The authors hark from the Independence Institute in Colorado, a "free enterprise" advocacy body that is resolutely opposed to seat belts and nastiness such as gun control. Kopel for example authored 'Human Rights Atrocities: The Consequences of United Nations Gun Confiscation in East Africa' and 'Mandatory Seat Belt Laws Cause Dangerous Driving, and Invade Privacy', the latter replete with treats such as -
no jurisdiction that has passed a seat belt law has shown evidence of a reduction in road accident deaths. To explore this odd but highly robust finding, experimenters asked volunteers to drive five horsepower go-karts with and without seat belts. They found that those wearing seat belts drove their karts faster. While this does not prove that car drivers do the same, it points in that direction.Mr Kopel might want to look at the Australian data regarding seatbelts ... or any consumer and occupational health & safety measures. In an earlier article the authors announced that "Guns Don't Kill People, Gun Control Kills People". Presumably getting rid of gun control will stop the killing. Guns, it seems, are good.
The authors indicate that -
Currently, the United Nations is drafting an Arms Trade Treaty to impose strict controls on firearms and other weapons. In support of hasty adoption of the Treaty, a UN-related organization of Treaty supporters is has produced a report claiming that armed violence is responsible for 740,000 deaths annually. This Article carefully examines the claim. We find that the claim is based on dubious assumptions, cherry-picking data, and mathematical legerdemain which is inexplicably being withheld from the public. The refusal to disclose the mathematical calculations used to create the 740,000 factoid is itself cause for serious suspicion; our own calculations indicate that the 740,000 figure is far too high. Further, while the report claims that 60% of homicides are perpetrated with firearms, our review of the data on which report claimed to rely yields a 22% rate. The persons responsible for the report have refused to release their homicide calculations, or any other calculations. This Article also shows how a narrow focus on restricting firearms ownership continues to distract international attention from life-saving, viable solutions. We propose some practical alternatives which have already saved lives in war-ravaged areas.One might well quibble about the source data, its interpretation and its exploitation by different advocacy groups.
Having said that - and putting aside the touch of conspiracism ("mathematical legerdemain which is inexplicably being withheld", unanswered email to academics) - one response might be to suggest that the authors are missing the point in relation to the arms trade and to question the "life-saving, viable solutions". The latter, it seems, involve readier access to firearms (on the basis that people won't be killed if they have guns of their own) and use of efficient mercenaries (in contrast to the inefficient mercenaries deployed by the nasty nasty UN).
The authors resort to rhetoric such as -
The United Nations’ obsession with gun control serves a political purpose: distracting public attention from dictatorships that cause violent deaths. In our example of the accidental canal bombing, the destruction of the canal, and the subsequent cholera epidemic, might not have been intended by anyone. Yet the truth is that a huge number of indirect deaths are deliberately caused by governments or by other warring factions. ... In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the blame for the millions of direct and indirect deaths should not be placed on guns, but on the UN's stubborn reliance, for decades, on a failed policy premised on the existence of a sovereign, unitary DR Congo.In dealing conflicts in Africa, give the people guns, or hire efficient mercenaries -
the UN’s own "army" is, in essence, itself a mercenary army, albeit an especially bad one. The UN forces are overwhelmingly composed of soldiers from countries such as Pakistan, Sri Lanka, India, Morocco, and Bangladesh that rent their soldiers to the UN. The governments pocket the difference between their soldiers' low rate of pay, and the rental rate which the UN pays the governments. The contrasting performance of the large, near-worthless UN mercenary army and the highly effective Executive Action mercenary army directly points to a solution for protection of humanitarian aid workers. Instead of relying on the UN's mercenaries, hire mercenaries who have a proven record of success. A politically incorrect solution, to be sure. But as events in Sierra Leone demonstrated, it is a solution which can save many innocent civilians, and which can help protect the humanitarian workers and thereby save civilian lives.Bring on the contractors from Blackwater? After that it's unsurprising to read the call by Independence Institute President Jon Caldara for donations -
Defend Colorado from Obama Care! On Sunday, March 21st, the US House of Representatives passed what we call "Obama-care." This is one of the darkest moments in American history. The federal government has taken a large step towards control of our healthcare, and with it control of our very bodies. The federal government is taking away our decisions over health insurance and, unprecedented in history, forcing citizens to purchase private products, ultimately under penalty of incarceration. We at the Independence Institute refuse to watch this atrocity corrode the quality of healthcare in Colorado. For months we have been at work bringing forward an amendment to the Colorado Constitution to preserve as a basic human right our "Right to Health Care Choice." It is my goal to make Colorado a sanctuary state for quality healthcare."Darkest moments"? "Unprecedented in history"? Really. Blame it on the little black helicopters, fluoridation and the shortage of alfoil beanies, perhaps. Promoting the sacred right to carry a Saturday Night Special or evade tax apparently doesn't come with a clear disclosure by the Institute of where it gets its funds and what it does with them. Care to dot the is and cross the ts might be expected when the authors are so pernickety about the deficiencies of other people's data collection/analysis and prone to insinuating a cover-up. Is the Independence Institute getting money from small arms manufacturers? Arms dealers? Munitions suppliers ("guns don't kill people, bullets do")? It's not clear ... and we might reasonably look for the same sort of disclosure from the authors that they appear to expect from the people with whom they disagree and whom they condemn for not adequately responding to their email.
