One year on...

The so-called "Assault Weapons Ban" was allowed to expire one year ago.

Gun control groups prophesied unprecedented carnage.

This week the Department of Justice released its crime figures for 2004.

The violent crime rate went down.

The reported rate is the lowest since the DoJ began tracking crime in the early 1970's.

When crime rates go up, gun control advocates shriek that, "It's the guns, stupid".

When crime rates go down, they credit stricter gun control laws.

Unfortunately for these people, but fortunately for the citizenry, gun control laws have been getting less strict, not more, over the past fifteen years.

Reasonable people would conclude that gun control - and by extension, guns themselves, have very little to do with crime rates.

Gun control advocates, however, are not reasonable people.

Gun control advocates think with their hearts, not their brains.

They care, damnit! And, if you disagree with them, it's obvious (to them at any rate) that you don't care and want people to die.

I expect gun control advocates to step up their shrill hysterics in order to drown out - and divert attention away from - the clear recitation of facts that so completely undercuts their position.