Reviews (10)

More than Gun Control
I picked up this book to provide some insight on gun control issues and history, and was very pleased to learn more than expected.The laws and history were very well documented, and the book was sequenced in a manner that allowed the reader to absorb information without being overwhelmed.Cultural and legal discussions abound, and were a very important supplement to the core of the discussion.

Scholastic Common Sense
In reading the book with an open mind, it becomes quite apparent that history and culture goes hand in hand when dealing with the issue of gun control.What may work in other countries probably would not work in the United States and visa-versa due to those two issues.Clearly the United States is a country where Americans have a love affair with their car and firearms and Americans will refuse to part with either of the two.Kopels solution to gun related crimes makes sense, since guns aren't going away because of its proliferation, then issue concealed carry licenses to Americans since the Second Amendment is clear that Americans have the right to keep and bear arms.

Reviews (6)

An objective review of the literature and law of gun control
David Kopel's second major book on the efficacy of gun control laws is an extensive and objective review of research both supporting and denying the basic premises of gun control in preventing crime and accidents involvingfirearms.Kopel takes an even-handed approach that is greatly missing inmost compilations on this subject.Kopel takes great care to examine themerits of the existing research, almost always providing extensive analysisand reference to each work.Just as in his previous award-winning book,"The Samurai, the Mountie, and the Cowboy", Kopel's analyses (inthe chapters he writes) are complete, to the point, and well-written. Kopel's writing is clear and effective.The strongest and weakest chaptersof the book, however, are contributed by other authors.The chaptersonfeminist theory (by Mary Zeiss Stange) and race control and guns ( byRobert Cottrol and Raymond Diamond) provide some good background on thesubject but fail to deliver the knockout blow that they could.The chapteron doctors and guns, however, delivers not as much the knockout blow astakes a sledgehammer to the medical community, AMA, American Association ofPediatriacs, and Center for Disease Control.Don Kates, Henry Schaffer,John Lattimer, George Murray,and Edward Cassem expose the intellectualdishonesty and horrendous scholarship in the medical literature conceringfirearms, violence, and safety.All accustations are well-documented andexamined.This chapter should be must reading for every single medicalschool student in the United States.It may make you fear yourdoctor.

This book should take its place among the other outstanding,intellectually honest works in the literature of the gun control efficacygenre, including Gary Kleck's "Point Blank". the previouslymentioned Kopel work, and John R. Lott, Jr.'s "More Guns LessCrime".

An added feature of this book is not only the brilliantanalyses and conclusions Kopel makes on the ineffectualness of gun controllaws on preventing crime and accidents, but Kopel provides analyses on REALcauses of these social ills and suggests REAL solutions.You should buyfour copies of this book: one for you, one for your doctor, and send theother three to your senators and congressman.

Guns for the law-abiding
Each chapter in this powerful volume will help the readers cut through the rhetoric and sensationalism that frequently surrounds the gun control debate.

Written by the leading experts in law, criminology and medicine, this volume includes such headings as "Arms and the Woman"; "Doctors andGuns," further rebutting the arguments that guns are a public healthmenace; and "Children and Guns," dissecting the contentious and timelyissue of guns and violence in our schools. It compliments David Kopel'sprevious masterpiece, The Samurai, the Mountie, and the Cowboy: ShouldAmerica Adopt the Gun Controls of Other Democracies? honored as the 1993Book of the Year by the American Society of Criminology's Division ofInternational Criminology.

This expertly written book should occupy aplace in the library of all citizens genuinely interested in the topic ofgun and violence research and in understanding the fallacies of gun controlas a public health issue.

Attorney, scholar and criminologist, DavidKopel, should be commended for editing and compiling this comprehensive yethighly readable masterpiece.

Miguel A. Faria, Jr., M.D., Editor-in-Chiefof the Medical Sentinel of the Association of American Physicians andSurgeons (AAPS) and author of Medical Warrior: Fighting CorporateSocialized Medicine.

Reviews (4)

A dry but comprehensive overview of gun control studies
This is an update of Kleck's earlier book, "Point Blank", which won the Michael J. Hindelang Award in 1993.The award is given by the American Society of Criminology annually for a book published during the previous two to three years that makes the most outstanding contribution to research in criminology.

Even if you disagree with Kleck's conclusions, "Targeting Guns" is an essential addition to your library if you are interested in the issue of gun control.No other book gives such a detailed and comprehensive overview of the research that has been done on this subject.

Where Science and Ideology Disagree
Gary Kleck is a Liberal.He is, by his own admission, a member of the ACLU, Amnesty International, Independent Action, Democrats 2000, and Common Cause, among other politically liberal organizations. He is a life-long registered Democrat, as well as a regular contributor to Democratic Party candidates.

He must be an awful disappointment to many of his fellow liberals.

Because, you see, in addition to being all those other things, he is also a criminologist and professor at Florida State University; a scientist who believes empirical evidence and research are more important than dogmatic ideology.

In Targeting Guns, he deomnstrates that the best available empirical evidence is that attempts at gun control legislation are, by and large, either futile, or self-defeating.

In this closely reasoned, scholarly work, Kleck debunks many of the myths of gun control, and concludes that, for the most part, the political rationale for gun control--and the majority of gun control legislation--is seriously flawed.To reach these conclusions, Kleck looks closely at the links between guns, violence, suicide, and gun control, and sums up the relevant research in these areas.

Kleck describes the central--and seemingly commonsensical--rationale for gun control, which is that disarming people will be beneficial, because guns are dangerous, and their use elevates the possibility that a victim of violence will die.He then painstakingly shows why this rationale rests on a simplified and ultimately incorrect assumption about the role of weaponry in violence.He shows why this role is so much more complex than some assume, as well as showing the beneficial aspects of gun ownership among the general populace.

Kleck concludes by suggesting some commonsense gun control measures that DO appear to work in reducing violent crime, or at least, ARMED violent crime by reducing criminal access to guns.

Targeting guns is not, unfortunately, easily accessible by a general audience, but Kleck has done his best to make it so.Nevertheless, it is heavily footnoted, and the text is often broken up by a variety of data tables.The issue of gun control is quite complex, and resists being broken down into easily digestible morsels.But those who make the effort will be rewarded, and at the very least, be encouraged to think more rationally about this somewhat divisive and emotional issue.

The importance of that cannot be overstated.

Interesting reference book, though somewhat dry
Kleck has but together quite a useful overview of the research on guns.Iliked the detailed discussions of the existing literature, and, as anonacademic, I did not find it too difficult to read. ...

On the survey data, I wish thatKleck would have dealt more with the survey data about offensive gun use. I also wish that he could explain why his survey data does not imply a netbenefit from using guns.

Reviews (10)

Scholarly Research on Gun Control
Kleck is a professor at Florida State University, Kates is a partner of a national law firm. The 'Introduction' says they want to present the findings from scholarly journals to contradict the propaganda in the corporate media (p.14). Concealed handgun carry resulted in a reduction of violent crimes (p.17). This fact is censored from the corporate media, even though thousands of lives could be saved. The corporate media portrays gun owners as subhumans, but exempts the Rockefellers, the DuPonts, and the publisher of the 'New York Times' (p.18). This is just bigotry. The availability of guns does not cause murders; murderers mostly have criminal records (p.21). Most murders are drug-related. Gun Prohibition only disarms honest people, just as locks only bar honest people. Historians and scholars say the Second Amendment is an individual right, and this was well recognized prior to World War II.

Chapter 2 tells of the propaganda campaign that uses various medical groups as pawns. Their studies ignore any facts that don't agree with their desired conclusion (p.33). These Gun Prohibitionists assert falsehoods, fabricate statistics, and falsify references, to forge evidence for their views (p.34). Page 38 gives examples where Dr. Tanay and Kr. Kellermann quote references which disprove their opinions! Such articles show intellectual confusion, ignorance of facts, omission of facts, and emotions that suggest a need for therapy (p.39). Freud said fear and loathing of guns is a sign of sexual immaturity and neuroticism (p.38). A neurosis is a mental disorder characterized by anxieties, compulsions, obsessions, or phobias. The criminological evidence refutes the claims of the medical advocates (p.51). The dishonesty of the "health advocates" on gun control is shown by their disregard of falling accidental gun deaths while the numbers of guns owned were rising (p.57). Are they using the idea of dying children just for its emotional impact (p.58)? The Gun Prohibitionists suppress facts, and falsify data and statistics, in order to prove their case (p.63). The CDC admitted to assuming a conclusion then creating evidence to prove it (p.69). This chapter documents the emotional anti-gun agenda in some medical and public health literature. They generally ignore the large amount of sociological and criminological research (p.83). Violence could be reduced when poverty is reduced.

Chapter 3 explains why "gun control" proposals are aimed to prohibit the right to own firearms. Gun prohibitionists can't be trusted. Freud said the fear and loathing of firearms was sexual hysterics (p.109). Their strident advocacy of gun prohibition reflects their neuroses. Their emotional diatribes are the reason for their failures.

Chapter 5 discusses distortion of gun issues in the mass media which provides most information to people. This information is shaped or biased to provide a conclusion by excluding certain information. This results from the policies of the "owners of media corporations" (p.174). But most consumers can recognize these slants. Page 192 tells how CBS' "48 Hours" faked a story. The evidence of news media bias for "gun control" is that gun control advocates never complain about the play (p.203)! No national news corporations are against "gun control" (p.204). Media manipulation of information in general has been documented in books (p.205). This message is widespread and one-sided (pp.206-7). This results in a poorly informed public.

Chapters 6 & 7 reference other articles that are not included in this book. They are not for the average reader. Chapter 8 explains why the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights refers to a right to personal self-protection (p.343). The need for an armed citizenry was explained by Aristotle, Machiavelli, Locke, Montesquieu, and Blackstone. Self-defense is the most basic of rights (p.345). The general possession of arms is a positive social good (p.348). Blackstone said the subjects of England had the right to petition for redress of grievances, and, lastly, the right to have and use arms for self-preservation and defense (p.349). Possessing arms is a sign of a free citizen. A republic needs armed property-owner, said Machiavelli (p.350). Despots disarm people to render them helpless, and morally degraded (p.351). No twentieth-century military can suppress an armed popular national insurgency.

My New Bible
I'm a gun owner and a gun rights advocate.I'm very fair-minded, consequently I've always wondered if my interest in gun ownership led me to be biased against gun control advocacy (i.e. "I like 'em, they don't.Therefore, they must be wrong.").Now that I've read "Armed" I no longer have any doubts that I've made the right choice on this topic.I found myself getting very angry with the medical society and the media while reading this book.

This is the fifth and best book on this topic I've read.I only wish that everyone in a position of power, from government to the media, would read it. If you buy it and read it, maybe they will!

And the truth shall set you free
I would recommend this book to anyone who is willing to question their beliefs, anyone who cares about our society, and anyone who believes in the importance of empirical study over irrational dogma.

Editorial Review

Multiple regression analyses are rarely the subject of heated public debate or 225-page books for laypeople. But John R. Lott, Jr.'s study in the January 1997 Journal of Legal Studies showing that concealed-carry weapons permits reduced the crime rate set off a firestorm. The updated study, together with illustrative anecdotes and a short description of the political and academic response to the study, as well as responses to the responses, makes up Lott's informative More Guns, Less Crime.

In retrospect, it perhaps should not have been surprising that increasing the number of civilians with guns would reduce crime rates. The possibility of armed victims reduces the expected benefits and increases the expected costs of criminal activity. And, at the margin at least, people respond to changes in costs, even for crime, as Nobel-Prize winning economist [TAG]Gary Becker showed long ago. Allusions to the preferences of criminals for unarmed victims have seeped into popular culture; Ringo, a British thug in Pulp Fiction, noted off-handedly why he avoided certain targets: "Bars, liquor stores, gas stations, you get your head blown off stickin' up one of them."

But Lott's actual quantification of this, in the largest and most comprehensive study of the effects of gun control to date, a study well-detailed in the book, provoked a number of attacks, ranging from the amateurish to the subtly misleading, desperate to discredit him. Lott takes the time to refute each argument; it's almost touching the way he footnotes each time he telephones an attacker who eventually hangs up on him without substantiating any of their claims.

Reviews (3)

Gun Control is nuts
One early reader wrote:
"Do you truly wish felons, terrorists, mentally ill, and other "disqualified" people can acquire firearms? Does the possibility of armed criminals scare you?

If you answered yes to either of those questions, or both of those quentions, then you believe in gun control."

Do you think felons and such care about gun laws. In interviews on 20/20 with prisoners they all answered that they dont care that they shouldn't have guns or carry them. Gun control is best summed up in this:
"Do you beleive honest citizens shouldn't be allowed to own guns?
Do you beleive owning a gun is immoral?
Do you think liberty should be limited?
Do you beleive self defense is immoral?

If you answered yes to any of those questions then you beleive in gun control and possible communism, socialism."

The truth is anti gunners always call anyone who doesn't agree with them a gun nut. Well Im calling them socialist/communist nuts!

What is gun control?
Do you truly wish felons, terrorists, mentally ill, and other "disqualified" people can acquire firearms?Does the possibility of armed criminals scare you?

If you answered yes to either of those questions, or both of those quentions, then you believe in gun control.

The problem is that "gun control" is an amorphous subject, rather like tyranny.One person's tyranny can be another's freedom.

One person fears losing his firearms, the other his ability to walk the streets without fear of being shot.

The problem is that most people, even those who claim to be RKBA, actually would like to see gun control.The problem is thatboth sides have clouded the topic and don't work toward consensus.

This book is divisive and counterproductive.The title reeks of "gun nut" in all its negative connotations.

I would suggest reading a book that is unbiased in discussing the politics of "gun control" and tries to dispassionately examine thetopic rather than this book.

Reviews (8)

An interesting analysis of the right to bear arms
It is important to realize that this book is not really about the 2nd Amendment. Instead, Malcolm seeks to chart the development of the English conception of a right to keep and bear arms, which clearly has influence upon the 2nd Amendment. The history of the English right is fascinating. It began as an onerous duty that many Englishmen resented and Malcolm traces the development of the right during the violent 17th century during which many Englishmen were disarmed as a means to stem any armed opposition. The right was created in 1689 as a means of ensuring that an armed citizenry would always be available to oppose a standing army.

I lack the background to critique Malcolm's English history, but there are a few areas where I think Malcolm runs into problems. One is interpretation. Malcolm stresses the change in the 1689 right from a right to bear arms "for their common defence" to "their defence," arguing that this shows a determined choice to abandon a collectivist right in favor of an individual right. I personally think this was more about simplifing language than a fundamental change in the right's conception. But, more importantly, I think this underscores the limitation of speaking about a right in individual versus collective terms. Here, Malcolm concludes that the English right was "individual" and then goes on to lay out all of the collective defence reasons that the right was necessary, i.e. a fear of Catholic plots and of standing armies.

2nd Amendment absolutists shouldn't see this book as their savior because, even if we accept Malcolm's conclusion that the 2nd Amendment was based upon the English conception, it still would not stop gun limitations, or bans, in the U.S. While Malcolm supplies a quote from William Rawle claiming that the 2nd Amendment limits the power of the states, constitutional practice holds otherwise. The 2nd Amendment only limits the federal government because the Supreme Court has not yet, and probably won't in the near future, incorporated it into the 14th Amendment. Moreover, Malcolm's final chapter underscores this fact because she lays out the reasons the 2nd Amendment was felt to be necessary, a fear of federal military dominance. The entire chapter is replet with references to the fear of a federal standing army and the need for states to maintain an armed citizenry. Therefore, the 2nd Amendment was necessary to remove the possibility that the Federal government would disarm the people.

My only other criticism is minor. Malcolm cites the position of the 2nd Amendment as 2nd as evidence of its importance. This a shockingly amateur mistake for a historian to make. The fact is that the 2nd amendment was originally the 4th one proposed on a list of 12, the first two failed to be ratified (though one was ratified 2 centuries later). Both of these where only technical changes rather than "rights" and the fact that the right to keep and bear arms is 2nd is more accidential than by design.

For the most part I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would strongly recomend it, though the limitations on Malcolm's dealing with American constitutionalism should not be forgotten. Readers will gain a much needed lesson in the the English tradition from which the American union developed.

Funk's Commentary in the Howard Law Journal
From T. Markus Funk, "Is the Second Amendment Really Such a Riddle?Tracing the Historical "Origins of an Anglo-American Right" 39 Howard Law Journal 411 (1995):

Few topics of contemporary social, moral,and political debate can provoke as much raw emotion and open hostility asthe Second Amendment, particularly in relation to the topic of gunprohibition.This subject routinely causes many well-intentioned people ofwhatever view to give up all pretense of courtesy and reason in favor of adhominem attacks on those with whom they disagree. Readers of historyprofessor Joyce Lee Malcolm's To Keep and Bear Arms:The Origins of anAnglo-American Right will find these ugly by-products of the contemporaryconflict refreshingly absent.Malcolm clearly keeps her distance from anybroad normative judgments about the social utilities or costs of civilianfirearms possession, offering instead a sober, scholarly, historicaldiscussion of the Amendment's origins. Meticulously tracing theBritish history of regulations on firearms ownership from the Middle Ageson, she provides a detailed and illuminating history that includes theEnglish Bill of Rights and, a century later, the American one.Because itis only in this historical context that the Second Amendment's meaning canbe fully understood and appreciated, Malcolm's book is essential readingfor anyone interested in this complex and controversial subject.

Authoritative writing, but minor flaws are irritating
Ms. Malcolm nicely lays out the history of the tension between English rulers and subjects over the control of weapons.She made me realize that the current dispute in this country over access to firearms has a longpedigree.Her depiction of the circumstances under which England, in 1689,declared the right to bear arms "true, ancient, and indubitable,"when in fact it was none of those is particularly interesting.(See p.115.)She provides evidence for her view that "it is particularlyironic that some modern American lawyers have misread the English right tohave arms as merely a 'collective' right inextricably tied to the need fora militia" (p. 119) when by 1689 the opposite was true.I'm not ahistorian or a gun enthusiast, but I find all of this quitefascinating.

When the book turns to the Second Amendment to the UnitedStates Constitution, however, its energy seems to flag.I am sympatheticto the argument that the Second Amendment confers a right on "thepeople" respectively, i.e. as individuals, "to keep and bearArms."But Malcolm's argument is undermined, however slightly, whenshe urges that "[s]ome" i.e., more than one, nascent Americanstate constitutions "included a specific right for an individual tohave firearms for his own defence" (p. 150), but quotes and cites, asbest I can discern, only the Pennsylvania bill of rights in support (pp.148, 149).Is there more than one, or not?Another apparent example ofwaning energy toward the end is the treatment of an argument that"like the Convention Parliament in 1689, the senators [debating draftsof the Second Amendment] rejected a motion to add 'for the common defense'after 'to keep and bear arms.' "(P. 161.)To me, that point seemscrucial, but Malcolm does not explore it further, beyond providing afootnoted reference to another source.

Finally, some minor quibbles. Noting the author's regular use of English spelling, I thought she wasEnglish until I realized, on reading the penultimate page, that she is anAmerican (p. 176).Perhaps Malcolm was reared and educated in England, butnevertheless her anglicizations are distracting and seem affected.It alsoseems affected to spell "dissension" archaically as"dissention" (p. 153), and to print "u" as"v" in quoted material, as in "Vs" (Us) (p. 41) or"vpon" (upon) (p. 59).If one is going to do that, why not alsoask the typesetter to print quotations with the long "s" thatlooks similar to the lower-case "f"?(Actually, I wouldn't somuch object to that, though it would also come across as affected:atleast the long "s" is still an "s," though of archaicform, whereas a "v" is not a "u" at all.)These are,of course, trivial items, but when I encounter them, I think, "Comeon, Harvard University Press copy-editors, get with it!"

Reviews (3)

Must-Read for historians, legislators, lawyers, & judges
I found Mr. Cramer's book while preparing a Motion to annul New York's anti-pistol law.It is very valuable both as a catalog of applicable cases, and concise analysis thereof.This book should be on every lawyers' bookshelf, on every Court bench. It is also of great value to the civil rights activist seeking to restore the Right to Arms to its proper position alongside the Freedoms of Speech, Press, and Association.

Should be required reading for our liberal college educators
The first review said it all, but wanted to second that one.This book is full of information on gun ownership and the many infrigements that have occured and been ignored.

Reviews (2)

Basic Text Book
The editor has degrees in history and philosophy, and teaches the latter in college. The book contains selected whole articles; they were not shortened by editing. The Gun Control movement started in the early 20th century as a response to urban crime and domestic violence. Gun control goes back thousands of years: the aristocracy has always sought to disarm the common people the better to exploit them. Aristotle's Politics explains how democracy came to Greece once the common people were armed.

Nineteenth century America was well armed. Until the revolver was perfected that arm was usually a knife - as much a tool as an arm. New York City, the home base of the Ruling Class by the end of the century, took the lead (p.22). Their control of much of the press, then and now, allowed a propaganda campaign for gun control. The Sullivan Law meant a citizen must prove a "reasonable need" to own and carry a handgun; the ordinary person is always rejected (unless they know somebody). The effect of this law was to disarm the people, and this resulted in increased crime and violence. Organized crime became more powerful as the people were disarmed. An armed militia of citizens would quickly put an end to them, and the local ruling class as well.

These articles date from the 1970s and 1980s, but their arguments are still valid. Since then 33 of the 48 states have passed "right to carry" laws. South Dakota and Vermont have virtually no gun controls; you can compare their crime and violence to areas with strict gun controls. But these are two states where owner-operated small businesses overwhelmingly predominate: no powerful corporations to restrict the rights of the people.

Chapter 13 lists the rates of violent deaths for other countries. These countries all have higher rates than America: Rumania, Hungary, Denmark, Austria, Finland, France, Switzerland, Belgium, West Germany, and Japan (p.188). Canada, Norway, and North Ireland just fall below America. Prior to 1977 Canada had virtually no gun control; after they passed a gun control law their rates went up to near America's rates.

Low violence rates in Europe preceded their gun laws. After gun laws were passed in America crime rates grew. Recent reports say crime rates skyrocketed after Gt. Britain confiscated all guns. When will they ever learn?

Chapter 16 lists Kellermann's article on deaths in homes where a gun was present. His study was flawed by a lack of a tally of non-gun deaths in non-gun homes; there was little difference. The real truth is that a person is 7 times more likely to die of suicide than of murder in their home.

Essential essays on both sides of the gun control debate
Although already a bit dated (this book was published in 1990), this collection of essays contains many of the classics in the gun control debate including Sanford Levinson's classic "The Embarrassing Second Amendment" as well as the infamous "43-to-1" study by Arthur Kellerman.Of interest is the manner in which essays were collected for this volume.Nisbet contacted the two major lobbying organizations, HCI and NRA, and asked them to recommend articles and essays that best put forth their respective positions.Using that as a base, Nisbet narrowed the selection down based on his own research, reading and conversation with the experts.

The resulting collection is telling.If the best that the gun control advocates could muster is the ingeniously specious 43-to-1 study, then they've lost the debate.It's also interesting to note that almost none of the pro-control articles were published in criminological or law journals but instead were published in pro-control public health journals like NEJM or JAMA.

The pro-gun side fairs much better.There are many excellent essays by such notables as Gary Kleck and Don Kates, Jr.Kleck, Kates and others skillfully dissect the poor arguments of the pro-control authors.

Reviews (18)

A valuable analysis and reference for future reforms.
This work is not only an outstanding explanation of the Waco and Ruby Ridge incidents, but a critical review of modern federal law enforcement. The book goes beyond sorting out -- in meticulous detail -- what really happened in these debacles. Even more valuable is the objective analysis of the abuses and excesses of federal law enforcement, along with suggested remedies.

This book is a "must read" for anyone concerned with civil liberties or law enforcement.

Investigative writing at it's best!
Kopel and Blackman did more than just their homework on this book.It is perhaps the most factual yet interesting critique on the way in which federal law enforcement operates today.The attack on Mt. Carmel is a very important even in the history of this nation and only from our mistakes can we change the future.This review I believe is especially credible since I read but certainly don't always like David Kopel's writings.Highest recommendation and a great source for research papers.

Great book, bad search warrant
Once again David Kopel (and Paul Blackman) gets to the bottom of things and shows what the Waco disaster was all about.If you only read one section of this book, read the part detailing the search warrant.Itappears that all the death and destruction (on the part of both the BranchDavidians and the BATF agents who were killed) was brought on because of afailure to pay a several hundred dollar tax on a firearm.

This bookfocuses on Waco but also delves into the expansion of federal lawenforcement and the effect it has on civil liberties in this country.

Asper the United States Constitution, the federal government should have lawenforcement jurisdiction over the following acts: piracies and feloniescommitted on the high seas, offences against the law of nations, andcounterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States.

Something has gone terribly wrong.

Reviews (13)

A pretender to "Every Knee Shall Bow"
If you start with the premis that everything the government does is wrong than this book will fit nicely into your library.Bock does an ok job reporting but the writing could have been more compelling and some of his bias gets in the way of a good story.

If you only read one book about the incident read "Every Knee Shall Bow."

Hard Truth - Sad Fact
The book tells the hard truth that the government messed up.

The FBI deliberately took the law into its own hands, giving its people what amounted to a "shoot on sight" directive.

The fact that the administrators escaped prosecution is a sad one.

Reviews (19)

A scholarly book that should be read by all.
The readerwho wrote "Pure Propaganda" is full of it. He mantains that the Patrick Henry meant the second amendment refers to a collective right.This is simply not true. Patrick Henry said, " Who are the militia? They consist of the whole people." He also said, ""First, the Constitution ought to secure a genuine (right) and guard against a select militia, by providing that the militia shall always be kept well organized, armed, and disciplined, and include, according to the past and general usage of the states, all men capable of bearing arms; and that all regulations tending to render this general militia useless and defenseless, by establishing select corps of militia, or distinct bodies of military men, not having permanent interests and attachments in the community to be avoided." Additionally, the Bush Administration has upheld this.The governments position is well stated at http://www.usdoj.gov/olc/secondamendment2.htmThe DOJ clearly states "For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that the Second Amendment secures an individual right to keep and to bear arms."

Pure Propaganda
The author of the book, Stephen P. Halbrook, is an NRA attorney. That being the case, the content of the book is quite predictable. The title of the book is indicative of how the author distorts the truth by tearing quotes out of the historical context. When Patrick Henry spoke the words,"that every man be armed," he was not advocating an individual right. He was concerned about how to best to ensure that every man serving in the militia was armed. Patrick Henry also tried to use his influence to stop Virginia from ratifying the Bill of Rights proposed by the first Congress. Ultimately, he failed. Why should Patrick Henry be used as a source to understand a document that he opposed? The very language of the second amendment strongly indicates that it protects a collective right.
The first amendment protects "the right of the people peaceably to assemble." Its quite clear that the word "people" is being used collectively here. We don't think of one individual assembling, but rather of a large number of people assembling as a group. How about the second amendent? The right of the people to bear arms is tied to the militia, a collective organization. This is the kind of book that people read to reassure themselves that they right, not the kind of book that you read to discover the truth.

A good book regarding the 2nd Amendment
I found this book to be quite interesting.I've read books by Lott, Bass, and others, and I found Halbrook's title to be an easy read (not weighed down by pages and pages of stats, though books like Lott's are in my library, too) and well thought-out.He made his points succinctly and in an manner that was easily understood.

I particularly find it amusing when those who proscribe to the anti-gun movement claim the 2nd Amendment is a collective right (i.e. it belongs to the militia) and it's not an individual right.When's the last time anybody ever said the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th Amendments were anything but individual rights?How odd that only one out of ten Amendments should be classified as a collective right.

As far as the argument in favor of adopting an English or Austrailian version of gun control, even those own nations' goverments have indicated (through their respective versions of the Uniform Crime Report that's reported by the US' FBI) that the incidents or murder, rape, and other violent crimes occuring in the peoples' homes -- while they're home! -- has skyrocketed.Why?Because the thugs know the occupants aren't armed.To say that London is safe is absurd.Just plain absurd.

The fact of the matter, which Halbrook does a good job of pointing out more than once, is quite simple -- the 2nd Amendment isn't simply about hunting and recreational shooting.It's about the People (Citizens in the US, Subjects in the UK -- a difference that's not simply based on semantics) being able to defend themselves from a potentially tyrannical goverment gone bad.

Does anyone know which was the first industrialized nation in the 20th Century to ban all private firearms ownership?No?How about Nazi Germany, 1932.Even Ghandi, possibly the greatest example of an non-violent revolutionary, declared that of all the evil deeds perpetrated on the people of India by the British goverment, the restrictions enacted against the private ownership of firearms was the blackest.There's a reason for all of this, and Halbrook does of fine job of explaining the importance of private firearms ownership and the 2nd Amendment.

Reviews (2)

An extremely useful collection of documents.
Professor Cottrol's book is an extremely useful collection of original documents:cases, statutes, law review articles and so on.The scholarship is meticulous, and the presentation is balanced.His lengthy introduction is practically worth the price of the book itself:an extended monograph on constitutional interpretation that rivals many of the law review articles he reproduces in both length and analysis.

Reviews (31)

Excellent and rigorous, but a bit dry for the average reader
"Too often, the debate over guns is a philosophical one, pitting the freedom of gun owners against the safety of everyone else," says economist Dr. John Lott in The Bias Against Guns: Why Almost Everything You've Heard About Gun Control is Wrong.

But what if those two things are one and the same?What if, on average, privately-owned guns are far more likely to save lives or property than destroy them? And what if freedoms beyond simple ownership, such as concealed weapons permits, have the same effect?

Lott, using intense statistical methods, demonstrates in the book (a supplement to 1998's More Guns, Less Crime) that this is in fact the case. Systematically displaying the evidence and rebutting his critics, he makes his case convincingly and in a reasoned tone.

Though there have been criticisms of his methods, three Nobel Prize winners in Economics are quoted praising the book on its jacket, and no study has disproved his results (look to the National Academy of Sciences or the CDC for rigorous, government-funded attempts). Lott makes his data available to anyone who would like to study it, and of course anyone is free to undertake their own study.

Beyond rearticulating and updating the findings of More Guns, Less Crime, Lott uses this book to point out anti-gun bias in the media. While gun accidents and gun crime are often covered, he argues, one rarely sees coverage of defensive gun uses. Many citizens are lead to believe that such uses do not even take place.

In fact, Lott argues, between 1.5 and 3.4 million defensive gun uses occur yearly (this estimate is based on survey data; estimates reported by Jens Ludwig and Philip Cook in Evaluating Gun Policy put the number at less than a third of Lott's lower bound).

He presents some especially dramatic, often heroic case studies and explains that these highly newsworthy stories got little news coverage, while less interesting accidents and crimes get lots of it. He also provides several disturbing examples of times major news sources outright lied about defensive gun use.

The book is written in a clear, reasoned diction that makes for quick if not gripping reading. Some of the statistical methods detailed are difficult to comprehend, but the results are explained with an average reading audience in mind.

Depending on ones political leanings and preferred literary style, it can be either a disappointment compared to or a breath of fresh air from Ann Coulter's sarcasm and name-calling. Certainly, it is far easier to recommend to a liberal than Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right, but it is also a bit less entertaining and easy to understand.

In The Bias Against Guns: Why Almost Everything You've Heard About Gun Control is Wrong, Lott provides an important, academic and unique viewpoint on guns and gun control. For those of all political persuasions, it provides information important to debates. The Bias Against Guns is a worthwhile, quick read.

A wake up call about gun control
This is a follow-up to his 1998 book "More Guns, Less Crime", which showed that rising gun ownership was resulting in lower violent crime statistics. He proves with statistical facts that Gun Control laws do not reduce Gun Violence, but have increased gun crime every time they are tried. Since the 1998 book came out before 9/11 happened, he now talks about how gun ownership surged after 9/11, and that again gun crime has gone down (further proving his point). He also talks about how the public falsely believes that guns don't do any good, because the press never reports on stories where a gun in a citizen's hand saved lives. Everything has all the statistics to back his claims up. This book proves once again that the gun-grabbers argument is only based on emotion. Highly recommended!

This book does not talk about constitutional rights; it stays focused on gun crime statistics.The 2nd Amendment guarantees an individual's civil right to own firearms, which scholars have proven time and again to be the true meaning of the amendment.Nobody educated disputes that meaning anymore. Yet someone in another review falsely tries to equate the right to own a gun to the right to own a car, which the constitution does not guarantee.Not only do law abiding American's have the freedom to own firearms, this book shows that when the good guys have guns, gun crime goes down.

Reviews (7)

Malcolm Presents The Real History of Gun Control in England
In a nutshell:

From the end of the Napoleonic Wars till 1870 or so, there was basicly no gun control in England.During this time, the crime rate dropped steadily, in all categories. Anyone, including criminals and the insane, could buy any type of firearm they wanted.

From 1870 till 1920, various bureaucrats tried to get gun control instituted. Aside from a few minor taxes, they failed. Crime continued to drop.

From 1920 till today, there have been ever increasing bans on guns in Britain.The rate of all crimes has risen throughout the past 85 years.

[Sarcasm] Undoubtedly, this is just a coincidence, or a pack of lies. It must be true that guns cause crime. Important people say so, and they are infallible, aren't they?[/Sarcasm]

If you have an open mind, you'll learn a lot from this book. But on the subject of guns, most people don't have open minds.Pity.

The other shoe drops
As some one who has lived in NYC for 12 years, and just returned from a year in England, I was astonished by how much more violent crime exists in that seemingly placid country.As Professor Joyce Malcom describes, robbery, burglary, assault and motor vehical theft in England have risen far higer (per 1000 population) than in the United States since the mid 1990s.This in spite of the fact that to minimize this shocking increase in violent crime, the British government has re-ordered the way crime statistics are collected.Car thefts are no longer investigated by Police; you call them to report a theft; they give you a report number for the insurance company. (A man called the police to report he was witnessing his car being stolen, and if they hurried over, they could catch the theft.They were "too busy.")

What is most fascinating about Prof. Malcolm's book is what you can read between the lines. The wilful blindness of anti-gun people has become so overwhelming, that it induces the most bizarre behavior in these otherwise intelligent people. As she amply demonstrates, it is just not possible to find ANY statistics put out by the anti-gunners that are not flawed, misleading, or just plain false.This strange belief has become an unquestioned religion to many, and opposition is not simply a different opinion, it is heresey. Malcom relates how in 1966 a gun shot 3 policemen with a handgun, causing the British Home Secretary Jenkins slap on the public a new ban on shotguns!! (Handguns were already illeagal.)

The book is rather long detailing the history of gun use in Great Britain, but the second half paints a surprising picture of the rapid decline of public safety in almost perfect sync with a draconian reversal of previously liberal gun laws.Malcom makes an interesting effort to compare US crime statisitics with those of England, but, given our culture where more than half the population own guns--this is often a stretch.Nevertheless, this book will certainly be the other shoe to the rancorous gun debate going on int he US, and should do much to buttress the fact that more guns do seem to result in less crime.

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