Breaking Bad, Breaking Worse...

Its interesting that New Mexico was so proud of the TV series "Breaking Bad" which of course extolled the horrific violence that plagues this state in large part due to the drug trade and drug addiction (compounded with poor education, lousy jobs, and poverty, all of which, across the USA, breeds drug abuse). Crystal meth is one of the more violence-inducing of the various drugs that plagues us. But New Mexico's pride in that TV series was basically all about the money that the series brought to the state; the estimate in the link above was about 700k per episode. At 62 episodes, that was about 42 million bucks. Plus or minus the usual smoke and mirrors when the government auctions off tax dollars to bring in business.

The real cost of "Breaking Bad"
Michelle Martens, from the Abq Journal

 Of course the cost of the real meth epidemic is far higher. One RAND study put the U.S. social cost of crystal meth addiction at 23 billion dollars. Scaled just on the basis of population, that would mean that meth costs New Mexico somewhat more than an order of magnitude more than the movie brought in. Some deal.

Aside from the financial cost there is the social one. Fabian Gonzales, Michelle Martens, and Jessica Kelly epitomize the worst of the worst of the meth epidemic. I won't repeat what they did here. Go read about it if you want to lose lunch.  Their crime, as well as other recent henious acts, have resulted in calls to reintroduce the death penalty. These folks sure are the poster children for such a fate.  But all the death penalties in the world will not deter people who have sunk so low; killing them will not bring little Victoria Martens back from the grave. What we really need is to spend more on social services to save kids like Victoria from our worst elements and to try to interdict the drug scourge to keep potentially good people from circling the bowl--and taking others with them. The staggering cost of a capital punishment trial is throwing good money after bad and we don't have money to waste in New Mexico.

"A society where citizens maintain the right to bear arms must maintain a gun culture that instills the corresponding obligation to preserve life"  -Ben Peterson

A society where citizens maintain the right to bear arms must maintain a gun culture that instills the corresponding obligation to preserve life. - See more at: https://home.isi.org/node/68882#sthash.9ER0cxWG.dpuf

A society where citizens maintain the right to bear arms must maintain a gun culture that instills the corresponding obligation to preserve life. - See more at: https://home.isi.org/node/68882#sthash.9ER0cxWG.dpuf

Most of the people in New Mexico are good folks. But it only takes a few of the rotten ones to ruin it for us. Going back to that gun raffle in Otero County, it would not bother me in the least if 100 people who were peaceful, law abiding members of a gun culture won some guns. Hurray for them! Even a high capacity AR or God forbid, that "sniper rifle" Barrett 50BMG (basically, it is a large caliber, long range and very accurate rifle--the military use is sniping and light anti-vehicle; I would have to take it to the Whittington Center to really exercise the thing). What makes me pause is that we are all held hostage to the lowest of the low.  I once blogged that we in the firearms community should never sell a gun to someone we do not know well without going through a background check. I'll say it again here: if one of those guns ends up being flipped to a third party and used in a nasty crime, the United Way will be wearing the hair shirt. Its up to the gun community to push for high standards; blunderbuss gun laws don't do that. If we don't lead the way, as Ben Peterson says so well, we will be punished by laws and political attacks that assume low standards.

But Gonzales, Martens, and Kelly did not use a firearm to commit one of the most heinous crimes that New Mexico can remember (and that is a stiff competition). Their prey was so helpless they did not need to resort to engineered violence. For others in our underworld, whether gangs, drug dealers, or disaffected spouses, guns are a tool of trade and violence. But the usual suggestions for gun laws primarily affect law abiding gun owners. The solutions to gun violence, as well as violence in general, is not to further saddle good citizens with poorly thought through laws and regulations. We need to solve the social ills that damn us and in addition, recruit the gun owning community to help draft policies that keep guns out of the wrong hands because as long as we have the war on drugs, poverty, and income inequality, to name just three things, we will have the wrong hands with us.

You are blocked from following @CeasefireOregon and viewing @CeasefireOregon's tweets

Khalil Spencer ‏@khalil_spencer

@CeasefireOregon Five rounds is high capacity??? Whose def? A lot of your proposals are harassment if not unproven or both.

Yep. This post got me blocked.  Support common sense query control.

Added later. I posted this comment to Greg Camp's critique of the NMPGV Huffington article.


"A society where citizens maintain the right to bear arms must maintain a gun culture that instills the corresponding obligation to preserve life"-Ben Peterson, in "Gun Availability Isn't Gun Culture", Intercollegiate Review, Fall 2015

As far as a gun raffle, it would not bother me in the least if 100 people who are peaceful (caveat: peaceful people can use lawful violence in self defense), law abiding members of a gun culture win some guns. Good for them. Even those high capacity ARs or God forbid, that "sniper rifle" Barrett 50BMG (If I won it, I would have to take it to the Whittington Center to really exercise the thing--its not a good beginner's gun!)

What makes me pause is that we are all held hostage to the lowest of the low. I once blogged that in my opinion, we in the firearms community should never sell a gun to someone we do not know without going through a background check. I'll say it again here: if one of those raffle guns ends up being flipped to a less than stellar third party and used in a nasty crime, the United Way will be wearing the hair shirt.

Its up to the gun community to push for high standards of gun ownership because blunderbuss gun laws don't do any good. If we don't lead the way, as Ben Peterson says so well, we will be punished by laws and political attacks that assume low standards.

My problem with the Huffington piece is that it doesn't draw a distinction between responsible gun ownership and a gun raffle. It pretty much begs the question that these guns will become "instruments of mayhem" rather than challenging us to make sure that they do not go that route. If the question is whether these guns will be responsibly owned and responsibly sold (if they are sold), that is a good question that the Otero County folks need to assert. No one else can do that for them.

I've lived with guns for over fifty years. They don't jump off tables and do bad things. They are at the will of their owners. Those 100 folks who win guns must live up to their responsibilities as members of Ben Peterson's gun culture. If so, we are OK.

Exasperation has its limits--I'm taking out futures in clothespins

To the Daily Post

The unsigned letter from the Los Alamos GOP and Dr. Reilly's letter about Hillary Clinton are not up to the standards I expect in this community. Just a few comments.

Under the U.S. Supreme Court case Communications Workers of America v. Beck (1988) non-union members in a union shop do not have to pay for union political activity but only that part of the dues that go to representation with the employer. Union members vote on what political activity their union will become involved with through their own representatives such as union board members. I was once a union board member.

The Second Amendment will not fall if open carry is not allowed. In the landmark Heller vs. D.C. et al decision, the Court stated "...Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose..."; the court let stand many state laws regulating the personal possession of arms.

So we don't need the disastrous candidate Donald Trump to protect us from encroachments on the Second Amendment or to keep union workers from being fleeced by union leadership.

As far as Hillary Clinton and Servergate, FBI Director Comey's crystal clear statements indicated Clinton's mishandling of classified material. Comey's statement was reviewed in these words by the New York Times:  "...Of 30,000 emails Mrs. Clinton handed over to the State Department, 110 contained information that was classified at the time she sent or received them. Of those, Mr. Comey said, “a very small number” bore markings that identified them as classified. This finding is at odds with Mrs. Clinton’s repeated assertions that none of the emails were classified at the time she sent or received them. The F.B.I. did not disclose the topics of the classified emails..."

Four Pinocchios

   Indeed Los Alamos is the last place on earth where one would want to misstate the definition of, or responsibilities of handling, classified matter. Regardless of her early life as a middle class tomboy, etc., etc., Clinton as Secretary of State was careless, pure and simple. And I won't even get into the Clinton Foundation or what she said to Wall Street execs for a quarter million dollars a pop, as that has not been revealed.

In an election where most of us will be holding our nose as we vote for president, the least we can do is clearly understand the issues. Both parties need to do better.

Be The First One On Your Block To Have Your Kid Come Home With a Glock

With apologies to Country Joe and the Fish. And, thanks to my wife Meena for making the connection. And, not to single out Glock. Its just that it rhymes.

A bit of a dustup over the United Way of Otero County raffling off guns to raise money. New Mexicans to Prevent Gun Violence protested, saying this violated the United Way rules that exclude fundraising involving alcohol, firearms, tobacco, adult entertainment and gaming products. But then UW backed off and the raffle is on. The NRA rejoiced. More guns, better world. America's Maslow's Gun wins again.

As usual, I come down somewhere in between everyone else and suggest a graded approach. Looking at the list of guns to raffle off by the UW affiliate, here was my comment, slightly edited for clarity, lack of profanity, and because I keep editing everything, to United Way and NMPGV.

To: Miranda Viscoli, Co-president, NM To Prevent Gun Violence
Brian Gallagher, President, United Way
MacKenzie Allen, NMPGV
From: Khal Spencer, Firearms owner and NMPGV

 I looked at the  list of firearms being raffled by the Otero County UW.

Most of the guns are everyday guns. But of course an everyday gun is only as safe as whoever owns it. I would hope that if someone wins an everyday gun, there is an attempt to make sure the person has basic knowledge of safe firearms handling. Of course, the gun shop is responsible for NICS background checks.

The Bushmasters (and civilian versions of military assault rifles in general) are always a point of contention. I think they are interesting guns but refuse to buy one on general principles.  Personally, I wish they were never marketed to the civilian market or if they were, under restrictions analogous to those that cover machine guns, i.e., a National Firearms Act item. With millions out there, we need to make sure law abiding owners respect them and prohibited persons don't get them. I would actually prefer that if someone is going to get an AR, they pay full freight.

The Barrett (it is an M-95) is the one that would worry me. That fires a 50 cal round that is lethal at extreme ranges of several miles and if used carelessly (I know of a couple people who own similar arms and are quite respectful and careful of them), can be a problem. If I were United Way, I would not want to raffle off a military grade gun that could kill at several miles and then read about it in the paper when someone has no idea what is downrange, like another town. Or, if someone flips it to a unknown third party to turn a fifty dollar raffle ticket into 10k in the bank. Plus, I strongly suspect a 50 BMG firearm is not protected under Heller's “in common use at the time” clause in section (2).

I have a particular bone to pick with raffling off a Barrett and not knowing if the winner would know the muzzle from the breech. When we lived in Hawaii, we were about a mile and a half from a civilian rifle range at Koko Head. One day we came home from the University, where Meena and I both were faculty members, and there was drywall dust on the floor and a hole in the roof. I put a stick through the hole and it pointed to the range.  Range officer said there was no way a civilian from his range could do that, so we called the police and the cops called a forensic firearms investigator, who used a fiber optics probe to get the bullet out of an interior wall where it had come to rest. Turns out the bullet was the tungsten core of a military, armor piercing 50 cal BMG round. The range officer confessed and said he let some Air Force guys practice with a Barrett on the civilian range (which was illegal) and obviously someone missed the backstop. The bullet flew all the way across a densely populated residential valley to our house and penetrated the roof and an interior wall. Air Force eventually paid for the damages but that damn bullet lodged in a wall two feet from where Meena used to sit and grade papers.

So. As a gun guy myself, my admonition to United Way is this: Is UW confident that selling military grade hardware to raffle winners is safe, even if it is legal?

Added much later. Rather than getting into a dustup over gun rights vs. gun control, two things are relevant here. One, this appears to have violated United Way's own rules and an officer at another UW affiliate (Santa Fe) working on gun violence prevention is justified in calling them on it. Two, if you are going to raffle off guns up to and including semiautomatic assault style rifles and a Barrett 50BMG rifle, someone worried about those guns in civilian hands is going to challenge it. If I were the President of UW, I would, at minimum, ditch the Barrett. Maybe even the ARs. If someone wants a 50 BMG, let them pay full freight. Generally, that means that the only folks who own them really do appreciate their capabilities.  As well as the cost of ammo.

And of course, since I love the song.