BBS/nra fact
From KB42
BBS/nra fact
| File Name: | nra_fact.crd |
|---|---|
| Author: | Unknown |
| Date: | Unknown |
| Posting BBS: | Unknown |
| Key Words: | Politics |
NRA FIREARMS FACT CARD 1993
SECOND AMENDMENT TO THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free
State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be
infringed."
This guarantee is clearly a fundamental individual right, not the 20th
century invention of a "collective right" because the Framers
understood the concept of a "right" to apply only to individuals and
used the word "states" when collective meanings were intended.
In a 1990 ruling, the Supreme Court confirmed that the right to
keep and bear arms is an individual right held by "people" a "term
employed in select parts of the Constitution:' specifically the
Preamble, First, Second, Fourth, Ninth, and Tenth Amendments
(U.S. v. Verdugo-Urquidez).
The 20th-century National Guard, wholly controlled by the federal
government, could not have been the type of body envisioned by the
framers, even if the goal were to protect only an organized state
militia. Under federal law, the "unorganized militia"' consists of
all able-bodied males of an age to serve, and some females and older
men. (10 U.S.C.$31 1(b)) .
Historically, English Common Law recognized this right as making
possible both common and personal defense.
All four relevant Supreme Court decisions have recognized that the
Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to keep and bear
arms. No Supreme Court decision has ever held this right to be
collective.
FIREARMS FACTS: GENERAL
NUMBER OF GUNS IN U.S :Approx. 200 million firearms.
65-70 million handguns
GUN OWNERS IN US. :60-65 million,
30-35 million own handguns
FIREARMS USED FOR PROTECTION :11% of firearms owners
13% of handgun owners
CRIMINAL MISUSE OF FIREARMS YEARLY :Less than 0.2% of firearms
Less than 0.4% of handguns
Over 98.8% of U.S. firearms and 98.6% of U.S. handguns will not
be involved in criminal activity in any given year.
WHY AMERICANS OWN FIREARMS
Based on 1978 Decision Making information surveys, with handgun data
confirmed by 1978 Caddell survey; abuse data from US. Public Health
Service and F.B.I. data.
Primary Reasons Own/Use Firearms % of Owners,
Projected Number of Americans
(Approx. 65 million owners of 200,000,000 guns)
HUNTING: 51%, 33,000,000 Americans
PROTECTION: 32%; 21,000,000
Used Gun for Protection: 11% 7,000,000
TARGET SHOOTING: 13%; 8,500,000
COLLECTING: 4%; 2,600,000
Primary Reasons Own/Use Handguns: % of Owners,
Projected Number of Americans
(30-35 million owners of 65,000,000 handguns)
HUNTING: 10%; 3,500,000 Americans
PROTECTION: 58%; 21,000,000
Used Gun For Protection: 13%; 4,600,666
TARGET SHOOTING: 18%; 6,300,000
COLLECTING: 14%; 5,000,000
FIREARMS AND SELF-DEFENSE
Survey research indicates that about 645,000 Americans use handguns
each year for protection against criminals. An additional 300,000
protective uses occur with rifles and shotguns, with still more
hundreds of thousands of protective uses from animals. A Department
of Justice-sponsored survey of felons found that 80% of "handgun
predators" had encountered armed citizens, 53% did not commit at
least one specific crime for fear the victim was armed, and 57%
admitted being scared off or shot at by armed victims.
U.S. Department of Justice victimization surveys show that the
protective use of firearms lessens the chance that rape, robbery,
and assault attempts will be successfully completed, while also
reducing the likelihood of injury to the intended victim.
CIVILIAN MARKSMANSHIP PROGRAM (DCM)
Trains American youth in marksmanship with membership of about
132,000; supports 1751 civilian rifle clubs; trains over 440,000
juniors annually.
Holds 138 regulation state, local, and national matches yearly.
Early socialization into the gun culture predisposes individuals
to enlist in the armed forces later in life, which suggests
that the gun culture is positively functional for the success of the
volunteer army." (James D. Wright, et al., Under The Gun, 1983)
COMPARISON OF ROBBERY AND HOMICIDE RATES BETWEEN SELECTED U.S. CITIES
WITH RESTRICTIVE AND NONRESTRICTIVE FIREARMS LAWS/ENFORCEMENT Based
on 1991 F.B.I. Uniform Crime Reports and City Police
No gun law, in any city, state, or nation, has ever reduced violent
crime, or slowed its rate of growth, compared to similar jurisdictions
without such laws. Indeed, most such laws are defended with
citations of the number of persons denied lawful access to handguns,
while crime trends are ignored. With a virtual handgun ban,
enforced with federal aid, from 1976 to 1991, the murder rate in
Washington, D.C., has risen 200%, with a 300% rise in handgun-
related homicide, as handgun use went from less than 60% of killings
to 80%. Since it became a felony to go outside New York to evade New
York City's virtual handgun ban, the city's homicide rate has risen
three times faster than the rest of the country's. With less than 3%
of the nation's population, NYC reports nearly one-seventh of the
nation's handgun-related homicides. The two crimes most feared by
Americans are murder in the course of another crime (50%) and
robbery (43%) (1978 DMI poll); robbery and robber-murder rates are
consistently higher in cities with restrictive firearms laws and/or
hostile enforcement of such laws. Examples among cities over 250,000
population. Overall, big cities: Homicide: 26.7 per 100,000;
Robbery: 905.2
CITIES: RESTRICTIVE GUN LAWS/ENFORCEMENT
Rates per 100,000
Homicide Robbery
Washington, D.C. 80.6 1215.0
Detroit 59.3 1309.4
Baltimore 40.6 1439.6
Cleveland 34.3 1006.5
Chicago 32.9 1557.3
Newark 31.8 1880.9
New York City 29.3 1340.3
Los Angeles 28.9 1117.9
CITIES: LENIENT GUN LAWS/ENFORCEMENT
Homicide Robbery
Phoenix 12.9 346.2
Oklahoma City 10 3 187 0
Austin 10.3 327.0
El Paso 9.3 281.9
Colorado Springs 8.7 134.3
Wichita 7.8 458.3
Tucson 5.8 214.3
12 LEADING CAUSES OF DEATH IN U.S.
Source: National Center for Health Statistics (1991, latest official
estimates)
ALL CAUSES......................................2,165,000
Heart Disease.....................................718,090
Cancers...........................................514,310
Strokes...........................................144,070
ACCIDENTS......................................... 91,700
Motor Vehicle*.....................................47,575
Falls*.............................................12,151
Poisoning (solid, liquid, gas)*.....................6,524
Fires and Flames* ..................................4,716
Drowning (incl. water transport drownings)'.........4,716
Suffocation (mechanical, ingestion)* ...............4,491
Surgical/Medical misadventures** ...................2,850
Other Transportation (excl. drownings)* ............2,160
Natural/Environmental factors* .....................1,816
Firearms ...........................................1,489
(includes estimated 500 handgun and 200 hunting accidents)
Chronic pulmonary diseases ........................89,130
Pneumonia and influenza ...........................74,980
Diabetes ..........................................49,980
Diseases of the arteries ..........................41,970
Suicide*** ........................................30,200
HIV Infections (AIDS) .............................28,850
Homicide and legal intervention **** ..............27,440
Cirrhosis and other liver diseases ................24,740
*1989, latest official figures
**A Harvard University study suggests 93,000 deaths related to
medical negligence, excluding tens of thousands more deaths from
non-hospital medial office/lab mistakes and thousands of hospital
caused infections.
***Approximately 60% involve firearms.
Approximately 60% involve firearms. Criminologist Gary estimates
1500-2,000 self-defense and justifiable homicides by civilians and
300-600 by police annually.
U.S. COMPARED WITH FOREIGN COUNTRIES
All criminologists studying the firearms issue reject simple
comparisons of violent crime among foreign countries. (James D.
Wright, et. al ., Under the Gun, 1983) "Gun control does not deserve
credit for the low crime rates in Britain, Japan, or other
nations.... Foreign style gun control is doomed to failure in
America; not only does it depend on search and seizure too intrusive
for American standards, it postulates an authoritarian philosophy of
government fundamentally at odds with the individual, egalitarian .
. . American ethos." (David Kopel, "Foreign Gun Control in American
Eyes," 1987)
Gun laws and firearms availability have no relationship with murder
or suicide rates. Most states bordering Canada have homicide rates
similar to their northern neighbors, despite much higher rates of
firearms availability. While the American homicide rate is 4-8 times
that of most European nations, and firearms are frequently involved
in American murders, America's violent crime rates are even higher
for crimes where guns are infrequently (robbery) or rarely (rape)
involved. The difference is violence, not firearms; and America's
system of revolving door justice.
England has twice as many homicides with firearms as before
adopting its repressive laws; yet counters rising crime by
increasing strictures on rifles and now on most shotguns. During the
past dozen years, handgun-related robbery rose 200% in Britain, five
times as fast as the rise in the U.S.
Japan's low homicide rate is accompanied by a suicide rate twice
that of the United States, despite Japan's virtual gun ban. And
Japan's low crime rate is attributable to police-state type law
enforcement which would be anathema to Americans.
Comparisons of Seattle and Vancouver, British Columbia, homicide
ignore the face that non-Hispanic whites have a lower homicide rate
in Seattle than in Vancouver, and that Vancouver's homicide rate, and
handgun use in homicide, did not go down following Canada's adopting
a "tough" gun law.
CAREER CRIMINALS AND JUSTICE SYSTEM FAILURES
(Based on Department of Justice (DOJ) victimization surveys, felon
surveys, NACP law enforcement survey, PROMIS studies, research by
the Rand Corp., James D. Wright et al., and Gary Kleck.)
75-80% of U.S. violent crimes are committed by career criminals,
many on some form of conditional or early release. 30-35% of career
criminals are rearrested with previous criminal charges still
pending. Most career criminals' crime is drug-related.
Laws requiring mandatory, tough sentencing of violent criminals
have reduced violent crime especially murder and robbery when
enforced, yet two-thirds of the states, and D.C., are under federal
court orders to release prisoners due to prison overcrowding.
Out of prison, an active career felon commits between 187-287
crimes per year, costing society about $430,000 vs. Iess than
$25,000 per year cost of imprisonment and less than $75,000 for cost
of a new prison bed.
Youthful violent criminals explain most recent crime increases. Yet
criminologists note, "it matters less, perhaps, where these juveniles
get their guns than where they get the idea that it is acceptable to
kill" and "nearly everything that leads to gun-related violence
among youths is already against the law. What is needed are not new
and more stringent gun laws but rather a concerted effort to rebuild
the social structure of inner cities."
More than 90% of police chiefs and sheriffs agree that criminals
are not affected by a ban on any type of firearm, while more than
70% oppose "waiting periods" for the same reason.
Only half of violent crimes are reported to the police, and less
than half of those (46%) are cleared by arrest of criminals.
Unsuccessful investigations and lenient prosecutions and judgements
free most criminals from legislated sentences.
SEMI-AUTOMATICS AND SO-CALLED "ASSAULT WEAPONS"
In a deliberate effort to have public policy made by deception,
anti-gunners invented the "assault weapon" issue by noting the
public could not readily distinguish full-auto from semi-auto
firearms. Fully-automatic firearms have been sharply restricted by
federal law since 1934. There is no evidence that a registered
"machine gun" has ever been used in crime. Semi-autos which
externally resemble fully-automatic firearms are very difficult to
convert to full-auto, and such conversion is a federal felony.
There is no evidence that semi-autos are disproportionatly used in
crime. Semi-autos and all other rifles are involved In 4% of
homicide, and the number is declining. Data from big cities and
states suggest military lookalikes constitute 0-3% of guns used in
crime while accounting for 2% of the guns owned by Americans.
Overall, semi-autos targeted by anti- gun legislation account for 10-
15% of the guns owned. Data from big cities suggest military
look-alikes constitute 1-1/2% of guns seized by police, while
accounting for about 2% of the guns owned by Americans. Semi-autos
targeted by anti-gun legislation could affect 10-15% of the guns
owned by Americans.
Since only 1% of guns used in violent crimes are traced, BATF
traces tell nothing about the types of guns used by criminals,
making the Cox "study" worthless.
The anti-gunners have spoken: Having said handguns are not
protected by the Second Amendment because they have no "militia"
purpose, they now want to ban all rifles and shotguns and handguns
which do. Clearly their ultimate goal is total gun prohibition.
Downloaded from GUN-TALK (703-719-6406)
A service of the
National Rifle Association
Institute for Legislative Action
Washington, DC 20036
ashington, DC 20036
