China vs. U.S. in the Human Rights department

China has issued a scathing rebuttal to the U.S.-issued "Country Reports on Human Rights Practices" for 2005. I won't pretend to have read it all, but one or two specific things did jump out at me.

Interesting that the authors are shooting to make the point that the U.S. is an egregious violator of its citizens' human rights, but then cite the government's inability to reduce "the unchecked spread of guns" in attempting to show that the government does not provide safety to its citizens. So in the authors' view, the U.S. must restrict one or more human rights (property ownership, self-defense) in order to attempt to provide a higher level of something that's only arguably a human right (to not be murdered by other private citizens). Nice.

In making their point, the authors actually cite the Brady Campaign as a source. The fact that China, that paragon of individual liberty, agrees with the gun control crowd should be a wake-up call to the gun-grabbers in this country - too bad it won't be.

I do like how in their zeal to show how bad the murder rate is in the U.S. they point out how many murders there were in D.C. and Chicago, only to leave out the fact that it's in the very places where the murder rate is highest that handguns have been completely prohibited (not to mention concealed-carry)! So much for the anti-self-defense crowd's assurances that with less guns will come less violence.

To end on a high note, a new scientific study has been published showing that there is in fact no causal link between the availability of guns and the homicide rate.