From: [c d t] at [sw.stratus.com] (C. D. Tavares)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns,dc.talk.guns
Subject: Re: NE Journal Study on Homicide
Date: 15 Oct 1993 14:09:06 GMT

[pa 142548] at [utkvm1.utk.edu] (T. Archer) writes:
>[c d t] at [sw.stratus.com] (C. D. Tavares) writes:
>>And so was I.  Ignorant, an HCI member, and unconscionably proud of both.
> 
>You?  HCI?  You're kidding...

I was a member of Handgun Control for over seven years, almost since
their inception.  I believed that gun ownership was allowable for
responsible people who could prove they were good citizens, and I
believed HCI when they said they did, too. 

I'm a well-established, middle-aged, homeowning, taxpaying family man
with absolutely no police encounters other than a half dozen traffic
tickets spanning 25 years.  I'm a graduate of a local "name" college.
I have an unblemished credit history and employment record, a
professional-type technical career, and have (when required) held
extremely sensitive clearances.  I'm a Boy Scout volunteer advisor,
and a volunteer director of a national educational non-profit society
for 15 years.  I rarely touch alcohol, and I have never had a mental
health problem or any legal troubles.  I am on good terms with all my
neighbors.  My wife's and kids' records are equally exemplary.  And,
since it still "counts" to officials in many areas of the country, let
me add that I'm even white.

In short, next to me, Ward Cleaver comes off like Charles Manson.

When I decided to purchase a simple .22 target pistol for me and my
wife, and discovered all the incredible hoops, hurdles, political and
personal influence that was necessary in my area to complete this
simple transaction -- not to mention the six-month wait -- I came to
the realization that if "safe" people like me were having trouble
exercising a GODDAMN CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT, then something was very,
very dangerously wrong with my local government -- and, by extension,
with any level of government that was agitating for the same laws.

(Especially when I knew it was a lead cinch that by approaching one
particular cousin of mine I could have any type pistol I wanted in
hand, no questions asked, within a week; and that probably any
criminal in the state could say the same.)

That's when the core fallacy of "responsible gun control" actually
hit home, for me.

Around this same time, I discovered verifiable statements by HCI 
leaders that proved without a doubt that HCI's ultimate aim was to 
make handguns available to NO citizens -- responsible or not.

I believed HCI back in 1982 when they told me that they were ONLY
going to address handguns.  Then they began to militate against
rifles, rifle magazines, shotguns, ammunition, and just about every
other damn thing there is, and on the basis of totally bogus claims.

I finally came to the conclusion that my core belief that a
responsible, adult American citizen should always have the ability to
keep arms for defense of himself and his country (and, in the worst
case, against oppression by his own government) was INCOMPATIBLE with
the gun controllers' ultimate aims, regardless of their protests that
it wasn't.

For all of you who think that "responsible gun control laws" are
always well thought-out and reasonable, I will add that I owe my NRA
membership DIRECTLY to gun-control laws -- I was forced to join the
NRA as a condition of purchasing a pistol in my state!  If NRA is
truly the "evil empire" that gun control organizations and governments
like to paint it, how can they justify their own laws?  The answer is
that once the government passes a law and takes a bow, the effects 
and sife-effects of that law on you and me are no longer an issue.
Nobody cares about them other than the people who get screwed by them.
And it's never criminals.
-- 

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