Drinks & Cigars

So last night, after dinner and the brewery tour, we headed out for some drinks with Cam Edwards, host of Cam & Company at NRA News, Dave Kopel, Research director for the Independence Institute, and Robert Cottrol, Professor of Law, History and Sociology at George Washingon Law School.

Pretty cool company.  I like interacting with academic types, which is good because I work with those types of people on a daily basis.

Speaking of Dave Kopel, everyone should check out his paper on Gun Control in Belgium (PDF):

After the shooting incident, the Government decided to vote a complete new gun legislation. In only a couple of days, this new gun legislation was discussed and approved by the Parliament.

Several observers stated already at that time that the Parliament did not give itself enough time to be able to realize a good and workable gun legislation …

The changes in the new legislation are very drastic : Only officially licensed sporting shooters and hunters can still possess arms, all the other owners of legal weapons will have to hand-in the weapons they already possess without financial compensation.

No other democratic country, except for Jamaica, imposed a complete Gun Ban for all its citizens (except for a limited number of officially licensed sporting shooters and hunters)

Amazing.  They will be confiscating millions of firearms, ordinary firearms, without any compensation to the owners.  Also of note are his statistics on suicide:

In Japan there is no firearm ownership, but Japan has the highest number of suicides of the whole world (28 per 100.000). People commit suicide by hanging, jumping from buildings or moving objects, drowning, …
In the USA there are 4 times more weapons than in Belgium, but only 41% of the number of suicides. In the UK and Australia (both countries have a gun ban) there are more suicides than in the USA. And after the introduction of the Gun Ban there has been a sharp increase in the suicide numbers.

Switzerland has twice as many firearms than Belgium, but lower suicide rates.

Germany has 1,8 times more weapons than Belgium, but only 60 % of the suicides.

Read the whole thing.