This is a work in progress so while reading, please make note of any mistakes and report them to me. I am particularly interested in more detailed (verifiable) sources for the quotes that don't have them (and also for the statistics which I don't cite references to). Also, some of the text and/or quotes may be in the "wrong" place and would fit better in another argument. I will take all advice under serious consideration but unfortunately, I will not have room to give proper credit for each contributor (so be aware that your help will be virtually anonymous). gregg (g.) woodcock ================================================================================ HOW TO WIN DEBATES WITH HOPLOPHOBES; A SYSTEMATIC REFUTATION OF GUN CONTROL ARGUMENTS (the best of Usenet "pro-gun" discussions) version 1.6 (3-30-94) by Gregg E. Woodcock This article is copyright worldwide (c) 1994 by Gregg E. Woodcock. PURPOSE: This is an in depth refutation of every gun control argument I have ever heard or could think of. The format of this article is that a numbered paragraph with a left margin of 7 spaces is the illogical gun control argument. All proceeding text up to the next double spaced line is the systematic refutation of that argument. Since all properly gathered and analyzed data about gun control shows that it is useless and since gun-grabbers have no problem ignoring facts that contradict their "theories", this document takes the philisophical approach (because the experimental/statistical approach is irrefutable and pointless to aruge) and only uses numbers and data when absolutely neccessary to make the point. I would suggest that wherever you see the words "gun control" you should substitute the words "people control" or "subject disarming" since the 3 are equivalents. I chose the sugar coated term since it is the most widely used. I am proposing that this be the unofficial "pro-gun" FAQ. WARNING: The pithy tone of this article is deliberate but it is meant to be provocative *not* offensive. Nonetheless, I fully expect the frequent use of arrogant satirical analogy to offend a non-trivial number of readers. I apologize in advance if this somewhat derisive style offends you (that's more than you get from Rush :). I also apologize for the USA centered arguments but international readers should easily be able to remove these parts and still have a suitable domestic argument. COPYRIGHT/CREDITS: I have gleaned a lot of the information included herein from electronic articles posted on Usenet (the Internet "bulletin board" news service). The ideas are roughly 20% mine and 80% Usnetter's. The exact wording is more like 90% mine (although the rephrasing is admittedly minor in many cases). I do not claim that any arguments I make are original (although most are new to me) in any sense; they are far too obvious for them not to have been used previously by someone else. It would be impossible (and unnecessary) to credit everyone whose thoughts I borrowed and modified so I will simply give credit to "the Usenet Community" and leave it at that. DISTRIBUTION INFORMATION: Reprint permission is conditionally granted to everyone. For publications, the conditions are that (1) I am to be notified before the article is printed, (2) both I and Usenet (or Internet) must be credited, and (3) I must be sent a copy of the publication in which this article appears (customary free-lance compensation would be appreciated, too, but is not required). Obviously, publishers/editors will need (and are granted) the right to edit the text; I ask only that it be clearly indicated that the text was abridged or altered (no specifics). Personal (private) use and distribution is unconditional as long as the ENTIRE text is included (additions are acceptable provided they are clearly marked as such). Fair use applies for all; it is OK, to pull small sections of appropriate text out to be used in your arguments with gun grabbers without wasting your time by crediting the source. ================================================================================ TABLE OF CONTENTS: 0 Important parts of the U.S. Constitution (Preamble, 1st & 2nd Amendments) 1 Quickie one-liners 1.1 "Without gun, you can't have a drive-by shooting" 1.2 "You can't have a drive-by stabbing" 1.3 "If there were no guns, there would be no gun deaths" 2 Why "What is wrong with..." is a bad argument 3 Gun control won't reduce crime or save lives 4 Why waiting periods are bad 5 The danger of the waiting period precedent (what politicians REALLY want) 6 Why registration/licensing is bad 7 Why competency testing/training is bad 8 Why FFL price hikes are bad 9 Why ammo taxes are bad 10 Why "buy-back" programs are bad 11 Why expanding ("evil baby/cop/tank killer") ammo bans are bad 12 Why banning large capacity magazines is bad 13 Why banning gun shows is bad 14 Why "assault weapons" bans are bad 15 Why gun bans are bad (even if "for our own good") 16 The Constitutional argument 16.1 Militia = every individual citizen 16.2 Preamble responsibilities do not mandate violations of civil liberties 16.3 Comparisons of the 1st and 2nd Amendments... 16.3.1 Freedom of Assembly 16.3.2 Freedom of Religion 16.3.3 Freedom of Speech 16.3.4 Freedom of the Press 16.3.5 1st Amendment can "kill", too 17 Why advanced technology ("Founding Fathers couldn't know...") doesn't matter 18 The self-defense argument 18.1 Guns in the case of a robbery 18.2 Self-protection vs. police protection 18.3 Guns vs. other self-protection methods 18.4 Why CCW (concealed carry of weapons) is good 19 Why prior restraint ("a banned gun can't be stolen and used in crime") is bad 20 Why we don't need more laws for things that are already crimes 21 Armed citizens vs. the government 21.1 Light arms vs. the heavy weaponry of a big government (government loses) 21.2 Why an armed populace keeps a government "honest" 21.3 Totalitarianism can happen ANYWHERE 22 Gun control doesn't work in other countries either (guns compared with drugs) 23 Countering emotionally charged anecdotes about psychos (LIRR, Luby's, etc.) 24 The "43:1" myth 25 The "America is dangerous (more so than the home countries of tourists)" myth 26 What you can do to protect your right to keep and bear arms 27 Gery Kleck's survey results ================================================================================ 0 Important parts of the U.S. Constitution "We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessing of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish the Constitution of the United States of America." -- Preamble to the United States Constitution "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." -- The First Amendment to the United States Constitution "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." -- The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, proposed September 25, 1789; ratified December 15, 1791 ================================================================================ 1.1 Without gun, you can't have a drive-by shooting. Without a car, you can't have a drive-by shooting. 1.2 You can't have a drive-by stabbing. You can't have a tricycle-by shooting (and have a good chance of getting away with it). Perhaps it is not the gun that facilitates the crime but the ease and probability of safe escape. Do we ban cars to prevent this? 1.3 If there were no guns, there would be no gun deaths. If there were no germs, there would be no disease. If there was no gravity, there would be no deaths or injuries due to falls. 2 What is wrong with the argument, "what is wrong with "? It is poor public policy to create laws and then try to justify them by asking what is wrong with them. We should *always* ask, "what is right with this law?" If a law does not help solve a problem then there is no point in passing it. If the law causes other problems or harms law-abiding citizens then it is immoral on top of that. It is no more constructive for legislators to panic in a public crisis than it is for an individual to panic in a personal crisis. You should never react to a situation merely because you feel that *something* must be done or because horrible things are happening. Even if you could prove that an immoral law would actually be effective (keep in mind for the moment that all evidence points to the fact that gun control laws neither reduce crime nor save lives), the State would be horribly wrong to use this as an excuse to infringe on the rights of its populace. It is also wrong to do something just because "everyone else is doing it" or because it is "popular" or because it "might" help; you don't let your kids use that excuse, do you? If your reaction doesn't help make the situation better then it is more appropriate that you do nothing at all; at least that won't make the situation worse. People must remember that government is a necessary evil but it is EVIL nonetheless. It is the nature of government to grow in size and oppression even when the people "in control" have good intentions. There is no situation so horrible that government involvement and legislation cannot make it worse. "The reason that legislatures tend to do nothing is that they faithfully reflect what a majority of their constituents really want: to be left in peace." -- Richard Neely WV Supreme Court "... the ultimate authority... resides in the people alone." -- James Madison, in Federalist Papers No. 46 "Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place." -- Frederic Bastiat "Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficient... The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding." -- Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis "The history of liberty is the history of the limitation of governmental power, not the increase of it." -- Woodrow Wilson 3 It's just common sense that gun control will reduce crime and save lives, right? "Common sense" also says that heavy objects fall faster than light ones. This was so obvious that it wasn't questioned for centuries. Experiments prove this assumption to be false just as statistics prove that gun control has the counter-intuitive effect of *increasing* violent crime instead of reducing it. History before 1300AD indicates that a world without guns would not necessarily be a utopia; without guns, the strong can easily prey on the weak. RKBA.003 - Homicide per capita in the U.S. Version 1.1 (last changed on 90/04/23 at 23:15:38) compiled by vincent@cad.gatech.edu DESCRIPTION =========== Homicide by firearms per capita in the U.S. has varied up and down over the years. It has peaked in the middle of the 1930s (Prohibition), declined thereafter, with significant dips during WWI, the Korean war, and the start of the Vietnam war. It has been in a decline again since 1979. The per capita homicide (by firearms) rate is now at a rate equal to that of the late 1930s/early 1940s. A premise of gun control is that reducing the number of guns reduces crime. The corollary is that increasing the number of guns increases crime. The period after WWII, when millions of servicemen returned home with hundreds of thousands of firearms as war souvenirs, shows a near perfect flat line for the homicide rate. However, the period after the passage of the most infamous anti-gun laws (GCA68 - the Gun Control Act of 1968) shows a dramatic and fairly sudden increase in homicides (by firearms) per capita. What can be seen is that a sudden reduction of men in the age group of 18-24 (the age group that commits the most crimes) shows a sudden reduction in homicides (as well as other crimes). The three wars, WWII, Korean, and Vietnam show these dips. In addition, a plot (not shown) of all firearms-not-used homicides (knives, poison, hands, feet, explosives, etc.) shows a near identical plot. In other words, the TOTAL per capita murder rate for guns and all others go up and down together. CONCLUSION ========== No correlation can be shown by U.S. national homicide figures that reducing or restricting the number of guns reduces homicides. GRAPH ===== The Y-axis is 5 homicides/non-negligent homicides per 1,000,000. The X- axis is 1.2 years (squeezed to fit), starting at 1915. 1979 | + :::::::::::::::::##:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::#::::::: :::::::::::::::###:#:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::##:::#::##::::: ::::::::::::##:::::::#:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::####::##::::::#:#:: ::::::::#:::::::::::::#:::::::::::::::::::::::::::##::::::::::::::::#:#: :::::#:::::::::::::::::::#::::###:::::::::::::::::#::::::::::::::::::::# :::#:#:::::::::::::::::::::#:#:::#::::::::::::::#::::::::::::::::::::::: :#:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::#::########:::::::::::::::::::::::::: :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::#:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: + + + + | | | | 1915 1942 1967 1988 Sources: BOC75, BOC89, UCR82, UCR85, UCR87. Gun control is based on the neurotic fear of accepting responsibility for one's share of the community. We have people in our community who hate and want to kill. This is a human problem involving human issues, requiring our community of human beings to look at ourselves and our society, and other human beings. A man or woman who hates and wants to kill will not become a peaceful, loving, productive member of society merely because guns are illegal or hard to get. A man or woman who hates and wants to kill has been taught to. Ignoring the human issues and focusing instead on a material object is a pathetic act of denial. Is it any surprise that gun control, a movement which is self righteous, self absorbed, irresponsible, and materialistic is a product of the baby boomer generation, a generation noted for materialism, selfishness, and irresponsibility? It offends me deeply that people in our society would destroy the freedoms which *my* family fought and died in the revolution to secure and which are as a result *my* birthright and responsibility, merely to avoid the painful reality of their own responsibility to their society. Gun control is the abdication of personal responsibility for the real problems in society; it is the loafers's approach to a solution and the coward's cure for a guilty conscience. "No one has the right to destroy another person's belief by demanding empirical evidence." --Ann Landers, (inter?)nationally syndicated advice columnist and Director at Handgun Control Inc. as reported in her column on January 10, 1994 in the Worcester Telegram & Gazette "If gun laws in fact worked, the sponsors of this type of legislation should have no difficulty drawing upon long lists of examples of crime rates reduced by such legislation. That they cannot do so after a century and a half of trying--that they must sweep under the rug the southern attempts at gun control in the 1870-1910 period, the northeastern attempts in the 1920-1939 period, the attempts at both Federal and State levels in 1965-1976--establishes the repeated, complete and inevitable failure of gun laws to control serious crime." -- Orrin Hatch, 1982 Senate Report 4 What is wrong with a 5 day waiting period? If it saves just one life, isn't it worth it? First of all, the Brady Act (it has passed and thus is no longer just a Bill) is a 7 day waiting period because the "5" day wait is 5 *business* days, not counting weekends or holidays. Beyond the Constitutional issue, the main thing wrong with waiting periods (and background checks and registration and licensing) is that they do no good. Worse than useless, they take resources to implement and enforce that might have been used to do something useful. A waiting period will by no means will stop criminals from getting guns so why pass it then? To harass legitimate gun owners? That's the only reason that's left. Even Sarah Brady has admitted that the Brady Act will not work, but only *after* the bill was passed; now she calls it a "symbolic gesture". Before the bill was passed, she made speeches about how important it was and how many lives it would save. What an honest, upstanding American. I would call a 7 day wait an infringement. The Brady Act is therefore clearly in violation of the Second Amendment. Since it is a national law, it also violates the 10th Amendment by forcing state officials to perform background checks. It is unwise to invite judicial review of a law that cannot possibly be ruled valid. Note that requiring women to wait 24 hours to "think about it" before obtaining an abortion is generally regarded as a massive infringement of their liberties by many of the same people who see no problem with the 7 day wait for a handgun purchase just for the sake of making you wait. The Bill of Rights is not a menu to be picked and chosen from according to one's tastes. If Congress wants serious gun control, it shouldn't waste its time by chipping away at the Constitutional rights of the citizens while pretending that the Second Amendment doesn't exist. They should have the guts to take the only "legal" approach and pass legislation to repeal the Second Amendment (Representative Major Owens, D-NY, has proposed such legislation at least twice; HJR438 in 1992 and HJR81 in 1993). Because Americans have rights besides those enumerated in the Constitution (which is confirmed by the Ninth Amendment), you would also have to add another amendment which specifically denied the right to keep and bear arms to cover your bases. Even if this strategy succeeded, it wouldn't really change the fact that the keeping and bearing of arms is a GOD GIVEN NATURAL RIGHT. Repealing the Second Amendment and outlawing guns would no more remove this right than repealing the Sixth Amendment would make it OK to arrest citizens for any reason at all and then or execute them without proving their guilt. If you want a practical answer, what happens if somebody you know threatens to kill you and repeatedly harasses you violently but not poorly enough to allow himself to be arrested for it? You feel the need to protect yourself but your state only has CCW (no open carry) and since you cannot conceal a longarm, you must get a handgun if you want to continue to lead a normal life (i.e. leave the house). You go to buy one but are told you have to wait 7 days. X<=7 days later your crazy acquaintance attacks you and you are unable to defend yourself because he is bigger/stronger/better armed than you are. You are dead and the Brady Act put the target on your back. If you think this is too contrived to be realistic, ask the friends and family of Bonnie Elmasri in Wisconsin. She was being stalked by her estranged husband despite a court restraining order. She was murdered along with her two children while she waited for the handgun she legally purchased to clear Wisconsin state's mandatory waiting period. In her case, a Brady-type law was not just an inconvenience; it was a death sentence. Now I ask you, was her life worth sacrificing in the vain hope that someone else's life might be saved? The government might as well just sell a 7 day hunting license on your body to your assailant; at least that way, the person who will really benefit from these laws will be the one paying for the privilege. The already existing and well-proven negatives to a waiting period far outweigh the not-well-proven and dreamt-for positives. To put it plainly, the Brady Act: *might* prevent heat-of-moment passion killings. *WILL* prevent self defense against heat-of-moment passion killings. *WILL* prevent self defense in the event of civil disorder. *WILL* prevent self defense against estranged lovers and stalkers who made a death threat within the last 7 days. The media keeps reporting the huge increas in handgun sales since Clinton signed the Brady Bill. All of them say that people are trying to "get in before it takes effect". While some poeple may be buying for this reason, it isn't really a logical reaction. I think what is really happening is that people no longer have the luxury of "waiting until the last minute". Before the Brady Act, people knew that if they ever needed a gun, they could just go to the store and get one. The Brady Act forces everyone who thinks they might ever need a gun on short notice to go out and buy one RIGHT NOW in order to have one be available. Therefore I predict that the Brady Act induced buying frenzy will last YEARS and have the counter-intuitive effect of arming millions of citizens who would otherwise not be armed if they had not been forced into making a decision now that they would like to have procrastinated on. There is also the widespread perception that Big Brother is at hand and a lot of fence sitters are coming down on the pro-choice side. This group also is buying guns at a fantastic rate (these people are joining the pro-choice organizations like the NRA at a dizzying pace, too). So the Brady Act is accomplishing the exact opposite of what the proponents claimed it would. At least there is some good news. "A right delayed is a right denied." -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. "They have rights who dare maintain them" -- James Rusell Lowell "What do you mean 'wait fifteen days'? This is America!" -- California citizen attempting to purchase a firearm for self-defense during rioting in Los Angelas, week of 30 April 1992 "You have rights antecedent to all earthly governments; rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human law." -- John Adams "...The right of the people peacefully to assemble for lawful purposes existed long before the adoption of the Constitution of the United States. In fact, it is and always has been one of the attributes of a free government. It `derives its source,' to use the language of Chief Justice Marshall, in Gibbons v Ogden, 9 Wheat., 211, `from those laws whose authority is acknowledged by civilized man throughout the world.' It is found wherever civilization exists. It was not, therefore, a right granted to the people by the Constitution... The second and tenth counts are equally defective. The right there specified is that of `bearing arms for a lawful purpose.' This is not a right granted by the constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence." -- U.S. v. Cruickshank; 92 US 542; (1875) "We wonder if the standing ovation for Jim Brady would have been so resounding if all those present realized that the Brady handgun-control law can be expected to backfire by leading to a rise in crime as understaffed, overworked law enforcement agencies are forced to devote millions of hours away from patrols and crime-solving to conduct background checks, mostly on law-abiding citizens." -- The president of the National Association of Chiefs of Police commenting on president Clinton's State of the Union speech (UPI newswire 1-26-94) 5 Relax, it's not like they are going door to door confiscating your precious handguns; it's *only* a 5 day waiting period. The real desire of the President Clinton (who has even publicly admitted it), and several house legislatures, and the media, and apparently a lot of ignorant paranoiacs who are so scared of guns that they probably wouldn't dare pick one up, much less have the guts to defend themselves with one, is to ban all gun ownership. The modus operandi of government intrusion is to start small by poking a little hole in your dam of liberty. When you get used to that infringement, they gradually increase the aggression and before you know it you are chin-deep in flood waters. It's a standard tactic to institute regulation in phases. They divide and conquer; small groups at first, so the majority has no reason to mobilize. Then when you move on to the next group the next group, the previous group has been sold out and isn't in any mood to defend the people who hung them out to dry. This is what Clinton tried to do in his State of the Union address (1-25-94) by asking for the help of hunters in passing a ban on "assualt weapons". Pretty soon the regulations are far beyond where they started and people forget it was ever any other way. Nobody protested much when the federal income tax was instituted because it was "only" 1%. Look where it is now in a just a few decades; time is always on their side. The lesson to be learned is not to let the government get their foot in your door; have you ever heard the story about the camel who just wanted to shelter his nose in the tent? We who oppose more regulations resent the idea that somehow our lives are not worth defending. It is sickening that in the state of New York you can get a CCW permit to protect large sums of money but not to protect your own life; that speaks volumes about the government's priorities. The right to keep and bear arms is not granted by the government, it is a natural right that was enumerated and *guaranteed* in the Bill of Rights. If the rulers succeed in taking away this or other natural rights, then they have violated their covenant with the ruled and the citizens are not only justified in revolting but it is their sacred duty according to the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these rights to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their powers from the consent of the governed. That when any Government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government. ... But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government." It is the duty and oath of the President, all policemen, all members of the executive branch, all members of the armed forces, all judges, all legislators (in short the entirety of the government) "to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." I know that the right to keep and bear arms has been infringed in a BIG way. The Fourth Amendment (protection against unreasonable search and seizure) and Fifth Amendment (protection of private property against being taken for public use without just compensation) have been routinely violated in the pursuit of the "war on drugs" in an effort to raise funds and oppress the public. The citizens of the USA are so paranoid and panicked that they are willing to give up slices of their rights (by allowing such abuses to take place without outcry) in exchange for perceived government protection. In a society which is fighting for the selfish and gutless "right" to physician-assisted suicides, I find it ironic that half the gun deaths in the U.S. every year are "bullet-assisted" suicides (probably even more since many are undoubtedly covered up by relatives and police as "accidents" to avoid embarrassment and collect insurance) which the government would like to take charge of. It should sicken you that many of your fellow Americans would rather have government licensed professionals killing people instead of family members or individuals euthanising themselves. The state wants control over our very lives and we are jumping at every chance to give it to them. There is a crusade by the power elite to attack and usurp the natural rights of the average citizen to have the means for self protection. The people have plenty of reason to keep their properties, their lives, and their self-respect, against the ill wind which blows no good. Making guns hard(er) to get is only the first step in taking our guns away completely. Disarming us is only the first step in taking away the rest of our civil rights. When the government is going door to door confiscating private firearms, it will be WAY too late to be getting involved in the struggle. Gun control isn't about guns, it's about *control*. If you don't think there is a well organized political assault on the Second Amendment, just listen to what your elected officials and various lobbying organizations have to say about their intentions! U.S. President Bill Clinton: "The Administration also supports a ban on semi-automatic firearms; ..." (page 201 of the 1st printed draft of Cliton's 1995 budget) "Only the police should have handguns." "People should not have better weapons than the police." "Gun control is not about violating your Constitutional rights. Everyone has the right to hunt. We will not take that away." "If you do not need a gun, you should not have one." "You know the one thing that's wrong with this country? Everyone gets a chance to have their fair say." (May 29, 1993) U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno: "Nobody should be owning a gun which does not have a sporting purpose." U.S. Senator Patrick Moynihan: "Maybe we can't get rid of the guns, but we can tax the ammo to death." U.S. Senator Ira Metzenbaum: "The only thing a rifle scope is good for is assassination." U.S. Senator Howard Metzenbaum: "No, we're not looking at how to control criminals ... we're talking about banning the AK-47 and semi-automatic guns." "I'm not interested in getting a bill that deals with airport security ... all I want to do is get at plastic guns." U.S. Senator Diane Feinstein (sponsor of the gun and magazine bans): "It is a national tragedy that children are shot at home and in school. Children find these guns in their homes. Parents should not have guns in their homes." "The national guard fulfills the militia mentioned in the 2nd amendment. Citizens no longer need to protect the states or themselves." U.S. Representative Charles Schumer: "Let's put some real teeth into laws regulating gun owners. They should be licensed, finger-printed, show competence with their gun, and prove they are sane enough to use it responsibly. They should have to renew their license every two years." "There may be other things that will happen later... It may not be the end ... the bottom line is what we are seeking now is the Brady Bill." (during an interview on CNN's "Crossfire") U.S. Representative Owens: "How can we be a civilized society when there are so many guns?" "We have to start with a ban on the manufacturing & import of handguns. From there we register the guns which are currently owned, and follow that with additional bans and acquisitions of handguns and rifles with no sporting purpose." "It might take twenty years to get rid of all of the guns." U.S. Representative Edward Feighan, referring to the Brady Bill (which he introduced): "This is not only the reintroduction of the Brady Bill, this is a declaration of war against the NRA." (at recent House hearings on January 3, 1991) "It's only the first step, it's not going to be enough ... we've got to go beyond that, and I hope we'll do it this session of Congress." (during an interview on ABC News Nightline) U.S. Representative Craig Washington: "This is not all we will have in future Congresses, but this is a crack in the door. There are too many handguns in the hands of citizens. The right to keep and bear arms has nothing to do with the Brady Bill." (at the mark-up hearing on the Brady Bill, April 10, 1991) U.S. Representative William Clay: "The Brady Bill is the minimum step Congress should take...we need much stricter gun control, and eventually should bar the ownership of handguns, except in a few cases." (quoted in the St. Louis Post Dispatch on May 6, 1991) "CONGRESSIONAL STATEMENT OF PURPOSE - An ultimate goal of the United States is a world which is free from the scourge of war and the dangers and burdens of armaments; .... It is the purpose of this chapter to provide impetus toward this goal by creating a new agency of peace to deal with the problem of reduction and control of armaments looking toward ultimate world disarmament." -- US Code Annotated, 1990 ed, page 110, Title 22, Section 2551 "We urge passage of federal legislation--and meanwhile, in its absence, the partial remedy of state law--to prohibit, with few and narrowly drawn exceptions, the private ownership and possession of handguns, much the way existing laws prohibit machine guns, grenades and cannons." -- Adopted by American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Board of Directors in September 1976; see national ACLU policy #47, "Gun Control" "Handguns should be outlawed. Our organization will probably take this stand in time but we are not anxious to rouse the opposition before we get the other legislation passed." -- Elliot Corbett, Secretary, National Council For A Responsible Firearms Policy (interview appeared in the Washington Evening Star on September 19, 1969) "It is our aim to ban the manufacture and sale of handguns to private individuals ... the coalition's emphasis is to keep handguns out of private possession -- where they do the most harm." -- Recruiting flyer currently distributed by The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, formerly called The National Coalition to Ban Handguns "My experience as a street cop suggests that most merchants should not have guns. But I feel even stronger about the average person having them...most homeowners...simply have no need to own guns." -- Joseph McNamara, HCI spokesman, and former Chief of Police of San Jose, California "Yes, I'm for an outright ban (on handguns)." -- Pete Shields, Chairman emeritus, Handgun Control, Inc., during a 60 Minutes interview "We're going to have to take one step at a time, and the first step is necessarily -- given the political realities -- going to be very modest ... So then we'll have to start working again to strengthen the law, and then again to strengthen the next law, and maybe again and again. Right now, though, we'd be satisfied not with half a loaf but with a slice. Our ultimate goal -- total control of handguns in the United States -- is going to take time .... The first problem is to slow down the increasing number of guns being produced and sold in this country. The second problem is to get handguns registered. And the final problem is to make the possession of *all* handguns and *all* handgun ammunition -- except for the military, policemen, licensed security guards, licensed sporting clubs, and licensed gun collectors -- totally illegal." -- Pete Shields, Chairman Emeritus, Handgun Control, Inc. ("The New Yorker", July 26, 1976) "We are at the point in time and terror where nothing short of a strong uniform policy of domestic disarmament will alleviate the danger which is crystal clear and perilously present. Let us take the guns away from the people. Exemptions should be limited to the military, the police, and those licensed for good and sufficient reasons. And I would look forward to the day when it would not be necessary for the policeman to carry a sidearm." -- Patrick V. Murphy, former New York City Police Commissioner, and now a member of Handgun Control's National Committee, during testimony to the National Association of Citizens Crime Commissions "I don't want to go for confiscation, but that is where we are going." -- Daryl Gates, Police Chief of Los Angeles, California "First the Nazis went after the Jews, but I was not a Jew, so I did not object. Then they went after the Catholics, but I was not a Catholic, so I did not object. They they went after the Trade-Unionists, but I was not a Trade-Unionist, so I did not object. Then they came after me, and there was no one left to object." -- Martin Niemoeller (Dachau, 1945) When they came for the 5th Amendment, I kept silent because I am not a criminal. "When they came for the 4th Amendment, I kept silent because I am not a drug user. When they came for the 2nd Amendment, I kept silent because I do not own a gun. When they took the 1st Amendment, I could no longer speak out." -- Unknown "As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air--however slight--lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness." -- Justice William O. Douglas "Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. When you give up that force, you are ruined." -- Patrick Henry, speaking to the Virginia convention for the ratification of the Constitution on the necessity of the right to keep and bear arms 6 What is wrong with registering/licensing handgun owners? You need a license to drive a car don't you? Your faith in the government is dubiously misplaced. How can you trust a government which doesn't trust you? Registration of guns is the one and only absolutely neccessary step in the successful confiscation of firearms. Such records can be (and historically have been) used to confiscate legally obtained weapons when dictators come into power. Allowing myself to be registered is like law-abiding German Jews of the 1940s volunteering to get aboard the trains to be "resettled". We all know that the registration ride ends up at the confiscation camp. No thanks, I won't take that trip. It is immoral to license a right; doing so changes it from a right into a government granted privilege. Privileges can be taxed, denied, revoked or even eliminated whereas rights cannot. The Brady Act allows the arbitrary denial of permits, without appeal, and without explanation. This assures that states, counties, and city governments will usurp the right to keep and bear arms, since they've already done so, and they can continue to do so with the empowerment of the Brady Act. Registration and/or licensing will have no effect on criminals not only because they don't obey laws but because the Supreme Court says they don't have to! Felons are constitutionally exempt from the registration requirement. According to a U.S. Supreme Court decision, since felons are prohibited by law from possessing a firearm, forcing them to register firearms would violate the Fifth Amendment provision against self-incrimination (Haynes v. U.S., 309 U.S. 85 (1968)). You do not need a license to *own* a car nor to drive a car on your own private property; you only need one to drive in public (on public property). I would gladly accept licensing for CCW on similar terms; would you? I am in favor of mandatory testing and training as a prerequisite for a CCW permit (like the ones required for obtaining a driver's license) as long as the government is forced by the same law to guarantee that no fees shall be imposed other than those absolutely necessary for the administration of the law, and that no citizens will be denied a permit except in objective circumstances exactly defined in the law, and that iron-clad safeguards are in place to ensure that permits are not arbitrarily denied. In short, I want it to work just like driver's licensing works; when you apply for a driver's license, they don't take down the license plate numbers of all your cars do they? As a matter of fact, to streamline things I propose we distribute driver's licenses and CCW permits at the same locations. I wonder if the "Motor-Toter" Bill would break our rubber-stamp President's "no veto" streak? You know, I think it would be a dandy idea if all martial artists had a permanent serial number tattooed on their arm, and were required to register their movements with police. We should work to "reduce access" to martial arts since the largest category of weapons used in crimes in the U.S. is "hands and feet". Large, strong people should be outlawed, and allowed to live only if they agree to be hobbled or starved to emaciation. "When reminded that the registration plan in Washington, D.C. was enacted with the specific promise to gun owners that the lists would not be used for confiscation, the bill's sponsor retorted: 'Well, *I* never promised them anything.'" -- (Guns & Ammo, 12/76, P. 86) "1935 will go down in History! For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration! Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient and the world will follow our lead to the future!" -- Adolf Hitler prior to confiscating all civilian firearms. 7 What is wrong with requiring competency testing/training for firearm owners? Many lives could be saved by avoiding tragic accidents. Literacy testing had some good rationales, too. Who could possibly argue with making sure a person can read the ballot that he is about to fill out? But it was struck down because the potential for abuse was *much* greater than the severity of the perceived problem that the test was supposed to correct. Well, there's a direct parallel here with gun competency training. About 23,000 Americans die from gunshot every year. How many are accidental? A mere 1,200. The other people died, not because the wielder was incompetent, but because he was if anything *too* competent. Since accidental deaths due to motor vehicle use outweigh accidental deaths due to firearm use by nearly 30:1, you will naturally have no problem with similar training requirements prior to the sale and ownership of motor vehicles, too? This is all assuming that you are trying to prevent gun owners from accidentally injuring other people; if you are trying to "protect" gun owners from accidentally (or deliberately, for that matter) hurting themselves, don't bother, we neither want nor need your help. It might be unfair but people have killed themselves throughout history by being stupid; it's called survival of the fittest. Only a liberal would think he could repeal the law of natural selection. So the question is, "Is the potential for abuse of mandatory training and/or competency testing greater than the problem you are claiming to correct?" Damn straight it is. When abused, these "helpful" laws become back-door gun control and are blatantly unconstitutional. In Boston, you must score 70% (or more) on a standard B-27 target, with an unfamiliar gun (whatever the examiner hands you); however, their police must score only 55% to qualify. Does that sound non-discriminatory to you? "Mandatory training" was the law in Rhode Island during the 70s. The state held the required class only once a year, and limited applicants to 30. If you didn't "know somebody," you couldn't even get on the list. "Mandatory training" is the law in California as of 1/1/93. But they "forgot" to appropriate any money for the courses. Whoops. Here it is, 1/94, and they *still* have not figured out what the "mandatory" course will consist of! But even though it's undefined, it's still mandatory. "We don't give licenses to broads in this town," says the Acton, MA chief. "Sorry, we're out of applications," says the Chicago PD, since 1982. Michigan, Tennessee, and Los Angeles officials are in trouble for the arbitrary denial of CCW permits. Does this sound like good faith to you? Some laws require competency testing for use (carry), and some strictly for purchase. The latter are treading on dangerous Constitutional ground. A competency test to exercise a civil right; that should scare you. All you need to know about guns is that they put deep, dangerous holes in things and that a piece of metal comes out the end very fast when you pull the trigger. This is self evident. Anything besides mechanical operation is at best good advice and at worst, merely a biased opinion (i.e. it is subjective) and I have the right not to be forcibly subjected to it. Any misuse (accidental or otherwise) is my responsibility and grievances can be pursued via lawsuits IF AND WHEN AN ABUSE OCCURS. "You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered." -- Lyndon Johnson "I do not want to live under a philanthropy. I do not want to be taken care of by the government.... We do not want a benevolent government. We want a free and a just government." -- Woodrow Wilson 8 What is wrong with raising the fee to be a gun dealer; there are more FFL dealers in the U.S. than ? Why hurt small businessmen? They didn't do anything to deserve a screwing. All this approach will do make big gun dealers bigger and put small gun dealers out of business. It will hurt the legitimate consumer by making it more of a pain (longer drive, higher prices) to legally buy a gun. It is bad for the economy and good for criminals (the price for a dirty gun is fairly constant and uniform). It will do nothing about crime since, according to the BATF, 93% of guns used in crime are obtained through the black market. What will it do? Every gun bought at a dealer since 1968 has (supposedly) had a 4473 (yellow-sheet) filled out. This new $600 fee will force most FFLs out of business, thus forcing them to send all of their 4473s to the BATF. Who will promptly enter them all on their computer system, of course. Defacto registration. The number of FFLs might finally be small enough that BATF inspectors can keep close tabs on them, maybe visiting each one at least once a year or so to (illegally) copy all their Form 4473s. Is it fair to impose a 2000% tax increase on an entire industry for no reason whatsoever? Today it is $600 but then they come back next year and claim that some of the remaining FFL holders are not legitimate businesses, and up the fee to $1200. Then the next year $2400? Then $5000?? Then there's only a couple of dealers, and lots of crime, so we have to shut down the last few dealers. "The right to buy weapons is the right to be free." -- van Gogt (or rather a character from one of his books; which one?) 9 What is wrong with taxing bullets? Taxing bullets only means gun owners will be less willing & able to practice to stay "well regulated" and safe. I have already discussed that criminals will pay whatever price is necessary to obtain the tools of their trade. Once again, this will mainly hurt the businesses that make and sell bullets and the legitimate, law-abiding "bullet-user". I have an idea; how about if we have a tax on locks to help pay for all the crimes committed by burglars. Or how about a tax on tires and gasoline to help pay for all the hospital costs of the victims of drunk drivers? "If a gun bill will pass because of the politics of the situation, you must see to it that its burdens are imposed upon a man because of a criminal background and not because he is an ordinary citizen and perhaps poor." -- Gen. James H. Doolittle 10 What is wrong with gun buy-back programs? If someone is so uncommitted to firearms that they are willing to trade that firearm for a consumable like a concert ticket or gift certificate then I view them making that trade as a good thing. Somebody like that is likely to be an untrained and irresponsible firearm owner in the first place. Most of the guns that are brought in are nonfunctional or functional but worthless or worth considerably less that the "reward" given for turning them in. In these cases, the program is *extremely* cost inefficient and wasteful. It generates a huge windfall for Raven, Davis, Lorcin and all the other makers of cheap guns. Since some of these buy backs have been taking $15 BB guns, you could do even better than that (and no waiting period or FFL problems). The guns that are in good working order are typically of 3 types; guns that a criminal has stolen and doesn't need, guns that entrepeneurs have bought for less than the buy-back price (for the express purpose of netting a profit and wasting the buy-back's funds), or guns that have been inherited by someone who is too unknowledgable to know their true value. In the 1st case, you are simply acting as a "fence" and allowing the criminal to safely (and profitably) dispose of (potentially) incriminating evidence (perhaps of a murder) and get money to buy a better, more deadly gun off the black market. In the 2nd case you are throwing away good money that will very likely be used to buy a really good (more expensive) firearm. In the last case you are taking advantage of someone who could probably use the money that a legitimate sale of such a valuable item would yield. Widows whose husbands have died and left a gun (or collection) are commonly taken advantage of by buy-backs. I don't think giving felons a safe way to sell stolen goods, blatantly wasting tax dollars, and ripping off old ladies is a good sort of public policy. These programs would be much more productive if they verified the serial numbers (if present) and returned the guns to the law-abiding owners. In most cases, no attempt is made to return stolen guns to the rightful owners (imagine if the police did this with recovered cars!) If it is illegal for a pawn shop to accept guns (and other merchandise) "no questions asked" (they have to check all serial numbers with police), then why is it OK for rich citizens, big corporations, or corrupt municipalities to do so? Buy-backs are a bounty on your legally owned firearms, paying criminals $100 apiece to steal them from you "no questions asked". If there are no serial numbers and the gun is in good working order, the gun could be restamped with a new serial number and "disposed of" profitably. They could be given (or sold at low cost) to responsible local citizens who desire a firearm but cannot afford one. At the very least, they could be auctioned, pawned, or stripped for spare parts. Destroying them is like burning tax dollars. In Finland folks give their guns to the police when they want to get rid of them, unless, of course, they know someone who would like to have one and can get papers to possess one. Police then sell these given guns to law-abiding citizens once or twice a year with the proceeds going to police and/or government use. All guns obtained by Finnish police are checked to see if they were stolen before going to public auction/sale. The police have the right to pick up "useful items" from these guns before auctions, so police get what they need and taxpayers save money. These programs potentially destroy irreplaceable collectible (and, unbeknownst to the poor sap who turns it in, VALUABLE) antiques that should be preserved in a museum. In all likelihood, most of the valuable guns that are turned in somehow manage to "vanish" on their way to the smelter and don't really get taken out of circulation. "K-Mart is the nation's largest gun dealer. Why not go to K-Mart, buy a gun for $69.95 and take it across the street to Toys R Us for a $100 gift certificate? That's a $30 profit." -- Comedian Jay Leno on the Tonight Show in December 1993 "There was a [drug] deal that went bad outside my store, and he ran into my store and the other guy had him on the floor ready to stab him. I said, 'Drop the knife and get out of my store.' I saved his life... I approve of gun ownership by responsible people." --Fernando Mateo, the man behind the guns-for-toys swap on why he intends to keep his own .38-caliber Colt revolver which he said he keeps in a safe at home even though he has a NY CCW permit 11 We should ban exploding cop-killer ammunition like Black Talon since they are designed specifically to mangle human flesh. They have little sporting advantage and you can defend yourself just as easily by wounding an attacker with regular bullets instead of killing them. There are no bullets that "explode" (at least not in common use any more since they are obsolete). Hollow points and other forms of "expanding" bullets like Black Talons are designed to decelerate rapidly and transfer all the force of the bullet to the target as quickly as possible. These are the properties of a safe bullet. You want them to hit a target, do a lot of damage and stop there. "Regular" bullets and to a greater extent the jacketed "cop-killer" bullets (which are good at penetrating light body armor), have the nasty habit of passing through the intended target (or through walls if you miss), doing minor damage (resulting in the target not being incapacitated) and then striking other targets before coming to rest. This makes them very dangerous. A more accurate term for these bullets would be "killer cop-bullets" since many police are forced to carry only jacketed ammo which is known to cause a lot of collateral damage to innocents. Most police carry the safe ammo. If they prefer it, then maybe there's a reason. Maybe, just maybe, it's because it's effective at stopping criminals while protecting innocent bystanders. Maybe it makes them fell less likely to accidentally kill their partner since the safe bullets are not good at piercing the armor in their vests. The fact that safe bullets also do a lot of damage to the primary (unshielded) target is a bonus. If you are prepared to shoot at someone, you had better be intent on killing them. You should never point a gun at anything that you do not intend to destroy. Why would the government want to ban safe bullets from civilian use? Perhaps because the use of the unsafe ones will cause more damage and give them more ammunition to go after your guns since the bullet ban didn't work. 12 What is wrong with banning clips that hold more than = 5 here>? Without them, Collin Furgeson wouldn't have been able to kill so many people. In both the Texas Luby's and New York subway murders, the killer changed magazines several times. Besides, you can buy or easily make "large capacity" magazines for any repeating rifle, semi-automatic or not. You can easily weld/glue/tape several small capacity magazines together so that switching them is merely a matter of pushing a button, pulling down, moving your hand a few inches to the left or right, and pushing up. All you will do is create a minor inconvenience to the shooter (legitimate or not); you will do nothing to slow down offensive killing potential. Large capacity magazines are mostly a small luxury for shooters; they are not a magical prescription for lethality. A person in the offensive position has little need for large magazines; he can take his time reloading since more than likely, his opponents are not armed. The person stuck defending his life is the poor chap that cannot afford the time to reload, and needs every second of savings that larger capacity magazines have to offer. As he is an honest citizen, you need not fear he will harm you with his big magazines. Would you also advocate limiting gasoline purchases to only a single cup? After all, the worst one-man massacre occured in a New York night club by a fire that was started with a gallon of gas. P.S. most modern guns use magazines, not clips. 13 What is wrong with banning gun shows? This is where criminals go to get their guns "under the table". If you want a gun, go to a gun store; FFLs don't need to drag an armoury into a convention center to make guns available! It is no secret that the Clinton/Reno agenda includes banning gun shows, if not outright, by banning the sale/swap/exchange of any firearm related material, such as firearms, parts, ammo, reloading components, and literature. In other words, the stuff gun shows are made of. Gun show organizers are trying to do just the opposite; at least one collectors association prohibits members' tables from having more than 10 percent of the total table space devoted to non-firearm related items (candy bars, perfume, flowers, food, etc). One is legal self regulation the other is an unconstitutional infringement of the right of individuals to peacably assemble. Gun shows often mean private sales (not in registration databases). Gun shows mean information relating to firearms is exchanged. The gun grabbers don't like that since people kept ignorant are more likely to have accidents, or use a gun inappropriately, giving the gun grabbers more 'reason' to ban them. Gun shows provide a nucleus where pro-choice organizations can meet and exchange ideas, info on politicians records, etc. and they don't like THAT, either. Gun shows make it possible for pro-choide people to meet, get to know each other, and work together and they don't like that. So they've got to get rid of gun shows, somehow, some way. Gun shows are no different than craft fairs; they are places where suppliers can find consumers and where hobbyists can go to meet like-minded people to talk and trade with. "Banning gun shows to reduce violent crime will work about as well as banning auto shows to reduce drunken driving." -- Bill McIntire, Spokesman for the National Rifle Association, on Norfolk, Va. council's vote to cancel four gun shows, 1992 14 What private citizen needs an assault weapon which fires bullets in = previous number / 2 here> seconds without re-loading? o Normal response 1: What is an assault weapon? o Normal response 2: What benefit will be gained by denying private ownership? o Normal response 3: Korean shop owners after the first Rodney King verdict. o Normal response 4: South Florida residents after Hurricane Andrew. o Normal response 5: The Central Park jogger could have used one. o Normal response 6: Since when must "need" be demonstrated prior to the exercise of a right? You never know how many attackers you might have to be defending against and reloading a weapon takes very valuable time. Besides, when did we acquire the duty to justify what we do to the government rather than the government justifying *impeding* us? Where does the Second Amendment stipulate "need", especially "need" where the *State* gets to decide whether it is "sufficient"? Give me one reason the government enforcers need a such a weapon. Does the State "need" these weapons? If they are unacceptable for the law-abiding, they are also unacceptable for the State; or do we have a double standard here? The faulty presumption is that only bad guys "need" high capacity firearms; this is like assuming that we no longer need the 5th Amendment since only guilty people have something to hide. What need is there for a private citizen to own a Turbo Eagle Talon? It goes faster than 65 MPH (the maximum legal speed limit in the USA), it has no airbag (is potentially unsafe to the user), it can't hold more than 2 people realistically (is incapable of the "legitimate" use of cargo hauling). In reality, it's a useless hunk of over-powered metal, capable of almost 3x the speed limit. My wife has a mini-van. Why do I need my car? Do I need a reason? Before you answer this, remember, it's a gas-guzzler and is over-represented in accidents. Nope, sorry, I don't need it. In fact, it is hard to argue that anybody truly "needs" a private automobile at all. I do how ever, enjoy it for both transportation and limited sporting purposes. Racing on private property, for instance. Same goes for my evil, killer "assault" motorcycle. Why not discuss a ban on private "getaway cars" that can outrun our under-equipped police and clearly have no lawful purpose, and result in thousands of injuries and deaths per year when misused by young adults? Surely simple recreation and enjoyment is not a legitimate need, compared to the carnage on the streets we face every day. So what if a ban on fast cars in unenforcible and results in no improvement to the current death rate, at least we've taken a step in the right direction. So what if the criminal use of such vehicles is grossly exaggerated, and accidents continue unabated as they have in every state and city that has taken similar steps. It still makes sense, right? Now, presumably, you wouldn't dream of taking away my vehicles, but nowhere does the Constitution say I have a right to keep and bear hotrods. It does confirm my right to keep and bear firearms. You can make a *much* better case for banning alcohol. It kills more people than guns and has no life-saving nor crime-deterring potential at all; it is purely a recreational product. Its use will adversely effect every decisions and physical task that you attempt while under its influence which makes you a accident waiting to happen. Why aren't you on that bandwagon? Surely you don't mind giving up one of your pleasures for the common good, do you? You know what; I even think it has been tried before somewhere... "Germans who wish to use firearms should join the SS or the SA - ordinary citizens don't need guns, as their having guns doesn't serve the State." -- Heinrich Himmler "All military type firearms are to be handed in immediately ... The SS, SA and Stahlhelm give every respectable German man the opportunity of campaigning with them. Therefore anyone who does not belong to one of the above named organizations and who unjustifiably nevertheless keeps his weapon ... must be regarded as an enemy of the national government." -- SA Oberfuhrer of Bad Tolz, March, 1933 15 What is wrong with a ban on handguns (or all guns)? We need to do something to stop the damage they are doing to our citizens! Let's look at some average U.S. annual figures for accidental deaths and the analogous "solutions": 50,000 traffic fatalities. Solution; remove the cars? 11,000 falling fatalities. Solution; outlaw stairs? 5,000 drownings. Solution; fill in all the pools? 5,000 buring fatalities. Solution; ban matches, lighters, heaters, cigarettes, and fireplaces? 4,500 fatal poisonings. Solution; remove household chemicals and solid foods from our lives? 3,000 choking deaths. Solution; ban food (feed everyone intravenously)? 1,400 accidental gun deaths. Solution; ban guns. A ban on handguns is a bandaid solution to a severed limb. It will only succeed in denying the access of defensive weaponry to law-abiding citizens. You may get some off the streets, but you will succeed in criminalizing a large fraction of the U.S. population that are otherwise law-abiding who decide their own safety or that of their family is of primary importance and decide not to comply with a ban. You are naive to think that a criminal will comply at all; it doesn't really matter to them since the smuggling network already in place for drugs will see that there remains an adequate supply for them. After all, they will need to defend their business against the police and federal government (and "competitors"). Sounds like the prohibition era to me and we all know how well that legislation worked. A ban would presumably include the confiscation of the guns currently in circulation. Let's not forget about the Fifth Amendment which says (in part), "nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." The U.S. Supreme Court has consistently ruled that the government may not deprive a person of a legally acquired property without just and reasonable compensation. Sixty million handguns at $200 each is $12 billion! Where is that money going to come from? I know, let's tax bullets to fund the confiscation program; it's going to work for health care with cigarettes! How can disarming a person who has no criminal record (not even juvenile), no history of drug abuse, no history of alcohol abuse, no history of mental illness, no hate for fellow-man, enough responsibility to own several weapons and safely fire several 1000 rounds (miraculously without ever hitting a person or animal just targets, cans, and bottles), never involved with police (except for reporting crimes) help solve the problems that you seem to be rightfully concerned with? The answer "Well, someday you might shoot me because I bumped you in a mall" is not valid, since I actually only say "Excuse me" when that happens (I was raised right). So take away my guns; what have you really accomplished? All you have done is given an open opportunity for someone to attack me without fear of retribution. If a ban on weapons in the U.S. seems like a workable solution to you then you haven't considered the entire problem. It might work if you could A. Impose the ban B. Impose mandatory death or life sentences for violent first time offenders C. Close the borders to ensure to the public that the criminal component of society will not have access to weapons through other sources. D. Set up roadblocks and searches of houses to ensure to the public that everyone is in compliance with the ban, and to actually remove the weapons from the street. Of course this would violate everybody's civil rights and does not seem very attractive, and neither does "quick fix" legislation that will only limit access to law-abiding citizens. We would need to ban longarms, too, since the difference between a longarm and a handgun is 5 minutes work with a hacksaw. Even if we could keep guns from reentering the country, do you really think we could properly dispose of the guns we do confiscate? According to the BATF and Washington D.C. police, 40% of confiscated guns had previously been confiscated by police or were POLICE ISSUE SIDEARMS but somehow magically found their way from the hands of police into the hands of criminals. Many gun grabbers seem to hold the notion that criminals don't really want to get guns, the guns are just there so they pick them up and use them. Not so. They aren't that stupid or mindless. They get guns because they want them. A robber does not care how many homes he has to burglarize to get his gun; forcing him to pay $2,500 for a gun on an inflated black market instead of $250 at K-Mart just means he burglarizes 10 homes instead of 1. Ask yourself the question, "would you rather live in a society with criminals and no guns, or a society with guns and no criminals?" If the latter society makes you feel uneasy, ask yourself why. Hoplophobia can be cured. "Necessity is the excuse for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of the tyrant and the creed of the slave." -- William Pitt, 1763 "False is the idea of utility that sacrifices a thousand real advantages for one imaginary or trifling inconvenience; that would take fire from men because it burns, and water because one may drown in it; that has no remedy for evils, except destruction. The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm those only who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicide, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man. They ought to be designated as laws not preventive but fearful of crimes, produced by the tumultuous impression of a few isolated facts, and not by thoughtful consideration of the inconveniences and advantages of a universal decree." -- Beccaria, "On Crimes and Punishments", 1764 16.1 The Bill of Rights specifically states and clearly implies that the notion behind allowing civilians to own guns is for the purpose of maintaining a "militia". Our "militia" of today is our armed forces and police forces, not civilians. The Second Amendment was written at a time of universal military service, service in which the citizen-soldiers provided their own weapons. This time is long past. Besides, even if the militia does include regular citizens, the Second Amendment says they must be "well regulated". You describe only half the militia; the armed forces, National Guards, and (loosely) the police which comprise the "organized" militia. As the reference below shows, United Stated Code (USC) TITLE 10--ARMED FORCES Section 311. Militia: composition and classes (a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are commissioned officers of the National Guard. (b) The classes of the militia are-- (1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and (2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia. the other half, the "unorganized" militia *explicitly* consists of armed civilians. Furthermore, according to the (recently-repealed) Militia Act of 1794, each member of the militia is *required* to keep a military firearm at home, and practice regularly. Article I, section 8, clause 16 grants Congress the power to "provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, ...." This is the real meaning of the term "well regulated" in the Second Amendment; to enlist, educate, equip, and otherwise enable the militia, not to restrict it. Thus while Congress can organize and arm the militia, it is prevented from disarming the people (presumably since the founding fathers foresaw that the government would try to use the argument "if you want a gun, join the organized militia; you don't need one") by the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment was added to make clear that regulating the militia did NOT include disarming the public; the militia clause is included as a *justification for* NOT a *limitation upon* the proceeding operative phrase. The congressional intent of the founders is clear. Let us look at the original versions of the Second Amendment. In these drafts, the right to bear arms was spelled out more elaborately than in the compact final version. The intent of the founding fathers is made quite clear. Here is James Madison's original wording as proposed to the House on June 8, 1789: "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country; but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person." Here is the version that was modified by the House Commitee on Amendments on June 17, 1789: "A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, being the best security of free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; but no person religiously scrupulous shall be compelled to bear arms." This is the draft proposal of the Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution which contained 20 proposed amendments that were later condensed and ratified as the first 10 amendments to the Constitution. This is the 17th of the original 20 amendments: "That the people have a right to keep and bear arms; that a well regulated Militia composed of the body of the people trained to arms is the proper, natural and safe defense of a free State. That standing armies in time of peace are dangerous to liberty, and therefore ought to be avoided as far as the circumstances and protection of the Community will admit; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to and governed by the Civil power." The Second Amendment was written with the knowledge that the only way to ensure the ability to overthrow a corrupt government is with armed force (as the colonists did to the British). The founding fathers wanted to make DARN SURE the people maintained this ability. The responsibility to defend oneself from criminals and governments will never change with time. Congress has the power (not "right", by the way, since governments have no rights) to regulate the militia as long as those regulations don't infringe on the "right of the people to keep and bear arms." Even if the *current* meaning of the word "militia" were as limited as you would like it to be, it would not change what the meaning of it was at the time the Second Amendment was written. At that time, the "militia" included most (if not all) of the public. The Constitution never uses the word "women" but frequently uses the word "men" (as in "all men are created equal"). Does this mean that women were not considered Americans by the founding fathers and therefore have no rights? Maybe a future Supreme Court will decide that the Third Amendment means that it's legal to forcibly lodge troops in private homes, as long as they don't bring any quarters with them. Maybe they will get sick of the Second Amendment defense and rule that it is OK to take away our guns as long as they don't surgically amputate our arms. Did you ever notice how the other 9 amendments in the Bill of Rights are obviously limiting the powers of the government? Do you think the Second Amendment would have been included if its intent was to do the exact opposite and expand the government's powers? Why would the government need to guarantee its right to maintain its own militia? Wouldn't that be obvious, and part of the government's definition? Perhaps, the phrasing is merely unclear in "modern" english. Your semantic argument is based on the grammatical correctness of interpreting the Second Amendment to mean that *only* the militia has the right to keep and bear arms. I challenge that this is incorrect. Suppose the Second Amendment read: "A well-schooled electorate, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and read Books, shall not be infringed." Would this mean that only those with college degrees are allowed to read books? Obviously, the "well-schooled electorate" part of the sentence is a subordinate phrase, not directly modifying the main clause. As further proof (if english sentence structure is too much for you to comprehend), it should be mentioned that during the process of forming the Bill of Rights there was a proposal that the right to bear arms be limited only to the Militia. That type of wording of the amendment was soundly defeated, and is quite probably the reason we have such eloquent quotes from our forefathers on the subject. "...'the people' seems to have been a term of art employed in select parts of the Constitution. The Preamble declares that the Constitution is ordained, and established by 'the people of the the U.S.' The Second Amendment protects the right of the people to keep and bear Arms...." -- U.S. v. Verdugo-Uriquidez (1990). "Of 36 law-review articles written on the amendment published since 1980, only four [deny that the 2nd protects an individual right]. Three of them were written by employees of anti-gun groups, one by a politician. All appeared in minor law reviews. In contrast, 12 articles supporting the individual-rights position appeared in top law reviews. Among the authors were leading liberal constitutional scholars who don't own guns and never desired the conclusions the evidence forced upon them." -- Constitutional lawyer Don B. Kates and University at Albany, State Univerity of New York criminal justice professor Alan J. Lizotte in an article for the Los Angeles Times "A bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular, and what no just government should refuse, or rest in inferences." -- Thomas Jefferson 1787-12-20 "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." -- Report of the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, 97th Congress, Second Session (February 1982) It is undoubtedly true that all citizens capable of bearing arms constitute the reserved military force or reserve militia of the United States as well as of the States." -- US Supreme Court, Presser v. Illinois "The right of the people to keep and bear... arms shall not be infringed. A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the best and most natural defense of a free country..." -- James Madison, I Annals of Congress 434, 8 June 1789 "I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials." -- George Mason, 3 Elliott, Debates at 425-426 "A militia, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves... and include all men capable of bearing arms." -- Richard Henry Lee, Senator, First Congress, Additional Letters from the Federal Farmer (1788) at 169 "What, sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty... Whenever Governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins." -- Rep. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, I Annals of Congress at 750, 17 August 1789 "Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American... The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state government, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people." -- Trench Coxe, Pennsylvania Gazette, 20 February 1788 "On every question of construction [of the Constitution] let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or intended against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed." -- Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Johnson, 12 June 1823 "Last Monday a string of amendments were presented to the lower house; these altogether respect personal liberty..." -- Senator William Grayson of Virginia in a letter to Patrick Henry "The whole of the Bill [of Rights] is a declaration of the right of the people at large or considered as individuals... It establishes some rights of the individual as unalienable and which consequently, no majority has a right to deprive them of." -- Albert Gallatin of the New York Historical Society, October 7, 1789) 16.2 The preamble of the Constitution says the the government must "insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense [and] promote the general welfare." The Constitution also says . I think that the banning of private ownership of firearms is necessary to carry out these mandates. The Second Amendment, by definition since it's an amendment, supersedes all previous Constitutional provisions. The Eighteenth Amendment which outlawed alcohol comes before the Twenty-First Amendment which repealed the Eighteenth; would you argue the validity of the first one while ignoring the existence of the second? Order of occurrence is very important; the repeal, because it follows the prohibition, COMPLETELY NEGATES its predecessor. Ignoring these points, would you add the text "through the use of gun control" to the preamble? Would you also add; through the use of wire taps through the use of propaganda through promoting racial strife through the use of intimidation through the use of deadly force through restriction of religion through the ignoring of POW/MIAs through the revisionism of history through restriction of free speech through the use of the popular media through the murdering of WWI veterans through the murdering of Branch Davidians through the destruction of personal freedoms through the use of unconstitutional legislation through the invasion of Jean Marie Harell's house through the murdering of Randy Weavers family members through the use of radiation testing on unknowing individuals through the use of chemical testing on their own Vietnam Vets through forceful indoctrination of conformist attitudes on our children through a looking glass into your bedroom All but the last one has already occurred; would you like them to become legal so they could be employed at the whim of the government with impunity? If you *really* wanted the government to followup on this "mandate", you would encourage them to write laws to help remove the criminals from society instead of firearms. Gun grabbers have the collectivist idea that the good of the individual (his right to keep and bear arms) is superseded by the "good of the whole". There is a (mistaken) impression that more lives would be saved if the individuals who use firearms to successfully defend their lives were sacrificed "for the greater good" by taking those firearms away. There are a couple of serious flaws with this thinking. Saving innocent lives is a higher priority with most of us than saving criminal lives (the criminals are the *only* ones who will benefit substantially from gun control). Lets say for, the sake of argument only, that we can take away the right of self-defense of the "few" on moral grounds that it will save some lives. We have arbitrarily condemned these few KNOWN innocents to death (those who would defend themselves from criminal attackers), to preserve the lives of others who are KNOWN criminals (the attackers). Any other "benefits" of gun control legislation should be analyzed with this undeniable side-effect in mind. By this logic, "society" can also decide to sacrifice a "few" individuals who are able to contribute much needed vital organs for transplantation into "many" individuals. By sacrificing just one person, we can save the lives of a dozen others. The only problem is mandatory organ and tissue registration coming soon as part of the Clinton health care "package". "Man did not enter into society to become worse than he was before, nor to have fewer rights than he had before, but to have those rights better secured." -- Thomas Paine 1791 "The public good is in nothing more essentially interested, than in the protection of every individual's private rights." -- Sir William Blackstone 1783 "The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able may have a gun." -- Patrick Henry, in the Virginia Convention on the ratification of the Constitution "The people are not to be disarmed of their weapons. They are left in full possession of them." -- Zachariah Johnson, 3 Elliot, Debates at 646 "Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in possession and under our direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?" -- Patrick Henry "The right of the people to keep and bear arms has been recognized by the General Government; but the best security of that right after all is, the military spirit, that taste for martial exercises, which has always distinguished the free citizens of these states... Such men form the best barrier to the liberties of America." -- Gazette of the United States, 14 October 1789 "Our safety, our liberty depends on preserving the Constitution of the United States as our fathers made it inviolate. The people of the US are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts - Not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution" -- Abraham Lincoln 16.3 Gun control is no different than how the government limits your rights in the Amendment such as the... 16.3.1 ...First Amendment which guarantees the Freedom of Assembly. Most municipalities require a parade permit to hold a parade. Most municipalities also require a permit (CCW) to carry a gun in public. This analogy fails because you don't need a permit to stage a parade on private property. You can even have a major rock concert on private property if you wish, as long as you don't disturb your neighbors. To reverse the analogy, how would you like a 7 day waiting period prior to staging a family reunion so the government can check to make sure that everyone there will get along well enough to not endanger one another? It would be for your own good... Permits of this type are mainly used for raising funds and for liability purposes (who pays if you trash the place or if you deliberately incite a riot) and so they have a valid purpose. On the other hand, refusal of such a parade permit has been used to suppress thought. During the Free Speech Movement in the 1960s over at Berkeley, the protesters were upset at the actions of the the school but were refused a parade permit by the government and threatened with arrest (they marched anyway). If these permits can be arbitrarily denied, then the power to license can be abused. 16.3.2 ...First Amendment which guarantees the Freedom of Religion. The Supreme Court has long asserted the "separation of Church and State" which prohibits prayer in schools. It is also illegal for a child to take a firearm into a public school. This analogy fails because, once again, we are talking about a public, government sponsored, institution. The removal of religion from (public) schools was done on the premise that any religion in a government institution could be construed as an endorsement of that particular religion and a rebuking of all others. This separation was instituted to *preserve* the Freedom of Religion. To reverse the analogy, would it be OK to require individuals to only practice their religion(s) on Sundays? Who really *needs* to pray on Tuesday, anyway? How about a 7 day waiting period to buy a bible; after all you might be the next David Koresh trying to start a dangerous cult? 16.3.3 ...First Amendment which guarantees the Freedom of Speech. You can't, for example, yell "FIRE!" in a crowded movie theater. It is also illegal to discharge a firearm in a theater (or other public place) when there is no justification for doing so. This analogy fails because you are allowed to keep your voice while in the theater even though there are restrictions on they way it may be used. To reverse the analogy, is it Constitutional to remove everyone's vocal cords or wire their mouths shut before entering theaters so that nobody could shout "FIRE!" inappropriately (ignoring the possibility that there might actually be a fire at some time)? How would you like a 7 day waiting period to place a phone call while a background check could be run to see if you and the called party are likely to be plotting a crime or conspiracy together? One person's right ends once it directly infringes on another person's right(s) or unjustly harms another person. Yelling "FIRE!" (or discharging your firearm) is extremely likely to cause a panic in which someone might get hurt (it will also adversely effect the sales of popcorn and soft drinks which allow the theater owner to stay in business :) This "clear and present danger" is the purpose for these valid restrictions. My right to a firearm in no way endangers another person nor interferes with anyone else's rights. 16.3.4 ...First Amendment which guarantees the Freedom of the Press. You can't, for example, buy or sell child pronography or place an ad in the classifieds section for illegal materials/services. Child pronography can only be produced through the immoral exploitation and abuse of minors who are incapable of making this "career" choice for themselves. This analogy fails because the manufacture and distribution of guns and ammunition is not achieved through "slave" labor as child pornography is. Since the only way to make this kind of material is to violate the rights of the children (by sexually abusing them), we cannot allow any material that is produced to be bought or sold. If such material could be fabricated artificially (through computers) without real children being involved and was indistinguishable from "the real thing", I am wiling to bet that the Supreme Court would allow it to be peddled. It is true you can't use the want ads to solicit or sell crime. Neither can you (legally) use a firearm to commit a crime. This analogy fails because you are still allowed to use the classified ads for other legitimate purposes. To reverse the analogy, how about if you were required to wait 7 days while anything you post is reviewed because you might say something with possible harmful potential? How would you like to see a ban on "assault" laser printers because they can be used to print inflammatory/subversive materials in large distributable quantities (after all, nobody *needs* to to print 30 pages per minute)? "If the price I must pay for my freedom is to acknowledge that the government was granted the power to infringe on them, then I am not free." -- Pohl Anderson (or rather a character from one of his books; which one?) "Firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance; they are the peoples' liberty's teeth." -- George Washington 16.3.5 STOP COMPARING THE FIRST AND SECOND AMENDMENTS! You can't kill someone with a book. You must have missed _Mein_Kampf_ or are you waiting for the movie? Also, read _My_Struggle_, by the Austrian author Shicklegruber for another counter example. The point of the comparison is that you can't pick and choose your interpretations no matter what the consequences are. Any time you combine a civil liberty and an idiot or a criminal, you have problems: Criminals + Freedom of Religion = Jim Baker Idiots + Freedom of Religion = David Koresh Idiots + Freedom of Assembly = Congress, overly-aggresive protestors, KKK Idiots + Freedom of the Press = "Donahue", "Dateline NBC", "A Current Affair" Idiots + Free Speech = HCI, flag burners, Beevis and Butthead Criminals + Free Speech = crooks getting paid for the story of their life and crimes Idiots + Right to keep arms = accidental deaths, suicides Criminals + Right to keep arms = armed robbery, murder "Without either the first or second amendment, we would have no liberty; the first allows us to find out what's happening, the second allows us to do something about it! The second will be taken away first, followed by the first and then the rest of our freedoms." -- Andrew Ford "That the said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United states who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms..." -- Samuel Adams "The whole of the Bill [of Rights] is a declaration of the right of the people at large or considered as individuals... It establishes some rights of the individual as unalienable and which consequently, no majority has a right to deprive them of." -- Albert Gallatin of the New York Historical Society, 7 October 1789 17 When the founding fathers wrote the Constitution, they had no idea how sophisticated and deadly firearms would become. Breech loading weapons existed in the 1780s. Ditto for guns with magazines. Ditto for semi-automatic; look up the Ferguson rifle, for instance. The Ferguson rifle wasn't semi-automatic, but it was a breech-loading flintlock rifle capable of (for the time) a remarkable rate of fire. Look in "Small Arms of the World" for a good illustration of that and some of the other flintlock breechloaders. There is also an illustration of the design for the Puckle gun, and while this may not have been built it was in concept a tripod-mounted machine gun--and it dates from 1718! There is also a reference to a demonstration of a 7-shot repeater in 1662. How brilliant does one need to be to forsee increases in rapid fire and accuracy? If we had phasers like in Star Trek, then you might have a point; but we don't. All we have is minor incremental improvements to conventional 18th centry firearms. Besides, advancing technology does not limit the First Amendment; why do you think it limits the Second? Aren't radio, television, telephone conversations, FAXes, and email protected by the First Amendment even though the founding fathers had no idea that such things would be invented? Don't these technological advances make it easier to commit crimes and to commit crimes on a larger and more sophisticated scale? 18.1 You don't need to protect your valuables with a gun; if you are robbed just hand over the loot. All the experts say you shouldn't resist an attacker unless your life is in danger. Trying to be a hero will just get you beaten up or killed on top of robbed. Statistics have shown this advice to be incorrect and many educators are taking note. Even if I believed this advice, it does not preclude me from bearing a firearm as a last resort. If a robber says to me, "give me your wallet" and I give it to him and he then says, "get in my trunk" or "I'm going to kill you", I still have options. I have the opportunity to try your advice first but also have the alternative to fall back on my gun. To put it another way, I take very good care of my car and am a very defensive driver. Would you suggest that I remove my safety belts and airbags since they are uncomfortable and could possibly cause me to be unable to free myself from my car in the event of an accident (even though statistics prove that you are better off with them than without them despite the alluring anecdotal exceptions to the contrary)? What good does removing an alternative do? The real problem with this approach is that you are depending on the good intentions of a proven felon for your continued good health. The fallacy here, of course, is in the assumption that a robber is going to be satisfied with the contents of the cash register (or whatever). I'd rather keep my options open. Suppose the intent is not to rob you, but to kidnap and kill you because of the color of your skin? Or because they don't want to leave any witnesses alive? Or you remind them of a school teacher they didn't like? You are at their mercy. The average person will have no need to use his gun in self-defense during his entire lifetime. Surprisingly enough, the same is true for the police, too; the average U.S. policeman will never even have occasion to draw his gun from its holster during his entire career. However, the infrequency of the need does not mean that the item is useless. The average driver will never "use" the airbag on his car. However, both the gun and the airbag are important, for if you *do* need one, you need it very badly and you need it RIGHT THEN. Every once in a while (or maybe more frequently, I don't have specific numbers on hand), you get some low-life who decides that not having a witness around is worth the murder rap; probably not a bad decision nowadays, when time served for a non-premeditated murder conviction can be as low a 4-5 years. We had a couple of cases last year where cabbies were found robbed and shot in the head. FBI statistics indicate that a victim has the best chance of survival by resisting with a firearm. Victims resisting with firearms have a higher survival rate than those who do not resist at all. I suppose you subscribe to the "just lay back and enjoy it" school of rape countermeasures, too? "Each of us has a natural right to defend his person, his liberty, and his property." -- Frederic Bastiat "God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it." -- Daniel Webster 18.2 You don't need to protect yourself, let the police handle it all by themselves. They're professionals; that's what we pay them for. When I want my house painted, I call a painter. If I want my garden landscaped I call a gardener. I could make a tolerable effort at both, but I might screw it up, so instead I rely on a trained professional, just as I expect someone who wants computer programming done to call on people like myself. We can't all be experts at everything, so we each specialize. Let's ignore for the moment that I, like many (dare I say most?) Americans, prefer to do things for myself when possible. Let us also ignore for the moment that most telephone lines can be easily identified from outside the home and cut and that (for now) cellular phone calls DO NOT IDENTIFY YOU like land based lines do when calling 911; you must tell them where you are because they don't have access to that information. Let's just look at what the role of the police really is. The police are crime janitors; their job is, quite literally, to clean up the mess after a crime has been committed. They are under no obligation to prevent a crime before it happens; it matters not whether the crime is violent or non-violent. All the police do it to investigate the crime and, if possible, bring the perpetrator(s) before the courts. Unfortunately, the courts are more broken than the police; it is common for a first-time marijuana possessor to serve more time in prison than a multiple violent offender. They are, by their physical presence, supposed to help maintain social order. The police have a general duty to protect the public, which is different from a specific duty to protect individuals. This means that the police *could* be held liable if they ignored a riot, but couldn't if they weren't there to protect some individual who was attacked in it. It would seem that the police are not your personal bodyguards, and they are not obligated under law to protect you. You can't sue them (or rather can't win), even if they stand back and watch while you are beaten and robbed. If your gardener kills your plants and breaks your pipes, you have legal recourse to recover damages from him; if a cop fails to protect you, you don't even have the right to an apology (and the potential consequences of such imcompetence/inefficiency are *much* more severe). See any of the following cases for proof: South v. Maryland, 59 U.S. (HOW) 396,15 L.Ed., 433 (1856) Bowers v. DeVito, U.S. Court of Appeals, 7th Circuit, 686F.2d 616 (1882) Riss v. City of New York, 293 N.Y. 2d 897 (1968) Keane v. City of Chicago, 98 Ill App 2d 460 (1968) Hartzler v. City of San Jose, App., 120 Cal. Rptr 5 (1975) Reiff v. City of Philadelphia, 477F. Supp. 1262 (E.D.Pa. 1979) Chapman v. City of Philadelphia, 434 A.2d 753 (Sup. Ct. Penn. 1981) Warren v. District of Columbia, D.C. App., 444 A.2d 1 (1981) Davidson v. City of Westminster, 32 C.3d 197,185 Cal. Rptr. 252,649 P.2d 894 (S.Ct. Cal. 1982) Morgan v. District of Columbia, 468 A2d 1306 (D.C. App. 1983) Morris v. Musser, 478 A.2d 937 (1984) Calogrides v. City of Mobile, 475 So. 2d 560 (S.Ct. Ala. 1985) Lynch v. N.C. Dept. of Justice, 376 S.E. 2nd 247 (N.C. App. 1989) Marshall v. Winston, 389 S.E. 2nd 902 (Va. 1990) A typical quote: "Law enforcement agencies and personnel have no duty to protect individuals from the criminal acts of others; instead their duty is to preserve the peace and arrest law breakers for the protection of the general public." (Lynch v. NC Dept. Justice) There's an old saying that says 'it is better to have a gun and not need it than to need one and not have it'. Taking precautions to protect myself and allowing the police to protect me are not mutually exclusive. When your house is on fire, do you throw water on it or let it burn until the fire fighters arrive? I'd call the fire department, but I'd damn sure turn my hoses on it, too. If someone were breaking into my house, I'd call the police, but I'd also be prepared to defend myself. No one has a greater interest in how my house/garden/life turns out than I do, not even the trained professionals. Only a fool would delegate his personal safety to some hired underling who could frankly not care less as long as he is paid. I think repelling home intruders is best done immediately, by a competent non-professional (me) rather than making an appointment with a so-called "professional" who will still probably mess it up. Who knows better the layout of my house and the voices, habits, and number of my family; me or some hastily responding policeman? I am on the scene, and have immediate, first-hand knowledge of the situation. When you're the intended victim, there is very little of the ambiguity an arriving policeman will have to sort through (assuming he even arrives while the attack is still in progress). If you call one painter, and he screws up, you can call in another painter to fix the screw-up; there's lot's of painters to choose amongst. If you call in the police and they don't show or they screw it up; you or your family could be harmed. In most cases, there is only one local police force to choose from. That leaves private bodyguards and I just don't have the money to waste on one even if I wanted to. Perhaps you are a proponent of a police-state with a policeman in every bedroom to "protect" you and "keep order"? A 1986 survey of 2,000 imprisoned felons performed by the National Institute of Justice showed that 57 percent of these inmates believed encountering an armed victim is the worst thing that can happen -- even worse then police apprehension -- and that 34 percent of them had been shot at, driven off, wounded or captured by an armed victim. (Point Blank, pp. 130-8.) To shed light on armed crime, the National Institute of Justice recently sponsored a study that surveyed more than 1,800 convicted adult felons (all men) incarcerated throughout the country... about two-fifths of the sample had at some time in their careers encountered an armed victim; an equivalent percentage had at some time decided NOT to commit a crime because they had reason to suspect that the intended victim was armed. (The Armed Criminal in America, by James D. Wright.) On the whole, citizens are more successful gun users than are the police. When police shoot, they are 5.5 times more likely to hit an innocent person than are civilian shooters. Moreover, civilians use guns effectively against criminals. If a robbery victim does not defend himself, the robbery will succeed 88% of the time, and the victim will be injured 25% of the time. If the victim resists with a gun, the robbery "success" rate falls to 30%, and the victim injury rate falls to 17%. No other response to a robbery, from using a knife, to shouting for help, to fleeing, produces such a low rate of victim injury and robbery success. In short, virtually all Americans who use guns do so responsibly and effectively, notwithstanding the anxieties of gun control advocates. Even if the numbers of criminal deaths were the proper measure of anti-crime efficacy, citizens acting with full legal justification kill at least 30% more criminals than do the police. -- (CATO Institute Policy Analysis No. 109, TRUST THE PEOPLE: THE CASE AGAINST GUN CONTROL, by David Kopel) Armed citizens kill 2000 to 3000 criminals each year, three times the number killed by police. -- Statistics from the United States Department of Justice. PRIVATE FIREARMS STOP CRIME 2.5 MILLION TIMES EACH YEAR, NEW UNIVERSITY SURVEY CONFIRMS By J. Neil Schulman <1st paragraph deleted...> The new survey, conducted by random telephone sampling of 4,978 households in all the states except Alaska and Hawaii, yield results indicating that American civilians use their firearms as often as 2.5 million times every year defending against a confrontation with a criminal, and that handguns alone account for up to 1.9 million defenses per year. Previous surveys, in Kleck's analysis, had underrepresented the extent of private firearms defenses because the questions asked failed to account for the possibility that a particular respondent might have had to use his or her firearm more than once. "When the freedom they wished for most was the freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free, and was never free again." -- Edith Hamilton "Law enforcement agencies and personnel have no duty to protect individuals from the criminal acts of others; instead their duty is to preserve the peace and arrest law breakers for the protection of the general public." -- Lynch v. NC Dept. Justice "There is no Constitutional right to be protected by the state against being murdered by criminals or madmen." -- Bowers v. DeVito, 686 F.2d 616, at 618 (7th Cir. 1982) "... a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any particular individual citizen..." -- Warren v. District of Columbia, 444 A.2d 1 (D.C. App.181) "The price of liberty is, always has been, and always will be blood: The person who is not willing to die for his liberty has already lost it to the first scoundrel who is willing to risk dying to violate that person's liberty! Are you free?" -- Andrew Ford 18.3 You don't need to carry a weapon to protect yourself. Get martial arts training and join the Guardian Angels if you want to play pretend cop. Curtis S. will give you a baton, T-shirt, red cap and send to work. You will also be taught some slam and jam tactics that do not require the use of a firearm. Otherwise get an alternative defensive weapon like a taser, sword or baseball bat to protect yourself. Besides, who made you judge, jury, and executioner? What if I am a 4"2', 65 pound woman or a sick, weak, elderly person? A lot of good such training will do me! In all cases, the handgun is the "great equalizer" which takes little training and virtually no strength to use. It requires only that you can see your target and hold your arms steady long enough to point and pull the trigger. Even if I am capable of using a baseball bat or sword effectively, such weapons are extremely more useful in offense than in defense (assuming my criminal opponent would be so honorable as to play by the same rules and be unarmed). Consider the following: o Guns make lots of noise when used, alerting nearby people to call for help. People who are violently attacked quickly lose the ability to make noise and attract help. This is why gunshots are more survivable than stab wounds. o Swords and baseball bats are very effective murder weapons *against unarmed victims*, which is more often the case than not, since the attacker gets to choose the time, place, and identity of the victim to increase his advantage. o Almost by definition, if you have a need for self-defense, the other guy is already armed (with something at least as deadly as what you have), so the effectiveness of a baseball bat *as a self-defense weapon* is not in the same league as its effectiveness *as a murder weapon*. The same goes for swords. (BTW, this argument is the likely cause of the "guns coincide with violence" statistics. Correlation does not imply causation; it could be the other way around and "violent environments influence individuals to protect themselves with guns".) o Baseball bats and swords will never be as effective as guns for self-defense, since: a) In order to be used for self-defense (or realistically threatened to be used, the wielder of a baseball bat or sword has to be at about arm's length from his attacker, which gives the bad guy a hell of a chance at disarming you or maiming/killing you after you take your first shot. b) Due to (a) above, he may well decide to stay just out of reach and wait for his opening or wait for his friends to arrive, whereas most people will run away real fast when a gun is aimed at them. c) Baseball bats and swords are less likely to immediately immobilize, meaning that the guy gets a lot of chances to harm you. d) The weak, elderly, and disabled are less able to effectively wield a baseball bat or sword than they are a gun. o In contrast, as a murder weapon against unarmed victims, the above drawbacks shrink almost to nothing, so the victim is just as dead or crippled either way. If you think that having a gun (or rather the perception by criminals that you might have a gun) is useless as a deterrent to crime, why don't you try this little experiment. Make a large sign (at least 2 feet square) and in big red letters paint, "this is a gun-free home" or "residents inside will not use lethal force to defend themselves." Ask a friend in the same neighborhood to make a similar sign that says, "this house contains many firearms" or "this house defended by armed gun-owners at all times". Put these signs on the properties in plain sight of the busiest road and get back to me and let me know how many times you get robbed and how many times your friend does. Too chicken? OK, then, take this small multiple choice test. The question is, "A man has broken into your house and is threatening to kill you. Your wife and kids are home but are asleep and unaware. What are you going to do?" 1. If attacked, I prefer to be defenseless and leave my wife and kids likewise. 2. If attacked, I prefer to run away and leave my wife and kids to be attacked. 3. If attacked, I prefer to call 911 and let the professionals handle the situation even though average police response time is more than 5 minutes. 4. If attacked, I prefer to sacrifice myself and my family to uphold my belief that all life is sacred and taking another human life is wrong. 5. If attacked, I prefer to explain my pacifist philosophy of non-violence to my attacker in the hopes that a logical argument will dissuade him from such folly. 6. If attacked, I prefer to defend myself and my family with a kitchen knife, although it takes skill to use and statistics show it to be an ineffective defense (particularly against a firearm). 7. If attacked, I prefer to defend myself and my family with a gun, which statistics show to be an effective defense. 8. Guns scare me. What was the question again? Most non-lethal alternatives to guns are not effective against more than one adversary. They are totally useless against a mob, as when civil order breaks down (riots, hurricanes and severe earthquakes). When someone calls 911, and either the lines are dead, or one gets the answer "You are on your own, pal..", whistles, hatpins, strong words, watered-down sprays, and shock devices are downright laughable. If they were so great, police would dump their firearms and use these devices instead. As many have found out, only a firearm capable of repeat shots, delivered rapidly and sometimes in quantity, can deter a mob of looters that is bent on gutting and burning your home/business to the ground. That is why this talk on banning rapid fire firearms and magazines that hold more than a few shots, or which can be quickly changed is so concerning. It ensures people will be defenseless against mobs of criminals. All too often it can be days before any order is restored. A taser requires 2 darts to not only hit, but also make it through heavy clothing and to stick before it can deliver the constant shock (which won't happen if the wires cross or snag). It is a single shot; if you fail on the first attempt, you are in big trouble. Virtually all jurisdictions BAN such devices for the common person. Tear gas and pepper spray are designed for outdoor use (the manuals even warn you) because when used indoors, you are as likely to be affected by them as your attacker is since they hang in the air. The repeating firearm is the only tool that makes it possible to stop a determined assailant (even if he isn't interested in stopping) with any degree of certainty. This is because to stop such a person one must render him incapable of attacking, and the only way that can be done in a time frame of a second or two is to disconnect the nervous system, or cause loss of consciousness due to a very sudden fall in blood pressure. Only a firearm can do that without letting the attacker get so close that no defensive measure is going to be very effective if there is a significant disparity of strength (something an attacker usually has in his favor). If someone is breaking into my house when he knows there are people there, I can be relatively certain that my life is in immediate danger. Maybe you would presume that he is your doctor stopping by to give you a surprise checkup? Once my health (notice I did not say my property) is in danger, the attacker has tried and judged himself; if he forces me to act as act as executioner then so be it. His death would be on his head, not mine. Did you ever consider that the simple brandishing of a firearm is often powerful enough to deter an attacker? Discharge is not always the first step; most of the time, it is the last resort. Guns are not the wands of death the media would like you to think they are. Even if I do shoot my attacker, the chances are very good that he would survive (assuming a torso shot) if he got medical attention quickly enough. I have no ethical problem with shooting muggers in the act. In no way do I have any moral obligation to turn over my wallet, and once having made that decision (which is my right), it is reasonable to assume this this person will kill me once he realizes my decision. It is therefore my justified duty to kill him first. I don't believe that a thief deserves to die, any more than someone who insists on taking naps on railroad tracks does. I would resent being denied access to riding on a train just to save the life of someone who engages in what should properly be viewed as suicidal, anti-social behavior. "The supposed quietude of a good man allures the ruffian; while on the other hand, arms like laws discourage and keep the invader and the plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. The same balance would be preserved were all the world destitute of arms, for all would be alike; but since some will not, others dare not lay them aside... Horrid mischief would ensue were one half deprived the use of them..." -- Thomas Paine "The world is filled with violence. Because criminals carry guns, we decent law-abiding citizens should also have guns. Otherwise they will win and the decent people will loose." -- James Earl Jones 18.4 Concealed carry weapon (CCW) laws will mean that every redneck in town will be packing heat. You will see bar fights and traffic accidents ending in gunfire. The FBI's Uniform Crime Report for the last decade shows that Florida and Oregon (who both recently eased restrictions on concealed carry) have experienced lower murder and violent crime rates. In fact, if you believe the media hysteria, criminals are now seeking out vacationers in Florida since they can be relatively certain that such targets will be unarmed. A very small minority of citizens actually bother to get CCWs (~10%) and of those a miniscule number commit crimes (<.01%). Florida Concealed Weapons Licensing Statistics to Date: Applications received: 104,249 Applications denied: 743 (0.71%) Denied for incomplete application: 301 (0.29% of received) Denied for criminal history*: 442 (0.42% of received) Licenses revoked for offenses after licensure: 61 (0.059%) Revoked for offense/firearm present**: 10 (0.0097%) Revoked for other reasons*: 51 (0.049%) * Majority of offenses were nonviolent crimes such as DUIs, worthless checks, and controlled-substance convictions. **DUIs, reckless display included. This chart contains official statistical data from the Florida Department of State, Division of Licensing (as reported in the November 1991 issue of "Guns & Ammo" magazine). You'll also notice that all the worst cities for carjacking have one thing in common which is not true for Phoenix (which has no carjacking but does have the most liberal gun carry laws in the U.S. giving it the same crime rate as 20 years ago even though it is the 10th largest city in the nation); it's illegal to have a loaded gun within reach while driving in these cities: Worst Cities with Respect Loaded Population Number of Reported to the Crime of Gun in Carjackings Carjacking Car?* ** *** Chicago, Illinois N 3,005,072 2,573 since Jan 1. New York, New York N 7,071,639 926 Jan 1 - Jul 1. Dallas, Texas N 904,078 817 since January. Cleveland, Ohio ? 573,822 560 in the last year. Detroit, Michigan N 1,203,339 695 Jan 1 - Oct 3. Washington, D. C. N 637,651 245 Jan 1 - Aug 6 Houston, Texas N 1,595,138 220 since Jan 1. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania N 1,688,210 200 since Jan 1. San Diego, California N 875,538 140 Jan 1 - Sept 15 Baltimore, Maryland N 786,775 75 since Jan 1. * Can the average Joe carry a loaded gun within reach of the driver while in his car (It may be necessary to keep it out of sight, holstered, or in a storage compartment, but it must be legal to to have it unlocked and loaded.) Sources are too numerous to list. ** Populations based on data from the 1986 _Webster's_Ninth_New_ _Collegiate_Dictionary_; the data is not current but does serve for comparing the general population of a city. *** As listed in _USA_TODAY_, Wednesday, October 7, 1992, page 2A, right column, "Carjackings across the USA." "A free people ought... to be armed..." -- George Washington, speech of 7 January 1790 "An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life." -- "Beyond This Horizon" by Robert Heinlein, 1942 "It is because the people are civilized, that they are with safety armed." -- Joel Barlow "The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed." -- Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers at 184-188 "Arms in the hands of citizens [may] be used at individual discretion ... in private self-defense..." -- John Adams, A Defense of the Constitutions of the Governments of the UAS, 471 (1788) "The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference - they deserve a place of honor with all that's good" -- George Washington "Let therefore every man, that, appealing to his own heart, feels the least spark of virtue or freedom there, think that it is an honor which he owes himself, and a duty which he owes his country, to bear arms." -- Thomas Pownall "To preserve liberty it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them." -- Richard Henry Lee writing in letters from the Federal Farmer to the Republic (1787-1788) "A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be the constant companion of your walks." -- Thomas Jefferson 19 Your argument that we should worry about criminals' illegal guns doesn't make sense because *all* guns start out being manufactured and sold "legally". It isn't until a legal gun is stolen or used to commit a crime that it becomes "illegal". Why wait until a crime is committed when we can get rid of the gun before the fact? If the "legal" gun owner didn't possess a gun to begin with, it couldn't be stolen and used to commit crimes. *All* aircraft and most motor vehicles used by smugglers of all sorts to illegally transport goods and people were originally manufactured and sold legally to their first buyer. You would prefer to lock up folks before they commit a crime so as to reduce crime, I suppose. Being consistent, I assume that you would also advocate locking up young male blacks before they can assault other young blacks. Or perhaps you'd like to lock up all adults before they could risk the population at large by driving while intoxicated? And what about all those potential rapists walking around with concealed penii? Just how far do you want to go with your exercise of prior restraint? The only reason that any crime gun starts out legally is because that happens to be the easiest place to get them. The behavior of criminals is not constrained by man-made laws but it is affected by the law of supply and demand. Remove the current source of guns and they'll go to the next easiest source and since money is "free" for them, they won't care about the cost. Remove that source and they'll go to the next one, etc. Ban guns throughout the country and they'll go overseas or make them illegally. The first buyer is often a government or government agency, either U.S. or foreign. So denying the civilian access still leaves these others, and they account for enough that diversions from these sources would supply plenty of guns. One would have to ban them for not only the civilians but the police and other government agencies, AND DO IT WORLDWIDE. All those automatic weapons used by terrorists or drug dealers were made legally *initially*, yes. But they were *smuggled* to their end users, whether it's terrorists (as in Ireland or other European countries) or drug dealers. Then if the worldwide ban were possible, you would find the creation of illegal sources of quite good arms (albeit not as nicely finished or fitted as some of the better commercial models). Many modern designs are characterized by their ability to be fabricated using third-world technology. The AK comes to mind, as well as a number of other communist block weapons. Western weapons (especially U.S. designs, and lately German or Austrian designs) need very high-tech processes (high tech plastics and alloys, and injection or other molding processes). But guns like the Skorpion, and earlier WWII or pre-WWII designs are very simple to fabricate using nothing more than a pipe with a barrel fitted at the end, with a spring-loaded weight with a tit on the face, such as a Sten, or Schmeisser. Illicit manufacture in quantity would be impossible to stop or control. But this talk is all predicated on the idea that the *victim* of a crime is responsible for it (and any repercussions thereafter). Is leaving a gun on my bedstand any more wrong than leaving my car unlocked and leaving the keys in the ignition (I would agree that both are unwise but are they criminal)? To say that a gun owner is responsible for the theft of his gun (and any crimes committed with it), even if it is not well hidden/protected, makes as much sense as saying that a vagina-owner is responsible for her being selected as a target of rape (and the spread of any STDs to other women raped by her attacker after she has infected him). In reality, the gun owner who has a gun stolen from his home is as much a victim as someone who has any other valuable item stolen, such as jewelry, an expensive computer, or a car. The car is useful for crime, too, as a getaway or as a weapon to cause hit-and-runs. So what is the point of the banning exercise, *really*? We are back to prior restraint, and a double standard, to boot. "He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself." -- Thomas Paine 20 If your argument is "we shouldn't ban guns because criminals won't obey the law" then why should we have any laws at all? Laws don't limit what anyone can do; they set limits on what the State can exact punishment for, and limits on that punishment. If the resulting effect is that people choose to not do certain things, it's a side benefit. Whether or not an act is committed is still up to the person's choice, the law *cannot* force someone to not do something; otherwise, there would be no crime. Since it is already illegal (punishable) to commit a crime with a gun, what purpose is served by making guns illegal (since it will only make committing crimes easier for criminals)? What you are really saying is, "let's make a law saying it is illegal to break the law." Does that *really* make sense to you? "The tank, the B-52, the fighter-bomber, the state controlled police and the military are the weapons of dictatorship. The rifle is the weapon of democracy... If guns are outlawed, only the government will have guns. Only the police, the secret police, the military, the hired servants of our rulers. Only the government - and a few outlaws. I intend to be among the outlaws." -- Edward Abbey 21.1 The idea that civilians equipped with light arms are going to face down an army armed with missiles and tanks is ridiculous. When things get that bad, people will be able to get weapons from sympathizers anyway. The Viet Cong did it. The Sandanistas did it. The Cubans did it. The FMLN did it. The Shining Path are doing it now. The Chinese Communists did it. The Afghan rebels did it. Do you know what the *most* consistent request is by the Bosnians? It isn't for food or medicine; they want the lifting of the arms embargo so that they can obtain light arms to defend themselves with. It seems that for some unexplainable reason, many of the populace would rather take a couple of invaders with them as they are quickly shot rather than be forced to beg on their knees as they are raped, mutilated, and tortured to death; go figure. Perhaps you should read a little more 20th century world history. Although most of these groups now have sophisticated large scale weapons of war, none of them had outside aid from the beginning. They all started out with small arms and used these to steal some heavy weapons from their enemies. They all fought successfully for several years before anyone offered them aid. There is an obvious reason for that; very few nations are willing to risk supporting a third-rate rebel who is going to loose no matter what. So revolutions only get outside support after they have managed to fight and win battles on their own. All of the groups mentioned above were fighting a revolution on their own, starting with no more than small arms and either winning or holding their own, with no outside aid or arms supplies. The Afghans got no aid at all for the first four years; the Vietcong (or rather the Vietmihn, the Vietcong's predecessors) did not get any outside aid before 1960. Before that, they still managed to throw the French Army out of Indochina. After the Federal government encounters a few expensive operations, who will fund it? The Vietnamese had the Soviets, the Afghans had the U.S. Will a Japan with financial problems of its own looming, loan the billions needed? The U.S. government is pretty near collapse as it is, it wouldn't take a very hard shove. I suppose they could raise taxes to even more ruinous levels and adopt the attitude of tyrant to "win". It's hard to see how this solution would last very long either, it would seem rather to fuel further rebellion. Defeating a superior enemy is not necessarily the point. You can make dealing with you more expensive than it's worth (as happened to America in Vietnam). From what I understand of history, the USA didn't gain their independence from England by defeating them. They just made it so the British weren't willing to bother fighting a war that far away when they had so many other problems on their hands. Let's consider the Branch Davidian debacle. It is pretty obvious that the BATF illegally served a search warrant. They did not have permission for a no-knock raid nor did they have any arrest warrants. In fact, they did not even have any evidence that any laws had been broken. The main reason they went out to Mount Carmel was to get those "nasty" guns out of the hands of that crazy "cult". Because they had guns that they were able use to defend themselves from an illegal armed assault by government agents, the BATF took some casualties which will make them think twice (and three times, and four times, and...) before they try this kind of stunt again. The standoff made the world news and called the event to the attention of everyone, many of whom are now interested in investigating the details and punishing those who exceeded their authority. Without the guns, the BATF would have stormed the place, done anything they wanted to, hauled people off to jail, and no one would have ever heard anything about it, or cared. Guns make it very costly (in a variety of ways) for the government to run roughshod over people, and that keeps them from using such tactics as often as they would otherwise. P.S. Even Rush Limbaugh got this one wrong :< "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!" -- Patrick Henry (1736-1799) "The War Inevitable" speech, March, 1775 "The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature, and will never be free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself." -- John Stewart Mills "And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms... The tree of liberty must be watered periodically with the blood of tyrants and patriots alike. It is its natural manure." -- Thomas Jefferson (letter to William S. Smith, 1787, in Jefferson, On Democracy 20, S. Padover, ed., 1939) "... if raised, whether they could subdue a Nation of freemen, who know how to prize liberty, and who have arms in their hands?" -- Delegate Sedgwick, during the Massachusetts Convention rhetorically asking if an oppressive standing army could prevail "As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the next article [the Second Amendment] in their right to keep and bear their private arms." -- Trence Coxe in "Remarks on the First Part of the Amendments to the Federal Constitution", under the pseudonym "A Pennsylvanian" in the Philadelphia Federal Gazette, 18 June 1789 21.2 When things get so bad that the people need to take up arms against an illegitimate government people will be able to find weapons even if they are illegal. If the government is benevolent then you don't need a gun to protect yourself against them. If it is malevolent then it is silly to say, "Please Mr. Dictator, allow me to legally own a weapon that I am going to use against you." [IMHO, this is the most logical argument of them all but it still has problems] This argument could be rephrased with exactly the opposite meaning. If a government is benevolent then they have nothing to fear from civilian firearms. If it is malevolent then they have a LOT to fear. It has been said that a government that fears an armed citizenry deserves one. As long as the citizens are armed, they probably don't need to be, but the moment they are disarmed is precisely the time they will need to be armed. You are missing the value of deterrence. Things can't *get* that bad if the government is faced with an armed public and the threat of potential revolution. No matter how corrupt the government's goals, they probably aren't willing to provoke a civil war. Nor can the people always find weapons. Many revolts have failed because the people were not armed and could not acquire weapons. The Warsaw uprising of 1944, for example, where the Home Army only had enough guns to arm 10% of their volunteers. Small arms have a tremendous deterrent value and raise the *price* of waging war on the populace much higher. It is not necessary that the civilians win, merely that they not lose badly enough to drain the strength of the tyrants. I realize you find it literally impossible that small arms beat well-equipped standing armies, but they do. Well-equipped professional armies are by necessity small, and the kinds of losses that guerrillas find acceptable, would decimate a professional army. But all this is hypothetical. Various military types have run the scenario and wargamed it. The odds of the government winning against a population of 250 million, many with small arms, is surprisingly low. What you ask is that we reduce the threshold of cost for this type of operation, and then hope that the government stays forever benevolent. Given some of the things that already exist in U.S. (and world) history, this would be a long-shot bet. Many people who style themselves as lovers of freedom aren't. The idea that the ability to speak freely is enough, and that all other forms of protection can be dispensed with while you have that is foolhardy. Administrations and bureaucracies change. The point is not to protect against the current bunch, but against somebody *worse* farther down the line. Even Machiavelli had some bad things to say about governments that were terrified of, and thus disarmed, their own populace. He noted that building fortresses for the upper class, and disarming the peasants, rarely had the desirable long term effect one would suppose. Don't forget that there was a perfectly peaceful change of power in Germany in 1932 when the government went from benign to genocidal virtually overnight. "... but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude, that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people, while there is a large body of citizens, little if at all inferior to them in discipline and use of arms, who stand ready to defend their rights..." -- Alexander Hamilton speaking of standing armies in Federalist Paper 29 "It's the misfortune of all Countries, that they sometimes lie under a unhappy necessity to defend themselves by Arms against the ambition of their Governors, and to fight for what's their own. If those in government are headless of reason, the people must patiently submit to Bondage, or stand upon their own Defence; which if they are enabled to do, they shall never be put upon it, but their Swords may grow rusty in their hands; for that Nation is surest to live in Peace, that is most capable of making War; and a Man that hath a Sword by his side, shall have least occasion to make use of it." -- John Trenchard and Walter Moyle "No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government." -- Thomas Jefferson, Proposal Virginia Constitution, June 1776 1 Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334 (C. J. Boyd, Ed., 1950). "The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by doing so." -- Adolf Hitler, Edict of March 18, 1938 21.3 You are forgetting that it is the *United States* we are talking about here; the good ole U S of A! This is not Iraq, where they have never had a true democracy and are ruled by a power-hungry idiot. This is America, the land of the free, the home of the brave! All government and military personell have sworn a solemn oath to uphold and defend the Constitution. If there were a national coup, then you can bet your left arm that the vast majority of the U.S. Armed Forces, as well as the National Guard units and police departments, will come to the rescue. If the U.S. Armed Forces were ordered to seize control of the USA, none of the support they depended on in the Gulf would be available for long. Many units would undoubtedly use their weapons to oppose the troops who sided with the fascist government officials with totalitarian ambitions. Without supplies and civilian support, the few members of the U.S. Armed Forces that were crazed enough to go along with the takeover attempt would soon find themselves outnumbered, outgunned, and out of basic necessities. So what do you need your gun for? You can rely on the troops. I get it, "It can't happen here! We're better and smarter and more civilized than all those other people throughout history!" Right? Perhaps the majority would rebel but not immediately. Troops chosen for initial suppression operations are always those deemed "reliable"; meaning they will follow orders without question, and some even go beyond it. In the Bonus March incident of 1932, MacArthur kept attacking the demonstrators, despite orders from the President to restrain his troops. Perhaps you think the massacre of the Branch Davidians near Waco was acceptable use of force and merely a politically correct "state-assisted" suicide? In January 1993, 120 nations including the USA banned CS tear gas from use in warfare. In April 1993, the U.S. government used it against U.S. citizens. It has already happened here and is still happening! "At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some trans-Atlantic military giant to step the ocean and crush us with a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined with a Bonaparte at their head and disposing of all the treasure of the earth, our own excepted, could not by force make a track on the Blue Ridge or take a drink from the Ohio in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us it must spring up from amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we ourselves must be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men, we must live through all times, or die by suicide." -- Abraham Lincoln, 1838 "This last September, on a survey questionnaire given to members of the U.S. counter-terrorist unit Navy SEAL Team Six by their commanders, was the following question: 'Would you fire on U.S. Citizens while in the process of confiscating their guns?'" -- Page 8 of the February issue of "Modern Gun", under a section labeled "Question of the Month" "Sure we'll have fascism in America, but it'll come disguised as Americanism." -- Huey Long 22 If gun control works for , why won't it work for the USA? Let's ignore for the moment that there is no credible evidence to support the allegation that gun control reduces crime in general, much less gun-related crime. It is "easy" to regulate the flow of illegal weapons into England and Japan. After all, they are islands. One problem the U.S. faces is its relatively open boarders. This past year there has been a significant problem with Chinese refugees arriving via boat. In years past it has been the Haitans. There is an incredible influx of people from Mexico and South America through the U.S.-Mexican boarder. Every year we hear about the tremendous tonnage of illegal drugs coming to our country through a variety of vehicles, one being the cargo holds of ships. Certainly if we cannot stop the flow of illegal immigration and drugs into our country then how will we ever stop the flow of guns? In our nation's capitol, 20% of guns confiscated were homemade; they don't even need to bother with importing them!. Consider the following comparisons between guns and drugs: o Guns and drugs can both be imported. o Guns and drugs can both be made locally. o Guns are easier for the average person to make. o Guns have a much longer working life than drugs. o Guns and drugs will both be in demand even while illegal. o Gun manufacturing sites are easier to pass off as legitimate manufacturing plants. o Dogs can't be trained to sniff out pieces of metal which happens to be in the shape of a gun. o People will be driven to acquire guns due to fear of losing their lives, whereas drug buyers only want to satisfy a craving. o One gun will satisfy the average customer for far longer than a drug purchase will satisfy the average drug customer. o Criminals will always have a strong incentive to acquire guns; they're the tools of their "trade"; drugs are just one product criminals sell. o Many drugs must be manufactured in high-tech chemistry labs using raw materials (plants and/or reagents) which can draw attention to the operation; most guns can be manufactured in low-tech operations using machinery and raw materials obtainable anywhere for legitimate purposes. It would seem that guns would be a *worse* black market problem than drugs! Will it be any easier to stop a cargo hold of weapons from reaching our shores than one of drugs? Banning gun ownership in this country would make it impossible for law-abiding citizens to purchase guns for either sport, recreation, defensive uses. I have a gun for the purpose of extending the life of myself and my family; it will only kill if I decide it will. A ban may reduce the number of homicides committed by a few crazed individuals. Then again it may not. Such a ban will do nothing to stop the arming of the drug gangs which have become organized. The same suppliers of their drugs could in fact supply them with weapons, and I suspect this is already the case. Fully automatic are not generally available to the public; you cannot go into your local gun shop and by a fully automatic UZI, AK-47 etc. so how do you suppose those criminals go those types of guns? Most of these countries (Germany and England for sure) had lower murder and violent crime rates even before they implemented gun control! England's homicide advantage over the US is smaller than it was before serious gun control existed in either country. It cannot be legitimately argued that gun control has anything to do with their "lower" rates. The nations of the world have *many* fundamental differences and you cannot compare one variable and ignore the millions of others; the most valid comparisons are the ones where the variables are the most limited such as comparing different U.S. cities with opposing gun laws/philosophies. The U.S. murder and violent crimes rates have been falling despite high unemployment, racial tensions, and a host of other problems. The only regions not experiencing falling rates are those with severe restrictions on guns. If you must insist on cross-cultural comparisons, explain why Germany's murder rate is *higher* than Switzerland where just about every household is *required* to keep and bear fully-automatic rifles. Mexico which has stricter gun control laws than most of Europe, has twice the U.S. homicide rate. Hasta la vista, baby. What's usually overlooked in Britain is that the police do not deal with armed suspects; the RAF special forces do. These RAF forces do not take a large percentage of its suspects to trial; most go straight to hell, literally. If you're willing to kill off all people who abuse guns in crime, you won't have many gun crimes. I'd prefer we just kept them locked up for 30 years; it'd have almost the same effect. Many "civilized" countries don't exactly stop with guns, either. In Japan, where guns are banned, aluminum baseball and softball bats were banned for the same reason. Mace is illegal in England and they recently decided to ban steel-toed Doc Martin shoes because they were being used in too many violent crimes. Simply residing in a city without registering with the police constitutes a crime in Germany, and being in public without an official photo ID is grounds for arrest. In Singapore, you can be whipped for not having your hair cut short enough and fined for chewing gum. Most European countries are based on cradle-to-grave socialism in which citizens are treated like helpless children dependent on a nanny state for security. That the same societies ban guns is simply another manifestation of the overall screw-the-individual attitude there. The U.S. is already on this path to socialism and oppression; in Washington D.C., "high capacity" water guns are illegal for crying out loud! If logical arguments won't convince you; how about some statistics which show that, in fact, gun control *isn't* working in those countries? The following tables are from the study conducted by the Pacific Research Institute. They can be contacted at Dept. GAH, 177 Post St., San Francisco, CA 94108. Country % Households With Guns Homicide Rate * ------- ---------------------- --------------- England/Wales ** 4.70 0.67 France 24.70 1.00 Norway 31.20 1.16 Switzerland 32.60 1.17 Netherlands 2.00 1.18 West Germany 9.20 1.48 Belgium 16.80 1.85 Australia 20.10 1.95 Canada 30.80 2.60 Finland 25.5 2.86 United States 48.90 7.59 *Rates are per 100,000 population. ** Homicide rate does not include "political" murders. Based on figures from two different sources: Swiss Criminologist Killias (average murder rates for the years of 1983 - 1986) and France data derived from World Health Organization information 1980. Consider the above table: The only support for the anti-gun argument is that the lowest murder rate is for England where only 4.7% of the households have guns. But this can not be attributed to low gun ownership since the French murder rate is only slightly higher. However, the rate of French gun ownership is more than five times greater than in England. Note: The real English murder rate might actually be as high or higher than the French. The English artificially reduce their murder rate by excluding "political" murder, (example: assassinations by the IRA), whereas French and American rates include all types of murder. This brings up a further issue, If firearm bans reduce murder why is "political" murder so much more common in Europe than in the United States or Canada? Further review of the above table shows the English correlation between low gun ownership and low murder is mere coincidence rather than a general rule. The country with the lowest gun ownership is not England but the Netherlands where only 2% of the households have guns. Yet the Netherlands has more murder than most other European countries, including those with rates of gun ownership much higher, as much as 12 to 16 times higher in the cases of France, Switzerland, and Norway. Those countries happen to be three of the highest European countries in household gun ownership, yet they are also three of the four European countries with the lowest murder rate. Compare the murder rates for the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Norway. They are nearly identical. Yet Switzerland and Norway have 15 to 16 times more gun ownership than the Netherlands. Now compare Canada and Finland. Both of these countries have rates of gun ownership that are almost as high as Norway or Switzerland, but their murder rates are more than twice that of the Netherlands, Norway, or Switzerland. When the full range of comparisons are made, no pattern of correlation appears between high gun ownership rates and high murder rates. The point of these studies is not that more gun ownership causes more or less murder, but that it has no effect on either. The kind of people who will murder, commit armed robbery, rape, etc are going to to do so with or without guns. The argument that guns are necessary or useful for murder, does not apply to legal gun ownership. There are always going to be enough illegal guns on the market to satisfy a criminals needs. Since the Firearm Control Act was brought in 1978, the number of assaults with firearms in Toronto has quadrupled. The anti-gun movement is always quoting the crime statistics of England, saying that because England has extremely strict gun control they have less crime. How anyone knows how many people are killed in England with firearms is an interesting issue, because noone compiles any comprehensive statistics related to armed murder in the United Kingdom. The English Home Office does compile some statistics relating to firearms, homicides, but they exclude "politically motivated" killings, so these statistics are cooked. Since barely a day goes by without the provisional IRA or the Ulster Volunteer Force or the Welsh National Liberation Front or some bunch of loonies killing someone, these figures are unreliable at best. However, even these figures show an increase in handgun related crimes between 1976 and 1988 on the order of 200%. The Scottish home office, which complies more reliable figures, tabulated an increase of 27% in armed crime in Scotland in 1990 alone. The most interesting part of all this is that the largest increases in armed crime in the UK occurred after the enactment of the 1988 Firearm Act, which banned the possession of all center fire semi-auto and pump action rifles and most semi-auto and pump action shotguns. As the number of these guns, turned in to the police were small in comparison to the number in circulation it is fair to assume that many of them found there way into the hands of criminals. Need more convincing that the secret to Japan's low crime rate is that it is a police state? Here is an explanation by J. Neil Schulman from The Committee to Enforce the Second Amendment. In a Column One story in the 2/27/92 issue of the \Los Angeles Times\ entitled "Victims of a Safe Society," the \Los Angeles Times\ details how the relatively low rate of private criminality in Japan is achieved by massive police criminality: beating suspects so severely that they are permanently crippled in order to obtain confessions, a massively high rate of false executions and imprisonment, and virtually no penalties for police who commit these crimes. "Many foreign people think Japan is a highly developed, advanced, democratic country, and it is," says Hideyuki Kayanuma, an attorney for an American entertainer who was permanently crippled by Japanese police who suspected him of drug possession. "But especially in the field of criminal justice, it's a Third World country. There are no human rights." Civil-rights attorney Kensuke Onuki says, "It's almost like 'Midnight Express.'" In addition to beating of suspects, sleep deprivation to achieve confessions, and common torture of arrestees, the article describes a Japanese criminal justice system with virtually no bail, strip searches for traffic violations, and a conviction rate of 98% -- about that of Stalinist USSR. In contrast, of 12,615 complaints of torture and abuse filed against police over the last 40 years, only 15 cases were tried, and only \half\ of that 15 resulted in punishment for police officers. Citing "a typical example," of Japanese justice, the article tells of a day laborer released after 16 years in prison. The laborer was coerced into a false confession during six months of detention in three different police stations outside Tokyo. During that time, the laborer says, "officers beat him on the head with fists, trampled his thighs, and ordered him to 'apologize' to a photo of the dead woman as they burned incense for her spirit in the interrogation room. They interrogated him for a total of 172 days as much as 13 hours a day." Other methods of interrogation, according to the \Times\ article, involve telling suspects that their families will suffer if they don't confess or that an interrogation won't end without a confession. The article cites human rights attorneys who have estimated forced confessions to be as high as 50%. Suspects may be held in custody for up to 23 days with no charges, bail, right to an attorney, or court supervision. Nor is there much objection to this brutality by the Japanese public. The Japanese Civil Liberties Union has only 600 members, as compared to 280,000 ACLU members. Instead, says the \Times\ article, "most Japanese place a high degree of confidence and trust in police and assume that suspects under arrest probably committed the crime." Those who wish to cite Japan's low murder rate as proof that gun control works, had better think again. And if after reconsidering the issue they still advocate the Japanese approach, those Americans who value the concepts of fairness and justice would do well to understand what the goal of those who advocate gun control actually is: the importation of fascism to America. "To disarm the people [is] the best and most effectual way to enslave them." -- George Mason, 3 Elliot, Debates at 380 "The people of the various provinces are strictly forbidden to have in their possession any swords, bows, spears, firearms, or other types of arms. The possession of these elements makes difficult the collection of taxes and dues, and tends to permit uprising. Therefore, the heads of provinces, official agents, and deputies are ordered to collect all the weapons mentioned above and turn them over to the government." -- Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Shogun, August 29, 1558, Japan. "Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation... Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms." -- James Madison in Federalist Paper 46 "Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom of Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any body of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States." -- Noah Webster, An Examination into the Leading Principals of the Federal Constitution 23 How can you defend the legal owning (and/or carrying of) handguns after the terrible Long Island Railroad massacre? The perpetrator was a legal gun owner with no criminal or psychological record. He did write numerous crazy letters but nothing public enough to prevent gun ownership. Look at the "death board" and see all those lives lost to gunfire because of crazy people like this. First of all, the man did *not* legally purchase the weapon he used. He presented false identification (an expired California driver's license which identified a residence he had long since vacated). He also transported the weapon illegally (without a permit) while in New York. The fact is, the waiting period failed to do anything to stop this criminal from obtaining his weapon OF CHOICE in a timely enough manner to use it the way he desired. Thank you Sarah Brady. If other passengers were legally permitted to carry, He may very well have been stopped after the first or second shot. Consider the following (2 months apart): Luby's Cafeteria in Texas: Shoney's in Alabama: A man runs a pickup through 2 men entered the restaurant a wall, gets out, and starts and rounded everyone up in the executing people left and freezer. While searching the right. One woman watched restaurant, they found one man both her parents be executed hiding under a table and they while she watched. She had threatened him. He shot the a gun in her purse but it first perp through a table top was in her car outside. and the second right after that. Could this have ended worse? Could this have ended worse? Now, which restaurant would you rather be in by chance? Me, I'd opt for Shoney's. Now, isn't it a shame that the woman in Luby's couldn't carry her gun into the restaurant, because she was scared she'd be arrested (it's illegal to CCW in Texas)? It makes me sad to read of such horror stories, but I swear, I would rather have everyone armed than only the criminals. I just wish there had been just one gutsy citizen with enough courage to engage in civil disobedience in order to protect his life and the lives of others on the train that fateful day. Where is Bernie Goetz when you need him? Oh yeah, in jail for standing up for his Constitutional rights (I know; he's out now). By making it impossible (illegal) to take any meaningful precaution against violent criminals, the most important result is that you are making life as safe and easy for violent criminals as possible. Put yourself in the shoes of your typical stick-up man or carjacker. Now, if every time you pulled a gun on somebody and demanded their wallet/car/cash drawer/whatever, you were treated politely and given exactly what you asked for, you'd probably be tempted to do it again. And again and again. You might even get the impression that what you were doing was OK; everyone seems to be most agreeable to your suggestions. Oh sure, there is some risk of you getting caught, but it's pretty low. In the winter, when you can wear a mask without attracting attention, your chances of being caught are almost nil. And if you're really cautious, you can avoid cameras and kill all of your victims. They won't mind, they are such nice, polite people. On the other hand, if you keep getting shot by your victims and other bystanders, you'll learn pretty fast to get a new line of work. If the general rules of society were such that anyone who runs around sticking guns in peoples faces and demanding money ended up without a head crime would go down. I'm sure you would call this barbaric, but in my opinion, the barbaric society is the one that lets the barbarians run free. If you don't fight them, they will conquer you. It's just that simple. I can guarantee you that as long as we as a society allow ourselves to be pushed around by violent criminals, the criminals will keep pushing us around. To me, liberty of all Americans is more important than a few lives. We fought wars over this already. It is more than an issue about taking away guns. It is about taking away rights, taking away the means of self-defense, and taking away self-respect. Do you enjoy living in fear, as a member of an underclass stripped of power and dignity, who doesn't believe that the rights enumerated in the Constitution are worth defending? Have you no respect for your God given right to life and liberty or are you too caught up in your pursuit of happiness to notice you are being robbed of them? "If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home and leave us in peace. We seek not your council, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and may posterity forget that ye were our country men." -- Samuel Adams "Those who give up essential liberties for temporary safety deserve neither liberty or safety." -- Benjamin Franklin; Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759 24 In the trigger-happy USA, murders and accidental deaths outnumber justifiable deaths by firearms 43 to 1; what do you have to say about that? Boy, that statistic just keeps getting more and more distorted, doesn't it? The 43 to 1 figure does *not* measure self-defense shootings versus non self-defense shootings. It measured the number of times a gun in the home killed someone "known" to the owner versus how many times the gun killed someone not known to the owner. This still sounds impressive until you look deeper into it. The numbers given are for all households with guns EVEN IF THE HOME GUN WAS NOT THE ONE INVOLVED IN THE SHOOTING. In other words, if an intruder catches you in the bathroom and shoots you while your gun sits quietly in the safe downstairs, you're counted as a victim of your nasty gun-in-the-home. Suicides are counted in the "known" 43 side, and in fact make up the great majority of the cases (37), 1.3 are accidents, and the remaining 4.6 are actual intentional shootings, and since they are "acquaintance" shootings it sounds as if they're family tragedies, but that's not the case. While it's not broken down, those 4.6 include perfectly legal self-defense shootings where the attacking person is "known" to the gun owner. These attackers include violent ex-spouses, psycho friends who attack in a rage, and people from the neighborhood that you happen to know well enough to recognize who decide to rob you and kill you for your money. Finally, even the non-justifiable homicides in the 4.6 would include gang member and drug dealers and so on who end up shooting someone they know by name, say rival gang members or whatever (incidentally, these deaths are always lumped into the "children" category to make it seem like 2 year olds are killing themselves left and right in accidents). Most people don't have any reason to kill total strangers, it's only when you know someone that you may hate them enough, or have conflicts with them enough, that things escalate to the killing stage. Quoting the study, "All unsolved homocides were considered criminal homocides." This is a deliberate attempt to bias the study; these homocides should be thrown out altogether or held in a separate category. Furthermore, note that the *only* thing counted in the "1" side of the "43 to 1" figure is killings of someone you've never even seen before, which is a small subset of all justifiable homicides. The study also has a very restricted interpretation of self-defense killings. It allowed only two categories (qouting from the study): a) "Self-protection homicides were considered "justifiable" if they involved the killing of a felon during the commission of a crime". b) "...they were considered "self-defense" if that was the determination of the investigating police department and the King County prosecutor's office". (a) sounds awfully restrictive -- why the emphasis on "the killing of a *felon*"? Crime statistics show that only 1% of all self-defense uses of a firearm result in the death of the attacker, most attacks are halted when the attacker merely sees the firearm and realizes that continuing to attack would be suicidal. In order to honestly assess lives lost versus lives saved, the study should have made an estimate of how many people were spared from being murdered by the use of a firearm in self defense *whether or not the attacker died*. As for (b), we have the biggest problem; most shootings are initially ruled as homicides, and only later, after months of waiting for courts/judges/grand juries to examine the case, are many of them decided to be justifiable self-defense shootings. Furthermore, often the police files are not updated to reflect the courts' rulings. Any study that uses police reports is going to overcount unjustifiable homicides and undercount justifiable homicides. For example, Time magazine's cover story for July 17, 1989 reported only 3% of the homicides examined in a week's worth of gun deaths as self-defense, but when they went back almost a year later and re-examined the cases, they found that 12% had eventually been ruled self-defense. The size of the possible error introduced by this factor is large, but hard to determine for certain. It *is* certain that the NEJM 6:1 figure is unrealistically high. If they really wanted to be honest, the authors of the study that produced the "43 to 1" figure would have eliminated suicides (I don't consider voluntary deaths to be relevant), would have eliminated criminal acts (I don't consider what a drug dealer does with his gun to be relevant to the average American home), and would have then compared accidental deaths and "heat of passion" deaths against justifiable self-defense homicides, no matter who the dead person was (family member or not, if you have to shoot in self-defense, it's a *good* thing the gun was in the house). Unfortunately, the study did not attempt to make such a measure, preferring instead to produce a misleading statistic that makes it sound as if people are 43 times more likely to shoot a family member without really meaning to than they are to shoot someone who they had a good reason to shoot, when in fact this is *not* the case. And, by specifically *not* counting the cases where the gun was used in a non-lethal manner to halt an assault or attempted murder, they're seriously underreporting the protective effects of a gun in the home. Not very honest. It is useful to know that in ~85% of the cases where someone is killed by a friend or a family member, there was a police record of violence (criminal records, police calls over "domestic disturbances, etc...) In other words, if you have no history of violence, you are about five times *less* likely to kill a friend or family member. So, to restate the 43:1 number in its more meaningfull form: "If you or someone living with you has a history of violent behavior, a gun is (very roughly) equally likely to be used to prevent a crime or hurt a family member or friend. But, if you and the people you live with have no history of violence, a gun is (again very roughly) fifty times more likely to be used to prevent a crime, than to hurt a friend or family member." If you use crime stats, you come up with these statistics A gun is 50 times more likely to be used to defend against criminal threat than to kill another person. A gun is 50 times more likely to be used to defend against criminal threat than to be used in suicide. A gun is 245 times more likely to be used by a non-criminal to defend against criminal threat than to commit criminal homicide. A gun is 535 times more likely to be used to defend against criminal threat than to accidentally kill anybody. Even if you could statistically correlate gun-ownership with misuse of guns, you still would not be able to determine causality. Which is more likely, that a high-crime area causes people to own guns or that gun-ownership directly increases crime. It is quite likely that many people who live in dangerous places where they are more likely to be shot by crooks decide to buy firearms with which to defend themselves. Do people who buy flood insurance increase the number of floods, or do they buy the insurance because they live in areas prone to flooding? If you still stand by this "statistic" in the face of its criminally unscientific foundations, perhaps you'd care to buy my scientifically proven, recently discovered plans for a cold fusion reactor which will make you rich! 25 I give up; you Floridians (or Americans) are a bunch of out of control, gun-toting, crazy people, I'm going to cancel my vacations plans and stay in [insert gun controlling country or state here] where I am safe. This is the sort of thinking that makes me throw my hands up in despair at the stupidity of human beings. How many foreign tourists are killed each year in America? A few dozen, surely less than 200. How many come here and return home unscathed? Millions. Did you know that the citizen and tourist homicide rates have been steadily declining since the passage of CCW in Florida? Your odds of dying in the plane on the way over are much higher than being killed by a gun while you are here. The odds of dying in a car or bus accident while travelling around are *tremendously* higher. And yet people don't think of that. Real, immediate dangers all around them are blocked out because they are beyond their ability to control. So they cancel a trip to Florida (where the chances of them being shot are about them same as their chances of winning the lottery) to give themselves an illusion of control over the dangers in their lives. This reminds me of when we had the great "syringe in the Pepsi can" scare a while back. There were about six or so reported cases of syringes found in Pepsi cans, only one of which turned out to be true. And yet it was on the news every single night, and they interviewed people who said they were not going to drink Pepsi again. Now, I don't know how many cans of Pepsi are sold every day, but it has to be an incredibly large number. And yet there were these people standing on a busy street corner, inches away from *real* danger, saying that they were afraid to buy Pepsi because a syringe had been found in ONE CAN. This is the same sort of thinking that leads to calls for banning guns. People see and hear all these terrible incidents, and think that every gun in America is being used to kill people. And yet, the actual percentage of guns that are used in crimes (let alone to actually kill people) is vanishingly small. 99.9% of all guns are owned by responsible, law-abiding citizens, but this vast majority is always ignored. 26 OK, you have convinced me; I was wrong about gun control. Now that I see how illegal, immoral, and counter-productive it is, what can I do to stop it? Convince as many people as you can (make it your mission to convince at least 1) that gun control is wrong. Start with your immediate family members. Take them shooting with you (many gun grabbers have never seen a gun, much less fired one), debate with them, educate them. Try not to alienate them; you want to win them over. Convince like-minded people to be proactive and try to convince unlike-minded ones that they should reevaluate their positions. Keep printed (hard) copies of this document (and other literature) everywhere; at home, at work, in your cars, etc. That way when you want to educate a gun grabber, you are properly armed (hey, stop groaning :) Write and call as many politicians (local, state, and federal) as you can; personal visits are best and letters are almost as powerful. Phone calls and form letters are useful but often ignored (petitions, on the other hand are very persuasive). Tell them the facts and inform them of your opinions. Tell them you hold them personally accountable for all gun control legislation that is passed while they are in office. Tell them that all "compromises" are unacceptable (that's how the Brady Bill got through) no matter what other "good" things are in the bill. Abandon the Democratic and Republican parties because the Democrats will never change and the Republicans are selling out left and left; the day Republicans voted in significant numbers in favor of the Brady Bill was the day I knew it was time to give up on them. Vote strictly Libertarian from now on (Libertarians are the only "politicians" who are pro-choice ON ALL ISSUES including the right to keep and bear arms). Join as many pro-choice lobbying groups as you can afford and fund them as graciously as you can. Make photocopies of every membership fee check that you write and send copies to your politicians with a note saying, "This could have been your campaign contribution." I would suggest as a bare minimum that you join the NRA (for its size and power), the CCRKBA (for its research and singularity of purpose), the Libertarian Party (for its broad political potential), and at least one local or state organization (many states have an NRA type organization called " State Rifle Association"). Be a "watchdog" and keep your eyes and ears peeled for reportings of tragedies caused by gun control and tragedies that were avoided due to the use of guns. Report these to the NRA and the CCRKBA (listed below). Note that many of these organizations have tax-exempt branches which deal with defending people in court. Please help defend your liberties which are most under attack by the current occupants of the White House and Congress. Also note that the ACLU is not listed; they are dedicated to destroying your Second Amendment rights and are therefore a bunch of hypocrites (sure we defend your civil liberties but only those we think you should have). I suggest you resign your membership with them immediately and explain why. Citizen's Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA), Liberty Park, 12500 N.E. 10th Place, Bellevue, WA 98005; 206-454-4911 CCRKBA California Office 926 J. Street, Suite 216, Sacramento, CA 95814; 916-446-9808, 916-446-2270 fax CCRKBA U.S. Capitol Office 600 Pennsylvania Ave. S.E., Suite 205 Washington, D.C. 20003 Fee: $15 Originated as an ad hoc committee of the Young Americans for Freedom. It has been in independent operation since 1971. CCRKBA believes "in the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution upholding the right of the people to keep and bear arms, that firearms registration does not and cannot solve the problems of rising crime in our streets, and that registration leads to the eventual confiscation of firearms, that a mandatory sentence on conviction of a felony involving the use of a firearm is a deterrent to crime", and "that the disarming of individual law-abiding citizens will result in the loss of individual freedoms." CCRKBA employs one full-time lobbyist in Washington, D.C. They do have a political action committee, entitled Right to Keep and Bear Arms Political Victory Fund, which supports state and federal pro-choice candidates. The Libertarian Party, 1528 Pennsylvania Avenue SE, Washington DC 20003; 202-543-1988 Internet: LPHQ@digex.net Call 1-800-682-1776 for free information package by mail. National Rifle Association of America (NRA), 1600 Rhode Island Ave. NW, Washington, D.C. 20036; 202-828-6000 800-368-5714 800-637-8465 Membership: About 3,300,000 Fee: $500 for lifetime membership $25/yr $7.50 liberty membership<====================students note ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ NRA Firearms Civil Rights Legal Defense Fund (NRA/LDF), 1230 16th Street NW, Washington, D.C. 20036 NRA Institute for Legislative Action (NRA/ILA), P.O. Box 1730, Washington, D.C. 20077-4621; 202-828-6330 (Washington, D.C.), 916-446-2455 (Sacramento, CA) NRA Institute for Legislative Action, Operation Golden Bear, P.O. Box 3079, Costa Mesa, CA 92628-3079; 1-800-IM4GUNS (464-4867) Second Amendment Foundation, James Madison Building, 12500 NE 10th Place, Bellevue, WA 98005; 206-454-7012 Executive Director: Alan Gottlieb Research Director: John Iou Membership: About 550,000 Fee: $15/yr Publications: Gun Week (weekly) Weekly Bullet (weekly) Second Amendment Reporter (quarterly) Women and Guns (monthly) The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) shares its staff with CCRKBA, but the organization does not lobby, given its status as an educational foundation. An offshoot of the Citizens Committee, the Second Amendment Foundation raises funds ostensibly to provide educational and legal services for gun owners. It has an interlocking directorate with CCRKBA and adjoining offices in Bellevue, Washington. The SAF produces educational materials "to promote a better understanding of the Second Amendment." Both CCRKBA and SAF conduct extensive and frequent fund-raising campaigns. SAF produces issue monographs and has established an attorney referral service. 27 A study "Crime Control Through the Use of Armed Force", by Professor Gary Kleck, Florida State University School of Criminology, published in the February 1988 issue of SOCIAL PROBLEMS, focuses on: 1. the frequency and nature of private citizens' defensive uses of firearms against criminals, 2. the effectiveness versus risk of such actions, and 3. the potential deterrent impact on crime of defensive gun ownership and use. Attack, Injury and Crime Completion Rates in Robbery Incidents Method of % Completed % Attacked % Injured Num Times Self Protection Used(a) Used gun 30.9 25.2 17.4 89,009 Used Knife 35.2 55.6 40.3 59,813 Used other weapon 28.9 41.5 22.0 104,700 Used physical force 50.1 75.6 50.8 1,653,880 Tried to get help or frighten offender 63.9 73.5 48.9 1,516,141 Threatened or reasoned with offender 53.7 48.1 30.7 955,398 Nonviolent resistance, including evasion 50.8 54.7 34.9 1,539,895 Other measures 48.5 47.3 26.5 284,423 Any self-protection 52.1 60.8 38.2 4,603,671 No self-protection 88.5 41.5 24.7 2,686,960 Total 65.4 53.7 33.2 7,290,631 Attack, Injury and Crime Completion Rates in Assault Incidents Method of % Attacked % Injured Estimated Self Protection Num Times Used(a) Used gun 23.2 12.1 386,083 Used Knife 46.4 29.5 123,062 Used other weapon 41.4 25.1 454,570 Used physical force 82.8 52.1 6,638,823 Tried to get help or frighten offender 55.2 40.1 4,383,117 Threatened or reasoned with offender 40.0 24.7 5,743,008 Nonviolent resistance, including evasion 40.0 25.5 8,935,738 Other measures 36.1 20.7 1,451,103 Any self-protection 49.5 30.7 21,801,957 No self-protection 39.9 27.3 6,154,763 Total 47.3 29.9 27,956,719 Notes: (a) Separate frequencies these columns do add totals in "Any self-protection" row since a single criminal incident can involve more than self-protection method. Sources: Analysis of incident files of 1979-1985 National Crime Survey public use computer tapes (ICPSR,1987b). "Significantly, Dr. Kleck notes that the victimization surveys actually exaggerated the association of injury with gun-resistance since the surveys generally fail to ask whether the injury occurs after and because of resistance or whether the injury occurred first. In a supplemental questionnaire, however, it was found that most injuries to armed resistors preceded their resistance: "For cases involving robbery and attack, forceful self-protection actions never preceded the attack ... even the minority of the cases where forceful self-protective acts were accompanied by attacks on the victim, few incidents support the contention that the victim's defensive action provoked the attack." "As Dr. Kleck puts it in his study: "When victims use guns to resist crimes, the crimes usually are disrupted and the victims not injured." -- THANX...Gregg day 214.684.7380 night UNLIST/PUBL TEXAS NOT CANADA! woodcock@bnr.ca or woodcock@nt.com or bn202@cleveland.freenet.edu *CLASSIC VIDEOGAME COLLECTOR BUY/SELL/TRADE NON-COMPUTER (ARCADE/HOME)* "If you quote me on this I'll have to deny it; I won't remember because I have such a bad memory. Not only that, but my memory is *terrible*."