[size=4]Shooting Match[/size=4]
[b]Does the anti-gun crowd think you're stupid?[/b]
By Sam MacDonald
How bad has the post-September 11 era been for the anti-gun lobby? To understand fully, consider a simple thought experiment:
You are dreaming cozily in your bed when you hear your front door give way with a crash. Moments later, you hear two sets of footsteps thudding up the stairs toward your bedroom. Your first thought is to pick up the phone and dial 911, but you know the intruders will be upon you long before the police arrive. As a last resort, you reach into the nightstand and pull out your .44 Magnum. You thank god that you reached it in time, open the window, toss the gun into the bushes below, and turn to face your assailants unarmed.
Welcome to Self Defense 101, according to the Violence Policy Center. In a study the anti-gun group published this Monday, VPC argues that handguns should be outlawed because they don't work. Or more specifically, they do work: You're just too stupid to figure out how to use one. Seriously.
The 90-page document is titled "[b]Unintended Consequences[/b]: Pro-Handgun Experts Prove that Handguns Are a Dangerous Choice for Self-Defense." The report cites all the usual suspects, including numbers that show more people die from gun-related suicides than gun-related homicides. (Message: If you are dumb enough to buy a gun, you're probably dumb enough to kill yourself with it. On purpose.)
In a press release accompanying the report, its author, VPC senior policy analyst Tom Diaz, says, "This study is comprised substantially of writings from pro-gun experts who readily admit handguns are basically impossible to use effectively in self-defense."
The supposed innovation is the report's reliance on usually trigger-happy analysts who at some point during their careers mentioned that if you do buy a gun, you should probably figure out which end the bullets come out before you try to blast a burglar. There is even an appendix that serves as a preemptive strike against anyone informed enough to mention Prof. John Lott's substantial body of work as a counter-argument.
It's not exactly news that some people think that it's "basically impossible" to use a gun to defend yourself. What's more instructive here is to note just how far the anti-gun lobby has fallen, and what a recent spate of setbacks has done to the once-powerful movement. They are no longer simply wrong. They are becoming desperate.
The litany is quite gruesome, really. The disarmament coalition lost its champion when President Bill Clinton squirmed out of office. Al Gore lost the election to a Republican from gun-happy Texas, who promptly appointed John Ashcroft attorney general. Ashcroft soon added injury to insult when he wrote a letter to the National Rifle Association promising to uphold the Second Amendment as an individual right. The thrashing continued in October when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit threw its judicial weight behind Ashcroft's interpretation. Court decisions last fall and this spring that dismissed huge city lawsuits against gun manufacturers certainly didn't help.
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