Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site mit-athena.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!bellcore!decvax!mit-athena!jc From: jc@mit-athena.UUCP (John Chambers) Newsgroups: net.flame,net.nlang Subject: Re: Re: Personal Defenses Message-ID: <214@mit-athena.UUCP> Date: Wed, 8-May-85 17:43:55 EDT Article-I.D.: mit-athe.214 Posted: Wed May 8 17:43:55 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 11-May-85 01:08:59 EDT References: <829@bunker.UUCP> Organization: MIT Project Athena Lines: 31 Xref: watmath net.flame:9816 net.nlang:3036 One comment: 'way back in 4th grade (or was it 3rd?), I had teachers that tried to get people to make a distinction between "can" and "may". One linguistic criticism of a statement like: Everyone should be able to . is that, while it may be disirable that everyone be able to do , it is nonsense to insist that a legal or political system give such a right. For example, let be "build a perpetual-motion machine" or "empty Lake Superior with a teaspoon" or "see". I'm sure we'd all agree that everyone who is born has the right to good vision. As for agreeing that everyone should "be able to" carry a weapon; why sure; I think it's downright shameful that there are people without [the use of] arms. I think that everyone should have good, functional arms and hands; at least good enough to [be able to] carry weapons. It's downright cruel of God to allow loss of limbs, not to mention the babies that are born without them. Now as for whether people should be *ALLOWED* to carry weapons in public, well that's another matter entirely. -- John Chambers [...!decvax!mit-athena] He who has made no mistakes has probably made nothing at all.