🚀 go-pugleaf

mjp@vnet.ibm.com (Michael J. Phelps) writes:

>I think the point is that gun control isn't keeping guns out of the hands of
>criminals, thus its not helping prevent crime; handguns are illegal in DC, and
>virtually so in NYC, yet the criminals seem to have no trouble getting 'em.

	This is an excellent summary of the problem. There's no real
evidence that "gun control" will keep guns out of the hands of criminals
and there's little evidence that it reduces crime. On the flip side of
the coin, european nations that don't permit private handgun ownership
have a much, much, much lower rate of handgun related incidents. At this
point, the anti-gunners who point at, say, Sweden, and claim that we'll
have a low gun-related crime rate if we impose a ban are naive - the
US has already got too many guns in private hands for a ban like that
to work at all. I personally don't believe that banning guns is going
to help us. If we were going to have banned guns, we should have done
it around the end of the civil war.

	What gets me (and the whole reason I got dragged into this in
the first place) are the amazing leaps of logic both sides of the
debate make. We have folks who can, with a straight face, make statements
about how if you give up your gun you're abetting criminals and being
a sheep, or we have folks who claim that gun ownership and christianity
are morally opposite.

	I own several guns and I know how to use them. I don't carry
them, or even keep ammo around the house (other than a few boxes of
.22 for the RugerMkII) because having them doesn't make me feel any
safer. That's the root of the problem - people look at the *GUN* and
think that solutions to the USA's crime problems can be had, which
involve the *GUN*. Kind of a lot to expect from an inanimate object.
On the other hand, I believe that if there is a solution, it quite
likely will involve some increased restrictions on the ownership 
and use of guns. I personally don't mind that, but ONLY if the solution
is workable and involves a legal inititive and an educational
initiative along with whatever else happens. Just slapping a
law against buying guns, like Virginia is thinking of doing, is a
joke when our media glorifies the gun as a solution to personal
problems.

	Basically our (the USA "our") attitude towards guns is like
our attitude towards booze in the 20s. The abolitionists want to
focus on banning the stuff completely, and are so focussed on that
that they don't accept that some folks are mature individuals without
a drinking problem. Then there are the people who are addicted to
drink. And everyone in between. Our situation with respect to guns
is similar, and I believe folks like HCI and NRA do us all a
disservice by constantly attempting to polarize the issue into
two rigid ideological camps.

	To Frank Ney: we probably agree on more of these issues
than we disagree on, but I just can't cope with the thoughtless
knee-jerk tyranny-fighting criminal-killing gun-wielding pose.
Stop talking in terms of sheep and us versus them and become
part of the solution instead of part of the problem.

mjr.