Concise FEI Copyright Notice:

Copyright © 1989-1998 Firearms Education Institute (FEI). All rights reserved. http://www.FEInet.Org

FEI Principles:

The FEI principles are as follows:

1. Effective public policy, including firearms and crime control policy, must be based upon, and must not ignore, the most complete and accurate independent scientific research.
   
2. The most complete and accurate scientific research, including the National Institute of Justice Wright-Rossi Report (1981) and Wright-Rossi Felon Survey (1986), the studies by Professor Gary Kleck (Florida State University), Professor John Lott (University of Chicago), show that gun control never reduces violent crime, but often, gun control increases violent crime.
   
3. Gun control increases violent crime through many distinct and separate mechanisms, including the following eight mechanisms:
   
   1. Reduces and destroys the well-proven and documented deterrent effects of armed citizens, including a specific deterent effect, whereby criminals avoid victimizing individuals who may be armed, and a general deterent effect, whereby criminals commit fewer crimes in areas with higher rates of private firearms ownership.
      
   2. Reduces and destroys the well-proven and documented crime control effect of armed citizens, whereby armed citizens prevent specific crimes from being completed.
      
   3. Wastes limited law enforcement and criminal justice resources (police, courts, prison space) by targetting the wrong people. More than 99.6 percent of American firearms owners do not commit crimes with their firearms. All available law enforcment and criminal justice resources must be focused on criminals and not or ordinary nonviolent people.
      
   4. Shifts the balance of power to favor criminals over ordinary people.
      
   5. Gun control laws restricting or banning some or all handguns result in a dramatic increase in the mortality rate, because 86 percent of predatory felons who use handguns substitute much more powerful and lethal sawed off rifles and shotguns (1986 Federal Wright-Rossi Felon Survey).
      
   6. There is a 63 percent recidivism rate among all release prisoners, compared to less than 0.4 percent crime rate among all firearms owners (including criminals). Therefore, imprisoning an ordinary nonviolent firearms owner with no criminal intent for an unintentional technical violation of a gun control law results in a 16,000 percent increase in the probability that additional crimes will be committed.
      
   7. Witnesses and crime victims are intimated and afraid to contact police and to serve as a witness when they are disarmed and defenseless.
      
   8. Gun control diverts attention away from the real causes of and solutions to the violent crime problem.
      
   9. Gun control is used as a smoke-screen by soft-on-crime politicians and other public figures to divert attention away from their failure and refusal to support real and effective crime control measures, reducing public pressure to pursue real and effective crime control measures.
      
4. The right to self-defense against criminal attack, and as a deterent and protection against tyranny by an illegitimate government dictatorship, is a natural right of all free people, and is recognized by, but exists independent of, the U.S. Constitution.
   
5. The right to self-defense is the most important of all rights of free people, because the preservation of all other rights necessarily depend upon the preservation of the right to self-defense and an adequate means of self-defense. The right to self-defense necessarily includes the right to own, possess, and use firearms. The scientific research, including studies by Professor Gary Kleck and others, show that defense with a firearm is significantly safer and more effective than any other method, including non-resistance.
   
6. Gun control laws targeting ordinary, nonviolent people, rather than targeting only violent criminals, are and always have been racist, sexist, discriminatory, and elitest. These laws discriminate against, and disproportionately endanger, racial and other minorities, women, the elderly, handicapped, and the poor and middle class.
   
7. Gun control laws targeting ordinary, nonviolent people are immoral, because under the principle of Sovereign Immunity, no government employee, official, or agency is liable for a failure to protect any individual. Therefore, people are responsible for protecting themselves and their families, and must be allowed to own firearms for their protection.
   
8. Laws and policies which fail to distinguish between ordinary, nonviolent people and violent criminals cannot control or reduce crime. The only acceptable gun control laws are those that target only violent criminals without adversely impacting ordinary nonviolent people, and which are proven effective at reducing crime by independent scientific research. All gun control laws which have been proven ineffective or counter-productive by independent bonofide scientific research should be repealed.
   
9. The claims and arguments used by self-defense opponents, including firearms prohibitionists, do not withstand public and scientific scrutiny, and are instead based on intentional and malicious misrepresentation, deception, manipulation, and illegitimate efforts to suppress the scientific research and all public debate. It is the intention of the Firearms Education Institute to inform the public, public officials, and the media about the scientific research and the overwhelming evidence that gun control never reduces crime, but often, gun control increases violent crime.

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