Of course this is not the first time he has espoused this viewpoint openly.
Washington Monthly, June 1987
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The NRA is right; but we still need to ban handguns.
Josh Sugarmann
THE NRA IS RIGHT
One tenet of the National Rifle Association's faith has always been that
handgun controls do little to stop criminals from obtaining handguns. For
once, the NRA is right and America's leading handgun control organization is
wrong. Criminals don't buy handguns in gun stores. That's why they're
criminals. But it isn't criminals who are killing most of the 20,000 to
22,000 people who die from handguns each year.
We are.
This is an ugly truth for a country that thinks of handgun violence as a
"crime' issue and believes that it's somehow possible to separate "good'
handguns (those in our hands for self-defense) from "bad' handguns (those in
the hands of criminals).
Contrary to popular perception, the most prevalent form of handgun death in
America isn't murder but suicide. Of the handgun deaths that occur each year,
approximately 12,000 are suicides. An additional 1,000 fatalities are
accidents. And of the 9,000 handgun deaths classified as murders, most are
not caused by predatory strangers. Handgun violence is usually the result of
people being angry, drunk, careless, or depressed --who just happen to have a
handgun around. In all, fewer than 10 percent of handgun deaths are
felony-related.
Though handgun availability is not a crime issue, it does represent a major
public health threat. Handguns are the number one weapon for both murder and
suicide and are second only to auto accidents as the leading cause of death
due to injury. Of course there are other ways of committing suicide or crimes
of passion. But no means is more lethal, effective, or handy. That's why the
NRA is ultimately wrong. As several public health organizations have noted,
the best way to curb a public health problem is through prevention--in this
case, the banning of all handguns from civilian hands.
The enemy is us
For most who attempt suicide, the will to die lasts only briefly. Only one out
of every ten people attempting suicide is going to kill himself no matter
what. The success or failure of an attempt depends primarily on the lethality
of the means. Pills, razor blades, and gas aren't guaranteed killers, and
they take time. Handguns, however, lend themselves well to spontaneity.
Consider that although women try to kill themselves four times as often as
men, men succeed three to four times as often. For one reason: women use
pills or less lethal means; men use handguns. This balance is shifting,
however, as more women own or have access to handguns. Between 1970 and 1978
the suicide rate for young women rose 50 percent, primarily due to increased
use of handguns.
Of course, there is no way to lock society's cupboard and prevent every
distraught soul from injuring him or herself. Still, there are ways we can
promote public safety without becoming a nation of nannies. England, for
instance, curbed suicide by replacing its most common means of committing
suicide--coal stove gas--with less toxic natural gas. Fifteen years after the
switch, studies found that suicide rates had dropped and remained low, even
though the number of suicide attempts had increased. "High suicide rates seem
to occur where highly lethal suicidal methods are not only available, but also
where they are culturally acceptable,' writes Dr. Robert Markush of the
University of Alabama, who has studied the use of handguns in suicide.
Most murders aren't crime-related, but are the result of arguments between
friends and among families. In 1985, 59 percent of all murders were committed
by people known to the victim. Only 15 percent were committed by strangers,
and only 18 percent were the result of felonious activity. As the FBI admits
every year in its Uniform Crime Reports, "murder is a societal problem over
which law enforcement has little or no control.' The FBI doesn't publish
separate statistics on who's killing whom with handguns, but it is assumed
that what is true of all murders is true of handgun murders.
Controlling the vector
Recognizing the eliminating a disease requires prevention, not treatment,
health professionals have been in the forefront of those calling for a
national ban on handguns. In 1981, the Surgeon General's Select Panel for the
Promotion of Child Health traced the "epidemic of deaths and injuries among
children and youth' to handguns, and called for "nothing short of a total
ban.' It is estimated that on average, one child dies from handgun wounds
each day. Between 1961 and 1981, according to the American Association of
Suicidology, the suicide rate for 15- to 24-year-olds increased 150 percent.
The report linked the rise in murders and suicides among the young to the
increased use of firearms--primarily handguns. In a 1985 report, the Surgeon
General's Workshop on Violence and Public Health recommended "a complete and
universal ban on the sale, manufacture, importation, and possession of
handguns (except for authorized police and military personnel).'
Not surprisingly, the American Public Health Association, the American
Association of Suicidology, and the American Psychiatric Association, are
three of the 31 national organizations that are members of National Coalition
to Ban Handguns (NCBH).
Comparing the relationship between handguns and violence to mosquitos and
malaria, Stephen P. Teret, co-director of the Johns Hopkins Injury Prevention
Center, says, "As public health professionals, if we are faced with a disease
that is carried by some type of vehicle/vector like a mosquito, our initial
response would be to control the vector. There's no reason why if the
vehicle/vector is a handgun, we should not be interested in controlling the
handgun.'
The NRA refers to handgun suicides, accidental killings, and murders by
acquaintances as "the price of freedom.' It believes that handguns right
enough wrongs, stop enough crimes, and kill enough criminals to justify these
deaths. But even the NRA has admitted that there is no "adequate measure that
more lives are saved by arms in good hands than are lost by arms in evil
hands.' Again, the NRA is right.
A 1985 NCBH study found that a handgun is 118 times more likely to be used in a
suicide, murder, or fatal accident than to kill a criminal. Between 1981 and
1983, nearly 69,000 Americans lost their lives to handguns. During that same
period there were only 583 justifiable homicides reported to the FBI, in which
someone used a handgun to kill a stranger--a burglar, rapist, or other
criminal. In 1982, 19 states reported to the FBI that not once did a private
citizen use a handgun to kill a criminal. Five states reported that more than
130 citizens were murdered with handguns for each time a handgun was
justifiably used to kill a criminal. In no state did the number of
self-defense homicides approach the murder toll. Last year, a study published
in the New England Journal of Medicine analyzing gun use in the home over a
six-year period in the Seattle, Washington area, found that for every time a
firearm was used to kill an intruder in self-defense, 198 lives ended in
murders, suicides, or accidents. Handguns were used in more than 70 percent
of those deaths.
Although handguns are rarely used to kill criminals, an obvious question
remains: How often are they used merely to wound or scare away intruders? No
reliable statistics are available, but most police officials agree that in a
criminal confrontation on the street, the handgun-toting civilian is far more
likely to be killed or lose his handgun to a criminal than successfully use
the weapon in self-defense. "Beyond any doubt, thousands more lives are lost
every year because of the proliferation of handguns than are saved,' says
Joseph McNamara, chief of police of San Jose, who has also been police chief
in Kansas City, a beat cop in Harlem, and is the author of a book on defense
against violent crime. Moreover, most burglaries occur when homes are vacant,
so the handgun in the drawer is no deterrent. (It would also probably be the
first item stolen.)
Faced with facts like these, anti-control advocates often turn to the argument
of last resort: the Second Amendment. But the historic 1981 Morton Grove,
Illinois, ban on handgun sale and possession exploded that rationale. In
1983, the U.S. Supreme Court let stand a lower court ruling that stated,
"Because the possession of handguns is not part of the right to keep and bear
arms, [the Morton Grove ordinance] does not violate the Second Amendment.'
Criminal equivocation
Unfortunately, powerful as the NRA is, it has received additional help from the
leading handgun control group. Handgun Control Inc. (HCI) has helped the
handgun lobby by setting up the perfect strawman for the NRA to shoot down.
"Keep handguns out of the wrong hands,' HCI says. "By making it more
difficult for criminals, drug addicts, etc., to get handguns, and by ensuring
that law-abiding citizens know how to maintain their handguns, we can reduce
handgun violence,' it promises. Like those in the NRA, HCI chairman Nelson T.
"Pete' Shields "firmly believe(s) in the right of law-abiding citizens to
possess handguns . . . for legitimate purposes.'
In its attempt to paint handgun violence solely as a crime issue, HCI goes so
far as to sometimes ignore the weapon's non-crime death tally. In its most
recent poster comparing the handgun murder toll in the U.S. with that of
nations with strict handgun laws, HCI states: "In 1983, handguns killed 35
people in Japan, 8 in Great Britain, 27 in Switzerland, 6 in Canada, 7 in
Sweden, 10 in Australia, and 9,014 in the United States.' Handguns killed a
lot more than that in the United States. About 13,000 suicides and accidents
more.
HCI endorses a ban only on short-barrelled handguns (the preferred weapon of
criminals). It advocates mandatory safety training, a waiting period during
which a background check can be run on a purchaser, and a license to carry a
handgun, with mandatory sentencing for violators. It also endorses mandatory
sentencing for the use of a handgun in a crime. According to HCI
communications director Barbara Lautman, together these measures would "attack
pretty much the heart of the problem.'
HCI appears to have arrived at its crime focus by taking polls. In his 1981
book, Guns Don't Die--People Do, Shields points out that the majority of
Americans don't favor a ban on handguns. "What they do want, however, is a
set of strict laws to control the easy access to handguns by the criminal and
the violence prone--as long as those controls don't jeopardize the perceived
right of law-abiding citizens to buy and own handguns for self defense
[italics his].' Shields admits "this is not based on any naive hope that
criminals will obey such laws. Rather, it is based on the willingness of the
rest of us to be responsible and accountable citizens, and the knowledge that
to the degree we are, we make it more difficult for the criminal to get a
handgun.' This wasn't always HCI's stand. Founded in 1974 as the National
Council to Control Handguns, HCI originally called a ban on private handgun
possession the "most effective' solution to reducing violent crime rapidly and
was at one time a member of NCBH. Michael Beard, president of NCBH, maintains
that HCI's focus on crime "started with a public relations concern. Some
people in the movement felt Americans were worried about crime, and that was
one way to approach the problem. That's the problem when you use public
opinion polls to tell you what your position's going to be. And I think a lot
of the handgun control movement has looked at whatever's hot at the time and
tried to latch onto that, rather than sticking to the basic message that there
is a relationship between the availability of handguns and the handgun
violence in our society . . .. Ultimately, nothing short of taking the
product off the market is really going to have an effect on the problem.'
HCI's cops and robbers emphasis has been endlessly frustrating to many in the
anti-handgun movement. HCI would offer handgun control as a solution to
crime, and the NRA would effectively rebut their arguments with the
commonsensical observation that criminals are not likely to obey such laws. I
can't help but think that HCI's refusal to abandon the crime argument has
harmed the long term progress of the movement.
Saturated dresser drawers
In a nation with 40 million handguns--where anyone who wants one can get
one--it's time to face a chilling fact. We're way past the point where
registration, licensing, safety training, waiting periods, or mandatory
sentencing are going to have much effect. Each of these measures may save some
lives or help catch a few criminals, but none--by itself or taken
together--will stop the vast majority of handgun suicides or murders. A
"controlled' handgun kills just as effectively as an "uncontrolled' one.
Most control recommendations merely perpetuate the myth that with proper care a
handgun can be as safe a tool as any other. Nothing could be further from the
truth. A handgun is not a blender.
Those advocating a step-by-step process insist that a ban would be too radical
and therefore unacceptable to Congress and the public. A hardcore 40 percent
of the American public has always endorsed banning handguns. Many will also
undoubtedly argue that any control measure--no matter how ill-conceived or
ineffective --would be a good first step. But after more than a decade, the
other foot hasn't followed.
In other areas of firearms control there has been increasing recognition that
bans are the most effective solution. The only two federal measures passed
since the Gun Control Act of 1968 have been bans. In each case, the reasoning
was simple: the harm done by these objects outweighed any possible benefit
they brought to society. In 1986, Congress banned certain types of
armor-piercing "cop-killer' bullets. There was also a silver lining to last
year's NRA-McClure-Volkmer handgun "decontrol' bill, which weakened the
already lax Gun Control Act of 1968, making it legal, for instance, for people
to transport unloaded, "not readily accessible' handguns interstate. A
last-minute amendment added by pro-control forces banned the future production
and sale of machine guns for civilian use.
Unfortunately, no law has addressed the major public health problem. Few
suicides, accidental killings, or acquaintance murders are the result of
cop-killer bullets or machine guns.
Outlawing handguns would in no way be a panacea. Even if handgun production
stopped tomorrow, millions would remain in the dresser drawers of America's
bedrooms--and many of them would probably stay there. Contrary to NRA
fantasies, black-booted fascists would not be kicking down doors searching for
handguns. Moreover, the absolute last segment of society to be affected by
any measure would be criminals. The black market that has fed off the legal
sale of handguns would continue for a long while. But by ending new handgun
production, the availability of illegal handguns can only decrease.
Of course, someone who truly wants to kill himself can find another way. A
handgun ban would not affect millions of rifles and shotguns. But experience
shows that no weapon provides the combination of lethality and convenience
that a handgun does. Handguns represent only 30 percent of all the guns out
there but are responsible for 90 percent of firearms misuse. Most people who
commit suicide with a firearm use a handgun. At minimum, a handgun ban would
prevent the escalation of killings in segments of society that have not yet
been saturated by handgun manufacturers. Further increases in suicides among
women, for example, might be curtailed.
But the final solution lies in changing the way handguns and handgun violence
are viewed by society. Public health campaigns have changed the way Americans
look at cigarette smoking and drunk driving and can do the same for handguns.
For the past 12 years, many in the handgun control movement have confined their
debate to what the public supposedly wants and expects to hear--not to
reality. The handgun must be seen for what it is, not what we'd like it to
be.
