Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!bellcore!decvax!cca!ima!inmet!nrh From: nrh@inmet.UUCP Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: handgun control Message-ID: <1871@inmet.UUCP> Date: Mon, 14-Jan-85 03:23:54 EST Article-I.D.: inmet.1871 Posted: Mon Jan 14 03:23:54 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 16-Jan-85 04:40:57 EST Lines: 63 Nf-ID: #R:alice:-322200:inmet:7800251:000:2964 Nf-From: inmet!nrh Jan 4 19:48:00 1985 >***** inmet:net.politics / gargoyle!shallit / 3:18 am Jan 4, 1985 >In article <> ark@alice.UUCP (Andrew Koenig) writes: >>To all those people wailing about how many people are killed >>by handguns and how much better everything would be if those >>guns were illegal: >> >> What fraction of the handguns used to commit crimes >> do you suppose are actually legally held? >> >>I know the answer for New York City: almost none. It is >>virtually impossible to get a handgun permit in New York. >>The fellow who shot the four punks on the subway, for instance, >>did so with an illegal gun: after he was mugged four years >>ago, he applied for a pistol permit but was turned down because >>he failed to demonstrate sufficient need for it. >> >>If enough people want something badly enough, making it illegal >>has about as much effect as closing your eyes and pretending >>it isn't there. >> >>If we really want to solve the crime problem, maybe we have to >>look a little deeper for the solution. > > You have listed at least one argument for effective NATIONAL >gun control. You can't tell me that if there were strictly enforced >registration policies; if illegal transfer of handguns made the >seller liable for the buyer's actions; and if it were easy for >police departments to request ownership information, that this >handgun madness wouldn't decrease significantly. Sorry, bub -- you can make laws, but you can't make them STRICTLY or FAIRLY enforced just by legislating. Propose legislation all you like, but have some realistic notion of how it would be acted on if enacted. In particular, I'm impressed by two things in this paragraph. The most important is that your only claim is that the "handgun madness" would "decrease significantly" if everything was structly enforced. Not much of a claim for the benefits of controls, even if pursued in a way superior to what would probably happen were such controls enacted. The other, and far more serious, is a lack of any admission that you are trying to cut down on people's freedom here, and an utter lack of understanding of WHY people own guns. > The NRA is agains all these (to me, reasonable) actions. Currently >it is becoming more and more difficult to trace ownership of a gun, >due in part to Reagan's attempt to dismantle the Handgun Control >Act of 1968. > > Look--you register your car, why not your gun? A handgun's only >valid purpose is to kill another person. I want those suckers >REGISTERED! Look -- you register your car, why not your sexual preferences? Why not the contents of your safe deposit box? Why not your travel intentions? Get it? The fact that one registers one thing doesn't justify registering another, unless they are somehow similar. Given all the "oh but cars kill people while being used for a constructive task and are therefore different from guns" I hear from gun control advocates, I'm surprised you would imply such similarity.