X-Ftn-To: Jeffrey C. Dege 

jdege@jdege.visi.com (Jeffrey C. Dege) wrote:
>>>And if they hadn't been able to obtain weapons, things would have been
>>>peacable?
>>
>>Definitely so, because that's how it used to be while the guns were
>>extremely hard to find. 
>
>So you think that Croatia was perfectly peaceful and safe, and then some
>evil force imported all those guns and the society exploded into chaos.

Nope. Actually, I believe that it was full of people who were ready
and willing to commit violence, and who sometimes did just that, but
the consequences were less dramatic because they weren't armed with
anything effective. However, I read the papers today; a drunk idiot
slaughtered a 17-year old kid with a broken bottle, without
provocation. 
Things like that always happened. But, there are other news articles,
like, people using AK-47 assault rifles, hand grenades and "Wasps" for
settling scores. _That_ didn't happen before the war - never. They
only had broken bottles and knives.

>>>In a world of peacable people, gun control isn't necessary.
>>
>>This is a sophism. Owning guns is a psychology thing: people feel
>>unsafe and they buy a gun and then the others feel threatened and buy
>>guns and the only result is that less people feel safe, and there's
>>more feeling of being threatened. 
>
>In other words, the problem is that you have too many people with irrational
>fears.

Exactly. 

>>However, if the general population
>>doesn't have any weapons, then the job becomes very easy for the
>>police, because those who _do_ have guns are always the dangerous
>>criminals who are often shot on sight. When the police does that, the
>>general population feels very safe and nobody needs guns, because they
>>know that the crime problem is under control.  This is what I call a
>>civilized country.
>
>It's what _I_ call a police state.  

Not at all. In a police state, the police implements the state
politics upon the general population. In other states, the police
implements the law by handling the crime.

>Shot on sight?

Well, of course.
A country where only criminals use weapons. Someone wields a gun and
threatens to shoot. The police puts a bullet through his head. Alles
in ordnung, indeed. One idiot less in the world. Mind you, not all
violence is bad; selective violence against criminals can be very
useful.

>>In an uncivilized country, the issue of
>>self-defense isn't regulated on the level of the society but on the
>>individual level. This is not a safe world at all, which caused people
>>to organize and pay a police force that would defend them, so that
>>they wouldn't have to own and use weapons. I hope that America will at
>>one point evolve to this stage.
>
>It doesn't seem likely.  It seems more likely that those societies who
>are relying on the state for all of their security, and who are trading
>off liberty and freedom for security, will eventually realize that the
>state can't guarantee their security, and that the peace they have sold
>themselves for is only temporary.

Maybe. But, then again, if you can't trust the state regarding your
safety, this usually means that it will soon break apart in a bloody
civil war.

-- 
Homepage: http://www.danijel.org