Re: Guns n' stuff
James J Rovira (jrovira@juno.com)
Tue, 11 May 1999 19:36:08 -0400 (EDT)
On Sat, 08 May 1999 21:57:36 -0700 (PDT) Camille Scaysbrook
<the_globe@hotmail.com> writes:
>James J Rovira wrote:
>>First off, I'm not a "gun fan." I don't own any guns, am not a
>member of
>>the NRA, etc. I'm just worried about the advocacy of a
>redistribution of
>>one type of power completely into the hands of the government.
>
>Well, what about nuclear arms? I don't own any nuclear arms. My
>government
>does, and they can do what they like with them without consulting me
>about
>it, even if what they want is to blow up another country. They won't
>let me
>have any nuclear arms. Does this fact alone mean that I should be
>allowed to
>have some too? Because that to me your line of reasoning.
>
I think we have a bit of a problem with a sense of proportion, Camille...
:)
You screw up with a gun, you kill a person. You go crazy with a gun,
maybe you kill 50 people. That's all horrible. You screw up with a
nuclear weapon, you destroy a city. You go crazy with a nuke, you
destroy the world :)
No comparison.
Then there's my concern with a people maintaining a balance of power with
their own government. I can see a government using its guns to oppress
its own people, especially if the people have been disarmed.
I can't see any government, no matter how nuts, nuking its own country :)
>>Tell ya what. Let's round up every illegally held gun right now,
>dole
>>out appropriate punishments, THEN see if stricter laws are needed.
>
>Well, that's what happened over here. There was an amnesty on assault
>weapons after the Port Arthur massacre. Hand 'em in, no questions
>asked. I'm
>not denying that some of it may have gone blackmarket, but that will
>always
>be there. The point of the amnesty was that no one could ever need an
>assault weapon (that is, one with a round of more than 6 bullets) for
>anything else than to quickly and easily kill a human.
>
>Camille
I'd support that kind of thing with assault rifles, yes. It seems like
some larger cities did something like that over here too. I especially
have no problem with such a program, even for handguns, when the owners
do so of their own volition.
Jim
PS...Just saw an episode of The Simpsons set in Australia....gawd what a
riot :) Wish I could have sat and watched it with you, Camille :) Marge
and Lisa are walking through a museum and Mother is telling Daughter
about Australia originally being founded as a British penal colony.
"Watch your camera!" The US embassy had a special apparatus attached to
the toilet so the water would ciculate in the "right" direction when
flushed...ah...the simple pleasures :)
PPS Have you heard anything from Scottie?
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