Re: Scare of the day...

In <1a02f740-a13e-43ad-acf1-90579e00a1b2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
bill.sloman@xxxxxxxx wrote:

<SNIP everything previously quoted more than twice, and I hope I got that
right>

On Jun 28, 2:00 pm, d...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Don Klipstein) wrote:
In <c520c3db-ece0-447e-b31b-376d4df85...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Richard Henry wrote:

So everyone is limited to single-shot muskets and handguns?

  I would think closer to limiting to weapons that people would not keep
in home and carry out of home except when being obviously hunting or
defending their freedom.

  Although I recently previously proposed allowing band on everything
under .50 caliber and worth firing if of length 399 mm or shorter, I am
now in a fair mood to allow also shotguns of 12-16 gauge and .30-06,
.30-30 and .223 rifles as well as everything reasonably worth calling an
"elephant gun".
  I don't like hunting, but it appears to me that fighting hunting in
America even nowadays is far from a well-chosen battle.
  Sometimes I think that those holding up check cashing joints with
sawed-off shotguns and (less common) sawed-down .30-06 rifles are better
controlled by crime control means rather than gun control means.

  However, I would like to limit weapon ownership to be in the *bigger*
side of wherever a line gets to be drawn.  Common criminals mostly carry
handguns.  Less-common more-brazen criminals carry smaller-size semi-auto
and full-auto guns along the lines of mac-10's and Uzis, or sawed-down
hunting firearms.  People defend their homes well with full-length hunting
weapons, as well as anything they generally don't get arrested for having
unless they commit wrongdoing that causes a warrant to be issued (or
outright cause for immediate arrest).
  One's home is one's castle.  Should I have an AK-47 at home, I feel
reasonably safe from getting in trouble from having it unless I actually
do criminal wrongdoing with it.
  (Should I use my supposed AK-47 to keep myself from being murdered by an
armed burglar, I would prefer to live in an area where most jurors would
not uphold a criminal charge against me resulting from the police finding
such a machine within my home while my home was being an actively
police-investigated crime scene.
  One thing resulting from this is that I regularly practice (along
with some martial arts training, namely Tae Kwan Do karate to a basic
"yellow belt" level) aiming and throwing largish power transformers.  
Transformers to use as human-thrown missiles have low
regulation/restriction by law, but are not quite as effective as
lead-throwing shooting irons against home intruders and street robbers,
and are a lot less effective than "Vulcan" high speed 20 and 30 mm
"gatling guns" against what a "well regulated" (even well-equipped)
"militia" would fight against.)

What this whole discussion ignores that "well regulated mitlitias" are
only effective if they train together, and the revolutionary militias
in the American war of independence were repeatedly trounced by better
trained units of the British army. It took Washington a long time and
a lot of training to get his ideologically sound but organisationally
challenged volunteers up to a standard where they could win a pitched
battle against British regular forces (and then only with an
appreciablel numberical advantage).

Arming the population is just a waste of time if you don't organise
them into stable units who train together.

The NRA much touted anecdote about armed citizens shooting burglars
ignores the fact that is that this hardly ever happens,

Much more common is burglars being deterred before shots are fired.

and the most likely target of a home-owners gun is the home-owner themself
(closely followed by their nearest and dearest) who exploit their
defensive weaponry to shoor themselves dead in moments of suicidal
depression. There are many other means of committing suicide while the
balance of your mind is temporarily disturbed, but few succeed as
frequently as the hand-gun.

Sadly, that is true.

However, I find it a higher priority to allow law abiding citizens to
have weapons that criminals get so that they can fight back against
criminals, than to protect suicidal people from having one specific
(though more effective) suicide means.

I find crime of the sort that occurs more where there are municipal gun
restriction laws to be a bigger issue on even a nationwide-USA scale than
suicide.

- Don Klipstein (don@xxxxxxxxx)
.

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