Cdn-Firearms Digest Sunday, June 29 2008 Volume 11 : Number 608 In this issue: Gun Laws And Crime: A Complex Relationship David Thompson Brigade Re: Biofuels may prove as absurd as Miller's gun ban *NFR* Cop shoots unarmed man- The Ottawa Sun ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, June 29, 2008 8:57 pm From: "Breitkreuz, Garry - Assistant 2" Subject: Gun Laws And Crime: A Complex Relationship PUBLICATION: The New York Times DATE: 2008.06.29 EDITION: Late Edition - Final SECTION: Week In Review PAGE: 1 COLUMN: THE NATION ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: GUNS GALORE: Not a musket, but it'll do. (PHOTOGRAPH BYGABRIEL BOUYS/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE -- GETTY IMAGES) CHART: MURDER AND GUNS: A study found that European nations with more guns had lower rates of murder (by any method) than countries with fewer guns. (Source: Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy) (pg.WK4) ; BYLINE: ADAM LIPTAK COPYRIGHT: © 2008 by the New York Times Company WORD COUNT: 1151 - --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gun Laws And Crime: A Complex Relationship - --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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." ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 29 Jun 2008 09:50:18 -0400 From: Lee Jasper Subject: David Thompson Brigade Checked the progress of the Brigade this Sunday a.m. Our man Len Miller and his Paddle Canada #1 team are at: Recorded: 12:52:07 June 29, 2008 Longitude: -93.2326 Latitude: 48.6681 Just east of Fort Frances and especially International Falls , near #11 highway and the ON/Minnesota border. From Rocky Mountain House on May 10th - they are scheduled to reach Fort William/Thunder Bay on July 12th. Four Provinces, Three Drainages, and Two Centuries of History; the 63 day journey will cover 3600 Km. Certainly a lot more productive use of energy then jousting with David Miller. http://www.2008thompsonbrigade.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 29 Jun 2008 13:15:50 -0400 From: "mred" Subject: Re: Biofuels may prove as absurd as Miller's gun ban *NFR* - ----- Original Message ----- From: "Lee Jasper" To: "Canadian Firearms Digest" Sent: Sunday, June 29, 2008 10:46 AM Subject: Biofuels may prove as absurd as Miller's gun ban > Not a gun story but will have a huge impact on gun owners/hunters. > > Ill-conceived rush to ethanol > Price of corn doubles in three years as more of crop is diverted to > satisfy questionable biofuels policy > June 29, 2008; David Olive > >> http://www.thestar.com/News/World/article/451291 I just wonder how much of a shortage there REALLY is of bio-fuel base stock ? I have spoken to several US farmers with Large farms , their acreage numbering in the thousands and the US government PAYS them to not plant corn, and/or wheat / So is there a real shortage or just a contrived one ? ed/on ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 29 Jun 2008 13:29:27 -0400 From: "Bill Robinson" Subject: Cop shoots unarmed man- The Ottawa Sun Cop shoots unarmed man Gatineau man unarmed when officers opened fire from just four feet away, family says By KENNETH JACKSON, SUN MEDIA The Ottawa Sun A Gatineau police officer shot an unarmed man three times, killing him in broad daylight yesterday. According to the victim's family, the police officer beat David LeClair, 35, with his billy club, pepper sprayed him and then shot him from four feet away. Gatineau police referred calls to the Surete du Quebec, who were saying little yesterday. They did confirm they are investigating the officer's conduct and will forward the file to the Crown's office. But the family provided a much more detailed description of the incident. They said not only did the officer shoot an unarmed LeClair, the officer also pointed his gun at the man's elderly mother. It all started when one officer arrived at the 16 Conroy St. home shortly after 11 a.m. He said he was there to arrest LeClair for an assault on his on-off-again girlfriend. Earlier, LeClair had called it a day after rain ruined a good day's work of roofing. He was standing in his driveway wearing jogging pants, knee pads, and his work boots. He didn't have a shirt on and told the officer he'd go inside the house to get one, said the victim's brother, Robert LeClair. MOM INTERVENED David LeClair was walking into the home he shared with his 73-year-old mother when the officer went in after him, said the family. Robert LeClair says he followed and watched as the cop beat his brother with his club and pepper-sprayed him three times in the face. His mother stepped in to try to stop the beating happening in her living room when she was hit in the knee with the officer's club, said the brother. "He put a gun to her head and said you're going to get it next. He was screaming at the top of his lungs," said Robert LeClair. That's when he told the officer to calm down and to let his brother get a shirt on. "Get out of my house now," screamed the mother to which they say the officer replied "f--- you." When David LeClair went outside, he went up to his truck and rested his arm on the side. The family says the officer pointed his gun at him and said to get on the ground "or I'll f---ing shoot." "He said it three times before David turned to walk away and that's when he started shooting," said the brother. "Pow, pow, pow," said Robert LeClair's wife Vicky Hunter, who also witnessed the shooting. He was shot in both sides of his stomach and left forearm. It was then complete hysteria. Everyone was yelling and David was on the ground moaning in pain. He turned to his sister and said, "Donna, I'm dying." Within 20 minutes, several officers arrived on the scene with paramedics arriving 10 minues later. DIED AT HOSPITAL They took LeClair to hospital where he remained on life support until he died at approximately 7 p.m. Before his death, about 20 friends and family took turns visiting him in the intensive care unit. A priest administered last rites around 3:30 p.m. At the hospital, the family's anger was clearly evident as they spoke about what they saw. They say David was acting nonchalantly with the officer because he considered the arrest bogus and couldn't believe what was happening. A couple of days ago, the victim called police on his girlfriend, saying she was harassing him with phone calls at his home at all hours of the night. "We always told him to get rid of her," said a family member. They'd been together several months and at one time were thinking of getting married, but the relationship was falling apart. The family said David had some run-ins with police over the years, but was a good guy. "He's a joker. If he was standing here right now, you'd be laughing and think he's the best guy you ever met," said Robert LeClair a couple of hours before his brother died. LeClair leaves behind a nine-year-old daughter. The Surete du Quebec has taken over the investigation, a common practice in Quebec when municipal police are involved in a shooting death. http://www.ottawasun.com/News/OttawaAndRegion/2008/06/29/6017546-sun.html ------------------------------ End of Cdn-Firearms Digest V11 #608 *********************************** 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".)