All info off guns

Next in our series of Call of Duty 4 weapon reviews we have the Sniper Rifle. Sniper Rifles are unique and amazing weapons because of their long range and one shot, one kill ability. All of our hard numbers come are coming from our Call of Duty weapons stats chart, be sure to look at the damage multipliers carefully. Without further ado here our analysis and review of all the Sniper Rifles, scroll to the bottom of the page for the short version.

M21 - The hands down best sniper rifle for hardcore matches because players start with 30 health instead of 100 health. The M21 does 70 damage with relatively poor damage multipliers, but for hardcore it is still easily enough to guarantee one shot kills no matter what part of the target you hit. The higher damage values of the other weapons just aren’t needed. It also has an incredibly low recoil which means you can spam 4-5 shots in the target area with reasonable accuracy.

R700 - The high scope sway make the it very difficult to control and means it takes more time to hold your breath and set up a hot. For that reason and factors stated above it is worse than the M40A3 except in rare cases involving Juggernaut in Call of Duty.

Dragunov - The damage multipliers of the Dragunov means it is usually outclassed by the other sniper rifles, except when using non-Stopping Power Perks. This is because adding Stopping Power provides virtually no benefit to the Dragunov. With our without Stopping Power it can only one shot to the Head, Neck and Torso. This opens up options for Perk 2, like adding Overkill and the P90 to create a hybrid sniper/rush class. This versatility gives the Dragunov some small niche capabilities in Call of Duty 4.

M40A3 - The best bolt action sniper rifle when using the Stopping Power perk. With Stopping Power the M40A3 will one shot kill on all parts of the body except for the exterior limbs. The closest weapon to compare it to is the R700. The advantages of the M40A3 over the R700 are it’s higher bullet capacity and it’s much lower scope sway. The one thing the R700 has going for it is it’s higher damage multiplier for Stomach shots. This provides little practical advantage except for making it slightly easier to one shot enemies with Juggernaut.

Barrett .50 Cal - The best semi-automatic Sniper Rifle when using Stopping Power. Whether or not the Barrett is better than the M40A3 is a matter of opinion, but the weapons are very similar. The Barrett is slightly at one single shot kills to Juggernaut enemies while the M40A3 has advantages when it comes it recoil. Personally I prefer the Barrett because of it’s strength in close quarters. In a tight spot you can quickly spam a full magazine at close range and probably get a kill.

The bottom line: The M21 is best for hardcore matches, the M40A3 and Barrett for normal matches and the Dragunov has some niche hybrid class abilities.

Last Thursday, the Supreme Court, headed by conservative justice Antonin Scalia who wrote the majority opinion, overturned the District of Columbia’s handgun ban by asserting that the ban violated the Second Amendment. In doing so, Scalia reversed over 200 years of legal precedent and ignored the robust history of gun control since the founding of the country in order to justify the Court’s new, dramatic, confusing and certainly misguided decision.

But something big got overlooked amidst the headlines.

The Supreme Court held that, in fact, gun control is Constitutional, and certainly viable. For example, even the conservative members of the Supreme Court, and Scalia himself, stated unequivocally that governments have the right and authority to regulate carrying concealed weapons, regulate gun sales, allow for the registration of guns, and even prohibit “dangerous and unusual weapons” — which we read as an ability to ban to military-style assault weapons and powerful .50 caliber sniper rifles.

In short, the conservatives on the Supreme Court fully endorsed gun control as a concept and legal doctrine, and that no right is beyond sensible regulations.

Scalia wrote in his opinion:

“Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited…[It is not a] right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose. …[The Court’s] opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms,” (p. 54-55).

By definition, the only way to screen “felons” and the “mentally ill” is to enact common sense measures such as universal background checks, waiting periods, licensing gun owners and other sensible provisions that do not, according to Justice Scalia, violate anyone’s Second Amendment right.

What does this mean? It means that gun control advocates have very good reasons to feel optimistic. In fact, the conservatives on the Supreme Court may well have sucker-punched the gun lobby without even realizing it.

By asserting that there is an individual right to keep and bear arms — which we hope one day gets reversed and put back in its proper reading of the Second Amendment — and holding that gun control won’t lead to a slippery slope of confiscating all guns, the Supreme Court completely eviscerated the NRA’s two main pillars for its fundraising operations.

In other words, it is entirely possible that all of the wind has been taken out of the gun lobby’s sails. What “fear card” can the gun lobby possibly play anymore?

For the short term, however, the gun lobby is feeling empowered, and already targeting Chicago’s own handgun ban which Mayor Daley has sworn to fight for. Although it might be highly optimistic to think so, the gun issue “could” evolve from the divisive political debate into a new phase of problem solving and what to do about the approximately 30,000 gun deaths and tens of thousands of Americans wounded each year.

There is no question that the Supreme Court violated its own standards by ignoring longstanding precedent in stripping DC of its handgun ban. And legal experts have rightfully chastised Justice Scalia’s legal doctrine of “originalism” as a sham in light of his parsing of words and ignoring his own theory that Courts should not create laws and invent new legal interpretations, which is exactly what Justice Scalia did.

It’s clear that Justice Scalia is more of a conniving politician than a jurist or legal theorist, crafting an unfounded interpretation that there is an “individual right” to keep and bear arms in order to give the gun lobby the political victory it sought, but leaving just enough ambiguity to maintain at least a semblance of the Court’s credibility.

But the missing headline in all of the spin is that gun control received its most unlikely endorsement, from all places, the Supreme Court and it’s arch-conservative, Justice Antonin Scalia.

Gun violence prevention advocates are right to feel frustrated, angry, and even perplexed over the Supreme Court’s misguided ruling.

But make no mistake about it, support for sensible gun violence prevention measures and stronger gun laws is alive and well in America.

And yes, according to Antonin Scalia, it can and will pass Constitutional muster too.

The Supreme Court’s landmark ruling on gun ownership last week focused on citizens’ ability to defend themselves from intruders in their homes. But research shows that surprisingly often, gun owners use the weapons on themselves.

Suicides accounted for 55 percent of the nation’s nearly 31,000 firearm deaths in 2005, the most recent year for which statistics are available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

There was nothing unique about that year — gun-related suicides have outnumbered firearm homicides and accidents for 20 of the last 25 years. In 2005, homicides accounted for 40 percent of gun deaths. Accidents accounted for 3 percent. The remaining 2 percent included legal killings, such as when police do the shooting, and cases that involve undetermined intent.

Public-health researchers have concluded that in homes where guns are present, the likelihood that someone in the home will die from suicide or homicide is much greater.

Studies have also shown that homes in which a suicide occurred were three to five times more likely to have a gun present than households that did not experience a suicide, even after accounting for other risk factors.

In a 5-4 decision, the high court on Thursday struck down a handgun ban enacted in the District of Columbia in 1976 and rejected requirements that firearms have trigger locks or be kept disassembled. The ruling left intact the district’s licensing restrictions for gun owners.

One public-health study found that suicide and homicide rates in the district dropped after the ban was adopted. The district has allowed shotguns and rifles to be kept in homes if they are registered, kept unloaded and taken apart or equipped with trigger locks.

The American Public Health Association, the American Association of Suicidology and two other groups filed a legal brief supporting the district’s ban. The brief challenged arguments that if a gun is not available, suicidal people will just kill themselves using other means.

More than 90 percent of suicide attempts using guns are successful, while the success rate for jumping from high places was 34 percent. The success rate for drug overdose was 2 percent, the brief said, citing studies.

“Other methods are not as lethal,” said Jon Vernick, co-director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research in Baltimore.

The high court’s majority opinion made no mention of suicide. But in a dissenting opinion, Justice Stephen Breyer used the word 14 times in voicing concern about the impact of striking down the handgun ban.

“If a resident has a handgun in the home that he can use for self-defense, then he has a handgun in the home that he can use to commit suicide or engage in acts of domestic violence,” Breyer wrote.

Researchers in other fields have raised questions about the public-health findings on guns.

Gary Kleck, a researcher at Florida State University’s College of Criminology and Criminal Justice, estimates there are more than 1 million incidents each year in which firearms are used to prevent an actual or threatened criminal attack.

Public-health experts have said the telephone survey methodology Kleck used likely resulted in an overestimate.

Both sides agree there has been a significant decline in the last decade in public-health research into gun violence.

The CDC traditionally was a primary funder of research on guns and gun-related injuries, allocating more than $2.1 million a year to such projects in the mid-1990s.

But the agency cut back research on the subject after Congress in 1996 ordered that none of the CDC’s appropriations be used to promote gun control.

Vernick said the Supreme Court decision underscores the need for further study into what will happen to suicide and homicide rates in the district when the handgun ban is lifted.

Today, the CDC budgets less than $900,000 for firearm-related projects, and most of it is spent to track statistics. The agency no longer funds gun-related policy analysis.

___

On the Net:

CDC gun injury statistics: http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc

by Alan

Correlation and causality reached the U.S. Supreme Court last week — or at least the written dissent of one justice — as a 5-4 majority interpreted the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment to confer an individual or personal right to gun ownership, as opposed to only a collective right (i.e., belonging to “a well-regulated militia…”).

Cases such as this are supposed to be decided on constitutional issues, in terms of the history and meaning of the document. However, as sometimes happens, policy issues such as whether gun-control laws are good or bad for society find their way into the discourse.

Shown below is a passage from a New York Times article, which quotes Justice Stephen Breyer’s attempt to make sense of empirical studies of gun and crime (Breyer’s full dissenting opinion is available here).

According to the study, published last year in The Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, European nations with more guns had lower murder rates. As summarized in a brief filed by several criminologists and other scholars supporting the challenge to the Washington law, the seven nations with the most guns per capita had 1.2 murders annually for every 100,000 people. The rate in the nine nations with the fewest guns was 4.4.

Justice Breyer was skeptical about what these comparisons proved. “Which is the cause and which the effect?” he asked. “The proposition that strict gun laws cause crime is harder to accept than the proposition that strict gun laws in part grow out of the fact that a nation already has a higher crime rate.”

Whatever positions individuals might take on gun-control legislation, I hope most would agree that careful examination of the direction of causality from inherently correlational studies — like that exhibited by Breyer — is a good thing.

I wanted some time to see what the interpretations of the decision were going to play out like before I commented on it.

I’m not sure it is a bad decision nor do I think it is the end-all/be-all to gun control decisions. It seems that all it did two things:

1) Tossed out the entire ‘militia’ argument in the constitution all together and established an individual right to bear arms

2) Said total gun bans are unconstitutional at the FEDERAL level and reaffirmed the right to own a gun in the house or for hunting.

It did nothing to talk to how states want to enact gun control laws as long as it isn’t a blanket restriction. From comments I’ve listened to and read over the past week since the decision came down it appears only a handful of gun bans are going to be affected. DC is already talking about pushing a new one through that enacts licensing and registration of guns and limiting ownership to the home for protection.

Another thing the law ruling doesn’t do is talk to conceal and carry laws and the like.

So really I think, except for the ‘militia’ argument, this ruling doesn’t do much of anything to end the debate on gun control. What it does do, politically, is it takes the gun control wedge issue off the table to beat Obama up with.

All in all I’m ok with it.

During my super-brief time at the police department range, if there was one key message, it was this—always treat the gun like it’s loaded, and never point the gun at people unless you’re intending to shoot them. Even as the instructor demonstrated a gun that he’d already showed us was unloaded (by removing the clip and showing us the empty chamber), and then disassembled and reassembled to show how it was done while demonstrating various things, he always kept the gun pointed at a cinder block wall to an empty room, and would lower the gun to the floor if he needed to turn, such that the absolutely-positively empty gun was never pointed at anyone.

This advice is apparently not universal, though. A soldier in France shot 16 people during some sort of demonstration, believing this his gun was loaded with blanks. It seems to me, though, that this was deplorably preventable: one might check that the gun contained blanks before shooting at people, for example, or one might simply avoid firing a gun at people at all. And even if one did insist on firing a gun into a crowd without verifying that the blanks weren’t actually live rounds, one might stop after the first few people fell over bleeding.

And good old CBS News’ comments section brings us an argument over the French military and their merits and value to the United States, including whether they helped or hurt us during the Revolutionary War, apparently.

It bothers me that the Supreme Court struck down the DC handgun ban. Putting aside the issues of constitutional interpretation, let’s look at gun control’s role in public safety.

As gun control opponents are so fond of saying, “if we outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns.” They maintain a romanticized notion that the good guys with guns can fight the bad guys with guns in a self-reliant form of defense and vigilante justice. The problem is that it doesn’t end up working that way. A person who obtains a handgun legally, with the best of intentions, has a better chance of winding up with an injured family member than an injured assailant. But the gun makes its owner feels safer, more self-reliant, and more capable of defending his family from the world’s evils. The gun’s benefit is psychological, not practical.

On the other hand, if we outlaw guns then only the outlaws have guns. This can only make law enforcement easier. It’s hard for police to catch a gun-toting felon in the act of misbehaving, but when guns are illegal having one, or being seen with one, becomes probable cause for further investigation.

I’m not a proponent of the police state. I’m a fan of individual liberties. Gun control, as with any control, should only be as stringent as needed to fit the problem that it’s intended to solve. In my opinion, DC’s murder rate merits the banning of handguns. Public policy should be based on solutions that fit their problems, not blind psychological comfort.

Timothy Leary’s William S. Burroughs shotgun art painting is still up for grabs to the highest bidder on eBay.

In an interview with Gregory Ego, entitled “William Burroughs & the Flicker Machine,” as published in David Kerekes’ 2003 “Headpress (the journal of sex religion death),” William explains how he made ths shotgun art painting, and others.

Here’s is an excerpt from the interview:

EGO: Are you still doing your “shotgun art?”

BURROUGHS: Oh, all kinds. Brushwork. Shotgun. Paint. Knife.

EGO: What exact process do you use for your visual art?

BURROUGHS: There is no exact process. If you want to do shotgun art, you take a piece of plywood, put a can of spracy paint in front of it, and shoot it with a shotgun or high powered rifle. The paint’s under high pressure so it explodes! Throws the can 300 feed. The paint sprays in exploding color across your surface. You can have as many colors as you want. Turn it around, do it sideways, and have one color coming in from this side and this side. Of course, they hit. Mix in all kinds of unpredictable patterns. This is related to Pollack’s drip canvases, although this is a rather more basically random process, there’s no possibility of predicting what patterns you’re going to get.

I’ve had some I’ve worked over for months. Get the original after the explosions and work it over with brushes and spray paints and silhouettes until I’m satisfied. So, there isn’t any set procedure. Sometimes you get it right there and you don’t touch it. The most important thing in painting is to know when to stop, when everything is finished. Doesn’t mean anything in writing.

EGO: It does rely to a high degree on chance — the shotgun art?

BURROUGHS: It introduces a random factor, certainly.

EGO: Just like the cut-up method.

BURROUGHS: Yes. But you don’t have to use it all, you can use that as background. There’re a lot of other randomizing procedures like “marbling.” Take water and spray your paint on top of the water and then put your paper or whatever in the water and pull it out and it sticks in all sorts of random patterns. And then there’s the old inkblot. [Ruffles imaginary paper] Like that. Sometimes they’re good only as background or sometimes you get a picture that you’re satisfied with at once. There is no certain procedure.

EGO: Allen Ginsberg proposed to me that the cut-up technique you developed with Brion Gysin is a sort of counter-brainwashing technique. Do you agree with that?

BURROUGHS: It has that aspect in that you’re breaking down the word, you’re creating new words. Right as soon as you start cutting, you’re getting new words, new combinations of words. Yes, it has that aspect, sure.

But remember that all this brainwashing and propaganda, etc., is not by any means expected to reach any intelligent corners. It isn’t expected to convince anybody that has any sense. If they can get ten percent, that’s good. That’s the aim of propaganda; to get ten percent. They’re not trying to convince people that have a grain of sense.

This photo is not from Tim’s archive, but is rather from an interview with Gregory Ego, entitled “William Burroughs & the Flicker Machine,” as published in “Headpress (the journal of sex religion death)” (2003).

No word yet on what they’re calling this guy…the Tee Box Bandit, the Putting Green Prowler, the Winter Rules Looter?…

The robbery took place this past Saturday at Brynwood Golf Club outside Milwaukee.

When the party of six, four golfers and two caddies, reached the 16th tee shortly after 11 a.m. a lone gunman emerged from nearby woods and said, “Give me your money,” according to police. (from JSonline)

It has not yet been released how much this sandbaggin’ predator made off with. But all BCC caddies should know that the Caddy scholarship is still up for grabs…so start showing up for work with a glock and always keep your head on a swivel.

…the Mulligan Mugger, the Pitch ‘n Putt Perp, the Lateral Hazard Larcenist?

I was thinking, while cleaning my gun a bit ago … ah, I’m kidding. I don’t own a gun.

I did touch one, at Kittery Trading Post, at the urging of my ex-boyfriend. It was really important to him - don’t ask me why. Maybe because he owned one.

There have been exactly two times in my life (at least that I can recall) where, if I had had a gun in my hand or in close proximity thereto, I might have shot the person standing or sitting in front of me. I might have.

I think most of us have probably had those moments. It’s a fine line that we walk, between law-abiding and law-breaking.

But I digress … I recently read a story in The Flint Journal about people who gathered to support Michigan’s open carry law. These people, including women, were babbling at a park and in the paper about their right to carry a gun. And it is their right.

Well … it seems to me that no woman should go on record as a gun carrier. Because now the really bad guys (those that read the paper or who were lurking on the outskirts of the demonstration) know that those women have guns on them.

And as I pointed out in a comment to the story, what’s to stop one of two of the bad guys from jumping the women from behind and taking their guns, now that they know who the women are? Or even the men, for that matter?

This is the kind of lack of common sense that disturbs me. Trumpeting Being Rambo, or Rambette, trumps common sense.

So … maybe I do own a gun. What was I doing looking at guns at the Kittery Trading Post, after all? Only The Shadow (and my ex) knows for sure …

We have this story today about a French soldier who shot 16 people during a demonstration of hostage rescue techniques. Apparently they were all supposed to have been using blanks and he somehow ended up putting a magazine full of live cartridges into his weapon. It’s not clear whether or not the mix-up was intentional (seems like an accident to me).

The dumb thing here is not so much the French soldier who mixed up his magazines as it is the whole premise of this event in the first place. You do not point a gun at another human being for any purpose unless your intent is to kill that person. Period. One of the most basic rules of gun safety is that you always assume that every gun is loaded at all times. Even if you just checked the chamber and saw that it was empty. Even if you ‘know’ that it’s loaded with blanks.

From a safety perspective, there is no such thing as an unloaded gun. The vast majority of gun-related accidents happen with ‘unloaded’ guns that were handled with that incorrect assumption. When people start acting like a firearm in their hands cannot cause harm, that often leads to death or injury.

It is absolutely outrageous that the French military put on this event in the first place, in which soldiers were supposed to be using real weapons and pointing them towards crowds of civilians. The problem wasn’t so much that the gun happened to be loaded with live ammo as it was that the soldier was instructed to point it at civilians at all. EVERY GUN IS LOADED. The assumption in the first place should have been that if there soldiers pointed their guns towards the spectators, they would be putting holes in them.

It is difficult to imagine something like this happening in the US, either as an event staged at a gun club or by the American military. We have a culture of gun safety here among experienced gun owners and members of the military. The French would do well learn from it.

None of us are ever so old or experienced that we don’t need a brush-up on gun safety. The 3 most fundamental rules of gun safety are:

1. Always keep the gun pointed in a safe direction.

2. Always keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to shoot.

3. Always keep the gun unloaded until it is ready to use.

Here’s an analysis appearing on the Economist about the big decision by the US Supreme Court on the right of citizens to bear arms. Similar to my sentiments is the claim that this matter is not settled especially as the views of the candidates is being sought again and again but the article is less clear about whether the decision will affect demand for hand guns. The story states the subtle claim that the quest to challenge the decision on the one hand and to have it confirmed at state levels on the other will merely divert resources away from fighting crime. I concede that especially since crime fighting and prevention is not only about the ability to bear arms or restrictions on that. I see the possibility that a matter like this cannot be settled due to the fact that it is a very effective tool for political mobilization and so the debate must continue for its sake. As I said in the earlier post, the matter is unequivocally settled: US citizens may choose to bear arms.

Piper so often has a way of making me think of things in a new light. I never had any plans to own a gun, but now I’m quite certain that I will not.

What do the supreme court ruling on guns and the martyrdom of missionaries have to do with each other?

Noël and I watched Beyond Gates of Splendor, the documentary version of End of the Spear, the story of the martyrdom of Jim Elliot, Peter Fleming, Ed McCully, Roger Youderian, and Nate Saint in Ecuador in 1956. That same day we heard that the Supreme Court decided in favor of the right of Americans to keep firearms at home for self-defense.

Here’s the connection. The missionaries had guns when they were speared to death. One of them shot the gun into the air, it appears, as he was killed, rather than shooting the natives. They had agreed to do this. The reason was simple and staggeringly Christlike:

The natives are not ready for heaven. We are.

I suspect the same could be said for almost anyone who breaks into my house. There are other reasons why I have never owned a firearm and do not have one in my house. But that reason moves me deeply. I hope you don’t use your economic stimulus check to buy a gun. Better to find some missionaries like this and support them.

Last week’s ruling by the Supreme Court that Washington, DC’s strict handgun ban violated the Second Amendment has triggered a nationwide debate. A devastated Mayor Adrian Fenty of Washington, DC (murder capital of 2002) told Newsweek that “putting more guns in the city’s borders leads to more crime”; in Chicago (murder capital of 2003), Mayor Richard Daley called the court’s ruling “very frightening” and vowed to fight any attempt to invalidate the city’s ban; in Philadelphia (murder rate of one per day in 2007), columnist Jill Porter writes, “As of yesterday, 130 of the city’s 158 homicide victims were killed with guns”; in Houston (379 murders in in 2006), the Chronicle hailed the decision: “This landmark decision was a victory for Texas and for all Americans.” A headline at the Denver Post: “Gun Ruling Splits Coloradans.” The DC gun ban has divided columnists at the hometown Washington Post, and the conversation continues.

By Frank D. Russo

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has not only vowed to defend San Francisco’s gun control laws from legal challenges by the National Rifle Association in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision interpreting the Second Amendment’s “right to bear arms” clause in the Heller case. He has announced new initiatives to curtail gun violence in the city, some of which may become a model for other municipalities in the state.

In response to the decision when it was issued by the nation’s high court on Thursday, Newsom said:

“Today, the United States Supreme Court affirmed that the Second Amendment confers an individual’s right to possess a handgun. But as the majority wrote, “It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.”

“The gun laws that San Francisco has enacted in recent years are reasonable regulations that will be upheld under today’s ruling. I intend to fight any NRA lawsuit that challenges our common-sense gun laws every step of the way.”

He also asked, “Is there anyone out there who really believes that we need more guns in public housing? I can’t for the life of me sit back and roll over on this. We will absolutely defend the rights of the housing authority.”

Then, joined by San Francisco Police Chief Heather Fong and District Attorney Kamala Harris on Friday, Newsom announced a slate of new gun violence reduction initiatives, saying: “We don’t need to anticipate the location of future offenses to reduce gun violence. We need to get illegal firearms off the streets now and these efforts will help us do just that.”

They include:

GunStop

GunStop provides rewards to anonymous callers who supply information leading to the arrest of an individual with an illegal firearm. It provides an anonymous way for those who would otherwise fear reprisal to provide the Police Department with critical information.

• Individuals can call a special phone number, supply information, given anonymous ID
• Call back in three weeks, if led to arrest, given bank code
• Anonymously retrieve reward from any branch of San Francisco bank (bank is to be determined)
• Offer $1,000 for every anonymous tip leading to the arrest of an individual in illegal use or possession of any firearm. Also offer $500 dollars for any tip leading to the seizure of an assault weapon – no arrest necessary.

The program has been successful in New York City; since its inception in 2003, it has resulted in 1,671 guns seized and 1,088 arrests.

Gun Reduction Unit

This specialized and dedicated unit develops and implements anti-gun tactics. They identify traffickers and trafficking methods of illegal guns into San Francisco. Members of this unit are cross-designated/sworn federal agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). Staff to this unit will increase by 100% in an effort to deploy resources specifically to gun crimes.

Redeployment of investigative resources for every homicide

Because the first 24 to 48 hours of a homicide investigation are the most critical for information gathering, the Police Department will allocate no less than 4 investigators to immediately respond to each homicide. If necessary, this will include Inspectors from Homicide, General Work, Gang Task Force and Narcotics Divisions.

New and Aggressive Gun Seizure Benchmarks

The Department has seized roughly 1,200 guns annually in recent years, with roughly one quarter being assault weapons. This amount will be raised by no less than 25% by one year from today.

Cooperation with California Highway Patrol: Operation Impact

Operation Impact is a collaborative effort between the Police Department and CHP deploying a significant visual police presence to engage in various traffic enforcement operations. This program has been effective in helping to curtail what are often precursors to violence, including reckless driving, DUI, weapons possession, loitering and narcotics use and sales. This is an ongoing operation, and will be now use smaller and more frequent collaborative deployments in our hot spot violent areas.

This is just the beginning of responses to lawsuits spawned by the Supreme Court decision and a review of the need for new laws and approaches by local governments throughout California to deal with gun violence and enforce laws that are allowed under the Heller decision.

The Quantum of Solace teaser trailer was released today. Though we know more than what is revealed in the quick-cut action montage – mainly that Bond has to track down the evil syndicate that blackmailed Vesper into betraying his love at the end of Casino Royale – the basic plot is there: Bond be crazy!

Crazy like a revenge fox!

Maybe it’s the title, which still sucks, or maybe it’s all the promotional material, including the title shot in the preview, that makes it seem like Bond + Big Gun + Rocky Wasteland has something to do with the marketing campaign. Yeah, the gun is pretty sweet, but is that going to be the iconic image for the move?

Yes, yes it is. This worthless-looking piece of land has a plot point to play in a Latin American coup.

But relax, you don’t have to know about that yet! As always, trailer after the cut!

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Well the gun “buy-back” in Cobb County, GA went off without a hitch, or much notice, Saturday. A total of 11 (yes…11) guns were turned in for a gift card or amusement tickets. That doesn’t sound like they were terribly effective, which is probably a good thing.

What I deem to be a fairly serious misunderstanding of rights and the role of government, Rep. Alisha Thomas commented about the D.C. vs. Heller case. Thomas said “We want to keep guns out of the wrong hands, and I do think the Supreme Court decision does dampen a city’s rights to pass these kinds of ordinances.” Really? Cities’ rights? I’m sorry, Ms. Thomas, only citizens have rights.

What I find to be a touch ironic, there were no reported ‘gun deaths’ in Cobb County this past weekend. However at Six Flags Over Georgia, one of the sponsors of the gun buy-back who gave out tickets to their park, there was a teenager decapitated by a roller coaster.

From the 11Alive.com website:

Keeping kids out of jail and guns off the streets were the goals of a “stop the violence” event in Cobb County Saturday afternoon. Community leaders say guns and gangs are putting too many kids in harms way and that parents have to step up while the community steps in.

Critics say guns that find their way into the hands of young people is the reason behind many of the problems in urban communities. So local activists are buying them back. “With students out of school anything can happen.

I got my little granddaughter here with me so I thought it would be an awesome thing to bring it back,” Patrina Cooper, a gun owner said. In return, Cooper got tickets to Six Flags.

“I’ve seen too many times we’ve had to go to the cemetery to see the children of their parents who thought that they were responsible and reasonable gun owners,” Derrick Boazman, one of the organizers, said.

Many here were critical of the Supreme Court ruling this week that reaffirmed the second amendment and private gun ownership.

“We want to keep guns out of the wrong hands, and I do think the Supreme Court decision does dampen a city’s rights to pass these kinds of ordinances,” Rep. Alisha Thomas (D-Cobb) said.

11 guns were collected and turned over to Cobb County police in today’s buy-back program.

The “Save Our Youth Stop the Violence Weekend” was sponsored by the Destiny World Church.

OK, I’ve been away for the weekend and haven’t had the chance to address the Court Ruling that DC Residents ARE now allowed to have REGISTERED concealed handguns.

For those of you that are not familiar with the crucial gun control case, please take a moment to view this video:

Although the handgun ban has been in tact since 1976, the murder rate has not significantly decreased to a measurable extent that the District Government and law enforcement can argue its worth. Its fair to say that more violent crimes in the District are committed by unauthorized and unlisenced shooters using unauthorized and unregistered weapons. These weapons are usually handed down through generation, found/stolen from a registered user’s home, and/or purchased on the black market.

DC residents have argued that in lue of the fact that violent crimes are committed against law abiding citizens without handguns by those unauthorized shooters with handguns, that they are in need of some sort of home protection. The preference is that residents are allowed to have handguns in their homes to prevent criminals from causing harm or at least make them think twice about randomly entering a person’s home with the intent to harm or rob that resident.

Overall, the only consequence of this ruling is that handguns will become MORE accessible to the black market and criminals. Registered users that are looking for a quick buck can easily purchase guns and filter them through the criminal underworld to kids, even. The kids are the shooters. The young mislead fools, ages 14 to 19, are wreckless and don’t care about you or your loved ones. Its them that you have to be mindful of, not the registered users.

Another adverse consequence to the ruling is that registered handgun users will be more inclined to “shoot first” when a perceived threat is posed. This makes them no better than the criminals. The mentallity of persons with guns are usually charged and more bravado because they feel like they have an extra leg of confidence to stand upon in the event that they are threatened.

Personally, I’m not a gun person. I have loaded guns, shot test rounds, and have come in close contact with various weapons. Some of my closest friends and even family members are of the criminal kind that I speak of in this blog. That is about the extent to which I believe in guns and my involvement with them.

America was built on violence. The 2nd Amendment to this country’s constitution gives citizens the right to bear arms. THE 2ND!!! Thats next to the 1st Amendment giving us the right to free speech which means first, I have the right to yell, “F**K YOU!” and subsequently shoot you.

Forget the gun control laws, let’s have better BULLET control laws. There should be a heavy tax on ammunition. Chris Rock spoke on it some years ago, live in DC… go figure… lol:

STOP THE VIOLENCE!!!

R.I.P. My mans Lawrence and P (Delafield Stand Up!).

Illinois lawmakers: ruling to make it tougher to pass gun restrictions
Posted by Jeff Meitrodt and Rick Pearson at 6:40 p.m. State lawmakers said Thursday the Supreme Court opinion on gun control is likely to prompt a flurry of legislation in Springfield but at the same time will make it harder…