AP/Academic Government and Politics

Mr. Udell AP/Academic Government and Politics Let’s Lobby!

Yes, it’s the experience you’ve been waiting most of your school career for—it’s time to play lobbyist!

We’ve talked about interest groups; we’ve learned the tactics they use to change public policy. Now you, in a small group, will develop a plan to lobby for an interest group. Each person will work for an interest group in an attempt to persuade the government to follow your public policy suggestions. Of course other students will be working to convince the government why you are wrong. The Government, in this case, is THE OTHER CLASS (periods 3 and 6 go together and periods 2 and 5). They are members of Congress.

These are the topics and the feuding interest groups:

Topic: Reinstatement of the Assault Weapons Ban  NRA v. Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence

Topic: Increase Minimum wage  National Chamber of Commerce v. AFL-CIO

Topic: Lower Drinking Age  Amethyst Association of College Presidents v. MADD—Mothers Against Destructive Decisions

Use your brain and fact sheet to develop a strategy to:

1) Block or pass the law in question 2) Modify the law in question if needed or possible 3) Decide how you would proceed if the law passed? What if it failed? (i.e. What lobbying tactics would be next) 4) Use direct and indirect lobbying methods and address as much of the government as possible in winning your battle.

You are to find students from the other class over the next 2 weeks and lobby them. At the end of the 2 week lobby period, Congress will vote. As each member of Congress votes she will say why she voted for or against the bill. After the vote, each side will present its plan for future action based on the outcome of the vote.

Each group will hand in a sheet that outlines the specific lobbying strategy they intend to use. Attached to this sheet each MEMBER of the group will hand in a sheet documenting the steps he/she took to lobby the other class, the research he/she did, the people he/she lobbied, and the other strategies he/she engaged in. For the group part I would organize it like an “outline”:

I. Direct Lobbying a. Congress i. Provide with the following facts (list Major facts here) ii. If law cannot be stopped/passed try to change wording of law to say “(fill in wording here because the “devil’s in the details)” b. Executive Branch… c. Judicial Branch…

Here are the three laws as they are currently proposed:

1. The assault weapons ban shall be reenacted for a period of 15 years as of 1/1/2013. 2. The minimum wage shall be increased in 2013to $8.75/per hour and to $9.50 in 2015. 3. The 10% highway funding penalty for states with drinking ages of less than 21 shall be revoked as of 1/1/2014. ASSAULT WEAPONS THREATEN PUBLIC SAFETY —from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence

THE FEDERAL ASSAULT WEAPONS ACT The federal law banning the sale of semi-automatic assault weapons, known as the federal assault weapons ban, has expired. It was passed as part of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. President Clinton signed it into law on September 13, 1994. Despite his promise to renew the ban, President George W. Bush and Congress allowed the ban to “sunset” in September of 2004. The Act banned, by name, 19 different weapons:  Norinco, Mitchell, and Poly Technologies Avtomat Kalashnikovs (all models);  Action Arms Israeli Military Industries UZI and Galil;  Beretta Ar70 (SC-70);  Colt AR-15;  Fabrique National FN/FAL, FN/LAR, and FNC;  SWD M-10, M-11, M-11/9, and M-12;  Steyr AUG;  INTRATEC TEC-9, TEC-DC9, AND TEC-22; revolving cylinder shotguns such as (or similar to) the Street Sweeper and Striker 12. In addition, the Act made it unlawful to “manufacture, transfer, or possess a semiautomatic” firearm that can accept a detachable magazine and has more than one of several specific military features, such as folding/telescoping stocks, protruding pistol grips, bayonet mounts, threaded muzzles or flash suppressors, barrel shrouds, or grenade launchers.1 The Act also banned “copies or duplicates of the firearms [listed above], in any caliber,”2 although this provision was never enforced by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), which was entrusted to enforce the ban. Further, the Act banned large capacity magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds.3 However, assault weapons and large capacity magazines legally possessed on the effective date of the Act remained legal under the Act’s “grandfather clause.”4 The Act also specifically exempted by name 661 sporting rifles and shotguns traditionally used for hunting.5

ASSAULT WEAPONS: “MASS PRODUCED MAYHEM” The guns covered by the Assault Weapons Act were semiautomatic versions of fully automatic guns designed for military use. Whereas an automatic weapon (machine gun) will continue to fire as long as the trigger is depressed (or until the ammunition magazine is emptied), a semiautomatic weapon will fire one round and instantly load the next round with each pull of the trigger. Even semiautomatic assault weapons fire with extraordinary speed. When San Jose, California, police test-fired an UZI, a 30-round magazine was emptied in slightly less than two seconds on full automatic, while the same magazine was emptied in just five seconds on semiautomatic. The military features of semiautomatic assault weapons are designed to enhance their capacity to shoot multiple targets very rapidly. For example, assault weapons are equipped with large-capacity ammunition magazines that allow the shooter to fire 20, 50, or even more than 100 rounds without having to reload. Pistol grips on assault rifles and shotguns help stabilize the weapon during rapid fire and allow the shooter to spray-fire from the hip position. Barrel shrouds on assault pistols protect the shooter’s hands from the heat generated by firing many rounds in rapid succession. Far from being simply “cosmetic,” these features all contribute to the unique function of any assault weapon to deliver extraordinary firepower. They are uniquely military features, with no sporting purpose whatever. As ATF has explained

Assault weapons were designed for rapid fire, close quarter shooting at human beings. That is why they were put together the way they were. You will not find these guns in a duck blind or at the Olympics. They are mass produced mayhem. 6 These weapons “are not generally recognized as particularly suitable for or readily adaptable to sporting purposes” and instead “are attractive to certain criminals.”7 The firepower of assault weapons makes them especially desired by violent criminals and especially lethal in their hands. Prior to the Act, although assault weapons constituted less than 1% of the guns in circulation, they were a far higher percentage of the guns used in crime. ATF’s analysis of guns traced to crime showed that assault weapons “are preferred by criminals over law abiding citizens eight to one….Access to them shifts the balance of power to the lawless.”8

Mass Slayings of Civilians Assault weapons have been used to perpetrate some of the worst mass murders ever committed in the United States.  The McDonald’s shooting – On July 18, 1984, James Huberty killed 21 people and wounded 19 others in a San Ysidro, California, McDonald’s using an UZI assault pistol and a shotgun.9  The Stockton schoolyard massacre – On January 17, 1989, Patrick Purdy killed 5 small children and wounded 29 others and a teacher at the Cleveland Elementary School in Stockton, California, using a semiautomatic version of the AK-47 assault rifle imported from China. That weapon had been purchased from a gun dealer in Oregon and was equipped with a 75-round “drum” magazine. Purdy shot 106 rounds in less than 2 minutes.10  The Louisville, Kentucky, workplace massacre – On September 14, 1989, Joseph Wesbecker killed 7 people and wounded 13 others at his former place of work in Louisville, Kentucky, before taking his own life. Mr. Wesbecker was armed with an AK-47 rifle, two MAC-11 assault pistols, and a duffle-bag full of ammunition.11  The CIA headquarters shootings – On January 25, 1993, Pakistani national Mir Aimal Kasi killed 2 CIA employees and wounded 3 others outside the entrance to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Kasi used a Chinese-made semiautomatic AK-47 assault rifle equipped with a 30-round magazine purchased from a Northern Virginia gun store.12  The Branch-Davidian standoff in Waco, Texas – On February 28, 1993, while attempting to serve federal search and arrest warrants at the Branch-Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, four ATF special agents were killed and 16 others were wounded with an arsenal of assault weapons. According to a federal affidavit, the cult had accumulated at least the following assault weapons: 123 AR-15s, 44 AK-47s, 2 Barrett .50 calibers, 2 Street Sweepers, an unknown number of MAC-10 and MAC-11s, 20 100-round drum magazines, and 260 large-capacity banana clips. The weapons were bought legally from gun dealers and at gun shows.13  The San Francisco Pettit & Martin shootings – On July 1, 1993, Gian Luigi Ferri killed 8 people and wounded 6 others at the San Francisco law offices of Pettit & Martin and other offices at 101 California Street. Ferri used two TEC-DC9 assault pistols with 50-round magazines. These weapons had been purchased from a pawnshop and a gun show in Nevada.14

Threats to Law Enforcement In the 1980s, law enforcement reported that assault weapons were the “weapons of choice” for drug traffickers, gangs, terrorists, and paramilitary extremist groups. Limiting civilian access to such weapons lessens the need for law enforcement to carry assault weapons themselves in order to match the firepower capability that criminals with assault weapons would have. Law enforcement officers do not want to have to carry M-16s (the military’s standard battlefield firearm) as their standard service weapon. In 1997, after a North Hollywood, California, shootout in which police were outgunned by two men with assault weapons, Jim Pasco, executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police stated: An AK-47 fires a military round. In a conventional home with dry-wall walls, I wouldn’t be surprised if it went through six of them….Police are armed with weapons that are effective with criminals in line of sight. They don’t want and don’t need weapons that would harm innocent bystanders.15 For these reasons, law enforcement has been united in support of banning these weapons. Every major national law enforcement organization in the country supported the Federal Assault Weapons Act and worked for its passage. Among the many law enforcement organization that supported the ban are the Law Enforcement Steering Committee, Fraternal Order of Police, National Sheriffs’ Association, International Association of Chiefs of Police, Major City Chiefs Association, International Brotherhood of Police Officers, National Association of Police Organizations, Hispanic American Police Command Officers Association, National Black Police Association, National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, Police Executive Research Forum, and Police Foundation.

THE FEDERAL ASSAULT WEAPONS ACT WAS EFFECTIVE Firearms deaths increased throughout the 1980s and peaked in 1993 at 39,595.21 In 1994, the Brady Law and the Assault Weapons Act went into effect. Since then, annual firearm deaths have decreased to 29,573 in 2001, a drop of 25% from the 1994 level.22 Although there were undoubtedly some other factors that influenced this trend, common sense would suggest that stronger gun laws, including the Assault Weapons Act, played an important role.

On Target: The Impact of the 1994 Federal Assault Weapons Act According to a study published by the Brady Center called On Target: The Impact of the 1994 Federal Assault Weapons Act, the Federal Assault Weapons Act has reduced the incidence of assault weapons use in crime. In the five year period (1990-1994) before enactment of the Federal Assault Weapons Act, assault weapons named in the Act constituted 4.82% of the crime gun traces ATF conducted nationwide. Since the law’s enactment, however, these assault weapons have made up only 1.61% of the guns ATF has traced to crime – a drop of 66% from the pre-ban rate. Moreover, ATF trace data show a steady year-by-year decline in the percentage of assault weapons traced, suggesting that the longer the statute has been in effect, the less available these guns have become for criminal misuse. Indeed, the absolute number of assault weapons traced has also declined.

Analysis Done for Senators Feinstein and Schumer The conclusions in the On Target study are similar to an analysis of assault weapons traced to crime done for United States Senators Dianne Feinstein and Charles Schumer. This analysis showed that the proportion of banned assault weapons traced to crime has dropped by more than 65% since 1995, according to ATF crime gun trace data.25 The Feinstein-Schumer report did not, however, address the effect of the industry’s development of “copycat” guns on the overall effectiveness of the ban in reducing the rate of assault weapons in crime. National Institute of Justice Study Following enactment of the Assault Weapons Act, the U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice conducted a study, mandated by the Act, of the short-term impact on crime of the assault weapons ban. The study, published in 1999, found that the ban had “clear short-term effects on the gun market,” leading to semiautomatic assault weapons “becom[ing] less accessible to criminals because there was at least a short-term decrease in criminal use of the banned weapons.”26 According to the study, ATF data showed that crime gun traces of assault weapons dropped 20% in the year following enactment of the Assault Weapons Act, from 4,077 assault weapon traces in 1994 to 3,268 in 1995. This 20% drop in assault weapon traces was double the 10% overall decline in the gun murder rate that year, suggesting that, at least in the short-term, the ban reduced the use of assault weapons in crime. Moreover, murder rates dropped 6.7% below what the rates were projected to be without the ban, once researchers isolated the impact of the Assault Weapons Act by accounting for other factors such as murder trends, demographic and economic changes, a federal juvenile handgun possession ban, and state initiatives.27 Murders of police officers with assault weapons also dropped from about 16% of gun murders of police in 1994 and early 1995 to no murders of police officers with assault weapons in the latter half of 1995 and 1996.28 The National Institute of Justice study also found further evidence that the national decrease in assault weapons traced to crime was an effect of the ban. Assault weapon traces from states that already had their own assault weapons bans dropped only an estimated 6-8% in 1995, suggesting that the national downward trends in assault weapons traces reflect effects of the Federal ban.29 Further, the study found that there were fewer assault weapon traces in 1995 than in 1993, suggesting that the decrease in assault weapons traced to crime was not attributable to a surge in assault weapon tracing after the effective date of the Assault Weapon Act. Moreover, analysis of assault weapons recovered in crime in two cities without preexisting state assault weapon bans, Boston and St. Louis, showed a respective 24% and 29% drop in assault weapons recovered in crime, supporting the conclusion that the drop in assault weapon use in crime was attributable to the ban and not to any potential biases in trace request data.30 THE AMERICAN PEOPLE SUPPORT THE ASSAULT WEAPONS BAN In poll after poll, the American people consistently supported the federal ban on assault weapons. In an ABC/Washington Post poll conducted in August-September 1999, 77% of adults supported a nationwide ban on the sale of assault weapons. That same percentage held firm through the end of 2003 when an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found that 78% of adults nationwide expressed support for renewing the federal ban. The University of Pennsylvania’s National Annenberg Election Survey found in April 2004 that even 64% of the people in households with guns support extending the law.32 Enacted into law in 1994, the Federal Assault Weapons Act was designed to reduce the use in crime of military-style semiautomatic firearms, seen by law enforcement authorities as posing a special threat to public safety. The Act was narrowly drawn to ban certain named assault weapons and their “copies and duplicates,” along with other guns that have certain specified military features. Soon after the Act went into effect, assault weapon manufacturers sought to evade it by producing copycat assault weapons that were either renamed or differed in design in minor ways from the banned weapons. The On Target study and other studies have demonstrated that, since the Act became law, assault weapons banned by name in the Act had declined from almost 5% of guns traced to crime in the pre-ban period to only 1.6% in the years following the ban – a decline of 66%. The absolute number of named assault weapons traced to crime also has declined, even though the absolute number of crime gun traces has steadily increased. Moreover, even if copycat guns are included, assault weapons have declined from almost 6% of traced guns to about 3% - a decline of 45%. Therefore, the Federal Assault Weapons Act contributed to a substantial reduction in the use of assault weapons in crime, despite the industry’s efforts to evade the law through the sale of copycat assault weapons. The Assault Weapons Act reduced the use of high-firepower assault weapons available for criminal use. Its loss was a serious blow to public safety. Semi-Automatic Firearms and the “Assault Weapon” Issue --From the National Rifle Association (NRA)

General Information Semi-automatic firearms were introduced more than a century ago. The first semi-automatic rifle, a Mannlicher, appeared in 1885; the first pistol, a Schonberger, in 1892; and the first shotgun, the legendary Browning Auto-5, in 1900. President John F. Kennedy, an NRA Life Member, owned an M1 “Garand,” a semi-automatic rifle used by the U.S. military during World War II and the Korean War, and owned by hundreds of thousands of target shooters and collectors today.

Semi-automatics account for about 15 percent of the 250+ million privately-owned firearms in the U.S.1 Semi-automatic handguns are used in most defensive gun uses;2 semi-automatic rifles and shotguns are commonly used for hunting;3 semi-automatic rifles (including some that have been labeled as “assault weapons”) and semi-automatic pistols are the most common firearms in NRA, Civilian Marksmanship Program, International Practical Shooting Confederation, International Defensive Pistol Association and other major marksmanship competitions, and semi-automatic shotguns are widely used for shotgun sports. Semi-automatics are used to defend against crime more often than to commit it4 and, as with other types of firearms, the vast majority are owned by people who don’t commit crimes.

Semi-automatic firearms fire only one shot when the trigger is pulled—like revolvers, bolt-actions, lever-actions, pump-actions, double-barrels and all other types of firearms except fully-automatics5 (machine guns), the importation and manufacture of which have been prohibited since 1968 and 1986, respectively, and which are otherwise regulated by the National Firearms Act of 1934.6 A semi- automatic also uses energy from a fired shot to operate its loading mechanism.

Certain misrepresentations about semi-automatics by groups, politicians and media interests that support “gun control” warrant correction. Because semi-automatics fire only one shot when the trigger is pulled, they can’t “spray fire,” and they aren’t designed to be fired “from the hip,”7 as indicated by the fact that they possess sights, which can be used only if held at eye level. They aren’t “easy to convert” into machine guns.8 Federal law, which prohibits manufacturing a machine gun, also prohibits manufacturing an easily convertible firearm, converting a firearm, possessing a converted firearm, and making or possessing a part designed for converting a firearm.9

Semi-automatics, including “assault weapons,” aren’t “high-powered.”10, 11 Power is determined by the ammunition a gun uses, and semi-automatic rifles, shotguns and rimfire handguns use the same ammunition as other guns, while semi-automatic center-fire pistols use ammunition covering the same range of power as center-fire revolvers.12, 13 “Assault weapons” aren’t designed for, or used by, the military; they’re not “weapons of war;” they’re not “designed with,” “equipped with,” nor “designed to accommodate” silencers; and they’re not used by terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq.14 Our soldiers and the terrorists they fight use fully-automatic rifles.

The Beginning of the “Assault Weapon” Issue and Lies About Machine Gun In the mid-1980s, gun control groups invented the slang term “assault weapon” and applied it to certain semi-automatic firearms which, though designed for civilian use, look like modern fully-automatic assault rifles used by the military.15 In 1988, handgun ban activist Josh Sugarmann, then of the New Right Watch (watching the “Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy” before Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., coined the expression), now of the Violence Policy Center (funded by the Joyce Foundation, of which the Democratic Party’s candidate for president, Sen. Barack Obama, was a director from 1998-2001), recommended that gun control groups campaign against “assault weapons” to bolster their long-standing efforts to ban handguns,16 and that they try to trick the public into believing that “assault weapons” were fully-automatic machine guns designed for the military, because of the way the guns look:

“[A]ssault weapons . . . will . . . strengthen the handgun restriction lobby . . . . [H]andgun restriction consistently remains a non-issue with the vast majority of legislators, the press, and public. . . . Assault weapons . . . are a new topic. The weapons’ menacing looks, coupled with the public’s confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons—anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun—can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons. . . . Efforts to restrict assault weapons are more likely to succeed than those to restrict handguns.”17 To bolster the lie, CBS, NBC, CNN and network affiliates deliberately ran videos of fully-automatic firearms (machine guns) during reports on semi-automatic “assault weapons.”18 The Violence Policy Center uses machine gun photos to spruce up its “assault weapon” propaganda.19

The BATF Importation Ban Sugarmann also mused, “Criteria to identify and categorize assault weapons could be developed by ATF now and applied toward restricting the availability of both foreign- and domestically-produced assault weapons.” The BATF20 imposed the first “assault weapon” ban the following year.21, 22 Under a federal law passed in 1968 (as amended in 1986), the government (in practice, the BATFE) “shall authorize a firearm . . . to be imported . . . if the firearm . . . is generally recognized as particularly suitable for or readily adaptable to sporting purposes.”23 Under that law, BATF had approved the importation of many firearms, including 43 rifles that gun control groups called “assault weapons.” In 1989, however, the BATF reversed itself, and prohibited the importation of the 43 rifles on the basis of their having various external attachments, such as a pistol-like grip, a folding stock, or a flash suppressor.24 (The attachments have always been legal on other firearms. For example, all handguns, including those approved for importation, have pistol grips. None of the attachments provides an advantage to a criminal.)

Self-defense is the primary purpose of the right to keep and bear arms,25 thus a firearm shouldn’t be prohibited from importation on the basis of its relationship to sports. And, any firearm that is legal to manufacture in this country should be eligible for importation. Nevertheless, the importation law focuses on sports. Yet all of the 43 rifles were, at a minimum, “readily adaptable to sporting purposes.” Comparable U.S.-made rifles dominated most major center-fire rifle marksmanship competitions in this country in 1989, as they do to a greater extent today.

The BATF arbitrarily decided that “‘sporting purpose’ (sic) should properly be given a narrow reading,” to include “organized marksmanship competition,” provided paper targets are used, but not to include “combat type competitions.” Under that political- purpose-driven standard, the BATF expressly rejected, as non-“sporting,” the preeminent rifle and pistol marksmanship competitions in the United States, the NRA/Civilian Marksmanship Program National Matches, at which rifles of the type the BATF prohibited from importation are the most commonly used.

The National Matches certainly are “organized.” They were authorized by Congress in 1903 and have been conducted annually ever since.26 And though target material is irrelevant to whether a competition is “sporting,”27 only paper targets are used at the National Matches.

Combat marksmanship competitions are certainly “sporting” as well. Congress authorized the National Matches to enhance combat marksmanship skills among citizens, particularly those eligible for military service. In 1905, Congress provided support in furtherance of that objective, by passing a law signed by President Theodore Roosevelt, authorizing the sale of surplus military rifles and ammunition to civilians under the rules of the National Board for the Promotion of Rifle Practice, approved by the War Department. With America’s entry to World War I impending, Congress provided additional support to civilian combat marksmanship training in the National Defense Act of 1916, authorizing the War Department to distribute military arms and ammunition to civilian rifle clubs in support of their training programs, providing funding for military marksmanship instructors to assist the clubs, opening all military rifle ranges to civilians, and creating the Office of the Director of Civilian Marksmanship under the National Board. Under the National Defense Authorization Act of 1996, the Civilian Marksmanship Program continues the mission undertaken a century ago, by selling surplus military rifles and ammunition to members of marksmanship clubs, and co-sponsoring the National Matches. Civilians and military rifle team members have always competed together in the matches, now held at the National Guard’s Camp Perry Training Site, in Ohio.

The Federal “Semiautomatic Assault Weapon” Ban (the Clinton Gun Ban) In 1991, the House of Representatives adopted an amendment by a vote of 247-177, stripping an “assault weapon” ban from then-Rep. (now Senator) Charles Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) crime bill. However, many Democrats who had voted against the ban in 1991, when President George H.W. Bush was in office, voted for it in 1994 at the urging of their party’s leader, President Bill Clinton, who had said people “can’t be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans to legitimately own handguns and rifles.”33

The ban, which had been passed by the Senate, was passed by the House by two votes after Speaker Tom Foley (D-Wash.) did not close voting at the end of allotted time, to allow Democrat Party whips to convince several members to vote for the ban.34 The 10-year ban, which began on Sept. 13, 1994, and which was disingenuously named the Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act because it exempted various firearms (a pretense with no tangible effect), defined semi-automatics as “assault weapons” if they had more than one external attachment.35 In crime-prevention terms, this approach was pointless because, as noted, the attachments are useless to criminals and are common to other firearms. The ban defined “large” ammunition magazines as those holding more than 10 rounds. For propaganda purposes, President Clinton and the Brady Campaign claimed that the ban reduced the number of “assault weapons.”36 However, the facts indicate otherwise. The ban did not prohibit guns already made, motivating its Senate sponsor, Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), to say, “If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one of them, Mr. and Mrs. America turn them all in, I would have done it. I could not do that. The votes weren’t there.”37 The ban also had no effect on foreign-made “assault weapons,” such as AK-47s and Uzis, because the BATF had banned their importation in 1989. And it didn’t prohibit the importation of magazines holding more than 10 rounds. The ban also didn’t prohibit the manufacture of any guns entirely, it prohibited making certain ones with their standard complement of external attachments. Thus, for example, during the ban AR-15s were made with a pistol-like grip, but without a flash suppressor, bayonet mount and, in the case of carbine models, adjustable-length stock. In practical terms the most significant thing about the ban was that it prohibited the manufacture of magazines holding more than 10 rounds, the majority of which are standard-equipment for handguns not defined as “assault weapons.”38 Rather than reducing the number of military-looking semi-automatics and standard-size magazines, the ban caused their numbers to increase more than they would have otherwise. As the ban approached, consumer demand rose and manufacturers increased production accordingly. And when the ban expired, demand for the original, multi-attachment versions of the guns and the standard magazines soared. Moreover, during the ban, hundreds of thousands of one-attachment versions of the banned guns and millions of imported standard-size magazines were sold.39 Why Congress Refused to Renew the Federal “Assault Weapon” Ban A study of the ban mandated by Congress concluded, “the banned guns were never used in more than a modest fraction of all gun murders” before the ban, and the ban’s 10-round limit on new magazines wasn’t a factor in multiple-victim or multiple-wound crimes.40 A follow-up study found “gunshot injury incidents involving pistols [many of which use magazines that hold more than 10 rounds] were less likely to produce a death than those involving revolvers [which typically hold five or six rounds]” and “the average number of wounds for pistol victims was actually lower than that for revolver victims.”41 Crime reports and felon surveys showed that “assault weapons” were used in only 1-2 percent of violent crimes before the ban; 42 crime victim surveys indicated the figure was 0.25 percent.43 In the 10 years before the ban, murders committed without guns outnumbered those with “assault weapons” by about 37-to- 1.44 Also, most crimes committed with such guns could be committed with other guns, and some could be committed without guns.45

Moreover, violent crime, which began decreasing three years before the ban, continued decreasing as the number of firearms, including “assault weapons” and other semi-automatics, increased. This is true whether based upon the Violence Policy Center’s proposition that virtually every semi-automatic rifle and shotgun should be considered an “assault weapon,”46 or its fall-back position, that “assault weapon” should be redefined to include not only multiple-attachment guns banned in 1994, but one-attachment guns made to comply with the ban.47

Between 1991-2006, U.S. total violent crime and murder rates decreased 38 percent and 42 percent, respectively and preliminary reports from the FBI indicate that rates dropped further in 2007.48 Meanwhile, the number of privately-owned firearms has risen by more than 75 million, about one-third of them being semi-automatics, and about 15 percent of semi-automatics being “assault weapons.”49 The number of ammunition magazines that hold more than 10 rounds rose by 50 million during the years of the ban alone, according to the ban’s House sponsor.50

Also, the ban’s 10-round limit on new ammunition magazines infringed the right of self-defense. Police officers carry multiple standard-size magazines for good reason—their protection. Other citizens have the same right to protect themselves, and the arbitrary magazine limit potentially put them at a disadvantage against criminals. The limit had other flaws too. Criminals who fire guns fire only three shots on average,51 and those that fire a greater number could defeat a magazine limit by carrying multiple magazines or multiple guns. There was no evidence to justify a limit on magazine size, let alone the arbitrary number of 10 rounds. One can hope that Congress also objected to the truly un-American tone of the rhetorical question that the Brady Campaign repeated ad nauseum during the ban, believing that it alone shouted down any possible opposition to gun prohibition. The question, “who needs an assault weapon,?”52 was, of course, illegitimate. In America, the burden of proof is not upon those who wish to exercise rights, it is upon those who wish to restrict rights, and there is no evidence that an “assault weapon” ban reduces crime. An irrational bias against guns, mixed with an assumed sense of intellectual, social or cultural superiority to gun owners, may seem to gun control supporters like sufficient grounds to ban firearms, but such notions are insufficient in a democracy.

Anti-Gun Groups Disagree About The Ban The Brady Campaign claims that BATFE firearm trace data shows that the ban reduced crime.53 However, the BATFE says it “can in no way vouch for the validity” of Brady’s claim.54 Traces do not accurately indicate the frequency with which any type of gun is used in crime. The Congressional Research Service reports, “Firearms selected for tracing do not constitute a random sample and cannot be considered representative of the larger universe of all firearms used by criminals” and “No screening policy ensures or requires that only guns known or suspected to have been used in crimes are traced.”55 Also, firearm trace requests don’t indicate whether a firearm is a multi-attachment “assault weapon” or a one-attachment firearm. The study for Congress noted, “because the banned guns and magazines were never used in more than a fraction of all gun murders, even the maximum theoretically achievable preventive effect of the ban on gun murders is almost certainly too small to detect statistically.” The ban couldn’t have had an effect on crime, because the attachments it banned have nothing to do with crime. And “assault weapons” accounted for a smaller share of traces after the ban, because they were no longer a hot political issue, thus there was less interest in tracing them, and BATFE increasingly encouraged traces on other guns. Even the radically anti-gun Violence Policy Center (VPC) said “you can’t argue with a straight face that the ban has been effective.”56 Brady Campaign has even contradicted its own claim, pointing out that the ban only required omitting one or more attachments on guns made during the ban.57 Separately, VPC has incorrectly claimed that one of every five police officers slain in the line of duty between 1998-2001 was killed with an “assault weapon.”58 Information published by the FBI59 shows that in most of the crimes in question, “assault weapons” were not involved. 61

Posted: 9/3/2008 5:04:41 PM

Download the entire Issue Guide in PDF format Last updated August 2008 A minimum wage increase will raise the wages of millions of workers.  An estimated 13.0 million workers (10% of the workforce) will receive an increase in their hourly wage rate when the minimum wage is raised to $7.25 in 2009. Of these workers, 5.6 million workers (4% of the workforce) currently earn less than $7.25 and will be directly affected by the increase. The additional 7.4 million workers (6% of the workforce) earning slightly above the minimum will also be likely to benefit from an increase due to “spillover effects”. Minimum wage increases benefit working families.  The earnings of minimum wage workers are crucial to their families' well-being. Evidence from an analysis of the 1996-97 minimum wage increase shows that the average minimum wage worker brings home more than half (54%) of his or her family's weekly earnings.  An estimated 1,229,000 single parents with children under 18 will benefit from a minimum wage increase to $7.25 by 2009. Single parents will benefit disproportionately from an increase — single parents are 10% of workers affected by an increase, but they make up only 7% of the overall workforce. Approximately 6.4 million children under 18 will benefit as their parents’ wages are increased.  Adults make up the largest share of workers who will benefit from a minimum wage increase: 79% of workers whose wages will be raised by a minimum wage increase to $7.25 in 2009 are adults (age 20 or older).  Over half (53%) of workers who will benefit from a minimum wage increase work full time and another third (31%) work between 20 and 34 hours per week. Minimum wage increases benefit disadvantaged workers.  Women are the largest group of beneficiaries from a minimum wage increase: 59% of workers who will benefit from an increase to $7.25 by 2009 are women. An estimated 12% of working women will benefit directly from that increase in the minimum wage.  A disproportionate share of minorities will benefit from a minimum wage increase. African Americans represent 11% of the total workforce, but are 16% of workers affected by an increase. Similarly, 14% of the total workforce is Hispanic, but Hispanics are 19% of workers affected by an increase.  The benefits of the increase disproportionately help those working households at the bottom of the income scale. Although households in the bottom 20% received only 5% of national income, 38% of the benefits of a minimum wage increase to $7.25 will go to these workers. The majority of the benefits of an increase will go to families with working adults in the bottom 40% of the income distribution.  Among families with children and a low-wage worker affected by a minimum wage increase to $7.25, the affected worker contributes, on average, over half (59%) of the family's earnings. Forty-six percent of all families with affected workers rely solely on the earnings from those workers.  Relatively large shares of the workforce (up to 19.1%) in some Southern and Mid-Western states will benefit from an increase to $7.25. A minimum wage increase will help reverse the trend of declining real wages for low-wage workers.  The inflation-adjusted value of the minimum wage is 19% lower in 2008 than it was in 1979.  Since September 1997, the cost of living has risen 32%, while the minimum wage, even after the increase to $6.55, has fallen in real value  Wage inequality has been increasing, in part, because of the declining real value of the minimum wage. Today, the minimum wage is 37% of the average hourly wage of American workers, well below the ratio of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. A minimum wage increase is part of a broad strategy to end poverty.  As welfare reform forces more poor families to rely on their earnings from low-paying jobs, a minimum wage increase is likely to have a greater impact on reducing poverty.  A recent study of a 1999 state minimum wage increase in Oregon found that as many as one-half of the welfare recipients entering the workforce in 1998 were likely to have received a raise due to the increase. After the increase, the real hourly starting wages for former welfare recipients rose to $7.23.  The federal Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) combined with the minimum wage helps to reduce poverty, but the EITC is not a replacement for a minimum wage increase.  The minimum wage raises the wages of low-income workers in general, not just those below the official poverty line. Many families move in and out of poverty, and near-poor families are also beneficiaries of minimum wage increases. There is no evidence of job loss from previous minimum wage increases.  A 1998 EPI study failed to find any systematic, significant job loss associated with the 1996-97 minimum wage increase. In fact, following the most recent increase in the minimum wage in 1996-97, the low-wage labor market performed better than it had in decades (e.g., lower unemployment rates, increased average hourly wages, increased family income, decreased poverty rates).  Studies of the 1990-91 federal minimum wage increase, as well as studies by David Card and Alan Krueger of several state minimum wage increases, also found no measurable negative impact on employment.  New economic models that look specifically at low-wage labor markets help explain why there is little evidence of job loss associated with minimum wage increases. These models recognize that employers may be able to absorb some of the costs of a wage increase through higher productivity, lower recruiting and training costs, decreased absenteeism, and increased worker morale.  A recent Fiscal Policy Institute (FPI) study of state minimum wages found no evidence of negative employment effects on small businesses.

Copyright ©2008 Economic Policy Institute. All rights reserved. January 04, 2007 The Minimum Wage is a Bad Idea By George Will WASHINGTON -- A federal minimum wage is an idea whose time came in 1938, when public confidence in markets was at a nadir and the federal government's confidence in itself was at an apogee. This, in spite of the fact that, with the 19 percent unemployment and the economy contracting by 6.2 percent in 1938, the New Deal's frenetic attempts had failed to end, and perhaps had prolonged, the Depression. Today, raising the federal minimum wage is a bad idea whose time has come, for two reasons, the first of which is that some Democrats have a chronic and evidently incurable disease -- New Deal Nostalgia. Witness Nancy Pelosi's "100 hours'' agenda, a genuflection to FDR's 100 Days. Perhaps this nostalgia resonates with the 5 percent of Americans who remember the 1930s. Second, the president has endorsed raising the hourly minimum from $5.15 to $7.25 by the spring of 2009. The Democratic Congress will favor that, and he may reason that vetoing this minor episode of moral grandstanding would not be worth the predictable uproar -- Washington uproar often is inversely proportional to the importance of occasion for it. Besides, there would be something disproportionate about the president vetoing this feel-good bit of legislative fluff after not vetoing the absurdly expensive 2002 farm bill, or the 2005 highway bill larded with 6,371 earmarks, or the anti-constitutional McCain- Feingold speech-rationing bill. Democrats consider the minimum wage increase a signature issue. So, consider what it says about them: Most of the working poor earn more than the minimum wage, and most of the 0.6 percent (479,000 in 2005) of America's wage workers earning the minimum wage are not poor. Only one in five workers earning the federal minimum live in families with household earnings below the poverty line. Sixty percent work part-time and their average household income is well over $40,000. (The average and median household incomes are $63,344 and $46,326 respectively.) Forty percent of American workers are salaried. Of the 75.6 million paid by the hour, 1.9 million earn the federal minimum or less, and of these, more than half are under 25 and more than a quarter are between 16 and 19. Many are students or other part-time workers. Sixty percent of those earning the federal minimum or less work in restaurants and bars and are earning tips -- often untaxed, perhaps -- in addition to their wages. Two-thirds of those earning the federal minimum today will, a year from now, have been promoted and be earning 10 percent more. Raising the minimum wage predictably makes work more attractive relative to school for some teenagers, and raises the dropout rate. Two scholars report that in states that allow persons to leave school before 18, a 10 percent increase in the state minimum wage caused teenage school enrollment to drop 2 percent. The federal minimum wage has not been raised since 1997, so 29 states with 70 percent of the nation's work force have set minimum wages of between $6.15 and $7.93 an hour. Because aging liberals, clinging to the moral clarities of their youth, also have Sixties Nostalgia, they are suspicious of states' rights. But regarding minimum wages, many have become Brandeisians, invoking Justice Louis Brandeis' thought about states being laboratories of democracy. But wait. Ronald Blackwell, the AFL-CIO's chief economist, tells The New York Times that state minimum wage differences entice companies to shift jobs to lower-wage states. So: states' rights are bad, after all, at least concerning -- let's use liberalism's highest encomium -- diversity of economic policies. The problem is that demand for almost everything is elastic: When the price of something goes up, demand for it goes down. Obviously were the minimum wage to jump to, say, $15 an hour, that would cause significant unemployment among persons just reaching for the bottom rung of the ladder of upward mobility. But suppose those scholars are correct who say that when the minimum wage is low and is increased slowly -- proposed legislation would take it to $7.25 in three steps -- the negative impact on employment is negligible. Still, because there are large differences among states' costs of living, and the nature of their economies, Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., sensibly suggests that each state should be allowed to set a lower minimum. But the minimum wage should be the same everywhere: $0. Labor is a commodity; governments make messes when they decree commodities' prices. Washington, which has its hands full delivering the mail and defending the shores, should let the market do well what Washington does poorly. But that is a good idea whose time will never come again. The voices clamoring for a minimum wage hike are getting ever louder. Proponents argue that the current wage level does not provide an adequate incentive for work. Also, they argue that an increase in the minimum wage will have only a very minor impact on jobs. These arguments are not grounded in fact. The impact of raising the minimum wage has been studied since its inception. All credible research has come to the same conclusion: raising the minimum wage hurts the poor. It takes away jobs, keeps people on welfare, and encourages high- school students to drop out. Policy makers should be clear on the consequence of higher minimum wages.

From Reed Garfield, Senior Economist, Congressional Research

Jobs and the Minimum Wage Economists have studied the job-destroying features of a higher minimum wage. Estimates of the job losses of raising the minimum wage from $4.25 to $5.15 have ranged from 625,000 to 100,000 lost jobs. It is important to recognize that the jobs lost are mainly entry-level jobs. By destroying entry-level jobs, a higher minimum wage harms the lifetime earnings prospects of low-skilled workers. Proponents have been able to muddle the debate by pointing to a study done by two Princeton economists, David Card and Alan Krueger. These economists claimed to find that raising the minimum wage does not lower employment. [1] In one paper, they succeeded in casting doubt on 200 years of economic research and theory. Economists took their challenge seriously and attempted to recreate their results. It could not be done. Economists who attempted to replicate their work demonstrated conclusively that raising the minimum wage destroys jobs. [2] Even after the Card and Krueger study was fully discredited by economic science, it is still being used by proponents of higher minimum wages to support an increase. Why must they rely on discredited research to support their call for raising the minimum wage? Because they recognize that Americans do not support proposals that destroy jobs. Proponents often like to show survey results that say more than eighty percent of Americans support a higher minimum wage. Yet, the same survey shows less than half surveyed, 46 percent, support raising the minimum wage if it "might reduce the number of jobs available for workers with limited skills."[3] Clearly, if Americans were informed of the true effects of raising the minimum wage, support would rapidly erode. Minimum Wage Workers Supporters claim that raising the minimum wage is important for working families. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich often repeats the fact that forty percent of minimum wage workers are the sole source of income for their families. This is misleading because it relies on lumping single, non-family individuals with families. Only 2.8 percent of workers earning less than $5.15 are single parents. [4] Only 1.2 percent of all minimum wage workers were adult heads of households with incomes less than $10,000. [5] Fifty-seven percent of minimum wage workers are single individuals, many of them living with their parents. Minimum wage workers are not parents struggling to feed their children. Rather, they are high school or college students living at home. The level of the minimum wage is irrelevant for most people in poverty. Only 9.2 percent of poor people of working age have full-time jobs. [6] Side Effects of Raising the Minimum Wage It has been well documented that the minimum wage destroys jobs, particularly the jobs of low-skilled, young workers. However, there are other equally pernicious side effects of higher minimum wages. Higher minimum wages make it more difficult for people to leave welfare and induce high-school students to drop out. Dr. Peter Brandon of the Institute for Research on Poverty studied how raising the minimum wage affect the transition from welfare to work. [7] He found that raising it keeps welfare mothers on welfare longer. Mothers on welfare in states that raised their minimum wage remained on welfare 44 percent longer than mothers on welfare in states where it was not raised.[8] The reason for this result is that raising the minimum wage induces some people to enter the labor market who would not apply if not for the higher level. With a larger labor market, employers choose higher-skilled applicants. Thus, raising the minimum wage hurts low-skilled workers in two ways. First, there are fewer jobs available. Second, with a larger pool of applicants, competition is stiffer. Low-skilled workers have a more difficult time getting those job skills that are crucial to economic well-being. Another side effect of raising the minimum wage is that it increases the number of high-school students who drop out. [9] Some of these students do not find employment. Another group of students are part of those applicants that compete jobs away from welfare recipients. Dropping out of school is very destructive. High school drop-outs have a very difficult time improving their well-being. Reed Garfield Senior Economist KEEP DRINKING AGE AT 21—From MADD

WASHINGTON & DALLAS (August 19, 2008) – As students head back to school, more than 100 college and university presidents have signed on to a misguided initiative that uses deliberately misleading information to confuse the public on the effectiveness of 21 law. The initiative is led by another organization with a political agenda of lowering the drinking age in the name of reducing college binge drinking.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) National President Laura Dean-Mooney said, “Underage and binge drinking is a tough problem and we welcome an honest discussion about how to address this challenge but that discussion must honor the science behind the 21 law which unequivocally shows that the 21 law has reduced drunk driving and underage and binge drinking.”

MADD, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), the American Medical Association (AMA), National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), Governors Highway Safety Association and other science, medical and public health organizations, and all members of the Support 21 Coalition call on these college and university presidents to remove their names from this list and urge them to work with the public health community and law enforcement on real solutions to underage and binge drinking. Additionally, MADD is asking the public to write letters to their Governors and college presidents to support the 21 law and ask those on the initiative list to remove their names.

“As the mother of a daughter who is close to entering college, it is deeply disappointing to me that many of our educational leaders would support an initiative without doing their homework on the underlying research and science,” said Dean-Mooney. “Parents should think twice before sending their teens to these colleges or any others that have waved the white flag on underage and binge drinking policies.”

What the Experts Say

Top science, medical and public health experts as well as congressional and state leaders agree on the effectiveness of the 21 minimum drinking age law in saving lives.

University of Miami President and former U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala, said maintaining the legal drinking age at 21 is a socially and medically sound policy that helps parents, schools and law enforcement protect our youth from the potentially life-threatening effects of underage drinking. "As a three-time university president, I can tell you that losing a student to an alcohol-related tragedy is one of the hardest and most heart-rending experiences imaginable," Shalala said. "Signing this initiative does serious harm to the education and enforcement efforts on our campuses and ultimately endangers young lives even more. I ask every higher education leader who has signed to reconsider. I am old enough to remember life on our campuses before the 21 year drinking rule. It was horrible."

"The traffic safety and public health benefits of the 21 minimum drinking age law have been well established, with the Department of Transportation estimating nearly 1,000 lives saved each year as a result. I strongly support this lifesaving law, and will not consider any effort to repeal or weaken it in any way,” said Congressman James L. Oberstar (D-MN), Chairman, U.S. House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.

“Drunk driving needlessly kills thousands of young people every year. That’s why I wrote a law to create a national drinking age of 21 and why we fight so hard to reduce drunk driving and save lives on our roads,” Senator Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ) said. “This small minority of college administrators wants to undo years of success—that defies common sense. We need to do all we can to protect the national drinking age -- a law that saves the lives of drivers, passengers and pedestrians across the country each year.”

“Countless lives have been saved since Congress raised the national minimum drinking age to 21 in 1984. We need to maintain this important law and the life-saving protection it gives our teens and others on the roads,” said U.S. Senator David Vitter (R-LA), a member of the Subcommittee on Transportation and Infrastructure of the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works. Ronald M. Davis, Immediate Past President of the AMA said, ”It is impossible to ignore the scientific evidence demonstrating the dangers of underage drinking. A young adult’s brain is a work in progress, marked by significant development in areas of the brain responsible for learning, memory, complex thinking, planning, inhibition and emotional regulation. If we lower the age at which young adults are legally allowed to purchase alcohol, we are lowering the age of those who have easy access to alcohol and shifting responsibility to high school educators. The science simply does not support lowering the drinking age.”

“Age 21 drinking laws are effective in preventing deaths and injuries,” said NTSB Acting Chairman Mark V. Rosenker. “Repealing them is a terrible idea. It would be a national tragedy to turn back the clock and jeopardize the lives of more teens.”

Adrian Lund, president of IIHS, said, “This initiative aims to lower the drinking age without proposing a realistic substitute. It reflects ignorance about the years of research comprising the scientific justification for 21 laws. Sound policy should be based on sound science. What is the evidence that education programs would be an effective replacement for minimum drinking age laws? There is none. If states lower the drinking age again, more teens will drink and drive and more will die.”

The Public’s Perspective

The public strongly disagrees with efforts to lower the drinking age. According to a new survey released today by Nationwide Insurance, 78 percent of adults support 21 as the minimum drinking age and 72 percent believe lowering the drinking age would make alcohol more accessible to youth.

“While advocates argue a lower drinking age will curb teen binge drinking, our survey shows only 14 percent of Americans agree and 47 percent believe it will actually make a huge problem worse,” said Bill Windsor, Associate Vice President of Safety for Nationwide. “Americans feel so strongly about teen binge drinking more than half say they are less likely to vote for a politician who supports lowering the legal limit or to send their child to a known “party school.”

The Science Behind the 21 Law

As one of the most studied public health laws in history, the scientific research from more than 50 high-quality studies all found that the 21 law saves lives1. In addition, studies show that the 21 law causes those under the age of 21 to drink less and to continue to drink less throughout their 20s.2 The earlier youth drink (average age of first drink is about 16), the more likely they will become dependent on alcohol and drive drunk later in life.3

College Binge Drinking There is a perfect storm of affluence, opportunity and tolerance on college campuses. Access to alcohol on college campuses is a particular problem – where underage students drink because they can and they are in a high-risk environment where enforcement of the law varies widely.

In fact, research shows that more than 30 percent of college students abuse alcohol and six percent are dependent on alcohol – rates much higher than for young adults who are not in college.4 Research also shows that the problem of binge drinking is worse among college-age students in college versus those who are not in college.5

“By signing onto this initiative, these presidents have made the 21 law nearly unenforceable on their campuses. In fact, I call into question whether or not these campuses are bothering to enforce the 21 drinking age,” said Dean-Mooney.

Solutions

Some universities are taking strong steps to enforce the 21 law and change the drinking culture in their campus communities. Solutions to the problem are centered on enforcement of the 21 law, sanctions for adults providing alcohol to those under 21, changing the environment found on many college campuses and tightening alcohol policies on campuses, and working with local establishments in college communities selling alcohol to sell responsibly and to ensure those under 21 are not being served.

The U.S. Surgeon General issued a call to action to solve the underage and college binge drinking problem in 2007. Several steps have been taken by communities and MADD will engage parents and other health and safety leaders this fall on the topic to ensure parents specifically are armed with the tools they need to combat underage drinking early—before peer pressure begins.

Dean-Mooney added, “It does not make sense to increase access to alcohol when there are already so many problems with underage drinking. As it stands, about 5,000 people under age 21 die each year due to underage drinking. This is not to mention the sexual assaults, violence, and injuries.”6

About Support 21 The Support 21 Coalition is a group of leading health and safety groups in support of the 21 Minimum Legal Drinking Age Law and includes the American Medical Association, Center for Science in the Public Interest, Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America, Governors Highway Safety Association, Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, International Association of Chiefs of Police, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, National Liquor Law Enforcement Association, National Transportation Safety Board, National Safety Council, Nationwide Insurance, Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation and National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence Statement—LOWER DRINKING AGE—From the Amethyst Initiative  It’s time to rethink the drinking age  In 1984 Congress passed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act, which imposed a penalty of 10% of a state's federal highway appropriation on any state setting its drinking age lower than 21.  Twenty-four years later, our experience as college and university presidents convinces us that… Twenty-one is not working  A culture of dangerous, clandestine “binge-drinking”—often conducted off-campus—has developed.  Alcohol education that mandates abstinence as the only legal option has not resulted in significant constructive behavioral change among our students.  Adults under 21 are deemed capable of voting, signing contracts, serving on juries and enlisting in the military, but are told they are not mature enough to have a beer.  By choosing to use fake IDs, students make ethical compromises that erode respect for the law. How many times must we relearn the lessons of prohibition?  We call upon our elected officials:  To support an informed and dispassionate public debate over the effects of the 21 year-old drinking age.  To consider whether the 10% highway fund “incentive” encourages or inhibits that debate.  To invite new ideas about the best ways to prepare young adults to make responsible decisions about alcohol.  We pledge ourselves and our institutions to playing a vigorous, constructive role as these critical discussions unfold.

Myths and Realities

Myth: Drinking before age 21 will cause you to lose 10% of your brain power. Reality: What exactly is brainpower? We wondered the same thing. Nowhere in scientific literature can you find reference to "brainpower" or any statement that provides younger drinkers can lose a certain percentage of it. The above statement, which can be found on the MADD website, represents a misinterpretation of sophisticated research. It dangerously oversimplifies the conclusions made by many neuroscientists who research the effects of alcohol on the adolescent brain. Their research, all performed on laboratory rats, clearly demonstrates a connection between alcohol abuse and detriments to the developing brain, especially in terms of memory storage and processing. It does not make any assertions about percent loss of "brainpower."

Myth: Legal Age 21 keeps people under 21 from actually consuming alcohol Reality: Legal Age 21 has failed utterly at its goal of protecting young people from the dangers of excessive alcohol use. To cite an alarming statistic from the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth: 96% of the alcohol drunk by 15-20 year-olds is consumed when the drinker is having five or more drinks at a time. The field of neuroscience tells us that this has devastating consequences for developing brains. Since Legal Age 21, less young people are drinking, but those who choose to drink are drinking more. Young peoples' drinking is moving to the extremes: between 1993 and 2001, 18-20 year-olds showed the largest increase in binge drinking episodes. This trend should serve as a call to action for parents, educators, and lawmakers, for while moderate consumption represents little harm to young people and may even be psychologically beneficial, excessive and abusive consumption-binge drinking-spells disastrous consequences for our nation's youth.

Myth: Legal Age 21 is solely responsible for the reduction in alcohol-related traffic fatalities. Reality: While Legal Age 21 may have played in role in the decline of alcohol-related traffic fatalities documented over the past two decades, it is impossible to claim a cause and effect relationship. Instead, the decline represents the cumulative effect of a series of changes that have combined to make driving under the influence the target of social disapproval in the United States. Motor vehicles are safer, air bags are required by law, law enforcement has been made more vigorous with improvements in Breathalyzer and radar technology, the legal BAC limit is lower, designated drivers--a term unknown before the mid-1980s--are used frequently, and, perhaps most importantly, seatbelt use has increased from about 14% in 1983 to 80% in 2004. All of these changes have combined to create a set of societal norms and attitudes that promote sober and responsible driving and discourage drunken driving.

Myth: All we need to do to cut back on underage drinking is to enforce Legal Age 21 more strictly Reality: It seems like a simple answer: "all we need to do to keep kids from drinking is enforce Legal Age 21." But, if it were the possible, we would have brought an end to underage drinking long ago. Legal Age 21 has been in place for over 20 years across the nation and there remains a complete lack of consistency in how it is carried out and enforced. One study predicts that only two out of every 1,000 cases of underage drinking results in citation or arrest. Such low rates of enforcement present inadequate deterrence to young people under 21 who choose to drink. If the 21 year-old drinking age were enforceable, it is unbelievable that we would have the problem of reckless and irresponsible drinking by young people that we have in America today.

Myth: In 1984, Congress enacted a national minimum drinking age Reality: Despite that fact that Legal Age 21 is the law of the land in America, the right to set any drinking age remains in the states' control. The National Minimum Drinking Age Act effectively established a nationwide limit by removing 10% of annual federal highway funding from states that chose an age below 21. Myth: Prohibition works Reality: It doesn't. It didn't work during the 1920s and it isn't working now. Prohibition--the only amendment to the US Constitution that has ever been repealed--was a failed social experiment that led to smuggling, violence, and organized crime while doing little to reduce the negative and harmful consequences of excessive alcohol use on American society. The Prohibition culture of bathtub gin, rum runners, speakeasies is echoed clearly in the keg parties, pre-partying, and drinking games of today. Both Prohibition and Legal Age 21 created a national climate in which violation of the law is encouraged and socially acceptable behavior is criminalized--subversive consequences in a society like ours which is governed by the rule of law.

Myth: 25% of alcohol consumed in the United States is consumed by underage drinkers Reality: This widely-cited statistic is just plain wrong. It was published in Teen Tipplers: America's Underage Drinking Epidemic, a report generated in 2002 by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA). According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the agency that provided that statistic and was misquoted by CASA, the actual figure is 11.4%.

Myth: It is OK for parents to serve alcohol to their underage children and their children's friends in the privacy of the home. Reality: While parents in 30 states may choose to provide alcohol to their own underage children, it is never legal for parents or guardians to provide alcohol people under 21 other than their children. There is little consistency nationwide in the laws governing furnishing of alcohol to young adults-in 20 states, parents are never allowed to provide alcohol to their under 21 children, while in the remaining 30, parents may choose to provide their children with alcohol at any age.

Myth: "The drinking age is working better in blue-collar America than it is in Ivy League America." (Chuck Hurley, executive director of MADD) Reality: Reckless and excessive alcohol consumption by young people--a direct by-product of Legal Age 21--is a national problem. Binge drinking is commonplace on college campuses from Massachusetts to California, from Wisconsin to Texas, and virtually everywhere in between. It plagues neighborhoods and high schools, especially in rural areas where teens have little else to do besides consume large quantities of alcohol and play drinking games in basements and at backyard parties. Legal Age 21 and its many unintended consequences know no class distinction. In fact, underage drinking is usually more prevalent in rural areas--Chuck Hurley's so-called "blue collar America"--where drinking represents the only late-night or weekend social outlet for many teens. To cite a recent statistic from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (a US governmental agency), rates of drinking among persons aged 12-20 were highest in North and South Dakota (42.7% and 39.1% respectively). A recent New York Times article, "Youthful Binge Drinking Fueled By Boredom of the Open West" (September 2, 2006) cast a stark portrait of alcohol abuse by young people in the rural west, namely Wyoming, where "Barely five people per square mile live on the high, wind-raked ground." Boredom and curiosity combine in Wyoming's remote townships to create a climate where teens believe there is little else to do drink. This dangerous environment is perpetuated by Legal Age 21, which places an allure around alcohol that appeals to all young people, from the Harvard freshman, to the 15 year-old in rural North Dakota.