WFSA Current News - October, 2002

October 31, 2002

A rare Australian pro-gun article
            The Australian press, following the recent shooting at Monash University in Melbourne, has by and large taken the predictable line of assuming that increasing the already tight gun laws will bring down murder rates. In some contrast, the Melbourne Age has printed an article of the contrary view by John Whitley, an economics lecturer at the University of Adelaide.
            The piece looks at the celebration of bravery of those who disarmed and subdued Huan Xiang, the alleged gunman in the shooting in which two died and five were wounded. Those involved in the struggle were fortunate in that one of them was trained in the martial arts. It is important, the author says, to note that the principle of self defence by citizens at the site of a crime is generally well accepted. The police are important in deterring crime, but when it is being committed, they are rarely at the scene to assist. Whitley cites the well known Lott and Mustard American study, which points to drops in violent crime in those places where citizens are allowed by law to arm themselves.
            Writing directly about the problem of multiple murders such as the Monash shootings, he goes on to cite more study evidence, this time from John Lott and William Landes: “The only policy found to be associated with a decline in multiple-victim public shootings was allowing the concealed carrying of firearms. States that passed such laws experienced an 84 per cent drop in the number of events and a decline of deaths of 90 per cent and injuries of 82 per cent.”
            Whitley says that the data exist to show that Australian Prime Minister John Howard’s proposals for further gun restrictions will not achieve their stated purpose: “The evidence is not in the Prime Minister's favour. Where studies have been conducted, gun control of the kind he advocates has been found to cost more lives than it saves. Australians should think twice about accepting new gun control laws sold solely on anticipated benefits. These benefits may not be realised and the costs may be large indeed.”

            The article may be found at: http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/10/30/1035683473411.html

October 28, 2002

Gun-plague allegations, and the United States
            The International Herald-Tribune today ran a piece by Rebecca Peters, director of the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA). Headed “A Plague of Small Arms”, the piece makes some remarkable allegations.
            It begins by invoking the Washington sniper story, and with that as a basis suggests that in the same time period, 1,600 people “died from gunfire in the United States generally”, and so also did more than 17,000 people elsewhere around the globe.
            It is common practice for anti-gun activists to place all gun-related deaths together, including suicides and murders, in order to raise the total. It is then customary for them to beg the question and go on to say that if the guns had not been available, then the deaths would not have occurred. This approach ignores many pertinent issues, including method substitution and also the role of guns in self defence.
            The Peters article does this, but on a larger scale than is usual. She invokes the United Nations, adding a quotation evidently from a UN document saying that the availability of guns increases “. . . the lethality and duration of violence, encouraging a violent rather than a peaceful resolution of differences, and generating a vicious circle of a greater sense of insecurity, which in turn leads to a greater demand for and use of these weapons.”
            The plague-of-weapons assertion never takes into account the awkward fact that vast numbers of guns have been held peacefully by people of many nations and cultures, with very low rates of both suicide and murder. It never takes into account the simple fact that when guns are banned by legislation in a country somewhere there is never a subsequent fall in the murder rates, and never a fall in suicide rates.              
            Niceties of this sort are not referred to in the article. It simply says: “Whether in a war, a riot, a political protest, a domestic dispute, a bank robbery or a gang fight, the presence of guns makes it more likely that more people will be killed.” No evidence for this assertion is offered, and a great deal of evidence against it is ignored.       
            Working forward with a view to increasing international pressure on a nation that has not succumbed to anti-gun rhetoric, Peters goes on to speak of the next relevant UN meeting, to be held in the middle of 2003. She frequently takes such opportunities to criticize the USA, and this time is no exception: “One nation that will be closely scrutinized is the United States, which has used its considerable weight to hamper the UN process for fear of alienating its local gun lobby. The world's largest producer of small arms has opposed such reasonable suggestions as prohibiting the sale of military assault weapons to civilians or to rebel or paramilitary groups.”
            It is troubling to the anti-gun advocacy groups that not all nations blindly swallow the dogma that guns are responsible for deaths, or the dogma that when laws are passed against guns there are fewer of them in the wrong hands, and that fewer deaths result. In order to represent this emotionally derived viewpoint, the activists continue to make unsubstantiated statements which they hope will help mobilize public and governmental opinion to their cause.
            Those who are seriously interested in the debate, and have a genuine wish to support whatever approach to firearms is most beneficial, are advised to do their reading, and to test the activists’ hypotheses in the independent, peer-reviewed literature.

October 25, 2002

American fear-mongering after sniper shootings
           Not long after the apprehension of the American sniping-death suspects, the Violence Policy Center held a press conference with a relatively new theme. The flavour of it is given in the title of the story released by Robert B. Bluey, a staff writer for CNSNews.com – “Gun Control Group Warns of ‘Sniper Subculture’ “.
            This anti-gun group has taken the extraordinary line that rifles suitable for sniping are being heavily marketed by firearm manufacturers, and this fact, combined with gun laws said to be “lax”, makes for increased danger to the public through a “sniper subculture”.
            A representative of the group, Tom Diaz, called for restrictions on the sales of some longarms, and also on some places where people are taught to shoot them. He called for restrictions on rifles of certain calibres, such as .223, .308 and .50, which it would appear he somehow perceives to be more suitable for so-called “sniping” than certain others.
            The reality is, of course, that any soldier or other person trained to shoot a rifle, such as a hunter of any one of literally dozens of species of animals taken for food, is trained to the level of rifle shooting that can arbitrarily be called “sniping”. And to take some calibres, such as those he lists, and declare them to be somehow more intrinsically dangerous than others, is an exercise in absurdity.
            It is made all the more noteworthy by the fact that virtually all rifles, regardless of their action types and calibres, have as much accuracy as those Diaz singles out for attention. The 2002 Swiss Small Arms Survey (the figures are available elsewhere on this website at  http://www.wfsa.net/Leg_Docs/Naples_Report_1.pdf ) estimates there are more than 639 million guns in the world, with 59% of these being in private citizens’ hands. Probably 200 million or so would be rifles capable of accurate fire in the hands of any moderately experienced hunter. There are some hundreds of individual bullet designs in numerous calibres, new and old, and the power differences between them in practical applications are often marginal.
            The remarkable thing about the Violence Policy Center’s suggestion is its straight-faced focus upon the instrument rather than on the intent. It is hard to believe it could be offered to the media for serious consideration as a means of increasing public safety.

October 24, 2002

Further gun bans proposed in Australia
           The Prime Minister of Australia, John Howard, today released a statement calling for further very heavy restrictions on handguns.
            This week, a pistol-wielding gunman carried out a multiple shooting at Melbourne’s Monash University, in which two people were killed and five wounded.
            The responsibility for handling gun laws falls to the states, but this did not stop Prime Minister Howard’s Federal Government from overriding them in 1996 when banning semi-automatic longarms that had been legal for nearly a century. The bans took in .22 rimfire rifles used across Australia for rabbit shooting, and repeating shotguns widely used for clay target and game shooting. This present round of bans is set to allow arbitrary divisions to be made about certain kinds of handguns. The Prime Minister said he recognizes “the importance of seeking the advice of responsible sporting shooters”, and so he now seeks to establish what he called “a Sporting Shooters' Advisory Council to advise on handguns required for accredited sporting competition and arrangements for the safe usage and handling of guns”.
            Mr. Howard is on the public record as hating guns.
            The Prime Minister said: “Weapons that are not used in events such as the Olympic and Commonwealth Games and other key events should not be publicly available and their retention cannot be justified." Australia has long had very heavy controls on handguns, including registration. Potential pistol shooters are required to go through stringent procedures, and to pass through probationary periods in club membership before being allowed to buy a handgun of their own.
            Mr. Howard also indicated a so-called “buyback” program would be organized for such handguns as licensed shooters are required to hand in for destruction. He went on to list a variety of legislative changes that build on Australia’s already tight legal requirements.
            It has already been noted that the Australian Crime Commission, to be established in January, has been given responsibility to spend time working on handgun trafficking. The proposed changes go far beyond anything suggested previously. The number and types of firearms people can own is to be limited. Further restrictions may be placed on types and calibres. The numbers of clubs shooters can join may be limited, and minimum attendance and participation requirements are expected to be tightened. Annual written reports on club members may be required by gun registries.
            Further storage requirements and ammunition controls have also been mooted.


October 23, 2002

Canadian gun registration failing
            A Canadian Member of Parliament has publicly regretted having supported the policy of gun registration. Originally said to be going to cost C$85M, the task of attempting to register all legally owned firearms in Canada is said now to have cost over $1,000M. Even the government admits it has cost more than $500M so far.
            MP Roger Gallaway criticized the failing process on the grounds that it has been policy-driven, and is the work of bureaucrats. Under these circumstances, he is reported by the Edmonton Sun to have said, elected parliamentary representatives have little idea of how to stop the process even when it involves bad legislation.
            As keynote speaker for the Financial Management Institute of Canada, in Ottawa, Mr Gallaway on October 22^nd pointed out that the cost so far is 1,250% above estimates. The article did not refer to the low rate of compliance, but this also is an issue. Anti-gun activist Wendy Cukier is quoted as saying, "I don't know what Roger Gallaway thinks public safety is worth, but most of the organizations that are concerned with public safety appear to think that the legislation is a good investment, given the cost of gun violence and death."
            The fact is that there is no independent research anywhere that links gun registration with lower rates of murder or any other violence.
            MP Gallaway called the legislation “a shambles, a joke”, and said that after several years it is an “expensive, dismal failure”. This, of course, is exactly what gun-owners’ groups have long known, and have continued to point out.

October 15, 2002

UN announces increased attention to firearm legislation
            In a media release today, the UN Department for Disarmament Affairs in New York reaffirmed its commitment to implementing the 2001 Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects. The announcement came with the adoption of “a draft white book containing legal norms and instruments on firearms, ammunition and explosives”.
            The announcement also said a Forum has been set up with representatives from Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Spain and Sweden. It will be a platform for officials to use in encouraging their own governments to sign and implement international agreements.
            The draft white book is to be used as a “reference tool to encourage the use of uniform terminologies in national firearms legislation”. The purpose of the annual Forum is said to be to facilitate reform of firearms legislation in each country. 

October 13, 2002

Britain’s murder rate at record levels 
            The Sunday Times has released a report by David Leppard and Rachel Dobson saying that the murder rate in Britain is now the highest since record-keeping commenced about a century ago. It is not just London where murder rates are rising. Other cities and districts are also involved. Steep increases have been noted in the involvement of young people in violence of all sorts, including murder and serious assault.
         With its homicide figures at more than twenty per cent higher than last year’s, Britain is at odds with many other Western countries where murder rates have been steadily falling.
         Quoting a senior policeman, Commander Andy Baker, the article points to “greater availability of guns” coupled with levels of drug crime for the increasing numbers of deaths. He went on to call for an implied mandatory gaol sentence for the possession of firearms, saying, "If people know they are going to get five years, they won't carry them".
         Britain, of course, banned all legal handgun ownership in 1997. It would seem to be quite evident that the bans have not had the desired effect.


October 7, 2002

 Russian guns – criminal use of WWII munitions  
        The Primedia group in the USA ran an excellent article by Vadim Ribakov on the criminal supply of illegal guns to the black market in . Criminals have been systematically searching out the vast numbers of guns left behind after World War Two. Published in Shotgun News, the article confirms the fact that laws may come thick and fast in an effort to restrict them, but the pool of illegal arms to be drawn on by those who are so minded is huge. So much is this so that it makes some attempts at regulation seem absurd, especially when the controls are aimed, as they usually are, at the innocent law-abiding.
        As is also often the case, sources of illicit arms vary. The political breakdown of the USSR meant that facilities storing Soviet arms were no longer as well protected, and thefts were carried out on a large scale. This provided a pool of modern arms, and examples that have found their way into criminal hands as a result have been extremely diverse – Russian, Chinese, Polish and Czech, automatic and semi-automatic, longarms and handguns.
        However, if these plundered stores were not enough, there is an almost limitless supply to be found in the materiel remaining from the hostilities of the 1940s. In the first year alone of Russian-German fighting in the war there were two million casualties. The munitions required in such a huge conflict were obviously extensive. After the war, various Russian community groups, helped by the state, were lawfully involved in finding unburied bodies. As a result of these activities, information about locations, the geography of the war, became quite well distributed.
        Today, technology such as global positioning devices allows well-funded bands of criminals, many highly organized and with international assistance, to defy the substantial gaol sentences they face if caught, and to set about systematically plundering mass graves and other war-time dumping grounds. Battle sites still contain vast numbers of bodies where soldiers died while carrying equipment. Aside from these there are underground army storage areas the size of warehouses with all their contents still intact and sometimes in near new condition.      The most common examples of the illegal trade are the standard-issue arms of both German and Russian soldiers, including bolt-action rifles. Pistols such as Lugers and Mausers in working condition are sold to the criminal element for as little as a hundred American dollars. Crudely made but still serviceable arms are also being produced from whatever parts are left over.
        The Black Pathfinders, as they are known, do not only search for working arms. They also make use of other munitions. Unexploded bombs can be smelted to yield large quantities of explosive for resale.
        Various so-called buyback programs have been instituted, but so massive are the supplies as-yet unaccounted for that experts have estimated there are enough to service the illegal trade for possibly as long as hundreds of years to come.

October 5, 2002

WHO violence report and the health-advocacy line
            The World Health Organization has released an extensive report into violence, under the direction of author Dr. Etienne Krug. Data were drawn from 170 countries, and young people were a point of particular focus. Physical, sexual and psychological abuse, homicide, suicide and war are all covered. Numbers are troubling – WHO estimated 1.6 million people died prematurely through violence in the year 2000.
            The level of world interest in the report cannot be overestimated. The global launch in Brussels is supported by a program of country launches around the world with policy discussions to promote it. In the month of October, these start with Costa Rica , Colombia and Papua New Guinea . November brings the Philippines , Tanzania , India , Peru , Australia , the Bahamas and Brazil . Events run through to March of 2003. The report is available on the WHO website, and the program list can be found at http://www5.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/main.cfm?p=0000000588 .
            Author Krug made the point that it is not the role of the WHO to engage in lobbying for increased legislation against firearms. However, the publishing of the report was the signal for the immediate involvement of anti-gun organizations with their own agendas.
            Statements were made by both the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) and the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW).  IANSA is the leading anti-firearm NGO in the international arena.  IPPNW has also made small arms – a term which usually ends up by equating to the legally held firearms of ordinary citizens – a major issue.
            The IANSA statement pointed out that an important speaker in the Brussels launch was Mick North, an activist for the Gun Control Network UK who lost his daughter in the 1996 shooting murders in Dunblane , Scotland .
            Brian Rawson, speaking for IPPNW, made the statement that “although firearms are not the cause of an act of violence, the availability and use of firearms increases the chance that an act of violence will result in a lethal outcome and with a greater number of victims.” This viewpoint follows the health-advocacy line, which has always attempted to connect raw numbers of lawfully-held civilian firearms with trends in crime. It is a view that has received very considerable criticism in the independent literature and has been shown to be factually incorrect.
            The report’s author may appear to be taking this line also. At least, that is the thrust of a statement attributed to him by Rawson. Dr Krug is quoted as saying in the British Medical Journal: "Public health has a strong advocacy role. People listen to public health professionals when they point out that something is a problem in a way that they may not listen to other sectors."
            Independent scholars would strongly argue that the health-advocacy approach to gun-related crime has been deemed a failure.