[speaker001:] do you have any strong feelings about gun control
[speaker002:] I have pretty strong feelings about it yeah I think that guns ought to be controlled
[speaker001:] uh I agree there should be some control but uh how strong of uh a control do you think there ought to be
[speaker002:] well let's see on one to ten I guess I vary I actually started out as a member of the NRA in my youth but having looked at murder statistics in other countries um it's so dramatic that I think that I'm probably down to about a two or a three in terms of control however no I'm sorry maybe up to a nine or a ten
[speaker001:] uh okay that's yeah okay got the scale going the other way
[speaker002:] um open the almanac one day and it just has murders of by by guns and you look and you look at European countries and and it's like six eleven four and you get to the US and it's four thousand
[speaker001:] sure
[speaker002:] and that tells me something about
[speaker001:] but if you make owning a a gun a crime only criminals will have guns I've heard that before and that's probably true
[speaker002:] yeah that  that's I mean the other problem is there's so many guns out there if you ban sales of guns right now there'd still be millions and millions and millions of them
[speaker001:] sure uh
[speaker002:] but uh would it would really be nice to make it a little harder to get one so that every punk in the world doesn't doesn't pack a rod
[speaker001:] yeah I agree with that I think that some states are just far too lenient uh Texas and Florida are very easy on uh gun ownership being able to buy guns all it takes is a driver's license
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] and uh sign an affidavit uh saying that you didn't commit any felonies
[speaker002:] right
[speaker001:] so I think that ought to be uh tightened up I favor uh uh holding uh the guns say for for seven days or whatever until uh you can check out whether somebody is legitimate or not
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] and I think that might stop some of the uh impulsive crimes but uh things that like that are planned uh selling guns to New York City things of that nature I don't think you're ever going to be able to stop that there's just too much of a demand and people are going to get ahold of guns no matter what the restrictions are
[speaker002:] yeah I think I think that you're right it would be the pretty much the same problem that that prohibition is in fact pretty much the same problem that drug control is
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] if enough people want it and they're willing to pay for it they'll get it
[speaker001:] and a lot of people own guns just as a hobby and uh hunters in particular they're they're not uh buying guns to commit any crimes at all just uh uh pursuing their hobby
[speaker002:] yeah yeah
[speaker001:] but it it's uh ones uh say the midnight specials uh uh the semi semi automatic weapons uh assault rifles things like that that uh really have no place uh for a sportsman
[speaker002:] yeah that's certainly true I mean I own a handgun myself I've actually never fired the thing but
[speaker001:] uh-huh
[speaker002:] but um but I went out and bought it intending to to learn to use it and so on but I never did
[speaker001:] yeah I don't see any problem with owning a gun for self protection but uh education is is a big part of that people need to be educated on how to uh how to how to store their weapons uh so the kids can't get at them and so they're not a threat to the rest of the family
[speaker002:] yeah right right
[speaker001:] a lot of people don't get that type of education they don't have any kind type of safeguards on their weapons at home
[speaker002:] yeah I mean I certainly just walked into the store and bought mine and a box of bullets I suppose I could have gone and blown my own brains out or anyone else's who was who was nearby
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] although I must say I have a healthy respect for the thing
[speaker001:] yeah uh gun control legislation is uh is really tough to beat I mean the NRA is so strong and they lobby uh uh a lot in Congress
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] so uh it's going to be really tough to uh add uh gun control type of laws to what we already have
[speaker002:] yeah it's um it sort of amazes me that that in the Gulf War people were really concerned about ten or twenty or thirty or a hundred people dying and if a thousand people died in that war it would have been a mess and if five thousand had died it would have been considered a national calamity and yet that many people die uh from gunshot wounds I mean I think that we have our values in a in a sort of in in a funny place
[speaker001:] sure yeah uh yeah I'll have to agree with that it uh I never really correlated uh those two incidences say crime at home uh versus an international war but uh yeah I guess I don't know how to how to place that
[speaker002:] yeah I mean in some in some fields we seem to have this really profound respect for human life and in other fields we don't I think guns and automobiles are the two places where we're willing to take our licks but you know we're willing to accept sixty thousand highway deaths a year
[speaker001:] yeah uh that's that's true uh and uh when it gets to the point where it's unacceptable where the majority of the people find it unacceptable they may find cause to write their Congressman and lobby for some stronger controls
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] but uh yeah we are very tolerant a very tolerant society and uh it takes a great deal of uh abuse before we get our act together
[speaker002:] yeah in some areas but I think in other areas um I don't know I guess this this this this Gulf War came to mind where where um well war just comes to mind you know couple a hundred people get get blown up and it's and it really shakes the country to it's roots maybe just because of the way it happens
[speaker001:] right uh-huh
[speaker002:] and uh but you know we'll go all out uh to save uh a child with a rare disease who makes the newspaper will get millions of dollars in contributions and and all kinds of medical aid because that one life is considered so precious
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] when it's viewed somehow when it's viewed in I don't know as as a single life it becomes very precious and when you view it as a statistic whether it's guns or automobiles or smoking um people just don't see those as individual lives somehow or they don't they don't uh relate to them personally
[speaker001:] I think it depends on uh who's leading the crusade and how strong they feel about it take for instance Mothers Against Drunk Driving that used to be just a very small organization started by a housewife
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] and now it's a national organization they they're very powerful uh they collect a lot of money
[speaker002:] yeah yeah
[speaker001:] and uh it I think it's made an impact I mean it it's made a lot of people cut down on their their drinking and driving because the laws are enforced stronger now
[speaker002:] yeah it
[speaker001:] DWI convictions are very serious
[speaker002:] yeah they are and and it's really changing the social structure of things I know I went out with a bunch of people I don't know six or seven people and we were just sitting around drinking beer and the waitress asked us which one was driving she didn't want to
[speaker001:] right
[speaker002:] wasn't going to serve that person anything
[speaker001:] because uh they're liable anybody who serves anything to anybody is liable can be sued
[speaker002:] hm yeah I didn't think about that I sort of thought that
[speaker001:] with guns I think it ought to be the same way I think people who own guns ought to be held responsible for things that happen with those weapons
[speaker002:] yeah I thought that was the case I mean if uh if my kid grabs my gun and goes and shoots somebody I would really have the feeling that they're going to come banging on my door
[speaker001:] well I saw a talk show just the other night where uh there was a mother on the show and her uh son had been killed in a neighbor's house by one of the neighbor's handguns
[speaker002:] huh
[speaker001:] when only the other kids were at home they apparently had three handguns that were uh in plain sight one on top of the refrigerator one in the on the bedroom dresser and one somewhere else but uh
[speaker002:] hum
[speaker001:] just teenagers and uh and grade school kids at home and one of the kids got shot by a gun got killed and apparently no charges were filed against the owner of the gun who happened to be a police officer
[speaker002:] hum I don't know what that says it's pretty sad
[speaker001:] so it's I guess they say accidents will happen and uh uh you know it's just hard to say who's at fault for uh things like that that happen
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] but somebody's got to be uh um somebody's got to be held responsible ultimately so I don't know I think the law should be tightened up on on gun ownership but I can't see a total ban on it at all uh because then you're still going to have criminals with guns and it's not going to help uh the situation uh there people want to break the law they're going to do it
[speaker002:] yeah it's well it's just too late I mean there are countries I've lived in both Japan and England where guns are not available even criminals don't carry them or it's so hard to get and the and the law is so severe for people caught using them that by and large uh they don't
[speaker001:] well they have a lot tighter controls on importing things of that nature too you can't get them through airports uh
[speaker002:] yeah yeah
[speaker001:] you know like in uh Germany in the airports there where there uh where terrorism is so much of a threat uh the uh policemen have uh automatic weapons you know and uh I don't know what the penalties are for trying to smuggle guns into a country like that but I imagine they're quite severe
[speaker002:] yeah no I think by the by the the the year nineteen hundred there were probably enough guns in the US I mean it's just always been a way of life here the wild wild west
[speaker001:] right well I've heard it said that that's one of the reasons why we're not as much a threat to be attacked by other countries because everybody and his brother's got a gun at home and what are you going to do about that You got two hundred million guns here and it's uh it's more than just an army
[speaker002:] well yeah that's uh that's a point although uh if that's the case why are we spending all this money on all of this high tech weaponry I wonder
[speaker001:] well there that's your your professional army uh that's your first line of defense
[speaker002:] yeah
[speaker001:] uh that that's for your your mercenary forces that go across overseas and and attack other countries but at at home here
[speaker002:] right