THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, March 26, 1996 TAG: 9603260001
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Short : 42 lines
``Gun lobby deserves some credit'' (letter, Feb. 29) deserves correction. I checked the numbers of accidental gun-related deaths in the National Center for Health Statistics. In 1994, there were 1,610 accidental deaths involving firearms. Since the writer indicated that 900 gun-related accidental deaths occurred, the source of his figure is in question. If the National Rifle Association was doing the reporting, this is not surprising.
The NRA does not like to take responsibility for the victims. The NRA ignores, for example, 1994's 17,190 homicides committed with firearms and 20,540 suicides completed with the help of firearms too easily available to the depressed and emotionally disturbed victims. The majority of these victims died because a gun was easily available in the home.
Suicides and homicides are not nearly so successful when poisons or knives are used. Only 8 percent of suicide victims survive a suicide attempt with a firearm compared with 73 percent who survive poison attempts and 96 percent who survive knife wounds. The Virginia State Police report that most homicide victims in the commonwealth know the offender and at least 33.8 percent of murders occurred as the result of arguments.
It is time for the NRA to take on some of the blame that it deserves for promoting more guns among the citizenry. An armed society is polite. But our armed society has five times more suicides in homes with guns and three times more homicides.
The gun lobby imagines that millions of would-be assassins are thwarted by the threat of armed homeowners, but the reality is different. The New England Journal of Medicine reports that in homes with a gun present, the residents are 43 times more likely to have an accident with the gun than to shoot an intruder.
WILLIAM L. ROBINETT
Norfolk, March 7, 1996 by CNB