From: owner-utah-firearms-digest@lists.xmission.com (utah-firearms-digest) To: utah-firearms-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: utah-firearms-digest V2 #142 Reply-To: utah-firearms-digest Sender: owner-utah-firearms-digest@lists.xmission.com Errors-To: owner-utah-firearms-digest@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk utah-firearms-digest Saturday, June 19 1999 Volume 02 : Number 142 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 18 Jun 99 08:18:00 -0700 From: scott.bergeson@ucs.org (SCOTT BERGESON) Subject: Re: FW: Another angle on the CCW debate-Reply w/3 local examples - ---------- Forwarded message ---------- To: lputah@qsicorp.com Date: Thu, 17 Jun 1999 13:23:40 -0600 From: "Chris Kierst" Subject: Re: LPU: Re: Another angle on the CCW debate-Reply w/ 3 local examples In response to the following exchange between Charles and Scott: >>>Further, I'm unaware of any publicized cases of Utahns stopping a >>>criminal attack with a gun. >>The SLC Library bomber. >While you and I consider that a fine example, I believe the citizen was >an off-duty LEO, which in the minds of the statists doesn't count. Example 1 - A local publicized instance of an armed citizen thwarting a robbery attempt can be found in a 2/3/97 article in the Salt Lake Tribune by Dan Egan entitled "Man Fleeing Police Loses Leg" in which a crook tried to fool three men headed out on a hunting expedition into believing that The Club (the car locking device, which he had concealed under his jacket!!!) was a gun. While one of the hunters was pulling money from his pocket another was pulling out his concealed 9mm. The (as yet uninjured) crook shagged, jumping into his nearby parked car. The hunters got the plates and notified the cops who identified the car as stolen. 10 minutes later the cops located the crook outside the car and tried to capture him. He tried to escape by jumping a freight but fell between the cars, losing a leg. This crook was no Einstein. Records revealed that on a previous occasion he had wounded himself in the foot after stealing a rifle. Example 2 - Salt Lake Tribune article of 7/10/96 in which a 17 year old boy broke into an occupied residence through an open window. The 35 year old homeowner attempted to call the cops but the kid jerked the phone and chucked it out the window. The older man ran into his room, fetched a gun from a drawer and shot the kid, puttng him in the hospital. Example 3 - Salt Lake Tribune article of 2/16/96 by Taylor Syphus (Special to the Tribune) entitled "Springville Man Recovers Stolen Car After Wild Ride" in which a 21 year old man returned his mom's stolen Nissan Pathfinder after clinging to the side of the vehicle after spotting it in a parking lot with 3 teenagers (1 was 18 and the others were 17) aboard. He wouldn't let go despite the kids driving off. While they tried to splatter him on concrete overpass supports his plight was noticed by an armed citizen motorist who eventually forced the SUV over with his PU, covering the car thieves with his .38 pistol while calling the cops with his cellphone. The deliquents had a record of other offenses including car burglary and theft. Will this do for the short run? - - ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Jun 99 08:18:00 -0700 From: scott.bergeson@ucs.org (SCOTT BERGESON) Subject: FW: The Washington Times - Opinion http://www.washtimes.com/opinion/ed3.html Published in Washington, D.C. 5am -- June 16, 1999 Disarming good people Editor's note: The following is an open letter from 287 economists, law-school professors and other academics to Congress, regarding gun-control legislation before the House of Representatives. Some but not all of the names of the signatories appear here. After the tragic attacks at public schools over the last two years, there is an understandable desire to "do something." Yet, none of the proposed legislation would have prevented the recent violence. The current debate focuses only on the potential benefits from new gun control laws and ignores the fact that these laws can have some very real adverse effects. Good intentions don't necessarily make good laws. What counts is whether the laws will ultimately save lives, prevent injury, and reduce crime. Passing laws based upon their supposed benefits while ignoring their costs poses a real threat to people's lives and safety. These gun control laws will primarily be obeyed by law-abiding citizens and risk making it less likely that good people have guns compared to criminals. Deterrence is important and disarming good people relative to criminals will increase the risk of violent crime. If we really care about saving lives we must focus not only on the newsworthy events where bad things happen, but also on the bad things that never happen because people are able to defend themselves. Few people would voluntarily put up a sign in front of their homes stating, "This home is a gun-free zone." The reason is very simple. Just as we can deter criminals with higher arrest or conviction rates, the fact that would-be victims might be able to defend themselves also deters attacks. Not only do guns allow individuals to defend themselves, they also provide some protection to citizens who choose not to own guns since criminals would not normally know who can defend themselves before they attack. The laws currently being considered by Congress ignore the importance of deterrence. Police are extremely important at deterring crime, but they simply cannot be everywhere. Individuals also benefit from being able to defend themselves with a gun when they are confronted by a criminal. Let us illustrate some of the problems with the current debate. The Clinton administration wants to raise the age at which citizens can possess a handgun to 21, and they point to the fact that 18- and 19-year-olds commit gun crimes at the highest rate. Yet, Department of Justice numbers indicate that 18- and 19-year-olds are also the most likely victims of violent crimes including murder, rape, robbery with serious injury, and aggravated assault. The vast majority of those committing crimes in this age group are members of gangs and are already breaking the law by having a gun. This law will primarily apply to law-abiding 18-to-21-year-olds and make it difficult for them to defend themselves. Waiting periods can produce a cooling-off period. But they also have real costs. Those threatened with harm may not be able to quickly obtain a gun for protection. Gun locks may prevent some accidental gun deaths, but they will make it difficult for people to defend themselves from attackers. We believe that the risks of accidental gun deaths, particularly those involving young children, have been greatly exaggerated. In 1996, there were 44 accidental gun deaths for children under age 10. This exaggeration risks threatening people's safety if it incorrectly frightens some people from having a gun in their home even though that is actually the safest course of action. Trade-offs exist with other proposals such as prison sentences for adults whose guns are misused by someone under 18 and rules limiting the number of guns people can purchase. No evidence has been presented to show that the likely benefits of such proposals will exceed their potential costs. With the 20,000 gun laws already on the books, we advise Congress, before enacting yet more new laws, to investigate whether many of the existing laws may have contributed to the problems we currently face. The new legislation is ill-advised. Sincerely, Terry L. Anderson, Montana State University; Charles W. Baird, California State University, Hayward; Randy E. Barnett, Boston University; Bruce L. Benson, Florida State University; Michael Block, University of Arizona; Walter Block, Thomas Borcherding, Claremont Graduate School; Frank H. Buckley, George Mason University; Colin D. Campbell, Dartmouth College; Robert J. Cottrol, George Washington University; Preston K. Covey, Carnegie Mellon University; Mark Crain, George Mason University; Tom DiLorenzo, Loyola College in Maryland; Paul Evans, Ohio State University; R. Richard Geddes, Fordham University; Lino A. Graglia, University of Texas; John Heineke, Santa Clara University; David Henderson, Hoover Institution, Stanford University; Melvin J. Hinich, University of Texas, Austin; Lester H. Hunt, University of Wisconsin - Madison; James Kau, University of Georgia; Kenneth N. Klee, UCLA; David Kopel, New York University; Stanley Liebowitz, University of Texas at Dallas; Luis Locay, University of Miami; John R. Lott, Jr., University of Chicago; Geoffrey A. Manne, University of Virginia; John Matsusaka, University of Southern California; Fred McChesney, Cornell University; Jeffrey A. Miron, Boston University; Carlisle E. Moody, College of William and Mary; Craig M. Newmark, North Carolina State University; Jeffrey S. Parker, George Mason University; Dan Polsby, Northwestern University; Keith T. Poole, Carnegie-Mellon University; Douglas B. Rasmussen, St. John's University; Glenn Reynolds, University of Tennessee; John R. Rice, Duke University; Russell Roberts, Washington University; Randall W. Roth, Univ. of Hawaii; Charles Rowley, George Mason University; Allen R. Sanderson, University of Chicago; William F. Shughart II, University of Mississippi; Thomas Sowell, Stanford University; Richard Stroup, Montana State University; Robert D. Tollison, University of Mississippi; Eugene Volokh, UCLA; Michael R. Ward, University of Illinois; Benjamin Zycher, UCLA; Todd Zywicki, George Mason University. Copyright 1999 News World Communications, Inc. - - ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Jun 1999 11:31:25 -0600 From: charles hardy Subject: Re: Another angle on the CCW debate On Fri, 18 Jun 99 08:18:00 -0700 scott.bergeson@ucs.org (SCOTT BERGESON) writes: >The specific exemption to which I referred was to homeowners and >renters >living within 1000' of a school perimeter. I hope you are correct >about >unloaded and cased guns, though that doesn't help much if you need >self >defense. Have you looked at a map to see the coverage of area and >travel >routes these free fire zones for criminals enjoy? Haven't actually looked at a map, but I live in that 1000' zone. Once I leave it, I drive through at least 4 more that I know of just getting to work. And that doesn't count all the day cares and private preschools that I don't know about. Obviously, in the State with the highest percapita number of children, we probably have the highest percapita number of schools. It is probably all but impossible to go anywhere of importance in this county without passing through several school zones. >How does Vermont >deal >with this federal edict? I haven't the foggiest, but suspect they simply don't arrest, and thus don't prosecute people who are peacably carrying guns. >Beats me. ;-) I believe the FBI compiles such statistics. Perhaps my >experience isn't typical for Utahns since I have lived outside of >Utah, >but a close friend was mugged IN Utah, and I seem to recall you lived >in >or near Boston for a while. OTOH, I can't recall getting bested by a >dog >since I was 5 years old, and few propose arming 5-year-olds with >guns. Yup, 4 years in Cambridge. I consider myself blessed to have been spared criminal problems. Of course, the Lord does help those who help themselves, and I did my best to take prudent measures within the realm of what the law allowed. I also have never had problems with a dog. But the visible and audible threat is there every time I walk my neighborhood. I believe similar situations exist for many of our legiscritters. Further, the natural adversion to killing a human makes many people adverse to even considering the need to ever do so, IMHO. OTOH, far fewer people have any strong adversion to putting down an attacking dog. So I don't sound like so much of a cowboy or hot shot if I talk about the need to protect myself and family from dogs than I do if I talk about "plugging criminal scum." I'm not suggesting this is the best or only approach to take on this issue. I'm only saying it seems to have been well received by the legislators I've talked to so far--better than my older approach of talking about criminals. > >Odd this would bother you, since the best-publicized case of defense >against dogs involved an LEO. See Chris Kierst's civilian examples. It isn't that it bothers me. It's that legislators are quick to dismiss it. Once again, even though the dog case involved an LEO, it does seem to be better received. I'm not relating what "should" be, only what I have experieced. ================================================================== Charles C. Hardy ___________________________________________________________________ Get the Internet just the way you want it. Free software, free e-mail, and free Internet access for a month! Try Juno Web: http://dl.www.juno.com/dynoget/tagj. - - ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Jun 99 19:02:00 -0700 From: scott.bergeson@ucs.org (SCOTT BERGESON) Subject: FW: More Gun Controls? They Haven't Worked in the Past Wall Street Journal June 17, 1999 O p - E d More Gun Controls? They Haven't Worked in the Past. By John R. Lott Jr., a fellow in law and economics at the University of Chicago School of Law. He is author of "More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws" (University of Chicago Press, 1998). Everyone from President Clinton to the hosts of the "Today Show" attributes the recent wave of school violence to the greater accessibility of guns. Gun-control groups claim that today "guns are less regulated than toasters or teddy bears." Proposed solutions range from banning those under 21 from owning guns to imprisoning adults whose guns are misused by minors. Today the House will consider yet another measure, this one requiring a waiting period and background check for anyone wishing to make a purchase at a gun show. Such legislation might make sense if guns had indeed become easier to obtain in recent years. Yet the truth is precisely the opposite. Gun availability has never before been as restricted as it is now. As late as 1967, it was possible for a 13-year-old virtually anywhere in the U.S. to walk into a hardware store and buy a rifle. Few states even had age restrictions for buying handguns from a store. Buying a rifle through the mail was easy. Private transfers of guns to juveniles were also unrestricted. But nowhere were guns more common than at schools. Until 1969, virtually every public high school in New York City had a shooting club. High-school students carried their guns to school on the subways in the morning, turned them over to their homeroom teacher or the gym coach and retrieved them after school for target practice. The federal government even gave students rifles and paid for their ammunition. Students regularly competed in citywide shooting contests, with the winners being awarded university scholarships. Since the 1960s, however, the growth of federal gun control has been dramatic. Federal gun laws, which contained 19,907 words in 1960, have more than quadrupled to 88,413 words today. By contrast, in 1930 all federal gun-control laws amounted to only 3,571 words. The growth in state laws has kept pace. By 1997 California's gun-control statutes contained an incredible 158,643 words-nearly as many as the King James version of the New Testament-and still another 12 statutes are being considered in this legislative session. Even "gun friendly" states like Texas have lengthy gun-control provisions. None of this even begins to include the burgeoning local regulations on everything from licensing to mandatory gun locks. The fatuity of gun-control laws is nowhere better illustrated than in Virginia, where high-school students in rural areas have a long tradition of going hunting in the morning. The state Legislature tried but failed to enact an exemption to a federal law banning guns within 1,000 feet of a school, as prosecutors find it crazy to send good kids to jail simply because they had a rifle locked in the trunk of their car while it was parked in the school parking lot. Yet the current attempts by Congress to "put teeth" into the laws by mandating prosecutions will take away this prosecutorial discretion and produce harmful and unintended results. But would stricter laws at least reduce crime by taking guns out of the hands of criminals? Not one academic study has shown that waiting periods and background checks have reduced crime or youth violence. The Brady bill, widely touted by its supporters as a landmark in gun control, has produced virtually no convictions in five years. And no wonder: Disarming potential victims (those likely to obey the gun laws) relative to criminals (those who almost by definition will not obey such laws) makes crime more attractive and more likely. This commonsense observation is backed by the available statistical evidence. Gun-control laws have noticeably reduced gun ownership in some states, with the result that for each 1% reduction in gun ownership there was a 3% increase in violent crime. Nationally, gun-ownership rates throughout the 1960s and '70s remained fairly constant, while the rates of violent crime skyrocketed. In the 1990s gun ownership has grown at the same time as we have witnessed dramatic reductions in crime. Yet with no academic evidence that gun regulations prevent crime, and plenty of indications that they actually encourage it, we nonetheless are now debating which new gun control laws to pass. With that in mind, 290 scholars from institutions as diverse as Harvard, Stanford, Northwestern, the University of Pennsylvania and UCLA released an open letter to Congress yesterday stating that the proposed new gun laws are ill-advised: "With the 20,000 gun laws already on the books, we advise Congress, before enacting yet more new laws, to investigate whether many of the existing laws may have contributed to the problems we currently face." It thus would appear that at the very least gun-control advocates face something of a dilemma. If guns are the problem, why was it that when guns were really accessible, even inside schools by students, we didn't have the problems that plague us now? Copyright 1999 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. - - ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Jun 99 19:02:00 -0700 From: scott.bergeson@ucs.org (SCOTT BERGESON) Subject: FW: GOUtah! Alert #17 - 17 June 1999 - ---------- GOUtah! Gun Owners of Utah Utah's Uncompromising, Independent Gun Rights Network. No Compromise. No Retreat. No Surrender. Not Now. Not Ever. Visit our website at www.slpsa.org/goutah! GOUtah! Alert #17 - 17 June 1999 Today's Maxim of Liberty: "...The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them."-U.S. Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, writing in his Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, 1833. If you wish to continue to receive this information under the GOUtah! banner, you need to do nothing. If you wish to be added to or taken off the GOUtah! list, please log onto our website at www.slpsa.org/goutah! or send an e-mail to GOUtah3006@aol.com or send a fax to (801) 944-9937 asking to be added to or removed from the GOUtah! list. If you wish to forward or share this copyrighted information with others, you are welcome to do so, on the condition that you pass along the entire document intact and unmodified, and that GOUtah! is clearly indicated as the original source of the material, unless otherwise noted. U.S. House Gun Control Debate and Vote Status Report The US House of Representatives will be voting on Federal gun control legislation on Thursday, 17 June 1999. You must pick up the phone RIGHT NOW and call both the Washington DC and SLC offices of each of the Utah Congressional Delegation listed and demand they vote against any gun control measures now before the House. DO IT RIGHT NOW! Their phone numbers are listed below. Call your U.S. Congressman TODAY! Congressional District 1: Northern and Western Utah, except Salt Lake Metro Rep. Jim Hansen (R) 242 Cannon House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 Phone (202) 225-0453 Fax (202) 225-5857 E-mail: www.house.gov click on Members and select Jim Hansen Local Office: 324-25th Ave. Ogden, Utah 84401 Utah Phone: (801) 451-5822 Utah Fax: (801) 621-7846 Congressional District 2: Salt Lake Metro Area Rep. Merrill Cook (R) 1431 Longworth House Office Building Washington, DC 20515-0001 Phone (202) 225-3011 Fax (202) 225-5638 E-mail: Cong.Merrill.Cook@mail.house.gov Local Office: 125 South State Street Salt Lake City, Utah 84138 Utah Phone: (801) 524-4394 Congressional District 3: Central and Eastern Utah Rep. Chris Cannon (R) 118 Cannon House Office Building Washington, DC 20515-4403 Phone (202) 225-7751 Fax (202) 225-5629 E-mail: Cannon.ut03@mail.house.gov Local Offices: 51 South University Drive Provo, Utah 84606 Utah Phone: (801) 379-2500 Utah Fax (801) 379-2509 Utah Legislative Committees Report and Status On Wednesday, June 16, the Joint Law Enforcement Committee of the Utah State Legislature held an interim meeting to discuss various topics regarding the expansion of gun control laws in Utah. Scott Engen, Director of Policy for GOUtah!, presented testimony to the committee. Scott, who had to leave shortly afterwards to travel to Atlanta to compete in the U.S. National Championships of Free Pistol and Air Pistol, will elaborate on the proceedings of the Joint Committee's meeting in a future GOUtah! Alert. GOUtah! Activist N. William Clayton attended an interim meeting of the Joint Judiciary Committee. Here is his report: The Joint Judiciary Committee heard testimony from several individuals, mostly representing various bureaucracies of the state government. Topics included access to firearms by mentally ill individuals, expanding state law to prohibit people who have been convicted of "violent misdemeanors" from owning firearms, and codifying portions of the common law to make it easier to sue gun owners, gun retailers, and gun manufacturers. The topic of guns in schools was not on the agenda, as that is the purview of the Education Committee. However, this issue ended up taking center stage for a while, despite the best efforts of the committee chairman to keep people off it. One of the more interesting bits of testimony was given by Camille Anthony, who works in the Governor's Office. Gov. Mike Leavitt assembled a special commission on "gun violence" to come up with proposals to submit to the State Legislature, in the hope that these proposals will become law during a yet-to-be approved special session of the Legislature sometime this fall. Ms. Anthony was on this committee, and presented a summary of its recommendations. She mentioned in passing that the committee had recommended that police officers be placed in all public schools on a full-time basis, and that these officers be given specialized training in "early identification" of potential troublemakers and be instructed on "how various materials used in school construction react to bullets." According to Ms. Anthony, one of the duties of school police officers would be to "do searches". Other recommendations made by the Governor's Commission included increased use of surveillance cameras and metal detectors in schools, volunteer "parent patrols" in and around schools, and the designation of all public schools and school grounds as completely "gun-free zones", where nobody, not even holders of concealed-carry permits, would be allowed to possess firearms. During the ensuing Q&A session, one legislator asked whether police officers assigned to school duty would be exempted from the proposed ban on guns in schools. He noted that the report of the Governor's Commission did not mention any exceptions to the proposed "gun-free" policy. Would policemen be exempt? Ms. Anthony responded by saying that this issue had not been considered by the commission, because they had simply "[taken] it for granted that police officers would be exempt." Legislators responded by asking whether this exemption would extend to off-duty officers who attend PTA meetings in school buildings. Ms. Anthony said that the commission had not considered such details, but that she assumed that off-duty officers would probably be exempt. What about judges and prosecutors who carry guns? Could they have their guns with them when they drop off their kids at school? Again, Ms. Anthony said that the commission hadn't considered this, but speculated that judges and prosecutors might be exempt from the ban, because they have "extra gun training" compared with ordinary holders of concealed carry permits. What about members of the proposed "parent patrols"? Would those with carry permits be exempt? Again, Ms. Anthony said that the commission had not discussed this. One legislator asked whether a police officer has a greater right to personal safety while on school property than an ordinary concealed-weapon permit holder. She said that the commission had not considered such details. [ Continued In Next Message... ] - - ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Jun 99 19:02:00 -0700 From: scott.bergeson@ucs.org (SCOTT BERGESON) Subject: FW: GOUtah! Alert #17 2/2 [ ...Continued From Previous Message ] Virtually every bureaucrat who testified indicated support for the Governor's proposal to ban the possession of firearms by persons convicted of "violent misdemeanors" and "gun-related misdemeanors" such as concealed-carry violations, brandishing, and "terrorist threats." Thus, for example, someone without a concealed carry permit who puts an unloaded pistol in an unlocked box in the back of his sport utility vehicle and transports it to the shooting range could be convicted of illegally carrying a concealed firearm, and could be permanently prohibited from owning a gun. Paul Boyden, the executive director of the Statewide Association of Prosecutors, said that the legislature should simply obtain a list of all misdemeanor offences currently on the books and go through it, selecting the misdemeanors that should disqualify someone from owning a gun. Although such a list might start out small, he indicated that the legislature "can always expand the list" in future sessions. However, Brian Miller of the Utah Division of Mental Health obliquely suggested that the list be constrained to encompass only violent misdemeanors committed by mentally ill people. I came away from the meeting with the following impressions: 1) A substantial number of legislators in the committee appeared less enthusiastic about the prospect of a special session than they were last month. The amount of work that would be needed to craft the proposed legislation and iron out the details in preparation for such a session would be enormous. Even one anti-gun legislator appeared disgruntled with the proposed process for doing this. One representative said "why don't we just wait until the regular January session?" The Governor and the local media will keep pressing the Legislature to convene a special session, continued pressure from pro-liberty activists could tilt the balance in our favor. Please contact your state legislators and tell them that you are opposed to a special session. A full list of legislators can be found at the GOUtah! Web site, shown at the top of page 1 of this alert. 2) The "guns in schools" hysteria may be starting to wane a bit among legislators. It has certainly not waned enough to prevent bad legislation from passing, but it has waned enough to give us hope that we can tilt the balance by continuing to make our voices heard. During the meeting, legislators intelligently discussed the issue, and many of them seemed to be aware that teachers, parents, and school principals who hold concealed-carry permits are not a hazard to public safety. However, the Governor, the major local newspapers and television stations, all major religious establishments in Utah (including the LDS Church), and a large majority of voters (probably due to naivete) still support the "gun-free school zones" concept. However, legislators tend to pay attention to people who make the effort to write to them, so YOU can make a difference by contacting your state representative and state senator and telling them that you have as much right to self-defense when you go to a PTA meeting as does an off-duty policeman. We have a long row to hoe here, but there is hope that we can derail this thing if we keep the cards, letters, e-mails, and phone calls coming into the offices of our elected officials. Keep up the letters to editors of local newspapers as well, as this is a good way to influence public opinion. 3) The legislators' lack of opposition to the idea of prohibiting firearms ownership for those who have committed misdemeanors is alarming. Please tell your legislators that you don't think that a misdemeanor should disqualify you from exercising your Second-Amendment rights, any more than you think that people convicted of misdemeanors should be prohibited from voting. Pro-Gun Constitutional Seminar Scheduled by Utah Republican Assembly for 26 June in Orem, Utah. The Utah Republican Assembly (URA), a conservative, Constitution-based wing of the Utah Republican Party, will host a constitutional workshop on Saturday, 26 June 1999 in the Ballroom of the Sorenson Student Center at Utah Valley State College in Orem. The program will begin promptly at 9:00AM, and URA asks attendees to arrive a half-hour early for registration and seating. David Harmer, J.D., will be conducting a seminar on Second Amendment issues. Other issues such as states rights and asset forfeiture will also be covered. Cost for the program will be $30.00 per person, and $15.00 for spouses or partners. To register or for additional information, contact Vona Hunsaker at (801) 373-2743 or Joe Ferguson at (801) 756-4452. As an independent, non-partisan gun rights organization, GOUtah! has not reviewed the URA program content, has no political connection the URA, and receives no economic benefit from URA or this program. This notice appears only for the benefit of our activists. GOUtah! Takes Message to Radio Listeners Statewide. Members of the GOUtah have recently been guests on a number of local and statewide radio programs dealing with the gun rights and gun control issues. Among our recent efforts were two half-hour interviews with Metro Networks, which will air early Sunday mornings on a number of stations around the state. Tune in and hear what GOUtah! is doing for you and your gun rights. GOUtah! Gun Rights (and Wrongs) Quote Watch "We can always expand this list in the future." - -- Paul Boyden, Executive Director of the Statewide Association of Prosecutors, testifying before the Joint Judiciary Committee of the Utah State Legislature. Mr. Boyden was referring to the proposed creation of a "small" list of misdemeanor offenses which would prohibit a person from owning a firearm in the state of Utah. "There is no limit to the creativity that can be employed in this arena." - -- A representative of the Utah Trial Lawyers Association, testifying before the Joint Judiciary Committee. This man, whose name we didn't catch, was referring to the use of civil law suits to go after gun owners, gun dealers, and gun manufacturers. "We took it for granted that the police would be exempt." - -- Camille Anthony, an assistant to Gov. Mike Leavitt, explaining why the Governor's Commission on Gun Violence neglected, in its final report to the Legislature, to explicitly exempt police officers from the Governor's proposed ban on firearms in schools. If you have a gun rights quote you'd like to share, please send it, along with a verifiable original source reference to GOUtah! That concludes the GOUtah! Political and Legislative Alert #17, 17 June 1999. We hope this information will be of assistance to you in defending your firearms rights. Remember that getting this information is meaningless unless YOU ACT ON IT TODAY. If you just read it and dump it in the trash, your gun rights, and the gun rights of future generations go in the trash with it. Get involved, get active and get vocal! Copyright 1999 by GOUtah! All rights reserved. - - ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Jun 99 19:02:00 -0700 From: scott.bergeson@ucs.org (SCOTT BERGESON) Subject: FW: We Are Training Our Kids to Kill 1/3 - ---------- We Are Training Our Kids to Kill by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman Saturday Evening Post - July/August 1999, pgs. 64-72 I am from Jonesboro, Arkansas. I travel the world training medical, law enforcement, and U.S. military personnel about the realities of warfare. I try to make those who carry deadly force keenly aware of the magnitude of killing. Too many law enforcement and military personnel act like "cowboys," never stopping to think about who they are and what they are called to do. I hope I am able to give them a reality check. So here I am, a world traveler and an expert in the field of "killology," when the (then) largest school massacre in American history happens in my hometown of Jonesboro, Arkansas. That was the March 24, 1998, schoolyard shooting deaths of four girls and a teacher. Ten others were injured and two boys, ages 11 and 13 were jailed, charged with murder. Virus of Violence To understand the why behind the Littleton, Jonesboro, Springfield, Pearl and Paducah, and all the other outbreaks of this "virus of violence," we need first to understand the magnitude of the problem. The per capita murder rate doubled in this country between 1957; when the FBI started keeping track of the data; and 1992. A fuller picture of the problem, however, is indicated by the rate at which people are attempting to kill one another; the aggravated assault rate. That rate in America has gone from around 60 per 100,000 in 1957 to over 440 per 100,000 in the middle of this decade. As bad as this is, it would be much worse were it not for two major factors. The first is the increased imprisonment of violent offenders. The prison population in America nearly quadrupled between 1975 and 1992. According to criminologist John A. DiIulio, "dozens of credible empirical analyses . . . leave no doubt that the increased use of prisons averted millions of serious crimes." If it were not for our tremendous imprisonment rate (the highest of any industrialized nation), the aggravated assault rate and the murder rate would undoubtedly be even higher. The second factor keeping the murder rate from being even worse is medical technology. According to the U.S. Army Medical Service Corps, a wound that would have killed nine out of ten soldiers in World War II, nine out of ten could have survived in Vietnam. Thus, by a very conservative estimate, if we still had a 1940-level medical technology today, our murder rate would be ten times higher than it is. The murder rate has been held down by the development of sophisticated lifesaving skills and techniques, such as helicopter medevacs, 911 operators, paramedics, CPR, trauma centers, and medicines. Today, both our assault rate and murder rate are at phenomenally high levels. Both are increasing worldwide. In Canada, according to their Center for Justice, per capita assaults increased almost fivefold between 1964 and 1993, attempted murder increased nearly sevenfold, and murders doubled. Similar trends can be seen in other countries in the per capita violent crime rates reported to Interpol between 1977 and 1993. In Australia and New Zealand, the assault rate increased approximately fourfold, and the murder rate nearly doubled in both nations. The assault rate tripled in Sweden and approximately doubled in Belgium, Denmark and England and Wales, France, Hungary, the Netherlands and Scotland. Meanwhile, all these nations had an associated (but smaller) increase in murder. This virus of violence is occurring worldwide. The explanation for it has to be some new factor that is occurring in all of these countries. There are many factors involved, and none should be discounted: for example, the prevalence of guns in our society. But violence is rising in many nations with Draconian gun laws. And though we should never downplay child abuse, poverty, or racism, there is only one new variable present in each of these countries that bears the exact same fruit: media violence presented as entertainment for children. Killing is Unnatural Before retiring from the military, I spent almost a quarter of a century as an army infantry officer and a psychologist, learning and studying how to enable people to kill. Believe me, we are very good at it. But it does not come naturally; you have to be taught to kill. And just as the army is conditioning people to kill, we are indiscriminately doing the same thing to our children, but without the safeguards. After the Jonesboro killings, the head of the American Academy of Pediatrics Task Force on Juvenile Violence came to town and said that children don't naturally kill. It is a learned skill. And they learn it from abuse and violence in the home and, most pervasively, from violence as entertainment in television, the movies, and interactive video games. Killing requires training because there is a built-in aversion to killing one's own kind. I can best illustrate this fact by drawing on my own military research in the act of killing. We all know how hard it is to have a discussion with a frightened or angry human being. Vasoconstriction, the narrowing of the blood vessels, has literally closed down the forebrain -- that great gob of gray matter that makes one a human being and distinguishes one from a dog. When those neurons close down, the midbrain takes over and your thought processes and reflexes are indistinguishable from your dog's. If you've worked with animals, you have some understanding of what happens to frightened human beings on the battlefield. The battlefield and violent crime are in the realm of midbrain responses. Within the midbrain there is a powerful, God-given resistance to killing your own kind. Every species, with a few exceptions, has a hard-wired resistance to killing its own kind in territorial and mating battles. When animals with antlers and horns fight one another, they head-butt in a non-fatal fashion. But when they fight any other species, they go to the side to gut and gore. Piranhas will turn their fangs on anything, but they fight one another with flicks of the tail. Rattlesnakes will bite anything, but they wrestle one another. Almost every species has this hard-wired resistance to killing its own kind. When human beings are overwhelmed with anger and fear, we slam head-on into that midbrain resistance that generally prevents us from killing. Only sociopaths -- who by definition don't have that resistance -- lack this innate violence immune system. Throughout all human history, when humans have fought each other, there has been a lot of posturing. Adversaries make loud noises and puff themselves up, trying to daunt the enemy. There is a lot of fleeing and submission. Ancient battles were nothing more than great shoving matches. It was not until one side turned and ran that most of the killing happened, and most of that was stabbing people in the back. All of the ancient military historians report that the vast majority of killing happened in pursuit when one side was fleeing. In more modern times, the average firing rate was incredibly low in Civil War battles. British author Paddy Griffith demonstrates in his book The Battle Tactics of the Civil War that the killing potential of the average Civil War regiment was anywhere from five hundred to a thousand men per minute. The actual killing rate was only one or two men per minute per regiment. At the Battle of Gettysburg, of the 27,000 muskets picked up from the dead and dying after the battle, 90% were loaded. This is an anomaly, because it took 90% of their time to load muskets and only 5% to fire. But even more amazing, of the thousands of loaded muskets, only half had multiple loads in the barrel -- one had 23 loads in the barrel. [ Continued In Next Message... ] - - ------------------------------ End of utah-firearms-digest V2 #142 ***********************************