Our old friends at The New York Times editorialized April 4, in a little billet doux they called “Guns for Terrorists,” as follows:

“If a background check shows that you are an undocumented immigrant, federal law bars you from buying a gun. If the same check shows that you have ties to Al Qaeda, you are free to buy an AK-47. That is the absurd state of the nation’s gun laws, and a recent government report revealed that terrorist suspects are taking advantage of it. ...

“The Government Accountability Office examined F.B.I. and state background checks for gun sales during a five-month period last year. It found 44 checks in which the prospective buyer turned up on a government terrorist watch list. A few of these prospective buyers were denied guns for other disqualifying factors, like a felony conviction or illegal immigration status. But 35 of the 44 people on the watch lists were able to buy guns. ...

“The F.B.I. director, Robert Mueller III, has announced that he is forming a study group to review gun sales to terror suspects. ... We hope this group will take a strong stand in favor of changes in the law to deny guns to terror suspects.

“In the meantime, Senator Lautenberg (D-N.J.) is pushing for important reforms. He has asked the Justice Department to consider making presence on a terrorist watch list a disqualifying factor for gun purchases. And he wants to force gun sellers to keep better records. Under a recent law, records of gun purchases must be destroyed after 24 hours, eliminating important information for law enforcement. Senator Lautenberg wants to require that these records be kept for at least 10 years for buyers on terrorist watch lists.

“Keeping terror suspects from buying guns seems like an issue the entire nation can rally around. But the National Rifle Association is, as usual, fighting even the most reasonable regulation of gun purchases. After the G.A.O. report came out, Wayne LaPierre, the N.R.A.’s executive vice president, took to the airwaves to reiterate his group’s commitment to ensuring that every citizen has access to guns, and to cast doubt on the reliability of terrorist watch lists.

“Unfortunately, the N.R.A. -- rather than the national interest -- is too often the driving force on gun policy in Congress, particularly since last November’s election. Even after the G.A.O.’s disturbing revelations, the Senate has continued its work on a dangerous bill to insulate manufacturers and sellers from liability when guns harm people. If it passes, as seems increasingly likely, it will remove any fear a seller might have of being held legally responsible if he provides a gun used in a terrorist attack.”

Thus endeth today’s reading from the Gospel of Times Square.

As usual, the glassy-eyed pigeon-dodgers leave us with a target-rich environment. Where to begin?

1) Not only can those whose names show up on some “terrorist watch list” (like Carlos Garcia, the superintendent of the Clark County School District here in Las Vegas, who keeps telling them it must be some other “Carlos Garcia”) not buy AK47s in this country, hardly anyone can.

The reason Mikhail Kalashnikov’s invention is called an “assault weapon” -- and is so popular in the movies -- is that it has a “selective-fire” switch, which allows it to discharge multiple rounds on full-auto with one trigger-pull (that being what the “A” stands for.)

That makes it a “Class 3” weapon. If you could find a legally “transferable” example (they can neither be manufactured here, nor imported, so good luck) it would cost you many thousands of dollars, and involve getting the written permission of your local police chief; submitting your fingerprints to the feds; and a de facto six-month wait.

You’re telling me that wouldn’t give the FBI an adequate chance to notice the buyer is Osama bin Laden’s chauffeur?

So clearly that’s not the firearm the Timesmen are referring to. Rather, they refer to newer, semi-automatic variants that look and function much like the AK, but fire only one round per trigger-pull. (If you want accuracy and effectiveness beyond 200 yards, you’d be better off with an M-1 Garand. But the Timesmen probably couldn’t tell either one from a lemon-squeezer.)

2) Far from “fighting even the most reasonable regulation of gun purchases,” the NRA has embraced the Brady Law with its background checks and waiting periods, all of which happen to be thoroughly unconstitutional. The idea, I assume, was to demonstrate that gun owners can be “reasonable.” Gee, that worked out well.

3) Mr. LaPierre, no matter how inconveniently for the Times, is correct. The right to keep and bear arms accrues to all residents, regardless of age, sex, religion, etc. If people are terrorists, they should be in prison.

What does it mean to say “Keeping terror suspects from buying guns seems like an issue the entire nation can rally around”? What ever happened to the idea that you had to be convicted of (or, at the very least, arrested for and charged with) some specific crime to have your rights suspended? By the Timesmen’s own logic, they themselves could be disqualified from exercising the freedom of the press (found in the same documents as the right of all the people to keep and bear any arm, anytime, anywhere) if the White House merely placed the Times on a “sedition & treason watch list.”

In our now-standard exercise, let us replace the Second Amendment with the First, in the Times off-the-cuff assertion that “majority makes right”:

“Keeping those who are placed on lists because they are suspected by the federal government of being seditious traitors, political dissidents, or social non-conformists setting bad examples for children, from owning and publishing newspapers, writing letters to the editor, founding or attending churches of their choice, speaking out in public, or gathering together to hold political meetings, seems like an issue the entire nation can rally around.”

Would the Times be happy to endorse such a position? How does this differ in principle from what they have actually written? Surely there have been various times in our nation’s history when a panicked, temporary majority might have agreed with such a proposition, if the dissidents and “suspects” and “people who need watching” had been identified as blacks, anarchist Italians, Japanese-Americans ... or even Arab-Americans. Would this make it right?

Remember, all we’ve done is substituted the God-given rights guaranteed by the First Amendment, for those guaranteed by the Second.

4) and as for the “dangerous bill to insulate manufacturers and sellers from liability when guns harm people,” note the clever phrasing, designed to make it sound as though we’re talking about faulty products that blow up and harm the user. But I and most gun owners would agree we should still be able to sue a manufacturer for that.

That’s not what’s at issue here, at all. The law in question specifically still allows bona fide "faulty product"claims.

If the hoplophobes want a special law to put gun manufacturers out of business when criminals commit crimes with their products, will they also undertake to drive General Motors into bankruptcy, by authorizing liability lawsuits against that company every time a drunk driver kills someone with a Chevrolet?

Unlike the editors of the Times, I would not selectively restrict the press freedom of these “suspected fascists” just because they’re on some “list,” compiled by unaccountable bureaucrats with no obligation to due process.

But I can certainly condemn them for using one constitutional freedom to lobby for the suspension of others, when to lose one is to eventually lose them all.

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Occasionally people complain I “don’t like cops.”

I don’t think it’s too subtle a distinction to say I have friends who are cops or retired cops; I admire and respect those who are willing to put themselves at risk to protect the innocent. At the same time, I’m wary and suspicious of government taking on unconstitutional powers, and there’s no getting around the fact that the “point men” in our currently burgeoning “May I see your papers please; I’m going to feel your crotch now” police state are often ... well, police, who are too often willing to trample any right, so long as “the courts have said it’s OK.”

But when a cop does something right, I guess I ought to say so.

Given my rather high profile, I decided long ago to cave on the principle that we shouldn’t allow a God-given right to be converted into a “conditional privilege,” and apply for a state “permit” to carry a concealed weapon in Nevada.

This spring, I went down to the Metropolitan Police Department fingerprint office, here in Las Vegas, and get my permit renewed.

Fingerprinting is digital now; much less messy. The sheriff admits they’re re-fingerprinting us all to help build up a digital database which they share with the federals, which I don’t much like.

But what really got me scowling was the gal who took my pictures -- four of them, front and profile, with and without my eyeglasses.

“You only use one on the permit,” I pointed out. “What are the others for?”

I’m told I can be a little intimidating; I got the usual “just doing our job.”

Not wanting to see the young lady cry, I instead drove to my office and fired off a letter to Clark County Sheriff Bill Young, asking why we law-abiding Nevada gun owners were being posed for mug shots like a bunch of criminals.

Sheriff Young called me a couple of weeks later. “I got your letter, Vin, and I think you’re right,” he said. “We’ll let people know they have the option of only having the front photo taken that’s required by law.”

I appreciated that. Thought I’d say so. (Yes, we endorsed him.)