Ghouls
By Mitch Berg
Never mind that the models used to predict it can’t even retroactively predict the past; forget that the “universal consensus” on the topic doesn’t exist.
In the religion of Manmade Global Global Warming, everything that happens proves the hypothesis – and everything that doesn’t happen proves the hypothesis.
Including the tragedies that, horrible as they are, are a pretty normal part of life on the Great Plains:
The evidence for the consequences of global warming is appearing with alarming frequency. This morning’s headlines are filled with tales of deadly weather: “At least four people were killed and about 40 injured when a tornado tore through a Boy Scout camp in western Iowa on Wednesday night”
Scumbags.
June 13th, 2008 at 7:49 am
After various mass killings, how many posts have you done about how less restrictive guns laws would have prevented them?
June 13th, 2008 at 8:52 am
Unlike the case of AGW, facts are on Mitch’s side that less restrictive gun laws would likely result in lower body count.
June 13th, 2008 at 8:58 am
As they say, that is a debate for another day.
June 13th, 2008 at 9:06 am
Rick,
Over the past six years? Several.
Leaving aside the very dramatic examples – the several attempted mass-shootings that were broken up by armed citizens (the colorado springs church, the seminary in Israel last year as well as many attempted terrorist shootings in the seventies, the Appalachian School of Law, the Pearl Mississippi school shooting, the Richmond VA cafeteria where the killer wanted to copycat the Luby’s Cafeteria mass murder), you mean?
John Lott has pretty well shown in his various treatises (the Lott/Mustard study, More Guns Less Crime) the statistical link between less-restrictive gun laws and lower violent crime.
There have been attempts to refute Lott – and being as fluent in Tic talking points as you are, I expect you to produce some of them shortly! Up until about 2004, I was very fluent in the counter-refutations (the U of Maryland, Johns Hopkins and New England Journal of Medicine studies among others) – and they have all been pretty curtly quashed – but quite frankly, since Minnesota passed the MPPA, it’s been a less vital issue for me (for now); I’ll defer to Joel and Andrew (Hi, guys!) to cover my six, here.
Leaving aside academic parsing of numbers, there are two anecdotal bits of evidence; the vast majority of mass murders happen either in “gun free zones” (schools, posted stores, government buildings) or “gun free” places like Illinois or the New York subway. And by “vast”, I mean it’s hard to find even a fraction that aren’t.
The other? In 1983, there were eight “shall issue” states. Today there are 40 (and two that require no permit at all – which was Minnesota’s system up until 1974, by the way, when concerns about black people with guns prompted the system we euthanized in 2003-2005); not one has rejected it in its legislature (and Minnesota’s court-mandated rejection got obsoleted in the legislature in ’05).
June 13th, 2008 at 9:51 am
Mitch:
Which part of “another day” didn’t you understand?
You want to use mass shooting to highlight your favorite position feel free, I got no general problem with it. But then don’t turn around and get all faux offended when someone else does the same thing.
June 13th, 2008 at 10:06 am
Rick – which part of “FACTS” do YOU not understand?
June 13th, 2008 at 10:09 am
Although I do understand your comment is more about timing and politicization of a tragic event.
June 13th, 2008 at 10:09 am
Rick, I’m not sure that you really do get to decide what goes on on Mitch’s blog; about all you can do is participate or refuse to.
There’s a huge difference in what Mitch has done to point out that sensible gun laws that don’t create victim disarmament zones save lives, and the ghoulish notion (just to be a little unfair) that the failure to immediately canonize the Goracle’s beliefs causes hurricanes. I understand that you don’t see it, but your moral myopia really is your problem.
June 13th, 2008 at 10:09 am
Leaving aside academic parsing of numbers, there are two anecdotal bits of evidence; the vast majority of mass murders happen either in “gun free zones” (schools, posted stores, government buildings) or “gun free” places like Illinois or the New York subway. And by “vast”, I mean it’s hard to find even a fraction that aren’t.
Oh, that goes way past anecdotal, Mitch. You’ve nailed it, precisely. You leave me with nothing to add. 🙂
June 13th, 2008 at 10:22 am
Rick,
What JoelR said, generally.
Which part of “another day” didn’t you understand?
Actually, I had no idea what you were trying to defer. The entire statement was unclear to me. Call it user error if you’d like.
You want to use mass shooting to highlight your favorite position feel free, I got no general problem with it. But then don’t turn around and get all faux offended when someone else does the same thing.
a) I wasn’t “faux offended” at Robin’s statement; I merely thought it was in poor taste.
b) What I wrote after Virginia Tech and Crosswinds wasn’t remotely the same; I was showing how lives could be saved, and blaming human government policy for the deaths (rather than pinning it on a contortion of a metaphysical idea, which both Pat Robertson and Rew’s squib joke did).
June 13th, 2008 at 10:59 am
Mitch:
Robin is the other post, this is the Progress Report global warming post. Calling them “scumbags” seems offended to me.
“I was showing how lives could be saved, and blaming human government policy for the deaths”
Progress Report (and I) feel the same way about global warming. If we don’t prevent GW lots of people will die.
joelr:
What is the “huge difference”, other than that you believe the causal connection in one case and not in another.
June 13th, 2008 at 11:11 am
Schwoops. You are correct.
And yes – by these people, I am offended.
June 13th, 2008 at 11:15 am
“What is the “huge difference”, other than that you believe the causal connection in one case and not in another.”
Because one is based on facts, the other (AGW) on hysteria.
June 13th, 2008 at 11:19 am
“I am offended” Can you explain why in a way that does not depend on them being wrong about the causal connection between AGW and extreme weather?
June 13th, 2008 at 11:36 am
Rick, to put it in a nutshell and in terms that they use to dismiss recent cooling: weather is not climate, and it is weather that killed them. Scoring political points off random deaths of children is offensive.
June 13th, 2008 at 11:43 am
nerdbert:
“is not climate, and it is weather that killed them”
OK, but the same applies to CCR and gun-shootings. AGW makes severe weather more likely. CCR makes an armed member of the public more likely at a shooting. Both AGW and CCR change the climate, but AGW does not cause a specific storm and CCR does not put a specific armed citizen in a school shooting.
June 13th, 2008 at 11:53 am
“AGW makes severe weather more likely.”
There you go with bogus clear “factual” pronouncements again. Didn’t you learn by now that by repeating lies often enough you cannot turn them into a fact? Oh, wait, you are a Tic. Duh!
June 13th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
“CCR makes an armed member of the public more likely at a shooting”
Rick, I think you missed Mitch’s lesson that most shootings occured in “gun-free zones”. That DC ban on weapons works REALLY well. Based on your logic, it shoud be the safest place on earth – guns are outlawed there, afterall. And in that bastion of gun prohibition – UK? Knifing is at an old time high. I guess they are going to ban them next, along with forks and sporks. I guess it is too much for a Lib like yourself to put a blame for shootings at the person who does the shooting, he is also a victim, after all. It is much easier and expedient to blame a gun.
June 13th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
If we don’t prevent GW lots of people will die.
Reducing or capping carbon emmisions will slow the world’s economy or reduce it. The waelthy will do just fine. The poor will suffer and die.
June 13th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
RickDFL — other than the huge difference, there isn’t one.
June 13th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
Here is a great link to Freeman Dyson’s review of Nordlinger’s book, which addresses economic impact of Carbon Cap “solutions”. There is also other cool (sorry for the pun) stuff in there that Rick will dismiss out of hand because it does not fit his religious views.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21494
June 13th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
JPA:
You can rarely go wrong with the New York Review. Dyson is right that once you accept the reality of AGW (which he does), there is still room to debate over how serious the consequences will be and what the best means to deal with them are. His stuff on intergenerational utility comparisons seems a little sketchy too.
So do you support Nordlinger’s global carbon tax to fight global warming?
June 13th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
I don’t think there is anything in the Dyson piece that unequivocally endorses AGW theory, at least as defined in the apocalyptic terms that most of the AGW faithful use to define it.
Dyson seems to view AGW as a potentially serious problem which deserves a rational response.
In my opinion, much of the left has made the discovery that economic activity can be defined in terms of carbon use. If they can regulate carbon use, they can regulate the economy. Centralized control of markets made possible by the usual scare tactics — the threat is enormous, and it is far enough in the future that its symptoms are not readily apparent, yet only drastic action taken now can avert disaster.
June 14th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Like Terry said: Dyson does not endorse AGW, as a matter of fact he is cosidered one of the leading “skeptics”.
As for your question, Rick, since AGW does not exist, it would be kinda silly to put a tax on it. But than Tics are never picky what and who to tax, nor to allow dead to vote, etc.
BTW, please inprove your reading comprehension skills. Nordlinger does not advocate any taxes, he simply analyses what-if scenarios.