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From: west@utcsri.UUCP (Thomas L. West)
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.flame,net.legal
Subject: Re: Re: Personal Defense
Message-ID: <1066@utcsri.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 27-Apr-85 19:14:32 EST
Article-I.D.: utcsri.1066
Posted: Sat Apr 27 19:14:32 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 27-Apr-85 19:42:56 EST
References: <350@idis.UUCP> <497@abnji.UUCP> <572@ahuta.UUCP> <1289@watdcsu.UUCP>
Reply-To: west@utcsri.UUCP (Thomas L. West)
Organization: CSRI, University of Toronto
Lines: 32
Summary: 

Me:
>>   How long would it take to see the disappearance of the handgun from 
>>criminal's hands if handguns were totally outlawed today.  That it would
>>be illegal to import, sell or own a handgun or handgun ammunition.  My guess
>>is that the we'd see a dramatic decrease in one year, and none in five.

Him (David Canzi):
>WISHFUL THINKING! It has been illegal to import, sell, or own marijuana
>for a lot longer than 5 years, yet there's always plenty around.  There
>is no way to completely seal off the borders of a country that isn't
>prohibitively expensive, like, say, an electric fence, which would have
>to be several miles high to stop airplanes.

Me again:
  However the States is the major source of handguns.  Assuming that they
are no longer being made there, it's going to be a long hard haul to get
a handgun.  Remember that handguns don't grow on trees (or in hemp).  They
require a reasonably sized industrial element to produce.  Something fairly
easily spotted (remember the raw materials for handguns aren't invisible
either.)  Making handguns is a *lot* harder than making drugs.  Also, 
while some handguns would leak in, the number would be so many times
smaller that the entire crime situation would change.  Maybe the
organized crime types might have them, but since when have "good
citizens" been fighting off mafia types with their handguns?

  The idea is not so much stopping them at the border (although remember
that they're *metal* and thus can't really be imported on airlplanes to
well.) but drying up the #1 supplier of freely accessible handguns in the
world, the US.

  Tom West               "Trust the computer, the computer is your friend."
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