The Last Gun
Page 31
79. See, e.g., “Meleanie Hain (shefearsnothing) Memorial Dinner: March 26, 2011,” Pennsylvania Firearm Owners Association forum, http://forum.pafoa.org/general-114/127586-meleanie-hain-shefearsnothing-memorial-dinner.html; “Meleanie Hain Memorial Shoot—Nov. 1st,” Pennsylvania Firearm Owners Association forum, http://forum.pafoa.org/general-2/74983-meleanie-hain-memorial-shoot-nov-lst-nepa.html; and “Meleanie Hain Memorial Shoot 11/01/09,” Maryland Shooters forum, www.mdshooters.com/showthread.php?t=26203.
80. Garen Wintemute et al., “Increased Risk of Intimate Partner Homicide Among California Women Who Purchased Handguns,” Annals of Emergency Medicine 41, no. 2 (2003): 282.
81. Douglas Wiebe, “Homicide and Suicide Risks Associated with Firearms in the Home: A National Case-Control Study,” Annals of Emergency Medicine 41, no. 6 (2003): 775.
82. K.M. Grassel et al., “Association Between Handgun Purchase and Mortality from Firearm Injury,” Injury Prevention 9 (2003): 50.
83. Violence Policy Center, When Men Murder Women.
84. The following discussion is based on extracts from Violence Policy Center, American Roulette: Murder-Suicide in the United States, 3d ed. (Washington, DC: Violence Policy Center, 2008), www.vpc.org/studies/amroul2008.pdf.
85. “Man Kills Woman and Self at Plant: Longtime Employees Were Common-Law Couple, Police Say,” Harrisburg Patriot News, May 13, 2005.
86. “Motive Still Unclear in Recent Shootings,” Harrisburg Patriot News, Feb. 17, 2010.
87. “Man in Custody After Deadly Jackson Township Shooting,” Lebanon Daily News, Feb. 11, 2011.
88. “Suicides Up by 1 in 2011,” Lebanon Daily News, Feb. 3, 2012; “Coroner Reports on 2010 Deaths,” Lebanon Daily News, Feb. 27, 2011; “Coroner: County Suicides Up in 2008,” Lebanon Daily News, Jan. 23, 2009; “Report Profiles ’07 Coroner Cases,” Lebanon Daily News, Feb. 1, 2008.
89. “Marketing to Women: Six Ways to Increase Your Sales,” Shooting Industry, Nov. 1, 2009.
90. Kevin Reese, “Women Hit the Woods: NRA’s Eight-Day Women’s Wilderness Escape Is a Camp Like None Other,” National Shooting Sports Foundation, www.nssf.org/events/featurette/0711-2.cfm.
91. “Men vs. Women in Competitive Shooting,” AmmoLand.com, Feb. 29, 2012.
92. “Annual Report for the Fiscal Year Ended Dec. 31, 2011,” Freedom Group, Inc.
93. See “NRA Women’s Programs,” NRA, www.nrahq.org/women/index.asp.
94. Reese, “Women Hit the Woods.”
95. “Stocking Beyond Guns; Arms and the Woman,” Shooting Industry, Nov. 1, 2011; “The Real Deal with Pink,” Shooting Industry, Sept. 1, 2011.
96. “Final Civilian Rankings for the Palmetto GLOCK Girl Shootout Held at the B.E.L.T. Training in Reevesville, SC,” www.gssfonline.com/results/2011/2011rsc.pdf.
97. “GLOCK Sport Shooting Foundation Announces First Ever Ladies-Only Match,” AmmoLand.com, May 23, 2011.
98. See, e.g., “Between the Lines,” Hernando Today, Aug. 30, 2011. (In Brooksville, Florida, the Hernando Sportsman’s Club “is inviting women for a ‘Ladies Day’ all-day event running from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the gun range on Oct. 29. The event serves as an introduction to rifles, shotguns and pistols for women only and will help facilitate exposure of shooting sports to women . . . all firearms and ammo will be supplied for the women attending the event.”)
99. “Marketing to Women: Six Ways to Increase Your Sales,” Shooting Industry, Nov. 1, 2009.
100. Ibid.
101. See www.gungoddess.com.
102. “Host a Camp Wild Girls Hunting Party and Profit,” Shooting Industry, July 1, 2010.
103. Advertisement in Shotgun News, June 1, 2012, 4.
104. Ibid., 47.
105. There is no direct link, but the calendars can be found by clicking on the button labeled CALENDARS on the company’s website, http://eaacorp.com.
106. Violence Policy Center, A Shrinking Minority: The Continuing Decline of Gun Ownership in America (Washington, DC: Violence Policy Center, 2011), www.vpc.org/studies/ownership.pdf.
107. “Men vs. Women in Competitive Shooting.”
108. Families Afield website, www.familiesafield.org.
109. For a detailed discussion of the problem from the industry point of view, see Families Afield, Revised Youth Hunting Report, research compiled by Silvertip Productions, Southwick Associates, and U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance, National Shooting Sports Foundation, and National Wild Turkey Federation, available at www.nwtf.org/images/Youth_Hunting_Report.pdf.
110. “Hunting for Young Bucks: Attracting Young Hunters Vital as Overall Number of Hunters Declines in Michigan,” Jackson Citizen Patriot, Oct. 28, 2007.
111. U.S. Sportsman Alliance, Revised Youth Hunting Report, 13.
112. Ibid., 7.
113. “Deputies Investigate Shooting of Girl, 5, by Younger Brother,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, July 1, 2008.
114. “3-Year-Old Kills Self with Gun in Car in Wash.,” Associated Press Online, Mar. 14, 2012.
115. “Counseling, Not Jail, for Boy, 9: Plea Deal in Shooting at Bremerton School—Girl, 8, Remains in Serious Condition,” Seattle Times, Mar. 7, 2012; “Prosecutors Don’t Want to Lock Up Boy Responsible for Bremerton Shooting,” KCPQ/ KMYQ-TV, Feb.25, 2012.
116. Sugarmann, “Beyond the Easy Irony of Murdered Gun Advocate Meleanie Hain.”
117. “Daughter of Marysville Officer Identified: Died from Gunshot Wound to Torso,” KCPQ/KMYQ-TV, Mar. 12, 2012; “Wash. Officer’s Daughter Shot Dead by Sibling,” Associated Press State & Local Wire, Mar. 12, 2012.
118. “The Life & Death of ‘Princess’: Emilee Randall Led an Idyllic Life, but a Gun-Centered Culture Helped Cut It Short,” The Columbian, Feb. 16, 2003.
119. Mathew Miller, Deborah Azrael, and David Hemenway, “Firearm Availability and Unintentional Firearm Deaths, Suicide, and Homicide Among 5–14 Year Olds,” Journal of Trauma Injury, Infection, and Critical Care 52 (2002): 272.
120. Ibid., 273.
121. “Prosecutors Don’t Want to Lock Up Boy Responsible for Bremerton Shooting,” KCPQ/KMYQ-TV, Feb. 25, 2012.
122. Miller, Azrael, and Hemenway, “Firearm Availability,” 267.
4. Two Tales of a City
1. See www.distancebetweencities.net/lebanon_pa_and_murfreesboro_tn.
2. “Geographic Center of Tennessee,” Historical Marker Database, http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=26067.
3. The following are examples. In March 2011, Nith Sim shot to death her husband, Daniel Sim, in La Vergne, not far from Murfreesboro. He was sleeping in the bedroom. She then killed herself. Nith Sim apparently tried to use one handgun, but it jammed, so she used another. Both of the couple’s two children, ages two months and five years, were in the bedroom at the time of the shooting. Daniel Sim’s mother was in another room inside the house. “LPD: Woman Shoots Husband, Self,” Murfreesboro Daily News Journal, Mar. 26, 2011. In November 2009, a Rutherford Country grand jury indicted William Jones on a charge of first-degree premeditated murder. Jones had reported his wife, Lashawn Anna Jones, missing the month before. Police allege he shot his wife to death and dumped her body in a wooded area. “Grand Jury Indicts Man for Wife’s Murder,” Murfreesboro Daily News Journal, Nov. 11, 2009. In Murfreesboro, neighbors expressed “shock and disbelief” when informed of the murder-suicide of eighty-year-old Robert “Bob” Givens and his seventy-eight-year-old wife, Dot, in May 2008. Police did not reveal who shot whom or what type of gun was used. “She was a really sweet lady and always waving and conversing,” a neighbor said. “They were always around the house and went out in the yard together. They were a good old American couple.” “Apparent Murder-Suicide Shocks Neighbors,” Murfreesboro Daily News Journal, May 24, 2008. Two months earlier, a Rutherford County man, Royce Mitchell Markam, shot to death his estranged wife, Joyce Anne, in the driveway of her home. He then went into the house and shot to death James Edward Hollowell. Markam returned to the driveway and shot himself to death. He used a 30 caliber rifle, acco
rding to police. “Three Dead in Murder-Suicide,” Murfreesboro Daily News Journal, Mar. 3, 2008. Several days before that, a man “distraught” by personal troubles shot himself when he was stopped by police in La Vergne. He was last reported to have been on life support. “Briefly: Man Who Shot Self on Life Support,” Murfreesboro Daily News Journal, Mar. 1, 2008. In February 2008, Michael Vance was arrested and charged with shooting to death his wife, Suzanne Vance. Suzanne was seeking to finalize their divorce at the time Vance is accused of murdering her. Seeking a restraining order, she had written in a court document, “He has told me that if I left, he would kill me.” According to police accounts, Vance tried unsuccessfully to commit suicide after he shot his wife, and then led police on a high-speed chase. He was later indicted on a charge of first-degree murder. “Murfreesboro Man Indicted in Killing of Wife,” Murfreesboro Daily News Journal, Feb. 15, 2010; “Estranged Husband Charged in Wife’s Death,” Murfreesboro Daily News Journal, Feb. 29, 2008. In August 2006, Joe Rizzo shot and killed his wife, Sue, at a veterinary office where she worked, then turned the gun on himself. “He fired a shot as she was entering the hallway,” the Murfreesboro police report stated. “She dropped, and he stood over her firing more shots. The suspect stepped into the hall and one more shot was fired.” “Murfreesboro Police Investigating Possible Murder-Suicide,” Associated Press State & Local Wire, Aug. 31, 2006.
4. David Hemenway, While We Were Sleeping: Success Stories in Injury and Violence Prevention (Berkeley: University of California Press 2009), 159.
5. Tennessee Suicide Prevention Network, Status of Suicide in Tennessee 2012 (Nashville: Tennessee Suicide Prevention Network, 2012), 9, http://tspn.org/wp-content/uploads/SOST122.pdf.
6. Ibid., 16. Matthew Miller and David Hemenway, “Guns and Suicide in the United States,” New England Journal of Medicine, Sept. 4, 2008, 990 (“The association between guns in the home and the risk of suicide is due entirely to a large increase in the risk of suicide by firearm that is not counterbalanced by a reduced risk of non-firearm suicide”).
7. “Amber Glen Subdivision in Murfreesboro TN,” Exit Realty of the South, www.smyrna.exi trealtyofthesouth.com/blog/Amber+Glen+Subdivision+in+Murfreesboro+TN; “Murfreesboro Tennessee Real Estate Subdivisions,” Bob Parks Realty, www.bobparks.com/murfreesboro-tennessee-subdivisions.html.
8. See “Cason Lane Academy: About This School,” Education.com, www.education.com/schoolfinder/us/tennessee/murfreesboro/cason-lane-academy/#students-and-teachers. The Cason Lane Academy’s 2008 first grade can be seen on a YouTube video of the school’s Veteran Day program: www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yYliqjZSU8&feature=related.
9. “Murfreesboro Shooting Adds to Suburb’s Spiral of Fear,” Nashville Tennessean, Feb. 22, 2012; “Several Key Details of Cason Lane Shooting Discussed in Juvenile Court Tuesday,” Murfreesboro Daily News Journal, Feb. 21, 2012.
10. Ibid.
11. “Murfreesboro Shooting Adds to Suburb’s Spiral of Fear.”
12. “Dr. Robert Sanders, Crusader,” Nashville Tennessean, Jan. 20, 2006.
13. Robert S. Sanders Jr., Dr. Seat Belt: The Life of Robert S. Sanders, M.D., Pioneer in Child Passenger Safety (Murfreesboro, TN: Armstrong Valley, 2010), 27–46, 54, 74–75, 78–79.
14. Deborah Wagnon and Christian Hidalgo, Images of America: Murfreesboro (Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2007), 57.
15. Sanders, Dr. Seat Belt, 85.
16. Ibid., 45.
17. Ibid., 85.
18. Ibid., 85–87.
19. Anne Teigen and Melissa Savage, “Most Precious Cargo,” State Legislatures, Mar. 2008.
20. Sanders, Dr. Seat Belt, 88–90.
21. Teigen and Savage, “Most Precious Cargo”; Sanders, Dr. Seat Belt, 94–96.
22. “Results Praised in States Requiring Auto Safety Devices for Children,” New York Times, Nov. 28, 1982.
23. “Who’s Who at WPLA: Trooper Jim Foster,” Radio Years, www.radioyears.com/wpla/details.cfm?id=969.
24. “House Rejects 72-Hour Cooling-Off Period for Handguns,” Associated Press, Jan. 28, 1982.
25. Michael D. Decker, Mary Jane Dewey, Robert H. Hutcheson Jr., and William Schaffner, “The Use and Efficacy of Child Restraint Devices: The Tennessee Experience, 1982 and 1983,” Journal of the American Medical Association 252 (Nov. 9, 1984): 2573.
26. Ibid., 2572–73.
27. Ibid., 2574.
28. Ibid.
29. Hemenway, While We Were Sleeping, 159.
30. Decker et al., “Use and Efficacy of Child Restraint Devices,” 2575.
31. Puneet Narang, Anubha Paladugu, Sainath Reddy Manda, William Smock, Cynthia Gosnay, and Steven Lippmann, “Do Guns Provide Safety? At What Cost?” Southern Medical Journal 103, no. 2 (Feb. 2010): 152.
32. Ibid.
33. Sanders, Dr. Seat Belt, 93.
34. U.S. Department of Transportation, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, “Traffic Safety Facts 2009 Data: Occupant Protection,” 4.
35. “Barrett’s 30th Anniversary,” Barrett, http://barrett.net/about.
36. “Gunmaker Is Surviving Fight Against .50-Caliber,” Nashville Tennessean, Jan. 9, 2005.
37. “AP Centerpiece: Small-Time Tinkering Leads to Big-Time Guns, Sales by Tennessee Company,” Associated Press, Nov. 25, 2005.
38. Ibid.
39. Ibid.
40. “Ronnie’s Inspiration,” Barrett blog, Sept. 28, 2011, http://blog.barrett.net/?p=288.
41. The ammunition that 50 caliber sniper rifles fire today was originally developed during the First World War as both an antitank and machine-gun round. Developments in tank armor soon made tanks generally impervious to 50 caliber rounds, but according to the Marine Corps and other authorities, the 50 caliber can still blast through more lightly armored vehicles, such as armored personnel carriers, and thus clearly through armored limousines. It is not true, nor has the Violence Policy Center ever claimed, that a 50 caliber round can penetrate the armor of a modern tank, despite occasional erroneous reports to that effect. What is true is that the 50 caliber can force tank crews to “button up,” and well-placed shots could destroy or degrade certain external equipment and vision blocks on some tanks. Violence Policy Center, Voting from the Roof tops: How the Gun Industry Armed Osama bin Laden, Other Foreign and Domestic Terrorists, and Common Criminals with 50 Caliber Sniper Rifles (Washington, DC: Violence Policy Center 2001), 12, www.vpc.org/graphics/rooftop.pdf.
42. “Ma Deuce Still Going Strong,” Defense Industry Daily, Mar. 5, 2012, www.defenseindustrydaily.com/ma-deuce-still-going-strong-03539.
43. U.S. Army, “Small Arms—Crew-Served Weapons,” in 2012 US Army Weapon Systems Handbook, 292, available from Federation of American Scientists, www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/wsh2012/index.html.
44. U.S. Patent No. 4, 677, 897, “Anti-Armor Gun,” issued to Ronnie G. Barrett on July 7, 1987.
45. “The Big Gun: Controversy over the 50-Caliber Rifle,” 60 Minutes, CBS, Jan. 9, 2005.
46. “AP Centerpiece: Small-Time Tinkering Leads to Big-Time Guns, Sales by Tennessee Company,” Associated Press, Nov. 25, 2005.
47. Barrett Firearms, “Ronnie Barrett, President and Founder of Barrett Firearms, Named as an Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year for 2006,” news release, July 5, 2006.
48. Robert H. Boatman, Living with the Big.50: The Shooter’s Guide to the World’s Most Powerful Rifle (Boulder, CO: Paladin Press, 2004), 6, 9.
49. Ibid., 6.
50. “Barrett’s Shorty: The M82CQ Carbine,” Tactical Response, Jan.–Feb. 2007.
51. “Army Approves Full Fielding of M-107 Sniper Rifle,” Army News Service, Mar. 31, 2005, www4.army.mil/ocpa (accessed Apr. 1, 2005).
52. See the following reports, all of which are available on the Violence Policy Center’s website, www.vpc.org: Clear and Present Danger: National Security Experts Warn About the Danger of Unrestricted Sales of 50 Caliber Anti-Armor Sniper Rifles to Civilians (July 2005); The Threat Posed to Helicopters by 50 Caliber Anti-Arm
or Sniper Rifles (Aug. 2004); Really Big Guns: Even Bigger Lies (Mar. 2004); “Just Like Bird Hunting”—the Threat to Civil Aviation from 50 Caliber Sniper Rifles (Jan. 2003); Sitting Ducks—The Threat to the Chemical and Refinery Industry from 50 Caliber Sniper Rifles (Aug. 2002); The U.S. Gun Industry and Others Unknown—Evidence Debunking the Gun Industry’s Claim That Osama bin Laden Got His 50 Caliber Sniper Rifles from the U.S. Afghan-Aid Program (Feb. 2002); Voting from the Rooftops: How the Gun Industry Armed Osama bin Laden, Other Foreign and Domestic Terrorists, and Common Criminals with 50 Caliber Sniper Rifles (Oct. 2001); One Shot, One Kill: Civilian Sales of Military Sniper Rifles (May 1999).
53. “The Football,” GlobalSecurity.org, www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/systems/nuclear-foofball.htm (accessed Apr. 11, 2005).
54. Don A. Edwards, “Large Caliber Sniper Threat to U.S. National Command Authority Figures,” Research Report Submitted to Faculty, National War College, Washington, DC, 1985, 20.
55. Ibid., 22–23.
56. James Bonomo et al., Stealing the Sword: Limiting Terrorist Use of Advanced Conventional Weapons (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2007), 64.
57. Ibid., 39.
58. Ibid.
59. Ibid., 39–40.
60. Ibid., 75.
61. Ibid., 76.
62. “No Recession for Firearms Industry,” New York Times, Jan. 13, 1992.
63. Violence Policy Center, Voting from the Rooftops: How the Gun Industry Armed Osama bin Laden, Other Foreign and Domestic Terrorists, and Common Criminals with 50 Caliber Sniper Rifles (Washington, DC: Violence Policy Center, 2001), 35, www.vpc.org/graphics/rooftop.pdf.
64. Violence Policy Center, Clear and Present Danger: National Security Experts Warn About the Danger of Unrestricted Sales of 50 Caliber Anti-Armor Sniper Rifles to Civilians (Washington, DC: Violence Policy Center, 2005), 11, www.vpc.org/studies/50danger.pdf.
65. Two VPC monographs document the bin Laden transaction and the rebuttal of Barrett’s story in great detail. See The U.S. Gun Industry and Others Unknown—Evidence Debunking the Gun Industry’s Claim That Osama bin Laden Got His 50 Caliber Sniper Rifles from the U.S. Afghan-Aid Program (Washington, DC: Violence Policy Center, 2002), www.vpc.org/graphics/snipercia.pdf; and Voting from the Rooftops.