-Caveat Lector- <<This echoes an email post by the Libertarians I sent along a couple of months ago. Hamblin references the Libs so I guess it's about the same thing. Bottom line: Parental Involvement. A<>E<>R >> >>>Begin article <<< Via NEWSMAX.COM The Unpopular Truth About Kids and Guns Ken Hamblin September 30, 1999 Years of experience have taught me that no one is better at pulling the wool over the eyes of the American people than the ``ethical, objective'' journalists of the mainstream media. Challenge your typical city editor, television assignment editor or newspaper publisher with that contention, however, and I can assure you that he or she will passionately deny it. I realize it's no light accusation to charge that the fourth estate and the electronic-media clique manage our news on behalf of their own political agendas. I also am quite aware that in doing so I am assailing a group that holds itself in august esteem and very much wants others to share that view. But day after day I see examples of bias in the direction of the media corps' admittedly generally liberal leanings _ bias sometimes expressed in deliberate distortions but, just as often and potentially just as dangerously, in errors of omission. Take, for instance, the matter of a recent study by the United States Department of Justice, which not long ago was brought to my attention by a listener to my syndicated talk-radio show. Conducted from 1993 to 1995 by the department's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, this study was undertaken in an attempt to determine the relationship between ``problem behaviors'' such as drug abuse, teenage pregnancy, crime and the expanding occurrence of violent criminal behavior among our youth. Child psychologists conversed with and tracked the lives of 4,000 boys and girls between the ages of 6 and 15 in Pittsburgh, Denver and Rochester, N.Y. What they learned apparently wasn't what the media's town criers against firearms wanted to hear _ or, at any rate, that seems the most likely reason that, to the best of my knowledge, the study never was reported on the nightly television news or in most big-city newspapers. Nevertheless, the government's conclusions are striking. Children who get guns from their parents are no more likely to commit any kind of street crime than are those children who have no gun in the house, the study revealed. And children who acquire an illegal gun are about five times more likely to commit street crimes than are kids who get guns from their parents. In short, children who get guns from their parents are not the ones who commit gun crimes, according to this study. It's children who get guns illegally who are most likely to commit such crimes. Moreover, children who obtain illegal guns are almost four times more likely to use drugs than are children whose parents have given them guns. ``Boys who own legal firearms have much lower rates of delinquency and drug use,'' the study added, ``and are even slightly less delinquent than non-owners of guns.'' Why haven't we all heard this hard data? Why isn't the whole country talking about this clear evidence that guns and children are not in and of themselves at the root of society's problem with kids using guns to commit crimes? Clearly the politicians _ with the aid of their like-minded friends in the media _ don't want to hear about evidence that counters their campaign to undermine, compromise and ultimately abolish our Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. And, needless to say, they don't want you to hear about it, either. >From time to time I've spoken with Steve Desbach, the national director of the Libertarian Party, on my radio show. He agrees that this survey and others like it speak for themselves. ``The evidence is in,'' he says. ``The simplest way to reduce firearm-related violence among children is to buy them a gun and teach them how to use it responsibly. When it comes to preventing youthful violence, the Second Amendment apparently works better than the so-called solutions being proposed by politicians.'' For myself, I find this study fascinating, and convincing. If the media wanted to try to interpret its results differently, I'd be prepared to listen _ but to simply ignore it strikes me as the worst kind of irresponsibility. To my brethren in the media, I can say only this: It's your right as free men and women to oppose the ownership of firearms and, yes, even to campaign against the ownership of guns. But to deliberately stick your head in the sand concerning the statistics about violence among children with guns undercuts any evidence you can raise to support your arguments. When you ignore contrary evidence, what you do ceases to be reporting _ it becomes propaganda, pure and simple. And I'm sure that bright, intelligent men and women such as yourselves realize that, in resorting to propaganda, you're following in the well-worn footsteps of despots and bigots who, like yourselves, felt that what they personally believed counted for more than the facts. c.1999 Ken Hamblin Ken Hamblin is the author of “Pick a Better Country.” He writes a column for the Denver Post and has been a radio talk-show host for 15 years. His program is syndicated by American View Inc., and currently is carried by 120 stationsacross the country. >>>End article <<< A<>E<>R ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + "Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your common sense." --Buddha + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + A merely fallen enemy may rise again, but the reconciled one is truly vanquished. -Johann Christoph Schiller, German Writer (1759-1805) + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly. -Bertrand Russell + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + "Everyone has the right...to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." 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