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From: steiny@scc.UUCP (Don Steiny)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Re: Bastille... actually about gun control
Message-ID: <267@scc.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 4-Dec-84 11:50:23 EST
Article-I.D.: scc.267
Posted: Tue Dec  4 11:50:23 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 6-Dec-84 05:52:04 EST
References: <128@decwrl.UUCP>
Organization: Personetics, Inc. - Santa Cruz, Calif.
Lines: 117

***
	Time to post this again!!

	. . .

	The premise that handguns do not deter crime is not valid.

	The "Wall Street Journal", Aug. 17, 1983, 
page 1, has an article titlted "Can We Deny Citizens Both Guns
and Protection?" by Don B. Kates. Jr.

	The article discusses a court ruling that the police were not required
to protect citizens against criminals.  They pointed out that in District
of Columbia, where the incident took place (three women were robbed, 
terrorized, and repeatedly raped and police did not respond to any of
the calls), gun control is in effect. 

	They say that in the five years before gun control went into effect
the murder rate had dropped almost 36%, in the five subsequent years it
rose 16%.  

  . . .

	"The only homicide rate that fell was justifiable killing
of felons by citizens which dropped to virtually nothing."

	"Anti-gun lobbyists claim that such justifiable homicides
are rare, but this turns out to be based on 20-year-old artificially
truncated statictics from just two cities.  Nationwide, 1981 FBI
statistics show that citizens justifiably kill 30% more criminals
than do police.  Even this statistic substantially underrepresents
the phenomena: it counts only robbers and burglers killed,
excluding personal self-defense - for example a woman who kills
a boyfriend to keep him from beating her to death.  The whole range of
1981 California statistics show citizens justifibly kill twice as many felons
as do police; in Chicago and Cleveland it is three times as many.

 . . .

	"Even justifiable homicide statictics are only a crude index
to the value of civilian handguns.  We don't, after all, measure
the value of police guns by the number of criminals they kill.
The number, wounded, captured, or driven off is far more important.

 . . .

	" ... the number of defensive handgun uses by civilians each year far
exceed criminal misuses."

 . . .

	"Faced with a dramatic increase in rape, Florida police in
Orlando instituted a highly-publicized program in 1966
in which 3,000 women received handgun defense training.
Rape statics were down [which presumablbly means there were less rapes]
90% in 1967, while aggrivated assults dropped 25% and burglary fell 24%.
Although rape began to increase again when the one-year program ended,
even five years later it was still 13% below the 1966 figure.  In the
same period, rape in the surrounding areas increased 308%.  When a defensive
firearms program for Detroit grocers received wide publicity from the 
police chief's denunciations and the shooting of seven robbers,
grocery robberies dropped 90%.  Comparative programs for retail
merchents Highland Park, Mich., and for pahrmacists in New Orleans
are credited with similiarly dramatic robbery decreases.

 . . .

	"A burglar has a numerically greater chance of being confronted
by an armed householder then he has of being arrested and of actually
serving time.   

...

	" ... recall the Atlanta suburb that reacted to the Morton-Grove
Ill. handgun ban by requiring every sane, responsible, head of household
to keep a firearm.  Compared to the preceding year, burglary rose
slightly in Morton-Grove, but fell 73% in the Atlanta suburb.

 ------ Wall Street Journal - Can We Deny Citizens Both Guns and Protection?
	Don B. Kates, Jr.
	August 17, 1983


	One person that decides to shoot it out with police in society
the way it is right now wouldn't have much luck.   On the other hand, 
the Nazis had disarmed everyone and made it illegal to possess
weapons, which made it hard on the resistance at the time.    If, by referendum
and other means, the bill of rights is so eroded in 10 years that some
religious group could try to force others to share their beliefs, the fact
that there are large groups of armed people in this country that disagree with
them might moderate their actions.  What else could?  The United States
is a wonderful place to live right now, but how long can this "utopia"
last?  In many countries in this world the knock on the door means it is
all over.  Historically governments have not been benevolent things,
or if they are benevolent for a time they do not remain that way.
Bullys are less likely to run roughshod over someone that might
kill them. 

	Deterents are psychological.  Rape did not go down in Orlando
because women were pasting large numbers of rapists left and right,
it went down because a rapist's chances of getting pasted increased
dramatically.  Likewise, our right to arm ourselves is a deterant against
a police state, not because we would go around shooting police but because
we COULD.  

	"An armed society is a polite one."

		Robert A. Heinlein

-- 
scc!steiny
Don Steiny - Personetics @ (408) 425-0382
109 Torrey Pine Terr.
Santa Cruz, Calif. 95060
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