From: Bill Stewart <stewarts@ix.netcom.com>
Date: Thu, 2 Oct 1997 17:42:14 +0800
To: Cynthia Brown <alexlh@yourchoice.nl>
Subject: [GUNS] Re: "Show me an example of terrorists using the Internet or crypto"
In-Reply-To: <Mutt.19971001191622.alexlh@sarah.yc>
Message-ID: <3.0.3.32.19971002000649.006db3a8@popd.ix.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



[Guns aren't really a cypherpunks topic, though the below-mentioned
clueless power-hungry terrorists do use the Internet and crypto
to help maintain their position relative to their victims and to
other competing clueless power-hungry terrorists.]

>Uncontrolled guns do not solve problems, they create them.  

I used to take the traditional U.S. Liberal-Statist view that Guns Are Bad,
and Guns Need Controlling.  But the way Americans and Europeans control guns
is to hire a bunch of armed thugs and use them to terrorize the population
into giving these people their guns and not buying more.  And, well,
I decided it was pretty hypocritical to hire armed thugs to take away
peoples' guns at gunpoint.  I had to give up that position.
(A Conservative-Statist wouldn't have any contradiction - the rabble
can't be trusted with guns, so we'll take them away at gunpoint,
and we'll be safer.  Trust us.  Or we'll shoot you too.  No problem :-)

Now, if the Amish want to do gun control, it's a different story.
If people want to keep around guns for killing people, 
keep talking to them about it until they reform, and if that doesn't work,
_stop_ talking to them until they reform.  No hypocrisy, no problem.

>IMNSHO the best way to fight crime is not with bigger guns than the "bad
>guys", but with better social programs such as universal health care, 

Those things are fine, but one of the big reasons people shoot each other
in this country is fighting over the money involved in the Black Market
for drugs.  After all, in a War On <whatever>, you can't expect one side
to do all the shooting.  All this crime and violence over drugs with a
free-market value of <$3/day for coke and <$1/day for heroin.  
You'd think the people in power are either ravingly clueless or they 
like Power for its own sake.  And you certainly shouldn't trust either
the clueless or the power-greedy to do the right thing with guns...

>improved day care so single parents can show their kids what a productive
>lifestyle looks like.  
....
>Cynthia, unrepentant bleeding-heart liberal
The traditional solution to day care was people taking care of each 
other's kids, either within the family or their neighbors, at home.  
Do-gooder liberals have made this more difficult by making laws mandating
quality control over day care, government certification for day care workers,
and safety certifications that the average home has trouble getting.
So the single parent can't show their kids a productive lifestyle by
taking care of the neighbors' kids for money, which would also free up
the neighbors to work.  And it's not just single parents who do this,
it's married women whose husbands aren't making enough to support them
in an Ozzie&Harriet lifestyle.

I do agree with you that blowing away the neighbor's teenager who's
trying to steal you TV isn't a good thing.  If it's just the kid,
he'll be gone before your police get there, and if it's someone dangerous
you may not have a chance to call them.  I keep a fire-extinguisher
by the bed, not only for fires, but for shooting first, asking questions
later, and clubbing them with as a fallback.  :-)  On the other hand,
back when I lived in Jersey, one of those grannies y'all were worried about
was on the front page of her local paper holding her pistol --
"Police?  Are you kidding?  They don't come to _my_ neighborhood, 
it's too dangerous!"
				Thanks!
					Bill
Bill Stewart, stewarts@ix.netcom.com
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