Date: Sun, 30 Apr 1995 10:47:30 -0400 (EDT)
From: Justin Schwartz <jschwart-AT-freenet.columbus.oh.us>
Subject: Re: Oklahoma Events and Request for help



Whatever your position on gun control, the left should not adopt the far
right's silly argument that private possession of arms is any guarantee in
the modern world of defense against political repression. Fact: an
unorganized or half-organized bunch of untrained (or long-ago trained)
people calling themselves a militia cannot fight a modern army, in an
industrial society, and win. The military and the National Guard would
make very short work of such an insurrection. It was early on recognized
by the Bolsheviks (to name one of the few groups to carry out a successful
insurrection in an urban setting) that the key is to _win over significant
parts of the military_, rather than to defeat them on their own terms. The
experience of peasabt guerilla movements against modern armies is (a)
mixed--they didn't do so good in this hemisphere or, say, Malasia or
Indonesia, and (b) irrelevant to advanced industrial conditions.

The Constitutiional issues are sticky and I don't feel qualified to saya
nything about them just now. Ask me when I finish my Con Law class. But
the political question is something else again.

I'm very impressed with the fact that we have a terrifying murder rate and
a great many accidents with guns, compared to Canada or Europe or Japan.
AT the same time I acknowledge that in America a Canadian style ban on
handguns is politically impossible. But acceding to the unchangeable is
not the same as embracing it as desirable.

--Justin Schwartz

On Sun, 30 Apr 1995, boddhisatva wrote:

> 
> 
> 		To whom.....,
> 
> 
> 	Not exactly appropos to any particular aspect of current discussions,
> I have a sort of survey question.  What are the attitudes of people on this
> list towards gun control ?  
> 
> 
> 	For my own part I am a Brady Bill supporter (except for the
> half-witted "assault" weapons ban - but that's really just a question of
> "how" rather than "whether"), who nonetheless feels the Second Ammendment is
> an integral part of America's revolutionary culture.  I feel there is really
> some value in political evildoers of whatever stripe knowing that people CAN
> go home and get the shotguns off the wall.  It may seem like somewhat
> dangerous naivete, but ultimately, I feel it's an important aspect of
> self-determination - if only symbolically (and I reall don't think that it is
> just symbolic).  
> 
> 
> 	Anarchists ? anyone ?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 	peace
> 
> 
> ps - I'm sorry if this message is a little Americo-centric.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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