LETTERS: MORE STATISTICS ABOUT FIREARMS

To the editor:

In my letter, I never accused Mr. Hodge of saying the Founders were wrong in setting up the Constitution. I said Mr. Hodge continually made statements of personal opinion and assumed the Founding Fathers would agree with him without any documentation. And ain't it great we live in a country where we can spout off all we want.

I would like to respond to some of the statistics put forward by Mr. Hodge in his latest letter: According to the New England Journal of Medicine, "a gun in the house is 43 times more likely to kill a family member or friend." I've heard these claims before. This journal is extremely anti-gun. Asked to document this claim over the years, the journal has never offered any substantiation. As to the claim that there were only 280 justifiable homicide cases in 1995, Mr. Hodge implies that was the total defensive use of firearms. According to research by criminologist Gary Kleck, there are 2.5 million protective uses of firearms each year, more than four times the number of violent crimes. Most defensive uses do not even involve firing the weapon. Only 0.1 percent of criminals are killed, and 1 percent are wounded. And in a U.S. Department of Justice survey of convicted felons, 57 percent said they were more afraid of encountering an armed citizen that of being caught by the police. Forty percent said they had decided at least once not to commit a crime for fear the intended victim might be armed. And 34 percent admitted being scared off or shot at, according to research by James Wright and Peter Rossi in 1986. I find it amusing to think that it is entirely possible that Mr. Hodge may have avoided being the victim of a crime because I and millions of others own firearms. Who knows what the crime rates would be if those who would ban guns are ever able to hang "unarmed victim" signs on our backs on the front doors of our houses. Recent court rulings (Riss v. New York, Warren v. District of Columbia) have held that the police have no legal duty to protect any individual. It is up to the individual to protect himself. At the same time, Mr. Hodge and his ilk are trying to deprive everyone the means of defending themselves.

As to the number of police officers being killed each year, I am not insensitive to this issue. A good friend of mine is a sheriff's deputy in my hometown of Bloomington, Ind. I rode on patrol with him for five years, sometimes five nights a week, and I have had a firsthand view of the dangers. Each year, a large percentage of those officers killed are killed with their own weapons, and no law is going to stop that unless you disarm the officers for their own protection. According Justice Department figures, 70 percent of cop killers have prior arrests, 53 percent have served time and 23 percent are on parole or probation. I have watched police training videos showing convicts in the prison exercise yard practicing coming out of various takedown positions and overpowering and killing the officer. During this period, I worked with and became friends with numerous law officers: city, county, sheriff, prosecutor, state, FBI and U.S. attorneys, and I do not recall ever meeting one who was against law-abiding citizens having and carrying handguns. Indiana has had a carry permit system dating back to at least the 1950s. I have just recently moved to Missouri and have not yet met any of the local law officers, but I would be willing to bet if a poll were taken the fast majority of street cops do not have any objections to private firearms ownership.

As for my advocating severe penalties that won't bring back the dead and referencing the shootings of late here in Cape Girardeau, I doubt that this is the first encounter local law enforcement has had with these individuals, just like the person who committed the Stockton, Calif., school shootings a few years back. He had been arrested 28 times in five years and was judged to be a threat to society by a police psychologist, and the courts did nothing. When he killed children in a school playground, the hue and cry was "ban the guns." The time for more severe sentencing is before crimes escalate to this level.

An important additional point with Missouri's referendum on the right to carry coming up April 6: According to research by Professor John Lott Jr. and David Mustard of the University of Chicago in their publication, "Crime, Deterrence and Right-to-Carry Concealed Handguns" 1997, when concealed carry laws go into effect, murder rates fall 8.5 percent, rapes fall 5 percent and aggravated assault falls 7 percent, with no increase in accidental deaths. Additionally, in 1992 if states without right-to-carry laws had enacted them, we would have avoided 1,570 murders, 4,177 rapes and over 60,000 aggravated assaults at an annual savings of $6.2 billion. Vote yes on right to carry April 6.

ROBERT A. CRON

Cape Girardeau