Original_To:  BITNET%"politics@ohstvma.bitnet"
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.politics
Date:         Wed, 8 Apr 1992 19:55:00 EST
From:         "Give me Sodomy or give me death!" <199561011@VUVAXCOM.BITNET>
Subject:      more on that guns thing

>the purpose of guns is to kill things.  they also have the side effect of
>sometimes only wounding them.

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.  and
        the purpose of cars is not to provide transportation, but
        to kill people.  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.
        it all makes sense to me now.

>i have always been anti-gun, but that sentiment has been significantly
>strengthened by an incident that happened just before xmas last year.
>a hunter shot at a deer and missed. the shell blew a hole in the wall
>of my parents' house, travelled across the room, and blew another hole
>in the opposite wall on its way out of the house.  the second hole appeared
>about 2 or 3 inches away from my mom's head as she was bending forward to
>pick something up off the floor.  there were several results of this shooting:

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.

>1) my mother feels unsafe in her own house, since you can apparently shoot
>through walls nowadays

[a lot of technical stuff on guns and the constitution deleted, since i
am not prepared to comment on it, and stuff on laser printers deleted
as irrelevant toi the issue]

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.

>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, hence allowing the bearer to
        inflict harm on a larger number of people in a shorter
        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.
        are these relevant enough?

        brni
-andy