The Winter 2000 Update
to the Elect
Hobie Homepage
Guns
One massacre seems to numb us for the next... and we lose track as they
blur ... 15 year old T.J. Solomon shoots 6 students in his Conyers Georgia
high school; Benjamin Smith kills 2 and injures 9 in July in the Midwest;
Mark Burton kills 9 people and wounds 13 more in an Atlanta office building;
Burfort Furrow opens fire in a Los Angles day care center; Mr. Ashbrook
uses semiautomatic handguns to spray 30 shots inside the Wedgwood Baptist
Church in Fort Worth Texas, killing 7 and wounding many more; a 7th grader
opens fire on his classmates with a 9-mm semiautomatic handgun in Fort
Gibson Oklahoma, wounding 7....
A poll taken by the Columbus Dispatch in September
1999 showed 90% of Ohio citizens favored a mandatory waiting period before
a handgun could be purchased, 86% favored requiring safety checks to be
sold with new guns, 85% favored requiring all handgun owners to attend
a course on gun safety, and 70% favored requiring all handguns to be registered...
The margin of error was estimated to be no more than 3.6%.
"Our cities have no more property crime than
major cities abroad... But the rate of violence death from assault in the
United States ranges from four to 18 times as high as in other comparable
nations; and this is largely a consequence of the widespread use of handguns
in assaults and robberies. .. You're just as likely to get punched
in the mouth in a bar in Sydney (Australia) as in a bar in Los Angeles.
But you're 20 times as likely to be killed in Los Angeles." F. Zimring,
quoted by E.J. Dionne 9/21/99 who adds: " Zimring rightly cites these
facts as an argument for tougher gun laws. But he's too honest an
analyst to pretend that gun laws explain everything."
"Homicide is the nation's second leading cause
of occupational injury, claiming an average of 20 lives each week, according
to a 1998 study by OSHA." National Underwriter, 8/2/99
"I'm going to bring him another gun so he
can shoot himself." Father of Brian Uyesugi, a Xerox repairman gunned
down 7 of his co-workers in Hawaii. The younger Mr. Uyesugi was a
member of the rifle team in high school, and collected weapons including
12 handguns, 5 rifles and 2 shotguns.
Xerox said they would pay the funeral expenses
for the dead employees.
There was one gun for every 10 people in the colonies... The "Wild
West" had strict gun control that allowed Dodge City to average only 2
killings a year...
Approximately 16,000 guns are manufactured
each day. Each has a useful life of hundreds of years.
"A handgun is not a tool for defending democracy.
It is increasingly a symbol of fearful individualism, an emblem of resistance
to this democracy itself." NYT Editorial 9/17/99
"Fatalities from drive-by and high school
shootings would plummet if muskets were the weapons of choice and if firing
a second round involved biting open gunpowder balls and stuffing pellets
into a barrel with a ramrod." C. Martin, NYT Letters 11/1/99
"Load something other than a dishwasher,"
newspaper ads targeting women to use a new $1.5 million gun range facility
in New Albany, Ohio that is "bright and airy" and "designed to appeal to
families."
"There have always been workplace pressures,
shunned teenagers who dreamed of revenge and quiet neighbors who went berserk.
What is different in the past 30 years is a deluge of high-powered, high-capacity
handguns being marketed widely to consumers. These are the weapons
that spray into crowds and cut people down in groups before the intended
victims can even react." J. Sugarman, NYT 11/4/99
"Yet again we have seen a sanctuary violated
by gun violence taking children brimming with faith and promise and hope,
before their time," Clinton Ft Worth killings
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Guns & Legislation
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