"Robert Green" wrote in message
...

Your average liquor store robber can't afford a pair of Glocks, he's
going
to have some piece-of-crap Lorcin or something similar, a .32 or
.380--that
he can afford.

That's an interesting supposition, but that's all it is and it doesn't pan
out when you review the historical facts.

Why do you suppose US LEO's have gone from the well-known, nearly standard
.38 police special six shooter wheelgun to side arms like the
semi-automatic
Beretta 9mm and the .40 Glock?

Because more criminals are carrying high-capacity semi-autos and the dreaded
"assault weapons" (which few in the news media can accurately define), but
please note the cops are not carrying .50 elephant-killer handguns *or*
cut-down shotguns.

Here you go again, creating a whole weapons distribution system based on
purportedly rational economic decisions made by street thugs (more
specifically, your favorite straw man, the "average liquor store robber" -
if there even IS such a thing). If these stickup artists had any rational
economic sense, they WOULDN'T BE STICKUP ARTISTS.

Your average drug addict (just to give you something else to chew on) isn't
noted for his rational decision making.

And now you're postulating a "Thug Rent-a-Gun" hidden economy where
"hoods"
check out guns the way normal people rent DVDs. Where's your proof? Your
OOYA facts are getting thinner with each paragraph and your supporting
documentation for your claims is, as always, non-existent. You simply
expect us to believe what you say because you're you. Sorry, but I don't.
What you call "facts" are hunches at best, wild supposition at worst.

Let me get this straight: when I don't provide citations to back up what I
say, I'm making it up. But when you say "cops" (plural) keep sawed-off
shotguns in their bedrooms for their wives to use against burglars based on
a cop you say you know who does that, it's gospel. I need proof, you get to
just make a claim. Does that about sum it up?

The top ten guns used in crime, as reported by the ATF in 1993, included
the
Smith & Wesson .38 Special and .357 revolvers; Raven Arms .25 caliber,
Davis
P-380 .380 caliber, Ruger .22 caliber, Lorcin L-380 .380 caliber, and
Smith
& Wesson semi-automatic handguns; Mossberg and Remington 12 gauge
shotguns;
and the Tec DC-9.[77

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_vio..._United_States

Excellent, that's backing up your position. I have no problem accepting
that the statistics show that about 60% of the guns used in crimes (although
we haven't been provided a breakdown by type of crime) are not junk guns.
I'd like to know how many of those crimes were suicides, arguments between
friends or relatives, violations of gun laws like improper storage or
transport, and so on. Because once we eliminate crimes committed by people
who aren't career criminals, who knows, the number might change quite a bit.
Or alternatively if we consider crimes committed only by career criminals
the percentage of "junk guns" used might go up.

Mossbergs, S&W's, Rugers, .357's, Remingtons - not quite the cheap, low
caliber guns you continually (and without an iota of proof) would have us
believe all street criminals use - no, wait, it's not all - your straw man
is the "average liquor store" robber. Let's keep our facts lined up.

Hey, a magic trick. Four of the weapons listed above do qualify as junk
guns/Sat. Night Specials, but suddenly they're gone, you've edited them out
of the discussion. That's slick.

Does that mean it's of any less value when it's taken out of circulation?

Whaaat? Where did that excursion come from? We were talking about guns
used in "liquor store robberies" - well at least you were. While it seems
you're not prepared to admit it, but there is a substantial difference
between a gun taken from under the seat of some poor working dude that has
to go to very bad neighborhood at times and the gun that is fired at cops
or
your ubiquitous "liquor store clerk."

Whoa, didn't you just say the hypothetical SNS gun was found when the driver
was "arrested for drugs or something similar"?

So which is it, is he a doper (or something similar) the cops spotted and
pulled over, or is he a poor working dude who has done nothing wrong other
than carry a defensive weapon? It would help if you decided which horse you
were going to ride for at least awhile.

Cops know and appreciate that fact.
They have been known to "look the other way" if someone's got no priors
and
lives in a neighborhood so bad even the cops don't like patrolling it.
It's
part of the ever-shrinking discretion they can use in deciding what crimes
need thorough prosecution.

As it happens I am descended from a woman who used a firearm, in fact a
handgun (which had come back from Europe as a war souvenir) to defend
herself and her two young children from a violent intruder into their home.
So yeah, I know how that works, although I'm not sure the weapon in question
was actually illegal at the time, although for sure nothing was said by the
cops about the warning shot she fired to scare away the intruder who was
breaking down her front door. They were probably mostly veterans with
families at the time, they didn't even take the gun.

A crappy .25 can kill you just as dead as a thousand-dollar pistol.

Yes, so can a nuclear bomb, but please, try to keep on point here. You're
arguing against yourself. First you're trying to tell us that crooks
don't
use big fancy guns, and now you're telling us it doesn't matter what they
use, because a .25 will kill you as dead as a .50 cal S&W 500. Based on
this new premise, why not have all the LEO's armed with .25 automatics
then?

*You* referred to "other weapons that you see next to the Glocks"--by which
you presumably meant the junk guns I was discussing. So I pointed out those
guns can kill just as dead as a more powerful/expensive gun, and that caused
you to leap to nuclear weapons, which is understandable considering that
discussing sawed-off shotguns leads you to claim they shouldn't be illegal
because there are .50 elephant-killer pistols available.

You seem to have a problem with the concept that just as there are poor
working dudes who can't afford good guns, there are poor working criminals
who also can afford junk guns rather than the good stuff. Seems quite
simple to me, oh well.

. . . . It's because a .25 MIGHT kill you if the shooter's lucky and maybe
you're naked. On the other hand, a 9mm or .40 cal FMJ round will kill
you
with certainty if it comes anywhere near a vital organ

Amazing, although there seem to be many folks who have suffered gunshot
wounds in and around vital organs and survived, but if you say a 9mm/.40
anyway near a vital organ means certain death, well then that *must* be the
case. [rolls eyes]

Here, read this, then tell me again how 9mm/.40 gunshots "anywhere near a
vital organ" will certainly kill you. Or you could consider not making up
silly **** based on what your shooting instructor told you (and who probably
laughed about it later with his buddies at the bar).

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1493651/

From July 1983 through December 1987, 300 consecutive patients with
penetrating gunshot wounds of the abdomen causing visceral or vascular
injuries were treated. Resuscitative thoracotomy was required in 20 patients
(6.6%), and only two survived. The most commonly injured organs were the
small bowel (60%), colon (41.6%), liver (29.3%), vascular structures
(24.6%), stomach (17.3%), and kidney (17.0%). The overall survival rate for
the series was 88.3%; however, if only the 226 patients without vascular
injuries are considered, the survival rate was 97.3%. In the 35 patients who
died, the blood pressure on admission was 51 mmHg, 18 required a
resuscitative thoracotomy, four visceral or vascular injuries were present,
and the median blood replacement was 18 units. The cause of death was
perioperative shock in 30 patients (85.7%), whereas five patients (14.3%)
died of sepsis and multiple organ failure. The most common postoperative
complication in survivors and patients who died later in the study was an
intra-abdominal abscess (3.0%). Rapid conservative operative techniques for
civilian gunshot wounds leads to few postoperative complications and an
excellent survival rate, especially if vascular injuries are not present.

and even if you're
wearing 3 leather jackets and perhaps even a vest. Boost that to a .50
cal
exiting the barrel with 2600 ft/lbs of muzzle energy you can die from the
hydrostatic shock of being nicked, or so said my firearms instructor.

Oh dear. If you can document anyone dying from being "nicked" (other than
by slow blood loss or infection) from any handgun round, let's see it. I
believe it's in one of Jim Cirillo's videos (NYPD Stakeout Squad cop who won
17 gunfights) where he discusses how unpredictable the effects of gunshot
wounds are. If memory serves he said something like he saw guys shot with
..22s instantly fall down, and guys hit with a 12-gauge run half a mile
before collapsing and dying of blood loss. But if you say just being grazed
with a high-powered round will kill you, then again it just *must* be true
and you sure don't need any documentation to back that up. [shakes head]

My so called "theatrics" are simply a way to compare two possible
defensive
firearms in a way people can viscerally understand. One, the sawn-off
shotgun, which is illegal, can kill an intruder without careful aim

So in one post you tell us we shouldn't use a shotgun with a legal (18")
barrel because the bad guy might grab the barrel and disarm us. But now
you're in effect telling us that at what must be the same barrel-grabbing
distance, shot from a sawed-off will spread so fast that said bad guy will
be hit even if the weapon isn't aimed too well, despite it being pointed out
elsewhere in the thread than an 8"-barrel shotgun spread shot only to 8" at
20' as opposed to 6" with a 20" barrel. What do you suppose the spread will
be at 3'? So I have to choose between someone who built one to test the
theory, vs. a guy who believes fairy tales told to him by a shooting
instructor--what a cruel dilemma.

What miraculous piece of physics are you relying on to make your sawed-off
hit someone no matter how bad your aim? Please explain how that 8" spread
of shot at 20' will become the two or three feet of spread at only 3' range
that your scenario requires.

and
without collateral damage from over-penetration of the target. The other,
a
"street legal" firearm, can pierce the very thick skull of the world's
largest land animal and do enough damage to kill it almost instantly.
Why
is one with relatively good self-defense properties illegal other than a
decision by some Dillinger-crazed official from decades ago, determined to
solve a social problem with yet another rule.

And we're back to killing elephants, as if the sole question when
determining the legality of a firearm is how lethal is it to pachyderms.

You can have a variety of legitimate reasons to own a Glock, or Kimber,
or
Ruger etc., but you'd be hard-pressed to explain why you want to own a
cut-down shotgun.

It's very easy to explain why cops and others keep them under the bed for
their wives to use.

Because you say so, based on one cop you say you know who does so.

Now pay attention, because no matter how many times I
say this, you retreat to your unsupported contention that SBSs have no
legitimate value and that's simply not true. A sawed-off shotgun is the
"under the bed" weapon of choice for a number of people

A carefully unspecified number, somewhere between one and infinity, and need
I point out, undocumented?

because a) they
don't require careful aim to defend their owners and b) their killing
power
is relatively contained. A FMJ round from a Glock could easily miss and
plow right through the wallboard and kill the kids sleeping in the next
room.

What kind of idiot uses FMJ ammo in a defensive handgun? One of the
arguments for the use of hollow-point ammo employed in court by firearms
experts like Massad Ayoob is that it is far less likely to penetrate walls
or ricochet. Ayoob successfully defends people who use firearms in self
defense, while you're a guy who believes an instructor who tells him utter
hogwash about people dying from hydrostatic shock from being "nicked" by
high-powered weapons--who to believe, who to believe?

A round from the S&W 500 could easily kill the kids sleeping in the
house next door and then kill the dog, too. Or is killing one of you own
children a better thing in your world than owning the tool of the Devil
himself, the SBS?

Do you actually collect logical fallacies, or do you just like to employ
them as often as possible?

Precisely backwards. The laws ARE mostly based on killing power,
forbidding
TNT, machine guns, bazookas and the like. The SBS got lumped in with the
rest of them. While machine guns and TNT still have respectable lethality
compared to other available firearms, the SBS is really no more lethal
than
a long barrel shotgun, it's simply slightly more concealable, but
certainly
no more concealable than a pistol with 50 or 100 times the "killing
power."
You're the one obsessed with the belief that a cut-down shotgun has no
other
than criminal use. That's completely untrue and you haven't made a
scintilla of a case showing otherwise. Using your somewhat bizarre logic
about what it COULD be used for, all men should be arrested for rape
because
the have penises, the number one tool of the rapist, and most of them keep
it concealed. Your claims just don't pass the smell test.

Can you define "logic" for me? If so, can you explain why you avoid its
use? Because equating the possession of an illegal weapon used almost
exclusively by criminals (except, apparently, for one cop in DC) with being
born with a penis is so far from being a logical argument that I almost
think that's the effect you're going for.

Since hunting, target shooting and self-defense are at best dubious
activities with such
a weapon, all that is left is crime.

Ah, we're up to "at best dubious." So, even though it's well known that
at
least a few cops sleep very well at night with an "alley sweeper" under
the
bed,

LOL, says you, again without documentation. Did you take a course or
something, Dirty Debating 101? First, make a claim that cannot be verified.
Second, quote the claim as if it's documented fact. Simple, provided you
lack integrity.

you insist that these weapons are somehow "accursed items" (sarcasm
alert!) that will do devilish things just because they are so damn
devilish.

No, actually, I think they do devilish things because every time we hear of
one it's being held up by a cop at press conference after an inter-agency
task force has busted a street gang and seized their stolen pistols, rifles
and shotguns (the latter so often being chopped down for some mysterious
reason).

Why do those cops take such a substantial risk? Because a short-barreled
shotgun is not just a good weapon in certain circumstances, it's the ideal
one. While there are some cops that don't know a lot about firearms or
who
handle them too casually, when a cop risks a big federal "beef" over what
he
keeps under the bed, there's got to be a reason. And it's not that he's
planning to rob a liquor store.

Once again your logic is lacking. You admit cops sometimes do foolish
things with guns, then you turn around and insist that in *this case* if a
cop does it, it must therefore not be foolish. See the lack of logic there?
No? Don't care, you're right because you say you're right? Gotchya.

It's like being caught with lock-picks, burglary tools, gloves, a mask, a
police scanner and the plans to alarm
systems of local businesses--other than burglary, what exactly did you
have in mind?

Whaaat? You're at it again, comparing the possession of ONE sawed off
shotgun to having six items that, when combined together, clearly indicate
a
criminal intent. You're reaching hard to prove a point that can't be
proven, namely that SBS's have no self-defense value. If the Feds storm
your house and find one there, it should be a case of "So F'ing what?"
It's
clearly not being used in a crime, it's not even taken outside the house.

So by that "logic" if the feds raid raid my house and find heroin, TNT and
bio-warfare weapons, your advice to my lawyer would be to mount a defense
based on, "So F'ing what?" It's clearly not being used in a crime, it's not
even taken outside the house"--correct?

Yet it can earn you legal trouble out the wazoo. That's just wrong. Use
it
in a crime, and I'm more than happy to see you go away for life. Have it
your house for self-defense? It's none of the Feds goddamn business. I,
for one, think the Feds already have their noses in enough places that
*should* be none of their business. Your arguments have far more merit
concerning silencers. There are very few legitimate uses for them, even
in
law enforcement. Someone walking around with a silenced pistol is usually
up to no good.

Holy crap, it's like watching someone argue that cannabis should be legal
because he knows a cop in DC who smokes it but hashish should be illegal
because those who posses it are usually up to no good.

You're still missing the point, the technical details are irrelevant.

Only to you because they refute the erroneous claims you continue to make.

Yeah, all those terrified elephants are proof-positive.

You're not allowed to possess high explosives, and the relative level of
danger between dynamite and TNT and C4 isn't the issue, the issue is
you're not a licensed demo technician.

Oh my! Now you are comparing SBS's to high explosives. Why not nukes?
If
you're going to reach as far as that to make an unprovable point, why not
go
for the ludicrous extreme?

Tell me why having a short-barreled, easy to maneuver gun that even a
cop's
wife can use and that WON'T kill your kids sleeping in the room next door
if
you miss is impossible to consider as a self-defense weapon?

I didn't say it's "impossible to consider as a self-defense weapon," I said
it's illegal because it's widely abused by criminals and is not used for
sport or competition or (by anyone with any sense) as a defensive weapon.
I'm one of those personal responsibility folks, and I think if you're going
to keep a gun in your bedroom you should take the time to learn to use it
properly. There are no miracle guns, and someone who hands his untrained
wife a cut-down shotgun in hopes it will save her from a violent intruder is
a *moron*.

There are no legitimate uses for a cut-down shotgun any more than there
are legitimate reasons for unlicensed ownership of TNT--end of story.

Yes, it's the end of the story because when you compare an SBS that a cop
keeps under his bed so his wife can defend herself WITHOUT killing the
neighbors or the kids sleeping in the next room with a high explosive like
TNT, capable of killings hundreds at a time, you've left the realm of
reality.

It's called an "analogy"--a common rhetorical device used for illustration.
What you are doing is called "hysterical intentional misinterpretation".
Okay, I made that one up, but it sure fits.

Sorry, but I don't really want to be a tour director for anyone's
excursions
into the Twilight Zone. More than one cop I know is willing to risk a
federal rap to keep his family safe.

So you say, and of course I believe every word. Really. Oddly enough none
of the half-dozen friends and family members I know who carry badges uses a
sawn-off shotgun to arm his wife, including the one whose beat includes
high-level drug dealers and biker gangs, fancy that.

Those are people who truly believe
that a short-barreled shotgun is the right weapon for the kind of home
defense threats that cops and their families face from psycho perps and
they're putting up a considerable stake to prove it.

And then there are the smart people who think firearms ownership comes with
responsibility and arm themselves with weapons they have learned how to use
rather than relying on the mystical properties you alternately assign/deny
to sawed-off shotguns depending on your argument at any given moment.