The Citizen Disarmament Agenda - Part 1

“And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other; and him that taketh away thy cloak forbid not to take thy coat also.”
-KJV NT Luke 6:29

“But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also.”
-KJV NT Matthew 5:39-40

“One man with a gun can control 100 without one. [...] Make mass searches and hold executions for found arms.”
-Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (“Lenin”), from Collected Works, Vol. 35, 4th ed., p. 286., also Congressional Record 1970-Apr-28, p. H3601

“Only when there is one authority, and one gun, will there be a chance of lasting stability. The Lebanese State, like any other sovereign State, must have a monopoly of the use of force on its own territory.”
-Kofi Annan, 2006-Aug-11, statement at UN Security Council convocation

“If all of us were sitting on the panel with guns, I think we'd be shooting our husbands and wives. [...] Guns do not make me feel secure, guns scare me, and it seems to me that we have an invitation here to have more guns.”
-Juan Williams (National Public Radio commentator), 2008-Jun-29, on Fox News Sunday, commenting on the US Constitution in the wake of the Heller decision

“the NRA, which endorsed the gun control bills of 1934 and 1968 and the Brady Bill, actually comprises a larger gun control advocacy group than Handgun Control” -Vin Suprynowicz, from The Libertarian, 2000-Jul-23

“Knighthood flourished before the time of guns and gunpowder when battles still were won by hand-to-hand conflicts of heavy-armored knights. Even in peacetime knights looked for conflicts in which to engage. Fighting was almost an everyday occurrence, and the common people generally could not protect themselves against an invading foe. In times of danger they fled to the castles or strongholds owned by the nobles. To obtain protection the poorer folk became the serfs or villeins of their powerful neighbors, and those in turn were the vassals of those still more powerful. The institution of knighthood was part of this feudal system.”
-Encyclopedia Britannica, entry on knighthood, from http://search.ebi.eb.com/ebi/printArticle/0,8447,35027,00.html

“In the Middle Ages, alchemists in Europe [...] learned (probably from the Chinese) how to mix sulfur, charcoal and saltpeter to make gunpowder, the chemical product that more than any other single thing led to the end of the feudal system and the birth of the modern world.”
-from the script of Chemists at Work, part 1: "A Brief History of Chemistry", by Hawkhill Live Action Videos, from http://www.hawkhill.com/602s.html

In February 1982, the “Subcommittee on the Constitution” of the US Senate published a report titled “The Right to Keep and Bear Arms”: “The conclusion is thus inescapable that the history, concept, and wording of the second amendment to the Constitution of the United States, as well as its interpretation by every major commentator and court in the first half century after its ratification, indicates that what is protected is an individual right of a private citizen to own and carry firearms in a peaceful manner.” And regarding the ATF: “These practices, amply documented in hearings before this Subcommittee, leave little doubt that the Bureau has disregarded rights guaranteed by the constitution and laws of the United States. It has trampled upon the second amendment by chilling exercise of the right to keep and bear arms by law-abiding citizens. It has offended the fourth amendment by unreasonably searching and seizing private property. It has ignored the Fifth Amendment by taking private property without just compensation and by entrapping honest citizens without regard for their right to due process of law.”

Some of my comments on the day of the 2007-Apr-16 gun massacre at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg Virginia:

It's very easy to make bullets from scratch. For example, in the Revolutionary War, a lead statue of King George (in Manhattan) was melted down and made into bullets.

Of course this principle of improvised munitions applies not just to bullets, but to gunpowder and to guns themselves. Gunsmithing is a centuries old craft and (obviously, therefore) doesn't rely on rare or expensive means of production.

It's physics and chemistry, not political will, that make gun (and bullet) bans quite absolutely impossible.

The more society makes it difficult, risky, and unpopular to keep and bear arms, the more normal upstanding citizens will abandon the practice. The criminal and the deranged will continue the practice unabated, since it is their stock in trade.

Several concepts lay the groundwork for a discussion of citizen armament. The first is, an individual — or a nation — enjoys only the rights and properties it can defend. Foremost among the rights to which this principle relates, are the right to live, to speak honestly, to elect the keepers of government, and to be secure in one's travels, engagements, and properties, according to openly enacted law. A condition of undefended freedom and wealth is tenuous and temporary. The second is, governments always grow in time to occupy every station of power they can, and wherever this compulsion is not effectively checked, that government falls under its own weight. The definitive role of government in society is the exercise of social power, so that in time their bureaucracies come to be peopled by those who enjoy and excel at the exercise of social power above all else, and who thus toil tirelessly to increase opportunities for that enjoyment. The third is, a government that is able to attain totalitarian power over society at large always fails catastrophically, because it deprives that society (on which it is utterly dependent economically) of the capacity for adaptation, whereas change (including internal change associated with social/cultural movements) absolutely necessitating adaptation is inevitable. Individual rights are prerequisite to this sort of adaptation, but totalitarian governments annihilate all individual rights. Thus, in the final analysis, the only thing that can keep a government from haplessly committing suicide, is the armed defense by the people at large of their individual rights.

Before I launch into the following tirade, I need to make one thing perfectly clear: no government, the USG included, has ever or will ever succeed in disarming the citizenry. Governments that try to, simply announce that they are the enemy of the people. The people do not, of course, disarm in such a situation. They haven't in Canada, in Australia, or in Britain. It's fairly easy to fabricate firearms, and in Britain that's exactly what the gangland suppliers have taken to doing.

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Most rank-and-file gun grabbers are gun grabbers for three specific reasons: (1) they don't trust themselves, and in particular, don't trust themselves not to eventually wreak mayhem or suicide if they were armed with a gun, and they project this insecurity onto other people (expecting other people to eventually wreak mayhem or suicide when armed), (2) they do not believe they have the confidence and courage to actually defend themselves with a weapon if they come under assault, so they view the ability of others to do so as an advantage others have over them, and they seek to negate their disadvantage, and (3) they do not want to take responsibility for their own safety, because they are not sure they are worth protecting, because they are lazy and feel entitled to have others protect them, and because they have learned (from corrupt people) that helplessness is a currency that can be traded for certain advantages and indulgences. The first motivates them to voice hysterical expectations of blood running in the streets in states that pass concealed carry laws. The second fuels their energetic, viciously hateful campaigns against all who seek to obtain and maintain the means of self-defense. The third is a sort of smoldering engine motivating them to limply but stubbornly oppose the institution of individual self-defense and its means. All are, of course, wholly without moral legitimacy.

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In a war, the primary objective of a combatant is to destroy the capacity of the enemy to wage war. The preferred method of achieving this objective is with minimal destruction of the enemy's assets, since assets that survive the war enrich the victor. Destruction can be avoided by pursuing a psychological strategy rather than a strategy of violent confrontation. In particular, a psychological strategy can be pursued which prompts the voluntary disarmament of the enemy.

Today, as throughout the history of historical civilization, the establishment is waging war on the rest of the world's population. Psychological strategy is foremost. The establishment seeks to disarm the enemy - those people who are not within or aligned with the establishment - by convincing the enemy that it is in its interests to disarm. Wherever this disarmament transpires, the enemy itself becomes an asset of the victor - of the establishment. That is to say, those defeated by the psychological warfare become slaves of the victors. The establishment largely disarms itself, of course, and indeed members of the establishment are slaves to other members of the establishment. At no point does the idea of freedom shake them from their narrow vision.

The mass media is a conduit for an eternal avalanche of intense renditions of psychopathic violence, much of it involving firearms. From the perspective of the establishment, the purpose of this campaign is to assure that wherever large numbers of ordinary citizens are in possession of firearms, psychopathic firearm violence regularly rips through the community, thereby destroying the community and concomitantly destroying the political capital of its former members. This strategy is a plain and pathetic failure, and always will be, since contrary to the wishes of the establishment, human nature is far less fundamentably mutable than is necessary for television and movies to transform basically respectful people into raging psychopaths - even part-time ones. The pathological media do, however, foster in many a pathological fear of weapons, which is second in its usefulness to the establishment disarmament campaign only to actual mass carnage.

With the War on Drugs and judicial practices that routinely release known recidivist violent criminals, the establishment assures that - at least in large cities - there is a steady, daily stream of firearms violence, which is selectively covered by television news. The law enforcement apparatus is utterly pathological: this phenomenon of recidivism and incessant criminal violence is artificial, possibly a deliberate strategy of (some of) the establishment. Gun prohibition further empowers the criminal class relative to the law abiding citizen, and since this tends to induce greater enthusiasm or consent for government policing and interference, might be an attraction in itself for some in the establishment.

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As long as the establishment believes that the common citizenry is equipped with weaponry that is sufficiently effective to repel any imposition of force by the state, the establishment will not attempt to impose that force injudiciously (chiefly, toward the end of overt deconstitutionalization), and so the power structure is stable. Once the establishment believes the citizenry no longer possesses the means to forcibly repel the state, the establishment will proceed with deconstitutionalization imposed with force. Nonetheless, the citizenry will likely still be equipped and impelled to repel them, and the violence that follows will topple the status quo power structure catastrophically. If through uncharacteristic competence and efficiency the state were to successfully disarm the common citizenry, the state itself would factionalize, and the various armed factions of the state would engage each other in brutal wars of attrition, fighting for supremacy. In particular, the Department of Defense would engage the Departments of Justice and the Treasury in an immensely violent and destructive conflict. Thus, any consistently self-interested beneficiary of the status quo will adamantly safeguard the means of the common citizenry to repel grossly unconstitutional affronts by the state, and moreover will assure that the establishment fully appreciates this capability of the common citizenry, and is not able to remove it by exploiting registration databases and through other machinations. Members of the establishment are not consistent, and are not truly self-interested, and so the aforementioned conflagrations are inevitable.

A state monopoly on armament is the most dramatic and absolute form of state power at the expense of citizen power. As the citizenry loses power to the state, the citizenry's capacity and tendency to innovate and produce declines in similar measure. As innovation and production decline, the capacity of the nation to sustain itself economically and defend itself militarily decline in similar measure. Eventually, the nation succumbs to collapse from within, and exploitation and invasion from without. This is the fate of all empires and all totalitarian regimes.

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How does crime in gun-totin' America compare to crime elsewhere? A comparison of the US murder rate with the rate in other countries (using figures from www.nationmaster.com) shows that the US rate is about average (.05 per 1,000, vs. world average of .06), about the same as India (.04) but 2-5 times higher than western Europe, Japan, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. China is conspicuously absent from the NationMaster list.

Total crime rate rankings turn the tables somewhat. According to NationMaster, New Zealand, Finland, Denmark, and the UK, all have higher rates than the US. However, these figures are probably completely unreliable because of dramatic differences in state policies and procedures, and particularly, in reporting rates.

The US murder rate parity with the world average is deceptively simple. In fact, most of the murders are gangland and other urban recidivist violence, committed with contraband guns in cities with draconian gun prohibitions. The same pattern holds in other nations of course. In contrast, New Hampshire, with the most guns per capita of any state and minimal gun control, had a murder rate of .0171 for 2000-2001 (roughly tied with North Dakota for the lowest in the country), of which only .0068 (17 victims, to be exact) was committed with guns. In Washington DC, which has a total ban on handguns and where it is a felony to use a gun in self-defense (unless you're a cop), the gun homicide rate is .2435, 36 times higher than NH.

The real story is this: the nationwide rate at which black people are murder victims is .2236, between the rates of Russia and Venezuela, .0861 for Hispanics, and .0815 for native American, whereas it's .0338 for whites, .0376 for Asian-Pacific, and .045 for "other". Blacks and Hispanics each account for 13% of the sampling population (the population of the US), and much higher proportions of urban cores. Washington DC is 60% black, and the black murder victim rate there is .3776, slightly below South Africa. In DC, Hispanics are slightly underrepresented - 8% - with a .0744 murder victim rate, below the national average for Hispanics. Whites in DC are underrepresented - 28% - with a .0278 murder victim rate, the same as Iceland.

The nationwide US white murder victim rate is actually the same as Finland's. Indeed, if only whites are figured into the statistics for North Dakota, its murder rate is only .0084 (same as New Zealand), vs. .0163 for whites in New Hampshire. NH is only 2.6% black or Hispanic, vs. 26% for the nation as a whole, so its white rate and overall rate are almost the same. In ND, zero black or Hispanic people were murdered from 2000-2001, but ten native Americans were murdered, for a rate of .1531. With 5.1% of the population, the very high incidence of native American crime is enough to double the state's overall murder rate. A fine point is that it is the ethnic association of the victim that is tracked by the statistics, but in nearly every case, the perpetrator of a crime against a minority victim is also a minority, usually the very same ethnicity. And the skews are not simply economics - the black crime victim rate is four times that of native Americans, but the incidence of poverty is very similar. Understanding these observations pivots on the thesis that crime perpetrators and victims are usually of the same ethnicity. The explanation involves economics, culture, and biology, each of which is hard to change, and each of which is intractably entangled with the other two.

(All US figures are aggregated figures for 2000 and 2001 from the US Centers for Dsiease Control, from http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate10_sy.html. All non-US figures are from www.nationmaster.com.)

According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Jewish population of Europe in 1933 was about 9.5 million, mostly in central and eastern Europe. From 1933 (the year Adolf Hitler maneuvered himself to total power in Germany) to 1945, approximately 6 million European Jews were murdered by governments there, mostly by the National Socialists led by Hitler. This corresponds to an average annual murder rate of 52, which can be directly compared to Washington DC's black murder victim rate of .3776. That is, from 1933-1945, Jews were murdered by European governments at 140 times the rate at which blacks were murdered by all mechanisms in Washington DC from 2000-2001, and 878 times the world average murder rate. Moreover, most of these murders were committed between the framing of the Wannsee Protocols (1942-Jan-20) and the capitulation of the European Axis (1945-May-7), a period of only 3 years 3.5 months, so the peak annual murder rate of the Jews in Europe was much higher than 52, perhaps as high as 200. There can be no more cogent rationale for the permanent institutionalization of private citizen armament with infantry-pattern firearms. All attempts to infringe on this institution, however motivated, are prefaces to genocide.

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Important introductory reading:

Read my report on S.505, the 2001 Senate bill that would have criminalized half inch bore firearms.

And then watch this propaganda from CBS (video segment) aired on 60 Minutes of 2005-Jan-9, intended to build political momentum for criminalization of half inch bore firearms, in the style of Reefer Madness and Fahrenheit 9/11. Ronnie Barrett is the only person in the segment who sticks to reality. The segment concludes with a blatantly false claim that weapon sales records are kept for only "24 hours". It is records of approved NICS queries that are discarded after 24 hours. Sale paperwork must be kept by the dealer permanently, and delivered to the BATFE (US government) any time they ask for it (or when the dealership closes), who in turn keep it permanently. There is no record or NICS check in person-to-person sales by non-dealers, but that's not what 60 Minutes was talking about - it was the NICS recordation that was previously retained for 6 months and is now retained for 24 hours.

Here's a humdinger: Nazi Firearms Law and the Disarming of the German Jews, by practicing (and prevailing repeatedly in SCOTUS) constitutional attorney Stephen P. Halbrook (PhD, JD), published in the Arizona Journal of International and Comparative Law, No. 3, 483-535 (2000)

Also, an excellent case study from 1990: Ten Years Later: An Analysis of the Effects of New York City's Mandatory Sentencing Law, by Talcott J. Franklin, sociologist at the University of Washington, and research director for the Second Amendment Foundation.

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The second amendment of the US constitution, which has been a part of the document since its 1791-Dec-15 ratification (the initial body of the document became effective 1789-Mar-4, and the Bill of Rights was passed by the House and Senate on 1789-Aug-24 and 1789-Sep-9 respectively), reads:

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

If this is restated in more precise modern language, it reads:

Safeguarding of a state that respects the rights of the nation's citizens depends on those citizens being individually equipped with military pattern weapons, and their being practiced and competent in their use in uncoordinated and coordinated warfare against those who violate those rights, whoever they may be. Consistent with but not dependent on this observation, no law can diminish the right of each citizen to fabricate, sell, purchase, own, carry, and practice with such weapons, particularly including firearms.

It is entirely reasonable to expect certain restrictions on who can own and carry firearms. Violent criminals are excluded consistent with the US Constitution because these people have deprived others involuntarily of constitutionally recognized rights, thereby forfeiting the rights they would otherwise enjoy under that constitution (they have breached the contract).

Restriction on where, how, and which firearms can be possessed and carried (excluding ``assault rifles'', ``Saturday night specials'', ``school zones'', or concealed carry, for example) are not consistent with the constitution.

To be specific, current gun control measures in place (all of the following are unconstitutional, which is to say, illegal) are:

The National Firearms Act of 1934 provides for discretionary local government licensing, central federal government registration, and onerous excise taxation ($200 per item) of transfers of a variety of basic firearms items:

• report suppressors (which protect hearing and reduce noise pollution around firing ranges, though do not come remotely close to completely eliminating the noise of the gun)
• automatic weapons (protected by the Second Amendment prima facie)
• large bore rifles (greater than .5" bore, the type used in the Revolutionary War, also protected by the Second Amendment prima facie)
• shotguns with barrels shorter than 18 inches
• various other standard military weapons protected by the Second Amendment

The Act also absolutely prohibits importation of any of these items for transfer to citizens.

The constitutionality of NFA1934 was upheld in a ridiculous ruling in U.S. v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939), by FDR's liberal-packed court (James Jeffries (on whom more below) calls it ``an opinion so opaque that inferior courts, practitioners and scholastics are still arguing about the holding of the case''). The defendant was not represented in the proceeding, there was no certiorari, and the appeal was directly from a district court to the Supreme Court, each of which is uncannily bizarre. In its decision, the court implied that Amendment 2 applied only to the militia, found that the general citizenry (or at least, able men 18 to 40) is the militia, and recognized that the militia was expected to be able to appear ``bearing arms supplied by themselves and of the kind in common use at the time'' (in armies), then supplied a flotilla of quotations of centuries-old state documents describing arms in common use centuries ago, then concluded absolutely bizarrely that since the type of weapon at issue in the case (a sawed-off shotgun) did not appear in these museum inventories, it was lawful for the corporate United States to put someone in prison for a decade or more for possessing or transporting it without the permission of the corporate United States. This is obvious reversible error, but there is no body but the selfsame Court to reverse it, and so the decision sits there attracting flies.

The decision is wholly without merit and unconstitutional on its face. Short barrel shotguns are in regular use in components of the US military. The standard rifle for the US military is the AR15, designated the M16. Millions of these rifles have been issued to troops in the US, and to those of its allies. This rifle is banned by NFA1934, by GOPA1986 (more below), by the 1993 assault weapon ban (more below), and by VCCLEA1994 (more below). All of these bans are in absolute, facial, violent, and astonishingly direct opposition to the Constitution of the United States in its most plain, obvious, and presently relevant meaning. As a consequence, the corporate United States has, since 1934, been an obvious lawless and criminal regime on this basis alone.

The very first case to examine NFA1934 was Sonzinsky v. United States , 300 U.S. 506 (1937), in which the authority of the federal government to tax transfer of firearms at its discretion was upheld. This decision was incorrect.

Congress and alcohol prohibition veteran Harry Anslinger, then US Commissioner of Narcotics, were able to exploit the Sonzinsky precedent as a pretext for imposition of the Marijuana Tax Stamp Act of 1937 - effectively a national marijuana prohibition - to be administered by Anslinger's Bureau of Narcotics.

Two classes of people - agents of the state, and criminals - are immunized against prosecution for failure to comply with licensing and registration requirements. In Haynes v. United States, 390 U.S. 85 (1968), SCOTUS held that ``A proper claim of the privilege against self-incrimination provides a full defense to prosecutions either for failure to register under 5841 or for possession of an unregistered firearm under 5851.'' (26 USC §5841 and §5851 are part of the National Firearms Act).

A modest but credible challenge to NFA1934 has been brought by Stephen Halbrook and James H. Jeffries, III (retired federal attorney, responsible for Spiro Agnew's conviction for tax fraud) for The 1934 Group.

In a 1998-Sep-11 declaration, Mr. Jeffries writes (full text at http://www.gunowners.com/ip01.htm):

BATF has a documented 30-year history of citizen abuse, civil rights violations, and insult to the judicial system. See, e.g., United States v. Bagley, 473 U.S. 667 (1985) (BATF entered contingent reward agreements with informant witnesses against the defendant which were withheld from the defendant at trial; informants submitted false affidavits regarding their compensation); United States V. Buchanan, 787 F.2d 477 (10th Cir. 1986) (sexual relatilonship between BATF case agent and defendant's former wife); Endicott v. United States, 869 F.2d 452 (9th Cir. 1989) (witness tampering and concealment of Brady material by BATF case agent); United States v. Gonzalez, 719 F.2d 1516 (llth Cir. 1983) (mistrial caused by BATF case agent's misleading failure to produce defendant's arrest record). See also, U.S. Department of Justice, Report to the Attorney General on the Events at Waco, Texas, February 28 to April 19, 1993 (Washington, D.C.; October 8, 1993 (redacted version); U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Professional Responsibility, Department of Justice Report Regarding Internal Investigation of Shootings at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, During Arrest of Randy Weaver (undated; available on LEXIS Counsel Connect). See also, Senate Committee on Appropriations, Oversight Hearings on Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, 96th Cong., 1st Sess. (GPO; Washington, D.C.; 1979); id., 96th Cong., 2d Sess. (GPO; Washington, D.C.; 1980); U.S. Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, Senate Report No. 97-476, Federal Firearms Owners Protection Act: Report of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, to Accompany S. 1030, together with Supplemental, Additional, and Minority Views, 97th Cong., 2d Sess. (GPO; Washington, D.C.; June 18, 1982); id., Senate Report No. 98-583, Federal Firearms Owners Protection Act: Report together with Additional and Supplemental Views, 98th Cong., 2d Sess. (GPO; Washington, D.C.; August 8, 1984); Colloquy, 131 Cong. Rec. 16984 - 17003 (June 24, 1985); U.S. House of Representatives, Judiciary Committee, House Report No. 99-495, Firearms Owners' Protection Act, 99th Cong., 2d Sess. (GPO; Washington, D.C.; March 14, 1986); Colloquy, 132 Cong. Rec. H1649 - H1803 (daily ed., April 9, 1986); Transcript of Joint Hearing of the Crime Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee and the National Security, International Affairs and Criminal Justice Subcommittee of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, Review of the Siege of the Branch Davidians' Compound in Waco, Texas, 104th Cong., 2d Sess. (Federal News Service; Washington, D.C.; July 19, 1995 - August 1, 1995); House Committee on the Judiciary and Committee on Government Reform and oversight, Materials Relating to the Investigation into the Activities of Federal Law Enforcement Agencies toward the Branch Davidians, 104th Cong., 2d Sess. (GPO; Washington, D.C.; August 1996); Transcript of Hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Federal Law Enforcement and the Good 0l', Boys Roundup (Federal News Service; Washington, D.C.; July 21, 1995); id., Federal Raid at Waco (Federal News Service; Washington, D.C.; October 31, November 1, 1995); Transcript of Hearing of the Terrorism, Technology, and Government Information Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Federal Raid in Idaho (Ruby Ridge) (Federal News Service; Washington, D.C.; September 6 - September 14, 1995). See also, David T. Hardy, The BATF's War on Civil Liberties: The Assault on Gun Owners (Second Amendment Foundation; Bellevue, Wash.; 1979).

Mr. Jeffries recently wrote the following letter to the director of the ATF:

JAMES H. JEFFRIES, III ATTORNEY AT LAW
3019 LAKE FOREST DRIVE GREENSBORO, NC 27408
TELEPHONE: (336) 282-6024

30 June, 2000

Honorable Bradley A. Buckles, Director
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms
United States Department of the Treasury
650 Massachusetts Avenue, Northwest
Washington, D.C. 20226

Re: Mr. John Ross
St. Louis, Missouri

Dear Mr. Buckles:

I represent Mr. John Ross of St. Louis, Missouri. Mr. Ross is an investment broker and financial adviser with a respected investment firm in St. Louis. He has degrees in English and Economics from Amherst College. Mr. Ross is very active in community and public affairs. He is the grandson of President Harry Truman's press secretary, Charles Ross, and was himself the Democratic Party candidate for the United States House of Representatives from the Second District of Missouri in 1998. In short, Mr. Ross is an upstanding and productive member of his community.

Mr. Ross has had a lifelong interest in firearms and is both a Federal Firearms Licensee and a Special Occupational Taxpayer under the National Firearms Act. Of central importance to the purpose of this letter is the fact that Mr. Ross is also the author of Unintended Consequences, a highly popular novel about the trials and tribulations of legal gun owners and dealers in the United States. Although the book is manifestly a work of fiction, it accurately depicts documented historical events in the long and sordid history of misconduct by personnel of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. The book is in its fifth hardcover printing with some 50,000 copies in circulation and has become enormously popular among the gun owners of the United States. Because the book is highly critical of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, it appears that some in your agency have undertaken to suppress it and to intimidate its author. For example, in 1997 the book's publisher became aware that individuals purporting to be BATF agents had threatened vendors of the book in at least three different states with "problems" if they did not cease their sales of the book. A full-page ad in Shotgun News offering a $10,000 reward for the identity of these individuals put a stop to that particular business.

Now we have learned that in late May of this year agents from your St. Louis field office have engaged in an official effort to enlist Mrs. Ross, who is amicably separated from her husband as an informant against her husband. On or about May 24 2000, at about 7:30 a.m. two agents approached Mrs. Ross on the street while she was walking her dog, identified themselves by displaying their BATF credentials, and proceeded to inquire what she thought about her husband's book. When she was noncommittal the agents terminated the conversation and departed. This contact had been preceded in previous weeks by pretext telephone calls to Mrs. Ross, by what were undoubtedly your agents, in an attempt to draw her out about her husband's book. An agent, using the pseudonym of Peter Nettleson, and pretending to be a great fan of Unintended Consequences, sought Mrs. Ross's agreement that the book was, in fact, "a manual for the murder of federal agents." [1]

I note in passing that best-selling author Tom Clancy in recent books has murdered a Director of the FBI, the President of the United States, the entire Congress, the Supreme Court, the entire cabinet, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a few lesser functionaries. I presume he has not thereby become subject to investigation by your literary critics.

1. As an experienced federal prosecutor I am fully aware of what is going on here. Disgruntled former spouses are a prime source of intelligence for law enforcement, having as they frequently do both a strong bias against the subject of the investigation and the proximity and intimacy to know many things not available to others. A structured approach such as this required, according to your manuals, formal agency approval. It required the investment of time and effort in setting up the approach: determining Mrs. Ross's new address, learning her new telephone number, physical surveillance to determine her routine so that she could be approached in a way that she could not simply shut the door and where there would be less risk of confirming witnesses, the use of a female agent to lessen any apprehension at being approached publicly by strangers, etc.

What kind of people are you? Is there no honor within the ranks of your agency? It has long been clear, from repeated court decisions and congressional committee reports, that your agents have no familiarity with the Second, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the United States Constitution. Now it appears that they have not even been introduced to the very first Article of the Bill of Rights.

I am writing to express our outrage about this conduct and to formally demand that your agency cease and desist from this unconstitutional abuse of power. I am contemporaneously making formal Freedom of Information Act and Privacy Act demands upon BATF for the records and files pertaining to Mr. Ross, his book, and these events.

By copies of this letter I am requesting the Inspector General of the Treasury Department to formally investigate this unlawful conduct and the Attorney General to investigate to determine whether Mr. Ross's civil rights are being violated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

Sincerely yours,
[signed]
James H. Jeffries, III

cc: Attorney General of the United States
Inspector General, Department of the Treasury

The Gun Control Act of 1968 and its amendments infringe Second Amendment rights variously:

• The Act criminalizes transfer to citizens of certain types of ammunition defined as "armor piercing". This ammunition has an established military purpose, and so is explicitly protected by the Second Amendment, and it often presents no special threat to law enforcement officers.
• The Act provides for mandatory federal licensing, at local and federal discretion, of all firearms and ammunition manufacturing and of all interstate commerce in all firearms. As a practical matter, all dealers must be licensed under this regime, since the firearms they stock come from manufacturers and distributors all over the country. A dealer that loses its FFL (Federal Firearms License, issued by the ATF) is out of business.
• The Act requires dealers with FFLs to keep detailed records of every transaction, and requires them to present any and all records to the ATF on demand and without delay, without any explanation on the part of the ATF.
• "The Gun Owners' Protection Act" of 1986 criminalizes transfer to citizens of firearms capable of automatic fire manufactured or imported after passage of this amendment.
• The 1993 assault weapon ban criminalizes transfer to citizens of so-called assault rifles manufactured after 1993-Oct-1. An assault weapon is arbitrarily, and technically incorrectly, defined in the law as any rifle that is semi-automatic, uses detachable magazines, and has two or more of the following features: a folding or telescoping stock, a pistol grip, a bayonet mount, a flash suppressor or threaded barrel, and a grenade launcher. An actual assault rifle is a small select fire weapon, such as the AR15 (called "M16" by the military), suited to close-in ambushes and defense against ambushes, and suited to combat in an urban setting. True assault rifles were effectively banned by the National Firearms Act of 1934 and the 1986 machine gun ban. The assault weapons ban amendment also covers pistols and shotguns with features similar to those given for rifles.
• The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 criminalizes transfer to citizens of any magazine, manufactured or imported after passage of the bill, that can hold more than 10 cartridges.
• The school zone law (Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990) criminalized possession of an operable firearm within 1000 feet of a grade school's grounds, exempting private property. The exemption is absurd, since it does not allow a person to leave his house while carrying a firearm. This law is grossly unconstitutional, and would result in a higher incidence of school shootings. In United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549 (1995), SCOTUS declared the law unconstitutional.
• The Brady Bill mandated a waiting period of three days before a buyer without a concealed carry or hunting permit could take custody of a firearm, regardless of whether the buyer already owns firearms, and has been supplanted by the NICS.
• The National Instant Check System (NICS) audits all firearm transfers not already audited by state instant clearing systems. All transfers must be cleared through a central clearinghouse operated by the FBI (the National Criminal Information Center, or NCIC), either directly, or indirectly when a state clearinghouse performs a back end national query. The system is a de facto central registration, by the federal government, of all actual or prospective firearm purchasers.

At the state and local level, a patchwork of thousands of laws illegally abridging Second Amendment rights is in place:

• Concealed carry is by permit only, everywhere in the country except Vermont, often with onerous requirements (for example, multiple formal character witnesses), often with arbitrary discretion on the part of the government, and often with onerous delays (up to six months in some cases, for example in Connecticut). Obviously, the lack of a concealed carry permit has not once in the history of the human race exerted the slightest deterrent influence on a criminal already intent on mugging, rape, or murder, from carrying a gun concealed (on the contrary, the more onerous the obstacles to lawful concealed carry, the more criminals are emboldened). The purpose of these laws is to make it inconvenient for citizens to arm themselves, so that fewer of them will (and more citizens feel vulnerable), so that criminals will feel safer in their exploits, so that there will be more crimes, so that citizens will clamor for more law enforcement officers, so that more power is taken by the state from the citizenry.
• New Mexico, Missouri, Ohio, Kansas, and Wisconsin, criminalize concealed carry by citizens unconditionally. In Mississipi, concealed carry is essentially illegal, though if a defendant can prove to the court "That he was threatened, and had a good and sufficient reason to apprehend a serious attack from an enemy and that he was apprehensive; [or] That he was traveling or setting out on a journey and was not a tramp; [...]" that is an affirmative defense. Routine concealed carry is nonetheless clearly illegal there. Nebraska's provisions are like Mississipi's: "It is an affirmative defense that the accused was, at the time of carrying, engaged in any lawful business, calling or employment, and the circumstances in which such person was placed at the time were such as to justify a prudent person in carrying concealed for the defense of his person, property or family." Since the final judgement is by the government, these provisions must be viewed with suspicion.
• In Washington, DC, there is an absolute ban on citizens buying, receiving, or carrying handguns, and a ban on citizens possessing handguns except those registered as of Feb. 5, 1977. All firearms must be registered. Purchase of a rifle or shotgun requires the permission of the Metropolitan Police. There is no legal carry of a loaded firearm. In a plain demonstration of the intent of these laws, self-defense with a firearm in one's home is completely illegal in Washington, DC.
• In New York City, there are onerous requirements for buying or receiving firearms, and accessibility of concealed carry licenses only to a handful of political favorites.
• There are similar situations in Chicago (which has an effectively total ban on handgun possession by citizens), Los Angeles, the Boston metro region, Denver, and many other major metropolitan regions.
• In the state of Massachusetts, possession of most firearms, particularly including those protected by the Second Amendment, is subject to a discretionary permit that many Chiefs of Police refuse to issue.
• In Massachusetts, Illinois, and Washington, DC, all gun owners must register with the government.
• In New Jersey, issue of concealed carry permits is completely discretionary, and is usually refused.
• In Connecticut, a person's firearms can be confiscated if a law enforcement officer believes, or professes a belief, that the person is mentally unstable, or will at some point in the future commit a crime with those firearms. This is maniacally unconstitutional - this type of legal abuse is strictly forbidden by the Constitution.
• In Connecticut and California, ``assault weapon'' laws (in California, the Roberti-Roos Assault Weapons Control Act of 1989) are in place that require registration of a variety of firearms distinguished by cosmetic and ergonomic features and by brand and model name, and prohibit any transfer of these firearms to anyone other than the state or a licensed dealer.
• In Missouri, no firearm can be carried, openly or concealed, in any public assembly. Many states have similar though somewhat less odious measures in place. The effect of these old laws, though not the intent, is to encourage homicidal maniacs intent on shooting rampages.
• In some locales (in parts of Ohio and California, for instance), handguns are banned or specially restricted if their barrel length, weight, or price, is below a certain level. These laws make handguns less accessible to the law-abiding but poor, and make it more difficult for women to carry concealed self-defense weapons. Since the laws only apply to legally distributed weapons, they have no effect on criminals.
• So-called junk gun laws, or unsafe gun laws, are burgeoning. These laws empower the government to somewhat arbitrarily declare a handgun model to be a junk gun, and ban or onerously restrict it.
• Most states ban some or all of the items covered by the 1934 NFA, even if all the requirements of the federal law are met.
• Many states and localities have laws that, if liberally interpreted, can be used as a pretense for a ban on all firearms, and imprisonment of all firearms owners.

Penalties for paperwork errors and simple victimless evasions of the above laws are mostly major felonies carrying prison terms of 3 to 20 years.

The goal of those who identify themselves as "gun control advocates" is the total and uniform abolition of all firearms of all types for any purpose in law abiding civilian hands. The abolition of firearms is not their objective. Their objective is the empowerment of the total state. All those who thrive on freedom are logically compelled to view this type of gun control advocate as a mortal enemy. Gun control of the type promoted by these enemies of freedom is an institution in which arrayed troops of organized men with more numerous and tactically effective guns, deprive - through intimidation and extortion, or by direct physical seizure - unorganized men with smaller numbers of those guns, as a preface to depriving them of their freedom and, quite possibly, their lives.

*

Laboratories of Repression
We don't let the states “experiment” on the First Amendment. Should the Second Amendment receive any less respect?

In 1932, progressive Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis penned one of the most famous passages in American jurisprudence. “It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system,” Brandeis wrote in his dissent in New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann, “that a single courageous State may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory, and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.”

Since then, Brandeis' famous words have been quoted or referenced countless times, appearing everywhere from legal documents to campaign speeches. Most recently, they surfaced in the arguments leading up to the landmark Second Amendment case McDonald v. Chicago, which the Supreme Court is set to hear in early March 2010.

At issue in the case is Chicago's draconian handgun ban, a restriction that largely mirrors the gun control law struck down last year by the Supreme Court in District of Columbia v. Heller. The key difference is that Heller only decided whether the Second Amendment secures an individual right against infringement by the federal government (which oversees Washington, D.C.). McDonald will settle whether the amendment's right to keep and bear arms applies against state and local governments as well.

That's where Brandeis comes in. In Chicago's view, the Second Amendment should have no impact on its vast gun control regime. As the city has argued to the Court, “Firearms regulation is a quintessential issue on which state and local governments can `serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.'” Thus, Chicago claims it should enjoy “the greatest flexibility to create and enforce firearms policy.”

That certainly sounds like a classic case for federalism and the states as laboratories of democratic experimentation. But look a little closer and Brandeis' celebrated words start to lose some of their shine. The issue that confronted the Supreme Court in New State Ice Co. was a 1925 Oklahoma law granting a handful of companies the exclusive authority to manufacture, sell, and distribute ice. Under the law, anyone that wanted to enter the ice business had to first justify their plans by providing “competent testimony and proof showing the necessity for the manufacture, sale or distribution of ice” at all proposed locations. In other words, upstart ice vendors faced the nearly impossible task of securing the state's permission to compete against a state-sanctioned ice monopoly.

That's the “courageous” experiment Brandeis got so misty about. What precisely was so “novel” about a business currying favor with the government in order to suppress competition? That's one of the oldest tricks in the book. Besides, as the great classical liberal Justice George Sutherland declared in his majority opinion striking down the Oklahoma ice monopoly, “in our constitutional system...there are certain essentials of liberty with which the state is not entitled to dispense in the interests of experiments.”

Quite so. In fact, Brandeis himself occasionally shared this skeptical view of state power—at least when it came to state “experiments” on the First Amendment. Just one year earlier, in the case of Near v. Minnesota, Brandeis joined the Court in striking down that state's defamation law as a violation of the freedom of the press. So much for allowing a “courageous” state the free rein to experiment.

It was Sutherland's majority opinion in New State Ice Co.—not Brandeis' famous dissent—that got it right. “In [Near v. Minnesota] the theory of experimentation in censorship was not permitted to interfere with the fundamental doctrine of the freedom of the press,” Sutherland wrote. “The opportunity to apply one's labor and skill in an ordinary occupation with proper regard for all reasonable regulations is no less entitled to protection.”

Which brings us back to the Chicago gun case. The Windy City would like to “serve as a laboratory” with the “flexibility” to ignore the Second Amendment. But there's nothing “novel” about that. It's just another case of the government violating our rights. And since the Supreme Court would never let Chicago ban free speech, establish an official religion, or conduct other “experiments” on the First Amendment, why should the Second Amendment receive any less respect?

It's time for the Supreme Court to give the entire Bill of Rights its due.

Damon W. Root is an associate editor at Reason magazine.

from WorldNetDaily, 2009-Dec-26, by Tom Tancredo:

U.N. poised for a gun grab

If you think the Obama administration doesn't need help in dreaming up new schemes to reinterpret the Constitution and add new restrictions on our freedom, think again.

Arms-control bureaucrats at the United Nations and dozens of allied NGOs (that's non-governmental organizations in non-bureaucratic lingo) have been busy for two decades talking and negotiating among themselves to produce an international treaty regulating the sale of small arms. A U.N. resolution adopted in October calls upon member nations to negotiate the matter and finish writing a treaty by 2012. The United States voted for the resolution, which was adopted almost unanimously.

President Bush, for all his mistakes and miscalculations, never allowed his U.N. representatives to participate in such negotiations. But Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reversed course and agreed to join the negotiations.

Secretary of State Clinton announced in October that the U.S. would join the negotiations "if they are based on consensus," implying that the U.S. could exercise a veto if negotiations went off course. That implies that the U.S. would reject any treaty that violates our Second Amendment rights to keep and bear arms. The problem is she can't make that promise or guarantee that outcome.

The truth is it is very dangerous for the U.S. to go down this road no matter how many assurances are given by Obama and his minions. Once committed to the "process of negotiations," it is hard to reject a product based on "international consensus."

There are good reasons why the U.S. ought to stay out of such negotiations, and many good reasons to be wary of any international treaty on the subject.

To put this whole matter in perspective, ask yourself how well existing arms-control agreements are working and how well international agencies are enforcing those agreements.

There is an existing conventional arms-control treaty among nations in Latin America. How well is that working? Does it prevent the Mexican drug cartels from buying advanced weapons on the black market in Asia and Europe? Hardly. Does it prevent Hugo Chavez from buying arms from Iran, North Korea and Russia and providing them to rebel groups in Colombia and Central America? No.

Has the U.N. and the International Atomic Energy Agency stopped Iran from developing a nuclear-weapons program? Shouldn't we expect some semblance of success from such existing agreements before launching new ones?

What conventional arms treaties do is constrain the actions of law-abiding nations and law-abiding citizens while allowing outlaw nations and leftist guerrilla groups to build their arsenals.

If you think such international treaties apply only to sales and exchanges among nations and not to individuals, you have not been paying attention to the Obama administration's agenda and to what activist judges have been doing in American courts.

What is especially galling is to hear gun-control advocates use the Mexican drug cartel violence as an excuse to further restrict gun sales among private citizens inside the United States. This is exactly what the Obama Justice Department and its sister agencies have been doing lately.

The federal bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms has been claiming that 90 percent of the guns used by Mexican drug cartels come from the United States, and have added new manpower to north-to-south border inspections on the U.S.-Mexico border. Curtailing illegal arms smuggling is a good idea, but to claim that the U.S. is the main supplier of the Mexican cartels is deliberately misleading and dishonest.

That much-used 90 percent statistic is based on only the guns that are turned over to the U.S. for tracing. The truth is over 80 percent of the guns seized from the cartels and from crime scenes are not traceable to the U.S. The Mexican government will not admit that huge quantities of guns and vehicles and body armor used by the cartels come from – are you ready? – the Mexican government itself.

This example of outright distortion and dishonesty by the Obama administration is important because it reveals the hidden agenda. If the U.S. Department of Justice will conspire with the Mexican government against the interests of American gun owners, what can we expect when federal agencies can cite "standards" and "obligations" under an international treaty? The drug cartels are laughing, but American gun owners are not.

It is reasonable to assume that any international treaty on "small-arms trafficking" will be used by domestic gun-control advocates and liberal judges to further restrict the ownership, use and exchange of firearms by individual citizens.

This past month we saw a new demonstration of U.N. arrogance and hypocrisy at the Copenhagen conference on Climate Change. The Third World nations that now dominate the U.N. are eager to impose obligations of hundreds of billions of dollars on the U.S. and Europe to pay for their compliance with carbon-emissions targets.

But we need not speculate about future U.N. actions. We have the record of its malfeasance in following existing mandates. Does anyone want to trust the U.N.'s Human Rights Council to tell Americans how to shape civil-rights laws?

Public officials and political leaders in the U.S. have an obligation to oppose further erosion of American sovereignty in the face of U.N. designs and ambitions.

Tom Tancredo is a former five-term congressman from Colorado and 2008 candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. He currently serves as chairman of the Rocky Mountain Foundation and co-chairman of TeamAmericaPac. Tancredo is the author of "In Mortal Danger: The Battle for America's Border and Security."

Culture of violence: Gun crime goes up by 89% in a decade

Gun crime has almost doubled since Labour came to power [and banned guns -AMPP Ed.] as a culture of extreme gang violence has taken hold.

The latest Government figures show that the total number of firearm offences in England and Wales has increased from 5,209 in 1998/99 to 9,865 last year - a rise of 89 per cent.

In some parts of the country, the number of offences has increased more than five-fold.

In eighteen police areas, gun crime at least doubled.

The statistic will fuel fears that the police are struggling to contain gang-related violence, in which the carrying of a firearm has become increasingly common place.

Last week, police in London revealed they had begun carrying out armed patrols on some streets.

The move means officers armed with sub-machine guns are engaged in routine policing for the first time.

Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Grayling, said last night: 'In areas dominated by gang culture, we're now seeing guns used to settle scores between rivals as well as turf wars between rival drug dealers.

'We need to redouble our efforts to deal with the challenge.'

He added: 'These figures are all the more alarming given that it is only a week since the Metropolitan Police said it was increasing regular armed patrols in some areas of the capital'.

The gun crime figures, which were obtained by the Tories from official Parliamentary answers, do not include air weapons.

But they provide the first regional breakdown of the increasing use of firearms.

Lancashire suffered the single largest rise in gun crime, with recorded offences increasing from 50 in 1998/99 to 349 in 2007/08, an increase of 598 per cent.

Only four police forces - Cleveland-Humberside, Cambridgeshire and Sussex - recorded falls in gun crime.

The number of people injured or killed by guns, excluding air weapons, has increased from 864 in 1998/99 to a provisional figure of 1,760 in 2008/09, an increase of 104 per cent .

The figures follow a warning by Mr Grayling that U.S.-style gang culture has reached some parts of the UK.

In August, he made a controversial speech warning that a collapse of 'civilised life' had allowed a brutal drug and gun crime culture - like that of the U.S. TV show The Wire - to flourish in Britain.

The hit TV series tracks the nightmare of gangs and organised crime in inner city West Baltimore and the futile efforts of police to deal with them.

The Met's decision to employ armed officers on the streets has attracted criticism.

But the force, which has already begun the scheme, insists that the unprecedented tactic is a proportionate and temporary response to prevent armed gangs from controlling estates.

Last month, police warned that teenage girls were now being dragged into the gun culture by hiding weapons for their boyfriends.

Police are targeting girls between 15 and 19 with an advertising blitz warning them that they can expect a five-year prison sentence if they are caught.

The number of women charged with firearms offences in London has increased six-fold in the past year - 12 have been charged since January.

Seven of them were teenagers, including a 16-year-old arrested after a 9mm Browning self-loading pistol was found in her bedroom.

from NewsBusters.org, 2009-Apr-7, by Scott Whitlock, excerpted from this post:

ABC's Robin Roberts Hits Pelosi From Left on Guns

Interviewing Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday, "Good Morning America" co-host Robin Roberts challenged the Democratic politician from the left on guns. [...]

ROBERTS: Under the Bush administration, you pretty much said the ball was in their court when it came to reinstating the ban. Now, it's a Democratic President, a Democratic House. So, is the ball in your court where this is concerned?

PELOSI: Yes, it is. And we are just going to have to work together to come to some resolution because the court, in the meantime, in recent months, the Supreme Court has ruled in a very- in a direction that gives more opportunity for people to have guns. We never denied that right. We don't want to take their guns away. We want them registered. We don't want them crossing state lines as this legislation would do in the District of Columbia. We wouldn't tell any other state what to do. But Congress wants to tell the District of Columbia. So, in any event, there's tremendous work ahead on this. And we have to rid the debate of the misconceptions that people have about what gun safety means.

from the Tampa Tribune, 2009-Apr-16, by John Velleco:

Gun control on the high seas

Americans received a special gift this Easter Sunday with the rescue of Capt. Richard Phillips, who had been held hostage for several days after his ship, the Maersk Alabama, was raided by Somali pirates.

The raiding of the Maersk created an international crisis and an around-the-clock media sensation. People around the globe were riveted to their TVs, praying and hoping for Capt. Phillips' safety as the U.S. Navy moved massive vessels into the area. In the end, the brave captain freed himself and well-trained U.S. snipers took out three of the four pirates.

The obvious question that was seldom asked during the tense standoff was, "How could so few terrorists (another word for pirates) overtake a vessel crewed by five times as many people?"

After all, couldn't the crew have just shot the invaders as they tried to board the ship?

Maybe they could have if they had firearms onboard, but container ships like the Maersk are generally prohibited from carrying firearms because of gun laws in the countries of various ports of departure and entry. Shipping companies and crews don't dare violate these gun bans because the penalties can be severe.

For example, in Kenya, where the Maersk was headed, the government is expected to soon make possession of an unlicensed firearm a capital offense. Currently the offense carries a long prison sentence.

And for those who might think a foreign government would never penalize a ship that was obviously armed to repel pirate attacks, consider the case of Australian businessman and yachtsman Chris Packer.

In 2004, Packer was in the midst of an around-the-world tour when his yacht was boarded by government officials at a port in Bali, Indonesia. On board were two pump-action shotguns, a rifle, two pistols and an inoperable antique firearm.

Indonesian authorities contemplated the charge of "gun running," a capital offense. Packer's firearms, which he declared at other Indonesian ports, were purchased specifically for defense against pirates.

Packer's friend and former America's Cup winner, Sir Peter Blake, was shot and killed by pirates who boarded his vessel at the mouth of the Amazon River in 2001. After that incident, Packer delayed his own planned trip to South America in order to obtain arms for protection.

Packer's vessel was twice boarded by pirates, and he believes he would certainly be dead were he not armed.

Packer spent about three months in jail in Bali, never sure he would escape the firing squad. Eventually, authorities in Bali convicted Packer on the lesser charge of not declaring his firearms upon entering the port and released him with time served.

Commercial shipping companies simply can't risk violating the draconian gun laws of other countries, so they instead run the risk of being defenseless against pirates in hostile waters.

The outrageous but predicable result of laws that are intended to disarm criminals is that gigantic commercial vessels like the Maersk are vulnerable to attack from small groups of thugs in little motorboats.

The arguments for self-defense firearms possession are the same on the sea as they are on land - only at sea the need is even greater.

When a criminal attack occurs, almost always the only people present are the thugs and the victims. On land, police are usually minutes away. On the sea, help can be hours or even days away. The sea-terrorists know this, and they know that mariners are normally unarmed.

Ships that are able to employ armed guards have been able to repel pirates. Captain Kelly Sweeney of Washington State told FOX News that armed guards thwarted a pirate attack on a vessel he was on in the Dominican Republic.

Capt. Sweeney's recipe for self-defense at sea? Either hire armed guards to protect the ship or else arm the crew members.

Anti-gunners will make the same arguments about arming maritime crew members as they do about arming anyone on land. "Oh, the ships will be more dangerous with all those guns on board." But, as we've learned the hard way on both land and sea, "gun free zones" simply make easy targets for criminals.

When Capt. Phillips was in the water with an attacker ready to shoot him, how was he saved? By people armed with rifles. These people happened to be on a Navy ship. If there were no military vessels in the area, the outcome could have been tragically different. As is often the case, the criminal attack ended when armed assailants were met with armed resistance.

While we can't change the extreme anti-gun laws of other countries, the American government should insist that American-controlled vessels will not be unilaterally disarmed and that crew members will be permitted to carry firearms on board for their own protection.

John Velleco is the director of federal affairs for Gun Owners of America, a national gun rights lobbying organization with more than 300,000 members.

from Gun Owners of America, 2009-Apr-21:

Obama Pushing Treaty To Ban Reloading

Gun Owners of America E-Mail Alert
8001 Forbes Place, Suite 102, Springfield, VA 22151
Phone: 703-321-8585 / FAX: 703-321-8408
http://www.gunowners.org

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Remember CANDIDATE Barack Obama? The guy who "wasn't going to take away our guns"?

Well, guess what?

Less than 100 days into his administration, he's never met a gun he didn't hate.

A week ago, Obama went to Mexico, whined about the United States, and bemoaned (before the whole world) the fact that he didn't have the political power to take away our semi-automatics. Nevertheless, that didn't keep him from pushing additional restrictions on American gun owners.

It's called the Inter-American Convention Against Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Ammunition, Explosives, and Other Related Materials. To be sure, this imponderable title masks a really nasty piece of work.

First of all, when the treaty purports to ban the "illicit" manufacture of firearms, what does that mean?

1. "Illicit manufacturing" of firearms is defined as "assembly of firearms [or] ammunition... without a license...."

Hence, reloading ammunition -- or putting together a lawful firearm from a kit -- is clearly "illicit manufacturing."

Modifying a firearm in any way would surely be "illicit manufacturing." And, while it would be a stretch, assembling a firearm after cleaning it could, in any plain reading of the words, come within the screwy definition of "illicit manufacturing."

2. "Firearm" has a similarly questionable definition.

"[A]ny other weapon" is a "firearm," according to the treaty -- and the term "weapon" is nowhere defined.

So, is a BB gun a "firearm"? Probably.

A toy gun? Possibly.

A pistol grip or firing pin? Probably. And who knows what else.

If these provisions (and others) become the law of the land, the Obama administration could have a heyday in enforcing them. Consider some of the other provisions in the treaty:

* Banning Reloading. In Article IV of the treaty, countries commit to adopting "necessary legislative or other measures" to criminalize illicit manufacturing and trafficking in firearms.

Remember that "illicit manufacturing" includes reloading and modifying or assembling a firearm in any way. This would mean that the Obama administration could promulgate regulations banning reloading on the basis of this treaty -- just as it is currently circumventing Congress to write legislation taxing greenhouse gases.

* Banning Gun Clubs. Article IV goes on to state that the criminalized acts should include "association or conspiracy" in connection with said offenses -- which is arguably a term broad enough to allow, by regulation, the criminalization of entire pro-gun organizations or gun clubs, based on the facilities which they provide their membership.

* Extraditing US Gun Dealers. Article V requires each party to "adopt such measures as may be necessary to establish its jurisdiction over the offenses it has established in accordance with this Convention" under a variety of circumstances.

We know that Mexico is blaming U.S. gun dealers for the fact that its streets are flowing with blood. And we know it is possible for Mexico to define offenses "committed in its territory" in a very broad way. And we know that we have an extradition obligation under Article XIX of the proposed treaty. So we know that Mexico could try to use the treaty to demand to extradition of American gun dealers.

Under Article XXIX, if Mexico demands the extradition of a lawful American gun dealer, the U.S. would be required to resolve the dispute through "other means of peaceful settlement."

Does anyone want to risk twenty years in a sweltering Mexican jail on the proposition that the Obama administration would apply this provision in a pro-gun manner?

* Microstamping. Article VI requires "appropriate markings" on firearms. And, it is not inconceivable that this provision could be used to require microstamping of firearms and/or ammunition -- a requirement which is clearly intended to impose specifications which are not technologically possible or which are possible only at a prohibitively expensive cost.

* Gun Registration. Article XI requires the maintenance of any records, for a "reasonable time," that the government determines to be necessary to trace firearms. This provision would almost certainly repeal portions of McClure-Volkmer and could arguably be used to require a national registry or database.

from the New American, 2009-Apr-17, by Warren Mass:

Obama Promises to Push for Arms Treaty

Speaking to reporters while standing alongside Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon in Mexico City on April 16, President Barack Obama said he would push the U.S. Senate to ratify a treaty called the Inter-American Convention against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Ammunition, Explosives and Other Related Materials. The convention, known by Spanish acronym CIFTA, was by inter-American countries including the United States in 1997 and then submitted the following year to the U.S. Senate for ratification. Like all treaties, it would require a two-thirds majority (67 votes) in the upper house to secure ratification.

“Something that President Calderon and myself absolutely recognize is that you can't fight this war with just one hand,” Obama told reporters, including Reuters news service, which quoted him. “At a time when the Mexican government has so courageously taken on the drug cartels that have plagued both sides of the border, it is absolutely critical that the United States join as a full partner in dealing with this issue,” said Obama. “I am urging the Senate in the United States to ratify an inter-American treaty known as CIFTA to curb small arms trafficking that is a source of so many weapons used in this drug war,” the president continued.

The theme of the United States sharing responsibility for the Mexican drug trade (including the shipment of arms from the United States to Mexican drug cartels) was not unexpected, since upon her arrival in Mexico City on March 25, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton accepted blame on behalf of the American people for Mexico’s drug cartel problems, telling reporters: “Our insatiable demand for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade. Our inability to prevent weapons from being illegally smuggled across the border to arm these criminals causes the deaths of [Mexican] police officers, soldiers and civilians.” “I feel very strongly we have a co-responsibility,” she added.

However, the subject of the arms treaty was not mentioned in advance of Obama’s visit and appears to have taken even members of the White House press corps by surprise. During a press briefing held in a Marriott Hotel in Mexico City on April 17, Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the New York Times asked Denis McDonough, deputy national security advisor for strategic communications, if the administration wasn’t catching even the Senate, much less the press and public off guard. A transcript follows:

Stolberg: I have a question. On the treaty, it seems as though the announcement that you're calling on the Senate to ratify this treaty has actually caught the Senate off guard a little bit. Harry Reid's folks didn't know about it. And I wondered if you have run that by the Foreign Relations Committee and do you have a commitment from them that they'll bring it up?

McDonough: You know, Sheryl, thanks for the question. There's a tradition at the beginning of each Congress that the President submits a treaty priority list — the Secretary of State and the President. So that's exactly what we did and this is one of the priority treaties that we'd like to see the Senate's advice and consent on. And, you know, we are working very closely with Senator Reid and many others on a range of issues, to include this.

Stolberg: Can you just say how many treaties are on that list? And do you have an order?  And is that what this treaty — where is it in the order of priorities?

McDonough: I can tell you it's among the top treaties, but I'll get you the list so you can have it.

Stolberg: Sounds —

McDonough: I haven’t seen the final list, so let me just get it to you and you can make that call.

In her report on the meeting of the two leaders for the Times, Stolberg discussed the U.S. ban on so-called assault weapons, which expired in 2004. She observed that Obama had made renewing the ban a campaign platform, but during the Mexico City conference he had suggested that reinstituting the ban was politically impossible because of opposition from gun rights enthusiasts. “None of us are under any illusion that reinstating that ban would be easy,” she quoted Obama, adding that he insisted he was “not backing off at all” from his position that renewing the ban made sense.

Indicating that senators obviously were cognizant of the political ramifications of even appearing to infringe upon the rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment, Reuters news quoted Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid as stating that the United States had to help reduce violence without violating the right to bear arms, which is enshrined in the Second Amendment. “We must work with Mexico to curtail the violence and drug trafficking on America's southern border, and must protect Americans’ Second Amendment rights,” Reid said in a statement. “I look forward to working with the President to ensure we do both in a responsible way.”

In an interview with Reuters news service, Wayne LaPierre, the National Rifle Association’s executive vice president, stated that “The answer is to enforce the current law. Everything these drug cartels are doing involving firearms is illegal on both sides of the border already.”

The Arizona Republic correctly observed that the now-expired ban prohibited sales of “semiautomatic weapons with certain combinations of military-style features, such as folding stocks, large magazines and flash suppressors.” It also cited arguments made by opponents of the ban that the so-called assault weapons actually fire smaller ammunition than some other rifles and that it is unconstitutional to ban a gun simply “because of how it looks.”

Actually, the cited argument does not go far enough. The Second Amendment, in stating simply that “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed” does not make any exceptions whatsoever. The arms kept by the people at the time the amendment was written were the same as those used by the military of the day. The reason for the amendment was not to enforce the right to hunt or protect one’s home — however important those rights might be — but, rather, to guarantee the people’s ability to exercise a right enshrined in the Declaration of Independence: “That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government.”

Obviously, a civilian population that is unarmed is not in a position to alter or abolish anything.

If arms are being illegally exported to Mexico, then it is obvious that the U.S.-Mexican border is far from secure. Both nations need to do their part to secure the border. But it is each nation’s primary responsibility to secure its own border against people or objects crossing its borders in an inward direction.

If Mexican drug cartels are arming themselves with weapons brought into the country illegally from the United States, then Mexico needs to devote more resources to stopping the flow. Maybe it should not be so quick to protest when the United States proposes building a more secure fence along the border, which would help both nations.

As for the United States, the Constitution says little about the federal government’s role in maintaining our borders — primarily, it is to protect each state in the union against invasion. And since Congress is given the power to "lay and collect duties," some control over imports must be maintained to ensure that duties are paid and that contraband can be seized. A border secure enough to stem the invasion by illegal immigrants and to intercept smugglers would also benefit both nations.

Working within the limits of the Constitution is more efficient (and more protective of our citizens’ rights) than going outside them.

As for the treaty, since none of the other nations that are party to the "Inter-American Convention" share the protections afforded by our Second Amendment, to make our own law subject to the convention can only undermine our right to keep and bear arms.

The text of the treaty is worded benignly enough, using such phrases as “REAFFIRMING the principles of sovereignty, nonintervention, and the juridical equality of states.” However, since the principles of firearms ownership embodied in our Second Amendment are unique in the world, any accommodation with nations that do not enjoy similar protections is bound to dilute our own government’s respect for the Second Amendment. Certain language in the treaty indicates that it views the right to keep and bear arms differently than Americans are accustomed to. For example, the treaty attempts to reassure its signatories that it “is not intended to discourage or diminish lawful leisure or recreational activities such as travel or tourism for sport shooting, hunting, and other forms of lawful ownership and use recognized by the States Parties.”

But in the case of the United States, the right to keep and bear arms is not contingent upon our government’s definition of “lawful ownership” — it is a fundamental right. And that right is designed not merely to allow for “leisure or recreational activities” but as the last recourse of the citizenry against a government that becomes totalitarian.

Also disturbing is the treaty’s references to international law and the United Nations. One place references “strengthening existing international law enforcement support mechanisms such as the International Weapons and Explosives Tracking System (IWETS) of the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL), to prevent, combat, and eradicate the illicit manufacturing of and trafficking in firearms, [etc.]”

And, for some unspecified reason that can only be construed as simple kowtowing to the UN, the treaty provides that copies of it “shall be deposited with the General Secretariat of the Organization of American States, which shall forward an authenticated copy of its text to the Secretariat of the United Nations for registration and publication, in accordance with Article 102 of the United Nations Charter.”

If our borders are secure, we can police the importation of weapons from criminal or terrorist sources all on our own, without becoming entangled in international treaties that may dilute our right to keep and bear arms without infringement.

The Myth of 90 Percent: Only a Small Fraction of Guns in Mexico Come From U.S.

While 90 percent of the guns traced to the U.S. actually originated in the United States, the percent traced to the U.S. is only about 17 percent of the total number of guns reaching Mexico.

EXCLUSIVE: You've heard this shocking "fact" before -- on TV and radio, in newspapers, on the Internet and from the highest politicians in the land: 90 percent of the weapons used to commit crimes in Mexico come from the United States.

-- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said it to reporters on a flight to Mexico City.

-- CBS newsman Bob Schieffer referred to it while interviewing President Obama.

-- California Sen. Dianne Feinstein said at a Senate hearing: "It is unacceptable to have 90 percent of the guns that are picked up in Mexico and used to shoot judges, police officers and mayors ... come from the United States."

-- William Hoover, assistant director for field operations at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, testified in the House of Representatives that "there is more than enough evidence to indicate that over 90 percent of the firearms that have either been recovered in, or interdicted in transport to Mexico, originated from various sources within the United States."

There's just one problem with the 90 percent "statistic" and it's a big one:

It's just not true.

In fact, it's not even close. The fact is, only 17 percent of guns found at Mexican crime scenes have been traced to the U.S.

What's true, an ATF spokeswoman told FOXNews.com, in a clarification of the statistic used by her own agency's assistant director, "is that over 90 percent of the traced firearms originate from the U.S."

But a large percentage of the guns recovered in Mexico do not get sent back to the U.S. for tracing, because it is obvious from their markings that they do not come from the U.S.

"Not every weapon seized in Mexico has a serial number on it that would make it traceable, and the U.S. effort to trace weapons really only extends to weapons that have been in the U.S. market," Matt Allen, special agent of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), told FOX News.

A Look at the Numbers

In 2007-2008, according to ATF Special Agent William Newell, Mexico submitted 11,000 guns to the ATF for tracing. Close to 6,000 were successfully traced -- and of those, 90 percent -- 5,114 to be exact, according to testimony in Congress by William Hoover -- were found to have come from the U.S.

But in those same two years, according to the Mexican government, 29,000 guns were recovered at crime scenes.

In other words, 68 percent of the guns that were recovered were never submitted for tracing. And when you weed out the roughly 6,000 guns that could not be traced from the remaining 32 percent, it means 83 percent of the guns found at crime scenes in Mexico could not be traced to the U.S.

So, if not from the U.S., where do they come from? There are a variety of sources:

-- The Black Market. Mexico is a virtual arms bazaar, with fragmentation grenades from South Korea, AK-47s from China, and shoulder-fired rocket launchers from Spain, Israel and former Soviet bloc manufacturers.

-- Russian crime organizations. Interpol says Russian Mafia groups such as Poldolskaya and Moscow-based Solntsevskaya are actively trafficking drugs and arms in Mexico.

- South America. During the late 1990s, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) established a clandestine arms smuggling and drug trafficking partnership with the Tijuana cartel, according to the Federal Research Division report from the Library of Congress.

-- Asia. According to a 2006 Amnesty International Report, China has provided arms to countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Chinese assault weapons and Korean explosives have been recovered in Mexico.

-- The Mexican Army. More than 150,000 soldiers deserted in the last six years, according to Mexican Congressman Robert Badillo. Many took their weapons with them, including the standard issue M-16 assault rifle made in Belgium.

-- Guatemala. U.S. intelligence agencies say traffickers move immigrants, stolen cars, guns and drugs, including most of America's cocaine, along the porous Mexican-Guatemalan border. On March 27, La Hora, a Guatemalan newspaper, reported that police seized 500 grenades and a load of AK-47s on the border. Police say the cache was transported by a Mexican drug cartel operating out of Ixcan, a border town.

'These Don't Come From El Paso'

Ed Head, a firearms instructor in Arizona who spent 24 years with the U.S. Border Patrol, recently displayed an array of weapons considered "assault rifles" that are similar to those recovered in Mexico, but are unavailable for sale in the U.S.

"These kinds of guns -- the auto versions of these guns -- they are not coming from El Paso," he said. "They are coming from other sources. They are brought in from Guatemala. They are brought in from places like China. They are being diverted from the military. But you don't get these guns from the U.S."

Some guns, he said, "are legitimately shipped to the government of Mexico, by Colt, for example, in the United States. They are approved by the U.S. government for use by the Mexican military service. The guns end up in Mexico that way -- the fully auto versions -- they are not smuggled in across the river."

Many of the fully automatic weapons that have been seized in Mexico cannot be found in the U.S., but they are not uncommon in the Third World.

The Mexican government said it has seized 2,239 grenades in the last two years -- but those grenades and the rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) are unavailable in U.S. gun shops. The ones used in an attack on the U.S. Consulate in Monterrey in October and a TV station in January were made in South Korea. Almost 70 similar grenades were seized in February in the bottom of a truck entering Mexico from Guatemala.

"Most of these weapons are being smuggled from Central American countries or by sea, eluding U.S. and Mexican monitors who are focused on the smuggling of semi-automatic and conventional weapons purchased from dealers in the U.S. border states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California," according to a report in the Los Angeles Times.

Boatloads of Weapons

So why would the Mexican drug cartels, which last year grossed between $17 billion and $38 billion, bother buying single-shot rifles, and force thousands of unknown "straw" buyers in the U.S. through a government background check, when they can buy boatloads of fully automatic M-16s and assault rifles from China, Israel or South Africa?

Alberto Islas, a security consultant who advises the Mexican government, says the drug cartels are using the Guatemalan border to move black market weapons. Some are left over from the Central American wars the United States helped fight; others, like the grenades and launchers, are South Korean, Israeli and Spanish. Some were legally supplied to the Mexican government; others were sold by corrupt military officers or officials.

The exaggeration of United States "responsibility" for the lawlessness in Mexico extends even beyond the "90-percent" falsehood -- and some Second Amendment activists believe it's designed to promote more restrictive gun-control laws in the U.S.

In a remarkable claim, Auturo Sarukhan, the Mexican ambassador to the U.S., said Mexico seizes 2,000 guns a day from the United States -- 730,000 a year. That's a far cry from the official statistic from the Mexican attorney general's office, which says Mexico seized 29,000 weapons in all of 2007 and 2008.

Chris Cox, spokesman for the National Rifle Association, blames the media and anti-gun politicians in the U.S. for misrepresenting where Mexican weapons come from.

"Reporter after politician after news anchor just disregards the truth on this," Cox said. "The numbers are intentionally used to weaken the Second Amendment."

"The predominant source of guns in Mexico is Central and South America. You also have Russian, Chinese and Israeli guns. It's estimated that over 100,000 soldiers deserted the army to work for the drug cartels, and that ignores all the police. How many of them took their weapons with them?"

But Tom Diaz, senior policy analyst at the Violence Policy Center, called the "90 percent" issue a red herring and said that it should not detract from the effort to stop gun trafficking into Mexico.

"Let's do what we can with what we know," he said. "We know that one hell of a lot of firearms come from the United States because our gun market is wide open." [Any transfer of any modern gun to any private non-FFL party across state lines without submitting the recipient's name and Social Security number to the FBI's NICS system to let the federal government exercise a veto, is a federal felony under GCA '68. Describing this arrangement “wide open” is a bold-faced lie. -AMPP Ed.]

from LewRockwell.com, 2009-Apr-9, by Vin Suprynowicz:

Stopping Common Citizens From Having Guns

John Browning's Model 1911 pistol, an engineering wonder for its day, still serves as a design platform for much modern pistolsmithing. Old examples, especially with military markings, are now highly prized on the collector market, where they can bring hundreds or even thousands of dollars each.

Yet 16 years ago, early in the Clinton administration, the politicians declared our government would no longer sell into the civilian after-market pistols being retired from military armories.

Instead, “Guns & Ammo” magazine reported in 1996 that since Bill Clinton took office in 1992 the government had resumed for the first time in 15 years the destruction by shredding of “obsolete” firearms including 110,000 .45-caliber pistols and 30,000 M-1 Garands – the magnificent semi-auto battle rifle that defeated Adolf Hitler.

Destruction of the weapons – some valued by collectors at up to $6,000 apiece – “continues at a rate of about 3,000 guns per day,” the magazine reported. “Even assuming an unrealistically low value of $200 per gun, more than $60 million of historic collectibles has been reduced to worthless scrap.”

Despite ongoing federal deficits, the Clintons and their cronies decided to turn irreplaceable pieces of historic American engineering into a couple of bucks worth of crushed or melted steel, useful only for manhole covers.

Now it's 2009. A new Democratic administration is finally back in power. And guess what? This time they tried for the brass ring.

On March 16 – less than 60 days into the Obama Era – Jim Shepherd at The Shooting Wire reported “The Department of Defense has issued a directive that bans the sale of military brass to ammunition re-manufacturers. Without that brass, a very large dent is put into civilian ammunition supplies.

“New Defense Reutilization and Marketing Service (DRMS) requirements call for the `mutilation of shell casings.' Mutilation, incidentally, is the destruction of the property `to the extent that prevents its reuse or reconstruction,'” Mr. Shepherd noted.

“The first word of this latest decision came over the weekend when Georgia Arms' Larry Haynie released a letter notifying him of the new requirement. … Georgia Arms was remanufacturing more than one million rounds of .223 ammunition monthly; selling that ammo on the civilian market to resellers and to government agencies all over the country.

“Tomorrow, Georgia Arms will start sending cancellation notices for .223 ammunition to law enforcement agencies across the United States,” Mr. Shepherd reported on March 16. “Haynie says he may have to lay off half of his sixty-person workforce. The message is simple. The implication is chilling. …”

Much squawking ensued. And for now, at least, it appears those who believe “Only federal agents should have ammo” have backed down.

“Responding to two Democratic senators representing outraged private gun owners, the Department of Defense announced last night it has scrapped a new policy that would deplete the supply of ammunition by requiring destruction of fired military cartridge brass,” World Net Daily reported on March 31.

What did the two actions have in common – scrapping the wonderful 1911 Colt .45s, and the (apparently reversed, for now) decision to crush, shred, and/or melt all that once-used military brass, mostly in .223 and .308, to keep civilians from buying and reloading it?

First, since crushed or shredded brass is worth only 20 percent the value of reloadable spent cases, both moves violate the federal government's fiduciary duty as a steward of the nation's resources, the duty to get as good a return as possible on surplus stuff already paid for with hard-earned taxpayer dollars.

But in addition to that, in each of these two examples those in power in Washington proved willing and eager to abandon that fiduciary responsibility because of what they see as a more important goal.

It's tempting to identify that goal as “getting rid of all the guns.” But that would not be accurate. Just ask one of our big-government friends whether they believe DEA agents, BATF agents, even your local cop on the beat should be disarmed.

“What?!” they'll shriek. “The bad guys have them outgunned already!”

Only because of unconstitutional, unenforceable prohibitions, of course. Those who distribute Budweiser and Miller Lite don't have to wield assault rifles, because their trade was re-legalized in 1933. Re-legalizing the trades in all firearms and in all plant extracts would have the same violence-reducing impact, though that's a topic for another day.

What the Washington weasels actually favor – and are willing to throw away millions in potential new government revenue to achieve – is a government monopoly on armed might. They hate the idea of “common citizens” having access to effective firearms – even spent military brass and 60-year-old collector pistols that are far too valuable ever to be re-sold to street gangs or stickup artists.

Meantime, as evidence that this campaign proceeds on several parallel tracks, Mr. Shepherd reports the administration recently proposed a ban on rifle-caliber ammo exports to Canada, and that “Last Friday, anglers and hunters were notified that the National Park Service planned to make all lands under their control totally lead-free by 2010. No lead in ammo or fishing tackle.”

Predictably, given this full-court press, my sources report ammo demand at U.S. gun shows has not flagged. Rings of customers surround the ammo dealers from the opening bell, buying up and hauling off truckloads of .223, especially.

The consensus, it would appear, is “They may have gotten caught red-handed this time, but the sneaky Petes will surely try again.”

I heartily approve – except that I still believe .30 caliber does a better job.

Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the daily Las Vegas Review-Journal and author of The Black Arrow. Visit his blog.

from the Examiner, 2009-Apr-3, by Howard Nemerov, “Austin Gun Rights Examiner”:

Binghamton massacre: death by government?

Today in Binghamton, New York, a “suspect” shot up an immigration center as people took their citizenship exam, killing at least 13, then he died from a “self-inflicted gunshot wound.” These are the facts of the story, but there are many more facts not covered in the mainstream media which have an impact on this tragedy. The main question ignored: Why do nearly all of these mass murders occur in places where law-abiding citizens (or immigrants) are disarmed by government regulation?

Most mass murders occur in states, like New York, which restrict your right of self-defense. In his book The Bias Against Guns, John Lott examined the relationship between the presence of legally-carried firearms and multiple murders. He concluded:

If right-to-carry laws [legal concealed carry of handguns] allow citizens to limit the amount of attacks that still take place, the number of persons harmed should fall relative to the number of shootings… And indeed, that is what we find. The average number of people dying or becoming injured per attack declines by around 50 percent.

Lott also found that both the total number and rate of multiple murders in right-to-carry states are one-third that of restrictive states. In an email interview, he clarified this data by stating:

The simplest numbers showed a 67 percent drop in the number of attacks and a 79 percent decrease in the number of people killed or injured from such attacks. The number of people harmed fell by more than the number of attacks because some attacks that weren't deterred were stopped in progress by people with guns.

But some people don’t like John Lott, because he ostensibly is a “gun lobby” tool. The same people who want to ban firearms tell us that we should trust the police to protect us.

Ron Borsch is a “semi-retired police officer” after 30 years of service. He still works part-time for the Ohio State Police and serves as a consultant-trainer for law enforcement. He specializes in training police on how to deal with what he calls “active killers.” Borsch defines these as mass murderers who are: “active, and do not take hostages or negotiate.”

Nearly all mass murders occur in places where law-abiding citizens are banned from possessing firearms, either by businesses or, again, by government regulation. Borsch notes that active killers seek out these locales because they offer the optimum environment in which to accomplish their goals:

1. They want to quickly inflict maximum damage.
2. They have no intention of surviving.
3. They select “gun free” zones because it virtually guarantees no “interference” with point 1.
4. When confronted with armed resistance, the murderer commits suicide. (AKA “self-inflicted gunshot wound.”)

Point 4 is most important; concealed carry bans enable the active killer to increase his body count, as victims must wait for police to arrive. Traditionally, police have waited for sufficient numbers to arrive on-scene before entering an active killer environment. Borsch notes:

Police are handicapped by both time and distance. The mentality of tactical ideologues who think they have to round up a posse for a single (98%) cowardly amateur killing kids just makes the handicap worse.

In other words, waiting for support increases body count (as tragically demonstrated in the Columbine mass murders).

Borsch also notes:

• Unarmed citizens, starting with a single person, have aborted twice as many mass murder/attempts as police have.
• About 25 % of rapid mass murder attempts are aborted by armed citizens, again starting, (or completely), by a single person.

Using 2006 justifiable homicide data to highlight Borsch’s findings, only 2.8% of all police justifiable homicides occurred while a felon attacked a civilian, whereas 37.8% of all civilian justifiable homicides occurred while being attacked. Underlining Lott’s research, in defending against felonious attacks (self-defense), civilians in right-to-carry (RTC) states successfully used a handgun in 63.2% of all justifiable homicides, compared to 34.8% in non-RTC states.

When felons (such as an active killer) are active, the armed citizen is the best social triage against active killers. Government regulations, prohibiting law-abiding citizens from stopping mass murders, foster senseless violence.

For in-depth analysis of the lethal side-effects of gun control, read Four Hundred Years of Gun Control: Why Isn’t It Working?, which deconstructs the gun control agenda and motivates more people to support our civil right of self-defense.

References

John R. Lott, Jr., The Bias Against Guns: Why Almost Everything You’ve Heard About Gun Control Is Wrong, Regnery Publishing, 2003, page 123.

Justifiable homicide data compiled from FBI Supplemental Homicide data. Email request for Excel workbook.

from Gun Owners of America via OpposingViews.com, 2009-Apr-4:

Health Care Records Could Become National Gun Database

In a year when trillion dollar bailouts have become routine, many Americans have become almost numb to our acceleration towards socialism.

But gun rights activists aren't in that crowd, and so GOA has to inform you of yet ANOTHER threat to your privacy, the Second Amendment, and even your wallet.

It is called an "individual mandate" or, alternatively, the "Massachusetts plan."  And over the weekend, both the Washington Post and the New York Times worked hard to build momentum for it.

First, a little history.

We alerted you a few weeks ago to the gun control provisions in the stimulus bill that President Obama signed in February.  Our government will now spend between $12 and $20 BILLION to require the medical community to retroactively put our most confidential medical records into a government database -- a database that could easily be used to
deny veterans (and other law-abiding Americans) who have sought psychiatric treatment for things such as PTSD.

Currently, gun owners can avoid getting caught in this database by refusing to purchase health insurance or by purchasing insurance with a carrier that has not signed an agreement with the government to place your records in a national database.

But that's all about to change.  A budget resolution -- to be voted on this Friday in the Senate -- will be the first domino in a process that could FORCE you to buy government-approved insurance, thus making it impossible to avoid the medical database.

Put another way: If you do not have health insurance -- or, potentially, if you do not have the TYPE of health insurance the government wants you to have -- the government will force you to purchase what it regards as "acceptable" health insurance. And, in most cases, you will have to pay for it out of your own pocket.

What would all this cost? Based on comparable insurance currently on the market, it could cost $10,000 a year -- or more.

If you were jobless, the socialists would probably spot you the ten grand. But if you are middle class and can't pay $10,000 because of your mortgage payments, your small business, or your kids' college education, you would be fined (over $1,000 a year currently in Massachusetts). And, if you couldn't pay the confiscatory fine, you could ultimately be imprisoned.

Scary, you say. But why is this a Second Amendment issue? Under the Massachusetts plan, your MANDATED insurance carrier has to feed your medical data into a centralized database -- freely accessible by the government under federal privacy laws.

So... remember when your pediatrician asked your kid if you have a firearm in the home? Or when your dad was given a prescription for Zoloft because of his Alzheimer's? Or when your wife mentioned to her gynecologist that she had regularly smoked marijuana ten years ago?

All of this would be in a centralized database.  And all of it could potentially be used to vastly expand the "prohibited persons" list maintained by the FBI in West Virginia.

How serious a threat is this?

If it gets into the budget resolution the Senate will consider on Friday, it will be almost impossible to strip out later. It will be as much of a done-deal as the stimulus package was.

We have asked senators to introduce language to prohibit such an individual mandate for socialized medicine that would violate the privacy of gun owners. In the absence of such an amendment, we are asking senators to vote against the budget resolution.

from the Wall Street Journal, 2009-Mar-13, by Alex Roth, Paulo Prada and Corey Dade, with Dan Fitzpatrick and Timothy Farnam contributing:

New Calls for Assault-Gun Ban

Gun-control activists have renewed calls for the federal government to reinstate a ban on so-called assault weapons in the wake of Tuesday's deadly shooting rampage in Alabama.

Stricter national gun-control laws face dim prospects in Washington, however, despite Democratic control of Congress and the White House.

Gun sales have soared in the months since the presidential election, due in part to fears among gun owners that President Barack Obama intends to ban assault weapons, or guns that can fire rounds more quickly than standard weapons.

In November, a record 1,529,635 background checks were performed on firearms sales, up 42% from the same period a year earlier, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. A 24% year-over-year increase followed in December, with similar increases so far this year.

Background checks are considered a measure of sales because they are required during any sale of a new weapon from a federally licensed retailer, or if a weapon is sold or reclaimed from a pawn shop.

While Mr. Obama supports reinstating the assault-weapons ban, he also is confronting numerous other matters, such as the economy and health care.

He also would face stiff opposition in Congress from his own party. In recent weeks, powerful Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.), have expressed opposition to renewing the federal assault-weapons ban, which was enacted in 1994 under President Bill Clinton. The ban bars the sale of certain semiautomatic weapons. The law expired in 2004.

Earlier this month, the two Democratic senators from Montana, Max Baucus and Jon Tester, wrote to Attorney General Eric Holder after Mr. Holder suggested a ban would help reduce drug violence in Mexico by preventing the flow of assault rifles across the border. Their letter urged the Justice Department to "enforce existing laws before it considers imposing any new restrictions on gun ownership."

"Democrats have finally gotten it," said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics. "The message they've gotten is if they become gun-control advocates, they are going to suffer at the polls."

Mr. Reid is expected to face a stiff 2010 re-election fight in a state famous for its fondness for guns. A spokesman for Mr. Reid said Thursday that the senator voted against the ban in 1994, opposed its renewal in 2004 and "would not support it if the Senate votes on it in the future."

Gun-control advocates say Tuesday's bloody spree, in which 28-year-old Michael McLendon killed 10 people in southeastern Alabama before committing suicide, offers strong evidence of the need for an assault-weapons ban. Mr. McLendon used two assault rifles—an SKS and a Bushmaster—along with a shotgun and a .38-caliber handgun to fell his victims, according to the Alabama Department of Public Safety. He appeared to overwhelm police in an area where many citizens also own guns, for hunting or self-defense.

The weapons used in the Alabama shootings "are military-bred firearms developed for the specific purpose of killing human beings quickly and efficiently," wrote a coalition of groups, including the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, in a joint release on Wednesday. "Today we call on the U.S. Congress to pass a federal assault weapons ban."

On Thursday, the office of U.S. Rep. Carolyn McCarthy of Long Island, whose husband was killed by a deranged gunman on the Long Island Rail Road in 1993, said she intends to introduce a bill that would reinstitute a version of the 1994 assault-weapons ban.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.) said she is considering introducing a bill to renew the ban "with the recognition that it will be an uphill fight."

Under current federal law, anyone over 18 years old can buy a semiautomatic assault rifle from a licensed gun dealer as long as the buyer passes a background check verifying that he or she isn't a convicted felon or mentally ill, among other things. Unlicensed dealers, such as those at gun shows, may sell semiautomatic assault rifles to anyone of any age without conducting a background check.

Gun owners in Alabama are required to possess a license only for carrying a concealed handgun. Mr. McLendon had a concealed-weapons handgun permit, according to a spokeswoman for the Geneva, Ala., police department.

Whether the expired federal law would have banned the particular semiautomatic assault rifles that Mr. McLendon is alleged to have used is unclear. The law banned certain specific types of weapons, including TEC-9s and Uzis, as well as "copy" or "duplicate" weapons.

People seeking to stock up on the types of weapons that would likely be targeted by any ban—semiautomatic weapons, sometimes known as "black guns" or "black rifles"—have flocked to purchase them.

"The manufacturers are having a hard time filling orders for black guns and the retailers are having difficulty replenishing their inventory," said Rob Southwick, president of Southwick Associates, a fish and wildlife economics research firm in Fernandina Beach, Fla.

from the Free Press Courier of Wellsboro Pennsylvania, 2009-Feb-18, by Sharon Corderman:

Gun laws introduced

Two separate pieces of gun legislation were introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives on January 6. One, H.R. 45, proposes to require that anyone who owns handguns or any semiautomatic firearm that can accept a detachable ammunition-feeding device obtain a federal firearms license. The other, H.R. 17, proposes to allow for the use of firearms in defense of one's self, one's family, or one's home. Both bills have been sent to the House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security.

Named Blair Holt's Firearm Licensing and Record of Sale Act of 2009, H.R. 45 amends the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act and was introduced by Rep. Bobby Rush of Illinois. Rush had brought the bill to Congress in 2007, but it failed to make it out of the subcommittee. Blair Holt, the bill's namesake, was a 16-year-old honor student in Chicago who was murdered in May 2007 when another teenager began firing a handgun on a public bus in a gang-related attack. Rush pledged to introduce strong new gun legislation in Holt's memory.

If enacted, the bill would make it illegal to own a handgun or qualifying rifle without a firearms license and requires that a federal record of sale be maintained for those firearms. It also establishes criminal penalties for violations of those provisions.

In order to be issued a firearm license an applicant would need to submit to the Attorney General a current, passport-sized photograph, their name, address and date and place of birth, any other name they have ever used, a statement that they are not prohibited by federal law from owning a firearm, a statement that the firearm will be safely stored and out of the possession of anyone under 18 years old, a certificate showing completion of a written firearms safety examination, authorization for the release of any mental health records, and a thumbprint at the time of application. The application could be submitted at a licensed dealer or an agency designated by the Attorney General and must be forwarded to the Attorney General not later than 48 hours after the application is made. An application fee of up to $25 would be charged. If a license is issued it would be good for five years.

from KTVA CBS 11 of Anchorage Alaska, 2009-Feb-17, by Matthew Simon:

Federal Gun Bill Angers Alaskans

A new gun proposal DC legislators are currently considering is under fire from Alaska lawmakers. It would require everyone who has a gun to get a license, or be considered a felon.

Two years ago Blair Holt was one of the many folks on a crowded Chicago bus. The teen was riding to high school when a teenage gunman looking for a rival gang member got onto the bus an opened fire, murdering Holt.

That is the motivation behind Rep. Bobby Rush, D-IL, "Blair Holt's Firearm Licensing and Record of Sale Act of 2009." It would require every gun owner to get a license, and a be part of a national database. Here in Alaska, our lawmakers and gun owners are calling the idea unconstitutional.

As business went on inside Wild West Guns the idea is making everyone mad.

"I think that's ridiculous," said Eagle River Gun Owner Lawrance Weeks.

Wild West Guns' Manager Ken Feinman added, "You know under this new legislation as proposed a lever action rifle like this one requires a federal license."

Under the proposal not having a license would mean if you had a gun you would be committing a felony.

"That basically means everybody in Alaska would have to have a federal license to posses a simple rifle or be a criminal," Feinman says.

The proposal's language goes further. Violators would also be a felon for giving a gun to another person who does not license.

Feinman says, "If I was to want to give this gun to my children as an inheritance they would have to have a license, and the government would have to approve it."

And, if your gun were stolen, it would be a felony not to report the theft within 72 hours.

Monday, Rep. John Harris, R-Valdez, introduced a resolution telling congress to back off, "And what were trying to do is say from Alaska we don't want to go down that road. So knock it off and deal with other issues that are more important."

In part, Alaska lawmakers believe parts of Rush's proposal, like not letting anyone under 18 possess a firearm, will not work in Alaska.

"Maybe if you're in the inner city of Chicago and you're thinking about gangs that might make sense to you," says Rep. Lindsay Holmes, D-Anchorage. "But when you're in Alaska and we want to teach our youngsters gun safety. And we want to teach them how to hunt and enjoy the great outdoors. I just thought that was symbolic of many parts of this resolution that I thought were out of step with Alaskans' values."

Harris' resolution passed out of committee Monday, and soon the full house will debate.

This is such a heated issue because of the implications. In Alaska there are no laws requiring gun owners to register the guns they buy, and no laws requiring licenses for ownership or conceal and carry. Although officers remind gun owners it's not legal to conceal and carry everywhere in AK.

Both Weeks and Feinman predict if the measure passes Alaskans will not follow the new restrictions.

"I believe in practice that people just wouldn't comply with it," Feinman says. "It would just create millions of criminals in the country. There's millions of law abiding gun owners that just wouldn't do it."

from US Sportsmen's Alliance, 2009-Feb-11:

llinois Bill Forces Firearm Owners to Get $1 Million Insurance Policy
Legislation Increases Costs to Law Abiding Residents

A new Illinois bill represents another assault on the rights of law-abiding firearm owners in the state by forcing them to maintain a $1 million liability insurance policy or risk losing the right to own a firearm.

Most individuals in Illinois, with some exceptions, must obtain a “Firearm Owner's Identification Card” to legally own a firearm. House Bill 687, sponsored by Representative Kenneth Dunkin (D- Chicago), would force all of those individuals to obtain a $1 million liability insurance policy. This policy would cover any damages that take place from the use of a firearm owned by the individual.

The bill also authorizes the Department of the State Police to revoke and seize the identification card from any firearm owner that does not supply proof of the liability coverage to the Department.

Finally, not only will HB 687 increase the cost of lawfully purchasing a firearm, language in the bill puts owners at risk of liability should their firearm be lost or stolen. The bill states that a person shall be considered an owner until they report any stolen or lost firearms to their local police or sheriff's department. This means that an owner could be held liable if a firearm is stolen or lost and used prior to their knowledge.

“This is terrible legislation that will harm Illinois' sportsmen community. Not only will the bill make it cost prohibitive for many to own firearms, it also runs the risk of criminalizing innocent owners,” stated U.S. Sportsmen's Alliance senior vice president, Rick Story.

from the Daily Times Herald of Carroll Iowa, 2009-Feb-17, by Butch Heman:

Guardsmen to conduct urban training at Arcadia in April

The Carroll National Guard unit will train on urban military operations by holding a four-day exercise at Arcadia.

The purpose of the April 2-5 drill will be to gather intelligence, then search for and apprehend a suspected weapons dealer, according to Sgt. Mike Kots, readiness NCO for Alpha Company.

Citizens, law enforcement, media and other supporters will participate.

Troops will spend Thursday, April 2, staging at a forward operations base at Carroll. The next day company leaders will conduct reconnaissance and begin patrolling the streets of Arcadia to identify possible locations of the weapons dealer.

The primary phase will be done Saturday, April 4, when convoys will be deployed from Carroll to Arcadia. Pictures of the arms dealer will be shown in Arcadia, and soldiers will go door to door asking if residents have seen the suspect.

Soldiers will knock only at households that have agreed to participate in the drill, Kots noted.

"Once credible intelligence has been gathered," said Kots, "portions of the town will be road-blocked and more in-depth searches of homes and vehicles will be conducted in accordance with the residents' wishes.

"One of the techniques we use in today's political environment is cordon and knock," Kots explained. "We ask for the head of the household, get permission to search, then have them open doors and cupboards. The homeowner maintains control. We peer over their shoulder, and the soldier uses the homeowner's body language and position to protect him."

During this phase of the operation, troops will interact with residents and media while implementing crowd-control measures and possibly treating and evacuating injured persons.

The unit will use a Blackhawk helicopter for overhead command and control, and to simulate medevacs.

The drill will culminate in the apprehension of the suspected arms dealer.

Alpha Company will conduct a review of the drill on Sunday, April 5.

A meeting to give residents more information and accept volunteers will be held 7 p.m. Monday, March 2, in the Arcadia American Legion hall.

Kots said the exercise will replace Alpha Company's weekend drill for April.

"We have a lot of extended drills this coming year," he added.

In addition to surveillance, searching and apprehension, the exercise will also give the troops valuable experience in stability, support, patrol, traffic control, vehicle searches and other skills needed for deployment in an urban environment.

"This exercise will improve the real-life operational skills of the unit," said Kots. "And it will hopefully improve the public's understanding of military operations."

The pre-drill work with residents is as important at the drill itself.

"It will be important for us to gain the trust and confidence of the residents of Arcadia," said Kots. "We will need to identify individuals that are willing to assist us in training by allowing us to search their homes and vehicles and to participate in role-playing."

"We really want to get as much information out there as possible, because this operation could be pretty intrusive to the people of Arcadia."

from CommanderZero.com, 2008-Nov-20, by John Vivas:

Papered vs. unpapered

Under the principle of “Know your enemy as you know yourself….” I try to listen to leftist talk radio from time to time. For the last couple days the topic of gun control has been coming up. I fully suspect this is for a couple reasons…first, the lefties are realizing that `the gun issue' may hurt them and they want to defuse the issue as quickly as possible before it gains momentum. Additionally, the Carter II Obama administration hasn't been secret about its stance on gun control (although it did try to `memory hole' it with their convenient `retooling' of their website) and may want people to think that theres nothing wrong with `sensible', `common sense' prohibitions….soften up the masses and get `em receptive for the next putsch push.

I was only able to get about sixty seconds of listening to the idiot on Air America before I had to turn it off…my vision was going red around the edges and I was driving. But the question the host whined plaintively was `whats wrong with licensing guns?'. Sigh.

Lets ignore that there's no right, as far as I know, in the Constitution that requires .gov pre-approval to exercise. Lets get to the heart of the matter – confiscation is the natural consequence of registration and licensing schemes.

Many years ago I lived in Brooklyn NY. When I turned 18 I got my shotgun/rifle license. I bought a buncha stuff…AK's, AR's, even an HK93 for $600 (Ah, those were the days), and that sort of thing. A year later I moved to Montana and never looked back. However, I never updated the `Firearms Control Bureau' with my new address. A couple years go by and Im forwarded a piece of mail from the wastes of life at the FCB. The letter said, succinctly, `…you own a bunch of assault weapons and they are now illegal in the city limits. Turn them in to us or get them out of the city. Your choice.' (It was actually worded in the usual bureaucratic legalese but you get the idea.) Now, I was living in Montana…as far as I was concerned the FCB could come out to Montana and get the damn things if they had the balls. So..I got a marker and wrote across the top of their letter “You want `em, come and get `em”. (Yes, that's right…I was `Molon Labe' before Molon Labe was cool) Threw it in an envelope and sent it off. Time marches on. A few months later a family member still living in NY calls me. “Hey, remember the house we used to live in? Well, the cops showed up there the other day looking for you and your guns.”

Imagine that. Now how did those guys know what I had and where I lived? Oh, wait, that's right….those guns were duly licensed and registered.

So lets talk about `papered' and `unpapered' guns. A papered gun is a gun where you went into a gun store and filled out a `yellow sheet' (ATFE form 4473) and gave all your personal info and submitted to the background check. An unpapered gun is one that you bought from a guy at work for $150 with no paper trail whatsoever that leads to you.

Is the ATFE 4473 a de-facto registration? Yes and no. Those 4473's aren't submitted to ATFE unless the dealer goes out of business. After twenty years the dealer may dispose of them. (That last rule may have changed but I don't think so.) What that means is that ATFE and .gov only have that info on you if the dealer goes out of business or if the ATFE has a reason to come looking for you. Lets examine those two circumstances.

ATFE is prohibited from making a database of gun owners and what they own. This, of course, doesn't stop them from doing it under other guises. The method they use now is to take a dealers records (because dealers must send all that to ATFE when they close up shop) and create a database of that info. So, if your dealer stays in business for 20 years and then destroys the paperwork theres effectively no paper trail.

Until the dealer goes out of business the dealer sits on those records. He doesn't send them off to ATFE once a year or anything. If ATFE wanted to find out what guns you own they'd have to canvas every dealer near you and ask to look through their books and try to find your name. A time consuming process. Could they call NICS, ask if your name came through on an instant check lately and from what dealer to help narrow down their search? ATFE would probably say no but lets live in the real world…yes they could.

There is also the chance that a future administration (like the Carter II administration) could simply say that dealers have to turn in the 4473's every year or fax them in once a month for `random compliance checks' or some other such nonsense.

So, if youre the kind of person who thinks that what guns you own (to say nothing of why you own them) is no one's damn business but your own then you probably want to own guns that were purchased through `private transactions'. Some states make this illegal, some do not. If you live in a state where its illegal then you definitely don't want to make these quiet private transactions among trusted friends and relatives…although the odds of getting in trouble for it are quite low, and that its simple to just give your uncle $400 and buy the old .357 he bought in 1975, and that as long as you don't commit a holdup with that gun you'll probably never come to the attention of the authorities, it would still be wrong. So don't do it. And although its tempting and the risk is very low, definitely don't drive over to a state where its legal, purchase guns through a private sale and then return to your home state with them….that'd be very illegal.

If, however, you live in a state where theres no prohibition on these types of transactions, then its certainly an attractive way to fill the gun cabinet without bringing yourself to the attention of Big .Gov.

Is this sort of thinking paranoid? Not at all because I've been there. I followed the rules, registered my guns, never committed a violent act with them and they still sent armed men to what they thought was my house to take them away. So this notion that fears of confiscation are somehow the machinations of a right-wing paranoid delusion can be readily disproved with documented incidents.

Its happened in California only a few years ago…the government there pulled a fast one and said that certain `assault weapons' would be grandfathered if you registered them..folks registered them and then once that was done the .gov changed their minds and now, conveniently, had a list of who had what and where it was. Pretty slick, that.

Here in the great state of Montana, despite having a Democrat governor with some leftist leanings, we enjoy the unregulated private sales of firearms, no state bans on any type of firearms, a decent concealed weapons law, no licensing requirements (except on the Fed level for Class III and that sort of thing), and yet we have very little gun violence. No drive-by shootings, very few stickups, home invasions are rare and newsworthy occurrences, and the public display of firearms seldom raises a red flag. Life is good here for us gunnies.

Is it worth a few extra bucks to purchase a firearm without a paper trail? In my opinion, yes. In that case Im not paying extra for the gun, Im paying extra for the peace of mind that comes from knowing that the only person who knows what is sitting in my gun safe is me.

from the Sunday Paper of Atlanta, 2008-Nov-16, by Stephanie Ramage:

Under the gun
Will Obama ban guns?

Last summer, not long after Democratic presidential primary candidate Hillary Clinton told the people of Scranton, Pa., about how she'd learned to shoot at her family's cottage, while her opponent Barack Obama was counting up his likely electoral college votes and Republican John McCain was talking about buying insurance across state lines, the U.S. Supreme Court quietly issued an interpretation of the Second Amendment that firmly protects the rights of individual citizens to own and bear arms.

On June 26, the Court, in a 5-4 decision, ruled that the District of Colombia's 32-year-old ban on handguns and its accompanying unloaded-and-locked requirement for shotguns and rifles were unconstitutional. Conservative Justice Antonin Scalia wrote, “In sum, we hold that the District's ban on handgun possession in the home violates the Second Amendment, as does its prohibition against rendering any lawful firearm in the home operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense.”

Now, however, gun owners and dealers fear that President-elect Obama's administration, with its majority-Democrat Congress and Obama's anti-gun track record in the Illinois Statehouse, will tilt the power in favor of gun control.

In response to this fear, guns have flown off the shelves of local gun shops. About a dozen gun dealers contacted by The Sunday Paper all said they had experienced a substantial increase in sales since late October.

Beginning on the Saturday before the Nov. 4 election, Chuck's Firearms in Buckhead had one of its best sales weeks ever.

“Sales tripled in just one week,” says owner Jack Lesher.

The upsurge in sales precipitated by Obama's election is only the latest development in a decades-old battle over gun rights that, at its most basic, boils down to two simple opposing views:

1. Those who oppose gun control believe that while Europe's countries developed around the idea of faith in one's government, even to the point of believing that God had anointed the heads of state, the United States of America came into being as a direct result of distrusting government. Colonists, with guns in their civilian hands, defeated the European system. Without guns, firearms rights advocates like to say, we would all be driving on the wrong side of the road today.

2. Those who support gun control, on the other hand, tend to believe in the notion devised by 19th century German economist and sociologist Max Weber that government is defined by its ability to control violence, and that in order to control it, the government must have a monopoly on it. In other words, those who support gun control support a more European-style doctrine that places faith in the government above faith in individual private citizens.

The two groups have diametrically opposed interpretations of the Second Amendment, which says, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.”

The amendment was written in 1791, when states were much more autonomous than they are today, and when they actually had militias. Anti-gun-control proponents, or “Second Amendment rights supporters,” as they prefer to be called, have always said that “militia” means “people,” since virtually every able-bodied man served in his state's militia when the amendment was written.

Gun-control supporters have always said that a “militia” means just that—a government military body—and if militias became a thing of the past, then only the police and the military should be allowed to have most types of guns. [Editor's Note: Later versions of the amendment included a comma after "Militia," which some argue made it clear that the authors were referring to a militia.] In the more than 200 years since the amendment was penned, the Supreme Court has never really explained what happened to the Second Amendment when state militias, practically speaking, ceased to exist.

That is, until this year.

What in Heller is a militia?

It took several years to bring the case “District of Colombia v. Heller” into being. Robert Levy, a legal scholar at the Cato Institute, had been looking for the perfect case to finally clarify the Second Amendment. He eventually found several Washington D.C. citizens who wanted to hold onto their handguns, but only one, a security guard in his 60s named Dick Anthony Heller, had a strong enough claim to land in the nation's highest court.

When Justice Scalia and four other justices decided in favor of Heller, it was a victory for those who believe the Second Amendment refers to individuals, not militias.

“The funny thing about Heller is that it has flip-flopped the liberal and conservative positions,” says Matthew Shors, one of the attorneys who represented the District of Colombia in the case. “If you are a strict constitutionalist, to you it means that the states can protect themselves from the federal government. The fact that the states have chosen to allow their militias to atrophy because they think they don't need them anymore doesn't change the Second Amendment.”

Shors, who is rattling around in his kitchen in Virginia preparing for his son's birthday party, says that Heller is a decision that has implications for future generations. Already, it has sparked similar cases elsewhere. There's a case involving Obama's hometown, Chicago, he says, and there's also a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals case in California.

“The next issue the U.S. Supreme Court decides is whether Heller applies not just to D.C., but to state and local laws,” says Shors. “Because of the Heller decision, it is going to be harder than it has been in the past for governments to ban weapons.”

But banning weapons is not the gun-control constituency's priority, according to Ladd Everitt, communications director for the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence.

Everitt has recently returned from a trip to Tacoma, Wash., where he participated in a documentary about the illegal trafficking of guns from the U.S. into Canada. While there, the gun-control activist did something he has never done before—he fired a gun. Actually, he fired four handguns (a .357 Ruger revolver, a Glock 9 millimeter, a Sig Sauer 9 millimeter, and a Ruger .22 caliber), a shotgun (a Mossberg 12-gauge), and an assault rifle (a Hi Point 9 millimeter).

“It was amazing,” he says. “I sunk 10 bullets into the eye socket of a target. It was like a video game. I could see why a teenager would want one.”

But he's not interested in owning one.

“I have a baby daughter at home,” he says. “And I don't want a gun around the house.”

Everitt also doesn't see why anyone else would need to own an assault rifle.

“An assault weapon is, at its core, originally designed for war,” he says. “These are weapons originally designed for the battlefield. I have a baseball bat, a dog, that's enough.”

No one, he adds, should hold out any hope, though, of the Democratic Congress banning any guns. He explains that although the National Rifle Association (NRA) failed to defeat Obama, conservative, “blue dog” Democrats won't support gun control, however much they may have supported Obama.

“So we have to look at what's realistic,” says Everitt. “We'd like to close the gun show loophole and we'd like to see the repeal of the Tiahrt Amendment.”

Not about race

Rachel Parsons, spokeswoman for the NRA, says the term “gun show loophole” is misleading.

“He's talking about private firearms sales,” she says. “That would, in essence, close down gun shows, because they would have to run a National Crime Information Center background check, and that would take up to 48 or 72 hours and most shows don't last that long. Gun shows are community events. They are family events. Law enforcement and military personnel go there to buy things. The Justice Department has found that less than 2 percent of guns used in crime come from gun shows.”

Everitt counters that the loophole is much bigger than that.

“If we were in Virginia, I could sell you 10 rifles from my living room sofa,” he says. “And I wouldn't have to do a background check.”

The Tiahrt Amendment, passed in 2005 and named for its sponsor, Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.), restricts access of gun ownership data to law enforcement agencies, prosecutors and defense attorneys. It keeps the ownership paper trail of a gun—who bought it where and when, who they sold it to, if it was reported stolen, etc.—out of the hands of, in Parsons' words, “politicians, special interest groups and the media. They would get a hold of it and it could be used for political grandstanding.”

Or it could be used by journalists to establish links between gun ownership and crime, or to build lawsuits like the one brought by the City of New York in 2006 against gun dealers here in Georgia and elsewhere in the Southeast. Those dealers, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said, allowed 'straw' purchases that eventually provided guns to criminals in NYC. One of the stores on Bloomberg's list was Adventure Outdoors in Smyrna.

Adventure Outdoors subsequently sued Bloomberg for what its then-attorney, Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr, called “slander,” and for basically tricking Adventure Outdoors into allowing the alleged straw purchase. Eric Proshansky, an attorney for NYC, says the city has filed a motion for a default judgment in its case against Adventure Outdoors, which should be decided soon. [Clarification: Portions of Adventure Outdoors' complaint against NYC were dismissed. The City's appeal to dismiss the remainder of the complaint has been argued in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta and a decision is pending. .]

Last week, business was brisk at Adventure Outdoors, as it has been since three weeks before the election. Owner Jay Wallace says sales have increased by 30 percent.

“People are concerned that with the new administration coming in and the people like [Speaker of the House Nancy] Pelosi who are still there, that there will be new bans,” he says. “They are interested in guns that are likely to fall under an assault weapons ban.”

At Range & Guns in Forest Park, manager David Aldea has seen a similar trend.

“Whenever there is a rumor of a ban, it produces a panic like a wildfire,” he says, warning that if there is a ban, “The problem with guns won't be lessened, but the ability of the people to stand up and defend the populace will be.”

Aldea shrugs off any idea that the run on guns might be related to Obama being black. He explains that he's well aware of how guns get linked to racial issues. But, he says, he grew up in New Jersey, where he was part of a diverse competitive marksmanship team.

“It's not race,” he says. “It's the fear of a ban. When the assault weapons ban was put in place in the 1990s—and that was just on manufacturers—people went hog-wild buying guns.”

Over at Tucker Guns in Tucker, owner Scott Austin concurs.

“I have black customers, and they are just as concerned,” he says. (There were black customers in the store the day SP was there to take photos.) “People are just scared the government will take their guns away.”

Rick Callihan, a gun parts manufacturer in Atlanta, says, “The same thing would have happened if Hillary had been elected. Obama's been a little more outspoken on guns than Hillary, and Hillary has not really had any effect on guns in New York, but there would still be more sales because she's a Democrat. When there is a ban expected, certain guns increase in value, so people buy them up.”

No one knows for sure what the Democratic-majority Congress will do, and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi failed to return calls for this story. But a review of Obama's record in the Illinois State Senate, where he served for nine years, turns up a slew of gun-control measures he sponsored or co-sponsored.

Among them is legislation tightening requirements for guns shows, requiring that all confiscated firearms be traced, and creating “the offense of unlawful use of a semiautomatic assault weapon or large capacity ammunition feeding device, defined as knowingly selling, manufacturing, purchasing, possessing, or carrying a semiautomatic assault weapon...Provides that the offense is a Class 2 felony. Exempts peace officers and members of the Armed Services or Reserved Forces of the United States and Illinois National Guard while in the performance of their official duties... .”

John R. Lott Jr., a senior research scientist at the University of Maryland and author of “More Guns, Less Crime,” believes it's likely that Obama will seek to expand the assault weapons ban.

Lott's research has shown that wherever there have been bans on guns, an increase in crime has followed. He points to the country from which America rebelled, the one whose government earned our distrust and inspired our predilection for keeping gun rights in the hands of the citizenry.

“In 1900, in England, gun ownership was extremely common, and London had only two gun murders and five armed robberies using guns that year,” he says. “People like to compare the U.S. to Britain, but the gap between the two in terms of crime was even wider before Britain put the gun ban in place; they had even less crime than we had then. Today their violent crime rate is twice ours.”

Malfunctioning gun sends veteran to prison

A pro-Second Amendment group is taking the unusual step of asking for financial help for the family of a gun owner caught up in a bizarre prosecution for a malfunctioning firearm.

David Olofson is a U.S. Army veteran, Army Reservist and a gun enthusiast who loaned his personal 20-year-old AR-15 semi-automatic rifle to a neighbor who had expressed an interest in learning to shoot. A semi-automatic weapon fires one bullet each time the trigger is pulled. But – as Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, explains – when the neighbor took the gun to a range, it malfunctioned, firing several rounds with one trigger pull and then jamming.

"Now that, by normal people's thinking is a malfunction. A gun that jams, even after it's fired a small burst, is hardly a controllable firearm. That's a gun that needs fixing," he explains. "But according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATF), that is a machine gun -- and they got a jury to buy that."

Olofson was sentenced to 30 months in jail for "transferring a machine gun" to his neighbor. But Pratt says the government got that conviction based on what it did not tell the jury, not based on the facts of the case.

"They didn't tell the jury that their witness, the fellow who had borrowed the gun, had been paid repeatedly by the federal government," says Pratt. "They didn't tell the jury that they had back-dated the second lab test so that it would pre-date the criminal complaint against Mr. Olofson. The first lab test showed that it was a semi-automatic. The second lab test was where they 'proved' that it was an automatic. The judge, at conviction, overlooked the fact that the Supreme Court has defined a gun that behaves like Mr. Olofson's as, 'not a machine gun.'"

Pratt also accuses the BATF of withholding evidence that would have cleared Olofson. Some 20 years ago, the ATF issued a recall of the specific rifle that Olofson owned for malfunctioning in the manner that the Bureau now claims makes the rifle a machine gun. "The problem is, the other copy of the letter, that was sent to the manufacturer, burned up when the factory burned down in 2000," he notes. "So, we weren't able to get a copy of the letter and the BATF just folded their arms and said, 'You can't have it.'"

Published testimony from the BATF firearms examiner who tested Olofson's rifle shows he was originally unable to make the weapon fire as a machine gun and had to try alternative ammunition to recreate the malfunction. ATF examiner Max Kingery also testified at first that the weapon firing in fully-automatic mode was a malfunction, then contradicted himself in later testimony. BATF has refused media requests for comment on the case, saying only that obtaining a conviction proves they were right to prosecute Olofson.

As a result of the discrepancies in the case, Gun Owners of America is not only representing Olofson in his appeal of the conviction, the group is also asking gun owners and other Second Amendment supporters to help Olofson's family while he remains in prison. Olofson's wife is trying to pay their bills and care for their three children without her husband or his income while he fights the conviction. Information on the David Olofson Relief Fund is available on the Gun Owners of America website.

from Gun Owners of America, 2008-Jul-16, by Larry Pratt:

BATFE: Any Semi-Auto Can Be A Machine Gun

On July 2 I went to jail.

Happily for me, I left right away. Sadly for David Olofson and his family, he had to stay, and will have to stay for 30 months in the Federal Correctional Institute in Sandstone, Minnesota.

Why is the federal government incarcerating an Army reservist from Berlin, Wisconsin who has 16 years of service, a mortgage, a wife and three kids? They convicted him for knowingly transferring an unregistered machine gun.

Since the case was brought by the rogue agency -- the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) -- we must assume that not only was Olofson innocent until proven guilty, but that he is still innocent after conviction. That is why Gun Owners of America is handling Olofson's appeal.

As our attorneys have looked into the records of the case, it is obvious that a miscarriage of justice has been perpetrated. The chief piece of evidence is an AR-15 made by Olympic Arms many years ago. Olafson had loaned the gun to a young man, who was his neighbor. At a range the gun fired two bursts of three rounds each and then jammed. Normal people would understand that a gun that jams is malfunctioning and seek to get it fixed.

For the Bureau (aka The Gang), a malfunctioning gun is an excellent opportunity to rack up an easy conviction on an illegal machine gun charge.

The gun was tested twice... both times with very different results. The first test came back with a report that the gun is a semi-automatic rifle. The next test came back with a report that it had fired a 20-round burst, and was thus a machine gun.

Firearms Enforcement Officer Max Kingrey got the gun to do something it had never done before. Suspicions of tampering by FEO Kingery, such as the addition of an auto sear or DIAS (considered a machine gun itself) could not be verified, as the defense was denied the opportunity to inspect the gun's inner workings. FEO Kingery's testing was done in secret, and never verified by anyone.

In all probability, the Bureau tampered with evidence (the AR-15) and took a malfunctioning gun that jammed after a few rounds and converted it into a machine gun that dumped its magazine. Twenty-two years ago, a "drop in auto sear" or DIAS was made specifically for Olofson's rifle from the factory.

The Milwaukee BATFE agent, Jody Keeku, claims to have found the gun to be a machine gun when she checked it. That means she dry-fired it. A minimal knowledge of firearms (which seems to be above Ms. Keeku's pay grade) would be sufficient to conclude that a machine gun has to fire using its recoil from the first shot to set up and fire the next shot (until the burst control level is reached, or the finger is removed from the trigger).

Ms. Keeku claims to be a firearms expert, but when the defense asked to see her training credentials and certifications, she declined to testify. She is at least smart enough to see that she would have been made to look foolish on the stand.

Using two tests to "prove" that the gun is a machine gun goes to one of the big problems illustrating the lack of accountability with The Gang. On other occasions the Bureau has "proved" an accessory to be a machine gun by bolting it to a board and tying the bolt with a shoe string. Since the shoe string was what made the gun fire "automatically," it was declared to be a machine gun. So if you see a BATFE agent, you had better be wearing loafers!

The same outcome-based testing found that an Upper -- which ATF doesn't consider to be a firearm -- was a machine gun after covering it with duct tape. When that did not work, The Gang added chains, bolts and a piece of metal so the recoil could operate the gun automatically without a trigger. If you cock this not-so-handy device, it fires uncontrollably until empty. Not even a stupid bank robber would choose such a weapon. But then, we are talking about The Gang.

When a court-recognized firearms expert, Len Savage of Historic Arms, was brought in by the defense, he was not allowed to touch or test fire the gun. That is, not until the Bureau's agent at the trial broke the gun trying to reassemble it and asked for Savage's help in getting the gun back together.

Olympic Arms had been subject to a recall order by the BATFE in 1986. Why? Because many of the guns would fire a short burst and then jam. Then it was a malfunctioning gun, but now it is a machine gun. More outcome-based procedures.

Why was this information not presented to the court? Because the truth-challenged agents of The Gang told the court that not even the judge could see such privileged taxpayer information. Right. Unhappily, Olympic Arms did not have a copy of the order because their plant burned down in 2000.

The judge displayed extreme prejudice during the sentencing hearing. Olofson had successfully defended himself against anti-self defense local cops who twice charged him while he was openly carrying a handgun -- something that is legal in Wisconsin! But the judge stated that anybody who carries a gun is dangerous, and he was adding to the severity of the decision because of the charges against which Olofson had prevailed!

Never forget, the judge also denied Olofson's firearms expert access to the evidence used against him. BATFE was allowed to video tape the "test firing" of the firearm, not Olofson. The tape shown in court was only a few short seconds showing a gun at such a distance that it was not possible to tell that it was Olofson's gun.

Had Rep. Phil Gingrey's H.R. 1791 been law, it is safe to say that Olofson would not have been convicted. Gingrey's "Fairness in Firearm Testing Act" would require an unedited video of firearms testing in criminal cases to be made available to the defense. This was a requirement imposed on The Gang by the U.S. Attorney in the U.S. vs. Glover case. When the video was reviewed by the prosecution, they dropped the case with prejudice (legal speak which means the case can never be brought up again).

Not only is Gun Owners of America representing Olofson during his appeal, we have set up an Olofson relief fund so that his wife and mother of their three young children will be able to keep making her mortgage and car payments.

Those interested in making a small monthly donation from a charge to their credit card can go to www.gunowners.org/olofson.htm or call GOA and arrange over the phone to have this done. All funds so collected will go toward the monthly payments, or if possible, to prepayment of the principal loan amounts. The automatic donations will cease when Olofson is out of prison or when the donor instructs GOA to discontinue them.

It is outrageous that an innocent man is in jail, but we are hoping to minimize the ugly impact of that on his family.

from Stars and Stripes, 2008-Oct-16, by James Warden:

Baghdad begins to disarm after ban

BAGHDAD — In the past, the soldiers with 1st Battalion, 68th Infantry would have had no problem finding an AK-47 assault rifle in Omar Abdul Satar's home. Iraqis have a long history of owning guns, and few homes in the country are without one.

But the government is trying to change that. It recently decided to prohibit guns in the capital. That was bad news for Satar. When the U.S. soldiers and their Iraqi counterparts found his AK, they confiscated it and took it back to their base in Baghdad's Adhamiyah district.

Iraqi soldiers began collecting private guns around the capital in September after the Iraqi government instituted the gun ban. More recently, American soldiers have been searching homes to round up firearms around the city as well. Only citizens with the proper permit can keep their weapons. Unlike in the United States, they usually must have a job that requires a gun to obtain a permit.

The law previously allowed all homes to have one gun — invariably an AK — and one ammunition magazine. Most Iraqis deemed their guns to be an essential item for living in an environment where safety can't be taken for granted. Capt. Patrick Soule, commander of Company D, 2nd Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment, recalled their ubiquitous presence before the ban.

"Just about every home I went into in Dora (a Baghdad neighborhood) had an AK," said Soule, whose company is attached to 1-68. "Most people just showed it to you."

Soule, who is now stationed in Adhamiyah, estimated that his company has confiscated about 60 AKs so far. They have not yet arrested anybody.

The soldiers give the gun owners a receipt for each weapon they confiscate in case the owner wants to protest the confiscation later. Those allowed to own guns sometimes accidentally let their permits lapse and can get their weapons back if they renew their permits.

If not, the Iraqi soldiers may keep the weapons to equip their own units. Any weapons the Iraqis don't want are turned over to the battalion intelligence officer for further disposition.

Soule said he feels safer with the guns off the street. The ban doesn't just make it harder for people to attack coalition and Iraqi forces, he said, the area will also be safer from the celebratory fire that Iraqis use during weddings and other special events. It will also make routine disputes less likely to escalate to deadly shootings.

Iraqis were mixed in their response to the gun ban. Satar wasn't happy to see American and Iraqi soldiers confiscate his AK during their patrol.

"Actually, we need them for self-defense and protecting the home," he said.

Soldiers said they regularly hear that complaint when they confiscate weapons.

But Galia Joulan Ahammad, an elderly Adhamiyah widow, said she was glad the guns were being carried away from her neighborhood — which the Americans call "JAM Alley," after the Arabic acronym for the Mahdi Army militia. The situation around this area has improved since the gun ban went into effect.

"It's good for us that the coalition is searching the homes," she said.

Ahammad did not have any guns, but even those with guns remained placid when security forces confiscated theirs.

Soule said the country's improving security has helped many people feel that they no longer need a gun.

Clearing Baghdad of guns won't be easy, though. The city is awash in firearms after years of fighting, and many are reluctant to give them up. Those who lose their guns to coalition soldiers can buy new ones easily and cheaply. The 1-68 soldiers had already searched JAM Alley a few times before, but still found a couple of AKs after searching for two hours.

The Iraqi soldiers were glad to be taking possession of the weapons. As security has improved, insurgents have shifted their attacks from the Americans to Iraqi forces. Sgt. Allah Atemadh thought the city would be safer without so many guns around.

"Baghdad, it must be disarmed," Atemadh said. "They will confiscate the guns from everybody — especially private guns."

from Gun Owners of America, 2008-Dec-17:

National Geographic TV Takes Aim At Your Guns

Gun Owners of America E-Mail Alert
8001 Forbes Place, Suite 102, Springfield, VA 22151
Phone: 703-321-8585 / FAX: 703-321-8408
http://www.gunowners.org

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

National Geographic Channel ran a show last night entitled, "Gun In America." According to the program, there are millions of misguided gun owners across the nation. Why? Because your guns are supposedly more likely to harm you than to help you in an emergency.

"As a society, we're totally out of control with weapons," said one Philadelphia cop who was interviewed during the show. "You need to limit access that people have to these type of firearms."

That was the basic thrust of the program. National Geographic recited the usual worn-out factoids that are peddled by the Brady Campaign. It only cited anti-gun cops. And for every person who was filmed stating he or she believed in a right to own firearms for self-defense, the program would cite "facts" to prove that such a hope was misplaced.

Gun owners should let the President and CEO of National Geographic know that the channel should stick to showing pictures of kangaroos and foliage -- images that we normally attribute to National Geographic's magazine -- and keep his personal, anti-gun views to his private conversations around the Christmas dinner table.

The National Geographic Channel presents itself as an educational, unbiased alternative. But "Guns in America" was hardly unbiased, as can be seen by the following agenda items that were pushed during the program:

1. "Guns in America" would have you believe that the guns in your home are 22 times more likely to kill a family member than to protect you. This statistic can (surprise, surprise!) be found on the Brady Campaign website, but its source has been highly discredited. The factoid originates with Arthur Kellerman, who has generated multiple studies claiming that guns are a net liability.(1) But Kellerman has been found guilty of fudging his data, and even the National Academy of Sciences has stated that his "conclusions do not seem to follow" from his data.(2)

The truth of the matter is actually quite encouraging for gun owners. Anti-gun researchers for the Clinton Justice Department found that guns are used 1.5 million times annually for self-defense, which means that each year, firearms are used more than 50 times more often to protect the lives of honest citizens than to take lives.(3)

Isn't that strange? You would think anti-gunners wouldn't mind citing a study that was commissioned by the Clinton Justice Department! Apparently, the results of the study didn't fit their agenda.

2. "Guns in America" overstates the number of children who die by unintentional gunfire. The program would have viewers believe that a child dies by accidental gunfire, once every two days. But you can only reach that figure if you count violent-prone teens as "children."

In fact, when you look at the statistics involving younger children (ages 0-14), you see that kids have a greater chance of dying from choking on things like the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that you feed them.(4) Hmm, why doesn't National Geographic want to report on those killer peanuts?

3. "Guns in America" portrays twelve times as many negative uses of guns as positive uses -- even though in the real world, the truth is quite the opposite (as guns are used at least 50 times more often to save life than take life). The program does start with a dramatization of a legitimate self-defense story with an actual 911 call playing in the background. But after that, every dramatization is about drive-by-shootings or cops being shot or gang-related warfare.

The lesson for the viewer is: Guns are bad.

4. "Guns in America" only quotes anti-gun "authorities," thus leaving the impression that all law-enforcement support gun control. Never mind the fact that when one looks at polls of the police community, they overwhelmingly hold pro-gun attitudes:

* Should any law-abiding citizen be able to purchase a firearm for sport or self defense? -- 93% of law-enforcement said yes.(5)

* Do you believe law-abiding citizens should be limited to the purchase of no more than one firearm per month? -- 70.1% of law-enforcement said no.(6)

* Do you agree that a national concealed handgun permit would reduce rates of violent crime as recent studies in some states have already reflected? -- 68.2% of law-enforcement said yes.(7)

It's bad enough that a liberal teacher's union controls the education of our kids in the public schools, and that many of them are being brainwashed with politically correct thinking. We don't need supposedly neutral programs like National Geographic peddling the Brady Campaign's favorite factoids to an unsuspecting public.

ACTION: Please contact Tim T. Kelly, the President and CEO of National Geographic Ventures (which includes their television division), and urge him to steer the NatGeo channel away from politics. If the National Geographic Channel can't run a balanced program -- where they use real statistics -- then they just need to stick to filming those cute little animals that helped make their magazine so famous.

You can go to http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/contact to cut-and-paste the sample letter below into their webform. Since you will need to select a Topic, please choose "I have a complaint."
And for "Department," we would suggest selecting "Factual Questions" or "General."

---- Pre-written letter ----

Dear Mr. Kelly:

I will think twice before ordering the National Geographic magazine, because I don't want to help you fund any more anti-gun propaganda. Your Explorer show entitled "Guns In America" -- which has run several times this month -- was heavily slanted to the gun control position. The show used fallacious statistics without rebutting them, all in an effort to demonize firearms.

For example, "Guns in America" falsely claimed that guns in the home are 22 times more likely to kill a family member than to serve as protection. That is simply not true. The author of this study, Arthur Kellerman, has been discredited many times (by groups such as the National Academy of Sciences), so it's shameful that your channel would even cite his work.

Second, "Guns in America" overstates the number of children who die by unintentional gunfire. In fact, when you look at the statistics involving younger children (ages 0-14), you see that kids have a greater chance of dying from choking on things like the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that you feed them. Can I expect to see a show in the near future highlighting the danger of feeding children?

Third, "Guns in America" portrays twelve times as many negative uses of guns as positive uses -- even though in the real world, the truth is quite the opposite. According to statistics from the Clinton Justice Department in 2007, guns are used at least 50 times more often to save life than take life.

Finally, "Guns in America" only quotes anti-gun "authorities," thus leaving the impression that all law-enforcement support gun control. Never mind the fact that when one looks at polls of the police community, they overwhelmingly hold pro-gun attitudes. (Please see the poll results on the website for the National Association of Chiefs of Police.) Why were none of these authorities ever cited?

The National Geographic Society's purpose is "to increase and diffuse geographic knowledge while promoting the conservation of the world's cultural, historical, and natural resources." I would submit to you that pushing gun control is far afield from your stated purpose.

Sincerely,

--------------------------------

ENDNOTES:

(1) Arthur Kellerman has generated multiple studies that claim gun owners are more likely to be injured by their guns than to use those guns in self-defense. His results range from 3 to 22 to 43 times more likely to be injured by a gun in the home. His methodology has been debunked, however, many times over. (See endnote 2.)

(2) See http://www.gunowners.org/sk0701.htm . Also, see Charles F. Wellford, John Pepper, Carol Petrie, Firearms and Violence: A Critical Review (National Research Council of the National Academies, 2004), p. 118.

(3) See http://www.gunowners.org/sk0802.htm

(4) See "Children Accidental Death Rates (Ages 0-14)," Gun Control Fact Sheet (2004) at http://www.gunowners.org/fs0404.htm

(5) National Association of Chiefs of Police, 20th Annual Survey Results (Survey questions sent to Chiefs of Police and Sheriffs in the United States: 2008).

(6) National Association of Chiefs of Police, 15th Annual Survey Results (Survey questions sent to Chiefs of Police and Sheriffs in the United States).

(7) Ibid.

from the Chicago Sun-Times, 2008-Jun-26, by Fran Spielman with Stefano Esposito contributing:

Outraged Daley vows to defend Chicago gun law

An "outraged" Mayor Daley this morning denounced a U.S. Supreme Court ruling overturning Washington D.C.'s handgun ban as a "frightening decision" and a "return to the days of the Wild West."

Daley predicted that Chicago's 1982 handgun freeze would be next in the crosshairs of the powerful gun lobby and that gun violence will surge if they'e successful.

The mayor said he would vigorously defend Chicago's ordinance, in spite of what he called the dangerous precedent set by the nation's highest court.

"This is a very frightening decision for America. …Does this lead to everyone having a gun in our society? If they think that's the answer, then they're greatly mistaken. Then, why don't we do away with the court system and go back to the Old West? You have a gun and I have a gun and we'll settle in the streets," Daley told reporters at Navy Pier.

"I have no problems with those hunting, gun collectors….But, how do you get a gun into your house? Does it fly in by a stork? You purchase a gun. You carry the gun in a car. You come to your home. And we've shown time and time again how many children have been killed in their homes by guns. Parents are away, they get the guns….The child takes the gun, runs out in the street, has an argument, comes back and shoots somebody."

At a time when Chicago's homicide rate is rising by nearly 13 percent and children are being gunned down on city streets, Daley said the Supreme Court has "changed the rules" in a way that will make it far more difficult to protect law-abiding citizens.

"The Supreme Court and Congress have no obligation to keep our country safe. It falls on the backs of mayors and local officials. That's who say, 'I want my street, my parks, my school, my church, mosque and synagogues — I want everything to be safe.'…They're changing the rules….Why should we as a city not be able to protect ourselves from those who want guns in our society?" the mayor said.

Chicago Police Supt. Jody Weis today said that 75 percent of Chicago's murders involve firearms. So far this year, Chicago Police have responded to 15,000 "man with a gun" calls and 27,000 calls of "shots fired."

"Today's recent decision by the Supreme Court will have to be looked at by a lot of the lawyers to see how it truly will impact upon law enforcement," Weis said at police headquarters. "However, if the result of this ruling are that more guns come on the street, it's going to make it more challenging for law enforcement."

Daley noted that the U.S. Supreme Court building and Congress are in a security bubble with armed guards everywhere and metal detectors galore.

"Those who are rich and those who are in power always feel safe. Those who do not have the power do not feel safe. And that's what they're saying," Daley said.

"You cannot carry a gun into a federal building. You cannot carry a gun into a federal court. So, they're setting themselves aside. They're saying to the rest of America that the answer to all of the constitutional issues is that we can carry guns. I just don't understand how they came to this thinking. I'm very, very disappointed."

Chicago's ban on new handguns-and a companion requirement that all existing guns be re-registered every two years-was pushed through the City Council in 1982 in the wake of the assassination attempts on former President Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II and the death of two police officers.

The number of registered guns has steadily plummeted ever since.

Most gun owners have apparently decided that it's too much trouble to re-register their weapons. And tens of thousands of additional weapons have been purchased or inherited since the freeze took effect and brought into Chicago illegally.

For years, aldermen have called the handgun freeze a "charade" and likened it to Prohibition.

Earlier this month, the City Council finally got around to acting on that belief.

They agreed to re-open gun registration in Chicago — but not in the narrow manner proposed by Ald. Richard Mell (33rd).

A former hunter, Mell had proposed a one-month amnesty after he forgot to re-register his arsenal of shotguns, rifles and pistols as required every two years by the ordinance he helped to pass.

During the month-long window, gun owners who attempted to re-register their guns between May 1, 2007 and April 1, 2008 only to be rejected on grounds the registrations had lapsed would have been allowed to re-register without penalty.

The ordinance ultimately approved by the Council quadrupled the amnesty period. And it applied to everybody who "possesses a firearm that was at one time validly registered to that person in the city of Chicago."

from the San Francisco Chronicle, 2008-Dec-6, p.A4, by Peter Fimrite with the Associated Press contributing:

Guns will be allowed in national parks

Campers may now pack heat along with their sleeping bags when they travel to national parks.

The Bush administration on Friday struck down federal regulations banning loaded guns in most national forests, a move that was widely seen as a parting shot on behalf of the National Rifle Association.

The ruling overturned a 25-year-old federal regulation severely restricting concealed firearms in national parks and wildlife refuges. The new rule, which would take effect in January, would apparently allow anyone who already has a concealed weapons permit in his or her state to also tote a gun in federal parks within state boundaries.

Conservation groups, park officials and many politicians blasted the decision as a politically motivated slap against public opinion in favor of the gun lobby.

"This is something the park service does not want that is being driven by the political appointees in the Department of the Interior," said Bryan Faehner, associate director for park uses for the National Parks Conservation Association, a nonprofit group established in 1919 to look out for the interests of the national parks. "This is pretty outrageous. We're concerned that there is going to be an increase in gun-related accidents in parks and opportunistic poaching."

The decision shoots down a 1981 wildlife refuge and a 1983 national park regulation signed by President Ronald Reagan requiring firearms to be unloaded and placed somewhere not easily accessible, such as in a car trunk, when visiting federal parks. Faehner said folks will now be able to lock and load in 388 of 391 parks, refuges and sites in 48 states, including California.

Only the three national park units in Wisconsin and Illinois, which do not issue concealed carry permits, are excluded.

The idea behind the ruling, according to Lyle Laverty, the assistant interior secretary, was to foster the long-held tradition of having states and the federal government work together on natural resource issues. He said similar rules were recently adopted by the federal Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service.

"We are pleased that the Interior Department recognizes the right of law-abiding citizens to protect themselves and their families while enjoying America's national parks and wildlife refuges," said Chris Cox, the National Rifle Association's chief lobbyist.

The NRA lobbied hard for the change to the gun regulations, which Cox said were inconsistent and unclear. Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, and Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., had also supported the change, organizing a letter-writing campaign to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne complaining about the gun restrictions. The letters were signed by half the Senate - 41 Republicans and nine Democrats.

As of 2007, there were 40,296 people with concealed weapons permits in California, according to Scott Gerber, spokesman for the state attorney general. Such permits are issued by police and sheriff's departments, usually to people in high-profile positions or to those who show a legitimate need for their protection.

The attorney general's office checks the fingerprints of all applicants and excludes people with felonies and violent misdemeanors on their records or who have been committed to mental hospitals.

Faehner said the new regulations go even further to loosen gun regulations than what was proposed earlier this year by the Bush administration. The earlier proposal, he said, would have allowed people to carry concealed weapons in federal parks only if the state parks allowed it.

California state parks do not allow loaded concealed weapons, but the newest ruling ignores the state parks and says that if state law permits concealed weapons, it is OK in a national park within that state's boundary.

"It appears that people who have been issued concealed carry permits will be able to travel into Yosemite with their guns, but they would be prohibited from entering the state parks in California," Faehner said. "So the bar has been lowered."

The change came despite more than 140,000 comments that were sent to the Department of the Interior after the earlier proposal was made. The overwhelming majority of those who commented opposed changing the regulations to allow concealed firearms in national parks, according to representatives of park rangers, retirees and conservation organizations.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., joined numerous organizations, including the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, in denouncing the move.

"This unprecedented rule change wipes out common-sense regulations originally enacted by the Reagan administration," Feinstein said in a statement. "There is simply no good reason why this administration would change a rule that has helped make our national parks among the most popular and safest places in the country."

The regulation, which will be published in the Federal Register Wednesday and go into effect 30 days later, was timed so it would be in the books by the time President-elect Barack Obama takes office on Jan. 20. Changing it would require a long bureaucratic rule-changing process possibly lasting years. Several groups, including the conservation association, are considering a lawsuit.

from Capitalism Magazine, 2003-May-22, by Alex Kozinski:

The Individual's Right to Bear Arms

Summary: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

[www.CapitalismMagazine.com] Last December, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld California's ban on assault weapons. Writing for the Court, Judge Stephen Reinhardt held that the Second Amendment only protected the state's "collective" right to own firearms, and that the Constitution recognized no individual right to bear arms.

Earlier this month, the full Ninth Circuit denied a motion to set aside the panel's opinion and rehear the case. Four judges dissented from this decision and one of the judge's opinions, that of Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski, is reprinted below--Nicholas Provenzo

Judges know very well how to read the Constitution broadly when they are sympathetic to the right being asserted. We have held, without much ado, that "speech, or . . . the press" also means the Internet, and that "persons, houses, papers, and effects" also means public telephone booths. When a particular right comports especially well with our notions of good social policy, we build magnificent legal edifices on elliptical constitutional phrases--or even the white spaces between lines of constitutional text. But, as the panel amply demonstrates, when we're none too keen on a particular constitutional guarantee, we can be equally ingenious in burying language that is incontrovertibly there.

It is wrong to use some constitutional provisions as spring-boards for major social change while treating others like senile relatives to be cooped up in a nursing home until they quit annoying us. As guardians of the Constitution, we must be consistent in interpreting its provisions. If we adopt a jurisprudence sympathetic to individual rights, we must give broad compass to all constitutional provisions that protect individuals from tyranny. If we take a more statist approach, we must give all such provisions narrow scope. Expanding some to gargantuan proportions while discarding others like a crumpled gum wrapper is not faithfully applying the Constitution; it's using our power as federal judges to constitutionalize our personal preferences.

The able judges of the panel majority are usually very sympathetic to individual rights, but they have succumbed to the temptation to pick and choose. Had they brought the same generous approach to the Second Amendment that they routinely bring to the First, Fourth and selected portions of the Fifth, they would have had no trouble finding an individual right to bear arms. Indeed, to conclude otherwise, they had to ignore binding precedent. United States v. Miller (1939) did not hold that the defendants lacked standing to raise a Second Amendment defense, even though the government argued the collective rights theory in its brief. The Supreme Court reached the Second Amendment claim and rejected it on the merits after finding no evidence that Miller's weapon--a sawed-off shotgun--was reasonably susceptible to militia use. We are bound not only by the outcome of Miller but also by its rationale. If Miller's claim was dead on arrival because it was raised by a person rather than a state, why would the Court have bothered discussing whether a sawed-off shotgun was suitable for militia use? The panel majority not only ignores Miller's test; it renders most of the opinion wholly superfluous. As an inferior court, we may not tell the Supreme Court it was out to lunch when it last visited a constitutional provision.

The majority falls prey to the delusion--popular in some circles--that ordinary people are too careless and stupid to own guns, and we would be far better off leaving all weapons in the hands of professionals on the government payroll. But the simple truth--born of experience--is that tyranny thrives best where government need not fear the wrath of an armed people. Our own sorry history bears this out: Disarmament was the tool of choice for subjugating both slaves and free blacks in the South. In Florida, patrols searched blacks' homes for weapons, confiscated those found and punished their owners without judicial process. In the North, by contrast, blacks exercised their right to bear arms to defend against racial mob violence. As Chief Justice Taney well appreciated, the institution of slavery required a class of people who lacked the means to resist. See Dred Scott v. Sandford, (1857) (finding black citizenship unthinkable because it would give blacks the right to "keep and carry arms wherever they went"). A revolt by Nat Turner and a few dozen other armed blacks could be put down without much difficulty; one by four million armed blacks would have meant big trouble.

All too many of the other great tragedies of history--Stalin's atrocities, the killing fields of Cambodia, the Holocaust, to name but a few--were perpetrated by armed troops against unarmed populations. Many could well have been avoided or mitigated, had the perpetrators known their intended victims were equipped with a rifle and twenty bullets apiece, as the Militia Act required here. If a few hundred Jewish fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto could hold off the Wehrmacht for almost a month with only a handful of weapons, six million Jews armed with rifles could not so easily have been herded into cattle cars.

My excellent colleagues have forgotten these bitter lessons of history. The prospect of tyranny may not grab the headlines the way vivid stories of gun crime routinely do. But few saw the Third Reich coming until it was too late. The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed--where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once.

Fortunately, the Framers were wise enough to entrench the right of the people to keep and bear arms within our constitutional structure. The purpose and importance of that right was still fresh in their minds, and they spelled it out clearly so it would not be forgotten. Despite the panel's mighty struggle to erase these words, they remain, and the people themselves can read what they say plainly enough:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

The sheer ponderousness of the panel's opinion--the mountain of verbiage it must deploy to explain away these fourteen short words of constitutional text--refutes its thesis far more convincingly than anything I might say. The panel's labored effort to smother the Second Amendment by sheer body weight has all the grace of a sumo wrestler trying to kill a rattlesnake by sitting on it--and is just as likely to succeed.

About the Author: Alex Kozinski is a U.S. Circuit Judge.

Lessons From History

The trouble with lessons from history is that they often involve little actual history.

Sometimes, the history was never there to begin with. Other times, lessons from history are wrong because nobody has bothered to look at the facts.

Where guns are involved, people are beginning to look. Bentley College historian Joyce Malcolm looked deeply at the roots of America's right to arms in a 1994 book published by Harvard University Press, entitled To Keep and Bear Arms: The Origins of an Anglo-American Right. That book explained that the right to arms enshrined in the Constitution's Second Amendment was not merely the product of a "frontier mentality," as some gun-control proponents have suggested, but the outgrowth of a long and well-established English tradition favoring an armed citizenry as a defense against tyranny.

Now professor Malcolm, and Harvard University Press, are back with a book entitled Guns and Violence: The English Experience, which addresses another English connection to American gun rights.

It is a standard observation in American and English debates over gun control that England has strict gun controls and low crime rates, while America has (comparatively) liberal gun laws and higher crime rates. It is usually assumed that there is a cause and effect relationship, with the low crime stemming from the strict gun controls in England, and vice versa in the United States.

This turns out not to be the case. As Malcolm observes, violent crime rates in England, very high in the 14^th century, fell more or less steadily for five hundred years, even as ownership of firearms became more common. By the late 19th century, England had gun laws that were far more liberal than are found anywhere in the United States today, yet almost no gun crime, and little violent crime of other sorts. (An 1870 act, which was seldom enforced, required the payment of a small tax for the privilege of carrying, not simply owning, a gun.)

Despite a well-armed populace, Malcolm reports, "statistics record an astonishingly low rate of gun-related violence in the late nineteenth century." How low?

In the course of three years, according to hospital reports, there were only 59 fatalities from handguns in a population of nearly 30 million people. Of these, 19 were accidents, 35 were suicides, and only 3 were homicides 3 an average of one a year.

Despite these rates, which Malcolm is right to call astonishingly low, the British government decided at the turn of the 20^th century to begin a program of gun control that would ensure "that nobody except a soldier, sailor, or policeman, should have a pistol at all." The claimed justification was the "enormous" number of handgun injuries.

This effort was initially frustrated by popular resistance, but the first regulatory law in this campaign was passed in 1903, requiring a license for the purchase of a pistol. Such licenses were freely available, though, and citizens remained well enough armed that when (unarmed) London bobbies were chasing a group of armed robbers in 1909, they had no trouble borrowing pistols from passersby, while other armed citizens joined in the chase. Rates of gun violence remained low.

After World War I, the English government got serious. Though fear of crime was (again) claimed as a justification for much more intrusive gun controls despite no increases of any significance, the real motivation -- as historical records make very clear -- was the fear of armed labor unionists, and perhaps even Bolshevik revolution. Though Parliament in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries had seen an armed citizenry as a valuable check on tyranny, by the 20th century the government was determined to disarm the citizenry so as to eliminate any threats to its power.

Because the 1903 act requiring firearm licensing had not resulted in strict limits on gun ownership, the populace was not much threatened by the 1920 Firearms Act. The act met with much less resistance than the early popular resistance to the 1903 law. But the 1920 Firearms Act began the trend toward the near-complete disarmament of the formerly well-armed English citizenry. This disarmament continued by gradual sub silentio changes in administrative policy. For example, in 1938 the government made the unannounced decision that pistol licenses would no longer be issued to individuals who wanted a gun to defend their homes. Additional legislation followed. As Malcolm puts it:

Parliament passed a comprehensive firearms statute that eliminated the right of individuals to be armed. It was the culmination of fifty years of effort by British governments of every political stripe. The announced rationale by the ruling coalition government was, as usual, an increase in armed crime, yet statistics in London show no such increase.  . . .  Private Cabinet papers make clear that the government was afraid not of crime but of disorder and even revolution, the same fears that had fuelled government control measures in the past.

By 1953, the English were effectively disarmed - and compounding the insult, courts began prosecuting people for previously legal (and even encouraged) acts of violence in defense of persons and property. In the future, only the police were to use violence, and even they tended to be quite lenient toward violent criminals.

In a "coincidence" that will surprise few readers who are familiar with the work of criminologists like John Lott and Gary Kleck, English crime rates almost immediately began a steady rise, for the first time in 500 years. The overall crime rate in England and Wales is now 60 percent higher than in the United States. And it wasn't just crime in general: Gun crimes became far more common as well. As Malcolm notes:

The peacefulness England used to enjoy was not the result of strict gun laws. When it had no firearms restrictions England had little violent crime, while the present extraordinarily stringent gun controls have not stopped the increase in violence or even the increase in armed violence. By opting to deprive law-abiding citizens of the right to keep guns or to carry any article for defence, English government policy may actually be contributing to the lawlessness and violence afflicting its people.

Malcolm is commendably cautious when discussing the connection between stricter English gun laws and higher rates of crime. But at the very least, she has demonstrated that the history of English gun control does not support the commonly made claim that English crime rates were (formerly) lower in England because of stricter gun controls. The rise in English crime has coincided with the growth of governmental intrusiveness where firearms are concerned. The history is entirely consistent with the findings of Lott and Kleck: that disarming honest citizens produces more crime, not less.

What's more, the English experience provides a concrete example of American gun owners' worst fear: A patient political establishment steadily whittling firearms rights away over a period of decades through means both open and covert as circumstances permitted, in order to bring the citizenry under more complete political control. These are lessons worth bearing in mind whenever the English experience is brought up as part of the American gun-control debate.

Glenn Harlan Reynolds is a law professor at the University of Tennessee and publishes InstaPundit.Com. He is co-author, with Peter W. Morgan, of The Appearance of Impropriety: How the Ethics Wars Have Undermined American Government, Business, and Society(The Free Press, 1997).

Respond to the Writer

from the Lewiston Morning Tribune of Idaho, 2007-Aug-1, by David Johnson:

Moscow exploring public gun ban

Mayor Chaney says rash of shooting deaths has led the city to look into its ability to limit arms at public venues

MOSCOW - No guns have apparently been packed into city council meetings here or carried within city buildings or parks, officials said Tuesday.

Nonetheless, Mayor Nancy Chaney said she's asked for a legal opinion on whether the city has authority to prohibit both concealed and exposed weapons in public places.

"We don't want to tread on anyone's Second Amendment rights," Chaney said. "We want to find out what is within our legal prerogative."

City Supervisor Gary Riedner said City Attorney Randy Fife has been asked to seek the opinion from the office of the Idaho attorney general before any additional action is taken. As it stands now, Riedner said, everyone attending a city council meeting could bring an exposed rifle, shotgun or handgun.

"Unless there's authority to restrict it, under state law you can carry an exposed gun," Riedner said. Concealed weapons may also be carried as long as the carrier has a permit issued through the sheriff's office. Idaho also recognizes concealed weapons permits from other states.

Idaho, in fact, is one of the more liberal states when it comes to gun restrictions, said Latah County Prosecutor William Thompson Jr. While guns are prohibited by judicial order at the county courthouse here, Thompson said there are no such prohibitions on other county property. The discharge of a weapon on county property, however, is prohibited, Thompson said. Brandishing a weapon in a threatening manner, such as pointing it at someone, is illegal everywhere unless the act is in self- defense, he added.

District court judges, Thompson said, have authority to regulate what goes on within a courthouse and can prohibit weapons. Former District Court Judge John Bengtson declared the prohibition at the Latah County Courthouse.

Chaney said her concern on city property, in part, stems from the rash of shooting deaths in Latah County over the past five months. She said the May shooting at the courthouse, which resulted in three deaths - including a Moscow police officer - gave her pause about how vulnerable people are in public settings.

She also expressed concern about a trend in some circles to glorify weapons, to the point of armed citizens being encouraged to "swoop in to protect people" during confrontations that should be handled by police.

While firearms are prohibited in schools by state law, in federal buildings by federal law and in county courthouses by judicial order, the city has no obvious authority to invoke such protection, Riedner said.

Once a legal opinion is received from the state, said Chaney, the matter will make its way to members of the city council for eventual consideration of a resolution or ordinance banning or restricting firearms on city property.

'Snuff' the Gun Shop Owner, Priest Says

An Illinois gun-rights group says it plans to complain to the Catholic Church after a Chicago priest at the weekend appeared to call for the murder of a suburban gun shop owner.

During a Rainbow/PUSH Coalition protest at Chuck's Gun Shop & Range on Saturday, the Rev. Michael Pfleger, pastor of St. Sabina's Church, threatened to "snuff" shop owner John Riggio.

The Illinois State Rifle Association (ISRA) has posted online what is says is a recording of Pfleger's remarks.

In the audio clip, the priest is heard being introduced to the crowd by the Rev. Jesse Jackson. Immediately therafter, Pfleger launches into a tirade.

"I want the NRA [National Rifle Association] to understand - you have a lot of money, but money can't buy moral authority and it can't buy justice or freedom, and we will fight you, NRA," he says.

"We will fight you on every angle [sic], no matter how much money you've got, we will embarrass you, and we will embarrass every legislator that takes money from you. We will call them out by name, by district. We will expose you, legislators."

Pfleger then turns his attention to Riggio. "He's the owner of Chuck's. John Riggio. R-i-g-g-i-o. We're going to find you and snuff you out … you know you're going to hide like a rat. You're going to hide but like a rat we're going to catch you and pull you out. We are not going to allow you to continue to hide when we're here …"

"We're going to keep coming back, and like Reverend Jackson says, it takes civil disobedience, if it takes whatever it takes … we're going to snuff out John Riggio, we're going to snuff out legislators that are voting … and we are coming for you because we are not going to sit idly. Keep on fighting, people. Keep on fighting, keep on fighting."

St. Sabina describes itself as a "Bible-teaching" African-American Catholic Church.

The day before the anti-gun protest, the church hosted former Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who was making a rare public appearance. Pfleger was quoted as describing the controversial Muslim activist as "a gift from God to a sick, sick world."

ISRA Executive Director Richard Pearson called it "shocking" to hear a priest advocate the murder of a gun shop owner "who has never committed a crime in his life."

"Pfleger's comments were disgusting and dangerous," Pearson said. "And, I seem to remember that the Fifth Commandment frowns on murdering one's neighbor," he added.

"This week, I'll be penning a letter to the Archbishop, expressing my concerns over Rev. Pfleger's comments," continued Pearson. "I would hope that the Archbishop would reply with words of comfort for Mr. Riggio, his family, state legislators, and all others who were injured by Rev. Pfleger's thoughtless, inflammatory remarks."

In a message on the church's website, Pfleger says he believes that "we are called by God to build this church in a world filled with division, alienation and racism in order that we may be a witness to the world that it is possible and that the love of God is stronger than the hate of Satan."

A beefed up version of the 1994 “Assault Weapons Ban” has been introduced in the 110^th Congress by anti-gun-rights zealot Carolyn McCarthy D-NY. Its title is “Assault Weapons Ban and Law Enforcement Protection Act of 2007 (Introduced in House)” and its full text is here.

The meaning of this bill is made plain in "Section 3", which includes the following in its list of definitions of “semiautomatic assault weapon”:

(L) A semiautomatic rifle or shotgun originally designed for military or law enforcement use, or a firearm based on the design of such a firearm, that is not particularly suitable for sporting purposes, as determined by the Attorney General. In making the determination, there shall be a rebuttable presumption that a firearm procured for use by the United States military or any Federal law enforcement agency is not particularly suitable for sporting purposes, and a firearm shall not be determined to be particularly suitable for sporting purposes solely because the firearm is suitable for use in a sporting event.'.

Other exemptions of the 1994 ban are also removed. This is a bill that seeks to criminalize many weapons people take for granted, probably including the Springfield M1A. The bill is wantonly repugnant to the US Constitution, but that hasn't stopped Congress or SCOTUS before. Beware.

Massacre at a Gun-Free School

Predictably, opponents of Second Amendment rights seized opportunistically on the Virginia Tech massacre. "It is long overdue for us to take some common-sense actions to prevent tragedies like this from continuing to occur," said a statement from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. White House spokeswoman Dana Perino got questions like this one in yesterday's press briefing:

Columbine, Amish school shooting, now this, and a whole host of other gun issues brought into schools--that's not including guns on the streets and in many urban areas and rural areas. Does [sic] there need to be some more restrictions? Does there need to be gun control in this country?

And of course the New York Times, while noting that "it is premature to draw too many lessons from this tragedy," draws one anyway:

What is needed, urgently, is stronger controls over the lethal weapons that cause such wasteful carnage and such unbearable loss.

But there is another side to this argument. Longtime readers may recall the lead item in our Jan. 18, 2002, column, which concerned a shooting spree at another Virginia institution of higher learning, the Appalachian School of Law. The gunman, Peter Odighizuwa, killed three, and probably would have killed more but for another student's gun:

Students ended the rampage by confronting and then tackling the gunman, officials said.

"We saw the shooter, stopped at my vehicle and got out my handgun and started to approach Peter," Tracy Bridges, who helped subdue the shooter with other students, said Thursday on NBC's "Today" show. "At that time, Peter threw up his hands and threw his weapon down. Ted was the first person to have contact with Peter, and Peter hit him one time in the face, so there was a little bit of a struggle there."

Appalachian is a private institution, Virginia Tech a public one; and Virginia law prohibits guns on campus. Early last year there was an effort in the state Legislature to change that law, but it died in committee. As the Roanoke Times reported at the time:

Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker was happy to hear the bill was defeated. "I'm sure the university community is appreciative of the General Assembly's actions because this will help parents, students, faculty and visitors feel safe on our campus."

There are reasons one may be wary of arming academia. College students spend a lot of time drinking and carousing, and so perhaps they're better off without firearms. Academic disputes can get vicious; we wouldn't want them to get bloody. But it does not seem a stretch to think that if Cho Seung-hui had encountered someone else with a gun, fewer people would lie dead at Virginia Tech.

from OpinionJournal.com, 2007-Apr-17, by John Fund, excerpted from Political Diary:

Better Than Being a Victim

The horrific slaying of 32 Virginia Tech students yesterday was largely treated with restraint in the public policy community. But Paul Helmke, a former mayor of Fort Wayne, Ind. and current president of the Brady Campaign, immediately called for more gun-control measures as a way for the nation to respond. Likewise, Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, a New York Democrat whose husband was killed by a gunman in 1993, claimed: "The unfortunate situation in Virginia could have been avoided if congressional leaders stood up to the gun lobby."

In reality, Virginia Tech was, as many bloggers put it, a "danger-free zone for armed criminals." The school was one of many to prohibit all guns on campus. Last year, legislation to allow exceptions for licensed and trained gun owners failed to pass the Virginia legislature.

Virginia Tech officials falsely believed their policy meant more security, not less. Its spokesman, Larry Hincker, described the school's anti-gun policy in 2005 by saying: "We believe guns don't belong in the classroom. In an academic environment, we believe you should be free from fear." He proudly noted that students who had tried to bring handguns onto school property had been promptly suspended.

John Lott, a gun-control scholar, says the problems with such laws is that good intentions aren't enough. "What counts is whether the laws ultimately save lives. Unfortunately, too many gun laws primarily disarm law-abiding citizens, not criminals." He notes that some 40 states now have some kind of law allowing responsible citizens to carry concealed firearms. In most of those states, between 2% and 6% of all adults have such permits, thus giving citizens in a community the size of a university the knowledge that someone other than the local police will have access to self-defense.

Such laws have consequences. Mr. Lott and Bill Landes of the University of Chicago law school examined multiple-victim public shootings in the U.S. from 1977 to 1999 and found that when states passed right-to-carry laws, the rate of multiple victim public shootings fell by 60%. Deaths and injuries from multiple-victim public shootings fell even more -- an average of 78% -- as the remaining incidents tended to involve fewer victims per attack.

As blogger Glenn Reynolds noted at Instapundit.com, the most egregious incidents involving mass slaughter "do seem to take place in locations where it's not legal for people with carry permits to carry guns. I certainly wish that someone had been in a position to shoot this guy at the outset."

Here is a sampling of excerpts from European press coverage of the Blacksburg massacre. While reading these accounts, keep in mind that the shooter was a South Korean national with a green card, and that the Blacksburg campus rules forbid all students and all teachers from carrying weapons. According to these accounts, it is "America" and "society" which are to blame for the massacre. Also, according to them, a whole array of weapon types that were not used in the massacre, were somehow magically reponsible for the massacre. Within the article, I have noted patent falsities where I identify them.

the Virginia Tech policy #5616 “Campus and Workplace Violence Prevention Policy”, from Virginia Tech, 2005-Aug-23, from http://www.policies.vt.edu/5616.pdf:

2.2 Prohibition of Weapons

The university's employees, students, and volunteers, or any visitor or other third party attending a sporting, entertainment, or educational event, or visiting an academic or administrative office building or residence hall, are further prohibited from carrying, maintaining, or storing a firearm or weapon on any university facility, even if the owner has a valid permit, when it is not required by the individual's job, or in accordance with the relevant University Student Life Policies.

Any such individual who is reported or discovered to possess a firearm or weapon on university property will be asked to remove it immediately. Failure to comply may result in a student judicial referral and/or arrest, or an employee disciplinary action and/or arrest.

2.3 Authorized Exceptions to Prohibition on Possession of Firearms or Weapons

An employee may possess a firearm or weapon if it is:

• Used by an employee who is a certified law enforcement officer employed by the Virginia Tech Police Department;
• Required as a part of the employee's job duties with the Commonwealth of Virginia; or
• Connected with training received by the employee in order to perform the responsibilities of their job with the university.

Employees and students may possess and use appropriate tools, such as saws, knives, and other such implements, necessary for the performance of their job duties or school work, or for student recreational purposes approved under University Student Life Policies. Certain agricultural workers have been authorized to use firearms, and hunting on university property may be authorized by the appropriate university officials. Some employees reside in university-owned houses and are permitted to keep personal firearms on these premises; however, this exception does not extend to employees living in university residence halls.

As stated in The University Policies for Student Life, students may not possess, use, or store firearms or weapons on university property; however, firearms and other weapons may be stored with the Virginia Tech Police Department to be checked out for use off-campus. Organizational weapons of the Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets, approved by the Commandant, are not prohibited by this policy.

Other exceptions must be approved by the Vice President for Business Affairs, in consultation with appropriate university offices.

from the Roanoke Times, 2005-Apr-13, by Kevin Miller:

Virginia Tech's ban on guns may draw legal fire
Some people question whether the university has the authority to ban the carrying of firearms.

BLACKSBURG - Virginia Tech's recent action against a student caught carrying a gun to class could draw unwanted attention from groups already angry about firearms restrictions on public college campuses.

University officials confirmed that, earlier this semester, campus police approached a student found to be carrying a concealed handgun to class. The unnamed student was not charged with any crimes because he holds a state-issued permit allowing him to carry a concealed gun. But the student could face disciplinary action from the university for violating its policy prohibiting "unauthorized possession, storage or control" of firearms on campus.

Tech spokesman Larry Hincker declined to release the student's name or specifics of the incident, citing rules protecting student confidentiality. But Hincker said Tech's ban on guns dates back several decades.

Students who violate the school policy could be called before the university's internal judicial affairs system, which has wide discretion in handing down penalties ranging from a reprimand to expulsion.

"I think it's fair to say that we believe guns don't belong in the classroom," Hincker said. "In an academic environment, we believe you should be free from fear."

Most public colleges in Virginia ban or restrict guns on campus. But the root of that authority is murky, according to some observers.

Virginia law already prohibits students or visitors from carrying guns onto the grounds of public and private K-12 schools. The state also prohibits concealed weapons in courthouses, places of worship during a service, jails and on any private property where the owner has posted a "no guns" notice. State employees are barred from possessing guns while at work unless needed for their job.

But Virginia code is silent on guns and public colleges. And two bills seeking to give college governing boards the authority to regulate firearms on campus died in committee during this year's General Assembly session.

David Briggman, a resident of Keezletown in Rockingham County, has made it his personal mission to challenge state colleges' authority to enact tougher gun restrictions than the state.

Briggman, who is a former police officer, said he forced Blue Ridge Community College to allow him to carry a gun onto campus while a student. And he sued James Madison University over its ban on concealed weapons even among permit holders. While JMU's policy still stands, Briggman said he has been told by campus police officials that they will not arrest visitors who carry a gun legally.

"It's extremely easy to challenge university policy by looking at ... whether they are given the statutory authority to regulate firearms on campus, and of course, they're not," Briggman said Tuesday.

Hincker, meanwhile, said it is not unusual for colleges to have more restrictive policies than the state. As an example, Hincker said certain chemicals and explosives that are legal on the outside are prohibited in the classroom or in dormitories for safety reasons.

"We think we have the right to adhere to and enforce that policy because, in the end, we think it's a common-sense policy for the protection of students, staff and faculty as well as guests and visitors," Hincker said.

Virginia Tech also has the backing of the Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police. In a policy position paper dated April 1, association executive director Dana Schrad wrote that the presence of guns on college campuses "adds a dangerous element to an environment in which alcohol is a compounding factor." Students should not have to be concerned about guns on campus, Schrad wrote.

"The excellent reputation of Virginia's colleges and universities depends in part on the public's belief that they are sending their college-age children to safe environments," the policy paper reads.

At least one attorney who represents college students would like to see the concealed-carry permit issue clarified.

John Robertson, the Student Legal Services attorney at Tech, said he's heard differing interpretations of the policy at Tech. Robertson, whose position is funded through the Student Government Association's budget, does not represent students in disputes with the university but offers free legal advice and services to students on civil and criminal matters.

Robertson said he would like to see either a court or the state Attorney General's Office resolve the matter. As for a university's refusal to honor a concealed-carry permit, Robertson added: "I am dubious that one particular arm of the state can do so without a particular statute."

Hincker acknowledged that the concealed guns issue had "never been tested" and that the university could be opening itself up to legal action.

"But we stand by the policy unequivocally," Hincker said.

from the Roanoke Times, 2006-Jan-31, by Greg Esposito:

Gun bill gets shot down by panel
HB 1572, which would have allowed handguns on college campuses, died in subcommittee.

A bill that would have given college students and employees the right to carry handguns on campus died with nary a shot being fired in the General Assembly.

House Bill 1572 didn't get through the House Committee on Militia, Police and Public Safety. It died Monday in the subcommittee stage, the first of several hurdles bills must overcome before becoming laws.

The bill was proposed by Del. Todd Gilbert, R-Shenandoah County, on behalf of the Virginia Citizens Defense League. Gilbert was unavailable Monday and spokesman Gary Frink would not comment on the bill's defeat other than to say the issue was dead for this General Assembly session.

Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker was happy to hear the bill was defeated. "I'm sure the university community is appreciative of the General Assembly's actions because this will help parents, students, faculty and visitors feel safe on our campus."

Del. Dave Nutter, R-Christiansburg, would not comment Monday because he was not part of the subcommittee that discussed the bill.

Most universities in Virginia require students and employees, other than police, to check their guns with police or campus security upon entering campus. The legislation was designed to prohibit public universities from making "rules or regulations limiting or abridging the ability of a student who possesses a valid concealed handgun permit ... from lawfully carrying a concealed handgun."

The legislation allowed for exceptions for participants in athletic events, storage of guns in residence halls and military training programs.

Last spring a Virginia Tech student was disciplined for bringing a handgun to class, despite having a concealed handgun permit. Some gun owners questioned the university's authority, while the Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police came out against the presence of guns on campus.

In June, Tech's governing board approved a violence prevention policy reiterating its ban on students or employees carrying guns and prohibiting visitors from bringing them into campus facilities.

from the Roanoke Times, 2006-Sep-5, by Larry Hincker:

Imagine if students were armed

Hincker is the associate vice president for university relations at Virginia Tech.

After the fear, and dare I say, panic from the events of Aug. 21, it is absolutely mind-boggling to see the opinions of Bradford Wiles ("Unarmed and vulnerable," Aug. 31).

I once worked for an out-of-touch manager who gave rather absurd directions. My colleagues and I would do as directed and dubbed it "malicious compliance," knowing the task to be inane and the manager's foibles would soon be apparent.

The editors of this page must have printed this commentary if for no other reason than malicious compliance. Surely, they scratched their heads saying, "I can't believe he really wants to say that."

Wiles tells us that he didn't feel safe with the hundreds of highly trained officers armed with high powered rifles encircling the building and protecting him. He even implies that he needed his sidearm to protect himself against the officers.

On that fateful Monday, campus was understandably on edge. Elvis-type sightings of the escaped prisoner around campus were rampant. People were legitimately concerned about where he might be. And although the police were relatively confident they had the suspect cornered (they were ultimately proved right), the anxiety level elsewhere on campus was very high.

Panic calls from within the Squires Student Center quickly morphed from facts into rumors, including a frantic call alleging a hostage situation. The police had no choice but to move a massive force from the manhunt site to that side of campus to deal with the hostage rumor.

The writer would have us believe that a university campus, with tens of thousands of young people, is safer with everyone packing heat. Imagine the continual fear of students in that scenario. We've seen that fear here, and we don't want to see it again.

Who among us thinks the writer of the commentary would not have been directly in harm's way if he showed himself to those tactical squads while displaying a deadly weapon? Would he even be here today to tell us the story? Contrary to his position, the writer's commentary actually gives credence to the university policy preventing weapons in classrooms.

Guns don't belong in classrooms. They never will. Virginia Tech has a very sound policy preventing same.

In an afternoon press conference on the day of the event described below, Wendell Flinchum, chief of campus police, stated that Virginia Tech is an open campus, with buildings that are unlocked and unguarded during daytime hours, starting at 7AM.

Law and Order and Guns
Rudy has some funny views on guns; he'd better beware if Thompson enters the race.

One person’s “reasonable and sensible” gun laws aren’t always another’s. So when Rudy Giuliani recognizes that the Second Amendment guarantees people the right to bear arms subject to “reasonable and sensible” laws, it really doesn’t tell us much. Yet one thing is for sure though: Giuliani is hardly a “strict constructionist” on constitutional matters, at least when it comes to the Second Amendment. It is a long ways from “shall not be infringed” to “shall infringe whenever Congress has a ‘reasonable and sensible’ justification.”

For those who support the Second Amendment, the main problem is that Giuliani has rarely met a gun regulation he didn’t see as “reasonable and sensible.” In 2000, he pointed out how he was “a very strong supporter of gun-control legislation” and called for everything from federal gun-licensing and registration to banning guns based upon their price.

Only in the last couple of months has he finally gone on the record as opposing a gun law: he came out against re-imposing the assault-weapons ban. Yet he originally supported this law when it was first adopted, and he wanted it renewed as recently as 2004, when it expired.

His support for all these gun laws isn’t too surprising given his belief that “the single biggest connection between violent crime and an increase in violent crime is the presence of guns in your society . . . . the more guns you take out of society, the more you are going to reduce murder. The less guns you take out of society, the more it is going to go up.”

Giuliani is justifiably proud of New York City’s dramatic drops in violent crime during the 1990s, but his claim that “the single biggest” factor was taking guns off the street is weak, to say the least. There is no academic research by economists or criminologists that indicates that gun control mattered at all. But there are other more obvious explanations, including the massive increase in the number of full-time sworn police officers, which grew from 26,844 in 1990 to 55,408 by 2000. The growth in the per capita number of officers in New York City was roughly five times the rate in other large cities. The city also greatly improved its hiring standards and increased officer pay.

Giuliani’s rationalizing of New York City’s suit against the gun makers also tells something about his views. In justifying the lawsuit, Giuliani claimed that the gun makers were “deliberately manufacturing many more firearms than can be bought for legitimate purposes of hunting and law enforcement.” He refused to acknowledge any other legitimate uses for guns, including civilians using guns for self-defense. His statements frequently sounds as if they came directly from the Clinton administration during the 1990s.

Without accepting the possibility of self-defense, it is not surprising that he doesn’t see any risks to laws that mandate trigger locks or ban inexpensive guns. Locking up guns defeats their purpose for people using them for defense. A lot of gangs may like inexpensive guns, but so too do poor law-abiding people in high-crime urban neighborhoods.

The one saving grace for many social conservatives is Giuliani’s promise to appoint judges who are strict constructionists. In an interview with Sean Hannity, Giuliani noted, “I appointed over 100 judges when I was the mayor — so it’s something I take very, very seriously — I would appoint judges that interpreted the Constitution rather than invented it, understood the difference between being a judge and being a legislator.” But conservatives counting on this might be more than a little disappointed: At least 89 percent of Giuliani’s nominees were Democrats, with some pretty outlandish decisions that no one would classify as fitting in with “strict constructionism.”

The one thing that Giuliani probably does have going for him is that, on the gun issue, his opponents are either even worse (John McCain) or possibly no better (Mitt Romney, who supports renewing the so-called “assault-weapons ban” and who signed into law draconian gun legislation while governor of Massachusetts). That would all change dramatically if former Senator Fred Thompson were to enter the race. Thompson has been rock solid on people’s right to defend themselves. 

Giuliani has many positive traits, but his past positions on guns isn’t one of them.  

— John Lott is the Dean’s Visiting Professor at the State University of New York and the author of More Guns, Less Crime and The Bias Against Guns.

from the Lake County News-Sun, 2007-Feb-22, by Frank Abderholden:

Assault or hunting rifles? You decide

THERE IS A bit of a rift going on in the outdoor sporting world between hunters and gun enthusiasts, which sometimes are one in the same.

The raucousness started when longtime outdoors writer Jim Zumbo of Outdoor Life magazine posted a story online that said assault rifles -- he also called them terrorist rifles -- had no place in the hunting community, even suggesting that game departments ban them from the prairies and woods.

According to The Shooting Wire web site, he tried to apologize, attributing his remarks to being tired following a long day of hunting coyotes in extreme weather conditions.

Outdoor Life announced it was discontinuing the "Hunting With Zumbo" blog "for the time being" due to the "controversy surrounding Jim Zumbo's latest postings."

Their notice went on to remind readers "Outdoor Life has always been, and will always be, a steadfast supporter of our Second Amendment rights which do not make distinctions based on the looks of the firearms we choose to own, shoot and take hunting."

Assault rifle enthusiasts were quick to call for boycotts of products associated with Zumbo, according to The Shooting Wire, which included Remington. Zumbo, a National Rifle Association member for 40 years, quickly found his sponsors bailing.

"There was little, if anything, that would assuage an angry horde of electronically mobilized AR (Assault Rifle) fans. They considered Zumbo's remarks as being tantamount to a sellout, with Zumbo offering up "black rifles" as a sacrificial lamb for anti-gun forces," said the wire service.

The rancor continued with The Shooting Wire founder Jim Shepherd, saying, "We don't owe him our loyalty, our support, or our forgiveness, but we owe him for motivating us to tell the industry they'd better start paying attention to the silent majority.

"Even if you call us 'shooters' or 'paper punchers' or 'plinkers' or whatever, there are many more of us than there are hunters. And we're neither terrorists nor fools."

This is a rift that could continue to grow, and maybe this split was a long time coming. As one bumper-sticker type sign that used to hang in The Island in Libertyville said, "The Second Amendment ain't about duck hunting."

But hunters and shooters regularly mix at shooting clubs like the one in Bristol, Wis., and you have to wonder if animosity between the groups could grow. Shepherd says Zumbo's opinion is common in hard core hunter circles.

I remember one time hunting a piece of land near Richmond and some young guys from Chicago came out as my brothers and I were leaving. One of them had an unusual gun for hunting, a sawed off shotgun. We thought that was stupid, but the Second Amendment doesn't make any distinctions, right?

The AR rifles are accurate weapons and could easily be used for hunting big game like deer, but I'm sure gun manufacturers would suggest a better weapon.

So maybe Zumbo was a dumbo for even going there in a hunting article. These rifles are used in competitions or bought for home security, but is supporting a ban on them the first slide on a slippery slope of having guns outlawed all together? The Assault Weapons Ban was re-introduced in congress this month.

So, now I've written myself into a corner, of sorts. I know someone who shot an automatic (illegal) AK-47 who said it was really cool. He's not and never was in the military. Another friend recently told me of how his daughter, never having shot a gun before, was taken to the range by her boyfriend and "had a blast" shooting different handguns, and, I think, rifles at targets. No blood ... big fun.

But then I go back around to deceased Chicago columnist Mike Royko's column where he suggested that the best in home security for grandma would be hand grenades. If grandma heard someone in the basement, why take the chance of confronting the intruder with a shotgun, or any type of gun.

So now I'm back in that corner again. How much is too much. And if you give a little, will you lose a lot? Is the gun industry going to push more and more "black rifles" and their handgun counterparts because it is a growth field and hunting is supposedly becoming old hat?

So many questions in this controversy, and I'm not finding a bunch of immediate answers. Except, "Leave my gun alone: is different than "Leave my RPG" (Rocket Propelled Grenade) alone.

There has to be a line somewhere. Just where does it start?

Hitler’s Control
The lessons of Nazi history.

This week's CBS miniseries Hitler: The Rise of Evil tries to explain the conditions that enabled a manifestly evil and abnormal individual to gain total power and to commit mass murder. The CBS series looks at some of the people whose flawed decisions paved the way for Hitler's psychopathic dictatorship: Hitler's mother who refused to recognize that her child was extremely disturbed and anti-social; the judge who gave Hitler a ludicrously short prison sentence after he committed high treason at the Beer Hall Putsch; President Hindenburg and the Reichstag delegates who (except for the Social Democrats) who acceded to Hitler's dictatorial Enabling Act rather than forcing a crisis (which, no matter how bad the outcome, would have been far better than Hitler being able to claim legitimate power and lead Germany toward world war).

Acquainting a new generation of television viewers with the monstrosity of Hitler is a commendable public service by CBS, for if we are serious about "Never again," then we must be serious about remembering how and why Hitler was able to accomplish what he did. Political scientist R. J. Rummel, the world's foremost scholar of the mass murders of the 20th century, estimates that the Nazis killed about 21 million people, not including war casualties. With modern technology, a modern Hitler might be able to kill even more people even more rapidly.

Indeed, right now in Zimbabwe, the Robert Mugabe tyranny is perpetrating a genocide by starvation aimed at liquidating about six million people. Mugabe is great admirer of Adolf Hitler. Mugabe's number-two man (who died last year) was Chenjerai Hunzvi, the head of Mugabe's terrorist gangs, who nicknamed himself "Hitler." One of the things that Robert Mugabe, "Hitler" Hunzvi, and Adolf Hitler all have in common is their strong and effective programs of gun control.

Simply put, if not for gun control, Hitler would not have been able to murder 21 million people. Nor would Mugabe be able to carry out his current terror program.

Writing in The Arizona Journal of International & Comparative Law Stephen Halbrook demonstrates that German Jews and other German opponents of Hitler were not destined to be helpless and passive victims. (A magazine article by Halbrook offers a shorter version of the story, along with numerous photographs. Halbrook's Arizona article is also available as a chapter in the book Death by Gun Control, published by Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership.) Halbrook details how, upon assuming power, the Nazis relentlessly and ruthlessly disarmed their German opponents. The Nazis feared the Jews — many of whom were front-line veterans of World War One — so much that Jews were even disarmed of knives and old sabers.

The Nazis did not create any new firearms laws until 1938. Before then, they were able to use the Weimar Republic's gun controls to ensure that there would be no internal resistance to the Hitler regime.

In 1919, facing political and economic chaos and possible Communist revolution after Germany's defeat in the First World War, the Weimar Republic enacted the Regulation of the Council of the People's Delegates on Weapons Possession. The new law banned the civilian possession of all firearms and ammunition, and demanded their surrender "immediately."

Once the political and economic situation stabilized, the Weimar Republic created a less draconian gun-control law. The law was similar to, although somewhat milder than, the gun laws currently demanded by the American gun-control lobby.

The Weimar Law on Firearms and Ammunition required a license to engage in any type of firearm business. A special license from the police was needed to either purchase or carry a firearm. The German police were granted complete discretion to deny licenses to criminals or individuals the police deemed untrustworthy. Unlimited police discretion over citizen gun acquisition is the foundation of the "Brady II" proposal introduced by Handgun Control, Inc., (now called the Brady Campaign) in 1994.

Under the Weimar law, no license was needed to possess a firearm in the home unless the citizen owned more than five guns of a particular type or stored more than 100 cartridges. The law's requirements were more relaxed for firearms of a "hunting" or "sporting" type. Indeed, the Weimar statute was the world's first gun law to create a formal distinction between sporting and non-sporting firearms. On the issues of home gun possession and sporting guns, the Weimar law was not as stringent as the current Massachusetts gun law, or some of modern proposals supported by American gun-control lobbyists.

Significantly, the Weimar law required the registration of most lawfully owned firearms, as do the laws of some American states. In Germany, the Weimar registration program law provided the information which the Nazis needed to disarm the Jews and others considered untrustworthy.

The Nazi disarmament campaign that began as soon as Hitler assumed power in 1933. While some genocidal governments (such as the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia) dispensed with lawmaking, the Nazi government followed the German predilection for the creation of large volumes of written rules and regulations. Yet it was not until March 1938 (the same month that Hitler annexed Austria in the Anschluss) that the Nazis created their own Weapons Law. The new law formalized what had been the policy imposed by Hitler using the Weimar Law: Jews were prohibited from any involvement in any firearm business.

On November 9, 1938, the Nazis launched the Kristallnacht, pogrom, and unarmed Jews all over Germany were attacked by government-sponsored mobs. In conjunction with Kristallnacht, the government used the administrative authority of the 1938 Weapons Law to require immediate Jewish surrender of all firearms and edged weapons, and to mandate a sentence of death or 20 years in a concentration camp for any violation.

Even after 1938, the German gun laws were not prohibitory. They simply gave the government enough information and enough discretion to ensure that victims inside Germany would not be able to fight back.

Under the Hitler regime, the Germans had created a superbly trained and very large military — the most powerful military the world had ever seen until then. Man-for-man, the Nazis had greater combat effectiveness than every other army in World War II, and were finally defeated because of the overwhelming size of the Allied armies and the immensely larger economic resources of the Allies.

Despite having an extremely powerful army, the Nazis still feared the civilian possession of firearms by hostile civilians. Events in 1943 proved that the fear was not mere paranoia. As knowledge of the death camps leaked out, determined Jews rose up in arms in Tuchin, Warsaw, Bialystok, Vilna, and elsewhere. Jews also joined partisan armies in Eastern Europe in large numbers, and amazingly, even organized escapes and revolts in the killing centers of Treblinka and Auschwitz. There are many books which recount these heroic stories of resistance. Yuri Suhl's They Fought Back (1967) is a good summary showing that hundreds of thousands of Jews did fight. The book Escape from Sobibor and the eponymous movie (1987) tell the amazing story how Russian Jewish prisoners of war organized a revolt that permanently destroyed one of the main death camps.

It took the Nazis months to destroy the Jews who rose up in the Warsaw ghetto, who at first were armed with only a few firearms that had been purchased on the black market, stolen or obtained from the Polish underground.

Halbrook contends that the history of Germany might have been changed if more of its citizens had been armed, and if the right to bear arms had been enshrined it Germany's culture and constitution. Halbrook points out that while resistance took place in many parts of occupied Europe, there was almost no resistance in Germany itself, because the Nazis had enjoyed years in which they could enforce the gun laws to ensure that no potential opponent of the regime had the means to resist.

No one can foresee with certainty which countries will succumb to genocidal dictatorship. Germany under the Weimar Republic was a democracy in a nation with a very long history of much greater tolerance for Jews than existed in France, England, or Russia, or almost anywhere else. Zimbabwe's current gun laws were created when the nation was the British colony of Rhodesia, and the authors of those laws did not know that the laws would one day be enforced by an African Hitler bent on mass extermination.

One never knows if one will need a fire extinguisher. Many people go their whole lives without needing to use a fire extinguisher, and most people never need firearms to resist genocide. But if you don't prepare to have a life-saving tool on hand during an unexpected emergency, then you and your family may not survive.

In the book Children of the Flames, Auschwitz survivor Menashe Lorinczi recounts what happened when the Soviet army liberated the camp: the Russians disarmed the SS guards. Then, two emaciated Jewish inmates, now armed with guns taken from the SS, systematically exacted their revenge on a large formation of SS men. The disarmed SS passively accepted their fate. After Lorinczi moved to Israel, he was often asked by other Israelis why the Jews had not fought back against the Germans. He replied that many Jews did fight. He then recalled the sudden change in the behavior of the Jews and the Germans at Auschwitz, once the Russian army's new "gun control" policy changed who had the guns there: "And today, when I am asked that question, I tell people it doesn't matter whether you're Hungarian, Polish, Jewish, or German: If you don't have a gun, you have nothing."

— Richard Griffiths is a doctor of psychology with research interest in gun issues. Dave Kopel is a NRO contributing editor.

from Gun Owners of America, 2005-Nov-1:

Follow Up to New Orleans

You, no doubt, remember the shocking video -- law-abiding citizens having their guns stolen... not by looters or hoodlums, but by officials acting under color of law.

Many of you saw it here first. GOA posted several videos at http://www.gunowners.org/notb.htm to document the gun confiscation that was taking place in New Orleans in September.

It was hard to believe that this was happening in our own country. American troops were going house-to-house, smashing through doors and taking firearms. One would have thought it was video tape from Cuba or Cambodia, not from the state of Louisiana.

But what has happened since then?

Well, the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District in Louisiana issued a restraining order to stop authorities from confiscating firearms on September 23.

So what happens now to those corrupt officials who were stealing firearms? Will they be held accountable? Or, will every guilty official simply receive the equivalent of a hand slap, like a child caught sneaking a cookie?

To this end, GOA sent a letter to U.S. Inspector General Glenn Fine last month to request action. The letter cites newspaper articles and TV news broadcasts to demonstrate that National Guard troops, police and U.S. marshals were confiscating firearms in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

The letter also reminds General Fine that the U.S. District Court in Louisiana put a stop to this illegal taking on September 23.

In light of this overwhelming evidence, GOA urged General Fine to "investigate who are the guilty parties who need to be held accountable for perpetrating these harmful acts against innocent Americans."

General Fine has the authority to investigate the criminal acts of federal officials and to refer them for prosecution.

(GOA sent a similar letter to the Attorney General of Louisiana, requesting that he bring charges against state-level officials who were stealing the firearms of citizens in the Big Easy. These letters can be viewed at http://www.gunowners.org/notb.htm on the GOA website.)

So far, it appears that General Fine has been dragging his feet on this request -- which is why he may need to hear from folks all around the country.

ACTION: Please contact U.S. Inspector General Glenn Fine and urge him to conduct his own investigation into the gun confiscation scandal and to refer guilty parties over for prosecution.

You can use the pre-written letter below to direct your comments to General Fine. Or, you can visit the Gun Owners Legislative Action Center at http://www.gunowners.org/activism.htm to send General Fine the pre-written letter as an e-mail message.

from Reason.com, 2005-Sep-10, by Dave Kopel:

Defenseless On the Bayou
New Orleans gun confiscation is foolish and illegal

In the nearly two weeks since Hurricane Katrina, the government of New Orleans has devolved from its traditional status as an elective kleptocracy into something far more dangerous: an anarcho-tyranny that refuses to protect the public from criminals while preventing people from protecting themselves. At the orders of New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, the New Orleans Police, the National Guard, the Oklahoma National Guard, and U.S. Marshals have begun breaking into homes at gunpoint, confiscating their lawfully-owned firearms, and evicting the residents. "No one is allowed to be armed. We're going to take all the guns," says P. Edwin Compass III, the superintendent of police.

Last week, thousands of New Orleanians huddled in the Superdome and the Convention Center got a taste of anarcho-tyranny. Everyone entering those buildings was searched for firearms. So for a few days, they lived in a small world without guns. As in other such worlds, the weaker soon became the prey of the stronger. Tuesday's New Orleans Times-Picayune reported some of the grim results, as an Arkansas National Guardsman showed the reporter dozens of bodies rotting in a non-functional freezer.

In the rest of the city, some police officers abandoned their posts, while others joined the looting spree. For several days, the ones who stayed on the job did not act to stop the looting that was going on right in front of them. To the extent that any homes or businesses were saved, the saviors were the many good citizens of New Orleans who defended their families, homes, and businesses with their own firearms.

These people were operating within their legal rights. The law authorizes citizen's arrests for any felony, and in the past (in the 1964 case McKellar v. Mason), a Louisiana court held that shooting a property thief in the spine was a legitimate citizen's arrest.

The aftermath of the hurricane has featured prominent stories of citizens legitimately defending lives and property. New Orleans lies on the north side of the Mississippi River, and the city of Algiers is on the south. The Times-Picayune detailed how dozens of neighbors in one part of Algiers had formed a militia. After a car-jacking and an attack on a home by looters, the neighborhood recognized the need for a common defense; they shared firearms, took turns on patrol, and guarded the elderly. Although the initial looting had resulted in a gun battle, once the patrols began, the militia never had to fire a shot. Likewise, the Garden District of New Orleans, one of the city's top tourist attractions, was protected by armed residents.

The good gun-owning citizens of New Orleans and the surrounding areas ought to be thanked for helping to save some of their city after Mayor Nagin, incoherent and weeping, had fled to Baton Rouge. Yet instead these citizens are being victimized by a new round of home invasions and looting, these ones government-organized, for the purpose of firearms confiscation.

The Mayor and Governor do have the legal authority to mandate evacuation, but failure to comply is a misdemeanor; so the authority to use force to compel evacuation goes no further than the power to effect a misdemeanor arrest. The preemptive confiscation of every private firearm in the city far exceeds any reasonable attempt to carry out misdemeanor arrests for persons who disobey orders to leave.

Louisiana statutory law does allow some restrictions on firearms during extraordinary conditions. One statute says that after the Governor proclaims a state of emergency (as Governor Blanco has done), "the chief law enforcement officer of the political subdivision affected by the proclamation may...promulgate orders...regulating and controlling the possession, storage, display, sale, transport and use of firearms, other dangerous weapons and ammunition." But the statute does not, and could not, supersede the Louisiana Constitution, which declares that "The right of each citizen to keep and bear arms shall not be abridged, but this provision shall not prevent the passage of laws to prohibit the carrying of weapons concealed on the person."

The power of "regulating and controlling" is not the same as the power of "prohibiting and controlling." The emergency statute actually draws this distinction in its language, which refers to "prohibiting" price-gouging, sale of alcohol, and curfew violations, but only to "regulating and controlling" firearms. Accordingly, the police superintendent's order "prohibiting" firearms possession is beyond his lawful authority. It is an illegal order.

Last week, we saw an awful truth in New Orleans: A disaster can bring out predators ready to loot, rampage, and pillage the moment that they have the opportunity. Now we are seeing another awful truth: There is no shortage of police officers and National Guardsmen who will obey illegal orders to threaten peaceful citizens at gunpoint and confiscate their firearms.

Dave Kopel is Research Director of the Independence Institute.

from the Arizona Republic, 2005-Oct-4, by Judi Villa:

FEMA suspends Phoenix team
Armed escorts during hurricane rescues broke rule

The Phoenix Fire Department's Urban Search and Rescue team has been suspended from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for deploying armed police officers to protect firefighters in violation of the agency's rules.

As a result, Phoenix officials now are threatening to refuse some of the most dangerous deployments in the future or possibly even pull out of the federal agency altogether, unless the rules are changed to allow teams to bring their own security, even if that means police with guns.

FEMA has been the target of widespread criticism for its perceived slow response to Hurricane Katrina. Assistant Phoenix Fire Chief Bob Khan said his department also is questioning the federal agency's ability to manage working conditions, security and communications.

"Our priority has to be the safety of the firefighters we're sending," Khan said.

At issue is a rule in FEMA's Code of Conduct that prohibits Urban Search and Rescue teams from having firearms. Phoenix's team that deployed for Hurricane Katrina relief and again for Hurricane Rita included four police officers deputized as U.S. marshals.

Phoenix police were added to the team about a year ago, and officials say they are essential to protecting firefighters and FEMA's $1.4 million worth of equipment. Firefighters do not carry weapons.

"This is crazy," Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon said Monday. "This is a rule that was designed before the world changed, pre-9/11. You can't stand on bureaucracy if we're going to protect and save lives, and that's what these teams do."

Instability in Gulf Coast

FEMA relies on 28 elite teams like Phoenix's across the country to perform specialized rescue operations immediately after terrorist attacks and natural disasters.

After Hurricane Katrina, firefighters faced deployment to areas plagued by looting and lawlessness. Twice, Phoenix's team was confronted by law enforcement officers who refused to let them pass through their communities and told them to "get out or get shot," Gordon said.

Given the instability in the Gulf Coast region, taking police "was as natural as us calling for backup when we go to a house fire and need traffic control," Khan said.

Phoenix's team was demobilized unexpectedly Sept. 26 after members were seen embarking on a helicopter sortie with a loaded shotgun while assigned to help with the aftermath of Rita.

FEMA officials did not return a call for comment on Monday. But in a letter to Phoenix Fire Chief Alan Brunacini, dated Sept. 29, the agency said Phoenix was placed on "non-deployment status" essentially for including armed police on the team without approval.

The team cannot be reconsidered for deployment until "we receive an official explanation of your sponsoring agency rationale for allowing these infractions, any corrective actions taken, and assurance that these infractions will not occur in the future," the letter said.

Gordon on Monday sent a letter to FEMA officials requesting that the Code of Conduct "be changed from an unrealistic 'No firearms allowed' to a common-sense 'No firearms allowed except for U.S. marshals integrated into the USAR team.' " Gordon also demanded an apology.

"We are not going to send our firefighters and police officers into harm's way if they don't have adequate security," Gordon said in an interview Monday. "We're not going to endanger our people's lives. I'm not going to take that responsibility."

Phoenix's team was credited with plucking more than 400 Hurricane Katrina survivors from rooftops and freeway overpasses in flooded sections of New Orleans.

The team also was the first out-of-state team to respond to the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, and members deployed to New York City after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.

Pulling out of FEMA

If Phoenix pulled out of FEMA entirely, the city would have to return its equipment, which includes medical supplies, communications equipment, tools, and cameras and listening devices that can detect people trapped in rubble.

Khan said that the equipment isn't used in Phoenix on a daily basis and that the city already owns "a lot of the same equipment."

Scott Phelps, Gordon's senior assistant, said the city's stance wasn't to pull out of every FEMA deployment, only to refuse those where the team could be at risk if the "no firearms" rule wasn't changed.

"To apply that sterile rule to the real-life experiences that these men and women were encountering is absurd and really not fair," Phelps said.

"Our question would be: What's the compelling reason not to change the rules? It's not an unreasonable request."

from the San Francisco Chronicle, 2005-Sep-14, by Cinnamon Stillwell:

OPINION: San Francisco Gun Ban A Losing Proposition

If there's anything Americans have learned from the tragic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, it's that there are times when the government is simply unable to protect its citizens. The looting of nonessential items, robberies, carjackings, murders and rapes that overtook New Orleans as chaos gripped the city demonstrated what can happen when the government loses control.

Countless stories were told about unarmed citizens who were defenseless against the criminals who preyed upon them. Only those who were armed were able to fend off the encroaching violence. In such cases, self-defense is all that's left, which is perhaps why gun sales rose exponentially in Louisiana right after the disaster. The fact that police and military units in New Orleans later began confiscating those weapons does not bode well for the city's remaining residents.

If the San Francisco Board of Supervisors has its way, law-abiding residents could find themselves at the mercy of criminals in the event of a similar disaster. Given that the Bay Area is ground zero for earthquakes, it's not a very good idea to take away residents' capacity to fend for themselves. But Proposition H, a measure on the November ballot that seeks to ban handguns in San Francisco, would do just that.

Proposed by Supervisor Chris Daly and supported by Supervisors Tom Ammiano and Bevan Dufty, Prop. H is endorsed by the San Francisco Democratic Party and the Committee to Ban Handgun Violence. But Prop. H is unlikely to have any impact on handgun violence, despite being one of the most extreme gun-ban proposals in the country. Not only does Prop. H prohibit the ownership of handguns in San Francisco, the draconian measure also prohibits the "the sale, distribution, transfer and manufacture of all firearms and ammunition." Yet none of this will affect criminals, who will simply continue to buy and sell firearms illegally. Ironically, it's law-abiding citizens who will bear the brunt of this misguided measure.

While taking handguns away from citizens, Prop. H provides an exemption for "any City, state or federal employee carrying out the functions of his or her government employment," such as police officers and members of the military or the National Guard. In other words, it creates a police state. For such an anti-authoritarian city, this seems a strange goal indeed.

But San Francisco police officers aren't exactly enthusiastic about Prop H. For one thing, the measure is unclear on whether off-duty or retired police officers will be affected. And police are worried that they would have to arrest gun-owning violators in their own homes. Sounds like a recipe for dead cops.

Shooting Blanks

Although Prop. H is likely to make San Francisco a destination for criminals, the measure is couched in anti-crime terminology. In the lone ballot argument supporting the initiative, Supervisor Chris Daly points to crime and suicide rates supposedly attributable to the mere presence of handguns. But as a point-by-point dissection of Daly's argument demonstrates, he is far from informed on the subject. Since no gun-control groups have announced their support for the measure and not one paid argument in favor of Prop. H appears on the ballot, Daly doesn't seem to be inspiring much confidence.

It's little wonder, for Daly makes no distinction between legal and illegal gun owners, and somehow manages to convince himself that criminals will simply stop dealing in black-market firearms because of Prop. H. As he puts it, "Fewer handguns in the flow of commerce will make it more difficult to obtain one." He provides no basis for this assumption and ignores statistics from such cities as Washington, D.C., and Chicago, which saw their murder rates soar after instituting gun bans. He also overlooks the considerable number of crimes that are prevented each year by defensive gun use. Whether or not Daly and other gun-banners want to believe it, there is no evidence that gun control reduces crime or violence. In fact, it has the opposite effect.

As always, Daly and his colleagues invoke the (supposedly) ominous shadow of the National Rife Association to scare off San Francisco liberals. Although the NRA publicly opposes Prop. H, it has remained conspicuously absent from the local discussion, knowing full well that its name is politically loaded in this city.

Supervisors Off the Charts

In actuality, the opponents of Prop. H span the political spectrum. The San Francisco Republican Party, the Libertarian Party of San Francisco and the Coalition Against Prohibition are joined by the San Francisco Pink Pistols and Roy Bouse, president of the Tenant Association, in denouncing the measure. Asian American activist Alma Anino worries that the ban will take away her community's "Second Amendment rights," while Libby Green, president of the Senior Citizen Alliance, calls it the "Rapist Protection Act."

The Committee to Oppose Handgun Ban, which describes itself as "a grassroots liberal political action committee" and whose chairman Davy Jones is a "a LGBT community leader, union member, advocate for civil rights," hardly sounds like a bunch of right-wingers. Probably the most comprehensive anti-Prop. H reference resource, SFGunBan.com was put together by San Francisco resident Michael Sarfatti, who's not affiliated with any political party or organization.

Apparently, respect for Second Amendment rights cuts across all ideological boundaries. Except for those of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, that is.

Symbolism or Seriousness?

When I first wrote about the then-proposed Prop. H. several months ago, I had high hopes that the measure wouldn't make it onto the ballot, whether because of its own considerable deficiencies or because of challenges in court. Matt Gonzalez had stepped down as president of the Board of Supervisors, and Michele Alioto-Pier wisely chose to withdraw her support. But Gonzalez's letter to the Department of Elections had already been submitted and the proposition accepted by the time he left. With the necessary four supervisors technically on board, the initiative wound up on the ballot after all.

Mayor Gavin Newsom has remained silent on the issue so far. Since the overriding sentiment in San Franciscans is that "guns are bad" and should therefore be outlawed, Prop. H could well pass. If it does, it's likely to be challenged in the courts. The wording of the measure seeks to avoid the fate of the 1982 handgun ban, in which state law preempted the city ordinance. But several crucial issues remain unclear; namely:

-- Handgun owners are given 90 days to "surrender" their handguns to the police or sheriff's department, but owners must first be identified. Given that the city is prohibited by state law from registering or licensing gun owners, what database will officials consult to obtain the information needed to begin the identification process?

-- Although the ordinance refers to still undefined penalties for violations, it's unlikely that the city will be able to force people to turn in their handguns. How will the city enforce the ban, should residents prove unwilling to comply?

-- Prop. H is tantamount to government confiscation of property from nonfelons. Will the city compensate handgun owners for their property?

When the Board of Supervisors addresses these questions, then we'll know they're serious. But as it is, the measure seems destined to be nothing more than a symbolic statement, which is something San Francisco has become famous for in recent years. Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, who claims to support Prop. H in theory, admitted that "the legislation largely would be symbolic without enforcement."

Unfortunately, symbolism means nothing when the practical needs of a city are put to the test. Should San Francisco face its own disaster in the years to come, these are the leaders to whom people will look for guidance. Somehow, this doesn't exactly inspire confidence.

from The Tennessean, 2005-Jan-9, by Naomi Snyder:

Gunmaker is surviving fight against .50-caliber

Ronnie Barrett got his start as a photographer shooting weddings.

But things changed when, more than 20 years ago, the Murfreesboro resident tinkered with the design of a machine gun to create the most powerful rifle available to civilians.

The sale of the .50-caliber BMG (Browning Machine Gun) was banned by the state of California starting Jan. 1. Although other manufacturers have begun making the weapon, Barrett is at the center of a growing controversy over the sniper firearm used by the world's military personnel and civilians alike.

''I'm hoping people in other states, in Tennessee, will say that type of weapon is a danger to our infrastructure,'' said Mary Leigh Blek, with the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence in California. ''On the battlefield it's appropriate, but not in our neighborhoods.''

But the ongoing fight against the .50-caliber has not hurt business at Barrett Firearms Manufacturing in Murfreesboro.

Sales rose 17% last year to $20 million, Barrett said, as buyers got interested in the weapon.

Bullets fired from the rifle can tear through sandbags and kill someone on the other side. They can shatter the engine block of a truck, and in a good sniper's hands the gun can be used to shoot a person a mile away.

''If your commander says, 'I want that vehicle stopped,' you put a .50-caliber in that engine, and it's not going anywhere,'' said Charlie Cutshaw, small arms editor for Jane's International Defense Review, and a friend of Barrett's. ''The energy delivered by that bullet into that target is just huge.''

Anything larger than a .50-caliber is considered a cannon.

It's not as useful for everyday North American hunting.

Although people have shot elk with it, shooting even that large an animal with a .50-caliber at 100 yards will destroy a lot of meat, Cutshaw said.

Barrett says the gun is good for large game, say, elephants or rhinos. He admits the average civilian doesn't need such a weapon.

''You don't need a five-bedroom home,'' he said. ''You don't need Corvettes, breast implants or fishing clubs. Not all guns are hunting guns. This is a toy.''

The 50-year-old Barrett describes himself as dyslexic with attention deficit disorder, but he has considerable drive. On a challenge from a gun manufacturer, the rifle enthusiast went $1.5 million into debt trying to design and sell his rifle in the 1980s. He went years without a profit.

He didn't sell his first weapon to a military organization until 1989, when the government of Sweden bought them. The U.S. Marines bought the weapon starting in 1989, and it has since been used by Marine snipers and Special Forces. Barrett is selling to countries around the world.

His guns, which weigh 25 to 32 pounds, retail for about $3,400 for the bolt-action and more than $7,300 for the semiautomatic. He makes military and civilian versions, but both can be sold to the public. (California law previously banned the semiautomatic, so the Jan. 1 ban applies to the bolt-action and single-shot rifles.)

The Barrett manufacturing building shows little sign of his success. The 20,000-square-foot structure is at the end of a dead end on an interstate access road, with no sign indicating firearms are made there.

Behind a closed door, 65 people dressed in black military fatigues and matching black T-shirts sporting the Barrett name work quietly assembling a rifle that, when used with special ammunition available only to the military, can set personnel carriers afire.

Some of the manufacturing is outsourced, but most is done in-house. Men dip parts in searing oil, others weld, and some test-shoot the firearm through a concrete tunnel longer than a football field.

Barrett says he would go out of business without civilian sales and that he can't depend on the sporadic purchases by the world's various armies.

The .50-caliber BMG has been around since World War I, but Barrett redesigned it and made it marketable to civilians. Other manufacturers followed suit. He says he has no idea what his market share might be.

Last year, only about half his sales were to militaries.

To protect his livelihood, and his passionate views, Barrett has attended city council meetings and Senate committee hearings in California, pleading on behalf of his rifle during the last several years.

When Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton took a stand supporting the gun ban in Los Angeles, Barrett refused to service one of the police department's rifles that had been sent to him.

When asked to send the .50-caliber back to the police department, Barrett also refused, and the police department had to send someone to pick it up.

Bratton could not be reached Friday.

Barrett also has sued, together with various organizations, the police department and the city of Los Angeles, as well as Contra Costa County, which banned the firearm. He says a lawsuit against the state of California is pending.

Those fighting the .50-caliber are equally passionate.

They say terrorists could use the weapon to shoot down commercial aircraft and that they have been found in the hands of criminals.

The Violence Policy Center is fighting the .50-caliber on a national scale.

The group says the rifle is an ''ideal tool for assassination and terrorism, including its ability to attack and cripple key elements of the nation's critical infrastructure -- including aircraft and other transportation, electrical power grids, pipeline networks, chemical plants, and other hazardous industrial facilities.''

While armor-piercing, incendiary ammunition is against the law for handguns it is legal to buy such devices for the .50-caliber.

The Violence Policy Center says the weapons were sold to an agent of Osama bin Laden during the fight against the Soviets in the 1980s. Barrett doesn't dispute that sale took place, but says a congressman bought the rifles to supply the fighters, rather than he or the gun industry selling them directly.

The group also says that terrorists could use the rifles to hit a commercial aircraft near takeoff or landing. A Rand study posits this is a possible threat at the Los Angeles International Airport, although the research firm says crowds of people in terminals are in greater danger.

Barrett says the attacks on his rifles are part of a struggle between good and evil.

''When you have governments disarming citizens, you have catastrophe on your hands,'' he said.

And as sales increase with publicity about the .50-caliber, Barrett also has faith that manufacturers such as himself will make small adjustments so their rifles comply with California law.

He's already designing one -- just as powerful -- that uses a slightly smaller bullet.

from the TriggerFinger blog, 2005-Feb-20, by Matthew Hunter:

For those having trouble viewing the CNN video...

Some people are reporting that CNN is not letting them view the .50 video I've been referencing, claiming that a (paid) subscription to CNN or to Real's service is required. That's odd -- because I've viewed it twice without any such subscription. You do need a working Realplayer plugin, though.

Here is a brief description of the video from memory; quotes are reasonably close to what was said but should be considered a paraphrase:

Voiceover talks about the .50 and how it's easy to buy one without any government paperwork. Video of a reporter browsing the web... "and this website is one of the biggest firearms sales sites on the web: GunsAmerica.com".

The video shows the report browsing down the list of .50 rifles available. He explicitly states (and the video highlights) that he is looking for a private individual, not a federal firearms dealer. He finds one, writes an email on the site suggesting a meeting, and says he's paying cash.

"Before we actually buy the gun, I want to make sure that I can buy ammunition for it." And so he goes to an ammo dealer website, orders it with a credit card, and gets it shipped to his office by UPS "no questions asked". Well duh. Only problem is, he says it's "armor piercing" ammunition. Maybe he means it's rifle ammunition, since just about any rifle round will defeat most bulletproof vests.

Cut to the reporter in his SUV, taking about how the only paper involved in the transaction will be the cash. He flashes what looks like about 5 bills to the camera. Since the price of the gun was about $3000 new, he's not exactly representing the amount accurately.

Cut to the reporter walking into a building, then walking out again with a carrying case. More inane comments in voiceover.

Cut to an airport baggage claim, where he picks up the gun case. Voiceover about how it's perfectly legal to transport the gun on an airplane on your baggage (never mind the paperwork).

Cut to a shooting range, where the reporter proves he needs a lot of practice to hit an airplane door at about 300 yards. Gee, what a surprise, the bullets penetrate the door, leaving a small hole that could be plugged with someone's finger! Good thing I don't depend on thin aluminum to stop a bullet.

After a bit of that, they put a 1-inch steel plate behind the emergency door and shoot a hole in that. Lots of slow motion for that shot. I'm left wondering why it matters, since airplanes don't have 1-inch steel plate armor, and wouldn't be blown to bits by a little tiny hole even if they did.

And it closes, as I recall, with the reporter doing voiceover about airport vulnerabilities while an airplane flies overhead, much closer than the maximum effective range of that "evil" rifle (and most other rifles). Never mind that actually hitting an airplane in the air is difficult enough to require a computer with radar.

The single overriding impression I got from this video was that CNN is begging, yes literally begging, some terrorist to watch this segment, buy a .50 rifle using the "gun show loophole", and shoot at airplanes. They are handing out instruction manuals to terrorists because they are tired of the fact that the terrorists have never done anything like this!

CNN is not merely biased. CNN is on the other side.

UPDATE: There are two brief segments with Ron Barrett, who does his best but is at the mercy of the CNN editting. There's also a quote: "Bullets the size of small artillery shells". Right.

For those who are having trouble viewing the video, I can still view it for free.

from TPDL 2004-May-8, from RichardPoe.com 2003-Nov-9, by Richard Poe:

Lying Scholars Fuel Anti-Gun Court Verdicts

DAVID BACH is a warrior. A former Navy SEAL, a Naval Reserve officer, and a naval attorney with top-secret clearance, Bach stands at the frontlines of the War on Terror. Yet, on September 25, a federal judge forbade him to carry a gun in New York State.

The ruling is part of a growing trend. More and more federal judges today contend that Americans have no — I repeat, no — constitutional right to keep and bear arms.

How did this happen? Simple. Leftwing historians and law professors have been rewriting American history and reinterpreting the Constitution for years. Now their work is bearing fruit. Anti-gun judges parrot the lies their professors told them. With each stroke of their gavels, they infuse those lies with the force of law.

David Bach lives in Virginia Beach, but visits his parents in Ulster County, New York. Denied a license to pack a side-arm during these visits, Bach sued in federal court. "[B]ecause of my occupation within the Department of Defense and Naval Special Warfare, I believe my family and I are at greater risk of being targeted by those seek[ing] to carry out symbolic acts of terror," Bach argued in court papers.

Bach also invoked his Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.

No such right exists, said U.S. District Judge Norman A. Mordue of Syracuse, New York. In his ruling, Judge Mordue wrote, "[T]he court adopts the view that the Second Amendment is not a source of individual rights."

Echoing the lie taught in many law schools today, Mordue -- a Clinton appointee -- argued that the Second Amendment secures only a "collective" right, allowing National Guardsmen to bear arms.

Constitutional scholar Stephen Halbrook says that's baloney. Having argued and won three gun cases before the Supreme Court, Halbrook is probably America’s leading expert on gun rights. In his book, That Every Man Be Armed, Halbrook notes that, during the debate over the Bill of Rights in 1789, Tench Coxe — a friend of James Madison — published a defense of the proposed amendments in the Philadelphia Federal Gazette. Coxe wrote that "the people are confirmed… [by the Second Amendment] in their right to keep and bear their private arms."

James Madison, author of the Bill of Rights, applauded Coxe’s article. Upon receiving a copy, Madison thanked his friend for "the cooperation of your pen" in helping to explain the Bill of Rights to the public.

Halbrook writes:

Coxe’s defense of the amendments was widely reprinted. A search of the literature of the time reveals that no writer disputed or contradicted Coxe’s analysis that what became the Second Amendment protected the right of the people to keep and bear their "private arms." The only dispute was over whether a bill was even necessary to protect such fundamental rights.

Why, then, do so many law professors teach exactly the opposite — that the Second Amendment secures no individual right to keep and bear arms? Simple. Many law professors are leftists who oppose gun rights. Therefore, they lie to their students about the true meaning of the Bill of Rights.

"One will search the `leading’ casebooks in vain for any mention of the Second Amendment," wrote University of Texas law professor Sanford Levinson in the Yale Law Journal in 1989. Levinson accused the "elite bar" of "sheer opposition to the idea of private ownership of guns…"

Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe scandalized academia in 1999 when he revised his treatise American Constitutional Law — a standard text in law schools since 1978 — and finally acknowledged the obvious; that the Second Amendment secures an individual right to keep and bear arms. "I’ve gotten an avalanche of angry mail from apparent liberals who said, `How could you?’" Tribe told USA Today.

Subsequent editions of Tribe’s book now carry the correction. But the book misinformed law students for 20 years.

In his ruling against David Bach, Judge Mordue cites United States v. Miller (1939) — a Supreme Court decision which leftists claim overruled individual gun rights. In fact, it does just the opposite.

Not only does United States v. Miller confirm citizen gun rights, but Levinson says it strongly implies "that the individual citizen has a right to keep and bear bazookas, rocket launchers, and other armaments that are clearly relevant to modern warfare…"

It is time to purge what Levinson calls the "elite bar" of liars and ignoramuses. Too many Americans died to give us our Constitution. Will we surrender it now to the whims of leftist judges and law professors?

from LadyLiberty.com, 2004-May-11:

Damned if You Do, Dead if You Don't

Recently, an Illinois state legislator almost single-handedly put the brakes on legislation [http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-gun23.html] that would have allowed Illinois residents to defend themselves with a firearm without fear of punishment, even if that firearm were prohibited by local ordinance. Never mind that any law that disallows self-defense in the first place is both unconstitutional and immoral. At least there was some effort to right an obvious wrong in Illinois. But this legislator, claiming he feared the ubiquitous "loophole," has demanded more study before the matter can be considered.

The bill was originally written in response to a Wilmette, Illinois incident in which a local man defended himself and his young family with a handgun against a burglar who had repeatedly broken into his home. But because his firearms registration card had expired, and because handguns are verboten in Wilmette, he was charged with crimes himself. Although Cook County eventually dropped the registration charges, the city of Wilmette refused [http://www.illinoisleader.com/news/newsview.asp?c=11965] to drop its own case. Wilmette's police chief put his nose in the air and sniffed that people should lock the door of the room they're in and dial 9-1-1 instead of taking matters into their own hands. He can afford to talk like that; he's allowed to have a gun in his home.

In another recent incident in Illinois [http://abclocal.go.com/wls/news/041904_ap_ns_shooting.html], a man is being charged in connection with a fatal shooting there. But he's not being charged with murder, or even manslaughter. No, the police have ruled that he shot in self defense. But they're charging him with weapons violations, anyway.

An April 9 report from WXYZ-TV in Detroit, Michigan (which has already been removed from the station's web site) detailed the matter of a homeowner who, after his daughter and entire family was repeatedly threatened, finally shot and killed the harasser as he attempted to gain entry to the family home. I grant you that the police can't arrest the real criminal here seeing as how he's dead and all, but that's no excuse for them to have arrested the homeowner - which, of course, is just what they did.

Some proved sympathetic last year when a New Yorker - a law-abiding ex-Navy man and young father - shot a burglar with a legally owned handgun. But because that handgun was not yet registered in New York (the man had only recently relocated there and was actually in the process of getting the registration handled), he was charged with a crime and prosecutors were adamant he serve actual jail time accordingly. A magazine article [http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=8609] published at the time said that New York was effectively outlawing self defense, and that reporter wasn't wrong with his assessment.

That various and sundry government entities work to make self defense illegal - or legal only under extremely constrained circumstances - is not a real surprise. It seems that, along with keeping the potholes filled (does government actually do that successfully anywhere?) and the military in $600 toilet seats (which probably need regular replacement after being smashed by accidentally dropped $200 hammers), the government has also come to consider it an obligation to infringe on liberty. Unfortunately, the latter is one of the few things that politicians and bureaucrats seem very good at indeed.

No, the real surprise is found in the utter lack of public outcry against incidents in which the guilty are handed their rights on a silver platter (to be fair, they do have rights and they should get them), while the innocent are actually stripped of rights by virtue of the very charges against them. Although some local citizens did offer support [http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=36605] to the man at the center of the Wilmette, Illinois case, the vast majority did not. And while there was even a brief Internet campaign to raise defense funds for the young New Yorker (he eventually pleaded his case for minimal jail time and no felony record), few spoke out against the zealous prosecutor or the bad law he insisted on enforcing to its fullest.

Worst of all, it seems more and more obvious that none of these cases are really isolated. Authorities far beyond the borders of New York City, and on a truly appalling scale, are working to make realistic self defense all but impossible by making the most effective means of self-defense illegal. Consider:

Most states do permit residents to carry a firearm, but only if they jump through precisely the right hoops and register their personal data - including fingerprints - with authorities. Criminals are treated no differently when they're processed through the system and data - including fingerprints - are taken and entered into databases. But those criminals have already proved they can't be trusted. What did law abiding citizens do to earn such distrust from officialdom?

Merely being trained and licensed isn't enough if you're found to have a firearm in some other state. A New Hampshire man - Jeffrey Jordan - is facing felony charges in the state of Ohio [http://www.libertyroundtable.org/projects/freehunter/index.html] for having a loaded handgun on his person, discovered during a traffic stop. Jordan, who is highly trained and licensed to carry concealed in more than one state, was alone on a long road trip where some caution on his part was justified (remember, too, that an Ohio freeway shooter was yet at large at the time). Yet Jordan has now lost his job (firearms are so unpopular that apparently one can now be fired prior to any conviction merely because the charges involve guns), and he stands to lose his freedom.

Even if you own a legal firearm and shoot an intruder in your own home, there's no guarantee that, despite the fact your actions were justified and your conscience clear, the authorities won't charge you with a crime anyway. And woe to you if you own a gun and are forced to use it in one of those places where even mere ownership itself is forbidden!

The only way to be safe from the regulatory predators is, of course, to divest yourself of all firearms. But then you've made yourself easy prey for those to whom regulations mean nothing and who will, regardless of the law, arm themselves to attack you or someone just like you. You've also quite handily put yourself into the government's hands because only it and its representatives can protect you. It's an unpleasant catch 22, and with none of these alternatives are you offered the least modicum of genuine security.

Perhaps, like some of the men I've mentioned here, you'll choose to risk jail over death (or grievous harm).After all, you've probably heard the saying, "I'd rather be judged by twelve than carried by six." But prison time is only better than death because you'll eventually get out of prison. And in truth, even getting out may not be all that great a deal when you'll have a felony conviction on your record and are thus prohibited from owning a firearm or voting for the rest of your life. And try to get a good job with that mark against you! Consider, too, the plight of poor Tony Martin [http://www.frontpagemag.com/articles/Printable.asp?ID=5757] - the British farmer jailed for murder after protecting himself and his property from a couple of career criminals with his firearm - who has served almost all of his prison time but now faces release under a cloud of threats to his life. And now remember that "carried by six" may be definitive, but that "judged by twelve" offers no guarantees things will work out substantially better for the man or woman in such an unfortunate position

You're not going to believe what I'm going to say next because I'm a firm believer that the Second Amendment is both an unalienable and an individual right, but here it is: Forget the Second Amendment. Consider instead the very foundations of the American Revolution itself wherein the Founding Fathers wrote that we each and every one of us have the right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." And then ask yourself: How can we have a right to our own lives if we're prohibited from any defense? How can we be free if we're imprisoned, either through the unconstitutional and immoral firearms laws that forbid self defense, or because we're barricading ourselves in our homes out of fear for all those things we're not permitted to defend ourselves against? And with fear for our lives and fear of the capricious law, how can any of us be happy?

Once men and women fought for those things - for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It's time we stood up and fought for those things again. We must work to repeal each and every law that would interfere with our basic right to protect ourselves. We must protest loudly and en masse when a law abiding citizen is charged under these anti-self defense statutes. We must refuse to convict those American citizens who stand trial in matters like those of the men in Wilmette, Detroit, New York, and Ohio. We need to join a firearms rights group to add our voices to theirs (you don't need to own a firearm to be a member or an activist). Exercise your own Second Amendment rights. Campaign on behalf of those politicians with the respect for humanity that understands self defense is the most basic of human rights. Vote. Work to educate others.

Yes, we may still be damned if we do, particularly if we garner too much attention. It's much easier to make laws than to repeal them, and the powers that be typically aren't fond of seeing their hard work undone. But we will surely be damned - or yes, even dead - if we don't.

###

Lady Liberty is a pro-freedom activist currently residing in the Midwest with her two cats and many, many books. More of her writings and other political and educational information is available on her web site, Lady Liberty's Constitution Clearing House [http://www.ladylibrty.com].

from the Illinois State Rifle Association, 2001-Jul-16:

Confiscation of Registered Guns Begins in Illinois

The Chicago Police Department and the Illinois State Police have teamed up to make good on Mayor Daley's pledge that, if it were up to him, nobody would have a gun. Daley and his elite "CAGE" unit are apparently taking advantage of gun privacy loopholes to pinpoint certain individuals for inclusion in the confiscation program.

The ISRA is following up on leads in one case that has distrubing implications. An elderly first-generation Chicago resident was recently paid a visit by an Illinois State Police trooper. After asking to come inside the man's home, the trooper asked if the man owned a gun - to which he replied yes. The trooper then directed the individual to surrender the firearm. The man complied with the officer's demand and the trooper left with the gun. And the story gets better...

The gun in question was purchased legally by the man in the 1970s shortly after he became a U.S. citizen. When Chicago's infamous gun registration scheme went into effect in the early 1980s, the man registered the firearm as per the requirement. However, over the years, the fellow apparenlty forgot to re-register the firearm, and forgot to renew his Illinois FOID Card.

So...what does this all mean?

In the last edition of The Illinois Shooter, we reported on the activities of a shady taskforce known as the Chicago Anti Gun Efforcement (CAGE) unit. This elite squad, operated jointly by the Illinois State Police, the Chicago Police Department, and the Cook County State's Attorney's Office, supposedly exists to identify illegal gunrunners. However, information gained by the ISRA makes it clear that the CAGE unit is targeting law-abiding citizens, not criminal gunrunners.

Thanks to a ruling by a liberal federal judge, the CAGE unit now has the name of every single person in the United States who, since 1992, lawfully purchased more than one handgun in the period of a week. The CAGE unit also has all the makes, models and serial numbers of those guns. In essence, the Chicago Police Department is now registering guns and gun owners nationwide.

The ISRA has also learned that the CAGE unit has compiled a list of families where more than one person in that family holds a FOID card. Acting on that information, the CAGE unit is now contacting gun shops where those families have shopped, and is illegally registering all guns purchased by those families.

Now, it appears that the CAGE unit is scrubbing Chicago's gun registration list against the list of FOID card holders. Indications are that folks who have let their registrations and FOIDs lapse will have their guns confiscated. We have to wonder how long it will be until state troopers show up at the doors to confiscate the guns of non-Chicago residents who have let their FOIDs expire.

from The Manchester Union-Leader of New Hampshire, 2004-Feb-15, by Bernadette Malone:

Waiting for gun permit can be deadly

NEVER DID I expect to wind up living alone, in a new area, with a violent acquaintance threatening me because of some perceived offense.

Never did I expect to ever need to carry my handgun to and from work in case that man tracked me down and physically threatened me.

So naturally, I didn't have the paperwork I needed to defend my own life when I needed it most.

New Hampshire has a chance to help women who find themselves terrified, in my situation, by passing Senate Bill 454, which will do away with the paperwork now required to carry a concealed weapon. How unfortunate that the NH Women's Lobby doesn't see it that way and is opposing the bill, which can help women more than men. Men, after all, sometimes have fighting skills and brute physical strength that can help them defend themselves; women rarely do.

Back when I was in this surreal situation, I called the local police department and reported what was happening. The man who had threatened me had been arrested by them three or four times for violent outbursts over a month-long period.

I already owned a gun legally, had taken instruction in using it, and kept it safely in my apartment. I never intended to carry it outside the house, except when I was taking it to target practice.

But what would happen to me if this guy attacked me as I was walking to my car? Or leaving my office? Or as I was reaching for my apartment building key? I wanted permission to carry that pistol in my purse; I deserved a fighting chance to protect myself.

``You should just call us if anything happens,'' the police officer who took my phone call responded; ``That's the safest thing you can do.''

I couldn't believe it. I should fumble with my cell phone, pray I get a strong enough signal, and report the incident to the police as I was being attacked? Even if the police showed up one minute later, how long does it really take to assault a woman?

The N.H. Police Association is opposing Senate Bill 454. The fewer guns around, the easier it is for them to do their job. But God bless these heroes, they can't be everywhere at once.

I asked to speak with a higher ranking policeman, and he apologized that the desk officer had offered her personal opinion. Of course I had a legal right to apply for a concealed carry permit, he said. But there was a two-week waiting period. Two weeks -- or even two days -- is an insane amount of time to wait for a permit when someone wants to harm you.

Do bureaucrats really need that long to run a background check on me? Or were they hoping I'd ``cool off'' and change my mind about the permit? Or maybe the two-week period was simply designed to encourage me to drop out of the application pool.

Waiting period aside, the concealed carry permit application is, in many localities, very discouraging. Local police departments can ask some pretty intrusive questions when you apply for a concealed carry permit:

Have you ever taken illegal drugs? (That joint you smoked in high school counts, girls.)

Have you ever taken medication for mental illness? (What about that Prozac you tried for a few months, ladies, though you weren't quite certain you needed it?)

It all goes into the record, and gives the authorities a cause to turn you away -- if you're not so intimidated by the invasiveness that you don't turn away first.

Then you're on your own -- free to either live outside the law by carrying your gun illegally, or risk facing your worst nightmare: a violent death you could see coming days in advance.

In the end, things turned out all right for me, but I've been blessed with some fortunate circumstances: I know the ``right people;'' as a journalist I've been trained to ask the right followup questions; and finally, I had the ability to pack up and move rather than wait out the situation.

Most women aren't as fortunate as I am. What happens to them in states that stand in the way of them protecting themselves? What we do know, from scholars such as John Lott at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., is that crime rates drop once states remove hindrances to citizens carrying their guns.

If people misuse the guns they carry, punish them severely. But allow us, especially women, to have a fighting chance to defend ourselves.

Bernadette Malone is former editorial page editor for The Union Leader and New Hampshire Sunday News.

The proponents of the bill discussed in the following item lie and mislead in various ways. See An Investigation of Fifty Caliber Rifle Capabilities, 2001-Mar-31.

from the Associated Press, 2004-May-3, by Craig Mauro:

Moran introduces bill to ban high-powered rifles

They're high-powered guns that can down an airplane from up to a mile away, and a northern Virginia lawmaker wants to make sure they don't fall into the wrong hands.

Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., said Monday he is introducing legislation that would ban the commercial sale of .50-caliber rifles. Backers of the bill say the weapons are easily attainable and less regulated than common handguns.

Speaking near train tracks within view of the U.S. Capitol dome, Moran said terrorists could fire the gun on a rail car carrying hazardous cargo through the heart of the nation's capital.

The rifles can also pierce armor and destroy a low-flying passenger plane, Moran said. The U.S. Army classifies them for attacking tanks and other heavy-armor targets.

"These are weapons of war" that could cause a "massive catastrophe," Moran said.

The legislation would exempt military and law enforcement use.

Moran said al-Qaida is known to have purchased 25 of the rifles.

Tom Diaz, an analyst at the Violence Policy Center in Washington, estimates there are thousands in circulation. The guns have turned up in arms caches of militia groups and drug dealers in the United States, he said.

Andrew Arulanandam, a spokesman for the National Rifle Association, said the guns are used for hunting big game and in marksmanship competitions, among other purposes.

The legislation is an attempt to play on people's emotions, he said.

"This a continuation of a trend started by gun ban groups and politicians to try and exploit the tragedy of 9-11 to further their flailing agenda of gun control," he said.

Arulanandam predicted that terrorists would be able to skirt such a law because they do not follow laws or leave paper trails that would allow them to be traced.

Diaz's group said .50-caliber rifles have been banned in Los Angeles. Contra Costa County in California and the New York State Assembly have also voted to ban them, said the nonprofit organization.

Moran read from an advertisement for Barrett Firearms that he said touts a $10 round of .50-caliber ammunition as capable of bringing down an aircraft. He also questioned whether the guns were practical for hunting.

"What are you going to have left when you shoot a deer with this thing?" the congresssman asked.

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., said .50-caliber rifles are not covered by the assault weapons ban that Congress is now considering extending.

She and Rep. John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., are co-sponsoring the legislation.

___

On the Net:

Barrett Firearms: http://www.barrettrifles.com/

The New Hampshire Constitution Bill of rights, article 2a, ratified 1982-Dec-1, reads ``All persons have the right to keep and bear arms in defense of themselves, their families, their property and the state.'' The National Socialists (Nazi party) of Germany originated the principle that people can carry concealed weapons only with the permission of the state. Live free or die - it's not just a motto! (I live in New Hampshire.) John Kerry, by the way, opposes the right to concealed carry (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 2004-Jan-29, ``Candidates: Bush must go'', by Jo Mannies: ``Kerry, a hunter, said he's a solid supporter of "Second Amendment rights," but objected to the idea of allowing the general public to carry concealed weapons, even with training. People should have to prove "probable cause" that their lives were at risk unless they could carry concealed weapons, he said.'')

from the Associated Press via WMUR, 2004-Feb-19:

Senate Passes Bill To Allow Concealed Weapons Without Permit
Supporters Say Right To Bear Arms Should Not Be Infringed

CONCORD, N.H. -- The New Hampshire Senate voted Thursday to let gunowners carry concealed weapons without a license.

The 13-10 vote sent the measure to the House.

Supporters argued that the constitutional right to bear arms shouldn't be infringed by requiring gunowners to apply for licenses.

Alton Republican Robert Boyce said the constitution gives people the right to protect themselves. But opponents said getting a license from the local police department is a needed safeguard.

Nashua Democrat Joseph Foster said getting a license is a reasonable regulation that doesn't prevent anyone from carrying a weapon.

Other opponents said eliminating the requirement might result in more guns being carried.

from CNSNews.com, 2004-Jan-30, by Robert B. Bluey:

New York Times Tells Its Reporters Not to Carry Guns

Journalists covering wars or other conflicts for the New York Times are no longer allowed to carry a firearm while on assignment, according to a policy adopted by the company this week.

The new policy, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, was apparently put into place Wednesday following an internal debate over the issue. A Times reporter in Iraq, Dexter Filkins, was found carrying a gun last year, the Journal reported.

"The carrying of a weapon, for whatever reason, jeopardizes a journalist's status as neutral," Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis told CNSNews.com. "For the same reason, it's also important that Times journalists do not travel with or accompany other journalists they know to be carrying weapons."

The policy was developed internally by senior editors in consultation with the paper's bureaus, Mathis said. It applies to reporters, photographers and other editorial staff "who are on assignment from the Times to cover a war or a civil conflict," she said.

The debate over journalists carrying guns is not new. Fox News correspondent Geraldo Rivera stirred up the issue when he carried a gun while covering the war on terror in Afghanistan.

Earlier this week in Iraq, two CNN employees died from gunshot wounds when their vehicle was ambushed. A third employee in another vehicle was injured. A security adviser traveling with the convoy was credited for saving the lives of the other journalists and employees.

"There is no doubt in my mind that if our security adviser had not returned fire, everyone in our vehicle would have been killed," said CNN correspondent Michael Holmes in a statement. "This was not an attempted robbery; they were clearly trying to take us out."

American Enterprise Institute resident scholar John Lott, author of "The Bias against Guns," said the attack on CNN workers is just one example of the threats journalists face in war zones.

"My concern is that the New York Times is being driven more by appearance than what is actually necessary for the safety of their reporters," Lott said. "It's not the type of image the New York Times wants to give out. They're very politically correct on these things, and they want to be perceived that way."

The Times' decision didn't surprise Joe Waldron, executive director of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. He said, "Hypocrisy has never bothered the New York Times."

The Times has long been a target of criticism for its anti-gun editorials. The paper was also accused of hypocrisy when it was discovered that its former publisher, Arthur Ochs "Punch" Sulzberger, had a permit to carry a handgun.

Sulzberger, whose son "Pinch" Sulzberger now runs the paper, was among several influential New Yorkers with handgun permits whose names were leaked to the press in 1976.

Dems Have Not Dropped Gun Control Agenda
Has the gun control issue really disappeared?

Some think that Democrats, chastised by the loss of the presidency of 2000 and the loss of the Senate in 2002, have learned the risk of supporting gun control the hard way. Some even argue that there is a more fundamental change in Democratic beliefs on gun control.

Yet, as Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi recently said, Democrats will wait and revisit the guns ``when the issue is ripe.''

New regulations are still being put forward, but legislation gets more attention, both from the press and other legislators, when there is a chance it will pass. There is surely no shortage of new gun control proposals at either the federal or state level.

-- Assault weapons ban. In Congress, House Democrats are pushing for a vastly expanded ban (including all semi-automatic shotguns that are widely used for hunting and skeet shooting) and, among other features, gives future U.S. Attorney Generals the ability to ban any semi-automatic rifle they classify as not for ``sporting'' uses. Senate Democrats propose slightly expanding the ban only because they acknowledge that their most desired legislation would never get passed.

-- Judicial appointments. Just last week Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor, a Republican, nominated by President Bush for a judgeship on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, was criticized by Senate Democrats for supporting a court decision that requires judges to hold a hearing before they can order a person's gun be taken away.

-- Filibuster. Senate Democrats threaten to filibuster legislation designed to rein in abusive litigation targeting the firearms gun makers. The suits threaten the very existence of gun makers; law suits have already forced several gun manufacturers into bankruptcy, some before they even had their day in court. While moderate Democrats support the bill, most Democratic Senators appear willing to fight against this to the very end.

-- New federal regulations. In June, Sen. Jon Corzine and Rep. Patrick Kennedy, both Democrats, put forward legislation giving the Department of Justice sweeping powers to regulate the design, manufacture and distribution of guns. Just at the end of May, Sen. Frank Lautenberg proposed banning large caliber guns and other new rules that regulate who can buy guns at gun shows.

-- New state regulations. From gun storage laws in New York to taxing gun show transfers in Illinois to banning large caliber guns in California to fining parents whose children play with toy guns in Maryland, Democrat state officials across the country are pushing for more gun control laws.

Even Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor and most pro-gun rights supporter among Democratic presidential candidates, wants to renew the so-called semi-automatic assault weapons ban as well as regulate gun shows.

Surprisingly, the Bush administration has basically left most Clinton gun control policies in place. True, Attorney General John Ashcroft decided not to keep long-term records of gun sales and President Bush supports important legislation to curb abusive lawsuits. But the Bush administration has taken few other actions. Clinton administration policies have simply been allowed to continue on everything from existing policies banning the importation of guns to no longer requiring that ROTC military training involve how to fire a gun.

Even when it comes to arming pilots, the administration has twice thwarted congressional legislation. Now over 21 months after Sept. 11, the administration has dragged its feet so that only 44 pilots out of over 100,000 pilots are allowed to carry guns on planes and there are no additional approvals in sight.

In contrast, at the state level Republicans are slowly but steadily rolling back gun regulations. During the last couple of months, concealed handgun laws have been passed in Republican dominated legislatures in Alaska, Colorado, and Minnesota. In Missouri, final passage is uncertain and depends upon whether the Republican dominated legislature can override the Democratic governor's expected veto. The only exception to this Democrat/Republican divide was in New Mexico, which also passed a concealed handgun law this year (albeit an extremely restrictive one), and where Democrats completely control the state legislature and governorship.

The lopsided coverage of the costs and benefits of guns in the media and the government ensures that the push for more regulations will not go away. In 2001, the three major networks -- ABC, NBC, and CBS -- devoted about 190,000 words' worth of national television news stories on gun crimes but not one single story about someone using a gun to defend themselves or someone else. Even those who follow the news the closest are unlikely to know that when surveys of crimes committed with guns are compared with studies of defensive gun use, the best estimates indicate that people use guns defensively to stop crime 4.5 times more frequently than guns are used to commit crime. The only news network that carried any defensive gun stories that year was the Fox News Channel.

Over the last decade it is simply impossible to find one study by either the U.S. Justice Department or the Treasury that measures the benefits from people owning guns. For example, every year the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms puts out a list of the top 10 guns used in crime, but why not one time put out a list of the top 10 guns used by people to stop crime?

For congressional Democrats, the decision not to push new gun control as a top agenda item is simply because Republicans control both houses of congress. Their strong anti-gun sentiment has not abated. Just two more Democratic senators and 13 more Democratic House members and gun control legislation would go from fond dreams to reality.

John Lott, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, is the author of recently released The Bias Against Guns (Regnery)

Study finds 'forgotten' high-court gun cases
Shows personal right to bear arms recognized over 2 centuries

A six-year study of Supreme Court cases has found scores of "forgotten decisions" affecting the "highly contested" constitutional right to keep and bear arms.

Titled "Supreme Court Gun Cases," the study examines 92 cases -- 44 of them unedited -- and concludes without a doubt "the Supreme Court has recognized an individual right to arms for most of the past two centuries."

The study, available for order next month, is "the most important set of words written about your constitutional guarantees," said Alan Korwin, a firearms and legal researcher and co-author of the report.

Korwin, along with co-authors David B. Kopel and Dr. Stephen P. Halbrook, show the nation's highest court "has not been quiet on this subject as previously thought."

Kopel and Halbrook are attorneys.

The authors say justices use some form of the word gun 2,910 times in the nearly 100 cases involving gun rights.

"Three dozen of the cases quote or mention the Second Amendment directly," says a statement by Bloomfield Press, publisher of the study.

The authors also show how the Supreme Court has recognized and supported armed self defense "with personally owned firearms" and that "an ancient 'duty to retreat'" from a threat "is not obligatory."

Also, the study shows "the oft-cited Miller case from 1939 is inconclusive, which is why gun-rights and gun-control advocates both claim it supports their position."

Gun control advocates say the Miller case showed the Second Amendment's "right to keep and bear arms" is granted only to states so they can arm their militias, not private citizens. The high court essentially upheld the government's authority to prosecute a person for possession of a sawed-off shotgun. However, opponents of gun control say the ruling reinforced the individual's right to keep and bear arms but only those weapons commonly used in militias.

Either way, "the record shows the [high] court actually remanded this case back to the lower court for retrial and a hearing on the evidence, since there was no evidence presented," Bloomfield Press said. "Because Miller had been murdered by that time and his co-defendant had taken a plea agreement, no retrial or evidentiary hearing was ever held."

In the study, more than 1,000 "interesting" quotations are highlighted, the authors said. Each case includes "a plain-English description" and a special "'descriptive index' reduces each case to the firearms-related questions(s) it answers."

Justices "have not been quiet on the subject, and they have not disparaged individual rights -- the days of saying that are now over," said Bloomberg. "The high court could change its mind, of course, but only by rejecting a record built up for hundreds of years."

Bowling Truths
Michael Moore's mocking.

In the field of mockumentary filmmaking, there are two giants. Rob Reiner created the genre with his film This is Spinal Tap. Michael Moore has taken the genre to an entirely different level, with Bowling for Columbine.

In 1984, This is Spinal Tap premiered as the world's first self-described "mockumentary." The film purported to be a documentary of a heavy-metal band called "Spinal Tap." In fact, there was no such band. No group had ever hit the charts in the 1960s with a song called "Listen to the Flower People." No rock drummer named John "Stumpy" Pepys had ever died in an inexplicable gardening accident. No arena rock performance had ever featured a pair of midgets dancing around an 18-inch replica of Stonehenge.

Over the course of the movie, most viewers figured out that "Spinal Tap" was not a real band. The realization often came somewhere between the band's rocker "Big Bottom" ("I met her on Monday; it was my lucky bun day") and the sensitive ballad "Lick My Love Pump."

Still, a substantial portion of the audience sat through the entire film without ever realizing that the whole thing was a joke. They left the theatre believing that there really was a band called Spinal Tap. In response, the creators ended up producing a Spinal Tap MTV video, and even a 1992 Spinal Tap "Reunion" tour. The stupidity of a fraction of the audience had brought its own "reality" to life.

This is Spinal Tap is an excellent movie which was, unfortunately, neglected by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. No such fate befell Bowling for Columbine. While only an unusually dim minority believe that Tap is truth, Bowling for Columbine has seduced almost all of its audiences with its brazen mockumentary.

You can't really understand the artistic accomplishment of This is Spinal Tap if you naively expect to find the album Smell the Glove in your local music store. Likewise, you cannot understand the brilliance of Bowling for Columbine if you actually believe the purported facts in this mockumentary. For the benefit of the overly credulous, let me summarize some of the "facts" in Bowling for Columbine. Then, I will explain how Michael Moore demolishes the pretensions of the audience and of elite cinematic opinion in a way that has never before been accomplished.

FICTITIOUS "FACTS"

The introduction of Bowling is a purported clip from an NRA documentary, announcing that the viewer is about to see a National Rifle Association film. Obviously, Bowling is not an NRA film, and so Moore makes it clear right at the beginning that Bowling is not a documentary (based on true facts), but rather a mockumentary (based on fictitious "facts"). It's a humorous movie, but the biggest joke is on the audience, which credulously accepts the "facts" in the movie as if they were true.

The first mockumentary "fact" is the title itself. The Columbine murderers were enrolled in a high-school bowling class. After the NRA introduction, the film begins on the morning of April 20, 1999, the day of the Columbine murders. Narrator Moore announces that on that day, "Two boys went bowling at six in the morning." This serves as a setup for a later segment looking at the causes of Columbine, and arguing that blaming violent video games (which the killers played obsessively) or Marilyn Manson music (which the killers enjoyed) makes no more sense than blaming bowling.

In fact, the two killers ditched bowling class on the day of the murders. The police investigation found that none of the students in the bowling class that morning had seen the killers that day. The police report was completed long before the release of Bowling for Columbine, so the title itself is a deliberate falsehood. (I don't use the word "lie" because the mockumentary genre allows for the use of invented facts.)

After the April 20 lead-in, Bowling begins an examination of middle-American gun culture, and indulges the bicoastal elite's snobbery toward American gun owners.

We are taken to the North County Bank in Michigan, which — like several other banks in the United States — allows people who buy a Certificate of Deposit to receive their interest in the form of a rifle or shotgun. (The depositor thereby receives the full value of the interest immediately, rather than over a term of years.)

Moore goes through the process of buying the CD and answering questions for the federal Form 4473 registration sheet. Although a bank employee makes a brief reference to a "background check," the audience never sees the process whereby the bank requires Moore to produce photo identification, then contacts the FBI for a criminal records check on Moore, before he is allowed to take possession of the rifle.

Moore asks: "Do you think it's a little bit dangerous handing out guns at a bank?" The banker's answer isn't shown.

So the audience is left with a smug sense of the pro-gun bank's folly. Yet just a moment's reflection shows that there is not the slightest danger. To take possession of the gun, the depositor must give the bank thousands of dollars (an unlikely way to start a robbery). He must then produce photo identification (thus making it all but certain that the robber would be identified and caught), spend at least a half hour at the bank (thereby allowing many people to see and identify him), and undergo an FBI background check (which would reveal criminal convictions disqualifying most of the people inclined to bank robbery). A would-be robber could far more easily buy a handgun for a few hundred dollars on the black market, with no identification required.

The genius of Bowling for Columbine is that the movie does not explicitly make these obvious points about the safety of the North County Bank's program. Rather, the audience is simply encouraged to laugh along with Moore's apparent mockery of the bank, without realizing that the joke is on them for seeing danger where none exists. This theme is developed throughout the film.

From the Michigan bank, Moore moves on to an examination of the rest of Michigan's culture — or, more precisely, to eccentric and unrepresentative segments of that culture, thereby playing to the audience's feelings of superiority over American gun owners.

For example, hunting is a challenging sport, requiring outdoor skills, wildlife knowledge, patience, and good marksmanship. Most members of the urban audiences cheering Bowling for Columbine are no more capable of participating in a successful hunt than they are of conducting a three-day, backcountry cross-country ski trek, or playing rookie-league baseball. The vast majority of hunters are also very safety-conscious. In 2000, for example, there were 91 fatal hunting accidents in all of North America, within a population of over 16 million hunters.

Yet Moore ignores all of this. Instead, he comically reports an incident in which some reckless hunters tied a gun to their dog to take a funny picture, and one of the hunters was shot. According to the police reports, the foolish hunters had only a still camera, but Bowling presents a fabricated video clip which purports to have been filmed by the hunter's friend. Because the clip appears to be a home movie, Bowling makes hunters seem viciously callous: The "hunter" holding the camera continues recording after his fellow hunter has been wounded, rather than immediately stopping to help the friend.

Similarly, the ideology of gun ownership and civil liberty is not presented by reference to Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, or to legal scholars such as liberal Democrats Sanford Levinson or Larry Tribe. Instead, Moore goes to the Michigan Militia.

While Moore allows the militia members to present their case, he makes the group (which has no record of illegal violence or any other illegal activity) appear extremely dangerous by informing viewers that Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols attended militia meetings. Moore conveniently neglects to mention that the two were eventually kicked out, for talking about violence.

James Nichols, the brother of a convicted mass murderer, is offered as a spokesman for the right of free people to resist tyrannical government.

ON TO LITTLETON, LOCKHEED, AND 9/11

Bowling then departs Michigan and heads for Littleton, Colo., to develop the thesis that American militarism created the mass-murder atmosphere that resulted in Columbine.

Aerospace contractor Lockheed Martin has a factory in Littleton, so Moore asks a company spokesman if "our kids say to themselves, 'Well, gee, Dad goes off to the factory every day, and he builds missiles, he builds weapons of mass destruction. What's the difference between that mass destruction and the mass destruction over at Columbine High School?'" The camera then takes a shot of a workplace safety slogan — "It has to be foreign-object free" — to imply that Lockheed Martin employees revel in the killing of dehumanized foreigners.

Of course the connection is nonsense. While one killer's father once served in the Air Force, neither family worked in the defense industry. The other killer's parents were gun-control advocates — so much so that they forbade him to play with toy guns — unlike the many children who are shown with toy guns elsewhere in the film. One of the killers' gun suppliers was the son of a Colorado anti-gun activist. Thus, Moore might just as well have asked a spokesman for a gun-prohibition group if "our kids say to themselves, 'Well, gee, mom and day say that guns are just for killing innocent people. So if I have a gun, I guess I should use it for killing innocent people.'"

Moore returns to the bowling theme a few scenes later, to present the argument — which the audience of course supports — that neither bowling nor Marilyn Manson was responsible for the Columbine crimes. The audience is encouraged to feel intellectually superior to the politicians, who are pictured blaming Marilyn Manson.

Yet the connection the movie draws between Lockheed and the Columbine mass murder is even more tenuous than the connection with Manson. The Columbine killers had no connection to Lockheed, but they did listen to Marilyn Manson. And Brian Warner's choice of the stage name of "Manson" shows that mass killers can enjoy enduring pop-culture fame — precisely what the Columbine killers hoped to achieve. (I avoid mentioning their names so as not to assist their vicious quest.)

After blaming Lockheed for 13 deaths at Columbine, the film moves on to blaming the United States government for 3,000 deaths on September 11. It does this by arguing that we got what we deserved, because our nation revels in the killing of civilians by air.

A montage of U.S. foreign-policy atrocities (to the tune of "What a Wonderful World") concludes with the statement that the U.S. gave $245 million to the Taliban in 2000-01. The next shot is of the World Trade Center in flames.

In fact, that money was not given to the Taliban government, but rather to U.S. and international agencies that distributed humanitarian aid to the people of Afghanistan. In other words, the fact that the United States gave money to Food For Peace and for girls' schools for Afghan refugees is supposed to prove that the America deserved to be attacked by al Qaeda.

Right after the footage of the airplanes hitting the Twin Towers, Bowling shows a B-52 memorial at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. Moore intones: "The plaque underneath it proudly proclaims that this plane killed Vietnamese people on Christmas Eve 1972." The point is obvious: that the United States government and al Qaeda both perpetrate murder by airplane.

In fact, the plaque on the B-52 at the AFA is not as Moore describes it. The plaque says "B-52D Stratofortress. 'Diamond Lil.' Dedicated to the men and women of the Strategic Air Command who flew and maintained the B-52D throughout its 26-year history in the command. Aircraft 55-083, with over 15,000 flying hours, is one of two B-52Ds credited with a confirmed MIG kill during the Vietnam Conflict Flying out of U-Tapao Royal Thai Naval Airfield in southern Thailand, the crew of 'Diamond Lil' shot down a MIG northeast of Hanoi during 'Linebacker II' action on Christmas Eve, 1972."

Moore thus confirms the absurdity of the blame-America-first position popular among the Hollywood Left, by showing that such views require the ignoring of obvious facts — such as the difference between financial aid to a dictatorship and humanitarian aid to refugees, or between fighting enemy pilots and perpetrating war crimes against civilians.

BLAME IT ON THE NRA

A long mockumentary segment reports on the NRA convention in Denver in May 1999. The segment begins with NRA president Charlton Heston holding an antique rifle above his head and delivering the signature line: "From my cold dead hands." Actually, Heston never displayed a rifle or uttered that line at the Denver convention.

Moore bashes the NRA for being insensitive by holding its convention in Denver two weeks after the Columbine murders. That insensitivity is heightened by the implication that Heston did the "cold dead hands" rifle display there. Viewers are not informed that the NRA convention had been scheduled many years in advance, that Mayor Webb (who at the last minute told the NRA to cancel the convention) had eagerly solicited the NRA convention for Denver, or that the NRA drastically reduced its four-day convention, holding only its annual members' meeting, in an afternoon session legally required by its non-profit charter from the state of New York.

The litany of scapegoating (Lockheed Martin, the United States, the NRA) then abruptly shifts into the anti-scapegoating segments concerning bowling and Marilyn Manson.

In keeping with the mockumentary format, Moore tells the audience that bowling was "apparently the last thing they did before the massacre." Even if the killers hadn't skipped class, this statement would be untrue. Bowling class was at 6 A.M.; the killings began around 11 A.M.

The "scapegoat Lockheed and the NRA" segments serve as a perfect counterpoint to the "don't scapegoat bowling or Manson" segment. By leading the audience into fatuous scapegoating of Lockheed and the NRA, the film demonstrates the pervasiveness of scapegoating — even by people who denounce it.

A cartoon history of the United States comes next, on the theme that American gun owners are racist. The Second Amendment is said to have been written "so every white man could keep his gun." Actually, at the time of the Second Amendment, every state allowed free people of color to own guns. Moreover, anti-slavery activist Lysander Spooner would later use the Second Amendment as part of his argument to show that slavery was unconstitutional. Gun prohibition, he argued, is a condition of slavery; the Second Amendment guarantees the right of all people to own guns; hence slavery, and its attendant gun prohibition, are unconstitutional.

The audience is now informed that the National Rifle Association was founded in 1871, "the same year the Klan became an illegal terrorist organization." The voice-over says that this was just a coincidence, but the cartoon shows gun owners helping Klansmen to murder blacks.

The phrasing of the Klan line leaves some viewers with the impression that the Klan was created in 1871, even though the group was founded in 1866 in Tennessee. What happened in 1871 was congressional passage of the Ku Klux Klan Act, which allowed the president to suppress the Klan by denying Klansmen the writ of habeas corpus. (The Klan was, of course, composed of men who fought on the losing, pro-slavery side of the Civil War.)

President Ulysses S. Grant signed the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 into law, and worked for the rapid extermination of that terrorist organization. Grant dispatched federal troops into South Carolina, Louisiana, and Florida to destroy the Klan and to protect black voting rights. In an April 1872 report to Congress, Grant pointed out the continuing problem in some southern counties of the Ku Klux Klan attempting "to deprive colored citizens of their right to bear arms and the right of a free ballot."

President Grant also signed the Enforcement Act of 1870, which made it a federal crime for the Ku Klux Klan or similar conspiracies to interfere with the civil rights of freedmen — including their Second Amendment right to arms.

Frederick Douglass justly called Grant "the benefactor of an enslaved and despised race, a race who will ever cherish a grateful remembrance of his name, fame and great services."

The 1871 founders of the National Rifle Association were thus diametrically opposed to the Confederates who founded the KKK. The NRA founders were Union officers who had fought on the winning, anti-slavery side of the Civil War. Dismayed by the poor quality of Union marksmanship during the war, the NRA's founders aimed to improve the shooting skills of the American public at large. The first NRA president was Ambrose E. Burnside, who had served as commander of the Army of the Potomac.

Ulysses Grant left the presidency in 1877, but continued his long career of public service in retirement. In 1883, he was elected president of the National Rifle Association. From 1871 until the end of the century, nine of the NRA's ten presidents had fought against slavery during the Civil War. These included Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock, a hero of Gettysburg, and Gen. Phillip Sheridan, the famous Union cavalry commander. During Reconstruction, Gen. Sheridan served as military governor of Louisiana and Texas, and removed hundreds of local officials (including the governors of both states, and the chief justice of the Texas supreme court) from office for failing to respect the rights of freedmen and for failing to enforce laws for their protection.

In Bowling, Michael Moore brags that he is an NRA "Lifetime member." So it might be expected that Moore would inform viewers about the NRA's noble anti-slavery history. But Moore's connection to the NRA is bizarre; he told Tim Russert that he joined the group so that he could be elected its president and make it support gun control. This is aggrandized self-delusion, rather like Barbra Streisand announcing that she was becoming Catholic so that she could be elected Pope and make the Church support polygamy.

The supposedly racist nature of white gun owners is reinforced by Bowling's statement that an 1871 law made it illegal for blacks to own guns. No such law existed, although it is true that many gun laws from the late 19th century — such as licensing and registration laws, or bans on inexpensive guns — were selectively enforced in the South so as to deprive blacks of firearms. These are the same kinds of laws that Moore promotes today. Indeed, he turned the Bowling for Columbine premier into a fundraiser for the Brady Campaign, which works hard to outlaw inexpensive guns used by poor people for protection.

MEDIA FEAR-MONGERING
Having established the racism and paranoia of American gun owners, Moore now begins an extended sequence depicting the media as racist fear-mongers. He first argues that the media create irrational fears about black criminals. (According to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports, table 43, 4,238 blacks were arrested for murder and non-negligent manslaughter, compared to 4,231 whites.)

University of Southern California Professor Barry Glassner, author of The Culture of Fear, gets lots of camera time to explain how the media sensationalize crime and hype fears to unrealistic levels. And this is where Bowling's genius truly shines.

On the one hand, Bowling works the audience into self-righteous anger at "the media" for using cheap sensationalism to promote fear. At the very same time, the film uses — you guessed it — cheap sensationalism to promote fear. The very techniques which he decries in the media, Moore uses himself, with obvious approval from the audience. Moore thus enacts a real demonstration of how the audience is itself complicit in the cycle of fear.

Moore criticizes weakly researched media stories that scare people over nothing (such as phony stories about razors in Halloween apples), but at the same time, his own factual claims are either invented or taken grossly out of context.

For instance, Moore lets Glassner criticize the media for sharply increasing coverage of homicides during a period when the actual homicide rate was falling. Yet his own frantic film about the terrible dangers of American gun violence comes even as gun crime rates have fallen sharply from their early 1990s levels.

Glassner's book points out that an American schoolchild is much more likely to be killed by lightning than in a school shooting. Yet Moore's film rests on the premise that the Columbine shooting represents an American epidemic of violence.

Even while denouncing Americans for being so afraid of violent crime, Bowling for Columbine works hard to make them still more afraid.

The audience accepts Moore's cinematic fear-mongering — while congratulating itself for being too sophisticated to fall for media fear-mongering. So even as Bowling offers its audience the superficial social satisfaction of being less media-malleable than the rubes who are presented as typical Americans, the audience nevertheless falls for sensationalistic media exploitation. The L.A. Weekly noted the "tabloid" nature of Moore's film, and the film's tawdry use of cheap emotion and cheap shots could indeed serve as a model for an aspiring tabloid television producer.

Accordingly, the smug audience of Bowling is degraded not merely to the level of ordinary gullible Americans who buy into the fear-mongering on the evening news, but still further — to the trash-news level of people who are easily manipulated by tabloid media.

Thus, Bowling turns the audience's very pleasure in watching the movie into a deconstruction of the audience's blue-state social pretensions. The Bowling audience is every bit as ignorant and fearful as the audience for Inside Edition.

Moore's technique is that of turning an audience's acceptance of a work's superficial message into a much deeper message which critiques the audience itself. Thus, Bowling for Columbine makes the audience complicit in its own delegitimization and degradation. Most of the audience, of course, never "gets" the real point.

Moore's clever techniques of inversion reach an apogee with the Willie Horton ad. Political historians will remember that in the 1988 Democratic primaries, candidate Al Gore criticized Gov. Michael Dukakis for a Massachusetts furlough program under which Willie Horton — who was serving a murder sentence of life without parole — was given a weekend furlough, and raped a woman. During the fall campaign, the pro-Bush National Security Political Action Committee ran a Willie Horton commercial.

The official Bush campaign ran its own advertisement, "Revolving Doors," which attacked the furlough program but did not mention Willie Horton.

But Moore pastes text from the National Security PAC ad over film from the Bush commercial, thus creating the impression that Bush invoked Willie Horton. Moore falsifies the advertisement by pasting onscreen the text: "Willie Horton released. Then kills again." This libels Willie Horton, who perpetrated a rape but not a murder during his furlough. The audience already knows that it is supposed to be angry about the Willie Horton ad, because it was unfair and because it politically seduced gullible Americans. So Bowling does a "Willie Horton" of its own on the audience, making the film's version of the ad into a falsehood and so turning the audience into dupes of a Willie Horton ad — just like the 1988 dupes of the original ad. For good measure, the ad makes the audience believe that a black man is guilty of a crime he never committed; Bowling thereby perpetrates the same manipulation of racial fears which it accuses the media of perpetrating.

OH, CANADA!
After over an hour spent on the horrors of the United States, Moore switches to the peaceful society of Canada. He begins by arguing that Canada and the United States are very similar — except that Canada has a generous welfare state, and no culture of fear.

It's true that Canada does have a lot of guns compared to England or Japan, but Canada's per-capita gun ownership rate is about a third of the American level.

Moore films the over-the-counter purchase, no questions asked, of some ammunition in a Canadian store. The Canadian government has pointed out that such a transaction would be illegal, since the buyer is required to present identification. Moore did not respond to a request from the government's Canadian Firearms Centre to explain whether he staged a fake purchase, edited out the ID request, or broke the law.

Moore then tells the audience that 13 percent of the Canadian population is minority ethnic, the same as in the U.S. Actually, it's about 31 percent in the U.S. More significantly, blacks and Hispanics, who are involved in well over 50 percent of American homicides (both as victims and as perpetrators) make up about 2.5 percent of the Canadian population. In the United States, each group makes up about one-eighth of the U.S. population.

Comparing U.S. gun-death totals with Canada's, Moore offers a U.S. total that includes death by legal intervention (e.g., a violent felon being shot by a police officer) while omitting this same category from the Canadian total.

We return to Flint, Mich., for a long segment on Kayla Rowland, a six-year-old girl who was fatally shot in school by a male classmate the same age. Moore blames Michigan's requirement that welfare recipients work at a job. Because the killer's mother, Tamarla Owens, commuted to work in a shopping mall 70 hours a week, and because she still could not pay her rent, she was about to be evicted. She thus moved in with her brother, and then her unsupervised son found a handgun, brought it to school, and killed Kayla Rowland.

Actually, Owens earned $7.85 an hour from one job ($1,250 a month, almost entirely tax-free), plus at least the minimum wage from her second job, and received food stamps and medical care. Her rent was $300 a month. Michigan had rent-subsidy and child-care programs too, but Owens apparently did not know about them. So, contrary to the impression created by Moore, Michigan's welfare-to-work program is generous: Even without the rent subsidy, Owens earned more than enough to pay the rent. Perhaps Owens's caseworker should have told her about the available subsidies, but the caseworker's mistake hardly means that the Michigan system is the Dickensian horror portrayed by Moore.

Moore tells the audience that Ms. Owens and her son were living with Owens's brother. He doesn't tell the audience that their home was a crack house, or that the stolen gun was received by the brother from one of his customers, in exchange for drugs.

"No one knew why the little boy wanted to shoot the little girl," says Moore. Actually, the killer was the class bully; said that he hated everyone at school; had been suspended for stabbing a child with a pencil; and, subsequent to the shooting, stabbed another child with a knife.

We now get a quick cut to Charlton Heston speaking at a gun-rights rally in Flint, holding a rifle above his head. Moore explains that Heston came to Flint after Rowland was killed. Later, when interviewing Heston, Moore tells him, "You go to these places after they have these horrible tragedies." There's a considerable distortion here. Kayla Rowland was killed on February 29, 2000. Heston appeared at a Bush campaign rally in Flint over half a year later, in mid October.

Moore told Phil Donahue that "The American media wants to pump you full of fear." And that's just what Moore himself does, terrifying and angering his audience about American gun owners, George Bush, American media, American foreign policy, American welfare policy, the National Rifle Association, and the American character. The theme of the movie could well be encapsulated by D. H. Lawrence's claim that "The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer."

Bowling for Columbine revels in the tabloid-style, raw exploitation of emotion — in promotion of unjustified fear, in falsehoods and quarter-truths, in oversimplification of the problems of race, and in mean-spirited pandering to the audience's bigotry about people of different social backgrounds.

In this way, Bowling subverts its own audience. To participate in Bowling's emotional journey is to surrender to the very same mendacious hate- and fear-mongering that the movie purports to criticize. Liking Bowling for Columbine is no different from liking the sleaziest "news" show on television, except that the audience for the latter doesn't claim to be more aesthetically — or morally — sophisticated than the mainstream American public.

Bowling also subverts elite Hollywood opinion. Imagine if the Academy gave the award for "Best Music — Original Song" to a film that used an unoriginal song, such as "Jingle Bells." Such an award would show that the Oscars are based on Hollywood politics rather than on artistic merit. The presentation of Best Documentary to Michael Moore for a film based on so much untruth has proved the same thing.

Some readers may doubt that Moore intentionally created an entire film whose subtext so thoroughly contradicts its literal text and that so effectively mocks its audience and its creator. My response is that we are long past the era of being chained to an artist's precise intentions. Georgia O'Keefe is said to have denied that her flower drawings were evocative of female genitalia. Does that mean we should pretend that O'Keefe paintings are not overflowing with female genitalia?

The fact is that a mockumentary larded with untruths and brazen self-contradiction is gobbling up documentary prizes: a special award at the Cannes Film Festival, the National Board of Review's "Best Documentary," the International Documentary Association's choice for best documentary ever, and the Academy Award for Best Documentary.

Countless actors and producers may have railed at the Academy for poor taste, but no artist has ever demonstrated the film elite's hyper-partisan preference for political correctness over truth as thoroughly and well as has Michael Moore.

.50 CALIBER LIARS
Exposing Multiple Untruths from Gun Prohibitionists

Reprint permission is granted for this article, provided it is printed intact,
including this intro, and our website address is included as a link.

October 29, 2001

The mainstream media has once again demonstrated its profound commitment to printing lies and distortions to further American disarmament. This time the target of their dishonesty is the .50 BMG caliber rifle.

Before you read this dissection of the numerous falsehoods being promoted by dedicated gun prohibitionists, I'd like you to know something about me: 

Not only do I not own a .50 BMG caliber rifle, I've never had the good fortune of shooting one.  

Defending the lying, deceitful assaults being waged against the .50 BMG caliber rifle is important for at least the following reasons:

1) The lawful, decent gun enthusiasts who own them have a right to own them, period.

2) If we do not rally in defense of this caliber, we'll have to rally in defense of the .458, the .375, the .308, etc. It is folly to wait until the gun prohibitionists attack the guns we personally own -- to "wait until they come for mine" is self-important, self-defeating, and a very poor tactical move.

3) When owners of these guns feel the support of the gun rights community, those who have been inactive will join us in the cause of liberty.

5) Every last lie being spread by the gun prohibitionists about the .50 BMG caliber rifle must be corrected, every time it is spoken or printed.

Lies,  Contradictions & Nonsense	Facts, Considerations & Questions
"This is a weapon...that uses a cartridge the size of a ketchup bottle." --Bob Williamson of the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence (July 27, 2001 press conference in Chicago, Join Together)	IS THAT SO? Please click the image below to enlarge it. What you see is a .50 BMG caliber cartridge beside the smallest ketchup bottles available at the largest grocery store in town: Click to Enlarge But most families don't buy the smallest sized ketchup bottle, they buy the regular or family size -- each of which is significantly larger.  Bob Williamson Pinocchio is out there making gun-ignorant people believe the .50 BMG rifle is a bazooka! ADDITIONAL INFORMATION Visit Bob Williamson The Liar's Website. Email ICHV a copy of the larger image from above and demand a retraction: info@ichv.org, cboyster@ichv.org Read the Join Together report where his lie is repeated. Image of .50 BMG cartridge next to the ketchup bottle in my refrigerator
The gun "can shoot down airplanes." --Rep. Henry Waxman (Official Statement, October 11, 2001)	ABSURD. Mr. Waxman's deceptive statement must be based on the fact that the .50 BMG M2 machinegun was fitted into bombers during WWII to help protect the airplanes on bombing raids -- not with shots from the ground.  Those machineguns were shooting a few hundred rounds per minute at close range in a tactical situation that allowed for multiple shots and shot placement corrections through effective use of tracer ammunition. Does Mr. Waxman know any people who own bombers or fighter jets armed with .50 BMG machineguns? .50 BMG sports shooters invest a great deal of time, energy, money and study developing the skill necessary to hit a stationary targets at 1,500 yards. Some small percentage succeed, but most never do. Are we honestly to believe that these same people can shoot airplanes out of the sky -- at 30,000 feet, with a gun that doesn't even have a range of 30,000 feet on the ground -- while the plane is moving at 600MPH? To see what anti-aircraft weapons really look like, read the following pages: FLAK 36 88mm Multipurpose Gun Flakvierling 38 20mm AntiAircraft Gun Vladimirov KPV ZPU-4 Royal Swedish Army Anti-aircraft Weapons Armament/Weaponry of H.M.S. Hood History of Anti-aircraft Weaponry
"There is no legitimate civilian purpose for this gun.'' --U.S. Rep. Rod Blagojevich (Chicago Sun Times, October 22, 2001) The .50 caliber guns "have no acceptable purpose." --New York Assembly Bill 1534, "findings" "I cannot imagine a legitimate use of this gun." --Senator Dianne Feinstein, (Senate testimony, March 9, 2001)	BLATANT LIE. Sports shooters across the nation have invested thousands of dollars each in acquiring their .50 BMG caliber rifles and honing their shooting skills to participate in legitimate competitions and recreational shooting sports including professionally-sanctioned gatherings where people use the guns for legitimate civilian purposes. The fact that gun-hating Leftists "cannot imagine a legitimate use of this gun" is hardly astonishing -- they cannot imagine a "legitimate use" for almost any firearm. Why should the rest of the citizenry be restricted and repressed because of these bigots' alleged lack of "imagination?"  The idea of basing our cherished freedom to own and responsibly use whatever machine, artwork, book, or any other object that we desire on whether some narrow-minded control freak can imagine a ``legitimate use'' for that item is a disgusting insult to our entire way of life. Such Hypocrisy Many of the gun prohibitionists have been saying for a long time that unless there is a sporting use for a gun, it shouldn't be legal to own. But here we have a gun that is used in legitimate sporting events and for legitimate recreational sport-shooting all across the nation and we're being told that the sporting use isn't acceptable. Such doublespeak is typical of the deceit and deviousness of gun-haters. In any case, the Second Amendment says nothing about "sporting purposes," any more than the First Amendment does.
"They're terrorists' 'weapon of choice'." --U.S. Rep. Rod Blagojevich (Chicago Tribune, October 22, 2001)	FALSE. 1) The .50 BMG caliber is not even the "sniper weapon" of choice by our own military troops. In most common ground combat situations the .50 BMG cartridge and rifle are unnecessarily heavy and loud compared to the common .30 caliber sniper rifles. 2) There are no documented incidents of the gun being used by terrorists here. Zero. But even if there were, that is no reason to ban them, any more than 9mm cartridges should be banned because criminals misuse them. Furthermore, even if they were banned, terrorists would pay no attention to the ban, any more than they paid attention to bans on hijacking airliners, murder, and destruction of skyscrapers. A ban would merely remove the guns from the hands of law-abiding Americans -- not criminals. 3) The people who wish to ban the .50 BMG caliber rifle can only document a couple of crimes committed with a .50 BMG caliber rifle by a citizen on American soil since it was invented, and only one that actually involves someone being killed -- with a shot that could have been accomplished with any of dozens of rifles. Compared to the 40,000 deaths each year in automobiles, that's quite a record of safety and responsibility.
The bullet from this gun "can pierce tanks and concrete bunkers." --U.S. Rep. Rod Blagojevich (Chicago Sun Times, October 22, 2001)	FALSE. TANKS 1) This is not a new cartridge -- its invention dates back to just after the First World War. After its initial use in war against tanks, the tanks were upgraded with thicker, stronger steel plating to defeat .50 BMG fire. A .50 BMG round will not penetrate any modern tank's hull. 2)  If the federal government were to use tanks against We The People again like they did at the church in Waco -- where they murdered women and children in cold blood over an alleged unpaid $200 tax on guns -- it might be possible to jam the turret by shooting into the space between the hull and the turret. But in such an unlikely scenario, anyone stupid enough to take on a tank with a rifle with a projectile that cannot penetrate the hull would be taking cannonfire from the tank and probably suffering an aerial assault from an Apache helicopter armed with rocket launchers, too. Does Mr. Blagojevich honestly think that is going to happen?  If so, it would be a first. CONCRETE BUNKERS We are unaware of any concrete bunkers that might be attacked by people in America with this rifle, but just to clarify the truth, let's turn to the Army training manual, which says: "It takes 300 rounds to penetrate 2 meters of reinforced concrete at 100 meters, 1,200 rounds at 200 meters. 3 meters of reinforced concrete take 450 and 1,800 rounds to penetrate at the same distances. 4 meters of reinforced concrete 600 and 2,400 rounds, respectively, at 100 and 200 meters." (Table 8-4, "An Infantryman's Guide to Combat in Built-up Area" (MOUT) field manual 90-10-1, Chapter 8, US Army, May 1993) Who can afford that much ammo for the gun?  The low end average of $2 per round would mean someone would have to spend $600-4,800 just to get a hole through the alleged concrete wall Mr. Blagojevich wants to protect.  And why would someone risk life and limb to be the first on American soil to put an expensive hole through a thick concrete wall? REALITY Today, the .50 BMG rifle is used among civilians -- as is the case for many other calibers -- for recreational target shooting and competition.
The .50 caliber rifles "were designed for use in the Persian Gulf War." --U.S. Rep. Rod Blagojevich (Chicago Sun Times, October 22, 2001)	FALSE. Like the .30-'06 and the .45 ACP (and others), the .50 BMG has been used by U.S. troops in virtually every U.S. conflict since it was invented -- in this case dating back to its invention after World War I. The unrestricted ownership and use of common military rifle cartridges by American citizens -- such as the .50 BMG -- is a tradition dating back to the Revolutionary War. And if we are to assume by this statement that a new rifle design is supposedly "bad," consider this: Unlike the former Soviet Union and other socialist/communist countries, Americans' right to own things isn't based on need, but on the concept of individual freedom. For example, the latest Corvette goes far faster than any speed limit anywhere in this entire nation -- and people have died in America in fancy, speedy Corvettes while nobody has died from .50 BMG caliber rifle fire here. Again, even if they had, that would be no reason to ban them. If it were, cars, knives, swimming pools, plastic bags, baseball bats, hammers, bicycles and numerous other items should have been banned long ago -- because they've been misused to do harm and cause death.
CONTRADICTION: "They are selling like hot cakes, all over America." --Tom Diaz (VPC, Tallahassee Democrat, August 22, 2001) "These firearms are neither designed nor used in any significant number..." --Senators Dianne Feinstein, Chuck Schumer and Ted Kennedy (Military Sniper Weapon Regulation Act of 2001, "findings")	WHICH IS IT? You can always tell when politicians are preaching from ignorance -- they can't even keep their lies straight. One gun banner tells us the gun is "[not] used in any significant number," while the other tells us they are "selling like hotcakes." The first statement is a gross exaggeration by a demagogue and yet another sign of sheer hypocrisy.  And even if they were ``selling like hotcakes'', so what? The statement would be truer about cars (40,000 deaths per year) than about .50 BMG rifles (zero deaths per year). Gun rights activist C.D. Tavares' response merits sharing: "But if Diaz means that the increase in the popularity of this gun is relatively recent, he can take the credit for this himself. This particular gun, which doesn't even show up on a statistical radar as far as crime is concerned, is under nationally-coordinated attack by organized groups of anti-gun organizations and politicians. When any firearm is threatened with a ban, people go out and buy it before it's gone forever -- even if they wouldn't have bought it otherwise." The statement suggesting that because few people own and use the gun, it's fair game to ban is irrelevant. The Ferrari and Maserati -- among the most powerful sports cars in the world -- are used by relatively few car owners. Does that mean we should ban them? After all, more people have died in sports cars in the last week in this nation than by the criminal misuse of the .50 BMG caliber rifle since it was invented. How big are the engines in the assault cars these Senators drive?  Do they really need to have such large houses, or so many articles of clothing?
The projectile from the .50 caliber rifle is "capable of piercing light armor at 4 miles." --Senator Dianne Feinstein, (Senate testimony, March 9, 2001)	GET REAL. The Army Military MOUT manual says "At 35 meters distance, a .50 round will go through 1" armor plate." Whatever the Senator is referring to as "light armor," if it's made to modern standards, it's highly doubtful you would get penetration with a cartridge invented just after WWI. Moreover, no shooter alive could count on accurately hitting a target at 4 miles with the .50 BMG rifle -- or any other rifle, either. The Fifty Caliber Shooters Association 4-year Champion would know: "It is exceedingly difficult to hit a target, even a large one, on one shot at anything over 1200 to 1500 yards by even highly trained individuals. The myth that the rifle can be used to hit a target at extreme ranges RELIABLY is just that, a myth. Just because the projectile can travel a mile, doesn't mean you can hit anything with it, PARTICULARLY if you are using the dreaded military ammunition. The ammo is designed for a machine gun, and is generally only good for 2-3 minutes of accuracy. That equates to a 30-45" circle at 1500 yards with a perfect rifle, no wind or other conditions and a trained shooter." --Scott Nye, Past President, FCSA; FCSA National Champion 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 To even be able to SEE a target at 4 miles requires a telescope. And there is not rifle made that can be shot accurately at even half that distance. The best trained and most experienced .50 BMG caliber shooters in the world today wouldn't waste the ammo trying for something 4 miles away. Once again, Senator Feinstein doesn't know what she's talking about.
The gun "can threaten military bases." --Rep. Henry Waxman (Official Statement, October 11, 2001)	RIDICULOUS. A military base is equipped not only with fully-automatic .50 BMG caliber guns, but also with rocket launchers, various types of modern cannons and mortars, Apache helicopters and is staffed with numerous very well-trained soldiers who are fully prepared to use said equipment to dispatch anyone stupid enough to be the first person in modern American history to attack a military base with a rifle. Rep. Waxman should stop reading those hero novels -- or at least stop thinking they are real.
"The weapon can penetrate several inches of steel." --Senator Dianne Feinstein, (Senate testimony, March 9, 2001)	FALSE. Again, the Army Military MOUT manual says "At 35 meters distance, a .50 round will go through 1" armor plate." We wish simple facts were able to penetrate Mrs. Feinstein's mind.
"Many ranges used for target practice do not even have enough safety features to accommodate these guns--it is just too powerful." --Senator Dianne Feinstein, (Senate testimony, March 9, 2001)	IRRELEVANT NONSENSE. Many roads used for driving do not even have enough safety features to handle most of today's automobiles--the cars are just too powerful. Or as David Moore at Ferret50 says, "There are ranges that are not safe for .50 BMG caliber, just as there are tracks for drag racing that are not safe for Top Fuel 300+mph dragsters. No one has ever been killed by a .50 BMG rifle at a shooting range -- but there have been plenty of people killed at racing events this year."
"These weapons of war are the hottest new item in the American civilian gun market." --Tom Diaz (VPC, Tallahassee Democrat, August 22, 2001)	FALSE. These "weapons of war" were in use long before World War II.
"The intended use of these long-range firearms...is the taking of human life and the destruction of materiel, including armored vehicles and such components of the national critical infrastructure as radars and microwave transmission devices." --Senators Dianne Feinstein, Chuck Schumer and Ted Kennedy (Military Sniper Weapon Regulation Act of 2001, "findings")	FALSE. The intended use is long-distance shooting -- exactly what the gun is safely used for all across this nation. Besides, almost anything can be used to destroy. A can of gasoline can do incredible damage to the national infrastructure. 5,000 American citizens were just murdered with box-cutters, doing tremendous damage to national infrastructure -- are we going to ban them? If not, why not? More Americans drowned in 5-gallon buckets this past summer than have died by either accidents or criminal misuse of this gun since it was invented.
"It is indeed almost impossible to exaggerate the lethality of these weapons of war." --Tom Diaz (VPC, Tallahassee Democrat, August 22, 2001)	PRETTY GOOD JOB SO FAR, TOM: Examples: "...a cartridge the size of a ketchup bottle." "...can shoot down airplanes." "...no legitimate civilian purpose." "...no acceptable purpose." "...terrorists' 'weapon of choice'." "...can pierce tanks." "...can penetrate several inches of steel." "...designed for use in the Persian Gulf War." "...hottest new item in the American civilian gun market." "The intended use of these long-range firearms...is the taking of human life and the destruction of materiel, including armored vehicles and such components of the national critical infrastructure as radars and microwave transmission devices." Contradictions "...neither designed nor used in any significant number..." but "...selling like hot cakes, all over America." Meaningless Nonsense "These firearms are neither designed nor used in any significant number..." "Many ranges used for target practice do not even have enough safety features to accommodate these guns--it is just too powerful." "It is indeed almost impossible to exaggerate the lethality of these weapons of war." Psychotic Delusion "...can threaten military bases." "...can shoot down airplanes." "...capable of piercing light armor at 4 miles." What are they going to tell us next -- that the .50 BMG caliber rifle can topple skyscrapers and destroy the ozone layer? Again, we have a statement that means nothing at all. Try this, speaking of cars: "It is almost impossible to exaggerate the lethality of these machines of transportation." Only a sucker would buy the ruse.

Related Links

Defenders of the .50

Fifty Caliber Shooters Association
NOTE: I am a dues-paying member of this organization,
and I will renew my membership when asked to do so
-- without giving it a second thought.

Fifty Caliber Shooters Policy Institute

Proposed Legislation Against the .50

* Military Sniper Weapon Regulation Act of 2001 (S.505)
* New York State Assembly Bill to Ban the .50 (A-1534)
* New York Senate Bill to Ban the .50 (S-742)

Previous Reports from KeepAndBearArms.com on the .50

* How VPC distorts the record to link .50 caliber gun makers to bin Laden.
* Regarding Fifty Caliber Ban Legislation in New York
* The Fifty Caliber Gun Must Stand
* Congressman Waxman Admits He Doesn't Think
* Colorado .50 Cal & Machine Gun Fun Shoot

Exposing Other Lies & Distortions from Gun Prohibitionists

* Violence Policy Center
* Brady Campaign/HCI
* Million Mom March

Manufacturers of the .50

* ArmaLite Inc.
* Barrett Firearms Manufacturing Inc.
* Christensen Arms
* EDM Arms
* Ferret 50
* Knights Manufacturing
* LAR Grizzly
* McMillan Brothers
* Robar Companies Inc
* Serbu Firearms Inc
* Watsons Weapons

excerpts from the Meeks-Heit Health Book, from https://www.keepandbeararms.com/information/XcIBViewItem.asp?ID=2443:

lies:

``The law forbids people of any age from carrying a concealed weapon.''

``Every day, a teen dies or is seriously injured in a gun accident.''

``Carrying a weapon, particularly a gun, increases the risk of suicide.''

``The fewer weapons there are in your community, the safer you and others will be.''

malicious recommendations:

``Stay away from people who own weapons.''

``Avoid being around people who buy, carry, conceal, or use weapons.''

``Encourage others to avoid buying, carrying, or concealing a weapon. Be a positive influence.''

``I will not carry weapons.'' [student asked to pledge this]

``List and discuss four reasons why carrying a weapon increases the risk of being injured.''

``Write a rap or a poem about why it is risky to carry a weapon. Ask your teacher for permission to perform the rap or poem in class.''

from the Irish Independent, 2001-Aug-7, by Ralph Riegel:

Knife control laws to be tightened

THE Government is to review the Firearms and Offensive Weapons Act in light of the alarming spiral in violent crime.

Justice Minister John O'Donoghue is to order the review following submissions on a National Register of Weapons by a group of backbench TDs.

The Dail's Health and Children Committee chairman, Batt O'Keeffe (FF), claimed that while Irish gun-controls are amongst the best in the world, there is an alarming disparity of control for weapons such as knives and swords.

Concern has mounted over recent months at the spiral in violent crime with a retiring Cork Circuit Court Judge AGMurphy expressing anxiety that society was in grave danger of being overwhelmed by such crime.

Deputy O'Keeffe has urged a further tightening of controls under the 11-year-old Offensive Weapons Act.

"The dramatic increase in the number of people killed or seriously maimed by the use of lethal knives has prompted a significant number of people to query the free availability of these knives," he said.

The Cork TD said it was imperative for a National Register of such weapons to be compiled and for strict licensing of knives capable of inflicting serious harm.

"The 1990 Act does contain controls for knives but I believe these are inadequate to deal with the scale of the problem," he added.

Deputy O'Keeffe has made a formal submission to Minister O'Donoghue and the Department will review the 1990 Act.

One proposal is for an amnesty to be offered allowing the surrender of all dangerous knives and swords before tough new controls are enacted.

"A similar campaign called 'Bin the Blade' proved a huge success in Britain and I believe we can achieve comparable results," the TD said.

Gun Control Book Based on Faulty Data

Emory University historian Michael Bellesiles caused quite a splash when he published Arming America: The Origins of the National Gun Culture, a book that ostensibly turned our understanding of the Second Amendment on its head.

The book was enthusiastically received and celebrated by the media establishment, who welcomed it with rave reviews and awards and pronounced the book proof that the Second Amendment does not protect individual gun ownership.

Bellesiles' thesis was that the framers of the Constitution must not have intended the Second Amendment to protect an individual right to own guns because private gun ownership was exceedingly rare at the time—and stayed that way until after the Civil War when the NRA nefariously created the "gun culture" that we know today and that we ascribe, incorrectly, to the framers.

Bellesiles backed up his theses with claims that he checked thousands of probate records and discovered that guns were scarce at the time of the framing.

This thesis was provocative, but it also appears to be wrong. In fact, it appears to be worse than wrong. People who have checked Bellesiles' claims against the probate records that he says he consulted have found that he drastically under states the number of guns they show.

Northwestern University law professor James Lindgren, an expert in probate records who has closely examined Bellesiles’ work, told the Boston Globe that "in virtually every part of the book examined in detail, there are problems."

"It's clear that this book is impressive to legal and social historians who do not check the background. Law professors and quantitative historians have been suspicious about the book since its release."

The data sets Bellesiles' drew from the probate records he claims to have examined are unavailable; Bellesiles says they were destroyed in a flood. Even more damning, one set of records that Bellesiles says he relied on were destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and have been unavailable to anyone since then without access to a time machine.

Various scholars have been criticizing Bellesiles' research for months, but on Sept. 11, the Globe—fresh from breaking the tale of historian Joe Ellis’s Vietnam falsehoods — published a story revealing that the paper had investigated the claims against Bellesiles and found them to be true.

This was little noticed at the time, owing to other events, but on Oct. 3,  Emory University decided that the criticisms constituted "prima facie evidence of scholarly misconduct," and ordered Bellesiles to account for himself. What explanation Bellesiles will offer is unclear, but a finding of unforgivable sloppiness seems to be about the best he can hope for.

But for our purposes, it doesn’t matter whether Bellesiles is a fraud or merely exceedingly careless. Because there’s another failure here, one that in some ways was far more serious than Bellesiles’.

Extraordinary claims, Carl Sagan said, require extraordinary evidence. And that evidence itself requires extraordinary examination. Yet Bellesiles’ claims – which counted as "provocative" precisely because they were in conflict with everything we thought we knew about the history of guns in America – got just the opposite. The people who should have examined his evidence rushed to embrace it, because it told them what they wanted to hear.

Writer Garry Wills, who reviewed the book for the The New York Times Book Review, wrote that "Bellesiles deflates the myth of the self-reliant and self-armed virtuous yeoman of the Revolutionary militias."

The Chronicle of Higher Education featured the book on its front page, with the headline "Exploding the Myth of an Armed America." The American Prospect wrote that "The image of . . . the American founders believing in an individual’s right to keep and bear arms . . . turns out to be a myth."

Arming America even received the (up to now) prestigious Bancroft Prize from Columbia University.

Instead of reviewers who might be skeptical of Bellesiles’ research, mainstream publications assigned reviewers who were antigun.

Wills, for example, has had a reputation as rabidly antigun for years.

Carl Bogus, who reviewed the book for The American Prospect, is a longtime gun-control activist. Richard Slotkin, who praised Arming America in The Atlantic Monthly, has referred to the notion of guns as instruments of liberty and equality as "self-evidently crazy."

That such reviewers would not expend any great effort in checking out Bellesiles’ claims should come as no surprise, and in fact they didn’t. But this raises an interesting question about the claim that mainstream, traditional media organizations always make in defense of their importance: that they are careful and responsible, while alternative media and the Internet are not. The Internet, they tell us, is a domain of hype and hoaxes, while traditional media can be trusted to check things out and get them right.

Yet if one looks at Amazon.Com’s reviews of Arming America, it is immediately evident that Amazon reviewers found the problems with Bellesiles’ book a year ago, while the establishment was still smitten.

On Oct. 24, 2000, for example, Amazon reader Sondra Wilkins did something that Garry Wills did not: she checked some of Bellesiles’ sources and reported: "In checking his sources, often the ones he lists, even the particular pages that he lists, contain evidence that contradicts his claims. He quotes parts of sentences from those sources and ignores the contradictory information on that same page."

Another reader, David Ihnat, said he couldn’t believe Bellesiles’ claim that it took 3 minutes to load and fire a muzzle-loading rifle. His report: "Never having fired a flintlock before, I tried to load and fire 10 times in succession, and was able to average 50 seconds per load." His conclusion: "Bellesiles has an axe to grind, and worked it throughout this book."

Meanwhile, elsewhere on the Internet, amateur scholars were posting long critiques of Bellesiles’ work, only to see those critiques dismissed by Bellesiles and his defenders as the work of those ignorant yahoos on the Internet.

It appears, however, that the Internet is sometimes harder to fool than the establishment. Five days after the Globe story appeared, the New York Times was repeating Wills’ praise of Arming America in support of the paperback version.

Keep this in mind the next time the establishment is rallying behind a "provocative" scholarly analysis that just happens to echo views that the establishment has always held.

Glenn Harlan Reynolds is Professor of Law at the University of Tennessee College of Law, and writes for the InstaPundit.Com.

Respond to the Writer

Disarming America
One of the worst cases of academic irresponsibility in memory.

Editor's note: As the Washington Bulletin reports today, in an important development, the head of Emory University's history department is demanding that historian Michael Bellesiles write a detailed defense of his award-winning book, Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture. Melissa Seckora reported on the book and many of its false claims in "Disarming America," below.

The power of image and myth repeatedly overwhelms reality in discussions of early American firearms," writes Michael A. Bellesiles, a professor of history at Emory University, in his book, Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture. "America's gun culture is an invented tradition."

Bellesiles has done some inventing of his own. His book — which won this year's Bancroft Prize, the most prestigious award in the writing of American history — is one of the worst cases of academic irresponsibility in memory. Yet his remarkable performance has not been enough to cause either his employer, Emory, or his publisher, Knopf, to act.

Some of the most significant statements in Arming America are "based" on data that simply do not exist. In other words, they are based on nothing. For example, Bellesiles claims to have counted guns in probate records of the estates of people who died in 1849 or '50 and 1858 or '59 in San Francisco. The problem is that, according to everyone who should know, all the probate records that Bellesiles allegedly reviewed were destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire. Rick Sherman of the California Genealogical Society has said, "I am unaware of the existence of any surviving San Francisco probate files for 1849-1859. If this involves an out-of-body experience, I'd like to know how to pull it off."

The thesis Bellesiles sets out to prove is that there were very few guns in early America, let alone a gun culture, and that most of the guns that did exist were old and broken. He published an article on the subject in 1996, in the Journal of American History — a piece that won "Best Article of the Year" from the Organization of American Historians. Five months before the book came out, Anthony Ramirez of the New York Times promoted Bellesiles's thesis, presumably based on the earlier, award-winning article. He said that the probate records were the author's "principal evidence." John Chambers, a military historian from Rutgers, reviewed the book for the Washington Post, saying that the probate records were Bellesiles's "freshest and most interesting source." Edmund Morgan, one of the country's leading historians of colonial America, followed suit, exclaiming in the New York Review of Books, "The evidence is overwhelming. First of all are the probate records."

Certain historians — especially those with a strong quantitative bent — were skeptical of Bellesiles's data, but many others, including Garry Wills, uncritically embraced Arming America, most likely because it appeared to confirm what they have long wanted to believe: that the Second Amendment protects only a collective right to bear arms, that individual gun rights were deemed unimportant at the time of the writing and ratification of the Constitution.

One of those who were skeptical was Joyce Malcolm, a history professor at Bentley College who has written a book on the Anglo-American conception of gun rights. She says, "Bellesiles fails to provide even basic information about the probate figures that form the basis of his claims for the rarity of guns. And he repeatedly makes general statements that are extreme. But if you check his footnotes, a more disturbing pattern emerges. It is not just an odd mistake or a difference of interpretation, but misrepresentation of what his sources [if they exist] actually say, time after time after time."

In documents on his website, and in correspondence with other scholars, Bellesiles has not only reasserted that he used records in San Francisco, he has embellished his story by giving a location: the Superior Court. In a long interview I conducted with him, he confirmed more than once that the archives he used were at the Superior Court, and said further that he had read hundreds of probate records in both San Francisco and Los Angeles. "There were only a few hundred cases, but that's a lot of cases."

When I asked him point-blank whether he had used probate records from San Francisco County, he answered: "I used county probate records from the Superior Court. I had to go the courthouse — the San Francisco Superior Court." But the deputy clerk of the court, Clark Banayad, says flatly, "Every record at the San Francisco Superior Court predating 1906 was destroyed by fire, or other causes, in the 1906 earthquake." This is common knowledge among California probate and genealogical authorities. The probate records cannot be found at the History Center of the San Francisco Public Library either. Librarian Susan Goldstein says that the center stores some archives of the city and the county, including property deeds, general indexes, and contracts, but that it has "no record of the number of guns owned in the city of San Francisco prior to the 1906 earthquake." Kathy Beals, author of three books on San Francisco's early probate records, says that "to my knowledge, there are no official probate files in existence for years prior to 1880, and only scraps from 1880 until 1905."

I then informed Professor Bellesiles that the probate records could not be found at the San Francisco Superior Court. He changed his story: "Did I say San Francisco Superior Court? I can't remember exactly. I'm working off a dim memory. Now, if I remember correctly, the Mormon Church's Family Research Library has these records. You can try the Sutro Library, too."

Bellesiles appears to have been in error yet again. According to Martha Whittaker, a reference librarian at San Francisco's Sutro Library, the records do not exist. "All official probate records were destroyed by the San Francisco earthquake and fire because the city hall burned down." As for the Family Research Library, Elaine Hasleton, supervisor of public affairs, says that the library has an index of all estates in probate in the city and county of San Francisco from 1850, but that the index does not list information about gun ownership. "The index only lists names and the locations of the actual probate records. It does not list possessions."

Curiouser and Curiouser

The San Francisco Superior Court, the Sutro Library, and the Mormon Church's Family Research Library are not the only places that do not have an archive that Bellesiles purports to have used. In correspondence last year, Bellesiles assured would-be replicators of his research that for all but "several" of the 40 counties he examined, he did his probate research via microfilm at the Federal Archives in East Point, Ga. He wrote: "The probate records are all on microfilm in the National Archives. I went to the East Point, Georgia, federal center to read these microfilms." When it turned out that the archives in East Point did not have these materials, Bellesiles admitted that he might have been mistaken. His new story was that he went around the country doing most of his probate research in over 30 different county or state archives looking at original records, not microfilm of the original records, as he had first claimed. One wonders how he could have forgotten whether he did his research in a single library near his office or in more than 30 archives around the country.

It could have something to do with the fact that his "database" consisted merely of tick marks on pads of paper. "For the research in the book," he said in our interview, "I was going through sample years, counting numbers of inventories and checking off how many had guns with cross hatches. It was very rough reading of very difficult documents." Bellesiles claims to have counted 11,170 probate inventories; his was, at a minimum, a rather unorthodox and not very modern system for recording great amounts of historical information. What's more, Bellesiles says that all of his tick-mark notes got wet in a flood in his office and had to be discarded, leaving him with no documentation at all to back up his probate study. "All of my notes were destroyed in boxes on the floor of my office, and they got drenched, pulped."

James Lindgren, a Northwestern University law professor, criminologist, and probate expert, trained in quantitative methods, and his coauthor, attorney Justin Heather, have identified many other errors in Bellesiles's work in their paper "Counting Guns in Early America." They found that Bellesiles purported to examine about a hundred wills in Providence, R.I., that simply do not exist, and that he also misused records that do exist: repeatedly counting women as men, counting as old or broken guns that were not so listed, and claiming that there were a "great many" state-owned weapons when there was only one.

Lindgren and Heather have also determined that Bellesiles's main 18th-century probate contentions are mathematically impossible. In his book, Bellesiles reports a national mean for the period 1765-90 of 14.7 percent of probate inventories listing a gun, when every other published probate researcher — including Anna Hawley, Gloria Main, Alice Hanson Jones, and Harold Gill — has found three to five times that many. "It's a simple sixth-grade math problem, computing an overall mean from samples," says Lindgren. He and his coauthor elaborate on this at length in their paper. Oddly, Bellesiles has never disputed any of the pair's main charges. The closest he has come so far to admitting any wrongdoing was in a letter he sent to the Wall Street Journal (which had reported critically on his case): "I have come to feel that the use of my sample sets is not as statistically sound as I would like."

Other scholars who have looked into the matter concur that Bellesiles's allegations are false. Lindgren "utterly devastates Bellesiles's research," says Albert Alschuler, a law professor at the University of Chicago and author of a recent biography of Oliver Wendell Holmes. Randolph Roth of Ohio State University, the leading expert on early-America homicide rates, has looked at Lindgren and Heather's counts of guns in the Providence inventories and found them correct. A third scholar, UCLA's Eric Monkkonen, one of the country's foremost quantitative historians, says, "Lindgren's data show that Bellesiles was not correct."

Despite all this, the book's editor, Jane Garrett, still defends the book. Knopf declined to answer questions, but in a written statement Garrett said, "Hosts of reputable scholars continue to defend [Bellesiles's] methods and his conclusions. Controversies of this nature are not uncommon in the historical profession. That's what makes history so interesting."

Yet it is not so "interesting" as that. Bellesiles suggested that I speak to ten professors who knew his work, of whom I was able to speak to six. All were either negative about his work — though stopping short of accusing him of outright fraud — or cautious in their praise. And almost none of those who continue to support Bellesiles has bothered to explore the criticism of him. None could identify a single criticism as false. In fact, when I asked Bellesiles himself to point out such a criticism, he could only identify a few criticisms that, on examination, proved true. In general, my investigation of this case did not support the impression of some — such as Knopf's Garrett — that there are distinguished scholars on both sides who have carefully gone over the challenged evidence. Those who have taken the trouble have Bellesiles dead-to-rights.

Saul Cornell of Ohio State is one of the historians whom Bellesiles suggested I contact. He has looked into criticism of the author, but could not identify any particular errors in it. Cornell says that some of the criticism has been "hysterical [and] ideologically driven," while other criticism — such as Lindgren and Heather's — has been "thought-provoking [and] powerful": "We are all waiting to see what Michael's response to it will be. Even if he is proven wrong, it is possible to write an important book that moves the debate forward, even if it is flawed. We are all in Bellesiles's debt for opening the debate."

Yet Stanford's Jack Rakove, winner of a 1997 Pulitzer Prize in history, takes a much different view. A historian's claims, he says, ought to be verifiable: "Other scholars should be able to go to the archives to see whether you've quoted them accurately and used them correctly. Bellesiles will have to defend himself. If he can't do it, we will know. If he has really screwed up, he will be held accountable."

Randolph Roth, who has also found several major problems with Bellesiles's homicide counts (which he will discuss in a forthcoming article in the William & Mary Quarterly as part of a forum on Arming America), agrees: "If I am wrong, I want you to be able to fix my mistakes. The only way that can happen, however, is if I share my data and make clear exactly what sources I looked at. Michael hasn't done that yet. That is the big problem."

Those who have examined Arming America have documented hundreds of possibly intentional misconstructions of sources or outright falsehoods. The probate records aside, Bellesiles has egregious problems in the areas of homicide data, gun censuses, reports on militia arms, hunting accounts, travel accounts, the opinions of the anti-Federalists, and laws governing guns. So far it appears that Bellesiles has not been able to validate any of the challenged portions of his book. Indeed, in a new paperback edition of Arming America being released this fall, he has quietly capitulated on some of the critics' claims, retracting or altering the challenged statements about probate data from Providence.

A Career Sails On

Bellesiles told me he plans on spending the next ten years or so reconstructing the information he lost in the flood and posting it on his website. "That is what I am working on now — it is my hobby," he says.

Meanwhile, his university position seems secure, and he continues to win academic plums. Walter Adamson, outgoing chairman of the Emory history department, told me, "Nothing has come forward to me that indicates that Bellesiles deserves to be treated or included in that company of people who have been judged to fabricate their sources." He said this, however, before the revelation of Bellesiles's San Francisco inventions.

And what about Knopf? Says one scholar, "What has happened to ethics [there]? They have allowed a rogue author and an editor of apparently compromised judgment to go forward unchecked. If Knopf doesn't know that it is publishing false data, it is only because it chooses not to know. The very image of Knopf as a serious publishing house has been compromised."

One could only imagine the outcry if a conservative scholar, fabricating evidence to prove a pet conservative point, had been found to be careless (to say the least). If the purpose of historical scholarship is to construct a past that is congenial to oneown biases, then Michael A. Bellesiles can be judged a success. But that is not, of course, the purpose of historical scholarship. Those who understand that can take heart: Arming America has been disarmed by its own dishonesty.

from American Journalism Review, 2001-Jul/Aug, by Michael Bane:

Targeting the Media's Anti-gun Bias
One journalist teaches his colleagues about guns by taking them to the shooting range.

SO I'M DOING WHAT magazine writers are always doing--pitching articles--this time to one of my regular clients, a top men's magazine. I'd finished pitching and was winding up the conversation when the editor interrupted.

"There's one thing I'd like for you to explain to me," the editor said. "We send you to cool places and pay you a lot of money. You're one of our guys, one of us..."

I warily agreed.

"Can you explain to me about the guns?" he said.

Ah, I thought, the guns. Since this was one of the largest outdoor sports magazines in the country, I'd suggested a story on sport shooters. I'd also mentioned that I'd been a competitive pistol shooter for 15 years. "I'm a competitor," I told my editor. "I race bicycles, do triathlons, climb mountains. I'm also a shooter. I shoot because it's fun."

"Bullshit," he replied.

Which is how I came to have what is laughingly referred to as "the most nightmarish job in the gun culture."

I'm the guy who deals with the national media. I teach reporters, editors and correspondents to shoot. And in the year-and-a-half since, with the backing of the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), I've been running media seminars. I've come to some very unsettling conclusions about the relationship between reporters and guns. In fact, I believe the media--print and electronic--may be the single biggest casualty in the three decades of this "shooting war."

First, the seminars. NSSF brings together journalists and shooting sports champions for one-on-one instruction. The seminars are not specifically political, but, as I make clear to potential participants, no subjects are off-limits. In our first five seminars, we've had reporters from the Wall Street Journal and other national dailies, top writers for such publications as Newsweek, Outside, Men's Fitness and other magazines and electronic journalists of various stripe.

For people who are part of the gun culture, the results have been amazing. At the beginning of the seminars, almost all the journalists are anti-gun, to one degree or another, some virulently so. By the end there's a huge turnaround. How huge? Several of our participants have actually purchased guns and started competitive shooting.

"You're not the Michigan Militia," said one reporter for a national daily. "You're the kind of people I'd hang out with. Heck, you're the kind of people I'd date."

You're thinking, "That's great--they're breaking down stereotypes on both sides of the fence." But a-year-and-a-half of seminars has confirmed a simple truth--there is an overwhelming anti-gun bias among journalists, a bias that has spread from opinion to factual coverage of the issue.

Let me throw some numbers out.

A study by the Media Research Center, a conservative media watchdog group, found that during a two-year period (July 1, 1997, to June 30, 1999), ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN ran 357 stories in favor of gun control, compared with 36 against, a ratio of almost 10 to one. The biggest "offender" was ABC's "Good Morning America," which ran 92 anti-gun stories and one pro-gun story.

A study by University of Michigan doctoral candidate Brian A. Patrick, released in June 1999, found that the National Rifle Association was portrayed negatively in editorial and op-ed pieces 87 percent of the time (as opposed to 52 percent negative collectively for four other citizens' lobbying groups, including the NAACP and ACLU). More ominously, Patrick's study documented a clear anti-gun bias in the news coverage of the NRA by comparing things such as use of descriptive language, use of quotes and use of photos.

Most telling to me are the journalists who are not allowed to attend the NSSF seminars. In one case, a journalist had agreed to come. He said he had argued with his producers that there was a need to balance their coverage of firearms. Later in the week, he called to cancel, and after extracting a promise to never reveal his name or media outlet, said that his producers had nixed his visit on the grounds that they were "unwilling to present any positive firearms stories," and the best way to do that was just not assign any journalists to stories that could turn out to have a pro-gun spin. We talked for a long time, because he clearly felt he had walked into an ethical dilemma--which, of course, he had. Substitute "Hispanic" or "Democrat" for "firearms" in the above quote and try to imagine the political firestorm that would result.

In the end, he didn't attend: "They made it clear to me that my job was on the line," he said. A newbie reporter at a metropolitan daily? Nope--a veteran national political correspondent, whose name you would recognize, working for one of the most prestigious national news outlets in the country. And his is not an isolated case.

What is going on here? Do the time-honored rules of journalistic objectivity apply in every case except firearms? Have we, as journalists, reached such an overwhelming consensus that "guns are bad" that we're willing to look the other way while a journalistic tradition that's taken more than a hundred years to build is methodically disassembled?

After one of the seminars, a writer for a national newsweekly asked for a few minutes of my time. He had, coincidentally, covered the Columbine tragedy and had approached the seminar with open skepticism.

"I now understand why you guys hate us so much," he told me. "We get everything wrong, don't we?"

Michael Bane is the author of 20 books, including "Over the Edge: A Regular Guy's Odyssey in Extreme Sports" and "Trail Safe." His articles have appeared in Esquire, Rolling Stone, Men's Journal, Men's Fitness, National Geographic Adventure and other publications.