Viewpoints

The University of Colorado will not allow students to bring guns into the Boulder campus dorms this fall, though residents who have concealed-carry permits will be allowed to keep weapons in a limited number of family housing units, school officials announced.

You may recently have seen some in the Internet rumor mill feverishly stirring up fear about recent acquisitions of ammunition by the Department of Homeland Security and a number of smaller agencies. The mildest writers have questioned why seemingly mundane agencies would need ammunition at all; more incendiary authors wrongly suggest that these government agencies are preparing for a war with the American people, NRA-ILA comments.

Police in Thailand say that they will charge a member of the Thai parliament with causing death by negligence for accidentally shooting his secretary dead with a submachine gun, the BBC reports.

John Lott, writing on this personal blog johnrlott.blogspot.com, commented that there has been a lot of discussion about Australia's gun control laws. He cites a piece at the Huffington Post:

There has been no significant change in public views on the issue of gun control and gun rights following the July 20th shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, a Pew Research Center poll released on July 30, shows.

Corey Cogdell is a Trap Shooter who won a bronze medal at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing and competed in the 2012 Olympic Games in London, placing 11th in Women’s Trap. She also hunts wild game. After Cogdell published photos on Facebook of herself posing alongside animals she killed, anti-hunting activists took to Twitter to threaten and insult her, the political website Twitchy.com

In an interview on Fox News on Sunday, Justice Antonin Scalia said there “are some limitations that can be imposed” on the purchase of guns.

Very aggressive gun control hasn’t prevented multiple-victim public shootings in Europe, writes economist John Lott at FoxNews.com. And he adds that gun-free zones are a common feature of mass shootings.

Writing in an opinion piece for the Denver Post, David B. Kopel, research director for the Independence Institute and an adjunct professor of advanced constitutional law at the University of Denver, made some excellent points about what the state’s gun laws cover and don’t cover. From the editorial:

The 300 AAC Blackout has taken the AR world by storm. Its versatility combined with its ease of manufacture make it an attractive option for those looking to do more with their AR-15s. This Twang & Bang video is an introduction to the 300 BLK.

Here is a video that didn’t get national coverage because a responsible, armed, trained citizen was present and took care of a threat immediately.

A number of developing stories that have to do with guns show me how fragile my ability to enjoy shooting firearms really is. By the time you read this, some or all of these issues will be resolved or moving toward resolution. They are all serious breaches of, or threats to, gun ownership and the civil rights of shooters across a spectrum of legal, cultural, and political venues.