Strom Thurmond Squared
gfa...@savvy.com
I also noted the account, in coverage of the swearing in of the Senate, that
"even the 98-year-old Strom Thurmond gave Mrs. Clinton a long hug" in
welcoming her to the Senate.
--
Gary Farber New York
gfa...@savvy.com
D. Potter
>>"I also noted the account, in coverage of the swearing in of the Senate, that
"even the 98-year-old Strom Thurmond gave Mrs. Clinton a long hug" in
welcoming her to the Senate."<<
They don't mention the long hot shower with loofahs afterward, though...
--
D. Potter
This .sig temporarily vacant. Thinking about "Have laptop, will travel. Email
Paladin@cyber$goth.com," but that's probably real. [Hence the passed buck.]
gfa...@savvy.com
> Gary Farber wrote:
>>>"I also noted the account, in coverage of the swearing in of the Senate, that
> "even the 98-year-old Strom Thurmond gave Mrs. Clinton a long hug" in
> welcoming her to the Senate."<<
> They don't mention the long hot shower with loofahs afterward, though...
I liked the part, in the story whose URL I gave about how we're likely to
see a Strom Thurmond in the Senate well into the 21st Century (shit, why
don't we just *formalize* the hereditary aristocracy in the US, and
incidentally institute a formal House of Lords?), where it's mentioned that
Strom I had said he might retire, until he was "reminded" that his state's
Governor is a Democrat.
But he's not senile, mind.
Ray Radlein
>
> <http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/05/politics/05THUR.html>.
>
> I also noted the account, in coverage of the swearing in of the
> Senate, that "even the 98-year-old Strom Thurmond gave Mrs.
> Clinton a long hug" in welcoming her to the Senate.
She's a bit young for him, really.
- Ray R.
--
***********************************************************************
"But at my back I alwaies hear
Magneto's minions hurrying near"
- Marvell Comics, "The Mysterious Men of X"
Ray Radlein - r...@learnlink.emory.edu
homepage coming soon! wooo, wooo.
***********************************************************************
gfa...@savvy.com
> gfa...@savvy.com wrote:
>>
>> <http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/05/politics/05THUR.html>.
>>
>> I also noted the account, in coverage of the swearing in of the
>> Senate, that "even the 98-year-old Strom Thurmond gave Mrs.
>> Clinton a long hug" in welcoming her to the Senate.
> She's a bit young for him, really.
Checking maths and his wives and again suggests not.
Doug Wickstrom
<935odd$8s33d$1...@ID-51877.news.dfncis.de>
gfa...@savvy.com excited the ether to say:
><http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/05/politics/05THUR.html>.
>
>I also noted the account, in coverage of the swearing in of the Senate, that
>"even the 98-year-old Strom Thurmond gave Mrs. Clinton a long hug" in
>welcoming her to the Senate.
There's a man knows a hot babe when he sees one.
--
Doug Wickstrom
"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." --Benjamin Franklin
Alison Scott
>(shit, why
>don't we just *formalize* the hereditary aristocracy in the US, and
>incidentally institute a formal House of Lords?),
Of course, a great many of our hereditary peerages were bestowed
originally on politicians.
There does seem to be an awful lot of hereditary succession in the US;
rather more, in positions of power, than in the UK.
--
Alison Scott ali...@kittywompus.com & www.kittywompus.com
I may slowly be returning to normal functioning. Baby photos
at www.kittywompus.com/family
Jo Walton
ali...@kittywompus.com "Alison Scott" writes:
> gfa...@savvy.com wrote:
>
> >(shit, why
> >don't we just *formalize* the hereditary aristocracy in the US, and
> >incidentally institute a formal House of Lords?),
>
> Of course, a great many of our hereditary peerages were bestowed
> originally on politicians.
>
> There does seem to be an awful lot of hereditary succession in the US;
> rather more, in positions of power, than in the UK.
I keep thinking that, and I keep thinking it must be in some way a
flawed perception caused by my not understanding the US system
properly, and where power lies in it.
Do ordinary people get elected to Congress? People who aren't rich?
People like teachers?
--
Jo J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk
I kissed a kif at Kefk Take the rasfw pledge
*THE KING'S PEACE* out now! From Tor Books and good bookshops everywhere.
More info, Tir Tanagiri Map & Poetry etc at http://www.bluejo.demon.co.uk
Randolph Fritz
>In article <6s2e5tsjkmcen3ut8...@4ax.com>
> ali...@kittywompus.com "Alison Scott" writes:
>
>> gfa...@savvy.com wrote:
>>
>> >(shit, why
>> >don't we just *formalize* the hereditary aristocracy in the US, and
>> >incidentally institute a formal House of Lords?),
>>
>> Of course, a great many of our hereditary peerages were bestowed
>> originally on politicians.
>>
>> There does seem to be an awful lot of hereditary succession in the US;
>> rather more, in positions of power, than in the UK.
>
>I keep thinking that, and I keep thinking it must be in some way a
>flawed perception caused by my not understanding the US system
>properly, and where power lies in it.
>
>Do ordinary people get elected to Congress? People who aren't rich?
>People like teachers?
>
Well, Bill Clinton comes from a perfectly ordinary (poor rural
Arkansas) background. Yes, there are families which have long
standing in politics or in wealth; members often become Senators and
Governors. But the rest of the people, and especially state
legislators, are pretty run-of-the-mill, though with a high
preponderance of lawyers and wealthy types.
Randolph
Kate Schaefer
news:978800...@bluejo.demon.co.uk...
> In article <6s2e5tsjkmcen3ut8...@4ax.com>
> ali...@kittywompus.com "Alison Scott" writes:
>
> > gfa...@savvy.com wrote:
> >
> > >(shit, why
> > >don't we just *formalize* the hereditary aristocracy in the US, and
> > >incidentally institute a formal House of Lords?),
> >
> > Of course, a great many of our hereditary peerages were bestowed
> > originally on politicians.
> >
> > There does seem to be an awful lot of hereditary succession in the US;
> > rather more, in positions of power, than in the UK.
>
> I keep thinking that, and I keep thinking it must be in some way a
> flawed perception caused by my not understanding the US system
> properly, and where power lies in it.
>
> Do ordinary people get elected to Congress? People who aren't rich?
> People like teachers?
One of my senators, Patty Murray, originally campaigned on a platform of
being a mom in tennis shoes.
Now she campaigns on a platform of being a fairly effective senator.
Bill Burns
>Do ordinary people get elected to Congress? People who aren't rich?
>People like teachers?
Our congresswoman, Carolyn McCarthy, was a suburban nurse, mother, and
housewife until her husband was killed and her son seriously injured by
a lunatic who shot up a Long Island Railroad rush-hour commuter train
in 1993. She was incensed to find that the incumbent Congressman was
opposed to gun control, ran against him and won, and has done such a
good job that she's now in her third term.
--
Bill Burns
Long Island NY USA
mailto:bi...@ftldesign.com
Ray Radlein
>
> Ray Radlein <r...@learnlink.emory.edu> wrote:
> >
> > She's a bit young for him, really.
>
> Checking maths and his wives and again suggests not.
Checking the actual words I wrote reveals that my fingers were located
in a different reality from my brain, which told them to type "old."
*Sigh*.
On Bizarro World, ages am different!
gfa...@savvy.com
> Jo Walton wrote:
>>Do ordinary people get elected to Congress? People who aren't rich?
>>People like teachers?
> Our congresswoman, Carolyn McCarthy, was a suburban nurse, mother, and
> housewife until her husband was killed and her son seriously injured by
> a lunatic who shot up a Long Island Railroad rush-hour commuter train
> in 1993. She was incensed to find that the incumbent Congressman was
> opposed to gun control, ran against him and won, and has done such a
> good job that she's now in her third term.
Of course, to folks such as Joel and Doug and DDB and other folks whose
first and nearly only issue is their interesting view of the Second
Amendment, she's a raving loony, who somehow deluded others around here into
electing her.
But, yes, Jo, a fair number of normal middle class folks get elected to
Congress. But it helps to be a millionaire.
I'll break down the figures if you give some ways you'ld like it done. I
don't have access to some I'd like, such as books read per month.
mike weber
>Of course, to folks such as Joel and Doug and DDB and other folks whose
>first and nearly only issue is their interesting view of the Second
>Amendment,
Gary, this is neither helpful nor polite... and Not True, besides.
Doug and i have been parts of various discussions of all sorts of
things, as has Joel; i have a firm sense that neither of them is
anything like a Second Amendment Absolutist.
You have been getting kind of snotty lately; how about doing
*something -- maybe waiting about half-an-hour after writing a post
before you send it to see if you *still* *really* want to say that --
to reduce the amount of off-hand sniping?
--
"You have not converted a man because you have silenced him."
<mike weber> <kras...@mindspring.com>
Ambitious Incomplete web site: http://weberworld.virtualave.net
Lis Carey
<978800...@bluejo.demon.co.uk>:
>In article <6s2e5tsjkmcen3ut8...@4ax.com>
> ali...@kittywompus.com "Alison Scott" writes:
>
>> gfa...@savvy.com wrote:
>>
>> >(shit, why
>> >don't we just *formalize* the hereditary aristocracy in the US,
>> >and incidentally institute a formal House of Lords?),
>>
>> Of course, a great many of our hereditary peerages were bestowed
>> originally on politicians.
>>
>> There does seem to be an awful lot of hereditary succession in the
>> US; rather more, in positions of power, than in the UK.
>
>I keep thinking that, and I keep thinking it must be in some way a
>flawed perception caused by my not understanding the US system
>properly, and where power lies in it.
>
>Do ordinary people get elected to Congress? People who aren't rich?
>People like teachers?
Consider the backgrounds of Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter,
Gerald Ford, and Richard Nixon. Clinton and Reagan, in particular, are
from genuinely poor backgrounds; none of them is from an especially
privileged background.
People elected to Congress tend to have at least middle class levels of
income and education by the time they get elected to Congress. Quite
large numbers of them do not come from that kind of background
originally. Few of them are teachers or cab drivers; a lot more of them
are the offspring of teachers or cab drivers.
The thing about political "dynasties" like the Kennedys or the Bushes
is that they're unusual; most American politicians _don't_ come from
families where politics is the family business. The offspring of
politicians mostly do other things, and people whose parents did other
things, often quite "ordinary" things, become politicians. The Bushes
and the Kennedys get lots of attention in part because they're so
striking.
--
Lis Carey
Re-elect Gore in '04
Mark Atwood
>
> Well, Bill Clinton comes from a perfectly ordinary (poor rural
> Arkansas) background. Yes, there are families which have long
> standing in politics or in wealth; members often become Senators and
> Governors. But the rest of the people, and especially state
> legislators, are pretty run-of-the-mill, though with a high
> preponderance of lawyers and wealthy types.
IIRC, Prez-Elect Bush Jr, will be only the third US president that was
both wealthy and healthy as a child.
--
Mark Atwood | I'm wearing black only until I find something darker.
m...@pobox.com |
http://www.pobox.com/~mra
P Nielsen Hayden
mike weber <kras...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>On 7 Jan 2001 05:05:39 GMT, gfa...@savvy.com typed
>
>
>>Of course, to folks such as Joel and Doug and DDB and other folks whose
>>first and nearly only issue is their interesting view of the Second
>>Amendment,
>
>Gary, this is neither helpful nor polite... and Not True, besides.
>
>Doug and i have been parts of various discussions of all sorts of
>things, as has Joel; i have a firm sense that neither of them is
>anything like a Second Amendment Absolutist.
Indeed. And including DDB in that set is simply indefensible. David
has been participating -- quite constructively -- in political
discussions on this group _right now_ that have nothing to to with the
Second Amendment. There's absolutely no evidence that his "first and
nearly only issue" is the Second Amendment.
It's a low blow at the other two as well. I may have had a bunch of
disagreements with Joel lately, but they weren't about the Second
Amendment -- which is itself evidence that Joel is concerned with
plenty of other issues. And in just the last day or two, Doug has
posted cogently and insightfully on issues such as union organizing,
and the persistence of racism in modern America.
Nobody should have to be defended against a libel like this. Really.
--
Patrick Nielsen Hayden : p...@panix.com : http://www.panix.com/~pnh
Kip Williams
>
> On 7 Jan 2001 05:05:39 GMT, gfa...@savvy.com typed
>
> >Of course, to folks such as Joel and Doug and DDB and other folks whose
> >first and nearly only issue is their interesting view of the Second
> >Amendment,
>
> Gary, this is neither helpful nor polite... and Not True, besides.
>
> Doug and i have been parts of various discussions of all sorts of
> things, as has Joel; i have a firm sense that neither of them is
> anything like a Second Amendment Absolutist.
>
> You have been getting kind of snotty lately; how about doing
> *something -- maybe waiting about half-an-hour after writing a post
> before you send it to see if you *still* *really* want to say that --
> to reduce the amount of off-hand sniping?
Even though I've disagreed publicly with Doug, and probably Joel, I
get the sense that if you could diagram their brains, the largest
labelled section would be something other than "2nd Amendment."
--
--Kip (Williams)
amusing the world at http://members.home.net/kipw/
Kris Hasson Jones
>In article <Xns9021D685E...@167.206.112.134>
>Bill Burns <bi...@ftldesign.com> wrote:
>> Jo Walton wrote:
>
>>>Do ordinary people get elected to Congress? People who aren't rich?
>>>People like teachers?
>
>> Our congresswoman, Carolyn McCarthy, was a suburban nurse, mother, and
>> housewife until her husband was killed and her son seriously injured by
>> a lunatic who shot up a Long Island Railroad rush-hour commuter train
>> in 1993. She was incensed to find that the incumbent Congressman was
>> opposed to gun control, ran against him and won, and has done such a
>> good job that she's now in her third term.
>
>Of course, to folks such as Joel and Doug and DDB and other folks whose
>first and nearly only issue is their interesting view of the Second
>Amendment, she's a raving loony, who somehow deluded others around here into
>electing her.
Gary, whenever you post this kind of thing I wonder what's up with
you. Didn't you sleep well? Did someone you love snub you today?
Did you lose something important to you? Because this is clearly
about you and not about anybody you mentioned, including me (since I'm
one of the "other folks" with an "interesting view of the Second
Amendment").
--
Kris Hasson Jones sni...@pacifier.com
Joseph Teller
>IIRC, Prez-Elect Bush Jr, will be only the third US president that was
>both wealthy and healthy as a child.
Try again. There have been plenty of wealthy healthy children who
became president, like most of them. Nixon was the only one in this
century aside from Clinton (I'm not sure of his family background)
that was even middle class, all the rest are from upper class
families.
And the same is true of the previous century for the most part.
Joe
Joseph Teller joet...@mindspring.com
"Put Some Fantasy Back In Your Life!"
The Fantasy Library
http://www.fantasylibrary.com
gfa...@savvy.com
> On 07 Jan 2001 03:58:13 -0800, Mark Atwood <m...@pobox.com> wrote:
>>IIRC, Prez-Elect Bush Jr, will be only the third US president that was
>>both wealthy and healthy as a child.
> Try again. There have been plenty of wealthy healthy children who
> became president, like most of them. Nixon was the only one in this
> century aside from Clinton (I'm not sure of his family background)
> that was even middle class, all the rest are from upper class
> families.
I'm sorry, no: Truman, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and Eisenhowser were also all
indisputably born middle-class or lower. LBJ one could argue about, I
suppose, and a couple of others, as borderline.
I don't know, on the other hand, how Mark Atwood intends to support his
claim; I'd point to Bush, Bush, Kennedy, FDR, Harding, Wilson, Taft, TR
wasn't *born* unhealthy, and John Quincy Adams, as being born to the top
twenty percent quintile of wealth in the country; "wealthy" doesn't mean
"superrich." One could toss in some more examples, but they might be more
debatable.
> And the same is true of the previous century for the most part.
No, it isn't. We went through this just about two months ago.
gfa...@savvy.com
> J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk (Jo Walton) wrote in
> <978800...@bluejo.demon.co.uk>:
>>Do ordinary people get elected to Congress? People who aren't rich?
>>People like teachers?
> Consider the backgrounds of Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter,
> Gerald Ford, and Richard Nixon. Clinton and Reagan, in particular, are
> from genuinely poor backgrounds; none of them is from an especially
> privileged background.
Lyndon Baines Johnson: "Johnson was born on Aug. 27, 1908, near Johnson
City, Tex., the eldest son of Sam Ealy Johnson, Jr., and Rebekah Baines
Johnson. His father, a struggling farmer and cattle speculator in the hill
country of Texas, provided only an uncertain income for his family.
Politically active, Sam Johnson served five terms in the Texas legislature.
Lyndon's mother had varied cultural interests and placed high value on
education; she was fiercely ambitious for her children."
"Johnson attended public schools in Johnson City and received a B.S. degree
from Southwest Texas State Teachers College in San Marcos. He then taught
grade school for a year in Cotulla before going to Washington in 1931 as
secretary to a Democratic Texas congressman, Richard M. Kleberg."
(From <http://gi.grolier.com/presidents/aae/bios/36pjohn.html>.
Dwight D. Eisenhower: "Eisenhower was born in Denison, Tex., on Oct. 14,
1890. Two years later his impoverished and devout family moved to Abilene,
Kans., where he grew up. He attended the U.S. Military Academy at West
Point, graduating as a secondlieutenant in 1915."
<http://gi.grolier.com/presidents/aae/bios/34peise.html>
Harry S Truman: "Truman was born on May 8, 1884, in Lamar, Mo., and spent
his early life in Independence, Mo., near Kansas City. He held various jobs
after graduating from high school, then took over the family farm in 1906
and became active in DEMOCRATIC politics, the Farm Bureau Federation, the
Masonic Lodge, and the National Guard. After serving in France during World
War I, Truman became a partner in a men's clothing store in Kansas City."
<http://gi.grolier.com/presidents/aae/bios/33ptrum.html>
Herbert Hoover: "Born on Aug. 10, 1874, the son of a blacksmith in the Iowa
village of West Branch, Hoover was orphaned at the age of eight and sent to
live with an uncle in Oregon. The uncle became wealthy, enabling Hoover to
study mining engineering at Stanford University; he graduated in 1895. The
influences of his engineering training and his Quaker upbringing were to
shape his subsequent careers."
"Hoover began working in California mines as an ordinary laborer, but he
soon obtained a position in Australia directing a new gold-mining venture.
During the next two decades he traveled through much of Asia, Africa, and
Europe as a mining entrepreneur, earning a considerable fortune. At the
outbreak of World War I in August 1914 he was in London."
<http://gi.grolier.com/presidents/aae/bios/31phoov.html>
Calvin Coolidge was the son of a merchant, and became a lawyer. Woodrow
Wilson was the son of a minister, and became an academic.
Grover Cleveland: Stephen Grover Cleveland was born on Mar. 18, 1837, in
Caldwell, N.J. His father, a Presbyterian clergyman, took the family to New
York State in 1841. On the father's death in 1853, the family was in
difficult financial straits, and young Grover left home. He worked one year
in New York City at the New York Institution for the Blind before moving to
Buffalo in 1855 to live with a wealthy uncle. He studied law in Buffalo and
was admitted to the bar in 1859."
<http://gi.grolier.com/presidents/aae/bios/24pclev.html>
I guess going further back would be pointless as regards Jo's question
insofar as it's about contemporary America.
As regards Congress, sure, lots of folks get elected who aren't rich. There
are 435 seats in the House, and while the average prior income has been
rising, as has the number of millionaires, plenty of Reps aren't rich or
upper-class. Less so in the Senate, but even so, quite a few Senators come
from perfectly average middle-class backgrounds.
> People elected to Congress tend to have at least middle class levels of
> income and education by the time they get elected to Congress. Quite
> large numbers of them do not come from that kind of background
> originally. Few of them are teachers or cab drivers; a lot more of them
> are the offspring of teachers or cab drivers.
> The thing about political "dynasties" like the Kennedys or the Bushes
> is that they're unusual; most American politicians _don't_ come from
> families where politics is the family business. The offspring of
> politicians mostly do other things, and people whose parents did other
> things, often quite "ordinary" things, become politicians. The Bushes
> and the Kennedys get lots of attention in part because they're so
> striking.
That's Presidential. On the Congressional side, the number of hereditary
seats has, in fact, been rising dramatically. Harld Ford, Jr., Jesse
Jackson, Jr., Susan Molinari (now out), Governor Taft, and a number of
others. More and more politicians do come from families where politics is
the family business, actually.
T Nielsen Hayden
> ali...@kittywompus.com "Alison Scott" writes:
>
>> gfa...@savvy.com wrote:
>>
>> >(shit, why
>> >don't we just *formalize* the hereditary aristocracy in the US, and
>> >incidentally institute a formal House of Lords?),
>>
>> Of course, a great many of our hereditary peerages were bestowed
>> originally on politicians.
>>
>> There does seem to be an awful lot of hereditary succession in the US;
>> rather more, in positions of power, than in the UK.
>
>I keep thinking that, and I keep thinking it must be in some way a
>flawed perception caused by my not understanding the US system
>properly, and where power lies in it.
Nope. You're right.
>Do ordinary people get elected to Congress? People who aren't rich?
>People like teachers?
Some of them. But if they get elected President, they're in for a hell of a
time. And I'm not just talking about William Jefferson Clinton.
-t.
T Nielsen Hayden
>In article <Xns9021D685E...@167.206.112.134>
>Bill Burns <bi...@ftldesign.com> wrote:
>> Jo Walton wrote:
>
>>>Do ordinary people get elected to Congress? People who aren't rich?
>>>People like teachers?
>
>> Our congresswoman, Carolyn McCarthy, was a suburban nurse, mother, and
>> housewife until her husband was killed and her son seriously injured by
>> a lunatic who shot up a Long Island Railroad rush-hour commuter train
>> in 1993. She was incensed to find that the incumbent Congressman was
>> opposed to gun control, ran against him and won, and has done such a
>> good job that she's now in her third term.
>
>Of course, to folks such as Joel and Doug and DDB and other folks whose
>first and nearly only issue is their interesting view of the Second
>Amendment, she's a raving loony, who somehow deluded others around here into
>electing her.
Get over it. Gun control has been used too long to divide natural allies.
-t.
Lis Carey
<3a591139...@news.mindspring.com>:
>On 07 Jan 2001 03:58:13 -0800, Mark Atwood <m...@pobox.com> wrote:
>
>
>>IIRC, Prez-Elect Bush Jr, will be only the third US president that
>>was both wealthy and healthy as a child.
>
>Try again. There have been plenty of wealthy healthy children who
>became president, like most of them. Nixon was the only one in this
>century aside from Clinton (I'm not sure of his family background)
>that was even middle class, all the rest are from upper class
>families.
No, this is not correct. The Roosevelts, Kennedy, and the Bushes were
born wealthy, but most of the other presidents in the century were not.
The Carter family was middle class, as were the Fords; Truman and
Eisenhower were farm boys--Eisenhower went to West Point because it was
the only way he could afford a college education; the Reagans working
class. I could go on, but someone else probably will, since we went
through this sometime in the last few months.
>And the same is true of the previous century for the most part.
No, that's not true, either. John Adams was no more than middle class,
Lincoln and Andrew Johnson stand out as presidents who came from very
poor origins, Buchanan was middle class, Arthur was the son of a
preacher, McKinley the son of a storekeeper, Cleveland the son of a
clergyman, Fillmore was a farmboy who received almost no formal
education. Again, this is not an exhaustive list.
There's no question that wealth is a great advantage in seeking the
presidency, but it's not nearly so clear that great wealth at birth is
an important factor, or ever has been.
David G. Bell
<slrn95ip6...@pnh-0.dsl.speakeasy.net> t...@panix.com
"T Nielsen Hayden" wrote:
I think it's possible to consider the gun control debate as a precursor
of the whole election mess. Though it's probably stretching things a
little too much for some people's comfort. But what it comes down to is
the existence of a remarkably direct clause in the US Constitution, and
what sometimes looks like a flood of quasi-Orwellian newspeak about what
it really means.
If I were American, I'd be inclined to own a gun. For reasons of
family history, I'd be inclined towards an S.M.L.E. I don't think I'd
go to a lot of effort to shoot with it, though I suppose I ought to take
the trouble to be competent. "A well-regulated militia..."
But what I see with gun control in the USA looks like a lot of shabby
political manipulation, showing little or no respect for your
Constitution, and suggesting that the politicians don't trust the
people.
Maybe it isn't so far from that election after all.
Meanwhile, here in the UK, we are living in a country which makes it
difficult to own guns. The government is careful who it trusts. I'm
not sure if that's bad or not. But, post-Dunblane, the governments
decided that, even with the rigourous checks required by the law, there
were some people it didn't trust at all. And they knew exactly where
they were.
That's why I don't support the idea of firearms registration of the sort
we have in the UK. And that is part of the reason why, if I were
American, I'd take the trouble to own a gun.
If you have a right that you never use, how can you tell when you lose
it?
--
David G. Bell -- Farmer, SF Fan, Filker, and Punslinger.
We suffer as a society and a culture when we don't pay the true value of
goods and services delivered. We create a lack of production. Less good
music is recorded if we remove the incentive to create it. -- Courtney Love
Dave Weingart
>Do ordinary people get elected to Congress? People who aren't rich?
>People like teachers?
Congress, meaning the House of Representatives, yes (although it helps
to have money behind you to get elected). A few districts over from me,
the Rep. is Carolyn McCarthy, a nurse (special circumstances and name
recognition are what got her there, though, and I suspect she'd rather
not have had them in the first place). My local Rep. is a career pol,
however.
--
73 de Dave Weingart KA2ESK Consonance 2001! Urban Tapestry!
mailto:phyd...@liii.com Mike Stein! Oh, yeah, and some guy
http://www.liii.com/~phydeaux named Dave Wein-something-or-other.
ICQ 57055207 http://www.consonance.org
mike weber
> 98-year-old Strom Thurmond
He was one of our Senators when the family moved to South Carolina.
That was in 1955.
Strom Thurmond and Olin D. Johnston -- right-wing loonie and Jack S.
Phogbound.
Going to seem downright unnatural having anyone else as Senior Senator
from South Carolins...
Carol Kennedy
elected to Congress? People who aren't rich?
> People like teachers?
Minnesota's senior senator, Paul Wellstone, was a professor at a small
private college before being elected, and I wouldn't call him "rich." He's
in his second term.
--
Carol Kennedy
"If you have no investment in the future, your only resource for the present
is the past."
Hal O'Brien
>
> Do ordinary people get elected to Congress? People who aren't rich?
> People like teachers?
>
Newt Gingrich was a history prof, pre-Congress. Phil Gramm was an
econ prof. Mike Honda in the House from San Jose, Calif., was a
teacher. Same for Bill Thomas of Bakersfield. As I recall, Denny
Hastert, the current Speaker of the House, was a teacher and a
wrestling coach... He's still called "Coach" by some.
-- Hal
Mary Kay Kare
<arg...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>As I recall, Denny
> Hastert, the current Speaker of the House, was a teacher and a
> wrestling coach... He's still called "Coach" by some.
>
Wanna know what I call him?
MKK
--
Stamp out tin toys!
Avedon Carol
>"Jo Walton" <J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
>> ali...@kittywompus.com "Alison Scott" writes:
>> > There does seem to be an awful lot of hereditary succession in the US;
>> > rather more, in positions of power, than in the UK.
>>
>> I keep thinking that, and I keep thinking it must be in some way a
>> flawed perception caused by my not understanding the US system
>> properly, and where power lies in it.
>>
>> Do ordinary people get elected to Congress? People who aren't rich?
>> People like teachers?
>
>One of my senators, Patty Murray, originally campaigned on a platform of
>being a mom in tennis shoes.
>
>Now she campaigns on a platform of being a fairly effective senator.
Don't forget Ruth Ann.
--
I am reading from rec.arts.sf.fandom, where I am on-topic;
follow-ups are set accordingly, just in case.
Lis Carey
08010117...@c797629-a.plstn1.sfba.home.com>:
Can you say that in a family newsgroup?
Avedon Carol
>It's a low blow at the other two as well. I may have had a bunch of
>disagreements with Joel lately, but they weren't about the Second
>Amendment -- which is itself evidence that Joel is concerned with
>plenty of other issues. And in just the last day or two, Doug has
>posted cogently and insightfully on issues such as union organizing,
>and the persistence of racism in modern America.
I'm certain what Gary wrote was unfair to Doug and DDB, but wasn't it
Joel who said he would have been voting for Gore but for the gnu
issue? That's pretty close to a single-issue statement.
gfa...@savvy.com
> On 7 Jan 2001 15:27:58 GMT, p...@panix.com (P Nielsen Hayden) wrote:
>>It's a low blow at the other two as well. I may have had a bunch of
>>disagreements with Joel lately, but they weren't about the Second
>>Amendment -- which is itself evidence that Joel is concerned with
>>plenty of other issues. And in just the last day or two, Doug has
>>posted cogently and insightfully on issues such as union organizing,
>>and the persistence of racism in modern America.
> I'm certain what Gary wrote was unfair to Doug and DDB, but wasn't it
> Joel who said he would have been voting for Gore but for the gnu
> issue? That's pretty close to a single-issue statement.
Not just Joel, but Doug. At length, both of them. Others here, as well.
That was, you know, my point. I suppose I could get over my unhappiness
that they both stated at length, in so many posts, so elaborately, how much
they wished they could vote for Gore, but they couldn't because of their
beliefs about his 2nd Amendment stance, and thus they must vote for George
Bush, but, really, I'd rather they'd not have voted that way. It's their
free choice, of course, and so is my regret that they didn't "get over"
their views on gnus, and instead voted for Bush, and stated at length --
particularly in Joel's case, Joel having gone out of his way to, at the drop
of bullet, write great elaborations on why endless Democrats vote for Bush
because of gnus -- how utterly necessary this was; unsurprisingly, I believe
he was advocating, at great length, and repetitively -- as I do, and as is
his right -- his views as to how we all should vote; in his case, against
Gore and for Bush. I dunno: I could get over folks voting for George Bush,
and Get With It, or I could keep saying I think that that may not have been
the way to go, despite my mostly agreeing with them about gnu issues.
Possibly my way is wrong. Possibly I should have "gotten over it" and voted
for Bush, and not allowed gnu issues to separate us.
Or possibly not. Possibly next time we go round, still not.
Joel Rosenberg
> On 7 Jan 2001 15:27:58 GMT, p...@panix.com (P Nielsen Hayden) wrote:
>
> >It's a low blow at the other two as well. I may have had a bunch of
> >disagreements with Joel lately, but they weren't about the Second
> >Amendment -- which is itself evidence that Joel is concerned with
> >plenty of other issues. And in just the last day or two, Doug has
> >posted cogently and insightfully on issues such as union organizing,
> >and the persistence of racism in modern America.
>
> I'm certain what Gary wrote was unfair to Doug and DDB, but wasn't it
> Joel who said he would have been voting for Gore but for the gnu
> issue? That's pretty close to a single-issue statement.
>
Yup. And I would have been happy to vote for the old Al Gore, the one
who Bill Bradley accused, with only a medium exaggeration, to be the
poster boy for the NRA.
Doug Wickstrom
<i0vk5tsh2pdb4k3el...@4ax.com>
ave...@thirdworld.uk (Avedon Carol) excited the ether to say:
>On 7 Jan 2001 15:27:58 GMT, p...@panix.com (P Nielsen Hayden) wrote:
>
>>It's a low blow at the other two as well. I may have had a bunch of
>>disagreements with Joel lately, but they weren't about the Second
>>Amendment -- which is itself evidence that Joel is concerned with
>>plenty of other issues. And in just the last day or two, Doug has
>>posted cogently and insightfully on issues such as union organizing,
>>and the persistence of racism in modern America.
>
>I'm certain what Gary wrote was unfair to Doug and DDB, but wasn't it
>Joel who said he would have been voting for Gore but for the gnu
>issue? That's pretty close to a single-issue statement.
I believe all three of us made that statement. And considering
Al Gore's conversation with Sarah Brady on December 12th, we were
right to do so, not that we made any difference, or even had a
hope to make any difference, in Minnesota.
--
Doug Wickstrom
"I want to die peacefully in my sleep like my grandfather--not screaming in
terror like his passengers." --Jim Larkin
Joyce Reynolds-Ward
snip
>-- his views as to how we all should vote; in his case, against
>Gore and for Bush. I dunno: I could get over folks voting for George Bush,
>and Get With It, or I could keep saying I think that that may not have been
>the way to go, despite my mostly agreeing with them about gnu issues.
>Possibly my way is wrong. Possibly I should have "gotten over it" and voted
>for Bush, and not allowed gnu issues to separate us.
Well, I've long ago come to the conclusion that voting based on gnu
issues was Not A Good Idea. While I'm a happy gnu owner myself, and
like playing with the things (as well as occasionally using 'em as
hunting tools), I'm extremely paranoid of the generally oppressive POV
of those otherwise good on the gnu issue.
Plus, as a former political activist, I don't trust any politician.
I've had enough encounters with right-wingers good on the gnu issue to
realize they'd be very very very happy to take away gnus belonging to
hippie lefty rednecks and backwoods sorts, simply because the rest of
their political program didn't fit the right-winger's.
Then again, I'm a rural-oriented Left Coaster who knows a lot of lefty
gnu lovers....
jrw
P Nielsen Hayden
>In article <i0vk5tsh2pdb4k3el...@4ax.com>
>Avedon Carol <ave...@thirdworld.uk> wrote:
>> On 7 Jan 2001 15:27:58 GMT, p...@panix.com (P Nielsen Hayden) wrote:
>
>>>It's a low blow at the other two as well. I may have had a bunch of
>>>disagreements with Joel lately, but they weren't about the Second
>>>Amendment -- which is itself evidence that Joel is concerned with
>>>plenty of other issues. And in just the last day or two, Doug has
>>>posted cogently and insightfully on issues such as union organizing,
>>>and the persistence of racism in modern America.
>
>> I'm certain what Gary wrote was unfair to Doug and DDB, but wasn't it
>> Joel who said he would have been voting for Gore but for the gnu
>> issue? That's pretty close to a single-issue statement.
>
>Not just Joel, but Doug. At length, both of them. Others here, as well.
>That was, you know, my point. I suppose I could get over my unhappiness
>that they both stated at length, in so many posts, so elaborately, how much
>they wished they could vote for Gore, but they couldn't because of their
>beliefs about his 2nd Amendment stance, and thus they must vote for George
>Bush, but, really, I'd rather they'd not have voted that way.
You know, I don't agree with their position, either, but that's a long
way from what you claimed, which that gnu stuff is their "first and
nearly only issue."
And you levelled this charge against DDB as well, which is absolutely
ridiculous. I don't actually know how David voted, but he's written
cogently and well here on a wide variety of political issues. He's
certainly on record as being vehemently against the post-election
seizure of power by Bush & co.; this accords very poorly with your
claim, which you have yet to modify or even address, that David is
someone for whom gnu ownership is the "first and nearly only issue."
Joel Rosenberg
> In article <i0vk5tsh2pdb4k3el...@4ax.com>
> Avedon Carol <ave...@thirdworld.uk> wrote:
> > On 7 Jan 2001 15:27:58 GMT, p...@panix.com (P Nielsen Hayden) wrote:
>
> >>It's a low blow at the other two as well. I may have had a bunch of
> >>disagreements with Joel lately, but they weren't about the Second
> >>Amendment -- which is itself evidence that Joel is concerned with
> >>plenty of other issues. And in just the last day or two, Doug has
> >>posted cogently and insightfully on issues such as union organizing,
> >>and the persistence of racism in modern America.
>
> > I'm certain what Gary wrote was unfair to Doug and DDB, but wasn't it
> > Joel who said he would have been voting for Gore but for the gnu
> > issue? That's pretty close to a single-issue statement.
>
> Not just Joel, but Doug. At length, both of them. Others here, as well.
> That was, you know, my point.
That wasn't, you know, what you said. I don't mind you characterizing
me as being a one-issue voter in this election -- in this election,
that wasn't far from the truth, although Pat Buchanan was better on
the gun issue than Bush is (Bush isn't all that good on gun issues,
despite the hype from both sides), and me voting for him wasn't a live
possibility -- but I do mind you mischaracterizing me as being only
interested in a single issue, which is far from the truth.
I suppose I could get over my unhappiness
> that they both stated at length, in so many posts, so elaborately, how much
> they wished they could vote for Gore, but they couldn't because of their
> beliefs about his 2nd Amendment stance, and thus they must vote for George
> Bush, but, really, I'd rather they'd not have voted that way. It's their
> free choice, of course, and so is my regret that they didn't "get over"
> their views on gnus, and instead voted for Bush, and stated at length --
> particularly in Joel's case, Joel having gone out of his way to, at the drop
> of bullet, write great elaborations on why endless Democrats vote
> for Bush
Not endless ones -- but, certainly, many. Enough that the Blue Dogs
have finally figured out that the the gun issue, as framed, is a
loser for Democrats.
Now all that remains is for them to persuade the rest of the party.
I'm not holding my breath.
mike weber
>On 9 Jan 2001 11:02:10 GMT,
> gfa...@savvy.com <gfa...@savvy.com> wrote:
>>In article <i0vk5tsh2pdb4k3el...@4ax.com>
>>Avedon Carol <ave...@thirdworld.uk> wrote:
>>> I'm certain what Gary wrote was unfair to Doug and DDB, but wasn't it
>>> Joel who said he would have been voting for Gore but for the gnu
>>> issue? That's pretty close to a single-issue statement.
>>
>>Not just Joel, but Doug. At length, both of them. Others here, as well.
>>That was, you know, my point. I suppose I could get over my unhappiness
>>that they both stated at length, in so many posts, so elaborately, how much
>>they wished they could vote for Gore, but they couldn't because of their
>>beliefs about his 2nd Amendment stance, and thus they must vote for George
>>Bush, but, really, I'd rather they'd not have voted that way.
>
>
>You know, I don't agree with their position, either, but that's a long
>way from what you claimed, which that gnu stuff is their "first and
>nearly only issue."
Yah -- in my original comment, i said that neither was "a Second
Amendment Absolutist", which is, as i thought the next time i hit this
thread, exactly true.
What i guess i meant is that neither is a Second
Amendment-to-the-exclusion-of-other-issues abslutist.
My own feeling is that, even if i were a Second Absolutist, i'd have
been a Gore voter, because as President he has somewhat less influence
over such things than Congress, which, after all, passes the laws.
If i'm hot on a single issue, yah, the Prez is good to have on my
side, but it's COngress i want to try to control.
>
>And you levelled this charge against DDB as well, which is absolutely
>ridiculous. I don't actually know how David voted, but he's written
>cogently and well here on a wide variety of political issues. He's
>certainly on record as being vehemently against the post-election
>seizure of power by Bush & co.; this accords very poorly with your
>claim, which you have yet to modify or even address, that David is
>someone for whom gnu ownership is the "first and nearly only issue."
>
>
>--
>Patrick Nielsen Hayden : p...@panix.com : http://www.panix.com/~pnh
--
P Nielsen Hayden
Joel Rosenberg <jo...@winternet.com> wrote:
[quoting Gary Farber]
>> Joel having gone out of his way to, at the drop
>> of bullet, write great elaborations on why endless Democrats vote
>> for Bush
>
>Not endless ones -- but, certainly, many. Enough that the Blue Dogs
>have finally figured out that the the gun issue, as framed, is a
>loser for Democrats.
>
>Now all that remains is for them to persuade the rest of the party.
>I'm not holding my breath.
I'm definitely persuaded that something's wrong here. More and more
it seems to me that:
-- First, high levels of gun ownership do _not_ correspond to high
levels of violent crime;
-- First sub one, our pockets of violent crime correspond much more
clearly to the drug trade and its enabling counterpart, the War on
Some Drugs;
-- Second, increased efforts to restrict or ban guns are liable to
have all the wild success we have achieved in the aforementioned
War on Some Drugs, which as you know, Bob, has resulted in America
becoming drug-free;
-- Third, a disquietingly large amount of urban, educated, liberal
anti-gun sentiment appears to come down to simple cultural
hostility to the gun-owning classes. As the new (self-identified
conservative) character on THE WEST WING said to one of her
(self-identified liberal) colleagues, "You're not really against
guns. You just don't like people who like guns."
-- Third sub one, you hear it frequently imputed in urban, educated,
liberal circles that there's something risible or pathetic in gun
ownership. It's implied that people like guns because they make
them feel more powerful. Why it should be wrong for people (often
lower middle-class, rural people) to want to feel more powerful --
and why we shouldn't see, in this, echoes of aristocrats sneering
at peasants for getting "above themselves" -- is unclear to me.
-- Fourth, the gun issue has repeatedly been an incredibly effective
way for the forces of the right to peel away voters who would
otherwise be more comfortable with the center-left. It's a
cultural wedge issue. It's our equivalent of being loudly
anti-abortion: it's good for rallying some of the core members of
our coalition, but it's a loser in winning votes beyond that.
Countered against the above:
The NRA, for all its fine gun-safety courses and so forth, is an
incredibly offputting organization. Talk about rallying your core
supporters at the expense of building broader support!
More seriously, the version of American history promulgated by the
gun-rights movement tends to be nonsense. The closer we look at the
actual facts, the more we see that the myth of a widely-armed American
yeomanry in colonial times is, indeed a myth. The notion of six-guns
on every hip in the American West is a myth. Widespread gun ownership
is not an ancient American tradition but, rather, a modern
development. Few things have done more to alienate me from the
pro-gun side of this argument than that side's habit of purveying
endless falsehood on this score. History matters.
Lydia Nickerson
>In article <i0vk5tsh2pdb4k3el...@4ax.com>
>Avedon Carol <ave...@thirdworld.uk> wrote:
>> On 7 Jan 2001 15:27:58 GMT, p...@panix.com (P Nielsen Hayden) wrote:
>
>>>It's a low blow at the other two as well. I may have had a bunch of
>>>disagreements with Joel lately, but they weren't about the Second
>>>Amendment -- which is itself evidence that Joel is concerned with
>>>plenty of other issues. And in just the last day or two, Doug has
>>>posted cogently and insightfully on issues such as union organizing,
>>>and the persistence of racism in modern America.
>
>> I'm certain what Gary wrote was unfair to Doug and DDB, but wasn't it
>> Joel who said he would have been voting for Gore but for the gnu
>> issue? That's pretty close to a single-issue statement.
>
>Not just Joel, but Doug. At length, both of them. Others here, as
>well. That was, you know, my point. I suppose I could get over my
>unhappiness that they both stated at length, in so many posts, so
>elaborately, how much they wished they could vote for Gore, but they
>couldn't because of their beliefs about his 2nd Amendment stance, and
>thus they must vote for George Bush, but, really, I'd rather they'd not
>have voted that way.
I just wanna know why DDB is still in that list, and why you haven't
acknowledged that you're wrong, there. He didn't vote for Bush. In fact,
he argued with Joel in real life about whether the right to an abortion or
the right to bear arms was more threatened by a Bush presidency. Guess who
was arguing which side.
One of the strange things about the gnu debate is how it seems to make even
sane and normal people become weird and irrational. Molly Ivins is an
example. I love her columns, and I think she's one of the smarter
commentators out there. But her columns on gun control tend to get cause
and effect turned around. I remember one of them where the conclusion that
she came to, that gun control was necessary, seemed to me to be the exact
opposite conclusion that one would reach when evaluating the argument that
she presented. A person who is a strong advocate of the right to bear arms
too often is dropped into the paranoid-gun-nut pigeon hole, just as someone
who is in favor of gun control is too often dropped into the "bleeding
heart liberal who doesn't want to put anyone in prison" pigeon hole.
Joel Rosenberg
> On 09 Jan 2001 13:04:08 -0600,
> Joel Rosenberg <jo...@winternet.com> wrote:
>
>
> [quoting Gary Farber]
>
>
> >> Joel having gone out of his way to, at the drop
> >> of bullet, write great elaborations on why endless Democrats vote
> >> for Bush
> >
> >Not endless ones -- but, certainly, many. Enough that the Blue Dogs
> >have finally figured out that the the gun issue, as framed, is a
> >loser for Democrats.
> >
> >Now all that remains is for them to persuade the rest of the party.
> >I'm not holding my breath.
>
>
> I'm definitely persuaded that something's wrong here. More and more
> it seems to me that:
>
> -- First, high levels of gun ownership do _not_ correspond to high
> levels of violent crime;
Yup.
>
> -- First sub one, our pockets of violent crime correspond much more
> clearly to the drug trade and its enabling counterpart, the War on
> Some Drugs;
Absolutely. Add in poverty and lack of education; even in bad
neighborhoods in my town, there are few-to-no arrests/convictions of
people of any color who have graduated from a Mpls high school. The
best anti-crime program is a good public education program; it's also,
alas, hideously expensive, although not as expensive, all in all, as a
big prison system.
>
> -- Second, increased efforts to restrict or ban guns are liable to
> have all the wild success we have achieved in the aforementioned
> War on Some Drugs, which as you know, Bob, has resulted in America
> becoming drug-free;
Already happened -- and, at least in NYC, pretty much as Mencken wrote
that it would, back in the twenties. OTOH, look at Vermont, where not
even permits are required.
Michigan will be an interesting test -- they just passed
"shall-issue". Let's see what happens in Detroit. I'm betting that
there'll be, controlling for the increase in crime caused by the
recession, a small but real decrease in violent crime accompanied by a
parallel increase in nonviolent property crime, and an increase in
both kinds of crime in Ohio counties that border on Michigan -- Toledo
should be very indicative.
>
> -- Third, a disquietingly large amount of urban, educated, liberal
> anti-gun sentiment appears to come down to simple cultural
> hostility to the gun-owning classes. As the new (self-identified
> conservative) character on THE WEST WING said to one of her
> (self-identified liberal) colleagues, "You're not really against
> guns. You just don't like people who like guns."
True enough.
>
> -- Third sub one, you hear it frequently imputed in urban, educated,
> liberal circles that there's something risible or pathetic in gun
> ownership. It's implied that people like guns because they make
> them feel more powerful. Why it should be wrong for people (often
> lower middle-class, rural people) to want to feel more powerful --
> and why we shouldn't see, in this, echoes of aristocrats sneering
> at peasants for getting "above themselves" -- is unclear to me.
I've some sympathy there. I worry about the "Gomer Factor", about
some numbnuts playing around with some piece of hardware and sending a
bullet (a rifle bullet, more likely than a handgun bullet) through two
walls, a window, and one of my kids' bodies, and I'm only vaguely
reassured by the government statistics that such things are almost
negligibly rare.
>
> -- Fourth, the gun issue has repeatedly been an incredibly effective
> way for the forces of the right to peel away voters who would
> otherwise be more comfortable with the center-left. It's a
> cultural wedge issue. It's our equivalent of being loudly
> anti-abortion: it's good for rallying some of the core members of
> our coalition, but it's a loser in winning votes beyond that.
Yup. I'm probably not a typical example of much of anything, but I am
in this. I'd love to have voted for a gun-rights-supporting version
of Mark Dayton, this last November.
>
> Countered against the above:
>
> The NRA, for all its fine gun-safety courses and so forth, is an
> incredibly offputting organization. Talk about rallying your core
> supporters at the expense of building broader support!
Yup. I'm fairly close to two former members of the NRA BoD -- one of
them's my criminal attorney, in fact; and the other was kind enough to
show up at my signing/appearance at Borders last night -- and without
blabbling private discussions, I think it's fair to say that they are
both less compromising than the LaPierre administration has been, and
much less inclined to foolishly inflammatory rhetoric.
>
> More seriously, the version of American history promulgated by the
> gun-rights movement tends to be nonsense.
And, frequently, out-and-out lies and silly urban myths, like the
phony Sarah Brady "gun control is the first step toward our socialist
conquest of the United States" one. (Yes, she's said stupid things;
no, she never said anything like that, and wouldn't.)
The closer we look at the
> actual facts, the more we see that the myth of a widely-armed American
> yeomanry in colonial times is, indeed a myth. The notion of six-guns
> on every hip in the American West is a myth. Widespread gun ownership
> is not an ancient American tradition but, rather, a modern
> development.
Depends what your definition is of wide-spread, I guess. I think
Heinlein's take on some turn-of-the-century Midwestern city is
probably on the money: it was legal to carry a handgun anywhere, and
almost nobody did. OTOH, in my old hometown, our house was unusual in
that there weren't any guns. Seems to be largely a country/city
thing, or at least to have been.
Greg Cotton had an interesting take on it. In his little hometown it
was about 80-20, as he recalls it, and the 20 were largely tenured
faculty at the local college, who looked down on the local yokels.
Few things have done more to alienate me from the
> pro-gun side of this argument than that side's habit of purveying
> endless falsehood on this score. History matters.
Yup. That said, generally speaking, I find that the NRA's allegations
*of objective fact* tend to be right on the money, when I've checked
them with other sources.
P Nielsen Hayden
Joel Rosenberg <jo...@winternet.com> wrote:
>> -- Second, increased efforts to restrict or ban guns are liable to
>> have all the wild success we have achieved in the aforementioned
>> War on Some Drugs, which as you know, Bob, has resulted in America
>> becoming drug-free;
>
>Already happened -- and, at least in NYC, pretty much as Mencken wrote
>that it would, back in the twenties. OTOH, look at Vermont, where not
>even permits are required.
Query: what has "already happened," and what did Mencken predict?
>Michigan will be an interesting test -- they just passed
>"shall-issue". Let's see what happens in Detroit. I'm betting that
>there'll be, controlling for the increase in crime caused by the
>recession, a small but real decrease in violent crime accompanied by a
>parallel increase in nonviolent property crime, and an increase in
>both kinds of crime in Ohio counties that border on Michigan -- Toledo
>should be very indicative.
Further query: what is "shall-issue?"
Thanks for your very interesting comments here.
Dave Weingart
>Already happened -- and, at least in NYC, pretty much as Mencken wrote
>that it would, back in the twenties. OTOH, look at Vermont, where not
>even permits are required.
So are you saying any Johnny-on-the-street can go to Vermont, walk into
a store, plunk down a few hundred and walk out with a handgnu? (I
specify, since, so far as I know, I can theoretically walk into the local
K-Mart and walk out with a rilfe).
Mark Atwood
"shall-issue" means that the licensing authority has no discretion as
to issue a license or not. If you meet a set of well-defined criteria,
they *have* to give it to you.
Places with "discretionary issue" licensing tend to only have licenses
issued to "the right kind of people".
For example, in New York City, there are, de facto, only three ways
for a local civilian to get a real carry license. They are, be a
judge, be elected to high enough office, or give a LOT of money to the
mayor's reelection fund.
The same is true in California. (They have a couple of more ways, the
main one being rich and famous in the entertainment industry.)
Some places with "shall issue" include the well known Florida,
Washington (be 21, pass FBI check, submit fingerprints), and Utah (21,
FBI check, safety course), and trivially, Vermont (where everyone has
an implied license, unless specifically forbidden by being a felon).
--
Mark Atwood | I'm wearing black only until I find something darker.
m...@pobox.com |
http://www.pobox.com/~mra
Joel Rosenberg
> On 09 Jan 2001 14:21:52 -0600,
> Joel Rosenberg <jo...@winternet.com> wrote:
>
> >> -- Second, increased efforts to restrict or ban guns are liable to
> >> have all the wild success we have achieved in the aforementioned
> >> War on Some Drugs, which as you know, Bob, has resulted in America
> >> becoming drug-free;
> >
> >Already happened -- and, at least in NYC, pretty much as Mencken wrote
> >that it would, back in the twenties. OTOH, look at Vermont, where not
> >even permits are required.
>
>
> Query: what has "already happened," and what did Mencken predict?
http://www.cssa.org/articles/mencken_25.html
In part: "With what result? [Of the Sullivan Act. JR] With the
general result that New York, even more than Chicago, is the heaven of
footpads, hijackers, gunmen and all other such armed thugs. Their
hands upon their pistols, they know they are safe. Not one citizen out
of a hundred that they tackle is armed [make that not one in ten
thousand today. JR] for getting a license to keep a revolver is a
difficult business, and carrying one without it is more dangerous than
submitting to robbery. So the gunmen flourish and give humble thanks
to God. Like the bootleggers, they are hot and unanimous for Law
Enforcement."
>
>
> >Michigan will be an interesting test -- they just passed
> >"shall-issue". Let's see what happens in Detroit. I'm betting
> that >there'll be, controlling for the increase in crime caused by
> the >recession, a small but real decrease in violent crime
> accompanied by a >parallel increase in nonviolent property crime,
> and an increase in >both kinds of crime in Ohio counties that border
> on Michigan -- Toledo >should be very indicative.
>
>
> Further query: what is "shall-issue?"
There's basically three kinds of handgun permit laws:
Won't-issue -- e.g. Washington DC, MO, and a half dozen or so other
states. Citizens who aren't police officers can't get permission to
carry a handgun, period. (MO has an exception for judges and process
servers.)
May-issue -- e.g. MN, NY, and about nine or so other states. An
authority, usually the police chief/department -- gets to decided if a
resident has sufficient need to possess/carry a gun. (While, in
theory, the discretion of the authority can be challenged, to do so is
difficult, expensive, and often futile. Hawaii, for example, is
theoretically "may issue", but the only permit ever issued, at least
last time I checked, had been to the civilian armorer for the Honolulu
PD.)
New York state is fairly typical; see
http://www.packing.org/state/new_york/. NYC is at the restrictive
end; see http://www.packing.org/state/new_york_city/.
Shall-issue -- e.g. FL, TX, MI, OR, WA (32 states, at present,
containing the majority of the US population; details available, among
other places, at http://www.packing.org, although they don't include a
few "shall-issue" states; CT, for example, is an oddity that doesn't
quite fit into this scheme). Carry permits are issued, as a matter of
right, to those residents (in some cases, they must be US citizens)
who meet objective criteria: over 18/21; no felony or misdemeanor
domestic assault conviction; often having passed a required training
course; etc. No need to prove to anybody that one has a "need" for
self-defense, just as you don't have to prove you have a need to drive
in order to get a drivers license. (I'm not, at the moment, arguing
the wisdom of this; just trying to put forward an analogy of the
nature of the process.) A whole raft of variations in the states --
some require extensive training (Texas is at the far end of this list,
requiring 10-15 hours of classroom training and a demonstration of
proficiency); some require only cursory training or none; some require
one to register carry weapons and some don't; some require that a
handgun be carried concealed from observation by an "average person";
others don't.
Indiana is fairly typical; see http://www.packing.org/state/indiana/
(To further complicate matters, some "may-issue" states, like MN, have
"shall-issue counties", like Otter Tail, where the local sherrif will
issue a permit to any objectively qualifying person who applies.)
Further category: Vermont. No permit issued or required.
Further variation: some states -- CT and FL spring to mind -- will
issue permits to nonresidents, by mail, and the permits will be
accepted in some other states. MI, for example, honors permits from
any state in which the permit holder resides.
>
> Thanks for your very interesting comments here.
You're welcome, and ditto.
Joyce Reynolds-Ward
snip
>More seriously, the version of American history promulgated by the
>gun-rights movement tends to be nonsense. The closer we look at the
>actual facts, the more we see that the myth of a widely-armed American
>yeomanry in colonial times is, indeed a myth. The notion of six-guns
>on every hip in the American West is a myth. Widespread gun ownership
>is not an ancient American tradition but, rather, a modern
>development. Few things have done more to alienate me from the
>pro-gun side of this argument than that side's habit of purveying
>endless falsehood on this score. History matters.
Interesting statistic from a local (PDX) museum dedicated to the
Oregon Trail....
The 4th largest cause of death on the Oregon Trail was due to
accidental gunshot (leaving guns loaded, loaded guns torching off
during a rough wagon ride, idijts contending for 19th cen Darwin
awards by grabbing guns by the barrel, etc, etc, etc). Our 19th
century counterparts had folks who were as woefully ignorant of safe
gun handling as some of the modern folks out there.
jrw
Joel Rosenberg
> One day in Teletubbyland, Joel Rosenberg <jo...@winternet.com> said:
> >Already happened -- and, at least in NYC, pretty much as Mencken wrote
> >that it would, back in the twenties. OTOH, look at Vermont, where not
> >even permits are required.
>
> So are you saying any Johnny-on-the-street can go to Vermont, walk into
> a store, plunk down a few hundred and walk out with a handgnu? (I
> specify, since, so far as I know, I can theoretically walk into the local
> K-Mart and walk out with a rilfe).
> --
Almost. You aren't allowed to buy a gun other than in your state of
residence, without routing it through a local (to you) FFL dealer.
But, otherwise, yup. Still have to pass a (federal) Brady check, but
you can walk into a friend's house (in the majority of states where
private sales are legal) and, unless he has a FFL (Federal Firearms
License), plunk down an agreed-upon sum, lock the handgun in the trunk
of your car (cased and unloaded; you may have to lock the case), drive
to Vermont (or fly, after checking gun in, as provided by law), get
out of your car, load and tuck your handgun into your pocket and walk
around in public legally -- as long as your stroll doesn't take you
into a school, court building, and similar places.
Unless, of course, the gun is a Desert Eagle. It won't fit in your
pocket.
You can also do the same thing if you're visiting Florida -- you just
have to keep the gun in a box that closes. This includes, according
to the Secretary of State's office (no, I didn't ask Kathleen Harris
herself), not only the glove compartment of your car, but a cigar
box. (If you get a Florida carry permit, you don't need the cigar box.)
Joel Rosenberg
Yup. And they also had intrinsically less safe hardware, where it was
necessary to keep the hammer down on an empty chamber, because a jolt
could easily cause the firing pin to make contact with the primer,
and, errr, trigger a bang.
That said, there's been no significant increase in the safety of the
hardware over the past twenty years, during which the rate of
accidental gun deaths has been cut in half, to less than a thousand
per year in the US.
Avram Grumer
> -- Third, a disquietingly large amount of urban, educated, liberal
> anti-gun sentiment appears to come down to simple cultural
> hostility to the gun-owning classes. As the new (self-identified
> conservative) character on THE WEST WING said to one of her
> (self-identified liberal) colleagues, "You're not really against
> guns. You just don't like people who like guns."
>
> -- Third sub one, you hear it frequently imputed in urban, educated,
> liberal circles that there's something risible or pathetic in gun
> ownership. It's implied that people like guns because they make
> them feel more powerful. Why it should be wrong for people (often
> lower middle-class, rural people) to want to feel more powerful --
> and why we shouldn't see, in this, echoes of aristocrats sneering
> at peasants for getting "above themselves" -- is unclear to me.
I can vouch for this; I've heard/seen it happening, too. (And I'm not
talking about the _The West Wing_ episode.)
--
Avram Grumer | av...@grumer.org | http://www.PigsAndFishes.org
"All this talk of legitimacy is way overblown."
-- James Baker III
Seen on ABC's "This Week", 10 December 2000
Avedon Carol
<nims...@uswest.net> wrote:
>On Tue, 09 Jan 2001 10:30:41 +0000, in message
><i0vk5tsh2pdb4k3el...@4ax.com>
> ave...@thirdworld.uk (Avedon Carol) excited the ether to say:
>
>>On 7 Jan 2001 15:27:58 GMT, p...@panix.com (P Nielsen Hayden) wrote:
>>
>>>It's a low blow at the other two as well. I may have had a bunch of
>>>disagreements with Joel lately, but they weren't about the Second
>>>Amendment -- which is itself evidence that Joel is concerned with
>>>plenty of other issues. And in just the last day or two, Doug has
>>>posted cogently and insightfully on issues such as union organizing,
>>>and the persistence of racism in modern America.
>>
>>I'm certain what Gary wrote was unfair to Doug and DDB, but wasn't it
>>Joel who said he would have been voting for Gore but for the gnu
>>issue? That's pretty close to a single-issue statement.
>
>I believe all three of us made that statement. And considering
>Al Gore's conversation with Sarah Brady on December 12th, we were
>right to do so, not that we made any difference, or even had a
>hope to make any difference, in Minnesota.
Ah. Then my apologies to Gary, since apparently I mentally dumped
some of your statements into the "Joel" column.
Joel Rosenberg
> In article <slrn95mrc...@pnh-0.dsl.speakeasy.net>, p...@panix.com wrote:
>
> > -- Third, a disquietingly large amount of urban, educated, liberal
> > anti-gun sentiment appears to come down to simple cultural
> > hostility to the gun-owning classes. As the new (self-identified
> > conservative) character on THE WEST WING said to one of her
> > (self-identified liberal) colleagues, "You're not really against
> > guns. You just don't like people who like guns."
> >
> > -- Third sub one, you hear it frequently imputed in urban, educated,
> > liberal circles that there's something risible or pathetic in gun
> > ownership. It's implied that people like guns because they make
> > them feel more powerful. Why it should be wrong for people (often
> > lower middle-class, rural people) to want to feel more powerful --
> > and why we shouldn't see, in this, echoes of aristocrats sneering
> > at peasants for getting "above themselves" -- is unclear to me.
>
> I can vouch for this; I've heard/seen it happening, too. (And I'm not
> talking about the _The West Wing_ episode.)
>
And, of course, it depends on what wants to be more powerful to do. A
friend of mine reported that her ex used to end arguments by sticking
the barrel of a handgun in her mouth. I wish I could report that he's
in an institution that would cater to his need for a more structured
life, but I'm happy to say that she'd left him, although it apparently
took more than one instance before she'd decided to.
Bruce Baugh
<jo...@winternet.com> wrote:
> Few things have done more to alienate me from the
> > pro-gun side of this argument than that side's habit of purveying
> > endless falsehood on this score. History matters.
>
> Yup. That said, generally speaking, I find that the NRA's allegations
> *of objective fact* tend to be right on the money, when I've checked
> them with other sources.
I don't have time or energy to sustain a discussion of this, which
disappoints me because I see actual discussion going on and wish I could
join in. I must note only briefly that the analysis given in
http://www.reason.com/0101/cr.jm.concealed.html of Arming America: The
Making Of A Gun Culture is right in line with my own research in primary
sources on the Oregon Territory of the 1840s.
--
Bruce Baugh <*> bruce...@sff.net
Writer of Fortune
I'm a professional vulture/haruspex, presenting pop culture's entrails
to the world as nicely arranged hors d'ouevres. Er, I mean, I'm a writer.
Mark Atwood
>
> And, of course, it depends on what wants to be more powerful to do. A
> friend of mine reported that her ex used to end arguments by sticking
> the barrel of a handgun in her mouth.
And in a "more civilized" nation, he would have ended said argument by
picking up (or using) a baseball bat. (One of nice things about gnus
is that you can esculate up to "you *really* *are* *serious*" without
actually hurting someone.
Not discounting this butthead's buttheadedness, or your friend's
rightful fear.
(Why did she allow him to pull this stunt more than once?)
Joel Rosenberg
> Joel Rosenberg <jo...@winternet.com> writes:
> >
> > And, of course, it depends on what wants to be more powerful to do. A
> > friend of mine reported that her ex used to end arguments by sticking
> > the barrel of a handgun in her mouth.
>
> And in a "more civilized" nation, he would have ended said argument by
> picking up (or using) a baseball bat. (One of nice things about gnus
> is that you can esculate up to "you *really* *are* *serious*" without
> actually hurting someone.
>
> Not discounting this butthead's buttheadedness, or your friend's
> rightful fear.
>
> (Why did she allow him to pull this stunt more than once?)
>
The usual: because he said he was sorry and wouldn't ever do it
again. (And, since I'm not naming this friend, I don't think it will
do any harm to suggest that it might have had something to do with her
being a drunk and a cokehead at the time.)
Rachael Lininger
Mark Atwood <m...@pobox.com> wrote:
>Joel Rosenberg <jo...@winternet.com> writes:
>>
>> And, of course, it depends on what wants to be more powerful to do. A
>> friend of mine reported that her ex used to end arguments by sticking
>> the barrel of a handgun in her mouth.
>
>And in a "more civilized" nation, he would have ended said argument by
>picking up (or using) a baseball bat. (One of nice things about gnus
>is that you can esculate up to "you *really* *are* *serious*" without
>actually hurting someone.
Did you really say that?
Rachael
--
Rachael Lininger | "I've never thought ignorance
rac...@dd-b.net | should preclude a good argument." --Audley
Joel Rosenberg
> In article <m3snmsm...@flash.localdomain>,
> Mark Atwood <m...@pobox.com> wrote:
> >Joel Rosenberg <jo...@winternet.com> writes:
> >>
> >> And, of course, it depends on what wants to be more powerful to do. A
> >> friend of mine reported that her ex used to end arguments by sticking
> >> the barrel of a handgun in her mouth.
> >
> >And in a "more civilized" nation, he would have ended said argument by
> >picking up (or using) a baseball bat. (One of nice things about gnus
> >is that you can esculate up to "you *really* *are* *serious*" without
> >actually hurting someone.
>
> Did you really say that?
>
Yes, he did.
And, all in all, I'd rather my friend have been threatened with a gun
than beaten with a baseball bat, were those the two choices. (As we
all know, Bob, neither would have been better, and is by no means an
unreasonable standard.)
ObsRef: See http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~karl/firearms/cowards.html .
Kevin J. Maroney
>And in a "more civilized" nation, he would have ended said argument by
>picking up (or using) a baseball bat. (One of nice things about gnus
>is that you can esculate up to "you *really* *are* *serious*" without
What makes you think that having a pistol jammed into your mouth is
necessarily significantly more pleasant than being whacked with a
baseball bat?
--
Kevin Maroney | kmar...@ungames.com
Kitchen Staff Supervisor, New York Review of Science Fiction
<http://www.nyrsf.com>
Joel Rosenberg
> Mark Atwood <m...@pobox.com> wrote:
> >And in a "more civilized" nation, he would have ended said argument by
> >picking up (or using) a baseball bat. (One of nice things about gnus
> >is that you can esculate up to "you *really* *are* *serious*" without
> >actually hurting someone.)
>
> What makes you think that having a pistol jammed into your mouth is
> necessarily significantly more pleasant than being whacked with a
> baseball bat?
A long time ago -- the statute of limitations long since having passed
-- a, err, guy I know did whack somebody else I knew (the immediately
ex-boyfriend of a friend of mine) with a baseball bat, under
circumstances that seemed justifiable to me at the time, and still do
now (although he was clearly breaking the law), and I think that the
recipient of the attention would have preferred something less
painful, even if it would have been mildly more threatening, although
I'm sure he would have preferred that the guy with the bat not have
looked him up in the first place.
Mileage, however varies.
Kip Williams
Yes, we need a big tent; something big enough for all the amendments
to fit under. There'd be room for all of us here who see excuses
used to reduce freedoms in a trade-off from fears that often amount
to urban legends as ridiculous as _REEFER MADNESS_. Remember the
quote from that guy in the letters to the editor I had a while back?
"When they came for the Fourth, I was quiet because I didn't deal
drugs.
When they came for the Sixth, I was quiet because I am innocent.
When they came for the Second, I was quiet because I don't own a
gun.
Now they have come for the First, and I can only be quiet."
--David A. Howard (4/7/0)
--
--Kip (Williams)
amusing the world at http://members.home.net/kipw/
Kip Williams
> the barrel of a handgun in her mouth. I wish I could report that he's
> in an institution that would cater to his need for a more structured
> life, but I'm happy to say that she'd left him, although it apparently
I love that phrase. "An institution that would cater to his need for
a more structured life." Thanks.
It's right up there with something John Candy said in an SCTV sketch
about the USSR, "the Stursky Institute for the Politically Insane."
Mark Atwood
> necessarily significantly more pleasant than being whacked with a
> baseball bat?
Neither are "pleasant". Both are very unpleasant. But, they *are*
different.
Refusing to see a difference where where clearly exists is not wise,
and does not lend itself to rational discourse (it does lends itself
very well to irrational discourse and demagogery.)
One causes feelings of extreme fear and powerlessness, but no injury.
The other one causes deep bruises, broken bones, concussions, and brain
damage, *in addition* to the fear and helplessness.
Mark Atwood
> >
> >And in a "more civilized" nation, he would have ended said argument by
> >picking up (or using) a baseball bat. (One of nice things about gnus
> >is that you can esculate up to "you *really* *are* *serious*" without
> >actually hurting someone.
>
> Did you really say that?
Yup. Here is how you escalate with a gun:
Give your opponent cause to believe you might have one. No injury.
You show that you have one. No injury.
You draw it, and keep it pointed up/down. No injury.
You point it. No injury.
You put your finger in the guard. No injury.
You pull the trigger. Major injury.
Notice, you can take things all the way up to the almost bitter end without
causing any physical harm.
You can cause some pretty severe psychological harm on the way up,
especially to an innocent victim. That's a major reason *why* it's
illegal to publicly show, draw, or threaten unless you're in danger.
The butthead invoked at the beginning of this digression outa been
reported and arrested the first time he did it.
But psychological harm, especially if it's acute and transient, is not
the same thing as the physical injuries from a baseball bat, or even a
closed fist.
Alan Winston - SSRL Admin Cmptg Mgr
>Joel Rosenberg <jo...@winternet.com> writes:
>>
>> friend of mine reported that her ex used to end arguments by sticking
>> the barrel of a handgun in her mouth.
>
>picking up (or using) a baseball bat. (One of nice things about gnus
>is that you can esculate up to "you *really* *are* *serious*" without
>actually hurting someone.
How does this jibe with the advice to not pull it out if you're not willing
to use it?
-- Alan
===============================================================================
Alan Winston --- WIN...@SSRL.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU
Disclaimer: I speak only for myself, not SLAC or SSRL Phone: 650/926-3056
Physical mail to: SSRL -- SLAC BIN 69, PO BOX 4349, STANFORD, CA 94309-0210
===============================================================================
Joel Rosenberg
> In article <m3snmsm...@flash.localdomain>, Mark Atwood <m...@pobox.com> writes:
> >Joel Rosenberg <jo...@winternet.com> writes:
> >>
> >> And, of course, it depends on what wants to be more powerful to do. A
> >> friend of mine reported that her ex used to end arguments by sticking
> >> the barrel of a handgun in her mouth.
> >
> >And in a "more civilized" nation, he would have ended said argument by
> >picking up (or using) a baseball bat. (One of nice things about gnus
> >is that you can esculate up to "you *really* *are* *serious*" without
> >actually hurting someone.
>
> How does this jibe with the advice to not pull it out if you're not willing
> to use it?
>
Probably not very well, but, then again, I don't know of anybody who
advocates either using a handgun to solve domestic arguments, except
ones like, "I bet I can score better at the range than you can" or
ones similar to the one that ddb and I had, some years ago, about what
constitutes a proper two-handed grip on a revolver.
I'm not trying to minimize how horrible that was for my friend, btw.
Basically, on a deep level, I just don't get it. I've had some fairly
vigorous disagreements with my wife over the past couple of decades,
and I can't remember thinking, "Gee, this would only get better if I
pointed a gun at her."
Mark Atwood
> willing to use it?
Yes, don't pull it out if you're not willing to fire. But the fact
that you pulled it out doesn't mean you *have* to fire. In fact, if
you're against a sane opponent, pulling it out makes it *less* likely
that you will have to.
The goal is almost never to make someone die. The goal is to make them
*stop*. One could say that pulling it out *is* "using it", if doing so
makes your opponent stop doing whatever.
Mary Kay Kare
(Lydia Nickerson) wrote:
>
> One of the strange things about the gnu debate is how it seems to make even
> sane and normal people become weird and irrational. Molly Ivins is an
> example.
I suspect this is because she lives in Texas. In Texas, you're not
allowed to be sane on the subject on either side.
MKK--lived in Texas for a year
--
Stamp out tin toys!
nyje...@my-deja.com
Mark Atwood <m...@pobox.com> wrote:
> rand...@panix.com (Randolph Fritz) writes:
> IIRC, Prez-Elect Bush Jr, will be only the third US president that was
> both wealthy and healthy as a child.
Physically and mentally?
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/
nyje...@my-deja.com
gfa...@savvy.com wrote:
> Of course, to folks such as Joel and Doug and DDB and other folks
whose
I find the preoccupation certain fen have with guns interesting.
I lived in the country for seven years.
Farmers view them (guns) as tools, not much more. Most of them don't
lke handguns or semi-automatic weapons.
Most fen are urban or suburban in nature and tend to politicize gun
ownership.
I might own a shot gun or rifle, but not much more.
Mary Kay Kare
wrote:
> rac...@gw.dd-b.net (Rachael Lininger) writes:
> > >
> > >And in a "more civilized" nation, he would have ended said argument by
> > >picking up (or using) a baseball bat. (One of nice things about gnus
> > >is that you can esculate up to "you *really* *are* *serious*" without
> > >actually hurting someone.
> >
> > Did you really say that?
>
> Yup. Here is how you escalate with a gun:
> Give your opponent cause to believe you might have one. No injury.
> You show that you have one. No injury.
> You draw it, and keep it pointed up/down. No injury.
> You point it. No injury.
> You put your finger in the guard. No injury.
> You pull the trigger. Major injury.
>
> Notice, you can take things all the way up to the almost bitter end without
> causing any physical harm.
However, this assumes that your opponent is a rational persona and doesn't
have a gun. If he isn't and he does, he might whip it out when you hint
you've got one, and shoot you dead.
MKK
Mark Atwood
>
> However, this assumes that your opponent is a rational persona and doesn't
> have a gun. If he isn't and he does, he might whip it out when you hint
> you've got one, and shoot you dead.
Indeed, he just might. But the statistics are on my side.
Randolph Fritz
>
>-- Third, a disquietingly large amount of urban, educated, liberal
> anti-gun sentiment appears to come down to simple cultural
> hostility to the gun-owning classes. As the new (self-identified
> conservative) character on THE WEST WING said to one of her
> (self-identified liberal) colleagues, "You're not really against
> guns. You just don't like people who like guns."
>
It's worse than that--there's plenty of urban, educated, liberals who
*own* guns. The study I remember is that the most reliable predictor
of gun ownership is paternal gun ownership (I don't know about
maternal gun ownership.) The image of the "gun-owning class" is, at
best, of very limited validity.
>
>The NRA, for all its fine gun-safety courses and so forth, is an
>incredibly offputting organization. Talk about rallying your core
>supporters at the expense of building broader support!
>
The odd thing is, the weirdy NRA political wing is a relatively recent
development, less than 50 years old. Don't think I've ever seen a
history of it, though.
>Widespread gun ownership is not an ancient American tradition but,
>rather, a modern development.
I have read that it was partly a result of a successful marketing
campaign by none other than Samuel Colt himself (not sure I credit
that.) Then, too, the Civil War did what the government had avoided
for the previous 70 years or so--armed a major fraction of the
populace. The NRA emerged after the Civil War, as did the National
Guard in a revival of militia activism.
Myself, I'm beginning to suspect that firearms generate stupidity
fields, and most people involved with them (which is most of us) turn
into idiots when we think about them. :-)
Randolph
I know, I know, I can't write much on this, but I can't resist making
some points.
Marilee J. Layman
Reynolds-Ward) wrote:
>On 9 Jan 2001 19:55:37 GMT, p...@panix.com (P Nielsen Hayden) wrote:
>
>snip
>
>>More seriously, the version of American history promulgated by the
>>gun-rights movement tends to be nonsense. The closer we look at the
>>actual facts, the more we see that the myth of a widely-armed American
>>yeomanry in colonial times is, indeed a myth. The notion of six-guns
>>on every hip in the American West is a myth. Widespread gun ownership
>>is not an ancient American tradition but, rather, a modern
>>development. Few things have done more to alienate me from the
>>pro-gun side of this argument than that side's habit of purveying
>>endless falsehood on this score. History matters.
>
>
>Interesting statistic from a local (PDX) museum dedicated to the
>Oregon Trail....
>
>The 4th largest cause of death on the Oregon Trail was due to
>accidental gunshot (leaving guns loaded, loaded guns torching off
>during a rough wagon ride, idijts contending for 19th cen Darwin
>awards by grabbing guns by the barrel, etc, etc, etc). Our 19th
>century counterparts had folks who were as woefully ignorant of safe
>gun handling as some of the modern folks out there.
A local elementary teacher is appealing her dismissal. One day last
year, another teacher came upon a backpack left in a classroom. She
opened it up to see whose it was, and found a loaded handgun without
the safety on. She also found the ID for the other teacher. The
teacher was dismissed and also has a criminal conviction for carrying
a gun into a school. She thinks the dismissal was inappropriate
because she "just forgot" the gun was in the backpack. Guns are too
important to "just forget."
--
Marilee J. Layman The Other*Worlds*Cafe
HOSTE...@aol.com A Science Fiction Discussion Group.
AOL Keyword: OWC http://www.webmoose.com/owc
Pete McCutchen
wrote:
>No, that's not true, either. John Adams was no more than middle class,
>Lincoln and Andrew Johnson stand out as presidents who came from very
>poor origins,
I agree with everything you've said, but, in the spirit of nitpickery,
or simply to add some more data, I will point out that Lincoln, while
born poor, was most emphatically not poor when ran for President.
This "poor country lawyer" bit has been exaggerated. He was,
arguably, the 19th century equivalent of David Boies or Phil Beck.
--
Pete McCutchen
P Nielsen Hayden
>On 9 Jan 2001 19:55:37 GMT, P Nielsen Hayden <p...@panix.com> wrote:
>>
>>-- Third, a disquietingly large amount of urban, educated, liberal
>> anti-gun sentiment appears to come down to simple cultural
>> hostility to the gun-owning classes. As the new (self-identified
>> conservative) character on THE WEST WING said to one of her
>> (self-identified liberal) colleagues, "You're not really against
>> guns. You just don't like people who like guns."
>>
>
>It's worse than that--there's plenty of urban, educated, liberals who
>*own* guns. The study I remember is that the most reliable predictor
>of gun ownership is paternal gun ownership (I don't know about
>maternal gun ownership.) The image of the "gun-owning class" is, at
>best, of very limited validity.
I should probably have said, what those liberals (I'm talking about
the kind of people I grew up around, people who I will passionately
defend on most scores) _perceive_ as "the gun-owning classes."
--
Patrick Nielsen Hayden : p...@panix.com : http://www.panix.com/~pnh
mike weber
>rac...@gw.dd-b.net (Rachael Lininger) writes:
>> >
>> >And in a "more civilized" nation, he would have ended said argument by
>> >picking up (or using) a baseball bat. (One of nice things about gnus
>> >is that you can esculate up to "you *really* *are* *serious*" without
>> >actually hurting someone.
>>
>> Did you really say that?
>
>Yup. Here is how you escalate with a gun:
> Give your opponent cause to believe you might have one. No injury.
> You show that you have one. No injury.
> You draw it, and keep it pointed up/down. No injury.
> You point it. No injury.
> You put your finger in the guard. No injury.
> You pull the trigger. Major injury.
>
>Notice, you can take things all the way up to the almost bitter end without
>causing any physical harm.
>
Myself, my steps would omit the two between "show" and "put finger in
guard" and might omit that one except as transitioning to the final
step, given circumstance. [1]
If i am in a situation where i feel the need to draw a gun, then i am
in a situation where i feel that i am under serious-to-lethal levels
of threat.
If demonstrating that i have a gun *without* drawing it is
insufficient to back the threat level down, then i have no reason to
believe that the guy is going to be any more rational if i draw and
point it.
OTOH, i probably would pause in the sequence at "pointed, locked and
loaded and finger on the trigger" to give the subject a chance to
reconsider.
But if i'm scared enough to be drawing a gun, he'd better reconsider
*damned* fast at that stage.
[1]It is *possible* that at the "pull trigger" stage i might well be
aiming between someone's feet or in some similar "the next one is for
real" direction, but it's about as possible that i'd be going for his
ten-ring.
--
"It's not what you don't know that can hurt you -- it's the things that
you do know that AREN'T true..." ("The Notebooks of Lazarus Long"?)
================================================================
mike weber kras...@mindspring.com
half complete website of Xeno--http://weberworld.virtualave.net
Joel Rosenberg
It all depends. In my self-defense course, the instructor had us come
up with half a dozen different scenarios in which you might find
somebody in your home where you'd not have any business shooting them,
but would be entirely within your rights -- and probably wise, given
your information at the time -- to quickly display one.
mike weber
typed
>Kevin J. Maroney <kmar...@ungames.com> writes:
>
>> Mark Atwood <m...@pobox.com> wrote:
>> >And in a "more civilized" nation, he would have ended said argument by
>> >picking up (or using) a baseball bat. (One of nice things about gnus
>> >is that you can esculate up to "you *really* *are* *serious*" without
>> >actually hurting someone.)
>>
>> What makes you think that having a pistol jammed into your mouth is
>> necessarily significantly more pleasant than being whacked with a
>> baseball bat?
>
>A long time ago -- the statute of limitations long since having passed
>-- a, err, guy I know did whack somebody else I knew (the immediately
>ex-boyfriend of a friend of mine) with a baseball bat, under
>circumstances that seemed justifiable to me at the time, and still do
>now
In Westlake's anti-Santa story, "Nackles", the narrator (who is, i
believe, some kind of low- to medium-level hood) gets a report that
his brother-in-law, an ex-linebacker type and half again his (the
narrator's) size has been doinga little free-lance wife-beating.
So, he goes over, rings the bell, and, when his brother-in-law opens
the door, he belts him one with the baseball bat he has thoughtfully
brought along, and then follows up.
The brother-in-law is quite happy to promise never to hit his wife
again...
mike weber
<kmar...@ungames.com> typed
>Mark Atwood <m...@pobox.com> wrote:
>>And in a "more civilized" nation, he would have ended said argument by
>>picking up (or using) a baseball bat. (One of nice things about gnus
>>is that you can esculate up to "you *really* *are* *serious*" without
>>actually hurting someone.)
>
>What makes you think that having a pistol jammed into your mouth is
>necessarily significantly more pleasant than being whacked with a
>baseball bat?
>
Well, about the worst physical damage it's going to do (absent firing
the piece) is break teeth, *possibly* break jawbone, and cause cuts
and scratches and bruises to the lips tongue and gums and palate.
Not nice
OTOH, a baseball bat may very well fracture *major* bones (including
the skull) and might easily damage beyond repair some little bit of
complex organic machinry as a knuckle, wrist, elbow, knee or ankle, no
to mention the internal injuries to kidneys, spleen, intestines,
liver, lungs and even heart it can do if wielded with enthusiasm,
which is likely to be the case if someone is actually angry enough to
wiail on someone with a bat.
A pool cue, properly manipulated, can often, of course, do worse
damage than a bat, all other things being equal...
Ray Radlein
>
> I'm certain what Gary wrote was unfair to Doug and DDB, but wasn't
> it Joel who said he would have been voting for Gore but for the
> gnu issue? That's pretty close to a single-issue statement.
If it weren't for the fact that Steve Spurrier is Florida's head
coach, I would have been rooting for Miami instead of Florida in the
Sugar Bowl. That does not imply that Steve Spurrier is the only thing
about that I cared about in that particular game between those
particular schools.
- Ray R.
--
***********************************************************************
"But at my back I alwaies hear
Magneto's minions hurrying near"
- Marvell Comics, "The Mysterious Men of X"
Ray Radlein - r...@learnlink.emory.edu
homepage coming soon! wooo, wooo.
***********************************************************************
Joyce Reynolds-Ward
<mjla...@erols.com> wrote:
snip
>A local elementary teacher is appealing her dismissal. One day last
>year, another teacher came upon a backpack left in a classroom. She
>opened it up to see whose it was, and found a loaded handgun without
>the safety on. She also found the ID for the other teacher. The
>teacher was dismissed and also has a criminal conviction for carrying
>a gun into a school. She thinks the dismissal was inappropriate
>because she "just forgot" the gun was in the backpack. Guns are too
>important to "just forget."
Oh Ghod, yet another gun-toten' idiot.
Betcha she didn't even know how to use it properly.
BTW, take it from me.
*Never* count on a safety to save yer behind with a loaded weapon.
*Never.*
Only fools assume otherwise.
jrw
Mark Atwood
>
> *Never* count on a safety to save yer behind with a loaded weapon.
> *Never.*
> Only fools assume otherwise.
Mine doesn't have one. Or at least, not one that you turn on or off
with a button on the side. (It's actually on the trigger itself.)
It's neat, and adds a bit of piece of mind, but I don't "count on it"
(at least, no more so than the rest of the device it's part of.)
Ray Radlein
>
> I'm definitely persuaded that something's wrong here. More and
> more it seems to me that:
[snip observations and opinions about firearms]
FWIW, this reminded me, after a fashion, of your "Non-Smokers Against
Anti-Smoking" virutal organization.
Ray Radlein
>
> You can also do the same thing if you're visiting Florida -- you
> just have to keep the gun in a box that closes. This includes,
> according to the Secretary of State's office (no, I didn't ask
> Kathleen Harris herself), not only the glove compartment of your
> car, but a cigar box.
I hear that ballot boxes work nicely, although it may require a team
of experts to determine your intent if the chambers are only partially
loaded.
> (If you get a Florida carry permit, you don't need the cigar box.)
But you should get one anyway; they smell wonderful (Hav-A-Tampa boxes
are one of my "Rememberence of Things Past" olfactory triggers).
Mark Jones
kras...@mindspring.com (mike weber) spake thusly:
>On 09 Jan 2001 17:11:45 -0800, Mark Atwood <m...@pobox.com> typed
>If demonstrating that i have a gun *without* drawing it is
>insufficient to back the threat level down, then i have no reason to
>believe that the guy is going to be any more rational if i draw and
>point it.
>
>OTOH, i probably would pause in the sequence at "pointed, locked and
>loaded and finger on the trigger" to give the subject a chance to
>reconsider.
>
>But if i'm scared enough to be drawing a gun, he'd better reconsider
>*damned* fast at that stage.
>
>
>[1]It is *possible* that at the "pull trigger" stage i might well be
>aiming between someone's feet or in some similar "the next one is for
>real" direction, but it's about as possible that i'd be going for his
>ten-ring.
I dunno. The instructor in my CCW class made a point of saying that
"warning shots" were, if not actually illegal, a VERY BAD idea. His
reasoning was thus:
1. If you're in sufficient danger from the person against whom
you've drawn the weapon that drawing the weapon is justified, taking
your eyes off of him in order to safely fire a warning shot (making
sure of your target and the backstop in case you miss) is stupid and
irresponsible.
2. If you _don't_ take your eyes off of the guy, you've just fired
a bullet randomly, without regard for possible innocent bystanders,
which is stupid and irresponsible and _criminally negligent_.
3. Therefore, either shoot _him_ or don't shoot (and if you aren't
prepared to shoot the bad guy in the first place, don't draw the gun
and seriously reconsider carrying it in the first place).
It makes sense to me.
--
"Fight until Hell freezes over. Then fight on the ice!"
--attributed to Joe Lieberman, quoting someone else
Marilee J. Layman
Reynolds-Ward) wrote:
>On Tue, 09 Jan 2001 22:43:58 -0500, Marilee J. Layman
><mjla...@erols.com> wrote:
>
>snip
>
>>A local elementary teacher is appealing her dismissal. One day last
>>year, another teacher came upon a backpack left in a classroom. She
>>opened it up to see whose it was, and found a loaded handgun without
>>the safety on. She also found the ID for the other teacher. The
>>teacher was dismissed and also has a criminal conviction for carrying
>>a gun into a school. She thinks the dismissal was inappropriate
>>because she "just forgot" the gun was in the backpack. Guns are too
>>important to "just forget."
>
>Oh Ghod, yet another gun-toten' idiot.
>
>Betcha she didn't even know how to use it properly.
I dunno, she had a concealed carry permit, but you don't have to have
training to get that in VA.
David G. Bell
jo...@winternet.com "Joel Rosenberg" wrote:
(Accidental discharges of guns)
> That said, there's been no significant increase in the safety of the
> hardware over the past twenty years, during which the rate of
> accidental gun deaths has been cut in half, to less than a thousand
> per year in the US.
Be careful about the statistics here. That pattern could be a
consequence of the long working life of guns, as the older weapons are
gradually replaced by safer versions.
If I'm remembering right, the civilian market Colt M1911A1 types did
introduce new safety devices, interrupting the fireing pin movement,
about twenty years ago. That didn't eliminate all the earlier versions
overnight.
--
David G. Bell -- Farmer, SF Fan, Filker, and Punslinger.
We suffer as a society and a culture when we don't pay the true value of
goods and services delivered. We create a lack of production. Less good
music is recorded if we remove the incentive to create it. -- Courtney Love
Heather Anne Nicoll
> Joel Rosenberg wrote:
> > (If you get a Florida carry permit, you don't need the cigar box.)
>
> But you should get one anyway; they smell wonderful (Hav-A-Tampa boxes
> are one of my "Rememberence of Things Past" olfactory triggers).
I keep my rock collection mounted in cigar boxen. Not that I know where
it is at the moment; probably near the cigar box that I have my marbles
in. Wherever that is.
- Darkhawk, who numbers among her Dubious Achievments
a rock collection that won grand prize in
the Montgomery County (Maryland) Fair
--
Heather Nicoll - Darkhawk - http://aelfhame.net/~darkhawk/
Watch what you say, or they'll be calling you a radical, a liberal
Fanatical, criminal. . . . -- Supertramp, "The Logical Song"
mike weber
typed
>kras...@mindspring.com (mike weber) writes:
>>
>> If i am in a situation where i feel the need to draw a gun, then i am
>> in a situation where i feel that i am under serious-to-lethal levels
>> of threat.
>>
>> If demonstrating that i have a gun *without* drawing it is
>> insufficient to back the threat level down, then i have no reason to
>> believe that the guy is going to be any more rational if i draw and
>> point it.
>>
>> OTOH, i probably would pause in the sequence at "pointed, locked and
>> loaded and finger on the trigger" to give the subject a chance to
>> reconsider.
<snip>
>
>It all depends. In my self-defense course, the instructor had us come
>up with half a dozen different scenarios in which you might find
>somebody in your home where you'd not have any business shooting them,
>but would be entirely within your rights -- and probably wise, given
>your information at the time -- to quickly display one.
>
Oh, yah -- i didn't say i *would* immediately fire, but that i would
come immediately to a state of total *readiness* to fire as soon as I
drew the piece.
Also, i *was* thinking of locations other than within the confines of
my own home, where, indeed, *showing* him the piece is legal, but
*firing* it may well not be.
Outside my home, i am liable to try Option #1 ("Run Away! Run Away!")
before i even discuss whether i have a gun; the situation i had in
mind above is one in which running away is not an option for whatever
reason, and i genuinely fear for my life.
mike weber
typed
>And yea, verily, on Wed, 10 Jan 2001 05:30:16 GMT,
>kras...@mindspring.com (mike weber) spake thusly:
>>[1]It is *possible* that at the "pull trigger" stage i might well be
>>aiming between someone's feet or in some similar "the next one is for
>>real" direction, but it's about as possible that i'd be going for his
>>ten-ring.
>
>I dunno. The instructor in my CCW class made a point of saying that
>"warning shots" were, if not actually illegal, a VERY BAD idea. His
>reasoning was thus:
>
>1. If you're in sufficient danger from the person against whom
>you've drawn the weapon that drawing the weapon is justified, taking
>your eyes off of him in order to safely fire a warning shot (making
>sure of your target and the backstop in case you miss) is stupid and
>irresponsible.
Agreed
>
>2. If you _don't_ take your eyes off of the guy, you've just fired
>a bullet randomly, without regard for possible innocent bystanders,
>which is stupid and irresponsible and _criminally negligent_.
Agreed
>
>3. Therefore, either shoot _him_ or don't shoot (and if you aren't
>prepared to shoot the bad guy in the first place, don't draw the gun
>and seriously reconsider carrying it in the first place).
Agreed.
>
>It makes sense to me.
Me, too.
And that is why is said "*possible*" -- not the emphasis. Not likely
or even necessarily to be desired.
However, sometimes, if it all comes together -- one time an
acquaintance [1] was being threatened by an adversary with a holstered
gun (hand on gunbutt, fingers gripping gunbutt, obviously intending to
conveythe impression that he was ready to pull it and open the ball),
who taqlked for a couple seconds too long, giving my acquaintance time
to draw his own.
The Bad Guy was standing in my acquaintance's yard, freshly raked and
seeded, with his back to my acquaintance's (empty) house, having been
surprised by my acquaintance's return from the store in the act of
preparing to kick the door in.
So the first one went into the nice soft ground, and that was the only
one fired.
But, generally, the "warning shot" is even dumber than "I'll just
shoot him in the leg."
[1]NOT myself in disguise, i hasten to point out -- i haven't gone
heeled in public in the last twenty-plus years, in fact, the last time
i carried a gun for any purpose but taking it to or from the range was
in 1970 in the Navy, and i have never[2] been in a guns-involved
situation in the States where shooting was an option on my part
[2]Although a few years ago, when walking down a dark street at 11PM
in a not-so-good section of Louisville KY, when some fool tossed a
srtring of firecrackers at me out of his car as he went by, i
reflexively ducked behind cover and went for the gun that i don't
carry like something out of a Western movie...
Martin Wisse
> I keep my rock collection mounted in cigar boxen. Not that I know where
> it is at the moment; probably near the cigar box that I have my marbles
> in. Wherever that is.
Lost your, aheh, marbles, have you, he said, grinning.
Martin Wisse
David G. Bell
m...@pobox.com "Mark Atwood" wrote:
> But psychological harm, especially if it's acute and transient, is not
> the same thing as the physical injuries from a baseball bat, or even a
> closed fist.
I'd I've phrased that slightly differently myself. Spmething like,
"But even acute psychological harm, especially it it's transient," seems
to cover the situation better.
David G. Bell
nyje...@my-deja.com wrote:
As a farmer, I'd accept that as a brief summary. One of my neighbours
competed internationally in clay pigeon shooting, so 'guns as tools'
isn't all that reliable, but I don't think it's wildly wrong.
David G. Bell
rac...@gw.dd-b.net "Rachael Lininger" wrote:
> In article <m3snmsm...@flash.localdomain>,
> Mark Atwood <m...@pobox.com> wrote:
> >Joel Rosenberg <jo...@winternet.com> writes:
> >>
> >> And, of course, it depends on what wants to be more powerful to do. A
> >> friend of mine reported that her ex used to end arguments by sticking
> >> the barrel of a handgun in her mouth.
> >
> >And in a "more civilized" nation, he would have ended said argument by
> >picking up (or using) a baseball bat. (One of nice things about gnus
> >is that you can esculate up to "you *really* *are* *serious*" without
> >actually hurting someone.
>
> Did you really say that?
My reaction too, though moderated by the next few lines he wrote.
It is a much more convincing threat, and at the same time much closer to
serious physical injury and death. The grey area is razor thin, and
that's the scarey part.
Maybe, in this case, it worked out better.
Jo Walton
> Joel Rosenberg <jo...@winternet.com> writes:
> >
> > And, of course, it depends on what wants to be more powerful to do. A
> > friend of mine reported that her ex used to end arguments by sticking
> > the barrel of a handgun in her mouth.
>
> And in a "more civilized" nation, he would have ended said argument by
> picking up (or using) a baseball bat.
Baseball isn't played in most civilized nations. In Britain it would be
more likely that there would be a gun to hand than a baseball bat. (This
is a quibble on your cultural assumptions, not an argument with your
point.)
--
Jo J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk
I kissed a kif at Kefk Take the rasfw pledge
*THE KING'S PEACE* out now! From Tor Books and good bookshops everywhere.
More info, Tir Tanagiri Map & Poetry etc at http://www.bluejo.demon.co.uk
Carol Kennedy
> In fact, if
> you're against a sane opponent, pulling it out makes it *less* likely
> that you will have to [fire].
I think there a slight logical flaw here, since one *must* pull it out in
order to fire. One is definitely more likely to fire a pulled-out gun than
one still in a holster or pocket or handbag.
--
Carol Kennedy
"If you have no investment in the future, your only resource for the present
is the past."
>
> The goal is almost never to make someone die. The goal is to make them
> *stop*. One could say that pulling it out *is* "using it", if doing so
> makes your opponent stop doing whatever.
Carol Kennedy
> I lived in the country for seven years.
> Farmers view them (guns) as tools, not much more. Most of them don't
> lke handguns or semi-automatic weapons.
It has been more than 20 years since I lived in a small town, so I can't
speak for today's views, but at that time this was definitely true there
(especially if one includes "target-shooting equipment" as "tools"). My
first husband had an arsenal of shotguns and rifles (I even had my own
rifle). So did all his friends. I heard a lot of talk about the guns and the
use of them, but I don't think I ever heard any reference to self-defense or
protection, or ever heard a gun called a "weapon." They were indeed tools
for hunting and target shooting.
Joel Rosenberg
> On 09 Jan, in article <wkk884c...@winternet.com>
> jo...@winternet.com "Joel Rosenberg" wrote:
>
> (Accidental discharges of guns)
>
> > That said, there's been no significant increase in the safety of the
> > hardware over the past twenty years, during which the rate of
> > accidental gun deaths has been cut in half, to less than a thousand
> > per year in the US.
>
> Be careful about the statistics here. That pattern could be a
> consequence of the long working life of guns, as the older weapons are
> gradually replaced by safer versions.
And that's certainly true enough, but it takes a LOT to go wrong to
get a Mark 80 or earlier 1911[A1] to discharge by dropping, and the
most likely scenario involves in which one happens involves it being
dropped on its nose, not just dropped.