Subject:
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Re: Million Mom March
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Sat, 13 May 2000 20:29:15 GMT
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Viewed:
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415 times
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Christopher Weeks wrote in message ...
> The thing I most object to that is advocated by gun control enthusiasts is
> registration. I wouldn't mind nearly so much if I had to pass some test or
> review to acquire weapons and that would give me a card which was good for
> weapons purchases for some time period. I would still complain, but at • least
> the government, who I openly do not trust, wouldn't be keeping a list and
> checking it twice.
I would be in favor of a gun "license", however, I would like to see any
group who can show that their are serious about how they give out the
license being able to give them out (a huge advantage of this beyond the
economic advantages of competition, is that the government won't be able to
have a list of all licensed people, probably a good thing). I'd also like
for there to be some way to revoke the license for appropriate crimes.
Having a good system here could eliminate the need for background checks.
I would be in favor of some way to trace the ownership history of guns. One
thing which would be effective is to be able to take criminals guns (which
were probably stolen, or given to them by some slug) back to their owner. If
the owner had filed a stolen gun report, and was shown to have taken
reasonable precautions against the theft, they would not be in any trouble,
but if you have a habit of leaving your guns unlocked in the back of your
pickup truck for any passerby to help themselves to, well, I'd say first you
should lose your gun license, and second, you have acquired some
responsibility for the crimes committed with your guns... Unfortunately, I'm
not sure how this could be done without the feds having access to a list of
who owns what guns...
I also respect the rights of individuals and organizations to restrict the
ability to carry weapons onto their property (and this I think includes the
governments right to not allow them into court houses). Of course one of the
areas which is most restricted, commercial aircraft, is restricted by law,
but somehow I suspect that in a free market, most airlines would still not
allow guns on board (though if safely packed, I see no problem with them
being in checked luggage - bombs on the other hand, no way...).
As far as what weapons should be allowed to the citizenry, I can see a point
in arguing that any weapon should be allowed, but I do fear what the state
of world nuclear weaponry would be if the US was basically unable to
participate in treaties: ("Well, we can agree to limit what our army has,
but sorry, due to our constitution, Billy has the right to own nuclear
missiles, so we can't limit the privately owned ones."). One does also
wonder how much more damage some of the loonies would have caused if it was
more possible for them to get their hands on weapons, and this worry
includes even things like man-portable anti-aircraft missiles, at one point,
when the Navy was thinking of locating some nuclear powered vessels in
Boston, people were all worried, "What if a terrorist fires a missile at
them?" The counter argument pointed out that a MUCH more devastating and
easy target would be the LNG tanks in South Boston, and I think compared the
explosion of such to a multi-megaton warhead (I would be curious how real
that comparison is, but THAT'S SCARY). Of course restricting missiles might
not be enough there, I'm not sure that McVeigh and friends couldn't have
parked next to those tanks instead had they been on the east coast (and that
is an example of just how hard it is to regulate bomb making - it's almost
surprising how easy it is to get such materials, in fact, I heard someone
once tell how when they were doing some cave exploration, and needed to move
some rocks, that they helped themselves to some fertilizer over the
weekend).
Actually, we probably don't have to worry about individual ownership of
strategic nukes. I doubt there's many people who could buy them, and most of
them probably have better sense of how to invest their money. And somehow, I
don't think the stockholders would take well to a major corporation making
such a purchase (hmm, just where is Microsoft planning on aiming that ICBM -
wait, perhaps we should encourage them, that would be one way to solve the
problem with Washington... :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) (either that or Silicon
Valley is going to become one with the ocean a bit sooner than Mother
Earth's plans...)
Frank
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Million Mom March
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| (...) I'm not sure, but is what you are envisioning, like firearms rights insurance? Where the licensing authority would be liable for misuse of the firearms by holders of their license? (...) Do you mean at the time of purchase? Presumably the (...) (25 years ago, 13-May-00, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Million Mom March
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| (...) Wow. (...) Well, I don't think that it's that simple. For instance the MMM's main goal is to have universal registration federally organized. I think it is pretty clearly (mostly) possible to maintain a registry of weapons entering the nation (...) (25 years ago, 13-May-00, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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