Kirk Gordon wrote in
:

..
Someone walking down the street
with a gun in each hand, and a posse of armed friends at his
back, won't convince ANYBODY that he's interested in being
reasonable.


If
violence is really a concern, then security comes from being
BETTER armed, BETTER prepared, and more WILLING to act, than
everybody else.

If we all thought and behaved in accordance with what too
many
pro-gun preachers keep telling us, then you COULDN'T bring a gun
to a knife fight. There wouldn't BE any knife fights. There'd
only be gun fights. And they'd only involve large groups of
people, since we'd all travel only with armed friends. And
nobody'd ever get wounded. Every fight would be to the death.
And we'd all be ready to shoot first, shoot often, and to kill
rather than be killed, every time even the smallest disagreement
sparked any kind of conflict. We'd have to be, because we'd
have to assume that the other guy was that ready, and that much
on edge, and that willing to fire; and because shooting first
and asking questions later really IS the only possible
protection in that kind of environment. And the overall level
of safety for EVERYONE would be smaller. MUCH smaller.

And if you carry this idea to its logical conclusion, then
the only
people who'd really be safe would be the ones who understand
that there aren't any rules when bullets are flying, and that
order, discipline, and the desire to interact peacefully with
other human beings is a weakness to be exploited. The only way
to be safe would be to make yourself more dangerous, more
menacing, more deadly than anybody else around you. And that,
IMHO, isn't the best way to run a world. If it were, then folks
like Hitler, and Stalin, and Bin Laden, would be heroes rather
than feared and hated criminals.


KG

Robert Heinlen has already addressed this issue.

It is correct to become as dangerous as possible. Each individual
(Heinlen believes this should be only males) should strive to be as
dangerous and lethal as possible AND encourage everyone else to do
the same.

Now, you know everyone else is doing the same thing. What is your
best course of action?

Heinlen claims it is not a melee scenario. In a melee there is too
much randomness. Those people who immediately open and return fire
have a much greater chance of being killed than those people who
avoid a firefight.

The people who recklessly open fire will self-select themselves out
of the population.

Heinlen believes the Meme will spread that while each individual
has the ability to kill anyone else it is better to attempt to
negotiate than to instantly open fire.

One very important aspect is that enough people consider themselves
as part of a community. This does carry risk. The risk/benefit
analysis becomes: If I attempt to negotiate, and I am killed, what
happens next?

The prefered result is that the killer is identified as irrational
and is then killed by another member of the community. This will
encourage negotiation before shooting.

If this does not happen then we are back to melee.

So the final question is "are people capable of a form of
'altruism' by attempting to negotiate before shooting"?