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Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2000 11:54:33 -0700
From: Lynford Theobald <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: Eagles of Ephraim <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
SNET <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: SNET: Guns
-> SNETNEWS Mailing List
Folks, I just received this from my friend Jim and thought you might be
interested. It would seems that those who want to take away our guns
have an agenda other than keeping up safe.
Lynn
Subject: Guns
I thought you might be interested in these facts:
www.gunowners.org
Mar 1999
FIREARMS FACT-SHEET
(1999)
by Gun Owners Foundation
8001 Forbes Place, Suite 102
Springfield, VA 22151
Self-defense
A. Guns save more lives than they take; prevent more injuries than they
inflict
* Law-abiding citizens use guns to defend themselves against criminals
as many as 2.5 million times
every year -- or about 6,850 times a day.1 This means that each year,
firearms are used more than 60
times more often to protect the lives of honest citizens than to take
lives.2
* Of the 2.5 million self-defense cases, as many as 200,000 are by women
defending themselves against
sexual abuse.3
* Citizens shoot and kill at least twice as many criminals as police do
every year (1,527 to 606).4 And
readers of Newsweek learned in 1993 that "only 2 percent of civilian
shootings involved an innocent
person mistakenly identified as a criminal. The "error rate" for the
police, however, was 11 percent,
more than five times as high."5
* Of the 2.5 million times citizens use their guns to defend themselves
every year, the overwhelming
majority merely brandish their gun or fire a warning shot to scare off
their attackers. Less than 8% of
the time, a citizen will kill or wound his/her attacker.6
* Handguns are the weapon of choice for self-defense. Citizens use
handguns to protect themselves over
1.9 million times a year.7 Many of these self-defense handguns could be
labeled as "Saturday Night
Specials."
B. Concealed carry laws help reduce crime
* One-half million self-defense uses. Every year, as many as one-half
million citizens
defend themselves with a firearm away from home.8
* Florida. In the ten years following the passage of Florida's concealed
carry law in 1987, there
were 478,248 people who received permits to carry firearms.9 FBI reports
show that the homicide rate in
Florida, which in 1987 was much higher than the national average, fell
39% during that 10-year period.
The Florida rate is now far below the national average.10
* Do firearms carry laws result in chaos? No. Consider the case of
Florida. A citizen in
the Sunshine State is almost twice as likely to be attacked by an
alligator than to be assaulted by a
concealed carry holder. During the first ten years that the Florida law
was in effect, alligator attacks
outpaced the number of crimes committed by carry holders by a 146 to 88
margin.11
* Nationwide. A comprehensive national study determined in 1996 that
violent crime fell after
states made it legal to carry concealed firearms. The results of the
study showed:
* States which passed concealed carry laws reduced their murder
rate by 8.5%, rapes by
5%, aggravated assaults by 7% and robbery by 3%;12 and
* If those states not having concealed carry laws had adopted such
laws in 1992, then
approximately 1,570 murders, 4,177 rapes, 60,000 aggravated
assaults and over 11,000
robberies would have been avoided yearly.13
* Concealed Carry v. Waiting Period Laws. In 1976, both Georgia and
Wisconsin
tried two different approaches to fighting crime. Georgia enacted
legislation making it easier for
citizens to carry guns for self-defense, while Wisconsin passed a law
requiring a 48 hour waiting period
before the purchase of a handgun. What resulted during the ensuing
years? Georgia's law served as a
deterrent to criminals and helped drop its homicide rate by 21 percent.
Wisconsin's murder rate,
however, rose 33 percent during the same period.14
C. Criminals avoid armed citizens
* Kennesaw, GA. In 1982, this suburb of Atlanta passed a law requiring
heads of households to
keep at least one firearm in the house. The residential burglary rate
subsequently dropped 89% in
Kennesaw, compared to the modest 10.4% drop in Georgia as a whole.15
* Ten years later (1991), the residential burglary rate in Kennesaw was
still 72% lower than it had
been in 1981, before the law was passed.16
* Nationwide. Statistical comparisons with other countries show that
burglars in the United
States are far less apt to enter an occupied home than their foreign
counterparts who live in countries
where fewer civilians own firearms. Consider the following rates showing
how often a homeowner is
present when a burglar strikes:
* Homeowner occupancy rate in the gun control countries of Great
Britain, Canada and
Netherlands: 45% (average of the three countries); and,
* Homeowner occupancy rate in the United States: 12.7%.17
Rapes averted when women carry or use firearms for protection
* Orlando, FL. In 1966-67, the media highly publicized a safety
course which
taught Orlando women how to use guns. The result: Orlando's rape
rate dropped 88% in
1967, whereas the rape rate remained constant in the rest of
Florida and the nation.18
* Nationwide. In 1979, the Carter Justice Department found that of
more than
32,000 attempted rapes, 32% were actually committed. But when a
woman was armed
with a gun or knife, only 3% of the attempted rapes were actually
successful.19
Justice Department study:
* 3/5 of felons polled agreed that "a criminal is not going to mess
around with a victim he
knows is armed with a gun."20
* 74% of felons polled agreed that "one reason burglars avoid
houses when people are at
home is that they fear being shot during the crime."21
* 57% of felons polled agreed that "criminals are more worried
about meeting an armed
victim than they are about running into the police."22
D. Police cannot protect -- and are not required to protect -- every
individual
* The courts have consistently ruled that the police do not have an
obligation to protect individuals, only
the public in general. For example, in Warren v. D.C. the court stated
"courts have without exception
concluded that when a municipality or other governmental entity
undertakes to furnish police services,
it assumes a duty only to the public at large and not to individual
members of the community."23
* Former Florida Attorney General Jim Smith told Florida legislators
that police responded to only
about 200,000 of 700,000 calls for help to Dade County authorities.
Smith was asked why so many
citizens in Dade County were buying guns and he said, "They damn well
better, they've got to protect
themselves."24
* The Department of Justice found that in 1989, there were 168,881
crimes of violence which were not
responded to by police within 1 hour.25
* Currently, there are about 150,000 police officers on duty at any one
time to protect a population of
more than 250 million Americans -- or almost 1,700 citizens per
officer.26
Failure of Gun Control
A. Poor track record
* Washington, D.C. has, perhaps, the most restrictive gun control laws
in the country, and yet it has one
of the highest murder rates in the nation.
* Objection: Critics claim criminals merely get their guns in Virginia
where the laws are more
relaxed. This, they argue, is why the D.C. gun ban is not working.
* Answer: Perhaps criminals do get their guns in Virginia, but this
overlooks one point: If the
availability of guns in Virginia is the root of D.C.'s problems, why
does Virginia not have the same
murder and crime rate as the District? Virginia is awash in guns and yet
the murder rate is much, much
lower. This holds true even for Virginia's urban areas. The murder rates
are:
City
1997 Murder rate
Washington, DC
56.9 per 100,00027
Arlington, VA
1.6 per 100,00028
(Arlington is just across the river from D.C.)
Total VA metropolitan area
7.9 per 100,00029
* Guns are not the problem. On the contrary, lax criminal penalties and
laws that disarm the law-abiding
are responsible for giving criminals a safer working environment.
B. Criminologists turning from anti-gun position
* Dr. Gary Kleck. A criminologist at Florida State University, Kleck
began his research as a
firm believer in gun control. But in a speech delivered to the National
Research Council, he said while
he was once "a believer in the 'anti-gun' thesis," he has now moved
"beyond even the skeptic position."
Dr. Kleck now says the evidence "indicates that general gun availability
does not measurably increase
rates of homicide, suicide, robbery, assault, rape, or burglary in the
U.S."30
* James Wright. Formerly a gun control advocate, Wright received a grant
from President
Carter's Justice Department to study the effectiveness of gun control
laws. To his surprise, he found
that waiting periods, background checks, and all other gun control laws
were not effective in reducing
violent crime.31
* Wright says at one time, "It seemed evident to me, we needed to mount
a campaign to resolve the crisis
of handgun proliferation." But he says, "I am now of the opinion that a
compelling case for 'stricter gun
control' cannot be made."32
* Every scholar who has "switched" has moved away from the anti-gun
position. Dave Kopel, an expert in constitutional issues and firearms
research, categorically states
that, "Every scholar who has 'switched' has 'switched' to the side that
is skeptical of controls. Indeed,
most of the prominent academic voices who are gun control skeptics --
including law professor Sanford
Levinson and criminologists Gary Kleck and James Wright -- are people
who, when they began studying
guns, were supporters of the gun control agenda."33
* Kopel continues: "I do not know of a single scholar who has published
a pro-control article who started
out as a skeptic of gun control. This suggests how heavily the weight of
the evidence is distributed, once
people begin studying the evidence."34
Problems with waiting periods and background checks
A. Waiting periods threaten the safety of people in imminent danger
* Bonnie Elmasri-- She inquired about getting a gun to protect herself
from a husband who had
repeatedly threatened to kill her. She was told there was a 48 hour
waiting period to buy a handgun. But
unfortunately, Bonnie was never able to pick up a gun. She and her two
sons were killed the next day by
an abusive husband of whom the police were well aware.35
* Marine Cpl. Rayna Ross -- she bought a gun (in a non-waiting period
state) and used it to
kill an attacker in self-defense two days later.36 Had a 5-day waiting
period been in effect, Ms. Ross
would have been defenseless against the man who was stalking her.
* Los Angeles riots -- USA Today reported that many of the people
rushing to gun stores during
the 1992 riots were "lifelong gun-control advocates, running to buy an
item they thought they'd never
need." Ironically, they were outraged to discover they had to wait 15
days to buy a gun for self-defense.37
B. Background checks do not disarm the violent criminal population
* A Justice Department survey of felons showed that 93% of handgun
predators had obtained their most
recent guns "off-the-record."38
* Press reports show that the few criminals who get their guns from
retail outlets can easily get fake
IDs or use surrogate buyers, known as "straw purchasers," to buy their
guns.39
C. Prior restraints on rights are unconstitutional
1. Second Amendment protects an individual right
Report by the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution
(1982)-- "The conclusion is thus inescapable that the history,
concept, and wording of
the second amendment to the Constitution of the United States, as
well as its
interpretation by every major commentator and court in the first
half-century after its
ratification, indicates that what is protected is an individual
right of a private citizen to
own and carry firearms in a peaceful manner."40
Supreme Court admits "the people" in the Second
Amendment are the same "people" as in the rest of the Bill of
Rights -- In U.S. v. Verdugo- Urquidez the Court stated that "'the
people" seems to
have been a term of art employed in select parts of the
Constitution. . . . [and] it suggests
that "the people" protected by the Fourth Amendment, and by the
First and Second
Amendments, and to whom rights and powers are reserved in the Ninth
and Tenth
Amendments, refers to a class of persons who are part of a national
community or who
have otherwise developed sufficient connection with this country to
be considered part of
that community."41
2. Courts agree that rights should be free from prior restraints
Near v. Minnesota -- In this case, the Supreme Court stated that
government
officials should punish the abuse of a right and not place prior
restraints on the exercise
of the right.42
What about yelling "Fire" in a crowded theater? -- The courts have
stated that one cannot use his "freedom of speech" to yell "Fire"
in a crowded theater.
And yet, no one argues that officials should gag everyone who goes
into the theater, thus
placing a prior restraint on movie-goers. The proper response is to
punish the person
who does yell "Fire." Likewise, citizens should not be "gagged"
before exercising their
Second Amendment rights, rather they should be punished if they
abuse that right.
D. Background checks can (and do) lead to gun registration
* Justice Department report (1989). "Any system that requires a criminal
history record
check prior to purchase of a firearm creates the potential for the
automated tracking of individuals who
seek to purchase firearms."43
* Justice Department initiates registration (1994). The Justice
Department gave a
grant to the city of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University to create
a sophisticated national gun
registry using data compiled from states' background check programs.
This attempt at registration was
subsequently defeated in the courts.44
* More gun owner registration (1996). A new computer software
distributed by the
Justice Department allows police officials to easily (and unlawfully)
register the names and addresses of
gun buyers. This software -- known as FIST -- also keeps information
such as the type of gun purchased,
the make, model and caliber, the date of purchase, etc.45 The instant
background check could be a key
component in registering this information in the computer software.46
* Federal Bureau of Investigation registers gun owners (1998). Despite
prohibitions in federal law, the FBI announced that it would begin
keeping gun buyer's names for six
months. FBI had originally wanted to keep the names for 18 months, but
reduced the time period after
groups like Gun Owners of America strongly challenged the legality of
their actions. GOA submitted a
formal protest to the FBI, calling their attempt at registration both
"unlawful" and "unconstitutional."47
* California. State officials have used the state background check --
required during the waiting
period -- to compile an illegal registry of handgun owners. These lists
have been compiled without any
statutory authority to do so.48
* Nationwide. Highly acclaimed civil rights attorney, researcher and
author, David Kopel, has
noted several states where either registration lists have been illegally
compiled from background
checks or where such registration lists have been abused by officials.49
E. The Brady registration law is NOT working
General Accounting Office Study:
1. The Brady Law has failed to result in the incarceration of dangerous
criminals. After the first year and a half, there were only seven
successful prosecutions for making
false statements on Brady handgun purchase forms -- and only three of
them were actually
incarcerated.50 With only three criminals sent to jail, one can hardly
argue that the law is working to
keep violent criminals from getting handguns on the street.
2. The Brady Law has ERRONEOUSLY denied firearms to thousands of
applicants. Over fifty percent of denials under the Brady Law are for
administrative snafus, traffic
violations, or reasons other than felony convictions.51
3. Gun control advocates admit the Brady Law is not a panacea. According
to a January, 1996 report by the General Accounting Office, "Proponents
[of gun control] acknowledge
that criminal records checks alone will not prevent felons from
obtaining firearms."52
4. Criminals can easily evade the background checks by using straw
purchasers: "Opponents of gun control note that criminals can easily
circumvent the law by
purchasing handguns on the secondary market or by having friends or
spouses without a criminal
record make the purchases from dealers."53
Problems with gun registration and licensing
A. Licensing or registration can lead to confiscation of firearms
* Step One: Registration. In the mid-1960's officials in New York City
began registering
long guns. They promised they would never use such lists to take away
firearms from honest citizens.
But in 1991, the city banned (and soon began confiscating) many of those
very guns.54
* Step Two: Confiscation. In 1992, a New York City paper reported that,
"Police raided the
home of a Staten Island man who refused to comply with the city's tough
ban on assault weapons, and
seized an arsenal of firearms. . . . Spot checks are planned [for other
homes]."55
* Registration and Confiscation in California. The Golden State passed a
ban on
certain semi-automatic firearms in 1989. Banned guns could be legally
possessed if they were
registered prior to the ban. In the Spring of 1995, one man who wished
to move to California asked the
Attorney General whether his SKS Sporter rifle would be legal in the
state. The citizen was assured the
rifle was legal, and based on that information, he subsequently moved
into the state. But in 1998,
California officials reversed course and confiscated the firearm.56
* Foreign Countries. Gun registration has led to confiscation in several
countries, including
Greece, Ireland, Jamaica and Bermuda.57 And in an exhaustive study on
this subject, Jews for the
Preservation of Firearms Ownership has researched and translated several
gun control laws from
foreign countries. Their publication, Lethal Laws: "Gun Control" is the
Key to Genocide documents
how gun control (and confiscation) has preceded the slaughter and
genocide of millions of people in
Turkey, the Soviet Union, Germany, China, Cambodia and others.58
B. People in imminent danger can die waiting for a firearms license
* In 1983, Igor Hutorsky was murdered by two burglars who broke into his
Brooklyn furniture store.
The tragedy is that some time before the murder his business partner had
applied for permission to keep
a handgun at the store. Even four months after the murder, the former
partner had still not heard from
the police about the status of his gun permit.59
Dr. Robert H. Moss
www.ibscity.com/cwbs
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