The following is a well worded and proper rebuking of a letter to the editor that touted the same old gun control line that; "restriction of rights of the law-a-biding Citizens, will somehow, magically produce a safer world". Please, save, copy and disseminate this newsletter! Have every "Doubting Thomas" you know read it! We can not defeat the propaganda assaults on our right to bear arms without educating those that are being spoon fed the anti-gun dogma daily by a bias media. FROM: PGOA President Roy Pittman Date: Sat, 15 Jun 2002 From: Richard MaseSubject: As requested my editorial in text I just read your emotionally charged editorial about guns in the Sunday paper. Needless to say that is all it is, emotionalism, with the usual distorted "facts" handed out by the "experts" in the anti-gun community. Let us take all of their "statistics" and expose them to the light of reason and thought instead of the "for the children" emotional rationalization the enemies of freedom are always shoveling onto us. 1. A gun in the home is 22 times more likely to kill a family member or friend than it is to be used to kill an intruder. The usual bogus figure given is 43:1 (taken from Arthur Kellermann and Donald Reay. "Protection or Peril? An Analysis of Firearm Related Deaths in the Home." The New England Journal of Medicine, vol. 314, no. 24, June 1986, pp. 1557-60)After many flaws in this article were demonstrated by their peers in the academic community, various gun control folks came up with other lower values. One of the very basic flaws is that it measures the value of defense by whether the intruder was killed - not whether the true victims were saved. So if an intruder intending rape and/or murder is chased off at the point of a gun, that doesn't count! Other flaws are that they counted guns brought into the home by the perpetrator as "a gun in the home" and "a friend" was any acquaintance no matter how briefly you encountered him/her. It also did not take into account defending yourself against an intruder who just so happened to be a family member (ex-spouse) or friend. (ex-lover) For a very detailed debunking of a later Kellerman article see Guns and Public Health: Epidemic of Violence, or Pandemic of Propaganda? By Kates, et al Tennessee Law Rev. Vol. 62, Number 3. Spring 1995 (pp 513-596) esp. Section XV. 2. Homes with guns are five times more likely to experience suicides. This "fact" does not mention whether or not the suicide was committed with a gun. One of the usual distortions of anti-gun statistics is to count an overdose or self-hanging as a suicide with a gun in the home. A suicide by gun is also counted in number 1 as a "family member" which accounted for 85% of their numbers. This kind of "fact" is designed to scare you into thinking the gun is the cause of the suicide. A person who is truly bent on suicide will kill him/herself with anything available. Japan, which has a total gun ban, has a suicide rate higher than the US suicide and murder rate combined. 3. In 1999, 489 children age 14 and under were killed by guns in the US 15 of them in Pennsylvania Again, the anti gun crowd would have you believe these are all accidents. The truth is that many of these "children" were killed in gang related and drug related activities. Included in these figures are "children", who were killed by police, while engaging in crime. Let us not ignore the fact that 11% of the victims of fatal police shootings are innocent people while only 2% are mistakenly killed by civilians. The annual number of fatal firearm accidents among children fell to 181 in 1995, and 142 in 1999, an all-time low. Accidental firearms deaths have continued to decline since. Other types of fatal accidents among children: motor vehicle (3,059), drowning (1,024), fires (833), suffocation on ingested object (213), falls (127), medical mistakes (80), and poisoning (80). (NCHS) The NSC estimates that fatal firearm accidents among children decreased 64% between 1975-1995. 4. The accidental firearm related death rate for children under the age of 14 is nine times higher in the US than in 25 other major industrialized nations combined. What nations? What rate are they talking about - the total deaths per year -deaths per 100,000 people? Do not accept their numbers at face value. By combined, do they mean averaged? What are the gun laws like in those countries? What is the culture like in those countries? Figures don't lie, but liars figure. Since 1999, many of the anti-gunner's outrageous claims have been debunked as fraudulent. Recently, historian Michael Belesiles book, Arming America, which received high praise and great reviews, has been discovered to be based on non existent documents, in other words, out and out lies. Education, not laws created by fear mongering, is the key to keeping down accidental deaths by firearms. I learned about guns when I was five. I learned to load them, shoot them, handle them, and clean them. I also learned 4 very basic rules. 1. A gun is always loaded. 2. When a gun is not loaded go back to rule number one. 3. Never point a gun at a person. 4. If you find a gun, don't touch it, tell an adult. It is never too early to teach children about guns. You conclude your editorial by saying that if you must keep a gun in the home it should be locked safely away unloaded with the ammunition locked safely away elsewhere. This is a sure way to get killed. Home invasions have become increasingly more violent. A criminal who breaks into your home is not going to wait for you to run around unlocking your gun and ammo. In 1.5 seconds, an intruder can move 21 feet and stab you. Criminologist Gary Kleck's analysis of national crime victimization surveys indicates that people who use firearms for self-defense are less likely to be injured than people who use other, or no, means of defense. While the death of the little boy in Philadelphia is a tragedy, weigh the pros and cons carefully before jumping to conclusions that would take away the freedom that so many have fought and died for. Little by little our freedom has been chipped away to the point where it is almost non-existent. Remember, you will only have the First Amendment so long as there is a Second. Richard L. Mase Sr.