Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!caip!nike!ucbcad!ucbvax!decvax!decwrl!glacier!oliveb!gnome From: gnome@oliveb.UUCP Newsgroups: net.followup Subject: Re: Firearms ownership (was Re: Air raid on Libya) Message-ID: <979@oliveb.UUCP> Date: Fri, 11-Jul-86 15:15:08 EDT Article-I.D.: oliveb.979 Posted: Fri Jul 11 15:15:08 1986 Date-Received: Sun, 13-Jul-86 05:32:32 EDT References: <864@kontron.UUCP> <170@suneast.uucp> <874@kontron.UUCP> <962@bute.tcom.stc.co.uk> Organization: Olivetti ATC; Cupertino, Ca Lines: 73 > In article <874@kontron.UUCP> cramer@kontron.UUCP writes: > >Does someone "absolutely need a gun"? Ask my friends. 1) Stabbed seven > > -- examples or horrible things... > > > >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. > > 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? Sure, and you could make an equally fatal mistake with your car. So what does that prove? Have you taken the Bonderant driving classes for proffessional drivers? If you are going to hurl your 2500 pound machine at 55 mph without extensive formal training. > 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 Since you have the "uk" in your address, I am assuming that you are in Great Britain somewhere. England has been around, with it's present social structures and police system for over a century. It hasn't needed to change because, up until recently, everything has been in a stable state for hundreds of years (including the conflicts and continuing violence in Ireland). In contrast, the US started-out as a frontier country, split many different ways by warring factions from other countries in Europe. Maybe that's why the culture developed the way it did here. Anyway, most of our big cities are built from the cultures of the worlds "wretched refuse". The ones that want to be free and "have their own space". The problem is that Americans can't tolerate the kind of super dense push-and-shove that you find on Hong Kong streets and London underground rush-hour subway trains. It doesn't mean that we don't have that here, it simply means that we, in general, don't function within it without being stressed. Now, take that concept and compare the crime rate for our densest areas as compared to the rural American towns. Instead of murder rates in the thousands, the rural areas mostly show up with numbers in the "high 0's" for many, many years running. What does this mean? It means that Remington and Winchester didn't "let the genie out of the box". In actuality, the genie had already existed because of the early years of this countries birth -- as a necessity. It is easy to say "we are safe and sound in our country", at the moment. But remember that there were no SWAT teams in residence at Heathrow two years ago, and that as long as time flows, things change. Most of the changes come in response to external factors. It will be interesting to see if, with the sedate "civility" of England's people, the environment in "Brazil" will come about in the U.K... (the movie BRAZIL, that is). Gary