Gun Control Non Sequiturs
Jacob Sullum | February 26, 2008, 8:07pm
While researching my column for this week (about Barack Obama's position on gun control), I came across this lame response from Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, to the recent shootings at Northern Illinois University (NIU):
Do we give up and say we can't do anything about these tragedies? Or do we take common-sense steps today to make it harder for dangerous people to get dangerous weapons?...
Over the years, the Brady Campaign has proposed numerous common-sense measures to reduce and prevent gun violence. It may be difficult to stop "suicide shooters" like the Northern Illinois University killer, but there are steps we can take as a nation.
We can require background checks for every gun transaction in America. Current Federal law requires that only Federally licensed gun dealers do a computer check on the criminal backgrounds of purchasers who buy guns from them. Yet there is no such restriction on unlicensed sellers who sell guns at gun shows, from the trunk of their cars or at their kitchen tables. If we want to make it harder to dangerous people to get dangerous weapons, we must close this loophole, and require that all gun buyers undergo a background check.
We can limit bulk purchases of handguns to cut down on the illegal gun trade. Gun buyers currently have no Federal limits on the number of guns they can buy at one time. Gun traffickers take advantage of the unlimited number of guns they can purchase at a time in order to sell guns to criminals and gangs....
We can also ban the sale of military-style assault weapons and high capacity ammunition magazines. One thing the Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University shooters had in common was that they both used high capacity ammunition magazines that would have been prohibited under the Federal Assault Weapons Ban that expired in 2004.
The NIU murderer, Steven Kazmierczak, legally purchased the shotgun and three handguns he used, which did not qualify as "assault weapons," from a licensed dealer on three trips over seven months, and there does not seem to have been anything about his background that disqualified him from owning firearms. So the only possibly relevant suggestion offered by Helmke is to reimpose a 10-round federal limit on the size of magazines. But considering that Kazmierczak fired the shotgun six times and the handguns 48 times; that it takes just a few seconds to switch magazines; and that police arrived about six minutes after the attack started, by which time Kazmierczak already had killed himself, it is doubtful that the death toll was any higher than it would have been had he been carrying 10-round magazines. In fact, I cannot recall reading an account of a mass murder in the U.S. where "high capacity" magazines made a demonstrable difference.
The rest of Helmke's "common-sense steps" could not possibly have stopped this attack. So why trot them out and pretend otherwise? Because that's what gun controllers routinely do, as I noted in a 1994 article for reason. Their lobbying, publicity, and fundraising imperatives prevent them from admitting the truth: With something like 200 million guns in circulation and no reliable way of predicting which quiet graduate student will go on a rampage one day, this sort of thing is bound to happen occasionally. No policy short of wholesale firearm confiscation can prevent such incidents, although (as I've argued) allowing law-abiding people to carry concealed weapons in heretofore "gun-free zones" might help reduce the number of injuries and deaths after an attack starts.
DH | February 28, 2008, 8:40am | #
"Gun control doesn't work because there is none; something the gun industry stops by pouring 22 million a year into our government. How proud you must be to know you've bought your second amendment rights with blood money.
You want to talk Florida? http://www.sun-sentinel2.com/homicide_database/broward_homicides_2007_02.html
The gun industry has done so much damage to Florida. Everyday, several domestic gun deaths...it's not even crime, it's family stuff. Every redneck and his grandmother has an automatic or semi. Totally out of control."
Michelle,
Government has the record for murdering MILLIONS--only after it has taken away their guns: Look up the numbers killed in Germany, China, Russia, and the list goes on. Here's a site: http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/NOTE1.HTM
Here are a few:
4. 61,911,000 Murdered: The Soviet Gulag State
5. 35,236,000 Murdered: The Communist Chinese Ant Hill
6. 20,946,000 Murdered: The Nazi Genocide State
7. 10,214,000 Murdered: The Depraved Nationalist Regime
All after being disarmed. "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state..." There you have it.
Jason | February 28, 2008, 9:37am | #
tbone
In your coments you said:
"How about some data? I believe FL liberalized their CC laws. Are annual gun fatalities up or down? Have CC permit holders had an impact on crime rates/violent crime rates? What's the trend on suicides (for which handguns are used far more frequently than for crime intervention)?"
This question has ben answered by over 15 years of data. Citizens in 48 states are legaly carrying concealed handguns. John Lott's book MORE GUNS LESS CRIME provides proof that in every county in which citizens carry guns crime gos down.
Before concealed handgun laws were passed throughout the United States, opponents claimed that such laws would turn disputes over parking spaces and traffic accidents into shootings. This did not prove to be the case. The same responsible adults--age twenty-one and above--now asking to be allowed to carry their concealed handguns on college campuses are already allowed to do so virtually everywhere else they go--office buildings, shopping malls, movie theaters, grocery stores, banks, etc. They clearly do not let their emotions get the better of them in other environments; therefore, no less should be expected of them on college campuses.
In most states CHL/CCW holders have been educated and tested on both the basic rules of gun safety and the laws pertaining to carrying a concealed handgun, threatening to use deadly force, and using deadly force. They have also passed proficiency (shooting) test at a firing range. Since the fall semester of 2006, state law in Utah has allowed licensed individuals to carry concealed handguns on the campuses of all public colleges. Also, concealed carry has been allowed for several years at both Colorado State University (Fort Collins, CO) and Blue Ridge Community College (Weyers Cave, VA). This has yet to result in a single act of violence at any of these schools.
Numerous studies, including studies by University of Maryland senior research scientist John Lott, University of Georgia professor David Mustard, engineering statistician William Sturdevant, and various state agencies, show that concealed handgun license holders are five times less likely than non-license holders to be arrested for violent crimes. College students can already legally purchase firearms, and every state that provides for legalized concealed carry has statutes prohibiting license holders from carrying while under the influence. Legalizing concealed carry on college campuses would neither put guns into the hands of more college students nor make it legal for a person to carry a firearm while under the influence.
What is worse than allowing an execution-style massacre to continue uncontested? How can any reasonable action with the potential to stop or slow a deranged killer intent on slaughtering victim after victim be considered 'worse' than allowing that killer to continue undeterred? Citizens with concealed handgun licenses are not vigilantes. They carry their concealed handguns as a means of getting themselves out of harm's way, not as an excuse to go chasing after bad guys. Whereas police shooting statistics involve scenarios such as pursuits down dark alleys and armed standoffs with assailants barricaded inside buildings, most civilian shootings happen at pointblank range. In the Luby's Cafeteria massacre, the Columbine High School massacre, and the Virginia Tech massacre, the assailants moved slowly and methodically, shooting their victims from pointblank range. A person doesn't have to be a deadeye shot to defend himself or herself against an assailant standing only a few feet away. It is highly unlikely that an exchange of gunfire between an armed citizen and a deranged killer would lead to more lives lost than would simply allowing an onslaught of execution-style murders to continue unchecked.
Contrary to what the movies might have us believe, most real-world shootouts last less than ten seconds*. Even the real Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, a shootout involving nine armed participants, lasted only about thirty seconds and ended with only three of the participants being killed. It is unlikely that an exchange of gunfire between an armed assailant and an armed citizen would last more than a couple of seconds before one or both parties were disabled. And if the assailant were disabled, he would be unable to do any more harm.
"I lobbied against the law in 1993 and 1995 because I thought it would lead to wholesale armed conflict. That hasn't happened. All the horror stories I thought would come to pass didn't happen. No bogeyman. I think it's worked out well, and that says good things about the citizens who have permits. I'm a convert." -- Glenn White, president of the Dallas Police Association, Dallas Morning News, 12/23/97
"I ... [felt] that such legislation present[ed] a clear and present danger to law-abiding citizens by placing more handguns on our streets. Boy was I wrong. Our experience in Harris County, and indeed statewide, has proven my fears absolutely groundless." -- Harris County [Texas] District Attorney John Holmes, Dallas Morning News, 12/23/97
"Some of the public safety concerns which we imagined or anticipated a couple of years ago, to our pleasant surprise, have been unfounded or mitigated." -- Fairfax County, VA, Police Major Bill Brown, Alexandria Journal, 7/9/97
"I was wrong. But I'm glad to say I was wrong." -- Arlington County, VA, Police Detective Paul Larson, Alexandria Journal, 7/9/97
"The concerns I had - with more guns on the street, folks may be more apt to square off against one another with weapons - we haven't experienced that." -- Charlotte-Mecklenburg, NC, Police Chief Dennis Nowicki, The News and Observer, 11/24/97
"If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun."
-Dalai Lama
Wildfire | February 28, 2008, 7:49pm | #
MichelleH dear, get a grip on reality and try to THINK for a change instead of just emoting.
“People aren't stupid.”
Oh, but they ARE stupid! Look at your post for example: “The gun nut's obsession with his weapons is impacting on our freedom to walk around unharmed.”
Your cowardice took that FREEDOM away; when you cowered and cried for another to protect you, rather than accept the heavy yoke of “Personal Responsibility” for your own safety.
When you dial 9-1-1 . . . don’t the police come with the GUNS you were too cowardly to carry yourself?
“But, I’m not TRAINED!” That’s because you’re a sniveling coward, afraid of personal responsibility; or you would GET the training you need to protect your “freedom to walk around unharmed.”
Please name all the murders committed by a “gun-nut”, which were LEGAL.
Take your time and maybe the stupidity of you position will sink-in.
EACH MURDER was an ILLEGAL ACT committed by a CRIMINAL. To earn the title “criminal” requires disregarding the LAW.
What new gun control law do you emote (you sure aren’t thinking), a CRIMINAL WILLING TO COMMIT MURDER, will obey?
There is another name for people who will obey the law: LAW-ABIDING.
“Those guns ain't being kept in your house to for self protection, they are out in our world and killing our kids.”
You are a LIAR!
The guns you are referring to are NOT the guns of the law-abiding; they were the chosen tools (criminals also use gasoline, hammers, knives, cars, axes, screwdrivers to commit murder) used by CRIMINALS for their crime.
You stupidly snivel: “Gun control doesn't work because there is none;”
You are a LIAR. The law-abiding citizens of DC have been the victims of the strictest gun control laws in the USA.
Yet, IF “Gun Control Works” please explain why Washington, DC with some of the strictest gun control laws in the USA, also has a murder rate of 56.9 per 100,000.
While JUST 3 MILES AWAY, Arlington, VA, with its “lax gun control laws”; has a murder rate of only 1.6 per 100,000.
(FBI, “Crime in the United States”, 1998)
Additionally in 2000, 20% of all U.S. homicides occur in FOUR CITIES with JUST SIX PERCENT OF THE POPULATION – New York, Chicago, Detroit, and Washington, D.C. –which have/had a virtual prohibition on private handguns. (FBI Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) for 2000, p. 79, Table 5, "Index of Crime by State")
You bleat: “You want to talk Florida?”
Sure.
After passing their concealed carry law, Florida's homicide rate fell from 36% ABOVE the national average to 4% BELOW, and REMAINS IT BELOW the national average (as of the last reporting period, 2005). (Cramer C and Kopel D. Shall issue: the new wave of concealed handgun permit laws. Golden CO: Independence Institute Issue Paper. October 17, 1994) and that’s not just cherry-picking one county.
Care to show what U.S. city or state has strict gun control laws AND violent crime and murder rates LOWER than the national average?
Of the “Top 10 Countries of Homicide” the USA didn’t even make the list. (The following is per 100,000)
Colombia 62
Jamaica 32
Russia 20
Mexico 13
Estonia 10
Latvia 10
Lithuania 10
Belarus 9
Papua New Guinea 8
Kyrgyzstan 8
(United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Centre for International Crime Prevention, Seventh United Nations Survey of Crime Trends and Operations of Criminal Justice Systems, covering the period 1998 – 2000)
In Japan, the murder rate is almost 1 per 100,000. In the U.S., there are about 3.2 murders per 100,000 people each year BY WEAPONS OTHER THAN FIREARMS. (Japan data “1996 Demographic Yearbook”, United Nations, 1998: US data FBI Uniform Crime Statistics, 1996)
THIS MEANS THAT EVEN IF FIREARMS MURDER IN THE U.S. COULD BE ELIMINATED, WE WOULD STILL HAVE THREE TIMES THE MURDER RATE OF THE JAPANESE.
Oh, and aren’t Mexico, Colombia, Jamaica and Russia “GUN-FREE”?
If you must LIE to make your position SEEM “reasonable”, maybe it’s time to rethink your position.
