From: mikepb@lupus.dell.com (Michael P. Brininstool)
Subject: Re: 1.2 Million Handgun Defenses per year
Reply-To: mikepb@lupus.dell.com
Organization: Dell Computer Co
Distribution: usa
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 21:17:26 GMT

In article <ARCHER.837.727548000@utkvm1.utk.edu>, ARCHER@utkvm1.utk.edu (T. Archer) writes:
>> In article <LAMBERT.93Jan21014949@nankeen.spectrum.cs.unsw.oz.au> lambert@spectrum.cs.unsw.oz.au (Tim Lambert) writes:
>> 
>> Neither of you are willing to concede anything are you?
>> 
>> I'll concede something, then: BOTH of you can manipulate statistics FAR 
>> better than I can understand them.  In fact, the whole POINT of statistics 
>> it maniplulating a set of data so that it conforms to one's expectations.
>> 
>> You can massage numbers and wave them at each other from now until Slick 
>> Willie is run out of office, and it will change nothing.  Except the reader 
>> ship of the newsgroup.  It will move it down to two.

I think the whole argument is irrelevant.  I do not care how many times a
gun is used or misuded a year.  The Constitution says I can have a gun, I
WILL have a gun, no law infringing that right will be observed! PERIOD!
You can try to justify why they should be taken away, or why they
shouldn't, but the main reason we have them now is the Second Amendment.
You want to argue that the Second Amendment is being misinterpreted, then
read the letters written by the people who wrote the Constitution and the
Bill of Rights, addressed to the public, explaining what they meant, and
why they were there.  You want to argue that the founding fathers wouldn't
have allowed this if they knew about auto and semi-auto weapons, horse
shit!  Fully auto weapons, or close to it, were around in that time period,
but were experimental.  Even if they were not, By that logic, the
newpapers and books and public speeches are protected by the first.  That
would mean that TV, movies, and radio are NOT protected by the first
amendment!

To add fuel to the fire about defensive uses:  I am not sure how you define
defensive use, but I have two I will relate that happen to me.  They were
never reported.  I was driving down the main drag in town at two in the
morning, well after they rolled-up the sidewalk :-)  Three pickups full of
drunk redneck cowboys pulled up at a light and started to pile out of their
vehicles and come towards my vehicle.  They had been shouting comments
about the Country of manufacture of my truck.  I reached under the seat and
pulled out a 357 and cocked it in plain view.  They immediately ALL jumped
back in their trucks and sped off.  I consider this a defensive use.  I
fell they had every intension of beating me to a pulp, if not to death.
THe pistol, never fired, never pointed at anyone, just by its presence,
halted all hostile activity aimed at me.  If that is not a successful
defensive use, what is.  The second was a single car trying to run me off
the road, I pulled out a 9mm and held it out the driver's window, pointed
up when the other car was behind me charging my bumper.  They slammed on
the brake and pulled back away from my vehicle and quit trying to run me
off the road.  I call that a defensive use also.  I do not look for
trouble, nor does this sound real out of the ordinary after talking to some
friends.  Almost all of them have had at least one icident similar to
these.  How can it be possible that there would be only 80,000 defensive
uses a year?  It seems to me that many people have at least one incident in
their life like this.  That adds up to a lot of defensive uses per year.

------------------------------+----------------------------------------------|
| #include "std/disclaimer.h" | MICHAEL P. BRININSTOOL mikepb@lupus.dell.com |
|-----------------------------+-----------------------------------------------
| If Liberals interpreted The 1ST Amendment, the way they do  the 2nd,  only |
| print media would be protected! - RID US OF ASSAULT MEDIA LIKE TVs & RADIO |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------