Posted on 03/28/2013 8:52:48 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
Former National Rifle Association president Sandra Froman told a group of UND law students Thursday that the rate of gun violence rises with a population’s diversity.
“That fact is true throughout the rest of the country,” she said. “Countries that have homogeneous populations tend to have lower crime rates with guns.”
Froman, who now sits on NRA’s board of directors, was taking part in an afternoon debate at UND’s School of Law with philosophy professor and “Why?” radio host Jack Russell Weinstein, who didn’t let the comment slide.
The reasons behind crime are complex, he said. Students who live in rural North Dakota might not engage in violence because they’re well-known in their own communities, and not for a lack of diversity, which is becoming more widespread here and in the United States, he said.
“So, if gun laws work best in a homogenous population, then the people who say that don’t belong in the conversation because they’re talking about a country that doesn’t exist,” he said.
The spirited exchange represented much of the two-hour debate over gun control, one of several different debates scheduled at the university this year.
Much of the debate provided students with a history lesson on the Second Amendment, gun control laws in the United States, and two landmark Supreme Court cases. In District of Columbia v. Heller, the court ruled that an individual has a right to possess a firearm for lawful uses in federal enclaves. In McDonald v. Chicago, the court extended that right to all states.
Better gun laws
Weinstein, who debated in favor of gun laws, contended he does not want to get rid of all guns, but that gun control laws should be in place “to protect people from the worst of ourselves,” he said. For every one time a gun is used in self defense in the home, there are seven assaults and murders, 11 suicide attempts and four accidents involving guns in or around the home, he said.
“More Americans have been killed by guns in the U.S. since 1968 than all the battles since 1775,” he said. “That’s just in my lifetime.”
Although he did not want to take on the NRA, the organization’s approach to the Second Amendment is “a fiction wrapped in a marketing campaign colored with paranoia,” he said.
“We have to re-think what we’re doing, we have to re-think the laws,” he said. “Laws don’t stop criminals, but laws give people the tools to prevent (violence), to prosecute and to learn.”
Self-defense
Froman said gun laws cause an uptick in violence by disarming law-abiding citizens and leaving them vulnerable to criminals. When Chicago imposed a handgun ban in 1982, one of two U.S. cities to impose one, murders by handguns more than doubled within a decade. In 2011, the city had the sixth-highest murder rate, she said.
“If having a lot of guns made places more dangerous in terms of gun violence, then the state with a lot of guns — Arizona among them — would be a lot more dangerous, but it is not,” she said. “What happens is when we ban guns, law-abiding people obey the law and criminals don’t.”
Froman, a self-proclaimed proud gun owner, also used her own experience with a night-time break-in at her former Los Angeles home to underscore why people need to defend themselves.
She argued citizens should be able to carry higher-capacity magazines rather than handguns. The military uses firearms to protect itself against anticipated violence, but average citizens are not prepared and are entitled to have the same protection — if you knew you were going into a fight, you’d take a rifle, not a handgun, she said.
“Even despite all the training I’ve had, I think my adrenaline would be pumping pretty hard, I’d be pretty scared and if I had to defend myself, I’d want more than seven rounds to do that,” she said. New York recently banned gun magazines holding more than seven rounds.
Studying issue
The NRA, of which she became the second female president, is not against gun laws, either, and supports personal safety, she added. Eighty-five percent of its resources are pooled into firearm training and safety, facts that she said get lost in mainstream news that “demonize” an organization, she said.
Weinstein countered by saying a shooter with a high capacity magazine could easily kill students before they even thought of taking out a concealed handgun.
“It’s very easy to make people afraid,” he said. “What’s hard is to look at the background, at the complications, the history of all of this stuff.”
Both stressed students should educate themselves on the issue.
Froman said they should read as much information as possible and might even surprise themselves by changing their belief.
“Regardless, all of you will be lawyers and judges, and your input is important for jurisprudence,” she said.
North Dakota’s population is indeed becoming more diverse - the crime sheets have the pictures to prove it.
***Weinstein, who debated in favor of gun laws, contended he does not want to get rid of all guns,****
Nelson T. ‘Pete’ Shields
Founder of Handgun Control, Inc.
“I’m convinced that we have to have federal legislation to build on. We’re going to have to take one step at a time, and the first step is necessarily — given the political realities — going to be very modest.
Of course, it’s true that politicians will then go home and say, ‘This is a great law. The problem is solved.’ And it’s also true that such statements will tend to defuse the gun-control issue for a time.
So then we’ll have to strengthen that law, and then again to strengthen that law, and maybe again and again. Right now, though, we’d be satisfied not with half a loaf but with a slice. Our ultimate goal — total control of handguns in the United States — is going to take time.
My estimate is from seven to ten years. The problem is to slow down the increasing number of handguns sold in this country. The second problem is to get them all registered. And the final problem is to make the possession of all handguns and all handgun ammunition — except for the military, policemen, licensed security guards, licensed sporting clubs, and licensed gun collectors — totally illegal.”
-Pete Shields, Chairman and founder, Handgun Control Inc., “A Reporter At Large: Handguns,” The New Yorker, July 26, 1976, 57-58
“Yes, I’m for an outright ban [on handguns].”
-Pete Shields, Chairman emeritus, Handgun Control, Inc., 60 Minutes interview
HCI, around 1984, came out in favor of a ban on semi-auto rifles and shotguns. So much for their “handguns only” ban.
I suppose he could get more dishonest but then even the low info folks would laugh.
Total Bald Faced LIE!
I don't even have to look at the numbers. The Civil War deaths alone were huge.
That’s almost as big as the whoppers that Obama tells.
The death toll in the Civil War is estimated at 750,000 men.
Show me the numbers.
The source of this data was Mark Shields on PBS.
Remember those people who called themselves Public Radio International.
That is unbiased?
Forget it.
The left will just make up numbers and their own set of facts to push their agenda, just like Obama said today that “up to 40% of gun sales are done without a background check.)
Utter BS, yet will anyone in the PMS call him out on that whopper?
Where is “Fact Check” and their “Pants on Fire” rating?
AWOL, just like our empty suit POTUS
agreed, almost.
Ahhh, found it.
They used deaths of soldiers in the wars, not including civilian deaths.
Compared that to people shot in the US, not necessarily killed.
Figures do not lie, but liars figure.
Yes, that is the method.
In the United States, annual deaths resulting from firearms total
2011: 32,1635
2010: 31,6726
2009: 31,347
2008: 31,593
2007: 31,224
2006: 30,896
2005: 30,694
2004: 29,569
2003: 30,136
2002: 30,242
2001: 29,573
2000: 28,663
1999: 28,874
Of course, this is only the last 13 years, but if you add in the other 30 or so, the number may actually be correct. Not that it matters much to the debate.
What is the source of your data?
What is included?
Accidental death with firearm, injury with firearm but no death, suicides with firearms?
My point the devil is in the details.
And when we look at the wars, I think they were using soldier deaths only. Not including civilian deaths. And of the Soldier deaths, how many of them were by firearms and how many of them were by non related causes?
You see, Figures never lie, but Liars always figure.
"In its first 100 years of existence, over 683,000 Americans lost their lives, with the Civil War accounting for 623,026 of that total (91.2%). Comparatively, in the next 100 years, a further 626,000 Americans died through two World Wars and several more regional conflicts (World War 2 representing 65% of that total)."
My point being only that the numbers might actually pencil out. I'll leave it to you and others to spend another 60 seconds to show that it is as outright impossible as you and they have claimed.
I, like you did not spend much time analyzing.
But I want to remind you about the Global Warming Number and it’s source. A LIE, that has been exposed.
I trust nothing presented from this administration, the OMB or any other agency under the control of the Executive. They are run by Liars.
And Obozo by his actions has shown that he serves the father-of-lies.
None of these experts can validate their numbers.
I learned many years ago that data from a computer is dependent on the assumptions made in programing. And if you expect two reports based on the same database to give you the same answer, you have simply not been around programmers or accountants. The number do not tie.
And on that, we are agreed!
The figures represent all deaths that are “firearm related.” The largest two portions of these deaths are suicides and homicides. The number of accidental deaths involving a gun are a very small, comparable to other forms of accidental deaths such as “lawn-mower related” accidental deaths. The slogan “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people,” is not 100 percent true (as slogans are hardly ever 100 percent true). But, it is close to that. Accordingly, the “answer” to what is called gun violence is to be found in suicide prevention and in crime prevention.
Turning to the “controversial” remark that heterogeneity is a cause of crime, yes, it is. The “all-in” figure for heterogeneity I myself use and many others have used in investigating causes of crime is income inequality. The U.S. has a higher crime rate than the advanced democracies of Europe largely because of our income inequality. We could talk about how our income inequality relates to factors such as the continuing effects of racism versus the effects of our welfare system in trapping people into lives of dependency. There’s plenty of room for liberals and conservatives to argue about this.
But, to think that “the answer” to the problems of suicide and crime is gun control is essentially to concede that our experiment with a free society is over, and that we are now trying to make it safe to live in a progressive socialist society.
In a free society, we rely primarily on the incentives of good behavior (e.g., earning more, accumulating wealth, living healthier and longer, having a large and happy family, having more and better friends, developing a good reputation in the community, etc.). But, in a progressive socialist society, people are insulated from the consequences of their behavior. Income is redistributed from the productive to the unproductive. Health care becomes a right. Anti-social people are supposed to be accepted because they were born that way.
Accordingly, the difference between “good behavior” and “bad” becomes arbitrary to the individual, and bad behavior multiplies. But, bad behavior is not arbitrary. “We are not punished for our sins; rather, we are punished by our sins.” Society is therefore forced to control bad behavior by indoctrination through government schooling and the control of the media; and, by the regulation of behavior.
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