🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1nnkktINN24n@sol.tis.com>, mjr@tis.com (Marcus J Ranum) writes:
|> >oR, continuing with that ?LOGIC? why not just make automobiles in
|> >general illegal?  Even the amount of deaths by auto NOT INVOLVING
|> >alcohol is extremely high.  
|> 
|> 	Driving irresponsibly *IS* illegal, as is shooting irresponsibly.
|> If I (who seldom drink at all, and never drink and drive) drive out of
|> my lane and kill someone, I am in a whole lot of trouble, you bet. That's
|> not an argument for banning cars or guns - it's a strong argument for
|> increasing personal accountability for misuse of either.

 I strongly agree.  People have to be held accountable for their actions; they
have to know that irresponsible behavior WILL result in certain, severe and
prompt punishment.  

|> 
|> 	The cars::guns analogy is weak. For one thing, I have to carry
|> a great deal of very expensive liability insurance before the state lets
|> me operate a car. In fact, this might be reasonable for guns, too. ;)
|> Make it illegal to operate a gun without liability insurance and the
|> whole scenario falls out. Responsible gun owners who are members of
|> clubs and who use reasonable firearms would pay reasonable rates. Folks
|> with past firearms charges would pay a *lot* for liability insurance on
|> an Uzi. :)  Of course, the insurance companies would *NEVER* write a
|> liability policy on a gun at all - and we know why, don't we?

 I disagree with alot of this.  

 I have to carry liability insurance before the state lets me operate a motor
vehicle on PUBLIC roads.  You don't need insurance, or anything else to operate 
a vehicle on private property.  Now, before i'm accused of arguing on a
"technicality" let me say that there are plenty of places (for example farms)
near our house where people operate motor vehicles on private property.  I also
used to race motorcycles; i didn't have any insurance on them either.
 How does this tie in with firearms?  The vast majority of legal uses of firearms
are on private property (ranges, posted land.. etc) or state owned or leased
lands (some of which do require insurance - and its quite cheap).
 You might have a better argument if you were to only require that people who 
carry have insurance.. however, if you check with the states who even bother to
keep statistics on crimes committed by people with carry permits, you will find 
that those people are not committing crimes at anywhere near the level of the 
general population.  People with carry permits are a lower risk than the rest of
the population! (see [1], at the end of this posting).
 Insurance primarily covers accidents.  Firearm accidents are the cause of ~1,400
deaths a year - a number thats been steadily declining since the 1930s.  Thats
less than the numbers for death by drowning, poison, and falls.  Should we require
insurance for people who own poison (see Drano, bleach, et al)?  Note that someone
who is responsible for a accidental death can have a civil suit brought against
them.
 What about suicides?  I'm not aware of any insurance policy that covers suicide,
so that doesn't seem like a good reason for requiring firearms insurance, either.
 That leaves us with homocide - a crime generally committed by violent criminials
who don't bother to get their firearms legally either.  Presumably, they would not
bother taking out a policy for their illegally owned firearm.

 As for the "good" vs "evil" guns - i believe that this distinction is specious.
The real division is between lawful and lawless users.  I know it sounds trite, 
but guns - for all the media gack - are a relitivly simple, lo tech tool thats
been around for longer than any of us (yes, even semiautomatics).  Trying to 
divine the "evilness" of a firearm is difficult at best; some say that any gun
thats black is evil; some contend that small is evil; others yet contend that
high capacity (or the potential) is evil; its a subjective, elastic line thats
doomed to failure and abuse.  

===================
[1] - Heres some information on Florida's experiences:

Both of these are based on the "Concealed Weapons / Firearms License
Statistical Report for the Period 10/01/87 - 10/31/91"  issued by:

	Florida Department of State's Division of Licensing
	P.O. Box 6687, 
	Tallahassee, FL 32314-6687

This one-page report states as follows:

112,528   Applications Received

 85,662   New
 26,866   Renewal

109,377   Licenses Issued

 82,756   New
 26,621   Renewal


    768   Applications Denied

    446   Criminal History
    302   Incomplete Application


    167   Licenses Revoked

     66   Clemency rule change or legislative change
     77   Crime after licensure  (10 = firearm utilized)
      6   Crime prior to licensure  (2 = firearm utilized)
     10   Illegible prints with no response
      8   Other

     12   Reinstated (no statistics maintained prior to Jan. '90)

----------- These stats are the sum total of the report ------------

What this amounts to is the following good news:

167 licenses revoked = .15% (one-sixth of 1%)  of licenses issued

    i.e. 15 in 10,000 licenses were revoked

 77 licenses revoked for a crime after licensure = .07% (seven hundreths of 1%)

    i.e. only 7 in 10,000 licenses were revoked for a crime

 10 licenses revoked for crime with a gun = .009%  

    i.e. less than 1 in 10,000 licenses were revoked for a crime with a gun

===========================

 
      


|> 
|> mjr.
|> -- 
|>         Failure science requires intelligence. Any goddamn fool can shoot
|> his foot off, but doing it with common kitchen ingredients, while attempting
|> to make a cake, is very difficult.
|> 						-Failure Science

-- 
Michael Phelps, (external) mjp@vnet.ibm.com ..
                (internal) mjp@bwa.kgn.ibm.com .. mjp at kgnvmy         
 (and last but not least a disclaimer)  These opinions are mine..