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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jacques Chitte who wrote (14167)	12/9/1997 2:02:00 PM
From: Grainne	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

You can leave the podium anytime you like, Alex, and you sure don't need my permission. I would like to respond to a couple of your points, however. When I explained why I was asking people about their opinions on hand grenades, and said no one replied, I was talking to you, not about you, and was aware that you had answered me. There is a very militant faction within the N.R.A., and I think some of its representatives may post here. Anyway, here are some urls: pathfinder.com@@hJWDBwQASBJXap/time/magazine/domestic/1995/950529/950529.guncontrol.html amazon.com I am not sure I can find the statistic about your gun more likely being used against you without using any of the sources you have listed as verboten. One of the problems on this issue is that some of the rhetoric seems reasonable on both sides, and some of it seems inflamed, and I have found very little in the middle. I do think that if gun controls were tightened considerably, it might be more reasonable to let this smaller, more rational group conceal weapons. I have to say here this is something I have not really studied at all, but on the face of it, it does not seem unreasonable. On the question of assault weapons, if we are arguing that people need guns for self-protection and for hunting, I don't really understand why they need machine guns and armor-piercing bullets and other weapons of mass destruction. Because my concern here is ensuring that law enforcement agencies are not out-gunned, and can continue to protect citizens against crime efficiently, I think I would agree with whatever a national commission of law enforcement officers would recommend. I think we have probably both arrived at the same level of frustration on this issue. I have referred to the international statistics on gun violence twice to support my point that the number of guns in this society creates exponential violence in several ways, and you were seemingly uninterested in it, just as you feel you have repeated yourself and not gotten my attention on other parts of this issue. I think America is just insane in the way guns are important, and you believe it is foremost a question of individual freedoms, if I understand your position correctly. I further believe that we are further apart on the way we see society and role of the criminal justice system in general than we are on the gun debate. I had hoped to be able to provide that url which discusses this issue in a way I found interesting, but the web page is still under construction. There is a series of articles that Hearst newspapers did recently that discuss fairly objectively all sides of the gun issue, for anyone who is interested: examiner.com This is a quote from the Seattle Times, October 22, 1997. To me it shows how emotional the debate over handguns has gotten in our society, and how, IN MY OWN PERSON OPINION, evil exists within the N.R.A. This is is quote from their vice-president, objecting to a Washington state proposition NOT outlawing handguns, but simply a referendum on trigger locks and mandatory safety instruction. This is the one they threw $5,000,000 out-of-state dollars into during the last days of the campaign. The referendum was AHEAD in polls earlier in the campaign. It is hard for me to understand why mandatory trigger locks and safety courses are unreasonable handgun controls. Perhaps someone can explain it to me. In any event, associations with spokespeople who say things like this concern me greatly: "National Rifle Association spokesman Charlton Heston, who once portrayed Moses, ignited more than a bush in this state. He kindled outrage among Initiative 676 supporters for remarks he made at a Spokane rally last week. Heston called the handgun-control measure "evil" and "devilish," adding the measure that would require handgun trigger locks and a safety license for gun owners should have been designated "666," the number of the Antichrist in the Book of Revelation." I guess that's all I have to say!! The soapbox is officially dragged backstage out of the way so that we can all have some fun instead, or something, like throw stones at each other across the stage unimpeded, but it's over there behind the curtains, Alex, if you want to bring it back out sometime. < : )