textfiles-politics/politicalTextFiles/joinforc.txt

 The following article is reprinted by permission from the
 Los Angeles Times of June 8, 1992.  Reproduction on 
 computer bulletin boards is permitted for informational
 purposes only.  Copyright (c) 1992 by the Los Angeles
 Times.   All other rights reserved.

 [Note: the following text is drawn from the original
 manuscript; there are insignificant changes in the
 published version. -- JNS]
 
 
 
            JOINING FORCES AGAINST A COMMON FOE 

                     by J. Neil Schulman
 
 
     There are about 200 million guns in America in the
 hands of about 60 million Americans.  The sale of guns
 nationwide following the Los Angeles riots has reached
 record levels, many of them to first-time buyers.  Firearms
 training classes are filled to capacity.  The National
 Rifle Association currently has 2.8 million members -- ten
 times the membership of the American Civil Liberties Union
 -- and expects to exceed 3 million by the end of 1992.
 
     Both advocates of gun control and advocates of gun
 rights agree that there is an epidemic problem with the
 criminal use of guns in America.  But every time a gun-
 control advocate points to the latest atrocity committed
 with a firearm, the gun-rights advocate will surely ask:
 why was there no armed citizen who could have tried to stop
 the criminal?
 
     The difference between the advocate of gun control and
 the advocate of gun rights lies in a perception of the
 cause of the criminal use of a gun.  Those who advocate gun
 control think the cause is wide and easy availability of
 guns.  The advocates of gun rights think the cause is a
 legal system which leaves criminals free to prey on a
 public which is socially discouraged, and often legally
 forbidden, from using guns for personal defense.
 
     The war over gun control is fought with news reports.
 Advocates of gun control have no shortage of reports that
 prove guns in the hands of criminals are a plague on our
 society. Advocates of gun rights find, however, that the
 use of firearms to prevent or stop a crime is often left
 unreported by media which are worried that reporting gun
 defenses will encourage irresponsible vigilantism.
 
     The war over gun control is fought with statistics. 
 The number of gun attacks in the United States is easy to
 compile: just count up the thousands of bodies in the
 morgues, and the hundreds of thousands of gunshot victims
 treated in hospitals. The number of times a gun is used for
 defense, however, has a built-in problem: the use of a
 firearm to deter, prevent, or stop an attack is unrecorded,
 overwhelmingly because the defense was accomplished without
 pulling the trigger, and less often, because the person
 using the gun for self-defense was legally forbidden to be
 in possession of it at that time or place, and thus did not
 report it.
 
     The war over gun control is fought with historical
 debates about the intent of the Second Amendment.  Those
 who advocate gun control say the Second Amendment has no
 Supreme Court ruling which defines the Second Amendment as
 protecting an individual right of the citizenry to keep and
 bear arms for personal defense.  Those who advocate gun
 rights say that the intent of the authors of the Second
 Amendment, and the Fourteenth Amendment which would apply
 it to the states, is indisputable, and it is a politicized
 Supreme Court which does not have the courage to enforce
 it.
 
     It's likely that the only other issue with such
 polarized and deeply felt world views is abortion.  Oddly,
 those who advocate the right of choice on abortion are
 often the same people advocating eliminating the right to
 choose firearms as a defensive option.
 
     It's also likely that a final Supreme Court ruling on
 the Second Amendment would fail to end the issue.  A ruling
 in favor of an individual rights interpretation of the
 Second Amendment would probably coalesce gun-control
 advocates into a movement to repeal the amendment.  A
 ruling against an individual rights interpretation of the
 Second Amendment would alienate and radicalize the millions
 of Americans who believe in that right as firmly as the
 advocates of abortion rights believe in theirs.
 
     As long as the advocates of gun control write laws and
 court rulings that abridge the right of private citizens to
 buy, own, and carry the firearms they feel are theirs by
 right to have for defensive and sporting use, gun owners
 will continue to be alienated and radicalized, and become
 more and more willing to engage in civil disobedience
 against such abridgements.
 
     Advocates of gun control need to realize that passing
 laws that honest gun owners will not obey is a self-
 defeating strategy.  Gun owners are not about to surrender
 their rights or their guns, and only the most foolish of
 politicians would risk the stability of the government by
 trying to use the force of the State to disarm the people.
 
     If gun-control advocates do not acknowledge the right
 of the people to keep and bear arms for individual and
 civic defense before they attempt to remove guns from the
 hands of those who abuse them, then sensible gun laws will
 be out of reach, and the criminal plague of gun victimizing
 will continue.
 
      Can't advocates of gun control see the advantage
 of recruiting gun-rights advocates to a joint cause of
 eliminating gun tragedies?  We can all agree that guns
 need to be kept out of the hands of the violent criminal
 and the lunatic.  We can agree that the solution to gun
 accidents is safety training.  We can agree that those who
 own and carry firearms for protection must take
 responsibility for knowing how to use them safely and
 appropriately.
 
      Surely, instead of fighting one another, we can join
 forces to fight our common enemy: the armed criminal?
 
                              #
 
 J. Neil Schulman is a writer, hosts a radio program on the
 American Radio Network, and is founder and chair of the
 Committee to Enforce the Second Amendment.