Re: WEAPONS: Non-lethal protective technologies?

mark@unicorn.com
Wed, 2 Jun 1999 06:46:24 -0700 (PDT)

Chuck Kuecker [ckuecker@mcs.net] wrote:
>Generalization time: why not prevent anyone from Joe Dee's prohibited list
>from having ANY form of weapon in public - violation to result in at least
>a mental evaluation, at worst removal from society?

Because it will leave those people defenceless and over time it will be exploited to remove weapons from the hands of everyone outside the government? Joe, for example, has told us that all Republicans should be disarmed, as in his opinion they're all mad... who gets to decide what counts as a felony, what counts as abuse, and what counts as madness?

There are two stable situations with weapon ownership: either anyone can own and carry anything they like (the traditional American ideal), or we're all locked away in padded cells under continual surveillance for our own safety (the British ideal). Any attempt to create an intermediate state will fail, with society heading towards one of the extremes; this is why we can't have a 'reasonable compromise' on this issue.

Mark