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As a child I grew up with a gun in the house. It was my father's shotgun that was kept in the cellar. It was not hidden or locked away, and I never had any reason to touch it. I should ad that my father was born in 1898 and he kept the gun for his annual "hunting trips" with an old crony. Each fall they would embark on a trek through the still-available woods in search of squirrels, rabbits, birds, and whatever other game came into their view. I always thought this was cruel, and since my mother disapproved also my father never brought any of his catches home but let his shooting pal take them. Upon returning home, the gun went back into its canvas bag and sat in the cellar until the following year.
My next encounter with guns was with my high school boyfriend's father. He took his sons-and me-out to an impromptu range to shoot pistols at targets. He showed us how to hold the guns, how to aim at the target and fire. At that point in my life I didn't know that I needed glasses. Eye exams had consisted only of the elementary school "eye tests" looking at letters from across a room. From that distance I could see fine. I could also see close up, although I got headaches if I read for a long time. Anyhow, when I held the gun and tried to look at the targets, I used my stronger left eye to site and my right eye to aim. This confounded my boyfriend, who wore thick and necessary glasses. He did a good job of hitting the target, and the whole purpose of the shooting event was to make us aware of guns and their safe use. In many "field trips", my boyfriend's father allowed me to participate in his family's activities that I could never have experienced otherwise. Finishing high school put my boyfriend, one year ahead of me, into Air Force ROTC. The next year I graduated into the great national dissent over the Viet Nam War. College campuses were home to frequent anti-war demonstrations. The nation was torn apart over the government's decision to put our men into a jungle fighting an enemy that really wasn't ours based on the premise that they were "containing" the Communist presence of that nation's next door neighbor. At that time, our country still placed all young men on the list to be drafted into the Army when they turned eighteen. "Draft cards" were issued when registration took place. I personally knew people who were "drafted" and went to Viet Nam. Guns were their means of survival every minute of every day, regardless of their feelings about them. Some fortunately came home; some were sent home as the result of injuries they sustained in battle; and at least one came home in a coffin. The political upheaval at the end of the Viet Nam War ultimately resulted in the end of the military draft. Guns then were a matter of choice, not necessity. I honestly don't recall there being a "gun issue" in our country. Police had them, hunters had them, civilians had them if they wished, and their use was protected under the Second Amendment to our Constitution giving citizens the Right to Bear Arms. An organization called the NRA (National Rifle Association) promoted that right, and today it is a major force in the maintenance of that constitutional right. But today there are forces that are defying that right, and our nation is once again plunged into a battle, but not about USING GUNS, but FIGHTING FOR OR AGAINST THEIR USE. As the country saw the tenth anniversary of what became known as the "Columbine Shootings" in which a pair of high school students went through the school killing whomever they happened to encounter, it brought to the front of our consciousness (and the media's) the issue of GUNS. Where? Why? How? Remembrances of those who died filled the papers and the TV. Add to this the more recent shooting binges undertaken by a single gunman who murdered people waiting to become U.S. citizens in Binghamton, New York, and the slaughter that took place across two campuses of Virginia Tech and you have the makings of a sudden rise in mass shootings. Fortunately for us, the public, the shooters ended their sprees by killing themselves. Reasons for these events are the topics of discussion on talk shows, news shows, in magazines and newspapers to this day. No doubt they will fill pages of textbooks that will offer theories and rationales. But one aspect of these events that has caused a major point to be raised is this: would the bystanders/victims have been better off if THEY HAD ALSO HAD GUNS? One brave TV network aired a show called "If I Only Had A Gun" that asked college students to volunteer for a program about gun use. It was actually filmed at Muhlenberg College in Pennsylvania after the group had been shown how to operate Glock handguns and given rudimentary practice in shooting them. The group didn't know that some of them were NOT students but police acting as such in a classroom setting. During a lecture a gun-brandishing person burst into the room. All the students, who had the Glocks they'd been given, were filmed to show what might actually happen if an assault happened to people that were armed. Would it prevent the carnage that ensued with the unarmed victims of recent shootings? What happened was interesting. Some students began to scream. Some ducked under the tables. One young man tried to respond with the gun but got it stuck in his shirt while attempting to pull it on the intruder. Someone else shot himself in the leg. When the "masked intruder" showed himself to be the instructor, all were amazed, embarrassed, annoyed, and much more. Had they felt safer because they had guns? Would they have been willing to shoot the intruder even if they might have accidentally shot another student? In that fleeting instant could they have even known what to do? Without admitting to taking sides in this dilemma, the network appeared to be showing that having a gun did not help in this staged situation and would not help out in the real world. Other opinions in the nights that followed were that the show's viewpoint was not neutral but was skewed AGAINST the value of the gun. Here is the article: "IF I ONLY HAD A GUN," A REPORT BY DIANE SAWYER AND DAVID MUIR, ON ABC NEWS' "20/20," FRIDAY, APRIL 10 When it comes to protecting yourself, you may think "if I only had a gun." But if you had a gun, could you protect yourself in a crisis? How easy is it to obtain a gun? And what explains the nearly irresistible attraction of young people to firearms? Diane Sawyer investigates, with reporting by David Muir, on "If I Only Had a Gun," airing on "20/20," FRIDAY, APRIL 10 (10:00-11:00 p.m., ET) on the ABC Television Network. The hour also features hidden camera experiments and expert analysis. There are an estimated 250-300 million guns in civilian hands in this country - almost enough to arm every man, woman and child in America. In fact, Americans are believed to own a third of all the existing firearms in the world. And that number is quickly growing: Last year there were 12 million background checks of people buying guns or getting or renewing a permit. America also has the highest rate of gun violence in the industrial world. Reports include: Why shouldn't we all have guns? Almost half of all handgun owners say self defense is their primary reason for owning a gun. But can they get to their gun in time when in a crisis situation? Can they aim accurately? And what is the chance they will hit someone innocent instead of their target? "20/20? set up a hidden camera experiment to see what would happen if everyone, including those with gun training, had a gun when an armed intruder bursts through the door. Diane Sawyer reports. How easy is it to buy a gun? In 33 states across the country, anyone can walk into one of the hundreds of gun shows held each year and buy a gun without a background check run and no questions asked. In the two years since Omar Samaha's sister, Reema was murdered at Virginia Tech, he has been fighting to close the gun show loophole, a step the Virginia governor and other authorities urged lawmakers to take. Has anything changed? David Muir follows Omar as he buys guns in Virginia at a gun show. How many can he procure in an hour and how many questions will he be asked? The effect of gun violence on one neighborhood, as seen through the eyes of a child: Ten-year-old Damon Weaver is a pint-size reporter with a super sized dream: to interview President Obama about what he plans to do about the gun violence that has torn apart his town of Pahokee, Florida. In the last year, 14 people were murdered in his neighborhood. To see the devastating effects of gun violence in one community through the eyes of a child, Damon reports first-hand for "20/20," interviewing friends who've lost family members, townspeople, as well as the sheriff's office about problems and solutions. Diane Sawyer first met Weaver during the network's Presidential Inauguration coverage in January. What is the irresistible attraction of young people to guns? It is not uncommon to hear news reports about young people playing with their parent's guns and accidentally shooting their friends, sometimes killing them. Statistics show that more 18-22 year olds die from accidental shootings than any other age group. Shouldn't college aged kids know better than to play with a gun? "20/20? puts some of these kids to the test in a provocative experiment during which they find hidden guns while cleaning out a garage. Who will tell the adult about their find, who will pack it away without a word and who will play with the gun? And does peer pressure factor into unsafe behavior? When doing research for this article, I came across the following in Outdoorsman Magazine which relates to the guns issue.
Issues to Watch
Brian Malte, director of state legislation for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, believes Heller will actually help the cause of gun control. The reason: Now that the Court has said guns can't be banned entirely, the NRA can't cast milder restrictions on gun ownership, such as safe-storage laws, as secret steps toward government taking people's guns away. "A lot of times they were able to scare legislators," Malte says. "Now, there is no more slippery slope." What's more, the NRA may be a victim of its own legislative success. Earlier this decade, the NRA persuaded virtually every legislature in the country to permit gun owners to carry concealed firearms - only Illinois and Wisconsin still completely forbid concealed guns. Now, the NRA has moved on to other issues that face longer odds, such as allowing guns on college campuses. Both of those factors explain why, for the first time in years, gun-control advocates feel they're on offense in state legislatures. They're pushing for expanded background checks for gun buyers and for "microstamping" of firearms - technology that makes it possible to identify the gun that fired a bullet. My husband and I both come from "cop" families, in which relatives were or still are involved in police work and/or criminology. When we learn about mass random killings, we express our views on the subject of guns. My husband belongs to the NRA and goes to a range whenever time permits. I have also been to ranges with him and his friends for a social outing. He feels that having a gun would have stopped shooters by incapacitating them, saving at least some lives. I also feel that in today's world we need to protect ourselves from the unexpected, but unlike my husband I don't have a "carry permit" for a gun. If I did, would I carry a weapon? Would I be able to use it effectively in a threatening situation? If by some miracle I succeeded, would it haunt me for the rest of my life? Could this be the thinking of our new president as he sets about putting guns under tighter government control? The following article is long, but it is the best I found on the subject of guns:
JOHN LOTT: ABC's Shameful '20/20? Experiment
Gun control advocates look desperate. Last Friday night, on April 10, ABC aired a heavily promoted, hour long "20/20? special called "If I Only Had a Gun." It is ABC's equivalent of NBC's infamous exploding gas tanks in General Motors pickups where NBC rigged the truck to explode. With legislation in Texas and Missouri advancing to eliminate gun-free zones at universities, perhaps this response isn't surprising. The show started and ended by claiming that allowing potential victims to carry guns would not help keep them safe -- not even with hundreds of hours of practice firing guns. No mention was made of the actual multiple victim public shootings stopped by people with concealed handguns nor did they describe who actually carried out such shootings. Instead, ABC presented a rigged experiment where one student in a classroom had a gun. But sometimes even the best editors can't hide everything the camera sees. The experiment was set up to make the student fail. It did not resemble a real-world shooting. The same scenario is shown three times, but in each case the student with the gun is seated in the same seat -- the center seat in the front row. The attacker is not only a top-notch shooter -- a firearms expert who teaches firearms tactics and strategy to police -- but also obviously knows precisely where the student with the gun is sitting. Each time the experiment is run, the attacker first fires two shots at the teacher in the front of the class and then turns his gun directly on the very student with the gun. The attacker wastes no time trying to gun down any of the unarmed students. Thus, very unrealistically, between the very first shot setting the armed student on notice and the shots at the armed student, there is at most 2 seconds. The armed student is allowed virtually no time to react and, unsurprisingly, fails under the same circumstances that would have led even experienced police officers to fare poorly. But in the real world, a typical shooter is not a top-notch firearms expert and has no clue about whether or not anyone might be armed and, if so, where they are seated. If you have 50 people -- a pretty typical college classroom -- and he is unknown to the attacker, the armed student is given a tremendous advantage. Actually, if the experiment run by "20/20? seriously demonstrated anything, it highlighted the problem of relying on uniformed police or security guards for safety: the killer instantly knows whom to shoot first. Yet, in the ABC experiment, the purposefully disadvantaged students are not just identified and facing (within less than 2 seconds) an attacker whose gun is already drawn. They are also forced to wear unfamiliar gloves, a helmet, and a holster. This only adds to the difficulties the students face in handling their guns. Given this set-up the second student, Danielle, performed admirably well. She shot the firearms expert in his left leg near the groin. If real bullets had been used, that might well have disabled the attacker and cut short his shooting spree. Nevertheless, even terrible shooters can often be quite effective. Despite all of ABC's references to the Columbine attack, the network never mention the armed guard at the school. He had an unusually poor target shooting record -- indeed it is reported that he couldn't even hit a target. Yet, his bravery still saved many lives because his poorly aimed shots forced the two killers to engage in gunfire with him. This slowed down their killing spree and gave many students a chance to escape the building. The guard was only forced to retreat and leave the school himself because of the homemade grenades that the Columbine murderers had. The Columbine murderers strongly and actively opposed passage of Colorado's right-to-carry law, particularly the part that would have allowed concealed handguns being legally carried on school campuses. What goes unnoticed is that the Columbine attack took place the very day that the state legislature scheduled final passage of the concealed handgun law. Time after time the attackers in these multiple victim public shootings consciously avoid areas where people might be able to defend themselves. In the attack on the Jewish community center in Los Angeles in which five people were wounded, the attacker had apparently "scouted three of the West Coast's most prominent Jewish institutions-the Museum of Tolerance, the Skirball Cultural Center and the University of Judaism-but found security too tight." In the real world, even having a gun and pointing it at an attacker has often convinced the attacker to stop shooting and surrender. Examples include high schools in Pearl, Mississippi and Edinboro, Pennsylvania, as well as the Appalachian Law School in Virginia. Street attacks in Memphis to Detroit ended this way, too, without any more shots fired. Even if the cases don't get much attention, gun permit holders stop these multiple victim attacks on a regular basis. Ironically, just this past Saturday, the day after ABC's broadcast, a permit holder in Columbia, Texas stopped a mass robbery by fatally shooting the criminal. Some Web sites have started collecting these and other defensive gun use cases (e.g., see here, here, and here). ABC'S "20/20? exaggerates "the danger of accidentally hitting a friend" when confronting an attacker. The show cites as an example is a man who mistook his wife for an intruder. Obviously that case is a tragedy, but those cases are exceedingly rare. But why didn't they present a single multiple victim attack as an example? Simple, because it has not happened. ABC pushes the notion that gun show regulations, rather than arming potential victims, can stop these attacks. But very few criminals get their guns from gun shows: a U.S. Justice Department survey of 18,000 state prison inmates showed that less than one percent (0.7%) of prisoners had obtained their gun from a gun show. Even adding flea markets and gun shows together raises the number to just 1.7 percent. There is not a single academic study showing that regulating private individuals selling their own guns - the so-called "gun show loophole" - reduces any type of violent crime. What the regulations have accomplished is cutting the number of gun shows by 25 percent. The show ends with this claim: "If you are wondering where are all the studies about the effectiveness of guns used by ordinary Americans for self-defense, well keep searching, we could not find one reliable study and the ones we found were contradictory." Yet, "contradictory" is an overstatement. There have been 26 peer-reviewed studies published by criminologists and economists in academic journals and university presses. Most of these studies find large drops in crime. Some find no change, but not a single one shows an increase in crime. You would think that if gun control worked as well as ABC implies, there wouldn't be these multiple victim public shootings in those European countries with gun laws much stricter than those being publicly discussed in the United States or by ABC. Yet, multiple victim public shootings are quite common in Europe. In just the last few days, there have been a shooting at a college in Greece and in a crowded café in Rotterdam. Of course, the worst K-12 public school shootings are in Europe. Given the hundreds of millions of dollars that have been spent annually in the United States for police officers on campus and other programs, one would hope that this relatively inexpensive alternative, where people are willing to bear the costs themselves to protect others, would be taken more seriously. ABC never mentions a simple fact: all multiple victim public shootings with more than 3 people killed have occurred where permitted concealed handguns are prohibited. Rather than studying what actually happens during these shootings, ABC conjured up rigged experiments aimed at convincing Americans that guns are ineffective. Unfortunately, ABC's advice, rather than making victims safe, makes things safer for attackers.
John Lott is a senior research scientist at the University of Maryland and the author of:
If anything is to be gleaned from this article it is that while not everyone HAS a gun, everyone has an OPINION about them. Those who have lost friends and family due to gunshots, have a certain disdain for the weapons. Or they have a determination to fight back with a gun of their own. There are as many viewpoints as there are individuals holding them. But I am reminded that the cruelest dictatorships in history got away with their horrible acts because their first step was to confiscate their public's guns. Without weapons, people were unable to fight back. This fear of becoming defenseless has prompted the American public, since Obama became president, to stock up on guns and ammunition in record numbers. So while the issues of having or not having guns, concealing them or not continues to rage, Americans are purchasing their weapons of choice with or without official permission. All this comes well after the time that my husband made certain that he had the equipment to protect his family and the skill to use it effectively. Now all we have to do is wait out the four years to see what-if anything-happens to gun policies in the United States. Just Mom |
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