[Vision2020] obama election / gun purchases

Tue Nov 11 05:30:06 PST 2008

Mike,

The majority of weapons used in murder are actually handguns. So banning weapons on the bases of how often they are used as a murder weapon is not always practical. 

Most people agree with banning assault weapons because they are dangerous machines that can be used only in tragic ways and go well beyond the need of self-defense. 

The rate of murders are not caused by the type of weapons available so much as they are based on the economic and social conditions of the culture at the time. Meaning, murders go up or down based on how desperate the people are for a decent living. 

I think it is the right of every law abiding decent human when properly trained to own a handgun for personal protection from harm against him/her their family and property. They should also have the right to a rifle or high power weapon for killing game. But I think an assault weapon designed to kill hundreds of people in a few minutes is beyond what an average citizen could possibly need for legitimate purposes. I think if someone wants such a weapon, they should have to demonstrate a reasonable need for it, and get special license for it. 

Best Regards,

Donovan

--- On Mon, 11/10/08, Mike Finkbiner <mike_l_f at hotmail.com> wrote:

From: Mike Finkbiner <mike_l_f at hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] obama election / gun purchases
To: vision2020 at moscow.com
Date: Monday, November 10, 2008, 8:26 PM

Setting aside anything that Senator Obama may have said or done in the past,
people are concerned about his effect on honest gun owners because on the
http://change.gov/agenda/urbanpolicy/ web site there is this statement -

"They also support making the expired federal Assault Weapons Ban
permanent"

If you aren't familiar with firearms that may seem reasonable, but when you
look at the details it's pretty obvious that it's not an effective tool
against crime.  First, the government admitted that  “... the weapons banned
by this legislation [1994 Federal Assault Weapons ban - since repealed] were
used only rarely in gun crimes”.  (National Institute of Justice, March 1999) 
Secondly, there was no positive effect.  Violent crime has continued to trend
downward since the ban was lifted, and rifles of any description continue to be
involved in a tiny percentage of crimes.

The law was based largely on the way rifles look.  Features such as barrel
shrouds, pistol grips and other ergonomic features may set them apart from
classic walnut stocked sporting rifles, but seem pretty trivial from a criminal
perspective.   The two mechanical features mentioned are that these firearms
have a detachable box magazine which can hold several cartridges, and the
self-loading action allows you to fire one shot with each pull of the trigger
until the magazine is empty.

By comparison I was looking at a 1950's Remington Woodsmaster rifle in Sure
Shot sporting goods last week.  It has a fine walnut stock, is self-loading, has
a detachable box magazine and fires the 30-06, a far more powerful cartridge
than almost all of the rifles on the "Assault Weapons" list.  There
are many hundreds of thousands of rifles similar to that in hunter's closets
around the country.  Do you wonder that they are concerned about laws banning
similar firearms?

But people say they only want to ban firearms which can shoot 20 or 30 times
without reloading.   It would be pretty easy to put a larger magazine on the
Woodsmaster or it's cousins, and I wonder when they will decide that also
includes shotguns.  If you load your pump shotgun with five 00 buckshot
cartridges and fire until it's empty, you will have sent 45 heavy lead .33
caliber balls at your target.  They won't travel as far as a rifle bullet,
but anyone within 100 yards will be in deadly danger.

In other words, banning a category of weapons which are only cosmetically
different than common hunting rifles, and no more lethal than common shotguns
seems like a cynical first step towards - what?  There is no evidence it's
for crime control.

In 2003 the Center for Disease Control published a review of studies from
several countries. They state that they found "insufficient evidence to
determine the effectiveness of any of the firearms laws reviewed for preventing
violence". (Wikipedia)  It seems that criminals are willing to break laws
to get weapons.  There have been several academic studies which revealed many
benefits that honest citizens gain from owning firearms for self defense, but
this is already too long to go into that.

This country has done well over the last two centuries for several reasons. 
One of them is the balance of power.  We have been suffering through a period
where one group has been acting to restrict some of our rights.  This years
election can probably be seen as a reaction to that.  The pendulum swings.  If
the government distrusts the citizens so much that it fears leaving them
effectively armed, at some future date will the party in power decide that
elections are too dangerous, and they now have the power to stop the pendulum?

- Mike

Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands,
hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.
                                                                -- H. L.
MENCKEN

=======================================================
 List services made available by First Step Internet, 
 serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.   
               http://www.fsr.net                       
          mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
=======================================================

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20081111/b44c38a0/attachment-0001.html 