ryan@fremen.DEC (12/04/84)
Jeff Hull says (quoting the Official NRA Cliche Handbook): > To repeat a simple truth, guns do not kill people, PEOPLE KILL > PEOPLE. (No? Really? You mean to tell me that hammer built that > house? (:-) No, the hammer did not build the house alone. However, try banning hammers and see how many houses get built (hint: you don't see too many brick houses built these days :-). The point, of course, is that guns alone do not kill people, but they make it much easier to kill people (in more ways than one - keep reading). > The only difference a gun makes is that with a gun a person who > is physically smaller and weaker has a much better chance of > winning a violent argument than without a gun. No, there are other differences. For one thing, a gun can be used from a distance, therefore removing the responses of fight or flight which are possible against other weapons (knives, blunt objects, etc.). If you're standing 30 feet from me and want to kill me, I'd much rather you tried it with a knife than with a gun. Also (and this is a point which doesn't receive much attention), it is psychologically much easier to kill with a gun than with a knife. You don't have to get too close to the victim (no blood on your hands), and it's almost as if you're not directly attacking them at all - you pull a trigger here, the victim falls down over there. Plunging a knife into someone or beating their head in is much more difficult to do, both physically and psychologically. Finally, I'd like to ask what good a gun really does a law-abiding citizen? You may say it's for self-defense, but the fact remains that if it gets used at all, it will be for A. The shooting of a family member or friend either accidentally ("Honestly, officer, I didn't know it was loaded...") or in the heat of the moment ("You two-timing no-good *&($*$..."). B. Against you by a burglar (you know, the guy who it was going to protect you from). C. If you do get to it first, the burglar is not likely to waste time in preventing you from using it. D. Ah yes, there is a slim possibility of your actually using it against a burglar. Of course, this means you will go to prison for manslaughter (or justifiable homicide if you're lucky). Please remember, burglary is not a capital crime in this country. I still don't know of any valid justification for the ownership of handguns by law-abiding citizens. Oh, I almost forgot NRA top 10 cliche #2: If you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns. Well, as I've tried to point out above, no one else really has any need for guns anyway. At first, it would be true. However, it would make it much harder for new outlaws to get guns and for old outlaws to replace their guns, and in time the number of guns and the resultant bloodshed would diminish. Mike Ryan, DEC, Merrimack, NH Need I say it? The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of DEC, its employees, its customers, residents of New Hampshire, or any Celtics fans.
steiny@scc.UUCP (Don Steiny) (12/04/84)
*** Time to post this again!! . . . The premise that handguns do not deter crime is not valid. The "Wall Street Journal", Aug. 17, 1983, page 1, has an article titlted "Can We Deny Citizens Both Guns and Protection?" by Don B. Kates. Jr. The article discusses a court ruling that the police were not required to protect citizens against criminals. They pointed out that in District of Columbia, where the incident took place (three women were robbed, terrorized, and repeatedly raped and police did not respond to any of the calls), gun control is in effect. They say that in the five years before gun control went into effect the murder rate had dropped almost 36%, in the five subsequent years it rose 16%. . . . "The only homicide rate that fell was justifiable killing of felons by citizens which dropped to virtually nothing." "Anti-gun lobbyists claim that such justifiable homicides are rare, but this turns out to be based on 20-year-old artificially truncated statictics from just two cities. Nationwide, 1981 FBI statistics show that citizens justifiably kill 30% more criminals than do police. Even this statistic substantially underrepresents the phenomena: it counts only robbers and burglers killed, excluding personal self-defense - for example a woman who kills a boyfriend to keep him from beating her to death. The whole range of 1981 California statistics show citizens justifibly kill twice as many felons as do police; in Chicago and Cleveland it is three times as many. . . . "Even justifiable homicide statictics are only a crude index to the value of civilian handguns. We don't, after all, measure the value of police guns by the number of criminals they kill. The number, wounded, captured, or driven off is far more important. . . . " ... the number of defensive handgun uses by civilians each year far exceed criminal misuses." . . . "Faced with a dramatic increase in rape, Florida police in Orlando instituted a highly-publicized program in 1966 in which 3,000 women received handgun defense training. Rape statics were down [which presumablbly means there were less rapes] 90% in 1967, while aggrivated assults dropped 25% and burglary fell 24%. Although rape began to increase again when the one-year program ended, even five years later it was still 13% below the 1966 figure. In the same period, rape in the surrounding areas increased 308%. When a defensive firearms program for Detroit grocers received wide publicity from the police chief's denunciations and the shooting of seven robbers, grocery robberies dropped 90%. Comparative programs for retail merchents Highland Park, Mich., and for pahrmacists in New Orleans are credited with similiarly dramatic robbery decreases. . . . "A burglar has a numerically greater chance of being confronted by an armed householder then he has of being arrested and of actually serving time. ... " ... recall the Atlanta suburb that reacted to the Morton-Grove Ill. handgun ban by requiring every sane, responsible, head of household to keep a firearm. Compared to the preceding year, burglary rose slightly in Morton-Grove, but fell 73% in the Atlanta suburb. ------ Wall Street Journal - Can We Deny Citizens Both Guns and Protection? Don B. Kates, Jr. August 17, 1983 One person that decides to shoot it out with police in society the way it is right now wouldn't have much luck. On the other hand, the Nazis had disarmed everyone and made it illegal to possess weapons, which made it hard on the resistance at the time. If, by referendum and other means, the bill of rights is so eroded in 10 years that some religious group could try to force others to share their beliefs, the fact that there are large groups of armed people in this country that disagree with them might moderate their actions. What else could? The United States is a wonderful place to live right now, but how long can this "utopia" last? In many countries in this world the knock on the door means it is all over. Historically governments have not been benevolent things, or if they are benevolent for a time they do not remain that way. Bullys are less likely to run roughshod over someone that might kill them. Deterents are psychological. Rape did not go down in Orlando because women were pasting large numbers of rapists left and right, it went down because a rapist's chances of getting pasted increased dramatically. Likewise, our right to arm ourselves is a deterant against a police state, not because we would go around shooting police but because we COULD. "An armed society is a polite one." Robert A. Heinlein -- scc!steiny Don Steiny - Personetics @ (408) 425-0382 109 Torrey Pine Terr. Santa Cruz, Calif. 95060 ihnp4!pesnta -\ fortune!idsvax -> scc!steiny ucbvax!twg -/
robertsb@ttidcb.UUCP (Robin Roberts) (12/06/84)
>From: ttidca!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!hao!hplabs!hpda!fortune!amdcad!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-fremen!ryan Mon Dec 3 15:20:2 >Jeff Hull says (quoting the Official NRA Cliche Handbook): >> To repeat a simple truth, guns do not kill people, PEOPLE KILL >> PEOPLE. (No? Really? You mean to tell me that hammer built that >> house? (:-) > No, the hammer did not build the house alone. However, try banning >hammers and see how many houses get built (hint: you don't see too many >brick houses built these days :-). > Also (and this is a point which doesn't receive much attention), it >is psychologically much easier to kill with a gun than with a knife. You >don't have to get too close to the victim (no blood on your hands), and it's >almost as if you're not directly attacking them at all - you pull a trigger >here, the victim falls down over there. Plunging a knife into someone or >beating their head in is much more difficult to do, both physically and >psychologically. This argument is really getting quite ridiculous. There are plenty of very violent criminals in our society who are perfectly overjoyed at plunging a knife into someone else with their bare hands. It remains true that the average citizen should have access to the means to defend himself from this violent people and the fact remains that guns are the most efficient and effective tool to SAVE lives, namely your own! > Finally, I'd like to ask what good a gun really does a law-abiding >citizen? You may say it's for self-defense, but the fact remains that if >it gets used at all, it will be for >A. The shooting of a family member or friend either accidentally ("Honestly, >officer, I didn't know it was loaded...") or in the heat of the moment ("You >two-timing no-good *&($*$..."). So will knives, clubs, and bare hands, despite cute sayings, guns do not cause violence. They are merely tools. One of my favorite statistics comes from the anti-handgun people, they frequently claim that the number of handguns in America is between 40 million and 200 million. Well this statistic can be turned around against the argument, because with the homicide rates we can calculate that greater than 99.9% of all handguns ARE being used legally. >B. Against you by a burglar (you know, the guy who it was going to protect >you from). Not that common, criminals frequently bring their own weapons. This is a silly excuse not to defend yourself. What are you going to do? Trust the criminal not to bring a weapons?? :-) This isn't a nuclear freeze discussion! :-) :-) >C. If you do get to it first, the burglar is not likely to waste time in >preventing you from using it. Huh? >D. Ah yes, there is a slim possibility of your actually using it against a >burglar. Of course, this means you will go to prison for manslaughter (or >justifiable homicide if you're lucky). Please remember, burglary is not >a capital crime in this country. It is legal to use deadly force when you are in reasonable fear for your life, the life of another or grave bodily harm. This is the only time when deadly force would be used by any moral person. The publication of the NRA for years reprinted newspaper articles from across the country of incidents where citizens legally and responsibly used firearms to defend themselves and their families against criminals. For five years they even restricted articles to those where the citizen didn't injure or kill the felon. They never ran out of incidents to cite. > I still don't know of any valid justification for the ownership >of handguns by law-abiding citizens. The police can not protect you. You must protect yourself. Court decisions have even held that police departments are not responsible when they fail to protect you. You MUST be responsible for your own safety. Whether or not firearms are a part of your program is a personal decision and most definitly not one to be taken lightly. I have frequently advised people that it is a decision requiring much thought and preparation. But I surely don't want someone telling me I don't have that decision "for my own good". There is little difference between this guy and moral majority people who would take away my right to reproduction choice. > Oh, I almost forgot NRA top 10 cliche #2: If you outlaw guns, only >outlaws will have guns. Well, as I've tried to point out above, no one else >really has any need for guns anyway. At first, it would be true. However, >it would make it much harder for new outlaws to get guns and for old outlaws >to replace their guns, and in time the number of guns and the resultant >bloodshed would diminish. Isn't ignorance a sad thing? In truth criminal acts will continue to go on in our world until we address the problem of criminal behavior not something so meaningless as a neutral tool. Crime has actually dropped in the last few years. A new gun control act? Of course not. Merely a drop in the population most likely to commit criminal acts. Treat diseases, not symptoms. > Mike Ryan, DEC, Merrimack, NH >Need I say it? The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect those >of DEC, its employees, its customers, residents of New Hampshire, or any >Celtics fans. Nor most especially me, don't compromise my safety with your cute concepts with no reality reference. -- Robin D. Roberts (213) 450 9111 x 2916 TTI Zone V4 aka Buskirk the Valerian 3100 Ocean Park Blvd Death to Tyrants ! Santa Monica, CA 90405 UUCP: ..!ucbvax!ihnp4!vortex!ttidca!ttidcb!robertsb or {cadovax,flick,philabs,randvax,trwrb,vortex,wtux2}!ttidca!ttidcb!robertsb or ttidca!ttidcb!robertsb@RAND-UNIX.ARPA
mike@erix.UUCP (Mike Williams) (12/07/84)
Most countries in Western Europe have restrictions concerning the private ownership of guns. In some countries (eg Britain) even the police don't carry guns. The result of this is that statistics show that far fewer people die by shooting in Europe than do in the USA. To most Europeans the restrictions on gun ownership seems sane and sensible. There may be people in Europe who advocate the private ownership of guns but I am sure that they represent a small minority. Most Western Europeans regard the semi religious fury with which the gun lobbies in the USA defend the right of private individuals to own guns with bewilderment. The only explanation which I can see for this religious fervour is that violence is culturaly more acceptable in the USA than it is in Europe. Can this really be true? I know many Americans and they don't seem to be more violent than the average European. If it is true then I am even more frightened about the possibility of nuclear war than I am already. If a country is culturaly prepared to accept violence then the possibility of their using nuclear weapons is higher.