Editor:

It never ceases to amaze me that even highly educated people will hear something they wish to believe and assume it must be true without ever checking the facts. Such is the case for the claim that mere ownership of a firearm increases the chance you or a loved one will be killed. Unlike those making this claim, I have thoroughly researched this topic and will cite sources to back up my position.

According to the 1988 "Internation Crime Rates," published by the U.S. Department of Justice, England/Wales and Switzerland have exactly the same homicide rate: 1.1 per 100,000. However, every Swiss male is required by law to keep a fully automatic rifle in their home. This rifle, the Steyr AUG, makes the "assault weapons" banned in the U.S. Crime Law look like popguns. How is it that, despite the presence of these evil guns, Switzerland's homicide rate is the same as gun-banning England's? Three times more people die from mountain-climbing accidents as homicide in Switzerland.

There do exist rare examples of a criminal shooting a citizen with their own firearm. But even this situation doesn't answer the question of whether the criminal would have killed the victim anyway. Does Nicole Brown's death mean less because she was murdered with a knife? If she had tried to use a handgun to defend herself, and been killed with it instead, do we now blame the gun instead of the killer?

It is a favorite tactic of the gun-control crowd to include justifiable shootings and suicides in their "gun death" toll. What about the "gun life" numbers?

In February 1988, criminologist Gary Kleck's analysis of a U.S. Justice Department victimization study was published in the journal "Social Problems." He concluded:

"Victims who used guns for protection were less likely either to be attacked or injured than victims who responded in any other way, including those who did not resist at all," and "When victims use guns to resist crimes, the crimes usually are disrupted and the victims are not injured."

Current estimates show that up to 2.45 million criminal acts are thwarted by firearms every year in the U.S., most without a shot being fired ("Should You Own a Gun," U.S. News and World Report, Aug. 15, 1994, p. 27.) Even conservative estimates place the number at well over a million. In 1990, there were 1,400 accidental firearms deaths. Compare this to 1,900 accidental firearms deaths in 1910, despite the huge increase in both population and gun ownership, and the "you might accidentally shoot yourself or someone else" argument falls to dust (National Safety Council, "Accident Facts, 1992 Edition.")

Don B. Kates Jr., at the St. Louis University School of Law, found that while police were successful in shooting or driving off criminals 68 percent of the time, private citizens did so 83 percent of the time. Moreover, 11 percent of the individuals involved in police shootings were later found to be innocents mistaken for criminals, while only 2 percent of those in civilian shootings were so misidentified. Private citizens in urban areas encounter and kill up to three times as many criminals as law enforcement personnel ("Gun Control and the Subway Class," Wall Street Journal, Jan. 10, 1985.) The reasons are simple: Private citizens who carry firearms are far more likely to know who the "good guys" and the "bad guys" are, since they have generally witnessed the situation from the beginning. Police, called to the scene well after trouble has started, don't have that advantage.

As with most things in life, there are no perfect choices. You can choose to own a gun (1,400 accidental deaths per year), or not to own one (2.45 million more crimes per year). You can let the police "protect" you (11 percent shooting of innocents, when and if the cops show up) or decide to protect yourself (2 percent shooting of innocents). You can cooperate with the demands of criminals (making you more likely to be attacked and injured) or use a firearm for defense (making you less likely to be attacked and injured).

Of one statistic I am absolutely sure. The armed citizen has a 100 percent chance of deciding for themselves whether to use deadly force in self-defense. It eliminates no options, and provides a new choice that may make the difference between life and death for the victim. When the gun banners try to scare you with their gun death statistics, they don't care whether it was the criminal or the victim who died. I firmly believe, though, that most Americans recognize the difference.

J. Sean Keane
electrical and computer engineering graduate student