June 17, 2002 – Brian.Carnell.Com

Shocking Results of Michigan Concealed Carry Law

Back in January 2001, anti-gun activist Sarah Brady issued a statement condemning Michigan Gov. John Engler for signing a concealed carry law. Brady promised that, “Mark my words: this insult to caring Michigan citizens will not go unnoticed, and will not be forgotten.” What has largely been forgotten, however, is Brady’s alarmist rhetoric.

July marks the one year anniversary of the law going into effect. The number of concealed weapons permits skyrocketed in the last 12 months, but the crime wave predicted by opponents of the bill has yet to materialize.

Before Engler signed that bill, there were 51,000 people with concealed weapons permits in Michigan. Today there are more than 100,000. So far, there does not seem to be a single crime attributable to an individual with a concealed weapon, which is consistent with what has happened in other states. Inevitably, of course, somebody is going to commit a crime with a weapon they are carrying under a concealed permit, but in other states people with concealed weapons permits have tended to commit crimes with their guns less frequently than off-duty police officers.

Significant numbers of women have applied for a concealed weapons permit. In Kalamazoo County, where I live, 20 percent of the applicants have been women.

Due to some quirks with the way the law was enacted, it would be almost impossible to repeal it in the forseeable future, and anti-gun groups have largely given up on such efforts.

Sources:

Weakening Michigan’s Concealed-Carry Law. Sarah Brady, January 3, 2001.

Gun permits up, but no problems yet. Craig McCool, Kalamazoo Gazette, June 16, 2002.

BBC’s History of Copyright Rows

The BBC has a nice look at the history of copyright contoversies, noting that, “Just as every generation thinks it is the first to discover sex, so every generation thinks it is the first to suffer problems with copyright and piracy.”

The amusing thing, of course, is that in the 19th century it was the United States that was a haven for such intellectual property pirates. The United States did not recognize copyrights on foreign works, and as a result works by British authors and composers were produced here without paying a dime of royalties to the authors.

Ironically, the United States now calls for sanctions against countries which adopt that sort of laissez-faire attitude toward copyrights.

Source:

RSS Feed Madness

I have to do some work on the best way to format it, but my anti-animal rights site now has more than 200 topical RSS feeds.

So, someone interested primarily in animal rights terrorism could subscribe to the terrorism feed, etc.

I like RSS and tools like Radio, but frankly few of the people who I really want to target with this are aware of the format or the tools. So the next step will be replicating all of those feeds in a Javascript format that most of the people I’m targeting will know how to use.

Thankfully, Conversant makes it relatively easy to set all of this stuff up — it only took me a couple hours to set up those hundreds of RSS feeds, and it will take a similar amount of time to do Javascript versions.

Very cool.

Brian Cass Awarded CBE

Huntingdon Life Sciences managing director Brian Cass has been appointed as a Commander in The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, the third-highest highest rank in the Order of the British Empire (and just shy of knighthood).

Cass was assaulted by violent animal rights thugs in 2001 and the award was seen by British commentators as a signal from the Labour government that it is serious about curtailing animal rights violence.

Along with Cass, a number of others in the pharmaceutical industry including Ian Pollock Sword, chairman of Inveresk Research, and GIll Samuels, of Pfizer, were appointed CBe.

Cass told The Times of London,

It [the award] is very special for me as an individual, but, much more importantly, there couldn’t be a clearer signal of support from the Government, and indeed from society for all those who are involved in research in this sector.

All our people share in this honour, as they have been so resolute in standing up to this pretty awful intimidation we have had to put up with for the past three or four years.

Richard Ley of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry agreed, telling The Times of London,

Brian deserves this award. It does send a very positive message to those who are involved in the research and development of medicines, and to those who conduct the animal experiments that are a vital part of that.

The BBC quoted an unnamed spokesperson for the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection criticizing the award,

I am appalled that in the face of growing public concern that the government has made this symbolic award. It shows the extent of HLS’s high-level support.

Greg Avery of Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty said that,

It’s disgusting that someone who causes 500 animal deaths every single day should be awarded a CBE. ‘It casts a long shadow over people who have been awarded them for good reasons. It’s not Tony Blair’s voice we hear now but that of the global companies for whom he has become a mouthpiece.’

And, of course, there were politicians displaying the sort of “lets give in to the extremist” attitudes that are driving medical research out of Great Britain. Norman Baker, the Liberal Democrats’ Home Affairs spokesman, said of the award,

I’m very surprised. It’s a political statement by the Prime Minister to demonstrate his commitment to science, but it’s probably ill-judged and unduly provocative. Tony Blair is right to say we must support science but he must recognize that what’s been done at HLS is extremely controversial.

Yeah, do not do anything “unduly provocative” while animal rights extremists are busy assaulting pharmaceutical company employees and driving pharmaceutical companies to the United States and elsewhere. Just appease them and hope they’ll go away. Yeah, that’s a winning strategy.

Sources:

CBE for animal test boss. Mark Milner, The Guardian (London), June 15, 2002.

Scientists praise CBE for battered boss of animal research labs. Mark Henderson, The Times (London), June 15, 2002.

Controversial lab director gets award. The BBC, June 15, 2002.

Head of animal research laboratory appointed CBE. Christopher Adams and Krishna Guha, The Financial Times (London), June 15, 2002.

Fury at CBE for Huntingdon boss. Lucy McDonald, ThisIsMoney.Com, June 16, 2002.

A Title IX Lawsuit Over Women’s Restrooms

Ann Arbor lawyer Jean King recently filed a lawsuit against the University of Michigan over the women’s restrooms at the recently renovated Hill Auditorium.

Michigan’s building codes require one toilet per 65 female patrons and 125 toilets per male patron. So when renovating the hall, the university sat down and figured out how many people would attend a sold-out show at the auditorium. It then reasoned that if half the patrons were men and half were women it would need 29 toilets for the women and 15 for the men to comply with the building codes. The restrooms finally built included 30 toilets for women and 22 for men.

Not good enough for King who says that anything less than two women’s toilets for every men’s toilet is a violation of Title IX’s proscriptions against sex discrimination in educational institutes.

King told the Ann Arbor News that if more women’s toilets are not added,

Our daughters, granddaughters and great-granddaughters will no doubt still be waiting in line at Hill past the end of the intermission.

The university says that there simply is not any room for additional restroom facilities in the 89-year old auditorium.

And people wonder why Title IX is increasingly viewed with such hostility.

Source:

U-M faces restroom complaint. Peri Stone-Palmquist, Ann Arbor News, June 12, 2002.