Reader Commentary

Longview Daily News Jan. 2, 2002 – Reader Commentary

The article titled NRA celebrates White House support implies that the
NRA is doing well today primarily because of its support from the
conservative Bush administration. There are more reasons for NRA
success than that.

The positions the NRA takes also have the support of many thoughtful
liberals. Harvard?s Lawrence Tribe and the Yale professor who argued
Vice President Gore?s case before the Supreme Court acknowledge that
individuals do have a right to be armed for self-protection. NRA
president Charlton Heston takes pride in having marched with Dr. King.

There is also a solid base of popular support for the NRA. Its
membership stands at 4.3 million, and a great many of its members are
highly motivated. Fortune Magazine rates it as the top lobbying
organization in the country.
The largest anti-gun organizations have memberships of at most a few
hundred thousand.

But more important, the NRA has a solid factual basis for its case.
Firearms studies are popular among social scientists. Their work has
enormously strengthened the gun rights case. For example we now know:
o Americans make legitimate self defense use of firearms far more often

than we thought.
o Freely issuing permits to carry concealed pistols to qualified
individuals
causes criminals to fear encountering armed victims and reduces violent
crime.
o There is no ?downside? to freely issuing permits. The people who do
misuse firearms almost invariably have long histories of aberrant
behavior that would disqualify them from having permits.

Events have also strengthened our case. For example:
o When Britain banned civilian ownership of firearms, violent crime
increased sharply.
o When Orange County California eased concealed carry restrictions,
violent crime dropped a whopping 29% at a time when it was rising
rapidly in the rest of California.

Even where all this hasn?t changed minds, it has had a profound affect
on the debate. If he is reasonably well informed, even the most bigoted
anti-gun zealot realizes he has little with which to argue his case.
The less well informed are reduced to transparently silly arguments like
the recent suggestion that the only arms to which the 2nd Amendment
applies are 18th century muskets.

And even the most pandering of politicians doesn?t want to be held in
contempt by thoughtful people who see we are not better off when we
disarm innocent victims.

So the gun rights crowd has a lot more going for it than a sympathetic
White House. The debate over the role of firearms in America is not
going to be resolved any time soon. But the NRA is in a much stronger
position than it was even a few years ago.

William G. Dennis