The Binary Circumstance

From 60 Minutes:

You could tell gun sales are up because all around the 60 Minutes team, dealers and customers at the show were busy filling out the paperwork needed for FBI background checks. Since November, the number of background checks nationally has jumped over 30 percent compared to last year.

Asked if prices are going up, [Philip Van Cleave, president of Virginia's largest gun-rights group] said, “Yeah, the prices have gone up. In fact a rifle like this, which is $700, probably a year ago would have been about half of that.”

One reason, he says, people are willing to dole out the cash during this financial meltdown – is the financial meltdown.

“We’re being told all the time that, ‘Oh, boy. The economy could just collapse. And we could fall into chaos.’ Well, chaos is a good reason to be able to protect yourself,” Van Cleave said.

“And this is what are in people’s minds and driving them into these shows and gun stores?” Stahl asked.

“It’s a form of insurance policy,” Van Cleave said. “You could imagine if we truly had a collapse of the economy and it was hard to find food, those that did manage to hang onto food might find themselves in a precarious position.”

But the bigger reason for this gun rush is best summed up by one gun show commercial: “Buy! Sell! Trade up and cash in! Celebrate the Second Amendment and get your guns while you still can!”

“While you still can” is code for “Barack Obama wants to take your guns away and re-impose the ban on assault weapons.”

“President Obama, when he was a senator in Illinois, pushed for every gun ban he could,” Van Cleave claimed.

“I actually heard that ammo was going quickly because people are afraid he’s gonna increase taxes on ammunition,” Stahl said.

“That’s another possibility,” Van Cleave said. “Certainly, a gun wouldn’t be any good without ammunition.”

People are stockpiling bullets. Three hours into the show, empty stock trays piled several feet high. Fear of Obama has actually created a national ammo shortage.

I think this is interesting because it shows that a growing number of people don’t trust the government to protect their freedoms or to prevent economic hardship or assault.

I think the more people buy guns, the more people who have never owned a gun before are going to want to buy one, just so they won’t be out-gunned.

I’ve said before on several occasions that the whole idea of “universal coverage” in health care is not real. It is not possible for any system, public or private to cover the needs of everyone. In the end, the amount of money and politics will determine which people and which diseases get covered.

Have said that, The Seattle Times recently ran an excellent article on some of the fundamental differences between how health care is delivered in Canada and the U.S.

Canadians pay higher sales taxes — up to twice as much as in many U.S. cities — but all 33 million are entitled to hospital and physician services at government expense. No Canadian goes bankrupt because of medical bills.

Across the border, 62 percent of the near-record number of bankruptcy filings are at least partly because of health-care costs. Some 46 million have no insurance; millions more are underinsured.

And while Americans spend more per person on health care than any other country, they aren’t the world’s healthiest. Canadians and residents of 28 other nations live longer.

[...]

“Government-run health-care systems like the one in Canada not only deny but also delay care for weeks, months and even years,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said recently.

Canadians freely admit their system is not perfect, citing shortages of doctors in many places, often long waits for elective procedures such as cataract surgery, too few nursing homes so the elderly often tie up hospital beds longer than they should.

There is a lot more interesting information in the article. I didn’t realize that it’s not a national system. Each each province has its own health care system.

But one area the article didn’t cover is prescription drugs.

Canada, like all government-run systems, uses its massive buying power to bargain down the price of prescription drugs. When Congress reformed Medicare, they specifically prohibited Medicare from negotiating for better drug prices allowing the drug companies to charge whatever they wanted. This was a huge gift of taxpayer money to drug companies.

Drugs that were developed using U.S. taxpayer money are inevitably cheaper in any other country in the world, often much cheaper. Americans are the ones who pay full price which means they are subsidizing the lower cost of health care in foreign countries like Canada.

That’s a major reason why medical care is much more expensive in the U.S. than it is in other countries.

It appears that Jupiter was recently hit by a large object, maybe a comet.

The article includes some cool pictures.

Just image if that happened to earth. Actually, something similar has happened at least once to earth.

This looks like a lot of fun, especially for those who can’t afford a real Cessna or a private pilot’s license.

Video from Top Flite.

Looks like they retail for about $400.