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If you want to keep your freedoms, you're in the place - but 70 million other
American gun owners aren't. Tell them - Pass-it-on!
Please consider making a donation to help finance Musters, pay for advertising
and to purchase educational materials.
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The Numbers Game
"They Say":
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"You Say":
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Guns kill 13 children a day. This statement comes from a
1997 study published by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). It states 4,205
children were killed by firearms.
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According to the federal Center for Disease Control (CDC)
630 children up to age 14 died in firearm incidents - 142 were unintentional, 127 were
suicide, 347 were homicide, and 14 undetermined. That averages 1.7 deaths per day. Only
when you add older teens - young adults, (those up to 19) does the number climb. Of the
15-19 year olds who were fatally shot, nearly two-thirds were drug and gang related
shootings. Increasing the age to include young adults between 15-19 years old increases
the number of "children" 569%. These "children" would be tried as
adults if their cases went to trial.
(source: CDC & FBI)
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You are 43 times more likely to kill a family member than
an intruder.
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This number come from a study done by Professor Arthur
Kellermann of Emory University. The number break down-1.3 accidental deaths, 4.6 criminal
homicides, & 37 suicides with firearms, which adds up to 43. Remove suicides and this
47 to 1 ratio drops to 6 to 1 (6 deaths to 1 self-defense use). Kellermann uses
"Self-protection homicides" toward how many self-defense firearm uses (good
uses) there are. This means if you do not kill the attacker it does not count as a
defensive (or good) use of a firearm. If one were to count all defensive uses of firearms,
which counts whether you kill someone or not, in self-defense, the number dramatically
shifts. The statistic becomes a 1 to 40 to a 1 to 125 ratio (estimates vary depending on
the source). This means for every 1 friend or family member killed by firearms in the
home, 40-125 people are saved by those same firearms.
Law-abiding Americans use guns defensively over 2.5 million times per year (6,850
times per day), and about 75% of these defensive uses are with handguns.
(Source: Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, vol. 86#1)
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Deaths due to firearms are increasing at an alarming
rate.
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Both fatal and nonfatal firearm-related injuries in the
United States have been on the decline since 1993 according to a study
by the Center for Disease Control (CDC). Overall, annual nonfatal and fatal
firearm-related injury rates declined consistently from 1993 through 1997. The annual
nonfatal rate decreased 40.8%.
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Personal gun ownership leads to higher murder rates and
violent crimes.
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Switzerland has one of the lowest murder rates in the
world, and it requires all able-bodied males between the ages of 20 and 50 to have a
military-issued automatic weapon, ammunition and other equipment in their dwellings.
Denmark and Finland also have high rates of gun ownership and low crime rates. Israel,
which has an extremely low crime rate but is vulnerable to enemies including terrorists,
depends on the defensive value of widespread civilian gun possession. The experience of
these countries shows that widespread gun possession is compatible with low crime rates.
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Other countries without gun ownership are
safer. Anti-gun groups have stated that the rate of children being killed accidents with
guns is 9 times higher in the U.S. than in the next 24 biggest countries combined.
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This claim is derived from the Center for
Disease Control and Prevention's simplistic comparison for firearm-related deaths of
various countries. The figures are useless since firearm ownership levels, national
populations, cultural factors and criminal justice systems vary widely between the
nations.
They also conveniently neglect to include countries that are experiencing
wars/revolutions and undergoing ethnic cleansing where unarmed men, women and children are
being abused, brutalized and slaughtered in ever increasing numbers daily.
While violent crimes are falling in the U.S., they are rising in England, which has
some of the most restrictive firearm laws in the world. A 1998 Library of Congress report
concluded that it is difficult to find a correlation between the existence of strict
firearms regulations and a lower incidence of gun-related crimes. The report further
stated that statistics do not confirm a decrease in crime with restrictions or control,
nor an increase of crime with a more liberal policy.
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"Smart" guns should be
manufactured with devices designed to prevent their use by unauthorized individuals.
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Practical technology of this type does not
exist but is being researched by manufacturers. The attempt to mandate this technology has
serious problems, including adding $300-400 to the price of a gun which falls on the
law-abiding citizens and not the criminals and the smartest way to prevent accidents is
firearm safety education.
The truth is, gun accidents are at an all-time low. There are more guns today than
before, but there are fewer accidents. This is achieved with smart people, not
"smart" guns.
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Trigger locks will prevent firearms related
accidents and prevent them from being used in a crime.
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While all law-abiding gun owners agree guns
should be stored safely, most Americans think it is not the government's business to
dictate how personal property should be stored at home. Enforcement of a storage law could
lead to searches of homes in violation of the Fourth Amendment. In addition, some well
meaning gun owners could become more careless because they would be "locked",
and even guns with trigger locks on them can be fired. They give a false sense of safety
and security. Safety through education, not legislation, would be a much more appropriate
solution.
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Eliminate the "gun show loophole."
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The fact is, there is no such thing as a
"gun show loophole." Every law that is in effect outside a gun show is in effect
inside of a gun show. Instead, the proposals being demanded would create an enormous maze
of new and complex federal regulations, would authorize a new unlimited federal tax, would
invade the privacy of honest law-abiding citizens, and would penalize gun show organizers.
In addition, the demands would extend beyond the show itself. If a private citizen (not a
business) displays a firearm at a show, but makes the sale months later to someone they
met at the show (a private transaction), they would be subject to the same requirements.
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More arguments:
The 'sporting use' & 'semi-automatic' -
Persons who claim that the 2nd Amendment protects only "sporting
guns" implicitly assert that protection of recreational hunting and target shooting
was seen by the authors of the Bill of Rights as some particularly important activity to a
free society. The framers of the Constitution, as the "sporting gun" theory
goes, apparently intended to exalt sports equipment used in recreational hunting to a
level of protection not enjoyed by equipment for any other sport. It is true that the
framers did see sport hunting as an activity better suited for building good character
than other sports. Nevertheless, it is difficult to believe that the framers would follow
an amendment guaranteeing speech, assembly, and the free exercise of religion with an
amendment protecting sporting goods.
Moreover, to the extent that there is a real conflict between public safety and sports
equipment, public safety should win. Except for shooting in Department of Civilian
Marksmanship programs, which have been created to enhance civil preparedness, recreational
use of "assault weapons" does not directly enhance public safety. Hence, if
"assault weapons" posed a substantial threat to public safety, control would be
in order because protecting many people from death is more important than enjoying sports.
One reason that "assault weapon" bans are improper is that government statistics
prove that "assault weapons" are no more of a threat to public safety than any
other gun; the "safety vs. sports" conflict is non-existent.
Reflecting a sports-based theory of gun ownership, "assault weapon"
prohibitionists claim that these guns have no purpose except to kill. As a factual matter,
the claims are incorrect. These guns are frequently used for sports. And ironically, the
guns have the distinction of being the only firearms ever designed to wound a man rather
than to kill him.
Some proponents of "assault weapons" legislation have argued that even if one
recognizes an individual right to bear arms, such guns are not the type of arms that
individuals have a right to bear. Although the framers of the Constitution might have
intended that citizens have a right to posses the single-shot rifles, shotguns, and
pistols of their day, the gun prohibitionists assert that the 2nd Amendment never intended
to give citizens the right to own modern small arms such as military-style
semi-automatics.
It is true that the 2nd Amendment was never intended to protect the right to own
semi-automatics (since such guns did not exist), just as they never intended to protect
the right to talk privately on a telephone or to broadcast news on a television (since
telephones and televisions did not exist either). To assert that Constitutional
protections only extend to the technology in existence in 1791 would be to claim that the
1st Amendment only protects the right to write with quill pens and not with computers, and
that the 4th Amendment only protects the right to freedom from unreasonable searches in
log cabins and not in homes made from high-tech synthetics.
The Constitution does not protect particular physical objects, such as quill pens,
muskets, or log cabins. Instead, the Constitution defines a relationship between
individuals and the government that is applied to every new technology. For example, in
United States v. Katz, the Court applied the privacy principle underlying the 4th
Amendment to prohibit warrentless eavesdropping on telephone calls made from a public
phone booth - even though telephones had not been invented at the time of the 4th
Amendment. Likewise, the principle underlying freedom of the press - that an unfettered
press is an important check on secretive and abusive governments - remains the same
whether the press uses a Franklin press to produce a hundred copies of a pamphlet, or
laser printed to produce a hundred thousand.
It is true that an individual who misuses a semi-automatic today can shoot more people
than could an individual misusing a musket 150 years ago. Yet if greater harm were
sufficient cause to invalidate a right, there would be little left to the Bill of Rights.
Virtually every freedom guaranteed in the Bill of Rights causes some damage to society,
such as reputations ruined by libelous newspapers, or criminals freed by procedural
requirements. The authors of the Constitution knew that legislatures were inclined to
focus too narrowly on short term harms: to think only about society's loss of security
from criminals not caught because of search restrictions; and to forget the security
gained by privacy and freedom from arbitrary searches. That is precisely why the framers
created a Bill of Rights - to put a check on the tendency of legislatures to erode
essential rights for short-term gains.
So-called "assault weapons," particularly the politically incorrect
semi-automatic rifles, are well-suited for personal defense against criminals. More
significantly, from a 2nd Amendment viewpoint, they are well-suited for community defense
against dangers both internal and external.
The most recent instance in which people of the United States mobilized "bearing arms
supplied by themselves and of the kind in common use at the time" to defend their
nation was during the World War II. After Pearl Harbor the citizen militia was called to
duty. Nazi submarines were constantly in action off of the East Coast. On the West Coast,
the Japanese seized several Alaskan islands, and strategists wondered if the Japanese
might follow up on their dramatic victories in the Pacific with an invasion of the Alaskan
mainland, Hawaii, or California. Hawaii's governor summoned armed citizens to man
checkpoints and patrol remote beach areas. Maryland's governor called on "the
Maryland Minute Men," consisting mainly of "members of Rod and Gun Clubs, of
Trap Shooting Clubs and similar organizations," for "repelling invasion forays,
parachute raids, and sabotage uprisings," as well as for patrolling beaches, water
supplies, and railroads. Over 15,000 volunteers brought their own "assault
weapons" to duty. Gun owners in Virginia were also summoned into home service.
Americans everywhere armed themselves in case of invasion.
The "assault weapon" controversy wears the mask of a crime control issue, but it
is in reality a moral issue. Regardless of whether "assault weapons" are a
serious crime problem, and regardless of whether prohibitions will reduce criminal use of
the guns, such weapons have no legitimate place in a civilized society - or so many gun
prohibitionists feel. These prohibitionists do not trust their fellow citizens to possess
"assault weapons"; but astonishingly, they do trust the government and police
forces to possess such guns.
The claims that certain politically incorrect semi-automatic firearms are machine-guns,
are the weapon of choice of criminals, have a uniquely high ammunition capacity, or cause
uniquely destructive wounds are a hoax. Although the gun prohibition lobby managed to
generate a few months of national panic in early 1989, only two state legislatures decided
to adopt "assault weapon" legislation. In one state (California), the Attorney
General has found that most of the law is so ineptly drafted as to be unenforceable. The
more that legislatures examine the facts, the more apparent the gun prohibition lobby's
fraud becomes. The Great "Assault Weapon" Panic of 1989 deserves a place
alongside Senator Joseph McCarthy's list of State Department Communists and the Tawana
Brawley kidnapping as one of America's greatest political hoaxes. When hysteria is
replaced by analysis, the gun prohibition lobby's fraud becomes apparent.
Despite their "evil" appearance, so-called "assault weapons" are no
more dangerous than many non-semi-automatics. According to empirical evidence and police
experience, these guns are not the weapons of choice of drug dealers or other criminals.
Even if these guns played a significant role in violent crime, sociological evidence
suggests that "assault weapon" legislation would not reduce the criminal misuse.
To limit the criminal misuse of firearms, legislators must take the more difficult and
costly steps of providing sufficient funding to the prosecutors and prisons that directly
confront the problems of firearms misuse. While these measures may not seem as simple as
passing a severe "assault weapon" prohibition, an effective firearms policy -
one that preserves basic Constitutional rights - will be logical, legal, and moral, and
well worth the effort.
The 2nd Amendment is 'outdated' -
It is true that the 2nd Amendment was never intended to protect the right
to own modern day firearms (since such guns did not exist), just as they never intended to
protect the right to talk privately on a telephone or to broadcast news on a television
(since telephones and televisions did not exist either). To assert that Constitutional
protections only extend to the technology in existence in 1791 would be to claim that the
1st Amendment only protects the right to write with quill pens and not with computers, and
that the 4th Amendment only protects the right to freedom from unreasonable searches in
log cabins and not in homes made from high-tech synthetics.
The Constitution does not protect particular physical objects, such as quill pens,
muskets, or log cabins. Instead, the Constitution defines a relationship between
individuals and the government that is applied to every new technology. For example, in
United States v. Katz, the Court applied the privacy principle underlying the 4th
Amendment to prohibit warrentless eavesdropping on telephone calls made from a public
phone booth - even though telephones had not been invented at the time of the 4th
Amendment. Likewise, the principle underlying freedom of the press - that an unfettered
press is an important check on secretive and abusive governments - remains the same
whether the press uses a Franklin press to produce a hundred copies of a pamphlet, or
laser printed to produce a hundred thousand.
It is true that an individual who misuses a firearm today can shoot more people than could
an individual misusing a musket 150 years ago. Yet if greater harm were sufficient cause
to invalidate a right, there would be little left to the Bill of Rights.
Virtually every freedom guaranteed in the Bill of Rights causes some damage to society,
such as reputations ruined by libelous newspapers, or criminals freed by procedural
requirements. The authors of the Constitution knew that legislatures were inclined to
focus too narrowly on short term harms: to think only about society's loss of security
from criminals not caught because of search restrictions; and to forget the security
gained by privacy and freedom from arbitrary searches. That is precisely why the framers
created a Bill of Rights - to put a check on the tendency of legislatures to erode
essential rights for short-term gains.
The Supreme Court has ruled that the words in the Constitution mean what the Founding
Fathers said they meant, and we can't go changing or amending the Constitution by giving
new meanings or new shades of meaning to the words. And, if you think about it, it makes
sense; otherwise, our rights really mean nothing. Congress or any other governing body can
deny you the right to free speech, freedom of religion, a trial by jury, or whatever else
it wanted just by claiming the words now have a new meaning. An oppressive government
could change the Constitution without ever having to go through the bothersome ritual of
submitting it to us, the people, for our approval. And, in the end, the Constitution and,
in particular, the Bill of Rights are there for our protection, not for the benefit of the
government or those who run it.
The Founding Fathers did not believe we got our rights from the Bill of Rights. Nor did
they believe they came about as a result of being American, Christian, of European decent,
or white. They believed everyone has these rights even if they live in Europe, China, or
the moon. They called them Natural Rights. Where these rights were not allowed, they
believed they still existed but were denied. In a country where children have no civil
rights, do they still have a right not to be molested? Do women in countries where they
have a second-citizen status have the right not to be abused by their husbands, even if
the government won't protect them? Then is it too much of a stretch of the imagination to
understand that the Founding Fathers believed everyone has the right to free speech,
freedom of religion, right to bear arms, the right to fair trials...?
In other words, it's a question as to whether the rights of the citizens in China are at
the pleasure of the government or if they have them but are being denied, or if the Jews
had basic human rights in Germany even if Hitler didn't let them exercise them, or if
Americans have the individual right to keep and bear arms?
Take it a step further. If the government passed a law tomorrow that said we didn't have
the right to free speech, or the right to free worship, or freedom of the press, would
those rights no longer exist, or would they be simply denied? If the Constitution is
amended depriving us of our rights, do those rights cease to exist? The answer, according
to the guys who set up this country, is yes; we would still have those rights. We're just
being denied them. Because of that, it's the way we have to look at the Constitution.
Rights are something that come with being human. The Founders never believed we got them
from the government. If and when the United States goes away, the rights will still be
there. Have you ever read the 9th and 10th Amendments? The 9th says: "The enumeration
in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others
retained by the people." This means that any rights not mentioned in the Bill of
Rights are not to be denied to the people. The 10th says: "The powers not delegated
to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved
to the States respectively, or to the people." So any powers not specifically given
to the Federal government are not powers it can usurp.
Any rights in the first eight Amendments are just redundant with what the Founding Fathers
considered Natural Rights. The Founding Fathers felt we had a right to unrestricted
travel. So, now we have driver's licenses, automobile registrations, and passports. They
also felt we had property rights, so Civil Forfeiture or Civil Seizure laws, now exercised
by the Feds and the states, are actually illegal under both the 9th and 10th Amendment. If
the Congress or even the Supreme Court decides the 2nd Amendment only refers to formal
military organizations, we still have the right to keep and bear arms, because the
Founding Fathers considered it a natural right. A right is a right even if the government
represses it.
How much is 'too much' -
It may be asked where the upper boundary lies - at grenade launchers,
anti-aircraft rockets, tanks, battleships, or nuclear weapons.
To begin with, the phrase "keep and bear" limits the type of arm to an arm that
an individual can carry. Things which an individual cannot bear and fire (like crew-served
weapons) would not be within the scope of the Second Amendment. Nor would things which
bear the individual, instead of being borne by him or her. Thus, tanks, ships, and the
like would be excluded.
In addition, if a hand-carried weapon is not "part of the ordinary military
equipment" then the weapon might not have a reasonable relationship to the
preservation of a well-regulated militia; hence its ownership would not be protected.
Since American soldiers do not carry nuclear weapons, such weapons would not be within the
scope of the Second Amendment. Perhaps the Supreme Court will one day further elaborate
the boundaries of the Miller test.
Soldiers do carry real assault files (namely M16s), and it would therefore seem that such
weapons would fit with the Miller test. In early 1991, the Supreme Court declined to hear
a case involving the prohibition of machine-guns produced after 1986. Handgun Control,
Inc. immediately announced that the Supreme Court had validated the ban, although the
Court had done so such thing. As the Supreme Court itself has stated, however, a denial of
review has no presidential effect and is not a decision on the merits.
The Constitutionality of the 1986 federal ban is unclear. In the case that the Supreme
Court declined to hear, the federal trial court had interpreted the relevant statute as
not being a ban, but only a licensing requirement. The trial court had said that if the
statute were to be read as a ban, it would be unconstitutional. The 11th Circuit Court of
Appeals reversed on the statutory interpretation issue, and did not address the
Constitutional question.
In the meantime, a federal district court in Illinois found the ban unconstitutional on
the grounds that Congress' enumerated powers did not include the banning of firearms. Even
if the machine gun issue remains in a Constitutional limbo, the semiautomatic issue need
not. The bias on which machine guns may be considered distinguishable from other guns is
their capability of rapid, automatic fire. All semiautomatic firearms lack this
capability, and according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, it is quite
difficult to convert semiautomatics to automatic. In fact, semiautomatic rifles may fire
less rapidly than traditional pump action shotguns, and there is no dispute that
traditional pump action shotguns fall within the scope of the right to bear arms.
The "assault weapon" controversy wears the mask of a crime control issue, but it
is in reality a moral issue. Regardless of whether "assault weapons" are a
serious crime problem, and regardless of whether prohibitions will reduce criminal use of
the guns, such weapons have no legitimate place in a civilized society _ or so many gun
prohibitionists feel. These prohibitionists do not trust their fellow citizens to possess
"assault weapons"; but astonishingly, they do trust the government to possess
such guns.
"Government is the great teacher," said the late Justice Brandeis. What lesson
does government teach when police chiefs insist that "assault weapons" have no
reasonable defensive use, and are evil machines for killing many innocent people quickly -
but that prohibitions on these killing machines should not apply to the police? Are
massacres acceptable if perpetrated by the public sector? The exemption cannot be
logically defended. If "assault weapons" can legitimately be used for police
protection of self and others, then a ban on those guns cannot be Constitutionally applied
to ordinary citizens, because ordinary citizens have a right to bear arms for personal
defense, and like police, face a risk of being attacked by criminals. (And unlike police,
ordinary citizens cannot make a radio call for backup that will bring a swarm of police
cars in seconds.)
Conversely, are "assault weapons," as some police administrator insist, only
made for slaughtering the innocent? If so, such killing machines have no place in the
hands of domestic law enforcement. Unlike in less free countries, police in this country
do not need highly destructive weapons designed for murdering innocent people.
The arrogance of power manifested by police chiefs such as Daryl Gates in their drive to
outlaw semiautomatics for everyone but themselves is reason enough for a free society to
reject gun prohibition.
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