Re: vision2020-digest Digest V99 #61

[curley@CYPHER.TURBONET.COM]

> From:          Erikus4@aol.com
> Date:          Wed, 24 Mar 1999 13:31:43 EST
> To:            vision2020@moscow.com
> Subject:       Re: vision2020-digest Digest V99 #61

> >So if a 17-year-old student takes a gun to school, that is nuts.  If 
> >she turns 18 and gets a concealed weapon permit, then no problem,
> > right?
> 
> Firstly, unless this new law changes the age requirement for a permit, the age
> would remain at 21.  There are other laws involved here and, not being 18, I'm
> not certain of their participation in this hypothetical.
>
> Secondly, even if true, this is a problem with many laws.  In order to have a
> system, there must be certain arbitrary dividing lines.  
	Right.  So how about the idea that guns don't go into schools, 
courhouses (hey, we know there are criminals there, what better place 
for the concealed weapon permittee to carry??), churches, etc.  One 
assumption you make below is that the "law abiding" carrier isn't the 
criminal so s/he must be protected from the criminals with guns by 
carrying themselves.  But, that is a circular argument that begs the 
question of who is the criminal.  I don't believe that simply because 
someone has a permit to carry a concealed weapon that the person 
won't commit a crime with it.  Further, and of probably much greater 
importance in the discussion are the factors of accident and 
availability.  Law abiding people can mishandle a gun, lose it, store 
it improperly (take off a jacket, leave it rolled inside, etc),  
show it off (here take a look at my new 9mm semi-automatic Buttbuster 
2000), and do myriad other things that contribute to the "freak" 
accident that would never happen if the gun simply weren't there.  
And nobody is buying the argument that a few concealed weapon 
permittees are protecting themselves or others from the occasional 
crazy who walks in with a rifle or shotgun (as most have) and starts 
blasting away.
	Availability of a gun in any situation makes it much more readily 
the first resort to settling disputes or even frustrations.  We don't 
already ask our school staffs to do enough, let's make them face 
angry parents who are ARMED.  Passion, heat of the moment, or just a 
bad temper has led more than a few otherwise law-abiding folks to 
kill or maim in an instant of weapon availability that would never 
have happened  if the moment passed without a gun at hand.  If we 
have to arbitrarily draw lines on the who, what, and where of certain 
prohibited actions, keeping guns out of specific places is high on my 
list of good ideas.  Day care centers, schools, courts, bars, 
churches, and voting locations sound like good places right off the 
top of my head.

The whole idea of
> having adults who are subject to the parental authority of a school is rather
> troublesome, but no one is up in arms about it.  I went to a high school where
> adult students were "swatted".  Anywhere but in school that would be battery.
> Minors are presumed to be deficient in certain respects.  Once majority is
> reached they should be treated as adults.  I have no better solution than some
> arbitrary age requirement.  I doubt you have a better solution.
> 
> If an adult follows the regulatory scheme and obtains the permit, I don't know
> that we should be limiting their ability to protect themselves.  Is anyone
> going to hold that schools are violence-free zones?  It's kind of ironic that
> some of the locations where private protection is most desired are the same
> areas where we attempt to prohibit law-abiding possession.  (Schools, with the
> increase of school shootings, and college campuses, with their rates of
> forcible rape (felony) both spring to mind.)
> 
> And your Germany and England examples are not directly analogous.  If the US
> would have gotten on the problem early enough they might be more relevant, but
> we now have a tremendous problem with criminals and firearms, and taking
> firearms from law-abiding citizens DOES NOT SOLVE THE PROBLEM.  Criminals want
> guns.  We CANNOT stop them from getting guns.  We're not trying to head-off a
> future problem, we have a problem RIGHT now.
>
	Could we see the statistics on the number of crimes that have been 
stopped because citizens	were carrying a weapon, concealed or not.  
Not counting weapons stashed at a workplace or in the home--weapons 
being carried around by that "law-abiding citizen."  And then let's 
look at the number of shootings attributable to "accidents" with 
concealed weapons, police shooting a law-abiding citizen with a 
weapon in his hand (it is awfully hard to distinguish the 
"law-abiding" from time to time, children dead from the concealed 
weapon daddy carries that he forgot to secure for the night (no, in 
fairness we can't count the dead from the guns that always stay in 
the house for this particular comparison),  the number killed by 
the carrier "going off," and the number killed by mistake (I thought 
he was a robber, but it turns out he was just counting his change;  I 
shot at the criminal, but I hit my pal Beavis instead).  
	I'm afraid the support for carrying concealed weapons generally and 
arguments against even minor forms of gun control come down to a 
Constitutional argument only and are not supported by relevant data.  
The NRA seems to find nothing relevant that does not support it's 
position, and there is of course, an opposite extreme that would 
likewise discount the most scientific of studies.  In the middle is a 
vast number of people who thinks that it isn't truly our Constitution 
that is killing us, but our interpretations of it and the 
unwillingness of our elected officials to deny the gun lobby's 
tactics and take the power away from them.  Neither preparing for nor 
making war on one another will improve the situation in a ghetto in 
Philadelphia or the streets of Moscow, USA.  

> As for guns being stolen from vehicles...do you realize that many laws require
> people to leave their guns in their vehicle rather than carry them?  If I'm
> carrying my handgun they'll just about have to kill me to get it.  If it's in
> my car they just have to take the car or forcibly remove it.
>
	I'm not thinking that many people who want to find a gun with which 
to commit some other crime will run the risk of trying to steal one 
from a car in a school parking lot.  Unless the owner leaves the 
weapon on the seat in plain view and the door unlocked.  I can hear a 
couple of guys now--"hey Billy Bob, let's run over the closest school 
and break into the trunk of all the cars there and see if we can find 
a handgun."  Not happenin'


> Do you know that the prevention of "thousands" (tens of thousands? hundreds of
> thousands?) of people from buying  firearms through the actions of the Brady
> Bill and such have led to the prosecution of only a handful of people?  I seem
> to recall that out of the many thousand of felons and criminals (as the anti-
> gunners put it) who have been stopped, less than two dozen have been
> prosecuted.  (Not that the "thousands" statistic is accurate anyway. . .)
> Shouldn't that bother you more than trying to disarm law-abiding citizens?

	It's a huge leap to say that not wanting concealed weapons in school 
is wanting to disarm law-abiding citizens.  I didn't see anyone 
saying that in our most recent discussions about what many of us see 
as a ludicrous Idaho statute if Gov. Kempthorne decides to sign it.

> Why aren't the current laws being enforced?  Why haven't "thousands" of felons
> been prosecuted for attempting to obtain a firearm?  Why aren't the anti's in
> an uproar over this?
> 
> Answer: because the anti's are NOT concerned about OUR welfare, but about
> their own position.  A new law proposal gets headlines.  Solving the problem
> by prosecuting criminals puts them out of a job.  They are blowing smoke up
> the collective ass of America.
>
	Well, it's dramatic rhetoric, but not very persuasive or effective. 
"The Antis?"  "Our" "Blowing smoke up..."  Please.  That is just 
non-sense.  You are suggesting that the new law that BROADENS the 
scope of concealed weapon carrying gets headlines and that Antis got 
the law passed so they could make the headlines and then blow the 
smoke.  I don't think so.  Prosecuting criminals puts "them" out of a 
job.  Gosh, if there is a vast money-making scheme in Moscow I don't 
know about, please let me know more about it.  I can work for it even 
if I am against gun control since the scheme is obviously NOT 
working.  
	Nobody has railed against your carrying a handgun if you have 
a permit for one.  Whether that is really necessary or reasonable 
here in Moscow could be debated at length, but it's your right to 
exercise if you choose.  I prefer you keep it out of my child's 
school if you happen to go there for whatever reason.  And I might 
point out that every gun owner is a "law-abiding citizen" until s/he 
misuses the gun.  Then s/he is a criminal.  And unfortunately, they 
don't change the color of their hats as they did in the early cowboy 
movies so one can know on which side of the law they stand.  And you 
aren't going to stop many crimes by shootouts in the street.  You say 
someone will have to nearly kill you to take your weapon?  Really?  
So if someone happens to know you carry a really nice .357, 
approaches you from behind, sticks his .38 to your head and pulls 
back the hammer, you're going to fuss with him then and there?  Not 
if you are as knowledgeable about guns as you appear to be.


 
> Erik O'Daniel
> 
> 
Mike Curley
reply to: curley@turbonet.com
208-882-3536