The Bourgeois Right to Bear Arms

Enrique Diaz-Alvarez enrique at anise.ee.cornell.edu
Wed Apr 21 07:55:35 PDT 1999


Doug Henwood wrote:


> Personally I don't like guns, and I don't like the survivalist aspects of
> American culture associated with guns. But I've never been a big fan of
> liberal gun control mania either. You want the state to have a monopoly
> over arms? As perverse as it is, I always kind of enjoyed the Workers
> Vanguard analysis of the Waco massacre - that it was liberal gun mania run
> amok. Rather than contrive suits against "gun capital," I'd rather ask why
> the U.S. is so violent. Just why is it that two kids wanted to shoot up
> their suburban high school? Why is it ok to blow up people on prime time TV
> but not show bare genitals?
>

Crazy fucks with murderous tendencies exist everywhere. The difference is that here they get their hands on guns, in other countries they have to limit themselves to torturing animals. Blaming this on "American culture" or "violent TV" completely misses the point. American TV is no more violent than, say, Spanish TV (where uncut Charles Bronson movies are shown as children programming, right after Sesame Street), and far less violent than Japanese TV and pop culture, for example.

Do I want the state to have a monopoly on firearms? You bet. It means there will be fewer firearms around. Good enough for me. I also opppose US sales of F-16 to other countries, even though it means that the US will have a monopoly on advanced fighter weaponry.


> Doug

-- Enrique Diaz-Alvarez Office # (607) 255 5034 Electrical Engineering Home # (607) 272 4808 112 Phillips Hall Fax # (607) 255 4565 Cornell University mailto:enrique at ee.cornell.edu Ithaca, NY 14853 http://peta.ee.cornell.edu/~enrique



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