Another View: There's only one way to stop gun crime: ban handguns

New Hampshire Union Leader ^ | December 28, 2005 | JENNY PRICE

[Final Authority]

Five years ago an elderly Los Angeles woman who had agreed to move out of her daughter's apartment bought a handgun.

She cleared the background check, passed the safety test and practiced on targets at the local shooting range. Then she shot and killed her daughter and her daughter's fiance - my brother David.

As someone who has lost a member of my family to gun violence, I see the new federal legislation to limit gun manufacturers' liability as unconscionable beyond my ken. But what troubles me most is that the gun control lobby is pouring its resources into battles that probably won't save many lives - and we're losing even those.

In the past decade, states have passed law after law to require safety locks, force gun-purchase waiting periods, trace bullets back to their sources and allow victims to sue manufacturers for negligence. That such measures have produced at best slight decreases in the rate of gun deaths is hardly surprising, because only 3 percent of gun deaths are accidents, and most murderers own their handguns legally and know how to use them safely.

California has passed a raft of such laws in the past five years and is widely praised as one of the most progressive states on gun control. In that same period, the number of handgun-related homicides has fallen and then risen again, with no correlation whatever.

The real problem is not that handguns aren't safe or well-regulated enough, or that you can't sue and try to bankrupt a corrupt manufacturer after someone you love has been killed.

The problem is that 60 million people in the United States own handguns. The gun used to kill my brother was a Glock 19, a light and portable semiautomatic.

These guns are designed to kill people: That's their sole purpose. Nearly 12,000 Americans annually use guns to do just that, and the majority use handguns.

Twelve thousand: that's comparable to the number of AIDS deaths each year in the United States. (Great Britain has about 100 gun deaths each year.) And if the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, which leads the gun control crusade, continues to assure us that it won't try to outlaw handguns.

Then new laws to restrict who can buy guns and where they can carry them might reduce the annual toll to 10,000. But that's optimistic. Wouldn't it make more sense to define the ultimate battle as one for a national ban on handguns - the sole gun-control measure that promises to save tens of thousands of lives' With an endgame that can actually achieve the ultimate goal, perhaps we'd acquire the logical and moral authority to win more of the smaller battles.

I can hear the gun lobby scoffing, "Guns don't kill people. People do." This ditty is familiar to all of us. Yes, and bombs and chemical weapons don't kill people either, but they're not sold over the counter to just about anyone without a criminal record who can prove that he or she can use them safely.

Of the 12,000 guns used to kill people every year, 160 are used in legitimate self-defense. Guns in the home are used seven times more often for murder than for self-defense.

I cannot say whether the woman who shot my brother was vicious or insane: I myself no longer understand the exact difference. But we all know that rage, vengefulness and deep alienation are hardly unusual in our society, and a handgun makes it horrifyingly easy for people to express them, on purpose or on impulse, by killing people.

If the National Rifle Association wants to pour its own considerable resources into creating a society ruled by absolute peace and brotherhood, I'm all for it.

But let's stop arming the populace in the meantime, which pro- and anti-gun advocates alike know for certain will create a mountainous death toll. Jenny Price is a writer in Los Angeles.

[Badray]

Well, it looks like you covered all the bases. I just thought that the name thing could have been responsible for you not being able to find more info.

Thanks for digging into it to find what you did.

[Let's Roll]

One more time, maroons.

Banning handguns would guarantee that only crimnals would have them.

Ask the Aussies how that's working out for them - they gave up their guns yet somehow the subversive muzzies still have theirs.

Oh, that's right they don't recognize secular law for starters and since they only infested Australia to take it over they wouldn't have surrendered their weapons no matter what law was in effect.

[Plutarch]

Well, her story checks out. No searchable newspaper stories because David's identity was initially unknown. No follow up stories because it was a murder suicide, which generates much less interest. My condolences to Ms. Price and her family.

Thanks to the Freepers who tracked this down to its conclusion.

[jonrick46]

The relationship between gun ownership and deaths due to firearms is a very complex one to understand. In choosing the United Kingdom for comparison to the United States fails to show the even lower rates of firearms deaths in the Asian countries. Why are their rates so low? Asians have very strong social norms against the use of firearms. In fact, homicides of all types in such countries is quite low. Why would a Japanese buy a gun if it was scorned to own one? However, their suicide rate is close to our suicide rate, which brings up another interesting statistic. In the United States, 58% of all firearm deaths are suicides. And, if you want to talk suicides and homicides, visit Estonia.

The bulk of all firearm deaths in the United States are done by the 15-24 year age group. This group does not own guns at a higher rate than older age groups. What does this tell you? It is hard to set one reason for this difference in age group. However this age group has the highest drug usage and is engaged in the most violent behavior. It tells you that the United States has a violence problem not a gun problem. What cultural conditions contribute to this violence is one for the social scientists. One interesting tidbit: Amsterdam has one of the most restrictive gun regulations and the highest murder rates in Europe.

[Graybeard58]

This article you posted is being rehashed here:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1682765/posts

[tet68]

I cannot say whether the woman who shot my brother was vicious or insane: I myself no longer understand the exact difference.

That is certain from your vicious insane attack on peaceful
citizen's right to self defense.

[Robert A Cook PE]

OK: Let's look at ONE number.

This "writer" claims 12,000 people are killed every year by handguns, and only 160 of those are in self-defense.

Yet, the REAL statistics are that 20,000 crimes are PREVENTED every year by armed Americans, and NO PERSON has been killed (illegally) by a authorized person with a concealed-carry handgun. EVER.

So she claims 12,000 people a year are killed by handguns, or about 33 PER DAY. Nope. She's lying.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Yea, but were the Nazi's liberal? I don't think those who wish to restrict the ability of the governed to redress the tyranny of those who govern are only liberal.

The Nazi's (EXACTLY like today's socialist/internationalist/liberals WERE TOTALLY FOR GOVERNMENT control. I'd actually go a bit further and be able to show that today's liberals (exhibited by the EU's Brussels bureaucrats and Hillary's democrat party thought police) that today's liberals are MORE oppressive than Hitler's Nazi party.

(One exception: Hitler demanded the direct extermination of the Jews and undesirable religious Christians, and Hillary's party is only willing to support the Muslim's indirect killing of the Jews and Christians. Hillary/Reno only murdered a few (armed) Christian groups. So far.)

Control of thought, action, response, and the details of life. Control of money, wages, healthcare, teaching, the number of eggs in a package and the forms one must use to to agree even to homeschool one's one children. Control of dress, of thought, and of what you say in public. Control of what you write, control of the internet and public radio and public TV.

Government control = today's "liberalism."

[tarheelswamprat]

She cleared the background check, passed the safety test and practiced on targets at the local shooting range. Then she shot and killed her daughter and her daughter's fiance - my brother David.

This story should be checked to see if it is bogus.

I agree. I smell another Michael Bellesiles here.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Sadly, it wasn't until after getting home and coming out of the fog from missing a dose of the "good" cough syrup that I told the kids to next time some idiot starts in on gun control to announce proudly that they are tops in their rifle class. Never mind that Mr. M is LE but most importantly WHAT THE HECK BUSINESS IS IT OF THE DOCTOR'S???

Hillary's latest "medical reform" law (passed shortly before she left office) was to NATIONALIZE all medical records, (and supposedly ensure their privacy) EXCEPT in case of "national need" or "criminal investigation" by "authorized government agencies" ....

Now, read between the lines.


The doctor records "so and so has guns in house" and put that code in the medical record. Medical record goes to national records, so any doctor can access it nationally. (Reasonable, if you're traveling or have a city-wide emergency/terror act). But, Janet Reno (with a friendly judge and a "generic court order") can ALSO scan all the records for "gun in house" code.

Presto. Immediate gun registration.

Gun confiscation ... "For the safety of the children in the house."

[Robert A Cook PE]

IF you believed in morality (and you don't) or "self-control" (which your words show you don'r) then you would understand that a PERSON is responsible for his or her own actions.

Yes, I (me!) am safe when I own and have access to a nuclear weapon. (Or an RPG, a sidewinder (actually - not a Sidewider - I can't fly, so my owing a sidewinder makes me dangerous), a handgun, shotgun, or rifle.)

You are safe when when I (me) personally own a nuclear weapon. (Or handgun, rifle, or RPG. You are not safe when I own a Sidewinder - because I can't fly.) That's BECAUSE I can be relied upon to use the weapon safely and while I am under control. (Except thes Sidewinder.)

I am NOT safe when YOU own a weapon, because I CANNOT trust YOU to maintain control of YOUR weapon, nor MY safety.

WE are both safe when Tony Blair has nuclear weapons BECAUSE Tony Blair (Britain) HAS control of his nuclear weapons and HAS CONTROL of himself.

WE are NOT safe when a radical, crazed foreign government that WANTS US DEAD has any weapon: cell phones, dynamite, blasting powder, a 757, a 747, a show bomb, a missile, or a pistol.

Now, do you understand.

YOU are dangerous to ME because YOU DEMAND the right to take away MY protection.

But YOU cannot protect me.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Nothing there about her brother.

I agree.

her story is lie.

[Robert A Cook PE]

As corrected by nbr 218.

[Leatherneck_MT]

"Who else would want to confiscate guns?"

Only those peace loving individuals such as...

Benito Mussolini
Adolf Hitler
Joseph Stalin
Pol Pot
Fidel Castro

The list goes on and on and on. ALL of them upright, outstanding peace loving individuals.

and I do hope you recognize sarcasm when you hear it. (Not directed at you mind you)