Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site utcsstat.UUCP Path: utzoo!utcsstat!laura From: laura@utcsstat.UUCP (Laura Creighton) Newsgroups: net.flame Subject: Re: BANG BANG You're dead Message-ID: <1372@utcsstat.UUCP> Date: Thu, 3-Nov-83 08:04:08 EST Article-I.D.: utcsstat.1372 Posted: Thu Nov 3 08:04:08 1983 Date-Received: Thu, 3-Nov-83 10:11:09 EST References: <506@ubc-visi.UUCP> Organization: U. of Toronto, Canada Lines: 126 Marc, I haven't been ignoring you, I just got this today. There have been problems with the linus--utzoo link, so we haven't been getting any news. A. Violent people (who might not look too violent) should not have their access to guns improved by making guns legal. If you know how to differentiate between violent people and not-violent people, let me know. Otherwise, if one cannot decide, one is left either allowing everyone access to guns, or nobody. Clearly, you favour the first approach. However, that merely means that only the people WHO REALLY WANT guns are going to get them. This is not the same thing as "nobody has any guns" and is to my mond a highly unsatisfactory situation. B. Normally non-violent people easily BECOME violent in highly emotional or stressful situations. This results in people with holes. This is not the only cause of people with holes. And not everyone gets violent in emotional or stressful situations. C. As a society, it is not in our best interests to give guns to ANYONE. The smaller the number of people (of either kind) waving guns, the smaller the number of dead people. By either kind, do you mean "dead or living"? Or do you have a better way to judge people? I never advocated giving guns to anyone, I just think that banning them is not a good idea. Giving guns only to people who can demonstrate that they can use them properly sounds like a very good idea to me. The only point in your discussion that has anything to do with gun ownership is (3). My reply is: Just having a gun makes it much easier to make holes in people. There are many reasons that a person may become violent. If they have a gun when they become violent, they may use it to make dead people. I had a lot more arguments about the cost of things, remember? You conclude with this statement: No, I do not see. The real problem is that people get killed with guns. I feel safe (wrt guns at least) in Canada. I DO NOT feel safe in the US of A. Better yet, the statistics available about gun related injurys and deaths tell me that I am safer in Canada. I do not think that we can agree on this. I do not feel safe here; I do not feel safe anywhere. I think that safety is one of the great illusions of life. There are many ways in which I can get hurt, and many ways in which I can be killed. I do not think that I have ever been or ever will be safe. However, I think that some people are safer with their guns than without them. Expecting them to give up their guns so that you can feel safer strikes me as unreasonable on your part. You will probably not see it this way, I know. A new class of criminal??? Do you mean gun owners? If that is what you think, then why not make EVERYTHING legal so that there would be NO CRIME AT ALL! This argument is specious. i could as easily say "why not make everything illegal that is dangerous and then we will be very safe". It is necessary to rememebr that you create criminals when you make a new thing illegal. And there are costs involved in crime punishment and prevention. Actually, I come pretty close to advocating "let's make everything legal" but for other reasons. I think that humanity has outgrown the "Do this or we will punish you" model of morality, but is being prevented from developing a better morality (both as a society and as individuals) because we are hampered by this framework, and because their is no obviously apparant reason for doing so. After all, you just obey the laws, and eveything will be fine, no? Unfortunately, I have need for a better system of morality than that, and everyone else I know does as well. Nowhere, I might add, do I advocate killing people with handguns as a result of this. Society has (as it should) the power to legislate for the general well-being of the population. Well, there is the big question. WHAT IS the "general well-being of the population"? Can it be legislated? Really? Suppose I decided that 2 hours of yoga a day was the best thing for everyone -- should I be able to legislate that? Can I? And what do you do with legislation that only gives the appearance of benefitting others but actually leaves them worse off than before? And what happens when we cannot agree? Would that same organized crime be unhappy if guns were legal? Perhaps they would, if citizens could stage gun-battles with them in the streets. I doubt that would happen. Do you have any evidence that organized crime is "enjoying" handgun regulation in Canada? Can you show that a large number of innocent people are being killed by organized crime in Canada? The newspapers certainly don't talk about it (I don't have a TV either) No, but at least in Toronto and Ottawa there are handgun seizures of rather large (say hundreds) of illegal handguns every so often. The last I can remember was 2 months ago outside of Toronto. I know of 2 gun routes which people use to equip their nuclear bomb shelters with guns. All of them are illegal. I know 5 or 6 people who have each spent more than $5,000.00 on illegal weapons for their shelters. One of them is a policeman, and I think that they are being officially ignored. They haven't bothered anyone with their weapons, as far as I know. I think, however, if they are going to go to the trouble of building a bomb shelter they could probably have used some of the money they spent on armament for other things -- and that money would be available if guns were legal here. All of these folk could pass any reasonable test you care to mention on the use of firearms. laura creighton utzoo!utcsstat!laura