From: Michael M. Butler (butler@comp*lib.org)
Date: Tue Jul 01 1997 - 21:16:00 MDT
>What I'm afraid of are all the
>fools who feel that they need them and who don't choose to understand what
>limited purposes firearms have.
A.M, you have my genuine thanks for skipping the verbal jousting and
speaking about the real issue. I'll drop the jousting too.
When I encounter such, I get angry, and I try to straighten them out.
Anger is, arguably, closely related to fear and powerlessness; I
acknowledge that.
Fools, we will have always with us, to paraphrase the New Testament.
But I know many honest, civil people, not fools; what of them?
>As far as I'm concerned, the less guns we have the better off we are.
If I were still jousting, I'd say something like:
Fine. Give up yours, I'll keep mine, the net reduction in number should be
a net gain for society... yes?
But I'm not jousting. So instead I'll say:
A.M., rest assured that I do not apologize for the actions of said fools. I
just resent being lumped in with them because I haven't proven to some
other fool that I can be trusted more than said fool trusts him/herself.
If I had a device that could instantly neutralize all firearms all over the
world--make them inert lumps of metal, permanently... I *might* push the
button that did it.
But I'd think really hard for a long time before I did. And I mistrust
anyone who tells me they would do it in an instant. How about you?
MMB
Director
Center for Compassion and Liberty
(that's _and_, not one at the expense of the other)
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