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Quote by Don Kates

“...Virtually never are murderers the ordinary, law-abiding people against whom gun bans are aimed. Almost without exception, murderers are extreme aberrants with lifelong histories of crime, substance abuse, psychopathology, mental retardation and/or irrational violence against those around them, as well as other hazardous behavior, e.g., automobile and gun accidents.”

Quote by Don Kates

Author

Don Kates
Don Kates

Don Kates was a renowned criminologist known for his research on gun control, law, and social issues. His work has had a profound impact on public policy and legal practice. more

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“False is the idea of utility that sacrifices a thousand real advantages for one imaginary or trifling inconvenience; that would take fire from men because it burns, and water because one may drown in it; that has no remedy for evils except destruction. The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.”

“According to the National Crime Survey administered by the Bureau of the Census and the National Institute of Justice, it was found that only 12 percent of those who use a gun to resist assault are injured, as are 17 percent of those who use a gun to resist robbery. These percentages are 27 and 25 percent, respectively, if they passively comply with the felon's demands. Three times as many were injured if they used other means of resistance.”

“Gun laws are an attempt to nationalize the right of self-defense. Politicians perennially react to the police's abject failure to prevent crime by trying to disarm law-abiding citizens. The worse government fails to control crime, the more the politicians want to restrict individuals' rights to defend themselves. But police protection in most places is typical government work - slow, inefficient, and unreliable.”