You’ve probably seen  the video of the Vice President telling women that the best home defense weapon  is a 12-gauge double-barreled shotgun. 
 
I agree, up to a point, for a variety of reasons: 

- It is probably the most intimidating weapon to face, including a so-called “assault rifle.”

- Few intruders will  try to wrestle it away from you. Just don’t let them get too close.

- It is hard to miss  your target.

 - A load of 7½ dove shot will cut somebody in half with a minimum of collateral damage to other  people in the home or next door.

 But as menacing as a  double-barrel is, I prefer a good old pump action shotgun that has the  unmistakable snick-snick warning that speaks all  languages. And it holds more rounds.

As for Biden’s  suggestion that the resident discharge both barrels outside the dwelling, the  NRA makes great points that firing a gun up in the air is illegal in most urban  jurisdictions and would leave the potential victim with an empty gun.

 The Washington Post fact-checkers looked into the argument from both sides. But I think they got a little nit-picky by narrowing the instance to just Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware.

 But you gotta love what they found out when checking with State Prosecutor Kathleen Jennings. 
 
“In Delaware,  a person can legally fire a weapon to protect themselves and others from someone  intruding onto her dwelling,” said Jennings, who heads the Delaware Justice  Department’s Criminal Division.

Well, maybe.

Even in Texas, that’s  stretching the lethal force statute pretty far. And the Texas Department of  Public Safety tells concealed handgun licensees not to fire warning shots.

 But here’s the best  part.

Jennings works for Biden’s son, Delaware Attorney General Joseph “Beau” Biden, who appointed her in 2011.

‘Nuff said!
 
- Dr.  Gatling

All attempts at gun control are based on the assumption that the person or group proposing the rules knows what is best for those affected by the restrictions. Britain's monarchy learned the hard way that some concepts like taxation don't work without a counter-interest in the governing body such as representation.

In an excellent opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal, Washington lawyers David B. Rivkin and Andrew W. Grossman outline constitutional problems with the current aim of government-knows-best gun opponents.  

"There is no question that a limit of 10 rounds (as the president has  proposed)  or seven (as enacted by New York state last month) would impair the right to  self-defense. A magazine with 10 rounds may provide adequate  protection against  a single nighttime intruder. But it may not: What if there  are two intruders?"

Rivkin and Grossman cite two U.S. Supreme Court decisions as clearly upholding the right to self-defense with a gun. Any gun, not just one that isn't scary looking to those who would ban it as an assault weapon. Once that premise is accepted, the only recourse left the government is an oblique attack such as, say, a tax on ammunition.

Well, it didn't work on tea -- and that was before we had elected representatives. So Americans now have two