I'm a member of the NRA, the GOA and the JPFO, and I'm a gun owner. My wife is also a member of the NRA, and believes in gun choice, not gun control.

The article is in Italics.

Million Mom March Mission Statement

MILLION MOM MARCH MOTHERS' DAY 2000 is dedicated to the mission of educating our children and our country about the life-threatening danger of guns.

I'm curious about the other life-threatening dangers, especially for children, of motor vehicle accidents, fires, burns, drowning, choking, poisoning or falling -- all of these have a higher incidence than firearms injuries.

Incidentally, one of the statistics often cited is that 13 children a day die by guns. However, this doesn't add up. Using the numbers from the FBI's abstracts for 1998:

In 1998, there were almost 17,000 homicides, 53% of which were with handguns. That makes about 9,000 homicides with handguns. The President wants us to believe that 13 children per day are killed with handguns, which amounts to 4745 children per year. That means that 53% of handgun homicides are children, or 28% of all homicides are children. Yet, about 11% of murder victims are under 18 -- that makes 1870, or about five per day, which is less than half of what the President thinks. And, that's total murders. If 53% of murders are with handguns, then 991 children are killed each year with handguns. It's still too many, of course.

Although simplistic and seemingly self-evident, this mission is in direct conflict with a powerful, heavily financed cultural and political juggernaut, which justifies misuse of guns with references to freedom, liberty and the American Dream.

This is pure rhetoric, and a lie. The largest gun organization in the country, the National Rifle Association, has been pushing gun safety for decades. They sponsor training and certification classes for all types of firearms, and publish countless pamphlets, articles and books on firearm safety. There is no gun organization in this or any other country that promotes or justifies the misuse of guns. That's ridiculous.

We, the mothers, know that life is the first inalienable right promised by our Constitution. Our children's lives far outweigh the right for just anyone, especially juveniles, to carry a semi-automatic assault weapon or Saturday night Special.

She makes it seem as if all mothers are pro-control. My wife is not, and many women she knows are not. There are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of women across this country who own guns, use guns, and enjoy shooting sports. Women in general are better than men in the shooting sports, for various reasons.

Furthermore, children are already prohibited from buying or owning a gun, both by federal and by state laws. If a parent leaves a loaded gun where a child can get it, there's a law for that. If a licensed dealer sells a gun to a child, there's a law for that. If someone, anyone, steals a gun, there's a law for that.

While we acknowledge that guns may be necessary for hunting, law enforcement, and national security, the proliferation of firearms intended for one purpose only - killing another human being - has become untenable.

Guns are not sold to law-abiding citizens to enable them to kill another human being. They are intended for hunting, for sport and target competition, and for personal defense. Guns are used somewhere between 800,000 and 2.3 million times per year (depending on the study you read) for self defense. In a vast majority of those cases (over 90%), a shot is never even fired. The most lenient state in the country for concealed carry, Vermont, has the 49th highest incidence of violent crime out of 50 states, whereas the gun-control strongholds, Washington D.C., New York City, and California, have some of the highest violent crime rates.

We, the mothers, are calling on Congress to enact common sense gun control legislation by Mothers' Day 2000. Come May 14th, we mothers will go to Washington, D.C. either to celebrate sensible legislation or to protest bipartisan ineptitude.

What's more common sense than what we already have? How about enforcing current laws instead. In a report on the NPR radio program All Things Considered on Thursday, May 11, 2000, a Baltimore Housing Authority officer stated that as many people as they arrest in the projects for guns and drugs, the prosecutors just aren't prosecuting.

We, as mothers, endorse the following:
License Handgun Owners and Register All Handguns
We call on Congress to require all handgun owners to be licensed and that they be required to register their weapons with the proper authorities. It makes sense.

No, it doesn't make sense. The people who will commit crimes with guns will not register their guns -- they will buy guns illegally. You cannot stop illegal guns, just as you cannot stop illegal drugs (the war on drugs has been a miserable failure for years). The government couldn't stop alcohol, either.

Another point here is that gun registration leads to gun confiscation. It has happened over and over, most notably this century in the late 1930's when Hitler used the registration records in Germany to disarm the populace, leading to one of the worst genocides of modern history.

Sensible "Cooling Off" Periods and Background Checks
We believe that it is only common sense that sensible "cooling off" periods and extensive background checks be required of any individual who wants to purchase from any person or place weapons intended only for killing or injuring humans.

First, note the rhetoric. This is only for people who want to buy a gun "for killing or injuring humans". Which guns would those be? All guns? Some guns? There is already a federal requirement for background checks, and the waiting period was removed in favor of an instant check system. However, this instant check system doesn't work on several counts. First, it denies some people when it shouldn't, preventing them from exercising their Second Amendment rights, and second, nothing has been done to those felons who have been denied by the system. Why bother having a system if the government isn't going to go after those felons who illegally try to purchase guns? Additionally, there's a charge for this check, which amounts to taxing a right of every citizen. Poll taxes are illegal because of the same reason -- you can't tax a right.

Safety Locks for All Handguns
Guns, unlike every other consumer product sold in America, don't have to meet minimum safety standards. Gun manufacturers should have to design guns with locks built in, and with other common-sense devices like loaded-chamber indicators and child-proofing.

Guns are extremely safe for the user, as is proven by the statistics about how many people have been inintentionally injured by their own guns. Governor Glendening of Maryland in March 2000 proved that built-in gun locks don't work. It took him over 2 minutes and three tries to release the gun lock and make it usable. He'd have been killed in that time. Smith and Wesson, whose decision to make smart guns in April, 2000, can't even build a regular safety properly, resorting to bribery to keep a police officer from publicly releasing information about a failed safety on one of their handguns. Smart guns (so-called childproof guns) don't work, and can't work. They'll make people more careless because they'll think the guns can't go off. Here's more information about how smart guns won't work:

1) Fingerprint scanner built into the grips. It would require power. Does it fail off or on? If it fails on, the gun is useless if the battery's dead. If it fails off, then take out the battery and anyone can use it. Can it store more than one set of prints? What happens if your wife needs to use the gun in an emergency? How long will a fingerprint scan take? Several seconds may be too long. Does sweat cause it to malfunction? What about wearing gloves in cold weather?

2) Magnetics. This has been tested with a magnetic ring worn on the hand that fires the gun. No power requirements, but what happens if you forget the ring. What about if a child gets a magnet to fool it? Can a criminal have a magnet that can disrupt the operation of the gun? The rings are bulky, and police have refused to wear them. What if your child finds your ring? Keep in mind that to be useful for self defense, you'd need to keep the ring near the gun.

3) Radio waves. A transmitter sends a signal unlocking the gun. Again, power is required, so does it fail on or off? What about jamming the signal with similar transmissions? What happens if you forget the transmitter? What if the criminal has a transmitter too, or steals yours with the gun? What if a child finds your transmitter? Again, you need to keep the transmitter near the gun.

4) Combination locks. How easy is it, really? Is it an electronic combination, which again requires power? Again, Governor Glendening of Maryland successfully proved that trigger locks don't work.

5) Key lock. How long before you get the key? What happens if a child finds the key? What happens if you *can't* find the key?

So far, the best solution I've seen to securing loaded guns is a steel handgun box with a Simplex lock on it. Simplex are those five button combination locks that are completely mechanical -- no batteries, no keys. You can hit more than one button at once, which makes them very childproof (tests have shown that children tend to hit one button at a time). The best boxes have springs and a holster built in so that it pops open and holds the gun in a position that makes it fast and easy to pull out, point, and shoot.

Police departments and military organizations are refusing to use smart guns because they just don't work, so why should we civilians be required to purchase guns that don't work. Keep in mind that the safer you think your gun is, the more likely you are to do something stupid with it, and there's no safety that's 100% effective. The only safety that *is* 100% effective is above your shoulders, between your ears and behind your eyes.

Limit Purchases to one-handgun-per-month
We believe that it is only common sense to end straw purchase transactions where individual who may legally purchase a firearm is hired to purchase firearms for Gun traffickers. These guns are sold on the illegal market and eventually wind up on our nation's streets, killing our kids.

But again, criminals will buy illegal guns regardless of the laws. The only thing this will do is prevent law-abiding citizens from exercising their right to keep and bear arms by preventing them from buying whatever guns they might want.

No-Nonsense Enforcement of Gun Laws
We call on all officers of the law to assume a no-nonsense approach in enforcing existing gun laws and to join us in our mutual crusade for stronger legislation.

This is the only intelligent thing Dees-Thomases has said, and we can all agree that anyone who uses a gun illegally should be punished.

Enlistment of Help from Corporate America
We call on all child-friendly, nonviolent stores, companies, and corporations to sponsor us in these pursuits by advertising our message that guns -- in the wrong hands - is simply unacceptable. We call on the like minded to work with community law enforcement agencies to offer swaps of meaningful goods and services for guns. And that the guns be destroyed by the proper authorities. In turn, we, the mothers, will patronize all child-friendly, nonviolent sponsors who join us in this mission.

And we, the gun owners of America, will continue to boycott those corporations that jump on the knee-jerk, gun-control bandwagon.

RECRUITMENT
Our aim is to recruit - from all walks of life - mothers, grandmothers, stepmothers, godmothers, foster mothers, future mothers, and all others willing to be "honorary mothers" in this crusade. Our goal is to educate and mobilize the mothers of America to this cause. Our commitment as voting citizens is to realize our goals by Mothers' Day, 2000.

Again, though, there are plenty of mothers who are pro-gun. If you are pro-gun and a mother, I urge you to join the NRA, the GOA, or any other pro-gun organizations you can find. Join local grass-roots efforts in your area. Call your representatives and senators and urge them to vote against new gun laws and to repeal existing unfair or unconstitutional gun laws.