From: Michael S. Lorrey (retroman@turbont.net)
Date: Sat Apr 08 2000 - 12:06:45 MDT
Technotranscendence wrote:
>
> On Friday, April 07, 2000 11:01 PM Joe Dees joedees@addall.com wrote:
> > Smart guns will no doubt be a great deal easier to create than smart
> (as in responsible) gun owners, >but we can only do what we can via
> mandatory safety training to engender responsibility in those who
> >purchase them.
>
> I've got an idea! Let's have another useless debate on the Extropy list!
> That way we'll all bullshit for several weeks about this, insult each other,
> and no one's opinion will change one iota at the end.
>
> Sound like a great idea?
>
Daniel, we've been have a fine, civilized discussion about smart guns
for the past week, without even Joes Dees messing things up, and I
notice that even he is discussing politely, which give him a few points
upward in my book, if he keeps it up he'll even come out of my trash
can, which I will welcome.
I'd like to make a proposal that might change the course of the
discussion:
I would argue that the best way to decrease gun abuse would be to
re-invigorate people's sense of citizenship. I recall that the civics
course in high school was a rather lamely taught course that dealt only
in rote facts, didn't deal with discussion, development of policy,
etc... I would propose that civics courses be moved up to junior and/or
senior year, and passing with a grade of C+ or higher be mandatory in
order to register to vote, buy a gun, etc., that the curriculum be set
as a nationwide standard for national citizenship issues, and statewide
to deal with state issues. THis makes the democracy a bit of a
meritocracy, but I don't see that as a bad thing.
Doing this, you will get more teens thinking seriously about these
things just as they are about to assume the actual responsibilities of
citizenship, and they will be acting as examples for their younger
peers.
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