Archive for January 18th, 2013

40%?

Friday, January 18th, 2013

Yesterday, I questioned the LAT‘s assertion (without sources) that 40% of all gun sales are private sales that don’t go through the background check system.

Clayton Cramer also questions this, and links to a blog post by John Fund on “National Review Online”:

The dubious statistic of guns that avoided background checks — which is actually 36 percent — comes from a small 251-person survey on gun sales two decades ago, very early in the Clinton administration. Most of the survey covered sales before the Brady Act instituted mandatory federal background checks in early 1994.

Fund also points out that:

Fund quotes John Lott as believing the actual percentage of firearms transferred in private sales is less than 10%.

In addition, Clayton Cramer his own self has a post over at NRO about the “gun show loophole”:

In 2008, three criminologists (one of them not at all friendly to guns) studied the effects on murder and suicide rates in California (which prohibits private sales without a background check) and Texas (which does not). They looked at homicide and suicide rates for adjacent ZIP codes for a week after gun shows. They found no change in suicide rates, and in Texas, which has no restrictions on private party sales, a small but statistically significant reduction in gun homicides.

There’s also a longer Clayton Cramer post, touching on many of the same points, over at PJ Media.

Is it possible that criminals are too stupid to buy guns at gun shows? Or is it possible that they prefer to obtain guns in less expensive ways, such as by theft?

(Hattip on this to Sebastian. As long as we’re talking about private transfers (and since Sebastian stepped up and gave his own example), I’ll talk about my experience. In my entire gun owning life, I’ve had four transfers that didn’t go through an FFL. Three of those were presents (birthday or Christmas) from family members – my brother, father, and stepfather – which, as noted, would not be affected by Obama’s proposal. Transfer number four was a purchase by me of several guns from a private party who inherited them after the death of a parent. I wrote up two copies of an agreement with the serial number, make and model, and price paid for each gun, kept one and gave the sellers the other. I also gave them a photocopy of my driver’s license. In addition, the sellers were people I had known personally for close to 20 years at the time of the purchase. All of my other purchases have gone through an FFL.)

Dance dance revolution.

Friday, January 18th, 2013

Lawrence sent an inquiry as to why I didn’t blog the Sergei Filin/Bolshoi Ballet attack.

Part of the reason is that I was away from the Internet; the other reason is that I wanted to think some more about the story.

As dancers kept an overnight vigil at the burn unit where he is being treated, his colleagues said they suspected that professional jealousy was behind the attack. In recent weeks, his tires were punctured and his car scratched, and his cellphones and personal e-mail account were hacked and correspondence published, his associates have said. A relative had offered to supply Mr. Filin with a bodyguard, but Mr. Filin refused because he did not believe that the threats would lead to physical violence, said Dilyara Timergazina, his assistant and adviser.

This raised some red flags for me. Punctured tires, scratched car, “hacked” cellphone and email: all of those are things that have been seen in cases where people have staged attacks on themselves. The refusal of a bodyguard contributes to that as well.

But throwing acid in your own face? That seems extreme. But it turns out that kind of self-harm is not unheard of. I don’t see any evidence in the NYT report that anyone else witnessed the attack.

Do I think Filin staged his own attack? I don’t think there’s any evidence for that, but I do think that it is an investigative possibility Russian law enforcement will be exploring.

What are the alternatives? People were so upset with Filin’s artistic direction that they threw acid on him? M-m-m-m-m-maybe:

One simmering conflict has involved Nikolai Tsiskaridze, a popular principal dancer who last year harshly criticized a recent reconstruction of the theater and has publicly clashed with its leadership since then. A group of Mr. Tsiskaridze’s supporters petitioned President Vladimir V. Putin in November, requesting that Mr. Tsiskaridze be appointed director of the Bolshoi.

Crime of passion? Filin was sleeping with the wrong person? Or was sleeping with the right person but didn’t give them the role they wanted? I’m better able to buy that than I am the “artistic differences” theory.

Filin was involved with something else crooked, maybe outside of the Bolshoi? That seems more unlikely to me: if you’re the head of the Bolshoi, apparently you’re making major bank. Why would you get involved with the Russian Mafia or other criminal organizations? Unless they have something you need or want badly…or unless they’re promising to keep secret something you don’t want known…

Random crazy person? Why target Filin specifically? Unless that’s part of the crazy pathology.

I think this comes down to three things:

  1. It should be interesting to watch this play out.
  2. If Russian law enforcement states that Filin staged his own attack, many many people are not going to believe it, no matter how strong the evidence is.
  3. Russia needs strict acid control laws.

Home of pirates, drunks, and whores.

Friday, January 18th, 2013

A federal grand jury on Friday indicted former Mayor Ray Nagin with 21 counts of corruption, alleging that while in office, Nagin took cash bribes and gifts from three city contractors and used his power as mayor to leverage a granite installation contract from Home Depot as the retailer was building a store in Central City. Despite New Orleans’ reputation for political shenanigans, Nagin is the first mayor in the city’s history to be indicted by a grand jury on corruption charges.

Six counts of bribery, one count of conspiracy, one count of money laundering, nine counts of “deprivation of honest services through wire fraud”, and four counts of filing false tax returns. NOLA.com has more details on the charges.

Let me say this about the subject: YOU’RE GOING DOWN IN FLAMES, YOU TAX-FATTENED HYENA!

(Subject line hattip.)

Random notes: January 18, 2013.

Friday, January 18th, 2013

A nine-month independent investigation determined that Billy Hunter failed in his fiduciary responsibilities as the executive director of the National Basketball Players Association and that the union’s executive board should consider replacing him.

Among other things:

  • Hunter got $1.3 million for “unused vacation time” without any review.
  • Hunter hired family and friends without disclosing that he had conflicts of interest.
  • Hunter invested “millions of dollars” in a bank that was failing; his son was a director.
  • Hunter “pursued ‘speculative’ business ventures.
  • Hunter bought expensive gifts for various people with union money.
  • Hunter “spent about $28,000 on personal legal fees for Charles Smith, the former executive of the National Basketball Retired Players Association.”

Hunter’s actions, while questionable, are not actually criminal, according to the report. But: “…Hunter’s contract, which is worth up to $18 million through 2017, is not ‘valid or enforceable.'”

Lawrence wrote yesterday about David Dewhurst’s top aide skimming $600,000 from his campaign, and wondered how you manage to miss $600,000. I have some of the same questions about this next story: a former bookkeeper scammed $100,000 from Masa, the high end Japanese restaurant in New York City.

Yeah, you’d figure it is easy for a bookkeeper to scam money, but it seems like this guy was really stupid:

The bookkeeper, Rafael Thomas, increased his own base salary to $86,000 from about $52,000, according to the indictment. He made company checks out to “Cash,” and cashed them himself, it said, and he skimmed an additional $44,000 from the daily receipts he was supposed to deposit in the bank.

No dummy suppliers? Just checks made out to “cash”? And:

A prosecutor said in court that Mr. Thomas spent $52,000 of the money he took on Internet pornography.

Sometimes, there’s just nothing you can say:

The Catholic priest busted for allegedly dealing crystal meth was suspended after church officials discovered he was a cross-dresser who was having sex in the rectory at Bridgeport’s St. Augustine Cathedral.

I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: I was WRONG!