Know thy enemy

January 9, 6:09 AMCleveland Gun Rights ExaminerDaniel White

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"Know thy self, know thy enemy. A thousand battles, a thousand victories."
Sun Tzu

It can be invaluable during debates to know the standard arguments used by the anti-gunners and be ready to defeat them with logic. A great resource for going just that is Gun Facts - Your Guide to Debunking Gun Control Myths.

We can take that resource and apply it to the "Sensible Solutions" proposed by the Ohio Coalition Against Gun Violence to demonstrate how rational facts defeat the hysterical rantings they come up with.

"Over 1,000 Ohioans are killed by gun violence each year."

Looking at the Ohio Office of Criminal Justice Services website, we can review statistics for various years and see that this statistic sounds far worse than it is.

In 2006 (the last year for hard data), there were 511 murders. That same site lists that firearms are used in just over half of all murders, giving us a little over 250 firearm murders per year in Ohio. Of course, this includes criminal on criminal killings as a result of drug activities.

I was able to find suicide statistics for 2004, and there were 1,319 in Ohio that year. Again, roughly half of suicides are committed with a firearm. Combining these two give them the 1,000 deaths figure. Of course, it is pretty naieve to believe that even if they could get a total gun ban (criminals included) that these deaths would just vanish.

Another statistic that really messes up their arguments out of the gate is murders in Ohio have steadily decreased since 2004, the year concealed carry passed in Ohio.

"Close loopholes that allow 40% of guns purchased in Ohio to be from unlicensed dealers, without the instant background checks required by the Brady Law."

Gun Facts: There is no such thing as an "unlicensed dealer," except for people who buy and sell antique – curio – firearms as a hobby.

What they really mean by "unlicensed dealer" is private citizens. They want to make it so that you can't sell a gun to your father, brother, best friend, coworker, or the guy at your hunt club you've known for 20 years. This despite not having any evidence that such a thing would even decrease crime. And don't forget, part of the 40% figure are criminals selling to criminals, and they're already barred from selling to each other and wouldn't get a background check anyway!

"Pass a one-gun-a-month law to prevent the illegal practice of secondary gun sales to criminals."

Gun Facts: A detailed study of the major surveys completed in the past 20 years or more provides no evidence of any relationship between the total number of legally held firearms in society and the rate of armed crime.

Gun rationing would only make sense if decreasing the number of firearms owned had an effect on crime. It doesn't. And again, is a criminal who is alreaydy breaking the law by buying a gun from another criminal going to limit himself to just one per month because he might break another law?

"Mandate the registration of all handguns: handguns are used in 3/4 of firearm deaths and the public overwhelmingly supports handgun licensing and registration."

Well, we've already debunked the 3/4 (75%) claim. Real statistics show a 50% rate of use. As to the public's "overwhelming" support for licensing and registration, it should be pointed out that the study they quote was conducted by Lake Research Partners, and organization describing itself as being made up of "the Democratic Party's leading strategists" and lists several strongly anti-gun clients. Think the questions might have been a little biased?

Gun Fact: Registration is required in Hawaii, Chicago, and Washington D.C. Yet there has not been a single case where registration was instrumental in identifying someone who committed a crime.

"Keep guns out of the hands of children with a juvenile possession law and child access prevention law."

Gun Fact: In the 1950’s, children routinely played cops and robbers, had toy guns, were given BB rifles and small caliber hunting rifles before puberty. Yet the homicide rate in the 1950’s was almost half of that in the 1980’s.
Gun Fact: Fewer than 2% of all unintentional injury deaths for children in the U.S. between ages 0-14 are from firearms.
Gun Fact: Children are 12 times more likely to die in an automobile accident than from gun-related homicides or legal interventions (being shot by a cop, for example) if they are age 0-14.
Gun Fact: In 2001, there were only 72 accidental firearm deaths for children under age 15, as opposed to over 2,100 children who drowned.

Do I even need to continue with that one?

"Ban Assault Weapons and Saturday Night Specials useful only for criminals, including "cop-killer" bullets and high-capacity clips."

Gun Fact: In 1994, before the Federal "assault weapons ban", you were eleven (11) times more likely to be beaten to death than to be killed by an “assault weapon”.33 In the first year since the ban was lifted, murders declined 3.6%, and violent crime 1.7%.
Gun Fact: Even weapons misclassified as “assault weapons” (common in the former Federal and California "assault weapons" confiscations) are used in less than 1% of all homicides.
Gun Fact: "Saturday Night Specials" were used in less than 3% of crimes involving guns.
Gun Fact: Fewer than 2% of all "Saturday Night Specials" made are used in crimes.

Plus, what they really mean by "Saturday Night Specials" are the inexpensive handguns favored by poorer citizens who can't afford expensive guns. Banning those guns equates to a total gun ban for those citizens.

Gun Fact: KTW rounds, wrongly labeled as “cop killer” bullets, were designed by police officers, for use by police to penetrate hard targets like car windshields. KTWs have never been sold to the general public.
Gun Fact: KTW rounds are Teflon coated to prevent heat build-up in a police officer’s gun barrel, not to pierce body armor.
Gun Fact: The number of shots fired by criminals has not changed significantly even with the increased capacity of handguns and other firearms. Indeed, the number of shots from revolvers (all within 6-8 round capacity) and semi-automatics were about the same – 2.04 vs. 2.53. In a crime or gun battle, there is seldom time or need to shoot more.

"Encourage safe storage of guns, including passing a childproof gun law."

The NRA encourages safe storage. I have no issue with that. And we've already debunked the "kids and guns don't mix" myth.

"Continue to allow local governments to pass tough gun violence prevention laws."

Better remove this one, folks. Preemption killed the patchwork quilt of local gun laws, and OFCC's win in OFCC v. Clyde upheld preemption. Having one set of laws in one place and a whole new set 10 feet away doesn't do anything to reduce crime. All it does is serve to restrict freedom and make accidental criminals out of ordinary citizens who cross the wrong line on some map.

"End the unpopular "concealed carry" law that allows Ohioans to carry loaded, hidden guns."

Unpopular? Is that why well over 100,000 Ohioans have chosen to get one? If it was so unpopular, why is there no public outcry against it? Could it be, perhaps, because the program has proven to be effective for the last five years?

Well, that was fun. I encourage everyone to read Gun Facts and get the truths to combat the myths. You'll be glad you did the next time an anti-gunner starts spouting the same old tired lies and you're ready with the facts!