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>Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2000 18:37:21 -0500
>To: extropians@extropy.org
>From: Chuck Kuecker <ckuecker@mcs.net>
>Subject: Re: GUNS: Why here?
>Reply-To: extropians@extropy.org
>
>At 03:08 PM 10/10/00 -0700, you wrote:
>>The Turner Diaries is a neonazi fantasy about a racist revolution in the
>>US, written by William Pierce, head of the National Alliance, under the
>>pseudonym of Andrew MacDonlad. It was the template for Bob Mathews'
>>organization The Order, which counterfeited money, knocked over armored
>>cars, donating the proceeds to among others, the Aryan Nations, and
>>assassinated Denver Jewish talk show host Alan Berg, as well as for
>>Timothy McVeigh's Oklahoma City Bombing.
>
>Thanks. Now I know not to waste my money there. I enjoy fantasy - but don't
>enjoy being sickened by it. The white power types can raise funds elsewhere.
>
>>Why not consolidate the laws to eliminate the interstate disparities which
>>fuel interstate gun trafficking, rather than have "20,001 laws!" shouted
>>by the NRA?
>
>There needs be only one law - the background check, with swift justice for
>anyone who fails it. And I do mean justice - those who are erroneously
>rejected should not be hassled unduly.
>Unfortunately, this won't stop but some nuts and flakes - the career
>criminals and gangbangers will just go to the black market.
>
>But how can a background check be performed unless every individual in the
>country has a unique ID that can prove that a person is who they say they
>are? We almost have a national driver's license now - and many are afraid
>of the added power that gives the govt. to track people. Perhaps a chip
>implanted at birth - like the "digital angel"? I can see the fundies lining
>up to get their kids "the mark of the beast"...
>
Driver's license (or in it's absence state ID) and Social Security number should be sufficient (the 'two pieces of ID' rule). Some will still be able to circumvent it, but some will be stopped or deterred. There is no perfect, or even perfectable, solution; we just have to do the best we can with the options available to us to keep guns out of the wrong hands while allowing the into the right ones.
>
>>Wrong. #1, I'm not interested in the gun shows being shut down, just for
>>all weapons purchased there to require background checks of the buyer;
>>this could be done by computer or toll-free telephone. #2, there ARE such
>>things as gun shops, gun manufacturers, pawn shops (all of which should
>>have their salse subject to background checks of their buyers, also); gun
>>shows are not the only place for sane law-abiding adulte to buy guns. #3,
>>guns are more expensive, heavier and bulkier (harder to conceal) than
>>pills, powders or joints, they cannot be used without people noticing
>>(even with silencers, there's the whole death thing), and they do not grow
>>on bushes, shrubs or trees, nor are they easy to make (and a zip gun is no
>>match for even a cheap .22).
>
>Silencers don't really silence any more than a truck muffler makes a
>Peterbilt a stealth vehicle. They just cut out the sharp "crack" that can
>damage your hearing. Silencers would be required by a government really
>concerned with health and safety of its' citizens. But - what can you
>expect of a government that makes commercial grain alcohol undrinkable by
>adding deadly poison?
>
>More and more, gun stores are being legislated and zoned out of existence.
>The thrust of HCI and Sarah Brady is nothing less than complete
>disarmement. She has been quoted quite a few times as saying exactly that -
>so don't expect any thinking person to believe anything HCI publishes. The
>facts are inextricably mired in with the outright lies.
>
I quote from:
http://www.handguncontrol.org/facts/ib/assault.asp
Handgun Control works to enact sensible gun control legislation in the United State but does not seek to ban guns.
>
>Again - from HCI's site you posted:
>
>Assault weapons were used…
>
> To kill 5 children and wound 29 others in a
>Stockton, CA schoolyard in 1989. The AK-47 held 75 - that’s right, 75 -
>bullets.
>
>Wow. 75! I know where to get a 100 - round mag to fit an AK. Not cheap, but
>legal. And it makes the already large and obvious AK look like something
>Arnold would carry. Not stealthy.
>
Doesn't have to be in a schoolyard or firefight.
>
> To kill 8 people and 6 others at a San Francisco
>law firm in 1993. Two TEC-9’s with 50-round magazines were used in the
>massacre.
>
>If you limit mag size, the baddies will just fill their pockets with more
>magazines.
>
Well, put them to the trouble. They can be stopped while they're changing them.
>
> To kill 2 CIA employees and wound three others
>outside Langley, VA headquarters in 1993
>
>This was a former CIA type, was it not? A falling out amongst thieves!
>
No, it was a middle eastern terrorist type, I believe.
>
> To kill 4 ATF special agents and wound 16 others
>with an arsenal of assault weapons at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco,
>TX, when the officers were attempting to serve warrants on
>the cult in 1993
>
>The ATF fired first - the people inside defended themselves. It's still not
>proven just who shot who - some accounts have the ATF firing wildly through
>smoke, hitting their own people.
>ATF are tax collectors. If we need an "assault weapons" ban, it should be
>for these goons. If a taxman needs armed backup, let them call in the cops
>or federal marshals.
>It's funny how it becomes a "cult" because HCI needs to make their point,
>isn't it?
>
Well, David Koresh WAS forbidding couples to have sex, and arrogating mating privileges, complete with beer and rock guitar, to himself for the pretty wives and nubile girls (13 and up). That kinda sexual control isn't a result of a democratic system, and it most definitely constitutes child abuse. However, they should've arrested him outside the compound when they had the chance.
>
>They forgot the infamous shootout in California where a couple of thugs
>with AKs and SKSs shot the hell out of the cops - the cops needed to go
>into a gun store for arms! This was what prompted the Ca. bans. But if they
>mentioned that one, they would have had to acknowledge that the cops got
>civilian "assault rifles" at the store and were able to turn the tables
>with them. Not the point HCI wanted to make, I guess.
>
It's still a good point; it's better to have the police better armed than the criminals, rather than the other way around. We Floridians saw way too much of the other way during the Cocaine Cowboy '80's.
>
>If you add up all the "mass shootings" and compare them to the atrocities
>committed by police and govt. agents in the same time period, I bet you
>come out about even. Got to look into that...
>
Please do, and lemme know whatcha find.
>
>>The armed guard at Littleton was no help, but I would prefer that only
>>guards be armed. Otherwise, since people do flip out occasionally, there
>>would be a greater chance that the occasionally postalgoing teacher would
>>find him/herself with a gun and a lot of little targets.
>
>Incompetent guard, then. Probably like the on-duty cop at my high school in
>Chicago in the '60's - in the lunchroom with the cooks, mooching food. Of
>course, back then, the ROTC had rifle drill with real M1 Garands, and
>target shooting with air rifles. The biggest thing the cop had to do was
>break up an occasional fistfight.
>
>Last "postal" teacher I heard of shot HERSELF to gain publicity about the
>"problem" of guns in schools.
>
I'd rather that school guards (and bank guards, as well) be fit and well trained instead of obese or frail geezers supplementing their retirement. I do NOT want teachers armed in class, any more than I want school guards teaching english composition, physics or chemistry; I'd much rather leave each profession to its respective professionals.
>
>| There is one I've heard of; I think it was the Pearl, Mississippi
>shooting, where an assistant principal had a gun. Here in Pensacola, we
>had a teacher's car broken into in the school |parking lot and her gun
>stolen. Walking around 180 days a year arould a thousand little hands with
>your piece on your hip is not a good idea for most teachers either.
>
>Yep, that's one. Another was a hall owner who stopped a student with a gun
>from shooting a group of kids at the hall. He had a shotgun behind the
>counter. Ohio, if I am not mistaken.
>
Hadn't heard about that one. know any more about it?
>
>Metal lockboxes are available for auto use - they bolt through the floor,
>and are virtually theftproof unless the thief has a torch or cutoff saw.
>Responsible gun owners don't leave weapons unsecured in a vehicle.
>
>Admittedly, carrying a gun is not for everyone. But what about the "Officer
>Friendly" who comes in armed and ready? Perhaps we should teach the kids
>from kindergarten on about gun safety. Namely - NRA's Eddie Eagle - "Don't
>Touch! Leave the area! Tell an adult!". Give them a fighting chance. As
>long as there are guns, there's a risk. We teach them about STDs...
>
Eddie Eagle's message tends to glamorize gun ownership as a badge of adulthood and coolness, with a cartoon character to hook the message, much as Joe Camel did for tobacco. Kids should know not to touch guns, and to tell a responsible adult about guns they find, but a child safety program cannot substitute for adult responsibility, only supplement it, and I have concerns about a propagandized 'NRA Youth".
>
>Kids who grow up with guns in the overwhelming majority grow up to never
>point one at another human being. Harris and Klebold are among the few -
>outnumbered millions to one.
>
5,285 kids (under 19) are a lot to lose in a year. That's just the US, and the combined totals of great britain, france, germany, canada and japan for that year is 338. And for every child killed four are wounded. According to the Centers for Disease Control, the rate of firearm death of children 0-14 years old is nearly twelve times higher in the U.S. than in 25 other industrialized nations combined. Over 6,000 students were expelled in 1996-97 for bringing guns to school. The Journal of the American Medical Association reports that between
36% and 50% of male eleventh graders believe they could easily get a gun if they wanted one. Guns do kill people, especially when wielded by children. More than 800 Americans, young and old, die each year from guns shot by children under the age of 19. In 1996, more than 1300 children aged 10-19 committed suicide with firearms. Unlike suicide attempts using other methods, suicide attempts with gun are nearly always fatal, meaning a temporarily depressed teenager will never get a second chance at life. Two-thirds of all completed teenage suicides involve a firearm. The firearm injury epidemic, due largely to handgun injuries, is ten times larger than the polio epidemic of the first half of this century. As the rate of American gun violence dramatically increased over the last fifteen years, American children paid the price. From 1984 to 1994 the firearm death rate for 15-19 year olds increased 222% while the non-firearm homicide death rate decreased almost 13%. Within fi!
ve years, firearms are expected to overtake motor vehicle accidents as the leading cause of death among American children.
>
>There are some little kids that were effectively killed recently by the
>State of California's child safety law - when the naked guy with the
>pitchfork broke in, the oldest child could not unlock Daddy's gun to
>attempt to defend her siblings. I hold the lawmakers responsible for this
>kind of incident.
>
>Here in Illinois, the first kid killed by an improperly stored gun after
>the child protection law took effect was the child of a Cook County
>Sheriff's deputy. The sheriff now has ordered all his men to keep their
>service guns locked up whenever they are at home. So now the crooks in Cook
>County know that it's safer to break into a cop's home than a plain old
>citizen's - the cop, by law, can't have protection available.
>
>Stupid, well-meaning laws.
>
They'll most likely save a lot more lives than they lose; if people are gonna sue either way, there will be many more suits for many more deaths without such laws.
>
>>The reference to 52 Queens is from the movie "The Manchurian Candidate",
>>where the sight of a red queen was the trigger to activate brainwashed
>>assassins.
>
>Thanks. Need to get that from Blockbuster - never watched it, always wondered..
>
It's really cool; it stars Frank Sinatra, who really was a fine actor.
>
>Chuck Kuecker
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