FRIZ
June 25, 2004, 12:30 AM
National Review
June 23, 2004
Docs Gun for a Ban
By Timothy Wheeler
Medical journals trade science for antigun propaganda.
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/wheeler200406230910.asp
The gun-control movement's stock has tanked. Violent crime overall has
continued to drop, leaving partisans to fret over the much smaller problem
of accidental gun injuries. Most of the holdout states have now passed laws
allowing citizens to carry personal-protection firearms — and civilization
as we know it has not ended. The 1994 Clinton ban on semi-automatic rifles
is set to expire in September, and even some of its biggest supporters now
agree that the law failed to cut crime.
Still, gun-control foot soldiers in organized medicine churn out articles
for relatively obscure scientific journals. Their message is increasingly
devoid of any useful findings; it is mostly an attempt to paint gun owners
as sociopaths or Neanderthals.
One such article is "The Life Cycle of Crime Guns: A Description Based on
Guns Recovered From Young People in California," in the June 2004 issue of
the Annals of Emergency Medicine. The authors grasp for relevance by
comparing crime guns to bioterrorist weapons like anthrax. For years medical
researchers have tried to push the notion that guns are germs to be
eradicated. This model is cute for propaganda purposes — kill the germs, ban
the guns: eliminate health risks. But reputable scientists always dismissed
this view as a political tactic with no scientific basis. The message of
this article was its title, apparently intended to associate the words
"crime guns" with "young people" in the minds of readers.
Another slam at kids and guns appeared in the April 2004 issue of Archives
of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine. "Gun Threats Against and Self-Defense
Gun Use by California Adolescents" studied gun use among a group of
Californians aged 12 to 17. Only 4 percent of them reported ever having been
threatened with a gun. The earthshaking scientific contribution this article
makes is that these 4 percent were boys who tended to threaten others and
whose parents didn't know where they were after school. Did we need a
yearlong Harvard study to tell us that? And what about the 96 percent who
never had been threatened with a gun? Can we learn anything from good kids
who stay out of trouble? The authors apparently think not.
The title of a February 2004 article from the same journal amazingly asks if
gun possession and teenage conduct disorder (P.C.-speak for juvenile
delinquency) are a "highly combustible combination." It's a safe bet that
law-enforcement agencies haven't rushed to put this article on their
required reading lists.
The real purpose of these articles is not to inform, but to hammer away at a
constant theme: Guns and kids don't mix; the only kids who get involved with
guns are delinquents; there is no place in the home for guns if you have
children. And, apparently, there is no way young people can grow toward
responsible adulthood by learning gun safety and competing in shooting
sports.
Most readers of these journal articles — doctors and other health
professionals — would never know that countless state and local shooting
clubs hold marksmanship competitions for young people ages 10 to 20. Unless
they had a son or daughter in a club like New Jersey's Delran Junior
Marksman Club, they would think that every time a teen picks up a gun,
something bad happens. But there are five junior gun clubs in New Jersey
alone, a state not especially friendly to gun owners.
Cloistered readers of the medical literature would never know about K.C.
Eusebio, from Diamond Bar, California. Last year, at the tender age of 15,
K.C. beat all the top-ranked men to win the Steel Challenge World Speed
Shooting Championship.
K.C. and all the other good young people you'll never read about in the
Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine differ from the medical
journals' callow thugs in one crucial respect: They learn about guns under
the watchful guidance of adults, usually their fathers. A 1994 research
study from the U.S. Department of Justice confirmed that boys whose fathers
taught them about guns are vastly different from delinquents who learn about
guns on the street. The boys properly schooled in firearms by their fathers
even had a lower rate of delinquency than the average for people who do not
own guns.
Will the antigun medical researchers ever admit this? Not any time soon.
This spring a California legislator carried a bill calling for teaching gun
safety in the public schools. A sensible idea, considering that about half
of all homes have at least one firearm. But gun-control activists shot the
bill down.
The bill's main opponent was the American Academy of Pediatrics, whose
official position is that the only safe gun is no gun at all. Think about
that the next time your doctor starts talking to you about "gun safety."
June 23, 2004
Docs Gun for a Ban
By Timothy Wheeler
Medical journals trade science for antigun propaganda.
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/wheeler200406230910.asp
The gun-control movement's stock has tanked. Violent crime overall has
continued to drop, leaving partisans to fret over the much smaller problem
of accidental gun injuries. Most of the holdout states have now passed laws
allowing citizens to carry personal-protection firearms — and civilization
as we know it has not ended. The 1994 Clinton ban on semi-automatic rifles
is set to expire in September, and even some of its biggest supporters now
agree that the law failed to cut crime.
Still, gun-control foot soldiers in organized medicine churn out articles
for relatively obscure scientific journals. Their message is increasingly
devoid of any useful findings; it is mostly an attempt to paint gun owners
as sociopaths or Neanderthals.
One such article is "The Life Cycle of Crime Guns: A Description Based on
Guns Recovered From Young People in California," in the June 2004 issue of
the Annals of Emergency Medicine. The authors grasp for relevance by
comparing crime guns to bioterrorist weapons like anthrax. For years medical
researchers have tried to push the notion that guns are germs to be
eradicated. This model is cute for propaganda purposes — kill the germs, ban
the guns: eliminate health risks. But reputable scientists always dismissed
this view as a political tactic with no scientific basis. The message of
this article was its title, apparently intended to associate the words
"crime guns" with "young people" in the minds of readers.
Another slam at kids and guns appeared in the April 2004 issue of Archives
of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine. "Gun Threats Against and Self-Defense
Gun Use by California Adolescents" studied gun use among a group of
Californians aged 12 to 17. Only 4 percent of them reported ever having been
threatened with a gun. The earthshaking scientific contribution this article
makes is that these 4 percent were boys who tended to threaten others and
whose parents didn't know where they were after school. Did we need a
yearlong Harvard study to tell us that? And what about the 96 percent who
never had been threatened with a gun? Can we learn anything from good kids
who stay out of trouble? The authors apparently think not.
The title of a February 2004 article from the same journal amazingly asks if
gun possession and teenage conduct disorder (P.C.-speak for juvenile
delinquency) are a "highly combustible combination." It's a safe bet that
law-enforcement agencies haven't rushed to put this article on their
required reading lists.
The real purpose of these articles is not to inform, but to hammer away at a
constant theme: Guns and kids don't mix; the only kids who get involved with
guns are delinquents; there is no place in the home for guns if you have
children. And, apparently, there is no way young people can grow toward
responsible adulthood by learning gun safety and competing in shooting
sports.
Most readers of these journal articles — doctors and other health
professionals — would never know that countless state and local shooting
clubs hold marksmanship competitions for young people ages 10 to 20. Unless
they had a son or daughter in a club like New Jersey's Delran Junior
Marksman Club, they would think that every time a teen picks up a gun,
something bad happens. But there are five junior gun clubs in New Jersey
alone, a state not especially friendly to gun owners.
Cloistered readers of the medical literature would never know about K.C.
Eusebio, from Diamond Bar, California. Last year, at the tender age of 15,
K.C. beat all the top-ranked men to win the Steel Challenge World Speed
Shooting Championship.
K.C. and all the other good young people you'll never read about in the
Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine differ from the medical
journals' callow thugs in one crucial respect: They learn about guns under
the watchful guidance of adults, usually their fathers. A 1994 research
study from the U.S. Department of Justice confirmed that boys whose fathers
taught them about guns are vastly different from delinquents who learn about
guns on the street. The boys properly schooled in firearms by their fathers
even had a lower rate of delinquency than the average for people who do not
own guns.
Will the antigun medical researchers ever admit this? Not any time soon.
This spring a California legislator carried a bill calling for teaching gun
safety in the public schools. A sensible idea, considering that about half
of all homes have at least one firearm. But gun-control activists shot the
bill down.
The bill's main opponent was the American Academy of Pediatrics, whose
official position is that the only safe gun is no gun at all. Think about
that the next time your doctor starts talking to you about "gun safety."