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From: ooblick@mit-eddie.UUCP
Newsgroups: alt.flame
Subject: Re: Nothing to do with Gun Nuts
Message-ID: <7187@eddie.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sat, 17-Oct-87 08:24:22 EDT
Article-I.D.: eddie.7187
Posted: Sat Oct 17 08:24:22 1987
Date-Received: Mon, 19-Oct-87 04:39:36 EDT
References: <Who> <needs> <'em> <?> <1877@gryphon.CTS.COM> <21282@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <7173@eddie.MIT.EDU> <21300@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Reply-To: ooblick@eddie.MIT.EDU (Mikki Barry)
Distribution: na
Organization: MIT, EE/CS Computer Facilities, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 51

In article <21300@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> jwl@ernie.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (James Wilbur Lewis) writes:

>Well, it's not so much that I'm attached to *guns*; I AM attached to
>my life and want the right to effectively defend myself.

Then why don't you do what I did?  Take a REAL self-defense course (as
opposed to shopping mall store front "black belt in 4 weeks, pay us
$2,000" or no contact or semi-contact stuff).  You don't have to
search your car or house or purse for it, and your family can't use
it accidentally.  Possibly best, however, is that nobody can take it
away to use against you. [granted, against a gun, you have to have been
trained MANY years, AND be in range, AND the person with the gun has
to be slower than you, etc.  but most crime in your home is committed
without guns, as are most rapes]

>Eh?  Looks like that was supposed to be "committed with handguns"....there
[line noise.  death penalty for telephone workers :-)]

>are plenty of workable ways to do this.  Banning handguns is not one of
>them.  I suggest tougher sentencing for those who use guns to commit acts
>of aggression.  Jails overcrowded?  Fine; get rid of drug laws and concentrate
>on *violent* rather than victimless crimes!  

Good idea.  I agree that bans will not work.  But I would like to see
a stop in the manufacture of handguns, a stop in their imports to this
country, and the cops melting the damn things down when they are confiscated
from criminals, AND a check on the records of people before they can get
any kind of firearm.  Even APPLYING for a gun permit if you are a convicted
felon or mental patient with violent tendancies should be a violation of
law.

>good reason!  The police are unable to protect them, and their only option
>is to protect themselves.  Why should these people be prevented from owning
>handguns?  Especially when a handgun ban wouldn't have prevented the
>violence they fear in the first place?

I would argue that rifles or shotguns would be better for protecting
one's home than handguns are.  I would argue that handguns best use
is for committing crime.  I would also argue that banning handguns, as
much as I would like to, would not work.  Since I HATE guns (and it is not
because I am ignorant of them.  I have learned to shoot and am quite good
at it), my home protection weapon of choice is myself.  I also recommend
military grade mace (a can in each room), and knowledge of exactly what
in your home can be used as a weapon, and how to get to it, even in
the dark.  Since most handgun deaths in this country are accidental, and
damn few of them are actually homeowner shooting criminal, I would never have
one in my home unless I could be absolutely sure that NOBODY else could
use that gun but me.  Unfortunately, not everyone takes those precautions.
And it is usually the innocent that suffer.

Mikki Barry