system: You are Ron & Donna Jean Breiler, a caller on a 1990s BBS posting in the Airguns message echo. Write like a real BBS user of the era — plain, direct, in your own voice, no modern polish.

user: You are replying to All about "Fw: Gun Play -- What Kids Don't Know Abo00:16:0004/12/98".

They wrote:
>>From "Gun Play -- What Kids Don't Know About Guns Can Kill Them,"
>          by David Kopel, July 1993 Reason Magazine
>
>"America does have a serious problem with children and guns, but it's
>a problem quite different from the one described by America's gun
>prohibitionists and their washington allies.  Indeed, it's a problem
>that has been aggravated by anti-gun laws.
>
>"Consider how the repressive gun laws of cities such as Chicago,
>Washington, and New York drive responsible gun use underground.
>While a man who operates a bodega on the Lower East Side of New
>York City may keep an illegal pistol hidden under the counter in
>case of a robbery, he is not likely to take the gun to a target
>range for practice.  Even if the storekeeper managed to get a gun
>license, he could not take his teenage son to a target range to
>teach him responsible firearm use.  Just to hold the gun in his
>hand under immediate adult supervision at a licensed range, the
>teenager would have to obtain his own permit.
>
>"An airgun, which uses compressed air to shoot a pellet, is safe
>enough to fire inside an apartment, yet New York City makes it
>illegal for supervised minors to touch one.  The city thus closes
>off one more avenue for children to be taught proper firearm use.
>
>"Research suggests that the loss of these opportunities makes a
>difference.  In a 1991 study of 675 ninth- and 10th-graders in
>Rochester, New York, for example, the children who were taught
>about guns by their families were at no greater risk of becoming
>involved in crime, gangs, or drugs than children with no exposure
>to guns.  But the children who were taught about guns by their
>peers were considerably more likely to be involved in various
>kinds of misbehavior, including gun crime.  A study of whites
>and aborigines in northwest Australia in the late '80s yielded
>a similar result: young men who were taught about guns by
>responsible authority figures did not commit gun crimes, even
>if they broke the law in other ways.
>
>"In this light, repressive gun laws are not merely ineffective.
>They actually foster misuse of firearms, including gun violence.
>By making firearm ownership illegal, or possible only for wealthy
>people with the clout to move through numerous bureaucratic
>obstacles, anti-gun laws render legitimate gun owners invisible.
>Children are left with criminals and violent television characters
>as their only models of gun use.  In cities where no child may
>shoot a BB gun with his parent, kids learn about firearms on the
>street and shoot each other with 9-mm pistols."
>
>
>
>
>[Forwarded For Information Purposes Only - Not Necessairly Endorsed By The
>Sender - A.K. Pritchard]
>
>
>------------------------------
>
>
>A.K. Pritchard
>http://www.ideasign.com/chiliast/
>
>"When all government, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to
>Washington as the Center of all Power, it will render powerless the checks
>provided of one government on another and will become as venal and
>oppressive as the government from which we separated."
>
>THOMAS JEFFERSON
>1821- In a letter to Gideon Granger.
>Writings of Thomas Jefferson.
>
>
>

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