Re: Opium [was: Re: freelance sysadmining -- superlong -- [WAS: "Red Hat recommends Windows for consumers"]]
On Fri, 2003-11-14 at 15:41, ScruLoose wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 14, 2003 at 02:09:27PM -0600, Ron Johnson wrote:
> > On Fri, 2003-11-14 at 12:41, donw@examen.com wrote:
> > > On Fri, Nov 14, 2003 at 01:35:20PM -0500, Alfredo Valles wrote:
> > > >
> > > > I don't think they will do so well with the number of guns you have in the
> > > > streets, bullets don't distinguish Ph degrees.
> > >
> > > PhDs and brains don't go hand-in-hand; part of being smart is knowing
> > > how to work within whatever cultural limitations you must; in the case
> > > of firearm-owning Americans, you just need to be smart enough not to not
> > > get on their bad side. Social engineering at its most useful.
> >
> > There are roughly 40M handguns in this country, and quite a number
> > of states have "right to carry concealed handgun" laws. If the
> > vast majority of people had such a low level of self-control, we
> > should see, for example, multiple Columbines[1] on a daily basis.
> > Since we don't, what conclusion can we draw from this?
>
> Well, when you look at the US figures on "firearm-related fatalities"
> being up in the tens of thousands per year...
> compared to (for example) Canada with a couple of hundred per year (and
> tight gun control laws, what a bizarre coincidence)...
> http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/994015/posts
>
> I realize that Canada has about one-tenth the population of USA, but
> that still gives you per-capita rates that say Americans are somewhere
> on the order of ten _times_ as likely to blow each other away.
>
> Does it take "multiple Columbines on a daily basis" to constitute a
> problem?
> Somewhere close to a hundred Americans blow each other away _per_day_
> and you want this to lead me to the conclusion that things are okay?
And...
- most are done with hot weapons
- most are "criminal-on-criminal"
I'd rather not live in a nanny state, and take my chance, however
minimal they are, in a slightly more anarchic society.
--
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Ron Johnson, Jr. ron.l.johnson@cox.net
Jefferson, LA USA
"...always eager to extend a friendly claw"
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