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From: regard@ttidcc.UUCP (Adrienne Regard)
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.flame,net.legal
Subject: personal defense
Message-ID: <352@ttidcc.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 16-Apr-85 15:07:31 EST
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Posted: Tue Apr 16 15:07:31 1985
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>Jeff, you've failed to illustrate how the threat of deadly force, in
>any *general* way, is a civilizing influence.
>                -Ed Hall

Ed, he may have neglected to do lots of things, but let me just pick on
this one, o.k.?  There are hundreds of examples that can be chosen on
either side of the argument -- the expansion of the west during any
period you care to name before, say, 1900 -- was the threat of deadly
force (practiced by the marshalls) a civilizing influence, or was the
threat of deadly force (practiced by the lawless gunslingers) a barbarous
force?  Our whole western history (and probably eastern, too, but I don't
know anything about eastern history) is a study in threats of force. Have
we become more civilized because of our past or in spite of it?

You can't take any example and hold it up as empirical evidence.  There is
no other civilization that is exactly the same as the U.S. EXCEPT for the
arms issues that would serve as a "control" group.  (I just LOVE people who
use Japan as some sort of parallel.)

Somehow, _whether_ the citizens of a country have a right to bear arms
doesn't seem to have a whole lot to do with civilization.  Better questions
might be "what do they do with that right?" "how do they deal with
situations that historically have been dealt with with arms?" "what made
them retain or reject that right?" "are they still around?" "would I like
to live there?" "do I agree with them?"