I am as strong a gun-control advocate as can be found among the criminologists in this country. If I were Mustapha Mond of Brave New World, I would eliminate all guns from the civilian population and maybe even from the police. I hate guns-ugly, nasty instruments designed to kill people.

My reading of the articles in this Symposium has been enlightening even though I have been reading research on guns and violence for over a quarter of a century, ever since the Eisenhower Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence, when I enlisted Franklin Zimring to be a Task Force director of Volume Seven, “Firearms and Violence in American Life.”

I have found Alfred Blumstein’s paper thoroughly useful in many ways. He has done us a service in bringing together the variables of youth, drugs and guns in a way no one else has provided. He deserves the applause of our community of scholars. I also commend Philip Cook, Stephanie Molliconi and Thomas Cole for a thorough study about regulating gun markets. Their policy claims are most realistic. As a gun-control advocate, I am pleased to add their research to my advocacy.

What troubles me is the article by Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz. The reason I am troubled is that they have provided an almost clearcut case of methodologically sound research in support of something I have theoretically opposed for years, namely, the use of a gun in defense against a criminal perpetrator. Maybe Franklin Zimring and Philip Cook can help me find fault with the Kleck and Gertz research, but for now, I have to admit my admiration for the care and caution expressed in this article and this research.