The Gunner's Blog

Rule Three of the Four Gun Safety Rules states, "Keep your paws off the trigger until your sights are on the target." Or something to that effect. This news story from Sebring, Florida says that a fellow's dog stepped on a pistol that was on the floor of his truck, the gun discharged and the bullet hit the man in the leg. On the floor of his truck? That is an unusual way to carry a pistol. It created a situation that violated Rule Two. The shootee " thought the gun was unloaded ," so I'm going to have to score this one as a violation of Rule One and Rule Two for the gun's owner, and a Rule Three violation for his dog.

Vice President Joe Biden explains that you don't need an AR-15. If someone tries to come into your house, simply step out on your balcony and fire your double barrel shotgun. This seems to me to be out of touch. Many home owners prefer the AR-15 or similar rifles because rifles of modern design have several outstanding qualities for home defense. The shotgun's two shots are plainly an inadequate supply, since most shots fired in gunfights miss . In a home invasion by multiple bandits, thirty shots may be none too many, because most of those shots will miss, and because not all assailants are felled by a single hit. No, Joe, the AR-15 with its 30 round standard capacity magazine is a perfectly good weapon for home defense, and much better in the real world than a double barrel bird gun. Besides, not everyone has a balcony. The AR and comparable designs have become the de facto standard for defense rifles for honest and peaceable citizens, and with good reason. Such ...

Michael Ramirez

It is clear that most of the gun control proposals flying around Washington will do nothing to curb gun violence. What they will do is impede the exercise of a constitutional right, as it is now exercised by millions of peaceable citizens. It may be offered that the new proposals would not infringe the right too much. But they would infringe it to the extent that we would be less free afterward than we were before: Our choices and our privacy would be reduced. It is reasonable to ask what the legislation's purpose is. The pretext is not the purpose. Previous bans and registration schemes have not done what was advertised. They have often worked opposite their stated intent, making citizens less safe not more. So what is the value of such legislation? Let us grant that progressives are not stupid. They can look at Chicago or D.C., places where the Second Amendment has been infringed, and see that it hasn't worked well at all. They are not such fools as to be taken in by t...

As recently as this afternoon, CNN was repeating the canard that 40% of gun sales elude the present background check system. The number has been rather effectively challenged elsewhere in the media, but that makes no difference. Many media outlets still, as CNN does, uncritically repeat the 40% number just as if the claim had raised no questions. The number is a very old one, and though the situation has changed and the number is obsolete, it has been bandied for so many years by gun control agitators that it is now something like received truth to the anti-gun contingent. There is a good sound critique of the imaginary statistic in the National Review Online .   Among other red flags there is this: The dubious statistic of guns that avoided background checks — which is actually 36 percent — comes from a small 251-person survey on gun sales two decades ago, very early in the Clinton administration. Most of the survey covered sales before the Brady Act instituted...

Making the rounds on the Internet: Gun-free zones viewed from the other side of the law: