A well-written piece on move to let people carry concealed handguns in schools

This article apparently originally appeared in Politico:

Gun rights advocates have suggested armed school staff could have prevented the killing of 20 children in a Connecticut elementary school. Now, lawmakers in Texas, Tennessee, Virginia and Florida are considering arming teachers and allowing concealed weapons on school campuses. All four states have the Brady Center To Prevent Gun Violence’s lowest rating. . . .  

Patterson, who wrote Texas’ original concealed carry law as a state legislator and is running for lieutenant governor in 2014, has long favored allowing concealed weapons in schools. But his idea seem to be gaining steam. Texas Gov. Rick Perry told a Tea Party group this week he wants a law allowing teachers to carry concealed weapons in school. . . .While Texas is the center of the movement, governors in Tennessee and Virginia have also signaled openness to allowing guns on school grounds.
“If people were armed, not just a police officer, but other school officials that were trained and chose to have a weapon, certainly there would be an opportunity to stop an individual trying to get into the school,” Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell said on WTOP, a local radio station. . . .
A South Carolina House member introduced legislation there earlier this week. The Florida legislator who wrote the state’s “Stand Your Ground” law and an Arizona gun rights group have also proposed arming trained teachers
“In our zealousness to protect people from harm we’ve created all these gun-free zones and what we’ve inadvertently done is we’ve made them a target,” Florida GOP Rep. Dennis Baxley told the AP. “A helpless target is exactly what a deranged person is looking for where they cannot be stopped.” . . .
In Michigan, it is legal to carry a pistol in schools — as long as the weapon isn’t concealed. Patterson pointed out several school districts in Texas have armed police forces. And Utah, Oregon and New Hampshire already allow concealed carry in schools, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. . . .

Two interviews with Mark Levin on the Newtown, CT school shootings

My next interview with Mark on December 18th is available here.

A partial list of the 206 college campuses that allow students to carry concealed handguns

The National Conference of State Legislatures notes

-- 5 states now have provisions allowing the carrying of concealed weapons on public postsecondary campuses.  These states are Colorado, Mississippi, Oregon, Utah, and Wisconsin. 
-- 23 states the decision to ban or allow concealed carry weapons on campuses is made by each college or university individually: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and West Virginia.
-- 21 (actually 22 if you include Illinois) states that ban carrying a concealed weapon on a college campus: Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming.

According to Students for Concealed Carry there are 206 colleges that allow this.  Here is a partial list.

1. UNIVERSITY OF UTAH

2. UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY

3. SOUTHERN UTAH UNIVERSITY

4. UTAH VALLEY UNIVERSITY

5. WEBER STATE UNIVERSITY

6. DIXIE STATE COLLEGE OF UTAH

7. COLLEGE OF EASTERN UTAH

8. SNOW COLLEGE

9. SALT LAKE COMMUNITY COLLEGE

10. Southwest Mississippi Community College

11. CENTRAL OREGON COMMUNITY COLLEGE

12. CHEMEKETA COMMUNITY COLLEGE

13. CLACKAMAS COMMUNITY COLLEGE

14. CLATSOP COMMUNITY COLLEGE

15. COLUMBIA GORGE COMMUNITY COLLEGE

16. KLAMATH COMMUNITY COLLEGE

17. LANE COMMUNITY COLLEGE

18. LINN-BENTON COMMUNITY COLLEGE

19. MT. HOOD COMMUNITY COLLEGE

20. OREGON COAST COMMUNITY COLLEGE

21. PORTLAND COMMUNITY COLLEGE

22. ROGUE COMMUNITY COLLEGE

23. SOUTHWESTERN OREGON COMMUNITY COLLEGE

24. TILLAMOOK BAY COMMUNITY COLLEGE

25. TREASURE VALLEY COMMUNITY COLLEGE

26. UMPQUA COMMUNITY COLLEGE

27. EASTERN OREGON COLLEGE

28. OREGON HEALTH SCIENCES UNIVERSITY

29. OREGON INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

30. OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY

31. PORTLAND STATE UNIVERSITY

32. SOUTHERN OREGON UNIVERSITY 

33. UNIVERSITY OF OREGON

34. UNIVERSITY OF PHOENIX

35. WESTERN OREGON UNIVERSITY

36. EDMONDS COMMUNITY COLLEGE 

37. BATES TECHNICAL COLLEGE

38. SHORELINE COMMUNITY COLLEGE

39. UW-EAU CLAIRE

40. UW-GREEN BAY

41. UW-LA CROSSE

42. UW-MADISON

43. UW-MILWAUKEE

44. UW-OSHKOSH

45. UW-PARKSIDE

46. UW-PLATTEVILLE

47. UW-RIVER FALLS

48. UW-STEVENS POINT

49. UW-STOUT

50. UW-SUPERIOR

51. UW-WHITEWATER

52. UW-BARABOO/SAUK COUNTY 

53. UW-BARRON COUNTY 

54. UW-FOND DU LAC

55. UW-FOX VALLEY

56. UW-MANITOWOC

57. UW-MARATHON COUNTY

58. UW-MARINETTE

59. UW-MARSHFIELD/WOOD COUNTY

60. UW-RICHLAND

61. UW-ROCK COUNTY

62. UW-SHEBOYGAN

63. UW-WASHINGTON COUNTY

64. UW-WAUKESHA

65. BLACKHAWK TECHNICAL COLLEGE

66. CHIPPEWA VALLEY TECHNICAL COLLEGE

67. FOX VALLEY TECHNICAL COLLEGE

68. GATEWAY TECHNICAL COLLEGE

69. LAKESHORE TECHNICAL COLLEGE

70. MADISON AREA TECHNICAL COLLEGE

71. MID-STATE TECHNICAL COLLEGE

72. MILWAUKEE AREA TECHNICAL COLLEGE

73. MORAINE PARK TECHNICAL COLLEGE

74. NICOLET AREA TECHNICAL COLLEGE

75. NORTHCENTRAL TECHNICAL COLLEGE

76. NORTHEAST WISCONSIN TECHNICAL COLLEGE

77. SOUTHWEST WISCONSIN TECHNICAL COLLEGE

78. WAUKESHA COUNTY TECHNICAL COLLEGE

79. WESTERN TECHNICAL COLLEGE

80. WISCONSIN INDIANHEAD TECHNICAL COLLEGE

81. COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY

82. AIMS COMMUNITY COLLEGE

83. ARAPAHOE COMMUNITY COLLEGE

84. COLORADO NORTHWESTERN COMMUNITY COLLEGE

85. COMMUNITY COLLEGE OF AURORA

86. COMMUNITY COLLEGE OF DENVER

87. FRONT RANGE COMMUNITY COLLEGE

88. LAMAR COMMUNITY COLLEGE

89. MORGAN COMMUNITY COLLEGE

90. NORTHEASTERN JUNIOR COLLEGE

91. OTERO JUNIOR COLLEGE

92. PIKES PEAK COMMUNITY COLLEGE

93. PUEBLO COMMUNITY COLLEGE

94. RED ROCKS COMMUNITY COLLEGE

95. TRINIDAD STATE JUNIOR COLLEGE

96. LIBERTY UNIVERSITY

97. EDMONDS COMMUNITY COLLEGE

98. BATES TECHNICAL COLLEGE

99. SHORELINE COMMUNITY COLLEGE

100. Alcorn State University

101. Delta State University

102. Jackson State University

103. Mississippi State University

104. Mississippi University for Women

105. Mississippi Valley State University

106. University of Mississippi

107. The University of Southern Mississippi

108. Coahoma Community College

109. Copiah-Lincoln Community College

110. East Central Community College

111. East Mississippi Community College

112. Hinds Community College

113. Holmes Community College

114. Itawamba Community College

115. Jones County Junior College

116. Meridian Community College

117. Mississippi Delta Community College

118. Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College

119. Northeast Mississippi Community College

120. Pearl River Community College

California tax increase helping "clear the way" for more government spending

I guess that I thought that the California tax increase was to cut down the deficit.  Now apparently there are plans for more big spending programs.

That could clear the way for an expansive agenda over the next two years, ranging from education and pension to an overhaul of California’s boom-or-bust tax structure. . . .

CNN's continued false claims about murder in UK after handgun ban

Here is an interview that I had on December 17th with Becky Anderson and Roland Martin.  Becky claimed: "John Lott, I think that you are massaging the stats."  She also asserted that the murders fell in the UK after the January 1997 handgun ban in the UK.  I suppose that by the end of the interview I was sufficiently stumped about how I was going to convince the audience that they were just making up claims about UK's murder rate.  Here is what I wrote up regarding a very similar discussion that I had with Piers Morgan and Christiane Amanpour.

Gun Control Advocates Misinformation by Guard in Columbine Attack

1) The guard at the Columbine High School attack did delay and that allowed many students to escape out of the building.
2) The guard was only able to delay the killers for a while because they had homemade grenades.  The guard was hiding around a corner in a hallway, but when the two killers started lobbing their grenades down the hallway his position became untenable.  Despite the claims to the contrary, it wasn't the "assault weapons" that were important in making it so that the guard had to back down. (Some information is available here.)
3) Finally, the officer at Columbine was there because he was such a bad shot.  He was not given regular duty and was assigned to the school because it was deemed that his ability to properly shoot his gun wasn't thought to be an issue.

Discussion on Megan Kelly's show over new gun control laws

As Mediaite describes the discussion:

On Friday afternoon, Megyn Kelly‘s panel — comprised of pro-gun advocate John Lott and pro-gun control advocate Lori Haas — debated how effective gun control legislation would be in quelling the string of gun violence the country as seen.  . . .

Friday, December 21, 2012 from 2:10 to 2:20.

John Fund summarizes some useful facts on Multiple Victim Public Shootings

This is from John Fund's op-ed piece in the Hartford Courant:

•Mass shootings are no more common than they have been in past decades, despite the impression given by the media.
•In fact, the high point for mass killings in the U.S. was 1929, according to criminologist Grant Duwe of the Minnesota Department of Corrections.
•Incidents of mass murder in the U.S. declined from 42 in the 1990s to 26 in the first decade of this century.

•The chances of being killed in a mass shooting are about what they are for being struck by lightning.
•Until the Newtown horror, the three worst K–12 school shootings ever had taken place in either Britain or Germany.

From Vin Suprynowicz in the Law Vegas Review-Journal:

In 1974, three Arab terrorists broke into an Israeli school and killed 31 children and faculty. Did Israel respond by self-righteously asserting "Firearms have absolutely no place in our schools"?
No. Instead, they armed and trained their teachers and even parent chaperones, with the result that in the past 38 years, terror-beset Israel has not lost a single child within a school. . . . 

Debating Canada's Gun Control's Wendy Cukier on the CBC

Note: Wendy had already done an entire segment by herself so I think that they gave me a little extra time to balance things off slightly.

Friday, December 21, 2012 5:12 to 5:19 PM

So were Piers Morgan and Christiane Amanpour dishonest about crime rates last night?

From my appearance last night on CNN.

LOTT: Every place that guns have been banned, murder rates have gone up. You cannot point to one place, whether it's Chicago or whether it's D.C. or whether it's been England of whether it's been Jamaica or Ireland. 

MORGAN: I'm sorry, but that's just a complete lie. It's a complete lie. The gun murder rate in Britain is 35 a year, average. You need to stop repeating a blatant lie, about what happens in other countries.  [cross talk]  No, you're not going to get away with this. You lied about it the other day. Thirty-five gun murders a year in Britain, eleven to twelve thousand in America. Stop lying, because what you say drives Americans to defend themselves. 

After Morgan then claimed multiple times that I had lied, the video then shows that I tried to explain that there is a difference between levels and changes.  In an obvious setup, Christiane Amanpour claimed that the murder rate in the UK had initially been flat after the ban and then fell.

Amanpour: After Dunblane, they put in these bans, they put in these punishments, fines, jail sentences, etc. and its true that straight afterwards there wasn't a huge change, but 2002/2003 until 2011 the rate plummeted by 44%.

Amanpour was clearly taking about the number of homicides so here is a chart for that (source here see Table 1.01 and the column marked "Number of offences currently recorded as homicide").  She is right that there were substantial increases in law enforcement activity, which one suspects should have been associated with reduced crime rates, but, even with that, how can she make the claims that she did about homicides? 

The change from 1996 to 2003 was bigger than the drop since then.  If she says that there is no "huge change" between 1996 and 2003 (when there was a 60% increase), how can she say that there is a "plummet" after that (when it fell by 32%, not 44%)?  By the way, the average yearly homicides from 1990 to 1996 was 601.  For the time period after the ban started it was 707, an 18 percent increase.  Clearly homicide rates bounce around over time, but in none of the 15 years of data here is the homicide rate lower than it was in 1996.  

Note also that an average of 707 a year is also slightly higher than Piers Morgan's claim of 35 a year.  Even if it is possible that Morgan misspoke and meant that there were 35 firearm homicides a year, that is still in error.  Indeed, at least since 1990, the average has been twice that high and has never even got that  low.  I think that total homicides are the most important concern, rather than how a homicide was committed, but if that is what some would rather focus on, it is still hard to see that even firearm homicides fell after the ban.  The averages in the pre- and post-ban periods are virtually identical (61 pre-ban and 62 post-ban), and there are only two years that the number of firearm homicides fell below what the number was in 1996 (2009 and 2010).

Obviously, guns are involved in more than just homicides or murders.  One thing that is clear has been the huge increase in gun crime generally in England and Wales since the gun ban (for similar discussions see here, here, and here).  Firearm Offenses involving handguns, rifles and shotguns were falling from 1991 to 1997.  At that point, they stopped falling and kept increasing until 2006.  The number of firearm offenses in 2011 was still 16 percent higher than in 1996 and the average for 1997 to 2011 was 8,326 or 31 percent higher than in the 1990 to 1996 period.

I am more concerned about total murders than just firearm murders, but firearm murders have also risen after the ban.  Indeed, there are only two years after the ban where the number of murders were below what it was before the ban.  In 2011, there were 60 murders, up from 49 in 1996.

The discussion on CNN was supposed to be a Townhall where people from different views were in the audience.  Instead the people that they brought in from Arizona and Wisconsin and other places were all on the same side. I asked the people in my section if anyone opposed increased gun control regulations and no one said that they did.  Several shouted that they wanted to ban all semi-automatic guns.

So here are previous figures that I put together. These figures are from the third edition of More Guns, Less Crime from the University of Chicago Press (2010). Click to make the figures larger. The numbers for the UK are available here in Table 1.01 (see column marked "Offences currently recorded as homicide per million population").  There is only one year (2010) where the homicide rate is lower than it was in 1996.

Other inform for Ireland and Jamaica.

How about for DC and Chicago (Figures taken from More Guns, Less Crime)?

The raw data for DC over a long period of time is available here (the crime rates are available on the bottom half of the screen).  My books The Bias Against Guns looks at crime data for other places including even a police state such as the former Soviet Union and other countries.

Now Australia didn't have a complete ban on guns, they didn't even ban all semi-automatic guns, but I have a discussion on the changes in their crime rates here.

Does it look like murder rates fell in any of these places after a ban was enacted?

Here is some other information that might be useful on the two places available here and here.

The International Crime Victimization survey also provides some interesting comparisons on overall violent crime rates across countries.  To roughly get the violent crime totals add robbery, sexual incidents, and assaults.

Appearance on PBS Newshour: "Examining the Efficacy and Limitations of Gun Control Laws to Stop Violence"

The transcript and video of my appearance from 7:12 to 7:20 PM on Wednesday is available here:

JUDY WOODRUFF: Now Ray Suarez takes a closer look at the potential powers and limitations on what the president and individual states can do.
RAY SUAREZ: And for that, we get two views from people who have written extensively on gun-related issues.
Adam Winkler is a professor of constitutional law at UCLA School of Law and author of "Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America."
And John Lott has been a prominent voice in the gun rights debate, arguing against further restrictions. He's an economist and the author of "More Guns, Less Crime."
And, John Lott, just heard the president and Pat Quinn, the governor of a very large state, talking about using state and federal power to work against gun violence. Is there any track record?
Have there been laws passed either at the state or federal level that showed any track record in pushing down the amount of violence, the number of incidents, restrictions on size, type, availability of weapons, anything we can point to in the past?
JOHN LOTT, author, "More Guns, Less Crime": Right.
Well, obviously, I understand the reactions. I mean, we have all been torn apart by this. I wish the problems were quite as simple as the president and the governor seem to indicate.
We have tried a lot of the laws. The governor himself was saying he'd like to see something similar to the assault weapons ban that we had before.
If you go back when the assault weapons ban sunset in 2004, many of the same people who are pushing it now, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Sen. Chuck Schumer, were predicting large increases in murder rates and violent crimes when it sunset. Since it sunset, though, murder rates and violent crimes have both fallen by about 20 percent.
Somebody should ask them why they were so far off in terms of their predictions. And, you know, the other -- and that covered many of the things that are being talked about now, from limiting the size of ammunition clips, to bans on so-called assault weapons.
I think a lot of the problem is, with all due respect to the governor, I'm not sure he really understands what the different types of guns are. There's something that's put out there, this mythical assault weapon. It's really trying to ban guns on the way they look on the outside, rather than how they actually function.
RAY SUAREZ: Let me turn to Prof. Winkler at this point.
Is there any track record, sir, for using state or federal regulation to turn back the rate, the frequency of gun violence?
And respond to John Lott's point about previous legislation not having done much.
ADAM WINKLER, UCLA School of Law: Well, it's true that a restriction on assault weapons is not likely to have a huge impact on ordinary crime rates, in part because assault weapons are generally not the preferred firearm of the criminal, who generally prefers to have handguns at their disposal.
Since 2004 and the sunset of the assault weapons ban, we have really seen a spike in the number of incidents of mass shootings. So maybe these firearms are attractive to them.
We have also seen, with the Brady background check bill, adopted in 1993, that requires background checks, that about 60 percent of gun purchases, that well over 1.5 million people who have tried to buy firearms from federal licensed dealers have been turned away for failing that background check.
I think there is strong evidence that if we require a background check on every gun purchase, we will close a major loophole that allows criminals or the mentally ill to get their hands on gun easily.
RAY SUAREZ: John Lott, that is often referred to as the gun show loophole, a place where in fact you don't have to have your past looked over. And that's been talked about quite a lot in the past several days, closing that, just as a starting point for the national response to what happened Friday.
JOHN LOTT: Right.
I have to disagree with what Adam just said. If you look at the Brady Act, which is obviously a part of this puzzle here in terms of background checks, when he cites the 1.9 million number, that's initial denials.
Something like 90 -- I can't remember the exact number, but it's like 98 percent or so of those are false positive.
And so what happens? You have a name that is similar to somebody else's name, and they will flag you, and you will be initially denied.
RAY SUAREZ: So, sir, are you saying a lot of those people come back and eventually do get guns?
JOHN LOTT: I'm saying criminals aren't trying to buy guns that way.
Those -- pointing to the number of initial denials, rather than final denials, is not a very useful way of looking at it.
And, in addition, with regard to the so-called gun show loophole, it's really a bit of a misnomer.
What they -- what wants to be done is to have -- regulate and have background checks on all private transfers. So if you're a father giving a gun to a son or whoever, you would have to go through a background check system.
The notion that they focus on gun shows, I mean, I could go outside the gun show and transfer the gun there.
Are they going to say that that's OK then? When states have passed these rules, usually, it's going to be on all private transfers. And that's fine, if they want to make that argument. But the thing is, again, both criminologists and economists have looked at this extensively.
And I don't know of any study by either economists or criminologists that have found a benefit from having the states that have these types of background checks. There's only about 0.7 percent of all crime guns come from either gun shows or flea markets.
RAY SUAREZ: Prof. Winkler ...
JOHN LOTT: And so ...
RAY SUAREZ: Let's give him a chance to respond.
JOHN LOTT: Sure. Sorry.
ADAM WINKLER: Well, the truth is, we don't really know, because not all the gun shows -- you don't have to report the sales at gun shows.
And it also defies logic to think that gun shows are not a vehicle for criminals to get their hands on guns.
If you're a criminal, one of your big -- the big issues you face is that you can't go to a gun store and buy a gun because they will do a background check on you.You could buy a gun in the black market. And many criminals indeed get their guns just through the black market.
But if you want to have selection and want to have the kinds of choices that you get at a gun store, you go to a gun show.
I agree with John that it's not a gun show loophole. Gun sales at gun shows occur with the exact same rules as gun sales everywhere else. The problem is that they are basically a marketplace for people who don't want to do a background check to go and purchase a firearm without having to undertake one.
It's time that we require every single person who buys a gun to go through a background check. That doesn't offend anyone's Second Amendment rights.
And all over the country, when I went and talked about guns to people when I was out there on a book tour for "Gunfight," I found gun owners all over telling me they wanted to do more to see that criminals and the mentally ill don't have easy access to guns.
Make it difficult for criminals to get their guns.
RAY SUAREZ: Professor Lott, quick response?
JOHN LOTT: Yes, sure.
Well, there's costs and benefits from all these laws. For example, during the Clinton administration, the gun show -- or the computer checks were shut down for about six days or so each month. And they run into problems now.
So, if you're running a gun show, and let's say it's shut down for an hour or two hours or a day or a weekend, all your sales are gone.
Imagine running a grocery store where, randomly, the government would shut you down and not tell you when you would be able to go and get back up. That is a real cost.
Now, if the government wants to go and guarantee that that won't be or compensate people financially for that, my guess is the amount of opposition would quickly be reduced.
If they think that there's this big gain in terms of reduced crime, despite the fact that there's no academic studies there, then share part of that gain to offset the costs that would be imposed on those individuals that would have their businesses possibly ruined otherwise.
RAY SUAREZ: Gentlemen, it's apparent there's a lot more to talk about on this issue. We will continue this conversation.
Thanks for joining us.
JOHN LOTT: Thank you.
ADAM WINKLER: Thank you.

New piece at US News: "Gun Restrictions Leave People Vulnerable and Helpless"

My piece at US News starts this way:

When bad things happen with guns, the desire to ban guns is to take away guns is understandable. But doing that can often make problems worse. 

For example, it might seem obvious to protect people by banning guns in areas. But law-abiding citizens, not those intent on committing terrorist acts, obey these bans. Instead of making places safer, disarming law-abiding citizens leaves them as sitting ducks. With just one single exception, every public shooting since at least 1950 in the United States in which more than three people have been killed has taken place where citizens are not allowed to carry guns. 

This isn't random. If it were, . . . .

Concealed carry people stopping crime: Some more cases that I had previous missed from the last four months

-- SURVEILLANCE VID SHOWS 71-YEAR-OLD CONCEALED CARRY HOLDER OPENING FIRE ON WOULD-BE ROBBERS

-- Something from the recent Portland Mall Shooting (from Investors Business Daily):

Before the tragedy in Connecticut, a shooter at an Oregon shopping mall was stopped by an armed citizen with a concealed carry permit who refused to be a victim, preventing another mass tragedy.

In the target-rich environment of the Clackamas Town Center two weeks before Christmas, the shooter managed to kill only two people before killing himself. A far worse tragedy was prevented when he was confronted by a hero named Nick Meli.
As the shooter was having difficulty with his weapon, Meli pulled his and took aim, reluctant to fire lest an innocent bystander be hit. But he didn't have to pull the trigger: The shooter fled when confronted, ending his own life before it could be done for him.
We will never know how many lives were saved by an armed citizen that day. . . .

Another version of the Portland Mall Shooting here:

While reports of Tuesday's shooting at the Clackamas Town Center Mall in Oregon, dominated the national media, until Friday's horrific shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, one very important detail has been repeatedly (and intentionally) left out of the MSM's coverage.
The shooter, Jacob Tyler Roberts, was confronted with an armed citizen, at which time he ran away and shot himself. By the time police arrived on the scene, Roberts was already dead. . . .

-- FORMER FIREFIGHTER SHOOTS, KILLS ARMED ROBBER WITH LEGAL CONCEALED HANDGUN: ‘WHEN I GOT MY CHANCE, I HAD TO TAKE IT’

-- Arizona man stops robbery.

-- Here is another case from August:

A 43-year-old man was arrested Tuesday afternoon for threatening people after asking for cigarettes, according to Kitsap County sheriff's reports.
Deputies were called to the 1900 block of Pioneer Lane SE around 3 p.m. for a report that the man had yelled at two people who hadn't given him cigarettes. He had taken off his shirt to fight one man.
The man he challenged, however, had a valid concealed pistol license and drew his weapon, and the 43-year-old made threats he'd return there and "shoot the place up," deputies wrote.
Deputies arrived and searched for the suspect, not finding him at first. Deputies said he "suddenly came running out of a nearby apartment with his hands out in front of him" and yelled "freeze." He was holding a "shiny metallic object" that spurred deputies to draw their guns and take cover. . . .

Excellent piece on Israel's gun ownership rate

So what is the secret why terrorists are successfully attacking Israel's schools? "Why Israel Has No Newtowns: It’s the Jewish state’s gun culture, not its laws, that prevents mass shootings like the one in Connecticut"

Dan Ingberman sent me this link.

Americans considering guns in schools

From Virginia to Texas to Missouri, public officials are getting serious about protecting school children.

In Virginia

Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-Va.) said on Tuesday that it’s “time to have a discussion” about arming school officials, in wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Conn. 

“If someone had been armed, there would have been a possibility to stop the person from coming into the school,” McDonnell said on Washington’s WTOP radio’s “Ask the Governor” monthly program responding to a caller’s question. “I know there is a knee-jerk reaction against that, but I think we should have a discussion about it.” 

He continued: “If a person [like Sandy Hook’s principal Dawn Hochsprung] was armed and trained, could they have stopped the carnage? Perhaps.” . . .

Missouri (Long article worth reading)

The St. Louis County police have arranged to meet privately this week with education leaders to discuss safety measures — including the possibility of arming some school staff members. 

Police Chief Tim Fitch said the county already employs 33 school resource officers — police assigned to schools — who work in 12 districts and are mostly based in high schools. But concern is now focused on elementary schools, after Friday’s shooting spree that killed 20 students and six staff members in Newtown, Conn. 

Not every district can afford more officers to patrol elementary schools, and the county force can’t pull enough officers off their beats to do it immediately, Fitch said. So, he said, training and arming selected school workers is an option that must be considered. 

“We can talk on the back end of the need for funding of mental illness programs and gun control, but as a law enforcement officer, I’m focused on that five-minute window that it takes for the cops to get there while people are getting killed,” Fitch said. “There is somebody out there right now trying to figure out how to do something worse than this guy did, and there is only one way to end a threat, and that’s with lethal force.” 

Such a proposal would require a change to Missouri law, which forbids anyone but law enforcement from carrying a weapon into a school, noted Roland Corvington, a member of the county’s police board. . . . 

Texas

Lawmakers and educators in Texas say the way to guard against school shootings like last Friday's at a Connecticut elementary school is to make sure teachers can shoot back. While the rampage that left 20 young children and six adults dead in a small Northeastern community has sparked a national debate on gun control, assault weapons and a culture of violence, David Thweatt, superintendent of the 103-student Harrold Independent School District in Wilbarger County, said his teachers are armed and ready to protect their young charges.“We give our ‘Guardians’ training in addition to the regular Texas conceal-and-carry training,” Thweatt, whose school is about three hours northwest of Dallas, told FoxNews.com.  “It mainly entails improving accuracy…You know, as educators, we don’t have to be police officers and learn about Miranda Rights and related procedures. We just have to be accurate.” . . . .

More on Texas here

Texas Gov. Rick Perry indicated Monday that he supported allowing teachers and administrators to carry concealed handguns in response to the Connecticut school massacre that left 20 children dead.
Local school districts should decide their own policies, Perry said. But if someone has obtained a concealed-handgun license, he said, “you should be able to carry your handgun anywhere in this state.” He clarified that private property owners should be allowed to impose their own restrictions.
Perry was asked about calls for stricter gun control laws Monday at a tea party forum in North Richland Hills. Perry said that he believed lawmakers should consider mental health issues as well as ways to make schools safer.
“It appears that this was a young man who was very disturbed,” Perry said.
Some school districts across the state already allow school personnel to carry guns. When Perry talked about how he had read about one district allowing teachers, administrators and others to carry weapons, he was interrupted by loud applause from the crowd. . . . 

On the other hand Michigan will still only allow open carry at schools.

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder has vetoed legislation that would allow concealed weapons in churches, schools and daycare centers. 

The Republican governor said in a release Tuesday that public venues need clear legal authority to ban firearms "if they see fit to do so." . . . 

Under existing law, people may openly carry guns in those and other locations but not concealed weapons. 

Gérard Depardieu leaves France over higher taxes

From the UK Telegraph:

Asterix and Obelix have deserted Gaul. Or at least the two actors who played them in three blockbuster movies have. With Gérard “Obelix” Depardieu’s much-trumpeted exile to Belgium last week, following Christian “Asterix” Clavier’s move to London in October, France has lost her best-known fictional heroes, undefeated by Julius Caesar’s legions, but vanquished by François Hollande’s punitive new 75 per cent top marginal income tax rate, recently hiked capital gains tax, and reinforced wealth tax. 

The symbolism has not been lost on the French. When France’s richest man, Bernard Arnault, the CEO and main shareholder of the luxury behemoth LVMH, applied for Belgian citizenship last August, it was easy for Socialists to paint him as an unpatriotic, despicable fat cat. “Get lost, you rich b------” blasted a headline on the front page of Libération, the Left-wing daily, effectively capturing the national mood. 

But Depardieu is a vastly different proposition from a wealthy tycoon and former asset-stripper whose children’s weddings warrant 10-page spreads in society magazines. When Jean-Marc Ayrault, France’s prime minister, contemptuously called him “a pathetic loser”, Depardieu shot back with an open letter published on Sunday. . . . .

Appearance on NPR: Sandy Hook Massacre Changes Gun Control Conversations

CONAN: . . . As we mentioned, later in the program Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper will join us, but first we begin with John Lott, an economist and author of "More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws." He joins us now by phone from Virginia. And it's good of you to be with us today.

JOHN LOTT: Well, thank you for having me on.

CONAN: And I wonder, the book is about why you believe that gun-free zones, I guess like the elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, are magnets for shooters. Is that the conversation you've been having?

LOTT: Yeah, I mean that's part of it. I think one thing that's been missing in this discussion is that essentially all the multiple victim public shootings in the United States, and all the ones in Europe, have one factor in common - that is, they keep occurring where guns are banned.

And I'll give you a simple example from this year. I mean any of the ones you point to from this year or past years are going to follow that, but look at the Colorado shooting that the governor is going to be coming on to talk about. You had seven movie theaters showing the Batman movie within a 20-minute drive of the killer's apartment.

Only one of those seven movie theaters posted a ban on concealed handguns. The killer didn't go to the movie theater that was closest to his home. There was one that was only 1.3 miles away. He didn't go to the largest one. In fact, one advertises itself quite openly as having the largest auditorium in the state of Colorado.

And you'd think if you wanted to go to one that would kill a lot of people, he'd go to the largest one on premiere night for the Batman movie. Instead, the one he went to was the only one that banned concealed handguns. And that happens time after time.

You look at the mall shooting last week. There were other malls in the area that did not post bans. Yet the one he picked to go to was the one that banned concealed handguns. Look at...

CONAN: I hear your point, I hear what you're saying, and somebody might say Tucson. This was a mall. Clearly somebody who was angry at a member of Congress for whatever reason. If you say somebody at Virginia Tech was angry at, enraged at his school, whether or not it was a gun-free zone is almost irrelevant.

LOTT: Right, but here's the point, and that is when you have state that allows concealed carry, the gun-free zones are really only a tiny fraction of the area within the state. You take Virginia, for example. Basically the only places that you're banned from carrying a concealed handgun in Virginia are courthouses, airports and schools.

So you know, if it was random, you know, people could get mad at all sorts of places, right?

CONAN: Yeah, but he was a student at Virginia Tech and clearly had rage against the institution.

LOTT: No, I understand, but presumably - right, I understand, but presumably there are other people who get mad at other things. Why, why - you had a mall shooting a few years ago in Nebraska. OK, there's like seven major malls. Why would he go to the one that was posted for a ban? Or in Salt Lake City, when they had malls there. Why would the shooter go to - you know, it could be random, but at some point if you have seven movie theaters that fit the same criteria of showing the movie, you know, what are the odds time after time when these things occur that they pick the one place where guns are banned to engage in the attack.

CONAN: And this is the really the moment to have this conversation, do you think, to reach out across the divide and...

LOTT: I've been trying to have this conversation for over a decade. Look at the Columbine shooting. It's another example. One thing that people don't talk about very much is that the two killers in that case were very opposed to a concealed handgun law that was being considered at that time before the state legislature.

Dylan Klebold particularly spoke out about it. It's my understanding that he actually wrote letters to the state legislature opposing the adoption of the concealed carry law. One thing that doesn't get attention is that the Columbine attack occurred the very day that the Colorado legislature was scheduled for final passage of the concealed handgun law.

I was there in the morning. I was asked by the speaker of the House at the time to come and talk to legislators before they voted later that afternoon on the bill.

CONAN: You don't find it - excuse me, you don't find it more relevant that both these kids were students at Columbine High School? They were going to attack somewhere else?

LOTT: Yeah, but the point is, why did he pick that day? And also, look, out of all these attacks, if it's random, wouldn't you expect some attacks to be occurring in places, you know, where guns - where guns aren't banned? Look at Europe. Look at Switzerland, for example. Switzerland has a very relaxed concealed carry law. Half the cantons in the country, you don't need a license, you just carry it. The other half, very easy to get a license.

They've had three big multiple-victim public shootings in the last 12 years. All three of those are in the very few buildings where guns aren't allowed in Switzerland. I'm just saying, you look around the world, at some point if it's just randomness, you know, and - you know, you would expect to see more than zero, right, in these cases, and the United States has only one case since 1950 where one of these multiple-victim public shootings, where more than three people have been killed, that's occurred in a place where guns were allowed.

All the other ones, all the others have occurred where guns are banned. Let me give you a simple question to think about. Let's say, God forbid, a criminal was seriously stalking you, a violent criminal was stalking you or your family. Would you feel safer putting a sign in front of your home that said your home was a gun-free zone? Would that make you feel like the criminal would be less likely to attack your family in the home there?

My guess is you wouldn't put up a sign like that. I don't know any gun control proponent that would put up a sign like that in front of their own home. I've debated many of them. But why do we put those - even though we wouldn't put a sign like that in front of our home, we put them in front of all sorts of other places.

And the answer is obvious why we wouldn't put it in front of our own home. It's because we know that would encourage the person to attack. He'd say if I can attack anyplace, why shouldn't I attack where I know they're not going to be able to defend themselves very well?

CONAN: John Lott, thanks very much for your time today. We appreciate it.

LOTT: OK, thank you.

CONAN: John Lott is an economist and author of "More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control." He joined us on the phone from Virginia. Let's see if we can go next to - this is - this is Steven(ph), Steven with us from Fort Smith in Arkansas.

Some of the media reaction to my comments on gun-free zones

-- Facts, not emotions, must guide post-Newtown debate

-- Soledad O’Brien vs. John Lott

-- Gun Expert Lott: Let Teachers Carry Arms, Ban Gun-Free Zones to Halt Mass Shootings

-- Washington Post: "Do concealed-weapon laws result in less crime?"

-- Washington Examiner responds to WP: No evidence right-to-carry laws increase crime

-- LA Times: On Newtown, mourn first, then act

-- Village Voice: We Must Stop Pretending there are Two Sides to the Gun Control Debate
-- IBD: Lesson Of Sandy Hook, Clackamas — Ban Gun-Free Zones
-- Townhall: John Lott Destroys CNN's Soledad O'Brien on Gun Free Zones
-- Upworthy: Gun Expert Decides To Make Stuff Up. Reporter Decides To Shut Him Down

UPDATE:

-- Washington Post: Newtown: Why is gun advocate John Lott doing his best work on CNN?