The DC Appeals Court has scheduled oral argument in Parker v DC for November 13th, 2006.  Hopefully, by then, I will have all the briefing documents posted.  The presiding judges will be Henderson, Griffith, and Silberman, which answers my earlier question about whether the same mix of judges would be maintained throughout.

It seems a Canadian newspaper is finally waking up to reality, and noticing that gun control is based on lies.  But they aren't yet ready to go all the way.

The Grits pretended the long-gun registry (handguns have had to be registered since 1934) would help prevent a repeat of the 1989 Montreal massacre in which 14 women died.

This was nonsense. Gun registries don?t deter such crimes. The main purpose of a gun registry is to warn police if they are entering a house that has registered weapons, primarily in domestic dispute cases. It?s also ? combined with requiring gun owners to obtain permits and properly store and transport their weapons ? aimed at reducing the spontaneous use of guns in moments of anger, despair or recklessness, that lead to domestic murders, suicides and accidental shootings.

Even a well-run registry won?t deter random gun violence. To suggest otherwise is a fraud. If gun control advocates want to argue for the registry to reduce domestic murders and suicides, fine. But be honest about it. For once.

What they haven't yet realized is that gun registries don't do anything about domestic murders or suicides, either.  The only thing a registry can possibly do is make it more expensive -- in time and money -- for ordinary people to own a gun.  It won't even slow down criminals, and "ordinary people" have a myriad of other options for "spontaneously" killing themselves and/or their spouse.  That assumes that actual ordinary people do such things, when the evidence is that they overwhelmingly don't. 

Indeed, there is even an argument -- presently anecdotal -- that owning a gun can reduce such incidents, by teaching a responsible gun owner how to think ahead, evaluate the potential consequences of his actions, and back down from a fight when prudent.  The cycle of doing it again, only HARDER, has been broken.

Regular readers will have noted that I haven't exactly been in top form lately.  Sorry.  I have a lot of stuff to post when I feel more like writing and posting it.  Nevertheless, the news that California is suing car manufacturers for pollution damages briefly stirred my apathy.  I fear that this was both horrifying and inevitable.  I am reminded of the premise of Atlas Shrugged -- the petty vindictive envy held by the human leech for those it feeds upon.