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From: regard@ttidcc.UUCP (Adrienne Regard)
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.flame
Subject: adendum
Message-ID: <224@ttidcc.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 8-Feb-85 11:56:25 EST
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Posted: Fri Feb  8 11:56:25 1985
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Jerry, I use caps for emphasis, not shouting.  I take to heart your
advice to use _underlines_ instead.

I mean licensing people to carry guns, like licensing people to drive
which is not the same thing as licensing weapons and licensing cars.  One
is confering the right, the other is tracing the object.  Obviously not
clear in my contribution to the net.  And, since it isn't an argument
that I support, I am not interested in the details of implementation.
I just felt that conferring the right (relatively across the board, as
the 2nd amendment intended) made more sense to me in terms of apprehending
people who-shouldn't-be-carrying-weapons-but-are (the kind of people the
attorneys are really after, according to my attorney friends, through this
kind of legislation) and has a more negligible impact on people who-shouldn't-
be-hasselled-about-guns-one-way-or-another.  Again, the implementation isn't
of interest to me, cause I don't think it's broke.

And you are quite right that, given the Brits peculiarly advanced
civilization, guns haven't been confiscated in Britain - yet.  The question
to consider is what would happen if Britain became a sattelite of, say,
Northern Ireland, and every weapon was listed?  But, yes, it does
contradict my argument.  I should have included a span of time when I said
HISTORICALLY.

No, strike that -- the question to be considered _really_ is, what would
you think about repealing an article from the Bill of Rights?  Are you
comfortable with that precident, given what you know about how the courts
work?  Would we next infringe the freedoms of speech (in "necessary" ways,
of course, says our benevolent government)?  Is is paranoia to be concerned
with the preservation of the freedoms that a lot of people spent a lot of
their lives preserving that now a lot of other people are trying to rescind?
Do you really trust these other people to know what is right?  Do you put
your life and your freedoms in their hands?  Sure, that's what democracy
is, but that's also what the Bill of Rights is for -- to keep your neigh-
bor out of your opinions.