Hello Harry,

I would tend to agree with you on "no practical...reason" but wouldn't that
reasoning also have to apply to road licensed 100+mph vehicles?

We've done a bit of pest/pig hunting where a 20-round magazine wasn't
enough, even resorting to duct-taping 2 of the magazines together. The rest
of the hunting we do only requires 2 or 3 quick shots at most from a pump
shotgun or a couple of well placed shots from a scoped bolt-action rifle.
Thus, the level of practicality may differ from one individual to another.

Gun-crazed may be one view of how our society is and incidents like this,
though rare, only serve to feed more into that view. You will often hear us
gun owners arguing that passing gun-control laws will only target
law-abiding citizens instead of passing crime-control laws that target
criminals, but this incident does not help our case at all unless it is
proven that it was ALL in self-defense (unlikely).

As for our foreign policy, I would agree with you if you can give me an
example of one instance when we have invaded or showed aggressiveness
towards a truly peaceful nation. We should fight our battles off-shore
whenever we should ("could/can" views may differ, again).

Franko

"Harry Krause" wrote in message
...
Franko wrote:
That part of the report is suspect. The part of the report about five
"hunters" with one gun is very suspect.

I feel sorry for those people who got shot and who got killed,
especially
the ones who had nothing to do with threatening the Hmong who may have
felt
he was being surrounded "again" by more "reinforcements."

If, indeed, he was shot at first, the guy that took that first shot
(also
first one to be killed) is partially responsible for the deaths of his
friends. Sad and tragic.

One can look at this as either a case for or against semi-automatic
rifles
with large capacity magazines. If this was a case of self-defense
(initially, that is), then it was deadly unfortunate for the group of
hunters to have picked on a single person, armed with a
not-even-high-powered weapon, but nevertheless, well armed for the
situation. If this was not a case of self-defense, then it was like
that
lunatic who killed several tourists in Tasmania that resulted in a
nationwide ban on semi-autos and pump-actions.

"Calif Bill" wrote in message
nk.net...
The unarmed hunters were coming because they got a radio call that
someone
had been shot. They were not out hunting when the call came. This
according to the newspaper report.


There's no practical, non-aggressive reason for a civilian to own a
rifle with a 20-shot magazine, just as there is no practical reason for
a civilian to own a semi-auto pistol with a 12 or 13 shot or larger
magazine. Most of these weapons are sub-par for hunting or target
practice. Their primary purpose is to shoot other human beings.

Unfotunately, we've a pro-violence, gun-crazed society. No other modern,
western nation suffers from the kinds of lethal citizen versus citizen
violence our country endures, nor our pooh-poohing of it when it
happens. Why do I say pooh-poohing? Because, despite the fact that we
have endless gun violence in this country, we never really do anything
about it.

And the Dodge City, armed cowboy mentality permeates our foreign policy,
too. We think our guns (just a metaphor for all our weaponry) allow us
to get away with any sort of violent aggressiveness we please.




--
A passing thought:

"We stand for things." —George W. Bush, Davenport, Iowa, Aug. 5, 2004