After my father died, friends advised my seventy-year-old mother to get a gun for protection. My brothers and I insisted that she not do so. I told her that if she got a gun, the only thing she would accomplish would be to enable an intruder to take the gun away from her and shoot her with it. I am sure that this would apply to millions of Americans who think that having a gun would provide them with some kind of security. It would do no such thing. Surveys have shown that having a gun in the house significantly heightens the danger to the occupants
Now comes a Commentary in the Greene County Dailies by Sandy Froman, former president of the NRA, and Ken Blackwell, unsuccessful candidate for Ohio governor and a member of the NRA Public Affairs Committee. They argue that the Second Amendment to the Constitution protects Americans’ right to own guns and that people should be able to have handguns in their homes for safety and defense.
The Second Amendment says: “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.” In the case of United States v. Miller, the Supreme Court held that the government could regulate the possession of firearms because the Second Amendment means only that the states are permitted to have a “well regulated” militia. It doesn’t mean that private citizens are entitled to own guns. Many lower courts have followed the decision in United States v. Miller.
When the Second Amendment was enacted, every state had a militia and most adult males belonged to the militia. In those days, every man supplied his own gun and ammunition. Today, the states have National Guard units, but those units keep all weapons under lock and key. Nobody shows up with his own firearm. The use of guns today has nothing to do with militias.
In the case of District of Columbia v. Heller now before the Supreme Court, the question presented is broader than whether the states can regulate guns. The question is whether the Second Amendment forbids the District of Columbia from banning private possession of all handguns. The Council of the District of Columbia found that so much of the rampant crime in the district was carried out with handguns, it was necessary to ban all handguns--period.
Although handguns account for most of the murders in America, surveys show that most of the shootings are not the work of armed robbers, muggers, drug dealers, or professional hit men. The culprits are your average citizens. Millions of guns are sold every year to people who have no history of crime. According to government statistics, most of the killings are the result of people turning their guns on themselves (approximately 58% of all gun deaths are suicides). Of the remaining homicides, approximately 51% were committed on family, friends, neighbors, boyfriends, girlfriends, or close acquaintances. Less than 14% of all shootings are carried out by strangers. Only a tiny fraction of the shootings are done by people in self-defense.
Having a handgun around the house is especially dangerous for spouses. Instead of going to a friendly divorce attorney, many angry people turn to their handy firearm in order to clarify their relationships with their mates. Guns are also dangerous to children. Children in states with the highest rates of gun possession in the home were sixteen times more likely to die from accidental gunshot wounds, nearly seven times as likely to commit suicide, and more than three times as likely to be murdered with a firearm as children in homes with no guns. The top quarter of states with the highest gun ownership had firearm homicide rates 114 percent higher than states within the lowest.
There is now a move on to allow guns to every student on every college campus. The theory is that when a psychotic killer starts shooting-up the student body, there will be plenty of students to confront him with massive firepower. Such a dimwitted idea fails, of course, to take account of the fact that there are still many mentally deranged students on college campuses who do not yet own guns. If, however, they were given easy access to firearms they would probably feel that they have more freedom to take-out their rages and frustrations on other students.
Handguns are necessary for those involved in law enforcement, and I have no problem with hunters owning rifles. But with those exceptions, this would be a better place if there were no more handguns in America.
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2 comments:
Its great that you posted this on the same day the paper printed the rebuttal. http://xeniagazette.1upmonitor.com/main.asp?SectionID=17&SubSectionID=452&ArticleID=158735&TM=55617.67
Inaccuracies addressed in Second Amendment column
By BOB SIMMONS
While I may be late in joining the discussion, I've just finished reading "The Second Amendment, guns and death", Jack LeMoult, Greene County Dailies, 3/12/2008. While I confess that attorneys are not a group that I hold in the most high regard, I do think them to be quite well educated. So I must admit that I was surprised at the number of inaccuracies in his article. Surveys have not shown that having a gun in the house significantly heightens the danger to the occupants, as Mr. LeMoult claims. They have shown that about 46% of Americans believe that to be the case, but belief does not make it true. Surveys do not establish fact. They merely solicit opinions. While one could certainly make the argument that guns, since they represent a potential for injury, could be seen as heightening danger, that argument would apply to just about any item in the home, such as bicycles.
There are many empirical studies out there concerning the danger of guns in the home, most of them medically related. Viewed in microcosm, it is quite easy to conclude from these studies that guns do indeed represent a higher danger. However, one must note that most of the studies don’t take injuries into account, very few cite instances where a gun was involved but never fired (or missed the intended victim) and almost none take into account defensive uses of guns in the household, all of which would be necessary if one is to gauge the overall risk. For example several empirical studies have shown the defensive use of guns to be in the millions each year. Out of 11 national studies, the lowest figure cited was 7,640,015. The exact figure is disputed because almost no one keeps citable statistics on these events, like they do with the statistics kept on gun deaths, but the number is still inarguably higher than those of deaths to family members in the home. In fact, many studies cite deaths of family members in the home as proof of danger, when in fact many of those deaths were the result of self defense against said family member, mostly domestic violence cases. And the overwhelming majority of those self defense uses involve never actually firing the gun. A 1982 survey of imprisoned criminals found that 34% of them had been “scared off, shot at, wounded or captured by an armed victim.” The true measure of the protective benefits of guns are the lives saved, the injuries prevented, the medical costs saved, and the property protected—not the burglar or rapist body count. Since only 0.1% to 0.2% of defensive gun usage involves the death of the criminal, any study, such as this, that counts criminal deaths as the only measure of the protective benefits of guns will expectedly underestimate the benefits of firearms by a factor of 500 to 1,000.
Mr. LeMoult is also incorrect in the matter of United States v. Miller, because the Supreme Court did not hold that the Second Amendment means only that the states are permitted to have a well regulated militia. Their ruling was that the Second Amendment did not apply to a shotgun that was under the required 18 inch barrel length. In fact, their decision in Miller specifically states, “The signification attributed to the term Militia appears from the debates in the Convention, the history and legislation of Colonies and States, and the writings of approved commentators. These show plainly enough that the Militia comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense. “A body of citizens enrolled for military discipline. And further, that ordinarily when called for service these men were expected to appear bearing arms supplied by themselves and of the kind in common use at the time.” This clearly includes citizens, and the terms “state militia” or “National Guard” appear nowhere in the Miller decision.
Mr. LeMoult also asserts that that most of the shootings are not the work of armed robbers, muggers, drug dealers, or professional hit men, but rather the work of average citizens. I’m not sure how he derives that point, nor how he describes “average citizen”, but studies have shown that the overwhelming majority of homicides are at the hands of those with a past history of crime or criminal connections. That’s hardly what I would describe as the “average citizen”. And they would nevertheless become a criminal when they commit a murder anyway. I find no factual support whatsoever for the inference that the presence of a gun would make these people any more or less likely to commit a murder, regardless of criminal background.
Mr. LeMoult also states that, excluding suicides, 51% of homicides were committed on family, friends, neighbors, boyfriends, girlfriends, or close acquaintances. In almost half of the murders committed in the US, the relationship between the offender and the victim is unknown, so deriving a conclusion here would be mostly guesswork. In cases where the relationship was known, 21.6 percent of victims were slain by family members, 23.1 percent were murdered by strangers, and 55.3 percent were killed by someone with whom they were acquainted, so in that sense, Mr. LeMoult is correct. But those are not gun homicide statistics. They are the statistics for homicides of any kind, so there is no point to be made here as regards to guns.
Mr. LeMoult also states that only a small fraction of the shootings are done by people in self-defense. The most reliable source of crime data in the United States is the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports (UCR), mainly because it the location where crimes are most reliably reported to. Unfortunately, many states and localities don’t report data on justifiable homicides to UCR, because they are not crimes, and in most such cases, charges are never brought, so there is often no official ruling of justifiable homicide to report. Most of the other data available is incomplete. And since more than 90% of the instances where guns are used for defense involve never even firing a shot, Mr. LeMoult is mistaken in implying that his statement is any kind of accurate portrayal of the utility of a firearm in self defense.
Mr. LeMoult states that “Instead of going to a friendly divorce attorney, many angry people turn to their handy firearm in order to clarify their relationships with their mates.” 690 Americans were murdered by their spouse in 200611, but that isn’t broken down by the weapon used. Since divorces ran around 10,600 in 2005, and since around 49% of marriages end in divorce, I doubt Mr. LeMoult has really hit upon a very valid point.
Mr. LeMoult makes several points about the danger to children in households with guns. Only 65 children 1-13 years of age died from accidental gunshots in 200514, and those rates have been steadily declining for years, despite steadily increasing gun ownership. Firearms only account for 2.7% (181) of fatal accidents for children 14 and under16. By contrast, drowning accounts for 1,024 of fatal accidents for children 14 and under16, so your swimming pool is almost six times more dangerous than your firearm.
As for children in states with the highest rates of gun possession in the home being sixteen times more likely to die from accidental gunshot wounds, that simply is not true. Those numbers vary widely. For instance, Wyoming and Alaska have the highest gun ownership rates, but the lowest accidental death rates for children 14 and under, having none whatsoever last year. By contrast, Florida has one of the highest accidental death rates, despite having one of the lowest gun ownership rates14,18. The same scattering of data holds true for homicides of children 14 and under, so the contention about being three times as likely to be murdered with a firearm is also not valid14,18. As for his claims on suicide, he does not associate it with firearms at all. However, the suicide rates are even further skewed, to the point that they almost prove the opposite of his claim14,18. As for Mr. LeMoult’s claim that the top quarter of states with the highest gun ownership had firearm homicide rates 114 percent higher than states within the lowest, that also is simply not true. The 12 states with the highest gun ownership averaged 3.26 homicides per 100,000 citizens in 2005, while the 12 states with the lowest gun ownership averaged 3.0514,18. That’s far from 114 percent.
Mr. LeMoult claims that allowing students on college campuses to have guns would probably result in more mentally deranged students feeling more free to take-out their rages and frustrations on other students, due to being given easy access to firearms. What Mr. LeMoult fails to note is that mentally deranged students already have easy access to firearms. That’s the problem that the proposals are designed to address, the fact that the mentally deranged students are currently the ONLY ones on campus with easy access to firearms. Access is quite easy for anyone who feels no need to obey the laws prohibiting that possession. All these proposals seek to do is to allow some measure of defense against those who are not obeying those laws, and recent events point out that they indeed are not in many cases. The same type of fear mongering was used to fight against concealed carry in many states. And yet, despite the fact that 48 states now have concealed carry laws, none of those horror stories have come to fruition. The simple fact is, mentally deranged students already have the same access to firearms that they would have under those proposals, but unlike the law abiding students, being mentally deranged means that the law is no barrier to them now.
I don’t begrudge anyone their position on these issues, regardless of what that position may be. On the contrary, I applaud Mr. LeMoult for taking the time to champion an issue he obviously feels strongly about. However, when attempting to decide which side of an important issue that you should come down on, that decision should be based on facts rather than on misinterpreted or distorted data. I thank you for your time in allowing me to try to set the record straight in that regard.
Bob Simmons is a systems engineer. He lives in Xenia.
EDITOR's NOTE: Mr. Simmons cited 18 sources in his report.
40 Reasons for GUN CONTROL
1. Banning guns works, which is why New York, DC, and Chicago cops need guns.
2. Washington DC's low murder rate of 69 per 100,000 is due to strict gun control, and Indianapolis' high murder rate of 9 per 100,000 is due to the lack of gun control.
3. Statistics showing high murder rates justify gun control but statistics showing increasing murder rates after gun control are "just statistics."
4. The Brady Bill and the Assault Weapons Ban, both of which went into effect in 1994, are responsible for the decrease in violent crime rates, which have been declining since 1991.
5. We must get rid of guns because a deranged lunatic may go on a shooting spree at any time and anyone who would own a gun out of fear of such a lunatic is paranoid.
6. The more helpless you are, the safer you are from criminals.
7. An intruder will be incapacitated by tear gas or oven spray, but if shot with a .357 Magnum will get angry and kill you.
8. A woman raped and strangled is morally superior to a woman with a smoking gun and a dead rapist at her feet.
9. When confronted by violent criminals, you should "put up no defense — give them what they want, or run" (Handgun Control Inc. Chairman Pete Shields, Guns Don't Die - People Do, 1981, p. 125).
10. The New England Journal of Medicine is filled with expert advice about guns; just like Guns and Ammo has some excellent articles on heart surgery.
11. One should consult an automotive engineer for safer seatbelts, a civil engineer for a better bridge, a surgeon for spinal paralysis, a computer programmer for Y2K problems, and Sarah Brady for firearms expertise.
12. The 2nd Amendment, ratified in 1787, refers to the National Guard, which was created 130 years later by an act of Congress in 1917.
13. The National Guard, funded by the federal government, occupying property leased to the federal government, using weapons owned by the federal government, punishing trespassers under federal law, is a "state militia".
14. These phrases,"right of the people peaceably to assemble," "right of the people to be secure in their homes," "enumeration's herein of certain rights shall not be construed to disparage others retained by the people," and "The powers not delegated herein are reserved to the states respectively, and to the people," all refer to individuals, but "the right of the people to keep and bear arms" refers to the state.
15. We don't need guns against an oppressive government, because the Constitution has internal safeguards, but we should ban and seize all guns, thereby violating the 2nd, 4th, and 5th amendments to that Constitution.
16. Rifles and handguns aren't necessary to national defense, which is why police departments, federal enforcement agencies, the armed forces, and the US Coast guard have millions of them.
17. Private citizens shouldn't have handguns, because they serve no military purpose, and private citizens shouldn't have "assault rifles," because they are military weapons.
18. The ready availability of guns today, with waiting periods, background checks, fingerprinting, government forms, et cetera, is responsible for recent school shootings, compared to the lack of school shootings in the 40's, 50's and 60's, which resulted from the availability of guns at hardware stores, surplus stores, gas stations, variety stores, mail order, et cetera.
19. The NRA's attempt to run a "don't touch" campaign about kids handling guns is propaganda, and the anti-gun lobby's attempt to run a "don't touch" campaign is responsible social activity.
20. Guns are so complex that special training is necessary to use them properly, and so simple to use that they make murder easy.
21. A handgun, with up to 4 controls, is far too complex for the typical adult to learn to use, as opposed to an automobile that only has 20.
22. Women are just as intelligent and capable as men but a woman with a gun is "an accident waiting to happen" and gun makers' advertisements aimed at women are "preying on their fears."
23. Ordinary people in the presence of guns turn into slaughtering butchers but revert to normal when the weapon is removed.
24. Guns cause violence, which is why there are so many mass killings at gun shows.
25. A majority of the population supports gun control, just like a majority of the population supported owning slaves.
26. A self-loading small arm can legitimately be considered to be a "weapon of mass destruction" or an "assault weapon."
27. Most people can't be trusted, so we should have laws against guns, which most people will abide by because they can be trusted.
28. The right of online pornographers to exist cannot be questioned because it is constitutionally protected by the Bill of Rights, but the use of handguns for self defense is not really protected by the Bill of Rights.
29. Free speech entitles one to own newspapers, transmitters, computers, and typewriters, but self-defense only justifies bare hands.
30. The ACLU is good because it uncompromisingly defends certain parts of the Constitution, and the NRA is bad, because it uncompromisingly defends other parts of the Constitution.
31. Charlton Heston, as former president of the NRA, is a shill who should be ignored, but Michael Douglas, as a representative of Handgun Control, Inc., is an ambassador for peace who is entitled to an audience at the UN arms control summit.
32. Police operate with backup within groups, which is why they need larger capacity pistol magazines than do "civilians" who must face criminals alone and therefore need less ammunition.
33. We should ban "Saturday Night Specials" and other inexpensive guns because it's not fair that poor people have access to guns too.
34. Police officers, who qualify with their duty weapons once or twice a year, have some special Jedi-like mastery over handguns that private citizens can never hope to obtain.
35. Private citizens don't need a gun for self-protection because the police are there to protect them even though the Supreme Court says the police are not responsible for their protection.
36. Citizens don't need to carry a gun for personal protection but police chiefs, who are desk-bound administrators that work in a building full of cops, DO need a gun.
37. "Assault weapons" have no purpose other than to kill large numbers of people. The police need assault weapons. You do not.
38. When Microsoft pressures its distributors to give Microsoft preferential promotion, that's bad; but when the Federal government pressures cities to buy guns only from Smith & Wesson, that's good.
39. Trigger locks do not interfere with the ability to use a gun for defensive purposes, which is why you see police officers with one on their duty weapon.
40. Handgun Control, Inc., says they want to "keep guns out of the wrong hands". Guess what?
You've got the wrong hands.
Important Quote concerning Gun Ownership
1) "The very atmosphere of firearms everywhere restrains evil
interference; they deserve a place of honor with all that's good."
George Washington.
2) "The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is
that they be properly armed."
Alexander Hamilton.
3) "Arms discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in
awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property."
Thomas Paine.
4) "Americans need not fear the federal government because
they enjoy the advantage of being armed, which you possess
over the people of almost every other nation."
James Madison.
5) "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
you r walks."
Thomas Jefferson.
6) "The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone
who is able may have a gun."
Patrick Henry.
7) "Laws that forbid the carrying of arms... disarm only
those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit
crimes"
Thomas Jefferson quoting Cesare Beccaria.
"To disarm the people is the best and most effectual
way to enslave them."
George Mason
9) "The said Consti tution be never construed... to prevent
the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens
from keeping their own arms."
Samuel Adams.
10) "But the right of citizens to bear arms is just one more
guarantee against arbitrary government, and one more
safeguard against a tyranny which now appears remote in
America, but which historically has proved to be always
possible."
Hubert Humphrey .
11) "I carried it (a revolver) religiously and during the
summer I asked a friend, a man who had been one of
Franklin's bodyguards in New York State, to give me some
practice in target shooting so that if the need arose I would
know how to use the gun."
Eleanor Roosevelt
12) "By calling attention to 'a well regulated militia', the
'security' of the nation, and the right of each citizen 'to
keep and bear arms', our founding fathers recognized the
essentially civilian nature of our economy. Although it is
extremely unlikely that the fears of governmental tyranny
which gave rise to the Second Amendment will ever be a
major danger to our nation, the Amendment still remains
an important declaration of our basic civilian-military
relationships, in which every citizen must be ready to
participate in the defense of his country. For that reason,
I believe the Second Amendment will always be important."
John F. Kennedy
13) "Mightn't it be better in those areas of high crime to arm
the homeowner and the shopkeep er, teach him how to use his
weapons and put the word out to the underworld that it is no
longer totally safe to rob and murder? One wonders indeed
if the rising crime rate isn't due as much as anything to the
criminal's instinctive knowledge that the average victim no
longer has any means of protection. No one knows how
many crimes are committed because the criminal knows he
has a soft touch. No one knows how many stores have been
left alone because the criminals knew them to be guarded by a
man with a gun."
Ronald Reagan.
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