From: cochran@spam.rtp.dg.com (A. Jing Hippy)
Subject: Re: More Gun Control
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 93 14:17:47 GMT
Organization: A Suffusion of Yellow

In article <1993Jan21.195252.11505@igor.tamri.com>, donb@igor.tamri.com (Don Baldwin) writes:
|> Could we PUH-LEASE take this to e-mail?

Oh come on!  I've stayed out of the gun stuff every since alt<dot>peeves
started!  Lemme have some fun here.......

|> In article <1993Jan21.132452.1981@dg-rtp.dg.com> cochran@spam.rtp.dg.com
|> (A. Jing Hippy) writes:
|> >|> In 1990, there were 46,300 motor vehicle accidents,
|> >|>                     12,400 deaths in accidental falls,
|> >|>                      6,500 accidental deaths by poisoning,
|> >|>                      5,700 accidental drownings,
|> >|>                      4,300 accidental deaths in fires,
|> >|>                      3,200 accidental deaths by choking/suffocation
|> >|> 
|> >|> and only 1,400 firearms-related accidental deaths.  Another thing you
|> >|> should know about that number is that it's HALF the number of accidents
|> >|> from 1970, this despite a massive increase in the number of firearms out
|> >|> there.
|> 
|>>Note the difference in the types of accidents reported above.  It's difficult
|>>to get around these days with some sort of motor vehicle transportation, 
|>>especially in the more rural areas such as the one where I live.  People will
|>>accidentally fall. People will ingest things that seem perfectly safe and
|>>yet are poison due to mislabelling or improper preparation/packaging. Even
|>>if people stop swimming or boating, there will be the occasional slip in the
|>>tub or falling into water that will lead to drowning.  Fires happen for all
|>>sorts of reasons that may or may not be preventable.  Choking or whatever?
|>>Well, that's anatomy for you.  It happens sometimes no matter what.
|>>
|>>But we don't *need* the guns.  If they weren't around, then that's 1400
|>>people that would still be here today.  Since 1970, it must be in the
|>>thousands.  I'm sure that you could cite the astoundingly low number of 
|>>accidental deaths that occur from bungee jumping or leaping out of a perfectly
|>>good plane with a parachute on your back, but that doesn't make the 
|>>activity any more defensible or intelligent.
|> 
|> First off, what this goes to show is that the chance that you will be killed
|> as a result of a gun accident is MUCH lower than the chance that you'll be
|> killed in either an auto accident, in your home, in a pool or while eating
|> in your favorite restaurant.

I understood that. *My* point is that I need a car, a home, and food, and I
don't think I could avoid being around water even if I wanted to.  Can't say
the same about the gun thing.

|> Secondly, the trend in gun accidents is obviously down, FIFTY PERCENT over
|> the last 20 years.  This is primarily due to education, a large part of which
|> was accomplished by the NRA.

Yep, and yet another school kid was blasted here in NC the other day because
another kid had a gun in a backpack and it went off when he reached inside
to get something else.  When gun accidents get down to 0, get back to me.

|> Thirdly, I imagine (pure speculation) that those people who were killed
|> were NOT people who have been trained to handle guns safely.  So, if you
|> want to reduce your chances (and the chances of your family) of being hurt
|> or worse in a gun accident to near zero, you'll go with your family to a
|> gun safety class, instead of treating guns as yucky things that only
|> rednecks have.  A good 50% of the people I know with guns are at least as
|> liberal as me.

I never said anything about rednecks or yucky things at all. I used to hunt.
I used to shoot for sport.  I can get those chances a whole helluva lot 
closer to zero by not having a gun in my house.

|> Finally, it's not your business to say whether people "need" guns.  Some
|> people do need guns.  Close to 50% of the households in this country have
|> guns in them, so people living there clearly feel they need guns.  And a
|> lot of people LIKE guns, get pleasure from using them safely.  Those
|> people will have guns, period, and the only way to get those guns away
|> from them would tear the country apart as surely as if the Supreme Court
|> had criminalized abortion.  The time for extremism and prohibition in
|> this country is OVER.

Close to 100% of the households in this country have a television in them.
Would they be better off without them?  Probably.  Do they *need* them? I
seriously doubt it. I challenge you to come up with one, good, defensible
reason that anyone *needs* a gun.  The closest that I've ever heard anyone
come up with is "Defense of my home and family".  You can lock up your home
tighter than a ten-cent mainspring to keep out all but the most single-
minded intruders, and if somebody is *that* determined to get you, then 
they'll get you when you leave your house, so you and your family had better
carry that gun with you everywhere you go.

|> >"There have been zero deaths since 1970 that occurred from backing naked
|> > into glowing pot-bellied stoves with a piece of dynamite stuck up your 
|> > butt.  Therefore, this is a perfectly safe activity in which we can all 
|> > participate as long as we are properly trained."
|> >
|> >Peeve: "Logic" that says that as long as it hasn't killed *too* many people,
|> >       then it's ok.
|> 
|> I've got news for you Dave:  life is 100% fatal.  Everyone alive today is
|> going to be worm food withing a century, as will their kids and THEIR kids.
|> So I refuse to spend my life in a futile attempt to make life safe.  Instead,
|> I'll spend it doing things that I enjoy and not interfering with things that
|> other people enjoy, aside from things like test-driving race cars past
|> shools during lunch break and dueling with tactical nukes.

So where do you draw the line?  I won't take a chance on running down any
innocents with my race car, but I'll fight to the death to make guns readily
available to the population at large.

I've got news for you Don:  I refuse to adopt a fatalistic attitude about
life being 100% fatal and therefore I'm going to have *my* fun, dammit.  If
I'm crossing the road and I see a Mack truck bearing down on me at 60 MPH,
I don't say to myself that it's been really fun while it lasted; I get out
of the way.

|> p.s.  Did someone REALLY try to back into a stove with dynamite up their
|>       butt at Banta's party?

Well, nobody's actually reported it, but I felt like somebody *must* have.

BTW, it's quite a pleasure to be able to express differing opinions in the
group here without taking personal shots.

+--------------------------------------------------+
|Dave Cochran, Data General Corporation, RTP, NC   |
|cochran@dg-rtp.dg.com                             |
+--------------------------------------------------+
|"It ain't what they call you, it's what you answer|
| to."                         --Bill Clinton      |
+--------------------------------------------------+
Newsgroups: alt.peeves,soc.singles