Commentary Archives - Backwoods Home Magazine

If you want to take care of your health, you have to take control...

By Dave Duffy Issue #100 • July/August, 2006 The other day a man called the office to thank me for writing Issue 98's page 7 editorial, in which I urged readers to get a stress test...

Guns, suicide prevention, and backwoods lifestyles

By Massad Ayoob Issue #153 • May/June, 2015 Note to readers: I've served for going on twenty years as firearms editor of Backwoods Home Magazine. The following article is going to be somewhat different from what...

Next time you see me, don’t be afraid to say, ‘Hello.’

By John Silveira January 29, 2000 Mom and Dad were divorced before I even turned four, so it didn't dawn on me they'd even been married until I was a lot older. But, as I grew...

The attack on Colin Powell prompts questions I’m not supposed to ask

By Dave Duffy Issue #79 • January/February, 2003 What's wrong with black Americans? Provocative question, isn't it, especially when it's being asked by a white guy like me. We white guys aren't supposed to question what blacks...

The current ‘Gun control’ push — A cop’s eye view

By Massad Ayoob Issue #142 • July/August, 2013 First, a word of explanation. The reason "gun control" is in quotes in the title and in this sentence is because, for a very long time, the prohibitionists...

Things kids should learn before leaving high school, but don’t

By John Silveira Issue #159 • May/June, 2016 We send generations of American children to school hoping we're preparing them for adulthood. Among the least of our expectations are that they're going to be able to...

Perspectives on the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin shooting

By Massad Ayoob Issue #143 • September/October, 2013 The media told us a self-appointed neighborhood watch captain and wannabe cop with gun-derived courage was on patrol when he profiled a young child because he was black...

How to achieve affordable health care

By John Silveira Issue #120 • November/December, 2009 Despite all the hubbub about health care, the United States can have affordable health care tomorrow if we want it. There have been real solutions available, solutions that...

Analyzing Obama on guns

By Massad Ayoob Issue #158 • March/April, 2016 In early January, 2016, after announcing his "executive actions on guns" and talking on CNN's "Town Hall Meeting," President Barack Obama admitted that when he and his wife...

Looking back on 20 years of BHM

By Dave Duffy Issue #120 • November/December, 2009 I was freezing when I slipped into my old down-filled Army sleeping bag. But I was used to the drill. I'd just lay there motionless as a mummy...

The rationale of the automatic rifle

By Massad Ayoob Issue #70 • July/August, 2001 There are those who would ban private citizens' ownership of semiautomatic rifles. After 27 years of carrying a badge, the author profoundly disagrees. If there is any place you...

Introducing the international tax cartel

By Dave Duffy February 13, 2001 Democrats on Capitol Hill aren't the only ones who don't like President Bush's $1.6 trillion tax cut plan. A group of Western European nations think they should have global veto...

How do you save freedom in America?

By Dave Duffy Issue #116 • March/April, 2009 Following is part of a letter I received from Ron Dugan of Nanty Glo, Pennsylvania: "What is it that we can do to stop the loss of freedom in...

If you don’t like it here, why don’t you move to another country?

By John Silveira Issue #99 • May/June, 2006 That's a question I've been confronted with, more than once, when I've complained about the PATRIOT Act, the RICO Act, creeping gun control, the empowerment of the bureaucracy,...

The Government gorilla in our home

By Dave Duffy Issue #101 • September/October, 2006 The other week, Vince, a contractor who does occasional work for me, was arrested for slapping his 14-year-old daughter on the behind when she talked back to her...

Justice Breyer is wrong about the 2nd Amendment

By John Silveira Issue #128 • March/April, 2011 December 12, 2010, on Fox News Sunday, Justice Stephen Breyer said the Founding Fathers never intended for guns to go unregulated. His reasoning was that James Madison, often...