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From: mat@hou5d.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.followup
Subject: Re: Handguns: we're succumbing to mob ru - (nf)
Message-ID: <641@hou5d.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 1-Sep-83 10:04:34 EDT
Article-I.D.: hou5d.641
Posted: Thu Sep  1 10:04:34 1983
Date-Received: Fri, 2-Sep-83 22:08:15 EDT
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	One need only compare the numbers of people meeting violent ends
	in this country and in the rest of the civilized world to guess
	that banning handguns works.

And that's all it is - a GUESS.  Look at NYC.  Toughest handgun laws in
the nation.  Many handgun deaths.

Simply banning guns doesn't work; the bad guys will get them.  The people
who want to be violent will do so, whether they have a gun or not.

Forcing people who buy guns to present VALID identification, (like a passport
or a PHOTOGRAPHIC drivers license), forcing them to demonstrate that they can
handle them properly, and demonstrating the violent damage from the gun COULD
reduce the number of accidental and ``thoughtless'' deaths.  Reducing the
violence on TV could make people less comfortable with violence and less
willing to use it.  And executing people who use guns in a crime, whether
the guns were fired or not, and executing them swiftly after a fair but
FAST trial (say 30 days from arrest to execution) will reduce the number of
people willing to use guns to violate each others rights.

						Mark Terribile