Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site drusd.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!ihnp4!drutx!drusd!phl 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