Taking aim at the second amendment--again.

ITEM: The New Bedford Standard-Times reported on November 21: "New Bedford Mayor Scott W. Lang told state lawmakers yesterday that if they want to get serious about gun violence, they need to approve tougher laws and come up with more money. Mayor Lang appeared at a Public Safety Committee oversight hearing on youth gun violence.... 'In New Bedford, we regard guns as a weapon of mass destruction,' Mayor Lang told the committee. 'We think they are a weapon of mass destruction throughout our cities and towns throughout the United States.'"

The Massachusetts newspaper continued: "Sen. Jarrett Barrios, D-Cambridge, who co-chairs the committee, is gathering ideas for an omnibus gun-control bill that will be filed next year.... Dan Vice, a staff attorney with the Brady Campaign, which advocates for gun control, said Massachusetts needs to establish a statewide registry of legally owned guns.... 'The good news is Massachusetts has been a model for the nation, but much more can be done,' he said."

ITEM: The New York Times for November 22 commented: "America's confusion about the Second Amendment is now nearly total. An amendment that ensures a collective right to bear arms has been misread in one legislature after another--often in the face of strong public disapproval--as a law guaranteeing an individual's right to carry a weapon in public." Editorializing against legislation that would allow weapons to be carried in national parks, the Times concluded: "If Americans want to feel safer in their national parks, the proper solution is to increase park funding."

CORRECTION: All too many left-wing commentators today equate guns with evil, and are willing to toss aside the clear meaning of the Constitution to justify that point of view. James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, knew better, saying of tyrants: "[They were] afraid to trust the people with arms," and praising "the advantage of being armed, which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation." Of course, it's not just would-be tyrants who fear an armed citizenry: criminals avoid attacking those who can defend themselves. As many as 2.5 million crimes are prevented each year in the United States simply because citizens are armed, according to research by criminologist Gary Kleck of Florida State University.

Even prominent liberal Harvard law Professor Alan Dershowitz has reproached many of his ideological colleagues for trying to distort the Second Amendment. "Foolish liberals who are trying to read the Second Amendment out of the Constitution by claiming that it's not an individual right or that it's too much of a safety hazard," said Dershowitz, "don't see the danger of the big picture." The Harvard professor added, "They're courting disaster by encouraging others to use the same means to eliminate portions of the Constitution they don't like."

A lot of the anti-gun zealots, as noted above, contend public safety is a function of how much tax money is thrown at a problem. Yet, does any honest observer think that the New York Times, for example, relies solely upon the taxpayer-supplied police, rather than armed guards, to protect its property? The arrogance of the New York Times is truly mind-boggling: it makes claims about the meaning of the Constitution that go against the historical record and doesn't even bother to try to validate these assertions. Facts matter, however.

A 93-page report released in 2004 by the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel addressed the many contentions that have been raised in recent years by statists who don't trust an armed citizenry. The general point addressed was ...