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| Guns as the solution? |
1 | | | Sensing that he must introduce some government initiative to respond |
| | | to the recent shootings at public schools, President Clinton proposed |
| | | last week to make parents criminally responsible if their children obtain |
| | | access to guns. |
| | | |
2 | 5 | | Some liberal commentators protest that this is an anemic response to a |
| | | dreadful situation. Columnist Mary McGrory, a gun-control advocate, |
| | | observes bitterly that “It might be simpler to go after guns than to try to |
| | | make adults responsible.” |
3 | | | Gun control is one of the defining issues between liberals and |
| 10 | | conservatives, and the recent school shootings illustrate the divide very |
| | | well. |
| | | |
4 | | | Gun-control advocates really think that they are more deeply concerned |
| | | about schoolyard violence than gun defenders. They think that they are |
| | | more peaceable folks than conservatives, more civil and more |
| 15 | | concerned for children’s safety. Proof of their concern is their eagerness |
| | | to ban handguns. |
| | | |
5 | | | Those who oppose gun control, they assume, are willing to see a few |
| | | dozen teenagers mowed down on the way to the next class as the price |
| | | to pay for the Second Amendment of the US constitution. (Very similar |
| 20 | | reasoning motivated liberals’ enthusiasm for the nuclear freeze in the |
| | | early ’80s. Peaceable folks must oppose nuclear weapons, they |
| | | reasoned. And those unwilling to engage in nuclear arms control must |
| | | be warmongers.) |
| | | |
6 | | | Personally, I would love to write columns in praise of gun control. I know |
| 25 | | it would bring me prestige as an “independent thinker” not shackled by |
| | | any particular ideology - and I would be given credit for concern about |
| | | children. |
| | | |
7 | | | But one cannot adopt a policy position based upon emotion alone. The |
| | | facts are more important than how one feels. In the Cold War context, it |
| 30 | | turned out that those who adopted a realistic view of the need for atomic |
| | | weapons did far more to make the world a safer place than those who |
| | | were arrogant enough to think that good people oppose nukes. |
| | | |
8 | | | And the facts do not support gun control either. In fact, according to |
| | | research by John R. Lott Jr., former chief economist for the U.S. |
| 35 | | Sentencing Commission and a professor of law at the University of |
| | | Chicago Law School, the very best way to stop mass shootings at |
| | | schools or anywhere else is to adopt “concealed carry” laws. |
| | | |
9 | | | Lott acknowledges that his own research results shocked him. |
| | | Nevertheless, a survey of all multiple-victim public shootings in the |
| 40 | | United States between 1977 and 1995 (excluding gang wars, organized |
| | | crime hits and shootings in the course of a robbery or other crime) |
| | | showed quite conclusively that nothing else works. |
| | | |
10 | | | Lott and his research partner William Landes examined many other state |
| | | attempts to reduce shootings. They found that the death-penalty had no |
| 45 | | effect. Neither did raising arrest rates for murder, imposing waiting |
| | | periods before gun purchases, or performing background checks for gun |
| | | purchasers. Only one measure proved to have a dramatic effect on |
| | | public shootings: “concealed carry” laws. |
| | | |
11 | | | Thus five years after permitting law-abiding citizens to carry guns, 10 |
| 50 | | states had found that their murder rates had dropped by an average of 15 |
| | | percent, rape by 9 percent, and robberies by 11 percent. The likelihood of |
| | | a mass shooting in those states had dropped from nearly 75 percent to |
| | | zero. |
| | | |
12 | | | In my view, concealed-carry laws help deter crime in two ways. They |
| 55 | | keep criminals off balance because they cannot be sure which of their |
| | | intended victims is armed, and they save lives when an armed citizen is |
| | | able to overpower a criminal before the police arrive. In Jacksonville, Fla., |
| | | recently, a criminal with a gun threatened to start shooting people in a |
| | | restaurant at the count of 10 unless the cash register were opened. At |
| 60 | | the count of 8, two armed citizens with handgun permits stood up and |
| | | shot him. |
| | | |
13 | | | Not only do concealed-carry laws deter crime, they do not increase |
| | | suicide rates, swell accidental shootings or result in citizens turning their |
| | | guns on police officers - all dangers that opponents of concealed-carry |
| 65 | | laws cite. By contrast, several police officers have had their lives saved |
| | | by permit-holding citizens. |
| | | |
14 | | | It’s hard to be enthusiastic about a weapon of death, but facts are facts: |
| | | Guns save lives. |
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| | | Mona Charen, 'Daily Camera', July 12, 1998 |