OT: Americans love their guns

[Grzegorz Staniak]

Al Kirke writes:

>> This sort of thing still happens (it hits the news whenever such a
> shooting
>> occurs),
> 
> You're correct in that this sort of thing hits the news. What doesn't
> hit the news are the instances when handguns are used for personal
> defense.  John Lott wrote a whole book about liberal news bias
> aganst those instances.
> 
> http://www.wmsa.net/people/john_lott/030822_bias_star.htm

I think it's a mistake to cite Lott here. As an extreme libertarian he
has shown his own bias a couple of times. His famous "More guns, less
crime" findings has been challenged recently (see e.g.
http://www.jointogether.org/gv/news/alerts/reader/0,2061,562387,00.html),
and he could not produce any evidence whatsoever that his telephone
survey on the crime-repelling effects of gun carrying has been actually
conducted.
 
[---] 
> But the biggest difference that household firearms make in
> society is in the hot burglary statistics.   

Another one is that half of the burglars serving time in US prisons
admit to have stolen a gun at least once. That means a lot of guns in
the hands of criminals.

[---]
> A current judicial move concerns the 2nd Amendment. 5th
> Circuit in New Orleans says its an individual right to keep
> and bear arms, 9th Circuit in San Francisco (where else?)
> says the right belongs to the national guard.  This conflict
> will reach the SCOTUS in the next year or so.

It is a myth that the 2nd Amendment warrants "an individual right to
keep and bear arms":

http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/issuebriefs/second.asp

	A well-regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free
	State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be
	infringed."

Pro-gun activists have made it a habit to omit the first, crucial part
of the above sentence. Nonetheless, it is one of the well-established
facts od the US constitutional law that gun-restricting laws are NOT in
conflict with the 2nd Amendment. Actually, AFAIR no such law has ever
been overturned on constitutional grounds.

> Al

-- 
Grzegorz Staniak <gstaniak at zagiel.com.pl>