Recent Comments

1. over 8 years ago on Jeff Stahler

   Odd cartoon, since the firearms homicide rate has been steadily dropping for the last few decades, while at the same time the number of guns, gun owners, and concealed carry licensees has been increasing steadily.

   We’re already doing something about the “gun crime rate”, and we’re doing it with more guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens.

   Apparently the cartoonist is yet another of the many anti-gun people who don’t know anything about guns, gun laws, or gun statistics, but nevertheless think their opinion matters.

2. about 11 years ago on 9 to 5

   There’s no longer a “back to previous date” button at the top of the page, either. Now, if I’ve missed a day, I have to click on each comic, then select the “previous date” button for that comic, then move on to the next comic and do it all over again. I don’t even want to think about missing more than one day with this new format!

3. about 11 years ago on 9 to 5

   I’ve always gotten a column of all my selected comics, that I could just scroll through. Now I’m getting one, and have to click on the next tumbnail comic on the horizontal scroll at the top of the page.

   This sucks!

4. almost 12 years ago on Drew Sheneman

   There is no “pension plus health care”. Congressmen pay into fhe FERS retirement system and Social Security just like other Federal employees – and pay more into FERS than other employees. If they want health insurance, they also pay into the FEHBP plan of their choice, just like other Federal employees and retirees.

   If Sheneman is going to pick on Congressional pay and benefits, he should at least spend the time to and effort to find out how it really works.

   Mind you, I have a very low opinion of Congress myself, but essentially lying about them isn’t the way to get an effective message across.

5. almost 12 years ago on Jim Morin

   “We’re not talking about taking guns away but restricting the availability of some guns and some magazines. A sane approach to an insane problem.”

   No, that’s an insane approach to something that is a criminal problem, not a gun problem. We already have over 20,000 gun control laws on the books, not ONE of which EVER prevented a crime from being committed. The mis-called “assault weapon” and standard-capacity magazine ban of which you prate was the law of the land from1994 to 2004, and did nothing to prevent the 1999 school massacre in Littleton, CO. That law was allowed to sunset because everybody recognized that it had not had any measurable effect on crime of any kind during the decade-plus it was in effect.

   It doesn’t matter what kind of new law you create (can you think one up that hasn’t already been passed? I doubt it), it runs up against the rock-solid fact that criminals, by definition, do not obey laws. What that means, is that your wonderful new law would ONLY affect all the law-abiding gun owners in the US (somewhere between 30 and 80 million of them), without even inconveniencing a single criminal. That is neither an effective nor a sane approach. And it is also an “infringement” on our rights, as recognized by the Constitution, so it’s not even within Congress’ power (that’s why the 1968 Gun Control Act and the subsequent Brady Act don’t regulate intra-state gun sales between private individuals – they couldn’t stretch the “interstate commerce clause” that far, no matter how hard they tried – it’s also why the 1934 National Firearms Act taxes transfer of full-auto weapons, but does not prohibit their possession by individuals).

6. almost 12 years ago on Jim Morin

   Comment on a comment: "no it is 2nd because the 1st is the declaration of the individual, then you need a way to defend what you are declaring. The pen is only mightier then the sword because has to stand behind what is written. "

   Sorry, all amendments are numbered in the order in which they were ratified. In the order in which they were listed when sent out for ratification, the current 1st and 2nd were 2nd and 3rd; the original “first” amendment was never ratified.

   Direct comment on Morin’s editorial cartoon: Ignorance abounds, both technical and historical.

   Firearms before the Revolutionary War included multi-shot repeating flintlocks – in the NRA Firearms Museum’s mid-18th Century section, you can find a very well designed 7 shot repeater, and two different types of 12-shot repeaters of simpler design; there were also multi-barrel “volley guns” which fired all barrels at once. I read several years ago that there was a full-auto flintlock made in the 18th century (fired all charges sequentially with one pull of the trigger), but I can’t find a reference to it now. Hundreds of years before, the Chinese had a magazine-fed repeating crossbow. The founders, many of them being tinkerers and inventors, as well as being extremely well-read, certainly had a pretty good idea of what kind of “arms” a soldier might have. Remember, they also had hand grenades, mortars, and rockets then, as well as personally-owned cannon and armed ships.The founders would NOT have expected the government to “regulate” (that’s not what the word means in the 2nd Amendment, anyway) more lethal arms than those then in use, as the 2nd was written to recognize the necessary right of the citizenry to have the same arms as used by anyone’s standing army or Organized Militia.
7. over 13 years ago on Over the Hedge

   Sigh…No, it’s NOT “the right of the states to…maintain a militia”.It’s “the right of the PEOPLE” to keep and bear arms. Congress has said so on more than one occasion, and the Supreme Court has said so on more several occasions, the most recent one in the “Heller” decision. And the plain wording of the Second Amendment says so on all occasions.I expect Verne to be more knowledgeably literate about such things…