From: viking@iastate.edu (Dan Sorenson)
Subject: Re: For gun control? No not really.
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames IA
Distribution: usa
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 06:25:37 GMT

merritt@macro.bu.edu (Sean Merritt) writes:

>&   Not close.  Then again, I note that coke is rather easy to get despite
>&   the legal restrictions, so ....

>So what? When was the last time someone use "coke" as a high speed
>projectile to kill someone? What's your point?

	When was the last time you were intoxicated on cocaine?  Did it
change your mental state?  If it did, then abuse of this substance, as
abuse of virtually anything that may potentially cause harm to others
through your actions or inactions, is rightfully illegal.  If it does
not cause a mild-altering state, not only isn't it much of a drug, but
there is no reason to make consumption illegal.  Note that the key word
here is abuse, not potentially.  Upon abuse that harms others, convict,
but abuse itself should not be a crime.

>I am certainly considering it. What type of gun should I buy?

	I'd suggest one you can handle and also one that works.  Take
this to rec.guns if you are serious about arming yourself and know what
usage you intend to make of the weapon.

>I believe that the proability of being shot is too high. There must
>be an environmental change;

	I see -- you believe it to be so, so society must change.  Got
it.  There are other alternatives most of us see, but apparently a
strait dichotomy is your reasoning power.  Care to explain that, or have
it deduced what you're saying above?

>1) restrict gun availability

	Why?  It won't even keep guns out of my hands, let alone a criminal
with far better contacts and more cash.  What?  Did you think the fence in
the van down the street takes American Express?

>2) restrict ammunition availabilty

	Why?  Those who consume the most ammunition are the safest with it
if you look at competetive shooting as an example.  Will this be like
restricting alcohol whereupon you need to have a license to sell it?  Can
the Iranian immigrant at the local Kwik Shop (stereotype used for imagery
only, not as anything else) actually get an alcohol license himself?  What
makes you think those who sell ammunition will be any less restricted?

>3) allow people to create communities where the *can* control
>   guns and their use.

	I have several: my home, my neighborhood, my community, my state,
and my nation.  I can toss in all the political subdivisions you care to
hear, but the bottom line is I am a safe and competent gun owner and quite
frankly you have no right nor reason to restrict my access to weapons until
you prove I have abused this right.  Is that libertarian enough for you?

>I am a Anarcho-Capitalist that believes Social Engineering is
>possible. Or is my crime that I find the present proabilities
>of being murdered with a gun unacceptably high. Your stance is
>to compel me to gamble with my life. I but no such impositions
>on you. Infact all I ask is to join with others who think as
>I do and create a sane and safe enviromnet.

	I hear there might still be some barren islands about -- you may
start your own country and take others like you with you when you leave.
In the meantime, you're playing with others, and others have the same
rights as you do.  Restricting theirs rarely serves to protect your
safety, and doing so does far more to undermine your rights than it
does to improve your safety.  Frankly, I'd rather restrict your rights
to appear in public as that would seem to guarentee my safety from any
stupid act you may do; as you can see, this does not significaltly reduce
my risk level, and severely restricts you from the freedoms recognized.

	In short, your base assumptions are wrong and until corrected
your argument is flawed and your proposed actions won't work.  I'm proof.

< Dan Sorenson, DoD #1066 z1dan@exnet.iastate.edu viking@iastate.edu >
<  ISU only censors what I read, not what I say.  Don't blame them.  >
<  "This isn't an answer, it's a pagan dance around a midnight fire  >
<   written in intellectual runes." -- Rich Young                    >