Republican and Conservative political analysis and commentary

Fred writes:

One of the things that's got to be going through a lot of peoples' minds now is how one man with two handguns, that he had to reload time and time again, could go from classroom to classroom on the Virginia Tech campus without being stopped. Much of the answer can be found in policies put in place by the university itself.

Virginia, like 39 other states, allows citizens with training and legal permits to carry concealed weapons. That means that Virginians regularly sit in movie theaters and eat in restaurants among armed citizens. They walk, joke and rub shoulders everyday with people who responsibly carry firearms -- and are far safer than they would be in San Francisco, Oakland, Detroit, Chicago, New York City, or Washington, D.C., where such permits are difficult or impossible to obtain.

The statistics are clear. Communities that recognize and grant Second Amendment rights to responsible adults have a significantly lower incidence of violent crime than those that do not. More to the point, incarcerated criminals tell criminologists that they consider local gun laws when they decide what sort of crime they will commit, and where they will do so.

Still, there are a lot of people who are just offended by the notion that people can carry guns around. They view everybody, or at least many of us, as potential murderers prevented only by the lack of a convenient weapon. Virginia Tech administrators overrode Virginia state law and threatened to expel or fire anybody who brings a weapon onto campus.

Read the whole thing.

And now, on to the rest of today's Daily Fred...

...Ramesh Ponnuru at National Review says, "There are a few issues where Thompson has parted company from most conservatives. One of them is tort reform." But, says Ponnuru, Thompson as a Senator did not vote against all tort reform legislation, though when he did, "in most of these cases, he objected to the reform on federalist grounds. For example, he voted against a federal reform of medical malpractice law, arguing that states should enact any needed reforms."

Opposing tort reform at the federal level on federalist grounds means believing the tort reform should be handled at the state level. It is a defensibly conservative position.

...The National Ledger has an interesting take on why conservatives think Fred Thompson is the right guy for 2008.

Conservative voters are seeking a dying breed Republican and they think Thompson is that man. Not because he is some career politician who has never wavered from staunchly conservative positions, but because he’s not. They like Thompson for knowing who he is and what he believes. He can articulate why he believes and sees no need to apologize for believing. He’s one of us…

Thompson’s first test of leadership will be to see how he emerges from high-level backroom talks with RNC power-brokers anxious to move him towards their way of thinking before supporting his nomination. If he emerges with his principles intact, setting congressional Republicans on the road to their conservative roots, instead of allowing them to lead him astray - he will be seen as exactly the kind of conservative leader the base had hoped to draft.

If not, he had better not turn in his resignation to Law and Order just yet...

Read the whole thing. Fred's strength is like Ronald Reagan's biggest political asset: you knew what he stood for and you had no doubt he would seek to lead based on those believes and principles. You can't say that about Rudy Giuliani, who is modifying his liberal social views to try to attract conservative Republican voters. You can't say it about Mitt Romney, thanks to the YouTube videos of his various flip-flops over the years. And you can't say it about John McCain, mistrusted by conservatives because he seems willing to sell them out on occasion.

...and finally, I bet the National Restaurant Association's Restaurant Hotel-Motel Show in Chicago in mid-May gets more media coverage for their convention keynote speaker - Fred Thompson - than they've ever had for a speaker before.