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Emperor1956 -> RE: Guns (7/1/2006 10:30:02 AM)
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On guns: I may be somewhat of an anomaly (that's ok, I've been called worse). I am a gun owner and gun user, who also strongly advocates for the sort of restrictions that Lorelei and others talk about. In order to avoid having guns wind up in illegal hands, and to promote gun safety, what is wrong with (for example) waiting periods, restrictions on acquisition (does any private citizen REALLY need to acquire more than 5 guns a month?), and mandatory training akin to what we require for a drivers' license? All are acceptable to me.
The key issues on gun control that people forget are two. Scooter talks about how things were worse in the old pre-gun days. Well, on a 1 on 1 basis, maybe, but there are two key issues about guns that Scooter (and others) ignore, and to ignore these truths is to miss the point of rational gun control advocacy:
1. GUNS ARE EASY TO USE. Ever lift a 16th C. broad sword? Ever hold a flail? It takes strength and dexterity to wield that sort of weapon, and in fact the odds are pretty good that an inexperienced assailant with a sword will lop off his own appendage before he gets to yours. A gun, however, at base takes virtually no skill to operate. I'm not talking about to use one WELL. I'm not talking about 500 yard sniper training. I mean anyone, from my 9 year old neighbor to my 73 year old mother, can take a .25 cal. semi-auto with a tip up barrel, load it with one round, cock it, and make a hole in something or someone with not a whit of experience and a bit of training. After about 5 minutes of training, said child or aging, somewhat demented parent can load the clip and happily blast away at any rabbit, intruder, or nurses' aide trying to provide services. Remember the term used in the American West for the .45 cal revolver? Not "peacemaker"...but "equalizer".
2. GUNS CAUSE A TREMENDOUS AMOUNT OF DAMAGE. Knives, swords, maces, flails are all lethal, but only if the assailant gets in close, and has a fair amount of time. Guns, on the other hand, allow for serious lethal conduct from a distance, in a blink of an eye.
A bit of recent medical history: Prior to the mid 1980s in the United States, gunshot wounds (GSW) were usually treated at emergency rooms through isolation of the wound area, removal of the bullet, compression and rest, all while keeping the patient out of shock and replacing lost blood if necessary. Most wounds were single shot, caused by a .38 cal revolver (or a smaller cal.) and few were fatal.
Then in the mid 1980s the cheap multi-round semiautomatic pistol became readily available in the United States, the "flagship" of which was the 9mm semiauto handgun with a magazine of 7 to 13 rounds. Suddenly American trauma centers were seeing a new type of GSW victim -- multiple GSWs in various body parts created by large, high impact rounds. These patients went into shock rapidly and died -- while the surgeon was working on the belly wound, for instance, the GSW victim bled out through the severed thigh artery and/or went into shock from the face wound. Removal of the bullets was impossible -- people died too fast. The technology of medicine was inadequate, and new techniques, pioneered by Dr. C. William Schwab of Philadelphia among others, had to be created. Drawing on some lessons from Vietnam battlefield medicine, modern trauma surgeons reinvented the way we attempt to save gsw victims. But the inescapable fact is that modern easy to use rapid-fire handguns cause much more serious wounds than almost any other weapon in history.
That's why I don't mind a waiting period, or registration.
E.
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