Alex, I'm not sure how to answer your post. Do we live in a nation of law abiding citizens, where court decisions are significant at all? I had asked Freddy some time ago to find and show me a recent court decision supporting the interpretation of the second amendment as freedom for individuals to own handguns. I did that because several posters had said basically that if I didn't like the second amendment, why not try to repeal it? Well, why try to repeal it if it is not about individual gun ownership? I have better things to fight about!!!
The United States is an extremely violent society. England has just totally outlawed handguns, and the trend in crowded, "civilized" societies is moving in that direction. The N.R.A. has become increasingly the voice of the militia movement. Why do we need grenades and armor-piercing bullets in the hands of individuals? When they called government agents "jack-booted thugs", even President Bush was offended and cancelled his lifetime membership.
Look at the recent initiative in Washington state. A lot of citizens were concerned at increasing gun violence, and tried to pass an initiative that would require trigger locks on firearms, and either passing a test on gun safety, or taking an eight-hour course. To me these seem like very reasonable rules, as does the five-day waiting period to buy a weapon, incidentally. Even Bill Gates gave $35,000 to the campaign. The N.R.A. came in from out of state with $5,000,000 and launched a campaign that resulted in the initiative being defeated, although in earlier polls it had been winning.
I think this society is actually insane in its insistence on the rights of individuals to own guns, particularly weapons of mass destruction. Many policemen were N.R.A. members when it was mainly an organization of hunters, but it has become much more radical now, and the police are campaigning for tighter gun restrictions. Can you please tell me why we all should be able to have guns? Do you really think that if the government became unpleasant and the citizens had an uprising, you could fight the advanced weaponry in government hands? If not, then what is it about your freedom that is absolutely contingent on gun ownership? To defend yourself? Statistically, if you have a gun in your home it is more likely to be used against you when a bad guy breaks in.
When I posted figures here about how many American lives are lost in gun accidents and crimes of passion, no one seemed to think them significant, like it was sort of a joke. I really don't understand that, because 86% of all the gun-related violence in the civilized world takes place in America. Here is something I found interesting about the ulterior motives and marketing machismo of the N.R.A.:
Joe Camel with Feathers: How the NRA with Gun and Tobacco
Industry Dollars Uses its Eddie Eagle Program to Market Guns
to Kids
Key Findings
The primary goal of the National Rifle Association's Eddie Eagle program is not to
safeguard children, but to protect the interests of the NRA and the firearms industry by
making guns more acceptable to children and youth. The Eddie Eagle program
employs strategies similar to those utilized by America's tobacco industry-from
youth "educational" programs that are in fact marketing tools to the use of appealing
cartoon characters that aim to put a friendly face on a hazardous product. The
hoped-for result is new customers for the industry and new members for the NRA.
Violence Policy Center research reveals for the first time that manufacturers of
firearms, ammunition, and related products directly contribute hundreds of thousands
of tax-deductible dollars to the NRA through its "affiliate," The NRA Foundation. The
Foundation in turn then makes "grants" to the NRA to fund the Eddie Eagle program.
Financial contributors to The NRA Foundation include Saturday Night Special or "junk
gun" manufacturers, rifle and shotgun manufacturers, and manufacturers of
ammunition and reloading equipment. Donation of land of unknown value has also been
made by industry members to The NRA Foundation for endowment programs. Industry
members have also facilitated the donation of more than a million dollars to the NRA
through point-of-purchase dealer and catalog sale programs.
Violence Policy Center research reveals for the first time that the tobacco industry has
contributed tens of thousands of dollars to the NRA through The NRA Foundation.
Many of the marketing problems being faced today by the NRA and the firearms
industry are, in fact, similar to those faced in the past by the cigarette and smokeless
tobacco industries. Faced with declines in its primary market, the gun industry and the
NRA, like the tobacco industry before them, have expanded their market to include
women and children-even though guns, like tobacco, cannot legally be sold to
children or youth. Yet while the tobacco industry denies that it is working to entice
children to use its product, the NRA and the gun industry openly acknowledge it.
The NRA uses Eddie Eagle as a lobbying tool in its efforts to derail the passage of
child access prevention (CAP) and mandatory trigger lock laws-on both the state and
federal levels.
Undercover interviews conducted by the Violence Policy Center and the Global Survival
Network with NRA staff at gun industry trade shows confirm that Eddie Eagle is not
only a thinly disguised marketing tool used to "soften up guns" in the words of one
NRA staffer-essentially Joe Camel with feathers-but also acts as the "the clean-up
committee" to help burnish the NRA's public image after gun control battles.
A laudatory article distributed by The NRA Foundation as a promotional flyer
concludes, "The Foundation is a mechanism by which the firearms industry can
promote shooting sports education, cultivating the next generation of shooters.
Translate that to future customers." Or as one NRA Foundation official quoted in the
article put it, "The industry is an indirect beneficiary of this program." The article also
notes that The NRA Foundation is "getting some major league support from several
giants in the industry" and one industry member estimated that as many as 20 firearm
industry companies or their CEOs were involved in the Foundation's fundraising efforts.
In its attempts to use the credibility of other organizations to promote the Eddie Eagle
program, the NRA has misrepresented awards granted to the program by the National
Safety Council, which has issued a series of sharp rebukes to the NRA. [pp. 42-46]
The NRA has also erroneously claimed endorsement by D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse
Resistance Education) and the Black United Fund, Inc.
Rather than recognizing the inherent danger firearms in the home pose to children, and
the often irresponsible firearms storage behavior of adults, the Eddie Eagle program
places the onus of safety and responsibility on the children themselves.
Public health researchers have found that "gun safety" programs like Eddie Eagle are
ineffective in preventing unintentional death and injury from firearms. In an educational
brochure for parents, "Keep Your Family Safe From Firearm Injury," the American
Academy of Pediatrics recommends that "ecause even the most well-behaved
children are curious by nature and will eagerly explore their environment, the safest
thing is to not keep a gun at home."
As I recall, Alex, you are not an N.R.A. member, but it is primarily the N.R.A. who continually keeps this country hyped up about gun ownership as a freedom issue. I just think it is a lot more complicated than that, a vestige of the frontier mentality in America and a very violent way to live. Why are we going in the opposite direction from other first world societies at the end of the twentieth century? I believe there are a whole lot of ulterior motives, and a lot of nefarious special interests involved.
It's like some men aren't men without their guns. This just doesn't make sense to me!!!
Introduction
Firearm injuries result in substantial
health care costs, trauma, and death.[1]
Firearms are the second leading cause of
traumatic death related to a consumer
product in the United States and are the
second most frequent cause of death
overall for Americans ages 15 to 24.[2]
Since 1960, more than three quarters of a
million Americans have died in firearm
suicides, homicides, and unintentional
injuries. In 1995 alone, 35,957 Americans
died by gunfire: 18,503 in firearm
suicides, 15,835 in firearm homicides,
1,225 in unintentional shootings, and 394
in firearm deaths of unknown intent.[3]
And nearly three times that number are
treated in emergency rooms each year for
non-fatal firearm injuries.[4] Today, guns
are outpaced only by motor vehicles as a
cause of fatal injury stemming from a
household or recreational consumer
product. The federal Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates
that by the year 2003, firearms will
supplant motor vehicles as the leading
cause of product-related death in our
nation.[5]
Contrary to popular perception, most gun
death in America is not crime related.
Most firearm deaths stem not from
homicide (15,835 reported to the National
Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) in
1995) but suicide (18,503 reported to the
NCHS in 1995). And even for those who
are murdered with firearms[a], each year
the Uniform Crime Reports published by
the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
reveals that the majority of homicide
victims die not as the result of criminal
activity, but because of arguments
between people who know each other.
In addition to the human toll exacted by
firearms, the monetary cost-as
measured in hospitalization, rehabilitation,
and lost wages-is staggering. In 1990
the lifetime economic cost of firearms
violence totaled $20.4 billion.[6] Other
less tangible costs associated with
firearms violence include the fear that
permeates the streets of our cities, the
gnawing concern for our children's safety,
and, perhaps worst of all, a debilitating
hopelessness that anything can ever be
done to stop the bloodshed.
The reality of firearms violence is that it
stems not from "guns in the wrong
hands," but from the virtually unregulated
distribution of an inherently dangerous
consumer product of which specific
categories-such as handguns and
assault weapons-have very limited utility
and inflict high costs on society in the
form of premature death and debilitating
injury. Identifying the variations in firearm
death and injury among groups provides
an opportunity to move beyond the
popular but narrow perception of firearms
violence as solely a crime issue to place
it in its proper perspective: a widespread
public health problem of which crime is
merely the most recognized aspect.
When compared to other industrialized
nations, the United States stands alone in
the number of its citizens felled by guns.
Earlier this year a study by the federal
Centers for Disease Control (CDC)
concluded that the United States leads
the industrialized world in rates of
firearm-related death among children. The
February 1997 CDC study, "Rates of
Homicide, Suicide, and Firearm-Related
Death Among Children-26 Industrialized
Countries," analyzed firearm-related
deaths for children under age 15 in 26
countries and found that 86 percent of the
deaths occurred in the U.S.[7]
However, while no one segment of
American society is immune to firearms
violence, there are those who bear a
disproportionate share of victimization.
Lower-income urban neighborhoods
consistently record higher rates of
homicide[8]-especially among young
males. Firearms suicide is most
prevalent in western[9] states, and rates
have remained highest among young adult
and elderly white males[10]. The nature of
victimization also varies among groups. In
its 1995 Uniform Crime Reports, the FBI
reports that while for men homicide was
intra-gender 89 percent of the time, nine
out of 10 female victims were slain by a
male.[11] The sections below provide an
overview of the differences in firearms
victimization among groups by sex, age,
and race.
a) Firearms were the weapons used in
approximately seven out of every ten
homicides committed in the United States
in 1995.
b) In his June 14, 1995 Journal of the
American Medical Association article,
"Race, Socioeconomic Status, and
Domestic Homicide," researcher Brandon
Centerwall affirmed that socioeconomic
factors were more important than race in
explaining variations in homicide rates.
While most of the differences among
racial groups can be attributed to
disproportionate variations in social class,
they cannot be attributed to variations in
social class alone, since differences in
social class are also not a construct of
race--but often the result of racism. Both
institutional and individual racism promote
social class divisions. Evan Stark, in his
1990 International Journal of Health
Services article, "Rethinking Homicide:
Violence, Race, and the Politics of
Gender," noted that the influence of
racism on social class division has
created: less access to economic and
educational resources to cope with
violence, increased stereotyping about
acceptable levels of violence, and
consequently, disproportionate levels of
fatal violence.
All contents c 1997 Violence Policy Center |
