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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