🚀 go-pugleaf

FONER@MIT-AI 05/30/81 23:04:53 Re: Yet another arms article in the Globe today...  what's going on here?
To: Arms-D at MIT-MC
Well, folks, I just remembered about the second article on arms in the
Globe today.  Like the last one, this one was on the Op Ed page.

This one details a rather humorous solution to the gun control
problem:  mandatory ownership.  While Timothy Strunk presents the idea
with tongue firmly in cheek, it almost sounds reasonable---and that's
almost scary.

For instance, he says that this would be the perfect solution to, say,
bank robbery.  How many robbers could hope to get out alive once
everyone in the bank has a gun pointed at him?  Even if he gunned down
those nearest him, he wouldn't get out alive.  This sounds like a
powerful deterrant, no?

Or take for example the mugger.  With everyone's window filled with a
person holding a gun aimed at the would-be mugger or rapist, would he
be inclined to try anything besides leave quickly?

Of course, there are problems.  Again keeping tongue in cheek, the
major one is that crimes committed with guns *when there are not others
around* are still possible by taking the victim by surprise (and by
not, therefore, having all those other people ready to blow you away).

A great quote:

    "Sure, there  are  risks  involved,  but where  would  we  be  if  the
    nuclear-power industry  had  had to  wait  until  it came  up  with  a
    long-term reliable waste-disposal solution?"

(Please, no flames from Energy people about this!...)

Anybody got similarly creative solutions to such problems?  Maybe
silly sounding solutions (at first) could be made to work.

Well, so much from the eternal optimist.

						<LNF>