Download This Issue - US Concealed Carry

that guns, rather than causing deaths,
actually reduce both crime and medical
costs. The articles quantify in lives
and dollars the role guns play when
used properly to thwart crimes, and
indicated that “as many as 75 lives are
protected by a gun for every life lost to
a gun, as many as 5 lives are protected
per minute.” 3
Further, “Defense with a gun results
in fewer injuries to the defender (17%)
“Arms discourage and keep the
invader and plunderer in awe,
and preserve order in the world
as well as property. Horrid
mischief would ensue were the
law-abiding deprived of the use
of them.”
—Thomas Paine,
Thoughts On Defensive War, (1775)
than [any other method including] evasion
(34.9%), physical force (50.8%),
and not resisting at all (24.7%).” 4
Their research clearly demonstrated
that jurisdictions which have enacted
stronger restrictions on the right of lawabiding
citizens to keep and bear arms
generally experience higher violence
(by guns and other means), and therefore
experience higher medical costs.
For example, after Washington, D.C. enacted
some of the most restrictive gun
laws in the nation, its homicide statistics
skyrocketed from 26.9 (per 100,000
people) to 80.6—eight times the national
average. 5
Legitimate defensive
uses of firearms
undercounted
Anti-gun groups use the numbers in
misleading ways, and many successful
defensive uses of guns are undercounted
in official statistics. Anti-gun organizations
consider a defensive gun use
successful only if the criminal is shot
dead, rather than merely frightened
away. They pretend that the only criminals
who attack women are complete
strangers. If a woman shoots an exboyfriend
who is stalking her and has
made it clear he intends to kill her, it is
misclassified as a “domestic homicide”
that took place during “an argument,”
rather than lawful self-defense against
a violent predator. They undercount
justifiable homicide, because they look
only at the initial arrest records, rather
then final case dispositions. Their studies
deliberately ignore the distinction
between households that are high risk
for gun misuse (households containing
violent criminals, alcoholics, and drug
abusers) and all other households, for
which the risks of gun misuse are quite
low. And their studies deliberately ignore
the vast majority of cases where
crimes are stopped or criminals run off
with no shots being fired and no one
being injured. 6
According to a 1990 Harvard Medical
Practice study and analysis by “Doctors
For Integrity In Research & Public
Policy,” 7 Americans are still five times
more likely to die from medical misadventures
than from a gun. This is true
even if we combine all three types of
deaths by firearms:
• Suicide (the largest proportion, and
by all studies statistically unrelated
to the means used)
• Homicide (including justifiable police
and civilian self-defense shootings)
• Accidents (the smallest, and for the
“Firearms stand next in
importance to the Constitution
itself. They are the American
people’s liberty teeth and
keystone under independence.”
—George Washington
last century a continually declining
rate despite ever increasing numbers
of guns)
The life-saving benefits of an armed
citizenry are consistent with the values
that led to our Constitution. Our founders
considered the right to protect one’s
life was a natural, God-given right, and
the most fundamental of all civil rights.
HISTORY AND THE
CONSTITUTION
“Civil Rights” include, at a minimum,
the right to protect one’s life
Will Rogers once said, “We’re all ignorant,
only on different subjects.” For
anyone indoctrinated by the illusions
of television and pop media, research
Militia?
“A militia when properly
formed are in fact the people
themselves...and include all
men capable of bearing arms.
To preserve liberty it is essential
that the whole body of people
always possess arms...”
—Richard Henry Lee, Additional letters
from The Federal Farmer 53 (1788)
“I ask, sir, what is the militia? It
is the whole people...To disarm
the people is the best and most
effectual way to enslave them.”
—George Mason, during Virginia’s
ratification convention, (1788)
“Congress has no power to
disarm the militia. Their
swords, and every other terrible
implement of the soldier, are the
birth-right of an American...The
unlimited power of the sword
is not in the hands of either the
federal or state governments,
but, where I trust in God it will
ever remain, in the hands of the
people.”
—Tench Coxe, Pennsylvania Gazette,
February 20, 1788
“In Switzerland, where the
citizens are most armed, they
are most free.”
— Nicollo Machiavelli
JULY 2008 n CONCEALED CARRY MAGAZINE n USCONCEALEDCARRY.COM
27