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Show Our Readers Vritc Brady Bill won't work Dear Editor I am writing in rebuttal to the letter from lames Brady, printed in the SepL 5 issue of Kaysville Today. It appears that Mr. Brady has presented only the information supporting sup-porting his reasons for passage of "The Brady Bill" (H.R. 467). This bill would require a background check on the handgun purchaser. Such a check would have minimal impact on the number of criminals obtaining handguns, since over 80 percent of the criminals do not buy handguns through retail outlets. They steal guns, borrow guns, barter drugs for guns, or what have you. In addition, background checks are only used to block convicted felons from buying guns. Many violent criminals are permitted to plea bargain down to misdemeanor charges. Consequently, their criminal record would not deter them from purchasing a handgun in the future. Brady fails to point out that handguns hand-guns are also used to stop or deter crime. According to Dr. Gary Kleck, an associate professor at the Florida State University School of Criminology, there are "about 645,000 defensive uses of handguns against persons per year. Use of handguns to repel crime exceeds the number of criminal uses. Dr. Kleck further points out that citizens acting in legitimate self-defense kill about three times more assailants and robbers than do police. No American could be safer against criminal violence than an armed one. While Mr. Brady mentions the appalling number of murders attributed at-tributed to handguns, he fails to mention that handgun homicide rates have decreased over the years. In 1974 handguns were involved in approximately 11,125 (54 percent of all murders). By 1988 handguns were involved in around 8,275 murders (45 percent per-cent of all murders), a 25 percent decline in handgun homicide. Interestingly Inter-estingly enough, the number of handguns in the country increased from approximately 24 to 29 million in 1968 to an estimated 65 to 70 million by 1988. I have yet to see any figures to indicate that states with a required 'cooling-off ' period have reduced handgun crime. When all evidence is considered, it should be apparent that H.R. 467 would only minimally alter the handgun crime rate. In contrast the passage of such a bill would significantly hinder the law-abiding citizen from obtaining self-protection. I consider H.R. 467 as an excuse to permit further intrusion intru-sion of the federal bureaucracy into our personal lives. Collin Broughton Kaysville |
