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From: jhull@spp2.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Gun control
Message-ID: <323@spp2.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 17-Dec-84 21:49:49 EST
Article-I.D.: spp2.323
Posted: Mon Dec 17 21:49:49 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 20-Dec-84 03:33:59 EST
References: <259@decwrl.UUCP>
Reply-To: jhull@spp2.UUCP (Jeff Hull)
Organization: TRW, Redondo Beach  CA
Lines: 170
Summary: 

In article <259@decwrl.UUCP> ryan@fremen.DEC writes:

>
>	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?"  
>
The real problem here is comparing the harm done {actual==can be
measured} with the good {much of which is potential, how do you
measure it?}.  Secondly, what weight is assigned to each item of harm
or good?  Who does the assigning? etc

>A more useful comparison would be between
>how many legal handgun killings (justifiable self-defense) and how
>many illegal handgun killings occur. 
>
A little clear thought will show that a fair comparison would be
between  1.	handgun killings by otherwise law-abiding citizens 
and 	 2.	handgun killings by criminals & others not permitted 
		handguns under present law.  
Perhaps domestic violence should also be excluded from this
comparison or do you want the government protecting you from yourself.
This last is a very sensitive subject.  If you do want the government
protecting you from yourself, I think you should announce this to the
net so your debate may be viewed in that light.

>but it is safe
>to say that handguns are used illegally far more often then they are
>used legally.
>
Safe but totally untrue.  I suggest you research the number of gun
clubs, shooting clubs, hunting clubs, trap shooting clubs, skeet
shooting galleries, hunting trips, {gee, how long do I have to keep
this up? (:-) }

>	Don goes on to suggest handguns are useful to keep the 
>government in line, ...First of all, I think this is very unlikely 
>scenario.  
>
Yet, below, you acknowledge that our Founding Fathers did not agree
with you and that the structure they built has worked very well.  I
suggest you look to the things we have changed {from what they built}
to see why we have such an increase in crime {per captia} from those
early days of our country.

>Secondly, I would think rifles (which I am not proposing be outlawed)
>would be more useful in such a situation.  
Of course, rifles would be more appropriate in this situation.  And
although you say you are not proposing outlawing of rifles, many
prominent leaders of handgun control activity, such as Senator Edward
Kennedy, have stated publically that banning of handguns is only the
first step to outlawing all private posession of firearms.  Note that
not only do they want to prohibit private ownership of firearms, they
want to prohibit "posession," meaning any access of any kind.  Their
stated goal is to remove from public knowledge all knowledge of the
manufacture, use, repair, handling, etc of firearms of ALL kinds.
Frankly, I'm frightened.  When reasonable people, like yourself, allow
themselves to be convinced "to let the camel get his nose in the tent"
and ignore {or give too little weight to} the long term implications
of what might otherwise be a desireable action, I fear for the
continued stability of our country.

>The Founding Fathers ... expected that it wouldn't be long
>before their newly-created government got out of hand. 
>
I don't know how you feel, but, in many areas, I feel our government
is out of hand today.  In most of those areas, my posession of
firearms conveys no advantage.  There is one area, however, wher it
definitely does and a story from my recent past will show that it is 
no hypothetical argument.  

My wife and I, until recently, had a houseguest, a young, single mother
with a 2 year old son.  She got a traffic ticket for which she paid
the fine.  Due to some bureaucratic snafu, the fact that she paid was
not properly recorded.  In the middle of the night {after 9PM but
before midnight}, the doorbell rang.  Two men were standing on my
porch, one at the door, the other "hiding" around the corner.  {This
behavior is directly due to civilian posession of firearms.} I checked
their identification before letting them in and had my wife remain in
the back of the house, in hearing, but out of sight.  They asked for
our houseguest, arrested her, and took her to prison, not city jail,
not county jail, prison {Sybil Brand Institute}.  She was not allowed
to make any telephone calls either then or when she got to SBI.  {She
had agreed to call us as soon as she was booked.  She would make her
"one telephone call" to us.  We never received a call and she later
confirmed she was not allowed to make any.  }

I won't go into the incredible hassle it was to get her out or how much
it cost in money and time.  My points are these: if she had been living
alone, no one would have known where she was or how to find her.  Her
son would have been taken, in the middle of the night, to the county
home for abandoned children {please, imagine how he would have felt.}
Being in jail, incommunicado, how could she have worked for her
release?  What might have happened with and to her son before she
could have gotten things straightened out?  {It took me all the next
day and night to get her out - finished at 0830 the second morning
after she was arrested.}  If I had chosen to protest this invasion of
my home, what would have happened to me?  If I had chosen to protest
their removal of a guest {or a family member} from my home, what would
have happened to me?  If she and I had been alone {i.e., my wife not
present}, what might have happened?  If police agencies did not have to
face an armed public, how much less restrained would their behavior
be?  Yes, I agree, the courts are the major line of defense of the
citizen against the police, but there HAS to be some way of enforcing
their decisions.  The officers acknowledged to me that, had my wife not
been present as a witness, they would not have answered my questions as
they did, that they would not have checked the status of their
warrant.  {For those of you who have gotten this far, when they checked
on the status of their warrant, they found out that she had paid the
fine and had a court date set which had not yet come up.  But, they
said, we have this warrant so we have to take you in anyway. } Both
officers acknowledged that they were taught to be polite by the
department as way of reducing violent confrontation not because the
"civilians" deserve it.

None of this should be construed to reflect negatively on the officers
involved or their department.  It is a natural outgrowth of the
situation in which they find themselves.  But we are the ones who have
to deal with it.

>	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 is interesting to note here the unannounced shift from "handguns"
to "guns."  Yet earlier, you state you are not proposing to outlaw all
guns.  How do you propose to keep people from shortening the barrels
of shotguns and rifles so that they become "easy" to use in crime?
What about robbing a bank using a bomb?  You haven't thought this
through very well.

>interesting to note that the "need" for handguns decreases as crime
>decreases (if there's no crime, there's no need for a gun).
>
Again, I call your attention to your equating of handguns with all
guns, despite your protestations to the contrary.  This is precisely
why I find it so difficult to believe *anything* said by many gun
control advocates.

>Something should certainly be done about the crime problem, but private
>ownership of guns is no answer.
>
Thank you for acknowledging that there is a crime problem and that we
are entitled to do something about it.  Clearly, private ownership of
guns has not precluded a crime problem in this country.  However, it
has been noted, with some truth, that although God made all men equal,
it was Col. Colt who gave men the means of enforcing it.  It still
remains that the gun {principally the handgun} is the only tool that
permits a woman {or a small man} to win a violent argument with a
larger opponent.  {Yes!  Flame me if you want about knives and karate
and judo and 14 other Oriental words.  I've studied aikido for years
and, for anyone less than a master, these art forms are not the answer
to self-defense questions.  They take years of steady practice to
learn properly while anyone can be taught to handle a handgun in a
matter of days or weeks.}

The heart of the problem remains that people in our society are taught
that violence is an acceptable means of getting what they want.  Until
we change that, people will kill, mug, rob, vandalize, etc whether or
not they have guns.  When we change the lessons we teach our children, 
they won't kill people even if they do have guns.  
-- 
					Blessed Be,

 jhull@spp2.UUCP			Jeff Hull
 trwspp!spp2!jhull@trwrb.UUCP		13817 Yukon Ave.
					Hawthorne, CA 90250