Tag Archives: Crime

News

Do guns reduce crime? Watch this debate and hear both sides

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This debate is in 13 parts, featuring the two of the best proponents of legal firearm ownership – John Lott and Gary Kleck. The real sparks fly during the Q&A, so don’t miss that. (If you can’t watch the debate, then you can read this post and this post instead).

Here’s part 1, which contains the introduction.

Here are the remaining speeches:

Pro-firearm: Guns Reduce Crime Debate: John R. Lott (2 of 13)

Anti-firearm: Guns Reduce Crime Debate: R Gil Kerlikowske (3 of 13)

Pro-firearm: Guns Reduce Crime Debate: Stephen Halbrooke (4 of 13)

Anti-firearm: Guns Reduce Crime Debate: John J Donohue III (5 of 13)

Pro-firearm: Guns Reduce Crime Debate: Gary Kleck (6 of 13)

Anti-firearm: Guns Reduce Crime Debate: Paul Helmke (7 of 13)

Q&A Part 1: Guns Reduce Crime Debate: Q&A Part 1 (8 of 13)

Q&A Part 2: Guns Reduce Crime Debate: Q&A Part 2 (9 of 13)

Q&A Part 3: Guns Reduce Crime Debate: Q&A Part 3 (10 of 13)

Q&A Part 4: Guns Reduce Crime Debate: Q&A Part 4 (11 of 13)

Conclusions Part 1: Guns Reduce Crime Debate Closing Arguments Part 1 (12 of 13)

Conclusions Part 2: Guns Reduce Crime Debate Closing Arguments Part 2 (12 of 13)

This is everything you need to know about whether legal ownership of firearms reduce crime.

Debate is how conservatives decide what to believe about the world. We listen to both sides. We are extremely suspicious of one side trying to demonize the other side with name-calling and intimidation. If you start to ascribe nasty motives to your opponent on any issue, prior to showing that they are wrong, on the merits, then you’ve lost the debate. Before you can show WHY someone is wrong, you first have to show THAT someone is wrong.

You will never see a formal debate like this in the mainstream media, in Hollywood movies, in the public schools, or anywhere else where the left is in control. But hearing both sides is the only way to really know if something is true. You have to be able to sit through listening to the other side.

UPDATE: Ooops, even MSNBC admits that firearm ownership reduces crime rates. I stand corrected.

News

Obama administration halts prosecution of alleged USS Cole bomber

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Story from the ultra-left-wing Washington Post.

Excerpt:

The Obama administration has shelved the planned prosecution of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the alleged coordinator of the Oct. 2000 suicide attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, according to a court filing.

The decision at least temporarily scuttles what was supposed to be the signature trial of a major al-Qaeda figure under a reformed system of military commissions. And it comes practically on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the attack, which killed 17 sailors and wounded dozens when a boat packed with explosives ripped a hole in the side of the warship in the port of Aden.

In a filing this week in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, the Justice Department said that “no charges are either pending or contemplated with respect to al-Nashiri in the near future.”

The statement, tucked into a motion to dismiss a petition by Nashiri’s attorneys, suggests that the prospect of further military trials for detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has all but ground to a halt, much as the administration’s plan to try the accused plotters of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in federal court has stalled.

This comes as interesting news, in comparison to the latest news on the arrest of suspected terrorists in Canada. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police are now looking for eight suspects who are linked to their seizure of explosives and other nasty things from a gang of Muslim terrorists. A fourth man was arrested by the RCMP on Friday morning.

News

Mounties arrest terrorism suspects in Ottawa, Canada

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The Mounties always get their man
The Mounties always get their man

Story here from AFP.

Excerpt:

The three men arrested over a terror plot in Canada were in possession of bomb-making materials and at least one has links to a group fighting Western forces in Afghanistan, officials said Thursday.

Hiva Alizadeh, 30, and Misbahuddin Ahmed, 26, were arrested in police raids on their suburban Ottawa homes Wednesday morning, and formally charged with “terrorist offences” on Thursday during brief court appearances.

A third Canadian national, Khuram Sher, 28, of London, Ontario was arrested on Thursday.

“Investigators have grounds to believe that Alizadeh, Ahmed and Sher are part of a domestic terrorist group operating in Canada,” Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) superintendent Serge Therriault told a press conference.

“We also believe that Alizadeh is a member of, and remains in contact with, a terrorist group with links to the conflict in Afghanistan,” he said.

Police said the accused were in possession of a horde of material for making improvised explosive devices, including schematics, videos, drawings, instructions, books and electrical components.

During raids on the homes of the suspects, authorities said they also seized more than 50 electronic circuit boards that could be used in remote detonators.

This “large amount of terrorist documentation and manuals” demonstrates that the suspects “intended to construct an explosive device or explosive devices for terrorist purposes,” said Therriault.

Police also said they had evidence a member of the cell had received bomb-making training abroad, but they did not specify which suspect or where and when the training allegedly took place.

[…]Alizadeh, Ahmed and Sher were arrested following a year-long investigation by the RCMP, Canada’s spy agency and several police forces across the country.

Raymond Boisvert, assistant director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), said the intelligence that led to the arrest of the trio was provided to the RCMP.

Police said they arrested them this week to prevent one suspect from providing financial support to “terrorist counterparts” for the purchase of weapons for use against coalition forces in Afghanistan.

“This group posed a real and serious threat to the citizens of the national capital region and Canada’s national security,” said Therriault.

“Our criminal investigation and arrests prevented the assembly of any bombs and the terrorist attack or attacks from being carried out.”

Here’s the latest: Ottawa was a potential target for the group. Keep in mind that Ottawa is the capital of Canada, about an hour north of the northern tip of New York state.