From: wood@eisley.akita.com (Ken Wood)
Newsgroups: seattle.general
Subject: Licenses for guns.
Summary: License to own is different than liscense to carry in public
Keywords: license gun concealed carry cars laws politicians yuck
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 92 07:39:33 PDT
Organization: Mos Eisley Spaceport BBS


In article <1992Jul23.014011.9270@polari> 
           merrillg@polari.online.com writes:

>We need a drivers license to drive a car, but any citizen can go out and
>purchase a gun.  Does this make sense?   

     There is a difference here.  You do not need a license to buy a car 
nor to drive it on private property.  You ONLY need a license to drive 
it on the public roads.  Similarly in this state you do not need a 
license to buy a gun.  You only need one to carry it in public.  
Unfortunatly, unlike the car you do have to wait to buy a gun if you 
don't have the license.  Also in many states you can not get a license 
to carry a gun.  In some you can't even own certain types.  Now try 
applying that to the car analogy.  States where you can't get a license 
at all or you can't own certain types of cars.  Sounds kind of absurd, 
maybe even oppressive, doesn't it?

>I will be the first to support legislation for background checks, and taking
>some form of test to prove competancy.  
>
>I will also be the first to stand up and oppose a law forbidding an average
>citizen from obtaining a weapon after he/she has expressed his/her competancy
>with the weapon.
>
>Theres a lot of area between these two statements, but the NRA globs them toget
>opinions against the rights of gunowners everywhere...

     In principle I would support this for Carry permits ( not ownership 
).  The problem I have, and I think the problem the NRA also has ( I'm 
not a memebr so I'm not sure ), is that the test and license requirments 
are very often used by the government as gun bans.  There are several 
places where this has been done.  Tests that are only given a few times 
a year with limited class size, excessive test fee's, police approval, 
or political signatures.  These have all been used in the past ( and 
today in many places ) to prevent the general populous from haveing 
firearms.  Unless the law is written very carefully politicians can and 
will abuse it.  This is happening today in this state.  Some police 
chiefs will place requirments on when you can apply for a carry permit 
so as to increase the waiting time.  By Wa. law it can be no more than 30 
days from the date of application.  A certain police chief in a certain 
Wa. city is requiring all applicants to make an appointment for putting 
in an application 6 weeks in advance.  Thereby more than doubling the 
waiting time.  This is a minor example but it is right here in our own 
state.  Yes I would support minimum safety training requirments for 
carry permits if the RIGHTS of the people could be protected, but this 
is a very difficuly process at best.  Never underestimate the 
cleaverness of a politician.

    By the way, just for reference, no I don't own any firearms 
personaly.

    Ken Wood

  


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