From: [k--ar--s] at [cc.memphis.edu] (Ken Barnes) Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns,talk.answers,news.answers Subject: talk.politics.guns Official Pro-Gun FAQ 1/2 Date: 11 Jan 1996 01:08:32 GMT Keywords: gun control, U.S. Constitution, self defense, weapons, N.R.A., NRA X-Last-Updated: 1996/01/10 Archive-name: talk-politics-guns/pro-gun-faq/part1 Posting-Frequency: monthly THE LONG LIST OF "GUN-CONTROL" MYTHS rev. 1/10/96 [talk.politics.guns' Official Pro-Gun FAQ (fully indexed, w/glossary) Additions/suggestions are welcome. Your help is encouraged. Email to: Ken Barnes ([k--ar--s] at [cc.memphis.edu]) This FAQ is now available at ftp://ftp.shell.portal.com/pub/chan/research/rkba.faq http://www.portal.com/~chan/research/rkba.faq by courtesy of Jeff Chan ([c--n] at [shell.portal.com])] _________________________________________________________________ +This FAQ is dedicated to all who fought to secure the Blessings+ +of Liberty against Monarchism, Racism, Fascism, and Communism. + ----------------------------------------------------------------- CONTENTS (* indicates an updated entry) SECTION I. - Personal issues 1.0 - "You don't need a gun, the police will protect you." * 1.1 - "Guns aren't an effective defense, or, the 43:1 myth." 1.1.a - "Chemical sprays and stun guns are just as effective." 1.2 - "Bad guys will just take your gun away and shoot you." * 1.3 - "Guns are too dangerous to own if you've got children." SECTION II. - Constitutional issues in the United States 2.0 - "The 2nd Amendment means you can't disarm the National Guard." 2.0.a - "What's the deal with the punctuation?" * 2.1 - "The 2nd Amendment doesn't protect an individual right." * 2.2 - "So you think everybody can own nuclear weapons?" * 2.3 - "The 2nd Amendment doesn't apply to states and localities." SECTION III. - Other "gun-control" fantasies * 3.0 - "We ought to register all firearms and ammunition." 3.0.a - "We ought to license and register guns like cars." * 3.0.b - "Gun registration reduced homicides in Washington, D.C." * 3.1 - "Guns increase the lethality of crime." 3.2 - "Waiting periods save lives." 3.2.a - "The Brady Act national waiting period is very effective." 3.3 - "Ban assault weapons!" * 3.4 - "Ban cop-killer bullets!" 3.4.a - "Ban Black Rhino ammunition!" * 3.5 - "Ban Saturday Nite Specials!" 3.6 - "Ban plastic guns!" 3.7 - "Gun buy-backs are effective in getting guns off the street." 3.8 - "Concealed-carry reform will take us back to the Wild West!" 3.8.a - "What about the University of Maryland study?" SECTION IV. - Deterrence and resistance to tyranny * 4.0 - "Small arms aren't effective against a modern army." APPENDIX I. - Federal "gun control" laws in the United States * "Nonmailable Firearms Act" of 1927 - Public Law 69-583 National Firearms Act of 1934 - Public Law 73-474 * Federal Firearms Act of 1938 - Public Law 75-785 (repealed) Gun Control Act of 1968 - Public Law 90-618 * Firearms Owner's Protection Act of 1986 - Public Law 99-308 Armor Piercing Ammunition ban of 1987 - Public Law 99-408 Undetectable Firearms Act of 1988 - Public Law 100-649 Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990 - Public Law 101-647 (void) * Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993 - Public Law 103-159 Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act of 1994 (a.k.a. "assault weapons" ban) - Public Law 103-322 * APPENDIX II. - Data on concealed carry reform in Florida APPENDIX III. - "Gun Control": international comparisons * JAPAN * CANADA * UNITED STATES OF AMERICA GREAT BRITAIN * SWITZERLAND * GERMANY AUSTRALIA * APPENDIX IV. - Washington, D.C.: a "gun control" paradise * INDEX AND GLOSSARY ----------------------------------------------------------------- SECTION I. - Personal issues "The peaceable part of mankind will be continually overrun by the vile and abandoned while they neglect the means of self-defense. The supposed quietude of a good man allures the ruffian; while on the other hand, arms like laws discourage and keep the invader and the plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world, as well as property. The balance of power is the scale of peace. The same balance would be preserved were all the world destitute of arms, for all would be alike; but since some_will_not,_ others_dare_not_ lay them aside... Horrid mischief would ensue were one half the world deprived of the use of them;... the weak will become a prey to the strong." -=(Thomas Paine, "Thoughts on Defensive War," 1775)=- 1.0 "You don't need a gun, the police will protect you." Recommended reading: _In The Gravest Extreme,_by Massad Ayoob [available from Police Bookshelf, P.O. Box 122, Concord, NH 03301], ISBN 0-936297-00-1, (1980) _The Truth About Self Protection,_by Massad Ayoob, Police Bookshelf, ISBN 0553-23664-6, (1983) _Armed and Female: Twelve Million American Women Own Guns, Should You?,_ by Paxton Quigley, St. Martin's Press, ISBN 0-312-95150-7, (1993) _Not An Easy Target,_by Paxton Quigley, Simon and Schuster, ISBN 0-671-89081-6, (1995) _Firing Back,_by Clayton E. Cramer, Krause Publications, ISBN 0-87341-344-X, (1994) _Stopping Power: Why Seventy Million Americans Own Guns,_by J. Neil Schulman, Synapse-Centurion Books, ISBN 1-882639-03-0, (1994) A selection of relevant cases [listed in 'Dial 911 and Die!' by JPFO (Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership) 2872 S. Wentworth Ave., Milwaukee, WI 53207, Ph: (414) 769-0760, FAX: (414) 483-8435]: [Note: For convenience of the reader, legal citations in this FAQ have been rendered in a more familiar "bibliography" style form, rather than standard legal citation form. Real lawyers would cite the first case below as 59 U.S. (18 How.) 396, 15 L.Ed. 433 ] South v. Maryland, U.S. Reports (18 Howard) v.59 p.396, Lawyer's Edition v.15 p.433 (1856) Riss v. City of New York, N.Y. Supplement 2nd series v.293 p.897, N.Y. Reports 2nd series v.22 p.579 (1968) Keane v. City of Chicago, Illinois Appellate Court Reports 2nd series v.98 p.460 (1968) Hartzler v. City of San Jose, California Appellate Reports 3rd series v.46 p.6, California Reporter v.120 p.5 (1975) Reiff v. City of Philadelphia, Federal Supplement v.471 p.1262 Eastern District of Pennsylvania (1979) Warren v. District of Columbia, U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit 2nd series v.444 p.1 (1981) Bowers v. DeVito, Federal Reporter 2nd series v.686 p.616 U.S. Court of Appeals, 7th Cir. (1982) Morgan v. District of Columbia, U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit 2nd series v.468 p.1306 (1983) Lynch v. N. C. Dept. of Justice, Southeastern Reporter 2nd series v.376 p.247 North Carolina Court of Appeals (1989) Marshall v. Winston, Southeastern Reporter 2nd series v.389 p.902 Virginia (1990) In summary: Police can only act once a crime is occurring or has already been committed. They cannot be held liable for failure to arrive in time to save any particular individual from harm, so long as they aren't someone who has a special relationship with the police, like a protected witness. Indeed, it's_extremely_unlikely that police officers will be able to arrive and_save_you from harm faster than an attacker can harm you. There aren't, and there ought not to be, sufficient police to act as personal bodyguards for every citizen, 24 hours a day, and any guarantee to that effect would be extremely expensive in terms of both money and liberty. 1.1 "Guns aren't effective defensive weapons, and are '43 to 1 times' more likely to kill their owners or family members than they are useful to defend against criminal attack." See_Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America,_by Gary Kleck, Aldine de Gruyter, ISBN 0-202-30419-1 (1991) [Dr. Kleck's book is a valuable resource for all participants in the "gun control" debate. _Point Blank_received the American Society for Criminology's highest honor, the Hindelang Award, at the ASC's 1993 annual meeting, for the most important contribution to the criminology literature in the preceding three years.] also_Criminal Victimization in the United States,_1992_ A National Crime Victimization Survey Report,_Bureau of Justice Statistics, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Dept. of Justice SuDoc# J 29.9/2:992 (1992) Kellerman, Arthur L. and Reay, Donald T., "Protection or Peril? An Analysis of Firearm-Related Deaths in the Home" New England J. Medicine, v.314, n.24, pp.1557-1560 (1986) In summary: The often-cited "studies that show" having a gun in the home is a far greater risk to you and your loved ones than to criminals, are a favorite topic of discussion here on t.p.g., in part to demonstrate the extraordinary statistical contortions that "gun control" advocates will go to in an attempt to support their flawed premises. The idea that guns (and handguns in particular) are ineffective as defensive weapons shows a distinct lack of imagination, especially since police carry them for that purpose. The 1986 Kellerman study, the source of the famous "43 to 1" ratio, is deceptive in several ways. The basis for comparison in this study is the ratio of "firearm-related deaths" of household members vs. deaths of criminals killed in the home (justifiable homicides). The "firearm-related deaths" in the study include suicides and accidents, neither of which are randomly distributed throughout the population, as the 43 to 1 "risk ratio" would imply. Both suicides and accidents are more likely to occur in specific categories of people than they are in the general population. Of the 398 "firearm-related deaths" included in the study, the vast majority (333, or, 84%) were suicides. The number of fatal firearms accidents in the study was 12 (or 3% of the studied deaths). Since sometimes a "gun cleaning accident" is actually a suicide reported under a name less likely to deny payment from a life insurance company, there may in fact have been even fewer accidents than are apparent from the reporting. When only the criminal homicides are considered, rather than including suicides and accidents, the "43 to 1" ratio disappears, and the ratio is far less dramatic, more like "4.5 to 1". There were 41 criminal homicides reported in the Kellerman study, and 9 instances of justifiable or self-defense homicide. People who are violent, unbalanced, or involved in a life of crime are much more likely to use their home gun unwisely, and their chances of using it to harm another (or themselves) are higher than would be expected for the majority of the population. As criminologists know and can demonstrate, the fallacy underlying the work of researchers who treat "gun violence" as an "epidemic" or as an issue of "public health" is the idea that people are all at equal risk for becoming a perpetrator of crime, and lack only a deadly weapon. If a person is stable, and not suicidal, and not prone to extreme violence, their chances of becoming involved in "firearm-related death" will be far lower than the Kellerman "43 to 1 risk ratio" would suggest. Persons with these risk factors are not only more likely to abuse guns to harm themselves or others, but they probably can't be trusted with knives, either. Aside from such obvious risk factors, the likelihood of being injured accidentally can be decreased further by training in safe gun handling, much as firearms accidents have declined in the U.S. population in recent years due to such safety education, despite an increase in the number of guns available. (See 1.3) The Kellerman study, based on data collected in King County, WA from 1978 to 1983, is skewed towards violence associated with an urban setting, and makes little mention of the thousands of gun-owning households where no "firearm-related deaths" occurred at all. If gun ownership was the crucial factor in an "epidemiology of violence," how to explain the fact that almost all gunowner's households weren't affected? Assessing the effectiveness of gun use against criminals as "number of criminals killed" (as the Kellerman study does) is an extraordinary presumption as well, since law enforcement officers aren't judged by such a restrictive standard. Why isn't "criminals deterred" or "crimes completed" or even "criminals wounded or apprehended" a legitimate means of measuring defensive effectiveness? Certainly in some proportion of gun-owning households where no "firearm-related deaths" occurred, it was because a firearm was used to deter, wound, or otherwise thwart an attacker. In point of fact, the reason these "studies" are structured as badly as they are, and are published in medical (rather than criminological) journals, is that the numbers don't work out in favor of the "gun control" viewpoint if considered in these other ways (see also 3.0.b). There's no more reason to judge the ability and effectiveness of armed citizens at fighting crime by the numbers of criminals they kill than it is to do so for the police. Surprisingly, however, the numbers are quite similar (see 3.8). Still, it seems absurd for the anti-gun side to imply that gun owners_ought_to kill as many or more criminals than the number of people that criminals murder (which is the only way for the law-abiding to make a good showing in Kellerman's "kill ratio")! Kellerman implies that a general "cost-benefit" ratio can be developed which can be used to weigh the harm committed with guns against the right of the individual to have a gun for self-defense, and if it happens that more people are being harmed with guns than there are instances of self-defense, we can simply allow those few people whose lives would be saved by having a gun to become victims too. According to U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics data, having a gun and being able to use it in a defensive situation is the most effective means of avoiding injury (moreso even than offering no resistance) and thwarting completion of a robbery or assault. In general, resisting violent crime is far more likely to help than to hurt, and this is especially true if your attacker attempts to take you hostage, such as sometimes happens in a carjacking situation. Most often in with-gun defenses, criminals can be frightened away or deterred without a shot being fired. Estimates of these types of defensive uses of firearms are wide ranging, but they occur at least as often (if not far more often) each year as misuses of firearms by violent criminals, since violent crimes involving firearms account for only about 40% of all violent crime, and such defensive uses are rarely reported to the police (in some cases because firearms possession in the locality is illegal). Even if the number of crimes deterred by armed citizens annually is no greater than the number of violent crimes committed with guns each year, in the absence of these self-protective acts, the incidence of violent crime would be far higher (arguably doubled) than it is at present, and injuries to victims would also increase. The annual use of firearms for other lawful purposes, unrelated to self-defense, dwarfs both defensive and criminal uses combined. 1.1.a "Chemical sprays, stun guns, and other nonlethal methods are effective and easy to use in stopping an attacker." see Ayoob,_In The Gravest Extreme_(see above) p.35-38. In summary: Unfortunately, even_shooting_an attacker doesn't always stop them immediately, unless the shot is directed at the central nervous system. A fatally wounded assailant can still be dangerous for the few seconds or minutes they have left. Non-lethal methods, while they can be effective in some cases and can provide an additional option for personal defense, are not something you want to bet your life on when confronted with deadly force. The chemical sprays available to civilians (such as CS tear gas, or OC pepper spray) are not always as strong as those used by law enforcement, but even though the police carry chemical agents, they also carry firearms, since even the police sprays (like FREEZE+P) don't stop everybody, and aren't appropriate for every situation. The chemical sprays are most effective when they can reach the mucous membranes, such as when sprayed in the eyes or inhaled. Yet if an attacker is wearing glasses, or holds their breath, or is on drugs, or is just unusually impervious to the pain, the spray may not be effective. (After all, some people can_eat_extraordinarily hot peppers, and some people just have high pain thresholds.) Chemical sprays are designed for outdoor use, and will persist and can cause problems for the defender if used indoors. Outdoors, they can be affected by the direction of the wind, and blown off target, or back into the defender's face, if not delivered in a stream. Inclement weather can also affect their effectiveness as a defense, and they require a few seconds to fully incapacitate when they work. It should be noted that pepper sprays are more effective against dogs than man, since dogs expose their mouth and tongue when threatening attack, but chemical mace (CS tear gas) is not effective against dogs, since dogs' tear glands are less active, and they have smaller tear ducts, limiting the spray's effects. Use of OC sprays on non-human animals may require the highest concentration of pepper, i.e. 10%-13%, since it is believed that dogs, for example, are less sensitive to the pain. Many sprays contain visible or invisible dyes which are useful in identifying and apprehending a suspect, but if the victim ends up wounded or dead due to the essentially random chance that the spray is ineffective as a defense, that's a fact of interest primarily to the police. Criminals can be equally and more indelibly marked for capture by the use of a firearm, if use of deadly force is justified, since their wounds often require that they seek medical attention. Medical personnel are required to report patients seeking treatment for gunshot wounds to law enforcement authorities. The stun "guns" available for civilian use require direct contact with the attacker's body, putting the victim dangerously in harm's way, when the objective is to keep as far away as possible. Many civilian stun guns are also underpowered, and require several seconds contact with the attacker in order to incapacitate, and may have difficulty penetrating heavy clothing, like winter coats. Their loud crackle and brilliant blue arc_are_certainly intimidating, however. Most stun guns are now equipped with safety devices designed to prevent them from being used against the defender if taken away. Police stun guns (like the TASER) can fire electrode darts with trailing wires_into_the target from a distance, but even these "guns" don't always work, as evidenced by the Rodney King video. King was TASERed prior to being attacked by baton-wielding officers but was still able to move around and present a potential threat. (Some of the fired darts may have missed him, but had he been incapacitated by the TASER, the baton attack would have been even more obviously excessive, and unnecessary.) Both chemical sprays and stun guns are virtually useless in stopping multiple attackers, while with sufficient practice, firearms (and particularly handguns) are quite effective at stopping violent attack, even by a determined gang of assailants. (See 3.3) Unlike these two common non-lethal weapons, a gun, when fired, acts to alert possible aid, and is less likely to be ignored than personal alarms. Also, unlike non-lethal weapons, a gun offers an additional intimidation factor due to its lethality which may deter attack in circumstances where the risk of confronting a spray can or stun "gun" would not. Ironically, many of the same localities which have strict "gun control" laws also prohibit ordinary citizens from owning and using chemical defense sprays or stun guns, and the rationale is the same. Law-abiding citizens are disarmed of any possible effective means of self-defense because of the possibility of criminals misusing these weapons. Some people in high-crime "gun control" zones like Washington, D.C. and other U.S. cities have taken to carrying cans of aerosol spray oven cleaner (potassium or sodium hydroxide, a powerful caustic agent) because the laws in these localities deny them the right to carry a non-toxic pepper spray, or any other effective means of self-defense. This illustrates precisely the type of "weapon substitution" effect that opponents of "gun control" argue will occur if any particular class of weapons, such as "Saturday Nite Specials," is banned. People who are determined to have weapons, whether they are honest citizens defending against crime, or criminals obtaining the tools of their trade, will find a way around any ban, and will often end up having a deadlier weapon that the one that has been banned. (After all, if someone is breaking the law_anyway,_it matters little whether they break it to carry a "Saturday Nite Special" or a sawed-off shotgun or machinegun.) Oven cleaner can cause permanent damage and/or blindness, and aside from the child-resistant cap (which would make the can difficult to use in emergency situations), oven cleaner cans lack the safety mechanisms which are found on many tear gas or pepper spray containers to prevent accidental discharge. Its permanent and harmful effects may also prejudice a jury against you, moreso even than if you'd used a gun! There's very little chance that banning oven cleaner will occur, since the_only_localities which have this "problem" are the ones which deny their good citizens any other means to protect themselves. In Canada, use of pepper spray against bears and dogs is legal, but not against human predators. Only the police in Canada are allowed to use OC pepper spray on humans. Anyone else caught using this "prohibited weapon" to protect themselves faces a possible_10-year_ _prison_term!_ In spite of the law, Canadian citizens are "arming for bear" by exploiting this legal loophole, though the government is cracking down on sales. Pepper defense sprays are also legally unavailable to citizens in Germany, since German law requires that any such defensive spray be first tested on animals, and a 1987 German law prohibits the testing of weapons on animals. Pepper sprays are gaining popularity worldwide, however, since they are the most effective personal defense option for people whose governments don't trust their citizens with firearms, or for people who choose not to use firearms in defense of their lives and their families. There has been some concern expressed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in about 30 cases in which pepper spray has thought to have been associated with deaths of suspects in police custody, but a review of these cases by the International Association of Chiefs of Police, a pro-"gun control" police organization, said that most of the incidents could be attributable to factors such as improper use of restraints like handcuffs in ways which restricted breathing, the suspect's obesity, and/or the suspect's use of alcohol and/or cocaine. That the ACLU could find only 28 such questionable incidents during the three year period of its investigation, and also the fact that ACLU did not claim that pepper spray directly caused the deaths, only underscores the essential safety of the sprays as a non-lethal defensive weapon. (In light of the ACLU's findings, users concerned about the remote possibility of killing an attacker with pepper spray should beware of using the spray against drunken asthmatic fat guys on "crack.") 1.2 "It's too easy for your attacker to take your gun away from you and shoot you." See Kleck,_Point Blank_(see above) p.122. also_Uniform Crime Reports: Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted 19xx,_United States Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, SuDoc#s J 1.14/7-6:9xx-993 In summary: The techniques required for "weapon retention" are not all that difficult to master, but the greatest risk for being disarmed by an attacker appears to be from open carry in a holster as police officers do. Some ten to fourteen percent of law enforcement officers who are killed are shot with their own guns. By contrast, an average of 1% or fewer of armed citizens end up disarmed by their attacker, no doubt in part because criminals_expect_police to be armed, but are mostly unpleasantly_surprised_to find their intended victims are. Police are also more frequently in contact with desperate and dangerous people, who_they_must attempt to personally apprehend, increasing their risk of being in close enough proximity to be disarmed. Private citizens with guns need not take such risks, and can carry concealed, confronting their attackers at a distance in many situations, rather than permitting attackers to get close enough where a knife or brute strength can come into play. In a home defense situation this is particularly true, if the armed homeowner is alerted by the sound of forced entry, or by an alarm. For the physically weaker members of our society, for the elderly, or the disabled, no other means of self- defense negates the advantages of youth, agility and strength as effectively as a firearm (see 3.1), and none but firearms can defeat strength in numbers. In most cases, the credible brandishing of a gun convinces criminals to look for an easier target, but if life- threatening danger is imminent, and the situation permits, having a gun gives the defender an additional option of resistance, which can reduce the risk of being injured or killed (see 1.1 and 1.1.a). 1.3 "Guns are too dangerous to keep in the house if you've got children." See_Guns, Crime, and Freedom_by Wayne LaPierre, Regnery Books, ISBN 0-89526-477-3, (1994), where he devotes an entire chapter (Chapter 9) to this. _Guns, Crime and Freedom_is also out in "trade paperback" (an oversize paperback) from HarperCollins, ISBN 0-06-097674-8 (1995). [Wayne LaPierre is the chief executive officer of the National Rifle Association, and its chief spokesman. NRA can be reached at 11250 Waples Mill Rd., Fairfax, VA 22030, at (800) NRA-3888 for membership information, (703) 267-1000 for general inquiries, and on the Web at http://www.nra.org/ ] also Kleck,_Point Blank,_pp.276-280. _Accident Facts,_1994_by National Safety Council Staff, ISBN 0-87912-183-1, (1994) In summary: The death of children, whether by abuse, neglect, homicide, suicide, or accident, is a particular tragedy, because for most children their safety is dependent on adults to protect them from harm. This responsibility for protecting children is primarily that of their parents, as it is for so much of their physical, emotional, and intellectual sustenance. As with any potentially dangerous item in the home, it is the responsibility of parents to do their best to secure their firearms from misuse by children who are unaware of that potential danger, as much as responsible parents try to protect their children from the hazards of electricity, household chemicals, poisons, and physical injury from falls, sharp objects, fire, choking, or drowning. Part of that protection, when they are old enough to understand, is education. Safes are available which allow quick access to defensive firearms when needed, while preventing unauthorized access; and modern firearms (particularly semi-automatics) are designed with safety features to prevent accidental discharges, but "childproofing" a home is no substitute for "accident-proofing" or "gun-proofing" a child so that they can understand the dangers and actively avoid them, whether at home, at school, or at a friend's house. Irrationally, the same people who use accidental shootings of children to advance the cause of "gun control" are often opposed to educational efforts to teach children how to avoid gun accidents and injuries, though they may favor education as a means to make children aware of the risks of venereal disease and pregnancy. The National Rifle Association, for its part, has championed the cause of gun safety and training for over a century, and since 1988 has promoted a safety program for children in grades K-6 which tells those youngsters to "Stop! Don't Touch! Leave The Area! Tell An Adult!" if they find a gun. The NRA's "Eddie Eagle" program (originated by Florida grandmother and current NRA president, Marion Hammer) has been used in schools across the nation, and was awarded the National Safety Council's Outstanding Community Service Award in October 1993. The rate of firearms accidents generally has been declining since the 1970s, largely due to public education about the basic rules of firearm safety, even as the number of firearms in the U.S. population has increased. Firearm-related accidental deaths involving children 14 and under in the U.S. totaled 227 in 1991, trailing many more commonplace causes of accidental death among children, including car accidents (3,087 deaths), fire (1,104 deaths), and drowning (1,104 deaths). SECTION II. - Constitutional issues in the United States "Are we at last brought to such a humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own defence? Where is the difference between having our arms in our own possession and under our own direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defence be the_real_object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?" -=(Patrick Henry, in_Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution,_ Jonathan Elliot, ed. 1836, v.3 p.168)=- 2.0 "The Second Amendment is really just an irrelevant anachronism, but if it has any meaning at all today, it just means that the Federal government can't disarm the National Guard." See United States Constitution (U.S.C.), Amendment II: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." (See also 2.0.a) also U.S.C. Article I, sec. 8 (clauses 15 and 16, commonly referred to as "the militia clauses") -- Powers of Congress: "...To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions; To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;" also U.S.C. Article II, sec. 2 (clause 1) -- President to be Commander-in-Chief. (etc.) "The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States;" also U.S. Code Annotated (U.S.C.A.) title 10 sec. 311 (as amended Nov. 30, 1993) [relating to the definition of militia] "311. Militia: composition and classes (a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard. (b) The classes of the militia are-- (1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and (2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia." also U.S.C.A. title 32 sect. 101 (as amended Sep. 29, 1988) [relating to the establishment of the National Guard] "101. Definitions [...] (3) "National Guard" means the Army National Guard and the Air National Guard. (4) "Army National Guard" means that part of the organized militia of the several States and Territories, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia, active and inactive, that-- (A) is a land force; (B) is trained, and has its officers appointed, under the sixteenth clause of section 8, article I, of the Constitution; (C) is organized, armed, and equipped wholly or partly at Federal expense; and (D) is federally recognized. (5) "Army National Guard of the United States" means the reserve component of the Army all of whose members are members of the Army National Guard. (6) "Air National Guard" means that part of the organized militia of the several States and Territories, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia, active and inactive, that-- (A) is an air force; (B) is trained, and has its officers appointed, under the sixteenth clause of section 8, article I, of the Constitution; (C) is organized, armed, and equipped wholly or partly at Federal expense; and (D) is federally recognized. (7) "Air National Guard of the United States" means the reserve component of the Air Force all of whose members are members of the Air National Guard." also _A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language,_edited by Noah Webster (1803), p. 252 also Oxford English Dictionary (O.E.D.), 2nd ed. (1989) v.XX p. 138 for definition of "well-regulated" "WELL-'REGULATED, ppl. a. [participial adjective] 1709 SHAFTSB._Moralists_II. iv. 108 If a liberal Education has form'd in us . . well-regulated Appetites, and worthy Inclinations. 1714 R. FIDDES._Pract._Disc._II. 250 The practice of all well regulated courts of justice in the world. 1812 J. JOYCE._Sci._Dial.,_Astron._xii. II. 126 The equation of time . . is the adjustment of the difference of time, as shown by a well-regulated clock, and a true sun-dial. 1848 THACKERAY_Van._Fair._lviii, A remissness for which I am sure every well-regulated person will blame the Major. 1862 MRS. H. WOOD_Mrs._Hallib._I. v. 27 It appeared, to her well- regulated mind, like a clandestine proceeding. 1894 _Pop._ _Sci._Monthly._June 165 The newspaper, a never wanting adjunct to every well-regulated American embryo city." also v.XIII pp. 524-525 of the O.E.D. for the definitions of "regulated" and "regulation" also Virginia Constitution, art. I, sec. 13 (See text at 2.3) also Cottrol, Robert J., and Diamond, Raymond T., "The Second Amendment: Toward an Afro-Americanist Reconsideration," Georgetown Law J. v.80 pp. 309-361 (1991) [Reprinted in _Guns: Who Should Have Them?,_David B. Kopel, ed., Prometheus Books, ISBN 0-87975-958-5 (1995), a book which is an excellent introduction to the political issues surrounding gun ownership.] Kates, Jr., Donald B., "The Second Amendment and the Ideology of Self-Protection," Constitutional Commentary v.9 pp. 87-104 (1992) _That Every Man Be Armed: The Evolution of a Constitutional Right,_ by Stephen P. Halbrook, University of New Mexico Press [reprinted by the Independent Institute], ISBN 0-945999-24-0, (1984) _For the Defense of Themselves and the State: The Original Intent and Judicial Interpretation of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms,_ by Clayton E. Cramer, Praeger Publications, ISBN 0-275-94913-3 (1994) _The Constitution of the United States,_an annotated edition by the research staff of the Library of Congress, U.S. Senate Document 99-16 (1982) _To Keep And Bear Arms: The Origins of an Anglo-American Right,_ by Joyce Malcolm, Harvard University Press, ISBN 0-674-89306-9, (1994) _The Roots of the Bill of Rights,_by Bernard Schwartz, Chelsea House, ISBN 0-87754-207-4, (1980) [an illustrated 5-vol. edition of Schwartz' definitive work_The Bill of Rights: A Documentary History,_Chelsea House, ISBN 07-0796613-0 (1971)] _United States Statutes at Large,_published under the authority of the United States Congress; Little, Brown, and Co., Boston, Mass., [no ISBN] v. I, p. 21 (1861) and Dred Scott v. Sanford, U.S. Reports (19 Howard) v.60 p.417, Lawyer's Edition v.15 p.691 (1856) Perpich v. Department of Defense, U.S. Reports v.496 p.334, Supreme Court Reporter v.110 p.2418, Lawyer's Edition 2nd series v.110 p.312 (1990) In summary: There is no historical basis to the claim that the Framers of the Second Amendment intended to limit its scope solely to protecting organized state militias from being disarmed by the Federal Government. In any event, the National Guard is a reserve unit of the United States Army, and not a creation of the individual state governments. It is essentially a Federal force which the governors of the states may "borrow" if the Federal Government does not object. During the civil rights movement of the 1960s, governors attempting to enforce segregation by using the National Guard found out why it's called "National" (if they hadn't known already). The English common law tradition, and the works of political philosophy which influenced the Founders of our republic, as well as their own writings, show that the right to keep and bear arms (RKBA, as it's often abbreviated on t.p.g.) was considered the hallmark of a free people, and distinguished a free man from a slave (see 3.3). Prior to the January 21, 1903 establishment of the National Guard, the Militia Act passed by the Second Congress on May 8, 1792 had been in force, requiring "each and every free able- bodied white male citizen of the respective states" between age 18 and 45 to be enrolled in the local militia, and to "provide himself" with arms as specified by Congress (originally an eighteen gauge firelock or musket). Following the establishment of the National Guard, Congress provided for the arming and training of the National Guard under its powers raise and support armies, and made the organized militias of the states into a reserve unit of the U.S. Army called the National Guard of the United States. The National Guard has been part of the Army by law since June 15, 1933; another part of the trend towards an increasingly centralized national government which began after the 1861-1865 U.S. Civil War. 2.0.a "What's the deal with the commas, and the hyphen in 'well-regulated'? You gun nuts seem to be obsessed with them." In summary: Archaic punctuation, usage, and peculiar grammar (though certainly no more peculiar than many modern legal documents) to some degree obscure the plain meaning of the Second Amendment. As in any human endeavor, mistakes can be made, and from time to time here on t.p.g., the authors of this particular bit of the Bill of Rights get flamed over whether there is in fact (or ought to be) a hyphen in "well regulated" (and/or fewer commas overall) so as to clarify the Amendment's meaning to modern readers. The choice of the adjective "unalienable" rather than "inalienable" in the Declaration of Independence has scarcely received more notice than the issue of proper punctuation in the Second Amendment. Confusion over the punctuation dates back to the very drafting and ratification of the Bill of Rights, since some sources give the text of Amendment II as "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." with only one comma, and no internal capitalization. This version is found in the Senate Journal for Sept. 25th, 1789, and in the Library of Congress' annotated version of the U.S. Constitution, as well as in the ratification document for the Bill of Rights as passed by the State of New York. Another version of the Second Amendment, this one reading "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." can be found in the first volume of_U.S. Statutes at Large,_which was published by the Congress in 1861 (note the capitalization of "State" but not "militia" or "arms," and the single comma). The trouble is, the more commonly referenced version, which reads "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." is the version which can be found on permanent display at the National Archives, since it's in the Federal Government's original engrossed copy of the Bill of Rights which was signed by Speaker of the House Frederick Muhlenberg and Vice-President John Adams, and that is the version which was copied and submitted to the states for ratification. This is also the version found in the U.S. Code Annotated, and it appears to be the version which was ratified, but given that the one-comma version is the one that the Congress passed and published, it would appear that any of the versions can be considered correct, and the Great Comma Controversy is unresolved (and perhaps unresolvable). The issue of what "well regulated" meant to the Framers is a much simpler question to resolve. To the modern reader, "well regulated" has acquired the primary connotation of_government_regulation, rather than that of "efficient" or "well functioning" which it had in the 18th Century. About the only common usage today of "regulate" in this sense is found in those commercials dealing with "occasional irregularity," and as such, modern dictionary definitions, especially such as are found in legal dictionaries, have little relevance to the issue. The first dictionary of American English usage, published by Noah Webster in 1803, gives no entry for "well regulated," but does include an entry for "regulars," which Webster defines as "standing troops, [as] opposed to militia." The Oxford English Dictionary includes as one of the definitions of "regulated" a meaning which directly applies to troops, that of "properly disciplined," and includes a citation to a 1690 article in the_London Gazette._ The British Whigs, whose arms right incorporated in the English Bill of Rights of 1689 was the antecedent for similar (but more generous) provisions in the Bills of Rights of the American states, and later the Bill of Rights of the United States, thought of a "well-regulated militia" as a check on the power of the King, and that the RKBA was an individual right, just as was the right to petition the King. Andrew Fletcher, a Whig, wrote of the necessity of "well-regulated militias" to defend not only against invasion by a foreign force, but against the "danger of slavery at home," a prospect that seems unlikely if "well-regulated" means anything other than "properly disciplined." While "regulated" and "regulation" can certainly be said to have "government regulation" among their meanings at the time of the writing of the U.S. Bill of Rights, that connotation was far from as dominant at that time as it has become today, in an age when self-regulation was the rule, and a "well-regulated militia" was "the body of the people, trained to arms." Indeed, one of the most important characteristics of a "well-regulated militia" as it was understood by the British Whigs, and by the American Founding Fathers, was that it be a "general militia" composed of the majority of citizens of the republic, rather than a "select militia" or armed minority of troops who could impose their will on a disarmed people, as the standing army of the King had done upon his subjects. The term "regular army" (as opposed to "irregulars") gives some idea of the type of discipline and order which the authors of the Second Amendment were trying to evoke with respect to the militia, which they saw as the best available alternative to the dangers and expense of a standing army. (See 3.3) The Second Amendment is best considered as a modification of the existing militia clauses of the Constitution, so as to prevent them from being interpreted in a way that would permit the Congress to disarm the ordinary citizens and establish a "select militia" or standing army in place of the "general militia". 2.1 "The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution does not guarantee an individual right." A few relevant law review articles [from the list given in LaPierre,_Guns, Crime and Freedom,_(see above) pp.238-240]: Levinson, Sanford, "The Embarrassing Second Amendment," Yale Law J. v.99 pp. 637-659 (1989) Cottrol and Diamond, Georgetown Law J. (see above) Kates, Jr., Constitutional Commentary (see above) Van Alstyne, William, "The Second Amendment and the Personal Right to Arms," Duke Law J. v.43 pp. 1236-1255 (1994) and others also Halbrook,_That Every Man Be Armed_(1984) see also _The Right to Keep and Bear Arms,_report of the subcommittee on the Constitution of the Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. Senate, 97th Congress, second session, Feb. 1982, SuDoc# Y4.J 89/2: Ar 5/5 also "In conformity with the interests of the working people, and in order to strengthen the socialist system, the citizens of the U.S.S.R. are guaranteed by law: (a) Freedom of Speech; (b) Freedom of the Press, (c) Freedom of assembly, including the holding of mass meetings; (d) Freedom of street processions and demonstrations. In order to guarantee to all workers real freedom of opinion, the Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic abolishes the dependence of the press on capitalism, and places at the disposal of the working class and the peasantry all the technical and material means for the publication of newspapers, pamphlets, books, and all other publications of the press, and guarantees free circulation for them throughout the country." --Constitution of the U.S.S.R., partially attributed to Stalin, Jan. 31, 1924 quoted in _The Great Thoughts,_compiled by George Seldes, Ballantine Books, ISBN 0-345-29887-X, (1985) In summary: The phrase "the right of the people" means the same thing in the Second Amendment as it does in the First and Fourth Amendments. The U.S. Constitution recognizes and protects, but does not_grant,_ the pre-existing right of individuals to keep and bear arms. This is because the Framers assumed that the basis of governmental power originates with the people, whose natural rights are either ceded to government in the form of governmental powers, specifically protected from the powers of government by listing them in the Bill of Rights, or retained by the people, according to the Ninth Amendment. The history of the drafting of the Second Amendment also makes clear that "the right of the people" means a civil right belonging to each individual citizen. The first proposed draft of the amendment as written by James Madison reads: "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country; but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person." In addition to clarifying that the Second Amendment has nothing to do with guns owned for "sporting purposes" like hunting (see Gun Control Act of 1968, Appendix I.), this earlier draft clearly illustrates that the "person" whose religious scruples require that he_not_"bear arms" would not be compelled to do so by the Congress, and that the "person" referred to in the text is an individual, and not a group. This version of the Second Amendment also closely reflects the spirit of the First Amendment's clauses dealing with religious freedom, in that the Congress should have no power to prohibit the keeping and bearing of arms, but neither should it have the power to compel those persons we would today call "conscientious objectors" to do so. It's unlikely that Madison intended this earlier draft of the Second Amendment to prohibit the Congress only from calling up all the Quakers and other pacifists _en_masse_as a militia, but rather that each individual would respond to the nation's call as their individual consciences dictated, and that they would "keep and bear" their private weapons to that end. Indeed, the Militia Act passed by the Second Congress in 1792 did require exactly that, and such a requirement was in force for well over 100 years (see 2.0). This is not to say that the right to keep and bear arms is dependent upon the existence of an organized militia, or that_only_military weapons are constitutionally protected, since, as with the other enumerated rights found in the Constitution, the right is assumed by the Framers to be pre-existing. Just because the right to "peaceably assemble" is protected by the First Amendment explicitly for the political purpose of petitioning the government "for redress of grievances", this does not mean that_only_political speech and political gatherings are constitutionally protected. The authors of the Bill of Rights explicitly rejected any such narrow construction of the rights of the people, by means of the Ninth Amendment. The Bill of Rights is about limiting the power of government, not the freedoms enjoyed and exercised by We the People, and consequently it should not be subject to such a narrow interpretation in any of its provisions. The Bill of Rights sets forth the_minimum_standards which its authors felt define a "free state". Ironically, Madison's "religious scruples" clause was deleted because of fear that the government could misuse those words to disarm whomever_it_defined as "religiously scrupulous". The often-heard phrase "states' rights" is likewise the basis of some confusion in arguments about constitutional issues, because states don't have_"rights"_under the American Constitution, they have delegated_"powers,"_ and the Ninth and Tenth Amendments_clearly_ distinguish between "powers" and "rights". Governments, whether state or federal, don't have "rights". They have_only_such powers as are granted to them under the law. This is a very crucial distinction in American law, and one which is the basis for every just government. Once a government claims the "right" to do_anything,_asserting the sort of natural rights which belong only to individuals, we have returned to an era of the "divine right" of kings. In American law, the idea of a "collective" right (a right belonging to everyone - but to no one in particular) has no place. It was by just such an idea of "collective" rights that the constitutional guarantees of rights enumerated in the Soviet Constitution were deprived of all practical effect. "The people" owned all the printing presses, and could publish whatever "the people" wanted, but if anyone dared to exercise their individual right to free expression, they might be shot, sent to the Gulag, or to the mental hospital for "rehabilitation." Interpreting the phrase "the right of the people" to mean a "collective" right in the Second Amendment places the First Amendment (and the Fourth Amendment) in peril of similar "re-interpretation". Does the First Amendment guarantee of assembly apply only to state legislatures? At the most basic level, the arguments for censorship under the First Amendment and the arguments for "gun control" under the Second are the same. Both involve prior restraint on liberty (see 3.0), and both rest on a paternalistic assumption that the general public cannot be trusted to exercise their liberty wisely. Underlying both is the implication that there are certain officials of the state, censors in the case of the First Amendment, and the police and military in the case of the Second, who may exercise the liberties which are denied to the people (watching and reading what is otherwise forbidden, or carrying arms in defense of themselves and other citizens) and who can be trusted not to abuse that power, or be corrupted by it, in ways which their fellow citizens (mere mortals that they are) cannot. In effect and in fact, to defend censorship, or to defend "gun control," is to assert that there ought to be some citizens who are "more free" than others, and that second-class citizenship for all but a select few is permissible. Such elitism, obviously, has no place among those who value equality before the law as a political ideal, or as the first proposition of the American republic. 2.2 "If the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear ordinary military weapons, then everybody can have their own tactical nuclear warhead." [This is what is known on t.p.g. as the "nuclear strawman" or "Ban guns, ban The Bomb!" argument, designed to get everybody off on a tangent about whether or not the U.S. Constitution protects privately owned nuclear weapons.] In summary: The Second Amendment protects all arms, though as is mentioned elsewhere (see 3.3), those arms which have some relationship to a well-regulated militia are better protected than those which do not, at least according to legal precedent. Many people (at least for the sake of argument here on t.p.g.) are justifiably distressed at the thought of private individuals owning such indiscriminately destructive and persistently dangerous weapons. Some supporters of the civil right to keep and bear arms, as a result, seek to interpret "arms" as meaning "personal arms" (i.e. those which can be carried and used by an individual against another individual). However, in researching the era during which Amendment II was drafted, it is possible to find individuals who owned cannon and privateer ships, much as it is possible today to find people who own tanks and planes from the World War II era (and later), some with functioning guns. Civil War re-enactor companies today sometimes own cannon and other weapons which were state-of-the-art for_that_period. If one attempts to "creatively interpret" the Second Amendment today to say that it should now only apply to "personal arms" (in the absence of any textual or historical basis for that interpretation), what legitimate objection can one have to others who "creatively interpret" it to say that it now applies only to the National Guard, or even to say that it's entirely outmoded and can be totally ignored? (See 2.0) Any of these is an arbitrary selective interpretation, and all are equally unsupportable, as would be any attempt to limit the First Amendment protection of a free press only to, say, presses like those used by Benjamin Franklin, and not the unimaginably more powerful telecommunications devices of today. It is perhaps not surprising, however, that the power which modern telecommunications gives to the individual is similarly opposed, out of fears of what can possibly be done with it (see also 4.0). The Second Amendment was indeed written to protect all arms, and thus nuclear weapons are included. If multibillionaires funding their own private bomb development efforts seem to be a problem worthy of serious consideration, what's the solution? Follow the procedure that the authors of the Constitution provided for modifying the Constitution to adapt to changing times --amend it by following the procedures in Article V. The people who wrote the Constitution did not intend for it to be selectively interpreted in order to fit changing conditions. They planned that if conditions_did_change enough to warrant an alteration in a provision of the Constitution, it should be done with due care and consideration, and only upon the agreement of two thirds of each house of Congress, and three fourths of the legislatures of the states. _This_is the proper way to react to changing times-- through the amendment process, and not by arbitrary denial of the plain language of the Constitution, by whatever branch of government (see 2.3). -- Based on a posting by Dan Day ([d c d] at [houston.geoquest.slb.com]) -- 2.3 "The Second Amendment doesn't apply to state and local governments, so state gun control laws, or local ordinances like the Morton Grove, IL ban on handguns, are constitutional." See U.S.C. Amendment XIV, sec. 1: "1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." also Dowlut, Robert, "Federal and State Constitutional Guarantees to Arms," U. Dayton Law Rev. v.15, pp. 84-89 (1989): "Forty-three (43) states have constitutional guarantees on the right to keep and bear arms. ALABAMA: "That every citizen has a right to bear arms in defense of himself and the state." Ala. Const. art. I, S 26 ALASKA: "A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." Alaska Const. art. I, S 19 ARIZONA: "The right of the individual citizen to bear arms in defense of himself or the State shall not be impaired, but nothing in this section shall be construed as authorizing individuals or corporations to organize, maintain, or employ an armed body of men." Ariz. Const. art. 2, S 26 ARKANSAS: "The citizens of this state shall have the right to keep and bear arms for their common defense." Ark. Const. art. II, S 5 COLORADO: "The right of no person to keep and bear arms in defense of his home, person and property, or in aid of the civil power when thereto legally summoned, shall be called in question; but nothing herein contained shall be construed to justify the practice of carrying concealed weapons." Colo. Const. art. II, S 13 CONNECTICUT: "Every citizen has the right to bear arms in defense of himself and the state." Conn. Const. art. I, S 15 DELAWARE: "A person has the right to keep and bear arms for the defense of self, family, home and State, and for hunting and recreational use." Del. Const. art. I, S 20 FLORIDA: "The right of the people to keep and bear arms in defense of themselves and of the lawful authority of the state shall not be infringed, except that the manner of bearing arms may be regulated by law." Fla. Const. art. I, S 8 GEORGIA: "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, but the General Assembly shall have the power to prescribe the manner in which arms may be borne." Ga. Const. art. I, S I, para. VIII HAWAII: "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." Haw. Const. art I, S 15 IDAHO: "The people have the right to keep and bear arms, which right shall not be abridged; but this provision shall not prevent the passage of laws to govern the carrying of weapons concealed on the person, nor prevent passage of legislation providing minimum sentences for crimes committed while in possession of a firearm, nor prevent passage of legislation providing penalties for the possession of firearms by a convicted felon, nor prevent the passage of legislation punishing the use of a firearm. No law shall impose licensure, registration or special taxation on the ownership or possession of firearms or ammunition. Nor shall any law permit the confiscation of firearms, except those actually used in the commission of a felony." Idaho Const. art. I, S 11 ILLINOIS: "Subject only to the police power, the right of the individual citizen to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." Ill. Const. art. I, S 22 INDIANA: "The people shall have a right to bear arms, for the defense of themselves and the State." Ind. Const. art. I, S 32 KANSAS: "The people have the right to bear arms for their defense and security; but standing armies, in time of peace, are dangerous to liberty, and shall not be tolerated, and the military shall be in strict subordination to the civil power." Kansas Bill Of Rights, S 4 KENTUCKY: "All men are, by nature, free and equal, and have certain inherent and inalienable rights, among which may be reckoned: .... Seventh: The right to bear arms in defense of themselves and the state, subject to the power of the general assembly to enact laws to prevent persons from carrying concealed weapons." Ky. Bill Of Rights, S 1, para. 7 LOUISIANA: "The right of each citizen to keep and bear arms shall not be abridged, but this provision shall not prevent the passage of laws to prohibit the carrying of weapons concealed on the person." La. Const. art. I, S 11 MAINE: "Every citizen has a right to keep and bear arms and this right shall never be questioned." Me. Const. art. I, S16 MASSACHUSETTS: "The people have a right to keep and bear arms for the common defence. And as, in time of peace, armies are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be maintained without the consent of the legislature; and the military power shall always be held in exact subordination to the civil authority, and be governed by it." Mass. Decl. Of Rights, pt. I, art. XVII MICHIGAN: "Every person has a right to keep and bear arms for the defense of himself and the state." Mich. Const. art. I, S 6 MISSISSIPPI: "The right of every citizen to keep and bear arms in defense of his home, person, or property, or in aid of the civil power when thereto legally summoned, shall not be called in question, but the legislature may regulate or forbid carrying concealed weapons." Miss. Const. art. 3, S 12 MISSOURI: "That the right of every citizen to keep and bear arms in defense of his home, person and property, or when lawfully summoned in aid of the civil power, shall not be questioned; but this shall not justify the wearing of concealed weapons." Mo. Const. art. I, S 23 MONTANA: "The right of any person to keep or bear arms in defense of his own home, person, and property, or in aid of the civil power when thereto legally summoned, shall not be called in question, but nothing herein contained shall be held to permit the carrying of concealed weapons." Mont. Const. art. II, S 12 NEBRASKA: "All persons are by nature free and independent, and have certain inherent and inalienable rights; among these are ... the right to keep and bear arms for security or defense of self, family, home, and others, and for lawful common defense, hunting, recreational use, and all other lawful purposes, and such rights shall not be denied or infringed by the state or any subdivision thereof." Neb. Const. art. I, S 1 NEVADA: "Every citizen has the right to keep and bear arms for security and defense, for lawful hunting and recreational use and for other lawful purposes." Nev. Const. art. 1, S II, para. 1 NEW HAMPSHIRE: "All persons have the right to keep and bear arms in defense of themselves, their families, their property, and the state." N. H. Const. part 1, art. 2-a. NEW MEXICO: "No law shall abridge the right of the citizen to keep and bear arms for security and defense, for lawful hunting and recreational use and for other lawful purposes, but nothing herein shall be held to permit the carrying of concealed weapons. No municipality or county shall regulate, in any way, an incident of the right to keep and bear arms." N. M. Const. art. II, S 6 NORTH CAROLINA: "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; and, as standing armies in time of peace are dangerous to liberty, they shall not be maintained, and the military shall be kept under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power. Nothing herein shall justify the carrying of concealed weapons, or prevent the General Assembly from enacting penal statutes against that practice." N. C. Const. art. I, S 30 NORTH DAKOTA: "All individuals are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inalienable rights, among which are ... to keep and bear arms for the defense of their person, family, property, and the state, and for lawful hunting, recreational, and other lawful purposes, which shall not be infringed." N. D. Const. art. I, S 1 OHIO: "The people have the right to bear arms for their defense and security; but standing armies, in time of peace, are dangerous to liberty, and shall not be kept up; and the military shall be in strict subordination to the civil power." Ohio Const. art. I, S 4 OKLAHOMA: "The right of a citizen to keep and bear arms in defense of his home, person, or property, or in aid of the civil power when thereunto legally summoned, shall never be prohibited; but nothing herein contained shall prevent the Legislature from regulating the carrying of weapons." Okla. Const. art. 2, S 26 OREGON: "The people shall have the right to bear arms for the defence of themselves, and the State, but the Military shall be kept in strict subordination to the civil power." Or. Const. art. I, S 27 PENNSYLVANIA: "The right of the citizens to bear arms in defence of themselves and the State shall not be questioned." Pa. Const. art. I, S 21 RHODE ISLAND: "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." R. I. Const. art. I, S 22 SOUTH CAROLINA: "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. As, in times of peace, armies are dangerous to liberty, they shall not be maintained without the consent of the General Assembly. The military power of the State shall always be held in subordination to the civil authority and be governed by it. No soldier shall in time of peace be quartered in any house without the consent of the owner nor in time of war but in the manner prescribed by law." S. C. Const. art. I, S 20 SOUTH DAKOTA: "The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the state shall not be denied." S. D. Const. art. VI, S 24 TENNESSEE: "That the citizens of this State have a right to keep and to bear arms for their common defense; but the Legislature shall have power, by law, to regulate the wearing of arms with a view to prevent crime." Tenn. Const. art. I, S 26 TEXAS: "Every citizen shall have the right to keep and bear arms in lawful defense of himself or the State; but the Legislature shall have power, by law, to regulate the wearing of arms, with a view to prevent crime." Tex. Const. art. I, S 23 UTAH: "The individual right of the people to keep and bear arms for security and defense of self, family, others, property, or the State, as well as for the other lawful purposes shall not be infringed; but nothing herein shall prevent the legislature from defining the lawful use of arms." Utah Const. art. I, S 6 VERMONT: "That the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the State - and as standing armies in time of peace are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up; and that the military should be kept under strict subordination to the civil power." Vt. Const. Ch. I, art. 16 VIRGINIA: "That a well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state, therefore, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power." Va. Const. art I, S 13 WASHINGTON: "The right of the individual citizen to bear arms in defense of himself, or the state, shall not be impaired, but nothing in this section shall be construed as authorizing individuals or corporations to organize, maintain, or employ an armed body of men." Wash. Const. art. I, S 24 WEST VIRGINIA: "A person has the right to keep and bear arms for the defense of self, family, home and state, and for lawful hunting and recreational use." W. Va. Const. art. III, S 22 WYOMING: "The right of citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and of the state shall not be denied." Wyo. Const. art. I, S 24 Seven (7) states do not have a constitutional provision on arms: California, Iowa, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, and Wisconsin." also Cottrol and Diamond, Georgetown Law J. [also Cottrol and Diamond, "'Never Intended to be Applied to the White Population': Firearms Regulation and Racial Disparity --The Redeemed South's Legacy to a National Jurisprudence?," Chicago-Kent Law Rev. v.70 pp.1307-1335 (1995)] Halbrook,_That Every Man Be Armed_(see above) _No State Shall Abridge: The Fourteenth Amendment and the Bill of Rights,_by Michael Kent Curtis, Duke University Press, ISBN 0-8223-0599-2, (1986) _Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty,_by James Bovard, St. Martin's Press, ISBN 0-312-10351-4, (1994) and Dred Scott v. Sandford (see above) Butchers Benevolent Association v. Crescent City Live-Stock Landing & Slaughter-House Co. [a.k.a._Slaughter-House_Cases_], U.S. Reports v.83 (16 Wallace) p.36, Lawyer's Edition v.21 p.394 (1872) U.S. v. Cruikshank, et al., U.S. Reports v.92 pp.542, Lawyer's Edition v.23 p.588 (1875) cited in Presser v. Illinois, U.S. Reports v.116 p.252, Supreme Court Reports v.6 p.580, Lawyer's Edition v.29 p.615 (1886) cited in Quilici v. Morton Grove, Federal Reporter 2nd series v.695 p.261 (7th Circuit, 1982) In summary: Prior to the U.S. Civil War, "gun control" laws imposed by state and local governments may well have been constitutional, since the states had much greater legal powers to limit the rights of individuals than they do today, after the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment. The history of "gun control" in the United States is undeniably rooted in racism. The infamous Supreme Court decision in the_Dred Scott_case mentions among the rights of a free citizen "the right to keep and carry arms wherever they went" and argues that to recognize negroes as citizens in any one state, with all the "privileges and immunities" of citizenship, might compel every state to do so, a prospect which the Court postponed with dread for over a century. The earliest "gun control" laws were aimed at disarming slaves, free blacks, and freedmen, and even provided that white citizen patrols "shall enter into all negro houses and suspected places, and search for arms and other offensive or improper weapons, and may lawfully seize and take away all such arms, weapons, and ammunition..." a situation not unlike today's warrantless sweeps of public housing projects for weapons and other contraband. Penalties for selling or providing arms to blacks were likewise steep, for instance, an 1811 Louisiana statute provided for a $500 fine and up to a year in prison for selling arms to slaves. Following the Civil War, these same types of provisions were included in "Jim Crow" laws, with the disarmament of black Americans enforced by the terror of the Ku Klux Klan. The U.S. Congress moved to deal with this and other violations of the civil rights of black Americans through the Fourteenth Amendment, which created a national citizenship, gave the Congress the power to protect citizens of the United States from abridgment of their Federally recognized rights under the Constitution by the state governments, and guaranteed equal protection of the rights of all citizens by the governments of the states and the Union. In the case of_U.S. v. Cruikshank,_the Supreme Court continued the denial of the plain meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment which it had begun in the_Slaughter-House Cases_by ruling that the federal government had no power to protect citizens against private actions which violated their constitutional rights, despite the fact that failure to afford equal protection of the law was clearly within the scope of the Amendment. In this case, William Cruikshank and a mob of nearly one hundred others were indicted under the Enforcement Act of 1870 with criminal conspiracy to violate the civil rights of two black men, Levi Nelson and Alexander Tillman, including their right to peaceably assemble, and their right to keep and bear arms. Cruikshank and the rest of the white mob were participants in what was perhaps the most violent racial incident of the Reconstruction Era, the Colfax Massacre, in which some sixty black Americans were killed. Though the authors of the Reconstruction Amendments, of which the Fourteenth was a part, clearly expressed their intent to extend the "privileges and immunities" of the federal Bill of Rights to all men, regardless of race, the Court took it upon itself to decide which parts of the Bill of Rights were binding upon the states, through a doctrine of selective "incorporation," thus allowing the injustice of statutory racism to persist until the civil rights struggles of the 1950s and 1960s. "Gun control" advocates who rely upon_Cruikshank_(or the later decision in_Presser v. Illinois_) to support the idea that the Second Amendment is not binding upon the States via the Fourteenth are relying upon the same arguments used to deny the civil rights of black Americans after the Civil War. Further, the constitution of almost every state includes a provision protecting the individual right to keep and bear arms, to various degrees. This fact further undermines the contention that the Second Amendment protects only the state's organized militia (see 2.0), especially considering that some of the state constitutions, like Virginia's, pre-date the federal constitution. (Such arms-right provisions at the state level cannot reasonably be interpreted as being intended to prevent the state from disarming an organized state militia over which it presumably has complete command and control!) The right to keep and bear arms is fundamental, because the right to self defense is fundamental, not only against the actions of common criminals, but against those uncommon criminals acting under the auspices of government as well (see 3.3). SECTION III. - Other "gun-control" fantasies "And so a lot of people say there's too much personal freedom. When personal freedom's being abused, you have to move to limit it. That's what we did in the announcement I made last weekend on the public housing projects, about how we're going to have weapon sweeps and more things like that to try to make people safer in their communities." -=(U.S. President Bill Clinton, MTV's "Enough is Enough," 4/19/94)=- "If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an_out_right_ban, picking up every one of them... "Mr. and Mrs. America, turn 'em all in," I would have done it. I_could_not do that. The votes weren't here." -=(U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, CBS-TV's "60 Minutes," 2/5/95, speaking about her authorship of the 1994 "assault weapons" ban)=- 3.0 "Registration of all firearms and ammunition will assist police in solving crimes committed with guns." See particularly LaPierre,_Guns, Crime and Freedom_ where he devotes an entire chapter (Chapter 10) to this. also Kleck,_Point Blank,_pp.335-342. Bovard,_Lost Rights_(see above), pp.218-224. _Lethal Laws,_by Jay Simkin, Aaron Zelman, and Alan Rice, published by JPFO (see above), ISBN 0-9642304-0-2, (1994) In summary: Currently, all handgun buyers must fill out the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms' Form 4473, which remains on file with the federally licensed firearms dealer (along with a notation of the transaction in a bound book with numbered pages) who sells the gun. If more than one handgun is purchased at a time, a Multiple Purchase form is filled out, and forwarded to the BATF for their records. Firearms transaction records of legitimate licensed dealers, though stored in this decentralized paper-based manner, are still readily accessible and traceable by law enforcement on request, if, for instance, a gun used to commit a crime needs to be traced to its original point of sale. The records include the gun make, model, caliber, and information about the original purchaser, as well as the gun's unique serial number. Wholesale transactions, between dealers and manufacturers (or importers), and among dealers, are noted in the bound book, so tracing a firearm involves calling the manufacturer and tracing it down through these records to the point of sale. All weapons covered by the National Firearms Act of 1934 (see Appendix I) are recorded by the BATF in their centralized National Firearms Registry. If a licensed dealer goes out of business, all records of its firearms transactions are acquired by the BATF, but the Bureau is forbidden by law from computerizing these records so as to create a national registry of non-NFA weapons. (Nevertheless, the Bureau's current policies, such as raising the licensing fees, have driven many dealers out of business, and the Bureau is now working to computerize the records of defunct licensees, a direct violation of the expressed intent of Congress, and Federal law. The BATF, in its defense, claims that it is merely using its computers to index the paper records, and not compiling them into a centralized list of non-NFA weapons and their purchasers.) Such national registration could be used, as it often has been used in the past in particular locales, not to trace guns used in crime, but to aid in the confiscation of firearms from the public at large. In 1967, New York City required that all owners of rifles and shotguns register their guns with the police, and obtain a license to own what was_already_their property. Later, in 1992, New York City banned the ownership of most semi-automatic rifles, and even certain other types of rifles, claiming (falsely) that they were "assault rifles" (see 3.3). The existence of the registration lists enabled police to send out threatening letters to gun owners demanding that they surrender what had been, until that time, their legal property, without compensation. Police even went door-to-door demanding that gun owners turn over their weapons, even though they had not been found guilty of committing any crime (other than that they were violating the "gun control" law), and many of the guns which were prohibited cost several hundred, or even thousands of dollars. Registration lists, in other countries, while produced with perhaps the best intentions, have later been used by tyrannical governments to disarm political opponents or targeted minorities, such as happened with registration lists generated by the Weimar Republic when the Nazis came to power in Germany. Anti-semitic laws were passed requiring that Jews turn in their weapons, which most Jews dutifully did, unaware of the horror of the Shoah which awaited. "Gun control" schemes, such as these, have contributed to aiding and abetting genocides throughout this century (see 3.3 and 4.0). For gun registration laws to be useful in solving crimes, some rather unlikely things all have to happen. The gun must be used in the crime, recovered by the police at the scene or from the suspect, the suspect must have fled the scene, leaving only the gun to directly tie him to the crime, and the suspect must have registered the gun using his true name or unique identifying marks like fingerprints, or the owner of the gun must be able to provide police with a lead to the criminal. Further, the gun's serial number must still be readable, so as to identify that particular gun from all others of that make and model, and the ballistics characteristics of the gun cannot have changed very much from the time it was used in the crime. Firing the gun with an abrasive in the barrel, or placing it in conditions where it could rapidly corrode could easily change the ballistics, and grinding off or multiply stamping the serial number could produce an untraceable weapon. Such "sterile" guns are fairly common among criminals concerned about the traceability of their weapons, and evidently quite unconcerned about the fact that tampering with the serial number or other identifying marks on a gun is a serious crime in itself, not to mention the fact that mere possession of a gun by a convicted felon is also a crime. Registration of ammunition sales is laughable as a crime control measure, for several reasons. Stamping an individual unique serial number on every bullet of the_billions_of rounds of ammunition used lawfully by Americans each year is impossible enough, both due to lack of space on the bullet (how do you label shotgun shot?), and the sheer scope of the task (considering that you cannot repeat a number in subsequent years, because ammunition produced in one year isn't all shot up during the year, and it can remain stable and usable for many years); but expecting such an identifying mark to survive impacting a target, and not be torn to pieces or smashed into illegibility, is even more fanciful. (Nevertheless, "gun control" proponents haven't been joking when such schemes were proposed.) Serializing ammunition also ignores how easy it is to cast one's own bullets, or machine them, and load them into existing cases (and there are thousands of hobbyist reloaders out there who tinker with ammunition performance and accuracy in an effort to outdo the mass-produced ammunition made by companies such as Winchester, Federal, Remington, and others). Just recording the sales of ammunition in the manner required by law for recording gun purchases, as was once Federal law (see Firearms Owner's Protection Act, Appendix I), quickly generates mountains of useless paper, with no value in solving crimes. The overwhelming majority of ammunition used in this country is purchased and used lawfully, and the amount used by criminals to commit crimes in any given year could likely fit into a small closet. Most ammo is used for target shooting and hunting, and for keeping in practice for self defense, so if buying ammunition is in itself a suspicious act, half of America is guilty. 3.0.a "Guns ought to be licensed and registered like cars." See particularly LaPierre,_Guns, Crime, and Freedom,_ where he devotes an entire chapter (Chapter 7) to this. also _Statistical Abstract of the United States 1994,_U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, SuDoc# C3.134:994, p.784 also _Establishments Authorized to Operate Under the Supervision of The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms as of September 30, 1990,_ U.S. Department of the Treasury, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, SuDoc# T 70.2:Es 8 also National Safety Council Staff,_Accident Facts_(see above) In summary: Automobiles must only be licensed for use upon public roads, and licenses are not required for the purchase of one car (or many cars). There are no waiting periods or background checks on the purchase of cars. People who misuse their cars are punished for their own actions, and particular types of cars aren't banned or taken away from those who use them safely. Unlike driving on public roads, which is a privilege, owning a gun is a right explicitly protected by the U.S. Constitution (see 2.1). The right of self- defense is fundamental and inalienable, but requiring a license to own the means of self defense gives government the power to deny that right, for whatever reason. Waiting periods have a similar effect (see 3.2 and 3.2.a). Licensing of law-abiding citizens to carry a concealed weapon is permissible, because, like driving, the State has an interest in maintaining public safety by ensuring as best it can that only the law-abiding carry in public. However, some supporters of the civil right to keep and bear arms oppose requiring a permit for concealed carry, and prefer a permitless system like that of the state of Vermont, which simply punishes misuse of guns, rather than restricting their lawful use (see 3.8). Restricting the ability of law-abiding citizens to own and use firearms on their own property, and in defense of their homes and families, is unjust, and constitutes prior restraint (that is, punishment before any harm has been committed). Guns, which "gun control" supporters claim are "designed only to kill" were involved in about 1,400 accidental deaths in 1990, and an additional 18,800 suicides, and 13,600 murders, for a total of 33,800 firearm-related deaths. There are more than 200,000,000 firearms in private hands in the United States. By contrast, motor vehicles, which are not (supposedly) "designed to kill" were involved in about 46,000 accidental deaths in 1990, and an additional 1,900 people decided to suck on an exhaust pipe to end their lives, for a total of some 47,900 motor-vehicle related deaths. There are about 143,000,000 passenger cars in use in the United States. From looking objectively at the numbers, these_licensed_and_registered_transport devices routinely kill more people than the (for the most part)_unlicensed,_ and_unregistered_deadly weapons do. And it isn't because these devices "designed only to kill" aren't used a lot; U.S. gun owners go through about 4,000,000,000 (that's four BILLION) rounds of ammunition a year. Much has been made by some "gun control" advocates of the fact that there "are more gun dealers than gas stations" in the United States. While arguably true (there were 269,079 Federal Firearms Licenses (FFLs) in 1990 according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and approximately only 205,000 gasoline service stations and auto dealers _combined_in 1990), it doesn't require an federal background check to run a gas station or to be a car salesman. Those Federal Firearms License holders who had no retail location, often called "kitchen- table dealers" by anti-gun activists (and who until recently were a significant percentage of FFL holders), got their licenses primarily for the added convenience of being exempt from waiting periods, to facilitate purchases from out-of-state dealers or mail-order companies, and/or to simplify the purchase of restricted weapons, like machineguns (see National Firearms Act of 1934, Appendix I). There's nothing sinister about wanting to be exempt from the onerous regulations which the supporters of "gun control" have placed on the right to keep and bear arms, and, by undergoing the FBI background check required in order to get an FFL, these people have shown they are law-abiding. Such low-volume gun dealers have been the target of BATF policymakers recently however, and many have had their licenses revoked for not having a retail location, and have been turned in to local authorities and harassed for violation of zoning laws (see 3.0). It should be noted that in many localities, private sale of firearms by unlicensed individuals not considered by BATF to be "engaged in the business" are legal, and almost completely unregulated. After all, firearms_are_considered property, and so long as the owner does not knowingly sell or transfer a gun to a person who is underage or who is forbidden by law from owning firearms (such as felon), one may dispose of one's own property as one sees fit. How ironic that the low-volume dealers who have gone to the trouble and expense of obtaining an FFL are the ones the BATF has chosen to target, rather than going after armed felons and the illegal and/or unlicensed dealers who supply them. The fact is, most people use guns at least as responsibly as they use their automobiles, and the vast majority of gunowners never harm anyone. That being the case, why punish everyone for the wrongs committed by a few, whether they be criminal car drivers or criminals with guns? --- Adapted in part from a posting by William Gray ([g--y] at [subzero.winternet.com]) --- 3.0.b "Gun registration reduced homicides in Washington, D.C." see_Uniform Crime Reports for the United States, 19xx-1994,_ Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Dept. of Justice, SuDoc# J 1.14/7:9xx _Vital Statistics of the United States, 19xx-1991, Vol. II - Mortality Part B, National Center for Health Statistics, U.S. Public Health Service, SuDoc# HE 20.6210:9xx/v.2/pt.B _Statistical Abstract of the United States 19xx-1994, Bureau of the Census, U.S. Dept. of Commerce, SuDoc# C 3.134:9xx Loftin, Colin; McDowall, David; Wiersma, Brian; and Cottey, Talbert J., "Effects of Restrictive Licensing of Handguns on Homicide and Suicide in the District of Columbia," New England J. Medicine, v.325, n.23, pp.1615-1620 (1991) In summary: In September 1976, the District of Columbia, home to the federal government of the United States, enacted a highly restrictive "gun control" law which in effect "froze" the number of legally owned handguns in the District by stopping the issuance of new handgun licenses. In addition, new strenuous registration requirements were placed on the ownership of rifles and shotguns, and the law further required that all firearms be kept either under lock and key, or kept unloaded and disassembled when not being used for recreational purposes. Violations of the law were to be punished by ten days in jail and a $300 fine, and this penalty was later increased to a_year_in jail, and a_$1,000_fine. D.C. thus became a test case for the effectiveness of highly restrictive "gun control" laws at the local level. A 1991 article in the anti-gun New England Journal of Medicine attempted to show that the registration law in D.C. reduced the average (arithmetic mean) number of gun-related homicides per month following the implementation of the law. As with other "gun control" studies published in the New England Journal of Medicine (see 1.1), and as with a later (as yet unpublished) study of the effects of concealed carry reform laws (see 3.8.a) by researchers from the University of Maryland (to which the authors of the Loftin study were affiliated), this paper has serious flaws in its methodology. (For the sordid statistical details, please see Appendix IV.) The most curious aspect of the Loftin study is the particular span of years which the researchers chose to examine. The study period covers the years 1968-1987, which can best be described as a "plateau" period, before which murder/non-negligent manslaughter (MNNM) rates (as measured by the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports data) were much lower than during the period of study, and after which the MNNM rates in the District ballooned to record levels! (Ironically, in 1991, the very year Loftin, et al. published their work, the MNNM rate for Washington, D.C. had reached its all-time high.) As a result, Loftin, et al. begin calculating their averages in 1968, which (coincidentally) is the year before a large jump in the number of MNNM recorded by the FBI's UCR (195 to 287), and they end their study in 1987, just before another jump in MNNM numbers (another coincidence). In 1988, the MNNM number shot up to 369, from 225 in 1987. Data from years which would contradict the conclusions of the study are excluded from consideration (see below, and Appendix IV). The problems with the data used in the Loftin study don't end there, however. The study counts homicides, not MNNM as does the UCR data, and so does not distinguish between justifiable self-defense homicides, so-called "legal intervention" by the police, and unlawful homicides such as murder and manslaughter. The researchers consider only the absolute numbers of homicides, rather than homicide rates adjusted for changes in the size of the population. The use of average homicides per month as the measurement produces some very "noisy" data, and makes understanding the longer term trends more difficult (see also 3.8.a). The population of D.C. declined during the study period (1971-1983), declining from its peak in 1964, while the population of the suburbs which Loftin, et. al. used for controls was increasing during the study period. In 1994, D.C. had only 71% of the population it had in 1964, yet it had a MNNM rate 423% of the rate in 1964, which was prior to the enactment of "gun control" laws at the Federal and local levels! Despite declines in population in D.C., the MNNM rate has skyrocketed, putting to rest the notion that crowding necessarily results in greater murder rates. If that were true, the more-crowded D.C. of the 1960s would have had a high murder rate, while during the relatively less populated 1990s, the rate would have been expected to fall. The "prompt decline" in average monthly gun-related homicides which is the central claim made by Loftin, et al. in their study was very prompt indeed, since the homicide rate was already trending downward. The law only became effective at the end of September 1976, after which handgun owners had 60 days to register their guns, placing the effect of any of the law's criminal sanctions into late November 1976. The researchers note that there was a restraining order which went into effect at the beginning of December which prevented enforcement of the law for a 49-day period, ending in mid-February 1977. Curiously, however, the rate of MNNM was already declining in 1976, and for most of that year, the law wasn't in effect at all! Prompt action indeed, for a "gun control" law to begin reducing MNNM prior to it even being in force... Even using the same source and similar methods as the Loftin study, it can be found that for the period 1964 to 1991 (adding four years to each end of the study period) the average annual homicide rate (using numbers from the National Center for Health Statistics, rather than the FBI's UCR) was 27.1 per 100,000 population prior to the law ('64-'76), and 37.4 per 100,000 population after the law was in force. Considering the absolute numbers rather than the rates, there was an average of 203 homicides per year prior to the law, and an average of 234 homicides per year after the law, during the same 1964-1991 period. Clearly, a more populous D.C. (with more guns available) was a safer place to live during the 1960s than a less populous D.C. with some of the most stringent "gun control" laws in the nation is today. --- Adapted in part from a posting by Kevin M. Okleberry ([k--m--y] at [cc.usu.edu]) --- 3.1 "Guns increase the lethality of crime." see_The Citizen's Guide to Gun Control,_by Franklin E. Zimring and Gordon Hawkins,_Macmillan, ISBN 0-02-934830-7 (1987) [The authors present their case in favor of "gun control," based in part upon the lethality of firearms, termed the "instrumentality effect" in the study of violence. Though somewhat dated, and factually incorrect regarding a few issues (notably the provisions of the 1968 Gun Control Act, the concept of "stopping power," and the notion that the majority of homicides are committed by individuals without prior histories of violence), the book offers a reasoned (rather than paranoiac) airing of the anti-gun viewpoint.] In summary: This argument ignores that, in the absence of guns, the younger, more agile, and/or physically stronger criminal has much less difficulty in overpowering his victim, particularly if the victim is elderly or disabled. This is certainly true in the case where there are multiple assailants, since, in the absence of firearms, there is no way for the physically weaker to overcome strength in numbers (see 1.1.a). While the existence of guns no doubt enables people who might not otherwise easily commit violence to do so, it also increases the ability of victims to resist violent attacks, when they might not otherwise be able to do so effectively. Guns are indeed "the great equalizer," and removing them from the hands of the public at large returns us at best to the "law of the jungle," where the weaker are prey to the stronger; and at worst affects only the law-abiding, leaving criminals to obtain guns by illegal means which they can then use with impunity against the otherwise defenseless (see 3.8). Proficiency with firearms is no guarantee of survival for potential victims of crime, but it is surely better than submission to the mercy of criminals, especially when that submission is compelled by government through "gun control" laws (see 1.1). Crime is not random, and criminal predators often choose the weakest among us for their prey, attacking in groups to better their chances of success. Guns may increase the lethality of crime, but for whom? The criminals, who have youth and strength and their partners in crime on their side, and who could kill by any number of means without a firearm? Or the victims of crime, who all too often lack any other means to resist? 3.2 "A waiting period saves lives, and it might even have stopped John Hinckley, Jr. from wounding Jim Brady (for whom the Brady national waiting-period law was named)." See particularly LaPierre,_Guns, Crime, and Freedom,_ where he devotes an entire chapter (Chapter 5) to this. In summary: Waiting periods, ostensibly for the purpose of background checks, are ineffective against determined criminals, who can obtain illegal guns by a variety of means, including "strawman purchases" by individuals with clean records, theft, and purchase from illegal dealers and/or smugglers. All of these channels are illegal (and therefore by definition unavailable to the law-abiding), and avoid both waiting periods and background checks. Background checks, in principle, can be done in the manner of a credit card transaction, if appropriate databases are established. In the absence of such databases, the personnel and paperwork requirements placed upon law enforcement officers detract from time and resources needed for combating more serious crimes. Establishing such readily accessible databases would greatly aid law enforcement in the apprehension of criminal suspects (particularly fugitives), and seems a good idea on its own merits, aside from "gun control". Waiting periods did not and would not stop John Hinckley, Jr. (who had a clean criminal record, and whose mental health history had been covered up by his wealthy parents, and who purchased a .22 revolver in Texas several_months_before his attempt to assassinate President Reagan), or convicted mass murderer Colin Ferguson (who purchased the 9mm Ruger in April he used to attack passengers on the Long Island Railroad in December after undergoing a fifteen-day waiting period and mandatory background check in California), or the murderer of John Lennon (who bought his .38 revolver in Hawaii, while working as a_security_guard_for a Waikiki apartment building, despite a violent marriage, and being treated for a suicide attempt!). These cases point up one of the major impediments to effective background checks, which is the confidentiality of mental health and drug treatment records, as well as the difficulty of defining just what type of "mental health history" is sufficient disqualification for denying a person their civil right to keep and bear arms. Should people treated for clinical depression lose their right to protect themselves from violent crime? How about people with no criminal record, but who've sought marriage counseling? Recovering alcoholics or those who've abused other drugs at some time in the past? Far from stopping "crimes of passion," waiting periods can even make matters worse, if an abused spouse is denied the best means of self-protection, while the abuser can use whatever weapon is at hand (a knife, blunt trauma, strangulation, battery-- or a gun) to kill or maim. "Crimes of passion" are often the culmination of a long pattern of abuse, and anti-stalking laws and restraining orders, like waiting periods, only affect the law-abiding. The victims of violence in these situations may realize only too late that they need to defend themselves, and in such a situation, a waiting period (which considers everyone a potential criminal)_can_kill. People who already own and use guns responsibly need not wait for a background check, since they wouldn't require a_new_gun (or a gun at all) if they were inclined to commit a crime. People who already commit violent crimes with guns aren't going to be deterred by another law, and are already prohibited by law from possessing guns if previously convicted of a serious crime. 3.2.a "The Brady Act has stopped thousands of violent felons from getting guns since its enactment in 1993." see_Uniform Crime Reports for the United States, 1992,_(see above) Houston Post, 2/28/95, p.A1 In summary: According to the report released on February 28, 1995 by the Clinton Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, the Brady handgun waiting period law (see Appendix I.) has been a success. But a success when compared to what? BATF's study of the effect of the law in 30 jurisdictions which had not had a waiting period before, conducted between March of 1994 and January 1995 showed that of 441,545 applications or background checks run, some 15,506 were denied, or about 3.5%. However, the BATF study admits that only 4,365 of these were convicted felons, which brings the denials down to 0.99%. Of the total denials, 649 were illegal drug users, which is not a violent crime, but is a felony, and would disqualify a gun purchaser. Excluding this nonviolent category of felony from the count of convicted felons results in 0.84% denials, assuming there is no overlap between the violent felons and the drug users listed in the study. The Clinton Administration estimates that some 40,000 persons were denied under the Brady Act nationwide. Assuming that's correct, then the 15,506 included in the study constitute 38.8% of the national total, and the 441,545 checks run in the study are an equivalent proportion of the total checks run for the nation. This means that some 1,141,000 background checks were run, and assuming that this turned down violent felons at the rate of 0.84%, about 9,600 violent felons were turned down nationwide. If each check took 10 minutes to run, this amounts to some 11,410,000 minutes of law enforcement time, or 190,167 hours, or 15,847 twelve-hour workdays. If a law enforcement officer typically works a five day week, with twelve hour shifts, this amounts to 61 cop/years, or about 37 violent felons a day. In other words, a reasonable estimate of the number of full-time law enforcement officers the Act has taken off the streets is 61. If the amount of time it takes to run each check is greater than 10 minutes, the number of officers taken off the street by the Act is even higher. Divided over the nation's law enforcement officers, a total of about 550,000, this amounts to about twenty minutes work for every cop in the country, with each cop catching 0.017 violent felons during the year. In other words, you have to have about 12 cops working an hour each before you catch one violent felon by running Brady Act background checks! Or, put another way, for each 100 cops that spent_all_day_ doing background checks, you would catch about 61 violent felons. Consider, in reality, that added workload is borne by only a fraction of the total officers, so in rural counties, with low numbers of law enforcement officers per capita, Brady checks may well consume a significant proportion of their workday. It's no wonder that rural law enforcement officers are suing the Clinton Administration because of an unfunded mandate, and the impositions of the law on local law enforcement have been found unconstitutional under the Tenth Amendment in five jurisdictions. (See Appendix I.) At the same time, it's important not to forget that 30,400 people who were not violent felons were denied purchase during the year, though perhaps as many as 1,677 of these were illegal drug users, and 177 were mentally disabled. This gives the Brady checks a false positive rate of about 2.5%, or one out of every 40 people who apply are unjustly denied, some 117 each workday. At the same time, 37 violent felons get caught each workday. The act would seem to "catch" law-abiding citizens at a rate three times as high as it "catches" violent felons! The proportion of violent felons "caught" by the Brady check might be expected to diminish as criminals shift exclusively to other means of acquiring weapons. As a comparison, an estimated 742,130 arrests were made in 1992 for violent crime, or about 2,854 each workday. As a crime-fighting measure, Brady checks are a tiny blip on the screen, and inconvenience both police and law-abiding citizens on a daily basis. The possibility exists, with so many false positives, that the Act can be abused to deny legitimate purchases due to_any_legal infraction, like a speeding ticket, and would require going to court to show that your record does not disqualify you from owning a gun. The idea that violent criminals get more than a small fraction of their guns through legitimate channels, or that the Brady Act will thwart the acquisition of handguns by determined criminals to any significant degree, and lead to more arrests, is unsupported by the current evidence. By the time the background checks are run, a criminal can be long gone, or have already acquired a firearm by theft or through an illegal dealer. An instant background check system, like that supported by the NRA, might help put more police out on the street, reduce the hassle and delay to the law-abiding, and provide an occasional opportunity to make a quick arrest. During the Brady Act's first year, it has resulted in only_four_federal prosecutions. 3.3 "No one needs an assault weapon, they have no sporting purpose, they're only intended to kill people." See particularly LaPierre,_Guns, Crime, and Freedom,_where he devotes an entire chapter (Chapter 6) to this. also Madison, James, Hamilton, Alexander, and Jay, John, _The Federalist_#46 Halbrook,_That Every Man Be Armed_ Cottrol and Diamond, Georgetown Law J. Kleck,_Point Blank,_pp.70-82 Simkin, Zelman, and Rice,_Lethal Laws,_(see above) _Crime and the Sacking of America: The Roots of Chaos,_ by Andrew P. Thomas, Brassey's, ISBN 0-275-94913-3 (1994) also Aymette v. State, Tennessee Reports v.21 (2 Humphreys) p.154 (1840) cited in U.S. v. Miller, U.S. Reports v.307 p.174, Supreme Court Reporter v.59 p.816, Lawyer's Edition v.83 p.1206 (1939) In summary: So-called "assault weapons" are not machineguns (which have been heavily taxed and restricted since 1934), and are less powerful than many commonly used hunting rifles, like the .30-06 . They only fire one shot per pull of the trigger, not a "spray of bullets," and operate under the same principle as other semi-automatics. They are defined in law primarily according to their appearance, which often resembles a military-issue "select-fire" rifle or machinegun, including a pistol grip, a folding stock, a flash suppressor or muzzle brake, a barrel shroud, a bayonet, and/or a grenade launcher. None of these features makes these guns any more deadly, and even the most ominously named, the "grenade launcher," amounts to a metal clip at the muzzle of the gun which can hold a rifle grenade (the actual grenades, however, are considered "destructive devices" and cannot be sold to individuals without an FBI background check, and the payment of a hefty tax to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms on the sale of_each_grenade). So-called "assault weapons", like their military counterparts, may use the same ammunition as other small and intermediate sized game hunting rifles, and can accept a magazine holding a large supply of ammunition. Like their military counterparts, they are often equipped with lighter, more durable polymer or composite stocks, which don't require as much maintenance as wood stocks, and aren't so heavy to carry. These guns are often used for "varmint" control, competition target shooting, small game hunting, and other lawful purposes. In point of fact, their military counterparts were designed primarily to wound (rather than kill) enemy soldiers; since a wounded soldier must be carried from the battlefield by others, and continues to consume enemy resources, without continuing to be a threat. That, combined with lighter weight both for the gun and its ammunition, made the assault rifle (which, unlike the term "assault weapon," has a precise military definition) a military advantage over older infantry weapons which were often based on heavier caliber hunting guns. The right of civilians in a free society to possess "military- looking," or even actual military weapons, is essential if a monopoly of force is not to reside in the hands of government (see 2.0.a), where history shows the potential for far greater abuses and crimes exists than are possible for any deranged individual. Every major genocide in the twentieth century has been preceded by laws which disarmed the eventual victims of their ability to resist the progressive imposition of murderous tyranny. Once granted a monopoly of force, government acquires power that cannot be readily opposed or revoked. (See 4.0) And, if government fails to act, as in time of natural disaster or a riot, the ability to defend against roving gangs or to deter looting requires a dependable, versatile, and credible deterrent to whatever threat may appear, and possibly even a means to obtain small game for survival. Or, if government is too far away to act quickly, for instance in remote rural areas, or miles from shore out to sea, people faced with attack by packs of wild animals, human predators, or hijacking pirates must be able to respond with all necessary force, in order to preserve their lives from harm. Rifles of any kind are very rarely used in crime, since they are more difficult to carry and conceal than are handguns, and "military- looking" rifles are generally more expensive than both handguns and common long guns (rifles, shotguns) used for hunting (see 3.5). Further, the Supreme Court has ruled that weapons having no "reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia" may be taxed in interstate commerce, clearly implying that weapons having such reasonable relationship with the militia are those which the Second Amendment protects the right of the people to keep and bear, moreso even than other types of weapons. In other words, the arms protected by the Second Amendment are those "such as are usually employed in civilized warfare, and that constitute the ordinary military equipment." Prior to the passage of President Clinton's Crime Bill in 1994 (see Appendix I.), which included a controversial (and unconstitutional) ban on "assault weapons," sales as well as manufacturing of the to-be- banned weapons increased dramatically, and soon after the ban passed, it was revealed that Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D - WV), a supporter of the ban, in fact owned one of the weapons on the ban list, a Colt AR-15. President Clinton has admitted publicly that he believes that as many as twenty of the Democrat legislators who supported his gun ban were defeated for re-election on the basis of their votes. In the November 1994 elections, Democrats lost majorities in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate. 3.4 "There's certainly no reason to allow the sale of cop-killer ammunition which can penetrate bulletproof vests." see_Uniform Crime Reports: Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted 1982-1985,_FBI (see above) In summary: Claiming that particular types of bullets or guns are responsible for particular types of crimes, rather than simply holding individuals who misuse guns responsible for their actions, is the classic myth of "gun control". In point of fact, any weapon can be a cop-killer in the hands of violent criminals. Often, it's the police officer's own sidearm which is grabbed by criminals in a struggle and used against him (see 1.2). Armor-piercing handgun ammunition, originally developed for law enforcement use in 1966, acquired public notoriety in 1982 when a major U.S. television network, NBC, demonstrated the ability of such bullets to penetrate soft body armor like that worn by police officers. Other networks and media outlets followed the "story," despite the fact that a little research would have revealed that common hunting ammunition like that used in large caliber rifles and in shotguns can also penetrate bullet-resistant vests. Rather than diminishing the threat, media publicity about the use of body armor by police contributed to some criminals redirecting their aim to the head, neck, and other unprotected areas of police, instead of buying expensive exotic ammunition or sawing off rifles and shotguns to achieve the same effect. [Officers shot in the head and killed while wearing bullet- resistant vests: 1982 - 5, 1983 - 9, 1984 - 13, 1985 - 8] Further, the "cop-killer bullet" scare, like the recent "Black Rhino" hoax (see 3.4.a), took place despite there never having been one_law enforcement death resulting from such exotic ammunition penetrating an officer's protective body armor. Two shooting incidents occurred during the 1970s in which armor-piercing handgun ammunition was used against police officers. In 1976, a Florida State Highway Patrolman, Philip Black, and a visiting Canadian police officer, Donald Irwin, were killed in Broward County, FL by an assailant using AP ammunition, but neither of the two officers was wearing a protective vest. In the only other such incident, in 1974, Officer John Rixham, Jr., in Woodlawn, Maryland was shot through his vest by an attacker using AP ammunition, and seriously wounded. A ban on sales of any ammunition capable of penetrating soft body armor was proposed in Congress, but initially opposed by the National Rifle Association on grounds that the bill would prohibit most ammunition used by hunters and sportsmen, in addition to the so-called "cop-killer" AP ammunition. A revised bill, protecting both police and the interests of hunters and sport shooters, was passed and signed into law with the cooperation and assistance of the NRA, but not before anti-gun groups had made the most of the adverse publicity as a wedge issue between NRA and law enforcement. Recently, President Clinton has called for banning any type of ammunition which can penetrate a bullet-resistant vest "like a knife through hot butter." In effect, he has resurrected the original "cop-killer bullet" ban proposal, which would have classified most ammunition, including that used by hunters and sportsmen, as armor-piercing, and thus prohibited. The President's proposal would also give to the BATF increased power to prohibit the sale of new ammunition by reclassifying it as armor-piercing, without requiring further action by Congress. This approach is seen by many gunowners as a "back-door" means of gun prohibition, and by the President's critics as an obvious political ploy. 3.4.a "Black Rhino ammunition, made from space age plastics, which can penetrate bulletproof vests and then fragment..." See Newsweek, Dec. 19, 1994 New York Times, Dec. 27, 1994, A10; Dec. 28, 1994, A8; Dec. 29, 1994, A16 and Wall Street Journal, Dec. 29, 1994, B2 and Code of Federal Regulations, title 27, chapter I, section 178.92 (b) [cited by lawyers as 27 CFR I, S 178.92 (b)] In summary: "Gun control" supporter David Keen, chief executive of Signature Products, a Huntsville, AL based defense contractor, staged a publicity stunt late in 1994 by claiming his company was about to market "Rhino" ammunition, capable of causing "nearly instantaneous" death, "a horrific wound," with "no way to stop the bleeding"; as well as an armor-piercing version, dubbed "Black Rhino" (suggestive of Winchester's "Black Talon," a brand name of non-armor-piercing handgun ammunition which was voluntarily withdrawn from public sale after "gun control" groups seized upon the name's publicity value) which Keen claimed would penetrate bullet-resistant vests and then "disintegrate" into "lethal shrapnel" "hurled into vital organs" just like the non- armor-piercing version. The initial story ran as a line or two in_Newsweek_magazine's "Periscope" column the week of December 19th (written by Newsweek's Peter Kotell), but the "Rhino" was first given national prominence in a story written by Associated Press reporter Robert Dvorchak, which was released on the AP wire the day after Christmas, when many businesses and government agencies (like the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms) would be closed, making fact-checking the story and its sensationalistic claims difficult. The Associated Press, for its part, promoted the story to editors with a notation that it was of special interest. Bob Walker, a lobbyist for Handgun Control, Inc. was quoted in the Dvorchak story, along with the alleged manufacturer, who Dvorchak wrote "acknowledges taking calls from worried police". Pro 'gun control' legislators like U.S. Rep. Charles Schumer (D - N.Y.) and Sen. Daniel Moynihan (D - N.Y.) quickly proposed extending the earlier "cop-killer bullet" ban (see 3.4) to include Keen's "Rhino" ammunition. National Rifle Association lobbyist Tanya Metaksa issued a statement saying "This has all the trappings of a hoax. What we have is an outbreak of mob journalism centering on the dubious claims of a would-be manufacturer." The claims could hardly have been_more_dubious to people familiar with firearms and the science of ballistics. Pre-fragmented ammunition for handguns, such as the Glaser Safety Slug, has been available for many years and is sold in part on the basis that it is less likely to penetrate walls or ricochet from hard surfaces, lessening the danger to people in adjoining rooms or apartments from discharge of a firearm indoors, as in a home-defense situation. This type of bullet typically makes a large, shallow wound, since the fragments produced are each a small fraction of the total bullet weight, and much of the inertia and energy of the bullet is expended as the bullet fragments, (something like Indy cars flinging parts everywhere, carrying away the energy of hitting the wall) resulting in limited penetration. Additionally, the binder or matrix containing the fragments makes the bullet lighter, and less dense, than if it was made of solid metal. The effectiveness of fragmenting ammunition in rapidly stopping an attacker is generally considered to be less than for non-fragmenting ammunition, like hollowpoints. The claims made for "Black Rhino" ammunition were even more preposterous, since the very characteristics which make a bullet capable of defeating soft body armor (that it be made of hard, non-deformable metal, preferably pointed, and that it have as high a kinetic energy as possible) are the exact opposite of the characteristics which would allow it to fragment. After Keen's inflated and sensationalistic claims were demonstrated false in independent tests by ABC-TV's_Nightline,_and it was revealed that Keen did not even have a license to manufacture ammunition (or armor-piercing ammunition, which is a separate license) as required by federal law, the company announced that it would not be marketing "Black Rhinos" after all. Signature Products, after attempting to sell its manufacturing rights for $500,000 (with an ad in_American Firearms Industry_magazine) is currently marketing "Rhino Ammo" under the name "Razor Ammo". That press reports about the "Black Rhino" would be so blatantly inaccurate is not particularly surprising, considering that Winchester's Black Talon (a hollowpoint designed to expand on impact, so as not to overpenetrate) has itself on occasion been misreported as an armor-piercing round. While all armor-piercing rounds are required by (somewhat melodramatic) federal regulations to_be_black at the tip, not all "Black Bullets Of Death" are armor-piercing. (The Glaser Safety Slug, in its marketing savvy, is tipped with blue plastic.) (continued) ----------------------------------------------------------------------