Word: pistoled
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...weapon is likely to be outlawed entirely it is the handgun. The U.S. Mayors Conference last week recommended that its ownership be banned for all but law-enforcement officials. Japan, with 100 million people, allows only 100 of them to own pistols, for shooting matches. Britain authorizes their use on pistol ranges and almost nowhere else. But in the U.S., 70% of shooting deaths are caused by handguns. Often the weapon is a cheap, .22-cal. import. In Houston, where 244 murders were committed in 1967, a tinny .22 known as the "Saturday-night special" figures in a disproportionate number...
...Equalizer. With all the dangers that guns represent, why are Americans so enamored of them? For the man with a feeling of insecurity or inferiority, a pistol in his pocket is the "equalizer," the "difference." For the gang youth, it is a badge of bravery. Ernest Dichter, director of the Institute for Motivational Research at Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y., maintains that "we're just emerging from a brawn culture into a brain culture, and brains are not as dramatic." Guns compensate for that, Dichter adds, by serving as "a virility source. Clyde [of Bonnie and Clyde] is impotent...
...controls obviously cannot stop crime or wanton killing, and no one claims that they can. Laws can be circumvented. At the 1957 Apalachin "crime convention," twelve of the 35 New York residents collared by police were "clean" under the provisions of the state's tough Sullivan law?they had pistol permits. Unless an amateur psychiatrist in a gun shop or a police station had recognized him as a paranoid schizophrenic, Charles Whitman, the Texas Tower sniper who killed or wounded 46 people two years ago, would have been able to assemble his lethal armory despite strict gun controls. Sirhan Sirhan...
...effective, gun-control legislation should be rational and uniform. Otherwise, as New Jersey's Governor Richard Hughes complained last week, states with strong laws will invariably be "subverted" by those with weak ones. Michigan residents who want to avoid buying a pistol permit?and having their background checked?simply drive across the Ohio border to Toledo, where guns are sold even at the candy counter of a sleazy hamburger stand. Massachusetts police in a ten-year study traced 87% of the guns used in local crimes to purchases in neighboring states where no waiting period or background investigation was required...
Owners of rifles and shotguns must be 18, and need only the basic I.D. Those who would pack a pistol or revolver must also be at least 18, and need two additional permits (total cost: $5) to purchase and carry a handgun. Retailers must keep complete records of long-arm sales and must forward records of handgun sales to police...