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From: wetcw@pyuxa.UUCP (T C Wheeler)
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: Gun Control again... A Position Paper
Message-ID: <940@pyuxa.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 8-Aug-84 09:09:27 EDT
Article-I.D.: pyuxa.940
Posted: Wed Aug  8 09:09:27 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 9-Aug-84 03:20:00 EDT
References: <1565@sun.uucp>, <1076@hou4b.UUCP>
Organization: Bell Communications Research, Piscataway N.J.
Lines: 44

Sorry friend, but most black market guns are NOT stolen from
homes.  Most black market guns are openly bought on the street
after being smuggled across borders and between states with
stricter laws.  Saturday-Night-Specials are produced by a few
companies, one of which is operating in Florida.  Gun running
is the province of the old time mobsters and provides a
lucrative income.  Cases of SNSs are bought in areas where
it is quite legal and brought into areas where the laws are stricter.
There is no real incentive to go bumbling around someones home
or apartment looking for weapons when you can buy them on the
street.  Besides, not too many people would want to pay good
money for a cheaply made SNS when they can aquire a well-made
weapon from their local sporting goods store for the same
price.  My feeling is that SNSs should be outlawed entirely.
Close down the factories.  Of course smuggling would then 
become a bigger problem as probably three quarters of the
SNSs come from outside this country.  I don't have any real
answers, but disarming the honest citizen while allowing
the criminal access to weapons is not one of them.  This is
not an easy problem to solve.  Short of deputizing every
fourth person to watch for smuggling of guns, I don't know
what we can do.  Registering guns only tells us who owns
the gun at any one moment.  It doesn't prevent the use of
the gun.  Confiscating all guns only increases the likelyhood
that gun runners will get richer and criminals will have
a decided advantage in their proffessional calling and nuts
will hide their weapons under the bathroom floor.

All of this business about rights, protection, and preventing
a government coup is academic.  The guns are here now and
many more are on their way.  No amount of calling for abolition
or complete arming is going to change this fact.  What has to
be done is to find a middle ground so that we can begin making
a dent in a bad situation.  I think we should start with
applying the laws that are already on the books.  Get tough
with those who would use weapons in the commission of a crime.
New York state started out being tough, but there are just too
many lily-livered judges on the bench who have seen fit to
ignore the law in this area.  How about docking the judges
pay $100 every time they fail to apply the law where it
concerns guns?  (I know, prosecutors are just as bad about
charging gun users.  Do the same to them.)
T. C. Wheeler