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utah-firearms-digest      Saturday, June 19 1999      Volume 02 : Number 142




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Date: Fri, 18 Jun 99 08:18:00 -0700
From: [e-mail] (SCOTT BERGESON)
Subject: Re: FW: Another angle on the CCW debate-Reply w/3 local examples

- ---------- Forwarded message ----------
To: [e-mail]
Date: Thu, 17 Jun 1999 13:23:40 -0600
From: "Chris Kierst" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: LPU: Re: Another angle on the CCW debate-Reply w/ 3 local examples

In response to the following exchange between Charles and Scott:

>>>Further, I'm unaware of any publicized cases of Utahns stopping a
>>>criminal attack with a gun.

>>The SLC Library bomber.

>While you and I consider that a fine example, I believe the citizen was
>an off-duty LEO, which in the minds of the statists doesn't count.

Example 1 - A local publicized instance of an armed citizen thwarting a
robbery attempt can be found in a 2/3/97 article in the Salt Lake Tribune
by Dan Egan entitled "Man Fleeing Police Loses Leg" in which a crook tried
to fool three men headed out on a hunting expedition into believing that
The Club (the car locking device, which he had concealed under his jacket!!!)
was a gun.  While one of the hunters was pulling money from his pocket
another was pulling out his concealed 9mm.  The (as yet uninjured) crook
shagged, jumping into his nearby parked car.  The hunters got the plates
and notified the cops who identified the car as stolen.  10 minutes later
the cops located the crook outside the car and tried to capture him.  He
tried to escape by jumping a freight but fell between the cars, losing a
leg.  This crook was no Einstein.  Records revealed that on a previous
occasion he had wounded himself in the foot after stealing a rifle.

Example 2 - Salt Lake Tribune article of 7/10/96 in which a 17 year old boy
broke into an occupied  residence through an open window.  The 35 year old
homeowner attempted to call the cops but the kid jerked the phone and chucked
it out the window.  The older man ran into his room, fetched a gun from a
drawer and shot the kid, puttng him in the hospital.

Example 3 - Salt Lake Tribune article of 2/16/96 by Taylor Syphus (Special to
the Tribune) entitled "Springville Man Recovers Stolen Car After Wild Ride"
in which a 21 year old man returned his mom's stolen Nissan Pathfinder after
clinging to the side of the vehicle after spotting it in a parking lot with
3 teenagers (1 was 18 and the others were 17) aboard.  He wouldn't let go
despite the kids driving off.  While they tried to splatter him on concrete
overpass supports his plight was noticed by an armed citizen motorist who
eventually forced the SUV over with his PU, covering the car thieves with
his .38 pistol while calling the cops with his cellphone.  The deliquents
had a record of other offenses including car burglary and theft.  Will this
do for the short run?



- -

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jun 99 08:18:00 -0700
From: [e-mail] (SCOTT BERGESON)
Subject: FW: The Washington Times - Opinion

http://www.washtimes.com/opinion/ed3.html

Published in Washington, D.C.
5am -- June 16, 1999

Disarming good people

Editor's note: The following is an open letter from 287 economists, law-school
professors and other academics to Congress, regarding gun-control legislation
before the House of Representatives. Some but not all of the names of the
signatories appear here.

After the tragic attacks at public schools over the last two years, there is an
understandable desire to "do something." Yet, none of the proposed legislation
would have prevented the recent violence. The current debate focuses only on the
potential benefits from new gun control laws and ignores the fact that these
laws can have some very real adverse effects. Good intentions don't necessarily
make good laws. What counts is whether the laws will ultimately save lives,
prevent injury, and reduce crime. Passing laws based upon their supposed
benefits while ignoring their costs poses a real threat to people's lives and
safety.

These gun control laws will primarily be obeyed by law-abiding citizens and
risk making it less likely that good people have guns compared to criminals.
Deterrence is important and disarming good people relative to criminals will
increase the risk of violent crime. If we really care about saving lives we must
focus not only on the newsworthy events where bad things happen, but also on
the bad things that never happen because people are able to defend themselves.

Few people would voluntarily put up a sign in front of their homes stating,
"This home is a gun-free zone." The reason is very simple. Just as we can
deter criminals with higher arrest or conviction rates, the fact that would-be
victims might be able to defend themselves also deters attacks. Not only do
guns allow individuals to defend themselves, they also provide some protection
to citizens who choose not to own guns since criminals would not normally know
who can defend themselves before they attack.

The laws currently being considered by Congress ignore the importance of
deterrence. Police are extremely important at deterring crime, but they
simply cannot be everywhere. Individuals also benefit from being able to
defend themselves with a gun when they are confronted by a criminal.

Let us illustrate some of the problems with the current debate.

The Clinton administration wants to raise the age at which citizens can possess
a handgun to 21, and they point to the fact that 18- and 19-year-olds commit
gun crimes at the highest rate. Yet, Department of Justice numbers indicate
that 18- and 19-year-olds are also the most likely victims of violent crimes
including murder, rape, robbery with serious injury, and aggravated assault.
The vast majority of those committing crimes in this age group are members of
gangs and are already breaking the law by having a gun. This law will
primarily apply to law-abiding 18-to-21-year-olds and make it difficult for
them to defend themselves.

Waiting periods can produce a cooling-off period. But they also have real
costs. Those threatened with harm may not be able to quickly obtain a gun
for protection.

Gun locks may prevent some accidental gun deaths, but they will make it
difficult for people to defend themselves from attackers. We believe that
the risks of accidental gun deaths, particularly those involving young
children, have been greatly exaggerated. In 1996, there were 44 accidental
gun deaths for children under age 10. This exaggeration risks threatening
people's safety if it incorrectly frightens some people from having a gun in
their home even though that is actually the safest course of action.

Trade-offs exist with other proposals such as prison sentences for adults
whose guns are misused by someone under 18 and rules limiting the number
of guns people can purchase. No evidence has been presented to show that
the likely benefits of such proposals will exceed their potential costs.

With the 20,000 gun laws already on the books, we advise Congress, before
enacting yet more new laws, to investigate whether many of the existing laws
may have contributed to the problems we currently face. The new legislation
is ill-advised.

Sincerely,

Terry L. Anderson, Montana State University; Charles W. Baird, California
State University, Hayward; Randy E. Barnett, Boston University; Bruce L.
Benson, Florida State University; Michael Block, University of Arizona;
Walter Block, Thomas Borcherding, Claremont Graduate School; Frank H. Buckley,
George Mason University; Colin D. Campbell, Dartmouth College; Robert J.
Cottrol, George Washington University; Preston K. Covey, Carnegie Mellon
University; Mark Crain, George Mason University; Tom DiLorenzo, Loyola College
in Maryland; Paul Evans, Ohio State University; R. Richard Geddes, Fordham
University; Lino A. Graglia, University of Texas; John Heineke, Santa Clara
University; David Henderson, Hoover Institution, Stanford University; Melvin
J. Hinich, University of Texas, Austin; Lester H. Hunt, University of
Wisconsin - Madison; James Kau, University of Georgia; Kenneth N. Klee, UCLA;
David Kopel, New York University; Stanley Liebowitz, University of Texas at
Dallas; Luis Locay, University of Miami; John R. Lott, Jr., University of
Chicago; Geoffrey A. Manne, University of Virginia; John Matsusaka, University
of Southern California; Fred McChesney, Cornell University; Jeffrey A. Miron,
Boston University; Carlisle E. Moody, College of William and Mary; Craig M.
Newmark, North Carolina State University; Jeffrey S. Parker, George Mason
University; Dan Polsby, Northwestern University; Keith T. Poole, Carnegie-Mellon
University; Douglas B. Rasmussen, St. John's University; Glenn Reynolds,
University of Tennessee; John R. Rice, Duke University; Russell Roberts,
Washington University; Randall W. Roth, Univ. of Hawaii; Charles Rowley,
George Mason University; Allen R. Sanderson, University of Chicago; William F.
Shughart II, University of Mississippi; Thomas Sowell, Stanford University;
Richard Stroup, Montana State University; Robert D. Tollison, University of
Mississippi; Eugene Volokh, UCLA; Michael R. Ward, University of Illinois;
Benjamin Zycher, UCLA; Todd Zywicki, George Mason University.

Copyright 1999 News World Communications, Inc.



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Date: Fri, 18 Jun 1999 11:31:25 -0600
From: charles hardy <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Another angle on the CCW debate

On Fri, 18 Jun 99 08:18:00 -0700 [e-mail] (SCOTT BERGESON)
writes:
>The specific exemption to which I referred was to homeowners and
>renters
>living within 1000' of a school perimeter. I hope you are correct
>about
>unloaded and cased guns, though that doesn't help much if you need
>self
>defense. Have you looked at a map to see the coverage of area and
>travel
>routes these free fire zones for criminals enjoy?

Haven't actually looked at a map, but I live in that 1000' zone.  Once I
leave it, I drive through at least 4 more that I know of just getting to
work.  And that doesn't count all the day cares and private preschools
that I don't know about.  Obviously, in the State with the highest
percapita number of children, we probably have the highest percapita
number of schools.  It is probably all but impossible to go anywhere of
importance in this county without passing through several school zones.

>How does Vermont
>deal
>with this federal edict?

I haven't the foggiest, but suspect they simply don't arrest, and thus
don't prosecute people who are peacably carrying guns.

>Beats me. ;-) I believe the FBI compiles such statistics. Perhaps my
>experience isn't typical for Utahns since I have lived outside of
>Utah,
>but a close friend was mugged IN Utah, and I seem to recall you lived
>in
>or near Boston for a while. OTOH, I can't recall getting bested by a
>dog
>since I was 5 years old, and few propose arming 5-year-olds with
>guns.

Yup, 4 years in Cambridge.  I consider myself blessed to have been spared
criminal problems.  Of course, the Lord does help those who help
themselves, and I did my best to take prudent measures within the realm
of what the law allowed.  I also have never had problems with a dog.  But
the visible and audible threat is there every time I walk my
neighborhood.  I believe similar situations exist for many of our
legiscritters.  Further, the natural adversion to killing a human makes
many people adverse to even considering the need to ever do so, IMHO.
OTOH, far fewer people have any strong adversion to putting down an
attacking dog.  So I don't sound like so much of a cowboy or hot shot if
I talk about the need to protect myself and family from dogs than I do if
I talk about "plugging criminal scum."  I'm not suggesting this is the
best or only approach to take on this issue.  I'm only saying it seems to
have been well received by the legislators I've talked to so far--better
than my older approach of talking about criminals.

>
>Odd this would bother you, since the best-publicized case of defense
>against dogs involved an LEO. See Chris Kierst's civilian examples.

It isn't that it bothers me.  It's that legislators are quick to dismiss
it.  Once again, even though the dog case involved an LEO, it does seem
to be better received.  I'm not relating what "should" be, only what I
have experieced.

==================================================================
Charles C. Hardy
<[e-mail]>

___________________________________________________________________
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- -

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jun 99 19:02:00 -0700
From: [e-mail] (SCOTT BERGESON)
Subject: FW: More Gun Controls? They Haven't Worked in the Past

Wall Street Journal
June 17, 1999

O p - E d
More Gun Controls?
They Haven't Worked in the Past.

By John R. Lott Jr., a fellow in law and economics at the University of
Chicago School of Law. He is author of "More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding
Crime and Gun Control Laws" (University of Chicago Press, 1998).

Everyone from President Clinton to the hosts of the "Today Show" attributes
the recent wave of school violence to the greater accessibility of guns.
Gun-control groups claim that today "guns are less regulated than toasters
or teddy bears." Proposed solutions range from banning those under 21 from
owning guns to imprisoning adults whose guns are misused by minors. Today
the House will consider yet another measure, this one requiring a waiting
period and background check for anyone wishing to make a purchase at a gun
show.

Such legislation might make sense if guns had indeed become easier to
obtain in recent years. Yet the truth is precisely the opposite. Gun
availability has never before been as restricted as it is now. As late as
1967, it was possible for a 13-year-old virtually anywhere in the U.S. to
walk into a hardware store and buy a rifle. Few states even had age
restrictions for buying handguns from a store. Buying a rifle through the
mail was easy. Private transfers of guns to juveniles were also unrestricted.

But nowhere were guns more common than at schools. Until 1969, virtually
every public high school in New York City had a shooting club. High-school
students carried their guns to school on the subways in the morning, turned
them over to their homeroom teacher or the gym coach and retrieved them after
school for target practice. The federal government even gave students rifles
and paid for their ammunition. Students regularly competed in citywide
shooting contests, with the winners being awarded university scholarships.

Since the 1960s, however, the growth of federal gun control has been dramatic.
Federal gun laws, which contained 19,907 words in 1960, have more than
quadrupled to 88,413 words today. By contrast, in 1930 all federal gun-control
laws amounted to only 3,571 words.

The growth in state laws has kept pace. By 1997 California's gun-control
statutes contained an incredible 158,643 words-nearly as many as the King
James version of the New Testament-and still another 12 statutes are being
considered in this legislative session. Even "gun friendly" states like
Texas have lengthy gun-control provisions. None of this even begins to
include the burgeoning local regulations on everything from licensing to
mandatory gun locks.

The fatuity of gun-control laws is nowhere better illustrated than in
Virginia, where high-school students in rural areas have a long tradition
of going hunting in the morning. The state Legislature tried but failed to
enact an exemption to a federal law banning guns within 1,000 feet of a
school, as prosecutors find it crazy to send good kids to jail simply
because they had a rifle locked in the trunk of their car while it was
parked in the school parking lot. Yet the current attempts by Congress to
"put teeth" into the laws by mandating prosecutions will take away this
prosecutorial discretion and produce harmful and unintended results.

But would stricter laws at least reduce crime by taking guns out of the
hands of criminals? Not one academic study has shown that waiting periods
and background checks have reduced crime or youth violence. The Brady bill,
widely touted by its supporters as a landmark in gun control, has produced
virtually no convictions in five years. And no wonder: Disarming potential
victims (those likely to obey the gun laws) relative to criminals (those
who almost by definition will not obey such laws) makes crime more
attractive and more likely.

This commonsense observation is backed by the available statistical evidence.
Gun-control laws have noticeably reduced gun ownership in some states, with
the result that for each 1% reduction in gun ownership there was a 3%
increase in violent crime. Nationally, gun-ownership rates throughout the
1960s and '70s remained fairly constant, while the rates of violent crime
skyrocketed. In the 1990s gun ownership has grown at the same time as we
have witnessed dramatic reductions in crime.

Yet with no academic evidence that gun regulations prevent crime, and plenty
of indications that they actually encourage it, we nonetheless are now
debating which new gun control laws to pass. With that in mind, 290 scholars
from institutions as diverse as Harvard, Stanford, Northwestern, the
University of Pennsylvania and UCLA released an open letter to Congress
yesterday stating that the proposed new gun laws are ill-advised: "With the
20,000 gun laws already on the books, we advise Congress, before enacting
yet more new laws, to investigate whether many of the existing laws may
have contributed to the problems we currently face."

It thus would appear that at the very least gun-control advocates face
something of a dilemma. If guns are the problem, why was it that when guns
were really accessible, even inside schools by students, we didn't have the
problems that plague us now?

Copyright 1999 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.


- -

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Date: Fri, 18 Jun 99 19:02:00 -0700
From: [e-mail] (SCOTT BERGESON)
Subject: FW: GOUtah! Alert #17 - 17 June 1999

- ----------
GOUtah!
Gun Owners of Utah

Utah's Uncompromising, Independent Gun Rights Network.
No Compromise. No Retreat. No Surrender. Not Now. Not Ever.

Visit our website at www.slpsa.org/goutah!

GOUtah! Alert #17 - 17 June 1999

Today's Maxim of Liberty:

"...The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been
considered as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers
a strong moral check against usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and
will generally, even if successful in the first instance, enable the people
to resist and triumph over them."-U.S. Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story,
writing in his Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, 1833.

If you wish to continue to receive this information under the GOUtah!
banner, you need to do nothing. If you wish to be added to or taken off the
GOUtah! list, please log onto our website at www.slpsa.org/goutah! or
send an e-mail to [e-mail] or send a fax to [phone]
asking to be added to or removed from the GOUtah! list. If you wish to
forward or share this copyrighted information with others, you are welcome
to do so, on the condition that you pass along the entire document intact
and unmodified, and that GOUtah! is clearly indicated as the original
source of the material, unless otherwise noted.

U.S. House Gun Control Debate and Vote Status Report

The US House of Representatives will be voting on Federal gun control
legislation on Thursday, 17 June 1999. You must pick up the phone RIGHT NOW
and call both the Washington DC and SLC offices of each of the Utah
Congressional Delegation listed and demand they vote against any gun
control measures now before the House. DO IT RIGHT NOW! Their phone
numbers are listed below.

Call your U.S. Congressman TODAY!

Congressional District 1: Northern and Western Utah, except Salt Lake Metro

Rep. Jim Hansen (R)
242 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Phone [phone]
Fax [phone]
E-mail: www.house.gov
click on Members and select Jim Hansen

Local Office: 324-25th Ave.
Ogden, Utah 84401
Utah Phone: [phone]
Utah Fax: [phone]

Congressional District 2: Salt Lake Metro Area

Rep. Merrill Cook (R)
1431 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515-0001
Phone [phone]
Fax [phone]
E-mail: [e-mail]

Local Office: 125 South State Street
Salt Lake City, Utah 84138
Utah Phone: [phone]

Congressional District 3: Central and Eastern Utah

Rep. Chris Cannon (R)
118 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515-4403
Phone [phone]
Fax [phone]
E-mail: [e-mail]

Local Offices: 51 South University Drive
Provo, Utah 84606
Utah Phone: [phone]
Utah Fax [phone]


Utah Legislative Committees Report and Status

On Wednesday, June 16, the Joint Law Enforcement Committee of the Utah
State Legislature held an interim meeting to discuss various topics
regarding the expansion of gun control laws in Utah. Scott Engen, Director
of Policy for GOUtah!, presented testimony to the committee. Scott, who
had to leave shortly afterwards to travel to Atlanta to compete in the U.S.
National Championships of Free Pistol and Air Pistol, will elaborate on the
proceedings of the Joint Committee's meeting in a future GOUtah! Alert.

GOUtah! Activist N. William Clayton attended an interim meeting of the
Joint Judiciary Committee. Here is his report:

The Joint Judiciary Committee heard testimony from several individuals,
mostly representing various bureaucracies of the state government. Topics
included access to firearms by mentally ill individuals, expanding state law
to prohibit people who have been convicted of "violent misdemeanors" from
owning firearms, and codifying portions of the common law to make it easier
to sue gun owners, gun retailers, and gun manufacturers. The topic of guns
in schools was not on the agenda, as that is the purview of the Education
Committee. However, this issue ended up taking center stage for a while,
despite the best efforts of the committee chairman to keep people off it.

One of the more interesting bits of testimony was given by Camille Anthony,
who works in the Governor's Office. Gov. Mike Leavitt assembled a special
commission on "gun violence" to come up with proposals to submit to the
State Legislature, in the hope that these proposals will become law during
a yet-to-be approved special session of the Legislature sometime this fall.

Ms. Anthony was on this committee, and presented a summary of its
recommendations. She mentioned in passing that the committee had
recommended that police officers be placed in all public schools on a
full-time basis, and that these officers be given specialized training in
"early identification" of potential troublemakers and be instructed on "how
various materials used in school construction react to bullets." According
to Ms. Anthony, one of the duties of school police officers would be to "do
searches". Other recommendations made by the Governor's Commission
included increased use of surveillance cameras and metal detectors in
schools, volunteer "parent patrols" in and around schools, and the
designation of all public schools and school grounds as completely
"gun-free zones", where nobody, not even holders of concealed-carry
permits, would be allowed to possess firearms. During the ensuing Q&A
session, one legislator asked whether police officers assigned to school
duty would be exempted from the proposed ban on guns in schools. He noted
that the report of the Governor's Commission did not mention any exceptions
to the proposed "gun-free" policy. Would policemen be exempt? Ms. Anthony
responded by saying that this issue had not been considered by the
commission, because they had simply "[taken] it for granted that police
officers would be exempt." Legislators responded by asking whether this
exemption would extend to off-duty officers who attend PTA meetings in
school buildings. Ms. Anthony said that the commission had not considered
such details, but that she assumed that off-duty officers would probably be
exempt. What about judges and prosecutors who carry guns? Could they have
their guns with them when they drop off their kids at school? Again, Ms.
Anthony said that the commission hadn't considered this, but speculated
that judges and prosecutors might be exempt from the ban, because they have
"extra gun training" compared with ordinary holders of concealed carry
permits. What about members of the proposed "parent patrols"? Would those
with carry permits be exempt? Again, Ms. Anthony said that the commission
had not discussed this. One legislator asked whether a police officer has
a greater right to personal safety while on school property than an
ordinary concealed-weapon permit holder. She said that the commission had
not considered such details.
[ Continued In Next Message... ]


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------------------------------

Date: Fri, 18 Jun 99 19:02:00 -0700
From: [e-mail] (SCOTT BERGESON)
Subject: FW: GOUtah! Alert #17 2/2

[ ...Continued From Previous Message ]
Virtually every bureaucrat who testified indicated support for the
Governor's proposal to ban the possession of firearms by persons convicted
of "violent misdemeanors" and "gun-related misdemeanors" such as
concealed-carry violations, brandishing, and "terrorist threats." Thus,
for example, someone without a concealed carry permit who puts an unloaded
pistol in an unlocked box in the back of his sport utility vehicle and
transports it to the shooting range could be convicted of illegally
carrying a concealed firearm, and could be permanently prohibited from
owning a gun. Paul Boyden, the executive director of the Statewide
Association of Prosecutors, said that the legislature should simply obtain
a list of all misdemeanor offences currently on the books and go through
it, selecting the misdemeanors that should disqualify someone from owning a
gun. Although such a list might start out small, he indicated that the
legislature "can always expand the list" in future sessions. However,
Brian Miller of the Utah Division of Mental Health obliquely suggested that
the list be constrained to encompass only violent misdemeanors committed by
mentally ill people.

I came away from the meeting with the following impressions:

1) A substantial number of legislators in the committee appeared less
enthusiastic about the prospect of a special session than they were last
month. The amount of work that would be needed to craft the proposed
legislation and iron out the details in preparation for such a session
would be enormous. Even one anti-gun legislator appeared disgruntled with
the proposed process for doing this. One representative said "why don't we
just wait until the regular January session?" The Governor and the local
media will keep pressing the Legislature to convene a special session,
continued pressure from pro-liberty activists could tilt the balance in our
favor. Please contact your state legislators and tell them that you are
opposed to a special session. A full list of legislators can be found at
the GOUtah! Web site, shown at the top of page 1 of this alert.

2) The "guns in schools" hysteria may be starting to wane a bit among
legislators. It has certainly not waned enough to prevent bad legislation
from passing, but it has waned enough to give us hope that we can tilt the
balance by continuing to make our voices heard. During the meeting,
legislators intelligently discussed the issue, and many of them seemed to
be aware that teachers, parents, and school principals who hold
concealed-carry permits are not a hazard to public safety. However, the
Governor, the major local newspapers and television stations, all major
religious establishments in Utah (including the LDS Church), and a large
majority of voters (probably due to naivete) still support the "gun-free
school zones" concept. However, legislators tend to pay attention to
people who make the effort to write to them, so YOU can make a difference
by contacting your state representative and state senator and telling them
that you have as much right to self-defense when you go to a PTA meeting as
does an off-duty policeman. We have a long row to hoe here, but there is
hope that we can derail this thing if we keep the cards, letters, e-mails,
and phone calls coming into the offices of our elected officials. Keep up
the letters to editors of local newspapers as well, as this is a good way
to influence public opinion.

3) The legislators' lack of opposition to the idea of prohibiting firearms
ownership for those who have committed misdemeanors is alarming. Please
tell your legislators that you don't think that a misdemeanor should
disqualify you from exercising your Second-Amendment rights, any more than
you think that people convicted of misdemeanors should be prohibited from
voting.

Pro-Gun Constitutional Seminar Scheduled by Utah Republican Assembly for 26
June in Orem, Utah.

The Utah Republican Assembly (URA), a conservative, Constitution-based wing of
the Utah Republican Party, will host a constitutional workshop on Saturday, 26
June 1999 in the Ballroom of the Sorenson Student Center at Utah Valley State
College in Orem. The program will begin promptly at 9:00AM, and URA asks
attendees to arrive a half-hour early for registration and seating.

David Harmer, J.D., will be conducting a seminar on Second Amendment
issues. Other issues such as states rights and asset forfeiture will also
be covered. Cost for the program will be $30.00 per person, and $15.00 for
spouses or partners. To register or for additional information, contact
Vona Hunsaker at [phone] or Joe Ferguson at [phone].

As an independent, non-partisan gun rights organization, GOUtah! has not
reviewed the URA program content, has no political connection the URA, and
receives no economic benefit from URA or this program. This notice appears
only for the benefit of our activists.

GOUtah! Takes Message to Radio Listeners Statewide.

Members of the GOUtah have recently been guests on a number of local and
statewide radio programs dealing with the gun rights and gun control issues.
Among our recent efforts were two half-hour interviews with Metro Networks,
which will air early Sunday mornings on a number of stations around the
state. Tune in and hear what GOUtah! is doing for you and your gun rights.

GOUtah! Gun Rights (and Wrongs) Quote Watch

"We can always expand this list in the future."

- -- Paul Boyden, Executive Director of the Statewide Association of
Prosecutors, testifying before the Joint Judiciary Committee of the Utah
State Legislature. Mr. Boyden was referring to the proposed creation of a
"small" list of misdemeanor offenses which would prohibit a person from
owning a firearm in the state of Utah.

"There is no limit to the creativity that can be employed in this arena."

- -- A representative of the Utah Trial Lawyers Association, testifying
before the Joint Judiciary Committee. This man, whose name we didn't
catch, was referring to the use of civil law suits to go after gun owners,
gun dealers, and gun manufacturers.

"We took it for granted that the police would be exempt."

- -- Camille Anthony, an assistant to Gov. Mike Leavitt, explaining why the
Governor's Commission on Gun Violence neglected, in its final report to the
Legislature, to explicitly exempt police officers from the Governor's
proposed ban on firearms in schools.

If you have a gun rights quote you'd like to share, please send it, along
with a verifiable original source reference to GOUtah!

That concludes the GOUtah! Political and Legislative Alert #17, 17 June
1999. We hope this information will be of assistance to you in defending
your firearms rights. Remember that getting this information is meaningless
unless YOU ACT ON IT TODAY. If you just read it and dump it in the trash,
your gun rights, and the gun rights of future generations go in the trash
with it. Get involved, get active and get vocal! Copyright 1999 by GOUtah!
All rights reserved.



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Date: Fri, 18 Jun 99 19:02:00 -0700
From: [e-mail] (SCOTT BERGESON)
Subject: FW: We Are Training Our Kids to Kill 1/3

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We Are Training Our Kids to Kill
by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman

Saturday Evening Post - July/August 1999, pgs. 64-72

I am from Jonesboro, Arkansas. I travel the world training medical, law
enforcement, and U.S. military personnel about the realities of warfare. I
try to make those who carry deadly force keenly aware of the magnitude of
killing. Too many law enforcement and military personnel act like "cowboys,"
never stopping to think about who they are and what they are called to do.
I hope I am able to give them a reality check. So here I am, a world
traveler and an expert in the field of "killology," when the (then) largest
school massacre in American history happens in my hometown of Jonesboro,
Arkansas. That was the March 24, 1998, schoolyard shooting deaths of four
girls and a teacher. Ten others were injured and two boys, ages 11 and 13
were jailed, charged with murder.

Virus of Violence

To understand the why behind the Littleton, Jonesboro, Springfield, Pearl
and Paducah, and all the other outbreaks of this "virus of violence," we
need first to understand the magnitude of the problem. The per capita murder
rate doubled in this country between 1957; when the FBI started keeping
track of the data; and 1992. A fuller picture of the problem, however, is
indicated by the rate at which people are attempting to kill one another;
the aggravated assault rate. That rate in America has gone from around 60
per 100,000 in 1957 to over 440 per 100,000 in the middle of this decade.
As bad as this is, it would be much worse were it not for two major factors.

The first is the increased imprisonment of violent offenders. The prison
population in America nearly quadrupled between 1975 and 1992. According to
criminologist John A. DiIulio, "dozens of credible empirical analyses . . .
leave no doubt that the increased use of prisons averted millions of
serious crimes." If it were not for our tremendous imprisonment rate (the
highest of any industrialized nation), the aggravated assault rate and the
murder rate would undoubtedly be even higher.

The second factor keeping the murder rate from being even worse is medical
technology. According to the U.S. Army Medical Service Corps, a wound that
would have killed nine out of ten soldiers in World War II, nine out of ten
could have survived in Vietnam. Thus, by a very conservative estimate, if
we still had a 1940-level medical technology today, our murder rate would
be ten times higher than it is. The murder rate has been held down by the
development of sophisticated lifesaving skills and techniques, such as
helicopter medevacs, 911 operators, paramedics, CPR, trauma centers, and
medicines.

Today, both our assault rate and murder rate are at phenomenally high levels.
Both are increasing worldwide. In Canada, according to their Center for
Justice, per capita assaults increased almost fivefold between 1964 and
1993, attempted murder increased nearly sevenfold, and murders doubled.
Similar trends can be seen in other countries in the per capita violent
crime rates reported to Interpol between 1977 and 1993. In Australia and
New Zealand, the assault rate increased approximately fourfold, and the
murder rate nearly doubled in both nations. The assault rate tripled in
Sweden and approximately doubled in Belgium, Denmark and England and Wales,
France, Hungary, the Netherlands and Scotland. Meanwhile, all these nations
had an associated (but smaller) increase in murder.

This virus of violence is occurring worldwide. The explanation for it has
to be some new factor that is occurring in all of these countries. There
are many factors involved, and none should be discounted: for example, the
prevalence of guns in our society. But violence is rising in many nations
with Draconian gun laws. And though we should never downplay child abuse,
poverty, or racism, there is only one new variable present in each of these
countries that bears the exact same fruit: media violence presented as
entertainment for children.

Killing is Unnatural

Before retiring from the military, I spent almost a quarter of a century as
an army infantry officer and a psychologist, learning and studying how to
enable people to kill. Believe me, we are very good at it. But it does not
come naturally; you have to be taught to kill. And just as the army is
conditioning people to kill, we are indiscriminately doing the same thing
to our children, but without the safeguards.

After the Jonesboro killings, the head of the American Academy of
Pediatrics Task Force on Juvenile Violence came to town and said that
children don't naturally kill. It is a learned skill. And they learn it
from abuse and violence in the home and, most pervasively, from violence
as entertainment in television, the movies, and interactive video games.

Killing requires training because there is a built-in aversion to killing
one's own kind. I can best illustrate this fact by drawing on my own
military research in the act of killing.

We all know how hard it is to have a discussion with a frightened or angry
human being. Vasoconstriction, the narrowing of the blood vessels, has
literally closed down the forebrain -- that great gob of gray matter that
makes one a human being and distinguishes one from a dog. When those neurons
close down, the midbrain takes over and your thought processes and reflexes
are indistinguishable from your dog's. If you've worked with animals, you
have some understanding of what happens to frightened human beings on the
battlefield. The battlefield and violent crime are in the realm of midbrain
responses.

Within the midbrain there is a powerful, God-given resistance to killing
your own kind. Every species, with a few exceptions, has a hard-wired
resistance to killing its own kind in territorial and mating battles. When
animals with antlers and horns fight one another, they head-butt in a
non-fatal fashion. But when they fight any other species, they go to the
side to gut and gore. Piranhas will turn their fangs on anything, but they
fight one another with flicks of the tail. Rattlesnakes will bite anything,
but they wrestle one another. Almost every species has this hard-wired
resistance to killing its own kind.

When human beings are overwhelmed with anger and fear, we slam head-on into
that midbrain resistance that generally prevents us from killing. Only
sociopaths -- who by definition don't have that resistance -- lack this innate
violence immune system.

Throughout all human history, when humans have fought each other, there has
been a lot of posturing. Adversaries make loud noises and puff themselves
up, trying to daunt the enemy. There is a lot of fleeing and submission.
Ancient battles were nothing more than great shoving matches. It was not
until one side turned and ran that most of the killing happened, and most
of that was stabbing people in the back. All of the ancient military
historians report that the vast majority of killing happened in pursuit
when one side was fleeing.

In more modern times, the average firing rate was incredibly low in Civil War
battles. British author Paddy Griffith demonstrates in his book The Battle
Tactics of the Civil War that the killing potential of the average Civil War
regiment was anywhere from five hundred to a thousand men per minute. The
actual killing rate was only one or two men per minute per regiment. At the
Battle of Gettysburg, of the 27,000 muskets picked up from the dead and dying
after the battle, 90% were loaded. This is an anomaly, because it took 90% of
their time to load muskets and only 5% to fire. But even more amazing, of the
thousands of loaded muskets, only half had multiple loads in the barrel --
one had 23 loads in the barrel.
[ Continued In Next Message... ]



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