> I won't go into Marks highly questionable "facts" about misplaced shots by
> police officers.
No, you won't, because it contradicts your beliefs and won't let a few
facts change them. Here's a cite for my "facts", and I was wrong... they
aren't twice as likely to kill an innocent bystander, they're *5.5* times
as likely to do so:
Silver and Kates, "Handgun Ownership, Self-Defense and the Independence of
Women in a Violent, Sexist Society", in 'Restricting Handguns', p 154-155.
Kates at least is a criminologist and constitutional lawyer who's been
studying the effects of gun laws for decades. Unfortunately I don't have
access to a law library or I'd find the original article for you.
> Particularly, when their is so much data about improper
> use of firearms under stress.
Cite? Odd that when this data is supposedly so widespread I've been unable
to find it.
> As far as I'm concerned, the less guns we have the better off we are.
Shame that most of the independent criminologists like Kleck (don't know
if Kates gets any funding from pro-gun groups) disagree:
"Gun control is a very minor, though not entirely irrelevant, part of the
solution to the violence problem, just as guns are of only very minor
significance as a cause of the problem. The U.S. has more violence than
other nations for reasons unrelated to its extraordinarily high gun
ownership. Fixating on guns seems to be, for many people, a fetish which
allows them to ignore the more intransigent causes of American violence,
including its dying cities, inequality, deteriorating family structure,
and the all-pervasive economic and social consequences of a history of
slavery and racism."
-- Gary Kleck, 'POINT BLANK: GUNS AND VIOLENCE IN AMERICA'
(Aldine de Gruyter, 1991)
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