| From: | Twist0059@***.com Twist0059@***.com |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Value and so on.... |
| Date: | Sun, 25 Jul 1999 07:27:06 EDT |
kawaii@********.org writes:
> Exactly. The crooks will ALWAYS have guns, if they are legal or illegal.
> Why take another form of self defense away from the common people? Sure we
> may not have as badasss weaponry, but I'd rather fight an uzi with a
> pistol than fight a pistol with my bare hands.
>
>
> Ever lovable and always scrappy,
> kawaii
Thing is, you have classes of criminals. The criminals who break into joe
blows house are low-level street punks, and don't have access to these
majestic notions of black markets. I can't think of a single of the big
media-squeezed-for-every-commercial-dollar ratingsfest tragedies of late the
occurred with people buying from the black market. The people who do the
most damage are stupid kids and stupid adults who have no control over their
emotions and feel they can bully others into submission. They use legal
weaponary to do so, whether from Walmart or daddy's dresser.
Those guys you mentioned, the goons with guns they can get through illegal
sources are likely to be members of some form of organized crime. You kill
the couple that break into your house, the next night the thirty who arrive
turn you into a substance similar to goo. If the big bad boys come
aknockin', we're all screwed if they want us to be. It's just a matter of
when you're screwed, that being tonight or tomorrow.
So, calculating the odds, I'd say you're more likely to get wacked by joe
blow's criminal than a Triad or Mafia foot soldier or Yak hitman. And if
you're unfortunate enough to draw the latter, forget about holding at bay the
hordes of evil criminals with your 9mm and pump-action shotguns. It only
works for fictional characters, and even they occassionally die.
That said, I'd normally say, frag it, you want to go out fighting, that is
better than on your knees, I guess. But then you have people (read:
lifeforms not even as honorable as your basic animal) who turn around and use
them not for defense but revenge. Stupid kids and drunk/abusive adults. Add
up all the people killed by their average citizens in this country per year,
and I'll bet you have a higher death rate than those killed by organized
crime.
All of which puts us into an incredibly difficult situation:
1) Disarm Americans to keep them from killing each other, and thus subjugate
them to the organized crime circles.
2) Let Americans keep their guns, continue to kill each other, and at least
be able to shoot back when the mafia goons knock on your door
Pain in the fraggin' hoop. Y2K doesn't make things easier, either.
Everyone's buying guns, expecting looting and power outages, figuring they
need to protect what they have. So, worst case scenario, everything does go
to hell come Y2K. Neighbor A and Neighbor B are living off their food
supplies. Both have guns. Neighbor B runs out of food before Neighbor A.
Arguments turn to fights turn to gun muzzles. One or both have just killed
the other/each other. Good if you're the one with the food and alive, I
suppose. Bad if you're the other guy. Bad if you're both and both bullets
hit. Guns are the ultimate form of arguing. They don't continue the
argument, they don't resolve the argument, they end the argument by ending
the other guy. If neither neighbor had had guns above, they would have maybe
killed each other eventually, still. But why hand out a machine that has no
other purpose than to kill if you still hold the notion of peace and human
compassion? Both neighbors had a right to eat. This isn't organized crime,
this isn't Hitler, this isn't a government revolution that Joe Blow will stop
with his Mossberg. This isn't an America of scattered colonies and
omnipresent British invasion. I know guys in the military, and I trust them
to keep my borders safe. I have friends who are cops, and I trust them to
keep me safe.
And the greatest irony of all. Yes, I have guns, and so does everyone I
know. Those of us who will never commit a crime, kill for passion, or kill
for hate have to have them because everyone else has them. It's too bad we
never truly learned the meaning of mutually assured destruction.
-Twist
"Soylent Green is people."
