Free Republic

Bigotry assumes many forms, hides behind many facades, but always it is the same; the social demonization of entire groups, classes or races of people in an effort to make them appear inferior and detrimental by their very existence. In the wake of a nasty multiple shooting at a Pittsburgh, PA-area fitness club by a not-so-clearly psychotic man identified as George Sodini, America’s gun prohibitionists – led by the Violence Policy Center and Freedom States Alliance – are clamoring for restrictions or repeal of concealed carry statutes. In the case against legally-armed citizens, the VPC has even manufactured an innuendo-riddled...

Earlier in July, the Violence Policy Center’s Josh Sugarmann – writing on the Huffington Post website – made what had to be one of the more bone-headed attempts in recent memory to drive a wedge between people in the firearms community when he critiqued remarks written by Jan Libourel, editor of Gun World magazine. Libourel is an extraordinarily bright guy, well-read in every sense, and – as is common among gun writers – unabashedly opinionated. As a recognized firearms authority, he’s supposed to be opinionated. That’s his job, and he is very good at it. Gun owners enjoy those opinions,...

Despite anti-gun propaganda, the U.S. murder rate is nowhere near that of many other countries. Here's a pop quiz for you: Which country in the world has the highest murder rate? If you said the United States, you would be wrong, but your error would certainly be excusable. The incessant drumbeat from the mainstream media and anti-gun groups serves to perpetuate the canard that the U.S. is the bloodiest free-fire zone on earth. Nothing could be further from the truth. In his article "America: The Most Violent Nation?" researcher David C. Stolinsky shows conclusively that there are a number of...

    Tools Subscribe to this paper Larger / Smaller Text Elementary deduction Monday, January 17, 2005 Sherlock Holmes could teach deductive reasoning to the National Academy of Sciences. Holmes, the quintessential detective created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, knew that by eliminating all other factors, the remaining one must be the truth. An NAS panel created during the Clinton administration -- and infested with gun-grabbers -- issued a 328-page report on gun control. It studied hundreds of articles, books, government publications, gun-control laws and its own empirical work. But its exhaustive study -- analyzing the former ban on...

  FN 5.7 (Fabrique Nationale) pistol is a semiautomatic pistol in 5.7 X 28 mm caliber 1/20/05In response to numerous questions that ATF has received regarding the capabilities of the 5.7 X 28mm cartridge, the following technical information is provided.FTB classified SS196 ammunition as not armor piercing. The FN 5.7 (Fabrique Nationale) pistol is a semiautomatic pistol in 5.7 X 28 mm caliber. Type: Double Action Only or Single Action (in Tactical model).Chambering: 5.7x28mm. Length: 208 mm Barrel length: 122.5 mm Magazine: 20 rounds. The FN 5.7 (Fabrique Nationale) pistol is a semiautomatic pistol in 5.7 X 28 mm caliber...

Licensed riders would be allowed to carry concealed handguns on board A showdown about the right to carry concealed handguns on Metro trains and buses appears headed for a peaceful ending today. Metro board members are expected to vote this afternoon to repeal the restriction, which has been in effect since 1995 after the Legislature voted to allow licensed owners to carry concealed handguns in most public places. State Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, who wrote the legislation as a state senator, has been a vocal critic of bans such as those adopted by Metro and many other government entities in...

One of the continuing debates in this country is over gun control laws and their efficacy. Gun control advocates often cite the ease with which a person can purchase a firearm from retail outlets and worry that such outlets are arming criminals in huge numbers. Lawsuits have been filed against wholesalers and retailers alleging that their marketing practices make it easy for criminals to get guns. These advocates continually push for more restrictions on firearms purchases in vain attempts to keep guns from criminals and others who shouldn’t have access to them. The problem with such laws is that criminals...

Program aims to cut crime by disarming convicted felons Kansas City law enforcement closed 2004 by announcing that more than 700 defendants had been charged since 1999 under Project Ceasefire, a program that penalizes illegal firearm possession. Though the program is best known for ensnaring felons who illegally possess firearms, it also has snagged felons who simply possessed ammunition and offenders who had weapons while violating court orders of protection. U.S. Attorney Todd Graves said that gun violations will continue to be a top concern for his office. “Our focus remains on prosecuting repeat offenders who make the decision to...

WOBURN, Mass., Dec. 24 - When Massachusetts this month became the first state to install an electronic instant-check system complete with a fingerprint scanner for gun licenses and gun purchases, the impact was quickly apparent. On Wednesday, for example, moments after a court placed a woman's husband under a restraining order, a notice about the order popped up on a new computer terminal at the police station here. Given that information, the Woburn police went to the man's house and confiscated his guns, all 13 of them. The computer is part of the record-check system and allows the police and...

With the 109th Congress set to convene in January 2005, and legislative business to begin shortly thereafter following the Presidential Inauguration on January 20, it is critical that, upon their arrival to Congress, lawmakers are greeted with phone calls, letters, and e-mails from constituents communicating their position on gun-related issues. We are billing this week that Congress returns as "Firearm Awareness Week." With many lawmakers taking office for the first time, or having never cast a vote on a federal gun-related issue, NOW is the time to formulate a strategy for contacting your elected officials in Washington so they know...

Few people remember the school shooting in Pearl, Mississippi that took place in October 1997. Fewer people remember how it ended. This episode came to a close when Pearl High School Assistant Principal Joel Myrick sprinted a quarter mile to retrieve a personal handgun from his car and confronted the shooter who was unwilling to continue the attack against an armed victim. Myrick parked so far away from the school to keep from violating federal gun free zone statutes. By the time the shooting spree ended, two students lay dead and seven others were wounded. Myrick's heroic defense of the...

Associated Press BAYONNE, N.J. -- Researchers are making progress in developing "smart gun" technology, but it will still be at least five years before a New Jersey law requiring it can take effect, officials said Thursday. Using sensors in the grip, the technology would prevent a handgun from being fired by anyone but its owner. Scientists, politicians and police officers attended a demonstration Thursday of a system being developed at New Jersey Institute of Technology that identifies a gun's authorized user but does not control the gun's firing mechanism. Donald Sebastian, NJIT's vice president for research and development, said it...

I hold a Minnesota permit to carry a handgun. I see people write in to the paper all the time, attacking the issue of "conceal and carry," obviously having done little to no research on the subject. Simple facts are all that is needed to help clarify this somewhat controversial issue. Neither the 2003 Minnesota Citizens Personal Protection Act nor the old gun law differentiated between open and concealed carry of a handgun. However, out of consideration for non-permit holders, as well as for tactical reasons, most of us conceal our weapons. The MPPA did not allow everyone to carry...

Crime Prevention: Unable to repeal the right to bear arms, gun control advocates have tried to repeal the right to sell them, on the theory that if we disarm potential victims, gun violence would end. In yet another victory for the concept of individual responsibility for one's actions and just plain common sense, the Illinois Supreme Court has unanimously rejected a lawsuit by the city of Chicago against 18 gun manufacturers, four distributors and 11 dealers. The city asserted that the firearms industry has created a "public nuisance," and asked for $433 million for health care and emergency services expenses....

Washington - Emboldened by the results of the month's elections, the nation's largest gun lobby will push again for a federal law shielding gunmakers and sellers from lawsuits. When the new Congress convenes in January, the National Rifle Association says, it will have four more pro-gun senators. The trade group hopes that will help make the difference in passing a bill that died in the Senate in March. "The chance of success is greater this time," said Bob Levy, senior fellow at The Cato Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington. The idea of lawsuit immunity pits gun owners and...

Judges are often accused of "activism"--a desire to extend their reach from interpreting the law and resolving cases to making policy on matters that are none of their darn business. So they deserve credit when they resist invitations to override democracy. That's what the Illinois Supreme Court did by a unanimous vote Thursday, in a decision with repercussions beyond our borders. The cases involved lawsuits against gun dealers and manufacturers who offer weaponry in Illinois. The City of Chicago has a strict ban on handgun ownership, but guns may be sold in neighboring suburbs, even to Chicago residents. Some of...

Brother of slain city councilman voices support for stricter gun laws The brother of the Brooklyn city councilman who was shot to death at City Hall last year returned to the scene of the crime yesterday to express support for legislation that would strengthen the city's gun control laws. His "heart is broken beyond repair" by the shooting of his brother, the late James Davis, and he hopes to prevent similar gun-related tragedies, Geoffrey Davis said. "These weapons are devastating our communities," said Davis, during a hearing of the City Council's Public Safety Committee. "They're used to kill, steal and...

www.gunowners.orgNov 2004 2004 Election Report -- Guns a major factor in races all across the nation Gun Owners of America 8001 Forbes Place, Suite 102 Springfield, VA 22151 (703)321-8585 November 5, 2004 The 2004 election might be remembered as "The Year of the Gun Owner." Presidential candidate John Kerry, a liberal anti-gun Senator from Massachusetts, tried to morph himself into 'The Hunter.' Rarely a day passed during the latter part of the campaign without Kerry posing with a firearm and speaking about his strong support of the Second Amendment, in complete contradiction to his 20-year anti-gun voting record. Kerry was...

Assault weapons ban renewal unlikely in Congress WASHINGTON — Gun-control advocates lost ground in the 2004 elections, ending any shot that Congress will renew a federal ban on assault weapons in the next two years. "My general reading is that neither side wants it to come up," said Rep. Christopher Shays, R-4. The 10-year-old ban, which Shays co-authored, outlawed 19 semi-automatic weapons as well as guns with certain military-style features such as folding stocks, bayonet mounts or flash suppressors. A clause directed that the ban expire in September 2004 unless Congress specifically reauthorized it. That did not happen. House Republican...

Tribune staff reporters Ray Long and Lisa Black contributed to this report SPRINGFIELD -- The Illinois Senate voted Tuesday to let courts ignore local gun bans in cases where a gun owner uses a firearm in self-defense, overriding by a healthy margin a veto of the measure. With several members calling it a common sense proposal, senators voted to trump the governor's veto 40-18--with two more affirmative votes than the bill received when legislators passed it last spring. Commonly known as the "Wilmette bill," the measure surfaced as a result of the case of Hale DeMar, who shot an intruder...

State plans to appeal ruling shutting Island Lake Shooting Range In one of his last acts in office, retiring Livingston County Circuit Court Judge Daniel Burress ordered the Island Lake Shooting Range closed pending the outcome of a trial. No date has been set in the case filed by the Green Oak Township board in June, to force the state Department of Natural Resources to comply with township noise regulations. The gun range is in the Island Lake State Recreation Area, east of Brighton in Green Oak Township. A spokesman said the state would appeal the ruling. At the conclusion...

BANNING boys from playing with toy guns is futile and may even damage their development, a leading child psychologist has warned. Confirming what many guilty parents long suspected, Penny Holland says boys will indulge in gunplay regardless of attempts by schools, nurseries and guardians to stop them. Holland, who claims boys have fallen victim to politically correct dogma, claims that suppressing their need for boisterous play may be counter-productive. Holland, senior lecturer in early childhood studies at London Metropolitan University, believes that boys who have been banned from playing at soldiers, pirates, or superheroes, become disruptive and live up to...

<p>Scientists at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) were awarded $1.1 million by the US Department of Justice to continue testing a safer personalized weapon.</p> <p>"We're still on target with a delivery date of January, 2006, for a commercial-ready prototype of a smart gun," said Donald H. Sebastian, PhD, vice president for research and development at NJIT and professor of mechanical engineering. "This new money allows us to keep field tests and evaluations running smoothly with researchers at the U.S. Army Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center (ARDEC), in Picatinny." The gun has been in testing at Picatinny for almost a year now.</p>

Britain's gun laws are aimed at the wrong target, curbing and criminalising legal ownership while failing to tackle huge rises in shooting offences over the past few years, according to an international firearms legislation expert. Prof Gary Mauser said that Britain was making the same mistake as Canada and Australia in focusing on legal owners - a section of the law-abiding community where gun crimes, such as the Dunblane massacre, were aberrations. The Home Office and police chiefs should instead tackle the possession of guns in criminal hands, said Prof Mauser, a member of the independent Fraser Institute in Canada....

On October 20, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan (D), State Senator John Cullerton (D), and State Representative Karen May (D) held a press conference in Chicago to launch their campaign to pass a ban on semi-automatic firearms in Illinois. Also in attendance was the anti-gun extremist organization the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence—a group that has called Members of Congress "arrogant and gutless" for allowing the failed federal ban to expire. Although a study of the recently expired federal ban found that the affected firearms were rarely used in crime, and even supporters of the federal ban admit that it...

Two police officers dropped the handcuffed man on the brick steps before Sheila Harding's front door, she says. From his knees, 23-year-old Richard William Rogers Jr. pleaded to the woman who helped raise him. "They're locking me up," he remembers saying. "But if you give them a gun, they'll let me go." It was a startling proposition, Harding says: Trade a gun to avoid a criminal charge. Interviews and court documents reveal this is a common deal offered by Baltimore police to the suspects they arrest, usually in minor drug cases. It's so typical that one lieutenant recently declared it...

They say only lawmakers can set gun policy The University of Utah has "no separate constitutional authority" to regulate firearms on its campus, according to a brief filed by legislative attorneys. Utah Supreme Court justices last month asked the Legislature to participate in the ongoing gun debate, which has pitted the U. against Attorney General Mark Shurtleff. The Legislature's friend-of-the-court brief was filed Oct. 8, and lawmakers now have copies of the brief, which received no discussion Tuesday — even though it was an item on the agenda of the Legislative Management Committee meeting. Attorneys for the U. are waiting...

Sen. John Kerry has been "extremely effective" in portraying himself as a gun enthusiast and hunter in the 2004 campaign, said Kayne B. Robinson, president of the National Rifle Association, whose group is preparing a push against the Democratic candidate in the final two weeks before Election Day.     The Massachusetts Democrat is "the most anti-gun candidate we've ever had," Mr. Robinson said during an hourlong interview with editors and reporters at The Washington Times. He cited more than 50 Senate votes to limit gun rights. He said the NRA is targeting its election efforts, which he said will total...

Sen. Zell Miller urges gun-rights audience to support Bush campaign CONCORD - With the sound of stock cars zooming by as a backdrop, Democratic U.S. Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia Friday urged gun owners to support President Bush's re-election. Miller spoke as part of a National Rifle Association rally at Lowe's Motor Speedway before the Busch Series SpongeBob 300 race. It was the influential gun lobby's first rally in conjunction with a NASCAR race, said Chris Cox, the organization's chief lobbyist. Former President Bill Clinton has credited the group with Al Gore's defeat in the 2000 election. "NASCAR nation is...

FAIRFAX, VA -- The National Rifle Association`s Political Victory Fund (NRA-PVF) has endorsed George W. Bush for President of the United States. "NRA stands with President George W. Bush on November 2nd," said Wayne LaPierre, NRA executive vice president. "If you believe in freedom and want to preserve the Second Amendment for future generations, vote to re-elect President Bush and Vice President Cheney. "In the United States we have a long tradition of hunting and sport shooting," stated LaPierre. "President Bush and Vice President Cheney both love to hunt and fish. They know the Constitution gives people the personal right...

Tuesday, October 12, 2004 - BILLBOARDS now seen in at least 10 key states show a prancing French poodle, its fur fancily clipped for show, wearing a pink ribbon and a blue Kerry-for-president sweater. The text says: "That dog don't hunt.' And: "For 20 years John Kerry has voted against sportsmen's rights.' As Election Day approaches, the National Rifle Association is clearing its throat, ready to roar. By now, most of the persuading has been done and attention is turning to mobilization getting intense constituencies to the polls. Few are more intense than the NRA. If New England is Red...

Jake is a good friend, and I'm sure he'll forgive me for not using his real name here. One of the reasons I like Jake so much is that he carries a gun. But you'd never know it. He's a big, friendly guy with a lot of friends, and he likes to help people. Jake's wife and two kids love him. From our long friendship, I know there's not a mean bone in his body. Jake isn't my only friend who carries a concealed weapon. You would be surprised at how many of us there are. We've taken the training,...

The fox-hunting ban that has caused a bloody split in Britain is just the first step anti-hunters will take to stop sportsmen all together. Huntsmen and women all over Britain are in open revolt. They have watched their way of life be undermined and ridiculed by the urban masses that consider any form of hunting to be abhorrent. So abhorrent that they have campaigned for a total ban. The fact that the vast majority of urban protestors have little or no knowledge of fox hunting or the countryside is unimportant to our lawmakers. To them the Antis have something more...

The Platte County Sheriff's Department this week reported it has received 218 applications from residents who want a permit to carry a concealed weapon. As of Tuesday, the department has issued 188 permits with 27 applications still being processed, said Helen Means, a spokeswoman for the sheriff's department. Three permits have been denied by authorities. The number of Clay County residents applying for permits to carry concealed weapons was 394. Of those applications, 291 have been approved, three were denied and 100 are pending, according to officials. In June, both county sheriff departments announced they would begin processing applications. Sheriff...

WASHINGTON — The National Rifle Assn., one of the country's most influential lobbying groups, is wading into the presidential campaign with television commercials that criticize Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts as an opponent of gun-owner rights. The Democratic nominee's camp flatly denies the charge. The NRA's advertising drive, including a 30-second spot that aired on cable TV last weekend, comes as the gun lobby is savoring two recent legislative victories here in the capital. On Sept. 13, the Republican-led Congress allowed a 10-year-old ban on certain kinds of assault weapons to expire — with no public protest from President...

In 1976, Washington, D.C. instituted the strictest handgun ban in the nation. On Wednesday, the House voted 250-171 to repeal that ban. The prevailing side included 52 Democrats, and 22 Republicans cast no votes. Last week's vote, however, was not about congressional intervention, the young blood being spilled on the streets or even the gun lobby, as opponents of the D.C. Personnel Protection Act would have you believe. Whether people will exercise the right to own a handgun is not at issue either. I even disagree with House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who said repealing the ban means "homes of...

EDITORIAL OBSERVER For devoted foes of gun control, September was a banner month. It opened with Congress ignoring pleas from every major national police group to let the hard-won 1994 ban on assault weapons expire, and ended last week with the House approving a loony measure repealing Washington's strict gun laws. And that's not all. In between reinstating every hunter's sacred Second Amendment right to nail Bambi with an AK-47, and mischievously meddling in local affairs to pass a one-chamber bill to weaken public safety in the nation's capital, the National Rifle Association and its busy-beaver allies quietly scored another...

This is a WorldNetDaily printer-friendly version of the article which follows. To view this item online, visit http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=40699 Thursday, September 30, 2004 The media that couldn't shoot straight Posted: September 30, 20041:00 a.m. Eastern By Larry Elder © 2004 Laurence A. Elder Can Americans now purchase assault weapons? If you listen to some pols and mainstream media, you probably cannot answer that question. In 1994, Congress passed and President Clinton signed a 10-year ban on so-called "assault weapons." In reality, the bill outlawed certain semiautomatic weapons with cosmetic features that made them look, well, military. The law banned the manufacture and...

E-mail Author Send to a Friend <% printurl = Request.ServerVariables("URL")%> Print Version October 01, 2004, 7:40 a.m. A Second Amendment StrategyThe Supreme Court, not Congress, must blow away the gun ban. By Robert A. Levy The House of Representatives, this week, has passed the D.C. Personal Protection Act (H.R. 3193), which would overturn a 28-year ban on handguns in the nation's capital. The Senate version (S. 1414) won't be considered until after the election. In the meantime, the usual suspects are raising the usual arguments against letting D.C. residents defend themselves. These arguments are bogus, and the legislation should...

My trusty shotgun is in storage, but I don’t dare tell you where. The fall hunting season opens in a few weeks, and city slickers, including many from Capitol Hill, will try to regain the manly status of hunter-gatherers. They will rise to alarm clocks, tromp over fallen leaves, sniff the frost and perhaps see a wild turkey, covey of quail or a white-tailed deer. No thanks to D.C., which has the strictest gun law in the country. Sportsmen (and even John Kerry hunts with a shotgun) are worse than unwelcome here — they are liable to arrest and imprisonment,...

When the leadership of the House of Representatives announced plans to vote on legislation repealing the District of Columbia's gun control laws, many in the District reacted with anger and disbelief. In the aftermath, however, one additional thought nagged: Are the bill's supporters in Congress willing to apply the same standards to the sidewalks of Capitol Hill that they would impose on the District? Or, to put a more practical twist to it, would Congress, in the midst of terrorism alerts, allow people to openly carry unlocked and loaded semiautomatic rifles across Capitol Hill without a permit? Of course, Capitol...

Johannesburg - Up to 100 000 people in the professional hunting and weapons industry stand to lose their jobs because of the "catastrophic" consequences of the new Firearms Control Act, introduced on July 1. Industry experts said not one legal firearm had been sold in South Africa in the past two months and proficiency certificates (which are called for under the new law) have been issued to only eight people in this time. Meanwhile, the head of the firearm registration office in Gauteng, said the central firearm registry in Pretoria had turned down more than 80% of all licence applications...

The assault-weapons ban goes out with a whimper, not a bang. In the days before the expiration of the Clinton era "assault weapons" ban on Sept. 14, L.A. police chief Bill Bratton warned of "carnage," while the NRA talked of a "monumental accomplishment." Candidates Bush and Kerry traded shots on the issue without failing to note their enthusiasm for hunting. To get a clearer read on the matter, we headed north from New York City into the wilds of Connecticut's Gun Valley. Before the Civil War, it turns out that the Connecticut river valley was the cradle of American gun...

www.gunowners.orgSep 2004 Repeal Of D.C. Gun Ban Comes To The House Next Week -- Contact Your Representative Gun Owners of America 8001 Forbes Place, Suite 102 Springfield, VA 22151 (703)321-8585 Thursday, September 23, 2004 It's a familiar refrain: The gun-grabbers clearly want to take away your "big, ugly" semiautomatics. But, they claim, they don't support an outright firearms ban. Well, next week, the gun-grabbers will have an opportunity to show their true colors. Next week, the House is scheduled to vote on repealing Washington, D.C.'s gun ban. That ban -- surely the most draconian anti-gun abomination in the country --...

The federal ban on semiautomatic rifles — i.e. “assault weapons” — was allowed to expire earlier this month, the collective inaction of both Congress and the Bush administration. The passing of this legislation, however well-intentioned, is hardly lamented. For starters, the ban was not really needed when it was implemented 10 years ago. Prior to the law’s passage, these so-called “assault” weapons, rifles mostly, were used in fewer than 1 percent of all violent crimes. These numbers have not changed, even though Americans still own more than 30 million legal semiautomatic firearms. As the law enforcement community has determined, it’s...

Is John Kerry's campaign in disarray? The other day the candidate - supposedly famed for his intellectual heft - lashed out at George Bush because the ban on so-called assault guns expired. Has he already forgotten one of the lessons of 2000? In an election as close as Bush-Gore, numerous issues can be cited as decisive. Yet no item on that year's agenda played a more critical role than gun control. The question probably cost Al Gore the election. The Vice President lost West Virginia, Bill Clinton's Arkansas, and his own Tennessee because voters in those three battlegrounds distrusted his...

Despite the hyperbole of some anti-gun forces, don’t expect our streets to suddenly fill with new and dangerous weapons now that Congress has refused to re-enact a ban on so-called assault weapons. That’s because the decade-old ban was always more about symbolism than eliminating dangerous weapons. For instance, a news report out of Denver Tuesday told of people eagerly lining up to purchase AR-15 rifles at a local gun store once the ban was lifted. But the AR-15 — a semiautomatic, small-caliber rifle — was never prohibited under the ban enacted during the first Clinton term. However, certain configurations were...

A 10-year-old federal ban on assault weapons expired earlier this week with little chance that a vote to reestablish it will be brought before congress in the near future. Chris W. Cox, chief lobbyist and executive director of NRA's institute for legislative action, took questions on the association and the expiration of the assault weapons ban. The transcript follows. Editor's Note: washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions. Chris W. Cox: Hello, everyone. I'm glad to have the opportunity to...

GOP Senator's Effort Would Increase Likelihood of Enacting Repeal This Fall A move to repeal virtually all the District's gun restrictions has received a boost in the Senate, where gun rights supporters led by Idaho Republican Sen. Larry E. Craig are seeking to get the measure passed as an amendment to the city's 2005 budget. If the effort were to succeed, it would markedly increase the chances of the repeal passing Congress this fall. A similar measure in the House has more than enough co-sponsors to pass that chamber and has been promised a floor vote this fall by GOP...

John Kerry's flip-flopping on the Iraq war is well known. His statements on hotly contested social issues have also been all over the place. (Kerry says that that life starts at conception, but he votes consistently in favor of abortion.) On guns, the senator's position is even more confusing.Last Tuesday Kerry's campaign claimed: "John Kerry's opponents are worried because he's the first Democratic candidate to support Second Amendment gun rights and to be an avid hunter.... The Republican Party and George Bush's campaign will stop at nothing to mislead voters about John Kerry's record." Campaigning in St. Louis last Thursday,...