From: "Perry E. Metzger" <perry@piermont.com>
Date: Thu, 8 Aug 1996 04:47:12 +0800
To: hallam@ai.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Stop the presses -- Anti-terrorism bill not that bad
In-Reply-To: <19960805204130906.AAB148@maverick>
Message-ID: <199608071538.LAA08433@jekyll.piermont.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Phill writes
> Given the number of gun related homicides in the
> US it is not unreasonable to require each individual cartridge
> to be stamped with a serial number and for gun dealers to be 
> required to record each individual purchase.

Phill, as usual, displaying your ignorance?

Many of my friends reload spent brass. I realize that you might not
get this idea, but guns are a technology that hasn't advanced
significantly since 1900 or so, other than maybe lightening things
with plastic stocks. (The few innovations that have been tried, like
trounds and caseless ammo, haven't ever taken off). The result of this
is that a heavy fraction of the people who own guns have the ability
to LOAD THEIR OWN AMMUNITON. Indeed, anyone who wants to can do it!
Even without a PhD!

In fact, lots of cheapskates who like to shoot a lot regularly go out
to ranges and sweep up other people's spent brass. If you open up a
good magazine for those of us who aren't scared of guns, you will see
ads for dozens of inexpensive devices to help you trim and fix cases
in a semi-automated way, and to load ammo mostly by turning a crank.

BTW, such devices are trivial to make yourself, and plans are readily
available. Its all low technology.

Were you not totally ignorant of how guns are used, this wouldn't be
news to you.

Now, on top of that, our ignorant socialist friend seems to forget
that brass is not immutable -- that is, that it would take about
thirty seconds and an awl would get rid of any serial number you cared
to stamp. On an empty case, its even easier.

The real key here is of course that idiots going crazy and killing 20
people in a schoolyard kill fewer people than slippery wet floors, and
the whole thing is so insignificant that it can be ignored. The drug
related killings would go away were drugs legalized, as would a heavy
fraction of the petty crime, and most of the rest of the abuses of
guns are so tiny in comparison to the legitimate uses as to be
insignificant.

(Oh, and by the way, Dr. Hallam-Baker -- I consider suicide, which is
counted in the HCI "statistics" on gun deaths, to be a perfectly
legitimate use of a weapon. Its every person's right to off themselves
any time they like by my way of thinking, and you have no right to
force people to live against their will any more than you have the
right to force them into slavery.)


Perry