I urge you to read the review below of Lethal Logic: Exploding the Myths that Paralyze American Gun Policy (Potomac Books, 2009).  Lethal Logic was written by Dennis A. Henigan, Vice President for Law and Policy at the Brady Campaign.  The book contains an extraordinary presentation of how the gun lobby misrepresents gun violence in America and is a worthy addition to your reading/research collection.

The review was written by California's Griffin Dix who taught Anthropology at Santa Clara University. In 1994 his fifteen-year-old son, Kenzo, was shot and killed in Berkeley. He recently served as the Chapter-elected national Chairman of the Million Mom March’s National State Presidents Council.
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Four out of five Americans support specific measures to regulate firearms, such as requiring background checks at gun shows. In the 2006 and 2008 elections, candidates who explicitly backed such regulations defeated NRA-endorsed or “A-rated” candidates overwhelmingly. But now House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as well as the Democratic leaders of the Senate and the White House are universally afraid to even raise the subject. Why is that?

Part of the answer is that the gun lobby’s emotionally powerful, fear-inducing arguments work. In his new book, Dennis Henigan takes on the gun lobby’s policy-paralyzing slogans and answers them with sound logic and research.  A gun lobby golden oldie is: Guns Don’t Kill People, People Kill People, “one of the greatest advocacy slogans ever conceived,” says Henigan. But, he points out, cars by themselves don’t kill people either, yet no one argues against licensing drivers and mandating safety features like seat belts and airbags.

Unlike cars, guns are sold as weapons and attract many buyers who want to use them to commit crimes. These crimes are more lethal if a gun is used, and less lethal if a knife or fists are used. Citing studies by Frank Zimring of UC Berkeley, Henigan shows that Americans are not more violent than people in other countries but our violence is more lethal because our crimes—such as robbery and assault—more often involve guns. This is another way that, contrary to the slogan, guns do kill people.

However, Henigan says, most people who buy guns, even handguns, do not buy them for crime; they buy them for self-defense and bring them into their homes. Guns kill people there too; the presence of a gun in the home is associated with an almost three fold increase in homicide rates there and an almost five fold increase in suicide.

Partly because the slogans are so effective, we don’t do a good job of thinking about gun policy in this country, says Henigan. In answer to the gun lobby’s arguments, he offers a wealth of logical, research-based counter-arguments.  But are logic and facts enough?

The fearful emotions aroused by the gun industry slogans can easily override logical arguments, even those in favor of laws proven successful at helping prevent criminals—not law-abiding citizens—from obtaining guns. The success of the gun lobby demonstrates political psychologist Drew Westen’s dictum that, “In politics, when reason and emotion collide, emotion invariably wins.” (The Political Brain, p. 35) In fact, the most compelling parts of Lethal Logic are the case studies showing the lethal effects of our loophole-ridden laws on ordinary, unsuspecting Americans.