[net.legal] Personal Defenses - how to have gun control in a free society

brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) (04/14/85)

There's no question (as the example of Canada provides) that gun control
works.  The big question, in my mind, is how to have it in a free society.

It's my feeling that the basis behind most laws should be mutual consent.
"I won't kill you if you won't kill me."

For gun control, I state that I'm quite willing to sign a pact saying I
won't carry a handgun if almost everybody else signs it too.  My experience
shows me that the freedom I give up (lack of handgun, and I mean HANDgun)
is far less than the freedom I gain - the freedom to live without worry.

Of course, not everybody will agree, and in a free society they would be
allowed to carry a gun.  But the other members of a free society will also
be allowed to keep track of them (with computers, lovely gadgets, in that
they give a single individual the power to keep track of millions of others)
and make their lives as nice or miserable as desired.  The will of the
people will soon be shown, individually.
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It's not the criminals I want to remove the guns from. They'll carry them
anyway.  It's the law-abiding citizens who think they know how to use a
gun, but who lose their tempers every day and kill, kill, kill in the USA.
They are by far the biggest killers and they must be stopped, with their
own consent, of course.
-- 
Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. - Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473