Guns, Crime, and Freedom. - book reviews

IF GUN control won't protect us from crime, what will? The fact that Wayne LaPierre, chief executive officer of the National Rifle Association, feels compelled to answer that question suggests how besieged and defensive gun owners have become. After all, nobody expects the American Civil Liberties Union, which also opposes certain measures aimed at fighting crime, to issue its own platform of alternatives.

It should be enough for Mr. LaPierre to show, as he does here, that gun control doesn't work, that it violates our rights and undermines our safety. Especially worthwhile are the chapters that deal with the right to keep and bear arms, which show why you have to be ignorant or deceitful to dismiss the Second Amendment with a wave of the hand. The crime-control section is familiar but mostly sensible--noting, for example, that prisons can be a good investment even if their only function is to incapacitate.

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