From: rja@newbirth.Eng.Sun.COM (Robert Allen)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns
Subject: Re: 2nd Ammendment
Date: 7 Nov 1992 01:19:13 GMT
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mt. View, Ca.
NNTP-Posting-Host: newbirth

In article <1992Nov6.210330.3850@cbfsb.cb.att.com> colten@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (marc.colten) writes:
>In article <73907@hydra.gatech.EDU>, gt1111a@prism.gatech.EDU (Vincent Fox) writes:
>> In <1992Nov6.041425.24217@cbfsb.cb.att.com> colten@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (marc.colten) writes:
>> >Guns are a lot different from knives.  I can sit a block away with
>> >a knife and be considered a mild threat - but a gun makes me a 
>> >major threat.  I've had this argument before  "oh then let's ban
>> >steak knives" - tell that to the people in Killeen.  If that guy
>> >had a steak knife 90% of his victims might be alive.  Guns are
>> >a very different matter.
>> 
>> Ahem. The guy in Killeen had a Glock. This is a relatively short-barrelled
>> pistol.  Like most pistols, the range at which you can actually hit anything
>> is about 10 feet, good knife range. Beyond that, only the most amazing amount
>> of luck, practice and a much better pistol than a Glock will allow you to hit
>> the side of a barn. TV shows far too many cops picking perp's off from
>> a block away with a snubby revolver, try it yourself some time.
>
>I'd like to hear from other experts on this, but if the Glock is such 
>a crappy gun - why is it so popular, and didn't I hear that a police
>force or two is/or wanted to use it?  If 10 feet is "knife range" why
>wasn't he knifed to death as he killed all those people?  Advantage gun -

    The Glock isn't a crappy gun.  It's a very good gun.  I've hit
    targets out to 50 yards or farther, in slow fire, prone.

    The rule on this knife thing is this: if you have a holstered
    handgun, the average person can cross a distance of up to about
    20 feet and apply a contact weapon to you (a knife or club) before
    you can draw and fire twice.  At 15 feet you might get one shot
    off before you were cut or clubbed, but it's doubtful.
>
>> I might also point out that at least one young lady in the restaurant
>> in Killeen had left her pistol in the car since Texas law doesn't
>> allow concealed carry by citizens for *any* reason. Her parents are
>> both dead because of this she claims, and she is campaigning to change
>> Texas law so citizens can get carry permits. If she had had her gun,
>> it might have ended much quicker also.
>
>Could have been, but what has that got to do with the idea of gun control?
>She could have shot him down, or frozen, or been shot down as she tried,
>or hit another innocent person - it happens in combat, it happens in 
>police raids, why do you assume some relatively untrained (I doubt a
>shooting range is enough preparation for the real thing) person would have
>simply stood up and taken him out?  Eliminating all rules might have stopped
>the guy or might have simply created more people with the firepower to settle
>fender bender with guns.  Keeping the guns out of the hands of people like
>Hennard will save lives, not arming every moron with the cash to buy one.

    Wrong.  Someone smart enough to assess the risks of carrying
    illegally, and not getting caught, is probably competent enough
    to hit what they're aiming at.  How much worse would it have been
    anyhow?
--
Robert Allen, rja@sun.com		DISCLAIMER: I said it, not my company.
		    Samuel Addams: Brewer, Patriot.															        "The right to brew beer is the right to be free!" - me