{"id":61236,"date":"2016-12-05T11:00:16","date_gmt":"2016-12-05T17:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=61236"},"modified":"2016-12-03T21:45:56","modified_gmt":"2016-12-04T03:45:56","slug":"lie-first-lie-always-non-sequitur-violence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=61236","title":{"rendered":"Lie First, Lie Always: Non-Sequitur Violence"},"content":{"rendered":"

My theory: \u00a0the Democrats, and left-leaning groups in general, are turning their focus to making big, broad, platitudinous statements designed to sound good to people who don’t really think about issues all that hard.<\/p>\n

Last week was a case in point; the Strib was pimping a piece purporting to show the costs of “gun violence”, as well as some proposed “solutions”.<\/p>\n

The piece – an “analytical report” by Americans for Responsible Solutions<\/a>, which is the Gabby Giffords checkbook advocacy group – claims to run down the costs of “gun violence”.<\/p>\n

And it starts off with a local example:<\/p>\n

One recent tragedy at a small law firm in the Cathedral Hill area of St. Paul illustrates this all too\u00a0well. On April 7, 2016, a disgruntled former client, Ryan David Petersen, entered the offices of North\u00a0Star Criminal Defense, located on the second floor of the historic Dacotah Building, intending to\u00a0kill either Dan Adkins, one of the firm\u2019s managing partners, or Chase Passauer, the firm\u2019s office\u00a0manager. Petersen arrived at the office before Dan did and directed his focus on Chase\u2014shooting\u00a0him eight times with a .40 caliber handgun. The 23-year-old died in his office chair.3 Chase, a recent\u00a0graduate of the University of Minnesota, had wanted to become a lawyer to help others before his\u00a0life was cut short by…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Let’s stop right there.<\/p>\n

Who killed Chase Passauer? \u00a0Was Ryan Peterson:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. A pedestrian who found a loaded gun unattended on the street, and stopped into the law office to seek help?<\/li>\n
  2. A Quaker missionary who found himself drawn to a gun at Cabela’s and, hypnotized by its dangerous allure, decided he just\u00a0had\u00a0<\/em>to kill someone?<\/li>\n
  3. A DFL activist practicing for the post-Trump revolution?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    We’ll come back to that.<\/p>\n

    Wait! \u00a0You Ignored Change Under Bus Seats!<\/b>: \u00a0The report goes into some depth on the costs of single incidents of “gun violence” – noting that the medical costs of even a single episode of “gun violence” are astronomical; the average cost of a fatal shooting is over $40K; of non-fatal shootings, over $60,000.<\/p>\n

    Well, yeah – the cost of healthcare is pretty high for everyone. \u00a0 It’s been in all the papers.<\/p>\n

    It also notes that the cost of investigating the crimes, trying to cases, and incarcerating offenders is way, way up there:<\/p>\n

    According to estimates by PIRE, the average cost of a police \u00a0investigation and related criminal justice\u00a0expenses for a \u00a0fatal shooting is $439,217.13 Criminal\u00a0justice expenses include salaries and benefits for\u00a0public officials such as judges, prosecutors, and public\u00a0defenders, as well as the cost of incarceration, which\u00a0in a federal facility averages more than $30,000 per\u00a0year for each inmate.14 Minnesota taxpayers \u00a0spend\u00a0approximately $45,688 per year incarcerating each\u00a0inmate in state prisons<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Yep. \u00a0Lawyers, judges and prisons don’t come cheap.<\/p>\n

    So the alternative is…what?<\/p>\n

    Does harassing the law-abiding gun owner in any way address this? \u00a0Other than creating more felons?<\/p>\n

    The report also goes through costs to employers – like Mr. Passauer’s – as well as, incredibly, lost wages. \u00a0Not only those of the victim…:<\/p>\n

    According to data derived from the PIRE cost\u00a0of injury model, the average value of lost work for a\u00a0single fatal shooting is $1,742,722, while for a nonfatal\u00a0shooting requiring hospitalization, the figure\u00a0is $81,559.
    \nWhen a gunshot victim…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    …but also\u00a0the perp<\/em>:<\/p>\n

    …or incarcerated\u00a0perpetrator<\/strong> is an income earner for his or her family\u2014especially the primary breadwinner\u2014the impact of lost\u00a0wages on the family can be severe.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Ah. \u00a0Clearly the answer is to\u00a0not send murderers to jail<\/em>.<\/p>\n

    Well, no. \u00a0That’s not what the report suggests.<\/p>\n

    Where Have We Seen This?<\/strong>: \u00a0The report does suggest “solutions”.<\/p>\n

    Any guesses?<\/p>\n

    The Economic Cost of Gun Violence in\u00a0Minnesota identifies three sets of solutions,\u00a0each addressing a specific risk factor: \u00a0universal background checks for gun sales<\/strong>, neighborhood revitalization programs,\u00a0and hospital-based violence intervention\u00a0strategies. The investment required to\u00a0implement these lifesaving solutions is\u00a0minuscule compared to the yearly cost of\u00a0gun violence in our state.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    “Hospital based violence intervention strategies” – trying to talk victims and perpetrators out of lives of violence – might be less stupid. \u00a0As the report rather un-PC-ly notes:<\/p>\n

    \u00a0“Interpersonal shootings disproportionately involve young men of color living in underserved neighborhoods, so any effective violence intervention strategy must focus attention on this at-risk population.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    …where “underserved neighborhoods” is PC code for “crime-ridden cesspool in a city ruined by decades of Democrat rule”, dealing with those actually involved in the\u00a0vast\u00a0<\/em>majority of criminal shootings might actually make sense.<\/p>\n

    On the other hand, we’ve been trying “neighborhood revitalization” for decades. \u00a0It turns out that prosperity – organic, market prosperity, not government subsidy – and law and order, and lots of both, is the only real neighborhood revitalization program that works – and that doesn’t happen in inner cities run by Democrats.<\/p>\n

    Ever.<\/p>\n

    Of course, that\u00a0could\u00a0<\/em>happen.<\/p>\n

    But as to “universal background checks?”<\/p>\n

    I’d love to ask the people who wrote this report: \u00a0“So tell me how the people who are committing\u00a0the vast majority of the crime today<\/em> – who overwhelmingly use guns that are stolen, purchased by straw buyers, or, in the world of gangs, often shared among gang members in multiple crimes – who\u00a0aren’t\u00a0<\/em>currently getting background checks, are supposed to start getting them?<\/p>\n

    Which takes us back to Chase Passauer.<\/p>\n

    A Minor Technicality<\/strong>: \u00a0In re the murder of Mr. Passauer, the report notes that Ryan Peterson was, in fact…<\/p>\n

    a convicted felon who was legally \u00a0prohibited from possessing a gun.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    Who would not have taken a background check.<\/p>\n

    Whether his neighborhood was revitalized, and whether a social worker talked with him at a hospital, or not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    My theory: \u00a0the Democrats, and left-leaning groups in general, are turning their focus to making big, broad, platitudinous statements designed to sound good to people who don’t really think about issues all that hard. Last week was a case in point; the Strib was pimping a piece purporting to show the costs of “gun violence”, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[340,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lie-first","category-victim-disarmament"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61236"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61239,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61236\/revisions\/61239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}