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From: andy@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (Andy Freeman)
Subject: Re: Backcountry Confidence
Message-ID: <1993Apr16.221640.18156@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU>
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Date: Fri, 16 Apr 1993 22:16:40 GMT
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In article <C5L02E.8GH@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> rbw3q@rayleigh.mech.Virginia.EDU (Brad Whitehurst) writes:
>	The rest of us fall in the middle.  There IS too much violent
>crime in the U.S., but turning the whole country into an old-time
>Dodge City (ref. to American Old West) is not the way.

That's an interesting statement.  There's quite a difference between
Hollywood's "Old West" and the real one.  Yes, there were drunks,
saloons, mining camps, and thugs.  However, as McGrath showed, the
thugs preyed almost exclusively on one another.  McGrath claims that
this was due to the fact that no one much cared if someone who
insisted on getting into a fight got his way, even if he lost, while
they really did care when thugs preyed on others.

>citizens should be able to own weapons, but we see no sense in some
>types.

We haven't figured out that those distinctions don't actually work.
Machine guns have been strictly regulated since 1934.  Said regulation
is both perfect (legally owned machine guns aren't ever used
criminally) and a complete waste of time (the criminal use of machine
guns hasn't change at all).  The result - we're now arguing about
guns that LOOK like machine guns, but are no different than other
guns.

-andy
--
