The terror of random deadly violence wreaks havoc with the public peace as well as the private. Most of us mercifully never have to know for ourselves the misery it brings to the lives of the surviving families. Common decency counsels giving a grieving family its privacy, a measure of regard for the tragedy of a young life lost to a madman’s murderous spree. But Los Angeles Times writer Robin Abcarian didn’t miss the recent opportunity to pick at the scabs of a father’s emotional wounds in ...

The public health community has long held itself out as the authority on how to reduce firearm injuries and deaths. Conveniently enough, its methods almost always align with the long-term incremental strategy of the gun prohibition movement. Among those methods is regulating to death the right to own a handgun, since an outright handgun ban is, to quote from page 64 of the U.S. Supreme Court decision District of Columbia v. Heller, “off the table.” A favorite nostrum of the public health ...

Every state has its own laws regulating gun ownership. These exist in addition to the complex and morphing web of federal laws and regulations gun owners must be aware of. As Americans become more familiar with firearms and more comfortable with their widespread ownership, they have relaxed some of the more onerous laws, state by state. Such deliberations are ongoing in many states, and one is North Carolina. (NOTE: Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership neither supports nor opposes any sp...

What if a cheap, reliable method of preventing a common but serious injury were available and ready for the market? As an ear surgeon who has seen hundreds of patients with irreversible noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL), I would welcome it with open arms. Too many people in our noisy world have suffered irreversible hearing loss. Only after experiencing it do they learn how socially isolating this entirely preventable injury can be. Their family members also bear the burden of impaired co...

In some thought-provoking discussion of the confluence of impulsive anger and gun possession, Jeffrey Swanson et al raise questions about the relevance of focusing on mental illnesses as risks in gun use. They point out that there may be more validity in looking for signs of previous impulsive angry behavior in assessing risks of gun ownership.  There is even some increased statistical risk of anger issues the more guns one owns. (more…)

[Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by National Review on April 29th, 2015.]  The current notion that we must avoid hurting anyone’s feelings is becoming oppressive. Particularly in academia, deviation from this standard can lead to educational or career consequences. Speaking up for gun rights, for instance, is virtually verboten; even a seven-year-old boy who chewed a Pop-Tart into the vague shape of a gun was punished by school authorities, who suspended him for brandishi...

One of my favorite college professors was an anthropologist, one of the old-school types who had done field work with the Alaskan Eskimo. A concealed carry permit holder myself, I felt like a subject of this model of scholarship as I critically read University of Toronto sociology professor Jennifer Carlson’s fascinating field study of several dozen gun-carrying residents of southeast Michigan’s industrial cities—Detroit, Flint, Lansing, and their suburbs. Carlson is notable in her professio...

After following the politics of the public health gun prohibition movement for over two decades, I have no illusions about which side most media outlets are on. As recently as January 15 it was necessary to dissect in this blog a grossly misreported Washington Post story on Congress's 1996 defunding of gun control advocacy at the federal agency, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). So it was gratifying to be a guest this week on the Santa Monica, California National Public Radio affiliate s...