Editorial

Buy Lotts Bias Against Guns

"The Bias Against Guns, Why Almost Everything Youve Heard about Gun Control Is Wrong," is a follow-up book to "More Guns, Less Crime," the ground-breaking work by economist John R. Lott Jr.

"Bias" examines the inaccurate coverage of guns, the role of firearms in self-defense and countering terrorism, and the impact of gun-control laws such as waiting periods and regulations on gun shows. Lott, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, writes in Bias that guns receive tremendous attention from media and government.

And he asks rhetorically if these institutions do a good job of informing people about the costs and benefits o...

A SIRENS SONG
Apparently, Democrats have lost on the gun-control issue so often that theyre considering changing their public stance on the issue. Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean is suggesting that the party take a more regional approach on gun-control legislation. In rural states in the West, for instance, Democrats could view gun-control laws as state issues, rather than promoting national gun controls that have been losers for the party since 1996. That would allow Western and Southern Democrats to finesse the issue and avoid riling red-state voters who want to protect their Second Amendment rights.

Voters in blue states or in blue areas of red states wo...

Gun and Knife for a Good Cause
Sportsmen, collectors and others who appreciate craftsmanship and unique history have a chance to own a one-of-a-kind Ruger No. 1 single-shot rifle and an original Ross Tyser RavenFork Hunter-Skinner package that includes a matched set of hunting knives in Thunderforged Damascus. Both gun and knife will be sold to the highest bidder on www.Gunbroker.com.

[IMGCAP(1)]The items are currently up for auction, and bidding will conclude during the 2006 Shooting, Hunting and Outdoor Trade (SHOT) Show, Feb. 12, at noon, PST. All auction proceeds will benefit the nonprofit Wonders of Wildlife (WOW), the ne...

What We Do, And Why
The overwhelming tone of reader mail we get is gratitude for telling it like it is. As youll see when you read about concealable, but pricey, .45 ACPs from Para Ordnance and Springfield Armory, hopped-up 1911 pistols and replacement barrels, and lever-action and autoloading carbines suitable for self-defense, hardnosed critiques are our exclusive franchise. You wont read critical buy-this, dont-buy-that comparisons of firearms products anywhere else.

Were glad this approach is unique, but its always surprising to many shooters. If you go onto any shooting range anywhere in this country (or the world, I suppose), youll hear frank discussions of firea...

WAITING ON RITA, PART II

Last months column, Waiting on Rita, has generated some very interesting mail so far - and the November 2005 issue has only been out a couple of days. If youll recall, I asked Gun Tests readers what guns they would pack if they could only take one (or one per car, as I did). Heres a sampling of what Ive received so far:

Steve Ashman writes, That was a hard question, how to limit myself to one gun in an evacuation. I would take my Ruger Mini-14 with a see-through-mount 4X scope, all the 20- and 30-round mags I had, and a 1000-round brick of Salt Lake surplus 5.56mm. The reason would be reliability of the Mini-14. I have put many thousands of rou...

On occasion, God (or Jehovah, Yahweh, Muhammed, or for you Pagans, Mother Nature) deigns to remind us of what is important in life. Impending disaster has a wonderful way of focusing the mind, and in late September, we had all the focus we wanted in the form of Category 5 Hurricane Rita.

A goodly portion of your humble gun-writing staff lives in the Houston area, including Contributing Editor Roger Eckstine, Product Coordination Editors Ben Brooks and Kevin Winkle, Managing Editor Tracey Taylor, and me. As Rita moved from the Atlantic into the Gulf of Mexico, she blew Publisher Tim Cole a wet kiss in southern Florida, then headed for what was initially the lower Texas coast.

As the we...

SERIAL NUMBERS SHELVED FOR NOW

California Attorney General Bill Lockyer has shelved a gun-control measure that would have required manufacturers to stamp microscopic serial numbers on all handgun ammunition sold in California.

The bill, SB 357, has passed the Senate and is pending in an Assembly fiscal committee. The legislation would require manufacturers to imprint or etch a serial number on the end of each slug or bullet starting in 2009. Boxes of cartridges bearing the same number could then be linked to buyers driver licenses recorded at the time of sale.

Lockyer said coding handgun ammunition could help identify suspects in many murders and other violent crimes. No...

Though the news is unquestionably positive on the national legislative scene, theres still a lot of hooey on the state beat.

You may remember when the federal assault- weapons ban expired last September, Sarah Brady claimed that the streets would be filled with AK-47s and Uzis. Of course, nothing like that happened.

What has happened is this: The bans expiration has showed how useless the law was.

Researcher John Lott Jr. has repeatedly said that not a single published academic study has ever shown that these bans have reduced any type of violent crime.

Gun owners knew the phrase assault weapon was bogus, that the rapid-fire machine guns used by the military were never in s...

A Tale of Two Gun Bans
Virginia Tech officials have banned guns on campus - even for concealed-carry holders eligible to wear guns elsewhere in the state - and has threatened to arrest anyone who refuses to disarm or leave campus.

The gun ban would clearly prohibit holders of concealed weapons permits from carrying firearms on campus. Earlier this spring, Tech came under heavy criticism from gun owners rights groups for disciplining a student who carried a concealed handgun to class.

The student had a state-issued permit to carry a concealed weapon. However, university officials argued that the schools decades-old gun ban supersedes the permit. Even more confusing, Tech...

The 2nd Guarantees The 1st
In a mid-May interview, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the constitutional right of Americans to own guns is as important as their rights to free speech and religion.

In an interview on CNNs Larry King Live, Rice said she came to that view from personal experience. She said her father, a black minister, and his friends armed themselves to defend the black community in Birmingham against the White Knight Riders in 1962 and 1963. She said if local authorities had had lists of registered weapons, she did not think her father and other blacks would have been able to defend themselves.

I also dont think we get to pick and choose from th...

Meet NRAs New President
The face of the NRA has changed from Moses to that of a lawyer - a shift particularly appropriate for our times. Sandra S. Froman was sworn in as the gun groups president in April, taking the chair once held by Charlton Heston, probably the NRAs best-known president. But she takes over most recently for Kayne Robinson, who has served since 2003. Her term is expected to last two years.

Froman, 55, who earned a bachelors degree in economics from Stanford and a law degree from Harvard, is a business and employment litigator in Tucson. Shes been on the NRA board since 1992 and was encouraged to run for the board by Bob Corbin, former attorney gener...

CONCEALED CARRY NAMES
One of my favorite Texas legislators, State Rep. Suzanna Gratia Hupp, R-Lampasas, doesnt think Texans should have to disclose that they are carrying a concealed handgun. So she introduced House Bill 318, which would prevent public disclosure of the names of people who hold concealed handgun licenses.

The bill passed the Texas House of Representatives in March by a 113-30 vote. The bill, similar to one passed by the House in 2003, deletes the requirement that the Texas Department of Public Safety must release the identity of a license holder to the public.

Hupp, whose family was murdered by a gunman in a Lubys restaurant in Killeen more than a dec...