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Date Posted: 05:15:35 04/03/03 Thu
Author: Khronos
Author Host/IP: ip-66-80-65-31.dsl.sea.megapath.net / 66.80.65.31
Subject: So counter the point then...
In reply to: Gwydion 's message, "Re: It's a lot like the gun control issue..." on 21:04:31 04/01/03 Tue

Hey I'm not expressly anti-gun. I'm carrying an S&W Centenial Airweight on my side as I type this (I handle a lot of loose cash at my job), so I understand the value a gun can offer as a tool. But it's a tool that carries with it a great responsibility.

The draw back with guns though is as a tool they can be exceedingly dangerous. A hammer, another useful tool that can also be used in self-defense, can be dangerous if misused too, but you can't mis-use it and inadvertently kill the kid asleep in his bed across the street. The answer to the inherent danger of firearms is education. The draw back there is that we can't even teach everyone in the richest nation in the world how to read, yet we mandate that everyone of them can have at their disposal an instant death machine (too bad they all can't read and comprehend the directions).

Being pragmatic about guns and America is fine and dandy. We've got too many guns to effectively do much about it, but the question I'm trying to raise is that allowing guns in a society sets you on one particular course. Once you head down that path it is practically impossible to change your mind later on and go in another direction. So we're committed. I can live with that, but as a function of this comittment we have to accept that guns are just as much an element for chaos as they are for order.

And now a few questions...

What is the long term goal of an armed society? Is there a saturation point where we can say we have "enough" guns? What is that theoretical point? What happens when you go beyond that point (pre-schoolers packing heat)? What can a society do to rectify that situation? Should we just accept it as a consequence of being an armed society that said saturation point is inevitable and simply resign ourselves to everybody (and I do mean everybody) carrying a gun all the time?

Why is it in movies about the "old west" the town's people seemed to disapprove of gunslingers? Was that just Hollywood propaganda?

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