Many years ago I was in a local gun store because they were a supplier to my business. In front of me was a woman and a male companion. She was there to purchase a handgun. This is in Mishawaka, IN.
Her background check was delayed. The store representative explained to her that the NICS check was delayed and they’d have to wait a few days for the check to go through. She became irate. She was convinced that the store representative was denying her purchase because she was black. He left to get his manager and she turned to me and said something to the effect of ‘can you believe this? Have you ever heard of such a thing?’ I told her I had and it was the law. If your check is delayed they can’t sell you the gun. There are various reasons the background check is delayed but it does happen to law-abiding citizens. She was shocked by what I said. I went on to explain that elections have consequences and there were many (Obama was president) who want to make these waits mandatory for every purchase. She didn’t like the idea of having to wait one bit. The absolute shock she expressed told me she’d never paid much attention to gun laws in this country. That is the case for most members of the media. Jack Colwell is just another example of this ignorance.
Colwell is a visiting journalist with the Gallivan Program in Journalism, Ethics, and Democracy at the University of Notre Dame. He also writes columns for the South Bend Tribune and Howey Politics.
He recently published an article titled Indiana is not a good neighbor. The basic premise of the article is Indiana is responsible for the gun violence in Chicago. An old, busted, debunked excuse routinely used by Democrat leaders in blue states and cities to excuse their inability to control violence in their own cities. Rest assured, if you have a high gun crime area run by Democrats, they will blame their Republican neighbors so they don’t have to take responsibility.
Let’s take the article one piece at a time.
Indiana is not a good neighbor. It’s a deadly neighbor, exporting guns to gangs in Chicago, where every weekend and on many weekdays, too, a blizzard of bullets threatens and often kills little kids as well as intended gang targets.
Most Hoosiers aren’t complicit, of course, but there is blood on the hands of those, including a lot of state legislators, who proudly point to the state’s lax gun laws that make buying a gun so easy, so fast, sometimes with no questions asked.
The notion that Indiana is a ‘deadly neighbor’ is, to put it plainly, a lie. There is no evidence that shows Indiana having primary culpability in any other state’s violent crime rates. More on that later.
Nice of him to say most Hoosiers aren’t complicit. No kidding. However, he goes on to criticize the legislature for making gun buying in Indiana easy, fast, and sometimes ‘with no questions asked.’ Another bald-faced lie. At no point in any legal gun sale are there ‘no questions asked.’ That simply doesn’t happen and is so utterly ridiculous that anyone who repeats this nonsense loses any and all credibility on this subject.
To buy a gun in Indiana, you have to do the same things you have to do in every other state with some minor details in state law.
Be 18 or older
Present state ID (racist?)
Pass a background check
To pass a NICS background check. There’s a form you fill out. I assure you, it asks questions. Lying on that form is a crime.
Additionally, you are prohibited from buying a gun if you:
Have been convicted of a felony
Have been convicted of domestic battery
Are a drug abuser or under the influence of a drug
Are an alcohol abuser or are intoxicated
Are mentally incompetent
As I mentioned earlier, if there’s a delay in your federal NICS check, you don’t get the gun.
They say they want it easy for “law-abiding” citizens to get guns for protection, for hunting, for collecting. Nothing wrong with those purposes, if those were the real purposes of all the purchasers. Too many have no intent to abide by the law. They want to get away with murder.
Thanks for accepting there’s nothing wrong with law-abiding citizens being able to protect themselves with their constitutional rights.
There certainly are those who want to buy guns to commit crimes. Criminals tend to operate that way. Luckily, very few criminals get their guns through legal means. Beyond that, how are FFL dealers supposed to read the minds of these bad guys buying guns? Colwell doesn’t know and neither does anyone else. We’re told profiling is bad. A discrimination suit would likely follow. If you meet the legal requirements to buy and own a gun and don’t do anything alarming during the purchase, they will sell you said gun with few exceptions. Gun dealers do have a right to deny the sale at any time. Then again, they may potentially deal with accusations of discrimination if they do deny a sale. That’s why I opened this column with that story.
As I mentioned earlier, Chicago criminals don’t get their guns from gun stores or gun shows anyway. Sorry folks, the gun show ‘loophole’ is a debunked lie too.
“It is rare for offenders to buy from licensed dealers, and also rare for them to steal their guns,” the study says. “Rather, the predominant sources of guns to offenders are family, acquaintances, fellow gang members—which is to say, members of their social network.”
The study found that only 3% of primary guns used in criminal activity were bought from gun stores. A total of 2 guns.
Colwell, and others, are arguing a fallacy about Indiana gun laws making it easy for criminals to buy guns because Chicago’s own criminals admit they don’t buy them from Indiana gun shops. Indiana’s ‘lax’ gun laws still prevent criminals from buying guns. Great news!
Next up is the issue of the straw purchaser.
This is someone the criminal knows and doesn’t have a criminal history or any other issues that would deny them the legal right to buy a gun. The criminal gets the straw purchaser to buy the gun, then the straw purchaser gives the gun, illegally, to the criminal. This is a crime and is against the law in Indiana and everywhere else.
Colwell points out it is alleged a straw purchaser may have obtained the gun used to murder Chicago police Officer Ella French and seriously injure her partner.
Jamel Danzy is a teacher’s aide in Merrillville, IN, and was recently released from jail by a judge who cited his lack of criminal record in the case.
While Professor Colwell convicts Danzy in his article, it is important to note that he’s not been convicted yet. Though it does look like he may be guilty. His brother believes Danzy was intimidated and forced to buy the gun in Hammond, IN, and transfer it to Officer French’s alleged killer.
Again, this is illegal. Indiana law doesn’t allow straw purchasing. So what exactly does Colwell want here? Again, he doesn’t know. There isn’t a system in place in Illinois gun laws that would have prevented a straw purchase either. The FOID card is basically a redundant background check that creates a database of potential gun owners in Illinois. When you go to buy a gun in Illinois, you have to pass the same background checks as in Indiana and straw purchases are common there.
I’d also like to point out that Professor Colwell admits that Danzy told the gun shop he was buying the gun for himself on his forms. See, there were questions asked and he answered them.
Colwell points to Indianapolis, South Bend, Mishawaka, and other cities in Indiana dealing with gun crime. There’s some truth to that. Do you know what Chicago, Indianapolis, and South Bend all have in common? Prosecutors not doing their jobs.
Chicago’s top cop blasted the court system just this last July.
Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown blasted the city’s judges and prosecutors Tuesday, at a press conference discussing the city’s bloody Fourth of July weekend, which saw record-breaking gun violence with more than 100 people shot, and at least 18 people killed.
Like other cities, Chicago is experiencing a spike in gun crime, but unlike other cities, Chicago saw more shootings over the Independence Day weekend than it did during the same holiday weekend last year. Brown, on Tuesday, said that the Chicago Police Department is stretched to the limit and blamed the city’s judicial system for turning violent offenders back out onto the street for the shocking rise in crime.
Cook County State Attorney Kim Foxx has been routinely criticized by even Chicago media for releasing felons onto the street. She dropped over 25,000 felony charges in 3 years.
Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx is dropping felony cases involving charges of murder and other serious offenses at a higher rate than her predecessor.
Her predecessor wasn’t innocent either.
Cook County, IL has had a 13% decrease in guilty pleas/verdicts with a 40% rise in dropped cases between 2013-2019.
A recent review of Indianapolis’ violence issues, specifically involving guns, from March 2018 to February 2020 found around 75% of people had multiple arrests before the homicide. IMPD said on average, both suspects and victims had more than 5 prior arrests.
“The suspects, on average, were arrested at least seven times by the time of the homicide incident,” Allison Davids, Intelligence Analyst at the Crime Gun Intelligence Center, said.
The report by the National Institute of Criminal Justice Reform also said at least 39% of homicides involve a group of three or more people committing violence. In these homicides, they are either the victim, suspect or both.
So, Chicago and Indianapolis have a problem with gang violence and the legal system not keeping serious criminals behind bars. Seems like that might be more of an issue with the violence in those cities than gun laws.
South Bend has the same issue. South Bend Prosecutor Ken Cotter has also been known to release violent repeat offenders with gang affiliations. Mishawaka shares a border with South Bend and often has crime imported from South Bend.
While we are on the subject of other areas getting the blame for local crimes … Chicago is responsible for a lot of crime in South Bend/Mishawaka. Chicago gangs and drugs come here. Chicago’s Latin Kings gang is very prevalent in South Bend and even has members in local government politics and public education. If Chicago were a ‘good neighbor’ they’d get a handle on the gang and drug issues in their city so we didn’t have to deal with it here in Michiana. I wonder why Colwell didn’t bring that point up in his article?
Colwell also wrote this:
Chicago Magazine cites statistics showing that 60% of illegal firearms recovered in Chicago came from outside Illinois. Indiana was the leading exporter of the guns.
This is from a gun trace report done in 2017. Anti-gun activists have used it a lot to attack Indiana as the primary reason gang members kill people in Chicago. It is important to know there is competing research showing this data to not be accurate but we’ll take it at face value for this article. Activists and the media always leave out a critical component to that report. By far, the biggest source of guns used in crimes in Chicago … comes from Chicagoland. It’s not even close.
Cook County, IL is home to 7 of the 10 biggest suppliers of guns used in criminal activity in Chicago. Over a third of guns used in crimes come from suburban Cook County while over 40% of the guns were sourced in Illinois. Indiana was second with just 21% of those guns coming from the state. The data suggest that the main reason criminals source guns from Indiana are because Illinois gun shops sell out of supply.
If the issue were really about Indiana’s lax gun laws arming gangs in Chicago, as Professor Colwell says, then why do twice as many of those guns come from gun control utopia Illinois?
Holcomb was so committed to getting his message across Wednesday that even when Indiana Department of Transportation Commissioner Joe McGinnis delivered a report that focused on roadways with no discussion of facial coverings, Holcomb responded with this line: “You did say masks are working. I just want to get that in there for the third time.”
Welcome new people.
The two articles and corresponding charts above already prove my point. Those results are duplicated globally.
Let me put a couple of things to bed right away since I already know how some of you will react.
I’m not anti-mask. I’m pro-science.
I wear my mask all the time to put people at ease, not because it’s effective.
COVID is real and no one is actually denying its existence beyond a few online. This is a childish red herring argument used when you are desperate.
My goal has always been to inform my audience of the actual clinical facts so they can protect themselves. There is no other motivation.
I started regular coverage of the virus in December 2019.
I started daily coverage on January 14, 2020. This is long before anyone in US media I’m aware of (for daily coverage), and far sooner than almost any politician considered COVID a threat.
I promoted the masks early on before we knew the virus was airborne while reminding everyone to only use their mask once.
I’ve been reminding everyone about the single-use of the mask from the very beginning. Reusing a contaminated mask defeats the purpose and can spread infection.
My opinions about masks or mask fines don’t come from my politics or my ideology. They come from peer-reviewed clinical research, not preliminary lab results with problematic methodology, which have never been considered scientifically valid in any scientific field. As well as real-world data.
Everything I said in this interview is backed up with scientific research and real-world data. None of it is baseless opinion. None of it is taken from unsubstantiated posts from social media, or some conspiracy website yapping about Bill Gates.
While many of you may be new here, I’ve already addressed the issues you’ll likely post … many, many times. I simply don’t have time to go over 12 months of work I’ve done on this in a single interview or post.
The reality … officials are in a tough spot. They don’t have any answers. They can’t stop the virus. It’s career suicide to say that out loud so they must come up with, what I call, ‘busy work’ to make it seem like they are trying. Often, as is the case with fines, this busy work pushes the blame on an innocent population in order to pass the buck and buy time.
The experts went from correctly telling you a mask was your last hail mary to prevent infection but wasn’t all that effective. Every other step is more important in prevention but the mask is the least effective tool in your tool chest. Now, they’ve all but abandoned those other steps in favor of indoctrinating people into the Cult of Mask with a form of religious dogma that masks are the most important and effective tool you have. Cases continue to spike and they keep neglecting to tell people to only use their mask once.
Consider this … everywhere mask mandates have been in effect, where COVID is an issue, has now been hit by a new spike in cases. This includes places with universal compliance like Japan. If masks worked the way the dogma currently dictates, the spike would be impossible.
Everywhere that installed mask mandate fines on businesses and/or individuals hasn’t reduced their number of cases. The policy is ineffective and causes unnecessary tension, strife, and hardship with zero tangible results. It’s just throwing matches on a powder keg.
We had lockdowns because the Imperial College released a study showing hundreds of millions might die. Oxford proved their study wrong and the IC retracted it, but lockdowns remained.
We have mask mandates because we thought the virus was spread through droplets alone and asymptomatic people were superspreaders. We now know it’s airborne and all of the research shows asymptomatic spread, while possible, is not a major source of infections.
I’ve included just a few links to get you started on your journey if you really want to dive in.
Prior to the pandemic, there was a mountain of research showing masks of all kinds don’t prevent aerosol viral spread. This research has now been completely abandoned and ignored in favor of preliminary lab results that are never considered scientifically acceptable to draw conclusions from. I can’t include all of the links to those studies but some are mixed in below.
Dr. Brosseau is a national expert on respiratory protection and infectious diseases and professor (retired), University of Illinois at Chicago. Dr. Sietsema is also an expert on respiratory protection and an assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
“The evidence from…laboratory filtration studies suggests that such fabric masks may reduce the transmission of larger respiratory droplets. There is little evidence regarding the transmission of small aerosolized particulates of the size potentially exhaled by asymptomatic or presymptomatic individuals with COVID-19.”
We did not find evidence that surgical-type face masks are effective in reducing laboratory-confirmed influenza transmission, either when worn by infected persons (source control) or by persons in the general community to reduce their susceptibility (Figure 2). However, as with hand hygiene, face masks might be able to reduce the transmission of other infections and therefore have value in an influenza pandemic when healthcare resources are stretched.
Tom Jefferson is a senior associate tutor and honorary research fellow, Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, University of Oxford. Disclosure statement is here
Carl Heneghan is Professor of Evidence-Based Medicine, University of Oxford, Director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine and Editor in Chief of BMJ EBM
In 2010, at the end of the last influenza pandemic, there were six published randomised controlled trials with 4,147 participants focusing on the benefits of different types of masks. 2 Two were done in healthcare workers and four in family or student clusters. The face mask trials for influenza-like illness (ILI) reported poor compliance, rarely reported harms and revealed the pressing need for future trials.
Despite the clear requirement to carry out further large, pragmatic trials a decade later, only six had been published: five in healthcare workers and one in pilgrims. 3 This recent crop of trials added 9,112 participants to the total randomised denominator of 13,259 and showed that masks alone have no significant effect in interrupting the spread of ILI or influenza in the general population, nor in healthcare workers.
A study conducted by Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in cooperation with the Naval Medical Research Center sought to test lockdowns along with testing and isolation.
What were the results? The virus still spread, though 90% of those who tested positive were without symptoms. Incredibly, 2% of the CHARM recruits still contracted the virus, even if all but one remained asymptomatic. “Our study showed that in a group of predominantly young male military recruits, approximately 2% became positive for SARS-CoV-2, as determined by qPCR assay, during a 2-week, strictly enforced quarantine.”
The study actually suggests the quarantine may increase the spread of the virus.
Our results suggest that the recommendation to wear a surgical mask when outside the home among others did not reduce, at conventional levels of statistical significance, the incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection in mask wearers in a setting where social distancing and other public health measures were in effect, mask recommendations were not among those measures, and community use of masks was uncommon. Yet, the findings were inconclusive and cannot definitively exclude a 46% reduction to a 23% increase in infection of mask wearers in such a setting.
The use of masks only makes sense in confined places, where it is not possible to have certainty and guarantee necessary physical distancing or outdoors when physical distancing is not possible. I tried to look for scientific evidence on the use of open air mask and potential benefits of virus transmission, but I couldn’t find any.
Making the mask mandatory across Italy outdoors without any distinction between the higher and lower endemic circulation areas is wrong.
Conclusions: This study is the first RCT of cloth masks, and the results caution against the use of cloth masks. This is an important finding to inform occupational health and safety. Moisture retention, reuse of cloth masks and poor filtration may result in increased risk of infection. Further research is needed to inform the widespread use of cloth masks globally. However, as a precautionary measure, cloth masks should not be recommended for HCWs (Health Care Workers), particularly in high-risk situations, and guidelines need to be updated.
Jacobs, J. L. et al. (2009) “Use of surgical face masks to reduce the incidence of the common cold among health care workers in Japan: A randomized controlled trial,” American Journal of Infection Control, Volume 37, Issue 5, 417 – 419. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19216002
N95-masked health-care workers (HCW) were significantly more likely to experience headaches. Face mask use in HCW was not demonstrated to provide benefit in terms of cold symptoms or getting colds.
“There were 17 eligible studies. … None of the studies established a conclusive relationship between mask/respirator use and protection against influenza infection.”
Smith, J.D. et al. (2016) “Effectiveness of N95 respirators versus surgical masks in protecting health care workers from acute respiratory infection: a systematic review and meta-analysis,” CMAJ Mar 2016 https://www.cmaj.ca/content/188/8/567
“We identified six clinical studies … . In the meta-analysis of the clinical studies, we found no significant difference between N95 respirators and surgical masks in associated risk of (a) laboratory-confirmed respiratory infection, (b) influenza-like illness, or (c) reported work-place absenteeism.”
Contrary to popular opinion on social media, in our tribalist political arena, news media, or local officials … Americans actually wear masks and comply with mask mandates much higher than much of the world. Over 80% wear their mask now. The latest spike in the U.S. started September 14 when 77% of Americans were adhering to the mask mandates. That number is exactly the same as July 31 when U.S. COVID cases began to decline drastically and before the AP and Gov. Holcomb credited masks for the decline in cases.
In other words … the same percentage of Americans who wore masks during the big decline in COVID cases over the summer were also wearing masks at the beginning of the latest surge in cases. There was no change, no fluctuation at all in the number of Americans wearing masks during a decline and a surge in COVID cases. The number of people wearing masks had no effect on the number of cases of the virus.
I said the same thing three times, three different ways so everyone understands the actual data on mask-wearing. Sorry about being redundant.
I know you all just came here to listen to the interview with Mayor Roberson. You weren’t expecting all this to be thrown at you. However, it’s important that you know what I said during that interview is factually correct. While I can appreciate the Mayor is just taking the advice of his advisors, those advisors have no actual data backing up their policies. I do.
The mandates we are being given by public officials are unscientific and, dare I say, emotional.
Lockdowns didn’t work and the preponderance of research says they are ineffective and actually worse for people long-term.
Mask mandates simply don’t work.
Blaming innocent people for those two failed policies with fines simply because you’ve run out of ideas and are trying to hold on until the vaccine/herd immunity happens is not a legitimate way to govern. It’s tyrannical. While Mayor Roberson may not be seeking to be tyrannical, the end product is just that.
