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GEORGIA BULLETIN, THURSDAY, JUNE 13, 1968 11
WHO GETS SHOT IN THE UNITED STATES?
By RELIGIOUS NEWS SERVICE
Who gets shot in the United States? The big headlines tell only
about political leaders such as John and Robert Kennedy, civil rights
leaders such as Martin Luther King and Medgar Evers, militants such'
as Malcolm X and George Lincoln Rockwell, an occasional artist or
entertainment figure as Andy Warhol.
But President Lyndon
Johnson has told Congress that
guns are used in more than 6,500
murders in the United States each
year. Since the turn of the
century, he said, 750,000
Americans have been killed with
guns. That is almost equivalent to
the present population of
Milwaukee, much more than the
population of San Francisco, St.
Louis, San Antonio or Boston.
Some occupational categories,
including policemen, taxi drivers
and small shop-keepers, are
particularly frequent victims of
guns, but being shot can happen
to practically..anyone in the U.S.
Periodically someone goes
berserk, takes a rifle or pistol and
simply shoots at whoever
happens to be available. More
often, guns are used after
quarrels, to settle long-standing
grudges or because of mental and
emotional disturbances which can
be understood only through
prolonged analysis.
Even religious vows and a
nun’s habit are no guarantee
against snipers. In January, two
Roman Catholic nuns were
wounded and another narrowly
missed by a woman with a gun in
Columbus, Ohio. Asked by the
police why she shot the Sisters,
the sniper, a young unemployed
proofreader, said that she could
not understand it herself.
Compared with America’s
6,500, an average of 30 persons
are killed with guns each year in
England, 99 in Canada, 68 in
West Germany and 37 in Japan.
The American figure is
approximately one for every
30,000 of the nation’s
population. The comparable
figures for other countries are:
England, one in 1.5 million;
Canada, one in 200,000; West
Germany, one in 880,000; Japan,
one in 2.6 million.
According' to the President’s
figures, an average of 17
Americans are killed with guns
each day. Japanese, in contrast,
sometimes have gaps of weeks
between gun murders.
President Johnson’s message
to Congress (following close on
the heels of a televised statement
denying “that our country is sick
- that it has lost its balance, its
sense of direction, even its
common decency’.’), urged
passage of a law curbing the
availability of firearms.
Shocked by the assassination
of Senator Robert Kennedy, the
House of Representatives quickly
enacted an anti-crime law which
included restrictions on the sale
of hand guns. Passage of
legislation is rapidly becoming a
part of the national ritual for
dealing with prominent
assassinations.
But the President’s message
said, any many observers agree,
that the anti-crime law is
Gun Legislation
Will Be Discussed
A meeting will be held
Monday, June 17, at 8 p.m. at
the Cathedral Center to discuss
support of national gun-control
legislation.
Mrs. Anna Marie Shinn, a
member of the Cathedral parish,
said former Congressman Charles
L. Weltner will speak. She said
support of realistic gun-control
legislation will be sought at the
meeting.
nowhere near an adequate
response to the menace of guns in
the United States.
Ironically, one of the most
vigorous proponents of a stronger
anti-gun law was Senator Robert
Kennedy. A provision to ban the
mail-order sale of rifles was
introduced by his brother,
Senator Edward M. Kennedy of
Massachusetts, on May 16, and
defeated in the Senate. Speaking
in support of the ill-fated
measure, Robert Kennedy said
that its passage “would save
hundreds of lives in this country
and spare thousands of families
all across this land the grief and
the heartbreak that may come
from the loss of a husband, a son,
a brother or a friend.”
“It is time that we wipe this
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BROOKHAVEN
stain of violence from our land,”
thelate_senator said.
The J)ill actually passed was
described as a “cruel hoax” by
Representative Emmanuel Celler
of Brooklyn, chairman of the
.House Judiciary Committee.
Senator Thomas Dodd of
Connecticut, a frequent sponsor
of unsuccessful anti-gun bills in
the past five years, found the
measure’s provisions fairly
stringent in relation to hand guns
but called for regulation of the
sale of rifles and shotguns as well.
“We will have to follow the
example of other civilized
countries and make the
registration of all guns
compulsory,” he aid. Otherwise
“I am profoundly afraid that our
land will be the scene of more
assassinations and assassination
attempts.”
Senator Dodd began his
anti-gun campaign a few months
before President Kennedy was
assassinated with a mail-order
rifle, when his committee on
juvenile delinquency discovered
that teen-age gangs were
beginning to use guns ordered
through the mail rather than
home-made weapons.
Among the provisions not in
the bill that has passed Congress,
President Johnson recommended
one which would' bar the sale of
firearms, including rifles and
Shotguns, to persons under age
18.
The President also called for
the prohibition of mail-order '
sales of “long guns,” and for
measures which would make it
unlawful to sell guns to
out-of-state residents.
At present, gun control is
almost entirely in the hands of
city and state authorities.
Regulations on the sale of guns
vary considerably from one state
to another, and persons in states
with relatively strict laws have
often been able to circumvent
them by traveling to a
neighboring state with lenient
laws or by ordering through the
mail.
The bill approved by Congress
does contain strong provisions
regulating the sale of pistols. It
forbids their sale by mail, to
persons under age 21 and to
those who reside outside the state
where the gun is bought.
It also forbids the importing
from outside the U.S. of weapons
not suitable for hunting and
strictly limits the sale of weapons
usually associated with war, such
as machine guns and hand
grenades.
Certain classes of persons are
forbidden by the new law to
receive, possess or transport guns.
These include certified mental
imcompetents, convicted felons,
veterans who were not honorably
discharged, aliens not legally
settled in the U.S. and those who
have renounced their U.S.
citizenship.
Critics of the law also focus
on a number of other provisions
which they expect, eventually, to
be found unconstitutional. One
section of the law attempts to
overturn Supreme Court
decisions on the admissibility of
evidence obtained through
confessions and on police
procedures in the questioning of
suspects. Another section would
extend significantly the types of
cases in which” wiretapping and
the use -of other electronic
monitoring devices are legally
permitted.
One of the most detailed
criticisms of the bill was given
before its passage by Dr. R. H.
Edwin Espy, general secretary of
the National Council of
Churches.
Dr. Espy called the gun
control provisions “too weak to
merit support,” adding the
frequently-heard complaint that
provision should be made to
control “mail order purchase of
long guns such as those used in
the assassination of President
Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther
King.”
In a letter sent to each
member of the Senate, Dr. Espy
said that the other sections of the
bill would “cut back the federal
court’s power to vindicate
citizens’ rights if they are
impaired by state court decisions
(as they often have been).”
On wiretapping and
eavesdropping, he said “the range
of offenses for which state "or
federal orders may be issued” was
too “broad.”
Other religious leaders and
organizations, without going into
the kind of detail used by the
NCC, have urged greater gun
control on the federal level. Two
weeks after Dr. Espy’s statement,
the Public Affairs Committee of
the North Carolina (Southern)
Baptist Convention asked “every
citizen in our land to support the
principle of greater supervision
and control (by the federal
government) @f the sale and
distribution of guns and other
firearms throughout the U.S.”
The Anti-Defamation League
of B’nai B’rith has also called for
stricter gun control laws, noting
an “increasing accumulation of
firearms by political and racial
extremists.”
Religious influence is
reportedly prominent in the
National Council for a
Responsible Firearms Policy,
established last year, which made
a Methodist minister, the Rev. J.
Elliott Corbett, its first secretary.
The purposes of the organization
include a public education
program on the need for controls
to prevent “irresponsible use of
firearms.”
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