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>Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2000 09:32:39 -0500
>From: "Michael S. Lorrey" <mike@datamann.com>
>To: extropians@extropy.com
>Subject: Re: What are the reasons for killing?
>Reply-To: extropians@extropy.com
>
>Robert Owen wrote:
>
>> Joe E Dees wrote:
>>
>> > I favor keeping guns out of the hands of violent criminals,
>> > proven intimidating abusers, and the mentally incompetent and/or
>> > deranged, and ONLY them. I have no problem whatsoever with
>> > RESPONSIBLE gun ownership by the general citizenry (I own five
>> > of them).
>>
>> So then WHAT is this persistent debate about, anyway? What
>> person with normal awareness of public safety requirements
>> and of the incidence of human injury and death by means of
>> firearms could object on rational grounds to the following?
>>
>> 1] Convicted hyperaggressive felons should be denied legal
>> ownership of any lethal weapon, even if the enforcement
>> of the law has intractable practical limitations.*
>
>Already the law. This is actually the easiest one to enforce, as you probably
>know from the NRA pioneered Operation Exile that took place in Richmond, and the
>effect it had on crime.
>
To enforce any of these requires a purchase-prohibited registry.
>
>> 2] Spousal or child abusers who have either been convicted
>> of aggravated assault, assault with intent, etc. or known
>> by the Child Protective or Welfare Agencies locally to be
>> violent by history should be likewise denied ownership.
>
>Violent by history? Who gets to make the history?
>
The abusers make their own; others just recognize it.
>
>> 3] Anyone denied a license to operate a motor vehicle, for
>> whatever reason, should automatically be denied owner-
>> ship of firearms. This would include alcoholic drivers,
>> habitual offenders and those who have thereby shown
>> a heedless and reckless disregard of the welfare, safety
>> and security of the general public.
>
>How about those physically unable to operate a car, but able to operate a gun?
>
A reasonable exception.
>
>> 4] All individuals known to the local judicial system as
>> certifiably sociopathic or ambulatory psychotic should be
>> denied ownership.
>
>Already the law.
>
>> 5] Hunters who have violated local laws pertaining to the
>> use of firearms for this purpose or otherwise engaged in
>> illegal hunting practices should be denied ownership.
>
>Denying a poor rural person the only means they have to feed their families in
>bad economic times is cruel and unjustified.
>
>> 6] ANYONE known by properly constituted authority to be
>> legally irresponsible in the use of firearms for ANY purpose,
>> including collecting, selling, trading or the mechanical
>> alteration of firearms should be denied ownership.
>
>Collecting guns is a legally irresponsible behavior? Who made you god, or Freud?
>
Responsible adults should be able to obtain the firearms they need. Who needs twenty thousand? Members of the National Alliance, serving as arsenals?
>
>> 7] The retailing of firearms should be limited to, without
>> exception, state-owned stores, just as in some states
>> liquor sales are currently regulated.
>
>So when the state decides that it doesn't want people to buy guns anymore it
>closes the stores. Beautiful. Extremely extropic. NOT.
>
Private and dealer sales should be allowed, so long as they are from and to responsible adults, after checking a purchase=prohubuted registry.
>
>> 8] ALL firearms owned by private individuals should be com-
>> prehensively registered with an appropriate local law-
>> enforcement agency. Private trading should be banned.
>
>SO when the state decides it doesn't want you to own them anymore, it knows
>where to go to confiscate them, just as it has already done so in New York,
>California, Britain, and Australia. Banning private trade means that you ban
>private property. The state controls who owns it.
>
Trade should not be banned if it is between individuals not included in a purchase-prohibited registry, but guns should be fired before sals, as NY Gov. Pataki urges, to aid in locating perpetrators. I think that registration for machines designed for the express purpose of easy and rapid long-distance killing should be registered if machines designed for transportation are.
>
>> 9] Penalties for first time and repeated offenders should be
>> equal to or greater in severity than those that currently
>> apply to violators of motor vehicle laws. A point system
>> or other device could be used to determine when a license
>> must be suspended.
>
>Since motor vehicles kill and injure far more people, even though there are
>fewer cars than guns, this is totally unjustifiable.
>
More people are killed in New York by guns than by autos.
>
>> 10] First time gun owners should be tested by written and
>> optical exams just as motor vehicle owners are now. It
>> would not be required to be relicensed unless a violation
>> of firearms laws, statutes and ordinances was a matter of
>> court record. (See -8- and -9-)
>
>Who gets to decide what the test is, and are test results going to be public
>documents?
>
I'm sure the NRA would be consulted on the tests, as would law enforcement and firearm manufacturers. People should not be afraid of a little study which can only benefit them by insuring that they know how to operate the firearm safely and properly - we're not talking about Jim Crow poll tests, here. The reason one is included in a purchase-prohibited registry should not be included as part of the registry.
>
>> I cannot stress enough the revulsion I feel toward those who
>> reject such rational social controls on the ostensible basis of
>> some abstract idealist polity or manifesto using ad populum
>> terms like "freedom" and "rights" to induce emotional support
>> for irresponsible firearm ownership among those who are either
>> socially incompetent, illiterate or simply too immature to under-
>> stand the implications of such terms when applied to the real
>> world.
>
>Then you are no extropian.
>
It is not up to you to decide who is and is not extropian, but to attempt to do so is itself unextropian.
>
>> It is truly astonishing that, after the perhaps 2,500-year
>> documentation of the human tendency to inflict violence on
>> his own kind to achieve merely selfish ends, we still listen to
>> those who advocate that some personal acquisitive desire
>> should be regarded as superordinate to the welfare of the
>> community upon which this individual depends. Any claim
>> of privilege is forfeit by those whose very polemics are
>> grounded in social indifference.
>
>Considering the proof that this 'personal acquisitive desire' actually
>contributes to the safety and welfare of society, your argument is baseless. You
>start your post here off stating reasonable and normal proposals of responsible
>use, then you veer off into this wild, big brother, totalitarian rant that I
>cannot fathom the origination of. Please explain why you subscribe to this list
>instead of the more normally non-liberty based >H list.
>--
I guess you'll call him a statist, fascist, leftist zombie next. Killfiling and/or trying to chase off or intimidate those who have a different opinion from your own is hegemonistic, totalitarian, Borgian and quite typical of you, it seems.
>
>TANSTAAFL!!!
>
>Michael S. Lorrey
>Member, Extropy Institute
>http://www.extropy.org
>Member, National Rifle Association
>http://www.nra.org
>"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
> - General John Stark
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