From: alexlh@xs4all.nl (Alex Le Heux)
Date: Thu, 2 Oct 1997 18:06:53 +0800
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Subject: Re: "Show me an example of terrorists using the Internet or crypto"
In-Reply-To: <199710011942.VAA09393@basement.replay.com>
Message-ID: <343378d6.34441147@smtp.xs4all.nl>
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On 1 Oct 1997 23:06:24 +0200, in list.cypherpunks you wrote:


>Alex Le Heux wrote:
>>You people just don't get it do you? A gun has one purpose: To
>>kill. Just like any other tool, a gun, if it is available _will_ be
>>used at some point.
>
>Although guns are obviously designed for killing things, this does
not
>mean that they will be used.  This can be seen from the statistics.
>There are far fewer murders than there are guns.  Almost all of them
>are never used for killing someone.

You can't deny that the more guns there are available, the more people
will get shot. There may be some people that are capable of owning a
gun and using it wisely (ie. not), but I don't believe that this is a
significant fraction of any population.

>You are also not considering the case where one person has a gun and
>another does not.  The situation is more stable if both people are
>armed.  (And don't claim you are talking about disarming a whole
>society.  You aren't, just part of it.)

Urgl? The situation only becomes more explosive if both sides are
armed. Look at the arms race, which is now, thank god, over. I am
amazed at the amount of restraint both sides displayed during that
time, although it's been really close a few times.

It's really simple: If there are no guns, no one will get shot.

I _am_ talking about disarming a population. I don't know which 'it'
I'm not part of, but I am definately not part of the 'it' that
promotes death by gunshot.

>>So making sure there are lots of guns around only serves to make a
>>lot of people very dead. This is a Bad Thing.
>
>Depends who they are.  Bet the Dutch resistance made good use of
their
>weaponry, eh?

Even if they did, dead people are still a Bad Thing. We had no quarrel
with the soldiers the resistance killed. Neither did most of them had
any quarrel with us. Just like the US troopers in Vietnam or some
other place.

>>In the US, where guns are tradition and part of the American way,
>>many people would not think twice before shooting someone.
>
>This is simply untrue.  TV and movies are not the best way to form an
>understanding of another country.

Ok, you have a point there. Only it's not TV and movies (I don't have
a TV), it's reading the Cypherpunks list too often :)

>>The result of this is that the number of people getting killed by
>>guns is enourmous, be they criminals, little kids, old grannies, or
>>presidents.
>
>I read recently that 9000 people a year die in the United States from
>food poisoning.  This should be almost entirely preventable.  Why
>isn't this a big political issue?  Could it be that the people
pushing
>gun control do not have entirely pure motives?
>
>Be aware that the gun control lobby has often used misleading
>statistics.  For instance, you will hear a lot about "handgun
deaths".
>It turns out that most of these are suicides.  While undesirable,
most
>people perceive a difference between somebody killing themselves and
a
>nutcase doing his thing at a school.

I am not the gun control lobby, I am a citizen in a mostly gun-free
society, and glad of it. People getting shot here, be it robbery,
suicide, police violence or self defence is a rare occurence.

Over her, drive-by shootings are something from fairy tales.

Alex

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