From: davidb@zeus.ce.washington.edu (David W. Barts)
Subject: Re: Results of I 590
Organization: University of Washington
Distribution: seattle
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1992 19:03:28 GMT



In article <1992Jul19.040246.3594@eskimo.celestial.com>, kurt@eskimo.celestial.com (Kurt Cockrum) writes:
> In article <1992Jul17.222016.13828@u.washington.edu> davidb@zeus.ce.washington.edu (David W. Barts) writes:
>> [flashes of anger cause people to do things with guns they later regret]
> So, law freaks, how do laws alleviate the above scenario?
> And, why isn't this a problem in Switzerland, where a previous poster
> said that every male was a member of the militia and keeps a full auto
> weapon in their house?  Might be even *less* of a problem once women
> are admitted to the militia (and gays too :)!

Perhaps because there are less external pressures (such as some of the
stress-inducing things you mention later on).  Perhaps the Swiss are
required to keep their automatic weapons securely locked up when not in
use (so when the flashes of anger come, the owner of the weapon may
start over to his locked gun closet, but the flash of anger os over
before he can unlock the closet and retrieve his weapon).  Perhaps
there's no such requirement, but most Swiss choose to keep their
weapons secured out of a sense of respect for others (instilled by
their firearms training and other social mores).

> . . .
> Is there any data around which attempts to relate age of initial
> acquaintance with weapons with frequency of intra-family shootings, one
> way or another? . . .

Regarding the subject of actual hard data, I've had a hard time finding
it when one gets to international statistics.  I've had very little
trouble finding piles and piles of data on the US, but everything dries
up when it comes to other countries.

> . . .
> But people *can* learn to manage their feelings.  We need socially acceptable
> ways of discharging pent-up anger and frustrations, for one.  The business
> of keeping one's emotions bottled up until one day things snap and one
> runs amok with a weapon has to go!  This is a problem that goes to the
> roots of the culture, and indicates deep defects in said culture (and cultural
> belief systems).  These need to be fixed before the problem will go away.
> 
> We could do with lots less stress-inducing societal aggravations and
> powerlessness, too.  Being asked to make sacrifices for the "good of society"
> when one doesn't seem to be getting a hell of a lot back, for example.
> Airplanes out of Sea-Tac is one example; daily commutes are another.  They
> are myriad.

I second both of these paragraphs.

> >This probably implies the need for more social control over firearms than
> >I alluded to in my last post, although I still stand by my assertion that
> >given the current structure of power in this country, gun controls that
> >do not serve to empower a privileged minority are currently a political
> >impossibility.
> [...]
> 
> The key word here is "social", not legal.  I'm not sure what "social control"
> means (perhaps an undefined term?), but I would imagine things like peer
> pressure, etc.

Peer pressure can play a part in it, yes.  But I think appropriately
designed laws can also play a part here.  I'm probably going to make
you (Kurt) and Pat M. gag when they read this, but I really don't see a
whole lot wrong with, Canadian gun law IN CANADA.  Such a law appears
to fit well in the a nation that has lower levels of alienated
individuals (so people tend to be less threatened and/or hostile toward
one another and desire guns less [and see them as less important]).
I'll admit, however, that there's a chance that Canadian gun law may be
superfluous (and hence unneeded) in that Canadians may not want to own
a lot of guns anyway, and wouldn't bother buying them even if the law
wasn't there, but as I've mentioned earlier I've had a hard time
finding any data on countries other than the US, so I'll have to leave
this as a conjecture right now.

My main skepticism right now is that if were to implement
Canadian-style gun laws in the US right now, it wouldn't work -- there
are too many other factors ar the root cause of crime and violence, and
attempts to paper over the symptoms of the problem won't do much.  And
then inequality of power comes in to corrupt the process -- most likely
we'd end up with a costly mess of red tape in which Wakenhut, Pinkerton
Security, etc. would have thr corporate legal staff to deal with the
red tape (and lobbyists to help grease the skids a little).  So the
rich and middle class retreat into their covenanted communities
protected by armed rent-a-cops while weed-and-seed (and
son-of-weed-and-seed) tear ruthlessly through the inner cities.  Since
this would probably isolate most of the voting population (< 50% of
those eligible in the last election, and as a rule better off
economically than the population as a whole) from most of the social
problems, it would register as a "success" back in Washington, DC.

>                 My original point was that the maintenance of an elaborate
> legal infrastructure was a poor and buggy way of attaining that goal.
> If ever anything has pointed out the existence of a software crisis, it is
> the system of laws that we live under!  The software we programmers deal with
> is bugfree by comparison.  Even gets() works better than most laws :) !

I think most of this problem is due to a faulty process for creating
laws, rather than an intrinsic one in law itself.  That, and a faulty
conception of what laws can _do_.

--
David Barts  N5JRN                      UW Civil Engineering, FX-10
davidb@zeus.ce.washington.edu           Seattle, WA  98195
    If AT&T is 'Ma Bell', does this make ITT 'Cousin ITT'?