Quote: “Guns don’t kill people — criminals do.” That’s a powerful slo­gan, much more powerful than its alternate version: “Guns don’t kill people—people kill people.” But this second version, though less effec­tive, is much nearer to the whole truth. Although accurate statistics are hard to come by, and even harder to interpret, it seems indisputable that large numbers of people, not just criminals, kill, with a handgun, other people. Scarcely a day goes by without a newspaper in any large city re­porting that a child has found a gun, kept by the child’s parents for self­ protection, and has, in playing with this new-found toy, killed himself or a playmate. Or we read of a storekeeper, trying to protect himself during a robbery, who inadvertently shoots an innocent customer. These killers are not, in any reasonable sense of the word, criminals. They are just people who happen to kill people. No wonder the gun lobby prefers the first version of the slogan, “Guns don’t kill people—criminals do.” This version suggests that the only problem is criminals, not you or me, or our children, and certainly not the members of the National Rifle Association.

Those of us who want strict control of handguns — for me that means the outlawing of handguns, except to the police and related service units — have not been able to come up with a slogan equal in power to “Guns don’t kill people—criminals do.” The best we have been able to come up with is a mildly amusing bumper sticker showing a teddy bear, with the words “Defend your right to arm bears.” Humor can be a powerful weapon (even in writing on behalf of gun control, one slips into using the imagery of force), and our playful bumper sticker somehow deflates the self-righteousness of the gun lobby, but doesn’t equal the power (again the imagery of force) of “Guns don’t kill people — criminals do.” For one thing, the effective alliteration of “criminals” and “kill” binds the two words, making everything so terribly simple. Criminals kill; when there are no criminals, there will be no deaths from guns.

But this notion won’t do. Despite the uncertainty of some statistical evidence, everyone knows, or should know, that only about 30 percent of murders are committed by robbers or rapists (Kates, 1 978). For the most part the victims of handguns know their assailants well. These victims are women killed by jealous husbands, or they are the women’s lovers; or they are drinking buddies who get into a violent argument; or they are innocent people who get shot by disgruntled (and probably demented) employees or fellow workers who have (or imagine) a grudge. Or they are, as I’ve already said, bystanders at a robbery, killed by a storekeeper. Or they are children playing with their father’s gun.

I certainly looks like they outlawed history book where you live.