The ACRU Blog

On June 26, Horace Cooper will be on Christian Broadcasting Network's "Newswatch" at 4:00pm discussing the DC v. Heller decision. Check your local listings for channel information.

UPDATE: Horace will also talk to Michael Reagan at 6:15pm on June 26. You can listen live here.

Then on June 27 at 10:00am, Horace will be on 700AM WLW out of Cincinnati. He will be talking to Scott Sloan. You can listen live here.

On Wednesday's appearance on "Newswatch," Horace Cooper also talked about the Louisiana child rapist death penalty case. You can watch his appearance here.

On Wednesday, June 25, at 4:00pm ET, Horace Cooper will be on CBN's "Newswatch" talking about the upcoming DC v. Heller decision. Check your local listings for channel information.

On June 23 at 11:00am ET, Peter Ferrara will be on the "The Guetzloe Report" discussing the upcoming DC v. Heller decision. You can listen live by clicking here.

On Thursday, June 19, Peter Ferrara will be talking about the upcoming DC v. Heller decision

First at 8:50am ET, Peter will talk to Matthew Kennedy on WJBO 1150 AM out of Baton Rouge, LA. You can listen to that broadcast live here.

Then at 5:20pm ET, Peter will talk to Rick Johnson on WCHS 58 AM out of Charleston, WV

On Friday, March 21, Horace Cooper will be talking about "The James Gang" on KCOL-AM out of Loveland, CO. He will be on at 12:30pm ET. You can listen online here.

The Supreme Court heard oral argument on March 18, 2008 in the case of District of Columbia v. Heller. Heller is a Federal security guard employed during the day to help protect the Federal judiciary at the Federal Judicial Center in Washington, DC. During the workday, he wears a handgun. He applied for a permit to keep a handgun at his home in Washington, DC for self-defense. But his application was denied because under DC law all such applications are denied with only very limited exceptions, as handguns have been effectively banned in DC since 1976. Heller then sued the District arguing that this handgun ban violates his right to keep and bear arms under the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution.

This is potentially an historic landmark decision because it squarely presents the issue of whether that Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms, or just some right relating to state militias. The Supreme Court has never decided that issue before. The DC Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Second Amendment did protect such an individual right, and held that the DC gun control statute banning handguns was in violation of that right. The court consequently struck down the DC handgun ban as unconstitutional. That decision is now on appeal before the Supreme Court. The transcript of the oral argument in the case is posted at the link below.

http://supremecourtus.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/07-290.pdf

On March 19th, Peter Ferrara will be on "The Chuck Baker Show" on KKKK-AM in Longmont, CO at 4:00pm ET. He will be discussing the DC Gun Ban Case.

UPDATE: Because of scheduling problems, Peter will be on "The Chuck Baker Show" Thursday, March 20th at 2:00pm

Also on the 20th, Peter will be talking to Jim Buchanan on the "Talk of the Town" show on WICC-AM in Bridgeport, CT. He will be on for the entire 12:00pm hour and talking about the DC Gun Ban Case. Listen online here.

Also on the 19th, Horace Cooper will be talking to Pat Snyder on WSAU-AM in Wassau, WI at 9:20am. The DC Gun Ban Case is the topic of the interview.

On March 20th, Horace Cooper will be "The Right Balance" with Greg Allen on Accent Radio our of Clearwater, FL at 11:50am ET. He is also discussing the DC Gun Ban Case. You can listen online here.

UPDATE: Horace will also be on the "The Doug Guetzloe Report" at 11:30am ET on WAMT 1190AM out of Orlando, FL. He will again be talking about the DC Gun Ban Case. You can listen live here.

You can also read the transcript of the oral arguments in today's Supreme Court hearing of DC v. Heller here.

Tomorrow morning, before the Supreme Court hears DC v. Heller, both Horace Cooper and Peter Ferrara will be on the air talking about the case.

First, at 7:30am ET, Horace will be on WTTG Fox 5 News in Washington, DC talking to Bob Sellers.

Then, at 9:30am ET, Peter will be on the "Panhandle Live" show on WEPM 1340AM in Martinsburg, WV.

If you live in either of these areas, check them out.

Ken Blackwell was on "The Dennis Prager Show" on February 28th. Mark Taylor was the guest host. Click this link and you can listen to the show. It is the February 28th show and hour 2 (H2).

Around the 13 minute mark, Ken makes mention of the American Civil Rights Union.

Ken Blackwell is going to be on "The Dennis Prager Show" today, the 28th, at 1:00pm EST. He is going to be talking about Barack Obama and the 2nd Amendment. Click here to find your local station or click here to listen live on the internet.

Over the next several days, the ACRU is going to have several appearances on radio.

Sunday, February 17, Hans Zeiger will be on WTBF in Troy, Alabama. He will be on at 10:30am and 6:30 pm EST. He will be talking to Doc Kirby on "On the Bookshelf." Hans will be talking about his book, "Get Off My Honor: The Assault on the Boy Scouts of America."

On Tuesday, February 19, John Armor will be on WBIG News and "The Big Wake Up Call" in Batavia, IL. He will be on from 9:15-9:30am EST and will be talking about the latest ACLU Outrage: Indiana Driver's License case.

Also on Tuesday, Ken Blackwell will be talking to Janet Parshall on her nationally syndicated radio show. Ken will be on at 3:30pm EST for about 20 minutes. He will be talking to Janet about FISA. Click here to find out where the show will be on in your area.

Finally, on Thursday, February 21, Peter Ferrara will be talking to Ed Banker on his "Intelligent Radio" show on 1460 WZNZ AM in Jacksonville, FL. He will be on at 11:06am EST for the half hour. He will be talking about the DC Gun Ban Case.

Enjoy your President's Day Weekend.

Horace Cooper will be making three radio appearances on Friday, February 15th.

The first begins at 7:35am EST. He will be on 1140AM WRVA in Richmond, VA talking to Jimmy Barrett and "Richmond's Morning News. He will be discussing FISA. You can listen online here.

Then at 9:00am EST, he will be discussing the Indiana Driver's Licenses and the DC Gun Ban Case with John Watson on WILM-AM in Wilmington, DE. You can listen online here.

Finally, at 11:00am EST, Horace will be on with Doug Guetzloe and "The Guetzloe Report" on WAMT 1190AM in Winter Park, FL. He will again be talking about FISA. You can listen online here.

UPDATE: Horace's appearance on "The Guetzloe Report" has been cancelled. Hopefully Horace will be on again soon.

Today, the ACRU filed an amicus brief on DC v. Heller, known as the DC Gun Ban Case.

Peter Ferrara, General Counsel for the ACRU, said this,

The Courts cannot treat the Second Amendment as a politically incorrect, disfavored stepchild of the Bill of Rights. Fidelity to the Constitution requires that courts give it the same zealous protection as every other right stated in our founding document. The Amendment is not being read broadly to protect the rights and liberties of the people if it is somehow interpreted to allow the government to adopt a complete ban on handguns and the use of other firearms within the home for self-defense, as in this case.

You can view the cover page, the opening, and the arguments by clicking on each link.

To view all the briefs filed in this case, please go here and scroll down.

The Supreme Court announced that they will hear the DC Gun Ban case, DC v. Heller, on March 18th.

You can read all about the ACRU's activities on this case here.

Peter Ferrara will be talking to Zeb Bell and the Zeb on the Ranch show Monday, January 28 at 12:06am. He will talking about the DC Gun Ban case. He can be heard on KBAR AM 1230 in Burley, ID.

Ken Blackwell will be talking to Cam Edwards on Cam and Company show with NRANews. He will be discussing the DC Gun Ban case. Listen in online at NRANews.com or Sirius Radio Channel 144. He will be on from 11:40pm-12:00am EST.

Senior Fellow Ken Blackwell wrote this column for Townhall.com where he makes the argument that the Justice Department betrayed us with the amicus brief it filed in the DC Gun Ban case, to be heard by the Supreme Court this term.

Says Blackwell of the US Government's apparent desire to split up gun rights:

The problem with splitting a baby in half is that the baby usually dies. If our rights can be regulated to the point that we can't exercise them in our own homes, then they've been regulated out of existence.

Information on this case, DC v. Heller, can be found here.

Peter Ferrara will be talking about the 2nd Amendment Case today on WRVC 930 in Huntington, WV with Jean Dean. He will be on for 20 minutes starting at 12:35pm.

On 20 November, the Supreme Court accepted for review the Heller case, on the right to own a gun, from the District of Columbia. The lower court, the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, had ruled that individual citizens had a Second Amendment right to own guns for self-defense in the District, contrary to the law passed by the D.C. Council.

This is a critical case to bring the 2nd Amendment in from the cold. All other basic rights from the Bill of Rights have long since been declared "fundamental" and applied to the states as well as to the federal government. Now, it is finally time for the Supreme Court to recognize that the right of self defense is the basic reason why they wrote this right into the Bill of Rights. The history of the writing and the ratification of the 2nd Amendment leads inexorably to the conclusion that it is an individual right.

The American Civil Rights Union filed an amicus curiae brief in the United States Supreme Court on Friday, October 12 in the case of Parker v. District of Columbia urging the Court to grant the requested writ of certiorari on behalf of 5 of the original 6 plaintiffs seeking to strike down the District's gun control laws as unconstitutional under the Second Amendment. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals had found that these 5 plaintiffs did not have standing in the case and dismissed them from the suit.

However, in regard to the remaining plaintiff, Dick Anthony Heller, the D.C. Circuit found that the Second Amendment did protect a right of individual citizens to keep and bear arms, and that the District's ban on handguns and their effective use in self-defense did violate the Amendment. The Court did, therefore, strike down the District's gun control laws regarding handguns as unconstitutional. The District has the strictest and harshest gun control laws in the nation, yet its notorious high crime rate and high murder rate persists.

The District has now asked the Supreme Court to hear its appeal from that decision. On October 5, the American Civil Rights Union filed an amicus curiae brief on that matter also urging the Court to hear the appeal, but to affirm the D.C. Circuit's decision on the Second Amendment in striking down the District's oppressive gun control laws.

The 5 original plaintiffs in the case who were dismissed for lack of standing have also asked the Supreme Court to hear their appeal seeking reinstatement. In its brief on their behalf filed on October 12, the ACRU argued that the Supreme Court should take the appeal and reverse the D.C. Circuit on this standing issue, reinstating the 5 original plaintiffs. ACRU General Counsel Peter Ferrara wrote the brief, stating,

"The courts cannot treat the Second Amendment as a politically incorrect, disfavored stepchild of the Bill of Rights. Fidelity to the Constitution requires the courts to give it the same zealous protection as every other right stated in our founding document. But the ruling on standing in this case does not reflect equal access to the courts for Second Amendment rights as for other rights."

Read the Parker Cross-Petition Argument here.

Read David Freddoso's (NRO staff reporter) article here.

The American Civil Rights Union filed an amicus curiae brief with the U.S. Supreme Court on October 5, urging the Court to take the appeal of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals decision last March holding that the Second Amendment does protect an individual right of citizens to keep and bear arms. The ACRU wants the Court to take the case to affirm and thereby greatly strengthen this landmark ruling.

ACRU General Counsel Peter Ferrara told the Court, "The courts cannot treat the Second Amendment as a politically incorrect, disfavored stepchild of the Bill of Rights. Fidelity to the Constitution requires the courts to give it the same zealous protection as every other right stated in our founding document. The Amendment is not being read broadly to protect the rights and liberties of the people if it is somehow interpreted to allow the government to adopt a virtually complete ban on handguns, and an effective prohibition on the use of rifles and shotguns, as in this case."

Read the Amicus Argument here.

From the study:

Whether causative or not, the consistent international pattern is that more guns equal less murder and other violent crime. Even if one is inclined to think that gun availability is an important factor, the available international data cannot be squared with the mantra that more guns equal more death and fewer guns equal less death. Rather, if firearms availability does matter, the data consistently show that the way it matters is that more guns equal less violent crime.

Download file, courtesy of the Center for Individual Freedom. (Total file runs 49 pages and is 610.52kb)

With all of the debate over the now defunct illegal immigration bill in the Senate and the efforts of liberals to relaunch the so-called Fairness Doctrine - a clear assault on conservative speech on our nation's air waves - it is easy to lose focus on the many other battles going on to preserve the civil rights for all Americans. One such right is the moral and constitutional right to self-defense.

Last week, a story in Jacksonville, FL, was ignored by the national media, but it should not have been. The story concerns the heroism of Colin Bruley, who came to his neighbor's rescue after she fell victim to a gun shot during a domestic brawl. Those who advocate gun control seem oblivious to the fact that their wishes, if granted, would prevent people like Bruley from showing the kind of effective courage he showed, but would do nothing to stop attackers from attacking and even killing their victims. For Bruley may have saved Tonetta Lee by brandishing his own firearm - a 12-gauge shotgun - in her defense.

This story would not be so notable if that was all that happened. The U.S. Department of Justice's National Crime Victimization Survey reports that guns are used defensively at least 80,000 times a year (other surveys indicate much higher frequencies). And, according to economist John R. Lott, Jr., national surveys indicate that 98 percent of the time the mere brandishing of the weapon is enough - no shots are fired. Such was the case in this story. Bruley arrived at Ms. Lee's side, stood in defense in case her attacker came again, and then saved her life by applying a tourniquet to her heavily-bleeding leg (the bullet damaged an artery).

What makes this story remarkable is the fact that Bruley was fired by his employer as a result of his heroism. What?! you ask? That's the same question the beneficiary of his bravery is asking: "I told him, 'I thought you were going to go back to work as a hero and here you're fired,'" said Lee. "That's really crazy."

It sure is. Bruley's employer is legally "in the rights" to fire him, as he was in technical violation of company policy for brandishing a weapon on company property. But the notion that someone should wait for the police, as the company requires, while their neighbor is screaming for her life is both irresponsible and absurd.

If the national media would report the much more frequent heroic uses of gun-wielding Americans as zealously as they report the far fewer tragedies that often are made worse by bans on lawful gun possession, perhaps the anti-gun bias that led to Bruley's unjust dismissal would be replaced by reason - and applause.

I am beginning to think it is quite possible that DC will not appeal the ruling of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals in the Parker case. That historic ruling concluded that the Second Amendment really does protect an individual's right to keep and bear arms and struck down the DC gun control laws as a result.

DC may instead pass a new gun control law that is still quite severe but does not as thoroughly prohibit any right to gun ownership and use in self defense as the old law did. They would argue that this new law meets the requirements of the Parker ruling.

I think that liberals may fear they would lose any appeal to the Supreme Court, resulting in a much more important precedent and historic conservative victory. DC may be hearing from liberals who want to duck this result and instead pass a new bill that may have a greater chance of being upheld.

This strategy is likely to fail in my opinion. First, I think any new bill DC passes will still be too harsh to pass muster. I think a new suit against such a bill would still likely succeed in the DC Circuit, though with a new panel of judges there is always a risk. Moreover, the existing precedent in Parker would give us a foundation to get to the Supreme Court if we lose in the DC Circuit. I think that would result at a minimum in the Supreme Court endorsing the Parker view that the Second Amendment does protect an individual right to keep and bear arms, regardless of whether they uphold a new DC bill. But I doubt the DC liberals would be willing to compromise enough to pass a new bill that would be upheld. So I think any such strategy will not deprive us of the historic victory that has been put in motion by the Parker ruling.

Building on my last post ("Harvard Study: Gun Control Is Counterproductive") - I thought it would be instructive to look at one particular table from the aforementioned study published in Spring 2007 in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, Volume 30, Number 2:

In every case - much like the difference between the state of Virginia, which allows even for concealed carry of handguns, and Washington, D.C., which has long banned them - the right to gun ownership corresponds with dramatically lower murder rates.

I've just learned that Washington, D.C.'s petition for a rehearing of the Parker case in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit was denied today. This is good news. Readers will recall in this case that the D.C. Circuit overturned the decades-long ban on gun ownership in the nation's capitol on Second Amendment grounds.

However, as my colleague Peter Ferrara explained in his National Review Online article following the initial decision in March, it looks very likely that the United States Supreme Court will take the case on appeal. When it does so - beyond seriously considering the clear original intent of the Second Amendment to protect an individual's right to armed self-defense - the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court would be wise to take into account the findings of a recent study out of Harvard.

The study, which just appeared in Volume 30, Number 2 of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy (pp. 649-694), set out to answer the question in its title: "Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide? A Review of International and Some Domestic Evidence." Contrary to conventional wisdom, and the sniffs of our more sophisticated and generally anti-gun counterparts across the pond, the answer is "no." And not just no, as in there is no correlation between gun ownership and violent crime, but an emphatic no, showing a negative correlation: as gun ownership increases, murder and suicide decreases.

The findings of two criminologists - Prof. Don Kates and Prof. Gary Mauser - in their exhaustive study of American and European gun laws and violence rates, are telling:

Nations with stringent anti-gun laws generally have substantially higher murder rates than those that do not. The study found that the nine European nations with the lowest rates of gun ownership (5,000 or fewer guns per 100,000 population) have a combined murder rate three times higher than that of the nine nations with the highest rates of gun ownership (at least 15,000 guns per 100,000 population).

For example, Norway has the highest rate of gun ownership in Western Europe, yet possesses the lowest murder rate. In contrast, Holland's murder rate is nearly the worst, despite having the lowest gun ownership rate in Western Europe. Sweden and Denmark are two more examples of nations with high murder rates but few guns. As the study's authors write in the report:

If the mantra "more guns equal more death and fewer guns equal less death" were true, broad cross-national comparisons should show that nations with higher gun ownership per capita consistently have more death. Nations with higher gun ownership rates, however, do not have higher murder or suicide rates than those with lower gun ownership. Indeed many high gun ownership nations have much lower murder rates. (p. 661)

Finally, and as if to prove the bumper sticker correct - that "gun don't kill people, people do" - the study also shows that Russia's murder rate is four times higher than the U.S. and more than 20 times higher than Norway. This, in a country that practically eradicated private gun ownership over the course of decades of totalitarian rule and police state methods of suppression. Needless to say, very few Russian murders involve guns.

The important thing to keep in mind is not the rate of deaths by gun - a statistic that anti-gun advocates are quick to recite - but the overall murder rate, regardless of means. The criminologists explain:

[P]er capita murder overall is only half as frequent in the United States as in several other nations where gun murder is rarer, but murder by strangling, stabbing, or beating is much more frequent. (p. 663 - emphases in original)

It is important to note here that Profs. Kates and Mauser are not pro-gun zealots. In fact, they go out of their way to stress that their study neither proves that gun control causes higher murder rates nor that increased gun ownership necessarily leads to lower murder rates. (Though, in my view, Prof. John Lott's More Guns, Less Crime does indeed prove the latter.) But what is clear, and what they do say, is that gun control is ineffectual at preventing murder, and apparently counterproductive.

Not only is the D.C. gun ban ill-conceived on constitutional grounds, it fails to live up to its purpose. If the astronomical murder rate in the nation's capitol, in comparison to cities where gun ownership is permitted, didn't already make that fact clear, this study out of Harvard should.

In today's America, the United States Constitution is too often treated like the Queen of England - a powerless and non-binding relic of an earlier age. And just as Queen Elizabeth is in the States this week leading up to the 400th anniversary celebration of the settlement of Jamestown colony, the Constitution will occasion the obligatory nod from time to time.

But the Constitution is not like the monarchy, which long ago gave up all real authority. The Constitution, along with its Bill of Rights and other Amendments, remains in effect. Not that you would know that by the way our government leaders - including members of both major parties - so often ignore it and do what they are not constitutionally permitted to do.

So, for those of us who still think the Oath to abide by and protect the Constitution means something, we are grateful for articulate defenses of the Constitution from wherever we can get them.

Very few people are consistent when it comes to their view of the Constitution, often in word or action elevating those portions they personally favor, and ignoring or redefining what they don't. It therefore comes as a great and welcome surprise that some of the most persuasive defenders of the individual's Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms - long a bane to the political left - are prominent and liberal law professors.

I've long been grateful for the principled and correct stances of professors Akhil Reed Amar at Yale and Sanford Levinson at the University of Texas on this issue. Today, the New York Times of all places - that bastion of protecting the church of liberal orthodoxy - reports on the contributions of these and other liberal minds in helping sway the federal judiciary in recent years to take a more strictly constructionist view of the Second Amendment.

As the article explains:

The earlier consensus, the law professors said in interviews, reflected received wisdom and political preferences rather than a serious consideration of the amendment's text, history and place in the structure of the Constitution. "The standard liberal position," Professor Levinson said, "is that the Second Amendment is basically just read out of the Constitution."

But no longer, for Levinson and others:

If only as a matter of consistency, Professor Levinson continued, liberals who favor expansive interpretations of other amendments in the Bill of Rights, like those protecting free speech and the rights of criminal defendants, should also embrace a broad reading of the Second Amendment.

The recent Virginia Tech Massacre and last year's mass murder at an Amish schoolhouse in Pennsylvania have, thus far, not lead to the usual chorus of Democrats calling for aggressive (but counter-productive) gun control measures in response. They know that the courts are growing increasingly disposed to strike down such unconstitutional measures. We can thank a small but highly-influential cadre of liberal minds for this fact.

Perhaps the Constitution still warrants our obeisance, after all. The Queen must be jealous.

Bill Otis, my colleague here at the ACRU blog and the Director of Legal Affairs for the American Civil Rights Union, has written a number of good posts on the subject of gun control in the wake of the massacre at Virginia Tech, including:

• "A Tale of Two Cities"
• "Don't Mess with Miss America"
• "Though you drive nature out with a pitchfork, she will still find her way back"

I, too, wrote recently on Ronald Reagan's views on the subject.

So, I won't spend much more space making the case for the Second Amendment and our right to keep and bear arms in self-defense. But CBSnews.com reports on one university that has vowed not to make the mistake of Virginia Tech and countless other schools that have proudly made themselves "gun-free zones," thus practically inviting would-be Chos to their target-rich and defenseless enclaves.

Here are some choice sections of the well-reported article, "Utah Allows Guns On College Campuses":

As states and colleges across the country review their gun policies in light of the tragedy, many in Utah are proud to have the nation's only state law that expressly allows the carrying of concealed weapons at public colleges.

"If government can't protect you, you should have the right to protect yourself," said Republican state Sen. Michael Waddoups.

Utah legislators and law enforcement authorities said they knew of no modern-day shootings at the university. But one lawmaker cited a shooting rampage in Mississippi in 1997 as an example of how allowing others on campus to arm themselves can improve safety: After a teenager shot two students to death at Pearl High School, an assistant principal chased the gunman down outside and held him at bay with a .45-caliber pistol he kept in his truck.

...

But in 2004 the Legislature passed a law expressly saying the university is covered by a state law that allows concealed weapons on state property. The university challenged the law, but the Utah Supreme Court upheld it last year.

...

Lawmakers point to a recent shooting at a downtown shopping mall as evidence that concealed weapons prevent additional deaths.

Armed with a shotgun and a pistol, 18-year-old Sulejman Talovic randomly shot nine people at Trolley Square, killing five, on Feb. 12. He died in a shootout with police. An off-duty Ogden police officer carrying a concealed weapon _ in violation of mall policy _ pinned down Talovic with gunfire until other police arrived.

"Thankfully that officer disobeyed the rule of Trolley Square of having no guns," GOP state Rep. Curt Oda said.

...

Justin Ligon, 23, a Virginia Tech student and vice president of the school's Pistol and Rifle Club, with about a dozen members who do their shooting at a public firing range, said the Blacksburg, Va., university should drop its prohibition on guns.

He said it is unlikely that bringing guns on campus would make school more dangerous.

"People with those permits, they go through a background check," he said. "Generally the people who go through that trouble aren't people who are gong to fly off the handle and do something dangerous."

My thanks to blogger Mark Alexander and his Patriot Post for digging up this great quote from our last truly great president, Ronald Reagan, concerning gun control:

"You won't get gun control by disarming law-abiding citizens. There's only one way to get real gun control: Disarm the thugs and the criminals, lock them up and if you don't actually throw away the key, at least lose it for a long time... It's a nasty truth, but those who seek to inflict harm are not fazed by gun controllers. I happen to know this from personal experience."

It seems to me that Reagan would have known all too well how to relate to last week's massacre at Virginia Tech. After all, he said those words in 1983, after surviving John Hinckley's assassination attempt in 1981.

Indeed, Reagan wasn't a newcomer to his conviction. Back in 1975, then-Governor Reagan wrote:

"Our nation was built and civilized by men and women who used guns in self-defense and in pursuit of peace. One wonders indeed, if the rising crime rate, isn't due as much as anything to the criminal's instinctive knowledge that the average victim no longer has means of self-protection."

Yet, time after time, we Americans will cede our responsibility -- and our rights -- to the government in a desperate attempt to guarantee our safety. But the tradeoff is an illusion: we do not become more safe, and it is not free.

Again, Reagan speaks to this fact:

"There are those in America today who have come to depend absolutely on government for their security. And when government fails they seek to rectify that failure in the form of granting government more power. So, as government has failed to control crime and violence with the means given it by the Constitution, they seek to give it more power at the expense of the Constitution. But in doing so, in their willingness to give up their arms in the name of safety, they are really giving up their protection from what has always been the chief source of despotism -- government."

It may be that Americans are waking up to the Pyrrhic nature of gun control laws and will instead reassert their right to keep and bear arms in self-defense. The State of Tennessee has certainly moved in the right direction here.

But as Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) recently put it, it is still likely that some sort of "people control" will be sought as a result of this latest travesty. "Whenever something terrible happens," Paul explains, "people reflexively demand that government do something. This impulse almost always leads to bad laws and the loss of liberty."

Do we really want security cameras and checkpoints to fill every corner of America? Do we really want extensive intrusion into our medical records and the risk of involuntary internment in medical asylums?

As Reagan often said, "Government is not a solution to our problem, government is the problem." Government is the problem here for the very reasons Reagan states above: its promises of security actually make us less secure.

The solution -- as much of a solution that can reasonably be expected in a fallen world where evil people will always seek to do evil things -- is personal responsibility. It is the exercise of self-defense -- by exercising our right to bear arms, of course, but also through use of common sense and appropriate caution. And, as ACRU Policy Board member Walter Williams explained so well, this personal responsibility has to include appropriate parental oversight.

In the wake of yet another massacre in a "gun free" zone, we could use some of Ronald Reagan's wisdom. Perhaps then we -- as individual Americans and not as the state collective -- can avert or lessen such senseless travesties.

Scott Johnson, writing yesterday on Power Line, puts yet more skids under the liberal reaction to the murders at Virginia Tech. In particular, Scott quotes Mark Steyn as Steyn laughs out loud at Yale's reaction to the shootings -- a reaction that, in terms of unadulterated nonsense, tops even the calls for yet more gun regulation that the Virginia Tech episode itself proves don't work. As Scott observes:

Mark Steyn devotes his weekly Sun-Times column to the political and cultural infantilization of American society manifested in events related to the Virginia Tech massacre. He urges us to get "realistic about reality."...He notes that at Yale, the students cannot even pretend to be realistic about reality:

"[T]he dean of student affairs, Betty Trachtenberg, reacted to the Virginia Tech murders by taking decisive action: She banned all stage weapons from plays performed on campus. After protests from the drama department, she modified her decisive action to 'permit the use of obviously fake weapons' such as plastic swords."

Unfortunately, Steyn's not done with the Ivy League:

"A few years back, a couple of alienated loser teens from a small Vermont town decided they were going to kill somebody, steal his ATM cards, and go to Australia. So they went to a remote house in the woods a couple of towns away, knocked on the door, and said their car had broken down. The guy thought their story smelled funny so he picked up his Glock and told 'em to get lost. So they concocted a better story, and pretended to be students doing an environmental survey. Unfortunately, the next old coot in the woods was sick of environmentalists and chased 'em away. Eventually they figured they could spend months knocking on doors in rural Vermont and New Hampshire and seeing nothing for their pains but cranky guys in plaid leveling both barrels through the screen door. So even these idiots worked it out: Where's the nearest place around here where you're most likely to encounter gullible defenseless types who have foresworn all means of resistance? Answer: Dartmouth College. So they drove over the Connecticut River, rang the doorbell, and brutally murdered a couple of well-meaning liberal professors. Two depraved misfits of crushing stupidity (to judge from their diaries) had nevertheless identified precisely the easiest murder victims in the twin-state area. To promote vulnerability as a moral virtue is not merely foolish. Like the new Yale props department policy, it signals to everyone that you're not in the real world."

Yale, however, isn't even in the [pretend] real world. [Its reaction] has to be some kind of a new low in the avoidance of reality. And the aphorism of the Roman poet Horace applies to "reality" as well as "nature": "Though you drive nature out with a pitchfork, she will still find her way back."

Over the weekend, Fox News reported this gem of a story:

82-YEAR-OLD EX-BEAUTY QUEEN STOPS INTRUDER BY SHOOTING OUT TIRES Saturday, April 21, 2007

WAYNESBURG, Ky. -- Miss America 1944 has a talent that likely has never appeared on a beauty pageant stage: She fired a handgun to shoot out a vehicle's tires and stop an intruder.

Venus Ramey, 82, confronted a man on her farm in south-central Kentucky last week after she saw her dog run into a storage building where thieves had previously made off with old farm equipment.

Ramey said the man told her he would leave. "I said, 'Oh, no you won't,' and I shot their tires so they couldn't leave," Ramey said.

She had to balance on her walker as she pulled out a snub-nosed .38-caliber handgun.

"I didn't even think twice. I just went and did it," she said. "If they'd even dared come close to me, they'd be 6 feet under by now."

Ramey then flagged down a passing motorist, who called 911.

Curtis Parrish of Ohio was charged with misdemeanor trespassing, Deputy Dan Gilliam said. The man's hometown wasn't immediately available. Three other people were questioned but were not arrested.

After winning the pageant with her singing, dancing and comedic talents, Ramey sold war bonds and her picture was adorned on a B-17 that made missions over Germany in World War II, according to the Miss America Web site.

Ramey lived in Cincinnati for several years and was instrumental in helping rejuvenate Over-the-Rhine historic buildings. She returned to Kentucky in 1990 to live on her farm.

"I'm trying to live a quiet, peaceful life and stay out of trouble, and all it is, is one thing after another," she said.

I'm not entirely sure what the motto of this story should be, but I haven't seen it cited by any gun-control organizations.

City No. 1: Blacksburg, Virginia, April 17, 2007.

Cho Seung-Hui, a 23 year-old student at Virginia Tech, well prepared and having armed himself to the teeth, kills two classmates early in the morning, returns to his room to prepare a package of videotapes he will send to NBC, and, after a hiatus of about two hours, walks to a classroom building across campus, chains the doors shut, and shoots to death 30 students and faculty before taking his own life.

At the time of this episode, Virginia Tech rules forbade students from possessing firearms, the University having declared itself to be a "gun free zone." A bill previously introduced in the Virginia General Assembly that would have allowed students, otherwise eligible under the law to carry handguns, to have them on school property as well had been defeated. A Virginia Tech administrator said at the time that the University wanted students to "feel safe."

So far as is known, none of the students Cho killed or injured, and no student witness or bystander, had a firearm. In addition, consistent with the University's gun control policy, no student or bystander was in a position to obtain one while Cho was still firing. Virginia Tech security personnel and Blacksburg police were unable to stop Cho, in part because they arrived too late.

The total killed, not counting Cho, was 32.

City No. 2: Grundy, Virginia, January 16, 2002.

Grundy, approximately 120 miles west of Blackburg on Route 460, is the home of Appalachian School of Law. On January 16, 2002, 43-year-old Peter Odighizuwa, a Nigerian student, spent part of the morning discussing his academic problems with professor Dale Rubin. At the end of that conversation, Odighizuwa walked to the offices of Dean Anthony Sutin and Professor Thomas Blackwell, where he opened fire on them with a .380 ACP semi-automatic handgun. According to the county coroner, powder burns indicated that both victims were shot at point blank range. Also killed was a student, Angela Denise Dales. Three other people were wounded.

When Odighizuwa left the building where he committed the murders, he was approached by two students with personal firearms. At the sound of gunfire, fellow students Tracy Bridges and Mikael Gross, unbeknownst to each other, ran to their vehicles to fetch their personally-owned guns. Gross, a police officer with the Grifton Police Department in his home state of North Carolina, retrieved a 9 mm pistol. Bridges pulled his .357 Magnum from beneath the driver's seat of his Chevy Tahoe. As Bridges later told the Richmond Times Dispatch, he was prepared to shoot to kill.

Bridges and Gross approached Odighizuwa from different angles, with Bridges yelling at Odighizuwa to drop his gun. Odighizuwa did so and was subdued by several other, unarmed students.

Having encountered armed students prepared to use their guns to defend themselves and others, Odighizuwa was stopped before he brought about further bloodshed. The total killed was 3, slightly less than one-tenth the death toll at "gun free" Virginia Tech.

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Almost always when I write in this space, I try to present facts to speak in behalf of one position or another. I shall not do so here, the facts having spoken for themselves.

Over at National Review Online, Jennifer Rubin has a great article in her Opening Shots column on the Parker v. District of Columbia case and the consequent prospects for the Second Amendment. Peter Ferrara, general counsel of the ACRU, is quoted extensively. Click here to read.

Be sure also to read Ferrara's excellent article, "Conservative Win: Second Amendment victory in D.C.," published at National Review Online right after our victory in the Parker case.