damnum absque injuria

Touching, ain't it? Here's one more pic, this time with just the three of us:

UPDATE: Tiffany Stone has links to more bloggers and their babies. Apparently, the tendency to blog about one's babies spans the political spectrum, ranging from liberal to conservative, and from indepedent to Xrlq.

In United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez, 494 U.S. 259, 265 (1990), a Fourth Amendment case, the U.S. Supreme Court observed the following:

Contrary to the suggestion of amici curiae that the Framers used this phrase "simply to avoid [an] awkward rhetorical redundancy," [citation omitted], "the people" seems to have been a term of art employed in select parts of the Constitution. The Preamble declares that the Constitution is ordained and established by "the people of the United States." The Second Amendment protects "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms," and the Ninth and Tenth Amendments provide that certain rights and powers are retained by and reserved to "the people." See also U.S. Const., Amdt. 1 ("Congress shall make no law . . . abridging . . . the right of the people peaceably to assemble") (emphasis added); Art. I, 2, cl. 1 ("The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the people of the several States") (emphasis added). While this textual exegesis is by no means conclusive, it suggests that "the people" protected by the Fourth Amendment, and by the First and Second Amendments, and to whom rights and powers are reserved in the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, refers to a class of persons who are part of a national community or who have otherwise developed sufficient connection with this country to be considered part of that community. See United States ex rel. Turner v. Williams, 194 U.S. 279, 292 (1904).

UPDATE: Eugene has an update, which identifies this error and two more, as well.

Unfortunately, the Cook County D.A. can't do anything about that. Then again, by Mr. Goebel's logic, maybe they shouldn't. After all, while the spirit of the state FOID law may be to guns away from real criminals like Morio Billings, the spirit of Wilmette's wacky ordinance may not be. For all we know, the "spirit" of that ordinance could be to make homeowners into sitting ducks.

Mr. Uncle, who describes this development as "Cool - sorta," appears to be underwhelmed, given that Wilmette has not dropped the charges of its own. As a resident of Cook County, IL for three years, and of equally hoplophobic (and alcoholophobic, and anything-else-worth-doing-ophobic) Evanston for two, I disagree. The whole time I lived anywhere in that county, I was constantly looking over my shoulder. Even when I got out of Evanston, I had the sense that my gun was only "technically legal," not legal-legal, and that D.A.s would pounce on me the next time I forgot to dot some i or cross some t. And that is exactly the attitude that prevails in Evanston, Wilmette, Winnetka, Chicago, Oak Park and Moron Grove. But even though nothing could drag me back to that region, it's still comforting to know that normal people can lead semi-normal lives while residing in other parts of the Chicago area.

Editor:

Laws should exist to protect the law-abiding from the criminals, but apparently, Wilmette Police Chief George Carpenter thinks it's the other way around. California is hardly anyone's idea of an NRA paradise - for example, our state constitution does not provide for an individual right to bear arms - but nothing Hale De Mar did on December 29 would have gotten him in any trouble here. Once the gun was registered (automatically, at the the point of sale), that would have been it. No FOID, no local ordinances, nothing. In fact, the incident itself probably would not have happened, as Morio Billings's priors would given him 25-to-life under our tough "three strikes" law.

Given the fundamental philosophical differences between our respective states and the tremendous amount of negative publicity Mr. Carpenter has generated across the country, I'd like to propose a deal that can make everyone happy. Wilmette would drop all of its silly charges against DeMar on the sole condition that he move to California, where he'll get the hero's welcome that he so richly deserves. We'll have one more crime-fighting tool in our neighborhoods, and the politically hypercorrect Village of Wilmette will have one less vigilante out there threatening the safety of its cherished burglars. It's a win-win!

Sincerely,
Xrlq

Meanwhile, Officer Roger Ockrim of the Wilmette P.D. (tel. (847) 853-7555) has issued a smarmy press release urging residents to disarm themselves and let burglars have their way until/unless the police arrive. Repeating one of the Brady Campaign's favorite lies, the P.D's 'hat-in-chief is quoted as saying:

It would be unfortunate and potentially tragic to conclude from this incident that Wilmette families will be safer if they keep a handgun in their homes. The opposite is true. Wilmette families are in greater danger if they keep a handgun at home. The Wilmette Police experience is that a handgun in this community is far more likely to be

• Stolen, or
• Used in a domestic argument, or
• Used in a suicide attempt, or
• Accidentally discharged in the home than it is to be used in self-defense. If a resident believes there is an intruder in their [sic] home late at night, choosing to use a handgun actually reduces your [sic] family's safety.

Most defensive uses of guns don't involve a shot being fired at all. Where they do, the shot is usually not fatal to the burglar. This is to be expected because a law-abiding gun owner's objective is to neutralize the threat to himself and/or his family; it is not to "bag a burglar," as Wilmette's idiot police chief probably assumes. Another factor to consider in evaluating the Wilmette PD's (tiny, and probably statistically insgnificant) "experience" is the reality that the police department doesn't get the entire picture. Even in gun-friendly jurisdictions, crimes thwarted wtih guns are much less likely to be reported to the police than are those crimes that are successfully carried out. Expect such under-reporting to be much more acute in a city that prosecutes its residents even for acting in lawful self-defense.

Time to compare and contrast. Suppose the same events had occurred in California, as they do all the time. Suppose further that they occured in San Francisco, the only California city I'm aware of that has passed an ordinance analogous to Wilmette's. That ordinance provoked a recall (albeit an unsuccessful one) against now-Senator Dianne Feinschwein, and was ultimately struck down by the courts for violating the preemption law. So no charge there. FOID? We don't need no steenkin' FOID. All a law-abiding citizen needs to do is to pass an "I'm Not A Complete Moron" Test (which DeMar could easily pass even if Carpenter couldn't), and even that requirement applies only to purchases, not continued possession. In other words, DeMar would be in the clear, assuming the incident took place at all. As Angry has rightly noted, even that assumption is probably wrong, as Morio Billings's prior offenses would have earned him 25-to-llife under our tough three strikes law.

California gun owners owe a huge debt of gratitude to Illinois. It's one of very few states out there whose laws are so bad they allow us to feel good about ours.

Gov. Bob Taft tried to squirm his way off the hot seat on Thursday by signing a so-called compromise bill that will allow most Ohioans to carry concealed handguns. The legislation includes provisions giving journalists — and not many other people — a peek at which Ohioans will be permitted to hide pistols in purses and pockets just about wherever they go, including restaurants, office complexes, shopping centers and many other places.

Please note, however, that the lawmakers who saw nothing wrong with letting their fellow Ohioans take guns to Little League games and the grocery have decided that the Statehouse should remain gun-free. Government-owned buildings, houses of worship and airports are among the few places where the carrying of concealed weapons will be prohibited by law.

These legislators might as well have said, "Let's put more guns on the street, but don't let anyone bring them in here where we work."

Taft's wish to wash his hands of this bill is understandable, considering the pressure he has felt from members of his own party to sign it. Once again, Republicans have proved themselves highly capable of doing the bidding of the National Rifle Association and other gun lobbyists, as they look for deep-pocket sources of campaign financing. But in signing House Bill 12, Taft backed off his earlier, correct insistence on public access to the names, counties of residence and dates of birth of any Ohioans who secure permits to carry concealed guns.

But the bill he signed into law says that only journalists — as defined by state legislators — will have access to this information, and only after they show how the disclosure of the information "would be in the public interest."
[Emphasis added.]

The state’s definition of journalist appears to exclude not only average Joes but also many government workers and even many types of journalists, including those who work for government publications, academic journals and other media whose product is not disseminated to the general public.

By no means, then, does this law allow public access to information that ought to be open to public scrutiny. The names of Ohioans with hunting and fishing licenses are a matter of public record, but the names of concealed-carriers will not be.

Why the secrecy for the latter?

Because where such lists have been open to the public, researchers and others are able to see how well this law is being administered and whether felons and others who should be unable to obtain these permits are being screened out. And researchers also can find out whether all the rhetoric about these permitholders being law-abiding citizens who can prevent crimes has any basis in fact.

Unfortunately, what the researchers find might not put government workers and the legislators and the promoters of this law in the best light.

For example, in 2000, the Los Angeles Times ...

...found that during the first five years of Texas' [sic] law, 407 people who had criminal convictions were issued concealed-carry permits. Statistics in Texas, a concealed-carry state since 1995, also show that about two permit-holders per month are arrested as suspects in violent crimes, including homicide, kidnapping and rape. They are only a tiny percentage of the state's more than 200,000 permit-holders, but this public record gives weight to the argument that people allowed to carry concealed weapons aren't always law-abiding.

Ah, but these meaningless numbers must be out there! More importantly, the indivdidual identities, home addreses and phone numbers of the 199,473 Texans with CCWs who do not have criminal convictions and have not even been arrested. The public interest demands it!

Such statistics, obtained by examining public records of concealed-carry permit-holders, can be used in the fight to prevent, change or abolish concealed-carry laws. Clearly, this is what the gun lobby and their Statehouse supporters fear and is the reason for limiting access to these records.
[Emphasis added.]

Government that works in the open works best. And this principle is vastly more important and more worthy of defense than any issue in the concealed-carry debate. Open government is essential to a democracy.

Under House Bill 12, the task of monitoring how well this law is administered and how well it works has fallen to those newspapers and other media whose staffs meet the the law's definition of journalist. Newspapers will serve the public well if they publish the names and any other pertinent details that they can find about those Ohioans who receive concealedcarry permits.

Academic and public-policy researchers, unfortunately, will not have access to this information unless it is provided to them by the media.

Rep. James Aslanides, R-Coshocton, chief sponsor of this bill, dislikes the provision that leaves the media free to publish the names of permitholders. So he warned that if journalists went about this task in a way he perceived as abusive, "I can assure you that this legislator will try to convince other legislators to repeal this provision."

Just perhaps, if the public sees a different kind of abuse — abuse of the law by permit-holders and the county sheriffs running this program — Ohio voters might want to do a little repealing of their own via the ballot box.

The county sheriffs, entrusted to maintain the lists of information the media may have, should recognize that disclosing this information always will be in the public interest. The public has a right to know how well the concealed-carry law is working.

If allowed to do so, state officials would suppress all information that could reflect badly on themselves and the law.

[Snip.]

Proponents of this bill claim that concealed-carry laws reduce crime, but Ohio, which has banned concealed weapons for more than 140 years, continues to have significantly lower violent-crime rates than Texas and Florida, which have had such laws for a number of years now. CCW laws have a significant impact on violent crime in every state, which says a lot about the violent crime rate of State A with CCW vs. State A without. It says nothing about how the violent crime of one state will compare to that of another overall. Demographically, Ohio is nothing like Florida or Texas, so it should come as little surprise that Ohio, despite its recently repealed law prohibiting concealed carry, still has a lower crime rate than right-to-carry Florida or Texas. To the extent it makes sense to compare one state's crime rate to that of another - and it doesn't make much sense to do this - the least they can do is control for CCW by also comparing the violent crime rate of pre-1995 Ohio to pre-1995 Texas, when concealed carry was prohibited in both states (and, in Texas, was a felony, to boot). Or compare Ohio's violent crime rate to that of a demographically similar state, such as Indiana (which, incidentally, has also had concealed carry for much longer than Florida or Texas).

If more guns truly did bring less crime, as economist John R. Lott Jr., the darling of the gun lobby, has promised in several books and examinations of the issue, then states that allow concealed carry would be the safest in America.

If the press actually recognized any such right, we'd be reading about all kinds of stuff they keep mum about. To cite only one obvious example, where is the public's "right to know" who leaked the Valerie Plame scandal canard? The answer, of course, is there is no such right, and the press knows it. They also know that it's a lot easier to garner public sympathy by making demagogic references to "the public's right to know" rather than admitting that the only "right" they are really asserting is their own "right" to be the gatekeeper of all the news that's fit to print they want you to read.

Keeping the above disclaimer in mind, I do believe people have a moral, if not a legal, "right to know." So if the Dealer thinks the public has a "right to know" which Ohioans are obtaining licenses to use their Second Amendment rights responsibly, surely the same public has an even more important "right to know" which Ohioans are abusing their First Amendment rights without a license. Enter Keep and Bear Arms and SayUncle, who have urged gun-friendly bloggers to retaliate by:

publish[ing] the names, phone numbers and home addresses of every single person on staff at the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

Same goes for any other newspaper that singles out gun owners in this way.

KABA and SU are not encouraging bloggers to out the Dealer staff quite yet, as the Dealer has yet to publish any CCW holders' names. A few bloggers have already begun outing the Dealer folk, which SU considers to be jumping the gun. My view: there is no "starting gun" to jump here. Other papers have remained mum, but the Dealer has made it very clear what it intends to do. Until and unless they withdraw that threat, I see absolutely no reason why the good guys ought to wait around for the enemy to fire the first shot. If the good guys end up drawing first and last blood, so much the better. So for starters, here is the contact info for the Dealer's editor (note: ZIP Code 44108 is Bratenahl):

Douglas Clifton
19 Shoreby Dr.
Cleveland, OH 44108-1161
Tel.: (216) 761-6577

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1. California
2. Delaware
3. District of Columbia
4. Hawaii
5. Illinois
6. Iowa
7. Kansas
8. Maryland
9. Massachusetts
10. Nebraska
11. New Jersey
12. New York
13. Rhode Island
14. Wisconsin

All true. There isn't a single gun in existence, anywhere in the world, that I cannot legally purchase today but could legally purchase next year if the ban were allowed to expire. But never mind that, it's all about "principle," you see:

In another sense, however, the ban continues to extend the illegitimate reach of Congress into the realm of firearms -- a precedent which will be used by gun grabbers in the future to justify more bans.

Instead of worrying too much about "slippery" slopes that aren't, gun owners and freedom lovers should instead worry about the slopes that really are. The bans on "junk" (affordable) guns and "assault" (ugly-looking) weapons set a horrible precedent, which basically gives government carte blanche to ban anything it wants as long as it can think of a nasty name to call it by. Potentially, a horribly-worded ban on "plastic guns" could do that too, e.g., by extending to Glocks, which containplastic to make them lightweight, but which also contain plenty of steel to trip off a metal detector. But potential is not equivalent to actual. This ban does not cover Glocks, or any other weapon that has ever been invented by anybody. In fact, given the limitations of today's technology, it doesn't even ban any weapon that could be invented today. All it does is ban a prospective technology which, if perfected, would serve no purpose other than evade detection in airports, courthouses, and other high-security areas.

The sensible thing to do would be to tell your Senator to support S. 1774 and oppose just about every other gun-related bill that comes up for a vote. But sense means nothing, and principle everything, to the small, purist minds of the GOA. Here's what they recommend instead:

ACTION: Please urge your Senator to oppose S. 1774, and to instead support REAL efforts aimed at stopping terrorists -- such as arming the rest of the pilots who want to carry guns.

There is simply no other reason to oppose a ban on plastic guns which do not exist, probably never will exist, and in all likelihood should not exist, except maybe to use as a bargaining chip in the negotiation process. Educating the public about the foolishness of a bans on "assault" (ugly) weapons or "junk" (affordable) guns is a costly, time-consuming, and ultimately, vote-consuming endeavor, but a worthwhile effort, as well. Extolling the virtues of a nascent technology that would do nothing for law-abiding gun owners but plenty for terrorists, is not.

Anyway, Yahoo! is now reporting that membership on the "blacklist" has become a badge of honor among Hollywood elites. Or maybe only to one Hollywood elite; I'm not sure. The headline proudly announces that:

Americans Flock to Get on NRA Blacklist

I was particularly surprised by the omission given my opposition to the loophole that makes it legal for 18- to 20-year-olds to buy handguns at gun shows.

Also missing from the story is any detail as to how anyone other than the flock got added to the list over the years. That's too bad. I really would like to know what Peenus van Lesbian did to get added to the list.

UPDATE: The NRA maintains a good guys list as well. Adding your name is easy.

Out of the 30 questions, I identified six that required some substantive knowledge about the law which cannot be reduced to common sense. The other 24 were pretty obvious, as long as you understand that the State of Kalifornia thinks guns should always be "safely" stored where no one, including the owner, can access them in an emergency. A passing score is 23. Do the math.

Assuming no careless errors or misread questions, anyone with an average IQ and the amount of common sense (or enough intelligence to make up for below-average common sense, or vice versa), should get those 24 questions right, along with an expected 2 lucky guesses (based on two harder T/F questions and four harder mutilple choice ones), so the average non-idiot can be expected to score 26. Allowing the possibility than an examinee might just happen to know the minimum age of handgun purchase (21) or whether or not a private party can transfer a gun without a background check (he can't), a score of 27 or 28 is acceptable also. A score of 30, however, is not. That score indicates the examinee is either an attorney specializing in firearms law, or some boob like me who actually wasted $0.50 of his hard-earned dollars and at least 30 minutes of his precious time to buy the D.O.J. handbook and read it.

One side of me says this examination is a needless infringement on any citizen's right to bear arms. The other says anyone who can't pass this test should be prohibited not only from owning handguns, but also rifles, shotguns, slingshots, crossbows, hunting knives, steak knives, butter knives, salad forks, or just about anything else with a sharp point or edge. What say you?

Have you ever noticed how recently it was that Great Britain stopped being the darling of the gun control crowd, and started being Exhibit A in the case against gun control? I think it might have to do with the fact that the Brits, unlike their American counterparts, have no illusions that their laws accomplish nothing beyond making the world safe for criminals. I almost have to wonder if they would say "Amen, Brother" to a bumper sticker I saw at the local gun show last week, which read:

GUN CONTROL: The theory that a woman found dead in an alley, raped and strangled with her own panty hose is somehow morally superior to a woman explaining to police how her attacker got that fatal bullet wound.

Spoons has more.

In an ideal society, everyone would behave responsibly, so there would be no need to have rules restricting gun ownership.

In Britain, it was never particularly easy to get a gun unless you were a farmer or a retired military person, and these types tended to take good care of their weapons.

Meanwhile, Britain's crime has gotten worse rather than better. In less than a decade, Britain has gone from being the darling of gun control advocates, to being Exhibit A (or sometimes B, behind Australia) in the case against gun control. Indeed, demonstrating the futilility of even the most extreme gun control may be the one positive thing that Britain has accomplished by enacting these ever more draconian laws. Thanks to the Brits, American gun rights advocates can now argue "if it can't work on a small island with no history of widespread firearm ownership, how the devil is it supposed to work in a huge country with two long, porous borders and a 100 year supply of guns?"

Does this mean Britain is now more crime prone than Amerca? Probably not, although it does depend on which crimes you focus on. Unfortunately, the three types of crime Graham cites, murder, rape and serious assault, are not broken down according to whether or not a firearm was used, which is often not the case. I suspect that the vast majority of rapes do not involve firearms, so the fact that the U.S. has a higher rape rate than Britain suggests that something else is going on here, which would not be mitigated by tightening the gun laws here or aggravated by relaxing them there. It is clear that certain types of confrontational crimes - "hot" burglaries, for example - are far more common in countries that regulate firearms heavily than they are in those that do not.

Ultimately, the huge demographic differences between countries perclude international comparisons from being very usefulness in debates such as this one. Much more useful are comparisons within a single jurisdiction, before and after a significant change in the gun laws, after taking into account whatever gradual increases or decreases in crime were already underway. This is what John Lott and David Mustard did in 1996, when they determined that relaxed concealed carry laws in county after county, state and after state, resulted in a sharp decline in most categories of violent crime (coupled with a slight increase in certain categories of non-confrontational property crimes). On the flip side, I could be wrong but I think one would be hard pressed to fnid a British criminologist worth his salt who seriously believes that the 1997 handgun ban, or any other major change in British gun laws, resulted in any significant decrease in violent crime.

As a consequence, the vast majority of British criminals have always gone unarmed.

In the United States because of its unique history and the frontier phenomenon of the last century, there have always been a lot of guns in circulation and a large percentage of criminals have tended to be armed. It is reasonable for an American citizen to want to be armed because an American citizen is far more likely to have to confront an armed intruder than a British citizen.

The downside of having more lenient gun laws in Britain would be a civilian arms race: as guns became easier to acquire, more criminals would be armed, and then even more citizens would see a need to be armed also.

The disarmament argument is just as silly at the micro level as at the macro, and for the same reason. Of course rapists won't feel the "need" to carry a gun if they know their victims will have no chance of resisting them, but who in their right mind - other than the rapist himself, of course - can seriously argue that this is a good thing?

So I more-or-less support the status quo in both countries. If Americans disarmed, they would be at the mercy of armed criminals.

If British criminals became armed, the public would want to be armed too.

Not only that, but the British policeman would have to become an armed enforcer of the authority of the state (like an American policeman) instead of a friendly public servant (okay, we all know that there are some bad apples there too).

So why am I picking on Browning? Well, the owner of this pro-gun site contacted Browning in an attempt to negotiate an advertising arrangement. The following day, he received this email from a paralegal named Jeannine C. Dameworth:

You recently contacted Browning and requested our permission to link to our internet site through your site at www.guned.com. That request was denied by our webmaster, Brady Smith. Browning seldom grants requests for permission to link to our internet site. While we appreciate your request for permission, we would ask that you appreciate our denial of such request and remove all references to Browning on your internet site. In addition, you are not an authorized user of Browning's registered trademarks which appear on your site. Please confirm the removal by reply to this email within 10 days.

Browning seldom grants requests for permission to link to our site. Um, yeah. Somehow, I get the wild notion that Robert Scheer and Ruth Rosen have never granted Stefan Sharkansky "permission" to link to their respective columns, either, for reasons that will be obvious to anyone who reads his blog on a regular basis. So what? Does Browning really think it has to give people "permission" to link to their site, or are they just trying to position themselves to be the next company lampooned here? Maybe they figure that any publicity is good publicity; I don't know.

You are not authorized user of Browning's registered trademarks which appear on your site.

OK. I'm sure those guys suing Nike aren't authorized users of Nike's registered trademarks, either, but that doesn't mean Nike can make them stop calling them by their name. It's not as though GunEd was marketing firearms of its own under the name "Browning," or any other name likely to be confused with it. [Note: this is also why the cute joke about a guy trademarking the phrase "freedom of speech" isn't really all it's cracked up to be.]

Anyway, Mike W. Smith, the President of GunEd (also a trademark, but no, that doesn't mean I'm going to ask his permission to include the name here) wrote back to say the he would remove all links and references to Browning from his site, even though he had absolutely no legal obligation to do so. So how does that sweetheart of a paralegal, Jeannine C. Dameworth, thank him? With another nasty email, what else?

I am sorry you have chosen to be offended by my email requesting that you remove your link to Browning. Browning takes great pride in its name, products and trademarks. We rarely license the use of our name and trademarks and very rarely grant requests for links on websites. While we appreciate your support of Browning and we appreciate you removing the link to Browning, I would personally appreciate it if you would immediately remove my name and phone number from your website and also the names of Mr. Smith and Mr. Nelson.

Got that? It's not enough to claim a non-existent "right" to prevent people from linking to you or using your name in a non-trademark context. No, now Ms. Dameworth thinks she has a right to stop Mr. Smith from reporting facts at all!

What a maroon. Read the whole thing, if only for the comments.

Link via Gruntledness.

UPDATE/CLARIFICATION: Nothing against Browning's products. Mrs. Xrlq's engagement gun was a Browning model, and we have no complaints. Given the current silliness, however, I plan to take my business elsewhere next time around.

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It would be very tempting to fisk Ms. Price's article in its entirety - and I hope that someone will do that - but that's not what I'm going to do here. Instead, I'd like to focus on the bigger picture, which is the tendency of some to over-personalize political issues, as if to suggest that what's good for "me" must be good for society as a whole. Price's piece fixates on the murder of her brother by a deranged woman who purchased a handgun illegally, so she concludes that society as a whole would be better off if only cops and criminals were allowed to carry handguns, particularly handguns of calibers that are popular among women. In so doing, she completely misses the bigger points, such as inherent trade-offs involved with allowing a tool that is useful for both offense and defense, along with the fact that murders are rarely committed by women, or with handguns obtained through legitimate sources. Andrea Guerrero made substantially the same error on affirmative action: it worked for me, therefore, it must be a good thing overall. And I've heard the "me" argument used to prove every imaginable angle of the abortion debate. Here are a few gems (not verbatim, of course):

• Female version: I might want an abortion myself someday. Keep your laws off my body.
• Male version: I might go out and get some girl pregnant, and gawd I'd hate to pay child support. Keep your laws off my ... umm, I mean, her body.
• I might not want to pay for that abortion out of my own pocket, though, so for funding purposes, please keep your laws on my/her body.
• As a young woman, my mother almost got an illegal abortion that might have killed or maimed her. If you can't trust her with a choice, how can you trust her with a child?
• Oops, scratch that one. I almost forgot that it I was that child she very nearly aborted! In that case, it's a child, not a choice.
• On the one hand, I might want an abortion someday, but on the other, it's a damned good thing that I wasn't aborted. In that case, the proper position on abortion is ... [head explodes.]