From: Michael Lorrey (retroman@together.net)
Date: Wed Jul 08 1998 - 15:53:03 MDT
mark@unicorn.com wrote:
> Ken Kittlitz [ken@audesi.com] wrote:
> >Good point. Note, however, that the converse is also true; i.e., if gun
> >ownership really isn't tied to crime rate (either positively or
> >negatively), then owning a gun "for protection", as many gun owners on this
> >list claim to do, may not make sense.
>
> Yes and no... if you're poor but live in a good area, then spending money
> on a gun may not make sense. But just because carrying guns may not cause
> a massive drop in murders (e.g. based on national figures Floridian murder
> rates probably dropped about 20% after the concealed carry law was passed,
> which is significant but nothing like the 99% drop in moving from DC to
> Vermont) the risk to an individual carrying a gun may well drop more. If
> someone decides to rob and kill me and I point a gun at them and they run
> away, they may well just rob and kill some unarmed person instead; so the
> murder rate won't drop, but *my* chances of being murdered in that instance
> went down 100%.
Yes, very much so.
> >If I were living in a neighborhood
> >where crime was rampant, and for whatever reason couldn't/wouldn't leave,
> >then owning a gun might very well be reasonable. If I didn't (and I don't),
> >then my resources are likely better spent elsewhere.
Depends. It seems like the 'bad neighborhood' syndrome tends to spread like a
cancer, and only some serious work can turn such trends around. You might live
in a nice neighborhood today, but what happens when some pretty bad people move
into your neighborhood either because they got scared of the really bad people
in their old neighborhood, or are looking for virgin territory to fleece? Are
you gonna move someplace else? And someplace else again? and again? and again?
When do you stop running and start shooting back?
> Quite possibly; we're not saying that owning a gun will magically make
> you invulnerable, nor that everyone needs to. We're saying that even if
> gun ownership didn't reduce murder rates to some extent, attempts to ban
> them are far, far less useful than other actions.
Yes, why is Mutual Assured Destruction a fine policy for nation states but not
for individual people? Its worked fine for 50 years around the world, I think
that a personal policy of micro-MAD is a fine survival policy.
>
>
> Certainly if I owned a gun it would be primarily for shooting at targets,
> not for shooting at people. But knowing that I could shoot people if I
> ever got into a situation where I had to would certainly be a benefit.
>
> > I find
> >this a sobering thought: it would be a sad irony indeed if in gaining
> >indefinite lifespans we become afraid to live.
>
> Not neccesarily; we might decide to stop crossing streets, but we would
> probably work out ways to reduce the risks associated with crossing
> streets... e.g. armored bodies, remote drones linked to brains in vats,
> etc. We'd want to reduce the risks, but there are numerous ways to do
> that.
I think that the deterrent effect of micro-MAD on a person for person basis is
fine. I'm not afraid to live, I'm gonna take whatever measures are needed to
live as long and as much as I can. I won't be scared of going certain places
either.
>
>
> Mark
-- TANSTAAFL!!! Michael Lorrey ------------------------------------------------------------ mailto:retroman@together.net Inventor of the Lorrey Drive MikeySoft: Graphic Design/Animation/Publishing/Engineering ------------------------------------------------------------ How many fnords did you see before breakfast today?
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