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THE LONG LIST OF "GUN-CONTROL" MYTHS rev. 1/5/98
[talk.politics.guns' Official Pro-Gun FAQ (fully indexed, w/glossary)
Additions/suggestions are welcome. Your help is encouraged.
Email to: Ken Barnes ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
This FAQ is now available at:
http://www.rkba.org/research/rkba.faq
by courtesy of Jeff Chan ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
and archived by the fine FAQ folks at
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/talk-politics-guns and
ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/faqs/talk-politics-guns/pro-gun-faq/part1
NOTE: As a courtesy to our contributors, all email addresses (except
my own) mentioned in this FAQ include an anti-spambot string "RKBA"
which must be removed before they are used. --KB]
_________________________________________________________________
+This FAQ is dedicated to all who fought to secure the Blessings+
+of Liberty against Monarchism, Racism, Fascism, and Communism. +
-----------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS (* indicates an updated entry, !* a new section)
SECTION I. - Personal issues
* 1.0 - "You don't need a gun, the police will protect you."
1.1 - "Guns aren't an effective defense, or, the 43:1 myth."
* 1.1.a - "Chemical sprays and stun guns are just as effective."
!* 1.1.b - "2.5 million defensive gun uses each year can't be true!"
!* 1.1.c - "Is there independent evidence to support that number?"
1.2 - "Bad guys will just take your gun away and shoot you."
1.2.a - "...especially if you're a woman."
* 1.3 - "Guns are too dangerous to own if you've got children."
SECTION II. - Constitutional issues in the United States
2.0 - "The 2nd Amendment means you can't disarm the National Guard."
2.0.a - "What's the deal with the punctuation?"
2.1 - "The 2nd Amendment doesn't protect an individual right."
2.2 - "So you think everybody can own nuclear weapons?"
* 2.3 - "The 2nd Amendment doesn't apply to states and localities."
SECTION III. - Other "gun-control" fantasies
* 3.0 - "We ought to register all firearms and ammunition."
* 3.0.a - "We ought to license and register guns like cars."
3.0.b - "Gun registration reduced homicides in Washington, D.C."
!* 3.0.c - "'Taggants' in gunpowder and explosives fight terrorism."
3.1 - "Guns increase the lethality of crime."
* 3.2 - "Waiting periods save lives."
* 3.2.a - "The Brady Act national waiting period is very effective."
* 3.3 - "Ban assault weapons!"
3.4 - "Ban cop-killer bullets!"
3.4.a - "Ban Black Rhino ammunition!"
3.5 - "Ban Saturday Nite Specials!"
3.6 - "Ban plastic guns!"
!* 3.6.a - "But how could you detect plastic guns?"
* 3.7 - "Gun buy-backs are effective in getting guns off the street."
3.8 - "Concealed-carry reform will take us back to the Wild West!"
3.8.a - "What about the University of Maryland study?"
!* 3.8.b - "Lott and Mustard's study is just gun industry propaganda!"
SECTION IV. - Deterrence and resistance to tyranny
4.0 - "Small arms aren't effective against a modern army."
APPENDIX I. - Federal "gun control" laws in the United States
"Nonmailable Firearms Act" of 1927 - Public Law 69-583
National Firearms Act of 1934 - Public Law 73-474
Federal Firearms Act of 1938 - Public Law 75-785 (repealed)
Gun Control Act of 1968 - Public Law 90-618
Firearms Owner's Protection Act of 1986 - Public Law 99-308
Armor Piercing Ammunition ban of 1987 - Public Law 99-408
Undetectable Firearms Act of 1988 - Public Law 100-649
Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990 - Public Law 101-647 (void)
* Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993 (void in part)
- Public Law 103-159
Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act of 1994
(a.k.a. "assault weapons" ban) - Public Law 103-322
* APPENDIX II. - Data on concealed carry reform in Florida
APPENDIX III. - "Gun Control": international comparisons
JAPAN
CANADA
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
* GREAT BRITAIN
SWITZERLAND
GERMANY
* AUSTRALIA
APPENDIX IV. - Washington, D.C.: a "gun control" paradise
* APPENDIX V. - The U.S. Supreme Court and the Second Amendment
!* APPENDIX VI. - Pious Frauds: If It Sounds Too Good To Be True...
INDEX AND GLOSSARY
-----------------------------------------------------------------
SECTION I. - Personal issues
"The peaceable part of mankind will be continually overrun by the
vile and abandoned while they neglect the means of self-defense.
The supposed quietude of a good man allures the ruffian; while on
the other hand, arms like laws discourage and keep the invader and
the plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world, as well as
property. The balance of power is the scale of peace. The same
balance would be preserved were all the world destitute of arms,
for all would be alike; but since some_will_not,_ others_dare_not_
lay them aside... Horrid mischief would ensue were one half the
world deprived of the use of them;... the weak will become a prey
to the strong."
-=(Thomas Paine, "Thoughts on Defensive War," 1775)=-
1.0 "You don't need a gun, the police will protect you."
Recommended reading: _In The Gravest Extreme,_by Massad Ayoob
[available from Police Bookshelf, P.O. Box 122, Concord, NH 03301],
ISBN 0-936297-00-1, (1980)
_The Truth About Self Protection,_by Massad Ayoob, Police Bookshelf,
ISBN 0553-23664-6, (1983)
_Armed and Female: Twelve Million American Women Own Guns, Should You?,_
by Paxton Quigley, St. Martin's Press, ISBN 0-312-95150-7, (1993)
_Not An Easy Target,_by Paxton Quigley, Simon and Schuster,
ISBN 0-671-89081-6, (1995)
_Strong On Defense: Survival Rules to Protect You and Your Family
from Crime,_by Sanford Strong, Pocket Books, ISBN 0-671-52293-0, (1996)
_Firing Back,_by Clayton E. Cramer, Krause Publications,
ISBN 0-87341-344-X, (1994)
_Stopping Power: Why Seventy Million Americans Own Guns,_by J. Neil
Schulman, Synapse-Centurion Books, ISBN 1-882639-03-0, (1994)
_Gun Laws and the Need for Self-Defense (Parts 1 and 2),_hearings
before The Subcommittee on Crime of the Committee on the Judiciary,
U.S. House of Representatives, 104th Congress, 1st session, March 31,
1996, SuDoc# Y 4.J89/1:104/43/Pt.1, and 2nd session, April 5, 1995,
SuDoc# Y 4.J89/1:104/43/Pt.2 [These hearings, called in response
to the fledgling Republican Congress' efforts to repeal the 1994
Clinton/Feinstein gun ban (see 3.3 and Appendix I), featured testimony
from a number of scholars cited elsewhere in this FAQ, including
James Wright, Joyce Malcolm, David Bordua, Robert Cottrol, and
Daniel Polsby, as well as law enforcement officers and crime victims.]
A selection of relevant cases [most of which are listed and
discussed in 'Dial 911 and Die!' by JPFO (Jews for the Preservation
of Firearms Ownership) 2872 S. Wentworth Ave., Milwaukee, WI 53207,
Ph: (414) 769-0760, FAX: (414) 483-8435 JPFO also has a website:
http://www.jpfo.org/ ]:
[Note: For convenience of the reader, legal citations in this FAQ
have been rendered in a more familiar "bibliography" style form,
rather than standard legal citation form. Real lawyers would cite
the first case below as 59 U.S. (18 How.) 396, 15 L.Ed. 433 ]
South v. Maryland, U.S. Reports (18 Howard) v.59 p.396, Lawyer's
Edition v.15 p.433 (1856)
Riss v. City of New York, N.Y. Supplement 2nd series v.293 p.897,
N.Y. Reports 2nd series v.22 p.579 (1968)
Keane v. City of Chicago, Illinois Appellate Court Reports
2nd series v.98 p.460 (1968)
Hartzler v. City of San Jose, California Appellate Reports
3rd series v.46 p.6, California Reporter v.120 p.5 (1975)
Reiff v. City of Philadelphia, Federal Supplement v.471 p.1262
Eastern District of Pennsylvania (1979)
Warren v. District of Columbia, U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit
2nd series v.444 p.1 (1981)
Bowers v. DeVito, Federal Reporter 2nd series v.686 p.616
U.S. Court of Appeals, 7th Cir. (1982)
Morgan v. District of Columbia, U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit
2nd series v.468 p.1306 (1983)
Cuffy v. City of New York, N.Y. Reports 2nd series v.69 p.255 (1987)
Lynch v. N.C. Dept. of Justice, Southeastern Reporter 2nd series
v.376 p.247 North Carolina Court of Appeals (1989)
Kircher v. City of Jamestown, New York Reports 2nd series v.74
p.251, Northeastern Reporter 2nd series v.543 p.443 (1989)
Marshall v. Winston, Southeastern Reporter 2nd series v.389 p.902
Virginia (1990)
Berliner v. Thompson, et al., Appellate Division (NY) 2nd series
v.174 p.220, New York State 2nd series v.578 p.687 (1992)
In summary: Police can only act once a crime is occurring or has
already been committed. They cannot be held liable for failure to
arrive in time to save any particular individual from harm, so long
as they aren't someone who has a special relationship with the police,
like a protected witness. Indeed, it's_extremely_unlikely that police
officers will be able to arrive and_save_you from harm faster than
an attacker can harm you. There aren't, and there ought not to be,
sufficient police to act as personal bodyguards for every citizen,
24 hours a day, and any guarantee to that effect would be extremely
expensive in terms of both money and liberty.
1.1 "Guns aren't effective defensive weapons, and are '43 to 1 times'
more likely to kill their owners or family members than they are useful
to defend against criminal attack."
See_Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America,_by Gary Kleck,
Aldine de Gruyter, ISBN 0-202-30419-1 (1991) [Dr. Kleck's book is a
valuable resource for all participants in the "gun control" debate.
_Point Blank_received the American Society for Criminology's highest
honor, the Hindelang Award, at the ASC's 1993 annual meeting, for the
most important contribution to the criminology literature in the
preceding three years.]
also_Criminal Victimization in the United States,_1992_
A National Crime Victimization Survey Report,_Bureau of Justice
Statistics, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Dept. of Justice
SuDoc# J 29.9/2:992 (1992)
Kellerman, Arthur L. and Reay, Donald T., "Protection or
Peril? An Analysis of Firearm-Related Deaths in the Home"
New England J. Medicine, v.314, n.24, pp.1557-1560 (1986)
Kleck, Gary and Gertz, Marc, "Armed Resistance to Crime: The
Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense with a Gun," J. of
Criminal Law and Criminology, v.86, n.1, pp.150-187 (1995)
In summary: The often-cited "studies that show" having a gun in
the home is a far greater risk to you and your loved ones than to
criminals, are a favorite topic of discussion here on t.p.g., in part
to demonstrate the extraordinary statistical contortions that "gun
control" advocates will go to in an attempt to support their flawed
premises. The idea that guns (and handguns in particular) are
ineffective as defensive weapons shows a distinct lack of imagination,
especially since police carry them for that purpose.
The 1986 Kellerman study, the source of the famous "43 to 1" ratio,
is deceptive in several ways. The basis for comparison in this study
is the ratio of "firearm-related deaths" of household members vs.
deaths of criminals killed in the home (justifiable homicides). The
"firearm-related deaths" in the study include suicides and accidents,
neither of which are randomly distributed throughout the population,
as the 43 to 1 "risk ratio" would imply. Both suicides and accidents
are more likely to occur in specific categories of people than they
are in the general population. Of the 398 "firearm-related deaths"
included in the study, the vast majority (333, or, 84%) were suicides.
The number of fatal firearms accidents in the study was 12 (or 3% of
the studied deaths). Since sometimes a "gun cleaning accident" is
actually a suicide reported under a name less likely to deny payment
from a life insurance company, there may in fact have been even
fewer accidents than are apparent from the reporting. When only the
criminal homicides are considered, rather than including suicides
and accidents, the "43 to 1" ratio disappears, and the ratio is far
less dramatic, more like "4.5 to 1". There were 41 criminal homicides
reported in the Kellerman study, and 9 instances of justifiable or
self-defense homicide. People who are violent, unbalanced, or involved
in a life of crime are much more likely to use their home gun unwisely,
and their chances of using it to harm another (or themselves) are higher
than would be expected for the majority of the population.
As criminologists know and can demonstrate, the fallacy underlying
the work of researchers who treat "gun violence" as an "epidemic" or as
an issue of "public health" is the idea that people are all at equal
risk for becoming a perpetrator of crime, and lack only a deadly weapon.
If a person is stable, and not suicidal, and not prone to extreme
violence, their chances of becoming involved in "firearm-related death"
will be far lower than the Kellerman "43 to 1 risk ratio" would suggest.
Persons with these risk factors are not only more likely to abuse guns
to harm themselves or others, but they probably can't be trusted with
knives, either. Aside from such obvious risk factors, the likelihood
of being injured accidentally can be decreased further by training
in safe gun handling, much as firearms accidents have declined in the
U.S. population in recent years due to such safety education, despite
an increase in the number of guns available. (See 1.3) The Kellerman
study, based on data collected in King County, WA from 1978 to 1983,
is skewed towards violence associated with an urban setting, and makes
little mention of the thousands of gun-owning households where no
"firearm-related deaths" occurred at all. If gun ownership was the
crucial factor in an "epidemiology of violence," how to explain the
fact that almost all gunowners' households weren't affected?
Assessing the effectiveness of gun use against criminals as "number
of criminals killed" (as the Kellerman study does) is an extraordinary
presumption as well, since law enforcement officers aren't judged by
such a restrictive standard. Why isn't "criminals deterred" or
"crimes completed" or even "criminals wounded or apprehended" a
legitimate means of measuring defensive effectiveness? Certainly in
some proportion of gun-owning households where no "firearm-related
deaths" occurred, it was because a firearm was used to deter, wound,
or otherwise thwart an attacker.
In point of fact, the reason these "studies" are structured as badly
as they are, and are published in medical (rather than criminological)
journals, is that the numbers don't work out in favor of the "gun
control" viewpoint if considered in these other ways (see also 3.0.b).
There's no more reason to judge the ability and effectiveness of armed
citizens at fighting crime by the numbers of criminals they kill than
it is to do so for the police. Surprisingly, however, the numbers are
quite similar (see 3.8). Still, it seems absurd for the anti-gun side
to imply that gun owners_ought_to kill as many or more criminals than
the number of people that criminals murder (which is the only way for
the law-abiding to make a good showing in Kellerman's "kill ratio")!
Kellerman implies that a general "cost-benefit" ratio can be developed
which can be used to weigh the harm committed with guns against the
right of the individual to have a gun for self-defense, and if it
happens that more people are being harmed with guns than there are
instances of self-defense, we can simply allow those few people
whose lives would be saved by having a gun to become victims too.
According to U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics data, having a gun
and being able to use it in a defensive situation is the most effective
means of avoiding injury (moreso even than offering no resistance) and
thwarting completion of a robbery or assault. In general, resisting
violent crime is far more likely to help than to hurt, and this is
especially true if your attacker attempts to take you hostage, such as
sometimes happens in a carjacking situation. Most often in with-gun
defenses, criminals can be frightened away or deterred without a shot
being fired. Estimates of these types of defensive uses of firearms
are wide ranging, from a low of 65,000 to 82,000 annual defensive
gun uses (DGUs) reported to the U.S. Department of Justice's National
Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), to a high end of some 2.1-2.5
million annual DGUs (see 1.1.b), but they seem to occur at least
as often (if not far more often) each year as misuses of firearms by
violent criminals. Since such defensive uses are rarely reported to
the police (in some cases because firearms possession in the locality
is illegal), it is difficult to quantify precisely the number of
instances in which defensive use of firearms has saved lives.
A variety of factors complicate the measurement of DGU, including
the completeness and accuracy of self-reporting by witnesses, the
nature and sequence of the questions asked (including the definition
of what constitutes a DGU), the willingness of the witness to respond
_at all_to questions about such incidents, and the difficulty in
distinguishing between self-defense and assault based on a witness'
own report. There is evidence to suggest that a substantial number
of homicide victims have at other times been perpetrators, and Kleck
suggests that criminals should comprise "a disproportionate share of
both DGU and gun crime victimizations." Whether criminals are any
more or less willing to report DGU in surveys than non-criminals
is another factor to be considered when estimating the frequency of
lawful gun use in self-defense.
Even if the number of crimes deterred by lawful armed citizens
annually is no greater than the number of violent crimes committed
with guns each year, in the absence of these self-protective acts,
the incidence of violent crime could be far higher than it is at
present, and injuries to innocent victims could also increase.
The annual use of firearms for other lawful purposes, unrelated to
self-defense, dwarfs both defensive and criminal uses combined.
1.1.a "Chemical sprays, stun guns, and other nonlethal methods
are effective and easy to use in stopping an attacker."
see Ayoob,_In The Gravest Extreme_(see above) p.35-38.
Air Taser homepage at http://www.airtaser.com/
Jonathan Glater, "Wild Wild Wet,"_Washington Post,_July 25, 1994, p.F3
In summary: Unfortunately, even_shooting_an attacker doesn't always
stop them immediately, unless the shot is directed at the central
nervous system. A fatally wounded assailant can still be dangerous
for the few seconds or minutes they have left. Non-lethal methods,
while they can be effective in some cases and can provide an additional
option for personal defense, are not something you want to bet your life
on when confronted with deadly force. The chemical sprays available
to civilians (such as CS tear gas, or OC pepper spray) are not always as
strong as those used by law enforcement, but even though the police
carry chemical agents, they also carry firearms, since even the police
sprays (like FREEZE+P) don't stop everybody, and aren't appropriate for
every situation. The chemical sprays are most effective when they can
reach the mucous membranes, such as when sprayed in the eyes or inhaled.
Yet if an attacker is wearing glasses, or holds their breath, or is
on drugs, or is just unusually impervious to the pain, the spray may not
be effective. (After all, some people can_eat_extraordinarily hot
peppers, and some people just have high pain thresholds.)
Chemical sprays are designed for outdoor use, and will persist and
can cause problems for the defender if used indoors. Outdoors, they
can be affected by the direction of the wind, and blown off target, or
back into the defender's face, if not delivered in a stream. Inclement
weather can also affect their effectiveness as a defense, and they
require a few seconds to fully incapacitate when they work. It should
be noted that pepper sprays are more effective against dogs than man,
since dogs expose their mouth and tongue when threatening attack, but
chemical mace (CS tear gas) is not effective against dogs, since dogs'
tear glands are less active, and they have smaller tear ducts, limiting
the spray's effects. Use of OC sprays on non-human animals may require
the highest concentration of pepper, i.e. 10%-13%, since it is believed
that dogs, for example, are less sensitive to the pain. Many sprays
contain visible or invisible dyes which are useful in identifying and
apprehending a suspect, but if the victim ends up wounded or dead due
to the essentially random chance that the spray is ineffective as a
defense, that's a fact of interest primarily to the police. Criminals
can be equally and more indelibly marked for capture by the use of a
firearm, if use of deadly force is justified, since their wounds often
require that they seek medical attention. Medical personnel are
required to report patients seeking treatment for gunshot wounds to
law enforcement authorities.
Most stun "guns" available for civilian use require direct contact
with the attacker's body, putting the victim dangerously in harm's
way, when the objective is to keep as far away as possible. Many
civilian stun guns are also underpowered, and can require several
seconds contact with the attacker in order to incapacitate. They may
also have difficulty penetrating heavy clothing, like winter coats.
Their loud crackle and brilliant blue arc_are_certainly intimidating,
however. Other stun guns (like the police TASER, and its civilian
cousin, the Air Taser) can fire electrode darts with trailing wires
_into_the target from a distance. The civilian version of the TASER,
approved for sale as a "non-firearm" by the BATF in June 1994, uses
compressed nitrogen to expel its electrode barbs, unlike the police
version, which uses an explosive propellant and is regulated under
the NFA (see National Firearms Act, Appendix I). Most stun guns
are now equipped with safety devices designed to prevent them from
being used against the defender if taken away. Criminal misuse of
contact-type stun "guns" as torture devices has occurred, so this
is a significant concern for stun gun users. The civilian TASER
includes a weapon registration system which dispenses dozens of
serial numbered microdots with each use, so as to deter criminal
use of the weapon. However, as with any registration system, theft
of the weapon or cartridges from their rightful owner could occur.
The civilian TASER also doubles as a contact-type stun "gun" for
use if the darts miss their target, or if there is no time to reload
the dart cartridge system during an assault by multiple attackers.
Another variety of stun "gun" is under development which squirts
a stream of liquid electrolyte at the target, rather than using a
wire to deliver its current. Like a TASER, it has limited range,
but it could provide for a multi-shot capacity that current wire-
launching stun "guns" lack. Still, it seems unlikely that carrying
around a liquid electrolyte reservoir will do much to reduce the
weapon's size or weight. Unfortunately, there is no "Star Trek"
style weapon that can reliably and safely "stun" a person without
some risk, however small, of lethality. People vary in their
biochemical and physiological responses to various weapons, and
the level of force which may be required to "stun" a person whose
strength and stamina has been abnormally enhanced by drugs could
prove lethal to some ordinary people. Persons who already suffer
from significant stresses to their heart or other organs can die
from the additional stresses of what would otherwise be a "less
than lethal" weapon, particularly if such weapons are misused.
But if sufficient force is not used in defending against a life-
threatening attack, the_defender_runs the risk of injury or death.
Even police stun "guns" don't always work, as evidenced by the
1991 Rodney King video. King was TASERed prior to being attacked
by baton-wielding officers but was still able to move around and
present a potential threat. (Some of the fired darts may have
missed, but had he been incapacitated by the TASER, the baton attack
would have been even more obviously excessive, and unnecessary.)
Both chemical sprays and stun guns are virtually useless in
stopping multiple attackers, while with sufficient practice, firearms
(and particularly handguns) are quite effective at stopping violent
attack, even by a determined gang of assailants. (See 3.3) Unlike
these two common non-lethal weapons, a gun, when fired, acts to alert
possible aid, and is less likely to be ignored than personal alarms.
Also, unlike non-lethal weapons, guns offer an additional intimidation
factor due to their lethality which may deter attack in circumstances
where the risk of confronting a spray can or stun "gun" would not.
Ironically, many of the same localities which have strict "gun control"
laws also prohibit ordinary citizens from owning and using chemical
defense sprays or stun guns, and the rationale is the same. Law-
abiding citizens are disarmed of any possible effective means of
self-defense because of the possibility of criminals misusing these
weapons.
Some people in high-crime "gun control" zones like Washington, D.C.
and other U.S. cities have taken to carrying cans of aerosol spray
oven cleaner (potassium or sodium hydroxide, a powerful caustic agent)
because the laws in these localities deny them the right to carry a
non-toxic pepper spray, or any other effective means of self-defense.
This illustrates precisely the type of "weapon substitution" effect
that opponents of "gun control" argue will occur if any particular class
of weapons, such as "Saturday Nite Specials," is banned. People who are
determined to have weapons, whether they are honest citizens defending
against crime, or criminals obtaining the tools of their trade, will
find a way around any ban, and will often end up having a deadlier
weapon that the one that has been banned. (After all, if someone is
breaking the law_anyway,_it matters little whether they break it to
carry a "Saturday Nite Special" or a sawed-off shotgun or machinegun.)
Oven cleaner can cause permanent damage and/or blindness, and aside
from the child-resistant cap (which would make the can difficult to use
in emergency situations), oven cleaner cans lack the safety mechanisms
which are found on many tear gas or pepper spray containers to
prevent accidental discharge. Its permanent and harmful effects may
also be used by prosecutors to prejudice a jury, moreso even than if
the defender had used a gun! There's very little chance that banning
oven cleaner will occur, since the_only_localities which have this
"problem" are the ones which deny their good citizens any other means
to protect themselves.
In Canada, use of pepper spray against bears and dogs is legal, but
not against human predators. Only the police in Canada are allowed
to use OC pepper spray on humans. Anyone else caught using this
"prohibited weapon" to protect themselves faces a possible_10-year_
_prison_term!_ In spite of the law, Canadian citizens are "arming
for bear" by exploiting this legal loophole, though the government
is cracking down on sales. Pepper defense sprays are also legally
unavailable to citizens in Germany, since German law requires that any
such defensive spray be first tested on animals, and a 1987 German law
prohibits the testing of weapons on animals. Pepper sprays are gaining
popularity worldwide, however, since they are the most effective
personal defense option for people whose governments don't trust their
citizens with firearms, or for people who choose not to use firearms
in defense of their lives and their families.
There has been some concern expressed by the American Civil Liberties
Union (ACLU) in about 30 cases in which pepper spray has thought to have
been associated with deaths of suspects in police custody, but a review
of these cases by the International Association of Chiefs of Police, a
pro-"gun control" police organization, said that most of the incidents
could be attributable to factors such as improper use of restraints like
handcuffs in ways which restricted breathing, the suspect's obesity,
and/or the suspect's use of alcohol and/or cocaine. That the ACLU could
find only 28 such questionable incidents during the three year period of
its investigation, and also the fact that ACLU did not claim that pepper
spray directly caused the deaths, only underscores the essential safety
of the sprays as a non-lethal defensive weapon. (In light of the ACLU's
findings, users concerned about the remote possibility of killing an
attacker with pepper spray should beware of using the spray against
drunken asthmatic fat guys on "crack.")
1.1.b "2.5 million defensive uses of firearms each year can't be true!"
See Kleck and Gertz (1995), above.
See also testimony of David Bordua and Garen Wintemute in
_Gun Laws and the Need for Self-Defense,_hearings (above)
_Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics 1994,_Bureau of
Justice Statistics, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Dept.
of Justice, SuDoc# J 29.9/6:994 (1994)
In summary: In a nation of some 97 million households, about half of
which own one or more firearms, is a rate of defensive gun use (DGU)
which amounts to about 1.4% per year an unreasonably high figure?
A study undertaken by a group led by criminologist Dr. Gary Kleck of
Florida State University found that there are approximately 2.1 to 2.5
million instances annually in which individual Americans use a gun to
defend themselves. Considered as households, the figure is 1.3 to 1.5
million annual DGUs (Kleck 1995, Table 2). If this figure is correct,
defensive uses of firearms are much more common than crimes committed
with guns. Kleck's study defines a DGU as a defensive action against
a human (rather than an animal), involving actual contact with the
person being defended against, in which the defender could state a
specific crime which he or she thought was being committed at the time
of the incident, and in which the defender's gun was actually used in
some way, even if it was only as part of a verbal threat. A reported
DGU incident must meet all of these criteria in order to be counted
as a valid DGU for the purposes of the survey. Additionally, DGUs
associated with work as a policeman, security guard, or member of
the military are excluded.
The data for the Kleck study were collected using an anonymous
nationwide random-digit-dialed telephone survey of 4,977 adults
conducted from February through April of 1993 by Research Network,
a telephone polling company located in Tallahassee, FL. After a few
general questions about problems in their community and crime, those
polled were asked "Within the past five years, have you yourself or
another member of your household used a gun, even if it was not fired,
for self-protection or for the protection of property at home, work,
or elsewhere? Please do not include military service, police work,
or work as a security guard." Those who answered "Yes" were then
asked whether their defensive use was against an animal or a person,
asked to state how many defensive gun use incidents against persons
had happened to members of their household in the last five years,
and asked whether any of the incident or incidents had occurred in
the last twelve months. Of those surveyed, 222 respondents reported
DGUs within the past five years. All respondents reporting DGU, as
well as 20% of those not reporting a DGU, were called back to validate
their initial survey interviews. These raw data were then corrected
for oversampling in the South and West regions, where gun ownership
is highest; and oversampling for males, who are not only more likely
to own guns, but also more likely to be victims of violent crime.
The weighted results (corrected for oversampling built into the
survey) were these: 1.125% to 1.326% of respondents reported having
personally been involved in a DGU incident within the past year, with
1.366% to 1.587% of households reporting a household member being
involved in a DGU incident within the past year (which would include
those DGUs mentioned above involving the respondent). Calculations
based on the estimated adult population of the U.S. and the estimated
number of households in the U.S. show that at this rate there would
be 2,163,519 to 2,549,862 DGUs in 1993 if considered on an individual
basis, or some 1,325,918 to 1,540,405 DGU-involved households. For
comparison, the estimated number of violent crimes committed with
guns in 1993 was 588,140, according to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports.
Kleck discusses the flaws inherent in previous surveys, including
the Justice Department's National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS),
which gives the lowest estimate of all methods used to calculate the
number of DGU incidents. The NCVS, Kleck argues, though based upon
a much larger sample than his own survey, severely undercounts the
number of DGUs because respondents are being asked by a government
official to_volunteer_information about incidents in which they may
possibly have done something that was illegal (such as committing
assault with a deadly weapon by pointing a gun at someone), or which
involved an illegal act (such as carrying a gun without a permit).
Further, the NCVS never asks directly whether the respondents used
a gun to protect themselves, and only asks its general question
about self-protection after respondents have already reported the
location of their victimization incident, which in most cases is
reported as being away from the victim's home. Since carrying a gun
without a permit is often illegal, there would be a strong motivation
for respondents not to report DGU outside the home. But how accurate
is the Kleck survey's estimate? What are some possible alternative
explanations that could influence these results?
First, consider some factors which could produce an overestimate.
The sample size, or number of persons surveyed, while smaller than
the NCVS, is several times larger than that usually used in most
public opinion polls. Extrapolating from too small of a sample is
one way to get an overestimate, but this is not a problem for Kleck's
survey, since the Gallup Poll and the Roper Center routinely use
samples smaller than this for their national surveys. (The results
of such national polls are often promoted as newsworthy.) As Kleck
notes, the random sampling error of his survey is less than 1%.
The phenomenon known as "telescoping," in which past events are
remembered as being much more recent than they actually are, could
account for some increase in reported DGUs, but Kleck's survey,
which uses two time periods, asking about events in the past five
years, and within the last twelve months, takes this into account.
Kleck's definition of a DGU to include defense of property could
serve to increase the number of reported DGUs, since use of deadly
force to protect property is not legally recognized in many states.
Kleck notes however, that it was not the purpose of the survey to
discern the legality or morality of the respondent's actions.
One possible source of overestimation that has been seized
upon by critics wanting to explain away Kleck's results is what
Kleck terms the "dishonest respondent" hypothesis, or in other
words, that the respondents made up a story about a DGU. Only
24% of respondents reporting a DGU claimed to have fired their
gun, and even if one were to discard these reported DGUs entirely
(and arbitrarily) as overly dramatic, this leaves well over a
million and a half estimated DGUs, a rate_twenty times_that of
the estimate derived from the NCVS. To assume that even 24% of
respondents are actively trying to create a dramatic story which
is internally consistent enough to deceive the experienced team
of interviewers Kleck used, much less a sufficient number to
account for the vast difference in estimates between the Kleck
survey and the NCVS, is in itself hard to believe. For the NCVS
to miss a DGU requires only that the respondent not volunteer
the information, but as Kleck observes "[t]here is no precedent
in criminological research" for the "enormous level of intentional
and sustained falsification" on the part of respondents which
would be required in order to account for the 30-fold difference
in estimated annual DGUs between Kleck's survey and the NCVS.
Indeed, Kleck argues, there is reason to believe that the
estimate of 2.5 million annual DGUs is_too low._ There is the
problem of self-censorship in reporting, since there is evidence
that some respondents to the Kleck survey were wary of reporting
such incidents to anonymous strangers, much less to government
officials as in the NCVS. Several respondents expressed suspicion
of the interviewer prior to answering "no" to the DGU question,
perhaps because they view their actions as legally questionable.
There may also be instances in which respondents regarded their
own DGU incidents as too minor to report, or households in which
DGU incidents of other household members were not known to the
respondent, or where it was not considered appropriate to discuss
the DGU incidents of other household members. The limitations
of a telephone survey preclude sampling among the 5% of American
households without telephones, most of which are poor and/or rural.
As poor people are more likely to be victims of crime, and there
is a higher rate of gun ownership in rural areas, this could also
contribute to an underestimation of the number of DGUs.
1.1.c "Is there any independent data that supports Kleck and Gertz?"
See Kleck and Gertz (1995), above.
also _National Institute of Justice Research in Brief,_
"Guns in America: National Survey on Private Ownership
and Use of Firearms," May 1997, SuDoc# J 28.24:G 95/3 (1997)
In summary: A recent study funded by the National Institute of
Justice, and conducted by criminologists Phillip J. Cook of Duke
University and Jens Ludwig of Georgetown University, on behalf of
the pro-"gun control" Police Foundation (a non-profit Washington
D.C.-based research group spun off from the Ford Foundation in
1970), found a reported 1.5 million annual DGUs in 1994, using the
Kleck/Gertz criteria. The data for the Cook/Ludwig study were
obtained from a nationwide random-digit-dialed telephone survey
of 2,568 adults conducted during November and December of 1994 by
Chilton Research Services of Drexel Hill, PA. While the authors of
the Police Foundation study consider their survey to be "a reliable
reference" for other purposes (such as estimating the percentage of
gun-owning households), the DGU estimates, they say, are greatly
exaggerated and not informative as to whether private gun ownership
has a net positive or negative effect on crime. In attempting to
explain away this particular finding, Cook and Ludwig argue by
comparison to the NCVS data that for example, the number of DGUs
reported to their survey as being associated with rapes or attempted
rapes is greater than the total number of rapes or attempted rapes
estimated by the NCVS. It has been argued by some criminologists,
however, as Kleck and Gertz note in their survey results, that the
NCVS severely undercounts rapes, and would miss "nearly all DGUs
associated with" them (p.155). Cook and Ludwig describe other
comparisons between their DGU counts and the NCVS data as "almost
as absurd," and note that their survey also suggests that "130,000
criminals are wounded or killed by civilian gun defenders," which
they say is "completely out of line with other, more reliable
statistics on the number of gunshot cases." The Kleck/Gertz survey
likewise found that DGU-involved respondents who reported firing
their gun at the offender (which was in only 15.6% of the cases)
were likely to "remember with favor" their marksmanship and report
that they had wounded the offender (8.3% of respondents). Kleck and
Gertz discount these wounding reports, writing that "If 8.3% really
hit their adversaries, and a total of 15.6% fired at their adversaries,
this would imply... a level of combat marksmanship far exceeding that
typically observed even among police officers" (p.173).
In explaining away their large number of estimated DGUs, Cook and
Ludwig invoke a variation on the "dishonest respondent" hypothesis,
namely that most such reports are "false positives," a result of the
probability bias that some of the large number of non-DGU involved
respondents will make up a story, while the smaller number of actual
DGU-involved respondents will make less of a difference to the total
estimate, no matter how they respond. Other factors, including
"telescoping," or that respondents "may be geniunely confused due to
substance abuse, mental illness, or simply less-than-accurate memories"
could produce these "false positives," the authors argue. While
"telescoping" may affect DGU estimates, the latter factors should
also affect the overall reliability of other questions in the survey
(indeed of any survey). Cook and Ludwig describe their results as
"the most complete data available on the private stock of firearms
in the United States." But considering the public stigma which has
been placed on gun owners by much of the mass media, Cook and Ludwig's
confidence in their finding that just 35% of respondents households
own guns (by comparison to the approximately 50% of households found
in previous surveys) may be misplaced. If Cook and Ludwig can't
believe those respondents who claim to have used a gun defensively,
how can they trust their respondents to report accurately about their
"arsenals" of "cop-killer assault weapons," "junk guns," and "high
powered sniper rifles" to anonymous strangers on the telephone?
1.2 "It's too easy for your attacker to take your gun away
from you and shoot you."
See Kleck,_Point Blank_(see above) p.122.
also_Uniform Crime Reports: Law Enforcement Officers Killed
and Assaulted 19xx,_United States Department of Justice, Federal
Bureau of Investigation, SuDoc#s J 1.14/7-6:9xx-993
In summary: The techniques required for "weapon retention" are not
all that difficult to master, but the greatest risk for being disarmed
by an attacker appears to be from open carry in a holster as police
officers do. Some ten to fourteen percent of law enforcement officers
who are killed are shot with their own guns. By contrast, an average
of 1% or fewer of armed citizens end up disarmed by their attacker,
no doubt in part because criminals_expect_police to be armed, but are
mostly unpleasantly_surprised_to find their intended victims are.
Police are also more frequently in contact with desperate and dangerous
people, who_they_must attempt to personally apprehend, increasing
their risk of being in close enough proximity to be disarmed. Private
citizens with guns need not take such risks, and can carry concealed,
confronting their attackers at a distance in many situations, rather
than permitting attackers to get close enough where a knife or brute
strength can come into play. In a home defense situation this is
particularly true, if the armed homeowner is alerted by the sound of
forced entry, or by an alarm. For the physically weaker members of
our society, for the elderly, or the disabled, no other means of self-
defense negates the advantages of youth, agility and strength as
effectively as a firearm (see 3.1), and none but firearms can defeat
strength in numbers. In most cases, the credible brandishing of a gun
convinces criminals to look for an easier target, but if life-
threatening danger is imminent, and the situation permits, having a gun
gives the defender an additional option of resistance, which can reduce
the risk of being injured or killed (see 1.1 and 1.1.a).
1.2.a - "Women shouldn't have guns because men will only take
them away and use them against them".
see also
Stange, Mary Zeiss, "Arms and the Woman: A Feminist Reappraisal,"
in_Guns: Who Should Have Them?,_David Kopel, ed., Prometheus
Books, ISBN 0-87975-958-5 (1995), a book which is an excellent
introduction to the political issues surrounding gun ownership.
Another variation of the "your attacker will just take it away"
scenario is sometimes used by those in favor of victim disarmament
when the subject is women and guns. "The man will just take the
gun away from you" is a very interesting statement which cries out
to be deconstructed. All too often, this statement goes entirely
unchallenged, not merely on factual grounds, but at a deeper
philosophical level. Repeated requests for civilian examples of
this phenomenon have gone unanswered in talk.politics.guns and
other newsgroups.
All acknowledge that a firearm is a dangerous implement capable
of inflicting serious injury or death. That being the case, it would
seem a simple matter for the woman in question to merely_shoot_the
assailant attempting to disarm her. And in this scenario, the male
assailant is_assisting_the female defender by presenting her with a
larger, closer target, difficult even for an inexperienced shooter
to miss. If the weapon in question is a handgun, wresting control
of it is much more difficult than it would be for the attacker to
grasp a longer-barreled weapon, such as a shotgun or rifle. The
simplest of logic dictates that dead men don't snatch guns away,
and that relatively smart men who don't want to become dead men,
shouldn't try.
Given the odds against the male in purely physical terms, we must
look for another reason why "gun control" advocates might claim
that the attacker can so easily disarm a woman. The only obvious
explanation would be that the woman_voluntarily_gives the gun away.
The entire foundation of the victim disarmer's argument is that
when faced with a violent male attacker, a woman armed with a
lethal weapon, instead of using that weapon to defend life and
limb, will instead_give_that weapon to the man intent upon robbing,
raping or murdering her.
This "explanation" has numerous implications, which are quite
understandably not commented upon by "gun control" advocates when
they advance this scenario. If indeed women have an uncontrollable
urge to arm those who would harm them, does this not call into
question the very concept of armed policewomen? After all, what
point is there in training, uniforming and arming women at great
public expense, when all they'll do is just_give away_their weapons
to any criminal who confronts them?
And what of women in the armed forces? Why give a woman a Beretta
or an M16A2 when she'll just go looking for an Iraqi soldier to hand
it to? Certainly, if the victim disarmers' argument is to be accepted,
no women should be allowed to serve in Artillery or Air Defense
units, since the enemy will quickly amass a stockpile of 8" guns and
Patriot missiles,_willingly_turned over to them by female soldiers.
Can the nation really afford the risk that female pilots will go
off in search of enemy airfields at which they might land their
multi-million dollar fighter planes? If some in the "gun control"
movement are to be believed, we might just as well ship F14s directly
to Libya rather than allow women to fly them unbidden to Quadaffi's
airfields. Only a few defections of female captains of aircraft
carriers would be sufficient to completely neutralize the United
States Navy. Dare we take the risk?
What madman would think to put nuclear weapons into a woman's hands
if indeed women are one tenth as easily cowed as the "gun control"
lobby makes them out to be? It would be sheer national suicide to
elect a female President when only a raised eyebrow or harsh word
on the part of a Rafsanjani or Karadzic would reduce her to abject
surrender...
Of course it could be that women_aren't_the sniveling cowards
that the victim disarmers make them out to be. Perhaps rather than
the immobilized victims of a thousand slasher films, women are rather
more like Buddhist nun Ng Mui, the philosphical antecedent of Bruce
Lee. Perhaps rather than burst into tears, they're more likely to
serve a cannon like the women who fought in the Revolutionary War.
Perhaps rather than arm their assailants, they'll take a more
proactive approach like the_soldaderas_of the Mexican revolution,
or Soviet combat pilots like Lilya Litvak and the "Night Witches".
Perhaps like Israeli women soldiers and female PLO guerrillas,
they're quite capable of taking care of themselves.
The simple truth is that the "He'll just take her gun away"
scenario is wallowing in all of the worst condescending stereotypes
inflicted on women. It proudly proclaims that women are weak,
cowardly, and_want_to be attacked. If there's any good reason
for "gun control," misogyny isn't it.
--
Adapted from a posting by Chris Morton ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
--
1.3 "Guns are too dangerous to keep in the house if you've
got children."
See_Guns, Crime, and Freedom_by Wayne LaPierre, Regnery Books,
ISBN 0-89526-477-3, (1994), where he devotes an entire chapter
(Chapter 9) to this. _Guns, Crime and Freedom_is also out in
"trade paperback" (an oversize paperback) from HarperCollins,
ISBN 0-06-097674-8 (1995). [Wayne LaPierre is the chief executive
officer of the National Rifle Association, and one of its spokesmen.
NRA can be reached at 11250 Waples Mill Rd., Fairfax, VA 22030,
at (800) NRA-3888 for membership information, (703) 267-1000 for
general inquiries, and on the Web at http://www.nra.org/ ]
also
Kleck,_Point Blank,_pp.276-280.
_Accident Facts,_1994_by National Safety Council Staff, ISBN
0-87912-183-1, (1994)
American Sports Shooting Council website at http://assc.org/index.html
In summary: The death of children, whether by abuse, neglect, homicide,
suicide, or accident, is a particular tragedy, because for most children
their safety is dependent on adults to protect them from harm. This
responsibility for protecting children is primarily that of their
parents, as it is for so much of their physical, emotional, and
intellectual sustenance. As with any potentially dangerous item in the
home, it is the responsibility of parents to do their best to secure
their firearms from misuse by children who are unaware of that potential
danger, as much as responsible parents try to protect their children
from the hazards of electricity, household chemicals, poisons, and
physical injury from falls, sharp objects, fire, choking, or drowning.
Part of that protection, when they are old enough to understand, is
education. Safes are available which allow quick access to defensive
firearms when needed, while preventing unauthorized access; and modern
firearms (particularly semi-automatics) are designed with safety
features to prevent accidental discharges. In an attempt to further
reduce gun accidents in the home, fifteen major firearms manufacturers
representing the American Sports Shooting Council (ASSC) voluntarily
agreed October 9, 1997 to package locking devices (such as trigger
locks) with each new handgun they produce. Six other companies are
now considering joining the agreement. But "childproofing" a home
is no substitute for "accident-proofing" or "gun-proofing" a child so
that they can understand the dangers and actively avoid them, whether
at home, at school, or at a friend's house.
Irrationally, the same people who use accidental shootings of
children to advance the cause of "gun control" are often opposed to
educational efforts to teach children how to avoid gun accidents and
injuries, though they may favor education as a means to make children
aware of the risks of venereal disease and pregnancy. The U.S. National
Rifle Association, for its part, has championed the cause of gun safety
and training for over a century, and since 1988 has promoted a safety
program for children in grades K-6 which tells those youngsters to
"Stop! Don't Touch! Leave The Area! Tell An Adult!" if they find a gun.
The NRA's "Eddie Eagle" program (originated by Florida grandmother and
current NRA president, Marion Hammer) has been used in schools across
the nation, and was awarded the National Safety Council's Outstanding
Community Service Award in October 1993. The rate of firearms accidents
generally has been declining since the 1970s, largely due to public
education about the basic rules of firearm safety, even as the number
of firearms in the U.S. population has increased. Firearm-related
accidental deaths involving children 14 and under in the U.S. totaled
227 in 1991, trailing many more commonplace causes of accidental death
among children, including car accidents (3,087 deaths), fire (1,104
deaths), and drowning (1,104 deaths).
SECTION II. - Constitutional issues in the United States
"Are we at last brought to such a humiliating and debasing
degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our
own defence? Where is the difference between having our arms
in our own possession and under our own direction, and having
them under the management of Congress? If our defence be
the_real_object of having those arms, in whose hands can they
be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as
in our own hands?"
-=(Patrick Henry, in_Debates in the Several State
Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution,_
Jonathan Elliot, ed. 1836, v.3 p.168)=-
2.0 "The Second Amendment is really just an irrelevant anachronism,
but if it has any meaning at all today, it just means that the
Federal government can't disarm the National Guard."
See United States Constitution (U.S.C.), Amendment II:
"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." (See also 2.0.a)
also U.S.C. Article I, sec. 8 (clauses 15 and 16, commonly
referred to as "the militia clauses") -- Powers of Congress:
"...To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the
Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the
Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed
in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States
respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority
of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed
by Congress;"
also U.S.C. Article II, sec. 2 (clause 1) -- President to be
Commander-in-Chief. (etc.)
"The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy
of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States,
when called into the actual Service of the United States;"
also U.S. Code Annotated (U.S.C.A.) title 10 sec. 311
(as amended Nov. 30, 1993) [relating to the definition of militia]
"311. Militia: composition and classes
(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied
males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section
313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a
declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States
and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the
National Guard.
(b) The classes of the militia are--
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National
Guard and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members
of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the
Naval Militia."
also U.S.C.A. title 32 sect. 101 (as amended Sep. 29, 1988)
[relating to the establishment of the National Guard]
"101. Definitions
[...]
(3) "National Guard" means the Army National Guard and the
Air National Guard.
(4) "Army National Guard" means that part of the organized
militia of the several States and Territories, Puerto Rico,
and the District of Columbia, active and inactive, that--
(A) is a land force;
(B) is trained, and has its officers appointed, under the
sixteenth clause of section 8, article I, of the Constitution;
(C) is organized, armed, and equipped wholly or partly at
Federal expense; and
(D) is federally recognized.
(5) "Army National Guard of the United States" means the
reserve component of the Army all of whose members are members
of the Army National Guard.
(6) "Air National Guard" means that part of the organized
militia of the several States and Territories, Puerto Rico,
and the District of Columbia, active and inactive, that--
(A) is an air force;
(B) is trained, and has its officers appointed, under the
sixteenth clause of section 8, article I, of the Constitution;
(C) is organized, armed, and equipped wholly or partly at
Federal expense; and
(D) is federally recognized.
(7) "Air National Guard of the United States" means the reserve
component of the Air Force all of whose members are members of the
Air National Guard."
also _A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language,_edited by
Noah Webster (1803), p. 252
also Oxford English Dictionary (O.E.D.), 2nd ed. (1989) v.XX p. 138
for definition of "well-regulated"
"WELL-'REGULATED, ppl. a. [participial adjective]
1709 SHAFTSB._Moralists_II. iv. 108 If a liberal Education
has form'd in us . . well-regulated Appetites, and worthy
Inclinations. 1714 R. FIDDES._Pract._Disc._II. 250 The
practice of all well regulated courts of justice in the world.
1812 J. JOYCE._Sci._Dial.,_Astron._xii. II. 126 The equation of
time . . is the adjustment of the difference of time, as shown
by a well-regulated clock, and a true sun-dial. 1848
THACKERAY_Van._Fair._lviii, A remissness for which I am
sure every well-regulated person will blame the Major. 1862
MRS. H. WOOD_Mrs._Hallib._I. v. 27 It appeared, to her well-
regulated mind, like a clandestine proceeding. 1894 _Pop._
_Sci._Monthly._June 165 The newspaper, a never wanting
adjunct to every well-regulated American embryo city."
also v.XIII pp. 524-525 of the O.E.D. for the definitions of
"regulated" and "regulation"
also "Publius" (pseud. Alexander Hamilton), "Federalist VI,"
_The Independent Journal (N.Y.),_Nov. 14, 1787, p.2, col.2
also_Commentaries on the Laws of England,_by Sir William Blackstone,
Oxford, (1765), Bk.I ch.I pp.136-139
also_A Discourse of Government with relation to Militia's,_[sic]
by Andrew Fletcher, (1698)
also Virginia Constitution, art. I, sec. 13 (See text at 2.3)
also
Cottrol, Robert J., and Diamond, Raymond T., "The Second
Amendment: Toward an Afro-Americanist Reconsideration,"
Georgetown Law J. v.80 pp. 309-361 (1991) [Reprinted in
_Guns: Who Should Have Them?,_David B. Kopel, ed. (see above)]
Kates, Jr., Donald B., "The Second Amendment and the Ideology
of Self-Protection," Constitutional Commentary v.9 pp. 87-104
(1992)
_That Every Man Be Armed: The Evolution of a Constitutional Right,_
by Stephen P. Halbrook, University of New Mexico Press [reprinted by
the Independent Institute], ISBN 0-945999-24-0, (1984)
_For the Defense of Themselves and the State: The Original Intent
and Judicial Interpretation of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms,_
by Clayton E. Cramer, Praeger Publications, ISBN 0-275-94913-3 (1994)
_The Constitution of the United States,_an annotated edition by the
research staff of the Library of Congress, U.S. Senate Document 99-16
(1982)
_To Keep And Bear Arms: The Origins of an Anglo-American Right,_
by Joyce Malcolm, Harvard University Press, ISBN 0-674-89306-9,
(1994)
_The Roots of the Bill of Rights,_by Bernard Schwartz, Chelsea House,
ISBN 0-87754-207-4, (1980) [an illustrated 5-vol. edition of Schwartz'
definitive work_The Bill of Rights: A Documentary History,_Chelsea
House, ISBN 07-0796613-0 (1971)]
_United States Statutes at Large,_published under the authority of
the United States Congress; Little, Brown, and Co., Boston, Mass.,
[no ISBN] v. I, p. 21 (1861)
and
Dred Scott v. Sandford, U.S. Reports (19 Howard) v.60 p.417, Lawyer's
Edition v.15 p.691 (1856)
Perpich v. Department of Defense, U.S. Reports v.496 p.334, Supreme
Court Reporter v.110 p.2418, Lawyer's Edition 2nd series v.110
p.312 (1990) (see abstract in Appendix V.)
In summary: There is no historical basis to the claim that the Framers
of the Second Amendment intended to limit its scope solely to protecting
organized state militias from being disarmed by the Federal Government.
In any event, the National Guard is a reserve unit of the United States
Army, and not a creation of the individual state governments. It is
essentially a Federal force which the governors of the states may
"borrow" if the Federal Government does not object. During the civil
rights movement of the 1960s, governors attempting to enforce
segregation by using the National Guard found out why it's called
"National" (if they hadn't known already). The English common law
tradition, and the works of political philosophy which influenced the
Founders of our republic, as well as their own writings, show that the
right to keep and bear arms (RKBA, as it's often abbreviated on t.p.g.)
was considered the hallmark of a free people, and distinguished a free
man from a slave (see 3.3). Prior to the January 21, 1903 establishment
of the National Guard, the Militia Act passed by the Second Congress
on May 8, 1792 had been in force, requiring "each and every free able-
bodied white male citizen of the respective states" between age 18 and
45 to be enrolled in the local militia, and to "provide himself" with
arms as specified by Congress (originally an eighteen gauge firelock
or musket). Following the establishment of the National Guard, Congress
provided for the arming and training of the National Guard under its
powers raise and support armies, and made the organized militias of
the states into a reserve unit of the U.S. Army called the National
Guard of the United States. The National Guard has been part of the
Army by law since June 15, 1933; another part of the trend towards
an increasingly centralized national government which began after the
1861-1865 U.S. Civil War.
2.0.a "What's the deal with the commas, and the hyphen in
'well-regulated'? You gun nuts seem to be obsessed with them."
In summary: Archaic punctuation, usage, and peculiar grammar (though
certainly no more peculiar than many modern legal documents) to some
degree obscure the plain meaning of the Second Amendment. As in any
human endeavor, mistakes can be made, and from time to time here on
t.p.g., the authors of this particular bit of the Bill of Rights get
flamed over whether there is in fact (or ought to be) a hyphen in
"well regulated" (and/or fewer commas overall) so as to clarify the
Amendment's meaning to modern readers.
The choice of the adjective "unalienable" rather than "inalienable"
in the Declaration of Independence has scarcely received more notice
than the issue of proper punctuation in the Second Amendment. Confusion
over the punctuation dates back to the very drafting and ratification of
the Bill of Rights, since some sources give the text of Amendment II as
"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."
with only one comma, and no internal capitalization. This version is
found in the Senate Journal for Sept. 25th, 1789, and in the Library of
Congress' annotated version of the U.S. Constitution, as well as in the
ratification document for the Bill of Rights as passed by the State of
New York. Another version of the Second Amendment, this one reading
"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."
can be found in the first volume of_U.S. Statutes at Large,_which was
published by the Congress in 1861 (note the capitalization of "State"
but not "militia" or "arms," and the single comma).
The trouble is, the more commonly referenced version, which reads
"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."
is the version which can be found on permanent display at the National
Archives, since it's in the Federal Government's original engrossed copy
of the Bill of Rights which was signed by Speaker of the House Frederick
Muhlenberg and Vice-President John Adams, and that is the version which
was copied and submitted to the states for ratification. This is also
the version found in the U.S. Code Annotated, and it appears to be the
version which was ratified, but given that the one-comma version is the
one that the Congress passed and published, it would appear that any of
the versions can be considered correct, and the Great Comma Controversy
is unresolved (and perhaps unresolvable).
The issue of what "well regulated" meant to the Framers is a much
simpler question to resolve. To the modern reader, "well regulated"
has acquired the primary connotation of_government_regulation, rather
than that of "efficient" or "well functioning" which it had in the 18th
Century. About the only common usage today of "regulate" in this sense
is found in those commercials dealing with "occasional irregularity,"
and as such, modern dictionary definitions, especially such as are
found in legal dictionaries, have little relevance to the issue.
The first dictionary of American English usage, published by Noah
Webster in 1803, gives no entry for "well regulated," but does include
an entry for "regulars," which Webster defines as "standing troops,
[as] opposed to militia." The Oxford English Dictionary includes as
one of the definitions of "regulated" a meaning which directly applies
to troops, that of "properly disciplined," and includes a citation to
a 1690 article in the_London Gazette._ Indeed, Alexander Hamilton uses
"well regulated" in this same martial sense in_Federalist #6_when he
writes that ancient "Sparta was little better than a well regulated
camp..." --in other words "an armed camp." The British Whigs, whose
arms right incorporated in the English Bill of Rights of 1689 was the
antecedent for similar (but more generous) provisions in the Bills of
Rights of the American states, and later the Bill of Rights of the
United States, thought of a "well-regulated militia" as a check on
the power of the King, and that the RKBA was an individual right,
just as was the right to petition the King. The great English jurist
Sir William Blackstone wrote of the right to keep and bear arms as
just such an individual right in his 1765 _Commentaries on the Laws of
England,_and termed it the "fifth auxiliary right" of the subject,
and as important as those of "applying to the courts of justice for
redress of injuries," "the right of petitioning the king," and the
statutory "limitation of the king's prerogative," all of which served
to "protect and maintain inviolate the three great and primary rights,
of personal security, personal liberty, and private property."
Andrew Fletcher, a Scottish Whig, in his_Discourse on Government with
Relation to Militia's,_[sic] wrote of the necessity of "well-regulated
militias" to defend not only against invasion by a foreign force, but
against the "danger of slavery at home," a prospect that seems unlikely
if "well-regulated" means anything other than "properly disciplined."
While "regulated" and "regulation" can certainly be said to have
"government regulation" among their meanings at the time of the writing
of the U.S. Bill of Rights, that connotation was far from as dominant
at that time as it has become today, in an age when self-regulation was
the rule, and a "well-regulated militia" was "the body of the people,
trained to arms." Indeed, one of the most important characteristics
of a "well-regulated militia" as it was understood by the British Whigs,
and by the American Founding Fathers, was that it be a "general militia"
composed of the majority of citizens of the republic, rather than a
"select militia" or armed minority of troops who could impose their
will on a disarmed people, as the standing army of the King had done
upon his subjects. The term "regular army" (as opposed to "irregulars")
gives some idea of the type of discipline and order which the authors
of the Second Amendment were trying to evoke with respect to the
militia, which they saw as the best available alternative to the dangers
and expense of a standing army. (See 3.3) The Second Amendment is best
considered as a modification of the existing militia clauses of the
Constitution, so as to prevent them from being interpreted in a way
that would permit the Congress to disarm the ordinary citizens and
establish a "select militia" or standing army in place of the "general
militia".
2.1 "The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution does not
guarantee an individual right."
A few relevant law review articles [from the list given in
LaPierre,_Guns, Crime and Freedom,_(see above) pp.238-240]:
Shalhope, Robert, "The Armed Citizen In The Early Republic,"
Law and Contemporary Problems v.49 pp.125-141 (1986)
Levinson, Sanford, "The Embarrassing Second Amendment,"
Yale Law J. v.99 pp. 637-659 (1989)
Amar, Akhil, "The Bill of Rights as a Constitution,"
Yale Law J., v.100 pp.1131-1210 (1990)
Cottrol and Diamond, Georgetown Law J. (see above)
Kates, Jr., Constitutional Commentary (see above)
Van Alstyne, William, "The Second Amendment and the Personal
Right to Arms," Duke Law J. v.43 pp. 1236-1255 (1994)
and others
also
Halbrook,_That Every Man Be Armed_(1984)
see also
_The Right to Keep and Bear Arms,_report of the subcommittee on the
Constitution of the Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. Senate, 97th
Congress, second session, Feb. 1982, SuDoc# Y4.J 89/2: Ar 5/5
also
"In conformity with the interests of the working people, and in
order to strengthen the socialist system, the citizens of the U.S.S.R.
are guaranteed by law: (a) Freedom of Speech; (b) Freedom of the Press,
(c) Freedom of assembly, including the holding of mass meetings; (d)
Freedom of street processions and demonstrations.
In order to guarantee to all workers real freedom of opinion, the
Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic abolishes the dependence
of the press on capitalism, and places at the disposal of the working
class and the peasantry all the technical and material means for the
publication of newspapers, pamphlets, books, and all other publications
of the press, and guarantees free circulation for them throughout
the country."
--Constitution of the U.S.S.R., partially attributed to Stalin,
Jan. 31, 1924
quoted in
_The Great Thoughts,_compiled by George Seldes, Ballantine Books,
ISBN 0-345-29887-X, (1985)
In summary: The phrase "the right of the people" means the same thing
in the Second Amendment as it does in the First and Fourth Amendments.
The U.S. Constitution recognizes and protects, but does not_grant,_
the pre-existing right of individuals to keep and bear arms. This
is because the Framers assumed that the basis of governmental power
originates with the people, whose natural rights are either ceded to
government in the form of governmental powers, specifically protected
from the powers of government by listing them in the Bill of Rights,
or retained by the people, according to the Ninth Amendment.
The history of the drafting of the Second Amendment also makes clear
that "the right of the people" means a civil right belonging to each
individual citizen. The first proposed draft of the amendment as
written by James Madison reads:
"The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not
be infringed; a well armed and well regulated militia
being the best security of a free country; but no person
religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled
to render military service in person."
In addition to clarifying that the Second Amendment has nothing
to do with guns owned for "sporting purposes" like hunting (see
Gun Control Act of 1968, Appendix I.), this earlier draft clearly
illustrates that the "person" whose religious scruples require that
he_not_"bear arms" would not be compelled to do so by the Congress,
and that the "person" referred to in the text is an individual, and
not a group.
This version of the Second Amendment also closely reflects the spirit
of the First Amendment's clauses dealing with religious freedom, in that
the Congress should have no power to prohibit the keeping and bearing of
arms, but neither should it have the power to compel those persons we
would today call "conscientious objectors" to do so. It's unlikely that
Madison intended this earlier draft of the Second Amendment to prohibit
the Congress only from calling up all the Quakers and other pacifists
_en_masse_as a militia, but rather that each individual would respond
to the nation's call as their individual consciences dictated, and that
they would "keep and bear" their private weapons to that end. Indeed,
the Militia Act passed by the Second Congress in 1792 did require
exactly that, and such a requirement was in force for well over 100
years (see 2.0). This is not to say that the right to keep and bear
arms is dependent upon the existence of an organized militia, or
that_only_military weapons are constitutionally protected, since, as
with the other enumerated rights found in the Constitution, the right
is assumed by the Framers to be pre-existing. Just because the right
to "peaceably assemble" is protected by the First Amendment explicitly
for the political purpose of petitioning the government "for redress of
grievances", this does not mean that_only_political speech and political
gatherings are constitutionally protected. The authors of the Bill of
Rights explicitly rejected any such narrow construction of the rights
of the people, by means of the Ninth Amendment. The Senate, in revising
Madison's proposal, rejected adding the words "for the common defence"
to the amendment by a vote on September 9th, 1789; clearly implying
that the right intended to be protected in the Second Amendment is a
right to bear arms broader than simply for militia service. The Bill
of Rights is about limiting the power of government, not the freedoms
enjoyed and exercised by We the People, and consequently it should not
be subject to such a narrow interpretation in any of its provisions.
The Bill of Rights sets forth the_minimum_standards which its authors
felt define a "free state". Ironically, Madison's "religious scruples"
clause was deleted because of fear that the government could misuse
those words to disarm whomever_it_defined as "religiously scrupulous".
The often-heard phrase "states' rights" is likewise the basis of
some confusion in arguments about constitutional issues, because
states don't have_"rights"_under the American Constitution, they have
delegated_"powers,"_ and the Ninth and Tenth Amendments_clearly_
distinguish between "powers" and "rights". Governments, whether state
or federal, don't have "rights". They have_only_such powers as are
granted to them under the law. This is a very crucial distinction in
American law, and one which is the basis for every just government.
Once a government claims the "right" to do_anything,_asserting the sort
of natural rights which belong only to individuals, we have returned to
an era of the "divine right" of kings.
In American law, the idea of a "collective" right (a right belonging
to everyone - but to no one in particular) has no place. It was by just
such an idea of "collective" rights that the constitutional guarantees
of rights enumerated in the Soviet Constitution were deprived of all
practical effect. "The people" owned all the printing presses, and
could publish whatever "the people" wanted, but if anyone dared to
exercise their individual right to free expression, they might be shot,
sent to the Gulag, or to the mental hospital for "rehabilitation."
Interpreting the phrase "the right of the people" to mean a "collective"
right in the Second Amendment places the First Amendment (and the
Fourth Amendment) in peril of similar "re-interpretation". Does the
First Amendment guarantee of assembly apply only to state legislatures?
At the most basic level, the arguments for censorship under the
First Amendment and the arguments for "gun control" under the Second
are the same. Both involve prior restraint on liberty (see 3.0), and
both rest on a paternalistic assumption that the general public cannot
be trusted to exercise their liberty wisely. Underlying both is the
implication that there are certain officials of the state, censors in
the case of the First Amendment, and the police and military in the
case of the Second, who may exercise the liberties which are denied
to the people (watching and reading what is otherwise forbidden, or
carrying arms in defense of themselves and other citizens) and who can
be trusted not to abuse that power, or be corrupted by it, in ways which
their fellow citizens (mere mortals that they are) cannot. In effect
and in fact, to defend censorship, or to defend "gun control," is to
assert that there ought to be some citizens who are "more free" than
others, and that second-class citizenship for all but a select few is
permissible. Such elitism, obviously, has no place among those who
value equality before the law as a political ideal, or as the first
proposition of the American republic.
2.2 "If the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear
ordinary military weapons, then everybody can have their own tactical
nuclear warhead." [This is what is known on t.p.g. as the "nuclear
strawman" or "Ban guns, ban The Bomb!" argument, designed to get
everybody off on a tangent about whether or not the U.S. Constitution
protects privately owned nuclear weapons.]
Reynolds, Glenn H. and Kates, Don B., "The Second Amendment And
States' Rights: A Thought Experiment," William and Mary Law Rev.,
v.36 pp. 1737-1768 (1995)
In summary: The Second Amendment protects all arms, though as is
mentioned elsewhere (see 3.3), those arms which have some relationship
to a well-regulated militia are better protected than those which do
not, at least according to legal precedent. Many people (at least for
the sake of argument here on t.p.g.) are justifiably distressed at the
thought of private individuals owning such indiscriminately destructive
and persistently dangerous weapons. Some supporters of the civil right
to keep and bear arms, as a result, seek to interpret "arms" as meaning
"personal arms" (i.e. those which can be carried and used by an
individual against another individual). However, in researching the
era during which Amendment II was drafted, it is possible to find
individuals who owned cannon and privateer ships, much as it is possible
today to find people who own tanks and planes from the World War II era
(and later), some with functioning guns. Civil War re-enactor companies
today sometimes own cannon and other weapons which were state-of-the-art
for_that_period.
If one attempts to "creatively interpret" the Second Amendment today
to say that it should now only apply to "personal arms" (in the absence
of any textual or historical basis for that interpretation), what
legitimate objection can one have to others who "creatively interpret"
it to say that it now applies only to the National Guard, or even to say
that it's entirely outmoded and can be totally ignored? (See 2.0)
Any of these is an arbitrary selective interpretation, and all are
equally unsupportable, as would be any attempt to limit the First
Amendment protection of a free press only to, say, presses like those
used by Benjamin Franklin, and not the unimaginably more powerful
telecommunications devices of today. It is perhaps not surprising,
however, that the power which modern telecommunications gives to the
individual is similarly opposed, out of fears of what can possibly be
done with it (see also 4.0).
The implications of the "states' rights" interpretation of the
Second Amendment are also noteworthy in this regard. If the Second
Amendment is properly understood to protect the militias of the
state governments from being interfered with by the Federal authority,
the existing structure of the National Guard would very likely be
unconstitutional, and there could be no bar to the states possessing
independent nuclear arsenals as a counterforce to the power of the
Federal standing army. The types of "arms" available to a state
government, particularly in a wealthy state like California, would
undoubtedly exceed that of most every individual.
The Second Amendment was indeed written to protect all arms, and thus
nuclear weapons are included. If multibillionaires (or wealthy state
militias!) funding their own private bomb development efforts seem to
be a problem worthy of serious consideration, what's the solution?
Follow the procedure that the authors of the Constitution provided for
modifying the Constitution to adapt to changing times --amend it by
following the procedures in Article V. The people who wrote the
Constitution did not intend for it to be selectively interpreted in
order to fit changing conditions. They planned that if conditions
_did_change enough to warrant an alteration in a provision of the
Constitution, it should be done with due care and consideration,
and only upon the agreement of two thirds of each house of Congress,
and three fourths of the legislatures of the states. _This_is the
proper way to react to changing times-- through the amendment process,
and not by arbitrary denial of the plain language of the Constitution,
by whatever branch of government (see 2.3).
--
Based on a posting by Dan Day ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
--
2.3 "The Second Amendment doesn't apply to state and local
governments, so state gun control laws, or local ordinances
like the Morton Grove, IL ban on handguns, are constitutional."
See U.S.C. Amendment XIV, sec. 1:
"1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and
subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United
States and of the State wherein they reside. No state shall
make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or
immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State
deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due
process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction
the equal protection of the laws."
also Dowlut, Robert, "Federal and State Constitutional
Guarantees to Arms," U. Dayton Law Rev. v.15, pp. 84-89 (1989):
"Forty-three (43) states have constitutional guarantees
on the right to keep and bear arms.
ALABAMA: "That every citizen has a right to bear arms
in defense of himself and the state." Ala. Const. art. I,
S 26
ALASKA: "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." Alaska Const. art.
I, S 19
ARIZONA: "The right of the individual citizen to bear arms
in defense of himself or the State shall not be impaired,
but nothing in this section shall be construed as
authorizing individuals or corporations to organize,
maintain, or employ an armed body of men." Ariz. Const.
art. 2, S 26
ARKANSAS: "The citizens of this state shall have the right
to keep and bear arms for their common defense." Ark.
Const. art. II, S 5
COLORADO: "The right of no person to keep and bear arms in
defense of his home, person and property, or in aid of the
civil power when thereto legally summoned, shall be called
in question; but nothing herein contained shall be
construed to justify the practice of carrying concealed
weapons." Colo. Const. art. II, S 13
CONNECTICUT: "Every citizen has the right to bear arms in
defense of himself and the state." Conn. Const. art. I,
S 15
DELAWARE: "A person has the right to keep and bear arms
for the defense of self, family, home and State, and for
hunting and recreational use." Del. Const. art. I, S 20
FLORIDA: "The right of the people to keep and bear arms in
defense of themselves and of the lawful authority of the
state shall not be infringed, except that the manner of
bearing arms may be regulated by law." Fla. Const. art.
I, S 8
GEORGIA: "The right of the people to keep and bear arms
shall not be infringed, but the General Assembly shall
have the power to prescribe the manner in which arms may
be borne." Ga. Const. art. I, S I, para. VIII
HAWAII: "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." Haw. Const. art I,
S 15
IDAHO: "The people have the right to keep and bear arms,
which right shall not be abridged; but this provision
shall not prevent the passage of laws to govern the
carrying of weapons concealed on the person, nor prevent
passage of legislation providing minimum sentences for
crimes committed while in possession of a firearm, nor
prevent passage of legislation providing penalties for the
possession of firearms by a convicted felon, nor prevent
the passage of legislation punishing the use of a firearm.
No law shall impose licensure, registration or special
taxation on the ownership or possession of firearms or
ammunition. Nor shall any law permit the confiscation of
firearms, except those actually used in the commission of
a felony." Idaho Const. art. I, S 11
ILLINOIS: "Subject only to the police power, the right of
the individual citizen to keep and bear arms shall not be
infringed." Ill. Const. art. I, S 22
INDIANA: "The people shall have a right to bear arms, for
the defense of themselves and the State." Ind. Const.
art. I, S 32
KANSAS: "The people have the right to bear arms for their
defense and security; but standing armies, in time of
peace, are dangerous to liberty, and shall not be
tolerated, and the military shall be in strict
subordination to the civil power." Kansas Bill Of Rights,
S 4
KENTUCKY: "All men are, by nature, free and equal, and
have certain inherent and inalienable rights, among which
may be reckoned: .... Seventh: The right to bear arms in
defense of themselves and the state, subject to the power
of the general assembly to enact laws to prevent persons
from carrying concealed weapons." Ky. Bill Of Rights,
S 1, para. 7
LOUISIANA: "The right of each citizen to keep and bear
arms shall not be abridged, but this provision shall not
prevent the passage of laws to prohibit the carrying of
weapons concealed on the person." La. Const. art. I, S 11
MAINE: "Every citizen has a right to keep and bear arms
and this right shall never be questioned." Me. Const.
art. I, S16
MASSACHUSETTS: "The people have a right to keep and bear
arms for the common defence. And as, in time of peace,
armies are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be
maintained without the consent of the legislature; and the
military power shall always be held in exact subordination
to the civil authority, and be governed by it." Mass.
Decl. Of Rights, pt. I, art. XVII
MICHIGAN: "Every person has a right to keep and bear arms
for the defense of himself and the state." Mich. Const.
art. I, S 6
MISSISSIPPI: "The right of every citizen to keep and bear
arms in defense of his home, person, or property, or in
aid of the civil power when thereto legally summoned,
shall not be called in question, but the legislature may
regulate or forbid carrying concealed weapons." Miss.
Const. art. 3, S 12
MISSOURI: "That the right of every citizen to keep and
bear arms in defense of his home, person and property, or
when lawfully summoned in aid of the civil power, shall
not be questioned; but this shall not justify the wearing
of concealed weapons." Mo. Const. art. I, S 23
MONTANA: "The right of any person to keep or bear arms in
defense of his own home, person, and property, or in aid
of the civil power when thereto legally summoned, shall
not be called in question, but nothing herein contained
shall be held to permit the carrying of concealed
weapons." Mont. Const. art. II, S 12
NEBRASKA: "All persons are by nature free and independent,
and have certain inherent and inalienable rights; among
these are ... the right to keep and bear arms for security
or defense of self, family, home, and others, and for
lawful common defense, hunting, recreational use, and all
other lawful purposes, and such rights shall not be denied
or infringed by the state or any subdivision thereof."
Neb. Const. art. I, S 1
NEVADA: "Every citizen has the right to keep and bear arms
for security and defense, for lawful hunting and
recreational use and for other lawful purposes." Nev.
Const. art. 1, S II, para. 1
NEW HAMPSHIRE: "All persons have the right to keep and
bear arms in defense of themselves, their families, their
property, and the state." N. H. Const. part 1, art. 2-a.
NEW MEXICO: "No law shall abridge the right of the citizen
to keep and bear arms for security and defense, for lawful
hunting and recreational use and for other lawful
purposes, but nothing herein shall be held to permit the
carrying of concealed weapons. No municipality or county
shall regulate, in any way, an incident of the right to
keep and bear arms." N. M. Const. art. II, S 6
NORTH CAROLINA: "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; and, as
standing armies in time of peace are dangerous to liberty,
they shall not be maintained, and the military shall be
kept under strict subordination to, and governed by, the
civil power. Nothing herein shall justify the carrying of
concealed weapons, or prevent the General Assembly from
enacting penal statutes against that practice." N. C.
Const. art. I, S 30
NORTH DAKOTA: "All individuals are by nature equally free
and independent and have certain inalienable rights, among
which are ... to keep and bear arms for the defense of
their person, family, property, and the state, and for
lawful hunting, recreational, and other lawful purposes,
which shall not be infringed." N. D. Const. art. I, S 1
OHIO: "The people have the right to bear arms for their
defense and security; but standing armies, in time of
peace, are dangerous to liberty, and shall not be kept up;
and the military shall be in strict subordination to the
civil power." Ohio Const. art. I, S 4
OKLAHOMA: "The right of a citizen to keep and bear arms in
defense of his home, person, or property, or in aid of the
civil power when thereunto legally summoned, shall never
be prohibited; but nothing herein contained shall prevent
the Legislature from regulating the carrying of weapons."
Okla. Const. art. 2, S 26
OREGON: "The people shall have the right to bear arms for
the defence of themselves, and the State, but the Military
shall be kept in strict subordination to the civil power."
Or. Const. art. I, S 27
PENNSYLVANIA: "The right of the citizens to bear arms in
defence of themselves and the State shall not be
questioned." Pa. Const. art. I, S 21
RHODE ISLAND: "The right of the people to keep and bear
arms shall not be infringed." R. I. Const. art. I, S 22
SOUTH CAROLINA: "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, in
times of peace, armies are dangerous to liberty, they
shall not be maintained without the consent of the General
Assembly. The military power of the State shall always be
held in subordination to the civil authority and be
governed by it. No soldier shall in time of peace be
quartered in any house without the consent of the owner
nor in time of war but in the manner prescribed by law."
S. C. Const. art. I, S 20
SOUTH DAKOTA: "The right of the citizens to bear arms in
defense of themselves and the state shall not be denied."
S. D. Const. art. VI, S 24
TENNESSEE: "That the citizens of this State have a right
to keep and to bear arms for their common defense; but the
Legislature shall have power, by law, to regulate the
wearing of arms with a view to prevent crime." Tenn.
Const. art. I, S 26
TEXAS: "Every citizen shall have the right to keep and
bear arms in lawful defense of himself or the State; but
the Legislature shall have power, by law, to regulate the
wearing of arms, with a view to prevent crime." Tex.
Const. art. I, S 23
UTAH: "The individual right of the people to keep and bear
arms for security and defense of self, family, others,
property, or the State, as well as for the other lawful
purposes shall not be infringed; but nothing herein shall
prevent the legislature from defining the lawful use of
arms." Utah Const. art. I, S 6
VERMONT: "That the people have a right to bear arms for
the defence of themselves and the State - and as standing
armies in time of peace are dangerous to liberty, they
ought not to be kept up; and that the military should be
kept under strict subordination to the civil power." Vt.
Const. Ch. I, art. 16
VIRGINIA: "That a well regulated militia, composed of the
body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper,
natural, and safe defense of a free state, therefore, the
right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be
infringed; that standing armies, in time of peace, should
be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases
the military should be under strict subordination to, and
governed by, the civil power." Va. Const. art I, S 13
WASHINGTON: "The right of the individual citizen to bear
arms in defense of himself, or the state, shall not be
impaired, but nothing in this section shall be construed
as authorizing individuals or corporations to organize,
maintain, or employ an armed body of men." Wash. Const.
art. I, S 24
WEST VIRGINIA: "A person has the right to keep and bear
arms for the defense of self, family, home and state, and
for lawful hunting and recreational use." W. Va. Const.
art. III, S 22
WYOMING: "The right of citizens to bear arms in defense of
themselves and of the state shall not be denied." Wyo.
Const. art. I, S 24
Seven (7) states do not have a constitutional provision
on arms: California, Iowa, Maryland, Minnesota, New
Jersey, New York, and Wisconsin."
[NOTE: On March 26, 1996, the State Assembly of Wisconsin approved
a RKBA amendment to that state's constitution by a vote of 79-19,
and the proposed amendment was approved again by an 83-13 vote on
January 28, 1997. The amendment, which still awaits approval by the
State Senate, as well as the voters of Wisconsin by referendum ballot,
reads: "The people have the right to keep and bear arms for security,
defense, hunting, recreation and for any other lawful purpose."]
also
Cottrol and Diamond, Georgetown Law J. [also Cottrol and Diamond,
"'Never Intended to be Applied to the White Population': Firearms
Regulation and Racial Disparity --The Redeemed South's Legacy to a
National Jurisprudence?," Chicago-Kent Law Rev. v.70 pp.1307-1335
(1995)]
Halbrook,_That Every Man Be Armed_(see above)
_No State Shall Abridge: The Fourteenth Amendment and the
Bill of Rights,_by Michael Kent Curtis, Duke University Press,
ISBN 0-8223-0599-2, (1986)
_Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty,_by James Bovard,
St. Martin's Press, ISBN 0-312-10351-4, (1994) _Lost Rights_is now
available in trade paperback as ISBN 0-312-12333-7.
_Why the Solid South? or Reconstruction and its results,_by Hilary
A. Herbert, et al., R. H. Woodward and Co., Baltimore, no ISBN, (1890)
_The Reconstruction Period,_ by Peter J. Hamilton, Geo. Barrie and
Sons, Philadelphia, no ISBN, (1905)
_Negro Militia and Reconstruction,_by Otis Singletary, Univ. of
Texas Press, no ISBN, (1957)
_The Angry Scar,_by Hodding Carter, Doubleday, no ISBN, (1959)
_But There Was No Peace: The Role of Violence in the Politics of
Reconstruction,_by George C. Rable, Univ. of Georgia Press, ISBN
0-8203-0710-6 (1984)
and
Dred Scott v. Sandford (see above)
Butchers Benevolent Association v. Crescent City Live-Stock
Landing & Slaughter-House Co. [a.k.a._Slaughter-House_Cases_],
U.S. Reports v.83 (16 Wallace) p.36, Lawyer's Edition v.21
p.394 (1872)
U.S. v. Cruikshank, et al., U.S. Reports v.92 pp.542, Lawyer's
Edition v.23 p.588 (1875)
cited in
Presser v. Illinois, U.S. Reports v.116 p.252, Supreme Court
Reports v.6 p.580, Lawyer's Edition v.29 p.615 (1886)
cited in
Quilici v. Morton Grove, Federal Reporter 2nd series v.695 p.261
(7th Circuit, 1982)
In summary: Prior to the U.S. Civil War, "gun control" laws imposed
by state and local governments may well have been constitutional,
since the states had much greater legal powers to limit the rights
of individuals than they do today, after the ratification of the
Fourteenth Amendment. The history of "gun control" in the United
States is undeniably rooted in racism. The infamous Supreme Court
decision in the_Dred Scott_case mentions among the rights of a free
citizen "the right to keep and carry arms wherever they went" and
argues that to recognize negroes as citizens in any one state, with
all the "privileges and immunities" of citizenship, might compel every
state to do so, a prospect which the Court postponed with dread for
over a century. The earliest "gun control" laws were aimed at disarming
slaves, free blacks, and freedmen, and even provided that white citizen
patrols "shall enter into all negro houses and suspected places, and
search for arms and other offensive or improper weapons, and may
lawfully seize and take away all such arms, weapons, and ammunition..."
a situation not unlike today's warrantless sweeps of public housing
projects for weapons and other contraband. Penalties for selling or
providing arms to blacks were likewise steep, for instance, an 1811
Louisiana statute provided for a $500 fine and up to a year in prison
for selling arms to slaves.
Following the Civil War, these same types of provisions were included
in "Jim Crow" laws, with the disarmament of black Americans enforced by
the terror of the Ku Klux Klan. The U.S. Congress moved to deal with
this and other violations of the civil rights of black Americans through
the Fourteenth Amendment, which created a national citizenship, gave the
Congress the power to protect citizens of the United States from
abridgment of their Federally recognized rights under the Constitution
by the state governments, and guaranteed equal protection of the rights
of all citizens by the governments of the states and the Union. In the
case of_U.S. v. Cruikshank,_the Supreme Court continued the denial of
the plain meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment which it had begun in
the_Slaughter-House Cases_by ruling that the federal government had no
power to protect citizens against private actions which violated their
constitutional rights, despite the fact that failure to afford equal
protection of the law was clearly within the scope of the Amendment.
In this case, William Cruikshank and a mob of some one hundred others
were indicted under the Enforcement Act of 1870 with criminal conspiracy
to violate the civil rights of two black men, Levi Nelson and Alexander
Tillman, including their right to peaceably assemble, and their right
to keep and bear arms. Cruikshank and the rest of the white mob were
participants in what was perhaps the most violent racial incident of
the Reconstruction Era, the Colfax Massacre, in which over 100 black
Americans were killed. Nelson and Tillman were part of a militia of
freedmen occupying the courthouse in Colfax, the seat of government in
newly-created Grant Parish, LA. On April 13, 1873, the two sides
fought on a small but violent scale a battle that had taken shape first
in New Orleans.
Following the elections of 1872, the government of Louisiana was
in dispute. Both Democrat John D. McEnery, the handpicked successor
of corrupt Democrat-allied Republican governor Henry C. Warmoth; and
the Radical Republican gubernatorial challenger, carpetbagger William
P. Kellogg, claimed victory. Warmoth had attempted to pack the board
which counted the ballots, and the Kellogg faction managed to obtain
a federal court order to prevent the Warmoth-approved state legislature
from meeting. The result was that the Kellogg faction produced a board
which declared Kellogg the governor without having seen the ballots,
and for a time the state had two rival governments, complete with two
different state legislatures. Kellogg, however, had something Warmoth's
candidate lacked: the support of Republican President and former Union
General Ulysses S. Grant, as well as support from Warmoth's estranged
Lieutenant Governor, P.B.S. Pinchback, an influential and ambitious
Republican of mixed race, who served briefly as acting Governor in late
1872 following the impeachment of Governor Warmoth by the newly elected
Radical Republican legislature. But, as historian Peter Hamilton noted
in his 1905 book on the Reconstruction Era, "there was not a great deal
to choose between the two factions." President Grant, and a number of
the Radical Republican state governments themselves, were no strangers
to corruption.
Governor Kellogg, at the urging of two white citizens, had first
recognized a Warmoth man, C. C. Nash, as elected sheriff for Grant
Parish, but within four months reconsidered, and declared Daniel Shaw
the winner. Late one night, Sheriff Shaw and the Kellogg-backed parish
Judge R. C. Register climbed through the window of the courthouse in
Colfax, and assumed office. Captain William Ward, formerly an officer
in a Grant Parish negro militia company, and now a member of the Kellogg
legislature, soon arrived with three other Kellogg men and summoned
negro militia from Smithfield Quarters, a nearby all-black settlement,
and from the surrounding area to defend the courthouse and the Kellogg-
installed parish government. The use of black militia to support
Radical Republican governments in the South was understandably
controversial. Many defeated southern whites saw it as provocative,
and literally violently rejected the idea of an end to white political
supremacy. Such was the case in Grant Parish, the namesake of the
sitting President.
On Easter Sunday, April 13, 1873, Warmoth-backed Sheriff C. C. Nash
arrived with a posse of poor whites, including Cruikshank, to retake
the courthouse, and with it, the government of the parish. The negro
militia, perhaps as many as 400 men, were entrenched at the courthouse,
a brick building which had been converted from a plantation stablehouse,
and were armed with a few makeshift cannon fashioned from steam pipes,
and guarded by pickets with shotguns and Enfield rifles, who patrolled
the countryside for 25 miles around, some on horseback. The courthouse
was also ringed with a line of earthworks 2 1/2 to 4 feet high. The few
whites in Colfax, including white Republicans, had long since abandoned
the town, fleeing downriver to New Orleans; Kellogg's men, including
Sheriff Shaw and Captain Ward among them. Ironically, final attempts
at defusing the situation had broken down when word came that a local
negro farmer, Jesse McKinney, had been shot and killed by a gang of
white vigilantes as he was mending a fence. Governor Kellogg, ever
indecisive, considered sending state militia under the command of
reformed former Confederate General James Longstreet to take charge
of the worsening situation, but it was too late.
Nash's posse, numbering as many as 300, advanced, and the two sides
exchanged fire. One of the makeshift cannon exploded. The whites
launched a frontal assault, but at the same time a smaller contingent,
who had flanked the crescent-shaped earthworks, attacked from the rear.
The negro militia fled in all directions, some 150 taking up positions
inside the courthouse itself. Sheriff Nash's men brought up a cannon
and began firing on the building. In the ensuing violence, the shingled
roof of the courthouse was set ablaze, and the building gutted by fire.
No quarter was given by the whites, who shot at any who tried to flee
the flames, and chased down blacks who escaped into the woods. Even
the few dozen prisoners that were taken, were murdered during the night
by drunken young whites who had been left to guard them. Some whites,
and even some of Kellogg's black allies, suspected that Kellogg had
engineered the incident to further his political hold on the state,
and to justify greater numbers of Federal troops to support him.
Though the authors of the Reconstruction Amendments, of which the
Fourteenth was a part, clearly expressed their intent to extend the
"privileges and immunities" of the federal Bill of Rights to all men,
regardless of race, the Court in_Cruikshank_took it upon itself to
decide which parts of the Bill of Rights were binding upon the states,
through a doctrine of selective "incorporation," thus allowing the
injustice of statutory racism to persist until the civil rights
struggles of the 1950s and 1960s. "Gun control" advocates who rely
upon_Cruikshank_(or the later decision in_Presser v. Illinois_) to
support the idea that the Second Amendment is not binding upon the
States via the Fourteenth are relying upon the same arguments used to
deny the civil rights of black Americans after the Civil War.
Further, the constitution of almost every state includes a provision
protecting the individual right to keep and bear arms, to various
degrees. This fact further undermines the contention that the Second
Amendment protects only the state's organized militia (see 2.0),
especially considering that some of the state constitutions, like
Virginia's, pre-date the federal constitution. (Such arms-right
provisions at the state level cannot reasonably be interpreted as
being intended to prevent the state from disarming an organized state
militia over which it presumably has complete command and control!)
The right to keep and bear arms is fundamental, because the right to
self defense is fundamental, not only against the actions of common
criminals, but against those uncommon criminals acting under the
auspices of government as well (see 3.3).
SECTION III. - Other "gun-control" fantasies
"And so a lot of people say there's too much personal freedom.
When personal freedom's being abused, you have to move to limit it.
That's what we did in the announcement I made last weekend on the
public housing projects, about how we're going to have weapon
sweeps and more things like that to try to make people safer
in their communities."
-=(U.S. President Bill Clinton, MTV's "Enough is Enough," 4/19/94)=-
"If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States
for an_out_right_ban, picking up every one of them...
"Mr. and Mrs. America, turn 'em all in," I would have done it.
I_could_not do that. The votes weren't here."
-=(U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, CBS-TV's "60 Minutes," 2/5/95,
speaking about her authorship of the 1994 "assault weapons" ban)=-
3.0 "Registration of all firearms and ammunition will assist
police in solving crimes committed with guns."
See particularly LaPierre,_Guns, Crime and Freedom_
where he devotes an entire chapter (Chapter 10) to this.
also
Kleck,_Point Blank,_pp.335-342.
Bovard,_Lost Rights_(see above), pp.218-224.
_Lethal Laws,_by Jay Simkin, Aaron Zelman, and Alan Rice,
published by JPFO (see above), ISBN 0-9642304-0-2, (1994)
Los Angeles Times, August 19, 1997, p. B1
In summary: Currently, all handgun buyers must fill out the Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms' Form 4473, which remains on file with
the federally licensed firearms dealer (along with a notation of the
transaction in a bound book with numbered pages) who sells the gun.
If more than one handgun is purchased at a time, a Multiple Purchase
form is filled out, and forwarded to the BATF for their records.
Firearms transaction records of legitimate licensed dealers, though
stored in this decentralized paper-based manner, are still readily
accessible and traceable by law enforcement on request, if, for
instance, a gun used to commit a crime needs to be traced to its
original point of sale. The records include the gun make, model,
caliber, and information about the original purchaser, as well as the
gun's unique serial number. Wholesale transactions, between dealers
and manufacturers (or importers), and among dealers, are noted in the
bound book, so tracing a firearm involves calling the manufacturer
and tracing it down through these records to the point of sale. All
weapons covered by the National Firearms Act of 1934 (see Appendix I)
are recorded by the BATF in their centralized National Firearms
Registry. If a licensed dealer goes out of business, all records of
its firearms transactions are acquired by the BATF, but the Bureau is
forbidden by law from computerizing these records so as to create a
national registry of non-NFA weapons. (Nevertheless, the Bureau's
current policies, such as raising the licensing fees, have driven many
dealers out of business, and the Bureau is now working to computerize
the records of defunct licensees, a direct violation of the expressed
intent of Congress, and Federal law. The BATF, in its defense, claims
that it is merely using its computers to index the paper records, and
not compiling them into a centralized list of non-NFA weapons and their
purchasers.)
Such national registration could be used, as it often has been used
in the past in particular locales, not to trace guns used in crime, but
to aid in the confiscation of firearms from the public at large. In
1967, New York City required that all owners of rifles and shotguns
register their guns with the police, and obtain a license to own what
was_already_their property. Later, in 1992, New York City banned the
ownership of most semi-automatic rifles, and even certain other types
of rifles, claiming (falsely) that they were "assault rifles" (see 3.3).
The existence of the registration lists enabled police to send out
threatening letters to gun owners demanding that they surrender what
had been, until that time, their legal property, without compensation.
Police even went door-to-door demanding that gun owners turn over their
weapons, even though they had not been found guilty of committing any
crime (other than that they were violating the "gun control" law), and
many of the guns which were prohibited cost several hundred, or even
thousands of dollars. Most recently, registration lists in Great
Britain and Australia have been used to assist in confiscation of
firearms from the public on a massive scale (see Appendix III).
Registration lists, in other countries, while produced with perhaps
the best intentions, have later been used by tyrannical governments to
disarm political opponents or targeted minorities, such as happened with
registration lists generated by the Weimar Republic when the Nazis came
to power in Germany. Anti-semitic laws were passed requiring that Jews
turn in their weapons, which most Jews dutifully did, unaware of the
horror of the Shoah which awaited. "Gun control" schemes, such as
these, have contributed to aiding and abetting genocides throughout this
century (see 3.3 and 4.0).
For gun registration laws to be useful in solving crimes, some rather
unlikely things all have to happen. The gun must be used in the crime,
recovered by the police at the scene or from the suspect, the suspect
must have fled the scene, leaving only the gun to directly tie him to
the crime, and the suspect must have registered the gun using his true
name or unique identifying marks like fingerprints, or the owner of
the gun must be able to provide police with a lead to the criminal.
Further, the gun's serial number must still be readable, so as to
identify that particular gun from all others of that make and model,
and the ballistics characteristics of the gun cannot have changed very
much from the time it was used in the crime. Firing the gun with an
abrasive in the barrel, or placing it in conditions where it could
rapidly corrode could easily change the ballistics, and grinding off
or multiply stamping the serial number could produce an untraceable
weapon. Such "sterile" guns are fairly common among criminals concerned
about the traceability of their weapons, and evidently quite unconcerned
about the fact that tampering with the serial number or other
identifying marks on a gun is a serious crime in itself, not to mention
the fact that mere possession of a gun by a convicted felon is also a
crime.
Registration of ammunition sales is laughable as a crime control
measure, for several reasons. Stamping an individual unique serial
number on every bullet of the_billions_of rounds of ammunition used
lawfully by Americans each year is impossible enough, both due to lack
of space on the bullet (how do you label shotgun shot?), and the sheer
scope of the task (considering that you cannot repeat a number in
subsequent years, because ammunition produced in one year isn't all
shot up during the year, and it can remain stable and usable for many
years); but expecting such an identifying mark to survive impacting a
target, and not be torn to pieces or smashed into illegibility, is even
more fanciful. (Nevertheless, "gun control" proponents haven't been
joking when such schemes were proposed.) Serializing ammunition also
ignores how easy it is to cast one's own bullets, or machine them, and
load them into existing cases (and there are thousands of hobbyist
reloaders out there who tinker with ammunition performance and accuracy
in an effort to outdo the mass-produced ammunition made by companies
such as Winchester, Federal, Remington, and others).
Just recording the sales of ammunition in the manner required by
law for recording gun purchases, as was once Federal law (see Firearms
Owner's Protection Act, Appendix I), quickly generates mountains of
useless paper, with no value in solving crimes. (The city of Pasadena,
California, which with much publicity passed a similar ammo registration
law in February 1995 --despite the earlier demonstrated uselessness of
ammo registration at the federal level-- repealed the law on August 18,
1997, after police proclaimed the law "useless". The city government,
which delayed repeal of the law for several months in order to allow
"gun control" groups to propose alternative legislation, wisely rejected
the "new-and-improved" ammo registration law as well.) The overwhelming
majority of ammunition used in this country is purchased and used
lawfully, and the amount used by criminals to commit crimes in any
given year could likely fit into a small closet. Most ammo is used
for target shooting and hunting, and for keeping in practice for
self defense, so if buying ammunition is in itself a suspicious act,
half of America is guilty.
3.0.a "Guns ought to be licensed and registered like cars."
See particularly LaPierre,_Guns, Crime, and Freedom,_
where he devotes an entire chapter (Chapter 7) to this.
also
_Statistical Abstract of the United States 1996,_U.S. Department of
Commerce, Bureau of the Census, SuDoc# C3.134:996, p.762
also
_Establishments Authorized to Operate Under the Supervision of The
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms as of September 30, 1990,_
U.S. Department of the Treasury, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and
Firearms, SuDoc# T 70.2:Es 8
also
National Safety Council Staff,_Accident Facts_(see above)
In summary: Automobiles must only be licensed for use upon public
roads, and licenses are not required for the purchase of one car (or
many cars). There are no waiting periods or background checks on
the purchase of cars. People who misuse their cars are punished for
their own actions, and particular types of cars aren't banned or
taken away from those who use them safely. Unlike driving on public
roads, which is a privilege, owning a gun is a right explicitly
protected by the U.S. Constitution (see 2.1). The right of self-
defense is fundamental and inalienable, but requiring a license to
own the means of self defense gives government the power to deny that
right, for whatever reason. Waiting periods have a similar effect
(see 3.2 and 3.2.a). Licensing of law-abiding citizens to carry a
concealed weapon is permissible, because, like driving, the State
has an interest in maintaining public safety by ensuring as best it
can that only the law-abiding carry in public. However, some
supporters of the civil right to keep and bear arms oppose requiring
a permit for concealed carry, and prefer a permitless system like
that of the state of Vermont, which simply punishes misuse of guns,
rather than restricting their lawful use (see 3.8). Restricting the
ability of law-abiding citizens to own and use firearms on their own
property, and in defense of their homes and families, is unjust, and
constitutes prior restraint (that is, punishment before any harm has
been committed).
Guns, which "gun control" supporters claim are "designed only to
kill" were involved in about 1,400 accidental deaths in 1990, and an
additional 18,800 suicides, and 13,600 murders, for a total of 33,800
firearm-related deaths. There are more than 200,000,000 firearms in
private hands in the United States. By contrast, motor vehicles,
which are not (supposedly) "designed to kill" were involved in about
46,000 accidental deaths in 1990, and an additional 1,900 people
decided to suck on an exhaust pipe to end their lives, for a total of
some 47,900 motor-vehicle related deaths. There are about 143,000,000
passenger cars in use in the United States. From looking objectively
at the numbers, these_licensed_and_registered_transport devices
routinely kill more people than the (for the most part)_unlicensed,_
and_unregistered_deadly weapons do. And it isn't because these devices
"designed only to kill" aren't used a lot; U.S. gun owners go through
about 4,000,000,000 (that's four BILLION) rounds of ammunition a year.
Much has been made by some "gun control" advocates of the fact that
there "are more gun dealers than gas stations" in the United States.
While arguably true (there were 269,079 Federal Firearms Licenses (FFLs)
in 1990 according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and
approximately only 205,000 gasoline service stations and auto dealers
_combined_in 1990), it doesn't require an federal background check to
run a gas station or to be a car salesman. Those Federal Firearms
License holders who had no retail location, often called "kitchen-
table dealers" by anti-gun activists (and who until recently were a
significant percentage of FFL holders), got their licenses primarily
for the added convenience of being exempt from waiting periods, to
facilitate purchases from out-of-state dealers or mail-order companies,
and/or to simplify the purchase of restricted weapons, like machineguns
(see National Firearms Act of 1934, Appendix I).
There's nothing sinister about wanting to be exempt from the onerous
regulations which the supporters of "gun control" have placed on the
right to keep and bear arms, and, by undergoing the FBI background
check required in order to get an FFL, these people have shown they
are law-abiding. Such low-volume gun dealers have been the target of
BATF policymakers recently however, and many have had their licenses
revoked for not having a retail location, and have been turned in to
local authorities and harassed for violation of zoning laws (see 3.0).
This has resulted in a sharp decline in the number of FFLs, according
to Congressional testimony in April 1997 by BATF Director John McGaw,
who puts the most recent figure at 119,708 licensees as of February
1997, a drop of 56% below the 1990 levels quoted above. It should be
noted that in many localities, private sale of firearms by unlicensed
individuals not considered by BATF to be "engaged in the business" are
legal, and almost completely unregulated. After all, firearms_are_
considered property, and so long as the owner does not knowingly sell
or transfer a gun to a person who is underage or who is forbidden by
law from owning firearms (such as felon), one may dispose of one's own
property as one sees fit. How ironic that the low-volume dealers who
have gone to the trouble and expense of obtaining an FFL are the ones
the BATF has chosen to target, rather than going after armed felons and
the illegal and/or unlicensed dealers who supply them.
The fact is, most people use guns at least as responsibly as they use
their automobiles, and the vast majority of gunowners never harm anyone.
That being the case, why punish everyone for the wrongs committed by a
few, whether they be criminal car drivers or criminals with guns?
---
Adapted in part from a posting by William Gray ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
---
3.0.b "Gun registration reduced homicides in Washington, D.C."
see_Uniform Crime Reports for the United States, 19xx-1994,_
Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Dept. of Justice,
SuDoc# J 1.14/7:9xx
_Vital Statistics of the United States, 19xx-1991, Vol. II -
Mortality Part B, National Center for Health Statistics,
U.S. Public Health Service, SuDoc# HE 20.6210:9xx/v.2/pt.B
_Statistical Abstract of the United States 19xx-1994,
Bureau of the Census, U.S. Dept. of Commerce, SuDoc# C 3.134:9xx
Loftin, Colin; McDowall, David; Wiersema, Brian; and Cottey,
Talbert J., "Effects of Restrictive Licensing of Handguns on
Homicide and Suicide in the District of Columbia," New England
J. Medicine, v.325, n.23, pp.1615-1620 (1991)
Washington Post, March 22, 1996, p.A1
In summary: In September 1976, the District of Columbia, home to the
federal government of the United States, enacted a highly restrictive
"gun control" law which in effect "froze" the number of legally owned
handguns in the District by stopping the issuance of new handgun
licenses. In addition, new strenuous registration requirements were
placed on the ownership of rifles and shotguns, and the law further
required that all firearms be kept either under lock and key, or kept
unloaded and disassembled when not being used for recreational purposes.
Violations of the law were to be punished by ten days in jail and a
$300 fine, and this penalty was later increased to a_year_in jail,
and a_$1,000_fine. D.C. thus became a test case for the effectiveness
of highly restrictive "gun control" laws at the local level.
A 1991 article in the anti-gun New England Journal of Medicine
attempted to show that the registration law in D.C. reduced the average
(arithmetic mean) number of gun-related homicides per month following
the implementation of the law. As with other "gun control" studies
published in the New England Journal of Medicine (see 1.1), and as
with a recent study of the effects of concealed carry reform laws
(see 3.8.a) by researchers from the University of Maryland (to which
the authors of the Loftin study were affiliated), this paper has
serious fl