Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!tektronix!uw-beaver!ubc-visi!majka From: majka@ubc-visi Newsgroups: net.flame Subject: BANG BANG You're dead Message-ID: <495@ubc-visi.UUCP> Date: Mon, 24-Oct-83 12:14:45 EDT Article-I.D.: ubc-visi.495 Posted: Mon Oct 24 12:14:45 1983 Date-Received: Thu, 27-Oct-83 02:14:32 EDT Lines: 47 From: Marc Majka O.K. Laura, your question was: > Are we supposed to ban guns, and then accept the deaths that arise when > somebody illegally shoots someone with their illegal handgun as acts of > God? No, we don't have to accept the deaths of innocent people. What I fail to understand is why you link their deaths to the banning of guns. People die by being shot with legal guns as well as illegal guns. Did you want to put a gun in each of those dead peoples hands so that they could have a go at making even more dead people? I think the better alternative is to keep guns out of as many hands as possible. That makes it harder for a maniac to get one and start blasting at people. It also makes it harder for the average person to get one and start blasting at people. Yes, average people blast away at innocent people far more than maniacs. They get mad at their husbands and wives, friends, neighbours, relations, & etc, and they shoot them. BANG! You say: > Suppose I wanted to get a gun. Do you know how long it would take me? One > phone call. I know at least 5 people who would be willing to sell me an > illegal gun. And I'm not a criminal with a special interest in these things. > I just know a lot of people. Are you implying that this is a reason to make it easier to get a gun by making them legal? Most of us, thankfully, don't know a lot of people, especially the kind who sell illegal guns. > Suppose you ban handguns. Are you going to stop the people who want them > from getting them? I think not. So Ray's highway accidents are going to > keep happening, given that people who get kicks from randomly shooting > strangers do not feel constrained by the fact that owning a gun is illegal. > Shooting people is illegal, and that hasn't stopped them, after all. No, you can't stop all the crazies from getting their power - toys. You might make it difficult enough that not all of them get one. That should mean a few less holes in people. For the rest of us, who are not normally crazy (except in the odd circumstance), what do we need them for? Did you want the girl in the van to lean out the window and blow away the truck driver with her .45 before he shot her? Attitudes like that are qualitativly indifferent from a game of "Cowboys and Indians". The only difference is the reality of the guns and the death that follows. BANG! BANG!