Guns are the great equalizer — and nobody on the Left likes equality.  This is why the Left twists itself in knots to avoid the implications of the 2nd Amendment.  Here are Penn & Teller with one interpretation:

There’s a differing interpretation of the 2nd Amendment that also sees the comma being just as important.  During the 18th century, a militia was a people’s army, as opposed to a government’s standing army. Under that understanding, the 2nd amendment reads, “Because a people’s army is absolutely vital to protect individuals from a government’s standing army, the government may not take people’s weapons away.”  Considering that the newly founded United States had just fought a war in which the people’s militia turned its guns on Britain’s standing army, it’s not a stretch, either grammatically, historically, or vocabulary-ily, to appreciate that the language says what it means and means what it says.

Either way, the 2nd Amendment is as clear as clear can be.

As regular readers know, back in my liberal days, I was totally for gun control, a feat I managed simply by ignoring the 2nd amendment, or by saying that our government-controlled army was “a well regulated militia” (which still didn’t deal with that comma). By 9/11, I’d pretty much changed my views, but the nail in the coffin for me when it came to turning my back on gun control was Hurricane Katrina. I finally figured out then that law abiding citizens must be able to protect themselves. Also, I’d finally figured out that, in places with strict gun control, law-abiding citizens morphed into fish packed tightly in barrels, just waiting for the criminal class to come and pick them off.

I finally figured out the Second Amendment when Hurricane Katrina struck.  I mean, I’d always known before that the police can’t be everywhere and that they often show up to mop up after a crime, because the criminal and done and gone so quickly.  The knowledge that they’re out there is certainly a deterrent to crime generally, but it cannot stop all crimes specifically.  Knowing that intellectually was not the same as understanding that viscerally.  Hurricane Katrina brought the whole thing home:  with the best will in the world, it was impossible for New Orlean’s police to protect citizens literally left adrift by the Gulf’s raging waters.  Those with guns protected themselves.  Those without were vulnerable.

Mike McDaniel gets this.  A former police officer and current Second Amendment stalwart, he understands the limits of what the police can do, and the point at which the citizenry is responsible for its own care.  It’s a post that’s worth reading.  I don’t have a gun in my house for various reasons, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t think you shouldn’t have one either.

Is it a coincidence that, the day before Hanukkah, my blog is suddenly hopping with references to the Second Amendment?  After all, Hanukkah commemorates a battle against government tyranny, something that happens only when a citizenry can protect itself.

No, I don’t think it’s coincidence, especially because I just read that The Daily Caller is starting a whole new Guns and Gear Section at its website.

There is also a very good chance, I learned today, that I’ll get some gun trainer in 2012.  Woo-hoo!

(Hat tip:  The Gateway Pundit)

Robert Avrech nails the stupidity that is gun control.  (And yes, I was once that stupid, but I’ve recovered.)  It’s pretty much a perfect post:  short, riveting, persuasive.

Hat tip:  Sadie

One of the blessings of blogging is that I’ve met so many wonderful people.  I haven’t met most of them in the conventional sense — that is, I haven’t been in the same physical space with them — but I’ve corresponded with them over the years and feel I know them as I well as if I’d met them at a PTA meeting, Republican gathering, soccer game, or at the dojo.  One of those people is Mike McDaniel, who blogs at Stately McDaniel Manor.  Read Mike’s writing and you know you’re in the presence of a mensch.

This particular mensch happens to be a big Second Amendment advocate, and he recently published an article at the Gun Values Board about the rising number of women who have guns.  We women are raised to be afraid of guns, but more and more women are recognizing that a gun is a great equalizer.  Whether you’re facing a random crazy person or an insanely angry spouse, a gun provides women with the margin of strength that nature denied them.

I used to think that guns meant mayhem.  I’ve now come to understand that guns in the hands of amoral bullies mean mayhem.  A moral, armed citizenry is a safe citizenry.

America’s First Sergeant has a related post, not about guns per se, but about our obligation to defend ourselves.  As he makes clear, there is a difference between bullying and self-defense.  The Left has raised a generation of children who cannot make this distinction, meaning that the bullies rule.

(P.S.  America’s First Sergeant is also a mensch, although I’m not sure you’re supposed to say that about a Marine Sergeant.)

Many, many have written on this, but I like Keith Koffler’s summation the best, as I think he does a remarkably good getting to the core point about the latest twist in Fast and Furious.  He also manages to highlight why I like Rush:  Rush is not afraid to identify and accurately predict the evil that lurks in the heart of Progressives.

Perhaps because they often tend to live in tightly packed urban environments, when it comes to the gun debate, liberals always forget that the cops cannot be relied upon to be there at the moment a crime is happening.  In a city it’s entirely possible that there are lots of police patrolling a small geographic area who can then respond immediately to a 911 call.  In areas that see cops stretched thin by geography (a sprawling county) or crisis (Katrina), citizens are on their own.  This video of a woman in an isolated area facing off a rabid intruder is a perfect reminder of the fact that arms protect citizens:

Click here to view the embedded video.

It’s obvious by the end of the video that the woman is absolutely shattered by the experience, but I came away impressed by her clear-thinking courage.  I also appreciated the 911 dispatcher’s compassion and good advice.

Hat tip:  Hot Air

Twenty years ago, if you had offered me the opportunity to fire a gun, I would have recoiled in absolute horror and read you the riot act.  I can still recite my standard factoids from memory, although I’m too lazy now to string them together into a coherent narrative:

Guns are dangerous.  They kill people.  America is the most violent country in the world and it has the most guns.  Look at England and Sweden.  They have far fewer murders per capita than America does (although I have to add here, in 2009, that when I was making this argument England did not have gun laws as stringent as it does now, and it even then had a very violent knife culture).  Most gun crimes occur in a moment of passion because there is a gun in the home and someone grabs it.  Children can’t stay away from guns and will invariably kill each other or themselves if they stumble across one.  And the Second Amendment is all about militias, and individuals who have guns aren’t forming formal militias, they just want guns to kill people and innocent animals.

I think I got everything there from the old standard riff.

As with everything else in the last decade, my views about guns have changed substantially.  I understand now that, even if all of the above facts are true, the bigger issues surrounding the right to bear arms transcend — and offset — those concerns.  The biggest principle is that the right to bear arms is the hallmark of a free society.  It is no coincidence that, as my pro-gun brother-in-law always said, one of the first things the Nazis did when they came into power was legislate against private gun ownership.  Even though they understood that a rag tag band of citizens is probably of little immediate effect against a well-trained, well-supplied standing army, they also understood that armed, enraged citizens can engage in guerilla warfare that is sufficient to hold off even a formal military — especially if the military is comprised of troops who share the values of the armed citizenry.

I also know now that, even if the government isn’t my enemy, it may not be at my side when the chips are down.  This won’t be from a lack of will, but from a lack of ability.  Hurricane Katrina vividly illustrated that, with the best will in the world, when all systems break down, law enforcement cannot be at your side and you are on your own.  In New Orleans, those communities that could boast that they were protected by Smith & Wesson were left alone by marauding bands of looters.  The same will hold true if, God forbid, there is another major terrorist attack against the United States, paralyzing government, and its ability to protect us both from terrorists and from fellow-citizens taking advantage of the anarchy that can occur in the wake of a major terrorist attack.

I’ve also figured out over the years that similarly situated societies that have outlawed guns have much higher gun crime than those that haven’t.  Look at Texas and California for a nice side-by-side comparison of gun policies.  The former is much more gun friendly, but traditionally has had a lower per capita crime rate than California. And we all know that, when cities such as London or Washington, D.C., enacted complete gun bans, violent crime sky-rocketed.  These comparisons seem to lend complete credence to the saying that, “When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.”

It’s an interesting question, though, whether banning guns really is a direct cause of the subsequent increase in crime.  Another one of my brothers-in-law, who is pro-gun, does not believe that there is a direct cause-and-effect relationship between crime and outlawing guns. He points out that, in Los Angeles, most of the gun crime involves gangs.  In those cases, both sides are armed.  The combatents are young men who are not at all deterred by the fact that the house or car they are targeting contains equally well-armed combatents.  In the tribal cultures they’ve created in the ghettoes, warfare is normative, and the other side’s weapons are not a deterrent.  This means that, for these young men, it is irrelevant whether a homeowner has arms.  They’ll break in anyway.  And they’ll shoot regardless.  Gun control or not, these guys shoot to kill.

Thinking about it, I believe my brother-in-law has a poi nt. Gun control laws alone are probably not the direct cause of an increase in crime.  But how about this:  Is it possible that the same democratic societies that voluntarily enact gun control laws (as opposed to totalitarian dictatorships that disarm their citizenry for power purposes) are societies that have already broken down at other levels?  When you look at cities or that have outlawed or severely limited access to guns, they are also cities or states that have embraced welfare, that are hostile to self-reliance and traditional Judeo-Christian morality, that are “soft on crime,” that oppose capital punishment, that have high rates of out-of-wedlock pregnancies, and that generally have fallen into moral disrepair.  Outlawing guns is part of a package deal of social decay — and social decay invariably brings with it rising crime rates.  In other words, gun rights are the canary in the coal mine, giving one a fairly good reading of a society’s level of freedom and morality, without actually having a direct causative effect on either one of those things.

All of which brings me back to the start of this post.  I mentioned that, in the old days, I would have reacted in horror to an offer to fire a gun.  On Thursday, however, when yet another brother-in-law (I seem to have a lot of them) offered to take me to a firing range to try out his revolver (357 Magnum) and his rifle (I have no idea what kind), I jumped at the chance.  Yesterday morning, therefore, saw me at the Angeles Shooting Range, just outside of L.A.

I have to admit to being quite intimidated.  I’ve never been next to a gun in my life (except for museum pieces, and those were behind glass), and suddenly I find myself surrounded by dozens and dozens of people armed to the teeth.  Even with hearing protecting, my ears were ringing.  I was instantly impressed, though, by how well-organized the shooting range was, and how respectful the customers were of the rules — which makes sense, since the rules were so obviously for everyone’s benefit.

My bro-in-law first had me fire the revolver.  I did exactly what he said:  After carefully loading the gun, I got into a balanced stance, held the gun in both hands. extended my arms, and looked down the sites to aim the gun.  My hands were shaking, but I took a deep breath, held it for a second, and fired.  I was surprised by the kick.  When I’m working on the bag at the dojo, and I punch it, the push-back I get from the bag is pretty much equivalent to the energy of the punch.  With the gun, though, a teeny movement of my finger caused the gun to rear up in my hands.  It was disconcerting, because it seemed to defy physics.  (And yes, I know that every time I get into a car, I defy physics, but that’s such an integral part of life I no longer think about it.)  Most magical of all, though, was the fact that a hole appeared in the piece of paper that was hanging some thirty or so feet away.  I ended up firing about 21 shots, and all of them hit the paper.  Here’s the result of my first ever attempt to fire a gun:

(My brother-in-law, by the way, hit the bulls eye on his target.)

After using up all the revolver ammo we bought, my brother-in-law and I headed over to the rifle range.  This was much more difficult for me.  The weapon felt awkward (which the revolver didn’t), I kept being worried that I’d manage to break my jaw with the recoil, and I couldn’t see the target very well.  Or rather, I could see the target but, because I couldn’t see whether I hit the target, I wasn’t able to correct my form from one shot to the next.  Here are the results of my first outing with a rifle:

It’s a bad photo, so it doesn’t show that I hit the paper in the white area several times,but it still gives a pretty good idea of the difficulties I had with the rifle.  Still, I don’t regret firing it, and would certainly do so again.

As my long-time readers know, I’ve been talking since Hurricane Katrina about learning how to shoot.  Somehow, though, I couldn’t seem to get myself going, no doubt due to some lingering liberal procrastination, coupled with the fear of going alone to do something entirely different.  Now, though, thanks to my bro-in-law’s help, I’ve taken that first step, and will try again, with pleasure.  I enjoyed the experience a great deal.  Ialso came away with a much greater respect for the gun, both as a weapon, and as a source of sportsmanlike pleasure.

One of the things that baffled me as a child was the way in which the Jews passively walked into the gas chambers.  My parents explained to me that Jews were not warriors.  Outside of Israel, Jews still aren’t warriors.  Jeffrey Goldberg thinks that’s stupid:

You can’t fight a rifle or a shotgun with a stick, or a whistle, or good intentions. Only armed guards are at all capable of stopping an attack. American Jews — and this is broad generalization here — are queasy around weapons. This queasiness is rooted in our urban and suburban existence. But one of the lessons of the Holocaust to me — I said this in my book, Prisoners, to some criticism — is that it is more difficult to kill an armed Jew than an unarmed Jew.

That last point can be generalized:  “it is more difficult to kill an armed person than an unarmed person.”  The fact is that, armed or not, most people aren’t killers.  The other fact is that most killers are armed.  In other words, whether or not more people carry weapons, it’s only the killers who will kill — but at least we’ll be able to defend ourselves.

Here’s one for the embittered crowd:  While we’ve all heard about the Annenberg Challenge, I think few, if any, of us have heard about Obama’s eight years as director of the Joyce Foundation.  You’d think he would have been playing up a directorship, considering that it would prove executive experience.  Of course, perhaps it’s because the executive experience was directed at a political hot potato:  using Foundation money to bulk up the number of anti-Second Amendment law review articles in an effort to convince judges that scholarly trends were hostile to guns.  David T. Hardy has the story (footnotes omitted):

During Obama’s tenure, the Joyce Foundation board planned and implemented a program targeting the Supreme Court. The work began five years into Obama’s directorship, when the Foundation had experience in turning its millions into anti-gun “grassroots” organizations, but none at converting cash into legal scholarship.

The plan’s objective was bold: the judicial obliteration of the Second Amendment.

Joyce’s directors found a vulnerable point. When judges cannot rely upon past decisions, they sometimes turn to law review articles. Law reviews are impartial, and famed for meticulous cite-checking. They are also produced on a shoestring. Authors of articles receive no compensation; editors are law students who work for a tiny stipend.

In 1999, midway through Obama’s tenure, the Joyce board voted to grant the Chicago-Kent Law Review $84,000, a staggering sum by law review standards. The Review promptly published an issue in which all articles attacked the individual right view of the Second Amendment.

In a breach of law review custom, Chicago-Kent let an “outsider” serve as editor; he was Carl Bogus, a faculty member of a different law school. Bogus had a unique distinction: he had been a director of Handgun Control Inc. (today’s Brady Campaign), and was on the advisory board of the Joyce-funded Violence Policy Center.

Bogus solicited only articles hostile to the individual right view of the Second Amendment, offering authors $5,000 each. But word leaked out, and Prof. Randy Barnett of Boston University volunteered to write in defense of the individual right to arms. Bogus refused to allow him to write for the review, later explaining that “sometimes a more balanced debate is best served by an unbalanced symposium.” Prof. James Lindgren, a former Chicago-Kent faculty member, remembers that when Barnett sought an explanation he “was given conflicting reasons, but the opposition of the Joyce Foundation was one that surfaced at some time.” Joyce had bought a veto power over the review’s content.

Joyce Foundation apparently believed it held this power over the entire university. Glenn Reynolds later recalled that when he and two other professors were scheduled to discuss the Second Amendment on campus, Joyce’s staffers “objected strenuously” to their being allowed to speak, protesting that Joyce Foundation was being cheated by an “‘agenda of balance’ that was inconsistent with the Symposium’s purpose.” Joyce next bought up an issue of Fordham Law Review.

The plan worked, too, with those paid-for law review articles being used in Court’s as evidence against the Second Amendment’s plain meaning.

And don’t forget Obama’s role in all this:  this was his executive experience, because he was the director.  While Palin’s executive experience was lowering taxes, getting pipe lines built, negotiating with oil companies and getting rid of corrupt politicians, Obama’s was using the power of money to corrupt and subvert the marketplace of ideas.  Indeed, given Obama’s tenure on the Harvard Law Review, one has to wonder whether it was he who figured out the power of law reviews when it comes to shaping judicial opinion.

You should definitely read the whole article, which also details other creative subversive approaches the Joyce Foundation came up with, and then forward it to anyone you know who supports the Second Amendment.

Hat tip:  Confederate Yankee