This insightful commentary and came to me a breath of fresh
air amongst the rhetoric, mostly moans and groans from the
firearms owners interspersed with facts and figures to
complicated for the air-head antis:
Federal Study Refutes Anti-Gun Arguments
Authoritarians of all stripes are using the recent school shooting
tragedies to justify depriving Americans of essential and fundamental
liberties.
Anti-gun forces are calling for more restrictions on the right to keep
and bear arms. Enemies of free expression are calling for censorship of the
Internet, movies, video games, and other media. Many are demanding that
government schools be made even more like prisons than they already are.
All this, of course, is in the name of protecting children and preventing
future violence. Which makes this excerpt from a recent syndicated column by
libertarian
writer Vin Suprynowicz especially timely:
".isn't it too bad the government has never conducted an actual
scientific study on how it affects a child's likelihood of committing crimes
if his
parents buy him a gun?
"Um, actually ... they have.
*****
"The study was conducted from 1993-1995 by the U.S. Department of
Justice's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Child
psychologists tracked 4,000 boys and girls aged 6 to 15 in Denver,
Pittsburgh, and
Rochester, N.Y. Their findings?
"Children who get guns from their parents don't commit gun crimes (0percent)
while children who get guns illegally are quite likely to do so
(21percent). "Children who get guns from parents are less likely to commit
any kind of street crime (14 percent) than children who have no gun in the
house (24
percent) -- and are dramatically less likely to do so than children who
acquire an illegal gun (74 percent.) "Children who get guns from parents are
less likely to use banned drugs (13percent) than children who get illegal
guns (41 percent.) "Most strikingly, the study found: 'Boys who own legal
firearms have much lower rates of delinquency and drug use (than boys who
own illegal guns)
and are even slightly less delinquent than non-owners of guns.'"This
wouldn't have surprised anyone before the rise of the modern welfare state.
It used to be common knowledge that the best way to get kids to act
'responsibly' was precisely to give them some 'responsibility.' Why would
we
assume a child taught by his parents to use a gun responsibly wouldn't also
be more responsible in his other behaviors?"
http://www.homestead.com/americanhomestead/americanhomestead.html
