Captain Crunch

This is a pretty interesting article by John Stossel of ABC News. Stossel is usually thought to be one of the one of the more conservative members of the fourth estate.

http://www.theunionleader.com/articl...?article=62176

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sorry, couldn't get the link to work. Here's the article:

Myths about guns are truly deadly
By JOHN STOSSEL

GUNS are dangerous. But myths are dangerous, too. Myths about guns are very dangerous, because they lead to bad laws. And bad laws kill people.

"Don't tell me this bill will not make a difference," said President Clinton, who signed the Brady Bill into law.

Sorry. Even the federal government can't say it has made a difference. The Centers for Disease Control did an extensive review of various types of gun control: waiting periods, registration and licensing, and bans on certain firearms. It found that the idea that gun control laws have reduced violent crime is simply a myth.

I wanted to know why the laws weren't working, so I asked the experts. "I'm not going in the store to buy no gun," said one maximum-security inmate in New Jersey. "So, I could care less if they had a background check or not."

"There's guns everywhere," said another inmate. "If you got money, you can get a gun."

Talking to prisoners about guns emphasizes a few key lessons. First, criminals don't obey the law. (That's why we call them "criminals.") Second, no law can repeal the law of supply and demand. If there's money to be made selling something, someone will sell it.

A study funded by the Department of Justice confirmed what the prisoners said. Criminals buy their guns illegally and easily. The study found that what felons fear most is not the police or the prison system, but their fellow citizens, who might be armed. One inmate told me, "When you gonna rob somebody you don't know, it makes it harder because you don't know what to expect out of them."

What if it were legal in America for adults to carry concealed weapons? I put that question to gun-control advocate Rev. Al Sharpton. His eyes opened wide, and he said, "We'd be living in a state of terror!"

In fact, it was a trick question. Most states now have "right to carry" laws. And their people are not living in a state of terror. Not one of those states reported an upsurge in crime.

Why? Because guns are used more than twice as often defensively as criminally. When armed men broke into Susan Gonzalez' house and shot her, she grabbed her husband's gun and started firing. "I figured if I could shoot one of them, even if we both died, someone would know who had been in my home." She killed one of the intruders. She lived. Studies on defensive use of guns find this kind of thing happens at least 700,000 times a year.

And there's another myth, with a special risk of its own. The myth has it that the Supreme Court, in a case called United States v. Miller, interpreted the Second Amendment — "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed" — as conferring a special privilege on the National Guard, and not as affirming an individual right. In fact, what the court held is only that the right to bear arms doesn't mean Congress can't prohibit certain kinds of guns that aren't necessary for the common defense. Interestingly, federal law still says every able-bodied American man from 17 to 44 is a member of the United States militia.

What's the special risk? As Alex Kozinski, a federal appeals judge and an immigrant from Eastern Europe, warned in 2003, "the simple truth — born of experience — is that tyranny thrives best where government need not fear the wrath of an armed people."

"The prospect of tyranny may not grab the headlines the way vivid stories of gun crime routinely do," Judge Kozinski noted. "But few saw the Third Reich coming until it was too late. The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed — where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once."

John Stossel is co-anchor of ABC News' "20/20" and the author of "Give Me a Break."

__________________


Memo to the President:
I'll keep my guns, money & freedom...
You can keep the "change!"

Terry

DirksterG30

I saw that piece on 20/20 when it aired. Stossel did an excellent job. After his segment was over, the camera cut back to Barbara Walters (aka Baba Wawa) and Stossel - he gave a summary of what he'd found out as a result of doing research, and Baba Wawa said something like "well that's your opinion.":chairshot

Here's some video of that episode:
http://www30.brinkster.com/daver120/GunMyths.htm

P95Carry

Sums up a lot very well - factors which to us are totally logical and common sense. The staunch anti's tho just can't/won't admit to that, instead seeking solely to further their ''control'' agenda.

Dirkster - many thx for the link - I have downloaded that.

__________________
Chris - P95
NRA Certified Instructor & NRA Life Member.

"To own a gun and assume that you are armed
is like owning a piano and assuming that you are a musician!."

If a BG dies as the result of pointing a gun at me, then he has merely succumbed to an occupational hazard of being a thug

BushidoMarine

I simply CANNOT believe that I just saw what I think I saw... A PRO-self defense/freedom/common sense segment on ABC, the most anti-freedom/firearms/pro-criminal network on the American airwaves... Am I hallucinating...in the middle of the most vivid dream I have ever had?!?

This simply CANNOT be real, so I am sure I will wake up later, and things will be as they truly are, with ABC refusing to let one iota of common sense, factual information regarding the overwhelming benefits of responsible firearms ownership go out over it's airwaves.... Buy hey, is was a *nice* dream....!

__________________
"An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it."
- Col. Jeff Cooper, USMC