From: Michael S. Lorrey (mike@datamann.com)
Date: Fri Mar 17 2000 - 07:32:39 MST
Robert Owen wrote:
> Joe E Dees wrote:
>
> > I favor keeping guns out of the hands of violent criminals,
> > proven intimidating abusers, and the mentally incompetent and/or
> > deranged, and ONLY them. I have no problem whatsoever with
> > RESPONSIBLE gun ownership by the general citizenry (I own five
> > of them).
>
> So then WHAT is this persistent debate about, anyway? What
> person with normal awareness of public safety requirements
> and of the incidence of human injury and death by means of
> firearms could object on rational grounds to the following?
>
> 1] Convicted hyperaggressive felons should be denied legal
> ownership of any lethal weapon, even if the enforcement
> of the law has intractable practical limitations.*
Already the law. This is actually the easiest one to enforce, as you probably
know from the NRA pioneered Operation Exile that took place in Richmond, and the
effect it had on crime.
> 2] Spousal or child abusers who have either been convicted
> of aggravated assault, assault with intent, etc. or known
> by the Child Protective or Welfare Agencies locally to be
> violent by history should be likewise denied ownership.
Violent by history? Who gets to make the history?
> 3] Anyone denied a license to operate a motor vehicle, for
> whatever reason, should automatically be denied owner-
> ship of firearms. This would include alcoholic drivers,
> habitual offenders and those who have thereby shown
> a heedless and reckless disregard of the welfare, safety
> and security of the general public.
How about those physically unable to operate a car, but able to operate a gun?
> 4] All individuals known to the local judicial system as
> certifiably sociopathic or ambulatory psychotic should be
> denied ownership.
Already the law.
> 5] Hunters who have violated local laws pertaining to the
> use of firearms for this purpose or otherwise engaged in
> illegal hunting practices should be denied ownership.
Denying a poor rural person the only means they have to feed their families in
bad economic times is cruel and unjustified.
> 6] ANYONE known by properly constituted authority to be
> legally irresponsible in the use of firearms for ANY purpose,
> including collecting, selling, trading or the mechanical
> alteration of firearms should be denied ownership.
Collecting guns is a legally irresponsible behavior? Who made you god, or Freud?
> 7] The retailing of firearms should be limited to, without
> exception, state-owned stores, just as in some states
> liquor sales are currently regulated.
So when the state decides that it doesn't want people to but guns anymore it
closes the stores. Beautiful. Extremely extropic. NOT.
> 8] ALL firearms owned by private individuals should be com-
> prehensively registered with an appropriate local law-
> enforcement agency. Private trading should be banned.
SO when the state decides it doesn't want you to own them anymore, it knows
where to go to confiscate them, just as it has already done so in New York,
California, Britain, and Australia. Banning private trade means that you ban
private property. The state controls who owns it.
> 9] Penalties for first time and repeated offenders should be
> equal to or greater in severity than those that currently
> apply to violators of motor vehicle laws. A point system
> or other device could be used to determine when a license
> must be suspended.
Since motor vehicles kill and injure far more people, even though there are
fewer cars than guns, this is totally unjustifiable.
> 10] First time gun owners should be tested by written and
> optical exams just as motor vehicle owners are now. It
> would not be required to be relicensed unless a violation
> of firearms laws, statutes and ordinances was a matter of
> court record. (See -8- and -9-)
Who gets to decide what the test is, and are test results going to be public
documents?
> I cannot stress enough the revulsion I feel toward those who
> reject such rational social controls on the ostensible basis of
> some abstract idealist polity or manifesto using ad populum
> terms like "freedom" and "rights" to induce emotional support
> for irresponsible firearm ownership among those who are either
> socially incompetent, illiterate or simply too immature to under-
> stand the implications of such terms when applied to the real
> world.
Then you are no extropian.
> It is truly astonishing that, after the perhaps 2,500-year
> documentation of the human tendency to inflict violence on
> his own kind to achieve merely selfish ends, we still listen to
> those who advocate that some personal acquisitive desire
> should be regarded as superordinate to the welfare of the
> community upon which this individual depends. Any claim
> of privilege is forfeit by those whose very polemics are
> grounded in social indifference.
Considering the proof that this 'personal acquisitive desire' actually
contributes to the safety and welfare of society, your argument is baseless. You
start your post here off stating reasonable and normal proposals of responsible
use, then you veer off into this wild, big brother, totalitarian rant that I
cannot fathom the origination of. Please explain why you subscribe to this list
instead of the more normally non-liberty based >H list.
--
TANSTAAFL!!!
Michael S. Lorrey
Member, Extropy Institute
http://www.extropy.org
Member, National Rifle Association
http://www.nra.org
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
- General John Stark
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