Every time there’s a highly publicized shooting, out go the cries for stricter gun control laws, and it was no different with the recent murder of Philadelphia Police Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski. Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell and Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, in a letter to the state congressional delegation demanding reenactment of the federal assault weapon [...]
Archive | Guns
Defining the Right of Self-Defense by Gun
First, the robber hit Willie Lee Hill more than fifty times with a can of soda, knocking him unconscious. Later, the 93-year-old victim awakened, covered with blood, to find his 24-year-old assailant ransacking the bedroom. When Hill pulled out a .38-caliber handgun from near his bed, the robber lunged at him. Hill stopped his attacker [...]
Fighting Climate Change, Gun Control and Income Tax Laws
Last week, Japan pledged $100 million in grants to fight global climate change. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the world’s major leader in the struggle against climate change. The World Conservation Union has recently recognized the work of women from all over the world fighting against climate change. We might want [...]
Unicorns, Jedi, and Plastic Guns
During the recent vice presidential debate, Senator Edwards criticized Vice President Cheney for voting “against banning plastic weapons that can pass through metal detectors.” The ban to which Edwards was referring was the Undetectable Firearms Act of 1988. Cheney was one of only four representatives to vote against it. Although this might bother some readers, [...]
Pass a Law! The Evils of Toy Guns
What would you do if a seven-year-old kid walked into a store where you were working or shopping and brandished a gun and said he was robbing the place? I’d slap his rear and take him home to his mother. Liberals shake in their shoes and misplace their backbones with legislation to ban toy guns. [...]
Blacks and Guns
Black Americans have a serious problem with guns. They don’t have enough of them. Despite being victimized by crime at several times the rate of whites, only 30% of black adults own guns, compared to 43% of whites.(1) Blacks are also heavily represented in California and in those northeastern and Midwestern states which, like California, [...]
Guns: A Loaded Argument
The language of the Second Amendment seems straightforward: “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.” Yet the debate rages on: Does each American citizen have the right to own firearms or not? Last year, the [...]
Gun Control Myths and the Facts
Most people who are in favor of gun control laws support such laws because they believe that these laws will reduce the number of firearms deaths. Such people are not the problem. Their minds can be changed when they learn that the facts are very different from what they have imagined or have been led [...]
Gun Control Myths: Gun Restrictions and Murder Rates
Talking facts to gun control zealots is only likely to make them angry. But the rest of us need to know what the facts are. More than that, we need to know that much of what the gun controllers claim as facts will not stand up under scrutiny. The grand dogma of the gun controllers [...]
Gun Control Myths: The Case of England
Professor Joyce Lee Malcolm of Bentley College deserves some sort of special prize for taking on the thankless task of talking sense on a subject where nonsense is deeply entrenched and fiercely dogmatic. In her recently published book, “Guns and Violence,” Professor Malcolm examines the history of firearms, gun control laws and violent crime in [...]
