defeated in a landslide victory, 63%. very thiny lost by a margin. what does this tell us e it tells us there is a large percentage of people who probably characterize themselves as democrats or as liberals, who want to hang onto their firearms and do so for good reason. when you try to think about policy, remember that the second amendment is not an actor is him. an anachronism. the u.s. is not without its sin in regard to native americans and the legacy of african- american slavery in the country. by the grace of the debate -- the joke this debate will accentuate, we can go beyond today taking into account the wisdom of those who came before us who ratified these -- because at that time they made the

judgment that they were just free to sue people. [applause] >> it was our plan to allow don to go first. we are turning to the prepared -- please come in, those of you who have come in late. we would prepare six questions -- and i realize, he has just been speaking. let's let john go first. your question that you phrased in your opening remarks -- i will post this question to you. will have his chance to answer and we will have a very fancy time that everyone can see, very sportsmanlike. here is the question. the standard model justifications for the second amendment, which you mention in your opening remarks. here is the question.

there are three standard models of justification for the second amendment. number one, self-defense for the individual. number two, defense of the home and state and number three, a check on tyranny. which of these justifications do you not accept? >> thank you. i am very sympathetic with the idea that people want to use adequate tools-- for self-defense and i do think that the supreme court has said that you do have the constitutional right to have a gun for self-defense, but i do think that this is not mean that you have the right to high- capacity magazines, and unlimited firepower. to be awaredo have that the second commitment --

second amendment was ratified when firepower was trivial compared to what is available today. in every respect, the amendment has to be thought of in terms of its modern dangers. that it imposes. again, i am sympathetic to the idea of citizens wanting to aotect themselves, but revolver seems to be more than enough to satisfy that basic need. when it comes down to the check theyranny, you will hear gun crowd frequently say, we have had tyrannical people like that, around, and the idea guns in the hands of the citizens would be an obstacle

for the u.s. military if they decided to follow obama in turning on the american public -- i think this is truly a fanciful idea. that the u.s. military would turn on the american public -- so, gunsey were to do in the hands of citizens will not be a realistic check. recall that george washington thought that those who would take up arms against the federal government was treason -- he rapidly put down the whiskey rebellion. john.nk you, don, you can speak to the question or his answer. to self-defense is not just something that was ratified or necessarily affirmed by the united states supreme court in the 2008 decision.

it is something that comes to us at the founding of our nation. with the commentary that was quite heavily cited in the heller decision. the history and the legacy and the right of self-defense in what was eventually referred to -- the castle wall, the right of every man to defend his own castle, is deeply embedded in american tradition and law. tyranny, i think if , i am somewhat in agreement with my opposing party here, it would be tough for the untrained civilians who know how to use their firearms for purposes of hunting and going to the range and if they engage in

self defense training to go up against the united states military. hopefully we would never have to do that. but that is not the point. the point is if that acts as a deterrent. the military continues to have quite a tough time against afghan rebels and the taliban and, in the current theater of war in that section and that part of the country. we had a similar problem in iraq and baghdad. modern armies, when faced with insurgent people, who are protecting their own homes and way of life, there is an effect here to make sure that these people remain free and that they can repel what they perceive as invaders. but more importantly, i think judge kuczynski's comment towards the end of the quote, i may not have included that, is the mistake of giving up your

arms, his mistake you only get to make once. thank you. >> a reminder to all of you in the audience, as the wheels are take your cards and send them to the aisle. this is a question -- and i have to stand up again. to answer this. we will not be able to go back and forth. this is the question from -- to john donohue. if implementing australian or european-style gun restrictions in the united states would save 15,000 lives per year, would you support this? 10,000 lives, 5000 lives? >> america had the opportunity to remain a european colony in 1776 and we rejected it. we rejected the european mindset of being governed by our superiors.

we went on to write a constitution that endures. often is philosophy different for different parts of the world. necessarilye not critical -- and furthermore, and i will violate godwin's rule about tendering europe as a model for gun control policy. the best documentation we have of the abuse of gun control is from germany, the hellhole that was created when the ss took over the government and world war ii interrupted. the best documentation for how gun control contributed to the mass extermination of germany, there is a great book by stephen ilpert, called gun control -- highly recommend it. the person i am standing in for --ay, wrote these articles and a similar one for don case

on gun control and genocide. much has been written about australia's draconian gun control laws that went into effect in the 1990s. theikes to use this for reduction of violent crime -- after the confiscation of many kinds of firearms. however, there is one inconsistency in this point of view. crime rates also dropped and have been following in the united states during the same time. gun rights people like to talk about gun sales and the concealed carry law, and the majority of the states. and the intergenerational effect of lip -- liberalized abortion that took place earlier. to account for at least part of the reduction of the crime rate. there is just one problem and that is that australia

liberalized abortion laws at the same time that america did. so if the theory is that abortion in the 1970s cold enough people from the population of future criminals to result in a crime reduction in 1990 -- in the 1990s, why doesn't that argument holds for australia at? i am not aware of any other constitutional law subject to this level of analysis. imagine asking how many more murders would be solved if we violated the fifth and sixth amendment rights, and criminal suspects. addresses the trade-off between public safety and fundamental rights was made when a particular constitutional right was adopted. the gun-control debate characterized this as a callous unwillingness to adopt more gun control, might actually be aidence that we have reached

free people with the right to keep and bear arms and we will not tolerate any further restrictions. thank you. >> john? >> i think the australian experience is worth considering. took verytially extreme measures to reduce the number of guns, prohibited the use of guns for self-defense, and the murder rate trended from 1.7-1.1 since then. ours is up around five. importantly while there were 13 mass shootings and 103 deaths 1976 -- 1979-1996, since the new gun laws there have been no mass shootings.

the united states there were 42 mass killings since the australian gun ban. 21 in the years before. this is so dramatic that it reflects more than the reduction in guns. it reflects a change in the culture that comes with guns. that change has been beneficial. gun culture makes those with severe mental illness more likely to act out, with mass shootings. that important to remember 42% of adults suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year. disorders arental widespread in the population, the main burden does come from a more concentrated number. with serious mental illness is 13 million per year. i do disagree strongly with my kuczynski whoue

is an immigrant from an autonomous country, which i think has worked his sense of what the value of guns would be in a country like the united states, which has a tradition of lawfulness that i think we should try to encourage. and not the lawlessness that is encouraged by the idea that we are going to take up arms that number that is used -- that word that is used sometimes against our current president. >> thank you john, that you can't sit down. the next question is for you. controlovernment cannot the firearms owned by a law- abiding person, what is -- what about the amount that any firearm can hold?

guns, thaty has two old 10 rounds each, or one round -- one gunman holds 20. >> these are legitimate questions. what are the kinds of controls that will make a difference, it if you have the number of rounds that a gun can carry, one way in which a criminal can subvert that is carrying multiple guns, but we lanzaarn in the adam scenario that he came in with 30 hends in a clip, meaning could fire 30 bullets before having to reload. it was when he had to reload that 11 children were able to run out of the schoolroom in newtown. were saved. similarly in tucson, a number of years ago when gabby giffords was shot in the head and a number of others were killed, oughtner had a 33

round clip and he was able to fire 33 times before he unloaded. says theyne lapierre only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun, in tucson, it was a 54- year-old army colonel, unarmed who's stopped him when he had to reload because he had run .hrough his clip i do think that we see in two very obvious in recent cases, where making the criminal -- reload more often is a beneficial thing. without question, lives were saved when they did have to reload. think of how many more would have been saved if they had been under the restrictions of the federal assault weapons ban

which lapsed into thousand four, which had limited high-capacity magazines to 10 rounds of ammunition. oughner wouldlofton have had to reload twice -- and it is true that you can't stop everything but the one thing we board,arned across the look at the car accident rates. the extraordinary accomplishments, the reduction in the number of lives lost, through motor vehicle accidents, it is because of a very deliberate effort to restrict all of the ways in which cars are deadly that we were able to achieve the goal. it really is a sad phenomenon which is much more interested in promoting activities that will encourage

rather than guns, protecting the lives of american citizens, or reasonable steps that could be taken. and are prevented. your question? >> the issue of magazine it shouldnd whether be 10 or 20 or 30, seems to me to be somewhat of a red herring. answer tooreshadow an what might be a future question. i don't agree with professor donohue that there should be background checks on everyone who purchases a firearm. there are those who are diagnosed with mental illness -- who are not getting firearms. that, nra disagrees with if they disagree with that they

are wrong. the idea of background checks is not the same thing as registering gun owners and guns. backgroundble to do checks -- who are not on the mental health list, not necessarily registering the gun owner or the gun. once you have done that and you make sure that the gun buying public and the gun owning public are trustworthy with owning guns, they don't become untrustworthy because they put 11 bullets in their gun rather than 10. or they could put 12 bullets in their gun instead of 10. if you want to regulate guns and ammunition and feeding devices in the same way you regulate guns themselves, do so. once you make the determination that this gun owner is

instworthy, they engage ordinary safety rulings for guns, what sense does it make to limit the ammunition feeding device that they are going to use. the natural limit is probably imposed by the manufacturer themselves. 15, the magazine capacity was between 20-30. and the rifle that was available to civilians that used to be in army rifle this was once limited to 20. that is probably the maximum number that you need. in imposing an arbitrary limit like seven or eight or 10, in the face of bad guys now you have to reload. bad guys are going to do bad things. we would like to limit their firepower. the way to that is to limit their access to guns in the first place. thank you.

>> all right. this is back to you. this is john's question. very simple and short one. do you think there is a constitutional right to own a fully automatic weapon. >> i remember seeing that question. i have fouring that minutes to respond to it, and don't necessarily have four minutes worth of material. i think that there is a constitutional right to have common and ordinary weapons for self-defense. that is what the supreme court told us. automatic weapons are not currently illegal to own in the country. part of my law practice is assisting businesses, motion picture studio armories and individual -- individuals maintaining the licenses. and the possession of automatic weapons. a very stringent requirement that requires approval not only

by the federal government but the state government and the federal law enforcement agency as well. the query on automatic weapons would be this. if the submachine guns are necessary to protect the life of the president and other vip government officials, why wouldn't it be necessary to protect your life? that is part of the personal theection details, since question was asked, is there a constitutional right. there is the self-defense utility and automatic weapons -- my question -- my answer is no. they are not, and ordinary at this time. ant i personally use automatic weapon for self- defense, the answer is no. well aimed fire is more effective than spray and pray. but i will tell you that submachine guns are fun to shoot.

>> will thank god, we don't have a disagreement on whether there is a constitutional right to have an automatic weapon, but it makes the point that lines have to be drawn. and the supreme court says you have a constitutional right to have a gun or firearm for self- i think that the nra, for example, is setting the bar way too high. that anything a criminal could get their hands on is something that they should be entitled to. frankly, it depressed me to no end when i saw that the mass murderer who killed 69 children in norway a couple of years ago was praising the american gun laws. he said i feel camaraderie with

my european-american comrades no gun laws as opposed to the oppressive gun laws of europe, and he was grateful he was able to get the 30 round inacity clips that he used his shooting spree in the united states because he could not get those in europe. point,derscores a key restriction has to be at the core of this right. and i think that don makes a very unfortunate error in thinking that simply because someone can pass a background check they are ok. you just alluded to the fact that 13 million people have a serious mental illness. right now, the background check system has a million people indicating that because of the mental illness, they are not entitled to have guns. that means 12 million people can currently buy guns and would be

will live -- buy guns with universal background check because they are not in the system. or what happens when you get your gun and develop a mental illness? other countries are much more aggressive in renewing your license repeatedly, to make sure that you still meet the requirements but we are, in this country, unfortunately very >> in that regard. and we pay a hard price for that. remember also that for years the nra would say, you just need a gun to defend yourself, 98% of the time, if i get carried away here, all you have to do is brandished a weapon and you will be fine. if that is true there really is no need, 98% of the time for anything more than a simple

handgun. >> thank you, john. two questions and we are on to the third. there are some good ones coming from you. stand by. dawn to john. to lower the number of casualties of mass public shooting, why would the policy be to have a trained person in place to engage the shooter? >> i guess i am not sure who the trained person he has in mind is. certainly, if you had a police securityr a trained officer in a particular place, when the mass shooting breaks out that would be beneficial course, don't

exaggerate the ability of that to necessarily stop mass shootings. think of the sandy hook case. there had been a security guard standing at the door in the sandy hook case, it's quite possible they would have been overwhelmed by the firepower that adam lanza unleashed in the school. remember in the recent navy case, theyooting --led i think 12 individuals an armed security guard and former maryland state trooper, who was told, stop him from getting out of the building, and then he immediately kill that officer and took that officer's gun, and then use that officer's alexisshoot others when

ran out of the shotgun ammunition he had brought with him. helpful,ns around is in the hands of well-trained individuals, but having guns individuals can only make things worse. we were just following the events of a few days ago in florida. a 71-year-old former police officer got into a fight with someone in a movie theater over ter,ing and when the text sending a note to the babysitter of his three-year-old daughter, complained and they started exchanging angry words and he threw some popcorn at the 71- officer,former police who then shot and killed him, and the former police officer said that he was defending

himself against the assault of the popcorn. this, unfortunately, is very attitude,a inspired your response to assaults and if this ishreats -- a powerful and deadly one, and again just like in wisconsin, the 20-year-old who was coming home to visit his family, he did not think his 13-year-old sister was in her room, he heard some noises, he got his father's gun and shot through the door and almost hit her in the bicep. attitude, doesst not always work out well. it is consistent with an thetude that leads to

greater levels of homicide in the u.s.. we should be trying to move in a different direction. measures,less lethal of self-defense and i think that we should encourage the use of those rather than the most lethal and certainly wrapping up the firepower is almost always a terrible idea. >> thank you. don? meaning to suggest that people should shoot first and ask questions later. but i think the point i wanted to make with my question was that there are two sources of well-trained people to stop mass shootings. one would obviously be a uniformed officer, whether it is private security or a police officer. the other is people with licenses to carry firearms. in california you are required to go through 16 hours of

training to carry a firearm in the state. california is called a discretionary issue state eerie you still have to this -- you still have to display good moral character the arapahoe shooting in colorado several weeks ago was stopped by an armed security guard at the school when the and startedked in shooting. there was a death and there was a fatality, but once he was with a good guy with a gun he took his own life and stopped.ing and so what would have been a mass shooting which is usually four or more deaths in the same place was limited to one and one injury if you don't count the bad guy. the -- there are other -- one of the other areas of agreement that i have with professor

donohue, there is probably no area of public policy where we are more likely to get what is confirmational bias than in the gun control debate. your point of view you will find the facts that support your position, anecdotal or statistical. there is plenty of anecdotal evidence to suggest that sometimes, yes, just brandishing a firearm, sometimes using the a crime.an stop so the point of the question was that a good guy with a gun will stop a bad guy shooting. at a mass the other point i wanted to make the tucson shooting gabrielngress woman giffords was wounded there were two men who helped tackle the shooter in that incidence.

one was a gentleman who had a concealed carry permit and had gun on his person. he did not draw or shoot the gun but was able to assist in the the stopping of the shooter. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> all right. the last prepared question. >> could i just make one quick response on that? >> please, john. >> away to pull this up on to the screen? see. to this.'t have gone i'm sorry. i had it here and now i have lost it.

i'm sorry. let me take one second and find that. here it is. okay. wereis is the case that we just talking about and this is theepisode where one of hasinent researchers who claimed that many good things come from guns is a guy named lott who wrote the book less crime" guns says one can only hope that the saturday attack in tucson encourages more citizens to carry concealed handguns. theunately one shopper in zamudio.s was joseph he ran toward them. he helped tackle the killer more harm occurred. saidat is what john lott what happened. in lafnery happened, laugher

wasped shooting and reaching for a new magazine when by two unarmed individuals. thedio mistakenly grabbed wrong man. when the crowd shouted he had the wrong man. almost shot the man holding the gun, i could have very easily done the wrong thing peoplet a lot more because the gun had been taken the time lafner by that zamuzio got there. roleun played no positive and if he had gotten there quickly and had the mindset that tries to encourage, get out your gun and be the hero have shot, he might the real hero of the day, the retired army colonel and patricia maish.

>> the last prepared question is john to don. and it reads -- here. credible study ever suggested that one would reduce the risk of death of a gunowner a gunowner's family by gun?asing a >> this is one of those questions that if we were in court i would probably object to the form of the question. [laughter] >> because i don't know of any reduce thertha will overall risk of death for anybody. we all die. i'm not sure that the author imply that the mere act of purchasing a firearm carries death.of reduce the overall risk of death of the gun owner and the family possessing a gun. but again, mere ownership or

inherentlyis not dangerous. isotopes,io active require human interaxe to be dangerous. why human beings commit irrational acts is more properly psychologists, cessionologyists and psychiatrists. appropriate answer generated in a free country it guarantees an individual the isht to keep and bear arms that the individual is free to make up their own mind. for someone who refuses to learn gun works or refuses to learn proper handling or refuses safely store a firearm the risks may be too high. i'm consult as part of my gun law practice by a new gun you own a gune do safe? if the answer is no, the client is advised that in my legal opinion owning a gun safe is a

owning a gun.or if you can't afford both, buy the safe first. in various purchased forms and cost an anywhere from $2,000 for a good one. subtle add how homonym. the defensive use of firearms criminal orisk of negligent misuse of firearms. andinstitutes of medicine national research council produced a report in 2013 titled prioritiepriorities for researco reduce the threat of firearm related violence. are some flaws in the report which has a tendency to log roll suicides and accidents with firearms into the definition of firearm related violence. not charitable in any way to the idea of gun ownership but acknowledges that use of guns by crime victims is a common

occurrence although the exact disputed.ains almost all of the national indicate theate -- defensive use by victims are at least as common as offensive use criminals with estimates of annual uses ranging from 500,000 to three million. the context of 300,000 violent crimes involving on the other008, hand, some scholars point to a ofically lower estimate 108,000 annual defensive uses. the vir 86 in the numbers is the controversy. the estimate of three million is probably too high. estimate of 108,000 is probably too low. but elsewhere the same report, the national research council's citeds 105 insuranc 105 incides of 2010 involvele firearms where includedied and accidental discharges or homicides or suicides or any

injured. anybody was the injury figures were in fact 73,000. the lowest possible figure for defensive use of firearms even from somebody on the gun is 105,000 or 108,000 with 105,000 injuries or deaths. so, we come down it a coin flip. so in a worst case scenario, hardly overwhelming evidence that law-abiding citizens can't be trusted to assessments.n risk the more probably correct approach to the defensive use of the actual number was published in the journal of and criminology in "a call foralled truce." toputs the number closer 1.2 million defensive uses a year. thank you. thanks. >> i don't want to bore you with

debate, but i will say that i'm reading a book which i think i make the claim that the single most appearble number ever to in any public policy debate is the claim that defensive gun uses are anywhere along the lines that don was just mentioning. because't don's fault there are people who actually make these claims but they if they are looked at refinement. indeed, the basic methodology flood methodology to -- flawed to begin with, whenked upon 20 years ago crime was at a much higher rate than it is today. ago,ver was true 20 years is not true today when crime is so much lower. but essentially what they did a lot ofjust called up people on the phone which turns to not to be a great way sample people today because how

many people answer their phones these days? surveys isfor these now less than 10% will answer and respond. veryu are getting a selected sample to begin with. use a gun to you stop a crime? 1% of people said that they did. and then the researchers said 1% is250 million adults 2.5 million. ergo there are 2.5 million uses.ive gun it turns out if you kick this it collapses. first of all, people are very likely to answer in a way that makes them feel good about theirlves or justify choices. there is no verification of said is true.hey i assume that the police officer, former police officer killed the man in the theater last week had he instead just brandished

the gun and screamed at the guy have said i used my gun to thwart a crime last week as this was going to throw more popcorn at me. to mention that those numbers also capture defense of property and therefore are illegal half the time because using deadly force is casesed to be limited to where you are saving lives the others. completely off. we do have some hard numbers, though, and they -- about 8/10 someone the time that is attacked they do tend to use a gun to defend themselves. so it is a very, very small percentage. country and with a lot of crime, it probably is in neighborhood of 45,000, but, you know, no where near a million. again, remember, we also

guns are stolen every year. ha is moving a gun -- that is moving a gun from the "law-abiding sit den" to the and when you get five times moving from theft as you get some what benign or positive use out of a gun it raises serious questions. also one thing, the main n.r.a. tactic, which is obviously promote sales of guns and since that is their people tois to scare think somebody is coming into your home and is going to kill you. are aboutout, there 85 home invasion killings each year. 1/10t a trivial number but the number of people who die accidents. if nothing else was going on, keep in mind if you think the you and weg to save said 8/10 of 1% of the time when

you are attacked people use guns protect themselves, 8/10 of 1 only 85and there are deaths even if you could somehow ifp all of those 85 deaths, by doing so you are ramping up the gun accidents that doesn't look like a good deal. one other thing, again, i think the gun culture is very important. don said something that is extremely important. he is very much against the n.r.a. position here which would safe storey sort of and requirement imposed as a matter of law and i think that really essential if we are going stop some of these the nancyecause as lanza scenario showed, she made available to her son and we all paid the price. be one thing if gun toers would limit the deaths

themselves, but the big problem to inre is what we refer the economics world as large youtive externalities when buy your guns and something has to be done to address that so that gun owners take seriously the requirement that they keep ther guns from migrating to criminal segment. let me just end on one note. country thatis a does take security very seriously in this regard makes offense for your gun to be lost or stolen. think about that one. your gun is lost or stolen you can go to jail and people do in israel for that offense. in the united states 232,000 are stolen every year. countless more are lost. more effort needs to be made on the part of the law-abiding citizen to stop guns moving into the hands of the criminal element. >> thank you, john.

okay. ofwe have reached the end the organized debate, the prepared questions. and we have selected a few questions for each -- for john the audience. these are terrific questions. not surprising from a stanford audience. thank you very much. my best imitation of michael here, when people call in with a comment rather responds toion he the comment and says thank you very much but doesn't pose it as a question to his guest. here are three which i'm going regard as comments even though they are phrased grammatically questions. i want to read them to you because they are useful to enter thinking tonight. whatis actually apropos you just said. why is it not the case that if you decide to purchase a gun you financially orld legally responsible for the results of tragic your purchase?

"tragicsome gun deaths accidents"? why is no one held responsible for the choice to purchase a deadly weapon and bring if into their house? one but i interesting will just read it as a comment rather than pose it as a question. please explain how the right to self-defense has been transformed into an obligation of self-defense and the onus for fromc safety shifted away public policy to the individual victims who "could have saved themselves if only they were armed"? how is that anything other than blaming the victim? and finally, why isn't much more funding and advocacy directed towards the enforcement of laws?ng background checks, against felonsip by convicted and mentally ill by both sides of the debate? polydebates endless

when the implementation is resulting ing and mass shootings. good comment. now i have two questions for don for john. i'm going to start with this one to don. and this is i suspect in part in vocation ofr the threat of tyranny. here it goes. extent do you believe gun ownership by civilians greaterted to aggression exhibited by members of a more fearful law enforcement community? do guns in fact help create an gunessive police state that owners seek to keep in check? questionnderstand the correctly, it is that police -- that the question is police civiliansfraid of with firepower somehow respond situations.ively in i will assume that is what the

question is. to that is i don't know because police officers are causeed to have probable in order to interact with a citizen in either effecting arrest or conducting a crime investigation. whereas the individual obviously duty to make sure that there is a threat of death or great bodily injury before their weapon. there are different and stake forpolicies at the private gun owner versus the officer. also i don't know how the question actually relates to the tyranny. we are talking about a policy of tyranny where the government is oppressing or engaged against identifiable groups ever people

or minorities in which case the using the is then police officers or the military disposal have at their to actually commit crimes or genocide against masses or of people. whereas individual officers engaging in law enforcement activity, they may or may not be an armed civilian population. thatne of the consequences we see at least in california and we can debate whether it is or not is that the state of california does maintain a registration or database of handguns. police officers usually know he scene whethero a or not there are at least handguns in the house. this year, long arms are required to be the state of california. i don't think this is necessarily a good policy or a good turn of events but the marchingcalifornia is headlong into making sure or

trying to make sure that every firearm in the state is registered. now leave for another time whether or not that is a good or a bad policy. i think the point is as i stated make sure do want to that law-abiding people are the only people with access to firearms. background checks are a good idea. registering guns and gun owners is not. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> all right, john, this is a question for you. allows all citizens to own at least one automatic household. why does this nation have fewer gun deaths than america that you to the chart have shown? this is something where the n.r.a. has tried to i think confuse the public about what actually happens in switzerland. switzerland actually has what our second amendment was designed to have which is a well

regulated militia and therefore citizens to have training and they give them an weapon for which they are given a sealed container in it and they are -- those bullets -- the containers are inspected every year and if they have opened them they will be summarily arrested. they are not allowed to use those guns. and the only time they are to open those ammunition containers is if they have to fight to get to the assembly if the nation is under attack. so if that were the system that you wanted to entertain in the would states, i think we see a move towards far lower gun have. than we the swiss example is a very different one. regulated system.

deemed tyrannical to most propoe intercepts of the n.r.a. type positions. guns are not the only thing that crime.ces affluent nations tend to more effectively than poorer nations. better police forces and so on forth. and we in the united states tend somewhat out of control population. ourmanifestation of that is excessive amounts of guns and other is our excessive use of and another is our excessive use of incarceration. switzerland is a much more moderate country and has less of unfortunate attributes. >> thank you. question for don.

thesead we are having all comparative questions, international and their understanding. about mexico. right now in mexico, local militias are patrolling with assault weapons to deal with drug cartels. good model for cities? >> i think the missing component whether orstion is not the wild card in that case whether or not the citizens of mexico actually trust their police departments. personally believe that we can trust our police departments and don't think that vigilante squads in the united states are necessarily a good idea. but i don't live in mexico and to the horrific the drug cartels in

mexico. brings me around to a point i wanted to make, another point of agreement that i have professor donohue. he wrote a short article in 2007 advocating drastic policy changes with regard to the war on drugs. him onn to agree with that. we saw reductions in crime after prohibition, after they cut -- after the united states experiment with prohibition in the 1920's and 1930's. saw a reduction after we repealed prohibition. i think that is probably a good place to start and some place that i would rather see public policy direction go rather than tinkering with a fundamental right. the war onepeal drugs and should stop i stopcerating people and giving drug cartels an incentive drugs and then

to illegal firepower maintain their market shares. i think that that would go a tog way towards helping reduce the gun violence that does exist in some of our major cities. i'm not aware of any particular ogical report that breakdown or done a on gun violence with respect to whether or not it was a drug enforcement violent crime or or not it was simply a run of the mill homicide. but i think that a study like would be most helpful in trying to decide if the drug war component of the gun deaths and gun homicides in the country. i'm afraid i'm not an expert in mexican internal politics or domestic politics in mexico. >> thank you. all right, the final question is to john. i'm not familiar with this person, gary clank.

maybe you could fill me and the audience in this your answer. the research shows that for every use of one gun to commit a are three or four cases of guns being used in a crime.nse of or in self-defense. i will leave it at that. this study?ake know gary's work quite well. author of that claimed uses.llion defensive gun somehow managed to get on to the mentioned asn had thatg out endorsing number. but again, i think that the number has been criticized so powerfully. remember, one percent of americans are schizophrenic. if you call up and ask have you taken a trip in an alien

year, about 1% of people answer that question yes. extrapolate to that actuallymillion people took a ride in an alien waseship this year but that the methodology that led to these exaggerated numbers. we do know there are, you know, is ink the best estimate the neighborhood of 47,000 times were used in confronting, again, 8/10 of 1% of the six million violent crime states. in the united it does happen, rarely. even though tons of people have guns, but criminals usually don't let you know that they are attack you, and it as very limited set of time -- it is a very limited set of times when you get to actually use

your gun. again, it is 8/10 of 1% of the you are attacked. so since we are big country, the be large, but nowhere near compares with the thefts whichof gun again move the guns from the "law-abiding citizens" to the criminal element. dangersn, remember the of the misthinkings that are so initiated by the n.r.a. where people like nancy lanza were thinking i need to have an arsenal to protect me and my family. live in this one of the safest communities in the united states and, indeed, in the newtown, connecticut and thinks i will have my arsenal to was my family safe and yet oblivious to the dangers she was imposing on herself and

her son and, of course, the broader community. point that must be must be taken seriously by the current owners. it is risking danger and it is only luck that leads to that gun not killing. luckily, most of the time, guns do not get abused. matter of luck if you were just leaving it around and ask people like adam with access to that weapon. >> it is 9:00. say, thank you for coming. thank you for your excellent input. this was an intellectually invigorating evening for all of us.