Anti-gun piece at Vandy
Via NinthStage, comes this:
Firearms remain a distinctly American obsession.
Ok, you’ve started off badly already. Perhaps you’ve heard of the Swiss, French, Australians, New Zealanders, Fins, and others with high rates of firearms ownership? Well, we’ll let your opener go. Surely, you have something factual to say.
While the rest of the civilized world has abandoned such instruments of technological feat and individual dignity, we have survived this strange, globally endemic wave of demasculinization by preserving our right — constitutional right, that is — to bear arms.
Err, nope. Guess not. Ok, let’s just skip to the end:
In short, our society must be willing to gamble on mutual trust and mutual peace.
Now, I’m a gambler. And that is what we gamblers would call a bet with a negative expectation. You see, you make your bets when your expectation is positive over time. In other words, if I can repeatedly make the bet a large number of times and, in the long run, profit then it is a good bet. This is not. I, instead, don’t gamble and take steps to ensure my own safety. And all the hippie, tree-hugging mutual trust bologna in the world isn’t worth a hill of beans the very second someone breaks that mutual trust your gambling on.
As NinthStage notes: First, there is no peace but mutual peace, unilateral peace just means you are not willing to admit you’re already at war.
Update: Ahab has more.
October 16th, 2007 at 9:08 am
[…] Uncle has his way with the piece.  I especially love this line: I, instead, don’t gamble and take steps to ensure my own […]
October 16th, 2007 at 10:51 am
Sorry, but first off, I generally do not gamble, and secondly, I think I am more willing to gamble on my accuracy than the odds of everyone in America suddenly getting along and criminals not raping/murdering/robbing/mugging/assaulting/etc. other people.
October 16th, 2007 at 2:11 pm
So let Soo Yang, the anti-gun gambler gamble that criminals will respect his unarmed pacifism…something he’s quite free to do. But he evidently wants to enforce his way of gambling with hired guns taking away my guns.
October 16th, 2007 at 3:02 pm
I was just wondering if Soo Yang may be Chinese? I think it was Mao who said, “the Communist Party must control the guns” and “power comes out the barrel of a gun”. The gamble of allowing the state to control the guns has been demostrated to be a very bad one for citizens; especially in the 20th Century (like China) where Mao murdered about 50 million of his own people in the “Cultural Revolution”.
October 16th, 2007 at 4:06 pm
Linoge Says:
October 16th, 2007 at 10:51 am
Sorry, but first off, I generally do not gamble, and secondly, I think I am more willing to gamble on my accuracy than the odds of everyone in America suddenly getting along and criminals not raping/murdering/robbing/mugging/assaulting/etc. other people.
Believe it or not there are people who acually believe that criminals WONT go after unarmed, defensless people!
In July 2006, when I was hiking in the Superstition Mountains in Arizona and was carrying a rifle, I encountered 2 other hikers who asked me why I was armed. I told them that since I was waaaaay out in the middle of nowhere it seemed like a good idea to have the means to defend myself. They said that they didnt have to worry about that since they could call for help on their cellphone and what’s more no one would attack them like criminals would me. I asked how they figured that crooks would be more likely to attack me than them and they said “because you have a gun and we dont”.
Now what kind of reasoning is that? That criminals are going to go after a ARMED person who most likely would fight if attacked over unarmed people who’ll just attempt to call for help on a cellphone? This conversation totally blew my mind.
BTW, the nearest place any called for help could have come, assuming the cellphone could connect with anyone, from was Apache Junction and even by helicopter would’ve been at least a hour.
October 16th, 2007 at 7:12 pm
I’m a gambler of this sort:
Thomas Jefferson
October 19th, 2007 at 7:02 am
I’ve been dancing in Apache Junction, thought I might need rescue. No cell phones in those days, either.