From: cdt@sw.stratus.com (C. D. Tavares)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns
Subject: Re: Gun Control generally
Date: 22 Dec 1992 20:18:32 GMT
Organization: Stratus Computer, Inc.
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: rocket.sw.stratus.com

In article <1992Dec22.111055.18055@aston.ac.uk>, priceje@cs.aston.ac.uk (Jason Price) writes:

(Would you PLEASE put carriage returns in your posts?  Also, please don't
set followups unless you know what you're doing.)

> Over here, it is true to say (as my reply to a previous mail memo says 
> - just before this one), self defence is not considered a "valid" reason 
> for holding a gun, as the guy breaking in is not likely to have a firearm 
> and so you end up with an escalating spiral. 

So if he is instead armed with a knife, or a large stick, or just happens 
to be bigger and stronger than you, the escalating spiral somehow magically
does not occur.  Well, I suppose that's true.  Since the advantage never
shifts to the homeowner, he loses all the time, and so no spiral is required.  
How clever of the English authorities.  I'm sure the women over there must
especially appreciate it.

> Michael Ryan shouldn't
> have been allowed to have his guns in the first place as he failed the
> requirements for a firearms licence and had consistently broken the law
> by carrying firearms on his person - the police just didn't apply the 
> existing laws to remove his threat.

Fancy that: gun control turned out to be no substitute for crime control.
Write that sentence in a safe place; you will be referring to it often.

> self-defence in itself is not an excuse for carrying a weapon.  The 
> view of the police is that any weapon carried without a legitimate 
> reason (and I shan't even attempt to define legitimate!) 

Don't bother, since you've given up any right you once had to influence
the definition at all.  "Legitimate" now means whatever your government
officials decide at any time that it means, including the null set.

> The basis for this is the charge of possessing an offensive weapon.  
> Circumstance can be argued - for example , if I was carrying a potato 
> peeler back from the shop with a pound of potatoes, it would not be 
> an offensive weapon (I hope!) 

But you can never be sure.

> By opening up the field for anyone (effectively) to carry a gun for 
> self defence, you surely make it far easier for a non-serious criminal 
> (by this I mean to distinguish someone who'd break into your house to 
> nick a video on a moment of opportunity rather than a hardened 
> criminal - don't want to trivialise any crime) to obtain and thereby 
> use a gun in the pursuit of his crime?  (more on this in my other mailing)

Nope.  Criminals don't obtain guns through legal channels in the first place.
So "easier" has nothing to do with it.  Note that your "(effectively)" above
is quite false.  Ex-felons cannot legally own guns here in the US, and very
few people are in favor of changing that.  And ex-felons are overwhelmingly
the majority of the set of currently-practicing felons.

> I'm not saying that because I own a handgun that I'm more likely to 
> commit a crime, what I'm saying (as I explain in the other memo) is that
> because I own a gun, someone breaking into my house (say) is going to 
> bring a gun because they know I might have one, so I'm certainly more
> likely to get shot (and killed, due to the significantly higher damage 
> a gun could do than other weapons).

But you aren't a criminal, so your theories of how criminals think are at
best less than legislatively compelling.

James Wright and Peter Rossi, in "Armed and Considered Dangerous: A Survey
of Felons and Their Firearms" (New York: Aldine, 1986) reported that 3/5 of 
the prisoners studied said that a criminal would not attack a potential 
victim who was known to be armed.  2/5 of them had decided not to commit
a crime because they thought the victim might have a gun.  Criminals in
states with higher civilian gun ownership rates worried the most about 
armed victims.

So roughly half of the criminals WILL NOT escalate, preferring to give
up (or find unarmed victims).  Of those that do, a greater percentage than
before will lose an encounter with an armed victim that they would not
have lost with an unarmed victim.  Current US statistics indicate that
many more crimes are prevented by gun ownership than are committed by
armed criminals.
-- 

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Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns