15 Years of Ignorance
From: "AJMD" <[email protected]>
Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 23:11:54 -0500
To: <[email protected]>
Subject: Online: Editorial: One bullet, 15 years
Regarding 1/21/02 "One bullet,
15 years" (http://desmoinesregister.com/news/stories/c5917686/16969333.html)
If the ridiculous, contradictory, and ineffective legal principles used for
"gun laws" were applied in any other area, the public would be up
in arms (no pun intended). Unfortunately, the fear and ignorance engendered
in the general public by television and by antigun lobbyists results in most
people just shrugging their shoulders at cases like Yirkovsky's. Even so-called
"sportsmen" generally are willing to compromise as long as they aren't
inconvenienced too much regarding their hobby, leaving only the serious civil
libertarian, or woman being stalked, to meaningfully defend firearms ownership.
Even more tragic than Yirkovsky's
jail time are the countless women raped and innocents murdered, due to counterproductive
laws which do no good other than give a few hoplophobic soccer-moms warm fuzzies
for having "out-machoed" the NRA by banning concealed carry. Worldwide
for the past 100 years, over 4,000 citizens per day have been murdered by their
own police and military, dwarfing "terrorism" as a cause of death,
yet a clamor for the same "reasonable" gun registration laws which
enabled such genocide goes largely unopposed by our politically correct media.
I hope the DesMoines Register will explore this issue further, and earn its
First Amendment freedoms by enlightening the public as to the Second Amendment.
Permission given to print the above
letter, signed
Andrew Johnstone, RPh/MD
Doctors for Sensible Gun Laws - www.dsgl.org
Indianapolis, IN 46227
317-8xx-xxxx
P.S. Here are a few references linked
to which may help substantiate my statements: [Links unavailable -ed]
For matters of Constitutionality,
Halbrook's George Mason Univ. Law Review article is a good reference exposing
some of the blatant mischaracterization of Second Amendment jurisprudence in
the media's recent diatribe against Ashcroft. Also, the works of Stephen Halbrook,
including the U.S. vs. Emerson briefing, are excellent and well-referenced,
and many other Second Amendment scholars have published on this topic in the
journal literature.
On an international
level, David Kopel has published extensive comparisons of gun laws versus crime
rates and suicide rates, revealing that unlike what HCI has gotten the mainstream
media to so uncritically parrot, U.S. "lax" gun laws do not correlate
with increased crime and suicide. More importantly, as R.J. Rummel points out,
genocide kills 5 to 10 times more innocents than criminal use of firearms, and
Jay Simkin documents that genocide has always been preceded by the seemingly
innocuous step of "gun registration." In the past 100 years, countries
with strict gun control have had an average of well over 4,000 citizens per
day murdered by their own police and military, and for all this carnage, there
is no offsetting beneficial effect documented for gun control laws - in fact
researcher John Lott has pointed out some compelling evidence that gun control
laws may actually increase domestic crime rates, and Kopel's St. Louis Law Review
article, Peril or Protection? - The Risks and Benefits of Handgun Prohibition
supports that conclusion.
As noted by Dr. Edgar
Suter, in "Guns in the Medical Literature - - - - - a Failure of Peer Review"
from the Journal of the Medical Association of Georgia, and in a more in-depth
presentation, Kates' (et al) "Guns and Public Health - Epidemic of Violence,
or Pandemic of Propaganda?" article, from the Tennessee Law Review, there
has been a striking lack of integrity in the "public health" literature
on gun control, replete with distortion of data, flawed methodology, and when
all else fails, complete fabrication of "facts." Many physician opponents
of gun control are not concerned so much with the mere inconvenience to sportsmen
which gun laws pose, but the clear and unnecessary danger in which they put
ordinary citizens like our patients - as I explained in Feb. 5, 2001 Medical
Economics (reposted on GOA if the original link expired). As sincere patient
advocates who are concerned for the public health, we cannot stand by and let
uninformed but well-intended individuals dangerously misdirect public policy,
even when a naive public wonders why we won't be "reasonable" or "compromise"
(which the sportsmen's lobby often does, since they are mostly just concerned
with minimizing impact on firearms hobbies).
Why not compromise?
- the events of the First Million Mom's March didn't turn out so well, and it
wouldn't have been possible without the "reasonable" step of merely
registering guns.
Andrew Johnstone,
RPh/MD
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