California (Modesto): "Gun control does not mean total gun confiscation"

[cuchulainn]

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

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

 

[foghornl]

Ask the Jewish [ahem] "residents" of the Warsaw Ghetto. Or the General Poplulation of 1930's Germany. Or the Russian Citizens under Josef Stalin. Or Cambodians under Pol Pot.

Or some residents of California that have had to surrender weapons that were legally bought, later banned, without any redress.

 

[Hkmp5sd]

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.

Big deal. Doesn't mean a thing. A friend of mine, who happens to be black, has a KKK membership card. He got the idea after seeing Blazing Saddles.

 

[4v50 Gary]

Don Shaw spent $ to see the "documentary" film, Bowling for Colombine? Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't a documentary filmed during an event, not after? Post event films are "historical" (but in this case, hysterical) and entail extensive editing, commentary, etc.

Don Shaw's time & $ is better spent on helping find that missing Modesto woman.

 

[Pilgrim]

Author Don Shaw writes, "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."

Mr. Shaw forgets that said fervor was exhibited by Modesto police officers, acting on behalf of the DEA, which resulted in the shotgun death of eleven year old Alberto Sepuveda while he was lying face down on his bedroom floor a few years ago.

As far as I know, drugs in Modesto haven't gone away yet.

Bruce

 

[Noban]

How terrible it must be to go through life afraid of your own shadow. What a sniveling little twerp.

 

[jimpeel]

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.

If he is a card-carrying member of the NAACP does this mean he's Black?

 

[PATH]

Has anybody here met anyone who has spent money to see Moore's "Bowling for Columbine?"

I don't know a soul and frankly I don't even know where it played. I guess it is just too high brow for us peasants!

 

[Peetmoss]

Path

My best friend paid to see it. He thought it was great:banghead: But also informed me that he now thinks that people need to be able to own firearms. And the NRA is evil( He might be close on this one). He also wants to try out my guns But I think I will let him and try to get the total RKBA idea through his head.

 

[Silver Bullet]

I have found none who advocate anything like a sweeping confiscation of legally owned weapons.

Correct; guns will still be available to politicians, celebrities, and their liberal cronies. Nothing for the little people, however.

reasonable gun control involves no infraction of the Second

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed". Any kind of gun control is an infraction of the Second.

 

[Standing Wolf]

Leftists are moral and intellectual parasites—and so numerous in the People's Republic of California that I returned to the United States last year.

 

[twoblink]

To call the lefties in the PRK a parasite, would be insulting most regular parasites..

They don't want to remove ALL firearms, just 99.99999% of them.. The Musket can stay...

 

[Travis McGee]

These idiots are too stupid to see that they are going to drag this nation into a war if they keep this up. I feel so strongly that this is in our future that I wrote a novel about it, mainly as a warning to the gun grabbers to back off before the lantern they are carrying into the gunpowder factory blows us all up.

Anyway, I posted half of the book "Enemies Foreign And Domestic" here http://matthewbracken.web.aplus.net/ so that anyone can read about one way that a low level dirty civil war could break out in America. Reading even the free first half will put the topic on the table for discussion, and I hope that idiots like Michael Moore do read it, and draw some conclusions.

 

[doseyclwn]

Has anybody here met anyone who has spent money to see Moore's "Bowling for Columbine?"

I saw it AND enjoyed it, as I usually do Mr. Moore's work. I didn't go into the movie anti-gun, and I didnt' walk out anti-gun. I thought he raised some good questions, but I doubt I drew the conclusions he was looking for.

Oh, and my favorite quote from the "Ban Handguns Now" website???

The minority of Americans who own guns have managed to hold the non-gun owning majority hostage.

 

[standingbear]

i have relatives in ..that state.they bought their guns legallt too(at least they were when they bought them).seems odd that "the law" showed up one cloudy day-they knew what and where-- with all sorts of legal papers-asking for guns that they had purchased,after a walk through their house,the guns were seized. they were given 2 options at the door...turn them in or go to jail.with all the changes made to whats now acceptable,does anyone here truly believe it made a difference to the local gang population?maybe the bigwigs that decides whats acceptable will lead by example...NOT

 

[cuchulainn]

And a former Modesto deputy responds

http://www.modbee.com/opinion/letters/story/6096091p-7049699c.html

Personal defense

Regarding The Bee's community column by Don Shaw, "Gun control does not mean total gun confiscation" (Jan. 29): His comment that rapid-fire, military-style weapons need to be eliminated from our society is irrelevant because true assault weapons such as machine guns already have been outlawed or tightly controlled in the United States since 1935.
The recent outlawing of military-style weapons in California was done on appearance alone. A self-loading .223-caliber hunting rifle shoots as fast and as far as the AR-15 that was made illegal by Gov. Davis. The only difference is that one of them looks like a military weapon.

Shaw seems ignorant of the Constitution's meaning. The Second Amendment was not written to allow us to target shoot or to hunt Bambi or grizzly bears. It merely acknowledges the God-given, natural right to self-protection from aggressors, criminals or an out-of-control government if it were ever necessary.

Apparently in The Bee's opinion, Shaw's credentials as an English teacher make him an expert on gun control.

I spent 30 years as a California law enforcement officer, with 21 of those 30 years spent as a crime scene investigator. I have personally been to way too many crime scenes where the victims would still be alive today if they had a gun in their hand instead of a telephone when their door was kicked in by their killer.

DANIEL W. CRON

Retired sheriff's deputy

Modesto