cuchulainn
Member
No, not all guns would be confiscated.
Just all handguns (www.banhandgunsnow.org)
And .50s
And .223s (and everything between .50 and .223?)
And stuff with bayonet lugs or flash suppressors (remember in Spring 1993 when the Crips mounted a bayonet charge against a Bloods position ... "Banzai!")
And "cheaply made" guns costing less than $___
And ...
The writer, after claiming that the gun control people want only "reasonable restriction," calls for a ban on: "rapid fire military style weapons," which knocks out semi-autos rifles.
But gun control doesn't mean total gun confiscation: you can still keep grandpa's single-shot .22 ...
if it is registered in a national database ...
and its "balistic fingerprint" is registered too ...
and if you are licensed ...
and the local police chief deigns to give you a permit to buy ammuntion (which the writer also says should be strictly regulated).
But no, it's not about total confiscation...
...honest
...really
...you can trust me
...would I lie?
___________________________________________________
from the Modesto Bee
http://www.modbee.com/opinion/community/story/6018198p-6974150c.html
Just all handguns (www.banhandgunsnow.org)
And .50s
And .223s (and everything between .50 and .223?)
And stuff with bayonet lugs or flash suppressors (remember in Spring 1993 when the Crips mounted a bayonet charge against a Bloods position ... "Banzai!")
And "cheaply made" guns costing less than $___
And ...
The writer, after claiming that the gun control people want only "reasonable restriction," calls for a ban on: "rapid fire military style weapons," which knocks out semi-autos rifles.
But gun control doesn't mean total gun confiscation: you can still keep grandpa's single-shot .22 ...
if it is registered in a national database ...
and its "balistic fingerprint" is registered too ...
and if you are licensed ...
and the local police chief deigns to give you a permit to buy ammuntion (which the writer also says should be strictly regulated).
But no, it's not about total confiscation...
...honest
...really
...you can trust me
...would I lie?
___________________________________________________
from the Modesto Bee
http://www.modbee.com/opinion/community/story/6018198p-6974150c.html
Gun control does not mean total gun confiscation
By DON SHAW
The documentary film "Bowling for Columbine" arrived in town at an opportune time since the whole gun control issue seems to be heating up again, making The Bee's Opinion pages once more a battleground of angry accusations and clamorous misconceptions.
How nice it would be, I thought as I sat through Michael Moore's brilliant film (thanks to the State Theatre for making that possible), if a little common sense could be applied to the controversy. We've all heard enough worn-out political rhetoric and trite slogans, and maybe it's time to do some actual thinking.
Whatever people who haven't seen the movie may have heard, and despite Moore's notoriety as an ill-mannered radical and gadfly of the political left, "Bowling for Columbine" makes a stirring appeal to nothing less than the collective wisdom of the American people.
Moore, as it turns out, is just the person to make such an appeal. No gun-hating zealot of the sort often set up as a straw man and handy target for the enemies of gun control, he is very much the voice of reason. He informs us that he is a card-carrying member of the National Rifle Association and takes pride in an award he won for marksmanship as a teen-ager.
He doesn't attack the Second Amendment, but offers observations that lead logically to a truly progressive point of view on firearms -- one not easily misrepresented and distorted by extremists of the far right.
One example of such distortion is seen in a recent letter to The Bee asserting that "it is no secret that the extreme left wants only total gun confiscation" ("Ease up on gun control," Jan. 9), a totally false statement. I have become well-acquainted with recent writings by a number of social critics generally thought of as "left wing," and I have found none who advocate anything like a sweeping confiscation of legally owned weapons.
A reasonable liberal vision, like Michael Moore's, involves not confiscation but sensible controls and restrictions, together with an understanding -- brought out so effectively in the film -- that much more is involved in the problem of violence in America than the mere proliferation of guns. A sane society confronted by an epidemic of violence doesn't hesitate to deal with all aspects of the problem. There apparently is a kind of national paranoia, as Moore suggests, and it needs to be addressed, but so does the gun issue.
If guns are still too easily obtained (and they are, despite existing laws), we need to get tougher -- for example, cracking down on the black market for firearms with the same fervor demanded of narcotics agents. If rapid-fire military style rifles are still being sold anywhere in the country (and they are), we need to demand their total elimination from our society. If ammunition is readily available ( and it is), its manufacture and distribution needs to be much more strictly regulated. Guns don't kill people; bullets kill people.
There are some who continue to insist that the Second Amendment guarantees unmodifiable weapon-ownership rights, but common sense tells us that, just as child pornography and libelous speech can be restricted without violating the First Amendment, reasonable gun control involves no infraction of the Second.
Shaw, a Turlock resident, has taught English at Downey and Beyer high schools.
Posted: January 29, 2003 @ 06:15:11 AM PST