Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84 exptools; site ihuxe.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!ihnp4!ihuxe!chas From: chas@ihuxe.UUCP (Charles Lambert) Newsgroups: net.flame Subject: Lethal danger - my retirement speech. (unabridged) Message-ID: <1193@ihuxe.UUCP> Date: Tue, 2-Jul-85 23:15:24 EDT Article-I.D.: ihuxe.1193 Posted: Tue Jul 2 23:15:24 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 3-Jul-85 09:21:26 EDT Distribution: na Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Lines: 101 Let me answer some of my more coherent antagonists.> Oh c'mon! Let's not get back into the old abused argument that if one > person abuses a priviledge, then everyone should lose it. Some figures: 1980 Handgun Deaths ------------------- Great Britain 8 Sweden 21 West Germany 42 Japan 48 Canada 52 Isreal 58 United States 10,728 "One person" abusing a privilege?? Looks like a whole lot of abuse to me. And who's talking about privilege? I am, that's who. Privileges are controlled as gun ownership ought to be - and damned strictly at that. To what purpose is gun ownership an unchallengeable right? In a cohesive and just society you are not entitled to rights which make you a threat to the lives of others. You don't get to use a car if you haven't proved you're fit to drive it safely. > This has been said a hundred times, and I'll say it again. Outlawing > guns is not going to put them out of reach. There are too many. If > you're anti-gun, your battle was lost 30 years ago! Bullshit. Do you imagine that the habits and laws of the world suddenly became carved in stone, 30 years ago? You may as well tell those States where the legal drinking age was 18 that they couldn't raise it to 21. > You have no way of > knowing if an attacker is going to attempt to kill you or not, Then you have no way of justifying their execution. > The burglar prowling in your house: is that your silverware in his hand, or > a gun? > ... There are people out there who would > think nothing of blowing you or me away for some drug money Oh, look: I'm not arguing this case for the sake of making robbery a less hazardous profession. I'm arguing it because I want to see life in the USA become a less randomly-hazardous pastime. You seem to be under the impression that there is a classifiable "ordinary citizen" who can be relied on to keep his gun safely under the pillow until the bogey-men come around. Well they don't. They shoot other people at stop lights because they're pissed off with rush-hour; they kill their "nearest and dearest" (your words) in stupid family arguments because they're either too drunk or too lacking in brain- power to find another resolution; they shoot shadowy figures in the night, only to discover a (now dead) returning lover; they get manically pissed-off about a job-loss and, because this satisfyingly sudden instrument of retribution is right there, a welter of death descends on some innocent community. The list of senseless carnage which would either not have been possible or would have been easily averted, had the perpetrator not owned a gun, is endless. > One more thing, I don't own a gun, I just don't think that you can say that > I shouldn't. Nor do I, arbitrarily. Nowhere in my previous postings does the word "ban" appear. I advocate control. Red tape that makes it such a pain to acquire a gun, and then to keep it and buy ammunition for it (collectors would not be allowed that privilege), that only the devoted enthusiast will have the facilities and the patience to do it. Yes, yes, of course I know that a gun enthusiast could be an unpredictable killer just as likely as anyone else but there'll be a damnsight fewer of them. If anyone doubts that such controls can be enacted, they can ask me (by e-mail) for a set of proposals that are based on an already-working system of gun control. Finally, let me deal with one more "stock argument", or "load of tripe" as I prefer to call it. "If you outlaw guns, only outlaws have guns." Passing over the obvious rejoinder that the law enforcers also have guns (in this country), this argument completely ignores the effect of supply and attrition. The supply of guns for illegal purposes begins with the supply of guns for legal purposes. Illegally-owned guns are removed from circulation every day by the police. They can only be replaced from the pool of legally owned guns. Gun control would reduce that pool, would make all the guns in that pool more visible (or more easily observed as missing) and thus drastically reduce the supply of illegal guns. Assuming that the police don't start patting miscreants on the head and sending them home with their illegal guns, this means that the number of weapons in the hands of criminals is will steadily decrease to a much lower figure. The ownership of guns in this country is a grossly and tragically abused privilege. It must be stringently controlled. ------------------------------------------ Charlie Lambert @ the Death Star, IL. "Violence is the last resort of a bankrupt intellect."