For Immediate Release
November 22, 2004
Contact: Ellie McDaniel
703-321-8585

As news of Sunday’s Wisconsin shooting became public, gun control advocates trotted out their tired old arguments for banning firearms. But Gun Owners of America challenged the Violence Policy Center, and other like-minded groups, to tell the rest of the story.

“Sunday’s shooting was very tragic,” said GOA Director of Communications Erich Pratt. “But we must not forget that more than four thousand people saved their lives using guns on Sunday.”

According to the Clinton Justice Department (in 1997), Americans use guns in self-defense as many as 4,110 times every day. This means that guns are used 50 times more to save life than to illegitimately take life. This study can viewed by visiting www.gunowners.org/sourcetb.htm on the GOA website.

The Violence Policy Center issued a press release today calling for an import ban on firearms such as the SKS.

“But banning the SKS -- the gun used by the murderer in Wisconsin -- is not going to make people safer. A typical hunting round such as the .30-06 fires ammunition that is much more deadly than the 7.62 x 39 ammunition that is fired by the SKS,” Pratt said.

“Moreover, if we’re going to ban deadly items, then where are the calls to ban matches and gasoline -- the very items used by Julio Gonzalez in 1990 to set fire to a New York disco club, killing 87 people?” Pratt asked.

“Or why wasn’t there a drive to ban cars when an elderly gentleman accidentally ran over dozens of people in Santa Monica, California last year, killing eight and wounding 45?

“How ironic,” Pratt said. “It seems the Violence Policy Center is only interested in certain types of violence.”

Erich Pratt is Director of Communications for Gun Owners of America, a national gun lobby with over 300,000 members located at 8001 Forbes Place, Springfield, VA 22151.