You just can't truest any of the statistics put forth by the anti-gun crowd.
Here is an example from Matt Vespa at townhall.com.
If you want facts, go to John Lott's Crime Prevention Research Center.
----------------------------------------
So, any time there’s a mass shooting, the anti-gun Left jumps for glee: another opportunity to fundraise, attack Republicans, and make the case yet again for why we need “common sense gun control,” which really means gun bans and the repeal of the Second Amendment. They tout misinformation, push narratives with shoddy data, and partake in our favorite game: not knowing what the current gun laws are and pervasively screw up on gun lexicon. Part of it is just plain ignorance, and part of it is also refusing to accept facts that undercut the narrative. The school shootings data point is pushed hard-core among anti-gunners. It’s total trash.
First, school shootings are still rare. Our schools have never been safer. It’s not the Wild West. EvenThe Washington Post called out Everytown for saying there were 18 shootings thus far back in Februaryafter the tragic Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooting:
It is a horrifying statistic. And it is wrong.
Everytown has long inflated its total by including incidents of gunfire that are not really school shootings. Take, for example, what it counted as the year’s first: On the afternoon of Jan. 3, a 31-year-old man who had parked outside a Michigan elementary school called police to say he was armed and suicidal. Several hours later, he killed himself. The school, however, had been closed for seven months. There were no teachers. There were no students.
Also listed on the organization’s site is an incident from Jan. 20, when at 1 a.m. a man was shot at a sorority event on the campus of Wake Forest University. A week later, as a basketball game was being played at a Michigan high school, someone fired several rounds from a gun in the parking lot. No one was injured, and it was past 8 p.m., well after classes had ended for the day, but Everytown still labeled it a school shooting.
Now, National Public Radio dug into the 2015-2016 Department of Educations numbers on school shootings. The department said that 240 school shooting occurring during that period. The funny thing is that NPR found that two-thirds of them never happened. Oh, and there were other issues as well.
This spring the U.S. Education Department reported that in the 2015-2016 school year, "nearly 240 schools ... reported at least 1 incident involving a school-related shooting." The number is far higher than most other estimates.
But NPR reached out to every one of those schools repeatedly over the course of three months and found that more than two-thirds of these reported incidents never happened. Child Trends, a nonpartisan nonprofit research organization, assisted NPR in analyzing data from the government's Civil Rights Data Collection.
We were able to confirm just 11 reported incidents, either directly with schools or through media reports.
In 161 cases, schools or districts attested that no incident took place or couldn't confirm one. In at least four cases, we found, something did happen, but it didn't meet the government's parameters for a shooting. About a quarter of schools didn't respond to our inquiries.
[…]
Most of the school leaders NPR reached had little idea of how shootings got recorded for their schools.
For example, the CRDC reports 26 shootings within the Ventura Unified School District in Southern California.
"I think someone pushed the wrong button," said Jeff Davis, an assistant superintendent there. The outgoing superintendent, Joe Richards, "has been here for almost 30 years and he doesn't remember any shooting," Davis added. "We are in this weird vortex of what's on this screen and what reality is."
So, for all of you who think that government should be more involved in gun violence research, which will be biased and will be politicized and used to chip away at constitutional rights, here’s your answer. When government sharpens the data collection, maybe we can have a discussion, but even then I’m dead setagainst liberal academia being given taxpayer dollars to fund anti-gun studies. You know that’s how the data will be used. For now, asking basic about school shootings by the government is a mess [emphasis mine]:
In the 2015-2016 school year, "Has there been at least one incident at your school that involved a shooting (regardless of whether anyone was hurt)?"
The answer — "nearly 240 schools (0.2 percent of all schools)" — was published this spring.
The government's definition included any discharge of a weapon at school-sponsored events or on school buses. Even so, that would be a rate of shootings, and a level of violence, much higher than anyone else had ever found.
[…]
A separate investigation by the ACLU of Southern California also was able to confirm fewer than a dozen of the incidentsin the government's report, while 59 percent were confirmed errors.
So, if the Left wanted to use the DOE as a talking point to push their odious anti-gun agenda, think again. At the same time, please do—we can make fun of you later.
Thursday, August 30, 2018
Tuesday, August 28, 2018
The Second Amendment Allows You to Defend Yourself
Erich Pratt in townhall.com.
-----------------------------------------------
Fifty-five years ago today, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial in our nation’s capital.
People who visited Dr. King’s home described it as an arsenal. One journalist came to his house and later reported that while sitting down in an armchair, he almost landed right on a handgun.
Not only that, after Dr. King’s home was bombed, he applied for a concealed carry permit in Alabama in 1956. But he was denied.
All of this just underscores the dangers of gun control. It turns our rights into privileges, allowing prejudiced officials to revoke the rights of decent people at will.
We see this in the Black Codes which either prevented or discouraged the ability of African-Americans to protect themselves with firearms.
This, of course, made them easy prey for the lynch mobs.
One African-American journalist, Ida Wells, documented many of the lynchings that took place in the 19th Century.
But she also noted that the only time blacks actually escaped the lynch mobs was when they “had a gun and used it in self-defense.”
This is why the Second Amendment is so important. It not only safeguards our right to defend ourselves against thugs, it protects that right when the thugs are wearing badges.
The best-known example of this in American history is the colonists’ spirited defense against the British attempt to confiscate weapons and powder at Concord, Massachusetts, on April 19, 1775.
But this was not the last time that armed civilians would use their weapons to protect themselves against corrupt officials.
In 1906, a white mob worked itself up into a frenzy and started a race riot in Georgia. Over a thousand men walked through the streets of Atlanta, indiscriminately beating black men and women, black teenagers, and black businessmen.
The scene was gruesome. The best estimates record that dozens of blacks were murdered. Hundreds were wounded.
The rioters spilled from one area of Atlanta into another, until they reached one neighborhood, known as “Darktown,” where African-Americans were armed and shot back. That’s where the riot was stopped in its tracks.
Armed blacks forced the mob to retreat and they prevented a second bloodbath.
All this happened on a Saturday night. The riots were paused because of the armed response, but then they resumed again on Monday.
Only this time, to make matters worse, state law enforcement officers went into south Atlanta and tried to disarm the blacks.
One of the preeminent historians who has covered the 1906 riots, John Dittmer, had this to say about what happened next:
[The lead officer] James Heard, was shot out of his saddle and died instantly. Three other officers ... were wounded in the initial exchange before the outgunned troops fled, leaving Heard’s body behind. (John Dittmer, Black Georgia in the Progressive Era (1900-1920), p. 128).
Once again, the riot was abruptly stopped.
In his 1963 speech, Dr. King spoke of the Declaration of Independence as the great promissory note which guaranteed the unalienable rights of ALL people.
This right of self-protection is the freedom which protects all our other rights against official abuse. We’ve seen this in practice time and again.
Former Secretary of State to George Bush, Condoleezza Rice, tells the story of how her dad would take his shotgun -- and with other armed African Americans in the neighborhood -- would form nightly patrols to protect the town’s people from the KKK.
This was common during the difficult days of the civil rights movement. African Americans would use their firearms to protect themselves against the KKK when the Southern Democrat police departments were looking the other way.
So therein lies the rub -- government agents don’t always act in the best interests of its citizens.
And that’s why there is a Second Amendment -- a guarantee which protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms without infringement.
-----------------------------------------------
Fifty-five years ago today, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial in our nation’s capital.
People who visited Dr. King’s home described it as an arsenal. One journalist came to his house and later reported that while sitting down in an armchair, he almost landed right on a handgun.
Not only that, after Dr. King’s home was bombed, he applied for a concealed carry permit in Alabama in 1956. But he was denied.
All of this just underscores the dangers of gun control. It turns our rights into privileges, allowing prejudiced officials to revoke the rights of decent people at will.
We see this in the Black Codes which either prevented or discouraged the ability of African-Americans to protect themselves with firearms.
This, of course, made them easy prey for the lynch mobs.
One African-American journalist, Ida Wells, documented many of the lynchings that took place in the 19th Century.
But she also noted that the only time blacks actually escaped the lynch mobs was when they “had a gun and used it in self-defense.”
This is why the Second Amendment is so important. It not only safeguards our right to defend ourselves against thugs, it protects that right when the thugs are wearing badges.
The best-known example of this in American history is the colonists’ spirited defense against the British attempt to confiscate weapons and powder at Concord, Massachusetts, on April 19, 1775.
But this was not the last time that armed civilians would use their weapons to protect themselves against corrupt officials.
In 1906, a white mob worked itself up into a frenzy and started a race riot in Georgia. Over a thousand men walked through the streets of Atlanta, indiscriminately beating black men and women, black teenagers, and black businessmen.
The scene was gruesome. The best estimates record that dozens of blacks were murdered. Hundreds were wounded.
The rioters spilled from one area of Atlanta into another, until they reached one neighborhood, known as “Darktown,” where African-Americans were armed and shot back. That’s where the riot was stopped in its tracks.
Armed blacks forced the mob to retreat and they prevented a second bloodbath.
All this happened on a Saturday night. The riots were paused because of the armed response, but then they resumed again on Monday.
Only this time, to make matters worse, state law enforcement officers went into south Atlanta and tried to disarm the blacks.
One of the preeminent historians who has covered the 1906 riots, John Dittmer, had this to say about what happened next:
[The lead officer] James Heard, was shot out of his saddle and died instantly. Three other officers ... were wounded in the initial exchange before the outgunned troops fled, leaving Heard’s body behind. (John Dittmer, Black Georgia in the Progressive Era (1900-1920), p. 128).
Once again, the riot was abruptly stopped.
In his 1963 speech, Dr. King spoke of the Declaration of Independence as the great promissory note which guaranteed the unalienable rights of ALL people.
This right of self-protection is the freedom which protects all our other rights against official abuse. We’ve seen this in practice time and again.
Former Secretary of State to George Bush, Condoleezza Rice, tells the story of how her dad would take his shotgun -- and with other armed African Americans in the neighborhood -- would form nightly patrols to protect the town’s people from the KKK.
This was common during the difficult days of the civil rights movement. African Americans would use their firearms to protect themselves against the KKK when the Southern Democrat police departments were looking the other way.
So therein lies the rub -- government agents don’t always act in the best interests of its citizens.
And that’s why there is a Second Amendment -- a guarantee which protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms without infringement.
Are Police Officers Disproportionately Killing Black Men?
From John Lott at townhall.com
JL is the preeminent researcher in this field (despite the lies his critics spread about him).
Check the link to see the statistics.
-------------------------------------------
Democrats have a new hero in Beto O’Rourke, who is campaigning against Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. Hatred for Cruz is enough to get Democrats excited by the prospect of unseating him, but O’Rourke has also won them over on Wednesday by campaigning against police brutality toward blacks.
O’Rourke asserts that law enforcement members are killing unarmed, black children at a “frightening level” and aren’t being held accountable. He expresses approval for “peaceful, non-violent protests, including taking a knee at a football game.”
When Colin Kaepernick started kneeling during the National Anthem a couple of years ago, he wanted to protest police “getting away with murder” of black people. Over the weekend, whole NFL football teams protested police racism against blacks. Protests during the National Anthem have spread to the NBA and major league baseball. In St. Louis last week, after a white officer was acquitted for shooting a black man, protestors chanted “hey ho, hey ho, these racist cops have got to go.” President Trump has called out these protestors, but the perception of many is that racism explains why white officers shoot blacks.
The media has helped create a biased perception. In a recent study, the Crime Prevention Research Center finds that when a white officer kills a suspect, the media usually mentions the race of the officer. This is rarely true when the officer is black.
Polls of blacks paint a bleak picture of relations between blacks and the police, but there is other evidence based on behavior that, overall, blacks trust police at least as much as whites do.
A recent Quinnipiac survey of New York City found that blacks were 11 percentage points more likely to approve of the police in their neighborhood than of the NYPD as a whole. The police that blacks know best, they like.
If blacks really believe that police are racist, one may think that black victims would be less likely to report crimes committed against them. After all, they may doubt the commitment of the officers to solving the crimes. They may think that officers will engage in profiling and arrest an innocent black suspect.
In fact, blacks don’t shy away from reporting crimes to the police. Our report, comparing Department of Justice survey data to crimes reported to the police, shows that from 2008 to 2012 blacks were actually more likely than whites to report violent crimes committed against them to the police — 9 percentage points more likely than whites (54 percent to 45 percent).
That higher rate of reporting applies to all income groups and to both urban and suburban areas. And it's not just that blacks report more crime because they experience more of it. This higher rate of reporting even holds true in areas where whites face higher violent crime rates than blacks do.
This trust appears to be well-placed. White police officers aren’t killing defenseless blacks just because they can.
We found 2,699 police shootings from 2013-2015. We couldn’t rely on FBI data, which consists of cases voluntarily provided by police departments. The FBI lists only 1,366 suspect deaths over the same 3-year period. Our more comprehensive list comes from use of Lexis/Nexis, Freedom of Information Act requests, internet news searches, and several online databases.
The FBI database not only misses half of these cases, it also misses important information that is necessary to understanding why the officers resorted to deadly force, such as whether the suspect was armed or killed while in the act of committing a crime. The FBI disproportionately includes cases from heavily minority areas, giving a misleading picture of the frequency at which blacks are shot.
Our estimates also account for violent crime rates, demographics of the city and police department, characteristics of the suspect and officer, the rate at which police in the state are killed, the educational requirements of the department, and many other factors.
The black officers that we identified were more likely to kill black suspects than were their white colleagues, but the differences were not always statistically significant, meaning that we can’t be sure they were real. At the very least, there's no evidence of white officers disproportionately shooting blacks.
Fortunately, there are steps that we can take to try to reduce the killings. When more police are present at the scene, suspects face reduced odds of being killed. The difference is about 14 to 18 percent for each additional officer. Officers may feel more vulnerable if they are alone at the scene, making them more likely to resort to deadly force. By the same token, suspects are more likely to be emboldened and resist arrest when fewer officers are present.
Police unionization may have had the largest effect, apparently making suspects at least 65% more likely to be killed. This needs more studying, but it could be due to the fact that unions shield their officers from scrutiny or other factors such as laws that delay prosecutors questioning officers. This may make officers more willing to shoot when their own safety feels at all jeopardized.
Many support requiring that officers wear body cameras. We surveyed 900 police departments, 162 of which reported their officers used body cameras. But police acted the same regardless of whether they are wearing the cameras. The Obama administration argued that fear of being recorded would give many officers pause before misbehaving, but that only matters if the officers are misbehaving.
O’Rourke is contributing to a dangerous fiction that prejudiced white officers are going out and disproportionately killing black men. But that doesn’t mean that measures can’t be taken to reduce police shootings. The most obvious step would be to increase the number of officers, in the hopes that more will be present at the scenes of these incidents.
JL is the preeminent researcher in this field (despite the lies his critics spread about him).
Check the link to see the statistics.
-------------------------------------------
Democrats have a new hero in Beto O’Rourke, who is campaigning against Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. Hatred for Cruz is enough to get Democrats excited by the prospect of unseating him, but O’Rourke has also won them over on Wednesday by campaigning against police brutality toward blacks.
O’Rourke asserts that law enforcement members are killing unarmed, black children at a “frightening level” and aren’t being held accountable. He expresses approval for “peaceful, non-violent protests, including taking a knee at a football game.”
When Colin Kaepernick started kneeling during the National Anthem a couple of years ago, he wanted to protest police “getting away with murder” of black people. Over the weekend, whole NFL football teams protested police racism against blacks. Protests during the National Anthem have spread to the NBA and major league baseball. In St. Louis last week, after a white officer was acquitted for shooting a black man, protestors chanted “hey ho, hey ho, these racist cops have got to go.” President Trump has called out these protestors, but the perception of many is that racism explains why white officers shoot blacks.
The media has helped create a biased perception. In a recent study, the Crime Prevention Research Center finds that when a white officer kills a suspect, the media usually mentions the race of the officer. This is rarely true when the officer is black.
Polls of blacks paint a bleak picture of relations between blacks and the police, but there is other evidence based on behavior that, overall, blacks trust police at least as much as whites do.
A recent Quinnipiac survey of New York City found that blacks were 11 percentage points more likely to approve of the police in their neighborhood than of the NYPD as a whole. The police that blacks know best, they like.
If blacks really believe that police are racist, one may think that black victims would be less likely to report crimes committed against them. After all, they may doubt the commitment of the officers to solving the crimes. They may think that officers will engage in profiling and arrest an innocent black suspect.
In fact, blacks don’t shy away from reporting crimes to the police. Our report, comparing Department of Justice survey data to crimes reported to the police, shows that from 2008 to 2012 blacks were actually more likely than whites to report violent crimes committed against them to the police — 9 percentage points more likely than whites (54 percent to 45 percent).
That higher rate of reporting applies to all income groups and to both urban and suburban areas. And it's not just that blacks report more crime because they experience more of it. This higher rate of reporting even holds true in areas where whites face higher violent crime rates than blacks do.
This trust appears to be well-placed. White police officers aren’t killing defenseless blacks just because they can.
We found 2,699 police shootings from 2013-2015. We couldn’t rely on FBI data, which consists of cases voluntarily provided by police departments. The FBI lists only 1,366 suspect deaths over the same 3-year period. Our more comprehensive list comes from use of Lexis/Nexis, Freedom of Information Act requests, internet news searches, and several online databases.
The FBI database not only misses half of these cases, it also misses important information that is necessary to understanding why the officers resorted to deadly force, such as whether the suspect was armed or killed while in the act of committing a crime. The FBI disproportionately includes cases from heavily minority areas, giving a misleading picture of the frequency at which blacks are shot.
Our estimates also account for violent crime rates, demographics of the city and police department, characteristics of the suspect and officer, the rate at which police in the state are killed, the educational requirements of the department, and many other factors.
The black officers that we identified were more likely to kill black suspects than were their white colleagues, but the differences were not always statistically significant, meaning that we can’t be sure they were real. At the very least, there's no evidence of white officers disproportionately shooting blacks.
Fortunately, there are steps that we can take to try to reduce the killings. When more police are present at the scene, suspects face reduced odds of being killed. The difference is about 14 to 18 percent for each additional officer. Officers may feel more vulnerable if they are alone at the scene, making them more likely to resort to deadly force. By the same token, suspects are more likely to be emboldened and resist arrest when fewer officers are present.
Police unionization may have had the largest effect, apparently making suspects at least 65% more likely to be killed. This needs more studying, but it could be due to the fact that unions shield their officers from scrutiny or other factors such as laws that delay prosecutors questioning officers. This may make officers more willing to shoot when their own safety feels at all jeopardized.
Many support requiring that officers wear body cameras. We surveyed 900 police departments, 162 of which reported their officers used body cameras. But police acted the same regardless of whether they are wearing the cameras. The Obama administration argued that fear of being recorded would give many officers pause before misbehaving, but that only matters if the officers are misbehaving.
O’Rourke is contributing to a dangerous fiction that prejudiced white officers are going out and disproportionately killing black men. But that doesn’t mean that measures can’t be taken to reduce police shootings. The most obvious step would be to increase the number of officers, in the hopes that more will be present at the scenes of these incidents.
Sunday, August 26, 2018
Another mass murder in a gun free zone
When I heard about the mass murder at Jacksonville Landing and heard the sequence of shots on TV, which was unusually slow, I wondered why nobody shot the shooter - after all, Florida allows concealed carry and a material proportion of Floridians have a concealed carry license.
You guessed it. Jacksonville Landing is a gun free zone.
Here is a section of Jacksonville Landing's rules of contact.
E.b: Possession of a weapon, even if legally carried (except by law enforcement officers) is absolutely prohibited on Landing property.
You guessed it. Jacksonville Landing is a gun free zone.
Here is a section of Jacksonville Landing's rules of contact.
E.b: Possession of a weapon, even if legally carried (except by law enforcement officers) is absolutely prohibited on Landing property.
Saturday, August 25, 2018
The New Socialists Are Dangerous
Here is a link to a publication of the Democratic Socialist Labor Commission and the Young Democratic Socialists of America.
We have already seen the influence of left-wing academics on our youth. This publication advocates action that will make things far worse.
Those who believe that Socialism or Democratic Socialism works are deluded. That does not imply that these believers are not dangerous. The last thing these believers will do is protect our freedom. Rather, if they gain power, they will force you to live as they think you should.
New York State Can’t Be Allowed to Stifle the NRA’s Political Speech
It is the likes of Governor Andrew Cuomo who are the threat to our freedom.
Here is an article by David Cole, ACLU's Legal Director.
-----------------------------------------
It’s no secret that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is no fan of the National Rifle Association. A mailer his campaign sent to New York voters this week proclaims, in bold letters: “If the NRA goes bankrupt, I will remember them in my thoughts and prayers.”
There’s nothing wrong with the governor singling out a political adversary for criticism, or even mockery. That’s just politics, and the NRA itself is no stranger to hardball tactics.
But in a lawsuit the NRA filed against Cuomo this spring, the organization contends that he did more than criticize it. The NRA alleges that Cuomo and top members of his administration abused their regulatory authority over financial institutions to threaten New York banks and insurers that associate with the NRA or other “gun promotion” groups, and that those threats have jeopardized the NRA’s access to basic insurance and banking services in New York.
In the ACLU’s view, targeting a nonprofit advocacy group and seeking to deny it financial services because it promotes a lawful activity (the use of guns) violates the First Amendment. Because we believe the governor’s actions, as alleged, threaten the First Amendment rights of all advocacy organizations, the ACLU on Friday filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting the NRA’s right to have its day in court.
The state has asked the court to dismiss the case without even permitting discovery into the administration’s actions. Our brief supports the NRA’s right to discovery on its First Amendment claims. To be clear, the ACLU does not oppose reasonable restrictions on guns (you can read more about that here). Our position in this case has nothing to do with our opinions on the NRA’s policies — it’s about the First Amendment rights of all organizations to engage in political advocacy without fear that the state will use its regulatory authority to penalize them for doing so.
Political advocacy organizations like the NRA (or the ACLU or Planned Parenthood) need basic business services, like insurance and banking, to operate. The NRA says that the state, using its regulatory powers over those industries, is threatening financial companies that do business with the NRA.
The NRA points to both public and non-public actions taken by the Cuomo administration to penalize it for its views. State officials issued press releases and sent threatening letters to banks and insurance companies, and also allegedly communicated “backchannel threats” to companies with ties to the NRA, warning that they would face regulatory action if they failed to end their relationships with the organization.
If the NRA’s charges are true, the state’s actions would clearly violate the First Amendment. Public officials are, of course, free to criticize groups with which they disagree. But they cannot use their regulatory authority to penalize advocacy groups by threatening companies that do business with those groups. And here the state has admitted, in its own words, that it focused on the NRA and other groups not because of any illegal conduct, but because they engage in “gun promotion” — in other words, because they advocate a lawful activity.
Substitute Planned Parenthood or the Communist Party for the NRA, and the point is clear. If Cuomo can do this to the NRA, then conservative governors could have their financial regulators threaten banks and financial institutions that do business with any other group whose political views the governor opposes. The First Amendment bars state officials from using their regulatory power to penalize groups merely because they promote disapproved ideas.
In April 2018, the New York State Department of Financial Services sent “guidance letters” to banks and insurance companies. It wrote, “The Department encourages its insurers to continue evaluating and managing their risks, including reputational risks, that may arise from their dealings with the NRA or similar gun promotion organizations… The Department encourages regulated institutions to review any relationships they have with the NRA or similar gun promotion organizations, and to take prompt actions to managing these risks and promote public health and safety.”
Two weeks later, the department announced consent decrees with two insurers, imposing millions of dollars in fines and barring them from selling consumer insurance products that are endorsed by the NRA. Days later, the NRA says that its corporate insurance carrier severed ties and said it would not provide the NRA with insurance at any price.
The NRA says that it has since had serious difficulty replacing its corporate insurance because nearly every potential replacement was afraid of being investigated by the state. The NRA also says that numerous banks have withdrawn bids to provide basic financial services because the April letters from the state indicated that any association with the NRA could expose them to regulatory retaliation.
The state argues that even if all of the NRA’s claims are true, the First Amendment doesn’t apply. We disagree, and as we note in our brief, dismissing the NRA case:
would set a dangerous precedent for advocacy groups across the political spectrum. Public officials would have a readymade playbook for abusing their regulatory power to harm disfavored advocacy groups without triggering judicial scrutiny.
There are acceptable measures that the state can take to curb gun violence. But using its extensive financial regulatory authority to penalize advocacy groups because they “promote” guns isn’t one of them.
Here is an article by David Cole, ACLU's Legal Director.
-----------------------------------------
It’s no secret that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is no fan of the National Rifle Association. A mailer his campaign sent to New York voters this week proclaims, in bold letters: “If the NRA goes bankrupt, I will remember them in my thoughts and prayers.”
There’s nothing wrong with the governor singling out a political adversary for criticism, or even mockery. That’s just politics, and the NRA itself is no stranger to hardball tactics.
But in a lawsuit the NRA filed against Cuomo this spring, the organization contends that he did more than criticize it. The NRA alleges that Cuomo and top members of his administration abused their regulatory authority over financial institutions to threaten New York banks and insurers that associate with the NRA or other “gun promotion” groups, and that those threats have jeopardized the NRA’s access to basic insurance and banking services in New York.
In the ACLU’s view, targeting a nonprofit advocacy group and seeking to deny it financial services because it promotes a lawful activity (the use of guns) violates the First Amendment. Because we believe the governor’s actions, as alleged, threaten the First Amendment rights of all advocacy organizations, the ACLU on Friday filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting the NRA’s right to have its day in court.
The state has asked the court to dismiss the case without even permitting discovery into the administration’s actions. Our brief supports the NRA’s right to discovery on its First Amendment claims. To be clear, the ACLU does not oppose reasonable restrictions on guns (you can read more about that here). Our position in this case has nothing to do with our opinions on the NRA’s policies — it’s about the First Amendment rights of all organizations to engage in political advocacy without fear that the state will use its regulatory authority to penalize them for doing so.
Political advocacy organizations like the NRA (or the ACLU or Planned Parenthood) need basic business services, like insurance and banking, to operate. The NRA says that the state, using its regulatory powers over those industries, is threatening financial companies that do business with the NRA.
The NRA points to both public and non-public actions taken by the Cuomo administration to penalize it for its views. State officials issued press releases and sent threatening letters to banks and insurance companies, and also allegedly communicated “backchannel threats” to companies with ties to the NRA, warning that they would face regulatory action if they failed to end their relationships with the organization.
If the NRA’s charges are true, the state’s actions would clearly violate the First Amendment. Public officials are, of course, free to criticize groups with which they disagree. But they cannot use their regulatory authority to penalize advocacy groups by threatening companies that do business with those groups. And here the state has admitted, in its own words, that it focused on the NRA and other groups not because of any illegal conduct, but because they engage in “gun promotion” — in other words, because they advocate a lawful activity.
Substitute Planned Parenthood or the Communist Party for the NRA, and the point is clear. If Cuomo can do this to the NRA, then conservative governors could have their financial regulators threaten banks and financial institutions that do business with any other group whose political views the governor opposes. The First Amendment bars state officials from using their regulatory power to penalize groups merely because they promote disapproved ideas.
In April 2018, the New York State Department of Financial Services sent “guidance letters” to banks and insurance companies. It wrote, “The Department encourages its insurers to continue evaluating and managing their risks, including reputational risks, that may arise from their dealings with the NRA or similar gun promotion organizations… The Department encourages regulated institutions to review any relationships they have with the NRA or similar gun promotion organizations, and to take prompt actions to managing these risks and promote public health and safety.”
Two weeks later, the department announced consent decrees with two insurers, imposing millions of dollars in fines and barring them from selling consumer insurance products that are endorsed by the NRA. Days later, the NRA says that its corporate insurance carrier severed ties and said it would not provide the NRA with insurance at any price.
The NRA says that it has since had serious difficulty replacing its corporate insurance because nearly every potential replacement was afraid of being investigated by the state. The NRA also says that numerous banks have withdrawn bids to provide basic financial services because the April letters from the state indicated that any association with the NRA could expose them to regulatory retaliation.
The state argues that even if all of the NRA’s claims are true, the First Amendment doesn’t apply. We disagree, and as we note in our brief, dismissing the NRA case:
would set a dangerous precedent for advocacy groups across the political spectrum. Public officials would have a readymade playbook for abusing their regulatory power to harm disfavored advocacy groups without triggering judicial scrutiny.
There are acceptable measures that the state can take to curb gun violence. But using its extensive financial regulatory authority to penalize advocacy groups because they “promote” guns isn’t one of them.
Friday, August 24, 2018
Further LDL Lowering in Patients With Very Low LDL Reduces Vascular Events
From www.praticeupdate.com.
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Reducing low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) concentrations is one of the cornerstones of the primary and secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease. In general, most estimates suggest that for every ~1 mmol/L (or 39 mg/dL) reduction in LDL-C, the relative risk of cardiovascular events is reduced by about 20%. This risk reduction is largely linear across a broad range of starting LDL-C concentrations, but the data are derived from trials of statins, and few individuals start statin trials with LDL-C less than 2 mmol/L (77 mg/dL). The advent of non-statin drugs, such as ezetimibe and the PCSK9 inhibitors, means that LDL-C concentrations far lower than the 70 mg/dL typically cited in clinical guidelines can be achieved. Here, the authors report that in this group of patients who start with low LDL-C, further reduction in LDL-C continued to offer a reduction in the relative risk for major vascular events. For statins, that risk reduction was 22% per 1 mmol/L (39 mg/dL) reduction in LDL-C, and for ezetimibe, evolocumab, and anacetrapib that reduction was 21% for the same reduction in LDL-C. While the authors saw no increase in serious adverse events, and no increase in hemorrhagic stroke or diabetes, they did not report the effects on cataracts, which have been seen at higher rates among those with very low LDL-C. The data included in the meta-analysis are from randomized trials that are, by their nature, of relatively short duration, and thus may miss adverse effects that take time to develop. Nonetheless, the data are encouraging and add to the body of evidence that lowering LDL-C concentrations to very low levels offers continued cardiovascular risk and is associated with few adverse effects.
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Reducing low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) concentrations is one of the cornerstones of the primary and secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease. In general, most estimates suggest that for every ~1 mmol/L (or 39 mg/dL) reduction in LDL-C, the relative risk of cardiovascular events is reduced by about 20%. This risk reduction is largely linear across a broad range of starting LDL-C concentrations, but the data are derived from trials of statins, and few individuals start statin trials with LDL-C less than 2 mmol/L (77 mg/dL). The advent of non-statin drugs, such as ezetimibe and the PCSK9 inhibitors, means that LDL-C concentrations far lower than the 70 mg/dL typically cited in clinical guidelines can be achieved. Here, the authors report that in this group of patients who start with low LDL-C, further reduction in LDL-C continued to offer a reduction in the relative risk for major vascular events. For statins, that risk reduction was 22% per 1 mmol/L (39 mg/dL) reduction in LDL-C, and for ezetimibe, evolocumab, and anacetrapib that reduction was 21% for the same reduction in LDL-C. While the authors saw no increase in serious adverse events, and no increase in hemorrhagic stroke or diabetes, they did not report the effects on cataracts, which have been seen at higher rates among those with very low LDL-C. The data included in the meta-analysis are from randomized trials that are, by their nature, of relatively short duration, and thus may miss adverse effects that take time to develop. Nonetheless, the data are encouraging and add to the body of evidence that lowering LDL-C concentrations to very low levels offers continued cardiovascular risk and is associated with few adverse effects.
Sunday, August 19, 2018
Nine-Year-Old Competitive Shooter
From Townhall.com.
Here is the link to "Meet the Nine-Year-Old Competitive Shooter Taking the World by Storm.
A predator wouldn't stand a chance against this young lady - if she was allowed to carry a concealed firearm. Nor would a school shooter if she was there with a firearm.
Here is the link to "Meet the Nine-Year-Old Competitive Shooter Taking the World by Storm.
A predator wouldn't stand a chance against this young lady - if she was allowed to carry a concealed firearm. Nor would a school shooter if she was there with a firearm.
Friday, August 17, 2018
Insight into Judge Kavanaugh
Here is a link to a video where Judge Kavanaugh's clerks discuss the kind of person he is.
Very well done - watch it.
Very well done - watch it.
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