Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns,alt.society.civil-liberty
Subject: Pro-gun local op-ed piece
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 1993 01:10:29 GMT
Greetings all.
I was paging through our local paper, the Santa Cruz Sentinel, on Sunday
and came across this letter. It is an excellent rebuttal to an earlier
letter calling for more gun control legislation in response to the nation
wide "health crisis" caused by firearms. It was chock full of the usual
anti-gun misinformation propogated by Handgun Control Inc. I was very
pleasantly surprised to see the following rebuttal considering how anti-2nd
amendment the Sentinel (and Santa Cruz) is. I think Mr. Maximovich did an
excellent job. I wish there were more letters like this being printed.
But enough, on to the article.
============================================================================
Santa Cruz Sentinel
July 18, 1993
op-ed piece by Milan Maximovich
[insert of picture of Milan Maximovich with quote "Risk is inherent in]
[a free society."]
Gun control editorial really missed the mark
--------------------------------------------
I was disappointed in the July 7 Sentinel editorial, "Gun control becoming
a national health issue." You claim, for example, that "nearly 5,000
American children are killed with guns every year." What is your source
for that figure?
I've seen that number tossed around recently; it appears to come from the
recent New York Times ad purchased by Handgun Control Inc., an avowed
anti-gun organization.
I would expect a responsible newspaper to review claims submitted by a
group with a political ax to grind. If you had, you would have found the
number to be about 3,700, not 5,000. (See "Gun Play," by David B. Kopel,
Reason, July 1993, pp. 19-32) But what's an exaggeration of 35 percent in
the name of a worthy cause?
But looking deeper, you'll find this figure swollen by the inclusion of
18-year-old muggers, rapists and armed robbers shot by their intended
victims; 19 year-old crack dealers done in by their competition; and the
body count of the gang wars raging throughout our central cities. Hardly
the "innocent children" your editorial infers.
A truly disturbing figure, however, is that more than 2,000 young people
committed suicide with guns in 1990. However, teen-agers are still less
likely to commit suicide than any older age group. (Same source).
In a 1991 book, "Point Blank," Florida State University criminologist Gary
Kleck analyzed suicide rates and gun laws in every American city with a
population over 100,000. He concluded that no gun laws had a statistical
effect on the rate of suicide. People who wanted to kill themselves found
a way to do it.
The remaining area of concern is accidental death due to firearm discharge.
According to the National Safety Council, 227 children under the age of 15
were killed by accidental firearms discharge in 1988. This represents a 48
percent drop from 1974, even though the number of guns per capita has
increased.
Yet one could argue that even this figure is still far too high.
A 1991 study by the General Accounting Office shows that 84 percent of gun
accidents result from a violation of elementary gun safety rules. And it
only stands to reason that youngsters who can take friends to a supervised
and safe shooting facility where basic safety is taught and observed are
less likely to be intrigued with and mishandle a pistol found at home.
Given such considerations, I would expect anyone seriously concerned about
gun safety to applaud and support programs like the National Rifle
Association's "Eddie Eagle" Elementary Gun Safety Education Program for
children, or positive programs initiated by local concerned organizations.
A fine example is the Scotts Valley Sportsmen's Club's gun safety and
training program for children. I've yet to see such support from the
Sentinel.
But it's not the inflated and distorted statistics, the slipshod research,
the political bias or the lack of support for those pursuing effective
answers to real problems that bother me most about the editorial. Those
are merely the signs of sloppy journalism, and the Sentinel pays the price
in lost credibility.
What is offensive is the cavalier attitude that liberties dearly won and
defended by American blood over the last 220 years should be dismissed to
embrace fuzzy political bromides. Specifically, that the Second Amendment
liberties, which embody the right to self-defense, should be sacrificed to
some nebulous so-called "health crisis."
Let's carry this fuzzy thinking one step further. Surely newspaper
articles and editorials can result in heightened public awareness and
tensions concerning emotionally charged issues such as abortion. Such
tensions can and have led to violence and the loss of lives.
In the name of "public safety," wouldn't it therefore be prudent to subject
all Sentinel articles and editorials to an appropriate governmental review
board to ensure their content is non-inflammatory? No, it wouldn't. The
First Amendment takes precedence over the whims and politics of would-be
censors.
The principle involved in the two examples is the same. The price we pay
for liberty, for not attempting to control and regulate all human
behavior, includes an increased level of risk. Risk is inherent in a free
society and cannot be eliminated by legislation. What can be all too
easily eliminated are individual liberties.
The naive hope that government can solve society's problems by passing laws
is dangerous and foolish. And sacrificing individual liberties on the
altar of political expediency is far worse.
Over 200 years ago, in a time of extreme crisis for an emerging nation,
Benjamin Franklin noted, "They that can give up essential liberty to
obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
I can think of little to add.
{blurb: Milan Maximovich is a staff engineer at Lockheed Missiles & Space
Co. in Sunnyvale. He lives in the Santa Cruz mountains.}
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