At 02:15 PM 10/10/00 -0700, you wrote:
> >
> >You can buy many books of various kinds with various content at gun
> shows. This
> >shows that gun owners care more about freedom of speech than alleged
> liberals.
> >According to the Supreme Court, if speech that offends is not protected,
> then
> >there is no freedom of speech. By the same logic, if guns that offend
> people are
> >not protected, is this not a violation of the right to keep and bear?
> >
>Next you'll be preaching the virtues of the right to keep and bear nukes,
>ricin, zyklon-b and anthrax bacilli. These things are not allowed to be
>privately owned (with few exceptions for some of them) for the same reason
>that free speech does not include the right to yell "Fire!" in a crowded
>theater; the danger such possession poses to the public at large, even
>from their panic should they find out it is being held in their
>midst. Fully automatic weapons, since 1934, fall into the same category
>(and I know you jumped through all kinds of paperwork hoops so that you
>could keep and bear a full auto of your very own). As to semiautomatic
>assault weapons, I'll quote you a few facts and figures on them from your
>archnemesis, HCI:
>http://www.handguncontrol.org/facts/ib/assault.asp
There is no defensive use of anthrax that I know of. It's easier to get
dynamite today then to buy a gun. Nukes are for the super-rich - the upkeep
is horrible, and you need lead lined shorts if you pack one on your hip.
The 1934 National Firearms Act was a TAX LAW, meant to use as a club over
the heads of organized crime. Compliance with this law was around 1% in the
years after it's passing. In 1968, the govt. allowed an amnesty where
individuals could register NFA weapons without paying the tax. Many of
today's machine guns and artillery pieces in civilian hands came into the
system in '68.
For years before this was passed, individuals could purchase Thompson
machine guns in the local hardware store at a reasonable price. Aside from
a few (very few!) highly publicized gang shootings, there was no return to
the Wild West caused by thousands of fully automatic guns being sold to
anyone, including children, who could pay for them. The NFA also made
silencers a taxed item - this has probably caused more hearing injuries to
shooters and bystanders by a few orders of magnitude than it ever prevented
criminal acts. In Europe, some shooting ranges REQUIRE silencers on rifles
- just like on automobiles. It's a common sense safety precaution when you
actually stop and think about it.
The term "assault weapon" was coined by the HCI types. It has no legal
definition, and no military rifle is ever called an "assault weapon" by the
military. Any weapon - gun, knife, or club - can be an "assault weapon" if
it is used in an attack.
When you get right down to the nitty-gritty, an "assault weapon" is purpose
designed to WOUND, not kill, in battle, as wounded enemy take up much more
of the enemy's resources than dead. These easily carried guns are also
ideal for home defense, and, seeing as the militia is the people, armed
with state of the art MILITARY small arms, it is quite proper to expect
people to buy them and keep them.
We keep forgetting here that the fundamental law, the Second Amendment,
refers to a people's militia, not the National Guard. And to be effective,
the militia needs the same quality guns that the current army has. Under
the Constitution, therefore, it might be OK to ban shotguns and rifles used
only for hunting, but not sawed-off "trench sweepers" or machine guns used
in battle. Hunting is not protected by the Second Amendment. These kinds of
guns definitely are, regardless of passed laws and the opinions of HCI.
>In 1994, a leading law enforcement executive characterized semi-automatic
>assault weapons as nothing more than "cop-killer guns," and at that time
>assault weapons accounted for more than 17% of fatal shootings of police.)
"Cop-killer" has been used a number of times. It is meaningless. There were
bans of "cop killer" bullets - ammo that was ONLY sold to police
departments. These terms are coined to further demonize the product that it
is proposed be banned. More emotion grabbing meaningless words.
>Assault weapon bans work. In 1989, when President Bush stopped the import
>of certain assault rifles, the number of imported assault rifles traced to
>crime dropped by 45 percent in one year. After the 1994 ban, there were
>18% fewer assault weapons traced to crime in the first eight months of
>1995 than were traced in the same period in 1994, and the wholesale price
>of "grandfathered" assault rifles nearly tripled in the first post-ban
>year. Assault weapons are not just "ugly guns." Semi-automatic hunting
>rifles are designed to be fired from the shoulder and depend on the
>accurate shooting of one bullet at a time. Semi-automatic assault weapons
>are designed to be spray-fired from the hip and are designed to maximize
>death and injury from a very rapid rate of fire. Assault weapons are
>designed with military features such as silencers, folding stocks, flash
>suppressors, barrel shrouds and bayonets which are ludicrously unsuited
>for civilian use.
No military weapon except some sniper rifles comes with a silencer, nor are
they issued with guns. The other "hallmarks" of "assault weapons" are all
the "scary" looking parts. There is no difference in lethality between a
"sporting" gun and a military gun - the military gun just looks "meaner"
and more businesslike, while the "sporter" can be beautifully finished and
engraved. Both will kill you dead.
Folding stocks can be fired from the shoulder - that's why they are there.
Fixed stocks without pistol grips can be fired from the waist, with a loss
of accuracy. For covering fire, this is acceptable. Of course a hunter is
interested in accurate shooting - he does not want to waste ammo and scare
dinner away. The soldier in battle also wants to be frugal with ammo, if
possible. An inaccurate gun would kill the soldier using it by preventing
him from efficiently attacking the enemy. So to state that "assault
weapons" cannot be used for hunting is silly, and wrong. Somebody tell me
when the last time a civilian in the USA was injured by a BAYONET for
christsake! (Although a bayonet makes a dandy shiskebob skewer...)
I have a "sporter" AK-47 that hits 3" groups without a scope at 100 yards,
if fired from a bench. My original Romanian Army SKS is even more accurate.
I find it wonderful how HCI can continue to ought right lie and group
machine pistols like the Uzi with true rifles like the AK and SKS.
Stupid laws like the "assault weapon" ban are just incremental gun
prohibition - especially if the definition of "assault weapon" continues to
mutate, like in California. It's not much of a stretch to include all
weapons with barrels shorter than 16" as "assault weapons" - then ALL
handguns are gone, and with them the possibility that women, invalids, and
handicapped persons just might be able to defend themselves against predation.
>Burglary is a crime, but that doesn't mean that everyone should leave
>their doors unlocked because everyone is proactively presumed
>innocent. People both knowingly and unknowingly commit crimes. Closing
>the gun show background check loophole would make it harder for them to do
>so, and thus harder for kids, psychos and violent criminals to obtain the
>quick and easy means to commit long-range mass murder, while not
>interfering in the slightest with the rights of sane and law-abiding
>adults to purchase, keep and bear.
>You can never make it impossible for kids, psychos and violent criminals
>to illegally obtain firearms, but that is no reason not to make it harder
>for them to do so, if it does not interfere with the ability of sane and
>law-abiding adulyts to purchase, keep and bear.
As long as any background check does not prevent a cleared individual from
taking his purchase home with them at the time of the sale, I agree. But
there must be NO listing of the gun itself - registration of the gun is a
precursor to confiscation, as California has amply demonstrated. Waiting
periods kill innocents who need protection NOW, and don't deter those with
grudges - they can wait a day or three if they are really intent on mayhem.
Chuck Kuecker
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon May 28 2001 - 09:50:16 MDT