Robert Franklin suggests that either one has the right to keep atomic weapons in the closet or there is no right to bear arms. That is like saying that one either has the right to falsely yell "fire!" in a crowded theater or one has no right to free speech at all. All rights are limited. It is not settled law that the Second Amendment applies only to state run militias. That is a position that some take. Anyone who says differently didn't go to law school.

I have a question: how come the good readers of salon.com realize that it would be impractical to try to round 12 million illegal aliens in this country, but think that rounding up half a billion guns in the country makes sense?

The gun control crowd in this country is so transparently lying when they suggest that they only want to ban some guns. They want to ban all guns in private hands. Like it or not that is simply, baseline unacceptable to tens of millions of Americans.

Furthermore, I would suggest from personal (albeit anecdotal) that the gun issue has lost the Democrats at least the last two elections and probably more. I know plenty of gun owners whose natural inclinations and economic interest would suggest that they'd be Democrats, but who refuse to vote Democratic simply because of the (quite legitimate) fear that if given the chance the Democrats are going to outlaw guns.

So go ahead, try to score cheap points off a tragedy. That'll really help win over the undecideds. This is not a gun ownership issue, it's probably a crazy person issue. Tim McVeigh drove a van full of fertilizer into Oklahoma City. Should we ban vans? Fertilizer?

Europe and Japan don't have hundreds of millions of guns already distributed throughout the population. We're not getting those back. If we demanded them back, criminals would keep them and many otherwise law abiding citizens would become criminals of conscience.

A better comparison is Brazil (not coincidentally, another 'frontier' nation) which just tried to ban guns and the population overwhelmingly voted to keep them. That's because they knew that if they banned guns then the only ones with the guns would be the criminals. Most Americans have an extra layer or two of insulation between themselves and lawlessness than do Brazilians, but as Katrina showed us, civil order is one bad storm and two days of chaos away.

One sided? The debate here yesterday didn't seem one sided at all. People from both sides of the debate were present in large numbers; and on boards with a commitment to the second amendment's broadest interpretation, the debate was completely one-sided except for the trolls who set themselves up to be bashed and belittled.

So what then do we make of Grieve's willingness to repeat something that based on his own comments section was demonstrably not true, i.e., that this was a one sided debate yesterday because gun rights advocates were apparently ... I don't know, what are we supposed to think? ashamed? chastened? reluctant? to speak up yesterday?

It was disgusting yesterday when antigun people immediately tried to make political hay out of a tragedy. It is as bad as when pro-death penalty people asked Dukakis how he would feel about capital punishment is Kitty was raped and killed.

Last week people on the left rightfully mocked Bill O'Reilly for trying to turn a drunk driving tragedy into an illegal alien problem. Similarly, the left today wants to turn a crazy criminal tragedy into a second amendment problem.

These are subjects for reasoned debate, but that is seemingly impossible these days and it is not all the fault of the rightwing nut jobs and the Fox news people. Grieve is just as bad from the other side.

If people want to ban guns, then they should commit themselves to repealing the second amendment. Go ahead. Try to gather that much support, because it is not going to happen.

How about 400,000?

400,000 Americans die a year from smoking related illnesses. There's no safe way to use cigarettes. Where's the uproar to ban smoking? Where's the name calling of people who smoke as tobacco-nuts? Where are the accusations that anyone trying to defend smoking is taking marching orders from the tabacco companies (like the accusation that anyone defending RTKBA is an NRA foot soldier)? Is it possibly that people on the left and right smoke but gun ownership is disproportionately right/center?

No! Heaven forbid hypocrisy.

People want cost benefit analysis? How about that? How does 400,000 compare to 10,000 (based on someone's claim that there are 30 a day every day)?

So, if it is really about deaths, then let's talk about smoking. People will say but smokers kill themselves, except that we know that second hand smoke kills too. We also know that those same people say that the person most likely to be killed with a gun is the owner.

Now, this post will undoubtedly create all sort of name calling. I will be dismissed as a troll. Whatever. I simply find it intellectually dishonest to say that it is okay to deny one right (the right to keep and bear arms) in order to protect the alleged greater good, when it is not all right to deny another (habeus corpus) to protect against a different alleged threat (terrorism). Where is the intellectual consistency? Either we're going to protect rights or we're not. Either the constitution is valid and the law of the land or it is not. If you don't like it, change it.

It is wrong to deny habeus corpus even if it ends up catching a few more terrorists and it is wrong to ban guns even if it ends up limiting the number of deaths (although I suspect that neither outcome is really likely to result from those actions.)