Hacker's Secrets 4/Hacker's Secrets 4.iso/faq/odd3304.txt

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Subject: talk.politics.guns Official Pro-Gun FAQ 2/2
Supersedes: <talk-politics-guns/pro-gun-faq/[e-mail]>
Date: 15 Dec 1996 07:00:47 GMT
X-Last-Updated: 1996/06/19

Posting-Frequency: monthly

THE LONG LIST OF "GUN-CONTROL" MYTHS  rev. 6/18/96
[talk.politics.guns' Official Pro-Gun FAQ (fully indexed, w/glossary)
Additions/suggestions are welcome.  Your help is encouraged.
Email to: Ken Barnes ([e-mail])
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 ([e-mail])
   and archived by *.answers in two parts as
   ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/talk-politics-guns/pro-gun-faq/part1
   ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/talk-politics-guns/pro-gun-faq/part2]
-----------------------------------------------------------------


3.5  "Cheap handguns, a.k.a. 'Saturday Nite Specials,' are the
weapons of choice for violent criminals."

See_Under the Gun: Weapons, Crime, and Violence in America,_
by James Wright, Peter Rossi and Kathleen Daly, Aldine de
Gruyter, ISBN 0-202-30303-9 (1983)

_The Armed Criminal in America: A Survey of Incarcerated Felons,_
by James Wright and Peter Rossi, U.S. Department of Justice,
National Institute of Justice, SuDoc# J 28.24/3: C.86 (1985)

_Armed and Considered Dangerous: A Survey of Felons and Their
Firearms,_by James Wright and Peter Rossi, Aldine de Gruyter,
ISBN 0-202-30330-6 (1986)

also Kleck,_Point Blank_pp.83-94

LaPierre,_Guns, Crime and Freedom_p.58

In summary:  Unlike so-called "assault weapons," which are very rarely
used in crime (see 3.3), handguns are commonly used by armed criminals,
most often for their intimidation value, and due to the fact that they
are easily concealable.  However, the supposed preference of criminals
for inexpensive, low caliber, poor quality handguns (the guns which "gun
control" advocates term "Saturday Nite Specials") doesn't reflect the
realities of gun preference and use by serious career criminals.  Those
who make crime their livelihood are likely to prefer the same sorts of
guns as do legitimate users, guns which are accurate and well made,
although with the additional requirements that they be untraceable
(often meaning stolen), and easy to use and conceal.  Price doesn't seem
to be much of a factor when it's possible for a criminal either to steal
the weapon he wants, or buy a stolen gun on the street.  Guns are used
to some extent as a medium of exchange by criminals, and traded for
drugs, or sold to pay debts.  While semi-automatics have increased in
popularity among police, legitimate users, and criminals; revolvers and
shotguns are also well-represented among guns used in crime, according
to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.  The Smith and Wesson
.38 caliber revolver remains one of the most common handguns in general
use, and is also very commonly used by criminals armed with handguns.
It might be speculated that the shift by police from the .38 service
revolver to the 9mm semi-automatic pistol will result in increased
popularity of the 9mm among criminals, just as the popularity of the
9mm as a military sidearm, replacing the venerable Colt Government Model
1911A1 .45 caliber semi-automatic, has spurred increased interest by
police departments in the so-called "wonder nine".
   Small, inexpensive, low-caliber handguns, by contrast, are primarily
the weapons of those too poor to afford anything better, and bans of
these so-called "Saturday Nite Specials" disarm largely those honest
poor who typically face greater risk of being victimized by violent
crime than do more affluent people who can afford to live in better
neighborhoods, and homes or apartments with security alarms and armed
guards.  Further, restricting the availability of low caliber handguns,
or handguns in general, can result in criminals arming themselves with
heavier caliber, deadlier handguns or sawed-off rifles and shotguns.
In fact, this "weapons substitution" effect may have already occurred.
Since the importation of certain low-quality handguns (the original
guns termed "Saturday Nite Specials" by "gun control" activists)
was banned in the late 1960s, the guns favored by violent criminals,
and particularly those individuals involved in the violence associated
with the illegal drug trade, have been better-quality, more expensive
handguns.  These wealthy drug gangsters can obviously afford them.
It's unlikely that, given that the U.S. has extreme difficulty in
preventing the smuggling of_tons_of illegal drugs and_thousands_of
illegal immigrants each year, we would have any greater success in
preventing the smuggling of durable non-perishable goods like firearms
(or their illicit manufacture in the United States, for that matter)
in quantities sufficient to easily satisfy all criminal demand for them.
In the meantime, we would have deprived law-abiding citizens, and
particularly the most vulnerable among us, of any effective means to
resist criminal attack, with predictably tragic results.


3.6  "Plastic guns, which can slip through metal detectors..."

see Kleck,_Point Blank_p.82

_Inside the NRA: Armed And Dangerous,_by Jack Anderson, Dove Books,
ISBN 0-7871-0677-1 (1996), pp.49-50  [Anderson's book serves as a
concise and convenient collection of nearly all the recent press
clippings maligning gun owners and/or the NRA, as well as many of
the anti-gun myths debunked in this FAQ, all cloaked in the mantle
of objectivity and sympathy for the ordinary gun owner.]

Washington Post, Jan. 15, 1986, p.F14

In summary:  The Austrian-made Glock 17 pistol was the subject of a
"gun control" scare originating in 1986 with Washington Post columnists
Jack Anderson and Dale Van Atta (with assistance from anti-gun activist
Josh Sugarmann), because it was one of the first widely available
handguns to have a polymer frame (or handle) which reduced the overall
weight of the gun.  In his newspaper column (which, strangely enough,
ran on the comics page) Anderson claimed that Libyan dictator Muammar
Quadaffi was "in the process of buying more than 100 plastic handguns
that would be difficult for airport security forces to detect" to use
in anti-U.S. attacks.  Though Anderson's column made the claim that the
Glock 17 was "made almost entirely of hardened plastic," in reality
the Glock still contained over a pound of steel (in the barrel, slide,
magazine, and trigger mechanism), and is detectable both by metal
detectors (due to the metallic content of the gun and any ammunition
it might contain) and security X-ray machines (due to its clearly
recognizable shape).  The column referred to these "plastic guns" as
being the "hijacker special," paralleling the rhetoric used to ban the
so-called "Saturday Nite Specials".  "Gun control" advocates agitated
for a law which would ban "plastic guns", a threat they claimed would
defeat security measures at airports, prisons, and courtrooms.  No all-
plastic undetectable firearms existed at the time, and except for a
fictional depiction in the recent Clint Eastwood movie "In The Line
Of Fire" none exist today.  There is of course, an exemption in the
Undetectable Firearms law for government agencies.  (Intelligence
agencies like the CIA may have such exotic weapons, but won't publicly
reveal the fact.)  The Glock, first made for the Austrian military,
has since become a popular sidearm for police officers, who must carry
a gun for long periods of time while on duty.
   Rather than exploring ways to upgrade security measures to deal with
possible future technological threats such as non-metallic firearms,
Congress banned their production in the United States and required that
all firearms sold and manufactured in the U.S. must meet an established
detectability standard.  The National Rifle Association helped draft the
law which was adopted, and fought to prevent the banning of detectable
firearms containing plastic parts, like the Glock.  The ban legislation,
aimed at a non-existent threat, can of course do nothing to prevent the
eventual development of non-metallic firearms in other countries, and
the subsequent acquisition of such weapons by terrorists.
   Curiously, the theme of plastic tends to recur in "gun control"
arguments, from "plastic" handguns, to "assault weapons" with black
plastic stocks, to "plastic cop-killer bullets" like the mythical
"Black Rhino" (which manages to combine two previous "gun control"
motifs, "plastic" and "cop-killer"!).  Some "gun control" supporters
also advocate bans on plastic toy guns, and "high capacity" squirt guns,
like the popular "Super Soaker".


3.7  "Gun buy-backs are an effective way to get guns off the street."

See LaPierre,_Guns, Crime and Freedom,_where he devotes an entire
chapter (Chapter 8) to this.

In summary:  Gun buy-backs, or "guns-for-cash" programs, in which
police departments or businesses pay a small amount of cash or
merchandise for any gun which is turned in for destruction, have
gotten an enthusiastic response in many cities, and have succeeded
in getting large numbers of guns "off the street".  But what kind
of guns?  For the most part, these programs act as an economic
incentive to dump old, obsolete, unsaleable (and in some cases
even non-functional) guns which are less valuable than the reward
being offered.  Many of these programs are set up to accept guns
with "no questions asked" and full anonymity for the person who
turns in a gun, and can be used by criminals to dispose of illegal
firearms (like unregistered sawed-off shotguns) and/or guns which
have been used in crimes (thus destroying potential evidence).
   More valuable modern or antique firearms have plenty of buyers,
and sometimes, collectors (or even criminals looking for a bargain),
have attempted to buy the more valuable weapons from people waiting
in line to sell their guns at a buy-back, offering to pay a higher
price than the buy-back is offering.  Some people may have inherited
a gun, or have an old war relic in their attic which they don't know
the value of, and they may have no desire to keep the gun, so when
the buy-back is announced, it sounds like a good deal.  Thieves may
steal a gun and take it to the buy-back for some quick "no questions
asked" cash.  And even the people responsible for destroying the
collected guns have on occasion been known to pocket some of the
better ones, either for their own use, or for later sale.  Gun buy-
backs have little chance of disarming serious criminals, since_they_
know how valuable their weapons are, both as tools of their trade,
and as a medium of exchange (see 3.5).


3.8  "Permitting people to carry concealed weapons will lead
to increased violent crime, and people killing each other at
the slightest provocation."

See LaPierre,_Guns, Crime and Freedom,_where he devotes an entire
chapter (Chapter 4) to this.

also
_Commonplace Book_by Thomas Jefferson (G. Chinard ed., 1926), p.314

Kleck,_Point Blank,_pp.411-414.

_Uniform Crime Reports,_FBI (1992)

and
Florida Statutes, title 46, sec. 790.06, pp.590-597 (amended 1992)

In summary:  Persons who go to the effort and expense of obtaining
a permit to carry a concealed weapon (which, to use Florida's 1987
law as an example, requires 6 months or longer residency, being
over 21 years of age, able bodied, not a drug abuser or alcoholic,
completion of a firearms safety course, no felonies or violent
misdemeanors or record of being committed for mental illness, sworn
application on file listing name, address, place and date of birth,
race, and occupation, and including a statement that the applicant
meets the above criteria, a $125 application fee [renewable after
three years for $100], a full set of fingerprints, and a color photo),
and who submit to a full background check to verify the application
and check fingerprints, are not the sorts of people who abuse
firearms.  The permit process acts quite effectively to select for
law-abiding citizens rather than trigger-happy criminals, and the
records of those states which have liberalized their concealed carry
laws show this.  Of the 204,108 licenses issued in the Florida law's
first 6 1/2 years of operation, seventeen (17, or .008%) were
revoked for unlawful conduct while the firearm was present, and many
of these violations were either technical (such as carrying into a
restricted area, like an airport or bar) or non-gun related (such
as revoking a permit due to a drunken driving arrest).  In Oregon,
over 60,000 concealed carry permits have been issued, and none has
been revoked.
   In light of these successes, many other states, Tennessee, Arizona,
Wyoming, Idaho, Mississippi, Montana, Utah, Arkansas, Virginia, Texas,
Oklahoma, and most recently, Kentucky and South Carolina, have joined
the ranks of states protecting the individual right to self defense
through reformed concealed carry laws.  One state, Vermont, even allows
concealed carry without a permit, and has little crime.  (The complete
list of 31 states having non-discretionary, or so-called "shall issue"
concealed carry laws:  AL, AK, AZ, AR, CT, FL, GA, ID, IN, KY, LA, ME,
MS, MT, NV, NH, NC, ND, OK, OR, PA, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, VT*, VA, WA,
WV, WY.  *VT requires no permit.)  The impact of such laws on fighting
crime is debatable at a purely statistical level, but states which issue
concealed carry permits to their law-abiding population show less
violent crime in general than those which do not, and rates of some
crimes (such as homicide and robbery) which are 50% lower than states
in which concealed carry is not permitted.  These states, it could be
argued, may have had less crime than restrictive states to begin with,
but the dire predictions by "gun control" advocates that violent crime
would increase in these states following liberalization of concealed
carry have not proven to be valid (see also 3.8.a).
   At an individual level, many carry permit holders have already
saved their own lives and the lives of others in the face of criminal
violence.  Armed citizens, permit or not, kill almost as many criminals
each year as do law enforcement officers (some 348 out of 763, or 46%
of justifiable homicides in 1992), and armed citizens are less likely
to have "bad shoots" than the police, since, unlike the police, they
aren't usually arriving late at the scene and_then_having to figure
out who the bad guys are.  Armed citizens may in fact kill far more
criminals in justifiable shootings than the police, since statistics
which are available reflect only the initial determinations about a
shooting incident, and not the verdict in the case after it has
actually been tried.  Police are more often given the benefit of the
doubt in shooting incidents than are private citizens.  But, as is
pointed out elsewhere (see 1.1), the true measure of the ability of
firearms to fight crime isn't found in the body count, but in
criminals wounded, deterred from violence by fear that a potential
victim may be armed, or driven away without even firing a shot.
   The fact that laws against carrying weapons were ineffective
against crime was no secret to Thomas Jefferson, who hand-copied
this quotation from the 18th century Italian criminologist Cesare
Beccaria's 1764 book_On Crimes and Punishments_into his own notebook
on law and government, a quote which sums up well the arguments of
those who defend the right to keep and bear arms:
      "False is the idea of utility that sacrifices a thousand
   real advantages for one imaginary or trifling inconvenience;
   that would take fire from men because it burns, and water
   because one may drown in it; that has no remedy for evils
   except destruction.  The laws that forbid the carrying of
   arms are laws of such a nature.  They disarm only those who
   are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.  Can it
   be supposed that those who have the courage to violate the
   most sacred laws of humanity, the most important of the code,
   will respect the less important and arbitrary ones, which can
   be violated with ease and impunity, and which, if strictly
   obeyed, would put an end to personal liberty --so dear to men,
   so dear to the enlightened legislator-- and subject innocent
   persons to all the vexations that the guilty alone ought to
   suffer?  Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and
   better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage
   than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked
   with greater confidence than an armed man.  They ought to be
   designated as laws not preventive but fearful of crimes,
   produced by the tumultuous impression of a few isolated facts,
   and not by thoughtful consideration of the inconveniences
   and advantages of a universal decree."


3.8.a  "Yeah, but what about the University of Maryland study
that showed that murders increased after concealed-carry permits
were issued in Florida?

McDowall, David; Wiersema, Brian; and Loftin, Colin; "Easing
Concealed Firearms Laws: Effects on Homicide in Three States,"
J. of Criminal Law and Criminology v.86, n.1, pp.195-204 (1995)

Polsby, Daniel; "Firearms Costs, Firearms Benefits, and the
Limits of Knowledge," J. of Criminal Law and Criminology v.86,
n.1, pp.207-220 (1995)

In summary:  A recently published study by the University of
Maryland's Violence Research Group, claimed that average monthly
homicides by gun increased in four of five urban areas studied,
after the adoption of liberalized concealed carry reform laws.
This statistical "factoid" was first offered up March 13, 1995
by the Associated "Black Rhino" Press, and was widely reported
(and misreported) elsewhere.  However, the researchers do not
attempt to argue that_any_of these gun-related homicides were
committed by concealed carry permit holders, nor do they consider
the relative proportion of concealed carry permit holders in each
of the studied localities, which if one were to assume that less
restrictive concealed carry is associated with increased homicide,
would be a particularly important factor to consider.  Information
that is available from other sources, such as the state government
in Florida, suggests that criminality by concealed carry permit
holders is virtually unknown.  (See 3.8, and Appendix II.)  If
increased carry by citizens with CCW permits is responsible for
any increased homicide, the researchers do not establish a plausible
explanation for the change in rate, if such a change actually exists.
Also the researchers selected the cities they did on the basis of
their status as "large urban areas," rather than looking at the
homicide rates for each state as a whole, when the concealed-carry
laws were enacted statewide.
   Three of the five localities studied were in Florida (where
a statewide CCW reform law was enacted in 1987, and where "gun
control" advocates predicted increased violent crime would make
it into the "Gunshine State").  Both in Jacksonville, where the study
claims that the monthly average number of gun-related homicides
increased by 74 percent, and in Tampa, where the study claims the
monthly average number of gun-related homicides jumped 22 percent,
the study notes that the rates of homicide_without_firearms also
increased.  In Miami, a city of intermediate size relative to
Tampa and Jacksonville, the study claims gun-related homicides
per month increased 3 percent, but this analysis is based upon a
different time span than that for Tampa and Jacksonville.  The
researchers claim that using a different baseline was necessary
"because of an unusually sharp increase in homicide rates [in Miami]
in May 1980 after an influx of Cuban refugees."  Results of time
series analyses such as this, and the similar study of the effects
of Washington D.C.'s gun registration law by the same researchers
(see 3.0.b., and Appendix IV), are highly dependent upon the time
spans chosen for study.  In those Florida cities for which the
most dramatic results were obtained, the baseline used stretched
all the way back to 1973, but for Miami, the baseline began in 1983.
Presumably, given the higher initial Miami homicide rates that the
researchers attribute to the Cuban refugees, starting off with
same baseline year for Miami as for the other Florida cities would
have produced a resulting increase_less_than the 3 percent observed.
   Complicating any analysis of Florida's crime rates is the fact that
almost immediately following the passage of Florida's 1987 CCW reforms,
the state changed the manner in which it collects crime statistics,
so comparisons before and after the implementation of the law_can_be
invalid on that basis.  However, the number of homicides ought not
to be affected by that, since to have a homicide, you need to have
a body.  Statistical changes ought not to affect the ability to count
bodies, which is essentially what the Maryland study does (albeit
very crudely, and without distinguishing between justifiable homicides
and murders).  The researchers cite FBI's Uniform Crime Reports data
in asserting that justifiable homicides are uncommon, but the FBI
numbers actually undercount the number of justifiable homicides by
civilians, since FBI statistics rely upon the initial determination
made about an incident (see 3.8).  A statewide analysis of the Florida
data (see Appendix II.), reveals that the U. Maryland researchers
missed the overall downward trend in murder/manslaughter rates since
the Florida concealed-carry law was enacted.
   The question of the direction of causality's arrow is critically
important to consider.  Does increased homicide lead to more people
obtaining permits to carry, or does increasing the availability of
permits to carry increase the homicide rate?  The Maryland study's
researchers seem to want to argue the latter, but they have thus far
offered no evidence that CCW permit holders are doing the killing!
The sampling of these particular localities, since nonrandom, can
also be used to introduce bias into such a study, and sociological
differences between localities also need to be controlled for.
   The wide disparities in the with-gun homicide rates given in
the study seem very unusual at first glance, and this is the result
of the fact that the study is calculating its percent increases in
absolute terms (4 going up to 7) rather than per 100,000 population,
as is necessary for any realistic assessment.  The attempt by the
researchers to control for population changes by lumping together
data from all five studied cities is a less than adequate solution
if they intend to consider the homicide rates seperately for each
city elsewhere in their report (and in their quotes to the press).
The researchers themselves admit that "[t]he population of all five
areas grew over the study period, especially in the Florida cities.
Homicide counts thus may have changed after the laws in part because
of increases in the populations at risk."
   The two other localities examined were Jackson, Mississippi,
where the average monthly gun-related homicide rate increased by 43
percent; and Portland, Oregon, where the average monthly gun-related
homicide rate_fell_by 12 percent.  The Portland data, the researchers
note, did not provide enough homicides, so data from two adjoining
counties were included as well.  (Again, one presumes that if this
had not been done, the Portland rate would have been seen to decline
even more than the 12 percent reported.)  Calculating average numbers
of homicides per month serves to make the numbers smaller, and if
there are few homicides in a locality to begin with, as was apparently
the case in Portland, the degree of "noise" in the data can produce
some "startling" percentage changes, if considered in absolute terms.
(If one average has 6 homicides, and the next, 3, that's a "50% DROP!")
It's also widely known in criminology that more violent crime occurs
in summer months than in winter months, so averaging over the year,
as a "moving average" technique does, can also serve to produce
smaller numbers, more suceptible to "startling" percentage changes.
This study design (and the similar study of Washington D.C.'s gun
registration law) seems geared towards maximizing "noise," rather
than discerning a longer-term trend.
   The researchers' conclusion is tentative: "While advocates of
these relaxed [carry] laws argue that they will prevent crime, and
suggest that they have reduced homicides in areas that adopted them,
we strongly suggest caution.  When states weaken limits on concealed
weapons, they may be giving up a simple and effective method of
preventing firearm deaths."  This quotation also points up another
aspect of bias in the study.  What exactly is significant about_gun_
related homicides, versus total homicides?  Does the fact that
a homicide is committed with a firearm make the slain any_more
dead than if the homicide was committed with a knife, or with hands
and feet?  The researchers claim that homicides by other means
remained mostly steady, yet in the two Florida cities showing the
greatest increases, both gun and non-gun related homicides went up.
If the increased presence of firearms in the hands of the law-abiding
serves to deter murders with other weapons, this effect would be
discounted when only homicides involving firearms are considered.
In the case of Florida, since the murder rates have_decreased_when
considered on a statewide basis, these supposed increases in urban
areas must have been offset by drastic drops elsewhere.
   The researchers do not consider Florida data later than 1991,
since they say other laws, such as the 1991 passage of waiting
periods and background checks on new gun purchases in Florida, would
make it difficult to disentangle the results of the new laws from
the concealed carry law.  Yet presuming that the declines in
murder rates since 1991 are attributable to background checks and
waiting periods runs counter to the assumption that gun availability
is a crucial factor driving murder rates.  Neither background checks
nor waiting periods would have any appreciable effect on the existing
supply of guns available, while concealed carry opponents claim that
CCW laws make guns more available in the heat of an argument.  To
compare the potential effects of these laws on the availability of
guns is to compare apples and oranges.  Concealed carry can be the
ultimate test of the "gun availability" hypothesis.  So far, the
awful consequences that are habitually predicted by those opposed to
concealed carry reform laws haven't been shown to occur.  If anything,
the available data is consistent with the view that concealed carry
has a deterrent effect, or at the least has no direct negative effect.
   The researchers_attempt to_speculate that increased availability
of legal concealed weapons is leading to an "arms race" between
criminals and their potential victims, and more criminals are
using firearms than previously.  They write "[g]reater tolerance
for legal carrying may increase levels of illegal carrying as well.
For example, criminals have more reason to carry firearms --and to
use them-- when their victims might be armed."  As Daniel Polsby
points out in the same journal, this "arms race" hypothesis would
presumably also operate when greater numbers of armed police officers
are introduced into a locality.  But the legitimacy of availability
of concealed carry permits to the law abiding is not predicated on
the frequency of misbehavior of criminals-- except in the minds
of "gun control" advocates who wish to prohibit any item that could
potentially be misused by criminals (chemical defense sprays and
stun guns included), regardless of its effectiveness in protecting
the weak from the predations of the strong.  (See 1.1.a)  Theirs
is a policy which demands that victims "lie back and enjoy it,"
rather than_fight_back, and reduce their risk of injury or death.


Section IV - Deterrence and resistance to tyranny


"Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God."
-=(Thomas Jefferson, motto found among his papers)=-

"Still, if you will not fight for the right when you can easily
win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory
will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment
when you have to fight with all the odds against you and only
a precarious chance of survival.  There may even be a worse case.
You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because
it is better to perish than live as slaves."
-=(Winston Churchill,_The Gathering Storm,_1948)=-


4.0  "Ordinary people can't fight a modern army with just pistols,
rifles and shotguns!  What chance does a_militia_have against tanks,
planes, helicopters, and nuclear weapons?"

See_War in the Shadows: Guerillas Past and Present,_2nd. ed.
by Robert Asprey, Morrow, ISBN 0-688-12815-7, (1994) for a
broad historical overview of guerilla warfare.

_Warrior Dreams: Paramilitary Culture In Post-Vietnam America,_
by James William Gibson, ISBN 0-8090-9666-8, Hill and Wang, (1994)
attempts to explain the sociological origins of some aspects of
America's gun culture and its development in recent decades.
An interesting read, even if one doesn't agree with the author's
assumptions.

also
_The Right to Bear Arms: The Rise of America's New Militias,_
by Jonathan Karl, Harper Paperbacks, ISBN 0-06-101015-4, (1995)
[A generally well-researched introduction to the paramilitary
militia movement in the United States.  Karl does, however, repeat
the media fallacy of the "hollowpoint 'cop-killer' bullet," p. 127]

for a more sympathetic (and historical) view of neo-militias see:
_Safeguarding Liberty: The Constitution and Citizen Militias,_
Larry Pratt, ed., Legacy Communications, ISBN 1-880692-18-X, (1995)
[Larry Pratt is executive director of Gun Owners of America, an
organization defending the political dimensions of gun ownership.
Pratt was also recently a campaign co-chairman for Republican
presidential candidate Pat Buchanan.  GOA can be reached at 8001
Forbes Place, Suite 102, Springfield, VA 22151, at [phone],
and on the Web at http://www.mcs.net/~lpyleprn/goa1.html ]

for an opposing view, focusing on the violent racist fringe, see:
_Gathering Storm: America's Militia Threat,_by Morris Dees with
James Corcoran, HarperCollins, ISBN 0-06-017403-X, (1996)
[Morris Dees is the executive director of the Southern Poverty
Law Center, a group which collects information on and litigates
against racist organizations.  The working title of Dees' book
was_Rebellion in the Heartland: The Story of America's Militia
Network,_ but the more ominous and sensationalistic title better
reflects Dees' own views of the paramilitary militia movement.]

Dunlap, Jr. (USAF), Col. Chales J., "Revolt of the Masses: Armed
Civilians and the Insurrectionary Theory of the Second Amendment,"
Tennessee Law Review v.62 pp.643-677  [Col. Dunlap presents a sober
critical analysis of the argument that irregular forces can defeat
modern professional armed forces.  This article appeared as part of
a symposium issue on the Second Amendment.]

also
_1984: Spring - A Choice of Futures,_by Arthur C. Clarke,
ISBN 0-345-31357-7, (1984) pp. 3-13

_Paul Revere's Ride and the Battle of Lexington and Concord,_
by David H. Fischer, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-508-847-6
(1994)

_Afghanistan: the Soviet War,_by Edward Girardet, St. Martin's Press,
ISBN 0-312-00923-2, (1985)

_Lethal Laws,_published by JPFO (see above)

_The Bravest Battle,_by Dan Kurzman, G.P. Putnam's Sons,
ISBN 0-399-11692-3, (1976)

_Memoirs of a Warsaw Ghetto Fighter,_by Simha Rotem (Kazik),
Yale University Press, ISBN 0-300-05797-0, (1994)

_The Gulag Archipelago,_by Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn,
HarperCollins, ISBN 0-06-092104 (1991)

_Schindler's List,_by Thomas Keneally, Touchstone Books,
ISBN 0-671-88031-4, (1993) p. 374

_Victory,_by Peter Schwizer, Atlantic Monthly Press,
ISBN 0-87713-567-1 (1994), which is now available in
paperback as ISBN 0-87113-633-3

_War in Afghanistan,_by Mark Urban, St. Martin's Press,
ISBN 0-312-01205-5 (1988)

In summary:  While the full scope of tactics involved in modern
urban and guerrilla warfare would require a FAQ by itself, the common
assertion by "gun control" supporters that resistance against a
tyrannical government by the use of privately owned small arms is
impossible today (given the destructive power of modern military
weapons) reflects a degree of certitude which can hardly be called
unanimous among those familiar with the history of low-intensity
conflicts around the world.  Certainly it is possible to_kill_greater
numbers of people faster today than ever before in human history,
but_enslaving_a people and_subjecting_them to tyrannical rule is
becoming increasingly_more difficult_in the modern era, despite the
destructiveness of modern weaponry.
   The astounding proliferation of computers, telecommunications
devices, video recording devices, audiotape cassette recorders,
photocopiers, and strong encryption methods in the industrialized
(and industrializing) nations of the world has made imposing censorship
on or jamming these multiply redundant means of command, control and
communications all but impossible for even the most tyrannically minded
nation-state. (And, ironically, nation-states which attempt to prohibit
these liberating technologies pay a severe penalty in terms of their
economic productivity, as is the case today in North Korea.)
   However,_knowing_that you're being tyrannized doesn't always mean
that you'll be able to_do_anything about it, if the guns are all in
the hands of the government.  Government control over education and
mass communications remains a powerful tool of indoctrination and
propaganda, even when opposed by private ownership of liberating
communications technologies like those listed above.  The experience
of the pro-liberty movement in Communist China during the student-led
protests of June 3-4, 1989 shows this very clearly.  Despite the
presence of many foreign journalists who were there to cover the visit
of then-Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, and despite the e-mail and
faxes and live satellite feeds which informed the world of the events,
and despite the courage of people brave enough to stand in front of a
tank column, some 5,000 people were slaughtered by an indoctrinated
"People's Army" of peasants from the provinces.
   Governments (even democratically elected governments) have always
held the potential for tyranny and mass murder, and the use of "gun
control" laws has acted only to monopolize power further in the hands
of the state.  Throughout the twentieth century, governments have
exercised their monopoly of force in ways far more villainous than
any lone criminal or deranged individual is capable of.  Tens of
millions of deaths due to Communism in the Soviet Union and China,
another million or so in Cambodia's killing fields, and the millions
murdered at the hands of the Nazis in Germany, not to mention the
millions who died in the wars fought to combat these infernal regimes,
are a testament to the effectiveness of "gun control".  Many lesser
known tyrants have also racked up impressive body counts after disarming
their political opponents or despised minority groups.  The decades of
tyranny which the former Soviet and Eastern European peoples endured,
and fact that some people were misfortunate enough to have lived out
their entire lives without tasting_once_of liberty, is indeed a tragedy.
Could the wardens of such prison-states have survived, and plundered
the wealth of their country, and enslaved their fellow citizens so
effectively, without the help of "gun control"?
   In the United States, we have been spared such dictatorship, but
we_have_seen the racist and unconstitutional internment of Americans of
Japanese ancestry during World War II, the death of American Indians by
the thousands in the wars to establish control of the Western
territories, the statutory deprivation of the civil rights of black
Americans in the century after Emancipation, and the sporadic oppression
of other ethnic and religious minorities throughout our history.
While one might hope to avoid such abuses in the future, it ought to at
least be considered that these American atrocities were the product of
democratically elected governments, and whatever past crimes may have
occurred with the support of the people, at least_we_are at liberty to
change the shape of our future.  The Founders of our republic justly
realized that granting_any_government (even a democratically elected
one), a monopoly on force is a risky proposition, and a sure recipe for
eventual tyranny.  That is the real reason for the existence of the
Second Amendment, and our history suggests that it has been a very
effective deterrent to the kinds of tyranny and genocide which have
arisen even in some so-called "civilized" countries of the world.
   Could American history have been far worse than it is, had the
ambitions of would-be dictators not been restrained by the thought of
the multitude of armed citizens ready to resist the loss of their
liberties?  And what of the progress of freedom on Planet Earth without
America's strength and innovation, and the torch of her Liberty
Enlightening The World?  It_was_once intellectually fashionable to be
a Communist, and there_were_initially prominent admirers in this country
of the efficiency of the German Third Reich.  How might history have
changed, if there were no Second Amendment in the U.S. Constitution?
One shudders to consider the possibilities...
   Even today, despite the development of weapons capable of massive
and indiscriminate destruction, tyranny must still be imposed at ground
level, if it is to exist at all.  Technology has made it far easier
to kill people than to enslave them.  Small arms are still sufficient
to tip the balance in favor of survival and eventual victory, and when
combined with the liberating communications technology that saturates
the modern industrialized (and industrializing) nations, they can be
potent weapons indeed.  Coordination of forces, and careful choice of
targets can result in the capture of heavier and deadlier weapons
from the enemy, starting from the basic rifles and pistols of the
infantryman, on up to artillery, tanks, helicopters, anti-tank and
anti-aircraft rockets, missile systems, etc.
   Communications technology can be used to rally the people to the
cause of liberty, much as VCRs helped the Solidarity movement win
freedom for the people of Poland by putting news censored by the
government onto hundreds of television screens.  Even without
sophisticated communications, the Afghan fighters of the mujahedeen
were able to stymie the Soviet Army in Afghanistan for the first few
years of the occupation, and, covertly supplied with tons of Soviet
arms purchased for them by the U.S. and other sympathetic nations,
as well as training and intelligence assistance, the mujahedeen were
able to fight and kill tens of thousands of Soviet and Afghan Communist
troops during the 1979-1989 Soviet occupation, forcing the much vaunted
Red Army to withdraw in defeat.  Most of the weaponry of the mujahedeen
militia in the early years was obtained by capturing Soviet equipment,
or obtained from deserters from the conscript Afghan Communist army,
and by manufacturing home-made copies of captured AK-47 assault rifles
with basic hand tools, and this is what gave them the edge to survive
until foreign help was available, much as France helped the U.S. win
her independence.
   The Stinger anti-aircraft missiles the "muj" obtained later from the
U.S. contributed to their victory, but the war was waged guerrilla-
style, and as was the case for the U.S. in the difficult terrain of
Vietnam, fighting an enemy which blended in with the locals, while being
_obviously_foreign yourself, made the Soviets a big fat target.
Both the Soviet experience in Afghanistan, and that of the U.S. in
Vietnam also point to the difficulty in utilizing an armed force
designed to fight a high-tech conventional adversary against a low-
tech, elusive insurgency.  The usual radio signals and heat signatures
targeted by electronic warfare don't exist if the enemy is smuggling
weapons through the countryside on horseback!
   The tactical difficulty in fighting an_urban_insurgency makes tyranny
a particularly dangerous task in the city as well.  The Jewish Ghetto
in Warsaw was almost liquidated by the occupying Nazis between July and
September of 1942, but there were a few hundred out of the few thousands
of Jews who had not yet been sent on the trains to Treblinka and who
felt that they would rather fight than surrender to Hitler's Final
Solution.  Armed primarily with pistols, Molotov cocktails, grenades
and explosives, and desperately short of ammunition, the Warsaw
Ghetto fighters were able to hold off the Waffen-SS for almost a month
in April of 1943, killing a dozen or more Nazis and wounding many more,
before leading a few survivors out under the walls through the sewers of
Warsaw, even as the Nazis demolished the Ghetto with aerial bombs and
finally burned what remained to the ground.
   If these Jewish fighters had been as well-armed as some of their
Israeli descendants are today, who knows how history might have turned
out?  Even the much-celebrated German war profiteer and industrialist
Oskar Schindler armed his Jewish workforce better than the Ghetto
fighters.  By the end of the war, many of "Schindler's Jews" had been
provided with_machineguns!_ (A fact that Steven Spielberg chose to
leave out of his award-winning movie.)
   One need not be paranoid about the possibility of genocide, any
more than one need be paranoid about flying in a jumbo jet.  But the
fact that airplane crashes that kill hundreds of people occur only
_rarely_doesn't mean that we don't need the safety systems which help
protect us from that eventuality, or that we ought to be dismantling
them.  A longstanding tradition of civilian control over the military,
and a rich legacy and cultural love of liberty among soldiers and
civilians willing to fight for its defense won't disappear overnight.
Chances are only a few police or military would join in any tyrannical
endeavor in these United States, but who knows what perils the future
may hold for our great-grandchildren --and_their_grandchildren.
   One hopes the military will always take seriously its oath to
preserve, protect and defend our Constitution against all the enemies
of liberty, both foriegn_and_domestic; and that police will refuse to
enforce laws which are unconstitutional, and will refuse to be corrupted
by power and illicit wealth.  But history has taught us that many
unthinkable things are indeed possible, and that in Alexander Hamilton's
words "To model our political system upon speculations of lasting
tranquility, is to calculate on the weaker springs of the human
character."
   The Founders of this country knew the road that "gun control" leads
to quite well, no matter what "good intentions" are claimed for it.
It was the British attempt on April 18-19, 1775 to seize and destroy
the colonists' arsenal stored near Lexington, at Concord Massachusetts,
that prompted Paul Revere, William Dawes, and Dr. Samuel Prescott to
ride and alert the countryside.  The contingent of 700 British troops
marched up the road from Boston, and at Lexington Green were met by 70
colonial Minutemen (so-called because they were supposedly ready to
fight on a minute's notice).  The British had cannon, and would use them
when the Minutemen refused the British order to throw down their arms
and disperse.  In the subsequent skirmish there were a few casualties
on each side, but the Minutemen did disperse, and the Redcoats then
proceeded past Lexington to Concord, where they destroyed what few
munitions and supplies the colonists had been unable to remove in the
additional time that eight Minutemen had purchased with their lives.
   From the countryside, alerted by the news of the riders and
Minutemen, and by alarm bells and warning cannon shots, came the
citizen militia, the good men of Lexington and Concord, some 4,000
strong, ready with their loaded muskets in hand.  It was only then
the Redcoats began their retreat to Boston, surrounded by angry colonial
snipers shooting from cover behind stone walls, hedgerows, and houses,
who kept up the barrage in engagement after engagement along the length
of the road, picking off 273 British soldiers (killing 73 of them) while
incurring only 95 casualties themselves (of which 49 died).  This
was "The Shot Heard Round the World" and the humble beginning of the
American Revolution.


---
APPENDIX I.

The Biggest Myths of "Gun Control":
A Look At U.S. Federal Legislation

[Disclaimer:  Firearms laws change frequently, and vary from state
to state.  None of the information contained in Appendix I should
be considered legal advice or a legal restatement of any Federal
firearms laws or regulations.  Consult a lawyer, your local law
enforcement, and/or the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms for
further information regarding firearms laws and taxes in your area.]

"Nonmailable Firearms Act" of 1927 - Public Law 69-583
--
This act, actually titled "An Act Declaring pistols, revolvers, and
other firearms capable of being concealed on the person nonmailable
and providing penalty," may well be the first "gun control" law
enacted at the federal level in the United States.  It provided for a
fine of up to $1,000 and/or 2 years in prison for sending concealable
firearms through the the mail, with exceptions for the military,
other government agencies, and the repair and return of firearms by
the manufacturer.

National Firearms Act (NFA'34) - Public Law 73-474
--
The violence associated with alcohol Prohibition, and the threat of
Communist and anarchist subversion during the 1930s, prompted in 1934
the restriction of so-called "gangster weapons" from availability
to the general public.  The weapons defined as "firearms" under the
NFA include machineguns, short-barreled rifles and shotguns, "zip"
guns (homemade firearms) which use rifle or shotgun ammunition,
silencers, and "destructive devices" (artillery, bombs, grenades,
and other guns over .50 caliber, excluding ordinary shotguns).  The
act also considers any parts of these restricted weapons, or any
weapons easily convertible into a restricted weapon, whether assembled
or not, to be equally restricted.  Because of the Second Amendment's
limitation on the power of the Federal Government to simply ban these
weapons outright, a strategy of licensing, registration, and taxation
was used to limit the ownership of weapons which the Congress deemed
undesirable.  The act gave regulatory and tax collecting powers to
the Treasury Department's "revenooers" (who were at the time busting
up stills and "speakeasies" and barrels of moonshine), a department
which eventually grew into the current Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and
Firearms (BATF), a tax collection agency with its own SWAT team.
   All NFA weapons are subject to a $200 tax every time their ownership
changes from one federally registered owner to another, and each new
NFA weapon is subject to a manufacturing tax when it is made, and it
must be registered with the BATF in its National Firearms Registry.
To become a registered owner of NFA weapons, a complete FBI background
investigation is done, checking for any criminal history or tendencies
toward violence, and an application must be submitted to the BATF
including two sets of fingerprints, a recent photo, and sworn affidavit
that transfer of the NFA firearm is of "reasonable necessity" and that
sale to and possession of the weapon by the applicant "would be
consistent with public safety."  Because the transfer tax for one NFA
weapon is just as high as the cost of a Class III dealer's license, most
machinegun enthusiasts opt for the dealer's license also, if they want
to buy more than one NFA weapon.  The Class III FFL (Federal Firearms
License) is good for three years, and a renewal fee of $90 must continue
to be paid in order to maintain the license, every three years.  The
license fee to be a dealer in "destructive devices" (tanks, artillery,
and bombs, for example) is considerably steeper, at $1,000_a year._ Even
with a dealer's license, the transfer taxes must still be paid, but some
of the paperwork involved in the transfer is reduced, such as for the
background investigation.  Since 1986, no new machineguns have been
available to Class III licensed civilians, despite an unblemished
record of lawful civilian ownership of these guns.  (See Firearms Owners
Protection Act, below.)
   Since 1934, only one legally owned machinegun (of some 100,000+)
has ever been used in crime, and that was a murder committed by a
law enforcement officer.  On September 15th, 1988, a 13-year veteran
of the Dayton, OH police department, Patrolman Roger Waller, then 32,
used his fully automatic MAC-11 .380 cal. submachinegun to kill a
police informant, 52-year-old Lawrence Hileman.  Patrolman Waller
pleaded guilty in 1990, and he and an accomplice were sentenced to
18 years in prison.  The 1986 'ban' on sales of new machineguns does
not apply to purchases by law enforcement or government agencies.
---
Thanks to the staff of the Columbus, OH Public Library
for the details of the Waller case.


Federal Firearms Act of 1938 (FFA'38) - Public Law 75-785 (repealed)
--
This legislation, not to be confused with the National Firearms Act
passed four years previously, was repealed by Public Law 90-351 in
preparation for the Gun Control Act of 1968 (see below).  It required
licensing of manufacturers and dealers for transportation of firearms
and ammunition in interstate and foriegn commerce, and prohibited
interstate and foreign commerce in firearms and ammunition if a valid
license was not held by both parties.  It further prohibited transfer
of firearms or ammunition in interstate or foreign commerce to persons
under indictment for a violent crime, convicted violent criminals, and
fugitives from justice; transfer of stolen firearms in interstate or
foreign commerce; and defacement of firearm manufacturer's serial
numbers.  It also authorized recordkeeping regulations for firearms
and ammunition dealers.  Government agencies and the military were
exempted from the provisions of the act, as were certain other
entities (such as museum firearms collections, and companies
transporting money or valuables) that were exempted by the Treasury.
Violations of the act were punishable by a fine of up to $2,000
and five years in prison.

Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA'68) - Public Law 90-618
--
Amended the National Firearms Act of 1934 (which is a section of
the Internal Revenue excise tax code) to ban the interstate shipment
(primarily mail order, but also just transportation) of firearms
and ammunition, and out-of-state purchase of firearms by individuals,
require record keeping for sales of firearms and ammunition, impose
stiff penalties for use of firearms in the commission of federal
felonies, and prohibit sale of firearms and ammunition to felons
and other dangerous classes of persons.  This legislation was pushed
hard by President Johnson and his Attorney General (the notorious
Ramsey Clark), and enacted in the wake of the assassinations of
presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy and civil rights leader
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  This law is believed to be modeled after
Germany's_Waffengesetz_ [Law on Weapons] of March 18, 1938 (published
in_Reichgesetzblatt_1938, Teil [Part] I, pp. 265-276), because the
Act's author, late U.S. Senator Thomas J. Dodd (D-CT), had in his
possession a copy of the Nazi Weapons Law around the time he was
drafting the 1968 Gun Control Act.  He later requested an English
translation of the German text, a Xerox copy of which_he supplied_
to the Library of Congress, although the Library had copies of its
own which he could have requested to be translated.  This was an effort
on his part to fend off criticism that his legislation closely resembled
the law passed under the Third Reich.  Senator Dodd didn't need the
translation himself, since he could speak German, and had been a
prosecutor at Nurnberg during the War Crimes Trials of 1945-46, so
he was familiar with German law.  The parallels between the two laws
_are_striking (including for the first time the introduction into
American firearms law of the European concept of "sporting purpose,"
a direct translation of "Sport-zwecke" in the 1938 statute), and there
was no apparent reason for Senator Dodd to own a copy of the Nazi
Waffengesetz, or any other Nazi law which did not figure in the
evidence at Nurnberg.  Yet own it he did.  For more information about
this incident, and a line-by-line comparison of the two laws, see
the book _"Gun Control" Gateway to Tyranny,_by Jay Simkin and Aaron
Zelman, published by JPFO (see above), as well as_Federal Firearms
Legislation - Hearings Before the Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile
Delinquency of the Committee on the Judiciary,_United States Senate,
90th Congress, second session, June 26-28 and July 8-10, 1968;
SuDoc# Y4.J89/2:F51/3 , pp.489-496.

Firearms Owners' Protection Act
(McClure-Volkmer Act) - Public Law 99-308
--
Amended the Gun Control Act of 1968 to repeal some of the sillier
provisions of that enactment, including the ban on transportation
of one's own firearms to another state (which had been a hassle
particularly for hunters), the record keeping requirement on the
sale of ammunition (which generated enormous quantities of useless
paper), the ban on interstate sales of long guns (which, then as
now, are infrequently used in crime); and limited the surprise
inspections of licensed gun dealers' premises to just once a year.
It also made it a federal offense, whether a Federally licensed
firearms dealer or not, to transfer or sell a gun to any individual
who is prohibited by the GCA '68 from owning guns, such as a felon.
In a peculiar procedural move, the House-passed version of this
NRA-backed legislation contained a ban on the possession and transfer
of new machineguns by civilians, which became effective when President
Reagan signed the Act into law, May 19, 1986.  Machineguns which
were manufactured prior to that date are regulated under the National
Firearms Act, but those manufactured after the ban cannot be sold
even to civilians who are already licensed to own machineguns.
The Senate approved the machinegun ban language of the House bill
without a roll call vote, though their original bill did not include
the ban amendment added in the House and sponsored by U.S. Rep. William
J. Hughes (D - N.J.).  (The parliamentary shenanigans surrounding this
are quite strange, and are found in Congressional Record v.132 p.H1751
and p.S5358.)  Essentially, at what was literally the last minute, the
acting chairman of the Committee of the Whole in the then-Democrat-run
House, New York congressman Charles Rangell, declared in a simple voice
vote that Rep. Hughes' "poison pill" amendment had been adopted, and
that the "ayes" had it.  This ban has later been found unconstitutional
in the case of_U.S. v. Rock Island Armory_(Federal Supplement, v.773
p.117) but the decision was not appealed to the Supreme Court.

Armor Piercing Ammunition - Public Law 99-408
--
Banned the manufacture and importation of handgun bullets made
of tungsten, steel, iron, brass, bronze, copper, or depleted
uranium, or alloys of these hard metals.  (Depleted uranium is
currently used in ammunition for the U.S. Army's M1 Abrams main
battle tank, so presumably the government can keep track of its
limited supply of such an exotic material!)  An exemption exists
in the law for steel shotgun shot, which is needed by waterfowl
hunters for compliance with environmental regulations.  Armor-
piercing handgun ammunition is regulated as a "destructive device"
under the National Firearms Act, requiring federal permission to
own and manufacture.  This law also strengthened penalties for
federal felonies committed with armor-piercing handgun ammunition,
though at the time, no cops had been killed by so called "cop-
killer" bullets.  The NRA helped draft the version of the law
which was adopted, so as to exclude ammunition for hunting rifles
and shotguns, which is also capable of defeating soft body armor.
   President Clinton has recently revived the "cop-killer bullet"
strategy for "gun control," but it is unlikely that his proposal
will be accepted by the Republican majority in Congress (see 3.4).

Undetectable Firearms Act - Public Law 100-649
--
This 1988 legislation banned production and sale of "plastic" guns
undetectable by metal detectors and X-ray machines, a threat which
(aside from that assassin's derringer in the recent Clint Eastwood
movie "In The Line Of Fire") did not exist at the time, and still
doesn't exist.  The NRA helped to rewrite this law so as to narrow
its scope, and exclude detectable polymer-frame guns like the light
weight Glock 17 pistols now in common use by police departments.

Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990 (void)
(Part of the "Crime Control Act of 1990") - Public Law 101-647
--
Made possession and/or discharge of a firearm on, or within 1000
feet of the grounds of, a public, private, or parochial school
a federal felony punishable by a $5,000 fine and/or 5 years in
prison.  The legislation did not apply to non-school private
property located within such a zone, or uses of firearms which
had been approved by the school or by government (such as school
rifle teams, and police).  The U.S. Supreme Court in 1995 ruled
this Act to be an unconstitutional extension of the "interstate
commerce" clause (U.S.C. Art I. sec. 8 cl. 3) in_U.S. v. Lopez,_
(U.S. Reports v. 514 p.___, Lawyer's Edition 2nd series v. 131
p.626, Supreme Court Reports v.115 p.___, 1995) in part because
the Federal government was unlawfully encroaching upon the
traditional powers of the states concerning matters of education
and law enforcement.  The Feds had rather tenuously argued that
the effect of guns in schools upon learning, and hence upon
U.S. economic competitiveness, gave them the power to enact
such legislation.  The implications of this case upon other
Federal authority to ban possession of weapons within the borders
of the states, and upon Federal authority to commandeer local
law enforcement officials to perform background checks (such as
is implied by the Brady Act, see below), and indeed upon the very
nature of American federalism itself and the increasing growth
of the Federal law enforcement function, seem to be substantial.
The U.S. Supreme Court has recently accepted an appeal of the
Brady Act on Tenth Amendment grounds, so further definition of the
limits of the "interstate commerce" clause can be expected soon.

Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act - Public Law 103-159
--
Imposes a five working-day waiting period (in reality, a seven day
wait) on the purchase of a handgun, and requires that the chief law
enforcement officer of the jurisdiction where the sale is to take
place make a "reasonable effort" to determine whether the purchaser
is legally able to own the gun.  Though the Feds have attempted to
argue that "reasonable effort" can mean_no effort at all_under
certain circumstances, the impositions of this act on local law
enforcement officers have been found unconstitutional under the
Tenth Amendment in five jurisdictions, namely Montana, Arizona,
Vermont, Mississippi, and Louisiana, leaving only the waiting
period standing.  See_Printz v. U.S._(Federal Supplement v. 854
p.1503), _Mack v. U.S._(Federal Supplement v. 856 p.1372),
Frank v. U.S._(Federal Supplement v.860 p.1030), _McGee v. U.S.
(Federal Supplement v.863 p.321), and most recently,_Romero v. U.S._
(Federal Supplement v.883 p.1076) which was a 1994 case in the
Federal District Court for Western Louisiana.  In addition to
finding the "reasonable effort" background check requirement
unconstitutional, the court in_Romero_also held that Sections
922(s) (6) (B) and (C), which require chief law enforcement officers
to destroy records of handgun transactions and to write letters
explaining denials, are also unconstitutional under the Tenth
Amendment.  The 9th U.S. Court of Appeals has recently overturned
the lower court rulings in_Printz_and_Mack,_but the other decisions
stand.  [The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal in
_Printz_and_Mack_during its October 1996 term, and to rule on the
constitutionality of the Brady Act (on Tenth Amendment grounds) in
early 1997.]  There is one opposing decision: _Koog v. U.S._(Federal
Supplement v.852 p.1376) which was decided in Texas.  These decisions
are limited in scope, usually affecting only the sheriff in the
county who sought the injunction.  The decisions in_Koog,_McGee,_
_Frank,_and_Romero_are on appeal.  Three other cases are pending,
in New Mexico, North Carolina, and in Wyoming, where that state's
Sheriff's Association is the plaintiff!  Remarkably, the Brady Act
does not exempt persons who already own a handgun from the waiting
period or background check (as though they would require a_new_gun
each time if they were inclined to commit a crime!).  A reasonable
way to do this would be to exempt all holders of concealed carry
permits.  The Brady Act sunsets to a computerized instant background
check system in those states which adopt such, and the Act is scheduled
to expire on November 30, 1998, unless renewed.  It is anticipated
that a national instant-check FBI database will be in place by that
time.  The instant check provisions of the Brady Act were added
thanks to lobbying by the NRA.  And yes, it's true, the Brady law
wouldn't have stopped John Hinckley.  He had no prior felony record,
his mental illness was covered up by his wealthy family, and he
had bought the .22 revolver he used months earlier.

Public Safety And Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act
(part of the Violent Crime and Law Enforcement Act of 1994,
a.k.a. the "Crime Bill" which was signed by President Clinton
on September 13, 1994) - Public Law 103-322
--
Defines a new class of firearms "semi-automatic assault weapons"
based upon their military-style appearance, despite the fact that
they are functionally identical to and shoot the same ammunition as
many other rifles, pistols and shotguns.  Prohibits the manufacture
of "semi-automatic assault weapons" for sale to civilians after the
effective date, a provision which is prima facie unconstitutional
under the Second Amendment.  Classifies magazines which hold more
than 10 rounds of ammunition as "high capacity ammunition feeding
devices" and bans their manufacture for sale to civilians after the
effective date, a provision affecting both handguns and long guns.
Exempts customers of pawnbrokers from the Brady Act when recovering
their pawned handguns.  The parliamentary shenanigans surrounding
this legislation are also curious, since the initial House rules
vote effectively killed the Crime Bill, but the Republicans weren't
content to declare victory, and subsequently the House trimmed a
bit of the fat out of the spending portion of the bill, and passed
it anyway, sending a crime bill opposed by the NRA, the ACLU, and most
Americans on to the Senate for final passage.  Democrats, despite
being the majority in both houses, and holding the White House, found
difficulty passing a supposed anti-crime measure in an election year!
The Democrats subsequently suffered an historic defeat at the polls
in November, leading to the election of Republican majorities in
both houses of Congress, and the first Republican House since 1952.
The most immediate effect of the "assault weapons" legislation was
to encourage gun manufacturing and sales prior to the enactment date,
including speculative investment in the banned weapons, some of whose
prices increased greatly (though they have now begun to decline again).
Lawsuits are currently pending which attack the semi-auto ban as being
unconstitutionally vague-- in other words, so poorly written that it
is difficult to determine what type of weapons are permissible.
   1994 was certainly a banner year!


APPENDIX II.
Concealed Carry Reality vs. "Gunshine State" Fantasy

Murder rates in Florida Cities included in U. Maryland CCW 'study'
Source: _Uniform Crime Reports_ for the United States, 19xx-1995,
Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Dept. of Justice,
SuDoc# J 1.14/7:9xx

pop. = population (city limits, in thousands)
MNNM = murder/non-negligent manslaughter

           1984  1985  1986  1987*  1989  1990  1991  1992  1993  1994
Miami
pop.      400.6 385.9 396.4 385.1  381.2 358.5 367.9 373.8 372.5 380.0
MNNM        170   131   148   128    132   129   134   128   127   116
MNNM/100K  42.4  33.9  37.3  33.2   34.6  36.0  36.4  34.2  34.1  30.5
Tampa
pop.      289.3 285.3 293.0 285.9  289.4 280.0 287.4 291.9 288.9 294.7
MNNM         52    70    79    61     57    60    64    49    43    62
MNNM/100K  18.0  24.5  27.0  21.3   19.7  21.4  22.3  16.8  14.9  21.0
Jacksonville
pop.      582.4 601.0 616.7 629.9  654.7 636.7 653.5 663.9 672.3 685.8
MNNM        103    90   119   147    165   176   128   123   125   106
MNNM/100K  17.7  15.0  19.3  23.3   25.2  27.6  19.6  18.5  18.6  15.5
Statewide, FL                                          (FL, 1963 = 8.2)
MNNM/100K  11.5  11.4  11.7  11.4   11.1  10.7   9.4   9.0   8.9   8.4
U.S.                                                  (U.S. 1963 = 4.6)
MNNM/100K   7.9   7.9   8.6   8.3    8.7   9.4   9.8   9.3   9.5   9.0

* Data for 1988 in the states of Florida and Kentucky were
not available due to reporting problems at the state level.

Analysis:  Figures for cities given are for city limits, not metro
area, although metro area figures are available.  As more violent
crime tends to occur in urban areas, rather than suburbs, however,
if anything, the figures ought to be biased in the direction of
more murders, rather than fewer.  Each of the cities included in
the U. Maryland study has shown declines in murder/non-negligent
manslaughter rates per 100,000 population since the passage of
Florida's concealed carry reform law in 1987.  This is not to say
that the increase in concealed carry permits_caused_this decline,
but it does show that murder rates have declined, rather than
increased, since the law was enacted.  Further, the statewide
murder/non-negligent manslaughter rates for Florida (per 100,000
population) have declined from well above the national rate to
slightly below the national rate during this same period, and are
approaching where they were 30 years ago, prior to the enactment of
major federal gun control bills like the 1968 Gun Control Act, which
prohibited mail order gun sales to ordinary citizens, among other
restrictions.  It is interesting to note that, of the three Florida
cities selected by the U. Maryland researchers as the basis of their
'study', all three have historical rates of murder/non-negligent
manslaughter_much_higher_than the average for the state as a whole,
which raises questions concerning how representative a sample they are,
especially considering that the concealed-carry law applies statewide.
Essentially, the U. Maryland study may only have demonstrated what
was already known, namely that urban areas often have higher violent
crime rates than non-urban areas, and that the rates of violent crime
in the U.S have increased since the late 1960s.  (In comparing a
baseline of 1973-1986 to the 1987-1991 period, the question remains
whether one could observe similar or worse increases in homicides
in areas_not_subject to concealed carry reform laws.)  The University
of Maryland researchers have not stated whether they blame concealed-
carry permit holders for the increase in homicides which they noted
in their study, but evidence from the Florida Department of State
which issues the permits shows that crime among CCW permit holders
is virtually unknown (Kleck,_Point Blank,_see 3.8).


APPENDIX III. - "Gun control": international comparisons

See_The Samurai, The Mountie, And The Cowboy,_by David Kopel,
Prometheus Books, ISBN 0-87975-756-6, (1992)  [Kopel's book
received the Comparative Criminology award from the American
Society for Criminology in 1992.]

_Lost Rights,_by James Bovard (see above)

[Disclaimer: The following represents the most recent information
available to me regarding the listed countries, and is derived
from publicly available sources.  Firearms laws change frequently,
and vary from place to place.  None of the information contained in
Appendix III should be considered legal advice or a legal restatement
of the firearms laws and regulations of any of the listed countries.
Consult a lawyer familiar with the firearms laws of the particular
country or region of interest for further information.  Your mileage
may vary.  Always read and follow label directions.  The gun is always
loaded unless you've inspected the chamber yourself.  Always keep the
weapon pointed in a safe direction.  Identify your target, and know
your backstop.  Always eject the magazine before clearing the chamber,
and never the other way around.  Keep out of reach of children.  Always
wear your safety belt, even with airbags.  Don't drink and drive.]

JAPAN

An island nation with a truly insular culture for much of its long
  history, Japan has only recently (since 1946) become a democratic
  state.  The authoritarian values of its past still linger, both in
  the willing submission of most Japanese to the authority of the
  state, and their dependence upon that authority for their personal
  security (a faith somewhat shaken recently by the nerve gas terrorist
  attack on the Tokyo subway).  A remarkably homogenous, virtually
  monoethnic society, with strong traditions of conformity and
  propriety; combined with what many_gaijin_ (foreigners, lit.
  "outside people") would describe as extraordinary (and intrusive)
  police powers, helps keep crime rates very low.  What serious crime
  that does occur is dealt with very strictly, and in keeping with
  Japan's traditional authoritarian tendencies.  Most criminal suspects
  are induced to confess, either through offers of more lenient
  treatment, or are coerced into doing so through tactics like sleep
  deprivation and relentless interrogation, and on occasion, physical
  abuse.  Particularly effective in extracting confessions and other
  expressions of remorse from criminal suspects is the fact that
  police can detain suspects for more than three weeks without charges,
  and conduct interrogations without legal counsel present.  Suspects'
  confessions are a highly prized form of evidence in Japan, and can be
  admissible even if obtained through coercion.  Confessions from
  criminal suspects are essentially a condition of bail, and a starting
  point from which to gather the evidence needed for conviction.  Jury
  trials are not required in criminal cases, and search warrants are not
  ordinarily required either.  Police have broad discretion to disarm
  people and seize weapons, and illegally seized evidence is often
  still admissible.
    There is a death penalty in Japan, hanging, though it is rare
  and exercised with great secrecy, such that even the families of
  the condemned do not learn of the execution until prison authorities
  send a telegram asking whether the family would like the body cremated
  or if they will come to the prison to pick it up!  Condemned prisoners
  without close relatives are simply "removed" from the government's
  records when their executions are carried out.  Though prison
  sentences are usually short, Japanese prisons often require that
  prisoners live in isolation, sometimes with little exercise, and have
  no communication with other prisoners, minimizing risks of prison
  riots, rapes, fights, and other violence, but at substantial cost to
  prisoners' physical and psychological health.  Even with this harsh
  treatment, repeat offender (recidivism) rates are fairly high.
  Prisoners can also be forced to work for prison industries which
  are organized in cooperation with private corporations.  In short,
  although "gun control" is very strict, even non-gun crime rates are
  kept low by implementation of what is essentially a police state.
  Broad police authority in turn makes for easy enforcement of gun laws
  against a population which has been kept disarmed by its rulers
  for hundreds of years.

Handguns absolutely prohibited to civilians, yet organized criminals,
  called_Boryokudan,_"violent organizations," or_Yakuza,_"hoodlums,"
  still have them, and commit some 200 violent crimes with them
  annually.  Japanese police rarely use guns themselves, relying
  instead on martial arts training (judo and kendo), and police batons.
  About the only way a civilian can own or use a handgun legally is
  to be a competitive target shooter, and only 50 such pistol licenses
  are issued in the entire country!  There are also 500 air pistol
  licenses issued, all for competition target shooters.  The only
  legitimate reasons any civilian can own any gun in Japan are for
  target shooting or hunting, and never for self-defense.  Rifle owners
  must be licensed, and rifles must be turned in to the police when the
  license holder dies.  Shotguns and air rifles (the most commonly owned
  types of guns in Japan) must also be licensed, and all guns must be
  stored unloaded in a gun safe separate from any ammunition, and in
  a location known to the police.  Pistols (other than air pistols)
  must be stored in a locker at the local police station.  All firearms
  and ammunition in Japan must be registered, and no guns which hold
  six or more rounds in the magazine (3 rounds for sporting shotguns)
  may be owned in Japan.  Needless to say, machineguns are prohibited
  to civilians.

Licenses issued primarily to hunters and sportsmen, and for skeet
  and small caliber target shooting.  Licensees for all guns (except
  air guns) must submit to a background investigation of their entire
  household.  Background checks are extensive (including checking for
  political affiliation, a ten-year history of addresses, jobs, gun
  ownership, etc.), as well as medical certification that the licensee
  is mentally healthy and not addicted to drugs.  Hunting with small-
  bore (.22 cal) rifles is already prohibited in Japan, and large-bore
  may soon be as well, once the existing hunting rifle licenses expire.
  Getting such a hunting rifle license requires, on paper at least,
  a ten-year history of continuous participation in shotgun or small-
  bore rifle shooting, and applying for the gun to the local police
  station.
    Prospective licensees wanting to own_any_gun must attend a one
  day lecture held only once each month at the local police station,
  and pass a written 20-question exam with a score of 14 or more correct
  answers, in order to be eligible to_apply_for a license.  The
  certification of having taken this class is valid for three years,
  and Japanese gun owners must re-take the class every three years to
  get re-certified, but for the renewal there is no test required.  New
  licensees for shotguns and rifles must also shoot a practical course.
  Then, it takes a month or so for the police to process the extensive
  paperwork required and to complete the background investigation
  before they can grant permission.  Once this is completed, a license
  booklet, which resembles a passport, is issued, and the purchase is
  authorized.  The licensee must return to the police station with the
  gun within two weeks of purchase in order to have the gun inspected
  and the proper stamp placed on the license.  Permission from the
  police is also required to purchase ammunition for guns (other than
  air rifle pellets), and all guns (and ammunition expended) must be
  accounted for to the police on an annual basis.  Hunters must obtain
  a separate license to hunt in addition to the license required for
  owning a hunting rifle.  Hunting licenses are issued by the Governor
  of each prefecture, and applying for one requires an additional course
  and test which must be passed.  The major shooting sports organization
  in Japan is the Nihon Raiforu Shageki Kyokai [Japan Rifle Shooting
  Association, abbreviated in English as NRA], and shooters are required
  to join at least the local NRA affiliate in order to participate in
  target shooting sports.  Shooters must participate in matches in order
  to keep their license properly stamped and current.  If the license
  is not kept current, and more than three years has elapsed since it
  was last used, it cannot be renewed.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Japanese information adapted in part from postings by
Masaaki Ishida ([e-mail]) and
Tetsuya Nishimura ([e-mail])


CANADA

Search warrants only required for residences (and then not in
  all circumstances), police given discretion to perform searches
  of persons, vehicles, and premises (other than homes) for illegal
  weapons and to seize weapons, use of registration lists as the
  basis for "reasonable grounds" to authorize search and as consent
  to search is commonplace.  Police are less likely to use deadly
  force to apprehend and control criminals than in the United States.

Handguns permitted if registered, as they are considered "restricted
  weapons" (as are many rifles and shotguns).  All "restricted" weapons
  must be registered with the police, and "restricted" weapons may be
  only purchased for one of four purposes: protection of life where
  other protection is inadequate, target practice under the auspices
  of a shooting club, in connection with a lawful profession or
  occupation, or as part of a "bona-fide gun collector's" collection.
  All firearms must be stored unloaded in a securely locked container
  when not in use, and kept separate from ammunition. Trigger locks are
  required for those restricted weapons not stored in a safe or vault.
  Police may inspect the security of the storage arrangement of
  restricted weapons at their discretion.  Transport of firearms
  requires a permit, and there are no actual "carry" permits issued
  except as a condition of employment.  Firearms may not be transported
  without permit, and permits are only issued for transportation to
  and from the gunsmith (or a new address), to and from the range or
  shooting club, and to and from the police station where the gun
  is registered.  "Prohibited" weapons in Canada include short
  barreled or "sawed-off" shotguns and rifles, silencers, and all
  machineguns not registered prior to January 1, 1978; as well as
  chemical defensive sprays (like OC), and electric stun guns.
  Since few machineguns were registered prior to that date, and all
  machineguns manufactured subsequent to that date are prohibited,
  many machineguns were converted to semi-automatic in Canada in an
  effort to comply with the law, but are still subject to confiscation.
  Hollowpoint handgun ammunition is prohibited to Canadian civilians,
  as is OC pepper spray, because effective self-defense is not
  considered to be a reasonable use of such weapons by anyone but
  police.  Weapons may be added to the "restricted" list (or the
  "prohibited" list) by administrative fiat, called an "Order In
  Council," and issued by the Minister of Justice.  Legislation
  passed by Parliament in 1995 (Bill C-68) has expanded this fiat
  power to include all previously non-restricted "sporting" guns
  (including antique guns as well), resulting in the addition of most
  semi-automatic rifles to the "prohibited" list, banning of .25
  and .32 caliber handguns and all handguns with a barrel length
  of less than 4 inches [105mm] (which will be destroyed without
  compensation upon the death of their current registered owners),
  adding a requirement for registration of all firearms in Canada
  (not just "prohibited" weapons), and greatly extending police
  power to conduct warrantless searches for all types of weapons,
  including searches for/of paper-based and computer records, as
  well as compelling citizens to assist police in their inspections.

Prospective firearms owners must obtain a licence, called a Firearms
  Acquisition Certificate (FAC), in order to purchase any firearms,
  which is good for five years, and is basically a "must issue" system,
  and also enables FAC holders to purchase non-restricted "sporting"
  rifles or shotguns by mail-order.  Licensees must take classes, pass
  tests, supply a recent, good-quality photo, fill out a four page
  application and answer questions about recent relationships and
  business failures, supply the references of at least two persons
  who have known them for at least three years (must be a fellow
  employee, spouse, minister, doctor, lawyer, tribal elder, etc.),
  pass a background check in the Canadian Police Information
  Computer (CPIC) [which lists all "encounters" with police
  in Canada, not just criminal convictions], pay a $50 fee, and
  wait at least 28 days before getting the FAC (with a typical
  wait being six to eight weeks).  Confidential medical information
  need not be disclosed to the police in Canada, unlike the situation
  in some U.S. states.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Canadian information adapted in part from posts
by Skeeter Abell-Smith ([e-mail])


UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

America's "War on Drugs" has brought with it increased use of both
  warrantless searches and so-called "no-knock" warrants (in which
  police are authorized to break down doors without warning, in an
  effort to prevent destruction of evidence).  Both practices are
  strictly contrary to Fourth Amendment protections against illegal
  search and seizure, but are nonetheless commonplace, particularly
  in public housing projects, where the Clinton Administration has
  sought to increase their use in "cleaning up" crime ridden slums
  by seizing drugs and weapons.  Police in the United States are more
  circumspect about violating the civil rights of wealthier Americans,
  though such violations too, have been more common of late.  The use
  of asset forfeiture laws to seize property believed to have been
  obtained with drug money has resulted in some harassment of wealthy
  Americans, who must then prove that their assets were obtained
  legally, a requirement which turns the presumption of innocence
  on its head.  Persons with large amounts of cash have been detained
  and their currency seized on suspicion of carrying drug money.
  Corruption of law enforcement has become a serious problem in
  several major U.S. cities, such as New Orleans and Washington, D.C.
  The threat of domestic and international terrorism has also been
  used as a pretext for limiting the civil rights of all Americans.
     Prominent cases of civil rights violations by the Bureau of Alcohol
  Tobacco and Firearms and the FBI have outraged millions of Americans,
  and increased their traditional distrust of government.  The jury
  system in several prominent cases has shown signs of stress.  High
  levels of violent crime associated with drug prohibition, while still
  confined largely to America's most blighted inner cities, have been
  terrifyingly recalcitrant to the efforts of the justice system,
  and have inspired fear even in those not directly affected by crime,
  resulting in the increased desperation of further "gun control"
  measures, adding one futile layer of prohibition upon another.
  Distrust of government and its demonstrated ineffectiveness at
  controlling violent crime has prompted_both_increased calls for
  "gun control" and the loss of other traditional American liberties,
  as well as increased purchase of guns, and political opposition to
  "gun control" by Americans suspicious of government's ability and
  inclination to protect them and their civil rights.
     Nevertheless, the U.S. Constitution still protects the civil
  rights of all Americans to freedom of speech, freedom of the press,
  freedom of religion, the right to keep and bear arms, the right
  to peaceably assemble, and to be free from the abuses of arbitrary
  power which many of the peoples of the world still must endure.

The United States is still one of the most heavily armed nations in
  the world, and weapons of all types are legally available to her
  citizens with a greater degree of freedom than in most any other
  industrialized nation.  The right to keep and bear arms is a part
  of the constitutions of 43 of her 50 states, and is protected by
  the federal Constitution of 1789 as amended in 1791.  Machineguns,
  short-barreled and "sawed-off" shotguns and rifles, silencers,
  and military heavy weapons such as tanks, artillery, and other
  "destructive devices" can be legally owned with the proper Federal
  permission, which requires an FBI background check, and a $200
  transfer tax.  New machineguns manufactured after May 19, 1986
  have been banned from sale to civilians, in violation of the Second
  Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.  Manufacture of certain types
  of semi-automatic firearms which superficially resemble military
  weapons, and of magazines capable of holding more than ten rounds of
  ammunition has been banned from sale to the public since September
  13, 1994; also a violation of the Second Amendment.  As with the
  machineguns, all of the banned weapons and magazines manufactured
  prior to the ban dates are still legal to own.  Handguns, rifles,
  and shotguns are prohibited in only some states and localities,
  usually those localities having a higher than average crime rate.

There is no national licensing or centralized national registration
  system, except for those weapons which require Federal permission
  and the transfer tax (NFA weapons).  Handguns are registered in a
  decentralized, paper-based records system which records information
  about the purchaser for those handguns bought through a federally
  licensed dealer, which includes all new handguns and a substantial
  number of used ones.  There are several state and local licensing
  and registration requirements, ranging from de facto prohibition
  of firearms, to unlicensed concealed carry.  If there is any
  correlation between gun ownership, gun laws, and crime, it is
  arguably an inverse relationship in the United States.


GREAT BRITAIN

As is the case in Canada, British subjects are subject to warrantless
  searches of persons and vehicles at police discretion, but searches
  of residences still require a warrant (in most instances).  Arrests
  without warrant are common, and police have substantial discretion
  to conduct search and seizures of weapons.  Interrogation without
  counsel is permitted, and evidence obtained from coerced confessions
  is permitted.  Jury trials for serious crimes are conducted without
  many of the preemptory motions which can be used to dismiss biased
  jurors in the United States, and the distinction between prosecutors
  and defense attorneys (barristers) is not as clear cut as in the U.S.
  British subjects lack the protection of the rights of free speech,
  press, assembly, or to keep and bear arms, against the powers of the
  Parliament, which combines the legislative and executive functions of
  American government, and whose acts are not subject to judicial review
  by a Supreme Court, as there is no written Constitution.  Liberty in
  Britain is protected only by the common law, and by tradition.  Police
  in Britain are primarily unarmed, although their use of weapons is
  increasing in response to increased danger from criminals, who can
  still obtain firearms, despite being on an island with more easily
  defensible and secure borders than is the case in the United States.
  Those police who do carry weapons carry them concealed in many cases.
  Shrinking police budgets in some localities have resulted in the
  extensive use of public surveillance video cameras by police, a
  development which doesn't bode well for the right to privacy.

As in Japan, shotguns are easily the most popular firearms in Great
  Britain, and have a special place in British firearms law (despite
  being perhaps the most deadly of firearms, short of machineguns).
  Carrying an unloaded shotgun in a public place is not considered a
  crime, whereas carrying a rifle or pistol in a public place, whether
  it is loaded or not, is.  The special treatment of shotguns descends
  from the popularity of bird hunting among many British landowners.
  As large game is comparatively absent from Britain, rifles are more
  commonly associated with their military use than with hunting.  All
  shotguns in Britain must be registered, and the prospective owners
  must show "good reason" in order to be able to purchase one having
  greater than a 3-round capacity.  (Shotguns with 3-round or less
  capacity are exempt from the "good reason" requirement.)  Handguns
  and bolt-action rifles are likewise permitted only if the prospective
  owner can show "good reason" for such ownership, such as being a
  hunter, or member of a shooting club.  All centre-fire semiautomatic
  and pump-action rifles are banned, whether they resemble military
  guns or not, and are subject to confiscation with reimbursement at
  half the gun's purchase price or L150, whichever is less.  As in
  Canada, self-defense is not considered a "good reason" for owning
  a handgun, and as in Canada, chemical defensive sprays like tear gas
  and OC pepper spray have been prohibited to the public.  Martial
  arts weapons and the carry of knives in public has also been banned.
  (There have even been knife "turn-in" programmes!)  Shotgun shells and
  other ammunition must be registered at purchase, and are only sold
  to shotgun or firearms licence holders.  All firearms must be stored
  securely to the satisfaction of local police, or the required licences
  may not be renewed.  Similar coercion is used to obtain inspections
  of the storage location, at police discretion.  As many police chiefs
  in Britain, as in the U.S., are hostile to private firearms ownership,
  even the issuance of shotgun licences is on the decline.  (There are
  currently about 500,000 shotgun certificates and 140,000 firearm
  certificates on issue in the U.K.)

British subjects who wish to own firearms must obtain either a shotgun
  certificate, or a firearms certificate (applicable to bolt-action
  rifles and handguns) from the local police station, which requires,
  as in Canada, two personal references of persons of good standing
  (such as an MP, justice of the peace, minister of religion, doctor,
  lawyer, civil servant, etc.) who have known the applicant for at
  least two years, as well as showing "good reason" for being permitted
  to obtain the gun.  The "good reason" must include proof of the
  applicant's membership in a shooting club, or a letter from a
  landowner granting permission to hunt on his land.  The applicant
  must specify full details of the type and calibre of weapon, and
  explain where the weapon will be stored and used, as well as the
  maximum quantity of ammunition planned to be kept and purchased.
  The application fee is L56, and within two to four weeks a police
  officer will visit to interview the applicant and to inspect the
  storage location and security measures.  Once issued a Fire Arms
  Certificate (FAC) it is valid only for purchase of the gun and
  ammunition specified on it, and a gun purchaser must notify the
  Chief Constable of the local Police Authority within a few days
  after purchase of the gun for which permission has been granted.
  Disposal of the gun doesn't renew the permission, and if another gun
  or another calibre is desired, a new application must be submitted.
  Each certificate must be renewed after five years, and the gun owner
  must go through the whole application procedure again, including
  payment of the L56 application fee.  Issuance of these certificates
  is discretionary in Britain, unlike the case in Canada.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
British law updated based on a posting
by David Rees ([e-mail])


SWITZERLAND

Switzerland places a far heavier reliance on decentralized government,
  and individual responsibility, which, when combined with a greater
  degree of social control than Americans would likely tolerate, helps
  keep the crime rate low.  Switzerland's current constitution, which
  was adopted in 1848, reflects the influence of the United States, in
  that it for the first time recognized individual rights, rather than
  only the rights of the various cultural, linguistic, and religious
  groups which form the basis of cantonal (state) distinctions.  Crime
  has increased slightly in recent years, but much of Swiss crime is
  attributable to the drug trade and to foreigners.  Swiss citizens are
  generally_very_law abiding, and the Swiss have not seen the need
  for the sorts of harsh justice and broad police powers seen elsewhere.
  There is no death penalty, and sentences in Switzerland are usually
  short for all crimes except murder.  All prisoners must serve at least
  two-thirds of their nominal sentences.  Judges are popularly elected
  in some cantons.  Violent movies can be banned, and racist and anti-
  Semitic acts, speech or publications are strictly prohibited.  Arrests
  can only be made with warrant, and suspects must be charged within
  24 hours after arrest.  Foreigners who have been denied political
  asylum, however, can be held in administrative detention for up to a
  year if they are considered a risk to escape deportation.  Foreigners
  can also be stopped by police on the street and asked for their
  identity papers.  Police permits are required for public meetings,
  but are generally issued unless there is the likelihood of violence.
  Some cantons have official state-sponsored churches, but taxes to fund
  them are optional.  Though narcotics are illegal, the laws have only
  recently been enforced with any severity.  Swiss banking secrecy laws
  have led to the Swiss confederation becoming a center for drug money
  laundering.  Zurich's notorious Platzspitz "Needle" Park was closed
  several years ago for public health reasons, and because international
  publicity about the park had attracted drug dealers and criminals.
  Other Swiss cities with similar parks have also sought to close them
  to drug users, and some drug abusers are instead now being given their
  drugs under medical supervision, as a public health measure.  Violent
  crime is still rare, despite the widespread availability of weapons.

Switzerland requires mandatory military service for its men, but there
  is only a small standing army.  The Swiss rely upon a militia system
  for defense of the confederation, and because of this, ownership of
  all types of military weapons is more widespread even than in the
  United States.  The front line troops of the_Auszug_must keep their
  fully-automatic military assault rifle and seventy-two rounds of
  sealed ammunition at home during their term of service from age 21-32.
  The current issue militia weapons are the SIG Sturmgewehr 90 (.223)
  and SIG Sturmgewehr 550/551 (.223) assault rifles, and the SIG-Sauer
  P220 9mm semi-automatic pistol.  Even after their service in the
  _Auszug,_Swiss men still remain part of the militia, either in a
  home guard (_Landwehr_), or reserve capacity (_Landsturm_) until
  age 42 (52 for officers).  Practice with weapons is a popular
  recreation, and is encouraged by the government, particularly for
  the members of the militia.  "Ordnance" ammunition is subsidized
  and available for sale at shooting ranges, and there is a regulatory
  requirement that ammo sold at ranges must be used there, but this
  is never really enforced.  Sale of all ammunition is registered
  at the dealer if purchased at a private store, but it is not
  registered if purchased at a range.  All types of ammunition are
  available for commercial sale, including calibers for military-issue
  weapons, and hollowpoints.  Ammunition sales are registered only
  at the point of sale by recording the buyer's name in a bound book.
  Semi-automatic rifles are registered at the dealer and with the
  police in those cantons having registration at all, otherwise only
  full-automatics and other military guns must be registered with
  the government.  Unlike the United States, handgun purchases aren't
  even registered in some cantons.  Restrictions on the purchase of
  non-lethal weapons like pepper spray, which had been in effect in
  some cantons, have been eased.

Purchase of handguns is licensed on a "must issue" basis at the cantonal
  (state) level, with "firearms purchase certificates" issued to all
  adult residents without criminal records or history of mental illness.
  Handguns and semi-automatic rifles are registered using the same
  "triple-sheet" form in those cantons which have any registration, with
  one copy going to the police, one to the dealer, and one to the owner.
  One canton doesn't require a license for handgun purchases, and
  purchase of hunting guns and most types of semi-automatic shotguns
  and rifles usually require no permits.  Since actual military guns are
  issued freely (albeit with a licensing and registration requirement
  at the cantonal level), controls on other guns can be comparatively
  mild.  There are no restrictions on the carrying of long guns, and
  only fifteen of the twenty-six cantons require carry permits for
  handguns (which usually require that "necessity" for carrying the
  handgun be demonstrated).  Laws have been passed which restrict the
  purchase and carry of weapons by non-Swiss citizens like Turks and
  people from the embattled area of the former Yugoslavia.  There have
  been calls for more "gun control" from some quarters in Swiss society
  (including Swiss anti-gun criminologist, Martin Killias) but the
  tradition of Switzerland's armed citizenry is being kept alive by
  the activist gun owners organization ProTell (named after Swiss hero
  and marksman William Tell), which is associated with the Swiss
  Riflemen's Society, much as the NRA-ILA is associated with NRA
  in the United States.  There are also several other shooting sports
  organizations.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Swiss information updated with the kind help of
Emmanuel Baechler ([e-mail])


GERMANY

Law enforcement in Germany is primarily the responsibility of the
  Laender (state governments) but the Federal Office handles crimes like
  narcotics smuggling, gun running, and counterfeiting.  Search warrants
  are required for searches of residences, and arrest warrants are
  required for arrest.  German police must charge suspects within 24
  hours of arrest.  Freedom of speech and assembly is constitutionally
  limited, and certain organizations (such as neo-Nazis) are illegal.
  Sadly, much of the neo-Nazi propaganda, and some of the organizers of
  such groups, have their origin in the United States.  Although crime
  has risen in Germany since 1990, the criminal misuse of guns accounts
  for a tiny fraction of criminal acts.  While negligible in comparison
  to the United States, the use of guns by criminals in Germany is on
  the increase, and a number of Germans have armed themselves in
  response (including ethnic minorities).  There is also some increase
  in cross-border crime between Eastern Germany and the relatively poor
  neighboring nations of the former Soviet bloc like Poland and
  Czechoslovakia, much as occurs between the United States and poorer
  neighboring Mexico.  Despite strict "gun control" laws, otherwise
  law-abiding Germans have engaged in smuggling guns into Germany
  from other European states such as France and Belgium, where
  their purchases are legal, and only a personal ID card is required.
  Some 14,000 firearms were seized in 1993, according to the German
  Federal Crime Office, and the French and Belgian governments are now
  reporting gun purchases by German citizens back to law enforcement
  in Germany.  Not all guns in Germany come from other countries,
  however.  Some guns were sold to eastern German civilians by
  departing Soviet troops!

The ownership and purchase of firearms is very tightly controlled in
  Germany, and there is total firearms registration and licensing in
  place.  Pepper spray is also prohibited in Germany, because of a
  bureaucratic foul-up.  There is a constitutional requirement for
  military service in Germany for German men over age 18 (though
  it_is_commonplace to opt out of the Army through_Zivildienst,_or
  "civilian duty," which is like conscientious objector status, but
  one still must do another type of government job instead).  What
  it amounts to is that if you're not in the armed forces or police,
  the government doesn't trust you with a firearm (at least not
  without an extensive investigation and a government-issued license).

Gun owners must be licensed, and this requires a full background check,
  which can take several months.  The background check is run through
  a central records office in Berlin.  Once the background check is
  completed, and approval is for a license is granted, the license,
  called a_Waffenbesitzkarte,_or "weapon-holder's card," is issued.
  There are four types of licenses, a pink one issued to collectors,
  a yellow one issued to sport-shooters, a green one issued to hunters,
  and another kind which is granted only to people who are considered
  to be in "concrete danger," such as security guards, or (rarely) if
  the licensing office thinks you have demonstrated "need".  The license
  serves as a "ration card" for recording firearms purchases, and as
  evidence that the buyer has passed the background check.  The pink
  "collector's licenses" for antique guns are very expensive, and are
  nearly impossible for the average German to obtain.  Collectors are
  not permitted to buy ammunition for the guns in their collection,
  or shoot the guns in their collection (where's the fun in that?),
  so they're mainly for museum-type collections.  People who've acquired
  guns by inheritance are also prohibited from buying ammunition for
  them unless they get a proper permit to do so.  The most common types
  of licenses are those for hunters and sport-shooters, but as a sport-
  shooter, you must get permission from your shooting club to purchase
  certain types of guns, and the club makes a notation on your card
  if they think you ought to qualify for the gun.  Hunting is primarily
  a rich man's sport in Germany, since you must pay the landowner for
  the right to hunt (~$1,500-$6,000), and essentially this means that
  hunters will often form hunting clubs in order to split the costs.
  Sport-shooting is also a fairly expensive hobby since there is less
  of a market for guns and ammo in Germany, given the restrictions.
  Obtaining a hunter's or sport-shooter's license costs about 82 DM.
  Sport-shooters are permitted an unlimited number of single-shot rifles
  and/or shotguns, but only two handguns.  Only with special permission
  from a shooting club can a sport-shooter get a multi-shot rifle or
  shotgun.  Semi-automatic long guns with a magazine capacity greater
  than 2 rounds are permitted only to hunters.  After purchasing a gun,
  it must be registered within two weeks, and the registration fee is
  15 DM per gun.  Most applicants for the_Jagdschein_[hunter's license]
  take courses to prepare for the test which is involved, and the test
  costs 200 DM.  Licensed hunters are allowed an unlimited number of
  rifles and/or shotguns, but only two handguns.  Hunters have 4 weeks
  to register new long guns.  Sport-shooting licensees are only
  permitted to buy ammunition for handguns or sporting rifles and
  shotguns in calibers they actually own, but licensed hunters are
  allowed to purchase any caliber ammunition for long guns.  Owning
  machineguns or other military weapons is prohibited to German
  civilians.  The major civilian shooting sports organization in
  Germany is the_Deutsche Schutzenbund_[German Shooter's League].
  While Germans may have highly restrictive laws on firearms, there
  are no speed limits on the autobahnen (highways), and proposals to
  impose speed limits have met with the type of passionate opposition
  that "gun control" laws face in the U.S.!  Evidently the speed
  limiters in Germany have yet to convincingly wield the gun banner's
  slogan: "If it saves only one life..."
----------------------------------------------------------------------
German information updated with the valuable assistance of
Andreas Miehe ([e-mail])


AUSTRALIA

Police are organized on the state level, and there is a healthy distrust
  of authority in Australia, in some sense extending back to its 1788
  founding as a British penal colony.  Nevertheless, Aussie police are
  professional and effective, and criminals typically serve longer
  sentences sooner in Australia than is the case in the United States.
  Police are forbidden by law to search without warrants, but like other
  Commonwealth nations, and Britain itself, there is no Australian
  equivalent to the U.S. Bill of Rights, except for a constitutional
  prohibition against establishment of an official religion.  Voting
  is_compulsory_for Australians over age 18, and those who don't
  exercise their civic duty in this way can be (and are) fined!

In Australia, the "gun control" battle centers on long guns, as handguns
  have been tightly restricted along the lines of Canada's "need" based
  licensing system for some time.  Handgun hunting is illegal, and those
  Australians who wish to own handguns must be part of a target shooting
  club, or must own the gun for some job-related reason.  Self-defence
  is not considered a legitimate reason for owning a pistol, and as in
  Canada, non-lethal defensive sprays like tear gas and pepper spray are
  prohibited.  Nonetheless, a number of Australians keep their pistols
  ostensibly registered for "target shooting" around for home and self-
  defence.  Criminals, of course, can still get handguns, but Aussie
  criminals have frequently substituted deadlier and more easily
  accessible long guns.  As a result of the recent Port Arthur massacre
  and other highly publicised shootings, the Australian government has
  moved to implement uniform British-style "gun control" over the entire
  country.  The laws on gun ownership presently vary from state to
  state, with the most controls in Victoria (where semi-automatic
  rifles are banned to all but sport shooters with a special hard-to-get
  licence), and the least in Tasmania (which until 1993 was the only
  Aussie state to permit private ownership of machineguns, which have
  been banned to civilians in the rest of country since the 1920s).
  Semi-autos have been legally available only in Queensland, South
  Australia, and in Tasmania.  Current proposals are to implement a
  complete national gun registration system, along with a uniform
  system of reciprocal licensing, to ban all centre-fire semi-automatics
  and pump action rifles and shotguns to civilians (along the lines of
  the Victoria system), and declare a six month amnesty for gun owners
  to turn in the banned weapons.  Australia's experiment in strict
  "gun control" will be an interesting sociopolitical and criminological
  laboratory in coming years, whatever the result.

Australian gun owners must obtain a licence, which requires a background
  check, and the completion of training classes.  In many states,
  ownership of semi-automatic firearms requires that the licensee show
  "need," and current proposals are to require "need"-based licensing
  (after the British model) nationwide, where proof of membership in
  a shooting club, or permission to hunt from a landowner would be
  shown at application.  Current proposals are to implement a 28-day
  waiting period nationwide.  Noncompliance with firearms registration
  laws is high, but not as high as the American rate (as in California's
  "assault weapon" registration).  The recently proposed nationwide gun
  registration is expected to be greeted with similar noncompliance
  because of Victoria's registration law being used as a prelude for
  later confiscation (without commpensation).  Police in some states
  have already imposed de facto inspection and storage requirements
  which aren't part of the written law, such as requiring gun owners
  to purchase steel safes which can be bolted to their houses.  The
  current proposals include similar standards being enacted into law
  and applied across the country.  Australia's gun owners have organized
  politically to oppose "gun control" (with some success), and the
  Sporting Shooters Association of Australia has sought organizational
  assistance from the U.S. National Rifle Association's Institute for
  Legislative Action (NRA-ILA).
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The latest on Australia's "gun control" battles can be found on
the SSAA's website at http://www.tnet.au/~ssaa/


APPENDIX IV.
Washington, D.C.: a "gun control" paradise

Absolute numbers of murders and homicides in the District of Columbia,
as well as population-adjusted rates of murder and homicide during
the years 1957-1994, including those years studied by Loftin, et al.

Sources:

_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


Pop(100K) = population estimates (D.C. only, excluding non-D.C.
Metropolitan Statistical Area) and census figures for years
ending in zero, in hundred thousands

MNNM = murder/non-negligent manslaughter

Homicide = Total homicides (including justifiable homicides
and homicides due to "legal intervention" by the police)

MNNM/100K and Hom(icide)/100K are population-adjusted figures
(annual rates per 100,000 population)

* (US)MNNM/100K reflects the population-adjusted MNNM figures
for the entire United States (annual rates per 100,000 population),
_excluding_the population and MNNM of the District of Columbia
Formula:
(US)MNNM/100K = ((usMNNM - dcMNNM) / (usPop - dcPop)) * 100,000

n.a. = not available

LAW = 1976, the year in which D.C.'s Firearms Control Regulations Act
became law (see 3.0.b)


WASHINGTON, D.C.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Year    Pop(100K)   MNNM   Hom   MNNM/100K   Hom/100K  (US)MNNM*/100K

1957      7.63       78     68     10.2         8.9          4.7
1958      7.57       74     n.a.    9.8         n.a.         4.7
1959      7.61       74     75      9.7         9.9          4.8
1960      7.63956    81     88     10.6        11.5          5.1
1961      7.75       88     89     11.4        11.5          4.8
1962      7.8        91     99     11.7        12.7          4.6
1963      7.95       95     88     12.0        11.1          4.6
1964      7.98      132    117     16.5 <uptrn 14.7  upturn> 4.9
1965      7.97      148    122     18.6        15.3          5.1
1966      7.91      141    133     17.8        16.8          5.6
1967      7.91      178    174     22.5        22.0          6.1

1968      7.78      195    157     25.1        20.2          6.9
1969      7.62      287    243     37.7        31.9          7.2
1970      7.56570   221    200     29.2        26.4          7.8
1971      7.58      275    263     36.3        34.7          8.5
1972      7.52      245    252     32.6        33.5          8.9
1973      7.37      268    260     36.4        35.3          9.3
1974      7.23      277    275     38.3 <high  38.0    high> 9.7
1975      7.12      235    242     33.0        34.0          9.6
1976      7.0    -- 188 -- 202 LAW 26.9 <low-- 28.9 -- low>  8.7
1977      6.85      192    187     28.0        27.3          8.8
1978      6.71      189    172     28.2        25.6          8.9
1979      6.56      180    184     27.4        28.1          9.7
1980      6.35233   200    175     31.5        27.6   high> 10.2
1981      6.36      223    223     35.1 <high  35.1          9.8
1982      6.31      194    213     30.7        33.8          9.0
1983      6.23      183    163     29.4        26.2          8.2
1984      6.23      175    167     28.1        26.8          7.9
1985      6.26      147    146     23.5 <low   23.3     low> 7.9
1986      6.26      194    176     31.0        28.1          8.5
1987      6.22      225    210     36.2        33.8          8.2

1988      6.2       369    308     59.5 <uptrn 49.7  upturn> 8.3
1989      6.04      434    360     71.9        59.6          8.5
1990      6.069     472    403     77.9        66.5          9.3
1991      5.98      482    417     80.6 <high  69.7    high> 9.6
1992      5.89      443    n.a.    75.2        n.a.          9.2
1993      5.78      454    n.a.    78.6        n.a.          9.4
1994      5.70      399    n.a.    70.0        n.a.          8.8

Analysis:  Hom(icide) represents the same source that Loftin, et al.
used, although they had the raw data broken down by months, not years,
and used the firearm-related homicides, not total homicides.  They
also did not correct for the gradual decline in D.C.'s population
which began at about the same time as MNNM began to increase sharply
in D.C. during the late 1960s.
   As can be seen from the data above, the D.C. MNNM stats are an
exaggeration of the national trend.  Attributing the slight decline
in homicides which occurred during 1976-1979 to the enactment of
the D.C. "gun control" law is somewhat doubtful, especially because
the decline had already begun in 1976, and for most of that year,
the law wasn't in effect.  If there was actually any such decline,
it was unquestionably short-lived.
   Loftin, et al. were fortunate that their study concluded in 1987,
before the NCHS numbers illustrating D.C.'s skyrocketing homicide
rate would have been available.  The FBI's UCR numbers, which would
be available sooner, told a shocking story even as Loftin, et al.
were going to press.  (Note also the vast differences between the
total homicide numbers as reported by the National Center for Health
Statistics and the MNNM numbers reported by the Federal Bureau of
Investigation during the 1988-1991 period!  People were evidently
getting killed so fast that the doctors lost count...)


APPENDIX V.
The U.S. Supreme Court and the Second Amendment

   The U.S. Supreme Court, for most of its history, has had no
controversies brought before it dealing with the meaning of the
Second Amendment.  Until the twentieth century, there were no "gun
control" laws at the federal level, and the state militias were
controlled at the state level, by the governors.  As a result, the
history of Second Amendment jurisprudence by the U.S. Supreme Court
begins with Reconstruction, and the infringement of the civil rights
of black Americans, especially the emancipated slaves, by governments
of the former Confederacy, and by extralegal private racist groups
like the White League and the Ku Klux Klan.  The decision of the
high court in the case of_U.S. v. Cruikshank_formed the legal
foundation for official disregard of the Fourteenth Amendment,
and kept black Americans in a condition between slavery and freedom
for a century after Emancipation.

1875: _The United States vs. William J. Cruikshank, et al._
U.S. Reports v.92 pp.542, Lawyer's Edition v.23 p.588

   Appellees in this case were indicted on June 16th, 1873 under
the Enforcement Act of 1870 on thirty-two counts, including "an
intent to hinder and prevent the exercise" by "two citizens of
the United States, 'of African descent and persons of color'"
of 'the right to keep and bear arms for a lawful purpose'".
   Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite wrote for the majority that
"The right... specified" in the indictment "is that of 'bearing
arms for a lawful purpose.'  This is not a right granted by the
Constitution.  Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that
instrument for its existence."  The Second Amendment, Waite wrote,
"declares that it shall not be infringed; but this, as has been
seen, means no more than that it shall not be infringed by Congress.
This is one of the amendments that has no other effect than to
restrict the powers of the national government, leaving the people
to look for their protection against any violation by their fellow
citizens of the rights it recognizes" to the police powers of
the states and localities.  [p. 553]
   From this statement we see that the Court's view of the Second
Amendment in_Cruikshank_was that it is an individual right, capable
of being infringed upon by one's "fellow citizens," but that the
Second Amendment only protects against infringement of that right
by the federal government.  The right to keep and bear arms, the
Court said, pre-dates the Constitution, and "is not dependent upon
that instrument for its existence."

   A decade passed before the high court again addressed the issue
of the Second Amendment.

1886: _Herman Presser vs. The State of Illinois_
U.S. Reports v.116 p.252, Supreme Court Reports v.6 p.580,
Lawyer's Edition v.29 p.615

   Apellee in this case was indicted on September 24, 1879 for
violating an Illinois state law which prohibited "any body of
men whatever, other than the regular organized volunteer militia
of this State, and the troops of the United States, to associate
themselves together as a military company or organization, or to
drill or parade with arms in any city, or town, of this State,
without the license of the Governor thereof..."
   Justice William B Woods, writing for the majority, addressed
apellees' argument that the Illinois statute violated the Second
Amendment:  "We think it clear that the sections under consideration,
which only forbid bodies of men to associate together as military
organizations, or to drill or parade with arms in cities and towns
unless authorized by law, do not infringe the right of the people
to keep and bear arms.  But a conclusive answer to the contention
that this amendment prohibits the legislation in question lies in
the fact that the amendment is a limitation only upon the power
of Congress and the National government, and not upon that of the
States."  Woods went on to cite the_Cruikshank_decision, among
others, as precedent.  "It is undoubtedly true" Woods continued,
"that all citizens capable of bearing arms constitute the reserved
military force or reserve militia of the United States as well as
of the States, and in view of this prerogative of the general
government, as well as of its general powers, the States cannot,
even laying the constitutional provision in question out of view,
prohibit the people from keeping and bearing arms, so as to deprive
the United States of their rightful resource for maintaining the
public security, and disable the people from performing their
duty to the general government." [pp. 264-265]
   Thus, according to the Supreme Court in_Presser,_states may
restrict private military organizations without violating the
right of the people to keep and bear arms.  The Court in_Presser_
repeated their argument from_Cruikshank_that the Second Amendment
is only a limitation on the power of the Federal government, and
not the states.  However, the majority speculated that the Federal
government's power over the state militia prohibited state laws
which disarmed ordinary citizens of the means to carry out their
militia duties.

   If the Second Amendment only serves to protect the right of
the people to keep and bear arms against the depredations of
the Federal government, what of the constitutionality of federal
"gun control" laws?  The National Firearms Act of 1934 was passed
to restrict the availability of "gangster weapons" like machineguns
and sawed-off shotguns, and just a few years later, the Court heard
the appeal of the United States resulting from a dismissed indictment
under the Act, which was the first major "gun control" law at the
federal level.

1939: _The United States vs. Jack Miller, et al._
U.S. Reports v.307 p.174, Supreme Court Reports v.59 p.816,
Lawyer's Edition v.83 p.1206

   The U.S. District Court of the Western District of Arkansas,
on January 3, 1939 dismissed the indictment of Jack Miller and Frank
Layton under the National Firearms Act, declaring in part that the Act
"offends the inhibition of the Second Amendment to the Constitution".
Miller and Layton had been indicted for transporting a short-barreled
shotgun from Claremore, OK to Siloam Springs, AR without registering
the weapon and obtaining the $200 transfer tax stamp as required by law.
The United States appealed the U.S. District Court's decision directly
to the Supreme Court because the constitutionality of the law was
at issue.
   The Supreme Court heard only the government's side of the case,
since Miller and Layton were not represented before the Court.  In
the majority opinion, Justice James C. McReynolds wrote:  "In the
absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of
a 'shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length'
at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation
or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the
Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an
instrument.  Certainly it is not within judicial notice that this
weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment or that its
use could contribute to the common defense."  [p. 178]  McReynolds
cited _Aymette v. State,_Tennessee Reports v.21 (2 Humphreys) p.154
(1840) which defined "arms" as "the ordinary military equipment."
Consequently, the Supreme Court reversed the District Court's
decision, and reinstated the indictment.
   The Second Amendment, wrote McReynolds, had the "obvious purpose
to assure the continuation and render possible the effectiveness"
of the militia, and "[i]t must be interpreted with that end in view."
The militia, "comprised all males physically capable of acting in
concert for the common defense... And further, that ordinarily when
called for service these men were expected to appear bearing arms
supplied by themselves and of the kind in common use at the time."
McReynolds also noted that "[m]ost if not all of the states have
adopted provisions touching the right to keep and bear arms." [p. 182]
   The Court in_Miller_did not make an issue of the defendants'
status as members of the militia, but rather focused on the
applicability of a short-barreled shotgun for militia use, and
particularly whether the statute in question, which taxed "gangster
weapons," was an unconstitutional extension of federal power, as the
lower court had contended.  "In the absence of evidence" having been
presented that such a weapon was "part of the ordinary military
equipment," the court was compelled "at this time" not to draw any
conclusions.  The Court again implied that the Second Amendment
protects an individual right against the infringement of federal
power, but the Court was willing to give the government the benefit
of the doubt in this case.  The Court's recognition of_Aymette_is
particularly interesting, since it implies that "arms" in the
wording of the Second Amendment means "the ordinary military
equipment," and that the ownership of military-type weapons is
particularly well protected under the Amendment.  The Court's
reference to the state constitutional guarantees of the right to
keep and bear arms is also interesting, since it implies some
equivalence between the right protected under the Second Amendment,
and the right protected by the similar state provisions, something
that cannot be reconciled with the idea that the Second Amendment
recognizes a right of the state militias not to be disarmed.  The
militia, as McReynolds points out, comprises_at least_"all males
physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense,"
and the definition of "the people" in the Bill of Rights is today
even broader.

   With rising violent crime rates since the 1960s, more and more
federal "gun control" laws have been added to the books, but no
cases have yet reached the Supreme Court to challenge these laws
on a Second Amendment basis.  A number of Second Amendment appeals
have be denied by the high court, allowing some poorly researched
lower court decisions to stand, and these form the foundation of
many lower court decisions construing the Second Amendment as
protecting only a right of the state militias.  The most prominent
examples are: _Tot vs. United States,_Federal Reports 2nd series
v.131 p.261 (1942), and_Cases v. United States,_Federal Reports 2nd
series v.131 p.916 (1942).  Dicta (commentary) in some recent
Supreme Court decisions gives insight into the Court's contemporary
view of the Second Amendment, and though these cases do not have
any substantive weight in the Court's Second Amendment jurisprudence,
such statements may be worthwhile to refer to.

1980: _Lewis vs. United States_
Supreme Court Reports v.100 p.915, U.S. Reports v.445 p.55,
Lawyer's Edition 2nd series v.63 p.798

   _Lewis_concerned an appeal of a weapons conviction under the
1968 Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act by a previously
convicted felon who was not represented by counsel at the
earlier trial.  As a footnote, Justice Harry Blackmun volunteered
that "[t]hese legislative restrictions on the use of firearms
are neither based upon constitutionally suspect criteria, nor
do they trench upon any constitutionally protected liberties."
[p. 65]  Blackmun cited_Miller,_as well as several lower court
cases upholding various parts of the 1968 law.  Of course, the
fact that a felon may be deprived of the right to keep and bear
arms (as a result of due process of law) has no bearing on whether
an ordinary citizen has a right to keep and bear arms which must
be respected by government.


1990: _Perpich vs. Department of Defense_
Supreme Court Reports v.110 p.2418, United States Reports v.496 p.334,
Lawyer's Edition 2nd series v.110 p.312

   Governor Rudy Perpich of Minnesota sued to prevent the state's
National Guard units from being federalized and sent out of the
United States to train in Central America in 1987.  The opinion
of the Court, delivered by Justice John Paul Stevens, noted that
the Federal Government retains supremacy over the states "in the
area of military affairs.  The Federal Government provides virtually
all of the funding, the materiel, and the leadership for the State
Guard units.  The Minnesota unit, which includes about 13,000
members, is affected only slightly when a few dozen, or at most
a few hundred, soldiers are ordered into active service for brief
periods of time."  Congress, the Court said, has provided that if
a federal mission were to interfere with the Guard's response to
local emergencies, the Governor could veto the proposed mission.
Additionally, as long as there is a provision in the law for a
state to maintain its own defense force at its own expense,
"there is no basis for an argument" that the present militia
system deprives a state of having its own militia.  [p.328-329]


1990: _United States vs. Verdugo-Urquidez_
Supreme Court Reports v.110 p.1056, United States Reports v.494 p.259,
Lawyer's Edition 2nd series v.108 p.222

   The appellee was a Mexican citizen who attempted to argue that
the Fourth Amendment's protections against unreasonable searches and
seizures apply to seizures of foreign-owned property by U.S. agents
operating in a foreign country.  Chief Justice William Rehnquist,
in writing for the majority, described "the people" in the Fourth
Amendment as "a term of art" used in the text of the Constitution
(as in the Second Amendment) to refer to "a class of persons who
are part of a national community or who have otherwise developed
sufficient connection with this country to be considered part of
that community."  [p.232-233]  The basis of the appeal was rejected,
since at the time of the search, the appellee "was a citizen and
resident of Mexico with no voluntary attachment to the United States,
and the place searched was in Mexico." [p.239]


---

INDEX AND GLOSSARY

Adams, John (U.S. President, Vice-President to President Washington)
   2.0.a
Afghanistan
   Soviet occupation of (1979-1989), 4.0
"Assault Weapons" -- see Guns
Amar, Akhil (law professor, Yale University), 2.1
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) [U.S.], 1.1.a, Appendix I.
American Indian nations [U.S.]
   genocide of, 4.0
American Revolution, 4.0
American Society for Criminology (ASC)
   Hindelang Award for_Point Blank_by Gary Kleck, 1.1
   Comparative Criminology award for_The Samurai, The Mountie
     And The Cowboy,_by David Kopel, Appendix III.
Ammunition
   armor-piercing, 3.4, 3.4.a, 4.0, Appendix I.
   Black Talon, 3.4.a
   "Black Rhino," 3.4.a, 3.6
   pre-fragmented, 3.4.a
   Glaser Safety Slug, 3.4.a
   hollowpoint, 3.4.a, 4.0
   "Razor Ammo" (formerly "Rhino Ammo"), 3.4.a
   "Rhino," 3.4.a
Anderson, Jack (journalist, author), 3.6
AP [armor piercing, also Associated Press]
Asprey, Robert (author), 4.0
AW ["assault weapon(s)"]
Australia
   Sport Shooters Association of Australia, Appendix III.
automatic [in common use this can mean either semi-automatic
           or full(y)-auto(matic), i.e. a machinegun.  Fully
           automatic weapons continue to fire as long as the
           trigger is held down, until the magazine is empty.
           Full-auto weapons have been taxed and restricted
           in the U.S. since 1934 by the National Firearms Act.]
Ayoob, Massad (firearms instructor), 1.0, 1.1.a
Barnes, Ken (author of this FAQ) Email: [e-mail]
            [Mr. Barnes is also the author of the 'Hit' List music
             FAQ on alt.fan.rush-limbaugh.  He is a microbiologist.]
BATF -- see Treasury Dept.
Beccaria, Cesare (Italian criminologist, nobleman), 3.8
Bill of Rights [U.S.] -- see Law
Blackstone, Sir William (English jurist, author), 2.0.a
BoR ["Bill of Rights"]
Bovard, James (journalist, author), 2.3, 3.0
Brady Act, 3.2, 3.2.a, Appendix I.
Brady, Jim (press secretary to President Reagan), 3.2
Bullet [the part of a round of ammunition which is expelled out
        the muzzle in the direction of the target when the gun
        is fired.  Not the same thing as a cartridge or round.]
"Bulletproof" vests -- see bullet-resistant vests
Bullet-resistant vests, 3.4, 3.4.a
C3I [Command, Control, Communications, (and) Intelligence], 4.0
Caliber  [the diameter of the bullet in inches (or millimeters)
          which a gun is designed for.  In shotguns, the caliber
          is expressed as "gauge," or the number of lead spheres
          of that diameter which would make up a pound of lead.]
Cambodia (Kampuchea)
   Khmer Rouge genocide in, 4.0
"carjacking," [armed robbery/theft of a motor vehicle], 1.1
Carter, Hodding (journalist, author), 2.3
Cartridge [a unit of ammunition, also called a round, or (primarily
           among shotgunners --and artillerymen) a shell]
Case [the part of a round of ammunition which remains in the gun
      (at least until ejected) when the gun is fired.  The case is
      usually a brass cup containing the propellant powder and a
      form of primer.  Spent cases are often called "brass".]
CCW ["concealed carry weapon"]
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) [U.S.], 3.6
Chapman, Mark (assassin), 3.2
Chemical defense sprays, 1.1.a, 3.8.a
   and animals, 1.1.a
   and effectiveness, 1.1.a
   and toxicity, 1.1.a
   use of oven cleaner as, 1.1.a
   weapons substitution and, 1.1.a
China
   Communist (People's "Republic" of China), 4.0
      genocide in, 4.0
      "People's Army," 4.0
      pro-liberty movement in (1989), 4.0
      Tien an men Square massacre (1989), 4.0
Children and guns -- see Guns
Churchill, Winston (British prime minister), Section IV opening quote
Civil rights movement [U.S.], 2.0, 2.3
Civil War [U.S.], 2.0, 2.3
CLEO ["chief law enforcement officer"]
Clark, Ramsey (Attorney General to President Johnson), Appendix I.
Clarke, Arthur C. (author, inventor of communications satellite), 4.0
Clinton, Bill (U.S. President), Section III opening quote, 3.2.a,
  3.3, Appendix I.
Clip -- see Magazine
Colfax, (Louisiana) Massacre [U.S.], 2.3
"collective rights," 2.1
Concealed-carry reform -- see Law
Constitution, U.S. -- see Law
"Cop-killer" bullet -- see Police
Cottey, Talbert J. (), 3.0.b
Cottrol, Robert (law professor, Rutgers University-Camden), 2.0, 2.1
  2.3, 3.3
Cramer, Clayton (author), 1.0, 2.0
Crime
   and urban settings, 1.1
   and victim selection, 3.1
   "carjacking," 1.1
Cruikshank, William (), 2.3
CS [orthochlorobenzal malononitrile, a tear gas, sometimes called
    "chemical mace" (after "Mace," a tradename for an older, less
    effective tear gas formula made by Smith and Wesson which
    actually contained CN, or alphachloroacetophenone).  Tear gas is
    generally believed to be less effective than OC pepper spray.]
Curtis, Michael Kent (lawyer, author), 2.3
Daly, Kathleen (author), 3.5
Dawes, William (tanner, patriot), 4.0
Day, Dan (contributing author to FAQ), 2.2
Declaration of Independence (U.S.), 2.0.a
Department of Justice [U.S.] -- see Justice, Department of [U.S.]
DGU ["defensive gun use"]
Diamond, Raymond (law professor, Tulane University), 2.0, 2.1
  2.3, 3.3
Dodd, Thomas (U.S. Senator, D-CT), Appendix I.
Dowlut, Robert (deputy general counsel, NRA), 2.3
Dvorchak, Robert (AP reporter), 3.4.a
Eastwood, Clint (actor, director), 3.6, Appendix I.
Elliot, Jonathan (author), Section II opening quote
Federal Firearms License (FFL), 3.0, Appendix I.
Feinstein, Dianne (U.S. Senator, D-CA), Section III opening quote
Ferguson, Colin (mass murderer), 3.2
"fifth auxiliary right," 2.0.a
Fischer, David H. (historian), 4.0
Fletcher, Andrew (Scottish Whig political theorist), 2.0.a
"for the common defence" voted down by U.S. Senate, 2.1
Franklin, Benjamin (scientist, U.S. Ambassador to France), 2.2
Gauge -- see Caliber
GCA '68 [Gun Control Act of 1968, see Appendix I.]
General Accounting Office (GAO) [U.S.]
   Gun Control -- Implementation of the Brady Act (report), 3.2.a
General Services Administration [U.S.]
   National Archives, 2.0.a
Germany (Federal Republic)
   Deutsche Shutzenbund, Appendix III.
Germany (Third Reich)
   genocide in, 4.0
   occupation of Poland (1939-1945), 4.0
Gertz, Marc (), 1.1
Girardet, Edward (journalist, author), 4.0
Gorbachev, Mikhail (Soviet dictator), 4.0
Grant, Ulysses S. (Union general, U.S. President), 2.3
Gray, William (contributing author to FAQ), 3.0.a
Great Britain
   and U.S. Revolutionary War, 4.0
Gulag -- see Soviet Union
"Gun Control"
   ammunition regisration, 3.0
   and censorship, 2.1
   and children, 1.3
   and "collective" rights, 2.1
   and crime rates, 1.1.a, 3.8, Appendix II.
   and effectiveness, 1.1.a, 3.0, 3.0.b, 3.1, 3.2, 3.2.a, 3.3, 3.5, 3.6,
     3.7, 3.8, 3.8.a, Appendix II, Appendix IV.
   and elitism, 2.1
   and genocide, 3.0, 3.3, 4.0
   and non-lethal defense, 1.1.a, 3.8.a
   and racism, 2.0, 2.3
   and U.S. Revolutionary War, 4.0
   background checks, 3.0, 3.2, 3.2.a, Appendix I.
   bans, 2.3, 3.0.a, 3.3, 3.4, 3.4.a, 3.5, 3.6, Appendix I.
   buy-backs, 3.7
   concealed carry, 3.0.a, 3.8, 3.8.a, Appendix II.
   gun confiscation, 3.0, 3.5
   gun registration, 3.0, 3.0.b, 3.5, Appendix IV.
   licensing gun owners, 3.0, 3.0.a
   waiting periods, 3.0.a, 3.2, 3.2.a, Appendix I.
   weapons substitution and, 1.1.a, 3.5
Gunpowder -- see Powder
Guns
   assault rifles, 3.0, 3.3, 4.0
     AK-47 (Avtomat Kalashnikov model 1947), 4.0
     lethality of, 3.3
   "assault weapons," 3.3, 3.5, 3.6, Appendix I.
   and accidents, 1.1, 1.3, 3.0.a
   and cars, 1.3, 3.0.a
   and children, 1.3
   and crime deterrence, 1.1, 1.1.a, 1.2, 3.8
   and crime rates, 1.1, 3.0.b, 3.8, 3.8.a, Appendix II, Appendix IV.
   and defensive effectiveness, 1.1, 1.1.a, 1.2, 3.1, 3.2,
     3.3, 3.4.a, 3.8
   and disabled, 1.2, 3.1
   and drugs, 3.2, 3.5
   and elderly, 1.2, 3.1
   and lethality, 1.2, 3.1, 3.3, 3.5
   and mentally ill, 3.2, Appendix I.
   and multiple attackers, 1.1.a, 1.2, 3.1, 3.3
   and physical strength, 1.2, 3.1, 3.8.a
   and poor, 3.5
   and safety education, 1.1, 1.3
   and suicides, 1.1, 3.0.a
   as medium of exchange in illicit economy, 3.5, 3.6
   concealed carry of, 1.2, 3.0.a, 3.5, 3.8, 3.8.a, Appendix II.
   criminal acquisition of, 3.1, 3.2, 3.2.a, 3.5, 3.6, 3.7, 3.8.a
   criminal preferences in, 3.5
   frequency of use, generally, 1.1, 3.0, 3.0.a
   frequency of use in violent crime, 1.1
   frequency of use in self-defense, 1.1, 1.2
   handguns,
     Colt Government Model M1911A1 (.45 semi-auto), 3.5
     Glock 17 (9mm semi-auto), 3.6, Appendix I.
     Ruger P-89 (9mm semi-auto), 3.2
     Smith & Wesson .38 revolver, 3.5
     "Saturday Nite Specials," 1.1.a, 3.5
   hunting rifles, 3.0.b, 3.3, 3.4, 3.5, Appendix I.
   machineguns, 1.1.a, 3.3, Appendix I.
     number of in U.S., 3.0
   "plastic," 3.6, Appendix I.
   retention of, 1.2
   shotguns, 1.1.a, 3.0.b, 3.4, 3.5, Appendix I.
Halbrook, Stephen (lawyer), 2.0, 2.1, 2.3, 3.3
Hamilton, Alexander (Treasury Secretary to President Washington), 2.0.a,
   3.3, quotation 4.0
Hamilton, Peter J. (), 2.3
Hammer, Marion (first female president of NRA, first CCW license
   holder under Florida's reformed 1987 CCW law), 1.3
Handgun Control, Inc. (HCI) [U.S.], 3.4.a
handguns [concealable firearms designed to be held with only one hand,
          they are more often used with two hands, for accuracy, and to
          help minimize recoil.  There are many basic designs, but the
          most common are the semi-automatic pistol, the revolver,
          and the derringer.  Handguns are generally less deadly than
          long guns, though in heavier calibers (and especially when
          used with hollowpoint ammunition) they can be effective
          personal defense weapons.  That's why police have them.]
Hawkins, Gordon (), 3.1
Henry, Patrick (orator, governor of Virginia), Section II opening quote
Herbert, Hilary A. (), 2.3
Hinckley, Jr., John (attempted assassin), 3.2, Appendix I.
Holocaust, 3.0
hollowpoint(s) [a type of ammunition utilizing a bullet with a hollow
                tip, often precut or scored so as to expand to a larger
                diameter within a target, and transfer more energy to
                the target, rather than passing through and possibly
                hitting whatever is behind the target.  Hollowpoints
                help increase the effectiveness of smaller calibers.
                Hollowpoints do not "explode," nor are they in any way
                "armor-piercing," contrary to erroneous reports by
                uninformed members of the press.]
House of Representatives, U.S.
   _Gun Laws and the Need for Self-Defense_(1995 hearings), 1.0
Hughes, William J. (D-NJ), Appendix I.
International Association of Chiefs of Police, 1.1.a
"In The Line Of Fire" (motion picture), 3.6, Appendix I.
Japan
   Nihon Raifuru Shageki Kyokai (NRA), Appendix III.
Japanese-Americans, internment of 4.0
Jay, John (first Chief Justice of U.S. Supreme Court), 3.3
Jefferson, Thomas (U.S. President), 3.8, Section IV opening quote
Jewish Fighting Organization (ZOB, or Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa)
   defense of Warsaw Ghetto, 4.0
Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership (JPFO) [U.S.]
   address and phone numbers, 1.0
   "Dial 911 and Die!", 1.0
   "'Gun Control' Gateway to Tyranny", see Appendix I.
   "Lethal Laws", 3.0, 3.3, 4.0
Johnson, Lyndon (U.S. President), see Appendix I.
Justice, Department of [U.S.]
   Bureau of Justice Statistics
     National Crime Victimization Survey, 1.1
   Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) [U.S.]
      and background checks, 3.0.a, 3.2.a, Appendix I.
      Uniform Crime Reports, 3.2.a, 3.8, Appendix II.
        Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted, 1.2, 3.4
Karl, Jonathan (journalist, author), 4.0
Kates, Jr., Donald (lawyer, criminologist), 2.0, 2.1, 2.2
Keen, David (chemist), 3.4.a
Kellerman, Arthur (physician), 1.1
Kellogg, William P. (governor of Louisiana), 2.3
Keneally, Thomas (author), 4.0
Kennedy, Robert (U.S. presidential candidate - 1968), Appendix I.
Kleck, Gary (criminologist, Florida State University), 1.1, 1.2,
   1.3, 3.0, 3.3, 3.5, 3.6, 3.8, 3.8.a, Appendix III.
King, Jr., Martin Luther (U.S. civil rights leader), Appendix I.
King, Rodney, (drunk driver) 1.1.a
Kopel, David B. (author), 2.o, Appendix III.
Korea
   North ("Democratic" People's "Republic" of Korea), 4.0
Kotell, Peter (writer), 3.4.a
Ku Klux Klan (U.S.), 2.3
Kurzman, Dan (author), 4.0
LaPierre, Wayne (NRA spokesman and chief executive officer)
   1.3, 2.1, 3.0, 3.0.a, 3.2, 3.3, 3.5, 3.7, 3.8
Law
   Case law, U.S., 1.0, 2.0, 2.3, 3.3, Appendix I.
   Concealed-carry reform, 3.0.a, 3.8, 3.8.a, Appendix II.
   Constitution, of U.S. states
     and RKBA, 2.3
     Virginia, 2.0, 2.0.a, 2.3
   Constitution, U.S.
     Article I, 2.0
       "militia clauses," 2.0.a
     Article II, 2.0
     Article V, 2.2
     Amendment I, 2.1, 2.2
     Amendment II, 2.0, 2.0.a, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 3.3, 4.0, Appendix I.
       and military weapons, 3.3
       and nuclear weapons, 2.2
       application to state and local governments, 2.3
       as deterrent to tyranny, 4.0
       meaning of "well regulated", 2.0.a
       punctuation in, 2.0.a
       text of, 2.0
     Amendment IV, 2.1
     Amendment IX, 2.1
     Amendment X, 2.1, 3.2.a, Appendix I.
     Amendment XIV, 2.3
       and "incorporation" doctrine, 2.3
   Constitution, German (Federal Republic), Appendix III.
   Constitution, Soviet Union (CCCP), 2.1
   Statutes, Australian
     "gun control," Appendix III.
   Statutes, Canadian
     "gun control," Appendix III.
     and OC pepper spray, 1.1.a
   Statutes, German (Third Reich)
     Waffengesetz [Law on Weapons] of March 18, 1938, 3.0, Appendix I.
   Statutes, German (Federal Republic)
     "gun control," Appendix III.
     and OC pepper spray, 1.1.a, Appendix III.
   Statutes, Japanese
     "gun control," Appendix III.
   Statutes, Switzerland
     "gun control," Appendix III.
   Statutes, United Kingdom
     common law RKBA, 2.0
     English Bill of Rights, 2.0.a
     "gun control," Appendix III.
   Statutes, U.S.
     federal "gun control" laws, Appendix I.
     Militia Act (1792), 2.0, 2.1
     Enforcement Act (1870), 2.3
     Title 10, 2.0
     Title 32, 2.0
    Statutes, U.S. state and local
   "Jim Crow", 2.3
     Morton Grove, Il., 2.3
     New York City
       "Assault rifle" ban, 3.0
     Statutes, Florida
       Title 46, 3.8, 3.8.a, Appendix II.
     Statutes, Vermont, 3.0
     Washington, D.C.
       and OC pepper spray, 1.1.a
       Firearms Control Regulations Act (1976), 3.0.b, Appendix IV.
Law Enforcement - see Police
LEO [law enforcement officer]
Lennon, John (entertainer), 3.2
Levinson, Sanford (law professor, University of Texas), 2.1
Lexington and Concord (Mass.)
   battles of (U.S. Revolutionary War), 4.0
Library of Congress [U.S.]
   _The Constitution of the United States,_2.0.a
Loftin, Colin (criminologist, University of Maryland), 3.0.b
long guns [firearms like rifles and shotguns, as distinguished
           from handguns - these are generally more accurate and
           deadlier weapons than handguns, but less concealable]
Longstreet, James A. (Confederate general, corps commander to Gen.
   Robert E. Lee, cotton-broker, adjutant general of LA militia), 2.3
Machine guns -- see Guns
Magazine [the part of a firearm, often detachable, which holds
          ammunition and feeds it into the gun via a spring
          mechanism.  Sometimes (incorrectly) called a clip.
          Clips are pieces of metal which can be used to load
          a non-detachable magazine.]
Madison, James (U.S. President), 2.1, 3.3
Malcolm, Joyce (historian, Harvard University), 2.0
McDowall, David (criminologist, University of Maryland), 3.0.b, 3.8.a
McEnery, John D. (LA gubenatorial candidate - 1872), 2.3
(Mc)Kinney, Jesse (farmer, father of five, Grant Parish, LA), 2.3
Media reports
   ABC-TV, 3.4.a
   CBS-TV, "60 Minutes," Section III opening quote
   American Firearms Industry, 3.4.a
   Associated Press, 3.4.a, 3.8.a
   Houston Post, 3.2.a
   MTV (Music Television), "Enough is Enough," Section III
     opening quote
   NBC-TV, 3.4
   New England Journal of Medicine, 1.1, 3.0.b
   Newsweek, 3.4.a
   New York Times, 3.4.a
   Wall Street Journal, 3.4.a
Metaksa, Tanya (lobbyist for NRA), 3.4.a
"militia clauses" -- see Law
Militia, [U.S.], 2.0, 2.1, 4.0
militia, negro, 2.3
Minutemen (U.S. Revolutionary War), 4.0
MNNM [from the phrase "murder/non-negligent manslaughter"
      as used in the FBI's_Uniform Crime Reports_]
"more gun dealers than gas stations," 3.0.a
Morton, Chris (contributing author to FAQ), 1.2.a
Moynihan, Daniel (U.S. Senator, D-NY), 3.4.a
Muhlenberg, Frederick (Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives
   in the First Congress, U.S. Representative, Federalist-PA), 2.0.a
Mujahedeen ["fighters of God"] militia  (Afghanistan), 4.0
NFA [National Firearms Act of 1934, see Appendix I., also
     weapons restricted by the act, such as machineguns,
     short-barreled shotguns and rifles, and silencers]
Nash, Christopher C. (candidate for sheriff, Grant Parish, LA), 2.3
National Guard [U.S.]
   as organized militia, 2.0
National Rifle Association (NRA) [U.S.], 1.3, 3.2.a, 3.4, 3.4.a,
     3.6, Appendix I.
   addresses and phone numbers, 1.3
   and gun safety, 1.3
     "Eddie Eagle" program (K-6), 1.3
   and legislation, 3.4, 3.6, Appendix I.
National Safety Council [U.S.], 1.3, 3.0.a
Nelson, Levi (Allen?) (), 2.3
Nuclear weapons, 2.2, 4.0
Nurnberg War Crimes Trials, Appendix I.
OC [oleoresin capsicum, the active ingredient in hot peppers]
Okleberry, Kevin (contributing author to FAQ), 3.0.b
Oxford English Dictionary, 2.0
Paine, Thomas (author, revolutionary), Section I opening quote
Personal alarms, 1.1.a
Pinchback, Pinckney B. S. (lieutenant governor of Louisiana), 2.3
Poland
   Solidarity [Solidarnosc] movement, 4.0
   Warsaw Ghetto uprising (1943), 4.0
Police
   and armor-piercing ammunition, 3.4
   and chemical defense sprays, 1.1.a
   and Glock 17, 3.6
   and stun guns, 1.1.a
   disarmed by attacker, 1.2
   killed with armor-piercing bullet, 3.4
   killed with service weapon, 1.2, 3.4
   responsibilities of, 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 3.2, 3.7, 3.8
   transition to semi-automatics as sidearm, 3.5
   use of guns by, 1.1
Powder, propellant [Commonly called "gunpowder," or simply "powder".
   In modern firearms, the traditional recipe of the ancient Chinese
   (potassium nitrate, charcoal, and sulfur) is replaced by a faster
   cleaner-burning explosive, termed "smokeless powder," usually
   containing nitrocellulose (also known as "guncotton"), which is
   prepared by treating cellulose fibers with nitric acid.  Curiously,
   the Chinese used their explosive invention primarily for artistic,
   ceremonial, and signaling purposes, in fireworks; but its application
   by the Europeans as a weapon is generally credited by military
   historians as the beginning of the end of castles and armed knights
   (eventually, the end of feudalism and royalty itself).  The heavy
   sulfurous smoke of those battlefields is still with us each summer
   in the U.S. as we celebrate our Independence Day, the 4th of July.]
Prescott, Dr. Samuel (physician, patriot), 4.0
Primer [In modern firearms, a shock-sensitive chemical mixture which
        when struck ignites the propellant powder in a round of
        ammunition, also the small deformable metal cup containing
        the priming mixture.  Rimfire cartridges, such as the popular
        .22 cal. long rifle, do not contain a separate primer, but
        have the priming mixture cast into the deformable rim of
        the brass case.  Priming mixtures once commonly contained
        mercury fulminate, which causes corrosion to exposed metal
        surfaces, such as those inside the barrel.  Modern primers
        typically substitute lead salts like lead styphnate and/or
        lead azide, along with an oxidizing agent like potassium
        chlorate, plus other agents such as lead thiocyanate, antimony
        sulfide, and ground glass or carborundum, to act as stabilizers,
        fuels, sensitizers, binders, etc.  There is some concern that
        the lead compounds produced by the burning of the priming
        mixture can result in health problems for shooters, particularly
        in poorly ventilated indoor ranges, much as lead anti-"knock"
        compounds in gasoline/petrol were once a source of environmental
        lead exposure in air pollution.  There are lead-free primers
        specifically designed to minimize these problems, and which
        are becoming more popular with those shooters, like police
        agencies, who operate indoor ranges.  As responsible gun
        owners know, all the lead_should_be sent downrange!]
Prohibition (of alcohol), [U.S.], Appendix I.
Quadaffi, Muammar (Libyan dictator), 3.6
Quakers -- see Society of Friends
Quigley, Paxton (firearms instructor, author), 1.0
Rable, George C. (), 2.3
Reay, Donald T. (chief medical examiner, King County, WA), 1.1
Reagan, Ronald (U.S. President), 3.2, Appendix I.
Reconstruction Era [U.S.], 2.3
Register, R. C. (judge, Grant Parish, LA), 2.3
Revere, Paul (silversmith, patriot), 4.0
Reynolds, Glenn H. (law professor, U. of Tennessee), 2.2
Rice, Alan (writer, board member JPFO), 3.0, 3.3
RKBA ["right to keep and bear arms," from the phrase in Amendment II
      of the United States federal Constitution]
Rockefeller, Jay (U.S. Senator, D-WV), 3.3
Rossi, Peter (author), 3.5
Rotem, Simha [a.k.a. Simcha Rathajzer, or "Kazik"] (ZOB fighter), 4.0
Safety rules, Appendix III.
Seldes, George (author, journalist), 2.1
select fire [capable of single shot, multi-shot burst, or full
             automatic (machinegun) rate of fire]
semi-auto(matic) [fires one shot per pull of trigger, ejects case,
                  loads another round into chamber]
Senate, U.S.
   The Right to Keep and Bear Arms (report), 2.1
   Federal Firearms Legislation (1968 hearings), Appendix I.
Schindler, Oskar (German war profiteer and industrialist), 4.0
"Schindler's List" (motion picture), 4.0
Schulman, J. Neil (author, screenwriter), 1.0
Schumer, Charles (U.S. Rep., D-NY), 3.4.a
Schwartz, Bernard (law professor, New York University), 2.0
Schwizer, Peter (author, journalist), 4.0
Second Amendment -- see Law
Shalhope, Robert (historian, University of Oklahoma), 2.1
Shaw, Daniel (sheriff, Grant Parish, LA), 2.3
SHU [Scoville Heat Units, a pharmacological measure of the "heat"
     in hot peppers.  Formerly conducted by a panel of human tasters,
     the SHU scale has now been calibrated with instrumental methods,
     and is measured via HPLC (high performance liquid chromatography).
     Bell peppers are assigned a zero, jalapenos rate about 5,000 SHU,
     and the hottest edible peppers, habaneros (_Capsicum chinense_),
     about 200-300,000 SHU.  By contrast, the pepper extracts used in
     chemical defensive sprays have an effective dose of between
     1,500,000 and 2,000,000 SHU.]
Simkin, Jay (research director, JPFO), 3.0, 3.3, Appendix I.
Singletary, Otis (), 2.3
Slavery [U.S.], 2.0, 2.3
small arms [handheld firearms such as rifles, pistols, and shotguns
            as distinguished from crew-served artillery]
(Society of) Friends ["Quakers", pacifist Christian denomination], 2.1
Solzhenitsyn, Alexsandr (author, Soviet political prisoner), 4.0
Soviet Union [CCCP, Soyuz Sovetskykh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublic]
   constitution of -- see Law, Constitution, Soviet Union
   genocide in, 4.0
   Gulag, 2.1
   occupation of Afghanistan (1979-1989), 4.0
   tyranny in, 2.1, 4.0
Spielberg, Steven (producer, director), 4.0
"sporting purposes," 2.1, Appendix I.
Sprays, chemical defense -- see Chemical defense sprays
Squirt gun
   "Super Soaker," 3.6
Stalin, Josef (a.k.a. Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili,
   Soviet dictator, mass murderer), 2.1
"states' rights," 2.1, 2.2
Stinger anti-aircraft missile (U.S.), 4.0
Strong, Sanford (former San Diego police officer, author), 1.0
Stun "guns," 1.1.a, 3.8.a
Sugarmann, Josh (), 3.6
Supreme Court [U.S.], 1.0, 2.0, 2.3, 3.3
SWAT [Special Weapons and Tactics, or paramilitary police]
Switzerland
   ProTell [gun owners association], Appendix III.
TASER [Thomas A. Swift Electric Rifle, a whimsical name given
        to the police stun gun by its inventor.  Taken from
        the 'Tom Swift' children's book adventure series.]
Thomas, Andrew (author), 3.3
Tillman, Alexander (), 2.3
Treasury Department [U.S.]
   Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (BATF), 3.0, 3.0.a, 3.2.a,
     3.4, 3.4.a, 3.5, Appendix I.
University of Maryland study, 3.0.b, 3.8, Appendix II, Appendix IV.
Urban, Mark (journalist, author), 4.0
van Alstyne, William (law professor, Duke University), 2.1
Van Atta, Dale (journalist), 3.6
Waffengesetz - see Law, German Statutes (Third Reich)
Waffen-SS [Shutzstaffel, armed elite guard], (German Third Reich), 4.0
Walker, Bob (lobbyist for HCI), 3.4.a
Ward, William (captain of Grant Parish, LA negro militia,
    LA state legislator), 2.3
Warfare
   guerilla, 4.0
   telecommunications and, 4.0
Warmoth, Henry C. (governor of Louisiana), 2.3
Warsaw Ghetto uprising -- see Poland
Washington, D.C., 1.1.a
Weapon substitution, 1.1.a, 3.5
Webster, Noah (lexicographer, patriot), 2.0
"well regulated" -- see Law, Amendment II
Wiersema, Brian (criminologist, University of Maryland), 3.0.b
World War II, 4.0
Wright, James (sociologist, Tulane University), 3.5
Zelman, Aaron (executive director, JPFO), 3.0, 3.3, Appendix I.
Zimring, Franklin E. (criminologist, law professor, University
   of California at Berkeley), 3.1
ZOB -- see Jewish Fighting Organization


--End of FAQ--