On June 29th, a fax poll was discussed in The Daily Commentary in which it was stated, according to Century 21 Faxes, 4,000 children die each year by guns. Although this author knew that this figure was greatly inflated, the true facts came across my desk several days later when I received a Department of Justice (DoJ) report entitled Children as Victims, dated May 2000 (NCJ 180753).

Here are the facts:

1. According to the DoJ report, a total of 2,100 children between the ages of 6 and 17 were murdered in 1997 from every possible means available. Of this number, 56% were murdered with a firearm, or a total of 1,176.
2. Also, according to the World Almanac and Book of Facts, 1997, so far as accidental shootings are concerned, 205 children between the ages of 1 and 14 died in 1993.

Although I must agree, one child death by any means is one too many. I hardly think that you or I would even think of banning motor vehicles because of the 43,900 deaths that took place in 1995 because of automobile accidents.

In fact, in terms of accidental shootings, firearms rate next to last on the list of accidental deaths from 1970 through at least 1995:

1. Motor Vehicles
2. Falls
3. Poison
4. Drowning
5. Fires & Burns
6. Ingestion of Food & Objects
7. Firearms
8. Poison Gases

There is no doubt, this is not a perfect world. Although this author is perplexed over any child death, there are two things in life that each of us can be assured of, Taxes and Dieing.

Where firearms are concerned, the history books and teachers who used them when I went to Junior and Senior High were explicit about their value to a society who are allowed to have them, as we are here in the United States. Because of firearms, each of us can actually sleep sounder each night knowing that we have the Constitutionally protected right to do so. History bares out the fact that when a populous is disarmed, tyranny closely follows.

Personally, I believe that the mere fact that gun opponents inflate child death statistics to such a high degree is telling in and of itself. I believe there is an untold story here and that if the public knew the actual intentions of those who are actually responsible for the anti-gun movement (not the honest folks in the trenches, mind you), then the tide of public opinion would surely go against them.

As it is, more than half of the homes in America have at least one firearm in them, and most of these folks are certain to agree that an armed America is a much more secure nation than one where the citizens are prevented from having them. In the past, the only nations that disarmed their citizens were communist nations, such as Russia and China.

If you do not believe that the current push to regulate guns and their owners is not the precursor to gun elimination, then consider this administration's official stance on the Second Amendment. President Clinton has publically said that it is his administration's interpretation that the Second Amendment only protects the right of State governments to form a militia.

The fact is, this amendment has two parts. The first part does, indeed, provide the right of a militia to each state. However, the second portion of this amendment provides the right to own firearms to the people of this nation. There are many court decisions that bare this out.

For those who do not agree that gun ownership is constitutional or that tyranny follows citizen diarmament, I would suggest that you find an old history book, or one that you can trust, and go in search of the answers to these questions. However, please note that many of the current books being used by our public educators have been rewritten to slant how history is taught in our public schools.

For example, in some of the current history books, the Second Amendment, which is still among the other 10 in the Bill of Rights, does not appear. One parent who noticed this allegedly asked his daughter's teacher why that is and this educator told him that it didn't matter, the Second Amendment would soon be recinded anyway.

So, as you can see, there is a tremendous push afoot to subvert our history, reshaping it to reflect something else. You cannot trust most of these recent works. Check back in a few days for a list of books and authors that I believe you can trust.

Editor's Note: Click HERE for "History Books You Can Trust". --Al Colombo