Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
>
> Where I live, Black communities overewhelmingly want more police and less
> guns in private hands. It is the latter that kill Blacks in
> disproportionally large numbers.
And they may be correct -- I wouldn't argue the point too strenuously. But, mass riots and/or pretty emphatic civil disobedience is going to occur again, and again, and again in Black communities in the inner cities. That disobedience is going to be met (as with the Intifada in Palestine) with "excessive force" (euphemistically put). Now no one is going to confront that force directly (and this is the point that makes the Militia claims about armed citizens look ridiculous) -- but one can hypothesize that if there were a substantial number of sniper's rifles scattered through the area police *might* become more cautious.
That's the most I was arguing. Only fools would daydream of direct military confrontation.
And there also remains the matter of protection (through attainment of temporary standoff) against death squad activity. The LA Panthers survived when their headquarters were attacked -- mostly because they achieved a long enough standoff for crowds to gather and allow them to surrender without being shot on the spot or beaten to death on the way to the police station.
As I said in my original post -- this whole discussion is being conducted in really quite silly absolute terms. It is mere obfuscation to argue (in the context of this list) against the position of the congressional asshole Doug mentions re nuclear weapons, etc. Before we can have reasonable argument the most reasonable expressions of both sides to it must be put at the center of discussion.
Carrol