X-Ftn-To: Bruce Mills 

aj233@freenet.hamilton.on.ca (Bruce Mills) wrote:
>: This is necessary. 
>: However, the
>: general population has no need for guns, because if they need
>: protection from the criminals, they have the police, 
>
>Unfortunately, some court cases in the States have proven that the police
>have no responsibility or requirement to protect any given individual at
>any given time. They are there to protect "the public peace".  

This is, of course, true. But, they protect the public peace by
providing a safe general environment, and in most cases this is
enough. Nobody can protect _everybody_, people are mortal beings and
they all eventually die. In a generally safe environment you are much
more likely to get killed by slipping in the tub, or by being hit by a
car, than by being intentionally or accidentally shot. It is only when
the probability of getting shot becomes so high, that people feel
unsafe in their daily activities, when we can talk about compromised
public peace. It is police's job not to allow this. However, if the
society in general doesn't work, and produces ghettos and slums that
in turn produce crime and violence, then even the police can't do much
about it, and if such things are prominent, the state will probably
collapse. In _this_ situation, it would be really wise to actually own
a weapon, because it's every man for himself, and against all others.
However, if it came to this, I would probably prefer death to such
life.

>Besides,
>criminals are not stupid - they know enough to select their victims, and
>the time, and the place, and make fairly certain that the police are *not*
>around before committing their crimes.

Yes, that's the reason why the jails are empty, because the criminals
are so smart they never get caught in the act. ;)

>: and if the
>: country is attacked by some hostile neighbor or whatever, this should
>: be the job of the army. And of course, the army _should_ be well
>: trained and equipped with weapons, _unlike_ the civillian population.
>
>Ok, but who makes up "the army"?  It is the civilian population, is it
>not?  By the time some enemy attacks you, you don't have the luxury of
>training new crops of recruits wholesale, and I don't know of many
>countries that can afford to keeep a standing army around doing nothing
>all day, in case of attack.   So, the only answer is, to allow the
>civilian population to have arms, and to train in their use.

This is brimming with logical fallacies. 
The army consists of the state's citizens, armed and trained, and at
the time when citizens are members of the army, they are not the
civilian population, but a military force. During that time, they are
allowed and demanded to use the weapons against the enemy, and to do
so within the chain of command. However, when they are no longer in
the army, they become the civilians, leaving their weapons and
returning to their normal civilian activities. 
And, being trained in the use of weapons is one thing, and owning
weapons is something completely different. For instance, I am trained
in the use of weapons, I can disassemble and assemble a rifle
blindfolded, but I don't own a weapon and I hope I never will.
However, in case of war, I could be enlisted as a soldier and use the
gun against the enemies. This is not that difficult to understand.

>: Otherwise, we would have a militarized society, which nobody needs,
>
>Tell that to Israel.  

Israel is a military state surrounded by hostile countries, and the
entire population must be in a state of constant combat readiness.

>Tell that to Switzerland.

Switzerland is an extremely peaceful country filled with traditional
legalists. You could give those people all the weapons you want, and
they would just take them to the attic and never use them. 

>: because more weapons result in less safety which in turn increases the
>: need for weapons. This is a magical circle that can be broken only by
>: removing the weapons from the civillians and restricting them to the
>: professionals.
>
>This is *your* "magical circle" that you have dreamed up from somewhere.
>You cannot prove a causal relationship between "more weapons" and "less
>safety".  If there *were*, Switzerland would be awash in blood by now.

AFAIK, in Switzerland people don't have weapons because they fear for
their safety, but because the state assigned them weapons in case of a
war; BTW, Switzerland doesn't even have the army, so this is probably
a logical thing to do. So, both Switzerland and Israel are bad
examples, because in neither case is the possession of weapons a
result of mass hysteria and paranoia, as it is in the USA; in both
cases it is a part of a national defense strategy. It all seems to be
a matter of psychology.

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