🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <826@pbhyc.UUCP> djo@pbhyc.UUCP (Dan'l DanehyOakes) writes:
-In article <21198@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> jwl@ernie.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (James Wilbur Lewis) writes:
-> Look, sometimes it's NECESSARY to kill people.
-
-Oh?  When?  "When it's kill or be killed."  That means someone else is
-trying to kill you ... unnecessarily.  Screw that.

Sorry, no can parse. Wanna run that one by me again?  I'm worried about
the possibility (not farfetched, given that I live in Oakland) that some 
subhuman armed with a pipe wrench or a baseball bat might break into my
apartment intending to cave my head in, and all you can say is "Screw that"?  
Nothing short of lethal force is going to do me a damned bit of good in
that situation!

->- If we outlaw
->-handguns, we will significantly reduce shooting deaths in
->-this country.
->
->Right, just like Prohibition got rid of alcohol and the current drug
->laws have cured drug abuse.
-
-Actually... Consider this:
-
-1)  England has gun control.
-2)  There were about five gun related deaths in the entire COUNTRY
-    last year.
-Therefore,
-3)  Either
-	a) Gun control works,
-    or
-	b) the English couldn't hit the broad side of a barn.

Or c) England has a much lower violent crime rate *across the board*,
due to major sociological differences between Britain and the USA.
The USA crime statistics include areas where *millions* of people
live in overcrowded, economically depressed areas like Harlem, East
Oakland, the Tenderloin, etc...how many British people live in
comparable areas?  A fair comparison would be to look at Britain
versus North Dakota, Alaska, or some other sparsely-populated
state, which closely approximates the economic and population density 
distribution of Britain.  But then the comparison is not nearly as
spectacular, so I'm not at all surprised that gun control advocates
haven't made it...

-According to a Supreme Court decision made about 60 years ago, long before
-the whole "gun control" debate became what it is today, the right to bear
-arms is a right held by the populace, but not by its members.  The right
-for any individual or group to bear arms may be restricted by legislation
-at any time.

Yes, for people like convicted felons.  The burden of proof is (or should
be...) on the State to show that any particular person is unfit to be
allowed to posess a handgun.  Otherwise, it makes no sense at all to
claim that this right is held by the "populace", but by default not
by individuals.

-You lovers-of-the-artificial-phallus like to ignore the first part of the
-Second Amendment:
-
-"A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State,
-the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
-
- [...]
-
-This is the *only* amendment in the Bill of Rights where the Founders took
-care to specify their purpose in putting it there.  We may reasonably
-believe that they wanted to clarify what it was *and*was*not* intended
-for -- and it was *not* intended to let paranoids keep guns in their homes.

Please explain how the first clause of that amendment places ANY restrictions
on what constitute valid reasons to exercise the right to bear arms.  This
is just one of many reasons,  put in to emphasize that the right of the
people to organize a militia seperate from the army is specifically
protected.  If the founders had foreseen the current paranoia on the part of 
gun control advocates, I have no doubts that they would have made a much 
broader statement.

And while you're at it, you might take a crack at explaining how your
gun-control agenda is consistent with the Constitutional mandate that
"the right of the people to keep and bear arms SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED".

Your characterization of people who want to keep guns for home defense
as "paranoids" is absurd, given the fact that SOME of us are not so 
fortunate as to live in neighborhoods free of violent crime.

-...and guns *are* surrogate dicks.

Yeah, and for some people, posting to Usenet is a substitute for masturbation.
It looks like you're shootin' blanks, bub!  Not only do you have a painfully 
obvious case of WEAPON ENVY, but you show all the symptoms of *brain* envy! 

-- Jim Lewis
   U.C. Berkeley