A couple of notes on Piers Morgan's show from Monday night

"305 post conviction since 1989 have been exonerated."  These exonerations also involved many crimes that occurred long before 1989.  Even just since 1989 there have been over 32 million violent crimes committed between 1989 and 2011.  I could look up the number of people convicted over that period of time, but even if it is about six or seven million, the exoneration rate is so trivial the only conclusion is that the legal system has obviously been working very well.  It is probably lower than 0.005%.  Suppose that only a quarter of those cases have DNA evidence available.  The exoneration rate is still no higher than 0.02%.  To put it differently, at least over 99.98% of the violent criminals were guilty.  That is not perfect, but it is hard to think of a system that has that low of an error rate.

The saving money claim from eliminating the death penalty is completely specious.  One thing that Ms. Clifton didn't include in her numbers is that there are plea bargains that occur because prosecutors have the death penalty as a potential threat.  If someone is obviously guilty of a murder and he is going to get life in prison either way, the criminal is going to trial.  It gets him out of prison for a week or two and he gets something different to do.  Murder trials, even when the penalty involves life in prison, are extremely costly.

On the gun issue, I would have said: the murder rates vary across countries for lots of reasons, but one thing is clear: gun bans cause murder rates to rise.  They still might be lower than the US, but they were even lower before they had those gun control laws.

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Obama to push for UN Arms Trade Treaty in Senate

The Obama administration kept promising that the treaty would only be approved by unanimity, but, of course, the president broke that promise.  From The Hill newspaper:

The Obama administration defied a majority of the Senate on Tuesday by voting to approve a United Nations treaty on the trade of small arms and other conventional weapons. 

The treaty, overwhelmingly approved by the U.N., requires countries to create internal mechanisms to ensure that their arms exports aren’t likely to be used to harm civilians or violate human rights laws. 

President Obama is expected to sign the treaty within the next few months, but it faces a tough road to win the two-thirds majority support needed in the Senate for approval.  

It is opposed by the National Rifle Association, which argues the accord violates the Second Amendment by regulating small arms, such as rifles and handguns, and calling for the creation of an “end-user registry.” 

Fifty-three senators voiced their disapproval late last month by voting in favor of a nonbinding amendment to a Senate budget resolution to stop the U.S. from entering the treaty. . . .

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Note how Democrats price penalties for not buying insurance when they really want people to buy insurance

With the cost of insurance at up to $2,000, Democrats put the fine for note having insurance at $10,000.  Compare that to Obamacare where the fines for not having insurance are less than a quarter of the costs for people whose income is at $50,000.  My interpretation is that Democrats are not serious about people getting health insurance, but they are serious of stopping people from owning guns.

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Yet another tax for buying guns in Chicago

With licensing and registration fees and training costs, this additional tax is part of the overall burden put on people.  From the Chicago Tribune:

People buying guns in Cook County will pay an extra $25 for each weapon under a new tax that goes into effect today. 

Although the tax has been challenged in court, County Board President Toni Preckwinkle heralded it during a news conference in Pilsen, where she was surrounded by gun safety advocates, the family of gun violence victims and clergy.
“We cannot allow gun violence to become commonplace,” Preckwinkle said, calling gun violence an “epidemic. 

The $600,000 the tax is expected to raise this year would help defray the costs of treating indigent gunshot victims at Stroger Hospital, county officials have said. The taxpayer-funded public hospital treats about 670 gunshot victims each year at an average cost of $52,000, Preckwinkle said. . . .

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NRA's proposal for school safety

A copy of their report is available here.  From Fox News:

Hutchinson, though, did call for the creation of a 40-60 hour training program for armed officers. To accompany that, his group proposed a "model" state law that would allow certain personnel who have undergone this training to carry weapons on school grounds.  

"This is not talking about all teachers," he said. "Teachers should teach."  

The 225-page report also called for states to require schools to conduct a safety assessment and for a pilot program to be created assessing mental health as a pre-indicator for violence. . . .

Besides being costly, having armed officers at schools makes them a target for these killers.  There is a big benefit if the killers don't know who they have to worry about.

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The cost of mandated insurance for gun owners

From Fox News:

In Illinois, the House rejected a measure 34-74 that would require people carrying concealed weapons to also carry $1 million in liability insurance. Chicago Democrat Kenneth Dunkin was behind the defeated bill. He said an insurance policy would cost between $500 to $2,000, but Illinois Republicans successfully argued the costs were too high for citizens exercising their constitutional right to carry a gun, and the bill was defeated. . . . .

Guess who is going to pay the highest insurance premiums: Poor people who live in high crime urban areas.  Meanwhile in Congress there is a push to mandate such insurance.

A New York Democratic lawmaker is behind a national push that would force gun owners to buy liability insurance or face a $10,000 fine.
The Firearm Risk Protection Act, pushed by Rep. Carolyn Maloney and seven co-sponsors, follows efforts at the state level to create the controversial new kind of insurance for gun owners.  . . . . 

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As people learn more about the proposed gun laws, they are less supportive

Is the drop in support for gun control since shortly after Newtown due to memories fading or that people learn more about the legislation?  The media and Democrats always claim it is the former, but it isn't obvious how they can be certain about that.  Note for example how Democrats in New York and elsewhere feel the need to push through regulations before people even have a chance to read the legislation.  They seem to fear people being able to read the gun control bills.  From CBS News:

Currently, support for stricter gun control laws stands at 47 percent today, down from a high of 57 percent just after the shootings. Thirty-nine percent want those laws kept as they are, and another 11 percent want them made less strict. . . .

Indeed, if you look at the CBS News poll when it was done at other times, support for more gun control has only been lower at one other point during the previous six polls.

An earlier CNN also showed a similar drop.  

Although a majority of Americans favored major restrictions on guns or an outright ban in the wake of the shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, when a heavily armed gunman killed 20 young students and six adults, a new CNN/ORC International survey indicates that support has tumbled to just 43%, as more time has passed since that December tragedy. . . .

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