Forget Guns and Ammo, It’s Time to Hoard Ink Pens

When it became clear that Barack Obama would be elected president of the United States, Americans began to buy guns and ammunition at a record pace. With the Consumer Products Safety Commission expected to make an important decision tomorrow about the future of the lowly ink pen, Americans might want to consider hoarding ink pens. For all of the stINKy details, click here.

UPDATED Danger: You're in a Gun Free Zone

UPDATE: I have made a number of revisions to my original post for clarity's sake--DT

When I finally received my concealed carry license, after months of classes, range practice, background checks, etc, it was a proud moment for me. My State determined that I was responsible enough to be permitted to use deadly force in self-defense, and to not be a danger to others. It doesn't sound like that big of a deal, but to me it was. In a way it was certification that "this guy can be trusted." And of course that carries a lot of responsibility with it.

I did not go through all of this so that I could advertise my being a "dangerous dude", or to play supercop or be some kind of cowboy; I did the work because there are people worth protecting--like my wife and my family and close friends I might be with in any given situation. And I did it because there are legions of home invaders, street thugs, terrorists, and psychos out there swimming in the "ocean" that is our society. Every now and then a person can be in the wrong place at the wrong time. And if I am ever unlucky enough to be one of those people, I want to be in a position to change the situation. I hope I never have to pull that trigger, excluding the range. But if I do, it won't be because I want to be some hero; it will be because I value my life and the lives of those close to me.

Bob Wier, writing in The American Thinker, alludes to the obvious: gun free zones may be among the most dangerous places for deranged killers in the country--especially in case of the psycho wannabes, whose only aim before they die is to get their names in the papers:

That's right: another maniac, with guns bristling all over him, walked into a "gun-free zone" and began picking off human beings as if they were ducks in a shooting gallery. There were only a few minutes left in the ocean sciences class being held in the large lecture hall of the school when a tall, thin man, dressed in black, stepped out from behind a curtain on the stage. Witnesses said he looked around, almost as though he was relishing the thought of what he was about to do, pulled out a shotgun and began the slaughter.

While scores of students were screaming and ducking for cover, the creature with the guns was certain he would get no resistance from his helpless targets. Since the killer knew it was a building in which guns were prohibited by law, and, since he intended to take his own worthless life anyway, all he needed to do was disregard the law and calmly walk up to the cowering figures and press the trigger. Before he was finished, 5 students were dead and at least 15 were wounded, many of them critically. When his blood lust ended, the murderer, Stephen P. Kazmierczak, 27, shot himself to death with one of the 2 pistols he also brought with him. One sane person in that room with a firearm could have saved those lives. On the other hand, if it had not been designated a gun-free zone, it's unlikely that the coward would have chosen the place to act out his homicidal rage. I've heard all the reasons given by gun control advocates about the need to keep guns off the streets. Yet, the slogan that keeps resounding in my mind is: "If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns."

The Second Amendment to the Constitution declares a well-regulated militia as "being necessary to the security of a free State" and prohibits infringement of "the right of the people to keep and bear arms." Even though some politicians have twisted that venerable document until it looks like Turkish taffy, it seems to me that our Founding Fathers believed that people had a right to protect themselves.

How many more massacres are we going to endure before we realize that we are giving malcontents a license to hunt humans when we broadcast the message that, "Everyone in this building, campus, church or city council meeting is unarmed?" Why not go even further and just say: "Those of you suffering from a deep seated, burning passion to kill, will be able to satisfy your hate-filled existence by entering these premises with the weapons of your choice. We can guarantee you plenty of free shots and no return fire."

Imagine the following scenario: You and your family are among about 50 other patrons eating dinner at a local restaurant. During the course of the evening, you happen to look up and see a man with a long topcoat enter the place; his hand concealed in one of the pockets. No one else seems to notice, but you have a gut feeling that he's dangerous. Although you've had training with firearms, you, like almost everyone else walking around unprotected, don't have a license to carry. If that man suddenly were to pull a gun, he'd have total control over that crowd. You and your family would continue living, only if the gunman decided not to aim his weapon in your direction.

Is that any way for a free people to live?

You tell me...

Here is the big problem I have: for gun owners who have been authorized by their State as being responsible enough citizens to carry a concealed weapon; being citizens who just want to follow the law and exist in a decent society, it is especially important to follow the laws and to use particularly good judgment.

But then I think of the so-called "Gun Free Zones"... the problem with the Gun Free Zones is that--barring a metal detector at every entrance/exit--there is no way to insure that any building or place is gun free. In both the Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois incidents, the shooter that went on the rampage was in a "Gun Free Zone". Meaning that your typical licensed gunholder could not bring their guns into the area either, lest they lose that license and pay an enormous fine. The State views these individuals as being stable enough to carry a gun around everywhere else in society. But somehow, I suddenly am not judged to be sane enough to use that same even-handed judgment when I am in a classroom? All because some utopian academics have made themselves "feel" safer by declaring their facility to be "gun free"?

Unfortunately, all of the recent American gun "massacres" in recent memory occurred in a gun free zone. Hello?? Is there anyone out there paying attention?

Now I would never advocate breaking State laws. But to pretend that it does not give me pause for the State to prohibit me from carrying my licensed weapon in precisely in the situation when I am most likely to need it--considering the entire reason I went through the arduous licensing process in the first place--would simply be dishonest on my part. If some psycho happens into a venue I happen to inhabit and proceeds to start mowing down innocents, that is precisely the time when I want to be (and morally speaking, should be...) packing.

These Gun Free Zone laws pose a huge moral dilemma for me, because I ardently believe that the Constitution does guarantee me the right to defend myself against a deadly attack, in any situation. The Second Amendment states that I can keep and bear arms. This is one dilemma, in my opinion, in which the State ought not to be siding with clueless PC utopians, but rather the "real world" sheepdogs out here that want to protect our homes and families from potential killers. What good are laws if they do not permit responsible citizens to keep ourselves from being offed by some psycho or terrorist?

Is it so much to ask of a free people to permit citizens whom the State has deemed responsible enough to carry a loaded weapon to be able to carry that weapon anywhere? (the only exception that I believe to be valid is the overriding need to protect Presidential candidates or Presidents, criminal trials, etc...)

How many more will be slaughtered in "Gun Free Zones" before the people finally wake up that they are part of the problem itself, rather than a solution?

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DISARM THE CITIZENRY AND THE COPS? GUN CRIME GOES UP!

THE UK HAS VERY STRICT GUN CONTROL LAWS AND NOT EVERY COP IS ARMED.

SO.... WHAT IS THE RESULT... READ ON...

BBC:

Armed police numbers have dropped despite a rise in gun crime, the Conservatives have said.

The fall in numbers has been most serious in "hotspot" areas with the biggest rises in offences, figures obtained by the Tories suggest.

For instance, in Northamptonshire, gun offences tripled in 10 years - but the number of armed officers fell by 56%.

The Home Office said police numbers were "historically high" and armed police strength was a local decision.

'Part of the problem'

The armed police figures were obtained by the Tories after parliamentary questions.

Merseyside saw the number of authorised firearms officers fall 15% between 1997 and 2006, while the number of reported firearms crimes rose 62% between 2002 and 2006.

In Avon and Somerset, the number of armed officers dropped from 165 to 117 in the same period, while reported gun offences went up 62%.

Overall, the number of authorised firearms officers went down from 6,738 in 1997 to 6,584 in 2006, with reported firearms offences rising more than 10%.

• TO KEEP THE PEACE, YOU NEED A WELL-ARMED CITIZENRY AND A WELL-ARMED POLICE FORCE.

• AS PSALM 29 SAYS: PEACE COMES AFTER STRENGTH.

IF THE BRITS WANT TO LOWER GUN CRIME THEY SHOULD ENCOURAGE LAW-ABIDING CITIZENS TO GET GUNS, AND ARM EVERY COP.

DRED SCOTT PROVES THE 2ND AMENDMENT WAS INTENDED AS, A PROTECTION FOR AND UNDERSTOOD TO REFER TO, INDIVIDUALS

THE DRED SCOTT DECISION WAS RACIST AND WRONG. AND ONE OF THE CHIEF REASON THE MAJORITY ARGUED THEY WAY THEY DID WAS BECAUSE THEY DID NOT WANT BLACKS TO GET GUNS. (MORE HERE.)

WIKI:

In Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1856) (the "Dred Scott Decision"),^[34] the Supreme Court indicated that:

"It would give to persons of the negro race, who were recognised as citizens in any one State of the Union . . .the full liberty . . .to keep and carry arms wherever they went."

• END OF STORY.

• ASIDE: IF ALL BLACKS WERE ARMED - AS THEY SHOULD HAVE BEEN - THEN THE KKK AND JIM CROW ERA MIGHT NEVER HAVE OCCURRED.

SELF-DEFENSE IS AN INALIENABLE HUMAN RIGHT.

WHEN THE LEFT TAKES OFF THE MASK

This is going to be a long post. It is going to touch on the issue of "gun control," but I am not trying to pre-empt the post on that subject that our co-blogger LMC has promised; my real subject is the real nature of leftism, and what you see when a leftist removes the mask of philanthropic altruism that leftists use to hide their real nature.

I apologize to my co-bloggers and readers for having been too busy to blog for too long a while, and I apologize to Reliapundit, who wants us to post more frequently and more concisely, but I think that what I am going to try to show you is worth a long post, and will contribute to what Reliapundit recognizes as a key front in our struggle against terrorism and tyranny.

If we fail to debunk and discredit leftist ideology here at home, our nation will be so weakened by defeatism and self-loathing that the United States will be unable to defeat abroad the enemies who have taken up arms to kill us all.

Here goes.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which does happen to publish the excellent writer an thinker Jack Kelly.

The Post-Gazette also has a columnist on its editorial board named Dan Simpson. He is described as a former American diplomat; it seems that his diplomatic career was spent mostly in Africa and in the Arab world. He is an unabashed "liberal" who has spewed moire than a little ink criticizing what he considers to be the extra-legal and anti-Constitutional excesses of the Bush Administration.

Here's a typical example. In January of this year, he published a column entitled "Our Misguided Quest for Security -- The U.S. is abandoning its principles at home and abroad." In this column, Simpson attacked what he saw as a threat to our Constitutional liberties:

We also have done damage to ourselves at home in response to the post-9/11 obsession with security. Last week we learned that President Bush had approved opening Americans' mail without the required court order. That followed on his taking the same position with regard to the National Security Agency's intercepting Americans' telephone and e-mail communications, in direct violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Last weekend it was his administration's taking the position that the Pentagon and the CIA could obtain Americans' financial and banking records and store them in a Defense Department database, again without court order.

The United States is trashing its system of justice, the approach to freedoms and rights that is at the core of its principles, principles that have made our country different from the Iraqs, Afghanistans and Somalias of this world.

Can you imagine? Entirely legal programs, developed with the participation and oversight of Members of Congress, vetted by the Courts, yet in Dan Simpson's view, "trashing" the American system of justice.

Why, we haven't heard such an attack on a wartime President's attempt to use the Executive powers delegated to him by the Constitution since Clement Vallandigham castigated Abraham Lincoln's (Constitutionally legitimate and Supreme-Court-validated) suspension of habeas corpus!

More recently, however, Dan Simpson decided to remove the mask of a civil libertarian, to show the world what he really thinks of the Constitution. And, incidentally, what he really thinks of his fellow Americans.

On April 29, he published a column entitled "Disarm America? Here's how." In his liberal zeal to make political hay out of the carnage at Virginia Tech, when a psychotic individual (who was allowed to attend classes despite the fact that his behavior and his writings were so frightening to his fellow-students that most of them refused to sit in the classroom with him) took advantage of the University's gun-free zone to methodically murder 32 students and faculty members, Simpson judged that the time was right to let you in on what he really thinks.

And in contrast to most of his columns criticizing the Bush Administration, from which are absent any clear description of what he would do differently, or better, in this column, Dan Simpson gives you the details:

When people talk about doing something about guns in America, one of the points that comes to the fore is, "How could America disarm even if it wanted to? There are so many guns out there." Today I want to address the question of "how" -- if we decided to. Since I have little or no power to influence the "if" part of the issue, I will stick with "how."

He has a carefully worked-out plan. He's evidently been thinking about this a lot:

Now, how would one disarm the American population? First of all, federal or state laws would need to make it a crime punishable by a $1,000 fine and one year in prison per weapon to possess a firearm. The population would then be given three months to turn in their guns, without penalty.

Got that? From out of the blue, an ordinary, God-give, Constitutionally-protected right that Americans have enjoyed even for centuries before the Constitution was enacted, would be negated by "federal or state laws." Mere possession of a firearm would become a felony.

And that would include even antique, two-hundred-year-old flintlocks, like those America's heroic forefathers used at Lexington and Concord:

All antique or interesting nonhunting weapons would be required to be delivered to a local or regional museum, also to be under strict 24-hour-a-day guard. There they would be on display, if the owner desired, as part of an interesting exhibit of antique American weapons, as family heirlooms from proud wars past or as part of collections.

Can you believe that? Your family's heirlooms would be confiscated and put on display in a museum, if you so desired, where even you would be allowed to see them!

And that's not all:

Hunters would be able to deposit their hunting weapons in a centrally located arsenal, heavily guarded, from which they would be able to withdraw them each hunting season upon presentation of a valid hunting license. The weapons would be required to be redeposited at the end of the season on pain of arrest. When hunters submitted their request for their weapons, federal, state and local checks would be made to establish that they had not been convicted of a violent crime since the last time they withdrew their weapons. In the process, arsenal staff would take at least a quick look at each hunter to try to affirm that he was not obviously unhinged.

Did you get that? Do you see what he thinks of his fellow Americans, and in Pennsylvania, to boot, where hunting is practically the state sport. But it gets worse:

There also could conceivably be a rash of score-settling during hunting season as people drew out their weapons, ostensibly to shoot squirrels and deer, and began eliminating their perceived two-footed enemies. Given the general nature of hunting weapons and the fact that such killings are frequently time-sensitive, that seems a lesser sort of issue.

In Dan Simpson's feverish and fevered imagination, hunters might indulge in a "rash of score-settling" after checking out their rifles from his "heavily guarded" arsenal. He seems to think that only disarmament could prevent his fellow Americans from murdering each other at the slightest provocation. He's obviously been living overseas for too long, and has quaffed deeply from the draught of anti-Americanism that his Arab hosts spew when they get tired of anti-Semitism.

The idea that American hunters are itching for the opportunity to settle scores with their "two-footed enemies" is absurd and obviously false. But he is raising this specter for a reason.

He wants to justify how he intends to enforce his ban on owning even antique firearms:

The disarmament process would begin after the initial three-month amnesty. Special squads of police would be formed and trained to carry out the work. Then, on a random basis to permit no advance warning, city blocks and stretches of suburban and rural areas would be cordoned off and searches carried out in every business, dwelling and empty building. Thoroughness would be at the level of the sort of search that is carried out in Crime Scene Investigations. All firearms would be seized. The owners of weapons found in the searches would be prosecuted: $1,000 and one year in prison for each firearm.

Clearly, since such sweeps could not take place all across a city, county, state or the country at the same time, guns would move. But fairly quickly there would begin to be gun-swept, gun-free areas where there should be no firearms. If there were, those carrying them would be subject to quick confiscation and prosecution. On the streets it would be a question of stopping and searching anyone, even Grandma with her walker, with the same penalties for "carrying."

There. Dan Simpson has finally let it all hang out, hasn't he? Remember Dan Simpson, the champion of your civil liberties? Who was in high dudgeon because the Bush Administration might actually use the Executive powers delegated to the President in the Constitution in order to fight the terror masters and their financiers?

Well, as it turns out, he doesn't really believe in your Constitutional rights after all, does he? "Special squads of police would be formed and trained" to confiscate your family's heirlooms, and the firearms that the Constitution specifically and categorically states are your eternal and inalienable right to possess -- and carry.

Sounds like "special squads" of storm troopers, doesn't it? This is exactly the way that the German people, beginning with the Jews, were disarmed by the National Socialist regime, and the way that the Russian people were disarmed by the communists.

And it's even worse than that, isn't it? "On a random basis," Simpson writes, "to permit no advance warning," entire neighborhoods, entire towns, perhaps entire cities would be "cordoned off, and searches carried out in every business, dwelling, and empty building." That violates several more Constitutional sections and amendments! There's no end to the laws that Simpson would abrogate, and the rights that he would trample, in order to disarm the American people. And he would imprison you for one year for each firearm he would illegally confiscate.

There it is. In all of its glory. In clear daylight. Tyranny. The absolute annihilation of individual rights, and the willful and premeditated violation of the Constitution.

Simpson would throw the second amendment in the trash:

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.

Simpson would throw the fourth amendment in the trash:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Simpson would throw the fifth amendment in the trash:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Simpson would throw the eight amendment in the trash:

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Simpson would throw the ninth amendment in the trash:

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Simpson would throw the tenth amendment in the trash:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

He would abrogate the Constitution in order to accomplish a social goal that he thinks is desirable.

Today that goal is the disarming of the populace.

Tomorrow it might be prohibition of alcohol.

If the jihadist Arab governments to whom he supposedly represented American interests had their way, it might be the confiscation of the Bible, and the prohibition of ringing the bells in a Church tower.

But no matter what the immediate goal, Dan Simpson has made it clear that he personally would advocate ruthless tyranny in order to accomplish it.

And that is the leftist mind in a nutshell.

Leftists believe that their goals are so altruistic, and their programs so beneficent, that they are authorized to use limitless coercion and the cruelest, most ruthless methods in order to accomplish them.

Which shows that they really don't love their fellow citizens; they don't grant their fellow citizens the right to live their own lives, leftists see their fellow citizens as mere objects to be used in order to make real their fevered, feverish leftist dreams.

We ignore the threat of leftism at our peril.

As David Horowitz has shown, leftists have since 1970 seized the academy. They use university faculties to promote an ideology of conformism and tyranny, and through the academy they spread a culture of cowardice, acquiescence to evil, obedience to leftist authority.

It is shocking to think that a man so filled with disdain for the United States Constitution, so filled with disdain for his fellow citizens, should have served as a representative of our Nation to foreign governments. It shows you that the cancer of leftism has deeply invaded the State Department. Dan Simpson's horrific screed reveals the motives of the State and CIA bureaucrats who have been at war against the Bush Administration since September Eleventh. They basically want to see a socialist tyranny in the United States. They are the latest representatives of the Harry-Dexter-White and Alger-Hiss school of treason. And to achieve their ends, they know that they must disarm America -- spiritually and materially.

To defend ourselves, we have to remember who they are and what they look like -- both as they really are when they happen to let the mask fall, but perhaps more importantly, with the mask on.

THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS SCOOPS MARK STEYN

Today, the BRILLIANT Mark Steyn wrote a GREAT column for NRO, titled:

"A Culture of Passivity". EXCERPTS:

We should be raising them to understand that there will be moments in life when you need to protect yourself — and, in a “horrible” world, there may come moments when you have to choose between protecting yourself or others. It is a poor reflection on us that, in those first critical seconds where one has to make a decision, only an elderly Holocaust survivor, Professor Librescu, understood instinctively the obligation to act. ...

We do our children a disservice to raise them to entrust all to officialdom’s security blanket. ... whether on a September morning flight out of Logan or on a peaceful college campus — the state won’t be there to protect you. You’ll be the fellow on the scene who has to make the decision.

... Murderous misfit loners are mercifully rare. But this awful corrosive passivity is far more pervasive, and, unlike the psycho killer, is an existential threat to a functioning society.

Well, PUNDITARIAN wrote two brilliant hyperlink-filled posts on this EXACT subject WEEKS AGO, and long before the VT Massacre.

The first was called: "THE LEFT'S PATHETIC PASSIVITY" - in which he dissected a prominent Leftie-blogger's position - (Lindsay Beyerstein) - that she would not want to have a gun at home to defend herself from an intruder/burglar.

EXCERPT:

More importantly, what she is advocating here is a lifestyle of cowardice and submission to evil. Anybody who wants to take anything you have, let them. Make a habit of it. Let them walk right in and take anything they want. Never fight someone who wants to deprive you of your property. After all, your property is just . . . your life. Lindsay wants us to work hard all of our lives, and then surrender everything we have to any thug who wants it.

That is cowardice. That is submission to any thug or bully who happens to challenge you. That is a despicable way to live.

Of course, that's the same thing that the Leftists advocate for the United States. Don't defend yourself. When fanatical jihadists murder 3,000 of your innocent fellow citizens, don't strike back -- try to understand them. Fighting back will only make them mad, you see. Just give them what they want . . .

Well, Lindsay Beyerstein, if you want to live the rest of your life on your knees, begging criminals to allow you the air you have to breathe, go ahead.

The second PUNDITARIAN post was a follow up entitled, "Let's Not Become "A NATION OF COWARDS" - and in this post he excerpted a few choice paragraphs from the famous essay "A Nation of Cowards," which Jeffrey R. Synder. HERE'S ONE:

How can a person who values himself so highly calmly accept the indignity of a criminal assault? How can one who believes that the essence of his dignity lies in his self-determination passively accept the forcible deprivation of that self-determination? How can he, quietly, with great dignity and poise, simply hand over the goods? ...

AND HERE:

Should you ever be the victim of an assault, a robbery, or a rape, you will find it very difficult to call the police while the act is in progress, even if you are carrying a portable cellular phone. Nevertheless, you might be interested to know how long it takes them to show up. Department of Justice statistics for 1991 show that, for all crimes of violence, only 28 percent of calls are responded to within five minutes.

The idea that protection is a service people can call to have delivered and expect to receive in a timely fashion is often mocked by gun owners, who love to recite the challenge, "Call for a cop, call for an ambulance, and call for a pizza. See who shows up first."

Many people deal with the problem of crime by convincing themselves that they live, work, and travel only in special "crime-free" zones. Invariably, they react with shock and hurt surprise when they discover that criminals do not play by the rules and do not respect these imaginary boundaries. If, however, you understand that crime can occur anywhere at anytime, and if you understand that you can be maimed or mortally wounded in mere seconds, you may wish to consider whether you are willing to place the responsibility for safeguarding your life in the hands of others.

AND HERE:

One who values his life and takes seriously his responsibilities to his family and community will possess and cultivate the means of fighting back, and will retaliate when threatened with death or grievous injury to himself or a loved one. He will never be content to rely solely on others for his safety, or to think he has done all that is possible by being aware of his surroundings and taking measures of avoidance.

Let's not mince words: He will be armed, will be trained in the use of his weapon, and will defend himself when faced with lethal violence. Fortunately, there is a weapon for preserving life and liberty that can be wielded effectively by almost anyone -- the handgun.

If you want to get to the core of the debate, and understand why it is both logically and morally NECESSARY to have a well-armed citizenry who can defend themselves, then read these two posts. AND MARK STEYN.

THERE ARE TWO IMPORTANT LESSONS HERE:

1 - We mustn't let the Gramscian Left disarm us. They are trying to both disarm us of our love for our traditional culture and traditional values, and our ability to defend ourselves. We mustn't let them win. If they win on these issues on the home-front, then we cannot defeat the jihadoterrorists.

2 - You should read THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS everyday, for the best in original and hard-hitting news analysis and commentary. Heck, WE JUST SCOOPED THE BRILLIANT MARK STEYN!

SPREAD THE WORD!
BLOGROLL US!
BOOKMARK US!

The Man Who Beat the DC Gun Ban

Robert A. Levy is the man who beat the Washington DC gun ban.

Meet Robert A. Levy, staunch defender of the Second Amendment, a wealthy former entrepreneur who said he has never owned a firearm and probably never will.

"I don't actually want a gun," Levy said by phone last week from his residence, a $1.7 million condominium in a Gulf Coast high-rise. "I mean, maybe I'd want a gun if I was living on Capitol Hill. Or in Anacostia somewhere. But I live in Naples, Florida, in a gated community. I don't feel real threatened down here."

He is 65, a District native who left the city 40 years ago for Montgomery County, a self-made millionaire who thinks the government interferes too much with people's liberties. He was an investment analyst before he sold his company for a fortune and enrolled in law school at age 49. Now he's a constitutional fellow with the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington, working in his luxury condo 1,000 miles away.

There is lots more. GRTWT

H/T Instapundit

Cross Posted at Power and Control and at Classical Values

BRITISH GUN CONTROL BEARS FRUIT: MORE GUN CRIME!

Three current excerpts below tell the story

British gun crime spreading:

"Gun crime is being exported from the inner cities to the shires, the senior officer in charge of the national firearms policing strategy has told The Times. Keith Bristow, lead officer on firearms crime for the Association of Chief Police Officers, was speaking as Scotland Yard battled to contain the violence in London, where one man was shot dead and another injured over the weekend.... But as the death toll mounted in the capital, Mr Bristow gave warning that the gun problem was moving to the shires.

The proportion of gun crime occurring outside the hotspots of London, Birmingham and Manchester has risen sharply from 36 per cent in 2002-03 to 45 per cent in 2004-05. The spread of gangs and guns to smaller cities and provincial towns went “hand in hand” with the expanding market for crack cocaine, said Mr Bristow, who attributed the displacement in part to a tough police response in the big cities.... The typical pattern is that a crack dealer establishes a trade in an area but, when that becomes saturated, it generates competition and violence between drug dealers and more robust policing.

These factors force some of the dealers to go elsewhere in search of new markets. They bring their guns with them.” He cautioned against the view that firearms were only a problem for the black community. “It is much more about where you went to school and whom you hang out with than about ethnicity.”

British government still thrashing at the air:

"Tony Blair announced a major review of firearms laws today in the wake of five fatal shootings in London but insisted once again that the wave of gun crime sweeping British cities was “a specific problem within a specific criminal culture” rather than a reflection of wider social ills. A man was shot in the leg in North West London overnight as armed gangs continued to show their contempt for the law. Another man was shot dead in East London yesterday and three others wounded in shootings in Manchester. The attacks follow a spate of gun murders in South London, including the deaths of three teenage boys in the past fortnight which provoked a national debate on youth crime and prompted the Prime Minister to order a review of gun laws.

Mr Blair said today that he was considering various proposals, including lowering the age at which the mandatory five-year sentence for carrying a gun can be imposed from 21 to 17 to remove the incentive for gang leaders to give guns to minors. He also confirmed his backing for a New York-style crackdown in which police could be given new powers to mount surveillance on the homes of people suspected of possessing and using firearms.... The Prime Minister said that a proposed law change to make gang membership an aggravating factor in sentencing was “the correct thing to do”....

As teams of armed police patrolled South London another man was murdered in the east of the capital yesterday. Gunmen shot a 28-year-old man in his car in Hackney before blasting him again as he tried to escape. A witness reported seeing three black men walking “confidently” away."

British Libertarians respond to mounting British gun deaths:

"The Libertarian Alliance, the radical free market and civil liberties policy institute, today calls on the British Government to take firm action over the shootings of young men in South London. It believes the best action would be to relegalise guns and let ordinary people fight back with lethal force against the violent criminals who presently rule the streets of our cities.

Libertarian Alliance Director, Dr Sean Gabb, says: "The Libertarian Alliance believes in a return to the wise laws of our ancestors, under which a person could walk into a gun shop and, without showing a licence or any form of identification, buy as many guns and as much ammunition as he pleased, and could keep these at home, or carry them about in public, for the defence of his life or property. "We have the most restrictive laws in Europe on gun ownership. These have plainly not worked. In 1968, in 1988, and twice in 1997, we were promised a safer country if only we gave up our guns. We were cheated. "In fact, the only people who have no guns are the respectable.

Those who do commit assaults are no more likely to obey the gun ban than they are to stop listening to horrid music or to wash their hands after using the toilet. "Even turning the country into a police state, with powers of random stop and search and scanners in public places, will do nothing to disarm these creatures."

(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, DISSECTING LEFTISM. My Home Page. Email me (John Ray) here.)