From: PA146008@utkvm1.utk.edu (David Veal)
Subject: Re: Have you heard of the Religious Left?
Organization: The University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1992 03:55:29 GMT

In article <pt8jons@twilight.wpd.sgi.com>
coolidge@speaker.wpd.sgi.com (Don Coolidge) writes:

>
>In article <1992Sep15.224605.21244@SSD.intel.com>, hays@ssd.intel.com (Kirk Hay) writes:
>|> In article <farenebt.716582810@craft.camp.clarkson.edu>, farenebt@craft.campclarkson.edu (Bri Farenell) writes:
>|> |> williams@herky.cs.uiowa.edu (Kent Williams) writes:
>|> |>
>|> |> >Guns engender violence.  Fights that used to be settled with fists and
>|> |> >bandaids are now being settled with bullets and funerals.  Where do
>|> |> >the guns come from?  Someone somewhere bought it legally.  Then it was
>|> |> >stolen or sold or lost.  We are a nation awash in guns. We keep making
>|> |> >more.  Why?
>|>
>|> Bad premises lead to bad conclusions.
>|>
>|> People engender violence.  Guns just lay there.
>
>Until someone picks them up, of course. Usually one of those violent people.

     No, not usually.  The immense vast majority are not violent people who
use their guns safely and legally.
     A guns is an terribly dangerous tool, but the ultimate responsibilty
must be placed on the user.  We can go on and on about psychological nonsense
about being "removed" from the target, and the "feeling of power," (which
personally I've never felt) but we simply can't ban everything people use
to hurt other people, any more than we can ban everything anybody finds
offensive.

>|> Now, is someone deader just because he was shot, not stabbed, to death?
>
>Someone is considerably deader (sic) because he was shot, not punched.
>If you wish to argue, argue the point put forward, not your own distortion.

     No doubt, most of the time.  However, just because you shut down all
the gun shops and confiscate all the legal guns, do you *really* think
you're going to make a big impact?  All those drug dealers are going to
continue to get guns, if they have to have them imported from South
America with their drugs.  Most guns used in crimes are illegally acquired.
It's not going to stop these people by making them choose one illegal
route over another.
     And some of those death statistics are going to change.  Maybe you'll
have a decrease in dead bodies.  But is it really a plus if we've got one
dead victim instead of two dead assailants?

>|> Ever heard of the Stagger's Bill, an alternative to the Brady Bill, that notonly
>|> was offered as a compromise, but is actually *better* than the Brady Bill at
>|> weeding out criminals and mental misfits from gun ownership?  It *mandated*
>|> real background check, unlike Brady.  It was *point of sale*, unlike Brady.
>|> The NRA pushed *hard* to get it passed, but the controllers would cut off thir
>|> noses to spite the NRA, and got it killed.
>
>The Staggers Bill was a fraud. It mandated an instant-check system that
>was and is impossible to implement.

     Everytime a police officer pulls you over he can check police
records on you via either radio of in some cases newer computerized
systems.  This computerized system can be implemented *now*, and in
most cases the information is already there.  The police can check
on outstanding warrants across the country from their cruiser.  It's
just a hop-skip-and-a-jump from there.

>It also would have forbidden any
>lesser checks until its own system had been implemented. Result - no checks.
>Right, KIRK, a *real* improvement over Brady. Not.

     Somehow arguing against the possibilty of computer background checks
on Usenet is, to say the least, humerous.

>|> Likewise.  Let's start by enforcing the 20,000 gun laws already on the books
>|>
>|> Why should we believe that "just one more" gun law will be effective, when w
>|> have 20,000 examples that show that they are not?
>
>That's exactly the problem. What we need is *one* law, not 20,000.
>As long as each state and municipality can regulate independently,
>the net result is *no* regulation - just cross the state line and
>get what you want.

     I don't think anybody can suggest there is no regulation.  (BTW,
it is a violation of federal law to purchase a firearm in a state you are
not a resident of.  Legal ID is required.  Two felonies without even
trying.
     If you're going to go to the trouble of forging an ID, then you've
probably got one without a criminal record.
     And heaven forbid a state get to make its own decisions about its
own laws.

>|> The NRA supports effective gun control.  You deliberately distort their posiion.
>|>
>|> "What!", you screech.  "Prove it!"
>|>
>|> The NRA supports:
>|>
>|> 1.  No sales to children.
>|> 2.  No sales to criminals.
>|> 3.  No sales to mentally unfit.
>|> 4.  Instant background checks.
>|> 5.  Safety training.
>|>
>|> The first three, of course, are part of theat "status quo" you hate so much.
>
>The NRA opposed the only bill (Brady) with any chance of succeeding at
>all five of those, and pushed instead a Trojan horse (Staggers) that would
>have made 2 through 5 impossible.

     Are you serious?  Please explain to me how the Brady Bill would
prevent any of those.  It is a *waiting period* bill, not a background
check bill.  No background check is required.  Certainly not an *instant*
one.

>|> |> We must find a compromise now!
>|>
>|> Compromise: the fine art of giving away that which your opponent is not strog
>|> enough to wrest from you.
>
>Especially when it's clenched in your "cold, cold hands..."

     God, it's bad enough when somebody on the pro-gun side drags up
that stupid comment.  Even worse when somebody brings it up and
*he hasn't even said it.*

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| David Veal  PA146008@utkvm1.utk.edu                                  |
|             University of Tennessee Division of Continuing Education |
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