From: andy@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (Andy Freeman)
Subject: Re: pagan self-defense
Followup-To: talk.politics.guns
Organization: Computer Science Department,  Stanford University.
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 1992 19:34:00 GMT

In article <2AAD4490.10608@news.service.uci.edu> cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese) writes:
>You get a gun, a device that is capable of dropping someone like lead in
>a millisecond

Guns are not death rays; they don't work that way.

>However, you get the gun, load it and keep it handy, and one day a
>neighbor kid takes it out and wastes Junior with it.  Or perhaps Junior

It isn't all that hard to figure out how to keep something handy for
me, yet unavailable for others.  (Note that "handy" doesn't imply
"always in the same condition".)  The less imaginative can buy
"instant open" gun safes.  These keep guns away from those who
shouldn't have them, but said guns are instantly available to the
safekeepers.  It is reasonable to keep a loaded gun in such a safe, at
least when one wants that gun to be handy.  (For example, the gun can
be unloaded at some times, yet loaded at others.)

Note that HALF of US households have one or more guns, yet gun
accidents are in the noise, both in absolute numbers and in comparison
with other dangerous items.

>They are all one way or all the other
>-- you either keep them loaded and capable of killing 100% of the time
>or they are owrthless little hunks of cast-metal.

Not at all.  You merely have to think about what you want to accomplish.

>Many of these exchanges are taking place TOO quickly, due to the fact
>that sometimes -- and this is just too fucking bad for the NRA types --
>the existence of guns does sometimes promote their use.  You lose your
>temper, pick the thing up, and it acts so quickly that your freedom of
>choice is effectively negated.  Before you have time to cool down and
>think rationally, someone has been killed.

Not in this reality.  In this world, the only people who kill are
people who have a history of violence.  It isn't all that surprising
that someone who "just gets mad" and beats someone will also "just get
mad" and shoot them, but that says nothing about the rest of us who
also get mad but don't beat anyone.

>Guns are just too big a can of worms for anyone to take a concrete
>stand on whether they should be in the house or not.

It depends on the house.  I don't have a history of violence and I've
thought about access problems, so there are no risks associated with
my ownership.

>Nope.  An armed society is one where people are blown away constantly --
>witness the good old U. S. of A.

Nope.  The armed societies in the US are the peaceful ones; the
unarmed ones are the dangerous ones.  Wolves don't prey on armed
sheep.  Compare Switzerland and Mexico.

>once posted that in Canada (last year, I think) they had a total of 650
>murders in the whole damned country; the place has 25,000,000 people.
>650 won't even total the murders in one big American city, land of guns,
>for one year.

Let's look at Canada.  As Centerwall (Dec 91 issue of American Journal
of Epidemiology), pointed out, there are many differences between
Canada and the US.  Some of those differences explain the difference
in murder rate, but the relevant differences don't include guns.
Centerwall showed that if one accounts for the non-gun differences,
one finds that Canada has a HIGHER murder rate than the US.

>takes away MY freedom to remain unarmed.  It's either that, or allow
>every man on the street the power to rape and murder me at will.

Hint: men don't need guns to rape and kill women.  In fact, rapists
don't use guns.  Abusive men don't kill their partners with guns; they
use weapons of strength.  That's not surprising; men are faster and
stronger.  Since training is available to them as well, it can't be
relied on as trump card.  (In fact, someone whose life is devoted to
violence has reason and opportunity to get the relevant training.)

>Pagans and Witches and other people on the right-wing's hit list who
>have kids are forced to remain at the mercy of the armed freaks around
>them.) 

Catch a clue; affliates of the powers that be will ALWAYS have guns.
Gun control never affects govts or their surrogates.  Interestingly
enough, it doesn't affect crime either.  (Canada is a "success"; there
doesn't seem to be any crime increase associated with the introduction
of gun control.  The UK didn't make out as well.)

-andy
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