Date sent: Sun, 30 May 1999 05:26:06 -0500 To: extropians@extropy.com From: Sasha Chislenko <sasha1@netcom.com> Subject: Re: Guns at school Send reply to: extropians@extropy.com
> There have probably been precedents...
>
> What was the average age of first gun ownership among
> the early white settlers and Indians in America?
> I read lots of reports about the Third world armies
> recruiting kids from like 8 years old and up.
>
They impress them (serve or die).
>
> There are probably way more teens in the third
> world openly carrying guns than adults in the U.S.
> How many cases of mass shooting are there?
>
There's no mandatory schooling in most of them (at least not for
our forced 8 year old soldiers - wow, guns really make THEM free,
ay? And with all their "friends" armed, too!). They kill and are
killed by their foes in war or banditry, and not in schoolhouse halls.
>
> Considering that we live in the most civilized country
> in the world (yeah, right!) with kids having a lot more
> knowledge of engineering and social issues, facing more
> serious law enforcement, and less exposed to direct
> displays of extreme violence, the chances in U.S. must
> be much, much lower.
>
You'd think so.
>
> If, on the other hand, the Third World teens are more
> mature and able to carry firearms (they definitely do
> carry other weapons), maybe that's because they haven't
> been infantilized by overprotective governments?
>
They have less learning and maturing to do to grow into less
technologically advanced societies, and are usually brainwashed
into some fundamentalism or other, which makes them fear for
their mortal souls to kill those whom they call "us", and at the
same time strive to improve their eventual position in paradise by
offing as many of the ones identified as "them" as possible.
>
> I am still not sure about the teens, but in general, it seems
> that the American population is becoming increasingly
> infantile, paranoid, and neurotic under the protective
> shield of the government, with adult people scared of
> making eye contact in the street, many of them getting
> lazy and fat, sitting among historically unprecedented
> resources, nursing ridiculous irrational worldviews,
> watching dumb soap operas and complaining that the society
> doesn't sufficiently motivate them to learn and exercise.
>
The btgf explanation: Blame The Guvmint First.
>
> How many of such people do you see in the Third World?
>
How many times have you been there?
>
> We may mourn a small group of kids who died from the shooting
> spree, and forget that the state protection needed [?] to
> decrease chances for such accidents, already make most of
> the population rot alive, without being aware of it.
> And then these people vote for more protection because they
> are scared and lost.
>
People vote for more protection because the protection they have is
not keeping guns out of the hands of dangerous people.
>
> I was recently surprised to learn that hitch-hiking is now
> ILLEGAL in the "free" state of New York - and, apparently,
> in many other states. Any other country that has this rule?
>
> Where should we draw the lines of "protection"?
>
> If there is a town where all citizens agree to give guns to
> their kids, would the government allow it as an experiment?
>
You'd have a hard time finding a town where all citizens would
agree to give guns to all their kids, including all races sexes,
religions and ethnicities, as well as the bullied and picked upon,
and those perceived as "bad apples" by the adults or their peers.
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
> Sasha Chislenko <http://www.lucifer.com/~sasha/home.html>
> Intelligenesis Corp. <http://intelligenesis.net>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
>
>