9 Myths of Gun Control

ernest2

New member
ernest2- the following article really takes
the wind out of any anti civil self defense rights gun grabber with whom you may be debating.

Please make use of it and copy and paste it everywhere!

It is my hope that this article will make some liberal anti civil rights gun bigots
question their prejudices.
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Nine Myths of Gun Control
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Updated Jan 25 · Myth #1 "Guns are only used for killing".
Compared to about 35,000 gun deaths every year, 2.5 million good Americans use guns to protect themselves, their families, and their livelihoods - there are 65 lives protected by guns for every life lost to a gun - five lives are protected per minute - and, of those 2.5 million protective uses of guns, about 1/2 million are believed to have saved lives.

[2] · Myth #2 "Guns are dangerous when used for protection".
US Bureau of Justice Statistics show that guns are the safest and most effective means of defense. Using a gun for protection results in fewer injuries to the defender than using any other means of defense and is safer than not resisting at all.

[3] The myth that "guns are only used for killing" and the myth that "guns are dangerous when used for protection" melt when exposed to scientific examination and data. The myths persist because they are repeated so frequently and dogmatically that few think to question the myths by examining the mountains of data available.
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Let us examine the other common myths.
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· Myth #3 "There is an epidemic of gun violence".
Even their claim of an "epidemic" of
violence is false. That claim, like so many other of their claims, has been so often dogmatically repeated that few think to question the claim by checking the FBI and other data. Homicide rates have been stable to slightly declining for decades except for inner city teens and young adults involved with illicit drug trafficking. We have noticed that, if one subtracts the inner city contribution to violence, American homicide rates are lower than in Britain and the other paragons of gun control.

[2] The actual causes of inne city violence are family disruption, media violence, and abject poverty, not gun ownership. In the inner city, poverty is so severe that crime has become a rational career choice for those with no hope of decent job opportunities.
[4]
· Myth #4 "Guns cause violence"
Homicide For over twenty years it has been illegal for teens to buy guns and, despite such gun control, the African-American teenage male homicide rate in Washington, DC
is 227 per 100,000 - 20 times the US average!
[5] The US group for whom legal gun ownership has the highest prevalence, middle-aged white men, has a homicide rate of less than 7 per 100,000 - about half of the US average.
[6] If the "guns-cause-violence" theory is correct why does Virginia, the alleged "easy purchase" source of all those illegal Washington, DC guns, have a murder rate of 9.3 per 100,000, one-ninth of DC's
overall homicide rate of 80.6?
[7 ]Why are homicide rates lowest in
states with loose gun control (North Dakota 1.1, Maine 1.2, South Dakota 1.7, Idaho 1.8, Iowa 2.0, Montana 2.6) and highest in
states and the district with draconian gun controls and bans(District of Columbia 80.6, New York 14.2, California 12.7, Illinois
11.3, Maryland 11.7)?
[7] The "guns-cause-violence" and "gun exacerbate violence" theories founder. Again, the causes of inner city violence are family disruption, media violence, and abject
poverty, not gun ownership. Accidents National Safety Council data show that accidental gun deaths have been falling steadily since the beginning of this century and now hover at an all time low.
This means that about 200 tragic accidental gun deaths occur annually, a far cry from the familiar false imagery of "thousands of
innocent children."
[8] Suicide Gun bans result in lower gun suicide rates, but a compensatory increase in suicide from other accessible and lethal means of suicide (hanging, leaping, auto
exhaust, etc.). The net result of gun bans? No reduction in total suicide rates.
[3] People who are intent in killing themselves find the means to do so. Are other means of suicide so much more politically correct that we should focus on measures that decreas gun suicide, but do nothing to reduce total suicide deaths? ·

Myth #5 The "Friends and Family" fallacy.

It is common for the "public health" advocates of gun bans to claim that most murders are of"friends and family." The medical literature includes many such false claims, that "most [murderers] would be considered law abiding citizens prior to their pulling the trigger"[9 ]and "most
shootings are not committed by felons or mentally ill people, but are acts of passion that are committed using a handgun that is
owned for protection."

[10] Not only do the data show that
acquaintance and domestic homicide are a minority of homicides,[11] but the FBI's definition of acquaintance and domestic homicide requires only that the murderer knew or was related to the decedent.
That dueling drug dealers are acquainted
does not make them "friends."
Over three-quarters of murderers have long histories of violence against not only their enemies and other "acquaintances," but also against their relatives.[12,13,14,15]

Oddly, medical authors have no difficulty recognizing the violent histories of murderers when the topic is not gun control -

"A history of violence is the best predictor of violence."[16] The perpetrators of acquaintance and domestic homicide are
overwhelmingly vicious aberrants with long histories of violence inflicted upon those close to them.

This reality belies the imagery of "friends and family" murdering each other in fits of passion simply because a gun was present "in the home." ·

Myth #6 "A homeowner is 43 times as likely to be killed or kill a family member
as an intruder".

To suggest that science has proven that defending oneself or one's family with a gun is dangerous, gun prohibitionists repeat Dr. Kellermann's long-discredited claim: "a gun owner is 43 times more likely to kill a family member than an intruder."

[17] This fallacy , fabricated using tax dollars, is one of the most misused
slogans of the anti-self-defense lobby.
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The honest measure of the protective benefits of guns are the lives saved, the injuries prevented, the medical costs saved, and the property protected.
---------------------------------------------
Not
Kellermann's burglar or rapist body count.
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Only 0.1% (1 in a thousand) of the defensive uses of guns results in the death of the
predator.
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[3] Any study, such as Kellermann' "43 times" fallacy,[ that only counts bodies]
will expectedly underestimate the benefits of gun a thousand-fold.
=============================================
Think for a minute. Would anyone suggest
that the only measure of the benefit of law enforcement is the number of people killed by police? Of course not. The honest measure of the benefits of guns are the lives saved, the injuries prevented, the medical costs saved by deaths and injuries averted, and the property protected. 65 lives protected by guns for every life lost to a gun.
============================================

[2] Kellermann recently downgraded his estimate to "2.7 times,"[18] but he persisted in discredited methodology.
--------------
He used a method that cannot distinguish between "cause" and "effect."
His method would be like finding more diet drinks in the refrigerators of fat people and then concluding that diet drinks "cause" obesity.
--------------

Also, he studied groups with high rates of violent criminality, alcoholism, drug addiction, abject poverty, and domestic abuse . From such a poor and violent study group he
attempted to generalize his findings to normal homes.
Interestingly,
when Dr. Kellermann was interviewed he stated that, if his wife were attacked, he would want her to have a gun for protection.
[19]
Apparently, Dr. Kellermann doesn't even believe his own studies.
·
Myth #7 "The costs of gun violence are high"

The actual economic cost of medical care for gun violence is approximately $1.5-billion
per year
[20]- less than 0.2% of America's$800-billion annual health care costs.
------------
To exaggerate the costs of gun violence, the
advocates of gun prohibition routinely include estimates of "lost lifetime earnings" or "years of productive life lost" - assuming that gangsters, drug dealers, and rapists would be as socially productive as teachers, factory workers, and other good Americans -
-----------
to generate inflated claims of $20-billion or more in "costs."
[20] One recent study went so far as to claim the "costs" of work lost because workers might gossip about gun violence.
[21]
What fraction of homicide victims are actually "innocent children" who strayed into gunfire?
Far from being pillars of society, it has
been noted that more than two-thirds of gun homicide "victims" are drug traffickers or their customers.
[22,23] In one study, 67% of 1990 homicide "victims" had a criminal record, averaging 4 arrests for 11 offenses.
----------------------
[23] These active criminals cost society not only untold human suffering, but also an average economic toll of $400,000 per criminal per year before apprehension and $25,000 per criminal per year while in prison.
----------------------
[24] Because the anti-self-defense lobby repeatedly forces us to examine the issue
of "costs," we are forced to notice that, in cutting their violent "careers" short, the gun deaths of those predators and criminals
may actually represent an economic savings to society on the order of $4.5 billion annually - three times the declared "costs" of guns.
Those annual cost savings are only a small fraction of the total economic savings from guns, because the $4.5 billion does not include the additional savings from innocent lives saved, injuries prevented, medical costs averted, and property protected
by guns.
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Whether by human or economic measure, we conclude that guns offer a substantial net benefit to our society.
----------------------------
Other benefits, such as the feeling of security and self-determination that accompany protective gun ownership, are less easily quantified.
There is no competent research that suggests making good citizens' access to guns more difficult (whether by bureaucratic "red tape," taxation, or outright bans) will reduce violence.

It is only good citizens who comply with gun laws, so it is only good citizens who are disarmed by gun laws.

As evidenced by jurisdictions with the most draconian gun laws (e.g. New York City, Washington, DC, etc.), disarming these good citizens before violence is reduced causes more harm than good.
-------------------
Disarming these good citizens costs more - not fewer - lives. ·
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Myth #8 "Gun control will keep guns 'off the street ".

Vicious predators who ignore laws against murder, mayhem, and drug trafficking routinely ignore those existent American gun laws.
No amount of well-meaning wishful thinking will cause these criminals to honor additional gun laws.
--------------------
Advocates of gun control rarely discuss the enforceability of their proposals, an understandable lapse, since even police-state
tactics cannot effectively enforce gun bans. --------
As evidence,
in Communist China, a country whose human rights record we dare not emulate, 120,000 banned civilian guns were confiscated in one
month in 1994.

[25] Existent gun laws impact only those willing to comply with such laws, good people who already honor the laws of common decency.

Placing further impediments in the path of good citizens will further disproportionately disarm those good people -
especially disarming good, poor people, the people who live in the areas of highest risk. If "better" data are forthcoming, we are ready to reassess the public policy implications.
------------
Until such time, the data suggest that victim disarmament is not a policy that saves lives. -------------

What does save lives is allowing adult, mentally-competent, law-abiding citizen access to the safest and most effective means
of protection - guns.

[26,27] Brady I and Brady II The extremists at Handgun Control Inc. boast that "23,000 potential felons"
[28][emphasis added]
were prevented from retail gun purchases in the first month of the Brady Law. Several jurisdictions have reviewed the preliminary Brady Law data which resulted in the initial Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) overestimated
appraisal[29] of the "success" of the Brady Law. The Virginia State Police, Phoenix Police Department, and other jurisdictions have shown that almost every one of those "potential" felons were not felons or otherwise disqualified from gun ownership.
Many were innocents
whose names were similar to felons. Misdemeanor
traffic convictions, citations for fishing without a license, and
failure to license dogs
were the types of trivial crimes that resulted in a computer tag that labeled the others as "potential" felons.
[30]
In transparent "governmentese," BATF Spokesperson Susan McCarron avers, "we feel [the Brady Law has] been a success,
even though we don't have a whole lot of numbers.
Anecdotally, we can find some effect."
[31] Even if the preliminary data had been
accurate, that data only showed about 6.3% of retail sales were "possible" felons - consistent with repeated studies showing how
few crime guns are obtained in retail transactions.
A minuscule number of actual felons has been identified by Brady Law background checks, but the US Department of Justice is unable to
identify even one prosecution of those felons.

[32 ] In such circumstance, the minimal expected benefit of the Brady Law diminishes to no benefit at all.
The National Institute of Justice has
shown that very few crime guns are purchased from gun dealers.

93% of crime guns are obtained as black market, stolen guns, or
from similar non-retail sources.

[28] Since none of Handgun Control Inc.'s Brady I or Brady II suggestions impact on the
source of 93% of crime guns,
their symbolic nostrums cannot be expected to do anything to reduce crime or violence.

Residential gun dealers.

The press and broadcast media have vilified
low-volume gun dealers, pejoratively named "kitchen table" dealers,
yet the claim that such dealers are the source of a "proliferation of guns on our streets" ........ is contradicted by data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF).
Those data show that 43% of gun dealers had no inventory and sold no guns at all.

[33]In fact, Congressional testimony before enactment of the Firearms Owner Protection Act of 1986 (FOPA)........ documented that
the large number of low-volume gun dealers is a direct result of BATF policy.

Prior to FOPA the BATF prosecuted gun collectors who sold as few as three guns per year at gun shows, claiming that they were unlicensed, and therefore illegal, gun dealers.

To avoid such harassment and prosecution, thousands of American gun collectors became, at least on paper, licensed gun dealers.
Now the BATF and the anti-self-defense lobby claim BATF does
not have the resources to audit the paperwork monster it created.

Reducing the number of gun dealers will only ensure that guns are
more expensive - unaffordable to the poor who are at greatest risk from violence, ensuring that gun ownership becomes a privilege of only the politically connected and the affluent.

Instead of heaping
more onerous restrictions upon good citizens or law-abiding gun dealers who are not the source of crime guns, is it not more
reasonable - though admittedly more difficult - to target the real source of crime guns?

It is time to admit the futility of attacking the supply of legal guns to interdict the less than 1% of the American gun stock that is used criminally.

Instead, we believe effort should focus on targeting the actual "black market" in stolen guns.
It is equally important to reduce the demand for illicit guns and drugs, most particularly by presenting attractive life opportunities and career alternatives to the inner-city youth that are overwhelmingly and disproportionately the perpetrators and victims of violence in our society.

· Myth #9 "Citizens are too incompetent to use guns for protection".

Nationally good citizens use guns about seven to ten times as frequently as the police to repel crime and apprehend
criminals and they do it with a better safety record than the police.

[3] About 11% of police shootings kill an innocent person -
about 2% of shootings by citizens kill an innocent person.

The odds of a defensive gun user killing an innocent person are less than 1 in 26,000.

[27] Citizens intervening in crime are less likely to be wounded than the police.
We can explain why the civilian record
is better than the police, but the simple truth remains -
citizens have an excellent record of protecting themselves and their communities and NOT ONE of the fear mongering fantasies of the gun control lobby has come true.

"Treat cars like guns". Advocates
of increased gun restrictions have promoted the automobile model of gun ownership, however, the analogy is selectively and
incompletely applied.

It is routinely overlooked that no license or registration is needed to "own and operate" any kind of automobile on private property.
No proof of "need" is required for automobile registration or drivers' licensure.
Once licensed and registered,
automobiles may be driven on any public road and every state's licenses are given "full faith and credit" by other states.

There are no waiting periods, background checks, or age restrictions for the
purchase of automobiles.

It is only their use - and misuse - that is
regulated. Although the toll of motor vehicle tragedies is many times that of guns, no "arsenal permit" equivalent is asked of
automobile collectors or motorcycle racing enthusiasts.

Neither has anyone suggested that automobile manufacturers be sued when automobiles are frequently misused by criminals in bank
robberies, drive-by shootings, and all manner of crime and terrorism, especially car bombs.
No one has suggested banning motor vehicles because they "might" be used illegally at some time in the future,such as Conn." turn in your neighbor law" does;[guns and not people,
are arrested by the Conn. Thought Police on an assumption that an illegal act might sometime be commited at some future date.

No one suggests banning cars because they are capable of exceeding the 55 mph speed limit, even though we know "speed kills."

Who needs a car capable of three times the national speed limit?

"But cars have good uses" is the usual response.
-----------
So too do guns have good uses, the protection of as many as 2.5-million good Americans every year.
------------
Progressive reform Complete, consistent, and constitutional application of the automobile model of gun ownership could provide a rational solution to the debate and enhance public safety.

Reasonable compromise on licensing and training is possible.

Where state laws have been reformed to license and train good citizens to carry concealed handguns for protection, violence and homicide have fallen.

[11,26,27] Even unarmed citizens who abhor
guns benefit from such policies because predators cannot determine in advance who is carrying a concealed weapon.

Fear mongering and the gun control lobby In opposing progressive reforms that restore our rights to self-protection, the
anti-self-defense lobby has claimed that reform would cause blood to run in the streets, that inconsequential family arguments would turn into murderous incidents, that the economic base of
communities would collapse, and that many innocent people would be killed

[26,27] In Florida, the anti-self-defense lobby claimed that blood would run in the streets of "Dodge City East," the "Gunshine
State" --- but we do not have to rely on irrational propaganda, imaginative imagery, or political histrionics.
We can examine the data.

Data, not histrionics One-third of Americans live in the 22 progressive states that have reformed laws to allow good citizens to
readily protect themselves outside their homes.
[26,27] In those states crime rates are lower for every category of crime indexed by the FBI Uniform Crime Reports.
[11] Homicide, assault, and overall violent crime are each 40% lower, armed robbery is 50% lower, rape is 30% lower, and property crimes are 10% lower.

[11] The reasonable reform of concealed weapon laws resulted in none of the mayhem prophesied by the anti-self-defense lobby.

In fact, the data suggest that, providing they are in the hands of good citizens, more guns "on the street" offer a considerable benefit to society - saving lives, a deterrent to crime, and an adjunct to the
concept of community policing.

As of 12/31/94, Florida had issued
188,106 licenses and not one innocent person had been killed or injured by a licensed gun owner in the 6 years post-reform.
Of the 188,106 licenses, 17 (0.0001%) were revoked for misuse of the firearm.

Not one of those revocations were associated with any injury whatsoever.

[27] In opposing reform, fear is often expressed that "everyone would be packing guns," but, after reform, most states have licensed fewer than 2% (and in no state more than 4%) of qualified citizens.

[27] Notwithstanding gun control extremists' unprophetic histrionics , the observed reality was that
crime fell, in part, because vicious predators fear an unpredictable encounter with an armed citizen even more than they fear apprehension by police[34] or fear our timid and porous criminal justice system.

It is no mystery why Florida's tourists are targeted by predators - predators are guaranteed that, unlike Florida's
citizens, tourists are unarmed.

Those who advocate restricting gun rights often justify their proposals "if it saves only one life."

There have been matched state pair analyses, crime trend studies, and California county-by-county research

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[27] demonstrating that licensing law-abiding, mentally-competent adults to carry concealed weapons for protection outside their homes saves many lives, so gun prohibitionists should support such reforms, if saving lives is truly their motivation. &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
The right Importantly, the proponents of the automobile model of gun ownership fail to note that controls appropriate to a privilege (driving) are inappropriate to a constitutional right (gun ownership and use). Let there be no doubt.
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The Supreme Court has repeatedly acknowledged an individual right to keep and bear arms.

[35] It is specifically the
"weapons of war" - militia weapons - that are protected.

The intent of the Second Amendment was to ensure that, by guaranteeing the individual right to arms, a citizen militia could always oppose a tyrannical federal government such
as we now appear to have under Gore & Clinton.

That the Supreme Court has acknowledged the right, but done little to protect that right,

is reminiscent of the sluggishness of the Supreme Court in protecting
other civil rights
before those rights became politically fashionable.

Need we be reminded that it has taken over a century for the Supreme Court to meaningfully protect civil rights guaranteed to African-Americans in the Fourteenth Amendment?

Besides
Second Amendment guarantees of the pre-existent right to keep and bear arms,

there are Ninth,[36] Tenth,[35] and Fourteenth Amendment,[37] as well as "natural right"[38] guarantees to self-protection.

Since 1980, of thirty-nine law review articles addressing the Supreme Court case law and history of the right to
keep and bear arms, thirty-five support the indivi

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GUN CONTROL puts THE CONTROL
in the hands of THE CRIMINALS.

--------------------------------
You all have my permision to
use any of these"signatures"
here, if you like!
---------------------------

-They call 'em POLUTE-TICIANS because they POLUTE the MINDS
of OUR CHILDERN with their ANTI civil/firearms RIGHTS SOCIALIST
political agendas. We of the older generations know B.S.
when we hear it.
-----------------------------------------------
In 2000, we must become politically active in
support of gun rights or we WILL LOSE the right
& the freedom.
-------------------------
NO FATE BUT WHAT WE MAKE!!!
----------------------
Every year,over 2 million Americans use firearms
not to take live but to preserve life,....limb & family
.Gun Control Democrats would prefer that they are all disarmed
and helpless and die victims of felony violence,instead.

Protect your gun rights, go to:
http://home.xnet.com/~gizmonic/TheMarch.html
and sign up as a helper or attendee or state organizer.
ernest2, Conn. CAN opp. "Do What You Can"!
http://thematrix.acmecity.com/digital/237/cansite/can.html
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR> Interestingly,
when Dr. Kellermann was interviewed he stated that, if his wife were attacked, he would want her to have a gun for protection.
[19]
Apparently, Dr. Kellermann doesn't even believe his own studies.
[/quote]
Wonder how many thousands of dollars this guy got from the govt to print this stuff?
 
Nice report. Now if we could fill in the blanks with the support... where the actual facts come from, indexed, this could be usable. But what good is it without the support? Anyone trying to show this to an anti is just going to get "Where is your proof for this?".

Any volenteers?



------------------
Richard

The debate is not about guns,
but rather who has the ultimate power to rule,
the People or Government.
RKBA!
 
Good stuff, Ernest2, do you have a source for the original? It would be helpful to have the citations for the footnotes. Thx, M2

Oooops! cross-posts, Bookkie (great minds and all that - )
I've found similar stuff at http://www.gunowners.org/fs9901.htm and www.guntruths.com, but not this particular piece, any help would be appreciated.

[This message has been edited by Mike in VA (edited March 27, 2000).]
 
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