Bill of Rights II.











Bill of Rights I.







“Bump Stocks.”

The purchase of fully automatic weapons has been tightly restricted in the U.S. since the 1930s. Outlaws great and small used fully automatic weapons (machine guns and sub-machine guns) against rivals and against the police.[1]  The 1934 National Firearms Act narrowly restricted ownership of fully automatic weapons; a 1986 amendment prohibited most transfers or possession of automatic weapons, except those that had been manufactured and registered with the government in the past.[2]  It would appear that most privately-owned fully automatic weapons are in the possession of licensed gun-ranges.  You can go to a range, pay a daunting fee, and fire a fully automatic weapon at a paper target.  That’s enough for most gun-owners

Still, a small number of gun-owners yearned for the experience of firing a weapon on full-auto at a lower cost.  Then, some physically-disabled shooters wanted an adaptive technology that would allow them to enjoy one of their favorite pre-disability sports.  Admittedly, this is kind of a niche market.[3]  Numerous attempts to design retrofits for semi-automatic weapons failed.  Then, in 2008 or 2009, someone invented “bump stocks.”  The particular technology doesn’t seem to me to matter.  The effect does matter.  “Bump stocks” allowed shooters to “simulate” full automatic fire.[4]

In 2010, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (commonly ATF) considered whether they violated federal law by creating a new form of fully automatic weapons.  ATF concluded that they did not violate federal legal restrictions on automatic weapons.  They did not alter the internal firing mechanism.  They just exploited it to achieve the same effect as a full-auto weapon.  So, “bump stocks” were good to go.  This was two years before the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings.  In the wake of the Sandy Hook shootings, President Obama said he would “use whatever power this office holds” to prevent a new version of the massacre.  Alas, when he issued 23 Executive Orders in January 2013 to enhance gun-control, these did not include ordering ATF to revisit its approval of “bump stocks.”

Still, “bump stock”-modified weapons have problems.  First, they are Hell on accuracy.  Still if a sniper has 22,000 people penned inside a concert venue, s/he doesn’t need to be very accurate.  Anything within range can become a target.  Second, firing weapons designed to fire as semi-automatic on “simulated” full-auto generates more heat than the weapons are designed to handle.  They tend to jam.  So Stephen Paddock attached “bump stocks” to 12 of the rifles he brought to his room in the Mandalay Bay.[5]  It seems likely that he walked back and forth between the two windows he had broken whenever a weapon jammed, picking another off the bed on the way.

The obvious solution here is to revisit the 2010 ATF decision and declare “bump stocks” illegal.  That won’t do the casualties in Las Vegas any good, but it might help forestall mass shootings in the future.  Still, “mass shootings” as conventionally defined and long-guns (rifles and shotguns) account for a small share of the murders and suicides that still give America a high homicide rate.  Certainly, action on this front is needed.  It should not distract people from the much larger problem of hand-gun killings.  However, it will do just that.  For now.

[1] See: and

[2] Kind of like “legacy” admissions to Ivy League universities.  I don’t mean to suggest that they have equally harmful effects on American society.

[3] One Georgia gun-dealer judged that he had sold a couple in a couple of years.

[4] See:

[5] At maybe $200 each, that cost his about $2,400.

“It Must Be a Peach of a Hand.”

























Assault Rifle.













Watch List.

The federal gummint’s terrorist watch list has crested at about 800,000 names.[1]  The vast majority of these people are foreigners.  Many are candidates for drone strikes.  Most never seek entry to the United States.  That would just end in a flight to Guantanamo.  The “no-fly” list contains the names of about 64,000 people who will not be allowed to board airplanes bound for the United States.   “Only” about 25,000-40,000 of the people on the list are Americans.  People on the terrorism watch list who try to buy guns are automatically flagged for further FBI investigation.  In 2015, the names of 244 people who were on the watch list were sent to the FBI when they tried to buy guns.  Apparently, that further check really amounts to applying the normal standards for buying a gun: no history of involuntary commitment for mental illness and/or no criminal record.  (So, how does someone with no interest in buying guns get on the watch list?  If I went around denouncing the US Government in scurrilous terms, I’d want to have guns for when they got pissed off.[2])

In December 2015, the Senate Democrats offered a bill to give the Attorney General the power to deny the sale of a firearm or an explosive “to a known or suspected terrorist.”  Critics of the whole watch list thing point out that inclusion on the list is an administrative decision, while there is virtually no way to appeal against the decision.  The Republicans countered with a bill to delay sale for 72 hours to enable the FBI to investigate the purchaser.  Neither bill mustered a majority.

Had the Democrats’ bill passed, Omar Mateen would still have been able to purchase the weapons that he used in the Orlando massacre.  On the one hand, “suspects” are investigated by the FBI.  If the FBI concludes that they are not a current threat, then they are removed from the list of people banned from purchasing firearms or explosives.  On the other hand, there is a more or less “black market” for guns to be had on the internet from private dealers.

Perhaps long experience with the ineffectiveness of government regulation explains why Republican support for tighter gun laws fell from 55 percent in March 2000 to 26 percent in July 2015.  In any case, in states with Republican majorities in the legislature, mass shootings actually are followed by a loosening of gun laws.[3]  Conservatives throw up a smokescreen of rationalizations when their real concern is that liberals will try to disarm the country.[4]

One of the sources of the bitter partisanship that has disabled American democracy is revealed in a comment in a New York Times article.  “The “legislation does not specifically require that someone be named on a particular watch list to be considered a known terrorist or a suspect, so it is possible that Mr. Mateen could have been flagged under other procedures implemented by the attorney  general.”  Yes, yes, yes, the Justice Department says that this means that people once on a watch list and subsequently removed could still be banned.  However, what springs to mind in this post-Patriot Act/post-Snowden age is that an endlessly expanding list of people not allowed to buy guns will be created by presidential ukase.  Like work permits for illegal immigrants.  Like the assertion that the War Powers Act does not apply in Libya.

[1] Alicia Parlapiano, “How Terror Suspects Buy Guns—and How They Still Could, Even With a Ban,” NYT, 16 June 2016.

[2] See an over the top account in

[3] Neil Irwin, “After Mass Shootings, It’s Often Easier to Buy a Gun,” NYT, 16 June 2016.

[4] Yet national disarmament—as in Britain or Australia—is the only real means to reduce gun deaths.  The president needs to speak the truth, rather than run from it.  Same goes for drugs, taxes in the middle classes, and a carbon tax.

Expect the Unexpected.

Change and innovation lead to un-foreseen effects.  Caller ID allows people to tell whether they are being called by someone they know or by some unknown person.  If the call comes at the dinner-hour, it’s 99.9 percent sure to be somebody trying to raise money for the local fire department or somebody conducting a survey.  In either case, most people don’t want to talk to the caller.  In 1997, the response rate to telephone surveys was a measly 36 percent (unless you count “Go to Hell!” as a response).  By 2014 it had fallen to 9 percent.[1]  How exactly is anyone supposed to measure public opinion if the public won’t give it?  Hard for politicians to pander to the voters if they don’t know what the voters want to hear.  Maybe they’re stuck pandering to the donors?  We could end up back in the land of “Dewey Beats Truman!”

“Baby Boomers” are entering the “golden years.”  One natural response to having the kids out of the house is “downsizing” to a smaller home or an apartment.  Lots of older people with—comparatively—lots of money are entering the market for smaller homes and apartments.  This pushes up the price of what used to be “starter homes” (now to be re-labeled “finisher homes”?) and the rent for apartments.  Between 1995 and 2005, the average share of income devoted to rent was 24 percent.  By Summer 2015, it had risen to 30.2 percent.[2]  This is likely to make things more difficult for younger people with—comparatively—less money.[3]

The “fracking revolution” has brought down energy prices.  (By August 2015, they were at a six-year low.)  The fall in energy prices has damped down inflation.  Low inflation means that—for the third time since 2010—Social Security recipients will see no increase in their benefits.  On the other hand, Medicare premiums are not linked to the inflation rate.  So these will rise in 2016.[4]  The disposable income of retirees is likely to shrink.

When energy (if not yet the climate) became a grave concern back in the 1970s, a sustained drive got underway to make all sorts of things more energy efficient.  Today, American houses are 31 percent more energy efficient than they were forty years ago.  On the other hand, American homes are 57 percent larger than they were forty years ago.  In the 1970s the average American home was about 1,300 square feet.  In 2012 the average American home was 1,864 square feet.  The most recently built homes are averaging 2,657 square feet.  This cancels out the gains in efficiency.[5]  Several puzzles arise.  Where does the extra space go?  Garages?  Bigger bedrooms for the kids?  A bathroom every ten feet?  Why are homes larger when families are smaller?  What is it like to live in one of these homes?  Do family-members retreat into their own space and close the door?  Is the same thing true of the improved gas mileage of cars?  Is efficiency improved, but we drive more?

The current, much-discussed surge in opiod addiction has led to a surge in deaths from drug overdoses.  That, in turn, has led to a rise in the number of organ donors.  They now provide better than ten percent of all organ donations, up from about 3 percent in 2006.[6]  So, higher death rates for some mean longer lives for others.

After the San Bernardino terrorist attack liberals characterized the attack as a “mass shooting” and called for tighter gun controls. Unlicensed gun-dealers, a common “bete noire” of gun control advocates, came in for special presidential attention.  Gun sales zoomed upward.  In December 2015, Americans bought 3.3 million guns.  All of these sales have been from licensed gun-dealers because the government background check system has been swamped.  Attorney General Loretta Lynch has asked for the hiring of 430 additional people just to process the background checks of Americans complying with the existing gun laws.[7]

The Americans with Disabilities Act bars discrimination against people with disabilities.  Some of this is left open to interpretation by government officials.  As a result, the state of Iowa will issue gun permits to blind people.[8]

Should these random reports make people cautious in regarding business plans, campaign platforms (“The New” Anything), or succeeding at their New Year’s Resolutions?  Just asking.

[1] “The bottom line,” The Week, 5 September 2014, p. 32.

[2] “Noted,” The Week, 28 August, 2015, p. 14.

[3] “The bottom line,” The Week, 15 October 2015, p. 36.

[4] “The bottom line,” The Week, 30 October 2015, p. 36.

[5] “The bottom line,” The Week, 20 November 2015, p. 32; “Noted,” The Week, 27 November 2015, p. 16.  .

[6] “Noted,” The Week, 20 May 2016, p. 18.


[8] “Noted,” The Week, 20 September 2013, p. 16.