Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site decwrl.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!sdcsvax!dcdwest!ittvax!decvax!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-fremen!ryan From: ryan@fremen.DEC Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: Gun control Message-ID: <259@decwrl.UUCP> Date: Thu, 13-Dec-84 18:20:38 EST Article-I.D.: decwrl.259 Posted: Thu Dec 13 18:20:38 1984 Date-Received: Sat, 15-Dec-84 03:05:20 EST Sender: daemon@decwrl.UUCP Organization: DEC Engineering Network Lines: 88 Perhaps I didn't express myself as clearly as I could have last time. The basic premise we are arguing is "Should there be strong control of handguns (in particular, a ban on private ownership of handguns)?" I'm considering this question to be equivalent to "Do handguns cause more harm than good?" If you disagree with this extension, please tell me why you think that, assuming handguns do cause more harm than good, they should still be legal. Don Steiny made the claim that citizens kill more criminals than do police. This was subsequently refuted by Jeff Shallit, but it's irrelevant anyway. A more useful comparison would be between how many legal handgun killings (justifiable self-defense) and how many illegal handgun killings occur. The FBI (you know them - the liberal pinko gun-control fanatics:-) reports that in 1983 157 criminals were killed by citizens, and there were 22,000 handgun fatalities in all. That's a 140-1 ratio, folks. Oh, but of course > The number wounded, captured, or driven off is far more important. Well, if you're going to count this, don't forget to count the number of handgun crimes committed in which the criminal does not kill anyone. I don't have the stats on this (and they're probably harder to count, seeing as deaths do tend to attract more attention), but it is safe to say that handguns are used illegally far more often then they are used legally. Don goes on to suggest handguns are useful to keep the government in line, should government control end up in the hands of (his example) religious fanatics, or some other anti-democratic group. First of all, I think this is very unlikely scenario. With all its faults, our Constitution works. Watergate proved it. Secondly, I would think rifles (which I am not proposing be outlawed) would be more useful in such a situation. If you want to protect our freedom, I suggest you concentrate more on the First Amendment - that's the one that would have to be gutted before the American government could be perverted into a tyranny. About the amendment guaranteeing the "right to bear arms"; let's look at it in its historical context. The Founding Fathers were actually a pretty cynical bunch (you'll notice they didn't let the common people elect their President directly), and expected that it wouldn't be long before their newly-created government got out of hand. Therefore, they included in the Constitution the right to bear arms as part of an organized militia to keep the government in check. Fortunately, the experiment in creative government worked far better than expected (Libertarians and Communists are free to disagree). > In truth criminal acts will continue to go on in our world > until we address the problem of criminal behavior, not > something so meaningless as a neutral tool. Crime has > actually dropped in the last few years. A new gun > control act? Of course not. Merely a drop in the population > most likely to commit criminal acts. Treat diseases, not symptoms. > Robin D. Roberts Robin has a point here about crime prevention. However, the "neutral tool" in question is not meaningless. It is one which significantly increases the damage done in crime. Some crimes actually become impractical without guns (armed bank robbery, for instance). It's interesting to note that the "need" for handguns decreases as crime decreases (if there's no crime, there's no need for a gun). Something should certainly be done about the crime problem, but private ownership of guns is no answer. Oh, there is one use for a handgun besides self-defense, and that's for sport (target-shooting). This does not require private ownership of the guns; they can be owned by and stored at the facility at which they're used (which, needless to say, should be reasonably secure). There's no reason for a sportsman to have a gun at home. Perhaps I should explain where my feelings about gun control came from. In high school I was assigned a term paper assignment in which I had to defend some point of view. I decided to tackle the gun control issue. Although I leaned towards gun control, I had by no means settled the issue in my mind. I had the impression that my teacher was opposed to gun control, so I made sure I gave the anti-gun control point of view a fair shake. I found many distortions of facts and even a few outright lies on both sides, but found enough hard facts (government crime statistics, etc.) to support the opinion I am expressing here. The teacher (who never gave a report card grade above 88 or so that year) gave me an A for the paper (I admit, I may have misjudged his point of view). Please do not call my opinions ignorant, silly, or ridiculous or my "sayings" or concepts cute - they are not the product of uninformed speculation and are (at least:-) as valid as yours. Mike Ryan