Massad Ayoob's Blog, page 7

A SKEPTIC-AL LOOK AT CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

The theme of the current issue of Skeptic magazine is “crime and punishment.” The conclusions of the researchers who put it together are of interest. Some of their points: –“One famous study found that just ‘1 percent of the population (is) accountable for 63% of all violent crime convictions.’” — “Research suggests that people on […]

WELL, WHADDAYA KNOW?

If someone had asked me six weeks ago, “When do you think we’ll be able to get non-resident concealed carry for California?” my answer might have been, “Oh, about the same time they get a foot of snow in Pensacola, Florida.” Funny thing about that… In recent weeks, snow DID reach twelve inches near Pensacola… […]

THE NEW STANDARD CATALOG OF SMITH & WESSON

From Gun Digest Books comes “The Standard Catalog of Smith & Wesson,” fifth edition. Jim Supica and Richard Nahas, two pre-eminent authorities on these guns, are the authors.  Let me call your attention to a couple of things in the photo accompanying these comments. You’ll note that on the hard cover of this edition it […]

THE END OF EVERYTHING

Sometimes what is true in macrocosm is true in microcosm. Reading military historian Victor Davis Hanson’s 2024 book “The End of Everything: How Wars Descend Into Annihilation” reminded me of this. Hanson goes into scrupulous detail of cases across the millennia of nations utterly crushed, and city-states razed to the ground with their population enslaved […]

DEFENSE GUNS FOR GEEZERS

Being now of an age of certified geezer-tude, I think I’m qualified to speak about defensive handguns for the elderly. Hell, I’ve been teaching old folks to shoot since I was twenty-something, so… Second Amendment stalwart David Codrea recently linked one of my past articles on the topic, and inspired me to share it with […]

ACCEPT A PLEA BARGAIN?

If we had, say, shot a violent criminal in self-defense and wound up charged with murder, we’d all stand up righteously and demand a trial, right? It’s easy for us to say. We’re not looking at a choice of life sentence without possibility of parole and an anticipated defense lawyer fee in six figures as […]

GOLDEN YEARS

So, I heard of the book “Golden Years: How Americans Invented and Re-Invented Old Age” and bought it, ‘cause I figured I exemplified the target audience. Should have read it on a park bench as befits someone of my years, but I was in Chicago for the Christmas holidays and it was too damn cold. […]

GANGSTER HUNTERS

My parents lived through the Roaring Twenties and the early Thirties when “motor bandits” and assorted gangsters were always in the headlines. I became fascinated with the era hearing them discuss it in the 1950s, when the “Dillinger Days” were closer in time to them than 9/11 or the Columbine High School atrocity are to […]

RESOLUTIONS

New Year’s resolutions seem to be an American tradition. I managed to get all the way through 2024 without ONCE dating a letter or check “2023.” And was pretty proud of myself until the fourth day of the first month of 2025, when I dated my first check of the year 1/4/24. Dammit! If any […]

AND YOU THOUGHT “GUN CONTROL” HERE WAS BAD?

Prime Minister Trudeau wants to ban – and confiscate from Canadian citizens – a whole bunch of sporting rifles which have been legal to hunt with there for over a century, and which have not figured in criminal activity there. More proof that the Other Side lies when they say, “We don’t want to take […]