From: sjo@cci632.cci.com (Steve Owens)
Subject: Re: Yet further tripe from Richard Reeves
Organization: [Computer Consoles, Inc., Rochester, NY
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 16:52:51 GMT

	Sorry guys, but I couldn't let this one pass.


In article <1992Sep28.235318.43429@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> conley@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes:

[....]

>Seattle (UP) For reasons not clear to me, it has always been
>difficult to get up-to-date and relevant statistics on the
>relationships between guns and crime. But some more patient
>researches than I, using the numbers of the 1980's, have
>shown - proved, I would say, what we all know: guns don't
>kill people; people with guns kill people - including themselves.

	... and people with clubs kill people
	... and people with knives kill people
	... and people with piano wire kill people
	...
>
>Three studies that impressed me appeared first in the New England
>Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American Medial Association:
>
>  o  "Handgun Regulation, Crime, Assaults and Handguns", in the NEJM
>     ( by a group headed by John Henry Sloan ), compared homicides and
>     suicides here in Seattle and in Vancouver, B.C. for the years
>     1980-1986, finding that almost everything about the cities, 140
>     miles apart, was the same except gun-control laws and homicide
>     rates. Your chances of being shot were eight times greater in
>     Seattle.

	Even their societal structures and values?  These are two
different countries we're talking about.  The cultures are similar,
yes, but definitely not the same.


	[.....]

>"Burglary rates in Seattle and Vancouver were nearly identical",
>wrote Bogus. "There were almost identical rates of assaults with
>knives, clubs and fists, but there was a far greater rate of assault
>with firearms in Seattle. During the seven years of the study, there
>were 204 homicides in Vancouver and 388 in Seattle."

	What is the total population of these cities?  What
was the percentage of homicides per total population?  I would
expect to see a greater instance of homicides in a city of greater
population.

>The reason for that difference - and the fact that the adolescent
>suicide rate in Seattle is 10 times higher - is the availability
>of guns. Is is simply easier for people to kill themselves with
>the power of a gun in their hands. There were then guns in 41% of
>Seattle homes, but in only 12% of Vancouver homes.

	How many of these suicides involved guns?  How many
were by homeless runaways (of which, I understand, there is a
large population in Seattle)?

>When people get angry enough or depressed enough to want to kill
>someone or kill themselves, they grab the heaviest weapon around.
>If that weapon is a knife or a club, there will probably be blood,
>broken bones and bruises. If a gun is handy, it is more likely
>there will be a corpse on the floor or the street.

	Unless, of course, the person is bludgeoned about the head
with the club, or stabbed multiple times in the heart.  Destoyed
tissue is destroyed tissue, be it from a gun, a knife, a club, or
the edge of a piece of paper.

	But your right, if someone wants to kill themselves, they'll
grab the heaviest item around (and believe me, some of those bottles
of aspirin and alcohol can get *real* heavy. :-)

>The difference, then, is gun control. A Canadian needs a certificate
>from the police to buy a gun and must go through an identification
>and investigation process, during which the citizen must demonstrate
>need and reason for gun ownership - and self-defense is not an
>acceptable reason. The penalty for illegal possession of a handgun
>is two years in prison. In Seattle, you do not need a reason, but
>there is a five-day waiting period for gun purchases.

	So if the ownership of guns is resticted, less people will
want to kill themselves?  Wrong.  My aunt tried to kill herself with
a bottle of sleeping pills.  She didn't succeed because someone
recognized her car on a back road and wondered why it was there.
My best friend's mother succeeded in committing suicide.  She pulled
off the road along side the railroad tracks, doused herself in
rum, and proceeded to set herself on fire.

	The moral?  If people *really* want to kill themselves, they'll
find a way to do it.

	Most often, they're simply looking for attention they
feel they deserve but don't get.  There are warning signs, but
for whatever reason the general public won't educate themselves 
on what to look for (until it's too late, of course.)  But I digress.

>The study of the city of Washington compared gun-related violence
>for the nine years before and the nine years after the District of
>Columbia, in 1976, re-registered firearms and prevented new
>handgun purchases within the city. Gun-related homicides dropped
>25% and suicides by 23% through 1985, although there was no reduction
>in gun-related incidents in the communities surrounding the city.
>Then, Washington rates began to climb again, a violence generally
>associated with the rise in the use of crack cocaine.

	How many more police officers were added to the Wahington
force during that time?  What stiffer penalties were enacted to
combat violent crime during that time?  If no more police officers
were added to the force and no stiffer penalties were enacted during
that timeframe, then your statement is valid.  Otherwise, it is tainted
and therefore irrelevant.

>In The American Prospect, Bogus wrestles with a paradox: Polls
>indicate that as many as 95% of Americans favor strictor gun control - 
>a Gallup poll figure on questions about longer waiting periods for
>handgun purchases - but nothing ever happens.
>
>This has never occurred in modern American politics. What that many
>people want, good or bad, they generally get.

	Interesting.  Did they poll an even distribution of people
across the country, or was it a telephone poll in selected areas?
What was their definition of "stricter gun control"?  Was the
definition left up to the imaginations of the people in the poll?
If your going to use information such as this, please include
where the info was obtained so that others can check it out for
themselves.

>Is the NRA, which represents gun manufacturers, really that powerful?

	Gee, I'm a member of the NRA, and I'm not a gun manufacturer.
How can that be?  :-)

>Bogus thinks not. Gun control, he argues, is like solar energy -
>people think it's a great idea but they don't believe it can work.

	Solar energy *is* a great idea, but due to the technology
involved, it's expensive when compared to other sources of energy.
Furthermore, not all areas of the world can take advantage of it
because of the amount of light they receive per year (I live in
Rochester, NY, so I can attest to that statement.)  Besides, I
didn't know the right to solar energy was a Constitutional Right.
:-)

>The reason Bogus collected those studies was to try to begin to begin
>proving that no matter what you hear on television, gun control can
>work. Give it a chance.

	Present *all* the facts in a truthful, no grey area, manner
and I will listen.  Until then, these are simply your *beliefs*, of
which I have enough of my own.

>-- 
>|Dennis R. Conley, Computer Science Dept., University of Kansas (913)864-7372|
>|conley@hawk.cs.ukans.edu			    conley@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu|


						SJO

"Others are revolted, I am unmoved            Steven J Owens @ CCI
 Gripped by desires, I am unmoved              (716) 482-5000 Ext 2867
 Hearing the wisdom of sages, I am unmoved      sjo@op632.cci.com
 I move only in my own way."    - Lu Yu