Oh dear: John Lott, scholar-darling of the Gun Lobby, may be dirty. (Julian Sanchez of Cato broke the story.) I hope the Gun Lobby (statist-speak for all of us who don’t buy the victim-punishing dogma of Feinstein, Schumer, Brady et al.) will have the sense to disown him if necessary. On the other hand, of course, despite the ‘Mary Rosh’ affair I hope the sunlight will ultimately show his work to be clean.

The worst outcome of this matter – coming on the heels of the Bellesiles scandal – would be to discourage serious social scientists from looking at gun issues, leaving nothing but a war of slogans.

I wonder whether statistical “deaths by firearms” include victims of blunt trauma with an empty gun; though I doubt it’s a big number.

Kopel, Gallant & Eisen on Uganda & Gun Control on National Review Online

About a year and a half ago, Russell Whitaker took me out for some shooting sport, and afterward told everybody that I had made eight out of eight fairly tough shots with his new rifle and that he looked forward to further improvement. Someone naturally asked, what, next time he’ll hit nine out of eight? I naturally explained that I was looking around for MIRV bullets. Ha ha. Now James Rummel reports on multi-bullet cartridges. Learn something new every day!

Bellesiles goes down. Lighten up Clayton, you’re entitled to gloat a bit.

Gene Healy, whom I had not read before:

Forty armed citizens out of 700 in the audience might have made it quite difficult for the [Chechen] terrorists to secure the [theatre] building. Sure, a lot of folks might have been killed in the firefight, but a lot more would have been able to escape in the chaos. Sixty-seven died anyway in a rescue attempt that might have gone a lot worse.

Al Gore attacked candidate Bush for signing a CCW bill in Texas that didn’t prohibit carrying guns into churches. But if Chechen methods are replicated by Al Qaeda cells here, that looks to me like a solid argument for guns in churches, bars, shopping malls, and schools.

I like to say, whenever someone brings up something like Columbine: “Gun control worked perfectly. Nobody shot back.”

Holster stickers (only a philistine would glue anything to the gun itself): sticky-back strips 1cm high by about 7cm wide, imprinted with humorous phrases.

My Other Gun is an Arbalest
Make a Joyful Noise
One Round at a Time
Just Happy to See You
As a Matter of Fact, I Do Own the Whole Damn Range