{"id":2998,"date":"2016-02-29T19:18:43","date_gmt":"2016-03-01T03:18:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/?p=2998"},"modified":"2016-02-29T19:45:21","modified_gmt":"2016-03-01T03:45:21","slug":"are-really-old-social-security-recipients-to-blame-for-crime-wave","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/?p=2998","title":{"rendered":"Are really old Social Security recipients to blame for crime wave?"},"content":{"rendered":"

(A version of this column appears in the March 10 edition of \u201cFirearms News,\u201d formerly \u201cShotgun News.\u201d)<\/em><\/p>\n

America is not in the midst of a big crime wave. Gun ownership is way up, and violent crime rates are down across the board (See \u201cGun homicides, violence, down sharply in past 20 years\u201d, http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2013\/05\/08\/us\/study-gun-homicide\/index.html<\/a> , and \u201cFBI report confirms crime fell while gun purchases soared\u201d, http:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/big-government\/2014\/11\/10\/fbi-report-confirms-crime-fell-while-gun-purchases-soared-in-2013\/ )<\/a> . . . proving empirically what gun-owners have long argued: An armed society is a polite society.<\/p>\n

\"murderrate\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As we saw in this space back in January, America’s overall murder rate is about half Russia\u2019s, less than half as high as those of Panama and Mexico, a minuscule 10 percent of the murder rate in Venezuela . . . despite all those countries having much harsher \u201cgun control\u201d laws. (And murder rates are ever lower<\/em> in states like Vermont, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming, where lots of people carry guns.)<\/p>\n

Murder rates in those last three countries are boosted massively by the War on Drugs, as they are here. The seriousness of any politician claiming he or she wants to \u201creduce firearms violence\u201d should first be measured by the extent to which they call for re-legalizing drugs, the same way Franklin Roosevelt and his Democratic Congress virtually eliminated drive-by Tommy-gunnings in America\u2019s streets by re-legalizing alcohol (then and still our most harmful drug) in 1933.<\/p>\n

This was a much more peaceful country when marijuana and coca leaves and laudanum and codeine could be freely purchased by adults in America\u2019s pharmacies and grocery stores, from 1620 to at least 1916, the way we buy beer and wine and coffee, today. Return to that state of normalcy, and America\u2019s inner city youth would quickly realize the drug trade is no more glamorous (and in most cases no more lucrative) than driving a beer truck.<\/p>\n

\"th\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In a way it was almost pathetic, watching lame-duck gun-grabber Barack Obama once again surround himself with children and the parents of dead children (or was it seats left empty for the ghosts of dead children? I lose track) and wipe away a tear as he simpered through yet another anti-gun diatribe Jan. 5.<\/p>\n

The president moaned that 30,000 Americans die in gun violence every year.<\/p>\n

Yes, in 2013, there were indeed 33,636 gun deaths in America -\u2013 most in precisely those states and cities with the most \u201cgun control.\u201d We\u2019re not sure how many were caused by our over-militarized cops, murdering and crippling Americans after breaking down their doors late at night (with complete legal impunity -\u2013 thanks, Mr. Prosecutor!) based on a bunch of made-up lies on their \u201csearch warrant affidavits.\u201d But as Mr. Obama mentioned in passing, that figure includes 21,175 suicides.<\/p>\n

While that many people desperate enough or in enough under-medicated pain to commit suicide may indeed be a problem, is it a \u201cgun control\u201d problem?<\/p>\n

\u201cGun control\u201d has reached a high-water mark. Polls no longer show majority support for more gun control, other than keeping guns away from lunatics. Congress balks.<\/p>\n

So what did Mr. Obama have left? He vowed he would make \u201canybody in the business of selling firearms\u201d register as a licensed dealer, obliged to conduct background checks.<\/p>\n

But FFLs have been required of all those \u201cin the business\u201d -\u2013 along with background checks -\u2013 for decades, even at \u201cgun shows.\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s actually been happening is that the ATF has gone from saying they\u2019d happily issue a federal firearms license to anyone who wanted one, to instead systematically reducing the number of people with FFLs by shutting down so-called \u201cgarage dealers\u201d and \u201cbasement dealers.\u201d They\u2019ve increasingly been insisting FFL holders have a full-time, brick-and-mortar gun store with a thick concrete roof, an alarm system connected to police, etc.<\/p>\n

So which is it? Has Mr. Obama instructed the BATF to restore all the licenses they\u2019ve taken away? Has he set a goal for them to double or triple the number of folks holding FFLs? Since the $200 tax on machine guns was OK\u2019d by the Supreme Court as a revenue measure, has he ordered the BATF to encourage the import and new manufacture of machine guns for sale to \u201ccivilians\u201d in order to multiply tenfold the much-needed revenues from that tax -\u2013 collecting the tax on new machine guns at 24-hour drive-through windows?<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think so.<\/p>\n

\"th\"<\/a><\/p>\n

OLDSTERS WITH ASSAULT RIFLES?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Other than that, Mr. Obama vowed to include \u201cinformation from the Social Security Administration in the background check system about beneficiaries who are prohibited from possessing a firearm.\u201d<\/p>\n

Something no one could object to? Wait.<\/p>\n

A.W.R. Hawkins reports at www.breitbart.com that a Jan. 4 White House preview of Mr. Obama\u2019s new executive orders stated:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reporting that SSA . . . is expected to require will cover appropriate records of the approximately 75,000 people each year who have a documented mental health issue, receive disability benefits, and are unable to manage those benefits. . . .\u201d<\/p>\n

This means \u201cinformation on beneficiaries who meet the criteria of mental impairment — demonstrated in part by an inability to manage their own benefits — will be added to the National Instant Criminal Background System (NICS) so that the beneficiaries cannot buy a gun.\u201d<\/p>\n

Are there elderly Americans so confused that their younger relatives should firmly insist it\u2019s no longer safe for them to carry firearms? Sure -\u2013 most already in \u201cmanaged care\u201d facilities, I presume. But Social Security officials are not going to visit and interview 75,000 elderly Americans \u201ceach year\u201d and make case-by-case judgments, in consultation with doctors, are they? They\u2019re just going to assume any oldster who\u2019s opted to have his or her checks delivered to a child or grandchild who helps them manage their financial affairs is too crazy to buy a gun.<\/p>\n

Which crime wave are we aiming to stop, here? The wave of incidents in which Americans over the age of 80 hie themselves down to the local gun store and fill out all the federal forms in order to buy a brand-new \u201cmilitary-style\u201d semi-automatic weapon, spending between $500 and $3,000, and then use it to shoot up a schoolyard or hold up a convenience store -\u2013 a crime wave that could have been prevented if only that licensed dealer had been told, \u201cNope, wait a minute, that old gal has her daughter receiving her Social Security checks; she may be confused\u201d?<\/p>\n

There is<\/em> no such crime wave. Anyone who\u2019s reached the age of 80 and who decided at some time to purchase a firearm and learn how to use it probably did so 50 years ago; they\u2019ve already got<\/em> their firearms.<\/p>\n

And they often need them. Just do an Internet search for \u201celderly person shoots home invaders.\u201d I especially like the ones in which our current crop of brilliant burglars lock the resident oldster \u201cin the gun closet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why should the White House get a \u201cpass\u201d for circumventing Congress to violate their Constitutional rights in a way that leaves all those old people defenseless — whether or not the modern Internet age has them frustrated enough that they decide to let a child or grandchild help them handle their financial affairs?<\/p>\n

Please note we\u2019re fast approaching the point (thanks to these very same freedom-hating hoplophobes, who don’t seem to hate guns so much when it’s their police<\/em> fielding the heavy hardware) where taking a firearm to a gunsmith to have it repaired or upgraded \u2013- adding glow-in-the-dark sights, perhaps -\u2013 and then returning to pick up one\u2019s own handgun will be considered a \u201ctransfer,\u201d subject to the same background-check restrictions as a new purchase.<\/p>\n

Do we want that responsible elderly person to be told he or she can\u2019t get their own gun back? Do we want them continuing to depend on a defective firearm in need of repair because they\u2019re afraid<\/em> if they take it in for repair they won\u2019t be able to get it back?<\/p>\n

FOCUS ON THE PERPETRATORS<\/strong><\/p>\n

But yes, we do still have some \u201cmass shootings.\u201d What to do?<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s look at who\u2019s committing them.<\/p>\n

Female mass shooters and young ladies shooting each other over drug turf are as rare as hens\u2019 teeth. The perpetrators are males.<\/p>\n

Older male mass murders with children? I believe the man who shot up the McDonald\u2019s restaurant in San Ysidro 30 years ago (after trying in vain to seek psychiatric help) was 41 and married. But leaving aside Islamic terrorists, there aren\u2019t many who are over 30 and married.<\/p>\n

Our problem is almost entirely among single young men aged 16 to 26. And even among that group, you can pretty much rule out young men playing on the varsity football team, Boy Scouts working toward their Life or Eagle badges, and young men married with a job, starting a family.<\/p>\n

For starters, fruitcakes who think their neighbors are zombies in a video game tend to attack only where guns are prohibited — including Columbine High School, that theater in Aurora, Colorado — even Army bases like Fort Hood, where disarming our soldiers was one of the first things on the Clintons’ agenda when they took office back in ’93 (right up there with incinerating the Branch Davidians.) So let’s start putting up signs that say \u201cWe\u2019re Proud to Welcome Our Armed Patrons.\u201d<\/p>\n

But human cultures have struggled for millennia to deal with the excess aggression of testosterone-charged young males. I\u2019m going way out on a limb here to suggest that locking up our youths in the mandatory government propaganda camps we call \u201cpublic high schools,\u201d forcing them to sit under buzzing, flickering fluorescent lights doing endless short-term memorization of a mind-dulling procession of half-truths (Abraham Lincoln — champion of freedom?<\/em>) for years and years and years — doping them up on Luvox or Ritalin if they refuse to sit still — is not working out well.<\/p>\n

Other than the small percentage who are really college material -\u2013 tomorrow\u2019s doctors and scientists — these young men should be encouraged to cram what we now consider 10 years of stretched-out, make-work schooling into six, to start learning a useful trade at about age 13, and then encouraged to find a paying job, marry, and start a family not when they\u2019re 27, but when they\u2019re biologically ready -\u2013 at 17 or 18.<\/p>\n

If two-thirds of our families took the money they\u2019ve saved for the \u201ccollege educations\u201d of those with little talent or vocation for a white-collar profession, instead using it to pay for a wedding and a \u201cstarter house,\u201d might that not be a better start at solving this problem than trying to keep self-defense weapons out of the hands of 80-year-old Social Security recipients, never known to hurt anyone who isn\u2019t breaking down their bedroom door?<\/p>\n

\"th\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Vin Suprynowicz, author of \u201cSend in the Waco Killers,\u201d was for 20 years an award-winning editorial writer at the daily Las Vegas Review-Journal. His latest drug-war novels are \u201cThe Testament of James\u201d and \u201cThe Miskatonic Manuscript,\u201d available online. He blogs at www.vinsuprynowicz.com .<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(A version of this column appears in the March 10 edition of \u201cFirearms News,\u201d formerly \u201cShotgun News.\u201d) America is not in the midst of a big crime wave. Gun ownership is way up, and violent crime rates are down across the board (See \u201cGun homicides, violence, down sharply in past 20 years\u201d, http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2013\/05\/08\/us\/study-gun-homicide\/index.html , and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8,17,52,13,58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2nd-amendment","category-big-brother","category-crime","category-drug-war","category-killer-cops"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pWqFl-Mm","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2998"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2998\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3005,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2998\/revisions\/3005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}