Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Amicus Briefs (DC Gun Case)

On March 18, the Supreme Court of the United States will hear oral arguments in District of Columbia v. Heller.

Rather than hearing oral arguments, the Supreme Court should practice a sort of democracy by counting the number of amicus briefs filed by each side, the number of states on each side and the number of members of Congress on each side.

To date, forty-seven amicus briefs have been filed in support of gun rights and twenty briefs have been filed against gun rights. Thirty-one states have signed a brief in support of gun rights and six states (Puerto Rico included) have signed a brief against gun rights. Three Hundred and five members of Congress (55 Senators and 250 Representatives) have signed a brief in support of gun rights. Vice President Cheney also signed the brief that members of Congress signed. Eighteen House members (Delegate Norton included) have signed a brief against gun rights.

It appears that no United States senator has signed a brief against gun rights.

Clearly, if the Supreme Court were to accept the democracy suggested here, gun rights would prevail.

For more details on who signed which amicus briefs, go here and here.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Great Piece On The Second Amendment

By Robert J. Cottrol

My background is probably atypical for a somewhat high-profile supporter of the right to keep and bear arms. I am black and grew up in Manhattan’s East Harlem, far removed from the great American gun culture of rural, white America. Although my voting patterns have become somewhat more conservative in recent years, I remain in my heart of hearts a 1960s Humphrey Democrat concerned with the plight of those most vulnerable in American society—minorities, the poor, the elderly, and single women—groups whose day-to-day realities are often overlooked in our public policy debates, people whose lives too often go unnoticed by our intellectually timid chattering classes. This is happening in the public debate over the right to bear arms.

For the nation’s elites, the Second Amendment has become the Rodney Dangerfield of the Bill of Rights, constantly attacked by editorial writers, police chiefs seeking scapegoats, demagoging politicians, and most recently even by Rosie O’Donnell, no less. It is threatened by opportunistic legislative efforts, even when sponsors acknowledge their proposed legislation would have little impact on crime and violence.

Professional champions of civil rights and civil liberties have been unwilling to defend the underlying principle of the right to arms. Even the conservative defense has been timid and often inept, tied less, one suspects, to abiding principle and more to the dynamics of contemporary Republican politics. Thus a right older than the Republic, one that the drafters of two constitutional amendments the Second and the Fourteenth intended to protect, and a right whose critical importance has been painfully revealed by twentieth-century history, is left undefended by the lawyers, writers, and scholars we routinely expect to defend other constitutional rights. Instead, the Second Amendment’s intellectual as well as political defense has been left in the unlikely hands of the National Rifle Association (NRA). And although the NRA deserves considerably better than the demonized reputation it has acquired, it should not be the sole or even principal voice in defense of a major constitutional provision.

This anemic defense is all the more embarrassing because it occurs as mounting evidence severely undermines the three propositions that have been central to the anti-gun movement since its appearance on the national radar screen in the 1960s. The first proposition is that the Constitution, particularly the Second Amendment, poses no barrier to radical gun control, even total prohibition of private firearms. The second is that ordinary citizens with firearms are unlikely to defend themselves and are more likely to harm innocent parties with their guns. The final proposition is that the case for radical gun control is buttressed by comparing the United States to nations with more restrictive firearms policies. These propositions, now conventional wisdom, simply do not stand up to scrutiny.

The proposition that the Second Amendment poses no barrier to gun prohibition–a claim largely unknown before the 1960s–has run up against stubborn, contrary historical facts. Increasingly, historians and legal scholars, including many who support stricter gun control, have examined the history of the Second Amendment, the development of the right to arms in English political thought, judicial commentaries on the right in antebellum America, and the debates over the Fourteenth Amendment. The consensus among scholars who have actually looked at the evidence is that the Second and Fourteenth Amendments were meant to protect the citizen’s right to arms. (See, for example, historian Joyce Lee Malcolm’s Harvard University Press book, To Keep and Bear Arms, or the historical documents assembled in the three Gun Control and the Constitution volumes I’ve edited.)

Similarly, the criminological premises of the anti-gun movement have collapsed in the face of serious social science. For better than three decades the American public has been solemnly assured that peaceable citizens who possess guns for self-defense are disasters in waiting. "A gun in the home is more likely to kill a member of the family than to defend against an intruder," we hear. "Allowing citizens to carry firearms outside the home for self-protection will turn our streets into Dodge City and our parking lots into the O.K. Corral," the refrain goes.

Yet the criminological literature provides little support for this caricature of gun owners. Instead, careful research has discovered an incredibly high amount of firearms’ being responsibly used in self-defense. Research by Florida State University criminologist Gary Kleck and others indicate between two and three million cases of self-defense per year. Overwhelmingly these incidents involve not firing the weapon at the attacker, but simply brandishing it and thereby causing the attacker’s withdrawal.

In recent years a majority of states have passed laws permitting honest citizens to carry concealed weapons, and the results tell us much about self-defense and the responsibility of the average citizen. Once it was passionately argued that such laws would turn minor altercations into bloody shoot-outs; now we know better. Over 1 million Americans have licenses to carry firearms, but firearms misuse by this group has been utterly negligible. Criminologists now debate not how much harm has been caused by concealed-carry laws, but how much good.

The most thorough research, by John Lott of the University of Chicago, reveals that concealed-carry laws have had a substantial deterrent effect on crimes of violence. His work shows that women, especially, have benefitted, as substantial drops in rapes and attacks on women have occurred where the laws have been enacted. Lott also discovered dramatic benefits for the urban poor and minorities: "Not only do urban areas tend to gain in their fight against crime, but reductions in crime rates are greatest precisely in those urban areas that have the highest crime rates, largest and most dense populations, and greatest concentrations of minorities."

The final proposition–that international comparisons prove the case for radical gun control–may be the most problematic of all. Certainly the simplistic conclusion that American homicide rates are higher than those in Western Europe and Japan because of the greater prevalence of firearms glosses over significant cultural and demographic differences between us and other advanced industrial nations.

The American population is younger and more diverse. Unlike Western Europe and Japan, the United States has always had a large number of immigrants and internal migrants. We also have a history of racial exclusion and a struggle against that exclusion as old as the Republic and without real parallel in comparable nations. All of these have contributed to crime rates higher than those in other western nations. Indeed, when a number of the cultural and demographic variables are controlled for, much of the apparent difference between American and Western European homicide rates disappears despite the greater presence of firearms in American society.

But international comparisons should raise deeper and more disturbing questions, questions too rarely asked in serious company. The central and usually unchallenged premise of the gun control movement is that society becomes more civilized when the citizen surrenders the means of self-defense, leaving the state a monopoly of force.

That this premise goes largely unchallenged is the most remarkable feature of our gun control debate. We are ending a century that has repeatedly witnessed the consequences of unchecked state monopolies of force. University of Hawaii political scientist Rudolph J. Rummel, one of the leading students of democide (mass murder of civilian populations by governments), has estimated that nearly 170 million people have been murdered by their own governments in our century. The familiar list of mass murderers– Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot–only scratches the surface. The mass slaughter of helpless, unarmed civilian populations continues to this very day in Sudan, Rwanda, and parts of the former Yugoslavia.

The reluctance of outside forces to intervene is well documented. And yet the obvious question is strangely absent: Would arms in the hands of average citizens have made a difference? Could the overstretched Nazi war machine have murdered 11 million armed and resisting Europeans while also taking on the Soviet and Anglo-American armies? Could 50,000-70,000 Khmer Rouge have butchered 2-3 million armed Cambodians? These questions bear repeating. The answers are by no means clear, but it is unconscionable they are not being asked.

Need Americans have such concerns? Well, we have been spared rule by dictators, but state tyranny can come in other forms. It can come when government refuses to protect unpopular groups—people who are disfavored because of their political or religious beliefs, or their ancestry, or the color of their skin. Our past has certainly not been free of this brand of state tyranny. In the Jim Crow South, for example, government failed and indeed refused to protect blacks from extra-legal violence. Given our history, it’s stunning we fail to question those who would force upon us a total reliance on the state for defense.

Nor should our discussion of freedom and the right to arms be limited to foreign or historical examples. The lives and freedoms of decent, law-abiding citizens throughout our nation, especially in our dangerous inner cities, are constantly threatened by criminal predators. This has devastated minority communities. And yet the effort to limit the right to armed self-defense has been most intense in such communities. Bans on firearms ownership in public housing, the constant effort to ban pistols poor people can afford—scornfully labeled "Saturday Night Specials" and more recently "junk guns"—are denying the means of self-defense to entire communities in a failed attempt to disarm criminal predators. In too many communities, particularly under-protected minority communities, citizens have simply been disarmed and left to the mercy of well-armed criminals.

This has led to further curtailment of freedom. Consider initiatives in recent years to require tenants in public housing to allow their apartments to be searched: First, police failed for decades, for justifiable but also far too frequently unjustifiable reasons, to protect citizens in many of our most dangerous public housing projects. Next, as the situation became sufficiently desperate, tenants were prohibited from owning firearms for their own defense. Finally the demand came, "Surrender your right to privacy in your home." The message could not be clearer: A people incapable of protecting themselves will lose their rights as a free people, becoming either servile dependents of the state or of the criminal predators who are their defacto masters.

All of this should force us to reconsider our debate over arms and rights. For too long, it has been framed as a question of the rights of sportsmen. It is far more serious: The Second Amendment has something critical to say about the relationship between the citizen and the state. For most of human history, in most of the nations in the world, the individual has all too often been a helpless dependent of the state, beholden to the state’s benevolence and indeed competence for his physical survival.

The notion of a right to arms bespeaks a very different relationship. It says the individual is not simply a helpless bystander in the difficult and dangerous task of ensuring his or her safety. Instead, the citizen is an active participant, an equal partner with the state in ensuring not only his own safety but that of his community.

This is a serious right for serious people. It takes the individual from servile dependency on the state to the status of participating citizen, capable of making intelligent choices in defense of one’s life and ultimately one’s freedom. This conception of citizenship recognizes that the ultimate civil right is the right to defend one’s own life, that without that right all other rights are meaningless, and that without the means of self-defense the right to self-defense is but an empty promise.

Our serious thinkers have been absent from this debate for too long. The Second Amendment is simply too important to leave to the gun nuts.
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Robert J. Cottrol is professor of law and history and the Harold Paul Green Research Professor at the George Washington University. His most recent book is From African to Yankee: Narratives of Slavery and Freedom in Antebellum New England.

A Nation Of Cowards

The Public Interest
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Washington, DC 20036

(C) 1993 by The Public Interest.

A NATION OF COWARDS

Jeffrey R. Snyder

OUR SOCIETY has reached a pinnacle of self-expression and respect for individuality rare or unmatched in history. Our entire popular culture -- from fashion magazines to the cinema -- positively screams the matchless worth of the individual, and glories in eccentricity, nonconformity, independent judgment, and self-determination. This enthusiasm is reflected in the prevalent notion that helping someone entails increasing that person's "self-esteem"; that if a person properly values himself, he will naturally be a happy, productive, and, in some inexplicable fashion, responsible member of society.

And yet, while people are encouraged to revel in their individuality and incalculable self-worth, the media and the law enforcement establishment continually advise us that, when confronted with the threat of lethal violence, we should not resist, but simply give the attacker what he wants. If the crime under consideration is rape, there is some notable waffling on this point, and the discussion quickly moves to how the woman can change her behavior to minimize the risk of rape, and the various ridiculous, non-lethal weapons she may acceptably carry, such as whistles, keys, mace or, that weapon which really sends shivers down a rapist's spine, the portable cellular phone.

Now how can this be? How can a person who values himself so highly calmly accept the indignity of a criminal assault? How can one who believes that the essence of his dignity lies in his self-determination passively accept the forcible deprivation of that self-determination? How can he, quietly, with great dignity and poise, simply hand over the goods?

The assumption, of course, is that there is no inconsistency. The advice not to resist a criminal assault and simply hand over the goods is founded on the notion that one's life is of incalculable value, and that no amount of property is worth it. Put aside, for a moment, the outrageousness of the suggestion that a criminal who proffers lethal violence should be treated as if he has instituted a new social contract: "I will not hurt or kill you if you give me what I want." For years, feminists have labored to educate people that rape is not about sex, but about domination, degradation, and control. Evidently, someone needs to inform the law enforcement establishment and the media that kidnapping, robbery, carjacking, and assault are not about property.

Crime is not only a complete disavowal of the social contract, but also a commandeering of the victim's person and liberty. If the individual's dignity lies in the fact that he is a moral agent engaging in actions of his own will, in free exchange with others, then crime always violates the victim's dignity. It is, in fact, an act of enslavement. Your wallet, your purse, or your car may not be worth your life, but your dignity is; and if it is not worth fighting for, it can hardly be said to exist.

The Gift of Life

Although difficult for modern man to fathom, it was once widely believed that life was a gift from God, that to not defend that life when offered violence was to hold God's gift in contempt, to be a coward and to breach one's duty to one's community. A sermon given in Philadelphia in 1747 unequivocally equated the failure to defend oneself with suicide:

He that suffers his life to be taken from him by one that hath no authority for that purpose, when he might preserve it by defense, incurs the Guilt of self murder since God hath enjoined him to seek the continuance of his life, and Nature itself teaches every creature to defend itself.

"Cowardice" and "self-respect" have largely disappeared from public discourse. In their place we are offered "self-esteem" as the bellwether of success and a proxy for dignity. "Self-respect" implies that one recognizes standards, and judges oneself worthy by the degree to which one lives up to them. "Self-esteem" simply means that one feels good about oneself. "Dignity" used to refer to the self-mastery and fortitude with which a person conducted himself in the face of life's vicissitudes and the boorish behavior of others. Now, judging by campus speech codes, dignity requires that we never encounter a discouraging word and that others be coerced into acting respectfully, evidently on the assumption that we are powerless to prevent our degradation if exposed to the demeaning behavior of others. These are signposts proclaiming the insubstantiality of our character, the hollowness of our souls.

It is impossible to address the problem of rampant crime without talking about the moral responsibility of the intended victim. Crime is rampant because the law-abiding, each of us, condone it, excuse it, permit it, submit to it. We permit and encourage it because we do not fight back, immediately, then and there, where it happens. Crime is not rampant because we do not have enough prisons, because judges and prosecutors are too soft, because the police are hamstrung with absurd technicalities. The defect is there, in our character. We are a nation of cowards and shirkers.

Do You Feel Lucky?

In 1991, when then-Attorney General Richard Thornburgh released the FBI's annual crime statistics, he noted that it is now more likely that a person will be the victim of a violent crime than that he will be in an auto accident. Despite this, most people readily believe that the existence of the police relieves them of the responsibility to take full measures to protect themselves. The police, however, are not personal bodyguards. Rather, they act as a general deterrent to crime, both by their presence and by apprehending criminals after the fact. As numerous courts have held, they have no legal obligation to protect anyone in particular. You cannot sue them for failing to prevent you from being the victim of a crime.

Insofar as the police deter by their presence, they are very, very good. Criminals take great pains not to commit a crime in front of them. Unfortunately, the corollary is that you can pretty much bet your life (and you are) that they won't be there at the moment you actually need them.

Should you ever be the victim of an assault, a robbery, or a rape, you will find it very difficult to call the police while the act is in progress, even if you are carrying a portable cellular phone. Nevertheless, you might be interested to know how long it takes them to show up. Department of Justice statistics for 1991 show that, for all crimes of violence, only 28 percent of calls are responded to within five minutes. The idea that protection is a service people can call to have delivered and expect to receive in a timely fashion is often mocked by gun owners, who love to recite the challenge, "Call for a cop, call for an ambulance, and call for a pizza. See who shows up first."

Many people deal with the problem of crime by convincing themselves that they live, work, and travel only in special "crime-free" zones. Invariably, they react with shock and hurt surprise when they discover that criminals do not play by the rules and do not respect these imaginary boundaries. If, however, you understand that crime can occur anywhere at anytime, and if you understand that you can be maimed or mortally wounded in mere seconds, you may wish to consider whether you are willing to place the responsibility for safeguarding your life in the hands of others.

Power And Responsibility

Is your life worth protecting? If so, whose responsibility is it to protect it? If you believe that it is the police's, not only are you wrong -- since the courts universally rule that they have no legal obligation to do so -- but you face some difficult moral quandaries. How can you rightfully ask another human being to risk his life to protect yours, when you will assume no responsibility yourself? Because that is his job and we pay him to do it? Because your life is of incalculable value, but his is only worth the $30,000 salary we pay him? If you believe it reprehensible to possess the means and will to use lethal force to repel a criminal assault, how can you call upon another to do so for you?

Do you believe that you are forbidden to protect yourself because the police are better qualified to protect you, because they know what they are doing but you're a rank amateur? Put aside that this is equivalent to believing that only concert pianists may play the piano and only professional athletes may play sports. What exactly are these special qualities possessed only by the police and beyond the rest of us mere mortals?

One who values his life and takes seriously his responsibilities to his family and community will possess and cultivate the means of fighting back, and will retaliate when threatened with death or grievous injury to himself or a loved one. He will never be content to rely solely on others for his safety, or to think he has done all that is possible by being aware of his surroundings and taking measures of avoidance. Let's not mince words: He will be armed, will be trained in the use of his weapon, and will defend himself when faced with lethal violence.

Fortunately, there is a weapon for preserving life and liberty that can be wielded effectively by almost anyone -- the handgun. Small and light enough to be carried habitually, lethal, but unlike the knife or sword, not demanding great skill or strength, it truly is the "great equalizer." Requiring only hand-eye coordination and a modicum of ability to remain cool under pressure, it can be used effectively by the old and the weak against the young and the strong, by the one against the many.

The handgun is the only weapon that would give a lone female jogger a chance of prevailing against a gang of thugs intent on rape, a teacher a chance of protecting children at recess from a madman intent on massacring them, a family of tourists waiting at a mid-town subway station the means to protect themselves from a gang of teens armed with razors and knives.

But since we live in a society that by and large outlaws the carrying of arms, we are brought into the fray of the Great American Gun War. Gun control is one of the most prominent battlegrounds in our current culture wars. Yet it is unique in the half-heartedness with which our conservative leaders and pundits -- our "conservative elite" -- do battle, and have conceded the moral high ground to liberal gun control proponents. It is not a topic often written about, or written about with any great fervor, by William F. Buckley or Patrick Buchanan. As drug czar, William Bennett advised President Bush to ban "assault weapons." George Will is on record as recommending the repeal of the Second Amendment, and Jack Kemp is on record as favoring a ban on the possession of semiautomatic "assault weapons." The battle for gun rights is one fought predominantly by the common man. The beliefs of both our liberal and conservative elites are in fact abetting the criminal rampage through our society.

Selling Crime Prevention

By any rational measure, nearly all gun control proposals are hokum. The Brady Bill, for example, would not have prevented John Hinckley from obtaining a gun to shoot President Reagan; Hinckley purchased his weapon five months before the attack, and his medical records could not have served as a basis to deny his purchase of a gun, since medical records are not public documents filed with the police. Similarly, California's waiting period and background check did not stop Patrick Purdy from purchasing the "assault rifle" and handguns he used to massacre children during recess in a Stockton schoolyard; the felony conviction that would have provided the basis for stopping the sales did not exist, because Mr. Purdy's previous weapons violations were plea-bargained down from felonies to misdemeanors.

In the mid-sixties there was a public service advertising campaign targeted at car owners about the prevention of car theft. The purpose of the ad was to urge car owners not to leave their keys in their cars. The message was, "Don't help a good boy go bad." The implication was that, by leaving his keys in his car, the normal, law-abiding car owner was contributing to the delinquency of minors who, if they just weren't tempted beyond their limits, would be "good." Now, in those days people still had a fair sense of just who was responsible for whose behavior. The ad succeeded in enraging a goodly portion of the populace, and was soon dropped.

Nearly all of the gun control measures offered by Handgun Control, Inc. (HCI) and its ilk embody the same philosophy. They are founded on the belief that America's law-abiding gun owners are the source of the problem. With their unholy desire for firearms, they are creating a society awash in a sea of guns, thereby helping good boys go bad, and helping bad boys be badder. This laying of moral blame for violent crime at the feet of the law-abiding, and the implicit absolution of violent criminals for their misdeeds, naturally infuriates honest gun owners.

The files of HCI and other gun control organizations are filled with proposals to limit the availability of semiautomatic and other firearms to law-abiding citizens, and barren of proposals for apprehending and punishing violent criminals. It is ludicrous to expect that the proposals of HCI, or any gun control laws, will significantly curb crime. According to Department of Justice and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) statistics, fully 90 percent of violent crimes are committed without a handgun, and 93 percent of the guns obtained by violent criminals are not obtained through the lawful purchase and sale transactions that are the object of most gun control legislation. Furthermore, the number of violent criminals is minute in comparison to the number of firearms in America -- estimated by the ATF at about 200 million, approximately one-third of which are handguns. With so abundant a supply, there will always be enough guns available for those who wish to use them for nefarious ends, no matter how complete the legal prohibitions against them, or how draconian the punishment for their acquisition or use. No, the gun control proposals of HCI and other organizations are not seriously intended as crime control. Something else is at work here.

The Tyranny of the Elite

Gun control is a moral crusade against a benighted, barbaric citizenry. This is demonstrated not only by the ineffectualness of gun control in preventing crime, and by the fact that it focuses on restricting the behavior of the law-abiding rather than apprehending and punishing the guilty, but also by the execration that gun control proponents heap on gun owners and their evil instrumentality, the NRA. Gun owners are routinely portrayed as uneducated, paranoid rednecks fascinated by and prone to violence, i.e., exactly the type of person who opposes the liberal agenda and whose moral and social "re-education" is the object of liberal social policies. Typical of such bigotry is New York Gov. Mario Cuomo's famous characterization of gun-owners as "hunters who drink beer, don't vote, and lie to their wives about where they were all weekend." Similar vituperation is rained upon the NRA, characterized by Sen. Edward Kennedy as the "pusher's best friend," lampooned in political cartoons as standing for the right of children to carry firearms to school and, in general, portrayed as standing for an individual's God-given right to blow people away at will.

The stereotype is, of course, false. As criminologist and constitutional lawyer Don B. Kates, Jr. and former HCI contributor Dr. Patricia Harris have pointed out, "[s]tudies consistently show that, on the average, gun owners are better educated and have more prestigious jobs than non-owners.... Later studies show that gun owners are less likely than non-owners to approve of police brutality, violence against dissenters, etc."

Conservatives must understand that the antipathy many liberals have for gun owners arises in good measure from their statist utopianism. This habit of mind has nowhere been better explored than in The Republic. There, Plato argues that the perfectly just society is one in which an unarmed people exhibit virtue by minding their own business in the performance of their assigned functions, while the government of philosopher-kings, above the law and protected by armed guardians unquestioning in their loyalty to the state, engineers, implements, and fine-tunes the creation of that society, aided and abetted by myths that both hide and justify their totalitarian manipulation.

The Unarmed Life

When columnist Carl Rowan preaches gun control and uses a gun to defend his home, when Maryland Gov. William Donald Schaefer seeks legislation year after year to ban semiautomatic "assault weapons" whose only purpose, we are told, is to kill people, while he is at the same time escorted by state police armed with large-capacity 9mm semiautomatic pistols, it is not simple hypocrisy. It is the workings of that habit of mind possessed by all superior beings who have taken upon themselves the terrible burden of civilizing the masses and who understand, like our Congress, that laws are for other people.

The liberal elite know that they are philosopher-kings. They know that the people simply cannot be trusted; that they are incapable of just and fair self-government; that left to their own devices, their society will be racist, sexist, homophobic, and inequitable -- and the liberal elite know how to fix things. They are going to help us live the good and just life, even if they have to lie to us and force us to do it. And they detest those who stand in their way.

The private ownership of firearms is a rebuke to this utopian zeal. To own firearms is to affirm that freedom and liberty are not gifts from the state. It is to reserve final judgment about whether the state is encroaching on freedom and liberty, to stand ready to defend that freedom with more than mere words, and to stand outside the state's totalitarian reach.

The Florida Experience

The elitist distrust of the people underlying the gun control movement is illustrated beautifully in HCI's campaign against a new concealed-carry law in Florida. Prior to 1987, the Florida law permitting the issuance of concealed-carry permits was administered at the county level. The law was vague, and, as a result, was subject to conflicting interpretation and political manipulation. Permits were issued principally to security personnel and the privileged few with political connections. Permits were valid only within the county of issuance.

In 1987, however, Florida enacted a uniform concealed-carry law which mandates that county authorities issue a permit to anyone who satisfies certain objective criteria. The law requires that a permit be issued to any applicant who is a resident, at least twenty-one years of age, has no criminal record, no record of alcohol or drug abuse, no history of mental illness, and provides evidence of having satisfactorily completed a firearms safety course offered by the NRA or other competent instructor. The applicant must provide a set of fingerprints, after which the authorities make a background check. The permit must be issued or denied within ninety days, is valid throughout the state, and must be renewed every three years, which provides authorities a regular means of reevaluating whether the permit holder still qualifies.

Passage of this legislation was vehemently opposed by HCI and the media. The law, they said, would lead to citizens shooting each other over everyday disputes involving fender benders, impolite behavior, and other slights to their dignity. Terms like "Florida, the Gunshine State" and "Dodge City East" were coined to suggest that the state, and those seeking passage of the law, were encouraging individuals to act as judge, jury, and executioner in a "Death Wish" society.

No HCI campaign more clearly demonstrates the elitist beliefs underlying the campaign to eradicate gun ownership. Given the qualifications required of permit holders, HCI and the media can only believe that common, law-abiding citizens are seething cauldrons of homicidal rage, ready to kill to avenge any slight to their dignity, eager to seek out and summarily execute the lawless. Only lack of immediate access to a gun restrains them and prevents the blood from flowing in the streets. They are so mentally and morally deficient that they would mistake a permit to carry a weapon in self-defense as a state-sanctioned license to kill at will.

Did the dire predictions come true? Despite the fact that Miami and Dade County have severe problems with the drug trade, the homicide rate fell in Florida following enactment of this law, as it did in Oregon following enactment of similar legislation there. There are, in addition, several documented cases of new permit holders successfully using their weapons to defend themselves. Information from the Florida Department of State shows that, from the beginning of the program in 1987 through June 1993, 160,823 permits have been issued, and only 530, or about 0.33 percent of the applicants, have been denied a permit for failure to satisfy the criteria, indicating that the law is benefitting those whom it was intended to benefit -- the law-abiding. Only 16 permits, less than 1/100th of 1 percent, have been revoked due to the post-issuance commission of a crime involving a firearm.

The Florida legislation has been used as a model for legislation adopted by Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and Mississippi. There are, in addition, seven other states (Maine, North and South Dakota, Utah, Washington, West Virginia, and, with the exception of cities with a population in excess of 1 million, Pennsylvania) which provide that concealed-carry permits must be issued to law-abiding citizens who satisfy various objective criteria. Finally, no permit is required at all in Vermont. Altogether, then, there are thirteen states in which law-abiding citizens who wish to carry arms to defend themselves may do so. While no one appears to have compiled the statistics from all of these jurisdictions, there is certainly an ample data base for those seeking the truth about the trustworthiness of law-abiding citizens who carry firearms.

Other evidence also suggests that armed citizens are very responsible in using guns to defend themselves. Florida State University criminologist Gary Kleck, using surveys and other data, has determined that armed citizens defend their lives or property with firearms against criminals approximately 1 million times a year. In 98 percent of these instances, the citizen merely brandishes the weapon or fires a warning shot. Only in 2 percent of the cases do citizens actually shoot their assailants. In defending themselves with their firearms, armed citizens kill 2,000 to 3,000 criminals each year, three times the number killed by the police. A nationwide study by Kates, the constitutional lawyer and criminologist, found that only 2 percent of civilian shootings involved an innocent person mistakenly identified as a criminal. The "error rate" for the police, however, was 11 percent, over five times as high.

It is simply not possible to square the numbers above and the experience of Florida with the notions that honest, law-abiding gun owners are borderline psychopaths itching for an excuse to shoot someone, vigilantes eager to seek out and summarily execute the lawless, or incompetent fools incapable of determining when it is proper to use lethal force in defense of their lives. Nor upon reflection should these results seem surprising. Rape, robbery, and attempted murder are not typically actions rife with ambiguity or subtlety, requiring special powers of observation and great book-learning to discern. When a man pulls a knife on a woman and says, "You're coming with me," her judgment that a crime is being committed is not likely to be in error. There is little chance that she is going to shoot the wrong person. It is the police, because they are rarely at the scene of the crime when it occurs, who are more likely to find themselves in circumstances where guilt and innocence are not so clear-cut, and in which the probability for mistakes is higher.

Arms and Liberty

Classical republican philosophy has long recognized the critical relationship between personal liberty and the possession of arms by a people ready and willing to use them. Political theorists as dissimilar as Niccolo Machiavelli, Sir Thomas More, James Harrington, Algernon Sidney, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau all shared the view that the possession of arms is vital for resisting tyranny, and that to be disarmed by one's government is tantamount to being enslaved by it. The possession of arms by the people is the ultimate warrant that government governs only with the consent of the governed. As Kates has shown, the Second Amendment is as much a product of this political philosophy as it is of the American experience in the Revolutionary War. Yet our conservative elite has abandoned this aspect of republican theory. Although our conservative pundits recognize and embrace gun owners as allies in other arenas, their battle for gun rights is desultory. The problem here is not a statist utopianism, although goodness knows that liberals are not alone in the confidence they have in the state's ability to solve society's problems. Rather, the problem seems to lie in certain cultural traits shared by our conservative and liberal elites.

One such trait is an abounding faith in the power of the word. The failure of our conservative elite to defend the Second Amendment stems in great measure from an overestimation of the power of the rights set forth in the First Amendment, and a general undervaluation of action. Implicit in calls for the repeal of the Second Amendment is the assumption that our First Amendment rights are sufficient to preserve our liberty. The belief is that liberty can be preserved as long as men freely speak their minds; that there is no tyranny or abuse that can survive being exposed in the press; and that the truth need only be disclosed for the culprits to be shamed. The people will act, and the truth shall set us, and keep us, free.

History is not kind to this belief, tending rather to support the view of Hobbes, Machiavelli, and other republican theorists that only people willing and able to defend themselves can preserve their liberties. While it may be tempting and comforting to believe that the existence of mass electronic communication has forever altered the balance of power between the state and its subjects, the belief has certainly not been tested by time, and what little history there is in the age of mass communication is not especially encouraging. The camera, radio, and press are mere tools and, like guns, can be used for good or ill. Hitler, after all, was a masterful orator, used radio to very good effect, and is well known to have pioneered and exploited the propaganda opportunities afforded by film. And then, of course, there were the Brownshirts, who knew very well how to quell dissent among intellectuals.

Polite Society

In addition to being enamored of the power of words, our conservative elite shares with liberals the notion that an armed society is just not civilized or progressive, that massive gun ownership is a blot on our civilization. This association of personal disarmament with civilized behavior is one of the great unexamined beliefs of our time.

Should you read English literature from the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries, you will discover numerous references to the fact that a gentleman, especially when out at night or traveling, armed himself with a sword or a pistol against the chance of encountering a highwayman or other such predator. This does not appear to have shocked the ladies accompanying him. True, for the most part there were no police in those days, but we have already addressed the notion that the presence of the police absolves people of the responsibility to look after their safety, and in any event the existence of the police cannot be said to have reduced crime to negligible levels.

It is by no means obvious why it is "civilized" to permit oneself to fall easy prey to criminal violence, and to permit criminals to continue unobstructed in their evil ways. While it may be that a society in which crime is so rare that no one ever needs to carry a weapon is "civilized," a society that stigmatizes the carrying of weapons by the law-abiding -- because it distrusts its citizens more than it fears rapists, robbers, and murderers -- certainly cannot claim this distinction. Perhaps the notion that defending oneself with lethal force is not "civilized" arises from the view that violence is always wrong, or the view that each human being is of such intrinsic worth that it is wrong to kill anyone under any circumstances. The necessary implication of these propositions, however, is that life is not worth defending. Far from being "civilized," the beliefs that counterviolence and killing are always wrong are an invitation to the spread of barbarism. Such beliefs announce loudly and clearly that those who do not respect the lives and property of others will rule over those who do.

In truth, one who believes it wrong to arm himself against criminal violence shows contempt of God's gift of life (or, in modern parlance, does not properly value himself), does not live up to his responsibilities to his family and community, and proclaims himself mentally and morally deficient, because he does not trust himself to behave responsibly. In truth, a state that deprives its law-abiding citizens of the means to effectively defend themselves is not civilized but barbarous, becoming an accomplice of murderers, rapists, and thugs and revealing its totalitarian nature by its tacit admission that the disorganized, random havoc created by criminals is far less a threat than are men and women who believe themselves free and independent, and act accordingly.

While gun control proponents and other advocates of a kinder, gentler society incessantly decry our "armed society," in truth we do not live in an armed society. We live in a society in which violent criminals and agents of the state habitually carry weapons, and in which many law-abiding citizens own firearms but do not go about armed. Department of Justice statistics indicate that 87 percent of all violent crimes occur outside the home. Essentially, although tens of millions own firearms, we are an unarmed society.

Take Back the Night

Clearly the police and the courts are not providing a significant brake on criminal activity. While liberals call for more poverty, education, and drug treatment programs, conservatives take a more direct tack. George Will advocates a massive increase in the number of police and a shift toward "community-based policing." Meanwhile, the NRA and many conservative leaders call for laws that would require violent criminals serve at least 85 percent of their sentences and would place repeat offenders permanently behind bars.

Our society suffers greatly from the beliefs that only official action is legitimate and that the state is the source of our earthly salvation. Both liberal and conservative prescriptions for violent crime suffer from the "not in my job description" school of thought regarding the responsibilities of the law-abiding citizen, and from an overestimation of the ability of the state to provide society's moral moorings. As long as law-abiding citizens assume no personal responsibility for combatting crime, liberal and conservative programs will fail to contain it.

Judging by the numerous articles about concealed-carry in gun magazines, the growing number of products advertised for such purpose, and the increase in the number of concealed-carry applications in states with mandatory-issuance laws, more and more people, including growing numbers of women, are carrying firearms for self-defense. Since there are still many states in which the issuance of permits is discretionary and in which law enforcement officials routinely deny applications, many people have been put to the hard choice between protecting their lives or respecting the law. Some of these people have learned the hard way, by being the victim of a crime, or by seeing a friend or loved one raped, robbed, or murdered, that violent crime can happen to anyone, anywhere at anytime, and that crime is not about sex or property but life, liberty, and dignity.

The laws proscribing concealed-carry of firearms by honest, law-abiding citizens breed nothing but disrespect for the law. As the Founding Fathers knew well, a government that does not trust its honest, law-abiding, taxpaying citizens with the means of self-defense is not itself worthy of trust. Laws disarming honest citizens proclaim that the government is the master, not the servant, of the people. A federal law along the lines of the Florida statute -- overriding all contradictory state and local laws and acknowledging that the carrying of firearms by law-abiding citizens is a privilege and immunity of citizenship -- is needed to correct the outrageous conduct of state and local officials operating under discretionary licensing systems.

What we certainly do not need is more gun control. Those who call for the repeal of the Second Amendment so that we can really begin controlling firearms betray a serious misunderstanding of the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights does not grant rights to the people, such that its repeal would legitimately confer upon government the powers otherwise proscribed. The Bill of Rights is the list of the fundamental, inalienable rights, endowed in man by his Creator, that define what it means to be a free and independent people, the rights which must exist to ensure that government governs only with the consent of the people.

At one time this was even understood by the Supreme Court. In United States v. Cruikshank (1876), the first case in which the Court had an opportunity to interpret the Second Amendment, it stated that the right confirmed by the Second Amendment "is not a right granted by the constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence." The repeal of the Second Amendment would no more render the outlawing of firearms legitimate than the repeal of the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment would authorize the government to imprison and kill people at will. A government that abrogates any of the Bill of Rights, with or without majoritarian approval, forever acts illegitimately, becomes tyrannical, and loses the moral right to govern.

This is the uncompromising understanding reflected in the warning that America's gun owners will not go gently into that good, utopian night: "You can have my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead hands." While liberals take this statement as evidence of the retrograde, violent nature of gun owners, we gun owners hope that liberals hold equally strong sentiments about their printing presses, word processors, and television cameras. The republic depends upon fervent devotion to all our fundamental rights.

Monday, February 18, 2008

Newsweek Article: Guns On Campus

By Suzanne Smalley
Newsweek Web Exclusive
February 15, 2008

It was a sickeningly familiar scene. A student-gunman opened fire Thursday during a lecture at Northern Illinois University, killing five and wounding 15 before turning the gun on himself. The deadly spree was the fifth school shooting this week—and a traumatic reminder that for all the efforts to improve campus security nationwide since the massacre at Virginia Tech last year, students and faculty remain disturbingly vulnerable.

A nonprofit organization called Students for Concealed Carry on Campus would like to change that. The group, whose 12,000 members nationwide include college students, faculty and parents, champions legislation that would allow licensed gun owners to carry concealed weapons on campus, in the hope that an alert and well-trained citizen could stop a deranged shooter before he or she could do serious damage. According to the National Conference on State Legislatures, 13 states are currently considering some form of "concealed carry" legislation aimed at campuses. Utah is the group's model; after a state Supreme Court ruling found that the state university had violated a law allowing permit holders to carry concealed weapons, the school agreed that guns could legally be carried on its grounds. Some states, like Colorado, do not explicitly ban licensed students and faculty from carrying hidden weapons onto school grounds, though most universities in such states impose restrictions of their own.

There are signs that the "concealed carry" group was making headway even before the tragedy at Northern Illinois. Earlier this month the South Dakota House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to force state universities to allow students to carry weapons on campus, according to GOP state Rep. Tom Brunner. The bill, which Brunner sponsored, recently died in the state senate, but Brunner said he intends to bring it back as soon as he can. "It's not an issue that's going to go away," Brunner said. "We feel pretty passionate [that] students and teachers should have a right to defend themselves, and weapons on campus should be a part of the plan."

But critics say such legislation would not have stopped suspected Northern Illinois shooter Steven P. Kazmierczak from carrying out his violent spree. (The Illinois legislature is considering a bill that would relax the state's concealed-carry restrictions.) Kazmierczak snuck a shotgun and three handguns onto campus in a guitar case and under a coat before walking into a geology lecture and opening fire. Police have recovered 48 bullet casings and six shotgun shells from the crime scene. "It's ridiculous to say someone with a gun could have saved the day," said Brian Malte, the state legislation and politics director at the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, "with people running all over the place and people getting caught in the crossfire." Malte says his group opposes the concealed-carry legislation, because allowing firearms to saturate college campuses, where young people drink heavily and live communally, would only heighten the danger of deadly violence.

W. Scott Lewis is a board member and spokesman for Students for Concealed Carry on Campus. Lewis argues that states with the most relaxed concealed-carry laws also happen to be among the safest. He points to Colorado State University, which has allowed concealed weapons on campus for 10 semesters without incident; the same is true for nine state universities in Utah's system, where concealed weapons have been allowed in university classroom buildings since 2006, Lewis said. NEWSWEEK's Suzanne Smalley spoke to Lewis about the bill, the tragedy at Northern Illinois University—and his fears that it could happen again. Excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: Why do you think it would help matters if students were allowed to carry guns on college campuses?
W. Scott Lewis: We're talking about licensed individuals age 21 and above, in most states, who have gone through extensive background checks, training, testing, etc. Basically, these are the same individuals who are licensed to carry in virtually all other unsecured locations in these states. By unsecured I mean anywhere where there are not metal detectors and X-ray machines. So you're saying that individuals who are licensed to carry in office buildings, movie theaters, grocery stores, restaurants, shopping malls, churches, banks, etc.—they're currently not allowed to carry on college campuses for some reason … College campuses are unsecured locations. Anybody can walk onto a college campus carrying just about anything they please. So what happens is these state laws and these school policies that prohibit concealed carry on college campuses stack the odds in favor of dangerous criminals who have no concern for following the rules.

There are reports that the police arrived within two minutes yesterday.
A skilled shooter with a bolt-action hunting rifle or a pump-action shotgun can still fire about one shot a second. So you're talking about firing off a lot of shots in two minutes before police arrive. So basically it boils down to the simple fact that police and security officers can't be everywhere at once. It sounds to me like the police had an amazing response time … But they just simply were not in that classroom when the shooting started, and the only person who really could have mitigated this situation is somebody who was in the classroom when the shooting started.

One of the Virginia Tech victims has come out and said he opposes this idea because of college students being young, drinking heavily … it could open the door to even more violence.
This is not a debate about keeping guns out of the hands of college students. What we're proposing would not change who is able to obtain a concealed-handgun license. It would not change who is able to buy a firearm. College students over the age of 18 can already buy firearms in most states. College students over the age of 21 can already obtain concealed handgun licenses in some states. Basically, under our proposal the same trained, licensed individuals who are not getting drunk and shooting people off of college campuses are the same trained and licensed individuals who are not going to be getting drunk and shooting people on college campuses.

How are you bringing this [effort] to the attention of legislators?
We're getting our campus leaders and our regional directors and our general members—we have members in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. We also have members in Canada, the U.K. and Israel (they've got a long fight ahead of them). As for U.S. members, we're basically just having these students and faculty members and parents and concerned citizens lobby their state legislators and write letters. We're trying to get out op-ed pieces and information packets and fliers and everything we can to educate people on the facts of this issue. That's really our biggest hurdle right now: ignorance of the issue. There's a lot of statistics out there that show that concealed handgun license holders are five times less likely than nonlicensed holders to commit violent crimes. You can look at the 40 right-to-carry states with liberal concealed-carry laws, where they have not seen any escalation in gun violence, gun accidents, etc. as a result of allowing concealed carry. There are currently 11 U.S. universities that have for a combined total of 60 semesters allowed concealed carry on campus without an incident. You haven't seen an incident of gun violence, an incident of gun theft, no gun accidents … Although you can't say in any particular situation whether or not concealed carry might have prevented or mitigated a school shooting or a sexual assault or anything of that nature, you can say that allowing concealed carry would even the odds. And that's what this is really about: evening the odds and taking the advantage away from these dangerous criminals.

There's a famous example in Luby's Cafeteria in Texas. A woman with a concealed-carry permit was unable to stop a gunman from killing her parents and 21 others in 1991 because she had left her gun in her car to avoid breaking the state's law at the time, which banned gun owners from carrying their weapons into public places.
She went before the state legislature and she said, "Look, if I'd been allowed to have my gun on me I could have stopped this guy. He had his back to me. He was only a few feet away. I didn't need lightning-fast reflexes. I didn't need dead-eye accuracy. I just needed my gun" … She had been carrying the gun for several years for personal protection, and because she was a chiropractor she had become worried that because there was no legal provision for concealed carry in Texas at the time that if she got caught carrying that gun she might lose her chiropractic license, so she started leaving it in the car. When this shooting started she reached into her purse for a gun that wasn't there and basically watched both of her parents be gunned down by this madman because she was unable to defend herself.

There was the example at the church in Colorado Springs back in December where they actually allowed members, encouraged certain members who had a concealed-handgun license to carry their guns at church. These people were not licensed security guards. They had not been through the state-mandated security guard training or any of that. These were simply people who had concealed-handgun licenses, and the church said, "You know, we'd appreciate it if you would carry your guns at church for the protection of this church." And this woman actually managed to shoot a guy as he was walking through the door armed to the teeth, like Rambo. So concealed carry has mitigated dangerous situations like this in the past.

On how many campuses do you now have chapters?
We have organized chapters on about 100 campuses. The way we define an organized chapter is any campus that has a defined campus leader … We have members on well over 500 campuses. It changes from day to day.

Do you have to be 21 [to get a license to carry a concealed handgun]?
In most states you do. Six [states] issue concealed-handgun licenses starting at the age of 18 and these are all very rural, sparsely populated states. We're talking about Montana and some states like that.

So this might also be about getting that age lowered?
We're not seeking to get the age lowered … If you look at the Virginia Tech massacre, 19 of the 32 victims were over the age of 21. So we're not trying to change existing concealed-carry laws in any aspect—except removing college campuses from the list of places off limits to concealed-handgun license holders, in the states where it's prohibited. We also want to see states say that public, state-funded colleges cannot enact school policies that override state law. We want them to basically follow Utah's lead of saying, "Look, you're a state institution. You have to follow the state laws and allow people to use their state licenses on your property."

Have any of the Virginia Tech family members or survivors joined in the effort?
I don't believe we have any of the victims. We definitely have quite a large chapter at Virginia Tech. But we don't have, as far as I know … any of the actual [victims] or their family members [who] have joined us.

Is copycatting turning into a big issue? Does that increase the urgency?
That's definitely a factor. People are deciding, "I'm not just going to kill myself. I'm gonna go out in a blaze of glory and make everyone remember me."

If a few of these people who attempted this walked through the door with guns drawn and got shot down before they could do much damage, I think a lot of them would start to lose interest. Because they'd realize, "Wow, I'm not gonna get famous getting shot in the chest as I draw my gun on a classroom full of potentially armed students." So there's a chance that as far as the fame factor goes that it could be a deterrent.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

States That Have Taken Or Not Taken A Position On The DC Gun Ban

The thirty states below signed the Texas brief in support of gun rights.

ALABAMA, ALASKA, ARKANSAS, COLORADO, FLORIDA, GEORGIA, IDAHO, INDIANA, KANSAS, KENTUCKY, LOUISIANA, MICHIGAN, MINNESOTA, MISSISSIPPI, MISSOURI, MONTANA, NEBRASKA,
NEW HAMPSHIRE, NEW MEXICO, NORTH DAKOTA, OHIO, OKLAHOMA, PENNSYLVANIA, SOUTH CAROLINA, SOUTH DAKOTA, UTAH, VIRGINIA, WASHINGTON,WEST VIRGINIA, AND WYOMING

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Five states and Puerto below signed a brief against gun rights.

Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Puerto Rico

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The fourteen states below did not sign any brief.

Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Nevada, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont and Wisconsin.

Monday, February 11, 2008

Saturday, February 9, 2008

What Is The Cause Of The Subprime Crisis?

From the February 5, 2008 New York Post
by Stan Liebowitz


PERHAPS the greatest scandal of the mortgage crisis is that it is a direct result of an intentional loosening of underwriting standards - done in the name of ending discrimination, despite warnings that it could lead to wide-scale defaults.

At the crisis' core are loans that were made with virtually nonexistent underwriting standards - no verification of income or assets; little consideration of the applicant's ability to make payments; no down payment.

Most people instinctively understand that such loans are likely to be unsound. But how did the heavily-regulated banking industry end up able to engage in such foolishness?

From the current hand-wringing, you'd think that the banks came up with the idea of looser underwriting standards on their own, with regulators just asleep on the job. In fact, it was the regulators who relaxed these standards - at the behest of community groups and "progressive" political forces.

In the 1980s, groups such as the activists at ACORN began pushing charges of "redlining" - claims that banks discriminated against minorities in mortgage lending. In 1989, sympathetic members of Congress got the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act amended to force banks to collect racial data on mortgage applicants; this allowed various studies to be ginned up that seemed to validate the original accusation.

In fact, minority mortgage applications were rejected more frequently than other applications - but the overwhelming reason wasn't racial discrimination, but simply that minorities tend to have weaker finances.

Yet a "landmark" 1992 study from the Boston Fed concluded that mortgage-lending discrimination was systemic.

That study was tremendously flawed - a colleague and I later showed that the data it had used contained thousands of egregious typos, such as loans with negative interest rates. Our study found no evidence of discrimination.

Yet the political agenda triumphed - with the president of the Boston Fed saying no new studies were needed, and the US comptroller of the currency seconding the motion.

No sooner had the ink dried on its discrimination study than the Boston Fed, clearly speaking for the entire Fed, produced a manual for mortgage lenders stating that: "discrimination may be observed when a lender's underwriting policies contain arbitrary or outdated criteria that effectively disqualify many urban or lower-income minority applicants."

Some of these "outdated" criteria included the size of the mortgage payment relative to income, credit history, savings history and income verification. Instead, the Boston Fed ruled that participation in a credit-counseling program should be taken as evidence of an applicant's ability to manage debt.

Sound crazy? You bet. Those "outdated" standards existed to limit defaults. But bank regulators required the loosened underwriting standards, with approval by politicians and the chattering class. A 1995 strengthening of the Community Reinvestment Act required banks to find ways to provide mortgages to their poorer communities. It also let community activists intervene at yearly bank reviews, shaking the banks down for large pots of money.

Banks that got poor reviews were punished; some saw their merger plans frustrated; others faced direct legal challenges by the Justice Department.

Flexible lending programs expanded even though they had higher default rates than loans with traditional standards. On the Web, you can still find CRA loans available via ACORN with "100 percent financing . . . no credit scores . . . undocumented income . . . even if you don't report it on your tax returns." Credit counseling is required, of course.

Ironically, an enthusiastic Fannie Mae Foundation report singled out one paragon of nondiscriminatory lending, which worked with community activists and followed "the most flexible underwriting criteria permitted." That lender's $1 billion commitment to low-income loans in 1992 had grown to $80 billion by 1999 and $600 billion by early 2003.

Who was that virtuous lender? Why - Countrywide, the nation's largest mortgage lender, recently in the headlines as it hurtled toward bankruptcy.

In an earlier newspaper story extolling the virtues of relaxed underwriting standards, Countrywide's chief executive bragged that, to approve minority applications that would otherwise be rejected "lenders have had to stretch the rules a bit." He's not bragging now.

For years, rising house prices hid the default problems since quick refinances were possible. But now that house prices have stopped rising, we can clearly see the damage caused by relaxed lending standards.

This damage was quite predictable: "After the warm and fuzzy glow of 'flexible underwriting standards' has worn off, we may discover that they are nothing more than standards that lead to bad loans . . . these policies will have done a disservice to their putative beneficiaries if . . . they are dispossessed from their homes." I wrote that, with Ted Day, in a 1998 academic article.

Sadly, we were spitting into the wind.

These days, everyone claims to favor strong lending standards. What about all those self-righteous newspapers, politicians and regulators who were intent on loosening lending standards?

As you might expect, they are now self-righteously blaming those, such as Countrywide, who did what they were told.

Stan Liebowitz is the Ashbel Smith professor of Economics in the Business School at the University of Texas at Dallas.

Memebers Of Congress Who Signed Brief Supporting Gun Rights In DC Gun Case

Vice President Richard Cheney also signed the brief.

55 Senators (9 Democrats)
250 House members (68 Democrats)


Senator A. Lamar Alexander (TN, R)
Senator A. Wayne Allard (CO, R)
Senator John A. Barrasso (WY, R)
Senator Max S. Baucus (MT, D)
Senator Robert F. Bennett (UT, R)
Senator Christopher S. Bond (MO, R)
Senator Samuel D. Brownback (KS, R)
Senator James P. D. Bunning (KY, R)
Senator Richard M. Burr (NC, R)
Senator Robert P. Casey, Jr. (PA, D)
Senator C. Saxby Chambliss (GA, R)
Senator Thomas A. Coburn (OK, R)
Senator W. Thad Cochran (MS, R)
Senator Norman Coleman, Jr. (MN, R)
Senator Susan M. Collins (ME, R)
Senator Robert P. Corker, Jr. (TN, R)
Senator John Cornyn, III (TX, R)
Senator Larry E. Craig (ID, R)
Senator Michael D. Crapo (ID, R)
Senator James W. DeMint (SC, R)
Senator Elizabeth H. Dole (NC, R)
Senator Pete V. Domenici (NM, R)
Senator Michael B. Enzi (WY, R)
Senator Russell D. Feingold (WI, D)
Senator Lindsey O. Graham (SC, R)
Senator Charles E. Grassley (IA, R)
Senator Judd A. Gregg (NH, R)
Senator Charles T. Hagel (NE, R)
Senator Orrin G. Hatch (UT, R)
Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (TX, R)
Senator James M. Inhofe (OK, R)
Senator John H. Isakson (GA, R)
Senator Timothy P. Johnson (SD, D)
Senator Jon L. Kyl (AZ, R)
Senator Blanche L. Lincoln (AR, D)
Senator Melquiades R. Martinez (FL, R)
Senator John S. McCain, III (AZ, R)
Senator A. Mitchell McConnell (KY, R)
Senator Lisa A. Murkowski (AK, R)
Senator E. Benjamin Nelson (NE, D)
Senator C. Patrick Roberts (KS, R)
Senator Kenneth L. Salazar (CO, D)
Senator Jefferson B. Sessions, III (AL, R)
Senator Richard C. Shelby (AL, R)
Senator Gordon H. Smith (OR, R)
Senator Olympia J. Snowe (ME, R)
Senator Arlen Specter (PA, R)
Senator Theodore F. Stevens (AK, R)
Senator John E. Sununu (NH, R)
Senator Jon Tester (MT, D)
Senator John R. Thune (SD, R)
Senator David B. Vitter (LA, R)
Senator George V. Voinovich (OH, R)
Senator James H. Webb, Jr. (VA, D)
Senator Roger F. Wicker (MS, R)

Representative Robert B. Aderholt (AL-04, R)
Representative W. Todd Akin (MO-2, R)
Representative Rodney M. Alexander (LA-5, R)
Representative Jason Altmire (PA-4, D)
Representative Michael A. Arcuri (NY-24, D)
Representative Joe Baca (CA-43, D)
Representative Michele M. Bachmann (MN-6, R)
Representative Spencer T. Bachus, III (AL-6, R)
Representative Brian Baird (WA-3, D)
Representative Richard H. Baker (LA-6, R)
Representative J. Gresham Barrett (SC-3, R)
Representative John J. Barrow (GA-12, D)
Representative Roscoe G. Bartlett (MD-6, R)
Representative Joe L. Barton (TX-6, R)
Representative Marion Berry (AR-1, D)
Representative Judith B. Biggert (IL-13, R)
Representative Brian P. Bilbray (CA-50, R)
Representative Gus M. Bilirakis (FL-9, R)
Representative Robert W. Bishop (UT-1, R)
Representative Sanford D. Bishop (GA-2, D)
Representative Marsha W. Blackburn (TN-7, R)
Representative Roy D. Blunt (MO-7, R)
Representative John A. Boehner (OH-8, R)
Representative Josiah R. Bonner, Jr. (AL-1, R)
Representative Mary Bono Mack (CA-45, R)
Representative John N. Boozman (AR-3, R)
Representative D. Daniel Boren (OK-2, D)
Representative Leonard L. Boswell (IA-3, D)
Representative Frederick C. Boucher (VA-9, D)
Representative Charles W. Boustany, Jr. (LA-7, R)
Representative F. Allen Boyd, Jr. (FL-2, D)
Representative Nancy Boyda (KS-2, D)
Representative Kevin P. Brady (TX-8, R)
Representative Paul C. Broun (GA-10, R)
Representative Henry E. Brown, Jr. (SC-1, R)
Representative Virginia Brown-Waite (FL-5, R)
Representative Vernon G. Buchanan (FL-13, R)
Representative Michael C. Burgess (TX-26, R)
Representative Danny L. Burton (IN-5, R)
Representative Stephen E. Buyer (IN-4, R)
Representative Kenneth S. Calvert (CA-44, R)
Representative David L. Camp (MI-4, R)
Representative John B. T. Campbell, III (CA-48, R)
Representative Christopher B. Cannon (UT-3, R)
Representative Eric I. Cantor (VA-7, R)
Representative Shelley M. Capito (WV-2, R)
Representative Dennis A. Cardoza (CA-18, D)
Representative Christopher P. Carney (PA-10, D)
Representative John R. Carter (TX-31, R)
Representative Steven J. Chabot (OH-1, R)
Representative A. Benjamin Chandler, III (KY-6, D)
Representative J. Howard Coble (NC-6, R)
Representative Stephen I. Cohen (TN-9, D)
Representative Thomas J. Cole (OK-4, R)
Representative K. Michael Conaway (TX-11, R)
Representative James H. S. Cooper (TN-5, D)
Representative Joseph D. Courtney (CT-2, D)
Representative Jerry F. Costello (IL-12, D)
Representative Robert E. Cramer, Jr. (AL-5, D)
Representative Ander Crenshaw (FL-4, R)
Representative Barbara L. Cubin (WY-AL, R)
Representative R. Enrique Cuellar (TX-28, D)
Representative John A. Culberson (TX-7, R)
Representative Artur G. Davis (AL-7, D)
Representative David Davis (TN-1, R)
Representative Geoffrey C. Davis (KY-4, R)
Representative Lincoln E. Davis (TN-4, D)
Representative Thomas M. Davis, III (VA-11, R)
Representative J. Nathan Deal (GA-9, R)
Representative Peter A. DeFazio (OR-4, D)
Representative Charles W. Dent (PA-15, R)
Representative Lincoln Diaz-Balart (FL-21, R)
Representative Mario Diaz-Balart (FL-25, R)
Representative John D. Dingell (MI-15, D)
Representative Joseph S. Donnelly (IN-2, D)
Representative John T. Doolittle (CA-4, R)
Representative David T. Dreier (CA-26, R)
Representative Thelma D. Drake (VA-2, R)
Representative John J. Duncan, Jr. (TN-2, R)
Representative T. Chester Edwards (TX-17, D)
Representative Brad Ellsworth (IN-8, D)
Representative Jo Ann H. Emerson (MO-8, R)
Representative Philip S. English (PA-3, R)
Representative R. Terry Everett (AL-2, R)
Representative Mary C. Fallin (OK-5, R)
Representative Thomas C. Feeney, III (FL-24, R)
Representative Jeff Flake (AZ-6, R)
Representative J. Randy Forbes (VA-4, R)
Representative Jeffrey L. Fortenberry (NE-1, R)
Representative Virginia A. Foxx (NC-5, R)
Representative Trent Franks (AZ-2, R)
Representative Elton W. Gallegly (CA-24, R)
Representative E. Scott Garrett (NJ-5, R)
Representative James W. Gerlach (PA-6, R)
Representative Gabrielle Giffords (AZ-8, D)
Representative Kirsten R. Gillibrand (NY-20, D)
Representative J. Phillip Gingrey (GA-11, R)
Representative Louis B. Gohmert, Jr. (TX-1, R)
Representative Virgil H. Goode, Jr. (VA-5, R)
Representative Robert W. Goodlatte (VA-6, R)
Representative Barton J. Gordon (TN-6, D)
Representative Kay M. Granger (TX-12, R)
Representative Samuel B. Graves, Jr. (MO-6, R)
Representative R. Eugene Green (TX-29, D)
Representative Ralph M. Hall (TX-4, R)
Representative Richard N. Hastings (WA-4, R)
Representative Robin C. Hayes (NC-8, R)
Representative Dean Heller (NV-2, R)
Representative T. Jeb Hensarling (TX-5, R)
Representative Walter W. Herger (CA-2, R)
Representative Stephanie M. Herseth Sandlin (SD-AL, D)
Representative Brian M. Higgins (NY-27, D)
Representative Baron P. Hill (IN-9, D)
Representative David L. Hobson (OH-7, R)
Representative Paul W. Hodes (NH-2, D)
Representative Peter Hoekstra (MI-2, R)
Representative T. Timothy Holden (PA-17, D)
Representative Kenny C. Hulshof (MO-9, R)
Representative Duncan L. Hunter (CA-52, R)
Representative Robert D. Inglis (SC-4, R)
Representative Darrell E. Issa (CA-49, R)
Representative R. Samuel Johnson (TX-3, R)
Representative Timothy V. Johnson (IL-15, R)
Representative Walter B. Jones, Jr. (NC-3, R)
Representative James D. Jordan (OH-4, R)
Representative Steven L. Kagen (WI-8, D)
Representative Paul E. Kanjorski (PA-11, D)
Representative Richard A. Keller (FL-8, R)
Representative Ronald J. Kind (WI-3, D)
Representative Steven A. King (IA-5, R)
Representative John H. Kingston (GA-1, R)
Representative John P. Kline, Jr. (MN-2, R)
Representative Joseph C. Knollenberg (MI-9, R)
Representative J. Randy Kuhl, Jr. (NY-29, R)
Representative Douglas L. Lamborn (CO-5, R)
Representative Nicholas V. Lampson (TX-22, D)
Representative Thomas P. Latham (IA-4, R)
Representative Steven C. LaTourette (OH-14, R)
Representative Robert E. Latta (OH-5, R)
Representative C. Jeremy Lewis (CA-41, R)
Representative Ron E. Lewis (KY-2, R)
Representative John E. Linder (GA-7, R)
Representative Frank D. Lucas (OK-3, R)
Representative Daniel E. Lungren (CA-3, R)
Representative Cornelius H. McGillicuddy, IV (FL-14, R)
Representative Timothy E. Mahoney (FL-16, D)
Representative Donald A. Manzullo (IL-16, R)
Representative Kenny E. Marchant (TX-24, R)
Representative James C. Marshall (GA-8, D)
Representative James D. Matheson (UT-2, D)
Representative Kevin O. McCarthy (CA-22, R)
Representative Michael T. McCaul (TX-10, R)
Representative Thaddeus G. McCotter (MI-11, R)
Representative James O. McCrery, III (LA-4, R)
Representative Patrick T. McHenry (NC-10, R)
Representative John M. McHugh (NY-23, R)
Representative D. Carmichael McIntyre, II (NC-7, D)
Representative Howard P. McKeon (CA-25, R)
Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers (WA-5, R)
Representative Malcolm R. Melancon (LA-3, D)
Representative John L. Mica (FL-7, R)
Representative Michael H. Michaud (ME-2, D)
Representative Candice S. Miller (MI-10, R)
Representative Gary G. Miller (CA-42, R)
Representative Jefferson B. Miller (FL-1, R)
Representative Harry E. Mitchell (AZ-5, D)
Representative Alan B. Mollohan (WV-1, D)
Representative Jerry Moran (KS-1, R)
Representative Timothy F. Murphy (PA-18, R)
Representative John P. Murtha, Jr. (PA-12, D)
Representative Marilyn N. Musgrave (CO-4, R)
Representative Sue W. Myrick (NC-9, R)
Representative Robert R. Neugebauer (TX-19, R)
Representative Devin G. Nunes (CA-21, R)
Representative James L. Oberstar (MN-8, D)
Representative Solomon P. Ortiz (TX-27, D)
Representative Ronald E. Paul (TX-14, R)
Representative Stevan E. Pearce (NM-2, R)
Representative Michael R. Pence (IN-6, R)
Representative Collin C. Peterson (MN-7, D)
Representative John E. Peterson (PA-5, R)
Representative Thomas E. Petri (WI-6, R)
Representative Charles W. Pickering, Jr. (MS-3, R)
Representative Joseph R. Pitts (PA-16, R)
Representative Todd R. Platts (PA-19, R)
Representative L. Ted Poe (TX-2, R)
Representative Earl R. Pomeroy (ND-AL, D)
Representative Jon C. Porter, Sr. (NV-3, R)
Representative Thomas E. Price (GA-6, R)
Representative Deborah D. Pryce (OH-15, R)
Representative Adam H. Putnam (FL-12, R)
Representative George P. Radanovich (CA-19, R)
Representative Nick J. Rahall, II (WV-3, D)
Representative Dennis R. Rehberg (MT-AL, R)
Representative David G. Reichert (WA-8, R)
Representative Richard G. Renzi (AZ-1, R)
Representative Silvestre Reyes (TX-16, D)
Representative Thomas M. Reynolds (NY-26, R)
Representative Ciro D. Rodriguez (TX-23, D)
Representative Harold D. Rogers (KY-5, R)
Representative Michael D. Rogers (AL-3, R)
Representative Michael J. Rogers (MI-8, R)
Representative Dana T. Rohrabacher (CA-46, R)
Representative Peter J. Roskam (IL-6, R)
Representative Ileana C. Ros-Lehtinen (FL-18, R)
Representative Michael A. Ross (AR-4, D)
Representative Edward R. Royce (CA-40, R)
Representative Paul D. Ryan (WI-1, R)
Representative Timothy J. Ryan (OH-17, D)
Representative John T. Salazar (CO-3, D)
Representative William T. Sali (ID-1, R)
Representative Jean Schmidt (OH-2, R)
Representative F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr. (WI-5, R)
Representative Peter A. Sessions (TX-32, R)
Representative John B. Shadegg (AZ-3, R)
Representative John M. Shimkus (IL-19, R)
Representative J. Heath Shuler (NC-11, D)
Representative William F. Shuster (PA-9, R)
Representative Michael K. Simpson (ID-2, R)
Representative Adrian M. Smith (NE-3, R)
Representative Lamar S. Smith (TX-21, R)
Representative Mark E. Souder (IN-3, R)
Representative Zachary T. Space (OH-18, D)
Representative Clifford B. Stearns (FL-6, R)
Representative Bart T. Stupak (MI-1, D)
Representative John M. Sullivan (OK-1, R)
Representative Thomas G. Tancredo (CO-6, R)
Representative John S. Tanner (TN-8, D)
Representative G. Eugene Taylor (MS-4, D)
Representative Lee R. Terry (NE-2, R)
Representative W. McClellan Thornberry (TX-13, R)
Representative W. Todd Tiahrt (KS-4, R)
Representative Patrick J. Tiberi (OH-12, R)
Representative Michael R. Turner (OH-3, R)
Representative Frederick S. Upton (MI-6, R)
Representative Timothy Walberg (MI-7, R)
Representative Gregory P. Walden (OR-2, R)
Representative James T. Walsh (NY-25, R)
Representative Timothy J. Walz (MN-1, D)
Representative Zachary P. Wamp (TN-3, R)
Representative David J. Weldon, Jr. (FL-15, R)
Representative Gerald C. Weller (IL-11, R)
Representative Lynn A. Westmoreland (GA-3, R)
Representative W. Edward Whitfield (KY-1, R)
Representative Charles A. Wilson (OH-6, D)
Representative Heather A. Wilson (NM-1, R)
Representative Addison G. Wilson (SC-2, R)
Representative Robert J. Wittman (VA-1, R)
Representative Frank R. Wolf (VA-10, R)
Representative Donald E. Young (AK-AL, R)

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Eighteen members of Congress, including Del. Norton of the District, signed a brief opposing gun rights in the DC gun case. The names of those members are below.

Representative Robert A. Brady (PA-01)
Representative John Conyers, Jr. (MI-14)
Representative Danny K. Davis (IL-07)
Representative Keith Ellison (MN-05)
Representative Sam Farr (CA-17)
Representative Chaka Fattah (PA-02)*
Representative Al Green (TX-09)
Representative Raúl M. Grijalva (AZ-07)
Representative Michael Honda (CA-15)
Representative Zoe Lofgren (CA-16)
Representative Carolyn McCarthy (NY-04)
Representative Gwen Moore (WI-04)
Representative James P. Moran (VA-08)
Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC)
Representative Bobby L. Rush (IL-01)
Representative Maxine Waters (CA-35)
Representative Lynn C. Woolsey (CA-06)
Representative Albert R. Wynn (MD-04)