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From: pete@stc.co.uk
Newsgroups: net.followup
Subject: Re: Firearms ownership (was Re: Air raid on Libya)
Message-ID: <962@bute.tcom.stc.co.uk>
Date: Mon, 7-Jul-86 10:34:37 EDT
Article-I.D.: bute.962
Posted: Mon Jul  7 10:34:37 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 11-Jul-86 05:03:36 EDT
References: <864@kontron.UUCP> <170@suneast.uucp> <874@kontron.UUCP>
Reply-To: pete@stc.UUCP (Peter Kendell)
Organization: STC Telecoms, London N11 1HB.
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In article <874@kontron.UUCP> cramer@kontron.UUCP writes:
>Does someone "absolutely need a gun"?  Ask my friends.  1) Stabbed seven
>times by burglars who broke into their house, and tried to rape his
>wife.  2) Another couple, intruders smashed down their front door, raped
>her, beat him up, stole everything they owned down to their wedding
>pictures, and used their credit cards for months.  (LAPD didn't even
>run fingerprints -- they had "serious" crimes to pursue.)  3) One of
>my wife's friends, who was gang-raped and a broken bottle stuffed into
>her sexual organs.  4) My wife's boss, raped, kidnapped, and thrown into
>a latrine.  5) One of my wife's schoolmates -- beaten to death with
>roofing hammers (as was his sister, after she was raped).  6) Friend
>in number one, robbed at gunpoint on the street.  7) Someone I went to
>school with, who spent months with her jaw wired after a group of
>teenagers stole her purse, then broke her jaw.  8) My ex-landlord's
>daughter, murdered in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco.
>
>No, I guess there's really no need for self-defense.

        A counter-example: John Shorthouse, 5 years, shot at
        point-blank range by PC Brian Chester, 35 years, in
        Birmingham last year during a house search.

        The policeman was tried for manslaughter and acquitted last
        week. Justly, because he was not acting negligently.

        What does this show? That even a highly trained,
        mature, policeman can make a fatal mistake with a firearm.
        British policemen have to take special training courses
        before they are allowed to be issued with weapons.
        If such a mistake can be made by such a person, what about
        Tom, Dick or Harry (or Clayton E.)?

        What are you trying to prove?

        If you can show that there is a suppressed desire by the
        British people for the right to own firearms without
        restrictions, then run off to the library, look it up, and
        tell us all about it. My reading of public opinion; Left-wing,
        Right-wing and at all other angles reveals no such desire.
        But maybe you know better.

        If you are arguing that we are in some way less `free'
        because we have to show society a very good reason why we
        want to own firearms, well maybe we are. But your list of
        atrocities above shows that you are less `free' in a much
        more significant way. The sort of crimes you describe make
        *headlines* over here. They seem to be routine where you
        live.

        If you've let the genie out of the bottle and can't get it
        back in, you have my sympathy. But don't expect us to make
        the same mistakes as you.
-- 
	Peter Kendell <pete@stc.co.uk>

	...!mcvax!ukc!stc!pete

	"Shot, shot, by both sides,
	 They must have come,
	 To a secret understanding."