From: dougnews@access.digex.com (Doug Humphrey)
Newsgroups: dc.general
Subject: Re: ALERT! Anti-gun meeting in NoVA
Date: 20 Dec 1992 23:18:11 GMT
Organization: Express Access Online Communications, Greenbelt, MD USA
NNTP-Posting-Host: access.digex.com
Summary: sigh

In article <5314@prcrs.prc.com> terry@prcrs.prc.com (Terry Cunningham) writes:
>In article <62748@mimsy.umd.edu>, purtilo@cs.umd.edu (Jim Purtilo) writes:
>> The
>> bulk of the market is not 9mm firearms of any kind (let alone semi-autos).
>> Thankfully, honest citizens still have the freedom to make their own choices
>> of firearms for defense, sport and hunting.
>
>The bulk of the guns taken in DC in connection with drug cases are, as I
>recall, 9mm  and 32 cal. guns.  Also the Bureau of ATF claims that the 9mm 
>the weapon of choice for most of the people involved in drug selling.

9mm is popular mainly because it is a small enough round that you can
get 14 rounds into a handgun, and still have a weapon that "normal" 
sized hands can deal with.  10mm and 11.3mm (.45 cal) are large enough
that you can't do that, so mostly those guns hold 7 to 9 rounds.

Also, the 9mm is not a particularly powerful round, so it is fairly
easy to handle.  People who shot 9mm a lot have trouble with my .45
and lots of problems with things like a .357mag revolver.

The 9mm is the weapon of choice almost exclusivly for its ammo 
capacity.

>The problem is that both honest and dishonest citizens can buy the means
>of easily delivering deadly force, unencumbered by even the most
>rudimentary background checking here in Virgina.   It is incredible how 
>many Virginia purchased guns end up being involved in criminal activity
>up and down the entire east coast (this makes a mockery of DC's more
>stringent gun purchasing requirements).

There are existing laws to deal with this.  They should be inforced
very strictly.

>Those that say that the laws against using a gun to commit a crime should
>be strengthened must feel that revenge is the best solace, rather than
>prevention of the tragedy in the first place. 

This is YOUR interpertation.  With the statistics on repeat offenders
in violent crimes being what they are, there are other very valid 
interpretations.  The priciple of "innocent until proven guilty"
has always made US law lean toward the concept that you get the 
opportunity to go do a crime if you are so inclined, because we can
not assume automatically that if the opportunity presents itself
you will take it; you have the chance to do it, or not do it, and 
thus innocent or guilty is in your hands.  You are not pre-judged.

The price for this freedom is that some will abuse it.  You can either
take away the freedom from all, and thus never even give them a chance
to abuse it, or you can make it clear that the abuse of the freedom will
be very costly indeed.  I prefer to give everyone the freedom, and then deal
with the few that abuse it, rather than take it from the many in order
to prevent the abuse of the few.  


Doug
-- 
Doug Humphrey    Express Access Public Access Internet   Voice (301) 220-2020
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"I say it again, in the land of the free; use your freedom of choice." - DEVO
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