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From: farren@gethen.UUCP
Newsgroups: alt.flame
Subject: Re: Hand gun defense
Message-ID: <247@gethen.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 24-Oct-87 08:03:40 EST
Article-I.D.: gethen.247
Posted: Sat Oct 24 08:03:40 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 27-Oct-87 06:14:50 EST
References: <4018@cc5.bbn.COM>
Reply-To: farren@gethen.UUCP (Michael J. Farren)
Organization: Sci-Fido - Unix in Oakland
Lines: 40

In article <4018@cc5.bbn.COM> denbeste@bbn.COM (Steven Den Beste) writes:
[after a lot of the "Well, I was going to go to mass, but I was on this boat,
and the captain went crazy and it sank but we got into a lifeboat with two
Protestants but there was an island there with a church but the cannibals
ate the priest, and we had to run real fast, so I fell over exhausted and
didn't regain consciousness until Monday morning, so is that a sin, Father?"
George Carlinish arguements about why we've gotta have guns...]

>THAT is why I am ambivalent about guns. I've never been held up, and I hope
>no-one ever points a loaded gun at me for any reason at all, but ultimately I
>am glad they are out there.

I'm not trying to ridicule your position (well, maybe a little).  There are
a lot of circumstances a lot closer to home than a military coup that
justify the right to bear arms.  However, it seems to me that this has
little to do with the control of handguns, which is what most (if not all)
of the gun control advocates are advocating.  All of your examples, and
all other uses to which guns can legitimately be put, are covered if you
put tight controls on handguns and not on long-barrel weapons, such as
rifles and shotguns.  Handguns have only one real use: to kill people.  
And they do so with appalling regularity, and as often as not, they
kill people who might not have died if the gun hadn't been quite so readily
at hand.  I watched my neighbor put a bullet in his own son during an
argument a couple of months ago, and I suspect that both he and the son,
who was "merely" paralyzed from the waist down, would have felt a lot
better the next morning if they had just gone after each other with
baseball bats or something.

And, lest I be accused of being one of those anti-gun fanatics, I was
raised around weapons, and have used them for hunting and for fun since
I was about seven years old.  I am an extremely capable marksman, with
medals to prove it.  I would also never consider owning a handgun.  No
need for it.


-- 
----------------
Michael J. Farren      "... if the church put in half the time on covetousness
unisoft!gethen!farren   that it does on lust, this would be a better world ..."
gethen!farren@lll-winken.arpa             Garrison Keillor, "Lake Wobegon Days"