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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Grainne who wrote (13498)	11/5/1997 12:33:00 AM
From: Skipper	Respond to of 108807

Christine, "What is the real danger of a more peaceful, less-armed society?" What is the danger of being a sheep among wolves? Skipper

To: Grainne who wrote (13498)	11/5/1997 12:49:00 PM
From: Jacques Chitte	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

>>Let's just imagine for a moment a society like Canada, with no long history of citizens bearing arms, and much lower incidences of gun crimes. I was under the impression that the avg. Canadian citizen had a real rough time buying a gun. But I don't have facts in my hands, so I can't mount a meaningful reply. Talk to me about Canada: what provisions are made up North to protect legit gun owners? >>What is the real danger of a more peaceful, less-armed society?< A State-mandated reduction of the private citizen's options, for all the wrong reasons. Show me that the State can reduce street crime to the degree that each&every incident becomes newsworthy. Also show me that 911 response time is shortened to the time it takes me to get my .45 and offer resistance to an uninvited...guest. Once these two conditions are met...let's talk. Until then, I will powerfully resent a government which wants to take away a right it expressly gave me without giving me value in return. I feel that there is a disconnect between "more peaceful" and "less armed". I'm looking on increasing the peace without fingering guns as the Culprit. I suspect it goes deeper than that, and I simply won't turn in my guns on some future promise of civil mellowness. I don't trust our gov't enough. Insistence on owning arms: one perspective. Why did I buy some of my guns? Because I can!!! The concept of being allowed to buy&own firearms sorta stunned& fascinated me once I began to live on my own. I've grown comfy with the idea of gun ownership. I've grown technically enamored of guns and their ammunition, and it'll take more than some far-from-universally-accepted arguments about social evolution to make me relinquish those privileges and the ~$ 10 000 I have tied up in guns. This isn't a slap at gunshunners, but a plea to recognize that the basic premises of both sides are fraught with logic traps. I think you know by now that I'm not an irascible sort with fantasies of rescuing damsels by dint of my machinegunmanship. Nor am I a (fill in the blank) supremacist waiting for the inevitable showdown with a corrupt Government from my Idaho stronghold. While I see the wisdom in aligning my thinking with the needs of the community, I live in a country which is founded upon the ideal of the independently responsible citizen. Giving up my legally-owned guns would be symbolic of a failure of the basic premise of the USA, for me. One jail cell for each convict. Expensive, yes. The bond issue boggles the mind. But it would be money well-spent imho: crimes of opportunity based on the assumption that the system is too strained to take the crime seriously...this sh#t happens daily. I see no other decent way to staunch that. Education will help, but the fatal flaw of any education campaign is that it presupposes the willingness of the target individuals (whoever they are) to be educated, and to apply the lessons. Indirect. Let's concentrate, in the interim, on fighting crime at its source: the myriad individual acts of crime, each of which deserves a trial, and if a conviction obtains, the full sentence without half-baked apologies for lacking infrastructure. Hoo doggies! I'm wearing a shiny spot into the soapbox.