 he
battle lasted only one day. Michael Moore, part-time movie
director and activist, had camped out in the lobby of Kmart's
corporate headquarters. He believed that if he could convince
the company to stop selling handgun ammunition it would
discourage future shooting attacks like the one at Columbine in
1999. To help generate news coverage, Moore brought along
several current and former Columbine students to try meeting
with Kmart CEO Chuck Conaway. By the next day, even without the
meeting, the company had given in, it was no longer selling the
ammunition.
So
isn't this a victory for putting "people before
profits"? After a company spokesman told Moore that there
were no plans to stop selling ammunition, newspapers reports
indicate that the following day "the retailer understood
the concerns voiced by Moore and the Columbine students and
already had reconsidered its sale of handgun ammunition."
Unfortunately,
social activists often offer advice that leads to the opposite
of what is intended. This action is part of a trend that is
slowly undermining people's safety. Gun-control advocates
wouldn't cheer on Kmart's decision unless they thought that with
fewer retailers selling bullets the amount bought by criminals
will decline, though they must then also concede that it will
reduce purchases by law-abiding citizens. Even if this change
reduces gun use by criminals and law-abiding citizens by the
same percent (and that is an optimistic assumption), there will
be a greater absolute reduction in defensive gun uses simply
because, with some two million defensive gun uses each year,
defensive uses are about 5 times more frequent than crimes
committed with guns.
The
police may be extremely important at stopping crime, but they
almost always arrive on the crime scene after the crime has been
committed. Defensive gun use stories may never make the national
evening news, but if we care about saving lives we need to add
up both the bad events that are prevented as well as the bad
ones that are committed. Moore and Kmart never even appeared
aware of gun ownership's benefits.
Possibly
this ignorance of defensive gun uses is due to the extremely
little media coverage defensive uses receive. The few stories
that get any attention are buried in short articles in the back
of local newspapers and they almost always involve the extremely
unusual examples where the criminals have been killed or
seriously wounded. Even with these caveats, there are several
dozen local stories during just the last couple of weeks of
June. Just take a few cases:
- New
Lexington, Ohio: A rape victim stopped her attacker by
shooting him.
- Flint,
Michigan: A 68-year-old wheelchair-bound resident shot a
violent intruder who had broken into his home.
- Onondaga,
New York: The attacker who was striking someone with a
shovel was shot by the friend of the victim.
The
fear over public-school shootings is legitimate, but Kmart's
response, even if it is motivated by those attacks, is not.
Since the shootings started in the fall of 1997, 32 students and
3 teachers have been killed in any type of shooting at
elementary or secondary schools, an annual rate of 1 death per 4
million students. This includes deaths from gang fights,
robberies, accidents, as well as attacks such as the one at
Columbine. By contrast, during that same period, 53 students
died playing high-school football. Is Kmart's next response to
not sell any sports equipment?
To
blame Kmart for selling some of the ammunition used in the
Columbine attack or to think that deaths could have been
prevented if only Kmart hadn't sold ammunition makes no sense.
Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold had planned the Columbine attack
for over a year and were motivated enough to construct several
dozen bombs.
Apparently,
the real goal is to stop all stores, not just Kmart, from
selling ammunition. But when the police can't be there to
protect people, will gun control advocates be there to protect
them?
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