Third, and most worrisome, hate crimes laws are an unreliable deterrent against anyone so consumed with venom as to attack another for his sexuality, race, religion or sex. If such statutes magically shielded at-risk minorities from violence, they would be worthwhile. Alas, they are no defense at all. In this sense, Matthew Shepard, James Byrd and Yankel Rosenbaum sadly demonstrate something too often true. People don't save people.
Guns save people.
New York commentator Deroy Murdock is a columnist with the Scripps Howard News Service and a Senior Fellow with the Atlas Economic Research Foundation in Fairfax, Virginia.