Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84 exptools; site whuxlm.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!whuxlm!mag From: mag@whuxlm.UUCP (Gray Michael A) Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: handgun control Message-ID: <631@whuxlm.UUCP> Date: Sun, 30-Dec-84 14:59:34 EST Article-I.D.: whuxlm.631 Posted: Sun Dec 30 14:59:34 1984 Date-Received: Mon, 31-Dec-84 03:01:50 EST References: <168@ttidcc.UUCP> Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Whippany Lines: 83 > > > >I find that a rather large number. Until two years ago I lived all my life > >in Britain, and I never saw a handgun, except in museums. What do you use > >one for, except killing someone? > > > >Jim McKie Centrum voor Wiskunde en Informatica, Amsterdam mcvax!jim > > > Well said! Handguns have no other purpose. > > The Polymath > (Jerry Hollombe) I don't like guns, and wouldn't own one, but the two posters above seem to think that the thought that handguns are primarily human-killers means that: 1. You can use them to kill others because you don't like them. 2. You can use them to kill people you want to rob. 3. You can use them to kill because you're a nut. etc. etc. etc. From what I have read, many find that handguns can also be used to: 4. Threaten people who are about to harm harm you, without hurting them. 5. Kill someone who wants to rape you. 6. Kill someone who is about to kill you. etc. etc. etc. Are these last three illegitimate purposes? To me, saying something has no use but to kill human beings does not NECESSARILY mean that the something is a bad, nasty, evil thing! In other words, while the existence of millions of handguns in the US has costs, it also has benefits. Some of the costs and benefits are to society (whatever that is) and some are to individuals. ~20,000 handgun deaths is a lot of deaths. A woman who has successfully used a handgun to defend herself from rape may find that regrettable in the extreme, but she has my sympathy and support for her right to decide to carry a gun. Sure, maybe carrying a gun increases the chance that a criminal would kill you, but I really don't feel that I have the right to dictate that choice for others. Do the people on this net (both pro- and anti- gun control) believe that it is such a black and white issue? Let's hear some more careful arguments. One thing that interests me is: There seem to be two equal factors causing the 20,000 annual deaths from guns: criminal use of guns to kill people and accidental deaths from guns. Does anyone on the net have access to statistics to answer the following questions? 1. How many gun deaths per year occur in the US? 2. How many are criminal and how many are accidental? 3. How many of each of the above two categories are caused by handguns, and how many by other types of guns? 4. For accidental gun deaths, how many of the deaths happened in circumstances where the gun-wielder had no training in handling guns? 5. For criminal gun deaths, are there any estimates of how they would decline under strict gun control? 6. For both categories of gun deaths, are there any good demographic or other predictors (age, sex, income, gun club membership, veteran status) of which people are most likely to be involved in gun deaths? (As perpetrators, not victims.) Thanks to anyone who can supply answers to the above questions. For anyone who is curious, I am becoming very sympathetic to the libertarian views I've seen expressed in net.politics and net.philosophy, so my stance is nominally anti-gun control by government, and pro-gun control by communities of people voluntarily living together. (We don't allow nitroglycerine storage in the basement of our condominium, and anyone who doesn't like it, well, they can just move the hell out. :-) ). Mike Gray, BTL, Whippany