The Assault Weapon Myth

For John, BLUF:  Sometimes you need to dig down to find the cause of the cause.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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The Instapundit sends us to the blog Bearing Arms, which has a link to an Opinion Piece of the "Week in Review" section of The New York Times.  The writer of the NYT item, Mr Lois Beckett, is a reporter who covers gun violence for ProPublica.  The article is "The Assault Weapon Myth".

The story in the Bearing Arms starts with this short paragraph:

In a stunning op-ed released Friday, the NY Times finally admitted that “assault weapons” are a made-up political term fabricated by anti-gun Democrats.

That may be a bit over the top, but I have to admit that I have thought the definition of "assault weapon" seemed pretty contrived to me.  It is sort of like the distinction between a regular weapon and an automatic weapon or a semi-automatic weapons.♠

Here is the lede from the story in The Old Gray Lady:

OVER the past two decades, the majority of Americans in a country deeply divided over gun control have coalesced behind a single proposition:  The sale of assault weapons should be banned.

That idea was one of the pillars of the Obama administration’s plan to curb gun violence, and it remains popular with the public.  In a poll last December, 59 percent of likely voters said they favor a ban.

But in the 10 years since the previous ban lapsed, even gun control advocates acknowledge a larger truth:  The law that barred the sale of assault weapons from 1994 to 2004 made little difference.

It turns out that big, scary military rifles don’t kill the vast majority of the 11,000 Americans murdered with guns each year.  Little handguns do.

So, we were seeing the difference between analysis and theater.

That said, there are thoughtful people out there trying to develop other solutions, such as Mayor Mitchell J. Landrieu of New Orleans and Mayor Michael A. Nutter of Philadelphia.♥  These two are the founders of Cities United, a network of mayors trying to prevent the deaths of young black men.  As Mayor Landrieu says “This is not just a gun issue, this is an unemployment issue, it’s a poverty issue, it’s a family issue, it’s a culture of violence issue.”

The New York Times article ends up:

More than 20 years of research funded by the Justice Department has found that programs to target high-risk people or places, rather than targeting certain kinds of guns, can reduce gun violence.

David M. Kennedy, the director of the Center for Crime Prevention and Control at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, argues that the issue of gun violence can seem enormous and intractable without first addressing poverty or drugs. A closer look at the social networks of neighborhoods most afflicted, he says, often shows that only a small number of men drive most of the violence. Identify them and change their behavior, and it’s possible to have an immediate impact.

Working with Professor Kennedy, and building on successes in other cities, New Orleans is now identifying the young men most at risk and intervening to help them get jobs. How well this strategy will work in the long term remains to be seen.

But it’s an approach based on an honest assessment of the real numbers.

Imagine that, "an honest assessment of the real numbers".

Hat tip to the Instapundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  From Wikipedia we have this description:  "An automatic firearm is a firearm which continuously fires rounds as long as the trigger is pressed and held and there is ammunition in the magazine/chamber.  This is in contrast to a semi-automatic firearm which fires one round with each individual trigger pull. Although both "semi automatic" and "fully automatic" weapons are "automatic" in the technical sense that the firearm automatically cycles between rounds with each trigger pull, the terms "automatic weapon" and "automatic firearm" are conventionally reserved to describe fully automatic firearms.  Confusion can be avoided by this convention."
♥  I used to be pretty impressed with Mayor Nutter, but then indications of voter fraud emerged in his city and he covered for it, which made me less impressed.  This could change my mind again.

Pope Francis on Current Events

For John, BLUF:  War is the human condition.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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My Wife forwarded this item from Yahoo News (sourced from Reuters), about a homily by Pope Francis, delivered during services at a World War One War Memorial in Italy.

REDIPUGLIA Italy (Reuters) - Pope Francis said on Saturday the spate of conflicts around the globe today were effectively a "piecemeal" Third World War, condemning the arms trade and "plotters of terrorism" sowing death and destruction.

"Humanity needs to weep and this is the time to weep," Francis said in the homily of a Mass during a visit to Italy's largest war memorial, a large, Fascist-era monument where more than 100,000 soldiers who died in World War One are buried.

The pope began his brief visit to northern Italy by first praying in a nearby, separate cemetery for some 15,000 soldiers from five nations of the Austro-Hungarian empire which were on the losing side of the Great War that broke out 100 years ago.

"War is madness," he said in his homily before the massive, sloping granite memorial, made of 22 steps on the side of hill with three crosses at the top.

"Even today, after the second failure of another world war, perhaps one can speak of a third war, one fought piecemeal, with crimes, massacres, destruction," he said.

As we look around it does, in a sense, resemble a world at war, albeit in a piecemeal fashion.

Regards  —  Cliff

Georgia Voter Registration Issues

For John, BLUF:  Where there is a chance to gain by fraud there is likely to be someone who will try for the gain.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Apparently down in Georgia they are looking at voter fraud, in this case fraud in registration, which one would assume, would lead to fraud in voting.  Why register people, real or fictitious, if not to then use those registrations for folks to vote.

This article is from The Hill and is by Alexandra Jaffe.  The headline is "Voter fraud probe roils Ga. Senate race".

Sadly, former Senator Sam Nunn's daughter is being sullied by this investigation.

Hat tip to the Instapundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

One View on Use of Airpower Against ISIL

For John, BLUF:  One should have a strategy, but also an operational plan.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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The reliance on air power has all of the attraction of casual sex: It seems to offer gratification but with very little commitment. We need to be wary of a strategy that puts emphasis on air power and air power alone.

This was a recent quip by retired US Air Force Four Star Michael Hayden.♠  It has been noted by Law Professor Ann Althouse in her eponymous blog and by Law Professor Glenn Reynolds, in his Instapundit Blog.  It was in Mediaite and at least one other news publication.

However, attribution may go to Professor Eliot Cohen of Johns Hopkins University, back in 1990.

Mediaite closes its short item with these words:

That being said, Hayden still thinks airstrikes are better than nothing, an argument one could also make about casual sex.

Not!

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  Back in the mid-1980s I was stationed with then Major Michael Hayden.  He is a very insightful and intelligent officer.

Page Two

For John, BLUF:  I, for one, am pulling for the local rag.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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On page 2 of today'sThe Lowell Sun is an article datelined out of New York City, but involves us here in Lowell.  On page 2 is an article about Digital First Media Group looking to sell off its media properties, which include The Denver Post, which in turn includes The Lowell Sun.  The lede is:

Digital First Media, the operator of this web site and newspaper, announced Friday that it will "evaluate and consider strategic alternatives" that could lead to the sale of some or all of the company.

Some may have other views, but it seems to me that the shuttering of our local newspaper would have a major impact on how news is provided, how information is disseminated.  Newspapers can be very important to communities.  That was the theme of the made for TV movie on the Hallmark channel last evening, The Wishing Well.  Yes, we idealize (or demonize) local newspapers, but they help us understand what is going on around us.  We even provide The Stars and Stripes to Service personnel and their families overseas, and it does a good job of helping folks know what is going on locally and back in the States.  As I recall, in Germany, each Thursday edition listed all the Volksmarches for the weekend, an important service to Service personnel.

I, for one, hope The Lowell Sun continues to burn brightly.

Your mileage may differ.

Regards  —  Cliff

US Senate v CIA

For John, BLUF:  The Senate remembers it is in charge.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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From the McClatchy Washington Bureau we have Reporter Ali Watkins looking at a closed-door meeting between US Senators and the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Mr John Brennan.  The headline is "New sparks fly between CIA, Senate Intelligence Committee".

The dateline is 12 September.

WASHINGTON — Tensions between the CIA and its congressional overseers erupted anew this week when CIA Director John Brennan refused to tell lawmakers who authorized intrusions into computers used by the Senate Intelligence Committee to compile a damning report on the spy agency’s interrogation program.

The confrontation, which took place during a closed-door meeting on Tuesday, came as the sides continue to spar over the report’s public release, providing further proof of the unprecedented deterioration in relations between the CIA and Capitol Hill.

For those of you looking to see this as a parochial fight, the story only mentions Democrat Senators.  This is a case of the Senate waking up to who it is supposed to be and acting that way.  There is a reason the Congress is mentioned before the Executive in the US Constitution.

Regards  —  Cliff

Fighting An Idea With An Idea

For John, BLUF:  We can contain the ISIL problem, but we can't kill our way out of it.

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On the 5th of September The Boston Globe under Mr Bryn Bender's byline, published "US wants more from Saudis in fight against extremists".  The lede is:

The US battle against the self-described Islamic State is being complicated by concerns that Saudi Arabia has helped support extremist Sunni elements — both spiritually and financially — even as the Saudis call themselves friends and allies of the United States.

This sort of skirts the real issue regarding our fight against ISIL.  At the core of ISIL is an idea and that idea can only be countered with another idea, an idea good enough to win back the young men and women who have signed up for ISIL.  Here is the third paragraph.

“The Muslim leadership in Saudi Arabia would rather spend their time writing [religious edicts] on the color of women’s fingernail polish” and has failed to deal with the crisis “inside of their religion,” said James B. Smith, the American ambassador to Saudi Arabia from 2009 to 2013.

Ambassador Smith hits on an important point.  The religious leaders in Saudi Arabia are only playing around the edges of the problem at this time. And I don't think Egypt gets it either. 

The grand imam of Al-Azhar, Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, fiercely attacked the Islamic State (IS) yesterday [Sept. 8], describing its members as “criminals tarnishing the image of Islam.”  He said IS and other terrorist groups are “products of colonialism serving Zionism.”♠

Imam Tayab does not seem to grasp that this is a fight for what it means to be a Muslim.  He puts forward a vision for Islam, but to the degree he blames ISIL on Zionism and the West, to that degree he misses that the threat is to him and the Egyptian Government.

Here is a graphic insight into the problem we face, from a senior US officer in Afghanistan around 2002.

In Afghanistan when things were relatively quiet an Allied SoF unit made an interesting assessment at one of the remote villages.  All was quiet and it should have been a quick stop but they stayed.  A small herding village had an enormous new mosque & Madrasa complex adjacent.  Over time they discovered that the town was 99% illiterate and the Madrasa offered the only hope for their children to have a different or better life. Rules of the Madrasa were:

1. No girls
2. Boys must be committed to the Madrasa at approximately age 4 and would not be allowed to see their parents again until around age 12, and then must continue the program to completion.

The particular cleric was unknown.  Some checks showed that the texts used were off the scale in terms of radicalism.

The Allied Task Force spent 6 months securing supplies and permissions to set up an abandoned building as a school, secure texts, recruit mothers to teach...  Building an alternative took considerable time and effort in one of the hundreds of villages in the area.  I don't know if the effort was sustained or not.  It is to be noted that the Taliban placed a high priority on terrorizing and to destroy such efforts.

My impression is there are two parts of this.  One, per the Boston Globe article and comments, to understand the phenomena.  Two, disrupting the growth and evolution of said phenomena is then possible, but incredibly difficult and long term.

As one of my friends (a progressive Democrat with ties to the Administration) put it:

It just seems so strange to be talking about a religious/cultural fight without talking about the religion or the culture, even to note that it is a fight within the regional family.

Too right.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  The response from the Arab Muslim leadership seems to be that this is a fight for the West to wage.  The problem is, we are foreigners and while we can kill our way to a diminished threat, we can't make it go away.  In fact, we can create new ISIL fighters along the way by our actions.  I would refer you to David Kilcullen's book, The Accidental Guerrilla.