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It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.
- Theodore Roosevelt
I hope that no one will claim to know the final answers; no good comes from prophets. But even when acknowledging our falibility, we must nevertheless continue to think about these matters and give the advice to others that intellect and conscience dictate. And let God be our judge, as our grandparents used to say. - Sakharov
Baka ni tsukeru kusuriwa nai (There's no medicine to cure stupidity) - an old Japanese Proverb
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Home  Blog Archive Ramblings Virginia Tech Tragedy & Gun Control
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Virginia Tech Tragedy & Gun Control |
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Tuesday, 17 April 2007 |
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Its sad to hear of the tragedy at Virgina Tech and the senselessness of what the crazed gunner did. My heart goes out to all those affected, there is no way to truly empathize with these people without experiencing something similar. I can only try to imagine.
This tragedy has brought out yet again many arguments amongst my friends regarding the morality of gun ownership. Guns cannot be un-invented or be absolutely removed from society. To deny a person the right to own a gun and to defend themselves goes directly against the idea of personal freedoms. The gun-control advocates have all sorts of opinions and theories of what kind of person the average gun owner is like and come up with these conclusions without really analyzing the data. They see and hear about these incidents and are instantly controlled by their emotions and are willing to sacrifice yet another portion of our freedom. So in the end it actually becomes an argument whether they believe in personal freedom or not. I am inherently a libertarian and its hard for me to respect and comprehend when my friends openly accept giving up their freedoms so easily. Basically, in my mind, it equates to that they are asking someone else to take care of them. Let me say that I have a lot of European friends...
On just about any scale, modern weapons are and will be used as leverage for power. Oil and weapons are the main drivers of real money in the world. Look at Iraq, Saudi Arabia and all the major exchanges between governments in the world. They negotiate with oil and guns. Guns CAN equal power, power equals money and power/money equals sex... which ultimately is what humans are interested in. Why? Because sex equals babies and babies are our future. That is how our biology is designed. Survive and Replicate. Of course that was an extreme simplification, but I believe it to be generally true and is what can drive humans to do horrible horrible things. The strong will always dominate the weak when given the opportunity. Therefore, you must be strong to survive and replicate. It doesn't seem directly logical to correlate personal gun ownership to sexual reproduction, but there is evidence throughout history where people have been dominated by others... which would mean they did not pass the first part: survive.
I've decided to start stocking an additional 100 cartridges for every friend of mine that believes in gun control. :)
Appended 3 months later:
I re-read this post today and realized that it was a bit unclear regarding my reference to sex directly. When I meant "sex", I meant the advantages of accumulating power and wealth has over the individual's reproductive success. It is directly correlated in that sense. A man or family who has accumulated wealth will have a better chance at producing successfull and healthy children. Hence, it is to the advantage of the person to compete for power. The rules of nature.
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