Mass shootings: Attention must be focused on reality, not politics

Commentary by James Shott

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The liberal left’s Pavlovian response to mass shooting incidents is always blaming too many guns, too easy access to guns, and the availability of the wrong kind of guns. More recently the subject has broadened to include keeping certain types of people from buying guns, an aspect that at least contains a degree of rationality.

President Barack Obama went to Orlando, FL last week to offer condolences to the families of victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting, but could not resist turning the subject from the victims and their suffering in this tragedy into an opportunity talk about guns.

Three Democrats walked out of the House of Representatives chamber when Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., asked for a moment of silence in memory of those killed and injured in the Orlando shooting, and later during regular House business when Ryan tried to call up a measure for a vote, Democrats began shouting over the announcement of the bill being voted on.

Favored targets for blame, rather than the actual perpetrators and their motives, are the National Rifle Association (NRA) and conservatives and/or Republicans, which is a common theme despite the fact that none of the killers have been members of the NRA, conservatives or Republicans. What the NRA, conservatives and Republicans realize that liberals do not is that absent the intent to commit murder, guns – like hammers, butcher knives and motor vehicles – are inanimate objects. Every day tens of millions of guns harm no one, especially those under control of law-abiding citizens. Guns are not the problem; they are but a tool and only harm when used by someone with the intent to harm or occasionally by accident.

There is also a near-universal misidentification of weapons these killers use: “assault weapons.” The fact is that no true assault weapon has been used in any mass shooting.

Assault weapons – which are fully automatic, or have the capability to be used in fully-automatic mode – are illegal in the U.S. Weapons used in mass shootings are semi-automatic pistols, semi-automatic rifles, revolvers, or shotguns. Just because a weapon has characteristics of appearance and similar accessories to assault weapons does not make it an assault weapon. Those using that term are either ignorant about the subject, or are deceptively using it for its emotional value, trying to gin up support for their cause.

The gun control faction’s desires run a broad gamut from banning all guns, to banning some types of guns, to preventing some particular people from getting any sort of gun at all, and using the no-fly list, the terror watch list and mental health issues as disqualifying elements.

Before starting down the road to implementing some restrictions, we must remember that America is “the land of the free and the home of the brave,” formed to guarantee personal liberty, and America reached heights previously unknown in history due to its singular devotion to freedom. We cannot trample on the freedoms of millions of American citizens in order to discover the relative few who have evil intent.

Thus:

* Suggesting a total gun ban is dead on arrival.

* Trying to limit the kinds of guns people may purchase begs the question of who decides, and how; and opens the door for dictatorial abuse by the politically motivated.

* Denying gun purchases to people on the no-fly list, terror watch list or who have been flagged for a mental health issue is fraught with potential for errors and abuse. Journalist Stephen Hayes found himself on a terrorist watch list, as did South Africa’s Nelson Mandela and at least two children 6 and 8 years of age. The late Sen. Ted Kennedy was denied boarding a plane back to Washington while in the Senate. What could possibly go wrong?

Americans are protected from arbitrary denial of Constitutional rights through a legal due process proceeding, where evidence must be offered and a specific ruling made to approve taking one’s rights. West Virginia Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin seems ready to ditch due process. The Weekly Standard quoted Manchin as saying, "The problem we have — and really, the firewall we have right now, is due process. It's all due process … due process is what's killing us right now."

Two other factors scream out for attention, things that mass shootings have in common. First, all of them have occurred in places that were declared “gun-free zones,” where guns were forbidden. This is an open invitation to someone bent on committing an atrocity.

Second, many/most of them were committed by Muslims inspired by al Qaeda, ISIS or some other source of Islamist anti-American fervor. That factor existed in the Pulse nightclub, Sandy Hook Elementary School, Fort Hood, and the San Bernardino shootings, for example.

President Obama turns back-flips to avoid using the term “radical Islam” to describe these murders, saying that Islam is a religion of peace. Okay, fine. But not all Muslims adhere to that creed, and the killers among them pledged allegiance to Allah during these far too-frequent events.

We cannot eliminate or reduce these atrocities by continuing to ignore these two factors. Political correctness be damned; our lives are too important for PC.

Cross-posted from Observations

San Bernardino: nothing more than gun control opportunism for the left

Commentary by James Shott

Before the sound of gunfire in San Bernardino had faded away, the radical left wing, ever at the ready, had sprung into action. Members of the intolerant LACTOS (Liberals Against Conservative Terrorist’s Offensive Shootings) attempted to blame the GOP and right-wingers for the massacre in tweets: “Well, c'mon, GOP: Tell me how your prayers are with the victims and their families *this* time while you do nothing.‬” And, “No, I'm tired of praying. I want action. I want people to stop saying ‘MAH GUNS’ in response to death.‬”

Meanwhile, at the White House, five minutes after the shooting started, a clerk in the Rush To Judgment Department removed a sheet from a stack of pre-printed president’s statements calling for more gun control, while the folks in the WVNT (Workplace Violence, Not Terrorism) and CCCAP (Climate Change Causes All Problems) offices geared up for the coming propaganda drive.

From the BFIL (Blame First, Investigate Later) and the ITNRAS (It’s The NRA, Stupid) were these, first from Democrat presidential candidate Martin O'Malley: “@MartinOMalley‬ Horrifying news out of #SanBernardino‬. Enough is enough: it's time to stand up to the @NRA‬ and enact meaningful gun safety laws.” And: “Another day, another mass shooting in NRA's America.‬”

Those calling for more and stricter gun laws seem unable to grasp that people who want to commit the crime of killing innocents probably won’t obey gun laws, either.

Terrorism is designed to scare people into irrational actions or surrender, and the terrorists are winning against the American left, which is clearly terrified of guns. Some rationality is desperately needed.

From 2009 to 2013 the United States experienced 38 “rampage shooting incidents” (RSI) that claimed 227 lives, according to the Rampage Shooting Index. That works out to roughly one RSI every five months claiming more than 20 lives in each incident. These numbers rank the U.S. at the top of the list. In a not-so-close second place is Norway, with 77 RSI deaths, but only one RSI. Next is Germany with 25 deaths and three RSIs.

These numbers ought to scare the stuffing out of every American, not just the anti-gunners on the political left. Numbers, however, can be used to create many false images, and this is one example of that. The numbers cited previously do not include the elephant in the room: the population of those nations.

When America’s population of 315 million becomes part of the equation – the largest by far in the study – the U.S. drops all the way down to sixth place, behind Norway, Finland, Slovakia, Israel and Switzerland. Leading the way with 15 deaths per 1 million population is Norway, while Finland leads in the number of incidents with .37 per 1 million residents. The U.S. numbers are .72 deaths and .12 incidents per 1 million population, ranking sixth – not first – in both categories. Furthermore, the nations with worse numbers per 1 million people than the U.S. have “restrictive” firearm regulations, while the U.S. and Belgium (7th place) do not.

These numbers show that Norwegians are 20 times more likely to die in an RSI than Americans. Adding two years to the span of time cited above, Norway remains in first place, but the U.S. drops to eighth place, when national population is part of the equation.

And so another liberal false narrative falls flat on its face, but where guns are concerned, as with climate change, the left refuses to let inconvenient facts get in the way.

Some on the left are legitimately fearful about the supposed gun violence issue, while others are focused on gaining further control of the American people. This latter group includes Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and many, if not most, of the active politicians in the Democrat Party.

Brittany M. Hughes, reporting on the Media Research Center online in September, addressed the number of guns in America, noting that in 2009, it was estimated by the National Institute of Justice that there were approximately 310 million firearms in the country. Today, that number is likely higher.

“The number of firearm-related homicides in 2013 – the CDC’s most recent data – was 11,208,” she wrote, “(so about 309,988,792 guns were just milling about that year, not killing anybody).”

She continued: “That means about 0.000036 homicides were committed per gun in the United States in 2013,” less than four homicides per 100,000 firearms.

Some clear thinking on the use of firearms to discourage crimes came from the Cato Institute: “The rationale for [gun control] legislation is to reduce accidental shootings and the criminal use of guns against people. But if harm reduction is the goal, policymakers should pause to consider how many crimes … are thwarted by ordinary persons who were fortunate enough to have access to a gun.”

Bloomberg Business in 2012 analyzed the vastly contradictory claims about defensive gun use, estimating defensive actions occur tens of thousands of times a year, adding, “100,000 is not a wild gun-nut fantasy,” while suggesting higher numbers are more likely.

Common in mass shootings in the U.S. is that they occur in “gun-free zones” where guns are prohibited. It is the American left that prefers gun-free zones, not the American right.

Cross-posted from Observations

What, exactly, is the real goal of the Iran nuclear agreement?

“Senate Democrats voted to uphold the hard-fought nuclear accord with Iran on Thursday, overcoming ferocious GOP opposition and delivering President Barack Obama a legacy-making victory on his top foreign policy priority.” So read the opening paragraph of the Associated Press story last Friday, identifying the Obama legacy as one product of the deal on Iranian nuclear aspirations.

A presidential legacy has been an elusive goal for Mr. Obama, as previous efforts have dramatically fallen by the wayside. He is succeeding in killing the coal industry in the name of environmental improvement, but the improvement is virtually non-existent, while economic harm and lost jobs dwarf any noticeable environmental improvement.

Certainly, no one will consider the Fast and Furious gun-running debacle that led to the death of a U.S. Border Patrol agent or the incompetent handling of the Benghazi, Libya situation that resulted in the murders of four Americans, including our Ambassador to Libya, as the stuff of which a legacy is made.

And, the supposed jewel in the crown, the Affordable Care Act, which is affectionately known as Obamacare, is as bad as it is good, or worse.

One remaining possibility is to fashion an historic agreement to reign in the efforts of Iran, the world’s greatest supporter of global terrorism, to acquire nuclear weapons. A multi-national agreement – a treaty – led by the United States, bringing nations together to stop the rogue nation’s nuclear advances and save Israel and perhaps the U.S. from potential nuclear catastrophe.

Black’s Law Dictionary defines a treaty as “an agreement between two or more independent states,” meaning two or more nations, and Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution states: “He [the President] shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur…”

But there’s a problem. The agreement that these nations created has stark weaknesses that have produced strong, principled opposition.

But credit Mr. Obama for recognizing those weaknesses and developing a strategy to minimize their effect on getting the deal approved: rather than submit the treaty as a treaty, he managed to maneuver it around so that it is merely an “agreement” that doesn’t require Senate approval.

But make no mistake: this agreement IS a treaty. And so is the proposed Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) with 13 other nations, that Mr. Obama also prefers to pass off as a mere “agreement.”

However, if the treaty clause of the Constitution means anything it must be applied to those two agreements because they are not simple agreements about an ambassador or similar routine matter; they will affect the nation for decades to come, long after Mr. Obama has gone on his way.

The Senate’s role is outlined on the Senate.gov Website as follows, in part: “As Alexander Hamilton explained in Federalist no. 75, ‘the operation of treaties as laws, plead strongly for the participation of the whole or a portion of the legislative body in the office of making them.’ The constitutional requirement that the Senate approve a treaty with a two-thirds vote means that successful treaties must gain support that overcomes partisan division.”

Given the importance of the Iran agreement and the TPP, trying to call them something other than treaties so as to circumvent Constitutionally required Senate approval tells us a lot about the weaknesses of the Iran deal. And it says plenty about Barack Obama, who works hard to avoid the constitutional separation of powers for his own benefit.

Virginia’s 9th District Republican Congressman Morgan Griffith issued a statement last week that reads in part: “The President’s deeply flawed and misguided deal with Iran is a serious security matter not only for the United States, but also for our allies in the Middle East. I believe we must use all tools possible to stop this deal in its tracks and avoid placing our citizens and allies at greater risk.”

Further opposition came from three Senators from the president’s own party, who have vastly more experience than he does in foreign policy – Senators Chuck Schumer of New York, Ben Carden, of Maryland, and Robert Menendez of New Jersey –  who decided to oppose the Iran agreement. However, enough Senate Democrats like the agreement to defeat the Senate effort to stop it, which consisted of passing a resolution of disapproval, which Mr. Obama could veto. Democrats have enough votes to prevent over-riding the veto, however.

The deal includes lifting sanctions on $140 billion or so of locked-up Iranian funds, prevents American inspectors from participating in any inspections of Iranian facilities, provides for Iran to conduct all inspections at the Parchin nuclear bomb trigger development site, and provides for a 24-day delay in some inspection demands. And last weekend Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has previously said that Israel would not survive another 25 years and has pledged “Death to America,” urged radicals to launch lone wolf attacks against Americans.

What could possible go wrong?

This agreement may get Barack Obama the legacy he seeks, but will ultimately maintain the significant risk the U.S. and its allies face from a nuclear Iran. Is that a legacy worth having?

Democrats have never done what 47 Republican senators did to Obama

Dissatisfied with President Barack Obama’s approach to Iran’s continued march toward acquiring nuclear weapons, 47 Republican Senators signed an open letter that was sent to the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Arkansas freshman Sen. Tom Cotton authored the letter, which was signed by all but seven Senate Republicans.

This action has been termed “unprecedented,” and has brought forth the wrath of Democrats in Congress and the administration. Vice President Joe Biden, for example, declared that "In 36 years in the United States Senate, I cannot recall another instance in which senators wrote directly to advise another country … that the President does not have the constitutional authority to reach a meaningful understanding with them.”

Secretary of State John Kerry expressed similar sentiments: “This letter ignores more than two centuries of precedent in the conduct of U.S. foreign policy,” and went a step further by saying that in his 29 years in the Senate he had “never heard of or even heard of being proposed anything comparable to this.”

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said, “Republicans are undermining our commander-in-chief while empowering the ayatollahs. We should always have robust debate about foreign policy, but it's unprecedented for one political party to directly intervene in an international negotiation with the sole goal of embarrassing the president of the United States.”

Other criticisms charged Republicans with trying to undercut the president by inviting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address Congress without first consulting the White House, and then by sending this letter to subvert an agreement that would avoid war, as MSNBC’s Mika Brzenzinski charged on the Morning Joe program. And the pièce de résistance: the New York Daily News cover calling the Republican letter signers “traitors.”

Some law professors, pundits and news media charge that the Republican senators have committed treason by violating the Logan Act of 1799, which states: "Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both."

And now for the rest of the story.

Predictably, there is far more heat than warranted here, Treason? No. Traitors? No. Gross amounts of hyperbole? Absolutely! Deliberate deception! Of course.

The Logan Act is not a factor here because, first, many legal authorities believe the Act is constitutional, as it infringes on the free speech guaranteed citizens by the U.S. Constitution, but also because the senators represent one of two houses of a co-equal branch of government, and therefore acted with the authority of their position, which also allows them to take a part in agreements with other nations.

Most important, however, is that despite the breathless overstatements by critics of the letter-writers, this action is not at all unprecedented, and in fact some of the loudest critics have themselves indulged in similar acts.

Take Secretary of State John Kerry, for instance. In 1971 during negotiations by President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger trying to reach an end to the Vietnam War, then-Sen. Kerry, D-Mass., as leader of the anti-war group Vietnam Veterans Against the War, travelled to Paris to meet face-to-face with the North Vietnamese delegation, which was at the time an enemy combatant nation.

In 2007 then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Cal., met fact-to-face with Bashar al-Assad while President George W. Bush was in negotiations with the Syrian leader.

Another Speaker, Jim Wright, D-Tex., talked face-to-face with Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega in 1987.

Senator James Abourezk, D-S.D., secretly met with Palestine Liberation Organization chairman Yasser Arafat in 1973.

In 2006 Senators John Kerry, D-Mass., Chris Dodd, D-Conn., Bill Nelson, D-Fla., and Arlen Spector R-Pa., (who soon after became a Democrat) traveled to Damascus when the policy of the Bush administration was to isolate the Bashar al-Assad regime.

The Left has a problem remembering these inconvenient facts, which are probably contained in emails at the State Department or the IRS.

Furthermore, the letter was an open letter, not a private communication and presented facts about our constitutional system the Iranians likely did not know, not a negotiation.

The letter explained that any agreement between President Obama and the Iranian leaders binds only President Obama; future presidents will not be bound by it. Only treaties ratified by the Senate bind the U.S. That is a significant point.

Further, the negotiations may well involve the president unilaterally undoing sanctions against Iran passed by the Congress. That is a no-no; he does not have authority to do that.

It is certainly fair to criticize the fact that the message was presented in a letter addressed to Iranian leaders, instead of, say, being run as an op-ed in one or more national newspapers. However, that is about the worst aspect of this molehill called Mount Treason.

Paris attacks again call attention to the problem of radical Islam

Because they ridiculed the Islamic prophet, 12 employees of the French satire magazine Charlie Hebdo were killed in an organized military-style attack on its office in Paris by three terrorists with military weapons. In another event, a gunman entered a kosher grocery in the city and took several people hostage. In all, 17 innocent persons were murdered in the violence.

The AP reported the following item on January 9 that was not widely published: “Hundreds of bodies – too many to count – remain strewn in the bush in Nigeria from an Islamic extremist attack that Amnesty International suggested Friday is the ‘deadliest massacre’ in the history of Boko Haram.” One official said most of the victims were children, women and the elderly, who were unable to run fast enough to escape the savage attack.

The U.S. is quite familiar with Islamic terrorism, but over the years since September 11, 2001 the level of violence of subsequent episodes of has blessedly not been on the same large scale as the 9-11 attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 innocents. Which is not to say it has been a level that we can, or will, accept.

Radical Islamic terrorism is a subject many prefer not to address. To some, it is like whistling past the graveyard; if we ignore it, maybe it will go away. Still others refuse to confront it for the reality that it is. But Islamic terrorism is a growing problem in our world, perhaps the most serious thing we have to face. Certainly, it is an urgent problem.

Muslim terrorists finally have done something that produced a substantial response. A huge group gathered in Paris to commemorate the victims of last week’s terrorist activity at the hands of Islamic radicals and to show solidarity against terrorism. Reports put the total number of participants between 1.5 million and 3 million. Among those attending were 40 world leaders, among whom were French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister David Cameron, Italy's Matteo Renzi, Mariano Rajoy of Spain, Ahmet Davutoglu of Turkey, and Jordan's King Abdullah II and Queen Rania. Notably, both Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas were there.

Conspicuously absent was the leader of the free world, President Barack Obama. Instead of joining the other world leaders who were able to make the trip, Mr. Obama stayed home. Attorney General Eric Holder was in Paris, not for the march, but was meeting with Bernard Cazeneuve, the French Minister of the Interior. U.S. Ambassador to France Jane Hartley did participate in the march. Where were senior cabinet members, like Secretary of State John Kerry, the most senior cabinet officer?

Mr. Obama did find the time to visit the French Embassy in Washington, sign a book of condolences, and speak with diplomats last Thursday, and at a Friday appearance in Knoxville, TN he expressed solidarity with the people of France, and offered assistance.

This behavior is in keeping with Mr. Obama’s proclivity for avoiding any connection to the term “Islamic terrorism,” in either word or deed. While nearly everyone else notes that the terrorists are “radical” Muslims, and that the radical element is only a fraction of the more than 1 billion Muslims wordwide, Mr. Obama refuses to connect these terrorist acts to Islam at all, saying that Islam does not allow such brutality.

It cannot be ignored, however, that those who carry out these savage, cowardly attacks believe themselves to be Muslims, and frequently shout “Allahu Akbar” (God [Allah] is the Greatest) when murdering innocent people, and the terrorists attacking Charlie Hebdo added, “We have avenged the prophet.”

Whatever the basis of Mr. Obama’s reluctance to adequately identify these acts as those of radical Muslims – he called the killing of 13 U.S. military personnel at Ft Hood by a Muslim psychiatrist praising Allah “workplace violence” – Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, himself a Muslim, has no such reluctance.

As reported by CNN, President el-Sisi has called for a "religious revolution," asking Muslim leaders to help in the fight against extremism when addressing the group during the celebration of the birthday of the Prophet Muḥammad. "I say and repeat, again, that we are in need of a religious revolution. You imams are responsible before Allah. The entire world is waiting on you. The entire world is waiting for your word ... because the Islamic world is being torn, it is being destroyed, it is being lost. And it is being lost by our own hands," he said.

If Islam is a religion of peace, if Islam does not endorse the sort of barbarism demonstrated in these and other terrorist attacks perpetrated by people claiming to be Muslims, then Islam has to take the lead in putting an end to it.

The United States must insure that Muslims are treated like everyone else in the U.S., and not give them special treatment, good or bad. We have to take a much more proactive role in wiping this scourge from the face of the Earth by rooting out the terror cells in America and focusing on the hotbeds of Islamist extremism around the world.