WHAT ARE SENSIBLE
GUN LAWS?
A Position Statement by Doctors
for Sensible Gun Laws
In order to be considered sensible, an existing
or proposed gun law must meet the following conditions:
- A sensible gun law must save more
lives than it costs.
Research shows that guns are used much more often
to prevent crimes than they are used to aid crimes. Therefore laws
that hinder the ordinary citizen's right to self defense with a
firearm tend to cause a net increase in crime.
- A sensible law must make the best use
of scarce public resources.
For example, the money spent enforcing the
law might save more lives if it were invested in other areas, such as
medical research, drug treatment programs or voluntary firearms safety
training.
- A proposed gun law must be backed up
by good quality, peer reviewed research showing that it meets the
above criteria.
Junk medical science has no place in public policy
debates.
- A sensible law is one that does not
weaken our society by inflaming anti-government sentiment.
Many gun
laws raise concern about increasing government control of people's
lives and unreasonably limit their constitutionally guaranteed right
to keep and bear arms. This breeds disrespect for the law and for our
government.
- A proposed law should be reviewed by a
legislative committee equally represented by both sides of the issue to determine the unintended consequences of that
law before it is presented for a final vote.
- A sensible law must be
Constitutional.
Lest anyone say that Doctors for Sensible
Gun Laws are a group of extremists who do not support any gun laws, we
offer some examples of gun laws that we consider sensible:
- It makes sense to prohibit carrying a
gun when visiting a prison inmate or entering a high security military
base.
- It is sensible to prohibit visitors
from carrying guns into government facilities that are likely targets
of terrorists, such as the White House.
- Although such measures are usually
misguided, we believe that people and businesses have the right to
prohibit weapons on their private property and ask violators to leave.
- We support laws appropriating public
funds for voluntary civilian firearms training.
"You do not
examine legislation in light of the benefits it will convey if properly
administered, but in light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it
would cause if improperly administered."
~~ Lyndon B. Johnson
Doctors for Sensible Gun
LawsTM
resulted from the collaboration of members of KeepAndBearArms.com.
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