1Reviews and everything / Gun ownership combined rendering
.docAlex Kvartalny @ flamedragon27.blogspot.com
Group 501
Combined rendering of Should You Own a Gun, the Rise of the Citizen Militias and a Law Still under Fire
According to the authors of Should You Own a Gun, the Rise of the Citizen Militias and a Law Still under Fire Gordon Witkin and Mike Tharp, the problem of guns is so acute in the United States of America that you can, literally, get pricked by it. The subject of the articles is gun ownership, current US legislation and attitudes. The main idea deals with the current gun legislation and attitudes. The authors’ aim about writing the articles is to give an unbiased overview of the issue and to support it by statistics and expert opinions, which they cope with excellently.
The authors start off by providing the current statistics data on gun ownership in the USA. They say that as many as 216 million firearms are in private hands nationwide, more than double the total in 1970. The most commonly cited reason for the sharp increase in the number of gun owners is, according to a new US poll, is self-protection. The nation is gripped by the fear of the crime. While the violent-crime rate has declined a bit over the past couple of years, it remains at historically high levels. But what has truly shaken people is the seeming randomness of crime: carjackings, drive-by shootings and abductions in even the quietest suburbs have created the impression that everyone is vulnerable and that police cannot do anything to protect citizens.
The authors continue by saying that the opinions of guns as self-defence are divided. The arguments for and against buying a gun for self-defense are shrill and confusing. Gun control advocates say having a gun at home represents a real danger and a false hope of safety; the National Rifle Association answers in the affirmative about owning a gun and adds that at home it may be your last line of protection. Each side has horror stories to support its claims. Gun opponents cite the case of Sonya Barnes of Conyers, Ca., whose ex-husband – frequently out of town – had bought her a ’357 Magnum for self-defense. Early last year, her 2-year-old son found the gun and accidentally fired it into the back of his 14-month-old brother, leaving the younger sibling a paraplegic. Gun proponents on the other hand cite Suzanna Gratia. She was eating lunch with her parents at Luby’s cafeteria in Killeen, Texas, on Oct.16, 1991, when a deranged man drove a truck through the front window and began shooting people. Gratia reached into her purse for her ’38 revolver – then remembered she’d decided to stop carrying it, fearing she was in violation of the state’s concealed-weapons law. Before the incident was over, 23 people were dead, including Gratia’s parents. She says that if she’d had her weapon, she could have made a difference.
Additionally, the authors reveal that the quarrel over guns for self-defense boils down to the seminar researches on the subject who are the most widely known gun scholars in the field of gun ownership. Gary Kleck, a Florida State University criminology professor, says his evidence shows that millions of times each year, people use guns successfully to defend themselves. Arthur Kellermann, director of the Center for Injury Control at Emory University’s School of Public Health in Atlanta, says his studies show guns in the home are 43 times more likely to kill a family member or friend than an intruder. Gary Kleck seems to enjoy defying stereotypes. A native of the Chicago suburbs, he occasionally played with toy guns while growing up but otherwise has no shooting background, though he is a bit of an archery enthusiast. He describes his political bent as orthodox liberal, “which means he basically thinks the way to reduce poverty.” He says he has never used a gun defensively but won’t say whether he owns a firearm. Kleck got into gun research in the late 1970s because “it was an absolutely open field – somebody could really make a contribution.” His had seen a gap in the research in this field. During his own research he concluded that, excluding police and military uses, guns were used defensively against persons between 606,000 and 960,000 times per year.
Authors claims that Kleck justifies the reliability of his survey techniques and his findings in the following way: in 1993, trying to refine the numbers and respond to criticism, Kleck and a colleague commissioned their own phone survey of 4,977 randomly selected households. It was a private, anonymous survey and the respondents were more willing to be truthful that they would be with the feds. Kleck's arguments in favour of gun ownership as a result of the findings produced by the research he conducted are: he clarified that each defensive gun use was against a person in connection with a crime and that an actual confrontation had occurred. Kleck concluded that guns were used in self-defense between 800,000 and 2,45 million times a year. He says the higher figure represents the respondents’ most recent and reliable recollections. Rarely is anyone shot in these incidents, Kleck says; in fact, the defender fires in fewer than 1 in 4 cases. In most instances, the mere display of a weapon is sufficient to scare off the intruder. Kleck also contends that people who defend themselves with a gun are more likely to successfully resist the crime and less likely to be hurt.
Gordon Witkin says that special stipulations made by Kleck’s research in regard to burglaries are: Kleck suspects gun ownership also has come deterrent effect. A 1986 survey of 1,900 incarcerated felons by sociologists James Wright and Peter Rossi found that 40 per cent had at some time decided not to commit a crime because they believed the intended victim was armed. Three fifths of the felons said criminals are more worried about meeting an armed victim than they are about the police. Countries with far lower rates of gun ownership than the United States – like Great Britain and the Netherlands – have far higher rates of burglaries of occupied residences. The reason, he argues, is that the thieves have little to fear from unarmed occupants.
The authors add that the major conclusion readied by Kleck is that gun ownership among prospective victims may well have as large a crime-inhibiting effect as the crime-generating effects of gun possession among prospective criminals. The Bureau of Justice Statistics estimates that about 1,1 million violent crimes were committed with guns in 1992; that is dwarfed by Kleck’s estimate of up to 2.45 million defensive uses. Kleck also notes that countries with far lower rates of gun ownership than the United States – like Great Britain and the Netherlands – have far higher rates of burglaries of occupied residences.
As far as Kleck's opinion on measures to reduce public gun ownership goes, according to the authors, Kleck reasons, measures that reduce public gun ownership may be counterproductive. “If you take guns away from people who could have used them defensively, you’re depriving them of something that would have allowed them in some cases to save lives or prevent injury,” he says. He also argues that most gun control restrictions have no net effect on violence.
Gordon Witkin introduces other opinions. Gun experts however sharply disagree with Kleck’s survey numbers used to support his conclusions. Kleck’s conclusions rest on the respondent’s own, perhaps ambiguous, definition of self-defense. A report by the National Academy of Sciences’ National Research Council says it may refer “to homeowners with a generalized fear of burglary… and even to criminals in the course of their crimes.” Experts believe Kleck’s work may be susceptible to “telescoping,” in which memorable events are brought forward in a respondent’s memory and reported as having occurred more recently than they actually did. The National Academy of Sciences panel, which conducted perhaps the most exhaustive review of the data, essentially threw up its hands and called for more research.
In addition, the authors state that Kleck contends that the victimization survey is a poor measure of self-defense gun usage, largely because it is a non-anonymous survey conducted by the federal government. And since carrying a gun in public may be technically illegal, that, too, is not the kind of thing someone is going to admit to the feds. He believes that the research conducted by him can be more truthful since pollsters are likely to be more open when the results are anonymous.
However, argues the author, Kleck’s critics prove the greater reliability of the victimization survey compared to the professor’s by admitting that the victimization survey undercounts sexual assault and domestic violence. But they note that it is conducted by highly trained interviewers who return to the same households seven times over a three-year period and guarantee confidentiality. The survey, in the field for 20 years, “reflects the best thinking on how to get reliable answers to sensitive questions about crime,” says Duke University public policy Prof. Philip Cook, a respected gun scholar. “I don’t understand why people would be so much more forthcoming with Kleck’s survey callers than with the government’s. I find that absurd.” These authorities say the national victimization survey is much less likely to suffer from telescoping problems because interviews are conducted every six months over a three-year period.
Then Gordon Witkin introduces another expert on the problem, Arthur Kellermann who unlike Kleck grew up with guns. There were two shotguns and a ’22-caliber rifle in a rack in the kitchen in South Pittsburg, Tenn., and his father taught Kellermann to shoot. Most of his shooting was plinking and skeet, but he also did some target practice at a YMCA summer camp. He says he was familiar with long guns. They were not a handgun family. Trained as an emergency physician, Kellermann got interested in the gun issue during a two-year fellowship in public health. The pivotal event was the fatal shooting in 1984 of rhythm-and-blues singer Marvin Gave by his father. “All these guns are in people’s homes, and most of the deaths that occur there apparently involve domestic disputes. Surely somebody has examined the relationship between having a gun in the home and family victimization.” But he found very little research on the subject. Kellermann set out to fill that void and is best known for three studies that have appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The authors claim that the results of his research are: Kellermann and a colleague reviewed six years’ worth of gunshot deaths in Seattle. About half occurred in the home where the weapon was kept. The researchers found that “for every case of self-protection homicide involving a firearm kept in the home, there were 1,3 accidental deaths, 4,6 criminal homicides and 37 suicides involving firearms” – an overall ratio of almost 43 to 1. “It may reasonably be asked,” they wrote, “whether keeping firearms in the home increases a family’s protection or place it in greater danger.” They concluded that “restricting access to handguns may reduce the rate of homicide in a community.”
Gordon Witkin goes on to say that Kellermann proves that the greatest threat to the lives of household members comes from within. The expert and company studied homicides in the home in Memphis, Cleveland and Seattle over a five-year period. These households were compared with households that were not the scene of a killing but included individuals demographically similar to the victims; the idea was to identify factors affecting a family’s risk of homicide in the home. Homes that contained guns were almost three times more likely to be the scene of a homicide than comparable homes without guns. He adds that the study also was capable of demonstrating a protective effect from guns but did not. A six-year study of home-firearms deaths in Seattle showed there were nine instances of self-defense, but 12 accidental gunshot deaths, 41 criminal homicides and 333 firearm suicides. For Kellermann the implications couldn’t be clearer. The first is that a gun almost automatically makes any altercation potentially more lethal. Second, he says, “the risks of having a gun in the home substantially outweigh the benefits.” His most recent study concludes that “people should be strongly discouraged from keeping guns in their homes.”
But the authors present a different point of view: Kellermann’s critics argue that using death as the sole criterion for measuring the risks of gun ownership is inappropriate: The huge majority of defensive firearm uses – 99 per cent, critics say – involve no more than wounding, missing the target or brandishing the gun. Kellermann, they say, passes off his work as a risk-benefit analysis even though it measures risks alone. Doubters also think Kellermann has underplayed the possibility that it may not be the guns causing the violence but the violence causing the guns. “In places where there is more violence, people will get guns for self-protection,” argues Kleck. But is it because the violence brought about gun ownership? Or is it the gun ownership that helped bring about the violence? And Kellerman admits the inadequacies in his studies. Studies such as ours do not include cases in which intruders are wounded or frightened away by the use or display оf a firearm. He believes a complete determination of firearm risks versus benefits would require that these figures be known.
Gordon Witkin speaks of the fact that Kellerman also tries to prove that “the reverse causation” (gun ownership brought about by the violence can hardly be accepted because if a violent atmosphere were the cause of all that gunfire, he might have found a higher risk of homicide by other means in those homes – but he didn’t.
The authors conclude the discussion of the two experts by saying that it comes as something of a surprise that Kleck and Kellermann actually agree on a few things – including certain gun control measures. Both, for instance, support the kind of background checks mandated by the Brady law. Such screening, says Kleck, “appears to reduce homicide and suicide.” Both men also see benefit in stricter regulation of federal firearms dealer’s licenses, which require $30 and a cursory background check in many states. The number of licensees has grown 67 per cent since 1975 – to 245,000 – outstripping the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms’ ability to regulate them. Only about 1 in 4 is actually a storefront business; the rest are “kitchen table” dealers who sometimes operate in violation of local laws. Proposals before Congress would hike the license fee and allow for more meaningful oversight. “It’s difficult for me to imagine that society’s interest is served by someone selling guns across their kitchen table,” says Kellermann. In addition, both men would bar those convicted of violent misdemeanors from buying or owning guns (current law applies only to convicted felons). Kleck points out that nearly all criminal convictions are obtained from plea bargains, which often reduce felony charges to misdemeanor versions of the same crime. Finally, Kellermann and Kleck agree that harsher sentencing will never be the total answer to America’s gun violence.
And as far as the big question of should you buy a gun for protecting is concerned, here’s Kellermann’s answer, as the authors point out: “It’s natural to want to do everything possible to defend yourself and your family. It’s also natural to want to seek cover under the nearest tree in a thunderstorm. That doesn’t make it a good idea.” Kleck says he avoids giving advice. But in Point Blank, he writes: “Possession of a gun gives its owner an additional option for dealing with danger. If other sources of security are adequate, the gun does not have to be used; but where other sources fail, it can preserve bodily safety and property in at least some situations.” Even so, Kleck says, each person must evaluate other circumstances, such as the presence of children in the home or of anyone who’s chronically depressed, aggressive or alcoholic. And people must consider their neighborhood’s real danger; the higher the crime rate, he says, the more need for a firearm. Still, says Kleck, for most Americans, “there’s little or no need for a gun for self-protection because there’s so little risk of crime. People don’t believe it, but it’s true. You just can’t convince most Americans they’re not at serious risk.”
Another point that is in tune with the information mentioned above, according to the authors’ reckoning is following one. The major measures stipulated by the federal law is the federal Brady law, which last winter instituted a five-day wait on handgun purchases and called for law enforcers to check buyers’ criminal records. The law was questioned and opposed by wide sections of the population in America. The grounds for the opposition as far as the Americans’ constitutional rights are concerned are: The basis for the debate is the 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution, which guarantees that “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed”. Those opposed to controls interpret this to mean that the government has no right to limit or ban ownership of guns. Thus the author points out that in the endless fight over guns in America, controls are no sooner enacted than they are taken to court, the latest battleground being the federal Brady law.
However, note the authors, the Brady law is not equally enforced and one can speak of so-called “spotty enforcement”. Local state authorities don’t always uphold the law and sometimes they void it. County sheriffs, backed by the National Rifle Association, argue that Washington lacks the power to require background checks. They have won rulings in Arizona, Montana, Mississippi and, last week, Vermont. “Sheriffs want to answer calls about wife beatings and burglaries in progress, not shuffle papers on gun buyers they know are law abiding,” says Stephen Halbrook, their Virginia-based attorney. He says full investigations can take up to two hours each. Gun-control advocates hope that Brady law will survive. They note that a Texas court upheld the law and that no judge has voided the waiting period. In the meantime, Brady enforcement will be spotty, with urban police officers making at least cursory checks and many sheriffs ignoring the law.
Another thing that the authors introduce is that the opposition to gun control was a catalyst that spawned the rise of citizen militias in some states, Montana for example. Militia proponents in Montana cite both the state Constitution, which allows for an unofficially organized militia, and the federal Constitution as legal bases for a citizens’ militia. But state authorities dispute these interpretations. Flathead County attorney Tom Esch says militia organizers ignore other constitutional amendments and court cases, which stipulate that the National Guard is the state’s only militia and that any militia must be “legally summoned” under civilian-government control. There is willingness to take the law into one’s own hands that is again loose in the West, especially in Montana, where there is rising resentment against government. Legalities aside, feelings are running high. In April, in Eastern Montana, 15 or so men, calling themselves “freemen,” placed million-dollar bounties on a county judge, sheriff, county attorney and other local officials who they felt were infringing on the freemen’s rights by seizing and auctioning land that had been foreclosed. Many Americans share the sentiment.
Additionally the authors tells us that militiamen and women have other reasons for long-simmering anger against government. There are railings against the US government. Many believe that they’ve perverted the intent of the Constitution and come up with a bastardized form of illegitimate government. Some think that three hundred families run the world and plan global conquest. Others want to use the ballot box and the jury box. They don’t want to go to the cartridge box. But they will if they have to.
Also, the authors give a warning message that other squabbles lie ahead. The pending federal crime bill would exempt pawn shops from making background checks; critics will try to reverse that in a separate law. The bill also might ban 19 assault weapons plus look-alikes. A federal appeals panel last month voided a similar law from Columbus, Ohio, calling it “impossible to apply consistently.”
In my opinion gun ownership is a pressing issue and I agree with both the experts about the need to implement tougher gun control measures including background checks, barring those convicted of misdemeanour from buying a gun and a harsher sentencing for violent gun crimes. At the moment America seems like a very scary place to live with so many guns around and people afraid of what they see on TV screens. Hopefully the situation will change for the better sooner than later and fewer lives will be lost to the people who lobby for companies who produce and sell guns and care not about the safety of those around them but only about their profit.