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From: phl@drusd.UUCP (LavettePH)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: re: Gun Control
Message-ID: <1199@drusd.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 21-Jan-85 12:11:54 EST
Article-I.D.: drusd.1199
Posted: Mon Jan 21 12:11:54 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 22-Jan-85 05:29:24 EST
Organization: AT&T Information Systems Laboratories, Denver
Lines: 69

>>
>>A serviceable lethal pistol can be made from a piece of wood, a rubber band, a
>>couple of nails, some wire and a piece of a car's radio antenna.
>>How do you outlaw the zip gun?
>>
> What's the lethal range of the zip gun, Phil?  How many "rounds" can you get
> off in a crowded room before someone takes you down?  What's the mortality
> rate among those shot with zip guns?

The lethal range is well over the normal muggor/muggee distance, Dave.  Multiple
barreled zip guns are not unheard of.  At close range the mortality rate is no
different from any other pistol of the same calibre and muzzle velocity.

>............  The first candidate to leap to my mind is our laws (or, more
>precisely, LACK of laws) restricting ownership of firearms.  Tell me, all you
>"right to bear arms" proponents, why do YOU think so many people kill each
>other here?  Because EVERYONE doesn't have a private arsenal??

An interesting item appeared in the ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS during the invest-
igation of the murder of talk-show host, Alan Berg, by an alleged member
of a right-wing Christian terrorist group.  It was first thought he had been
shot with an M-10 and there was the usual knee-jerk demand that all guns be
registered and/or confiscated by a rather uninformed public that apparently
didn't know that owning an unregistered automatic weapon has been illegal
in this country since the passage of the Gun Control Act of 1934.  This knee-
jerk demand for more controls pretty much died off when the newspaper's research
uncovered the fact that in the fifty years since the law was passed there has
not been a single instance when a law abiding citizen committed a crime with
an automatic weapon. There are perhaps several thousand privately owned machine-
guns in the United States.  Most of them are owned by legitimate collectors. 

Putting it another way, all crimes committed in this country with an automatic
weapon were committed by a criminal with an illegally obtained weapon (Thefts
from government armories are a major source.) who didn't bother to register it
before he committed the crime.  At least, that's the way it has been for the
last fifty years.  The law passed in 1934 to put an end to the excesses of the
roaring twenties (Bonnie and Clyde, Pretty Boy Floyd, Machine-gun Kelley, etc.),
didn't stop the excesses of the sixties and seventies (Weather Underground,etc.)
and didn't save Alan Berg in 1984.

In another instance, if my memory serves me, Patty Hearst was alleged to have
committed seven or more violations of either the Gun Control Act of 1934 or
the Gun Control Act of 1968 and was never prosecuted for a single one of them.
Those charges were all dropped as part of her plea-bargain.

In another instance, again if my memory is correct, the Casey bill which would
have added a ten year sentence (consecutive, not concurrent) for any federal
crime committed with any firearm and which had the full support of those in
hunting, collecting and target-shooting community was defeated in the Congress
fifteen or twenty years ago because the penalty was "too harsh".

In a final instance, a few years ago some outraged citizens objected to a
local police department's suggestion that the rifles and shotguns they had 
confiscated, but no longer needed for evidence, be auctioned off to raise funds
for a local charity.  The main objection was that the *guns* had committed
crimes and should be destroyed!

Aside from the outright repeal of the second amendment just what law is pro-
posed that the pro-gun-control people feel the criminal element will obey, the
prosecutors will enforce, the congress consider as not "too harsh" and will 
satisfy the public demand to punish the weapon?  Do we really need yet another
gun control act or do we need to resurrect the Casey bill and to pass laws
outlawing plea-bargaining and concurrent sentencing of convicted criminals?

Any clever twelve year old can make his own gun with a few hours work.

How do you control the zip gun, Dave?

- Phil Lavette