Gun Control

Selective Posturing on Guns

by Scott McPherson January 9, 2006

I was recently in the Passport Agency in Washington, D.C., and while standing in line I noticed a number of fliers published by the State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs providing travel tips for those going to the Middle East, China, Mexico, and Canada. Tips for travelers in China or the Middle ...

Britain’s Gun-Control Folly

by Scott McPherson December 16, 2005

A former Texas police officer is causing a stir in jolly Old England. After leaving his job in Garland, Texas, and moving with his British wife and their three children to Reading, Ben Johnson took a job as a British bobby — and had the audacity to suggest that he might ...

Ammunition Registration Unworkable

by Benedict D. LaRosa September 9, 2005

California, the land of innovative gun-control schemes, is at it again. This time the focus is on regulating ammunition — preferably out of existence — within the state. Democratic State Senator Joseph Dunn has introduced Senate Bill 357, which would require that all handgun ...

The NRA Gets It Wrong

by Sheldon Richman August 24, 2005

The concept of individual rights really isn’t complicated, but even some of its defenders get it wrong. Take, for example, the National Rifle Association (NRA). The NRA, of course, concentrates exclusively on the individual’s right to keep and bear arms, but that is no excuse for failing to ...

Yes to Armor-Piercing Bullets for Civilians

by Benedict D. LaRosa April 13, 2005

On March 3, Sens. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), Jon Corzine (D-N.J), and Rep. Eliot Engel ( D-N.Y.) introduced the Protect Law Enforcement Armor Act in their respective venues to ban the new Five seveN pistol (FN 5.7) made by Frabrique Nationale Herstal, a Belgian arms manufacturer. Efforts ...

The Greatest Safeguard Against Tyranny

by Scott McPherson February 1, 2005

One is misled not by what he does not know but by what he believes he knows. — Jean Jacques Rousseau, On Education The purpose of government is the protection of individual rights. Government officials are elected and appointed to ensure that the citizenry are safe from military invasion, as well as from the ...

Gun Control and the War on Drugs

by Anthony Gregory February 1, 2005

Many opponents of gun control support the war on drugs, and many critics and reformers of America's drug laws tend to believe in gun control. Conservatives tend to fall into the first category and liberals into the second. In reality, these two issues are more similar than many people might think. In both cases -- laws that restrict which guns people ...

Brady Wrong on Automatic Weapons

by Benedict D. LaRosa December 20, 2004

During the campaign season, James Brady, former press secretary to President Ronald Reagan, criticized Illinois Republican senatorial candidate Alan Keyes for defending the right of Americans to keep and bear arms, including machine guns. Brady called Keyes’s stand an “insane” call for a return to “the Al Capone ...

A Reply to a Gun Control Critic

by Scott McPherson November 19, 2004

From: C.H. To: fff@fff.org Sent: Saturday, November 06, 2004 3:29 AM Subject: gun control I'm curious: nowhere in that article on Gun Control does it mention Canada.  We've *always* had gun control, in one form or another.  It's never been possible for someone to walk in off the street and out with a firearm twenty minutes ...

An Unintended Consequence of Gun Control

by Benedict D. LaRosa August 16, 2004

Gun control laws, like all ill-advised measures, have unintended, often unfortunate, consequences. This is especially true in the post–9/11 environment. Recently, Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge upgraded the nation’s alert status because of credible intelligence that several financial buildings in New York City; ...

The Bill of Rights: The Right to Keep and Bear Arms

by Jacob G. Hornberger August 1, 2004

Arguably, the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution should have been made first in the Bill of Rights because without the right to keep and bear arms, such rights as freedom of speech and freedom of the press would be treated as nothing more than meaningless “privileges” bestowed and taken away by government officials at will. The Second Amendment ...

Gun Control: A Poor Substitute for Good Government

by Scott McPherson February 1, 2004

Following the horrific mass murder of 12 students and a teacher at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, in the spring of 1999, the anti-gun Left went into overdrive to pass further restrictions on Americans’ Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. Their argument was that without access to guns ...