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From: bennet@gymble.UUCP (Tom Bennet)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Handgun control (again)
Message-ID: <187@gymble.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 9-Jul-85 00:12:24 EDT
Article-I.D.: gymble.187
Posted: Tue Jul  9 00:12:24 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 9-Jul-85 22:28:21 EDT
Distribution: na
Organization: U of Maryland, Laboratory for Parallel Computation, C.P., MD
Lines: 41

>From: csdf@mit-vax.UUCP (Charles Forsythe)
>Message-ID: <292@mit-vax.UUCP>

>
>>I'm not even sure why gun control is an issue --- there is more chance of
>>making marijuana and heroin disappear than handguns --- and there's no
>>chance *at all* of making those two go away.
>
>You're right about the latter, but the former statement is naive.
>Handgun shipments into the US are legal. So is domestic production. They
>could both be shut down sufficiently. Dope doesn't show up on X-rays.
>Guns do. Hashish doesn't trigger metal detectors. Guns do. Marajauna
>growers need a plot of dirt. Gunsmiths need precision tools. Putting the
>gun trade to a standstill is not a pipe dream for bleeding heart
>liberals. Tell me, if they can smuggle Levi's into Russia, how come
>they don't smuggle handguns, too?

How are X-rays going to distinguish smuggled guns in the middle of a large
crate of automotive parts, especially when they've been disguised (placed
inside something else perhaps)? Of course, we can always just hand-search all
packages, crates, and automobiles entering the country; that will help
unemployment as well.

Where do you plan to put the metal detectors? Perhaps we could ring the entire
US boarder with them.  Oh yes, and cover the perimeter of the air space too.
Of course, we'll have to ask all illegal aliens entering the country walk to
through a detector.

How precise a tool do you need to make a second-rate gun? How hard would it be
to use a legit machine shop or small factory for a cover? Will it not be harder
to find gun manufacturing inside a small building than to find a field of
marijuana growing out in the open? Have not various illegal drugs been
successfully manufactured in the US more than occasionally?

Why don't they smuggle Russian calculators into the United States? Might be
because 'cause there's no market for them.

-- 
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A balanced diet is important: one must | Tom Bennet @ U of MD Comp Sci Dept
occasionally change pizza places.      | ..!ihnp4!seismo!umcp-cs!gymble!bennet