From: Damien R. Sullivan (phoenix@ugcs.caltech.edu)
Date: Tue Dec 16 1997 - 23:45:16 MST
In case there's a chink to logical thought somewhere...
On Dec 16, 9:25pm, Wings of the Morning wrote:
> didn't even exist. I know obviously that guns are too much a part of our
> society to just eliminate all together, but just think for a moment about for
Indeed. You can make a functional handgun with standard machine tools,
I've heard. It won't be professional quality, it might break after a
few hundred shots, but it'll suffice to mug someone. Or kill. How can
you eliminate such guns?
> you try to argue its value as a defensive tool, an item of sport, etc., its
> main purpose is, and will remain to kill. The problem with our society is
Certainly guns are meant to kill. They're meant to kill creatures
trying to kill me, human or not. Perhaps you've forgotten about wolves
and great cats? They're not much of a threat now... because they've all
been shot. I'd hate to lose guns while they're still around.
> of evolution mentally. I hope that you could clearly see, if there ever is a
> totally unified society, it's not going to work unless we get rid of weapons
"Totally unified society" is not something we all understand.
> these weapons had never been invented, imagine how many wars could have been,
> and will be avoided if men walked onto the battle field armed only with a
> sword. When you don't have the comfort a multi-billion dollar war plane to
> aid you so you don't have too see the faces of all the human beings you kill,
> you tend to think twice about going to war.
Really. My my. That is not the impression I get from history. I'm
pretty sure I've read about lots of wars in the distant past. The
Persian Wars, the Peleponesian wars, Alexander the Great, the
thousand-year history of Rome, the Mongols, the early Islamic Empire...
all these people thought twice about going to war? I'd hate to see what
happened when they only thought once.
> more blood won't be spilt. There is no valid purpose today to own or use a
> gun, unless you are an enforcer of the law, and it is absolutely dire that
And we can all trust all of the enforcers of the law!
> Do you think that gangs would be as previlent today if
> the members went around armed with wooden sticks?
"Feudalism."
It's amazing how the Cold War, the nuclear era, was one of the most
peaceful periods in Europe's entire history. It still is peaceful,
apart from some fringe areas like Yugoslavia that don't have anything
more advanced than primitive artillery, and a bad distribution of guns.
Try this idea out: danger is not in how much deadly power is available.
It's in how it is distributed. The left doesn't like concentrations of
wealth, of _productive_ power; it's amazing that they don't see the
necessity of ensuring equality of destructive power. One person with a
sword isn't as deadly as a person with a gun... but it's hard to become
a good person with a sword, so those who do, rule. Guns are easy. Guns
are democratic. There are rather few stable democracies which predate
the gun. Iceland, perhaps.
> do just that, to me, is plain wrong. Perhaps if people repected that power
Ah, but people do respect that power... especially when other people
wield it.
-xx- GCU Twirlip of Greymist X-)
The residence of high dignitary of the Christian Church is called a
palace; that of the Founder of his religion was known as a field or
wayside. There is progress.
-- Ambrose Bierce, _The Devil's Dictionary_
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