Post #157,690
5/30/04 11:27:01 AM
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Oakland calling
admin observes If you magically took away all the guns I think stabbings and beatings would probably rise precipitously. A type of slaying we see* with some dreary regularity here involves the undiscriminating fusillade discharged from a passing vehicle, intended variously as a corrective to injured honor or as a measure to restrain commercial competition but not infrequently leaving the intended target standing while taking out the odd passer-by (church deacon, schoolchildren, grocer sweeping sidewalk). I cannot recall offhand any incidents of hurled knives impaling bystanders, or of persons bludgeoned by mistake, in the nearly three decades I've been living here. cordially, ____________________________ *The we who see are of course not generally to be found in Oakland's tonier districts—there are several—but rather in the seedier, swarthier parts of town where sensible yuppies do not tread. Die Welt ist alles, was der Fall ist.
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Post #157,694
5/30/04 11:35:56 AM
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just be glad they are not using grenades or suicide bombers
Ya think the Israelis have not imposed gun controls in the Palestinian areas? Or the brits in northern ireland? Gee doesnt work except to disarm the law abiding.
thanx,
bill
Time for Lord Stanley to get a Tan
questions, help? [link|mailto:pappas@catholic.org|email pappas at catholic.org]
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Post #157,696
5/30/04 11:39:09 AM
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Whatever, Box.
32000 people died in 1999 in the USA in gun-related incidents.
Thirty Two Thousand.
In ONE year.
It took 30 years of sectarian violence and terrorism to rack up 3000 dead folk in NI.
Private gun ownership transcends the "your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose" because with no effort at all, someone can ensure that I privately own 9 millimetres of lead in my skull from 100 metres.
Peter
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Post #157,697
5/30/04 11:41:14 AM
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gee the guy that does that is
a pretty decent shot, with a pistol at any rate.
thanx,
bill
Time for Lord Stanley to get a Tan
questions, help? [link|mailto:pappas@catholic.org|email pappas at catholic.org]
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Post #157,764
5/30/04 8:12:33 PM
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I'd say that's part of the problem.
With a knife, club, sword, etc. - it's pretty hard to hit the wrong target.
If you're a crappy shot, you're just as likely to plug the guy next to the guy you're trying to shoot.
(I'm not weighing in on this discussion one way or the other. The real problem is that the potential to destroy is increasing at a greater rate than the ability to protect - and that curve scales down to the individual level.)
Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain.
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you.
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.
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Post #157,767
5/30/04 8:38:11 PM
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Um, I must pick that nit.
Thane writes:
The real problem is that the potential to destroy is increasing at a greater rate than the ability to protect - and that curve scales down to the individual level.
Um, when has it not been that way? E.g. Mausolous's [link|http://techcenter.davidson.k12.nc.us/fall025/ancient/maus.htm|tomb] of circa 350 B.C. was one of the wonders of the world. It was [link|http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&safe=off&selm=%2Bsvhtsd%40lynx.unm.edu|burned to make lime for mortar].
It's always been easier to break things and hurt people than to do great things and protect. It may seem easier now that there's so much industrial infrastructure, but little has really changed in at least the last 2500 years. In any society, destruction is easier than construction, killing people is easier than protecting them from harm.
Cheers,
Scott.
(And no you may not call me [link|http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=pollyanna|Pollyanna].)
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Post #157,771
5/30/04 9:05:22 PM
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No argument there.
The problem isn't that it's easier to destroy - it's that the amount of destruction that an individual person can wield is increasing at a much greater rate than the ability to defend against that is. Firearms are becoming more accurate and more destructive. If you went amok at your workplace before firearms, you'd probably be able to kill two or three others before somebody took you down. With guns, as the Columbine Highschool massacres showed, two people can take down a LOT of people. Then we've got 9/11 - people willing to trade their own lives took 3000 lives.
All it takes to set off a nuke is one person.
As technology advances, new "improved" ways of killing people at a distance, in larger numbers, will work their way down the chain. Fewer and fewer people will be required to do the killing.
That's the real issue we need to deal with, before we get to the point that somebody builds and uses a planetbuster.
Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain.
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you.
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.
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Post #157,766
5/30/04 8:33:17 PM
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Private ownership of guns banned in Chicago
for the past 20 or so years. Look how many murders that's stopped since then...
lincoln
"Windows XP has so many holes in its security that any reasonable user will conclude it was designed by the same German officer who created the prison compound in "Hogan's Heroes." - Andy Ihnatko, Chicago Sun-Times
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