Gun Control Group Commends Kerry

[DrFunkenstein]

Washington, DC - The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence today, September 4th, commended Senator John Kerry for recognizing the need for strong gun laws to reduce gun violence in America. During his September 2 speech in which he formally announced his campaign, Senator Kerry said "courage means standing up for gun safety, not retreating from the issue out of political fear or trying to have it both ways."

"We applaud Senator Kerry for standing up for the thousands of gun violence victims who have felt left out of the political process recently," said Joshua Horwitz, Executive Director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. "We call on other candidates to show similar courage and publicly endorse strong gun violence prevention measures."

More than 26,000 Americans die each year at the barrel of a gun; eight young people each day --far more than any other industrialized nation in the world. Gun violence costs the American economy approximately $100 billion annually.

In his announcement speech, Kerry went on to say that "the Democratic party will never be the choice of the NRA, and I am not looking to be the candidate of the NRA." Last month, Robert Ricker, a former high-ranking NRA official made a similar assertion in a Los Angeles Times commentary entitled "Democrats Are Playing NRA Roulette." In the piece, Ricker argued that the NRA has become "a wholly owned subsidiary of the Republican Party."

http://www.jointogether.org/gv/news/alerts/reader/0,2061,566679,00.html

<>

[JI7]

1. yes, gun control is a winning issue

clinton was one of the biggest gun control advocates and won and al gore got more votes.

[blm]

6. I see traditional Dem groups lining up with Kerry.

That should give us a feel for how things are REALLY shaping up behind the scenes. Looking forward to the Brady folks and Million Moms.


don't forget to add:
Deb Callahan of League of Conservation Voters
Marian Wright Edelman of Children's Defense Fund

[Punkingal]

2. When Kerry announced his candidacy....

he said he was a hunter, but he had never hunted with an AK-47...I thought that was a terrific line.

[Procopius]

4. I knew a guy who hunted with an M-14 machine gun

of course his fired only one bullet at a time. And he was a Navy veteran.

It scared me to think he might be equating deer with the enemy.

[Procopius]

3. Even if gun control is a loosing issue we need to embrace it

Aside from our military guns have no use in cvil society.

Kerry recognizes that. I am sure he is against lawsuit immunity, LEO nationawide handgun carry and supports the assault gun ban.

I think everyone is on that same page except Dean and even he isn't too extremist- he supports the assault gun ban.

[w4rma]

5. Dean on gun regulation

…
Let's keep and enforce the federal gun laws we have, close the gun show loophole using Insta-check, and then let the states decide for themselves what if any gun control laws they want.
…
http://www.issues2000.org/2004/Howa...Gun_Control.htm


Gov. Howard Dean (D-VT) on gun regulation (states' rights, pro-gun)
http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=35583

[DJcairo]

7. Sorry

But I prefer a candidate like Kerry, who believes that there is a role the federal government can play by adopting common sense gun legislation. Frankly, we all ought to think it's absurd that America is the only modern Democracy that allows the sail of assault weapons. These weapons are for no otehr purpose but to kill and mame and because America allows the sale of these weapons, there are far more homicides here in percentage terms than in France, Germany, Great Britain combined. When it comes down to which candidate stands for human life and limiting the sale of assault weapons the answer is clearly Kerry.

[slackmaster]

18. Your facts are in error

Frankly, we all ought to think it's absurd that America is the only modern Democracy that allows the sail of assault weapons.

The assault weapon ban of 1994 is still in effect and will not expire until next September. New assault weapons cannot be manufactured or sold until then.

[MrBenchley]

22. Yeah, but the gun lobby is doing all it can to get them on the market

and you know it.

[Township75]

41. Why do you believe Switzerland is a modern Democracy?

You can own a machine gun there.

[Nicholas_J]

14. Ridiculous.

AS long as you do not have to stop at each state's border and go though a customs line to have your car and luggage checked, allowing the states to decide is a complete farce.

[slackmaster]

8. Guns have no use in civil society?

I'll surrender mine after all of the police and violent criminals turn theirs in.

[reillynathan]

9. problem with state control of gun sales

The problem, it seems, is that a good section of those violent criminals get their guns from states where purchase is easy and then truck them up I-95 to states where purchase is not so easy ... seems to be a rather significant flaw in the states' rights approach of Gov. Dean.

[slackmaster]

11. Your "good section" is a small minority

Surveys of prison inmates have shown that the largest share of illegal gun providers are friends and relatives, not interstate gun runners.

Why should my rights be curtailed because other states are crawling with criminal clowns?

[Nicholas_J]

16. Most people get their guns from friends

Who have gone to other states to purchase them. Not gun runners in large numbers, but small friendly gun running.

In a a state like New York, which has tough gun laws, the entire state is NOT New York City and therare LARGE areas similar to Vermont, which has very weak gun laws. Simple arithmetic prooves this as in most states that have strict gun laws, many more guns are estimated to be in the hands of the unlicensed than have actually been legally sold in those areas. And most of the deaths that result from them are also not the results of criminals using guns in a crime, but either due to accidental deaths, crimes of passion, ot suicides. Almost all of the almost 30,000 deaths a years are NOT caused by the use of these unnecessary weapons being used in self defense.

I would not be surprised if a lot of the guns used to commit crimes in norttheat urban areas did not originate in Vermont. I come from lrorida and am WELL aware of the numbers of people who come to visit this state and purchase firearms in order to bring them back up north.

[slackmaster]

17. Cite, please

Please show concrete data that those friends actually obtained the guns in other states. Your claim does not square with any hard data I have seen.

I would not be surprised if a lot of the guns used to commit crimes in norttheat urban areas did not originate in Vermont.

I would not be surprised if you are wrong. Data, please.

I come from lrorida and am WELL aware of the numbers of people who come to visit this state and purchase firearms in order to bring them back up north.

If you have personal knowledge of any such transactions and did not report it to the police then you are part of the problem. Or are you just repeating hearsay?

[Nicholas_J]

19. I have seen dozens of people

Who have purchased guns and live in Florida, move from Florida.
I know they did not drop those guns into their dumpsters.

Most gun traffic IS well known to come from illicit interstate movement...

Where are YOUR stats that they DO NOT COME FROM such transactions.

Formal gun running is not the way this occurred.

But most curent lawxs do not prohibit handguns from getting into the hands of CONVICTED FELONS"

Few Hardened Criminals Submit to Background Checks
The Virginia "instant check" system of investigating firearms purchasers suffers from the same fatal flaw as all other attempts to regulate the transactions of honest citizens in a firearms shop: the dangerous people these laws attempt to disarm seldom present themselves to be investigated at legitimate retail outlets in the first place.

The National Institute of Justice's July, 1985 research report, The Armed Criminal in America: A Survey of Incarcerated Felons, indicated, on page 36, that only one out of 14 handguns (7%) whose "use in crime was somewhat or very important" involved a "cash purchase from a usual retail outlet," according to the 1,874 prison inmates serving time in 10 states. Up to 70% of the most recent handguns owned by these criminals were stolen

http://www.gunowners.org/fs9301.htm


A. Interstate Data

Finished with international comparisons, Dixon turns to interstate analysis. If gun controls reduced crime, then it would be expected that states with stricter gun laws would have lower gun crime rates. But as Dixon acknowledges, states with stricter gun laws have higher crime rates. <113>

There are several possible explanations. First, the states which enacted the strict gun laws had high crime to begin with; that it why the stricter laws were enacted.

A second, not inconsistent explanation, is that gun control itself causes higher crime, making the already high-crime states even worse than they would otherwise be. Dixon deals with the explanation by dismissing it as "perverse." <114> Argument by epithet is not persuasive, and (as will be discussed below), there are plausible reasons to believe that some gun controls may increase crime, and that Dixon's proposed handgun ban would substantially aggravate crime. <115> Dixon admits that at least sometimes handguns prevent crime, <116> so it is hardly "perverse" to suggest that it could be possible that states which weaken the deterrent effect of civilian handgun ownership suffer increased crime.

A third explanation for why states with stern gun laws have more crime than other states is that guns from other states, with looser laws, are smuggled into the high crime states, thus reducing or eliminating the crime-reductive effect of the strict state's law. This explanation is not inconsistent with the first two explanations. Dixon devotes the rest of his interstate discussion to arguing for this third explanation.

Even if Dixon's explanation about leakage is generally true, it remains difficult to account for the dismal performance of many gun controls. For example, in 1976 the Washington, D.C. murder rate stood at 26.9 per 100,000 population, according to FBI statistics. The city council enacted a handgun ban which went into effect in February *316 1977, and since then the Washington rate has always been higher than 26.9 (except in 1985). <117> Today, the rate is three times higher than it was before the ban was enacted. <118> If handgun bans work, why would the homicide rate rise after 1977 (which was years before the "war on drugs" made Washington's homicide problem even worse)? Smuggling guns into Washington, D.C. from other states was no easier in 1980 than it was in 1976. The ban on possession by law-abiding citizens should have reduced the supply of handguns available for Washington, D.C. criminals to steal, and should have prevented law-abiding citizens from shooting each other with handguns in heat-of-passion homicides. The D.C. handgun ban's impact on law-abiding citizens would not be defeated by interstate smuggling, since law- abiding citizens would, be definition, not buy an illegal gun. And yet the Washington homicide rate rose. Similar increases in gun crime in other jurisdictions, such as Chicago after its own handgun ban, <119> and New York City after its severe "Sullivan" handgun licensing law, <120> at least raise doubt about the complete sufficiency of interstate gun smuggling as an explanation for the failure of the gun laws. If interstate smuggling were the whole story, then it would not be expected that crime rates would rise immediately after gun laws were enacted.

These doubts may be enhanced by analysis of gun controls in other nations with uniform national handgun laws, and consequently no problem regarding interstate smuggling. Neither Canada's 1977 gun controls nor the Pistols Act of 1903 in Great Britain nor the Firearms Act of 1920 in Great Britain, were associated with reductions in handgun crime. <121>

To support the theory that interstate gun-running explains why states with severe gun controls have so much more crime than states which do not, Dixon points to a study published by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms in 1976. <122> Comparing "crime guns" found in Atlanta, New Orleans, Detroit, and New York City, BATF *317 found that the cities in the states with the stricter gun laws (Detroit and New York City) had smaller percentages of traced guns with origins within their states. The correlation between stricter laws and a higher percentage of out-of-state guns was not, however, exact. New York City has much stricter gun laws than Detroit, but 23% of New York City handguns came from New York State, whereas only 8% of Detroit guns came from Michigan.

Several limitations of the BATF methodology should be noted. First, the "crime" guns included not only guns used in violent crime, but also guns which were simply found on citizens who had not complied with local licensing laws, such as New York City's, which at the time made it nearly impossible to obtain a handgun license. <123> One analysis of handgun seizures (conducted by a handgun prohibitionist), found that 20 to 25% of police handgun seizures were not associated with any crime, not even a licensing violation. Some of the guns may simply have been turned into the police by lawful owners who wanted to get rid of them. <124> BATF made numerous methodological errors, such as counting some guns twice, or counting guns seized outside the time period for the study. <125> More importantly, the study did not detail how the guns moved from one state into another. For example, a gun which was lawfully purchased in Ohio, stolen, and then sold on the black market in Detroit was not distinguished in the BATF data from a gun which was bought illegally in Ohio by a Michigan criminal, as a result of Ohio's "lax" gun laws. <126>

http://teapot.usask.ca/cdn-firearms/Kopel/lrstlupl.html

Most stats point to the fact that handguns handguns used in crimes in states with strong handgun laws originate from OUTSIDE of those states.

[slackmaster]

21. What you just described is probably legal

Importing your own gun for personal use is allowed in most states, including California.

Most gun traffic IS well known to come from illicit interstate movement...

Cite, please.

Where are YOUR stats that they DO NOT COME FROM such transactions.

According a 1997 survey by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, only 39.2% of guns used by criminals came from a "street/illegal source", only a subset of which would be guns brought in from another state.

http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/doj/offfirearmuse1101rpt.pdf

Formal gun running is not the way this occurred.

Please explain the difference between formal and informal gun running. Both are illegal.

[Nicholas_J]

27. Another interesting stat

341,000 incidents of firearm theft occurred per year, 1987-92

Average annual number
of victimizations in which
firearms were stolen
Crime in which ____________________________________
firearm was stolen Total Handgun Other gun
____________________________________

Total 340,700 180,500 160,200

Violent crime 7,900 5,300 2,600
Personal theft 56,200 33,900 22,300
Household theft 52,600 31,700 20,900
Household burglary 217,200 105,300 112,000
Motor vehicle theft 6,700 4,400 2,400

Note: Detail may not add to total because of rounding. The table
measures theft incidents, not numbers of guns stolen. See third
paragraph of this report.

Combined with the other states about guns used in crimes NOT originating in the states the crimes were comitted in , back up the fact that many guns used in crimes came from other states and were stolen.

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/ascii/hvfsdaft.txt

[slackmaster]

28. Your conclusion does not follow the stats you cited

The word "state" does not even appear in the site you linked to. It says nothing about interstate transportation of stolen guns.

I don't really care. Once a gun is in the black market it's probably there to stay. Interstate transport laws mean about as much for black market guns as they do for black market drugs.

[DrFunkenstein]

10. Can I Pry It From Your Cold, Dead Hands?

<>

[MrBenchley]

12. Some people

try to pretend they don't know where those friends get those guns....

[Nicholas_J]

13. Typical ignorance about guns

and the security blanket effect...

33,000 Deaths a years, and less than 300 personal crimes a year stopped by the use of guns.


Since the institution of stricter laws:

Gun Deaths Decline

New data from the federal Centers for Disease Control show gun deaths continue to decline in the U.S., especially among children and teenagers. The 1999 gun-death toll was 28,874 persons, the first time the figure has dropped below 30,000 since national statistics on gun deaths were first kept in 1979.

http://www.jointogether.org/gv/issues/hot_issues/decline/

As noted in Bowling for Columbine, most guns in the U.S. are in the hands of white Americans in the suburbs, and very few in the hands of those minorities they are frightend are going to invade their commi=unities.

[slackmaster]

15. Where did you get your "300 crimes" statistic?

It doesn't square with the Department of Justice's survey that suggested about 150,000 successful defensive uses of firearms per year.

Please quote an authoritative source for the figure. I will not accept data from propaganda organizations like jointogether.org or the NRA.

As noted in Bowling for Columbine, most guns in the U.S. are in the hands of white Americans in the suburbs, and very few in the hands of those minorities they are frightend are going to invade their commi=unities.

Then please explain why minority people, especially African-Americans, are victims of shootings at far higher rates than whites. It's not caused by groups of armed white thugs from the suburbs.

Here's a gizmo to crunch statistics every which way from Sunday:

http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/wisqars/default.htm

[Nicholas_J]

20. Bowling for Columbine

Gave those stats.

[slackmaster]

24. I asked for a credible source of hard data

Not another regurgitation of propaganda.

Do you understand what I am asking for?

I'll give you a small hint: The "less than 300" figure is probably a restatement of the body count fallacy: The incorrect assumption that successful defensive use of a firearm always results in a lifeless corpse.

[MrBenchley]

25. More RKBA rrubbish

"The incorrect assumption that successful defensive use of a firearm always results in a lifeless corpse."
Yeah, according to RKBA enthusiasts, all they do is wave their magic wands, and crooks flee...

Meanwhile, there ARE only 300 justifiable homicides in any year, most of those by law enforcement personnel...

[Nicholas_J]

23. 150,000 defensive uses....

How many in the hands of POLICE, and not private citizens...

Provide the department of Justice Link, and the fact that it is largely the POLICE themselves who are the greatest supporters of handgun coontrol laws.

[slackmaster]

26. I overstated the estimate a bit, sorry

It was actually 108,000. The survey was done in 1997. It does not include uses by police.

http://www.pulpless.com/gunclock/165476.pdf

[Nicholas_J]

29. My most intersting experience

In hand gun safety, watching my neighbor, accidentally kill her boyfriend. She was a naval officer, and had to regularly requalify for handgun skill and safety. Next door neighbor. individual cases, but as is again well known, nations with stricter firearms laws have NOTHING like the violent crime rates as the U.S. and this is the MOST compelling argument for very strict gun control.
and you are going to tell me that if for SOME reason, if YOU had to move to an are with STRICT laws about gun conttrol, you would check your pistol at the border?

[slackmaster]

30. What a terrible thing to witness

You have my condolences on your stressfule experience.

individual cases, but as is again well known, nations with stricter firearms laws have NOTHING like the violent crime rates as the U.S. and this is the MOST compelling argument for very strict gun control.

Again you have made no attempt to establish a causal relationship between gun laws and violent crime.

and you are going to tell me that if for SOME reason, if YOU had to move to an are with STRICT laws about gun conttrol, you would check your pistol at the border?

I sure as hell wouldn't try to take a handgun with me to Mexico, which is a shining example of strict gun control and low crime rates. NOT!

[Nicholas_J]

34. Move to New York City

Wherre 25 percent of the arrest for crimes realted to handguns come from simply finding a handgun in the possession of a person who is not comitting another crime.

If you HAD to move to New York City, would you turn in your cun to the at the Bronx/Westchester or Jersey Border?



Formal and informal gunrunning are both against the law, but like bringing a personal supply of cocaine from Florida and giveing some to a friend or buying a kilo of it to traffic make all the differnce between formal and informal trafficking.

Again, as noted, most guns that are used in crimes in areas with strict gun control laws, originated from OUTSIDE of those areas.

Obvious, almost simple conclusion to draq, even without statistics. If guns in NYC are so restricted that ony ten thousand can be legally sold, and the police find 30 thousand in the hands of criminals and 20-25 percent of those in the hands of citizens NOT comitting any particular crime, but in things like traffic stops, this is a CLEAR indication that these guns are coming from OUTSIDE of the prohibited area.

The problem is, that those with the "PRY IT FROM MY COLD DEAN HANDS" mentality, are going to carry those guns with them from state to state if they move, and no matter what the method, if they move from Florida to New York, and that gun is stolen, that gun originated in anthor state. No guns available, no theft of the gun.

[slackmaster]

36. If I had to move to NYC I hope they would lock me up in a loony bin

But seriously, I would store my guns in another state in case I ever moved back. I would not illegally import one to NYC to answer your direct question.

gain, as noted, most guns that are used in crimes in areas with strict gun control laws, originated from OUTSIDE of those areas.

Given that handguns are generally not available in NYC it is not surprising that a large number of them came from somewhere else. :eyes:

No guns available, no theft of the gun.

Your logic has a major flaw: "No guns available" is not and will never be a realistic possibility in the USA. If you seriously espouse a gun ban I would ask you to join another party. The Democratic tent is big enough to accommodate gun owners and people who favor REASONABLE restrictions. Bans are not reasonable in the eyes of most Americans.

[Nicholas_J]

39. Eventually

Gun control, and even prohibition is totally inevitable.


The credo

"Guns dont kill people, people kill people"

Requires modification, as the Brady Bill and other federal legislation has proven.

"Guns dont kill people. people with easy access to guns kill people"

[Nicholas_J]

40. I lived in New York City in the 70's

WHen crime was at its worse there, and now live in FLorida.

I would exchange 70's New York, with current day Florida, and exchange New York today for Anywhere in the nation in terms of safest from crime.

The area I live in, is the 6th on the DOJ's most unsafe areas to live. New York city was 19th, the last time I looked. Most of the places higher on the list were in areas with easier access to guns.

Check the D.O.J. and F.B.I.'s annual crime statistics books.

[Nicholas_J]

31. This is a DOJ survey

About three-fourths of the victims who used firearms for
self-defense did so during a crime of violence, 1987-92

Average annual number of victimizations
in which victims used firearms to defend
themselves or their property
________________________________________
Attacked Threatened
Total offender offender
________________________________________
All crimes 82,500 30,600 51,900
Total violent crime 62,200 25,500 36,700

With injury 12,100 7,300 4,900
Without injury 50,000 18,200 31,800

Theft, burglary,
motor vehicle theft 20,300 5,100 15,200

Note: Detail may not add to total because of rounding. Includes
victimizations in which offenders were unarmed. Excludes
homicides.

*In most cases victims who used firearms to defend themselves or
their property were confronted by offenders who were either unarmed
or armed with weapons other than firearms. On average between 1987
and 1992, about 35% (or 22,000 per year) of the violent crime
victims defending themselves with a firearm faced an offender who
also had a firearm. (Because the NCVS collects victimization data
on police officers, its estimates of the use of firearms for
self-defense are likely to include police use of firearms.
Questionnaire revisions introduced in January 1993 will permit
separate consideration of police and civilian firearm cases.)

Offenders shot at victims in 17% of handgun crimes, 1987-92

Percent
_______

Shot at victim 16.6%
Hit victim 3.0
Missed victim 13.6
Nongunshot injury 1.6
No physical injury 12.0

Didn't shoot at victim 83.4%
Other attack/attempt 19.9
Verb. threat of attack 15.4
Weapon present 46.8
Other threat .8
Unknown action .5

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/ascii/hvfsdaft.txt

It indicates that the DOJ itself does not separate out police usage to stop crimes from non police usage.

[slackmaster]

32. Police are a very small minority of the population

And most of the time they are off duty. Most cops never have occasion to fire a gun defensively in their entire careers.

Why should the general public not have access to the same defensive weapons as police officers?

[Nicholas_J]

33. Because of this:

People who keeps guns at home have a 72% greater chance of being killed by firearms and are 3.44 times more likely to commit suicide than those who do not keep guns at home (Annals of Emergency Medicine, Vol 41, p. 771).

A recent survey of 236 types of pistols made in the U.S. found that:
only 13% had a loaded chamber indicator
only 20% had a grip safety to make it harder for children to use the gun only 21% had a magazine safety, which prevents the gun from firing when the magazine has been removed, even if there is already a round in the chamber of the gun (Annals of Emergency Medicine, Vol 41, p 1)

A recent Emory University study shows that 32% of unintended shootings in the U.S. are caused by deficiencies in gun design. (Annals of Emergency Medicine, Vol 41, p 10)



General Gun Violence Statistics
Back to top

FACT: Everyday in the United States, 9 children are killed by guns. In 2000, gun violence killed 28,663 Americans:


10,801 in homicides
16,586 in suicides
776 in unintentional shootings
270 in legal interventions, and
230 in undetermined events

While this is a welcome decrease from 1999 data, too many Americans are being killed by a preventable problem.

- Centers for Disease Control (CDC) National Center for Health Statistics WISQARS online data service, obtained 2002

FACT: In 2000, gun violence killed 1,130 Illinois residents:


674 in homicides
431 in suicides
12 in uninentional shootings
4 in legal interventions, and
9 in undetermined events

This is a welcome decrease from 1999 data, but still too many Illinois residents being killed by a preventable problem.

- Centers for Disease Control (CDC) National Center for Health Statistics WISQARS online data service, obtained 2002

FACT: Comparison of U.S. gun homicides to other industrialized countries:
In 1998 (the most recent year for which this data has been compiled), handguns murdered:


373 people in Germany
151 people in Canada
57 people in Australia
19 people in Japan
54 people in England and Wales, and
11,789 people in the United States

http://www.ichv.org/Statistics.htm#generalstats

I think this proves that citizens owning handguns is simply a stupid idea.

It is sort of like insisting that people whould have a right to own rattle snakes because herpetoligists can own them.

Almost as many or more any people seem to shoot themselves rather than other people, even handgun use to defend against CRIMES only seems to work when the criminal is NOT using a handgun in the crime.

And this fact is made even more frightening in the fact that the concentration of the quarter of a billion guns in the U.S. are concentrated in the hands of less than a fifth of the population

[slackmaster]

35. Do you have anything to say besides regurgitated propaganda?

People who keeps guns at home have a 72% greater chance of being killed by firearms and are 3.44 times more likely to commit suicide than those who do not keep guns at home (Annals of Emergency Medicine, Vol 41, p. 771).

The study does not extablish a causal relationship between having a gun and committing suicide or being shot dead by someone else. Many people own guns in response to living in crime-infested neighborhoods. Some people buy a gun with the INTENT of using it to commit suicide. The authors did not control for any of that.

Guns are not toys, and guns are prevalent in the US for many cultural and historical reasons. The agenda of anti-gun groups like ICHV is to outlaw private ownership of firearms, and they will spin any statistics and anecdotes they can get their hands on to promote that agenda. Their underlying oversimplistic assumption is that outlawing guns will make us all safer.

There is no historical examples of countries that became safer after tightening down their gun laws.

You wrote:

"I think this proves that citizens owning handguns is simply a stupid idea."

Then suit yourself. Don't buy one.

I am very concerned about the viability of the Democratic Party. I urge you not to favor draconian gun control for the USA. Most people do not support gun bans, and by siding with groups like ICHV you send a singal that will be misquoted as "Democrats want to ban guns." That's not the official part platform, and you do us all a disservice by siding with knee-jerk gun ban groups.

[Nicholas_J]

37. First

You use Department of Justice stats as valiodating your point, and then you state that because DOJ states are restated ELSEWHERE, they are regusrigates garbage.

I hardly think that data collected by the professional journal of emergency room physicians is garbage....

They have to DEAL with the mess.

Gun Registration and licensing of the users to some standard of knowledge of the weapons and using them safely is as valid as licensing pilots and automobile drivers. No one is speaking of getting rid of guns. But they really should.

And you have YET to provide stats that interstate movement of guns is not a large component of the criminal posession of guns. Which is what you are divering attention form.

WHY FOCUS ON HANDGUNS?



Handguns are disproportionately involved in both intentional (homicide and suicide) and unintentional gun injuries. In the twenty year period 1976-1995, nearly 39 million handguns were produced in the United States.1 Although they account for less than one third of all guns, handguns are used in four out of five gun homicides2, in seven out of ten gun suicides3, and are involved in the majority of unintentional gun deaths of children and adolescents.4 In 1994, almost half of all murders of children involved handguns, whereas a decade earlier handguns were involved in only one quarter of such murders.5 Of the 10,369 firearm homicides in the U.S. in 1997, 8,104 involved handguns.2 Restricting access to handguns has the potential to reduce the homicide rate.6

Handguns are also disproportionately involved in non-lethal firearm assaults, especially in urban areas. For example, during the18 month period, November, 1992 to May, 1994, in the cities of Memphis, Seattle and Galveston, 89% of firearm assaults involved a handgun.7 The high percentage of handgun use in assaults is probably due to the fact that they are readily concealed and easy to use.7 In California in 1991, 71% of hospital discharges for gun injuries involved a handgun. Seventy-four percent of these hospital discharges were for assaults, as opposed to suicide attempts or unintentional injuries.8

A recent study found that 85% of those who attempted suicide with a gun used a handgun.7 Guns are extremely lethal. If a person uses a gun to attempt suicide, the attempt ends in death nearly 90% of the time.7 Another study found that 71% of those who successfully committed suicide did so with a handgun.9

Handguns are also disproportionately involved in non-fatal unintentional shootings, accounting for almost three out of five such incidents.4
http://www.tf.org/tf/violence/firearms/facts/handgun.shtml

Guns special report: why isn't life-saving technology implemented?


10:00 13 July 03

Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition. Subscribe and get 4 free issues.

The US Congress is close to passing a bill giving gun makers immunity from liability for deaths or injuries caused by their products; legislation that would place gun makers in a uniquely privileged position. The move highlights the special place granted to guns in US culture, whereby the heavy toll of death and injury that guns inflict is normally viewed as a social and political problem, in which the need to tackle gun crime and accidents is set against traditional rights and freedoms to bear arms.

But many experts in the field are arguing that the casualties caused by guns should be seen as something different: a public health crisis that must be tackled with the same vigour as infectious diseases, mental illness and industrial and traffic accidents. To reduce the staggering numbers of gun-related deaths and injuries, they say, manufacturers should embrace a raft of technologies that make guns safer and stop them being used to commit crime.

There are 200 million privately owned guns in the US, including 65 million handguns. Firearms are now the second biggest cause of injury-related death in the country, killing 28,663 people in 2000, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia. For African-American teenagers aged 15 to 19, gun-related homicide is the leading cause of death, and for all American teenagers of similar age gun-related homicide and suicide come second only to motor vehicle accidents. "If it's the number one cause of death for portions of the population, how can it not be a compelling public health problem?" asks Stephen Teret of Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research in Baltimore, Maryland.


http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993920


Gun injuries pose financial burden
Nearly a third of patients with gun-related injuries do not have health insurance, and firearm injuries are among the leading causes of hospital stays for the uninsured, according to a study in the January American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Hospitalizations due to firearm-related injuries also tend to be longer than for other medical conditions.

Researchers at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality analyzed hospital discharge summaries and abstracts from 1997 to illustrate the cost of caring for gun-related injuries, particularly for urban teaching hospitals.

Also, another study published in the Annals of Emergency Medicine this month found that nearly a third of all unintentional shootings are a result of bad handgun design.

http://www.ama-assn.org/sci-pubs/amnews/pick_03/hlbf0120.htm

Kaplan, M., Adamek, M., & Rhoades, M. Prevention of elderly suicide: physician's assessment of firearm availability. American Journal of Preventative Medicine 1998:50; 60-64.
Elderly persons have the highest rate of suicide of any age group and they are most likely to use a firearm to commit suicide. In 1994, more than 6,000 elderly persons committed suicide, accounting for about 20% of all suicides.

The present study examined the extent to which 167 Illinois physicians conducted firearm-availability histories with their depressed or suicidal elderly patients and the physician characteristics that were associated with those assessments. Physician respondents had an average age of 46.3 and were primarily male (79%) and white (75%). Out of 167 respondents, 92 (58%) reported asking their patients or family members about access to firearms. Physician characteristics that were related to assessment of patient's firearm access were: geriatrics subspecialty, continuing medical education in suicide risk assessment, and self-rated confidence in diagnosing and treating both depression and suicidality. Additionally, practicing in rural communities, having over 25% of patients diagnosed as depressed, working in a nursing home, and having had experienced suicidal patients in their practice were also related to a physician's assessment of firearm availability.

http://www.psrla.org/AB-guns&doctors.htm


AAEM Firearms Injury Prevention Task Force
Annotated Bibliography of Issues to Be Addressed
revised March 7, 2002

Can position statements of other organizations serve as models for a firearms injury prevention position statement by AAEM?
Summaries

Carr
The last decade has seen a substantial increase in the medical community’s attention to injury control as a component of health care. The effects of violence and specifically the impact of injuries associated with firearms have been addressed by many professional organizations within medicine. The focus of this review is physicians’ organizations within the United States.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) offered its first policy statement regarding firearms in 19921 and expanded recommendations in 20002. The 2000 position statement is supported by 72 references, most of them articles in peer-reviewed medical journals and publications of government agencies charged with tracking morbidity and mortality data. Seventeen individuals, including 15 physicians, are listed as contributing to the 2000 position statement. The process for arriving at a consensus is not described, and the quality of the evidence and the strength of the recommendations are not rated.The fundamental argument of the AAP is that "the most effective measure to prevent firearm-related injuries to children and adolescents is the absence of guns from homes and communities." The specific recommendations are listed below.

The AAP affirms that the most effective measure to prevent firearm-related injuries to children and adolescents is the absence of guns from homes and communities.
Firearm regulation, to include bans of handguns and assault weapons, is the most effective way to reduce firearm-related injuries.
Pediatricians and other child health care professionals are urged to inform parents about the dangers of guns in and outside the home. The AAP recommends that pediatricians incorporate questions about guns into their patient history taking and urge parents who possess guns to remove them, especially handguns, from the home. Loaded firearms and unlocked firearms and ammunition represent a serious danger to children and adolescents. At especially high risk are adolescents who have a history of aggressive and violent behaviors, suicide attempts, or depression.
The AAP urges that guns be subject to safety and design regulations, like other consumer products, as well as tracing.
The AAP supports efforts to reduce the destructive power of handguns and handgun ammunition via regulation of the manufacture and importation of classes of guns. Engineering efforts (eg, personalized safety mechanisms and trigger locks) are of unproved benefit and need further study. (Trigger locks, lock boxes, and other safe storage legislation are encouraged by the AAP, until guns are fully removed from the environment of children.) Other such measures aimed at regulating access of guns should include legislative actions, such as mandatory waiting periods and/or background checks.
The AAP urges the development of quality, violence-free programming and constructive dialogue among child health and education advocates, the Federal Communications Commission, and the television and motion picture industries, as well as toy, video game, and other software manufactures and designers, in an effor to reduce the romanticization of guns in the popular media.
The AAP urges that a coordinated, comprehensive, national surveillance data system be maintained by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as well as the National Center for Health Statistics.
The AAP supports the education of physicians and other professionals interested in understanding the effects of firearms and how to reduce the morbidity and mortality associated with their use. Organizations such as the Handgun Epidemic Lowering Plan may word with the AAP and individual chapters to foster an advocacy network to protect children from injury and death from firearms.


http://www.aaem.org/taskforce/firearms/issue_22_summaries.html

How many people are injured by
firearms and how many of these
injuries are the result of crime?

According to the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey
conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC),
0.4% of all injury visits to hospital emergency departments from
1992 to 1995 were caused by firearms (4 of every 1,000
visits.)***Footnote 1: C.W. Burt and L.A. Fingerhut. "Injury
visits to hospital emergency department: United States, 1992-95,"
National Center for Health Statistics, Vital Health Statistics,
13:131,1998.*** This estimate includes all causes of firearm
injury and may include visits for patients seeking follow-up care
and patients who died at the hospital.

Estimates from the CDC Firearm Injury Surveillance Study show that
from 1993 through 1997, about 412,000 nonfatal firearm-related
injuries were treated in U.S. hospital emergency departments.

Firearm injury
from all causes
1993-97 Total 411,800

1993 104,200
1994 89,600
1995 84,200
1996 69,600
1997 64,200

Percent change -38%

Source: Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, Firearm Injury Surveillance Study,
1993-97

Of the total nonfatal firearm injuries --
62% resulted from assaults
* 17% were unintentional
* 6% were suicide attempts
* 1% were legal interventions
* 13% were from unknown causes.

While most nonfatal firearm-related injuries are from crime,
most firearm-related deaths are suicides. According to the Vital
Statistics, 180,533 firearm deaths occurred from 1993 through
1997: 51% were suicides, 44% homicides, 1% legal interventions,
3% unintentional incidents, and 1% were of undetermined causes.

The number of nonfatal assaults
and homicides from firearms
declined from 1993 to 1997

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/ascii/fidc9397.txt

Everyone but gun owners basically oppose the existing situation regarding gun laws

Everyone is well aware that federal bills like the Brady Bill are virtually unenforcable.

The only answer is prohibition.

[slackmaster]

38. You have contradicted yourself big-time

No one is speaking of getting rid of guns. But they really should.

Nice equivocation.

I hardly think that data collected by the professional journal of emergency room physicians is garbage....

They have to DEAL with the mess.

I didn't say anything was garbage. I simply said the statistics do not establish a correlation between strict gun control and reductions in violent crime rates.

And you have YET to provide stats that interstate movement of guns is not a large component of the criminal posession of guns. Which is what you are divering attention form.

You have yet to provide stats that show that interstate movement if guns IS a large component of criminal possession of guns.

No punk in Los Angeles is going to drive all the way to Las Vegas to buy a gun. It's simple enough to get one on the streets of LA. Where they all came from in the first place is irrelevant - Some may have come from out of state, a lot more were stolen from their rightful owners locally.

[Nicholas_J]

42. I am speaking of getting rid of guns

The candidates are not. Get real.

[Nicholas_J]

43. And if their righful owners did not have them in the first place?

The gun owners argument is sort of like stating that its O.K. to produce nuclear weapons and then if terrorists steal them its not the fault of those producing them. So we should not reduce nuclear weapons possession by those who already posess them.

Bottom line is that more people in the U.S. both dems and Republicans support far stronger gun laws than exist now.

N E W Y O R K, May 18 — Public support for gun-control legislation is broad and strong, but no more so than it has been for years. And despite the political buzz, an ABCNEWS/ Washington Post poll finds the Democratic Party failing to capitalize on the issue.




Just 39 percent of Americans trust the Democrats more to handle gun control, while 31 percent prefer the Republicans — hardly a great advantage, given the Democrats’ closer proximity to public preferences. Instead, an unusually large number, 22 percent, volunteer that they don’t trust either party to deal with the issue.
This skepticism may stem from a broad disconnect between public opinion and the substance of the gun-control debates in Washington. While Congress debates the capacity of imported clips and the legal age of ownership for assault weapons, for instance, eight in 10 Americans say such guns should be banned. Sentiment was the same five years ago.
Support Stronger Among Women
More broadly, 67 percent of Americans favor “stricter gun-control laws,” the same as in a 1993 poll. Support is much higher among women (80 percent) than men (54 percent), though it does include majorities of both sexes. Even most Republicans, and most people in gun-owning households, support tougher gun-control laws.
Several specific proposals draw very broad support: Eighty-nine percent of Americans favor background checks on people buying guns at gun shows; 75 percent favor mandatory trigger locks on all stored guns; and 70 percent support a ban on selling guns by mail order or via the Internet.
Intensity of feeling, moreover, is stronger on the gun-control side. Among people who support gun control, 82 percent feel “strongly” about it; among those who oppose it, a smaller share, 68 percent, feel that way “strongly.” It’s about the same on each proposal tested.

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/guns_poll990518.html

lots and lots of other polls put gun owners and pro-gun people in a large minority.