From: fcrary@ucsu.Colorado.EDU (Frank Crary)
Subject: Re: A Coffee-House Conversation with an Imaginary Nadja (Was Re: Eva Clayton bio)
Followup-To: talk.politics.guns
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 03:46:59 GMT

Follow-ups to talk.politics.guns

In article <1992Nov11.093559.6167@cbnewsk.cb.att.com> noraa@cbnewsk.cb.att.com (aaron.l.hoffmeyer) writes:

>"Ok, I'll Bite.  Weren't these the same *enlightened* founders that made
>sure that their defined rights still enabled them to be slave owners?

About half of them did. The other half were violently opposed to the
practice, and wanted to end it. They decided an imperfect Constitution
was better than none at all (and then worked to eliminate slavery
within the new system of government.) 

>"Well then, if they were intellectually wrong about those things,
>couldn't it be possible that they were also intellectually wrong about
>the second amendment and its vague meaning (which you think is so
>precise)?"

Actually, the _authors_ also thought it was clearly phrased...
They were also the people who thought that individuals had 
basic rights such as freedom of speach, the right to a fair
trail, etc... By your logic, there is no reason to take the
First Amendment any more seriously than the Second. "If they
were wrong about slavery, then then might have been wrong about
freedom of speach: Lets ban that whenever we like..."

>...Now, shoot me if
>I'm wrong, but if there were no handguns and no assault rifles anywhere,
>absolutely anywhere, in this country, how many deaths would we have from
>shootings?"

Fine: Explain how you plan to disarm _criminals_ (completely and
totally), despite the fact only 8% of them legally purchase their 
guns. Once you have explained this, your argument will be relevant.
In reality, a gun ban would disarm all law-abiding citizens (who,
by the way, prevent over 80,000 crimes each year with privately
owned guns. Possibly as many as 1,000,000 crimes, according to
studies that consider self-defense uses that are not reported to 
the police.) while leaving 92% of criminals armed. We aren't
talking about eliminating all guns, because that can't be done. 

By the way, assault rifles are _extremely_ heavily regulated
and have been (along with machineguns and submachineguns) since
1934. Since that time, these have been only a handfull (3 if 
memory serves) of crimes involving such weapons, except (of 
course) _illegally_acquired_ weapons of that type. This law
has been so completely ineffective in disarming criminals, that
you apparently didn't even know it existed.

>"Well, if all the guns were gone, nobody could be killed with one."

So what? If you are stabbed, you are just as dead. Immediately 
following the Washington D.C. gun ban (another example of how
effectively such laws disarm criminals...) the with-gun
homicide rate fell slightly (a few percent), but the overall
homicide rate didn't change. People were just murdered with
different weapons. Worse, banning firearms puts all such 
confrontations on a level of physical strenght: If attacked,
you would only be allowed to defend yourself if you were
stronger than your attacker. I, personally, think even someone
in a weelchair deserves a chance to defend himself, but that
doesn't happen unless he can use a gun.

                                            Frank Crary
                                            CU Boulder
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african.american