Peter David's Blog, page 39

Great anti-gun piece from the New Yorker

I have no idea who wrote the following; it isn’t credited. If he happens to be reading this, he should let me know. I very much doubt he (or she) will object to my reproducing it here:

People will recall that, not so long ago, Senator James Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma, in order to conclusively demonstrate that claims of man-made climate change were false, made a snowball after a February storm and threw it on the Senate floor. I demonstrate it thus! If I see frozen water, how can the planet be warming? What was so beautiful about this demonstration was that it did not even depend on a snowball made out of season, one packed and tossed, say, in September or April—this was a mid-wintersnowball, and it still refuted global warming, for once and all.

Anyone who follows the debate on any public issue discovers that the snowball-in-the-Senate style of argumentation persists, with the same note of smugness—that’ll show them! It most often comes from the same political direction, or party, and with the same disconnection from all familiar standards of evidence and argument. In the debate about the necessity of bringing America into agreement with the rest of the civilized world on the issue of guns and gun killings, there are some persistent snowballs-in-the-Senate that keep getting thrown, which need to be mopped up as they melt.

Snowball No. 1: There is doubt or mystery or uncertainty about whether national gun control can actually limit gun violence.No, there isn’t. The real social science on this, published in professional and, usually, peer-reviewed journals, is robust and reliable, while fake or ersatz social science that proposes to show the opposite has been debunked many, many times. Of course, to say that the social science is settled is exactly not to say that one or two authority figures are in dogmatic possession of the truth—that’s not what makes it science—but that a broad community of people who have taken the trouble to study the evidence and open their data to each other have come to something close to a consensus. More guns mean more homicides. More guns mean more gun massacres. More guns mean more death. Common sense confirms what social science demonstrates: there really have been no gun massacres in Australia since Australia decided to act to stop gun massacres from happening.

Snowball No. 2: Levels of violent crime have been receding in America in recent years, so guns can’t really be a problem. This decline is real—but it is real everywhere in the Western world. The remarkable point is that American gun violence persists at its astonishingly high levels in spite of the general decline in the rich world of violent crime. You have to accept a uniquely narrow view not of human nature but of American character—that Americans are so uniquely violent, so paranoid and hate-filled, so incurably homicidal, that they will keep killing each other no matter what laws exist—to believe that the same simple social restraints that have ended epidemic gun violence elsewhere won’t work here. It would be more American to be more optimistic about Americans.

Snowball No. 3: Gun laws solve nothing because terrorists, whether in Paris or San Bernardino, aren’t the sort of people who care about or obey them. This snowball might properly be restated as follows: if a pickpocket steals your wallet on the bus, repeal the laws against pickpockets. If terrorists and criminals do still get guns, despite existing gun laws, there is no reason to have gun laws at all. But the goal of good social legislation is not to create impermeable dams that will stop every possible bad behavior; it is to put obstacles in their way. The imperfection of a system of restraints is an argument about the imperfection of all human systems. It is not an argument against restraints. What’s more, the special insight of recent criminology is to show that low walls work nearly as well as high ones, and are obviously much easier to build. Making any crime harder usually makes it much harder. If the terrorists in San Bernardino had had to work as hard at building guns as they did at building bombs, perhaps the guns would have worked as badly as the bombs did. (And, surely, it is a good thing that they were not able to go to a bomb store, or a bomb-owing middleman, for pre-made bombs.)

Snowball No. 4: There are already so many guns in circulation in the United States, and their owners are so determined to keep them, that introducing limits would have no practical effect. Determined social movements against what seemed to be fixed features of social life often work—to a first approximation, they always work, which is why the modern history of liberal societies has the generally happy arc it does. Piecemeal social reform tends to be slow, but it tends to be successful. (Many manageable middle-range changes, from ammunition control to “smarter” and more secure guns, have been suggested as passable paths to gun sanity.) One need look only at the history of smoking or of car safety to see that this is so. Cancer caused by cigarettes and deaths caused by traffic fatalities, which were once fixed and ubiquitous features of American life, have been vastly reduced by gradual reform. A full-court press against gun massacres, at local and state and federal levels, has already begun; the more it goes on, the safer we will become.

Snowball No. 5: Even if gun control were a good thing, the Second Amendment renders its achievement impossible. Not so. In 2008, the Supreme Court, by a vote of 5-4, decided the case of District of Columbia v. Heller in favor of the view that the Second Amendment guarantees a right to private ownership of weapons. Justice John Paul Stevens, appointed by a Republican President, in a dissent joined by three other justices, rightly found this view astounding and radical, writing that the Constitution speaks only to gun ownership within the context of a militia. But even the Heller majority agreed that the right it had conjured up was far from unlimited: there could still be conditions and licensing requirements and limits on where one could carry a gun. (Just last week, the Court declinedto hear a challenge to a ban on assault weapons and large-capacity magazines in Highland Park, Illinois.)

And so even, according to the new view espoused by Heller, the rational test of actual experience should still trump the Kabbalah of eighteenth-century-word scrutiny, however exciting it may be to pseudo-scholarly minds. Does anyone believe that Madison and Mason, stumbling into the first-grade classroom where modern assault weaponry had blown apart twenty six-year-olds and six of their terrified caretakers, would then say, “Well, too bad—but, yes, that’s exactly what we meant by the right of the people to keep and bear arms”?

Snowball No. 6: Gun rights are a necessary hedge against tyranny. Ted Cruz has been throwing this snowball around quite a bit, strange as it is to hear a senator praise preparations for acts of terrorist sedition. This was, as it happens, exactly the argument of slave owners of 1861, well answered by Lincoln, and then by Grant.

If there is a risk to democracy it might be, instead, in the way the routine of gun violence and terrorist horrors like San Bernardino brutalize us as a people, and the way the paranoia they provoke changes our sense, to use one of the President’s favored phrases, of who we are. Which risks are worth taking, and which demand a response, is a subject for grownup people to debate on a long winter night, with the snow drifting safely outside, where it belongs.

SIR APROPOS OF NOTHING is back in print

Looking for a good Xmas or Chanukah present? The itinerant knight errant, SIR APROPOS OF NOTHING, is back in print through Crazy 8 Press and can be purchased on Amazon. The paperback with a new Robin Riggs cover is available right now, and the eBook will be up within a week. Buy it and read it now so that early next year when the new Apropos adventure, PYRAMID SCHEMES, is available, you’ll be familiar with him.

Here’s the link:

Sir Apropos of Nothing

PAD

Caroline turns 13 today

Some of you met Caroline when she was two months old: we got snowed in at the Farpoint convention which was dubbed “Snowcon.” Everyone was worried about her. “Is there enough food for the baby?” kept being asked. Our response was simple: “She’s nursing. Feed the mom and the baby is fine.”

And now she’s thirteen. The first child I’ve had who became a teenager without the threat of a divorce hanging over her head, so this birthday is a lot more relaxed. Plus it’s not snowing today, which is surprising. She was born on the day of a horrific snowstorm and it has snowed on the vast majority of her birthdays since then. Tomorrow is her party which will be Harry Potter themed.

Please join me in wishing my little girl a happy 13th birthday.

PAD

NRA supporters want you to boycott the following companies

The following list compiled by the NRA is being bandied about by people who are calling for them to be boycotted. Why? Because they have policies specifically against open carrying of weapons:

So I’m going to be using this list from now on for stores to shop at and restaurants to patronize. And I’ll even tell them when I spend money that that’s why I’m there and will continue to support them for as long as their policies remain in force. Because guns suck and gun lovers suck.

And as before, all gun lover responses to this posting will be deleted.

PAD

Sir Apropos of Nothing will be back in print

The rights have reverted to me which means that Crazy 8 Press will be bringing the adventures of my itinerant anti-hero back to his reading public.

Here is the cover rendered by Robin Riggs. Book one should be out within a month as both print and eBook (for the first time) and even as we speak, I am working on the sequel which should be out next year.

PAD

Here’s my guess about STAR WARS

So I’m back from nearly two weeks of traveling around, first to Greece and then Oklahoma, and my body has finally adjusted to local time. And I’m catching up reading “Entertainment Weekly” which is currently drowning in “Star Wars” coverage.

So here’s what I think.

“Star Wars” has traditionally been a story about families. I think that will continue. I think Kylo Ren is the son of Luke Skywalker, and Rey is the daughter of Leia and Han.

I’m sure others have put this theory forward, but there it is.

PAD

The Royals are not winning the World Series

Rather, the Mets are losing the World Series.

Seriously. Mets should have had game 1. Except for a brief span after the All Star break, Familia never blows a save. He got up there to get three outs in game one when it was 4-3 and allowed a home run to tie it.

Mets should have had game 4. And if the Royals had gotten two singles to put men on base, I’d have a different opinion. But Clippard walked two batters, and then Murphy did a Bill Buckner and boom, the game gets away.

So yeah, sorry, Royals fans, but if the Mets were playing the way we’re used to, they’d be the ones up three games to one.

PAD

Best comment on the Mets winning

So on WFAN radio this morning they were busily discussing everything the Mets now have to worry about vis a vis the World Series. What’s up with Cespedes’ arm, who’s going to pitch, etc. And then they turned to another reporter to discuss the Nets.

And the Nets guy said, “Before we do that, can we talk about the Mets a moment?” They said sure. And he said, “Could you guys be happy? I mean, all you’re doing is focusing on all the problems they have to deal with. You just won the National League championship. Could you focus on that for 24 hours instead of just worrying and complaining?” And they took that in and said, “Okay,” and spent the next minute being happy.

Yay!

Just when boycotts couldn’t get any more stupid: Star War VII

Seriously?

When the first “Star Wars” film came out in 1977, it was criticized for the overall whiteness of it. The one major black actor, James Earl Jones, wasn’t even given voice credit (his choice). This was answered with the introduction of Lando in the very next film, but still, mostly white.

So now the new film prominently features a black hero and there are actually idiots who are declaring it should be boycotted because of that? I mean, I knew there are people for whom Obama can do no right because of his skin color, but this is quite simply insane.

Thank God that there’s zero evidence the boycott will have any impact. Any film that crashes the internet when tickets go on sale, as happened last night, needn’t worry. Still, every time you find yourself wondering how stupid people are, they always seem willing to answer with more evidence.

PAD

Let’s go whoever

I was obviously thrilled to see the Mets win game five last night, and my biggest relief was that Chase Utley flew out rather than tie up the game. So now it’s Mets vs. Cubs, and although naturally I’m rooting for the Mets, seeing the Cubs in the World Series with a chance to make “Back to the Future II'” prediction come true is an entertaining notion.

And I’d like to share with you the best written article opening about yesterday’s game from the Mets website:

By Matt Monagan

Facing off against Zack Greinke — half-man/half-pitching robot sent here to destroy all batters who dare to face him — the Mets needed a few players to step up in a big way. They needed to string together a few hits here and there in hopes of scoring a run or two for starter Jacob deGrom. It would need to be a team effort.

Or, you know, Daniel Murphy could just do everything.

PAD