This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Eric S. H. Ching
Mountain View, Calif

JAMA. 1994;272(18):1407-1408.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.

—The Commentary by the New York Academy of Medicine panel¹ is seriously flawed as public health policy and yet another example of the fact that a medical degree does not a criminologist or policy analyst make.

The article completely ignored the vast criminological research literature on the subject, which generally concludes that the gun control measures proposed by the panel have failed and, even worse, may actually have led to more innocent victims.²

Rational public policy balances benefits and costs. In ignoring or dismissing the extensive criminological literature on the subject, the panel failed to explicitly consider the benefits conferred by private firearms ownership, which are potentially large. For example, research during the past decade suggests that between 30 and 75 lives may be saved with privately owned guns for each life taken with one.^3,4 Instead, the panel's one-sided "costs only" approach to firearms . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?