From: andy@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (Andy Freeman)
Subject: Re: Have you heard of the Religious Left?
Followup-To: talk.politics.guns
Organization: Computer Science Department,  Stanford University.
Distribution: usa
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 22:55:09 GMT

In article <1992Sep15.161152.11305@news.uiowa.edu> williams@herky.cs.uiowa.edu (Kent Williams) writes:
>As for sticking their nose into your business, being more strict about
>who owns guns is a lot different than turning all women into
>involuntary breeding stock.

Doesn't that depend at all on the costs and benefits of each?  As in,
if there aren't any benefits to turning women into breeding stock,
it's a bad idea, no matter what the costs?  As in, if there aren't any
benefits to keeping track of law-abiding gun owners, it's a bad idea,
no matter what the costs?  (We've tried gun registration in the US; it
doesn't work.  In fact, the interesting people can't even be punished
for failure to register because that's self-incrimination....)

>In general, I don't believe people need to own guns, especially
>handguns.  I'm not sure how far I would go in restricting access to
>them if it was up to me, but the NRA position is cynical and self
>serving.  Guns are big business.  Many of the people involved in the
>NRA manufacture, sell or trade guns. People stand to lose money if we
>as a society try to limit gun ownership in some rational way.  We'll
>never resolve what the rational limits to gun ownership should be
>because the NRA is such a powerful lobby against any limits to gun
>ownership.

Interestingly enough, the NRA has less financial stake in the gun
industry than the "abortion" lobby does in abortion.  But, why let
facts get in the way of a good rant, right Williams?

>Guns engender violence.  Fights that used to be settled with fists and
>bandaids are now being settled with bullets and funerals.

Not at all.  When we decide to have a drug war, we have casualties.
Combine that with a baby boom and you have the current situation.
There's nothing new or surprising about it.

>There has to be a better way than the status quo, but no one on the
>pro gun side seems to want to find it.

Try again.  The NRA has proposed lots of gun control laws.  It does
have one simple request - repeal those that don't work.  It also
objects to "frustration" laws, as in "well, we can't disarm crooks, so
we'll punish law-abiding gun owners".

A realist would point out that gun control hasn't worked* ANYWHERE,
not in the US, Canada, the UK, Mexico, etc, so it is somewhat absurd
to think that{it will work in the US, but ....  A realist would also
point out that guns are easy to smuggle and make, so a gun war can't
succeed any more than the drug war does.  (The required amount for
criminal use is very small, so it doesn't take much.)

-andy isn't an NRA member, but knows enough to ask it about its
      policies instead of relying on folks who have a vested interest
      in misrepresenting those policies

* - "work" - associated with a reduction in the murder or crime rate.
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