Newsgroups: soc.culture.french,talk.politics.guns,talk.politics.theory
Subject: Private Means of Violence (was re: Guns, Motorcycles, and Internet Access in Paris)
From: zeleny@husc9.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny)
Date: 19 Aug 92 11:59:35 EDT
Organization: The Phallogocentric Cabal
Keywords: guns and surrealism

In order to avoid misapprehension, I begin by stating that this agrument
concerns a matter of principle, and is not to be interpreted as an
unwarranted proposal to change the French firearms legislation.

In article <552@tls-cs.cert.fr>
maillet@tls-cs.cert.fr (Luc Maillet) writes:

>In article <1992Aug18.142525.14856@husc3.harvard.edu>,
>zeleny@husc9.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny) writes:

LM:
>>> If the "will of the people" results in madmen being allowed to buy fully
>>>functionnal assault rifles, then going in the street and shooting passers-by,
>>>then, yes, the situation requires weapon control, at the very least.
>>> And don't tell me I'm pessimistic. It happens - in USA, at least.

MZ:
>>By the same token, if "the will of the people" results in madmen being
>>allowed to subject their country to "ethnic cleansing", then, yes, the
>>situation requires weapons availability to the potential victims, at
>>the very least.
>>
>>And don't tell me I'm pessimistic.  It happened to my grandparents and
>>their parents, and it's happening now -- in Bosnia, at least.
>>
>>Finally, I prefer having to cope with the costs of liberty to paying
>>the price of blind trust in the government control.  The governments
>>have been known to throw my people to the wolves -- remember Vichy?

LM:
> Keeping firearms at home will NEVER prevent any kind of atrocities. It's
>just asking for civilian trouble. You know, many people in Bosnia and Croatia
>HAD weapons home. It prevented nothing.

This is, of course, an empirical statement, on which one has to consider
all sort of evidence.  One example would be given by the case of
Afghanistan; yet another -- by cases of urban warfare, i.e., not to mince
words, terrorism.  However, I hasten to add that I have no interest in
developing a detailed argument on history of warfare, issues of strategy,
or even existing precedent.  The fundamental issue, on which I feel we are
bound to differ, is that of human dignity, which I feel is incompatible
with the Weberian state monopoly on legitimate use of violence, just as it
would be incompatible with a state monopoly on the means of expression
(think of the two as a spectrum).  The question is not that of practicality
of armed resistance, but the indignity of not having an opportunity to
refuse unfriendly persuasion by countering it with force.  Individual
survival is most decidedly not an issue; individual dignity certainly is
one.

LM:
> The solution, the only acceptable solution is to have supranational enforce-
>-ment to prevent this sort of things from happening. It's a credo I've defen-
>-ded for long - give the UN the means to keep men together.

You are avoiding the force of my observation.  Recall that, pace Kant, a
world government has a choice between ineffectuality and tyranny.
Furthermore, I see no good reason to trust supranational powers any more
than national ones.  Once again, I wish that you would address the example
of Vichy, keeping in mind that as a matter of historical record, no
national government of the period had any interest in saving the Jews.

LM:
> And if it requires total weapon restrictions for civilians, i'd be more than
>happy to comply. I, for one, would never want to live in a country where the
>price for weapons availability is such that you can be shot in your own town,
>just because you somehow displeased someone who happened to have a gun, or even
>because he was violent. I live that life to cow-boys who have the skills and
>the guts to cope with it.

For the sake of argument, let me suggest that you could be killed in your
own town without a shot ever being fired.  My aunt was raped and killed by
an unarmed assailant.  Exactly what sort of recourse are you offering to
someone in her position?

LM:
>  still cordially (until someone buys a gun :-) ),

You might not want to continue this, as I have several.
	
>							Z.
>
>	"That night the word came down
>	 Ten dead in chinatown
>	 Innocent, their only crime
>	 Was being in the wrong place at the wrong time"
>
>		QUEENSRYCHE - Empire -

Comme Emile Henry a bien dit, il n'y a plus d'innocents.


cordially,
mikhail zeleny@husc.harvard.edu
"Un de mes plus grands plaisirs est de jurer Dieu quand je bande."