Help Bring an End to the Insanity: Stop Gun Violence!
Under Construction...
- Guns and Our Kids:
Every day, 12 children 19 years of age and under are killed by gunfire.
In 1998 3,792 children ages 10-19 were killed by a gun.
- Suicide: In 1997 there were 17,566 deaths due to suicide
involving firearms.
The presence of a gun in a home
increases the likelihood that a suicide will occur.
Methods that reduce the
accessibility of handguns can help save thousands of lives each year.
- Statistics:Firearm-related
suicides account for only 0.6% of total suicide attempts, but comprise 78.2% of
suicide fatalities. Guns work---they kill those who are at their
most vulnerable moment when they really do not wish to die.
- Justifiable:In 1996, according to the FBI, there were only 176 justifiable
handgun homicides compared with a total of 9,390 handgun
murders in the United States.
Keeping a handgun in the home for self-defense places a gun owner and his/her
family in great jeopardy. A gun in the home is 4 times more likely to be involved
in an unintentional shooting, 7 more likely to be used in a criminal assault or
homicide, and 11 times more likely to be chosen as a method of suicide than it is
to successfully be used against an assailant. In fact, research indicates that
the use of a firearm to resist a violent assault actually increases the victims
risk of injury and death.
- The Second Ammendment:
"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."
The gun lobby perpetuates several myths about the Second Amendment in order to
justify its extreme positions. These falsehoods jeopardize efforts to pass
anti-gun-violence laws and undermine the true intentions of our Constitution. Many
Americans have been lulled into inaction and apathy by the gun lobby?s
well-organized misinformation campaign.
- Fact: While the gun lobby focuses its arguments on the second half of the
Amendment, the right to keep and bear arms as stated in the Constitution is
fundamentally based on states need for a well-regulated militia. The Second
Amendment was adopted to ensure the right of states to maintain their own militia
to protect themselves against foreign and federal encroachment. It does not
guarantee an individuals right to own firearms for self defense.
- Fact:
No federal court, including the U.S. Supreme Court, has ever overturned a gun
control law on the grounds of the Second Amendment. The federal judiciary,
including the Supreme Court, has been remarkably consistent in finding that the
Second Amendment protects a state?s right to keep a well-regulated militia, rather
than an individuals right to bear arms.
In United States v. Miller, Miller claimed that his Second Amendment rights were
violated by a federal law that prohibits the possession of sawed-off shotguns. The
Court ruled, In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or
use of a [shotgun] at this time has some reasonable relationship to the
preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated militia, we cannot say that the
Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument. The
federal courts have always upheld gun control laws when they have been contested
on Second Amendment grounds.
- Beware:
The NRA will try to confuse the issue by citing cases in which gun control
legislation has been contested, but not on Second Amendment grounds. For example,
in U.S. v. Lopez, gun control legislation was struck down because the Gun Free
School Zones Act was said to violate the Interstate Commerce Clause. Along the
same lines, the recent Supreme Court challenge to the Brady Law was based on the
Tenth Amendment, regarding the separation of federal and state powers, and has
nothing to do with the Second Amendment.
- Fact:
The founding fathers never intended to provide individuals with the right to
firearms ownership. As the Bill of Rights was being drafted, the founders
deliberately wrote the Second Amendment so that it binds firearm possession to the
military needs of the state. Therefore, the gun lobby distorts the words of the
founding fathers when it ignores the importance of state militia in the Second
Amendment.
- Fact:
Arming all citizens does not prevent or eliminate systems of oppression. The
gun lobby often cites the Holocaust, violence in Bosnia, hunger in Somalia, and
racism in the U.S. as problems that would have been or could be overcome if only
oppressed individuals were armed. Yet it is precisely the rampant proliferation of
guns that can make tragedies such as these possible. There are numerous countries
which have extensive restrictions on firearm ownership that have not fallen into
tyranny, such as Canada, Japan, and Australia. Clearly, democracy still thrives in
nations with few firearms. Furthermore, in recent history, many oppressive
governments, such as those in Eastern Europe and South Africa, have been
overthrown by citizens working through activism and nonviolent protest, not by
individuals taking up arms.
Back to my home page
Send email to mcdonald@ece.neu.edu