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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...