Ever since Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Maryland passed laws legalizing slot machines and table gaming, racetrack-casinos in WV worried that this increased competition would attract fewer customers to the state. While this worry has proven accurate, especially for the two racetrack-casinos in the northern panhandle, state regulations from Charleston have also hampered business practices at all four casinos operating in West Virginia.

State law requires that any casino in the state must host dog or horse races. This law has prompted many casinos to locate where racetracks were previously operating in the state. In fact, in 1994, the legalization of slot machines at the state’s four racetracks was pursued as a way to subsidize decreasing revenue from racing. Of the four casinos currently in business here, two have greyhound races and the other two horse races.

From this history of racing, the operation of casinos with video gambling and table gaming is tied to the operation of racetracks. As a result, the owners and breeders of racing animals are an entrenched interest in the state, receiving subsidies in the form of two separate funds. The money put into these funds is collected from a small portion of the slot machine and table gaming revenue that the state receives, not direct taxes. So, these subsidies are not connected to revenue raised from races, but from casinos.

The Greyhound Development Fund and the Thoroughbred Development Fund are used to help keep WV breeders and owners in business. Awards from these funds in 2011 totaled about $19 million, with $12.6 million going to the horse fund and $6 million to the greyhounds. Those lump sums aren’t simply divided equally among all breeders and owners, but instead, those whose horses or greyhounds win receive more, with some losers not receiving any.

In addition, “purse funds” are collected from the same casino revenue and awarded to winning animals at the racetrack each year. In 2011, winning horses were rewarded with $53 million and greyhounds with $19 million, totaling about $72 million in “purse funds.”

The problem of declining revenue from slot machines and table games affects both of these funds because that revenue is their source. In 2007, the Greyhound Development Fund paid out $7.5 million to owners and breeders, about $1.5 million more than it did in 2011. However, declining revenue has not seemed to affect the Thoroughbred Development Fund, since it paid about $5 million in 2007 yet $12.6 million in 2011.

Recently, Jim Simms, President and General Manager of the Wheeling Island Racetrack and Gaming Center, petitioned legislators in the state Racing Commission to cut down the number of races a track must host in a given week. In 2012, 115 races were required to be held each week, but to keep his racetrack-casino profitable, he wanted to cut down that number to 101.

However, Phil Reale, a lobbyist and Counsel for the WV Kennel Owners Association, explained at the meeting with the Racing Commission that this reduction would not allow all of the dogs to race each week, which is necessary for the animals to maintain conditioning and for the owners to maintain profit. The Racing Commission came to a compromise between the two parties this month, requiring that the racetracks host 107 races each week.

The dog breeders and owners support these funds and the state racing regulation because it helps them stay in business, and it is argued that it keeps their business in the state, since those receiving development funds must have some ties to WV. They also point out that the funds do not come from direct tax payer dollars, but revenue the state receives from gambling.

On the other hand, this revenue is being used to support what Simms calls “a declining industry,” and the reasoning for its support begs the question of whether or not this state revenue could be put to better use. Other states have a similar model of subsidizing racing with casino revenue, including New York, Iowa, and Florida, the state with the majority of US racetracks. However, racetrack-casino owners in those states are also pushing for less races or their elimination.

On March 6, the state Senate introduced a bill that would help the state’s racetrack-casinos maintain profitability by reducing the taxes and fees levied on them and allowing the businesses to set the number of racing days held each year. The provisions include a reduction in table gaming taxes to 25% from 35% and a reduction in the annual license fee from $2.5 million to $1 million. Compared to Ohio where the state tax on table games is 33% and Pennsylvania where it is 16%, the lower tax is designed to make the WV industry competitive with neighboring states.

In support of the bill, John Cavacini, President of the West Virginia Racing Association, has said that this legislation will help keep casinos in the state profitable, particularly the Wheeling Island Racetrack and Gaming Center. Currently, racetracks are required to hold a minimum of 200 race days each year, but this new bill will lower that minimum to 150. While the racetracks will then have the power to set their number of race days, the state Racing Commission will set a range that denotes the minimum and maximum number of races that must be held each year.

Opposing this bill are those connected with the state’s greyhound and thoroughbred racing. Carol Fulks, a lobbyist for the state’s Thoroughbred Breeder’s Association, stated that they are,”100 percent against reducing racing days down to 150.” In addition, a provision in the bill will reduce the amount of money going into the ‘purse funds’ for racing as a way to offset the state’s loss of revenue from reducing the taxes and fees on table gaming.

It’s not clear whether there is a comparable industry in the state where legislators force a private business to continue providing a service that isn’t profitable. As John Cavacini explains, the current method for determining race days is “self-serving” for the breeders, since they have so much power in determining the number of races and the racetrack-casino has virtually none. The choice for racetrack-casino owners is either to host the regulated number of races each week or cease operation.

The state then takes revenue from the profitable side of their business, the casino, and uses it to subsidize the unprofitable side, the racetrack. From an economic standpoint, this regulation further inhibits casinos in WV from competing with the newly opened ones in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Maryland.

The state government welcomed the increased budgetary revenue from slot machines and table gaming when each was first legalized. Now, interstate competition has brought that number down. Their choice is simple. If they want to see continued revenue in their budget from our four racetrack-casinos, they must empower casino owners to run a profitable business.

Would you knowingly allow anyone to inject your child with a dose of a known poison? Would you knowingly poison your own child?

Don’t answer too fast, because that is exactly what’s happening every day across America.

Cigarette smoking kills, wounds and damages children just as certainly as any unbalanced maniac who points a gun at their heads and pulls the trigger.

Mothers who smoke during pregnancy are doing just that, as they share the poisons from cigarette smoke through the common blood supply flowing from the placenta to the unborn child. Despite clear and compelling information, this goes on 24 hours per day for the 270 day gestation period, though smokers’ babies have a higher likelihood of preterm delivery and low birth weight. Both are markers for the panoply of other limiting or handicapping conditions, including subaverage general intellectual functioning, learning disabilities, and a whole range of behavior disorders, hyperactivity, and reading and math disabilities.

According to The American Lung Association, the approximately 20% of pregnant women who choose to smoke kill about 1,000 babies each year in America. Their cigarettes transmit deadly poisons, such as carbon monoxide, lead, arsenic, nicotine, formaldehyde and hundreds of other toxins to the fetus with every bit of smoke they inhale. By choosing to smoke, they cause nearly one-third of low-birth weight infants, about one-seventh of preterm deliveries and about one-in-ten of all infant deaths, along with increased risk of miscarriages and stillborn deliveries.

In addition, smoking mothers who nurse continue to give their babies breast milk that is laced with cigarette smoke poisons and provide second hand smoke for the infants to inhale on a regular and ongoing basis.

This results in more colds and respiratory problems, including pneumonia and bronchitis, as well as long term physical and general intellectual functioning deficits. Accumulated toxins from third-hand smoke are often concentrated in clothing, bedding, furniture and other household items, allowing physical/oral transmission to the infant and increasing susceptibility to asthma and cancer.

Studies also indicate nicotine can have a negative impact on brain development and functioning. Observable effects include significantly reduced thickness of the cerebral cortex, smaller cerebral cortex neurons, and reduced brain weight. Also noted is an overall decrease in dendritic branching (connections to other brain cells). Studies show, too, that the greater the dose of nicotine, the greater the effects upon the offspring. This research provides an excellent biological model to support the many other studies linking increased hyperactivity, attention deficits, lower IQ, and learning disabilities in children with parents who smoked during pregnancy. Other impacts of smoking can include conduct disorders such as, ADD, ADHD, and Oppositional Defiant behavior which can carry through to adulthood.

In many states, education officials are struggling to improve literacy rates, as well as overall academic performance of children in schools and the ongoing impact of smoking makes things difficult. Recent research indicates children of mothers who smoked during pregnancy score about 20% below their peers in reading, a key factor in learning.

West Virginia leads the nation in the rate of smoking among expectant mothers at nearly 30% and the rate in some of the state’s counties exceeds 40%. Most of Appalachia and many major cities are not far behind.

Exacerbating things even further, abuse of prescription and illicit drugs, alcohol use and nutritional factors combine with smoking to virtually guarantee developmental damage to many children; damage that carries through to adulthood. The smoking impact cuts across all socio-economic and racial strata.

In taxpayer terms, the additional costs in special and compensatory education, medical resources, and what are often lifetime disability and medical payments are staggering and continuing to grow.

Until we remedy this situation, overall educational progress will continue to lag for many children despite improvements in curriculum, more effective teaching efforts and methods, and the infusion of even more money.

The shock and revulsion of more than a thousand child gun deaths annually, including school shootings, has evoked a passionate national outcry for some sort of action. Killing, wounding and damaging even more children with cigarettes, though, seems to be perfectly acceptable.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Editor’s Note: Dr. Terry Wallace chairs the College of Fellows at West Liberty University, serves as a Senior Fellow at the Public Policy Foundation of West Virginia and is a participant with the CATO Institute.

This article originally appeared in the Times Leader online on March 18, 2013.

On January 16, a little over a month after the tragic Sandy Hook shootings, President Obama and the White House unveiled their proposal for gun control after a month of debates with other policymakers. One of the most controversial measures included in this proposal is a ban on the manufacture and sale of “assault weapons” or certain types of semi-automatic rifles, along with a ten round limit on magazines. In addition, the White House would like to ban armor-piercing ammunition that is dangerous to law enforcement when criminals use it.

However, for enactment, this proposal must be approved by both Congressional Houses, yet it has seen little movement forward with many Senators and Representatives opposed to the severity of this gun control proposal. There is good reason for this delay since nearly all of the evidence demonstrates that these new stringent proposals would have made little, if any, difference in Sandy Hook and other mass shootings.

As the first measure, the ban on assault weapons is misleading because the definition of an “assault weapon” is largely based on the appearance of a firearm. Some regular hunting rifles and “assault weapons” like the AR-15 are semi-automatic weapons, meaning they release one round with each pull of the trigger, then eject the empty shell, and reload the next round without the need for additional manual operation.

In order to differentiate the AR-15 from sporting rifles, the Executive’s proposed ban works along the same lines as the expired Assault Weapons Ban of 1994. This previous legislation prohibited firearms that share too many visual features with military-style fully automatic weapons, such as a pistol grip or folding stock. While the mechanical features of these civilian “assault weapons” are identical to hunting rifles, this proposal seizes on misinformation and the visual similarity that these types of civilian firearms share with military firearms.

The additional measure that would limit the capacity of magazines to ten rounds is similarly arbitrary from the standpoint of reducing a gun’s potential lethality. The argument defending the measure is based on the idea that the limitation will force a shooter to reload more often which gives law enforcement or armed good Samaritans the chance to incapacitate the gunman.

However, it’s unclear whether this requirement will actually hinder a gunman’s shooting power because nearly all mass shootings, especially those occurring on school premises, target large groups of unarmed individuals and an experienced gunman will be able to reload quickly regardless of magazine limitations.

The Virginia Tech Review Panel concluded after the horrific shooting that if the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban had been in place with a magazine limit of ten rounds, it “would not have made much  difference” in the resulting number of deaths. In the shooting, only two handguns were used with a number of ten round and fifteen round magazines, and the shooter remained unopposed by armed law enforcement for about fifteen minutes while he was attacking multiple rooms of unarmed students and professors.

Similarly, the Department of Justice conducted a study on gun crime where Christopher Koper, a criminology professor, found that “assailants typically fire less than four shots on average, a number well within the 10-round magazine limit” of the proposed ban.

As the final provision, prohibiting armor piercing ammunition appears to be a rational step to protect the lives of law enforcement, but this type of ammunition for handguns has already been prohibited by the federal government since 1986. This legislation targets armor piercing ammunition for handguns as opposed to ammunition for all firearms because criminals mainly use the easily concealed handgun and Kevlar can resist being penetrated by normal handgun ammunition.

However, hunting rifles and shotguns have greater firepower than handguns, and consequently, bullets fired from these guns penetrate Kevlar more easily.  Looking at the official White House proposal, it’s unclear how they plan on extending this prohibition to other firearms. If it would involve a test to see which types of bullets from which guns can pierce Kevlar vests, there is a real potential of banning rifles and shotguns due to the greater power of these firearms compared to handguns.

Since this proposal and especially these measures have proven unpopular among the majority of Congress, bipartisan groups of legislators have begun drafting their own bills in each House to make an explicit federal statute criminalizing gun trafficking and strengthening penalties against individuals who make “straw purchases” from gun dealers, where they buy a weapon for an individual who is prohibited from gun ownership. In addition, there is widespread support for strengthening the background check system that is initiated before making gun purchases.

While this type of legislation will not prevent all illegal gun purchases by criminals or subject black market gun purchases to background checks, neither would the White House proposal. However, the target of these penalties is the criminal, not the gun used by the criminal, and this aim is one that should be pursued.

Nothing we can do now will ever bring back the children who were tragically attacked in mid-December, and there is nothing in the White House proposal that could seriously prevent another tragedy from occurring. Banning a weapon for the way it looks is not the answer, nor is turning our schools into a prison-like environment of security, even if it feels right.

What is needed right now is rational individuals to stand up and rationally defend their 2^nd Amendment rights in the media because one mass shooting in the news drowns out all of the other stories of heroism, of citizens who protect others with firearms.

Two days after the Sandy Hook shooting, a woman was shot in a restaurant by her ex-boyfriend in San Antonio, and he then went next door to a theater to attack more people. However, an off-duty deputy at the theater pulled out her gun and shot the man four times before he could injure anyone. While this story demonstrates the self-defense capability of firearms, it wasn’t covered in the national media because it conflicts with the negative message that guns only bring death and violence to innocents.

Before the nation turns to limiting the gun rights of people like this off-duty deputy, other measures targeted at criminals must be pursued, like strengthening our background check system. There are many options available for reducing gun violence and keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of criminals, instead of taking them out of the hands of law-abiding citizens.

America’s last surviving World War I veteran, West Virginian Frank Woodruff Buckles, died in February 2011. Though we never met, I grew up with many of his Doughboy contemporaries. My grandfather, a World War I cavalryman, was one of them. He was born in 1897 and his hand-colored 1917 Army portrait hangs on my wall. They were the generation that connected the frontier days to our emerging modernity, saw the first automobiles and airplanes and lived through the sinking of the Titanic.

These 19th century men left home, many for the first time, to face 20th century weapons that elevated human slaughter to the industrial factory level of efficiency that was emblematic of that new age.

In what was still a horse-based United States Army, they shipped out to Europe as part of the Allied Expeditionary Force to face the horrors of mechanized warfare that obliterated an entire generation of young men. At the peak of the madness, both sides’ 19th century generals and tacticians sacrificed as many as 100,000 lives per day to the 20th century machine guns, artillery, high velocity explosives and poison gasses.

Beyond the horrific slaughter of the new warfare, even more died of disease before they even left their mustering camps to face the Huns. After the war, death dogged the survivors relentlessly as the Spanish influenza followed them to their homes everywhere. It took soldiers and civilians by the tens of thousands as part of a world-wide epidemic that killed so rapidly and pervasively that there were often not enough able bodied people to remove and bury the dead. Both sides were so decimated and exhausted that they took a 20-year respite from the “war to end all wars” before resuming the slaughter in what became the even deadlier World War II.

All of our nation’s warriors went through this before and since World War I, with variations in time, place and technology.

Those who died gave up not only their lives, but their yet-unlived years of future happiness, creativity and societal contributions. Survivors’ lives were never the same as they dealt with the aftermath of wounds and injuries and carried memories of horrors that could never be exorcised.

Despite it all, they continued to serve as they returned home and helped build or rebuild their families, communities, institutions and the country. From the American Revolution forward, this has been the soldiers’ way and will probably always be so. This includes women who served directly, as well as those who tended the home fires and ran the farms and factories. Most veterans are self-effacing and usually refer to their fallen comrades as the real heroes. They have never asked for much, if anything, in return.

Over the years, it has become customary to honor America and those who have given so much to assure our freedoms and way of life throughout our history.

As a symbolic display of respect and remembrance for those who served, Congress enacted a law requiring proper etiquette during the playing of the national anthem. The U.S. Code reads: “During rendition of the national anthem when the flag is displayed, all present except those in uniform should stand at attention facing the flag with the right hand over the heart. Men not in uniform should remove their headdress with their right hand and hold it at the left shoulder, the hand being over the heart. Persons in uniform should render the military salute at the first note of the anthem and retain this position until the last note. When the flag is not displayed, those present should face toward the music and act in the same manner they would if the flag were displayed there.”

Federal courts have since decided that failure to obey this statute may be construed as protected speech and may not be punished. This, however, misses the point. Appropriate conduct during our national anthem represents basic courtesy and respect for our nation and those whose sacrifices preserved it, past and present.

Good manners are the lubricant of our social interactions and make our daily lives easier and more pleasant.

Proper national anthem etiquette is a simple display of good manners, no matter who you are or where you come from. Regardless of our individual beliefs concerning the free speech issues or whether we choose to respect or demean the sacrifices of those who served to protect us and our freedoms, we can and should at least be mannerly.

Watching ill-mannered adults’ reprehensible behavior during the playing of the anthem, I can only surmise that they must have made a conscious and thoughtful decision to publically display their disrespect. Children whose manners are just as bad as these adults are either reflecting the views of their parents or they are the victims of poor parenting and don’t know any better.

Observing athletics teams during the playing of the anthem and seeing fans, players and coaches with eyes on the flag and hands on the heart, I can only infer the positive qualities that they, their families and their schools value, respect and hold sacred. The converse is also true.

This silent, overt act of acknowledgement and respect during the “Star-Spangled Banner” is a salute to all those who have served and will; especially our last Doughboy, Frank Woodruff Buckles.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Dr. Wallace is a senior fellow at the Public Policy Foundation of West Virginia and a senior fellow at the Government Policy Research Center at West Liberty University. This opinion article originally appeared in the Herald Star as a guest column on February 2, 2013.

Earlier this month, we ran an OPED written by Dr. Terry Wallace titled “Time for Increasing Student Performance” that has received recognition by the Time to Succeed Coalition. In the article, he mentions the need to increase quality time on task during instruction in order to increase student performance and make the most of the time spent in the schoolhouse. With educational policymakers clamoring for an expanded school year to increase student learning and information retention, the first step should be maximizing use of the time already set aside for education in the classroom.

This idea is perfectly in line with the work performed by the Time to Succeed Coalition who focus on improving schools in high-poverty communities throughout the US. They point out that the school year is based on a century old agrarian calendar, when summer vacation used to be set aside for work on the farm. Now, in our modern age, students use this vacation to spend time at the local swimming pool, catch up on their video games, or socialize with friends and family. Expanding the learning time by spreading out the school year more evenly would give educators the opportunity to discuss topics in depth, prevent students from having to play catch-up when school resumes in August, and allow parents to have a work schedule that better aligns with the school schedule.

The full introduction of Dr. Terry Wallace’s membership in the Time to Succeed Coalition can be found here on the organization’s website.

In the previous article of this series on firearms, one of the biggest myths about gun violence was debunked. Namely, that statistics show more guns do not result in more gun murders. However, the last article did not discuss any of the gun policy in place in the US at the federal or state level. These policies influence the ease with which citizens have access to guns, which guns are allowed for purchase, and how to obtain a concealed carry license. Before advocating for more gun reform, this policy already in place should be examined for its efficacy.

To start, a review of the federal law highlights the basic minimum of firearm regulation that states must enforce, and if legislators choose, they may create stronger standards for their states. The Gun Control Act of 1968 first established who would be prohibited from possessing any firearms. These include persons who would fall into any of the following categories:

• Convicted in a court for a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term over one year
• Is a fugitive from justice
• Is an unlawful user or addict of a controlled substance
• Has been adjudicated as a mental defective or committed to a mental institution
• Is illegally residing in the US
• Has been dishonorably discharged from the Armed Services
• Has renounced United States citizenship
• Is subject to a court order that restrains the person from harassing, stalking, or threatening an intimate partner or child of such intimate partner
• Has been convicted in a court of a misdemeanor of domestic violence
• Is under indictment for a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year

If one does not fall into any of the above categories, federal law dictates that rifles can be purchased by individuals above 18 years old, and handguns can be purchased by 21 year olds. In addition, the Gun Control Act began requiring individuals in the business of selling firearms to obtain a federal firearm license (FFL) from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). The full text of the Act can be accessed here.

Later, the federal government enacted the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act in 1993 to ensure that persons under these categories would be prevented from purchasing firearms, along with transporting or receiving these weapons through interstate commerce. As part of this legislation, the FBI created the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) for federally licensed firearm dealers to use during transactions. This system must be accessed if no other state background check has been initiated. The dealer will receive a quick answer, usually within minutes according to the FBI, as to whether the customer falls into one of the categories above and is prohibited from purchase. If the system does return a positive match for one or more category, the corresponding judicial or law enforcement agencies are contacted to provide the further information needed to approve the final decision. If for some reason the system does not provide a final answer within three days of the background check, the licensed dealer can make the decision to allow the purchase.

However, in some states, loopholes do exist that allow individuals who aren’t federally licensed to sell firearms without conducting a background check if the purchaser resides in the same state where the transaction is made. This is what is referred to as the “gun show loophole”. Seven states, including California, New York, Connecticut, and Colorado, have laws in place that require background checks for all gun purchases at gun shows, and looking at those states, one sees that those are where the majority of mass shootings have occurred recently. Four states, including Virginia and Pennsylvania, require background checks for all handgun purchases at gun shows. The rest of the 33 states in the US allow private individuals who aren’t FFL dealers and who don’t regularly engage in firearm business to sell their guns at gun shows or even their own house without conducting background checks.

While many gun control advocates have been lobbying for the federal government to close this loophole, a study performed in 1994 by the National Institute for Justice, an agency part of the US Department of Justice, surveyed adults nationwide to find out how they acquired their guns. Asking about purchases made between 1993-1994, they found that only 4% of firearm sales were conducted at a gun show or flea market. The majority of purchases occurred at gun stores from FFL dealers, and the second highest source of firearm acquisition came from family members. Though many gun shows happen throughout the country every year and in some places background checks aren’t required, this study demonstrates that those transactions are a minority in comparison to the other sources of gun sales.

Moving to the states, gun regulation in WV is relatively light in comparison to that of surrounding states and regulation at the federal level. Our state does not require a permit to purchase firearms or the registration and licensure of gun owners. In order to see some of the main differences, an examination of gun laws in other states will prove beneficial.

For example, Maryland has some of the toughest gun laws in the surrounding states. To start, firearms are required to be registered with the state upon purchase, and individuals may not buy more than one regulated gun within a 30-day period. The minimum age for all gun purchases is 21 years, which is more stringent than the federal requirement. In addition, the government compiles a Handgun Roster that lists all of the permissible handguns for purchase in the state, and law prohibits the purchase of specifically named “assault pistols” unless registered before August 1, 1994. The list of the pistols banned can be found in the text of the law here on page 203.

Pennsylvania also has some stringent laws on firearms, especially in the city of Philadelphia where open carry of firearms is prohibited. A “License to Carry Firearms” (LTCF) is required to have guns on one’s person in public in Philadelphia or other restricted properties in the state. The state is mandated to issue an LTCF to residents unless there is good cause to deny the license.

Virginia has a unique law in place which bans “plastic firearms” or as defined in statute, any gun that contains “less than 3.7 ounces of electromagnetically detectable metal in the barrel, slide, cylinder, frame, or receiver”. The reason for this ban is that when run through an X-ray scanner or metal detector, these guns will not show an accurate outline of their shape, and can be concealed on one’s person much easier at airports or other buildings using this type of security.

Ohio has much less stringent firearm laws than these other states, with its code resembling that of West Virginia and Kentucky. The only notable law in place in the state applies to the possession of a “dangerous ordnance” defined as automatic firearms, short-barreled rifles/shotguns, firearms of “crude or extemporized manufacture”, and devices that can be adapted for use as firearms. A “dangerous ordnance” is illegal to possess unless one is a licensed dealer, authorized  by the government, or registered under the National Firearms Act.

Lastly, Kentucky has laws that are the most similar to West Virginia in comparison to other surrounding states. No firearms are required to be registered, none are banned, and there are no notable areas in the state where open carry of firearms is illegal. As mentioned in the previous article of this series, Kentucky and West Virginia have some of the lowest rates of firearm homicide yet the least stringent gun laws.

While these states also have fewer areas of high population density where gun crime happens more frequently, these correlations cannot be dismissed. As far as the data indicates, gun crime is connected not to the guns or the gun laws, but to the people. If Americans are serious about addressing the problem of gun violence, the human element to that violence must be addressed more forcefully because it is the human that pulls the trigger, not the gun or the laws in place. In the next article of the series, the WV Watchdog will examine the Obama Administration’s proposal designed to address this rise of gun violence and determine how well it could prevent future crimes.

With much fervor currently erupting in the US over the terrible tragedy committed last month in Connecticut, it’s imperative that citizens and policymakers allow their rationality and reason to guide their thinking on solutions instead of being overtaken by emotion. In this spirit, the WV Watchdog will be publishing a series of articles about facts on gun ownership, regulation, and crime in the US.

Since the federal and many state governments do not keep records on registered gun owners, and it is difficult to estimate how many illegal guns are in the country, reliable data on the number of firearms in America is scarce. Gunpolicy.org is a website hosted through the Sydney School of Public Health at the University of Sydney in Australia, and it compiles information on firearm statistics from countries throughout the world. According to their site, there are an estimated total of 270,000,000 firearms in the US, including both licit and illicit weapons. Other sources of data, such as cumulated production estimates from firearm manufacturers in 1999, confirm the credibility of this number more than other estimates in the lower or higher range.

Given the difficulty of finding a consistent number of all guns in the country, it is even more troublesome to find information on the total firearms within a state such as West Virginia. The best numbers I could find come from a survey performed in 2002 by the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS). The researchers asked over 200,000 respondents nationwide, “Are any firearms now kept in or around your home? Include those kept in a garage, outdoor storage area, car, truck, or other motor vehicle.” In addition, respondents were asked if those guns are now loaded, and if they were kept locked with a key or combination because the safety feature was not considered a lock. Full results for the survey can be found here, and a table containing the results for West Virginia and bordering states is displayed below:

As you can see, West Virginia and Kentucky have some of the most armed populations in their surrounding areas with a majority of respondents claiming to have firearms, and many more claiming to have loaded firearms than those in other states. Many of us who have grown up in WV, or even KY, can attest to the “gun culture” in these areas, where hunting is such a big part of the year that some counties give students vacation days, along with the emphasis families place on gun safety as part of this culture. In comparison, Maryland and Ohio had gun ownership rates less than the national average; Pennsylvania and Virginia hover right around that national average in the US.

If the raw number of guns in the population is linked to the firearm murder rate, one would assume that states like West Virginia and Kentucky would have a high prevalence of homicides committed with firearms. However, data from the FBI in 2011 shows otherwise. Compiling data on the number of homicides committed with a firearm and dividing by the total number of homicides committed in each state in 2011 will give us the percentage of the homicides where guns were the weapon of choice. The table with the full results for all staets can be found here and shown below is a table for surrounding states:

This information demonstrates that in West Virginia and Kentucky, where more citizens have guns, the number of murders committed using firearms is below the national average. While other factors certainly contribute to a state having a high murder rate, one cannot claim the simple correlation that more guns result in more gun murders.

Moving away from murder to data on violent crime shows what is the biggest predictor of the rate of violence in an area: population size. FBI data for 2011 shows that the violent crime rate in the US per 100,000 residents is 392.2, but for metropolitan areas with more than 250,000 residents, this number almost doubles to 754.5. For murder, the same trend is observed with the national rate at 4.8 per 100,000 residents, yet the metropolitan rate is double that at 10.1. When making and evaluating gun regulation on a national scale, our policymakers must account for these differences in crime rates based on population because a large-scale, uniform approach fails to address what contributes to crime in certain areas.

In the area of policy, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence is a well-known organization that lobbies states and the federal government for more gun laws and regulation. They compile a scorecard for every state, rating the variety and strength of their laws on gun control. West Virginia and Kentucky are included in the group of states with the weakest laws on the books, yet those states have some of the lowest rates of firearm homicide. Pennsylvania and Maryland make the top ten of their list for states with the strongest gun regulations even though they have much higher rates of gun homicide. This approach to evaluation ignores the aforementioned fact that a nationally uniform gun policy does not address the different contributors to violent crime and murder in different areas.

From all of these facts and figures, one can conclude that reducing the prevalence of gun violence is not as simple as reducing the prevalence of guns. Many factors come into play, so any government policy aimed at preventing massacres like the one committed at Sandy Hook Elementary must be informed by reason and research. Simply making it harder for law abiding citizens to purchase guns will not solve the problem, as is shown with the high rates of firearm homicide in states that top the Brady Campaign’s list for strong gun control. In the next article of this series, we will examine some of the firearm laws in place in West Virginia, along with the differences between our laws here and those in surrounding states.

On January 2, President Obama  signed off on the National Defense Authorization Act of 2013 (NDAA) in addition to the fiscal cliff legislation. While the latter has received much more widespread coverage in the mainstream media, the NDAA bill of 2013 contains provisions that equally affect all Americans regardless of economic status.

This new version of the legislation continues to give the executive branch power to indefinitely detain American citizens without due process of the law on suspicions of assisting terrorism. Civil rights groups have voiced intense criticism over this provision because the language of the NDAA bill is too vague in outlining what acts are considered terrorism or assistance to terrorism, and it ignores the Constitutional protection entitled to American citizens.

For example, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) explains in this video that somebody who is missing fingers or has more than seven days worth of food stored in his house is considered a terrorist suspect according to the Department of Justice. For these acts, Americans can be held indefinitely in Guantanamo Bay without trial and without any additional proof that they have any connection to terrorism.

In the 2012 version of the NDAA, President Obama promised that his administration would not abuse this power granted in the bill, and in 2013, an amendment was introduced in a draft that would require the military to give American citizens a trial, in accordance with the Constitution.  This “Feinstein Amendment,” named after Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California) who introduced it, passed the Senate without any problems in December of 2012.

However, a group of lawmakers in opposition later deleted the amendment from the final mark-up of the bill before it could pass through the House. According to Politico, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee Carl Levin (D-Michigan) informed reporters that this amendment was dropped during a conference committee without outlining any reasons for it.

In a comment to the Huffington Post on Tuesday December 18, 2012, the spokesperson for Senate committee leaders alleged that the “Feinstein Amendment” was replaced with language that would guarantee the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) and 2012 NDAA legislation

“shall not be construed to deny the availability of the writ of habeas corpus or to deny any Constitutional rights in a court ordained or established by or under Article II of the Constitution to any person inside the United States who would be entitled to the availability of such writ or to such rights in the absence of such laws.”

The problem with this clause, even if it is included in the 2013 version of the NDAA, is that it does not establish that American citizens are entitled to a court trial, as they would be under the Bill of Rights. Language about habeas corpus does not add much force either since the Supreme Court has already stated that habeas corpus, the requirement that the accused be brought before a judge, applies to all persons, regardless of citizenship status.

On another note, the bill prevents the Executive from transferring prisoners out of Guantanamo Bay for one fiscal year. While the original version of the NDAA in the Senate included a ban on the transference of detainees in Guantanamo, some civil rights groups point out that this could eventually allow the President to close the camp or release some of the inmates there. As part of President Obama’s campaign in 2008, he pledged to put an end to the US prison in Cuba, but so far during his first term, this promise has yet to be fulfilled.

The start to this new year will mark the start to the second term of office for President Barack Obama. Though the President has voiced concerns over this legislation in the past, including threats to veto the 2013 bill over language that would prohibit him from closing Guantanamo, he still signed the 2013 NDAA bill into law.

January 11^th will mark the eleventh year of the prison being open in Cuba, yet it appears our President has done little to prevent this anniversary from happening, or to prevent Americans from the possibility of ending up as an inmate in the foreign prison.

Several states finally got the memo and have just announced plans to add 300 hours, the equivalent of about 50 days, to the school year as part of a State/Federal pilot program.

As a youngster, I lived in fear of this notion.  Summer was a time of escape to a Huckleberry Finn/Spanky and Our Gang sort of lifestyle, though I was usually ready to get back to school by sometime in August.  Growing up did little to diminish my view of summer.

So, why upset the applecart now?  The problem is that achievement for most students has been declining despite efforts aimed toward improvement.  We are attempting to squeeze an ever-broadening curriculum into a fixed school year of about 180 days.

In a world economy that increasingly demands higher performance and lifelong learning, while we cling to an agrarian calendar, what answers are there?

Educational research has long given us the answer, but research is so dull, boring and overly complicated that almost no one reads it, including educators.  Fortunately, a guy named Malcolm Gladwell does read it.  He has a knack for noticing important things that most of the rest of us miss, points them out and makes lots of money writing about them.  In one of his most popular books, Outliers, he offers some solutions for improving education.

Citing how-they-did-it examples of excellence ranging from the Beatles to Bill Gates; from hockey to baseball, and within education, Gladwell found that high performance requires lots of high quality time-on-task.  The reason that so many Asian kids dominate in math and science is not that they are innately smarter; they simply spend more quality time working hard and learning.

Rich kids out perform poor kids because they get more learning time.  Conversely, poor kids can do as well as rich kids when they spend the same amount of time/intensity on learning.  Kids who do best have less “down time” compared to those who achieve less.

But there is more.  The time on task must be quality time.  You just can’t just show up and sit and daydream (as I did during my study halls).  This means delivering planned, structured and evaluated instructional time at every opportunity.

Gladwell noticed that to get really good at anything, the rule of thumb is that it takes about 10 years or 10,000 hours of quality time on task.  The Beatles performed professionally seven nights a week for about 10 years before they became an “overnight” success and appeared on the Ed Sullivan show.  Steve Jobs spent a similar amount of intense time before introducing the crazy idea that everyone should have a computer.  Professional athletes have made similar investments and continue to be coached throughout their careers.

So how do we get more time on task in schools?

Our first step costs nothing: I urge each district to do a careful audit of how we spend the time already available.

If we have 180 instructional days per school year, with 6 hours in each day, are we spending each of those 1080 hours in the most productive manner possible and on the most necessary learning activities for each student?

Can we reduce or eliminate any of those hours of activities that are not instructional? Do we interrupt and displace instructional time with PA announcements, assemblies, “fun” days, fund raisers and other entertainments?

Does every student have a personal education plan that neither holds him back nor moves him too fast?  Are parents fully committed to the instructional process?  Is student discipline conducive to learning?  Do we control bullying?  Are we employing the best learning technologies?  Are we committed to high levels of learning for all students? Are we differentiating instruction for each student? Is every school day, including the first and last, a full instructional day?  Are we conducting enough targeted staff training?

Consider how little time our students spend on reading, mathematics and science within the larger curriculum during their academic careers.  Now think about how much of that is truly quality time.

We need to use every minute of our currently available instructional time wisely. In the school districts where I have served, we doubled our reading and math periods and saw corresponding increases in student proficiency.

The second step costs little, but is equally important.  Before we add many more days to the school calendar, we should consider extending the length of the school day by at least sixty minutes.  This is a good beginning and can yield the equivalent of no less than 30 additional instructional days per year, while minimizing the disruption to the current calendar and keeping non-instructional costs in check.

A longer school day may be anathema to those who use study halls for nap times.  But the cumulative effect on our children’s preparedness is real and substantial.

On behalf of Huckleberry Finn, Our Gang and Malcolm Gladwell, I rest our case.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Editor’s note:  Dr. Terry Wallace is a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Innovation in Education at West Liberty University and a Senior Fellow at the Public Policy Foundation of West Virginia

He was a role model, a philosophical mentor and his value system guided me as I grappled with the sometimes complex task of parenting my own children. Beyond that, though, he was a living connection to a time and place that I never saw, but always admired for its values, vigor and Horatio Alger optimism.

Many of my generation venerated the image and persona of John Wayne as representing the prototypical American hero. He was an actor. Bob Feller, though, was the real deal and one of the exemplars of the now nearly-gone greatest American generation. He was in the front row of that large group picture that included my own parents; the last altruistic generation fired in the crucible of the Great Depression and the global conflagration that was World War II.

In 1936, the big, lanky Iowa farm kid took major league baseball by storm as a seventeen year-old flamethrower, instantly dominating American league hitters without so much as a single appearance in the minor leagues; an unheard of feat in the talent-laden days of pre-expansion baseball. After incinerating major league hitters that summer, he went back home before the end of the season to finish high school.

He returned the following season and dominated the best hitters in baseball for the next 20 years. His career records would have been even more impressive had he not enlisted in the Navy after Pearl Harbor while in the midst of his prime.

Part of the allure he communicated to this Appalachian rookie, and to so many others growing up on farms and in coal towns and crowded cities across the country, was the if-he-did-it-so-can-I hopefulness that he engendered in all of us. In their efforts to protect us from disappointment, parents discouraged us from having big dreams or setting our sights too high. As products of the Depression, they had already seen too many hopes and dreams, including their own, dashed on the rocks of hard times, economic necessity and war. Most teachers, too, attempted to moderate our aspirations to the generational destinies of coal mining, farming, or laboring in a mill, as most of our adult relatives had done before us. Through this backdrop, Bob Feller’s life and example gave me and others permission to dream.

Despite my best efforts, I was never able to emulate his high leg kick or seemingly supersonic fastball, but he did convince me that I didn’t have to stay on the farm for the rest of my life.

Much of the detail of his life and times, both on and off the field are in his 1990 memoir, Now Pitching, Bob Feller, and I commend it to you. The book chronicles many details of his life that extend well beyond the sports pages and includes information and observations on many of the premier players of Feller’s era.

His frank and unabashed opinions on baseball players in the modern era often made him a lightning rod for criticism, but he remained characteristically obdurate through it all.

The same was true for his willingness to speak out with candor on a variety of non-baseball matters. Interviews with him were not always characterized by the “happy talk” so often expected of sports icons.

Intelligent, articulate, entrepreneurial and always a Cleveland loyalist, his moral compass represented an entire generation’s deeply held views on many important issues both inside and outside baseball.

Like his overwhelming fastball, his opinions did not always find the strike zone, but he was never afraid to bring the heat again and again.

Much of what passes for role model behavior today was never accepted or tolerated by him or those in his generation. As I watch the creeping spread of moral relativism in the education and acculturation of our youngsters, I don’t see many Bob Fellers among us. Infusing the coming generations with the values that made our nation great will be increasingly difficult as he and his contemporaries fade farther from memory.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Editor’s note: Terry Wallace is a Senior Fellow at West Liberty University’s Institute for Innovation in Education and a Senior Fellow at the Public Policy Foundation of West Virginia.