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There is little doubt that the much-maligned gun lobby has engaged in some extreme rhetoric and has opposed sensible restrictions backed by most Americans (including gun owners), such as waiting periods and mandatory background checks for handgun purchases. But it is equally true that many members of the chattering classes feel such a visceral aversion toward guns that they are inclined to accept shaky anti-gun arguments and to disregard any evidence that, perish the thought, Charlton Heston may sometimes have a point.

Also Today A child shoots a child It isn't about guns; it's about neglect. By Beth Broeker What a few good women can do On Mother's Day, a million mothers will march for gun control. By Jean Hanff Korelitz

For the record, I'm not a member of the National Rifle Association and the only gun I've ever owned was a childhood toy. Although my politics are generally of a libertarian bent, I don't buy the notion of an armed citizenry as a safeguard against tyrannical government. Nor do I have a problem with some of the new gun laws championed by President Clinton.

Closing the loophole that lets buyers at gun shows evade mandatory background checks certainly seems to make sense. Mandating child-safety trigger locks on new handguns may be a good idea (depending on how much hindrance such locks would pose to an adult if a gun is needed for emergency self-defense), though it won't do much about the millions of older guns already out there. But it's clear that the anti-gun movement goes far beyond the advocacy of such modest measures, and often substitutes hysteria and self-righteousness for reasoned discussion.

On the face of it, it might seem that no sane person could question the havoc guns wreak on America and that no sane society could tolerate it. In 1997, there were 21,259 handgun deaths and 11,177 deaths from other firearms in the United States; our homicide rates are three to 12 times higher than in industrialized nations with stringent gun controls. Case closed? Not quite.

Consider, for instance, the fact that our non-gun homicide rates exceed total homicide rates in many nations. In 1990, the murder and non-negligent manslaughter rate in the United States was 9.3 per 100,000 people, and firearms were used in about two-thirds of these killings. Even if we had somehow gotten rid not only of handguns but of all guns, and even if, improbably, none of the killers who used guns would have substituted some other weapon, we still would have been left with 3.1 murders for every 100,000 people -- higher than the homicide rate that year in Canada (2.1 per 100,000), Sweden (1.4) or Japan (0.5). Obviously, something is going on here other than access to guns. What's more, over three-quarters of violent crimes other than homicide in the United States are committed without firearms.

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