Violence in
America - Effective Solutions
Co-Authors:
38 doctors, lawyers, psychiatrists
Psychologists, and social workers
See complete list after citations
Treating the weapon
In 1662 the Armarium Urguentum advised physicians on the treatment of gunshot and other wounds:
If the wound is large, the weapon with which the
patient has been wounded should be anointed daily; otherwise, every two or three days. The weapon should be kept in pure linen and a warm place but not too
hot, nor squalid, lest the patient suffer
harm.[1]
Three centuries later some physicians are still
treating the weapon instead of the wound.
It is increasingly common to hear "guns are a
virus"[2] or discussion of "the bullet as
pathogen."[3] According to Koch's Postulates of Pathogenicity, the criteria used to assess
disease-causing potential, any observation
of the peaceful use of firearms is sufficient reason to reject the hypothesis that guns or ammunition are pathogens. The
half of American homes
with guns offer a multitude of such observations. Further still, review of the literature shows that guns and ammunition
meet none of Koch's Postulates of
Pathogenicity.[4] As appealing as the claim may be to
some, guns are not pathogens and crime is
not a disease. Crime is a social problem
that does not lend itself to analysis or treatment under the medical model.
Treating crime as a disease - the essence of the
"public health" approach to gun violence - is as
illogical and ineffectual as the converse, treating
disease as a crime. We would mock any criminologist who advocated criminalizing disease by measures such as fines for
obesity or jail time for tobacco-related
emphysema. We would condemn the police if they invaded bedrooms to ensure the use of condoms in the crusade
against AIDS. The silliness of such
proposals are readily apparent, yet are no more illogical and insupportable than the proposals by advocates of the
"public health" model of gun
violence, banning or severely restricting good citizens' access to guns simply because a tiny fraction of guns are
misused by predatory aberrants.
It is a distorted concept, indeed, that the rights of good people, the most virtuous and productive citizens,
should be defined - more precisely,
restrained - by the criminal actions of predators in our society.
"Do no harm!"
Reducing violence is a laudable goal we share with
many of our colleagues, but the evidence suggests
that the gun control proposals made by many of our
colleagues will be worse than ineffectual. The weight of evidence suggests that gun bans and draconian restrictions will
not reduce criminals' access to guns, but
will instead disproportionately disarm good citizens
who cannot be effectively protected by the police - in so doing, gun control will do more harm than good.
It may seem a harsh claim, indeed, but there is
considerable documentation that zealous advocacy of
gun prohibition by some high-profile researchers and editors has been associated with a panoply of sins - a spectrum of
transgressions ranging from simple unfamiliarity
with the literature, through bias,
incompetence, and even outright mendacity.[4,5,6,7,8,9,10]
The most common transgression, however, is the medical
literature's refusal to recognize or address
the majority of the literature on guns and violence which is in sociological and criminological literature.
Several acclaimed reviews are available.[11,12,13,14,15] The second most common flaw is the "costs only" approach to gun violence, neither
acknowledging nor analyzing the evidence
that many more lives are protected by guns than are taken by guns.
Certain authors' unfamiliarity with guns and gun
safety jeopardizes not only the quality of their
work, but has also caused them to advance potentially
dangerous "solutions." For example, it has been proposed that gun manufacturers make "childproof" triggers -
heavy trigger pulls – to enhance
safety.[16] Such a proposal enhances safety neither
for adults nor for children. For adults, a
heavy trigger pull is not conducive to good marksmanship
and increases the chance that an innocent bystander, rather than an assailant, would be injured. A child frustrated
by a stiff trigger pull will attempt to
obtain greater mechanical advantage than available from the natural shooting grip by inserting a thumb into
the trigger guard and gripping the gun's
handle with four fingers. This grip points the pistol
at the child, increasing the risk of death or injury. It is education in a few infallible safe gun
handling habits, not a myriad of fallible
devices, that enhance gun safety.
Since the promotion of stringent gun regulation and
gun bans is so familiar in the medical
literature, it would be redundant to repeat such advocacy here. Instead, we will examine what is unfamiliar, a few
representative flaws in common gun law
proposals. We will also identify promising areas of research to reduce violence in our society - a problem that takes a
terrible toll, but a problem that is often
overstated as being an "epidemic."[4]
Our research and policy proposals focus upon the root causes of violence, rather than upon the instruments or
symbols of violence. We expect that
solutions will be neither simple, quick, nor cheap.
Cost-without-benefit analysis (Doctors or Guns - Which
is the deadlier menace?) Amongst
the most pervasive flaws in the medical literature on guns is the discussion of the "costs" of gun violence
without any consideration of the innocent
lives saved by guns. These and other benefits of guns are not so "intangible" as has been dogmatically claimed.[17] We would be mortified if
our colleagues' cost-without-benefit analysis[18,19] became the standard for evaluating the medical profession. The 1990
Harvard Medical Practice Study quantified
non-psychiatric inpatient deaths from physician negligence
(excluding outpatient, extended care, and inpatient psychiatric deaths) in New York State.[20]
"If these rates are typical of the United States,
then 180,000 people die each year partly as a result of iatrogenic injury, the equivalent of three jumbo-jet crashes every
two days."[21] - almost five times the number of Americans killed with guns. One
might fairly conclude from such a
"costs only" analysis that doctors are a deadly public menace. Why do we not reach that conclusion?
Because, in balance, doctors save many more
lives than they take and so it is with guns.
A conservative estimate from the largest scale,
methodologically sound study to date, the study
by Kleck and Gertz, suggests
that there are 2.5 million protective uses
of guns by adults annually.[22] As many as 65 lives are protected by guns for every life lost to a gun.
For every gun tragedy sensationalized,
dozens are averted by guns, but go unreported. Whether
or not "newsworthy," scientific method begs accounting of the benefits of guns - enumeration of the lives saved, the
injuries prevented, the medical costs saved,
and the property protected. Such an accounting is absent from the medical literature. The protective benefits
of guns – and the politicized
"science" that has been used to underestimate or totally deny those benefits and to exaggerate the costs of guns -
have been extensively reviewed.[4-12]
As ten studies have shown, in any year, about 1 to 2.5
million Americans use guns to protect themselves and their families. and about 400,000 of those
defenders believe that they would almost certainly have lost their lives if they had not had a gun for defense.[11,22] Even
if only one-tenth of those defenders are
correct, the lives saved by guns would still be more numerous than the lives lost to guns. The flaws in the
only study to suggest otherwise, the outlier
data of the National Crime Victimization Survey
(NCVS), have been discussed elsewhere.[22,23] Briefly,
the NCVS is a study of victimization, not
defense, and, by its design, undercounts the most
numerous types of defensive gun use (e.g. women protecting against domestic attacks). As additional sources of undercount
error, the NCVS is the only such survey
conducted by law enforcement and the only study in which the respondents are denied anonymity. When any
statistic, such as the NCVS count of
defensive gun use, is at odds with every other
measurement, it
is discarded.[22]
Nonetheless, even those US Bureau of Justice
Statistics samples show that defense with a gun
results in fewer injuries to the defender (17.4%) than resisting with less powerful means (knives, 40.3%; other
weapon, 22%; physical force, 50.8%; evasion,
34.9%; etc.) and in fewer injuries than not resisting
at all (24.7%).[11] Guns are the safest and most
effective means of self defense. This is
particularly important to women, the elderly, the physically challenged, those who are most vulnerable to
vicious and bigger male predators.
These benefits can be weighed against the human costs
of guns – recently about 38,000 gun deaths
from all causes and about 65,000 additional serious injuries annually (the remainder of gun injuries were so
minor as to require no hospital treatment at
all). Totaling all gun deaths, injuries, and
criminal mischief with guns leads to a generous estimate of about 1 million criminal misuses of guns annually (involving less
than one-half of 1% of America's more than
200-million guns)[7,11] So, all things considered,
the human benefits of guns at least equal and likely exceed the costs of guns to society by a factor of 2.5.
Of the 38,000 gun deaths, a majority are suicides.
This has caused advocates of gun prohibition to note that gun
bans result in lower gun suicide rates, but
they fail to note a compensatory increase in suicide from other accessible and lethal means of suicide
(hanging, leaping, auto exhaust, etc.). The
net result of gun bans? No reduction in total suicide rates.[11] People who are intent
in killing themselves find the means to do
so. Are other means of suicide so much more socially acceptable that we should cede resources to measures that only shift the
means of suicide, but do nothing to reduce
total suicide deaths?
"Friends and Family"
It is common for the "public health" advocates of gun bans to claim that most murders are of "friends and family." The
medical literature includes many such false
claims, that "most [murderers] would be considered law abiding citizens prior to their pulling the
trigger"[24] and "most shootings
are not committed by felons or mentally ill people, but are acts of passion that are committed using a handgun that is
owned for protection."[25]
Not only do the data show that acquaintance and
domestic homicide are a minority of homicides,[26] but the FBI's definition of acquaintance and domestic homicide requires only that the murderer knew or
was related to the decedent. That dueling
drug dealers are acquainted does not make them "friends."
Over three-quarters of murderers have long histories of violence against not only their enemies and other
"acquaintances," but also against
their relatives.[27,28,29,30] Oddly, medical authors
have no difficulty recognizing the violent
histories of murderers when the topic is not
gun control - "A history of violence is the best predictor of violence."[31] The overwhelming majority of the
perpetrators of acquaintance and domestic
homicide are vicious aberrants with long histories of violence inflicted upon those close to them.
This reality belies the deceptive imagery of
"friends and family" murdering each other in fits of passion simply because a gun, an evil
talisman, was present "in the
home."
Economic analysis
The actual economic cost of medical care for gun
violence is approximately $1.5-billion per year[32] - about 0.16% of America's $900-billion annual
health care costs. To exaggerate the costs of gun
violence, the advocates of gun prohibition
routinely include estimates of lost lifetime earnings - assuming that gangsters, drug dealers, and rapists would
be as socially productive as teachers,
factory workers, and other good Americans – to generate inflated claims of $20-billion or more in
"costs."[32] One recent study went
so far as to claim the "costs" of work time lost while workers
gossip about gun violence.[33]
What evidence is there that the average homicide
decedent can be fairly compared to the average
worker, that average wages should be attributed to homicide victims? What fraction of homicide victims are
actually "innocent children" who
strayed into gunfire? Far from being pillars of society, more than two-thirds of gun homicide "victims"
are involved with drug trafficking or have
evidence of ante-mortem illicit drug use.[34,35] In
one study, 67% of 1990 homicide "victims"
had a criminal record, averaging 4 arrests
for 11 offenses.[35] Such active criminals cost society not only untold human suffering, but also an average economic toll
of $400,000 per criminal per year before
apprehension and $25,000 per criminal per year while
in prison."[36] It is not a slander on the few truly innocent – and
highly sensationalized - victims to note that the
overwhelming predominance of homicide
"victims" are as predatory and socially
aberrant as the perpetrators of homicide.
Cost-benefit analysis is necessarily a bit hardhearted,
and, though repugnant for physicians to consider monetary savings alone, the advocates of gun prohibition routinely
force us to address the "costs" of
gun violence. So, we are forced to notice that, in cutting their violent "careers" short, the gun
deaths of those predators and criminals may
actually represent an economic savings to society on the order of $4.5 billion annually - three times the declared
"costs" of guns.
Those annual cost savings are only a small fraction of
the total economic savings from guns, because the $4.5 billion
does not include the additional financial
savings from the innocent lives saved, injuries prevented, medical costs averted, and property protected by guns. If
we applied the prohibitionists' methods[33] to compute the savings by guns, we would find
that the annual savings approach $1/2 trillion,
about 10% of the US Gross Domestic Product.
We perform this exercise only to demonstrate that all such "virtual reality" estimates of
"indirect" costs and savings are inflated
and to condemn them all as meaningless.
Whether by human or economic measure, we conclude that
guns offer a substantial net benefit to our society. Some
"quality of life" benefits, such
as the feeling of security and self-determination that accompany protective gun ownership, are not easily quantified.
There is no competent research that suggests
making good citizens' access to guns more difficult(whether
by bureaucratic paperwork, exorbitant taxation, zoning laws, contrived application of environmental or consumer
product safety statutes, reframing the
debate as a "public health" issue, or outright bans – the
current tactics of the anti-self-defense lobby[37])
will reduce violence.
No matter what tactics are used by the
anti-self-defense lobby to incrementally achieve
citizen disarmament, it is only good citizens who comply with gun laws, so it is only good citizens who are
disarmed by gun laws. As evidenced by
jurisdictions with the most draconian gun laws (e.g. New York City, Washington, DC, etc.), disarming these
good citizens before violence is reduced
causes more harm than good. Disarming these good citizens costs more - not fewer - lives.
Imagery and fact collide
Mountains of scholarly data on guns and gun laws[11] including the work of Presidential
Commissions and the National Institute of Justice,[12,13] are available, yet the medical literature frequently cites
instead editorials and articles by avowed
gun control advocates. Besides failing to perform a true risk-benefit assessment, our colleagues commonly
make errors of fact easily preventable by a
literature search. Consider false assertions about "assault weapons." Over two dozen studies
overlooked by those who advocate the prohibition of such guns show that these
false icons of violence are rarely used in
crime.[10,38] Pejoratively and inaccurately named,
"assault weapons" are, in fact, civilian
firearms that fire one shot per trigger
pull, but share cosmetic similarities with true military weapons (e.g. black plastic stocks, bayonet lugs, corrosion
resistant finishes, and similar features
that do nothing to enhance the criminal use of such guns). Claims of "sheer destructive power"[18] are
only unscientific and inflammatory imagery
refuted by peer-reviewed research in the medical literature.[10,39,40,41] Discredited theories
of wounding, "watermelon wound
ballistics,"[42] should have no place in the medical literature. Unfortunately, particularly when coming from physicians,
the political effectiveness of such
embarrassingly unscientific hyperbole cannot be denied.
Unlike hunting weapons which, by definition, are
designed to kill, military weapons are designed to
wound,[39] our colleagues' claim of "designed to
kill human beings at close range"[18]
notwithstanding. In military doctrine,
wounding is more useful than killing because it removes not only the injured enemy, but also removes personnel and
resources necessary to transport and care
for the injured. "Assault weapons" using typical military ammunition actually have reduced lethality when
compared to sporting weapons, reduced
lethality that is comparable to handguns using non-expanding
ammunition.[39]
Our colleagues briefly noted that
"these weapons account for only a small percentage
of firearm deaths."[18] More pointedly, ten times more Americans die annually from attacks using hands and feet than die
from military-style rifles.[43]
Let us emphasize that, in the worst areas of gang and drug crime, over two dozen studies show that military-style,
semiautomatic guns account for generally 0%
to 3% of crime guns.[10,38] Unfortunately, our colleagues
completely overlooked the legitimate and constitutionally protected uses of these guns.[10,38]
Police protection
Criminals do not announce their intentions and police
resources are stretched, so it is unsurprising that the
police rarely arrive in time to prevent
death or injury from much violent crime. Many are surprised, however, to discover that the police do not have any
legal obligation – not even a
theoretical obligation - to provide protection to individuals, even if in immediate danger. The police are only obligated to
provide some unspecified level of general
protection to the community at large.[44,45,46,47,48] It is a bitter irony indeed that, at the
same time the police are relieved of
responsibility for our protection, we are forced
to depend upon their protection. We are often told that we may not and should not have the same tools that the police say
they need to protect themselves from the
same criminals who threaten us.
Gun ban advocates routinely portray good citizens with
guns as inept and dangerous, but good citizens use guns about
seven to ten times as frequently as the
police to repel crime and apprehend criminals[11] and
they do it with a better safety record than the
police. About 11% of police shootings kill
an innocent person - about 2% of shootings by citizens
kill an innocent person. The odds of a defensive gun user killing an innocent person are less than 1 in 26,000.[49] Citizens intervening in crime are less likely to be wounded than the police.[49] We can
explain why the citizen record is better
than the police (the police usually come upon
a scene in progress where it may not be clear who is attacker and who is defender; also, the police, unlike defenders, must
close to handcuff the arrestee), but the
simple truth remains: citizens have an excellent record of protecting themselves, their families, and their
communities.
Some polls claim that Californians support "more
restrictive" gun laws, yet many Californians were
surprised to discover that existent "waiting period" law thwarted their attempts to arm themselves for
protection during the1992 Los Angeles riots.
The police department was so overwhelmed that residents discovered that they were virtually abandoned to a
"let burn" policy. Indeed, without
causing even a single death or injury, it was those good citizens displaying their fearsome "assault
weapons" who turned back mob and gang
violence, protecting their lives, their families, and their livelihoods. It was good citizens displaying such weapons
who turned back looting police and
out-of-control US Army National Guardsmen during Hurricane Hugo.[50] It was armed
African-Americans that protected themselves
and their families from Ku Klux Klansmen and other racist terrorists (terrorists that often included local law
enforcement officers).[51,52,53]
When faced with multiple assailants, mob and gang
violence, terrorism, or civil insurrection, it is
precisely high-capacity "assault weapons" that are necessary for good people to defend themselves -
particularly when police resources are
stretched to the breaking point. It is not only protection
from criminals and lunatics about which we must be concerned. Governments are the worst mass murderers. Not including
wars, as a conservative estimate, in this
century 65 million people have been killed by
their governments - after first being disarmed.[54]
Protection, not "sporting use," is
the issue.
The automobile model of gun ownership
Advocates of increased gun restrictions have promoted
the automobile model of gun ownership, however, the analogy is
selectively and incompletely applied. It is
routinely overlooked that no license or registration is needed to "own and operate" any kind of
automobile on private property. No proof of
"need" is required for automobile registration or drivers' licensure. Once licensed and registered, automobiles may
be driven on any public road and every
state's licenses are given "full faith and credit" by other states. There are no waiting periods, background
checks, or age restrictions for the purchase
of automobiles. It is only their use and misuse
that is regulated.
Although the toll of motor vehicle tragedies is many
times that of guns, no "arsenal
permit" equivalent is asked of automobile collectors or motorcycle racing enthusiasts. Neither has anyone suggested that
automobile manufacturers be sued when automobiles are misused by criminals, as they frequently are, by drunk and reckless drivers, in
drive-by shootings, bank robberies, car
bombs, and all manner of crime and terrorism. No one has suggested banning motor vehicles because they
"might" be used illegally or are
capable of exceeding the 55 mph speed limit, even though we "know"
speed kills. Who needs a car capable of three times
the national speed limit? "But cars
have good uses" is the usual response. So too do guns have good uses, the protection of 2.5-million good
Americans every year.[22]
Importantly, the proponents of the automobile model of
gun ownership fail to note that controls appropriate to a
privilege (driving) are inappropriate to a
constitutional right (gun ownership and use).
Constitutional issues
An important nexus exists where public policy touches
the constitution. Television violence has been deemed a cause of
violence,[55,56,57] but outlawing entertainment violence and sensationalized newscasting is precluded
by First Amendment guarantees. The spread of AIDS might be reduced by draconian measures that, thankfully, are
precluded by our inherent enumerated and unenumerated civil rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. Analogously, even if gun bans could be
demonstrated to be effective in reducing
violence, such measures are precluded by our right to keep and bear arms, our inherent and irrevocable right to
protection against criminals, crazies, and
tyrants.
We are alarmed that the constitutional impediments to
gun bans, draconian restrictions, and confiscatory levels of fees
and taxation, if discussed at all, are
offhandedly and mistakenly dispatched.[58] No
"need" must be demonstrated or
license obtained in order to exercise a constitutional right; such "prior restraint" is a patently
unconstitutional denial of civil rights. To
support purportedly "reasonable" restrictions, the claim is often made that the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is a
only a collective right of states to
maintain militias.[58,59,60] Such a claim is incongruous with Supreme Court case law,[61,62] the
history of the right,[63,64,65,66] and legal
scholarship.
In fact, the Supreme Court has explicitly acknowledged
a _pre-existent_ ("pre-existent," rather than
"granted" by the Constitution) _individual_ right[67,68,69,70,71]
to keep and bear _military-style_ 71weapons. The familiar contention that there is no individual right to arms derives
partly from a common misunderstanding of the
constitutional "militia." Advocates
of "broad-based gun control"[58] emphasize merely the mention of
"militia," but historians, legal
scholars, and Supreme Court Justices agree
that, "The 'militia' was the entire adult male citizenry," so that
"one purpose of the Founders having been to
guarantee the arms of the militia, they
accomplished that purpose by guaranteeing the arms of the individuals who made up the militia."[61]
Adherents of the "states' right only" theory
of the Second Amendment assert their position without
examining the implications of their own theory. A full understanding of the "states' right only"
theory leads to conclusions that will make
its proponents even more uncomfortable than if they accepted the individual right theory.[72
] An honest application of the "states' right
only" theory, according to the rationale advanced by its own adherents,[58-60] demands not merely armed state
militias, but full military parity for the
states. In these times of tension between the states
and the federal government, gun prohibitionists should rethink the advisability of promoting a theory that would return the
US to armed confederacy. Further, as
Reynolds and Kates discuss, citizen disarmament
would not necessarily be an outcome of an honest
application of the "states' right
only" theory of the Second Amendment.[72]
That the Supreme Court has acknowledged the individual
right, but done little to protect that right, is reminiscent
of the sluggishness of the Supreme Court in
protecting other civil rights before those rights became politically fashionable. It has taken over a century for
the Supreme Court to meaningfully protect
civil rights guaranteed to African-Americans in the Fourteenth Amendment. The claim that "no court has
ever overturned a gun law on Second
Amendment grounds" is not only false (Nunn v. State [73] and in re: Brickey[74] overturned gun laws on Second Amendment grounds), but
is also the equivalent of a morally
indefensible claim in 1950 that "no court has
ever overturned a segregation law."
Supreme Court decisions have been thoroughly reviewed
in the legal literature. Since 1980, of thirty-nine law
review articles, thirty-five note the
Supreme Court's acknowledgment of the individual right to keep and bear arms[75] and only four
claim the right is only a collective right of
the states (three of these four are authored or co-authored by employees
of the anti-self-defense lobby).[76] One would
never guess such a precedential and
scholarly mismatch from the casual misinterpretations of the right in the medical literature and popular press.
The error of the gun prohibitionist view is
also evident from the fact that their "states' right only" theory is exclusively an invention of
the twentieth century "gun
control" debate - a concept of which neither the Founding Fathers nor
any pre-1900 case or commentary seems to have had
any inkling.[61-65,77]
Though the gun control debate has focused on the
Second Amendment, legal scholarship also finds
support for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms in Ninth Amendment "unenumerated"
rights,[78] Fourteenth Amendment "due
process" and "equal
protection" rights,[79,80,81,82] and natural rights theory.[77] Also, in the absence of explicit delegated powers, the
Tenth Amendment guarantees that the powers
are reserved to the States and the people,[83] making
several provisions of the Brady Law unconstitutional.[84]
Progressive reform
Complete, consistent, and constitutional application
of the automobile model of gun ownership could provide a
rational solution to the debate and enhance
public safety. Reasonable compromise on licensing and training is possible. Generally, where state laws have been reformed
to license and train good citizens to carry
concealed handguns for protection, violence and
homicide have fallen.[49,85] Even those unarmed
citizens who abhor guns benefit from such
policies because predators cannot distinguish in advance between intended victims who carry and victims who eschew
_concealed_ weapons.
In Florida, as in other states where they have opposed
reform, the anti-self-defense lobby claimed that blood
would run in the streets of "Dodge City
East," the "Gunshine State," that
inconsequential family arguments and traffic
disputes would lead to murder and mayhem, that the economic base of communities would collapse, and that
many innocent people would be killed[49,88] --- but we do not have to rely on irrational
propaganda, imaginative imagery, or political
histrionics. We can examine the data.
One-third of Americans live in the 22 progressive
states that have reformed laws to allow good
citizens to readily protect themselves outside their homes, openly or concealed.[49,88]
In those states crime rates are lower for
every category of crime indexed by the FBI Uniform Crime Reports.[26] Homicide, assault, and overall violent crime are each 40%
lower, armed robbery is 50% lower, rape is
30% lower, and property crimes are 10% lower.[26]
The reasonable reform of concealed weapon laws resulted in none of the mayhem prophesied by the anti-self-defense lobby.
In fact, the data suggest that, providing
they are in the hands of good citizens, more guns "on the street" offer a considerable _net_
benefit to society – saving lives, a
deterrent to crime, and an adjunct to the concept of community policing.
As of 12/31/93, Florida had issued 188,106 licenses
and not one innocent person had been killed or injured by a
concealed weapon licensee in the 6 years
post-reform.[49] Of the 188,106 licenses, 17 (0.01%)
were revoked for misuse of the firearm. Not
one of those revocations were associated with
any injury whatsoever.[49] In opposing reform, fear is
often expressed that "everyone would be
packing guns," but, after reform, most states
have licensed fewer than 2% (and in no state more than 4%) of qualified citizens.[49]
A recent flurry of pre-publication publicity
highlighted an upcoming paper by critics of reform,
David MacDowall, Colin Loftin,
and Brian Wiersema of the
University of Maryland Violence Research Group.[86] These
researchers are best known for their 1989
paper in the New England Journal of Medicine[87]
that, in the face of a tripled homicide rate, claimed that Washington DC's 1976 handgun freeze had lowered
homicide.[4] In the face of data showing
statewide reductions in homicide rates in many states that have adopted reforms (particularly impressive when
compared to concurrent national trends),[49]
these researchers now claim that reform of concealed weapons laws has raised homicide rates. To contrive such
a "day is night" conclusion, they
ignored national trends and rejected the statewide benefits of statewide laws without credible analysis.
Instead they simply selected the few
exceptions, the few urban areas and irregular, shifting time periods that could be contrived to show a homicide
increase. Furthermore, if FBI data is used
instead of the researchers' National Center
for Health Statistics data (FBI data culls at least a fraction of lawful self-defense homicides), MacDowall
et al.'s claim collapses.
The anti-self-defense lobby has claimed that violent
crime rose 19% in Florida following reform, but they fail to
note that violent crime rose 23% nationally.
Additionally, the data became more difficult to interpret because the accounting of violent crimes except homicide
changed during this period. So, the observed
homicide rate reductions are the best available
indicator of the effectiveness of reform. Following reform, Florida's homicide rate fell from 36% above the national
average to 4% below the national average and
remains below the national average to this day.[49]
Notwithstanding gun control extremists' politicized
research, histrionics, and unprophetic
imagery , the observed reality was that most crime
fell, in part, because vicious predators
fear an unpredictable encounter with an armed
citizen even more than they fear apprehension by police[12] or fear our timid and porous criminal justice system. It is no
mystery why Florida's tourists are targeted
by predators - predators are guaranteed that,
unlike Florida's citizens, tourists are unarmed. Those who advocate restricting gun rights often justify their proposals
"if it saves only one life." There
have been matched state pair analyses, crime trend studies, and county-by-county research[49]
demonstrating that licensing good, mentally-competent
adults to carry concealed weapons for protection _outside_ their homes saves _many_ lives, so gun prohibitionists
should support such reforms, _if_ saving
lives is truly their motivation.
Conclusion
Insisting that a frog is a cow will not give us milk.
Neither will insisting a social problem is a medical
problem give us a solution to violence. If
medical researchers want to investigate violence, they must learn the methods of social science research and
familiarize themselves with the social
science literature. Predatory criminals are neither microbes nor automobiles.
We, too, call for better data collection, but then, on
the basis of existing data, we part company with our
colleagues who call for broad-based gun
controls and bans. As we have discussed, guns in the hands of good, mentally competent adults offer a net benefit to society
- whether measured in human or economic
terms. Until such time as we eliminate violence from society, we believe that good people should have
available the safest and most effective
means of protection, guns. The rights of good and moral people, the overwhelming majority of America's citizens,
are inherent rights that are not forfeit as
a result of the heinous actions of predatory aberrants.
The predominance of data show
that over 20,000 American gun laws, including national
gun laws, have done virtually nothing to reduce violence or to reduce availability of guns to criminals. Expectedly so!
Vicious predators who ignore laws against
murder, mayhem, and drug trafficking routinely ignore
those existent American gun laws. No amount of well-meaning, wishful thinking will cause these criminals to honor
additional gun laws. If "better"
data are forthcoming, we are ready to reassess the public policy implications. Until such time, the data suggest
that victim disarmament is not a policy that
saves lives.
Proposals
We note that public health efforts combating AIDS and
tuberculosis are most effective when high-risk
populations are targeted. If there is any kernel of truth in the "public health" model of violence, it is
that high-risk populations should be
addressed, specifically, broken, impoverished, young families in the inner cities. Though we offer proposals
to reduce violence in our society, we have
realistic expectations. We know that utopia is not an available alternative. It may take a generation or
more to obtain even incremental reductions
in violence. A social problem that has taken generations
to develop, will not disappear quickly or cheaply. We
must replace today's rhetoric of entitlement
with values of family life, individual
rights, and individual responsibilities. We must avoid the tempting mirage, the false promises of gun control. We
encourage the following research and policy
agenda:
1) Oversight of the competence and integrity of
further tax-funded research - Politicized science costs lives
because it leads us down a literal dead-end,
the unilateral disarmament of innocent victims. Of additional importance, politicized science wastes
resources and time that might be spent
productively. Editorial censorship, histrionics, and medical "mob journalism" are equally unsuited
to the development of sound public policy.
Much of the shoddy research has been funded by
taxpayers through the Centers for Disease
Control and legitimate concern has been raised about the politicization of that research.[4-9]
While we fully support the First Amendment
rights of advocates at both poles of the debate, we do not believe that it is appropriate for tax-payers to foot the
bill for polemics from either pole. There
must be Congressional oversight of tax-funded research
to ensure the integrity and competence of tax-funded studies and steps must be taken to improve the peer review process.
Editorial privilege should entail
responsibility and accountability. Editorial license
should end far short of the threshold of carelessness, abuse, and censorship.
2) Enforce existent laws against violent crime - No
additional laws or sentence enhancements are necessary. There are
no violent crimes that are "missed"
by criminal codes. If applied, existent sentences prescribed for violent crimes are already far from trivial, so we
support "Truth in Sentencing,"
rather than early release of or plea bargaining by
violent criminals. If applied, existent
sentences prescribed for violent crimes make
inflexible "Three Strikes, You're Out" proposals completely unnecessary. "The most effective prison reform would
be to return prisons to their primary
mission of incapacitating violent criminals."[88]
President Clinton and his administration have
spotlighted violent crime and demanded draconian gun
restrictions as a "solution." The administration's lack of action, however, belies its rhetoric. Senators
Orrin Hatch and Robert Dole have inquired of
Attorney General Janet Reno why, according to the
Administrative Office of the US Courts, prosecutions have actually declined 5% overall and, in the case of gun crimes,
prosecutions have declined 23%, under the
Clinton-Reno administration).[89]
3) Enforce existent laws against the true sources of
criminals' guns - The enforcement of existent gun laws and the
enforceability of proposed gun laws are
rarely discussed. High rates of gun ban non-compliance and the police state tactics necessary for enforcement are rarely
discussed.[10] The
Clinton administration and many politicians, including the "public health" advocates of gun prohibition, call for more
draconian gun laws when existent laws are
poorly enforced. Of how little benefit to public safety can symbolic gestures be? Of what possible benefit can
their more draconian proposals be if those
proposals are not - or cannot be - enforced?
Only 7% of criminals' handguns are obtained from
retail sources,[13] so controls on retail gun sales cannot
be expected to reduce criminals' access to guns much, if at all. Despite
exaggerated claims of the success of the Brady Law,[90]
the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) has acknowledged that the
little existent evidence is only anecdotal.[91] In fact,
almost all of Brady Law background check discoveries of "thousands of _possible_
felons" are false positives. Many are innocents whose names are similar
to felons. Misdemeanor traffic convictions, citations for fishing without
a license, and failure to license dogs are the types of trivial crimes
that resulted in a computer tag that labeled the others as "potential"
felons.[92] Of the minuscule number of actual felons
identified by
Brady Law background checks, not one has been prosecuted.[93] Instead, those felons are merely displaced into the
"black market." In such
circumstance, the minimal expected benefit of the Brady Law diminishes to no benefit at all.
Instead of heaping more onerous restrictions upon good
citizens or law-abiding gun dealers who are not the source
of crime guns, is it not more reasonable -
though admittedly more difficult - to target the real source of crime guns? It is time to admit the futility of
attacking the supply of legal guns to
interdict the less than 1% of the American gun stock that is used criminally. Instead,
we believe enforcement effort should focus
on targeting the long illegal "black market" in stolen guns. It is equally important to reduce the demand for illicit
guns and drugs, most particularly by
presenting attractive life opportunities and career alternatives to the inner-city youth that are
overwhelmingly and disproportionately the perpetrators[94] and victims[95] of violence in our society.
4) Treat guns like cars, completely, consistently, and
constitutionally - Specifically, enact legislation to license
good citizens – mentally competent,
law-abiding adults - to carry concealed firearms for protection in public. No "need" must be demonstrated.
Self-protection is a universally applicable
need. Of course, there should be no licensing or registration of _any_ kind of firearm used on _private_ property. We
believe _this_ is the _reasonable_ compromise, the
_reasonable_ gun control this country needs.
Like for automobiles and prospective drivers, we
believe guns should be kept out of the hands of
the mentally incompetent, the criminal, and the irresponsible
- adult or child - and we advocate voluntary safety training programs. We recommend that every prospective gun owner
carefully weigh the responsibility of gun
ownership and, upon purchase, to be certain that gun safety is paramount. It is encouraging to note that National
Safety Council data show that accidental gun
deaths have been falling steadily since the
beginning of this century and now hover at an all time low.[96]
5) Welfare reform - End government policy that
destroys families and, in turn, destroys the fabric
of society. The "War on Poverty" is another war lost by America. Welfare aid has climbed from 1.5% of the
Gross National Product when Lyndon Johnson's
"Great Society" initiated the "War on Poverty" to 5% of the Gross National Product ($305
billion) in 1992, yet we have seen crime,
substance abuse, divorce, illegitimacy, and resultant single-parent families skyrocket and the work ethic,
family stability, and educational aspiration
erode. To reduce violence, welfare reform must discourage
dependency, encourage responsible, constructive behavior, reduce illegitimacy and single-parent families, and entail a
system of mutual responsibility in which
welfare recipients are expected to contribute to society in return for the aid they receive.[97]
6) Improve life and career opportunities for the poor
- A corollary of welfare reform, this is certainly the most
difficult, the most expensive, and the most
important of our proposals. Violent drug crime has been described as a rational career choice for those so
impoverished that their job choices are
virtually non-existent.[98] There must be attractive
and positive alternatives for the poor. Such
alternatives are more likely to be realized
through the private sector, than through typically wasteful and inefficient government programs. Government may best serve
us all by getting out of our way and by
letting families, not politicians and bureaucrats,
decide how to spend their earnings.
Of course, the communities most afflicted by poverty
and violence, the inner cities, must begin, through home,
church, and school, to promote values that
mitigate violence - among such values, the work ethic, educational aspiration, delayed gratification, respect
for individual and property rights, love of
self, family, and community, and the sanctity of life. Where public schools have brought valueless bureaucracy, school
vouchers hold promise of a renaissance of inner
city private and parochial schools, offering
parents a choice, cost effective educational opportunities
that promote values beneficial to society.[97]
To make the alternatives more attractive, it may be
helpful to remove profit from the illicit drug trade. While the
decriminalization of personal drug use by
adults is controversial, we believe that we must study such proposals.
7) Mitigate media violence - The role of media
violence in exacerbating violence in society is
well documented.[55-57] Rather than unconstitutional infringements of First Amendment rights,
it is parents who must exercise control over
children's viewing habits and who must influence the media. Parents should make their views known to producers and
advertisers when they are offended by sensationalized
newscasting and gratuitous
violence in entertainment media.
8) Promote conflict resolution training - To offset
the deleterious effects of violence promoted in the media, we
believe that early in life children must
learn the non-violent means of conflict resolution.
9) End the scapegoating of guns and gun owners - It is
divisive and counter-productive to vilify America's
innocent gun owners. Those who abhor guns
must be reminded that half of American households find legitimate reasons to own and enjoy firearms, some for
protection, some for recreation.[11] Clearly, the abhorrence of guns (or gun owners) is
_not_ the dominant American paradigm. The
vogue of describing gun ownership as a pathology should pass, since gun ownership is, in
fact, a neutral or positive social
phenomenon of half of American households.
Guns are not charms that impel evil,
neither are they magically protective talismans. Guns are only
powerful tools. Fortunately, most citizens of our
distressed society are moral and responsible people in whose hands guns are the safest and most effective means of protection
against criminals, crazies, and tyrants. The
future will shine more brightly if compassionate and thoughtful individuals join to promote individual responsibility,
personal freedom, and to develop effective,
long-term solutions to reduce violence in
America.
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75 Articles supportive of the individual rights
view include:
Van Alstyne W. The second amendment and the personal right to arms. Duke Law
Journal. 1994; 43(6): 1236-55.;
Amar AR. The bill of rights and the fourteenth
amendment. Yale Law Journal. 1992; 101:
1193-1284.; Winter 1992; 9: 87-104.;
Scarry E.
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Rev. 1991; 139(5): 1257-1316.;
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citizen militia: the terrifying second amendment. Yale
Law Journal. 1991; 101:551-616.;
Cottrol RJ
and Diamond RT. The second amendment: toward an Afro-Americanist reconsideration. The
Georgetown Law Journal. December 1991: 80; 309-61.;
Amar AR. The bill of rights as a constitution
Yale Law Journal. 1991; 100 (5): 1131-1210.;
Levinson S. The embarrassing second
amendment. Yale Law Journal. 1989; 99:637-659.;
Kates D.
The second amendment: a dialogue. Law and Contemporary Problems. 1986; 49:143.;
Malcolm JL. Essay review. George
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Fussner FS.
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Shalhope RE. The armed citizen in the early republic. Law and Contemporary
Problems. 1986; 49:125-141.;
Halbrook S.
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Law and Contemporary Problems. 1986; 49:151-162.;
Kates D. Handgun prohibition and the original meaning of the second amendment. Michigan Law Review. 1983; 82:203-73.
Halbrook S.
The right to bear arms in the first state Bills of Rights: Pennsylvania, North
Carolina, Vermont, and Massachusetts. Vermont Law Review 1985; 10:
255-320.;
Halbrook S.
The right of the people or the power of the state: bearing arms, arming
militias, and the second amendment. Valparaiso Law
Review. 1991; 26:131-207.;
Tahmassebi SB. Gun control and racism. George Mason Univ.
Civil Rights Law Journal. Winter 1991; 2(1):67-99.;
Reynolds GH. The right to keep and bear arms under the
Tennessee Constitution. Tennessee Law Review. Winter
1994; 61:2.
Bordenet TM.
The right to possess arms: the intent of the Framers of the second amendment.
U.W.L.A. L. Review. 1990; 21:1.-30.;
Moncure T.
Who is the militia - the Virginia ratifying convention and the right to bear
arms. Lincoln Law Review. 1990; 19:1-25.;
Lund N. The second amendment,
political liberty and the right to self-preservation. Alabama Law Review
1987; 39:103.-130.;
Morgan E. Assault rifle legislation: unwise and unconstitutional.
American Journal of Criminal Law. 1990; 17:143-174.;
Dowlut,
R. Federal and state constitutional guarantees to arms. Univ. Dayton Law Review. 1989.;
15(1):59-89.;
Halbrook SP.
Encroachments of the crown on the liberty of the subject: pre-revolutionary
origins of the second amendment. Univ. Dayton Law
Review. 1989; 15(1):91-124.;
Hardy DT.
The second amendment and the
historiography of the Bill of Rights. Journal
of Law and Politics. Summer 1987; 4(1):1-62.;
Hardy DT. Armed citizens, citizen
armies: toward a jurisprudence of the second amendment. Harvard
Journal of Law and Public Policy. 1986; 9:559-638.;
Dowlut R. The current relevancy of keeping and bearing arms. Univ. Baltimore Law Forum. 1984; 15:30-32.;
Malcolm JL. The right of the people to keep and bear
arms: The Common Law Tradition. Hastings Constitutional Law
Quarterly. Winter 1983; 10(2):285-314.;
Dowlut R.
The right to arms: does the Constitution or the predilection of judges reign? Oklahoma Law Review. 1983; 36:65-105.;
Caplan DI.
The right of the individual to keep and bear arms: a recent judicial trend.
Detroit College of Law Review. 1982; 789-823.;
Halbrook SP.
To keep and bear 'their private arms' Northern Kentucky Law Review. 1982; 10(1):13-39.;
Gottlieb A. Gun ownership: a constitutional right.
Northern Kentucky Law Review 1982; 10:113-40.;
Gardiner R. To preserve liberty -- a look at the right
to keep and bear arms. Northern Kentucky Law Review. 1982;
10(1):63-96.;
Kluin KF.
Note. Gun control: is it a legal and effective means of controlling firearms in
the United States? Washburn Law Journal 1982; 21:244-264.;
Halbrook S. The jurisprudence of the second and fourteenth amendments. George Mason U. Civil Rights Law Review. 1981; 4:1-69.
Wagner JR. Comment: gun control legislation and the
intent of the second amendment: to what extent is there an individual right to
keep and bear arms? Villanova Law Review. 1992;
37:1407-1459.
The following treatments in book form also
conclude that the individual right position is correct:
Malcolm JL. To keep and bear arms: the origins
of an Anglo-American right.Cambridge
MA: Harvard U. Press. 1994.;
Cottrol R.
Gun control and the Constitution (3 volume set). New York City: Garland. 1993.;
Cramer CE. For the defense of themselves and the
state: the original intent and judicial interpretation of the right to
keep and bear arms. Westport CT: Praeger Publishers.
1994.
Cottrol R
and Diamond R. Public safety and the right to bear arms. in
Bodenhamer D and Ely J. After 200
years; the Bill of Rights in modern America. Indiana U. Press. 1993.;
Oxford Companion to the United States
Supreme Court. Oxford U. Press. 1992. (entry on the Second Amendment);
Foner E
and Garrity J. Reader's companion to American history. Houghton Mifflin. 1991. 477-78. (entry
on "Guns and Gun Control");
Kates D. "Minimalist interpretation of the second
amendment" in E. Hickok, editor. The Bill of Rights: original meaning
and current understanding. Charlottesville: U. Press of Virginia. 1991.;
Halbrook S. The original understanding of the second amendment. in E. Hickok, editor. The Bill of Rights: original
meaning and current understanding. Charlottesville: U.
Press of Virginia. 1991.;
Young DE. The origin of the second amendment. Golden Oak Books. 1991.;
Halbrook S. A
right to bear arms: state and federal Bills of Rights and constitutional
guarantees. Greenwood. 1989.;
Levy LW. Original intent and
the Framers' constitution. Macmillan. 1988.;
Hardy D. Origins and development of the
second amendment. Blacksmith. 1986.;
Levy LW, Karst KL, and Mahoney DJ. Encyclopedia
of the American Constitution. New York: Macmillan. 1986. (entry on the Second Amendment);
Halbrook S.
That every man be armed: the evolution of a constitutional right. Albuquerque,
NM: U. New Mexico Press. 1984.;
Marina. Weapons, technology
and legitimacy: The second amendment in global perspective.
Halbrook S. The second amendment as a phenomenon of classical political philosophy.
-- both in Kates D (ed.). Firearms and violence. San Francisco: Pacific
Research Institute. 1984.;
U.S. Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution. The
right to keep and bear arms: report of the Subcommittee on the
Constitution of the Committee on the Judiciary. United States
Congress. 97th. Congress. 2nd. Session. February 1982.
Regarding incorporation of the Second Amendment:
Aynes RL. On misreading John Bingham and the fourteenth amendment. Yale Law Journal. 1993; 103:57-104.;
76 The minority
supporting a collective right only view:
Ehrman
K and Henigan D. The second amendment in
the 20th century: have you seen your militia lately? Univ.
Dayton LawJReview. 1989; 15:5-58.;
Henigan DA. Arms, anarchy and the second amendment. Valparaiso
U. Law Review. Fall 1991; 26: 107-129.;
Fields S. Guns, crime and the negligent gun owner. Northern Kentucky Law Review. 1982; 10(1): 141-162.;
Spannaus W. State firearms regulation and the second amendment. Hamline Law Review. 1983; 6:383-408.
In addition, see:
Beschle.
Reconsidering the second amendment: constitutional protection for a right of
security. Hamline Law Review. 1986;
9:69. (conceding that the Amendment does
guarantee a right of personal security, but arguing that personal
security can constitutionally be implemented by banning and confiscating
all guns).
77 Kates
D. The second amendment and the ideology of
self-protection. Constitutional Commentary. Winter
1992; 9: 87-104.
78 Johnson NJ.
Beyond the second amendment: an individual right to arms viewed through the
ninth amendment. Rutgers Law Journal. Fall 1992; 24
(1): 1-81.
79 Curtis M. No
state shall abridge. Durham NC: Duke. 1986. pp. 52,
53, 56, 72, 88, 140-1 and 164.
80 Amar AR. The Bill of Rights and the fourteenth amendment. The Yale Law Journal. 1992; 101: 1193-1284.
81 Aynes
RL. On misreading John Bingham and the fourteenth
amendment. Yale Law Journal. 1993; 103:57-104.
82 Halbrook
S. Freedmen, firearms, and the fourteenth amendment. in That every man be armed: the evolution of a
constitutional right. Albuquerque, NM: U. of New Mexico Press. 1984.
Chap. 5.
83 New York v. United States. 112 Sup.Ct.Rptr. 2408 (1992).
84 18 USC Section 922(s) (2), the portion of
the Brady Law that orders State-created chief law enforcement officers to
search available records and to ascertain the legality of handgun transactions,
has been held unconstitutional in Printz v. United
States. , 854 F. Supp. 1503 (D. Mont.) 1994), appeal pending (9th Cir. No.
94-36193); Mack v. United States, 856 F. Supp. 1372 (D. Ariz.), appeal
pending (9th Cir. No. 94-16940);
McGee v. United States, 863
F. Supp. 321 (S.D. Miss. 1994), appeal pending (5th Cir No. 94-60518);
Frank v. United States, 860 F. Supp. 1030 (D. Vt. 1994);
Romero v. United States; Romero
v. United States No. 94-0419, W. D. La. (Dec. 8, 1994).
Romero also held that Section 922(s) (6) (B) and (C), which require chief law
enforcement officers to destroy records of handgun transactions and to write
letters explaining denials, unconstitutional under the Tenth Amendment.
Koog v. United
States, 852 F. Supp. 1376 (W.D. Tex. 1994), appeal pending (5th Cir. No.
94-50562), the only district court opinion to uphold all of Section
922(s), argues that the latest US Supreme Court precedent on the Tenth
Amendment is contradictory and makes logical leap[s]. Id. at 1381,1386 n. 20.
85 Cramer C and Kopel
D. Concealed handgun permits for licensed trained citizens: a policy
that is saving lives. Golden CO: Independence Institute Issue Paper
#14-93. 1993.
86 McDowall D, Loftin
C, and Wiersema B. "Easing Concealer Firearm
Laws: Effects on Homicide in Three
States." Discussion Paper 15. College Park MD: University of Maryland Violence Research Group.
January 1995. - also forthcoming in Journal of
Criminal Law & Criminology. June 1995.
87 Loftin
C, McDowall D, Wiersema B, and Cottey
TJ. Effects of Restrictive Licensing of
Handguns on Homicide and Suicide in the District of Columbia. N. Engl J Med 1991; 325:1615-20.
88 Kopel
DB. Prison blues: how America's foolish sentencing
policies endanger public safety, Washington DC: Cato Institute. Policy Analysis No. 208. May 17, 1994.
89 Hatch O and Dole R, US
Senators. letter to US Attorney
General Janet Reno. November 3, 1994.
90 Aborn R, President
of Handgun Control Inc. Letter to the editor. Washington
Post. September 30, 1994.
91 Howlett
D. Jury still out on success of the Brady Law. USA
Today. December 28, 1994. p
A-2.
92 Halbrook
SP. Another look at the Brady Law.
Washington Post. October 8, 1994. p A-18.
93 Harris J, Assistant Attorney General, US
Department of Justice. Statement to the Subcommittee
on Crime and Criminal Justice, Committee on the Judiciary, US House of
Representatives concerning federal firearms prosecutions. September 20,
1994.
94 Bureau of Justice Statistics,
US Department of Justice. Guns and crime.
Washington DC: US Government Printing Office. April 1994;
NCJ-147003.
95 Federal Bureau of
Investigation, US Department of Justice. Uniform crime
reports: crime in the United States 1992. Washington DC: US Government Printing
Office. 1993.
96 National Safety Council. Accident facts 1992. Chicago: National Safety Council. 1993.
97 Rector R. Combatting family disintegration,
crime and dependence: welfare reform and beyond.
Washington DC: Heritage Foundation. April 8, 1994.
98 Polsby
D. The false promises of gun control. The Atlantic
Monthly. March 1994. 57-70.
authors
Edgar A. Suter
MD
National Chair, Doctors for Integrity in
Research & Public Policy
Family Practice
San Ramon CA
William C. Waters IV, MD
Internal Medicine/Nephrology
Atlanta GA
George B. Murray MD
Director, Psychiatric Consultation
Service, Massachusetts General Hospital
Associate Professor of Psychiatry,
Harvard Medical School
Boston MA
Christie B. Hopkins MD
Professor of Medicine, Acting Division
Director, Cardiology
University of South Carolina School of
Medicine
Columbia SC
Joseph Asiaf
MD
Associate Clinical Professor of
Pediatrics
Boston University School of Medicine
Boston MA
John B. Moore MD FACS
Chairman, Colorado Committee on Trauma
Associate Clinical Professor of Surgery
University of Colorado Health Sciences
Center
Denver CO
Col. Martin Fackler
MD
Chief, US Army Wound Ballistics
Laboratory (retired)
Hawthorne FL
David N. Cowan PhD, MPH
Adjunct Assistant Professor of
Preventive Medicine
Uniformed Services University of the
Health Sciences School of Medicine
Bethesda MD
Roderic G. Eckenhoff MD
Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology
University of Pennsylvania School of
Medicine
Wallingford PA
Thomas R. Singer MD
Assistant Clinical Professor of
Ophthalmology
Stanford University School of Medicine
Palo Alto CA
Miguel A. Faria,
Jr. MD
Editor in Chief, Journal of the Medical
Association of Georgia
Professor of Surgery (Neurosurgery) and
Professor of Medical History,
Mercer University School of Medicine
Macon GA
Joseph W. Goldzieher
MD
Distinguished Professor of Obstetrics
& Gynecology
Texas Tech Health Sciences Center,
School of Medicine
Amarillo TX
Nicholas Johnson JD
Professor of Law
Fordham University School of Law
New York City NY
Glenn Harlan Reynolds JD
Associate Professor of Law
University of Tennessee Law College
Knoxville TN
Claude Zeifman
MD
Assistant Professor of Critical Care
Medicine
Texas Tech University School of Medicine
El Paso TX
Harry H. White MD
Professor of Neurology
University of Missouri School of
Medicine
Columbia MO
Donald E. Waite DO, MPH
Professor Emeritus, Department of Family Medicine
College of Osteopathic Medicine
Michigan State University
Lansing MI
Lawrence E. Widman
MD, PhD
Assistant Professor of Medicine
(Cardiology)
University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center
Oklahoma City OK
Allen Clark MD
Professor, Department of Surgery
Division of Plastic & Reconstructive
Surgery
Medical College of Georgia
Augusta GA
Theodore A. Noel II, MD
Clinical Assistant Professor of
Anesthesiology
University of Florida College of
Medicine
Maitland FL
Jerome C. Arnett, Jr,
MD
Pulmonology
Elkins WV
David Stolinsky
MD
Oncology
Los Angeles CA
Timothy Wheeler MD
President, Doctors for Responsible Gun
Ownership
Member, Technical Advisory Committee on
Violence, California Medical
Association
Otorhinolaryngology
Upland CA
Lenwood Wert
DO
Family Practice
Lansdowne PA
George Raniolo
MD
Family Practice
St. James NY
Henry E. Schaffer PhD
Professor, Department of Genetics
North Carolina State University
Raleigh NC
Edwin H. Cassem
MD
Chief, Department of Psychiatry,
Massachusetts General Hospital and
Associate Professor
Harvard Medical School
Boston MA
Barlow Smith MD
Department of Pathology
Medical College of Virginia
Richmond VA
George R. Brown MD
Director of Psychiatric Research
Mountain Home Veterans Administration
Medical Center/ East Tennessee State
University
Johnson City TN
Michael L. Foreman MD, FACS
Director, Division of Trauma
Baylor University Medical Center
Dallas TX
Michael L. Hawkins MD, FACS
Chief, Trauma/Surgical Critical Care
Medical College of Georgia
Augusta GA
Arthur Astorino
MD
Ophthalmology
Newport Beach CA
Wayne Pickard MD
Anesthesiology
Brandon FL
Julian M. Goldman MD
Director of Anesthesia Research
Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology
University of Colorado School of
Medicine
Denver CO
Theodore L. Fritsche
MD
Alternate Delegate, American Medical
Association
President, MinnesotaAcademy
of Ophthalmology
Associate Clinical Professor of
Ophthalmology, University of Minnesota
Marshall MN
John Cavanaugh MD, MS
Academic Fellow of Anatomic Pathology
Lutheran General Hospital
Park Ridge IL
David G. Mohler
MD
Musculo-skeletal
Tumor Surgery
Clinical Faculty, Department of
Orthopedics
University of California
San Francisco CA
Daniel Orr DDS, PhD, JD
Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery
Professor of Surgery
University of Nevada
Las Vegas, NV
(academic and profesional affiliations of the authors do not necessarily
indicate
official policies of the respective universities or
organizations)