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

To: Chuzzlewit who wrote (36739)	5/3/1999 12:14:00 PM
From: E	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

Clarity of thought is so wonderful.

To: Chuzzlewit who wrote (36739)	5/3/1999 1:38:00 PM
From: Jacques Chitte	Respond to of 108807

>Opponents of gun control have yet to make an argument that makes any sense concerning the relationship between the number of guns and the level of firearms-related violence. Instead, they have resorted to the claim that people cause gun shot violence, not guns.< This is inaccurate. Please read a book called "Guns, Crime and Violence". What is remarkable is that the author, a liberal, set out to find the link between gun availability and gun violence. The numbers he DID find showed an actual countertrend. >It seems to me that if we want to decrease gun-related violence we must at least seek to reduce the presence of guns in the hands of those people most likely to commit acts of gun-related violence. I think that conclusion is inescapable.< I agree. However where most gun control proponents go astray is in saying "Therefore we must reduce gun ownership." I would suggest that the lever in the above is "those people most likely to commit...". This is done by some common-sense law. A gun buyer must be neither felon nor mental. A gun owner assumes responsibility for the storage and disposition of the weapon. Regulations exist on how and where the gun owner may use or carry that gun. I am not an absolute opponent of the regulation of gun use and ownership. I would like to point out however that the phrase "gun control" hides several meanings. it is designed to sound like "common-sense regulation" but is often used as a code word for "gun removal". If you look at the literature of the major gun control groups and lobbies - their avowed goal is the elimination of civilly-owned firearms. If we had no 2nd Amendment this would be an ordinary civil debate on merits vs. liabilities of a certain product. But the existence and wording of the Bill of Rights means that in order to advance their program, the gun control advocates are resorting to totalitarian argument. I find this distasteful. >2. Unfettered private ownership of guns represents a greater benefit to the populace than its cost to society.< I do not argue this!! "Unfettered" is not part of my value structure. I admit to the utility and necessity of fetters, regulations ... but I do want a line drawn that allows the ordinary, law-abiding citizen to remain in possession of working firearms. If the gun control groups would sign onto a statement that as long as I am not found convicted of a violent crime or adjudicated mentally unstable - I am granted the right to buy, own, operate and bequeathe my guns to a suitable designated party - then I would be much less suspicious of them. I don't think we should tolerate what happened in Australia - the gov't there confiscated and destroyed all autoloading rifles and shotguns, then severely restricted the availability of remaining classes of guns. I don't like my government presuming my ill faith like that.