All Postings from December 2003

The National Post (one of Canada's two national newspapers) as well as a large number of major papers such as the Ottawa Citizen and Vancouver Sun gave the story wide play.

Mark Belling, who substituted for Rush Limbaugh on his national radio show, also discussed the information in yesterday's New York Post piece on Baghdad's murder rate (subscription required).

12/29/03
Deterrence works in Baghdad

The New York Post has a very detailed discussion of the murder rate numbers in Baghdad.

12/28/03
Should Journalists In War Zones Carry Weapons?

An interesting piece in the WSJ (Should Journalists in War Zones Carry Weapons? 12/29) discusses journalists who carry guns for protection in Iraq (subscription required). The news story on reporters covering the Iraq war who carry guns never mentions the broader hypocrisy of the media on guns. Surely reporters, such as the New York Times reporter the piece focuses on, who feel their safety threatened, understandably want a gun for protection, but doesn�t that apply to others? The Times decision to back the reporter is also understandable. But just last week the Times had a news article criticizing professional athletes who own guns for self-protection (indeed, as typical for the Times, their reporter could not find a single expert defending the professional athletes�� decisions). In addition, reporters for the Times in Iraq are not the only ones who carry guns when their safety is threatened. Arthur O. Sulzberger, chairman for the New York Times, has had a permit to carry a concealed handgun in New York City, but the Times would fight against others being granted the same privilege.

It is too bad that we had to read about the Times reporter carrying a gun in the Wall Street Journal and not in the Times itself. Possibly then the Times would have found one expert supporting the practice.

12/19/03
Is the Supreme Court's Campaign Finance Decision Already Unraveling

My latest piece for National Review explains why part of the Supreme Court's decision on McCain-Feingold may already be irrelevant.

12/12/03
Baghdad's Distorted Murder Rate

Unfortunately, there have been a lot of incorrect information regarding the relative murder rates in Baghdad and Washington DC. My latest piece in Investors' Business Daily goes through the sources of the different numbers and explains why some newspapers have published estimated murder rates for Baghdad that were possibly 28 times higher than they actually were for October.

Update: Michael O'Hanlon, a co-author of one of the articles that I commented on in my Investors' Business Daily piece, was helpful in getting to the bottom of these claims. First, he responded quickly and was not defensive when I asked him for his sources on the Baghdad murder rate. Second, in an e-mail he told me that he had himself tried to contact the Defense Department to obtain their estimates on the number of murders in Baghdad. Unfortunately, as often occurs with bureaucracies, they did not get him the information that he requested. In a recent e-mail exchange that I had with him he indicated: "you were more successful, and I commend you for that." (Link to a copy of the e-mail from O'Hanlon has been disabled at his request.)

12/11/03
Ohio on verge of passing concealed handgun law

On Wednesday night the Ohio Senate voted 25-8 and the Ohio House 69-27 to a compromise bill establishing a right-to-carry law. The governor has threatened to veto the law, but both houses have well over the 60 percent of the vote necessary to pass the legislation.

12/10/03
It�s definitely time to get over Florida

The ruckus over the 2000 Florida vote continues. My latest piece on National Review Online tries to debunk the various myths on the Florida vote.