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From: phl@drusd.UUCP (LavettePH)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Gun Control
Message-ID: <1212@drusd.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 25-Jan-85 15:51:22 EST
Article-I.D.: drusd.1212
Posted: Fri Jan 25 15:51:22 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 27-Jan-85 06:38:55 EST
Organization: AT&T Information Systems Laboratories, Denver
Lines: 44

> 
>     Blah, blah, blah, blah-blah-blah-blah, blah... except on the "Rockford
>     Files" and other such real-life adventures, I've never heard of anyone
>     being killed by a "zip gun."
> 
>     Why do we need to control the "zip gun," Phil?
> 
> 				    --- das
>
>Note that the missing predicate to my argument is that, while no one (or at
>least damn few) folks are ever hurt by "zip guns", my newspaper is filled
>with stories of people getting greased by the beloved handgun.
>
>								--- das


The fact that you never heard of them doesn't mean that they didn't exist.  

Abandon your TV long enough to research back into the evolution of the big city
juvenile gang wars, etc., in the thirties, forties and fifties.  Regular hand-
guns were very hard for the young crowd to come up with in those days so they
made their own.  The radio,movie and newspaper people glorified the subject and
they became a status symbol.  We (and I include myself) all made them. We could
hardly wait until the senior year in high school when we could take machine shop
and turn out a barrel that would take pressures higher than the car antenna's
one or two shot .22cal limit.  Some of these weapons were unique and very soph-
isticated in their design and probably many of us went on to rewarding careers
as gunsmiths, machinists or mechanical engineers.  Others weren't so lucky and
wound up as statistics or in jail.

I can't site you references because I didn't take notes along the way.  I would
suggest you take a look at some of the NY Times or Daily News archives for the
period, visit a good police crime museum or wait until some of the better gang
war movies show up on your TV.  If you can't do that, try visualizing "Hill
Street Blues" moved back in time and technology to that period.  The gang war
segments they show are not too far from reality.  I understand the series is
based on the "hill" district in Pittsburgh.  If it is, you won't be too far off.
I know. That's when and where I grew up.

Since the term "zip gun" offends, I'll modify and ask you the question again.

How do you control the home-made pistol?

- Phil