
Saying "hopefully the effect of policy X will be Y" is *much* different
from saying "hopefully if there is any effect of policy X it will be Y."
Here you've made both statements.
If the former describes a reasonably-likely outcome of policy X, then
perhaps policy X is worthy of consideration - but the latter statement
is not something to base policy decisions on!


According to groups like the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence (formerly
the National Coalition to Ban Handguns - interesting name change, don't you
think?) who include murder and suicide by firearms in the "leading causes of
unintentional death) figures but *don't* include murder and suicide by other
means as causes of unintentional death.  Can't you see past the bullshit?


Certainly accidental deaths by any cause are serious things - but the
anti-gun groups insist over and over again that accidental death by
firearms is a *stastically serious problem*, and even if you don't use
these deaths as a justification for gun control, these groups do.  I'm
sorry if I jumped to conclusions about your reason for mentioning
accidental deaths due to firearms being something that warranted concern,
but in light of your statement that you are a staunch supporter of gun
control measures, I think the conclusion was a reasonable one.
The fact remains that tragic though individual accidental gun deaths may
be, they are *not* a serious problem statistically speaking.


Sorry if it wasn't clear to me.  I thought you were waffling on your view
of buyback programs with the talk of symbolic offerings and hopefully
preventing accidents and heat-of-passion shootings.  I have to disagree on
all these counts; I can't understand how a buying guns from people who
aren't intending to misuse them (obviously those who want to use guns to
commit crimes aren't going to turn them in) could be construed as a
positive way for police to respond to "interpersonal violence."


What, the people who publish figures saying that as many children commit
suicide by HANDGUNS ALONE each year as the FBI says commit suicide by ALL
METHODS per year?  Who do you think I should believe?  The people who call
everyone up to age 24 "children" when they're screaming about the "carnage
of our nation's children" being caused by handguns?


Ah, yes, the agency that considers accidental shootings of children to be
such a statistical problem that a stated objective in the Healthy People
2000 document is to "enact laws in 50 states requiring manufacturers of
handguns to make the handguns more difficult to fire, minimizing the
likelihood of accidental or intentional dscharge by children?"  The
agency that funded the "study" of DC which pronounced that the DC gun ban
had saved X lives (yes, they actually gave us a number) on the basis of
a look at the *number* of shootings rather than the *rate* of shootings?
It wasn't their fault that the population of DC dropped in their "post law"
period...



Okay, I'll concede I no longer have the numbers I once read on these.  I'll
retract my dispute of your numbers.  However, I would be greatly interested
in seeing how CPHV and CDC came up with these numbers.


What's this got to do with anything?  Hell, when *I* was in elementary
school I came home to an empty house with guns in it.  Why is this a
problem?  I didn't touch the guns - I had been taught not to.  I had also
been taught not to mess with the gasoline in the garage, the fuse box, the
car, the knives, the oven, and the tools.  The problem is not the guns,
it's the parents!!!


And what are these states doing with the kids they find with guns?
NOTHING.  No criminal prosecution, no expulsion, in most cases not even
suspension.  They take the gun, slap the kids on the wrist, say "ain't it
awful," and go on as if everything's back to normal.  What's wrong with
this picture?


I don't think Koresh was the Messiah, either... but isn't it obvious that
if he believed the forces of evil were come to destroy him, then he
believed the children were much safer inside the compound?  I didn't say
he was sane... just that he behaved in a pretty rational manner given what
he thought was going on.  He thought he had them in the one place where
harm *wouldn't* come to them.


Let's see *you* try to find the exits, unbarricade them, and flee a fire
when you've been kept awake for most of 50 days by loudspeakers and subjected
to six hours of tanks knocking in your walls and tear gas assault.