From: fcrary@ocf.berkeley.edu (Frank Crary)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.clinton,talk.politics.guns
Subject: Re: Gun control (was Re: democratic platform)
Date: 21 Aug 1992 15:59:41 GMT
Organization: U. C. Berkeley Open Computing Facility
NNTP-Posting-Host: lightning.berkeley.edu
Keywords: joke, very funny, haha, etc.

In article <183162@pyramid.pyramid.com> glambert@pyramid.com (George Lambert) writes:

>>Was that the same "unarmed" population who were all around the Russian
>>parliment building carrying assault rifles stolen from military armories?
>>Or the ones who placing land mines around the building's enterences? Or
>>the ones fighting Soviet armored personel carriers with fire bombs?

>They were certainly unarmed before the coup started.  Seems that when they 
>needed 'em, they found a way to get 'em.

They also knew how to use the weapons, since the Soviet Union had compulsory
military service. Here in the US, where military arsenals aren't quite
as common, and far fewer people have military training in firearms, a
similar situation might not be as easily resolved, if private arms were
to be banned.

In any case, being armed helped the Russian resistance to the coup. This
hardly supports your earlier assertion, that arms were not usefull in
defending democracy. 

As far as access, I think the Russians were _lucky_: The coup planners
could have had enough foresight to increase the security/post new
guards around the military arsenals, which would have left the 
Russians unarmed.

>However, the big weapons against
>this coup were: faxes, TV, radio, telephone and an unwillingness on a large
>part of the military forces to engage (slaughter) their own people.

Think about this for a moment: All these factors were relevant only
because the defenders were armed. If the people had not turned out
to defend the Russian leadership, they would have been arrested within
hours. There would have been very little for the faxes, TVs, radios, etc...
to communicate to the world. As long as an organized resistance existed,
these communications were a vital tool, but it was an armed population
that keep the organized resistance in existance.

Further, the main reason the support of a large portion of the military
was needed, was alos the armed resistance: The coup planners needed
a sizeable force (or certain loyalty) to fight its way into the 
parliment building and arrest Yeltzin et. al. They had no such force
that was loyal enough to do this. Were the resistors unarmed, a much 
smaller force (which the coup planners _did_ have) could have arrested
them and ended organized opposition.

>>Non violent methods don't always work. Why should we through away a
>>proven and effective way to overthrow repressive governments, simply
>>because it isn't the _only_ solution. Non-violent means should be 
>>tried first, but what would you suggest if they don't work?

>Then I would suggest violent means.

However, you are advocating taking the means for this out of the hands of
the people.

>The problem with this whole argument is
>that nobody I know or talk to on a regular basis has any fear of a military
>coup in the US.  Nobody.

Nobody has a reasonable fear of this _today_, or even perhaps for the 
next 25 years or so. Our Constitution was written over 200 years ago
and has (hopefully) enough safeguards to continue protecting our
freedom for another 200. I have no idea what might happen 100 years
from now, so I consider the safeguard of an armed population important.
(Many people with no reasonable fear of fires still have insurance to
cover damages from such an eventuality.)

>What gun-owners need to do, in my opinion, is rather than offer these tired
>and paranoid sounding arguments (the only valid one is self-defense)

The argument of armed resitance to a repressive government has one major
advantage you seem to forget: It is the primary reason for the Second
Amendment. It is illegal for the government to restrict access to militia-
usefull arms, by citizens, precisely beacuse the framers of the Constitution
didn't trust the government and thought the people might one day have
to fight it.

>...is to
>stop confronting the people who oppose gun ownership,...

I'm afraid the contronting goes the other way: Gun control advocates
_invent_ high publicity issues, of little or no relevance to crime
or public safety (such as "cop killer" bullets, plastic guns, "assault
weapons", etc... If you consider any of these to be serious public 
safety problems, then I suggest you look more carefully at the details:
The issues were not as they were presented in the media.) Proposed
gun control laws based on these issues are written with loopholes
that ammount to de facto bans. 

I'm afraid it's the opoponents of gun onwership who are creating 
confruntations and distracting the attention away from _real_ problems
of crime.

                                                   Frank Crary
						   CU Boulder
						   (even though I'm
						   still using my 
						   Berkeley account)

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