Some Good Quotations

A few interesting quotations and perspectives I gleaned from reviewing John Donohue's debate with Don Kilmer on guns and gun control on C-span.

From Donohue's C-Span Debate with Don Kilmer:

"To assert that the Constitution is a barrier to reasonable gun laws, in the face of the unanimous judgment of the federal courts to the contrary, exceeds the limits of principled advocacy. It is time for the NRA and its followers in Congress to stop trying to twist the Second Amendment from a reasoned (if antiquated) empowerment for a militia into a bulletproof personal right for anyone to wield deadly weaponry beyond legislative control.”

--Erwin Griswold, former Soliciter General under Richard Nixon and Dean of Harvard Law.

The Second Amendment was "one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word ‘fraud,’ on the American public by special interest groups that I’ve ever seen in my life time. The real purpose of the Second Amendment was to ensure that state armies--the militias--[preamble] would be maintained for the defense of the state. The very language of the Second Amendment [referring to the preamble] refutes any argument that it was intended to guarantee every citizen an unfettered right to any kind of weapon he or she desires."

--Former Chief Justice Warren Burger on McNeil Lehrer in 1991.

"First, we believe in absolutely gun-free, zero-tolerance, totally safe schools. That means no guns in America's schools, period ... with the rare exception of law enforcement officers or trained security personnel."

--Wayne LaPierre, May 1, 1999 speech after the Columbine shootings.


"If it's crazy to call for putting police and armed security in our schools to protect our children, then call me crazy," LaPierre said in an interview on NBC's Meet the Press. "I think the American people think it's crazy not to do it. It's the one thing that would keep people safe."


--Wayne LaPierre, Sunday, December 23, 2012, on the heels of Sandy Hook.


National Crime Victimization Survey: Guns are used in self defense approximately 47,000 times/year (=8/10 of 1% or 0.008% of violent crimes). Between 2005 and 2010, an average of 232,000 guns were stolen annually, meaning that for every time a gun is used in self-defense, 5 guns are stolen.

Lastly, Violence in America: Five Graphs. Very effective presentation.

A late addition, on general crime in the OECD nations. Good for broad comparisons.