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from a logical viewpoint--putting aside what i regard as static from the strict construction folks----it seems to me that attempting to "keep guns from criminals" is less effective than across the board gun controls simply because criminal is an ex post facto category---there is no criminal until a crime has been committed, a process, a conviction etc.---and no amount of criminological/cj profiling or modeling is going to isolate any group or class of people who **will be** or even **might** be criminal because of the above. and it's not illegal to intend to commit a crime if you don't commit it. so you can't determine, you cant know---you can't impute essence to a class or group of people (short of being an outright fascist)...so you're always chasing, always behind.
across the board controls seem more logical.
demonstrations for the efficacy of such controls are simple enough if you look at international crime rates/types/levels of violence and so forth.
and there is an extensive industry of lobbyists and others who are interested in creating as much noise as possible around causal statements because they stand to loose politically (and by extension monetarily) if they loose the fight over gun control.
but i think the argument could be made that it is socially and ethically desirable that feer guns be available to fewer people.
and this is not to even begin to touch the appalling role of the united states in international small arms trafficking and the consequences of that---and entirely different discussion---except insofar as it indicates the extent to which the small arms producers are altogether too free of restrictions.
insofar as tucson is concerned, gun control questions are independent of mental health treatment/options and screening for them...both should be funded. maybe if conservatives could be less fixated on streaming obscene levels of resources into making weapon systems that kill people in great number....but i digress.
i'm not sure that i articulated the main argument with adequate clarity...gearing controls around preventing criminals from getting them is always chasing...it seems to me the wrong kind of argument, something set up to fail.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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