By Nick Gillespie
The NY Daily News ("the eyes, the ears, the honest voice of New York!" - and about the last newspaper still running Moose Miller) has a great fake trend story that is worth noting despite its lack of supporting data:
Lifestyles of the rich and packin': High-profile celebrities seeking gun permits on the rise
J.Lo and her 2-year-old twins can rest easy at night: Daddy is packing heat.
Singer Marc Anthony is one of dozens of celebs, millionaires and high-profile athletes authorized to carry a concealed weapon in the city, records show.
And the number of A-listers who have guns is growing....
Mets third-baseman David Wright has a permit to keep a gun in his city penthouse. Martha Stewart's daughter, radio host Alexis Stewart, also has a permit.
Other big names licensed to carry a gun include actor Robert De Niro, shock jock Howard Stern and supermarket mogul John Catsimatidis. Billionaire Donald Trump and his son, Donald Jr.; celebrity lawyer David Breitbart, and artificial-heart inventor Robert Jarvik can also carry steel, police records reveal.
In a classic of the phony trend-story genre, the News does note:
While experts say the number of celebs allowed to carry guns is on the rise, the number of overall permits issued in the city this year is down from last year. There were 2,145 carry permits issued last year compared with 2,093 this year - a dip of about 2.4%.
Oh, those experts, are they ever wrong? Don't you know that the glitter people don't follow trends - they buck them! Whether there is in fact an increase in pistol-packin' celebs (and whether the Donald fils or Alexis Stewart count as celebs), what's interesting is the relative ease with which the well-known and well-connected - even reportedly muy caliente-tempered singer Marc Anthony - get permits denied mere mortals. The NYPD screens folks and doles out the right to carry very selectively. Any sort of right shouldn't be subject to such official caprice. And if the police is making decisions, they should take note of Glenn Instanpundit Reynolds' ironic insight that celebs are "Not a threat to public safety like ordinary Americans getting gun permits . . . because if there’s one thing that celebrities are, it’s responsible."
Read why post-Civil War gun control in the South was "The Klan's Favorite Law."
And read how openly racist concern over "low-browed foreigners" (i.e., Italians) spurred passage of New York City's first gun-permitting law in the early 1900s.
Finally, read about "Gun Control's Twisted Outcome" and why restricting the number of guns in circulation doesn't stop crime.
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