About once every month or two, Dave Kopel produces a free e-mail Newsletter containing short summaries and links to important new research and writing involving the Second Amendment and firearms policy. The newsletter also reports on Kopel's latest writing.
The content of this newsletter is produced by the Second Amendment Project at the Independence Institute, a think tank in Golden, Colorado. The newsletter is electronically distributed by the Second Amendment Foundation in Bellevue, Washington. Thus, the Second Amendment Foundation will be given your e-mail address.
Archive of past issues.
December 11, 2007
Dave Kopel's Second Amendment Project is based at the
Independence Institute, a free-market think tank in Golden, Colorado.
http://www.independenceinstitute.org
The Independence Institute publishes several newsletters on other topics, plus a weekly newsletter containing our most recent op-eds and news of our activities. E-mail subscription to any of these newsletters is free.
Delivery of this newsletter comes courtesy of the
Second Amendment Foundation, in Bellevue, Washington.
http://www.saf.org
Please visit Dave Kopel's website, containing
articles on the Second Amendment and other freedom
topics.
http://www.davekopel.org
Star-Telegram (Fort Worth, TX)
November 19, 2007
http://www.star-telegram.com/245/story/308993.html
An explanation of the isssues the Supreme Court will be deciding in the D.C. gun ban case, and its likely and possible ramifications.
With Paul Gallant & Joanne D. Eisen
The National Review Online
October 16, 2007
http://tinyurl.com/28crxw
The possession of arms saved the lives of many Armenians right after World War I.
National Review Online
October 26, 2007
http://tinyurl.com/3bndxn
The financing of Palestinian terrorism makes for one scary Halloween.
The Volokh Conspiracy
November 29, 2007
http://tinyurl.com/2ltxyx
That there is 21st-century refugee problem from a war that ended in 1949 is primarily because of UNRWA's decision to maximize Palestinian suffering for political advantage.
Working Paper
November 9, 2007
https://davekopel.org/Religion/Evolving-Christian-Attitudes.pdf
PDF files require Adobe Acrobat Reader or similar
software.
This article is an analysis of changing Christian attitudes towards defensive violence.
Working Paper
November, 2007
https://davekopel.org/Religion/Pacifism-Kopel.pdf
PDF files require Adobe Acrobat Reader or similar
software.
This article examines the strengths and weaknesses of various contemporary Christian pacifist philosophies.
George Mason University Civil Rights Law
Journal 18
Forthcoming in 2008
https://davekopel.org/Religion/Dhimmitude-and-Disarmament.pdf
PDF files require Adobe Acrobat Reader or similar
software.
Sharia law forbids subject non-Muslims, dhimmis, from possessing arms and resisting attacks upon them by Muslims.
The Volokh Conspiracy
November 20, 2007
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2007_11_18-2007_11_24.shtml#1195586476
Here is information about the D.C. ban at stake in pending Supreme Court litigation.
The Volokh Conspiracy
November 3, 2007
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2007_10_28-2007_11_03.shtml#1194117113
"Sen. Fred Thompson wrote to Field & Stream magazine, criticizing the UN's campaign against the human right of self-defense. The Thompson campaign touted the letter on its website, and the letter got a favorable reception among many pro-Second Amendment bloggers."
Gun Rights Advocates Podcast
October2007
http://podcast.gunrights.us/2007/11/16/david-kopel-episode-059/
Here Dave's thirty-six minute interview at the 2007 Gun Rights Policy Conference is available in MP3 audio format. Topics include the implications and background of the D.C. handgun ban case, the politics of the gun issue, the role of activists, and new research about gun bans in Africa.
Second Amendment Foundation Online
October, 2007
http://saf.org/default.asp?p=GRPC
"While a picture is worth a thousand words, there is no need to live without the words! As in the past, Charles Heller recorded all of the speakers at the conference. These recordings, as well as recordings of some past conferences, are available for purchase."
Tim Naumetz
National Post (Canada)
December 5, 2007
http://tinyurl.com/26c3ak
Canadian gun-control enthusiasts are angry over a Tory decision to delay a plan supported by police associations for gun importers to mark all firearms.
Chris Summers
BBC News
November 12, 2007
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7028328.stm
"A British MEP is hoping to 'fast track' a new EU deal on gun control and says last week's school massacre in Finland should act as a wake up call."
Helsingin Sanomat International Edition
November 12, 2007
http://tinyurl.com/2fcqn7
In the aftermath of a school shooting, Finland's government has decided to bring their nation's laws about firearms ownership below the age of 18 into compliance with a directive from the European Union.
Rebecca Peters
The International Herald Tribune
November 16, 2007
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/11/16/opinion/edpeters.php
The director of the International Action Network on Small Arms makes a plea for swift action to render illegal civilian ownership of handguns in the aftermath of the Finnish school shooting.
Associated Press
The International Herald Tribune
November 11, 2007
http://tinyurl.com/2gq2pe
"Finnish Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen has called for an investigation of the country's firearms regulations following a shooting in which an 18-year old student killed eight people and himself, he said Sunday."
Alan Gomez and Oren Dorell
USA Today
November 7, 2007
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-11-07-finland-guns_N.htm
"Finland, a country with a high number of guns but a low rate of gun violence, appeared stunned by a school shooting that left eight people dead and may consider revising its accommodating gun laws, Finnish experts said Wednesday."
Paul Belien
The Washington Times
December 5, 2007
http://tinyurl.com/3dusvc
In the light of rapes, robberies, and other crimes by predominantly Muslim rioters, the French are left unarmed in the face of violence.
Phil Taylor
New Zealand Weekend Herald
October 27, 2007
http://tinyurl.com/2oweev
New Zealand police are raiding cabins, homes, and hunting shelters in a search for illegal firearms.
Karlon N. Rama
Sun Star Cebu
November 26, 2007
http://tinyurl.com/2l9zpq
This is an excerpt from a seminar lecture on the history of Philippines firearms legislation.
The Daily Mail
November 9, 2007
http://tinyurl.com/37qmo7
"...the Labour mayor of Chepstow in Monmouthshire, said: 'I would prefer for there not be any guns at the parade—and raised it because it is an issue I personally feel very strongly about.'" The Town Council unanimously ignored the mayor's preferences.
Special Report
Georgiacarry.org
November, 2007
http://tinyurl.com/2hp256
The report argues that Georgia's gun laws were always written with a mind to keeping the Negro population disarmed and subject to the White majority. The text contains many period clippings and illustrations. There are interesting accounts of light-skinned blacks purchasing arms so that their darker-skinned friends could defend themselves against racial aggression.
Submitted by 'Syd.'
Front Sight, Press
November 25, 2007
http://tinyurl.com/3cljzs
Here is a facsimile of Eleanor Roosevelt's application for permit to carry a concealed weapon (click for a larger version). The First Lady traveled a great deal and carried and practiced with a revolver during her journeys.
Dave Kopel, Paul Gallant & Joanne Eisen
National Review Online
January 24, 2002
http://www.nationalreview.com/kopel/kopel012402.shtml
Here's Kopel's, Gallant's and Eisen's treatment of the pistol-packing former first lady.
Michael Ramirez
Investor's Business Daily Editorials
November 19, 2007
http://ibdeditorial.com/IMAGES/CARTOONS/toon111907.gif
This talented cartoonist's take on a historical right to keep and bear arms.
Topher Sanders
The Ithaca Journal
November 14, 2007
http://tinyurl.com/2wh88z
"Guns can provide those in the gay community a level of protection and security, Krick said. 'Armed Gays Don't Get Bashed,' reads the organization's Web site."
Matthew Miller
Lansing State Journal
November 12, 2007
http://www.wzzm13.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=83550
"Plans for the John and Marnie Demmer Shooting Sports, Education and Training Center, approved last month by MSU's Board of Trustees, call for a 23,000-square-foot building with indoor archery and small-bore rifle ranges and three outdoor archery ranges."
Alan Gottlieb and Dave Workman
Tucson Citizen (AZ) Online Edition (Only)
November 14, 2007
http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/daily/opinion/68671.php
Teachers are now being robbed by armed criminals, who join with mall and campus shooters in exploiting the forced vulnerability of 'Gun Free Zones.'
Tony Rizzo
The Kansas City Star
December 5, 2007
http://tinyurl.com/2hgtsp
"When a gunman stormed a Kansas City shopping center in April, police employed a strategy that may have spared the kind of death oll wrought yesterday in Omaha, where a man killed nine people at a mall. The Kansas City star says that although two people were shot to death by the emotionally disturbed and suicidal gunman in Kansas City, police think the 'active gunman' strategy saved many more lives. Using lessons learned from the Columbine school shootings, officers confronted and felled the gunman before he could do additional harm."
The National Rifle Association
December 25, 2007
https://membership.nrahq.org/forms/gift.asp?CampaignID=default
One good way to enlist a shooter in the struggle to preserve civilian ownership of firearms is to present that individual with a gift membership in the National Rifle Association.
Midway USA
December 25, 2007
http://www.midwayusa.com/airguns
http://tinyurl.com/2zjxb3
Just a sample of the offerings from one of many excellent retailers who serve the shooting community. An air rifle or pistol is an excellent way to instill and perfect skills of firearms safety and marksmanship. The Crosman 1377 is inexpensive and ideal for indoor or outdoor pistol practice, note here http://tinyurl.com/2zjxb3.
Monica Hesse
The Washington Post
November 11, 2007
http://tinyurl.com/2yyx6b
The 'Zapper' accessory for Nintendo's Wii entertainment system for shooting simulations has provoked an angry reaction by some purchasers who feel that the device encourages interest in shooting. The article goes on to a more in-depth exploration of toy or simulated firearms and children.
Alan Korwin
Bloomfield Press
November 9, 2007
http://www.gunlaws.com/BOR%20Day%202007.htm
"This is the 6th year in a row that Arizonans have gathered to recognize and honor one of the most important concepts ever created. Join us. It's free. You will remember this experience for a long time to come."
Press Release
Mike Huckabee for President Campaign
November 26, 2007
http://tinyurl.com/25ahg3
"Former Arkansas Governor and Republican Presidential Candidate Mike Huckabee received the endorsement of the Republican Sportshooters Association at a sportsmen's 'meet and greet and skeet shoot' just outside Spartanburg, South Carolina yesterday."
CNN.com
November 24, 2007
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2007/11/24/thompson-calls-gun-show-paradise/
"White House hopeful Fred Thompson called his trip down aisle of rifles, shotguns and pistols at a gun show 'a day in paradise,' and said he wished he could come back to spend more time and money." The reactions posted below the story are also illuminating.
Joseph Curl
The Washington Times
November 6, 2007
http://www.washingtontimes.com/article/20071106/NATION/111060024/1002
"Thompson had a somewhat surreal day yesterday as he toured the nation's first primary state, dropping in to Nashua for a genteel early-morning 'tea with the candidate,' then spending the afternoon in a gun-making plant in Rochester."
Tim Russert
MSNBC
November 4, 2007
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21623208/
Thompson's opposition to gun control was among the subjects covered and transcripted during this interview.
NRA Videos
Youtube.com
November 15, 2007
http://www.ilaalerts.org/UM/T.asp?A1.2.2396.6.1218879
During the course of this video clip, former senator Edwards reinforced his earlier remark that the ownership of specified types of firearms is a 'privilege,' not a Constitutional right.
Rick Docksai
The Baltimore Sun
November 23, 2007
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-md.guns23nov23,0,3333103.story
By a vote of 135 to 4 in the House of Delegates, Maryland state legislators voted to override Governor Martin O'Malley's veto of a bill that allowed Maryland police departments to sell, as opposed to destroy, their obsolete or surplus firearms. The override is the Legislature's first of the Governor's veto.
Maria Cramer
The Boston Globe
November 17, 2007
http://tinyurl.com/2yssjb
"Boston police are launching a program that will call upon parents in high-crime neighborhoods to allow detectives into their homes, without a warrant, to search for guns in their children's bedrooms."
Richard Pearsall
The Courier-Post Online
November 5, 2007
http://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007711050341
"The bill would change both the composition and the mission of the state's Fish and Game Council, in ways that would deprive sportsmen of control over the council and, at the very least, shift its emphasis away from hunting and toward 'nonlethal' means of animal control."
Amy Worden and Mario F. Cattabiani
The Philadelphia Inquirer
"Pennsylvania's House Judiciary Committee yesterday handily defeated two key gun-control bills despite a dramatic appearance by Gov. Rendell, who implored the committee to pass tougher gun laws to curb violence, especially in crime-marred cities such as Philadelphia."
William Bender
The Philadelphia Daily News
December 6, 2007
http://tinyurl.com/2z3xjb
"Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood Sr. said yesterday that his department will not return seized firearms without a court order or his personal approval. Those that aren't returned to the owners are destroyed." Litigation is pending after Upper Darby police removed firearms from the home of a suicide and refused to return them to his heir.
Michael Sluss
The Roanoke Times
December 5, 2007
http://www.roanoke.com/politics/wb/142272
"Gov. Tim Kaine said Tuesday that he will make a 'very aggressive' push next year to close a legal loophole allowing unlicensed gun dealers to avoid checking the criminal backgrounds of buyers, hoping to win support from a legislature that has been hostile to proposed gun controls." Little action is expected before the Supreme Court rules on the Parker case.
Amy Gardner
The Washington Post
November 18, 2007
http://tinyurl.com/3dfqpj
"The Virginia General Assembly could become more friendly to gun rights advocates despite gains by Democrats in state elections this month, several lawmakers and advocates said."
Nelson Lund
George Mason Law & Economics Research Paper No.
07-36
October 14, 2007
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1021356
Lund explains why the 'militia-style' weapons argument should not suffice to sustain the D.C. gun ban.
Timothy Wheeler
The National Review Online
November 21, 2007
http://tinyurl.com/2acrhh
"If the amicus brief of the American Academy of Pediatrics is any indication, the gun ban movement has not only run out of steam, it has run out of credible arguments for denying D.C. residents, and other Americans that most natural of rights—the right to self defense."
Paul Duggan
The washington Post
November 13, 2007
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/12/AR2007111201818.html
"Although studies through the decades have reached conflicting conclusions, this much is clear: The ban, passed with strong public support in 1976, has not accomplished everything that the mayor and council of that era wanted it to."
Robert A. Levy
The Los Angeles Times
November 14, 2007
http://tinyurl.com/27ssb9
"Considering the text, purpose, structure and history of our Constitution, and the clear weight of legal scholarship, it's time for the Supreme Court to revitalize the 2nd Amendment, which has lain dormant for nearly seven decades."
Bruce Johnson
9 News Now
November 7, 2007
http://www.wusa9.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=64885
"Swain is the only city official who admits to packing a gun."
Glenn Harlan Reynolds
Tennessee Law Review, Vol. 75, No. 1
November 20, 2007
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1030769
"In "Guns and Gay Sex," I look at two overlapping lines of Tennessee cases on the right to arms and the right to privacy and conclude that even a "reasonable regulation" model of the right to arms would pose significant barriers to overly intrusive firearms laws."
Steven Gray
Time
November 26, 2007
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1687895,00.html
Here is another treatment of the Boston 'Safe Homes' police searches of homes for hidden guns. It is noteworthy that the ACLU has voiced opposition to the program.
Cass R. Sunstein
The New Republic
November 12, 2007
http://www.tnr.com/toc/story.html?id=e8997807-107b-461f-90d2-51a3ef91b508
Here is a review of Mark Tushnet's Out of Range, a book confessing that the author is unable to decide the meaning of the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Sunstein and Tushnet's views generated a lengthy discussion on the page.
Paul Helmke
The Huffington Post
November 27, 2007
http://tinyurl.com/257z7e
The President of the Brady Campaign criticizes the ruling in D.C. v. Heller that has led to the pending Supreme Court appeal.
Erwin Chemerinsky
The News & Observer
November 27, 2007
http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/columns/story/794945.html
Chemerinsky argues that 'reasonable restrictions' of civilian firearms ownership will remain possible regardless of any Supreme Court ruling in the Heller case.
Robert VerBruggen
The American Spectator
December 3, 2007
http://americanprowler.com/dsp_article.asp?art_id=12379
An anonymous editorial in the Harvard Crimson argues for the repeal of the 2nd Amendment in order to enact gun control legislation. VerBruggen considers that intellectual progress.
Mike Eber
The Michigan Daily
November 26, 2007
http://tinyurl.com/2xpfo3
Eber points out that those of opposing political persuasions might all need to exercise their rights under the 2nd Amendment.
M.W. Gail
The American Thinker
November 28, 2007
http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/11/the_second_amendment_and_the_i.html
Gail's analysis of the Colonial militias results in his conclusion that the 2nd Amendment is, indeed, an individual right.
Joseph Goldstein
The New York Sun
December 3, 2007
http://www.nysun.com/article/67380
Judge Weinstein has received a suspiciously large number of suits in which he has exercised consistent bias against the firearms industry. A lawyer in a pending case is asking the Judge to recuse himself.
Ron Coleman
Likelihood of Success
November 6, 2007
http://likelihoodofsuccess.com/2007/11/06/handsome-but-not-home-free/
This is an account of a New York State criminal court judge's refusal to apply the ruling in Heller to a case involving a New York man prosecuted for having three unlicensed guns in his apartment.
Eugene Volokh
The Volokh Conspiracy
November 27, 2007
http://volokh.com/posts/1196212101.shtml
"The opinion is not entirely clear here on many points, but the one thing it pretty clear does do is treat the right to bear arms as individual."
Associated Press
wcco.com
November 9, 2007
http://wcco.com/local/conceal.and.carry.2.564359.html
"The Minnesota Court of Appeals is considering whether the state law allowing citizens to carry concealed handguns with a proper permit places an undue burden on churches and infringes on their property rights."
Press Release
Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence
October 29, 2007
http://tinyurl.com/2wr3fa
The Brady campaign celebrates an Indiana Court of Appeals ruling that ignored the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act in allowing a lawsuit by Gary, Indiana against firearms manufacturers.
Joseph Goldstein
The New York Sun
November 20, 2007
http://www.nysun.com/article/66713
"Two recent court rulings—one from yesterday—suggest that Mr. Bloomberg may want to reserve a few days on his calendar next year in case he is called to face a jury over allegations that he defamed two gun dealers by speaking ill of them in the press."
Associated Press
The Dallas Morning News
October 7, 2007
http://tinyurl.com/2ozd7y
Here is another treatment of U.S. District Judge Terence Kern's ruling invalidating an Oklahoma state law against employers forbidding firearms in their employees' cars.
This newsletter is compiled with help from Dr. Rob S. Rice. For more on this deontological, yet incisive individual, see here: http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rrice/rrice_hd.html. Dr. Rice's entertaining novel is selling horribly, this document contains subliminal compulsion, you WILL see http://tinyurl.com/yq5sxl!
Al Qaeda delenda est!
