Source: http://www.rkba.org/research/suter/aw.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 13:11:54+00:00

Document:
"Assault Weapons" Revisited -- An Analysis of the AMA Report.
uploaded at Dr. Suter's request 2/24/94.
The AMA Council on Scientific Affairs did not conduct a rigorous scientific evaluation before supporting a ban on assault weapons. The Council appears to have unquestioningly accepted common misperceptions and even partisan misrepresentations regarding the nature and uses of assault weapons. This article examines the pivotal issues and proposes a rational approach to gun control and more effectual measures to reduce violence in our society.
On the basis of a single study of gun trace data, the AMA Council on Scientific Affairs has endorsed a ban on assault weapons.(1) A review of available literature suggests the Council has not considered the majority of scholarship available. The sole study offered by the Council in support of their position was based on gun trace data, even though the Council fleetingly acknowledged that gun "trace" data is not representative of criminal gun use. A remarkable preponderance of data actually suggests that the misuse of assault weapons has been exaggerated. In the worst hotbeds of drug and violent crime such guns are used in generally 0% to 3% of gun crime. The Council understated the legitimate uses of assault weapons, including hunting, self-protection, and target competition. The Council also failed to explain the significance of pivotal technical matters; such as, assault weapons cannot be distinguished by meaningful criteria from their "sporting" counterparts and assault weapons do not have greater magazine capacity, rapid fire capability, or lethality than their "sporting" counterparts.
Finally, the Council dismissed the constitutional impediments to assault weapon bans without good authority. Public policy on guns and violence should couple effectual controls with realistic goals.
The terms "assault rifle" and "assault weapon" are not interchangeable. Assault rifles are machine guns. Assault rifles are called "automatic" weapons because the loading and firing of a fresh cartridge is automatic as long as ammunition remains and the trigger is depressed. Such weapons have been common since the Wehrmacht's World War II introduction of the MKB(H)42. Though legal under federal law and under the statutes of 46 states, machine-gun ownership has been strictly regulated since the National Firearms Act of 1934 and, according to the recent Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF), Stephen Higgins, there are perhaps one or two documented misuses of machine guns in the last 60 years by their legal owners.
Though sometimes cosmetically similar, "assault weapons" are not machine-guns. Assault weapons encompass an amorphous group of guns that can only fire a single shot with each squeeze of the trigger. Assault weapons are functionally identical to other common hunting and target rifles such as the Remington 7400, Valmet Hunter, Ruger Ranch Rifle, Springfield Armory National Match target rifle, and many others. The reloading of a fresh cartridge is automatic, but the firing is not, hence all these guns are "semi-automatic." Semi-automatic weapons have been common since the development of the Borchardt pistol in 1893.
Typically assault weapons fire low or intermediate power cartridges (e.g. 9mm Parabellum, 5.56x45mm, 7.62x39mm) with non-expanding bullets that have been designed to wound rather than kill.(3) Such cartridges are considerably less deadly than most high-power hunting cartridges (e.g., .243 Winchester, 30-06, .300 Winchester Magnum) which, by definition, are designed to kill, particularly when loaded with expanding bullets.
Assault weapons sometimes share cosmetic similarities with military weapons, but the Council has not explained how cosmetic features make some guns more deadly than functionally identical weapons. Except for their "spray fire" assertion discussed below, the Council has cited no data demonstrating that a gun is more deadly by virtue of a plastic stock, a pistol grip, a durable finish, a flash suppressor, luminescent night sights, or a bayonet lug. While cosmetic features such as these may have an ominous military appearance to some, these features have little public health relevance; after all, America is not suffering from an epidemic of night bayonetings. How a person uses (or does not use) a gun is far more important than how the gun looks.
Even the capability of accepting "high capacity" magazines is an unreliable distinction since most common semi-automatic hunting and target rifles, including all those cited above, are capable of accepting factory or after-market "high capacity" magazines.
No functional features uniquely distinguish assault weapons from their "sporting" counterparts. Because there is no consistent definition, comparison of data from different jurisdictions is impeded and legally defining assault weapons as a class is impossible. Because the class cannot be defined, the California and other bans have attempted to ban guns by manufacturer and model. This approach has also failed. Despite California's ban of over 60 models of assault weapons, cosmetic changes in banned guns allow the legal sale of functionally identical weapons. For example, substituting a thumbhole stock for a pistol grip stock turns a banned "AK- series" gun into an unrestricted MAK-90, a gun neither more nor less lethal.
Whether or not a gun has a large ammunition capacity is generally irrelevant because few criminals or police officers even use the capacity of an old-fashioned "six-shooter." Of course, the rare exceptions, such as the 1989 Stockton incident and the 1993 "101 California Street" incident are, because of their rarity, "newsworthy" and highly sensationalized. For example, in the average 1989 New York City shooting incident, the perpetrator fired 2.55 shots (down from 2.66 in 1988), of which 11.8% hit someone. (6) The situation is relatively unchanged in 1992 and, contrary to frequent, but vague and unsubtantiated, assertions about the police being "outgunned", the New York City Police fire 40% more rounds per incident (3.92 with a hit percentage of 29%) than criminals (2.76 with a hit percentage reduced to 8.2%).(7) As another example, in Philadelphia, fewer rounds are fired from the average semi-automatic weapon used in crime (1.6) than from the average revolver (1.9).(8) Such data rebut the "spray fire" imagery of the Council.
These figures undercut the Council's assertion of increased criminal firepower from assault weapons. The Council cited only anecdotal and unsubstantiated sources to conclude: "Clearly the injuries from assault weapons are taxing hospital emergency departments in large urban areas." The authorities for the Council's assertions? Newspaper articles in which a 5% increase in multiple gun shot cases over 10 years was assumed, but not demonstrated, to be due to assault weapons; a two day survey of one emergency room in Los Angeles County embellished by anecdotes from four surgeons; other articles that, without any evidence at all, assumed, but did not demonstrate, the wounds they treated were due to assault weapons; and a "background paper" from the same California Attorney General's Office that denied the existence of their 1988 Helsley(2) and 1991 Johnson(9) studies documenting the minuscule prevalence of assault weapons amongst crime guns. Even if an increased number of multiple gun shot wounds were documented, it would be important to determine whether more attacks involving multiple assailants, as would be expected from the documented increase in gang violence, were responsible for the problem, rather than assuming that a change in criminal weapon preference had occured.
The Council writes "...assault weapons are meant to be spray fired from the hip," citing a partisan source, Handgun Control Inc., as authority. Though the Council cites Assault Rifle Fact Sheet 1: Definitions and Background of the non- partisan Institute for Research on Small Arms in International Security for explanation of gun nomenclature, the Council failed to concede that pertinent portions of the Fact Sheet note these weapons are designed for aimed fire, not "spray fire," and show that any person who shoots a semi- automatic gun rapidly without aiming will rarely hit anything.
In general, it is the size and location of the wound that determines the lethality of penetrating injuries. Whether knife or gun, a small wound in a vital area can be deadly where a much larger wound in a non-vital area may only injure. A larger wound, of course, increases the chance of encountering and injuring a vital structure. For firearms, larger wounds are more likely from larger bullet diameter ("caliber"), from expanding bullets, and, in certain cases, from tumbling, yawing, or fragmenting bullets. It is the location and size of the permanent wound channel, the tissue actually destroyed, that primarily determines lethality; the effects of temporary stretching ("cavitation") of elastic tissues or the sonic "shock wave" from a bullet's passage have been greatly exaggerated.(12,13) Obtaining a wound in a vital area, of course, depends upon shot placement which is a reflection of marksmanship mitigated by chance; the more skillful the marksman, the smaller the role of luck.
Discredited theories relating kinetic energy or velocity to wounding potential have no place in the scientific debate. The Council repeated such myths about "high velocity" bullets, "shock waves," "cavitation," and assault weapon wound ballistics that have been definitively dispelled.(11,12) The Council expressed its horror of the single shock wave of a high velocity bullet, failing to note that the average Extracorporeal Shock Wave Lithotripsy utilizes about 2,000 shock wave pulses, each of which is three times that of the "high velocity" bullet, without any evidence whatsoever of soft tissue damage.(11) The vogue of undue concern over "cavitation" in elastic human tissue has justifiably passed, though without the Council's notice. The Council cited a newspaper interview of a surgeon who thinks inelastic watermelons are an appropriate human tissue simulant.(14) If "watermelon wound ballistics" were valid, deceleration injury from a one foot fall would similarly crack human tissue. One must wonder whether the Council wisely or carefully selected the best scholarship available.
The only evidence offered by the Council that assault weapons are a problem of the magnitude suggested by the media are the Cox Newspaper articles. The Cox reporters used gun trace requests to reach their refutable conclusion that 11% of crime guns were assault weapons. While the Council fleetingly acknowledged, "The sample of firearms for which traces are requested is not likely to be representative of all firearms used in crime," the Council uncritically accepted the Cox article as best evidence despite over two dozen studies presented below suggesting that the Cox figures exaggerate the assault weapon problem by a factor of three to one hundred or more, depending on the locale studied and the definition of assault weapon used.
Gun traces are not representative of the criminal prevalence of gun use any more than the index of a research journal reflects the prevalence of disease. Journal indices and gun traces reflect a level of interest in the topic or the gun. No study corroborates the Cox or other gun trace data.
There are limitations on sources of data other than gun traces. The inconsistency of attempts to define assault weapon in the few jurisdictions that, to date, have even made the effort, makes data comparison difficult. Also, the uncaptured guns of unsolved crimes cannot be represented amongst either seized weapons or traced weapons. Compilations of firearms forensics data are also hampered by incomplete responses by a fraction of polled agencies.
The Council has neither acknowledged the confounding evidence, nor made an attempt to dispatch it. While none of the studies cited can be claimed to epitomize the scientific method, all but one of the studies suggest that claims about assault weapons have been grossly exaggerated. A call for better designed studies is appropriate, but, at the present time, the Council's report founders with its sole datum from the Cox Newspaper articles.
Philip McGuire of Handgun Control Inc. has publicly stated that assault weapons are not a problem, but he speculated that they might become a problem in the future.(37) When confronted with criticism regarding the lack of substantiation, the Council has expressed similar fears that assault weapons might become a problem.(19) What about such potential problems? Since these weapons have been with us from 30 to 100 years, there has been ample time for problems to appear and to be documented by sound data.
While there are important caveats in considering any current data and the definitive analysis of assault weapons in crime has yet to be done, an objective individual is justified in skepticism of deceptive and hysterical claims that assault weapons are the "criminals' weapon of choice."
Of what "legitimate" use are these assault weapons?
Certain features, such as ergonomic design, durability, and high-capacity magazines, are noted amongst (though not unique to) assault weapons and other functionally similar weapons. Those features provoke the ire of prohibitionists, but are features that make such weapons particularly suited to popular target competitions, hunting, home defense, defense against multiple assailants, community defense, and self-protection in times of riot or natural disaster.
Despite, or because of, their military origins, true "assault rifles" and their cosmetic cousins, "assault weapons," do appeal to the collector and the target shooter. Assault weapons are increasingly used in national and international target competitions sponsored by the International Practical Shooting Confederation, the US Practical Shooting Association, and other groups. The varied and extended courses of fire and the movement of the target or the shooter in these competitions demands the ergonomics and capacity of assault weapons, even for the highly skilled competitor. More traditional target matches using assault weapons are sponsored by the US Government's National Board for the Promotion of Rifle Practice, the Director of Civilian Marksmanship (DCM), countless local gun clubs, and the NRA. Those active in these competitions number over 35,000 (the number of shooters rated and ranked for purposes of DCM competitions alone). The DCM matches originated because the armed services' national security mission was compromised by the appalling marksmanship of recruits, a problem worsened in the last three decades because recruits are a group increasingly of urban background lacking in basic gun safety and marksmanship skills. Additionally, the DCM matches were the most cost-effective recruiting tool of the military until 1991 when Congressional anti-gun sentiment removed DCM funding.(39) The DCM competitors and the US government clearly consider these matches "legitimate sporting use."
The plastic materials and protective metal finishes used in military weapons of the last three decades have proven to be particularly lightweight and durable. Though initially proven on the battlefield (as sometimes occurs with advances in trauma care), use of these materials is now common amongst hunting rifles, semi-automatic and otherwise, apropos the rough terrain, long hikes, and inclement weather associated with hunting. One finds no fault with similar durable and impact resistant materials when used in other tools, outdoor equipment, and binoculars. Many hunters also need weapons with high magazine capacity and rapid, follow-up shot capability, for example, ranchers protecting their herds and flocks from packs of predatory coyotes and farmers protecting their crops from colonies of destructive gophers.
Citizens have the natural right(38) and the common sense duty to protect themselves, their families, their communities, and their property. The use of assault weapons by citizens in community defense can be demonstrated. Most recently the Los Angeles riots made memorable the video footage of law-abiding shop and homeowners using guns, including assault weapons, to protect themselves, their families, and their property. Determined display and appropriate use of their protective weaponry was effective. No major American city can claim freedom from similar riots and the associated deaths and damage.
As several national studies show, including the definitive study by the National Institute of Justice(40) and studies commissioned by gun-prohibitionist organizations, guns do protect good people; they are used defensively by law-abiding citizens at least 606,000 to 2.4 million times per year(4, 41) -- as many as 75 lives protected by a gun for every life lost to a gun -- lives saved, injuries prevented, medical costs saved, and property protected. This exceeds all estimates of criminal misuse. Using a gun to resist a crime or assault is safer than not resisting at all or resisting with means other than firearms.(4) Guns not only repel crime, guns deter crime as is shown by numerous surveys of criminals.(42) Arguably, when faced with mob or gang violence or multiple assailants, assault weapons represent the most appropriate means of protection.
Where the powerful images of children and innocent bystanders injured by guns are concerned, any analysis of the exaggerated extent of the problem is met with, "if it saves only one life...." Since protective uses exceed criminal misuses, a gun ban impacts more on compliant, good citizens than upon criminals. One must admit, therefore, that a good citizen's life lost because a gun was absent is at least as valuable as a vicious predator's life lost because a gun was present.
The withdrawal of police protection from riot-torn areas of Los Angeles and the two day delay in putting National Guard soldiers on the streets of Los Angeles exposed the illusion of public protection. Additionally, it is disturbing to recall that armed citizens had to protect themselves from the police and US National Guard soldiers who were looting in the aftermath of Hurricane Hugo.(47) Throughout American history we have innumerable examples of crime, terrorism, civil disorder, and natural disasters, where the police and military forces have been unable or unwilling to protect citizens, often for racist or political reasons.(48,49,50) One can rightfully question the wisdom of reliance upon the police or military in times of trouble.
The constitutional authorities cited above and others are quite convincing of the inherent, irrevocable right to self- protection against criminals, rioters, and tyrants. The right to keep and bear arms -- and ammunition -- is essential to that self-protection and has nothing to do with duck hunting or subjective assessments of "legitimate sporting uses" of guns.
Even if the Council could prove that assault weapons pose a serious threat to public safety, it is doubtful that an assault weapon ban would be upheld at the US Supreme Court level, a process that may take several years. It seems a waste of time, effort, and money for the Council to promote an agenda of dubious (arguably counter-productive and dangerous) efficacy and constitutionality.
The public policy debate should focus upon effectual and constitutional measures that are supported by sound data. An unbiased analysis of the Council's report must conclude that they have made neither a careful, a complete, nor a convincing case for an assault weapon ban. Instead of attacking the actual roots of violence, the Council's effort was misdirected against certain guns that, without good reason, are symbols of violence. Though the villains in a few sensationalized tragedies of the last decade, these guns have legitimate, protected uses and are rarely used in crime.
Responsible ownership of any kind of firearm by mentally competent and law-abiding adults causes no social ill and leaves no victims. For predatory criminals, however, there should be inescapable punishment for violent crime regardless of instrumentality. The demonstrated effectiveness of mandatory prison sentencing for gun crimes evaporates when bartered away in plea bargains.
Two leading criminologists who have extensively studied all aspects of gun issues, Kates and Kleck, advocate certain gun controls, but not prohibition. They propose extending certain effectual and constitutional controls and -- as compromise -- repealing the ineffectual, the unattainable, or the merely symbolic. As one example, they support the mandatory check of all gun buyers at the point of sale to prevent the transfer of weapons to criminals, incompetents, and juveniles. Such checks could be accomplished as rapidly and reliably as a credit card check. They value realistic, attainable goals so they eschew utopian schemes that depend upon producing gun scarcity in a nation that already has more than 200 million guns. They emphasize that gun control is not a panacea; only incremental improvements are attainable. (4 , 61) Utopia is not an available solution to violence in our society. The reader is referred to Kates and Kleck for extended analysis.
The enforceability of proposed controls should be given adequate consideration. An overwhelming majority of law- abiding California assault weapon owners have already demonstrated their unwillingness to cooperate with an assault weapon registration and ban.(62) Good citizens who recognize a right to their weapons and who contemplate compliance with registration schemes cannot be reassured by the confiscation of weapons that has followed registrations in New York, New Jersey, and Chicago. Intolerable police state tactics would be necessary to obtain even marginal compliance -- too high a price for too little benefit.
Certain strategies and attitudes are counter-productive.
The incremental or "First Step" approach is perceived by gun owners as "We'll take what we can get today, the rest we'll take tomorrow." Such an approach makes gun owners unwilling to make justifiable concessions for fear of approaching the "slippery slope" that has led many nations towards the total prohibition of guns.(63) The gun confiscations and legislation, such as Congressman Owens' resolution to repeal the Second Amendment, lead gun owners to believe they are already on that "slippery slope." An undeserved pose of moral superiority is a distraction from objective analysis and is. therefore, an impediment to rational solutions. In the field of guns, crime, and violence, organized medicine has much to learn conceptually and methodologically from the criminological, legal, and social science literature. In these issues, organized medicine should adopt scientific objectivity.
While an assault weapon ban may have appeared to the Council to be a simple solution to America's epidemic of violence, a scholarly review of the literature finds no reliable data to support such a ban. Unfortunately the Council's faulty call for prohibition may distract legislators and the public from addressing effective methods of controlling violence.
Good evidence exists that violence in entertainment contributes significantly towards violence in our society.(64,65,66) That unwelcome contribution should be minimized. In view of First Amendment protections we should encourage voluntary restraint by an entertainment industry cognizant of its ill effects on children. Parents should exercise control over their children's viewing habits. The misdirection of anger and frustration can be mitigated by training.
We should reassess national drug policies that make the drug trade so attractively profitable that people will kill to reap those profits. We should encourage the stabilization of the American family. We must break the vicious circle of violence, parent infecting child, that stems from the abuse of children.
HL Mencken observed that for every complex problem there is a simple solution -- and it is wrong. Violence in our society is a complex problem and gun prohibition is being advanced as the simple solution -- and it is wrong. We must not be side-tracked by the illusions of simplistic "solutions."
The author is, however, solely responsible for the content of this paper.
1 American Medical Association Council on Scientific Affairs. Assault Weapons as a Public Health Hazard in the United States. JAMA 1992; 267: 3070.
2 Helsley SC, Acting Assistant Director, Investigation and Enforcement Branch, California Department of Justice. memorandum to GW Clemons, Director, Division of Law Enforcement, California Department of Justice. October 31, 1988.
3 Ezell EC. Small Arms of the World. Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole Books. 1983. p. 515.
4 Kleck G. Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America. New York: Aldine de Gruyter. 1991.
5 Sugarmann, J. "Assault Weapons and Accessories." memo to the "New Right Watch". 1988. in Morgan E and Kopel D. The Assault Weapons Panic: "Political Correctness" Takes Aim at the Constitution. Independence Issue Paper No. 12-91. Golden, CO: Independence Institute. October 10, 1991. p. 24.
6 Cerar JC, Captain and Commanding Officer, New York City Police Academy, Firearms and Tactics Section, New York City Police Department. 1989 Firearms Discharge Assault Report. New York City Police Department. 1990. p. 2.
7 Cerar JC, Deputy Inspector and Commanding Officer, New York City Police Academy, Firearms and Tactics Section, New York City Police Department. 1992 Firearms Discharge Assault Report. New York City Police Department. 1993. p. 7.
8 McGonigal MD, Cole J, Schwab W, Kauder DR, Rotondo MF, and Angood PB. "Urban Firearms Deaths: A Five-Year Perspective." J Trauma. 1993; 35(4): 532-36.
9 Johnson TD. Report on a Survey of the Use of "Assault Weapons" in California in 1990. Office of the Attorney General, California Department of Justice. September 26, 1991.
10 Trahin J, Detective, Firearms/Ballistics Unit, Los Angeles Police Department. testimony before the US Senate. Hearings on S386 and S747 Before the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Committee on the Judiciary. 101st Congress, 1st Session. May 5, 1989. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office.
11 Fackler ML, Malinowski JA, Hoxie SW, and Jason A. "Wounding Effects of the AK-47 Rifle Used by Patrick Purdy in the Stockton, California, Schoolyard Shooting of January 17, 1989." Am J Forensic Medicine and Path. 1990; 11(3): 185-90.
12 Fackler ML. "Wound Ballistics: A Review of Common Misconceptions." JAMA. 1988; 259: 2730-6.
13 Fackler ML. "Wound Ballistics." in Trunkey DD and Lewis FR, editors. Current Therapy of Trauma, vol 2. Philadelphia: BC Decker Inc. 1986. pp. 94-101.
14 Pinkney DS. "ERs Seeing More 'War Wounds' Caused by Assault Weapons." American Medical News. April 14, 1989; 3: 42-5.
15 Bea K. "CRS Report for Congress -- 'Assault Weapons': Military-Style Semiautomatic Firearms Facts and Issues." Washington DC: Congressional Research Service, The Library of Congress; May 13, 1992 (Technical Revisions, June 4, 1992). Appendix B. pp. 65-76.
16 Assault Rifle Fact Sheet 2 Quantities of Semi- automatic "Assault Rifles' Owned in the United States. Washington, DC: Institute for Research on Small Arms in International Security; March 24, 1989.
17 Hearings on HR1154 Before the Subcommittee on Trade of the House Committee on Ways and Means. 101st Congress, 1st Session. April 10, 1989. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office. p. 114-5.
18 Baltimore Police Department. Firearms Submissions. 1990.
19 DiMaio V, Chief Medical Examiner, Bexar County, TX. and Kalousdian S and Loeb JM, American Medical Association. Letters: Assault Weapons as a Public Health Hazard. JAMA 1992; 268: 3073-4.
20 Simkins JE. "Control Criminals, Not Guns." Wall Street Journal. March 25, 1991.
21 Mericle JG. "Weapons seized during drug warrant executions and arrests." unpublished report derived from files of Metropolitan Area Narcotics Squad, Will and Grundy Counties, IL. 1989. in Kleck G. Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America. New York: Aldine de Gruyter. 1991. Chap. 2.
22 Kirschner KH, Major, Commanding Officer, Bureau of Police Support, Connecticut State Police. Letter to Moore GH, Lt. Col., Commanding Officer, Office of Administrative Services, Connecticut State Police. March 11, 1993.
23 Reply Brief of State of Colorado, Robertson, et al. plaintiffs, State of Colorado, plaintiff-intervenor v. City and Country of Denver. # 90CV603 (Colorado District Court). p. 13-15. in Morgan, Eric and Kopel, David. The Assault Weapons Panic: "Political Correctness" Takes Aim at the Constitution. Independence Issue Paper No. 12-91. Golden, CO: Independence Institute. October 10, 1991.
24 Florida Assault Weapons Commission. Assault Weapons/Crime Survey in Florida For Years 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989. Tallahassee, FL: May 18, 1990.
25 Boston Globe. March 26, 1989. p. 12. in Kleck G. Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America. New York: Aldine de Gruyter. 1991.
26 Arnold M, Massachusetts State Police, Firearms Identification Section. Massachusetts State Police Ballistics Records. March 14, 1990 and April 11, 1991.
27 Reins W, Sgt. memorandum to Minneapolis Police Chief J. Laux. April 3, 1989.
28 Newark Star Register. "Florio Urges Ban on Assault Rifles, Stresses His Support for Abortion." July 18, 1989. p. 15.
29 Constance J, Deputy Chief, Trenton, NJ Police Department. testimony before the Maryland Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee. March 7, 1991. p. 3.
30 Moran, Lieutenant, New York City Police Ballistics Unit. in White Plains Reporter-Dispatch. March 27, 1989.
31 Zien R, Sergeant, Weapons Unit, Homicide Section, Oakland Police Department. Year End Report 1990: Homicide Section Weapons Unit. Oakland Police Department. 1991.
32 Oakland Police Department. Supplementary Homicide Reports. Oakland CA: Oakland Police Department. 1991.
33 San Diego Union. "Smaller Guns are 'Big Shots' with the Hoods." (reporting a study by the city's firearms examiner). August 29, 1991.
34 Wilson GR, Chief, Firearms Section, Metropolitan Police Department. Wall Street Journal. April 7, 1989. p. A- 12, col. 3. and New York Times. Apr. 3, 1989. p. A14.
35 Wilson GR, Chief, Firearms Section, Metropolitan Police Department. January 21, 1992. in Bea K. CRS Report for Congress -- 'Assault Weapons': Military-Style Semiautomatic Firearms Facts and Issues. Washington DC: Congressional Research Service, The Library of Congress; May 13, 1992 (Technical Revisions, June 4, 1992). Table 5. p. 18.
36 US Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics. Survey of State Prison Inmates, 1991. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office; March 1993. p. 19.
37 Mohr C. "House Panel Issue: Can Gun Ban Work." New York Times. April 7, 1989. P. A-15.
38 Kates D. "The Second Amendment and the Ideology of Self-Protection." Constitutional Commentary. Winter 1992; 9: 87-104.
39 Baker JJ, "DCM Notes." The American Rifleman. June 1990. p. 72.
40 Wright J D., Rossi PH and Daly K. Under the Gun: Weapons, Crime, and Violence in America. New York: Aldine de Gruyter. 1983.
41 Kleck G. "Q&A: Guns, Crime, and Self-defense." Orange County Register. September 19, 1993. p. C-3.
42 Wright JD and Rossi PH. Armed and Considered Dangerous: A Survey of Felons and Their Firearms. New York: Aldine de Gruyter. 1986.
43 for example, California Government Code 845. "Failure to provide police protection P Neither a public entity nor a public employee is liable for failure to establish a police department or otherwise provide police protection service or, if police protection service is provided, for failure to provide sufficient police protection service."
44 South v. Maryland, 59 US (HOW) 396, 15 L.Ed., 433 (1856); Bowers v. DeVito, US Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit, 686F.2d. 616 (1882).
45 Hartzler v. City of San Jose, App., 120 Cal. Rptr. 5 (1975).
46 Warren v. District of Columbia, D.C. App., 444 A.2d. 1 (1981).
47 Hernandez M. "US Orders In Troops to Quell Island Violence." Los Angeles Times. September 21, 1989. p. 1.
48 Cottrol RJ and Diamond RT. "The Second Amendment: Toward an Afro-Americanist Reconsideration." The Georgetown Law Journal. December 1991: 80; 309-61.
49 Kates DB. "Toward a History of Handgun Prohibition in the United States." in Kates, DB, Editor. Restricting Handguns: The Liberal Skeptics Speak Out. North River Press. 1979.
50 Kessler RG. "Gun Control and Political Power." Law & Policy Quarterly. July 1983: Vol. 5, #3; 381-400.
51 US Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution. The Right to Keep and Bear Arms: Report of the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Committee on the Judiciary. United States Congress. 97th. Congress. 2nd. Session. February 1982.
53 US v. Cruickshank. 92 US 542 (1876).
54 Presser v. Illinois. 116 US 252 (1886).
55 Levinson S. "The Embarrassing Second Amendment." Yale Law Journal. 1989; 99: 637-59.
56 Miller v. US. 307 US 174 (1938).
57 Fields WS and Hardy DT. "The Militia and the Constitution: A Legal HIstory." Military Law Review. Spring 1992; 136: 1-42.
58 Johnson NJ. "Beyond the Second Amendment: An Individual Right to Arms Viewed through the Ninth Amendment." Rutgers Law Journal. Fall 1992; 24 (1): 1-81.
59 Amar AR. "The Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment." The Yale Law Journal. 1992; 101: 1193-1284.
60 Halbrook S. "Freedmen, Firearms, and the Fourteenth Amendment" in That Every Man Be Armed: The Evolution of a Constitutional Right. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press. 1984. Chap. 5.
61 Kates DB. Guns, Murders, and the Constitution: A Realistic Assessment of Gun Control. San Francisco, CA: Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy. 1990.
62 Lucas G. "State Semiautomatic Gun Registrations Called Surprisingly Low." SF Chronicle. March 10, 1992. p. A15.
63 Kopel D. The Samurai, The Mountie, and the Cowboy: Should America Adopt the Gun Controls of Other Democracies? Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books. 1992.
64 Centerwall BS. "Television and Violence: The Scale of the Problem and Where to Go From Here." JAMA. 1992; 267: 3059-63.
65 Centerwall BS. "Exposure to Television as a Risk Factor for Violence." Am. J. Epidemiology. 1989; 129: 643-52.
66 Centerwall BS "Young Adult Suicide and Exposure to Television." Soc. Psy. and Psychiatric Epid. 1990; 25:121.

References: v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v.