From: rwalton@tehmi.next.com (Robert Walton)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns
Subject: "A Pro-gun Arguement" (warning:  long)
Date: 30 Sep 92 22:56:00 GMT

Dear Readers:

I feel it is time to vent.  So those of you who need to vent can do so  
vicariously, I've posted the following in hopes you achieve some catharsis  
as well.

I am a 32 year old, a management advisor at a Silicon Valley computer  
company with both undergraduate and graduate degrees.  I listen to  
classical music and jazz, and I read extensively.  I play golf, though I'm  
not very good, and live in a nice suburban neighborhood south of San  
Francisco.

Yet it surprises some of my friends and acquaintances to know that despite  
these trappings of urban "respectability", I am also an unabashed gun  
owner, shooting enthusiast, and NRA activist.  I'm fed up with the  
stupidity of current gun laws here in the state of California and  
nationally.

My observations:

Value systems (largely dependant upon how we are raised as children)  
almost entirely define our positions on this issue.  If one grows up, as I  
did, with firearms presented in the context of liberty and self-reliance,  
personal freedom and protection of the family and property, of spending  
days in the woods or at the range with their dad, with cool winter  
mornings in the woods, and other positive memories and feelings, they will  
naturally not see firearms as "dreadful weapons of crime and death".  On  
the other hand, if one's only contact with firearms has been through the  
evening news (gads!), movies, magazine and newspaper articles, I am likely  
to feel that guns are a "plague to be rid of".  These latter people have  
generally not handled firearms in their childhood, and their parents did  
not foster a sense of respect or desire on their part to own firearms.

That's why data doesn't seem to affect people's feelings about the gun  
control issue.  And like most political issues, it's feelings, not reality  
that matter in legislation.  Look at statistics from the US government on  
homicide rates over the past century.  From 1870 to 1905, the homicide  
rate in the United States was about 1 per 100,000.  During this time,  
anyone, including children, could buy any firearm they could afford, even  
by mail order.  Semi-automatic firearms were available around the turn of  
the century, by the way, though admittedly there were very few.  Clearly  
the open and free sales of firearms alone, and the presence of  
semi-automatic firearms toward the end of this period, is not a culprit in  
"causing" homicides and crime.

But times do change, so let's see how.  There have been very two  
significant increases in homicide rates this century.  The first occurred  
from 1905 to 1933, when there was a rise in homicides to nearly 10 per  
100,000.  If you correlate events, it seems likely that this increase was  
due to two principle factors -- massive urbanization/immigration (and the  
corollary unrest and tensions) and prohibition, which spawned bootlegging.   
Prohibition was repealed in 1933, and it's no coincidence that the  
homicide rate plummeted 50% from 1933 to 1945 to 5 per 100,000.  From 1945  
to 1964, the rate continued a modest decline.  This is despite thousands  
of firearms souvenirs from WWII and the Korean War entering the U.S. in  
the hands of private citizens.  In addition, guns were still sold on the  
open market without restriction.  If guns contribute to crime and  
violence, one would expect an explosion of homicides during this period --  
there was no explosion.

The second increase in he homicide rate came from 1964 to 1978.  Again, as  
in the case of prohibition, there is a clear culprit -- drug use became  
increasingly common, was illegal and hence quite lucrative.  During  
prohibition, homicide increased, and during the increase of illegal drug  
use the homicide rate increased.  Leading up to prohibition, the  
urbanization and immigration issues complicated things.  In the 64-78 time  
frame, both continued strongly, with the addition that the "baby boom"  
males went through the high crime years of 19 - 40.  Not surprisingly, the  
homicide rate climbed back to 10 per 100,000.

According to the NRA, there are over 10,000 gun control laws on the books  
today at the federal, state, and local level, and the homicide rate is  
about the same now as it was in 1933!  Further, the areas with the  
strictest gun controls are also the areas with the worst crime problems.   
I've seen on the net that about half the states allow open carry of a  
firearm, but most of the murders happen in the other half.  If we base our  
policies on the data, and if we are truly concerned about violence and  
homicide, we should not spend time and effort on massive gun control or  
banning efforts, but instead review proposals to legalize drug use  
(equivalent to the repeal of prohibition), to developing tax and other  
incentives which would slow or reduce urbanization in the biggest cities  
to more normally distribute the population, and to better immigration  
controls.   It is far too easy to blame a small metal object (not even  
it's misuse, mind you, but the object itself) for much more complex social  
ills.  To a thinking person, I contend it is nigh on criminal negligence  
as a society to do so.

Yet the information poring out of the tube each night would lead one who  
has never given thought to this issue to conclude that guns=crime.  Many  
news programs go so far as to use the icon of a handgun in the background  
whenever there is a crime story.  Television coverage of street violence,  
shootings, police brutality, war, and disasters create emotional reactions  
in people which cloud their rational judgement.  People watching the  
program aren't given time to evaluate what they've just seen in a broader  
context of cause and effect, much less determine if what they've seen is  
really part of a pattern of events indicative of a significant, larger  
issue that can be addressed through legislative means, or whether it was a  
fluke event that no law would have prevented.

Example:  After a crazed man used a semi-automatic rifle to kill school  
children in California, the state of California decided to ban "assault  
weapons".  It doesn't seem to matter that these "assault weapons" have  
been around for fifty years, and that semi-automatic firearms have been  
around since before the turn of the century (as alluded to earlier).  Nor  
is there any evidence to suggest that these firearms are used  
disproportionately in committing crimes.   But some knee-jerk bonehead  
watching the news story in the room says, "God, we just have to do  
something about that".  What they're really saying is "gee, I'd feel a  
whole lot better if someone passed a law banning semi-automatic weapons,  
high-capacity clips and magazines".  I have to resist the strong urge to  
strangle people who think like this.

Examples of this emotional manipulation abound.  Sarah Brady campaigns for  
Handgun Control, Inc. based upon one event -- the shooting of her husband.   
She relies on her anguish and the emotional appeal of one person we all  
saw shot on TV to sway public and political sentiment on a much broader  
issue.  To add insult to injury, the Brady bill has little if any  
relevance to crime control, and would not have prevented Hinckley from  
obtaining the gun he shot Mr. Brady with.  In another example, CBS aired a  
gun control special after the LA riots with Dan Rather.  The advertisement  
for it capitalized on the LA violence, showing people in gun shops looking  
to purchase a firearm, and implying that this was bad.  I would contend  
that in fact the reverse is true. :-)

There is another side to the gun ownership issue that doesn't get much  
media attention -- guns rightly used in self defense.  It is much more  
difficult to cite these examples, because in many cases if not most, a  
confrontation that does not result in a shooting does not get any media  
attention -- no bereaved mother standing over her child for the cameras,  
etc...  Still, a case in point:  a child gets shot as a by product of a  
drug deal a few weeks ago and that makes the TV news.  On the other hand,  
a bail bondsman staying at a well known downtown hotel in San Francisco  
last week shot at a hotel robber who had broken into his room, forcing him  
to flee.  This robber had been beating up and robbing guests in several  
hotels here lately, but this positive use of a firearm barely made a  
mention on the radio (I was actually pleasantly surprised it got covered  
at all).

Despite the difficulty of documenting self-defense shootings and  
deterrence, the NRA's publication the "American Rifleman" manages each  
month to unearth and cite several cases from bona fide newspapers across  
the country of firearms used in the legitimate defense of property and  
human life.  Do we see these stories covered on television or in the  
press?  I can't recall one time I have seen one of these stories covered,  
though they lack none of the legitimacy that anti-gun stories do.  I think  
it would make great "reality programming" -- how about "Rescue  
BlamBlamBlam"... :-)

But there are other reasons to own firearms than self defense (though self  
defense and protection of family is one of the inviolate reasons that this  
right to ownership must be preserved).  There are thousands of shooting  
clubs across the country whose members legitimately use handguns,  
shotguns, and rifles in competitions (I am one of them and find it  
immensely enjoyable).  Many of these activities include the use of  
"semi-automatic" "assault weapons", which to those knowledgeable in  
firearms simply translates into a specific type of internal mechanism  
controlling rate of fire and a "military style" frame [the same "military"  
frame being used on squirt guns with no fatalities to date], not an evil  
unleashed on the world.  More often than not the use of the term "assault  
weapon" by a reporter or government official is a pure give-away to gun  
owners of the antagonistic disposition and lack of firearms knowledge of  
that individual or the organization he/she represents.

To conclude this lengthy diatribe, let me make my philosophy clear.  There  
are three rights upon which our democracy is founded, and only three (the  
rest is icing).  All three are equally critical to it's longevity.

The Right to Vote (representation)
The Right to Keep and Bear Arms (empowerment)
The Right to a Free Press (information)

These rights belong to the PEOPLE, not to approved organizations.  The  
dissolution of any one of these undermines the very under pinnings of our  
society.  I will no more vote for a candidate who supports restrictive gun  
controls (bans, waiting periods, etc...) than I will for one who wishes to  
restrict the right to vote or wants to approve press articles before they  
are printed.  These acts are equivalently repulsive to any Libertarian.   
One of the first actions the former Soviet Union undertook when it rolled  
into Lithuania during that country's bid for freedom was to confiscate  
personal firearms.  They did this with the same rigor that they undertook  
to control the media.  In the short term they didn't even bother with the  
voting mechanism, since this is only exercised periodically.  A failure to  
understand, through a false sense of security or complacency, that these  
fundamental freedoms are as relevant today as they were in 1776 is  
widespread in this country, and must be addressed.  These rights are not  
anachronistic in the least, but will have more and more relevance as the  
superpowers decline and regional and local unrest (Yugoslavia, LA riots)  
bubbles over.  If people won't stop arguing over the 2nd, lets institute a  
new amendment specifically calling out the inalienable right of  
INDIVIDUALS to own and use firearms, including those which are equivalent  
to those currently in use by the United State's armed forces (see  
Jefferson's quote below).

I have no desire to see firearms in the hands of criminals or the insane,  
which only fuels the fires of anti-gun nuts.  I will support any effective  
and efficient system which prevents this from happening, though in this  
day and age there is no excuse for why this isn't instantaneous from a  
drivers license, as it is in Florida and Virginia already, I believe.   
Waiting periods for almost all gun owners are ludicrous -- most already  
own several firearms, yet every time they purchase another they have to go  
through the same waiting period.  If they were of violent intent they  
already have several firearms from which to choose -- totally bonehead  
legislation.

And just in case anyone tries to give you that baloney about the 2nd  
amendment only applying to a militia (no, the National Guard is NOT a  
militia) and not citizens, someone on the net found an important quote  
from Thomas Jefferson that put it very succinctly:

"No [free] man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.  The strongest  
reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a  
last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."
	   - Thomas Jefferson, Proposed Virginia Constitution, June 1776
	     1 Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334 (C. J. Boyd, Ed., 1950).

Jefferson very specifically calls out the term "people", and makes a note  
of the natural adversarial role between that people and "tyranny in  
government", which is something all American's should understand from  
history is the reason we are Americans in the first place...

..even if you're not a Libertarian.

Well, I certainly feel better.  :-)

Disclaimer:  OBVIOUSLY, the opinions stated above are purely my own and  
are NOT necessarily related the views of my employer.
Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns