From: hays@ssd.intel.com (Kirk Hays)
Subject: Re: Have you heard of the Religious Left?
Organization: Intel Supercomputer Systems Division
Distribution: usa
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 22:46:05 GMT

In article <farenebt.716582810@craft.camp.clarkson.edu>, farenebt@craft.camp.clarkson.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.

Now, is someone deader just because he was shot, not stabbed, to death?

|> >There has to be a better way than the status quo, but no one on the
|> >pro gun side seems to want to find it.

Wrong again.  Many pro-gunners, including the NRA, want to find something better,
but the anti-gun side has poisoned the well so many times, there's no trust
possible.

|> I agree. I don't think an outright ban on guns is the way to go
|> but I'd like to here people on both sides of the issue try and 
|> compromise (especially, but not only, the NRA people). 

Ever heard of the Stagger's Bill, an alternative to the Brady Bill, that not only
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* a
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 their
noses to spite the NRA, and got it killed.

|> You'd be
|> hard pressed to convince me that the status quo is okay and acceptable.
|> The status quo is unacceptable. 

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 we
have 20,000 examples that show that they are not?

The controllers need to change their tune, all right.

|> However, the gun control people have
|> to accept that there will (should) never be an outright ban on guns
|> while the NRA people have to accept that the status quo is not ok.
|> They must try and find some middle ground. Neither side believes in
|> SOME restrictions. For them, it's either all (gun control) or nothing
|> (NRA). 

The NRA supports effective gun control.  You deliberately distort their position.

"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.

|> We must find a compromise now!

Compromise: the fine art of giving away that which your opponent is not strong
enough to wrest from you.

No, thanks.

|> "We are not descended from fearful men...not men who feared to write, to
|> speak, to associate and to defend causes which were for the moment 
|> unpopular."		---Edward R Murrow

Oh, like gun rights?

-- 
Kirk Hays - NRA Life.
Start your day with a little civil disobedience.  Call BATF at 1-800-ATF-GUNS or
1-800-RUN-GUNS, tell them what you think of gun grabbers and government employees
that encourage people to narc on their neighbors.  Good for the soul.
Xref: sparky alt.politics.bush:4180 talk.politics.misc:43931 alt.politics.clinton:4164 alt.politics.democrats.d:8