Gun Control Advocates Purvey Deadly Myths

Hey woman, while you're at it, post the whole article! Maybe it will educate anyone with half a brain! ( no, probably not the Three Stooges arguing with us here! ):

Gun Control Advocates Purvey Deadly Myths printed in the Wall Street Journal 11-11-98

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

Gun control became a defining issue in several of last week's elections. Those candidates opposing new regulations were painted as uncaring thugs indifferent to people's rests. Meanwhile, New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial last month filed suit against 15 gun makers, demanding that the reimburse the city and pay punitive damages for all the city's health care expenses and police salaries that arise from gun violence. Other cities seem certain to follow, and that is only part of the litigation threatening to engulf gun makers. To these plaintiffs, the solution to crime is simple and obvious: eliminate guns.

America may be obsessed with guns, but much of what pbuttes as fact simply isn't true. The news media focus on tragic outcomes, while ignoring tragic events that were avoided. Rarely do we hear about the more than two million times each year that people use guns defensively--including cases in which public shootings are stopped before they happen. Dramatic stories of mothers using guns to prevent their children from being kidnapped by car- jackers seldom even make the local news.

Myths about guns can threaten people's safety, by frightening them and preventing them from using the most effective means to defend themselves. Here are five of the most prevalent myths:

When one is attacked, pbuttive behavior is the safest approach. The Department of Justice's National Crime Victimization Survey reports that the probability of serious injury from an attack is 2.5 times greater for women offering no resistance than for women resisting with a gun. Men also benefit from using a gun, but the benefits are smaller: Offering no resistance is 1.4 times more likely to result in serious injury than resisting with a gun. Resistance with a gun is the safest course of action for victims to take.

Friends or relatives are the most likely persons. This myth is usually based on two claims: that 53% of liquidate victims are end by either relatives or acquaintances and that anyone could be a liquidateer. With the broad definition of "acquaintances" used in the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports, most victims are indeed clbuttified as knowing their person. But what's not made clear is that acquaintance liquidate primarily includes drug buyers killing pushers, cabdrivers end by first-time customers, gang members killing other gang members, prosbreastutes end by their clients, and so on. Only one U.S. city, Chicago, reports a precise breakdown on the nature of acquaintance killings, and the statistic gives a very different impression: between 1990 and 1995, just 17% of liquidate victims were either family members, friends, neighbors or roommates of their persons.

liquidateers are also not average citizens. About 90% of adult liquidateers already have an adult criminal record. liquidateers are overwhelmingly young males with low IQs who have long histories of difficulty getting along with others.