Uechi-Ryu.com

Mr. Canna:

I started looking at the material on Florida. And, while you have probably already done so, you might wish to check out the ABA web site on gun violence for sobering statistics on youth violence, domestic violence, and death related to guns as compared to the rest of the civilized world.

As to your apparent faith in the police to know their local criminals, isn't that the same attitude that allowed us to vitiate all constitutional protections during the war because the authorities knew certain groups of U.S. citizens were dangerous. (The shame of Manzanar should haunt us all.)

I suppose you are right, pipe bombs or other weapons might have been used in place of a gun in Dallas, or Memphis, or Los Angeles, or etc. But, they weren't. From the Ford Theatre to the drive-by shooting in a Ford, guns are the preferred weapon.

And while I find it regrettable that the police could not do their job well enough to protect a housing development from a criminal, I find it more shocking that you would advocate (sympathize) with dispossessing an entire group of people of their civil liberties in order to stop one person. Not an unusual approach. Every time a law abiding driver slows for a speed bump, he or she is paying for the crimes and lawlessness of the wreckless.

OH, and as to the folks in Orange Co. If they were law abiding, they would have registered their weapons. Not registering put them outside the law. NOW, one may feel it is a stupid law (and believe me, I think there are way too many stupid laws on the books) but in our system, we don't get to pick which laws we are going to obey. The civil rights leaders recognized that even when disobeying immoral and unconstitutional laws, they would be subject to arrest. The idea is to change the law.

NOW, don't faint, but I have often wondered what the outcome would have been had everyone in Burger King been armed when a group of robbers entered. While I think it might have stopped the robbers, I must also wonder how many would have died from friendly fire.

My own cynacism with regard to firearms, or laws, or increased punishment being a deterent, is I don't see most criminals thinking that far ahead. I still remember the shocked expression on a homicide suspect's face after he admitted the murder, and then realized his life was now going to change. For this particular suspect, and I fear for most, there was or is no nexus between the act of violence and any sense of moral responsibility or eventual accounting. We can all be armed to the teeth, but it won't change what we have wrought as a society with regard to the disaffected, desensitized and outcast among us.

Peace
Robb in Sacramento

Hi Robb ,

Welcome back ! Love your arguments ! Lets see :

1] Youth violence : No area of the criminal justice system is more wanting ! Juvenile criminals account for one sixth of murders and rapes , one quarter of robberies , burglaries and theft ! A Chicago analysis drew a bead on a group of 317 juvenile offenders ! This handful had already been arrested an average of thirteen times a piece from murder to rapes to assault ! The result : an average of ten months in a juvenile hall ! Now up to the last century , juveniles , if old enough to have the required criminal intent , were simply tried as adults ! They were sent to special reformatories to protect them from exposure to adult convicts ! Then we have the liberal " reformers" arguing for a "system" of rehab through court sponsored programs ! Then in 1966 the US Supreme court brought some sweeping changes , no doubt you are familiar with , which has made the juvenile system the best of all possible worlds for offenders who face only the treatment given a wayward child , a lecture , a few months in a juvenile hall and his records destroyed to give the punk a fresh start ! Then the juvenile system was hit by the demographic of crime ; the rise in criminality combined with the minor sanctions have produced an explosion of juvenile crime overloading the system resulting in warnings and the proverbial 'slap on the wrist' even upon the conviction of rape and armed robbery ! So who is responsible for recidivism in youth violence ??

2] Guns cause domestic violence ?

Yea right ! Take the guns away and domestic killings disappear , right ? Take your pick , shot ,stabbed, hammered , strangled , clobbered ; which way do you prefer to die ??

3] < the
rest of the civilized world.> ?

Okay ! Tell me why in Switzerland where every citizen is required by the Government to have a gun in the house there are no such problems ! This is not to suggest that the Swiss system would work in the US , but it does show that there is no causal relationship between firearms possession and crime !

4] < faith in the police to know their local criminals > ? < The shame of
Manzanar should haunt us all.) > ??

Man , you are relentless in your quest for a red herring !

5] < From the Ford Theater to the drive-by
shooting in a Ford, guns are the preferred weapon.>

True , but take the guns away and see what happens !

6] < dispossessing an entire group of people of their civil liberties in order
to stop one person.> ?

No I am not advocating that at all ; I am looking for a solution instead of your semantically approach to the problems !

……..1994 ….Richmond Virginia , woke up to one of the worst murder rates in the /country ! 149 homicides for a city of only 200,000; San Diego averages 150 out of a population of 1,2000.000! Richmond goes to full alert …police strike forces in "hot spots" -- , roadblocks-bicycle patrols -- , citizen patrols-curfews - pay phone restrictions - arresting truants-mentoring--, boot camps-specialized courts for speedy trials ! Zero tolerance …working very well but for the challenge by the ACLU ! Unlimited civil liberties , historically, have sunk Empires ! There has to be a reasonable compromise or we will experience the crime wave predictions by 2005 acknowledged by our president and republican candidates opposing him !

Stop'n' frisk is nothing more than a temporary restriction of freedom for gang bangers known to police to curtail a problem fatal to us all ! But this common sense arrangement is too 'simple ' to be grasped by the ACLU and pacifist liberals ! This is how you get the guns off the streets !

Not realistic you say ? Yet in Chicago's public housing why did Clinton try to circumvent the fourth amendment in allowing random searches of apartments without warrants or probable cause ? …… " Find a way around the constitution" he instructed the justice department ----to forestall the greater evil of criminal activity !!


7] < OH, and as to the folks in Orange Co.--- The civil rights leaders recognized that even when disobeying
immoral and unconstitutional laws, they would be subject to arrest.>

True , but some of those people would not agree with you as how it was done ! Their civil liberties were not respected as much as they would have you believe ! And the ACLU ,being antigun , did not intervene ; and BTW , where were they in the Waco incident ?

8] < NOW, don't faint, but I have often wondered what the outcome
would have been had everyone in Burger King been armed when a
group of robbers entered. While I think it might have stopped the
robbers, I must also wonder how many would have died from friendly
fire.>

We will never know , will we ! Which do you think is worse !! This is the mentality of the ' brave ' American who is in favor of killing innocent Serbian civilians for fear of American soldiers casualties !

9] < For this particular
suspect, and I fear for most, there was or is no nexus between the
act of violence and any sense of moral responsibility or eventual
accounting.<

Better policies might decrease the likelihood of some people to commit crimes , but the only way right now is to reinstate respect for morals in society as well as punishing individuals for their crimes ! People no longer accept anyone's rules of conduct but their own ! The Apologists " inside the beltway" love to blame society ! But being poor or not having a pair of $100 tennis shoes should never be an excuse for killing another person ! For centuries children were treated as little more than property , yet there was non consequent crime wave ! Historically lower income neighborhoods were quite safe ! Crime should be understood most fundamentally as a moral problem . Those who steal , murder , rape ..are committing an evil act ; evil grows exponentially , crimes committed for no purpose than to harm others ; irrational brutality is abundantly clear !

In the Washington post , on July 9, 1989 , Doug Bandow of the Cato institute warned " gun control has proved to be a grievous failure , a means of disarming honest citizens without limiting the fire power available to those who prey on the law abiding ! Attempting to use the legal system to punish the weapon rather than the person using the weapon is similarly doomed to fail "


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Van Canna

Mr. Canna:

This counry's period of internment was no "red herring." And for those who doubt their own personal liberties are but a police abuse away, this period bears graphic testiment to the folly of reliance upon those in authority to safeguard liberty. But, you clearly feel the police should be given free rein, and allowed to round up anyone they feel is suspicious. Sorry, not the kind of country I want to live in.

Waco, Ruby Ridge, I am shocked. Surely, under your view, the folks in these locations should have welcomed the authorities in with open arms. After all, a little police inspection isn't all that intrusive. Didn't the police know those folks were doing something wrong. Under your argument, the police were doing exactly what you advocate they do.

What you fail to address is how the ease of access to guns limits all of our liberty. We are all prisoners of this nation's violence, and until we find a solution, no jailer can free us. While you apparently believe the solution lies in the barrel of a gun, I disagree. I doubt, given the seeming divergence of our views, that we could find much approaching common ground on this issue, other than we are both concerned with the social health of our country, and we both abhor the violence that grips our land.

Peace
Robb in Sacramento

Robb: You wrote "We are all prisoners of this nation's violence.....".

Please, do not count me or my family in that collective 'we'. I live in Richmond VA, home of a crime rate reduced by almost 50% in one year by strict enforcement of exiisitng laws, and a 'no parole' sentencing law.

Rich 'Not a prisoner in Richmond' Castanet

Mr. Castanet:

OK, you're out. But, who in Richmond is experiencing the 50% of the violence that hasn't been reduced?

Peace
Robb in Sacramento

You there Michael-san,

Got any marshmallows? Fire's nice and hot.

This thread is getting long - but I hate to interrupt the flow of this discourse by starting a new thread - will any of our esteemed participants do the honor of starting anew thread with their riposte? I beg you continue - please.

Peace - and healthy debate,
Lori

Robb,

I am amused at your continued drawing of a parallel between wartime National security v. a temporary tactical measures such as the one implemented and which has worked wonders in Richmond Virginia !

1] < But, you clearly feel
the police should be given free rein,>

There you go again ! Reread my post ! I am in favor of " limited free rein " As I have seen it work in Richmond !



2] < What you fail to address is how the ease of access to guns limits all
of our liberty. <

Others have taken the opposing view : i.e., Idaho's governor Samuelson , wrote to president Johnson that his constituents were afraid that disarmament of the law abiding citizen { which is what you apparently advocate Robb } , would place them at the mercy of the criminal element ! " the volume of mail we have received on this subject is truly amazing . Almost without exception , the arguments have been highly articulate and reflect well on the basic intelligence and practical insight of our people "

Then Governors ,as far apart ideologically as Samuelson : Georgia's Lester Maddox ; New Mexico 's David Cargo ; and Texas' Preston Smith expressed basic agreement with Samuelson 's constituents.

Smith said , in addressing Texas outdoor writers : " when you take away guns from citizens , you take away liberty "

3] The American Bar association , to which you belong , is working against strong crime fighting measures ! …..1994 …ABA testified before the US house of representatives , that criminal justice policy is " inordinately tilted toward law enforcement and corrections " A rather incredible statement -perhaps self serving -when today's prisons is the sentencing alternative LEAST USED throughout America -and Americans are paying for it with their lives .
Every day in America , hundreds of people are attacked by violent criminals who have been caught and convicted and returned to the street on probation or early parole !

Now do you understand who and what is limiting our liberties ? Do you understand why Shakespeare said " First lets kill all the lawyers " * Smile* [ no offense meant ]

And " No man can be a sound lawyer who is not well read in the laws of Moses " { Fisher Ames } *smile again * what do you suppose that means ??

4] < While you apparently
believe the solution lies in the barrel of a gun, I disagree.<

Now you are getting personal ! Allow me to respond in kind : Skill at arms is every free man's business ; Martial arts is another form of "skill at arms" which is not readily apparent to the student until he reaches a very high level ; what is your excuse for studying a most potentially deadly art of self defense such as Uechi-Ryu !

5] A firearm is but a component part of the force continuum concept in which I was trained ! A pistol is a last ditch defensive weapons to be used only when nothing less will do to save your ass or your loved ones' asses in the gravest extreme !

It is not a " make my day implement " as You are suggesting ! Of the responsibilities we accept , the gun operates at the highest level and it's presence can never be taken lightly ! You must understand that if you are a serious student of self defense , especially if you represent yourself as a self defense instructor to your students , you must program the fact that the preservation of your life and the lives of your family are worth every action you are capable of taking by well rounded training , armed and unarmed [ do you train with martial arts weapons ? } !!

Confrontations may find you in grave and present danger which may well require you to unleash killing defensive power , naturally or by implement !

I never advocate carrying a gun to anyone , it is a personal choice ; I do respect your views but abhor self serving extreme political positions and any infringement on basic human rights of the people !

6] And finally < I doubt,
given the seeming divergence of our views, that we could find much
approaching common ground on this issue, other than we are both
concerned with the social health of our country, and we both abhor
the violence that grips our land.>

Well said Robb , we are too far apart and too passionate in our own respective beliefs ; so lets say FAREWELL in peace and harmony !

Regards ,





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Van Canna


[This message has been edited by Van Canna (edited 05-29-99).]

Hi Lori,
Yes, I'm still following this thread. At this point I begin to think it's one of those discourses that issue from opposed, yet well-entrenched schools of thought. Almost never does one encounter "converts" from one school to another, yet the verbal dialectic continues. Okay, I have a preference for the logic and factual statistics of one participant in this round, and I shake my head at the propaganda, as I read it, of his opponent. I'm sure others have opposing opinions, though.

I do appreciate the opportunity offered by these philosophers: they help us develop an opinion and a sense of agency. That is, I have a better sense of WHY I think the way I do, and WHAT I should do to make the world a better place because of my commitment to a certain belief.

Now...regarding marshmallows, do you flame yours and eat the blackened gooey sugar, or prefer to brown them carefully for a mellower palate?

Michel (Mike's inner chef)

Robb: Mostly gang bangers who have yet to get the message are falling prey to gun violence in Richmond. And the 'poor babies' in our new max security prison for violent offenders, Red Onion, are singing the blues about 'rough treatment' by corrections officers. The rub is that the ACLU is coming down on Red Onion for being tough.

A point to note on stats in Richmond. By the way cities are defined in Virginia, anti gun folks have come up with this high ratio of murders per 1000 population. In reality, if you took in the greater metro area that includes 900,000 plus, as most states stats do, you would find that Greater Richmond is really very safe, with some outlying counties experiencing ZERO handgun murders per year.

Again, I would count the great majority of the local populace as 'not prisoners' to violence (grammer?).

Rich

[This message has been edited by RACastanet (edited 05-30-99).]