The following exchange is from Dialogue Group 5, Thread 5.

15. Who's responsible ?
Tue, Dec 1, 1998 - 5:46 AM/EST
Norseman

WVBro wrote: "I also agree with [Clinton] on NAFTA, e-commerce, and gun regulation."


Gun regulation ? Why ? A gun has never killed anyone. A lot of people holding guns have, but a gun has never killed anyone.

16. On Guns.... (hey -- it's even in my bio...)
Tue, Dec 1, 1998 - 11:06 AM/EST
mikerose

Norseman: "Gun regulation ? Why ? A gun has never killed anyone. A lot of people holding guns have, but a gun has never killed anyone."

By that reasoning, neither have nuclear devices. It was two bombadiers who killed the citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. So we shouldn't regulate nuclear devices, either?

17. Guns
Tue, Dec 1, 1998 - 11:55 AM/EST
Mr Shev

America has the highest ratio of gun related deaths per capita in the first world. Haven't you (by you, I mean Americans) figured it out yet? Doh!

18. gun deaths per capita... (it's in my bio too...)
Tue, Dec 1, 1998 - 2:10 PM/EST
rahani

1- Where did you get your info? (please don't say a lobby group.)

2- What is the soulution then?

Don't you (by you, I mean Americans) think it's silly to expect the non-law-abiding to obey legal regulations? Why would some criminal go through the trouble (and red-tape) of purchasing any banned item(especially when a background check is required), when he or she could just as easily purchase one from the same punk he or she just bought cocaine by the bag from?

19. Guns
Tue, Dec 1, 1998 - 3:17 PM/EST
Norseman

We (Americans) figured it out 200+ years ago. Our Constituition was set up so we would never be like those that oppressed us and we won our freedom from.

Here in Alaska a gun is as much a tool as a claw hammer. If we were not allowed to keep and bear arms, I know of 2 people in my family who would not be here today. A gun saved them from death by a bear. Who knows how many others that I don't know personally ?

If the amendments of the Constituiton are to be removed, where will we be then ?

Comparing my right to keep and bear arms to an act of war is ludicrous. Was the use of nuclear force justified ? I think so. We can easily count how many people lost their lives by that decision but will never know how many it saved.

20. guns don't kill?
Tue, Dec 1, 1998 - 7:48 PM/EST
Les Ismore

Guns don't kill!!
Radical "pro-lifers" do.

and anyone who cannot distinguish the difference
between a responsible, law abiding Alaskan with
a hunting rifle, and a mentally deranged 12 year
old with an AK-47, or a bone-head fascist with
a barn full of sawed off shotguns and flame throwers, needs a very serious reality check.

21. Oh Boy
Tue, Dec 1, 1998 - 9:45 PM/EST
Jb

Guns...I completely support the right to keep and bear arms. What do you think insures our freedom? Why do you think we don't have a Tinienmen (sp?) Square USA? It's not the criminals I'm afraid of it's the government. I have guns. I have a child. The guns are kept locked in one cabinet. The clips in another. My child is not emotionally abused and neglected. He is learning as he matures to handle anger in a healthy and constructive manner. Once upon a time I owned a Pit Bull. I didn't let him out of the house unless he was on a leash. Same thing.

22. On Guns (not for everyone....)
Tue, Dec 1, 1998 - 9:53 PM/EST
mikerose

Norseman: "Comparing my right to keep and bear arms to an act of war is ludicrous. Was the use of nuclear force justified ? I think so. We can easily count how many people lost their lives by that decision but will never know how many it saved."

Issue isn't whether the bombings were justified (I changed my mind on that one several years ago -- now I think they were). In fact, Gen. Doolittle's blanket bombing raids on Tokyo killed more civilians in a single night than either of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima or Nagasaki.

The issue is purely one of logic. The claim, in defense of gun ownership, was that the gun doesn't kill, the gunner does. Fair enough, but then, equally, the nuclear device doesn't kill, the person who sets it off does. So if we shouldn't control the gun, applying that argument consistently, we shouldn't control the nuclear device.

If the argument is relevant to gun ownnership, it is relevant to nuclear devise ownership, as well.

23. I keep reminding myself.... this isn't a typical gun forum.....
Tue, Dec 1, 1998 - 10:10 PM/EST
mikerose

Les Ismore: "and anyone who cannot distinguish the difference between a responsible, law abiding Alaskan with a hunting rifle, and a mentally deranged 12 year old with an AK-47, or a bone-head fascist with a barn full of sawed off shotguns and flame throwers, needs a very serious reality check."

Odd thing is, that reference to an AK-47 from a pro-control person in a "normal" forum brings a rashof grief from the pro-gun advocates. An AK-47 is a select fire weapons and, as such, requires a special permit to own. The gun folks get very upset when folks confuse the AK-47 with it's no-automatic-option knockoffs.....

The point? The gun debate is so tainted by emotion that each side is more than happy to demonize the other for any "mistake." (We all get to know each other a lot better and i may be less bealanced on whch side I think bears the lion's share of the blame for that -- certainly not "mine".... )

That said and out of the way, there is a large difference between the rancher (even in the lower 48) carrying a weapon to protect his livestock or the diamond merchant carrying his product and Andrew Golden gazing down the sights of a deer rifle at his classmates in Jonesboro. And the gains to made in saving lives are in the area between those two.

So don't mention the noble rancher or diamond merchant and I won't mention Andrew and maybe we can bring some sense to the discussion......

24.
Wed, Dec 2, 1998 - /EST
ladeyj

Maybe the answer to the gun question lies in a better question. We have more and more shocking episodes of killings by gun. Just recently in the S.F. Bay Area, a neighbor kid shot his next door neighbor kid from his bedroom window on purpose. I have not yet heard the reason. Some 18 year old and his friend shot and killed his entire family of 5, plus his brother's girlfriend????? James Brady was shot by an insane man trying to impress a girl. Robberies, rapes, etc. all occur with people using guns. The problem is that innocent people are being hurt and killed. The question: how do we stop that? One solution: restrict guns. Another: don't produce so many nutty, violent people. Any other suggestions???

P.S. Heard the other day that one of the latest sports is to shine laser pointers into the eyes of drivers on the freeway, which blinds them for a short while and actually could do greater damage. How is it the human being finds so many ways to be harmful?

25. James Brady
Wed, Dec 2, 1998 - /EST
rahani

Ummmm, just a thought on the Nuclear Weapon vs. the Gun thing. The firearm is a somewhat more useful device in home protection than a fission detonation. --not that a small thermonuclear blast wouldn't halt a rapist-- I think there needs to be a more effective analogy used.

I want to hear some of you show or explain how the word "trust" links to gun control. Do you trust your fellow Americans? Do you trust yourself. Do you trust your kids? Do you trust anything?

Remember, James Brady was shot by a man who had gone through California's 15 day handgun waiting period. The same handgun Mr. Hinckley (the almost assassin) was granted using background checks was the same gun he shot the President and Mr. Brady with. (don't you just love ending sentences with prepositions?)

26. Guns, again
Wed, Dec 2, 1998 - 6:40 AM/EST
Mr Shev

I always forget how passionate people get over this subject. In terms of information, I got my data from the Guardian newspaper, in an article about gun ownership in Britain and comparisons with other European Countries and the USA. It was some time ago that I read this article, so I cannot give exact figures, but the statistics for gun related deaths were simply frightening.

The event which sparked a great deal of debate and eventually legislation in Britain, was the incident in a school in Dunblane, Scotland. A man, who was refused a job at this school, returned there with a hand gun and killed 18 (I think) children. The public outcry was such that a gun amnesty was begun and it is now going through Parliment whether or not people should own firearms at all. The debate hinges around the fact that guns are designed for one purpose and one purpose only: to kill. Obviously it is the person holding the gun who controls it, but this becomes a simplistic way of looking at it. A man going into a school with a knife or a baseball bat is going to be easier to stop than a man carrying an AK-47 or M16. Or, since the point has been raised, a nuclear warhead.

I personally don't have a problem with a total ban on firearms in the U.K. If the price we have to pay is a bunch of PO'ed gun-club enthusiasts lobbying Parliment, then it is a price that society can easily afford. The knee-jerk argument is that it is taking away a point of freedom. 99% of people in the U.K who own guns are responsible, law abiding citizens. But 1% are not. It's the 1% who take away other people's freedom; the freedom to live life in a safe society - or in the case of Dunblane, to live at all.