Sunday, August 1, 2010

A Market for Fear

When I became a teenager in the late 90’s, becoming a punk was easy. I just had to go to the mall. Some band t-shirts from Hot Topic, stickers with cynical aphorisms, and of course a pair of Converse All-Stars later, I was a bona fide punk. Or was I?

By the time I was born in 1983, the movement of punk rock was already dead, or more accurately, it was in a lucratively profitable vegetative state. I was even too young to appreciate the rebirth rebranding of punk: grunge.

Punk and grunge sold out (in the parlance of those genres). There is no integrity in punk or grunge as an ideology. Sure, they are still genres of music, but they claim to be much more. Punk in particular touts itself as a lifestyle, an ideology, almost a religion.

I suppose everything is what we make it, but if you’re allowing someone else to define your style of dress, let alone how you see the world, you should realize going in that the whole scene is a marketing gimmick for getting you to buy stuff. Punk rock culture turns the world into a fashion runway, encouraging an obsession with physical appearance.

It’s a strange situation. Sub- and even counter-cultures in America are routinely absorbed into the mainstream, or they at least become marketable. One can see it has already happened long ago with Hip-Hop, and even anti-corporate bands signed to small-sounding labels (owned by larger subsidiaries).

Political ideologies are ripe for profiteering. We’re all familiar with the “Green” movement, a hollow attempt by liberals who don’t want to make any real changes, but are willing to buy something with a label proclaiming their purchase to be environmentally friendly (at a slightly higher price, which I call the “gullible guilt tax”). Republicans even had a brief “Buy American” fetish, until their resolve buckled under the pressure of their purses.

However, there’s one particular ideology that has been very successful for basically all of human history. The people who adhere to it have many names for it, but I will use the collective term “survivalism.”

Survivalists can be left-wing or right-wing, though they are all ostriches with their heads in the sand. Some think the government is too big, and that the people will need to rise up and overthrow it. Others think the government is powerless and crumbling, and that America will be plunged into anarchy.

Some even hope for anarchy out of some romantic notion of human dignity and independence, forgetting that we are co-dependent social beings with blatantly antisocial behaviors (or they know this and revel in it).

Some don’t even factor government into it. Some think our treatment of the environment will wreck natural havoc. Others believe a race war or global religious conflict is inevitable. Some are even banking on religious prophecies foretelling the end of the world.

Regardless of the specifics, there is a vast industry catering to the paranoia of doomsayers everywhere. People are told to buy gold, despite ridiculously high prices. Forget “buy low, sell high,” this is an emergency! There are times to think, and there are times to act, and this is no time to think! See the exclamation point? That means this is serious!!!

However, you can’t feed your family with gold. Gold actually loses its value when there is no luxury market for its sale. If you’re banking on surviving a massive worldwide disaster, gold is about the dumbest investment you can make. Luckily, things will probably turn out fine and gold won’t lose value (especially in China), though all the virtual “trusts” and “promissory notes” will probably be worthless when the fly-by-night scamsters selling that fool’s gold close their doors after their CEOs embezzle too much capital.

No, if the world were really headed for disorder, there’s one thing I would want: guns. Guns are the ultimate chaos currency. If you have guns, you can get just about anything you want, er, anything your neighbors have. Of course, if they have guns, you need more guns, and you need to wait until they’re asleep or distracted. You’ll be wanting protection from others beyond guns, so be sure you have a dog to alert you to intruders, and land mines aren’t a bad idea.

Survivalism has even gone green, with the movement to go “off the grid.” This is definitely the coolest sounding idea environmentalists ever came up with. Way better than global warming (which just sounds cozy). When you go “off the grid,” it’s almost like you just got unplugged from the Matrix, and you’re no longer part of the problem, you’re the solution. And you can dodge bullets.

Of course, a stretch of cloudy, breezeless days will have you on generators that are several times less efficient than “the grid,” and the cost of initially installing enough equipment to maintain your power needs is far beyond the average person’s means. Not everyone can be ready when the shit hits the fan. Sacrifices will have to be made, both in terms of the poor and length of showers.

Then it dawned on me: people are rooting for a revolution because they’ve already invested in one. Nothing like a violently self-fulfilling prophecy.

35 comments:

  1. "When I became a teenager in the late 90’s, becoming a punk was easy."

    Yeah, I blew that one, and had to settle for being a plain old hippie, but i couldn't even pull that off very well in south Mississippi where long-hairs had their heads shaved whether they wanted to or not.

    Of course, the survivalists could be right, you know. I mean, worse case scenarios do sometimes happen, And, if they ARE right, I had rather have all that gold than not since someone will still have food to sell. Think Polish ghetto in the year 1942. Gold was good then.

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  2. I'm thinking about it, and I'm thinking about all the wealth confiscated by the Nazis, be it gold, diamonds, art, homes, businesses...

    Gold maintains value in that scenario because an outside market (that of unpersecuted citizens) exists. In a global catastrophe, gold is worth as much as lead (assuming you make bullets from gold). Why? Because the utility of gold relies on superficial uses. Sure, there is a need for gold in manufacturing, but how much industry do you think goes on during an economic meltdown, or during nuclear war, or if a meteor were headed towards the Earth?

    Gold is like a title, or money: only worth as much as people believe. Frankly, I'd rather have a lifetime supply of salt or a walled fortress, or something with tangible utility. That is... if I bought into the fear mongering.

    Could survivalists be right? Well of course they are right. Bad things will happen, and if you want to live your life obsessed with waiting for the next disaster to occur, you will not be disappointed... just an unproductive, miserable member of society.

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  3. "I suppose everything is what we make it, but if you’re allowing someone else to define your style of dress"

    That's true with the 'metal' culture. It used to be big hair (thankfully that is gone) and became just long hair. Why does almost every single heavy metal band feature guys with long hair? Does it make the music sound better? Or do they just use the hair as replacement guitar strings?

    Whether punk rock or metal or grunge sold out, I don't care. I don't care if the band has three fans or a million fans. I don't care about what they are wearing, or their ideology. I care about the sound itself.

    People are by nature sheep. And a counter-culture of sheep invariably becomes a culture.

    I like to listen to Green Day. People tell me "My Lord, why do you listen to that crap? They're not even real punk." You know what I say to them? "Who gives a Sh*t about f*cking punks?"

    When the stock market went down a year or so ago, my own mother listened to that idiot Glenn Beck and took everything out of her 401K to buy gold. I couldn't believe that sh*t, why did she do that?

    Anyways. I like the story of the bunch of young ideological anarchists who hate the government so much that they decide to go live in the woods and live off the land. Eventually, they are about to run out of firewood, and they realize they need some sort of forest management policy. Then they almost run out of water, and realize they need some sort of water management policy. Then they are awash with human waste, and realize they need some sort of sewer system. Then they start to steal each other's water and firewood, and realize they need some sort of police force. Then they realize they need to raise taxes to pay for all that. So they run home to mommy.

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  4. Lordship: I have found anarchists are over-intellectualizing government to the point of being nothing beyond quibbles over semantics.

    They want government that isn't called government, leaders that aren't called leaders, laws that aren't called laws, and the freedom to do one or two things that could be legalized if they put their efforts into constructively lobbying for change rather than blathering about unrealistic restructuring that requires heavy handed action to change how things work.

    I don't like anarchy because we go from the possibility of having a tyrant run our nation to the reality of millions of little tyrants making their little corner of the country miserable.

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  5. I doubt that there will ever be a catastrophe so big that no black market exists, and gold has its advantages as a medium of exchange.

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  6. Gold only works as a means of exchange because it does not lose value when divided, is non-perishable, and is valued for superficial purposes. I think you would find ammunition would easily function as well, or better, in harsh times.

    In times of catastrophe, often the only market is "black," or is so in the sense that it is not regulated, taxed, or standardized in any manner. However, the things we value change greatly. Let me give you an example:

    Suppose you are dropped in the middle of a desert. You have with you 50 pounds of gold and 50 pounds of water. What would you bring with you? Assuming you could divide it up, I'm sure you would take some combination of the two, not leaving all the gold behind while being unable to carry all 100 pounds. In a sense, you are devaluing gold by virtue of your decision to abandon some of it for water.

    Yet is water equal in value by weight to gold? The inherent necessity of the situation outweighs the wealth production power of gold, whereas if you were on a busy street corner and offered both, I'm pretty sure you would just leave the water laying there.

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  7. "Gold only works as a means of exchange because it does not lose value when divided, is non-perishable, and is valued for superficial purposes. I think you would find ammunition would easily function as well, or better, in harsh times."

    Alcohol and cigarettes both work - and have worked - as forms of currency; they're reasonably portable, and can be either traded or used.

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  8. By definition, currency cannot grow on trees. Alcohol, tobacco (and even raw gold for that matter) are not currency, they are merely items that are easily bartered.

    What magically makes gold turn into currency? When it is standardized in purity and weight, most commonly in the form of coinage, it becomes true currency. Nothing can make cigarettes or alcohol into currency, because both have decentralized production with extremely variable quality.

    In fact, tobacco and alcohol tend to find their highest utility as a pseudo-currency not in hard times, but in controlled environments where basic amenities are provided while consummable luxuries are scarce (namely in jail and the military).

    It should be noted I don't own guns, nor do I like guns. I see guns as a destabilizing force in modern societies. The rampant availability and sale of guns in America is part of the economy of fear that threatens to throw my country into violent revolt.

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  9. And don't forget chocolate.

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  10. To be clear, I didn't say they were currency, I said that they have worked as a form of currency - so, yes, a pseudo-currency. My point was that in the sort of Mad Max/Farnham's Freehold/The Stand post-apocalyptic scenario that most survivalists seem to be contemplating, where true currency has become a moot point, they'd probably be more useful than gold.

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  11. "No, if the world were really headed for disorder, there’s one thing I would want: guns"

    They are indeed useful at fighting off hordes of zombies and rabid foxes. (At least where I live).

    Seriously, while you see firearms as this big evil thing, I see them as what they are: survival tools. In the absence of police, they could be handy to secure your home from looters, even if it's just to scare them off. Or in the absence of a large-scale food distribution system, a useful way to get meat for dinner.

    "It should be noted I don't own guns, nor do I like guns. I see guns as a destabilizing force in modern societies. The rampant availability and sale of guns in America is part of the economy of fear that threatens to throw my country into violent revolt."

    It's not guns that are a destabilizing force in this country, it's aging baby-boomers who swallow the government-hating horse shit coming out of Fox News and don't realize the cold war is over. Thankfully, the FBI is keeping tabs on extremist groups, and cretards like the Hutaree were arrested before they could cause any trouble.

    Flies don't cause garbage any more than guns cause seditious sentiment. To claim the opposite is reaching a false conclusion resulting from too few data points.

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  12. Lord: The more common guns are, the more often they are used. If scenarios are the same in the presence or absence of guns, why are nations with lots of guns (not just the US, also places like Somalia) far more dangerous, with far more murders?

    Let's say I am nuts and you piss me off and I want to kill you. I don't need a gun to do it, but with a gun I could pretty easily kill you, your family, the mailman who saw me, a random person on my way home...

    That isn't some abstract possibility, it's scenario that is only possible with guns, and it happens (though much to the dismay of news agencies, not on a daily basis).

    What's more, guns don't really provide much protection. Guns are basically useless to you 8 hours or so a day while you sleep. A gun you buy is several times more likely to be stolen, and even more likely to be used in a frivolous dispute, than to defend yourself in a lawful manner. And don't even get me started on gun accidents.

    But for what it's worth, I support the right of people with miniscule genitals to feel better about themselves by purchasing a deadly weapon that will likely collect dust in their closet. Otherwise, I would also want to ban motorcycles, sports cars, private jets, and Dave Matthew's Band CDs.

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  13. His Lordship: "They are indeed useful at fighting off hordes of zombies and rabid foxes. (At least where I live)."

    Yes, but what about rabid zombie foxes?

    Ginx: "What's more, guns don't really provide much protection."

    I keep meaning to do a blog post about this, but yes. Guns are fundamentally offensive; all missile weapons are. The only way you can use them for defense is either A) by pre-emptively attacking with them; or B) threatening to pre-emptively attack with them. Having a gun in your hand does absolutely nothing to prevent you from being hurt by any bullets (or, for that matter, fists, bats, chains, or two-by-fours) that happen to be coming towards you.

    I don't actually have anything against guns per se. I own three, though I only shoot them occasionally; they spend nearly all of their time locked in a cabinet in the garage, because I have intensely curious and exploratory children. But the idea of guns as being useful for self defense has struck me as dodgy, if not actively harmful, for a long time now.

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  14. "Having a gun in your hand does absolutely nothing to prevent you from being hurt by any bullets (or, for that matter, fists, bats, chains, or two-by-fours) that happen to be coming towards you."

    Having a gun will not change anything about the bullets already coming at you, but imagine that you are pressed against the wall, and that a nude psychopath, wearing a leather mask and a strap-on dildo, is menacingly advancing towards you with a chainsaw. You have 911 dispatch on the line, but the closest sheriff patrol car is 10 minutes away. Can you last that long? You are shouting at him to stay back, but he just wants to wear your scalp. Your life is in the balance. What do you do?

    Scenario 2. Some deranged postal worker barges into your mail sorting station with a crossbow. He shoots several bolts at your co-workers, and after reloading, he raises his weapon towards your office sweetheart... you have less than seconds to act... what do you do?

    Scenario 3. A PMS'ing mama grizzly escaped from the zoo and is trying to kill your dog, what do you do?

    Scenario 4. You lucky bastard had the honor and the privilege to be born in the Glorious Republic of Rwanda. Members of a rival ethnic group drive into your village with machetes and go all genocidal on your cousins. Your car won't start, because the gas station burned down the week before. You have just enough time to grab your AK-47 out of the barn before they come for your and your family next. Do you go get it and stand a fighting chance? Or do you try to take off on foot and get hacked to pieces by the bastards?

    Defensive use of firearms in a dynamic critical incident is primarily meant as a tool of deterrence - not a shot even has to be fired; such is their power. That is the primary use that cops have for them as well; "Put the baseball bat down and place your hands up in the air". But when the deterrence fails, and authorities are unreachable or not yet on the scene it's a last ditch effort at saving your life or the one of someone else when you have to use lethal force to diminish the target's ability to present a lethal threat

    I hope I don't come across as a nut-job. I actually live in the lowest-crime area of the entire country, and I don't even lock my doors. It's actually BIG news here when someone spray-paints a mailbox. I'm more afraid of skunks and hornets than I am of being a victim of violent crime. I just think people should have a protected right to self-defense.

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  15. Ginx, there are 3 million guns in circulation in Switzerland, a country of 7.5 million. Do you see chaos over there?

    Finland has 56 guns per 100 people. Do you see genocides over there?

    Armed robberies occur primarily because of inadequate access to welfare.

    Mass shootings occur primarily because of inadequate access to mental health services.

    We can address these causes without denying others the ability to defend themselves.

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  16. So you want every adult male to have extensive gun training in the form of compulsory conscription from the age of 18 to mid adulthood? That's why Switzerland has so many guns per person: they keep their issued rifles. Finnish citizens are also compelled to serve 6-12 months.

    In these cases, they are essentially more accurate in the application of the wording of the US's 2nd amendment: the necessity for organized military defense. Military training includes basic gun handling and safety, not to mention provides a cohesive community of people which number less then city of New York, but in far less cramped and stressful conditions.

    Regarding mental illness... I don't know where to begin. I could point out that people with mental illness shouldn't have weapons, yet they so often do because we live in a nation saturated with guns owned by idiots (barely better than an insane person). We should address the fact that we are a nation of idiots, I suppose.

    But we have what I would consider more than adequate mental health services. More people per capita are diagnosed with, and treated for, mental health disorders in the US than any other nation. Maybe the problem isn't that we're missing people who should be diagnosed, it's that we're just more fucked up.

    Finally, I would appreciate reference to any direct quote where I said anyone's gun should be taken away. I am glad stupid people have guns, and I hope more of their children find them and wipe their inbred genetic material off the globe. But couldn't they be hurting themselves with something that can't so easily hurt innocent people who may actually do something with their life?

    Instead of encouraging people to buy guns they really don't need (and if you need a gun, move out of the fucking woods and join us here in civilization, or quit starting stupid fights with people), we should be encouraging them to bungee jump or ride motorcycles or something that only affects them.

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  17. "Regarding mental illness... I don't know where to begin. I could point out that people with mental illness shouldn't have weapons"

    Does compulsive hand washing count? What about coulrophobia?

    I agree that people with depression, schizophrenia, and anger problems should probably be barred from owning weapons. But mental illness is a pretty broad term.

    I fully support background checks and mental health evaluations for acquisitions and transfers. Doesn't infringe on anyone's rights to have common sense regulations such as these. Also I am not opposed to registration, as long as it's free. A lapse in registration? Not a criminal offense, but perhaps a small fine at most.

    There is still a big stigma associated with mental illness. A lot of people who need help refuse to seek help because they don't want to be stigmatized. And so many returning veterans with PTSD are being refused benefits. So no, access to free mental health care is absolutely inadequate, so much that it is a public health hazard.

    and if you need a gun, move out of the fucking woods and join us here in civilization

    I'm a crunchy granola tree-hugger living in the f*cking woods, and I shop at the hippie organic food co-op and I love it. But venison man... humane, free-range, organic... de-li-cious.

    Finally, no, you have never said that guns should be banned. But you do imply that gun owners are stupid. What about cops? They own guns. Does that make them stupid? (Hi FBI!! I know you read blogs :)

    In a perfect peaceful rainbow-in-the-sky dreamworld, no one needs guns. But this is reality, and there are f*cked up people out there.

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  18. Oh, hypotheticals... fun! (No sarcasm intended; I actually enjoy these sorts of thought-exercises.)

    "Having a gun will not change anything about the bullets already coming at you, but imagine that you are pressed against the wall, and that a nude psychopath, wearing a leather mask and a strap-on dildo, is menacingly advancing towards you with a chainsaw."

    Don't get me wrong, if I have a gun in my hand I will shoot the guy. If I have (my preference) a pump shotgun with a bajillion-candlepower spotlight under the barrel, I will first make that chik-chak sound, blind him, and see if he's still sane enough to run away.

    Here's the thing, though: you don't make sensible security policy based on Hollywood movie-plot possibilities. Even a more mundane home invasion scenario, where a couple of guys kick in the door and rob the place at gunpoint... well, in order to respond to that with a firearm of my own, I'd have to have weapon and ammo nearby. That means keeping them in the house, and reasonably close together (if not actually loaded).

    Unfortunately, that sort of arrangement vastly increases the odds of my boys (or their friends) finding the weapon and hurting someone. Compare that to the odds of finding myself in a situation where I'd really need to have a firearm handy, and it's no contest: the guns stay locked in a cabinet in the garage.

    There are some other considerations here, but let me address them in response to your other scenarios...

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  19. "Scenario 2. Some deranged postal worker barges into your mail sorting station with a crossbow. He shoots several bolts at your co-workers, and after reloading, he raises his weapon towards your office sweetheart... you have less than seconds to act... what do you do?"

    Honestly? In this case, we're pretty much doomed... because he's already reloaded. The time to act was while he was reloading.

    I live in a concealed carry state, but I don't actually have a concealed carry license; so I'm probably not armed with anything more deadly than a lock blade.

    If my brain is working, I probably yell, "Duck!" and throw my coffee cup at him.

    Ideally, at that point, sweetheart and I duck out the door and seek cover. If that isn't possible, then try to close the distance without getting perforated. But even against a crossbow, our odds are not good.

    Now, if I - hypothetically - did have a concealed carry license and a handgun, then yes: I'd be trying to shoot him. But you've given me a pretty black-and-white scenario, here. Let me propose an alternative:

    You're sitting in your office, at two o'clock on a Wednesday afternoon. You hear gunshots from the hallway outside - not right outside your door, but close enough. You open your desk drawer, take out your hand-cannon, and chamber a round. A few seconds later, one of your co-workers enters your office. He is carrying a pistol and turns to sweep the room, bringing the wrong end of the barrel towards you. Do you shoot him?

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  20. "Scenario 3. A PMS'ing mama grizzly escaped from the zoo and is trying to kill your dog, what do you do?"

    Encourage the dog to run. I don't have anything with enough stopping power for a grizzly. And for my own part, I'll be getting indoors and staying out of sight.

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  21. "Scenario 4. You lucky bastard had the honor and the privilege to be born in the Glorious Republic of Rwanda."

    Here we've changed the risk assessment completely. At this point, the likelihood of needing to have a gun ready is actually high enough to justify keeping it loaded in the house, despite the danger that keeping a loaded weapon in the house poses to my family.

    And honestly, there may even be places in Dallas (more or less where I live) which are dangerous enough to produce a similar risk assessment. But in my neighborhood, not so much. Where I live, the danger presented by keeping a gun handy vastly outweighs the danger of violence-that-I'd-need-a-gun-to-prevent.

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  22. "Defensive use of firearms in a dynamic critical incident is primarily meant as a tool of deterrence - not a shot even has to be fired; such is their power. That is the primary use that cops have for them as well; "Put the baseball bat down and place your hands up in the air". But when the deterrence fails, and authorities are unreachable or not yet on the scene it's a last ditch effort at saving your life or the one of someone else when you have to use lethal force to diminish the target's ability to present a lethal threat."

    I'm not contesting any of that. My point is this:
    1. In order to use a gun for that sort of defense, you need to have it fairly handy.
    2. Any arrangement where your gun is easy to get ahold of also makes it relatively easy for other people - specifically, family members and visitors - to get ahold of it. This poses a risk in its own right.
    3. For most people in Western nations, the risk that someone might accidentally shoot a friend or family member is substantially higher than the risk that they might need a weapon for defense and not have one ready.

    "I hope I don't come across as a nut-job. I actually live in the lowest-crime area of the entire country, and I don't even lock my doors. It's actually BIG news here when someone spray-paints a mailbox. I'm more afraid of skunks and hornets than I am of being a victim of violent crime. I just think people should have a protected right to self-defense."

    You don't come across as a nut-job, and I agree that people should have a protected right to self-defense. Where I disagree with you is in the relative utility of guns for self-defense - which I think, for most people, is vastly overrated. More to the point, keeping a gun ready for self-defense presents dangers of its own, which also need to be considered when assessing your overall security - and in my opinion, waaaaay too many pro-gun people blow off those considerations entirely.

    I'm actually in favor of legal ownership for rifles, shotguns, and handguns. They're a big part of the national culture, and particularly some of the regional cultures. Unfortunately, as they've become less of a day-to-day tool, their use and usefulness seems to become increasingly romanticized. I'm sympathetic to the condom theory*, but it doesn't take into account the fact that carrying around a weapon creates risks of its own. I'd like to see less emphasis on the need for guns as self-defense, and more emphasis on guns as something that some people enjoy using under specific, controlled circumstance - firing ranges, or hunting. I'd hope that if people, in general, viewed guns more that way, then people, in general, would be more responsible about the use and storage of their firearms.

    That said, when the Zombie Apocalypse starts, I'll be the first one running for the gun cabinet.

    * You know, "I'd rather have one and not need it than need one and not have it."

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  23. I sometimes wonder if guns should be legal for everyone, but action movies should be banned. That might eliminate the ridiculously high demand for such a niche item.

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  24. ::laughs:: You'll have to kill about 4/5 of the video game market, too.

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  25. Video games need to be stopped before my neighbor goes out and buys a plasma rifle!

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  26. Actually, a good question is: should we be able to buy rocket launchers?

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  27. Ginx asks: should we be able to buy rocket launchers?

    No friggin way. No useful hunting or self-defense use, unless you're defending yourself against the flying HK's from the Terminator movies.

    Mr Mock says: More to the point, keeping a gun ready for self-defense presents dangers of its own, which also need to be considered when assessing your overall security

    I fully agree. Choosing to use a firearm for personal defense is not a trivial thing, it requires knowledge of safe handling. They are not toys.

    The best way to have a firearm within easy reach, yet secured away from thieves and children is to keep it in one of those fancy biometric safes, that can only be opened with the correct set of fingerprints. I think it is completely stupid to even leave the house without locking a gun inside a safe. Manufacturers even sell safes that can be bolted under a car seat. If the government passed a law requiring people to prove that they owned a safe prior to letting them buy a firearm, I would approve. If you don't plan on using it at the moment, lock it up. Of course libertarians are going to call me a "big government statist" for saying that.

    Ginx says: sometimes wonder if guns should be legal for everyone, but action movies should be banned. That might eliminate the ridiculously high demand for such a niche item.

    I personally think that if schools offered well-supervised marksmanship or hunting classes to children, that it would remove a lot of the 'mystique' and 'glamor' surrounding firearms in popular culture. I took my first marksmanship class when I was 11 or 12. And that was in Canada, in the suburbs of a big city, if you imagine, not in the backwoods of the Smoky Mountains.

    I would also like to see more movies showing examples of responsible firearm use, and less glorification of thugs and gangsters.

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  28. What are you talking about?! If I'm going to protect me and mine from the King of England (who has Herrier jets!), I need me some rocket launchers!

    Let the civilian arms race begin!

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  29. If Ginx gets rocket launchers, I'll be forced to get some of my own.

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  30. And I want land mines, just to watch the squirrels blow up. If it gets a few Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses, it'll be a bonus.

    The down side? I'll never be able to get girl scout cookies again...

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  31. The down side? I'll never be able to get girl scout cookies again...

    That's a down side?

    just to watch the squirrels blow up

    I hadn't thought of that as a solution to the squirrel problem, but I like it! (just don't let the squirrel lovers hear about it).

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  32. I hate those little bubonic plague carrying rodents... and so do my dogs.

    You don't like Girl Scout cookies?! Thin mints should be on the food pyramid, and I will never forget the day I found out Keebler Grasshoppers are basically the same thing. Not quite, but close enough for me to get my fix the rest of the year.

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  33. You know, you'd probably have to force me at gunpoint to follow a link on the Internet entitled "squirrel lovers". There are some things man was just not meant to know.

    His Lordship said: "If the government passed a law requiring people to prove that they owned a safe prior to letting them buy a firearm, I would approve." Also, "I personally think that if schools offered well-supervised marksmanship or hunting classes to children, that it would remove a lot of the 'mystique' and 'glamor' surrounding firearms in popular culture."

    I'd actually be in favor of both those developments. I was introduced to firearms - rifles and handguns both - in my childhood, with considerable emphasis on safety. Unfortunately, population growth has rendered the area where I learned unusable as a shooting range.

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  34. I'll take anything from Little Debbie before I'll eat that Girl Scout crap.

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  35. Maybe if they taught you how great guns were in school, Americans would grow up to dislike guns as much as they dislike science and math.

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