What Will Come from the Kavanaugh Court? — Part 2

Posted on August 9, 2018August 8, 2018 by DRGO

[Ed: In Part 1, the author discussed the likely process of change toward less infringing interpretations of the Second Amendment. Here, he speculates about what might likely change, and what results might develop.] The website Bearing Arms suspects that Trump’s pending Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, might support training or testing requirements to be issued an arms permit. Gun rights advocates will express principled reservations and practical concerns about any such developmen...

What Will Come from the Kavanaugh Court? — Part 1

Posted on August 7, 2018August 9, 2018 by DRGO

[Ed: Part 2, discussing a specific possibility, will follow.] In “The Death of Gun Control?” Dr. Young wrote: “Now, [Second Amendment jurisprudence] will develop with the intended purpose of limiting government power rather than ‘living’ through death by a thousand cuts.” But these changes will not necessarily occur dramatically or at once. The new composition of SCOTUS should place Chief Justice Roberts, with his demonstrated desire to foster limited, broad agreement, squarely in the ...

“Fatal Firearm Incidents Before and After Australia’s 1996 National Firearms Agreement Banning Semiautomatic Rifles”

Posted on August 2, 2018August 7, 2018 by DRGO

In the July 3, 2018 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine, Simon Chapman and co-authors present statistics purporting to show that Australia’s well-known restrictions on gun ownership led to a reduction in mass shootings. As might be imagined, there are many problems with this report, making it hard to believe the findings. Where to start? (more…)

Can Kaiser Permanente Be Honest in Gun Research?

Posted on July 31, 2018July 28, 2018 by DRGO

The San Francisco Bay area-based health care giant Kaiser Permanente has announced in a press release that it is “investing $2 million in research to prevent gun injuries and death.” In a Washington Post article, co-leader of the new Kaiser Permanente Task Force on Firearm Injury Prevention David Grossman, MD, MPH was quoted as saying “the problem now is we really don’t have evidence to know what’s effective and what works” to prevent gun-related injury. This statement should immediately rais...

2016 Journalist’s Guide to Gun Violence Coverage–Part 2

Posted on July 26, 2018July 26, 2018 by DRGO

[Ed: We present Part 2 of Dr. Brown's detailed advice for objective reporting on the enormous, tragic, evil, shameful epidemic of guns killing and injuring so many millions of Americans. We would add that he is a tenured professor of Advocacy Journalism at the Bloomberg College of Liberal Arts, if that were true. See Part 1 here.] The Political Debate The Back Story The ongoing public debate about the role of guns and gun laws in society has remained at a high level since the 1960's. Al...

2016 Journalist’s Guide to Gun Violence Coverage–Part 1

Posted on July 25, 2018July 26, 2018 by DRGO

[Ed: Dr. Brown has long been penning serious articles on serious subjects for DRGO. Since we pride ourselves on our journalistic acumen and ethics, we thought it worth sharing the principles followed by so many of our enlightened colleagues in mainstream media. Part 2 will follow.] Author's note: Much has changed since the original edition of The Journalist's Guide to Gun Violence Coverage was published in the first year of this century. This edition updates the basic principles and mak...

The Death of Gun Control?

Posted on July 19, 2018July 19, 2018 by DRGO

In less than 48 hours last week we saw the beginning of the end for gun control. They were very different events, and will affect the right to keep and bear arms in very different ways, through very different routes. But for all their differences, together they may definitively mark the moment when unlawful infringement of the right to keep and bear arms became predictably impossible. (more…)