Monster Media 1993 #3/MONSTER.ISO/textfile/guntruth.txt

Text File | 1993-11-27 | 16KB | 342 lines

  THE TRUTH ABOUT THE USE OF GUNS IN THE UNITED STATES

                   November 23, 1993

I came upon the following information through John Grossboh-
lin,  a  good  friend of mine who recently  attended  a  gun
rights  conference in Phoenix, Arizona.   He provided  me  a
pamphlet  that was printed by the organization "Doctors  for
Integrity  in Research and Public Policy."     The  pamphlet
was  authored by Edgar A. Suter, M.D., who is the  organiza-
tion's chair.

  While I have seen much of the information provided in this
pamphlet  before,  I  have seen  no  other  compendium  that
presents  so  much so concisely.   For this reason,  I  have
chosen to commit its contents to a computer file so that  it
can  be distributed more widely.    I would hope  that  each
and every person reading this file would copy it and  upload
it  to various bulletin boards across the country.  I  would
also hope that you will use its contents widely in  debates,
computer  BB  discussions,  letters to the  editor,  and  in
correspondence  with  your lawmakers.   If so,  Dr.  Suter's
efforts  and  my  own will have  proven  worthwhile.    What
follows is the text of Dr. Suter's excellent pamphlet.

   Regards,

   John Marshall
   El Paso, Texas
   CompuServe 76366,663
   Prodigy VFCM83A

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  GUNS:
    Facts &
      Fallacies


                           Doctors for
                           Integrity in
                           Research &
                           Public Policy

                       Edgar A. Suter, MD, Chair
                       5201 Norris Canyon Road
                       Suite 140
                       San Ramon, CA  94583

  "Guns  are used defensively by good people 1. to 2.4  mil-
lion  times  every year - lives saved,  injuries  prevented,
medical costs saved, and property protected"

Revised 10/27/93

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

POLITICS OR RESEARCH? . . . THE TAXPAYERS PAY

On  the issue of guns and violence, our group has  uncovered
shocking incompetence, distortions and outright lies in many
major  medical  journals.  We have discovered  it  is  quite
common for TAXPAYER-FUNDED gun control researchers to fabri-
cate  and  sculpt  their data to bolster  their  biased  and
foregone conclusions.

The "peer review" process is supposed to prevent the  publi-
cation of research that is flawed in method or  conclusions.
Editorial  bias has caused a breakdown of that review  proc-
ess, allowing publication of much shoddy work simply because
it supported the "politically correct" view.  Unusual  show-
manship  accompanies  the announcements of  gun  prohibition
advocates.  Why?

Our  group is also concerned that the 1990  Harvard  Medical
Practice  Study  - a sample from New York state  -  suggests
that Americans are five times as likely to die from a doctor
as  from  a gun.  An estimated 150,000 Americans  die  every
year  from  medical  negligence - over five  times  as  many
deaths from doctors as from guns!  A "public health emergen-
cy"  about which the American Medical Association is  suspi-
ciously silent.  Politics, lies or incompetence?

THE NUMBERS

Former  Surgeon  General C. Everett Koop and the  Editor  in
Chief  of  the Journal of the American  Medical  Association
(JAMA), Dr. George Lundberg, in a June 10, 1992 JAMA  edito-
rial,  claimed "one million US inhabitants  die  prematurely
each year as the result of intentional homicide or suicide."
Since an average of 30,000 Americans die from gunshots  each
year, JAMA's claim is a 35-FOLD EXAGGERATION.  Yet congress-
men listen with respect to their testimony on guns.

THE "INNOCENT CHILDREN" EXAGGERATION

Powerful images of children are used to mislead us.   Prohi-
bitionists  foster the image of gun deaths of "thousands  of
innocent children."  In order to make this claim, they  have
had to include young adults (to age 24) involved in gang and
drug  crime  - hardly "innocent children."  10 TO  20  TIMES
MORE  CHILDREN  DIE  FROM CAR AND OTHER  LEADING  CAUSES  OF
ACCIDENTAL  DEATHS AS DIE FROM GUNS - for example, in  1988,
compared  with  2,608 car, 1,014 drowning, and  10,094  burn
deaths, 123 children (ages 0-10) died from gun accidents.

THE "43 TIMES" FALLACY

We have all head that "a gunowner is 43 times more likely to
kill  a family member than intruder."  How did this  fallacy
start?   In  a 1985 article in the New  England  Journal  of
Medicine,  Drs. Kellerman and Reay described the proper  way
to  calculate how many people are saved by guns compared  to
how many are hurt by guns.  The benefits should include,  in
the authors' own words, "cased in which burglars or  intrud-
ers are wounded or frightened away by the use or display  of
a  firearm [and] cases in which would-be intruders may  have
purposely avoided a house known to be armed..."

However,  when Kellerman and Reay calculated their  compari-
son, they did NOT include those cases, they only counted the
times a homeowner KILLED the criminal.  Because only 0.1% (1
in a 1,000) of defensive gun usage involves the death of the
criminal,  KELLERMAN  AND REAY  UNDERSTATED  THE  PROTECTIVE
BENEFITS OF FIREARMS BY A FACTOR OF 1,000!  They turned  the
truth  on its head!  Why?  Kellerman  emotionally  confessed
his anti-gun prejudice at the 1993 HELP Conference.

Honest analysis, even by Kellerman and Reay's own standards,
shows the "43 times" comparison to be superficially  appeal-
ing, but actually a deceitful contrivance - unfortunately, a
lie  that  is parroted by  the  well-funded  gun-prohibition
lobby and by gullible and biased journalists.

THE "POLICE CHIEF'S" FALLACY

The victim disarmament lobby wants us to believe that it  is
dangerous to resist crimes like rape and assault using a gun
-  but USING A GUN IS ACTUALLY SAFER THAN NOT  RESISTING  OR
RESISTING  WITH  LESS POWERFUL MEANS.  Defense  with  a  gun
results  in  fewer injuries (17%) than resisting  with  less
powerful  means  (knives, 40%; other weapon,  22%;  physical
force,  51%; evasion, 35%; etc.) and in fewer injuries  than
not resisting at all (25%).

When a victim is successful in repelling a crime, the victim
is unlikely to report the crime, leaving police to deal only
with  the  unsuccessful attempts to defend  oneself.   Since
police  are exposed to a skewed sample of failure, they  can
honestly, though incorrectly, conclude that it is  dangerous
to  attempt  to  defend oneself with a  gun,  the  so-called
"Police Chief's Fallacy" named after the former San Jose, CA
Police Chief Joseph McNamara, a vocal gun prohibitionist.

LICENSING, REGISTRATION, & BANS

In  a 1991 article in the New England Journal  of  Medicine,
Dr.  Colin  Loftin attempted to show that  Washington,  DC's
1976 ban on new gun sales decreased murder.  Loftin and  his
co-authors,  funded  by  YOUR tax money  from  the  anti-gun
Centers  for  Disease  Control (CDC), produced  a  piece  of
"research"  with several major flaws.  Despite these  flaws,
the editorial board of the New England Journal of  Medicine,
known for its anti-gun bias, published the article anyway.

Most shocking amongst the dozen flaws:

*   the  apparent homicide drop began during 1974,  2  years
BEFORE the gun law - so how could the law be responsible for
the temporary drop?

*  if the gun freeze were responsible for the homicide drop,
we  would  expect  the drop to continue  -  the  law  hasn't
changed,  but the overall Washington, DC homicide  rate  has
skyrocketed to  8 TIMES THE NATIONAL AVERAGE since 1988.

*   justifiable and excusable homicides, including those  by
police  officers, were treated the same as murders and  were
not excluded from the study.

*   the  study  used raw  numbers  rather  than  population-
corrected  rates, so did not correct for the 20%  population
decrease  in Washington, DC during the study period  or  for
the  25% increase in the control population -  the  imagined
drop  in  total  homicides was not due to the  gun  law,  as
Loftin  claimed, but was due to other factors, such  as  the
population drop!

If  "guns cause murder," why doesn't Virginia,  the  alleged
"easy purchase" source of DC's guns, have DC's murder  rate?
The  black  teenage  male homicide rate in  DC  is  227  per
100,000,  yet less than 7 for rural, middle-aged white  men,
the US group for whom gun ownership is highest - there is an
inverse  relationship  between  homicide  and  gun  density.
Homicide rates have been falling for decades for every group
EXCEPT  inner-city  teenage males, the group  for  whom  gun
ownership is ALREADY illegal throughout the entire US.

THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO RESEARCH THAT SHOWS LICENSING, REGIS-
TRATION, WAITING PERIODS, OR GUN BANS DECREASE CRIME IN  THE
LEAST - obviously criminals that murder, rape and deal drugs
won't  comply  with any gun law.  It is only  good  citizens
that will be disarmed, defenseless, dialing 911, and depend-
ent  upon the dubious resources and questionable will  of  a
capricious, rapacious, incompetent, and uncaring government.

THE 'ASSAULT WEAPONS" DECEPTION

It  is  not just the American Medical  Association,  Handgun
Control Inc. (HCI) and the media that have hysterically  and
grossly exaggerated the criminal use of semiautomatic  guns.
The  California  Attorney  General's  Office  conducted  two
statewide studies of the use of "assault weapons" in  crime.
Both  the 1988 Helsley and the 1990 Johnson  studies  showed
that such guns almost never used in crime, EVEN IN THE MAJOR
CENTERS  OF  DRUG VIOLENCE.   Criminals  prefer  concealable
weapons, not big rifles and shotguns.  The Attorney  General
office ignored and denied the existence of the studies until
the studies were leaked to the press.

Of  over two dozen published studies on  "assault  weapons,"
only one FLAWED "study" done by two newspaper reporters, the
Cox  newspaper  study, suggested that, EVEN IN  THE  HIGHEST
CRIME AREAS, semiautomatic guns were used in more than 0  to
3%  of  crimes.  The Cox "study" is invalid because  it  was
based on gun traces.  The FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobac-
co  and  Firearms  (BATF), and  the  Congressional  Research
Service  of the Library of Congress have all  explained  why
gun traces cannot be used for statistical purpose -  simply,
because  guns  are CHOSEN for tracing, such  traces  do  not
represent  a  true  SAMPLING of the kinds of  guns  used  in
crime.   THE  COX "STUDY" EXAGGERATED THE  USE  OF  "ASSAULT
WEAPONS" IN CRIME FROM 3 TO OVER 100 TIMES, depending on the
definition of "assault weapon" and the locale studied.

Almost all of these newly fearsome, expensive target  rifles
banned  are functionally like guns designed 100  years  ago!
The Los Angeles riots and other disasters show us that these
so-called  "assault weapons" are often the most  appropriate
weapons for self-protection by good citizens against mob and
gang violence.

THE "RELATIVES & FRIENDS" FALLACY

Gun prohibitionists would have us believe that most  murders
involve  ordinary people driven to kill in a sudden  fit  of
rage only because a gun was present.  This is based on HCI's
distortion  of the FBI Uniform Crime Report statistics.   To
the  FBI,  a murderer or rapist that lives in  the  victim's
apartment  building or dueling drug dealers  are  "acquaint-
ances."   These are the "friends and family" that  HCI  says
kill each other - DEFINITELY NOT LIKE THE FRIENDS AND FAMILY
YOU AND I HAVE.

Almost  all  the "relatives" killed each year are  the  very
same men, well-known to the police, that have been brutaliz-
ing their wives, girlfriends, and children for years - those
men  are killed in self-defense.  Would it be more  "politi-
cally  correct"  if those women or children were  killed  by
their abusers?

Law  professor  Don  Kates  has  written,  "Far  from  being
ordinary,  otherwise law-abiding citizens, those who  commit
murders,  as every study of homicide shows, are real  crimi-
nals  with  long histories of violence  against  the  people
around them...Indicative of this are FBI statistics  showing
that 74.7% of persons arrested for murder had been  arrested
previously for a violent felony or burglary..."

CONCLUSIONS

As  a dozen national studies show, including a study by  the
National  Institute of Justice and two studies  commissioned
by  gun-prohibition organization, GUNS DO PROTECT US!   GUNS
ARE  USED DEFENSIVELY BY GOOD PEOPLE 1 GO 2.4 MILLION  TIMES
PER  YEAR, far exceeding all reliable estimates of  criminal
misuse.   Using a gun to resist a crime or assault is  safer
than not resisting at all or resisting with means other than
firearms.  Guns not only repel crime, guns deter crime as is
shown by numerous surveys of criminals.

The  studies proving the ineffectiveness and the dangers  of
gun prohibition are met with "if it saves only one  life..."
The  most  loving person, however, must admit  that  A  GOOD
PERSON'S  LIFE LOST BECAUSE A GUN WAS ABSENT IS AT LEAST  AS
VALUABLE AS A LIFE LOST BECAUSE A GUN WAS PRESENT.  Since 50
to 75 lives are saved by a gun for every life lost to a gun,
we must see deceitful images that pluck at our  heartstrings
for the lies they are - not a basis for public policy - even
when a doctor, a policeman, or a medical journal is  telling
the lie!

HOW CAN YOU HELP?

SPREAD  THE TRUTH!  Make and distribute copies of this  bro-
chure, even to advocates of "gun control."

WRITE  YOUR  FEDERAL  AND STATE  LEGISLATORS.   Insist  that
public policy be formulated using honest data and that their
be no taxpayer funding of biased or incompetent research  by
the CDC or any other tax-funded group.  Insist that  taxpay-
er-funded  studies, like the assault weapon studies  by  the
California  Attorney General's Office, be made  public,  not
suppressed because the results were "politically incorrect."

WRITE  newspapers,  TV, and medical journals and  tell  them
that   you  will  not  tolerate  dishonest  or   imbalanced
reporting  on  gun  control and other  issues.   Expose  the
fallacies and show them the honest data.

GET INVOLVED AND VOTE for legislators that are truthful  and
that  support your freedoms to defend yourself, your  family,
and your community.

DONATE  to our group and others that support your rights  to
protect yourself from criminals, crazies, and tyrants.

FOR FURTHER READING...

POINT   BLANK  by  Gary  Kleck  Ph.D.  is  a   comprehensive
evaluation  of  the  research on gun  control  and  violence
available  from the publisher, Aldine de Gruyter, at:  (914)
747-0110.

THE  SAMURAI, THE MOUNTIE, AND THE COWBOY:   SHOULD  AMERICA
ADOPT THE GUN CONTROLS OF OTHER DEMOCRACIES?  By David Kopel
JD  is a comprehensive cross-cultural comparison of gun  con-
trol  and  violence in other countries  available  from  the
publisher, Prometheus Press, at: [phone].


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Once  again, please circulate this file as widely as  possi-
ble, and do it today.

   Thanks to all for reading,

   John Marshall