genocide

Anton Sherwood (dasher@netcom.com)
Wed, 17 Sep 1997 18:47:17 -0700 (PDT)


: At 18:37 15-09-97 Anton Sherwood dasher@netcom.com wrote:
: >Peru -- President Fujimori issues rifles to the peasants.
: >The murderous Maoist movement known as Shining Path disappears.

Arjen Kamphuis <mountain@knoware.nl> writes
: Anton, I hope you're not still upset about my 'gun-control' post of
: several weeks ago. I do not think we're going to agree on this soon,
: but I respect your position.

Upset? Hardly. I can't spend every day being upset about
the fact that millions of people are wrong about guns.
And I did not remember who was my opponent in that mini-debate.

About genocides, you said, "Technology does not help here."
But in Peru it did. Where once wealth or physical strength
meant the ability to dominate the poor and the scrawny, the
technology of portable firearms lets small, poor, unskilled
people defend themselves, individually, even standing a good
chance against superior numbers (the defender's advantage).
As a cure for genocide I have more faith in that than in
all the sermons and all the "caring" in the world.

: The reason I didn't mention Shining Path scum was that I did not have
: accurate data on them. In this particular case I agree with you that
: allowing the peasants to defend themselves could help to some extend.
: Personally I would have prefered the Peruvian Army hunting them down
: but that seemed non-feasable.

A few days ago you gave us a list of mega-murders, all(?) carried out
by men in uniform. (Unorganized mobs sometimes go on murderous rampages,
but I'm not aware of any that went on for years - unless they had
official sponsors.) And yet you prefer organized proactive violence
to individual defensive violence.

Anton Sherwood *\\* +1 415 267 0685 *\\* DASher@netcom.com