Every Handgun Is Aimed At You

"Every Handgun Is Aimed At You: The Case for Banning Handguns" by Josh Sugarman; The New Press, 256 pages, $24.95.

Through all the tears and heartache, the introspection and desperate search for cause and truth following the recent tragedy at Santana High, a simple fact dominates: If a profoundly disturbed 15-year-old boy had not had access to a gun, two teen-agers would be alive today and 13 others would not have had their lives shattered by bullets.

Josh Sugarman, who is not one to nibble at the edges of America`s endless and vociferous gun-control debate, emphatically makes that point in "Every Handgun Is Aimed at You: The Case for Banning Handguns," a stark look at America`s tolerance for guns.

Not only does he blast away at gun manufacturers and the National Rifle Association, he disdains fellow gun-control advocates for their willingness to compromise with suggestions like safety locks and gun registration. Handguns, Sugarman insists, have one purpose: to shoot human beings. And he wants them banned, period.

Sugarman makes a compelling, common-sense case that in order to stop school shootings and other homicides, suicides and gun accidents that have claimed one million American lives since 1962, handguns must be outlawed.

We don`t have a gun problem in this country, he writes, we have a handgun problem: Two-thirds of those 1 million deaths - 670,000 - were the result of handguns, even though handguns make up only one-third of America`s 190 million guns.

Sugarman directs the Violence Policy Center, a national education group that works to reduce gun violence and injury in America. He writes that it is important to understand that for every person killed with a firearm, nearly three others require medical treatment for non-fatal wounds. A conservative estimate for the cost of this immediate medical care is $4 billion a year, according to Sugarman; when lifetime care and economic loss are factored in, the cost soars to $20 billion annually.

Handguns aren`t used for hunting. They are small, easy to carry and conceal, relatively cheap and readily accessble - perfect, in other words, to commit crimes against people.

In non-fatal crimes in which guns are used to terrorize victims, including robbery, rape and assault, handguns are the weapon of choice nearly nine times out of 10. Yet among the myths and gun-industry and NRA propaganda Sugarman exposes is that a handgun protects its owner.

In his chapter on handguns and women, for example, Sugarman writes that in 1997, there were 3,336 female homicide victims and only 14 justifiable homicides reported to the FBI in which women used a handgun to kill in self-defense.

"Considering that a woman is, in an average year, 200 times more likely to be murdered by someone using a handgun than to kill a stranger in self-defense, the gun industry`s efforts to exploit women`s fears of attack by strangers is revealed in all its cynical glory," Sugarman writes.

Similarly, he blows holes in the NRA argument that "tough on crime" measures like mandatory sentences for criminals who use a gun to commit a felony are the answer.

"Felony-related homicide represents less than 8 percent of total firearm-related death," Sugarman notes. "The bulk of gun violence results from suicide, homicides committed among people who know each other, and unintentional shootings."

In addition to practical steps people can take to protect themselves from gun violence, Sugarman winds up with this surprising conclusion: Time will eventually solve the problem of gun violence in America.

He notes that gun ownership is shrinking; the sport of hunting is fading away; military service, in which males were historically introduced to guns, is no longer compulsory; and kids today have many more interests to occupy them besides guns.

But in the face of 190 million guns in American households and constant examples of gun violence, Sugarman`s conclusion seems wildly optimistic.

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Author: Mark Sauer