regard@ttidcc.UUCP (Adrienne Regard) (04/30/85)
Tom West: > This is another marvellous case of the fact that the 2% of the population >who aren't responsible tend to ruin life for the rest. I will admit that >most handgun owners are fairly responsible. However, I wouldn't allow >tacnukes to be sold on the basis that there is *always* going to be an >irresponsible element in society, and we can decrease the grief he causes >by decreasing the number of people he can kill in a short span of time. Tom, we aren't talking about tacnukes here, nor are we talking about brass knuckles. It's possible, but not necessarily supportive to the central point, to extend the argument to include ALL arms, both more damaging and less. I personally wouldn't allow vicious bacterial cultures to be sold to the uninitiated, but that's stretching it, isn't it? What I am opposed to is disarming the 98% because of the stupidity of the 2%. In fact, I'm all for doing away with the 2% humanely, if there were a method for culling them that all 100% could agree upon. That's the sticking point, of course, so I've given up on that idea for this century. It does seem to me to be more reasonable that (1) IF I run into one of the 2% in a dark alley and (2) the police can't protect me then (3) I should be allowed to meet the threat in such a way as to survive it (always given that I'm not a 2%-er). And maybe even do more than survive it -- maybe stop it for good. NOTA BENE -- below is NOT a major argument pro or con -- this is a digression on a side issue that I've not seen discussed. It is interesting that we are asked to buy the logic that the build up of nuclear arms is a "defensive" posture, and we don't merely stop when we get enough to blow up the world once, but continue to stockpile. Yet, handguns are referred to, by people who would like to limit their sale, as "used for one purpose - to kill people". The deterent, defensive prospect of handguns is entirely ignored. Thousands - millions - of these weapons are never so much as loaded, let alone pointed at some bad guy, or even some good guy, let alone "used for one purpose - to kill people." Many of these weapons provide to their owner a sense of self-suffiency and require of this owner a determination to uphold his beliefs -- which seems to me to lead to a greater respect for civilization and it's goals. >I don't think that handguns are that easy to make, and the >average hood has a hard time getting their (one? his? :-)) hands on one, >if they are not available over the counter (within a state or two, anyway. This is hogwash, pardon the expression. Handguns of the quality the police carry (or the Italian Beretta, still imported in parts and assembled here - the Italian press joins the world press condemning America's gun laws, yet is a major provider) cannot be manufactured in someone's backyard. However, the Saturday Night Special (for which many parts are manufactured in Germany and imported for assembly by R.G. Industries, a company formed by the original German-based Roehm family, gun dealers) which requires nothing like the accuracy of a "legitimate" weapon, can be, and ARE, manufactured from spare parts, in private homes, for peanuts. Look it up. It is certainly easier to get a handgun from a legitimate dealer, but also more expensive. Crooks would rather pay $10-15 in the alley for a Saturday Night Special than $100-750 at the dealer's nicely cleaned counter. NOTA BENE: Another digression to a side issue. When are we going to realize that the lawlessness that most everybody deplores is part and parcel of the control measures we have imposed on the people who we can impose control upon? One of the central reasons for owning a handgun is the concern that we can't expect protection from the police. The police have had their hands tied so tightly by various regulations that increase the rights of the "suspect" magnitudes beyond the rights of the victims. Police in various states face regulations, and even LAWS that require them to be able to show "evidence" that they were in fact threatened with imminent death, before they can even start fumbling with their weapon's holster snap. There is discussion that now the police may not fire at a suspect (even after repeat warnings of "stop or I shoot") so the crook takes off, listens to two warnings as he dashes away, then the cops have to chase him anyhow. Then, if he is actually slow enought to be caught, he can claim they read his rights to him too quickly for him to understand, that he was brutilized by the cops who had to finally wrestle him to the ground, and THEN we get to the courtroom follies. We ALL know that the system attempts to be fair and impartial. We ALL know that it is cumbersome, slow, expensive, full of loopholes and even imcompetence. The question is WHAT DO WE DO? In a two-sided equation, us versus them, the good guys versus the bad guys, civilization versus barbarism, what do we do? We impose restrictions on ONE side of the equation, over and over. We limit the freedoms of the civilized, the good guys, the 'us' because _it is the side that will listen_. We can't impose restrictions on the bad guys, the them, because they won't follow the rules. We haven't the money, the manpower, the jail space or even the toughness-of-heart to realize that maybe these people DO DESERVE to be locked away for good, or maybe they DON'T have as many rights as the victims. Hypothesis: maybe these people *gasp* are _not_ civilized, and don't deserve the benefits of a civilized society. > You can't legislate out stupidity, Maybe not, but you can certainly legislate IN stupidity, which is what the further limitation of the "good guys" side of the equation is. Handguns as an issue itself aside, when does this country wake up to the fact that we've taken the equation out of equilibrium by our own legislative process? The crime statistics have risen because we have created a growth environment for crime, literally invited it to tea. NOT because of the availability of one certain weapon over another. Yah yah, enough tirade for today. Of course, I invite comments on these issues that are _supplemental_ to the avowed central issue of handgun control. Please be careful of context. I really don't enjoy melting keyboards when misquoted. -Adrienne Regard