-Caveat Lector-
Subject: Gun Facts Pamphlet
The following fact sheet is designed to be easily formatted for
pamphlet form, on 8-1/2x14 legal-size stock (I use Goldenrod or
Yellow). It can be folded in half, and then in half, again, to
provide a neat 2-sided, 4-paneled pamphlet.
Print this out for friends, family, and your elected officials,
and let them know the facts about gun-owners and their firearms,
NOT just hysterical propaganda!
You can insert your own club or organization's name at the
bottom, in place of the information about LAGR shown below. If
you send an SASE to me at LAGR's PO Box, I will send back a
"master" copy printed out on white legal-size paper, with a blank
space in place of LAGR's contact information, so that you can
insert your own group's contact information.
PAUL GALLANT
=============================================================
GUNS IN AMERICA: THE FACTS
...what the media WON'T tell you!!
Preventing law-abiding citizens from carrying firearms for
self-defense does not end violent crime - it just makes victims
more vulnerable! Society benefits from ordinary people who accept
the responsibilities of firearm ownership - not from gun-control
laws. Here's why:
SELF-DEFENSE & CRIME
* In 1990, a convicted felon could expect to serve the following
prison time: 1.8 years for murder, 60 days for rape, 23 days for
robbery, 6.7 days for arson, and 6.4 days for aggravated assault.
According to a U.S. Justice Department survey in 17 states, of
felony offenders placed on probation in 1986, 43% were
re-arrested on other felony charges within 3 years of their
release. (1)
* Passage of the Brady Law in 1994 has NOT been accompanied by a
statistically significant decline in murder or robbery. It has
been associated with significant increases in rape and aggravated
assaults, presumably from the increased difficulty encountered by
law-abiding citizens in obtaining firearms for self-defense. (2)
* In 1987, Florida's concealed-carry law went from "may-issue"
to "shall-issue" (also known as "Right-To-Carry", or RTC). This
meant that issuing authorities must provide a concealed-carry
handgun license to all qualified applicants. Other states
followed suit, and modeled their own RTC laws after Florida's.
On 4/7/98 (the latest date such figures were available),
Florida's Dept of Law Enforcement announced that the state's
murder rate had dropped, again, in 1997, just as it had in each
of the 5 previous years. The additional drop marked the lowest
murder rate experienced by "Dodge City East" since 1933. (3)
* In 1982, Kennesaw GA (pop. 17,000) passed a law requiring heads
of households to keep at least one firearm in their home,
exempting those with criminal records or religious objections.
Seven months after it took effect, the residential burglary rate
dropped 89%, vs. 10.4% statewide. Since 1982, only 2 murders
have occurred (1984 and 1989), both committed with knives. (4)
* Allowing citizens to carry concealed handguns reduces violent
crime. The reduction corresponds very closely to the number of
concealed-handgun licenses issued. On average, murder rates in
states banning concealed-carry are 127% higher than in states
having the most liberal carry laws. A 1% increase in firearm
ownership reduces violent crime by 4.1%. Large, densely
populated urban areas benefit the most from concealed-carry laws.
(5)
* Ordinary, law-abiding Americans use guns defensively 2.5
million times, or more, each year. About 75% of these instances
are with handguns. That translates to rapes prevented, injuries
avoided, medical costs saved, and property protected. (6)
* Firearms provide the safest and most effective means of
resisting violent criminal attack. For robbery and assault,
resistance by defenders armed with a gun leads to termination of
the incident with the smallest chance of injury to the victim. In
U.S. gov't studies, victims resisting robbery with a gun were
injured 17.4% of the time. Those who did nothing at all were
injured 24.7% of the time. Those who used non-violent resistance,
like trying to run away, were injured 35.9% of the time. Those
who resisted with a knife were injured 40.3% of the time. For
assault, injury rates were 12.1%, 27.3%, 25.5%, and 29.5%,
respectively. While 17.4% of those who resisted robbery with a
gun were injured overall, this includes victims who were first
injured before they used their guns; less than 6% of robbery
victims were injured after using a gun to resist. (7)
* Women who carry concealed handguns provide a greater margin of
safety for other women. While murder rates decline when either
more men or more women carry concealed handguns, the drop is even
greater among women than among men. Rapists are particularly
susceptible to the deterrence of a potentially armed woman. (5)
* Increased incidents of "road rage" from allowing more citizens
to carry guns have not materialized. In the 31 states where it is
currently legal for citizens to carry a concealed handgun, there
have been no documented instances of such acts by armed
law-abiding citizens. (2)
* Armed defenders lose their guns to an attacker less than 1% of
the time. (7)
* The net value of private firearm ownership - the dollar
savings from defensive gun use, minus the costs of "gun-violence"
- has been estimated at up to $38.9 billion, annually. (8)
* So-called "assault weapons" are military look-alike
semi-automatic firearms, and are exactly the same as guns which
have been around for over 100 years -only their looks have
changed. Semi-automatic firearms do not "spray" bullets, and are
not machine guns - they require a separate pull of the trigger
for each shot to be fired, just like a revolver - and are used in
3% or less of all firearm-related crimes. They are the most
modern tools the law-abiding citizen can use for self-defense and
protection of home and family. They are especially valuable for
physically handicapped victims. (9)
* In 1856, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that local
law-enforcement had no duty to protect individuals, but only a
general duty to enforce the laws. (10) In 1982, the U.S. Court
of Appeals held that "there is no Constitutional right to be
protected by the state against criminals or madmen. The
Constitution does not require Federal or State government to
provide services, even so elementary a service as maintaining law
and order."(11)
* In Great Britain, handguns are outlawed, and possession of long
guns is severely restricted. Yet, despite strict gun-control, as
of 1995, rates for robbery, assault, burglary, and motor vehicle
theft in England and Wales had surpassed those here in the
States. On average, for all 4 crimes, English rates were double
U.S. rates. (12)
MASS SHOOTINGS & "GUN-FREE" SCHOOL ZONES
* Deaths and injuries from mass public shootings (like Jonesboro
AR, and Littleton CO) fall dramatically after RTC
concealed-handgun laws are enacted. Where data was available
both before and after passage of such laws, the average death
rate from mass shootings plummeted by up to 91% after such laws
took effect, and injuries dropped by over 80%! (2,13)
* Armed with a hunting rifle, 16-year-old Luke Woodham killed his
ex-girlfriend and her close friend, then wounded 7 other
students, in 1997 at a high school in Pearl, Mississippi.
Assistant Principal Joel Myrick retrieved a handgun from his car,
and interrupted Woodham's shooting spree, holding him at bay
until police arrived. Earlier that morning, Woodham had stabbed
his mother to death. (14)
A similar script played out in 1998 in Edinboro,
Pennsylvania, when local merchant James Strand used his shotgun
to "coax" 14-year old Andrew Wurst into dropping his gun, and
surrendering to police. Wurst had just killed one teacher,
wounded another and two classmates. (14)
* "...the recent rash of public school shootings...raise[s]
questions about the unintentional consequences of laws. The five
public school shootings [which occurred during the 1997-98 school
year] took place after a 1995 federal law banned guns (including
permitted concealed handguns) within a thousand feet of a school.
The possibility exists that attempts to outlaw guns from schools,
no matter how well meaning, may have produced perverse effects.
It is interesting to note that during the 1977 to 1995 period [of
our study], 15 shootings took place in schools in states without
right-to-carry laws and only one took place in a state with this
type of law. There were 19 deaths and 97 injuries in states
without the law, while there was one death and two injuries in
states with the law." (13)
* A July 1993 U.S. Department of Justice study found that "boys
who own legal firearms...have much lower rates of delinquency and
drug use [than those who obtained them illegally] and are even
slightly less delinquent than nonowners of guns." It concluded
that, "for legal gunowners, socialization appears to take place
in the family; for illegal gunowners, it appears to take place
'on the street' ". (15)
ACCIDENTS & SUICIDES
* In 1994, fatal firearms accidents dropped 11% from 1993
figures, to the lowest annual number since record-keeping began
in 1903. They dropped even lower by almost 7% in 1995. Motor
vehicle accidents, falls, fires, drownings, poisonings,
suffocation, and other accidents all accounted for more deaths
than did firearm accidents. Among children aged 0-14 years,
there were 185 fatal firearms accidents, vs. 500 per year in the
mid-1970s. (16)
* In 1993, there were 1,334 drownings and 528 firearm-related
accidental deaths from ages 0-19. While firearms outnumber pools
by a factor of over 30:1, the risk of drowning in a pool is
nearly 100 times higher than from a firearm-related accident.
>From ages 0-5, the risk of drowning skyrockets to 500 times the
risk from a gun! (16,17)
* "Trigger-lock" laws don't equal safety. While California has
such a law on the books, it saw a 12% increase in fatal firearm
accidents in 1994. Texas doesn't have one, and experienced a 28%
decrease, instead. (16) "Trigger-locks" do, however, render guns
inaccessible for self-defense.
* Accident and suicide rates are unaffected by the passage of
Right-To-Carry concealed handgun laws. (2)
* Suicide rates fluctuate independently of gun control laws and
gun ownership. Banning guns will not affect the suicide rate -
other equally deadly implements would only be substituted in
their place. (18)
THE U.S. CONSTITUTION
* The scholarship on the 2nd Amendment overwhelmingly agrees that
it protects an individual right to keep and bear arms, and not
simply the right to arm the "militia". (19) In 1982, the
Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution evaluated the historical
record, and unanimously came to the same conclusion. (20)
===========================================================
REFERENCES
1. Reynolds M, Caruth W; "Myths About Gun Control"; National Ctr for Policy
Analysis,
1992
2. Lott J; "More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun-Control Laws";
University of Chicago; 1998
3. Florida Department of State documents 4. "Kennesaw Update"; The New
American,
6/10/96
5. Lott J, Mustard D; "Crime, Deterrence, and Right-to-Carry Concealed
Handguns";
Journal of Legal Studies; Vol 26(1); Jan 97
6. Kleck G, Gertz M; "Nature of Self-Defense with a Gun"; Journal of Criminal
Law and
Criminology; Vol 86#1, Fall 1995
7. Kleck G; Targeting Guns: Firearms and Their Control; Aldine de Gruyter; NY
1997
8. National Center for Policy Analysis, March 1999
9. Suter E; "Assault-Weapons" Revisited - An Analysis of the AMA
Report;Journal of
the Medical Association of Georgia, May 1994
10. South v. Maryland, 59 US (HOW) 396, 15 L.Ed.433(1856)
11. Bowers v. DeVito, US Court of Appeals, 7th Circuit 686F.2d 616 (1982)
12."Crime and Justice in the United States and England and Wales, 1981-1996";
U.S.
Bureau of Justice Statistics; October 1998
13. Lott J, Landes W; "Multiple Victim Public Shootings, Bombings, and
Right-to-Carry
Concealed Handgun Laws: Contrasting Private and Public Law Enforcement";
University
of Chicago,Working Paper #73, 1999
14."How to Stop Mass Public Shootings"; Lott J; The L.A. Times 3/25/98
15. U.S. Department of Justice
16. National Center for Health Statistics
17. National Spa and Pool Institute
18. Suter E; "Guns in the Medical Literature: A Failure of Peer Review";
Journal of the
Medical Association of Georgia, Mar 1994
19. Reynolds H, Kates D; "The Second Amendment and States' Rights: A Thought
Experiment"; William & Mary Law Review; Vol 36 #5,8/955
20. Senate Subcommittee of the Commission of the Judiciary on The
Constitution, 97th
Congress, 1992
===========================================================
FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT: The Committee for Law-Abiding
Gun-Owners, Rockland [LAGR] Paul Gallant, O.D., Chairman PO Box
354 Thiells, NY 10984-0354 914-354-9090 914-354-9091 Fax E-Mail:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 05/99
******************
Why do liberals trust the bad guys to be good and expect the law-
abiding to be bad?
******************
Firearms, self-defense, and other information, with LINKS are
available at: http://shell.rmi.net/~davisda Latest additions are
found in the group NEW with alerts under the heading ALERTS.
Previous E-mail message are being archived.
********************
thomasW429
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Copy this posting into a word-processor, format it, then make
MANY copies to give out at any and all public events.
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==============================================================
On the front line of the information war.
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GUN OWNERS OF AMERICA: http://www.gunowners.org/
Purchase a surplus M1 Garand rifle: http://www.odcmp.com/
ALL-PURPOSE AMMO: http://www.dragonsbreath.com/
(mostly shotgun specialty ammo - FLECHETTE, FLAME-THROWER, ARMOR-PIERCING,
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CASCADE AMMO: http://www.cascade-ammo.com/index.html
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BUSHMASTER: M-16 type rifles of MILSPEC quality (they sell to the military)
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GUN TESTS magazine rated the BUSHMASTER XM-15 more accurate than
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MILITIA - THAT MEANS YOU! http://www.nidlink.com/~bobhard/mom.html
BILLINGS ASSAULT MILITIA: http://www.angelfire.com/mt/shootin/
============================================================
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