The Politics Of Gene Wolfe

Chris P · 18 Mar 2009, 07:47 · from 2009-March.txt.gz

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From: rasputin_ at hotmail.com (Chris P)
Date: Wed, 18 Mar 2009 07:47:23 +0000
Subject: (urth) The Politics Of Gene Wolfe
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Apparently this is an emotional subject for you. So, snark on then.

> >> No there aren't. Washington DC has 400,000 people. Tucson AZ has 400,000
> >> people. Tucson AZ has, like, twenty, thirty murders a year. There is a
> >> thriving drug trade in both cities, a minority majority in both cities,
> >> and Tucson has also *huge* amounts of illegal humans coming through as
> >> well as guys who will come up the fifty miles from Mexico to steal cars
> >> to order.
> 
> > I am not at all certain what your point is with this passage.
> 
> I had thought that the high number of murders in Washington DC was well
> known. Apparently not. There were 181 in 2007: an improvement over the
> early 90's.

That would be highly, extraordinarily pertinent and a very intelligent point to make if I had made the claim that cities with gun control laws had no crime or murders.

Since I didn't, naturally I should have assumed that this was what you were getting at.

> Most of these murders were committed with firearms.

You mean when you make a law, that doesn't immediately alter the laws of nature to make that law impossible to violate?

I never, ever would have guessed. That must be part of the arcane mysteries that Bruno taught you.

> The question is, how can this be? Guns are illegal in DC. How can there be
> any crimes committed with guns at all if guns are illegal there?
> 
> Please address this question.

See above. I can be as flippant and condescending as you. Or wait, maybe I can't. I haven't insinuated you're an uneducated mouth-breather for daring to semi-disagree with me yet. Or made you the straw man for all the beliefs I disagree with.

> >> >                                 And personally I don't think it would
> >> be
> >> > unreasonable to accommodate both parties by limiting those who can
> >> carry
> >> > firearms in dense urban areas while leaving the rural areas alone.
> 
> >> This would make sense if the murder rate in Tucson was higher than it is
> >> in DC.
> 
> > Tucson and Washington DC have similar populations, but Tucson sprawls out
> > over three times the area of DC. Population density is kind of an
> > important part of the point I was making.
> 
> So you think it is because people are all crowded together? I think it is
> because you have disarmed the honest ones.

I checked to see which people were honest when I personally went out on my magical faery dragon and disarmed them all.

> People in Switzerland are very heavily armed, and I believe that their
> cities are pretty densely populated. Hardly any crime there at all.

And the only difference between Switzerland and Washington DC is the existence of guns there, obviously.

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