This is a familiar story

Canada's National Post: Gun registry is no lifesaver

The gun controls implemented by the federal Liberal government in 1995 appear to have had little if any effect on gun-related deaths, despite a $1.3-billion price tag and the government's extravagant claims that the measures would produce "a culture of safety" and dramatically reduce crime.

Last fall, Statistics Canada declared that "the specific impact of the firearms program or the firearms registry" on Canada's declining homicide rate could not "be isolated from that of other factors." On Tuesday, following the release of her paper, Deaths Involving Firearms: 1979 to 2002, StatsCan researcher Kathryn Wilkins explained, "there have been gun-control laws for most of this last century, of one sort or another," so it is difficult to identify a single cause of Canada's shrinking rate of firearms deaths (a category that includes murders, suicides and accidents).

Dan Walters: Rights of individuals were the Declaration's core values

Dan Walters has a very interesting and powerful piece. The entire piece is worth reading.

As we celebrate the birth of the nation, we should not forget that the essential purpose of those who signed the Declaration of Independence 229 years ago was not merely to create a new nation, but to create one that would protect the "inalienable rights" of human beings to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

Those rights were spelled out in more detail in the Constitution's Bill of Rights, but their essential message remained intact and remains valid today: Live and let live.

Ironically, as the concept of individual rights continues to spread across the globe, even into such unlikely locales as the Middle East, we Americans seem to be increasingly willing to trade individual rights away for other values, such as security - however we may define it - political correctness or economic gains.. . .

We see it in the proliferation of bills in the Legislature that harass law-abiding firearms owners, supposedly in the name of battling crime but really just because some folks have a cultural aversion to guns and their owners. . .

A free press may be intrusive and even irresponsible, but it also is a check on official malfeasance and is a civic educator. Strangely, however, many newspaper editorialists who cherish their First Amendment rights also advocate abridging the Second Amendment rights of gun owners. . . .

Thanks very much to Bob Harding for sending this to me.

Federal Gun Ranges Protected

Alan Korwin writes in a new email that: "A ten-year review of national gun laws reveals that public access to federal shooting ranges has been preserved. A little-known law states that any rifle range built at least partially by federal money may be used by the military and the public. . . .

Other features of the Civilian Marksmanship Program (CMP) were abandoned, such as free .22 and .30 caliber ammunition for the public and youth groups. The rewrite of these laws are included in the completely updated 5th edition of 'Gun Laws of America,' to be released this month. Details are posted at gunlaws.com."

Virginia allows limited carry on school ground

until Friday, Virginia law had prohibited anyone other than law-enforcement officials from possessing loaded guns on school property. Individuals with concealed-weapon permits could have an unloaded gun with them in their vehicle, but it had to be in a case or on a gun rack.

So when Webb had to pick her daughter up from school unexpectedly, she would stop down the road from the school, pull her gun from its concealed holster, unload it and secure the gun and the ammunition before proceeding on to the school.

She won't have to go through that routine any more.

A state law that took effect Friday allows people with concealed-weapon permits to have a loaded, concealed gun in their cars on school property, as long as the person carrying the gun doesn't leave the vehicle.

Virginia is now added to other states such as Oregon, New Hampshire, and Utah that allow privately owned guns on school property.

Virginia allows limited carry on school ground

until Friday, Virginia law had prohibited anyone other than law-enforcement officials from possessing loaded guns on school property. Individuals with concealed-weapon permits could have an unloaded gun with them in their vehicle, but it had to be in a case or on a gun rack.

So when Webb had to pick her daughter up from school unexpectedly, she would stop down the road from the school, pull her gun from its concealed holster, unload it and secure the gun and the ammunition before proceeding on to the school.

She won't have to go through that routine any more.

A state law that took effect Friday allows people with concealed-weapon permits to have a loaded, concealed gun in their cars on school property, as long as the person carrying the gun doesn't leave the vehicle.

Virginia is now added to other states such as Oregon, New Hampshire, and Utah.

Repealing Part of DC's Gun Ban

The current rules that allow you to keep a registered rifle or shotgun in your home if the are disassembled and locked makes them worth little more than a club for self-defense. While it would be even better if handguns were covered in the same way, it will be educational to have all the horror stories of gun control advocates disproved once again if this is passed.

The vote of 259 to 161 marked the third time since 1999 that the House has targeted the city's gun laws, which are among the most stringent in the nation. . . . Gun rights groups said this measure's chances of clearing the Senate are greater because it is attached to a spending bill that Congress must pass to avoid a government shutdown. . . .

Rep. Mark Edward Souder (R-Ind.), the measure's sponsor, said it marked "an extremely simple, common-sense . . . first step" toward freer gun ownership, allowing residents to keep loaded, assembled and unlocked weapons in their homes, just as D.C. business owners are allowed to do at workplaces.

Under D.C. law, residents can keep rifles and shotguns in their homes, as well as handguns owned and registered by Feb. 22, 1977, but only if they are stored in a nonoperating condition. The House amendment would prevent the city from enforcing that restriction. Unlike the bill passed by the House last year, it would not alter the city's ban on handguns, Souder said.

"This amendment does not legalize anything that can't be legally owned now. No machine guns, sawed-off shotguns, AK-47s or Uzis," he said. "All it does is . . . [it] gives D.C. citizens the same rights at home that they have at work."

New op-ed on Firework Safety

National Review Online has my newest op-ed on firework safety.