From: andy@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (Andy Freeman)
Subject: Re: Waiting periods for guns and domestic violence
To: king@cogsci.ucsd.edu
Organization: Computer Science Department,  Stanford University.
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 02:41:27 GMT

In article <1493@cogsci.ucsd.EDU> king@cogsci.ucsd.EDU (Jonathan King) writes:
>Boy, do people ever jump to conclusions around here.

Let's see how King stacks up.
>I mentioned shotguns precisely because they have never been proposed
>for gun restrictions

Really?  Shotguns aren't subject to the 15 day wait in CA?  There are
no shotguns on CA's assault weapon ban list?  There isn't even a
single-shot manually cocked shotgun on that list?  (Hint: yes they
are, yes there are, and yes there is.)  There are no federal controls
on shotguns?  There are no state level controls on shotguns in other
states?  (Hint: yes there are and yes there are.)

>How does this help things?  Or are you suggesting a complete ban on
>firearms sales to men?  That would be novel, but I wouldn't support
>it.  What I *do* support is a ban on sales of any firearm to anyone
>who cannot prove their proficiency with that firearm on a range, and
>to anyone who hasn't passed an approved firearms safety course.

If there were proficiency and safety problems, those might be
beneficial measures, but since there aren't, they're at best a
complete waste of time.  Considering the actual experience with those
measures in other states, they're worse than that.

>I also support a waiting period for the purchase of firearms and the
>registration of firearms, for a variety of reasons.

I'll make you a deal.  You accept complete liability for the safety
of a person during the waiting period and we'll talk.

We've tried registration, and we continue to try it.  (If you don't
understand the latter part of that sentence, you don't know much about
US gun law.)  It has no effect on crime (and can't for rather obvious
reasons if you consider the circumstances required before it can
help).  Given that, why are you interested in registration?

>doesn't mean you couldn't do a much, much better job in preventing the
>appallingly large number of gun homicides that do *not* involve
>convicted criminals and their acquaintances or encounters between
>strangers.

And what is this appalling number?  (I happen to know, and it isn't
all that large, but it's King's claim, so let's see his number.)

>Since that time, I've come to find out that many people who own guns
>(including friends and, alas, some family) don't have the remotest
>clue about what they are doing with them, but don't know it.  This is
>unsafe, and unacceptable to me.

So?  We know what the consequences of their ownership is.  It is at
worst neutral, so King's "only experts need apply" is just silly
elitism.

>Unfortunately, I have also decided
>that the NRA is much more interested in promoting its weird gun policy
>objectives than in making people safe shooters, or insuring that only
>qualified people get to own them.

Perhaps King will tell us exactly what those policy objectives are and
how he knows that they are the NRA's objectives, and not strawmen
attributed to it.  (I find that asking the NRA for its policies is far
more legitimate than relying on others.)

>unpleasant, I can't justify the extension of the second amendment from
>a "well-regulated militia" to the whole of the current group of
>gun-owners without some major changes.

It isn't an extension, but you'd have to actually know something about
the history of the 2nd amendment to know that.

-andy
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