🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <unruh.720338918@physics.ubc.ca>, unruh@physics (William Unruh) writes:
>For those of us outside the USofA these analogies make us wonder whether
>such registration is not a good thing. If crypt really is like guns,
>whose only use is to kill lots of innocent people it seems, then maybe
>crypt were better strictly controlled. Ie, your arguement would be
>stronger if you limited yourself to the uses and abuses of cryptography
>and didn't engage in the silly American penchant for seeing yourselves oa
>as lone cowboys out to right wrongs no matter how many people get killed
>in the crossfire.

While as a strategic point in argumentation this may be a good
suggestion, I would like to point out that a big portion of the people
who are defending the right to have guns do not do it because they
want to defend themselves against other citizens but because they want
to defend themselves against government.  Think of it as a kind of
insurance - it's not something that you want to get used, but good to
have in case it is needed.

I don't like anti-gun-control argument of self-defense against
robbers, muggers and so on.  It easily leads to excess violence.  A
somewhat more reasonable approach is the one which recognizes that
it's probably not your gun which will save your life, it's your
neighbour's gun, but I dislike even that somewhat - I'd rather see
that it wouldn't be necessary to resort to guns in cases like that.

But the strong anti-gun-control argument which convinces me is the one
of insurance against government oppression - which many say is exactly
the reason why the second amendment of the U.S. Constitution is there.

>[Note for those of you unable to see through sarcasm, I do not think
>that cryptography and guns have any similarity at all. I see no problem

I do see the similarity with "guns used as defense against
government".  I do agree that that there's much less similarity with
"guns used as self-defense" - while you can use cryptography as
self-defense to defend your privacy against neighbours and so on it
has more similarity with things like bulletproof vests that guns.

//Jyrki