We’ve reported that Nevada’s Question 1, a ballot initiative aimed at expanding background checks, would only affect legal gun owners, while doing nothing to reduce violent crime. 

As it turns out, this isn’t just an opinion held by the measure’s detractors. During a news conference on Tuesday, one of the main proponents of Question 1 admitted—while discussing his support of the measure, no less—that it had no chance of eliminating illegal gun purchases: 

“I can go out on the street today and buy all sorts of things on the black market. …  I’m not suggesting this market will go away because of Question 1. This law simply says to people (trying to buy guns illegally) ‘We know you’re out there. We’re going to give you that one more hurdle to jump over,” Rick McCann, executive director of the Nevada Association of Public Safety Officers, said. 

While it’s disturbing that he continues to back a measure he admits won’t work, the real question is this: If criminals are going to obtain their firearms from the black market regardless, who’s really going to be jumping over these new hurdles?

We’ve mentioned before how a piece of paper often isn’t enough to protect women from those who wish to do them harm. Fortunately for one Tennessee woman, she owned a gun to back up the restraining order issued to her husband.

According to the Weakley County Sheriff’s Department, Lee Ann Delauter was attacked by her husband on Sunday, despite her having a restraining order against him. Deputies told WPSCLocal6 that the man, who had assaulted her before, broke into the home, assaulted Delauter with a knife and shot at her more than once.

Delauter then took matters into her own hands, shooting and killing her attacker. It was yet another reminder that a piece of paper is not a good substitute for actually owning the means with which to protect yourself when the chips are down.

Kathleen Kane once worked for the 2008 Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, so it wasn’t surprising when she received an endorsement from former President Bill Clinton during her run for Pennsylvania attorney general. Because she was so staunchly anti-gun—having received an “F” rating from the NRA Political Victory Fund—she also soon became a favorite of Michael Bloomberg, who chipped in more than a half-million dollars to her campaign as well.

Once elected, she wasted no time in severing Pennsylvania’s concealed-carry reciprocity with a number of states. She also added her name to the list of AGs opposing federal Right-to-Carry laws. 

But today, instead of fighting to infringe our constitutional freedoms, Kane is concerned only with her own freedom. She has been convicted of illegally leaking grand jury records and lying about it—the felony perjury charges could have netted her up to 24 years in prison. Instead, on Monday, Kane was sentenced to 10-23 months in prison.

In a sanctimonious, feel-good empty gesture, the New York Police Department will begin wasting yet more tax money—after squandering hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars on gun “buybacks” already—to melt those firearms down, ABC7NY.com reports.

“It gets melted down, and the metal is recycled,” said Department Chief Carlos Gomez said. "Each firearm, to me, represents a potential victim."

Here’s why Gomez’s stance is so ridiculous. All departments that sell guns—and many throughout the nation have such programs—do so only after an FBI background check on the prospective buyer. Consequently, only law-abiding Americans can purchase the guns. Either Chief Gomez is too dense to understand that simple fact, or he simply doesn’t trust law-abiding citizens with firearms any more than he trusts violent criminals.

In what could be a clear case of “the punishment befitting the crime,” a sex offender in New Jersey was shot in the groin during an attempted robbery last week.

It started in a Garfield tobacco shop just after 7 p.m., when Louis Pizzi walked in wearing a mask under a hoodie while brandishing a handgun and demanding cash. The shop owner refused, and began a struggle before pulling his own gun and shooting Pizzi in the groin. As the perpetrator fled the scene with the shop owner close behind, both men ran directly into a nearby police patrol. 

Pizzi was taken to a hospital and arrested for armed robbery and several weapons charges, which included possessing a firearm as a felon. Turns out Pizzi is a registered sex offender, having already served six years for the aggravated sexual assault of two young girls he was babysitting.