Date sent: Mon, 07 Jun 1999 17:14:08 -0400 From: "Michael S. Lorrey" <mike@lorrey.com> Organization: http://lorrey.com http://artlocate.com To: extropians@extropy.com Subject: Re: Better people Send reply to: extropians@extropy.com
> "Joe E. Dees" wrote:
>
> > Date sent: Mon, 07 Jun 1999 10:48:52 -0400
> > From: "Michael S. Lorrey" <mike@lorrey.com>
> > > > Kind of my point. Shouldn't we be working out how to achieve this,
> > > > rather than promoting access to weaponry?
> > > > I see offensive/defensive capability as a sidetrack on the path to
> > > > transhumanism, myself.
> > >
> > > Until we have acheived this, everyone should be able to protect themselves as they see fit.
> > >
> > I see fit to protect myself by, among other things, striving to keep
> > guns out of insane, violent and otherwise irresponsible hands.
> > >
> > > Governments are not empowered to protect us. Abdicting the responsibility before attaining the
> > > new ability is shortsighted and illogical.
> > >
> > > > > > Well, no shit, sherlock.
> > > > > > I would FAR RATHER discuss technologies which would develop people's
> > > > > > self-control and reason such that they are CAPABLE of handling such
> > > > > > technologies. Humans nowadays are barely evolved past monkey stage, and
> > > > > > I'm usually not at all convinced that we have gone beyond monkeys.
> > > > > > Especially en masse.
> > > > >
> > > > > Well that is a very politically incorrect topic.
> > > >
> > > > I have no real interest in the political actions people ascribe to my
> > > > ideas, I just think them, and out they come. If people don't like what I
> > > > say, it's the key between 's' and 'f'
> > > >
> > > > > Before we can do very much about the
> > > > > situation we have to realize that:
> > > > >
> > > > > 1. Some people are much better/smarter than other people.
> > > >
> > > > Guns make no distinction at all in this regard. Dead is dead.
> > >
> > > That is true. Dead is dead, no matter whether you are the criminal or the victim, but there is a
> > > qualitative difference between which is still alive after a crime is commited and which is not.
> > >
> > Yeah; in 96% of the homicides, the dead person is the innocent
> > victim. All the more reason to remove guns from criminals' hands.
>
> Since 90% were actually other criminals, I don't see it as such a bad thing. Not all victims are
> innocent.
>
> > > >
> > > > > 2. Most of that difference is genetic.
> > > >
> > > > True.
> > > >
> > > > > 3. Despite the fact that the education industry is one of the biggest industries in the
> > > > > country, education technology is still in the stone age (it is not very useful).
> > > >
> > > > Absolutely. These are the areas we should be discussing, not the
> > > > ability or otherwise to shoot people.
> > >
> > > Untill you have a solution, stop denigrating those of us with our fingers in the dike.
> > >
> > Maybe your fingers are in the dike personally, but you're defending
> > the perpetuation of a societal flood of gun-related homicide at the
> > trigger-happy hands of people who shouldn't even have guns in
> > theirs in the first place.
>
> No I'm not. I'm pointing out what the proper and legal way is required under the Constitution to enact
> the means of preventing criminals and other incompetents from getting guns. I'm also pointing out that
> the system we have in place which satisfies all of your demands (but is unconstitutional because it is
> statutory and exceeds delegated authority) is currently widely abused by the government AND criminals
> are getting guns, largely from police as a matter of corruption and civilians who are irresponsible.
> I'm also pointing out historical referents, especially the Nazi Weapons Law, which is what our own gun
> control laws are largely based on, to illustrate that gun control laws are always the means by which
> human rights abusers are able to perpetrate their crimes, and are usually freely elected or otherwise
> popularly gain their position. I am rather disturbed at your blanket refusal to even consider this
> evidence as a cautionary note against letting government determine how and who can defend themselves.
>
Governments, Hell! You would not even want my proposals to
come up for a popular vote, because you fear that they would pass,
and the insane, underage and criminally violent would be forbidden
by law from buying guns. You just want your free-spending NRA to
be able to buy enough state or federal legislators to preserve the
rights of kids, the crazy and the violent to buy weapons, for as long
as they continue to get them, the threat they pose will serve to
push other people into purchasing weapons who otherwise would
not do so. I'm sure the manufacturers just love such a stand,
which is why they and the gun shops and gun shows are all too
willing to find ways, legal or otherwise, to provide free and
unfettered access of quick and efficient means of long-range mass
murder to the most irresponsible among us. They are cynically
playing both sides; arming the very threat against which other
peopler are then told they must arm themselves. You have
unapologetically lied about me by claiming that I made a statement
which I didn't make (some stupid and slanderous slur about the
divorced being forbidden weapons); considering your willingness to
employ blatant falsehoods in a self-serving effort to stigmatize my
position, why should any assertion of your allegedly noble motives
hold a drop of water now?
>
> Mike Lorrey
>
>