Organization: Computer Science Department,  Stanford University.
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.politics
Date:         Tue, 10 Nov 1992 11:34:52 -0800
From:         Andy Freeman <andy@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU>
Subject: Re: Firearms; a rational viewpoint

>when the robbers opened fired on him, one might think that innocents
>might get hurt.  Especially when the criminals said "Someone will die
>tonight"  Such hero antics is not that commendable.  Trying to attack
>robbers while being outnumbered at least 4:1 with others in danger
>isn't that great of a path of action.

Huh?  They said that someone was going to be killed whether or not
anyone did anything.  How do we get from that to "resistance
endangered people"?  In other words, if you're going to die if you do
nothing, there's little downside to doing something, no matter how
steep the odds.

>The person noted is trained as a security officer; manadating people to
>take such training isn't being put on the table, nor is such people
>the ones anti-gun people are worried mostly about.

Try again.  I've got significantly more training than most police, yet
I can't get a permit because the mayor doesn't kiss my butt.  That
system is preferred by anti-gun people and they want to push it
nationwide for purchases.  (BTW - Shield's permit either didn't come
from LA city or he's a retired cop; LA has to issue to retired cops
unless they can show why they shouldn't while they're free to refuse
everyone else and do.)

It would be a significant relaxation of gun laws to allow trained
people to carry.

Of course, lack of training isn't causing any problems, but ....
(Sure, it would be nice if with-gun self-defenders were more
competent, but there aren't significant social costs to their
incompetence.)

>this appears to be very debatable even if you find that guns do
>prevent crime.  Especially in the 19th century, a high saturation of
>guns added to agression;

Huh?  Where?  Not in the "wild west" - see McGrath's "Gunfighters,
Highwaymen, and Vigilantes".  Not in rural american today.

>> "Instances of citizens using guns with excessive force or against
>> innocent persons they have misidentified as criminals are
>> negligible."
>>
>> Meanwhile, according to FBI crime reports, the homicide rate in
>> Florida dropped 20 percent between 1986 and 1991, while the U.S.
>> homicide rate increased 14 percent during that same period.
>
>is this supposed to mean that more guns meant less crime?

It certainly suggests that, at the very least, Florida's "everyone
with a clean record and $120 can carry" law didn't hurt significantly,
that the exercised police discretion wasn't helping.  This isn't an
isolated experience - Oregon did the same thing a few years later.  It
didn't experience as large a decrease, but then it didn't have much
crime to decrease to begin with.

>> Any sensible public policy demands that hysteria and demagoguery
>> not bury the facts.  Firearms carried by responsible, competent
>> civilians present no danger to the public.
>
>"no danger"?  Guns implicitly contain some danger, the question is is
>it too much to uphold the 2nd amendment?

"no danger" is Kates-speak for "we accept far greater dangers every
day".  Consider the dangers that come from letting anyone own a modem
or pass out flyers, run for political office, and so on; they're
greater than the danger of permissive permit and ownership systems.

We can repeal the 2nd amendment if we think it's wrong - should we
really set the "let's just ignore it" precedent?

>:-)), but I found some things questionable about it.  Let's see if I
>could do this without being seen as a anti-gun person, instead of one
>who sees gun as dangerous things if used badly, and worthy of great
>vigilance though most anti-gun law is problematic.

My comments were prompted by the beliefs attributed to anti-gun folk.
They don't believe those things.  I realise that they claim to be
"reasonable", but look at their proposals.

-andy
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