Free Republic

Something happens to Democrats on the gun issue when they run for president. For John Kerry during 2004, it was awkwardly posing in brand new hunting gear at a seemingly endless series of hunting photo-ops. But in what will probably be the most improbable change, the Politico reported on Saturday that Barack Obama was making a big play for gun votes in Pennsylvania. It is not particularly surprising that this change is occurring with the crucial Pennsylvania primary soon approaching. With about one million of the country’s 12.5 million hunters, Pennsylvania is number one in the nation in the amount...

When you interview for a job, here is a hint: make sure you know what the job is. Joe Biden failed that test last Thursday. He couldn’t even get right what a vice president does, but the media didn’t notice. The media is all over itself about how smart and experienced Biden is. Political analyst Charlie Cook is quoted in the Washington Post on Saturday as saying “Biden is clearly so much more knowledgeable, by a factor of about a million.” Saturday Night Live does a skit about Biden being smart, if slimy. Meanwhile, Governor Sarah Palin is treated as...

Many see last week's reported spike in unemployment insurance claims as a signal of the economy's weakness. There will be more questions this Friday when September's unemployment numbers are released. In fact, it is a sign of Washington at work. The number of new unemployment claims soared last week to 493,000. Fox Business's Donna Fuscaldo spun the news as “underscoring the dour state of the U.S. economy.” After starting to rise in early January, initial jobless claims peaked this last March. New jobless claims either fell or leveled off after that -- until July, that is, when they started to...

Guns have become an important issue for Barack Obama’s campaign. Starting around the Pennsylvania primary, Obama and his campaign surrogates began strenuously assuring gun owners that he supports gun ownership, and it appears to be paying off. A poll in August showed that John McCain led Obama among hunters by only 14 percentage points, just about half the 27-point lead that President Bush held over John Kerry in 2004. If McCain had a similar lead, he would be ahead in most polls, particularly in many battleground states.This past weekend, Joe Biden, campaigning in southwest Virginia, called any notion that...

Does John McCain represent a third Bush term? The Obama campaign claims the two are almost indistinguishable. It was the mantra during the Democratic convention, and it is the theme of new ads Barack Obama is running. The ads claim that McCain is "no maverick when he votes with Bush 90 percent of the time." This week Obama has begun a constant refrain that there is "not a dime worth of difference" between Bush's and McCain's views. It is a... Is this the same McCain who drove Republicans nuts on campaign finance, the environment, taxes, torture, immigration and more? Where...

Vice presidential choices aren’t supposed to make much difference. Yet, Sarah Palin’s impact is undeniable and extremely large. Twelve days ago, presidential election futures markets indicated that Barack Obama had a 62 percent probability of winning the election. By Sunday, Obama’s probability had fallen to 46.5 percent, with John McCain at 52.1 percent. With the election at stake and Palin so crucial to the outcome, Democrats have sent “a mini-army of 30 lawyers, investigators and opposition researchers” into Alaska. The media has also understandably descended in large numbers in Alaska. Despite Palin’s name being on the short list of potential...

“Judgment” has become the byword of the election. Barack Obama has always wanted the election to be about the importance of “good judgment,” not experience. While Obama claimed last week that he had more executive experience than Sarah Palin, he has generally stuck to this theme. During the primaries, Obama’s claim to “good judgment” largely focused on his early opposition to the Iraq war. But, with the exception of picking Joe Biden as his running mate, virtually all the discussion of Obama’s good judgment still rests on his opposition to the war. Obama still has some work to convince people...

Democrats are expected to make strong gains in state legislatures this fall, but what do these stronger Democratic majorities mean? A look at Washington State may show what is in store for the rest of the country. Public employee unions are handing over vast amounts of money to the incumbent governor's re-election campaign, while the governor is simultaneously sitting at the bargaining table negotiating contracts with these very unions. If it seems inappropriate for the governor, Christine Gregoire, who is locked in a very tight re-election, to benefit personally from the parties that her office is negotiating with, that's just...

“Judgment” has become the byword of the election. Barack Obama has always wanted the election to be about the importance of “good judgment,” not experience. While Obama claimed last week that he had more executive experience than Sarah Palin, he has generally stuck to this theme. During the primaries, Obama’s claim to “good judgment” largely focused on his early opposition to the Iraq war. But, with the exception of picking Joe Biden as his running mate, virtually all the discussion of Obama’s good judgment still rests on his opposition to the war. Obama still has some work to convince people...

Sen. Barack Obama's campaign just won't let the gun issue rest. Mr. Obama and his campaign surrogates continue to assure gun owners that he is on their side, and it appears to be paying off. John McCain only leads Mr. Obama among hunters by 14 percentage points, just about half the 27-point lead that President Bush held over John Kerry in 2004. If Mr. McCain had a similar lead, he would be ahead in most polls, particularly in many battle ground states. Yet, despite all the Democratic claims to the contrary, Mr. Obama is undoubtedly the most anti-gun candidate ever...

By taking a couple of courses in economic theory, we could immunize ourselves from nonsense spouted by politicians and pundits. But in the meantime check out professor John R. Lott's "Freedomnomics: Why the Free Market Works and Other Half-Baked Theories Don't." His first chapter, "Are You Getting Ripped Off?," addresses myths about predation where it's sometimes alleged that corporations will charge below-cost prices to bankrupt their rivals and then charge unconscionable prices. There's little or no evidence that corporations would choose predation as strategy; there are too many pitfalls. A major one is that in order to recoup losses from...

Few presidential candidates in modern times have been identified with a large urban area like Barack Obama is with Chicago. And sometimes, that can present a problem. This election season, for instance, the residents of Obama's hometown are being murdered at a clip not seen in five years. Murders have risen 18 percent over a year ago. Assaults in the city involving guns are also rising. City officials, Police Supt. Jody Weis and the police force are increasingly coming under criticism. But some Republicans say part of the blame also lies with Obama. They argue that while serving Illinois as...

By taking a couple of courses in economic theory, we could immunize ourselves from nonsense spouted by politicians and pundits, but in the meantime check out professor John R. Lott’s “Freedomnomics: Why the Free Market Works.” His first chapter is “Are You Being Ripped Off?” It addresses myths about predation where it’s sometimes alleged that corporations will charge below-cost prices to bankrupt their rivals and then charge unconscionable prices. There’s little or no evidence that corporations would choose predation as strategy; there are too many pitfalls. A major one is that in order to recoup losses from charging low prices...

This is still a free country, right? Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation to more closely regulate the wages that firms pay workers and to more strictly regulate tobacco products by putting them under FDA supervision. The Los Angeles City Council also approved a one-year moratorium on new fast-food restaurants in a 32-square-mile low-income area in the city; the poor, after all, have “above-average rates of obesity” and must be protected from themselves. Perhaps the government may just want to ask people if they are poor before we let them enter certain restaurants. Barack Obama promises a...

The first convention of Students for Concealed Carry on Campus (SCCC) featured at least one speaker who said college students bearing arms on campus would not make anyone safer. Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign, a gun control advocacy group, said studies show that college students are more likely to engage in risky behavior than the general population. “When I look back on my college days, maybe it was a different era in the late ‘60s, but most of my fraternity brothers didn’t have criminal records – not yet, most of them, even those who were in ROTC and...

Does government do enough to help the poor? John McCain and Barack Obama could not be more divided on their approach. Obama’s Web site even has a section entitled “poverty,” with a large list of new antipoverty programs, while McCain's doesn’t. Yet, this is part of a bigger difference between the campaigns in whether to single out specific groups for help. While Obama’s Web site includes issue headings for “women,” “rural,” “seniors” and “disabilities,” McCain’s Web site generally focuses only on broad "issues" that affect everyone, such as “energy,” “education,” and “economic plan.” Both Web sites have sections on veterans....

The Supreme Court may have confirmed that Americans have the right to own guns for protection, but the gun debate is hardly over. The District of Columbia, whose handgun ban was struck down by the Supreme Court, is still planning on banning most handguns. And the court decision has spurred the media into overdrive to paint guns as dangerous to their owners. No one who has taken even a quick glance at the crime data can seriously argue that the D.C. gun ban lowered murder or violent crime rates. The concerns being raised are not the threat from criminals, but...

Banning handguns is all the rage. Mayor David Miller's push for a national ban has been joined by other Canadian big-city mayors. Yet, dissatisfied with progress at the national level, Miller successfully asked city council this week to approve measures to further discourage gun ownership in Toronto, such as shutting down city-owned gun ranges. While it may seem obvious to many people that banning handguns will save lives and cut crime, the experience in the United States suggests differently. Two major U. S. cities -- Washington, D.C., and Chicago --have tried banning handguns. (The U. S. Supreme Court is soon...

YOU CAN'T FUEL ALL OF THE PEOPLE ALL OF THE TIMEJune 25, 2008 Liberals dismiss studies that show a link between abortion and breast cancer, claiming they are biased because the people promoting the studies are "anti-choice." For the same reason, no one should believe the Democrats' "energy" policies. Democrats couldn't care less about high gas prices. The consistent policy of the Democratic Party, going back at least to Jimmy Carter, has been to jack up gas prices so we can all start pedaling around on tricycles. Environmentalists are constantly clamoring for higher gas taxes as the cure-all to their...

If a product is in short supply and if you really wanted more to be produced quickly, would you want companies to think that they could earn a lot of money making it? You would think that the answer is pretty obvious: No profits, no oil. To encourage more production, companies need to think that there are more profits to be made. With all the anger over high oil prices, more production to lower prices would seem to be a high priority. But outside of most congressional Republicans, particularly those in the Senate who successfully filibustered a new wind-fall profits...

What is the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars? To many, the answer, at least from 2001 through 2007, is $473 billion — about a quarter of total defense expenditures over those years. It has averaged less than 1 percent of GDP. $473 billion is probably an underestimate simply because the fighting has already lasted past 2007 and some wounded veterans will require long-term care. But how much more is it? In a new book, The Three Trillion Dollar War, Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes argue that this emphasis on what the government has already spent dramatically understates the...

With oil prices closing above $125 a barrel of oil on Friday, angry politicians are blaming the higher prices on everything from speculators to greedy oil companies. Last week some Democratic Senators demanded “urgent action . . . to adequately investigate whether speculators are driving up prices.” Democrats are proposing to protect the American people from “greedy oil traders who manipulate the market.” Senator Barack Obama wants price gouging by oil companies to be a federal crime. Everyone wants lower prices, but many politicians seem unable to understand that speculators actually smooth out wild swings in prices. Speculators make profits...

How would you like elections without secret ballots? To most people, the notion of getting rid of secret ballots is absurd. This is modern-day America. Such an idea could not be seriously considered, right? People support secret balloting for very obvious reasons. Politics frequently generates hot tempers. People can put up yard signs or wear political buttons if they want. But not everyone feels comfortable making his or her political positions public. Many would rather vote without fearing that their choice will offend or anger someone else. Secret balloting has solved another potential problem: vote buying, which they essentially ended...

John R. Lott Jr. is a senior research scientist at the University of Maryland Philadelphia had 406 homicides in 2007, and, at 28 per 100,000 people, it also had the highest murder rate of any major city in the United States. No wonder Philadelphians want things done. Recently, the city focused on a new tragedy, the murder of a 12-year police veteran and father of three, Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski, by three bank robbers with long, violent criminal records. To Gov. Rendell, Mayor Nutter, Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey, and freshman U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak, the solution is simple: more gun control....

No matter how well-meaning, politicians frequently fail to understand all the consequences of their laws. Real world costs, the costs and benefits faced by those who will actually have to live with the regulations, often elude those who pass these rules. Yet, even by those depressing standards, problems with the mandated that people will soon be forced to use stand out. The advantages of compact fluorescent light bulbs are obvious. While the fluorescent bulbs can cost 10times more than incandescent ones, fluorescent bulbs use 75percent less electricity and last up to 10times longer. But longer life and energy savings come...

On abortion, a large gap exists between John McCain and Barack Obama. The National Right to Life Committee as well as Pro-choice America agree that Obama has a perfect 100 percent pro-choice voting record. McCain is pro-life, and the two groups respectively claim that he votes that way at least 75 percent of the time. It should make for a lively debate this fall. But the question of abortion usually centers only on the morality of the act (choice versus life), and McCain and Obama so far look to frame the question no differently. Morality surely is important, but its...

"If we took away women's right to vote, we'd never have to worry about another Democrat president. It's kind of a pipe dream, it's a personal fantasy of mine, but I don't think it's going to happen." —Ann Coulter, Oct. 2 New York Observer With Hillary Clinton still the leading Democrat in the race for president, a lot of news stories over the next year will discuss women voting patterns. Some women may well vote for Mrs. Clinton, even if they disagree with her policies, simply because she is a woman. Terms like "historic" will be thrown around a lot,...

Are women really discriminated against in politics? Sen. Hillary Clinton surely thinks so. Indeed, she believes this year's presidential campaign has shown that sexism limits women's influence in politics. She claimed last week that "every poll I've seen shows more people would be reluctant to vote for a woman [than] to vote for an African American." It's possible that Democrats are particularly sexist, but with women making up the majority of voters, one would think that politicians were ignoring women at their own peril. In 2004, women made up 54 percent of voters. At least through early February of this...

KUDOS TO THE firearms debate at Bridgewater College ("Bridgewater College to Host Firearms Debate," April 9). This debate was excellent, informative, thought provoking. I publicly thank the college for bringing two such outstanding individuals in their fields to our community. The auditorium was filled largely with students. Prior to the debate, my companion and I expected the audience to be strongly biased against Second Amendment rights, handgun ownership, concealed-carry permits, etc. At no time could we detect any bias, either pro or con, by the level of courteous, enthusiastic applause given to both gentlemen after each of their statements and...

Last Monday, three colleges and four K-to-12 schools were shut down by threats of violence. This week over 25,000 college students at 300 chapters in 44 states belong to a group, Students for Concealed Carry on College Campuses, that will carry empty handgun holsters to protest their concerns about not being able to defend themselves. With the first anniversary of the Virginia Tech attack last week and the discussions that it created, we clearly have not been able to put that and other attacks behind us. There are good reasons why the safety measures adopted over the last year to...

How much of a victim do some blacks have to be to actually believe that the U.S. government invented AIDS and supplies dangerous drugs to blacks with the intent of killing them? To say that the persecution of blacks by whites in the U.S. today corresponds to the white Europeans (Romans) who killed Jesus (said to be black, not Semitic)? These dispirited views are obviously disappointing, but how can large numbers of people believe these things? What is the impact of the feelings that others are out to get them on people’s desire to improve themselves? In a truly courageous...

..."80 percent of Planned Parenthood clinics are in minority neighborhoods." Planned Parenthood officials did not produce a response to this claim. The organization performed 22 percent of all abortions in 2005 (260,000 out of 1.2 million abortions). -snip- Blacks do, indeed, have much higher rates of abortions than whites or other minority groups. In 2000, while blacks made up 17 percent of live births, they made up more than twice that share of abortions (36 percent). If those aborted children had been born, the number of blacks born would have been slightly over 50 percent greater than it was. The...

Something happens to Democrats on the gun issue when they run for president. For John Kerry during 2004, it was awkwardly posing in brand new hunting gear at a seemingly endless series of hunting photo-ops. But in what will probably be the most improbable change, the Politico reported on Saturday that Barack Obama was making a big play for gun votes in Pennsylvania. It is not particularly surprising that this change is occurring with the crucial Pennsylvania primary soon approaching. With about one million of the country’s 12.5 million hunters, Pennsylvania is number one in the nation in the amount...

The 'Recession' Is a Media Myth Tuesday, April 01, 2008 By John R. Lott, Jr. E-Mail Respond Print Share: DiggFacebookStumbleUpon During the 2000 election, with Bill Clinton as president, the economy was viewed through rose-colored glasses. According to polls, voters didn’t realize that the country was in a recession. Although the economy started shrinking in July 2000, most Americans through the entire year thought that the economy was fine. But over the last half-year, the media and politicians have said we were in a recession even while the economy was still growing. Gas prices are going up. The economy is...

For gun control proponents and opponents a lot is riding on a former security guard for the Supreme Court Annex. Next Tuesday , the Supreme Court will hear arguments over whether the District of Columbia's ban on handguns and its requirement that any rifles or shotguns remain locked violates the plaintiff, Dick Heller's, constitutional rights. Whatever the court decides, no one expects them to end gun control any more than the First Amendment's "congress shall make no laws" has prevented the passage of campaign finance regulations. The decision is likely to be limited to just whether a ban "infringed" on...

John McCain, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton all promise massive new regulations that will cost trillions of dollars to combat global warming. McCain says that it will be his first task if he wins the presidency. After consulting with Al Gore, Obama feels the problem is so imminent that it is not even really possible to wait until he becomes president. Ironically, this political unanimity is occurring as global temperatures have been cooling dramatically over the last decade.

As Northern Illinois University restarts classes this week, one thing is clear: Six minutes proved too long. It took six minutes before the police were able to enter the classroom that horrible Thursday, and in that short time five people were murdered, 16 wounded. Six minutes is actually record-breaking speed for the police arriving at such an attack, but it was simply not fast enough. Still, the police were much faster than at the Virginia Tech attack last year. The previous Thursday, five people were killed in the city council chambers in Kirkwood, Mo. There was even a police officer...

Just over a year ago, before she announced her candidacy, I wrote about Hillary Clinton and the woman's vote. Here's part of my analysis: [H]er style is what many, including women, hold against her... As a woman, she has to be tough - but not so tough that she turns people off. Up until New Hampshire, perhaps it could be said that Hillary's style was definitely turning voters off in droves (not to mention enough baggage to fill the Titanic's cargo hold). As the gap between her and Barack Obama got smaller and smaller leading up to the Iowa caucuses...

A lot of Americans who believe in the right to own guns were very disappointed this weekend. On Friday, the Bush administration’s Justice Department entered into the fray over the District of Columbia’s 1976 handgun ban by filing a brief to the Supreme Court that effectively supports the ban. The administration pays lip service to the notion that the Second Amendment protects gun ownership as an “individual right,� but their brief leaves the term essentially meaningless. Quotes by the two sides’ lawyers say it all. The District’s acting attorney general, Peter Nickles, happily noted that the Justice Department’s brief was...

Bad Brief: The Bush DOJ shoots at the Second Amedment. By John R. Lott Jr. A lot of Americans who believe in the right to own guns were very disappointed this weekend. On Friday, the Bush administration’s Justice Department entered into the fray over the District of Columbia’s 1976 handgun ban by filing a brief to the Supreme Court that effectively supports the ban. The administration pays lip service to the notion that the Second Amendment protects gun ownership as an “individual right,” but their brief leaves the term essentially meaningless. Quotes by the two sides’ lawyers say it all....

January 14, 2008, 0:56 a.m. Bad BriefThe Bush DOJ shoots at the Second Amedment. By John R. Lott Jr. A lot of Americans who believe in the right to own guns were very disappointed this weekend. On Friday, the Bush administration’s Justice Department entered into the fray over the District of Columbia’s 1976 handgun ban by filing a brief to the Supreme Court that effectively supports the ban. The administration pays lip service to the notion that the Second Amendment protects gun ownership as an “individual right,� but their brief leaves the term essentially meaningless. Quotes by the two...

Who can oppose making cars "more efficient"? Could you imagine what would happen to legislation requiring cars to be less "efficient"? Certainly there weren't many such politicians in Washington, DC. President George Bush signed the Energy Bill on Wednesday and overwhelming numbers of Congressmen and Senators voted for it. But what counts as "efficient" isn't always obvious. When the term "efficient" is thrown around in government, it usually means that somebody is deciding what costs count and what costs don't. No one explains why politicians' or regulators' choices should be considered over those of the consumers who actually have to...

Economist John Lott discusses the benefits of guns--and the hazards of pointing them out. Until recently, when he bought a 9-mm Ruger after his own research impressed upon him the value of gun ownership, John Lott had no personal experience with firearms, aside from one day of riflery in summer camp when he was 12. That fact did not stop a reviewer of Lott's 1998 book, More Guns, Less Crime (University of Chicago Press), from labeling him a "gun nut." Writing in The American Prospect, Edward Cohn also identified Lott as "a leading loon of the Chicago School of economics,...

Police have identified Robert A. Hawkins, 19, as the assailant who killed eight people with a semi-automatic rifle (not an assault rifle) at the Westroads Mall in Omaha Dec. 5. Chalk up eight more deaths to "gun control." The shooting was at least the fourth at an American mall or shopping center so far this year, including one in February in Salt Lake City. Once again, the killer chose a "gun-free" zone. Nebraska issues permits "allowing" qualified individuals to carry concealed handguns. (The Second and 14th amendments reaffirm that carrying a weapon is a right, not a privilege -- states...

The horrible tragedy at the Westroads Mall in Omaha, Neb. received a lot of attention Wednesday and Thursday. It should have. Eight people were killed, and five were wounded. A Google news search using the phrase "Omaha Mall Shooting" finds an incredible 2,794 news stories worldwide for the last day. From India and Taiwan to Britain and Austria, there are probably few people in the world who haven’t heard about this tragedy. But despite the massive news coverage, none of the media coverage, at least by 10 a.m. Thursday, mentioned this central fact: Yet another attack occurred in a gun-free...

Just heard from John Lott, on the Dennis Prager radio show, that the Omaha shooting took place at a gun-free mall. Signs forbidding guns are posted at all the mall entrances. Lott points out that this fact is NOT being reported in the press. The same thing occurred in the Salt Lake City shooting a while back. Curious...SSZ

According to a brand-new and extensively covered study by the JFA Institute, a George Soros funded group, the U.S. prison system doesn’t deter crime and is "a costly and harmful failure.” Prison is supposedly so useless that the U.S. prison population could be cut in half with no effect on crime. This distrust of prison reducing crime is not new, but many have a hard time believing the simplest rule of economics: if you make something more costly, people do less of it. People accept that this principle applies to what we buy in grocery stores, but not to “bad”...

Dr. John R. Lott has done it again. The best selling author of the aptly-titled More Guns, Less Crime has penned an appropriately titled sequel: The Bias Against Guns: Why Almost Everything You’ve Heard About Gun Control is Wrong (published by Regnery, a sister company of Human Events).Lott, an economist who has held positions at Yale Law School, the University of Chicago, UCLA, and Stanford University, has put together an original study from empirical research that demonstrates every plausible facet of the pro-gun position. With this book in hand (which includes more than 50 pages of notes), you can confidently...

<p>By John R. Lott Jr.</p> <p>Should we treat the Second Amendment like the rest of the Bill of Rights and assume it protects Americans against an over-intrusive government, as the Bush administration now argues? While the question whether people have a right to protect their own lives and the lives of loved ones is important, for most the bottom line is simpler: Do gun laws reduce violent crime?</p>

Rudy Giuliani had a monumental task last Friday. Going before the NRA, Giuliani wanted to alleviate gun owners' fears that he would take away their ability to use guns to defend themselves. ## Some of those present at the NRA meeting were moved by Giuliani’s comments. Giuliani apparently had at least neutralized their concerns. Yet, a careful reading of Giuliani’s speech finds it filled with caveats. Take his answer to a question about gun control: "My position is the law should be left the way it is now. Given the level of crime in this country, I think the emphasis...