From firearms-alert-owner Tue Jul 19 23:45:08 1994 Received: from localhost (chan@localhost) by jobe.shell.portal.com (8.6.4/8.6.5) id XAA14502 for firearms-alert-outgoing; Tue, 19 Jul 1994 23:43:41 -0700 Received: from nova.unix.portal.com (nova.unix.portal.com [156.151.1.101]) by jobe.shell.portal.com (8.6.4/8.6.5) with ESMTP id XAA14496 for ; Tue, 19 Jul 1994 23:43:37 -0700 Received: from gatekeeper.nra.org ([192.156.97.62]) by nova.unix.portal.com (8.6.7/8.6.5) with SMTP id XAA06702 for ; Tue, 19 Jul 1994 23:43:34 -0700 Received: by gatekeeper.nra.org (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA29212; Wed, 20 Jul 1994 02:41:33 -0400 Date: Wed, 20 Jul 1994 02:41:33 -0400 Message-Id: <9407200641.AA29212@gatekeeper.nra.org> Reply-To: alerts@gatekeeper.nra.org Originator: press-release@nra.org From: alerts@gatekeeper.nra.org (NRA Alerts) To: firearms-alert@shell.portal.com Subject: RELEASE: ANTI-GUN "STUDY" ON WOMEN & GUNS: ALL SPUTTER, NO SCIENCE X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas X-Comment: NRA Press Releases Sender: firearms-alert-owner@shell.portal.com Precedence: bulk Status: RO FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE For further information, July 19, 1994 call: Tom Wyld, NRA Public Affairs 703-267-3820 ANTI-GUN "STUDY" ON WOMEN & GUNS: ALL SPUTTER, NO SCIENCE Critical of the "customarily even-handed" Associated Press, NRA holds "school call" for the news agency WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Officials of the National Rifle Association of America assailed the findings of an anti-gun organization on self-defense uses of guns by women, criticized a news agency for its "no-questions-asked" coverage and accused both of bias against women gun owners. "The Violence Policy Center is an organization committed to increasingly restrictive gun control laws -- including outright prohibition," said Mrs. Tanya K. Metaksa, NRA's chief lobbyist. "It peddles myths, but American women know better. The self-defense effectiveness of firearms ownership is not measured by the number of predators killed but the number of crimes thwarted, lives protected, injuries prevented, medical costs saved and property preserved. The center's findings are all sputter and no science." Mrs. Metaksa was equally critical of the Associated Press which filed the story this morning. "Customarily even-handed, the AP played one-handed and, in so doing, dropped the ball." Mrs. Metaksa said AP parroted biased, anti-gun advocacy without a single voice from the other side -- "and there are voices aplenty to include. Even if AP wished to perpetuate the myth that the Violence Policy Center is an objective research entity, the reporter should have had the professionalism to include the voice of experts in the field. Instead of serving as a pulpit for anti-gun sputter, AP should have presented countervailing opinions from pro-gun advocates or the findings of reputable researchers." Mrs. Metaksa suggested school call for news media on the issue of women, guns and self-defense. She began by quoting a noted criminologist: "Consider Professor Gary Kleck, whose 1991 book Point Blank treats the self-defense issue in depth and won top honors from the American Society of Criminologists: Results generally indicate the gun was fired in less than half of the defensive uses; the rest of the times the gun was merely displayed or referred to, in order to threaten or frighten away the criminal... Studies ... indicate that fewer than 2 % of fatal gun accidents involve a person accidentally shooting someone mistaken for an intruder.... Compared with ... defensive uses of guns, this translates into about a 1-in-26,000 chance of a defensive gun use resulting in this kind of accident.... The remarkably successful outcomes of defensive gun uses might seem surprising if one imagines the incidents to involve shootouts between criminal and victim. This, however, does not describe most gun uses.... Robbery and assault victims who used a gun to resist were less likely to be attacked or to suffer injury than those who used any other method of self-protection or those who did not resist at all.... [O]ther forms of forceful self-protection are far more risky than resisting with a gun.' "And, in an interview with the Tallahassee Democrat (Nov. 21, 1993), Kleck noted: We know that at least 75% of all uses of guns in crimes-related incidents are defensive uses by the crime victims; there are about 2.5 million defensive uses of guns by crime victims each year, compared to only about 800,000 uses by criminals. Further, one out of six defensive gun users claims that someone almost certainly would have died had they not used their gun. This would imply about 400,000 purportedly lifesaving uses of their guns annually, a figure which would dwarf the nearly 37,000 lives taken with guns. Mrs. Metaksa noted that Kleck has been assailed by another anti-gun advocacy group, Handgun Control, Inc., in a press release titled "Responding to Gary Kleck." The release dismisses Kleck's work as "grossly inaccurate" and actually states that HCI "dispute(s) the claim of defensive uses" and calls self-defense "irrelevant to the debate over gun control." "Don't you see what's happening?" Mrs. Metaksa asked reporters. "Anti-gun advocates are counting on you to refrain from asking tough questions, and you're complying. The research is accurate, self-defense uses of guns are indisputable, and self-defense is the very center of the debate over restrictive controls." Mrs. Metaksa added that Kleck has commented specifically on the homicide-as-yardstick' myth that she said "anti-gun advocates are peddling and AP is buying: 'The meaningful figure is that far less than 1 percent of those who use a gun defending themselves end up killing anyone.' A fairer assessment of gun ownership, [Kleck] says, would balance the number of household members killed by guns with the number of crimes prevented and lives saved when guns are used defensively.'" (Chicago Tribune, June 19, 1994) "American women, gun owners in particular, are not dupes," Mrs. Metaksa said, "and we shouldn't be treated as such." - nra -