[Vision2020] Firearms - Dangerous or Useful?

[Mike Finkbiner]

Visionaries -

Most of the arguments about firearms revolve around the three areas of 
Rights, Liability to Society and Usefulness.  The Rights question is 
interesting, but I think the Liability vs Usefulness question is more 
personal.

A lot of these arguments are religious in nature, with people on both sides 
more focused on emotion than fact.  Sound bites like "For the children" and 
"From my cold dead hands" don't really do more than comfort the true 
believers.  I'm sorry this is rather long, but it's a subject that deserves 
more than a sound bite.

I think a lot of the problem comes down to perceived risk.  People worry 
about things they perceive as dangerous, rather than things that really are. 
  The common example is driving vs flying.  Statistically you are much more 
likely to be killed in a car accident than on a commercial aircraft, but 
people worry more about traveling by air.   A person who is not involved in 
criminal behavior has a small risk of being shot in comparison to other 
types of injuries, but sports injuries, auto accidents and drowning are 
accepted, while firearms are demonized

Here are some interesting chart of causes of death.  To get firearms into 
10th place, below septicemia and renal failure, they have to total those 
shot by police and in self defense with those shot by criminals.

http://www.the-eggman.com/writings/death_stats.html

If you look more closely at the types of people killed by firearms, you will 
find that the majority are well known to police, and have been involved in 
violent behavior many times before.  If you take out the people with 
criminal records, the percentage of deaths from firearms drops a lot.

Another problem is perceived usefulness.  People feel that swimming pools, 
5-gallon buckets and automobiles are useful, so while sad when someone is 
injured or killed, they don't feel the object caused the death.  With 
firearms, reports in the news tend to concentrate on criminal use rather 
than citizens defending themselves.

In 2001 "USA Today ... reported 5,660 words on criminal use of guns but no 
reporting on the use of guns to stop crimes, and the Washington Post, ... 
devoted 46,884 words to the criminal use of firearms and 953 words to their 
defensive use by law-abiding citizens." - Jeff Johnson CNSNews.com 
Congressional Bureau Chief Oct 2003

There have been several studies by academics and government agencies looking 
at defensive use of firearms.  Every one of them has concluded that despite 
the lack of media interest, there are at least a hundred thousand, perhaps 
over a million instances every year in this country where a person defends 
themselves with a firearm.  Those uses vary from just displaying a gun to 
killing an attacker.  In a large percentage of cases, no shots are fired, 
which is probably why they don't make the news.

If you want to look at the actual studies, rather than what people are 
saying about them, this page has links to a wide variety -

http://www.gunowners.org/sourcetb.htm

If you want to see a regularly updated list of civilians using guns in self 
-defense -

http://www.gunowners.org/sourcetb.htm

The recent home invasion in Connecticut is an example of what young, strong 
thugs can do to people who do not have the means to defend themselves.  I 
gather the weapon of choice was a baseball bat.  A homeowner with a firearm 
has a chance to defend his family against that kind of thing.  Firearms 
allow the average person to not live in fear of the young and violent.

None of this excuses people who do not properly control dangerous objects 
that they own.  Children who die in swimming pools, 5-gallon buckets or from 
household chemicals are victims of adult neglect, just as those who are 
killed by guns in their homes.  That doesn't mean we should ban any of those 
from the home.  They are all useful in their place, and dangerous when not.

As far as access to firearms causing violence, there was an interesting 
study in the Spring 2007 Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy -

http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf

The authors looked at the rate of gun ownership in various Euoropean 
countries and compared it to the murder and suicide rates.  Essentially, 
they couldn't find a correlation.  Countries with very high firearms 
ownership rates like Norway have low rates of murder while countries like 
Luxembourg and Russia, with very low rates of ownership have much higher 
rates of murder.  The criminals just use other tools.  Violence is a problem 
of the society, not the tools available.

It's a complicated subject, but the evidence is strong that we cannot blame 
guns for societies failings.  In a violent society, the honest citizen has a 
right to defend herself from the goblins, and firearms have been the great 
equalizer for a long time.

Please take a look at -

   http://www.a-human-right.com/


Mike Finkbiner


"The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on equal 
footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with 
a 19-year old gang banger, and a single gay guy on equal footing with a 
carload of drunk guys with baseball bats. The gun removes the disparity in 
physical strength, size, or numbers between a potential attacker and a 
defender."

		- Maj. L. Caudill USMC (Ret)