Assaulted: Civil Rights Under Fire - Documentary

[DeadPatriot]

Good day,

I'm new to your board so I hope you don't mind me introducing myself to you in this way.

My partner and I are Emmy award winning producers from Northern California. Two years ago we started working on a film about street gangs invading rural California. Due to my repeated contact with gang members, it was recommend that I obtain a CCW permit - which I did. The process led to me learn about the backward gun laws of California compared to the rest of the Union. Through research I discovered that there has never been a positive documentary about the 2nd Amendment and gun ownership in America.

Assaulted: Civil Rights Under Fire will be such a film. Supported by the CalGuns Foundation and Second Amendment Foundation, this PTV/PBS documentary will look at how California is the front line in gun control battle. The film will look at the current assault weapon ban proposals in California and Washington, DC, as well as, CCW permitting across the USA.

Here are a few links to learn more about the film:

http://kck.st/OllEYn (Our Kickstarter funding campaign where you can see the trailer)

http://www.AssaultedFilm.com (The project website)

http://www.examiner.com/article/docu...rms-under-fire (An article from the Examiner)

Thanks for reading.

 

[mnrivrat]

Welcome to THR !

As part of your research and possible use in your film I will urge you to read the following report available on the web with a search.

97th Congress
2d Session COMMITTEE PRINT
THE RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS
REPORT
OF THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CONSTITUTION
OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
UNITED STATES SENATE NINETY-SEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION -
FEBRUARY 1982

 

[DeadPatriot]

Thanks, we will.

 

[Blackstone]

Best of luck with this project, I hope you keep us updated with your progress

 

[bergmen]

I donated to your kickstarter campaign. I get a 404 error when I try to access the Examiner article.

When do you think the film will be ready?

Dan

 

[Sky]

Yes Sir welcome on board. Always good to have someone who researches.

 

[Jorg Nysgerrig]

I get a 404 error when I try to access the Examiner article.

This is likely because they are just cutting and pasting this message on every gun board they can find and didn't realize that some forum software has a nasty habit of truncating the link text of URLs. It's fine on the initial forum, but when you just blindly paste the message, it eats the underlying URL.

What I presume is the intended link is below:
http://www.examiner.com/article/documentary-to-show-civil-right-to-arms-under-fire

 

[VVelox]

Hmm. Interesting.

Although reading through the Kickstarter stuff, I think the one things that is sort of skipped over is the issues with racism post Jim Crow era. This is interestingly what created the handgun ban in Chicago in the 1980s. From my understanding it happened like this... The original Daley wanted to force the poor blacks into public housing all in a few areas and basically ring it all with police and deny them protection. While the public housing stuff took off, he was out of office before he could complete the rest of it, which was completed after his death.

 

[VVelox]

Another thing it skips over is the Rodney King riots and Korean shop owners arming themselves for protection.

This is something that is extremely notable as it is a great example for the government loosing control of an area and individuals needing to protect either themselves or their lively hood.

 

[DeadPatriot]

Here is a little more on the film. This is an interview I had today on GOA RADIO (the interview can be found on the last 1/3 of the program) http://www.stickam.com/viewMedia.do?mId=193658879 Hope the link works this time.

 

[Cesiumsponge]

Statistically I believe DOJ studies showed 1-2% of recovered firearms from criminal activities were "assault weapons" under the broad term defined by the AWB, and such specific, expensive, and questionable legislation to go after just that minute 1-2% of weapons that constituted the overall haul of what they were recovering made absolutely no statistical difference. It showed it wasn't about saving lives at all. This is the most insulting part of all.

Lets try devil's advocate and replace "assault weapon" with something else: "American's don't NEED luxury and exotic vehicles. They serve no practical purpose as transportation. Therefore I will ban all luxury and exotic vehicles over $100,000 to reduce DUIs because these vehicles can weigh as much as an SUV, while others have over 500hp and can approach or exceed 200mph"

Will this noticeably reduce the DUI count if I ban the absolute smallest minority of vehicle type on the road, arbitrarily? No. If I truly wanted to reduce DUIs, would I attack this problem in a different manner? Yes. Is there a poignant arrogance in trying to telling people what they need rather than letting them purchase what they want? Yes.

It would also be worth mentioning, when on the topic of CCW, how many NICS checks resulted in a denial. The FBI has statistics on total NICS from November 30, 1998 to Aug 31 2012. The total number of checks made were 151,524,077. The total number of NICS denials was 951,418.

That works out to one denial per 159 applicants. No one ever makes the news for being denied a firearm because they were a criminal and failed the test. The news never really mentions that close to a million potential crazies and criminals have been denied. It's quite possible those people have gone on to acquire firearms in an illegal manner and committed crimes. I would actually be VERY interested in statistics along those lines.


Total NICS checks: http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ni..._2012_state_program_to_date_purpose_ids-1.pdf
Denials, and breakdown of reasons: http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/nics/reports/09042012_denials.pdf
More NICS info http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/nics

 

[DeadPatriot]

^^^^

Will definitely show this verified data in the film! Thanks

 

[Tim the student]

This sounds pretty interesting. I'm looking forward to seeing it.

this PTV/PBS documentary

What makes this a "PTV/PBS documentary"?

 

[303tom]

Welcome aboard, keep up the good fight.............

 

[newbuckeye]

Sounds like a great project!

 

[DeadPatriot]

SOPTV is our PBS presenting station. Once the film is made, they get PBS and or the affiliates to air the film.

 

[Cesiumsponge]

I'm not sure how nuts and bolts you plan to get, but the Center For Disease Control keeps track of fatalities from firearms and further distinguishes them by age, gender, and splits them into accidents and homicides. When you subtract suicides, the number gets noticably smaller. Although the stats don't distinguish, "homicide" includes justifiable homicide, which is the term for justifiable use of lethal force for self-defense. Unfortunately good shoots and criminal activity is lumped together. Regardless, there are an estimated 250+ million guns in the US and the per capita fatality rate from gun homicides isn't even in the top 10 list. Violent crimes, by contrast, is much lower than countries like the UK with strict gun control. Of course, correlation does not equal causation but its an interesting comparison.

It might also be worth noting the 1934 National Firearms Act that regulated machine guns, short barreled rifles and shotguns ,sound suppressors, and other similar items as a way to "fight gangsters". It was a de facto ban, considering it was passed as a "revenue-generating" scheme for the treasury department. It imposed a $200 tax stamp per item to be registered. This was at a time when you could pick up a suppressor out of a Sears & Roebuck catalog for a couple dollars. Calculating for average wages, the cost of goods, and reversing inflation 78 years, it made it utterly unaffordable except for the wealthy.


I'm on a phone right now but I'll dig up some links to unbiased stats when I'm on a proper computer. What are you planning on doing up in the Seattle area?

 

[Owen Sparks]

This is a straight quote from the Democratic Party platform of 2012:

Right to own firearms is subject to reasonable regulation
We recognize that the individual right to bear arms is an important part of the American tradition, and we will preserve Americans' Second Amendment right to own and use firearms. We believe that the right to own firearms is subject to reasonable regulation. We understand the terrible consequences of gun violence; it serves as a reminder that life is fragile, and our time here is limited and precious. We believe in an honest, open national conversation about firearms. We can focus on effective enforcement of existing laws, especially strengthening our background check system, and we can work together to enact commonsense improvements--like reinstating the assault weapons ban and closing the gun show loophole--so that guns do not fall into the hands of those irresponsible, law-breaking few.

Look at that last line again:

--so that guns do not fall into the hands of those irresponsible, law-breaking few.

The name for this philosophy on governance is called COLLECTIVISM.
It subjugates everyone to the level of the least common denominator. In other words, it treats everyone in society as no better than the weakest links, the criminals and the mentally unstable. Using this logic the way to keep guns out of the wrong hands is to keep them out of ALL hands starting with yours.

 

[DeadPatriot]

Let hope we can educate a few to avoid that philosophy.

 

[Cesiumsponge]

Here is the CDC's mortality data for 2009: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr60/nvsr60_03.pdf

I'm not the greatest at processing data, but I lifted a few tidbits:
There were 2,437,163 registered deaths in 2009.
The age-adjusted death rate, which takes the aging of the population into account, was 741.1 deaths per 100,000 U.S. standard population.

The 15 leading causes of deaths in the USA, accounting for 80.7% of all deaths (pg 13). I superimposed it with the total deaths offered here (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/dvs/LCWK9_2009.pdf):

1. Diseases of heart (heart disease) 599,413
2. Malignant neoplasms (cancer) 567,628
3. Chronic lower respiratory diseases 137,353
4. Cerebrovascular diseases (stroke) 128,842
5. Accidents (unintentional injuries) 118,021
6. Alzheimer’s disease 79,003
7. Diabetes mellitus (diabetes) 68,705
8. Influenza and pneumonia 53,692
9. Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis (kidney disease) 48,935
10. Intentional self-harm (suicide) 36,909
11. Septicemia 35,639
12. Chronic liver disease and cirrhosis 30,558
13. Essential hypertension and hypertensive renal disease (hypertension) 25,734
14. Parkinson’s disease 20,565
15. Assault (homicide) 16,799 (Assault by discharge of firearm by itself is 11,493)​

As defined on page 37, firearm deaths:
Causes of death attributable to firearm mortality include ICD–10 codes *U01.4, Terrorism involving firearms (homicide); W32–W34, Accidental discharge of firearms; X72–X74, Intentional self-harm (suicide) by discharge of firearms; X93–X95, Assault (homicide) by discharge of firearms; Y22–Y24, Discharge of firearms, undetermined intent; and Y35.0, Legal intervention involving firearm discharge. Deaths from injury by firearms exclude deaths due to explosives and other causes indirectly related to firearms.

Page 92 breaks down a table a little further
Assault (homicide) by discharge of firearms (*U01.4,X93-X95) , 11,493 deaths
Legal intervention (Y35,Y89.0) 395 deaths. [This figure requires more investigation. It seems incredibly low that law enforcement PLUS a civilian population only resulted in 395 legal deaths for an entire year....also how is it a legal intervention resulting in justifiable death when there is one individual listed under the age of 1? Maybe "legal intervention" means something other than what I assume it means]

Page 91 lists:
Accidental discharge of firearms (W32-W34) at 554 deaths.
Intentional self-harm (suicide) by discharge of firearms (X72-X74) 18,735 deaths
Assault (homicide) by discharge of firearms (*U01.4,X93-X95) 11,493 deaths. I assume this includes our soldiers as well.

For some of the per-capita figures, per 100,000 people
Page 114:
Accidental discharge of firearms (W32-W34) 0.2
Intentional self-harm (suicide) by discharge of firearms (X72-X74) 6.1 (all suicide types total 12.0 per capita)
Assault (homicide) by discharge of firearms (*U01.4,X93-X95) 3.7
Legal intervention (Y35,Y89.0) 0.1

Death by criminal homicide is 3.7 per 100,000 people. That places it quite low on the list of all the other things that can kill you. If we want to include accidental firearm deaths, we'd be up to 3.9. These are unintentional deaths (ie not suicides, which are intentional). Transport accidents (V01-V99,Y85) is 11.8, making the act of driving, being a passenger, or simply being on the road 300% more fatal than the potential of dying unintentionally (ie not self-inflicted) by a firearm. Accidents (unintentional injuries) (V01-X59,Y85-Y86) in totality claim 38.4 lives per 100,000 peple. If we look at cancer, 184.9. Heart disease? 195.2. All causes of medical ailments, many preventable total 427.4.

This is in a country where the FBI did over 151.5 million NICS checks from 1998 to 2012. You don't do a NICS check unless you're buying a gun. I've never done multiple gun purchases so I don't know if one NICS check can satisfy multiple purchases in the same visit. If that's the case, there might be substantially more guns sold than 151.5 million in just 14 years alone. I can't seem to find reliable estimates, but I've seen figures in the 250-300 million range as the totality of firearms that exist in the USA. At this point, since there is no registration, it's impossible to get an estimate or honest idea of how many guns there are, or how many people will admit in surveys to owning them. For a country "littered with guns", statistically we're doing pretty well. I couldn't find much on comparison to other countries because every country keeps records differently. The infamous Wikipedia had this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate but if you sorted by ascending or descending order, the numbers are quite different than the raw CDC figures and the US places quite low, grouped within other first world countries.

 

[Owen Sparks]

Gun control is NOT about crime but about keeping you from being able to resist the government. If it were about crime the focus would be on handguns which are used in about half of all homicides, not 'assault rifles' as rifles are used in only about 3% of all murders, that is roughly the same percentage as bare hands.

 

[zorro45]

Documentary

I for one would very much like to watch a balanced presentation of these important issues on PBS, favorable towards 2A would be too much to hope for!

 

[fanchisimo]

Welcome DeadPatriot, and you might have to do a 2-dvd set/mini-series if you want to use the volumes of information the forum offers. Best of luck to you and you have my support.

 

[fanchisimo]

DeadPatriot, I forgot to ask but have you tried any other forums besides this The High Road?

 

[MistWolf]

I'm glad you're doing this project. However, the assault on our rights is not an assault on our civil rights. It is an assault on the rights given to us by our creator, whoever and whatever anyone believes that creator to be. Civil rights are granted by the .gov and as such, can be taken away by the .gov. The rights as listed in the Bill of Rights are not granted to us by the .gov. They are rights the .gov has no right to take away