Leftist lies, misconceptions and disingenuousness in the gun control debate
Gun
grabbers treat criminals as victims. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and the
Violence Policy Center (VPC) are peddling the notion that concealed-handgun permit holders are a danger to
society. Last month, the center released a report claiming that in the past three years, 166 people
were killed by holders of concealed-weapon permits. A closer look at the evidence suggests that many of
the so-called victims of gun violence were criminals.
Comforting Myths about Gun Control.
There are certain comforting myths that the gun-control movement likes to promote. "Mandatory gun
registration would help us solve gun crimes" is a big one. Perhaps the most comforting — and
dangerous — of all is: "Give the robber what he wants, and he probably won't hurt you."
Testimony on
Assault Weapons Guts Obama's 90 Percent Lie. The myth that legal guns sales in the United States
are responsible for Mexican drug cartel violence took another serious blow last week when an ATF official testified
in Congress that only eight percent of weapons recovered in Mexico came through licensed U.S. gun dealers. This
figure is far lower than the 90 percent claim made previously as an appeal to reinstate ineffective gun laws that
expired in 2004.
Guns
are good. The notion that guns are evil is one of the most dishonest
and hypocritical arguments of the left. The fact that Rosie O'Donnell ranted and
screamed about banning guns, then employed an armed bodyguard for her kids, should
have given any intelligent person cause to distrust the anti-gun crowd.
Obama's gun problem:
Barak (sic) Obama has a problem. It is a problem that has plagued Democrats for years. ... The problem is
guns. Democrats know that they have this problem. They don't know how to respond to it.
Gun laws breed
corruption. Ordinary citizens who have had death threats or those who operate small businesses in
high crime neighborhoods have little hope of obtaining a [concealed weapon] permit. And using an unlicensed
gun to defend oneself in New York City is a guarantee of serious prison time, no matter how legitimate the
defensive need. According to information obtained through leaks and the Freedom of Information Act, many
NYC permitees are celebrities and political cronies. The last time information was released, celebrity
permit holders included … Arthur Sulzberger, publisher of the rabidly anti-gun New York Times.
Fifteen Myths about Gun Control: Firearms are
used to commit as many as 650,000 crimes each year. But firearms are also used to prevent crimes as many
as one million times each year. In fact, criminals are three times more likely to be killed by
armed victims who resist them than by the police. Would tougher gun control laws make our lives
safer? Fair appraisal of the issue requires us to put aside some common myths.
"Decommissioned"
Guns Nearly As Good As Confiscations. The Brady group and its congressional supporters are
proceeding, and making headway, with a below-radar effort to ban operating firearms from the general
public, without having to actually disarm America's 80 million gun owners. The plan is now
evolving around an innocent-sounding new legal term.
Leftists
Fight "Gundamentalism". Mockingly, the "God Not Guns" coalition labels as "gundamentalist" nearly
anyone who is skeptical about gun control as a panacea for all gun crimes. The Religious Left almost always
slams its political adversaries as "fundamentalist," while itself offering its own simplistic political solutions,
which purportedly will build God's Kingdom. In the minds of "God Not Guns," all the "violence" will end when
guns are snatched away from private owners and are the exclusive preserve of a collective authority.
Mayor Won't Use
Pistol to Start Race. Mayor Mark Mallory is refusing to fire a starter pistol to kickoff an
upcoming road race, saying he doesn't like the gun's symbolism in a city that set a record for homicides last
year. Mallory said he'll blow a whistle at Saturday's Rhythm Race 5K instead. A pistol filled with
blanks is traditionally used to start races and track meets.
What "Lord of War" Tells
us about Guns: "Guns kill people" was what the makers of this movie kept hammering into our
minds. In the opening scene, our viewpoint is manufactured into a bullet. Then, from a
bullet's-eye-view, we take a voyage overseas, get smuggled across a border by dark-skinned ne'er-do-wells,
loaded into an assault rifle and aimed at a young, innocent boy. We never see anyone pull a trigger.
More information about cultural and political bias in motion pictures can be
found here.
Democratic Gun Rights? Democrats
will not acknowledge that they really aren't changing their underlying philosophy about guns, they're simply
trying to repackage the message to make it less offensive to the tens of millions of Americans upon whose
gun rights they want to infringe. They stopped calling it "gun control" and now call it "gun safety,"
but the product is always the same: Some new scheme that ratchets down on a citizen's right to own
a gun.
The Dems' Gun Owner-Bashing YouTube
Moment: Snide is the embodiment of the left-wing attitude toward gun owners. So when
snide Joe Biden confronted a YouTube user who asked Democrat presidential candidates about gun control during
a debate Monday night, what unfolded was a Teachable YouTube Moment — the caught-on-tape embodiment
of ideological snideness toward the Second Amendment and those who defend it.
Black legislators
walk out of Pennsylvania House session. Black lawmakers from the state's urban areas, frustrated
in their efforts to get a vote on gun control measures, walked out of a House session in protest Wednesday
[12/5/2007]. A majority of members of the House Legislative Black Caucus, all Democrats, are from
Philadelphia, where 369 people were killed this year through Monday. About 80% of the deaths involved
handguns.
The Editor says...
I suspect that an even higher percentage involved black perpetrators.
Armor piercing bullets: In an
October of 1996 campaign stop, Bill Clinton met with the widow of Police Officer Jerome Harrison
Seaberry. Later at a political rally, Bill Clinton cited Officer Seaberry's death as a reason
to outlaw armor piercing bullets. But officer Seaberry died in a car crash. No guns or
bullets were involved. Armor piercing bullets have been referred to in the media as "cop
killers." But as of 1998, no law enforcement officer has ever been killed because an
armor-piercing bullet defeated a bulletproof vest.
Foes of gun ownership perpetuate many
myths. Quickly now, who said it? "The great object is that every man
be armed. … Everyone who is able may have a gun." … It was Patrick Henry. … One
of the Founding Fathers. A patriot. A revolutionary. One of those guys who
knew the intent of the Second Amendment, because he was there when it was written.
Gun
control doesn't protect us — guns do. If there were no guns, I would say allow no
guns. But since all the wrong people already have them, and the cops can't do much about it except
match their firepower, then it may well be time to arm thyself, citizen. When Florida liberalized
permits for concealed weapons in the 1980s, critics predicted a Wild West bloodbath. It never
happened. Responsible gun owners don't use guns irresponsibly. Go figure.
Gun control is based on false premises.
A year has passed since the tragic events at Virginia Tech, and there are some assumptions upon which gun control
is based that require investigation. Chief among them is the misplaced feeling that banning firearms
somehow eradicates them. When examining this notion, we can look for another example of a ban to give us
a sense of the difference between banning and eradication. There are people in America known as illegal
immigrants who are banned from being here. If the state cannot keep a person from coming into the country
illegally, what possible hope does it have in banning a gun? What is to stop the illegal immigrant from
bringing guns with him?
10
Differences between Conservatives And Liberals. Liberals believe by taking arms away from law
abiding citizens, they can prevent criminals, who aren't going to abide by gun control laws, from using guns
in the commission of crimes.
Study Obliterates the Notion that Gun
Ownership Correlates with Violence. Whether causative or not, the consistent international
pattern is that more guns equal less murder and other violent crime. Even if one is inclined to
think that gun availability is an important factor, the available international data cannot be squared with
the mantra that more guns equal more death and fewer guns equal less death. Rather, if firearms
availability does matter, the data consistently show that the way it matters is that more guns
equal less violent crime.
Fighting Climate Change, Gun Control and Income Tax Laws:
What do Virginia Tech's 32 murders, Columbine High School's 13 murders, Jonesboro Westside Middle School's five
murders, Germany's Gutenberg High School's 16 murders, the murder of 14 legislators in Zug, Switzerland,
and the murder of eight city council members in a Paris suburb all have in common? Answer: All the
murders were committed in "gun-free zones."
Things to
Think About. What do Virginia Tech's 32 murders, Columbine High School's 13 murders,
Jonesboro Westside Middle School's five murders, Germany's Gutenberg High School's 16 murders, the murder
of 14 legislators in Zug, Switzerland, and the murder of eight city council members in a Paris suburb all have
in common? Answer: All the murders were committed in "gun-free zones." So a reasonable
question is: Does legislation creating gun-free zones prevent murder and mayhem?
Anti-firearms
nuts are dead wrong. In a study of all public, mass-murder incidents in the U.S. between 1977
and 1999, economists John Lott Jr. of Yale's law school and William M. Landes of the University of
Chicago's law school … [found that in] states in which law-abiding citizens can get a concealed weapons
permit, the incidence of mass-murder shootings like the one at Virginia Tech were reduced 60%, and when they
did occur, the deaths and injuries from such attacks were reduced nearly 80%. In other words,
self-defense works.
The Truth About Guns: In
Virginia, you cannot legally use deadly force to simply protect your property. You should only
resort to it if you fear serious bodily harm to yourself or someone else. We were told in no
uncertain terms that if we shoot and kill someone, it's a homicide. A jury will determine if
it was a 'justifiable' homicide. In fact, except in your own home, it is your duty to retreat,
to remove yourself from a public situation if possible before it becomes dangerous. Isn't
that comforting?
The Editor says...
In the state of Texas, up until recently you were expected to retreat from an intruder in your own house.
But an amusing incident happened before changes in the law took effect. Keep reading...
A
Democrat's hypocrisy comes home to roost. Here is a man who evidently felt comfortable voting
against giving Texans the right to defend themselves while thumbing his nose at his own vote and blasting away
at the bad guys. … Bearing in mind that the new "Castle Doctrine" law doesn't take affect until
September 1st, I wonder if Borris Miles might face criminal charges for shooting a guy in his own house?
The only thing more delicious than witnessing yet another Democrat's rank hypocrisy would be to see a legislator
go to jail for breaking a law that he voted to uphold.
A Few Words About Gun
Control. It was only a matter of time before anti-gun nuts all over the country started calling
for stiffer gun control measures in the wake of the recent Virginia Tech massacre. If there's one thing
leftists are, it's predictable. If there's another thing they are, it's staggeringly foolish. Yeah,
we need more firearm restrictions because some nutbag went on a shooting spree on a college campus where nobody
but criminals and psychopaths could have been expected to be packing iron. As it turns out, it wasn't so
much a "gun-free" zone as it was a self-defense-free zone.
Bedlam Revisited: Why the
Virginia Tech shooter was not committed. Penning up and carefully scrutinizing the killer was
never an option. Not in Virginia or California or any other state in the union. Because in our
well-intentioned quest to maximize personal liberty, we've moved conceptual eons away from taking the concept
of dangerousness seriously. The best predictor of future violent behavior is past violent behavior, yet
we regularly grant parole to murderers, serial rapists, chronically assaultive individuals and habitual
pedophiles.
'Dark and dangerous'
Democrats under fire. America is under threat from malevolent forces intent on stripping citizens
of their liberties. Dark enemies are stalking the innocent and the public must gird itself for
confrontation. So claims the National Rifle Association, America's largest, wealthiest and most
politically powerful gun rights group, which has printed pamphlets entitled Freedom in Peril to alert its four
million members. The danger, it says, can be summed up in one word: Democrats.
Pro-Gun Liberals? The entire government
machine is based on force or the threat of violence. If I don't pay my property taxes, the government
sends out a bunch of guys with guns to kick me out of my house. If I don't claim all of my income on my
"voluntary" federal income tax return, then you send out the guys with guns to put me in jail for tax evasion.
The "gun death"
fraud: "Gun death" is a pot pourri of suicides, homicides and accidents; the supposed
link is that these deaths share a common cause: a gun was accessible, but the mere availability of guns
does not make ordinary people commit murder, or suicide or have accidents….
Hunting for feminist
scholars: I guess I've never had a deer tell me it was okay to pull the trigger. If they
ever do start to talk, whether offering or refusing consent, I promise to sell all of my firearms immediately.
The doomsday provision:
The Centers for Disease Control did an extensive review of various types of gun control: waiting periods,
registration and licensing, and bans on certain firearms. It found that the idea that gun control laws
have reduced violent crime is simply a myth.
Gun Facts
version 4.0: Over 80 pages of information, divided into chapters based on gun
control topics. Each chapter lists common gun control myths, then lists a number of
documented and cited facts that directly dispute the gun control claim. [PDF]
60 Minutes, Terrorists and Guns: Last
year the big fear was over the semi-automatic assault-weapons ban just before it expired. Sen.
Charles E. Schumer (D., N.Y.) claimed the ban was one of "the most effective measures against
terrorism that we have." Of course, nothing happened when the law expired.
Politicians
Want Gun Buyers Checked, Not Illegal Aliens. Dozens of U.S. House members who sponsored the
nationwide instant background check system for gun buyers in 1993 or backed the expansion of that system in
2002, have shown no support for a similar database intended to identify illegal aliens trying to find work in
the U.S. At least one member who supported the gun control measure is challenging the proposal to crack
down on illegal immigrants.
The
truth about guns, part two: The anti-gun side of the gun-control question seems
to believe that the world is a place where things "just happen" to them, that guns are somehow
dangerous all by themselves — "accidents just waiting to happen" — and
they conclude that the best way to prevent gun crime is for the government to get rid of
guns themselves. The pro-gun side of the debate sees the world as a place where it's
people who do things — that it's the moral character of the individual that
determines whether or not a gun will be used properly — and they conclude
that the best way to prevent gun crime is for law-abiding individual citizens to be
armed to defend themselves against criminals with guns.
Guns
Still Need Their Triggers Pulled. I've yet to see one gun shoot a
person on its own. Somebody has to pull the trigger. The hypocrisy
swarming around in the United States Senate chambers is repulsive, concerning
the ban on guns. Trying to pass the buck seems to be the only option most
of these men and women know how to do. First, it was the tobacco companies
who held a gun to the heads of irresponsible people and made them smoke and become
ill from tobacco products… now, it's the gun manufacturers who are pulling the
trigger on their guns… while in the hands of criminals.
Doctors are three times
as deadly as guns. Doctors kill three times as many people every year as guns
do — which is why the new head of the American Medical Association should stop crusading
against guns and target incompetent physicians instead, say Libertarians.
Anti-Gun Academics: This
month [December 2004] the National Academy of Sciences issued a 328-page report on gun-control
laws. The big news is that the academy's panel couldn't identify any benefits of the
decades-long effort to reduce crime and injury by restricting gun ownership. The only
conclusion it could draw was: Let's study the question some more (presumably, until
we find the results we want).
Fully
automatic propaganda: Educators are not the only ones spewing nonsense about gun
control these days. Nightline did a segment last week on the assault weapons ban with
fully automatic weapons blazing in the background, nearly drowning out the voice of Ted
Koppel (that wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing). Such weapons have nothing to do
with the 1994 ban. In fact, they have been banned since 1934.
170
Million Reasons to Own A Gun: In the twentieth century, 170 Million citizens
were executed by their own governments, presumably for political reasons, while only 37 Million
were killed in warfare.
Gun
control myths. In 1954, there were only a dozen armed robberies in
London but, by the 1990s, there were more than a hundred times as many. In England,
as in the United States, drastic crackdowns on gun ownership by law-abiding citizens were
accompanied by ever greater leniency to criminals. In both countries, this turned
out to be a formula for disaster.
Gun
control myths: part II. [One] dogma among gun control supporters is that
having a gun in the home for self-defense is futile and is only likely to increase the
chances of your getting hurt or killed. Your best bet is to offer no resistance
to an intruder, according to this dogma. Actual research tells just the opposite
story. People who have not resisted have gotten hurt twice as often as people who
resisted with a firearm. Those who resisted without a firearm of course got hurt
the most often.
Gun
control myths: Part III. While John Lott's study ["More Guns, Less Crime"] is
perhaps the best known one showing that widespread gun ownership has led to less crime,
other studies with similar findings include "Pointblank" by Gary Kleck
and the more recent book "Guns and Violence" by Joyce Lee Malcolm.
Gun Control
Group Stands Against Lawsuit Control. A gun control group that uses lawsuits in an effort to bankrupt
the gun industry says it is opposed to tort reform legislation — legislation, it says, that would "shut
the courthouse doors to victims of negligence and mistreatment."
Hunters were already suspicious about CBS'
Rather. On [the evening of Sept. 5, 1975], a much younger and very dashing Dan Rather was the
host of a CBS special entitled "Guns of Autumn." ... When the program ended, I realized Dan Rather had lent
his journalistic credibility to a hatchet job on America's hunters. "Guns of Autumn" wasn't an
examination of hunting; it was largely a one-hour condemnation of hunting.
Gun Lock Law Endangers
Families. Colorado's anti-gun lobby SAFE is threatening to promote a ballot
initiative next year mandating the "safe storage" of guns and requiring trigger
locks. After all, who could be for "unsafe" storage? Unfortunately, despite
the obvious feel-good appeal of these rules, gun locks and safe storage laws are more
likely to cost lives than to save them.
Everything is a "Gun Show". When you hear "gun
show" do you think of a father who wants to give his son a gift by letting him choose a gun from his
collection? How about a widow who pulls her husband's guns out of the closet and lets her children take
their pick? According to SAFE Colorado, these activities are gun shows if twenty-five or more firearms
are displayed.
Read this: Liberals
Gunning for "Assault" Weapons. The so-called "assault" weapons that are targeted in the 1994 law
are semi-automatic handguns, rifles, and shotguns. The ban would therefore affect nearly 50 percent
of all gun owners since many of the guns in question are "mechanically indistinguishable" from traditional
hunting rifles, according to Gun Owners of America. Likewise, The Wall Street Journal has reported that
20-30 million hunting rifles are covered by the ban. Thus, the claim circulated by liberals
that only criminals use these banned weapons is blatantly false.
Anti-gun rhetoric fails test of
time. The sky was the limit, promise-wise, when the Liberals were trying to sell their gun
control scheme [in Canada] in 1994 and 1995. No purported benefit was already too big that it couldn't be
inflated even more. No ludicrously unlikely side effect was too outrageous to be promoted as a sure
thing. Gun control was a Liberal shibboleth and the need to pass it made any tall tale justifiable.
Is Gun Control A New Religion? Gun control
advocates say that liberal permit laws increase accidental shootings, facilitate mass murders, and make fits of
rage more deadly. Twenty years ago, when facts were scarce and study of the issue was in its infancy,
such arguments carried weight. But real numbers are now available. As summarized in economist
John R. Lott's recent book, More Guns, Less Crime, the data show that liberal concealed-carry laws reduce
deaths from violent crime without any significant increase in gun accidents.
Boulder's "Common Nonsense" Gun Laws: On
January 16, 2001, the Boulder City Council unanimously passed a set of gun ordinances ostensibly intended
to "protect the public health, safety, and welfare." Unfortunately, there's no reason to believe the
laws will accomplish anything other than to harass peaceable gun owners. The ordinances provide a good
example to other communities of what not to do.
Gun Storage Law Endangers Families. [Colorado]
Senate bill 160 claims to be about "safe storage of firearms." In reality it will not save lives, but
will instead empower criminals by discouraging responsible self-defense.
Pistol-Packin'
Liberals: Liberals have it tough. Many liberals smoke, but hate big tobacco;
drink, but belong to M.A.D.D.; vote, but want the courts to overturn elections; drive their
automobiles, even to protests against internal combustion engines; are patients of tremendous
doctors, in a health-care system they say is broken; enjoy virtually every aspect of freedom,
while denouncing its guarantor, our military.
"Assault
Weapons" Bait-and-Switch: The so-called "assault weapons" ban has
absolutely nothing to do with the Rambo-style machine guns being used to frighten
the public into bad policy.
The Seen and Unseen in Gun Control: If we look
at only obvious, primary consequences, we will badly misjudge circumstances and any resulting policy will be
bad. That is one problem with gun control.
"Cop-killer" Bullets are a myth born
from media hype and nurtured by unrealistic Hollywood portrayals and the deliberately misleading claims of the
anti-gun lobby. An objective, rational look at the facts quickly separates the myth from the reality.
Gun Locks: Bound to Misfire.
Recently, the Colorado Legislature defeated two bills to mandate the "safe storage" of guns. The
legislature's decision generated loud protests from gun control activists. After all, who could be
for "unsafe" storage? Unfortunately, despite the obvious feel-good appeal of these rules, gun locks
and safe storage laws are more likely to cost lives than to save them. While accidental gun deaths
have claimed the lives of children, this happens much less often than most people might think.
If trigger locks do not interfere with
the ability to use a gun for defensive purposes, why don't police officers have them on their
weapons?
*
Taking Aim at Gun Control: The
causes of crime are more complex than experts would have us believe. The evidence appears to indicate
that gun control will not solve our crime problem.
Gun Control: Racist and
Elitist. It is shocking to find out how few people, White or Black know about the role guns
played in the civil rights movement of the 1960s.
Gun control myths:
In England as in America, sensational gun crimes have been seized upon and used politically to promote
crackdowns on gun ownership by law-abiding citizens, while doing nothing about criminals. American
zealots for the Brady bill say nothing about the fact that the man who shot James Brady and tried to
assassinate President Reagan has been out walking the streets on furlough.
Gun
control myths: part II: 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.
Gun
control myths: Part III: Professor Bellesiles has now resigned from
Emory University after an investigation into his research led to a report that raised
questions about his "scholarly integrity." But that is unlikely to stop his study from
continuing to be cited by advocates of gun control.
Gun
Controller Schumer Has an Armed Bodyguard. The Senate's leading
gun control advocate, Senator Charles Schumer — who's currently pressuring the
White House to extend the 1994 assault weapons ban — travels with an armed
bodyguard, NewsMax has learned.
The Gun-Control Exploitation
Society: Gun-control opportunists have wasted no time exploiting the serial sniper shootings
as if on a mission to undermine those who insist they be taken seriously.
"Arming
America" Author on Paid Leave Pending Probe: The author of a controversial book, which claims
there was no widespread ownership of firearms by U.S. citizens prior to the Civil War, has been removed from
his teaching position at Emory University, the school announced [recently].
Updates The
Truth Wins: Antigun scholar Michael Bellesiles gets the boot.
Gun Grabbing
Favorite Resigns: The Emory University professor accused of falsifying
documents utilized in his award winning book, "Arming America: Origins of a National
Gun Culture", has resigned his position at the school.
2nd
Amendment phonies: With the Academy Awards behind us, we now turn
our attention to the SAP Awards, honoring the biggest Second Amendment Phony.
Author under fire on accuracy
of gun research: Michael Bellesiles' book "Arming America" won praise from gun-control advocates
for "demolishing the myth" behind the individual right to gun ownership, with reviewers calling the book
"exciting" and "valuable and thought-provoking. Now Mr. Bellesiles' book, which contended that private
gun ownership was uncommon in early America, is being called a fraud. Several scholars, including some
who favor gun-control laws, say the research in "Arming America" is inaccurate or even deliberately deceptive.
Seven Myths of Gun
Control: Award-winning journalist and bestselling author Richard Poe cuts through the
blizzard of anti-gun propaganda and uncovers the truth about guns, crime, and freedom. He details the
seven most common arguments used by gun prohibitionists, debunking each one with a wealth of statistical and
legal data gleaned from top experts in the field of guns and gun rights. You will discover that,
contrary to myth, the availability of guns leads to less crime, not more; that guns do not pose a special
threat to our children; and that the Second Amendment is as vital to the lives and liberty of modern
Americans as it was in frontier times. You will also learn how the current drive to further regulate
and even outlaw firearms is a point-blank assault not only on truth but on freedom as well.
Better yet: Nine myths
of gun control: For example, Myth #1 is that "Guns are only used for killing." But
in fact, there are 65 lives protected by guns for every life lost to a gun.
A tale of tragic
irony: Barbara Graham used a gun to paralyze an innocent man, is pleading for leniency from the
courts for her actions, and she is an activist involved in demanding that firearm possession be more severely
restricted in this country.
Violence Policy Center's
License To Kill IV: In their own words …"just more rhetoric". VPC misinforms public with
improper use of statistics, unsupported statements, and outright fabrication to attack the successful CHL
law in Texas.
The
Seen and Unseen in Gun Control: The heinous shootings by young people at
public schools around the country have predictably renewed calls for more gun
control. Advocates of gun bans commit a classic fallacy that is usually associated
with economic policy. But it fully applies to all government policy,
including gun control.
Self-Control, Not Gun
Control: Disarm Americans. Force every law-abiding citizen to surrender all firearms and
America will at last be a safer place to live. Sounds absurd doesn't it? But the anti-gun lobby,
fueled by misinformation and the FBI's unprecedented political support of gun control — is
effectively eroding Americans' constitutional right to keep and bear arms.
Gun
Owners Group Lashes Out at 'Self Righteous Doctors': A new "gun safety" campaign, launched by the
Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins Children's Center is "misguided" and "aimed at demonizing guns," according to a
spokesman for the Gun Owners of America.
Rosie vs. Reality: What Every Woman Must
Know: Over 500 women use firearms to defend themselves against sexual assault or abuse each
day -- that's one woman protected every 3 minutes. That is why Rosie's hired bodyguards pack guns,
and also why you should too.
Death Among Children: Tragedy at Tommy
Lee's: Drownings are the second-leading cause of unintentional, injury-related death among
children 14 and younger, with more than 1,000 deaths a year. That's 10 times the annual number
of accidental shooting deaths for children 14 and under. If the gun-control crowd spent just a
fraction of its resources on public awareness campaigns about the risks of childhood drowning and the
importance of learning CPR, they could truly make a life-saving difference for America's youth.
Gun
Control Group Depicts NRA President As Hijacker: In
a new push for gun control legislation, an anti-gun group has launched an Internet-based
message depicting National Rifle Association President Charlton Heston as an airline hijacker.
Gun Panel Meets and Comes Under
Fire: The panel was immediately criticized for allegedly being stacked with pro-gun control
academics and funded by advocates for tighter gun control laws. John Lott, a criminal researcher
who is skeptical of gun control laws, says the panel is like "a parting present from President Clinton," that
will be delivered just in time to boost pro-gun control candidates in the 2004 elections.
Gun-Control
Group Changes Name, Keeps Agenda: When one of the nation's largest anti-gun lobbyists dropped the
"gun control" part of its name, some 2nd Amendment advocates labeled it a public-relations ploy.
Gun Control Science Misfires: Gun
control advocates used to claim that more guns meant more crime. Research demonstrated, though, that
more guns meant less crime. As the criminology argument faded, gun control advocates began arguing
guns were a public health problem.
Medical Evidence: Gun Control
Won't Solve Crime. The gun control lobby has just received a stunning setback in a new article
appearing in the spring issue of the Medical Sentinel. Written by Miguel A. Faria, M.D., the study finds
that most gun violence studies of the past two decades are based on flawed methodology and unduly influenced by
political agendas, leading to biased and incorrect conclusions.
Shots in the Dark: What do we really know
about gun crime? Almost nothing. Officials don't know where crimes occur, how criminals get guns,
what kind of guns they use, or how other risk factors such as poverty or drug use affect gun crimes. I
asked if it was then true that all existing laws were created in absence of this critical information.
Patti Culross, associate program officer of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, brought down the house
with, "I don't think it's surprising to anyone here that sometimes laws are not based on information."
The Evil Gun: When someone who is unfamiliar
with guns plans a murderous rampage, he (or she) may be inclined to pick a gun that looks like a TEC-DC9.
But that doesn't mean the existence of such guns makes murderous rampages more likely. Navegar has sold
hundreds of thousands of these guns. Every one of them was purchased by a murderer?
In the 1940's, 1950's and 1960's, anyone could buy
guns at hardware stores, army surplus stores, gas stations, variety stores,
or Sears mail order, with no waiting, no background check, no fingerprints,
no government forms... and there were no school
shootings.
*
