From: owner-roc-digest@lists.xmission.com (roc-digest) To: roc-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: roc-digest V2 #257 Reply-To: roc-digest Sender: owner-roc-digest@lists.xmission.com Errors-To: owner-roc-digest@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk roc-digest Tuesday, July 13 1999 Volume 02 : Number 257 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 12 Jul 99 20:08:00 PST From: roc@xpresso.seaslug.org (Bill Vance) Subject: Fw: Republics and Democracies (3/6) (fwd) On Jul 12, Kevin McGehee wrote: [-------------------- text of forwarded message follows --------------------] and when they guaranteed to every state within that "republic" a "republican form" of government, they well knew the significance of the terms they were using. And were doing all in their power to make the feature of government signified by those terms as permanent as possible. They also knew very well indeed the meaning of the word "democracy", and the history of democracies; and they were deliberately doing everything in their power to avoid for their own times, and to prevent for the future, the evils of a democracy. The Founders Knew the Difference Let's look at some of the things they said to support and clarify this purpose. On May 31, 1787, Edmund Randolph told his fellow members of the newly-assembled Constitutional Convention that the object for which the delegates had met was "to provide a cure for the evils under which the United States labored; that in tracing these evils to their origin every man had found it in the turbulence and trials of democracy ..." The delegates to the Convention were clearly in accord with this statement. At about the same time another delegate, Elbridge Gerry, said: "The evils we experience flow from the excess of democracy. The people do not want (that is, do not lack) virtue; but are the dupes of pretended patriots." And on June 21,1788, Alexander Hamilton made a speech in which he stated: It had been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity. Another time Hamilton said: "We are a Republican Government. Real liberty is never found in despotism or in the extremes of Democracy." Samuel Adams warned: "Remember, Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself! There never was a democracy that 'did not commit suicide.'" James Madison, one of the members of the Convention who was charged with drawing up our Constitution, wrote as follows: ... democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. Madison and Hamilton and Jay and their compatriots of the Convention prepared and adopted a Constitution in which they nowhere even mentioned the word "democracy", not because they were not familiar with such a form of government, but because they were. The word "democracy" had not occurred in the Declaration of Independence, and does not appear in the constitution of a single one of our fifty states - which constitutions are derived mainly from the thinking of the Founding Fathers of the Republic - for the same reason. They knew all about democracies, and if they had wanted one for themselves and their posterity, they would have founded one. Look at all the elaborate system of checks and balances which they established; at the carefully worked-out protective clauses of the Constitution itself, and especially of the first ten amendments known as the Bill of Rights; at the effort, as Jefferson put it, to "bind men down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution," and thus to solidify the rule not of men but of laws. All of these steps were taken, deliberately, to avoid and to prevent a democracy, or any of the worst features of a democracy, in the United States. And so our Republic was started on its way. And for well over a hundred years our politicians, statesmen, and people remembered that this was a republic, not a democracy, and knew what they meant when they made that distinction. Again, let's look briefly at some of the evidence. Washington, in his first inaugural address, dedicated himself to "the preservation ... of the republican model of government." Thomas Jefferson, our third president, was the founder of the Democratic Party; but in his first inaugural address, although he referred several times to the Republic or the republican form of government he did not use the word "democracy" a single time. And John Marshall, who was Chief Justice of the Supreme Court from 1801 to 1835, said: "Between a balanced republic and a democracy, the difference is like that between order and chaos." Throughout the Nineteenth Century and the early part of the Twentieth, while America as a republic was growing great and becoming the envy of the whole world, there were plenty of wise men, both in our country and outside of it, who pointed to the advantages of a republic, which we were enjoying, and warned against the horrors of a democracy, into which we might fall. Around the middle of that century, Herbert Spencer, the great English philosopher, wrote, in an article on The Americans: "The Republican form of government is the highest form of government; but because of this it requires the highest type of human nature - a type nowhere at present existing." And in truth we have not been a high enough type to preserve the republic we then had, which is exactly what he was prophesying. Thomas Babington Macaulay said: "I have long been convinced that institutions purely democratic must, sooner or later, destroy liberty or civilization, or both." And we certainly seem to be in a fair way today to fulfill his dire prophecy. Nor was Macaulay's contention a mere personal opinion without intellectual roots and substance in the thought of his times. Nearly two centuries before, Dryden had already lamented that "no government had ever been, or ever can be, wherein timeservers and blockheads will not be uppermost." And as a result, he had spoken of nations being "drawn to the dregs of a democracy." While in 1795 Immanuel Kant had written: "Democracy is necessarily despotism." In 1850 Benjamin Disraeli, worried as was Herbert Spencer at what was already being foreshadowed in England, made a speech to the British House of Commons in which he said: "If you establish a democracy, you must in due time reap the fruits of a democracy. You will in due season have great impatience of public burdens, combined in due season with great increase of public expenditure. You will in due season have wars entered into from passion and not from reason; and you will in due season submit to peace ignominiously sought and ignominiously obtained, which will diminish your authority and perhaps endanger your independence. You will in due season find your property is less valuable, and your freedom less complete." Disraeli could have made that speech with even more appropriateness before a joint session of the United States Congress in 1935. In 1870 he had already come up with an epigram which is strikingly true for the United States today. "The world is weary," he said, "of statesmen whom democracy has degraded into politicians." But even in Disraeli's day there were similarly prophetic voices on this side of the Atlantic. In our own country James Russell Lowell showed that he recognized the danger of unlimited majority rule by writing: Democracy gives every man the right to be his own oppressor. W. H. Seward pointed out that "Democracies are prone to war, and war consumes them." This is an observation certainly borne out during the past fifty years exactly to the extent that we have been becoming a democracy and fighting wars, with each trend as both a cause and an effect of the other one. And Ralph Waldo Emerson issued a most prophetic warning when he said: "Democracy becomes a government of bullies tempered by editors." If Emerson could have looked ahead to the time when so many of the editors would themselves be a part of, or sympathetic to, the gang of bullies, as they are today, he would have been even more disturbed. And in the 1880's Governor Seymour of New York said that the merit of our Constitution was, not that it promotes democracy, but checks it. Across the Atlantic again, a little later, Oscar Wilde once contributed this epigram to the discussion: "Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people, by the people, for the people." While on this side, and after the First World War had made the degenerative trend in our government so visible to any penetrating observer, H. L. Mencken wrote: "The most popular man under a democracy is not the most democratic man, but the most despotic man. The common folk delight in the exactions of such a man. They like him to boss them. Their natural gait is the goosestep." While Ludwig Lewisohn observed: "Democracy, which began by liberating men politically, has developed a dangerous tendency to enslave him through the tyranny of majorities and the deadly power of their opinion." The Prerequisite for Revolution [------------------------- end of forwarded message ------------------------] - -- - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ***** Blessings On Thee, Oh Israel! ***** - ----------------+----------+--------------------------+--------------------- An _EFFECTIVE_ | Insured | All matter is vibration. | Let he who hath no weapon in every | by COLT; | -- Max Plank | weapon sell his hand = Freedom | DIAL | In the beginning was the | garment and buy a on every side! | 1911-A1. | word. -- The Bible | sword.--Jesus Christ - ----------------+----------+--------------------------+--------------------- - - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Jul 99 21:32:04 PST From: roc@xpresso.seaslug.org (Bill Vance) Subject: Fw: What is 'The West'? (2/2) (fwd) On Jul 12, Kevin McGehee wrote: [-------------------- text of forwarded message follows --------------------] creation of the United States, as articulated in, e.g. the Declaration of Independence, applied potentially to all human beings. The Founders generally agreed that human beings have `natural ends' that are conducive to happiness, among which are safety, liberty, and property. Following Blackstone, they believed that all men possessed certain natural rights, but that only certain constitutions secured them. This, it seems to me, is the proper claim on behalf of the real West: that liberty firmly anchored in virtue and morality most accords with human nature and therefore most conduces to human happiness. To dispute the Founders' reformulation of Aristotle's argument--that there are things that are by nature right for human beings--is to accept the logic of moral relativism. This objection notwithstanding, From Plato to NATO is an insightful and impressive work. Mr. Gress especially is to be commended for reminding the adherents of the New West of their debt to Christianity and the Germanic heroic ethos. Those who would defend the West must understand what it is they are defending. Mr. Gress demonstrates that all too often, this is not the case. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mackubin Thomas Owens is an Adjunct Fellow of The Claremont Institute and professor of strategy and force planning at the Naval War College in Newport, RI. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe to the Claremont Institute's Precepts to receive the latest news and information about national politics and other topics via e-mail. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1998 The Claremont Institute [------------------------- end of forwarded message ------------------------] - -- - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ***** Blessings On Thee, Oh Israel! ***** - ----------------+----------+--------------------------+--------------------- An _EFFECTIVE_ | Insured | All matter is vibration. | Let he who hath no weapon in every | by COLT; | -- Max Plank | weapon sell his hand = Freedom | DIAL | In the beginning was the | garment and buy a on every side! | 1911-A1. | word. -- The Bible | sword.--Jesus Christ - ----------------+----------+--------------------------+--------------------- - - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Jul 99 21:33:14 PST From: roc@xpresso.seaslug.org (Bill Vance) Subject: Fw: EIA Communique - 7/12 (2/2) (fwd) On Jul 12, Kevin McGehee wrote: [-------------------- text of forwarded message follows --------------------] is still well short of a two-thirds majority. Nevertheless, by the time NEA meets next year in Chicago four states - -- Minnesota, Florida, Montana and New Mexico -- will be merged. The guidelines limit the number of merged state affiliates to six. After that number, each merger will have to be approved by a vote of the Board of Directors. An effort to require a vote of the Representative Assembly for additional mergers was defeated on the floor of the assembly. Where does all this leave national merger? It will not come up for another vote during Bob Chase's tenure and, assuming Vice President Reg Weaver becomes the next NEA President in 2002, is unlikely to come up pri= or to 2004. + Emily Gurnon of the San Francisco Examiner went to local malls on July= 4 and asked about 50 teenagers to identify the nation from whom had America= won its independence. Here are a few of the answers: * "Japan or something. China. Somewhere out there on the other side of the world. It's like Independence Day for the presidents, or some s--- like that." * "It wouldn't be Canada, would it?" * "I'm gonna have to go with Spain." * "I don't know, I don't even, like, have a clue." * "I want to say Korea. I'm tripping." + If you don't normally read The Atlantic Monthly, please go to http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/current/9907vouchers.htm and read Matth= ew Miller's extensive piece on school vouchers. His interview with NEA Presi= dent Bob Chase is most enlightening. + From last year's EIA annual report, NEA Confidential: "The importance = of political fund-raising at the NEA RA has been almost completely ignored, = even by vociferous critics of the union." NEA's PAC raised $797,000 during the four days of the 1999 RA, an average of $83 per delegate. + Quote of the Week: "The church has long had a mission of working for justice and for strong, self- reliant families and communities. Yet, when workers choose to form a union in order to promote the good jobs our communities need and to have a voice in providing quality services, some Catholic institutions act just like other employers who interfere with th= eir workers' choice.... The workers say that, instead of respecting their cho= ice, Catholic Healthcare West is using funds that could go to patient care to = pay a consulting firm to train supervisors on how to pressure employees not t= o form a union. Assigning supervisors to intimidate workers whose work life they control is hardly consistent with the support for workers' freedom t= o form unions that has been expressed in countless official church document= s over the years.... Catholic institutions ought to set an example by respecting the workers' voice as our teachings require." -- Monsignor Geo= rge G. Higgins of Washington, D.C. in today's Los Angeles Times. # # # The Education Intelligence Agency conducts public education research, analysis and investigations. Director: Mike Antonucci. Ph: 916-422-4373. = Fax: 916-392-1482. E-Mail: EducIntel@aol.com [------------------------- end of forwarded message ------------------------] - -- - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ***** Blessings On Thee, Oh Israel! ***** - ----------------+----------+--------------------------+--------------------- An _EFFECTIVE_ | Insured | All matter is vibration. | Let he who hath no weapon in every | by COLT; | -- Max Plank | weapon sell his hand = Freedom | DIAL | In the beginning was the | garment and buy a on every side! | 1911-A1. | word. -- The Bible | sword.--Jesus Christ - ----------------+----------+--------------------------+--------------------- - - ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Jul 99 21:34:14 PST From: roc@xpresso.seaslug.org (Bill Vance) Subject: Fw: EIA Communique - 7/12 (1/2) (fwd) On Jul 12, Kevin McGehee wrote: [-------------------- text of forwarded message follows --------------------] - ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Monday, July 12, 1999 11:03 AM Subject: EIA Communique - 7/12 The Education Intelligence Agency COMMUNIQU=C9 - July 12, 1999 Now on the Web at http://members.aol.com/educintel/eia + EIA is hip-deep in documents, notes, tapes, photos and interviews from= the NEA Representative Assembly. There is so much material that it would take months to cover it all in weekly installments. Instead, EIA's annual repo= rt will be devoted to events from the convention, broken down into the follo= wing topics: strategic plan, vouchers, charters, merger, staff relations, frin= ge issues, and what's to come in 2000. The report will be posted in full on = the web, and will also be available free in print form. Though it's probably = a mistake to start taking orders for an unwritten report, I'll take names a= nd addresses of those who would like the print version and send them out in = that order once it is completed. + The last communiqu=E9 went out during the lunch break on the RA's last= day, leaving many of you in the dark about the eight-hour-long afternoon sessi= on, during which the fate of the last 50 of the union's new business items we= re debated and decided. The first of these was NBI 36, which would have made it NEA policy to "publicly oppose further extension of charter schools." The item was rule= d out of order by NEA President Bob Chase on a technicality. Just prior to debate on NBI 36, the assembly voted to approve most of NEA's resolutions= en masse, including A-26, which states the union's policy on charters. Accor= ding to NEA rules, a new business item cannot restrict a resolution that has b= een approved at that year's RA. Another item, which would have called for divestment of teachers' retirement funds from the tobacco industry, suffe= red the same fate. I have no evidence that the agenda was manipulated to achi= eve this result, but the timing of the resolutions vote certainly helped avoi= d what could have been a divisive debate about the union's current charter schools policy. The delegates were more discriminating than in past years about items that had little to do with education. NBI 39, which would have involved u= nion affiliates in campaigns against sweatshop labor, was defeated. The assemb= ly voted not to even consider items about Northern Ireland's Good Friday agreement and the NEA's procedure for deciding whether or not to support = acts of war. As the evening wore on, delegates made several attempts to suspend the rules in order to limit debate on each new item. And though some of t= hese were successful, it was soon clear that the proceedings were not moving f= ast enough for most of the delegates. The hall began to empty and pizzas were ordered by some who remained. After NBI 63 passed, the rules were suspend= ed to allow for voting on each remaining item without debate, as long as the= re was no objection from the floor. NEA Vice President Reg Weaver, chairing = the assembly at the time, misunderstood the intent of the motion, and instead required a majority vote in order to debate each item. Each of the debate votes failed, so each of the remaining items was voted on, up or down, without debate. This infuriated a large number of delegates, but not enough to overrule the majority who clearly wanted to finish up business and close = out the proceedings. So, without debate, the assembly committed NEA to: documenting "the positive impact of higher salaries on the quality of education employees and the performance of their students;" monitoring "t= he impact of vouchers on public higher education, public school students, low-income families, women, and minorities;" promoting "the true beginnin= g of the 21st century and the 3rd millennium as January 1, 2001;" encouraging state affiliates to "help initiate legislation to fully protect the union rights of staff in charter schools;" and, in accordance with NEA rules, referring to the Executive Committee two measures that called for boycott= s -- one of Walmart Corporation, and the other of "any company when it, its owners, or its major stockholders have taken a favorable school voucher position." (EIA confidently predicts the Executive Committee will quietly decide not to pursue either of these boycotts.) The most revealing of the final 50 items were two submitted by Walter Domeika of Connecticut. NBI 79 called for NEA to "develop a code of ethic= s for UniServ staff for voluntary adoption by state and local affiliates." = This was defeated. But NBI 80 passed. It reads: "NEA shall provide assistance = as requested by local affiliates and elected leaders to reduce the interfere= nce by nonelected affiliate staff in policy-making and governance matters of = the affiliate." In addition to Domeika's supporters in Connecticut, this item picked up a great deal of support in the delegations of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and California. Clearly some states continue to have a serio= us tug-of-war over the role of the staff, particularly in areas deemed to be= the domain of the elected leadership. Which affiliates will ask NEA for assistance to "reduce the interference" by staff and what specific assist= ance NEA will provide are two questions to which EIA will seek the answers in = the coming year. + I neglected to give you the results of the important secret ballot vot= es that took place during the RA. The constitutional amendment that would ha= ve required 3 percent representation on the NEA Board of Directors for membe= rs with disabilities was defeated 82.3% to 17.7%. All five amendments to the by-laws drafted to institute the state merger guidelines passed by an ave= rage of 78.8% to 21.2%. Though clearly an overwhelming margin, it once again disguises the depth of opposition to merger by a substantial number of delegates. The amendments were supported by the leaders of nearly all the anti-merger state affiliates, yet a solid 21 percent still voted no. Thro= w in one of the three or four hot-button issues (say, AFL-CIO affiliation) and= NEA [------------------------- end of forwarded message ------------------------] - -- - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ***** Blessings On Thee, Oh Israel! ***** - ----------------+----------+--------------------------+--------------------- An _EFFECTIVE_ | Insured | All matter is vibration. | Let he who hath no weapon in every | by COLT; | -- Max Plank | weapon sell his hand = Freedom | DIAL | In the beginning was the | garment and buy a on every side! | 1911-A1. | word. -- The Bible | sword.--Jesus Christ - ----------------+----------+--------------------------+--------------------- - - ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 Jul 99 11:16:21 PST From: roc@xpresso.seaslug.org (Bill Vance) Subject: Revolution Brewing (fwd) On Jul 13, RJK.Sr. wrote: [-------------------- text of forwarded message follows --------------------] > Revolution brewing: Disregard laws that violate conscience > > by Charley Reese > > Published in The Orlando Sentinel on July 1, 1999. > > There may be a revolt brewing in America. It seems to be happening in > that part of America so mysterious to the political and news-media > elite -- the areas that surround, like interstellar space, the elitist > strongholds in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles. There > was a hint in Utah a year or so ago when audience members at a school > event defiantly sang a song that some federal judge had commanded that > they could not sing. More recently, on the East Coast, a group of > parents and students decided to pray in defiance of a court order. The > American majority may be fed up with special-interest-group lawyers, > using some sorehead as a token plaintiff, persuading political > appointees in black robes to jerk Americans around. Somehow, an idea > has arisen that a minority may dictate to the majority. That's a > perversion of custom. The majority respects the right of minorities to > dissent, but minorities must also respect the rights of the majority. > Furthermore, freedom means just that -- freedom. It does not mean that > Americans must pray only when and where they are told to do so by a > government increasingly more concerned with control than with freedom. > It is the government, not the people, which is violating the > Constitution and making a mockery of the Bill of Rights. The plain > meaning of the First Amendment is that the federal government should > simply butt out of religious matters altogether. The only restriction > is that the federal government may not establish an official state > religion. That could be done only by congressional action. The fact > that religious people express their religion while they happen to be > standing on federal property or attending some state-financed event > does not establish a religion. And that would be clear if federal > judges were really intent on interpreting the meaning of the > Constitution rather than just using it as an excuse to legislate their > own biases. After all, the same Congress that passed out the First > Amendment also established chaplains and opened its sessions with > prayers. I hope that America's young people will take up the challenge > issued by Darrell Scott, whose daughter was one of those killed at > Columbine High School. Scott, invited to appear before a congressional > subcommittee, no doubt sharply surprised the politicians by attacking > them. "What has happened to us as a nation?" he asked. "We have > refused to honor God, and, in doing so, we opened the doors to hatred > and violence. And when something as terrible as Columbine's tragedy > occurs, politicians immediately look for a scapegoat such as the NRA > [National Rifle Association]. They immediately seek to pass more > restrictive laws that continue to erode away our personal and private > liberties. Political posturing and restrictive legislation are not the > answer." Scott, by the way, told the politicians that he was not a > member of the NRA nor a hunter, and did not own a gun. His point was > simply that the NRA and gun legislation had nothing to do with the > tragedy that occurred. The problem, he said, is spiritual and not > legalistic or a matter of hardware. "We do need a change of heart and > a humble acknowledgement that this nation was founded on the principle > of simple trust in God," Scott told the politicians. He issued this > challenge to America's young people: "Dare to move into the new > millennium with a sacred disregard for legislation that violates your > conscience and denies your God-given right to communicate with him." > Now that is the true American spirit. Patrick Henry is surely smiling. > [Posted 06/30/1999 5:10 PM EST] [------------------------- end of forwarded message ------------------------] - -- - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ***** Blessings On Thee, Oh Israel! ***** - ----------------+----------+--------------------------+--------------------- An _EFFECTIVE_ | Insured | All matter is vibration. | Let he who hath no weapon in every | by COLT; | -- Max Plank | weapon sell his hand = Freedom | DIAL | In the beginning was the | garment and buy a on every side! | 1911-A1. | word. -- The Bible | sword.--Jesus Christ - ----------------+----------+--------------------------+--------------------- - - ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 Jul 99 11:20:36 PST From: roc@xpresso.seaslug.org (Bill Vance) Subject: RE: Kleck's self defense study online? (fwd) On Jul 13, Bob Mueller wrote: [-------------------- text of forwarded message follows --------------------] "Crime, Deterrence, and Right-to-Carry" is at http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JLS/lott.pdf "Multiple Victim Public Shootings, Bombings, and Right-to-Carry Concealed Handgun Laws" is at http://papers.ssrn.com/paper.taf?ABSTRACT_ID=161637 Bob Mueller - Consultant Compuware Corporation The United States Trotting Association 614-224-2291 Ext. 3234 bmueller@ustrotting.com Get into Harness Racing at http://www.ustrotting.com [------------------------- end of forwarded message ------------------------] - -- - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ***** Blessings On Thee, Oh Israel! ***** - ----------------+----------+--------------------------+--------------------- An _EFFECTIVE_ | Insured | All matter is vibration. | Let he who hath no weapon in every | by COLT; | -- Max Plank | weapon sell his hand = Freedom | DIAL | In the beginning was the | garment and buy a on every side! | 1911-A1. | word. -- The Bible | sword.--Jesus Christ - ----------------+----------+--------------------------+--------------------- - - ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 Jul 99 11:17:46 PST From: roc@xpresso.seaslug.org (Bill Vance) Subject: Minor firearm and homicide stats/study reference. (fwd) On Jul 13, Rae Starr wrote: [-------------------- text of forwarded message follows --------------------] If anyone else is collecting, the following appeared on another list. From Nov 30, 1998 to Jan. 1999, the FBI reported conducting 643,000 checks for firearm-purchase applicants, of which only 13,000 were denied -- the majority due to felony backgrounds. But of the 13,000, none had been arrested, let alone tried, for the felony of trying to illegally purchase a firearm. (Paraphrased from: Gary Fields, "13,000 guns denied, but no one arrested," _USA Today_, Thursday, Jan. 21, 1999, p. 3A.) - - - Studies which support the deterrent effect of concealed carry laws, have been criticized on methodological grounds -- social science rarely having the resources or powers to approach anything like definitive proof. However, laws have often been imposed on the 2nd Amendment right, on the basis of no particular research. The burden of proof (not to mention the burden of amendment) was on the authors of those laws. So the "inconclusive-or-flawed- methodology" argument against folk like Kleck, actually exposes the opposing side more. - - - The folowing somewhat illustrates the light manner in which data-thin pieces toss around criticisms and conclusions. And how self-defense findings seem to hold up when scholars bother to replicate the work, themselves. The first wave of studies flocked to epidemiology as a way to treat gun ownership as a public health problem. "[p. 405] [T]here is growing interest in [p. 406] actually using the methodology of public health to propose, or evaluate proposed, ''cures'' for criminal behavior, especially homicide.[2] [2] See, for example, Joseph L. Annest _et al_., National Estimates of Nonfatal Firearm-Related Injuries, 273 J. A.M.A. 1749 (1995); Arthur L. Kellermann, Lori Westphal, Laurie Fischer, & Beverly Harvard, Weapon Involvement in Home Invasion Crimes, 273 J. A.M.A. 1759 (1995); Hattie Ruttenberg, The Limited Promise of Public Health Methodologies to Prevent Youth Violence, 103 Yale L. J. 1885 (1994). For an early study, see R.K. Wright & J. H. Davis, Studies in the Epidemiology of Murder -- a Proposed Classification System, 22 J. Forensic Sci. 464 (1977)." These prompted further examination, which were far less dismissive. Even so, the reviewers tended to dismiss pro-2nd-Amendment findings, unless they, themselves had actually studied the data. Note, for example, Polsby's dismissal of estimates of life-saving uses of firearms by a flip "This seems too high." While Polsby's re-analysis of McDowall, Loftin & Wiersema regarding concealed carry laws, apparently convinced him that while firearm deaths increased, the overall homicide rate declined: "[p. 409] Readers may be skeptical about the efficacy of specific measures of private protection against crime and, in particular, may doubt that owning a gun is a sensible method of protecting oneself from crime.[15] They may point out that very few criminals are actually killed or otherwise disabled, seized, [p. 410] or driven off by citizens defending their person or property. The number is small, but it is not trivial.[16] A recent and careful study found that victims who resist with a gun or other weapon are less likely than other victims to lose their property in robberies, less likely to be injured by criminals, and less likely to be raped.[17] The deterrent effect of widespread private ownership of guns must also be considered. The fact that a sizable fraction of potential crime victims is armed makes violent crime a dangerous activity and, by thus increasing the expected cost of violent crime, presumably reduces, though by an unknown percentage, the amount of that crime.[18] The _net_reduction may be small, however, and conceivably even negative. Guns are weapons of aggression as well as of protection. An increase in their supply may lower the cost of committing crimes (and so increase the crime rate and the demand for public protection) at the same time that it is raising the cost of crime (with the effects described in the preceding paragraph) by reducing the probability that the attempt at crime will succeed. It is at least plausible, however, that guns are more effective defensively than offensively.[19] They require little skill or strength to use, compared for example to knives, blunt instruments, and fists. They are ''equalizers,'' tending to neutralize the natural advantage of people who select into criminal activity. Moreover, even persons strongly opposed to private ownership of handguns do not believe that private security guards should be forbidden to carry handguns for defense against crime." "[15] The idea that it is a sensible method of self- or home-protection is called a ''myth'' in Ruttenberg, _supra_ note 2, at 1905. [16] See Wright & Davis, _supra_ note 2, at 466 (table 2). [17] Gary Kleck & Marc Gertz, Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense with a Gun, 86 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 150 (1995). Kleck and Gertz find that _at least_ 40,000 people a year (disproportionately black and Hispanic) use guns in situations where ''they 'almost certianly' saved a life by doing so.'' _Id_. at 180. This seems too high. [18] As emphasized by the papers cited in note 14 _supra_, however, this is provided that criminals do not know who is armed and who is unarmed. Otherwise they may simply shift their attentions to the latter. We say ''may'' rather than ''will'' because the shift to the formerly less desired class of victims may involve significant costs unless, before some victims were known to be armed, criminals were picking their victims are random. Another study in the same ''Guns and Violence Symposium'' in the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology in which the Kleck & Gertz study cited in note 17 _supra_ appeared found that recent changes in state law that have greatly expanded eligibility to carry concealed weapons resulted in an increase in firearm homicides. David McDowall, Colin Loftin, & Brian Wiersema, Easing Concealed Firearms Laws: Effects on Homicide in Three States, 86 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 193 (1995). But Daniel Polsby, reinterpreting their data, found that _overall_ homicide rates had decreased, quite possibly as a result of expanded gun ownership. Daniel D. Polsby, Firearms Costs, Firearms Benefits and the Limits of Knowledge, 86 _id_. at 207; Polsby, Daniel D. Polsby Replies, 86 _id_. at 227. [19] This would be consistent with the evidence that increasing the eligibility to carry a concealed weapon reduced the overall homicide rate while increasing the firearms homicide rate. See note 18 _supra_." (Tomas J. Philipson and Richard A. Posner, [both U. of Chicago], "The Economic Epidemiology of Crime," _Journal of Law and Economics_, vol. 34 (October 1996), pp. 405-433.) - - - The latter note likely illustrates a feature of secular humanist morality: gun control advocates, studying homicide, may well not have differentiated between deaths in self-defense, and deaths from criminal victimization. Being non-judgmental and as concerned about the life of a shot-felon versus a life of a shot-innocent-victim, the solution would seem to be to preserve both lives, by victim-disarmament. But when then threat of victim-self-defense is lessened, more people cross the line into more-feral beahvior, and the overall homicide rate goes up. Arguably, those-who-murder aren't the misunderstood, basically-redeemable folk that secular humanist society wants them to be. Evidently, they don't murder by accident-of-passion or social-circumstances-beyond- their-control -- but are rationally-responsive to deterrents. Thus, they are voluntary and culpable murderers -- not victims. Whether we care most about mere life, or about innocent life, it appears, per Polsby, that upholding the Constitutional right to be armed, saves the most lives. Only if we value criminal life most, might we prefer gun control. For it appears that gun ownership reduces homicide from other causes. And in a free market, studies suggest that criminality isn't particularly profitable, hence the honest citizen might be more likely to own a quality firearm in good working order and know how to use it, than the criminal is -- particularly if the criminal is financially and physically impaired by lifestyle hazards, such as drug addiction or prior injuries. Rae Starr [------------------------- end of forwarded message ------------------------] - -- - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ***** Blessings On Thee, Oh Israel! ***** - ----------------+----------+--------------------------+--------------------- An _EFFECTIVE_ | Insured | All matter is vibration. | Let he who hath no weapon in every | by COLT; | -- Max Plank | weapon sell his hand = Freedom | DIAL | In the beginning was the | garment and buy a on every side! | 1911-A1. | word. -- The Bible | sword.--Jesus Christ - ----------------+----------+--------------------------+--------------------- - - ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 Jul 99 16:27:00 PST From: roc@xpresso.seaslug.org (Bill Vance) Subject: IL House Republican Gun Survey (fwd) On Jul 13, David Wisniewski wrote: [-------------------- text of forwarded message follows --------------------] http://illhouse.wvmt.com/comm/survey.html - -- David Wisniewski RKBA & Official Kmart/Rosie O'Donnell Protest Page davidwiz@erols.com http://rosie.acmecity.com/happy/365 [------------------------- end of forwarded message ------------------------] - -- - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ***** Blessings On Thee, Oh Israel! ***** - ----------------+----------+--------------------------+--------------------- An _EFFECTIVE_ | Insured | All matter is vibration. | Let he who hath no weapon in every | by COLT; | -- Max Plank | weapon sell his hand = Freedom | DIAL | In the beginning was the | garment and buy a on every side! | 1911-A1. | word. -- The Bible | sword.--Jesus Christ - ----------------+----------+--------------------------+--------------------- - - ------------------------------ End of roc-digest V2 #257 *************************