1
Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz, "Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense With a Gun," 86 The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Northwestern University School of Law, 1 (Fall 1995):164. Dr. Kleck is a professor in the school of criminology and criminal justice at Florida State University in Tallahassee. He has researched extensively and published several essays on the gun control issue. His book, Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America, has become a widely cited source in the gun control debate. In fact, this book earned Dr. Kleck the prestigious American Society of Criminology Michael J. Hindelang award for 1993. This award is given for the book published in the past two to three years that makes the most outstanding contribution to criminology.
Readers of Dr. Kleck's materials may be interested to know that he is a member of the ACLU, Amnesty International USA, and Common Cause. He is not and has never been a member of or contributor to any advocacy group on either side of the gun control debate.
2
According to the National Safety Council, the total number of gun deaths (by accidents, suicides and homicides) account for less than 40,000 deaths per year.See Accident Facts, published yearly by the National Safety Council, Itasca, Illinois.
3 Kleck and Gertz, "Armed Resistance to Crime," at 185.
4 Kleck, Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America, (1991):111-116, 148.
5 George F. Will, "Are We 'a Nation of Cowards'?," Newsweek (15 November 1993):93.
6
Kleck and Gertz, "Armed Resistance to Crime," at 173, 185.
7 Id. at 164, 185.
8 Warren v. District of Columbia, D.C. App., 444 A. 2d 1 (1981).
9 Statement of Representative Ron Johnson in 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.
10 Bureau of Justice Statistics, Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics -- 1990, (1991):257.
11 Kleck, Point Blank, at 132.
12 Dr. Gary Kleck, interview with J. Neil Schulman, "Q and A: Guns, crime and self-defense," The Orange County Register, 19 September 1993. In the interview with Schulman, Dr. Kleck reports on findings from a national survey which he and Dr. Marc Gertz conducted in Spring, 1993 -- a survey which findings were reported in Kleck and Gertz, "Armed Resistance to Crime."
13 Compare Federal Bureau of Investigation, "Crime in the United States," Uniform Crime Reports, (1988): 7, 53; and FBI, (1996):58, 69.
14 Memo by Jim Smith, Secretary of State, Florida Department of State, Concealed Weapons/Firearms License Statistical Report for Period 10/01/87 - 11/30/96.
15 From 1987 through the middle of December 1996, there were 141 documented alligator attacks on human beings in Florida. This does not include any unreported encounters. Interview with Mark Trainor, Public Information Specialist for the Office of Information Services, Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission, Tallahassee, Florida (11 December 1996). By contrast, there were only 72 CCW holders who used their guns during the same period to commit a crime. See supra note 14 and text.
16 One of the authors of the University of Chicago study reported on the study's findings in John R. Lott, Jr., "More Guns, Less Violent Crime," The Wall Street Journal (28 August 1996). See also supra note 17.
17 John R. Lott, Jr. and David B. Mustard, "Crime, Deterrence, and Right-to-Carry Concealed Handguns," University of Chicago, (13 July 1996).
18 The comparison period between Georgia and Wisconsin is for the years 1976 to 1993. The enactment of the national Brady waiting period in 1994 ended the ability to extend, beyond 1993, any comparison of waiting periods and concealed carry laws in states such as Georgia and Wisconsin. Compare FBI, "Crime in the United States," (1977):45, 53; and FBI, (1994):70, 78.
19 Gary Kleck, "Crime Control Through the Private Use of Armed Force," Social Problems 35 (February 1988):15.
20 Compare Kleck, "Crime Control," at 15, and Chief Dwaine L. Wilson, City of Kennesaw Police Department, "Month to Month Statistics: 1991." (Residential burglary rates from 1981-1991 are based on statistics for the months of March - October.)
21 Kleck, "Crime Control," at 13.
22 Kleck, Point Blank, at 140.
23 U.S. Department of Justice, Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, Rape Victimization in 26 American Cities, 1979, p. 31.
24 U.S., Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, "The Armed Criminal in America: A Survey of Incarcerated Felons," Research Report, (July 1985): 27.
25 Id.
26 Id.
27 FBI, "Crime in the United States," (1996): 69.
28 Id. at 171. According to Arlington County's own statistics, the population in Arlington, Virginia for 1995 was 184,000 people.
29 Id. at 77.
30 Gary Kleck, speech delivered to the National Research Council, quoted in Don B. Kates, Jr., "Scholars' ignorant bias causes anti-gun sentiments," Handguns, June 1991, pp. 12-13.
31 "Gun Critic Shifts His Position," The Denver Post, 28 November 1985.
32 James D. Wright, "Second Thoughts About Gun Control," The Public Interest, 91 (Spring 1988):23, 25.
33 Dave Kopel, "Guns, Germs, and Science: Public Health Approaches to Gun Control," 84 The Journal of the Medical Association of Georgia (June 1995): 272.
34 Id.
35 Congressional Record, 8 May 1991, pp. H 2859, H 2862.
36 Wall Street Journal, 3 March 1994 at A10.
37 Jonathan T. Lovitt, "Survival for the armed," USA Today, 4 May 1992.
38 Department of Justice, "Survey of Incarcerated Felons," p. 36.
39 Pierre Thomas, "In the Line of Fire: The 'Straw Purchase' Scam," The Washington Post, 18 August 1991; and Thomas, "Va. Driver's License is Loophole for Guns: Fake Addresses Used in No-Wait Sales," The Washington Post, 20 January 1992.
40 U.S. Senate, "The Right to Keep and Bear Arms," Report of the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Committee on the Judiciary, (1982):12.
41 U.S. v. Verdugo-Urquidez, Sup. Ct. case No. 88-1353 (1990).
42 The court stated, "The fact that the liberty of the press may be abused by miscreant purveyors of scandal does not make any less necessary the immunity of the press from previous restraint in dealing with official misconduct. Subsequent punishment for such abuses as may exist is the appropriate remedy, consistent with constitutional privilege." Near v. Minnesota, 283 U.S. 697, 51 S. Ct. 625, 75 L. Ed. 1357 (1931).
43 Richard B. Abell, Assistant Attorney General, Task Force Chairman, Report to the Attorney General on Systems for Identifying Felons Who Attempt to Purchase Firearms, October 1989, p. 75.
44 This attempt at registration has since been defeated in the courts. Bureau of Justice Assistance, Grant Manager's Memorandum, Pt. 1: Project Summary, September 30, 1994, Project Number: 94-DD-CX-0166.
45 Copy of "FIST" (Firearms Inquiry Statistical Tracking) software at GOA headquarters, Springfield, VA. See also Pennsylvania Sportsmen's News, (Oct./Nov. 1996). The default in the "FIST" computer software is for the police officials to indefinitely retain the information on gun owners -- despite the fact that the Brady law only allows officials to retain this data for 20 days. One wonders who will ensure that this information will be deleted after the 20th day.
46 Mike Slavonic, NRA Director and Chairman of the Legislative Committee for the Allegheny County Sportsmen's League, states that the instant background check could be "our downfall." He notes that, "What most Americans don't know is that once instant check goes into effect in 1998 the purpose of Brady could be used to set the stage for national confiscation. Instant check could eventually keep guns out of the hands of everyone by registering everyone who purchases a handgun, rifle and shotgun and who obtained concealed weapons permits in a computerized database like 'FIST'. The most difficult problem with a gun ban is locating the firearms. FIST [with the help of the instant check], over time, could solve that problem." Slavonic, "Another Gun Database Discovered," Pennsylvania Sportsmen's News, at 7.
47 David B. Kopel, Policy Review 63 (Winter 1993):6.
48 Kopel, ed., Guns: Who Should Have Them?, (1995) at 88, 117 (fn. 75), and 122 (fn. 124).
49 "NM Gun Shop Owners Upset Over BATF's Searches," The New Gun Week, 19 November 1993; "Suit takes shot at inspections -- Gun shop owner says copying weapons registration illegal," Cincinnati Enquirer, 7 December 1989.
50 On August 16, 1991, New York City Mayor David Dinkins signed Local Law 78 which banned the possession and sale of certain rifles and shotguns.
51 John Marzulli, "Weapons ban defied: S.I. man, arsenal seized," Daily News, 5 September 1992.
52 David Kopel, "Trust the People: The Case Against Gun Control," [Cato Institute] Policy Analysis 109 (July 11, 1988):25.
53 Jay Simkin, Aaron Zelman and Alan M. Rice, Lethal Laws: "Gun Control" is the Key to Genocide, (Milwaukee: Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, 1994).
54 Senate, "Handgun Violence," at 107, citing Novae Russkae Slovo, Vol. LXXII, No. 26.291, (6 Nov. 1983).
55 Kopel, "Trust the People," at 26.
56 Id., at 25-26.
57 U.S. News & World Report, (17 January 1994): 8.
58 Lamont v. Postmaster General, 381 U.S. 301, 85 S. Ct. 1493, 14 L. Ed. 2d 398 (1965).
59 See General Accounting Office, Gun Control: Implementation of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, January 1996, p. 8.
60 Of persons denied the right to purchase a firearm under the Brady Law, 7.6 percent of the denials involved routine traffic stops. Another 38.9 percent were the result of administrative snafus. Only 44.7 percent of denials were as a result of felony convictions, and many of these resulted from white collar crimes and ancient peccadilloes which would not suggest that the person would pose a danger. Id., at 39-40, 64-65.
61 Id., at 4.
62 Id.
63 Dr. Edward Ezell presented testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution in 1989, and while doing so, helped clarify the true definition of an "assault rifle." The subcommittee record reports the following credentials for Dr. Ezell: Curator of the National Firearms Collection at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History, and founding Director of the Institute for Research on Small Arms in International Security.
64 Statement by Edward Ezell, "Assault Weapons," Hearings Before the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. Senate, (5 May 1989):396.
65 Defense Intelligence Agency, Small Arms Identification and Operation Guide -- Eurasian Communist Countries (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1988):105, cited in Kopel, Guns: Who Should Have Them?, at 162.
66 Kleck, Point Blank, at 70.
67 Senate, "Assault Weapons," at 396.
68 Officer William R. McGrath, "An Open Letter to American Politicians," The Police Marksman, (May/June 1989): 19.
69 Id.
70 Id.
71 Congressional Record, 13 September 1990:E 2826, citing [Police Advertisement], Roll Call, 3 September 1990. Also, see Howard Schneider, "Gun Owners Take Shot at Schaefer Assault-Weapon Bill," The Washington Post, February 15, 1991.
72 Iver Peterson, "Both Sides Say Trenton's Ban on Assault Rifles Has Little Effect on Crime," The New York Times, 20 June 1993.
73 Id.
74 U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, "Survey of State Prison Inmates, 1991," (March 1993):18.
75 FBI, "Crime in the United States," (1994):18.
76 Matt L. Rodriguez, Superintendent of Police for the City of Chicago, 1993 Murder Analysis at 12, 13.
77 Compare FBI, "Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted," Uniform Crime Reports, for the years 1989 (0 officers); 1990 (two officers), at 24, 36; 1991 (three officers), at 40, 41, 45; 1992 (two officers), at 46; 1993 (2 officers), at 41, 45.
Note: In 1993, there were three officers who died by unknown firearms which possibly could have been classified as semi-automatic "assault weapons." (FBI, "Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted, 1993," at 55.) These three died at Waco, Texas -- a jury later finding that authorities had provoked the residents at Mt. Carmel into firing. (Carol Moore, The Davidian Massacre (1995): 450.) Also supporting this view were two BATF agents who initially told the Texas Rangers that authorities had fired first upon the Davidians. (J.L.Pate, "Prosecution Against Waco Survivors Begins," The New Gun Week, (11 February 1994):5.) Despite the jury's finding that authorities provoked the residents in Mt. Carmel into firing, Newsweek and other news sources have pointed out that the officers might have died from "friendly fire." ("Was it Friendly Fire? In the bungled Waco raid, federal agents may have been shot by their own men," Newsweek, (5 April 1993):50.)
78 In the five years of 1989 to 1993, 30 officers were killed by their own service weapons. By contrast, only 9 officers were killed by so-called assault weapons. Id, for the years 1989, at 4; 1990, at 4, 24, 36; 1991, at 4, 40, 41, 45; 1992, at 4, 46; 1993, at 4, 41, 45.
79 In the five years of 1989 to 1993, 15 officers were killed by knives and blunt objects. By contrast, only nine officers were killed by so-called assault weapons. Compare FBI, "Officers Killed," for the years 1989, at 4, 13, 26; 1990, at 4, 12, 24, 36; and 1991, at 4, 40, 41, 45; 1992, at 4, 46; 1993, at 4, 13, 41, 45.
80 By using an inflated definition of "assault weapon," HCI attempts to "show" that these guns killed 36 percent (a minority) of the policemen who were murdered between January 1, 1994 and September 30, 1995. Of course, HCI's figure wildly departs from the 1% figure given by official government studies. (See supra note 74.) See Handgun Control, Inc., Cops Under Fire: Law Enforcement Officers Killed with Assault Weapons or Guns with High Capacity Magazines, (29 November 1995):2.
81 Id. The HCI study borrowed the very expansive definition of semi-automatic firearm from the Clinton gun ban which passed in 1994. This definition is so broad that it covers over 180 types of firearms, including reproductions of the 1873 Winchester and the 1860 Henry Rifles. (While the Clinton gun ban exempted reproductions of these two guns under section 922(v)(3) of Title 18 -- the provisions defining what a semi-automatic "assault weapon" is -- the ban did not exempt these rifles under section 922(w) -- the provision banning high-capacity magazines. Both of these rifles have tubular-fed magazines holding over 10 rounds, thus making them banned firearms.)
Even so, HCI has now encountered a dilemma with the publishing of their study: their study "shows" that there has been a dramatic increase in the number of policemen being killed by so-called assault weapons AFTER the ban was put in place. (HCI claims that 36% of the guns killing officers are "assault weapons," but the government's own pre-ban figures show the number was only one percent. See supra note 74.) Thus, either HCI's data is wrong, or it must concede that gun control INCREASES the threat to police officers.
82 Keith Bea, Congressional Research Service, "'Assault Weapons': Military-Style Semiautomatic Firearms Facts and Issues," CRS Report for Congress (13 May 1992, Technical Revisions: 4 June 1992): 65.
83 Id. at 67.
84 Id. at 69.
85 Kleck, Point Blank, at 75.
86 Massad Ayoob, "Defending Firepower," Combat Handguns, October 1990, p. 71.
87 Id. at 70.
88 Id. at 25.
89 Id. at 71.
90 "Koreans make armed stand to protect shops from looters," Roanoke Times & World-News, 3 May 1992.
91 U.S. Senate, "The Right to Keep and Bear Arms," Report of the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Committee on the Judiciary, (1982):7.
92 U.S. v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939).
93 From 1970 to 1991, the number of fatal gun accidents for children aged 0-14 declined from 530 to 227. Kopel, Guns: Who Should Have Them?, at 311. According to the National Safety Council, there were only 205 fatal gun accidents for children in that age group in 1993. National Safety Council, Accident Facts: 1996 Edition, at 121.
94 Kleck, Point Blank, at 271, 276.
95 Id. at 286.
96 Id. at 276, 277.
97 Kleck, cited in Kopel, Guns: Who Should Have Them?, at 323.
98 Alan Korwin, Gun Laws of America: Every Federal Gun Law on the Books (1995): 22, 23.
99 Kopel, Guns: Who Should Have Them?, at 355.
100 Id., at 356.
101 Id., at 359.
102 Id., at 360. Kopel notes how several infamous criminals -- such as John Hinckley (who shot Jim Brady) and George Hennard (who killed 22 people at Luby's Cafeteria in Killeen, Texas) -- were each reenacting scenes from movies that they had previously seen or studied.
103 Steve Twomey, "Indiscretions That Are Not So Youthful," The Washington Post, 6 December 1993.
104 Christine Biegler, "Fearing crime, more women buy firearms," The Washington Times, 19 Nov. 1992.
105 Paxton Quigley, Armed & Female (1989): 7.
106 According to Dr. Gary Kleck, about 205,000 women use guns every year to protect themselves against sexual abuse. Kleck and Gertz, "Armed Resistance to Crime," at 185.
107 Don B. Kates, Jr., Guns, Murders, and the Constitution: A Realistic Assessment of Gun Control, (1990), at 29, citing U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics.
108 Id., at 25, 26.
109 Kleck, Point Blank, at 393, 394; Colin Greenwood, Chief Inspector of West Yorkshire Constabulary, Firearms Control: A Study of Armed Crime and Firearms Control in England and Wales, (1972):31; David Kopel, The Samurai, the Mountie, and the Cowboy: Should America Adopt the Gun Controls of Other Democracies, (1992):91, 154.
110 For example, Great Britain's Pistols Act of 1903 has not stopped murders from increasing. In 1902, there were 181 murders; in 1904 there were 208 murders. By 1974, the number of murders in the country had risen almost 200% since before the passage of the 1903 Pistols Act. (Compare Greenwood, supra note 93, with Greenwood, "Comparative Cross-Cultural Statistics," in Don B. Kates, ed., Restricting Handguns: The Liberal Skeptics Speak Out, (1979):44.) Moreover, from 1946 through 1969, the number of cases where firearms were used or carried in a crime skyrocketed almost 1,000 percent. (Greenwood, Firearms Control, at 158.)
See also Kevin Helliker, "As Gun Crimes Rise, Britain is Considering Cutting Legal Arsenal," The Wall Street Journal, 19 April 1994; Clyde H. Farnsworth, "Tough Gun Control Near Approval in Canada," The New York Times, 17 October 1991; John E. Woodruff, "A crime wave alarms Japan, once gun-free," The Philadelphia Inquirer, 11 July 1992.
111 Erik Eckholm, "A Basic Issue: Whose Hands Should Guns Be Kept Out of?" The New York Times, 3 April 1992; and Kates, Guns, Murders, and the Constitution, at 42.
112 Dr. Edgar A. Suter, "Guns in the Medical Literature -- A Failure of Peer Review," The Journal of the Medical Association of Georgia, vol. 83, (March 1994):136.
113 Kleck and Gertz, "Armed Resistance to Crime," at 173, 185.
114 Criminal histories of murder victims is based on statistics from the city of Chicago: Matt L. Rodriguez, Superintendent of Police for the City of Chicago, 1992 Murder Analysis, at 23; 1993 Murder Analysis, at 23; and 1994 Murder Analysis, at 24. For criminal histories of murderers nationwide, see Bureau of Justice Statistics, National Update, (October 1991): 4.
115 Bureau of Justice Statistics, National Update, at 4.
116 FBI, "Crime in the United States," (1996): 58.
117 United States Senate, A Majority Staff Report prepared for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary, 1991 Murder Toll: Initial Projections (August 1991).
118 U.S. Senate, "The Right to Keep and Bear Arms," Report of the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Committee on the Judiciary, (1982): 8-17.
119 Id., at 12.
120 U.S. Senate, "The Right to Keep and Bear Arms," at 9. See also Stephen P. Halbrook, That Every Man be Armed: The Evolution of a Constitutional Right (1984): 107-153.
The Senate sponsor of the 14th Amendment, Senator Jacob Howard (R-MI), said the Amendment would force the states to respect "the personal rights guaranteed and secured by the first eight amendments of the Constitution; such as freedom of speech and of the press; . . . the right to keep and bear arms . . . ." Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., pt. 3, 2765 (23 May 1866), cited in Halbrook, at 112.
The House author of the 14th Amendment, Rep. John Bingham (R-OH), said that the first eight amendments to the U.S. Constitution "never were limitations upon the power of the States, until made so by the fourteenth amendment. The words of that amendment, 'no State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States,' are an express prohibition upon every State of the Union." Cong. Globe, 42d Cong., 1st Sess., pt. 2, Appendix, 84 (31 Mr. 1871), cited in Halbrook, at 146. (Rep. Bingham stated that the "privileges and immunities of citizens of a State, are chiefly defined in the first eight amendments to the Constitution of the United States.")
That the Fourteenth Amendment was intended, among other things, to prevent states from disarming black citizens is clear. During debate over the 14th Amendment, Senator Thomas Hendricks (D-IN) bragged that "colored" people in his state do not enjoy the same rights as white people. Thus, he opposed adoption of the 14th Amendment because among other things, it would grant Second Amendment rights to the "negroes, the coolies, and the Indians." Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., pt. 3, 2939 (4 June 1866) cited in Halbrook, at 113.
121 Public Law 99-308, Sect. 1(b).