Written by Spencer Aland


There has been a lot of talk recently about gun registries since Canada has voted to disband its long gun registry. I wrote earlier that I am in favor of eliminating this registry, but I want to take some time to talk more about gun registries and how they relate to the 2^nd Amendment.


While I am not in favor of long gun registries, it is not for the same reasons as most gun advocates. I think a long gun registry is economically a waste of time and money; the number of crimes committed with long guns is so small that it is quite easy to trace them back to their original owners without any type of registry. Handguns however are a different story. Nearly all gun crimes are committed with handguns, almost all illegal sales are handguns, and handguns are among the top items stolen during home burglaries. I am in favor of a handgun registry and firmly believe that it does not infringe on the right to bear arms.


The idea of a gun registry is simple; it assists the police in discovering who was involved in a gun crime. I’m sorry to those of you that feel like a registry is a government conspiracy to be able to disarm the public at will, but I just don’t think there is any merit to that claim. If the government wanted to disarm the public I don’t think that a registry would make much of a difference since the military would likely have no problem going home to home if personal liberties were already so low that forcibly removing firearms was even an option.


The fact of the matter is that a handgun registry does not infringe on the right to bear arms. If you are a law abiding citizen you should be able to buy a gun whenever and wherever you want to, but the fact that you have to register that gun doesn’t block you from exercising your right. A registry does only one thing: it tells the police who purchased the weapon involved in a crime so that hopefully they can trace it back to whoever used it. I am a strong advocate of the 2^nd Amendment, but a gun registry has nothing to do with that. Arguing that a registry is an invasion of privacy is one thing, but please don’t drag the 2^nd Amendment into it.

There is a troubling piece of legislation going through Congress right now that anyone who values gun rights should be aware of.

What H.R. 45 Does


The legislation has three main components.


1. Increasing requirements for firearms purchases.


2. Creating a national firearms registry overseen by the Federal Government.


3. Stiffen penalties for bookkeeping errors related to the Federal Firearms Database formed in section 2.


To purchase a firearm a person would be required to pass a written firearms examination, release all health records — including mental heath records — to the Attorney General’s office, and submit to a two-day waiting period, as well as pay an “appropriate” fee of $25 per firearm.


Additionally, every firearm sale would be recorded in a database, which would track the serial number, make, model and identity of the owner. The legislation would also make all private sales of firearms illegal, and a felony offense.


In addition to these regulations, the legislation includes excessive regulations and penalties for bureaucratic missteps from simple failures to report address changes to failure to report stolen weapons.


Provisions of H.R. 45 include:


– Requires passing a written examination to purchase a firearm.

– Releases medical records – including confidential mental health records – to the Attorney General for Government review.

– Requires a two-day waiting period on all firearms purchases.

– Institutes a fee of $25 or more on all firearm purchases.

– Creates a national database with all firearms and firearms owners registered by serial number with the Federal Government.

– A Federal ban on all private firearms sales.

– Increases in penalties for clerical errors related to this national firearms registry.

You can read the full text of the bill here.

Written by Spencer Aland


Far too often people think the solution to solving gun crime is to just take all guns away instead of developing ways to be able to track down illegally used guns. Well instead of spending money to print out new paperwork for legal gun owners some police forces are developing technology to track down illegal guns. The new system is called ‘ShotSpotter’ and it uses highly sensitive microphones designed to pick up specific gun shot sounds within city limits. The system uses these microphones in different locations to triangulate within a few blocks where a gun has been shot, all within a few seconds.


The system is great in the fight on gun crime because it can often alert police before anyone can call 911. There is no invasion of privacy because it only targets the illegal use of weapons within city limits, and if a law abiding citizen has to defend themselves with their firearm the police will be able to come and assist them more quickly.


This is what the government needs to be spending more time and money on- systems and tools to fight illegal gun use and gun crime, and not legal gun owners.

Written by Spencer Aland


An Ex-soldier in Britain has been found guilty of possession of a firearm, and could face up to five years in jail, for finding an illegal gun dumped in his backyard and then turning it into the police station. When I first read this story I had a hard time believing it to be true; I doubled checked to make sure I hadn’t clicked on a news satire website on accident, but to my absolute dismay it is a true story. The man found a sawed-off shotgun dumped into his yard from an adjoining park and decided that he should get it to the police straightaway. He took the weapon into the police station where he was immediately arrested and locked up for possession of a firearm. The court found him guilty, because it is ’strict liability’ and his intentions made no difference.


This is a perfect example of how gun control laws alienate the general public. The public is taught that the government has everything under control and that self preservation is not only unnecessary, but can be punishable. How many times have we heard of would-be burglars suing their intended victims for causing them some kind of harm in self defense? These types of things should not happen. An armed citizen should have the right to defend themselves, and a law abiding citizen has a right to report crime without fear of punishment.


Gun control laws in Britain should serve as an example of where that type of legislation can lead. Harsh gun control laws lead to a world of absolutes; a world where a person’s intent is irrelevant; a world where everyone with a gun is the enemy regardless of where, when, how, or even if they ever use it. The general public may be the best ally the police have in winning the war on crime, but heavy gun control is nothing more than friendly fire.

Written by Spencer Aland



I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse me from blogging for about a weeks time. As a student I still have papers to write and reports to finish. I will be taking this week off from the blogging world in order to finish a policy paper I am writing on a flat tax for Britain.


Look back next week however for a new blog on gun rights.


In the meantime however, if anyone is so inclined as to send me a blog they have written on gun rights I would gladly post it this week. blogs@mygunsmyrights.com

Written by Spencer Aland


Call me weird, but I’m one of those people who really enjoys a good statistical report or looking at things through numbers. I was looking through the internet when I recently came across some interesting numbers, and I thought I might as well crunch them in a statistical model and see what comes out.


The numbers I found were the violent crime and murder rates by state as reported by the FBI, and the gun ownership percentages by state from the national firearms survey. I decided to go with the year 2003 because it was the most recent that had complete data from each state. All I wanted to see was if there was any type of correlation.


First lets look at the violent crime rates:

[For those interested, and can't read the graph (sorry about the resolution) the R-squared value is 0.0421, also the control variables were race (white value 0 and non-white value 1), educational attainment, median income, and population density.]

What does this prove? Nothing! I’m not going to say, “Look! crime actually goes down with more guns!” Because the correlation is practically non-existent. The important thing shown here is that crime does not go up or down dependent upon gun ownership. In fact, the number of privately owned firearms is completely uncorrelated with violent crime.


Next Murder rate:

[R-squared value of 0.0007 with same control variables]

The correlation with the murder rate is even lower. While this also serves to show that more legally owned guns don’t reduce crime it equally shows that more guns do not increase it. The problem with gun control is that it is entirely based upon the principle that reducing guns reduces crime.


I don’t believe that giving a gun to every law abiding citizen is the answer, but I would certainly argue that taking guns away from them is not the solution.

Written by Spencer Aland


A New Jersey Judge has ruled that a quadriplegic man has the right to own and operate a firearm. The man will have to mount the weapon on his wheelchair and operate it by blowing into a tube. The judge ruled that the man may hunt and use the firearm as long as he is surrounded by qualified individuals who can assist him in its operation.


I read this article several hours ago and have been unable to decide whether or not I actually support this decision. As a firm supporter of the 2nd amendment I feel obliged to say that the man has a right to own a firearm regardless of his circumstance, and that the ruling was just. However, I also understand the concern that some might feel towards a man with a firearm attached to his wheelchair bouncing through the forest. There is an obvious need for reasonable moderation when dealing with rights in order to preserve social order and safety; this is similar to the idea that an individual’s right to free speech does not outweigh the social costs involved should that individual yell ‘fire’ in a crowded theater.


I feel like I should revert back to what the meaning behind the 2nd amendment really is. The amendment represents an individual’s right to defend and preserve his self, family, and property. It also forces the government to live with an armed citizenry which would severely limit a government’s ability to become tyrannical should it ever choose to. The problem with the quadriplegic man in question is that he is physically unable to defend himself or his property without assistance. He is dependent upon others and/or technology to exercise his rights. Also his inability to use a firearm without assistance creates hazards not normally associated with personal gun ownership.


There are two main points that make me feel as if the 2nd amendment does not apply to this situation. Firstly, even if the man was allowed to own a firearm he would not be able to use it for defensive purposes even given the most inconceivable of circumstances. Secondly, the man cannot serve as a deterrent to criminals or any other type of tyrant for that matter. The man in question will only be able to use his weapon while hunting under strict surveillance, and quite frankly, the 2nd amendment was not written to protect hunting. Do I believe that the man should be granted the privilege to hunt under the circumstances the judge presented? Yes. But do I believe that the 2nd amendment should be used as justification for this man to have access to firearms. No.

Do you like to blog? Do you believe in an individual’s right to bear arms? Then tell me about it!


Anyone is welcome to blog about gun rights here, and if you have something you would like to add to the defense of the 2nd amendment, send it to me. If it sounds good then I’ll post it on the website.


Email your blog to blogs@mygunsmyrights.com

Written by John Lott


Shouldn’t an army base be the last place where a terrorist should be able to shoot at people uninterrupted for 10 minutes? After all, an army base is filled with soldiers who carry guns, right? Unfortunately, that is not the case. Beginning in March 1993, under the Clinton administration, the army forbids military personnel from carrying their own personal firearms and mandates that “a credible and specific threat against [Department of the Army] personnel [exist] in that region” before military personnel “may be authorized to carry firearms for personal protection.” Indeed, most military bases have relatively few military police as they are in heavy demand to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan.


The unarmed soldiers could do little more than cower as Major Nidal Malik Hasan stood on a desk and shot down into the cubicles in which his victims were trapped. Some behaved heroically, such as private first class Marquest Smith who repeatedly risked his life removing five soldiers and a civilian from the carnage. But, being unarmed, these soldiers were unable to stop Hasan’s attack.


The wife of one of the soldiers shot at Ft. Hood understood this all too well. Mandy Foster’s husband had been shot but was fortunate enough not to be seriously injured. In an interview on CNN on Monday night, Mrs. Foster was asked by anchor John Roberts how she felt about her husband “still scheduled for deployment in January” to Afghanistan. Ms. Foster responded: “At least he’s safe there and he can fire back, right?” — It is hard to believe that we don’t trust soldiers with guns on an army base when we trust these very same men in Iraq and Afghanistan. Unfortunately, most of CNN’s listeners probably didn’t understand the rules that Ms. Foster was referring to.


The law-abiding, not the criminals, are the ones who obey the ban on guns. Instead of making areas safe for victims, the bans make it safe for the criminal. Hasan not only violated the army’s ban on carrying a gun, he also apparently violated the rules that require soldiers to register privately owned guns at the post.


Research shows that allowing individuals to defend themselves dramatically reduces the rates of multiple victim public shootings. Even if attacks still occur, having civilians with permitted concealed handguns limits the damage. A major factor in determining how many people are harmed by these killers is the amount of time that elapses between when the attack starts and someone is able to arrive on the scene with a gun. Ten minutes must have seemed like an eternity to those trapped in the attack at Ft. Hood. All the multiple victim public shootings in the U.S. — in which more than three people have been killed — have all occurred in places where concealed handguns have been banned.


For several days now, some in the media and various gun control groups have focused on a so-called “cop killer” gun that Hasan used. The five-seven is a conventional semi-automatic pistol. In fact, the bullets that it fires are relatively small, only being in the .22 caliber class. Unlike rifles, even higher caliber handguns don’t fire publicly available ammunition at sufficient velocity to penetrate a police officer’s vest. There is a special type of handgun ammunition that can penetrate some types of body armor, but under federal law it is not legal to manufacture or import that ammunition for sale to the public.


For the safety of our soldiers and citizens, we hope that this simple fact about the Ft. Hood attack and the role that gun-free zones played in allowing yet another multiple victim public shooting becomes part of the news coverage itself. The political debate about guns would be quite different if even once in a while a news story clearly explained that there has been another multiple victim public shooting in a gun-free zone.


John R. Lott, Jr. is a FoxNews.com contributor. He is an economist and author of “More Guns, Less Crime.”

Written by Daniel White


Gun control advocates in this country know they are losing the hearts and minds of more and more Americans every day. Poll after poll has shown that support for gun control is at an all time low, repeatedly their agenda has been defeated in the courts, and pro-gun laws are still sweeping the country.


Ever since the “assault weapons ban” (AWB) sunset in 2004, they have been waiting for the right moment to try to get it restated. Now, five years later, some think they have that chance thanks to the Ft. Hood shooting. The fact that what have been arbitrarily defined as “assault weapons” by these activists were’t even used in this shooting is immaterial, this incident is little more than a means to an end for them.


They’ve already seized on reports that a FN Five-Seven pistol was used by Nidal Hasan, the killer at Ft. Hood who is being called a domestic terrorist by some. The Five-Seven was targeted by gun control groups right around the time that the AWB sunset as the latest demon gun that needed to be banned because it had armor piercing ammunition. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence claimed to have successfully penetrated a bulletproof vest using the gun. While it is true that armor piercing ammunition does exist for the pistol, it is only available to law enforcement or military personnel. Whether Hasan had that kind of ammunition has not been released. What Brady forgot to tell you was that they used the second thinnest vest on the market, one that can be penetrated by many common handguns.


But this isn’t about truth, it is about agenda. Ever since they were invented there have been people who wanted to ban guns. Mass shootings in countries where guns have been banned tell us those bans don’t accomplish much other than to ensure that if someone does go on a rampage there is nobody there to stop them. Most mass shooting have one thing in common, they are ended at the barrel of a gun when someone is able to fight fire with fire.


An article posted after the Ft. Hood attacks highlights the illogic being used by the gun grabbers. Louis Klarevas, a Professor in the Center for Global Affairs at New York University, wrote an article called It’s the Guns, Stupid: Why Handguns Remain One of the Biggest Threats To Homeland Security. Part of his argument on why we are so stupid contains the following:

Think of this simple fact. According to the U.S. government’s National Counter-Terrorism Center, over 50% of the 11,770 terrorist attacks that occurred worldwide last year involved armed attacks. Most prominent among these attacks was the siege in Mumbai, India, which claimed 173 lives (including six Americans).

I no longer wonder “if” a Mumbai-style attack will occur in the U.S. Absent the implementation of serious gun control measures, I now ask “when”?

Here’s some facts for us stupid folks to consider. Permits for owning weapons are available to the citizens of India, but the licensing process is so complex that very few citizens make the effort to legally obtain guns. The result of this is that the Mumbai terrorists had the run of the streets with very little opposition.


Here’s something else to think about. Klarevas lists 11,770 terrorists attacks worldwide. How many happened in the United States? Which country is decried for lax gun laws? It looks to me like there might be a connection! So, to answer Klarevas’ question, “when” will there be a Mumbai-style attack in the U.S.? When they are finally able to ban guns here, stupid!


Cleveland Family Examiner Becky Roob made a good observation when she stated:

The media are talking about the type of weapon and have named the store where it was purchased! Who cares about the store where, oh my, they sell guns? If I have a dinner party and one of my guests gets drunk and kills someone on the way home – will the media tell the name of the wine store where I bought the alcohol? This is stupid. The guy was a nut! He would have killed any way – any how if that’s what he wanted to really do.

Absolutely right. Taking it one step further, who is really to blame for the drunk driving accident, the person behind the wheel or the wine itself. Do we ban white zinfandel because of someone’s lack of judgment? Do we sue the vineyard for pressing the wine? Do we sue the seed company for providing the means to grow the grapes that made the wine?


Gun control advocates have an agenda to get rid of guns by any means necessary. They will seize on any tragedy to further their cause and will deny all logic that gets in the way. It is up to the American people to see through the lies and spread the truth.