Posted: 10/8/2002 10:23:49 AM EDT
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That folks are so concerned about the qualifications of someone to own a gun? It takes very little here in Illinois to have your ability to legally own a firearm stripped away. On the other hand, we care not about who votes (except for felons, we won't let those dirty bastards who got caught with an ounce of pot vote). In my community, the politicians go down to the local mental health facility to garner votes. The patients talk about their plans to vote for Abe Lincoln and other distinguished individuals of yesteryear. Some would like to see a teletubby in office. My point is that we ought to have priorities. Guns and Drugs are inanimate objects and are not inherently evil. The misuse of an object can cause a great deal of suffering and destruction. PEOPLE, on the other hand, even EDUCATED people (sometimes especially educated people) can wreak havoc if you let them. Gunguys.com are spouting about Charleton Heston and his diminished mental capacity as a result of alzheimer's and why such folks shouldn't have guns. Meanwhile, people who don't know what century it is hit the ballot box regularly and you don't hear a peep from anyone. Dangerous stuff, my friends. I suppose that if I were a politicain, though, I'd want those confused and deranged people voting too. Just hand them my card and hope they take it with them to the ballot box. Lincoln and Washington might be pretty stiff competition. |
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I suppose one of the differences is that one person, even with evil intent, in a voting booth really cannot harm anyone else. However, one person with evil intent CAN hamr people by using a car, a gun, explosives, poison, etc. That's why there is always going to be some regulation of things that can serve as "force multipliers" of individual evil intent. It's a perfectly rational social response - and explains why it's more important to society to have standards for gun owenership and driver's licenses, and not so much for voting. A retard or scizophrenic with a car or a gun can do a lot more harm than the same person in the voting booth - at the individual level. |
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That may be true, but I'm not referring to evil intent at all. I'm also not referring to one person. I'm referring to problems, the cause of which is, by necessary implication, a matter that must be addressed. I'm talking about Charleton Heston's forgetfulness versus whole buildings full of delusional indiviudals with the power to vote. I'm talking about regulation of things like weapons and guns with absolutely no evil intent versus delusional, insane, or stupid people behind the wheel of a two ton projectile on the highway. I'm talking about people who have committed a felony who can't vote as opposed to totally whacko people who can. I too, support the elimination of the threat of evil people. Unfortunately I don't think there is any law that allows law enforcement to arrest all people with evil intentions, not at least until those intentions result in the performing of some prohibited act. My point is that regulation and prohibition of certain objects or substances does absolutely nothing to address the root of the problem- people. Why aren't we addressing the problems that we can? If you don't think that a nut hut voting block hurts anyone, you might take another look at some of our elected officials. Meanwhile, people who may have been run over by the political and judicial system have absolutely no power to change it. What a convenient way to make sure that if you wrong someone that that your act is less likely to come back and bite you. |