From: [iemp 4] at [agt.gmeds.com] (Matthew Plumb)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns
Subject: recent Chicago Tribune article
Date: 31 Jan 1995 19:31:41 -0600

A friend of mine sent me this editorial that was published in the
Chicago Tribune, of all places.  (In case you don’t know, Chicago 
has some of the worst gun laws around.)

Hi Matthew!

Here is the article from the Chicago Tribune on January 26...  

[begin quote]

Make my day.  Could more guns possibly make for safe streets? 
By Stephen Chapman 

During last year's campaign, Texas Gov.  Ann Richards knew enough to
cultivate the gun-owners vote: She made a show of taking a shotgun
into the field on the first day of dove season.  Though no game birds
ventured her way, she came off better than her Republican opponent,
George W.  Bush, who mistakenly (and illegally) bagged a killdeer. 
But Richards had vetoed a bill making it easier to get a concealed-
weapon permit, which Bush endorsed.  On Election Day, shotgun and all,
she got cashiered by the voters.  

This issue is not just one of those weird Texas things.  The most
striking recent development in gun laws is not last year's federal ban
on "assault weapons." It is the parade of states that have decided to
let responsible adults carry handguns.  Since 1987, 10 states
have made concealed weapon permits easy to get, bringing to 19 the
number with such a policy.  Several more are considering the idea.  

Guns, in the wrong hands, facilitate crime.  But in the right hands
they can also prevent it, which is why we insist that cops be armed. 
In this violent society, the wrong people, namely criminals - already
wield firearms in abundance.  The question is whether we would be
better off or worse off if more of the right people - law abiding,
mentally competent citizens who have taken gun-safety courses - were
also packing heat.  

Whoever killed Nicole Brown Simpson didn't need a gun: He was (or they
were) strong enough to dispatch two healthy adults with only a knife. 
But if she had been carrying one, she might be alive today.  Texas has
an example that is less hypothetical: a woman who left her pistol in
the car when she went into Luby's Cafeteria in Killeen and then had to
watch as an armed man killed 22 patrons, including her parents.  

Advocates of gun control are appalled at the idea of allowing more
ordnance on our streets, which they equate with gasoline on a forest
fire.  Their Exhibit A is Florida, the first state to liberalize its
concealed-handgun law.  Handgun Control Inc.  notes that “between 1987
- the year Florida enacted its law - and 1992, the violent crime rates
rose 17.8 percent.  Florida's 1992 violent crime rate of 1,207.2 per
100,000 people is the highest in the nation for any state." 

But Florida had more than its share of mayhem long before this law. 
Handgun Control doesn't mention that between 1987 and 1992, the
violent crime rate for the country as a whole rose by 24% --
considerably faster than in the Sunshine State.  During that period,
the national murder rate increased by 12 percent nationality, but the
Florida murder rate fell by 21%.  

Handgun Control warns that "more guns lead to more deaths and injuries
from gunshots." Not in Florida, they don't.  More than 100,000 people
have licenses to carry concealed handguns, but the abuses have been
rare.  By the end of 1993, only 17 licenses have been revoked because
the licensee committed a crime with a firearm.  The prediction that
every traffic dispute would end in a hail of bullets has not come
true.  

Meanwhile, a few crimes have been thwarted by permit holders.  And, as
the Independence Institute of Colorado notes, "There was no known
incident of a permit-holder intervening in an incompetent or
dangerous manner, such as shooting an innocent bystander by mistake. 
The case of Florida suggests that permissive "concealed carry" laws
won't necessarily increase crime.  

But, you may wonder, why take a chance? Two reasons.  First, because
law-abiding citizens can't count on law-enforcement agencies to
preserve their lives and property.  A woman who has to come home late
to the Robert Taylor Homes is bound to be safer with a pistol in her
pocket, if only because she couldn't possibly be less safe.  

Even if she never had to use her weapon, she would gain some peace of
mind from knowing she could defend against predators.  Likewise for
lots of other people who have the bad luck to live or work in the many
places where thugs abound.  

A second reason is that such permit holders could eventually deter
crime, as crooks begin to perceive a heightened risk in their
profession.  The presence of guns in the home is a major reason why
the high-crime United States has a lower burglary rate than England,
where guns are largely forbidden and intruders don't have to worry
about death from Sudden Perforation Syndrome.  For those who worry
that America will come to resemble the Wild West, the Independence
Institute says we should be so lucky: Homicide was almost unknown in
Dodge City and other gun-heavy places.  

The fallacy of the gun-control argument is that because guns are
dangerous in the hands of people who are criminally inclined or
mentally unstable, they are also dangerous in the hands of those who
are law-abiding and sane.  It may be the height of sanity to suppose
that if our police can't protect us from criminals, we should insist
on the right to protect ourselves.

[end quote]

Thanks to my good friend Rebecca Jacobsen for typing this.

--- Matthew W. Plumb, [iemp 4] at [agt.gmeds.com]
    My boss doesn't believe me, much less agree with me!

"Those who would sacrifice their essential liberty to gain a
 little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
 --- Ben Franklin