[plug] What do you school-age members think of SlashDot'sHellMouth articles?

[Greg Mildenhall]

On Tue, 4 May 1999, John Summerfield wrote:
> > I still don't think the guns are the problem.  They are just tools, to
> > be used or misused.
> I agree guns aren't the problem: the problem is the availability of guns.
"if guns are outlawed, only the outlaws will have guns."
Removing guns will not stop anyone with serious criminal intent.
It might stop accidents, it might stop spur-of-the-moment shootings, but
so does the careful enforcement of WA's pre-Port Arthur laws. Only in
redneck Harradine country could that sort of thing have occured.
In general, I am very much against government restriction in most areas,
but I also feel that the govt. has a responsibility to protect it's
citizens. For a known psychiatric outpatient to have access to such
heavy-duty weaponry is a breach of the govt's responsibility.

That is why I favour our old system under which guns were available if:
1. They could be proven necessary.
2. The owner could prove they were trustworthy.
3. The strictest of measures were taken to keep them out of other hands.

Unfortunately, some guns are no longer allowed to farmers, professional
sportspeople, etc. even if they fit #1.

> > Also, it would be nearly impossible to remove guns from American society.
> > It's actually part of our constitution that an individual has a right them.
> As I recall, the term is "right to bear arms." The problem seems to me the 
> interpretation of that phrase. It would not surprise me if it was intended 
> to mean that everyone is entitled to take part in the defence of the 
> nation.
Quite the opposite. It is so that they cannot, in theory, be oppressed by
the govt. The founding fathers were so in favour of self-determination
that they demanded that the govt. could never curtail the people's
capability for an armed uprising.
Unfortunately, civil war is no longer fought this way, and now the weapons
are those of the media and mass persuasion (thought control :). The 'net
takes control of the media out of the hands of the centralised powers, and
that is why governments are so keen to attack freedom of speech on the
'net.

Funny that in Australia such restrictions of freedom are being propounded
by the loonie right.

-Greg Mildenhall