CalicoPenn

"I do find it hypocritical for our president to suggest that trained guards in schools are a bad idea when his children are protected." It's easy to call a person a hypocrite if you lie about his position in the first place. President Obama never said have trained and armed guards in schools was a bad idea. There are folks from the left side of the aisle, and therefore presumed supporters of President Obama who have suggested that, but neither President Obama, nor his administration, has ever come out and said guards in schools is a bad idea. What President Obama said was the having armed guards in schools is not the ONLY solution. That recognizes that having armed guards in the schools is A solution or could be part of the solution, but it does not say that having armed guards in the school is a bad idea. He then backed that up with a proposal to fund 1,000 police resource officers (guards) for school districts that wanted them, without forcing school districts to take them. The NRA ad lied about President Obama's position - that alone should be enough for people to call them out on their BS. That folks believe it without doing a basic amount of research to see if what the ad says is true is just sad. As for the question they ponder, the answer is, yes, your kids deserve that same level of protection if you or they are receiving death threats every day of your lives, but if you're not? Then no, you don't need 24 hour a day secret service protection and stop being so paranoid.

What makes you think these nutters aren't the same folks that are climate change deniers, birthers and those that still believe Iraq has WMD's?(This message has been edited by calicopenn)

What's asinine is starting the thread by talking about how violent video games is the real problem, then saying it's a thread on mental health issues, then bringing in family relations to the discussion. So where's the discussion on mental health?

Kathy, Yes, you can ask for a new Unit Commissioner. You don't even have to have as good a reason as you do. A unit can ask for a new Unit Commissioner any time they want. If the District Commissioner refuses, you tell the District Commissioner that the current Unit Commissioner is no longer welcome to attend any meetings or contact any members of the Troop for Scouting purposes, whether Scout, parent or leader. In fact, you're better off having the COR tell the District Commissioner this and informing the DC that if the UC shows up at a meeting, the police will be called and the US will be removed from the property and charged with trespassing. Usually it doesn't get to this point. In the meantime, you ignore the current UC. If they show up, you say you don't have time for them right now, to call for an appointment and you will decide if you wich to meet with them.

There is no constitutional ban on taxes for newspapers under first amendment grounds. If that were the case, sales taxes couldn't be charged for magazines, books and movies. In fact, at least 17 states, and the District of Columbia, have a tax on newspaper circulation income and California has been charging sales tax on newspapers since the Pete Wilson administration.

Ahh, so the issue is that violent video games are causing mental health problems, is that it? I've only seen one study trying to showing a correlation between violent video games and mental health issues, specifically addiction and depression, and there are concerns about the methodology used to come to it's conclusions, and it didn't try to make a link between gaming and violence.

Here's the difference - I'm not implying that guns are the only problem, nor am I suggesting that violent video games aren't part of the problem. I'm saying we need to discuss all of it, guns, video games, movies, family, mental health, schools - the whole kit-and-kaboodle, and stop treating guns like the 1,200 pound gorilla in the room that everyone tiptoes around. As for the NRA, no doubt, the non-lobbying arm of the NRA does a lot of good - unfortunately, the lobbying arm of the NRA, with it's rigid black-and-white views of the issues, makes the entire organization look bad. So now that President Obama has signed 23 Executive Orders that don't take away anyones guns (as the fear-mongers were claiming), what do folks think of the administrations plans?

So having guns so widely available that they easily fall into hands of people who shouldn't have them isn't the real problem, violent video games is the real problem? Well then we could start by asking the NRA to pull the shoot-em-up app they just released (on the one month anniversary of the Sandy Hook shootings no less). Until the NRA and gun owners understand that guns are part of the real problem and that guns have got to be part of the discussion, then we aren't going to really get anywhere.

So then the question becomes is it a good idea to pass gun free zone laws that allow churches, schools, movie theaters, restaurants, shopping malls, amusement parks, zoos, museums, and other places where large numbers of unrelated people gather to declare themselves a gun free zone if they wish or not? When you start to blame gun free zones as part of the problem, then you are claiming that the law doesn't work because criminals don't obey the law. You aren't arguing whether the law is a good idea or not. The problem is folks not understanding the intent of the gun free zone laws. It's not about the criminals. It's about balancing the rights of private property owners and of people that don't carry guns on public property with the rights of those who wish to carry guns.

JoeBob's done it - he's made me see the light. Praise be to Jebus (not a mispelling)! The death penalty doesn't deter people from killing other people, and neither do long prison sentences. Fines don't deter people from speeding. Loss of licenses don't deter people from drinking and driving. Jail time doesn't deter people from committing crimes. Financial penalties don't deter people from committing fraud. Heck, the secret is out - penalties just don't work, and since penalties don't work, our laws are worthless, and since laws are worthless, we may as well get rid of all of them. I'm ready Joe Bob - I'm ready to live in a world without rules - bring on the lawlessness - It's time to rob a few banks! (The preceding is sarcasm, it does not represent the actual wishes of CalicoPenn, the BSA, the SCOUTER Forums, or any sane, thinking, rational humans on the platform we call Reality)

Scenario - a yahoo wants to get on the highway and drive at 100 miles an hour - the speed limit isn't going to stop him, and the additional laws (which most states have) that add penalties for excessive speeding isn't going to stop him, so why bother to have those laws at all. Scenario - an idiot decides to manufacture meth in a house next to a school - drug-free school zones (which tend to extend well beyond the school properties borders) aren't going to stop him - isn't the penalty for manufacturing meth enough, is it really necessary to add charges for manufacturing meth in a school zone? Let me say it again - laws aren't followed by criminals - if they were following the laws, they wouldn't be criminals, would they? Laws are created to allow us to continue to live as civilized people in an otherwise brutal world. Just because criminals aren't going to follow gun free zone laws doesn't mean we should just dispose of gun free zone laws. We already know criminals aren't going to pay attention to laws. No, they're meant for us, the law abiding folks, as a contract between us that we will follow these laws because it contributes to the civilized society we want to live in. If you get a CCW permit, you agree to abide by certain laws, including following gun free zone laws. It already a given that criminals, being criminals, are going to ignore that - the question is, do you remain a law-abiding citizen and follow the law or do you become a law breaker and ignore the law because you think that since criminals aren't going to follow the law, you shouldn't have to follow it either?

It's not an issue - it's a distraction, a way for the gun lobby to throw their blind followers a stripped down bone and convince them it has some meat on it. Not all states will let private property owners declare their private property a gun free zone either - Florida has a law that requires certain types of facilities, including shopping malls, to allow concealed weapons. The sponsor included amusement parks as well, fully intending that folks would be allowed to carry concealed guns into Dsney World. Someone added an amendment that would exempt facilities that stored explosives and it sailed right through. I'd suggest imagining the chagrin of the sponsor when Disney banned weapons and pointed out that they do a nightly fireworks show and that fireworks are legally classified as an explosive except you can probably still find stories that you can read that reports on his chagrin.

"Does not the fact that 90% of mass shootings in public places take place where guns are legally or otherwise prohibited tell you anything?" Does not the fact that 100% of mass shootings in public places take place where large numbers of unrelated people come together? It's a real stretch to say that mass shooters considers whether someplace is a gun free zone or not in making their decision where to start shooting people, particularly since there is no hard date to support such a notion.

So what's the point of all these comparisons to other countries anyway? Is it "Don't sweat it because it happens in other countries too" or is it "Let's not bother trying to solve this because other countries can't solve it either" or is it "So what, it happens in other countries too". Ya know, no offense to fine folks like CambridgeSkip but I really don't give a rats patootie if other countries have had the same problems too - its up to them to solve their problems - and in the meantime, let's be the United States of America that the other countries look to for leadership and just come to the table with everything up for discussion and compromise and try to solve the dang problem - and no whining that gu laws aren't going to solve anything because we already have 24,000 gun laws and criminals don't follow the law - we already know criminals don't follow laws - that's what makes them criminals - we pass laws to ensure that we all can live in a civilized society - the alternative is no laws and anarchy.

This is what happens when you create bylaws when you don't need them in the first place. Bylaws govern the administration of organizations including who can be members, what are the offices, who can vote, time and place of voting, how to amend the by-laws and how to dissolve the organization. The BSA (and the chartering organization within the BSA's guidelines) already tell you that so bylaws are not needed. But you've got them now so you're stuck with them I guess. Simple solution, just put what the JAG requires in your bylaws. You don't have to vote on it, you don't have to discuss it, you just put it in and inform folks that the bylaws have been amended by order of the JAG's office. It's no different than if the CO had told you to make a change in your bylaws, you just do it and if folks don't like it, you let them know that you'll forward their kids records on to whatever new unit they choose to send their kids to. The alternative is, of course, to find a place to meet that is not on the base.

Since he who should never be named in order to present an argument has been named, let me give a little history lesson here. Germany had onerous gun restrictions imposed on it by the Treay of Versailles at the end of WWI. The Weimer Republic managed to loosen those restictions up just a bit by allowing foks to have a gun for hunting. Hitler and his party took power in a democratic election, then proceeded to loosen gun rules. The right keeps claiming that Hitler banned and confiscated guns from German civilians - what they fail to say is that the only German civilians who were banned from having guns and had their guns confiscated were the Jews. If you weren't Jewish? You enjoyed loose gun laws, and in fact were encouraged to buy and carry guns so that you could quickly come to the defense of the fatherland. "In the 1990s, Germany (which had (and has) extremely restrictive gun control) had a per capita mass murder rate in schools that was higher than ours during that time." Are you serious? Is this where you want to go? You want to use the "per capita" argument to justify your position? Because if that's the case, the logical conclusion would be that US childrens lives are less important than another countries children's lives, since the per capita rate would be so much smaller. After all, if 22 kids are killed in the US, which has a population of about 350 Million, and 22 kids are killed in Canada, which has a population of about 35 Million, Canada will have a higher "per capita" rate than the US, and that would mean it can't afford to lose 22 kids as easily as the US. I don't know about anyone else, but the "per capita" rate isn't important here - 22 kids were killed - that what's important. In fact, lets go back to what is important here - go find and take a look at the portraits of the 22 people, mostly kids that still believed in Santa Claus (!!!!), killed in Sandy Hook just days before Christmas and tell us that they're less important than your right to blow away aluminum cans with 30 rounds from an AR-15.

"What is the purpose of registration or licensure? Wave a magic wand and suddenly have a list of every gun and it's owner in the country. How does that make us safer unless there is ultimately a means of using that data to tax, control or deny ownership?" Fair question, TwoCub. I can think of a couple of things. One of the solutions that seems to be agreed to by all sides is keeping guns out of the hands of the mentally ill, but the weakness of that approach is that it only works on people who have actually been diagnosed and treated. What about the guy down the block who was able to legally buy firearms for 20 years, then some event in his life led to a diagnosis and treatment for post-traumatic stress syndrome, schizophrenia, or a manic-depressive state? We wouldn't want him to have guns anymore but we have no idea if he has guns because he didn't have to register them and when asked if he had guns, he just lied, would we? A database reporting on new cases of mental illness treatment could be compared with a database of who owns guns to ensure that he doesn't have access to the guns. In the Sandy Hook case, the shooter killed his mother before taking her guns - what if he had broken into a house a couple of towns away and stole those guns - wouldn't it be nice to match the guns used with who they belonged to so we could determine if the people whose guns were stolen from them were safe?

"These three were in churches, and were supposed to be free of guns: Sikh Temple, Living Church of God (Terry Ratzman), Seattle Jewish Federation" There are no factual statements to suggest the Sikh Temple was or was not a gun free zone or that it was chosen as a target for any reason other than it was a temple for Sikhs; the Seattle Jewish Federation building is an office building, not a church and there is no evidence that it was labeled as a gun free zone; and finally the Living Church of God shooting took place in a Sheraton Hotel pre-CCW in Wisconsin and there is no evidence it was or is labeled as a "gun free zone". Seems somone has a case of the "supposed to('s)" and assumes that if it's a church it must be a gun free zone. "Trolley Square was a mall, where guns weren't welcome." There is no factual evidence to show that the Trolley Square Mall identified itself as a "gun free zone" at the time of the shooting that occurred there. "Three happened in private locations not open to the public: Chai Vang trespassed onto private hunting land in Wisconsin, Appomattox was in and around one private home, and the Capitol Hill rave killings were at a private residence." While the shootings may have taken place on private land, in the case of the Capitol Hiss killings, 4 of the 6 killed were outside the house in the front yard which is accessible to the public, and in the Appomatix shootings, 4 of those killed were in the front yard accessible to the public and one was killed on the public street. Lott is trying to make a larger point that Holmes chose the Century 16 because it was a "gun free zone" and none of the the other nearby theaters are not gun free zones according to his research, ignoring the fact that the Century 16 theater was the closest theater showing the Batman movie on midnight of the 20th of July, that one of the 2 closer theaters didn't start showing Batman until August, that the other is a theater chain catering to Latinos and wasn't showing Batman at midnight. Lott is assuming facts not in evidence, and is hoping that folks will read his opinion and take it as fact.

" that idea still suffers from the same weakness that gun 'bans' suffer from, namely, that crooks and crazies don't often pay much attention to laws." Non-sequitor. Crooks and crazies don't pay attention to most laws. Speeders don't pay attention to speed limits. Does that mean we shouldn't pass laws? If so, problems solved - we can disband all of our governments now because we no longer need them since they can't pass laws to maintain civil order, and we'll devolve into mass chaos in the first two days. "You want to have to get in line while Joe Biden writes down your name and the serial number of your guns?" I'd really like to know why there is so much opposition to gun registration. The only thing I ever hear is "it violates a constitutional right" or the paranoid "because then they will know what to confiscate". I'd like to point out that the right to vote is a constitutional right too but no one seems to have problems with folks being required to register to vote, and a significant number of folks think that people need to take additional steps in order to exercise their constitutional right to vote, but that heaven forbid we require guns to be registed because that's a constitutional right. I own guns and I have no problem registering them with the State if required to do so. As for Concealed Carry? It's cowardly. At one time in this country, guns were carried openly. If you carried a hidden gun, you were a sneak, a cheat, a thief, in general, you were a dishonorable man. If the NRA were truly honorable, they would be lobbying for open carry, not for concealed carry. Why hide your gun unless you're ashamed to be seen with it?

Background checks - We should expand them to include private sales but we also need to recognize that background checks alone won't solve anything. Neither the Virginia Tech shooter or the Aurora, Colorado Batman shooter would have failed the background check as neither of them had a criminal record and neither of them had a documented history of mental illness. Ban on High Capacity Clips - At this point, it's a useless, feel-good measure as the proposed ban doesn't require people who already have high capacity clip to turn them in (and of course be reimbursed as a taking). On the other hand, we should register all gun owners, and their guns, if they have high capacity clips, so we can actually keep track of who has them and where they are. Require transfer registration when the guns and clips are sold or given away. Require owners to immediately report the loss of any high capacity clip and/or gun that holds the clip by theft or misadventure. Lifting restrictions on research - yes, lift the restrictions - despite the grumblings of a segment of ant-government people, the US government is singularly able to coordinate massive amounts of research through their grant programs. BTW Perdidochas, you have completely mischaracterized the results of the study you posted. The study did NOT say gun laws weren't effective. What the study (and it was a review of other research) said, in every category that they looked at, was that all of the research was insufficient to make any statements regarding the effectiveness of guns - in other words, the laws may, or may not be effective, but we don't know enough (because the research that is out there isn't clear) to determine which it is. "Gun Free Zones" - yeah, maybe a bunch of the shootings were in "gun free zones" but what's the point, to ban "gun free zones"? That ignores that fact that in every shooting in a "gun free zone", the shooting was also where large numbers of people who are unrelated to each other gather. Maybe the solution is to ban schools, churches, shopping malls and parks so that unrelated people can't gather together. It also ignores the fact that there have been shootings that took place in places that weren't "gun free zones" but were still places where large numbers of unrelated people congregate. "Mental Health Laws" - no doubt, we should look into strengthening services to the mentally ill, but we also need to stop using the blanket term "mentally ill" to describe shooters. The truth is, most everyone of us suffers from mental disorders of some kind. Afraid of snakes? That's a phobia and phobias are a mental disorder. Do folks think a gun owner who is afraid of spiders, or heights, of clowns, should be forced to turn in their guns because of their mental disorder? Some mental health issues are temporary - I wouldn't doubt that most people haven't exhibited the signs of depression, a mental disorder, for at least some portion of their lives - whould you no longer be able to own a gun because you showed enough of the symptoms of depression to be clinically diagnosed for a couple of weeks because you got fired from your job, or got a divorce, or had someone close to you die? I could make a reasonable case that all those folks rushing out to the stores to buy guns because they are afraid of the big bad government, or all those folks getting concealed weapons permits because they are afraid of walking down the street, are suffering from paranoia, a mental illness. The Sandy Hook shooter had autism, a neurological disorder and the media is quick to pronounce that he was mentally ill and it's because he was mentally ill that the shooting occured - but there is no basis in fact to prove that. Mental health issues should be looked at but the gun lobby has to be told to understand that it's only one part of the puzzle, not the entire solution. Violent Video Games and Movies - yeah, another gun lobby and media bugaboo with nothing concrete to back up the claims that it's video games and movies that are the cause. The gun lobby loves to point out that there are millions of people with guns and the problems only come from a small number of people. They fail to recognize that there are millions of people that watch violent movies and play violent video games that never act in violence. Information - the biggest problem we have in solving this kind of issue is the sheer amount of bad information that is being repeated, from both sides. For instance, in this thread, we're told that there are doctors asking if you have a gun in the house so they can be reported to the authorities. The part of reporting it to the authorities is patently untrue. There are doctors that want to know things like this so they can better understand their patients and better be able to assess risks, which helps make them better doctors for you. It became an issue when a state (Georgia, as I recall) passed a law saying doctors couldn't ask that question anymore. Someone suggested, in that paranoid slippery-slope argument that we get in these kinds of debates, that the government could, in the future, require doctors to report it to the authorities. No doctor is reporting anything like that to the authorities. We also have a propblem with how information is presented. Last weekend, I caught the introduction of a program by some talking head on Fox where she gave this really angry ranting screed about a newspaper in New York planning to print the names of gun owners in their area. She had made a really good point that doing so would just identify to thieves where there might be guns to steal, but the manner in which she deliverd it was so off-putting that it's just really easy to ignore it. If this is how we're going to discuss issues, no wonder we can't have rational discussions on the issue. This is not an issue where we can concentrate on one thing and ignore something else - this is an "everything needs to be on the table" thing - and no one's going to be 100% happy with the outcomes.

There is a theory that the 12 days of Christmas is a catachism song used to teach the tenants of the Catholic faith in the days when the Catholic Church was banned in England. The symbolism allegedly goes like this: A Partridge in a Pear Tree - Jesus Christ Two Turtle Doves - The Old and New Testaments Three French Hens - The three virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity Four Calling/Collie Birds - Four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John Five Golden Rings - First five books of the Old Testament Six Geese-a-Laying - Six days of creation before God's rest on the seventh day Seven Swans-a-Swimming - Seven gifts of the Holy Spirit Eight Maids-a-Milking - Eight Beatitudes Nine Ladies Dancing - Nine fruits of the Holy Spirit Ten Lords-a-Leaping - Ten Commandments Eleven Pipers Piping - Eleven faithful disciples Twelve Drummers Drumming -Twelve points of belief in the Apostles' Creed The problem with this theory is that it's more likely than not that the song is French in origin, not English, and was originally a memory game song where the leader would add increasingly complicated verses that folks had to repeat back, and that the verses weren't neccessarily uniform until the song was first written down in the late 1780's. There's no indication in either written records or oral tradition that this symbolism existed until 1979. As for the Ring-necked Pheasant hypothesis - the problem with that is first that Ring-necked Pheasants don't have golden rings around their neck, they have white rings and second, that Ring-necked Pheasants aren't called Ring-necked Pheasants in England or France, they're called Common Pheasants. If I had to choose any bird species, it would be a Goldfinch, also called by some a Gold Spink and only if I were to believe that who ever wrote down Ring for Spink wasn't corrected by a lot of people who had always said Spink. As for when the 12 days of Christmas are, that really depends on your tradition - what's more important are the 12 nights of Christmas. The first night of Christmas is always the 25th which means the 12th night of Christmas is always January 5, the night before the Epiphany. In many traditions, the 12th Day of Christmas ends with the 12th Night of Christmas, so the 1st Day of Christmas would be the 25th of December and the last Day of Christmas would be the day before the Epiphany. For most of these traditions, the 12 Dayes of Christmas is a time for joyful reveling which ends the day before the Epiphany which is a more solemn occassion. But there are still some traditions that say the 1st day of Christmas follows the 1st Night of Christmas which makes the 12th Day of Christmas Epiphany. Of course in the US, the first day of Christmas begins the day after Labor Day when the first Christmas decorations appear in the stores and end on December 25th.

BS-87, Did you intend this to mean the way it sounds? "Whether the act is forceful and a crime, or loving and with the intent of procreation, the decision to engage in the act is a decision that stays with a person forever." If an act is forceful and a crime (ie rape), did the victim really make a decision to engage in the act and should the victim really be required to accept a lifetime committment based on a decision that she did not make or have any opportunity to have any input on? Heck, should she even be required to make just a 9-month committment when she made no decision to engage in the act? Do you really think we should compound one decision made for her against her will with another decision being made for her against her will? Is that really what you're trying to get across?

It's not a justification for abortion. It's a condemnation of the hypocritical condemnation of abortion using the standard that life is sacred when our actions don't back up our belief that life is sacred. When we start acting like life is sacred, when our words are put into action, when we do more than talk the talk, then we can pull out the life is sacred card and have it mean something. I don't believe that a women's right to choose to have an abortion needs to be justified because my personal opinion is that life doesn't begin until ones autonomous systems can at least theroretically work on their own without needing to be attached to a parent. Since in humans, that is generally in the third trimester, and abortions are generally prohibited in the third trimester except for extremely rare circumstances, then I personally don't feel the need to ban abortions. But if we start acting as if life really is sacred, then maybe I'll reconsider my position. But I certainly won't do so based on religious beliefs that aren't, in my view, being given more than just lip service.(This message has been edited by calicopenn)

"if all life is sacred, then all life is sacred no matter the manner of its origin" Except all life is NOT sacred. If all life were sacred, we would not have a death penalty. That doesn't preclude punishment, but death would not be a punishment if life were sacred (indeed, if life were sacred, then it would follow that death would be sacred too, would it not?). If all life were sacred, then we wouldn't be ignoring that underlying our latest gun policy discussions is the fact that children were massacred just before Christmas in Connecticut. If all life were sacred, then we wouldn't engage in wars, and we wouldn't hestitate to step in to stop massacres of people in other countries. If all life were sacred, we wouldn't be discussing ways to cut our social safety nets. If all life were sacred, then we wouldn't put up with prejudice against any group of people. If life were sacred, there would be a line of people ready to adopt with no thought to age or sex of the adoptee with no one needing to be adopted. But life is NOT sacred - not in this country. The only lives we care about is the lives that we are either directly affected by (our family, friends, neighbors) or by people like us or by theoretical life. We can care about aborted potential life because it's simple to do so, the life is already gone, and it doesn't affect us personally.

It's hard to have any serious discussions on gun policy in the US. The absolutists on either side get in the way of reasonable discussion. It doesn't help when people from one side or the other start up with compare and contrast games that are mostly exercises in false equivalency. The San Antonio shooting and the Aurora theater shooting had only one thing in common - and it's actually a peripheral thing in this case - they both ended in movie theaters - that doesn't make them anywhere near equivalent. In Aurora, the shooter planned and prepared and specifically targeted that movie theater during a specific movie being shown. In San Antonio, the shooter didn't plan his actions, started off in a restaurant where at lease one person knew him (and was likely the primary target) and ended up in a movie theater because the theater just happened to be there across the street from the restaurant. It could easily have been a school, or a park, or an ice rink, or a mall, or anything else. It's hard to take serious claims that citizens can save people in these situations when most of the examples that are given of citizens stepping in ignore that the "citizens" were off-duty police officers, or former law enforcement officers. No where in any mentions of these actions is there a discussion of whether a person who pulls his gun and engages in a firefight with a "bad guy" is covered under a State's Good Samaritan laws. There seesm to be an assumption that someone who "stops a shooter" won't be charged if s/he hits and kills a bystander while engaged. There's this thinking that if only a teacher had a gun, the Sandy Hook incident could have been either prevented or lessened - how much different mght the conversation be if there was a teacher who had a gun and s/he accidently killed a few kids while shooting it out with the gunman? Finally, upon seeing this, I had to comment on it: ""Overturn handgun laws in big cities with handgun crime problems." Where the residents needed them the most... " The City of Chicago was in the news most of 2012 because of the number of shooting deaths - a record number it's said. Through all the hand-wringing and gleeful condemnation of the Mayor (and thus the President), very few people paid attention to the folks connecting the dots between the US Supreme Court ruling the city's ban on handguns was unconstitutional and the invrease in the number of handgun crimes in the City. Could it be coincidence? Sure, but if so, it's an awfully big one.