Re: Guns in Florida

zebo (zebo@pro-ns.net)
Thu, 09 Jul 1998 09:51:00 -0500

Harvey Newstrom wrote:
>
> mark@unicorn.com wrote:
> >
> > Of course we could also ignore theorising and actually look at places
> > like Florida
>
> Allright. I keep seeing these reference to Florida. I live in Florida,
> and I don't see gun violence decreasing. I fully believe that murders
> may have gone down, but gun violence seems to be way up since they
> allowed concealed weapons permits. Anybody got real statistics about
> Florida?
>
> I was born here and have lived here most of my life. When I was
> younger, I don't remember all the violence we have now.

The fact is that this is happening all over. This is directly correlated to
the increase in young people, particularily young males.

It's like Wm. Burrough's Economics of a Junkie (junkies know what they each would prefer to take, but in need they will use anything). In a similar vein, the violence-prone also know what they would prefer to use, but when the mood hits, they'll use whatever they can get their hands on.

In a macro-societal sense, the problem will pass as the violence-prone are put down, locked up, or just grow older. As the Danish poet Piet Hein explained in his poem TTT, ting tager tid (ie, things take time).

In a micro-societal sense, I am at a loss to understand why restrictions should exist on the ability of of folks to protect themselves as best possible. But then I guess I'm another extropian(-wannabe) with those nasty libertarian tendencies...

Z