The Right to Self-Defense

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I was on ABC News last Friday to talk about the right to self-defense. Here’s the link.



12 Responses to “The Right to Self-Defense”

  1. Tom G. Palmer

    Thanks….but the credit goes to the editors. I’ve no idea whether I said that at the end or in the middle or what. A good television or radio story requires….good editing. All I did was tell my story.

  2. Guns have become a part of american culture and life, its very hard to enforce gun control in a country where there are more guns then people. Im not pro or con gun control, I agree with both sides. Both sides make their arguments. Here in Holland we have gun control , I cant imagine without it. The US is of course different, we sometimes say “there are many different sort of people in the US”, like gangs, mass murderers, KKK and others. If I think about the US I find it a very dangerous place. I really have great respect for the US and want to visit it someday but with all those incidents, it makes my skin crawl.

  3. Carson Williams

    That was an excellent piece. The day after the Virginia Tech shooting, I had an argument with a coworker about gun control (more like he had argument with me), he wouldn’t accept that I was against it, at the end he asked me “don’t you think that humans have evolved beyond the need for guns”, I said no and asked him if current events had shown him otherwise, he didn’t speak to me for four days. Tom also I love the part about guns equalizing, to this day my grandfather still refers to guns as “the great equalizer.”

  4. Garry Cobb

    Great segment, and great comments, Dr. Palmer.

    Orhan, be careful not to simply use news reports about gun-crime to paint your picture of the United States. Remember, this is a nation of 300 million people, so certain tragic events are inevitable.

    Also, you will never see the headline “No Gun Incidents Today”. America is a lot safer that it may seem through the news.

  5. Cyril Morong

    Tom

    Thanks for posting this. I was at a conference this past weekend and did not turn the TV on much, so otherwise I would have missed it.

    Orhan

    Rioting because you don’t like who got elected makes my skin crawl.

  6. Free_American

    Orhan,

    The honor killings in Holland, including what you do to film directors (van gogh) and cartoonists, scare me.

    So do the occasional conquests by the Germans.

    But I’d still like to visit.

    You’ll find that the U.S. is a very peaceful country. Your chances of being assaulted here are perhaps 1/3 as great as in Britain. We’re peaceful even though, unlike the Swiss, we are not usually allowed to have automatic weapons. If you go looking for “gangs, mass murderers and kkk” you might find them, but there are other things to do here.

  7. Free_American,
    You can count the number of honor killings that has ever happened in Holland in one hand and what happened to van gogh is a tragedy. Here in Holland we see documentaries about the US, believe me some are scary.
    I did not say that because I hate the US on the contrary I like the US. It was not meant to discredit the US in any way. I want to visit US sometime in the future.

  8. Cyril Morong

    Orhan

    I was not comparing France and Holland. Just pointing out that incidents that induce skin crawling happen all over.

  9. Rod_in_gtown

    Tom,

    I was wondering what the current state for D.C. Handgun ownership is with the ban repealed. Can I go out today and apply for a handgun permit? or do I have to wait for Fenti’s (DC’s Mayor) appeal to go through?

  10. Tom G. Palmer

    Rod,

    You can apply for one, but it will be denied. The order of the Court of Appeals has been stayed pending an appeal. The appeal to the full court for an “en banc” hearing was rejected. So the DC government will certainly take it to the US Supreme Court, which has the option to hear it or not. It’s likely that they will and we think we have a very strong case. If we win, the law is overturned. If it isn’t heard, it’s overturned, but only in D.C. and in federal cases. If we lose, then the DC gun ban — the most extreme in the nation — would be sustained and it and all laws less extreme (and maybe some more so, though that’s hard to imagine) would be considered constitutional.