Not a Million Moms, Just Multi-Million Dollar Media
May 24, 2000 by: Phyllis Schlafly
The Million Mom March was not a grassroots uprising of mothers
but
a slick media event orchestrated by Bill Clinton's public
relations
experts and led by a sister-in-law of a close friend of Hillary
Clinton.
That the campaign was contrived was evident in the cozy meeting
with the President, the extravagant television coverage and
multi-page color "ads" disguised as "news" in national
magazines,
and the distribution of color brochures in airports.
The march was advertised as growing out of mothers' outrage at
the
large number of children who are killed by guns. But Professor
John
Lott Jr., senior research scholar at the Yale University Law
School
and author of "More Guns, Less Crime," has exposed the blatant
lies
in the statistics bandied about by the President and the press,
such
as the lie that 12 children a day die from guns.
Most of the "children" in the statistics on kids killed by
gunfire are
17-, 18- and 19-year-olds killed in gang or drug wars in
high-crime
urban areas. It is unrealistic to think that trigger locks or
waiting
periods would have any effect in stopping those homicides.
The Centers for Disease Control could identify only 21 children
under
age 15 dying from accidental handgun deaths in 1996. But 40
children under the age of five drown in water buckets every year
and
another 80 drown in bathtubs.
Are we going to demand that water buckets and bathtubs be locked
up and fitted with safety catches? The risk of a child drowning
in a
swimming pool is 100 times greater than the risk of dying from a
firearm-related accident.
The Columbine killers violated at least 17 state and federal
gun-
control laws among the 20,000 gun-control laws on the books
today.
Does anyone think that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold would not
have
known how to unlock their guns, or that a waiting period would
have
made a difference in the murders they planned months in advance?
Another Clinton argument for more gun control is the alleged
increase
in what are called "rampage killings." But Professor Lott, who
did a
couple of thousand hours of research on this issue, found that
there
has been no upward national trend in such killings since the
mid-1970s.
The only policy that effectively reduces public shootings is
right-to-carry laws. In the 31 states that passed right-to-carry
laws,
the number of multiple-victim public shootings has dropped
dramatically.
Those who are looking for the cause of murders committed by very
young boys should listen to Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, author of
"Stop
Teaching Our Kids to Kill," who believes that some children are
taught the desire and the skill to kill by violent video games.
The
killers at Columbine High School reenacted the methods of
killing
they had learned from the video game called "Doom."
How did 14-year-old Michael Carneal of Paducah, Kentucky, who
had
never before shot a real gun, have the skill to walk into a
school in
December 1997, fire eight shots and hit eight kids, all in the
head or
upper torso? Colonel Grossman says the answer is in the violent
video games kids play.
The sheer number of guns and gun owners in America makes gun
control far more unrealistic than Prohibition. At least 80
million
Americans own 250 million guns, and most of them obviously
handle
their guns responsibly or we would have lots more accidents.
The marching moms say they want handguns registered and
handgun owners licensed similarly to what is required for
automobiles. But registering cars doesn't make kids any safer,
and
many other methods are obviously better at improving safety,
such
as safety instruction itself.
Using automobiles as an analogy boxes the marching moms into a
corner, anyway, because it invites us to demand gun safety
courses
in schools like drivers ed. Schools were a lot safer prior to
the 1970s,
when many public schools had shooting clubs and high school
students carried their unloaded guns to school and competed in
shooting contests.
It's time for Americans to separate truth from propaganda in
news
coverage about guns. Under the principle that "if it bleeds it
leads,"
television redundantly reports on guns used to kill, but censors
out
the four times as many incidents of successful defensive use of
guns
to disarm criminals and protect law-abiding citizens from
becoming
victims.
Research shows that crime is reduced by putting guns in the
hands
of law-abiding citizens. Even those who do not own a gun are
safer
because the criminal fears that his next victim might have the
power
to defend himself.
Phyllis Schlafly
column 5-24-00
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Online version of this column:
http://eagleforum.org/column/2000/may00/00-05-24.html
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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