LIVE Chat with HCI on Now!!!

Same old rhetoric from HCI. The NRA this and that, misleading, blah, blah, blah. We don't want to take your guns, blah, blah, blah.

What is interesting is their belief the 2nd amendment is not an individual right. While the word militia could throw off the un-educated, one only needs to read the supporting documents such as the federalist papers to see what was meant in the 2nd.

That is the garbage HCI spew's that should alarm legitimate gun owners.
 
It appears to be over with now. A closing statement by Nancy to get people to read the wrong books to prove her points. The hogs need feeding!!!
 
Gun control and election 2000: Nancy Hwa

Friday, Nov. 3, 11 a.m. ET

Are the presidential candidates' positions on gun ownership and gun
control still confusing to you? Are you concerned by how the
outcome of election 2000 at the federal and local level could impact
on gun issues? Join the discussion with Nancy Hwa, Assistant
Director of Communications for Handgun Control, Inc..

Read what Carol Oyster, co-author of Gun Women: Firearms and
Feminism in Contemporary America, had to say about gun
ownership on USATODAY.com's The Nation Talks...Live.

Scroll down to view all questions and responses.


Comment from Nancy Hwa: Thank you for having me on USA TODAY's Talk Live today. I'm
happy to answer any questions that your readers might have.


Milwaukee, WI: John Lott has argued in his book "More Guns, Less Crime" that guns actually
save 750,000 to 3 million lives per year. Given that estimate from various academic studies how
do you respond to the fallacy of taking guns out of the hands of honest, law abiding citizens?

Nancy Hwa: The fallacy is actually in John Lott's study. Dr. Lott is virtually the only academic
that believes his own research, and there have been several social-science researchers who have
looked at his studies and found serious flaws in his work, which the gun lobby like to ignore.
Most recently, the National Bureau of Economic Research published a paper by Mark Duggan
from the Univ. of Chicago entitled "More Guns, More Crime," which refutes Dr. Lott's thesis,
and Mr. Duggan is only the most recent in a long line of criminologists and academics to find
serious flaws in Dr. Lott's work.

Dr. Lott has also advocated that teachers carry guns in schools. It's incredible to me that people
on the pro-gun side will take his word as gospel while discounting all of the evidence that shows
the fundamental flaws and weaknesses in his argument.


Arlington, Virginia: What on-the-ground difference would it make for my family in the gun
battle, if Bush was elected instead of Gore?

Nancy Hwa: The differences between the two presidential candidates are quite clear. Vice
President Gore supports common-sense measures like closing the gun-show loophole, like one
handgun per month laws, like licensing of gun owners and increasing funding for prosecution of
gun crimes.

Gov. Bush, on the other hand, as governor of Texas, has given the National Rifle Association and
the gun lobby everything it's wanted in Texas. He signed the bill to allow people to carry
concealed handguns in public in 1995, thereby overturning 125 years of tradition. Furthermore,
two years later, he signed an additional law at the urging of the gun lobby to allow people to carry
those hidden guns into hospitals, nursing homes, places of worship and amusement parks.

The NRA itself has said that if Mr. Bush is elected, they would be working out of the White
House. So we think it's important that people look at the candidate's records and make their
decisions.


Jonestown,pa: When will you get the courage to say what you really want and thats a total ban
on ALL GUNS!!

Nancy Hwa: Handgun Control has never advocated a total ban on all guns. The gun lobby
would like people to think that, but it is absolutely not true, and we simply think that there is a lot
our country can be doing to reduce the amount of gun death and injury that we have in this
country.

I think that the gun lobby likes to portray us as wanting to ban all guns simply to scare their
membership and because they run out of rational arguments against our positions.

Let me also say that the NRA's current campaign to its membership saying that Vice President
Gore wants to take away all of their guns is pretty reprehensible and simply not true.


Parkville, Missouri: I am an avid hunter who is very concerned about groups such as yours
effecting my right to own a firearm to hunt as well as protect myself and family. My main
question is this, why do you believe making guns more difficult to obtain by law-abiding citizens
is going to decrease violence as well as licensing? Criminals will always have a way to get a gun
and will never obtain a license, so why make law-abiding citizens do it? I will not obtain a license!
Gore mentioned the crime rate has dropped over the last 8 years. Do you want to know why?
Because all but 7 states have concealed carry!!

Nancy Hwa: The measures that we support would not affect a law-abiding citizen's ability to buy
a gun. What we do know is that background checks, since the Brady Law was passed in 1993,
have stopped over half a million convicted felons, fugitives from the law and other prohibited
purchasers from buying guns at gun stores.

If you're a law-abiding citizen, background checks won't stop you from buying a gun.

Furthermore, this whole idea that criminals will always be able to get guns is misleading. The gun
lobby likes to talk about the "black market" as if it's some sort of magic street corner where these
guns suddenly appear. There are known ways that guns get to the black market, through straw
purchasers, who are people who can legally buy guns and buy multiple guns and then resell them
on the street illegally. And we need to take steps to address that problem. That's one reason why
we support one handgun per month -- because it cuts into these straw purchasers' ability to make
a living at selling guns on the black market.

Gun shows are another source of guns for criminals. Thanks to the gun-show loophole, private
individuals can sell guns at gun shows without having to conduct background checks on
purchasers. It's simple cash-and-carry in most states. That's why it's important that we close this
loophole.

As for licensing, licensing gun owners is very similar to the idea of licensing drivers. In order to
drive a car, you have to be able to prove that not only do you know how to operate the car, but you
have to prove that you know the rules of the road. The same should be true of anyone who wants
to buy a handgun. You should have to prove you know how to handle it properly, how to clean it,
load it, store it properly, check to see if it's loaded properly, as well as knowing the laws about
guns in your state.

The idea that crime rates have gone down thanks to concealed-carry laws is simply wrong. Again,
this idea is based on the faulty work of Dr. Lott. If you look at the violent crime rates in the states
with strict concealed-carry laws or that don't allow concealed carry at all, compared to the drop in
crime rates for the states with lax concealed carry laws, you'll find that over the past six years,
violent crime has gone down much faster in the states with strict CCW laws or that don't allow
CCW than in the states that make it easy for people to carry concealed weapons.


Pittsburgh, PA: Why hasn't our team (Handgun Control) done a better job of connecting with
men who like to hunt ? The NRA has been more effective in convincing these hunters that we are
out to take away their hunting guns.

Nancy Hwa: Handgun Control welcomes hunters and gun owners to our membership. We even
have some gun owners on our staff. And we're happy to work with any sportsman or
sportswoman who believes in common-sense gun laws. And I urge them to contact us and find
out more about us on our Web site (http://www.handguncontrol.org/)

It's important for people to remember that the leadership of the NRA does not necessarily
represent the views of all gun owners or even all NRA members. Poll after poll after poll has
shown that a majority of gun owners, not just a majority of Americans, support reasonable
measures like licensing, background checks and waiting periods.


Westminster, Maryland: How does dis-arming law abiding citizens reduce gun crime? Does
not the 2nd Amendment guarntee our right to keep firearms? How are to protect ourselves and
families if dis-armed since the police have been proven, in court, to not be responsible for the
protection of the individual?

Nancy Hwa: The National Rifle Association has perpetuated the mythology about the Second
Amendment. The Second Amendment does not guarantee an individual right to keep and bear
arms. The NRA conveniently forgets the first part of the Second Amendment, which reads "a
well-regulated militia," which the courts have ruled applies to the National Guard in present-day
terms. If you look at the history of the Second Amendment, you'll find that it was created in a
context where all white males between the ages of 18 to 45 were expected to act as a state militia
during the early days of this country's history. Nowadays, that "militia" is the National Guard.

One more point: This is not just our position. This is the position of every major court decision
with one rogue exception and has been consistently upheld by the federal courts.


Inver Grove Heights, MN: Is it the position of Handgun Control, Inc., that persons who are not
members of the National Guard are afforded no protections under the Second Amendment and
that, therefore, the Govenment can restrict and even ban the private ownership of rifles, pistols and
shotguns?

Nancy Hwa: Our position is that the Second Amendment does not address the individual "right"
to keep and bear arms. I would like to say that even the rights explicitly guaranteed in our
Constitution are not absolute. There are restrictions on the freedom of speech, the classic example
being yelling "Fire" in a crowded theater. I think this particular question is a bit alarmist, and
nothing that we advocate would result in a total ban on all firearms.


New London, IA: For the first time ever, Britain is considering arming the police, also violent
crime in Austrailia has gone up tremendously. And on the home front independant studies have
shown that concealed carry laws work to reduce crime... don't you think that it is time to drop
your agenda and to do the right thing for America? Maybe you should push for training
initiatives, truth in sentencing and education reforms that might actually do some good?!!?

Nancy Hwa: The National Rifle Association has been engaging in fear-mongering again. In
particular, they have been pointing to Australia and claiming that since Australia enacted stricter
gun laws in, I think, 1997 (I'm not positive of the year), they have experienced a huge increase in
crime. This subject was even the topic of a half-hour infomercial that they've been airing around
the country. Earlier this year, the Australian government lodged an official complaint with the
NRA demanding that they pull this misleading video. What the NRA does not tell you is that (1)
handgun ownership in Australia has been banned since the early 1900s. The laws that were put
into effect in 1997 only affected long guns. (2) Armed robberies may have increased since that
time, but the portion of those involving guns actually decreased. Furthermore, the number of gun
homicides has also dropped. The NRA fails to take into account any other factors which may
contribute to an increase in crime, such as the economy and changes in demographics, and the
fact remains that Australia and England still have much lower rates of gun death than the United
States.

There was a book published in 1997 called "Crime is Not The Problem: Lethal Violence in
America," which showed that the rate of crime in terms of robberies and burglaries are similar
between the United States and other civilized countries. What is different is the lethality of our
crime, and when it comes to homicide, we have a much higher rate of homicide, and that's linked
directly to the availability of guns in our nation.


Cocoa, Fl: Why is it that HCI, VPC, MMM, etc., consistently exagerate and mis-state the facts
about how many children per day die due to firearm incidents when the data from DOJ and CDC
(which shouldn't be involved)consistently contradict these "claims"?

Nancy Hwa: The numbers that we use are from the National Center for Health Statistics, which
is a department of the CDC. NCHS tracks all forms of mortality in this country. How many
people die from heart disease, how many people die from drownings, how many people die from
gun fire. And the numbers that we use are their numbers.

The gun lobby complains that we include teen-agers when we talk about children. I don't know of
any parents who don't consider their teen-ager not to be their child. And what I find particularly
offensive is the fact that the gun lobby only talks about the younger children, like 10 and under,
who are killed unintentionally by guns in order to make the number seem as small as possible.
There's an underlying attitude, which I find objectionable, that all teen-agers who die from guns
are "gang members" and somehow deserve their fate. The gun lobby also has a particularly
callous attitude toward suicides, which they dismiss as "oh, they would have found some other
way to kill themselves."

When the gun lobby talks about gun violence, they really just focus on the stranger in the dark
alley, the mugger who's going to take your purse, the gang members or the burglars who are
trying to break into your own home. They pretty much ignore suicides by guns which,
particularly when children are involved, tend to be impulsive acts. They ignore cases of domestic
violence, in which a perfectly law-abiding couple gets into an argument, and because a gun is
easily available, there's a tragic outcome.


San Jose, California: Considering that courts have ruled that police are not obligated to
intervene when a crime is in progress, and the average woman cannot afford a bodyguard, why do
you want to deny gun ownership to the AVERAGE (previously untargeted) woman who feels
compelled to defend herself with a firearm?

Nancy Hwa: We don't want to deny any law-abiding citizen a gun. What we do want to do is to
make gun owners and the public aware of the real risks they're taking when they decide to keep a
gun in their home or to carry one on their person. If you look at the statistics, a gun in the home
is 22 times more likely to be used on someone in the home in a murder, in an unintentional
shooting or in a shooting than to kill in self-defense. The gun lobby and the gun industry have
deliberately misled the public on the effectiveness of guns as a means of self-defense. We feel
that if people want to defend themselves, they should be fully aware of all the facts, and that they
have an obligation to have safety training for the weapon and to take responsibility for the weapon
so that it doesn't fall into hands of criminals and children.


Omaha, NE: Do you now or have you in the past owned a gun for protection, and why is it that
so many peopel that are anti-gun still use them for protection?

Nancy Hwa: I personally don't own a gun. But again, we don't oppose all gun ownership. And
as I said, we have gun owners in our membership, and we have gun owners on our staff.


Memphis, TN: Ms. Hwa, it appears that some municipalities and organizations are attempting to
sue firearm manufacturers in order to force industry changes which have not successfully been
passed through the legislative process. My question is: doesn't this seem a dangerous and
frightening means of attempting to circumvent the legislative process and, thereby, the will of the
people? If it can be done with the firearms issue then what is to prevent the use of legal precedent
to abrogate 1st Amendment and other rights?

Nancy Hwa: First of all, the courts are a legitimate use of a citizen's right to redress grievances.
The lawsuits that have been filed are legitimate attempts to hold an industry accountable for
conduct which has contributed to this nation's level of gun violence.

The same argument that this reader is making was the argument used in the battle for civil rights.
People who opposed civil rights said, "Why don't you just get your laws passed through the
legislatures?" when it was clear that the legislatures were unable or unwilling to do anything about
the injustice. And as a result, civil rights organizations had to resort to the courts.

Gun manufacturers are well aware of ways to make their weapons "safer" so that children and
criminals cannot use them, but thanks to the power of the gun lobby, they don't have to do
anything about it. Guns are the only consumer product specifically exempt from the Consumer
Product Safety Commission's jurisdiction. And unfortunately, there are far too many gun
manufacturers who care more about profit than reducing the flow of guns into the criminal market
or changing the way that they're designed and manufactured so that they're safer for the
consumer.


Chambersburg, PA: The Clinton administration claims that over a half million people have been
prevented from getting a gun by the Brady law, yet only about 600 people have been prosecuted.
Attempting to get a gun by a prohibited person is a felony, yet it is not being prosecuted.
Wouldn't prosecuting criminals who violate existing laws be better than passing laws they don't
intend to enforce? By not prosecuting these cases, doesn't that enable people like Benjamin Smith
to illegally obtain guns, and kill with them?

Nancy Hwa: We certainly support strong enforcement of our gun laws. Unfortunately, the NRA,
which cries the loudest for enforcement, has also been instrumental in making that enforcement as
difficult as possible. Remember, this is the organization that called ATF agents "jack-booted
thugs." They have consistently opposed measures which would make it easier for law
enforcement to catch criminals and prosecutors to enforce the laws.

The Brady Law has been very successful in achieving its primary goal, which is to prevent a
prohibited purchaser from buying a gun.

As for the Benjamin Smith incident, for the readers' information, in Illinois, where he bought his
guns, the background check is the responsibility of state law enforcement. The NRA had tried to
pin Benjamin Smith's actions on the Clinton Administration earlier this year, but they had to back
off when they realized that they didn't even have the correct information.

Furthermore, the background check did stop Smith from buying a gun in a gun store. That's why
he turned to a straw purchaser, one of the people I referred to at the beginning of the sessions.

Yes, we need to strongly enforce our gun laws, but we also need to close the loopholes in our
laws.


Cocoa, Fl: And you (HCI) don't work out of Clinton's office now?

Nancy Hwa: No, we don't.


Chambersburg, PA: You mention licensing gun owners. How would that keep criminals from
getting guns?

Nancy Hwa: Licensing, first of all, would include a thorough background check in addition to
the safety training. But again, if they're talking about criminals getting guns on the black market,
there are ways to stem the flow of guns into that black market, as I mentioned before, by cutting
off straw purchasers' supply of guns and simply making it easier for the ATF to trace guns so
that they can find gun traffickers. Most crime guns, by the way, are not stolen from people's
homes. They make their way to the illegal market by a legal sale.


Bethesda, MD: Handgun Control's founder, Pete Shields, once gave an on-the-record interview
in which he stated unequivocally that HCI's goal was to eliminate private ownership of guns in the
USA, but gradually. Any comments?

Nancy Hwa: I'm not familiar with that quote, but I wouldn't be surprised if over the years Pete
Shields' words have been so twisted and distorted to conform to people's image of what they
think we're all about.


Francestown, NH: HCI regular refers to US v. Miller, as w justification for gun control. As a
matter of fact, the US Attorney in US v. Emerson has taken the same stance that the court said it
was a state right not an individual right. If you actually read the court opinion, the court never
really answer that question, it only said what weapons are protected under the second amendment.
Judge Sam Cummings agrees (US v. Emerson), as well as Honorable Mark W. Bennett, Chief
United States District Judge for the Northern District of Iowa (US v. Hertzel July 5, 2000). Also,
if this is a state right, you giving the assuming that "the people" within the Bill of Rights refers to
states, not indivudals. If that is so, than the States have the right to free speech, freedom of press,
etc. Please let us know why the people in this one amendment means the state.

Nancy Hwa: I'm not an attorney or Second Amendment scholar, so I can't speak to all the
specific decisions that the reader brings up, but I do know enough about the context of the
Second Amendment and about the overall history of court decisions on the Second Amendment
to know that our position has been upheld repeatedly by court after court. When Judge
Cummings issued his decision in Emerson in 1999, it really was a "rogue" decision in that it went
against precedent set in other federal court decisions. Since Emerson, there have been multiple
decisions in other courts which have directly contradicted Judge Cummings. Those were appealed
to the Supreme Court by the other side, and the Supreme Court refused to hear them, essentially
upholding our interpretation and the historical interpretation of the Second Amendment. It's also
telling that the NRA has not brought a Second Amendment case against a gun law in recent
memory. When they tried to overturn the Brady Law, they did it on Tenth Amendment grounds,
not Second Amendment grounds.

And just most recently, the Supreme Court refused to hear a case against the assault weapons ban,
which was brought by two gunmakers on Interstate Commerce Clause grounds. So essentially,
the Supreme Court has upheld the assault weapons ban.


Comment from Nancy Hwa: I want to thank everyone for their questions, and I hope that they
will visit our Web site to get information on gun control, on our programs, our positions, to look
up the records of their legislators, and that they will vote on Tuesday. If people want to learn more
about the issues, there are a couple of books that I'd recommend. One is "Under Fire: The NRA
and the Battle for Gun Control" by Osha Gray Davidson, which is an excellent history of the
NRA, "Arming America" by Michael Bellesiles, which offers a startling look at gun ownership in
early American, and "Whose Right To Bear Arms Did the Second Amendment Protect" by Saul
Cornell, which looks at the historical context of the Second Amendment.


Comment from USATODAY.com Host: That's all the time we have for today. We apologize
for not getting to more of the questions; we received almost 200. Thanks for joining us today.
 
I can't believe that someone would sit there and lie out their A** and then claim that the other side is the one distorting the facts.... She was getting hammered good by a lot of well informed individuals with their questions. No wonder they cut the interview short. Must not have been very pleasant for her to sit there and answer question after question.
 
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