Women are at a severe disadvantage when confronting a likely stronger male assailant. In general, women simply do not have the upper body strength and testosterone-driven speed to effectively defend themselves without help. A firearm, particularly an easily manipulable handgun, equalizes this strength differential and thereby provides women the best chance they have of thwarting an attacker. Even more statistically likely, a firearm in the hands of a threatened woman offers the deterrence empty hands and an often unavailing 911 call do not.

M. Carol Bambery
Brief of amicae curiae 126 women state legislators and academics in support of respondent.
[Equality of women can only be achieved if they have a physical equalizer. Until then they are dependent on a protector. Could that be why Ted Kennedy and Bill Clinton are so opposed to people owning guns and Diane Feinstein carries a gun?–Joe]

Never having experienced anything even remotely approximating the death of a loved one, I almost don’t feel I deserve to be able to critique the way Shields deals with his loss. I know what such traumatic grief does to people; who are we to judge how they cope? The trauma simply breaks some, transforming them into shadows of their former selves; others it unhinges, never to be the same again. Still more are infused with a zeal to ensure that no others are made to endure what they did. This is simultaneously the most noble and selfless way of coping, but also the most dangerous; after all, what has more potential for harm than a fanatic who’s wrong but can’t possibly see it?

And that is the man who Pete Shields is; honorable, kind, warm, eloquent, passionate, wounded, and very, very wrong.

Nathaniel of Tech Paladin
August 17, 2008
Book Review: Guns Don’t Die — People Do
[See also Confessions of a Former Gun Control Fanatic–it gave me a little thrill to see them describe themselves as a bigot. I think using that word in our battle to exterminate gun control is going to be exceedingly powerful.

I find it absolutely fascinating to hear the thought processes of people who are, and especially were, on the other side of the gun issue. It is easy for me to think of our opposition as evil because of the incredibly dangerous laws they want passed but, for the most part, they are not evil. They are bigoted but until they know you own a gun and many times even after they discover that they are nice people. I think that is important to remember–especially during the sentencing phase for their crimes.–Joe]

How does a Congressman from rural Indiana, or Alabama, or any outsider, have the gall to tell the residents of Washington D.C. that they can’t pass reasonable restrictions on guns to lower crime and reduce violence in their own communities?

Gun zealots continually preach about government’s abuse of power. But that is exactly what the NRA and their puppets in Congress are doing.

The Gun Guys
September 10, 2008
The Gun Lobby’s War On Democracy and Local Control In D.C.
[Replace “gun” with “ni**er” and “NRA” with “NAACP” to see this in the proper light. These bigots appear to be unable to grasp the concept of individual freedom. In their small minds only government entities can have power. Power to oppress individuals is taken away from the local government and they can only think of it in terms of a power grab by the Federal government. I don’t believe these people can be reasoned with. They can only be politically defeated and destroyed.–Joe]

For decades the Second Amendment might as well have been called the Second-Class Amendment. The U.S. Supreme Court spent the late 20^th century expansively interpreting the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Eighth amendments, not to mention unenumerated rights ranging from travel to sexual privacy. But not until last month did the court hold that the Second Amendment means what it says: that “the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

James Taranto
July 19, 2008
Alan Gura–How a Young Lawyer Saved the Second Amendment
[In a lot of a ways I find it very odd. Of all the articles in the Bill of Rights the 2^nd Amendment is among the least, if not the least, ambiguous. Yet it was so despised by people of the last century they managed to twist it into meaningless. The Heller decision only rescued a fragment and I fear that only another small portion will ever be recovered.–Joe]