Michigan's Pro-Gun Attorney General

Yes, Mike Cox is surprisingly gun-friendly. Even more surprising, a newspaper employee is not totally anti-gun. Nolan Finley, editorial page editor of The Detroit News, had this to write:

While prosecutors aren't often the best friends of the Second Amendment, Cox joined the challenge to the D.C. gun ban along with a dozen other states for two reasons: It's unconstitutional, and it doesn't work.

Washington's gun law might have been written by the Taliban. It forbids any private handguns within the city limits. No exceptions.
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The strictest gun law in the nation is worshipped by anti-gun activists. The Distrist of Columbia defended the constitutionality of the law by arguing the Second Amendment confers the right of gun ownership to the state and not to the citizens.
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Cox concurs that the words "the people" mean just that: the people.

He hopes the U.S. Supreme Court will take up the case and knock out for good the sinister idea that only state militias have the constitutional right to keep and bear arms.

But it's not just the twisting of the Constitution that interested Cox in this case. He's moved from a pro-gun control prosecutor to an advocate for the rights of gun owners for one reason because he's seen firsthand that more gun laws don't result in less gun crime.

"In my almost 14 years as a line prosecutor, I never saw anyone charged with a gun crime who had a concealed carry permit," Cox says. "Most people who are law-abiding and want to possess guns for hunting or self-defense are no threat to others."

While the D.C. case parsed constitutional language, the most compelling argument, Cox says, is that it doesn't work.

"Gun violence in Washington was not impacted by the ban," Cox says. "Compared to other states, Washington actually did a little worse in gun crimes."

Law-abiding gun owners should salute Cox and keep their trigger fingers crossed that the Supreme Court will at last end this assault on their basic rights.