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

To: Grainne who wrote (36636)	5/2/1999 6:55:00 PM
From: Jacques Chitte	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

> Do you not consider a gun that can kill several children in a classroom at once a weapon of mass destruction?< Do not misuse defined terms to your advantage, Christine. The phrase "weapon of mass destruction" has a defined meaning. It is a nuclear, biological or chemical weapon. A conventional explosive bomb or mine, a flamethrower, a high-rate heavy machine gun - these are conventional weapons. Very deadly but not WMDs. Similarly - an "assault weapon" is defined as a firearm with a selective-fire provision. That means one trigger pull can cause multiple sequential firing events. A "machine gun". An autoloading rifle, pistol or carbine that operates in a "one pull, one shot" manner is not an assault weapon, regardless of the bad English being used by the antigun crusaders. It does not matter if a gun is styled to resemble a current mil-spec arm. No army or militia on the planet will issue semi-auto guns to its troops as a primary weapon. They ALL have the selective-fire provision. As for a gun that can kill several etc. - do you mean a gun that can kill? Do you mean several children at once or in short succession? Do you mean a gun in a classroom, or several children in a classroom, or a classroom at once? >weapons which have no real legitimate purposes at all for civilians< Any projectile weapon has a civilian use. Competition perhaps, or hunting, or personal defense, or you name it. Most important - lots of people owning suitably deadly weapons, like autoloading pistols and rifles, is the final guarantor of acceptable behavior by our government. I saw the movie "The Siege" last night. It was horrifying. Such a scenario required a venue like NYC, where almost all people had no credible means of defense in their homes or on their persons. We've been around and around this. You believe and proclaim that guns are the very root of violence in this country. But you cannot substantiate it! Your supporting links come from (to put it kindly) interested parties. I contend that you need something more than a visceral belief if you want to undercut my Constitutional entitlements. I really and truly believe that AR15 rifles and Glock pistols in the hands of the voting public are of real value in keeping government honest. (They are not the only things. Cell phones and the Internet are marvelous tools of free expression and policy review. But when the army goes door-to-door as in the movie - these weapons of civil discourse are worth zero.) I despise violence. You know this, and I want you to start respecting it. The scenario in your earlier post fails to distinguish between potential and action. The terrible things are 1) carrying a gun into a classroom, 2) using it in the classroom. The gun's existence is not the issue. Both 1 and 2 are severe crimes. Let's enforce those. I wonder if enforcement of those strictures is deliberately spotty in order to prosecute the continuing attack on legal gun ownership. Prove me wrong. Choosing the correct word - what's wrong with "firearms"? Not repulsive enough?

To: Grainne who wrote (36636)	5/2/1999 7:38:00 PM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

I was referring to weapons which have no real legitimate purposes at all for civilians, Legitimate purposes. Well, doesn't that sort of depend on whom you ask? One of the problems of that sort of value judgment is that it depends on other people sharing your values, and I find that usually isn't true. I also happen to abhor the supercilous assumption that many of my friends make that our values are better than other people's because we are better educated, or more computer literate, or somehow "better" people. [I met many people in the South during my days in the civil rights movement who were by all common definitions ignorant, uneducated, and uncouth, who never aspired to fame or fortune, but who were more human and had far better values than many of the educated and wealthy friends I had in the sophisticated world.] I happen to cherish T.E. Eliot, and for me--in my opinion for society--he has many more legitimate purposes for being in every American home than handguns. But if you asked a cross-section of Americans which has more "legitimate purposes" in our society, handguns or the Four Quartets, I suspect handguns would win hands down. What makes my opinions better or more valid than theirs? For perspectives of what I mean from two vastly different approaches, I offer Gray's "Elegy in a Country Churchyard" and Loretta Lynn's "One's On the Way."

To: Grainne who wrote (36636)	5/2/1999 7:45:00 PM
From: Edwarda	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

One more time, with feeling.... And I have not said this before, but it is so appallingly obvious: It is not the guns, it is the people! Wake up, Christine. While there is all this wailing about which gun and what is it capable of (Let's go hurt the NRA again and the world will be safe when it is impossible for anyone to obtain a gun legally, repeat, repeat), that school was full of bombs and a child can learn how to build an atomic bomb--let alone conventional bombs and Molotov cocktails--and get all the materials to do so with a bit of ingenuity. If people want to kill one another, they are going to do it. Whether they garotte from stealth or blow up schools, they are going to do it. Guns are not the problem except in small tragedies of misuse by the unknowing. In other cases, the violence is already there; the weapon is the one at hand, whether it be a bludgeon, a gun, or a bomb.