RE: [ST] Firearms all the way! - long rant

["Alex Ozzard-Low" <alexol@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Sorry guys, but I couldn't resist all this gun stuff...

Singapore has one of the lowest rates of handgun crimes of anywhere in the
world.  Penalty for owning any gun (or even ammunition) is hanging - no ifs,
buts or maybes.

Switzerland has one of the highest gun ownership levels (not exactly
ownerships, but I believe military weapons are still kept at home) along
with an amazingly low hand gun death rate.  There are more murders annually
in the relatively peaceful town of 100,000 where I live than in the COUNTRY
of Switzerland

In the US handgun ownership is quite high, and the murder and general crime
rate is amongst the worst for developed nations.

So it's gotta be the people, not the guns right?

So what is it going to take to clear the crime rate up?  I have two handguns
in the house, primarily for sporting purposes, but I'd give them up tomorrow
if something like the Singapore rules could be applied.  Note the use of the
word applied - we have all the rules we need here in the US, they just
aren't applied.

I've lived and worked in some of the most violent parts of the world, e.g.
Medellin, Colombia, where the city of roughly 2 million had 6,610 murders in
one year in the mid-nineties, and most crime is because some wants something
you have that they can't afford or need to sell in order to eat.  The US
seems to be different - in Houston, a few years ago, a colleague's 14-yr-old
son was killed for his tennis shoes and a movie ticket, and this doesn't
seem to be totally abnormal.  I can take precautions against meeting up with
someone who wants to steal my wallet or watch, but not against someone who
might shoot me because we argue at a supermarket checkout.

In how many medium to large US cities is it safe to walk the streets at
night?  It's time that our families can go to the mall without fear of
muggings, rapes and murder, time people can live with having to look over
their shoulders.  If it offends a few people because their guns get taken
away, tough.  The biggest problem is that if the guns ARE taken away, no-one
will truly enforce the rules, meaning that you still have criminals with
guns.

The solution seems to be EITHER take away all guns and apply rules, OR legal
reform which is waaaay overdue.  Taking the guns away is just fixing a
symptom, not the disease.

As an aside, today's local newspaper reports that the survivors of a fire
which resulted in several family deaths caused by electric heaters, are
suing the GAS company.  The logic?  If the gas company had provided gas, the
electric heaters wouldn't have been in use in the first place...

Apologies for the rant.

Alex




- -----Original Message-----
From: owner-st@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-st@xxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of
rmasiak
Sent: 27 March, 2002 5:51 PM
To: ST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [ST] Firearms all the way!


You go Andy!  A few yahoos spoil it for the rest of us sportsmen(women).


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