prove that gun ownership by the average citizen is in fact a deterrent to crime. Many police departments advocate the ownership of guns by the private citizenry because they know that they can not adequately provide safety for their entire communities. In fact, cities such as Miami, Chicago and Cleveland, more criminals are shot and killed by citizens than police. Furthermore, evidence of private ownership of handguns being a deterrent to crimecomes from criminals themselves. Kates borrows facts from an interview conducted by the Social and Demographic Research Institute of the University of Massachusetts in which prisoners state that:(1) they and other criminals tried to avoid victims theybelieved may have been armed and that (2) theyfavor gun prohibition because, by disarming the victim,it will make their lives safer without affecting theiraccess to illegal guns.(55)Kates further proves this point by using statistics from the Orlando Police Department. The city started offering women courses in the use of handguns to defend themselves against rapists. Not only did Orlando's rape rate go down by 90%, but also by another 9% in outlying towns.Ellison 13Next, Kates attacks the gun control advocate stance that "Guns are five times deadlier than the weapons most likely to be substituted for them in assaults where firearms were not available"(qtd. In Kates 58). Kates points out that these advocates lack to differentiate between the types of guns used, and that a criminal would automatically turn to knife if a handgun were denied him. With more research and statistics, Kates proves that when denied a handgun, the average criminal "will turn to a sawed-off shotgun or long rifle."(58) If handguns were to be outlawed and if "50 percent [of criminals] used shotguns or rifles, there would actually be an increase in assault-related deaths by as much as 300 percent"(58). Also more accidental deaths occur in this country from long rifles as opposed ...
