Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns,alt.society.civil-liberty Subject: Pro-gun local op-ed piece Date: Wed, 21 Jul 1993 01:10:29 GMT Greetings all. I was paging through our local paper, the Santa Cruz Sentinel, on Sunday and came across this letter. It is an excellent rebuttal to an earlier letter calling for more gun control legislation in response to the nation wide "health crisis" caused by firearms. It was chock full of the usual anti-gun misinformation propogated by Handgun Control Inc. I was very pleasantly surprised to see the following rebuttal considering how anti-2nd amendment the Sentinel (and Santa Cruz) is. I think Mr. Maximovich did an excellent job. I wish there were more letters like this being printed. But enough, on to the article. ============================================================================ Santa Cruz Sentinel July 18, 1993 op-ed piece by Milan Maximovich [insert of picture of Milan Maximovich with quote "Risk is inherent in] [a free society."] Gun control editorial really missed the mark -------------------------------------------- I was disappointed in the July 7 Sentinel editorial, "Gun control becoming a national health issue." You claim, for example, that "nearly 5,000 American children are killed with guns every year." What is your source for that figure? I've seen that number tossed around recently; it appears to come from the recent New York Times ad purchased by Handgun Control Inc., an avowed anti-gun organization. I would expect a responsible newspaper to review claims submitted by a group with a political ax to grind. If you had, you would have found the number to be about 3,700, not 5,000. (See "Gun Play," by David B. Kopel, Reason, July 1993, pp. 19-32) But what's an exaggeration of 35 percent in the name of a worthy cause? But looking deeper, you'll find this figure swollen by the inclusion of 18-year-old muggers, rapists and armed robbers shot by their intended victims; 19 year-old crack dealers done in by their competition; and the body count of the gang wars raging throughout our central cities. Hardly the "innocent children" your editorial infers. A truly disturbing figure, however, is that more than 2,000 young people committed suicide with guns in 1990. However, teen-agers are still less likely to commit suicide than any older age group. (Same source). In a 1991 book, "Point Blank," Florida State University criminologist Gary Kleck analyzed suicide rates and gun laws in every American city with a population over 100,000. He concluded that no gun laws had a statistical effect on the rate of suicide. People who wanted to kill themselves found a way to do it. The remaining area of concern is accidental death due to firearm discharge. According to the National Safety Council, 227 children under the age of 15 were killed by accidental firearms discharge in 1988. This represents a 48 percent drop from 1974, even though the number of guns per capita has increased. Yet one could argue that even this figure is still far too high. A 1991 study by the General Accounting Office shows that 84 percent of gun accidents result from a violation of elementary gun safety rules. And it only stands to reason that youngsters who can take friends to a supervised and safe shooting facility where basic safety is taught and observed are less likely to be intrigued with and mishandle a pistol found at home. Given such considerations, I would expect anyone seriously concerned about gun safety to applaud and support programs like the National Rifle Association's "Eddie Eagle" Elementary Gun Safety Education Program for children, or positive programs initiated by local concerned organizations. A fine example is the Scotts Valley Sportsmen's Club's gun safety and training program for children. I've yet to see such support from the Sentinel. But it's not the inflated and distorted statistics, the slipshod research, the political bias or the lack of support for those pursuing effective answers to real problems that bother me most about the editorial. Those are merely the signs of sloppy journalism, and the Sentinel pays the price in lost credibility. What is offensive is the cavalier attitude that liberties dearly won and defended by American blood over the last 220 years should be dismissed to embrace fuzzy political bromides. Specifically, that the Second Amendment liberties, which embody the right to self-defense, should be sacrificed to some nebulous so-called "health crisis." Let's carry this fuzzy thinking one step further. Surely newspaper articles and editorials can result in heightened public awareness and tensions concerning emotionally charged issues such as abortion. Such tensions can and have led to violence and the loss of lives. In the name of "public safety," wouldn't it therefore be prudent to subject all Sentinel articles and editorials to an appropriate governmental review board to ensure their content is non-inflammatory? No, it wouldn't. The First Amendment takes precedence over the whims and politics of would-be censors. The principle involved in the two examples is the same. The price we pay for liberty, for not attempting to control and regulate all human behavior, includes an increased level of risk. Risk is inherent in a free society and cannot be eliminated by legislation. What can be all too easily eliminated are individual liberties. The naive hope that government can solve society's problems by passing laws is dangerous and foolish. And sacrificing individual liberties on the altar of political expediency is far worse. Over 200 years ago, in a time of extreme crisis for an emerging nation, Benjamin Franklin noted, "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." I can think of little to add. {blurb: Milan Maximovich is a staff engineer at Lockheed Missiles & Space Co. in Sunnyvale. He lives in the Santa Cruz mountains.} --