Dale Bumpers: “I simply want to call to the body's attention--indeed, to the American people's attention--an editorial in the…”

“I simply want to call to the body's attention--indeed, to the American people's attention--an editorial in the Washington Post this morning called ``Trigger Happy.'' As you know, my home State is Arkansas, and we have just experienced one of the gravest tragedies in the history of our State. People all over the State--not just those in Jonesboro --are grieving over the loss of four children 11 years old, and one 32-year-old pregnant schoolteacher, a catastrophic happening that no one can even begin to explain. But the Post this morning certainly points out one of the serious problems facing this country, and one with which we have never even come close to coming to grips with, and I don't in the foreseeable future see us coming to grips with it. But here it is: In 1992, handguns killed 33 people in Great Britain; 36 in Sweden; 97 in Switzerland; 60 in Japan; 13 in Australia; 128 in Canada; and, 13,200 in the United States. There was a study completed by the Violence Policy Center. And as the Post points out--they can't put it all in here. But listen to this: For every case in which an individual used a firearm kept in the home in a self-defense homicide, there were 1.3 unintentional deaths, 4.6 criminal homicides, and 26 suicides involving firearms. The overall firearm-related death rate among U.S. children aged less than 15 was nearly 12 times higher than among children in the other 25 industrialized countries combined.”