From: [d c d] at [se.houston.geoquest.slb.com] (Dan Day)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british,talk.politics.guns
Subject: Re: ACLU - Are no lovers of freedom or liberty
Date: 29 Jun 1994 20:33:07 GMT
From an article published in the Dallas Morning News, Sunday
April 29, 1992:
___Concealed weapons can prevent tragedies like Killeen's___
By: Dr. Suzanna Gratia
On Dec. 17, 1991, in Anniston, Ala., a restaurant patron
defended himself and saved the lives of nearly two dozen others
held hostage by two armed would-be robbers. The reluctant hero,
who was legally carrying his .45 caliber firearm, stopped both
assailants before they could complete their crime or injure any
other innocent customers.
On Oct. 16,1991, in Killeen, Texas, an armed homicidal
maniac methodically killed 22 people and then himself, facing no
resistance from the scores of potential victims, including me.
That tragedy will be forever etched in my memory. My parents
were brutally murdered, and I was helpless to protect them. None
of us in that restaurant could control our own destinies, for
Texas politicians had seen fit to keep us disarmed.
State law prohibits the concealed carrying of firearms,
denying me or someone else the right to have a gun that day to
protect ourselves and our loved ones from the rampages of a mad
man. That's flat-out wrong. And I intend to do everything in my
power to change that ill-gotten law to avert needless suffering by
others.
The violent incidents in Anniston , and Killeen ended far
differently because of the laws governing the concealed carrying
of firearms. Alabama has a fair concealed-carry law, but in Texas
the government has said, in effect, that decent citizens can't be
trusted to carry firearms for self-protection. The facts simply
do not justify that conclusion.
Despite claims of gun prohibitionists, allowing law-abiding
citizens like me to choose to obtain a permit to legally carry a
handgun in no way increases criminal behavior. In Florida, a
concealed-carry reform law was passed in 1988. Anti-gun groups
and the Florida media predicted an outbreak of shootings in the
Sunshine State.
But this fair and more uniform concealed-carry law simply
hasn't shaken the foundations of the Florida legal systm, as doom-
sayers predicted. According to John Fuller, general counsel for
the Florida Sheriff's Association, "I haven't seen where we have
had any instance of persons with permits causing violent crimes,
and I'm constantly on the lookout."
In fact, it has the opposite effect on homicide rates. After
statewide concealed-carry law reforms were enacted in Florida, the
homicide rate decreased 6 percent between l987 and 1990 as the
national rate climbed 13 percent. In Oregon, reformed carry laws
adopted in 1990 returned a 20.8 prcent drop in the homicide rate.
Again, the gun prohibitionists had predicted mayhem, and again,
their predictions proved false.
Research proves why: A government-funded survey of 1,874
felons by noted criminologist James D. Wright and Peter H. Rossi,
designed to determine the experiences of convicted felons with
flrearms and their perceptions of gun laws, found about 40 prcent
of the felons sampled said they had decided not to commit a crime
because they feared the victim was carrying a firearm. And 34
percent had been "scared off, shot at, wounded or captured by an
armed victim."
Clearly, concealed carry laws translate to saving the lives
of loved ones in a manner simllar to health or life insurance. If
ever there arises that time when it is needed, no substitute will
do, and I don't intend to be victimized again.
In drafting the Bill of Rights, the Founding Fathers
acknowledged self-protection as a prime goal incorporated in the
Second Amendment. In quoting criminologist Cesare Beccaria, still
renowned for his work On Crimes and Punishments penned in 1764,
Thomas Jefferon said: "Laws that forbid the carrying of arms . ..
disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to
commit crimes.... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted
and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than
to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with
greater confidence than an armed man."
The question of carrying a concealed handgun is one that is
highly personal. It is a choice that should be made by the
individual. And it is a choice that should not be forbidden to an
honest citizen like myself by an overprotective government,
particularly one which has no responsibility to provide real
protection when my life is threatened.
American are expressing concerns regarding police protection
when the explosion in crime literally overwhelms police
departments across the nation. In a public opinion survey done by
the Gallup Report for the U.S. Justice Department's Sourcebook of
Criminal Statistics, citizens were asked, "How much confidence do
you have in the ability of the police to protect you from violent
crime?" Nationwide, 50 percent of the American public polled
responded "not very much" to "none".
In the District of Columbia, where there has been a virtual
gun ban since 1976, the local court of appeals followed the long
accepted rule that the police have no duty to protect individuals,
only the community at large.
In states with no provision for concealed carry, legislation
should be proposed, passed and enacted to allow law-abiding
citizens the chance to protect themselves from criminal attack.
In those states that employ discriminatory and unfair concealed-
carry laws which virtually forfeit citizen opportunities for these
permits, legilation must shift the burden of proof to the issuing
authority to show reasons for denial and away from the honest
citizen seeking a permit.
While organized police forces do attempt to protect the
public, more and more they are unable to do. In fact, armed
private citizens encounter and thwart three times as many
criminals as law enforcement. This is not to suggest a diminished
role for our nation's law enforcement, but rather to emphasize the
importance of armed self-defense before police can respond to a
crime in progress. Evidence indicates that the armed citizen is
probably the single most effective deterrent to crime in the
nation.
When it comes to arbitrary enforcement or prohibition on the
lawful concealed carrying of firearms, what has the law-abiding
American public done to warrant such a mistrust of their
competency and character? Ask your elected officials. I'm asking
mine.
Dr. Suzanna Gratia works at the Cove
Chiropractic clinic in Copperas Cove.