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

To: jbe who wrote (36664)	5/3/1999 12:28:00 AM
From: Jacques Chitte	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

Hi jbe. I respect your wish to be without opinion on this issue. Okay - 1) It's a fallacious argument. In syllogistic terms - 1. Death or injury by gun is a frequent occurrence. <numbers> 2. We wish to reduce death or injury by gun. 3. Thus guns should be banned/confiscated. The problem here is that to make the syllogism sing, there needs to be an element 2a: "The presence of guns is the causative factor in death or injury by gun." Not "a factor", but "the only important factor". No redress is granted the idea that there may be ways to reduce gunshots without removing the guns. This is imho the hidden agenda, and I find it dishonest. The CDC is contributing to the propaganda campaign that is ongoing to demonize the firearm. Mho 2) A crime of passion remains a crime. I don't advocate treating a crime of passion with an axe or a car any differently than one with a gun - they are all the application of a deadly weapon. I don't see any way to completely remove the liability of of shootings-in-anger. The best we can do is to drive the message home that if a person has reason to suspect he or she can't handle a gun under severe stress - don't have it available. My guns live in a locking safe, and if I get into an argument while cleaning or inspecting a gun, my Step 1 is to put the gun down. (Step 0 is to make sure it's unloaded. The NRA teaches to ALWAYS treat a gun as loaded, and never point it at anything the owner does not intend to destroy. I have no respect at all for those who injure themselves or others while "just cleaning it, Officer".) 3) The prosecution and punishment of those who run afoul of "crime with a weapon" laws is patchy. heck, the prosecution and sentencing of convicts throughout the legal system is fraught with systematic imbalance. It's a toughie because it's so political, like the death penalty. We need to "even out" our courts and prisons somehow. I don't know how. A city (I don't know which) instituted a thing called "Operation Exile". This was a commitment to sentence all found guilty of a violent weapons offense (violent ofense, not violent weapons, fer shurr). This had a sudden and pronounced effect on weapons crimes in that city.