From: jf_avon@citenet.net
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 1997 21:52:16 +0800
To: cypherpunks@Algebra.COM
Subject: Bill Gates and Gun laws
In-Reply-To: <199710141949.NAA06963@broadway.sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca>
Message-ID: <199710151352.JAA13494@cti06.citenet.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



> 
> Cdn-Firearms Digest     Tuesday, October 14 1997     Volume 02 : Number 031
> cdn-firearms-digest@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca
[mega-snip]
> ------------------------------
> 
> Date: Tue, 14 Oct 1997 12:43:32 -0600
> From: Dave Hammond <DHammond@novatel.ca>
> Subject: FW: USA - Bill Gates wants your guns
> 
> Don't like Bill Gates or his octopus like grip on the software market? Been 
> looking for a reason to give Microsoft the finger and shop elsewhere? Well, 
> here it is.........
> 
> 
> by HUNTER T. GEORGE
> OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) - A gun-control measure on the Washington ballot has
> turned into a Western shootout in this state, where nearly one out of
> five residents owns a pistol.
> In this gun battle, the two sides are armed with cash and
> soundbites.
> On one side is the state medical association, law enforcement
> leaders, religious groups, the state's largest teachers union and
> Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, among other Seattle-area business
> leaders.
> They back the measure, which would require handgun owners to
> pass an exam or take an eight-hour safety course to get a license.
> It would also require trigger locks on all handguns sold or
> transferred in the state.
> On the other side are gun rights organizations, like the
> National Rifle Association, and police groups, which say the
> measure is an invasion of privacy, an infringement of the right to
> bear arms and a smokescreen for a hidden agenda: registration and
> eventual confiscation of handguns.
> ``What they're doing is basically using children and hiding
> behind a phony handgun safety ballot title,'' said Alan Gottlieb,
> chairman of the Bellevue-based Citizens Committee for the Right to
> Keep and Bear Arms. ``These people don't want education. They want
> to make it very hard for people to buy a handgun or use one, and
> that's exactly what this initiative does.''
> If voters OK the measure on the Nov. 4 ballot, Washington will pass some
> of the strictest gun laws in the nation.
> Only a dozen states require some sort of handgun permit or
> license, and just two - Massachusetts and Connecticut - have passed
> laws requiring trigger locks, but only at the retail level. Washington's
> would require them on all guns sold, even person to person.
> Nine of the nation's largest gun makers announced Thursday that
> they would provide childproof locks with all of their new handguns
> - - about 80 percent of those sold in the United States. President
> Clinton has pushed for legislation requiring the locks, but House
> and Senate committees rejected the provision earlier this year.
> No public polls on the measure have been released so far, but
> some of the richest people in the state back it: Gates gave
> $35,000; his father, lawyer William H. Gates, donated $150,000, and
> philanthropist Harriet Stimson Bullitt contributed $50,000.
> The safety requirements, they say, would be like taking a
> driver's test before getting a license. The goal is to reduce
> accidental shootings, particularly those involving children who find
> loaded guns in the home.
> A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found
> that 30 people 19 or younger died in unintentional shootings in
> Washington state between 1991 and 1995. And 211 others were
> hospitalized for gunshot wounds.
> `I'm personally unwilling to tolerate that kind of carnage in
> our state,'' said Dr. Roy Farrell, campaign spokesman and a gun
> owner. ``Terrible tragedies happen that shouldn't happen if the gun
> was stored properly.''
> 
> ------------------------------
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