Victim disarmament types are sick, sick people, who'd rather see a woman raped in an alley and strangled with her own pantyhose than see her with a gun in her hand.

I always said that in a country where a legislature, its sessions limited by statute, could alter reality by turning back the clock (I actually saw this done, once, with a long pole pushing on the hour hand), any travesty was possible. I see nothing lately to prove me wrong.

Government can only do two things: It can beat people up and kill them. Or it can threaten to do so. When it seems to be doing something else - for example, handing out money or, say, surplus cheese - what's actually going on is that something has been taken away from one set of individuals by deadly force or the threat of deadly force, a hefty middleman's fee deducted, and whatever is left thrown to peasants delighted to receive stolen goods.

What happened in America in the 1860s was a war of secession, a war of independence, no different in principle from what happened in America in the 1770s and 1780s.

As a novelist, I have a somewhat higher soapbox to stand on than most people do when it comes to talking back to the merchants of fear.

Those who sell their liberty for security are understandable, if pitiable, creatures. Those who sell the liberty of others for wealth, power, or even a moments respite deserve only the end of a rope.

Government is about stealing and nothing else. That's all it's ever been about. That's all it'll ever be about.