Though crime rates are dropping in the United States overall, gun violence will replace car accidents as the top cause of death for Americans ages 15-24 next year, according to ThinkProgress. This fact may elicit some mild surprise, but it’s hardly shocking given the nature of truly informed firearm debate in the United States, which hardly seems to exist. In public discourse, the tangible facts about the true danger guns present are drowned out by knee-jerk reactions to sensationalized news stories and cries for individual rights. The issue of public safety, an equally if not more important talking point, deserves more time than it gets.
Questions of public safety often seem to lead to immediate action, while overtly politicized issues of any kind are left to rot in ceaseless debate. Between 1990 and 2010, the number of young people killed in car accidents in the United States fell from around 12,000 to just more than 7,000 due to a concerted effort by car manufacturers, legislators and other groups to improve car safety. Though car accidents still kill people every day, all in all, the multi-pronged effort to make the roads safer – whether by building cars differently or passing stricter drunk driving laws – was a success.
Gun control and safety advocates, on the other hand, cannot say the same of their efforts to curb another deadly everyday occurrence, shooting deaths. This isn’t entirely their fault, however; in this case, the influential groups actually capable of bringing about positive change seem to be interested in doing anything but that.
Most prominently exemplified by the NRA, the formidable pro-gun lobby holds immense sway over Congress. Since the early 1990s, the NRA alone has spent over $100 million on lobbying, campaigning and other political activities. It has been money well spent, for them: according to the Washington Post, during the 2010 midterm elections, “80 percent of the 307 House and Senate backed by the NRA were victorious … [and] about half of incoming House members got NRA backing.”
And as the logic goes, when the NRA rubs your back, you rub theirs.
Run-of-the-mill governmental corruption aside, the gun lobby wields its power in more insidious, blatantly harmful ways. One of its worst tactics is stymieing government research into gun violence from a public health perspective. The lobby’s first target was the National Center for Injury Control and Prevention, a part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which was conducting important data collection on gun violence in the mid-1990s.
Members of Congress allied with the gun lobby altered funding for the CDC in a way that explicitly prevented it from advocating for gun control. Recently, the National Institutes for Health has gotten similar treatment from Congressional Republicans for similar research. Funding for studies by public institutions like these is all but dry, and private researchers just can’t do the same kind of work as the CDC and NIH do.
This lack of long-term epidemiological research, which the CDC was engaged in, especially in an era replete with data on gun violence, skews the debate, as the amount of real information we have about guns is tainted by rhetoric. Rather than taking a broad view of how guns typically impact their owners and those around them, we focus more attention than is statistically necessary on exceptional cases, like mass shootings or the threat of gun-confiscating government officials.
Focusing on exceptions ignores the rule: everyday violence takes more lives and constitutes an arguably bigger threat to our society and our personal safety than either mass murderers or an overbearing, draconian government.
We may not know for sure what motivates mass murders, but what we do have is numbers. With those numbers comes the ability to research trends into gun violence – if only the NRA would allow it. As Chelsea Parsons writes at ThinkProgress, “without this research, policymakers, legislators, community leaders, and parents are left without much direction regarding how to best protect children and teenagers from gun violence.”
And so we don’t know what the solution is. We don’t know how to address the fact that the most well-armed U.S. states see the most gun violence. Or, for that matter, how to deal with the fact that more guns are being bought now than ever before, but that the total number of gun owners remains largely unchanged. Or even how we would come to terms with the most crushing bit of data, that, according to Mother Jones, “for every time a gun is used in self-defense in the home, there are 7 assaults or murders, 11 suicide attempts, and 4 accidents involving guns in or around a home.”
So much for standing your ground.
But, as the decrease in car accident deaths shows, the world becomes a safer place when cooperative groups of individuals and institutions, public and private, can identify dangers and troubleshoot for their consequences. Gun control isn’t solely a matter of individual rights; it’s an issue of public safety. And as long as public institutions are prevented from doing the necessary research due to political grandstanding, the public is not as safe as it should be.
Hannah Sparks is a Collegian columnist and can be reached at [email protected].
Thismom Knows • Apr 6, 2014 at 12:10 pm
This is in response to Genghis Khan I would like to see the NRA’s research on how effective their “Eddie Eagle” program works along with a Harvard study reasearch showing how effective or not effective it is. I can’t seem to find the research on the NRA’s program. But I did find this http://abcnews.go.com/2020/video/young-kids-guns-parents-22325589
As a mom knows: you cannot educate the curosity out of a child. Dead children prove it.
Carmen • Mar 31, 2014 at 4:28 pm
“And yet those neighboring areas don’t have problems with violence themselves.”
Of course there are other factors that create violence. The point is that it’s still easy for a violent city for Chicago to get guns. Guns don’t create crime, but they can make it more deadly.
“Not accurate. Suburban and rural areas in the US have comparable rates of violence to other parts of the developed world. The difference emerges in the cities. Cities in Europe, Canada, Australia, etc. are much safer than cities in the US.”
Yes, other cities are safer. In Canada, for example, the Yukon territories (where 70% of households have guns) have a much higher firearm death rate. I just don’t understand the logic in saying “well if we just remove these cities in the US we’ll be the same as other countries.” If we took out the Yukon in Canada they’d have a much lower rate too. It’s meaningless.
” Second, while there is a correlation between guns and homicides in the US, that correlation evaporates internationally.”
That’s simply not true. Switzerland has a high number of gun owners, and they also have the highest gun death rate in Europe.
“Coal ovens didn’t CAUSE suicide, they were merely a popular way of committing it. The same is true of guns in the US.”
I never said guns cause suicide. Like violence, guns make suicides more likely to be successful. Suicides are often impulsive, so it’s wrong to assume they would automatically kill themselves another way if they failed.
“Who says I don’t? ”
Obviously every individual has their own ideas. But just looking at the typical conservative who is pro-gun, they say the problem is poverty and inequality, and yet they are against raising minimum wage or higher taxes on the rich. They say the problem is mental health and yet they want to repeal the current healthcare reforms. Pro-gun people say that the problem is everything but guns. I’d say the problem is all of those plus guns.
Ryley Hayes • Mar 31, 2014 at 1:57 pm
Carmen:
“Everyone always points to cities like Chicago which has a high murder rate (but is declining). The strict gun laws are result of this violence, not the other way around. People say Chicago has a high crime rate and tough gun laws, therefor gun control doesn’t work, while ignoring the fact that it very easy for guns bought in other states legally to get to Chicago.”
And yet those neighboring areas don’t have problems with violence themselves.
“Besides, if you remove big cities from the picture, then you’ll have to do the same from other countries as well. Either way, we still have the highest gun murder rate.”
Not accurate. Suburban and rural areas in the US have comparable rates of violence to other parts of the developed world. The difference emerges in the cities. Cities in Europe, Canada, Australia, etc. are much safer than cities in the US.
“Also, I don’t understand why everyone thinks suicides don’t matter. Yes, suicides outnumber homicides, which is true for every country. However, in the United States the rate of murders and suicides with guns are closer than other countries. Sure there are other methods of suicide, but 97% of suicide attempts with a gun are successful. There is also a 4.7 higher risk of suicide in a household with a gun.”
Well for one, a suicide is ultimately up to the person committing it. It doesn’t directly harm other people, so legislating restrictions on anything, nevermind just guns, isn’t just. Second, while there is a correlation between guns and homicides in the US, that correlation evaporates internationally. Which suggests that guns are merely a preferred method in the US, not a driver. That hypothesis is further backed when you look at the history of suicide and suicide methods. For example, sticking your head in a coal oven used to be one of the most popular methods of suicide. When coal ovens were replaces by gas and electric, this was no longer a reliable method and suicides by oven dropped… but suicides in general remained the same as suicidal people moved on to other methods. Coal ovens didn’t CAUSE suicide, they were merely a popular way of committing it. The same is true of guns in the US.
Even if there were a causative link, I’m not sure what you propose to do about it. Nothing short of an all out ban on firearms, a step gun-control advocates routinely insist they don’t want, is going to prevent people from using a firearm to commit suicide. You can shoot yourself in the head with a single shot breakaction shotgun just as well as you can with an AR-15.
“Gun Rights activists say to look at poverty or mental health, so why don’t you advocate for those? I haven’t heard any suggestions for how to fix those problems.”
Who says I don’t? For starters we can require states to actually submit mental health data to the NICS database. The Virginia Tech shooter had been established as mentally ill for quite a while, but was still able to pass a background check. Beyond that, we can restore the mental health infrastructure we had prior to the Reagan administration. We also need to remove regulations that bar anyone who has ever had a mental health issue from holding certain jobs or carrying certain privileges – many people don’t seek help because doing so would destroy their lives.
Carmen • Mar 29, 2014 at 12:30 pm
You can disagree with her, but you can’t just assume she “arrived at her conclusions emotionally.” How is your response any different?
Genghis Khan • Mar 27, 2014 at 7:49 am
All those – including myself – who took the time to utterly destroy Ms. Sparks’ arguments…
1. Thank you.
2. You’re wasting your time. People like this don’t think, they FEEL. She has arrived at her conclusions emotionally and, like most liberals, is probably unable to even assimilate any information contrary to that which she FEELS is true.
I hope I’m wrong – but I’ll bet not.
Carmen • Mar 26, 2014 at 4:14 pm
Everyone always points to cities like Chicago which has a high murder rate (but is declining). The strict gun laws are result of this violence, not the other way around. People say Chicago has a high crime rate and tough gun laws, therefor gun control doesn’t work, while ignoring the fact that it very easy for guns bought in other states legally to get to Chicago. Besides, if you remove big cities from the picture, then you’ll have to do the same from other countries as well. Either way, we still have the highest gun murder rate.
Not only do guns from the looser gun laws states make it to places like Chicago, but other countries as well. 80% of “illegal guns” in Mexico and 50% in Canada come from the United States.
Also, I don’t understand why everyone thinks suicides don’t matter. Yes, suicides outnumber homicides, which is true for every country. However, in the United States the rate of murders and suicides with guns are closer than other countries. Sure there are other methods of suicide, but 97% of suicide attempts with a gun are successful. There is also a 4.7 higher risk of suicide in a household with a gun.
People will try to dispute every way, but it’s simple: In the US guns are more prevalent and easier to get than any other industrialized country, and as a result more people are killed with guns than in any of those countries.
Gun Rights activists say to look at poverty or mental health, so why don’t you advocate for those? I haven’t heard any suggestions for how to fix those problems.
Michael Kerr MD • Mar 25, 2014 at 11:28 pm
Dear Ms Sparks,
What are they NOT teaching you in college these days? Last time I checked a gun was an inanimate object, unable to carry moral terms of “good” or “bad”. Would you actually care to discuss this subject with something close to rational thought and critical thinking?
Lets skip right to the meat of the argument and walk through it and it’s ramifications, Yes, guns kill and maim people. As an ED doctor for the last 20+ years I have seen the results of those injuries and done my best to literally patch them up. Those injuries, however, are not equal. They fall into three main groups- suicide, accident, and criminal. A brief mention on each.
Suicide– use of gun in suicide, while tragic, is not the fault of the gun. Multiple peer studies in this country and across countries/cultures show that suicide rates are constant to the culture and only the means of suicide change with availability of method. Removal of all guns wouldn’t change the rate, just the method.
Accidental– this is the rare event that has been falling in prevalence over the last 50 years. Its also the one area where education can play a part. More on this in a bit.
Lastly criminal activity. I invite you to walk into any gang infested neighborhood and politely ask the drug dealers to register their illegal firearms, go through background checks, attend a NRA safety course, and then take an anger management course to deal with conflict in a nonviolent manner. If I sound facetious, I apologize but you didn’t have to deal with the 16y/o who was shot through the head over drug turf and the 32y/o mother’s only thought was to get the wad of cash out of his cut off pants, and the 48y/o grandmother was wailing that this was the third grandchild who couldn’t have an open casket funeral.
So, shall we actually discuss how to lesson the death toll? As for this the first area, suicide, instead of focusing on gun control and letting people off themselves with hanging and pills, how about we discuss mental health intervention? As for the last, criminality, how about we focus on fatherless homes, joblessness, and our war on drugs?
As for your complaints regarding lack of funding to “gun violence” research, I will support your claim when there is actual real science and not political advocacy. As a physician who reads the literature and has seen how the academic/funding game is played, there are a huge number of physicians who are more than willing to put on their holier than thou halo’s, decry the “gun violence” sweeping our country, and collecting large grant paychecks to publish crap studies confirming their political advocacy rather than real science. I offer as point of proof– why does the American Academy of Pediatrics have policy statements against guns because of the deaths of “the children”, when in absolute numbers, the number of children who drown in pools is over 10x the number of children accidently killed by firearms? No statements asking for abolishment of swimming pools.
The first thing I look for in any medical paper on firearm deaths in “children” is to see if they actually break out the numbers for above groups– unfortunately, I am usually saddened to see that most firearm violence researchers include “children” up to age 24, and lump both suicides and gang wars into the numbers. I am all for true science, but not political propaganda being funded on my tax dime. m’kay?
Scott in Phx AZ • Mar 25, 2014 at 5:34 pm
uh, Hannah.
No, guns are not “bad”. They just are. They can be used for bad purposes or for good. But by themselves they are no different than a rock, a tire iron, or your cell phone.
When I was your age and in college 30 years ago I wasn’t foolish enough to make silly statments like that.
No, I was reading Rand and Hayek and others who know that words have meaning and concepts have to be rational. I hope you learn that before you graduate.
But since you’ve brought the subject up let me ask you this.
In 2012 Phoenix AZ had a murder rate of 8.3 which Chicago had a rate of 18.8.
Which city (state) has the most relaxed gun laws and which has the most restrictive? Do you know?
If you take the time to find out it may change how you feel about those “bad” guns.
William Ewart • Mar 24, 2014 at 3:00 pm
“And as the logic goes, when the NRA rubs your back, you rub theirs.”
No, the NRA rubs the backs of those who support our Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms and tot the other way around, and the NRA can muster votes.
“One of its worst tactics is stymieing government research into gun violence from a public health perspective.”
We have all the statistics we need on crime and suicides, so we don’t need a bunch activist researchers setting up “Studies” condemning us for our right to keep and bear arms.
“We may not know for sure what motivates mass murders, but what we do have is numbers. With those numbers comes the ability to research trends into gun violence – if only the NRA would allow it.”
There is research.
James Alan Fox, a noted anti gun criminologist states in an August 2012 editorial in the Boston Globe; “No Increase in Mass shootings”, that based on data extracted from official police reports to the FBI, shows annual incident, offender and victim tallies for gun homicides in which at least four people were murdered. Over the thirty-year time frame, an average of about 20 mass murders have occurred annually in the United States with an average death toll of about 100 per year.
Grant Duwe, a criminologist with the Minnesota Department of Corrections who has written a history of mass murders in America, said that while mass shootings rose between the 1960s and the 1990s, they actually dropped in the 2000s. And mass killings actually reached their peak in 1929, according to his data. He estimates that there were 32 in the 1980s, 42 in the 1990s and 26 in the first decade of the century.
In an NPR interview on the subject of mass shootings, Jack Levin a sociologist and criminologist at Northeastern University in Boston, was asked “Are people right to believe that this kind of violence is increasing?”
Levin replied “But the truth is that there’s still about 20 mass killings every year in this country, and that has been true for decades.”
“Or, for that matter, how to deal with the fact that more guns are being bought now than ever before, but that the total number of gun owners remains largely unchanged.”
But that is only an estimate since firearms and firearms owners are not required to be registered in most States. Firearms dealers are reporting a sharp increase in first time firearms owner sales.
“…according to Mother Jones, ‘for every time a gun is used in self-defense in the home, there are 7 assaults or murders, 11 suicide attempts, and 4 accidents involving guns in or around a home.’”
Criminologists have found that U.S. citizens use firearms for self-defense 2.5 million times a year, and for every life that is lost to firearms 65 lives are saved in self-defense.
In addition, the National Survey on Private Ownership and Use of Firearms, NSPOF, conducted in 1994 by the Chiltons polling firm for the Police Foundation on a research grant from the National Institute of Justice. NSPOF projected 4.7 million DGU per year by 1.5 million individuals after weighting to eliminate false positives.
http://www.saf.org/LawReviews/KleckAndGertz1.htm
Suter E. “Guns in the Medical Literature – A Failure of Peer Review.” Journal of the Medical Association of Georgia. March 1994; 83: 133-48.
https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles/165476.pdf
It should also be noted that citizens use firearms tens of thousands of times a day for other lawful purposes like recreational, sport, and competitive shooting. Shooting is an NCAA and Olympic sport as well as in 4H, ROTC/JROTC, Boy Scouts, etc. Then there is hunting and collecting. With all of this taken into account is obvious that the safe and lawful use of firearms far outnumber the unsafe and illegal use of firearms.
Another inconvenient fact is that our right to Keep and BEAR arms have been increasingly restored over last several years and more citizens are now free to carry firearms in more places since the year 1900. Yet, homicides, including homicides with firearms, as well as all other violent crime have been decreasing since 2006. Moreover, after a dramatic increase in firearms sales and ownership after the last Presidential election including an increase in first time firearms purchases and an increase in firearms carry permits, citizen disarmament zealots and organizations predicted that there would be a corresponding increase in homicides and other violent crime. However, the U.S. homicide rate decreased from 5.0 per 100,000 in 2009 to 4.8 per 100,000 in 2010, and 4.7 per 100,000 in 2011.
In addition, two recent studies found that firearms homicides have dropped 49% since 1993.
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2010/crime-in-the-u.s.-2010/tables/10shrtbl08.xls
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/table-4
http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/05/08/u-s-gun-homicides-have-dropped-since-1993-peak-report-says/
We don’t need any additional infringements on our Constitutional right to keep and bear arms.
Ryley Hayes • Mar 24, 2014 at 1:04 pm
Wow. A whole lot of FUD in this article.
“Though crime rates are dropping in the United States overall, gun violence will replace car accidents as the top cause of death for Americans ages 15-24 next year, according to ThinkProgress.”
So car death rates are dropping at a slightly faster pace than crime-based death rates, in a single demographic. And this justifies anything the gun control crowd is demanding how exactly?
“Most prominently exemplified by the NRA, the formidable pro-gun lobby holds immense sway over Congress. Since the early 1990s, the NRA alone has spent over $100 million on lobbying, campaigning and other political activities. ”
That would be interesting if you didn’t completely strip it of context. In the context of overall spending, the NRA isn’t even the top 200 for campaign contributions, and isn’t in the Top 50 for lobbying. Your right that the NRA has considerable influence, but it has more to do with the votes they sway than the money they offer. The NRAs power comes from people not money – an awfully inconvenient fact if your trying to paint your opponents as corrupt.
“One of its worst tactics is stymieing government research into gun violence from a public health perspective. The lobby’s first target was the National Center for Injury Control and Prevention, a part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which was conducting important data collection on gun violence in the mid-1990s.”
And this happened for a very good reason. The CDC sponsored a transparently biased study by Dr. Arthur Kellerman which attempted to claim that guns are 43 times more likely to be used against a gun owner or someone in their household than used in self defense. This claim was based on comparing all instances of such crimes against ONLY justifiable homicides. Problem is, justifiable homicides account for an infinitesimal fraction of defensive gun uses. So yes, in response to a blatantly biased “study” the CDC was no longer given funding to conduct similar research. This has not stopped any other government agency or private organization from conducting research, and there has been quite a bit. But while we’re on the subject of people trying to pass off justifiable homicides as the entire body of defensive gun use…
“according to Mother Jones, “for every time a gun is used in self-defense in the home, there are 7 assaults or murders, 11 suicide attempts, and 4 accidents involving guns in or around a home.””
Yes, again, if you only consider justifiable homicides, which represent an infinitesimal fraction of the hundreds of thousands of defensive gun uses that happen every year.
“the most well-armed U.S. states see the most gun violence.”
Sure, if you consider suicides “violence.” I don’t. I don’t think most people do. Most people would probably consider violence to be something one person does to another, not something one person does to themselves. But sure, if you consider suicides to be violence, then there’s a weak correlation with gun ownership. But that correlation is zero when you examine homicides in general. And no, not “gun homicides” just all homicides. The insistence of gun-control zealots on filtering the data to just gun homicides is because there is zero correlation with the general homicide rate. But it assumes that all homicides committed by a gun would not be committed by other means, and it ignores that many homicides are infact deterred by guns. So I’ll say it again. There is zero correlation between general homicide rate and gun ownership (or gun laws for that matter).
It’s kind of funny how every single one of the arguments in this article is based on cherry picked, out of context statistics. But then, that’s the entire anti-gun lobby in a nutshell.
Genghis Khan • Mar 24, 2014 at 10:51 am
FYI…
A few more resources to consider:
“Armed and Female”, Paxton Quigley
“Guns: Who Should Have Them” edited by David Kopel
“Targeting Guns: Firearms and Their Control” Gary Kleck; also by Kleck: “Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America”
“Under the Gun” Wright, Rossi, Daly
“Death by ‘Gun Control'” Zelman and Stevens
Genghis Khan • Mar 24, 2014 at 7:22 am
Ms. Sparks:
If you removed Chicago, New Orleans, Detroit, and a few other “big cities” from America’s crime statistics, America would be close to the bottom of the list of murders and gun crime. What do all of these cities have in common? Poverty, Democrat control, and STRICT GUN CONTROL LAWS. Chicago, one of the most violent cities in America, has a virtual gun ban; Illinois requires permits to own. As one counter-example to your completely unfounded assertion that states with laxer gun laws are more violent.
You are an educated person; might I suggest you actually read some materials besides those coming from advocacy groups?
E.g., “Armed” by Kates and Kleck. “The Samurai, The Mountie, and the Cowboy” by Kopel. “That Every Man Be Armed” by Halbrook. You might look into the study by Wright and Rossi that changed their minds about gun control laws. Or “More Guns, Less Crime” by Lott, which talks about – on excruciating detail – a comprehensive study showing concealed carry reduces crime..
Back in the day, I too was anti-gun. Ban ’em all, I said. Until a police officer neighbor suggested I get a gun. This went contrary to anything I’d every heard – a COP telling me to get a gun? So I wrote to the NRA, and I wrote to Handgun Control Inc. I compared statistics. And found HCI fudged numbers. The NRA didn’t. As a person who does statistics as a part of his career, I became highly critical of HCI’s tricks. And my attitude was – and is – if someone has to play games with numbers, they don’t have a case.
Try reading this piece by a noted scholar:
Joyce Lee Malcolm: Two Cautionary Tales of Gun Control
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887323777204578195470446855466
She’s also written an excellent book:
http://www.joyceleemalcolm.com/books/guns_and_violence/index.html
And on the medical issue of guns being “a disease” – may I suggest the Law Review Essay ”
“Guns and Public Health” in the Tennessee Law REview, Vol 62, Spring 1995. Kates et al.
Guns are used far, far more often in self-defense than in crime; a SCHOLARLY ARTICLE, as opposed to a liberal magazine, states.:
“Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense with a Gun”, Kleck and Gertz, The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology”, Northwestern University School of Law, Vol 86, Number 1, Fall 1995. In which an actual research study examines the issue and finds up to over two-million defensive uses of guns a year.
You make claims about other countries; you are cherry-picking. More precisely, I suspect, you are influenced by reading materials friendly to your point of view, who present pre-digested information. Consider this counter essay:
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/345649/fact-free-gun-control-crusade-thomas-sowell
(Yes, I know, it’s in an eeeeevil conservative magazine. Are you open-minded enough to read it anyway – or will you balk at the fear that foreign, eeeeevil, conservative thoughts might penetrate?)
Or maybe you should take Harvard at its word:
http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/blog/2013/08/30/harvard-gun-study-no-decrease-in-violence-with-ban/
Quote: “As Boston—and the country as a whole—looks for ways to reduce gun-related deaths and violence, a study from 2007 published in a Harvard University journal is suddenly regaining increased attention for its claims that more control over firearms doesn’t necessarily mean their will be a dip in serious crimes.”
You fling the term “The NRA” as though it is a faceless entity, plotting in cigar-smoke-filled back rooms. Yet it is, in fact, an organization with MILLIONS of citizens as members. More, it’s “Eddie Eagle” program is one of the best-known and most effective gun safety programs for children in the country.
Ms. Sparks, you are WOEFULLY uninformed. And I’m throwing down the gauntlet to challenge your ignorance.