January 2008

Fred Thompson on the DC Handgun Ban

Excerpt from an editorial by Senator Fred Thompson:

Fred ThompsonIn general, lawful gun ownership is a pretty simple matter. The Founders established gun-owner rights so that citizens would possess and be able to exercise the universal right of self-defense. Guns enable their owners to protect themselves from robbery and assault more successfully and more safely than they otherwise would be able to. The danger of laws like the D.C. handgun ban is that they limit the availability of legal guns to people who want to use them for legitimate reasons, such as self-defense (let alone hunting, sport shooting, collecting), while doing nothing to prevent criminals from acquiring guns.

The D.C. handgun ban, like all handgun bans is necessarily ineffectual. It takes the guns that would be used for self protection out of the hands of law-abiding citizens, while doing practically nothing to prevent criminals from obtaining guns to use to commit crimes. Even the federal judges in the D.C. case knew about the flourishing black market for guns in our nation’s capital that leaves the criminals armed and the law-abiding defenseless. This is unacceptable.

Fred seems to have the most acceptable views on the Second Amendment and Law and Order of all the candidates running for President. You can read the entire editorial in the Hawaii Reporter.

Hat tip to NRA-ILA.

UPDATE: Minstrel has information on the recent firing of a lawyer for D.C.

Portuguese Bend Landslide

According the the Natural Sciences Department at Cal State University Long Beach, this is a translational landslide. Slides like this move pretty slow. This one, in particular, has moved about 600 feet over the past 50 years. The motion is enough, however, to keep the road builders and line painters busy along this stretch of Palos Verdes Drive South. After a few months movement, however, it looks as it does in this shot taken by Damsel last week.

Portuguese Bend