My thanks to both for taking the time to write. Neither were done in a few minutes' time.
Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.
The first is a link to another blogger in his entry, An Opinion on Gun Control.
Second is an Open Letter, written by a fellow Mississippi Gun Owner:
This is an open letter to anyone interested in the national conversation concerning gun control and violence. Like everyone else, I am shocked and saddened at the recent violent criminal act that occurred at Sandy Hook Elementary. That combined with the ensuing national discussion regarding gun control and violence motivated me to write this open letter.
First, let me tell you a little about myself. I am 37 years old and I am from Mississippi. I am an avid sportsman and competitive shooter. I am an instructor certified enhanced firearms permit holder, and I currently compete as an “A” class Production division shooter in the United States Practical Shooting Association. If you don’t know what any of that means, don’t be impressed. I am nothing special. This time a year ago, I had never owned or fired a handgun in my entire life. Up until January, I had always been intimidated by them based on what I had read or heard in anti-gun propaganda, and somewhat fearful of them because I am part of the first generation that grew up in a culture that has glorified criminal and unsafe gun violence on television, movies, and in video games, but more on that later.
This time last year, I first looked into getting a concealed carry permit and purchasing a handgun for self defense. The prospect of that was so very new and foreign to me. I decided to educate myself about guns, gun laws, and the effects guns have on violence. I also decided to educate myself on defensive techniques and safety procedures. I sought out the proper training, familiarized myself with handguns and became comfortable and proficient with them. I then got into the sport of competitive handgun shooting. I now own 10 guns, have fired 20,000 rounds in the last 12 months, and have competed in 31 different shooting sports events since March, and I carry a handgun on my person everywhere I am legally allowed. In the span of the last 12 months I have went from being intimidated and fearful of handguns and thinking that they were the root cause of violence in our country, to completely comfortable with their use and gaining the understanding that they are a tool that has been proven to be effective in reducing violent crimes. It has been an interesting year, to say the least, and I wanted to share with you some of the things I’ve learned along the way, especially in light of the recent national conversation that has misrepresented guns and their effect on violence.
The research I have done shows that guns are an effective tool in reducing violence. You often hear that an armed society is a polite society, and I have found that to be true both in my research into the subject, as well as in my anecdotal personal experience in the last year.
I highly recommend everyone purchase and read the book “More Guns, Less Crime” by Yale professor John Lott. It is an exhaustive analysis of the effect of gun possession on crime rates. It is the most extensive empirical study of crime deterrence that has been done by anyone to date. He presents the results of his exhaustive statistical analysis of crime data for every county in the United States during 29 years from 1977 to 2005. The book examines city, county and state level data from the entire United States and measures the impact of 11 different types of gun control laws on crime rates. Lott also examines the effects of gun control laws, including the Brady Law. He also spends time discussing gun ownership rates and crime rates in other countries, such as the United Kingdom. His exhaustive research on this issue has been peer reviewed and supported by several noted academics in his field, and it has become the definitive reference in discussing the effects of guns on crime rates.
I also recommend his follow up book, “The Bias against Guns”. In this book Lott details the effects of gun laws on multiple victim shootings in public places. His two main arguments are that gun free zones increase these events, and that shall issue concealed carry laws greatly reduce them.
Lott's first argument is that gun free zones are attractive to criminals because no law abiding citizens will be able to stop them from taking hostages or killing. Lott makes the case that gun free zones are the safest places for criminals, and that it should not be surprising that these kinds of situations occur there, when criminals have so much incentive to do so.
Lott also examines the converse, when ordinary citizens are given the opportunity to carry concealed weapons to protect themselves. He shows that mass murders decrease greatly when law abiding citizens are allowed to carry, explaining that criminals know that in public there is a good chance that someone nearby will be able to stop them.
Combine this with the knowledge that every public mass shooting except for one that has occurred since 1950 in which three or more victims died was in a gun free zone, and that the average number of people killed in mass shootings in gun free zones in which police stop the shooting is 14.29 and when not in gun free zones and civilians stop the shooting that number drops to 2.33.
The second book also discusses the effect of having guns in the household, focusing on two points. He demonstrates with his exhaustive analysis to nationwide statistical data that people are almost never killed accidentally by their own guns and that most deaths involving guns in the home are suicides, and children are much more likely to be killed by household items such as 5 gallon buckets, beds, or pools than by a gun.
It’s eye opening, especially considering what you’ve always heard or been told by the majority of the media and in anti-gun propaganda.
In addition to those two books that I highly recommend, I also have comes across several other interesting pieces of information in my research over the past year that bolsters the truth that more guns equals less crime.
For example:
In 1976, the Washington, D.C. City Council passed a law generally prohibiting residents from possessing handguns and requiring that all firearms in private homes be kept unloaded and rendered temporally inoperable via disassembly or installation of a trigger lock. The law became operative on Sept. 24, 1976. On June 26, 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 ruling, struck down this law as unconstitutional. During the years in which the D.C. handgun ban and trigger lock law was in effect, the Washington, D.C. murder rate averaged 73% higher than it was at the outset of the law, while the U.S. murder rate averaged 11% lower.
On October 1, 1987, Florida's right-to-carry law became effective. Since the outset of the Florida right-to-carry law, the Florida murder rate has averaged 36% lower than it was before the law took effect, while the U.S. murder rate has averaged 15% lower. The previously mentioned book details similar occurrences across several different states as they have passed right-to-carry laws.
In 2007, there were 27.7 million emergency room visits for non-fatal accidents that year. Only 00.05% or 15,698 were firearm related.
In 1997, the UK instituted a complete ban on handgun ownership by civilians in response to the Dunblane massacre. The Dunblane massacre is an incident that occurred in the UK in 1996 in which a criminal shot dead 16 school children and their teacher, very similar to the recent Sandy Hook tragedy. The complete handgun ban was instituted in an effort to keep such a tragedy from ever occurring again. It was enforced by the confiscation of over 162,000 thousand guns and over 1.5 million pounds of ammunition. Using "records of firearms held on firearms certificates," police accounted for all but fewer than eight of all legally owned handguns in all of England, Scotland, and Wales.
As of 2012, the violent crime rate in the UK is 5 times that of the United States.
As of 2012, despite a complete ban on handgun ownership for the past 15 years, there is an average of 12,000 gun crimes committed a year in the UK.
In 2010, thirteen years after the ban enacted in the UK to prevent mass shootings at the expense of private gun ownership, a criminal in Cumbria shot 23 people, killing 11, before killing himself.
People often theorize what would happen if guns were completely outlawed, and I point them to that 1997 UK gun ban, and explain how it had failed its purpose, and resulted in a violent crime rate five times that of the United States.
According to the FBI, in the US from 2006-2010, there were 153 mass killings. A mass killing was defined as one in which 4 or more people died as the result of one incident. 33% of these did not involve a gun. That is close to 50 mass killings in a 5 year span that did not involve guns. I point to this when explaining to people that banning guns will not stop mass killings.
Of the remaining amount that involved guns, each and every one of them occurred in a gun free zone. I explain to people that gun free zones are established by legislation at the urging of the anti-gun crowd with good intentions, but the unintended result is the creation of a target rich environment for criminals that is guaranteed not to present the potential for an armed response from a law abiding citizen. Gun free zones, while intended to prevent gun violence, have ended up becoming veritable killing fields. Sandy Hook Elementary School was a gun free zone.
The deterrence factor of a potential armed response from a victim, while not quantifiable, cannot be ignored. It is not coincidence that every mass shooting since 1950 except for 1 occurred in a gun free zone. Criminals select these target rich environments because they prefer soft targets and choose to avoid the potential armed response. Studies have shown that even if no one is armed, the lack of a location being designated a gun free zone greatly decreases the chance of a mass shooting occurring. Just the possibility that the potential victims may be carrying guns prevents crime, whether or not the potential victims are carrying guns or not!
Look towards Kennesaw, GA as another example of the effect deterrence has on crime. In 1982, in response to the growing nationwide amount of violence and crime, Kennesaw enacted a law that every head of household had to own a gun. Over the next 25 years, not a single gun crime occurred in Kennesaw, GA.
Contrast that with the fact that 26% of gun crime in the US occurs in Chicago, New York City, and Washington DC, despite them having some of the strictest gun control laws in the country and only having 6% of the population.
On the national defense level, look no further than to the infamous quote, “You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass”.
The more research I did, the more amazed I became at how every notion I previously held concerning guns was wrong.
The current national dialogue is in regards to a potential forthcoming Assault Weapons Ban. This would place a limit on magazine capacity at 10 rounds, and ban any semi-automatic weapon that had cosmetic features similar to assault rifles.
What most people don’t understand is that assault rifles are automatic weapons, and are strictly controlled. The guns you see talked about in the media are actually not assault rifles; they are semi-automatic rifles that have cosmetic features similar to assault rifles. Basically, they are made the same color as the guns the military uses, but they function differently. The gun used in the Sandy Hook incident was not an assault rifle. It was a semi-automatic rifle with cosmetic features similar to an assault rifle. In functionality, it is just like your grandpa’s hunting rifle, in fact, probably less powerful as it fires one of the smaller caliber cartridges available. It cosmetically resembles a military rifle because it has molded plastic painted black to make it look like one. The more you learn about the equipment, the more ridiculous you realize the efforts have been with gun control.
This exact ban being discussed was already tried before and has been shown not to have any impact whatsoever on crime rates. From 1994-2004, the federal assault weapons ban was in place, and it has been shown by both the CDC and the Violent Policy Center to have had no effect on reducing violence.
Even worse, Connecticut already had this exact same assault weapons ban that had been previously tried on the federal level in effect during the Sandy Hook incident.
Attempting to enact the same legislation now when we know it doesn’t work doesn’t make sense. It seems like a hurried reaction to appease the many uninformed masses of people who do not understand and are fearful of guns with no real goal of accomplishing anything meaningful.
Aside from denying several million Americans the ability to lawfully pursue something they desire, and putting thousands of people out of work who manufacture these items, we already know from the previous attempt that it will have no effect at all on violence.
It amazes me that due to the large number of people ignorant on the effectiveness of guns as a tool against violence, we would enact legislation that we know does not work, at the expense of denying millions of Americans an activity they desire, and costing thousands their jobs.
Rather than enact ineffective legislation to appease a voting bloc that is ignorant to the facts, let’s try addressing the real problems that exist in an effort to effect real change.
President Obama said we would have to take a hard look at ourselves and make some tough choices. Let’s do that.
1. End the drug war. Studies show the drug war is the single biggest cause of violent crime in the United States. There are shelves of books written about this, so I am not going to write another one here.
2. Ban gun violence in video games. A complete ban, not just a rating system or trying to limit it to adults. Ban gun violence in video games. It serves no necessary purpose, and it has been shown that exposure to such violence in young children desensitizes them and predisposes them to acts of violence when they get older. It makes absolutely no sense to me that a 20 year old man cannot walk into a sporting goods store and buy a single-shot shotgun to participate in a wholesome family friendly trap shooting event, but his 9-year old brother can spend 4 hours a day every day participating in a simulation in which he is using a fully automatic assault rifle to kill, maim, and disfigure hundreds of thousands of opponents in a criminal and unsafe manner. On a personal note, I grew up playing sports games, and didn’t start playing violent video games until I was 27 years old. I played a lot. I even competed professionally. I played daily. I honed my craft. I stopped 6 years later when I started to notice mild symptoms of battlefield induced PTSD, despite never having served in combat or experiencing any type of traumatic event whatsoever in my entire life. I found myself having night terrors and flashbacks to years previous to virtual locations and situations I experienced inside video games. I cannot imagine the effects these games will have on young children who grow up playing them at a tender and impressionable age. I have told my wife, if we are ever blessed enough to have children, I am completely comfortable in taking a child as young as 6 years old and upward to the range and teaching them proper gun safety and responsible gun use for recreational and sporting purposes, but from the day they are born to the day they leave my care at 18+ years old they will not be allowed to participate in video games that simulate extreme gun violence, criminal behavior, or battlefield experiences.
3. Along the same lines as above. Ban gun violence on TV and in movies. Yes, it is time to make tough decisions and sacrifices to make a difference. No reruns of old ones, nothing. Complete ban on the glorification of criminal and unsafe gun violence on television or movies. It serves no purpose. It amazes me to hear an anti-gun proponent advocate the complete ban of the safe and responsible use of an effective tool against crime, and at the same time defend his own right to be entertained by the glorification of exaggerated and gory criminal acts of unsafe and unrealistic gun usage in TV and movies. It saddens me that the most popular networks carry virtually non-stop programming that glorifies gun violence in a completely unrealistic criminal and unsafe way, and yet I have to order special packages of little known or heard of sporting channels to find programming that depicts safe and responsible gun handling in a realistic environment. Get a stopwatch and a remote control and see how long it takes you to find a show depicting criminal and unsafe use of guns and extreme gun violence. It won’t take long. Now do the same and try to find a program that is instructional on safe and proper gun handling. I’ve been looking for months.
4. Address the mental health issue. Earnestly.
5. Teach gun safety in schools. We have sex education to prevent teen pregnancy. Let’s teach gun safety to prevent firearm accidents and educate our children properly. As it is, your kids are learning about guns, but they are learning about them from television, the movies, and video games. Don’t let that happen. Guns are useful tools. Let’s educate people on how to use them properly, and let’s start at an early age so we reduce the number of firearms related accidents that happen when kids aren’t aware of the basic safety and gun handling. Let’s familiarize them with effective tools and prevent them from growing up with irrational fears.
6. Make guns more accessible for law-abiding, responsible adults. Let’s untangle the spider web of varying gun laws from different states that make interstate travel a nightmare for responsible law abiding gun owners, but have no impact on criminals. Let’s standardize those state laws, ease the restrictions that only effect law abiding citizens. Make CCW reciprocity nationwide, but make obtaining one require stringent background checks, and ensure proper training requirements are met. This would allow us to use a nationwide CCW license as a easy way to vet anyone who has it as a responsible and law-abiding gun owner with access to expanded privileges regarding right to carry. I would use Mississippi’s enhanced permit model as the benchmark.
7. Eliminate gun-free zones completely. Statistics show they are gun violence hot spots and mass shooting killing fields. Only law abiding citizens observe gun-free zones. Criminals seek them out for soft targets with no possibility of armed response.
Ultimately, however, we have to do something, and as a nation and to a person, we have to define the problem we really want to solve.
People say guns are the problem, but that isn’t true. The real problem everyone wants to eliminate is crime and violence.
What we all want to accomplish is to reduce the amount of crime and violence nationwide, and try and prevent incidents like the one at Sandy Hook from ever happening again. Let’s take cues from the UK and their failed attempt at a complete gun ban and resulting mass shooting and violent crime rates 5 times that of the US as an indication that gun bans don’t work.
Let’s take a cue from the failed attempt to establish gun free zones here at home as a safe harbor for gun violence when in reality the opposite effect has occurred in them being actively sought out by criminals in order to carry out massacres.
Aside from this, I additionally want to specifically reduce gun crime and firearms accidents amongst children and young teens. Banning the glorification of gun violence in video games, television, and movies can move to accomplish this goal, combined with responsible instruction in schools on safe gun handling and responsible usage.
Let’s change the culture by raising our children to be knowledgeable and responsible with the capabilities of these effective tools rather than having them grow up with unrealistic depictions and the glorification of wanton criminal acts barraging them daily on video games, television, and movies.
Let’s do this. Let’s do this now, and let’s do it right.
hen
in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to
dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and
to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station
to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent
respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the
causes which impel them to the separation.
