From: [Matt Giwer] at [f326.n3603.z1.FIDONET.ORG] (Matt Giwer)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns
Subject: Gun control and moderatio
Date: Sun, 08 Aug 93 22:14:00 PDT

 * Forwarded by MATT GIWER from the f-Politics conference.
 * Original from BRUCE BAUGH to ALL on 08-05-93.

Hello, All!

I'm no longer moderating gun-related discussions. It's become
impossible for me to do so in anything like a fair and objective manner.

Last week a friend of mine was murdered. Than Thi Nyugen was an
immigrant from Vietnam, a survivor of the communist takeover of
her homeland and of an abusive marriage, a woman who was proud
to have become an American. She ran the local video store just
a few blocks from me. Last year she scared off two Vietnamese
punks trying to extort money from her. This year...well, nobody
knows for sure. Other Asian shop owners report that extortion
is up recently, and two young Asian men were reported running
from the scene, but the store wasn't robbed as nearly as anyone
can tell. It's just that Nyugen is dead.

This is a death that promoters of gun control should take pride in and
credit for. The police (and other shop owners) report that shop
owners who have and know how to use guns are more likely to
come out of a robbery or extortion attempt without harm. A few
weeks ago Nyugen asked me (and others of her customers) for our
views on the wisdom of getting a gun of her own; the advice was
apparently pretty uniformly positive. But she was concerned
about the array of legal hassles facing her gun-owning friends,
and just wasn't sure whether it would be worth the costs and
difficulties.

She responded just the way you advocates of gun control wanted: she
decided that it wasn't worthwhile. It's just too damned bad
that the punks who shot her didn't happen to be so concerned
with being law-abiding citizens, isn't it? So I'm out a friend,
her fiancee is out a lover, and Portland is out one more good
business owner.

Take a bow, you monsters. And don't bother with the justifications.
I've SEEN the justifications here. You felt that getting guns
out of the hands of citizens was a good way to reduce crime,
that citizens ought to rely on the power of the state to
protect them, and all that crap. It didn't work. It doesn't
work. It can't work. And I'd cheerfully trade any one of you to
bring back Nguyen, if the universe worked that way. It doesn't alas.

But the NRA gets a cut of my next paycheck, and the local gun stores
are going to start getting my business.

Under the circumstances, I'm letting the moderation go. Someone else can
get the hassles.

Bruce

=== GEcho 1.00


 -- SPEED 1.30 >01<: Lucca Brazzi for IRS Commissioner.


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