alt.certification.mcse - Re: STOP SPAM NOW! Must Read - All newsgroup users need to rebel now before its too late.

Author

Re: STOP SPAM NOW! Must Read - All newsgroup users need to rebel now before its too late.

Jim Thompson

2003-09-13, 12:30 pm

On Sat, 13 Sep 2003 09:12:09 -0500, Nick Funk
<nfunk@NOSPAM.rtconline.com> wrote:

>
>Please read.
>
>Sorry about this off topic post. But anyone who has every posted to a
>news group knows to well that they open themselves up to a flood of spam.
>
>Since the recent National "Do-Not-Call" registry to stop telephone
>solicitation, many telemarketers have found SPAM as another method of
>solicitations to harass the public. In fact spam is less costly than
>mass mailings, telephone banks of minimum wage employees and can be
>implemented very easily from practically anywhere.
>
>This problem will only worsen over time!
>
>Why has our Congress ignored the spam issue? Could this be due to
>political pressures from merchandiser's industry, from PAC committees,
>trade associations, and possibly political funding from these groups.
>
>I propose that ALL SPAM email you recieve is forwarded to your Senator
>and Congressman.
>
>Attached are two links to email addresses of our Senators and Congressman.
>
>http://www.senate.gov/general/conta...enators_cfm.cfm
>http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.html
>
>Please pass the message on!

I used to be of a mind that spam legislation would help, but the more
I investigated the more I changed my mind. Here's what I recently
wrote to a legislator in Arizona who thinks he can write a good spam
bill:

Slade,

Your bill fits perfectly into a Pollyanna world. Unfortunately the
origin of most spam is obfuscated and the servers are located in
foreign countries. So your bill will do absolutely nothing.

A legal solution is just a waste of time, and will result in the
reduction of necessary freedom for all of us. LBJ as a senator
once said something to the effect:

"Don't think about the good a law can do if properly enforced;
rather think of the harm that could be caused if it is improperly
enforced."

(Pretty amazing statement, particularly from a Democrat.)

The Internet is gradually regulating itself by blocking/black-listing
ISPs that allow spam to originate from their sites.

However, if you must write a law:

OPT-IN NOT OPT-OUT. OPT-OUT just lets the spammer know that your
E-mail address is legitimate, so he sells it to others. If a spammer
claims you chose Opt-In, the spammer must prove it by producing
documentation. Falsifying documentation should be death by flogging.
(You improperly state "...closely mirrors California Bill #12". The
California bill requires OPT-IN.) Take the definition of OPT-IN from
http://cspotrun.org/monste1.pdf so that a sender can't claim you opted
in if you simply failed to un-check a box or the opting-in is hidden
in a privacy policy. You must take specific affirmative action in
order for the sender to claim you opted in. Nothing but confirmed
opt-in allowed, EVEN for politicians (particularly) and charities and
religio/socio/political organizations. A good example of OPT-IN is
the newsletter from Intel, the bottom of the newsletter reminds you
when and where you signed up, and how to get off of the list.

Hold Advertiser Responsible as well as Sender.

Private Right of Action (with a junk-fax-like penalty of $500/$1500 as
appropriate). Victims may sue in civil court for trespass to chattel
and theft of resources. May sue for punitive and actual damages. Any
recipient of spam shall be considered a "victim" (not necessary to be
an ISP). In other words an end user can sue for punitive damages.

All traffic exiting any ISP, with facilities in Arizona, must leave
with a valid source address.

License ISPs (cheaply, to allow small businesses to survive),
requiring the license to operate. License pullable for spam offenses.
Regulation maybe through Corporation Commission, treatment like a
utility or common carrier.

Rewards for turning in illegal work-at-home spammers.

BIG fines are what's necessary here, or some jail time if possible.

Make it a felony instead of a misdemeanor.
Protect the ISP from litigation for throwing off a spammer.
Burn the ISP for harboring a spammer.

Forged "From:" address should be separately prosecutable as fraud.

Prosecuting fraudulent advertising under existing statutes would
eliminate a lot of the problems.

No ISP shall accept, or deliver, any E-mail without verifying that it
originated from a valid IP address. Every E-mail must have a
legitimate return address, openly traceable to the originator.

No ISP shall deliver pornographic E-mail or E-mail advertising
pornography; and shall be subject to fines or lose of license if they
do. Any ISP that claims they can't do that is lying through their
teeth. It's a technical filtering issue done right now by many ISPs.
By switching my E-mail routing so that my incoming E-mail goes through
an ISP that employs filtering and black-listing before getting to
Cox.net reduced my spam by more than an order of magnitude. Any
Arizona ISP should be free to use whatever means they want to filter
E-mails, but they should INFORM their customers what is in use to give
the customer informed choice of whether to stay.

Any ISP, in Arizona or foreign (outside Arizona), that refuses to shut
down spammers shall be subject to blocking/black-listing by all other
Arizona ISPs.

"ADV:" in Subject Field is just plain laughable! Only legitimate
businesses will do it, and they're not a problem right now...
legitimate businesses never want to offend potential customers, and
always honor "remove" requests. Maybe make senders of "ADV:" subject
to a 10 cent tax for each item E-mailed? Ha! Ha!

"ADV:" also has the adverse effect of legitimizing spamming.

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice

480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax

Ben Pope

2003-09-13, 1:29 pm

Jim Thompson wrote:
> A legal solution is just a waste of time, and will result in the
> reduction of necessary freedom for all of us. LBJ as a senator
> once said something to the effect:
>
> "Don't think about the good a law can do if properly enforced;
> rather think of the harm that could be caused if it is improperly
> enforced."
>
> (Pretty amazing statement, particularly from a Democrat.)

There is no point in an unenforced law. Some legislation was passed here
(UK) that made obtaining guns harder - even for government bodies that
required them. What was the point in that? The poeple with guns have them
illegally anyway - they clearly have no regard for the law so the net result
was that it is now harder to deal with the armed criminals. Brilliant.

> The Internet is gradually regulating itself by blocking/black-listing
> ISPs that allow spam to originate from their sites.

IF you use certain types of filtering software.

> However, if you must write a law:
>
> OPT-IN NOT OPT-OUT. OPT-OUT just lets the spammer know that your
> E-mail address is legitimate, so he sells it to others. If a spammer
> claims you chose Opt-In, the spammer must prove it by producing
> documentation. Falsifying documentation should be death by flogging.
> (You improperly state "...closely mirrors California Bill #12". The
> California bill requires OPT-IN.) Take the definition of OPT-IN from
> http://cspotrun.org/monste1.pdf so that a sender can't claim you opted
> in if you simply failed to un-check a box or the opting-in is hidden
> in a privacy policy. You must take specific affirmative action in
> order for the sender to claim you opted in. Nothing but confirmed
> opt-in allowed, EVEN for politicians (particularly) and charities and
> religio/socio/political organizations. A good example of OPT-IN is
> the newsletter from Intel, the bottom of the newsletter reminds you
> when and where you signed up, and how to get off of the list.

Indeed, absolutely no point in OPT-OUT.

> Hold Advertiser Responsible as well as Sender.

This is difficult to pin down. It's hard to make somebody else responsible
for anothers actions unless they are an employee. This would not
necesasrily be the case, even if the sender was paid to send the mails.

> License ISPs (cheaply, to allow small businesses to survive),
> requiring the license to operate. License pullable for spam offenses.
> Regulation maybe through Corporation Commission, treatment like a
> utility or common carrier.

Good.

> Forged "From:" address should be separately prosecutable as fraud.

Now we're getting somewhere. There is a reason for the "Reply-To" Field.

> Prosecuting fraudulent advertising under existing statutes would
> eliminate a lot of the problems.

Quite possibly.

> No ISP shall accept, or deliver, any E-mail without verifying that it
> originated from a valid IP address. Every E-mail must have a
> legitimate return address, openly traceable to the originator.

This is ok, provided decent logs are kept of non-static IP adresses.

> No ISP shall deliver pornographic E-mail or E-mail advertising
> pornography; and shall be subject to fines or lose of license if they
> do.

Why porn? Anything illegal... maybe, but drawing lines is usually hard..

> Any ISP that claims they can't do that is lying through their
> teeth. It's a technical filtering issue done right now by many ISPs.

Always the problem of false negs/positives.

> "ADV:" in Subject Field is just plain laughable! Only legitimate
> businesses will do it, and they're not a problem right now...
> legitimate businesses never want to offend potential customers, and
> always honor "remove" requests. Maybe make senders of "ADV:" subject
> to a 10 cent tax for each item E-mailed? Ha! Ha!
>
> "ADV:" also has the adverse effect of legitimizing spamming.

Agreed... you get it all the time. "ADV:", "ADV :", "ADVERT:", "ADV3RT:"
it's the sort of thing they use to get around the filters but attempting to
appear "honest".

Some very good points, not all of which are entirely practical,
unfortunately.

I think the only way to get around the problem is to change the way we do
email from a technical standpoint.

SPAM is SPAM - it's cheap. If it means using a computer located in a
country without the appropriate laws to send it, they'll do that.
Legislation cannot realistically solve the problem.

Ben
--
I'm not just a number. To many, I'm known as a String...

J. A. Mc.

2003-09-13, 1:29 pm

On Sat, 13 Sep 2003 08:19:09 -0700, Jim Thompson
<Jim-T@golana-will-get-you.com> found these unused words floating
about :

>On Sat, 13 Sep 2003 09:12:09 -0500, Nick Funk
><nfunk@NOSPAM.rtconline.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>Please read.
>>
>>Sorry about this off topic post. But anyone who has every posted to a
>>news group knows to well that they open themselves up to a flood of spam.
>>
>>Since the recent National "Do-Not-Call" registry to stop telephone
>>solicitation, many telemarketers have found SPAM as another method of
>>solicitations to harass the public. In fact spam is less costly than
>>mass mailings, telephone banks of minimum wage employees and can be
>>implemented very easily from practically anywhere.
>>
>>This problem will only worsen over time!
>>
>>Why has our Congress ignored the spam issue? Could this be due to
>>political pressures from merchandiser's industry, from PAC committees,
>>trade associations, and possibly political funding from these groups.
>>
>>I propose that ALL SPAM email you recieve is forwarded to your Senator
>>and Congressman.
>>
>>Attached are two links to email addresses of our Senators and Congressman.
>>
>>http://www.senate.gov/general/conta...enators_cfm.cfm
>>http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.html
>>
>>Please pass the message on!
>
>I used to be of a mind that spam legislation would help, but the more
>I investigated the more I changed my mind. Here's what I recently
>wrote to a legislator in Arizona who thinks he can write a good spam
>bill:
>
>Slade,
>
>Your bill fits perfectly into a Pollyanna world. Unfortunately the
>origin of most spam is obfuscated and the servers are located in
>foreign countries. So your bill will do absolutely nothing.
>
>A legal solution is just a waste of time, and will result in the
>reduction of necessary freedom for all of us. LBJ as a senator
>once said something to the effect:
>
>"Don't think about the good a law can do if properly enforced;
>rather think of the harm that could be caused if it is improperly
>enforced."
>
>(Pretty amazing statement, particularly from a Democrat.)
>
>The Internet is gradually regulating itself by blocking/black-listing
>ISPs that allow spam to originate from their sites.
>
>However, if you must write a law:
>
>OPT-IN NOT OPT-OUT. OPT-OUT just lets the spammer know that your
>E-mail address is legitimate, so he sells it to others. If a spammer
>claims you chose Opt-In, the spammer must prove it by producing
>documentation. Falsifying documentation should be death by flogging.
>(You improperly state "...closely mirrors California Bill #12". The
>California bill requires OPT-IN.) Take the definition of OPT-IN from
>http://cspotrun.org/monste1.pdf so that a sender can't claim you opted
>in if you simply failed to un-check a box or the opting-in is hidden
>in a privacy policy. You must take specific affirmative action in
>order for the sender to claim you opted in. Nothing but confirmed
>opt-in allowed, EVEN for politicians (particularly) and charities and
>religio/socio/political organizations. A good example of OPT-IN is
>the newsletter from Intel, the bottom of the newsletter reminds you
>when and where you signed up, and how to get off of the list.
>
>Hold Advertiser Responsible as well as Sender.

Most GOOD advertisers will take action against their 'affiliate' IF
you forward the SPAM.
>
>Private Right of Action (with a junk-fax-like penalty of $500/$1500 as
>appropriate). Victims may sue in civil court for trespass to chattel
>and theft of resources. May sue for punitive and actual damages. Any
>recipient of spam shall be considered a "victim" (not necessary to be
>an ISP). In other words an end user can sue for punitive damages.

Proven to be ineffective - how many junk faxes have YOU collected on?
>
>All traffic exiting any ISP, with facilities in Arizona, must leave
>with a valid source address.

Already exists, even if not normally understandable by the average
user. If you require 'valid' nyms for posting, then all you do is to
provide SPAMmers, willing to 'bend' the law, a fresh source of maioing
addys.
>
>License ISPs (cheaply, to allow small businesses to survive),
>requiring the license to operate. License pullable for spam offenses.
>Regulation maybe through Corporation Commission, treatment like a
>utility or common carrier.

All already have business licenses - are you proposing to now regulate
the internet? If that's the case, why not just go to a fully moderated
system ... Big Brother will read all and send on what is appropriate.

NUTZ!
>
>Rewards for turning in illegal work-at-home spammers.
>
>BIG fines are what's necessary here, or some jail time if possible.
>
>Make it a felony instead of a misdemeanor.
>Protect the ISP from litigation for throwing off a spammer.

That's a sane idea!

>Burn the ISP for harboring a spammer.

Invasion of privacy - you're demanding that the ISP become Judge/Jury.
A simple copy of a SPAMming 'conviction' sent to the ISP (under the
above great idea) would get them thrown off.
>
>Forged "From:" address should be separately prosecutable as fraud.

Gee, next you'll reguire SSN's and DL's on every message ... hard mail
or e-mail! Read the constitution.
>
>Prosecuting fraudulent advertising under existing statutes would
>eliminate a lot of the problems.

2nd SANE idea - unlikely as most officialdom doesn't care.
>
>No ISP shall accept, or deliver, any E-mail without verifying that it
>originated from a valid IP address. Every E-mail must have a
>legitimate return address, openly traceable to the originator.

Same as above - only feeds valid addys to the SPAMmer as your email
addy is used for posting too. (Gee ... is your's valid? <G> )
>
>No ISP shall deliver pornographic E-mail or E-mail advertising
>pornography; and shall be subject to fines or lose of license if they
>do. Any ISP that claims they can't do that is lying through their
>teeth. It's a technical filtering issue done right now by many ISPs.
>By switching my E-mail routing so that my incoming E-mail goes through
>an ISP that employs filtering and black-listing before getting to
>Cox.net reduced my spam by more than an order of magnitude. Any
>Arizona ISP should be free to use whatever means they want to filter
>E-mails, but they should INFORM their customers what is in use to give
>the customer informed choice of whether to stay.

Rquires invasion of transmission - read constitution.
>
>Any ISP, in Arizona or foreign (outside Arizona), that refuses to shut
>down spammers shall be subject to blocking/black-listing by all other
>Arizona ISPs.

Already available - and done!
>
>"ADV:" in Subject Field is just plain laughable! Only legitimate
>businesses will do it, and they're not a problem right now...
>legitimate businesses never want to offend potential customers, and
>always honor "remove" requests. Maybe make senders of "ADV:" subject
>to a 10 cent tax for each item E-mailed? Ha! Ha!
>
>"ADV:" also has the adverse effect of legitimizing spamming.
>
>
>
> ...Jim Thompson

Easy way, have a sending and posing box that just gets trashed. Your
personal email is included 'in code' for the proper recipient to hand
'reply'.

When you want the guv'mint to DO for you, expect to be DONE!

Ben Pope

2003-09-13, 1:29 pm

J. A. Mc. wrote:
> Same as above - only feeds valid addys to the SPAMmer as your email
> addy is used for posting too. (Gee ... is your's valid? <G> )

Of course his isn't valid... but we are assuming a working system here...
where we have no spammers 'cos it's too expensive for them. We don't quite
have that yet. :-P

Ben
--
I'm not just a number. To many, I'm known as a String...

Jim Thompson

2003-09-13, 3:29 pm

On Sat, 13 Sep 2003 09:53:52 -0700, J. A. Mc. <jaSPAMc@gbr.online.com>
wrote:

[snip]
>When you want the guv'mint to DO for you, expect to be DONE!

That's why my first suggestion to Senator Slade Mead was DON'T BOTHER.

I am exceedingly happy with the works of SpamCop and SPEWS used by my
website ISP; and Spamnix finishes off the one-every-other-day spam
that get through.

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice

480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax

J-Dawg

2003-09-13, 4:28 pm

There is no point in an unenforced law. Some legislation was passed here
> (UK) that made obtaining guns harder - even for government bodies that
> required them. What was the point in that? The poeple with guns have
them
> illegally anyway - they clearly have no regard for the law so the net
result
> was that it is now harder to deal with the armed criminals. Brilliant.

Oh and just to go off on another tangent, I think that most guns laws suck.
Just do a google search for Virgin Utah and you will find a city with a
mandatory gun law. Crime is lower there than any city in the US of
proportionate size. The same goes for Kennesaw, Georgia; the city that's
Virgin's law was modeled after. Hehehe, this is going to cause some debate
hopefully.

Roger Hamlett

2003-09-14, 6:28 am

"Bill Sloman" <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote in message
news:7c584d27.0309131330.64738002@posting.google.com...
> "Ben Pope" <spam@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:<bjvhhg$nqrk8$1@ID-191149.news.uni-berlin.de>...
> > Jim Thompson wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
> > There is no point in an unenforced law. Some legislation was passed
here
> > (UK) that made obtaining guns harder - even for government bodies that
> > required them. What was the point in that? The people with guns have
them
> > illegally anyway - they clearly have no regard for the law so the net
result
> > was that it is now harder to deal with the armed criminals. Brilliant.
>
> A depressing example of non-quantitative thinking.
>
> Those few people who manage to beat the legislation to get guns and
> hold them illegally are a problem, but the legislation does make it
> more difficult, and thus there are fewer of them.
Wrong.
Unfortunately, there is a bit pf 'historical behaviour', that affects this.
A suprising number of people have guns, often without knowing it. Things
like the old revolver/luger 'dad/grandad' brought home from the war. Some of
these get found, and handed in during 'amnesties' (why can't these be
permanent?), but a lot are found by people who think they should be able to
get something for them. In the past, they would go to firearms dealers, who
would usually buy them for a small amount of money, and then 'legitimise'
them, putting them onto their registers, and selling them, or deactivating
them. This doesn't now happen (the dealers who are left, by and large,
cannot handle handguns), so instead most of these are appearing in pubs or
similar places for sale. The fact that the law now bans handguns, makes them
have a certain 'social cachet', amongst particular groups, and the level of
armed crime in some places (London especially), has soared...

> The police thus have less occasion to send out squads of marksmen, and
> need fewer guns themselves.
This disagrees with the police figures.

> Seems to be a successful piece of legislation to me. It isn't
> absolutely successful - it doesn't totally stop bad people from
> getting guns if they tried hard enough - but absolutely successful
> pieces of legislation are rare outside of cloud-cuckoo-land.
Unfortunately, it is not 'hard' to either get or make a gun. It is perhaps
well worth realising that the original gun pioneers made in some cases
superb weapons, using tooling that by modern standard, is crude, and exists
now in millions of small machine shops. If a machinist, can't produce a
device to fire a bullet (the classic 'saturday night special'), in less than
fifteen minutes, then he/she should be fired!. A genuine repeater, is a lot
harder, but with a reasonable machine shop, can be made with a few weeks
work. Once one has been made, all the jigs and tooling (especially if CNC
systems are used), allow this to be repeated rapidly, and terrifyingly
easily. Sourcing across the channel, is even easier...
The hardest part to make, is rifling, but for short range weapons this has
little effect (it is still possible to group under 4" at 25yards, with a
'smoothbore' weapon). Even rifling can be made fairly easily with a
hydraulic 'pull' ram, and a tungsten carbide 'slug'.

> How many other laws are you going to campaign against, on the basis
> that they don't totally stop the undesired behaviour condemned?
> Anti-speeding, anti-fraud, anti-burglary, anti-corruption,
> anti-assault, anti-murder - if you are going to be consistent, you
> must want to throw out all of them, becasue all these crimes persist
> despite vigorously enforced laws against them.
>
> Perhaps you might care to restate your argument in terms that might
> convince somebody with a functional critical faculty?
The 'balance', was whether this law, would discourage a single criminal from
holding arms. It is perhaps worth realising that it was allready illegal to
have a firearm 'out' in a public place, before this law was introduced.
Criminals generally didn't get their arms from legitimate sources, but were
happy to get them 'illegally' - they are after all 'criminals'. The law cost
the state (the taxpayer), enough money to pay for two major new hospitals,
and by the police figures, has not reduced armed crime at all. The specific
question, is whether it can/will prevent another 'Dunblaine'. Though
(thankfully), there has not yet been a repeat of this horror, these events
are rare enough, that it'll be twenty years or more, before a conclusion on
this can be reached. However there have been enough 'near misses', with
people using even worse weapons (full auto rifles, that have been banned
even longer - since Hungerford), that there is little doubt that it has not
had the effect of making weapons harder to get for the criminal...

Best Wishes

R. Steve Walz

2003-09-14, 9:26 am

Jim Thompson wrote:
>
> On Sat, 13 Sep 2003 09:12:09 -0500, Nick Funk
> <nfunk@NOSPAM.rtconline.com> wrote:
[]
> >Why has our Congress ignored the spam issue? Could this be due to
> >political pressures from merchandiser's industry, from PAC committees,
> >trade associations, and possibly political funding from these groups.
> >
> >I propose that ALL SPAM email you recieve is forwarded to your Senator
> >and Congressman.
> >
> >Attached are two links to email addresses of our Senators and Congressman.
> >
> >http://www.senate.gov/general/conta...enators_cfm.cfm
> >http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.html
> >
> >Please pass the message on!
>
> I used to be of a mind that spam legislation would help, but the more
> I investigated the more I changed my mind. Here's what I recently
> wrote to a legislator in Arizona who thinks he can write a good spam
> bill:
>
> Your bill fits perfectly into a Pollyanna world. Unfortunately the
> origin of most spam is obfuscated and the servers are located in
> foreign countries. So your bill will do absolutely nothing.
------------------------------
It is entirely do-able to destroy all foreign contact with any ISP
which will not fall into line and stop spam eminating from its domain.
Assembling and examining all packets before they are resent into the USA
at our borders lately is trivial.

Further it is even easier to send UNBELIEVABLE volumes of our own
punishment SPAM to any foreign ISP and also stop cooperating with any
nation that won't stop it, and cut off telecom and trade to and
from them.

You don't have to clog the courts with this shit or anything like
Opt-In requires, and it ends it by govt mandating that for all ports
of entry for telephonic data into the USA.

For the few spammers that try it in the USA, make it punishable by
the death penalty, just as we should ALL virus writers/disseminators.

This would stop all this bullshit. We don't have to listen to people
cutting in on our telephone conversations, so why should we have to
receive ANY kind of this telephonic terrorism!????!!

Opt-In is fine for junk snail-mail, but punish the perp with death.
-Steve
--
-Steve Walz rstevew@armory.com ftp://ftp.armory.com/pub/user/rstevew
Electronics Site!! 1000's of Files and Dirs!! With Schematics Galore!!
http://www.armory.com/~rstevew or http://www.armory.com/~rstevew/Public

Bill Sloman

2003-09-14, 10:26 am

"Roger Hamlett" <rogerspamignored@ttelmah.demon.co.uk> wrote in message news:<O6X8b.815$rX6.143553@newsfep2-gui.server.ntli.net>...
> "Bill Sloman" <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote in message
> news:7c584d27.0309131330.64738002@posting.google.com...
> > "Ben Pope" <spam@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:<bjvhhg$nqrk8$1@ID-191149.news.uni-berlin.de>...
> > > Jim Thompson wrote:
> >
> > <snip>
> >
> > > There is no point in an unenforced law. Some legislation was passed
> here
> > > (UK) that made obtaining guns harder - even for government bodies that
> > > required them. What was the point in that? The people with guns have
> them
> > > illegally anyway - they clearly have no regard for the law so the net
> result
> > > was that it is now harder to deal with the armed criminals. Brilliant.
> >
> > A depressing example of non-quantitative thinking.
> >
> > Those few people who manage to beat the legislation to get guns and
> > hold them illegally are a problem, but the legislation does make it
> > more difficult, and thus there are fewer of them.

> Wrong.

And the basis for this claim is?

> Unfortunately, there is a bit pf 'historical behaviour', that affects this.
> A suprising number of people have guns, often without knowing it. Things
> like the old revolver/luger 'dad/grandad' brought home from the war. Some of
> these get found, and handed in during 'amnesties' (why can't these be
> permanent?), but a lot are found by people who think they should be able to
> get something for them. In the past, they would go to firearms dealers, who
> would usually buy them for a small amount of money, and then 'legitimise'
> them, putting them onto their registers, and selling them, or deactivating
> them. This doesn't now happen (the dealers who are left, by and large,
> cannot handle handguns), so instead most of these are appearing in pubs or
> similar places for sale. The fact that the law now bans handguns, makes them
> have a certain 'social cachet', amongst particular groups, and the level of
> armed crime in some places (London especially), has soared...
>
> > The police thus have less occasion to send out squads of marksmen, and
> > need fewer guns themselves.
> This disagrees with the police figures.

And where are the police figures available?

> > Seems to be a successful piece of legislation to me. It isn't
> > absolutely successful - it doesn't totally stop bad people from
> > getting guns if they tried hard enough - but absolutely successful
> > pieces of legislation are rare outside of cloud-cuckoo-land.

> Unfortunately, it is not 'hard' to either get or make a gun. It is perhaps
> well worth realising that the original gun pioneers made in some cases
> superb weapons, using tooling that by modern standard, is crude, and exists
> now in millions of small machine shops. If a machinist, can't produce a
> device to fire a bullet (the classic 'saturday night special'), in less than
> fifteen minutes, then he/she should be fired!. A genuine repeater, is a lot
> harder, but with a reasonable machine shop, can be made with a few weeks
> work. Once one has been made, all the jigs and tooling (especially if CNC
> systems are used), allow this to be repeated rapidly, and terrifyingly
> easily.

And is this a significant source of illegal weapons?

> Sourcing across the channel, is even easier...

The dismantling of the Soviet Union did seem to flood the market with
ex-military weapons. Tito distributed a lot of small arms around
Yugoslavia to discourage the Russians from thinking about an invasion
and - now that the Balkans are settling down a bit - these are also
showing up in the rest of Europe, not always in the hands of Balkan
hit-men.

<snip>

> > How many other laws are you going to campaign against, on the basis
> > that they don't totally stop the undesired behaviour condemned?
> > Anti-speeding, anti-fraud, anti-burglary, anti-corruption,
> > anti-assault, anti-murder - if you are going to be consistent, you
> > must want to throw out all of them, becasue all these crimes persist
> > despite vigorously enforced laws against them.
> >
> > Perhaps you might care to restate your argument in terms that might
> > convince somebody with a functional critical faculty?
>
> The 'balance', was whether this law, would discourage a single criminal from
> holding arms. It is perhaps worth realising that it was already illegal to
> have a firearm 'out' in a public place, before this law was introduced.
> Criminals generally didn't get their arms from legitimate sources, but were
> happy to get them 'illegally' - they are after all 'criminals'. The law cost
> the state (the taxpayer), enough money to pay for two major new hospitals,
> and by the police figures, has not reduced armed crime at all.

So where are the police figures available? And the comparison is not
between the number of armed crimes before and after the law was
enacted, but with the number of armed crimes that would have taken
place if the law had not been enacted.

> The specific question, is whether it can/will prevent another 'Dunblaine'.
> Though (thankfully), there has not yet been a repeat of this horror, these
> events are rare enough, that it'll be twenty years or more, before a
> conclusion on this can be reached.
>
> However there have been enough 'near misses', with
> people using even worse weapons (full auto rifles, that have been banned
> even longer - since Hungerford), that there is little doubt that it has not
> had the effect of making weapons harder to get for the criminal...

The problem with Dunblaine and similar atrocities is that they are
perpetrated by psychopathic lunatics, who may or may not be criminals
- crime is an appropriate career path for a psychopathic lunatic, but
they don't cooperate well with less deranged criminals who are in it
for money, and muderous psychopathic lunatics aren't representative of
the criminal population as a whole.

Any conclusion drawn on the basis of what potential Dunblaine
perpetrators have done has correspondingly little predictive value for
the behaviour of the profit-oriented bulk of the criminal population.

Perhaps you might care to restate your argument in terms that might
convince somebody with a functional critical faculty?

------
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

Kevin Aylward

2003-09-14, 10:27 am

R. Steve Walz wrote:

>
> For the few spammers that try it in the USA, make it punishable by
> the death penalty, just as we should ALL virus writers/disseminators.

Nothing like good old RSW to expound a moderate approach.

Kevin Aylward
salesEXTRACT@anasoft.co.uk
http://www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice, a very affordable Mixed-Mode
Windows Simulator with Schematic Capture,
Waveform Display, FFT's and Filter Design.

Ben Pope

2003-09-14, 11:30 am

Bill Sloman wrote:
> "Ben Pope" <spam@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:<bjvhhg$nqrk8$1@ID-191149.news.uni-berlin.de>...
>> Jim Thompson wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
>> There is no point in an unenforced law. Some legislation was passed
>> here (UK) that made obtaining guns harder - even for government
>> bodies that
>> required them. What was the point in that? The people with guns
>> have them
>> illegally anyway - they clearly have no regard for the law so the
>> net result
>> was that it is now harder to deal with the armed criminals.
>> Brilliant.
>
> A depressing example of non-quantitative thinking.

So I presume you have all the numbers to hand and can prove what YOU are
saying?

> Those few people who manage to beat the legislation to get guns and
> hold them illegally are a problem, but the legislation does make it
> more difficult, and thus there are fewer of them.

Speculative.

> The police thus have less occasion to send out squads of marksmen, and
> need fewer guns themselves.

Speculation carried forward.

:-P

> Seems to be a successful piece of legislation to me. It isn't
> absolutely successful - it doesn't totally stop bad people from
> getting guns if they tried hard enough - but absolutely successful
> pieces of legislation are rare outside of cloud-cuckoo-land.
>
> How many other laws are you going to campaign against, on the basis
> that they don't totally stop the undesired behaviour condemned?
> Anti-speeding, anti-fraud, anti-burglary, anti-corruption,
> anti-assault, anti-murder - if you are going to be consistent, you
> must want to throw out all of them, becasue all these crimes persist
> despite vigorously enforced laws against them.
>
> Perhaps you might care to restate your argument in terms that might
> convince somebody with a functional critical faculty?

You could have started by proving your side of the argument. Mine was based
on fact, although I do not have a source for the figures to hand. You're
argument is based on what?

Ben
--
I'm not just a number. To many, I'm known as a String...

Ben Pope

2003-09-14, 11:30 am

Roger Hamlett wrote:
> The 'balance', was whether this law, would discourage a single
> criminal from holding arms. It is perhaps worth realising that it was
> allready illegal to have a firearm 'out' in a public place, before
> this law was introduced. Criminals generally didn't get their arms
> from legitimate sources, but were happy to get them 'illegally' -
> they are after all 'criminals'. The law cost the state (the
> taxpayer), enough money to pay for two major new hospitals, and by
> the police figures, has not reduced armed crime at all. The specific
> question, is whether it can/will prevent another 'Dunblaine'. Though
> (thankfully), there has not yet been a repeat of this horror, these
> events are rare enough, that it'll be twenty years or more, before a
> conclusion on this can be reached. However there have been enough
> 'near misses', with people using even worse weapons (full auto
> rifles, that have been banned even longer - since Hungerford), that
> there is little doubt that it has not had the effect of making
> weapons harder to get for the criminal...

Thanks for a more detailed description... Mine was a sidenote that seems to
have rattled Bill Slomans cage.

Ben
--
I'm not just a number. To many, I'm known as a String...

Ben Pope

2003-09-14, 11:30 am

R. Steve Walz wrote:
> It is entirely do-able to destroy all foreign contact with any ISP
> which will not fall into line and stop spam eminating from its domain.
> Assembling and examining all packets before they are resent into the
> USA
> at our borders lately is trivial.
>
> Further it is even easier to send UNBELIEVABLE volumes of our own
> punishment SPAM to any foreign ISP and also stop cooperating with any
> nation that won't stop it, and cut off telecom and trade to and
> from them.
>
> You don't have to clog the courts with this shit or anything like
> Opt-In requires, and it ends it by govt mandating that for all ports
> of entry for telephonic data into the USA.
>
> For the few spammers that try it in the USA, make it punishable by
> the death penalty, just as we should ALL virus writers/disseminators.
>
> This would stop all this bullshit. We don't have to listen to people
> cutting in on our telephone conversations, so why should we have to
> receive ANY kind of this telephonic terrorism!????!!
>
> Opt-In is fine for junk snail-mail, but punish the perp with death.
> -Steve

Thats sarcasm, right?

Ben
--
I'm not just a number. To many, I'm known as a String...

Jim Thompson

2003-09-14, 11:30 am

On Sun, 14 Sep 2003 15:24:54 +0100, "Ben Pope" <spam@hotmail.com>
wrote:

>Roger Hamlett wrote:
>> The 'balance', was whether this law, would discourage a single
>> criminal from holding arms. It is perhaps worth realising that it was
>> allready illegal to have a firearm 'out' in a public place, before
>> this law was introduced. Criminals generally didn't get their arms
>> from legitimate sources, but were happy to get them 'illegally' -
>> they are after all 'criminals'. The law cost the state (the
>> taxpayer), enough money to pay for two major new hospitals, and by
>> the police figures, has not reduced armed crime at all. The specific
>> question, is whether it can/will prevent another 'Dunblaine'. Though
>> (thankfully), there has not yet been a repeat of this horror, these
>> events are rare enough, that it'll be twenty years or more, before a
>> conclusion on this can be reached. However there have been enough
>> 'near misses', with people using even worse weapons (full auto
>> rifles, that have been banned even longer - since Hungerford), that
>> there is little doubt that it has not had the effect of making
>> weapons harder to get for the criminal...
>
>Thanks for a more detailed description... Mine was a sidenote that seems to
>have rattled Bill Slomans cage.
>
>Ben

I think most foreigners lurking here have not a clue about gun laws in
the USA.

Except for those few states dominated by socialists, like New York,
Massa2shits, and Connecticut, it is *legal* to own a gun... it just
has to be registered due to the crazy Brady Bill, designed primarily
to ease the round up of guns when the citizens try to overthrow the
government.

But how do you take guns away from an armed mob ?:-)

In Arizona you can carry a gun on your person if it's contained in a
visible holster.

In Arizona you can carry a concealed weapon if you pass an examination
for such a permit.

All socialists are invited to Arizona for a demonstration ;-)

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice

480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax

Ben Pope

2003-09-14, 12:28 pm

Jim Thompson wrote:
> On Sun, 14 Sep 2003 15:24:54 +0100, "Ben Pope" <spam@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Roger Hamlett wrote:
>>> The 'balance', was whether this law, would discourage a single
>>> criminal from holding arms. It is perhaps worth realising that it
>>> was allready illegal to have a firearm 'out' in a public place,
>>> before
>>> this law was introduced. Criminals generally didn't get their arms
>>> from legitimate sources, but were happy to get them 'illegally' -
>>> they are after all 'criminals'. The law cost the state (the
>>> taxpayer), enough money to pay for two major new hospitals, and by
>>> the police figures, has not reduced armed crime at all. The specific
>>> question, is whether it can/will prevent another 'Dunblaine'. Though
>>> (thankfully), there has not yet been a repeat of this horror, these
>>> events are rare enough, that it'll be twenty years or more, before a
>>> conclusion on this can be reached. However there have been enough
>>> 'near misses', with people using even worse weapons (full auto
>>> rifles, that have been banned even longer - since Hungerford), that
>>> there is little doubt that it has not had the effect of making
>>> weapons harder to get for the criminal...
>>
>> Thanks for a more detailed description... Mine was a sidenote that
>> seems to have rattled Bill Slomans cage.
>>
>> Ben
>
> I think most foreigners lurking here have not a clue about gun laws in
> the USA.

Possible, but Roger and I are referring to the UK so I'm not sure who that
comment was directed at.

> Except for those few states dominated by socialists, like New York,
> Massa2shits, and Connecticut, it is *legal* to own a gun... it just
> has to be registered due to the crazy Brady Bill, designed primarily
> to ease the round up of guns when the citizens try to overthrow the
> government.

Yep, I knew that you can legally own a gun if you have a license. I don't
know much about the differences in the laws between states but thats the
general idea, no?

Ben
--
I'm not just a number. To many, I'm known as a String...

R. Steve Walz

2003-09-14, 1:32 pm

Jim Thompson wrote:
>
> On Sun, 14 Sep 2003 15:24:54 +0100, "Ben Pope" <spam@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> >Roger Hamlett wrote:
> >> The 'balance', was whether this law, would discourage a single
> >> criminal from holding arms. It is perhaps worth realising that it was
> >> allready illegal to have a firearm 'out' in a public place, before
> >> this law was introduced. Criminals generally didn't get their arms
> >> from legitimate sources, but were happy to get them 'illegally' -
> >> they are after all 'criminals'. The law cost the state (the
> >> taxpayer), enough money to pay for two major new hospitals, and by
> >> the police figures, has not reduced armed crime at all. The specific
> >> question, is whether it can/will prevent another 'Dunblaine'. Though
> >> (thankfully), there has not yet been a repeat of this horror, these
> >> events are rare enough, that it'll be twenty years or more, before a
> >> conclusion on this can be reached. However there have been enough
> >> 'near misses', with people using even worse weapons (full auto
> >> rifles, that have been banned even longer - since Hungerford), that
> >> there is little doubt that it has not had the effect of making
> >> weapons harder to get for the criminal...
> >
> >Thanks for a more detailed description... Mine was a sidenote that seems to
> >have rattled Bill Slomans cage.
> >
> >Ben
>
> I think most foreigners lurking here have not a clue about gun laws in
> the USA.
>
> Except for those few states dominated by socialists, like New York,
> Massa2shits, and Connecticut, it is *legal* to own a gun... it just
> has to be registered due to the crazy Brady Bill, designed primarily
> to ease the round up of guns when the citizens try to overthrow the
> government.
>
> But how do you take guns away from an armed mob ?:-)
>
> In Arizona you can carry a gun on your person if it's contained in a
> visible holster.
>
> In Arizona you can carry a concealed weapon if you pass an examination
> for such a permit.
>
> All socialists are invited to Arizona for a demonstration ;-)
>
> ...Jim Thompson
---------------
You sure you want that, Jim? Then we'd be the armed majority!!

-Steve
--
-Steve Walz rstevew@armory.com ftp://ftp.armory.com/pub/user/rstevew
Electronics Site!! 1000's of Files and Dirs!! With Schematics Galore!!
http://www.armory.com/~rstevew or http://www.armory.com/~rstevew/Public

R. Steve Walz

2003-09-14, 1:32 pm

Ben Pope wrote:
>
> R. Steve Walz wrote:
> > It is entirely do-able to destroy all foreign contact with any ISP
> > which will not fall into line and stop spam eminating from its domain.
> > Assembling and examining all packets before they are resent into the
> > USA
> > at our borders lately is trivial.
> >
> > Further it is even easier to send UNBELIEVABLE volumes of our own
> > punishment SPAM to any foreign ISP and also stop cooperating with any
> > nation that won't stop it, and cut off telecom and trade to and
> > from them.
> >
> > You don't have to clog the courts with this shit or anything like
> > Opt-In requires, and it ends it by govt mandating that for all ports
> > of entry for telephonic data into the USA.
> >
> > For the few spammers that try it in the USA, make it punishable by
> > the death penalty, just as we should ALL virus writers/disseminators.
> >
> > This would stop all this bullshit. We don't have to listen to people
> > cutting in on our telephone conversations, so why should we have to
> > receive ANY kind of this telephonic terrorism!????!!
> >
> > Opt-In is fine for junk snail-mail, but punish the perp with death.
> > -Steve
>
> Thats sarcasm, right?
> Ben
------------------
Not in the least.

-Steve
--
-Steve Walz rstevew@armory.com ftp://ftp.armory.com/pub/user/rstevew
Electronics Site!! 1000's of Files and Dirs!! With Schematics Galore!!
http://www.armory.com/~rstevew or http://www.armory.com/~rstevew/Public

Ben Pope

2003-09-14, 1:32 pm

R. Steve Walz wrote:
> Ben Pope wrote:
>>
>> R. Steve Walz wrote:
>>> It is entirely do-able to destroy all foreign contact with any ISP
>>> which will not fall into line and stop spam eminating from its
>>> domain. Assembling and examining all packets before they are resent
>>> into the USA
>>> at our borders lately is trivial.
>>>
>>> Further it is even easier to send UNBELIEVABLE volumes of our own
>>> punishment SPAM to any foreign ISP and also stop cooperating with
>>> any nation that won't stop it, and cut off telecom and trade to and
>>> from them.
>>>
>>> You don't have to clog the courts with this shit or anything like
>>> Opt-In requires, and it ends it by govt mandating that for all ports
>>> of entry for telephonic data into the USA.
>>>
>>> For the few spammers that try it in the USA, make it punishable by
>>> the death penalty, just as we should ALL virus
>>> writers/disseminators.
>>>
>>> This would stop all this bullshit. We don't have to listen to people
>>> cutting in on our telephone conversations, so why should we have to
>>> receive ANY kind of this telephonic terrorism!????!!
>>>
>>> Opt-In is fine for junk snail-mail, but punish the perp with death.
>>> -Steve
>>
>> Thats sarcasm, right?
>> Ben
> ------------------
> Not in the least.

So you think that cutting all communications and trade to countries with
laws that are less strict then the new laws which you suggest, should be
ceased.

Then you should show the way forward (the termination of SPAM) by SPAMing
external ISPs.

And you should kill all internal SPAMers.

And you think that would be a resounding success?

I presume you are talking without consideration of anything external to
SPAM, i.e., the SPAM problem in isolation, and that given your way you would
not dream of actually implementing this with those other consideration taken
into account, right?

Ben
--
I'm not just a number. To many, I'm known as a String...

Ben Pope

2003-09-14, 1:32 pm

Ben Pope wrote:
> So you think that cutting all communications and trade to countries
> with laws that are less strict then the new laws which you suggest,
> should be ceased.

I should have re-read ALL of that paragraph :-)

Cease communication and trade with the other (non-complient) countries.

Ben
--
I'm not just a number. To many, I'm known as a String...

Paul E Larson

2003-09-14, 1:32 pm

Jim Thompson <Jim-T@golana-will-get-you.com> wrote in
news:msv8mv4ou6vu9ablmfgq780do
mdq5tlcdg@4ax.com:

>
> I think most foreigners lurking here have not a clue about gun laws in
> the USA.
>

Given the rant below you must be a foreigner! New York state, except in New
York City, while not as liberal as Arizona in its handgun laws it is legal
to own a handgun with the same or similar provisos set by Arizona.

as one example -
http://www.clintoncountygov.com/Dep...CC/CCPisPer.htm

> Except for those few states dominated by socialists, like New York,
> Massa2shits, and Connecticut, it is *legal* to own a gun... it just
> has to be registered due to the crazy Brady Bill, designed primarily
> to ease the round up of guns when the citizens try to overthrow the
> government.
>

four words - start wearing a hat!

Jim Thompson

2003-09-14, 2:29 pm

On Sun, 14 Sep 2003 17:18:59 GMT, Paul E Larson
<whistler@twcny.rr.com> wrote:

>Jim Thompson <Jim-T@golana-will-get-you.com> wrote in
> news:msv8mv4ou6vu9ablmfgq780do
mdq5tlcdg@4ax.com:
>
>
>>
>> I think most foreigners lurking here have not a clue about gun laws in
>> the USA.
>>
>
>Given the rant below you must be a foreigner! New York state, except in New
>York City, while not as liberal as Arizona in its handgun laws it is legal
>to own a handgun with the same or similar provisos set by Arizona.
>
[snip]

My apologies, I thought the whole state was f'd up ;-)

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice

480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax

Keith R. Williams

2003-09-14, 4:28 pm

In article < msv8mv4ou6vu9ablmfgq780domdq5t
lcdg@4ax.com>, Jim-
T@golana-will-get-you.com says...
> On Sun, 14 Sep 2003 15:24:54 +0100, "Ben Pope" <spam@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> >Roger Hamlett wrote:
> >> The 'balance', was whether this law, would discourage a single
> >> criminal from holding arms. It is perhaps worth realising that it was
> >> allready illegal to have a firearm 'out' in a public place, before
> >> this law was introduced. Criminals generally didn't get their arms
> >> from legitimate sources, but were happy to get them 'illegally' -
> >> they are after all 'criminals'. The law cost the state (the
> >> taxpayer), enough money to pay for two major new hospitals, and by
> >> the police figures, has not reduced armed crime at all. The specific
> >> question, is whether it can/will prevent another 'Dunblaine'. Though
> >> (thankfully), there has not yet been a repeat of this horror, these
> >> events are rare enough, that it'll be twenty years or more, before a
> >> conclusion on this can be reached. However there have been enough
> >> 'near misses', with people using even worse weapons (full auto
> >> rifles, that have been banned even longer - since Hungerford), that
> >> there is little doubt that it has not had the effect of making
> >> weapons harder to get for the criminal...
> >
> >Thanks for a more detailed description... Mine was a sidenote that seems to
> >have rattled Bill Slomans cage.
> >
> >Ben
>
> I think most foreigners lurking here have not a clue about gun laws in
> the USA.
>
> Except for those few states dominated by socialists, like New York,
> Massa2shits, and Connecticut, it is *legal* to own a gun... it just
> has to be registered due to the crazy Brady Bill, designed primarily
> to ease the round up of guns when the citizens try to overthrow the
> government.

The crazy Brady Bill does *not* require registration. It only
requires a background check at the time of purchase, if the.
purchase is from a dealer who has a Federal Firearms License. It
is not in any way a "permit", nor is it required for private
sales. I legally own several handguns and can legally carry
concealed at any time (with a few restrictions). No license is
required, no registration, nothing. As you say, it's up to the
individual states.

BTW, Vermont is on the list of "those few states dominated by
socialists" (Evidence: Howie Dean, Bernie Sanders, Pat Leahy, and
Jumpin' Jism Jim Jeffords). The folks are also rather adamant
about their firearms, so the socialists have let the locals play,
at least for now.

> But how do you take guns away from an armed mob ?:-)

With a bigger armed mob with tin stars? ;-)

> In Arizona you can carry a gun on your person if it's contained in a
> visible holster.

Can do that, or concealed. I tend to carry them in a duffel bag
in their boxes when I go to the range.

> In Arizona you can carry a concealed weapon if you pass an examination
> for such a permit.

Permit? Why? Don't tell me you live in one of them commie
states, Jim. ;-)

> All socialists are invited to Arizona for a demonstration ;-)

I guess we're just too nice here in Vermont. The socialists
snuck in while the locals were hibernating.

--
Keith

Richard Henry

2003-09-14, 5:29 pm

"Keith R. Williams" <krw@attglobal.net> wrote in message
news:MPG.19ce87de9e334eca98a683@enews.newsguy.com...
> In article < msv8mv4ou6vu9ablmfgq780domdq5t
lcdg@4ax.com>, Jim-
> T@golana-will-get-you.com says...
> > On Sun, 14 Sep 2003 15:24:54 +0100, "Ben Pope" <spam@hotmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > >Roger Hamlett wrote:
> > >> The 'balance', was whether this law, would discourage a single
> > >> criminal from holding arms. It is perhaps worth realising that it was
> > >> allready illegal to have a firearm 'out' in a public place, before
> > >> this law was introduced. Criminals generally didn't get their arms
> > >> from legitimate sources, but were happy to get them 'illegally' -
> > >> they are after all 'criminals'. The law cost the state (the
> > >> taxpayer), enough money to pay for two major new hospitals, and by
> > >> the police figures, has not reduced armed crime at all. The specific
> > >> question, is whether it can/will prevent another 'Dunblaine'. Though
> > >> (thankfully), there has not yet been a repeat of this horror, these
> > >> events are rare enough, that it'll be twenty years or more, before a
> > >> conclusion on this can be reached. However there have been enough
> > >> 'near misses', with people using even worse weapons (full auto
> > >> rifles, that have been banned even longer - since Hungerford), that
> > >> there is little doubt that it has not had the effect of making
> > >> weapons harder to get for the criminal...
> > >
> > >Thanks for a more detailed description... Mine was a sidenote that
seems to[co
lor=darkred]
> > >have rattled Bill Slomans cage.
> > >
> > >Ben
> >
> > I think most foreigners lurking here have not a clue about gun laws in
> > the USA.
> >
> > Except for those few states dominated by socialists, like New York,
> > Massa2shits, and Connecticut, it is *legal* to own a gun... it just
> > has to be registered due to the crazy Brady Bill, designed primarily
> > to ease the round up of guns when the citizens try to overthrow the
> > government.
>
> The crazy Brady Bill does *not* require registration. It only
> requires a background check at the time of purchase, if the.
> purchase is from a dealer who has a Federal Firearms License. It
> is not in any way a "permit", nor is it required for private
> sales. I legally own several handguns and can legally carry
> concealed at any time (with a few restrictions). No license is
> required, no registration, nothing. As you say, it's up to the
> individual states.
>
> BTW, Vermont is on the list of "those few states dominated by
> socialists" (Evidence: Howie Dean, Bernie Sanders, Pat Leahy, and
> Jumpin' Jism Jim Jeffords). The folks are also rather adamant
> about their firearms, so the socialists have let the locals play,
> at least for now.
>
> > But how do you take guns away from an armed mob ?:-)
>
> With a bigger armed mob with tin stars? ;-)
>
> > In Arizona you can carry a gun on your person if it's contained in a
> > visible holster.
>
> Can do that, or concealed. I tend to carry them in a duffel bag
> in their boxes when I go to the range.
>
> > In Arizona you can carry a concealed weapon if you pass an examination
> > for such a permit.
>
> Permit? Why? Don't tell me you live in one of them commie
> states, Jim. ;-)
>
> > All socialists are invited to Arizona for a demonstration ;-)
>
> I guess we're just too nice here in Vermont. The socialists
> snuck in while the locals were hibernating.[/color]

I grew up in Vermont in the Republican days (Eben: Say, Zeb, the results
show 2 Democrat votes this year in the town election. Zeb: That sumbitch
musta voted twice!).

We knew the socialists were coming in when the state deemed the school
lunchrooms unsanitary and made the town of my father's birth stop dumping
their sewage in the trout stream. Old-timers believe the decline started in
1927, when a big flood wiped out most of the roads in the state and there
was suddenly a reason for state-wide tax-and-spend programs. Then in the
60's the Supreme Court's one-man-one-vote rule knocked most of the
small-town reps out of the Legislature.

Bill Sloman

2003-09-14, 6:29 pm

"Ben Pope" <spam@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<bk1tkt$obf3n$1@ID-191149.news.uni-berlin.de>...
> Bill Sloman wrote:
> > "Ben Pope" <spam@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> > news:<bjvhhg$nqrk8$1@ID-191149.news.uni-berlin.de>...
> >> Jim Thompson wrote:
> >
> > <snip>
> >
> >> There is no point in an unenforced law. Some legislation was passed
> >> here (UK) that made obtaining guns harder - even for government
> >> bodies that
> >> required them. What was the point in that? The people with guns
> >> have them
> >> illegally anyway - they clearly have no regard for the law so the
> >> net result
> >> was that it is now harder to deal with the armed criminals.
> >> Brilliant.
> >
> > A depressing example of non-quantitative thinking.
>
> So I presume you have all the numbers to hand and can prove what YOU are
> saying?
>
> > Those few people who manage to beat the legislation to get guns and
> > hold them illegally are a problem, but the legislation does make it
> > more difficult, and thus there are fewer of them.
>
> Speculative.
>
> > The police thus have less occasion to send out squads of marksmen, and
> > need fewer guns themselves.
>
> Speculation carried forward.
>
> :-P
>
> > Seems to be a successful piece of legislation to me. It isn't
> > absolutely successful - it doesn't totally stop bad people from
> > getting guns if they tried hard enough - but absolutely successful
> > pieces of legislation are rare outside of cloud-cuckoo-land.
> >
> > How many other laws are you going to campaign against, on the basis
> > that they don't totally stop the undesired behaviour condemned?
> > Anti-speeding, anti-fraud, anti-burglary, anti-corruption,
> > anti-assault, anti-murder - if you are going to be consistent, you
> > must want to throw out all of them, becasue all these crimes persist
> > despite vigorously enforced laws against them.
> >
> > Perhaps you might care to restate your argument in terms that might
> > convince somebody with a functional critical faculty?
>
>
> You could have started by proving your side of the argument.

I did. Your argument was based on the proposition that if any criminal
can get guns, the legisation isn't working, which is an obvious
nonsense, and all I was effectively pointing out was that the
legislation could be seen to be successful even if a few unusually
persistent criminals still managed to get their hands on guns.

> Mine was based on fact,

I wasn't arguing with your fact, but with the conclusion you drew from
it.

> although I do not have a source for the figures to hand. You're
> argument is based on what?

Logic. And I do read the Guardian Weekly every week, and watch the
BBC1 news from time to time. Neither features U.S. levels of gun
violence.

------
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

Bill Sloman

2003-09-14, 6:29 pm

"Ben Pope" <spam@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<bk1tnn$o6seb$1@ID-191149.news.uni-berlin.de>...
> Roger Hamlett wrote:

<snipped fine exhibition of logical fallacies>

> Thanks for a more detailed description... Mine was a sidenote that seems to
> have rattled Bill Sloman's cage.

Yep. I do dislike pseudo-logical qualitative arguments, and gun nuts
seem to have a particular enthusiasm for this form of delusive
propaganda.

-------
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

Bill Sloman

2003-09-14, 7:34 pm

Jim Thompson <Jim-T@golana-will-get-you.com> wrote in message news:< msv8mv4ou6vu9ablmfgq780domdq5t
lcdg@4ax.com>...
> On Sun, 14 Sep 2003 15:24:54 +0100, "Ben Pope" <spam@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> >Roger Hamlett wrote:
> >> The 'balance', was whether this law, would discourage a single
> >> criminal from holding arms. It is perhaps worth realising that it was
> >> allready illegal to have a firearm 'out' in a public place, before
> >> this law was introduced. Criminals generally didn't get their arms
> >> from legitimate sources, but were happy to get them 'illegally' -
> >> they are after all 'criminals'. The law cost the state (the
> >> taxpayer), enough money to pay for two major new hospitals, and by
> >> the police figures, has not reduced armed crime at all. The specific
> >> question, is whether it can/will prevent another 'Dunblaine'. Though
> >> (thankfully), there has not yet been a repeat of this horror, these
> >> events are rare enough, that it'll be twenty years or more, before a
> >> conclusion on this can be reached. However there have been enough
> >> 'near misses', with people using even worse weapons (full auto
> >> rifles, that have been banned even longer - since Hungerford), that
> >> there is little doubt that it has not had the effect of making
> >> weapons harder to get for the criminal...
> >
> >Thanks for a more detailed description... Mine was a sidenote that seems to
> >have rattled Bill Slomans cage.
> >
> >Ben
>
> I think most foreigners lurking here have not a clue about gun laws in
> the USA.

Since the argument was about UK guns laws, or rather about when you
can conclude that a gun control law isn't working, knowledge of U.S.
gun laws is irrelelvant

> Except for those few states dominated by socialists,

You apply the term "socialist" to a much wider range of political
opinion than do most commentators - you don't seem to understand what
the word means, any more than you understand what the word "cretin"
means.

> like New York,
> Massa2shits, and Connecticut, it is *legal* to own a gun... it just
> has to be registered due to the crazy Brady Bill, designed primarily
> to ease the round up of guns when the citizens try to overthrow the
> government.
>
> But how do you take guns away from an armed mob ?:-)

With a bunch of disciplined troops, it isn't that difficult. The armed
mob tends to end up dead if they get obstreperous. The NRA has this
bizarre tendency to claim that an armed mob that has never trained
together can be identified with the US constitution's "well regulated
militia", but intelligent adults should know better.

> In Arizona you can carry a gun on your person if it's contained in a
> visible holster.
>
> In Arizona you can carry a concealed weapon if you pass an examination
> for such a permit.
>
> All socialists are invited to Arizona for a demonstration ;-)

http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcgvinco.html

I think I'll stay home. I'd have got a five times greater chance of
being murdered in the U.S. than I have in the Netherlands (presumably
people getting in premptive strikes on potential gun-carriers using
knives and clubs), and a ten times greater chance of being murdered
with a gun.

-----
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

Ben Pope

2003-09-14, 7:34 pm

Bill Sloman wrote:
> I did. Your argument was based on the proposition that if any criminal
> can get guns, the legisation isn't working, which is an obvious

You said that, not I.

> Logic. And I do read the Guardian Weekly every week, and watch the
> BBC1 news from time to time. Neither features U.S. levels of gun
> violence.

I wouldn't expect them too. Not that U.S. levels of gun violence is
relevent to the UK or anything I've said in this branch of the thread.

Ben
--
I'm not just a number. To many, I'm known as a String...

Jim Thompson

2003-09-14, 7:34 pm

On Mon, 15 Sep 2003 00:01:24 +0100, "Ben Pope" <spam@hotmail.com>
wrote:

>Bill Sloman wrote:
>> I did. Your argument was based on the proposition that if any criminal
>> can get guns, the legisation isn't working, which is an obvious
>
>You said that, not I.
>
>> Logic. And I do read the Guardian Weekly every week, and watch the
>> BBC1 news from time to time. Neither features U.S. levels of gun
>> violence.
>
>I wouldn't expect them too. Not that U.S. levels of gun violence is
>relevent to the UK or anything I've said in this branch of the thread.
>
>Ben

We had a perfectly normal night around here... our typical
4/weekend-night gunshot deaths.

Plus the east valley cops having been having a good time of it
themselves... killing (by shooting) one person per week because they
were brandishing knives... fits right in with their policy of
shooting-in-the-back a young woman who was trying to pass a forged
prescription for back-pain medication... tried to drive off when the
cops arrived. Bang-bang, "Stop or I'll shoot" :-(

I think we're headed toward some citizen review board legislation.

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice

480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax

Keith R. Williams

2003-09-14, 10:30 pm

In article <Bo49b.3832$v%5.1794@fed1read02>, rphenry@home.com
says...
>
> "Keith R. Williams" <krw@attglobal.net> wrote in message
> news:MPG.19ce87de9e334eca98a683@enews.newsguy.com...
> > In article < msv8mv4ou6vu9ablmfgq780domdq5t
lcdg@4ax.com>, Jim-
> > T@golana-will-get-you.com says...
> > > On Sun, 14 Sep 2003 15:24:54 +0100, "Ben Pope" <spam@hotmail.com>
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > > >Roger Hamlett wrote:
> > > >> The 'balance', was whether this law, would discourage a single
> > > >> criminal from holding arms. It is perhaps worth realising that it was
> > > >> allready illegal to have a firearm 'out' in a public place, before
> > > >> this law was introduced. Criminals generally didn't get their arms
> > > >> from legitimate sources, but were happy to get them 'illegally' -
> > > >> they are after all 'criminals'. The law cost the state (the
> > > >> taxpayer), enough money to pay for two major new hospitals, and by
> > > >> the police figures, has not reduced armed crime at all. The specific
> > > >> question, is whether it can/will prevent another 'Dunblaine'. Though
> > > >> (thankfully), there has not yet been a repeat of this horror, these
> > > >> events are rare enough, that it'll be twenty years or more, before a
> > > >> conclusion on this can be reached. However there have been enough
> > > >> 'near misses', with people using even worse weapons (full auto
> > > >> rifles, that have been banned even longer - since Hungerford), that
> > > >> there is little doubt that it has not had the effect of making
> > > >> weapons harder to get for the criminal...
> > > >
> > > >Thanks for a more detailed description... Mine was a sidenote that
> seems to

> > > >have rattled Bill Slomans cage.
> > > >
> > > >Ben
> > >
> > > I think most foreigners lurking here have not a clue about gun laws in
> > > the USA.
> > >
> > > Except for those few states dominated by socialists, like New York,
> > > Massa2shits, and Connecticut, it is *legal* to own a gun... it just
> > > has to be registered due to the crazy Brady Bill, designed primarily
> > > to ease the round up of guns when the citizens try to overthrow the
> > > government.
> >
> > The crazy Brady Bill does *not* require registration. It only
> > requires a background check at the time of purchase, if the.
> > purchase is from a dealer who has a Federal Firearms License. It
> > is not in any way a "permit", nor is it required for private
> > sales. I legally own several handguns and can legally carry
> > concealed at any time (with a few restrictions). No license is
> > required, no registration, nothing. As you say, it's up to the
> > individual states.
> >
> > BTW, Vermont is on the list of "those few states dominated by
> > socialists" (Evidence: Howie Dean, Bernie Sanders, Pat Leahy, and
> > Jumpin' Jism Jim Jeffords). The folks are also rather adamant
> > about their firearms, so the socialists have let the locals play,
> > at least for now.
> >
> > > But how do you take guns away from an armed mob ?:-)
> >
> > With a bigger armed mob with tin stars? ;-)
> >
> > > In Arizona you can carry a gun on your person if it's contained in a
> > > visible holster.
> >
> > Can do that, or concealed. I tend to carry them in a duffel bag
> > in their boxes when I go to the range.
> >
> > > In Arizona you can carry a concealed weapon if you pass an examination
> > > for such a permit.
> >
> > Permit? Why? Don't tell me you live in one of them commie
> > states, Jim. ;-)
> >
> > > All socialists are invited to Arizona for a demonstration ;-)
> >
> > I guess we're just too nice here in Vermont. The socialists
> > snuck in while the locals were hibernating.
>
> I grew up in Vermont in the Republican days (Eben: Say, Zeb, the results
> show 2 Democrat votes this year in the town election. Zeb: That sumbitch
> musta voted twice!).
>
> We knew the socialists were coming in when the state deemed the school
> lunchrooms unsanitary

Site!

> and made the town of my father's birth stop dumping
> their sewage in the trout stream.

They still do. Your point? Despite the commies controlling the
state now, there are *still* people shitting in their own
drinking water. Guess where? The camps on the lake are a prime
example. Who owns them? Please! The commies (a.k.a.
progressives) have done *nothing* to improve life, only ruin the
beautiful state. I do believe that's their plan.

> Old-timers believe the decline started in
> 1927, when a big flood wiped out most of the roads in the state and there
> was suddenly a reason for state-wide tax-and-spend programs.

I've only been here a decade, but the old-farts have far more
common sense than the commies from 'Jersey and Wall Street. At
least the old farts of '27 had enough gumption to tell the feds
to butt out. Tax-n-spend wasn't a '27 thing.

> Then in the
> 60's the Supreme Court's one-man-one-vote rule knocked most of the
> small-town reps out of the Legislature.

....and made things even worse. ...and more attractive to the NY
and NJ pinks.

I'll be outta here the minute I retire. I couldn't possibly
afford the taxes the jersey-pinkos have foisted on the state.
There is good reason the local farmers are going bust.

--
Keith

R. Steve Walz

2003-09-14, 11:30 pm

Ben Pope wrote:
>
> R. Steve Walz wrote:
> > Ben Pope wrote:
> >>
> >> R. Steve Walz wrote:
> >>> It is entirely do-able to destroy all foreign contact with any ISP
> >>> which will not fall into line and stop spam eminating from its
> >>> domain. Assembling and examining all packets before they are resent
> >>> into the USA
> >>> at our borders lately is trivial.
> >>>
> >>> Further it is even easier to send UNBELIEVABLE volumes of our own
> >>> punishment SPAM to any foreign ISP and also stop cooperating with
> >>> any nation that won't stop it, and cut off telecom and trade to and
> >>> from them.
> >>>
> >>> You don't have to clog the courts with this shit or anything like
> >>> Opt-In requires, and it ends it by govt mandating that for all ports
> >>> of entry for telephonic data into the USA.
> >>>
> >>> For the few spammers that try it in the USA, make it punishable by
> >>> the death penalty, just as we should ALL virus
> >>> writers/disseminators.
> >>>
> >>> This would stop all this bullshit. We don't have to listen to people
> >>> cutting in on our telephone conversations, so why should we have to
> >>> receive ANY kind of this telephonic terrorism!????!!
> >>>
> >>> Opt-In is fine for junk snail-mail, but punish the perp with death.
> >>> -Steve
> >>
> >> Thats sarcasm, right?
> >> Ben
> > ------------------
> > Not in the least.
>
> So you think that cutting all communications and trade to countries with
> laws that are less strict then the new laws which you suggest, should be
> ceased.
----------------------------
I think you need to rephrase.

All you have to do is filter out the spam at our borders by exckuding
anything containing a known virus or identified spam-ploy, and make it
cost the source, by sending THEM our OWN destructive volume and viral
and hire software assault teams to try to break into their system and
harm it, identify specific culprits by name to foreign govts as
the reason we don't do thus and such for them, and encourage them to
terminate them with greatest prejudice and that we won't care WHAT
happens to these culprits, AND we will reward the cooperative with
our friendliest intentions.

> Then you should show the way forward (the termination of SPAM) by SPAMing
> external ISPs.
>
> And you should kill all internal SPAMers.
>
> And you think that would be a resounding success?
--------------
Yep.

> I presume you are talking without consideration of anything external to
> SPAM, i.e., the SPAM problem in isolation, and that given your way you would
> not dream of actually implementing this with those other consideration taken
> into account, right?
>
> Ben
------------------------
All other political and economic problems with these other nations
will be found to be variations on a similar theme. Most of them have
far more ability to stop their spammers by immediate fiat than WE do.

-Steve
--
-Steve Walz rstevew@armory.com ftp://ftp.armory.com/pub/user/rstevew
Electronics Site!! 1000's of Files and Dirs!! With Schematics Galore!!
http://www.armory.com/~rstevew or http://www.armory.com/~rstevew/Public

R. Steve Walz

2003-09-14, 11:30 pm

Paul E Larson wrote:
>
> Jim Thompson <Jim-T@golana-will-get-you.com> wrote in
> news:msv8mv4ou6vu9ablmfgq780do
mdq5tlcdg@4ax.com:
>
> >
> > I think most foreigners lurking here have not a clue about gun laws in
> > the USA.
> >
>
> Given the rant below you must be a foreigner! New York state, except in New
> York City, while not as liberal as Arizona in its handgun laws it is legal
> to own a handgun with the same or similar provisos set by Arizona.
>
> as one example -
> http://www.clintoncountygov.com/Dep...CC/CCPisPer.htm
-------------
That's a permit to even OWN a handgun, it is NOT a carry permit!!

In Arizona all you need is to meet federal requirements to buy one,
which are minimal.

-Steve
--
-Steve Walz rstevew@armory.com ftp://ftp.armory.com/pub/user/rstevew
Electronics Site!! 1000's of Files and Dirs!! With Schematics Galore!!
http://www.armory.com/~rstevew or http://www.armory.com/~rstevew/Public

Richard Henry

2003-09-14, 11:30 pm

"Keith R. Williams" <krw@attglobal.net> wrote in message
news:MPG.19cedffce23f1ae798a686@enews.newsguy.com...
> >
> > We knew the socialists were coming in when the state deemed the school
> > lunchrooms unsanitary
>
> Site!

I assume you mean cite. My father worked in the local schools. He told me
of the state health department inspection that cited one 50+year-old school
because the walls in the lunchroom included hardwood wainscotting, which
could not be "properly cleaned".

If you meant site, it was the building where I attended 6th grade in Derby
Line.

> > and made the town of my father's birth stop dumping
> > their sewage in the trout stream.

> They still do. Your point? Despite the commies controlling the
> state now, there are *still* people shitting in their own
> drinking water. Guess where? The camps on the lake are a prime
> example. Who owns them? Please! The commies (a.k.a.
> progressives) have done *nothing* to improve life, only ruin the
> beautiful state. I do believe that's their plan.

You can't change everything at once. The people who bought our old family
farmhouse added a deck, a fireplace, and a septic tank.

> > Old-timers believe the decline started in
> > 1927, when a big flood wiped out most of the roads in the state and
there

> > was suddenly a reason for state-wide tax-and-spend programs.
>
> I've only been here a decade, but the old-farts have far more
> common sense than the commies from 'Jersey and Wall Street. At
> least the old farts of '27 had enough gumption to tell the feds
> to butt out. Tax-n-spend wasn't a '27 thing.

You should read some of the writings of Frank Bryan, a professor at UVM (his
serious stuff, not _Real Vermonters Don't Milk Goats_). We went to school
together, in a very Vermont way. He was a high-school senior when I was in
third grade of a 1-12 school.

> > Then in the
> > 60's the Supreme Court's one-man-one-vote rule knocked most of the
> > small-town reps out of the Legislature.
>
> ...and made things even worse. ...and more attractive to the NY
> and NJ pinks.
<