DEAR SELF-RELIANT READER, 



	"One out of 20 kids has carried a gun [to school] in the last 

month," said Sara Brady, Chairperson of Handgun Control, Inc., at a 

recent push for Brady II.



	The Brady II Bill proposes to further curtail our Second 

Amendment choices by requiring licensing, limits on the number of guns a 

person could purchase and punitive taxation on ammunition and firearms.  

The reason it is needed Mrs. Brady says is gun-toting children.



	Eugene Pasymowski, MAI, a consultant and appraiser from 

Pennsylvania, did an analysis of Mrs. Brady's assertion and provided it 

to the Second Amendment Foundation.



	According to the STATISTICAL ABSTRACT OF THE UNITED STATES 1993, 

there are 50,651,000 student enrolled in public and private elementary 

and secondary schools.  The average attendance rate is 92 percent 

according to PETERSEN'S PUBLIC SCHOOLS, USA.  This means there are 

46,599,012 students in school on a daily basis.



	One in 20 is five percent.  If this is an accurate representation 

of the percentage of students that carry a firearm during a month, there 

are 2,329,950 students with a gun in school each month.  Based on 20 

school days per month, there are 116,497 incidents of firearms possession 

by students on any school day.  Given 200 classroom days per year there 

are 23,299,506 separate instances of a child carrying a firearm to school 

if he only does so once.



	If a child were to carry a firearms, say five times per month, 

that would mean that, there are 116,497,530 instances each year; roughly 

11,649,753 each month.



	That's 11,649,753.

	That's absurd.



	Yet, according to the information Mrs. Sarah Brady is 

disseminating (and is being regurgitated by the anti-gun media elite) 

that number is correct if five percent of students carry a firearm in the 

proceeding month.



	The students must be far more careful about keeping their safeties

on than the police are.



	In response to this hyperbole (or perhaps more accurately, 

maniacal hysteria) the Second Amendment Foundation has done an Up To Date 

titled KIDS & GUNS: THE REAL STORY.



	According to information obtained by the National Safety Council 

(latest available statistics as of this writing are from 1992) 200 

children under the age of 15 were accidentally killed by firearms.  There 

were also 520 suffocations, 160 fatal poisonings, 160 falls, 990 deaths 

in fire, 1150 drownings and 2800 children killed in automobile accidents.



	Thus firearms make up 2.8 percent of all accidental deaths of 

children under the age of 15.  A child is 35.2 TIMES more likely to 

suffer another kind of fatal accident.



	Interestingly 783,000 people are estimated to use firearms for 

legal self defense.  this data comes from the books, POINT BLANK, by 

criminologist Gary Kleck.  This means that the unfortunate accidents are 

.00026% the number of firearms used in saving lives.



	I have children.  I keep firearms in my home.  As Masaad Ayoob, a 

premier self-defense export and Second Amendment Board of Trustees 

member says, "You can't child-proof a gun, but you can gun-proof a child."



	The reason chilproofing firearms is an unsound concept s that 

there is simply no way to childproof a firearm.  One way to try to 

effectively keep a gun out of the reach of children is to render it 

completely useless when unattended, or lock it away in a safe.  But the 

most effective means of preventing firearms accidents is to educate 

children about firearms.  Even if there are no firearms in a child's 

home, children can easily come across firearms at the homes of their 

friends, in the hands of a stranger, laying in the grass, or become 

confused by there misuse on television.



	I teach my children to stay away from pools, to keep their 

fingers away from outlets, to ride their bikes with helmets, their hands 

off hot burners and their heads out of plastic bags.  I tell them they 

could drown, be electrocuted, break their skulls, burn their hands or 

suffocate.



	It's important tot let a child know what a firearm can really 

do.  It is not similar to the villain of the show getting up after the 

director yells "cut" and then collecting her/his check.  There are no 

residuals collected by those who misuse or abuse firearms.



	For more information about children and firearms, or to obtain 

any of the materials mentioned in this article, please call me at the 

Second Amendment Foundation at 206-454-7012.





Julianne Versnel Gottlieb

Publisher





P.S. A most joyous New Year to you

all.  The best of luck on keeping 

resolutions to Miss Splendiferous,

Miss Spectacular, Mr. Stupendous,

Amy Jean and me.  A round of 

applause to AMG for his many accom-

plishments this past year.