From The Mark

 

Why Stricter Gun Control Wouldn't Make Us Safer

By Gary Mauser

Professor Emeritus, Simon Fraser University

 

First Posted: Jan 20 2011 07:32 AM

 

Incidents like the Tucson, Arizona shooting raise questions about how society can protect itself from dangerous individuals, but it's a mistake to think of all gun owners as potential hazards.

 

The irrational shooting in Tucson, Arizona by Jared Lee Loughner has shocked many people. As more facts emerge, it is increasingly evident that the attack was not politically motivated, as some had claimed earlier, and was carried out by a man who was mentally disturbed. But even though Loughner had had several minor run-ins with authorities, he had not been judged dangerously violent, and consequently he could legally purchase a firearm.

 

The U.S. does not differ from Canada or the U.K. in prohibiting access to firearms and explosives for anyone who is deemed a risk to himself or others, or who has a violent criminal record. The problem is that it is impossible to tell who is truly a risk, whether or not they are mentally disturbed. There is no solid research supporting the idea that physicians, psychiatrists, or police can predict, with the necessary reliability, who will and will not become dangerous, based on interviews or psychological tests. And why should this be surprising? Indeed, medical tests cannot even predict physical health in future years. People can and do die suddenly just months after their annual medical check-up.

 

At best, predictions about future dangerous behaviour are little better than 50/50. Too many of those who are thought to be a risk to themselves or others never go on to be violent – just as others who are not believed to pose a serious threat, such as Loughner, actually go on to commit violent crimes. It is unacceptable to deprive an individual of their civil liberties based on unreliable predictions of future behavior. That’s why society closed down the old mental hospitals.

 

But in our search for ways to protect society from dangerous individuals, it’s a mistake to look upon all gun owners as potential hazards. In Canada as well as the U.S., gun owners are valuable members of society. For example, hunters are renowned for their extensive contribution to effective wildlife conservation. Hundreds of thousands of hunters and target shooters own and use firearms legally and responsibly. Analysis of Canadian Firearms Program statistics shows that legally accredited firearms owners are less than half as likely to commit murder as other Canadians. And it was a licensed and accredited gun owner, Joseph Zamudio, who was courageous enough to help stop the shootings in Tucson by disarming the gunman before he could kill even more people. As Loughner stopped to reload, a woman grappled with him, giving Zamudio, who had an Arizona concealed-carry permit, the opportunity to wrestle the killer to the ground and disarm him.

 

Some have claimed that Canada’s gun laws protect us from murder. Not so. Among Canada’s most notorious Canadian killers is mass shooter Marc Lepine (Gamil Gharbi), who killed 14 women and wounded many others at Ecole Polytechnique in 1989. None of the teachers or students tried to intervene, even though, like Loughner, Lepine occasionally had to reload. The killing only ended when Lepine committed suicide. More recently, Kimveer Gill fatally shot one person and injured 19 others at Dawson College in Montreal in 2006. Police, who were in the vicinity on other business, ended Gill’s shooting spree by gunning him down.

 

Had Lepine and Gill not had access to firearms, would they still have killed? It’s not unlikely. Preventing homicide is not a matter of reducing the availability of firearms. There is no convincing empirical evidence that gun laws are effective in reducing homicide or suicide rates, and international studies have actually found that murder rates are higher in countries with more stringent firearms laws.

 

Even if guns were banned altogether, numerous deadly devices – bombs, knives, cars, poison – would still be available to anyone determined to kill. In Toronto, it was not too long ago that 18 people were arrested for planning to behead the prime minister and bomb Parliament. The former USSR banned all firearms, but still had a horrendous homicide rate (some of the murders involved illegal military firearms, but most were stabbings). In Japan, all firearms are banned, yet terrorists still found a way to injure thousands and kill 13 on subway trains a few years ago – using sarin, a deadly poison.

 

All societies have a few people who are intent on killing, but clearly limiting their access to firearms isn’t going to stop them. We’re lucky that murderous attacks by the criminally insane are rare.

Very good report.

The next few months I must to write an academic paper about State of Fear, and one of the minor items will be personal arms control and his implications (but don't worry, I'm harpooning and databasing in my scarce spare time ... ).

In particular, this part of the Tucson shoot-out remembers me another very similar situation and outcome, spontaneous citizens blocking the action of the shooter, but with more important historic implications, curiously I've not read none these days about the similar historical precedent:

Analysis of Canadian Firearms Program statistics shows that legally accredited firearms owners are less than half as likely to commit murder as other Canadians. And it was a licensed and accredited gun owner, Joseph Zamudio, who was courageous enough to help stop the shootings in Tucson by disarming the gunman before he could kill even more people. As Loughner stopped to reload, a woman grappled with him, giving Zamudio, who had an Arizona concealed-carry permit, the opportunity to wrestle the killer to the ground and disarm him.

 

The historical precedent, the attempt of assasination of President-elect F.D. Roosevelt 17 days before the inauguration of his first term:

http://digital.library.miami.edu/gov/FDRAssn.html

Roosevelt was completely untouched by the gunfire due to Zangara losing his footing atop an uneven chair, and a bystander striking his arm.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giuseppe_Zang...ination_attempt

However, being only five feet tall, he was unable to see over other people, and had to stand on a wobbly folding metal chair, peering over the hat of Lillian Cross to get a clear aim at his target. After the first shot, Cross and others grabbed his arm, and he fired four more shots wildly.

 

http://www.dc.state.fl.us/oth/timeline/1933-1935.html

Either Armour or Mrs. Cross grabbed the gunman's arm to deflect his aim -- both so claimed afterwards -- or perhaps it was the unsteady chair. Whatever happened, all five shots missed FDR and hit others.

 

http://omnologos.wordpress.com/2008/02/16/...-who-saved-fdr/

As Zangara’s movements made her risk to fall, Mrs Cross “turned around and said “Don’t to that”…Just then [she] saw the pistol“. Determined to stop Zangara, Lillian Cross managed to “[force] the would-be assassin shooting arm upwards“. The end result was a healthy FDR ready to take on the Presidency in 3 weeks’ time, to enable welfare reform if not its foundation, to get the USA on the path towards recovery from the 1929 crisis, to get re-elected for a record 3 times, and to push a reluctant nation towards supporting Britain against the Nazis and then to a full-scale victorious war on two faraway fronts.

This is of course the stuff of sci-fi and alternative universes, and no less than Philip K Dick has visited this episode, twice in fact.

( I think I've read most of the Dick's works, but I don't remember this episode. Someone remembers those books? ).

 

That woman, Lillian Cross, save the day, and probably the next war and the world future the following 50 years or so.

I remember clearly this because recently I saw a filmed interview of Lillian Cross (She was apparently not a beauty, but a very tall and bold woman in the interview, and Zangara a short man. For me the Cross version is true) in the curious Philippe Mora 1975 film "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?", made with screpts of documental and fiction films of the 1920-1940 period, with minimum or none edition, aside the consecutive mounting of the screpts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brother,_Can_..._Dime%3F_(film)

 

My idea: security is in first and last instance responsability of the individual citizens (yes, I know it's a little off-topic, but I'm thinking longwhile about those problems).

My idea: security is in first and last instance responsability of the individual citizens

 

I like how you think, Enrique.