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From: oaf@mit-eddie.UUCP
Newsgroups: alt.flame
Subject: Gun nuts
Message-ID: <7370@eddie.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sun, 8-Nov-87 11:54:47 EST
Article-I.D.: eddie.7370
Posted: Sun Nov  8 11:54:47 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 12-Nov-87 00:05:30 EST
Reply-To: oaf@eddie.MIT.EDU (MIke FArren FAN CLUB)
Distribution: na
Organization: MIT communal cemetery
Lines: 21
Keywords: qualitative quantitative renegade technology
Summary: Firepower changes the groundrules


Please follow up voluminously:

      Technology changes groundrules.  The second amendment was written
  when guns shot once and took at least 30 seconds to reload.  A rene-
  gade would have a tremendously difficult time opposing a determined
  posse, on the level playing field Oliver North complains about.  Hence
  a criminal act with a gun could be met, even by unarmed citizenry, at
  an unattractive but bearable cost to society.  Conversely, if someone
  opened up, people could run away before very many were knocked off.

      Nowadays, a renegade can kill hundreds of people in the same time
  it took to fire two shots in the 1780s.  I submit that such a quanti-
  tative change in firepower is a qualitative change, and people should
  discuss how gun control depends on an accurate technological context.

Please follow up voluminously.

Thank you.
-- 
Oded A. Feingold          36 Columbia Rd.,        Medford, Mass. 02155
{allegra|ihnp4!mit-eddie}!mit-vax!oaf  OAF@OZ.AI.MIT.EDU  617-395-8895