A Couple Quick Rants

Who the hell are these people who think Barack Obama is not the President? They think because the rightwing nut job Supreme Court Chief Justice screwed up the Oath of Office that somehow Obama hasn't been sworn in?

Oh, and it doesn't matter one hill of beans that he took the damned Oath again? Oh, but it wasn't on a bible!

Who gives a flying fukc? And it wasn't televised, so nobody knows what happened?

See the problem here? Nobody could see it, yet they report what happened!

Okay, last rant. Why do people cling to the concept that it's a RIGHT to own a firearm? It simply is not said in the US Constitution, which these idiots always claim is the case. No, the Supreme Court has upheld that it's a right, but that doesn't mean it says so in the USC. They interpret the Constitution. That doesn't mean they got it right.

Anyway, I'm done.

Gun Control: For or Against It?

Driving the other day, I was behind a guy (I assume, it was a GIANT 4x4 with hunting bumper stickers on it) who had a bumper sticker about gun control:

Gun control is using two hands

Gun control is a strange concept to me, not that we should let just anyone own a gun, but it's not the guns that kill people, it's the bullets. And the only way bullets get into, and out of, guns is by people loading and unloading them.

 

So, either control people through legislation (if you use a gun in a crime, get X years added onto your sentence), or control the disposition of bullets. It used to be, at least in California, that whenever you purchased handgun ammunition, you had to show ID and your information was recorded. I'm sure that law went down the tubes due to some dumbass concerned about "privacy" (meanwhile all of our privacy has gone out the freakin' window. Google FISA. Or Tim Ferriss.) 

 

Here's a blog post by Freakonomics author, Steven D. Levitt. In a nutshell, there is no evidence that banning guns, as has been done in San Francisco, Chicago, and Washington DC (recently turned back by the US Supreme Court), has any effectiveness whatsoever.

It's always great to be able to point to facts and evidence to arrive at a conclusion. The conclusion here is that banning guns has no effect on crime.