From: PA146008@utkvm1.utk.edu (David Veal)
Subject: Re: Registering "Assault Keys"
Organization: University of Tennessee Division of Continuing Education
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 18:29:02 GMT

In article <1992Nov12.071135.2216@netcom.com> gurgle@netcom.com (Pete Gontier) writes:

>sjo@cci632.cci.com (Steve Owens) writes:
>>Please state an example
>>of something that is legal to do, that you do not do, and still feel
>>your right to participate in such activity should be banned.
>
>Smoking tobacco. Drinking alcohol. 

       I suppose this would come under the "parental" theory of government 
like the drug laws.

>Telling kids they'll go to hell
>if they do taboo thing X. I could go on for a while.

       Free speech, unless somebody says something you don't 
like?              

>>It would keep the law-abiding
>>citizen from participating in a very satisfying form of recreation.
>
>True. But what's recreational satisfaction compared to the blood
>of innocents?

       Nice emotional appeal.

>An aside: why is it that terms like "law-abiding" creep into
>these descriptions? Are criminals unable to derive the same
>recreational satisfaction?

       The criminals we are discussing are not criminals based on how often
they go to the range to shoot at paper targets.  They're criminals based on 
illegal and dangerous uses of guns.  If you're using a gun to hurt somebody 
it doesn't matter how much fun you're having.
       On the other hand, if you're having fun and not hurting anybody, 
what's the problem?

>>Since there is no evidence to support the claim that a ban would work, 
>>there is no reason to support such a ban.
>
>Name just about any country in the EC. 

      In most cases, the country's in the EC had low crime rates prior to 
their gun control laws.  The question isn't "Is there a country where there 
are gun bans and low gun crime rates," but "If we institute a gun ban will 
gun crime rates go down."  Except for some numbers that get argued here 
about Australia occasionally, this is generally not the case.
      Further, most countries with low gun crime rates often have low rates 
for other crimes that have nothing to do with guns, such as auto-theft, 
which you wouldn't expect to be impacted by gun laws.  Obviously there's 
more involved than just gun laws.

>Remember, we're talking
>about kids finding Daddy's gun and shooting each other with it out
>of ignorance. That's *all* I'm talking about.

      To the best of my knowledge, these are classified under 
"accidental shootings," and those have been decreasing for decades, and rank 
behind most other forms of accidental injury and death.

>>"Patching the system" simply adds kludge on top of
>>kludge until you have a system that is so huge noone can understand it
>>and noone can support it.  If that's the case, it's time for a new system.
>
>Ah, now we've gotten to crux of the problem, haven't we?
>
>Programmers refer to an old, creaky, patched up system as "mature",
>at least when they're trying to hire new blood. "Mature" is the way
>I'd describe our system. Hell, it's just about the oldest government
>on the planet.

       Oldest written Constitution, perhaps.  England's got us beat hand 
down in age.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
David Veal               University of Tennessee Div. of Cont. Education
                         Information Services Group
PA146008@utkvm1.utk.edu  (Mail to VEAL@utkvm1.utk.edu will bounce.)
Newsgroups: sci.crypt