Cdn-Firearms Digest Sunday, June 29 2008 Volume 11 : Number 603 In this issue: Gun Laws and Crime: A Complex Relationship- NY Times Re: New York Times Editorial: Lock and Load "posted to a discussion group...regarding the 2'nd Amendment..." Other voices My letter to the Globe and Mail Fw: My Letter: Gunning for the Constitution? SMSA webpage [LETTER] Gunning for the Constitution? (II) Letter to the Editor Re: think global act local ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 29 Jun 2008 07:24:30 -0600 From: "David R.G. Jordan" Subject: Gun Laws and Crime: A Complex Relationship- NY Times The Nation http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/29/weekinreview/29liptak.html?_r=1&emc=tnt&tntemail1=y&oref=slogin Gun Laws and Crime: A Complex Relationship By ADAM LIPTAK Lurking behind the Supreme Court’s ruling last week that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to bear arms were a series of fascinating, disputed and now in many ways irrelevant questions. Do gun control laws reduce crime? Do they save lives? Is it possible they even cost lives? Justice Stephen G. Breyer, one of the dissenters in the 5-to-4 decision, surveyed a quite substantial body of empirical research on whether gun control laws do any good. Then he wrote: “The upshot is a set of studies and counterstudies that, at most, could leave a judge uncertain about the proper policy conclusion.” There is no question, of course, that guns figure in countless murders, suicides and accidental deaths. Over the five years ending in 1997, the Justice Department says, there was an average of 36,000 firearms-related deaths a year. (Fifty-one percent were suicides, and 44 percent homicides.) Determining whether particular gun control laws would have, on balance, prevented some of those deaths is difficult. Take Washington, D.C., whose near-total ban on handguns in the home was on the receiving end of last week’s decision. At the crudest level, as Justice Breyer wrote, violent crime in Washington has increased since the ban took effect in 1976. “Indeed,” he continued, “a comparison with 49 other major cities reveals that the district’s homicide rate is actually substantially higher relative to these other cities than it was before the handgun restriction went into place.” Those statistics by themselves prove nothing, of course. Factors aside from the gun ban, like demographics, economics and the drug trade, were almost certainly in play. “As students of elementary logic know,” Justice Breyer wrote, “after it does not mean because of it.” But Gary Kleck, a professor at Florida State University’s College of Criminology and Criminal Justice, whose work Justice Breyer cited, said there were good reasons for making a definitive judgment. “We know the D.C. handgun ban didn’t reduce homicide,” he said in an interview. Not everyone agrees. A 1991 study in The New England Journal of Medicine compared Washington to its suburbs before and after the gun law took effect. It found that the law was linked to a 25 percent drop in homicides involving firearms and a 23 percent drop in such suicides. The study found no drops in other kinds of homicides and suicides in Washington, and no changes in the suburbs. Professor Kleck was critical of the study, saying that the period it studied was too short and that the suburbs were a poor point of reference. “The place most like D.C. is Baltimore,” he said, describing his own approach. “It’s a virtual twin city.” Professor Kleck conducted what he called “an elaborate before-and-after study” of Washington and Baltimore that took into account trends before the implementation of the ban and included “a good long follow-up” because the ban “didn’t immediately take anyone’s guns away.” Baltimore did not have a similar law, yet its crime rate mimicked Washington’s. “The law itself had no effect one way or the other,” Professor Kleck said. Even if he is right, his conclusion is not an indictment of all efforts to regulate guns. There are many flavors of gun control, and many problems of definition and measurement. “It’s very hard to wrap your head around,” said Eugene Volokh, a law professor at the University of California at Los Angeles, whose work supporting an individual-rights view of the Second Amendment was cited three times by the majority in last week’s decision. “You have to think about the particular kind of gun control at work, and you have to subdivide gun users and gun abusers.” There is some evidence, Professor Volokh said, that denying guns to people who might use them in self-defense, usually merely by brandishing them, tends to increase crime rates. There is also evidence that the possibility of confronting a victim with a gun deters some criminals. In addition, criminals are the people least likely to obey gun control laws, meaning that the laws probably have a disproportionate impact on law-abiding individuals. “For the typical gun control law,” Professor Volokh said, “you’ll have very little positive effect but a possible negative effect.” A brief defending the Washington law filed by the American Public Health Association and other groups said there were other collateral positive effects, including reductions in suicides and accidents, that gun control opponents overlook or underestimate. More generally, the brief said, “banning handguns in Washington, D.C., appears to have reduced suicide and homicide rates.” It cited the New England Journal study and statistics showing that Washington has an exceptionally low suicide rate. Asked what sorts of gun control laws seem to work, Professor Kleck mentioned two. “Background checks in general at the state level did show lower homicide rates,” he said, adding: “I’d improve the enforcement of laws against unlicensed carrying of guns in public places.” The international experience is no less complex. Justice Breyer cited one study finding, in the justice’s words, “that strict gun laws are correlated with more murders, not fewer.” According to the study, published last year in The Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, European nations with more guns had lower murder rates. As summarized in a brief filed by several criminologists and other scholars supporting the challenge to the Washington law, the seven nations with the most guns per capita had 1.2 murders annually for every 100,000 people. The rate in the nine nations with the fewest guns was 4.4. Justice Breyer was skeptical about what these comparisons proved. “Which is the cause and which the effect?” he asked. “The proposition that strict gun laws cause crime is harder to accept than the proposition that strict gun laws in part grow out of the fact that a nation already has a higher crime rate.” Many criminologists say cultural, economic and demographic factors play a big role in murder rates, and some say the number of guns and the number of murders may well be uncorrelated. The murder rate in the United States, in any event, is higher yet — 5.7 per 100,000 people in 2006, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In 2005, according to the Justice Department, 55 percent of homicides were committed with a handgun and 16 percent with another kind of gun. Correlation or not, the United States is a special case, Nicholas Johnson, a Fordham law professor, said in an e-mail message. “Our culture of armed civilians is unparalleled in the history of the world,” he said. “According to the high estimate, there is a gun in every other American home.” Justice Breyer concluded that the mixed quality of the evidence on the efficacy of gun control, along with its varying interpretations, means that lawmakers should be allowed to assess it for themselves to set reasonable gun control policies. Justice Antonin Scalia, on the other hand, said the Constitution had largely shut down the discussion. Justice Scalia, writing for the majority, acknowledged that “gun violence is a serious problem.” But, he went on, “the enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy choices off the table.” - -- -- Multimedia Graph: Murder and Guns javascript:pop_me_up2('http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2008/06/29/weekinreview/29liptak-grfk.html', '570_1047', 'width=570,height=1047,location=no,scrollbars=yes,toolbars=no,resizable=yes') Related Landmark Ruling Enshrines Right to Own Guns (June 27, 2008) http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/27/washington/27scotus.html?ref=weekinreview Gun-Control Supporters Show Outrage (June 27, 2008) http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/27/washington/27React.html?ref=weekinreview News Analysis: Coming Next, Court Fights on Guns in Cities (June 27, 2008) http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/27/washington/27guns.html?ref=weekinreview Challenges to Bans on Handguns Begin (June 28, 2008) http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/28/us/28guns.html?ref=weekinreview Times Topics: Supreme Court, U.S. http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/s/supreme_court/index.html Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 28 Jun 2008 19:45:57 -0400 From: "D R Goodbrand" Subject: Re: New York Times Editorial: Lock and Load > RE: Subject: New York Times Editorial: Lock and Load > > PUBLICATION: The New York Times If the court is allowed to tip even further to the far right, > there will be even more damage done to the rights and the safety of > Americans. Only a Liberal could spin affirming the rights of citizens to have available the tools to defend themselves into "more damage done to the rights and the safety of Americans." The idea that modern liberalism is a form of mental illness is well evident here. D.R. Goodbrand ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 28 Jun 2008 17:44:05 -0300 From: jim hill Subject: "posted to a discussion group...regarding the 2'nd Amendment..." *My Error in truncating the Subject line.* CFD Moderator-DRGJ Subject: "posted to a discussion group regarding the recent Supreme Court decision regarding the 2'nd Amendment, in the Washington Post" Sent to a discussion group in the Washington Post xmountie wrote: Carolp23 wrote: "All gun owners should be registered..." We already are, in Canada, and the Anti Gun Nuts like Mayor Miller et al want to ban handguns in Toronto. They have already moved to close two gun ranges despite the fact the only thing being shot were pieces of paper. It was not enough that the Firearms Licence background checks and Federal Firearms Safety courses taken at great expense to the members of the Responsible Firearms Community (RFC) stated that these gun owners were trusted members of the community. We also have to have an Authorization to transport (ATT) just to bring a firearm to a range in an approved locked case but when it is at home it has to be stored in a safe with a locked trigger guard on it and the ammunition stored in a separate locked container. No such restrictions are imposed on the criminal element in Toronto So if anyone is considering visiting Toronto and spending money there I wouldn't. because if you listen to the Mayor of Toronto, there are so many killings there that drastic measures had to be taken against the most law abiding members of society, the RFC, group dedicating to making the shooting sports safer than your own back yard. Further you will be looked upon with suspicion in Toronto because you are from the USA which Miller describes as the main source of all things evil that come across the border. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 28 Jun 2008 14:27:59 -0700 (PDT) From: Bruce Mills Subject: Other voices http://www.thespec.com/article/394300 Other voices and undoubtedly more litigation. The Hamilton Spectator (Jun 28, 2008) Editorial excerpts after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a ban on handguns, citing the U.S. Constitution's "right to bear arms": New York Times: Thirty-thousand Americans are killed by guns every year -- on the job, walking to school, at the shopping mall. The Supreme Court all but ensured that even more Americans will die senselessly with its wrong-headed and dangerous ruling striking down key parts of the District of Columbia's gun-control law. In a radical break from 70 years of Supreme Court precedent, Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, declared that the Second Amendment guarantees individuals the right to bear arms for non-military uses, even though the amendment clearly links the right to service in a "militia." The ruling will give gun-rights advocates a powerful new legal tool to try to strike down gun-control laws across the nation. Dallas Morning News: Finally after 70 years - if not longer - we know what the Second Amendment actually means. The U.S. Supreme Court, in overturning a District of Columbia gun ban, gave us a common-sense ruling that clarifies that gun-ownership rights extend to individuals, not just militia members, while specifically allowing for the state to regulate that right. Think of it this way: The First Amendment guarantees your right to freedom of speech, yet that doesn't mean you can call the White House and threaten to kill the president. San Jose Mercury News: For decades, the Supreme Court avoided the question of whether the Second Amendment right to bear arms covered people who weren't affiliated with a state-run militia. We wish the justices had procrastinated a couple of decades more. Thursday's 5-4 ruling on the Heller case shores up individual rights, but it will be at the cost of public safety. Los Angeles Times: Presented with two historically plausible arguments about whether the Second Amendment secures an individual right to keep and bear arms, the Supreme Court on Thursday opted for the interpretation less suited to a 21st century America bedevilled by gun crime. Gun-rights advocates will focus on what they will see as the magic words in Justice Antonin Scalia's opinion for a 5-4 majority: "There seems to us no doubt, on the basis of both text and history, that the Second Amendment conferred an individual right to keep and bear arms." Although a bit wordy for a bumper sticker, it could have been composed by the National Rifle Association. Rocky Mountain News: The decision should push states and cities to review gun control measures that make it difficult for law-abiding citizens to possess firearms -- or for that matter to have them ready for self-defence. Where to draw those lines, of course, will lead to new laws ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 28 Jun 2008 15:42:53 -0700 (PDT) From: Bruce Mills Subject: My letter to the Globe and Mail - --- On Sat, 6/28/08, Bruce Mills wrote: > From: Bruce Mills > Subject: Re: Gunning for the Constitution? > To: letters@GlobeAndMail.ca > Received: Saturday, June 28, 2008, 6:38 PM > Anti-gun extremist Ron Charach asks in his letter "If > handguns are sacred, what's profane?" What is > profane is attempts by Charach and his fellow travellers to > strip his fellow citizens of their right to keep "armes > for their defence". I'm sure that as a poet, Ron > would be the first one to scream bloody murder if I were to > advocate stripping him of his right to free speech. Sorry, > Ron, you can't pick and choose which rights you want > others to have. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 28 Jun 2008 17:16:55 -0600 From: "David R.G. Jordan" Subject: Fw: My Letter: Gunning for the Constitution? It'll never get printed, but it sure felt good! - -DRGJ - ----- Original Message ----- From: "David R.G. Jordan" To: Sent: Saturday, June 28, 2008 5:14 PM Subject: Re: Gunning for the Constitution? http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080628.COLETTS28-13/TPStory/Opinion/letters > > In his letter Ron Charach asks; > > "A quick question for John McCain: If handguns are sacred, what's profane? > > To quote another famous, charismatic, and enlightened American in answer > to > Mr. Charach; > > "It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a > fool > than to open it and remove all doubt." > -Mark Twain > > -nuff said. > > David R.G. Jordan > Saskatoon, Saskatchewan > ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 28 Jun 2008 14:21:50 -0400 From: "Jules Sobrian" Subject: SMSA webpage It says on the SMSA webpage that the amnesty is until May 17, 2008. Should that not be May 17, 2009? Jules - - -The amnesty and waiver will expire on 17 May 2008, unless further extended. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 28 Jun 2008 14:20:42 -0700 (PDT) From: Bruce Mills Subject: [LETTER] Gunning for the Constitution? (II) http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080628.COLETTS28-13/TPStory/Opinion/letters Gunning for the Constitution? RON CHARACH June 28, 2008 Toronto -- A quick question for John McCain: If handguns are sacred, what's profane? ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 28 Jun 2008 18:04:18 -0300 From: "M.J. Ackermann, MD" Subject: Letter to the Editor Re: James Knott's letter http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/450939 Actually, Mr. Knott, it is Canadian culture that is so dysfunctional that in Canada, we care not a whit for due process or basic human rights. We care not a whit for evidence or truth. All we care about is emotional rhetoric and political expediency. We believe in misdirected group punishment and cultural genocide. We are an intensely bigoted society in denial. We lack any capacity to use the lessons of geography and history to our benefit, and we are hell-bent and determined to create the kind of Orwellian statist dystopia that will have our grand children cursing our memories, if they are capable of independent thought at all. If you doubt this just consider Toronto's approach to career gang violence - attack lawful sport shooters. But worst of all by far is the fact that we believe it is acceptable for a person to use a defensive sidearm to protect a bag of her employer's money but not the lives of her own children. Remember that when seconds count the cops are minutes away. Go ahead and stake your family's safety on a 911 call: You will wait the rest of your lives for armed help to arrive. - -- M.J. Ackermann, MD (Mike) Rural Family Physician, Box 13, 120 Cameron Rd. Sherbrooke, NS Canada B0J 3C0 902-522-2172 mikeack@ns.sympatico.ca "Hope for the best, but be prepared for the worst". ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 28 Jun 2008 16:42:27 -0600 From: "David R.G. Jordan" Subject: Re: think global act local - ----- Original Message ----- From: Ian Jefferson Date: Saturday, June 28, 2008 2:57 pm Subject: think global act local > EDIT > So on my return to my rural Ontario residence I hooked up with my 17 > year old daughter and took her to the local range. This is something > I have only personally done a handful of times in my life. You all > may recall that I have not had a gun in my home for 25 years and life > has just not presented the plinking opportunity. Excellent! My two oldest step daughters, both learned the takedown, care and feeding of "the Black Rifle", and General Firearm Safety and Handling, both rifle and handgun. Then Range Safety and I then took them both out to the range with my AR's and about 200 rounds each, when they each hit 13 years of age. [Way before C-17.] At the range we then went through the sighting basics and got them to group on target. I would then let them go loose on the rest of their ammo in what ever fashion that they felt that they were inclined to use it up. The little one was only 6, but after watching what I taught her two older sisters, I would bet that she could do it in her sleep as well. Mom, family and I did part on fairly good terms actually. Last I heard, they on rare occasion still shoot hunting rifle and shotgun if the opportunity presents it's self, but as they live in "the big city", they don't get out to do anything much like that anymore. Still, the idea was if things ever go from bad to worse for what ever reason where ever they are, they can at least use and function what ever is handy, or laying around as the occasion presented it's self. And that was mom and mine's main point, even if they never ever picked up a firearm ever again, they at least had the knowledge. Later-DRGJ "A prudent man foresees the difficulties ahead and prepares for them; the simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences." - - Proverbs 22:3 ------------------------------ End of Cdn-Firearms Digest V11 #603 *********************************** Submissions: mailto:cdn-firearms-digest@scorpion.bogend.ca Mailing List Commands: mailto:majordomo@scorpion.bogend.ca Moderator's e-mail address: mailto:drg.jordan@sasktel.net List owner: mailto:owner-cdn-firearms@scorpion.bogend.ca FAQ list: http://www.canfirearms/Skeeter/Faq/cfd-faq1.html Web Site: http://www.canfirearms.ca CFDigest Archives: http://www.canfirearms.ca/archives To unsubscribe from _all_ the lists, put the next four lines in a message and mailto:majordomo@scorpion.bogend.ca unsubscribe cdn-firearms-digest unsubscribe cdn-firearms-chat unsubscribe cdn-firearms end (To subscribe, use "subscribe" instead of "unsubscribe".)