/wrong way questions.

But there is another variable that has yet to make an appearance:  Scandal.

Scandal – or the hint of one – is a powerful instrument that can derail even the strongest election campaign.  George H.W. Bush was hit with a special prosecutor on baseless charges in October 1992 and it arguably cost him the race.  Similarly, the last-minute revelation that George W. Bush had a drunken driving conviction likely cost him the popular vote (remember the freelance Dem operative wearing that goofy hat?  Wonder where he is now).

Fast and Furious is the most serious scandal in my lifetime – arguably since the 1920s.  Watergate, Iran-Contra, Whitewater – none of these had body counts in the triple digits.  None of these involved the deaths of United States law-enforcement officials.

The mainstream press is trying mightily to downplay it.  It was “a sting operation gone wrong,” is the current story.  As many blogs have pointed out, once one knows the specifics, the real question is how it could have “gone right.”

Other bloggers have done a fantastic job of covering the details, but what they lack is an understanding of the realistic political consequences.  That’s where we come in.

The first thing to understand is that this is not a “normal” scandal.  That is to say, the press will not be hyping it and reporting on it as a lead story.  The narrative of an embattled administration struggling to get it message out simply will not emerge because the mainstream press will not buy into it.  The scandal involves guns, and guns are bad to these people.  Anything done to limit their ownership – even if it involves arming drug gangs and terrorists – is okay by them.  Indeed, the audacity of the plan and its breathtaking scope cause right-thinking people to draw back.  It is too fantastic, too much of a conspiracist pipe dream to be true.  So it must be fake.

That is why there will be no fawning coverage of its victims, no Hollywood dramatization with Sean Penn as a brave truth-teller.

We saw this before with Ruby Ridge and Waco, but this is different.  It is different because – as a bipartisan gathering of Arizona sheriffs pointed out – every time someone is killed with a gun, the Dept. of Justice has to wonder:  “Was that one of ours?”

Thus is it is not enough for the administration to turtle up and ignore Congressional subpoenas; it is not enough for AG Eric Holder to stonewall Congress by claiming their queries will compromise a face-saving but otherwise useless Inspector General investigation.

This is because of the distributed nature of the U.S. justice system and because the guns are so widely distributed.

Each time a Fast and Furious gun is found at a crime scene, the local prosecutors can demand to know who sold it.  If it is used to kill a local cop, they will certainly do so.

In addition, the state attorney general can open his own investigation – or file suit in federal court.  Unlike the Valerie Plame distraction, these cases carry real consequences for the participants.  The participants in ATF, FBI and DEA face felony convictions and they have every incentive to cooperate.

In short, this is a hydra, sprouting heads all over the place.

Then there is the international angle.  A friend of mine was chatting with me about the president’s reelection prospects the other day and I mentioned Fast and Furious in passing – specifically how little press coverage it has gotten. 

“Oh, it’s getting coverage,” she said, “just not in the English language.”  You see, she is fluent in Spanish, and often listens to Spanish-language radio.  It is a huge story in Mexico, and while Mark Steyn may wonder why no one in the New York Times news room cares about 200 dead Mexicans, the Mexicans themselves are quite bothered by it.

They are amazed at how their supposed benefactor is so callous about the wholesale slaughter of fellow Hispanics – and how disrespectfully he has treated the Mexican government.

The lily-white liberal punditocracy knows nothing about this, but it’s out there.  It is all fine and dandy for the White House to strategize about carrying this state or that one, but if Hispanic voters in Nevada, New Mexico and California stay home, Obama will be crushed utterly.  They may not want to vote Republican, but they certainly will not support a man who lied to them about amnesty and then nonchalantly implemented an operation that slaughtered hundreds of people just like them.

Civilization

The Belmont Club offers its usual insight in regards to the anarchy in London and makes a key point:  what keeps public order is not force, but legitimacy: 

Since no police force has the numbers to be everywhere at once, it maintains order through the force of its name, the power of the uniform. This was once known as ‘prestige’; today it is better known as ‘legitimacy’.  Although as insubstantial as air it is as vital as oxygen. Without it things become very dificult. Once the authorities begin lose their prestige they must rely ever more heavily on force, of which there is never, ever enough.

In one sense legitimacy is the fiction on which society is based. It is to government what confidence is to a bank.  As long as everyone believes that the bank will pay the depositor no one will demand all his money back. As long as most believe that the King’s justice is effectively invincible, no one will challenge it. But when a government behaves in a supine manner for an extended period — or a bank refuses to pay out without a good reason — then doubts begin to grow. Both legitimacy and confidence are more severely tested and once it is known that there isn’t enough money in the bank to pay everyone nor enough cops in the station house to arrest everyone then the fiction is bust.

A deadly cycle begins to set in. Both the government — or the bank — have to make payouts in force or money more frequently than they otherwise would. There is a “run” on this key resource and their are bankrupted. Financially in the bank’s case and politically in the case of government.  When confidence finally dwindles to its last remaining levels the declining institution must either risk everything on the last throw to restore it or face collapse.

This is one of the reasons the Posse has pointed out that looting in response to a natural disaster or civil disorder is the absolute worst thing one can do.  It is also the reason we take a dim view of “survivalists” who think that hoarding bullets and canned food out in the country will make them immune from a society-wide catastrophe.  In fact it will not and the isolation of a farmstead will make it easy pickings when roving bands – who will likely be well-armed as well if law-enforcement has been overwhelmed – decide to take what they have.

The key to preserving order is to support it from outside – to add a shot of adrenaline to the faltering system.  In the bank run example, it is putting in a large deposit to help cover the bank’s needs – and also send a signal of confidence.

In the case of the police, it is to organize one’s neighbors and support the police by bringing them supplies (a bottle of cool water on a hot day goes quite far) – and if necessary additional manpower.  This gives them renewed confidence and also additional resources.  If they know your neighborhood is secure, they can concentrate themselves elsewhere.

It is a simple concept: If one person’s property is in danger, everyone’s is at risk.  This is exactly how the mob thinks – if it can rob one store, it can rob them all, and so it will do as it pleases.

This was seen most clearly during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.  While the New Orleans Police Dept. was shooting civilians and looting Wal-Mart, armed citizens came together and looked after one another.  As one resident of the French Quarter put it:  “Some people became animals, we became more civilized.”

The ultimate measure of the society’s strength is the willingness of its members to defend it.  When citizens become passive onlookers to the destruction of their wealth, the society they have known cannot survive.  

Yet Europe and UK takes the exact opposite view – with predictable results.

I am an optimist and I believe that the residual tradition of self-reliance is what will get the United States through the perils to come.  Time and again, Americans have showed amazing resiliency and a remarkable capacity for self-help.  When seconds count, we expect the government to get there late and bring a check book.

Civilization requires someone to defend it.  Europeans have decided to leave that job to the "experts" and let events take their course.  Here in the US - in the jurisdictions that still function - we are letting the people handle it themselves.

The Freep steps up on the gun rights debate

Some weeks ago we mentioned Mlive’s coverage of the 10-year anniversary of Michgian’s concealed carry law.  Now the Detroit Free Press has its own coverage, which I think is a bit better.

The first installment essentially declares the entire debate to have been about nothing.

It contains the usual quotes, but what is interesting is how unrepentant the anti-gun crowd is.  They still oppose the law, of course, but most would rather change the subject.  And of course they want the training standards increased.

It is worth mentioning that one of the article’s authors, Dawson Bell, actually applied for a concealed pistol license and wrote about the experience.  This perhaps explains the scrutiny applied to the Brady Campaign’s propaganda in the second article of the series: 

Some of what passes for research and analysis of the effect of permissive concealed weapons laws on crime and violence is pretty crude.

Take, for instance, the anti-gun Violence Policy Center's Web page called "Concealed Carry Killers." ( www.vpc.org/ccwkillers.htm )

It purports to tally the carnage that results when states, such as Michigan, authorize ordinary citizens under most circumstances to be licensed to carry concealed guns.

Concealed carry licensees "routinely" kill cops, perpetrate mass murders and other gun homicides, writes VPC. The center counted 308 "Private Citizens Killed By Concealed Carry Killer" since 2007. A lot of them -- 78 -- were Michiganders.

A closer look at VPC's data doesn't necessarily confirm a CCW crime nightmare scenario. The overwhelming majority of Michigan victims the center cites (62) were licensees who committed suicide. Michigan's concealed weapons law requires the State Police to report annually on deaths by suicide of license holders.

But the reports contain no information about how the licensee died or whether a firearm was involved.

Several other "victims" in the VPC report appear to have been criminals themselves, shot attempting to rob legally armed citizens. But with 276,000 concealed pistol license holders, even the unscrubbed VPC numbers hardly establish evidence of a crime wave.

As we’ve noted before, this is pretty thin gruel, and the anti-gun lobby has been dishing it for years.  How refreshing to see someone in the mainstream press has finally noticed.

As this blog has been pointing out for years, the question of whether concealed carry reduces violent crime is a complex one and extremely difficult to quantify.

What is not complex, what is not in doubt, is that armed citizens do not cause violent crime.  The decision of whether you could carry a weapon for self-defense is about options, not guaranteed results.

Carrying a small-caliber pistol does not grant immunity from crime, nor does it stop incoming bullets – though anti-gun activists constantly pretend that this is what gun rights supporters believe.

The truth is that carrying a pistol gives one more options to effectively resist violence should it occur.  This is especially important for physically weak people who are especially vulnerable to violent crime.

In an imperfect world, no policy can provide perfect security.  All that shall-issue laws do is offer the possibility of a better outcome to an already unpleasant situation.

 

Summer gun news roundup

I’ve been somewhat silent of late, largely because I’m doing what all right-thinking Michiganders are doing:  Enjoying summer while it lasts.

It may be difficult for folks from warmer climates to understand this, but winter is never far from the mind in Michigan.  From November to March, the state is locked in an icy, overcast tomb.  When spring comes and the weather turns, the whole state essentially celebrates its good luck.

I do not exaggerate by saying that every weekend between Memorial Day and Labor Day is a festival somewhere in the state.  We have the Mint Festival, Highland Festival, and Coast Guard Festival – the list just goes on.

All of which is to explain why I’ve been remiss in following a series fascinating gun rights developments.

On Saturday I visited the Mason Gun Show and was (once again) amazed by how many people were there.  I recall years when that same show over the same weekend was almost deserted – empty tables and just a few milling patrons.  Not any more.  The tables were packed with vendors and despite the heat the aisles were packed with visitors.

I was interested to note that ARs are finally coming down in price – quite a bit, actually.  I saw more than one pre/post-ban AR-15 for less than $800 – in other words an amazing deal just a year ago.  Even the top-end M-4 clones were quite reasonable.

Ammunition is also getting a bit cheaper and certainly was much more plentiful.  The Bullet Bubble hasn’t burst, but it is deflating.  Indeed, I think that, given commodity price inflation, it can’t really burst because the input are still simply too high.  The market may be saturated from all the hoarding of the last two years, but that merely allows manufacturers to reduce production to two shifts from three and save on overtime.

Michigan’s big gun news was the 10th anniversary of it shall-issue concealed carry law.  Mlive had a series of features on it – some well-written, some not – but the unavoidable conclusion was that despite the gun control lobby’s fevered predictions, the streets did not run with blood.  The current system is still a bureaucratic nightmare and we can only hope the permitting process will be streamlined and handed over to the Secretary of State and treated like drivers licenses.

When the law took effect, the applicants were overwhelmingly male.  In recent years the trend has flipped and now CCW classes are dominated by women.  This makes perfect sense – women benefit far more from an equalizer than men do.

Still, this is a pretty momentous shift and one of the more telling details is the fact that East Lansing (aka Ann Arbor North) actually offers concealed carry classes through its Parks and Recreations Department.  Not only that, but it also offers shooting camps for kids at MSU’s new Demmer Center.

If you told someone 15 years ago that this would happen, they would call you insane, but now even in a liberal bastion like East Lansing, guns are becoming normalized.

All of which is to say that the Obama Adminstration’s ill-conceived and horribly executed Operation Fast and Furious may be a political crisis of the highest order.

Also known as Gunwalker, this fiasco allowed Mexican drug cartels to import hundred and perhaps thousands of American firearms through illegal straw purchases with the full knowledge and consent of the US government.  Predictably, those weapons were then used to kill innocent people, including at least two US law enforcement officers.

At first it seemed that ATF would get the blame and trial balloons were floated that Acting Director of ATF Kenneth Melson would be thrown under the bus.

A year ago, Melson may well have fallen on his sword out of loyalty, but it has since become apparent that the Obama administration regards all of its appointees as expendable and has zero loyalty to them.  Not surprisingly, they are beginning to reciprocate.  Melson has chosen to lawyer up and seek Congressional protection.

This bodes poorly for the administration.  The One is supposed to be above, well, everything.  Clinton and Bush could weather scandals because they were just normal politicians like everyone else.  But Obama?  He’s a lightbringer.  Lightbringers don’t smuggle guns to drug lords.

Right now the mainstream press is refusing to cover the story, but when the Attorney General faces a criminal investigation, things may be different.

All of which is to say, lots of things going on, but summer also has its charms.  It's hard to blog when the weather is this nice.

 

Don't take gun control advice from Al Qaeda

The Posse has been remiss in our gun blogging of late – indeed in our blogging overall.  What I can say – the weather is nice, and a lot of work remains to be done around the ranch.

Still, a minor tempest over at National Review has bestirred us back to the intertubes to combat a while spray of gun control fiction with careful aimed shots of truth.

At issue is an Al-Qaeda propaganda piece urging the practitioners of the Religion of Peace ™ to give up on bombs and sabotage and basically go on shooting rampages all over our great land.  The appeal also contains the handy (mis)information that because America is a free country, you can find assault weapons at any gun show and also the parts to turn them into full-auto killing machines.

Predictably, the anti-gun lobby jumped on this as proof that our laws need to be tighter – no doubt because, being good leftists, they regard Al Qaeda as a reliable source of technical information on all sorts of things.

Anyhow, to his already-growing regret, NRO contributor Cliff May echoed the sentiment.

Rather than dump a (well-deserved) pail of rhetorical excrement over May’s head (agreeing with Al Qaeda??  Seriously?), I will use this as an opportunity to once again knock down some anti-gun myths that are harder to kill than regenerating zombies in full ballistic armor.

In the first place, automatic weapons are awfully hard to get.  One must get a Class III license, which is a procedure whose invasiveness compares with a two-hour visit to the proctologist, if you know what I mean.  Oh, and like the proctologist, it is rather expensive.

After years of research, I can also say that “conversion kits” are a mythical creation – there is no “drop-in sear” that will magically convert a weapon from one mode of firing to another.  Only a trained gunsmith with appropriate tools could make such a conversion.  Remember, we are talking about a precision-built machine here, not a magical construct.  Just as waving a magic wand is insufficient to change a car’s oil, so dropping a random part in a firearm is insufficient to change its function.

Actually, that’s not strictly true: You can easily jam it by dropping a part that shouldn’t be there into the action.

Which is the second point:  Tinkering with a gun is a great way to ensure that it doesn’t work.  I for one fully endorse Al Qaeda telling its sympathizers to crack open their AK-47s and start tinkering with the mechanisms.  I think it would be swell if terrorists all across the country rendered their rifles inoperable before going someplace public and pointlessly clicking their triggers.  Maybe they can shout “BANG!  BANG!” while they do it.

This leads to the third point:  Full-auto weapons are grossly overrated.

Machineguns are most useful at suppressing enemy fire or repelling a massive attack in force.  Think of World War I – style massed infantry assaults.  That is when you want full-auto power.

But against individual targets?  All you will do is waste ammunition.  I’m sure you’ll hit something, but a far deadlier mode of attack is to use single, aimed shots, i.e. what our soldiers do.

Hollywood movies notwithstanding, full-auto weapons pretty much miss individuals.  In Iraq and Afghanistan, we have run up against lots of locals with full-auto AKs and they can’t hit anything.  “Spray and pray” doesn’t work.

Now let us assume that none of the above presents an obstacle to our Brady Center-educated jihadi – that he wants a machinegun anyway.  Okay, now he has to find a way to pay for it.

Those horrible, awful “assault rifles” that gun haters always drone on about are actually hideously expensive.  Oh sure, you can find an SKS for a few hundred bucks, but the really sexy, scary-looking stuff costs more than a grand.  The super-cool stuff will cost you as much as a used car (which incidentally, is easier to buy, use and will probably kill more people if you drive it into a crowd, but let’s not give them any ideas).

This now brings us to the fourth and final point:  Our gun laws are actually working.  As I noted some years ago, the US government launched an aggressive crackdown on violent parole violators during the Bush Administration.  Dubbed “Operation Falcon,” this massive multi-state sting rounded up thousands of hardened criminals – and very few had any guns.

Now think about that for a second.  These were hardened criminals, people who had no problem with breaking the law.  Yet they are almost entirely unarmed.

Oh, they were willing to have illegal items – drugs were quite plentiful, but guns?  Not so much.

My point is that it if is so easy for criminals to get guns legally, how come so few of them did so?  How come they were so defenseless?

Think about it:  Half of all American households have a firearm of some sort, yet only two percent of these criminals did.

That means lawful guns outnumber unlawful ones by a factor of 25. 

I made this point in my earlier posts, but it bears repeating: given that so few criminals have guns, disarming law-abiding citizens actually helps criminals because it evens the score. 

These facts have been out there for a while – since 2006, in fact.  Anyone who is serious about the issue should know this by now.  If they miss it, they are either unserious, or disingenuous.

At this point, we know the gun control lobby is purposefully lying.  So what is Cliff May's excuse?

 

Concealed carry goes mainstream

One of the more heartening developments in Michigan’s political culture is the acceptance that gun rights pose no threat to public safety – and in fact can enhance it.

I was surprised to see this article over on Mlive about students supporting concealed carry on Michigan’s college campuses.  Not only does it present the supporters as something other than blood-thirsty nut jobs, the reporter couldn’t seem to find anyone in authority willing to recite the usual anti-gun talking points.

In fact, it is hard to argue that Michigan’s concealed carry reform has been anything but a success.  Michigan’s concealed pistol licensees have proven to be safe, law-abiding and responsible.  It is very difficult for gun control opponents to insist that eliminating the last enclaves of gun control in the state will touch off widespread massacres when permit holders have shown themselves to be so safe.

It is hard to remember, but when PA 381 took effect in 2001, then-Attorney General Jennifer Granholm vowed to lead a petition drive to repeal it.  When polling went south on her effort – in part because the predicted massacres didn’t happen – she quietly dropped the project.  Once ensconced in the governor’s office, she proved surprisingly pliable to the gun rights movement, even going so far as signing the infamous mourning dove hunting bill.

The Old Left is throwing a fearful fit right now as it becomes aware that its power is waning.  Whether they will manage to further entrench the unions is an open question, but we can be grateful that even the most doctrinaire liberal Democrats have given up on

Return to the Lansing/Mason Gun and Knife Show

For the first time in a long time, this past Saturday I attended the Lansing area gun show, conveniently located in Mason.  It had been a few years since I was in the market, and while I wasn't planning on buying anything, I did find a deal that was too good to pass up.  More on that in a future post.

My focus today was on the changes since I last frequented the gun show circuit.  Two things stuck out:  The diversity of the crowd, and its size.

There were a lot of young women there.  Not a majority to be sure, but the fact that I saw any at all was noteworthy.

I think this illustrates the fact that despite the best efforts of the gun control lobby, firearms are being normalized.  To own one no longer carries a stigma, indeed many young women in particular find it empowering. 

At my youngest daughter's birthday party some weeks back, we hosted a laser tag game.  Long-time readers will not be surprised that I was not the deadliest participant - a 9-year-old girl took that honor (I came in second.  In my own defense, I was a rather large and conspicuous target).  I remarked on this to one of the other kids' moms and she pulled a pistol target with the center shot out from per pocket and speculated on what she would have been able to accomplish.

Now understand that I've grown up in the Lansing area and take for granted that guns are despised by all respectable folk, yet here was a soccer mom talking about her morning at the range - and she did so with perfect confidence.  Truly, something I was not expecting and a very positive sign.

I haven't verified attendence, but I never recall the county fairgrounds being this crowded before.  It was difficult to move between the tables with all the people there.

I noted with pleasure that the prices for ARs are beginning to fall (I saw a no-frills model for under $800) and that ammunition was plentiful (though still to my mind rather expensive).

I hope to continue this trend of frequenting area shows and if the readers like it, will endeavor to offer photos and other coverage of what is going on.  The Posse used to do a lot more with firearms and based on the quantity of comments, this is an area where we should devote more attention.

 

Changes to Michigan's concealed carry law?

It’s been quiet on the gun rights front here in Michigan for quite a while.  No longer.

State Sen. Mike Green has introduced a bill (Senate Bill 0058) to remove the current restrictions for concealed carry licensees in Michigan.  Currently, non-law enforcement people are banned from carrying in places like bars, churches, sports arenas, malls, schools, hospitals and college classrooms.

The restrictions were put in place by anti-gun gun Democrats in a desperate bid to stop concealed carry reform in Michigan more than a decade ago.  That bill was House Bill 4530 and was signed into law in 2000 as Public Act 381.  Its sponsor?  Mike Green, who was a state representative at the time.

The restrictions serve no logical purpose – they were put in place purely to score political points.  I know, because the night HB 4530 passed the House I was working with Green to respond the lies and hysteria of the opposition.

The strategy was to force pro-carry legislators who wanted a “clean” bill to vote against a series of amendments, each banning firearms from a specific location.  The anti-gun activists could then run campaign ads claiming that the politicians in question “voted to put guns in schools/churches/etc.”

It was pure cynicism.

The pro-carry majority was strong enough to get the core of the bill through, but there were enough fearful of anti-gun propaganda (remember, this was when the Million Moms were still getting media attention) that a number of the amendments were adopted.

Indeed, the timing of Green’s legislation back then could not have been worse.  The plan was to introduce the bill and hold a news conference the same day.  Because these things take some planning, the agreed-upon date was April 21, 1999.

The day before the event, two monsters shot up their high school in Columbine, Colorado.   

The bill was introduced, but the news conference was postponed until the media storm blew over.

All during the subsequent debate, the ghouls of the gun control lobby tried to paint anyone championing the cause of self-defense as violent and eager to promote death.  It didn’t work, but the price was a deeply flawed piece of legislation.

So now Green is finishing his task.

Concealed carry permit holders are law-abiding and safe.  We know this because the Michigan State Police compile an annual report of their behavior.  If Michigan’s population as a whole behaved as well as its concealed pistol licensees, we would be able to close most of the prisons and a good number of police – who would busy themselves with jaywalking and truancy rather than the warzone that is Detroit.

Of course, the usual suspects will claim that this will make Michigan more violent – that these incredibly law-abiding people will suddenly go berserk in movie theaters or church.

Rational people know that no law banning anything from a specific place will work if people choose to disobey it.  By definition, that is what criminals do – break the law.

Clearly, anyone willing to shoot up a police station is not going to be deterred by a sign in front of a school or church.  

This is long overdue reform, as is his second bill transferring administration of licenses to from counties to the Secretary of State.

It will be interesting to see how eager the Michigan Democrats are to fight this battle.  Gun control has cost them and even Jennifer Granholm – who vowed as state Attorney General to introduced a ballot initiative repealing PA 381 – ended up backing down.

Another unknown is the new governor’s position.  Will Rick Snyder sign it?  I have no idea what his position will be, though I assume Green did before he introduced it.

Interesting days ahead, to be sure.

 

Gun control ghouls fire blanks

Perhaps the strangest development in the media furor over the Tucson shootings is the lack of widespread interest in gun control.  Vividly do I recall the massive, desperate push for new laws in the wake of the Columbine massacre, but I see no evidence of it happening now.  In retrospect, that was gun control’s last gasp, the forlorn counteroffensive that could only delay but not defeat the concept’s defeat in the war of ideas.

Long-time readers of this blog will note that this trend has been reflected here as well – posts on the evils of gun control have gotten very rare.  Back in 2004, it was still something to argue about.  Now?  Not so much.

Across the country, violent crime continues to fall.  Here in Michigan as in elsewhere, the adoption of a shall-issue concealed carry law did not result in the predicted bloodbaths and shootouts.

All of this was predicted by gun rights proponents, of course. We knew that once the law was changed and people grew comfortable with armed citizens, the hysteria would subside.  The fear of guns causing violence was largely the result of increased suburbanization – as people become more removed from guns, they came to fear them.  Now huge swaths of the public are now once more acquainted with them and that fear has evaporated – and with it, the appeal of gun control.

As a practical matter, it never made sense to ban something that half of the country already possessed.  Nor does prohibition have a particularly successful track record – one of the key points I’ve raised is that cocaine and now methamphetamine are outlawed, but anyone who wants them can get them.  Why would guns – mechanical devices that do not have any scent, can last for centuries and may even be dissembled for concealment – be any different?

I predict the true consequence of the outrage in Arizona in term of gun rights will be continued price pressure on both firearms themselves and ammunition.  Congress will take no action on guns, but this administration has a track record of using back doors to implement policies that would otherwise be unattainable.

WHAT ABOUT THE BULLET BUBBLE?  It is true that ammunition is now readily obtainable – on my most recent sweep of the area, I found ample supplies of every caliber – but the prices are still far above what they were only a few years ago.  For example, 9mm parabellum is now in the $12 range for a box of 50, which is not horrible, but about 50 percent more than it was just four years ago. 

Perhaps most surprisingly,.38 Special is more than twice its old price, as is .357 Magnum.  Indeed, I find it hard to believe that I am paying as much for an “economy” caliber like .38 Special as I did for a “luxury” one like .44 Special just a few years ago.  (What adds insult to injury is that I converted from carrying a Charter Arms Bulldog to a Taurus 85 in large part because .38 Special ammunition was so much more affordable.)

I expect the current high prices are the result of commodities inflation/Fed printing presses as much as demand.

ARE WE THERE YET?  The goal of the gun rights movement has long been to make its own activities moot - to build such a solid, bipartisan consensus that guns laws would become as obsolete and discredited as the Jim Crow policies that inspired it in the first place.

We are not there yet, but it is now possible that within a generation, we can be there.  Who would've thought it?