Ever been bikejacked?

Raoul Duke wrote:

"Just zis Guy, you know?" wrote"

Would you rather be beaten black and blue, or shot?

Neither. But if the end result is death, what difference does it make? If
someone is able to beat you black and blue, he can kill you just a dead as
if he had shot you.

When it comes to homicide, there's a big difference between "can"
and "does". Data reveals the difference. Domestic violence incidents
that involve a firearm result in death at far greater rates than
those that don't:

"In a study of family and intimate assaults for the city of Atlanta,
Georgia, in 1984, firearm-associated family and intimate assaults
were 12 times more likely to result in death than non-firearm
associated assaults between family and intimates." - Linda
Saltzman, PhD, et al., "Weapon Involvement and Injury Outcomes in
Family and Intimate Assaults," JAMA 267, no. 22 (1992): 3043-3047.

--
terry morse Palo Alto, CA http://bike.terrymorse.com/

wrote:

Forever? You want to pay for keeping some stickup artist in prison for
70 years?
Or do you think it is preferable to summarily jail anyone accused of
domestic violence /wife beating until they can have a hearing, rather
than leaving them free but restricting their access to firearms for
two weeks or an evidentiary hearing, whichever comes first (current CT
law)? Or just do nothing?

Violant crime is a young man's game. It's unnecessary to warehouse offenders in
perpetuity. What I am proposing is that we simply begin to impose sentences
that are sufficient to reduce violent crime by 1) making a 10 year sentence
mean 10 years in prison (in most States a 10 year sentence is in reality a 3
year sentence with parole) and 2) lock the most egregious offenders up for a
sufficiently long enough time that they are just too old to cut it as
criminals. Age 40 would be about right for most of the criminals I know. As for
the rest, how on earth you make the leap from "lock up violent criminals" to
"do nothing" is a mystery.

And, in this nonperfect world, in the absence of locking the violent
criminals up forever: when they do get out, you feel it is better to
continue the current process of allowing them to obtain a firearm from
a private sale as opposed to barring them from doing so?
I'm not convinced that informing all you lawabiding gun owners I keep
reading about that it will now be illegal to sell one of your guns to
a person without a background check proving he is not a recently
paroled violent criminal, and providing an easy means to do such a
background check, is 'feel good fluff'. Or are you saying that you law
abiding gun owners intend to sell the guns to these guys anyway?

What you describe as the "current process" is already illegal. The criminal
knows he's not supposed to buy the gun but guess what? He does it anyway. Why?
Because it's a tool of his trade and because he knows that even if he's caught
with it he'll get a figurative slap on the wrist. As for requiring private
citizens to perform background checks on other private citizens in order to
conduct a private sale, great. Now if you'll simply explain how that system
will be paid for without using resources that could be used to actually arrest
violent offenders, who will administer that system, how abuses of the database
required will be safeguarded against, how any violations will be enforced, and
most importantly how it will accomplish any more than actually *locking up* the
bad guys, I'm all ears. Of course even if such a system could do all that, it
would still be "feel good" fluff because the dumbest criminal out there already
knows the way around it. It's called straw purchasing.

Regards,
Bob Hunt

wrote:

A meaningless distinction. An angry person *using* a knife isn't going
to be capable of the same havoc as an angry person *using* a gun.

---snip---

Attend a few autopsies before leaping to this conclusion, Frank because you are
quite simply misinformed.

It's silly to pretend the object makes no difference.

---snip---

Re-read what I wrote, Frank. What I said was, "My point was and is that the
danger isn't posed by the inanimate object. The
source of the danger is the person *using* the object.". You and I agree that
cars can be deadly. Is your car, driven by you, as dangerous as the car being
driven by the drunken 19 yr old? Again, the danger is posed by the user, not
the object.
Forget campaigns to "get guns
off the streets". Remove the violent offenders instead.

That's fine, too. But they're not mutually exclusive.

How much discussion have you heard or participated in about abolishing parole?
Name any NGO whose sole purpose is to lobby for restricting probation to
misdemeanors. In the real world we all tend to look for the single "magic
bullet", the easy fix. Which sounds easier, "Let's get the guns off the
streets" or "Let's overhaul our criminal justice sytem to ensure that violent
offenders are removed from society"? IOW, as much as we might wish otherwise,
in the real world the two *are* mutually exclusive.

Regards,
Bob Hunt

(Hunrobe) wrote in message ...


wrote:

Forever? You want to pay for keeping some stickup artist in prison for
70 years?
Or do you think it is preferable to summarily jail anyone accused of
domestic violence /wife beating until they can have a hearing, rather
than leaving them free but restricting their access to firearms for
two weeks or an evidentiary hearing, whichever comes first (current CT
law)? Or just do nothing?

Violant crime is a young man's game. It's unnecessary to warehouse offenders in
perpetuity. What I am proposing is that we simply begin to impose sentences
that are sufficient to reduce violent crime by 1) making a 10 year sentence
mean 10 years in prison (in most States a 10 year sentence is in reality a 3
year sentence with parole) and 2) lock the most egregious offenders up for a
sufficiently long enough time that they are just too old to cut it as
criminals. Age 40 would be about right for most of the criminals I know. As for
the rest, how on earth you make the leap from "lock up violent criminals" to
"do nothing" is a mystery.

And, in this nonperfect world, in the absence of locking the violent
criminals up forever: when they do get out, you feel it is better to
continue the current process of allowing them to obtain a firearm from
a private sale as opposed to barring them from doing so?
I'm not convinced that informing all you lawabiding gun owners I keep
reading about that it will now be illegal to sell one of your guns to
a person without a background check proving he is not a recently
paroled violent criminal, and providing an easy means to do such a
background check, is 'feel good fluff'. Or are you saying that you law
abiding gun owners intend to sell the guns to these guys anyway?

What you describe as the "current process" is already illegal. The criminal
knows he's not supposed to buy the gun but guess what? He does it anyway. Why?

Because he's a criminal. On the other hand, the guy who sells him the
gun just shrugs; 'Not my problem'.

Because it's a tool of his trade and because he knows that even if he's caught
with it he'll get a figurative slap on the wrist. As for requiring private
citizens to perform background checks on other private citizens in order to
conduct a private sale, great. Now if you'll simply explain how that system
will be paid for without using resources that could be used to actually arrest
violent offenders, who will administer that system, how abuses of the database
required will be safeguarded against, how any violations will be enforced, and
most importantly how it will accomplish any more than actually *locking up* the
bad guys, I'm all ears.

Aren't we already doing background checks on purchases from licensed
dealers? We just have to extend it to private sellers.

Of course even if such a system could do all that, it
would still be "feel good" fluff because the dumbest criminal out there already
knows the way around it. It's called straw purchasing.

And is already illegal.


Regards,
Bob Hunt

Hunrobe wrote:




wrote:


A meaningless distinction. An angry person *using* a knife isn't going
to be capable of the same havoc as an angry person *using* a gun.


Attend a few autopsies before leaping to this conclusion, Frank because you are
quite simply misinformed.

Oh, good grief.

Look, in the extreme case, an angry person using a knife could cut his
victim up into 1/2" cubes. An angry person using a gun could riddle the
body with bullets until it was mush. Both are thorough havoc, but
neither is in any way typical or realistic.

Your vague hints about autopsies won't cut it. It doesn't rebut what I
said about the ability to flee a punch or a knife. It doesn't rebut
what Terry Morse posted:

""In a study of family and intimate assaults for the city of Atlanta,
Georgia, in 1984, firearm-associated family and intimate assaults
were 12 times more likely to result in death than non-firearm
associated assaults between family and intimates." - Linda
Saltzman, PhD, et al., "Weapon Involvement and Injury Outcomes in
Family and Intimate Assaults," JAMA 267, no. 22 (1992): 3043-3047."

And again, if you _really_ think knives are as dangerous as guns, you'd
leave your service revolver behind and carry a Bowie knife (or perhaps
pen knife) the next time you're out on the job. Do you? Why not?




It's silly to pretend the object makes no difference.


---snip---

Re-read what I wrote, Frank. What I said was, "My point was and is that the
danger isn't posed by the inanimate object. The
source of the danger is the person *using* the object.".

Again, a meaningless distinction. It leads to absurdities like selling
hand grenades on street corner stands.


Forget campaigns to "get guns
off the streets". Remove the violent offenders instead.

That's fine, too. But they're not mutually exclusive.


How much discussion have you heard or participated in about abolishing parole?
Name any NGO whose sole purpose is to lobby for restricting probation to
misdemeanors.

These are discussion groups. When the OP mentioned a near bikejacking,
several responders posted the immediate "solution" of carrying a gun.
Therefore, that's what we're discussing.

Do you really believe that abolishing parole is the solution? If so,
it's up to you to bring that into the discussion - and I'll submit that
you should have done it LONG before now! As it is, you're mentioning it
only to attempt to support a position that "guns aren't dangerous."

Personally, I think you can make a case for abolishing parole. But if
that proposition comes attached to a "guns aren't dangerous" platform,
people will never take it seriously. They'll figure you're just a gun
nut grasping at straws.


--
Frank Krygowski [To reply, omit what's between "at" and "cc"]

wrote:

On the other hand, the guy who sells him the
gun just shrugs; 'Not my problem'.


I'm sure there are people that would do that. I'm equally certain that does not
describe the majority of people.

Aren't we already doing background checks on purchases from licensed
dealers? We just have to extend it to private sellers.

You obviously don't have the vaguest idea of how a background check system
works. Doctors write prescriptions for drugs all the time yet you and I can't
because we don't have our own DEA prescriber numbers. It's the same with
background checks. In order to request that check the dealer must provide his
FFL number. Several years ago the Clinton administration made political hay out
of pricing so-called "kitchen FFL dealers" out of business. Are you suggesting
that was a mistake?

It's called straw purchasing.

And is already illegal.

Exactly, yet it still happens. The question that remains then is why you think
criminals will obey the law you favor while disregarding the other laws that
are already on the books.
For the criminal, it all goes back to penalties. Make the penalties for a
particular crime severe enough and he won't commit that crime. Pass yet another
piece of "feel good" fluff and you won't change a darned thing.

Regards,
Bob Hunt

Frank Krygowski

wrote in part:

Do you really believe that abolishing parole is the solution? If so,
it's up to you to bring that into the discussion - and I'll submit that
you should have done it LONG before now! As it is, you're mentioning it
only to attempt to support a position that "guns aren't dangerous."

Uhhh, Frank? Are you actually reading what I write? I joined this thread, not
to argue that firearms are "safe"- they are no more nor less safe than are
cars- but to point out that demonizing an object will not solve the problem of
violent crime.
Violent street crime exists because there are violent criminals on the street.
If you want to reduce violent street crime, reduce the number of violent
criminals on the street. It really is both as simple and as complicated as
that. Any alleged "solution to crime" that focuses on anything *other* than
reducing the numbers of criminals free to prey on society is just so much "feel
good" fluff.

Do you really believe that abolishing parole is the solution? If so,
it's up to you to bring that into the discussion - and I'll submit that
you should have done it LONG before now!

Yes, I really do think that would be a step in the right direction and I just
*did* bring it up. I'm sorry you seem so put out that I didn't mention it
earlier. I guess I better not mention "three strikes", revamping our primary
and secondary school systems to allow for tangible and immediate rewards for
good academic performance, extended boot camp for first time offenders, capital
punishment, or trying to regain society's bygone acceptance of corporal
punishment for misbehaving children. All that would obviously label me a "gun
nut grasping at straws".

Regards,
Bob Hunt

Bob Hunt wrote in part:

... What I am proposing is that we simply begin to impose sentences
that are sufficient to reduce violent crime by 1) making a 10 year sentence
mean 10 years in prison (in most States a 10 year sentence is in reality a 3
year sentence with parole) and 2) lock the most egregious offenders up for a
sufficiently long enough time that they are just too old to cut it as
criminals. Age 40 would be about right for most of the criminals I know. ...


I'm all for that plan. Of course, that means we will have to let out many of
the nonviolent drug offenders in order to make room. There simply isn't enough
money available to go off madly building prisons.

Robert

(Hunrobe) wrote in message ...


wrote:

On the other hand, the guy who sells him the
gun just shrugs; 'Not my problem'.


I'm sure there are people that would do that. I'm equally certain that does not
describe the majority of people.

But what good does it do the 'majority of people' who wouldn't sell
the professional hitman a gun, if they're not supplied with any way to
refrain from doing so? You'd think they'd be grateful to have some
system which would identify potential customers as either violent
criminals or not, just so as to avoid the problem of opening up the
paper one morning and finding that your customer from last week just
killed three kids in a robbery that went bad. Assuming you would be
bothered by such a thing happening in your life, that is. And not just
shrugs: 'Not my problem'.


Aren't we already doing background checks on purchases from licensed
dealers? We just have to extend it to private sellers.

You obviously don't have the vaguest idea of how a background check system
works. Doctors write prescriptions for drugs all the time yet you and I can't
because we don't have our own DEA prescriber numbers. It's the same with
background checks. In order to request that check the dealer must provide his
FFL number.

And of course, it's quite illegal to sell prescription drugs
privately; it stops a lot of people, yet some still do so. Do you feel
that the laws against private sales of narcotics are therefore just
"feel good fluff"? Note that I'm not talking about making DEA-banned
drugs legally available in general, that's a different question, but
specifically setting the pharmaceuticals market up parallel to the
current firearms system, where a buyer needs official government
approval to buy them from a professional licensed seller, but private
transactions are not illegal? If you happen to have 100 tablets of
morphine left over from an old prescription (I actually knew somebody
who did), it should be legal to sell it to anybody who has the cash?

Hell, I can log into the internet and find out if the guy who wants to
buy my kid's old car seat has been convicted for child sex abuse.
You'd think it might be nice to find out if the guy who wants to buy
my pistol was ever convicted of shooting anyone.

Several years ago the Clinton administration made political hay out
of pricing so-called "kitchen FFL dealers" out of business. Are you suggesting
that was a mistake?

It's called straw purchasing.

And is already illegal.

Exactly, yet it still happens. The question that remains then is why you think
criminals will obey the law you favor while disregarding the other laws that
are already on the books.

But that's true of every crime. You make it illegal, but not everybody
stops doing it. Yet, we seem to want to continue to make things
illegal, either for symbolic value, or because it cuts down the
incidence a little and that's better than nothing.

For the criminal, it all goes back to penalties. Make the penalties for a
particular crime severe enough and he won't commit that crime.

Given that the consequences of, say, hard drug addiction tend to be
loss of your entire life, bank account, family, health etc. if you're
'lucky', death if you're not, in addition to legal penalties; and that
that's not sufficient to deter everybody, I think maybe the
econometrics 'make the price too high' model isn't 100% perfect.

Pass yet another
piece of "feel good" fluff and you won't change a darned thing.

Well, not to get too personal, but if you were to sell a weapon, do
you have any way of knowing whether the person to whom you are selling
it is a 'law-abiding' citizen, a convicted felon, out on parole, or
escaped from death row? If you had such information, would you refrain
from selling a weapon to any of the above, even if legality were not
involved, just if the info was available? (Not trying to put you on
the spot or being rhetorical, just seems like a reasonable question to
ask at this point).

Regards,
Bob Hunt