American-Manifesto.com In Defense of American Exceptionalism

Homicide has dropped of the list of the top causes of death in the U.S. at the very time that gun ownership is expanding.  Want some antacid on the side, guys?

In one my classes today, our professor asked how many of us were gun owners.  I’ll spare you the details but it was a logical, if surprisingly blunt, question given the subject of the class that day.
4 out of 14 students answered yes.  Of the 4 gun owners, two were women.
If this is a representative [...]

There has ben a lot of discussion by the academic left about whether the killing of Osama Bin Laden was justified.  The people questioning the OBL killing don’t seem to question that a nation has a right to defend itself from a direct attack, but are raising the question of whether that is applicable here.
I’m [...]

I had a letter to the editor published in the Inquirer in response to their anti-McDonald editorial.  It’s not the most exciting piece of writing but it works.

I recently returned from the annual Second Amendment Blog Bash at the NRA Annual Meeting.    It was really quite spectacular.  Special thanks goes to Bitter who put together a great set of events.  She also arranged for the bloggers to have media credentials which was a really great bonus.
Thanks also to my hosts Mr., [...]

The following was a letter submitted to the Inquirer in response to this letter.
A recent letter challenged anyone who has studied history to identify even one founder who would have agreed with Justice Scalia on guns.  I’ve studied our history and here are just a few.
James Mason: “to disarm the people is the best and [...]

A letter to the editor in today’s Inquirer complained about a previous article that referred to hunting as a sport.  The author wrote that “a sport involves two equally matched teams on a level playing field”.  Oh yeah?  Clearly she’s never watched a 76ers game.  They’re 5 and 14 as of today.  I’ll bet the [...]

I returned to my car which was parked in a restaurant’s parking lot, and discovered the car next to me also had an NRA Life Member sticker on it.  Two people willing to admit they are NRA Life Members at the same time in the same place in NJ?  I’m surprised there isn’t a state [...]

Bitter was kind enough to include me in a local gun bloggers’ confab today.  It was a splendid event.  The first of many, I hope.

One year ago the Supreme Court confirmed what should have been obvious: the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right that actually means something.  We still have a long way to go in rolling back the many unconstitutional restrictions on our gun rights and Heller will be an important piece of that.  [...]

In addition to being a Civil War general, a U.S. president and someone in my family tree, Ulysses Grant was apparently a president of the National Rifle Association.  I knew I liked him.

Wayne LaPierre and Ed Rendell locked horns this weekend over reinstating the assault weapons ban.  Rendell is a good debater but this one was no contest - LaPierre won easily.  The facts are not with Fast Eddie on this one.
One thing that stuck out was the issue of “high capacity” magazines.  LaPierre pointed out that [...]

Here’s a great overview from Dave Hardy of key data that’s been assembled on post-Columbine mass shootings.

incidents last about 8 minutes
the murderer deliberately targets and ambushes defenseless victims
the murderer has no interest in hostages or negotiations
the murderer “typically fold[s] quickly upon armed confrontation”

All of these underscore the fact that people who are armed and able to defend [...]

A quasi governmental group called the Missouri Information Analysis Center has published a list of warning signs that someone may be part of a militia.
Here are some highlights:
People who supported former third-party presidential candidates like Texas Rep. Ron Paul…[and] Bob Barr.
Uh-oh.
Would this be an inopportune moment to admit I was a Paulestinian who eventually voted Libertarian?
Other potential [...]

We often here anti-gun activists argue that should depend on the police to keep us safe.  They also say if we have a specific security concern we should get a restraining order. 
So how, then, do they respond to incidents like this?  A woman was murdered by her estranged husband despite the fact that she had [...]

And he is damn funny too.  Hat tip to Breda.

UPDATE: Check out his other videos on You Tube.  He is unbelievably funny.

Howard Nemerov recently made devastating use of the UN’s own gun data against the UN’s antigun arguments.  He broke countries into quartiles based on firearms ownership per capita.  He then compared per capita firearms ownership to their homicide rate. 
The results are best demonstrated in a table and it wouldn’t be right for me to lift [...]

Conceal carry holders are basically state certified good guys.
Tom Gresham on Tom Gresham’s Gun Talk

Yet another Philly cop was shot and killed on Friday night.  We’ll soon be treated to more calls for gun control by people who want more government control of pretty much everything.  They’ll try to argue that if we just restrict the rights of legal owners, then fewer guns will flow through the black market [...]

There has been a fair amount of discussion in the blogosphere about debating anti-gunners lately. Newbie Shooter has chimed in with some suggestions to make it a little more fair for the antis (a noble gesture). No doubt they will ignore him since their position isn’t based on rational analysis but emotion and power.
I actually [...]