Gun Advocates Work On Suicide Prevention

Here is reason 87,099 why I love the gun community: the gun community finds solutions to problems. Solutions that can work. Solutions that are based on a laser-like focus on solving the problem without impacting people clumsily or infringing on their rights.

Gun control people talk a good game about reducing gun deaths but their approach is clumsy and, in the United States, ultimately doomed. They don't actually do anything useful. Their only suggestion is "more gun control". Well, we've already got a lot of useless gun control laws and most of it only impacts good folks.

The gun community is smart. Its leadership knows that the suicides, homicides and accidents are very different phenomena and can only be attacked successfully by attacking the distinct root causes of each.

Firearms Accidents Reduced By Voluntary Education

This was successfully done with firearms accidents and mostly without enacting onerous training requirements (although universal firearms safety training in school could be worthwhile). I remember being impressed when I got active in firearms politics that the firearms accidental death rate had dropped by nearly 40 percent between 1970 and 1990. I was even more pleasantly surprised to find that the rate had dropped to 600/year in 2010.

What Can We Do To Reduce Suicides?

In the past few years, gun rights leaders have been turning their attention to the problem of suicide by firearm. Gun control advocates like to conflate murders and suicides but in reality, 2/3 of firearms intentional deaths are suicides. In Washington state, the number is more like 80%, as our firearms murder rate is below the national average.

One of the organizations driving these efforts is the Second Amendment Foundation (link), an organization founded and led by Second Amendment supporting powerhouse Alan Gottlieb. A couple years ago, his organization joined with Washington state health professionals, the Seattle Police Department, the Washington State Department of Veteran Affairs, the Washington Arms Collectors organization and others to form a unique coalition (link). They lobbied the state legislature and obtained official support for this life saving coalition.

This weekend, I attended the Washington Arms Collectors show in Monroe and spoke with some amazing members of the Safer Homes Suicide Awareness coalition. The lady I spoke with was a great representative for the group...the stereotype is that people trying to prevent suicides are anti-firearms. This lady, however, said that she herself owns firearms and that her only interest is in convincing others to secure their firearms. The discussion also highlighted that the group distinguishes between firearms whose use is not anticipated and firearms kept more ready for the self defense possibility that none of us like to think about.

Not only was this a great thing to hear but the group is also giving away free firearms storage devices and other safety devices, such as the lockable pill bottle included in this picture. I just may have to volunteer with some of these efforts, now...

This business card sized information sheet teaches how to spot people having problems (sometimes a challenge in this stressed out age) and how to help.

To the Second Amendment Foundation, Washington Arms Collectors and their allies in the law enforcement and health care communities: well done!

Letter to Suzan DelBene (D-WA1) about gun control she is cosponsoring

Dear Representative DelBene,

I read with dismay, recently, that you have signed on as a co-sponsor of H.R.4269, legislation which bans the manufacture and possession of "assault weapons". Since I have voted for you in the past in the belief that you are a moderate Democrat and would *like* to do so again, I respectfully suggest that you reconsider your support and sponsorship of this legislation.

The topic of gun control is one which is rife with misinformation and misunderstanding. As you are the representative for a district which is VERY gun friendly, I sincerely hope that you will take the time and trouble to inform yourself of the actual technical details relevant to legislation that you take up. Ours is a moderate district (my car has NRA *and* PFLAG stickers and I have seen others similarly configured) but, again, it is very gun-friendly. There are numerous shooting ranges and gun shops. Most people that I know either own guns or are moderate on the topic. I recently checked out at the local grocery store and the cashier asked about a gun magazine that I was buying because she is a local shooting instructor.

Perhaps no firearms topic is more misunderstood than the topic of "assault weapons" and the bill you are sponsoring is no exception. Thousands of these guns are undoubtedly owned in your district and you are essentially saying that we cannot be trusted with them. That is a mistake.

Please stop to consider the history and effects of the 1994 ban:

First, it cost Democrats their control of Congress in 1994. (article)

Then, the ban itself did not accomplish anything, as the New York Times (article) and the US National Institute of Justice (article) have said, outright. This is not too surprising, since rifles of all types are used to commit murders very infrequently, much less than knives and only half as much as fists and feet (FBI statistics).

The threat of the ban inspired many people who would not otherwise have been interested in such a rifle to buy one while they could. I wouldn't be surprised if all the artificial fuss about "assault weapons" has made the number in circulation twice what it would be otherwise. I know I bought one originally because I wanted to see what the fuss was about and tried a friend's. Now I occasionally use mine for competition.

And finally, to anybody with any technical knowledge of firearms the ban is rife with arbitrary and even ludicrous internal contradictions. Consider the two rifles in this picture. The top rifle is a Ruger Mini-14: it fires the .223 cartridge loaded from a detachable magazine and its action is semi-automatic. The bottom rifle is some sort of AR15 variant: it also fires the .223 cartridge from a detachable magazine and its action is semi-automatic. The Mini-14 is specifically exempted from the ban and AR15 variants specifically banned.

These guns are functionally equivalent. Their only differences are in appearance.

Is this a distinction sharp enough that you are willing to turn your constituents into criminals over it? Is this a distinction you are willing to cheer lead in a district that will think you are crazy for doing so?

People talk constantly about modern high-powered weapons. But AR15s have been sold to the public since the 1960s. The AR15 .223 cartridge, on the left below, is dwarfed by the .30-06, the cartridge fired in the M1 Garand rifle...another semi-automatic exempted by the ban.

I hope that you will reconsider your support for H.R. 4269 and start discussing matters related to firearms with your constituents in the future. I don't wish to be hyperbolic but your job is at stake here...along with our civil liberties.

Sexism in the NRA

In 1972, the federal law Title IX was passed with the intention of achieving gender equity in high school and collegiate sports. I find it disturbing that 40 years later, some still see this as a bad thing. For example, witness US Womens Soccer champion Brandi Chastain's experience at a Sacramento at an event honoring the 40th anniversary of Title IX.  (article)  Even today, media coverage of women in sports lags significantly behind the coverage of male sports.

If that grudging acceptance of women in sports is the status quo in other sports, you're probably thinking to yourself "I bet that barbaric NRA is even worse"! Let's take a look and see...

Here are a couple examples. On the left, is an article about Elizabeth Topperwein competing in the NRA's national matches in 1906. Wait, could that be right? Yes, it was in fact 1906 and this writeup notes that women had competed in other shooting matches for some time. In the picture on the right, Gertrude Beckstrom proudly celebrates WINNING the overall national pistol matches in 1957..

Yes but what about management roles? Surely the backward, benighted NRA wouldn't support women taking a leadership role in their organization. Well, except they did in 1949 when the Seattle area's late Alice Bull was elected to the NRA Board of Directors. 

The pictures above are from the book "NRA: An American Legend" (my review) and highlight the pride the organization has taken in supporting all those interested in shooting over the years, whether for sport or self defense. This has included a North Carolina NAACP chapter threatened by the KKK in the 1950s (link) and a Pink Pistols affiliate in Seattle in 2000 (link). In fact, I was a safety instructor for CeaseFear and a variety of gun rights organizations lent substantial support: the Second Amendment Foundation, Citizen's Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, Washington state's Gun Owners Action League, various shooting ranges.

Clearly, there's a lot more to the NRA's narrative and history that the simplistic media offer up to casual readers. I've included some further illustrations from the NRA's magazine American Rifleman below, in the hope that it will provide valuable information to some.Note that these photos were selected by opening a handful of issues over about a half hour...they are undoubtedly the tip of the iceberg.

This screen shot is from a December 1939 article by Dr. A. F. Bokman, describing the benefits his sons and daughter experienced as a a result of a rifle marksmanship program.

These photos are from the December 1951 editions Annual Meeting coverage

This photo from the November 1951 coverage of the national matches at Camp Perry illustrates that women competed very seriously decades ago.

As does this cover from September 1967.

So before you allow the news media to shape your opinion about an organization, please take the time to think about whether their agenda might shape what they tell you about it.