...Though gun-control groups have tried to capitalize on the Sept. 11 attacks, those attempts have misfired. Tom Diaz of the Violence Policy Center tried to claim that Barrett Firearms had sold .50 caliber sniper rifles to Usama bin Laden. Not many in the media bought this, which was a good thing since [red]it turned out that those rifles had actually been sold to the United States Government.[/red]

Even lamer was the claim that the Sept. 11 attacks were an argument for closing the (nonexistent) "gun show loophole." This claim, made first in a Brady Campaign press release and then in a suspiciously similar op-ed  bearing the byline of former Clinton Administration official Eric Holder, just plain flopped. Nobody could be persuaded that Usama bin Laden’s boys would have trouble laying their hands on an AK-47, regardless of what rules govern gun shows.

The much-touted book by Michael Bellesiles, Arming America—which claimed the framers of the Constitution must not have intended the Second Amendment to protect an individual right to own guns because private gun ownership was exceedingly rare at the time — also lost most of its resonance when legal historians and reporters at the Boston Globe, Wall Street Journal, and National Review concluded that it was [red]based on false, and possibly fraudulent, evidence.[/red]

Bellesiles’ employer, Emory University, says that a prima facie case of academic misconduct has been made out, and is requiring him to explain himself...