Free Republic

This weekend, I attended and spoke at the Second Amendment Foundation’s annual Gun Rights Policy Conference, which was held at a convention center in northern Kentucky, a few miles away from Cincinnati. What I saw and heard there changed my mind about the viability of Ron Paul’s presidential candidacy; Paul is going to far outperform the expectations laid out for him. First, for some background: twenty years ago, the Second Amendment Foundation (the second-largest pro-Second Amendment group in the U.S.) began sponsoring an annual Gun Rights Policy Conference, in conjunction with other pro-gun groups, including the NRA. For a full...

Professors find most media 'significantly to the left of the average U.S. voter' People argue a lot about whether the national mainstream media is politically biased, but such arguments are often impressionistic. Earlier this month, professors Tim Groseclose of UCLA and Jeffrey Milyo of the University of Missouri published the results of an investigation using rigorous quantitative analysis

Denver dailies, like others around U.S., find little room to cover continent's woes Speaking at Kent Denver School last Saturday, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright bemoaned what she saw as lack of American support for sub-Saharan black Africa (The Denver Post, June 12). The same criticism might be leveled at the media, for its neglect of African events. A June 14 commentary headline in The Christian Science Monitor asked, "In Congo, 1,000 die per day: Why isn't it a media story?" The Monitor noted that absence of reader interest is the standard explanation. After all, newspapers have a finite...

"You are doing God's work," Brady Bill sponsor Charles Schumer remarked to Sarah Brady at one Congressional hearing. And perhaps one could argue that if it took God seven days to make the world, people shouldn't be able to buy a gun in any less time. But did God really endorse the Brady Bill? One would certainly think so, given the huge number of Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish religious organizations that endorsed the Brady Bill, and which endorse virtually every other gun control proposal. God's anti-gun army is prominent not just in Washington, but also in the state legislatures. This...

[excerpts] Early this week, a Kerry campaign spokesman admitted - as the Swift Vets had charged - that Kerry's first Purple Heart might have been the result of an accidentally self-inflicted injury on Dec. 2, 1968, rather than as a result of "intense combat" as Kerry's Web site has claimed. (As reported by columnist Bob Novak late this week, retired Rear Adm. William L. Schachte Jr. said that he was on Kerry's boat that day, and that "Kerry nicked himself with a M-79" grenade launcher.) The campaign's admission was reported by Fox News and The Washington Times, while most of...

Fifty-six Deceits in Fahrenheit 911   By Dave Kopel   [This is a preliminary version of an article that will be published on National Review Online.This report was first posted on the web on the morning of July 1. Since then, I've revisedseveral sections in response to reader requests for clarifications, and have added additionaldeceits which have been pointed out by readers or journalists. Astute readers will observethat the number of identified deceits now exceeds 56. I have not retitled the report or re-numbered the original 56 deceits. The final version will update the deceit count.] There are many articles which...

There are many articles which have pointed out the distortions, falsehoods, and lies in the film Fahrenheit 9/11. This report compiles the Fahrenheit 9/11 deceits which have been identified by a wide variety of reviewers. In addition, I identify some inaccuracies which have not been addressed by other writers. The report follows the approximate order in which the movie covers particular topics: the Bush family, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and Iraq. This report focuses solely on factual issues, and not on aesthetic criticism of the film. To understand the deceptions, it helps to understand Moore’s ideological position. So let us start...

[This is a preliminary version of an article that will be published on National Review Online.] There are many articles which have pointed out the distortions, falsehoods, and lies in the film Fahrenheit 911. This report compiles the Fahrenheit 911 deceits which have been identified by a wide variety of reviewers. In addition, I identify some inaccuracies which have not been addressed by other writers. The report follows the approximate order in which the movie covers particular topics: the Bush family, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and Iraq. This report focuses solely on factual issues, and not on aesthetic criticism of the...

ALL THE WAY DOWN THE SLIPPERY SLOPE: GUN PROHIBITION IN ENGLAND AND SOME LESSONS FOR CIVIL LIBERTIES IN AMERICA Joseph E. Olson[1] and David B. Kopel[2] Table of ContentsI. Introduction II. Wrenching Freedom From the King--The 1689 English Bill of Rights and the Right to Arms III. The Late Nineteenth Century IV. The Early Twentieth Century through World War II         A. The First Step         B. Dangerous Weapons         C. Dangerous People         D. The Firearms Act         E. Genuine Danger V. The Turbulent 1960s VI. The British Gun Control System in Practice: Administrative Abuse VII. Momentum for...

The Silveira Threat How long will the Second Amendment live? Silveira v. Lockyer is a Second Amendment lawsuit which has, according to Gun Week (Sept. 1) "gained almost cult status among gun owners." This status is mostly to the benefit of the gun-prohibition lobby, for Silveira has already seriously harmed Second Amendment rights, and the damage may not be over. The suit was filed in February 2000, to challenge the 1999 amendments to the 1989 California "assault-weapon" control act (AWCA). The complaint blew its credibility on at the very beginning, opening with a fabricated quote attributed to Hitler. The quote...

Haas'GuidetoSmallArmsAmmunition An activist's views on Silveira v. Lockyer Occasionally I see internet email from the people promoting the Silveira v. Lockyer case - they ask for money to help move this case forward, reminding me that they are "down to the bottom of the barrel". Accordingly, I've tried to formulate an opinion of my own on this effort vying for USSC cert. The result? I could not. I quickly realized that I am not qualified to determine the merits (or lack thereof) of this case which may affect the firearms rights of all gun-owners now and in the future....

September 30, 2003, 9:10 a.m. Dave Kopel Unarmed for the Election Arnold Schwarzenegger doesn't know the basics of California gun laws. Arnold Schwarzenegger's recent appearance on the Sean Hannity Show regarding gun control suggests that he is amazingly ignorant of current gun laws in California. Hannity asked Schwarzenegger what he thought of the "assault-weapon" ban and the Brady Bill. Schwarzenegger replied, "Yes I do support that. And also I would like to close the loophole on the gun shows." While the federal ban on so-called "assault weapons" is scheduled to sunset in September 2004, the much more severe California prohibition...

Secret Weapon Some 2nd Amendment lawyers help the gun-ban side. By Dave Kopel EDITOR'S NOTE: This article is the first of two parts on Second Amendment litigation. The gun-prohibition lobbies have what amounts to a secret weapon. Even better, from the point of view of the gun-prohibition lobbies, this secret weapon is entirely funded by naïve gun owners This secret weapon is the attorneys who mount ill-considered constitutional challenges to gun laws, setting up gun rights to lose quickly, rather than to win with deliberation. Perhaps the most infamous of these cases was Quillici v. Morton Grove, although the harm...

The Gray Lady of American newspapers is red with embarrassment caused by reporter Jayson Blair, who admitted that many of his stories involved invention or plagiarism. Some New York Times reporters have expressed concern that the exposure of so many bogus stories over such a long period of time from such a respected newspaper could cause readers of American newspapers to doubt the credibility of what they read. On gun-control issues, those doubts are well-merited; the Times's credibility when it comes to guns is about equal to that of the National Enquirer's reporting on celebrity romances: Some of it...

Kopel: Crown jewels: UK newspapers Aside from a few unworthies, Great Britain's dailies offer some fine reading May 10, 2003 I spent last week in London and Oxford, where I got to see up-close some of the crown jewels of Western civilization: the newspapers of Great Britain, many of which would make an excellent supplement to the newspaper diet of a well-informed Coloradan. The most obvious difference between the leading British newspapers and their U.S. counterparts is that the major British papers are all national (like The Wall Street Journal or USA Today over here). The major British papers offer...