Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns
From: [an 71640] at [anon.penet.fi]
Date: Sun,  8 May 1994 10:12:37 UTC
Subject: Playboy Forum on Gun Control

PLAYBOY FORUM, May 1994

THE COMBAT ZONE

Once More into the Breach of Gun Control

"Dear PLAYBOY," the letter begins.  "I find it impossible to continue to 
subsidize a magazine advocating gun control in lieu of people control.  My 
subscription to PLAYBOY is canceled."

The letter writer offers no details.  Did he read "Gun Control Scrapbook" in 
the July 1993 Playboy Forum and decide, like many others, that since we gave 
space to both sides of the debate we were collaborating with the enemy? Did 
he see that we also gave space on an outside wall of our Los Angeles offices 
to an artist's mural calling for an end to firearm violence involving 
children and decide that we were against nonviolent firearm use?

We'll never know.  The battle over gun control has become as acrimonious as 
the brawl over abortion.  We are witnessing a clash of absolutes, a struggle 
between the quality of life and a fundamental liberty.  It is a debate that 
has become ossified.  On one side are the limp-wristed liberals who would 
disarm law-abiding citizens; on the other are bloodthirsty yahoos who would 
shoot Bambi's mother.  Is there a possibility of a negotiated peace? Or 
better yet, a new idea?

Polls show that even most gun owners want stricter laws.  But like all good 
Americans, they want them for other people.  In Chicago, the 1982 freeze on 
handgun ownership caused about 750,000 registered firearms simply to vanish 
from the rolls.

Gun control means more laws that would criminalize (or tax into absurdity) 
the sale and possession of guns not merely the acts committed with guns.  We 
share the letter writer's concern about gun-control laws, laws that might 
turn this country's estimated 100 million gun owners into outlaws.  For 
decades we have resisted government attempts to criminalize its citizens 
capriciously, or worse, in the name of some perceived social cost.

The letter writer urged people control.  We already have laws that regulate 
gun use (and abuse) and do so without invading individual privacy or 
trampling a constitutional right.  We want to deal with the outlaws we have, 
not the ones politicians create with the stroke of a pen.

How well does people control work? One study looked at the workloads of two 
judges in a city's gun court who were hearing between 20,000 and 25,000 gun 
cases a year, giving each an average of five and a half minutes.  They 
dismissed more than 10,000, handed down 260 jail terms and imposed 1215 fines 
averaging $47 each.  That level of punishment does not strike fear into the 
heart of a gangbanger whose second home is a police station.

Sale and possession laws fuel the debate; use laws directly address the 
problem.  What else might work? Unfortunately, we cannot even address topics 
such as registration, owner licensing or mandatory safety courses on guns.  
These strategies might well discourage casual acquisition of guns by the 
irresponsible or criminal.  But such a suggestion would be out of order to 
the likes of our reactionary former reader.

A refusal to compromise or to look at creative solutions characterizes both 
sides of the debate.  It may be that we have approached the problem in the 
wrong manner.  When your only tool is a hammer, every problem begins to look 
like a nail.  When your only tool is a politician, every problem looks like a 
new law.  In this case, perhaps the solution lies beyond government and the 
law.

PLAYBOY asked Contributing Editor William Helmer to interview experts from 
both sides of the debate to see what strategies-if any-appear reasonable or 
useful.

Michael Beard is president of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence.

Paul Blackman is research coordinator of the National Rifle Association.

Sarah Brady is chairperson of Handgun Control Inc.  She became involved in 
the gun control movement after her husband, Jim Brady, was disabled by a shot 
fired at President Reagan.

Roy Innis is National Chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality in New 
York.

Don Kates is a civil rights attorney, criminologist and author.

Sanford Levinson is a University of Texas law professor and constitutional 
scholar.

Joe Tartaro is president of the Second Amendment Foundation.

James Wright is an author and sociology professor at Tulane University and 
editor of the magazine The New Gun.

Franklin E. Zimring is a William Simon professor of law, and director of the 
Earl Warren Legal Institute at the University of California, Berkeley.  His 
studies of violence comparing guns with knives led him to support the 
restrictive licensing of handguns.  He has also served as director of 
research on the task force on firearms of the National Violence Commission.

Should handgun ownership be discouraged as a matter of public policy?

Michael Beard: Absolutely.  We think it ought to be as difficult as possible 
for private citizens to buy, own and carry guns.  However, the coalition is 
not antihunting or opposed to the ownership of legitimate sporting weapons.

Paul Blackman: The term "sporting weapons" reveals a sense that the coalition 
believes most guns are for killing people.  Michael's group has made it 
abundantly clear that they want all the firearms restrictions they can get.

Sarah Brady: We don't believe that gun ownership should be discouraged for 
hunting and collecting, but self-defense is another matter.  A weapon used 
incorrectly is many times more likely to harm than protect its owner.

Who is pushing for gun control ?

Joe Tartaro: The pressures for control used to come from "small R" 
republicans who represented the establishment.  The "small L" liberals used 
to defend gun ownership by unionists, workers and the downtrodden generally.

Roy Innis: I think it's safe to generalize that the antigunners are mostly 
liberals who think protection of life and property is the job of government, 
yet look down on and are hostile toward the very police and military whom 
they believe should be the only groups with weapons.

Franklin Zimring: There are antigun conservatives and pro-gun liberals, but I 
think there is a good deal of ideological predictability.  Liberals usually 
see crime as caused by social and other factors and tend to look for 
mechanical solutions, like cashless buses, cameras in banks or gun 
restrictions.  Crime-control conservatives are less likely to look for 
technological fixes because they believe that the cause of crime is the evil 
that lurks in the hearts of men.  That's where you get the most concise 
statement of their philosophical differences: "Guns don't kill people-people 
kill people."

Gun violence is on the front page of every newspaper.  There are ads and 
organizations selling handguns to women-both exploiting the need for self-
defense.  Does this atmosphere sell guns or gun laws ?

Beard: It's our hope that it will sell gun laws.  Our fear is that it will 
sell guns.  The question is whether the promotions of the firearms industry 
will convince women they need guns, which will perpetuate the problem for at 
least another generation.

Zimring: The paradox is that it's likely to turn up the pressure for more gun 
ownership and more gun laws at the same time.  So fear-inducing epidemics of 
violence, or accounts of violence, increase pressure for stricter gun laws 
but are also great for the gun business.

Tartaro: A lot of people don't give much thought to guns until confronted by 
fear of crime or some natural or social catastrophe.  During the Los Angeles 
riots, people who had supported the 15-day waiting period discovered that 
when police protection failed, they were helpless to protect their homes and 
property from thugs who had no problem getting guns by raiding gun shops-if 
they didn't have enough weapons already.  Same thing after Hurricane Andrew.  
Police protection and other public services collapsed, and for more than a 
week crime control was provided effectively and without bloodshed by armed 
residents, who also protected their neighbors.

Why does the gun community get such bad press ? Why do editorial cartoons 
depict gun owners as criminals or fools, and gun dealers as merchants of 
death?

Blackman: Most people in the news and entertainment media have been raised in 
the city.  They associate guns only with violence and view gun owners as 
troglodytes.

Don Kates: The gun community's arguments are informed, sophisticated and 
comprehending of the nature of the problem.  But it's the progunners who get 
attention.  They are not articulate and generally come from a cultural 
background that limits their ability to communicate with their adversaries.  
Gun-control advocates go with what they understand-that guns kill people, 
therefore guns are bad, and therefore those who like guns are bad.

Zimring: Media coverage is a marvelous example of the adage that it's the 
squeaky wheel
that gets the grease-or coverage, in this case.    We have gun owners in 
about half the households in the U.S., but those who squeak the loudest are 
the single-issue militants, including some pretty unusual people who are easy 
to caricature.

Tartaro: Guns pose almost no danger to the average person in this country, 
but they have become the main symbol of danger as we see it portrayed 
constantly in the news and in the entertainment media.  They also symbolize 
the difference between the redneck hunter who understands practical matters 
and is not too idealistic or philosophical, and a patron of the arts who 
can't fix a flat but dreams wistfully of a world without strife.

What do you think the founding fathers had in mind when they drafted the 
Second Amendment?

Beard: It means what it says: The states can maintain a "well-regulated 
militia." It doesn't convey any sacred right to private gun ownership, as the 
Supreme Court and lower courts have repeatedly ruled in their decisions 
upholding local, state and federal gun control laws.

Sanford Levinson: I disagree.  If you look at the historic definition of 
militia, which referred to all adult male citizens, that suggests that 
something more is being protected than the relatively narrow right of a state 
to organize what we today call the National Guard.  Consider also that in 
every other instance the term people is used not collectively but 
individually.  Therefore, I believe that whether one accepts the so-called 
collective or individualist reading of the Second Amendment, it rejects a 
government monopoly on the tools of force.  The First Amendment, for 
instance, protects the rights to petition, write letters, assemble, organize 
marches and so forth.  But what if the government simply ignores all that? I 
think the framers of the Constitution expected people then to invoke their 
Second Amendment right to go home and get their guns.

Zimring: I doubt the founders ever contemplated a situation in which people 
didn't own guns-for self-defense, hunting, keeping the federal government in 
line, throwing local rascals out, whatever.  But I'm sure they also didn't 
intend to forbid the reasonable regulation of their possession and use.  So 
the Second Amendment arguments today are largely rhetorical on both sides.  
The Second Amendment makes gun owners feel vindicated and validated.  So 
people who don't want gun owners to feel vindicated and validated might want 
it repealed.  It's part of the symbolic tug-of-war between groups with 
different mind-sets on the subject.

Are guns the individual's last defense in a violent society or do they create 
a culture of violence ?

Beard: The evidence clearly shows that guns do not protect individuals as 
much as they endanger society.

Brady: I would not deny anyone the right to own a gun for self-defense if 
they can make an educated decision that it is the wisest and safest method of 
protection.  But as a practical matter, a handgun in a household can be a 
time bomb, especially if there are children.  If gun ownership made society 
safer, we would be the safest nation on earth.

Blackman: There's no question about the safety issue, especially involving 
children.  The NRA has been preaching about that for years.  Statistics show 
that the accidents occur mostly among children of the people who most often 
misuse guns in other ways.  The popular statistic that guns are more likely 
to kill than protect is based on a bogus calculation using the relatively 
small number of justifiable homicides.  Professor Gary Kleck of Florida State 
University has been studying this subject for years and found through 
interview surveys that citizens used firearms to protect themselves or their 
property or to stop a crime something like 1 million times annually.  In most 
cases, no shots were even fired, much less anyone killed.

Innis: Since a fatal dispute can also take place with knives or baseball 
bats, you have to figure that a gun sometimes discourages the escalation of 
violence, or prevents it from occurring.  There's no way to measure that.

Some of the arguments seem to split hairs.  Is the Tec-9 large-capacity 
semiautomatic a more legitimate object of concern than a handgun? Is a 
handgun more dangerous than a knife?

Brady: Guns are impersonal.  You can pull a trigger from a safe distance, 
whereas stabbing somebody requires close contact and provides the opportunity 
for the victim to fend off the attack.  The simple fact is that you can kill 
more people with guns than with all other instruments put together.  They 
account for more than 60 percent of the homicides in this country, and knives 
for only 7 or 8 percent.  Think about it.  Have you ever heard of a drive-by 
knifing, or of some kid walking into a McDonald's and stabbing everybody?

Tartaro: If you have a nut intent on killing people, he can do even more 
damage with a legal shotgun.  However, if there had been even one armed 
person in that McDonald's, the guy might not have been able to stroll around 
shooting people on the assumption that they were all defenseless.

Kates: That might create the impression that gun owners are more violent than 
other people, but that doesn't seem to be the case.  The fact is that they're 
less passive.  Studies show they are more likely to come to the aid of a 
crime victim than try to avoid involvement or pray for the cops to come.  The 
authors of an article in the American Sociological Review distinguish between 
aggressive and defensive violence.  They found that gun owners were 
psychologically much more willing to engage in defense violence than people 
who would not own guns, but that they were not predominantly right wing.  Nor 
were they any more in favor of police brutality, or violence against, say 
political dissenters.  Ironically, the same study found that the people most 
accepting of brutality were not particularly friendly to the idea of gun 
ownership, possibly because they saw guns as an obstacle to their own 
aggressiveness.
 
Do gun laws reduce crime?

Beard: If you compare death rates against firearm ownership, on a regional 
basis, the correlation is obvious.  To argue otherwise is to argue that water 
has no relation to drowning.

Zimring: There isn't any persuasive evidence that lowering gun ownership 
lowers crime rates.  I think it does lower the death rate from crime, 
however, because more non-lethal weapons are used instead of guns.  A lot of 
differently constructed studies point in that direction.

Kates: Crime rates go up and down for so many reasons it's hard to prove 
anything.  From 1974 through 1987, the homicide rate steadily declined 
despite the purchase of something like 26.8 million new handguns during that 
period.  That nearly doubled the number of privately owned handguns, yet the 
total number of gun murders went down by 31 percent.  Does that prove that 
more guns cause less murder?  No.  It just shows that many different factors 
are at work here.

Zimring: So we have both a gun problem and a crime problem and they operate 
independently.  But I think we can agree that each makes the other worse.  If 
we had low crime rates, then the proliferation of guns would matter less.  If 
we had few guns, then our high violent-crime rate would result in many fewer 
deaths.

Blackman: Since Columbia banned handguns in 1977, its homicide rate has gone 
up almost 200 percent and its gun homicide rate nearly 300 percent.  The same 
thing has occurred everywhere guns are banned-in New York since 1911 and in 
Chicago since 1982.

Beard: That's because surrounding states or counties have lax gun laws that 
completely defeat the bans.

Brady: One of our main goals is to tighten proof-of-residency requirements 
and clamp down on so-called straw-man transactions in which somebody legally 
buys a gun for someone who doesn't qualify.

Lawmakers call for screening, background checks and other tactics to keep 
guns out of the hands of the "wrong people." Will selling guns to a "better 
class of people" change anything?

Innis: A lot of the antigun sentiment that is based on fear of violence is 
unconsciously racist-a fear of black violence.  The only image of black 
people that isn't threatening to whites is the missionary's image of the 
docile, childlike primitive, the white man's burden.  The post-Civil War gun 
laws were thinly veiled efforts to keep the freed slaves from obtaining 
firearms.  Many well-meaning whites, if they don't admit to a fear of violent 
blacks, still take a paternalistic position that black people are not 
intelligent or sensible enough to be trusted with deadly weapons.

Assuming that background checks and other controls work, will selling guns to 
that "better class of people" change anything when the media say that most 
killings occur among friends, acquaintances and family members? Will a gun in 
every home really lower homicide rates?

James Wright: In about a third of homicides somebody found a body that wasn't 
an obvious robbery or abduction victim, so the perpetrator and motive are 
unknown.  So exclude those, and calculate the numbers based on those where 
the relationship is known.  That could be anything from a serial murder 
victim to a stray bullet.  Now we come to the family, friends and 
acquaintances category, which is quite misleading.  You find that group 
dominated by acquaintances, which excludes personal friends, relatives and 
family members.  All that term means is that the victim and assailant had 
some prior knowledge of each other.  It doesn't mean they liked each other.  
Likewise, "family, friends and relatives" doesn't necessarily mean these are 
killings among otherwise placid and loving individuals acting in a rare 
moment of passion.  So if you subtract the domestic homicides and the 
"friends and neighbors" homicides, you find that 75 percent are among 
acquaintances who are probably criminal rivals.  Every holdup killing makes 
news because it supports the impression that it's a jungle out there.  But 
these reports don't necessarily reflect the amount of danger that the average 
person confronts, especially if he or she doesn't live in a high-crime 
neighborhood.

Kates: The inference is also that criminals don't know anyone, aren't related 
to anyone and don't have families.  It ignores the fact that 75 percent of 
all murderers already have a criminal record and an average of four arrests, 
and probably would have a lot more if their family members had pressed 
charges.  For instance, in 90 percent of domestic homicides, the cops have 
been called at least once in the previous two years to stop a beating, and in 
half the cases they've been called five or more times.

Tartaro: You may wish to add that 65 percent to 75 percent of the victims 
also have criminal records.  The fact that they keep it in the family should 
be reassuring to people who think of murder as a random crime.

Beard: Still, the presence of a weapon often will make the difference between 
a black eye and a homicide. The same applies to suicides in the home.  If you  
reach for a knife or for pills, you might have a second chance.  A gun leaves 
less margin for error.  When you're talking about reducing deaths from 
anything, if you reduce the means, you reduce the facility.  People will stop 
jumping off a bridge if you put up the right kind of fence.

Brady: I would like to see prohibitions on gun purchases extended to people 
convicted of even misdemeanor crimes that involved violence, or who have a 
history of family abuse.  This can't be done through legislation alone.  Much 
of the problem needs to be addressed through education.  I'm chairman of the 
Center to Prevent Handgun Violence, which has developed curricula for all 
grade levels and which is being used in New York, San Diego, Oakland and Dade 
County, Florida, among other places.  The object is to teach children 
alternative means, besides violence, for resolving conflicts and disputes.  

OTHER VOICES ON GUN CONTROL

"There is no doubt by now that more guns mean more violence.  Either we stop 
it now, or this insane domestic arms race will continue.  Knives don't 
ricochet, people are seldom killed while cleaning their knives and you have 
to catch someone before you can stab him.  It will be a better world, and 
guys, I promise, Lorena Bobbitt is a real fluke.   -MOLLY IVINS, COLUMNIST

"I can assure you that the guys I met in the nine prisons 1 served my 
sentence in did not get their guns at a gun store."  -GORDON LIDDY, EX-
CONVICT WHOSE WIFE OWNS 27 GUNS

IT'S THE CRIMINALS, STUPID.
BANNER ON THE FRONT OF THE NRA BUILDING IN WASHINGTON, D.C.

"The antigun lobby] reminds me of snake oil salesmen.  There is no evidence 
that any city, state or nation has reduced its crime rate by passing a gun 
law.  It is nonsense, and we're going to fight it.  The gun itself is a 
harmless, inanimate thing."  -NEAL KNOX, MEMBER OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS, 
NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION

"We cannot allow the greatest city in the Western world to fall victim to the 
chaos of A Clockwork Orange.  This commission must communicate to a 
legislature that has refused to listen for seven years that a 14-year-old 
with a gun is the most dangerous person on the block, in the school or in the 
city.  The youth who cannot instinctively understand the concept of mortality 
should not possess, without serious sanction, the instrument that defines 
mortality more often than anything else."  -PETER REINHARZ, CHIEF OF FAMILY 
COURT DIVISION, NEW YORK CITY CORPORATION COUNCIL

"As with alcohol before Prohibition, the blame is placed on an inanimate 
commodity, which is seen as a malevolent force wreaking devastation.  As with 
alcohol, opponents refuse to admit that the product has some commendable 
properties and is used harmlessly by the great majority of consumers.  Even 
more than with alcohol, prohibition of guns promises to be not only futile 
but destructive.   -STEPHEN CHAPMAN, COLUMNIST

"We need to give people the right to shoot people who need shooting.  Turn 
the good people loose and we'll end crime."  -BILLY SOL ESTES, AUTHOR

"To me, gun control is the ability to put two bullets through the same hole.  
-TED NUGENT, ROCK MUSICIAN

A gun is always a last resort.  Empowerment, consciousness-raising, is the 
point."  - PAXTON QUIGLEY, FEMINIST PRO-GUN ACTIVIST

"On November 3, 1 introduced a bill that would levy a 10,000 percent tax on 
Winchester hollow-tipped Black Talon bullets, which are specifically designed 
to rip flesh.  Colin Ferguson, the suspect in the Long Island shootings, had 
some 40 of these bullets.  The tax would raise the price of Black Talons from 
$20 to $2000 apiece.  On November 22,19 days after my bill was introduced, 
Winchester announced that it would cease the sale of Black Talons to the 
public.  Which suggests that munitions manufacturers are more responsive than 
the automobile companies were a generation ago, when the case for safety 
design in automobiles seemed hopeless.  Bullet control has seemed equally 
quixotic, yet all of a sudden the idea is getting through.  The federal 
government needs to establish, and can establish, a full-fledged regime of 
bullet control.  This need be no threat to the sportsman; we are talking 
about handguns.  We need to ban some rounds, tax others, keep records and 
scrutinize licenses to manufacture.  The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and 
Firearms needs to come alive.  The alternative is more death." -PATRICK 
MOYNIHAN, SENATOR
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