My appearance on C-SPAN's Washington Journal to discuss Obama's gun control proposals

Newest piece in the WSJ: "The Facts About Assault Weapons and Crime"

My piece starts this way:

Warning about "weapons designed for the theater of war," President Obama on Wednesday called for immediate action on a new Federal Assault Weapons Ban. He said that "more of our fellow Americans might still be alive" if the original assault weapons ban, passed in 1994, had not expired in 2004. Last month, in the wake of the horrific shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.) promised to introduce an updated version of the ban. She too warned of the threat posed by "military weapons." 

After the nightmare of Newtown, their concern is understandable. Yet despite being at the center of the gun-control debate for decades, neither President Obama nor Ms. Feinstein (the author of the 1994 legislation) seems to understand the leading research on the effects of the Federal Assault Weapons Ban. In addition, they continue to mislabel the weapons they seek to ban. . . .

Copies of the studies discussed are here and here.  Feinstein's website is here.

On the most read list:

Another op-ed in Investors' Business Daily: "More Guns = More Murders? A Myth. More Guns = Fewer Murders"

My new article starts this way:

In the wake of the recent shootings, the liberal media have concluded we need more gun control. President Obama just signed 23 executive actions related to guns, and promises to do more later.To them the logic seems obvious, that more guns mean more deaths, suicides, and accidents.
And the U.S. supposedly has very high murder rates, they argue, because our nation is teeming with guns. So with stricter gun control, we would suffer fewer murders and less violence.
As Charles Blow recently claimed in the New York Times: "America has the highest gun homicide rate, the highest number of guns per capita ..."
Or as the New York Times earlier this month put forward the notion: "Generally, if you live in a civilized society, more guns mean more death." The claim is all over the news from CNN to various "Fact Check" articles.
It would be nice if things were that simple. . . .

 A more complete discussion is available here.

New piece in the Philadelphia Inquirer: "The facts about gun bans"

My newest piece at the Philadelphia Inquirer starts this way:

With horrible tragedies fresh in everyone's mind, including Newtown, people are understandably wondering what can be done to prevent yet another tragedy. Alas, the mainstream media have already concluded that more gun control must be the answer. 

Passions run high on both sides. As of Thursday morning, more than 80,000 Americans had signed a White House petition asking that CNN anchor Piers Morgan, a vocal proponent of banning guns, be deported. Another petition urging the White House to "Keep Piers Morgan in the USA" had generated 4,500 signatures. Meanwhile, the Brits have launched their own petition demanding that Morgan not come back to England. The petitions are pretty silly, but they are a reflection of the divide over the gun issue. 

Unfortunately, the beliefs are just so strongly held that some prominent hosts of news programs, such as Morgan, refuse to accept facts, and go so far as to conjure up their own numbers when reality isn't to their liking. All this makes for a pretty confusing show, with viewers hearing one side say murders rose and another saying that they fell. 

Take one of my five debates on CNN after the Newtown attack. This particular discussion, involving Piers Morgan and Christiane Amanpour, was not unusual. . . .