From: perry@Unify.Com (Perry Clarke)
Subject: Re: Gun control in California
Keywords: nn
Organization: Unify Corporation
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 92 01:29:50 GMT

andy@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (Andy Freeman) wrote:
>In article <6ijf1nt@Unify.Com> perry@Unify.Com (Perry Clarke) writes:
>>syspb@smartstar.com (Paul) wrote:
>>>someday, don't wait until the last minute.  Pretty soon, California may
>>>be like England, where nobody can have a gun.
>>
>>Does this mean that we will have a murder rate like Britain's too?
>
>Why would you ask that?  The introduction of gun control in the UK
>was NOT associated with any decrease in the murder rate.  If anything,
>there was a change for the worse.  See Greenwood's Firearms Controls
>for more information.

You are making this sound as if sometime in the recent past "gun control"
(by whatever definition) was legally enacted in the UK and everyone's
guns were taken from them.  This not so; it has always been difficult to
license a hand gun the UK (it is now almost impossible because of the
Prevention Of Terrorism Act).  I am not arguing that Britain's murder rate
decreased due to some specific law.  There are a *lot* fewer guns per
capita in Britain and the murder rate (deaths per 1000 population) is
lower AND MURDERS MAKE NEWS.  The attitude of the entire country to 
murder and simplest means to perpetrate it (guns) is fundamentally 
different.  Anyone can quote a study to support their view; my 
contribution would be the one which showed the increase in the number
of accidental deaths after World War 2 when many ex-service men brought
home guns as souvenirs.

As the population densities and numbers grow the rate for all crime is
increasing.  This has nothing to do with any gun laws.

>
>Gun control didn't help in the UK.  Why would the US be any different?
>(It didn't help in Canada either.  Looking at Canada and the US, we
>find that gun ownership levels don't have any effect on crime.  Other
>factors do.  That's not surprising; criminals are a small fraction of
>the population, so ownership by the rest of us swamps their ownership
>levels completely.)
>
>>What I don't understand is why its tougher to get a license
>>to drive a car than it is to get a license to use a gun.
>
>Wrong.  There are 10 people in all of SF who have a license to carry;
>LA has issued on such license since 1970.  There are millions of
>people who have a license to drive in those two areas.
>

10 people in SF have a license to own a gun?  Something wrong with
your statistics here!  How do gun stores stay in business?

(I assume you got an A+ in Creative Argument 101 :-)

>Anyone with money can legally buy a car; that's not true of gun
>purchase/ownership.
>

But you can't drive it if you have lost your license (not quite the same
thing, I admit).

>>Both activities kill people if done with insufficient training.
>
>Wrong.  We don't have a gun accident problem, we have a problem with
>people who INTENTIONALLY use guns criminally.  Competence requirements
>can't address the problem we have.  (Does anyone think that driver's
>license can affect drive-by shootings?)

You keep mentioning the "problems we have" without suggesting anyway to
solve them.  My point was merely that easy availability of anything 
(be it alcohol or guns) means that people will abuse it and that it
will get into the wrong hands - alcohol is less instantly fatal than
a pistol.  As to not having "a gun accident problem", there have been
at least 3 shootings by children in the Sacramento area since I arrived
and I don't pay that much attention to the nightly news.

>
>BTW - Since "drug control" can't stop people from getting guns, how
>can gun control stop criminals from getting guns?  What, it isn't
>supposed to do so?  Then what's the point; there's no benefit to
>disarming anyone else.
>

Yeah.  Free coke for everyone.

>-andy
>--
>UUCP:    {arpa gateways, sun, decwrl, uunet, rutgers}!cs.stanford.edu!andy
>ARPA:    andy@cs.stanford.edu

I *know* its too late to do anything about the problems associated with
freely available guns, I just don't think that the answer is to give a
gun to everyone.  I'm just going to keep my head down and try to
enjoy the pleasanter aspects of America.

--
Perry Clarke                   perry@unify.com                 (916) 928 6287
Unify Corporation, Sacramento, CA                   I speak only for Me, Inc.