🚀 go-pugleaf

<1991Jan11.234809.19061@cs.ucla.edu> loving@lanai.cs.ucla.edu 
<1991Jan9.200754.8857@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu> eacj@batcomputer.tn.cornell
>>I was in Miami during New Year's Eve.  The locals there have gone way beyond
>>M-80's.  At midnight, they have this quaint custom of going outside
>>thier automatic and semi-automatic weapons in the sky.
> only 1 legal fully automatic weapon has been used in a crime since 1935
>National Firearms Act (which stiffly regulates the ownership of such weapons)
>I seriously doubt that you heard much automatic weapons fire, but Idon't doubt
>that you heard weapons fire, and quite possibly semi-automatic weapons fire.
>I just doubt that anyone who legally owned a full auto would be shooting it in
>town and risk a serious misdemeanor and I doubt that anyone who illegally owns
>a full auto (a federal felony already) will be advertising it on New Years...

Mike, get a grip, take some guacamole dip and call your analyist.  Illegal
full auto weapons are available in every major city in the country.  I have 
het several people who have gone to the big house for peddling them.  A cache
of them were just recovered in northern florida by LEO.  Portions of southern
florida & miami have become a haven for law breaking scum.  They would think
little about getting caught with or shooting a full auto.  This tradition
of weapons fire is a age old one of spanish/south american descent.
I recall a section on cnn saying the number of people accidently shot in
something like bueno aerias (sp) last year, and it was rather scary (just 
on that day...).  The accompying audio did sound like a  full blown war.
However, I'd agree that MOST of the shots did come from (generally/usuall/
kinda/sorta) law abiding citizens/resident aliens and originated from either
semi-auto or full manual weapons.  The great number and density of firing
makes the sound and generates the fear of automatic weapons.
   People who use guns to commit crime should be utterly destroyed, and would
simplye use another weapon if available.  The simple fact that a certain is
illegal will not stop or even persuade a criminal from using it, simply
because it's illgeal, after all they are already (committed) to breaking
laws by commiting crimes in the first place.  Focus at the root of the
evil, which is the criminal act, not the weapon used to support a act, and
punish the guilty appropriatrly.  As mike so clearly points out, only a tiny
fraction of legal weapons are used for illegal purposes
al







-- 
Al. Michielsen, Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, Syracuse University
 InterNet: amichiel@rodan.acs.syr.edu  amichiel@sunrise.acs.syr.edu
 Bitnet: AMICHIEL@SUNRISE