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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (142278)	2/3/2002 3:12:41 AM
From: TimF	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1578600

Greg, if you own a gun or believe strongly that most people should carry a gun, I imagine the NRA looks like a cross between the proverbial chamber of commerce in support of guns and led by the former Moses, and a trade lobbyist from Taiwan looking to increase exports. I don't own a gun nor am I trying to push guns on people. But I believe in the right of individuals to own them. The NRA doesn't look the a chamber of commerce or a trade lobbyist to me. They are not an organization of gun salesmen trying to increase sales. They are an organization that's main thrust is protecting our 2nd amendment constitutional rights. There more like a conservative version of the ALCU then they are like a chamber of commerce. Tim

To: tejek who wrote (142278)	2/3/2002 3:42:08 AM
From: d[-_-]b	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1578600

tejek, The millions of Americans legally carrying weapons or the NRA defending their rights to do such is not responsible for the 30,000 people killed yearly. You are some how confused into believing the gun itself is the issue instead of a culture that would do harm to itself or each other. A gun is just a tool like your car or a table saw, either of which can cause serious harm or death. Dangerous tools must be treated with respect and kept out of the reach of children and criminals in the case of guns. England thought they could ban a tool and their problems would go away, but they forgot that criminals don't generally respect laws. Their crime rate with respect to gun related crime has been rising since they banned handguns. So for them the NRA was/is correct - if you ban guns only criminals will have them. It's not Joe average gun owner that's killing 30K+ people in the US every year, but Joe average does once in a while protect his family and property from criminals with a gun. Every gun bought in the USA starts life as a legal weapon and even as a life member of the NRA I would have to take issue with their position on the gun show loophole. I would like to see all gun sales tracked, even private sales - but those pesky FFL holders would need to be involved and they want $25+ just to make a phone call. If the government would make the check free, private citizens would be more inclined to register a transfer, of course the penalty for not reporting the transfer should be high. Go to the ATF web site sometime and read their report on where and how guns get into criminal hands, it's quite interesting to find that the bulk of illegal weapons used by criminals are not purchased at gun shows. Nearly 50% come from FFL holders (pawn shops, gun shops), that's not to say 50% of FFL holders are to blame. It's just a few, less than 10%, but they tend to sell huge amounts of illegal weapons to others who then deal out of the trunk of a car in the inner cities. ATF report "Following the Gun" atf.treas.gov