Freedom Book of the Month for January, 2002:

Death by Gun Control
by Aaron Zelman and Richard W. Stevens, Mazel Freedom Press 2001, paperback, 338 pp., $12.95

The body of literature on "gun control" (more accurately described as "victim disarmament") is vast, ranging from popular explications of academic studies (John Lott's More Guns, Less Crime) to fast-paced novels (Unintended Consequences by John Ross). Nonetheless, there is always room for another book on gun rights and their real meaning and import, and Death by Gun Control: The Human Cost of Victim Disarmament is first-rate work from an organization -- Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership -- which concentrates its attention on the role of victim disarmament in enabling state murder.

"Not every firearms regulation leads inexorably to genocide," says James Bovard in his introduction to Death by Gun Control. "But, as this sweeping historical study shows, supposedly 'reasonable measures' ... have been followed too many times in recent history by government atrocities."

Zelman and Stevens evoke, in all its gruesome detail, the process by which a disarmed population finds itself first enslaved, then subjected to mass murder. "The Genocide Formula" is examined as applied in Cambodia, Germany, China, Guatemala, Rwanda, Turkey and other countries -- including the United States in the eras of slavery and Reconstruction.

Drawing on the work of Rudy J. Rummel, keeper of statistics on "democide" (death by government), the authors attempt to cope with the pile of corpses -- 169 million innocents dead at the hands of their own rulers in the 20th century -- resulting from the human instinct of trust for government. They demonstrate the undeniable link between lack of respect for the right of self-defense and lack of respect for the right to live.

"Zelman and Stevens prove beyond any doubt that gun control is a necessary precondition for genocide," says the Independence Institute's David Kopel.

Capping the book's explication of the horrors of gun control is an examination of religious teachings relating to self-defense. Jews and Christians who believe that their religions imply a righteous purpose to victim disarmament are in for an eye-opening rebuttal.

Death by Gun Control is only one of many books which dispel the notion of the efficacy of victim disarmament as a means of saving lives. But it may be the best such book to share with your friends who don't "get it." Unlike certain other gun organizations, JPFO doesn't mess around with useless defenses of "sporting arms" or acquiescence in "reasonable measures." The line in the sand is drawn against any infringement of the human right to keep and bear arms, and the case that Zelman and Stevens make is both irrefutable and guaranteed to elicit a second look from any open mind.

Order Death by Gun Control from Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership -- $16.95 postpaid.

The Mitzvah (with with L. Neil Smith), Freedom Book of the Month, July 1999:

Hope (with L. Neil Smith), Freedom Book of the Month, August 2001:

December 2001: The American Zone by L. Neil Smith.

November 2001: Ayn Rand and Business by Donna Greiner and Theodore Kinni.

October 2001: Junk Science Judo by Steven J. Milloy.

September 2001: Jonathan Gullible by Ken Schoolland.

August 2001: Hope by L. Neil Smith and Aaron Zelman

July 2001: Dissenting Electorate edited by Wendy McElroy and Carl Watner

June 2001: Tethered Citizens by Sheldon Richman

May 2001: Lever Action by L. Neil Smith

April 2001: The Cato Handbook for Congressfrom the Cato Institute

March 2001: The Contested Legacy of Ayn Rand by David Kelley

February 2001: Crypto by Steven Levy

January 2001: Total Freedom by Chris Matthew Sciabarra

Freedom Book of the Year 2000: Forge of the Elders by L. Neil Smith

December 2000: The Mystery of Capital by Hernando de Soto

November 2000: Escape from Leviathan by J.C. Lester

October 2000: The Art of Political War by David Horowitz

September 2000: An Enemy of the State by Justin Raimondo

August 2000: The Triumph of Liberty by Jim Powell

July 2000: A Generation Divided by Rebecca Klatch

June 2000: Law's Order by David Friedman

May 2000: Forge of the Elders by L. Neil Smith

April 2000: Reciprocia by Richard G. Rieben

March 2000: The Art of Fiction: A Guide for Writers and Readers by Ayn Rand

February 2000: Addiction is a Choice by Jeffrey A. Schaler

January 2000: Revolutionary Language by David C. Calderwood

Special December 1999 Feature: The Freedom Book of the Year: Send in the Waco Killers: Essays on the Freedom Movement, 1993-1998 by Vin Suprynowicz

November 1999: Conquests and Cultures by Thomas Sowell

October 1999: A Way To Be Free by Robert LeFevre, edited by Wendy McElroy

September 1999: Assassins (Left Behind) by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins

August 1999: Don't Shoot the Bastards (Yet): 101 More Ways to Salvage Freedom by Claire Wolfe

July 1999: The Mitzvah by L. Neil Smith and Aaron Zelman

June 1999: The Incredible Bread Machine by R.W. Grant

May 1999: Send in the Waco Killers by Vin Suprynowicz

April 1999: It Still Begins with Ayn Rand by Jerome Tuccille

March 1999: The Dictionary of Free-Market Economics by Fred Foldvary

February 1999: Feminist Interpretations of Ayn Rand edited by Mimi Reisel Gladstein and Chris Matthew Sciabarra