Warning, I'm not going to be gentle.

   From: KLEPPE@execpc.com (Gary Kleppe)
   Date: Sun, 05 Jan 1997 21:15:45 GMT

   On Sun, 5 Jan 1997 14:57:07 -0500 (EST), Harold Ancell wrote:

   [ Where did the Amazon guard get her gun? ]

   >Suffice it to say that for American gun-control types, China is a paradise.
   >
   >Some years ago, when I was talking with a student couple from the PRC
   >about renting a room, I of course told them I had a couple of
   >firearms.  I'll never forget their reaction: the idea of owning TWO was
   >*totally astounding.*

   Far be it from me to defend the Chinese government in any way,

Then why are you?

   and I REALLY don't want to get into a debate on gun control,

Then you should have stayed silent instead of saying anything,
especially anything to support the butchers of millions of innocents.
While it won't be true for much longer, the PRC is still led by the
old men who killed 30-60 million in their rise to power and
afterwards.  Probably more; we've recently been finding out that the
Cultural Revolution was a lot bloodier than thought.

   but I don't think this sort of response would be limited to the
   Chinese. Guns are not *nearly* as prevalent anywhere else as they
   are in the US.

Except for: Israel.  Switzerland.  Pakastan (maybe; we start getting
into wealth issues with poorer counties).  And I'm sure lots of other
places I'm less familiar with.  Lots of counties allow them with major
restrictions.  Only police states like most Communist countries, and,
for example, Japan, impose almost total bans.  (And there are weird
anomalies; e.g. Soviet Georgia, back when the USSR started falling
apart, had a higher rate of legal gun ownership than New York City).

Seriously, I've never seen a stronger reaction, nor heard of one from
anyone who wasn't from such a place.

   Nobody has ever pulled a gun on Ranma, for example.

Moroboshi Ataru, on the other hand.... ^_^

   In real life, the Japanese were horrifiedly surprised when somebody
   in Louisiana blew away a Japanese exchange student who had come to
   his house by mistake.

The student came to the house by mistake, but the student's harassment
of the homeowner wasn't a mistake in the same sense.  You might find
it educational to read up on the case instead of taking the media's
propaganda at face value (bottom line: it was an justified but
avoidable homicide).  I suspect a little more honesty on the part of
the Japanese media would have moderated the reaction, but I don't know
what they said at the time.

   Now as far as the Amazons go, I would imagine the Chinese government
   would have bigger things to worry about than some weirdos out in the
   middle of nowhere.

It's clear you understand little about totalitarian governments.
Remember, by definition, these are regimes that go so far as to try to
control what you think, and control what you say.  Have you read _1984_ ?

   Especially when the Amazons keep to themselves, and have super
   martial artists, magic items, etc. If they *really* wanted to wipe
   out the Amazons, they could attack with bombs and artillery.

And then maybe get assasinated in their beds, or at some other
convenient time?

   The little pea-shooter above wouldn't be much use then.

Strange, the Communists didn't think so while they were seizing power
in China.  You might also find it educational to read up on their
policy of "rifle taxes".

Let me also make clear that it's not so much the "pea-shooter", as the
attitude of an armed man or woman, that scares totalitarians
(including the wantabees in this country) right down to their toes.

The armed aren't victims.  It's expensive to shut us up by sending
thugs to beat or murder us (ever wonder why their aren't death squads
in the US?  Ever wonder why there are so few martyrs on the plaque
commemorating the deaths in the civil rights movement (only around
12-20)).  You can expensively kill some of us, but you can't enslave us.

(I say some because gun ownership and the "Don't Tread On Me" attitude
is too widespread in the US for the government to succeed in a
confiscation; they'd find themselves on the wrong end of a situation
like Indonesia in 1965(?).  Think about it.)

Frankly, *I* find it completely astounding to be debating the merits
of gun control in a century that has seen the slaughter of more than a
hundred million innocents by their own governments, governments that
first took care to disarm their people.

					- Harold