From: skimmel@amex-trs.com (Steve Kimmel)
Subject: Re: TIME is on the ropes, asks for forgive
Organization: American Express Travel Related Services
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 16:20:50 GMT

From: skimmel (Steve Kimmel)
Message-Id: <9301060706.AA88280@rsv08.cslab-tgsc.amex-trs.com>
To: rmkhome!rmk@merk.com
Subject: Re: Dressed for Rape
Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns
Organization: American Express Travel Related Services
Cc: 

In article <9301041902.48@rmkhome.UUCP> Rick Kelley writes:
>
>I have been in Arizona, and never saw anyone carrying a handgun except
>for police officers.  I did see a lot of long guns racked on pickup
>truck gun racks.

Not many people carry openly although within the last 3 months I've
seen two people waiting in line at Frys with their heater strapped on.
Nobody seemed to care in these cases but I tend to think that openly
wearing a gun can be somewhat provocative.  
>
>If a kid kills someone in Arizona with a gun do the parents take the
>rap?

I don't know how the "parental permission" slip will effect things 
but that concept does come up, mostly in relation to younger kids
killing other kids using a gun they found in their parent's/neighbor's
home.

In thinking about what I've seen in the papers over the last 6 months
or so about shootings, they seem to fall into the following categories:
(local phoenix area news)

1. husband or other relative kills spouse or in-law or co-workers of
   spouse or city employees (both clerical and law enforcement.)  This
   is almost always associated with some kind of marital/relationship
   problem.
2. Teenagers go to a party, get in an argument and either pull out a gun
   or go get one and come back to the party and then shoot someone. 
   Instead of teenagers, also substitute young adults.
2a. I'm tempted to include this in 2. Gang/drug related shooting leads
   to, more often than not, bystander being wounded/killed.  Nurse
   steps outside for a smoke and is killed by a stray from a firefight
   in a nearby park.
3. Little kids (say 14 or 15 and under) find gun and shoot sibling
   or playmate.
4. In the act of committing a crime, the suspect is shot.  70 yr old
   shots man climbing through window, armed robbers are shot during
   holdup(in some cases the shooters from #1 are in turn shot by 
   police responding to the call.)

I'm not sure what to make of this.  I'm not ready to turn in anything
I might own, and yet the killing that takes place in categories 1-3
is a real problem.  I think that no small part of the problem is,
to use the words of someone several weeks ago, the culture of violence
that is a big part of American culture.  The first choice for confilict
resolution has not always been to kill the other person. Where is this
comming from?  Could Dan Quayle been aiming at the right industry after
all?  If we say that in all but the most life threatening situation that
killing is bad, where is this being drummed into little heads?  In church?
In civics class?  In terminator II and die hard,harder,hardest?

-- 
Steve Kimmel   N7ULW           Phoenix, AZ      |                         
Internet skimmel@amex-trs.com                   | my views only, in no way
UUCP	 uupsi!amexphx!skimmel                  | the views of my employer.

-- 
Steve Kimmel   N7ULW           Phoenix, AZ      |                         
Internet skimmel@amex-trs.com                   | my views only, in no way
UUCP	 uupsi!amexphx!skimmel                  | the views of my employer.
Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns