186 lines
9.0 KiB
Plaintext
186 lines
9.0 KiB
Plaintext
The following article is under submission. Reproduction
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on computer bulletin boards is permitted for informational
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purposes only. Copyright (c) 1993 by J. Neil Schulman.
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All other rights reserved.
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ANATOMY OF AN ANTI-GUN CRUSADE
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by J. Neil Schulman
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Anytime a publication calls an article "THE TRUTH ABOUT"
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something, it's likely that what follows isn't going to be
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dispassionate facts about anything, but a sermon. When the
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subject is guns, you can bet the sermon is going to be
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particularly short on objectivity. \Vogue\ magazine's October,
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1993 cover, which headlines "Armed and in Danger: The Truth About
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Women and Guns," bears this out.
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The article's premise is that firearms manufacturers are
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playing on women's fears of crime to sell them handguns, but that
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firearms bought for protection are more likely to be a danger to
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the woman or her family than a defensive tool. To illustrate
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this sermon, \Vogue\ writer Steve Fishman begins with the parable
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of Sharon Kendall of Wichita, Kansas, who decided to buy a gun
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for protection.
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Fishman writes: "A 52-year-old single parent with 11-year-
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old twins and a 13-year-old at home, Kendall talked to a
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neighboring 16-year-old, a responsible kid, one who'd grown up
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around guns and who'd been to a gun school to learn how to handle
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them. He said he'd bring a gun over, just to familiarize her.
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The weapon was a .38 semiautomatic. He said it was loaded with
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blanks. The neighbor had a gun aimed at one of the twins, who
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reached over to turn the barrel away from him. The weapon fired
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accidentally, and Kendall's 11-year-old boy took one shot in the
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chest. He died at the hospital during surgery."
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That Fishman is incompetent to evaluate firearms, their
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safety, or their usefulness, is immediately apparent to any
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experienced gun owner who reads this paragraph. Except for target
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guns, semiautomatic handguns don't come in ".38" caliber; that's
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a designation used for revolver ammunition. Magazine-fed handguns
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use shorter and less-powerful .380 rounds.
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Nor is the 16-year-old neighbor whom Sharon Kendall
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supposedly chose to teach her about guns "a responsible kid." A
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call to Lieutenant Landwehr at the Investigations Division of the
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Wichita Police Department revealed that the 16-year-old in
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question has a history of shoplifting and alcohol abuse, and had
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stolen the key to remove the firearm from his grandfather's
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locked gun case while the grandfather was out of town. The
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neighbor boy broke at least three of the primary safety rules of
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firearms handling which \any\ firearms safety and handling course
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would teach.
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1. "Never point a gun, even one you think is unloaded, at
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anything you don't intend to destroy." But this "responsible"
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16-year-old pointed a firearm he knew was loaded at an 11-year-
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old boy.
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2. "Never assume that a gun is unloaded, or that a round is
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safe because it misfired." According to the police report, this
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boy "who'd grown up around guns and who'd been to a gun school to
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learn how to handle them" had been dry-firing rounds he assumed
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were duds because they had previously misfired. Any one-day
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National Rifle Assn. firearms handling course would have taught
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him that multiple strikes on a round can cause it to fire at any
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time. If he attended such a course, he evidently didn't learn
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the most basic lessons.
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3. "Never place your finger inside the trigger guard until
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you to intend to fire." But did this 16-year-old merely break
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this safety rule ... or did he pull the trigger on purpose? The
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victim's 13-year-old sister, who was in the room at the time,
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told the police that her brother had \not\ tried to reach for the
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gun at all.
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Where was Sharon Kendall, at 10 P.M., while her children and
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a neighbor boy were playing with a loaded gun? She was in the
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house, aware that the kids were handling the gun, and did nothing
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to stop them.
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Steve Fishman's cautionary tale about the danger of guns
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also fails to tell us that another of Sharon Kendall's daughters,
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a 25-year-old alcoholic and drug-user, was murdered in August,
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1993 by a blunt object to the back of her head, in a case that's
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still unsolved. A mother who has raised two children to be
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killed within a year under sordid circumstances is hardly an
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example to the rest of us.
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The rest of Steve Fishman's polemic against women choosing
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to buy firearms for protection relies on data as discreditable as
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his example. He quotes studies which James Mercy, acting
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director of the Center for Disease Control, and a gun-control
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partisan with no criminological education, commissioned to
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demonstrate the supposed risk of guns. The most quoted of these
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by gun-control advocates, a study by Kellerman and Reay published
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in the June 12, 1986 \New England Journal of Medicine\, is the
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centerpiece of Fishman's conclusion that "For every case of
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justifiable homicide with a gun, there were 43 murders, suicides,
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or accidental deaths."
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But Fishman never quotes Kellerman and Reay's own caveat in
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their \NEJM\ article, which states, "Mortality studies such as ours
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do not include cases in which burglars or intruders are wounded
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or frightened away by the use or display of a firearm. Cases in
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which would-be intruders may have purposely avoided a house known
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to be armed are also not identified. We did not report the total
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number of nonlethal firearm injuries involving guns kept in the
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home. A complete determination of firearm risks versus benefits
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would require that these figures be known."
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Even Kellerman and Reay make no claim that their study tells
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us anything about whether a gun kept in the home is more likely
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to be used successfully against a burglar than to be a risk for a
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homeowner.
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Fishman then gives his "balance": "The NRA claims that guns
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are used one million times each year in self-defense, but there
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appears to be no firm statistics to back this up."
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No firm statistics, that is, except the dozen studies
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analyzed by Gary Kleck, Ph.D., professor of criminology at
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Florida State University, in his book \Point Blank: Guns and
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Violence in America\ (Aldine de Gruyter, 1991), which Fishman
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could have looked up if he was more interested in truth than
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sermons. Unlike Drs. Kellerman and Reay, Professor Kleck has
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carefully avoided taking funding from either side in the gun
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control debate, though he personally has impeccable liberal
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Democratic credentials. And Kleck's latest research, his Spring,
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1993 National Self-Defense Survey of 4979 households, reveals
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that previous studies had underestimated the number of times
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previous survey respondents had used their firearms in defense.
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The new survey indicates 2.4 million gun defenses a year, 1.9
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million of them with handguns, and about a third of these
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millions of yearly gun defenses occurred in the home.
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Published just a few days after the \Vogue\ article is
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another article in the latest \New England Journal of Medicine\,
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also by Kellerman and associates and again financed with a grant
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from anti-gunner James Mercy at the CDC, which claims that a home
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keeping a gun is three times as likely to experience a murder as
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a home without a gun. Even if that were true -- and the new NEJM'
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study's biases make it unlikely -- Kleck's survey shows that a
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handgun kept in the home for protection produces a defense with no
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dead body about 633,000 times a year. Even if a homeowner with a
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gun suffers a three-fold increased risk of homicide from a family
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member, the ability to deter a potentially lethal confrontation
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against a burglar is increased a hundred-fold.
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The Chicago Police Department analyzed 940 murders committed
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in Chicago in 1992. It found that only 8% of the murders involved
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family relationships. Seventy-two percent of the murderers,
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however, had previous criminal records, and 65% of the victims
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had criminal records as well.
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Here is the essential truth about the risk of homicide which
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all the talk about violence as a health problem, rather than a
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criminal problem, is attempting to ignore: overwhelmingly, violence
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isn't committed by ordinary people who commit murders because a
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firearm is handy, but by criminals, who commit violence because
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violence is a way of life for them. The National Rifle Assn.
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has been saying this for years, but anti-gun crusaders just don't
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want to listen.
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All of which proves that if you're looking for "the truth
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about guns," you'll find that it's just not in vogue.
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#
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J. Neil Schulman is a Los Angeles novelist, screenwriter,
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and journalist. In September, 1993, he received the Second
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Amendment Foundation's James Madison Award for his \Los Angeles
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Times\ article, "If Gun Laws Work, Why Are We Afraid?"
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Reply to:
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J. Neil Schulman
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Mail: P.O. Box 94, Long Beach, CA 90801-0094
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JNS BBS: 1-310-839-7653,,,,25
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Internet: softserv@genie.geis.com
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Post as filename: ANATOMY.TXT
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