Liberty is an inherently offensive lifestyle. Living in a free society guarantees that each one of us will see our most cherished principles and beliefs questioned and in some cases mocked. That psychic discomfort is the price we pay for basic civic peace. It's worth it. It's a pragmatic principle. Defend everyone else's rights, because if you don't there is no one to defend yours. -- MaxedOutMama

I don't just want gun rights... I want individual liberty, a culture of self-reliance....I want the whole bloody thing. -- Kim du Toit

The most glaring example of the cognitive dissonance on the left is the concept that human beings are inherently good, yet at the same time cannot be trusted with any kind of weapon, unless the magic fairy dust of government authority gets sprinkled upon them.-- Moshe Ben-David

The cult of the left believes that it is engaged in a great apocalyptic battle with corporations and industrialists for the ownership of the unthinking masses. Its acolytes see themselves as the individuals who have been "liberated" to think for themselves. They make choices. You however are just a member of the unthinking masses. You are not really a person, but only respond to the agendas of your corporate overlords. If you eat too much, it's because corporations make you eat. If you kill, it's because corporations encourage you to buy guns. You are not an individual. You are a social problem. -- Sultan Knish

All politics in this country now is just dress rehearsal for civil war. -- Billy Beck

Thursday, October 02, 2003

In Other News, What a Great Day!

Kim du Toit reports that Anheuser-Busch has withdrawn support for Missouri Gov. Bob Holden over his (overridden) veto of concealed-carry legislation, and Instapundit reports that the Centers for Disease control has released a report finding "no conclusive evidence that gun control laws help to prevent violent crime, suicides and accidental injuries in the United States."

My favorite quotation from the article:
There are an estimated 200 million privately held rifles, handguns and other firearms in the United States, which guarantees the right to bear arms in its constitution.
Halleluja! (I wonder why Reuters didn't use the UN's significantly higher estimate of arms, but the admission that the Constitution guarantees a right to arms is a shocking admission from them.)

Least favorite quotation:
The CDC, a federal agency within the Department of Health and Human Services, is prohibited from using funds to promote gun control. HHS, however, is determined to reduce the rate of firearms-related deaths by about two-thirds by 2010.
Two-thirds of what? Two thirds of what it is now? What it was in 1994? What? And how does HHS (Health and Human Services) propose to go about it?

UPDATE: The Washington Post reports on this story here. Money quote:
Gun-control advocates quickly called on the government to fund better research.

What else is new?

Here's the link to the study:
On the other side of the blotter, however, it appears that John "More Guns, Less Crime" Lott is in for a rough time. Several people are calling for a review panel to determine if academic fraud has occurred. Instapundit has a post concerning the Lott controversy, and there are several at the Volokh Conspiracy, plus Mark Kleiman comments. Throughout this whole thing, Tim Lambert has played the role Clayton Cramer did in the Bellesile's "Arming America" affair, and he's not happy with Clayton's response in this one.

I first commented on the Lott controversy here.

UPDATE: Clayton Cramer comments on the Lott attackers, and makes some good points.

Unfortunately, defenders of Bellesiles made similar points (though considerably less factually accurate) about his attackers - until James Lindgren, a verifiably neutral party weighed in. And Lindgren is questioning Lott as well.

Just because Lott is being attacked by gun ban control proponents doesn't mean he hasn't played fast and loose with the facts.

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