Some Chicago Boyz know each other from student days at the University of Chicago. Others are Chicago boys in spirit. The blog name is also intended as a good-humored gesture of admiration for distinguished Chicago School economists and fellow travelers.
Shannon Love has posted about a proposal in the British Journal of Medicine to ban the sale of long, pointed cooking knives as a crime preventative.
David Kopel, posting at The Volokh Conspiracy, has given us a heads up to a website that discusses US knife laws. Highly recommended.
Last year I was approached by a woman at work. She was looking to take the training course needed to apply for a CCW license, but she was out of money. She knew that I ran a charity where I would offer the training for free to victims of violent crime, and she was sure that I would help.
She told me that she was embroiled in a very nasty divorce. Her husband was abusive, violent, out of control. She had eventually taken one beating too much, so she had packed up her kids and moved in to a house she was renting. Sure, the courts had issued a restraining order, but anyone in the self defense trade will tell you that those don’t do much if the perp gets a belly full of beer and decides that they don’t care if they go to jail. Arming yourself against trouble is the only way to stop it sometimes. Her oldest daughter was old enough to be legally considered an adult, so she wanted the training for both of them.
Alarm bells were going off in my mind as she sang me her song of woe. I’ve been doing this for a long time, and I’ve helped hundreds of people who were in trouble. The problem was that she just wasn’t hitting the right notes.
This news item reports that residents of San Francisco will soon vote on a law that will effectively ban all handguns inside the city limits.
“If passed next November, residents would have 90 days to give up firearms they keep in their homes or businesses.”
“Firearms would be allowed only for police officers, security guards, members of the military, and anyone else “actually employed and engaged in protecting and preserving property or life within the scope of his or her employment,” according to the measure.”
The article goes on to mention that Washington, DC is the only city currently that has such a ban, as well as pointing out that it hasn’t done anything to curb violence there.
I try very hard to be as pragmatic as possible. To achieve a desired result I’m willing to experiment. If some method doesn’t work then I’ll stop doing it and try something else. Should my actions actually end up making the situation worse then I’ll stop doing it right away and never try that again.
According to this news item, the leading British expert on Sherlock Holmes committed suicide in such a fashion as to frame an American academic rival for murder. He based the method on a Holmes short story.
Really, really odd. Didn’t work, though. I suppose he just forgot that people other than British academics read those old mysteries.
I have updated my earlier post to reflect recent developments in the Limbaugh case.