Welcome new members, and antis w/ questions

[bfason]

I want to recommend _Armed: New Perspectives on Gun Control_ by Gary Kleck and Don B. Kates (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2001). This book is in-depth and scholarly without being abstruse. It avoids polemics and personal attacks on antis while devastating their arguments with withering intellectual firepower. They cover a lot of ground while exposing the intellectual dishonesty of so many antigun forces. If you are new to the gun debate, this book is essential reading. If you are an old-timer, you should have this book in your library/intellectual arsenal. The next time some anti quotes, say, a "study" by Arthur Kellerman, you can reach for this volume by Kleck and Kates to discover precisely how and why Kellerman's work is fundamentally flawed. The next time that someone argues that the gun control advocates at VPC and the Brady Campaign just want gun regulation and not prohibition, you can turn to the section in _Armed_ titled "Public Statements Made by Leaders and Prominent Supporters of the Gun Control Lobby." Hoist them with their own petard.