Sangamon
County Rifle Association
Right Reason on Second Amendment Rights
Springfield, Illinois
Right Reason on Second Amendment Rights
Springfield, Illinois
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Sangamon
County Rifle Association
Right Reason on Second Amendment Rights Springfield, Illinois |
|
 Jim Butler President, SCRA January 2006 GunNews I recently read an article about observations made by Professor John Lott, senior research fellow, Yale University Law School and author of More Guns, Less Crime, about firearm use and ownership. One of the myths currently prevailing is the one that says safe storage laws reduce firearm accidents and suicides. Lott claims that if you look at the data, little has changed in the states that have passed mandatory safe storage laws. He also said that when you hear of children under the age of 10 dying from gunshots, you assume that it's another child who did the shooting. Lott says that's not true. "The typical person who accidentally fires a gun is an adult male, who's in his very late teens or early 20's. He's either an alcoholic or drug addict who has a history of arrests for violent crime." The other myth that has permeated both sides of the gun issue, is that having a gun in the home is risky business. Lott says the opposite is true. We have all heard the claim perpetuated by anti-gun groups that "A gun in the home is 43 times more likely to kill a family member or acquaintance than an intruder." The claim is based on a few studies published in medical journals by the same set of authors. According to Lott, the problem is how the studies are done. He explained that what they do is identify a group of people within a certain area who have died from gunshot wounds. Then they question the relatives to see if the victim owned a gun or whether a gun was in the residence. If there was, they automatically assume that it was the persons own gun that caused the death. Lott said, "When people have gone back and looked at the data, what they found was that even including suicides, at most only 14% of the deaths could be attributed to the firearm in the home." Another flaw in these anti-gun studies is that not all of the benefits of merely owning a gun are considered. They only count as a benefit of firearm ownership cases where the attacker was killed. "That's extremely rare," admits Lott. "Only one out of every 1,000 times that people use guns effectively is the attacker killed. About 98% of the time, simply brandishing a gun is sufficient cause for the criminal to break off his attack. Less than 2% of the time, the weapon is fired, and most of these are just warning shots." When you talk about guns in the house, what you have to take into consideration, maintains Lott, is that there are two types of households, law-abiding households and criminal households. In those cases where a child is accidentally shot in the home, it's likely that it occurred in criminal households and the person who actually fired the shot had a long criminal history. Lott also debunks the myth that licensing and registration are important tools for law enforcement. "The notion is that if a gun is licensed and registered and if it's left at the crime scene, it's theoretically possible to trace the gun back to the criminal. The problem is when you talk to police, they can't identify even one crime that's been solved as a result of licensing and registration. Criminals don't register their guns and they virtually never leave them at crime scenes. The only time that ever happens is when the criminal has either been seriously injured or killed." Unfortunately, most gun laws -- gun bans, waiting periods, registration, licensing, gun and ammunition taxes, and a litany of restrictive measures -- only divert the attention of America from the real crime solutions. The unavoidable fact is criminals don't obey laws, criminals roam our streets because of a failed criminal justice system. Yet politicians, backed by a relentless media, spend their time promoting useless and dangerous gun control measures because of these and other faulty gun myths. As I See it Index Return to SCRA Home Page |