Apparently the director for the Memphis police department has requested the identities be revealed of several bloggers who write about local police matters. This got me thinking about gun control.

Some on the left have argued that we don’t need firearms for protection because the police already provide that service. Using the same justification, one can easily argue that bloggers shouldn’t be allowed to write about police matters because professional journalist already provide this service. Would those on the left support laws forbidding citizens from writing about police matters unless they are certified by an official organization of journalism? Such restrictions would reduce some of the more unsavory aspects of freedom of speech such as slander. Honestly, we don’t need non-professionals witting about police matters when we already have a professional journalists who do this work.

One can’t help but think that the those on the left would disagree with such laws on the grounds that it’s to dangerous to leave such an important job up to small groups of citizens. They would worry that such a groups would be weak to corruption and easily controlled by the state. No, it would be better to accept the unsavory aspects of free speech, the noise as it were, and let all citizens report on police matters. Sure the right will be abused but its better than leaving such an important right in the hands of small group of people.

This is the same reason I would give for why our right to bear arms should be protected.

To defend this right, via Instapundit.

This is what a decently produced news segment that supports a more conservative position looks like. You don’t see these very often so enjoy it. The only difference between this and left leaning news segments is that it wasn’t about how the government didn’t do enough, or how terrorist are citizens too, but rather that citizens had their 2nd right violated. If a news organization wanted to come off as being neutral it would to balance the content of this kind of news segment with liberal leaning news segments.

Also, seriously how freaking scary and frustrating would it be to have the state take your guns away from you during some kind catastrophe? If ever you needed a gun its during a catastrophe and then the state arbitrarily takes your weapon away from you. You are using your weapon in safe manner as a means for protection and the state just up and steals it from you.

Some people roll their eyes when you suggest that a constitutional right to bear arms exists as means to protect you from the state. However, when something like this happens its virtually impossible for me not to see the utility in arming the citizenry. When the state becomes illegitimate all we have to defend ourselves is our weapons. Hopefully that day will never come, but if it does hopefully the liberals will not have taken all our weapons from us.

According to Glen Reynolds:

I’M WRITING A SHORT PIECE ON HELLER FOR NORTHWESTERN, and something became clear to me as soon as I started writing: What’s most striking about Heller is that absolutely everybody — majority and dissents — says the Second Amendment protects an individual right.

It’s true that the dissenters’ view of that right is somewhere between “minimalist” (to be charitable) and “incoherent” (to be accurate). But nonetheless, all nine Justices specifically said the right is individual, and thus rejected the “collective right” position on the Second Amendment, a position that’s been the mainstay of gun-control groups, newspaper editorialists, and lower federal courts for decades, and one that was presented by those adherents as so obviously correct that those arguing for an individual right were called “frauds” and shills for the NRA.

Yet the collective right theory could not command a single vote on the Court when actually tested. It was, it seems, a paper tiger all along.

And some say I can never admit to being wrong. If being wrong means showing how completely asinine the collective rights argument was for the second amendment then I will be wrong all day long.

Don Surber reminds us about gun control’s effectiveness:

Question: Did the murder rate really triple under the Washington, DC, gun ban?

Answer: Yes. The murder rate was 26.8 homicides per 100,000 people in 1976, when the ban became law. That would be its lowest rate for the next 30 years. It peaked at 80.6 homicides per 100,000 people in 1991.

Question: What’s the highest the murder rate has been in gun happy West Virginia in that time?

Answer: 6.9 homicides per 100,000 people. us:

I eagerly await those of you that take stock in ‘facts’ to renounce any support of gun control as means to reduce gun violence. Maintaining that position simply means refusing to accept the ‘facts’.

This is particularly relevant as some of you have argued that at least one of my analogies in teaching sex education does not work because it’s fact that such programs does not increase rate of sexual activity among children. Live by the fact die by the fact.

Is it alarming that 4 out of the 9 supreme court justice can’t read English.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Washington D.C.’s sweeping ban on handguns is unconstitutional.

The justices voted 5-4 against the ban with Justice Antonin Scalia writing the opinion for the majority.

You would think for such an important position in our government that there would be a minimum requirement for being able to read. Congress should pass a law requiring nominated justices to pass a 5th grade reading test before becoming a supreme court justice. That way we can be sure that the justices have read the constitution when they rule on the constitution.

The crime is so bad in DC that the police are going to implement no go zones. This decision has prompted Instapundit to remark:

IT’S A QUAGMIRE: U.S. out of D.C. now!…. Nothing we can do will stop these people from committing senseless acts of violence. It’s in their culture. The best thing we can do is to withdraw and leave them to each other. . . .

His comments are based on this quote:

D.C. police will seal off entire neighborhoods, set up checkpoints and kick out strangers under a new program that D.C. officials hope will help them rescue the city from its out-of-control violence.

Under an executive order expected to be announced today, police Chief Cathy L. Lanier will have the authority to designate “Neighborhood Safety Zones.” At least six officers will man cordons around those zones and demand identification from people coming in and out of them. Anyone who doesn’t live there, work there or have “legitimate reason” to be there will be sent away or face arrest, documents obtained by The Examiner show.

Is this a fair application of the Anti-war argument that Iraqis are incapable of peaceful democracy? If not why? Giving the obvious answer that because DC is the capitol of our country is uninteresting.

Its worth noting that DC has banned handguns and the violence is so bad that the police are going to apply some rather extreme methods to control it. Gun control is certainly the solution to gun violence.

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UPDATE: Welcome to those from Instapundit! Make sure you check out my libertarian web comic Smith and Engels. Its freaking awesome.

Its simple. You want to stop mass shootings you make owning hand guns easier and not harder.

The subsequent investigation lead detectives to believe that Villagomez entered the bar and at some point began firing multiple rounds. At least two of these rounds struck and killed the other two decedents, Jose Torres age, 20 and his brother Margarito Torres, age 19 both of Winnemucca. At some point during this shooting spree Villagomez allegedly stopped and according to witnesses reloaded his high capacity handgun and began shooting again.

It was at this point that the second shooter, the Reno resident, produced a concealed handgun and proceeded to fire upon Villagomez who succumbed to his wounds. The Reno resident was in possession of a valid Concealed Carry Permit issued through the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office.

Steve Chapman argues cogently against gun control laws.

As Florida State University criminologist Gary Kleck notes, most criminals arm themselves by stealing guns or buying guns stolen by someone else. So new restrictions don’t make much difference to them. The federal ban was a classic illustration of how gun control works. Law-abiding people who rarely misuse their guns were deprived of options. Ex-cons went on as before.

As he notes, the numbers really don’t come out for gun control reducing gun violence. This prompts him to ask the obvious question:

Gun control hasn’t worked as a remedy for crime. So what makes anyone think the answer is more gun control?

Instapundit links to story reporting on Florida recently passing a law prohibiting businesses from keeping employees from bringing locked and stored weapons on to their premise. I won’t deny thats its nice to see legislator actually passing legislation that supports my constitutional right, butI ultimately I can’t support this bill. Since these are private companies they should be allowed to determine for themselves as to whether their employees can or can not bring firearms to work. In my view its not the state’s business to tell private companies that they must allow employees to bring firearms on their property.

If you are generally antipathetic towards guns and find my current position interesting, don’t get too excited. I also don’t think the state should tell private companies not to discriminate or build handicap accessible infrastructure. Unless their is explicit harm being done, the state should keeps its hand off private property.

Apparently a lady on the phone to 911 was shot to death while waiting for the police to arrive.

A California woman was shot to death as she pleaded with emergency dispatchers to come and help her. Her death will not make the network news programs this evening, but this is the latest reminder that we must take responsibility for our own safety and not rely on the police.

Darwin has argued on occasion that firearms are unnecessary for self protection because law enforcement serves that role. I wonder what his response would be to this story.