JAMA on the severity of firearms injuries

Here is a link to an article at the JAMA network titled "The Association of Firearm Caliber With Likelihood of Death From Gunshot Injury in Criminal Assaults".

Here is an excerpt from the article and my comments (in italics).

"While speculative, recent studies suggest a continuing trend toward greater wound severity associated with the greater power of firearms in common use. . . . It is widely accepted among medical and public health professionals that the likelihood of death in an assault increases with the power of the gun. But that belief is routinely challenged by advocates and some social scientists in the national debate over gun regulation."

You don't need a study to conclude that larger caliber will do more damage.  You just need to understand basic physics.  Larger caliber bullets deliver greater energy.  Any advocate or social scientist who challenges this notion is either uninformed or disingenuous.

The article finds that caliber is the only variable among those examined that determines the likelihood of death.

An aspirin a day may not keep the doctor away

From www.practiceupdate.com
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Background

A one-dose-fits-all approach to use of aspirin has yielded only modest benefits in long-term prevention of cardiovascular events, possibly due to underdosing in patients of large body size and excess dosing in patients of small body size, which might also affect other outcomes.

Methods

Using individual patient data, we analysed the modifying effects of bodyweight (10 kg bands) and height (10 cm bands) on the effects of low doses (≤100 mg) and higher doses (300–325 mg or ≥500 mg) of aspirin in randomised trials of aspirin in primary prevention of cardiovascular events. We stratified the findings by age, sex, and vascular risk factors, and validated them in trials of aspirin in secondary prevention of stroke. Additionally, we assessed whether any weight or height dependence was evident for the effect of aspirin on 20-year risk of colorectal cancer or any in-trial cancer.

Results

Among ten eligible trials of aspirin in primary prevention (including 117 279 participants), bodyweight varied four-fold and trial median weight ranged from 60·0 kg to 81·2 kg (p<0·0001). The ability of 75–100 mg aspirin to reduce cardiovascular events decreased with increasing weight (pinteraction=0·0072), with benefit seen in people weighing 50–69 kg (hazard ratio [HR] 0·75 [95% CI 0·65–0·85]) but not in those weighing 70 kg or more (0·95 [0·86–1·04]; 1·09 [0·93–1·29] for vascular death). Furthermore, the case fatality of a first cardiovascular event was increased by low-dose aspirin in people weighing 70 kg or more (odds ratio 1·33 [95% CI 1·08–1·64], p=0·0082). Higher doses of aspirin (≥325 mg) had the opposite interaction with bodyweight (difference pinteraction=0·0013), reducing cardiovascular events only at higher weight (pinteraction=0·017). Findings were similar in men and women, in people with diabetes, in trials of aspirin in secondary prevention, and in relation to height (pinteraction=0·0025 for cardiovascular events). Aspirin-mediated reductions in long-term risk of colorectal cancer were also weight dependent (pinteraction=0·038). Stratification by body size also revealed harms due to excess dosing: risk of sudden death was increased by aspirin in people at low weight for dose (pinteraction=0·0018) and risk of all-cause death was increased in people weighing less than 50 kg who were receiving 75–100 mg aspirin (HR 1·52 [95% CI 1·04–2·21], p=0·031). In participants aged 70 years or older, the 3-year risk of cancer was also increased by aspirin (1·20 [1·03–1·47], p=0·02), particularly in those weighing less than 70 kg (1·31 [1·07–1·61], p=0·009) and consequently in women (1·44 [1·11–1·87], p=0·0069).

Interpretation

Low doses of aspirin (75–100 mg) were only effective in preventing vascular events in patients weighing less than 70 kg, and had no benefit in the 80% of men and nearly 50% of all women weighing 70 kg or more. By contrast, higher doses of aspirin were only effective in patients weighing 70 kg or more. Given that aspirin's effects on other outcomes, including cancer, also showed interactions with body size, a one-dose-fits-all approach to aspirin is unlikely to be optimal, and a more tailored strategy is required.

Sheriff Bob Gualtieri is wrong on stand your ground

Jacob Sullum at townhall.com.

JS has it right.  Stand Your Ground does not apply to Michael Drejka's shooting of Markeis McGlockton.  Sheriff Gualtieri is blaming "stand your ground" for his failure to arrest Drejka.  The video makes clear that Drejka was not in imminent danger of death or bodily harm at the moment he shot McGlockton.  Sheriff Gualtieri has abdicated his responsibility.

The video, available at news links, says it all.
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Markeis McGlockton and Michael Drejka both overreacted during their brief, fatal encounter in the parking lot of a Florida convenience store last week. McGlockton overreacted by pushing Drejka to the ground, and Drejka overreacted by drawing a pistol and shooting McGlockton in the chest.

Although it is hard to see how Drejka's use of lethal force could have been justified, Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri declined to arrest him, claiming his hands were tied by Florida's Stand Your Ground law. But that is not true, and Gualtieri's misrepresentation of the law has renewed misguided criticism of Florida's approach to self-defense, which contrary to popular misconception does not give a free pass to armed hotheads who claim to have fired out of fear.

The incident that ended in McGlockton's death began when Drejka approached Britany Jacobs, McGlockton's girlfriend, as she sat in her car outside the Circle A Food Store in Clearwater. Drejka was upset that Jacobs had parked in a handicapped spot, and the ensuing argument attracted the attention of McGlockton, who was in the store buying candy for his 5-year-old son.

Video from a surveillance camera shows McGlockton emerging from the store, walking straight up to Drejka, and pushing him down. Within five seconds, Drejka, sitting on the ground, draws a gun and fires once. McGlockton staggers back into the store, grabbing his chest.

After collapsing in front of his son, McGlockton was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Drejka, who has a concealed carry permit, told police he fired because he was afraid McGlockton was about to attack him again.

"We're precluded from making an arrest in this type of a situation," Gualtieri claimed at a press conference the next day. "Stand Your Ground allows for a subjective belief by the person that they are in harm's way," the sheriff said, and "we don't get to substitute our judgment for Drejka's judgment."

To the contrary, the law requires police and prosecutors to assess the judgment of someone who uses deadly force, which he is allowed to do only if he "reasonably believes" it is "necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm." It is not enough to claim you shot someone because you believed he otherwise would have killed or maimed you; that belief has to be reasonable in the circumstances.

The video shows McGlockton backing away when Drejka draws his gun. Even assuming that McGlockton was not done with Drejka after the shove, Gualtieri conceded that Drejka "probably could have" fended McGlockton off simply by brandishing the pistol. The implication is that Drejka did not reasonably believe shooting McGlockton was necessary, which means there was probable cause to arrest him.

Gualtieri emphasized that someone who legally uses force in self-defense is immune from arrest under Florida law. But he never satisfactorily explained why that description applies to Michael Drejka.

Experts can be impressively wrong

Walter Williams at townhall.com.

WW is on target.  You can't trust experts - they are sometimes wildly wrong.  So, who can you trust if you can't trust experts?  Nobody.  Always figure that what seems obvious can be wrong and that what seems ridiculous can be right, up to a point.  Be humble.  If you see someone who is absolutely sure they are right about something and who cannot make their view plausible with facts and good theory, you should doubt their credibility.  Assertion is no substitute for facts and thought.
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Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers predicted that if Donald Trump were elected, there would be a protracted recession within 18 months. Heeding its experts, a month before the election, The Washington Post ran an editorial with the headline "A President Trump Could Destroy The World Economy." Steve Rattner, a Democratic financier and former head of the National Economic Council, warned, "If the unlikely event happens and Trump wins, you will see a market crash of historic proportions." When Trump's electoral victory became apparent, Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman warned that the world was "very probably looking at a global recession, with no end in sight." By the way, Krugman has been so wrong in so many of his economic predictions, but that doesn't stop him from making more shameless predictions.

People whom we've trusted as experts have often been wrong beyond imagination, and it's nothing new. Irving Fisher, a distinguished Yale University economics professor in 1929, predicted, "Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau." Three days later, the stock market crashed. In 1945, regarding money spent on the Manhattan Project, Adm. William Leahy told President Harry S. Truman, "That is the biggest fool thing we have ever done. The (atomic) bomb will never go off, and I speak as an expert in explosives."

In 1903, the president of the Michigan Savings Bank, advising Henry Ford's lawyer not to invest in Ford Motor Co., said, "The horse is here to stay, but the automobile is only a novelty -- a fad." Confidence in the staying power of the horse was displayed by a 1916 comment of the aide-de-camp to Field Marshal Douglas Haig at a tank demonstration: "The idea that cavalry will be replaced by these iron coaches is absurd. It is little short of treasonous."

Albert Einstein predicted: "There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will." In 1899, Charles H. Duell, the U.S. commissioner of patents, said, "Everything that can be invented has been invented." Listening to its experts in 1936, The New York Times predicted, "A rocket will never be able to leave the Earth's atmosphere."

To prove that it's not just academics, professionals and businesspeople who make harebrained predictions, Hall of Fame baseball player Tris Speaker's 1919 advice about Babe Ruth was, "Taking the best left-handed pitcher in baseball and converting him into a right fielder is one of the dumbest things I ever heard." For those of us not familiar with baseball, Babe Ruth was one of the greatest outfielders who ever played the game.

The world's greatest geniuses are by no means exempt from out-and-out nonsense. Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) was probably the greatest scientist of all time. He laid the foundation for classical mechanics; his genius transformed our understanding of physics, mathematics and astronomy. What's not widely known is that Newton spent most of his waking hours on alchemy. Some of his crackpot experiments included trying to turn lead into gold. He wrote volumes on alchemy, but after his death, Britain's Royal Society deemed that they were "not fit to be printed."

Then there's mathematical physicist and engineer Lord Kelvin (1824-1907), whose major contribution was in thermodynamics. Kelvin is widely recognized for determining the correct value of absolute zero, approximately minus 273.15 degrees Celsius or minus 459.67 degrees Fahrenheit. In honor of his achievement, extremely high and extremely low temperatures are expressed in units called kelvins. To prove that one can be a genius in one area and an idiot in another, Kelvin challenged geologists by saying that Earth is between 20 million and 100 million years old. Kelvin predicted, "X-rays will prove to be a hoax." And he told us, "I can state flatly that heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible."

The point of all this is to say that we can listen to experts but take what they predict with a grain or two of salt.

Ben Shapiro gets it right, mostly

Ben Shapiro at Townhall.com.

Ben is on target.
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One of the great lies of modern politics is that when a policy fails, it's because someone just didn't care enough. It's a nostrum repeated frequently: If President Trump were to only care more about immigrant children, he'd find a way to unite them with their parents; if Democrats were to only care more about the homeless, they'd find a way to clean up Los Angeles and Seattle; if Republicans were to only care more about the sick, they'd find a way to bring down insurance premiums.

In reality, most failures are simply the result of unintended consequences.

Take, for example, President Trump's tariff policy. Trump believes that "Tariffs are the greatest," according to one of his tweets this week. Not only are they the greatest; they prevent us from becoming the "'piggy bank' that's being robbed." Trump looks across the vast savannas of the United States and sees domestic businesses undercut by foreign competition, and his immediate thought is to help those businesses by taxing their foreign competitors.

Unfortunately, his policy has unintended consequences: It raises prices and causes retaliatory tariffs. So domestic consumers pay more for products; domestic producers have to pay more for the inputs they use to manufacture their own products; and foreign markets are closed to American exporters. All of this means that some of the businesses Trump seeks to help actually get hurt, which is why both Whirlpool and Harley-Davidson have downgraded their profit expectations in the wake of Trump's policy.

But Trump still wants to demonstrate that he cares. And so, he undertakes a Band-Aid policy: subsidies to agricultural concerns hurt by his tariffs. This week, the administration announced a Department of Agriculture $12 billion subsidy directed at farmers who can no longer competitively export product to foreign markets. "(I)nstead of offering welfare to farmers to solve a problem they themselves created, the administration should reverse course and end this incoherent policy," Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., accurately summed up.

It's not just Trump.

Democrats routinely complain about the price of rent in major cities but then institute rent control and subsidized housing, driving up the cost of development. In order to deal with the rising costs of rent, they push for an increase in the minimum wage, which causes more unemployment. Then they tax the businesses they've already penalized in order to pay for the unemployed.

Or they push for lower educational costs and seek government subsidies to drive down college tuition. But in doing so, they create a base rate colleges can now charge, driving up those rates.

Or they push for better Medicare subsidies, creating new demand, which drives up prices.

This is the problem with government policy in general: It's a blunderbuss. Collateral damage from any broad-based policy is likely to far surpass the damage undergone by individuals in a free market system, which means we ought to tread carefully when it comes to making such policy.

But we won't. Instead, we'll just chalk up such failures to a lack of will or spirit, and demand more action -- action that will fail. And then we'll repeat the cycle over and over, never suspecting that perhaps it's our good intentions that got us into trouble in the first place.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Deep State

From Jonathan Turley, the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University.

I can understand why the Agencies prefer not to provide Congress with the information it needs to perform its oversight responsibilities.  First, doing so exposes their Deep State mentality and practices.  Second, Congressional Committees  have loose lips.

What needs to be done, if possible, is to prosecute those within the Deep State who fail to provide the information they are required to and those in Congress who reveal information they shouldn't - not likey - too much concern with Party over Country.

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FBI official Peter Strzok’s recent testimony before the House Judiciary Committee continued a time-honored practice of elected members of Congress doing nothing about the open contempt of federal departments or agencies and their unelected officials.

Strzok was just the latest in a long procession of officials, from both Democratic and Republican administrations, who refused to answer questions, produce documents, or otherwise comply with the constitutional authority of Congress to exercise oversight. Aside from outraged words of protest or toothless sense-of-Congress resolutions, none — not one — has suffered any serious consequences.

Strzok’s defiance began over a simple number: how many interviews the FBI conducted during its 2016 election investigation. As Strzok looked over to a stone-faced FBI lawyer, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) exclaimed in frustration, “I’m asking for a number!” Not asking for what anyone said, or even the identity of those interviewed, just the number. Strzok responded with what became a mantra to virtually every query about his role in the Clinton email and Russian collusion investigations: “Counsel for the FBI, based on the special counsel’s equities, has instructed me not to answer.”I am not quite sure what “equities” are, but they are not constitutionally recognized privileges. Strzok is a federal employee, appearing before a committee with oversight authority looking into a matter of great public interest. The FBI ordering him not to answer on the basis of “equities” is manifestly wrong. Strzok could have just as well cited “niceties” in brushing aside the committee’s questions.

For years, I have written and testified in favor of Congress enforcing its inherent authority over federal agencies. But those agencies have become ever more obstructive in refusing to comply with the core function of Congress, which is its oversight and its check on executive branch abuse. Strzok’s testimony shows just how far outside the constitutional lines agencies have gone in unilaterally dismissing Congress’s inquiries.

A 1982 directive called the “Reagan Memo” delineated the process for invoking privilege in a conflict with Congress. It directs an agency head to present the allegedly privileged information to the White House for review. Any invocation of executive privilege should then be accompanied by a formal declaration from an agency head or the president.

Yet, increasingly, witnesses refuse to answer questions without making such a formal invocation. In his hearing, Strzok did not invoke a privilege. He simply nodded to an unidentified FBI lawyer sitting behind him who proceeded to signal, like Caesar, what questions would be answered. Anything that might significantly shed light on the underlying allegation of FBI investigatory bias was deemed unanswerable.

This brings us back to Congressman Gowdy, asking Strzok a question about a investigation now closed and that clearly was not privileged: “Between July 31 and August 8, how many interviews did you conduct related to the alleged collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign?” A finite number of privileges exists to that question.

The classic privilege is to refuse to give answers containing presidential communications. That is not absolute and also not remotely involved here. There is privilege that can be asserted over the “deliberative process,” whereby agencies withhold information that would reveal internal deliberations on a policy or action. This has always been a contested privilege and is particularly dubious when asserted against an oversight committee and, again, not remotely viable in this case.

There is attorney-client privilege, which is not at issue with an FBI agent testifying before Congress unless his personal attorney makes such an assertion. House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) was correct in noting that the unnamed FBI lawyer was not Strzok’s personal lawyer. Then there is the claim of classified or national security information, which was not asserted here and does not appear relevant.

Finally, there is the shaky claim of law enforcement privilege. Based on a controversial 1984 opinion by the Justice Department’s office of legal counsel, this privilege is raised when the information deals with open law enforcement investigations or sensitive techniques and strategies. This one comes closest to whatever “equities” may mean. However, courts have rejected such claims being used to block oversight committees.

Congress can yield to a request for nondisclosure or receive the information in a closed session, but it does not have to do so as a matter of constitutional law. Even if one accepts this privilege as a viable claim to raise against an oversight committee, it is meritless here. This was an inquiry into the actions — or inactions — of a single FBI employee. Much of the information already has been shared and released. Special counsel Robert Mueller has interviewed the same key individuals, and is looking for collusion with the Russians, not incompetence or bias in the FBI.

So what is left? The answer is contempt. It is outright contempt that has become almost casual in its sense of utter impunity. This has nothing to do with the subject or the merits of the committee’s investigation. The problem is that Congress has allowed the very agencies abusing these privileges in this instance, the FBI and Justice Department, to control whether their own officials can be prosecuted.

Congress has independent contempt authority. Our lawmakers can even hold trials for contempt. But the Justice Department persuaded Congress to leave such prosecutions to the agency’s own attorneys, with the promise to be a faithful agent in defending Congress’s authority. It has repeatedly and consistently violated that promise, refusing to submit strong cases of contempt to grand juries.

Strzok’s testimony once again reveals the utter absurdity of this system. It also explains why the Justice Department no longer tries to state clear privilege arguments, let alone supply the necessary declarations or follow the required procedures. It is not like the proverbial “fox guarding the hen house.” It is more like the fox guarding the hen house and agreeing to punish itself for any missing hens. Not surprisingly, the Justice Department consistently has found not a single missing hen.

And the solution to this? Congress needs to rework the referral system or return to enforcing its own contempt orders. Until then, I can give a number to the committee that will not change and is not privileged: zero. That is the number of Justice Department officials prosecuted for contempt of Congress under the current referral system. On matters of contempt, the Justice Department clearly has Congress’s number.

The Armed Citizen

Perinatal exposure to an environmentally relevant mixture of phthalates results in a lower number of neurons and synapses in the medial prefrontal cortex and decreased cognitive flexibility in adult male and female rats

From the Journal of Neuroscience.

The research was done on rats.  The abstract notes that "Pregnant dams orally consumed an environmentally relevant mixture of phthalates at 0, 200, or 1000 μg/kg/day through pregnancy and for 10 days while lactating."  The definition of "environmentally relevant" is crucial in terms of concentration in the body, particularly in the brain, and whether humans experience the same concentrations.  So, it is impossible to determine from the abstract whether the research is of practical health significance or not.  Nevertheless, it is somewhat worrisome.

Here is a link to a relevant Wikipedia article.

Armed civilians can save lives

Here are some links.

Link 1

Link 2

Link 3

Link 4

Link 5

Link 6

Link 7

Immigration facts, vs. what you hear from the media and the Left

From Jonathan Turley, the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University
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It sounds like a pitch that only the most craven coyote smuggler would make: If you make it into the United States, you are lawful. Yet, that seems to be the claim by various activists and politicians as our immigration debate continues to divide to the furthest extremes.

The latest iteration came from CNN political analyst and USA Today columnist Kirsten Powers, who insisted on air that people brought by coyotes over the border are doing something perfectly legal under federal law, since most seek asylum. The greatest danger from such statements is not the risk of misleading viewers but misleading immigrants who take such statements as an accurate description of the law.

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) has repeatedly declared, “An undocumented immigrant is not a criminal.” When asked if she meant everyone here illegally, both those who entered illegally and those who have remained illegally, she replied, “Two obvious points. It is a civil violation, it’s not a crime. Period, full stop. And the second point is that there is a whole community that is being vilified because of this misinformed, misdirected term ’illegal alien’ … It’s actually ignorant and we can’t afford to run our country that way. So they are not criminals.”

Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan similarly stated, “Simply being in this country without documentation is not a crime,” adding that the “Supreme Court has said that.” That representation was declared “mostly true” by Politifact. This growing mantra is often sustained by the careful parsing of terms. For example, Politifact quoted Nancy Morawetz, professor of clinical law at New York University School of Law, as saying, “Being present in the U.S., that status, is not a crime.” However, people do not simply materialize within the United States. There remains the question of entry. Illegal entry into the United States has been prosecuted as a criminal matter for decades, though the percentage of cases handled criminally versus civilly has fluctuated with different administrations.

Indeed, if it were true that illegal entry was not a crime, the entire Trump administration enforcement program, and thousands of such cases under President Obama, would have been struck down months ago. In fact, the government can charge illegal entry, even for first offenders, as a crime under 18 U.S.C. 3559 with up to six months imprisonment. Subsequent offenses or reentries, which are common, can be charged as a felony with up to two years imprisonment under 8 U.S.C. 1325. Nonviolent offenders who were removed before their prison sentences were served can be imprisoned for up to 10 years after a subsequent illegal entry.

It also is not true, as suggested by both Sheehan and Politifact, that the Supreme Court has declared all undocumented status to be a purely civil matter. They are referring to United States v. Arizona, in which the court stated that, “as a general rule, it is not a crime for a removable alien to remain present in the United States.” The court, however, was speaking of a state law allowing police to arrest anyone on suspicion that they are “removable from the United States.” That would include people who entered legally but overstayed their visas or their once lawful status.

The court was not saying that someone who enters illegally cannot, by definition, be charged criminally or that illegal entry is not a crime. The court said that it did not have to “address whether reasonable suspicion of illegal entry or another immigration crime would be a legitimate basis” for such arrests by state officers, distinguishing the crime of illegal entry from the removable violations addressed in the decision.

In her exchange with Jake Tapper on CNN, Powers insisted that those who cross illegally with coyotes are, by law, here legally so long as they claim asylum: “It’s not illegal to come to the country to seek asylum, which is what most of these people are doing. A lot of Republicans have [said] it is illegal unless you’re at a port of entry [but] that’s absolutely not true.” She added that the Immigration and Naturalization Act states “quite clearly that you can come anywhere. It specifically says you do not have to come to a port of entry and these people don’t even know where a port of entry is anyway. They’re being brought by coyotes mostly and brought to the border so they’re not doing anything illegal to start with.”

In fairness to Powers, Section 208 of the Immigration and Naturalization Act allows asylum claims to be made at any time, including as a criminal defendant for illegal entry. That does not mean that anyone claiming asylum automatically has legal status. That deals with your filing of a claim, not the legality of your entry or ultimate status. It is not illegal to seek asylum. It is illegal to do so without entering through a port of entry without documentation. Notably, even when treated through a civil removal proceeding, it remains an unlawful entry.

Coyotes are generally smugglers hired to bring people across the border. While a few people “don’t even know where a point of entry is,” there are more than 300 of them found on all of the main roads leading into the country. In addition, while rising, filings for asylum are not “what most of these people are doing.” There were 408,870 illegal entries in 2016 and 303,910 in 2017. Asylum applications reached 116,000 in 2016. Moreover, the number of accepted asylees tends to run about 20,000 per year. Among those applying, a huge percentage never complete their paperwork and only around 20 percent of applications are granted.

Many people are deported without hearings under a 1996 statute used by the Obama administration and now the Trump administration. These people are captured within 100 miles of the border and within 14 days of entry. If they claim asylum, they can appeal to an immigration judge who must rule within seven days. In 2013, 44 percent of all 438,000 removals from the United States were done through the expedited process. That was before President Trump. Even if a person asserts asylum and completes the application, the government can still pursue criminal charges. If the asylum application is rejected as meritless or unsupported, the person can be prosecuted or deported.

There are good faith positions on both sides of the immigration debate. Whether it is the president or the press, however, it does a disservice to citizens and noncitizens alike to exaggerate or misrepresent the law on illegal entry into this country. The undocumented individuals making this perilous journey should not be misled into believing that just entering the country makes them “perfectly legal,” even if they claim asylum. That does not mean President Trump’s policies are correct or fair. But spinning the law, so popular with some, is downright perilous for others.