THE TRUTH ABOUT VICTIM DISARMAMENT

               A White Paper On Firearms And Crime
   Presented to Governor Pete Wilson's California Crime Summit
           February 8, 1994 by Peter Alan Kasler, J.D


                             Contents

                       ANTI-GUN EXTREMISM
               THE VERDICT OF AMERICAN CRIMINOLOGY
               THE VALUE OF GUNS FOR SELF-DEFENSE
          DEFEAT CRIME BY PERMITTING ARMED SELF-DEFENSE
     AVAILABILITY OF CONCEALED CARRY LICENSES REDUCES CRIME
             VICTIM DISARMAMENT (GUN CONTROL) KILLS
             CALIFORNIA PRACTICES VICTIM DISARMAMENT
          INDIVIDUALS MUST PROVIDE THEIR OWN PROTECTION
                           CONCLUSION

1. ANTI-GUN EXTREMISM

Like most Americans and most gun owners, I support reasonable gun
controls. What I do not support, however, is disarming victims.

The real cause of the gun control controversy is that the gun
control movement is dominated by extremists seeking to go far
beyond reasonable control. Indeed, they strive for victim
disarmament. They want to outlaw self-defense which they condemn
as barbarism.[3]  The Coalition Against Gun Violence (CAGV) and
Handgun Control, Inc. (HCI) both urge Congress to adopt
nationally the law Washington, D.C. enacted at their behest. That
law totally bans handguns, and requires that rifles and shotguns
be kept unloaded and disassembled to prevent their being used in
self-defense. Sarah Brady, HCI's chairperson, says: "the only
reason for guns in civilian hands is for sporting purposes" -
not for self-defense. [2]

In addition to a law requiring that householders keep firearms
unloaded and disassembled, HCI seeks gun licensing under which
self-defense would not be accepted as a ground for ownership.
Only sportsmen would be allowed to own guns. [3]  HCI's advice to
victims is never physically resist rape or robbery: "give them
what they want or run." [4] says "Pete" Shields, Sarah Brady's
predecessor as head of HCI.


2. THE VERDICT OF AMERICAN CRIMINOLOGY

That is not the kind of reasonable gun control most Americans
support. Nor is it supported by the findings of criminologists.
In 1978 the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) massively funded
what was supposed to be the definitive study. Its senior authors
began with the expectation that it would confirm the anti-gun
view they admittedly shared. But they ended up admitting "The
more deeply we have explored" that view, "the less plausible it
has become." [5]

Specifically, they rejected the view that ... homicide occurs
simply because the means of lethal violence (firearms) are
readily at hand, and ... [many homicides] would not occur were
firearms generally less available. There is no persuasive
evidence that supports that view. [6]

The researchers further concluded that gun ownership by law-
abiding people neither causes nor promotes crime. [7]

Criminological literature since the early 1970s increasingly
reflects the growing doubt among criminologists that gun control
laws of any kind can have more than the slightest impact on
crime. [8]

That literature establishes three central truths:

    - Violence results from basic socio-economic and cultural
      factors which cannot be touched by curbing the mere
      availability of any particular kind of weapon. [9]

    - Guns aren't going to disappear even if we ban them. There
      will always be enough illegal guns available to arm those
      who want to misuse them.

    - The dangerous people we most want to disarm will always be
      least affected by gun bans.  Significantly, research has
      persuaded leading criminologists who once rejected these
      three facts to embrace them. [10]

That includes the most important single researcher of the 1980s
and `90s, Florida State University criminologist Gary Kleck. He
finds that "general gun availability has no measurable net
positive effect on rates of homicide, suicide, robbery, assault,
rape, or burglary in the U.S." [11] Significantly, Prof. Kleck's
findings to that effect have been hailed by both American and
foreign criminologists and have received the American Society of
Criminology's coveted Hindelang Award as "the most important
contribution to criminology over the past several years." [12]


3. THE VALUE OF GUNS FOR SELF-DEFENSE

Most important, Kleck's research utterly demolishes anti-gun,
anti-self-defense mythology. HCI claims "The handgun owner seldom
even gets the chance to use his weapon." [13] But Prof. Kleck
finds that victims actually use handguns to defeat crimes three
times more often than criminals misuse them committing  crimes.
[14]

Nor is HCI correct to advise victims confronted by rapists and
other felons "the best defense against injury is to put up no
defense -- give them what they want or run." [15] Criminological
data show that victims who resist with a gun are only half as
likely to be injured as those who submit, relying on the mercy
of rapists or robbers. [16] (Running away or screaming is also
far more dangerous and far less effective than resisting with a
gun.) [17]

4. DEFEAT CRIME BY PERMITTING ARMED SELF-DEFENSE

Laws intended to disarm true criminals and the irresponsible are
sensible, though one must realistically recognize that we cannot
disarm anyone who is determined to have a gun, as many criminals
are. Laws aimed at disarming law-abiding, responsible people are
not merely useless but also counter- productive. Instead, we
should be emulating Israel's policy of issuing permits to carry
concealed firearms to every law- abiding, responsible, trained
citizen who applies so as to  maximize the likelihood that there
will be armed people available to counteract violence wherever it
appears.

The affirmative benefits of Israel's policy are clear and easily
transferable to this country. As one American criminologist has
noted, Israel easily grants applicants a handgun "permit [which]
allows the handgun to be carried concealed on the person, a
practice which Israel strongly encourages, contrary to American
policy which severely restricts it. Massacres in which dozens of
unarmed victims are mowed down before police can arrive are
inconceivable to Israelis who note what occurred at a Jerusalem
cafe some weeks before the California MacDonalds massacre: three
terrorists who attempted to machine-gun the throng managed to
kill only one victim before being shot down by  handgun-carrying
Israelis. Presented to the press the next day, the surviving
terrorist complained that his group had not realized that Israeli
civilians were armed. The terrorists had planned to machine-gun a
succession of crowd spots, thinking that they would be able to
escape before the police or army could arrive to deal with them. [18]

Gun ban advocates must admit that Israel and Switzerland - here
any law abiding applicant can obtain such a license to carry -
both "report negligible deaths by handguns." [19]

Several of the United States - where concealed carry licenses are
reasonably available - also have positive experience. For example,
the State of Connecticut (whose law since 1969 has required
permits to be issued just like drivers' licenses) has less total
population than the City of Los Angeles, yet it has issued more
than 110,000 concealed carry licenses - one for every 25
residents. Connecticut's violent crime and homicide rates are far
lower than are Los Angeles'.

Similar situations exist in the other states in which licenses
are reasonably available, to wit: Oregon, Washington,
Pennsylvania, Maine, North Dakota, South Dakota, Idaho, Indiana,
West Virginia, Utah, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Montana, New
Hampshire, Wyoming and Florida. All have very low crime rates and
many concealed carry licenses issued to their citizens. (Contrast
that with such places as the District of Columbia, New York City,
Chicago and others with very few concealed carry licenses and
very high crime rates.)

In Florida, any citizen who can pass a criminal and mental back-
ground check, and who will take four hours of training in fire-
arms safety and usage, can get a license valid for three years.
According to the latest available figures from the  Division of
Licensing of the Florida Department of State, 140,069 licenses
were issued (39,499 being renewals) out of 145,907 applications
received between October 1, 1987 and December 30, 1992. Of
licenses denied, 504 were denied  because of "criminal history",
the rest being denied because of "incomplete application" or
other administrative reasons which are not clear from the
statistics provided.) Only 89 of these licenses were subsequently
revoked for any crime at all, 15 being revoked for a crime
involving a firearm. That is only one- one-hundredth of one
percent involving a firearm -- and many or most of those involved
mere error rather than a real crime. That is to say, the licensee
carried the gun into an area where it was not allowed (a court-
house or airport) either because they thought the permit allowed
them to do so or because they forgot they had it with them.

The Florida statistics are far and away the most complete. But
there are others as well:

State of Washington, the state Firearms License Bureau reports
that as of October, 1991 (their latest available figure) a total
of 198,163 licenses to carry handguns concealed were outstanding.
Based on Washington's 1990 population of  4,866,692 this is one
license for every 25.7 residents.

Indiana: Indiana State Police report they currently had out-
standing 220,623 permits to carry handguns concealed. Based on
Indiana's 1990 population of 5,544,159 this is one license for
every 25 residents.

Georgia: There is no state-wide data base. The Fulton County
(Atlanta) court clerk in charge of issuance in that county
estimates the number of outstanding permits to carry handguns
concealed at 190,800 state-wide. Based on Georgia's  1990
population of 6,478,216, this is one license for every 34
residents.

New Hampshire: There is no state-wide data base. The
Department of Safety estimates the number state-wide is
80,000. Based on New Hampshire's 1990 population of
1,109,252 this is one license for every 13.9 residents.

Pennsylvania had 362,142 concealed carry licenses outstanding
as of January, 1992. That is about one permit for every 33
Pennsylvanians.


5.   AVAILABILITY OF CONCEALED CARRY LICENSES REDUCES CRIME

In 1986, when Florida was attempting to reform its concealed
carry license laws, gun-control supporters in the legislature
vociferously asserted that enormous bloodshed would occur
and that Florida would become the "Gunshine State."

"Today, those same critics have admitted that they were wrong,
and that they regret the harm done to Florida's reputation by the
histrionic campaign against carry reform. Indeed, while the mur-
der rate has risen 14 percent nationally from 1986 to 1991, it
has fallen 20 percent in Florida. The state's total murder rate
has 36 percent higher than the U.S. murder rate in 1986, and is
now 4 percent below the national average. In the same period,
robbery rose 9 percent in Florida, and 21 percent nationally." [20]


6.  VICTIM DISARMAMENT (GUN CONTROL) KILLS

Dr. Suzanna Gratia, survivor of the Killeen, Texas, massacre in
which her mother and father were killed, says: "Let me make a
point here, in case this isn't becoming extremely clear. My state
has gun control laws. It did not keep Hennard from coming in and
killing everybody! What it did do, was keep me from protecting my
family! That's the only thing that cotton pickin' law did! OK!
Understand that! That's ...that's so important!" [21]


7.  CALIFORNIA PRACTICES VICTIM DISARMAMENT

Despite a (California) Constitutional guaranty that the right of
self-defense is inalienable, [22] and a statutory mandate to
issue licenses to carry concealed weapons to non-criminal,
mentally healthy citizens, [23] California's performance in this
regard is  dismal. There is only one license for every 794
Californians.

Under Pen. C. Sec. 12050, licenses to carry concealed firearms
are supposed to be available to every applicant who has both good
character and "good cause." Yet from 1974 until late in 1992
(when it issued one to Chief Willie Williams) the LAPD  had not
issued a single license. San Francisco has only eleven licenses
among a population of 733,300. Nearly as bad, Santa Clara County
has only 137 (1,430,400 pop.), Orange only 244 (2,261,100 pop.),
and Alameda only 151 (1,242,400 pop.).

It is important to note that California counties with the highest
crime rates are those with the fewest licenses to carry concealed
weapons: 1.50, 4.90, 10.79 and 12.15 per 100,000 population,
respectively. Contrast those four (counties with the  State's
highest crime rates and the fewest licenses per capita) with the
State's four counties having the most per capita licenses and the
lowest crime rates: 2,257.14, 2,403.30, 3,000.00 and 3,083.33 per
100,000 population.

While there may be other factors impacting the California county
figures, it is undeniable in a state-by-state comparison that
those jurisdictions with the most onerous gun laws also have the
highest crime rates and, conversely, those with the least-
burdensome gun laws have the lowest rates of crime.


8.  INDIVIDUALS MUST PROVIDE THEIR OWN PROTECTION

It is well-settled in American law that the police have no
general duty to protect individual citizens. "It is, therefore, a
fact of law and of practical necessity that individuals are
responsible for their own personal safety, and that of their
loved ones. Police protection must be recognized for what it is:
only an auxiliary general deterrent." [24]  In the holding of the
leading case in this field, currently the law of the land, the
Court said it is a "fundamental principle of American law that a
government  and its agents are under no general duty to provide
public services, such as police protection, to any individual
citizen." [25] There are many similar cases with results to the
same effect. [25]

Many states, including California, have gone further yet to
firmly establish the principle that the police are not generally
obligated to protect individual citizens, to wit: California's
Government Code states, in part: "Neither a public entity or a
public employee [may be sued] for failure to provide adequate
police protection or service, failure to prevent the commission
of crimes and failure to apprehend criminals." [27]

                           CONCLUSION

It is important to note something we have learned over the years,
most recently from the Florida experience in reforming their
concealed carry license laws: while armed citizens can and do
intervene to prevent violent crime, the larger and even more
beneficial effect is that of general deterrence. Criminals,
knowing that licenses to carry concealed weapons are reasonably
available, and that a significant percentage of law- abiding
citizens do indeed carry, but not knowing which among  any group
actually is armed, tend to focus their criminal assaults else-
where. (It is felt that this effect is responsible for the unfor-
tunate recent wave of assaults against Florida tourists, because
criminals know that they, among all people in Florida, will not
be armed and capable of effectively resisting.)

California constitutionally guarantees its citizens the right to
protect themselves, but  de facto denies them the ability to
effectively do so by making concealed carry licenses unreasonably
difficult to obtain. California must reform  these laws to permit
its law-abiding citizens to reasonably obtain licenses to carry
concealed weapons. Without that, predators will continue to
devastate our population and disarmed victims will be powerless
to resist.

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

                         ORAL PRESENTATION

Governor Wilson, ladies and gentlemen:

Like most Americans and most gun owners, I support reasonable gun
controls. What I do not support, however, is disarming victims.

The gun control movement wants to outlaw self-defense, urging
national adoption of the Washington, D.C. law that totally bans
handguns, and requires that long guns be unavailable for self-
defense. Sarah Brady says: "the only reason for guns in civilian
hands is for sporting purposes" - not for self-defense.  Her
predecessor advises: never physically resist rape or robbery,
"give them what they want or run."

That is not the kind of reasonable gun control most Americans
support. Nor is it supported by the findings of criminologists.
For more than 20 years, criminological literature has reflected
growing doubt that gun control laws of any kind can have more
than the slightest impact on crime.

The most important single researcher of the 1980s and `90s,
Florida State University criminologist Gary Kleck, finds that
"general gun availability has no measurable ... positive effect
on rates of homicide, suicide, robbery, assault, rape, or
burglary."

Professor Kleck's research utterly demolishes anti-gun, anti-
self- defense mythology. HCI claims "The handgun owner seldom
even gets the chance to use his weapon."  But Kleck finds that
victims actually use handguns to defeat crimes three times more
often than criminals misuse them committing crimes.

Nor should HCI advise crime victims that "the best defense
against injury is to put up no defense."  Criminological data
show that those who resist with a gun are only half as likely to
be injured as those who submit.

Instead of treating honest gun-owners like criminals, we should
be emulating Israel's policy of issuing permits to carry
concealed firearms to every law-abiding, responsible citizen who
applies.

The benefits of Israel's policy are clear and easily transferable
to this country.

At a Jerusalem cafe some weeks before the California MacDonald's
massacre where James Huberty killed 21 people and shot 15 others,
three terrorists attempted to machine-gun the crowd, but managed
to kill only one victim before being shot down by Israeli
citizens.

Israel and Switzerland (where any law-abiding applicant can
obtain a license to carry) both "report negligible deaths by
handguns."

This concept also works well in America, where very low crime
rates exist in states which have issued many concealed-carry
licenses. But, such places as the District of Columbia, New York
City, Chicago, and others with very few concealed-carry licenses,
have very high crime rates.

Concealed carry licensees are simply not a crime problem. In
Florida's reasonable licensing system, citizens can get a three-
year license. Yet only 15 of more than 140,000 licenses were
revoked for gun crimes. That is only 1/100 of 1%.

In 1986, when Florida was attempting to reform its concealed
carry license laws, anti-gun legislators feared enormous
bloodshed would occur and Florida would become the "Gunshine
State."

"Today, those same critics have admitted that they were wrong.
Indeed, while the national murder rate has risen 14%, the Florida
rate has fallen 20%. Where Florida's murder rate was 36% higher
than the national rate, it is now 4% lower."

Dr. Suzanna Gratia, survivor of the Killeen, Texas massacre in
which her mother and father were killed, says: "My state has gun
control laws. It did not keep Hennard from coming in and killing
everybody! What it did do, was keep me from protecting my
family!"

Despite an inalienable and Constitutionally guaranteed self-
defense right, and statutes mandating issuance to non-criminal,
mentally healthy citizens, California's performance is dismal.
There is only one concealed-carry license for every 794
Californians. From 1974 until late in 1992, the LAPD had not
issued a single license, and San Francisco has only eleven. Other
California counties are nearly as bad.

It is well-settled in American law that the police have no
general duty to protect individual citizens.  And in California,
the Government Code states: "Neither a public entity or a public
employee [may be sued] for failure to provide adequate police
protection. . ."

We have learned that armed citizens can and do intervene to
prevent violent crime, but even more importantly, they generally
deter violence. For example, Florida criminals - knowing that
licenses to carry concealed weapons are reasonably available, and
that a significant percentage of law- abiding citizens do indeed
carry, but not knowing which among any group actually is armed -
tend to focus their criminal assaults elsewhere.

California constitutionally guarantees its citizens the right to
protect themselves, but  de facto denies them the ability to
effectively do so by making concealed carry licenses unreasonably
difficult to obtain. California must reform these laws to permit
its law-abiding citizens to reasonably obtain concealed-carry
licenses. Without that, predators will continue to devastate our
population and disarmed victims will be powerless to resist.

Threat Management Institute                  Vox: 707-939-0303
Peter Alan Kasler, J.D.                      Fax: 707-939-8684
800 West Napa Street                     TMI BBS: 707-935-1713
Sonoma, CA  95476          tmi@crl.com   or  tmi@well.sf.ca.us

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

[1]  "The need that some homeowners and shopkeepers believe they
have for weapons to defend themselves", says the WASHINGTON POST,
represents "the worst instincts in the human character."
Editorial: "Guns and the Civilizing Process", Sept. 26, 1972.
Ramsey Clark denounces gun ownership for personal self-defense as
"anarchy, not order under law - a  jungle where each relies on
himself for survival" CRIME IN AMERICA, p. 88.

The Board of Church and Society of the United Methodist Church
founded, and still sponsors, the National Coalition to Ban Hand-
guns (now renamed the Coalition Against Gun Violence). The
Methodist Board of Church and Society teaches that it is a
woman's Christian duty to submit to rape rather than to do any-
thing that might imperil her rapist's life. In an official publi-
cation, its editor rhetorically poses the question "Is the Robber
My Brother." He answers "yes"  for, though the burglary victim or
the "woman accosted in the park by a rapist is [not] likely to
consider the violator to be a neighbor whose safety is of
immediate concern***[c]riminals are members of the larger
community no less than are others. As such they are our neighbors
or, as Jesus put it, our brothers..." Brockway, "But the Bible
Doesn't Mention Pistols", May, 1977 ENGAGE-SOCIAL ACTION FORUM.
The language quoted is from pp. 39-40 of this issue which has
been published as a separate pamphlet by the  Methodist Board of
Church and Society under the title HANDGUNS IN THE UNITED STATES.

See also Braucher, "Gun Lunatics Silence [the] Sounds of
Civilization" and "Handgun Nuts are Just That -- Really Nuts",
MIAMI HERALD, July 19,1982 and Oct. 29, 1981, Ellison, "Fear
Not Your Enemies", HEAVY METAL. Mar., 1981.

[2]  Interview in TAMPA TRIBUNE Oct. 21, 1993: Jackson, "Keeping
the Battle Alive." Compare Prof. Morris Janowitz, "I see no
reason ... why anyone is a democracy should own a weapon."  and
Illinois gun control organization founder Prof. Robert Replogle
(of the U. of Chicago) "The only legitimate use of a handgun that
I can understand is for target shooting." (From,  respectively:
"The Gun Under Fire", TIME, June 21, 1968 at 17 and Handgun Crime
Control Hearings, 1975-6 Senate Judiciary Committee [Subcommittee
re Juvenile Delinquency] Oversight of the 1968 Gun Control Act,
v. II at 1974; emphasis added.)

[3]  Eckholm, "A Little Control, A Lot of Guns", N.Y. TIMES, Aug.
15, 1993, quoting Sarah Brady). Of course, the LOS ANGELES TIMES
agrees. Editorial, Oct. 22, 1993. So does the Coalition  Against
Gun Violence -- which also seeks the banning and confiscation of
all handguns. One CAGV member, the Presbyterian Church USA,
explains that it does not seek to ban long guns for it deems that
they will be used for sport. Handguns, however, are to be banned
because they are used for self-defense. The Presbyterian "General
Assembly has declared in the context of handgun control that it
is opposed to `the killing of anyone, anywhere, for any reason.'"
Testimony of Presbyterian representative; 1985-6 Hearings on
Legislation to Modify the 1968 Gun Control Act, House Judiciary
Committee, Subcommittee on Crime; v. I at 128; emphasis added.

[4]  Shields, Nelson "Pete", GUNS DON'T DIE, PEOPLE DO 124-5
[1981].

[5]  J. Wright, P. Rossi, K. Daly, UNDER THE GUN: WEAPONS, CRIME
AND VIOLENCE IN THE UNITED STATES (N.Y., Aldine: 1983) chapter
14, page 319ff.: "The progressive's indictment  of American
firearms policy is well known and is one that both the senior
authors of this study once shared.... [e.g.] 5) If there were
fewer guns around, there would obviously be less crime...  The
more deeply we explored the empirical implications of this
indictment, the less plausible it has become."***

"One of the NRA's favorite aphorisms is that `if guns are
outlawed, only criminals will have guns.' There is more truth to
this point than the sophisticated liberal is usually willing to
admit."***

"American progressivism has always taken a strong and justifiable
pride in it's cultural pluralism, it's belief that minority or
`deviant' cultures and values have intrinsic legitimacy and are
therefore to be at least tolerated if not nourished, and
certainly not be suppressed. Progressives have embraced the
legitimacy of many subcultures in the past, including tolerance
for a vast heterogeneity of religious beliefs, regional
diversities, a belated recognition of American Indians, and
tolerance for immigrant peoples. And more recently, progressives
have hastened to affirm the legitimacy of black culture, Hispanic
culture, youth culture, homosexuals (and, for that matter, nearly
every other subculture that has pressed it's claim for
recognition.) A critical issue in modern America is whether the
doctrine of cultural pluralism should or should not be extended
to cover the members of the gun subculture."

[6]  J. Wright, P. Rossi & K. Daly, WEAPONS, CRIME AND VIOLENCE
IN AMERICA: A LITERATURE REVIEW AND RESEARCH AGENDA (Washington,
D.C., Gov't. Print. Off.: 1981) - Executive Summary at p. 2,
emphasis added.


[7]  See, e.g. Wright, "Second Thoughts About Gun Control", THE
PUBLIC INTEREST (v. 91; Spring, 1988).

[8]  See, e.g. Danto, "Firearms and Their Role in Homicide and
Suicide" 1 LIFE THREATENING BEHAVIOR 10 (1971); C. Greenwood,
FIREARMS CONTROL: A STUDY OF FIREARMS  CONTROL AND ARMED CRIME IN
ENGLAND AND WALES (1972); Murray, "Handguns, Gun Control Law and
Firearm Violence", 23 SOCIAL PROBLEMS 81 (1975); Bruce-Briggs,
"The Great American Gun War", Fall, 1976, THE PUBLIC INTEREST;
Kaplan, "Controlling Firearms" 28 CLEVE. ST. L. REV. 1 (1977);
Danto, "Firearms and Violence", 5 INT'L. J. OFFENDER THER. 135
(1979); Kleck, "Capital Punishment, Gun Ownership and Homicide",
84 AM. J. SOC. 882 (1979); Lizotte and Bordua, "Firearms
Ownership for Sport and Protection: Two Divergent Models", 45 AM.
SOC. REV. (1980); Kessler, "Enforcement Problems of Gun Control:
A Victimless Crimes Analysis", 16 CRIM. L. BULL. 131 (1980);
Lizotte, Bordua and White, "Firearms Ownership for Sport and
Protection: Two Not So Divergent Models", 46 AM. SOC. REV. 499
(1981); Kaplan, "The Wisdom of Gun Prohibition"  455 ANNALS OF
THE AMER. ACAD. OF POL. & SOC. SCI. 11 (1981); Moore, "The Bird
in Hand: A Feasible Strategy for Gun Control" 2 J. POLICY AN. &
MANGMNT. 185 (1983); Lizotte, "The Costs of Using Gun Control to
Reduce Homicide" 62 BULL. N.Y. ACAD. MED. 539 (1986); Eskridge,
"Zero-Order Inverse Correlations Between Crimes of Violence and
Hunting Licenses in the United States", 71 SOCIOLOGY & SOCIAL
RESEARCH 55 (1986); Stell "Guns, Politics and Reason", 9 J. AM.
CULTURE 71 (1986); Bordua, "Firearms Ownership and Violent Crime:
A Comparison of Illinois Counties", in J. Byrne and R. Sampson
(ed.) THE SOCIAL ECOLOGY OF CRIME (1986); Dixon, "Gun Ownership
and the `Southern Subculture of Violence'", 93 AMERICAN JOURNAL
OF SOCIOLOGY 383 (1987), Wright,  "Second Thoughts About Gun
Control, 91 PUBLIC INTEREST 23 (1988); Toch, "Research and
Policy: The Case of Gun Control" and Turner & Leyens, "The
Weapons Effect Revisited: The  Effects of Firearms on Aggressive
Behavior" -- both in P. Suedfeld & P. Tetlock, PSYCHOLOGY AND
SOCIAL ADVOCACY (NY Hemisphere Press, 1990); Mundt, "Gun Control
and Rates of Firearms Violence in Canada and the United States"
CANADIAN J. OF CRIMINOLOGY, Jan. 1990; Rich, et al. "Guns and
Suicide: Possible Effects of Some Specific Legislation" 147 AM.
J. PSYCHI. 342 (1990); McDowall D, Loftin C, Wiersma, B.
Preventive  effects of mandatory sentencing laws for gun crimes.
In: Proceedings of the Social Statistics Section of the American
Statistical Association, August 18-22, 1991. Atlanta: American
Statistical Association, 1992: 87-94; Gary Kleck, POINT BLANK:
GUNS AND VIOLENCE IN AMERICA (N.Y., Aldine, 1991); Kleck &
(Karen) McElrath, "The Effects of Weaponry on Human Violence, 69
SOCIAL FORCES 1-21 (1991), Kleck and DeLone, "Victim Resistance
and Offender Weapon Effects in Robbery", 9 J. QUANT. CRIMIN. 55-
81 (1993) and Kleck & Patterson, "The Impact of Gun Control and
Gun Ownership Levels on City Violence Rates", 9 J. QUANT. CRIMIN.
249-87 (1993).

[9]  The mythology that the lower crime and homicide rates in
other nations results from stricter gun laws is demolished by
David Kopel in THE SAMURAI, THE MOUNTIE, AND THE  COWBOY: SHOULD
AMERICA ADOPT THE GUN CONTROL OF OTHER DEMOCRACIES? (Prometheus
1992) -- a book which won the 1992 International Criminology
award of the American Society of Criminology.

[10]  Examples include: Prof. Brandon Centerwall, School of
Public Health, University of Washington: "If you are surprised by
my findings, so am I. I did not begin this research with any
intent to `exonerate' handguns, but there it is -- a negative
finding, to be sure, but a negative finding is nevertheless a
positive contribution. It directs us where NOT to aim public
health resources." Centerwall, "Homicide and the Prevalence of
Handguns: Canada and the United States, 1976 to 1980", AMERICAN
JOURNAL of EPIDEMIOLOGY v. 134 pp. 1245-65.  Professor Hans Toch
of the School of Criminology at the State University of New York
(Albany) has recently noted that in 1969 he participated in and
fully endorsed the Eisenhower  Commission's "conclusion `that the
heart of any effective national firearms policy for the United
States must be to reduce the availability of the [handgun, the]
firearm that contributes most to violence.... [R]educing the
availability of the handgun WILL reduce firearms violence."
(Italics by the Commission.) But, Prof. Toch continues,
subsequent research has progressively  undermined this. Though
violence is primarily a male phenomenon, "rates of male firearms
ownership tend to be inversely correlated with violent crime
rates, a curious fact if firearms stimulate aggression. It is
hard to explain that where firearms are most dense, violent crime
rates are lowest, and where guns are least dense violent crime
rates are highest."

This undercuts the Eisenhower Commission's view that that gun
ownership promotes crime. Toch further notes that in contrast to
male ownership, women's gun ownership is very low  where crime
rates are low, but high where there is much crime. But "This does
not imply that urban women are responsible for the urban crime
problem" writes Professor Toch; rather "it  demonstrates that
when violent crimes are high, women arm themselves for protec-
tion." Moreover, Professor Toch sees the rationality of women
arming themselves, because armed  self-defense works: "when used
for protection firearms can seriously inhibit aggression and can
provide a psychological buffer against the fear of crime.
Furthermore, the fact that national patterns show little violent
crime where guns are most dense implies that guns do not elicit
aggression in any meaningful way. Quite the contrary, these
findings suggest that high saturations of guns in places, or
something correlated with that condition, inhibit illegal aggres-
sion." (Professor Toch's comments appear in his paper, "Research
and Policy: The  Case of Gun Control", in PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIAL
POLICY. edited by Peter Sutfeld and Philip Tetlock (NY Hemi-
sphere, 1992). Another distinguished criminologist is Professor
Ted  Robert Gurr who was a key staff member of the anti-gun 1960s
Eisenhower Commission. In each decade since it's research reports
were published, as they have become obsolete through  later
research, Professor Gurr has issued up-dated editions under the
title VIOLENCE IN AMERICA. His Introduction to the latest (1989)
up-date summarizes his own present views on  gun control:
"Americans looking for simple solutions to high crime rates and
to political assassinations have repeatedly proposed and some-
times imposed restrictions on gun  ownership. Since about two-
thirds of murders and all recent assassinations have been commit-
ted with guns, the argument goes, dry up the guns and violence
will decline. In a country with an estimated stock of 60 million
handguns and more than 100 million long guns, not even the most
Draconian policies could remove guns from the hands of people who
were  determined to get and keep them. Those determined gun
owners include far more citizens concerned about defending them-
selves and their homes than predatory criminals. The irony of
most gun control proposals is that they would criminalize much of
the citizenry but have only marginal effects on professional
criminals.

"Moreover, an overemphasis on such proposals diverts attention
from the kinds of conditions that are responsible for much of our
crime, such as persisting poverty for the black underclass and
some whites and Hispanics; the impact of post- industrial
transition on economic opportunity for working-class youths; and
the shortage of prison facilities that makes it difficult to keep
high risk, repeat offenders off the streets."

Admittedly, if no one had guns, assaults carried out with less
deadly weapons "and modern medicine would save more of the vic-
tims. But we must [also consider that] ...  guns can be an
effective defense. [UCLA historian Roger] McGrath's historical
evidence [from the 19th Century] shows that widespread gun owner-
ship deterred [burglary and robbery] while simultaneously making
brawls more deadly. Modern studies, summarized by Kates, also
show that widespread gun ownership deters crime. Surveys
sponsored by both pro- and anti-gun groups show that roughly
three-quarters of a million private gun owning citizens report
using weapons in self- defense [annually], while convicted rob-
bers and burglars report that they are deterred when they think
their potential targets are armed."

[11]  From a recent presentation by Kleck to the National Academy
of Sciences: "Up until about 1976 or so, there was little reli-
able scholarly information on the link between violence and
weaponry. When I began my research on guns in 1976, like most
academics, I was a believer in the "anti-gun" thesis, i.e. the
idea the gun availability has a net positive effect on the
frequency and/or seriousness of violent acts. It seemed then like
self-evident common sense which hardly needed to be empirically
tested. However, as a modest body of reliable evidence accumu-
lated, many of the most able specialists in this area shifted
from the "anti-gun" position to a more skeptical stance, in which
it was negatively argued that the best available evidence does
not convincingly or consistently support the anti-gun position.
This is not the same as saying we know the anti-gun position to
be wrong, but rather that there is no strong case for it being
correct. The most prominent representatives of the skeptic
position would be James Wright and Peter Rossi, authors of the
best scholarly review of the literature [UNDER THE GUN].

"Evidence reported since [UNDER THE GUN] has caused me to move
beyond even the skeptic position. I now believe that the best
currently available evidence, imperfect though it is  (and must
always be), indicates that general gun availability has no
measurable net positive effect on rates of homicide, suicide,
robbery, assault, rape, or burglary in the U.S. This is not  the
same as saying gun availability has no effects on violence - it
has many effects on the liklihood of attack, injury, death, and
crime completion, but these effects work in both violence-
increasing and violence-decreasing directions, with the effects
largely cancelling out.

"For example, when aggressors have guns, they are (1) less likely
to physically attack their victims, (2) less likely to injure the
victim given an attack, but (3) more likely to kill the victim,
given an injury. Further, when victims have guns, it is less
likely aggressors will attack or injure them and less likely they
will lose property in a robbery. At the aggregate level, in both
the best available time series and cross-sectional studies, the
overall net effect of gun availability on total rates of violence
is not significantly different from zero. The positive
associations often found between aggregate levels of violence and
gun ownership appear to be primarily due to violence increasing
gun ownership, rather than the reverse."

[12]  See reviews of G. Kleck, POINT BLANK: GUNS AND VIOLENCE IN
AMERICA (1991) including: Kessler, Book Review, 2 J. CRIM. L. &
CRIMIN. 1187 (1992), Mauser, "Gun Control in the United States,"
3 CRIMINAL LAW FORUM pp. 147-159 (1992) Hawley, Book Review, 71
SOCIAL FORCES 548 (1992) and Lizotte, Book Review, May, 1993
CONTEMPORARY SOCIOLOGY.

[13]  GUNS DON'T DIE, PEOPLE DO (N.Y., Arbor: 1981) by then-
Handgun Control, Inc. Chairman Nelson "Pete" Shields 49 (emphasis
in original).

[14]  Kleck & DeLone, "Victim Resistance and Offender Weapon
Effects in Robbery", 9 J. QUANT. CRIMIN. 55-81 (1993), Kates,
"The Value of Civilian Arms Possession as Deterrent to Crime  or
Defense Against Crime", 18 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF CRIMINAL LAW 113
(1991), G. Kleck, POINT BLANK: GUNS AND VIOLENCE IN AMERICA
(N.Y., Aldine, 1991), Kleck, "Crime Control Through the Use of
Force in the Private Sector", 35 SOCIAL PROBLEMS 1 (1988).

[15]  GUNS DON'T DIE, PEOPLE DO, by then-Handgun Control, Inc.
Chairman Nelson "Pete" Shields at p. 124-5 (1981).

[16]  Kleck & DeLone, "Victim Resistance and Offender Weapon
Effects in Robbery", 9 J. QUANT. CRIMIN. 55-81 (1993), Kates,
"The Value of Civilian Arms Possession as Deterrent to Crime  or
Defense Against Crime", 18 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF RIMINAL LAW 113
(1991), G. Kleck, POINT BLANK: GUNS AND VIOLENCE IN AMERICA
(N.Y., Aldine, 1991), Kleck, "Crime Control Through the Use of
Force in the Private Sector", 35 SOCIAL PROBLEMS 1  (1988).

[17]  Ullman & Knight, "Sequential Analysis of Sexual Assaults",
a paper delivered at the 1993 annual meeting of the American
Society of Criminology, October 29, 1993.

[18]  D. Kates, "Firearms and Violence: Old Premises, New
Research" in T. Gurr (ed.) VIOLENCE IN AMERICA (1989).

[19]  Shetky, DH. Children and Handguns: A Public Health Concern
1985, Am. J. Dis. Child. 139: 229-231.

[20]   The Violence of Gun Control, Kopel, David B., Policy
Review: The Flagship Publication of The Heritage Foundation,
Winter, 1993.

[21]   Testimony in Missouri House of Representatives in favor of
HB-1720, a bill that would permit issuance of licenses to carry
concealed weapons. March, 1991.

[22]   Inalienable Rights: All people are by nature free and
independent and have inalienable rights. Among these are enjoying
and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing, and
protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining safety,
happiness, and privacy. CA Const, Art. 1, Sect. 1

[23]   CA Pen. C. Sect. 12050

[24]   P. A. Kasler, SELF-RELIANCE FOR SELF-PROTECTION (Sonoma,
CA, Mesquite Mountain Press, 1991)

[25]  Warren v. District of Columbia, 444 A.2d 1 (D.C. Ct. of
Ap., 1981).

[26]  See, for example, Riss v. City of New York, 22 N.Y.2d 579,
293 NYS2d 897, 240 N.E.2d 860 (N.Y. Ct. of Ap. 1958); Keane v.
City of Chicago, 98 Ill. App.2d 460, 240 N.E.2d 321 (1968);
Morgan v. District of Columbia, 468 A.2d 1306 (D.C. Ct. of Ap.
1983); Calogrides v. City of Mobile, 475 So.2d 560 (S.Ct. A;a.
1985); Morris v. Musser, 478 A.2d 937 (1984); Davidson v.  City
of Westminster, 32 C.3d 197, 185 Cal.Rptr. 252, 649 P.2d 894
(S.Ct. Cal. 1982); Chapman v. City of Philadelphia, 434 A.2d 753
(Sup.Ct. Penn. 1981); Weutrich v. Delia, 155 N.J. Super 324, 326,
382 A.2d 929, 930 (1978); Sapp v. City of Tallahassee, 348 So.2d
363 (Fla.Ct. of Ap. 1977); Simpson's Food Fair v. Evansville, 272
N.E. 2d 871 (Ind.Ct. of Ap.); Silver v. City of Minneapolis, 170
N.W.2d 206 (S.Ct. Minn. 1969) and Bowers v. DeVito, 686 F.2d 61
(7th Cir. 1982).

[27]   CA Gvt. C. Sects. 821, 845, and 846.

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