From: bb063@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Christopher J. Crobaugh)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns
Subject: Charley Reese strikes again
Date: 3 Oct 1992 21:46:34 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA)
NNTP-Posting-Host: slc4.ins.cwru.edu


Here's something I found of Charley's on the NRA bbs...don't know
how old it is (it may be brand new), but it is meat for the old
debate mill. Take a look. If you're going to argue the RKBA,
know this stuff.



          Public Being Bamboozled about Streets Full of Crime

    by Charley Reese, Syndicated Columnist, Orlando Sentinel, 9/91


      The U.S. people are being misled and duped by exaggerated
claims of rampant crime.  The fear caused by these exaggerated
claims is fed further by the incessant fictional violence served up
to the public in movie houses and on television screens.

      There are many reasons for this exaggeration.  Law enforcement
people like bigger budgets, and more crime is a good justification. 
Journalists love melodrama, and crime stories are perfect
melodrama.  Politicians love to demagogue, and crime is a good
issue for demagoguing - a politician can be against crime without
offending anyone, a rare issue.  

      There are more sinister reasons, I think, that involve
people's lust for power.  One way to get people to give up their
liberty is to scare them so that they think that the alternative to
a vast increase in police power is violence and chaos.  

      Let's look at the facts, and you'll see how you are being
bamboozled.

      The FBI reports 23,438 people were murdered in 1990.  Measured
as murders per hundred thousand people, the number is 9, and that
rate is four percent lower, I said lower, than in 1981.

      So 9 people per 100,00 were murdered in 1990.  Wow, terrible,
huh?  Well, flu and pneumonia killed 31.3 people per hundred
thousand in 1989-- the latest year that statistics are available. 
Liver diseases killed 10.6; diabetes, 16.2; cancer 198.3;
cardiovascular diseases, 394.5; and accidents, 38.9.

      Compared to the 23,438 homicides, 22,500 people were killed in
accidents in their own homes, and 49,900 were killed in motor
vehicle accidents.

      You've heard all the propaganda from Handgun Control.  Well,
9,923 people were murdered with handguns, but 12,400 were killed in
falls.  Perhaps we should ban gravity or impose a seven-day waiting
period before delivery of a stepladder or a second-story in a
house.  

      The FBI has no statistics for those famous assault rifles, but
under the general heading of rifles, which could be any kind, they
were used in 743 homicides, which put them well behind old-
fashioned knives, which were used in 3,503 homicides; blunt
objects, which dispatched 1,075 people; and bare hands and feet,
which were used to kill 1,112 people.

      Now compare those numbers with all the bull you've read, seen
and heard about assault rifles and machine guns -- how these
terrible weapons have to be taken off the streets because they are
being used to slaughter people. Oh? Where are they?  Not in the FBI
report, the single authoritative report of crime statistics.  Where
they are is on TV and in the movies because special effects people
love machine guns.  

      You've probably heard and seen TV stories and TV discussions
about how black youth are slaughtering black youth and what a God-
awful horrible crisis this is.  You certainly get the impression
from TV and other journalistic accounts that most black
neighborhoods are free fire zones.

      Again, what are the facts?  The facts are that in 1990, out of
26 million U.S. blacks, 971 black youth under 18 were homicide
victims, just a hair more than the 942 white youths under 18 who
were homicide victims.  Compare those numbers to 4,600 people who
drowned, the 4,400 who died in fires, 3,900 who choked to death on
food, and the 5,600 who were accidentally poisoned.

      You are being conned and misled about crime.  People are
inflicting you with unnecessary fear to satisfy their greed for
budget increases, their lust for sensationalism, their yen to
reduce people's liberty, with perhaps a little racism thrown in.

      I checked a jail census in my town where we are supposed to be
awash in a crime crisis.  On the night I checked, out of 153 people
brought to jail, only 13 were accused of serious crimes; only 15
were charged with drug-related crimes, and most of them were
possession of marijuana.  The largest category were traffic
related.  Fifty four people were booked either for driving under
the influence, driving while their license was suspended, or
driving without a license.  The rest were petty stuff, from petty
theft to camping to worthless checks.

      Don't let them con you.
-- 
bb063@Cleveland.Freenet.Edu  Chris Crobaugh - (216) 327-6655 (V)
"Those who would sacrifice essential liberties for a little 
temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." B. Franklin