October 5, 2000
alan@gunlaws.com

Well, we got in.

The dangerously misguided plan to lock out civil rights supporters from a forum on gun-related issues collapsed in the face of enormous pressure placed on the organizers and public officials. Thanks to phone calls and emails from the public, and stunned inquiries from the media, we were able to attend.

And thanks to a hardy group of protesters at the library's front door, and a stalwart group of well dressed and dignified citizens waiting at the auditorium entrance, they simply couldn't stonewall us away from our own Attorney General Janet Napolitano and Phoenix Police Chief Harold Hurtt.

The organizers did what they could to make it uncomfortable for us, and to ostracize us, but in the end, they could hardly refuse access for so many decent people concerned about "gun violence" issues. A bevy of well armed police attended as well, in uniform, plain clothes, and undercover.

Among us were legal experts, a parent of a suicide survivor, politically aware individuals, even gun owners, who got to participate in an event billed as the first of its kind, and the beginning of a two-year effort to wage war on "gun violence."

The library auditorium has a capacity of 299, but seating for only about 150 was set out. We were made to wait until all pre-registrants had seats, and then if any seating was left, we were allowed to take it. Only friends of the organizers were allowed to pre-register (restricted to various anti-rights proponents). We were forced, in a demeaning way, to stand, wait, and listen to the forum begin from the hallway, and then press to be seated on a first-come first-served basis. About 20 empty seats remained after the lot of us gained entry.

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What actually transpired? You see what you want to see and you hear what you want to hear.

I'm sure the pre-registered guests at the forum saw a wonderful non-political event that attempted, in a neutral and learned way, to solve pressing social issues that burden us all.

I came away with a different impression.

Though certainly a few people have experienced it, most of the people attending and reading this have never, and will never, experience much serious violence of any kind.

It became evident by the end, that what is billed as "gun violence" is really something very different. Something that could be almost totally eradicated if the political will were in place. Here are the three main factors that the crowd heard but apparently failed to recognize. They focused instead on perceived evils and chilling dangers they believe are inherent in privately owned firearms.

1. More than half of all the perceived problem is not from guns, it is from war. War waged by our own government. It is the war on some drugs that leads to 60% of the hospital emergency room visits for gunshot wounds, according to the doctors on the panel. This fact was only revealed after questioning near the end.

In the beginning they gave the impression that the massive emergency-room traumas come from random citizen occurrences of some sort, but that's not true. You could end 60% of all gunshot wounds by ending the war on some drugs. Will they do it? Or does the "gun violence problem" serve another insidious but useful purpose? Does it galvanize effort to disarm the general public in the name of safety, and for the good of all mankind? You decide.

2. Half of the rest of the "gun violence problem" is not aggressive violence of some sort, but suicide and attempted suicide. Most of that is committed by very old people.

It's widely recognized and I've noted before that problems at the end of life have no easy resolution. Euthanasia is a subject so hot it cannot be debated in most public forums. The Hemlock Society is widely despised even though they address a very real problem that turns out, surprisingly, to be disguised as "gun violence".

Martha's been gone for a year now, the physical pain is excruciating, can't get proper drugs, money's all but spent, no one's left to listen, what to do? Go out in a field and send yourself to some greener pasture? If we could but provide better answers another huge chunk of the "gun violence problem" melts away.

3. Quite commendably, The Arizona Republic, at the risk of being labeled racist hate-mongering bigots, covered the forum on their front page by noting that more than half of all gunshot victims in this state are Hispanic. Other reports nationally have long shown that Blacks suffer disproportionately from homicides and criminal woundings. The "gun violence problem" is really some sort of ethnic problem that is poorly understood.

Some insight is gained however, through the open mic testimony of a lone Hispanic male, who lamented that police efforts to control criminal miscreants and the war on some drugs has forced astounding crime and random gunfire problems into his south Phoenix community.

Police Chief Hurtt recognized exactly what the man was saying, and even had a name for it, the "displacement problem," caused by getting tough on crime in one area and watching it simply migrate elsewhere.

The dilemma, though, is that the man noted there is basically no police factor in his neighborhoods. Only gunfire so bad he and his family sleep in the windowless living room. Shame on the perpetrators of this travesty, and I don't mean the warring factions, I mean the people who create a public policy that generates such an affront to civilized society. Crime containment, not law enforcement, forces this man and his neighbors to endure violence that truly is outrageous.

Later the next evening, two Hispanic women from neighborhoods most of us have only heard about and will never actually visit, called Charles Goyette on KFYI, and identified the source of out-of-whack Hispanic gunfire. It is caused, they said, by illegal aliens from Mexico. Do we have the political will to address this portion of the "random gunfire problem," or is the word "passport" now so alien to law enforcement that it is never used?

In Mexico, the dictatorship (now the "democratically elected leadership") is armed and prohibits the citizenry from bearing arms, terrified that the people might overthrow an oppressive government. When citizens there escape to our land they find they can obtain guns -- illegally of course since they could never pass a background check -- they get drunk, and they start shooting, these callers said. They sounded sincerely fearful of a terrifying situation related to "the gun violence problem." A situation ignored by the well intentioned, basically upscale participants of the forum.

So there you have it. You can take a monumental bite out of the "gun violence problem" by:

A - curtailing a war that builds huge bureaucracy and has served mostly as price supports for a widely desired and widely available product,

B - providing options and support for the elderly who are in desperate and demoralized straights, and

C- returning to the strict old system of requiring passports for people who travel to foreign lands.

I got the distinct impression that, left on their own, these courses of action were not, and never will be, on the agenda at future "gun violence" meetings.

Despite insistence to the contrary, the "Gun Violence Forum" was a predictably political event. Solutions that were alluded to or directly endorsed by the official participants included (taken from my notes):

• Policy changes
• Common sense prevention
• Common agendas
• Agreed upon priorities
• Stopping the sale of bullets on a voluntary basis by asking stores to stop sales prior to unspecified sensitive times of the year
• Continuing "gun violence" forums
• Requesting BATF assistance Limiting availability of firearms
• Reducing televised and other dramatized violence
• Treating guns as disease
• Encouraging safe use and storage of firearms
• Requiring safe use and storage of firearms
• Licensing
• Registration ("Registration and licensing might be good for Arizona." -Napolitano)
• Addressing social, psychological and biological factors in crime commission
• Requiring gun safety classes
• Recognizing that criminals will get guns anyway -Hurtt
• Remove guns from homes
• Have pediatricians inform parents of dangers of guns
• Recognize that Eddie Eagle is really an invitation to touch guns
• Require locks
• Require inaccessibility
• Require "safer" guns
• Increase the trigger pressure needed to fire a gun
• Regulate guns because they are currently unregulated
• Make gun owners responsible for criminal misuse of their guns
• Require one-gun-a-month lists and limits
• Use the $35 million in Proposition 200 for violence reduction programs
• Provide teen activities after school since most teen shootings, the group most subject to "gun violence" occurs between the hours of 3 and 6 p.m.
• Have the leadership and political will to take action

This list, and my spreading it to you, is, in my opinion, the real reason the event organizers didn't want us to attend this non-political merely educational event.

And do let me point out that "gun violence" is a phony term that casts aspersions on the noble and honorable tools which defend our freedom. The accurate terms are "human violence", and "aggression". Guns are neutral. They can be used for great good or great harm. It is their illegal misuse, and criminal misconduct that the forum is supposed to address. To attach guns inexorably to crime in this phrase reflects the bias and bigotry that poisons the struggle for our rights.

A few more points, and then I ought to get back to work.

The attendees of the forum were not, for the most part, evil people, in my opinion. Many are simply terrified of guns, apparent sufferers of hoplophobia (morbid fear of weapons), and as such should have no role whatsoever in setting gun policy. Many others are simply misinformed, swayed by pervasive bias in the news media, the rantings of their politicized associates, or blindly seeking to do good without adequate information upon which to act. Only a mere few are maliciously dedicated to disarming the public as an invidious social engineering agenda, and establishing a disgraceful duocracy in which only the rulers would be armed.

In the end, we mostly seek the same goals. Reducing violence and strife is a just and honorable pursuit of all civilized people (a point on which the NRA and HCI routinely agree). To accomplish this, the onerous attitude that pro-rights supporters should be locked out of public debate must change. And efforts at disarming or infringing the rights of honest people will have to give way to true work at the root causes of human suffering.

Considering that pediatricians and other doctors are reportedly responsible for 100,000 unjustifiable deaths year after year, it is disingenuous at best -- and unethical or worse -- for them to sanctimoniously campaign against firearms and fundamental rights. It is an obvious boundary violation, and practice outside their competency, when they attempt to counsel patients, and misuse the doctor-patient trust, to encourage defenselessness and treat tools such as household firearms as germs.

The Arizona Republic provided predictable reporting on the forum. The Tribune, however, did an outstanding job of conveying the event, with a head and subhead: "Anti-gun forum draws protest" and "2nd Amendment supporters say they had a right to be at program" (10/3/00). Congratulations to reporter Dan Nowicki for an excellent job.

Galan Updike, a state representative, pointed out that among the massive statistics handed out to all attendees, only victims were listed. "Where are the stats on the perpetrators?" he wondered. His question remained unanswered. Both Hurtt and Napolitano admitted that such information was sketchy at best. The AG had attempted a funded study of the source of crime guns in 1994, but the results were "inconclusive."

In the past, when murders were mostly committed by people who knew each other, Hurtt said, they cleared more than 90% of all cases. Now, with murders largely stranger-on-stranger, or criminals attacking one another (largely instigated by the federally funded war) the clearance rate is at or under 50% and dropping.

I have noted many times that The Arizona Republic publishes nearly a full page of reported crimes each week, by zip code, with no corresponding page of arrests. The unfortunate conclusion is that there are no corresponding arrests -- we must simply endure outrageous rates of crime. Which reminds me of this tidbit adapted from my inquiry in 1998 as to why the police don't arrest all the Brady criminals they find trying to buy guns (see the whole list under Position Papers at http://www.gunlaws.com):

"-- Because in a perverse way it serves government's purpose to have crime and disruption, if it increases people's perceived need for government to fight such things. In other words, sick as it sounds, it's in government's interest to have crime (and other forms of disaster, disease and strife). Crime is a main reason you have government -- look what you would not need if there was no crime -- no laws against crime, less legislators, no FBI, fewer cops and state police, no criminal courts, no prisons, no bail bond agents, no remediation programs, fewer social workers, smaller government at every level..."

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Most of you reading this have not, and never will, actually witness criminal violence. It is contained in designated neighborhoods. It is managed in a government war program. It is a characteristic of old people you do not know. It is racial and ethnic in nature (The Arizona Republic's observation, not mine). If you eliminate these "sources" of "gun violence," I suspect that America has a lower crime and violence rate than Sweden. If only the other side would embrace this, but it would spoil their arguments, deflate their fervor and remove their raison detre.

The few mainstream tragedies we do experience become horrifically glorified and part of our popular culture, repeated endlessly to instill unwarranted fear, gain political advantage of one form or another, or to push partisan political agendas. It is wrong to use an extremely rare random accident to demean and disparage fundamental civil rights the citizenry has always possessed and cherishes.

Every single day 270 people wake up dead because their doctors killed them, but all you hear about year after year are the same 12 students from a school a thousand miles away. Imagine how dramatically our perception and public policy would change if news reports shifted focus. Look how that horribly distorted focus is destroying our rights and our way of life.

With this in mind, I'm calling for another forum. A forum to examine the massive benefits our society experiences from a heavily armed public, police and military. Benefits that have made us the envy and linchpin of freedom for the entire world. Benefits we must zealously guard lest they be ripped asunder and trampled.

The organizers of the "Gun Violence Forum" make a basic, self-evident mistake. For in focusing solely on the costs associated with harm perpetrated with firearms, they overlook the harm prevented by the use of firearms. Any conclusion they draw based solely on costs leaves them open to obvious charges of junk science. It is the net effect, not solely the cost or benefit, that has validity.

Let's reserve space (The Phoenix Library Auditorium?), and a radio host (Bob Mohan?), and a panel of distinguished experts (including the AG and Police Chief?), and examine the benefits our great society gains from its vigorous efforts to balance power at home and on the rest of the planet. Who would like to volunteer to lead and help organize this crucial undertaking?

Alan Korwin
Bloomfield Press
"We publish the gun laws"
12629 N. Tatum #440
Phoenix, AZ 85032
602-996-4020
1-800-707-4020
alan@gunlaws.com
http://www.gunlaws.com