A few random observations, charts and factoids to provide some context on what is going on in the world.
Are We Looking At The Right Target?
Another school year. Another school shooting.
Why?
If on cue, the Democrats are again saying that we have to ban "assault weapons".
They seem to ignore the fact that there was a so-called "assault weapons" ban enacted in 1994 with a 10 year sunset provision. The ban was not extended by Congress in 2004 as there was not enough evidence to indicate that the ban had been effective in the decade after its enactment.
Of course, machine guns and automatic weapons (what Tim Walz would like to call "weapons of war") have effectively been banned in the United States since the 1930's.
Also lost in this discussion is the fact that rifles of any type (automatic, semiautomatic or any other long barrel) are rarely used in any homicide.
Less than 3% of murders (mass shootings included) are committed by using any type of rifle.
We are talking about 500 per year in a nation of 340 million people.
Consider the FBI statistics for the year 2022 (the latest year data in available) on murder victims by weapons.
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| Source: https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/LATEST/webapp/#/pages/explorer/crime/shr |
Many also do not know that there are many more deaths by guns due to suicide than in homicides.
60% of gun deaths are from suicides. Only 1% of gun deaths involve mass shootings.
This data is from Brady, the nation's oldest gun violence prevention group.
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| Source: https://www.bradyunited.org/resources/statistics |
I am not sure Democrats are focused on the right target in these shootings.
Does Anyone Think We Should Ban Alcohol Again?
The United States has experience with bans. The 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution took effect in January, 1920. It prohibited the production, sale and transportation of alcoholic beverages in the United States.
That ban was repealed by the 21st Amendment in 1933.
The argument for banning alcohol was not primarily based on protecting the drunkard. It was based on the adverse effects that alcohol had on society at large. It contributed to domestic issues, broken homes, child neglect and abuse, poor health, crime, debauchery and degeneracy. The argument was that by eliminating alcohol society would be improved substantially.
Of course, history shows that Prohibition was an utter failure.
It was found to cause more unintended consequences and adverse effects than alcohol did alone.
All of the arguments that existed to ban alcohol that existed in 1920 still exist today.
(I have written several times about Prohibition in the past here , here and here if you would like to know more about the subject),
I found it interesting that the country of South Africa banned alcohol sales three times as part of their Covid measures during the pandemic.
Each period the government banned alcohol sales, deaths from homicides and other unnatural causes declined rapidly. However, when the ban was lifted deaths quickly went back up.
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| Weekly Mortality in South Africa from Unnatural Causes During Covid Pandemic Source: https://x.com/cremieuxrecueil/status/1831471828025712646 |
Assaults and rapes also followed the same pattern.
Similar patterns were seen in the United States during Prohibition. There were many benefits to society from the ban on alcoholic beverages.
However, in the end, the ban on alcohol was seen as overly burdensome on the overwhelming majority of Americans who used alcohol responsibly.
Does anyone see any parallels here with the subject above?
Does A Climate "Expert" Really Exist?
Western societies are spending trillions of dollars to fight climate change.
Joe Biden has said that climate change is the single biggest threat to mankind that exists. Nuclear conflict is not even a close second according to Biden.
Kamala Harris has said in the past that climate change is real and we must be aggressive in our response.
ABC News recently reported that "during a CNN forum on climate change in 2020, Harris said she opposed fracking and offshore drilling. She said she would also ban fossil fuel leases on public lands if elected as president."
As a Senator, Harris was an early co-sponsor of the Green New Deal that wanted to transition the United States to 100% clean energy in 10 years. That was five years ago.
Of course, neither Joe Biden or Kamala Harris is a climate scientist.
They rely on so-called experts on this subject.
Experts that are supposedly telling us what the climate is going to be 10, 20, 30 or 40 years in the future.
In the meantime, those same "experts" predicted this about the 2024 hurricane season this past April.
What are they saying today?
You may also remember the famous prediction that Al Gore made in 2009 that the Arctic ice cap might disappear in as little as five to seven years. This was based on the projections of polar science"experts".
We are just finishing up the summer of 2024 in the Arctic. This should be the time period when the arctic ice cap is at a minimum.
Arctic sea ice extent is 20% larger as of September 3 than it was 12 years ago.
If the "experts" are this far off in a forecast involving a few months or years, why would anyone trust spending trillions of dollars and totally reworking our energy infrastructure on a forecast of climate change decades in the future?
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