From: PA146008@utkvm1.utk.edu (David Veal)
Subject: Re: Bazooka for sale!
Organization: The University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 05:05:26 GMT

In article <1jvd0tINN8jv@werple.apana.org.au>
speednut@werple.apana.org.au (Mark Jose) writes:

>Original Message From: larryd@stein.u.washington.edu (Larry Desoto)
>
>>skronkvi@aton.abo.fi (Stefan Kronkvist INF) writes:
> .
> .
>>>I dont need a gun to protect myself,I dont feel like "they" are after me.
>>>We have gunlaws that makes it hard to get guns.Almost nobody owns handguns,
>>>so if noone else have guns,why should I need one?
>>
>>Well, it depends.  What you are advocating is a return to the jungle
>>where the most physically powerful and/or gangs run things.  A lot of
>
>I can't see how he is advocating any such thing; or am I missing
>something?

      Essentially, if you remove mechanical aids, power resides solely
in physical prowess.  A less physically powerful person will always
be at the mercy of a more physically powerful person if he has no
access to a mechanical aid.  (In this case, a gun.)

>He obviously comes from a country where the amount of personal
>violence does not dictate the need for a weapon. Good for him.

       Whether violence "dictates" the need for a weapon is an
interesting question.  My position is that the need for a weapon is
no greater in these United States than there is in Britain or Canada.
If you are the victim of a violent assault by a physically more powerful
individual, you need a weapon.  If you aren't, then you don't.  The
likelihood may vary, but not the need.  The need is 100% if it happens
to you, no matter what the numbers say the possibility is.
       People get attacked, and people get killed.  *Whole* people,
not fractions, like the statistics say.  You may be the only person
in your entire country who is attacked, but if you *are* that only
person not all the low violent crime rates in the world are going
to change that you are in need of *some* aid.

>I also
>come from such a country. His real "failure" is to recognise the
>difference in the society he lives in and the other society he
>compares it with (in this case the USA).
>
>I dare say that if I lived in the USA I would also arm myself (with a
>handgun) - something I would not even contemplate in Australia
>(besides the fact that they are illegal).

       Things are not, as some would have you believe, as awful in the
U.S. as you appear to think.  Certainly not across the entire country.
The U.S., like Australia, is a big place.  Iowa isn't the same place as
New York isn't the same place as Tennessee and shouldn't be treated
as such.  We can debate the *whys* all day long, but what nobody really
argues is that violence in the U.S. is mostly in small geographic areas,
and it's a mistake to generalize them to the rest of the country, most
of which have rates fairly comparable to elsewhere.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
David Veal    Div. of Cont. Ed. Information Services Group  UT, Knoxville
PA146008@utkvm1.utk.edu   "Of course the government and the newspapers
                          lie.  But in a democracy they're different lies."