From: mpolen@suntory.mti.sgi.com (Mike Polen)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: Gun Control (was: Release from the Clinton Camp
Date: 12 Nov 1992 17:37:26 GMT
Organization: Mips Technologies, Inc.
Distribution: world
Reply-To: mpolen@suntory.mti.sgi.com (Mike Polen)
NNTP-Posting-Host: suntory.mti.sgi.com

Broward Horne) writes:
|> In a previous article, mpolen@suntory.mti.sgi.com (Mike Polen) says:
|> >Broward Horne) writes:
|> >|>    
|> >|>       It protects from an evil government.
|> >
|> >Do you have any example where this has been operative in the US since we became
|> >a country?
|> 
|>      Ban them and find out.  A negative argument carries no weight.
|> 
|>      I have little doubt that is coming now anyway.  You'll get 
|>      your test.  I won't be here.

To where?  I'll write.
|> 
|> >|>       It protects from evil people.
|> >
|> >There is some evidence to support this, although people who use guns for self
|> >defense tend to be killed, rather than kill.
|> 
|>      I personally have used a gun, twice, to protect myself in Los Angeles.
|>      My father once.  No shots were fired.  
|>      No one in family has ever had an accident, nor have we ever shot
|>      each other.  Lack of common sense in other people is not a particularly
|>      good reasoning either.  But, I suppose we should reduce all things
|>      to the lowest common denominator, because obviously the american
|>      people are stupid to make their own decisions.  Another elitist.
|> >
|> >|>       It ensures 
|>       Oh, please, please make my decisions for me.  You know so much 
|>       better than I.  I surely hope you aren't pro-abortion.  That
|>       would imply you actually trusted someone to make a life or 
|>       death decision.
|> 
|> my RIGHT to self-determination.
|> >???????????
|> >
Sorry.  I thought your gun ownership impacted other's lives as well as
your own.  I just didn't understand what that had to do with self-
determination.
|> 
|> 
|> >to tie their shoes should be allowed to own a gun.  In Houston, about 3 years
|> >ago, there was a 12 year old boy who was on the news and paraded by the local
|> >NRA because of his excellence in gun handling and his knowledge of gun safety.
|> >A year later he was back on TV.  He had accidentally shot and killed his
|> >sister at a shooting range
|> 
|>   
|>       So what, chum.  People die every day.  They die in cars.  They die
|>       in fights, they die in swimming pools.  That's life.  The one thing
|>       that truly bothers me here is the complete lack of objective 
|>       reasoning.  " A little child died ".  Emotions don't make the 
|>       future.  My sister is dead.  Should we ban medicine?  Should
|>       we ban brain sugery?  But, but, " a little child is dead ".
|> 
Obviously your "agenda" precludes reading.  The point here has nothing to
do with the emotional power of the event, it is about guns in the hands
of those too incompetent or too imature to use them wisely.  By your own
comparisons above, you would not go to a brain surgeon that didn't go
to medical school, you (hopefully) wouldn't buy unbranded medicine from
a street pedley climing to be a drug company, and if you were a drag
racer, you wouldn't race against someone with no training or experience.

|>       America is, well, was about "Freedom".  Hey, there are around
|>       140 other countries where you don't have to worry about guns
|>       ( like Britain. hehehehe ).  You can be protected from yourself.
|> 
Don't forget the part about providing for the "common defense" and
"promote the general welfare."  Some of us think that keeping guns out
of the hands of children, the mentally retarded, the untrained and
untrainable, the mentally unstable, etc.  are for the "general 
welfare." 

Frankly if you want to own a gun, keep it in your house, only transport
it unloaded, I don't care if your kids shoot themselves or if
someone breaking into your house uses it to kill you.  That is
certainly in your area of self determination.  It is when your
ownership affects my safety that I feel I have a right to some
control.

|>       Go there.  Why ruin the last one that isn't the same?
|> >
|> >People who do pass driving test are dangerous enough.  Times have changed.
|> >When the constitution was written, a gun was an everyday part of nearly
|> >everyone's life.  Hunting and local wars were the game of the day.  Young
|> >boys (sorry ladies - not to many annie oakley's back then) were tought
|> >how to use and care for a gun at an early age.  Now, most of the people 
|> >buying guns have not skills, training, or respect for their new toy.
|> >
|> >-- 
|> 
|>        And here, the most dangerous of all.  " Times are different now "
|> 
|>        Go to Los Angeles and tell me that.  Look at our government
|>        corrupt beyond belief, and tell me that.         

But times are different now.  We now need roads that will support cars, not
horses.  We need fire codes for 100 story buildings.  And the government is
no more corrupt than it was in 1776.  There may be more people today, but
the same mix of true public servants, do-gooders, self-serving politicians,
and outright crooks existed then and exists today.  What didn't exist
then was the population density, the cultural diversity, the high percentage
of urban population, the mobility, ...

-- 
These opinions are usually my own, sometimes my dog's,
occasionaly my (grown) children's, never my employer's.
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