Buckle Up for Safety

It is impossible to prove a negative.

You will often hear a news story about someone's life being saved, either through an act of heroism, or blind luck, or by something as common as a seat belt.

Everyone knows seat belts save lives. It is a Universal Truth.

And if you don't know it there are TV ads to teach you.

But how many lives are saved by seat belts? Again you can't really prove that someone is alive when they could have been killed...

But the best number I could find online comes from the CDC:

Seat Belts Have Saved an Estimated 255,000 Lives Since 1975

255k lives saved in 33 years? Am I the only one who thinks that number is shockingly low?

How low?

Well Dr. Gary Kleck, at Florida State University’s College of Criminology and Criminal Justice, did a study on guns and their use in self-defense in 1993. And from that study he extrapolated that guns are used for self-defense 2.5 million times each year.

But wait... We still can't prove that someone is alive when they could have been killed. And we don't need to.

All we need are 10% of one year's worth of defensive gun use to be a life saving event, to equal the lives saved by seat belts each year... Oh, I'm sorry that is not correct. All we need are 10% of one year's worth of defensive gun use to be a life saving event to equal the lives saved by seat belts in 33 years.

That seems like a very low bar to reach.

You will often hear the poorly informed mantra that we need to treat guns like cars.

Instead of treating guns like cars, we need to treat guns like seat belts.
  

Black Sunday

“Do you want to hear a happy song? I’m sorry homie, we don’t do no happy songs.”
—     Mike Ness

Not a Sheep

Not like she will post it on her own blog...

From the Squirrel Report


Edit: New Jovian Thunderbolt has Words.

1976

I have lived in Kentucky almost my whole life. My folks moved here before my first birthday.

Before that they lived in Dodge City, Kansas the place I was born.


I recently found this photo which was taken in Dodge City in 1976.

The other thing I have from Dodge City that came from 1976... The Ruger Mark I my father bought there.

What is funny is that I had the gun for several years before I noticed the writing on the top.

MADE IN THE 200TH YEAR OF AMERICAN LIBERTY

For the Road

Not Semi Automatic

RIP Bob

Photo by Oleg Volk

My answers for Piers Morgan

John R. Lott appeared on CNN Wednesday night along with Jeanne Assam.

I tuned in in time to see Jeanne retell part of her story.  After Piers Morgan cut her off, he assaulted Lott with the inquisition

"WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF AN AR-15?"

Then he interrupted with another question

"HOW MANY BULLETS CAN IT FIRE A SECOND?"

When Lott attempted to continue answering the first question Morgan demanded again

"HOW MANY BULLETS DOES THE AR-15 FIRE A SECOND?"

And things went down hill from there (I walked away after setting the DVR)...

Now Lott is an economist who has researched crime statistics. I have no idea if he even owns a gun.   His explanation began that all semi-auto firearms function the same whether they look like a military weapon or not. After that was mostly cross talk.


I will take it upon myself to answer these question to the best of my ability.


"WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF AN AR-15?

To fire a projectile...  same as any other gun. You want more? OK... To fire a projectile while weighing less than other guns of a larger caliber.

"HOW MANY BULLETS DOES THE AR-15 FIRE A SECOND?"

Hell if I know... Typically you refer to the cyclic rate of a fully automatic weapon in rounds per minute ie: a machine gun.  A semi-automatic weapon is the  opposite of a machine gun, as a machine gun continues to cycle when the trigger is held, but a semi-automatic weapon cycles once and stops when the trigger is held. Truth is almost all semi-autos will cycle faster than you can pull the trigger.  Let's just call it 4 rounds a second based entirely off this youtube video.

Good enough... That takes care of Morgan's questions. What about the question he didn't ask? You know the one that might provide a little context for the audience.

How Many Bullet Does A Non-Semi-Automatic Weapon Fire A Second???


How about 4 rounds a second.

Plus a reload in the middle.

But that's not fair... a world record holder against a youtube star.

What we need is a world record holder against a world record holder...

Enter Tom Knapp and his semi-auto shotgun.

With his 12-ga. Semi-Auto Shotgun and extended magazine tube, Tom launched ten clay targets into the air with one hand and shot all ten with individual shots in an unbelievable 2.2 seconds flat.

And the challenger? Tom Knapp and his pump action shotgun.

Tom Knapp, with his pump Shotgun in one hand, threw eight clay targets in the air with his other hand and broke every one of them with individual shots in an amazing 1.87 seconds.

So each shot with a pump shotgun took 0.23 seconds. While each shot with the semi-auto shotgun took 0.22 seconds. Not a very big difference especially when the police take 20 minutes to respond.

 One more question for Piers Morgan. Can you explain this photo???

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