[Vision2020] Firearms - Dangerous or Useful?

[lfalen]

Vary good Mike. Thanks for posting

Roger
-----Original message-----
From: "Mike Finkbiner" mike_l_f at hotmail.com
Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2007 21:36:00 -0700
To: vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject: [Vision2020] Firearms - Dangerous or Useful?

> Visionaries -
> 
> Most of the arguments about firearms revolve around the three areas of 
> Rights, Liability to Society and Usefulness.  The Rights question is 
> interesting, but I think the Liability vs Usefulness question is more 
> personal.
> 
> A lot of these arguments are religious in nature, with people on both sides 
> more focused on emotion than fact.  Sound bites like "For the children" and 
> "From my cold dead hands" don't really do more than comfort the true 
> believers.  I'm sorry this is rather long, but it's a subject that deserves 
> more than a sound bite.
> 
> I think a lot of the problem comes down to perceived risk.  People worry 
> about things they perceive as dangerous, rather than things that really are. 
>   The common example is driving vs flying.  Statistically you are much more 
> likely to be killed in a car accident than on a commercial aircraft, but 
> people worry more about traveling by air.   A person who is not involved in 
> criminal behavior has a small risk of being shot in comparison to other 
> types of injuries, but sports injuries, auto accidents and drowning are 
> accepted, while firearms are demonized
> 
> Here are some interesting chart of causes of death.  To get firearms into 
> 10th place, below septicemia and renal failure, they have to total those 
> shot by police and in self defense with those shot by criminals.
> 
> http://www.the-eggman.com/writings/death_stats.html
> 
> If you look more closely at the types of people killed by firearms, you will 
> find that the majority are well known to police, and have been involved in 
> violent behavior many times before.  If you take out the people with 
> criminal records, the percentage of deaths from firearms drops a lot.
> 
> Another problem is perceived usefulness.  People feel that swimming pools, 
> 5-gallon buckets and automobiles are useful, so while sad when someone is 
> injured or killed, they don't feel the object caused the death.  With 
> firearms, reports in the news tend to concentrate on criminal use rather 
> than citizens defending themselves.
> 
> In 2001 "USA Today ... reported 5,660 words on criminal use of guns but no 
> reporting on the use of guns to stop crimes, and the Washington Post, ... 
> devoted 46,884 words to the criminal use of firearms and 953 words to their 
> defensive use by law-abiding citizens." - Jeff Johnson CNSNews.com 
> Congressional Bureau Chief Oct 2003
> 
> There have been several studies by academics and government agencies looking 
> at defensive use of firearms.  Every one of them has concluded that despite 
> the lack of media interest, there are at least a hundred thousand, perhaps 
> over a million instances every year in this country where a person defends 
> themselves with a firearm.  Those uses vary from just displaying a gun to 
> killing an attacker.  In a large percentage of cases, no shots are fired, 
> which is probably why they don't make the news.
> 
> If you want to look at the actual studies, rather than what people are 
> saying about them, this page has links to a wide variety -
> 
> http://www.gunowners.org/sourcetb.htm
> 
> If you want to see a regularly updated list of civilians using guns in self 
> -defense -
> 
> http://www.gunowners.org/sourcetb.htm
> 
> The recent home invasion in Connecticut is an example of what young, strong 
> thugs can do to people who do not have the means to defend themselves.  I 
> gather the weapon of choice was a baseball bat.  A homeowner with a firearm 
> has a chance to defend his family against that kind of thing.  Firearms 
> allow the average person to not live in fear of the young and violent.
> 
> None of this excuses people who do not properly control dangerous objects 
> that they own.  Children who die in swimming pools, 5-gallon buckets or from 
> household chemicals are victims of adult neglect, just as those who are 
> killed by guns in their homes.  That doesn't mean we should ban any of those 
> from the home.  They are all useful in their place, and dangerous when not.
> 
> As far as access to firearms causing violence, there was an interesting 
> study in the Spring 2007 Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy -
> 
> http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf
> 
> The authors looked at the rate of gun ownership in various Euoropean 
> countries and compared it to the murder and suicide rates.  Essentially, 
> they couldn't find a correlation.  Countries with very high firearms 
> ownership rates like Norway have low rates of murder while countries like 
> Luxembourg and Russia, with very low rates of ownership have much higher 
> rates of murder.  The criminals just use other tools.  Violence is a problem 
> of the society, not the tools available.
> 
> It's a complicated subject, but the evidence is strong that we cannot blame 
> guns for societies failings.  In a violent society, the honest citizen has a 
> right to defend herself from the goblins, and firearms have been the great 
> equalizer for a long time.
> 
> Please take a look at -
> 
>    http://www.a-human-right.com/
> 
> 
> Mike Finkbiner
> 
> 
> "The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on equal 
> footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with 
> a 19-year old gang banger, and a single gay guy on equal footing with a 
> carload of drunk guys with baseball bats. The gun removes the disparity in 
> physical strength, size, or numbers between a potential attacker and a 
> defender."
> 
> 		- Maj. L. Caudill USMC (Ret)
> 
> 
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