From: Ernest Hua <hua@xenon.chromatic.com>
Date: Sat, 20 Jul 1996 14:39:11 +0800
To: Jonathon Blake <grafolog@netcom.com>
Subject: Giving 6 year old kids Uzi's (Was: Responding to Pre-dawn Unannounced Ninja Raids)
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SUN.3.95.960719073844.6676D-100000@netcom13>
Message-ID: <199607192139.OAA23712@server1.chromatic.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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> > the price of freedom of mind is a minor restriction on your personal
> > freedom, you won't be allowed a weapon either but that is the tradeoff. 
> 
> Thanks, but if it is all the same to you, I'd rather live
> in a country where everybody  << including six year olds >>
> carry, and can use Uzi's, etc, as a matter of course.

Oh my ... you aren't serious, are you?

I suspect you might be baiting ... but ...

If you can trust a six-year-old with an Uzi, I assume that you believe
the six-year-old can "properly" judge what is a threat and what isn't?
Just why do you suppose a pissed-off six-year-old (because, let's say,
another six-year-old stole his lunch) would not blast someone?

Would you just hand out guns to all teenagers?

You might have had a different childhood, but when I (and most of my
friends) were 6 (or 12 or even 18), our primary concern was having fun,
avoiding stuff we don't like (like homework), attracting females (or
males, as the case may be), attracting attention in general, avoiding
being one-upped (in conversation or in sports or otherwise) but always
on-upping someone else, ...

Oh ... and ice cream ... but that was mostly me ... most of my friends
wanted candy.

No where in this list of high priority items is respect for human life,
peace and brotherhood among mankind, end world hunger, etc ...  There
are very good historical reasons why 18 and 21 are reasonable (though
sometimes conservative) guesses at the age of maturity, responsibility
and consent.

If you are not killing someone else because they (may) have an Uzi, I
think, sooner or later, you will figure out a way to kill him before
he can pull it out.

This means that a group of 1000 KKK members will kill a group of 10
blacks due to overwhelming force.  One principle in the Constitution
(which I personally respect very much) is that a majority should not
force its views on a minority.

Incidentally, if you are interested, I DO have a child (almost 2 yrs),
and I certainly would not even contemplate letting him have a gun (no
matter how well he can use it) until he can legal get one himself.  I
will certainly invoke serious wrath (on him and anyone else involved)
if I ever found him with a gun.

By the way, would you let a 6 year old drive?  or fly?  (Assuming that
they are physical capable and trained to do such.)

Ern