The Brady Bunch Visits Wonderland Once Again
By Erich Pratt
CNSNews.com Commentary
January 20, 2004

The Brady Campaign has asked us to believe the impossible ... yet again.

Every January, the gun control group issues a state report card, giving each state a grade on the basis of their gun laws.

But one look at their report card reveals that the grades have nothing to do with how safe people are in the state.

Their report card is somewhat reminiscent of Lewis Carroll's classic Alice in Wonderland. When Alice doesn't believe the White Queen is 101 years old, she is encouraged by the Queen to spend more time trying to believe the impossible.

"When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day," the Queen smiled. "Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

Well, the Brady Bunch would have us believe many impossible things. But here are six for starters.

First, the group gives Vermont a grade of D- because, supposedly, the "state's weak laws make it too easy for criminals, the mentally ill and juveniles to get guns."

But this statement is laughable, for crime in Vermont is virtually non-existent. Just last year (2003), Vermont earned the Safest State in the nation award from the Morgan Quitno Press -- a group of statisticians who rank each state according to its safety record.

The Green Mountain State has consistently had one of the lowest crime rates in the nation, as they have earned this "Safest State" award three times in the last ten years.

The real reason the Brady Bunch doesn't like the state of Vermont is because it has relatively few restrictions on firearms. In fact, anyone can carry a gun in the state without first getting a permit or submitting to a government background check.

Which is why the folks at the Brady Campaign also gave Alaska a low grade. The Land of the Midnight Sun is now following in Vermont's footsteps -- having passed a law last year allowing citizens to freely carry firearms without first obtaining government permission.

The Brady Bunch doesn't like this at all. They awarded a D- to Alaska -- the second unbelievable grade -- and sentenced the entire state to the "time-out chair."

No, that's no joke. Their press release says that Alaska was "put in the Time- Out Chair for passing a new law that allows people to carry concealed handguns without even having a permit. Gun violence in the state could increase ...."

Yeah, right. A look around the nation shows just the opposite: crime dramatically INCREASES in places that give criminals a safer working environment.

Just look at Washington, DC, which has seen its murder rate increase 51 percent after imposing its draconian gun ban in 1976. Meanwhile, the murder rate decreased 36 percent throughout the entire nation during that same 25-year period.

There's a lot of "impossible things to believe" in this Report Card. But very quickly, here's four more.

FBI statistics showed last year that the states which enjoyed the lowest murder rates earned grades of D or D- from the Brady Campaign. New Hampshire, North Dakota and Maine have murder rates that any state or country could only dream about.

But the Brady Bunch suggests that these would not be states where you would want to live, because they are not keeping kids "safe from gun violence."

Again, these states have the lowest murder rates in the country. Doesn't that count for anything?

Finally, the Brady Bunch awarded Maryland one of the highest grades in the nation (an A-), even though they had the second HIGHEST murder rate in the nation.

How can the Brady Campaign give that state an A- with a straight face? The state is not keeping its citizens safe from gun violence -- or any other violence for that matter. But hey, Maryland gets an A-, simply because they have strict gun control laws -- regardless of whether those laws are keeping people safe.

Do you see the irony here?

The White Queen would probably have no problem believing this Report Card, but the rest of us should.

It's a sad thing when people try to push fiction as reality. And that is what the Brady Campaign's Report Card is. It's fiction.

At least with Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll knew he was writing about make-believe.


(Erich Pratt is the Director of Communications for Gun Owners of America, a national gun lobby with over 350,000 members.)
http://www.cnsnews.com//ViewCommentary.asp?Page=/Commentary/archive/200401/COM20040120a.html

Maryland's Ballistic 'Fingerprinting' System Proves Cumbersome
By Susan Jones
CNSNews.com Morning Editor
January 21, 2004

(CNSNews.com) - More than three years after Maryland adopted a "ballistic fingerprinting" system for all new handguns, state police are opposing calls for the program to be expanded, the NRA Institute for Legislative Action reported.

According to the ILA, Maryland's "ballistic fingerprinting" database has so far failed to solve a single crime, and it's costing $2-million to maintain.

A report in the February 2004 American Rifleman noted, "The database has generated four matches, and in each case, police already had the gun they were trying to trace." The article cites a 40-page report issued by the director of the Maryland state police crime lab.

Even though the Maryland database has failed to solve any crimes, anti-gun groups want to expand the program to include rifles and shotguns -- not just handguns -- the ILA reported.

The Maryland law, adopted in the fall of 2000, requires gun makers to test-fire all new handguns shipped into Maryland so each gun has a "ballistic fingerprint" on record. Each spent shell casing has unique markings that police theoretically could use to identify guns that were used in crimes.

But as the NRA's Wayne LaPierre noted in a 2002 television interview, "A sniper, a criminal with steel wool, with a cleaning kit, with a drill can completely change the [shell casing] characteristics in the time it takes someone to drink a cup of coffee." Moreover, LaPierre said, "Every time you fire a gun, the ballistics change."

The NRA and many Second Amendment supporters oppose "ballistic fingerprinting" for a number of reasons, including the unreliability of the data collected and the failure of such databases to catch criminals.

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=%5CNation%5Carchive%5C200401%5 CNAT20040121a.html233xz

Nice post FWW,I use to live in the peoples republic of Massachussetts,in fact I grew up there.But now I live in the "wild and dangerous" state of Maine.I like the thought of liberal gun haters thinking Maine is a terrible place to live,that way they will stay where they are and not clog up my air with thier self-righteous nonsense.I think I read a report a while back that said VT and ME had the highest per capita firearms owners and the highest ratio of firearms per person in the country,so if firearms availability is a direct contributor to crime then Northen New England should be the crime capitol of the country.Funny how its just the opposite and liberals choose not to see it. :smash:

Funny how its just the opposite and liberals choose not to see it.

yup! and remember guns kill people

Matter of fact I think my gun got up last nite.. Loaded up, let itself out of the LOCKED gun safe and went on a shooting spree! DAMN THAT GUN!

Jenn, either you've been drinking too much coffee or you been feeding that gun of yours +P+ ammo. :hihi:

Oh, by the way, make sure you send in your Class A LTC renewals in EARLY.

My friend and I are awaiting our non-resident permit renewals - his expired back in JUNE of 2003 and he's still waiting for it (having submitted the renewal in MAY 2003)!

I don't think I'll see mine until the herring season approaches :crying:

One of the NY papers did a study on which police precincts in the City had the lowest incidences of residential burglaries.

Two of the precincts were the 122 and 123 on Staten Island--which, probably not coincidently, have one of the highest ratios of legal firearms per capita.

Two of the precincts were the 122 and 123 on Staten Island--which, probably not coincidently, have one of the highest ratios of legal firearms per capita.

EXACTLY....Thats why when someones says "guns kill people" it really burns my a$$.......its bad people that kill people! You cant blame the gun because we ALL know the dont load and shoot all by themselves!!!!:rolleyes:

Nice guns :drool: kill my pocketbook.

From Chicago Sun Times.


Gun owner: I, not cops, got bad guy

January 22, 2004

Three days after Christmas, someone broke into the DeMar family home in Wilmette through a dog door, stealing a television, an SUV and the keys to the home.

The next night, Hale DeMar was prepared for a return visit. With his children upstairs, DeMar, 54, shot burglar Morio Billings, 31, in the shoulder and calf, police said.

Billings was caught at a nearby hospital and charged with felony residential burglary and possession of a stolen car, authorities said.

And, in a move that has drawn criticism, DeMar was cited with breaking Wilmette's ban on handguns and with failing to update his firearm owner's identification card.

The misdemeanors are unlikely to bring jail time. Wilmette Police Chief George Carpenter did not criticize DeMar for protecting his family but said homes are safer without handguns.

DeMar, in a letter sent to the Chicago Sun-Times, is now speaking out:



Village Trustees ... Stick to Parade Schedules & Planting our Parks

Many of us have experienced a sense of violation upon returning to our homes, only to find that someone else has been there. Someone else has trespassed in our bedrooms, looting and stealing that which is readily replaced. Many of us, still haunted by that violation, will never again have a sense of security in our own homes. Few, however, have awakened to realize that they had been violated as they slept in their beds, doors locked, as family dogs patrolled their homes. For me, the seconds until I found my children still safely tucked in their beds were horrifying. The thought that a young child may have been hurt or abducted was incomprehensible.

The police were called and in routine fashion they came, took the report and with little concern left, promising to increase surveillance. Little comfort, since the invader now had keys to our home and our automobiles. The police informed me that this was not an uncommon event in east Wilmette and offered their condolences.

What is one to do when a criminal proceeds, undeterred by a 90-pound German shepherd, an alarm system and a property ... lit up like an outdoor stadium? And now, he had my house keys and an inventory of things he'd like to call his own. Would the police patrol my dead-end street as effectively the second time as they had the first? Would my small children be unharmed the next time? Would the career criminal be satisfied with another automobile, another television or would he feel the need, once again, to climb the staircase up to the bedrooms, perhaps for a watch or a ring or a wallet, again risking little?

Would my children wake to find a masked figure, clad in black, in their bedroom doorway, a vision that might haunt them for years? Would the police come again and fill out yet another report, and at what point should I feel comfortable that the 'bad guy' got everything he wanted and wouldn't return again, a third time?

I went to the safe where my licensed and registered gun was kept, loaded it for the very first time and tucked it under the mattress of my bed. I assured my frightened children ''that daddy would deal with the bad guy ... if he ever returned.'' Little did I imagine that this brazen animal was waiting in the backyard bushes as I tucked my children into bed.

Fifteen minutes after bedtime, the alarm went off. Three minutes after the alarm was triggered, the alarm company alerted the police to the situation and 10 minutes later the first police car pulled up to my home, but only after another call was made to 911, by a trembling, half-naked father. I suppose some would have grabbed their children and cowered in their bedroom for 13 minutes, praying that the police would get there in time to stop the criminal from climbing the stairs and confronting the family in their bedroom, dreading the sound of a bedroom door being kicked in. That's not the fear I wanted my children to experience, nor is it the cowardly act that I want my children to remember me by.

Until you are shocked by a piercing alarm in the middle of the night and met in your kitchen by a masked invader as your children shudder in their beds, until you confront that very real nightmare, please don't suggest that some village trustee knows better and he/she can effectively task the police to protect your family from the miscreants that this society has produced.

This career criminal had been arrested thirty times. He was wanted in Georgia and for parole violations in Minnesota. How many family homes had he violated, how many innocent lives were affected, how many police reports went into some back office file cabinet, only to become some abstract statistic? How is it that rabid animals like this are free to roam the streets, violating our homes and threatening the safety of our children?

If my actions have spared only one family from the distress and trauma that this habitual criminal has caused hundreds of others, then I have served my civic duty and taken one evil creature off of our streets, something that our impotent criminal justice system had failed to do, despite some thirty odd arrests, plea bargains and suspended sentences.

Hale DeMar, Wilmette