Knimrod
10-21-2005, 09:57 PM
ANOTHER POINT OF VIEW: State needs gun education, not looser laws
October 21, 2005
BY MARK McVAY
While the U.S. Congress gets ready to pass legislation that would take away the legal rights of gun violence victims and give sweeping legal immunity to the gun industry -- and with September's expiration of the largely ineffective 1994 federal ban on assault weapons -- Michigan is gearing up to help put those now unregulated and lawsuit-protected firearms to work.
House Bill 5143, sponsored by Rick Jones, R-Grand Ledge, would allow citizens of Michigan to use deadly force against persons who are breaking into their homes or had reason to believe that an unlawful or forcible entry or unlawful and forcible act was occurring or had occurred.
It's the "reason to believe" aspect of this bill that should raise some red flags for Michigan residents.
Back in 1989, when I had just moved into a small brick bungalow on Detroit's east side, I wrote about an incident involving a young man who had climbed on the carport attached to my home. I was certain he was breaking in through an upstairs window and lamented the fact that I did not own a gun.
In the context of this proposed legislation, I could have shot him, and he would have been dead now for some 16 years. In reality, the young man simply used my carport as a means to reach his girlfriend whose room in the house next door happened to overlook it. A modern day Romeo and Juliet.
As a schoolteacher in Detroit, and as a combat veteran in Vietnam, I have seen firsthand frightened people who shoot first and ask questions later.
In Vietnam, as in all wars, friendly fire was a leading cause of death among U.S. soldiers and it was, more often than not, the result of inexperienced men, armed with deadly weapons, who shot at anything that they perceived as a threat -- even if it was one of their own men.
A study by the New England Journal of Medicine found that having a gun in the home made it nearly three times more likely that someone in the family would be killed. This risk is particularly high for women, who are more likely to be killed by a spouse, intimate acquaintance or close relative.
An Archives of Internal Medicine study found that with one or more guns in the home the risk of suicide among women increased nearly five times and the risk of homicide increased more than three times.
The myth of self-defense perpetuated by the gun industry and groups such as the National Rifle Association are just that -- myths.
We don't need any more scared people with guns running around with a license to shoot first and ask questions later. We all know that fear is a strong tool of propagandists everywhere.
Michigan would do better simply by educating its citizens about the realities and the very real dangers of gun ownership.
Link to article (http://www.freep.com/voices/columnists/epoint21e_20051021.htm)
October 21, 2005
BY MARK McVAY
While the U.S. Congress gets ready to pass legislation that would take away the legal rights of gun violence victims and give sweeping legal immunity to the gun industry -- and with September's expiration of the largely ineffective 1994 federal ban on assault weapons -- Michigan is gearing up to help put those now unregulated and lawsuit-protected firearms to work.
House Bill 5143, sponsored by Rick Jones, R-Grand Ledge, would allow citizens of Michigan to use deadly force against persons who are breaking into their homes or had reason to believe that an unlawful or forcible entry or unlawful and forcible act was occurring or had occurred.
It's the "reason to believe" aspect of this bill that should raise some red flags for Michigan residents.
Back in 1989, when I had just moved into a small brick bungalow on Detroit's east side, I wrote about an incident involving a young man who had climbed on the carport attached to my home. I was certain he was breaking in through an upstairs window and lamented the fact that I did not own a gun.
In the context of this proposed legislation, I could have shot him, and he would have been dead now for some 16 years. In reality, the young man simply used my carport as a means to reach his girlfriend whose room in the house next door happened to overlook it. A modern day Romeo and Juliet.
As a schoolteacher in Detroit, and as a combat veteran in Vietnam, I have seen firsthand frightened people who shoot first and ask questions later.
In Vietnam, as in all wars, friendly fire was a leading cause of death among U.S. soldiers and it was, more often than not, the result of inexperienced men, armed with deadly weapons, who shot at anything that they perceived as a threat -- even if it was one of their own men.
A study by the New England Journal of Medicine found that having a gun in the home made it nearly three times more likely that someone in the family would be killed. This risk is particularly high for women, who are more likely to be killed by a spouse, intimate acquaintance or close relative.
An Archives of Internal Medicine study found that with one or more guns in the home the risk of suicide among women increased nearly five times and the risk of homicide increased more than three times.
The myth of self-defense perpetuated by the gun industry and groups such as the National Rifle Association are just that -- myths.
We don't need any more scared people with guns running around with a license to shoot first and ask questions later. We all know that fear is a strong tool of propagandists everywhere.
Michigan would do better simply by educating its citizens about the realities and the very real dangers of gun ownership.
Link to article (http://www.freep.com/voices/columnists/epoint21e_20051021.htm)