Medical Evidence: Gun Control Won't Solve
               Crime

                   Wes Vernon
                   Saturday, April 7, 2001

               WASHINGTON – The gun control lobby has just received
               a stunning setback in a new article appearing in the spring
               issue of the Medical Sentinel.

               Written by Miguel A. Faria, M.D., the study finds that most
               gun violence studies of the past two decades are based on
               flawed methodology and unduly influenced by political
               agendas, leading to biased and incorrect conclusions.

               The Medical Sentinel, the official journal of the
               Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, argues
               in effect that many of those who conducted the studies
               decided in advance what they wanted to prove, and then
               were "prejudiced" by that goal. Thus, Dr. Faria argues, the
               studies were not objective at all.

               The doctor, who is editor in chief of the Sentinel, debunks
               a number of incorrect, widely accepted claims "promoted
               by anti-gun interest groups based on tainted studies."

               Faria's findings are that:

                Women in particular are NOT in more danger if they
               carry or own guns.

                The ease of access to or availability of guns is NOT the
               cause of crime.

                Mass killings would NOT be avoided if guns were not
               available.

                And finally, gun violence is NOT the leading accidental
               cause of death in children.

               The health establishment's stated objective in 1979,
               according to Faria, was "total eradication of handguns in
               the United States," and the follow-up studies were
               influenced by that objective.

               The doctor faults "those in public health with a proclivity
               toward the promulgation of preordained research such as
               the gun and violence research conducted by many
               investigators with a gun control agenda and disseminated
               in the medical journals."

               "Much of this information is tainted, result-oriented, and
               based on what can only be characterized as poor science,"
               he concluded.