From: gray@hawkmoon.mn.org (Bill Gray)
Subject: Re: Random gun control
Organization: Semi-Public System (One of the Eternal Champions); Eagan, MN, 55123-2507, USA
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 18:08:58 GMT

*Sigh*

Here we go again.

djewell@rhea.trl.OZ.AU (David Jewell - Radio and Satellite Networks) writes:

>Here in the Australian State of Victoria we have random breath testing for
>car drivers. The police set up a road block and breath test drivers for a
>blood alcohol level less than .05. When this was introduced there were some
>protests from a few civil liberatarians but most objections came from hotelliers
>and other sellers of alcohol. The result now, some years later, is a change
>in attitude towards drink diving and a much reduced road toll. A great community
>and personal benefit in road safety at the cost of a few minutes hassle perhaps
>a couple of times a year.

First, you do not seem to understand the distinction between a right and
a privilege.  Apparently many efforts at making this distinction clear have
failed, possibly due to the inherent difficulties of communicating through
the net.

I doubt that I am equal to the task, so if my explanation does not seem
clear, please go see someone in OZ who has a legal background; maybe an in-
person visit will clarify it:

Right refers to a a just claim, legally, morally, or traditionally.

Privilege usually suggests an advantage not enjoyed by everyone.

Driving is a privilege granted by the state and subject to its reasonable
control.  Freedom of association is a right granted by God and only
restrictable by the state under unusual conditions--such as a riot or natural
disaster.

One can easily construe that the right to freedom of association confers the
right to travel.  After all, one cannot associate freely with someone not in
your immediate presence, so if one is free to associate, one must be free
to travel to do so.

But the freedom to associate does not confer the privilege of driving.  One
may walk, take a train, charter a bus, and so forth.  (As an aside, most
of the so forths are far less expensive and less ecologically damaging,
so one may reasonably argue that the state should discourage driving as much
as it wishes and grant licenses on a more restrictive basis.  Not an
attractive election plank, of course, which is why the liberals have done
little with it.)

In the People's Republik of Minnesotax (TM), you are granted the license to
drive on the provision that you present your license to any cop who wants
to see it for any reason.  You also agree that your privilege to drive is
forfeit if you refuse to take a breathalyzer test.  (Legend has it that
the state also once insisted that you be able to drive, but this cannot
be proved. :-)

One of the rights people have is the right to be secure in their persons and
possessions from unreasonable search and seizure.  Your scheme, which is
often tried and suggested here, merely destroys that right.

>Most t.p.g. posters would like to see the criminal element in society disarmed,

Agreed

>so how would "random gun checks" be received in US states? I know some would

Probably with violence.

But what exactly do you mean by a random gun check?  Just pulling someone over
and searching them and their car and possessions?  Searching their homes?
Their businesses?

When you find a gun (horrors!), what then?  Shoot the gun owner?  Arrest
him?  Is there any reason for having a gun that you, in your infinite wisdom
and mercy, would deign to grant us?

>say this infringes some right but if you are a law-abiding citizen with a duly

No fooling.

>registered firearm then surely this hassle would be a small price to pay to

Every government that has registered guns has eventually confiscated them.
Registration is a mechanism for making criminals, not catching them.
The citizen who, having done no harm to anyone, refuses to register his
weapon becomes a criminal thereby.  The citizen who would refuse to surrender
his registered weapon when the inevitable confiscation happens becomes a 
a criminal (or corpse) thereby.

No criminals are disarmed by registration.  Surely you can see that?!
And no criminals participate in registration programs, so all you have done
is criminalize a fair number of formerly law-abiding citizens.

>disarm criminals. This would also make GUN CONTROL for law abiding citizens

It would do nothing to disarm criminals.  It amounts to the most draconian
gun control law being proposed.

>unnecessary.

>DJ...

The worst part of this and most other gun control fantasies is that it
effectively converts the most fundamental right enjoyed by all people into
a privilege.

I refer to the right to self-defense.  Read your Blackstone; the English
common law precedents for the right to self-defense are eminently sound
and predate both Oz and the Bill of Rights.  You seek to deny all people
their right to self-defense and you have admitted it; but this is contrary
to common sense, common law, and the Bill of Rights.
-- 
gray@hawkmoon.mn.org
This site gets a fair news feed, but e-mail is more reliable. . . :-(
"Veni, vidi, vomiti!"  -- the ghost of Tom Jefferson on reading the Brady Bill
Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns