"Armed citizens did not stop the Taliban and won't stop the TaliBush."
I have to disagree, at least for future security.
Unarmed passengers on Flight 93 did take over box-cutter-wielding terrorists (supposedly.. we still don't have the black box tapes, maybe they haven't finished making them), that's true. It was citizens acting like citizens, who provided more protection than all of our vaunted military and corrupt intelligence agencies combined.
However, in our neighborhoods, individuals that are armed and in neighborhood watch programs have a better chance at protecting against armed or unarmed terrorists than unarmed ones. More importantly, an armed citizenry gives government pause, before sending out the stormtroopers.
As bad as gun violence is, at this point supposed terrorism and an all-powerful government are worse threats to our personal security.
I'd be much happier with weapon-free neighborhoods, and most are. It's too early yet to disarm the "gun nuts and NRA types", who in spite of crazy rhetoric, are keeping the government just a little bit at bay. I come to that conclusion after talking with a number of law-enforcement friends, and seeing that police would like to disarm everyone.
Maybe in 50 years when technology and information science has created a stable enough world personal weapons will be irrelevant.
But having the government take those away is the wrong approach. It has to be voluntary, not government strategy.
The discipline of Swiss with national service for all 16-50 year olds two weeks a year makes the most sense, imo, for teaching skills of personal defense and safety, national defense, and socializing our diverse cultures.
This isn't a real choice - but I'd rather have guns in citizen hands than the nuclear threats coming out of our insane administration, which threaten our citizens more than anything so far. |
