Only there weren't 14,000 "firearm murders" in 2005. According to FBI statistics, there were 10,100 gun murders in 2005 instead of the 14,000 cited by Gerber. In fact, the whole of the 2005 murder rate of all causes was 15,517, not much more than just the gun deaths claimed by Gerber.
Conveniently ignoring all the evidence that says more armed people in a given area actually lowers gun violence, Gerber goes on to claim that the idea that if the students at Virginia Tech were armed, maybe so many would not have died before the killer was taken down is "a joke". Absurdly, he makes his claim as if he knows beyond doubt that it could not be true that others being armed could have lowered the VT kill ratio.
What is not a joke is the absurd contention of the NRA gunslingers that if the Virginia Tech students had been armed there would have been far fewer victims.
And Gerber knows this... how?
I would not claim to know that, should other students have been armed, fewer would have died, but the evidence that more guns means fewer gun crimes is strong enough that the idea should be considered sensible. Whereas the opposite, that posited by Gerber, simply is not as logically deducible. But, either way, no one will know unless the idea is tried.
Another lie is Gerber's focus on the lapsed "assault weapons" ban with the columnist acting as if it is a useful, good law that should have been renewed. As Gerber goes on to decry that George Bush allowed the so-called assault weapons ban to lapse in 2004 he, of course, fails to prove why keeping the ban would do any good. According to the FBI, "assault weapons" are not used for gun violence in the US (7,543 of the 10,000 gun deaths were done with handguns which are NOT "assault weapons"). So, keeping such a ban would do nothing to alleviate the number of gun related deaths in this country that Gerber is so worried about.
By the way, while Gerber is all exercised by gun deaths, the FBI also catalogs nearly 2,000 deaths in 2005 by knives or other edged implements. Is he all about eliminating America's evil Knife culture, too?
Somehow, I'd bet he has never given it a second thought.
And, I have to say, it has always amazed me that "Doctors" like Gerber get in such high dudgeon over 15,000 some murders a year, but they don't bother their self-righteous selves about the 39,189 auto deaths in the US. (see US murder rates since 1965 here See 2005 auto accident stats here) How are guns more dangerous than autos at this rate?
Last, Gerber trots out the old chestnut that anti-gunners love to pull wherein the Founders are called irrelevant. He even mocks those who say the Constitution is the best law ever created by putting in quotes the praise for the document -- as Gerber puts it: The debate over gun control is dominated by the interpretation of the Second Amendment to our Constitution -- widely acclaimed as "the finest document ever devised by man."
He imagines that all the reasons that the founders created the militia idea "are not germane today". Of course, many thought the hundreds of years that the ancient Greek Republics were successful made them permanent and others imagined that Rome was a perfect society never to turn into tyranny. And it is sure that many Germans imagined the Weimar Republic was going to last forever with little fears of a lapse into despotism, too.
We all know how those "success stories" turned out, don't we?
Doc Gerber is more compassion than knowledge and it is a shame that this ill informed person was given such a forum to air his unfounded views. Unfortunately, what we have with this Washington Times piece is illogic, wrapped in fantasy and backed up by lies and the Times should be ashamed of themselves.
