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SubjectRe: Arm the gnus [OFFTOPIC]
On Tue, 13 Oct 1998, Ragnar Hojland Espinosa wrote:

>
> On Tue, 13 Oct 1998, David Luyer wrote:
>
> > are until this guns thread came up. I didn't want to respond to it but
> > the idiocy has dragged me into it - the belief of Americans that their
> > constitution is the law of the world (a country with laws which bans export
>
> Well, I'm then going to voice my opinion too. I'm not american, I don't
> live in america, I don't like many of american laws, but I do believe
> people should be able to own firearms.

Sigh... I guess I will, too, since the thread apparently isn't going
to go away... at least take every address but linux-kernel off the cc:
list folks....

> > 2: There is no "natural right to bear arms".

What an absurd statement. Look at the natural world - "nature, red
in tooth and claw" and all that. One of the first human uses of tools
(if not *the* first) was probably some ape picking up a stick and beating
the shit out of another ape with it.

> > Any right to weapons is a thing
> > of the past,

Not from where I sit. There are still plenty of opportunities for
me to get mugged within a 15 mile radius of where I am sitting. And I
live in Silicon Valley. Someone in Bangladesh would have it MUCH worse.

> > and the countries where it is legal for anyone to own a gun
> > are stuck in the distant past.

There is no country in the world, IIRC, where it is legal for
*anyone* to own a gun unconditionally. Even in the bad ol' USA, there are
many restrictions - felons, some children, variable by type of gun, etc.
Some states are quite restrictive, a few (like Vermont) are extremely
liberal.

> > In Australia, Pauline Hanson's One Nation

...Is giving Aussies a taste of what politics will be like RSN when
their precious white european majority fragments all to shit and they have to
try to make a functioning civic society out of:

* White European descendants
* Aborigines of many different cultures
* Indonesian and Malaysian economic refugees
* American and European social refugees
* Possibly Indian/Pakistani/Afghani war refugees

It's REAL easy to talk a great game about how pure and virtuous your
culture and society and government are WRT banning those icky guns when there
really isn't much violent crime in your society. Sure, guns suck. But
getting beaten up or raped or having your house burgled, and not being able
to do anything about it, sucks a lot worse, IMHO.

> In my eyes, a society that has learnt how to live with firearms, that has
> the freedom to use them but also is responsible enough not to, is a quite
> advanced society compared with the one who just "nannies" their citizens
> and takes the matches away because they might get burnt.

Precisely. The hands-off, expect-people-to-be-responsible attitude
of the USA govt (however bastardized it may have become recently) is actually
considerably more advanced than most other first-world governments have
become yet. It produces chaos, noise, mess and the odd schoolyard
massacre, yes. It has also produce *by far* the world's most dynamic,
vibrant and progress-oriented culture.

> > Party was the latest guns-lobby-sponsored political party. Their pro-guns
> > and pro-racism policies put them right where they deserved to be - out of
> > parliament.

Like someone else said, the govt. had to play some games to keep One
Nation's support from looking as strong as it really is.

> > The Australian society has grown up and realised that a society
> > without guns is a far safer society.

Even if this were true (which it is not), who says that safety is
the most important thing in the world? I sure as hell don't. ike
Heinlein said, "you can have peace or freedom but not both at once". I
prefer freedom, thank you very much.

> You don't have guns, so guns are harder to get illegally

Not much, I'll wager. Like drugs, guns are very very difficult to
stop the illegal sale and distribution of. And the harsher the laws, the
more the illicit gun dealers will charge (to compensate them for the
increased risk of legal punishment), which means they make more money, which
means there's more incentive for people to take up gun-smuggling as a
profession, which means more (and more powerful) illegal guns on the street,
which usually means that harsher laws are passed, GOTO 10 |->. People on this
list can probably appreciate the nature of the positive feedback loops that
these laws unwittingly create.

> and if someone is
> carrying one he is a criminal for sure.. but I can't see the difference in
> being killed by a gun and being killed by a knife.

If someone mugs you with a gun, they can keep a safe (to them)
distance from you and ask you to toss over your wallet. If they just have a
knife, they'll have to close with you and hold the knife to your throat or
back to get the same effect. The result is that you are a LOT more likely to
get hurt or killed when being mugged by someone with a knife. I'd prefer to
get mugged with a gun any day of the week, if I had to get mugged at all.

> So I'm sure that your
> society would be even more safer if you took knives too, and sliced bread
> with sticks. You can also ban all forms of martial arts and hand to hand
> combat, since it can be deadly... getting ridiculous enough yet?

Not for some people. Already whenever I speak up about my interest
in martial arts training in a group of people, odds are that someone will say
something like "why do you want to learn a martial art? Do you want to beat
people up?". The mindset is that personal violence is a universally bad
thing. I do not agree. Initiatory violence is bad. Retaliatory or
defensive violence is a fundamental human right.

> Yes, I would feel safer carrying a gun, _and_ having recieved training.
> In fact, in a society where you can carry firearms, it'd be a must to
> receive this training, the same way it's a must to know how to read/write.

Switzerland is like that, IIRC. Every adult male must serve in the
military, learn how to use a gun correctly, and keep an automatic(?) weapon
in their house for use in defending the Swiss border if needed.

> > statistics of violent crimes and deaths to realise that gun ownership
> > is not a sensible thing for the masses.

Which statistics? The ones that show distinct drops in violent crime
across the board in US states where concealed-carry laws have been passed?
The ones that have come from many studies carried out over the past ten years
with exhaustive attention to methodology? The ones that have largely
torpedoed state-level "progress" towards further gun control laws being
passed?

> I'm not gonna play with statistics.. they always mean what you want them
> to mean, for everybody.

No. They *can* be twisted, yes. But obviously there is *some*
impartial value to them or we'd not be using them for serious work. And
we do.

> But your reasoning sounds like "hey, PGP is not a
> good thing for you and you dont even need it.. let us manage it for you,
> and if you ever try to distribute PGP, you're a terrorist.. got it?"

Exactly. "Why won't you give us your private key, Mr. Taylor? What
are you hiding?"

> .. and it somehow reminds me to the medieval days here, when you could
> only own a gun if you were some sort of noble.

The rise of western democracies can largely be attributed to the
refinement of personal firearms technology.

> Why could they and the rest
> of the people couldn't?

Because they wanted to keep their place of power in society.

> What made them special?

They had guns and everyone else didn't.

Jon

---
'Cloning and the reprogramming of DNA is the first serious step in
becoming one with God.'
- Scientist G. Richard Seed


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