From: osan@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (Mr. X)
Subject: Re: For gun control? No not really.
Organization: Twilight Zone
Distribution: usa
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 21:21:57 GMT

In article <MERRITT.92Dec22092527@macro.bu.edu> merritt@macro.bu.edu (Sean Merritt) writes:
>In article <1992Dec18.203300.29575@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU> andy@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (Andy Freeman) writes:
>
>   >Being only 18 he would have had more trouble getting a six pack.
>
>&   Not close.  Then again, I note that coke is rather easy to get despite
>&   the legal restrictions, so ....
>
>So what? When was the last time someone use "coke" as a high speed
>projectile to kill someone? What's your point?

	I believe his point was that despite the fact that coke is
	illegal in the extreme, anyone can still get it.  Legislation
	has done nothing to mitigate the 'drug' problem and indeed
	has done much to augment it.
>
>
>I am certainly considering it. What type of gun should I buy?

	Depends on what you want to do with it.
>
>
>I believe that the proability of being shot is too high. There must
>be an environmental change;
>
>1) restrict gun availability

	No can do.  It technically undoable, from a practical standpoint.
>
>2) restrict ammunition availabilty

	Ditto per above. All I need is some basic machine tools and I can
	become my very own firearms manufacturer.  A little nitric acid
	and some cotton and I can make gunpowder by the ton.  If I want
	to get really crazy, I can buy a surplus Swiss screw machine and
	turn out 10K++ pieces of cartridge brass a day.  I can cast or
	swage bullets by the tens of thousands.  Primers are just as easily
	made.  So tell me honestly, HOW on God's green earth would you or
	anyone be able to eliminate guns?  What about the nearly 200
	MILLION guns already in the hands of Americans?  Do you think
	they would just say "oh gee, uh... OK, sure... here you go..."?

	
>
>3) allow people to create communities where the *can* control
>   guns and their use.

	If those folk can control guns, why not knives or speech?  Where
	do you draw the line?  I can fashion a deadly weapon from a
	single sheet of paper.  If you doubt me, I will gladly come to
	your home and kill you with one (just kidding).  Shall we ban
	paper?  I can kill you with any combination of several thousand
	different commonly available toxins.  Shall we ban these?

	I have a question for you: you say that you find the probability of 
	being too high.  What exactly do you mean by this?  What measure
	would be acceptable?  In what context do you speak?
>
>I don't intend to shock anyone. If the creation of autonomous
>Anarcho-Capitalist zones shocks you, sorry. Jail me? Because
>I'm niether a Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal?
>I am a Anarcho-Capitalist that believes Social Engineering is
>possible. 

	Uh... gee pardon me but the term Anarcho-Capitalist sounds like it
	means a capitalist entity that is not governed.  Am I correct, or
	is this a piece of jargon whose meaning has no real connection to
	the apparent meanings of its root elements?  If I am correct, then
	the idea of a group of people passing regulations in a community
	(i.e. governing the community) seems to be in direct conflict with
	the idea of Anarcho-Capitalism.  I could see this working only if
	all regulations were passed by unanimous decisions among all the
	members of the community.  Any community with populations greater
	than one will find this impossible to successfully implement without
	MAJOR exceptions that would be at variance with the theory of
	operation for such a place.  In that case, you have missed the goal
	miserably, so why bother?

	WRT "social engineering", OK fine, as long as the engineering goes
	along MY line of values.  What?  No can do?  Hmmm, OK, then whose
	values do we use?  Oh, so sorry, I am thoroughly opposed to his
	values and will not have then imposed upon my life, sorry.  To
	emplace one persons/groups set of values in preference to another's
	is to imply that one set is of superior merit than the others.
	
	Seems many history books refers to this as fascism and Nazism.  Shall
	we fight over this?  Are you and persons like yourself going to
	force me to fight for my values?  I will if you make me.  I will
	kill you and all like you that stand in my way to preserve my rights.

	See? things get real sticky when you fuck with peoples' lives.  People
	kill each other over stuff like this every day, all over the world
	(witness Israel and the Palestinians).  Tread on people and your life
	will NEVER be secure.  Be tolerant, with the understanding that you
	don't mess with certain aspect of each others' lives and life becomes
	much more enjoyable.  The crazies will always be there, gun control
	or no gun control.  You cannot legislate them or their actions away.
	It is IMPOSSIBLE.  The best you can do is be as prepared as possible,
	whatever that may mean for you.

	Please forgive me for saying so, but I get the distinct impression
	that you (and most gun control sorts) want the world to be made safe 
	FOR you; that you do not want to take responsibility for your own 
	safety; that you want to freely exercise the right to stumble through 
	the days of your life in an oblivious fog without any risk of having to
	pay the consequences of such foolishness.  Well, I agree you have the
	right to blunder from one day to the next and to refuse to make 
	yourself aware of what is going on around you or to become capable of 
	dealing with danger, but you cannot, by any means whatsoever, whether 
	legislative or otherwise, do so and reasonably expect to be safe.
	
	And more to the point, you do not have any right whatsoever to impose
	your reactionary solutions to your fears upon me, especially given 
	that I pose no threat to a person such as yourself.  Indeed, to try
	to impose such things onto others is to make them your enemy.  As
	long a someone does not war on you, I see no reason to do so on them,
	lest you invite disaster into your life.

	We can argue rights all day long, but in the end it comes down to
	power and to whether or not people will allow you to impose unwanted
	changes upon their lives, free of charge.  In case you have not studied
	any history or watch the news, folks fight back against this all the
	time, often with great success, so be careful what it is you wish for.
	
>Your stance is to compel me to gamble with my life. 

	Oh yes?  Please demonstrate.

>I put no such impositions
>on you. 

	 I am afraid you are quite incorrect here.  You wish to deny me the
	means to arm myself such that I might defend myself and others, 
	including my community and nation against the manifold dangers that
	exist and cannot be eliminated from this world.  I simply will not
	allow you or other like-minded to do this to me.  If it comes down
	to a struggle of power, you'd better be prepared to put your life
	on the line, because I will be loaded for bear and so will tens
	of millions of other Americans.  Better that you make peace with your
	neighbors, IMO.  No fight, no blame.


>Infact all I ask is to join with others who think as I do and create a sane 
>and safe enviromnet.

	Fine.  Question is, how do you do this?  What constitutes "safe and
	sane"?  I am certain you have more brains than to believe you can
	eliminate violence from this world.  Violence  and danger come part and
	parcel with peace and safety.  They cannot be eliminated, one in 
	preference to the other.  That's similar to wanting functioning human
	beings without viscera, bones and skeletal structure, but only with
	skin.  Doesn't work that way.

	Your problem may be that you are too afraid.  This is what it
	sounds like.

	-Andy V.