New Math at work - "8.6 million Americans" are considered a minority.
Lots to choose from - take Maalox first.
http://www.newsday.com/coverage/current/editorial/thursday/nd7892.htm
Why Are All Those People Applying to Buy Guns?
Marie Cocco.
GUNS AND good news. They do not often mix.
The Justice Department reported the other day that Brady Law background checks stopped 204,000 people from getting guns last year -people who should not be in posession of weapons. They are felons and people under felony indictment. They are people who have histories of domestic violence. And some people with histories of mental illness in states that keep good records about such things.
This is the good news about guns. Since the Brady Law went into effect in 1994, about half a million people who shouldn't have guns were stopped from buying them. Buying them legally and from a licensed dealer, anyway.
And here is the rest of the news: There were 8.6 million Americans who applied to purchase firearms last year, more than double the number who sought to buy guns in 1998.
No matter how you look at this, good or bad, it is a lot of guns. And a lot of people who think they want guns, or need guns. Or maybe a lot of people who just wanted to upgrade to a shinier, spiffier model the way some folks upgrade to faster and faster modems for the computer they actually use mostly for games and for e-mail.
Usually, when a government statistic doubles in one year, someone takes note of it. But no one has really noted the astonishing burst in the number of people who applied to buy guns. The attention, when the report came out, was on the Brady Law and whether it works.
Part of the upsurge, the Justice Department said, resulted because background checks now are required on the transfer of long guns (rifles to those unfamiliar with gun chat) and pawn shops were added to the roster of establishments required to conduct the checks. This is what is known as a statistical glitch.
It explains part of the reason why the number of Americans applying to buy guns legally more than doubled in just one year - a year, by the way, in which crime continued to drop pretty much everywhere. It doesn't explain December.
Last December, gun applications surged to about 1.2 million, capping an upward monthly trend that began in August. Perhaps it was the prediction of apocalypse.
Tom Diaz, a longtime critic of the gun industry and author of the book "Making a Killing," said the gun culture - the interlocking network of gun manufacturers, gun groups and gun publications - pushed the idea in 1999 that you'd better be locked and loaded for 2000.
"Nineteen ninety-nine was the famous Y2K panic," Diaz said in an interview.
We are, though, still here. Still enjoying low crime rates and living pretty much as we were before. Plenty of water. No planes falling. No dark forces threatening the communal well-being.
And what we are left with, besides the bottled water and the cans of tuna that have been eaten or donated already, is the guns. Where are they? Added to the stockpile of 200 million or so guns that are privately owned.
Waiting to be transferred to other owners, perhaps as gifts. Or sold at a weekend gun show where it will not be necessary for an unlicensed dealer to obtain from the buyer an application, or to conduct a criminal background check.Waiting, maybe, to be stolen from an unlocked basement cabinet or a dresser drawer by a teenager with a grudge against a teacher or a classmate.
You can control guns all you want, and still there will be this vast arsenal in the hands of a minority of American adults, some very responsible.
And some very irresponsible.Still there will be this mystery of why 8.6 million Americans went out to buy guns last year and how we came to have a society in which almost no one found that remarkable.
Copyright © Newsday, Inc.
-- 30 --
You can reach Mary at: cocco@newsday.com
You can cc the Publisher, President and CEO at: rjansen@newsday.com
------------------
The New World Order has a Third Reich odor.
[This message has been edited by Oatka (edited June 16, 2000).]
Lots to choose from - take Maalox first.
http://www.newsday.com/coverage/current/editorial/thursday/nd7892.htm
Why Are All Those People Applying to Buy Guns?
Marie Cocco.
GUNS AND good news. They do not often mix.
The Justice Department reported the other day that Brady Law background checks stopped 204,000 people from getting guns last year -people who should not be in posession of weapons. They are felons and people under felony indictment. They are people who have histories of domestic violence. And some people with histories of mental illness in states that keep good records about such things.
This is the good news about guns. Since the Brady Law went into effect in 1994, about half a million people who shouldn't have guns were stopped from buying them. Buying them legally and from a licensed dealer, anyway.
And here is the rest of the news: There were 8.6 million Americans who applied to purchase firearms last year, more than double the number who sought to buy guns in 1998.
No matter how you look at this, good or bad, it is a lot of guns. And a lot of people who think they want guns, or need guns. Or maybe a lot of people who just wanted to upgrade to a shinier, spiffier model the way some folks upgrade to faster and faster modems for the computer they actually use mostly for games and for e-mail.
Usually, when a government statistic doubles in one year, someone takes note of it. But no one has really noted the astonishing burst in the number of people who applied to buy guns. The attention, when the report came out, was on the Brady Law and whether it works.
Part of the upsurge, the Justice Department said, resulted because background checks now are required on the transfer of long guns (rifles to those unfamiliar with gun chat) and pawn shops were added to the roster of establishments required to conduct the checks. This is what is known as a statistical glitch.
It explains part of the reason why the number of Americans applying to buy guns legally more than doubled in just one year - a year, by the way, in which crime continued to drop pretty much everywhere. It doesn't explain December.
Last December, gun applications surged to about 1.2 million, capping an upward monthly trend that began in August. Perhaps it was the prediction of apocalypse.
Tom Diaz, a longtime critic of the gun industry and author of the book "Making a Killing," said the gun culture - the interlocking network of gun manufacturers, gun groups and gun publications - pushed the idea in 1999 that you'd better be locked and loaded for 2000.
"Nineteen ninety-nine was the famous Y2K panic," Diaz said in an interview.
We are, though, still here. Still enjoying low crime rates and living pretty much as we were before. Plenty of water. No planes falling. No dark forces threatening the communal well-being.
And what we are left with, besides the bottled water and the cans of tuna that have been eaten or donated already, is the guns. Where are they? Added to the stockpile of 200 million or so guns that are privately owned.
Waiting to be transferred to other owners, perhaps as gifts. Or sold at a weekend gun show where it will not be necessary for an unlicensed dealer to obtain from the buyer an application, or to conduct a criminal background check.Waiting, maybe, to be stolen from an unlocked basement cabinet or a dresser drawer by a teenager with a grudge against a teacher or a classmate.
You can control guns all you want, and still there will be this vast arsenal in the hands of a minority of American adults, some very responsible.
And some very irresponsible.Still there will be this mystery of why 8.6 million Americans went out to buy guns last year and how we came to have a society in which almost no one found that remarkable.
Copyright © Newsday, Inc.
-- 30 --
You can reach Mary at: cocco@newsday.com
You can cc the Publisher, President and CEO at: rjansen@newsday.com
------------------
The New World Order has a Third Reich odor.
[This message has been edited by Oatka (edited June 16, 2000).]
