OFF: guns debate

[Jonathan Jarrett]

On Wed, Nov 22, 2006 at 10:43:36AM +0000, Carl Edlund Anderson typed out:
> On 21/11/2006 23:58, Jonathan Jarrett wrote:

	<snip where we agree>

> >But I consider 
> >myself an experienced firearms user, and I wouldn't like to say that the 
> >populace would be safer if I carried a concealed pistol. The thought of 
> >people, even people with the best of intentions, without that experience 
> >doing so makes me decidedly uncomfortable.
> 
> I don't think I would have any objection to the existance of good 
> training and licensing programs to enable one to carry a concealed 
> firearm ("good" being an important concept, which I shall not even 
> bother to attempt defining further at this time :) though I can't say I 
> would feel any _desire_ to carry a concealed firearm in the part of the 
> UK where I live at present.  But if I lived some part of the world with 
> a much higher risk of violent crime, I would probably have a different 
> desire.  A concealed firearm, after all, isn't meant to keep the 
> populace safe _per se_ -- it's meant to keep _me_ safe by virtue giving 
> me the power to gravely endanger specific segments of the populace as I 
> deem necessary ;)

	I see what you mean, but as long as we're talking about 
concealed weapons in the UK, the first hurdle any such programme would
have to clear is that of *not* decreasing the safety of the general 
population, however much safer the individual user might feel. And maybe 
I'm just conscious how many bad judgements I make while cycling every 
day, but I don't think *I'd* make the world any safer despite my 
training if I had a loaded firearm on me, let alone what someone with 
less would be capable of getting wrong. So I doubt we shall see much 
change on this front, especially with the fluffy safety-consciousness of 
the current British government. Yours,
					Jon

ObCD: Kingdom Come - _Kingdom Come_
-- 
"When fortune wanes, of what assistance are quantities of elephants?"
	    (Juvaini, Afghan Muslim chronicler, c. 1206)
 Jon Jarrett, Fitzwilliam Museum, jjarrett at chiark.greenend.org.uk