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From: ctbilbo!ray@uunet.uu.net
Newsgroups: rec.guns
Subject: Intellectual Ammunition Loaded for Liberals
Message-ID: <35034@mimsy.umd.edu>
Date: 29 May 91 23:16:46 GMT
Sender: magnum@mimsy.umd.edu
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Approved: gun-control@cs.umd.edu


alpert@tramp.Colorado.EDU (ALPERT ETHAN BENJAMIN) writes:

# I recently decided to purchased a gun and am receiving some flack from some of
# my friends and I would realy appreciate some help finding references to use
# I support of my decision. I am not interested in NRA literature mainly because
# they are a little too right wing to succesfully influence my group of pacifist
# friends.  I am interested in references to accident rates and fatalities of
# gun owners.  Particularly, Is a gun owner more likely to be injured by a
# gun than a non gun owner? Secondly, I am interested in studies of violence
# in societies which do not allow their citizenry to own guns. I am also 
# interested in finding out about gun free societies (other than England).
# Although, these issues will not sway my decision I feel that I need to 
# go in to my next discussion/argument about guns with both guns blazing :)

I have just what you're looking for:

	Guns, Murders, and the Constitution
	A Realistic Assessment of Gun Control
	by Don B. Kates, Jr.

This was published February, 1990 by the Pacific Research Institute for
Public Policy, 177 Post St., San Francisco, CA 94108 (415) 989-0833.

I called them up and gave them a credit card number over the phone.  The
cost is $5.00.  It is 64 pages, and full of references to other studies.

Kates is an attorney specializing in civil rights law.  He is a former
associate of William Kunstler.  The material in this briefing are from
his Stanford course "American Violence:  The Gun Connection" and various
papers he has authored.

Here is a summary of the Table of Contents:

Overview
	Sagecraft -- using data to validate preordained conclusions
	Respectable Bigotry
	Realistic Control vs. Symbolic Gun Prohibition

Pejorative Characterizations of Gun Ownership
	Penis Theory
	Guns as Cause of Aggression
	Paranoia, Sexism, Racism

Defensive Gun Ownership as a Response to Crime
	Police Protection
	Defensive Efficiency of Handguns
	Anti-Gun Obliviousness to Women's Defensive Needs
	Incidence of Injury to Handgun-Armed Victims Who Resist Criminal Attack
	The "Submission Position" Advocated by White, Male Academia

Comparisons Among Nations and Over Time
	International Homicide Rates vs. Gun Availability
	Historical Ignorance and the Anti-Gun Crusade
	American Murder Rates
	Concealment of the Declining American Murder Trend

Massacres
	Anti-Gun Deceptions

Law-Abiding Gun Owner as Domestic and Acquaintance Murderer
	Prior Felony Record of Murderers
	Violent History of Wife Murderers
	Lies on Labeling Murderers as Ordinary Citizens

Gun Accidents
	Child Fatalities
	Aberrance of Gun Accident Perpetrators

Control All Guns, Not Just Handguns
	Handguns vs. Long Guns as
		Accident Vectors
		Homicide Vectors

Basic Principles of Gun Control

Seven Rational Gun Control Proposals

Futility of Gun Controls in an Overloaded System

END of SUMMARY

Kates summarizes a large volume of research and bursts almost all of the
bubbles blown by the anti-gun crowd.  This is one of the most valuable
publications I have come across.  It is particularly useful in getting
facts past the biases of liberal/pacifist/leftist/libber types.

Perhaps we should continue this in talk.politics.guns -- this posting,
while factual, is on the outermost fringes of this group's charter, IMHO.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Ray Ward                                          Email:  uunet!ctbilbo!ray  
Voice:  (214) 991-8338x226, (800) 331-7032        Fax  :  (214) 991-8968     
=-=-=-=-  There _are_ simple answers, just no _easy_ ones. -- R.R. -=-=-=-=