A total of 43% of Americans say they have a gun in their household. Gun ownership is higher among men, whites, Republicans and in rural areas.
More States Join ‘Probe’
Meanwhile, the anti-gunners continue to abuse the legal process.
Three more states have joined an antitrust probe of the US gun industry to see if companies are conspiring to stop Smith & Wesson from "making its guns safer," Connecticut’s attorney general said on April 5.
"There are three additional states—Massachusetts, Florida, and California—joining Connecticut, Maryland and New York," said Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who is spearheading the investigation.
And more states may join soon, Blumenthal told Reuters news service.
Springfield, MA-based Smith & Wesson, a unit of British firm Tomkins plc, angered some gun advocates in March when it unilaterally agreed to a far-reaching gun control package with officials of the federal government and some states. In exchange, S&W received a promise that it would not be named in a threatened federal suit sponsored by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and would be dropped from city and county lawsuits that have been filed against the industry. So far, HUD hasn’t filed its suit and most of the cities have not dropped S&W from their lawsuits.
The deal, brokered primarily by HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo, who has major political ambitions, was a stick-and-carrot publicity scheme to get around Congress and help Vice President Al Gore’s presidential campaign. Cuomo and his allies had hoped that the deal with S&W would have a domino effect throughout the industry, but company after company has refused to join the agreement. And they have failed to respond to the collusive carrot as Cuomo, Blumenthal and others conspire to get cities to agree to buy only from S&W and companies that also agree to the deal. As far as they are concerned, the need to provide the best guns for police or requirements for competitive bidding be damned. The politicians don’t care.
What is amazing, and has been largely ignored by the general media, is that after conspiring to restrain trade and regulate commerce by browbeating the gun industry without concurrence from Congress, the hypocrites-in-charge are now accusing the gun industry of conspiring to restrain trade.
"Exercising corporate responsibility should not be reason for your competitors to put a bullseye on your back," said Nathan Barankin, a spokesman for California Attorney General Bill Lockyer, with a straight face. Lockyer has been pasting bullseyes on the backs of gunowners, gun show promoters and gun manufacturers since he took office.
Lott’s Bottom Line
While the AGs are making headlines, John R. Lott Jr., a senior research scholar at the Yale University Law School and the author of More Guns, Less Crime, told National Review associate editor Kathryn Jean Lopez, what he thought about the new regs promulgated in Massachusetts.
National Review asked: "To a New York Times reporter, one official from the Massachusetts attorney general’s office said the new rules that went into effect in Massachusetts . . . ‘mark the sharpest blow yet to the gun industry.’ How pernicious are these rules? Do you see states lining up to follow suit?"
Lott’s reply: "It’s sad that they phrase it in that way, as a ‘blow to the gun industry.’ The bottom line should be not whether we strike a blow against the gun industry, but what impact we are going to be having on people’s safety. I have real concerns about these rules in Massachusetts. When they decide to essentially ban so-called Saturday night specials, inexpensive guns, like they have here, it is the poor people in high-crime urban areas who aren’t going to be able to defend themselves.
"As for the impact this might have on other states, it’s interesting to note that these restrictions weren’t part of a law that was passed. It was, rather, an attorney general who issued these rules unilaterally. I don’t think they could pass. In fact, there have been attempts to pass similar types of safety rules in Massachusetts—and they haven’t been successful.
"These rules generally—whether they be effectively banning certain types of guns or mandating ‘childproof locks’—will create future problems. There’s no such thing as a lock that’s impossible to tamper with. I’m concerned that there will be a mandatory ‘tamper-proof’ lock. Then, at some point in the future, someone will discover that the lock can be tampered with, so there will be legal action against companies that are selling the guns with the locks."