Keep and Bear Arms

It’s 1:15 am and you are asleep in your Detroit home. Your husband is at work. You are awakened by noises that seem to be coming from the bedroom of your 12-year-old daughter. Groggily, you make your way to her room and discover a man raping and beating your little girl. Panic-stricken and terrified, you race to a neighbor’s house for help. A 9-1-1 call is made. The police are summoned and arrive quickly - at about the same time you are making your way back to your home. A man is observed fleeing the premises. As the police give chase to the suspect, you go back inside to check on your little girl. She has suffered at least 25 to 30 blunt force injuries to her head and face. She is dead.[i]

It’s 9:00 am on a summer morning in northern California. You are a responsible young lady of 14. Your parents have gone out for the morning and left you and your four younger siblings, ages 13, 11, 9 and 7 at home. Suddenly a crazed man with a pitchfork invades the house and begins to stab your younger brother and sister in their beds. Your father has trained you in the use of firearms, so you race to the place where the family guns are stored. Your parents, however, have obeyed California law, which requires that firearms be locked up while they away. As the pitchfork-wielding man continues to brutalize your sister and brother, you run to the neighbor’s house. Although you plead with him, the neighbor refuses to give you a firearm to shoot the madman in your home. With no way to defend yourself or your siblings, your only hope is to dial 9-1-1 and summon police. By the time the police arrive and fatally shoot the attacker, your 7-year-old brother has suffered 46 stab wounds, mostly in the chest, neck and head. Your 9-year-old sister, who had apparently held on to the assailants leg long enough for you and your other two sisters to escape, has suffered 138 puncture wounds: twenty-nine of them on the right side of her face, five on the back of her head, and thirty-seven to her chest and lower neck. Your two youngest siblings are dead.[ii] (Read a letter from the children's grandmother.)

It’s a warm July evening in south Florida and you have just returned home from a movie. You are standing with your husband near the family car when out of the darkness a man appears, points a revolver at the two of you, and demands money and jewelry. You plead with your husband to comply, but he refuses and a struggle between the two men ensues. Your 10-year-old daughter, who has heard the commotion, opens the front door and begins to scream, prompting you to run from the scene and get your daughter to safety. Once inside, you dial 9-1-1. You give the dispatcher your address and advise that the man has a gun and is going to kill your husband. As you are pleading with the dispatcher to send help immediately, a shot is fired. Your husband is dead.[iii] (Read the transcript of the 9-1-1 call.)

These are not the tales of a fictional writer with a vivid imagination. All three are, tragically, true. All three tell the tale of individuals who, whether by choice or through government mandate, relied upon a call to 9-1-1 for help in life-threatening situations. All three tales illustrate, sadly, that it is not always possible for help to arrive in time. All three are tales that gun control advocates would probably prefer we not hear.

When the value of armed self-defense against criminals is addressed in the gun control debate, gun control advocates frequently reassure us that the police will protect us. We are told all we have to do is dial 9-1-1. Self-defense, we are told, is not a satisfactory reason for owning a gun; the only legitimate use for a firearm is for hunting or sporting purposes. Their advice seems sensible: When you’re in danger, just make a phone call and help will be on the way. It sounds so easy – so reasonable. There are, however, a few important details the “anti-gunners” neglect to address.

In the three cases above, there was at least an opportunity to make a call. What if you are prevented from doing so? What if your assailant renders a call to the police impossible?

For example, when she attempted to dial 9-1-1, a South Kitsap, Washington woman was beaten, kicked and pistol-whipped by an intruder who had threatened to rape her and harm her daughter.[iv]

And if an 81-year-old Michigan woman had tried to call 9-1-1, she would have been unable. The rapist who entered her home cut the phone lines before breaking in.[v]

A Newport News man confined to a wheelchair tried to call for help, only to have his phone taken by his attacker.[vi]

Easy? Reasonable? Sensible? In some cases, perhaps it is. But cut phone lines, physical handicaps, disparities in size and/or strength, the timing of attacks and a host of other factors can make a phone call for help impossible. Do we really want to take the chance that we CAN call when we need to? Apparently, gun control advocates think we should.

(It should be noted that the handicapped gentleman and the Michigan woman both owned firearms and ultimately shot their attackers. An armed neighbor came to the rescue of the Washington women when he heard her screams.)

Another fact that gun control advocates avoid addressing is the fact that law enforcement simply does not have the resources and/or manpower to protect individual citizens. There are approximately 150,000 police officers on duty at any given time to protect a population of more than 250 million Americans. That amounts to nearly 1,700 citizens per officer.[vii]

Further, the courts have consistently ruled that police have no obligation to protect individual citizens, only the public at large. For example, in Warren v. District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department[viii], the court stated, “[C]ourts have without exception concluded that when a municipality or other governmental entity undertakes to furnish police services, it assumes a duty only to the public at large and not to individual members of the community.”

Additionally, when we are told to “just dial 9-1-1 and the police will protect us,” we are led to believe that police are immediately available and will respond to our call without delay. Yet, the Department of Justice found in 1989 that there were 168,881 violent crimes to which police had not responded within one hour.[ix] Furthermore, in the late 1980’s former Florida Attorney General Jim Smith told Florida legislators that police responded to only about 200,000 of 700,000 calls for help to Dade County authorities.[x]

Of course, that does not mean law enforcement officers don’t make every effort to protect individuals in their communities – they do. Limited resources, however, sometimes force these dedicated men and women to delay attention to one matter in order to address a more serious situation. When we rely on the police to protect us, we are taking a chance that there isn’t a more serious need for the officers elsewhere. We are taking a chance that all available officers are not already involved in other, perhaps less urgent, matters. Do we really want to take that chance? Apparently, gun control advocates think we should.

Finally, gun control advocates don’t want to address the issue of response time. Once we’ve passed the hurdles of making the call and having help available, how long will it take to arrive? In two of the above cases, police arrived quickly - before the assailants left the scene – but, unfortunately, not soon enough to prevent a tragic loss of life.

Response times to emergency calls for assistance vary depending on a variety of factors such as the region of the country in which you live, the day of the week, the time of day, whether you live in a large city, a small town, a rural community, etc. For example, in their 1998 annual report, the Philadelphia Police Department reported an average response time of 6 minutes, 46 seconds to priority one (emergency) calls[xi] while the Nashville police reported an average response time of more than 8 minutes to emergency calls made in 1998.[xii]

Similarly, in December 2000, the Tucson, Arizona Police Department reported that response times for priority one calls averaged 5.71minutes[xiii], while the Colorado Springs Police Department reported an average response time of 11 1/2 minutes for the year 2000.[xiv]

Furthermore, researchers have found that less than 5% of all calls dispatched to police are made quickly enough to stop a crime or arrest a suspect.[xv] “In many individual cases, 911 systems and police responses have had wonderful and heartwarming outcomes,” write researchers George Kelling and Catherine Coles. “Yet, on an aggregate level, cases in which 911 technology makes a substantial difference in the outcome of criminal events are extraordinarily rare.”[xvi]

Former Graham County, Arizona Sheriff Richard Mack echoed those same sentiments by observing, “Police do very little to prevent violent crime. We investigate crime after the fact.”[xvii]

Even though it is clear that calls to 9-1-1 rarely prevent crime, gun control supporters continue to advocate a reliance on emergency calls for help as a viable substitute for armed self-defense. When we rely on the police to protect us, we are taking a chance that they will arrive in time, even though the odds are stacked significantly in favor of the criminal. Do we really want to take that chance? Apparently, gun control advocates think we should.

Relying on 9-1-1 can be a deadly mistake. Yet gun control advocates continue to urge us to do just that. They are, in essence, telling us to gamble with our lives and the lives of our loved ones. When we choose (or are forced) to rely on a 9-1-1 call for protection from violent crime, we do so under the assumption that we will have an opportunity to make the call, that officers will be readily available to come to our aid and that ours will be one of the 5% of crimes police are able to stop. We are taking a chance - gambling with our future.

[i] George Hunter and David G. Grant, 12-year-old raped, killed in her bedroom, THE DETROIT NEWS, September 1, 2000; Ben Schmitt, Intruder kills girl at home, THE DETROIT NEWS, September 1, 2000; Hunter, Suspect Held in rape-slaying, THE DETROIT NEWS, September 3, 2000; Grant, Cops say suspect stalked rape-slaying victim, THE DETROIT NEWS, September 5, 2000,

[ii] Vin Suprynowicz, Shouldn’t we repeal the gun laws… if it’ll save a single child, The Gun Owners, December 31, 2000

[iii] Mike Wagner, Gun sold in Ohio tied years later to fatal shooting, THE DAYTON DAILY NEWS, December 11, 2000. See also Meet a gun-free family, GUN NEWS MAGAZINE, April 2001, p 10.

[iv] Travis Baker, Woman attacked in her home, THE SUN, Bremerton, Washington, December 18, 2000; see also Man saves neighbor from rape attack, GUN NEWS MAGAZINE, April 2001

[v] The Chronicle, Muskegon, Michigan, January 2, 1997

[vi] Troy Graham, Shooting death is ruled self-defense, THE DAILY PRESS, Hampton Roads, Virginia, May 2, 2001

[vii] Gary Keck, Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America, (1991):132

[viii] 444 A.2d 1 (D.C. App. 1981)

[ix] Bureau of Justice Statistics, Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics – 1990, (1991):257

[x] Statement of Representative Ron Johnson in the U. S. Senate, “Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1987,” Hearing before the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Committee on the Judiciary (16 June 1987):33

[xi] Philadelphia Police Department 1998 Annual Report

[xii] Press release, Metropolitan Nashville Police Department, January 21, 1999

[xiii] Tucson, Arizona Police Department – Calls for Service Statistics, Response Time Summary by Patrol Team – December 2000

[xiv] The City of Colorado Springs, Springs Community Improvement Program, Common Questions about SCIP 01…, April 2001

[xv] Richard W. Stevens, Just Dial 911? The Myth of Police Protection, The Foundation for Economic Liberty, “Ideas on Liberty,” April 2000

[xvi] Gordon Witkin, Monika Guttman and Tracy Lenzy quoting Northeastern University Professor George Kelling and lawyer Catherine Coles, “This is 911…Please Hold,” U.S. News & World Report, June 17, 1996

[xvii] See supra note xv