Category Archives: Guns

Palming The Card

Over at Unz Review, Steve Sailer comments on Baltimore’s homicide statistics, in which 303 murders were committed with handguns, and only 9 with long guns (the stats lump together rifles and shotguns, so the number of rifles used was almost certainly fewer than 9). Blunt objects and knives each were used in more murders than […]

Common Sense On Mass Shootings

From Richard Epstein. Here. See also his discussion of this essay with John Batchelor, in two parts, here and here.

Molon Labe, Mate

In response to a recent shooting spree, New Zealand decided it would disarm its citizens. The citizens, however, like their fellow Antipodeans in Australia following a similar attempt at confiscation some years ago, have generally refused to comply. Good for them. Good for them. All that such policies accomplish is to make criminals of decent […]

Eric Swalwell vs. The Second Amendment: A Fool Rushes In

In a recent USA Today opinion piece, the East Bay Democrat congressman Eric Swalwell proposed a mandatory government “buyback” of what he calls “military-style semiautomatic assault weapons” — i.e., ordinary semiautomatic rifles with scary-looking external features. (A gun “buyback” is when the government takes money from you in taxes, then gives you a little of […]

Nothing To See Here

Did you hear about this? Didn’t think so.

A Happy Surprise From The Ninth Circuit

An injunction blocking a California law that threatens gun owners with fines or imprisonment if they don’t surrender or otherwise dispose of “high-capacity” magazines (the term refers to anything over ten rounds) has been upheld by, if you can believe it, the Ninth Circuit. David French has the details in a column published yesterday. He […]

Tell A Friend

From Reason.com: how to make your own handgun — no Federal government involved, and all perfectly legal (depending upon your jurisdiction). Here.

Pot, Kettle

For as long as I can remember we’ve been lectured about the peaceful streets of England, and how that “scepter’d isle” should be a model for us of the blessings of a government that disarms its people. Meanwhile, old Blighty has been hard at work, for decades now, putting every aspect of its ancient culture […]

Two From NRO

National Review is essentially the official organ of what is often called “Conservatism Inc.” these days, but there are still worthwhile things to read over there. Here are two. First, Charles Cooke, who has been consistently excellent on gun-control topics, rebuts an Op-Ed in the New York Times that tries to tie the Second Amendment […]

Bloody Well Right

This video is everywhere today, and I’ll do my part to make sure everyone sees it. The speaker’s name is Mark Robinson: Robinson nails the essence of anarcho-tyranny in a brief and powerful sentence: speaking of the law-abiding citizens of America (and I’ll note that his remark applies to all the decent, diligent, and docile […]

Point taken!

In the news today: Al Sharpton’s half-brother charged in murder after marching against guns I have to admire Rev. Glasgow for going the “extra mile” to demonstrate how dangerous guns are, but I do think he and his pal might have asked Breunia Jennings for her permission before drafting her to participate in such a […]

Protip

A great way to prevent mass shootings is by avoiding civil war.

The Second Amendment, and the Third Law

I’ve been unable to turn on the news over the past 24 hours without immediately hearing about yesterday’s protests against “gun violence”. The news agencies have clearly learned a trick or two from their show-biz colleagues who call themselves “illusionists”: if these protests were about “violence”, the marchers would surely have something to say about […]

The mouths of babes

We’ve been treated in recent days to the spectacle of schoolchildren marching in the streets to demand legislative restrictions on gun acquisition and ownership. This sort of thing is nothing new; I remember my own adolescence, in the late 60’s and early 70’s, and the student protests of that era. When you’re that age, it’s […]

You must look at evil, because evil looks at you

With a hat-tip to our friend Bill K., here’s a good, short video (just over four minutes) on the realities of evil, guns, progressive hoplophobia, and protecting our schools.

Common ground?

Our reader, the indefatigable JK, has sent along a column by David French about “gun-violence restraining orders”, or GVROs. Mr. French argues that they are a plausible compromise between the community’s collective interest and the individual right guaranteed (not “granted”, mind you!) by the Second Amendment. Mr. French outlines some limitations that would, in his […]

Crossing the Rubicon

Last night CNN put on a televised “Town Hall” meeting on guns. I didn’t watch it, but from what I’ve heard my impression was that it was neither civil nor productive. (Astonishing, I know.) Charles Cooke comments on it, here. He calls it a “disaster for our discourse”. All comity and presumption of goodwill is […]

On sovereign power, and the right to bear arms

For those who would ban all guns in private hands — and I know many of you personally — some Q & A: What are arms for? They are power multipliers. Who has arms has power over those who do not. What does it mean to be sovereign? What is it that distinguishes the sovereign […]

How are gun ownership and homicide rates correlated worldwide?

We hear ad nauseam that more-enlightened countries around the world have lower homicide rates than the US because they have fewer firearms in private hands. This is repeated so often that a great many people simply believe it to be true. The correlation, however, actually goes the other way, as I demonstrated in this post […]

Reaping the whirlwind

It’s happened again: a massacre at a school, a shock of grief and horror and powerlessness in the face of evil, and a spasm of reaction on the part of hoplophobes, sheltered liberals, mainstream media, and Democrat opportunists (a Venn diagram with extensive overlap) to demonize gun-rights advocates and to call for government to “do […]

More

As the gun-ban furor continues, here are two more items you should read: I used to think gun control was the answer. My research told me otherwise. Mass Shootings Are A Bad Way To Understand Gun Violence

The X Factor

Just after the slaughter in Las Vegas, Hillary Clinton (remember her?) took to Twitter to offer this tendentious and ignorant comment: The crowd fled at the sound of gunshots. Imagine the deaths if the shooter had a silencer, which the NRA wants to make easier to get. In Ms. Clinton’s moated and wholly self-referential mind, […]

Don’t Kid Yourselves

In the wake of the LV massacre we hear the usual outcry from gun-rights opponents. It’s just another instance of the great and widening chasm separating the two Americas, and as always the hue and cry will simply push the two sides farther apart. In confronting this act of evil, the “progressive” mind leaps reflexively, […]

Power Tools

“Weapons are the tools of power. In the hands of the state, they can be the tools of decency or the tools of oppression, depending on the righteousness that state. In the hands of criminals, they are the tools of evil. In the hands of the free and decent citizen, they should be the tools […]

The Big Red Button

Here’s one that’s been getting a lot of linkage in the past couple of weeks: a welcoming and inclusive note from firearms instructor Larry Correia to all those folks who didn’t get what they wanted on November 8th — many of whom are just now realizing that government can be scary. Yes, we’ve known that […]

Well Said, Fred

I haven’t linked to Fred Reed in a while, but he continues to do what he does best: writing plain common sense. His latest, from the first of this month, is about gun control. Excerpts: The two most heavily armed countries in the world are (still, I think) Israel and Switzerland. In Switzerland, men of […]

Defense Makes Sense

We’ve been hearing for while — including in these pages — that even as gun sales rise and rise and rise, there are actually fewer households in which someone owns a firearm. Not so, according to Pew (via Breitbart): A Pew Research Center poll released on August 26 shows that 44 percent of all households […]

The Problem

Scott Adams (a keen observer whom you may know as the creator of Dilbert) offers an interesting explanation as to why the Democrat-Republican dispute over gun control is so intractable: On average, Democrats (that’s my team*) use guns for shooting the innocent. We call that crime. On average, Republicans use guns for sporting purposes and […]

Banging Their Spoons

Time to stick a fork in, America. Today we have a sit-in in the House of Representatives. A sit-in. (Next they will hold their breaths until they die, and then we’ll be sorry!) Maybe they should have been given a trigger warning.

Returning Fire

With a hat-tip to Bill V, here’s an outstanding essay on “gun control”, written by firearms expert Larry Correia in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre a few years ago. Will it change anyone’s mind? If good sense like this doesn’t, then nothing will. Send it to your friends.

Worlds In Collision

By now you’ve heard about the massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando. The killer was a Muslim named Omar Mir Seddique Mateen, from a family of Afghan immigrants. As I write, 50 people have died (including the jihadi himself). The count will almost certainly rise, as many are gravely wounded. Nobody should be surprised […]

Defending Self-Defense

Just a few months ago we mentioned Judge Richard Leon, of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. Back then we praised him for putting the kibosh on a sneaky little maneuver by the DOJ regarding voter ID. Well, this patriotic magistrate deserves our kudos once again: he has just ruled against […]

Hoplology 101

Here’s another clarifying and informative piece by Sean Davis on firearms: 14 Things Everyone Should Understand About Guns. (I say “another” above because we’ve linked to Mr. Davis’s articles, such as this one, before.)

Odd Couple

I grew up in rural western New Jersey, where guns, and hunting, were ubiquitous. There was no mystique about them, and no agenda; they were just another thing. I learned to shoot as a little boy, and used to love plinking with a .22 at the farm down the road where my best friend lived. […]

The Second Amendment, And How It Got That Way

For you blue-state dwellers, here’s some ammo for those cocktail-party ambushes.

Knock Yourself Out

Something I hear a lot, in the ultra-blue precincts I haunt, is that the Second Amendment is a superannuated relic, an eighteenth-century atavism, and has no place in modern America. I hear mutterings about flintlocks and muskets, and become aware of a prevailing sentiment that the thing simply ought to be chucked. Well, have a […]

Troubleshooting Gun Violence

A recent exchange on Twitter (another urgent call for gun bans, in reaction to the spree-killing in Charleston) reminded me once again the extent to which gun-control zealots are driven, not by reason and wisdom, but by missionary Utopianism, cultural resentment, naive and sheltered pacifism, and lust for social control. (As someone once said, gun […]

What Media Bias?

Charles Cooke of NRO catches the New York Times in a tendentious lie. Here. P.S. The Times has since updated its post.

Old Wine, New Bottle

The New Yorker‘s essayist Adam Gopnik — whom I have always considered to be quite lavishly talented, despite his dainty and epicene style — beclowned himself one minute into this New Year with a stupendously mawkish item on gun control. It is so bad, in fact — so completely barren of fact, rational argument, or […]

This Ain’t The Movies

Perhaps the silliest response to the Ferguson incident is one I’ve heard at least a dozen times, both publicly and privately: “Why didn’t the officer just wound him?” The speaker is invariably an Eloi hoplophobe who wouldn’t know a Ruger from arugula. It’s fatiguing. With a hat tip to the indefatigable JK, here’s Michael Yon […]

Loaded For Bear

This bill just passed in Missouri: SCS/SJR 36 – This proposed constitutional amendment, if approved by voters, modifies provisions regarding the right to keep and bear arms. This amendment provides that a citizen has the right to keep and bear arms, ammunition, and accessories typical to the normal function of such arms, in defense of […]

And They Tell Me You Are Brutal

Chicago has been a bloody place lately. Over the Fourth of July weekend, there were 82 shootings, 16 of which were lethal. The reflex of the Left, as always, is to call for more (and in keeping with the relentless impulse of both the Left and of democracies generally, more centralized) government control. Here’s the […]

Hillary Lays It On

Here’s a little clip from a public appearance by Hillary Clinton today. It’s only a couple of minutes long, but is, let’s just say, densely packed. As the clip begins, Ms. Clinton is asked by an androgynous, hoplophobic sycophant whether she thinks that banning “assault weapons” and “high-capacity magazines” would exert a downward pressure on […]

A Columbine Survivor’s Open Letter On Gun Control

A young man named Evan Todd, who is a survivor and eyewitness of the Columbine massacre, has written an open letter to the President urging him to reconsider his support of Federal gun-rights infringements. You can read it here. One quibble: arguing against universal background checks, Mr. Todd asks “is a universal background check system […]

Those Guys

NRO’s Jim Geraghty attended the National Rifle Association’s annual convention last week in Indianapolis, and today he summed up his impressions in an excellent post. I had begun to cull some excerpts, but really you should go read the whole thing yourself. It’s here. Best line: “Hi, I’m here to change your culture!’

Recoil

Some heartening news on the Second Amendment front: First, the good people of Connecticut are defying that state’s new registration laws with some old-fashioned civil disobedience. This is what you get when you pass bad laws: people will not respect them, and will not obey them. Second, the Ninth Circuit (!) has tossed out, as […]

Little By Little

The Second Amendment notwithstanding, it appears that some pretty serious infringement is under consideration in Massachusetts, right-to-bear-arms-wise. Boston.com reports (my emphasis): More than a year after the school shootings in Newtown, Conn., a panel of academic experts today released a long-awaited report recommending that Massachusetts tighten its gun laws, which are already considered among the […]

The Toothpaste Has Left The Tube

Here’s a 3D-printed 1911. In metal.

Blasts From The Past

For you bitter clingers, here’s a WWII-era training film: combat firing with the 1911 .45 ACP. One thing modern shooters will notice (and did, if you read the comments at the linked clip): the lack of emphasis on trigger and muzzle safety, which nowadays is the first thing you learn in any training course.

Jim Geraghty On Gun Control And Mass Shootings

In his daily newsletter, Morning Jolt, political commentator Jim Geraghty posts a response to a question from NPR on “what kind of debates the country should have after a mass-shooting tragedy”. * I’m reproducing Mr. Geraghty’s answer in full, below, because I think it is forthright and sensible.