🚀 go-pugleaf

Chad,
Can you post a link where this came from?

Thank you.

--
Neil Schaber
    Hollywood, California

"Chad Gore" <dwharding2@cs.comno2ujunk> wrote in message
news:20010413200645.21747.00000076@ng-mb1.news.cs.com...
: Gun Control Science Misfires
:
: Thursday, April 12, 2001
: By Steven Milloy
:
:
:  Email this Article
:
:
:
: Gun control advocates used to claim that more guns meant more crime.
Research
: demonstrated, though, that more guns meant less crime. As the criminology
: argument faded, gun control advocates began arguing guns were a public
health
: problem.
:
: But the public health argument is also bankrupt, according to Miguel A.
Faria
: Jr., M.D., editor of the Medical Sentinel, the journal of the Association
of
: American Physicians and Surgeons. Dr. Faria lays out his reasoning in the
: Spring 2001 issue.
:
: The U.S. public health establishment declared in 1979 that handguns should
be
: eradicated, beginning with a 25 percent reduction by the year 2000. Since
that
: time, hundreds of “scientific” articles have been published in medical
: journals supporting the notion that guns are a public health problem.
:
: Faria’s article spotlights many of the flaws of this research, including
that
: of Dr. Arthur Kellerman of the Emory University School of Public Health.
Since
: the mid-1980s, Dr. Kellerman used funding from the Centers for Disease
Control
: and Prevention to publish research purporting to show that persons who
keep
: guns in the home are more likely to be victims of homicide than those who
: don’t.
:
: Dr. Kellerman claimed in a 1986 New England Journal of Medicine study that
: having a firearm in the home is counter-productive. He reported “a gun
owner
: is 43 times more likely to kill a family member than an intruder.”
:
: Dr. Faria points out that Dr. Kellerman’s analysis ignored the vast
majority
: of benefits from defensive uses of guns. Since only 0.1 percent to 0.2
percent
: of defensive uses of guns involve the death of the criminal, Dr. Kellerman
’s
: study underestimated the protective benefits of firearms — in terms of
lives
: saved, injuries prevented and related medical costs — by a factor of as
much
: as 1,000.
:
: In a 1993 New England Journal of Medicine study, Dr. Kellerman again
reported
: guns in the home are a greater risk to the victims than the assailants. In
: addition to repeating the errors of his prior research, Dr. Kellerman used
: studies of populations with disproportionately high rates of serious
: psychosocial dysfunction such as a history of arrest, drug abuse and
domestic
: violence. Moreover, 71 percent of the victims were killed by assailants
who
: didn’t live in the victims’ household, using guns presumably not kept in
: the home.
:
: Dr. Kellerman’s conclusions depend on an apparent higher rate of homicides
: among households with guns compared to households without guns (45 percent
vs.
: 36 percent). But Dr. Kellerman ignored his own data indicating there were
: enough false denials of gun ownership to reverse this result.
:
: Controversy has also swirled around Dr. Kellerman’s claim that gun
: availability increases the risk of suicide. Dr. Faria says “the
overwhelming
: available evidence compiled from the psychiatric literature is that
untreated
: or poorly managed depression is the real culprit behind high rates of
: suicide.”
:
: Backing this up is the observation that countries with strict gun control
laws
: and low rates of firearm availability  — such as Japan, Germany and the
: Scandinavian countries — have suicide rates that are 2 time to 3 times
higher
: than for the U.S. In these countries, people simply substitute for guns
other
: suicide methods such as Hara-Kiri, carbon monoxide suffocation, hanging,
or
: chemical poisoning.
:
: Dr. Faria also cites the work of Florida State University professor Gary
Kleck
: and Yale University professor John R. Lott Jr. as serious challenges to
gun
: control advocates’ claim that guns are a public health problem.
:
: In his books Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America and Targeting Guns,
: Kleck reports that firearms are used defensively 2.5 millions times per
year,
: dwarfing offensive uses by criminals. Kleck says that 25 to 75 lives are
saved
: by guns for every life lost by a gun. The medical costs saved by the
defensive
: use of guns are 15 times greater than the costs caused by criminal use of
: firearms, according to Kleck.
:
: Lott reports in his book, More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and
Gun
: Control Laws that neither state waiting periods nor the Brady Law are
: associated with a reduction in crime rates. However, laws that permit the
: carrying of concealed weapons are associated with a 69 percent decrease in
: death rate from public, multiple shootings such as those that occurred in
: Jonesboro, Arkansas and Columbine High School.
:
: Some concerned with gun violence in society have, in desperation, signed
on to
: the gun control agenda. They are willing to trade basic American rights
: guaranteed by the Second Amendment for less violence. But it’s not a fair
: trade.
:
: The myth-busting work of Dr. Faria and others exposes gun control not only
as
: being unlikely to reduce violence but also as having adverse safety and
: economic consequences. Junk science-fueled gun control misfires as a
public
: health strategy.
:
:            "QUIT BEATING AROUND THE BUSH"
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