Organization: Computer Science Department,  Stanford University.
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.politics
Date:         Thu, 9 Apr 1992 10:02:16 -0700
From:         Andy Freeman <andy@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU>
Subject:      Re: more on that guns thing

>No, that's not the purpose of guns.  Guns have a function, to propel a
>projectile, and one can use them to accomplish a purpose, but the
>designer doesn't pick the target or the circumstance.  (The designer
>does have some effect on how effective a given gun will be on a given
>target.  For example, the M-16 designer made decisions that made that
>gun less likely to kill than previous military issue....)
>
>        ok.  the purpose of a gun is not to kill or wound things,
>        it is to propel a projectile.  and the purpose of a knife
>        is not to cut things, it is to be sharp and pointy.

No, the purpose of knives is to cut things, just as the purpose of
guns is to propel projectiles.  Knives cut things because they're
sharp and pointy.  Guns propel projectiles because that's what you
can do with a tube closed at one end.

>        the purpose of cars is not to provide transportation, but
>        to kill people.

No, the purpose of cars is to provide transportation; they happen to
kill people.  Their killing is largely inherent in the transportation
system, which allows them to share road space or to hit things.  The
killing associated with guns is as a result of a choice of the user.

>        and the purpose of computers is not to
>        process jobs and run software, but rather to manipulate
>        a series of gates and circuits.  i can buy that.  shuuuuure.

I'm a computer architect.  (I'm thesis-procrastinating at this very
moment.)  Computers manipulate electrons using circuits.  Any further
purpose is exterior.  We label certain electron patterns as different
symbols and assign meaning to them; nothing about the computer
requires that labelling (and the computer won't know if we change
the labels or meanings).

>Yet, if she'd been killed by a drunk driver, no one would have advocated
>banning cars.  Guns do have a strange effect on people....
>
>        if she had been killed by a person driving a vehical that
>        was made specifically for the purpose of being able to
>        cause damage to people, this would be a relevant statement.
>        for example, if we saw the Ford Destruktor on the market,
>        a machine that computed the speed and angle of hit for you
>        to be most likely to kill, and was provided with nifty sharp
>        edges so as to rip and tear flesh most easily.  i'm sure that
>        a lot of people would take issue with this.

But, if you're going to go with the "design for argument", the gun
in question was not designed to kill people.  Even then, the gun
doesn't compute anything; it merely propels a projectile and
places few constraints on that projectile.  (The same gun can shoot
many different kinds of projectiles, and they can have very different
properties.)

>If anything, modern guns are less lethal, even if you discount the
>changes in medical technology.
>
>        if this is true, then explain the attrition rate in WWI.

Most of the deaths in WWI were due to artillery, so the attrition rate
wasn't much affected by small arms technology.  Tactics also have a
significant effect.  (The British army ran out of horses trying to
prove that cavalry could overrun machine gun nests....)  If you insist
on charging into massed fire, you lose, no matter how said massed fire
is generated, and massed fire from guns has been possible since the
1300s.

>>i can see no reason for anyone in our country to need to own an uzi.
>
>Can you even describe the relevant and distinguishing properties of an
>uzi?  How about distinguishing it from a common 9mm handgun?  How about
>from a remington 7400 hunting rifle?
>
>        the 9mm is shorter and more easily concealed than the others;
>        the remington is longer and (generally) is easier to aim
>        at longer distances, and the uzi is capable of firing more
>        quickly than the other two,

Wrong.  The uzi can not fire more quickly than either of the other
two.  (No, magazine size isn't a difference either; guns don't
determine or limit magazine sizes.)  In fact, there are actions other
than semi-automatic that can fire just as fast.  (There's a reason why
pump, bolt, and lever actions work the way they do.  On heavy recoil
guns, you can use the recoil reaction of the shooter to work the
action, so that by the time the barrel can be pulled back down to the
target's plane, the gun is ready to go again.)  It turns out that
common 9mms are semi-auto, just as the uzi, as are many hunting rifles
(including those made by remington, winchester, etc).  Semi-autos have
been common in the US for decades; the "modern" ones merely look
different in some cases.

BTW - Size has consequences other than concealment, and the "good"
or "bad" of concealment is determined by the concealer....

>        period of time.  the uzi and the 9mm are more short range
>        things.  by removing certain componants of a semi-automatic
>        gun, one can fairly easily convert it to fully automatic.

Wrong.  The 1934 National Firearms act defined "machine gun" as
including any gun that can be readily restored to fire more than one
shot per trigger pull.  "Readily restored" has been interpreted to
include not only the substitution, addition, and/or removal of
available parts, but to include 8 HOURS of machine tool work.  In
other words, no sold as semi-auto in the US, uzi or not, can be
"fairly easily" converted to full-auto.*

8 HOURS is arguably overkill, as even metal-shop drop outs like me can
make a full-auto from scratch in about the same amount of time;
competent people can make them far faster....

>        are these relevant enough?

If they were accurate, they'd be relevant, but since they aren't....

-andy

* - If you insist on disagreeing, we can play put up or shut up.  I'll
pay anyone $3k plus up to $2k of expenses if they can demonstrate such
a conversion to me or surrogates of my choosing.  The demonstrator
will have to provide documentation showing that the conversion started
with a sold-as semi-auto in the US and we'll agree on a neutral judge
to hold the money and award it appropriately.  (If these terms are not
agreeable, feel free to publically propose alternatives.)  In other
words, if brni is right, it's easy money.  Surely he's confident that
he actually knows what he's talking about and that I'm wrong, so ....
--
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ARPA:    andy@cs.stanford.edu
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