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Anyone have any insights into why the commonly used guns argument is not good enough for encryption? If we ban guns(encryption), only the criminals will have it

Anyone have any insights into why the commonly used guns argument is not good enough for encryption? If we ban guns(encryption), only the criminals will have it. The only thing I can think of is that the majority of people who advocate for encryption are anti-gun, and don't want to give strength to that argument?

newjersey 11y ago
Well, my perception of the gun lobby is that a big part of the effort is centralized. At least that's my impression after reading the nytimes article. I don't have any insight into the gun lobby so I can't tell whether it is any accurate. http://nytimes.com/2014/01/05/business/media/banished-for-questioning-the-gospel-of-guns.html http://nytimes.com/2014/01/05/business/media/banished-for-qu... I fear the gun argument is further weakened by the fact that civilians can't have big anti-aircraft guns in their backyard pointed towards the sky. I bet I can't operate a decent early warning radar in my backyard without running afoul of some zoning ordinance or another.
- steve19 11y ago
  Your perception is wrong. The gun lobby is crazyily grassroots. The NRA is demonized, but their spending in lobbying is low (their income is relatively low and they have a lot of other elements such as training and certification) and less than the gun control lobby since Bloomberg (and some silicon Valley VCs) began to lobby. There is only one reason the NRA has influence: members and sympathizers will vote on thier recommendations, they have a lot of members and the NRA will always endorse the most sympathetic candidate to thier cause regardless of party affiliation. The pro encryption lobby could emulate this. Lobby groups like the eff need more members and crucially need members to vote for who they recommend regardless of the candidates other views ie. vote for Trump if he said he was pro encryption.
  - schoen 11y ago
    > Lobby groups like the eff need more members and crucially need members to vote for who they recommend EFF is a 501(c)(3) organization and is forbidden to endorse or oppose political candidates. That is different from NRA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Rifle_Association#Organizational_structure_and_finances https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Rifle_Association#Org...
    - steve19 11y ago
      They could easily spin off an entity to handle that, like the NRA does with NRA-IL. Maybe they should, or maybe another group should. The federal government once classified encryption as a weapon, maybe we have 2nd amendments rights to it.
      - mtgx 11y ago
        I think they should do something like that. The EFF fights political battles all the time, but can't recommend a "best" candidate for the issues they care about? Because they aren't doing that is probably the reason why privacy/data protection is such a neglected issue during elections, and if it does get brought up is mainly from the perspective of "what other rights should Americans give away freely so the government can protect you". The only reason it's been brought-up now is because of Apple, and even that is mostly spun in the government's favor in the media.
    - csandreasen 11y ago
      That's interesting. They've come pretty close to that line in the past... https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/04/tea-party-taxes-and-why-patriots-wouldve-revolted-against-surveillance-state https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/04/tea-party-taxes-and-wh...
  - toomanybeersies 11y ago
    The problem is that guns are tangible. I can have a gun, and then have the gun taken away or banned by the government. This is easy for anyone to understand. Encryption isn't so tangible. If certain forms of encryption were banned, we'd still have our computers and phones, and to the average end user, they'd be no different in their perception.
    - bmelton 11y ago
      Which is almost certainly why gun owners fight so much more vehemently for their rights than the opposition does, and for better or worse, there are people who very much espouse and believe in the "cold dead hands" mantra. I'm a gun rights supporter, not so much because I give two hoots about guns, but because I see the fourth and second amendments as an overall proxy for the health of the bill of rights. If the government wants to ban guns, or privacy, the remedy there is through amending the constitution, not simply pretending it doesn't exist, but we've allowed the government so much discretion and deference on matters like these, especially on guns, because we (as a people) don't particularly love them, and because the argument has historically been presented as "you don't want these bad people to have these loopholes", where bad people is interchangeably terrorists, gun owners, communists, or whatever the evil of the day tends to be.
- danieltillett 11y ago
  You can certainly buy anti-aircraft guns (there are collectors of these things), but good luck getting your hands on the ammunition required to turn one from an unusual outdoor sculpture into a weapon.
dfc 11y ago
This argument is "not good enough" for encryption because it is also not good enough for guns. Cliches are not persuasive arguments in a court of law. If you think gun related jurisprudence is the way to rescue encryption try ITAR. Munitions = Arms = 2nd Ammendment
danieltillett 11y ago
I have never understood why the USA anti-gun lobby doesn't go after ammunition rather than guns. Just ban ammunition and a gun just becomes a not so dangerous club.
- ibejoeb 11y ago
  At the level of simple firearms, arms are arms. You're going to have to argue 2A regardless.
  - danieltillett 11y ago
    I don't understand this response. Why wouldn't banning the sale of ammunition and ammunition components not work to stop most of the bad problems of guns? A gun is still arms even if it does not have ammunition so this avoids the constitutional problems, but it makes them much safer. I should add that I am not arguing for the banning of ammunition, just why has this not been used as an attack vector on the gun lobby?
    - mitchty 11y ago
      Because it wouldn't work. You're purposefully trying to work around the intent of things. Judges tend to take ill view of cute things like that. Besides, ok you ban the sale of ammunition. Now are you going to ban reloaders and selling of ammunition components too? How far are you willing to go down that rabbit hole? Noting that it isn't that hard to make ammunition are you going to ban the knowledge of that as well? It would be pretty easy for a lawyer to point out the whole idea is an end run around the spirit of owning armaments. For that reason alone its not any better of an idea than trying to ban guns outright.
      - danieltillett 11y ago
        I thought a lot of laws were cute intents to work around the constitution. Any such law would work its way up the legal chain until it got to the supreme court (assuming they chose to take it up the case). As the federal law on armor piercing bullets shows [1] there does not seem to be anything stopping congress passing a law regulating or banning ammunition. Instead of just limiting the ban to armour piercing it could be extended to a ban on ammunition that can pierce the skin. If you are able to ban ammunition you could certainly ban the sale of the components to make ammunition. Sure there might be some individuals that choose to break these laws, but it would be pretty effective. Ultimately the choice to do something like this would be politically, not constitutionally constrained. If you oppose the widespread availability of guns [2] why not try to think around the problem rather than bashing your head against the constitutional rock? 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teflon-coated_bullet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teflon-coated_bullet 2. I am actually not personally opposed to gun ownership.
jrnichols 11y ago
Insights? None, because I don't think what you said is accurate at all. That's exactly what we're thinking - only outlaws will have it. I don't know a single gun owner that wouldn't also be an advocate for encryption.
beachstartup 11y ago
the argument isn't only criminals -- it's criminals, and the government. basically, the private law-abiding citizen is the only one left out of the power loop. everyone else is armed to the teeth. for those of you who are pro-crypto but anti-gun, the government considers crypto a weapon, plain and simple. they don't share your divided sensibilities. it's real easy -- they want to take both away from the populace, a little bit at a time. and of course the oldest trick in the book is divide and conquer. they know you don't want to apply the same arguments to both fights because of your feelings on firearms, and they are taking advantage of it. that uneasy feeling you get when you consider a world without private access to crypto is the same uneasy feeling gun owners get when you talk about taking away their access to firearms.
Estragon 11y ago
The whole world is flooded with fiction about using guns to stop bad people with guns. The narrative around crypto is tiny by comparison.
- koenigdavidmj 11y ago
  Fiction? This exact thing happened in my very liberal city in the last day: http://komonews.com/news/local/hatchet-wielding-man-killed-by-7-11-customer http://komonews.com/news/local/hatchet-wielding-man-killed-b...
LastZactionHero 11y ago
The recent issues over encryption has actually changed my thinking on guns. I'm not 'pro gun', don't own guns, and want nothing to do with them personally. But as I think about my stance on the legality of encryption it sounds pretty similar to the argument for guns. Still don't want one, but it's harder for me to be dismissive of a point when I turn around and use the same point for another issue.
- ethbro 11y ago
  Ironically, I had this same thought today while listening to a This American Life on Shay's Rebellion [1]. The right to keep and bear arms has more bearing on access to encryption than any other recognized right. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shays%27_Rebellion https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shays%27_Rebellion
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    Er, no, the right to choose how and with whom you communicate -- which is what encryption is about -- is not closely related to the RKBA, but it is related to (and, in fact, the whole point of) the rights to speech, press, and assembly in the First Amendment. Even insofar as encryption is a metaphorical defensive weapon that safeguard against government tyranny, which makes it loosely analogous to the RKBA, it's still more connected to the first Amendment expression rights, which were considered important for exactly that purpose.
    - ethbro 11y ago
      Correct me if I'm mistaken, but case law has held that the First Amendment does not provide a right to privacy. It provides a right to self-controlled conducting of ones business. It provides the right to communicate with others whatever subject one desires (x09 F9?). But it doesn't state that the government can't know these things -- only that it cannot act on many of them. Which, sounds familiar to metadata / automated search positions expressed in Congressional testimony? The 2nd - 6th on the other hand, watered down though they may be by subsequent court opinions, do directly deal on the relationship between things that an individual may possess which the government would seek to take from them for its own ends. To me, the second set strikes far closer to the intent of privacy. Privacy is not some passive manner of communication. Privacy is fundamentally a weapon whose very existence challenges and bounds the desires of the state. Because privacy is fundamentally unknown. Let's not pretend we're talking about encrypting just "the good messages". We're talking about encrypting child pornography, chemical formulas and processes for explosives, copywritten media, white/black/hispanic/asian supremacist propaganda, firearm schemics, computer viruses, and explicit pictures of ex-relationship partners. The state has a reasonable interest in wanting some of this suppressed. But you have to make an all-or-nothing choice on whether it should be able to do that... or not. This isn't about expression: it's about how we as individuals and citizens relate to our government and it to us.
statictype 11y ago
This is a very good point. As someone who has been anti-gun and pro-encryption, I'm now wondering how I reconcile these two stances that are at conflict with each other.
- beedogs 11y ago
  Guns are not, fundamentally, a tool for ensuring one's privacy.
  - statictype 11y ago
    The original intent of the right to bear arms was to enable protection against an intrusive government. It's very similar to crypto in that sense.
    - robertfw 11y ago
      and as the original intent went, it made sense. but owning a gun doesn't really protect one from a modern intrusive government, but it does raise the risk of gun related death to those around you by a significant margin
      - lsc 11y ago
        > but it does raise the risk of gun related death to those around you by a significant margin Needs citation. Unless, of course, you mean having access to a gun increases your chances of successfully committing suicide, which is fairly well established... but I think that this is rather different, at least in terms of connotation, than what you said. My impression was that you were implying that having a gun in the house makes you significantly more likely to be the victim of an accidental shooting, which while technically true, really isn't worth worrying about compared to, say, car accidents (or even airplane accidents) accidental gun deaths are very rare. That's what is interesting to me in this whole gun debate. The majority of gun deaths are intentionally self-inflicted. Interestingly, it seems to me that the people who support gun ownership more often than not oppose physician-assisted suicide, and vis-a-vis. If you accept my assertion that the gun debate is actually about suicide, "From my cold, dead hands" takes on a whole new meaning.
siscia 11y ago
Gun and encryption are two completely different beast. With guns you can execute a crime, with encryption you cannot. It is true that you can plan a crime with the use of encryption, but we don't punish on intentions but only on facts. It is not illegal to plan how to kill someone, while it is illegal to actually kill somebody or to try to do it.
- jsmcgd 11y ago
  If you use encryption to tell someone to kill, you have executed a crime using encryption.
  - siscia 11y ago
    Even if you send a letter, and then the letter is burned. Anyway we are not going to ban paper, matches, lighters, and the mail services. You are thinking more like a technician than like a lawyer...
    - bmelton 11y ago
      Are we going to ban metal, drill presses, 3D printers and sulfur?
- rmc 11y ago
  > we don't punish on intentions but only on facts. Yes we do. Murder vs Manslaughter, "Intent to commit murder", "killing in self defense", theft and fraud are all crimes where someone's intentions are very important.
  - siscia 11y ago
    Quite there, however "Intent to commit murder" is when you actually try to kill somehow, you did make some actions to actually try to kill. Didn't get the connection with "killing in self defense". It is true that theft and fraud are all crimes where the intentions are important, however it applies after the crime is already been confirmed. That we don't punish intentions but only fact is a major cornerstone of the western jurisdictional system; in my opinion is actually weird that we are discussing this. Please note that the common definition of intents is different from the legal one.
lostlogin 11y ago
No great insight here, and however insane I find many US state gun laws, the encryption debate is more worrying by far. As a non-US citizen there isn't many ways US gun laws can affect me. However the encryption debate has far broader consequences and will change things for the rest of the world - but we don't get a say.
dllthomas 11y ago
> Anyone have any insights into why the commonly used guns argument is not good enough for encryption? If we ban guns(encryption), only the criminals will have it. Guns are defense against guns in a way that encryption is not defense against encryption, so the notion that we are depriving non-criminals of an important defense against encryption-toting criminals carries less weight.

newjersey 11y ago

Well, my perception of the gun lobby is that a big part of the effort is centralized. At least that's my impression after reading the nytimes article. I don't have any insight into the gun lobby so I can't tell whether it is any accurate. http://nytimes.com/2014/01/05/business/media/banished-for-questioning-the-gospel-of-guns.html http://nytimes.com/2014/01/05/business/media/banished-for-qu... I fear the gun argument is further weakened by the fact that civilians can't have big anti-aircraft guns in their backyard pointed towards the sky. I bet I can't operate a decent early warning radar in my backyard without running afoul of some zoning ordinance or another.

steve19 11y ago
Your perception is wrong. The gun lobby is crazyily grassroots. The NRA is demonized, but their spending in lobbying is low (their income is relatively low and they have a lot of other elements such as training and certification) and less than the gun control lobby since Bloomberg (and some silicon Valley VCs) began to lobby. There is only one reason the NRA has influence: members and sympathizers will vote on thier recommendations, they have a lot of members and the NRA will always endorse the most sympathetic candidate to thier cause regardless of party affiliation. The pro encryption lobby could emulate this. Lobby groups like the eff need more members and crucially need members to vote for who they recommend regardless of the candidates other views ie. vote for Trump if he said he was pro encryption.
- schoen 11y ago
  > Lobby groups like the eff need more members and crucially need members to vote for who they recommend EFF is a 501(c)(3) organization and is forbidden to endorse or oppose political candidates. That is different from NRA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Rifle_Association#Organizational_structure_and_finances https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Rifle_Association#Org...
  - steve19 11y ago
    They could easily spin off an entity to handle that, like the NRA does with NRA-IL. Maybe they should, or maybe another group should. The federal government once classified encryption as a weapon, maybe we have 2nd amendments rights to it.
    - mtgx 11y ago
      I think they should do something like that. The EFF fights political battles all the time, but can't recommend a "best" candidate for the issues they care about? Because they aren't doing that is probably the reason why privacy/data protection is such a neglected issue during elections, and if it does get brought up is mainly from the perspective of "what other rights should Americans give away freely so the government can protect you". The only reason it's been brought-up now is because of Apple, and even that is mostly spun in the government's favor in the media.
  - csandreasen 11y ago
    That's interesting. They've come pretty close to that line in the past... https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/04/tea-party-taxes-and-why-patriots-wouldve-revolted-against-surveillance-state https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/04/tea-party-taxes-and-wh...
- toomanybeersies 11y ago
  The problem is that guns are tangible. I can have a gun, and then have the gun taken away or banned by the government. This is easy for anyone to understand. Encryption isn't so tangible. If certain forms of encryption were banned, we'd still have our computers and phones, and to the average end user, they'd be no different in their perception.
  - bmelton 11y ago
    Which is almost certainly why gun owners fight so much more vehemently for their rights than the opposition does, and for better or worse, there are people who very much espouse and believe in the "cold dead hands" mantra. I'm a gun rights supporter, not so much because I give two hoots about guns, but because I see the fourth and second amendments as an overall proxy for the health of the bill of rights. If the government wants to ban guns, or privacy, the remedy there is through amending the constitution, not simply pretending it doesn't exist, but we've allowed the government so much discretion and deference on matters like these, especially on guns, because we (as a people) don't particularly love them, and because the argument has historically been presented as "you don't want these bad people to have these loopholes", where bad people is interchangeably terrorists, gun owners, communists, or whatever the evil of the day tends to be.
danieltillett 11y ago
You can certainly buy anti-aircraft guns (there are collectors of these things), but good luck getting your hands on the ammunition required to turn one from an unusual outdoor sculpture into a weapon.

dfc 11y ago

This argument is "not good enough" for encryption because it is also not good enough for guns. Cliches are not persuasive arguments in a court of law. If you think gun related jurisprudence is the way to rescue encryption try ITAR. Munitions = Arms = 2nd Ammendment

danieltillett 11y ago

I have never understood why the USA anti-gun lobby doesn't go after ammunition rather than guns. Just ban ammunition and a gun just becomes a not so dangerous club.

ibejoeb 11y ago
At the level of simple firearms, arms are arms. You're going to have to argue 2A regardless.
- danieltillett 11y ago
  I don't understand this response. Why wouldn't banning the sale of ammunition and ammunition components not work to stop most of the bad problems of guns? A gun is still arms even if it does not have ammunition so this avoids the constitutional problems, but it makes them much safer. I should add that I am not arguing for the banning of ammunition, just why has this not been used as an attack vector on the gun lobby?
  - mitchty 11y ago
    Because it wouldn't work. You're purposefully trying to work around the intent of things. Judges tend to take ill view of cute things like that. Besides, ok you ban the sale of ammunition. Now are you going to ban reloaders and selling of ammunition components too? How far are you willing to go down that rabbit hole? Noting that it isn't that hard to make ammunition are you going to ban the knowledge of that as well? It would be pretty easy for a lawyer to point out the whole idea is an end run around the spirit of owning armaments. For that reason alone its not any better of an idea than trying to ban guns outright.
    - danieltillett 11y ago
      I thought a lot of laws were cute intents to work around the constitution. Any such law would work its way up the legal chain until it got to the supreme court (assuming they chose to take it up the case). As the federal law on armor piercing bullets shows [1] there does not seem to be anything stopping congress passing a law regulating or banning ammunition. Instead of just limiting the ban to armour piercing it could be extended to a ban on ammunition that can pierce the skin. If you are able to ban ammunition you could certainly ban the sale of the components to make ammunition. Sure there might be some individuals that choose to break these laws, but it would be pretty effective. Ultimately the choice to do something like this would be politically, not constitutionally constrained. If you oppose the widespread availability of guns [2] why not try to think around the problem rather than bashing your head against the constitutional rock? 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teflon-coated_bullet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teflon-coated_bullet 2. I am actually not personally opposed to gun ownership.

jrnichols 11y ago

Insights? None, because I don't think what you said is accurate at all. That's exactly what we're thinking - only outlaws will have it. I don't know a single gun owner that wouldn't also be an advocate for encryption.

beachstartup 11y ago

the argument isn't only criminals -- it's criminals, and the government. basically, the private law-abiding citizen is the only one left out of the power loop. everyone else is armed to the teeth. for those of you who are pro-crypto but anti-gun, the government considers crypto a weapon, plain and simple. they don't share your divided sensibilities. it's real easy -- they want to take both away from the populace, a little bit at a time. and of course the oldest trick in the book is divide and conquer. they know you don't want to apply the same arguments to both fights because of your feelings on firearms, and they are taking advantage of it. that uneasy feeling you get when you consider a world without private access to crypto is the same uneasy feeling gun owners get when you talk about taking away their access to firearms.

Estragon 11y ago

The whole world is flooded with fiction about using guns to stop bad people with guns. The narrative around crypto is tiny by comparison.

koenigdavidmj 11y ago
Fiction? This exact thing happened in my very liberal city in the last day: http://komonews.com/news/local/hatchet-wielding-man-killed-by-7-11-customer http://komonews.com/news/local/hatchet-wielding-man-killed-b...

LastZactionHero 11y ago

The recent issues over encryption has actually changed my thinking on guns. I'm not 'pro gun', don't own guns, and want nothing to do with them personally. But as I think about my stance on the legality of encryption it sounds pretty similar to the argument for guns. Still don't want one, but it's harder for me to be dismissive of a point when I turn around and use the same point for another issue.

ethbro 11y ago
Ironically, I had this same thought today while listening to a This American Life on Shay's Rebellion [1]. The right to keep and bear arms has more bearing on access to encryption than any other recognized right. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shays%27_Rebellion https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shays%27_Rebellion
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  Er, no, the right to choose how and with whom you communicate -- which is what encryption is about -- is not closely related to the RKBA, but it is related to (and, in fact, the whole point of) the rights to speech, press, and assembly in the First Amendment. Even insofar as encryption is a metaphorical defensive weapon that safeguard against government tyranny, which makes it loosely analogous to the RKBA, it's still more connected to the first Amendment expression rights, which were considered important for exactly that purpose.
  - ethbro 11y ago
    Correct me if I'm mistaken, but case law has held that the First Amendment does not provide a right to privacy. It provides a right to self-controlled conducting of ones business. It provides the right to communicate with others whatever subject one desires (x09 F9?). But it doesn't state that the government can't know these things -- only that it cannot act on many of them. Which, sounds familiar to metadata / automated search positions expressed in Congressional testimony? The 2nd - 6th on the other hand, watered down though they may be by subsequent court opinions, do directly deal on the relationship between things that an individual may possess which the government would seek to take from them for its own ends. To me, the second set strikes far closer to the intent of privacy. Privacy is not some passive manner of communication. Privacy is fundamentally a weapon whose very existence challenges and bounds the desires of the state. Because privacy is fundamentally unknown. Let's not pretend we're talking about encrypting just "the good messages". We're talking about encrypting child pornography, chemical formulas and processes for explosives, copywritten media, white/black/hispanic/asian supremacist propaganda, firearm schemics, computer viruses, and explicit pictures of ex-relationship partners. The state has a reasonable interest in wanting some of this suppressed. But you have to make an all-or-nothing choice on whether it should be able to do that... or not. This isn't about expression: it's about how we as individuals and citizens relate to our government and it to us.

statictype 11y ago

This is a very good point. As someone who has been anti-gun and pro-encryption, I'm now wondering how I reconcile these two stances that are at conflict with each other.

beedogs 11y ago
Guns are not, fundamentally, a tool for ensuring one's privacy.
- statictype 11y ago
  The original intent of the right to bear arms was to enable protection against an intrusive government. It's very similar to crypto in that sense.
  - robertfw 11y ago
    and as the original intent went, it made sense. but owning a gun doesn't really protect one from a modern intrusive government, but it does raise the risk of gun related death to those around you by a significant margin
    - lsc 11y ago
      > but it does raise the risk of gun related death to those around you by a significant margin Needs citation. Unless, of course, you mean having access to a gun increases your chances of successfully committing suicide, which is fairly well established... but I think that this is rather different, at least in terms of connotation, than what you said. My impression was that you were implying that having a gun in the house makes you significantly more likely to be the victim of an accidental shooting, which while technically true, really isn't worth worrying about compared to, say, car accidents (or even airplane accidents) accidental gun deaths are very rare. That's what is interesting to me in this whole gun debate. The majority of gun deaths are intentionally self-inflicted. Interestingly, it seems to me that the people who support gun ownership more often than not oppose physician-assisted suicide, and vis-a-vis. If you accept my assertion that the gun debate is actually about suicide, "From my cold, dead hands" takes on a whole new meaning.

siscia 11y ago

Gun and encryption are two completely different beast. With guns you can execute a crime, with encryption you cannot. It is true that you can plan a crime with the use of encryption, but we don't punish on intentions but only on facts. It is not illegal to plan how to kill someone, while it is illegal to actually kill somebody or to try to do it.

jsmcgd 11y ago
If you use encryption to tell someone to kill, you have executed a crime using encryption.
- siscia 11y ago
  Even if you send a letter, and then the letter is burned. Anyway we are not going to ban paper, matches, lighters, and the mail services. You are thinking more like a technician than like a lawyer...
  - bmelton 11y ago
    Are we going to ban metal, drill presses, 3D printers and sulfur?
rmc 11y ago
> we don't punish on intentions but only on facts. Yes we do. Murder vs Manslaughter, "Intent to commit murder", "killing in self defense", theft and fraud are all crimes where someone's intentions are very important.
- siscia 11y ago
  Quite there, however "Intent to commit murder" is when you actually try to kill somehow, you did make some actions to actually try to kill. Didn't get the connection with "killing in self defense". It is true that theft and fraud are all crimes where the intentions are important, however it applies after the crime is already been confirmed. That we don't punish intentions but only fact is a major cornerstone of the western jurisdictional system; in my opinion is actually weird that we are discussing this. Please note that the common definition of intents is different from the legal one.

lostlogin 11y ago

No great insight here, and however insane I find many US state gun laws, the encryption debate is more worrying by far. As a non-US citizen there isn't many ways US gun laws can affect me. However the encryption debate has far broader consequences and will change things for the rest of the world - but we don't get a say.

dllthomas 11y ago

> Anyone have any insights into why the commonly used guns argument is not good enough for encryption? If we ban guns(encryption), only the criminals will have it. Guns are defense against guns in a way that encryption is not defense against encryption, so the notion that we are depriving non-criminals of an important defense against encryption-toting criminals carries less weight.