http://www.chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=24208

Gun Control Works! Written by Howard Nemerov
Monday, October 09, 2006

A recent editorial highlights the continued need to stand guard on our precious liberties:

Like most Americans, I?ve become regrettably inured to the daily reports of gun violence and gun death in this country. Oh, I know, ?Guns don?t kill people, people kill people.? But this week?s attempted slaughter of 10 Amish schoolgirls (as of this writing, five had died) hit me in a place the National Rifle Association had not yet calloused over with the propaganda it so routinely blares through a well-financed bullhorn of a public relations machine.[1]

This highlights two aspects of bias of the gun banner. First, there is the unsubstantiated allegation that the NRA instigates and supports mass murder via its advocacy for the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Second, while the author agrees that ?Guns don?t kill people, people kill people,? they won?t let the truth get in the way of a good rant.

Gun Control at Home
Two groups of tourists were robbed at gunpoint on the National Mall, just hours after the police chief declared a crime emergency in the city in response to a string of violence that included the killing of a British activist.[2]

This is the third summer in four years that [D.C. Police] Chief Ramsey has declared a crime emergency and the fourth time overall since he became chief in 1998. The chief announced an emergency in 2003 to stem a surge in homicides and in 2004 to curb a spate of car thefts by juveniles.[3]

The District of Columbia banned civilian firearms in 1976. In 2005, our nation?s capitol experienced a murder rate of 35.4 per 100,000 population, 6.3 times the national rate, and 7.4 times the average rate of all concealed carry states. The D.C. violent crime rate is 3.1 times the national average and 3.7 times the rate of right-to-carry (RTC) states.[4] Chicago?s murder rate was 15.6: 2.5 times the national rate and 3.3 times the rate of RTC states.[5] ?Since the early 1970s, Chicago and its suburban municipalities have taken a national lead in enacting firearms control legislation.?[6]

Gun Control Abroad
Gun banners would like us to follow the United Kingdom?s example and confiscate all civilian firearms. However, they do not cite violent crime data from the UK to support their plans: the violent crime rate increased about 50% since their ban.[7] Similarly, Australia?s violent crime rate increased about 40% since their gun ban. Sexual assaults and rape of women increased 73% in the UK and 27% in Australia. The UK government?s response was to take 60 crimes off the books by issuing warnings instead, thereby letting the perpetrators go free to terrorize some more.[8]

Here is a partial list of United Nations member countries that, in the 20th century, disarmed the populace and proceeded with government-sponsored mass murder: People?s Republic of China (76 million murdered); USSR (62 million); and Cambodia (2 million). Other homicidal governments, prior to founding of the U.N., included Nazi Germany (21 million) and Turkey (1.9 million).[9],[10] Gun control works!

Returning to the Scene of the Crime
The editorialist includes a quote, which she believes is ?so true,? from another gun banner elucidating a new attack strategy for the NRA:

?The NRA is a secular, fundamentalist special interest so focused on gun rights that it dismisses the 30,000 deaths each year as the price of freedom, and this includes the deaths of 14 children every day … The co-conspirator in this home-grown terrorism is the Republican Party (note: I would add, pro-gun Democrats as well) that allows the NRA to write its gun legislation in exchange for money and votes.?[11]

NRA members are equal to people who blow civilians up in the name of God? Writing legislation in exchange for votes? Gun banners remain in character when calling for repeal of gun owners? First Amendment rights. It is easier to publicly hate law-abiding citizens than to risk offending a violence-prone culture, as the Pope has recently learned. But let?s focus on the statistical blunders in order to determine the probative value of the source of such vitriol.

Writing legislation in exchange for money? To date, gun rights organizations have contributed $750,979 to federal elections during the 2006 election cycle.[12] Meanwhile, the top 20 industries contributing to the 2006 elections total $576,208,366 in contributions.[13] (The NRA does not make this list.)

Gun banners repeat the mantra of ?14 children every day? supposedly dying from firearms. Oxford English Dictionary defines the word ?childhood? as: ?the state or stage of life of a child; the time during which one is a child; the time from birth to puberty.?[14] Oxford defines ?puberty? as: ?The period during which adolescents reach sexual maturity and become capable of reproduction, distinguished by the appearance of secondary sexual characteristics.?[15] In terms of age, there seems to be general agreement that this ability to procreate occurs by the age of 15.[16] Thus, true children are ages 0-14. In 2003, 380 children died from gunshots, an average of one per day. Of these, 235 were homicides, 74 were suicides, and 56 were unintentional.[17]

It is questionable whether most homicides should be included. Children, being smaller, more trusting, and less physically able to run away or defend themselves, can be killed by many other means. All it takes is a determined larger person. Greenwood also found no relationship between homicide and levels of gun ownership: the same U.N. study showed that ten of the 33 countries surveyed had low rates of firearms ownership and high rates of homicide; another eight countries had relatively high rates of firearms ownership and low homicide rates.[18] In 2003, the FBI noted that out of 9,638 firearms murders, 797 were committed by juvenile gangs, another 2,477 were committed during arguments, and another 90 during brawls while under the influence of drugs of alcohol.[19] While it does not break out the data by age, the FBI reports that 268 sons and 193 daughters were murder victims of the offenders, with 71 of them killed during arguments.[20] Therefore, child firearms deaths that theoretically might have been prevented by gun control laws are likely much closer to the number of accidental shootings.

Gun banners also repeat ?30,000 deaths each year? mantra. The Centers for Disease Control notes there were 30,136 deaths from firearms for the year 2003, the latest data available. Of these, 730 were unintentional, 11,920 were homicides, 16,907 were suicides, 347 were due to legal intervention, and 232 were of undetermined intent.[21]

The U.S. ranks 27th overall in suicide, below countries with complete bans or far greater restrictions on civilian firearms ownership, such as Japan and Australia.[22] Furthermore, Greenwood collated information from a United Nations report and found no positive correlation between gun ownership and higher levels homicide or suicide. For example, he found that many European countries have relatively low levels of gun ownership and higher levels of suicide than the U.S.[23] Suicide appears to be a cross-cultural phenomenon that is a far more complex issue than whether a gun is available or not.

As Dr. Martin L. Fackler, a leading firearms wound ballistics expert, notes:

When anti-gun activists list the number of deaths per year from firearms, they neglect to mention that 60 percent of the 30,000 figure they often use are suicides. They also fail to mention that at least three-quarters of the 12,000 homicides are criminals killing other criminals in disputes over illicit drugs, or police shooting criminals engaged in felonies. Subtracting those, we are left with no more than 3,000 deaths that I think most would consider truly lamentable.[24]

Who?s to Blame Here?
The Gun Free Schools Act of 1994 required any public school receiving federal education money?and any private school that participates in programs sponsored by local public schools?to ban firearms from the premises except for certain student sporting events.[25] (The lone exception is the Amish school, but the Amish are ?committed pacifists.?[26])

The editorial continues:

Why the gunfire in Nickel Mines, Pa., struck so hard, I?ll never know. I guess the visual picture of Charles Carl Roberts segregating out children by gender, binding the girls? feet with wire and plastic ties, then shooting them execution-style, gut-punched me in a place I thought I?d toughened off and hidden away. I thought my emotions were was [sic] bullet-proofed by the daily horrors we Americans are forced to stomach in the name of ?Second Amendment freedoms.?[27]

Other examples she cites are from the 15-year-old who shot his school?s principle, a man who invaded a Vermont elementary school looking for his ex-girlfriend, and the 2005 Minnesota high school shooting.

The common theme in all these shootings is that they all took place in schools. Therefore, there were no ?Second Amendment freedoms? in any of these places, as schools are gun-free zones?at least to law-abiding citizens. Had a responsible, armed adult been present, Roberts never would have had time to segregate children by gender, much less for binding them or shooting them.

The editorial concludes: ?What Nickel Mines, Pa., teaches us is we Americans are not truly free until we?re free of the choke hold the NRA has on national anti-gun legislation.?[28]

Actually, what this teaches us is that gun control is an abysmal failure. Americans will not be free of the choke-hold of government-created terror zones until we repeal the Gun Free Schools Act of 1994 and provide armed security in our schools.

Conclusion
When one becomes ?inured? to ?reports of gun violence,? it is time to examine why they became insensitive to the suffering of others, rather than forcing others, who have done nothing wrong, to suffer so that they can feel good about returning to an ?inured? state of mind. Such insensitive selfishness highlights the continuing danger gun banners present to our society.

Endnotes

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[1] Bonnie Erbe, The tragedy of gun deaths grows, Modesto Bee, October 4, 2006. http://www.modbee.com/24hour/opinions/story/3388066p-12458275c.html

[2] Brett Zongker, Nation?s Capitol Declares Crime Emergency, Breitbart, July 12, 2006. http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/07/12/D8IQH9P05.html

[3] Amy Doolittle and Gary Emerling, D.C. cops to study trends in crime, The Washington Times, July 13, 2006. http://www.washingtontimes.com/metro/20060713-121427-2865r.htm Page 2: http://www.washingtontimes.com/metro/20060713-121427-2865r_page2.htm

[4] Tabulated from Table 5: Crime in the United States by State, 2005, FBI Crime in the United States, 2005. http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/05cius/data/documents/05tbl05.xls

[5] Table 8: Offenses Known to Law Enforcement by State by City, 2005, FBI Crime in the United States, 2005. http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/05cius/data/documents/05tbl08.xls

[6] Gun Control, Encyclopedia of Chicago, Copyright 2004. http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/557.html

[7] Compiled from Crime in England and Wales by UK Home Office. Spreadsheet available upon request.

[8] Howard Nemerov, Gun Control: Do Brady Policies Support Criminal Behavior? ChronWatch, May 11, 2006. See section entitled ?Britain Redux?. http://www.chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=21066

[9] Rudy Rummel, 20th Century Democide. http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM Plus email dated December 11, 2005 from Professor Rummel, updating web page total with recent research of Chinese government-caused famine of 1958-1962.

[10] Rudy Rummel, 20th Century Democide, cross-referenced with Gun Facts, Version 4.1, page 82, copyright Guy Smith, 2006. http://www.gunfacts.info/pdfs/gun-facts/4.1/GunFacts4-1-Print.pdf

[11] Bonnie Erbe, The tragedy of gun deaths grows, Modesto Bee, October 4, 2006.

[12] Open Secrets, Gun Rights: Long-Term Contributions, Center for Responsive Politics. http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.asp?Ind=Q13

[13] Open Secrets, 2006 Election Overview: Top Industries, Center for Responsive Politics. http://www.opensecrets.org/overview/industries.asp?cycle=2006

[14] The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, Thumb Index Edition, 1993 Edition, page 386.

[15] Ibid, page 2404.

[16] Google search: definitions on puberty. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oi=defmore&q=define:puberty

[17] WISQARS Fatal Injuries: Mortality Reports, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control. http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate.html

[18] Ibid.

[19] Murder Circumstances by Weapon, 2003, FBI.
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_03/xl/03tbl2-12.xls

[20] Murder Circumstances by Relationship, 2003, FBI. http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_03/xl/03tbl2-11.xls

[21] WISQARS Fatal Injuries: Mortality Reports, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control.

[22] Mortality: Self-Harm, Nationmaster.com, compiled January 2004.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/mor_sel_har_cap

[23] Greenwood, Cross-Sectional Study of the Relationship Between Levels of Gun Ownership and Violent Deaths, March 2000, page 2. http://www.wfsa.net/adobe_documents/Cross_Sectional_Study.PDF Cross-referenced with Mortality: Self-Harm, Nationmaster.com.

[24] Martin L. Fackler, Firearms in America: The Facts, NewsMax, Dece. 25, 2000. http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2000/12/23/225251.shtml

[25] Guidance Concerning State and Local Responsibilities Under the Gun-Free Schools Act of 1994, Revised October 31, 1995, Florida Department of Education web site. http://www.firn.edu/doe/besss/pdf/nonreggunfreeschoolact.pdf

[26] Joe Wittmer, Ph.D., Responds to Questions Regarding the Amish (Installment #1). http://www.holycrosslivonia.org/amish/q_and_a_no1.htm

[27] Bonnie Erbe, The tragedy of gun deaths grows, Modesto Bee, October 4, 2006.

[28] Ibid.

About the Writer: Howard Nemerov began doing his own research into gun control when he recognized that the media was full of distortions and half truths. He publishes with ChronWatch and other sites, and is a frequent guest on NRA News. He is currently working on his first book, “Gun Control: Fear or Fact,” which deconstructs and explains the gun control agenda and its arguments, debunking each one with a statistic-rich analysis. This is the handbook for when you want to talk to others about gun control . Howard receives e-mail at HNemerov [at symbol] netvista.net.