Once again it comes down to a battle of details and statistics. I present these stories to you, an audience better informed then myself and capable of rebutting the anti-self defense ghouls here and abroad.
Jeff
Professors: NRA Misleads Public
Associated Press Online - March 27, 2000 15:31 Jump to first matched term
By LAURIE ASSEO
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - A group of law and history professors accused the National Rifle Association on Monday of misleading the public by suggesting that proposed gun-control laws would violate the Constitution.
In a letter to NRA President Charlton Heston, the professors said the NRA's "repeated suggestions that the Second Amendment somehow stands in the way of effective and reasonable regulation of guns and gun ownership is a distortion of legal precedent and a disservice to all Americans." An NRA spokesman declined comment on the professors' letter. The letter said the amendment "plainly permits reasonable firearms regulations," including bans on certain types of weapons, requirements for safety devices and as gun registration and licensing. "The Second Amendment does not guarantee an unregulated supply of cheap handguns to all," Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe said in a telephone news conference.
Earlier this month, NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre stirred up controversy by saying President Clinton was "willing to accept a certain level of killing to further his political agenda." The 47 professors who signed the letter also included Yale law professor Akhil Reed Amar, Stanford history professor Jack Rakove and Cornell history professor Michael Kammen.
The San Francisco-based Legal Community Against Violence helped organize the effort, which included an ad in The New York Times Monday that said, "The NRA, not our Constitution, is preventing sane gun laws." Gun-control backers and opponents have long disagreed over the meaning of the Second Amendment, which states, "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." Numerous federal appeals court decisions have upheld various gun-control laws against Second Amendment challenges.
The Supreme Court has ruled only once on the amendment's scope. It ruled in 1939 that there is no right to own a sawed-off shotgun in the absence of "some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia."
Last October, the nation's highest court declined to hear two appeals that sought to assert a personal and constitutionally protected right to own a gun.
But in April 1999, a federal judge in Lubbock, Texas, ruled that the Second Amendment right to bear arms is a protected individual right and not just a right belonging to an organized militia. U.S. District Judge Sam Cummings dismissed charges against a man accused of violating a 1994 federal law that prohibits someone under a restraining order from owning a gun. A federal appeals court is expected to hear the government's appeal of that ruling in June. During the news conference, Amar said the Second Amendment does not create an unlimited right. Just as people can be required to get drivers' licenses and register their cars, licensing and registration can be required for gun owners, he said.
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Australia Demands NRA Retraction
Associated Press Online - March 22, 2000 16:32 Jump to first matched term
By ROHAN SULLIVAN
Associated Press Writer
SYDNEY, Australia (AP) - Australian officials accused the National Rifle Association of misrepresenting the country's crime statistics, and demanded Wednesday that the group pull a video on Australian gun crimes off its Web site.
The video, presented as a TV news story, claims that Australia's gun reform laws backfired and says gun-related crime rates rose after the country banned semiautomatic rifles, semiautomatic shotguns and pump-action shotguns.
But Australia's Federal Attorney General Daryl Williams said the NRA used inaccurate statistics, and urged the group to remove "any reference to Australia" from its Web site.
"I find it quite offensive that the NRA is using the very successful gun reform laws introduced in 1996 as the basis for promoting ownership of firearms in the United States," he said.
The NRA did not respond to attempts to get comment. Australia's gun-related homicide rate was 0.28 per 100,000 people in 1998, compared to 4 per 100,000 in the United States, Williams wrote in letter sent Wednesday to NRA President Charlton Heston. "There are many things that Australia can learn from the United States," he wrote. "How to manage firearm ownership is not one of them." Australia adopted the gun laws after an April 1996 rampage by Martin Bryant, who opened fire with military-style rifles at the Port Arthur historic site in Melbourne. Bryant, who killed 35 people and injured 19, is serving a life sentence. South Australia's Attorney General Trevor Griffin - who is seen in the video talking about crime - said he was not interviewed by the NRA, and that a quote from him was taken from a previous interview and used out of context.
The video says that, after gun laws took effect, armed robbery in Australia went up 69 percent, assaults involving guns rose 28 percent, gun murders increased 19 percent, and home invasions rose 21 percent. It does not give a source for the data.
Dr. Adam Graycar, director of the Australian Institute of Criminology, said the statistics were misleading. The latest annual crime figures, for 1998, showed that assaults had increased, but that most did not involve guns, he said. Homicides decreased, and were only rarely committed with guns, he told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.
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On the Net: NRA site http://www.nra.org
Australian government's site: http://www.fed.gov.au
Jeff
Professors: NRA Misleads Public
Associated Press Online - March 27, 2000 15:31 Jump to first matched term
By LAURIE ASSEO
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - A group of law and history professors accused the National Rifle Association on Monday of misleading the public by suggesting that proposed gun-control laws would violate the Constitution.
In a letter to NRA President Charlton Heston, the professors said the NRA's "repeated suggestions that the Second Amendment somehow stands in the way of effective and reasonable regulation of guns and gun ownership is a distortion of legal precedent and a disservice to all Americans." An NRA spokesman declined comment on the professors' letter. The letter said the amendment "plainly permits reasonable firearms regulations," including bans on certain types of weapons, requirements for safety devices and as gun registration and licensing. "The Second Amendment does not guarantee an unregulated supply of cheap handguns to all," Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe said in a telephone news conference.
Earlier this month, NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre stirred up controversy by saying President Clinton was "willing to accept a certain level of killing to further his political agenda." The 47 professors who signed the letter also included Yale law professor Akhil Reed Amar, Stanford history professor Jack Rakove and Cornell history professor Michael Kammen.
The San Francisco-based Legal Community Against Violence helped organize the effort, which included an ad in The New York Times Monday that said, "The NRA, not our Constitution, is preventing sane gun laws." Gun-control backers and opponents have long disagreed over the meaning of the Second Amendment, which states, "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." Numerous federal appeals court decisions have upheld various gun-control laws against Second Amendment challenges.
The Supreme Court has ruled only once on the amendment's scope. It ruled in 1939 that there is no right to own a sawed-off shotgun in the absence of "some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia."
Last October, the nation's highest court declined to hear two appeals that sought to assert a personal and constitutionally protected right to own a gun.
But in April 1999, a federal judge in Lubbock, Texas, ruled that the Second Amendment right to bear arms is a protected individual right and not just a right belonging to an organized militia. U.S. District Judge Sam Cummings dismissed charges against a man accused of violating a 1994 federal law that prohibits someone under a restraining order from owning a gun. A federal appeals court is expected to hear the government's appeal of that ruling in June. During the news conference, Amar said the Second Amendment does not create an unlimited right. Just as people can be required to get drivers' licenses and register their cars, licensing and registration can be required for gun owners, he said.
======================================
Australia Demands NRA Retraction
Associated Press Online - March 22, 2000 16:32 Jump to first matched term
By ROHAN SULLIVAN
Associated Press Writer
SYDNEY, Australia (AP) - Australian officials accused the National Rifle Association of misrepresenting the country's crime statistics, and demanded Wednesday that the group pull a video on Australian gun crimes off its Web site.
The video, presented as a TV news story, claims that Australia's gun reform laws backfired and says gun-related crime rates rose after the country banned semiautomatic rifles, semiautomatic shotguns and pump-action shotguns.
But Australia's Federal Attorney General Daryl Williams said the NRA used inaccurate statistics, and urged the group to remove "any reference to Australia" from its Web site.
"I find it quite offensive that the NRA is using the very successful gun reform laws introduced in 1996 as the basis for promoting ownership of firearms in the United States," he said.
The NRA did not respond to attempts to get comment. Australia's gun-related homicide rate was 0.28 per 100,000 people in 1998, compared to 4 per 100,000 in the United States, Williams wrote in letter sent Wednesday to NRA President Charlton Heston. "There are many things that Australia can learn from the United States," he wrote. "How to manage firearm ownership is not one of them." Australia adopted the gun laws after an April 1996 rampage by Martin Bryant, who opened fire with military-style rifles at the Port Arthur historic site in Melbourne. Bryant, who killed 35 people and injured 19, is serving a life sentence. South Australia's Attorney General Trevor Griffin - who is seen in the video talking about crime - said he was not interviewed by the NRA, and that a quote from him was taken from a previous interview and used out of context.
The video says that, after gun laws took effect, armed robbery in Australia went up 69 percent, assaults involving guns rose 28 percent, gun murders increased 19 percent, and home invasions rose 21 percent. It does not give a source for the data.
Dr. Adam Graycar, director of the Australian Institute of Criminology, said the statistics were misleading. The latest annual crime figures, for 1998, showed that assaults had increased, but that most did not involve guns, he said. Homicides decreased, and were only rarely committed with guns, he told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.
- ---=
On the Net: NRA site http://www.nra.org
Australian government's site: http://www.fed.gov.au