Home invaders lose: "According to police, two young men were the victims of an apparent home invasion, by two other young men armed with guns. The victims inside the home had guns of their own and shot at the two intruders injuring one of them. One injured man made his way to an Aurora [CO] hospital later in the day. The other suspect is presumably on the loose. Police report the intruders were shot by a teenager inside the house."

Making gun-sport easier on the ear: "Having never fired a gun in her life, Faamati Winey pulled up on a flying clay pigeon and dusted it with the latest version of the Quiet Gun. A small audience at the Metro Gun Club in Blaine gave an enthusiastic cheer for Winey, who grinned and said, 'Hey, this is easy.' Inventor Wendell Diller, who developed this shotgun with its characteristic long barrel, beamed proudly. He then watched as Winey, his boss's wife, broke another clay target, scoring 2 out of 4 in her introduction to shot gunning. 'People look at the long barrel and think it's going to kick or that it's too hard to shoot,' he said. 'Well, we're here to show that's not the case.' Three more shooters put the shotgun with a 31-inch extension barrel to their shoulders and dusted clay targets, while the gun emitted a pop slightly louder than a pellet rifle."

Second amendment does not bar assault weapons: "Putting aside the fact that the banned guns are not really 'assault weapons,' our right to protect our lives, liberty and property isn't limited by someone's notion of which firearms we can own to do so. Those rights are protected by the Second Amendment, set up by the Founding Fathers in a time when the militia was our nation's defense from enemies, foreign and domestic. Despite the argument that those militias have become the National Guard, we hold to the original intent of the Founders, that firearms in the hands of citizens are one of the surest ways to protect the liberties we all enjoy. In order to do so, those citizens must be independent of government, national or state. To argue that the government will protect us from the excesses of the government is self-contradictory."




REFLECTIONS ON THE KAREN BROWN CASE

The Australian security guard who shot the man who robbed her as he was making his getaway. Excerpts:

"Australia does have a "statistical problem" with rising violent crime rates. So does Britain -- and both countries took unprecedented steps a few years back to not only regulate firearms, but to confiscate them. Australians spent at least half a billion dollars to collect and destroy hundreds of thousands of legally owned guns, and the result? No decrease in violent crime, armed robberies up by 166%.

These disturbing trends have given a new weapon to the North American gun lobby, which also points to a dramatic drop in violent crime in the U.S. during the same period, as state after state -- 20 in the past two decades -- relaxed the rules for carrying concealed handguns for personal protection.

The connection between stripping citizens of the right to bear arms and the likelihood of their becoming victims of crime is "really hard to tease out" of available data, says Gary Mauser, a professor of business at B.C.'s Simon Fraser University. "The advocates on both sides tend to cherry-pick their numbers," says Mauser, who wrote a paper last year for the Fraser Institute on the "failed experiment" of gun control in Commonwealth countries.

But he added the increase in gun ownership and parallel decline in violent crime in the U.S. is "the most reasonable link" yet to firearm possession and personal safety."

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