STOP THE MADNESS! Contact your local Congressman and Senators and tell them you are against H.R. 45!!!
It's very easy, they all have websites and email addresses. Do a quick google search to see who they are and go right to their website and tell them, "No on H.R. 45!"
NO ON H.R. 45!!!
NO ON H.R. 45!!!
NO ON H.R. 45!!!
NO ON H.R. 45!!!
Gun Facts:
* Guns are used 2.5 million times a year in self-defense. Law-abiding citizens use guns to defend themselves against criminals as many as 2.5 million times every year—or about 6,850 times a day. (1)
* This means that each year, firearms are used more than 80 times more often to protect the lives of honest citizens than to take lives. (2)
* Even anti-gun Clinton researchers concede that guns are used 1.5 million times annually for self-defense. According to the Clinton Justice Department, there are as many as 1.5 million cases of self-defense with a firearm every year. The National Institute of Justice published this figure in 1997 as part of "Guns in America "—a study which was authored by noted anti-gun criminologists Philip Cook and Jens Ludwig. (3)
* Concealed carry laws have reduced murder and crime rates in the states that have enacted them. According to a comprehensive study which reviewed crime statistics in every county in the United States from 1977 to 1992, states which passed concealed carry laws reduced their rate of murder by 8.5%, rape by 5%, aggravated assault by 7% and robbery by 3%. (4)
* Anti-gun journal pronounces the failure of the Brady law. One of the nation’s leading anti-gun medical publications, the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that the Brady registration law has failed to reduce murder rates. In August 2000, JAMA reported that states implementing waiting periods and background checks did "not [experience] reductions in homicide rates or overall suicide rates." (5)
* Twice as many children are killed playing football in school than are murdered by guns. That’s right. Despite what media coverage might seem to indicate, there are more deaths related to high school football than guns. In a recent three year period, twice as many football players died from hits to the head, heat stroke, etc. (45), as compared with students who were murdered by firearms (22) during that same time period. (6)
* More guns, less crime. In the decade of the 1990s, the number of guns in this country increased by roughly 40 million—even while the murder rate decreased by almost 40% percent. (7)
* Accidental gun deaths in the home decreased by almost 40 percent as well. (8)
* CDC admits there is no evidence that gun control reduces crime. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has long been criticized for propagating questionable studies which gun control organizations have used in defense of their cause. But after analyzing 51 studies in 2003, the CDC concluded that the "evidence was insufficient to determine the effectiveness of any of these [firearms] laws." (9)
* Gun shows are NOT a primary source of illegal guns for criminals. According to two government studies, the National Institute of Justice reported in 1997 that "less than two percent [of criminals] reported obtaining [firearms] from a gun show." (10)
* And the Bureau of Justice Statistics revealed in 2001 that less than one percent of firearm offenders acquired their weapons at gun shows. (11)
Several polls show that Americans are very pro-gun. Several scientific polls indicate that the right to keep and bear arms is still revered—and gun control disdained—by a majority of Americans today. To mention just a few recent polls:
* In 2002, an ABC News poll found that almost three-fourths of the American public believe that the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects the rights of "individuals" to own guns. (12)
* Zogby pollsters found that by a more than 3 to 1 margin, Americans support punishing "criminals who use a gun in the commission of a crime" over legislation to "ban handguns." (13)
* A Research 2000 poll found that 85% of Americans would find it appropriate for a principal or teacher to use "a gun at school to defend the lives of students" to stop a school massacre. (14)
* A study claiming "guns are three times more likely to kill you than help you" is a total fraud. Even using the low figures from the Clinton Justice Department, firearms are used almost 50 times more often to save life than to take life. (15)
More importantly, however, the figure claiming one is three times more likely to be killed by one’s own gun is a total lie:
* Researcher Don Kates reveals that all available data now indicates that the "home gun homicide victims [in the flawed study] were killed using guns not kept in the victim's home." (16)
* In other words, the victims were NOT murdered with their own guns! They were killed "by intruders who brought their own guns to the victim's household." (17)
* Gun-free England not such a utopia after all. According to the BBC News, handgun crime in the United Kingdom rose by 40% in the two years after it passed its draconian gun ban in 1997. (18)
* And according to a United Nations study, British citizens are more likely to become a victim of crime than are people in the United States. The 2000 report shows that the crime rate in England is higher than the crime rates of 16 other industrialized nations, including the United States. (19)
2. Self-defense
Guns save more lives than they take; prevent more injuries than they inflict:
* Guns are used 2.5 million times a year in self-defense. Law-abiding citizens use guns to defend themselves against criminals as many as 2.5 million times every year—or about 6,850 times a day. (20) This means that each year, firearms are used more than 80 times more often to protect the lives of honest citizens than to take lives. (21)
* Of the 2.5 million times citizens use their guns to defend themselves every year, the overwhelming majority merely brandish their gun or fire a warning shot to scare off their attackers. Less than 8% of the time, a citizen will kill or wound his/her attacker. (22)
* As many as 200,000 women use a gun every year to defend themselves against sexual abuse. (23)
* Even anti-gun Clinton researchers concede that guns are used 1.5 million times annually for self-defense. According to the Clinton Justice Department, there are as many as 1.5 million cases of self-defense with a firearm every year. The National Institute of Justice published this figure in 1997 as part of "Guns in America" — a study which was authored by noted anti-gun criminologists Philip Cook and Jens Ludwig. (24)
* Armed citizens kill more crooks than do the police. Citizens shoot and kill at least twice as many criminals as police do every year (1,527 to 606) (25). And readers of Newsweek learned that "only 2 percent of civilian shootings involved an innocent person mistakenly identified as a criminal. The ‘error rate’ for the police, however, was 11 percent, more than five times as high." (26)
* Handguns are the weapon of choice for self-defense. Citizens use handguns to protect themselves over 1.9 million times a year. (27) Many of these self-defense handguns could be labeled as "Saturday Night Specials." Which are illegal to own.
Concealed carry laws help reduce crime
* Nationwide: one-half million self-defense uses. Every year, as many as one-half million citizens defend themselves with a firearm away from home. (28)
Concealed carry laws are dropping crime rates across the country. A comprehensive national study determined in 1996 that violent crime fell after states made it legal to carry concealed firearms. The results of the study showed:
* States which passed concealed carry laws reduced their rate of murder by 8.5%, rape by 5%, aggravated assault by 7% and robbery by 3%; (29) and
* If those states not having concealed carry laws had adopted such laws in 1992, then approximately 1,570 murders, 4,177 rapes, 60,000 aggravated assaults and over 11,000 robberies would have been avoided yearly. (30)
* Vermont: one of the safest five states in the country. In Vermont, citizens can carry a firearm without getting permission . . . without paying a fee . . . or without going through any kind of government-imposed waiting period. And yet for ten years in a row, Vermont has remained one of the top-five, safest states in the union—having three times received the "Safest State Award." (31)
* Florida: concealed carry helps slash the murder rate in the state. In the fifteen years following the passage of Florida's concealed carry law in 1987, over 800,000 permits to carry firearms were issued to people in the state. (32) FBI reports show that the homicide rate in Florida , which in 1987 was much higher than the national average, fell 52% during that 15-year period—thus putting the Florida rate below the national average. (33)
Do firearms carry laws result in chaos? No. Consider the case of Florida. A citizen in the Sunshine State is far more likely to be attacked by an alligator than to be assaulted by a concealed carry holder.
* During the first fifteen years that the Florida law was in effect, alligator attacks outpaced the number of crimes committed by carry holders by a 229 to 155 margin. (34)
* And even the 155 "crimes" committed by concealed carry permit holders are somewhat misleading as most of these infractions resulted from Floridians who accidentally carried their firearms into restricted areas, such as an airport. (35)
* Concealed Carry v. Waiting Period Laws. In 1976, both Georgia and Wisconsin tried two different approaches to fighting crime. Georgia enacted legislation making it easier for citizens to carry guns for self-defense, while Wisconsin passed a law requiring a 48 hour waiting period before the purchase of a handgun. What resulted during the ensuing years? Georgia's law served as a deterrent to criminals and helped drop its homicide rate by 21 percent. Wisconsin's murder rate, however, rose 33 percent during the same period. (36)
C. Criminals avoid armed citizens
* Kennesaw, GA. In 1982, this suburb of Atlanta passed a law requiring heads of households to keep at least one firearm in the house. The residential burglary rate subsequently dropped 89% in Kennesaw, compared to the modest 10.4% drop in Georgia as a whole. (37)
* Ten years later (1991), the residential burglary rate in Kennesaw was still 72% lower than it had been in 1981, before the law was passed. (38)
Nationwide. Statistical comparisons with other countries show that burglars in the United States are far less apt to enter an occupied home than their foreign counterparts who live in countries where fewer civilians own firearms. Consider the following rates showing how often a homeowner is present when a burglar strikes:
* Homeowner occupancy rate in the gun control countries of Great Britain, Canada and Netherlands: 45% (average of the three countries); and,
* Homeowner occupancy rate in the United States: 12.7%. (39)
Rapes averted when women carry or use firearms for protection:
* Orlando, FL. In 1966-67, the media highly publicized a safety course which taught Orlando women how to use guns. The result: Orlando’s rape rate dropped 88% in 1967, whereas the rape rate remained constant in the rest of Florida and the nation. (40)
* Nationwide. In 1979, the Carter Justice Department found that of more than 32,000 attempted rapes, 32% were actually committed. But when a woman was armed with a gun or knife, only 3% of the attempted rapes were actually successful. (41)
Justice Department study:
* 3/5 of felons polled agreed that "a criminal is not going to mess around with a victim he knows is armed with a gun." (42)
* 74% of felons polled agreed that "one reason burglars avoid houses when people are at home is that they fear being shot during the crime." (43)
* 57% of felons polled agreed that "criminals are more worried about meeting an armed victim than they are about running into the police." (44)
D. Police cannot protect—and are not required to protect—every individual
* The courts have consistently ruled that the police do not have an obligation to protect individuals, only the public in general. For example, in Warren v. D.C. the court stated "courts have without exception concluded that when a municipality or other governmental entity undertakes to furnish police services, it assumes a duty only to the public at large and not to individual members of the community." (45)
* Former Florida Attorney General Jim Smith told Florida legislators that police responded to only about 200,000 of 700,000 calls for help to Dade County authorities. Smith was asked why so many citizens in Dade County were buying guns and he said, "They damn well better, they've got to protect themselves." (46)
* The Department of Justice found that in 1989, there were 168,881 crimes of violence which were not responded to by police within 1 hour. (47)
* The numbers clearly show that the police cannot protect every individual. In 1996, there were about 150,000 police officers on duty at any one time to protect a population of more than 260 million Americans—or more than 1,700 citizens per officer. (48)
3. Failure of Gun Control
A. Poor track record
* Washington, D.C. has, perhaps, the most restrictive gun control laws in the country, and yet it is frequently the Murder Capital of the nation. In the 25 years following the DC gun ban, its murder rate INCREASED 51 percent, even while the national rate DECREASED 36 percent. (49)
Objection: Critics claim criminals merely get their guns in Virginia where the laws are more relaxed. This, they argue, is why the D.C. gun ban is not working.
Answer: Perhaps criminals do get their guns in Virginia, but this overlooks one point: If the availability of guns in Virginia is the root of D.C.’s problems, why does Virginia not have the same murder and crime rate as the District? Virginia is awash in guns and yet the murder rate is much, much lower. This holds true even for Virginia’s urban areas, as seen by the following comparison on the 25-year anniversary of the DC gun ban (in 2001):
City
Murder rates: 25 years after DC's ban
Washington, DC
46.4 per 100,000 (50)
Arlington, VA
2.1 per 100,000 (51)
(Arlington is just across the river from D.C.)
Total VA metropolitan area
6.1 per 100,000 (52)
Guns are not the problem. On the contrary, lax criminal penalties and laws that disarm the law-abiding are responsible for giving criminals a safer working environment.
B. Criminologists turning from anti-gun position
* Dr. Gary Kleck. A criminologist at Florida State University, Kleck began his research as a firm believer in gun control. But in a speech delivered to the National Research Council, he said while he was once "a believer in the ‘anti-gun’ thesis," he has now moved "beyond even the skeptic position." Dr. Kleck now says the evidence "indicates that general gun availability does not measurably increase rates of homicide, suicide, robbery, assault, rape, or burglary in the U.S." (53)
* James Wright. Formerly a gun control advocate, Wright received a grant from President Carter's Justice Department to study the effectiveness of gun control laws. To his surprise, he found that waiting periods, background checks, and all other gun control laws were not effective in reducing violent crime. (54)
* Wright says that at one time, "It seemed evident to me, we needed to mount a campaign to resolve the crisis of handgun proliferation." But he says, "I am now of the opinion that a compelling case for ‘stricter gun control’ cannot be made." (55)
* Every scholar who has "switched" has moved away from the anti-gun position. Dave Kopel, an expert in constitutional issues and firearms research, categorically states that, "Every scholar who has ‘switched’ has ‘switched’ to the side that is skeptical of controls. Indeed, most of the prominent academic voices who are gun control skeptics—including law professor Sanford Levinson and criminologists Gary Kleck and James Wright—are people who, when they began studying guns, were supporters of the gun control agenda." (56)
* Kopel continues: "I do not know of a single scholar who has published a pro-control article who started out as a skeptic of gun control. This suggests how heavily the weight of the evidence is distributed, once people begin studying the evidence." (57)
4. Problems with waiting periods and background checks
A. Waiting periods threaten the safety of people in imminent danger
* Bonnie Elmasri—She inquired about getting a gun to protect herself from a husband who had repeatedly threatened to kill her. She was told there was a 48 hour waiting period to buy a handgun. But unfortunately, Bonnie was never able to pick up a gun. She and her two sons were killed the next day by an abusive husband of whom the police were well aware. (58)
* Marine Cpl. Rayna Ross—She bought a gun (in a non-waiting period state) and used it to kill an attacker in self-defense two days later. (59) Had a 5-day waiting period been in effect, Ms. Ross would have been defenseless against the man who was stalking her.
* Los Angeles riots—USA Today reported that many of the people rushing to gun stores during the 1992 riots were "lifelong gun-control advocates, running to buy an item they thought they'd never need." Ironically, they were outraged to discover they had to wait 15 days to buy a gun for self-defense. (60)
B. Prior restraints on rights are unconstitutional
1. Second Amendment protects an individual right
Report by the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution (1982)—"The conclusion is thus inescapable that the history, concept, and wording of the second amendment to the Constitution of the United States, as well as its interpretation by every major commentator and court in the first half-century after its ratification, indicates that what is protected is an individual right of a private citizen to own and carry firearms in a peaceful manner." (61)
Supreme Court admits "the people" in the Second Amendment are the same "people" as in the rest of the Bill of Rights—In U.S. v. Verdugo-Urquidez the Court stated that "‘the people’ seems to have been a term of art employed in select parts of the Constitution. . . . [and] it suggests that ‘the people’ protected by the Fourth Amendment, and by the First and Second Amendments, and to whom rights and powers are reserved in the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, refers to a class of persons who are part of a national community or who have otherwise developed sufficient connection with this country to be considered part of that community." (62)
2. Courts agree that rights should be free from prior restraints
Near v. Minnesota —In this case, the Supreme Court stated that government officials should punish the abuse of a right and not place prior restraints on the exercise of the right. (63)
What about yelling "Fire" in a crowded theater?—The courts have stated that one cannot use his "freedom of speech" to yell "Fire" in a crowded theater. And yet, no one argues that officials should gag everyone who goes into the theater, thus placing a prior restraint on movie-goers. The proper response is to punish the person who does yell "Fire." Likewise, citizens should not be "gagged" before exercising their Second Amendment rights, rather they should be punished if they abuse that right.
C. Background checks invite official abuse
* A review of FBI computer records reveals that the firearms industry was shut down for more than eight full business days during the first six months that the National Instant Background Check (NICS) was online. Many of these shutdowns have resulted in the virtual blackout of gun sales at gun shows across the country.
* According to gun laws expert Alan Korwin, "With the NICS computer out of commission, the only place you could legally buy a firearm—in the whole country—was from a private individual, since all dealers were locked out of business by the FBI’s computer problem." (64)
D. Background checks can (and do) lead to gun registration
* Justice Department report (1989). "Any system that requires a criminal history record check prior to purchase of a firearm creates the potential for the automated tracking of individuals who seek to purchase firearms." (65)
* Justice Department initiates registration (1994). The Justice Department gave a grant to the city of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University to create a sophisticated national gun registry using data compiled from states’ background check programs. This attempt at registration was subsequently defeated in the courts. (66)
* More gun owner registration (1996). Computer software distributed by the Justice Department allowed police officials to easily (and unlawfully) register the names and addresses of gun buyers. This software -- known as FIST -- also kept information such as the type of gun purchased, the make, model and caliber, the date of purchase, etc. (67) This demonstrates how easily background checks can be used to register gun owners' information. (68)
* Federal Bureau of Investigation registers gun owners (1998). Despite prohibitions in federal law, the FBI announced that it would begin keeping gun buyer’s names for six months. FBI had originally wanted to keep the names for 18 months, but reduced the time period after groups like Gun Owners of America strongly challenged the legality of their actions. GOA submitted a formal protest to the FBI, calling their attempt at registration both "unlawful" and "unconstitutional." (69)
* California. State officials have used the state background check—required during the waiting period—to compile an illegal registry of handgun owners. These lists have been compiled without any statutory authority to do so. (70)
* Nationwide. Highly acclaimed civil rights attorney, researcher and author, David Kopel, has noted several states where either registration lists have been illegally compiled from background checks or where such registration lists have been abused by officials. (71)
E. Myth: The Brady registration law is dropping crime rates
* Fact: Anti-gun journal pronounces the failure of the Brady law. One of the nation’s leading anti-gun medical publications, the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that the Brady registration law has failed to reduce murder rates. In August 2000, JAMA reported that states implementing waiting periods and background checks did "not [experience] reductions in homicide rates or overall suicide rates." (72)
* Fact: Brady checks are not taking criminals off the streets. Not every person who is denied a firearm is truly a criminal, as many persons have been denied erroneously. But even assuming each denial was legitimate, the Brady law is still not taking criminals off the streets (and thus keeping them from getting firearms).
* The Washington Times reported in 1999 that, "Although federal officials say about 400,000 persons have been prevented from buying guns by the instant check system, only one has been prosecuted by the Department of Justice in the last three years." (73)
* Fact: The Brady law has NOT stopped thugs like Benjamin Smith from going on killing sprees. In 1999, Benjamin Smith was rejected by a background check when he tried to buy a firearm from an Illinois gun dealer. But after this initial rejection, "he hit the streets and in just three days had two handguns" from an illegal source, reported the Associated Press. Three days after getting the guns, Smith went on a rampage that killed two people and wounded nine others.
* Fact: The Brady Law is not physically keeping criminals from getting firearms. The simple truth is that any person who’s denied a firearm can simply walk out the door and buy a gun down the street. Ohio's Attorney General, Betty Montgomery, testified to this very irony in the law in 1997:
"In 1996, 60,037 people went to licensed gun dealers to purchase handguns. Of that figure, 327—less than one half of one percent—were denied because of a disqualifying factor. . . . [W]hile we were able to keep 327 people from getting a handgun at point A—each of them was able to purchase a rifle or handgun the very same day at point B. To our knowledge, under the Brady Act, not a single one of the 327 people . . . have been prosecuted by the U.S. Justice Department." (74)
* Criminals bypass gun controls. A Justice Department survey of felons showed that 93% of handgun predators had obtained their most recent guns "off-the-record." (75) And press reports show that the few criminals who get their guns from retail outlets can easily get fake IDs or use surrogate buyers, known as "straw purchasers," to buy their guns. (76)
* Legal gun shows are not a problem. Some have demonized gun shows and claimed that these are the outlets where criminals supposedly get their weapons. But the Clinton Justice Department found that less than two percent of the people arrested for using firearms in homicide got their weapons from gun shows. (77)
* Fact: The Department of Justice has grossly overstated the number of people who were denied firearms. The Indianapolis Star and News reported in 1998 that the U.S. Department of Justice had overstated the number of people who were denied firearms in Indiana alone by more than 1,300%. Indiana was not an aberration, as the newspaper found that "paperwork errors and duplications inflated the [DOJ’s] numbers" in many states. (78)
F. General Accounting Office questions the Brady law’s supposed effectiveness
* The Brady Law has failed to result in the incarceration of dangerous criminals. After the first year and a half, there were only seven successful prosecutions for making false statements on Brady handgun purchase forms—and only three of them were actually incarcerated. (79) Because the situation hardly improved in subsequent years, one cannot argue that the law is working to keep violent criminals from getting handguns on the street. (80)
* The Brady Law has ERRONEOUSLY denied firearms to thousands of applicants. Over fifty percent of denials under the Brady Law are for administrative snafus, traffic violations, or reasons other than felony convictions. (81)
* Gun control advocates admit the Brady Law is not a panacea. According to a January, 1996 report by the General Accounting Office, "Proponents [of gun control] acknowledge that criminal records checks alone will not prevent felons from obtaining firearms." (82)
* Criminals can easily evade the background checks by using straw purchasers: "Opponents of gun control note that criminals can easily circumvent the law by purchasing handguns on the secondary market or by having friends or spouses without a criminal record make the purchases from dealers." (83)
5. Problems with gun registration and licensing
A. Licensing or registration can lead to confiscation of firearms
1. New York City
* Registration. In the mid-1960's officials in New York City began registering long guns. They promised they would never use such lists to take away firearms from honest citizens. But in 1991, the city banned (and soon began confiscating) many of those very guns. (84)
* Confiscation. In 1992, a New York City paper reported that, "Police raided the home of a Staten Island man who refused to comply with the city's tough ban on assault weapons, and seized an arsenal of firearms. . . . Spot checks are planned [for other homes]." (85)
2. California
Part 1. The
Golden State passed a ban on certain semi-automatic firearms in 1989. Banned guns could be legally possessed if they were registered prior to the ban. In the Spring of 1995, one man who wished to move to California
asked the Attorney General whether his SKS Sporter rifle would be legal in the state. The citizen was assured the rifle was legal, and based on that information, he subsequently moved into the state. But in 1998, the state’s Attorney General reversed course and officials confiscated the firearm. (86) In a legal brief before the state supreme court, Attorney General Daniel Lungren said that "tens of thousands of California citizens" would have to either surrender their firearms or become felons. (87)
Part 2. Having registered the firearms, the California Department of Justice issued a notice in 1999 to explain how more than 1,500 individuals in the state were in possession of illegal firearms—all of which were subject to forfeiture without compensation. (88)
Part 3. Plans to confiscate firearms in California were leaked to the public in 1999, sending shock waves through the gun rights community. The document entitled "Relinquishment of Assault Weapons" stated: "Once the 90-day window of opportunity for turning in such assault weapons concludes, we will send each sheriff and police chief a listing of the affected individuals [who own banned firearms]." (89)
3. Foreign Countries
* Gun registration has led to confiscation in several countries, including Greece, Ireland, Jamaica and Bermuda. (90)
* And in an exhaustive study on this subject, Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership has researched and translated several gun control laws from foreign countries. Their publication, Lethal Laws: "Gun Control" is the Key to Genocide documents how gun control (and confiscation) has preceded the slaughter and genocide of millions of people in Turkey, the Soviet Union, Germany, China, Cambodia and others. (91)
B. People in imminent danger can die waiting for a firearms license
* Igor Hutorsky was murdered by two burglars who broke into his Brooklyn furniture store. The tragedy is that some time before the murder his business partner had applied for permission to keep a handgun at the store. Even four months after the murder, the former partner had still not heard from the police about the status of his gun permit. (92)
C. The power to license a right is the power to destroy a right
* Arbitrary Delays—While New Jersey law requires applications to be responded to within thirty days, delays of ninety days are routine; sometimes, applications are delayed for several years for no readily apparent reason. (93)
* Arbitrary Denials—Officials in New York City routinely deny gun permits for ordinary citizens and store owners because, as the courts have ruled, they have no greater need for protection than anyone else in the city. In fact, the authorities have even refused to issue permits when the courts have ordered them to do so. (94)
* Arbitrary Fee Increases—In 1994, the Clinton administration pushed for a license fee increase of almost 1,000 percent on gun dealers. According to U.S. News & World Report, the administration was seeking the license fee increase "in hopes of driving many of America's 258,000 licensed gun dealers out of business." (95)
D. Officials cannot license or register a constitutional right
* The Supreme Court held in Lamont v. Postmaster General (1965) that the First Amendment prevents the government from registering purchasers of magazines and newspapers—even if such material is "communist political propaganda." (96)
1. Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz, "Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense With a Gun," 86 The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Northwestern University School of Law, 1 (Fall 1995):164.
2. According to the National Safety Council, the total number of gun deaths (by accidents, suicides and homicides) account for less than 30,000 deaths per year. See Injury Facts, published yearly by the National Safety Council, Itasca, Illinois.
3. Philip J. Cook and Jens Ludwig, "Guns in America: National Survey on Private Ownership and Use of Firearms," NIJ Research in Brief (May 1997); available at http://www.ncjrs.org/txtfiles/165476.txt.
4. One of the authors of the University of Chicago study reported on the study's findings in John R. Lott, Jr., "More Guns, Less Violent Crime," The Wall Street Journal (28 August 1996). See also John R. Lott, Jr. and David B. Mustard, "Crime, Deterrence, and Right-to-Carry Concealed Handguns," University of Chicago (15 August 1996); and Lott, More Guns, Less Crime (1998, 2000).
5. Jens Ludwig and Philip J. Cook, "Homicide and Suicide Rates Associated With Implementation of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act," Journal of the American Medical Association, vol. 284, no. 5 (August 2, 2000).
6. For football deaths, see Frederick O. Mueller, Annual Survey of Football Injury Research: 1931-2001, National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research (February 2002) at http://www.unc.edu/depts/nccsi/SurveyofFootballInjuries.htm
For school firearms murders, see Dr. Ronald D. Stephens, "School Associated Violent Deaths," The National School Safety Center Report (June 3, 2002) at http://www.NSSC1.org. In addition to the 22 murders which occurred on school property or at school-sponsored events, there were another two shooting deaths which were accidents and twelve which were suicides.
7. The BATF estimates that licensed gun dealers sell about 4 million new firearms each year. See US Department of the Treasury, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, Commerce in Firearms in the United States (February 2000), p. 6, which is available at http://www.atf.treas.gov/pub/fire-explo_pub/020400report.pdf.
8. Accidental gun deaths in the home decreased by 38% between 1990 and 1999. National Safety Council, Injury Facts (2000), p. 125.
9. The CDC study examined gun and ammunition bans, waiting periods, background checks, lock-up your safety laws, plus much more. The inescapable conclusion was that the "evidence was insufficient" to show that such gun restrictions reduced crime rates. [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "First Reports Evaluating the Effectiveness of Strategies for Preventing Violence: Early Childhood Home Visitation and Firearms Laws," Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (October 3, 2003), vol. 52(No. RR-14):14-18.]
10. National Institute of Justice, "Homicide in Eight U.S. Cities: Trends, Context, and Policy Implications," Research Report (December 1997), p. 99.
11. Caroline Wolf Harlow, "Firearm Use by Offenders: Survey of Inmates in State and Federal Correctional Facilities," Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report (November 2001), p. 1.
12. Daniel Merkle, "America: It’s Our Right to Bear Arms," ABCNews.com (May 14, 2002). The poll of 1,028 adults was conducted between May 8 and 12 of 2002. The poll found that after hearing the text of the Second Amendment verbatim, 73 percent of the American public viewed the amendment as guaranteeing an individual right. Only 20 percent thought the amendment guaranteed the right of a state to maintain a militia.
13. "Zogby American Values Poll Results," The Washington Times (March 28, 2000).
14. Research 2000 of Rockville, Maryland. This survey was conducted from January 30 through February 1, 2002. A total of 1101 likely voters nationally were interviewed by telephone.
15. See supra notes 2 and 3.
16. Don B. Kates, "Guns and Public Health: Epidemic of Violence, or Pandemic of Propaganda?" in Gary Kleck & Kates, Armed: New Perspectives on Gun Control (2001), p.75.
19. John van Kesteren, Pat Mayhew and Paul Nieuwbeerta, "Criminal Victimisation in Seventeen Industrialised Courtries: Key findings from the 2000 International Crime Victims Survey," (2000). This study can be read at http://www.unicri.it/icvs/publications/index_pub.htm. The link is to the ICVS homepage; study data are available for download as Acrobat pdf files.
20. See supra note 1.
21. See supra note 2.
22. Kleck and Gertz, "Armed Resistance to Crime," at 173, 185.
23. Kleck and Gertz, "Armed Resistance to Crime," at 185.
24. See supra note 3.
25. Kleck, Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America, (1991):111-116, 148.
26. George F. Will, "Are We ‘a Nation of Cowards’?," Newsweek (15 November 1993):93.
27. Id. at 164, 185.
28 Dr. Gary Kleck, interview with J. Neil Schulman, "Q and A: Guns, crime and self-defense," The Orange County Register (19 September 1993). In the interview with Schulman, Dr. Kleck reports on findings from a national survey which he and Dr. Marc Gertz conducted in Spring, 1993—a survey which findings were reported in Kleck and Gertz, "Armed Resistance to Crime."
29. See supra note 4.
30. Lott and Mustard, "Crime, Deterrence, and Right-to-Carry Concealed Handguns."
31. Kathleen O’Leary Morgan, Scott Morgan and Neal Quitno, "Rankings of States in Most Dangerous/Safest State Awards 1994 to 2003," Morgan Quitno Press (2004) at http://www.statestats.com/dang9403.htm. Morgan Quitno Press is an independent private research and publishing company which was founded in 1989. The company specializes in reference books and monthly reports that compare states and cities in several different subject areas. In the first 10 years in which they published their Safest State Award, Vermont has consistently remained one of the top five safest states.
32. Memo by Jim Smith, Secretary of State, Florida Department of State, Division of Licensing, Concealed Weapons/Firearms License Statistical Report (October 1, 2002).
33. Florida’s murder rate was 11.4 per 100,000 in 1987, but only 5.5 in 2002. Compare Federal Bureau of Investigation, "Crime in the United States," Uniform Crime Reports, (1988): 7, 53; and FBI, (2003):19, 79.
34. From 1988 through 2002, there were 229 documented alligator attacks on human beings in Florida. This does not include any unreported encounters. Interview with Henry Cabbage, Media Relations for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation, Tallahassee, Florida (25 July 2003). By contrast, there were only 155 CCW holders who used their guns during the same period to commit a crime. See supra note 32.
35. John R. Lott, Jr., "Right to carry would disprove horror stories," Kansas City Star, (12 July 2003).
36. The comparison period between Georgia and Wisconsin is for the years 1976 to 1993. The enactment of the national Brady waiting period in 1994 ended the ability to extend, beyond 1993, any comparison of waiting periods and concealed carry laws in states such as Georgia and Wisconsin. Compare FBI, "Crime in the United States," Uniform Crime Reports (1977):45, 53; and FBI, (1994):70, 78.
37. Gary Kleck, "Crime Control Through the Private Use of Armed Force," Social Problems 35 (February 1988):15.
38. Compare Kleck, "Crime Control," at 15, and Chief Dwaine L. Wilson, City of Kennesaw Police Department, "Month to Month Statistics: 1991." (Residential burglary rates from 1981-1991 are based on statistics for the months of March - October.)
39. Kleck, Point Blank, at 140.
40. Kleck, "Crime Control," at 13.
41. U.S. department of Justice, Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, Rape Victimization in 26 American Cities (1979), p. 31.
42. U.S., Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, "The Armed Criminal in America: A Survey of Incarcerated Felons," Research Report (July 1985): 27.
43. Id.
44. Id.
45. Warren v. District of Columbia, D.C. App., 444 A. 2d 1 (1981). See also Richard W. Stevens, Dial 911 and Die (1999) which gives the laws and cases in all 50 states to support the statement that government (police) owes no duty to protect individual citizens from criminal attack.
46. Statement of Representative Ron Johnson in U.S. Senate, "Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1987," Hearing before the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Committee on the Judiciary (16 June 1987):33.
47. Bureau of Justice Statistics, Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics—1990 (1991):257.
48. Interview with Brian A. Reaves, Ph.D., statistician for the Bureau of Justice Statistics in Washington, D.C. (January 11, 2001). In 1996, the total number (estimated) of all law enforcement combined (federal, state and local) that were on duty and assigned to respond to calls at any one time—on the average—was approximately 146,395 officers. There were 265,463,000 people living in the United States in 1996 for an actual ratio of 1,813 citizens for every officer. See also Kleck, Point Blank, at 132.
49. The murder rates for Washington, D.C. and the nation were 26.8 and 8.8 respectively in 1976. Their respective murder rates 25 years later were 40.6 and 5.6. These murder rates are based on the population per 100,000 people. FBI, "Crime in the United States," Uniform Crime Reports (1977 and 2002).
50. FBI, "Crime in the United States," Uniform Crime Reports (October 28, 2002): 77.
51. Id. at 190. According to Arlington County’s Department of Planning, Housing and Development, the population in Arlington, Virginia for 2001 was 190,092.
52. Id. at 85.
53. Gary Kleck, speech delivered to the National Research Council, quoted in Don B. Kates, Jr., "Scholars’ ignorant bias causes anti-gun sentiments," Handguns (June 1991), pp. 12-13.
54. "Gun Critic Shifts His Position," The Denver Post (November 28, 1985).
55 James D. Wright, "Second Thoughts About Gun Control," The Public Interest, 91 (Spring 1988):23, 25.
56 Dave Kopel, "Guns, Germs, and Science: Public Health Approaches to Gun Control," 84 The Journal of the Medical Association of Georgia (June 1995): 272.
57. Id.
58. Congressional Record (May 8, 1991), at H 2859, H 2862.
59. Wall Street Journal (March 3, 1994) at A10.
60. Jonathan T. Lovitt, "Survival for the armed," USA Today (May 4, 1992).
61. U.S. Senate, "The Right to Keep and Bear Arms," Report of the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Committee on the Judiciary, (1982):12.
62. U.S. v. Verdugo-Urquidez, 494 US 259 (1990).
63. The court stated, "The fact that the liberty of the press may be abused by miscreant purveyors of scandal does not make any less necessary the immunity of the press from previous restraint in dealing with official misconduct. Subsequent punishment for such abuses as may exist is the appropriate remedy, consistent with constitutional privilege." Near v. Minnesota, 283 U.S. 697, 51 S. Ct. 625, 75 L. Ed. 1357 (1931).
64. Alan Korwin, Brady Law Closes Gun Stores More Than 8 Days, (Bloomfield Press: July 28, 1999). Bloomfield Press can be contacted at http://www.bloomfieldpress.com.
65. Richard B. Abell, Assistant Attorney General, Task Force Chairman, Report to the Attorney General on Systems for Identifying Felons Who Attempt to Purchase Firearms (October 1989), p. 75.
66. Bureau of Justice Assistance, Grant Manager’s Memorandum, Pt. 1: Project Summary (September 30, 1994), Project Number: 94-DD-CX-0166.
67. Copy of "FIST" (Firearms Inquiry Statistical Tracking) software at GOA headquarters, Springfield, VA. See also Pennsylvania Sportsmen's News (Oct./Nov. 1996). The default in the "FIST" computer software is for the police officials to indefinitely retain the information on gun owners—despite the fact that the Brady law only allows officials to retain this data for 20 days. One wonders who will ensure that this information will be deleted after the 20th day.
68. Mike Slavonic, NRA Director and Chairman of the Legislative Committee for the Allegheny County Sportsmen's League, states that the instant background check could be "our downfall." He notes that, "What most Americans don't know is that once instant check goes into effect in 1998 the purpose of Brady could be used to set the stage for national confiscation. Instant check could eventually keep guns out of the hands of everyone by registering everyone who purchases a handgun, rifle and shotgun and who obtained concealed weapons permits in a computerized database like ‘FIST’. The most difficult problem with a gun ban is locating the firearms. FIST [with the help of the instant check], over time, could solve that problem." Slavonic, "Another Gun Database Discovered," Pennsylvania Sportsmen's News (Oct./Nov. 1996) at 7.
69. FBI’s Final Rule printed in the Federal Register (October 30, 1998) at 58311. After the FBI submitted its proposed regulations on June 4, 1998, Gun Owners of America submitted written comments (in September of 1988) to challenge the FBI’s regulations. GOA stated, "These proposed regulations are unlawful and unconstitutional. They are so fundamentally corrupt that there are no incremental changes which will even marginally improve them. Rest assured that they will be challenged in every possible judicial and legislative forum. . . . The efforts to retain information on gun owners for eighteen months—and indefinitely in your computer backup system—constitutes an illegal system of firearms registration, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 926. The same is, in fact, true even for efforts to retain information about persons prohibited from purchasing firearms."
70. David B. Kopel, Policy Review 63 (Winter 1993):6.
71. Kopel, ed., Guns: Who Should Have Them? (1995) at 88, 117 (fn. 75), and 122 (fn. 124).
72. See supra note 5.
73. Scully, "Supremacist’s shooting spree could spur gun control moves," The Washington Times (July 8, 1999).
74. Attorney General Betty D. Montgomery, "The U.S. Supreme Court’s Action in Striking Portions of the Brady Act," News Statement (June 30, 1997).
75. Department of Justice, "Survey of Incarcerated Felons," p. 36.
76. Pierre Thomas, "In the Line of Fire: The ‘Straw Purchase’ Scam," The Washington Post (August 18, 1991); and Thomas, "Va. Driver's License is Loophole for Guns: Fake Addresses Used in No-Wait Sales," The Washington Post (January 20, 1992).
77. National Institute of Justice, "Homicide in Eight U.S. Cities: Trends, Context, and Policy Implications," Research Report (December 1997), p. 99.
78. Meghan Hoyer, "Brady Act results overstated in Indiana," Indianapolis Star and News (June 23, 1998).
79. See General Accounting Office, "Gun Control: Implementation of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act," Report to the Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. Senate, and the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives (January 1996), p. 8.
80. The Washington Times noted in July of 1999 that: Although federal officials say about 400,000 persons have been prevented from buying guns by the instant check system, only one has been prosecuted by the Department of Justice in the last three years. [Sean Scully, "Supremacist’s shooting spree could spur gun control moves," The Washington Times (July 8, 1999).]
81. Of persons denied the right to purchase a firearm under the Brady Law, 7.6 percent of the denials involved routine traffic stops. Another 38.9 percent were the result of administrative snafus. Only 44.7 percent of denials were as a result of felony convictions, and many of these resulted from white collar crimes and ancient peccadilloes which would not suggest that the person would pose a danger. See supra note 79 at 39-40, 64-65.
82. Id., at 4.
83. Id.
84. On August 16, 1991, New York City Mayor David Dinkins signed Local Law 78 which banned the possession and sale of certain rifles and shotguns.
85. John Marzulli, "Weapons ban defied: S.I. man, arsenal seized," Daily News (September 5, 1992).
86. "Thousands of Californians Become Instant Criminals," The New Gun Week (March 1, 1998). See also "Gun Confiscation Begins: Gun Law Victim Holds Press Conference and Turns in Gun to Local Officials," NRA Press Release (January 28, 1998).
90. David Kopel, "Trust the People: The Case Against Gun Control," [Cato Institute] Policy Analysis 109 (July 11, 1988):25.
91. Jay Simkin, Aaron Zelman and Alan M. Rice, Lethal Laws: "Gun Control" is the Key to Genocide, (Milwaukee: Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, 1994).
92. Senate, "Handgun Violence," at 107, citing Novae Russkae Slovo, Vol. LXXII, No. 26.291, (6 Nov. 1983).
93. Kopel, "Trust the People," at 26.
94. Id., at 25-26.
95. U.S. News & World Report, (17 January 1994): 8.