From: ljb@parkcity.dr.att.com (BLO54620-BonhamLJ(DR2194)240)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns
Subject: Re: Yet further tripe from Richard Reeves
Date: 29 Sep 92 21:40:14 GMT

I won't include the article because its too long.

In response to those cooked stats.  
1. Vancoover doesn't have the same types or levels of crime for one very good
reason, gangs.  The Canadians have not yet had the Crips, Bloods etc. move into
their little world.  These people are commiting a disproportionate share of
Homicides in the U.S. and until we through a big enough net over them, all the gun
control in the world won't stop the bloodshed.

2. I would like to know how the homicides listed in the various studies were
classified. Were they purely innocent victems killed without provocation? Or were
legitimate police and civilian self-defense shootings lumped in with the true
homicides?

3. You would do well to read and consider the various works of Don B. Kates Jr.
who has produced a tremendous amount of well done, statistically valid work in
the gun control field and come to the conclusion that most anti-gun studies are
usually tremendously flawed.

4. Your contention that less carnage would result if people were limited in
access to only clubs, knives, fist etc.  I ask you, have you ever seen a stabbing
victim?  Or any violent non-gun assault?  At close quarters a knife can be more
deadly than a firearm and the tissue damage is usually much more difficult to
repair.

5. Go tell your arguements to Reginald Denny, the trucker who was beaten nearly
to death in L.A. during the riots if the lack of guns in the hands of his
assailants reduced the violence of their attack.  Or tell them to the hundreds if
not thousands of people who fell victim in one way or another to those crazed
mobs.  I would agree that poverty must be addressed to help stem the increase of
urban violence, but that does not nullify the people's right to defend themselves
or their right of access to the tools which will best suit that defense.

6. So much for my reasoned, educated arguments.  The Canadians are for the most
part a meek people (save some of their true living pioneers).  They are a fairly
homogeneous group ethnically, politically and economically.  Comparisons of their
culture, or any other culture to that of the U.S. is erroneous.  Our ancestors
did not come to this land to live like the serfs of Europe, Asia or any other land
which they fled or were driven from.  Rather, they wished to live in freedom and
depend on themselves for sustenance, not on the wimsical largess of some
government benefactor.  

7. There is one on group which stands to benefit from removing the guns from the
hands of the common man, those who seek to contol that common man.  Also, instead
of worrying about the meathod of teen suicides, perhaps you and other great
intellects should look to the causes of those suicides.  Instead of trying to
take my gun because your neighbor's child committed suicide with a gun why not
determine what forces are bringing this nations children to the cliff of despair.
 I assure you, if you discovered and solved that problem you could save millions
of lives more than through a witch hunt for these so-called evil devices.  Leave
the hardworking, well adjusted gun owners alone and instead seek to cure those
things which drive some people to such anger and hate that they murder, rape and
rob.  Do this instead of arguing about inanimate objects and you just might
achieve something great.

I see me soap box meter is running out so I'll close.

Thanks for the time.

Larry Bonham
"We are but warriors for the working day.  All our gilt and our gaines is
besmerched from painful marching in the rainy field."