Ignoring the Evidence: Facts on Guns, Crime, and Race

by Ira Hansen (Nevada)

If you listen to the rhetoric of the gun control crowd, one of the primary reasons for a need to restrict or control firearms ownership is to stop an apparent epidemic of accidents involving children.

But what are the facts? Professor John Lott of the University of Chicago School of Law has done the homework, and the numbers just don’t quite match the hype. With at least 240 million of these "extremely dangerous" firearms owned by an estimated 80 million Americans lying around, its safe to assume that at a bare minimum, 1 percent of firearms would be involved in some sort of serious accident, right? Let’s see: 1 percent of 240 million is 2.4 million.

Now, if we were to assume 1 percent a year as a base, it would mean 99 percent of all firearms were used wisely, if used at all. But the truth is, all of the speculations above are dramatically wrong. Professor Lott has documented all children’s deaths from firearm accidents, and the total for all kids under the age of 15-with 240 million firearms available- is 200 accidental deaths a year.

If firearms are a horrible danger, a menace in the homes of those who own them, why are firearms at the bottom of the list of common household products causing accidents? Lott has shown that swimming pools, bicycles, cigarette lighters, space heaters, and even common five-gallon buckets cause more accidental deaths among children than the 240 million firearms Americans currently own.

In short, firearms are not toys, but the claims of extreme danger to the 80 million American households who own guns are absurdly exaggerated.

GUNS AND FELONS

Depending on who you feel has the most credibility, Sarah Brady, head of Handgun Control Inc., or President Bill Clinton, the Brady Law which requires a five day waiting period and a background check before purchasing a handgun, had stopped either 260,000 or 400,000 bad guys from buying a firearm. These figures are used as examples of the good things accomplished when gun control legislation is enacted.

There are several serious flaws about such claims. First, why would a convicted felon who knows it’s a serious violation of his parole to have in his possession (or to purchase) a firearm walk into a gun shop, and fill out papers that then become prima facie evidence of another felon? With 240 million guns in the private hands, why wouldn’t the convict in need of a weapon, to presumably go on another crime spree, either steal one outright or purchase one from a private individual?

More importantly, a felon purchasing a firearm is committing another felony, a federal crime, and if 400,00 such acts were committed, the U.S. Justice Department should be buried with such prosecutions. Instead, we find a startling fact: in the four years since the Brady Law was enacted, the Janet Reno headed Justice Department has prosecuted ONE person for its violation!

Laws against juveniles who have criminal records using guns are also on the books, and with the recent rash of high school shootings and the political fallout generated form them, you would expect another full court press to prosecute the young hoodlums.

Once again, as with the Brady law, we find a lack of enforcement. Out of and estimated 20,000 juvenile gun crimes, only 20 individuals were prosecuted. What good are gun laws if they’re not enforced? More importantly, if reducing crime is supposedly the reason for such laws, why would we need to pass additional laws that restrict the law abiding citizen?

GUNS AND RACE

In today’s fascist environment of thought control (more commonly called being "politically correct"), comparisons between races are verboten. Of course, I very much enjoy tweaking the noses of our liberal antirational-thinking Gestapo by bringing the necessary facts to light-including those of race.

One cannot escape the fact that blacks commit grossly disproportionate amounts of violent crime in America, including the illegal use of weapons. For example, out of 18,475 arrests for murder in 1994 (the most recent statistics available to me), 10,420 were of blacks and 7,705 were of whites. When you realize only 12 percent of the population are black, you begin to understand that race should play a major role in the gun control and crime debate, yet you never hear it brought up nationally. Comparisons between U.S. and other countries with significantly different racial demographics, such as Germany or Canada, must take into account such factors—but never do.

To be accurate when comparing crime rates and firearm ownership, predominately white countries such as Germany should be compared to predominately white states in the U.S. such as Montana, South Dakota, or Utah. Just as a teaser, let’s look at one tiny crime statistic: in mainly white rural America-- swimming with firearms—the rate of juvenile arrests per 100,000 residents for homicide is .51. In the cities, it is almost three times that rate, 1.47. In fact, when comparing crime statistics by race, European and U.S. violent crime rates are much more on par, even though most European countries have very strict gun control laws.

If the gun control lobby wanted to dramatically reduce misuse of weapons, they would not target the ownership of guns as a whole but instead go after the groups most prone to their misuse, primarily young minority males—by enforcing the laws already on the books.

To go after the portion of our population most prone to violent behavior today would involve "racial profiling" and that of course conflicts with the current trend of victimization - where crooks are not crooks at all - rather the victims of an evil racist society.

More gun control laws are not needed. Enforcement of current laws makes more sense. Stricter sentencing would help as well. But with too many in America today, feel-goodism has displaced rationality, and demagoguing politicians, in lockstep with the elitists who seek to disarm the common man, are stripping away a sacred constitutional right. This is a right central to being an American: America is about liberty. And, as our founding fathers knew so well, no unarmed man is truly free.