From firearms-alert-owner Wed Dec 28 17:27:49 1994
Received: (chan@localhost) by jobe.shell.portal.com (8.6.9/8.6.5) id RAA05153 for firearms-alert-outgoing; Wed, 28 Dec 1994 17:25:57 -0800
Received: from nova.unix.portal.com (nova.unix.portal.com [156.151.1.101]) by jobe.shell.portal.com (8.6.9/8.6.5) with ESMTP id RAA05146 for <firearms-alert@shell.portal.com>; Wed, 28 Dec 1994 17:25:54 -0800
Received: from mail.crl.com (mail.crl.com [165.113.1.22]) by nova.unix.portal.com (8.6.9/8.6.5) with SMTP id RAA01101 for <firearms-alert@shell.portal.com>; Wed, 28 Dec 1994 17:25:49 -0800
Received: from crl2.crl.com by mail.crl.com with SMTP id AA13065
(5.65c/IDA-1.5 for <firearms-alert@shell.portal.com>); Wed, 28 Dec 1994 17:17:32 -0800
Received: by crl2.crl.com id AA13300
(5.65c/IDA-1.5); Wed, 28 Dec 1994 17:16:22 -0800
Date: Wed, 28 Dec 1994 17:16:21 -0800 (PST)
From: "Edgar A. Suter" <suter@crl.com>
To: firearms-alert@shell.portal.com
Cc: DRGOTWW@aol.com, christieh@aol.com, shealey@netcom.com, markb17@aol.com,
HeatW27@aol.com
Subject: Gun safety & Training
Message-Id: <Pine.SUN.3.91.941228170640.13019A-100000@crl2.crl.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Sender: firearms-alert-owner@shell.portal.com
Precedence: bulk
Status: RO
The January 4, 1995 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association
will contain an article claiming that gun safety training does not result
in improved gun safety. The following letter explains some of the flaws
in the article.
*************************************************************************
* Edgar A. Suter, MD suter@crl.com *
* Chair, DIRPP Doctors for Integrity in Research & Public Policy *
*************************************************************************
December 28, 1994
Letter to the Editor
George D. Lundberg, MD
Editor, Journal of the American Medical Association
515 North State Street
Chicago, IL 60610
Re: Hemenway D, Soinick SJ, and Azrael DR. "Firearms Training and
Storage." JAMA. 1995; 273(1):46-50.
Dear Dr. Lundberg,
With great irony we note a circumstance that, despite strict licensing
standards and years of training, still allows thousands of preventable
deaths every year - the 180,000 Americans who die annually from physician
error[1] - nearly five times the death toll from firearms. Ignoring this
greater problem, Hemenway et al. have attempted to address gun safety
standards, licensing, and training. Their unfamiliarity with guns, gun
safety, and training is evident from several erroneous assumptions. Their
exclusive reliance upon the flawed, one-sided medical literature on guns,
failing to acknowledge or analyze studies in the criminological and
sociological literature that reject their assumptions,[2 ,3] also discounts
the value of their work.
The authors repeatedly and wrongfully equated loaded, unlocked guns with
risk of accident, suicide, and homicide. Loaded guns left accessible to
young children or unstable adults may represent an irresponsible risk that
must be decried, however, there are many circumstances in which loaded
accessible guns represent no safety risk. The authors have not made, so
have not studied, this important distinction. In homes where only trained,
responsible, mentally-stable adults and adolescents reside and "on the
street" where perhaps millions of law-abiding licensed Americans carry
concealed handguns for protection,[4] loaded guns may be accessible and
represent no threat because safety is served by observing the "Commandments
of Gun Safety":
1) Treat every gun as a loaded gun;
2) Never point a gun's muzzle at anyone or anything unless you intend to
shoot;
3) Keep your finger off the trigger until on target and ready to shoot.
Guns, even if loaded and accessible, do not leap by themselves from
concealment nor do they emanate a force that causes gun owners to fire upon
innocents. These commandments - not fallible mechanical "safety" devices,
superstitious gun avoidance, or storage that makes guns inaccessible for
needed protection- are the essence of gun safety and training. While
unloading and locking guns may add an increment to gun safety (and may be
the only safe storage option in certain homes with young children or
unstable adolescents or adults), such inaccessibility would impede the use
of guns in protecting the lives of millions of Americans.[2,3]
Interestingly, the authors failed to acknowledge the most striking fact
about gun accidents - that, whatever the storage habits of gun owners may
be, gun accident fatality rates have been falling steadily throughout the
twentieth century and are now hovering at an all time low.[5] Ignoring the
preponderance of the literature on guns and violence (the sociological and
criminological literature), the authors have also avoided noticing that
most domestic homicides by women occur while protecting themselves or their
children against vicious abusers. We find no comfort in noting that, absent
the ready availability of loaded guns, it is the women and children who
would die or be injured, bludgeoned by their larger, vicious abusers.[3] Gun
bans decrease rates of gun suicide, but total rates of suicide are
unchanged because more accessible means of nearly equal lethality (hanging,
auto exhaust, leaping, and drowning) are substituted.[2,3]
It is frequently asserted, as by the authors, that it is the ready
availability of guns coupled with impulsive acts that result in gun deaths
and injuries. Those who trouble to sort data from propaganda find
otherwise. It is disproportionately violent aberrants with long histories
of violence, criminality, substance abuse, and instability who perpetrate
and are the victims of gun and other violence[6] - and, when guns are
misused, they are usually obtained illegally and have been possessed for
several months.[2,3,6]
Increased reliance upon gun loaded indicators, mechanical devices that can
fail and would be as numerous in type as there are thousands of models of
guns, would engender a false sense of security that decreases gun safety.
It is much easier for young children to understand the simple "Stop, Don't
touch, Leave the area, Tell an adult" instructions of the Eddie Eagle gun
safety program (a program provided for free by the National Rifle
Association to over 6.1 million children, a program that neither promotes
nor vilifies gun ownership) than it is to comprehend an endless variety of
"safety" devices.
Though not specifically suggested by the authors, we take the opportunity
to decry another dangerous "safety" proposal - stiff "childproof" trigger
pulls. Such a proposal enhances safety neither for adults nor for
children. For adults, a heavy trigger pull is not conducive to good
marksmanship and increases the chance that an innocent bystander, rather
than an assailant, would be injured. Children frustrated by a stiff trigger
pull attempt to obtain greater mechanical advantage than available from the
natural shooting grip by inserting their thumb into the trigger guard and
gripping the gun's handle with four fingers. This grip points the pistol at
the child increasing the risk of death or injury. It is safe gun handling
habits, not devices or inaccessibility, that enhances gun safety.
Since unfamiliarity with firearms and related research has ruined many
surveys and studies on guns, our think tank of medical school professors
and researchers offers our expertise and confidential counsel to any who
seek it - even to those with whom we disagree.
Yours,
Edgar A. Suter, MD,
National Chair
Doctors for Integrity in Research & Public Policy
[1] Leape LL. "Error in Medicine." JAMA. 1994; 272(23): 1851-57.
[2] Kleck G. Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America. New York:
Aldine de Gruyter. 1991.
[3] Suter E. "Guns in the Medical Literature - A Failure of Peer
Review." Journal of the Medical Association of Georgia. March 1994:
133-48.
[4] Cramer C and Kopel D. "Shall Issue": The New Wave of Concealed
Handgun Permit Laws. Golden CO: Independence Institute Issue Paper. October
17, 1994.
[5] National Safety Council. Accident Facts 1992. Chicago: National
Safety Council. 1993.
[6] Kates DB. Guns, Murders, and the Constitution: A Realistic
Assessment of Gun Control. San Francisco: Pacific Research Institute for
Public Policy. 1990.