-Caveat Lector- http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2001/12/19/15257.shtml
WJPBR Email News List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Peace at any cost is a Prelude to War! Gun Ownership – Are We Fit to Be Free? Phil Brennan Wednesday, Dec. 19, 2001 It happened again. Some poor guy caught in a love triangle he couldn't handle went berserk and shot a number of co-workers before killing himself. These things are happening more and more frequently, the list of victims continues to grow, and much of the blame for the deaths and woundings can be laid squarely at the doors of the nation's rabid anti-gun zealots. If that sounds harsh, keep in mind the fact that in every single instance of mass shootings, the victims were all defenseless, largely because anti-gun laws and irrational anti-gun sentiments kept victims and bystanders from having weapons that could have been used to stop the killers in their tracks. That could have been true at Columbine High School where, had just one teacher had a concealed handgun to protect his students, the killing spree could have been ended and the list of victims sharply diminished. In every single case, by the time police arrived on the scene the damage had been done, dramatically underscoring the fact that Americans cannot rely on the police to protect them in such circumstances. As a result, laws banning or prohibitively restricting citizen gun ownership are putting Americans at the mercy of murderous crackpots and felons. Had pilots on the three hijacked planes on Black Tuesday been armed, there is every chance that the twin towers at the World Trade center would still be standing, the Pentagon would be intact, and thousands of innocent victims would still be among us, alive to celebrate Christmas with their loved ones. That they aren't is largely the fault of the fascistic anti-gun fanatics who have used dishonest statistics and outright lies to blame firearms, and not those who criminally use them, in order to create a national distaste for firearms. Gun Control Studies A February 2000 study by acclaimed researchers John R. Lott Jr. and William M. Landes concludes that "the only policy factor to influence multiple victim public shootings is the passage of concealed handgun laws." The study conclusively shows that such crime deterrents as more police and wider use of the death penalty tend to curb "normal" instances of murder. They do nothing, however, to prevent such school shooting tragedies as have occurred in a number of the nation's public schools since 1997. To support their insistence that the availability of guns in or near public schools prevented more death and injury, Lott and Landes cited a number of examples, including the following: In the Pearl, Miss., shooting, an assistant principal retrieved his gun from his office and used it to physically immobilize the shooter before he caused additional harm. In an Edinboro, Penn., shooting, which left one teacher dead, "a shotgun pointed at the offender while he was reloading his gun prevented additional harm. The police did not arrive for another 10 minutes" after the assailant was apprehended by school staff. According to Lott, far and away the best-informed scholar on the subject, "in the U.S., the states with the highest gun ownership rates have by far the lowest violent crime rates. And similarly, over time, states with the largest increases in gun ownership have experienced the biggest drops in violent crime. "Research by Jeff Miron at Boston University, examining homicide rates across 44 countries, found that countries with the strictest gun control laws also tended to have the highest homicide rates," Lott wrote. News reports in Britain showed how crimes with guns have risen 40 percent since handguns were banned in 1997. Police are extremely important in stopping crime, but almost always arrive on the scene after the crime occurs. Passive behavior is much more likely to result in serious injury or death than using a gun to defend oneself. The only serious research on this issue has been conducted in the United States. "The National Crime Victimization Report, done by the U.S. Department of Justice, indicates consistently that women who behave passively are 2.5 times more likely to be seriously injured than women who defend themselves with a gun. It is the physically weakest people (women and the elderly) who benefit the most from having a gun. "Criminals, overwhelmingly young males, like to attack the targets that will give them the least trouble. A gun represents a great equalizer. Defensive gun uses are almost completely ignored by the media, but Americans use guns defensively about two million times a year, five times more often than guns are used to commit crimes." Media's Role Lott takes aim at the media, pointing the finger of blame for the disinformation that abounds about gun ownership directly at those who report the news. "No one would ever learn this by simply watching the news. In part this disregard by the media might arise because an innocent person's murder is more newsworthy than when a victim brandishes a gun and an attacker runs away with no crime committed. "Unlike the crimes that are avoided, bad events provide emotionally gripping pictures. But covering only the bad events creates the impression that guns only cost lives. Even the rare local media coverage of defensive gun use seldom involves more than very brief stories. News worthiness also dictates that these stories are not the typical examples of self-defense, but the rare instances where the attacker is shot. In fact, in up to 98 percent of the cases, simply brandishing a gun is sufficient to stop a crime. "Fewer than one out of 1,000 defensive gun uses results in the attacker's death. Worldwide we hear about crimes like the public-school shootings, as we should, but we never even hear locally about the many more lives saved. Since the well-known public shootings started in the fall of 1997, 32 students and four teachers have been killed in any type of shooting at elementary or secondary schools, an annual rate of one death per 4 million students. This includes deaths from gang fights, robberies, accidents, as well as attacks such as the one at Columbine. "But some sense of proportion is needed. During that same period, 53 students died playing high school football." Shall we ban high school football? Concealed-Carry Laws and Crime Reduction Noting that he analyzed the FBI's crime statistics for all U.S. counties by year from 1977 to 1996 as well as extensive cross-county information on accidental gun deaths and suicides, Lott explained that his study examined states that adopted so-called "objective" or shall-issue concealed handgun laws. Thirty-one states, he wrote, "now have shall-issue laws, while another 12 permit citizens to carry guns if they can demonstrate a need to public officials." The findings of the study, he said, were dramatic. The more people obtain permits over time, the more violent crime rates decline. For each additional year that these laws are in effect, murders declined. "Giving law-abiding adults the right to carry concealed handguns had a dramatic impact. Thirty-one states now provide such a right under law. When states passed right-to-carry laws, the number of multiple-victim public shootings plummeted below one-fifth, with an even greater decline in deaths. To the extent attacks still occur in states after enactment of these laws, such shootings tend to occur in those areas in which concealed handguns are forbidden. The drop in attacks in states adopting right-to-carry laws has been offset by increases in states without these laws." He cites the following incidents where citizen gun ownership proved decisive: Clearwater, Fla.: At 1:05 a.m., a man started banging on a patio door, briefly left to beat on the family's truck, but returned and tore open the patio door. At that point, after numerous shouts not to break into the home, a 16-year-old boy fired a single rifle shot, wounding the attacker. Columbia, S.C.: As two gas station employees left work just after midnight, two men attempted to rob them. The sheriff told a local television station: "Two men came out of the bushes, one of the men had a shovel handle that had been broken off and began to beat [the male employee] ... about the head, neck and then the arms." The male employee broke away long enough to draw a handgun from his pocket and wound his attacker, who later died. The second suspect, turned in by relatives, faces armed robbery and possible murder charges. Detroit: A mentally disturbed man yelled that the president was going to have him killed and started firing at people in passing cars. A man at the scene, who had a permit to carry a concealed handgun, fired shots that forced the attacker to stop shooting and run away. The attacker barricaded himself in an empty apartment, fired at police and ultimately committed suicide. West Palm Beach, Fla.: After being beaten during a robbery at his home just two days earlier, a homeowner began carrying a handgun in his pocket. When another robber attacked him, the homeowner shot and wounded his assailant. *COPYRIGHT NOTICE** In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for nonprofit research and educational purposes only.[Ref. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ] Want to be on our lists? Write at [EMAIL PROTECTED] for a menu of our lists! Write to same address to be off lists! <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html <A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html";>Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]</A> http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ <A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/";>ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
