From: Director@goa-texas.org ("Chris W.Stark")
To: email-subscribers@goa-texas.org
Subject: ABC News Pro-Gun Commentary??
Date: Wed, 5 Jan 2000 23:56:30 -0600
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
GUN OWNERS ALLIANCE
!!ALERT!!
Chris W. Stark - Director
P.O. Box 1924
Crosby, Texas 77532-1924
Ph. 1-281-787-4111 Fax 1-281-328-7505
http://www.GOA-Texas.org
email: Director@GOA-Texas.org
05 January 2000
+++++++++++++++++
ABC News Pro-Gun Commentary??
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Copyright 2000 by Gun Owners Alliance (GOA-Texas).
Republication permitted ONLY if this e-mail alert
is left intact in its original state.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
ABC News Perspective: Assault Weapons
by Hugh Downs
http://abcnews.go.com/
Years ago, presidential candidate John F. Kennedy distinguished himself
from his opponent Richard M. Nixon by saying that he, Kennedy, knew who
he was and that Nixon did not know who he was.
Knowing who you are suggests maturity and a sense of self hood. Nations,
just like individuals, also have identities and nationals can understand
who they are, too. Members of any civilization can realize their uniqueness.
Sometimes some Americans seem to have difficulty understanding who they
are. The United States is unique and we shouldn't feel guilty or envious
because we aren't like other nations.
One issue that seems to magnify our lack of self confidence in who we are
is the gun debate. Some Americans think we should be like the Japanese
when it comes to guns. Other think we should behave like the British, or
the Swiss, or maybe some other foreign nationals.
The recent vote to repeal the so-called assault weapons ban seemed to
kick up the dust once again in the gun debate. Patrick Kennedy, a
Democrat from Rhode Island, equated weapons with satanic forces. "Play
with the devil, die with the devil," Kennedy said. Jim Chapman, another
Democrat from Texas, said banning certain rifles was like outlawing
Rolls Royce's because of drunk drivers and the damage they do. But
the two sides couldn't be more opposed.
Before we plunge into the question of what a so-called assault weapon is,
let's back up a few million years and consider their evolution. Our most
ancient hominid ancestors learned to throw stones to kill game. Later
when they learned how to throw spears, Anthropologists and paleontologists
theorized that the act of throwing was a tremendously stressful thing.
Combining binocular vision and distance estimation with delicate hand-eye
coordination had never been attempted before in nature. Humans pioneered
the technique.
And one of the consequences of mastering this technique was a more robust
nervous system; a nervous system that may be responsible for opening the
door to humanity's unique intellectual activity.
Spears turned into bows and arrows. And arrows turned to crossbow bolts,
and then to firearms. The development of field artillery created a demand
for sophisticated mathematics and mathematicians solved problems of
ballistic velocities and trajectories.
The manufacture of firearms gave birth to precision engineering, concepts
of mass production, and breakthrough insights in metallurgy.
As a result of the intellectual achievements, master gunsmiths in New
England and elsewhere created an economic powerhouse. Guns and intellectual
progress seemed to have been intertwined. Rocket science is a direct
outgrowth of humankind's fascination with ballistics.
Perhaps the most stunning of all these fruits is the development of the
computer. The purpose of the world's first computer, Eniac, was to
calculate artillery and missile trajectories. In other words, humanity's
most astonishing intellectual artifact, the computer, is an offspring of
our love affair with guns.
Well, that's a truth about guns. Guns exercised our unique intellectual
ability. They stimulated many scientific disciplines. They created wealth.
And the have defeated enemies from Adolph Hitler to Sadam Hussein.
Some people may not like the idea, but a large measure of our success as
a species is due to our passion for firearms. This is an uncomfortable
truth, because guns serve a dark side of humanity also. War is our dark
side. War destroys life and property. And everyone, even brave warriors,
justifiably fear it. Weaponry provided food for our tables and served us
well in certain crises.
But as instruments of war they play a cacophonous distasteful tune. Nobody
likes it. People who claim they like war, I believe, are lying to themselves
and to the world.
But guns do not make war. Guns can hold neither grudges nor hate. Guns
are merely instruments. A machine gun can no more launch an attack without
a machine gunner than an oboe is to play Mozart without a musician.
Instruments are extensions of people. Firearms are merely extensions
of people.
Firearms, in whatever numbers or whatever configurations, are not the
problem. The problem would seem to have its roots in national attitude
we have toward correcting things. Where did we develop the idea that
personal grievances or social wrongs can be redressed by shooting the
bad guy?
For example, we do not have the greatest number of handguns per capita.
We just have (the) greatest number of deaths from these weapons. Israel
and Switzerland are both ahead of us in number of handguns per capita.
But they don't have very much of this kind of crime. Almost every home
in these countries has at least one sidearm, given a person on completion
of compulsory military service. They have the guns, but they just don't
seem inclined to shoot each other.
The assault rifle debate takes our attention away from the underlying
problem: how to effect a change in our national attitude toward settling
differences by violence. This is what we should be focused on. But we
seem to (be) fixated on a buzzword like "assault."
Hunters, professional armors, and firearm historians say the term is
imprecise. Some claim there is no such thing. One common term, known as
an assault rifle, refers to a long arm or carbine capable of automatic
fire with ordinary military ammunition or big-game ammunition.
Fully automatic weapons, true machine guns, have been banned since the
1930s and that ban remains in effect. So the "assault weapon" ban cannot
refer to machine guns, although many people, I think, mistakenly think
so. All the banned weapons are semi-automatic.
Legislators who initiated the ban claim that semi- automatic weapons have
no sporting use. But semi-automatic rifles have long history in hunting
and other sports. The famous BAR, or Browning Automatic Rifle, is a semi-
automatic hunting rifle; so is the Remington Model 7400. Semi-automatic
shotguns have been on the market for many years.
The banned rifles differ from non-banned ones only in small decorative
details: decorations like a folding stock, a bayonet mount, or a flash
suppresser. Otherwise, the banned "assault weapons" are ordinary rifles.
They are not automatic military weapons.
But the Republicans are now embarrassed by a perceived necessity of
lifting the ban on so-called assault weapons. And they've elected to
do so as quickly and quietly as can be done to get it behind them so
it's not an issue later on when the elections looms. Many of them feel
it will not get past both houses of Congress anyway and they can then
say to the NRA, "We did our best."
Unlike Britons, Americans are citizens and not subjects. And there's a
very great difference between the two. Americans do not worship their
government as god, which is a thousand-year-old tradition in Japan. Nor,
like the Japanese, do we believe that government is infallible, as if
government authority were an extension of family authority.
Americans are not Canadians either. We are unlike both the strict
Quebecoise and the English-speaking subjects of the British monarch.
Americans are different and require different rules and laws.
Maybe when we Americans learn to responsibly manage our guns, and our
drugs, and our automobiles, or any other of the dangerous things in life,
maybe then we will know who we are.
For Perspective, this is Hugh Downs, ABC News.
*******
NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material
is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed
a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research
and educational purposes only.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Help Support the work of Gun Owners Alliance! Go to:
http://www.goa-texas.org/members.htm
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Copyright 2000 by Gun Owners Alliance (GOA-Texas). Republication
permitted ONLY if this e-mail alert is left intact in its original
state. The views herein do not necessarily reflect the views of
any other individual or organization, than Gun Owners Alliance
(GOA-Texas). We do not officially represent Gun Owners of America.
Go to http://www.goa-texas.org/TXsig.htm for more information.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
ONLY THE E-MAIL ADDRESS USED TO SEND US A SUBSCRIBE REQUEST, CAN BE
SUBSCRIBED. WE VERIFY THE AUTHENTICITY OF EVERY REQUEST.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
TO SUBSCRIBE TO OUR E-MAIL ALERTS, send an e-mail to:
subscribe@GOA-Texas.org
....and in the body of the message, type the word "subscribe".
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
TO UN-SUBSCRIBE TO OUR E-MAIL ALERTS, send an e-mail to:
UN-subscribe@GOA-Texas.org
....and in the body of the message, type the word "UN-subscribe".
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: PGPfreeware 6.5.2 for non-commercial use <http://www.pgp.com>
Comment: 'None Genuine Without This Signature'
iQEVAwUBOHQpU0McuoA7aq7dAQE2GQf9FuLjR5pDBHGNj5vek4ibg2B2pFXheCKr
nqHq3f9k7wpixJmZW6Um9Ym3mG+HPdgrW/tW9dfNwX6WNwhLXhBbKouba5mMFpoP
CDxdG80dfNHtstCxPfDS+9Jdy2OwP4I+xc4jHxG8OP5xWNWg0TjUBw6j+BtfjKOx
v3KOSBmCfyUbwUMzqd3xo1Teb1UXj4QRM1KKqYJdqvnqSN/mUJyBZfB72sC+tIej
ZctUtxNq1rM9RsLftdMamhHXquTwNqWkJP4fYoXaN84kzqPAm1pQcExG5RnHesLE
vVkwG6kB3EYGS1MhzvbZ6tKxYhx5Dv8qwgEdRQIA9RXSypTSnSISfQ==
=p924
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Visit the Crazy Atheist Libertarian
Visit my atheist friends at Arizona Secular Humanists
Some strange but true news about the government
Some strange but real news about religion
Interesting, funny but otherwise useless news!