Gun debate [w/John Lott] ends with volleys fired, without a winner

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From http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaind...8183213839.xml

Gun debate ends with volleys fired, without a winner

02/02/02

Janet H. Cho
Plain Dealer Reporter

About the only thing John R. Lott Jr. and State Sen. Eric Fingerhut could agree on during yesterday's testy gun control debate was that police play the largest role in fighting crime.

Lott, a senior research scholar at Yale University Law School and author of "More Guns, Less Crime," argued that because police can't protect every citizen all the time, people should be able to carry guns to protect themselves.

Ohio law bans carrying concealed weapons or having loaded weapons in a vehicle. A state appeals court will hear arguments next month on whether the ban violates the state Constitution.

Letting ordinary people carry concealed weapons leads to fewer murders, violent crimes, robberies and rapes, because criminals are less likely to prey on those who might be armed, Lott said.

"Guns can make it easier for bad things to happen, but guns can also make it easier for people to defend themselves and prevent bad things from happening," he said to a lecture hall of about 65 law students at Case Western Reserve University School of Law.

Fingerhut, a Shaker Heights Democrat and vocal gun control advocate, said he usually turns down invitations to speak at such debates because they rarely change anybody's mind.

But he made an exception yesterday, saying: "I really feel very strongly that the materials just presented to you are almost wholly unreliable, and when presented as fact and as the basis for public policy, are a true disservice to this fine law school."

Fingerhut criticized Lott for disguising his advocacy as scholarly work and disputed many of the figures Lott cited as inaccurate. He said it was illogical and misleading to use crime statistics to support his arguments, because it's impossible to factor in all the reasons some places have more crime than others.

"It is ludicrous to suggest that increasing the number of people carrying loaded weapons around the house is actually going to reduce crime," he said.

Fingerhut pointed out that after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the federal government responded by beefing up the number of police and other trained people carrying weapons and "simultaneously doing everything we can to make sure that the people who are untrained are unarmed and shouldn't have them."

Lott disagreed. "Sept. 11 is a reason why more people should get guns and arm themselves, because there's so many targets," he said. He thinks commercial airline pilots should also carry guns to defend themselves against hijackers, because there aren't enough federal marshals to patrol every flight.

Lott contends that those most vulnerable to crime - women, senior citizens and poor people who live in high-crime areas - would benefit the most from a conceal-carry law.

Fingerhut acknowledged that many of the people who want to carry guns already own them and use them responsibly. He said he would support a conceal-carry law if permit holders were properly screened and trained and if police could have a say in who got permits.

But Lott favors a less restrictive law that requires fewer hours of firearms training and makes the permits affordable to anyone who wants one.

Contact Janet H. Cho at:

[email protected], 216-999-4327

[OF]

"It is ludicrous to suggest that increasing the number of people carrying loaded weapons around the house is actually going to reduce crime," he said.

Why, why, more guns reduces crime?? Why, that's absurd!

Fingerhut sounds like that anti-gun woman that Lott refers to in his book, as they are about to go on the air to debate CCW. Lott says something like "More citizens carrying guns reduces crime, and my studies show this quite handily" and she says "Well, that's not my opinion!"

How can these people actually be swaying the public at large? Debating the vast vast majority of anti-gun rights people is like debating a 5-year old.

Like the Saturday Night Live sketch goes: "I can't believe I'm losin' to this guy!"

- Gabe

[Modifiedbrowning]

Fingerhut says it is "illogical and misleading" to use crime statistics to suport his work? Isn't that exactly what that anti's use to push their agenda, x number of children died because of firearms? If you keep spinning the truth too long do you eventually get back to the truth? Just curious.

[Bob Locke]

I think it would behoove Sen. Fingerhut to heed the words of the man who allegedly founded the Democratic Party: Thomas Jefferson.

"False is the idea of utility that sacrifices a thousand real advantages for one imaginary or trifling inconvenience; that would take fire from men because it burns, and water because one may drown in it; that has no remedy for evils, except destruction.

"The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes....Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."

Maybe this fellow (and the rest of the anti-gun crowd) believe themselves more wise than Mr. Jefferson. I would beg to differ.

[yorec]

Guncontrol advocats only know how to push thier adgenda one way - and it's all emotionalism and preying on the ignorant.

We can look to the ultimate end of thier arguement to see just how well the abolishment of firearms would work, an example which Fingerhut brought up to show that the government and police responed with a larger number of armed people so regular folk still had no need to defend themselves, it was 9/11. We all know that an in flight airline is a very gunless place, a virtual sanctuary agains the presence of firearms. The sterile non-gun environment sure did everyone a lot of good on that day - but would things have been different if just one person on each of those flights had been armed? I think so.

[Modifiedbrowning]

Bob, where did that Jefferson quote come from?

[Mike516]

What this knucklehead elitist, Fingerhut, does not grasp is the simple concept of unalienable human rights and the government's mandate to SAFEGUARD them as a condition of its legitimacy. It is clowns like this who have incrementally stripped Ohioans of essential liberties. He talks like a person who believes that government GRANTS rights. With such a fundamental misunderstanding of his job as a legistator and an apparent mistrust of his fellow citizens, neither Lott's data or anything else will change is mind. He sounds to me like an uninformed, closed-minded bigot, plain and simple.

Ohioans should be insulted at his apparent belief that they are less responsible and trustworthy than the armed citizens of MI, PA, WV, IN and KY which surround Ohio.

[MuzzleBlast]

Ever notice that members of the Idiot Left always attack the person they are arguing with, or simply make emotional appeals, rather than try to win an argument with logic? Nothing marks the loser of a debate better than a "look who's talking" attack.

[4V50 Gary]

Just like LA during the King riots, or FL during the hurricane, folks find out ex post facto that gun control only protects the criminals. Mao was right when he said power comes from the barrel of a gun and his students, the anti-gunners, learned well from their master.

[hksigwalther]

"Fingerhut, a Shaker Heights Democrat..."

Having lived most of my life around Cleveland, I can assure you that Shaker Heights is quite affluent. Fingerhut is truly an elitist.

[dZ]

"False is the idea of utility that sacrifices a thousand real advantages for one imaginary or trifling inconvenience; what would take fire from men because it burns, and water because one may drown in it; that has no remedy for evils, except destruction. The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm those only who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Can it be supposed that those who have the courage to violate the most sacred laws of humanity, the most important of the code, will respect the less important and arbitrary ones, which can be violated with impunity, and which, if strictly obeyed, would put an end to personal liberty - so dear to men, so dear to the enlightened legislator - and subject innocent persons to all the vexations that the guilty alone ought to suffer? Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than prevento encourage than prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.. They ought to be designated as laws not preventive but fearful of crimes, produced by the impression of a few isolated facts, and not by thoughtful consideration of the inconveniences and advantages of a universal decree."

--Cesare Beccaria, On Crimes and Punishments 87-88 (H. Paulucci transl. 1963).-- (Thomas Jefferson copied this passage in full in his Commonplace Book 314 (G. Chinard ed. 1926), which was "the source book and repertory of Jefferson's ideas on government." Id. at 4.)

Cesare Beccaria, trans. by Henry Palolucci, On Crimes And Punishments, (New York, Bobbs-Merrill Co.: 1963),

[4V50 Gary]

Fingerhut accuses Prof. Lott for disguising his advocacy by clothing it as academic work. Humph! Whereas Lott's work has withstood scrutiny of his fellow academians, Michael Bellesiles has not and Fingerhut's accusation is certainly more applicable to the latter than the former.

[Mikul]

I love it when they contradict themselves.

"It is ludicrous to suggest that increasing the number of people carrying loaded weapons around the house is actually going to reduce crime,"

Fingerhut pointed out that after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the federal government responded by beefing up the number of police and other trained people carrying weapons...

So guns do help fight crime and terrorism, but only in the hands of government employees. Boy, the magical powers these people must yield is amazing.:barf:

[Bob Locke]

Thanks for saving me that bit of typing, dZ!