Ringer - Hey, how did you know I'd been talking to that guy "whose cousin/friend/dentist invented a car that ran on water but who couldn't exploit his invention because of the oil companies...etc..." :-)

Well no, actually, but it's my general impression that we are still using fossil fuels for financial reasons (big profits to established corporations), in spite of having a host of other ways we could have gone by now. I have so many different reasons for believing that that it would be enough to kick off another 50 separate threads...so let's just let it be, okay? I haven't the time for it today.

Fionn - Well, it's a mixed picture. There have always been horrible, violent incidents in the world...and yet at the same time, most people act peacefully most of the time when left to their own devices. It's a very subjective business how you look at it. I imagine you could make an equally plausible argument from either side of an issue such as gun control...and I'm sure we'll hear many of them. Medieval life, on the whole, was a lot dirtier, more violent, and more dangerous than life is now...so I'd say we're actually doing rather well, all things considered, despite the prevalence of guns.

Since I've known a good number of completely harmless people who owned guns and never hurt anyone with them, I don't mind people having the right to own guns. One's own direct experiences always colour one's perceptions, and I'm no exception to that.

I always liked guns since I was a kid, and owned various BB and pellet guns, simply so I could shoot at tin cans, toy soldiers, targets, etc. I was never in the least inclined to shoot at another human being (or an animal), and I never have...nor have I even fantasized doing so, although there were people I really hated when I was an adolescent. Even with those people, I did not fantasize shooting at them. I just don't seem to think that way.

I am always a bit nervous about people who have a keen desire to pass laws that force everyone else to be like them, simply because their way is supposedly better. I consider such an attitude to be dangerous, egocentric, and invasive...it's the little fascist, hiding inside the scared person, who wants to regulate the whole world so that it's safe...according to the way he sees it.

The world will never be safe. I accept that.

At the same time, I recognize that there need to be some laws and some restraints. It's a compromise. I see no reason why law-abiding people shouldn't own guns, but I do see why they shouldn't own machine guns, assault rifles, and hand grenades (in working order, that is). I see that people who have shown themselves not to be law abiding should not have the right to own guns.

Every social rule we concoct is a compromise between absolute freedom and some desired form of social order...it's when we can't agree on just exactly how far to compromise one way or the other that these endless debates arise.

I understand the legitimate concerns of both sides in the gun control debate, and I guess I stand about halfway between the 2 extremes of opinion on it.

- LH