A reader has alerted me to the definitive A.E. van Vogt web page Meanwhile, a different reader notes that
A.E. — who, by the way, died just four years ago — would probably have
been right at home on The Corner: “In van Vogt’s book _The Weapon Shops of
Isher_, a group of freedom fighters was operating a series of secret shops
to sell weapons to private citizens against the wishes of the government in
charge of the society. The slogan of the weapon shops was ‘The right to own
weapons is the right to be free!’”