Category Domestic Policy

Who Actually Needs a Kevlar Vest?

Danny Vinik Leave a comment

This is an honest question. Who actually needs a Kevlar vest? The way I see it, there are three groups of people:

  1. Law enforcement, military, security personnel, etc.
  2. Private security and military
  3. Individual people who are expecting to be shot at

The first group certainly needs and deserves the vests. The second group puts their bodies on the line for people as well (although not always law-abiding people). Both of these groups put themselves in harm’s way as part of their jobs. A Kevlar vest is paramount for their protection.

The third group I’m not so sure about. Does any law-abiding person wake up each day and wear a Kevlar vest? I doubt it. Is there any law-abiding person who expects to be shot at and thus purchases a Kevlar vest and wears it constantly? I’m not so sure. Do any people purchase a vest just in case some day they find themselves expecting to be shot at? That sounds more plausible

But if the answer to all these questions is no, then why should individual people be able to buy these?

The idea of a gunman running around in a Kevlar vest is terrifying. In Newton, we saw the beginning of it. Maybe it’s time we reconsider how easy these are to purchase.

Or am I missing a logical, legal use here?

For the first two groups above, we can issue the vest to the personnel and track them. For the third, is there a reason Kevlar vests should be easily available? Wouldn’t restricting the sales of them prevent future gunmen from protecting themselves. The last thing we want is for one of these horrible acts to end with a gunman protected by Kevlar in a shootout with police.

But my question is sincere. Is there a good reason a law-abiding individual would ever expect to be shot at and thus go out a purchase a Kevlar vest? Or even have one around the house just in case there was a time they expected to be shot at? My guess is the answer to my question is yes, there are plenty of people who actually do this. But I’d love to know for sure. Because if the answer is no, then it’s about time we rethink how easy Kevlar Vests are to purchase.

Praying for Newtown

Danny Vinik Leave a comment

The shooting in Connecticut is truly incomprehensible. There are no words to describe it.

At risk of blogosphere and Twitter backlash, I’m posting a response to this massacre. If no one reads, that’s perfectly okay. It’s more cathartic than anything else. Once the initial despair subsides, anger takes over. Writing about it helps.

But first, some numbers:

  • There have been SEVEN shootings this year alone
  • Half of the deadliest shootings in American history have occurred in the past five years
  • There were 5,740 kids killed by guns in 2008 and 2009. That’s eight per day. (PDF)
  • There have been 31 U.S. school shootings since Columbine. In the rest of the world, there have only been 14 combined

We are not the greatest nation in the world until we fix this.

The best way to honor the victims is to talk about gun control. Jay Carney and the White House may not think today’s the day to talk about it. Maybe they’re right. Maybe it’s tomorrow or the day after. But the day is very very soon. We cannot push this off.

It’s unthinkable that the .223 caliber assault rifle the shooter used is legal:assault rifle

There is not a single reason why anyone needs to own one of these. Period. It’s not an argument. It’s a fact. It’s about time we ban all assault weapons. No one has any reason to own one of those.

As for those arguments that an assault weapon ban won’t do much, I think that’s ridiculous. It’s not going to prevent all shootings. It’s not going to prevent most shootings. But it’s a signal that enough is enough. America will not sit around and allow these depraved tragedies to occur without a response. The NRA will not hold our Congress hostage.

The time for action was yesterday. The time for a response is now.

If you feel as helpless as me and want to do something about it, head over to the Brady Center and make a donation. It’s not much, but it’s something.  (Image via)

Chained CPI Makes Senses (Update: Maybe Not)

Danny Vinik 2 Comments

UPDATE: Well, I may partially backtrack on this one quick. I stand by my goal of using an accurate estimator of inflation. I wrote this post assuming that chained CPI is our most accurate estimator for inflation. And it is, except not for seniors. Timothy Noah makes a convincing argument:

For the elderly, spending patterns are unique in one very significant respect: Old people spend a lot more on health care. Yes, they have Medicare. But they also have a lot more trips to the doctor. As a result, the older-65 set spend a much larger portion of their incomes on health-related expenses than the rest of the population. And health inflation, you may have heard, is increasing quite a bit faster than inflation for other goods.

The BLS is aware of that, and has crafted a special CPI just for old people. And guess what? The so-called CPI-E is not only rising faster than the chained CPI; it’s also rising faster than the CPI-W that’s used to calculate benefit increases today. So if a “technical” correction were all that was called for in calculating Social Security, that correction would have to increase benefits, not reduce them.

Well then, maybe benefits have been underestimated for years. I’m going to research more on this, but right now it seems like CPI-E is the way to go for Social Security benefits and chained CPI for taxes, though I don’t think Republicans are going to like the idea of increased benefits and increased taxes very much.

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As journalists across Washington continue to put forth ideas about what could be a part of a fiscal cliff* deal. One possibility that has repeatedly come up is adjusting the way Social Security benefits increase each year to account for inflation. Right now, benefits increase according to CPI-W, but conservatives want to alter the formula by using chained CPI. Dylan Matthews explains the difference between the two better than I can:

Most inflation measures, including CPI-U and CPI-W, track the price of a certain basket of goods. That basket could include, say, a year’s supply of propane. When propane costs go up, CPI-U and CPI-W include that as an increase in the cost of living.

But some people would just stop using propane if its price went up. They’d switch to electric heating, or a geothermal system, or a wood stove. So their actual heating costs wouldn’t go up as much as CPI-U and CPI-W would suggest. Chained CPI attempts to take “substitution effects” like this into account. Thus, its number generally rises more slowly than other metrics.

Thus, chained CPI is an entitlement cut. My take on this has always been that using an accurate estimator of inflation is the ultimate goal. Yes, this would cut benefits and would disproportionately affect seniors who live longer. But, a more accurate way of saying it is that benefits have been growing faster than inflation for decades and seniors that have lived longer have reaped the benefits. This should be something we are looking to correct. Continue reading “Chained CPI Makes Senses (Update: Maybe Not)” →