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Gun-Control
Won't Stop the Madness
by Dr. Paul Gallant and Dr. Joanne Eisen
On April 20, 1999, after a
year of planning - and signs of trouble ignored by parents, teachers, and peers
- Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold opened fire on fellow students at Columbine High
School in Littleton, Colorado. When the shooting stopped, twelve classmates and
a teacher were dead. So were Harris and Klebold from suicide. Fourteen others
lay wounded.
The response was predictable: guns were used in committing the mayhem, and so
somehow, it happened because of them. And, of course, all gun-owners -
responsible, law-abiding or not - collectively share in the blame.
More "reasonable" gun laws needed? (Apparently, 20,000 are still not
enough.) Too easy access to firearms? (The Brady Law was supposed to fix that.)
To those convinced that the only road to a safer society means getting rid of
all the guns, consider this: what if filling your vague prescription for an
ideal world fosters the very climate which created Littleton?
According to University of Chicago researchers Drs. John Lott and William Landes,
deaths and injuries from mass public shootings - like Littleton - fall
dramatically after right-to-carry concealed-handgun laws are enacted. Their
analysis of data from 1977-1995 shows that the average death rate from mass
shootings plummeted by up to 91% after such laws went into effect, and injuries
dropped by over 80%! (Colorado was in the midst of considering just such a law
when Harris and Klebold intervened.)
Lott explained: "People
who engage in mass public shootings are deterred by the possibility that
law-abiding citizens may be carrying guns. Such people may be deranged, but they
still appear to care whether they will themselves be shot as they attempt to
kill others."
Are you still convinced that guns are the cause? Why, then, the Littletons all
of a sudden, when far fewer children today have legal access to guns, and
familiarity with them?
Maybe that's part of the problem.
A July 1993 U.S. Department of Justice study found that "boys who own legal
firearms...have much lower rates of delinquency and drug use [than those who
obtained them illegally] and are even slightly less delinquent than nonowners of
guns." It concluded "for legal gunowners, socialization appears to
take place in the family; for illegal gunowners, it appears to take place 'on
the street'."
Stricter gun laws have served only to change the pattern of firearm access,
fueling the black market. Forty years ago, kids could buy a gun over the
counter, and it was considered normal for them to carry guns around for hunting
and recreation. No Littletons, then.
What else is different, nowadays?" Gun-free" school zones are new -
could they have played a role? Lott pointed out that these zones, indeed, make
schools safer - not for our children, but for those bent on harming them. Would
Harris and Klebold still have done what they did, knowing there was a good
chance of being stopped dead in their tracks by an armed adult, thereby robbing
them of the publicity they sought, and the success they hoped for?
That's exactly what happened at a high school in Pearl, Mississippi, in
1997.Armed with a hunting rifle, 16-year-old Luke Woodham killed his
ex-girlfriend and her close friend, then wounded 7 other students. Earlier that
morning, Woodham had stabbed his mother to death. Always omitted is one small
detail: Assistant Principal Joel Myrick retrieved a handgun from his car, and
interrupted Woodham's shooting spree, holding him at bay for four and a half
minutes until
police arrived.
A similar script played out last year in Edinboro, Pennsylvania, when local
merchant James Strand used his shotgun to "coax" 14-year old Andrew
Wurst into dropping his gun, and surrender to police. Wurst had just killed one
teacher, wounded another and two classmates.
We won't find any simple, single
answer. But teaching our children that violence is wrong under any circumstances
- even when necessary to protect their own lives - conditions them to be
victims, and serves to devalue their lives in preference to the lives of the
Harrises and the Klebolds of this world.
The quick and easy knee-jerk
response to "gun-violence" and incidents like Littleton - "ban
all the guns" - may sound compassionate, at first. But compassion like that
is both misplaced and harmful, when truth and common sense are lacking.
Lott said it's
"unlikely" these incidents will ever completely disappear. And while
they will always be devastating to those concerned - the victims, and the
grieving families and friends - the "ban-the-guns" solution will, in
the end, be far more disastrous, and cost many more lives.
Emotion aside, considering the
facts and not merely wishful thinking, one thing is certain: gun-control won't
stop the madness - it will only make it worse!
Dr. Joanne D. Eisen is engaged in the private practice of Family Dentistry.
She is President, Association of Dentists for Accuracy in Scientific Media (ADASM),
a national organization of dentists concerned with preserving the integrity of
the professional dental literature, against the politicization which has
corrupted America's medical literature.
Dr. Paul Gallant is engaged in the private practice of Family Optometry,
Wesley Hills, NY. He is Chairman, Committee for Law-Abiding Gun-Owners, Rockland
(LAGR), a 2nd Amendment grassroots group, based in Rockland County, NY.
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT: LAGR P.O. Box 354 Thiells,
NY 10984-0354.
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