On Sun, 24 Oct 2004 14:43:50 -0700, Larry Jaques
wrote:
On Sun, 24 Oct 2004 13:29:38 -0500, Prometheus
calmly ranted:
All right, all right- fine. There are all sorts of military and
guerrilla tactics to accomplish almost any sort of military goal.
That's freely granted. What isn't is my consent for every damn yahoo
on the block to have a machine gun so that they can shoot up the
neighborhood whenever they see a property tax increase.
Gun owners aren't the ones shooting up the neighborhood. Look
at any stat sheet by any group who has looked into it and you'll
see that. Criminals are the ones doing it. And they do it more
often with handguns than they do with assault rifles by a ratio
of nearly 100:1.
Again, I've seen all the stats. I'm not disagreeing with the
principle, but with the overblown rhetoric. The "they're gonna take
away mah gunz" folks are not always looking at the sane aspect of gun
ownership- they're often pushing for a personal right to fill up their
lawns with claymore mines and mount an anit-aircraft battery on the
roof. Call it hyperbole if you like, but I was raised by militia
supporters, and they and all their friends used the same damn
arguments. They were dangerous people with a high level of mental
illness, and I'm not going to defend that kind of loonyness.
The odds are MUCH greater for death by doctor/hospital than
death by machine gun fire.
The old San Francisco Madame herself shows that assault weapon
use is way down there, near the 1:100 rate.
http://feinstein.senate.gov/03Releas...twepsrate1.htm
I used to be anti-handgun until a friend had me look into it.
I did a 180 degree spin [joining Gary Kleck (a Florida criminology
professor) and Hans Toch (Professor at the School of Criminology,
NY State University Albany)] after reading stats from all sorts of
places, reading a good half-dozen books on the subject, and asking
the right questions. I dare you to do the same research.
I own a handgun. And a shotgun. And a rifle. Even some knives, too.
Your dare is a little weak- sometimes it takes a little courage to
look at the reasonable side of things, rather than just assuming that
"they're" out to get you.
Some good books:
"ARMED" by Gary Kleck & Don Yates
"More Guns, Less Crime" by John R. Lott
Some stats:
http://www.firearmsid.com/Feature%20...in%20Crime.htm
http://www.sfu.ca/~mauser/index1.html
http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcdguse.html
http://www.guncite.com/ spend some time here
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/guic.pdf
http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/1010111/posts
The 10% of people who are against guns are all misled but are
keeping the lies alive. For your (our) own good, DO look into
it yourselves.