Guns: FACTS and FALLACIES Introduction:
'Guns are used DEFENSIVELY by GOOD people 1 to 2.4 million times every year - LIVES SAVED, INJURIES PREVENTED, MEDICAL COSTS CONSERVED, and PROPERTY PROTECTED.'
POLITICS OR RESEARCH? . . . THE TAXPAYERS PAY
On the issue of guns and VIOLENCE, I have uncovered SHOCKING INCOMPETENCE, DISTORTIONS and OUTRIGHT LIES in many major medical journals. I have discovered it is QUITE COMMON for TAXPAYER-funded gun control researchers to FABRICATE and SCULPT their data to sustain their BIASED and FOREGONE conclusions.
The 'peer review' process is supposed to prevent the publication of research that is flawed in method or conclusions. Editorial BIAS has caused a BREAKDOWN of that review process, allowing publication of MUCH SHABBY work simply because it supported the 'POLITICALLY CORRECT' view. Unusual showmanship accompanies the announcements of gun PROHIBITION advocates. WHY?
THE NUMBERS
Former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop and the Editor in Chief of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Dr. George Lundberg, in a June 1992 JAMA editorial, CLAIMED 'one million US inhabitants die prematurely each year as the result of intentional homicide or suicide.' Since an average of 30,000 Americans die from gunshots each year, JAMA's claim is a 33-FOLD EXAGGERATION. Yet congressmen listen with respect to their testimony on guns.
THE 'INNOCENT CHILDREN' EXAGGERATION
Powerful images of children are used to MISLEAD us. PROHIBITIONISTS CULTIVATE the image of gun deaths of 'thousands of innocent children.' In order to make this CLAIM, they have had to include young adults (to age 24) involved in GANG and DRUG CRIME - HARDLY 'innocent children.' 10 to 20 times more children die from car and other leading causes of accidental deaths as die from guns - for example, in 1988, compared with 2,600 car, 1,000 drowning, and 10,000 burn deaths, 123 children (ages 0-10) died from gun ACCIDENTS.
THE '43 TIMES' FALLACY
We have all heard that 'a gunowner is 43 times more likely to kill a family member than INTRUDER.' How did this FALLACY start? In a 1985 article in the New England Journal of Medicine, Doctors Kellerman and Ray described the proper way to calculate how many people are SAVED BY GUNS compared to how many are hurt by guns. The benefits should include, in the authors' own words, 'cases in which BURGLARS or INTRUDERS are wounded or FRIGHTENED away by the use or display of a firearm [and] cases in which would-be INTRUDERS may have PURPOSELY AVOIDED a house KNOWN to be armed...'
However, when Kellerman and Ray calculated their comparison, they did NOT INCLUDE those cases, they ONLY counted the times a homeowner killed the CRIMINAL. Because only 0.1% (1 in a 1,000) of DEFENSIVE gun usage involves the death of the CRIMINAL, Kellerman and Ray UNDERSTATED the PROTECTIVE BENEFITS of FIREARMS by a FACTOR of 1,000! Talk about TWISTING the TRUTH! WHY? Kellerman emotionally CONFESSED his anti-gun PREJUDICE at the 1993 HELP Conference.
HONEST analysis, even by Kellerman and Ray's own standards, shows the '43 times' comparison to be SUPERFICIALLY APPEALING, BUT ACTUALLY a DECEITFUL INVENTION - unfortunately, a LIE that is REPEATED MINDLESSLY by the WELL- funded gun-PROHIBITION lobby and by GULLIBLE and BIASED journalists.
THE 'POLICE CHIEF'S' FALLACY
The victim disarmament lobby wants us to believe that it is dangerous to RESIST CRIMES like RAPE and ASSAULT using a gun - but using a gun is ACTUALLY SAFER than not resisting or resisting with less powerful means. DEFENSE with a gun results in FEWER injuries (17%) than resisting with less powerful means (knives, 40%; other weapon, 22%; physical force, 51%; evasion, 35%; etc.) and in FEWER injuries than not resisting at all (25%).
When a VICTIM is successful in REPELLING a CRIME, the VICTIM is unlikely to report the CRIME, leaving police to deal ONLY with the unsuccessful attempts to DEFEND oneself. Since police are exposed to a SLANTED sample of FAILURE, they can honestly, though INCORRECTLY, conclude that it is dangerous to attempt to DEFEND oneself with a gun.
LICENSING, REGISTRATION, & BANS
In a 1991 article in the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Colin Loftin ATTEMPTED to show that Washington, DC's 1976 ban on new gun sales decreased murder. Loftin and his co-authors, funded by YOUR tax money from the anti-gun Centers for Disease Control (CDC), produced a piece of 'research' with SEVERAL MAJOR FLAWS. Despite these FLAWS, the editorial board of the New England Journal of Medicine, known for its anti-gun BIAS, published the article anyway.
MOST SHOCKING amongst the DOZEN FLAWS:
* the APPARENT homicide drop BEGAN during 1974, 2 YEARS BEFORE the gun law - so HOW could the law be responsible for the TEMPORARY drop?
* if the gun freeze were responsible for the homicide drop, we would expect the drop to CONTINUE - the law hasn't changed, but the overall Washington, DC homicide rate has SKYROCKETED to 8 TIMES the national average since 1988.
* JUSTIFIABLE and EXCUSABLE homicides, including those by police officers, were treated the SAME as murders and were NOT excluded from the study.
If 'guns cause murder,' WHY doesn't Virginia, the ALLEGED 'easy purchase' source of DC's guns, have DC's MURDER rate? The black teenage male homicide rate in DC is 227 per 100,000, yet less than 7 for rural, middle-aged white men, the US group for whom gun ownership is highest - there is an INVERSE relationship between homicide and gun density. Homicide rates have been falling for decades for every group EXCEPT inner-city teenage males, the group for whom gun ownership is ALREADY ILLEGAL THROUGHOUT the ENTIRE US.
There is ABSOLUTELY NO research that shows licensing, registration, waiting periods, or gun bans decrease CRIME in the least - obviously CRIMINALS that MURDER, RAPE and DEAL DRUGS WON'T comply with ANY gun law. It is ONLY GOOD CITIZENS that will be DISARMED, DEFENSELESS, DIALING 911, and DEPENDENT upon the DISTRUSTFUL resources and QUESTIONABLE will of a CHANGEABLE, GREEDY, INCOMPETENT, and UNCARING government.
THE 'ASSAULT WEAPONS' DECEPTION
It is not just the American Medical Association, Handgun Control Inc. (HCI) and the MEDIA that have HYSTERICALLY and GROSSLY EXAGGERATED the CRIMINAL use of semiautomatic guns. The California Attorney General's Office conducted two statewide studies of the use of 'assault weapons' in CRIME. Both the 1988 Helsley and the 1990 Johnson studies showed that such guns are ALMOST NEVER used in CRIME, even in the major centers of DRUG VIOLENCE. CRIMINALS prefer concealable WEAPONS, not big rifles and shotguns. The Attorney General office IGNORED and DENIED the EXISTENCE of the studies until the studies were leaked to the press.
THE 'RELATIVES & FRIENDS' FALLACY
Gun PROHIBITIONISTS would have us believe that most MURDERS involve ordinary people driven to kill in a sudden fit of rage only because a gun was present. This is based on HCI's DISTORTION of the FBI Uniform Crime Report statistics. To the FBI, a MURDERER or RAPIST that lives in the VICTIM'S apartment building or DUELING DRUG DEALERS are 'acquaintances.' These are the 'friends and family' that HCI says kill each other - definitely not like the friends and family you and I have.
ALMOST ALL the 'relatives' killed each year are the very SAME men, WELL- KNOWN to the police, that have been BRUTALIZING their wives, girlfriends, and children for YEARS - those men are killed in SELF-DEFENSE. Would it be more 'POLITICALLY CORRECT' if those women or children were killed by their ABUSERS?
Law professor Don Kates has written, 'FAR FROM being ordinary, otherwise law-abiding citizens, those who commit MURDERS, as EVERY study of homicide shows, are REAL CRIMINALS with LONG HISTORIES of VIOLENCE against the people around them. Indicative of this are FBI statistics showing that 75% of persons arrested for MURDER had been arrested PREVIOUSLY for a VIOLENT FELONY or BURGLARY.'
Conclusion:
-- As a DOZEN NATIONAL studies show, including a study by the National Institute of Justice and two studies commissioned by gun-PROHIBITION organizations, Guns do PROTECT us! Guns are used DEFENSIVELY by GOOD people 1 to 2.4 million times per year, FAR EXCEEDING ALL RELIABLE estimates of CRIMINAL MISUSE. Using a gun to RESIST a CRIME or ASSAULT is SAFER than not resisting at all or resisting with means other than firearms. Guns not only REPEL CRIME, guns DETER CRIME as is shown by NUMEROUS surveys of CRIMINALS. -- The studies PROVING the INEFFECTIVENESS and the DANGERS of gun PROHIBITION are met with 'if it saves only one life...' The most LOVING person, however, MUST admit that a good person's life lost because a gun was absent is at least as valuable as a life lost because a gun was present. Since 50 to 75 LIVES are SAVED by a gun for every life lost to a gun, we MUST SEE DECEITFUL images that pluck at our heartstrings for the LIES they are - NOT a basis for public policy - even when a doctor, a policeman, or a medical journal is telling the LIE! ------------- Major Source: 'Doctors for Integrity in Research and Public Policy.' By Edgar A. Suter, MD, Chair 5201 Norris Canyon Road Suite 140 San Ramon, CA 94583