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The ostensible purpose of gun control legislation is to reduce firearm deaths and injuries. But if policymakers are truly interested in harm reduction, they should pause to consider how many crimes are thwarted each year by ordinary persons with guns. A new paper from Clayton E. Cramer and David Burnett uses a collection of news reports of self-defense with guns over an eight-year period to survey the circumstances and outcomes of defensive gun uses in America. The authors conclude that the vast majority of gun owners are ethical and competent, and tens of thousands of crimes are prevented each year by ordinary citizens with guns.
On the heels of a Congressional Budget Office study concluding that federal employee compensation is 16 percent higher than that of similar private-sector workers, the U.S. House voted Wednesday to freeze federal pay. Just on Monday, Cato scholar Chris Edwards had argued, "Congress should freeze or cut federal wages and then start overhauling federal benefits to reduce costs. To deal with today's large budget deficits, we need to restrain all areas of spending, and so it is reasonable to cut federal pay packages and better align them with private-sector practices."
President Obama on Wednesday unveiled a plan to jump-start the flagging housing market by making it easier for homeowners to refinance their mortgages. Cato scholar Mark A. Calabria has argued that these proposals will do nothing to turn around either the housing market or the broader economy. "In fact," says Calabria, "by continuing his trend of confusing redistribution of wealth with its creation, the effort will likely hurt both the economy and the housing market."
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