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From: preece@uicsl.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: Clarification on 'Missing Handgun' - (nf)
Message-ID: <2995@uiucdcs.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 26-Sep-83 23:12:55 EDT
Article-I.D.: uiucdcs.2995
Posted: Mon Sep 26 23:12:55 1983
Date-Received: Thu, 29-Sep-83 07:32:14 EDT
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#R:ccieng5:-15300:uicsl:4300075:000:1842
uicsl!preece    Sep 26 12:20:00 1983

Karl Kleinpaste argues that the laws of the state of New York on
handguns fail to meet their purpose (or rather the purpose of their
authors) because they would have allowed a dangerous person to have
a gun and would not allow the safe and sane Mr. Kleinpaste to have
one.

I would suggest that a law banning all private ownership of handguns
would be preferable under that standard, since it would at least make
it illegal for the dangerous person to have one at the minor cost of
keeping the allegedly safe person from owning one as well.

The New York law is a serious attempt to allow the ownership of handguns
by trustworthy people. To establish trustworthiness is difficult. We
can perhaps stipulate to the assumption that Mr. Kleinpaste never
gets drunk or behaves in a less than rational manner, even after being
beaten with a tire iron, but I would like to know what mechanism he
would suggest as more accurate than the support of referees. He would
say (I suppose) that he thinks the lack of such mechanism means that
there should be no restriction on ownership; I would say that lack of such
mechanism means there should be no legal ownership. I certainly wouldn't
support his application for a permit based on his testimony in this
incident.

I find it very hard to believe that Mr. Kleinpaste apparently is still
firmly convinced that his having a gun would have made the situation
better. I think this reflects a warped view of reality.

I'm glad he survived the incident. If he had had a handgun the odds on
that survival would have been less good.

scott preece
pur-ee!uiucdcs!uicsl!preece

ps. I am sorry Mrs. Crawford spent five days in hospital, but it really
isn't relevant to this discussion. If Mr. Kleinpaste had kept her in
his apartment while he called and waited for the police she wouldn't
have been hurt at all...