Subject: Re: [FFML] Gun Laws/NRA/Australian Card and Ranma joins the NRA
From: Harold Ancell
Date: 9/7/1996, 5:42 PM
To: fanfic@fanfic.com

   Date: Sat, 7 Sep 1996 15:20:50 -0400
   From: jhedge@waterw.com (Jeanne Hedge)

   Harold Ancell wrote:

   >   Date: Sat, 7 Sep 1996 09:28:48 -0400
   >   From: jhedge@waterw.com (Jeanne Hedge)

   [...]

   >As for the gun laws, it's illegal for the mentally ill to buy (and in
   >most states, possess) guns, but the privacy of medical records
   >precludes effective enforcement of these laws.  And both the left and
   >the right for the most part want it that way.

   Sure, it's illegal, but that's not what I said.  I said it's easy to get
   around those same laws if you really wanted to get a gun.

Well, yes, but that's true in all but police states, and it's even
quite possible to get guns in police states like Japan, the PRC, etc.,
but you've got to have powerful motivation to risk the penalities.

   And do *you* want to give the gov't any more access to your so-called
   privacy than they've already got?

Not a chance.

   >   (example: someone tries to pass legislation against bullets that
   >   pierce police body armor (IMO, no real use for these bullets except
   >   to kill people); NRA starts yelling about how that infringes on
   >   someone's rights/ability to hunt (hunt *what* I ask?);

   >Remember those deer I was talking about?  Every deer rifle I've heard
   >about, seen, or used is quite capable of penetrating normal street
   >body armor; you have to get to SWAT level armor to stop centerfire
   >rifle bullets.

   That's right.  And the NRA's position in the past has been that those same
   kinds of rifle bullets (SWAT-type armor penetrators) should not be illegal
   because that might infringe on someone's hunting rights.

That's not true; let's back up for a second, for I don't seem to have
clearly stated this:

All serious center fire hunting rifle ammunition is very powerful,
with energies many times that of handgun ammo.  If you are shooting
anything of the coyote (sp?; as in Wile E.) size or greater,
including deer, you will be using rounds quite capable of penetrating
normal "street" body armor (the non-obvious type you wear under your
shirt).  Over the clothes, "SWAT" style armor *will* stop such ammo.

   I ask again, just what does the NRA think hunters need those kinds
   of bullets for?

To hunt *any* medium or big sized game, including the deer which are
overrunning the country (granted, shotgun slugs will do for deer in
heavily wooded areas in the East, but that's a nit).

   >But that's irrelevant as far as our rights go, for they have
   >absolutely nothing to do with hunting, and everything to do with
   >liberty.  The bill that did get passed only bans sale of real military
   >style (metal armor piercing) rounds, and for that reason many NRA
   >members including myself were rather upset with the NRA (for the
   >principle; making bullets is trivially easy).

   Well, I wasn't referring to any specific piece of legislation in my
   discussion of "Cop Killer" bullets, but I do know what legislation you are
   talking about here.  Why is the NRA so opposed to such legislation when it
   effects things that have no obvious connection (or at least obvious to me)
   to the sporting or hunting use of weapons?

Because the original bill had a hidden agenda, indirectly banning
center fire rifle hunting and target shooting (did you know the US
military subsidizes civilian marksmanship with military rifles, so
we'll have enough people who know how to teach marksmanship if we have
another serious ground war?  That for paperwork costs (a few hundred
dollars) the Federal Government will give you a WWII era battle rifle
(better than what our troops have today)?)

So called "cop-killer" bullets are essentially a myth; one company did
produce Teflon coated handgun bullets *for police*; the coating was to
enhance windshield pentration at angles (Teflon is evidently not
slippery at those velocities and energies).

The bill that the NRA didn't oppose and that passed did ban the sale
of serious hard metal cored armor piercing ammo; they should have
opposed it because at it's base this issue has nothing to do with
sport or hunting.  I defy you to find "sport" or "hunting" or any
synonym in the Second Amendment (or to find evidence the drafters of
the Consituttion and Bill of Rights were thinking about sport or
hunting...).

I do have to thank the "gun-grabbers" for one thing; when I was
growing up I could not fathom the concept of The Big Lie, as practiced
most notibly by Hitler and company.  You are yet another example of
how modern communications can be used to lie to a large population
of people, as long as you tell the same lie over and over and over again.

   [ PACs, the how and why of the NRA. ]

   >We're powereful because we vote.  Ask Tom Foley....

   I hope you don't misunderstand me.  Most of the time I have absolutely
   nothing against the NRA.  I think the safety programs, marksmanship
   training, etc are terrific things.  It's just that too often it seems to me
   that its leaders take some rather odd positions, regarding military-spec
   weapons, "Cop Killer" bullets, etc.

The answer is, they don't take such positions, or you aren't being
told why they take them.  Of course, if you don't buy the self-defense
against government argument (i.e. you want the Second Amendment
repealed), then you definately aren't going to see eye to eye with us.

The other reason to oppose nice sounding but ineffective legislation
is that the strategy of the gun-grabbers is divide and conquer.

What's your problem with "military-spec" weapons, by the way?
They're just uglier and more reliable than most hunting rifles; most
of them are less powerful than hunting rifles as well (the very
definition of an assault rifle is a reduced power, "selective fire"
(full or semi-auto) rifle---civilian versions aren't even full auto).

   I heard a while back that the rank-and-file membership was rather
   upset with the path their organization was going down (going away
   from the safety/marksmanship/responsibly-used fun/etc focus), and
   there was a move to "recalibrate or replace" the leadership.  Has
   anything come of this?

Not so much going away from the traditional NRA mission, which is
still where the NRA puts most of its money, as compromising the
political.  The reason the NRA is doing it is because if we don't win
the political battle, the traditional mission will become moot because
we won't have any firearms.

(Actually, there will be a bloody civil war before that happens, which
I expect the government will lose---remember those firearms ownership
statistics.  But we'd rather avoid this; gun owners are not
revolutionary types, and it took two instances of cold blooded and
unpunished murder by our government to get us really riled up.)

What you heard was the whining of the Old Guard that lost the internal
political battle; it's easy for them to get plenty of press, but the
membership is not supporting their board candidates.  (This is
actually at least the second round of this game; the Old Guard lost
power during the 1976 annual meeting, got back in power when the
relative calm of the Reagan years lulled people, and lost again (it
took longer because they changed the bylaws) when the Bush
Administration started it's anti-gun crusade.  Membership skyrocketed
by 25-30% after the Old Guard lost (Bill Clinton helped too :-).

Hey, look on the bright side: the gun owners of this country helped
spare us a 2nd Bush Administration, and will probably help nix Dole in
a couple of months.

Let me finish with this interesting NRA fact: out of the three top
positions (President, Executive Director, head of the lobbying arm),
two are held by women....

   Er...  refresh my memory: what's the "Australian Card"?

National ID card, backed up by a central computer system, required for
all interactions with the government.

Ob-Gun-Fanfic: what ever happend to the Ranma variation that was set
in the Wild West?  I don't remember anything coming out after the
first chapter, but it was set after the Civil War, so Ranma in theory
could have joined the NRA.

Hmm, perhaps the Ranma in the Scoop of the Day story should join the
Martial Arts Association to help defend himself againt the newspaper's
lies and propaganda.

					- Harold