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Date:      Tue, 28 Mar 2000 00:55:16 +0000 (GMT)
From:      Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com>
To:        crh@outpost.co.nz (Craig Harding)
Cc:        adam@whizkidtech.net (G. Adam Stanislav), chat@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Oh no. The Guns Debate (was Re: On "intelligent people" and "dangers to
Message-ID:  <200003280055.RAA07427@usr06.primenet.com>
In-Reply-To: <38DDD723.C01AD233@outpost.co.nz> from "Craig Harding" at Mar 26, 2000 09:23:47 PM

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> > Criminals would be less likely to commit violent crimes if they expected
> > most people to be armed and trained.
> 
> So the solution for schoolyard gun massacres is for *all* kids to be
> armed at all times?

No.  Enforcement of the existing laws, which make it illegal for
someone under the age of 18 to carry a firearm would be enough.
Arming all the teachers might have a bit of a chilling effect on
kids bringing illegally obtained (the only way a kid can get a
gun in the U.S. is illegally) guns to school.

Arizona has a unconcealed carry, making it explicitly legal to
carry a gun in public, and a small percentage of people take
advantage of that to walk around with guns on their hips.  The
state of Arizona has one of the lowest violent crime rates of
any U.S. state.

Building metal detectors into the door frames might be a good
start.  How often are there firearm incidents in U.S. commercial
aircraft these days?  Let's put it another way: I can't remember
the last U.S. hijacking, but I certainly remember the last British
one.


> Fundamentally, you seem to be arguing for an arms race. The enemy
> (criminals) have guns, therefore we need guns. I'd argue that human
> history would demonstrate that such an arms race is not an effective
> process, except to the arms manufacturers.

When you have stable entities operating out of enlightened self
interest, an arms race stabilizes the situation considerably.
Without nuclear weapons, for example, the U.S. and Russia would
most certainly have come to blows, and there wouldn't have been
any "cold" in "the cold war".

In games theory, this is called a "mutual security game".  The
mathematics _proves_ it works.


> Frankly, the fervor americans show for gun ownership in the face of such
> overwhelming levels of gun-inspired violence is literally
> incomprehensible. From where I stand it can only be explained as some
> kind of national mental illness, or something in the water.

Switzerland.  That's always a very good counterexample when anyone
tries to link the availability of guns to gun violence.  They are
orthogonal.

Also, the death rate from suicide and murder in _all_ European
countries is in excess of that in the U.S..  See the C.I.A.
world fact book for current statistics.  The overall unnatural
death rate in the U.S. has been dropping, and is well below
that of most other first and second world countries.

I think we just have too many "reality" shows on televiaion, and
that makes us think that these incidents are common, when really
they are the exception, not the rule.  Sensationalism by people
who pretend they are journalists and read a series of 3 minute
"news bites" is almost as shameful as the people who reward them
for this idiocy by watching them.


					Terry Lambert
					terry@lambert.org
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.



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