From: cdt@sw.stratus.com (C. D. Tavares)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns
Subject: Re: Dressed for Rape
Date: 5 Jan 93 23:34:48 GMT
Organization: Stratus Computer, Inc.
NNTP-Posting-Host: rocket.sw.stratus.com

In article <9301042000.28@rmkhome.UUCP>, rmk@rmkhome.UUCP (Rick Kelly) writes:

> >> >Or can't pass a written test, or a shooting test, or can't get letters 
> >> >of recommendation from three other citizens, or doesn't belong to a
> >> >bona-fide sporting club ($100-$200/year).
> >
> >> These requirements have changed over the last decade.
> 
> >Don't teach your grandmother to suck eggs, son.  I went through the
> >entire process I described no more than THREE MONTHS ago.
> 
> And I went through the process in the late 70's.  It was a snap.

What a joke.  You assume nothing has changed in 15 years.  You also assume
the criteria are uniform, state-wide.  Neither of these approach reality.
As you and I both know (except that you're not honest enough to bring it
up), the entire process in Massachusetts depends on the DISCRETION OF THE
LOCAL CHIEF.  If you want to see it at its best, apply in my hometown, or
Boston, or Worcester.  Yeah, it may be a snap in Hudson, or Wellesley, or
Great Barrington.  So what?  Ten years from now, many towns will have
different chiefs and all these correspondences will change.  And people in
some towns who have been carrying for decades will suddenly find that they
are now suited only for "target and sporting" licenses, although THEY
haven't changed a DAMN bit.

And it's even worse than that.  In one of the counties out west, judges 
have struck down the requirement that the applicant "be able to show 
membership in and attendence at a bona-fide gun club" because the cost 
of the membership ($100-$200/year) "raises the effective cost of the
license over the statutory maximum of $10" (or $15, whatever it is).  But
since that ruling only affects that county, my local chief still insists
on this requirement.

> And before that I went through the process of getting an FID card when
> they first issued them, since I owned a couple of rifles at the time.
> Before the FID card, you didn't need anything to buy a rifle or ammo
> except proof that you were over 21.

And now you don't need anything but a clean record to buy retail.  So
what?  Ex-felons don't buy retail, and no amount of checking can
prevent a "first-timer" from buying retail if he wants to (like Wayne
Lo did).

> >> >My wife is stalled on her permit because all of the people she's known
> >> >for any length of time in the area are anti-gun.
> >
> >> That's life.
> >
> >Maybe her life.
> 
> What was her reason for getting a license for the protection of life and
> property.  Business?  A substantiated attack?

What is the state's authority to deny me the right to keep and bear arms
by demanding a reason?

"That  the  said  Constitution  shall  never  be  construed  to
 authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or
 the  rights of conscience;  or to prevent  the  people  of  The
 United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own
 arms..." (Samuel Adams)[4]

"Arms  in  the  hands  of citizens [may] be used at  individual
 discretion...   in  private  self-defense..."  (John  Adams,  A
 Defense of the  Constitutions of the Government of the UAS, 471
 (1788))

"No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms."
 (Thomas Jefferson)

"The conclusion is thus inescapable that the history, concept,
 and wording of the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the
 United States, as well as its interpretation by every major
 commentator and court in the first half-century after its ratifi-
 cation, indicates that what is protected is an individual right
 of a private citizen to own and carry firearms in a peaceful manner."
  - Report of the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the
    Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate,
    97th Congress, Second Session ( February 1982 )

"All laws which are repugnant to the Constitution are null and void."
 Marbury vs. Madison

"Where rights secured by the Constitution are involved, there can
 be no rule making or legislation which would abrogate them."
 Miranda vs. Arizona

I own arms under the same set of rights and for exactly the same reasons
that I vote -- and I am not required to justify those reasons to ANYBODY.

> >She considered asking our next-door neighbor for a character reference.
> 
> Well, you have to play the game since the state makes the rules.

So you approve of the state being the master, and our being the 
subjects?  How special.

> I'm actually surprised, when I saw Stratus I thought maybe you lived in
> Marlboro, where the police are very reluctant to even issue FID cards.
> I would have thought that your town would be an easy town to get a
> permit in.

But, of course, the beauty of the Massachusetts method is that there's 
never any priori way to tell whether you "qualify" for your RIGHT or not.  
And your remark just confirms it.

> >Wow, what an incredible asshole I must be to insist that the police 
> >assume that citizens are innocent until they are proven guilty.  What 
> >would America be like if that were, like, a general rule or something?
> 
> How would you have them do this if there were no licensing procedures
> for guns?  How do you screen out people who already have a criminal
> record?

Maybe punch their driver's license, and anybody with a punch can't buy
a gun?  Gee, what a novel idea.  And it doesn't place any burden on
non-criminal citizens, either.  Naw, the state would never go for it.
(Besides the Virginia system I mentioned earlier.)

> The Framingham edition of the Middlesex News reports extensively on
> the comings and goings of the police.

Yeah, the Middlesex News -- home of Tom Moroney, that paragon of
impartiality who wrote that "If Wayne Lo had been forced to go out 
of state to buy his SKS, he might have gotten lost, found God, or 
just never come back."  Say, THERE'S a good justification for another 
gun-control law in Massachusetts.

> And if you believe the recently published statistics, you wife is in
> the greatest amount of danger from you, and my SO is in the greatest
> amount of danger from me.

More crapola.  This is like the statistic that "most auto accidents
occur within 25 miles of your home" because 99.5% of your driving is
within 25 miles of your home.  What the article you are quoting SAID
is that you are more in danger of being shot by people you know than
by people you don't know, and the more intimately you know someone
(i.e., the more time you spend with them) the greater the probability.

What that says is that people who shoot you tend to be people who know
you.  Gee, duh.  And that's NOT the same thing as saying that people
who know you tend to be people who shoot you, which is what YOU'RE 
claiming.

> It's very sobering to look at the police news in the paper, and see the
> multiple daily arrests for Domestic Violence.  Either women are reporting
> it more than they used to, or a lot of men are taking out their frustrations
> at home.

It's very sobering to see the Massachusetts reaction to it, too.  Out
here in Marlboro, they are giving women "I've fallen and I can't get up"
pendants to call police when their known-violent significant-others
laugh at their restraining order and arrive to beat them up.  When the
calls start arriving, and the police STILL don't manage to show up in 
time to prevent the beatings, you won't see the Middlesex News rush to
publish it.  But God forbid these women should have guns, or anything.
-- 

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