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From: regard@ttidcc.UUCP (Adrienne Regard)
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.flame
Subject: another twist on the gun issue
Message-ID: <220@ttidcc.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 7-Feb-85 16:04:29 EST
Article-I.D.: ttidcc.220
Posted: Thu Feb  7 16:04:29 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 11-Feb-85 06:18:28 EST
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Xref: watmath net.politics:7516 net.flame:8293


	     REPRINTED FROM AN EARLIER BROADCAST:

The real flap over gun control is that EVERY TIME WEAPONS HAVE BEEN
REGISTERED, GOVERMENT HAS EVENTUALLY CONFISCATED THE WEAPONS.  Democracy is
a delicate thing - and the political party you agree with may not be the
party in power when the confiscation begins.  I'd be a very unhappy German
if I were a registered gun owner when Hitler came into power.  "Good" done
for "bad" motives has a way of spoiling on the shelf.

Democracy is a delicate thing, and it considers all options (including
communism, facism, religious rule, etc, IF they have enough votes).  And
there is a point at which voting rights can be surmounted, if the people IN
power are the people WITH the power.  This was one of the CONSIDERED REASONS
(derived from the contemporary writings of the people who drafted the
constitution) for the inclusion of the now-famous "right to bear arms".  I
wish I had the quote at my fingertips - but I think it was Adams - and the
gist of it was that an armed populus was  a good and sufficient deterrent
to any petty tyrants with big ideas.  NOT that we'd blow away the petty
tyrant, but that the petty tyrant would have to have some kind of majority
of his own behind him before he tried something, in which case he would be
in power because of DEMOCRATIC CONSENT, not brute force.

Constitutionality is an arguable issue as well - what was good and true 200
years ago may not bear on today.  However, not much point in wrongly
reinterpreting what was said 200 years ago as a poor argument for the issue
today.  If it ain't broke, don't fix it.  I don't think the constitution is
broke on this issue.  (PERSONAL OPINION, in case we forget)

Everybody is interested in reducing crime, particularly armed and violent
crime (surely I'm not going to be flamed for the use of "everybody" here).
The actuality is that crooks are armed.  Because of the constitutional
issue, I do not believe in registering guns.  If you want some social seal
of approval for people who do have weapons (to keep them out of the "wrong
hands") why not license the people, whether or not they own/carry a gun?
Every upstanding citizen over 16 is licensed to carry, like driving a car.
Whether they choose to do so or not is their own business.  When you catch
a crook with a weapon you jail him and (for first time offenders) revoke
his license.  Second time around, it's no agrument.  He's using a weapon ->
no license -> jail.  And when confiscation time comes around, our petty
tyrant doesn't know who owns what, but he knows that there are plenty of
"right minded" americans out there who could be.  I don't actually favor
this approach either, but it makes more sense than registering "guns" in
order to control "criminals" (read "apples" and "oranges").

Anyhow, that's one reason why people get excited about it.  People get
pretty excited about freedom of speech, too, and it has as many points of
contradiction as this one.  So who said democracy was easy?