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>Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2000 01:15:13 -0500
>From: "Michael S. Lorrey" <retroman@turbont.net>
>To: extropians@extropy.com
>Subject: Re: [GUNS\ Re: g*n c*ntr*l
>Reply-To: extropians@extropy.com
>
>Joe Dees wrote:
>>
>> >Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2000 18:38:36 -0500
>> >From: "Michael S. Lorrey" <retroman@turbont.net>
>> >To: extropians@extropy.com
>> >Subject: Re: [GUNS\ Re: g*n c*ntr*l
>> >Reply-To: extropians@extropy.com
>> >
>> >Joe Dees wrote:
>> >>
>> >> >Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2000 16:41:29 -0500
>> >> >From: "Michael S. Lorrey" <retroman@turbont.net>
>> >> >To: extropians@extropy.com
>> >> >Subject: Re: [GUNS\ Re: g*n c*ntr*l
>> >> >Reply-To: extropians@extropy.com
>> >> >
>> >> >Joe Dees wrote:
>> >> >>
>> >> >> >Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2000 08:01:54 -0500
>> >> >> >From: "Michael S. Lorrey" <retroman@turbont.net>
>> >> >> >To: extropians@extropy.com
>> >> >> >Subject: Re: [GUNS\ Re: g*n c*ntr*l
>> >> >> >Reply-To: extropians@extropy.com
>> >> >> >
>> >> >> >"Joe E. Dees" wrote:
>> >> >> >>
>> >> >> >> Without an easily accessible purchase-prohibited registry which
>> >> >> >> must be checked prior to sale, such laws are unenforceable,
>> >> >> >> especially as regards to violent criminals who have done their time,
>> >> >> >> and MOST especially as to violent repeat offenders who have
>> >> >> >> served their sentences, but also including those who have
>> >> >> >> restraining orders issued against them, and the incompetent or
>> >> >> >> insane.
>> >> >> >
>> >> >> >If they have done their time, and are rehabilitated, they are no longer
>> >> >> >a threat to society, so once their parole period is up, give them back
>> >> >> >their rights. If they are a threat, don't let them out of prison. This
>> >> >> >is such a simple concept.
>> >> >> >
>> >> >> >Mike Lorrey
>> >> >> >
>> >> >> Then you are on record as advocating life without possibility of parole for anyone convicted of using a gun in a crime?
>> >> >
>> >> >If they have been ajudged by a parole board to no longer be a threat to
>> >> >society, then give them back their rights. If they remain a threat to
>> >> >society, then lock them away for keeps, or at least until a parole board
>> >> >does make a rehabilitated decision.
>> >> >
>> >> If you are willing to trust the decisions of a parole board, you must also trust > in the good faith of other agencies, including mental competency boards and judges > issuing restraining orders. One cannot cherry-pick which of these to and not to > trust based upon preconception-based preferences - they are all populated by > people.
>> >
>> >Parole boards are comprised of private citizens, not government
>> >bureacrats. Parole boards, as they are currently constituted, are more
>> >concerned with keeping prison populations down.
>> >
>> Then why trust them to keep violent criminals in prison?
>> >
>> >The thing is Joe, I SHOULD be able to trust the government. The reason I
>> >don't isn't because of me. They have demonstrated enough times in this
>> >administration that they have no respect for the law or the individual.
>> >
>> You forget the egregious violations of past administrations; this government has shown nothing approaching either Watergate or Iran-Contra. It has, however, been under constant rightist attack, with the philosophy that if they threw all the mud they could reach, maybe some of it would appear to stick. Tim McVeigh, in a single bombing, killed more than twice as many noncriminals as the government did in Waco and Ruby Ridge combined (and there are no other big-name oppressive actions, and in fact in the Freemem episode, the administration showed admirable restraint - but the nature of government is to receive none of the credit and all the blame). I don't care about Bill Clinton getting a blow job from a woman who was having an affair with a married teacher of hers before her selection as a page, and who then told her friends that she was going to Washington to earn her "presidential kneepads."
>> >
>> >> Although simply showing a gun in the commission of a crime may not be grounds
>> >> for life imprisonment, I'm in favor of permanent lock-up of violent gun-wielding
>> >> criminals who commit crimes resulting in firearm injury or death to others, for
>> >> they have proven themselves capable of such actions by performing them; then the
>> >> prospect of deaths from mistaken rights restoration to violent criminal
>> >> recidivists never enters in.
>> >
>> >A good point. What about situations where a person was defending
>> >themselves, but didn't follow all of the points of the law in properly
>> >injuring or killing a criminal in the proper and legal way?
>> >
>> That's what trials are for. Jury of your peers, and all that.
>> >
>> >> To pull the trigger on another human being in the
>> >> commission of a crime should be to kill your own freedom to have the opportunity
>> >> to do the same again for the rest of your life.
>> >
>> >It should. It does indicate that you have no respect for the right to
>> >life of the other person, which is why self defense with deadly force is
>> >justified in such circumstances. A person who has no value for the right
>> >to life of others doesn't have value for their own.
>> >
>> >Use of deadly force in the commission of a felony should be a capital
>> >crime. Just because the crook got lucky and didn't actually kill anyone
>> >is irrelevant. They were prepared to do so, and so mark themselves as
>> >mere animals to be put down.
>> >
>> The difference I see between our attitudes here is that while I might reluctantly agree that execution is best in some cases for the safety of society, you seem to genuinely relish the prospect, and wish our government to extend it to as many as possible, meanwhile decrying the police, legislature and courts who are charged with such responsibilities as untrustworthy. This paradox troubles me.
>
>The government, the police cheifs, and the leftists all look at me, a
>law abiding productive gun owning veteran, as the biggest threat to
>their power. Public servants who do not trust their masters are not to
>be trusted themselves. Creatures claiming to be human beings that have
>shown a total lack of respect for the lives of others are threats to the
>peace, prosperity, and general repose of society and have surrendered
>their own right to live. They need to be put down like rabid dogs.
>
I am also a law-abiding, productive gun-owning veteran, and do not feel the hostility you claim to feel. However, they SHOULD be frightened of you, if you are prepared to mow people down like rabid dogs for what you perceive as a lack of respect for your life, which the vast majority of them do not even know exists, I'll wager, for it is you who sound rabid in the throes of such rhetoric. Respect is not earned via firearms - only fear, and those who are feared, like criminals, crazies and abusers, are quite rightly restrained for the benefit of you, me and our families. If you, anonymous as you are to them, are prepared to kill these people because you fear their disregard for your life, you must guard against your fear transmogrifying you into the very picture that you have constructed in your mind of them. Most people, in or out of government, just wanna do their job, take their paycheck home and pay their bills with it, have a good dinner, screw their significant other !
and get a good night's sleep. Those who appoint themselves as sentinels against hypostatized demons must also guard against the risk of their possibly paranoid fear translating into preemptive action, and thus morphing them into real demons, as happened with Tim McVeigh.
>
>There is no paradox. Law abiding citizens like myself are the bedrock of
>society, while the fascists in government keep releasing the predators
>on society to keep the crime rate up, hoping that this will scare people
>like me into giving them more tax money.
>
This line of reasoning is no more valid than the claim that the NRA wants criminals to be armed so that a more fearful general populace will join the NRA in greater numbers, dues check in hand.
>
>The only difference between the criminal on the street and the criminal
>in government is that there is a season on one and its a crime to go
>after the other.
>
I sincerely hope you never become any one of the three types of criminal you enunciate above.
>
>Mike Lorrey
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