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| Paul
Craig Roberts
July 29, 2002 Guns and violence Note: The following
is the first of a two-part series Blaming violence on guns and fanning hysteria over accidental deaths
to children from firearms are staples of anti-gun propaganda. Media help
gun-control zealots spread false information that gun ownership and
self-defense are certain paths to injury and death. Handgun Control,
Inc., gives erroneous advice that if you are attacked, the best way to
avoid injury "is to put up no defense." Anti-gun zealots blame
the actions of criminals on guns and argue that disarming law-abiding
gun-owners is the best way to reduce the crime rate.
Scholars such as Gary Kleck, Don Kates and John Lott have
demonstrated the falsity of these claims. Now comes an important new
book from Harvard University Press. "Guns and Violence" by
Bentley College history professor Joyce Lee Malcolm brings new evidence
that guns reduce violence. Malcolm's carefully researched book is a
study of guns and violence in England from the Middle Ages through the
present day. When the English were armed to the teeth, violent crime was
rare. Now that the English are disarmed, violent crime has exploded.
Indeed, crime in England is out of control.
Offering instruction for the United States, the English experience
will be covered in a subsequent column. Malcolm presents many facts
about guns and violence in America, and it is to these we turn first.
Did you know that water is 19 times more dangerous to a child than a
firearm? In 1996, 805 children died from accidental drownings and 42
died from firearm accidents. (Gun-control zealots inflate
"child" firearm deaths by including teen-age drug-gang members
killed in turf battles.)
Bathtubs are twice as dangerous to children as guns. Fire is 18 times
more dangerous to children than guns. Cars are 57 times more dangerous.
Household cleaners and poisons are twice as dangerous.
Did you know that defensive gun use prevents far more crimes than the
police? National polls of defensive gun use by private citizens indicate
that as many as 3.6 million crimes annually are prevented by armed
individuals.
In 98 percent of the cases, the armed citizen merely has to brandish
his weapon. As many as 400,000 people each year believe they saved a
life by being armed. Contrary to Handgun Control's propaganda, in less
than 1 percent of confrontations do criminals succeed in taking the gun
from the intended victim.
Did you know that the testimony of incarcerated felons supports the
large number of defensive gun uses? Thirty-four percent of felons said
they were scared off, wounded or captured by victims who turned out to
be armed.
Convicted felons say that they are more deterred by armed victims
than by the police. In the United States, where roughly 50 percent of
households are armed, only 13 percent of burglaries occur with residents
at home. In contrast, in Britain, where homeowners are disarmed, 50
percent of home burglaries take place with the residents present.
Gun-control zealots claim that the availability of guns is the
primary cause of homicides. Between 1973 and 1994, the number of guns in
private ownership in the United States rose by 87 million. During this
period, both the homicide rate and the percent of homicides committed
with firearms dropped.
Another test of the relationship between guns and violence is
provided by the concealed-carry laws now in force in 33 states.
Gun-control zealots predicted that traffic accidents and other
altercations combined with an armed public would result in a bloodbath.
Malcolm confronts this false prediction with empirical evidence:
"In all the decades of experience with concealed-carry laws in an
increasing number of states, there is only one recorded incident of the
use of a permitted handgun in a shooting following a traffic accident,
and that was determined to be a case of self-defense."
The 17 states and the District of Columbia without concealed-carry
permits enjoy an 81 percent higher rate of violent crime. Their
restrictive gun laws produced 1,400 more murders, 4,200 more rapes,
12,000 more robberies and 60,000 more aggravated assaults.
Malcolm disproves the claim that family members are the main victims
of gun ownership. This myth results from FBI reports that most victims
are "known" to the murderer. In the category of "known to
the murderer," the FBI includes members of rival drug gangs,
prostitutes and their pimps and even cab drivers killed in robberies by
"customers."
Far from the picture of hot-tempered spouses turning the family
firearm upon one another in moments of rage, it turns out that 90
percent of adult murderers have prior criminal records involving major
felonies. Three-quarters of juvenile murderers and their victims have an
average of 10 prior criminal arraignments.
The English Bill of Rights guarantees English citizens "arms for
their defense." Politicians and bureaucrats stole this right from
the people by subterfuge. In England today, only outlaws have guns. Sens.
Lieberman, McCain
and Schumer are working to duplicate
the English calamity by stealing gun rights from the American people. Do
these three senators represent the criminal lobby? Are they trying to
create a black market in guns?
August 1, 2002 How the British maximize crime Note: The following is the second of a two-part series Did you know that a person's chances of being mugged in London are
six times higher than in New York City?
Did you know that assault, robbery and burglary rates are far higher
in England than in the United States?
Did you know that in England self-defense of person or property is
regarded as an anti-social act, and that a victim who injures or kills
an assailant is likely to be treated with more severity than the
assailant?
Joyce Lee Malcolm blames the rocketing rates of violent and armed
crimes in England on "government policies that have gone badly
wrong." Her careful research in "Guns and Violence: The
English Experience," just released by Harvard University Press,
leads to this conclusion: "Government created a hapless, passive
citizenry, then took upon itself the impossible task of protecting it.
Its failure could not be more flagrant."
Malcolm begins her study of English crime rates, weapons ownership
and attitudes toward self-defense in the Middle Ages. She continues the
story through the Tudor-Stuart centuries, the 18th, 19th and 20th
centuries. She finds that five centuries of growing civility, low crime
rates and declining firearm homicide rates ended in the 20th century.
Malcolm shows that an unprotected public at the mercy of criminals is
the result of (1) the 1967 revision of criminal law, which altered the
common-law standard for self-defense and began the process of
criminalizing self-defense, and (2) increasing restrictions on handguns
and other firearms, culminating in the 1997 ban of handgun ownership
(and most other firearms).
In England, the penalty for possessing a handgun is 10 years in
prison. The result is the one predicted by the National Rifle
Association: "when guns are outlawed, only outlaws have guns."
During the two years following the 1997 handgun ban, the use of handguns
in crime rose by 40 percent. During seven months of 2001, armed
robberies in London rose by 53 percent.
These shocking crime rates are understatements, because "the
English police still grossly underreport crimes. ... The 1998 British
Crime Survey found four times as many crimes occurred as police records
indicated."
A disarmed public now faces outlaws armed with machine-guns. People
in London residential neighborhoods have been machine-gunned to death.
Gunmen have even burst into court and freed defendants.
The British government forbids citizens to carry any article
that might be used for self-defense. Even knitting needles and walking
sticks have been judged to be "offensive weapons." In 1994, an
English homeowner used a toy gun to detain two burglars who had broken
into his home. The police arrested the homeowner for using an imitation
gun to threaten and intimidate.
A British Petroleum executive was wounded in an assault on his life
in a London Underground train carriage. In desperation, he fought off
his attackers by using an ornamental sword blade in his walking stick.
He was tried and convicted of carrying an offensive weapon.
A youth fearful of being attacked by a gang was arrested for carrying
a cycle chain. After police disarmed him, he was set upon and
hospitalized as a result of a brutal beating. The prosecutor
nevertheless insisted on prosecuting the victim for "carrying a
weapon."
Seventy percent of rural villages in Britain entirely lack police
presence. But self-defense must be "reasonable," as determined
after the fact by a prosecutor. What is reasonable to a victim being
attacked or confronted with home intruders at night can be quite
different from how a prosecutor sees it. A woman who uses a weapon to
fight off an unarmed rapist could be convicted of using unreasonable
force.
In 1999, Tony Martin, a farmer, turned his shotgun on two
professional thieves when they broke into his home at night to rob him a
seventh time. Martin received a life sentence for killing one criminal,
10 years for wounding the second and 12 months for having an illegal
shotgun. The wounded burglar has already been released from prison.
American prosecutors now follow British ones in restricting
self-defense to reasonable force as defined by prosecutors. Be
forewarned that Americans can no longer use deadly force against home
intruders unless the intruder is also armed and the homeowner can
establish that he could not hide from the intruder and had reason to
believe his life was in danger.
The assault on England's version of the Second Amendment was
conducted by unsavory characters in the British Home Office. Long before
guns were banned, the Home Office secretly instructed the police not to
issue licenses for weapons intended to protect home and property.
In the British welfare state, crimes against property are not taken
seriously. Malcolm reports that criminals face minimal chances of arrest
and punishment, but a person who uses force to defend himself or his
property is in serious trouble with the law. A recent British law
textbook says that the right to self-defense is so mitigated "as to
cast doubt on whether it still forms part of the law."
An Englishman's home is no longer his castle. Thanks to gun-control
zealots, England has become the land of choice for criminals. Contact Paul Craig Roberts | Read his biography ©2002 Creators Syndicate, Inc. townhall.com |