Maggie Mahar - PSH du Jour

So, Maggie Mahar asks What Ever Happened to Gun Control?

I'll tell ya, Maggie. It went away after politicians were voted out of office in droves after the 1994 Act that Banned Scary-Looking Rifles and Some Handguns. You call it the "Assault Weapons" Ban. I'm sure you want to blame the NRA for it, but the truth is the people (as in "We the People") are to blame.

You see, most of us don't share your irrational fear of inanimate objects. We also don't get our facts from Paul Helmke, because most times he's wrong. Like in this quote from him on your post:

As the Brady Campaign's Paul Helmke points out: ‘One thing the Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University shooters had in common was that they both used high capacity ammunition magazines that would have been prohibited under the Federal Assault Weapons Ban that expired in 2004.’"

Those magazines were not banned, you dolt. They were readily available and legal for purchase, as long as they had been made before the ban went into effect. Just because you quote someone doesn't mean you're not responsible for what you put on the page.

Of course, it's not all your fault. In my opinion, whoever put this thought in your head should be beaten with a clue bat:

But I’ve never wished I had a gun. My feeling is that anyone fearless enough (or high enough) to break in, or try to mug me on the street could easily take the gun away from me—and then turn it on me.

Of course, they might be at risk of having said bat taken away....

But if you remember, what the amendment actually says is that "a well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” If you think that, in 2008, we need armed local militias roaming the countryside, raise your hand.

I'm sure there are a few people in the Gulf Coast area who are raising their hands right now. The ones who had to fend off looters after Katrina. As to your reading of the Second Amendment, that's something that will be addressed in the near future, by the Supreme Court. The legal part anyway. Your lack of English comprehension is on you.

It’s not a sport that interests me, but I have known seemingly rational men who enjoyed hunting. None of them hunt with a handgun, however---or with an automatic weapon. All I ask is that people who buy a hunting rifle register--and provide some sort of proof that they really do plan to hunt with it. A hunting license would be a good start.

I'm going to make an assumption now. I assume when you are talking about an "automatic weapon" you are referring to the "assault weapon" and not the totally different "machine gun". Why am I doing this? Because most all of you gun-banners do it. No one hunts with the fully automatic machine gun because it's not accurate and impractical. People do, however, use handguns and "assault weapons" (your term, not mine) to hunt with because that's a good use for them.

I also guess you don't know much about hunting, because most people are required to get a hunting license in order to hunt. But, why let facts get in the way of a good hissie fit?

Talk about an easy target. But this is what liberals do all too often. They back away from an issue, even when common sense tells them that they’re right—and instead of leading, they pander to the tiny minority of voters who really believe that having handguns in our churches make us safer.

Made them safer in Colorado, didn't they?

If we were the "tiny minority", we'd all be disarmed by now. Fact is, you're in the ever-shrinking minority.