As the factions in the nation's firearm debate gears up for another year of arm twisting the national interest in public safety to meet their special interest "comfort zones," the time has come to begin demanding stricter analytical review of the many emotion laden and hidden agenda laced policy propositions being presented for consideration.

Anyone familiar with the national policy process understands that looking out for the national interest of the United States of America requires superb craftsmanship and attention to detail masquerading as simplistic argument. Sadly, this quality of craftsmanship remains sorely missing when it comes to serving our domestic national interest agendas. With particular regard to public safety, what we have is not craftsmanship masquerading as simplicity but rather manipulation masquerading as craftsmanship. We trust our very lives to a system of selective assessment that allows the ignoring of massive amounts of relevant information during the policy formulation process.

For instance, take the firearms risk studies developed by doctors Kellerman and Reay purported by HCI as irrefutable proof of the danger of guns in the home. These studies are based on self-imposed ground rules and assumptions that invalidate their findings as anything other than pleasant outcome computer programs. Hidden within the text of such studies are the never to be publicly mentioned academic caveats such as;

"Mortality studies such as ours do not include cases in which burglars or intruders are wounded or frightened away by the use of or displayof a firearm. Cases in which would-be intruders may have purposely avoided a house known to be armed are also not identified. We did not report the total number or extent of non lethal firearm injuries involving guns kept in the home. A complete determination of firearm risks versus benefits would require that these figures be known." [Kellerman and Reay, NEJM, 1986, page 1559]

That alone should be enough to condemn the sources that the anti gunners use and flout as empirical evidence, but there is more...much more.

The American system was designed to make sure its bureaucracy was besieged by skeptics in order to insure that the powerful tools of government never went astray of the interests of the people. No government institution should be allowed relief from skeptical control for too long.

The same need for skeptical oversight goes for the special interest bureaucracies. After years of struggle to bring it into being, the Brady Law is now advertised by HCI as ineffective and useless as a public safety enhancement tool. It is instead being sold as a shift in power...beacon to advertise where to send the big donations in order to defeat the numerically superior body count of the NRA's emerging grass roots based CrimeStrike campaigns. Money to pound on the very people working to pass initiatives such as Three Strikes and You're Out [In]...in the end, just another example of the interests of the bureau elites coming before the interests of the people, a fight not to promote public safety but rather to take credit for it at the expense of a rival donation seeker.

It's time we began to insist that the American people be put back into the public safety management equation at the expense of the elites seeking to "benevolently" define policy on our behalf. When you carefully examine the true nature of public safety in America, some startling information appears. Information is vitally important to developing a national policy that truly benefits the people.

We need to recognize that well over 90% of public safety in America comes from voluntary compliance with the law. Despite the portrayal of our people to the contrary, the fact of the matter is that we are the core asset of our own public safety. Our entire infrastructure of law enforcement resources merely takes up the gap...and it is hanging on by its fingernails.

Law enforcement needs the cooperation of the people or its job is hopeless. We see this most clearly in our traffic system where we are totally dependent on the voluntary support of the driving public to ensure reasonable traffic flow and the regard of traffic laws.

With particular regard to safeguarding the public from violent crime, the necessity of a working trust between people and law enforcement is crucial. This is particularly true in urban areas where lack of cooperation with law enforcement is detrimental to law abiding citizens and beneficial to perpetrators.

More importantly, if relationships degrade too far, the role of law enforcement changes.

From that of being public servant to the residents of a community, to that of social repressors on behalf of the "elites" of a community.

This leads to my contention that any law or policy that has the outcome of erecting barriers to good relations between citizens and law enforcement, regardless of the validity of its underlying emotional motivation, is a very bad thing. It should be the defining filter in the assessment of any proposed policy or law that there be scrupulous determination as to whether the proposition will have the effect of increasing or decreasing public cooperation with law enforcement.

The national policy objective is clear. We need to seek solutions that maximize the public participation component of our public safety infrastructure. Not only will it make the goal easier to achieve, it will decrease the size and cost requirements for law enforcement AND begins the process of providing these recourses the opportunity to shed their unwanted roles as repressors on behalf of "elite" America.

The bottom line is that any proposal that does not pass the "team spirit" test must be dropped.

With specific regard to gun control, we should be vigilant and skeptical of proposals that disproportionately affect the law abiding. They bring with them the very real danger of further eroding voluntary cooperation of the people and law enforcement.

Moreover, the danger of badly crafted legislation in the gun control arena [i.e. the Brady Law], is particularly great given the reality that the ongoing hatred by gun control advocates for their pro gun foes reaches a deep desire to seek punitive retribution. Law enforcement stands to enter its unwanted role of repressor on behalf or the victor for the wrong reasons yet again.

This issue was best addressed by Patrick Henry...

"Are we at last brought to such a humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in our possession and under our own direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands? [3 Elliot Debates at 168-169.]

This makes gun control a potential public safety liability of the gravest form. Caution is clearly the order of the day!