From: PA146008@utkvm1.utk.edu (David Veal)
Subject: Re: Dressed for Rape
Organization: The University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1993 08:36:18 GMT

In article <9301092346.39@rmkhome.UUCP>
rmk@rmkhome.UUCP (Rick Kelly) writes:

>In article <1ii89nINNn9d@transfer.stratus.com> cdt@sw.stratus.com (C. D. Tavare) writes:
>>In article <9301051952.18@rmkhome.UUCP>, rmk@rmkhome.UUCP (Rick Kelly) writes:
>>
>>> A friend of mine got his sporting license 3 years ago.  He joined a gun
>>> club for less than $100 per year, got the three references, and was given
>>> a permit.  No hassle.
>>
>>So you approve of policies that restrict gun ownership to the relatively
>>well-off.
>
>I don't see $100 per year as excessive.

       *I* do.  *ANY* time I am required to *pay* to exercise a right
it's too much.

       If you don't think it's too much, fine.  Pay it.  Don't spend
my money for me.

>>> >>>My wife is stalled on her permit because all of the people she's known
>>> >>>for any length of time in the area are anti-gun.
>>> >>
>>> >>That's life.
>>> >
>>> >No, that's injustice, ethically bankrupt, and a direct and immediate
>>> >violation of her Constitutionally protected civil liberties.
>>>
>>> The government doesn't tell her how to pick her friends.
>>
>>It's none of the government's business who your friends are.
>
>Your're right.  It's a poor attempt at determining a person's state
>of mind and/or standing with other people.

       You're objecting to it because you feel like it's impractical?

>>Note that even the Brady Bill requires the police chief to destroy
>>all records of purchase if the purchaser checks out clean.  Meanwhile,
>>a few anal-retentive states like Massachusetts still think they have
>>to keep a pin-map of every firearm in the state.
>
>That's interesting.  So the Brady Bill isn't interested in using serial
>numbers on guns to find out who owned it last, when it was used in the
>commission of a homicide?

      The Brady Bill, in it's original incarnation, was interested solely
in a waiting period.  That's it.  What it's next incarnation will be
is anybody's guess.

>>> The local paper here reports arrests, which are a matter of public record.
>>
>>All arrests?  Don't say yes, because it's provably false.  It serves
>>MY town too, but doesn't report all the arrests in my town.  No paper
>>does.
>
>Then the cops in Framingham are _very_ busy.

       Most cops in any place of appreciable size are.

>>> In MAssachusetts, you are more likely to have someone break into your home,
>>> than have someone threaten to shoot you on the street.
>>
>>Maybe if you sit in an air-conditioned computer lab all day.  If you
>>work in a shelter, or a tavern, or a welfare office, or on a road crew,
>>your mileage WILL vary.
>
>I guess you're right about that.  I was ribbed at gunpoint when I used to
>drive a cab in college.

       This is completely, and totally irrelevent.  All of it.

       Whether you are more likely to be in danger at home or one the
street is completely and totally irrelevent.  The question is whether you
will be in danger in either place and how you will deal with it.


>>> Perhaps I've been lucky, but I haven't been through experiences that would
>>> make me want to carry a gun at all times, except when I lived in Boston.
>>
>>...which is about the hardest place in the state to get exactly that kind
>>of "permission."  Sorta makes "Massachusetts-sense," doesn't it?
>
>There aren't many large, densely populated cities where it is easy to get
>a gun.

       No, there aren't many large, densely populated cities where it is easy
to get a *legal* gun.

       I don't believe anybody is seriously going to suggest you can't
easily get a gun in New York or Chicago or Washington D.C., no matter
what the law says.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
David Veal     Division of Continuing Education Information Services Group
               University of Tennessee, Knoxville
               PA146008@utkvm1.utk.edu
Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns