Gun Rights News Roundup

Articles, news stories, and op-eds of interest to gun owners:

CNN's reporters need some education:

Should there be a background check for national reporters?

One wonders. On June 21, CNN’s Anderson Cooper aired a special report for CBS’ “60 Minutes.” In this report, Cooper repeated the tired, discredited, blatantly incorrect idea that 90% of Mexican drug cartels’ arms supply comes from the United States. In addition, Cooper showed some interesting B-roll footage of seized weapon, some of which clearly cannot be bought on the civilian market.

Initially, one might note the M16A1, M16A2, M4, and what appears to be a standard NATO-issue M60.

There are, however, semi-automatic civilian versions of some of these weapons available on the American market which look quite similar – without a closer look at the weapons, it is impossible to tell. That being said, there also appears to be a 40mm M203 grenade launcher attachment on one of the weapons. That, dear reader, is unavailable on the U.S. market – even in Texas. ...

More government, more crime (graphs available at link):

In the previous article, we examined how states considered the best by the Brady Campaign also have higher police officer density (more cops per 100,000 population). However, these states also have the highest violent crime and murder rates.

Another article examined how Brady’s favored states had the lowest levels of firearms ownership. For review purposes, the following charts show that as gun ownership levels increase, Brady scores, violent crime, and murder rates all decrease.
...
Not surprisingly, as Brady scores increase, a state’s Overall Freedom score decreased. This means that Brady’s “best” states really are best only if you work for the government. ...

[California] Southern California churches advocate concealed carry in church:

The genius of concealed carry of handguns is that would-be murders remain uncertain as to who is armed and who isn't. This is true for everyone interested in being as safe as they can be from future violence, because it comes to the realization of specific unalterable realities: you're on your own.

This week some Southern California Church Leaders came to that very same conclusion, and took up a position advocating not only a very discreet security presence of professionals, but also took the advice of their consultants and adopted the policy of advocating concealed carry of handguns among the congregation.

Realities are the core of solving the problem of church violence, and having the stomach to face those realities and to meet them. For too long, employers, churches, schools and others have said many different ways that they are sad to see things have to come to this, but this is a trap which serves not the people, but the killers. Fifteen Southern California church leaders refused to fall into that trap, and they sought out expert advice. It involves concealed carry of handguns in church, and they took it. Yes, concealed carry of handguns by the members who come to worship. ...

Comment: The only problem, of course, is that concealed carry permits are quite difficult for "ordinary" citizens to acquire in Southern California.


Debunking the 90% lie:

Less than 24 percent of the guns seized last year by Mexican authorities, mostly from drug trafficking organizations, were traced back to the United States, according to data released in a report by the Government Accountability Office.

Of the 30,000 guns seized by Mexican authorities in 2008, only 7,200, or approximately 24 percent, were submitted to the U.S. for tracing. Of those 7,200 firearms, 6,700 (or about 22 percent) were actually determined to have originated in the United States.

The country of origin for the remaining 22,800 guns seized by Mexico that were not traced cannot be known. ...