Aucbvax.1459 fa.arms-d utzoo!duke!decvax!ucbvax!FONER@MIT-AI Sat May 30 20:10:33 1981 Yet another arms article in the Globe today... what's going on here? FONER@MIT-AI 05/30/81 23:04:53 Re: Yet another arms article in the Globe today... what's going on here? To: Arms-D at MIT-MC Well, folks, I just remembered about the second article on arms in the Globe today. Like the last one, this one was on the Op Ed page. This one details a rather humorous solution to the gun control problem: mandatory ownership. While Timothy Strunk presents the idea with tongue firmly in cheek, it almost sounds reasonable---and that's almost scary. For instance, he says that this would be the perfect solution to, say, bank robbery. How many robbers could hope to get out alive once everyone in the bank has a gun pointed at him? Even if he gunned down those nearest him, he wouldn't get out alive. This sounds like a powerful deterrant, no? Or take for example the mugger. With everyone's window filled with a person holding a gun aimed at the would-be mugger or rapist, would he be inclined to try anything besides leave quickly? Of course, there are problems. Again keeping tongue in cheek, the major one is that crimes committed with guns *when there are not others around* are still possible by taking the victim by surprise (and by not, therefore, having all those other people ready to blow you away). A great quote: "Sure, there are risks involved, but where would we be if the nuclear-power industry had had to wait until it came up with a long-term reliable waste-disposal solution?" (Please, no flames from Energy people about this!...) Anybody got similarly creative solutions to such problems? Maybe silly sounding solutions (at first) could be made to work. Well, so much from the eternal optimist. ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.