Gun-ban Editorial was Misinformed

Paul Gallant

With what appears to be one anti-gun editorial published each week, or close
to that, it has become clear that the Editorial Board of The Journal News is
now nothing more than an appendage of the anti-self-defense lobby.

It is absurd to see every unworkable anti-gun measure that is proposed, and
without any examination of its benefits or costs, accepted and backed at face
value by The Journal News.

The latest example of this bias appeared in your recent editorial, "Weapons
ban assault: President Bush must back words with action", which demands an
extension of the 1994 so-called assault weapon ban.

Yet in the Fall of 2003, The Associated Press, under the headline "CDC finds
no proof gun laws curb violence," noted the following: "A sweeping federal
review of the nation's gun control laws - including mandatory waiting periods
and bans on certain weapons (i.e. the so-called "assault weapons" that the
newspaper is in favor of a continued ban on), found no proof such measures
reduce firearm violence." The CDC task force examined 51 published studies in
arriving at its conclusion.

The Journal News has also promoted the much ballyhooed ballistic-imaging
system, one of several restrictive firearm measures Gov. George Pataki rammed
through the New York State Legislature in 2000. However, on June 3, 2003, The
Associated Press also reported on the results of that expensive fiasco: "A
database designed to match handguns in New York State to crime scene evidence
has not solved a crime more than three years after its debut."

As of December 2003, New York's ballistic-imaging system, CoBIS, had
registered 58,291 handguns, had cost New York taxpayers $11.3 million, and
had helped solve zero crimes. It should be noted that a form of ballistic
imaging has been used in the Philippines for a much more extended period of
time, and has not yet met with better success.

So what, exactly, does The Journal News expect from a renewal of the 1994
Clinton gun ban?

When the newspaper demands that federal firearms dealer transactions to
private buyers - the paperwork for lawful purchase and possession of their
firearms - be made public, why does it not also demand that all black market
transactions be made public too? These are, by far, the more common
"transactions" which result in firearm-related violence.

Could it be that transactions which occur between criminals and don't have a
paper trail are too difficult (perhaps "impossible" is a more accurate word)
to document, and so The Journal News finds it easier to blame those who
attempt to comply with the law for the criminal misuse of firearms? Why does
it never acknowledge the role of the black market in trumping every
restrictive firearm law conceivable, even though I and other letter-writers
have mentioned this plain fact in the past?

If The Journal News has exclusive knowledge of the effectiveness of the gun
laws it so adamantly applauds and supports, including an extension of the
so-called assault weapons ban, let it come out with the facts, not just the
smoke and mirrors.

If, however, the desire of The Journal News is the eventual disarming of
America's non-criminal citizenry, which is the only rational conclusion one
can draw from its track record of one-sided editorials, let it at least have
the guts to come out and state just that.

When was the last time a Journal News editorial contained anything positive
about the overwhelming benefits of private firearm ownership in America, like
the estimated 2.5 million yearly defensive gun uses in America, a figure now
accepted by most on both sides of the firearm issue, instead of harping on
its costs?

I frankly can't remember one.

                    The writer, of Wesley Hills, is chairman, Gun-Owners for
					a Safe Society.