Newmark's Door

Three very fine articles on gun control

Barry Snell, senior at Iowa State. (Link via Instapundit.)

Gun people don’t trust anti-gun people because anti-gunners always talk about 90 percent of Americans supporting this gun control measure, or 65 percent supporting that one, as if a majority opinion is what truly matters in America. We don’t trust anti-gun people because you think America is a democracy, when it’s actually a constitutional federal republic. In the American system, the rights of a single individual are what matters and are what our system is designed to protect. The emotional mob does not rule in America.

Kevin D. Williamson, NRO: (Link fixed now. Thanks, Michael.)

The gun-control debate is one of the most dishonest arguments we have in American politics. It is dishonest in its particulars, of course, but it is in an important sense dishonest in general: The United States does not suffer from an inflated rate of homicides perpetrated with guns; it suffers from an inflated rate of homicides. The argument about gun control is at its root a way to put conservatives on the defensive about liberal failures, from schools that do not teach to police departments that do not police and criminal-justice systems that do not bring criminals to justice. The gun-control debate is an exercise in changing the subject.

John Lott, NRO;

The CDC reports that for 2010 (the latest year available), one single six-year old died from a gunshot. For all children younger than 10, there were 36 accidental gun deaths, and that is out of 41 million children. Perhaps most important, about two-thirds of these accidental gun deaths involving young children are not shots fired by other little kids but rather by adult males with criminal backgrounds. In other words, unless you send your child to play at a criminal’s home, she is exceedingly unlikely to get shot.

Indeed, if you are going to worry about your child’s safety you should check into other, perhaps less obvious dangers lurking in the playmate’s house: swimming pools, bathtubs, water buckets, bicycles, and chemicals and medications that can cause fatal poisoning. Drownings alone claimed 609 deaths; fires, 262 lives; poisonings, 54 lives. And don’t forget to ask about the playmate’s parents’ car and their driving records if your child will ride with them: After all, motor-vehicle accidents killed 923 children younger than 10.

It's good to be Taylor Swift

Ms. Swift just bought a house for $17.75 million. Cash. 

"Damn, It Feels Good to Be an Ivy Law Grad"

Another fine crack from Justice Scalia. 

"Drunk [repeatedly] sounds alarm"

Where some NYC tax dollars go. 

"Overqualified Yet Underprepared, Graduates Face 'Unique Paradox': Study"

A McKinsey study finds, "While the young people are qualified—even overqualified, in many cases—to enter the workplace, most of them feel ill-suited to tackle the harsh realities of an evolving job market."

One thing that might help is for schools to offer a lot more career information: "career day" on steroids.

Another thing would be to tell students, as I have for some years, that they need to think of themselves not as potential employees looking for jobs, but as independent small businessmen and women, as, yes, entrepreneurs. (With one major exception--if they plan to work for the government. But that's likely to change in the near future.) Just like small business people do, they need to periodically assess competitive opportunities and threats, and their strengths and weaknesses. Don't take my word for it--a presentation by billionaire Reid Hoffman makes the point very nicely. 

"Racial Segregation Patterns in Selective Universities"

Working paper by Arcidiacono, Ancejo, Hussey, and Spenner:

This paper examines sorting into interracial friendships at selective universities. We show signicant friendship segregation, particularly for blacks. Indeed, black friendships are no more diverse in college than in high school despite the colleges blacks attend having substantially smaller black populations. We show that part of the reason for the segregation patterns is large differences in academic background coupled with students being more likely to form friendships with those of similar academic backgrounds. Within a school, stronger academic backgrounds make interracial friendships with blacks less likely and friendships with Asians more likely. These results suggest that affirmative action admission policies at selective universities which drive a wedge between the academic characteristics of different racial groups may result in increased within school segregation.

"Intel for investors: What’s going on behind closed doors in Washington"

Wasteful rent-seeking enters a new domain.

(Link via my older daughter.)

Why not pool private savings into a state-run investment fund?

Glenn Reynolds explains why.

 

"College: What’s the Point?"

Walter Russell Mead:

The Economist recently found that the countries with a low rate of youth unemployment are those that focus on providing their students with a practical education. Germany, for example, “has a long tradition of high-quality vocational education and apprenticeships, which in recent years have helped it reduce youth unemployment despite only modest growth.”

Vocational training isn't for everyone. But we could use a lot more of it and we could honor it a lot more than we do now.

"11 campuses seek enrollment boosts"

43 percent of the students in the District of Columbia now attend charter schools.

E.L. Haynes Public Charter School is slightly more competitive than Columbia University. The Ivy League school admitted 6.9 percent this year, while E.L. Haynes admitted 6.8 percent.

Will the last student in the regular public schools please turn out the lights?