WHAT ARE SENSIBLE GUN LAWS?
A Position Statement by Doctors for Sensible Gun Laws
In order to be considered sensible, an existing or proposed gun law must meet the following conditions:
A sensible gun law must save more lives than it costs.
Research shows that guns are used much more often to prevent crimes than they are used to aid crimes. Therefore laws that hinder the ordinary citizen's right to self defense with a firearm tend to cause a net increase in crime.
A sensible law must make the best use of scarce public resources.
For example, the money spent enforcing the law might save more lives if it were invested in other areas, such as medical research, drug treatment programs or voluntary firearms safety training.
A proposed gun law must be backed up by good quality, peer reviewed research showing that it meets the above criteria.
Junk medical science has no place in public policy debates.
A sensible law is one that does not weaken our society by inflaming anti-government sentiment.
Many gun laws raise concern about increasing government control of people's lives and unreasonably limit their constitutionally guaranteed right to keep and bear arms. This breeds disrespect for the law and for our government.
A proposed law should be reviewed by a legislative committee equally represented by both sides of the issue to determine the unintended consequences of that law before it is presented for a final vote.
A sensible law must be Constitutional.
Lest anyone say that Doctors for Sensible Gun Laws are a group of extremists who do not support any gun laws, we offer some examples of gun laws that we consider sensible:
It makes sense to prohibit carrying a gun when visiting a prison inmate or entering a high security military base.
It is sensible to prohibit visitors from carrying guns into government facilities that are likely targets of terrorists, such as the White House.
Although such measures are usually misguided, we believe that people and businesses have the right to prohibit weapons on their private property and ask violators to leave.
We support laws appropriating public funds for voluntary civilian firearms training.
