Posted on 10/19/2005 8:06:17 AM PDT by texianyankee
Guns are dangerous. But myths are dangerous, too. Myths about guns are very dangerous, because they lead to bad laws. And bad laws kill people. "Don't tell me this bill will not make a difference," said President Clinton, who signed the Brady Bill into law.
Sorry. Even the federal government can't say it has made a difference. The Centers for Disease Control did an extensive review of various types of gun control: waiting periods, registration and licensing, and bans on certain firearms. It found that the idea that gun control laws have reduced violent crime is simply a myth.
I wanted to know why the laws weren't working, so I asked the experts. "I'm not going in the store to buy no gun," said one maximum-security inmate in New Jersey. "So, I could care less if they had a background check or not."
"There's guns everywhere," said another inmate. "If you got money, you can get a gun."
Talking to prisoners about guns emphasizes a few key lessons. First, criminals don't obey the law. (That's why we call them "criminals.") Second, no law can repeal the law of supply and demand. If there's money to be made selling something, someone will sell it.
A study funded by the Department of Justice confirmed what the prisoners said. Criminals buy their guns illegally and easily. The study found that what felons fear most is not the police or the prison system, but their fellow citizens, who might be armed. One inmate told me, "When you gonna rob somebody you don't know, it makes it harder because you don't know what to expect out of them."
What if it were legal in America for adults to carry concealed weapons? I put that question to gun-control advocate Rev. Al Sharpton. His eyes opened wide, and he said, "We'd be living in a state of terror!"
In fact, it was a trick question. Most states now have "right to carry" laws. And their people are not living in a state of terror. Not one of those states reported an upsurge in crime.
Why? Because guns are used more than twice as often defensively as criminally. When armed men broke into Susan Gonzalez' house and shot her, she grabbed her husband's gun and started firing. "I figured if I could shoot one of them, even if we both died, someone would know who had been in my home." She killed one of the intruders. She lived. Studies on defensive use of guns find this kind of thing happens at least 700,000 times a year.
And there's another myth, with a special risk of its own. The myth has it that the Supreme Court, in a case called United States v. Miller, interpreted the Second Amendment -- "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" -- as conferring a special privilege on the National Guard, and not as affirming an individual right. In fact, what the court held is only that the right to bear arms doesn't mean Congress can't prohibit certain kinds of guns that aren't necessary for the common defense. Interestingly, federal law still says every able-bodied American man from 17 to 44 is a member of the United States militia.
What's the special risk? As Alex Kozinski, a federal appeals judge and an immigrant from Eastern Europe, warned in 2003, "the simple truth -- born of experience -- is that tyranny thrives best where government need not fear the wrath of an armed people."
"The prospect of tyranny may not grab the headlines the way vivid stories of gun crime routinely do," Judge Kozinski noted. "But few saw the Third Reich coming until it was too late. The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed -- where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once."
"The Centers for Disease Control did an extensive review of various types of gun control: waiting periods, registration and licensing, and bans on certain firearms. It found that the idea that gun control laws have reduced violent crime is simply a myth."
I am against gun control for law abiding adults.
But I have not seen anything like this from the CDC... I wonder what his source is.
That's why his remarks about gun control, published in Vanity Fair, have resonance.
"Gun Control? It's the best thing you can do for crooks and gangsters. I want you to have nothing. If I'm a bad guy, I'm always gonna have a gun. Safety locks? You pull the trigger with a lock on, and I'll pull the trigger. We'll see who wins."
-- VANITY FAIR 9/99 page 165 Sammy “the Bull” Gavano
Read my tagline.
I noticed the same thing. I would also like to see the source.
Anybody?
Israel & Switzerland have some of the most lax guns laws in the world and their crime rates are very low...
on the other hand
Brazil & Russia have extremely strict gun laws and their crime rates are very high
I am not sure, but maybe this is Stossel's reference?
Possibly this:
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr5214a2.htm
It always makes me angry when the CDC chimes in on gun control, which is a political, NOT a public health issue. I guess AIDS, TB, cancer, avian flu, etc., aren't keeping them busy enough. It's just another bureaucracy that has abandoned it's stated mission for politics. It should be defunded.
thanks
bookmark
Waste of money, as always.
Lots of insufficient evidence due to insufficient number of studies......
I don't have source material at my fingertips right now, but I remember reading that CDC concluded that the Brady Bill has reduced suicides in men over 55; I'm not joking about this...
The "Sullivan Laws" of New York city have their origins in the need for organized crime to be able to go about its affairs unimpeded by armed citizens. In 1911 New York State Senator Sullivan was a member of the "mob" and passed legislation according to their needs. When the mob ran up against armed resistance to their protection and extortion rackets, they began to loose soldiers when shop keepers were armed. Sullivan passed a law that "protected" the protection rackets by disarming the shopkeeper.
I have never heard it put that way. Excellent point!
It looks like somebody got a nice chance to catch up on thier sleep.
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