MikePGS
Member
Sure hope this putney guy doesn't buy a car soon. Everyone knows he'll want to drive it as fast as he can, do hairpin turns, and crash into walls just for the fun of it.
"When people buy or are given something new — a color printer, scanner, cell phone, food processor — they want to use it."
Good point.Ninja.of.Love said:Secondly, Mr. Putney focuses on the use of hollow-point ammunition as a sign that the only uses of firearms are criminal. Hollow-points do an excellent job of stopping a threat or an animal in their legal uses. According to the 1995 ATF report, there were 223,000,000 guns in private hands. Not many of the "toys" that are begging to get used are getting used in crimes. More importantly, there are more DGUs per year than violent crimes.
Letters
Article Launched: 05/06/2008 03:23:54 AM EDT
Tuesday, May 6
Fight crime, not
ownership of guns
I read with interest the column by Charles Putney in Friday's Banner. Mr. Putney expounds upon his feelings about the usefulness of a gun called the Tommy Gun. While the gun he refers to is a famous weapon dating from the 1920s, the fully automatic, legally owned, registered, versions of such are very expensive, very hard to find, and about never used in crime.
The semi-automatic versions are actually legal to own and are absolutely no different in operating principles from the semi-automatic shotgun or rifles so many take afield in search of game, every day, in this state. The semi-automatic shotguns and rifles used by hunters are one shot per trigger pull, as are all of the so-called, but wrongly named, semi-automatic assault weapons.
An assault weapon is, by definition, a full automatic gun, capable of multiple shots per single pull of the trigger. A full automatic Tommy Gun typically costs well upwards of $15,000 and requires much governmental paperwork and background checks to acquire and own and are very difficult to obtain. A criminal has no qualms about what he owns or uses and certainly does not check the laws before
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he plans his next foray into crime.
The civilian versions of the military weapons that are currently in use are used for hunting with a 5-round magazine, target shooting, etc., and are no more evil than the Humvees so popular on the road today that are just the same type of replica of military machinery. Simply because something looks like a military item does not make it bad. Certainly, much of what we take for granted in everyday life has it's roots in military use and development.
As far as semi automatic versions of the Tommy Gun are concerned, they are not typically used for hunting, but are collected, used for recreational target shooting, and are totally legal to own. The capacity of the magazine really has no relation to the dangerousness factor of a particular weapon, as it has been proven time and again that it is the wrongmindedness of the person using any gun that is the wild card.
The whole point of this issue is not to villlainize a particular weapon type, but to better understand why people snap and commit crimes. To simply decide that a category of weapon is evil will most certainly not reduce crime, as it is the very nature of criminals to do what they want, regardless of what laws are placed in their path.
Laws regarding firearms only regulate the law abiding gun owner and have nothing to do with crime. Indeed, the very fact that there are so many lawful gun owners in this state certainly does have to do with our low crime rate. However, it is typically the "feel good" factor that so influences what our legislators try to pass, added to the fact that they can pat themselves on the back so much more easily than if they spent their time on the really thorny issues they so willfully bypass.
No, hunters don't "need" Tommy Guns, but neither does the lawful populace of this country need to have a legislator decide for us what we should and shouldn't legally own. What we do need is to have the legislators make crime painful and punish it when encountered, not turn their backs on it because the poor misfortunate wretch that committed the crime got the judge to feel sorry for them.
Mr. Putney needs to better determine what he is actually writing about before he disparages something. Yes, guns can be purchased on the Internet, but they still must be shipped to a federally licensed dealer in the buyer's state for final transfer to the intended buyer.
Every sale has to pass an FBI background check before any transfer of ownership is made. You can buy lots of things on the Internet, but guns have many laws governing their sale. I feel that all of those who find the energy to jump on the antigun bandwagon should better put their efforts to work taking our legislators to task to fight crime, and not fight legal ownership of an inanimate object by lawful citizens.
TOM DECKER
Readsboro
I test drive every vehicle on a sidewalk before buying it.MikePGS said:Sure hope this putney guy doesn't buy a car soon. Everyone knows he'll want to drive it as fast as he can, do hairpin turns, and crash into walls just for the fun of it.
More importantly, there are more DGUs per year than violent crimes