Sunday, January 23, 2011
Numbers
Regular commenter Bomber Girl sent along a graphical compendium of factoids from the Atlantic. I have circled the items that are either interesting or problematic, as in suspect. Of course, your results may vary.
Specifically: How did the number of minutes a day that teenagers spend "reading" decline so much? Did the ammo tax go up, is the gummint doing a better job of collecting the existing tax, or are ammo sales actually up that much? Much as we all like complaining about Dubya's spendiness, as a percentage of GDP his last deficit was less than 20% as big as Obama's. The number of active militias has tripled? I blame Sarah Palin. The rate of violent crime is dropping even as the economy gets worse. Poverty might not be the whole story after all. And look at that savings rate!
Click here for a bigger version.
8 Comments:
By 
, at
Sun Jan 23, 07:16:00 AM:
Based on exchanges with two close friends in a position to know (one an ardent hunter, the other a very active competitive shooter) ammo sales and prices skyrocketed pretty much across the board simultaneously with Barry O taking office. Real Second Amendment types - i.e. those who walk the walk as opposed to those like me who just talk the talk - did not trust the combination of a BHO White House and a Pelosi-Reid congress. Not one bit.
By 
JPMcT, at
Sun Jan 23, 07:49:00 AM:
This just tells us what we already know...that the only job sector that is showing any growth is the Federal Government, that people don't trust said government as far as they can throw it and protecting Obama from angry citizens is a growth industry.
Oh...and the compulsory Sarah Palin jab that is the sine qua non of a modern journalistic endeavor.
By Simon Kenton, at
Sun Jan 23, 09:10:00 AM:
For months you could not get ammo in popular calibers. Sporting goods stores instituted rationing; you could only get 4 boxes. When it came in it was gone. Components, especially primers, were backlisted for months, and some of the most desirable types are still very slow to ship, as well as much more expensive. Metals prices have lifted the price of bullets and cases. Whatever his endless failings as a patriot and a president, Obama is the greatest gun and ammo salesman the world has yet seen.
By Neil Sinhababu, at
Sun Jan 23, 01:58:00 PM:
I wonder if "reading" was defined to exclude reading stuff on the internet. Since a lot more stuff is on the internet now, "reading" under that definition has probably declined.
Locker Room -- and still they can buy their guns and ammo just as they could before. The NRA has won. They control the whole GOP and enough of the Democratic party that Obama and a Democratic Congress can't push things leftward on that issue. The really brilliant thing about the NRA is that they don't let their membership realize this, so they can still be terrified into thinking their guns might be taken away if they don't do as the NRA asks.
By TigerHawk, at
Sun Jan 23, 02:04:00 PM:
The really brilliant thing about the NRA is that they don't let their membership realize this, so they can still be terrified into thinking their guns might be taken away if they don't do as the NRA asks.
It isn't just the NRA, though. Hunting in the US is increasingly a working man's pastime. Most Americans are comfortable with guns in their lives, including many natural constituents of the Democrats, but most professional elites are not. There may be no bigger class fault line than on the gun question, but the chattering classes, who are disproportionately left of center, not only do not understand this point, they rebel against its very suggestion. The result is alienation. Even if the NRA vanished tomorrow, this would still be a huge issue.
By , at
Tue Jan 25, 07:22:00 AM:
"The number of active militia's have tripled"
Didn't DHS (or a political operative withing DHS) initially list the numerous Tea Party groups as a threat.
By Dawnfire82, at
Tue Jan 25, 01:33:00 PM:
Yeah, I'd like to know how they classify "active militias."
Not long ago, a state agency classified the Oathkeepers as an anti-government militia. If you've never heard of them, they are a group of people who all work for the government (or did, as they accept veterans) and make an 'oath' to refuse orders from the government they feel are illegal. Things like mass confiscation of property, or imposition of martial law on a state.
So working for the government and refusing (wildly) illegal orders in a semi-formal way now classifies you as a member of an 'anti-government militia.'
But what do you expect? These are people who claim the power to stop time itself, so long as it comes to fighting the Republican menace.
http://www.npr.org/2011/01/25/133193557/democrats-stopped-the-clock-will-they-alter-rules
By PACNW Righty, at
Tue Jan 25, 05:25:00 PM:
I’d be interested in knowing whether the drop in violent crimes has anything to do with the increase in gun ownership. Anecdotal evidence does seem to support this. Bad guys aren’t going to attack someone who can and will fight back with possible deadly force.
