In 1943 to find a wider audience, he turned to Jazz. Dinah Washington‘s recording debut was with Keynote at the end of 1943.
In 1947 the label made an attempt to manufacture its own records that didn’t go as planned, resulting in the business being acquired by Mercury Records in 1948.
One popular record by Keynote was Songs of the Lincoln Brigade. It was produced in 1937. It is a collection of songs praising the soldiers who went to fight against fascism in the Spanish Civil War.
Eric Bernay, died on Nov 5th, 1968 , according to his obituary in the New York Times –
New York Times, November 5, 1968, pp 44.
Many years ago I was traveling along the I-81 through the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia when I stopped at an antique store. Not sure of the town but I think it was North of New Market. I found a neat 78 record set, in mint condition. As well as a few single records.
The 78 record set was The Red Army Chorus of the USSR conducted by Alexander Vasilyevich Alexandrov. It is Keynote Records Album number 103.
Front cover
Opening it up showed the lyrics of the songs. It was four 78 records (so 8 songs total)
From Border to Border
The Young Birch Tree
Cossack Song
If Tomorrow Brings War
Snowstorm
Song of the Tachanka
Meadowland
Along the Vales and Hills
Inside cover
One interesting thing is on the back cover. It has a Restricted Use Notice saying that the record is for non-commerical use on phonographs in homes and cannot be resold for any other use.
Inside back cover
It took a while but I was eventually able to digitize the songs below as an MP3. If you would like the .wav version of the songs, feel free to contact me and I can send you a copy. Enjoy!
From Border to Border
This song is number K209-A in the set and looks like it was composed by Ivan Ivanovich Dzerzhinsky. The song runs about a minute and 50 seconds. You can download the mp3 here or listen to it below. Sung by the Red Army Choir of the USSR.
The Young Birch Tree
The Young Birch Tree is song number K210-B. Music is adapted and conducted by Alexander Vasilyevich Alexandrov. Soloist is V. Pankov. You can download the MP3 or listen to it below.
Along the Vales and Hills
Along the Vales and Hills sang by The Red Army Choir of the USSR and conducted (and composed) by Alexander Vasilyevich Alexandrov. Also looks like C. Alimov helped to create it too. Number K208-A. You can download the MP3 here or listen to it below.
Cossack’s Song
Cossack Song (or Cossack’s Song) sang by The Red Army Choir of the USSR and conducted by Alexander Vasilyevich Alexandrov. Composed by Ivan Ivanovich Dzerzhinsky. Song number K209-B. You can download the MP3 here or listen to it below.
If War Breaks out Tomorrow
If War Breaks out Tomorrow (or If Tomorrow Brings War). Song number 201-A. sang by The Red Army Choir of the USSR and conducted by Alexander Vasilyevich Alexandrov. Composed by Dmitry Pokrass and Daniil Pokrass (they were brothers) as well as Vasily Lebedev-Kumach.
The lyrics note that the Red Army Chorus of the USSR was created in 1928 with 12 performers. It has won many awards and now has 200 performers coming from both the Red Army and the Red Navy.
Meadowland (Song of the Plains) is number K208-A. Sang by The Red Army Choir of the USSR and conducted by Alexander Vasilyevich Alexandrov. Song was composed by Viktor Gusev and Lev Knipper.
You can download the MP3 here or listen to it below.
Snowstorm
Snowstorm is number K210-A. Sang by The Red Army Choir of the USSR and adapted and conducted by Alexander Vasilyevich Alexandrov. Soloist is V. Pankov.
Tachanka is number K201-B. Sang by The Red Army Choir of the USSR and conducted by Alexander Vasilyevich Alexandrov. Lyrics by Mikhail Ruderman and composed by Konstantin Listov. A tachanka is a horse-drawn machine gun, mounted on a peasant cart.
Tachanka was used in WW1 (and the Russian Civil War)
This is a single record that I also bought at the same time. It is number K213-B and is sung by the Ukrainian State Choral Ensemble. I’m not sure of the lyrics, though it appears to be a Ukrainian Folk song.
The Internationale is a left-wing song used by various social and communist movements. It was composed by Pierre De Geyter. This is number K213-A and is sung by the Bolshoi Theatre Chorus and Orchestra. Looks like the group associated with the Bolshoi Theatre at the time sang it.
You can download the MP3 here or listen to it below.
Forward to Victory (Charge of the Tanks)
This was also part of the collection I purchased. Though this doesn’t appear to be Keynote Records. Instead, it is Forward to Victory (Charge of the Tanks). Number 6309B. Taken from the film The Red Tanks and sung by the Moscow Military Chorus (courtesy of Artkino Pictures). The Pokrass brothers composed it. It’s essentially a single from the movie’s soundtrack.
Artkino pictures were the official distributor of Soviet media (like movies and music etc) in North America between 1950 to 1980.
Song of the Fatherland, number 6309-A. Sung by the Moscow Military Chorus (courtesy of Artkino Pictures). A single from the film, One Day in Soviet Russia, was produced in 1941. The film is essentially a propaganda piece to help garner pro-soviet sympathy after Germany invaded it. It was narrated by Quentin Reynolds, a journalist, who would be very much anti-communist in the 1950s.
The archive also includes other Keynote Record songs like The Clouds Fly High and Blue Night. All were sung by The Red Army Choir of the USSR and conducted by Alexander Vasilyevich Alexandrov.
Contained in the same box of tapes is a really solid gem of a self-produced album by a DJ Blunt. There are, in fact, lots of DJs named Blunt so tracking who made this is difficult.
The name of this album is Dope Cutz Volume 8, suggesting there are Dope Cutz 1-7 out there somewhere. The tape doesn’t seem to be made from a lower-quality product. The label on the tape is printed and says 1 for the first side and the same thing on the other, except a 2 for the second side.
The songs aren’t that bad and one song even includes a sampling from the OJ Simpson Trial (which might help to date the tape?).
The insert is shown below. A shot from below a set of stairs showing the sky, the stair handrail, the stair foundation, and an overhead light makes the insert. The insert is paper and clearly printed. Maybe someone will recognize this scene and let me know?
I digitized the songs but each side is one long song. I didn’t break up the MP3 so they play long and are big files. To listen to them you can download the file by clicking the link. If you need a .wav file, feel free to contact me.
A buddy of mine handed me a collection of old-school cassette tapes he no longer wanted. Contained in this collection is a really awesome metal tape.
The band’s name is called Faerchild, though it looks like they may have also gone as Fashion Risk.
The cassette tape itself is one of those clear ones, which I typically associate with being higher quality, and the inserts look to be professionally produced (as opposed to just printing copies from an at-home DIY-style printer).
Obviously, Discogs isn’t the end-all-be-all but it has a huge collection and the fact that nobody seems to have a copy (as well as limited information about the band online) suggests a very limited release?
In looking at the insert, the first (and only?) release is called Ready to Rock. It looks like it was produced by the label: Briefcase of Talent out of Atlanta, GA.
The songs included Ready to Rock, Brain Dead, Memories of Michelle, and All Night Long. The tape has a release date of 1988.
Scott Faerchild is on the vocals, Shawn Tarver is on the guitar, Tim Lumb is on the Bass, and Alan Ayo is on the drums. A quick Google search brings up some people who might have been part of this project.
One of the inserts has a message to fans about the Ready to Rock release.
You can hear the songs in an MP3 format. In the files below I just combined both sides together. So each MP3 consists of two songs. I also have these in .wav format in my Google Drive. So if you’re interested in a .wav format, let me know.
Earth Defense Force (EDF) is a third-person shooter video game series developed by Sandlot and published by D3 Publisher. The series has released numerous titles over the years, but for the purpose of this walkthrough guide, we will be focusing on the most recent game in the series, Earth Defense Force: World Brothers.
In Earth Defense Force: World Brothers, players take on the role of a member of the Earth Defense Force, a group of soldiers tasked with protecting the planet from alien invasions. The game features a variety of missions, each with their own unique objectives and challenges.
To get started, players will need to select their character and customize their loadout. There are four classes to choose from in Earth Defense Force: World Brothers: the Ranger, the Wing Diver, the Fencer, and the Air Raider. Each class has its own strengths and weaknesses, so players will need to choose the one that best fits their playstyle.
The Ranger is a balanced class that is good at both close and long-range combat. The Wing Diver is a fast-moving class that excels at aerial combat and long-range attacks. The Fencer is a heavy class that is slow but powerful, and the Air Raider is a support class that can call in airstrikes and other support abilities.
Once players have chosen their class, they will need to select their weapons and equipment. There are a wide variety of weapons to choose from in Earth Defense Force: World Brothers, ranging from assault rifles and rocket launchers to laser guns and plasma cannons. Players can also equip a variety of different armor and gadgets to help them in combat.
Once players have selected their character and equipment, they are ready to begin their missions. In Earth Defense Force: World Brothers, players will encounter a variety of different enemies, including giant ants, spiders, and robots. Players will need to use their weapons and abilities to take down these enemies and complete their missions.
In addition to the main campaign, Earth Defense Force: World Brothers also features a multiplayer mode where players can team up with others to tackle missions together. In multiplayer, players can choose to play as a member of the Earth Defense Force or as an alien invader.
Overall, Earth Defense Force: World Brothers is a fast-paced and action-packed game that is sure to keep players engaged for hours on end. Whether playing solo or with friends, there is always something new to discover and enjoy in this exciting video game.
This link here http://www.questmasters.us/Crates_Page_3.html does a pretty good job at covering cigarettes during World War II. It focuses mostly on Lucky Strikes but includes others like Chesterfield + more.
I really like how it broke down the nuances of the packages and brands so the discerning collector knows what’s period correct and what isn’t.
The purpose of this page is to inform people about the second amendment and provide historical, legal, and scientific information to take down various gun arguments. There are a lot of people who are either naive on a topic or are woefully ignorant. People who argue various “pro-gun” stances aren’t any different. The same can apply to various “gun safety” advocated.
However, the “pro-gun” group of people is very vocal in their arguments (ie loud) but that doesn’t mean they are right. Indeed, gun owners make some of the worst historians.
Frankly, this author is sick of hearing the same bullshit spewed out across the internet and it’s time there is a page dedicated to taking apart that bullshit.
Introduction
Why should you believe me? Well, I am somewhat of an amateur historian. I’ve published a book that required in-depth research. I know how to read and correctly interpret historical information, follow sources around and conduct original research. I have a master’s degree in political science so I know how to evaluate scientific studies for accuracy. I know how to pick apart arguments and find logical fallacies and inconsistencies. I am also a gun owner who owns multiple firearms and who enjoys shooting them so I am familiar with the gun terminology.
Original Purpose of the Second Amendment
The purpose was to protect the people’s individual right to have a gun as a part of the militia, and to secure this right at the federal level by making it a constitutionally protected right. It was never about being able to constitutionally have a gun as a mere individual unconnected to the militia.
Indeed, this is because in Article I, Section 8 of the Consitution (which pro-gun folks ignore) the states transferred to Congress the power “to provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel Invasions” and “to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia.”
This was one of the most radical features of the original Constitution; under the Articles of Confederation, states had complete control of their militias. Opponents of ratification suggested that the new federal government might proceed to disarm and dissolve the state militias and create instead a national standing army.
The Second Amendment most clearly addresses that concern; and that has led a number of historians to suggest that the Amendment really has no relation to any personal right of individuals to “keep and bear arms.
This is because there wasn’t an individual right to own a gun. In fact, owning guns outside of the militia all fell under common law not constitutional law.
Being in the militia was seen as a civic duty. The state govt told you to get a gun and you had to keep it and maintain it and store it. It’s similar to the Swiss militia model of participatory democracy. The founders (especially in Federalist 46) trusted the people with the guns because the roots of support for democracy originate locally and local people control who is in charge of the militia. Local militias can suppress rebellions from below and tyranny from above.
Additionally, after being required to billet Redcoats in their own homes, many didn’t want, and the broke government was unable able to pay for, a standing army. So they set up the militia system where citizens would be required to buy their own guns and accouterments, be trained by the states, and be called up as necessary by the Federal government. It was to protect the US from enemies outside of the US or to go to war to gain territory. The Founders didn’t imagine they would not answer the call, but the New York militia refused in the War of 1812. When you read the history of the Civil War you read of the individual states’ units that were called up.
The legacy of that system is the National Guard. The Militia Act of 1903 started the federalization of the system, which eventually led to acts in 1916 where the Fed paid the expenses, and in 1933 all National Guardsmen have been members of both their State National Guard (or militia) and the National Guard of the United States.
Argument: Universal Background Checks Would Require Registration
We already have an indirect method of registration. If the Govt wanted to it could track purchases via bank transactions and serial numbers by issuing subpoenas to banks. It could then deduce, using AI and cross-referencing various data tables that you bought a firearm. The data exists as does a way to track purchases. It’s really only a matter of time before we end up with de facto registration.
It could also be a corporation that decides to correlate all this data and sell “firearm data as a service” to the govt or other interested parties.
Additionally, this argument implies Registration of firearms is a bad idea because it leads to confiscation/tyranny. This isn’t inherently true any more than car registration leads to confiscation/tyranny.
Argument: Permitting and Registration is Unconstitutional and/or leads to Tyranny
This argument evolves naturally into Godwin’s Law. There’s nothing inherent about permitting and gun registration that will lead to tyranny. Other western countries have strong permitting processes and yet aren’t controlled by a dictator.
Some will argue that it’s unconstitutional. That’s not inherently true. Permits and gun registration existed at the founding. What were Militia Muster rolls but a list of who owns what guns in what condition? Permits did exist for certain types of people like blacks but any such racial permitting would probably be struck down by the Supreme Court. However, the concept of permitting did exist at the founding.
It doesn’t. In fact, just the opposite. Having too many guns can threaten a free state.
Additionally, this argument misunderstands how free countries (ie democratic ones) slide into dictatorships. It’s never “one event”, it’s a continuous slide and erosion of norms and constitutional guardrails either by choice or accident. It’s a slow burn that you never really see until it already happens.
We can look at one example, in the US when 110,000 Japanese (along with a comparative handful of Italians and Germans) were put into camps. Gun ownership was around at the time yet this group didn’t resist the clear tyrannical actions.
Also, Yemen and Saudi Arabia are heavily armed countries yet nobody would say there’s a lot of freedom there. Comparatively, Israel sees the same arms rate as Iran yet again nobody would say Iran is the pinnacle of freedom. Israel has an individual civilian rate of around 7% with 1 out of 19 owning a gun as a private individual. Iran has the same rate of 7% of civilians owning private guns.
Tunisia which has one of the lowest individual arms rates in the World launched a pro-democracy revolution.
If owning guns stops tyranny, why did the US put down Shay’s Rebellion, The Whiskey Rebellion, Fries Rebellion, Nat Turner’s Rebellion (technical the state of VA did), John Browns Raid, fight the Civil War, and put down the Jan 6th Coup attempt? Why not just let these people do what they want to do and overthrow the govt (federal or state)? Maybe because you don’t get to decide when “tyranny” happens and this country has a process to sort out political differences? Indeed, the fact that they were not permitted speaks volumes.
In addition, the founder’s definition of Tyranny is different than our modern conceptions of it (which brings to mind Hitler or Stalin or Mao or Pol Pot, etc.). They were worried about Tyranny being forced upon the United States from abroad, as well as a Government naturally evolving into Tyranny, and a “Tyranny of the Majority”. You can have “mob rule” (which is something the founders were worried about as they looked at the excesses of the French Revolution) and create Tyranny that makes citizens scared or hesitant to act in public life. “Tyranny of the Majority” is a concept the founders were well aware of.
Lastly, while having guns is argued by Madison in Federalist 46 as a “…a barrier against the enterprizes of ambition [tyranny]…”, he goes on to explain that it is this as well as “… the existence of subordinate governments to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed…”
Conceptually for Madison, citizens would be armed but this arming is attached to the state/local governments (those subordinate governments) and have citizen-appointed Militia officers.
He goes on to say if people in other countries “…were to possess the additional advantages of local governments chosen by themselves, who could collect the national will, and direct the national force; and of officers appointed out of the militia, by these governments and attached both to them and to the militia, it may be affirmed with the greatest assurance, that the throne of every tyranny in Europe would be speedily overturned”.
This all brings us back to having a militia controlled locally as a bulwark against tyranny. Pro-gun folks like to mention the first part (the guns) without the rest (locally controlled and subordinate).
That’s not how the 2a works anymore. In fact, in the 1790s the founders quickly found out how useless this concept of a citizen Militia is at a national level when they all broke and ran during St Clair’s defeat.
So the concept that guns somehow support freedom and prevent tyranny is just a philosophical feel-good statement rather than something grounded in objective reality. It’s bullshit.
Argument: Owning Guns Preserves Natural Right to Overthrow Govt
This is true, of course, but also perfectly irrelevant. The US revolutionaries undoubtedly asserted their right as a matter of natural law to overthrow a tyrannical government. But that is completely different from the claim that the American Constitution itself — our binding positive law — guarantees a right to overthrow the American government. Our Constitution does not even guarantee the right to engage in nonviolent civil disobedience to press reform, as Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lewis learned from the inside of many a jail cell. Much less does the Constitution guarantee the right to engage in violent civil disobedience to revolt.
If the American government were to engage in true tyranny — like slaughtering and oppressing the population —, then yes we the people would undoubtedly have a right to recite our grievances, proclaim our cause to the world, cut the ties that bind and engage in the kind of revolutionary struggle, with firearms, that the American colonists did. Indeed, at that point, it’s not like gun control laws are going to stop a revolutionary army, people are going to get the arms they need. So it’s kinda moot to argue.
Moreover, it would be meaningless and silly to argue that it is the Constitution that granted us the right to do all that.
As the historian, Garry Wills long ago explained: “A people can overthrow a government it considers unjust. But it is absurd to think that it does so by virtue of that unjust government’s own authority. The appeal to heaven is an appeal away from the earthly authority of the moment, not to that authority.”
This argument doesn’t understand the purpose of laws. No law is going to stop every event. Laws can help reduce the severity, intensity, and duration of an event. Japan with super strict gun control laws has about 20 deaths a year.
To take a parallel event, the US used to have an obscenely high car death rate. We studied it and then implemented various policies such as having plastic construction barrels instead of metal, adding in guardrails, mandating car safety requirements like seat belts, and ensuring the roads don’t bank too high that would cause a car to flip. We still have car deaths but compared with historic highs they are really low.
Yes, gun violence is a multifaceted issue in this country so it’s going to take a variety of approaches to deal with it including new rules and restrictions on who can own what types of firearms.
There is a number, 20,000 that is thrown around by folks who want to imply that we have enough gun laws and we need to enforce them. However, there is no way to know for sure how many gun laws we actually have much less agree on what counts as a “gun law”. It’s a meaningless made-up statistic used to support this argument.
If you also ask folks to drill down to what this looks like, they remain silent because they cannot explain how this works. If a person commits a mass shooting they break multiple laws and if they survive they are arrested and in nearly all cases found guilty and to go prison. That’s doing exactly what the argument says we should do.
In reality, folks use this argument to try to shut debate over “crime control” and prevent further restrictive gun laws that would attempt to control access to weapons before someone commits a criminal act.
The Slippery Slope Argument: If everything is a slippery slope, then nothing is. Specifically, just because we ban semi-auto rifles (or take any other actions) doesn’t also mean we confiscate them.
It’s like saying “I won’t take my car to get repaired because I worry they may also find I need an oil change”
What this is really about is an “… imagined peril of a multicultural majority running the show. Many countries that do more to protect their citizens against gun violence are more, not less, free than we are. According to the libertarian Cato Institute, 16 countries enjoy a higher level of overall freedom than the United States, and most of them ban or severely restrict ownership of assault weapons. The freedom to have your head blown off in an Applebee’s, to flee in terror from the bang of a backfiring engine, might not be freedom at all.”
Argument: Only a good guy with a gun stops a bad guy with a gun
It’s always striking that the NRA stance and those who subscribe to various pro-gun arguments revolve around the need to buy more guns. As in making gun manufacturers richer or ginning up support for various gun services (like concealed carry permits and training). I’m not inherently against either of these but…I do find it curious.
So this argument, it carries the implication that I need a gun (ie buy one) to stop a bad guy. It also paints human nature in black and white when the reality is we’re all capable at any time to be both a good guy and a bad guy. It’s literally the duality of man. Sometimes good guys go bad either knowingly or unknowingly (like a Dr. Jekyle and Mr. Hyde scenario).
Sometimes good guys don’t actively intervene in an event and instead turn and run out of fear. Other times having multiple people with guns muddies who is really the bad guy or good guy.
It’s a bullshit argument that seems to carry with it the curious notion that we should all buy guns. Weird huh?
Argument: If we ban guns people will find some other way to hurt and kill
True. Great Britain suffers from knife crime because guns are hard to get. However, the goal is to reduce the duration, intensity, and frequency of an event. America has over 40,000 gun deaths a year so if we ban the selling and manufacturing of semi-autos and require those who have semi-autos to do XYZ things (or else they can sell them to the govt at a market rate) gun deaths would go down.
Would something else like Knife-Crime go up? Probably but if knife crime results in less fear of being in public and in the aggregate have fewer deaths when compared to guns it’s a success.
Argument: The Battle of Athens Proves We Need Guns to Stop Tyranny
This is based on an incident in 1946 in Athens, TN where returning GIs stopped a corrupt election from happening. However, what modern gun supporters are doing is shoehorning our modern gun politics onto a historical event. Firstly, the veterans taking part have a completely different sense of being armed. According to a July 13th, 1996 article:
Retired school principal Harold Powers, 70, who was shot in the face during the gunfight, says he and his comrades at the time had “a completely different point of view” from today’s gun enthusiasts.
“I’m a believer in people being able to have arms,” Mr. Powers says, “but I don’t believe that this type of thing should happen very often in this country.”
Secondly, this is a single event happening at a specific time which is very much unique in US History. To try to stretch and read more into it is just trying to score political points.
Thirdly, the “guns” didn’t do the job. Sure they had some arms from a National Guard Armory but it was really the organizing power of the GIs and their skills that actually won the day. It’s likely the same event would have happened if they didn’t have access to a handful of pistols and rifles. The guns just made the event more economical, easier, and more efficient.
Lastly, you’ll note it was an organized event, not some random citizen deciding but a community-organized action, which is the essence of the 2A…letting well-regulated communities arm themselves for public defense.
Argument: Battle of Blair Mt. Proves We Need Guns to Stop Corrupt Corporations
The Battle of Mount Blair was a 3-day long battle between unionized Coal Miners and their corporations. It took place in 1921. It was ended when the Federal Gov’t stepped in and the coal miners, many of whom were WW1 veterans didn’t want to fire on other WW1 veterans and soldiers. It’s often seen as a continuation of other labor conflicts arising out of post-Civil War industrialization.
This event is similar to the Battle of Athens, as described above. Pro-gun folks are just shoe-horning modern politics onto a historical event to score points as “evidence”.
It’s a localized event that would’ve likely happened in some fashion. Guns just made it more efficient and deadly. Indeed, people have a natural right to self-defense.
Lastly, again here, you’ll note it was organized miners who fought back not random people with guns. But members of the community, known to all, who took part in it. Many of them were WW1 veterans who were previously trained in firearms. This harkens back to the original intent of the 2A to let local militias be free to organize and do militia duty.
Argument: If the Jews were armed there wouldn’t have been a Holocaust.
Jews were less than 1% of Germany and didn’t have high gun ownership, to begin with. Even if they had guns the Red Army lost 7 million men fighting Nazi Germany and the Germans crushed the Warsaw uprising. So to pretend that somehow the Holocaust could be prevented is just absurd.
It attempts to take modern gun politics and place it over a historic event in a completely different county.
It also assumes that owning guns somehow prevents Tyranny.
Argument: Well-Regulated meant just well-trained and disciplined.
It went well beyond just being well-trained and disciplined. It meant every essence of the word.
Argument: Red Flag Laws are Unconstitutional
These rest on two premises that they don’t provide due process before you lose your right to own a gun and that any gun restriction is unconstitutional (an absolutist statement that isn’t supported either by the Supreme Court or history).
You can argue that maybe the nuances of the state’s red flag law don’t provide enough but you go in front of a judge and plead your case. It’s like getting a restraining order against someone, only this time it’s about your property. Restraining orders inherently infringe on your right to travel freely but as a society, we say that’s OK.
Additionally, liberty is limited when there is evidence of a threat. For example, felons are barred from owning a gun.
The assumption here is that if everyone is armed, there’s some kind of detente among the populace. That’s not what happens if everyone is armed.
It also implies that humans are rational and that we would avoid conflict when faced with possible death. That’s a poor understanding of how humans actually work. There are plenty of people who are irrational and unable to control their emotions and reach for a gun to use when other methods of expressing anger or frustration are way more appropriate.
It also threatens to turn everyday social misunderstandings into a fight to the death by needlessly escalating them.
Argument: Polling Questions as a result show false support for Universal Background Checks
Some will argue that majorities of gun owners don’t actually support Universal Background Checks (UBS) or other actions because the wording of poll questions isn’t clear. UBS has a high of 70% in some studies.
This is of course, false. Various studies have found that large majorities of gun owners support UBS as well as other actions. It’s clear from the actual questions which are listed in the study they are clear.
He also argued that the US has fewer mass shootings compared to the rest of the world. He wrote a study in response to a real peer-reviewed study of mass shootings here. After Lott pitched a fit about not releasing his data set (which he did btw) another academic, Lankford ended up finding out that his data used two different definitions for mass shootings depending on whether they were in the US (a more strict one) or the Rest Of The World (much less strict) in order to make the data set he wanted. Not the first time he has done this.
Many pro-gun arguments say guns are used for protection at least 2.5M times a year. Inherent in this argument is a utilitarian position that since the “good” of guns outweighs the “bad” we ought to keep guns readily accessible with few restrictions…because they “save” more lives than they “take”.
First of all, where did the figure come from? This figure came from Dr. Gary Kleck, a Criminologist at Florida State University. This was from his study in 1994, the “National Self-Defence Survey”. I’ll give 3 counters to the claim.
Counter 1; The Method
Dr. Gary Kleck (Who I’ll just refer to as “Kleck” for the remainder of this post) telephoned 5000 random US Households in 48 states. And then interviewed them about their DGU experiences and that of other members of their households. They excluded occupational uses with guns (For example; if a Police Officer had used a gun in self-defense whilst on-duty, it was discarded). They then extrapolated these results to the rest of the US Population. Source: https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6853&context=jclc
What’s the issue with this method? Well, of the tens of millions of US Households, 5000 is not a large enough sample group. In addition, it was simply a telephone interview. To my knowledge, they never made an attempt to verify the validity of any of these instances. Therefore, there is a real possibility that people lied, and considering a sample group of 5000 households, even if 1% of households (50) lied, that’ll massively impact the results once scaled up. The number of US Households in 1995 was 98 million. [sources: Statista and Infoplease].
Therefore, we can reasonably presume, that if even 1% of households lied in the original 5000, that means (When extrapolated), 980,000 households lied. And considering Kleck claims 2.5m DGUs per year, if even 50% of those households who lied falsely claimed they had defensively used a firearm, that’s still 490,000 households who falsely claimed they had defensively used a firearm. Already slashing the 2.5m figure down by nearly 1 fifth.
Another issue is a simple fact well, the questions are open to interpretation. What one person may interpret as Defensive Gun Use, another might interpret as Aggressive Gun Use.
This is shown in the results; – In 46.8% of instances, the defender was neither threatened or attacked. – 5.5% of instances, the defender was both attacked and injured – 51.9% of instances, the offender was unarmed. If in 52% of instances the offender was unarmed, was it truly defensive gun use? If in 47% of instances, the defender was neither threatened or attacked, was it truly defensive gun use?
Further proof of this below; When asked Defender’s Perceived Likelihood that Someone Would Have Died Had Gun Not Been Used for Protection, results were: – 20.8% = “Almost certainly not” – 19.3% = “Probably not” – 15.7% = “Almost certainly would have”
In instances of a shooting; Did offender shoot at defender? – 4.5% of all incidents – 26.2% of all incidents where offender had a gun
What the Defender did with the gun; – Brandished or showed gun in 75.7% of instances – Verbally referred to gun in 57.6% – Pointed gun at offender in 49.8% – Fired gun (Including warning shots) in 23.9% – Fired gun at offender, trying to shooting the offender in 15.6% – Wounded or killed offender in 8.3% Source: https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6853&context=jclc
Counter 2; Not been repeated in 30 years Quite simply, the original study was conducted in 1994 and published in 1995. And has not been repeated since.
Counter 3; CDC no longer supports these statistics Previously, the CDC had posted the 2.5m DGU statistic. It should now be said, the CDC no longer posts this statistic, instead (in relation to Defensive gun use) it simple says; “Estimates of defensive gun use vary depending on the questions asked, populations studied, timeframe, and other factors related to study design. Given the wide variability in estimates, additional research is necessary to understand defensive gun use prevalence, frequency, circumstances, and outcomes.”
This highlights the fact this study is no longer accepted as fact.
What is a better source for DGUs? Use the National Crime Victimization Survey, which places the figure of DGUs at closer to 65,000 (see sources below). However, according to the Gun Violence Archive (GVA), the annual amount of DGU incidents is less than 2,000. Very far below the inflated claims of survey estimates. And depending on how you slice the NCVS data DGUs might only be 14k. Indeed, according to a May 2020 report, the Violence Policy Center says between 2013-2017 the nation had 1,272 justifiable homicides.
Now, of course, a common rebuttal to this is to say that DGUs often go unreported, which is certainly a possibility, though it is difficult to quantify exactly how significant the underreporting is, frankly I would find it absurd that anyone could argue that 2.5 million DGUs happen annually when less than 2000 actual confirmed cases of DGUs are actually discovered annually. This would suggest that only 0.08% of DGU cases show up in reports or in the news, which is an unbelievably low rate.
Not to mention that the 2.5 million number, as reported from survey data from Kleck and Gertz, is actually mathematically impossible given current crime data. The idea of there being 2.5 million annual DGUs, according to the Kleck survey data from where the number came from, would require that gun owners use their guns in self-defense in more than 100% of burglaries, which is just straight-up impossible. Another funny quirk of surveys that estimate 1 million+ DGUs is that they estimate that the number of rapes in which a woman defended herself with a firearm is more than the total number of rapes
In sum, DGUs are notoriously hard to quantify. They rely mostly on self-reporting surveys and it’s hard to operationalize the meanings of “defensive”, “gun”, and “use”. There’s an argument of folks needing guns for self-defense which I am sympathetic. However, that doesn’t also mean we reduce training requirements or permit ease of access just because someone maybe at some point needs a gun.
One final note is that using a gun as a defensive measure wasn’t beneficial when compared to other actions. According to the study, 38.5% of sdgu (self-defense gun use) victims lost property, and 34.9% of victims who used a weapon other than a gun lost property. Also, after any protective action, 4.2% of victims were injured; after sdgu, 4.1% of victims were injured. These numbers don’t bolster the case that using a gun to protect yourself or your property gives you any greater advantage. Obviously, this study relies on data from one data set and we’ll have to see how it holds-up.
I’m not opposed to this provided they are trained and prepared as some type of “School Guardian”. However, who pays for this? How does this get implemented across the 100,000+ schools in the US? People say this and have no idea how to actually implement this.
More to the point, it’s just a band-aid and doesn’t actually solve the underlying issues.
Additionally, see the “we should arm teachers” argument below as inherent in using vets to guard schools assumes it acts as a deterrent. When that most likely isn’t the case.
Argument: We should arm teachers
Not opposed but it’s not a solution to the problem. This argument is built on the idea that the shooter would be deterred from entering as the shooter values his/her life so much that they don’t enter. That’s, in most cases, the exact opposite of what happens. The shooter is in so much pain that they want to hurt as many as possible before they die by cop. In addition, these people are wearing armor so it’s unlikely an armed teacher is going to make any difference from a motivated individual clad in protective gear.
Argument: The NRA is a Civil Rights Organization
Well since the Heller case established an individual right to own a gun, this is an agreeable argument. However, it assumes all Civil Rights are somehow good for society to have. That’s not inherently the case. It also assumes that the Heller decision was correctly decided (it wasn’t).
Note that the ACLU also supports the second amendment but only under a specific interpretation (not the individual rights one that Scalia made up).
Furthermore, just because something is a civil right doesn’t also mean it’s limitless. Reasonable restrictions can be placed on the ownership of firearms. Even Scalia in the Heller case agreed.
The law was never enforced and was never really mandatory as it had huge carve-outs. It’s also impossible to determine the impacts of said law on the small town as data collection for the variables needed during the time didn’t exist. So it’s unclear if the law had any impact on anything.
It’s just something tossed around to make people feel good about guns.
Some gun folks who make mention of the federalist papers such as Federalist 46. In it, Madison says we need militias “…officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties, and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence … the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of.”
Madison is saying that unregulated vigilantes with unregulated weapons are a threat to us. The point is that the 2A, nowhere, refers to people outside a regulated group with officers appointed by a government subordinate to the affections and confidence of the citizens in the community raising the militia. This is further supported in other areas of the Consitution whereby the militia is the one group who has guns in Article 1, Section 8 clauses 15 and 16.
In both the Federalist paper and the constitution, Madison tells you that the regulations are necessary for the security of a free State.
Hamilton has a different hot take in Federalist 29. As do Samuel Bryan and Luther Martin in the Anti-Federalist Papers.
