Florida Will Soon Be a “Constitutional-Carry” State.

Should I and My Fellow Floridians Be Worried? 

Last month, Florida passed House Bill 543, which eliminated the requirement for Floridians to have a permit to carry a concealed weapon.

RF, my brother-in-law, who is not a DeSantis fan, was not happy about it. “Did you hear what your boy just did?” he asked me.

I hadn’t. He told me.

“That’s scary,” I admitted. I imagined all hell breaking loose when it takes effect on July 2, with people shooting one another in malls, on supermarket checkout lines, in movie theaters, and up and down the entirety of I-95.

Since I had recently done a bit of research on the general effect of gun control laws and found only the weakest evidence that they reduced injuries and deaths, I thought I’d do another, more specific, search. I wanted to find out if the violence increases when citizens are allowed to carry a concealed weapon without a permit.

The first thing I discovered is that it’s not easy to study the issue. Like just about everything else today, gun control has become so politicized that the stuff you find when you go scouting – reports, and anecdotal evidence, and summaries of studies – is almost always biased.

One way this happens is with the terminology. In the legal literature, a distinction is made between “shall-issue” states and “may-issue” states. (Shall-issue states are those that allow citizens to carry without permits.) In the political literature, “shall-issue” laws are called “constitutional-carry” (versus “no-permit”). And other sources equate “may-issue” with “right-to-carry.”

Another problem is that some studies are countrywide and statewide, but gun control regulations often vary by smaller jurisdictions (like counties).

But the biggest problem is that there have been so many studies on the subject, from many different perspectives and using different metrics. On top of that, the results of those studies are often misinterpreted.

For example, the idea that “more guns = less violence” originated from a study published in 1997 that compared gun violence to permit-less concealed-carry regulations from 1977 to 1992. The study concluded that “states implementing shall-issue laws saw significant decreases in rates of violent crime, murder, rape, and assault.”

Apparently, this finding did not sit well with gun control advocates, who raised funding for several more studies that found the opposite result: States that legalized permit-less concealed-carry protocols saw increases in gun assaults by 11% to 15%.

Today, those studies are quoted by gun control advocates. But when I looked at them, I noticed the same “trick” you see in studies published by the medical-industrial complex. They quote differences in relative terms, which is misleading. In the case of those 11% to 15% increases, the actual numbers were something like 5.6 assaults for every 100,000 people, versus 4.9 assaults. That sort of difference is statistically meaningless.

More recently, two meta-studies were done of most of the previous studies – one by the National Research Council and one by the US Dept. of Health and Human Services. They both came to the same conclusion: If there is a difference between jurisdictions that have shall-carry versus will-carry regulations, it is too small to draw any definitive conclusions.

That made me feel better. And here’s a second thing that eased my mind: In becoming a shall-carry state, Florida will not be some rogue outlier. It turns out that 25 other states already have shall-carry regulations.

So where does that leave me?

I’m not going to worry about getting caught in a gun fight every time I walk into a 7-Eleven. But I need to remember that anyone anywhere might be packing.

As for gun control regulation? I’m in favor of it. Notwithstanding the data, which I do believe, I’d like to see more, not fewer, requirements. I like the child-protection requirements. I like the cool-down provisions. I also like required gun safety training.

I respect the Second Amendment. Americans have a right to carry guns. But gun control doesn’t negate that right. People also have a right to start businesses, drive cars, operate heavy machinery, and cut hair. And all of those activities require permits and training. (Interesting: In Florida today, it takes 1,200 hours of training to obtain a license to cut hair, 500 hours of training to obtain a massage therapist license, and 240 hours of training to become a licensed manicurist.)

And yes, the bad guys will be able to buy guns without permits and even guns without serial numbers. That won’t prevent the good guys from having guns, too. Everyone will have guns. But if the bad guys get caught carrying illegally, they can be prosecuted. And if they get caught using their guns to commit crimes, they’ll get extra years attached to their sentences.

Anonymous Giving

The Torah says that the highest form of charity is when the giving is done anonymously. One gives for the opportunity to help someone else, without any expectation of social recompence. When we donate to charities via email or mail, we are practicing that.

When the donations are considerable, like millions, one is tempted to be repaid by some form of acknowledgment, such as a plaque on a wall. The great majority of such plaques record for prosperity the name of the donor. A tiny percentage may attribute the gift to “Anonymous.”

(There’s a great episode in Curb Your Enthusiasm about this. Click here.)

There’s another kind of charity – a common form – that is a bit more selfless than getting one’s name on a plaque. I’m thinking of donating one’s time and/or money to charitable causes that do not award donors with recognition. One performs this sort of charity because one wants the benefit of feeling good about contributing to a cause that is virtuous.

And then there is the sort of charity that is anonymous in the sense that neither the donor nor the donee knows one another – random acts of charity, such as helping a stranger change a tire or giving money to a panhandler.

If the random donation is significant, it has the capacity to brighten up someone’s day. And the recompense to the donor is seeing that moment in the eyes of the recipient. I’ve been doing this sort of giving ever since my personal income exceeded my spending, and I can avow from experience that there is a very substantial benefit to the donor, one that can equal or exceed the value of the gift.

I’m hardly alone in this sort of giving. Millions of people all over the world perform random acts of charity every day. Recently, in fact, videotaping such exchanges has become a trope on social media that is fun to watch. You can find at least a dozen new examples on YouTube every day.

Here are two examples:

Click here.

And here.

What I Believe: About People with Gender Dysphoria

And How the Woke Mob Is  Making a Mockery of Them 

In some ways, the transgender debate may be the most important cultural issue of this century. Certainly more important than ageism, xenophobia, and fat phobia. But it’s also more important than sexism, religious animosity, and even racism.

I say that because all the other debates are grounded in some level of shared reality. But transgenderism, as it is being promoted today, is based on an absolute and willful denial of reality. A denial that all rational defenders of the transgender agenda know to be false.

Let me step back for a moment to give you some perspective on my thinking…

I believe there is such a thing as gender dysphoria. I believe it is a real psychological condition that should be taken seriously. But before transgenderism became such a huge political issue, my only thoughts about it came from personal experience.

Longstanding acquaintances of mine had a daughter that began evincing symptoms of gender dysphoria at a young age. The parents struggled with not knowing how exactly to respond for many years. But they took it slowly, recognizing how common it is for young and pre-adolescent children to test out different socially recognized identities. Not just in gender, but in just about every other role, throughout their development. (As every parent knows, and as almost every study has shown, children’s personalities are not firmly established until after adolescence.)

Rather than nudge their daughter one way or the other, the parents took a neutral stance until she had finished high school. By the time she entered college, her transition was, for all intents and purposes, complete. He is today a happy, successful, and charming young man.

Much more recently, I was working on a project for a business I own that required weekly meetings with a team of four people. One of those people was a young man that looked every bit like a young man when we began the project. But gradually, as the weeks and months went by, he began to make small changes towards a more feminine appearance. At the beginning of his transition, I noticed that he was growing his hair, but that didn’t mean anything. And I was a little taken aback when I noticed that his fingernails were painted. But I knew an MMA fighter that painted his toes. By the time he began wearing a touch of makeup here and there, I suspected that something was going on. I wasn’t sure, but I was curious. I asked his manager, “What’s going on with Eric?” Being a younger person with younger person sensibilities, he looked at me like I was crazy.

By that time, we had finished the project and so I had no reason to be back in those offices until nearly a year later. When I did get back, I was introduced to Erica, an attractive and capable young woman. My confusion was gone. I looked forward to working with her in the future.

Those were two good experiences – positive for me and for the people who had transitioned. But I don’t think they are typical of most of what we are seeing today. A disturbingly large number of transgendered celebrities seem to identify more with drag queens than they do with women. And that is one of the things that perplexes me. If gender dysphoria is a real thing, it means that a transgendered woman wants to be a woman, not a man in drag.

These people are imposters. Attention seeking oddballs that are taking advantage of the transgender movement to claim their fifteen minutes of fame. And they are, in my view, an insult to the few people that have true gender dysphoria and deserve our respect and consideration.

A few examples:

* Here’s Dylan Mulvaney, the new icon of transgender woman and her view of what a woman should be.

* Here’s someone that has a psychological condition that needs a new name.

* Here’s a biological man doing what I suppose he thinks is a satire of transgenderism in front of a panel that doesn’t know if he’s serious.

I’ve got a lot more to say on the subject, but that’s enough for today. In future missives, I’ll:

* Give you the factual data on gender dysphoria over the years.

* Explain why the debate about pronouns is actually about free and forced speech.

* Talk about the insanity of allowing transwomen to compete against biological women in any sport, including chess.

* Argue that the transgender movement is not trivial and should not be dismissed… and why, in fact, it is a critical issue about the future of freedom in the “modern” world.

When You Know It’s Unjust

One of the challenges of charity is that there are all sorts of nebulous aspects to supporting worthy causes. Among the most common are the many ways they can have unintended consequences. There is also the question of fraud – from non-profit institutions that spend too much on themselves, to those that don’t do all of what they say they do, to those that donate money, intentionally or not, to liars and scamsters.

I have an abiding interest in charitable giving. Not because I think it is virtuous, but because I see it as a contributing factor to being a happy person. I also believe that it exists in everyone as a species survival instinct. It’s part of our DNA.

Of the various causes I contribute to, one that I feel strongly about is reversing wrongful convictions that result in incarceration or capital punishment. As a result, I’ve been interested in the Innocence Project since it was created about 30 years ago. I’ve also worked directly with incarcerated felons, which smartened me up in several ways. For example, it opened my eyes to the fact that for every unjustly convicted and imprisoned innocent person, there are probably ten that claim to be innocent but are not.  Twice, I’ve had the disappointment of spending considerable time and money trying to reverse a conviction that I eventually realized was just.

Which is to say that when you get into the business of charity, good intentions are not enough. You want to be doing the right thing for the right people.

The good news is that when DNA is involved, the chance of being wrong is reduced to nearly zero. And that’s why, however much I would prefer to work directly with individuals, I am giving to non-profits like the Innocence Project that have the resources to bring to court cases that have DNA evidence. (You’d be amazed at how many innocent people sit in jail today for whom there is DNA evidence that exculpates them, except that the DAs don’t want to reopen their cases.)

DNA plays a key role in the work of the Innocence Project. The founders, young lawyers at the time, realized that if DNA technology could be used to convict people guilty of crimes, it could also be used to prove that people that had been wrongfully convicted were innocent.

If you’d like to support the work of the Innocence Project’s DNA efforts, you can read more here.

“Poor Wreck That I Am”

Over the past 22 years, I’ve written a fair amount about my experiences with clinical level depression and anxiety, as well as the normal range of self-doubts and self-recriminations that any former altar boy is heir to. I’m proud to say that these pieces have been helpful to many, if I can extrapolate from the dozens of positive comments I’ve received.

I was talking to RT, a friend, teacher, and student, this morning. We were talking about how having a fundamentally negative view of oneself becomes a sort of emotional spring that is always trying to pull one back to negative thoughts and expectations of failure. Even years after one has achieved great success.

Later, this afternoon, I came across the journal entry below. It was written by John L’Heureux, an American novelist and poet that spent the first part of his career as a priest. Just days before his ordination, he writes about how unworthy he feels about the challenge before him. I thought it was a particularly good – and oddly comforting – articulation of that state of mind.

“Thinking about ordination as I do all the time, I find only one thing disturbs me and I don’t know how to formulate it so that it doesn’t sound like the old ‘I’m not worthy’ plea. (Of course you’re not worthy; it would be impertinent of you to wonder if you were.) I have no doubts that I want to be a priest, no uncertainty as to why. But it pains and embarrasses me more than I can say that what I will bring to that altar for ordination is this nauseating sack of guts: selfish, small, lecherous; a mind like a whorehouse; a tongue like a longshoreman’s; a soft mousy body that seeks always its own comforts, a will deluded by hyperactive desires. Poor wreck that I am. Can I give over to God’s service only so little, and that so badly damaged, so in and out of sin and desire? I shall have to let my grotesqueness testify to his mercy. God help me.”

 Aww, Isn’t That Cute!

I know what you are thinking… Ford is reading a bedtime story to his grandkids.

Not exactly. It was lunchtime. We are at a hotel in LA. The kids were acting up and the adults had not yet finished their food. So, I entertained them with one thing I was sure they would be interested in. I am commentating on an animated, made-for-children short movie on the many varieties and purposes of poop.