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Reductio ad absurdum: Place 1 gun per square meter of the planet. Are we safer now?
by OscarTheGrinch 8y ago
Reductio ad absurdum: Place 1 gun per square meter of the planet. Are we safer now?
- modest_sarcasm 8y agoLess safe from the average kind of psychopath, but more safe from the magnificent supreme leader kind of psychopath.
- samfriedman 8y agoIn that dichotomy I guess the question is: which type of psychopath is a more frequent & significant threat to the people? Frequent/significant is probably a trade-off in this case.
- benjohnson 8y agoMy government has made complex weaponry to instantly kill half of the world's population with one push of a button. For me, that's a huge part of the equation.
- um_ya 8y agoGuns placed like fire alarms (Break glass for gun)? While it may sound absurd, it does follow the principle that there are more good people than bad. If one bad apple arises, finding the next gun to neutralize said apple would be pretty easy.
- krapp 8y agoOne problem with the argument that "the only thing stopping a bad man with a gun is a good man with a gun" is that "good" and "bad" people exist on a different axis than "people who can be trusted with guns in a crisis."
- um_ya 8y agoHow so? In our case, the police are the good people you describe. The question is, would there be more net good people with access to guns, when placed everywhere, or more bad people? It's a thought experiment.
- krapp 8y agoTo me, I think it depends on whether a good person untrained to handle a gun properly in what amounts to a combat situation is still "good" if they decide they want to be a hero. So whether or not we're safer in this situation is basically a dice roll.