AsianWeek
809 Sacramento Street
San Francisco CA 94108
www.asianweek.com

October 23, 2000

Dear Editor,

I'd like to thank Phil Tajitsu Nash for including my comments
among others in his column "Gun control and Asian Americans."  
But Nash's article and the Americans for Gun Safety web site 
both have a glaring omission: no mention of any positive uses 
of guns.  If guns were only used for crime and suicide as Nash 
and AGS imply, then the case against them would be obvious.
A major reason more than 70 million Americans own guns[1] is 
for defense against crime, and recent studies show this personal 
and societal benefit <italic>is</italic> significant.

Even anti-gun researchers such as Philip Cook agree that guns 
are used to stop crimes anywhere from 800,000 to several 
million times a year.  Cook's own research[2] confirmed Professor 
Gary Kleck's finding of 1.5 million defensive gun uses per year.[3]
Cook acknowledges that if guns are used more often to stop crimes 
than commit them, as he found, then the social costs of restricting 
legitimate access to effective self-defense tools may be considerable.

James Wright's research for the U.S. Department of Justice's 
National Institute of Justice confirmed 18th Century Criminologist 
Cesare Beccaria's proposition[4] which John Adams and Thomas Jefferson 
noted prominently -- criminals ignore prohibitions on arms ownership 
and carry.  Wright scientifically surveyed felons in Federal prisons
and found that more than 94% get their guns illegally[5].  Criminals
overwhelmingly do not buy guns in stores, at gun shows or through 
other legal channels thus so-called "gun control" has no real 
effect on them.  It only serves to disarm their victims.  This may 
explain the deadly <italic>upsurge in gun crime</italic> in England 
and Australia after their broad bans on private gun ownership.

Jeff Chan


1. http://rkba.org/research/wright/hearing.31mar95

2. http://rkba.org/research/cook/guns-in-america.txt

3. http://rkba.org/research/kleck/point-blank-summary

4. http://rkba.org/ccw/shall-issue.html

5. http://rkba.org/research/wright/armed-criminal.summary.html
   [94% from follow on research by Wright also for NIJ]