From: Jim Choate <ravage@ssz.com>
Date: Thu, 2 Oct 1997 08:44:37 +0800
To: cypherpunks@ssz.com (Cypherpunks Distributed Remailer)
Subject: Re: "Show me an example of terrorists using the Internet or crypto" (fwd)
Message-ID: <199710020047.TAA23239@einstein.ssz.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text



Forwarded message:

> Date: Wed, 1 Oct 1997 16:20:11 -0400 (EDT)
> From: Cynthia Brown <cynthb@sonetis.com>
> Subject: Re: "Show me an example of terrorists using the Internet or crypto"

> I agree wholeheartedly.  Uncontrolled guns do not solve problems, they 
> create them.  If most households have at least one firearm, it makes it 
> that much easier for a criminal to obtain one by stealing yours while you 
> are at work.

Most households in the US do have firearms, most criminals don't steal guns
they buy them from the underground. If they do steal them they sell them
pretty quickly afterward. Very few gun crimes in the US are committed with
stolen guns, or guns stolen by the possessor at the time of the shooting.

> Canada may be regulated to death according to most libertarians, but I for
> one like it that way.  I can walk alone and unarmed at night in Ottawa,
> Toronto, etc. without fearing for my life.  Can a female resident of
> Washington or New York say the same?  Our schools do not have metal detectors
> at the entrances because they are not needed. 

Bullshit, they have muggings and such there just like everywhere else. Are
you seriously claiming that sort of stuff doesn't happen? The schools here
in Austin don't either. Most schools in the US don't have this sort of
stuff. 

> 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, and
> improved day care so single parents can show their kids what a productive
> lifestyle looks like.  This takes longer than blowing the brains out of some
> teenager that feels his only path to a better life is through crime, and it
> doesn't give the same adrenalin rush.  However, it works at the source of
> crime, and not the consequences. 

The way to fight crime is to stop putting 1st time offenders, drug offenses,
non-violent crimes, etc. in jails AND to make consensual crimes non-crimes
like they ethicaly should be. We have over a million people in jail in the
US, more than any other country, the vast majority of whom shouldn't be in
jail because what they did shouldn't be a crime.


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