"Dave Hinz" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 26 Jan 2006 23:51:52 -0500, Ed Huntress
wrote:
"Dave Hinz" wrote in message
...
Here, let me give you an example. I live in a rural county. There are
probably shotguns ready for defensive use in 80% or so of the houses.
(I'm an EMT so I get into a _lot_ of houses, and I notice that sort of
thing). There aren't a lot of robberies of houses when people are
home.
Do you see how those two things are connected?

Of course. Potential invaders and robbers know that having a gun for
"defensive use" means they are ready to shoot said invaders and robbers.
The
home owners are threatening any potential invaders with getting shot and
killed. It's the threat that keeps them from robbing.

No, it's the knowledge that there _might be a threat_. Not that "Old
Joe up there on the hill will shoot me", it's that "most houses around
here have armed people so I'd better behave".

If Old Joe won't shoot me, I can rob him blind. Whether his threat is real
or fake, he's making the threat. If he weren't, I wouldn't be "deterred."

You're making progress, Dave. You'll get down to concrete reality soon. And
the concrete reality is this: If you aren't threatening to shoot me, if you
won't really shoot, your gun is nothing more than a piece of clumsy jewelry.
You're no deterrence at all.

They don't care about no
steenking "deterrence." They care about the prospect of taking on a load
of
lead.

That's what deterrance is, Ed.

You're getting warmer. It's that load of lead, not the gun in your closet,
that's the deterrence. It's the threat that you'll actually pull the
trigger.


You know what? You haven't made any new points for several messages.
It's just wordgames for you, isn't it. Well, find someone else to play.
You bore me.

Ah, but Dave, you're so full of fresh ideas yourself, that you will be
sorely missed. d8-)

"Word games" is a good phrase for the whole melange of avoidances, moralized
abstractions, juvenile fantasies, and self-delusions that make up the
stockade of beliefs surrounding philosophized defense of gun ownership. When
you strip it down to its guts, what it consists of is the threat you'll
shoot and kill anyone who transgresses your perimeter.

If you can face that, and quit pumping yourself up with hot air about
"deterrence" while you simultaneously discuss the proper caliber and
downrange velocity for reliable killing of human beings, you'll be able to
face that it's your threats -- overt in your case, implied in the case of
people who don't talk about it -- that have the effect you desire. And that
effect is to scare people into leaving you alone.

So be it. There's a strong case to be made for scaring people into leaving
you alone. But when you perfume it and doll it up with lofty abstractions,
you lose sight of what it is you're saying. What you're saying is, stay out,
or I'll blow half your face off with a blast of lead shot from this shotgun.

Have a good night's rest. Maybe reality will visit you before you wake, and
you'll get it.

--
Ed Huntress